 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, mind pump, with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, for the first 20 minutes or so, we have some fun conversation. We talk about mental health. We always have fun, Sal. And physical health, and are they separate or are they the same thing? It's all one. We talk about ketones versus glucose, the benefits of each. Which one does your body run better on? Exactly. And then we talk about the increases of antidepressant use. I also mentioned Thrive Market. All that matter, all lovers out there. Exactly. I also mentioned Thrive Market in this episode. Don't forget, you can go to thrivemarket.com forward slash mind pump and get some, a bunch of free stuff, free membership, $20 off your first three orders of $49 or more, and free shipping. That's right, they love you. They do. Then we get into the questions. The first question was, what is the proper way to bulk up? Is there a more effective way? Is there a less effective way? How do we recommend you do it? Pizza bulking. The second question is, how do you read studies? In other words, what do you look for? How do you determine if the studies are credible and if you should take them seriously? I deferred this one to Sal. Yeah, like red wine burns body fat. No, it doesn't. Next question was about cardio. We talk about it in terms of if you overdo it, it may sacrifice longevity. This particular person is saying, well, if that's true, then why do we see 60-year-old triathletes who are just kicking ass? Yeah, do you want to look like a skinny raisin? Ask yourself that. Exactly. My telomeres are telling me other things. I think you just wanted to use telomeres. Yeah, telomeres. I think that's what that was. And finally, what are the top five most functional lifts? We have a little debate about that, but I think at the end, we have a consensus. Also, MAPS anabolic, it's our foundational program. It includes trigger sessions. Now, you don't find the trigger session concept almost in any other program. It's extremely effective. Unless it's being copied. It's the program that kind of got us our start. If you haven't done any of our programs, this is the place to get started. It is excellent for building strength, building muscle. It's a three-phased workout. Three days a week. It's about nine weeks long, not counting pre-phase. If you count pre-phase about 12 weeks long, extremely effective. You can find it at Mind Pump Media. Don't forget, too. All the programs have a 30-day money-back guarantee also. That's right. I did want to talk to you guys about something kind of interesting. When we went, we met with Rob Wolf. Then we had Chris Cressor here, which we don't know when his episode's gonna air if it was before this one or after. But anyway, Chris Cressor, brilliant guy in the world of functional medicine and wellness. And we're talking about this silent epidemic, the mental health epidemic that's exploding. That's crazy. And it completely mirrors the physical health epidemic. We know now how poor health contributes to anxiety, depression, ADHD, all these mental disorders. And then we're medicating on top of that and we're getting all the symptoms or is resulting from that as well. Well, but besides that, we are seeing, we have this explosion in poor health. Of course, we're gonna have this explosion in poor mental health. So I looked up some statistics. This is gonna blow you guys away. Well, is this from the study he sent over to you? Or is this some token? No, no, no. So that spurred it, because he did send me a study. So the study that he showed me was that people with autoimmune inflammatory disorders, like irritable bowel syndrome or multiple sclerosis are at much, much, much higher risk for mental disorders like depression or anxiety. And that's an obvious connection, especially now that we have studies that show how inflammation contributes to those and how poor gut health contributes to those and all that stuff. But it's just incredible how we try to separate the two when they're actually both, the one and the same health is health. And so I looked up some statistics. I said, okay, we know physical health is gone to shit. And it's just getting, it seems to be getting worse in many, many ways. Let's look at statistics for antidepressant prescriptions for- In regards to life. How many prescriptions are being put out? How many people are diagnosed now with depression, anxiety? Well, when my wife went in to get like, for a thyroid, you know, and her thyroid was low. So they're prescribing right away. They wanted to give her an antidepressant. That was the first thing just because they could treat something right then. Off of her thyroid? Yeah. That was the next, that was the go-to- Because her symptoms presented themselves in a common way that many times you don't have necessarily something measurable, although she did have low thyroid. So that was the remedy. Right. Yeah, you're right. That's like the first line of defense. But my point is mental illnesses are exploding in this country and suicide is at all-time highs and in most age groups, suicide. All this stuff is, and then we're like, we're living in a time where things are- We're not combining that at all. The thought process isn't like- Everybody thinks the mental part is- Yeah, but I would say that's all genetic. What's hard is you have to tease out everything, right? You have to tease out that, you know, our population is increasing at a rapid rate. Then you bring in the stuff that, and I know people are probably tired of being- Well, it's a percentage of population, so that wouldn't matter because- Oh, it was a percentage, it's not person. You're not- No, no, that's not total numbers. Okay, so percentage. So that does tease that out. But then you have to take into account other factors that I think actually play into this also, which is like social media. 