 The body part that you have a tough time connecting to going intense and heavy is a surefire way to not connect because the reason why you have trouble connecting is because your body has recruitment patterns, meaning, you know, certain muscles are being activated, uh, in ways where that's your strongest way of, of activating your, your muscles, which means for you, whoever you are who's listening, it's disengaging for lack of a term, that muscle that you have trouble connecting to. So if you want to engage it, you got to go lighter, you got to slow down, you got to do higher reps. So I would do, you know, with clients, it would do, you know, between two, two to four sets of an isolation movement, feel the muscle really start to feel. It usually takes a set or two before they can really feel that muscle squeeze and connect. Maybe getting, I mean, this is ideal. Get a little bit of a pump in that muscle. Then we move on to the big, you know, gross motor movement muscle builders. Now the person's got the feedback. Oh, I could feel that glute mead or I could feel the pecs or whatever, you know, lagging body part that they have. I could feel it now and I can adjust my technique to now take this really effective exercise and make it work for me. Sometimes one of the best things you could do to bring up a lagging body part is to start your workout with an isolation exercise. I know that's kind of sacrilegious here, but literally if you have a weak body part, a tough time connecting to that body part, start with an isolation exercise, then move on to the compound lift. You'll feel it connect more and be able to get that muscle develop a little faster. Well, we know the body will prioritize whatever you present it first, right? So that, that's something that, uh, cause we always get the question of like, when should I do cardio or when should I, you know, and so that always brings, brings that into light is like, whatever you present it first in the workouts, that's what your body's going to focus on. But really what, what it is even more than that is, um, let's just say that your glutes, let's say your glutes are your body part. I was just going to ask you guys what you thought the number one thing that you would do that with, and I would say glutes is probably what I, that's gotta be one of them, right? But you know, let's say it is, right? That's, it's your glutes and there's a lot of compound lifts that are amazing glute builders like squats, right? So you might think, well, let me start my workout out with squats. And almost every well-programmed workout starts out with compound lifts. In fact, if you look at our programs, except for maybe like focus sessions and maps aesthetic or something like that, right? Typically every workout starts out with a compound lift and that's generally true and generally the most effective way to start. But let's say you have a tough time connecting your glutes. Well, sometimes what you need to do is work them with an isolation movement, which is easier to connect to. So it's easier to feel the glutes when I'm doing an isolation movement. And then what happens when you move on to the compound lift, because you feel the glutes, you can change your form. You can change your technique so that that squat becomes more of a glute squat, for example. So really it's about that feedback and that feel less about the pre-exhausting and more about the feedback that you get from feeling the muscle that you just isolated. And that helps with, you know, any can help with any body part. You have a. Yeah, I'm glad you brought the pre-exhaust up because I feel like people would probably ask that question in terms of like, if they go into the compound lifts, if they already like, you know, went through a couple sets of isolation and then now, you know, that muscle isn't quite contributing. So it's less on the exhaustion and more of just getting that connectivity. So I just shot a video for Cassie for a similar thing for somebody who's trying to get their side butt incorporated, right? So the glute means not firing and or it's not, they're not feeling it in their butt on one side. It's not being developed as much. And so I sent over like a little two minute video on like a band distraction, you know, stationary splits, split squat lunge, right? And what would you guys, when you're, when you do something like that, I think the mistake that people make is they, they go into it like they're training another exercise. And the protocol is different, right? You don't want to fatigue the muscle per se. If you're just trying to feel it, right? You're trying to get connected. So do you have a kind of generic amount of reps or time that you would spend doing that? So, okay, we're going to get good connection here. You're going to do a little bit of work, but we're not working at 90% intensity and we're not trying to fatigue this muscle. No, when you, when you have a body part that you have a tough time connecting to going intense and heavy is a surefire way to not connect because the reason why you have trouble connecting is because your body has recruitment patterns, meaning, you know, certain muscles are being activated in ways where that's your strongest way of, of activating your, your muscles, which means for you, whoever you are, who's listening, it's disengaging, for lack of a term, that muscle that you have trouble connecting to. So if you want to engage it, you got to go lighter. You got to slow down. You got to do higher reps. So I would do, you know, with clients, it would do, you know, between two to four sets of an isolation movement, feel the muscle, really start to feel it. Usually it takes a set or two before they can really feel that muscle squeeze and connect. Maybe get, I mean, this is ideal. Get a little bit of a pump in that muscle. Then we move on to the big, you know, gross motor movement, muscle builders. Now the person's got the feedback. Oh, I could feel that glute mead or I could feel the pecs or whatever, you know, lagging body part that they have, I can feel it now and I can adjust my technique to now take this really effective exercise and make it work for me. Yeah, I would. So what I recommended was two to three sets, 10 reps. And the only reason 10 reps and not 15 reps is because I also want a two to three second, like isometric hold. So 10, squeeze part. Yes. So like, let's say we're talking about a floor bridge for someone trying to activate the glutes, right? So I would have them do 10 reps, slow and control. And at the top, they are to squeeze and do an isometric hold for good two to three seconds, contract, come down, back up, two to three second hold, and then come back down and do 10 reps and then do that for two to three sets before you go into like a big mover, like a squad, a deadlift. You know, just going through the reps, really trying to squeeze and hold and connect and feel. So yeah, and once you learn how to connect and squeeze, then you can squeeze and connect in a compound lift. Like, you know, a lot of people have trouble squeezing and connecting to, let's say their lats or the back muscles, especially when they first start doing back exercises with rows. Now, rows are great back exercises, but it can be tough to feel like, okay, I think I'm squeezing, I think I'm feeling what's going on. But if you isolate those muscles, get them pumped a little bit, get them to kind of feel it with an isolation movement, then they go to the row, and they know what they're aiming for, right? They know what they're trying to feel. And it changes that technique a little bit and it makes that an effective exercise. Otherwise, you know, there's a lot of muscles involved in these big gross motor movement exercises, and they're great at building target muscles, but your body does a great job of using what it, you know, what's going to be most beneficial for it. And so if it's not your glutes and a squat, it's going to be quads. It's going to be, you know, your prime mover. And you can see this as a trainer with someone's technique, but really it's about feeling it. It's about the person feeling. And studies will show that when a person focuses on a muscle, even just thinks about it and tries to feel it, you see more activation in that particular muscle. So this is legit. So another place that you might use this is not just where someone's like poorly connected, but also that you just want to put more emphasis on a specifically. So someone who's in like bodybuilding world, right? So you're trying to develop, for example, like if you are really trying to work on rear delts, actually getting the rear delts firing before you go do a traditional shoulder press overhead press. Oh yeah. So that my rear delts are getting more, more work and activation in a movement that it's not a prime mover. I did that for years. You know, it's funny. You and I have a similar story with a rear delt. Well, I just, I figured it out as a teenager that, oh, that's the part of the delt that makes the shoulder look round. I don't remember. I think I read an article and for probably 10 years, I don't do this anymore, but for at least 10 years, every shoulder workout I started with, with rear delt flies and my shoulders turned out to be a great body part as a result of that, but I had to prioritize it over overhead presses. Then I go to overhead presses after doing the rear delt. 100%. I attribute the same thing. It was, and it was, I don't know about 10 years for me, but it was a good solid three, three, probably four years of every, every time I hit shoulders, it was a rear delt exercise first before I went into the, which is seems kind of, uh, you know, um, counter to what we would normally talk about, right? We would normally tell the average person like, oh, you absolutely would do, you know, your, your front, you know, shoulder press would be your you know, big mover for the shoulders and you should do that first when you have the most energy, but this is where no program, uh, that we've ever created is perfect for everybody. And this is, this is the individualization. Yeah. This is the part that we, I mean, we had a, a recent caller, right? Guy was, you know, 50 something years older with that. He'd been lifting for 30 years or whatever. And he was like trying to gauge like, man, this just seems like it's too much intensity for me to go three days like this. And it's like, well, this is where you, and this is the idea of the podcast is that if you have the programs, you're following them and then you're listening to some of this advice, it's not that we are contradicting the way we wrote the program. It's that there's such an individual variance in people that, you know, this is where you would, you would break a rule or a common truth about lifting. Like you would always tell someone, you always start with a compound left. Well, in case, most cases, but not all. We highlight how to troubleshoot your way through a lot of these things because it's not always how you have it written out. And I mean, like this is where the whole, you know, the whiteboard, the chalkboard type workouts that I used to experience with sports training, for instance, like we would go through that and inevitably hit all these like problems. And it's like, you know, nothing's perfect that you can just have as a standard protocol. You have to be able to have some flexibility there, modify it to your individual needs. Do you guys remember when you changed that as a trainer? Like for me, when I first started, I'd have workouts laid out for my clients before they show up. Yeah. And that was the workout we're going to do. Come out of water, right? Yeah. Like this is our workout today. We got to get through it. And then, I don't know, it was really short too. It was like within six months. I just said, yeah, no, I have a guide, but when John shows up and I watch him move, I'm not doing that exercise that I had written down because I think this one's going to be better right now or they're tired or we need to take longer rest or they got lots of energy. So let's add a couple of things. It gives you good structure, you know, gives you something to kind of, you know, navigate through, but you have to be able to have that flexibility and understand, you know, what your body signals are telling you. So it was, it was quite a while into my career before I think I really piece it together. In fact, I think it was after I went through corrective exercise specialists and that was what made me start thinking like, oh, wow, like, OK, yeah, these exercises that I have laid out for my clients is ideal for building muscle or burning body fat. But I'm not addressing all these imbalances or issues and chronic pain. And by this time, I've realized, like, man, most all my clients suffer from some sort of chronic pain. And yes, they also want to lose 30 pounds or build 10 pounds of muscle. But I really need to be finding ways to address that. And then that's where I really started to modify my my programs and break some of those, you know, fundamental rules that you would, you wouldn't normally break because it's like, OK, well, yeah, yes, I know the squat or the deadlift or the headpress is such a great movement, but I've got X, Y and Z going on with this function. I need to address. Yeah, yeah. And so that's when I think I started to prioritize that that way of thinking. What's up, everybody? Here's the giveaway for today's episode Maps Power Lift. I'm going to give that away for free, but you got to do this. Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel. Turn on notifications. Do all those things. If we like your comment, we'll notify you on the comment section. You'll get free access to Maps Power Lift. Also, the big sale we're running right now ends on the 14th, so you still have time. So check this out. We've taken a bunch of different maps programs, put them in a bunch of small bundles, two and three program bundles. Every single one of them is $99.99, $99.99 for every single bundle that you find at mapsaugust.com. So go check it out. Here comes the show. You guys want to hear something crazy? Yes. Did you guys know? So I just read this this morning. So you guys know how the earth spins, right? Yes. You guys knew that? Yes. Okay. In a flat way, like a pizza box. Okay. I never actually thought about that. What is the theory for flat earthers? Is it spinning but they think it's spinning this way? Or do they not think it's spinning? I feel like they think it's like a dome or something. And then the bottom half is all ice. I think they think it's flat and I think they think the sun still goes over the around the earth. Yeah. If I'm not mistaken. I don't know. We don't have anybody crazy. We're not spinning. I don't we're on the back. We're on the back of a giant turtle. I don't know. I thought for sure you guys conspiracy guys would know for sure like I heard wacky things. Listen, I like conspiracy theories that I can at least like entertain. They're like really just like government driven. I don't know. I like I'm just like I'm always skeptical of people in powerful positions. That's where I'm like, okay, conspiracy is well the flat earthers believe that they think it's all a government conspiracy. That's like they think the earth beyond science and everything. You know, I think it's surrounded by a flat earther. Do you remember what they used to say in the meeting? Back with those accepted, you know, before Galileo when you were only 12. NASA's a hoax. I just I never thought about that. I think they think that the earth is surrounded like around the edges is an ice wall. Yeah. If I'm not mistaken. Huge game of thrones. Yeah. Yeah. And that what a plane does is they trick us by it flies one way and it comes back. I wonder. I wonder if there's a correlation. So all the airplanes are. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so, I don't know, Doug, do you know what they say that how the how they explain the sun and the moon? I'm trying to figure this out. Yeah, you don't have answers. Shows up from one side to the other distraction there. You just meant I mean to think about that. You know what I've never thought about? Well, check this. I didn't realize this. So the earth is spinning faster and faster apparently. So June 29th was the fastest day in recorded history. Clocking in at doesn't sound like much, but still kind of interesting. One and a half seconds shorter than the average 24 hours that we know and love. So according to a recent study, the earth started to spin faster back in 2016. I'm telling you, Justin, what are they speculate? I'm telling you, we're in another freaking is our days parallel universe. Yeah, that means the days are shorter. Well, first off a day is not a drone collider or whatever. It feels like it, right? Right? It's just shaking everything up. Now the the earth is a day is not a perfect 24 hours. I've known that for a while. It's like 23 hours and something. It's not perfect 24. But apparently, it's spinning faster. And there's a number of factors that contribute to this. It's magma core ocean tides can impact how fast the earth spins. And in the past, it's actually spun slower at other times and other times, it's spun faster. Now hasn't the axis also changed a bit over time? Yeah. And so it's like, it tilts a bit. So then, you know, the seasons, obviously, and where the sun hits has changed. Do you know the speed at what we're moving? That the earth is moving? Yeah. No, I don't. I don't know what that number is. Wow. Yeah, it would be wow. I know. So that's red. Yeah, you know, it's really weird. I remember as a kid, I must have been in fourth grade or fifth grade. You know, every model of the solar system is like the sun and then, you know, the Venus and all these different planets spinning around. And I literally thought that we're just spinning around the earth in this one stationary place. And I remember I was in fourth grade in science class. This teacher was like, how do you guys think that the planets travel through the universe? And so everybody drew the solar system. He goes, No, everything's moving to the universe. So the sun is going and we're following the sun. So it's like the earth is not in the same place it was ever. No, ever. Everything's just we're just flying through this expanding universe. Yeah. Never do you think Big Bane, everything exploded out. So we're just moving out and expanding further beyond into the abyss. That's when they turned on the the simulation. That's my theory. That's when yeah, the game is button hits. Yeah, here we go guys. Okay, well, I got something else that's a little bit different. But you guys know the old kind of stereotype of Southerners being kind of slow. And anyway, there's just sort of dumb, slow kind of like in movies, movies, they always depict them because accent and whatever. Right? You know where that comes from? No. Okay. So I didn't know this either. Wait a minute. Hold on. I think my son showed me a video once and I'm probably not where you're going. But it was an English accent that eventually turned. Okay, I'm not talking about the accent or anything. There's actually like something else that was interesting to me. I don't know if this was like early 1900s when exactly, but it was Rockefeller time where he kind of was still still around. Shipbooks down there. Yeah. No. So basically, they had a really big problem. And I learned this from Whitney Cummings actually brought this up on Joe Rogan's podcast. And I was tripping out they had hookworm problem. And it was this parasite that if you'd walk outside barefoot, you know, it would make its way in your body all the way up to the brain. There's some like neurotoxin in it where it would affect your brain to where it actually like would make you like, you know, your speech and everything would be affected and like you sounded like slow. And so this was like it pervaded was like 40 percent of the population the south like had this. Wow. This parasite. And so Rockefeller actually put a ton of money into it like a million, I think back then to today's like a billion into the to solving this problem. And so it it helped a lot. But I guess there's still some hookworm parasites there that they they deal with. That's wild. Did you know that they're researching parasites for to solve chronic autoimmune issues? Do you guys know that to go in and eat like bad bacteria? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. So there's this really strange theory. First off, it actually works. So you take someone who has Crohn's disease, right, or severe allergies, and you give them a parasite. And oftentimes the allergies go way down. And sometimes they go into like no symptoms, like full remission. Is this that that the lining of the gut where it like it brings back that relationship between parasite and the bacteria? They don't they don't quite know what's going on. In fact, there are treatment centers in in South America. And I believe in Mexico, they won't do it here yet, where people who have like terrible Crohn's disease, for example, I use that as an example because I have a family member with Crohn's and they'll go to this place and they'll they'll infect them purposefully with parasites, and then their symptoms will get much better. And the theory is that the our bodies evolved constantly fighting off parasites and bacteria and all this other stuff. It's the what is it the clean theory, right? That theory called the spotless clean theory or something like that right where the reason why we have all these autoimmune issues is we've made everything so damn clean that our immune systems have become hypervigilant because they're not exposed to anything. So they start attacking ours. It starts attacking us. This is why kids who grew up on farms or kids who grew up with animals. I don't know if you guys do this. If you have pets, your kids odds of having allergies and autoimmune issues goes down because of it because they're exposed. So they're actually researching. I read a book on this a long time ago, researching infecting like what's going on and some people actually doing this is treatment. They're going to go purposefully get parasites to solve their chronic health issues. Crazy. Like please, you know, enter my body. Isn't that weird? Yeah. That is comfortable. I'd be with that. That is that is the wildest thing. Also, this is kind of crazy news. There was this teacher in Texas. I feel like this never happened. We were kids or we never heard about it. I don't know. But there's this teacher in Texas who's going to jail because she had female. She had sex with her sixth grade student. I do you guys ever remember as kids, female teachers? No. Doing shit with kids? I mean, Justin's like, well, I do. I know a guy. Do you really? Yeah, I know a guy. Yeah, that's right. You have told me, you know, a guy who actually slept with his teacher. Yeah. What? How old? Yeah, he was in like sixth grade, but he was like what? He had a beard and everything already. He's six. Very mature. Six grade. He was he was in my brother's class. So but I had heard through the grapevine, whatever, that he had. He had slept with his teacher and then it like came out to be true. And then this teacher got fired and then. Oh my God. Yeah. I did not. I see. I don't remember ever hearing stuff like this, but there's like these female teachers that are having sex with. It wasn't talked about because that's the thing is like if you're if you're a boy and this happens, like you're going to keep it under wraps. Yeah, it's not a bad thing. Yeah, it's like really a bad thing. You do a little fist bump to your to your friend. Yeah. Well, I know. Six grade dollars. Yeah, that's real. I mean, the reality is it's a terrible thing. I have kids. I had a sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth grader, you know, who boy and teacher is predatory for that. Very predatory. Yeah. OK. Do you do you still know him? Like, do you guys still have you talked to him? You know, oh, this guy was. Yeah, he's he's crazy. We call him cruddy Chris. So now he really knows. I mean, is he fucked up from it? Or is he I mean, is it? He was never he was never right. So yeah, he's yeah, he's he was always out there. But no, he's I mean, he's a nice guy and everything because I told you guys I had a buddy who but we were 16. We were 16. And so you get a little older. Yeah, he was 16 and he was he was sleeping with the boss's wife who was 30 at the time. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, it was like a like a like a you know, he was braggadocious thing about it. You know what I'm saying? Like it was like it was not like she was taking advantage of the same. Yeah. But you know, she got to the point where she was like writing him like love letters and stuff. Oh wow. Yeah, I got really imagine your wife, your 30 year old wife and you find out. Oh, you're cheating on me. So now you're like, oh my gosh, it's terrible. And like, who is it? It's like a young kid. Oh, yeah, like they just devastated. Yeah, well, that'd be super hell of a super embarrassing embarrassing and disgusting cheating on you with a teenager. What the? I mean, that's kind of like where did you go wrong? Yeah, dude, there's this the stereotype, right? Is and I know it's based on actual data. It's usually it's more often men that are doing these types of things. So when I hear it's a female, an older, you know, a female teacher, it just feels so like scary. I feel like it's less. Yeah, it's more rare. How did we come up with the age 18 as the like formal age for being adult? Like, like when did that? When did it evolve? It's not like that in every country. I know it's not. That's why I'm asking. I have no idea. Like when when when was it like that? You know, I have no idea. Do you know that Doug at all? I don't. I think there's laws too in different states even still that are different, you know, in terms of like the acceptable age of consent. Yeah, I know some are more strict than others. I know that. Yeah, but I I don't know how much younger other countries die. Oh, again, Europe. There's some in Europe. It's some countries like 16, 15, but I know that they also have laws with the age gap. So like if you're 15 with a 17 year old or 18 year old, but if you're 15 with like a 30 or 40 year old, I think that they have laws like that which say no, that's this reminds me like, so I guess like, um, Dane Cook is is engaged or whatever. And like he's getting grief because there's like a 27 year gap, I think, between his fiance and him. He's like 50. She's like 20. Dane Cook's 50 some now? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But it's like, I mean, did you she's 23? Like, well, once you get to a certain age, although that's still kind of weird. There's a big gap. Not for a celebrity guy who's like plastic surgery and money. And bro, that's nothing. Go back in time to like rock old like rock and roll stars like Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley. What's his name? Woody Allen, too. Oh, yeah. What's his name? Yes. Doug, who sings that? Great Balls of Fire. What's his name? Jerry Lee Lewis. Yeah. It was his cousin or something like that. Oh, yeah. 16 year old or something like that or 15 year old. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. And that was back. Did you see, do you know, do you know Dane Cook when he kind of like fell off or like fell off? Like he was like movies. He was all over the place. And then like we kind of didn't hear from him. You know what had happened? Like his brother. Yeah, his brother. His brother was stealing money from him, dude, like 15 million dollars. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's right there. Look out. Look how much posh surgery is that, dude. Yeah, he doesn't look that great. Is that her? That's his wife? Yeah, that's his. Yeah, they're engaged. How old is she? She's I think she's 23. OK, so you know what's funny about this is that, you know, a lot of people are going to say this, they're going to be like, oh, he's just with her because she's young and hot. Well, yeah, she's just with him because he's got money. You know, you know, fame and money. So it's trade right there. Interesting. Whatever. I mean, yeah, I think once you're an adult, sure, it is still kind of whatever kind of strange. But in Hollywood, that's not that's that's part of the course. I mean, I feel like it's such a member of Catherine Zeta. I feel like it's a win for both cases. I know. They're probably going to be married that long. She's going to have a nice case. She's going to have a nice little purse that she's going to get after that. You know what I'm saying? He gets to be like a young hot chick. You guys remember, remember the Playboy model and Nicole Smith and she married some like 87 year old. Yeah, billionaire. Yeah. Oil guy who's he just looks like a course. Isn't that what isn't that when like the whole gold digger thing became a thing that I thought that's when it got popular? Do you remember people saying gold digger when you were in like junior high or something? I don't remember a rap. I think there was a rap song that said that, right? Well, yeah, that's Kanye West. There came later. That's later, though. Oh, I guess you're right. Yeah. And I'm going to call Smith. That story that picture. Pull that up. Pull it up. I wonder if they came out from that. I think that I think it did come from that, bro. I don't remember hearing gold digger before that. It's the funniest thing ever. You see the picture and he does look like a corpse. Did you ever see a make out? No, I don't want to see that. I made that mistake. That's so disgusting. I feel like she earned she earned some of that, buddy. Did she get sued though when he died from the family? Oh, yeah, because he basically left everything to her, you know, and they were they were so mad about that. You know, I mean, I get it. Would your dad give me mad? Like, come on, dad, like he's going to go out with how often does that picture? Oh, that's terrible, bro. And he was 89 years old back in the day. Oh, God. You imagine that your 89 year old dad's like, hey, I got this. There's a girl. If you're if you're in a cold, there's no way you can spin that. Like what can you see other than like what exactly what you're doing? Yeah, like this is just natural organic love. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. But what's he doing to same ship? How did you meet? Well, I mean, of he's, of course, dude, I used to train. I used to train this this 80. He was like 87 year old man. Now, people, everybody first calm down when I tell a story. That generation is very different to calm down, because that generates you got to understand that generations are different and we can't judge past generations on current standards. OK. Yeah. So you got to give a little bit of grace with some of the stuff, not not tons, but some, right? So this is a seven year old man will come in and he was like, you know, decondition like he looked like an 87 year old man and we worked out and he would just like if a like my one of my female trainers or something, he'd like tap on me and it's a shit like that. Yeah, that'll give me a pump. You know, you make comments like that and I shake my head and I would shake my head and I ignore him and I just keep training. Right. And then he'd get worse with it. At one point, I had tons that listen, you can't like like that. They can hear you, bro. But listen, you can't say those thoughts need to remain here. You got to keep that I think you get to a certain age and you just don't give a shit. Doug's approaching this before us when he'll be like, you just zero fucks, right? You just say what you want. You do and you get a pass. Yeah, like the. Oh, my grandfather hasn't given a fuck for so long, not with that, but just other stuff. Like, like the first time he met Jessica, you know, like, oh, it's my grandfather, whatever. Oh, nice to be around. We're talking. He just farts hell out, just blasted right away. First time meeting and he laughs and I'm like, that's he doesn't care. That's like my uncle Casey, dude, my uncle Casey is like the type of person where I have to I always have to like, like tell someone down like, listen, this is my uncle and he doesn't mean any of this. He's just like, but just be ready. And they're always like, oh, yeah, totally fine. And then you just he'll say some shit. We weren't ready. Yeah. Anyway, I'm going to go I'm going to take a left turn here. I just learned something really interesting about kids in blue light. So you know how blue light exposure at night can affect melatonin production and mess with your sleep? It's actually way worse for kids than it is for adults. So children when they're when they get exposed to blue light before going to bed, now is that just a stronger influence on their melatonin than adults even do? Now, is that just because kids need more rest than you do as you get older? It's both. Okay. It's that plus they seem to have a and I'll pull it up. It was Dr. Rhonda Patrick. You guys remember her, right? Yeah, wait, she's falling off. Yeah, she's the one that like, is it fair for me to say that? I just haven't seen her. I haven't seen like she when she first did Joe Rogan, she's exploded. Yeah, she's huge. I love her. I love her stuff. She's got a great Instagram, but she's brilliant, but really hard to listen to. Oh, I enjoy it very to do the science. Have a good time. I love listening to her. Oh, so hard. So check this out. Children who got less than nine hours sleep at night had their brain volume shrink and the smaller brain volume lasted for two years. Your brain volume should total size of your brain. Their brains actually got affected by having worse sleep to the point where the brains actually shrink to compress. Yeah. So less than nine hours of sleep per night was connected to mental health issues with children. So blue light before bed, you know, big impact on kids. So I mean, I got those. I got the blue light, the Phoenix gray, blue light blocking glasses for my older kids, because they'll be on their, you know, computers and stuff. And sometimes I got to get on them because they'll forget. But I can, I mean, I know. I wonder how I got to go back and get some new ones because, you know, some of those kids ones are like really small, like at first that fit. But now they're like I and ever start wearing them again. But like they're like little spectacles. Yeah, so I'm like, yeah, I got to get them a bigger pair. Do you think that you think that market will ever really penetrate kids? Do you think it will actually sounds really bad? Well, yeah. So sorry, between sales info earlier, bringing that out. Sorry, you could have just kept going. As it rolled off, it just felt bad. Jerry Lee Lewis did it again. The market, the market, does it do you do you think that it will? Do you think that that's because I feel like you it's like a health wellness care thing. And you already that's already a losing battle for most adults trying to get kids to do that. I mean, what is your health conscious parents, but how many parents are like that? Well, you guys are. So what is your are you like really successful with it? Like did the kids adopt it? I have to be I have to be honest. I have to be on top of it. Yeah, I you know, I backed off on it a bit. And then now it's like they they look at it is like, Hey, dad, look what I'm doing. Like because because I can take away the iPad. Yeah, I keep taking it away so they don't have access to it. And so they're trying like every angle to try and be like, Hey, dad, well, I'm gonna be with the you know, I'll make sure where my blue blocking glasses. And you know, I'm doing something creative on here. Look, I'm doing being creative. And so they're trying every sales point to just make sure that they have access. That was my kids when they were younger. They'd come to me and my daughter be like, Hey, there's this really cool like video teaches you how to like edit videos and do them. I just want to go watch YouTube. Exactly. Yeah, but I have to be on them. I have to be on top of them when they do it. But I mean, it has a strong impact on children. So if it's more important for you to have your kids avoid blue light an hour or two before bed or at the very least where blue light blocking glasses. Yeah, we should be due for our quarterly report from them. No, have we got that? Have you seen this great? Yeah, have you seen that come across? I haven't seen it. We just started getting a bunch of them come coming across. You see, I saw a magic spoon and they're in target. You see them. They're in target. They're making moves right now. I saw that and I saw them with a bunch of I think they just sponsored or partnered up with a bunch of athletes and famous people. Like, yeah, it's I wish I had that when I was younger. I wish I had protein cereal. Are you kidding me? What is it per box for when you go through our our Lincoln so that because I and target it's eight ninety nine for a box. Yeah, we get five dollars off with our link if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, you save basically shipping with us. Yeah. I'll have to find it. Is there a new flavor that you said you like? Oh, what I love I was going to say what I love about them is they're always like updating a lot of the formulas with some of the their hits. Like, for for instance, the the fruity or even the blueberry, they just redid the recipe for it. So it's like it's blueberry muffin now. It has a little I saw that I asked you that if it was I couldn't remember if it was always blueberry muffin. I didn't notice. No, they changed it a little bit. Yeah. Oh, I wonder if it's good. I like it. Yeah, five dollars off, by the way. OK. Well, that's my code, but what's the price per box? Well, it's ten. I think ten dollars a box and then you get the five dollar discount. Oh, yeah. Well, there you go. So here's a five. So it's cheaper. Target just go above his head. I'll look at the there's only four boxes in there. That would be it would be it would be cheaper or the same price that can't be right. Come on, Douglas. It's eight ninety nine at Target. I just saw it for one. Yeah, for one box. Yeah. Yeah. What's over the thumbs up? Andrew Andrew's got it. Dueling computers. So you get there first. Oh, so it's a little bit. Oh, so you save a whole quarter. Wow. Well, not only do you save money, it ships to your house. Right. Now you save your money. It comes to your house. Yeah. And the gas that you have to drive. And every box of magic spoon purchased through our link has been gives diapers to your children. By Justin. Justin put his hand in the box and swirled it around. Help pay for the diapers for your for your children. So every buy is OK. Well, I mean, as long as it's cheaper, I just whenever our partners do some of that, I get so frustrated when I see something where they're offering it for a better deal. That's because one of the things that and I don't know if the audience knows this, but one of the things that I did early on when we negotiated a lot of these deals was we would give up, you know, commission or we would give up. So we have the best price. So we have the best price. I would I would take less money from these companies because I wanted to listen. I what I don't want to happen is we promote a brand and then they tell me, oh, I get away cheaper at all these other places. So I always get frustrated when I see something like that where I see a sale. If it's cheaper than what we sell it for, it's probably it's probably expired. It's cool, though, to see. I mean, it's I mean, how cool is that? Like we it's been a few years now that we've been working with them, but to see them in a place like Target is is pretty awesome to see. I saw I got one of my clients sent me over a photo of Pathwater in Nordstroms now, too. Pathwater is going everywhere, everywhere. When we went to the airport, you know, they they San Francisco airport is completely eliminated. I mean, it's cool. I mean, it's cool. I mean, it's cool. I mean, it's cool. I mean, it's cool. It's cool. It's completely eliminated. It's all aluminum. Yeah, no more plastic bottles. You made a call and so we should put it on the show because I don't think you've said it on the show as your prediction is that you think that they're going to make it California probably being one of the first states to do it. Make it like like outlaw. Yeah. At some point, legislation is going to come forward and abandon single use plastic bottles. That's what I think just because they don't recycle well. They are not great for the environment and you get plastic it's in your water. And I mean, I could list a ton of reasons. And aluminum is very recyclable. Very reusable plastics are everywhere. Everywhere. So that's what I think. I think the legislation is going to is what's going to make companies like Pathwater just explode. Yeah. How do you feel about that because you have to be partially torn because you own. I love it. You're invested in Pathwater so that's a good thing for you. But how do you feel like about? I have to look. Okay. When it comes to that kind of thing. When you look at the numbers and say, does it actually make sense? Because sometimes it makes sense on one point. But when you look at the whole picture, it doesn't. For example, banning plastic bags in favor of paper bags. But if you actually do the math of production and transporting everything, it actually doesn't. It's actually doesn't save anything. So in this case, from what I've seen, it makes a big difference. Plastic bottles are a big problem. And aluminum is extremely recyclable. You recycle and aluminum can and a lot of you don't know this, by the way. You recycle your cardboard and your plastic. It's not getting recycled. It is not getting recycled. Yeah. We have more than we can recycle. They throw it away. We separate it. They combine it together and they dump it. It still gets recycled because it's it's worth recycling is aluminum. Yeah. And I think glass, if I'm not mistaken, but I know aluminum is aluminum is like one aluminum bottle or can like the vast majority of that gets reused and turned into another one. So it's very recyclable. Whereas plastic bottles and cardboard boxes and shit like that is it costs more to recycle it as a throw away, which makes it inefficient, which means nobody wants to recycle it. So I thought I read somewhere that it was that we just we get so much of it that we can't possibly recycle all of it. I didn't think it was that we would if it were if it were efficient and valuable. We used to sell it to China. We used to sell all of our cardboard and shit to China. They stopped buying it. So like a lot of places. In fact, you'll actually find this with some garbage cans. Have you guys seen those public garbage cans? And on the top is like organic waste and plastic bottles. And then you look in the garbage and it's the same bag. Have you guys seen those? You find them all over the place. There's one hole for this, one hole for this. It goes in the same bag. It just goes and funnels it right in. Yes. And I'm like, this is just making people feel better. This is bullshit. It tainted my whole thoughts around it. Oh yeah, dude. Oh, it's. That's hilarious. It's really just aluminum cans. But aluminum is very recyclable. So that's that's a worthwhile one. Anyway, I think we can get on the phone, right? Yeah, yeah, we got Joe right now. Yeah, we have Joe's Joe's call right now to talk about the sport. I'm excited. And what end of next month, I think is September 24 to 26 and we've hooked something up to where if you use our code, we get nothing. So we did this for free, but 100% of the proceeds go to a cause that we firmly believe in, which is what he's going to talk about. Yeah, yeah, very cool. Okay, so here's the deal. I know you came to us a month or two ago about trying to do some sort of deal where we pick a race, we promote it, we do some sort of a kickback for, you know, our audience going there. We host a event there. The guys and I, we talked, we just decided that it's one, it's just going to be way too much to try