10 years now we have, that's all we have of this data of all these people, you know, posting pictures of themselves and getting likes or not getting likes and the, oh my God, nobody likes me type of bullshit. Like, that didn't exist. It exaggerates, yeah. That didn't exist 15 years ago. When we were kids, it wasn't like that. Like, if you were sad and depressed because you didn't have friends because nobody knocked on your door and no one wanted to play with you or you were picked last. Like, that was it. Like, there wasn't, like, I wasn't just getting this constantly bombarded with, oh, I don't feel good about myself. You just see more status, right? I wasn't in check, like, constantly. So that's what I thought too. And I would definitely bet that social media plays a role. We don't have enough data yet because it hasn't been around long enough yet. But I would definitely bet, if I were to bet money, I would bet it does. Although science has an interesting way of proving us wrong, right? However, if you look at the growth of diagnosis of these mental disorders, it's been growing since the obesity epidemic began. So way before social media exploded, you see this rise, 80s, 90s, early 2000s, that's continued rise. So it's not like we saw this kind of constant amount and then this jump. Well, then the debate with that would then be just the awareness of it and then people sharing it. And we're now familiar with it because go back another 20 years or 30 years before that and it was something that we didn't even diagnose, right? Well, suicides, suicides are up too in all age groups. I mean, for me, if I look at the whole thing, I think there's a lot of factors that you can speculate. But the one that I think is pretty guaranteed, at least for me and the science show this, although a lot of people don't talk about this, is if your physical health is poor, you're probably not gonna have great mental health or at least your odds of having poor mental health are much higher. I don't, and it's interesting to me that this is even a debate with a lot of people. We have studies that show that exercise and nutrition are as effective or more effective than antidepressants for treating mild to moderate depression. That's already established. Well, and this goes back to what we talked about before too that a lot of people think they feel good because they don't know what great feels like or they've never felt their body at optimal and what it feels like. So even those that are running around that maybe carrying themselves 20, 30, 40 pounds overweight and eating whatever the fuck they want. And they feel like, oh, I'm totally fine. I feel, I don't feel like I'm not healthy, but that's because they've never actually cleaned up everything. They don't know what their brain feels like or their body feels like when it's running optimally. And even speaking from experience, I remember when we went through the whole ketogenic process and for the first time in my life, I was eating under 100 grams of carbs on a daily basis. And it was a significant difference in my cognitive function. I mean, I could tell when we would podcast like this. Like it's, you know, we talk on this goddamn thing all the time. And, you know, we're talking about all kinds of topics and subjects and we're recalling studies and remembering information that I fucking learned years ago and stuff. And when I'm low, lower carb, higher fat diet, I'm way sharper than when I am. And I've played with this multiple times and I've been like, oh, let me introduce another two, 300 grams of carbs. That's what I found from fasting. Same thing, so much sharper as a result of that. And once you got through the actual hurdles of learning how to navigate in that situation and what real hunger actually feels like and then when I actually need food and when it's gonna benefit me the most. So did you know there's some recent studies now that are showing that a ketogenic type diet can help treat or can be used as a treatment for anxiety and mild depression? They're actually showing now that exactly what you said. Now, I wanna be clear, it's not the answer to everything. I think it may be good for a lot of people. And I think when people are in a study like that. It's not gonna hurt people to try it though. What I think is when you're in a study like that, they probably went in with a shitty diet. And so, yes, it was keto, but it was also probably an improvement. Right, you have to unpack that, right? It's not the fact that it's the ketogenic diet that it's now making these people feel better or less depressed. It's probably the overconsumption of processed foods and sugar and carbohydrates and then the switching over to probably more whole foods, higher, good, healthy fats. And that it's really not the diet. I think that's what we were always trying to get that message across that it's not this, such thing as a magical diet that's gonna make a person feel this way. But there are characteristics that come from a ketogenic diet which is eating a higher. Running on ketones like feel what that feels like. A lot of people don't understand like, you know when your brain like really like it thrives with ketones. Like it's interesting. It's on that topic of running on ketones versus like glucose. You know, it's funny to me like, I prefer glucose if I'm like an athlete. Like if I was always playing sports, like I wasn't there as a media. Right, but