and blend away for we make money in a split on it. The fact that you're going to be donating a big bulk of this money to a good cause that we believe in, we could all get behind, we'd rather just do you a solid and just because we have a lot of people in our audience that already love Spartan race. So I think just us promoting the race and sending your way and we don't need anything in return. So I think just share with us a little bit about Jimmy and his foundation because this is what I think we all agreed sounds the most interesting to us. Yeah, no, I love it. So Jimmy was the head of World Boxing Association. He's in his 80s. He was one of the only lawyers in the country admitted in 20 plus states. He basically got 20 plus bar exams. He was Don King's attorney against Mike Tyson. He was in two Rocky movies. Complete badass. And it's a funny story. Like a lot of my mentors, I would say he's an elder for me. They call me early in the morning. You know, I'm a guy that wakes up early and there's not a lot of people to call at five or six in the morning. So I got like four or five guys like Jimmy that call me early in the morning. They just want to shoot the shit. And I don't know three, four or five years ago, Jimmy hits me up and says, I can't take it anymore. I said, what's up? He said, this neighbor I have out here in Margate, Margate's like the Hamptons of the Atlantic City area. It's a beach community. This neighbor, they got an air conditioner thing rattles. I can't get any sleep. I said, well, go bring them out. Talk to them. I'm sure they'll accommodate you and fix the fuck them. I fucking work. They're not listening. Three, four weeks go by. Jimmy calls me and he says, I took care of it. I said, how did you take care of it? I said, I hired a plumber. We took everything apart and I put it on their front porch. I said, you can't take somebody's air conditioning unit apart and put it on their front porch without, you know, talking to them. And he said, well, I did it. Anyway, the police show up and they arrest them. And it turns out that he was actually okay disconnecting everything because it turned out it was on his property. He got so furious. Now he's in his 70s. Okay. He got so furious that the police had the audacity to arrest him over this because he's an upstanding citizen, a lawyer for all these years that he said, I'm going to become a police officer. And he went and he applied and he went through the fitness tests and everything. And he became a police officer. What? Yeah. So he is now not only as an attorney, not only does he do all the things he's been doing for 50 plus years. He's now a cop and he teaches, he teaches how to ride, you know, a Harley. He's gotten tons of Harley Davidson's donated. He teaches all these police officers and he, he's full blown top. So when I look back, it actually fits, it fits him because years ago, I don't know, 15, 15 years ago, he decided he felt really bad for any cop that was killed on duty. Like we all would feel bad. But he went one step further and he found the actual location where that officer was killed in the line of, you know, while working. And he had a plaque donated at each one of these locations. He went back to the 1920s. Whoa. And so he's given away, I don't know how many plaques, three, four hundred plaques he's donated to officers who died in the line of duty. And brings the family, in some cases the grandkids, the great grandkids out and honors them. So, so he's got this charity that supports plus, plus he's taken a bunch of those kids and grandkids then and supported them and given them scholarships. So, so I think it's an awesome charity. I think what he does is amazing. By the way, he's the guy, if you know anything about Philadelphia, you know the Rocky Stairs where Sylvester Stallone runs up in the movie. He was the one that put the statue there, the Sylvester Stallone statue at the base of the stairs. The mayor of Philly gave him his own parking spot in the city. They gave, yeah, he's pretty he's pretty unbelievable character and he does a lot of good. That's awesome. That's a great, that's a great cause. Yeah. I'm happy to be a part of driving people to, to your race and, and to raise some money for that. Yes. So let's talk about the race a little bit, Joe. Tell me, tell me the, the race dates. It's the Tahoe, what all events are, are being held there. And then even, even down to the ticket price and stuff. Do you even know your own stuff like that? Your ticket price and all those stuff? I don't know anything. I should have known that. I'm going to Google right now. Awesome. Spartan date. Hang on a second. While you're doing that, can you multitask and tell me what the thought of like, how will the donation work? Is it going to be like a portion of the enrollment for the race? Like how, how will you do it? No. What we'll do is we'll give you a code, mind pump. Okay. And all the people that signed up with that code, we'll just take a hundred percent of the funds, which is like a hundred, a hundred and twenty dollars a ticket. We'll take a hundred percent of the funds and we'll give it to Jimmy's charity so he could support more, more kids of the fallen officers and more of these plaques to be donated. One hundred percent. Wow. That's awesome. So, so I hate to say it's all in your hands now. But it's, it, listen, it's on September 24th, so we had a short fuse. September 24th to 26th is the event. So let's get as many people there as we can under the mind pump moniker and you guys should come out anyway. And we should have some fun torturing some people. Yeah. I think that I don't know if all, I think Justin is going to be gone somewhere. But I think Doug, me, we'll probably be up there with our family. So we'll, we'll come up and visit and say hi and hang out. Make sure we link up. You'll obviously be there, right? I'll be there. It's going to be amazing. We'll have some fun. Now this one is, this is the big one, right? This is the big championship, right? Yeah. This is, this is an ultra championship. So, you know, we have different distance events. I've, I've been racing and doing, competing in events myself since the mid nineties. And what I found was number one by signing up for events that kept me in shape because it forces you to hold yourself accountable. Number two, I found that coming out of January, February, that, you know, that hibernation period we all go through, especially when you live in a place with seasons, I would probably want to do some shorter distance events and then by September, October, I was ready for the big ones. So this is a big one. And big for us means it's two loops of a beast. The beast is 13 miles of two loops of marathon up down that mountain in Lake Tahoe. So, you know, you're going to, you're going to see a lot of demons in your own head. You're going to work some things out. You're going to really get to meet yourself in an event like that. But we also just have a beast which is a single loop. Every human being on the planet should at least do this once in their life because, because like I said, you know, you've got to we all have to reconcile issues in our brain. I've got a buddy. I'm out in Long Island right now. I've got a buddy that I got into this stuff back in the late nineties. And every year he'll connect with me with some old time friends where we used to race a lot together. And we'll just train for three days. So yesterday he showed up and we ran 20. Today he made me run 25 this morning and I'm getting old. And tomorrow we got to run 20 again. And I'll tell you today I saw some demons. I was reconciling some shit in my head. And you get to a place doing these things where you just want water, food, and shelter. You know, the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And when you get to that place where you just want water, food, and shelter literally, like if I just had water, God, if I just had water I would fix this in my life. I promise I would like just get me water. And you work those things out in your head and everything else kind of melts away. The other interesting thing when you do hard things like this, yesterday at like mile 17 I stopped and I was able to buy some grapes. Just grapes. This woman was selling grapes on the side of the road. And they were the best grapes I've ever had in my entire 53 years on the planet. And I said, oh my God, these grapes, they're just regular grapes. They were probably rotten. But I was so fucking hungry that it makes the group. So you start to appreciate everything in your life when you're at a place where you just want to quit. Speaking to that, one of the things that we talk about on the show a lot is that the rise of interest in races like this and we speculate that a lot of that has to do with our lives have become so cush and easy and we sit at these desks all day long. What are you seeing? I know we're just coming out of COVID so it is kind of a weird time or are you seeing a spike in enrollment? Is it what happened with COVID and then now coming out of it? Are you starting to climb again? What's been like for you guys? Yeah, so it was obviously really hard. We got shut down in 45 countries. The year I got shut down on March 13th, I had already sold 350,000 entries that I couldn't deliver on. I collected $35 million from people and I couldn't host those races. So those people, as you could imagine, did everything short of showing up with tar and feathers at my farm in Vermont wanting to kill me and I had a furlough a bunch of people and it was an absolute disaster. What people don't realize is if you're in the event business, you don't pay your bills the day of the event. You don't pay for the venue the day of the event. You don't pay for insurance day of the event. You don't pay employees the day of the event. All that stuff you've been paying for the last seven or eight months. So that $35 million in that example was already spent. And then you put on the event for the next event. So there was no way to refund people. So I had to promise them future races, which is scary for them because they're like, we don't know if there are going to be future races. For all we know this COVID thing, we're going to shut down for 10 years. Spartan may go out of business, et cetera. But we stood up and we fought through and somehow we came out the other side and put on a bunch of races where we satisfied those IOUs. But imagine them putting on those 2030 events and not getting paid for them because they had already paid two years earlier. So then that's a massive disaster financially. But anyway, we finally dug out of all that and in 2022 this year we'll have about 1.15 million registrations. It should be 1.5 million registrations. So I'm about that exact number short about 350,000 registrations short of goal for this year. And I attribute that to the fact that Canada stayed closed. Canada still kind of closed. The UK has opened and closed and opened and closed and driven the entire society crazy. California, as you guys know, it was just really late to open and get back in the game. I came I don't know, three or four months ago I was at a hotel in California and was trying to go into the gym and they gave me a time slot because there was one person in the gym allowed every half hour or something. So California just was slow. Super rational over here. It's the most rational state in the country. Let me tell you. Yeah, so that was annoying. But places like Florida and tech, you know, places that were open, they were on fire, right? They never really shut down. So I would say 2023 is setting up to be, you know, our best year ever. Going through this really impossible challenge for us. These last two and a half years has just made us stronger and better. Wow. So, um, so yeah, that's where we are. Can I ask you a couple of personal business questions? Sure. Um, did you consider filing bankruptcy when that all hit? Were you even in a place where that was an option or a thought or a conversation? You know, I was always impressed with Ford Motor Company. When GM and Chrysler and all the other companies would go and file bankruptcy, but Ford kind of held steady and somehow fought to the end to not. And then, you know, Circus Soleil had filed bankruptcy and they were a lot stronger than we have in that unbelievable company, right? And I just thought, you know what? Um, we got to fight till the end, like the 300 Spartans did. Um, I don't, I don't want Leonidas in his grave to turn over and say, I can't believe I let Joe use our brand so I held on and I'm still holding on to the very, very end. And, you know, it looks like, it looks like we're going to make it, which somebody should do a documentary on because I don't even know how the hell we did it. Wow. And so another one, um, any plans to exit? You know, my, my motto for the last 12 years has been um, my exit strategy is death. So hopefully not on wood. Hopefully I don't die. Anytime soon, but um, I, I'm, I'm just so unbelievably, um, happy and, and excited that somehow I'm involved with this word Spartan and that helmet. And I think it, you know, not to sound hokey, when, when it's referred to by politicians in the Ukraine that these are our modern-day Spartans, right? Holding up good against the evil or the Serbians or, you know, you see it referenced the newspapers. I'm like, hey, we're carrying this brand. So, yeah, I mean, I could make a bunch of money and exit, but um, but then what? Then what? Would I start selling handbags or flowers or what the hell would I do? Well, I know you're, you're a, you're a talented enough guy that, and you've already proven it multiple times in other arenas that you would find something. I was just curious about the effort and blood and sweat you put into all this and like that and can only imagine that you get tired and frustrated sometimes, but so you, you see yourself riding, riding this Spartan thing all the way through, uh, you don't have any desires to potentially do any other business ventures and you want to, you want to stick with it all the way to the end. Maybe you pass it down to the family, even it sounds like. Yeah, on that 25-mile run today, my friend, who's been my friend, like I said, from the mid-90s, had these deep conversations because you're trying to get your mind off the pain you're going through and, um, he was asking the same question, you know, where do you want to be 10, 15, 20 years? And I thought it would be awesome to have another CEO in place that's running the thing day to day. I'd still like to be the inspirator, the person that inspires folks to do hard shit. Um, I'd love to have a dozen different brands under the Spartan, you know, brand, which, is tough money or we've got a new hiking event. Remind me, by the way, guys, send me an email. We've got a hiking event called Highlander Adventures. Oh, wow. And, um, some ways less stressful than a run or an obstacle course. We got one at Big Bear coming up in September. Um, I'll get you guys a bunch of free entries to it. It's pretty, it's pretty awesome product. We've got DECA. So I'd like to have a dozen or so brands under the Spartan umbrella challenges and, um, and just teaching people how to, how to live a life where you, you test yourself and you do hard things. Um, in this society or any first world society where we have it as easy as we have it, um, we set ourselves up for failure, in my opinion, because when, when the shit hits the fan, when somebody in your family dies, I just had somebody die in our family a couple of weeks ago and, or go through it, business busts or you get divorced or you've got somebody, you're close to drinking or drugging or whatever. Um, if you've practiced hard, if you've done hard shit consistently, um, it's a lot easier to get through it. And the alternative sucks, by the way, like if you can't get through it and then you find yourself like so many people drinking and taking Xanax, um, that's not a good alternative. So, so, yeah, choose your hard, right? Yeah. How was the, uh, response to your TV show? Is there any plans for another season? We're talking about it, uh, response is pretty good. It didn't do as well at night as it did during the afternoon. There were a couple of afternoons where they ran it behind the motocross competition and it did really, really well, which makes no sense at all because I'm not, I used to race BMX when I was a kid but I couldn't, I couldn't figure out that correlation. I'm not an admirer of shows and channels and everything else. They're just trying to figure out where they could put it to catch a draft like they saw from motocross, which is very strange. That's really interesting. Yeah. Well, Joe, I, I appreciate everything you're doing. Look forward to seeing you, um, when we get up there and we'll definitely make sure that we, we talk about on the show leading up there and then I would love to have Jimmy come on. So if we could have, if I don't know what, how hard that is um, but he sounds like he's got some pretty interesting stories and be fun to talk to. So it'd be kind of cool to talk to him personally about his foundation. You would love, um, Jimmy. Okay, cool. Excellent. Yeah. Yeah. So if you, you and Katrina, if you guys could organize that so we could get Jimmy in here, that'd be great. Have Katrina text me. Okay. And then you can text me I'll connect you on the big bear, um, event, uh, Highlander adventures, we should send a bunch people on, you guys. That's a LA, right? Yes. LA area. Is that like four hours? Yes. Probably like six hours. Six hours. Okay. Not a big deal. Yeah. It's a flight. You must have a following that is out there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. LA area is definitely one of the, one of the big areas. You're awesome. All right, guys. All right, Joe. Thank you, Joe. Appreciate it, man. Yep. So, you know, I'm not so good for athletic performance, but most electrolyte powders or drinks are too low in sodium. I'm not making this up. Sodium is the most important electrolyte for athletes. Well, there's a company called element T that we work with and that we invested in that makes electrolyte powder drinks, no artificial flavors, by the way, that has the appropriate amount of sodium. You notice a significant improvement in performance when you drink this before and during your workouts. I get better pumps in my workout. I get better hydration and better pumps. for people who eat a diet that's low in processed foods and especially for low carb dieters. When you eat low carbohydrates, you need more hydration and you need more sodium. Go check this company out. This place is exploding. It's amazing. But also you can get a free sample pack with any order. If you get, if you go through our code, so check this out, go to drink lmnt.com forward slash mine pump. Any purchase gets you eight single serving packets for free with that particular hookup. All right. Here comes the rest of the show. Our first caller is Shannon from North Carolina. Shannon, how's it going? How can we help you? Hey guys, just want to take a quick moment. Thank you for all you what you do. You guys literally like changed my whole freaking life. I decided to quit my job a couple years ago after listening to you guys. I fixed up an injury. So now I am a personal trainer, nutrition coach, but I wanted to pursue more. So I am enrolled in NCI and BCI. So all thanks to you guys. So yeah, awesome. Amazing. Thank you. Awesome. Yeah. So I'll go ahead and ask my question and then I'll kind of go into some more backstory stuff. So my question is how do you recover from a from binging excessively after a bikini competition? It's a two-part and then how do you handle weak leptin and ghrelin signals post-show or diet? So I competed in my first two bikini competitions in April of this last year and like three and a half months ago and it was an eight-year goal of mine and the reason why it took so long is because A, I was injured in the military. So I got injured in the Marine Corps and then B, I had a history of past eating disorder and I just like mentally wasn't ready, physically wasn't ready and I wanted to make sure I was both before I decided to pursue that goal. Hence why it took me eight years. Over time, I just really wanted to make sure my head was right going into it because I know that calories can get low. I know that girls can develop eating disorders from competing and so I just wanted to make sure everything was good to go. So I reached out to a coach in 2020 and that's when like we started the process. I made sure it was good to go. I was like so like excited and ready to tackle this. So there was a lot of like history and a lot of like you know full circleness of why I wanted to compete. Going into my first prep in January of 2022, I felt good, felt great and then you know right around like the three weeks out that's when like things started to really hit me hard four weeks out. I knew that calories were going to get low so why again I took me so long to make sure like I was mentally prepared and I wanted to build up a lot of food before I started getting to the cut so I didn't have to like get down to 800 calories, 1000 calories, but I was pretty close before show and I just opened old doors with my eating disorder. I started purging again and it's been pretty difficult since I finished my second show and so here we are in August and I'm just excessively binging. I feel like I can't control it and I feel like I don't have any, I feel like I have weak leptin and growing signals so kind of seeking guidance on what I should do or how. Well first off Shannon I want to thank you for your courage just to even talk about this on a podcast like this. That's a big deal and I know how vulnerable it could be to or how you can feel to talk about challenges like this especially if you work in our space. I think a lot of trainers and coaches present an aura of perfection thinking that'll make them a better coach or trainer. The truth is being vulnerable actually makes you a more effective coach or trainer so I'm glad you you're talking about this. The absolute worst possible thing somebody can do or one of the worst things that someone can do who has a history of dysfunctional relationship with food is a show. It's like somebody who's a recovering alcoholic who then is like I'm going to work in a bar right? It's like you're just surrounded by these you're surrounded by dysfunctional behaviors with food that is normalized because dieting for a show is for all intents and purposes dysfunctional it really is. You're taking your body past the healthy point especially those you know four weeks or five weeks before a show it's normalized and celebrated and if you've been challenged with this in the past you're like throwing yourself in the fire so I would recommend you don't do those anymore. That's my recommendation. The second thing is you know you asked about weak leptin and ghrelin I wouldn't worry about that. This is all a relationship thing with food. It's 100% relationship with food. I would have to work with you longer to help figure this out and I would also recommend you work with a therapist not a fitness and nutrition coach but somebody can talk about the root causes of this and how to work through them and also how to be able to deal with and handle the uncomfortable feeling that hunger presents to you and how you handle that or maybe the other uncomfortable feelings that tend to lead to this stuff. Now post-show for most people I tell people you need to be as structured after a show as you are going into a show in order to get yourself out of it because when people tend to do is they go into a show then when the show's over it's like okay cool I'm just gonna go back to normal but you went into extreme and I'm not talking about you I mean everybody right you went into extreme coming out of it you know it's like it's like you're going 200 miles an hour and then you expect your normal breaks just to slow you down like you need to you need to have a plan to slow down just like you had a plan going into it and that's what I recommend to everyone but to someone like yourself I would say this is the wrong thing to do this doesn't mean you're weak in fact you're extremely strong because you're identifying this you know what a lot of people do in your situation is they keep going back why because they're like I got in shape for that show look how ripped I was and I can't control myself I need another show to bring back that control and it becomes this addiction this addictive repetitive behavior so the truth is and the reason why I'm saying you're strong is because you're a marine you went into this you're putting this out there and a lot of times what people say to themselves when they're challenged with this is well I don't want to not do a show just because you know I'm challenged with this that means I lost no no no you're you're you're winning for admitting this and acknowledging it and talking about it this is the this is the strength part the the weak part is I'm going to keep going back and not acknowledge uh this challenge in this issue so I highly recommend you work with in somebody who's an expert with dysfunctional leading not a fitness coach uh not a nutrition coach but somebody works with this um a behavioral specialist or a therapist work with them don't go back to doing this and then focus on working with your clients you know it saved me more than anything because I had lots of body image issues I still have some uh and it's something I still deal with but they were really bad when I was younger what helped me the most was working with clients because it could always be better with my clients than I could be with myself I cared so much about them that it was hard for me not to realize the hypocrisy and how I treat myself right so I'd have a client would present to me very similar issues and I'd give them great advice and I do this so many times I at some point like why don't I take my own advice you know so I think working with clients is very therapeutic um it can be and it can be very very good for someone like yourself so that's what I'm going to say as far as the weak ghrelin and leptin signals don't worry about your hormones and all that stuff do what's healthy but it's your relationship to those things so you know you you and someone else may feel the same or get the same signals from you know going on a diet but your relationship and your experience with those signals is what makes it individual so I hope that makes sense yeah absolutely um so I I did get a therapist because I didn't want to like go back in the route the whole of the old ways even though I opened like old doors I didn't want to just kind of push off to the side and not get help and I actually gained a lot of weight when I got out of the Marine Corps um I got up to 225 so it's 80 pounds more than I am right now and because I kind of just like pushed the side because I felt like oh if I talk about it or if I really deal with the problem it's a sign of weakness and like now it's I don't want I want to be a role model for my kids the next generation yeah my um it's money to bring up to clients um my ICA is like Shannon at that point of like you know in the pitfall of her 80 pound weight gain so um it's just really difficult because I did love competing um but I feel like I know that I should probably you know it was like a one-and-done thing yeah I I'm gonna echo some things that Sal said one I again I I commend you for coming forward and actually even talking about and sharing that I think this is what's going to make you a great trainer uh I think the fact that you have this perspective that a lot of coaches won't have uh I wouldn't admit yeah yeah I won't admit or or don't even realize they have with the fact that you recognize that you are going to be able to communicate and help out so many people so I think that's amazing um I if you were if you were my client I would have never allowed you to do the competition um and the and I'm going to take the analogy Sal gave with the the the alcoholic going and getting a job at a bar it's not even like that it's like an alcoholic deciding I'm going to go on a weekend bender intentionally and then I'm going to stop right afterwards that's what it's more like because you have already been there before and it's not like you're getting a job at the bar it's like you are you are going to go in a dysfunctional place with diet it's just you have to to get to those stage ready and so you're basically saying I'm an I'm an ex-alcoholic I'm actually going to go on a weekend or a two-week bender and then I'm going to decide I'm going to cut it off again like that's literally what's going on with dieting for a show for somebody who has had you know struggled with a relationship with a food in the past that's how unhealthy of an idea that would be for someone like you I just wouldn't allow you to do it I'd say it's just not a good idea for us to do that doesn't mean that we can't diet down and we can't work on getting ripped together like I would totally allow that with you but you and I would be talking on a regular basis on how you're feeling what's going on with you and even when we're doing just normal dieting we'd have to have a plan to reverse out and so that's part of you know what Sal was saying like when you when you went down that hard you you the end of the diet for the show is not the end