as an older adult who doesn't play sports every day of his life anymore, I prefer running on ketones, you know, for mental clarity purposes, satiety, you know, no cravings, things like that. It just seems like the body operates on that system better. And then if you're an athlete, then I get it. It seems more efficient, yeah. Right, yeah. But like if you're trying to be explosive or like do things like sprinting or, you know, that then obviously like for me, like glucose makes a lot more sense. Well, exogenous ketones are, I've used them as a new tropic. So I'll supplement with them sometimes if I want to be more sharp and I'll take the exogenous ketones and I'll take it with like another natural new tropic or I'll combine it with like the, you know, like Camero Coffee that's got the new tropics. Yeah, you're the only one that's been really experimenting with the exogenous ketones, right? Have you done any of that, Adam? I've taken them like twice. I'm not a big fan. You know, who was it we just recently discussed? Rob Wolf. Was it Rob Wolf? Yeah, you know. He made some good points. You know, he talked about like here you've got the exogenous ketone supplements, you take them so they do raise your ketone levels in your body. So now you do have ketones, but people are taking this who also have adequate glycogen and, you know, carbohydrates in their system. It is still in their system. So now, Sending two different signals. Not only are you sending two different signals, but the only time a human body will have high levels of both ketones and, you know, carbohydrates or glycogen present is in ketoacidosis when they're diabetic and they're not, you know, it's unhealthy statement. Yeah, it's unhealthy, yeah. Yeah, otherwise it doesn't happen in nature. You don't get ketones unless you run out of glycogen and not to mention too, we're splitting hairs here too. Like to me, and it's expensive as fucking supplement. Yeah, it is, man. Those things are like 50, 60 bucks a pop for like a... Remember how much CBD? Oh, we're looking into that. Dude, it should, yeah, no, it's just exactly. No, it's a great example. CBD is another one that we promote, talk about because of the benefits that we have found. I mean, we just had an episode where we discussed about the health benefits behind marijuana, but, you know, of course what we're gonna do is we'll take a little bit of that science and good information, we're gonna package it into a supplement, wrap everything around it, make it sound like it's a fucking miracle supplement and charge you $60 to take this fucking CBD with it. And it's just like, that's ridiculous. Like for the amount of advantage that you're getting for that, unless like we talked about earlier, if this was somebody who's got cancer or it's like, then at all costs, I'm trying everything I possibly can, but for the everyday person who's trying to use ketones for better performance or fat loss or it's like, come on, you're splitting hairs, I would much rather invest that money in something else that is gonna benefit you long term. So I got some statistics here for you based on what we were talking about earlier with mental health disorders. So from 1999 till 2014, there's been a 65% increase. Wow, 65? And the amount of people using antidepressants. So huge jump. 65%? Increase, right? Huge jump. Now, there could be, there's two sides of that too, right? Cause that could be the over-pushing from the fucking medical side too. Agreed. Because it's easy, it's more accepted because it's already going, so then they're pushing it on top of it. It's quick, easy. It's a condition they can treat, right? Real quick, so. I agree, I agree, but it's- And we probably know they're addictive, so it's just like a drug dealer. Well, I mean, they're not necessarily addictive, but they will have dangerous withdrawal symptoms when you go off of them. That's addictive, motherfucker. That's fucking addictive. So here's the thing, when you look at countries who have this kind of poor health epidemic, you see the similar type of pattern, although the U.S. kills everybody in per capita prescription drugs. I mean, it's incredible. We are one of the most, we are the most- We're the biggest drug dealer in the world, bro. Yeah, by far. 100% were the biggest drug dealers. Here's some more statistics. Adults between 20 and 44, the prescriptions of anti-ADHD medication and anti-anxiety medications has increased 30%. So that's gone through the roof as well. Basically across the board, these psychiatric medications have exploded and the diagnosis have exploded. And I think we're in the middle of a health epidemic that encompasses everything, not just physical health. And I don't know about you guys, but I've been training for 20 years. I don't remember as many clients telling me that they're on these medications or suffering from anxiety like now. Now it's normal. Yeah, anxiety is everywhere. It's normal. When I talk to a client, like nine to 10 times, that is something that they wanna work on. It wasn't ever really, I don't remember- There's just so many factors that contribute to that. Besides the poor nutrition and the poor stress and all this stuff like just being connected all the time on your phone and just not being able to unplug. And we talked about this and had people on the show that have highlighted the addictive properties and just how real that is and how we're just bombarded. We're overstimulated. Do you think part of it though is just that it's become more accepted and so that's part of why? It's just like, oh, it's the norm. It's like, oh, Susie and Tommy and so and so, they take- Well, I'm communicating. They