of the diet the actually end of the diet was two three four weeks later after that you would have needed to have mapped it out all the way to probably have any sort of success but I mean it's a I mean I think you look great right now so you obviously kept some of it in control for sure you're you're but you didn't go back and do the 80 pounds back you know which could could have happened easily from from something like this so yeah I agree with what Sal is saying 100 percent and I definitely wouldn't have wanted you to do a show but you did and I think it's now going to give you some tools to be able to communicate the challenges that come with this because you know what it was a battle that I was losing and you know I'm trying to help people now on this podcast at a much bigger scale but I was blown away by how many and especially bikini competitors were doing this to their body I mean you are actually more common than not common in that space totally many the people that are attracted to that way of dieting are people that are still struggling with their their eating their eating and then and you at least are aware of it a lot of them are just naive or don't want to look at it and they just keep show after show after show and just and and then these coaches they they're making money off of helping these bikini competitors so it's not in their best interest to try and truly help these or they don't have the tools because they don't know all they know how to do is push these these girls and these competitors to these extreme diets so I mean I think you are in an incredible place to really help a lot I think there's a huge business waiting for you just in that space of saving a lot of these girls that are probably still struggling with this so to me and and I think that is going to be some of your best therapy is to be able to to see that in others and recognize it because you know what it's like to go through it and feel it and helping them is probably going to be very therapeutic for you while also you know seeing a seeing a therapist I think those are things that are going to really help you Shannon I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a question I think I know the answer but uh are you uh do you thrive in competition do you like do you like doing tough things yeah she's a marine she's a marine I mean it's like a rhetorical question obviously right so so you I think that's probably the part of competing you like because it was it was hard it was competitive it was hard for you personally it's hard for anybody so I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna point you in it in another competitive direction have you thought about competing in a strength sport like powerlifting you know listening to you guys I've like thought about it even more and more um they listen to you guys like religiously um and I thought about you know I haven't really except for like more in the recent months um to answer your question oh I I think I would love to see yeah no no that's not to say that powerlifting doesn't have its own dysfunction every every sport at extreme levels but for someone who who you know is challenged with body image stuff it's very hard to you know have a terrible relationship with food in the restricting aspect and also be strong competing powerlifting it's very it tends to be a healthy direction and it'll it'll feed that competitive side for you and it's actually I think you'll enjoy it more because when you're on stage it's very subjective who looks the best or whatever when you're powerlifting you lift more than the person you win it's a bottom line there's like there's black and white who the strongest is that day is the winner and then you're competing against yourself that I lift more than I did last time so I don't care if I got fifth place I hit a PR I think powerlifting would be a if you if as competitive as you are I bet you would thrive in that space it's a big shift of focus I think you'd probably really enjoyed being so competitive so and it's you know it's something that may you know come back to see like this this is changing my body in a preferable way uh but just focusing completely just on strength for a while you know might do your body a whole lot of good do you have maps power lift I do not you got it now we're gonna send you a map yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna send you maps power lift and then I want to send you maps prime too just so that you could prime your body properly um and prevent any injuries if you don't have that um but I think that's the direction workout wise everything else you're doing uh from the from the fact that you're aware talking about it you said you're working with a therapist and you're coaching others you're in the right you're going in the right direction are you in our private forum too um I want to say yes but I'm not okay well I'm gonna put I'm gonna have Doug put you in there too I just I just love the fact that you've been open about this and Sherrod I think there's people one that you could help very courageous and and there's other competitors that are in there that have actually had similar experiences as yourself so I think there's it's a great community for you to be in so I want to and we're in there so we can keep a keep an eye on you and you keep us posted how things are going totally also uh before we we started this we were off-air but we saw you on screen we talked to you a little bit did you mind showing everybody that cool ass tattoo that come on so it's a stick figure that shrugs beer mugs I don't know I was like I got I don't know I was like 20 years old that's the most badass tattoo I've ever seen I love that so do you have any other questions or or did we do we give you kind of what you're looking for or help you out no I actually feel really good I didn't even think about powerlifting so you like really opened up my eyes a lot more I think I knew already the answer to my question before I came on and you guys just confirmed it so I'm just really excited and to go back for the whole client thing like yeah that's I mean everyone has a pain point of why they want to be a personal trainer and nutrition coach and so I'm just really excited to like provide more guidance to my clients because I feel like it's not talked about a lot and I think that that's why I wanted to come on here I knew that this is going to be recorded live because it needs to be shared more that like there are other people like me too that are suffering and it's okay but like it's not okay to just ignore it and to just push past it quick Shannon thank you real quick give us your your social media handle let's get you some clients it is shan west fit sha and westit excellent so thank you very much thanks thank you shan appreciate it uh that is very I love the the vulnerability that is a real tough thing on on a podcast yeah oh my god uh but she's doing the right thing she's totally doing the right thing that means training clients help me way more than I think it helped like you said being vulnerable I mean that's that's really what you know clients you can you can relate you can get on that level where you can actually make some serious behavioral changes with your clients if they you know they they trust in you you've had that experience and you share it it's just a lot more connection that you get with your clients I remember when that that I made that connection as a trainer I mean that would really catapulted my business when I when I kind of looked at my peers and realized that all of us are a bunch of insecure dudes and girls seriously I know something and that we and we just have this shell that we've built you know and we put this facade on like we got it all figured out but really inside we're as bad or worse than these clients that we're helping and then the minute I was able to to express that and share that with my clients it just I mean it completely changed my relationship as a coach with all my clients in my business and and I think it just gave me this edge versus all these other trainers because I think that they they put on this facade and what they don't realize is that the average and they think that they're being inspiring no they can't get relate they can't relate yeah and then and that's just it is the people deep down they may think that oh yeah it's so motivational see that my buff initially they go there yeah but then it's not fulfilling right next caller is Tiffany from Arizona hey Tiffany how can we help you hi yes so I am I currently am training jujitsu and I recently just came off of a bodybuilding show I'm a blue belt and jujitsu so I've been training for some time and I have I kind of have a little bit of a problem transitioning from the jujitsu to the bodybuilding and back and forth and I kind of just wanted to see what you guys's take is on like how I can set up my training while I'm training jujitsu to still be able to kind of help a little bit with the bodybuilding yeah that's a good question so I have experience with this and this was a challenge for me what color belt do you have purple yeah in case anybody's wondering that was a purple belt sorry that's an inside joke so this was a challenge for me too because when I when I first started doing jujitsu I obviously have a love for strength training and I did I did too much of both and I just fried myself and I my first competition I lost and so what I had to do is really reevaluate how I applied strength training in relationship to jujitsu so this is and this is and then I trained competitors well after I started training so I it's like this right if you do two or more days of jujitsu two three four days of jujitsu you're gonna lift once a week that's it once a week if you're gonna lift two or three days a week in the gym you're doing one day a week of jujitsu that's kind of the ratio now they do tend to help each other now jujitsu does use a lot of strength stamina but it's not the kind of endurance that you would get from running so you can actually maintain a decent on muscle doing jujitsu you're not going to maintain all your muscle doing high level jujitsu but you'll maintain a decent amount more so than if you let's say we're a runner or a cyclist or something like that but I'm gonna ask you this which one is more important yeah I was gonna say that's gotta be the question here because it something has to give in this situation and if the hard part is would you want to be great at both of them yeah it's it's me tough are you gonna go back and forth or are you gonna keep doing that yeah so um I so I used to compete a long time ago in the bodybuilding world like 12 years ago when I was in like my mid 20s and I didn't do very well I just didn't really have the right um I guess just the right mindset and like not a very great coach either so um at the time you know I was just kind of cardling myself to death and I just got a little bit like I love lifting and so I spent the last 12 years lifting and then about two and a half years ago I started training jujitsu and jujitsu honestly I love jujitsu more than I love the bodybuilding however I think a small part of me is a little bit vain and I like looking a certain way as well as being able to um train jujitsu and kind of I guess be a little bit of a badass how many days a week do you do jujitsu um three to four days a week like I shoot for at least three and then sometimes I try to get in like that fourth day of training and then I've been lifting so I just had a show June 11th um and like a bodybuilding show June 11th and the transition like transitioning out of that back into jujitsu is a little bit difficult because I still feel like I'm like on this routine that I don't really want to give up where you know I my my diet stays kind of routine and my lifting stays kind of routine but like you said like I'm trying to do both and try to be good at both and I just want to be able to try to find like a happy medium so that I can still look good and also train jujitsu at a higher level yeah what I'm hearing is you really enjoy the lifting process and then you know the result of that in terms of your aesthetics but do you really need to compete and go on stage and go through that bit of the process or can you just kind of cut that out focus a little bit more on jujitsu and the skill of the jujitsu but then also you know incorporate hypertrophy style training and like still keep in that sort of vein but I think that we could work you know a schedule a lot more efficiently with that you know in terms of like instead of like going through that really super demanding you know dietary uh um you know competition is competition it's just extreme I mean I think you could I think you could train jujitsu two to three times a week and lift weights full body one to two times a week and have a pretty damn good-looking physique well and here's the other part of this Tiffany you said you've been lifting for a long time you know yeah it doesn't take a lot to keep what you have right so with when it comes to lifting so you could if you want to keep doing three four days a week of of jujitsu I would go one day a week I do I would focus on strength I would do five core lifts and I would focus on lower reps just feel strong don't go to failure and that'll keep a lot of your muscle and aesthetics and then the jujitsu obviously is going to keep you pretty fit now if you want to do a balance of both I'd go two and two two days a week jujitsu two days a week of you know of strength training but if you're doing if you keep doing what you're doing with the jits just go one day a week to the gym do five core lifts that's when I had my best combination of physique and skill that's when I when I did it that way because when I tried to throw more strength training at myself it just I would over train because you know how it is like you go you do your two two three hour class of jujitsu with that last hour being where you're rolling and sparring I mean you're fried it's it's it's a completely different yeah uh tax on the body than than lifting so I mean one day a week literally one day a week five core lift four to five core lifts focus on the five rep range keep your intensity moderate you're not going to failure so you're doing squats and overhead presses and rows and pull-ups and that kind of stuff and I think you're going to feel amazing what you don't want to do is push your body to the point where you feel kind of fried and sore and injured all the time I remember feeling that way for a while you want to feel fresh and more than one day a week a lifting with that schedule is is probably too much then the other part is diet let's I got to talk about this because I