take Adderall and they take this. I definitely think that's part of it because as it becomes less taboo then more people are willing to ask for it and then so on. Because when I was a kid, that didn't even exist. Like that wasn't even in school. You didn't talk about it at least. Nobody I knew. I didn't know any kids when I was in high school and all. They wouldn't have talked about it, that's for sure. Oh, you think so? If it was your prescription that you were getting it, it was more you're embarrassed about it or whatever? Because kids have been getting prescribed. Back in the day. No, it has been, but not like it where it's, I mean, so you gotta go back. Remember, that's 15 plus years ago for me, right? So that's over 15 years ago. That was not normal whatsoever. It wasn't until like maybe watching my younger siblings go through school and stuff like that. Did you hear kids, you know, taking fucking Adderall and all your other, and what's the other, Ritalin and yeah, all these other drugs to, you know, so they could study all night long and stay up like that. I wasn't introduced to any of that shit. I wish I would have. I probably would have done it even better. Take a status for performance. Would have been at least a three, five or a fucking four-oh like that. Yeah, I would have been stuck on this goddamn podcast with you motherfuckers, that's for sure. You would have been like a PhD something and had a supplement company. But I mean, again, just to me, the scary part about that stuff is, you know, anybody that has dabbled with Adderall or Ritalin and you know what it's, I mean, fuck, bro, it's like the best cup of coffee you've ever had in your life. And, you know, if you're a kid who's trying to study and work- Bro, the base molecule is, I mean, like methamphetamine, it's a methamphetamine drug. It's legal, that's the only difference. It's legal crack is what it is. And you know, you get your hands on that at a very young age. Talk about what that's setting you up for long term. Well, I mean, besides the psychological dependence, you have a developing brain, which, your brain is plastic, in other words, it reacts to its environment and your nutrition and stuff and that'll direct how it develops and where it's gonna develop more connections or it's gonna have less connections. So you can't tell me that taking a psychiatric drug doesn't, isn't gonna affect that in some way. And of course, there's definitely people out there that need these substances, these drugs, but I don't think it's, number one, I don't think it's as many as we think, but number two, I do think that because our health is worse, because our gut biomes are so off and that gets passed on generation to generation, because they do find, from generation to generation, the gut microbiome becomes less diverse each time because you get a lot of your fingerprint from your mom. And so if hers is worse, then yours is gonna be worse. And then, if your girl has kids, and then it's gonna work. You know, I was thinking about that as far as like, you know how they're coming in for like stem cell and all that stuff, and they're gathering all this for like further science, like down the road. Like, I was wondering about that as far as like the microbiome, like if somebody were to kind of have like really quality microbiome that they swab, you know, with a newborn, to set them up, you know. Fuck that even better. The hard part is like, we don't even know what a quality of microbiome is. Well, we don't know it yet. I'm saying down in the future. For sure. You know what I mean? 100% when they figure this out, we are gonna see medications where it's specific bacteria for specific things. Oh, you have. And I'm not even exaggerating. Well, they're already somewhat playing with that when they swipe the mom's vaginal canal when after a C-section, right? I mean, you're basically putting, you're putting bacteria into their system or their mouth. But what I'm talking about is, and you mark my words, this is gonna happen. Thank God we don't remember that. Yeah, it happened. This is gonna happen in medicine. They are going to make specific strengths. Or do you, did you have this weird, or do those kids- Is that like imprinted in your head? Or do those kids have a weird fucking relationship with their mothers? You know what I'm saying? They could be. Has anyone done a study on that yet? I don't know. That's something that I haven't. How long have they been doing that for? Has anybody done a study on that? Well, it wasn't that long ago. I mean, when C-sections were like a dime a dozen, not that long ago, then we found out that it was the percentage of kids that were born with autism that went through C-sections. It was- Well, it's just higher rates of allergies and all kinds of different things. But how long ago was that? It wasn't 10 years ago, was it? No. So we don't know. There's always a cause and effect to everything. So we might have fixed the allergies, but now you have this weird sexual addiction to mothers. No, dude. First of all, if you're born naturally, you come through her vagina. That's why all that's on you porn. Well, swab, coming through mom's vagina and getting it swabbed in your mouth are like two different things to do. Not really, dude. Not really. I got an idea. Would you rather be swabbed my toe and put it in your mouth or do you want me to put my whole foot up on my mouth? Come on, man. Let's clean it up in here. I don't want to talk about that. Anyway, what I was going to say is they're going to design specific medications of specific strains for particular ailments, including mental ailments. Mark my words. You will see here, take this probiotic for depression, for anxiety, for whatever, and people are going to be taking them. That's going to be a huge part of medicine. Yeah, the question that I have with that then, is it better for us to use probiotics like that to kind of create this healthy bacteria or is it better to, again, address lifestyle, eating habits, things like that to promote a healthier gut? I don't think many cases we're not going to have a choice. That's the problem. You know what I mean? I think that's going to be the problem. It's going to be like a... What do you mean? I think we'll always have the choice. I think the way our lifestyles are going, we are 100% heading in that direction because that's still better than the route we're going right now, right? So I agree with you on that. But then you have to ask yourself, I could see it being not as good for us than it would be to change behaviors, habits, not go through certain... Ideally both, right? Right, right. Or just the lifestyle. Yeah, right. I think it'll always go back. Overall, yeah. I think it'll always go back. Even, remember when I told you guys, I started supplementing with vitamin D after you shared the Harvard study with me, right? You liked the D. Yeah, that's right. So he's the one. Yeah, it is, right? After that, then it kind of dawned on me, like, well, when I really noticed this happen was when I started working in gyms. I mean, I was literally born taking in the sun all day. From sun up, sun down, I was in the sun to the point where I had a really, really dark complexion. And it wasn't until, and until I was in my 20s when I started working in gyms did I not have that lifestyle anymore. And it took about four or five years and all of a sudden out of nowhere, here comes psoriasis. And then you shared the study with me years down the road and I'm medicating with steroids, doing all these things like that to suppress the psoriasis. Meanwhile, I've got this vitamin D deficiency that should have been fucking obvious, right? Knowing that vitamin D is correlated with all almost skin issues. And then it makes so much sense to me that I went from being somebody in my entire life that was exposed to tons of sun lightening, tons of vitamin D, more than my body probably needs, to all of a sudden getting like zero. Literally, like, because I would, well, I would work. It's got more freckly. I would get to the gym before the sun came up and I would work till the sun came down. So, and for years, that's where it was. And then all of a sudden this comes down. And you know vitamin D acts like a hormone in the body, right? Right. So another, yeah, right. So affecting that also. Oh, all kinds of shit. Right. And so for me, so then I started supplementing vitamin D and noticed it helped suppress my psoriasis. But then I go like, okay, well, I'm one step better than what I was before. I'm still not like the ideal. Ideal would be in the sun. Yeah, so now I've tried to, and I know that people, our fans love to hear when we like implement things like this in our life. So, you know, the other day I had to take a call, right? And I was on the phone, it was just a business call and it was like a 45 minute call. And I was sitting in my living room because that's, I was sitting there on the computer working and it was still sunny outside. And I'm like, what am I doing? Like I could, I just stepped right outside, sat in a chair. It was a beautiful day. It was like 75 degrees. Like why? Right. And it felt amazing and I felt so good afterwards. But just having to retrain myself to think about that like, wow, how easily I could just kind of cut that out of my life. It was such a part of my life as a child and you don't think of course twice about it. Then I get older and now because my body finally has expressed itself and said, fuck you, here's psoriasis for being an asshole and never being in the sun anymore. And then I go see, then I go see, then I go talk to Western medicine and they say, here's a steroid for it. Take some shots. Here's some pills. Put some cream on it. Put some cream on it. And then I'm like the rest of my life rubbing cream on myself and not realizing that, every time I get stressed out just a little bit about putting the cream on myself, that's flaring it up more anyways. And so playing this game forever and then it's years later, you hand me a study about vitamin D being correlated to it. And it's like, okay, let me try supplementing. Then, oh my God, oh, I should have just been outside more. And not to mention the side effects of those steroids and creams you had to use. Right. Which sucks. It blows my mind that you go somewhere like that and they don't even mention that. But part of it's our fault. How many people do you think if they went to the doctor and the doctor goes, okay, I'm looking at your lab results right now and here's what you need to do. I want you to exercise three days a week. You need to get better exercises. Go outside at least 20 minutes a day. And here's your new diet. And here's your new diet. And then they hand it to them. How many people would do it? You know what's crazy? You're right. Even I wouldn't do it. But if you explain to me why I'm supposed to go out and what I'm more than likely- So you see the flare ups, you're actually gonna like take that into consideration. Right. I think that's the missing piece, right? And this is why no one does that because you get 12 minutes with your doctor. So he's fucking blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then tells you what to do and then you're off. But instead, if I really understood that I have this deficiency, more than likely that's the main