struggled with this because when it came when I was just lifting I prefer a lower carbohydrate diet I just have better aesthetics I don't need a lot of carbs when I lift um some but not a ton when I did jujitsu my maximum my best performance came from having more carbs I needed the carbohydrates so I'm going to say don't eat bodybuilding style eat jujitsu style so eat to fuel your body for jujitsu and then one day a week of lifting in combination with what you're doing and I think you'll be happy with with what you see Tiffany do you have any of our programs I don't know I've always like I've always followed you guys because I feel like I'm always learning from you guys um but I've always just hired someone so I I hired one of the the best coaches for the bodybuilding thing and then I train with one of the best in the world uh with jujitsu so I've always just kind of tried to tag along and and kind of do what they're doing I guess well the challenge with that so you okay you have the best of the best in both those cases they're going to give you the best advice for that for each of their things yeah yeah and I think the advice here is is what Sal's saying I think is great advice which is either the two and two split or if you're you're going to be more heavy in the jujitsu doing three days a week or four days a week at jujitsu and then just one day of strength training and I think a perfect program for that is maps and a ball so you take anything and you would just follow one of the day so it's a full body routine it's focused on most of those core lifts that Sal was talking about and you could just literally pick one of the the foundational day so just follow that um a one day a week and and you could actually play with this by the way so even though we he said you know two and two or if you're doing three days of jujitsu you only do one day you could actually some weeks you could put two days like let's say you're going along and you're doing three days of jujitsu one of training three weeks go by and you feel like ah you just don't maybe you don't you feel like you're losing muscle and you don't kind of like you look you're like you know i'm a scale back on jujitsu and pick up one day of lifting and now you're gonna go two days yeah totally flexible you could totally be flexible with it doesn't you don't have to be rigid where it's like oh the guy said one day a week of lifting three days of jitsu and then you just have to stay consistent that way if you don't like what you're seeing and you feel like you're losing the all that muscle you work so hard to have then pick it up to two days a week and then scale back a little bit on jitsu just be be cognizant of what you're doing to your body and listen to what it's telling you if you're really sore or you're you're lagging in jujitsu because you're overtraining from the from the lifting and just try to have a little bit of balance there just but it does not take that much to Sal's point you've been lifting for a really long time especially at the high enough level where you've competed and got on stage that means i know you probably have a pretty good volume of training over years so you you you hit and waits good one day a week on the good core lifts and staying strong you'll be surprised how much muscle you'll you'll be here's a mistake a lot of people make too is they try to build jujitsu stamina and endurance in the gym don't do that so don't go to the gym and then do a bunch of circuits and a bunch of complexes and a bunch of that kind of stuff you're gonna your best endurance to stamina is going to come from training jujitsu go to the gym and lift and do and use the weights for what they're best for which is strength yeah so i i mean and i did this with a lot of the people i worked with uh we would go and we do like you know five reps and we would do multiple sets of a few you know compound lifts and then that had the best carryover when we would go and do super sets and giant sets and complexes and we'd get real tired and oh this is we'd end up seeing our performance decline in jujitsu was just too much so you know still do those core lifts do the you know keep it low reps just get strong keep strong stay strong and then you'll you'll do okay yeah do you ever take a season sorry do you ever do you do this year round or do you ever take like a good chunk of time off and just focus on strength training exclusively um so i did recently i kind of just decided because i did really well like back in november i decided to jump into a bodybuilding show because jujitsu had gotten me lean but i was still lifting um quite a bit i think i was lifting maybe three days a week when before i started to do the bodybuilding show and then i was doing jujitsu uh five days a week so i was i was doing it a lot and um i was pretty lean so i was like oh i'm gonna do another show and i'm going to do it different this time and i got on stage and i did really well and then of course you get kind of bitten by the bug when you start winning and so i was like oh i just want to keep doing these bodybuilding shows and i'll keep training jujitsu but then your body starts reacting the way that it kind of needs to and that's kind of what happened so this past time i just decided to take a step back and i kind of took a break we went on vacation i didn't do anything i let my body kind of heal but now i'm back and i'm finding myself kind of like okay well what should i do like how often should i train jujitsu how much should i be lifting do i want to do bodybuilding again can i be good at both so but your guys's advice has been already really helpful perfect yeah you're in a good space i could tell i mean you i think it's totally fair to love two different things and just yeah and you can have balance and you can totally adjust what we've said as you go along so really just try and listen to your body you obviously know you were overdoing it by five days of jujitsu and three days of lifting that's just way too much and the body obviously told you that and so just scale back a little bit and and you can and you can adjust that as we go through so you know every couple weeks check check in with yourself and if you like what you're seeing or you don't then adjust yeah thanks for calling in tiffani yeah thank you guys so much thank you for all that information you put out it's so helpful to me and i know thousands of other people so thank you great thanks good luck with jitsu in your competitions thank you thank you hey serious question yeah what is the order of the belts i don't know i don't know there's few belts of jujitsu so there's only a few it takes a long time to go up so you go white blue purple brown black that's it oh that's it yeah so if you're purple you're an instructor essentially brown and black like you're so it's really it takes a long time so it takes oftentimes it takes a year and a half two years just to get a blue belt and then another year and a half or two to get a purple belt so i'm gonna do the stripes like uh taekwondo some schools do that but the traditional is like you just go blue purple and some guys some people will be 10 years in jujitsu stay at a purple belt part of part of that is they just want to go compete and beat new purple belts in competitions is that right so why okay what do you have to do i know this is totally not related to tiffany but i'm so curious right now because we thought we brought the the belt back yeah we'll come back to tiffany just a second so what do you have to do to get to the next belt that's up to the that's up to your instructor so the the more you compete the faster you'll probably move up because you can display your skill you have to be consistent you have to show technique and skill um control understanding of movement those are the things that your coach or your your sensei oh so it's completely decided by him hundred percent yeah he's but there's a lot riding on them too they're not going to promote somebody too quick right it's a reflection a hundred percent and jujitsu is very traditionally very very they don't give out belts very easy in fact some of the oldest schools it's like you ain't getting a belt unless you really prove yourself right i imagine because you're representing their their dojo or yeah so you want you want to make sure that they're badass if you gave them that that stamp yeah yeah absolutely yeah you know i felt this is just a trap a lot of people fall into where it's you don't train optimally you train to the max you can handle which is not optimal i did this for a while i was lifting i i would do jujitsu on saturday then i'd go to the gym and lift in the two hours well can you imagine her situation too she literally went out hired the best bodybuilding coach and she's got like one of the best so conflicting yeah so you know jujitsu guys like telling her everything she needs to do to be the best jitsu person you know the bodybuilding coach tell her everything she needs to be read her in half yeah it's like you the truth is you're not going to be the best at both those things while trying to do both but you could be really good yeah in both those categories but you just got to learn to kind of balance yeah it's like do if you want to compete in one well you got to take it seriously and that's what i had to do at some point but then another point like i'm not going to compete anymore so then i balanced it well too both being sports i'm always like thinking and challenging that's why i asked about off seasons like you know for some reason that's not in the mindset of you know how they're like planning out their programming and everything yeah everything is just like oh i have to take on this like every week i gotta get better and better by adding more and more and more instead of you know reducing it down just focusing on like building your body up like and taking all that time for your body recover and get strong super good point in in in jujitsu off season would be i'm just gonna go and roll light and go super easy perfect with lifting you could take it off completely 100% great that's a great take our next caller is Doug from Illinois Doug what's happening man how can we help you how you doing guys so uh first off i'd like to say thank you for putting out real information regarding health fitness wellness and nutrition um you don't see that a lot these days a lot of minutes information on the website so definitely appreciate what you guys do and just keep it up i can't look for me i can't wait to look forward to see what you guys are gonna come out with next um i've used anabolic performance in prime pro love the program so i use prime pro regularly um i'm a disabled combat veteran did two tours in afghanistan just recently had a hip replacement of august fifth of last year from when i got hurt over there um been a continuous lifter for about 15 years pretty great shape um i keep training my intercostal muscles it's kind of my question is going to go to um i'm going to do a powerlifting meet next may and um like if i just bend over and pick up my four month old son like it feels like something in my middle of my back beneath my shoulder blade kind of by the spine just keeps popping and then that pain is excruciating so i didn't know if there was anything you guys could tell me help guide me to on how to strengthen the intercostal muscles or mobilize yeah that's okay so that happens to me they say happen to me all the time too jackson jackson didn't been pollock do a really good video on this on our youtube channel a long time ago intercostals i'm not sure we'll see if we can find that i know he did some core plank stuff that he talked about in there and well obviously that's going that's going to support so i worked with a really really good movement specialist on this because i remember one day i was doing dumbbell pullovers and i pulled my intercostal so bad i literally rolled off the bench laid on the floor and i yeah i just sat there for like an hour and i got on the phone called this guy he was so nice enough to come to to see me and he we identified that i i didn't breathe properly i don't breathe fully so these muscles they expand and stretch and contract when you take a breath and because i was always tense and i'd hold my tension in my rib cage my diaphragm wouldn't fully expand these muscles were always tense and then when i do a heavy exercise i would stretch this stretch this muscle it would go beyond its ability to control itself so it's like any other mobility issue right um and it would pull i'd pop it pull i'd hear pop and then it would be just be nasty and then have to you know it would take me a couple weeks to get better or whatever so i would look at your breathing i would focus on belly breathing and and really focus on being able to expand the rib cage expand the belly and then contract them and teach them to relax that's the first thing and then the second thing i'll recommend we have till next may right that's that's when you said the powerlifting competition is yeah like i said i kind of wanted to get myself almost two years between the hip replacement you know i'm definitely a little bit weaker on my right side that was kind of i didn't know if that would lead to kind of the pain in the mid-back you know kind of being a little off balance i guess you could say because my left side is definitely more stable than my right side okay um but i didn't know just kind of wanted to let you guys know everything so you could have the best information i want you to do map symmetry dug i want you to i want you to do map symmetry um now and go slow and control the movements allow let the weaker side dictate what the stronger side does focus on your breath with each rep okay so kind of focus on that you may notice that you're tight with your breath if you if you haven't noticed already um i have asked us from being over in afghanistan being around those burn pits i actually just got diagnosed with asthma so they just put me on simbacore so i've actually been able to tell i've been a little bit breathing a little bit better since then so that might have led to it too oh wow okay so i hit the nail in the head i think so remember these muscles support your rib cage and if you're in my case this is where i hold my stress the it's like everything wants to stay tight to protect right because what's underneath what's underneath your rib cage is your heart it's a vital you have vital organs your lungs so everything stays tight there and so anytime i'd expand it beyond its capability just to to be stable especially under resistance i would end up injuring myself so um i'm pretty i'm pretty sure that uh ben polk did a really cool video i believe what we