reason, right? Whether it be I was genetically predisposed or not. Like here I have this deficiency from vitamin D because I'm no longer in the sun. So hey, I'm gonna give you this cream or what about that? But really what you should do is get out and get in the sun as much as you can because you're deficient in vitamin D and that's one of your greatest sources of getting vitamin D is that way. And maybe here's some food choices that you should make sure are in your diet and like, oh, okay, thank you, you know? It's, you know what though? They do that for certain things. Like when people go to the doctor and they're given a statin or blood pressure medication, I know because I have family members that go to the doctor and the doctor will say to them, okay, we're gonna have to raise your blood pressure medication, but you know, if you just lost weight and you exercise and you wouldn't have to take as much and you know what they do? They go take the fucking- Double dosing. Yeah, they go take more medication, dude. They're lazy as fuckers. And they're my family members. My family do the same thing. They just tell them like, listen, you need to work out. You need to write, nope, I don't want to get away here. You're healthy, you're taking a bunch of pills. So, yeah. Let me do this way. They get pissed off when they have to take a pill more than once a day. That's too much. Do you know how many people go to the doctor and like, what do you mean I gotta take it twice a day? Don't you have one I can take once a day? I don't have to remember to take it twice. I want to take a course pill. That's too much work, I had to remember it again. It's true, dude. Gobble it down. It sucks. No, it is. It's an uphill battle. Doug, you better bring on that fucking burge. Sheesh. Green Quo. The Eagle has landed. Chimaera Quo. Today's Quo is being brought to you by Chimaera Coffee. It's the only coffee that is infused with all natural neutral picks for a cleaner, calmer, and more focused buzz without the crash. Put the Chimaera link at mindpumpmedia.com and input the discount code Mindpump a check out for 10% off. It's the motherfucking Quo. The Eagle has landed. Quiqua. All right, first up is X-Griffo. Proper way to bulk up. Do you recommend it to build muscle? So, bulking up is the old school way of bulking up is eating a tremendous amount of calories, calories, excuse me, for a prolonged period of time, gaining lots of weight, because that's what's going to happen, and you get stronger and you build more muscle. There definitely is an anabolic effect from eating more calories. Even people who are sedentary, if they boost their calories, will get initially, there's evidence to show that they'll build a tiny bit of muscle initially, and then they kind of lose that effect. Now, that even happens with people who work out. If you dramatically bump your calories, initially you'll get a lot of strength, a lot of muscle gain, but that starts to come down really quick, and then it becomes just fat gain. So that's one thing to consider. The second thing to consider is, the best time to do a bulk is right after you do a cut. That is an incredible feeling. And I have never felt, and I've taken, I've taken over-the-counter pro hormones, I've taken all these different things, supplements, whatever, there is, I can't think of a more anabolic muscle building feeling than going from a cut to a bulk. I mean, it's like, it's pronounced. Well, there's so many things that are benefiting you there, like that, why you get that, right? You get this anabolic rebound because you've been in a deficit for several weeks. I wish I would have known this, because my first, you know, fat loss, weight cut ever in my entire life was at fucking 29 years old. Like I didn't, my whole life I was on the bulk because I was the skinny kid who was always trying to build- You want to maintain your muscle muscle. Trying to build muscle. So never in my mind would I ever think, oh, for the next three to four weeks, I'm gonna try and lose weight. That just seems absurd. But had I known what I know now and had I gone through what I went through in my late 20s, this is what I highly recommend to any of the young hard gainers, and I say that in quotation mark, right? So for anybody who wants to build is to actually first go on a short mini cut for two or three weeks where you're actually restricting calories and dieting like you're trying to lose and then going back the other direction. You'll get such a crazy anabolic. You'll get a crazy anabolic. You'll have lowered your, you'll have lowered your caloric intake that's necessary to bulk and build because normally guys that are hard gainers like myself or had a hard time getting enough calories, you know, if I'm constantly feeding, shoving, shoving food, my body's getting used and used to processing that much food. On top of that, would you also suggest like maybe a day of protein fasting? So that way, when you come back in to the bulk part of it, like you get even more responsive? Well, yeah, even or intermittently fasting. Like, so what I would do is I would run, like this is the protocol I would run now. Like if I was the skinny kid trying to bulk up and build muscle, knowing what I know now and understanding physiology the way I do now compared to what I did in my early 20s, I would cut first for two or three weeks where I'm pushing as low calorie as my body can handle where it's relative from where you're at right now trying to lean out. Cause part of what I'm doing by doing that too is your metabolism is going to slow down. Like your leptin's going to get suppressed. It's the opposite of what we tell people to do