did was we asked him to give us like his how he warms up to get ready for his like heavy lifting oh cool and i think he does some really cool plank and breathing techniques i'm pretty sure i redug are you looking for it right now oh i thought i had it yeah i thought i had it posted there did you find it andrew yes on mind pump tv it's the best way to breathe for maximum power oh beautiful there you go it's a cool it's a yeah watch that i really want you guys there for love love that guy yeah yeah no he's got he's got a great yeah if you're not already following him for sure be following him because he does a lot of cool stuff around that and i think that'll that video i think will help you in a good video for you to kind of get ready into your list Doug we're gonna send you map symmetry because i think that's the work that you should do but i'm gonna tell you something else about uh proper breathing if this is indeed the case with you you'll know you're doing it right because when you start doing it you're gonna start feeling emotions come up and that sounds kind of hokey and whatever but if if you're if your breathing is is compromised because of whatever issue once you allow that breathing to happen it's gonna you're gonna unlock uh emotions that maybe haven't been processed or whatever so sometimes the clients i would have them breathe properly and they get they'd start shaking or they'd get the chills i had people cry before i felt really weird doing it myself so if you if you start to feel emotions pop up you're doing it right okay so don't shy away from that you know you're doing it you know you're doing some of these right but map symmetry will be the workout i think that'll be the perfect for you awesome hey man i definitely appreciate it man like i said you guys are i always tell everybody i always refer everybody to you guys are always asking me you know advice and stuff and i'm like i i learned most of my stuff from mine pump and watching you guys are about five six years now even even back when some of your guys because we have we have extra love for people that have stuck around that law dude for sure you really like it man you guys put out real information man like i said you see a lot of hokey pokey stuff my girlfriend's one of those tick tock instagram and she sees some of that stuff on there i'm like that is such bs baby like she she called you guys my boyfriend's you know we'll give you a big kiss through this through this uh yeah i i appreciate your service too doug thanks for calling in that's right man thank you i appreciate you fellas you guys keep it up right thanks doug you guys you guys remember the first time you had a client belly breathe and they they cried oh yeah yeah it's like i didn't really know what to do i don't do well with that stuff just started crying i'm gonna get some water you just see just to try to do it do you want a towel or something i felt the same way bro yeah i had so i had real though totally dude i so i had somebody teach me this i had a client do it they started crying and i was like uh what to do like what do i do did you guys ever see that the the wim Hof documentary when he does that where he brings everybody in yeah and they're like everybody's all crying they're crying they're having some kind of like psychedelic experience from it sometimes it's like it's pretty crazy and powerful yeah your body stores that shit and it's a part of the processing and if you don't process it stays there until you let it out when you let it out it's connected to emotion and then that shit comes out well i knew we had a really good because i remember going to see ben and i remember we and i think it's a long video is there not is it a long one andrew dud i'm trying to see how long it is here yeah i'm pretty sure what we asked him to give us is like hey well ben's always very it's seven minutes and 33 yeah like we we asked him like when you get ready to get into your lip your heavy lifts what's your your prime like your priming look like or how to get rip prepared and i do remember him doing like this plank and focusing on breathing and how he he had this whole little part to warm up how important it was to get his breathing right before he went into his lifts yeah that's great so that that'll be extremely valuable for him yeah but i think symmetry will be perfect oh that too i agree right yeah slow everything down really controlled breathing and all that's gonna do a lot our next caller is michael from texas hey what's up michael how can we help you how's it going um i am a 22 year old uh newlywed who uh just got out of being sick for a week and uh before that i was running a push pull legs uh split and so got married that the day after we got sick um and so i got out of it and went straight into a cut um so after listening to y'all is like maybe i should move from doing my push pull legs working out six days a week maybe this is a perfect opportunity getting back into the gym um to uh go into three full body workouts the way that y'all say uh and so i went into doing that and y'all have on y'all's youtube channel you guys have uh y'all's uh maps anabolic on there and so or the phase one of it so i was like i'll just try this out and i'm trying it out right now today just did my second um my second my second uh workout uh and so i got to thinking i was like if if i'm working out going from six days a week to three days a week um is my metabolism going to adjust and just drop way down and then i'm gonna gain body fat percentage or am i wrong about that yeah now if you build muscle it'll it'll it'll go in the opposite direction you'll you'll burn you'll get a faster metabolism whatever is going to build muscle on your body's more is going to be better in that particular case um but don't forget there's trigger sessions with anabolic as well so on those days off in between you know you're doing three trigger sessions a day so you're still active right and also it's not like on those days off we wreck you know you recommend you just sit around i think you still walk and be active on those days but if this programming works better for you which it probably will for about 85 percent of people full body workouts seem to be better it's going to go in the opposite direction you'll build more muscle and find that you're burning more calories yeah you're probably thinking that way because you're you're moving less because you're not going in the gym as much that you're you're oh am i going to be burning way less calories well first of all uh a weightlifting you know workout is pretty minimal as far as calories in comparison you just walk in around like you walk if you were to walk around for an hour and then you would compare the amount of calories you actually burn in a weightlifting session the difference is is minimal and if your body responds like Sal is saying to a three-day a week lifting routine better than it responds to a split you're going to end up building more muscle which is only going to speed your metabolism up so i mean pay attention how you feel i mean a lot of this has mostly to do about diet so is is your diet in check are you tracking your macros are you are you paying attention to your protein intake what is your what are you doing that stuff yeah so i have a uh a calorie tracker and so um i eat 1.1 grams of protein per pound of body weight right now since i'm going to cut um i noticed that i do a lot better with a lower carb higher fat so that's what i'm going with right now um my maintenance calories are 3100 about 3100 and so i am at 2650 sorry 2450 uh right now is what i'm in and i was going to run that for four weeks then go into um go see what my body well i wanted to see what my body looked like after that and see if i wanted to probably go into a bulk after that but the thing that i'm not too sure about i just use y'all's macro calculator on y'all's mind pump macro website and that's what gave me the 3100 um and so i put in that i was going to the gym seven or it said hours of activity seven to nine hours a week and so that's what i clicked because that's about what i was in the gym for but i'm a landscaper so i'm mowing five days a week eight hours a day and it's not just being on a mower i'm weed eating walking around on a blower in and out of flower beds pulling stuff out digging holes i'm active all day and so i wasn't sure if that would affect if i'm under consuming on calories possibly because when i was in my bulk um about a month ago i was i was like eating more and just seeing how i felt and eating more and eating more and my body felt content um at about 4100 calories and so i don't know if i'm under consuming calories the signs that you'll that you need to look for energy strength loss of strength loss of muscle now the calculator that you're talking about is a is an estimate but there's a wide there's a there's could be a wide variance between individuals so base it off of your own how you feel how's your strength how's your body fat percentage those are the things i would base it off of so are you under consuming i mean the questions i would ask you how you feel are you is your strength okay are you losing muscle are you gaining muscle if if you're losing muscle and you don't feel a lot of energy you're probably eating too little okay yeah that's yes this week sorry about that um this is my first week like lowering my hours of activity at the gym so uh this week i feel i mean granted it's only day three but i feel great um when i was running the push pull legs split that um i just made um on my own uh my own workouts and stuff i i felt really drained at work so it works best for me with my scheduled to workout first thing in the morning and then go to work and all day at work i just felt like i had no energy uh but lowering the amount of workouts i've done i have noticed that or full workouts that i've done in a week so far i've noticed that my energy is a lot better um and i do feel stronger at the gym now uh i was able to push some some pretty good weight today uh so i was happy with my performance in the gym i was just worried about my uh my metabolism if you're getting stronger you're going in the right direction yeah now you're gonna be all right now let me did you write your own three-day week program where you saw he got maps anabolic phase one from youtube you know how we put out like some yeah but let's kill in the full program though oh yeah that's just a teaser it's like a five-day teaser yep yep uh yeah yeah no Doug will send you over the full maps anabolic program just follow it to a tee bro you're i think you're and then you know check back with us in a month or two and i i bet you're gonna be feeling great so it sounds like you're already heading down the right path and based off of how much activity you have all day long i really think that a three day a week lifting full body is going to serve you a lot better than a you know five or six day body parts totally especially with the landscaping yeah totally okay um and then along the lines of that so with the anabolic i noticed that or i've heard y'all talk about you can do like you can move from barbell to dumbbell there's a variation for that um i'm working away from i hurt my back and i slipped a disc um adam you've talked about the guy on youtube uh what is it at squat university yeah and so i've watched a few of his videos and today actually was the first time deadlifting in probably two months um i only did 135 up on the bar but bending over last week would hurt my back and so just moving any weight with the deadlifts this week but i was really happy with but i'm not comfortable with a barbell yet again uh i was really comfortable with a barbell but right now it's just i don't feel comfortable doing barbell back squat so i've been doing split squat is is that okay switch over yeah yeah absolutely and you can go trap bar deadlifts if you want or don't do deadlifts at all uh for the time being until you feel comfortable or do a single leg deadlift i do unilateral work for a bit yeah like single leg deadlifts and and just focus on you know your form and control um but yeah i mean it's that's something that you know you're just gonna keep uh it's gonna keep coming up if you want to address it after you follow anabolic then i would go to symmetry based off what you just said so exactly that's a good follow-up program so after you do anabolic we're gonna send anabolic your way i think you should follow that it does have a dumbbell mod in there so if there's there's times where you you don't want to do the barbell work and you'd rather do dumbbell work it's in there for you to choose from that uh go ahead and follow that do that for a while see how your body responds to just going to three days a week full body and then i think a great follow-up program would be map symmetry totally okay all right man thanks for calling in yes sir thank you thanks for having me on guys everything y'all do is y'all help a lot of people out there and y'all just have a wealth of knowledge that uh everybody that listens to y'all show is so blessed to hear so thank y'all thank you very much i appreciate that yeah i think uh i'm glad you said what you said about the calorie burn people focus so much on that that's so it's so down the the bottom of the list especially that was before i even heard what he did for work yeah i mean the calories all day oh yeah the amount of calories he burns all day long the difference between him lifting the three days less is nothing nothing from a calorie perspective yeah yeah it's no big deal whatsoever it's it's totally true it's like you if you just walk off if you walk for an hour you'll burn more calories the most you'll be strength training workout you would it have to be a pretty intense strength training workout for it actually to exceed what a full like because you don't like when you do a strength training you rest yeah and those rest periods are enough for those heart rate that heart rate to come down again and it's and i've done this before where i'm like i looked at my calorie burn in an hour in a just in a typical not a crazy intense but also not like a light easy workout and then compared to i just go for a walk for an hour and from a calorie burn perspective it's almost the exact same thing it's crazy it's the least important thing with your workouts how many calories you burn yeah hey look if you like our information head over to mind pump free.com and check out our guides we have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal you can also find all of us on social media so justin is on instagram at mind pump justin adam is on instagram at mind pump adam and you can find me on twitter at mind pump sal