when they wouldn't have a slow metabolism. Right, right. It's the opposite, right? So I'm kind of trying to do that. I'm trying to, in a sense, kind of slow my metabolism down by cutting, reducing, reducing calories. And then I'm going to come back the other way. And when I come back the other way, you reintroduce 500 calories more than wherever your new maintenance is at and you're going to feel like a fucking champ. You do. And in fact, when I coach people through bulking now, even through their period of bulking, I have them inject low calorie days. So the same, okay, so it's really no different than how I would recommend someone cut. When I'm telling, when someone's trying to get leaner. Right, we actually tell them to add calories first. I'll undulate their calories and I'll give them a day or two that are higher calories cause I know it helps the metabolism. With someone who's trying to bulk, it's just the reverse, it's the flip. I'll have them most days being a big surplus and then there's going to be a day or two where they're actually going to be in a deficit. That's another way I like to use it. And when people do that, they get more lean body mass and more strength gains from it and less fat gains from it. And I know you're listening right now. Some of you listening were thinking, I don't care if I gained some body fat. I'm really skinny. No, no, no, you would rather gain muscle. That's the point. The point isn't necessarily, you don't want to gain fat, although a lot of you don't. The point of it is, you'll build more muscle as a result of utilizing- If you are not anabolically enhanced and you are trying to do this like everybody else you see on fucking Instagram doing it, you're going to have a hard ass time because what's going to happen is you're going to put on, if you do what they call the dirty bulk or just get big, right? You just need a bunch of shit. It's winter and this is coming up right now. You're about to see all the- Dirty bulk season. All the Instagram turds are going to start posting there. It's bulk season. Everybody- Fruity pebble pizzas. Everybody is pop and pop tarts and we're going to go up 20, 30 pounds because it's winter and it's bulk season. And out of that 20 pounds, 16 of it's fat, four of it is actually muscle. So you did put some lean mass on. That's why you feel your strength go up and you feel stronger in the gym and you look bigger. You're feeling your shirts out. Then you decide you're going to come back the other way and you go to an extreme cut to lose that- And you're back where you started. And you're back where you started. And if you're very lucky, you're up one pound of muscle. You've been way better off gradually building it up. I am speaking from personal experience. Every year I would get my, so I'm six feet tall, right? I weigh now, I walk around about 190 pounds. I used to get my body weight up to between 220 to 230 every winter. Every winter I would gain 30 to 40 pounds. And then every summer I'd drop it down and try and get to about 10% body fat, which would be probably anywhere between 190, something in the mid 190s. Every year I would do this. And I'd always come back the same. It wasn't like I was gaining muscle every year. It was the same kind of back and forth. And it just wasn't as effective as when I started to learn how to do these mini cuts and mini bulks where I'd go on a two, like a two week deficit and then go on a four week surplus, two week deficit, four week surplus. Of course, overall, surplus is, I'm in a surplus more often because my ultimate goal is to gain. But I would always have these deficits because I would notice just tremendous effects when I come out of them, bump up those calories. It would like, it would all go to my muscle. In fact, if I got myself really lean, cause there's a couple of times where I got myself down into like a four, you know, the 5%, 6% body fat range, I would bulk and for two or three weeks, I would stay, I would be shredded. I would be shredded still. I would just get bigger. And it was like the most awesome, it's like one of the most awesome feeling. So that's the proper way to bulk. The improper way to bulk is to eat a shit ton of food all the time, consistently, week in, week out. You're gonna lose the anabolic effect within a few weeks and it's just gonna become like fat storage. And not to mention, once as a male, once we get beyond, what is it, 15, 17% body fat, our testosterone starts to suppress. It can start to affect it. I think it's around 20%, but yeah. Yeah, I think it's more like 15. Is it really? Yeah, I think so. 15 for a male and maybe it's 20, 25 for a female, right? Once you start getting around that 15% plus of body fat for a male, your hormone levels start to dip, which that's the last thing we want to happen if we're trying to build muscle is to suppress testosterone at all. Well, fat is a estrogen sensitive hormone and high, high amounts of body fat. In men act like estrogen and you'll see estrogenic like quality. Men get boobies. And they do, they do. So yep, that's the proper way to bulk. Mini cuts, mini bulks. We talk about, you know what? There's, we did a YouTube video. You and I did a YouTube video. We did that. We talked exactly about this. Yeah, so you should, on Mind Pump TV, you can go find where Sal and I discuss, I think, underlating calories or something. So what are some of your guys' like now, right? Now that we know better, what are, cause I'm gonna actually, actually I'm gonna do a bulk pretty soon. I'm gonna do a bulk, a mini bulk, which I haven't done in a while, like a concentrated one. I'm gonna do it towards the end of November going into December. I have it all planned out. And, but the way I do it now is very different. Like the way I used to do it was all calories. Like anything I could eat, I would eat. And the more I could eat the better. Now I'm gonna be eating, you know, I'll use things like white rice, buckwheat, which are my two favorite sources of starchy, you know, gluten-free carbohydrates. I'll eat lots of bison or ground, ground beef, grass-fed ground beef. Chicken, tuna, that kind of stuff. Avocados, macadamia nuts for my fat sources. Just high-quality, high-calorie foods is what I'll end up eating a lot more of. But I'll have, I will do more of the starches. Buckwheat in particular. I don't know if you guys ever eat buckwheat. I don't really get buckwheat. You ever eat buckwheat? You ever eat pancakes? You ever eat buckwheat pancakes? No, Stax does buckwheat pancakes. And I've had them not that long ago, but it's not something, it's not a regular thing in my diet. I know Thrive Market is where, isn't that where you get yours? Yes, so they have these buckwheat, I'm gonna look up the name. Maybe Doug can find it for me, the brand that I get. These buckwheat pancakes that are amazing. And so, and I don't put tons of syrup in it. What does it call for? So the buckwheat is obviously replacing the flour. So you're getting the buckwheat, and then what else, do you have to add eggs to it or anything like that? Or is it literally like- Oh, it's a mix. I'm sure that's part of it. You add water in the mix. That's it? You just add water. What? Yeah, yeah, you add water to it. I think you're making your shit wrong. Really? Yes, I showed you guys the other day. I know you did, but you didn't show me you making it though. You didn't have to put eggs, no milk, no nothing in it. You literally just water in the mix, really. Yep, yep, and they have ones made with buckwheat. They have some that are paleo, that are made with almond flour, and is that the one? Arrowhead, yeah. Arrowhead. Yeah, so that's one of them. And then there's another brand that I also eat. How much is that? 395. That's it? Yeah. Damn. Dude, there's so many companies that are doing this, like at the fitness conventions, like this is like a big thing, right, is all the pancake mix. The mixes? Yeah, all the mixes. They retail them for like 15, 20 bucks, dude, for these bags. Are those because of their protein? Well, yeah, some of them are, you know. Okay, here we go. Everything's got protein now. That's what I'm saying, like everything's protein. So here's the other brand, I like, it's Birchbenders, and they have a protein pancake and waffle mix. They have a paleo pancake and waffle mix, and they have a regular one. And my kids love them, but anyhow. So both brands are on Thrive Market? Both brands, so Birchbenders is the other one that I like. Yeah, see, that one is really, really good. Oh, they have a protein one? Yeah, yeah, look at the protein one, and look at the... Even the protein one's 479. 479, dude. Okay. And Whole Foods, that's almost $7, by the way. What I like to do is I'll make these in the morning, and I'll just put butter on them and eat them just like that, because I don't use syrup. And they taste good. Dude, they're fucking great. But I also like just straight up buckwheat that you can make into like a cream of wheat type of cereal. And it's just, buckwheat is such an easy thing to digest. And if anybody, if you're listening and you have good issues and you want to get in more starches, because you're just trying to build muscle or get more calories, buckwheat is an excellent source of easily digestible gluten-free carbohydrates. Man, I'm not using our Thrive Market enough. I didn't realize all these products. Bro, you need to buy... Like everything's in there. Look at, okay, so the protein one has whey protein in it, already there. All you do is add water. So there you go. 16 grams of protein per serving. Oh, wow, dude. Yeah, for the protein pancakes. I don't have that one, because it's got dairy in it. It's such a wuss. You need to, dude, you need to do all your shopping there. No, I know, I haven't. Decide to be proud. Katrina has bought a few things on there for us, but I haven't gone on and like really done like a... What I want to do is, and we're due this week, to go hit like our Whole Foods Run. Instead of going to Whole Foods, I'm going to order everything, see if we can order everything off of there. I want to do that, too. I've just been doing condiments and like shampoos and all those types of things. But yeah, I want to get more of the food. They have that wide of a selection. Everything. Yeah, they even, and they have competitors for similar type stuff, too. Everything, everything you'll find at Whole Foods, you'll find there, except for the perishables. Like you're not going to get tomatoes. You know what, I know when we interviewed him, he told, I can't remember how many different products they had. Do you remember the number? No, it was a lot. It was a lot. And I'm wondering what that is in comparison to like Whole Foods and some of your normal stores like that. I think they rival that, right? Yeah, I'm sure they're adding them all the time. Oh, no. They're up there. Yeah, that's crazy. Well, for the listeners, thrivemarket.com and then you get like all kinds of stuff that I can never remember and that we get in trouble for not remembering. I think it's, what is it? Free membership. We have too much stuff. For free membership, you get your first three orders or $20 off each order. That's $49 or more. Yeah, $49 or more, plus free shipping. Plus free shipping. Right, and the way it works, it's a $60 a year membership, similar to like how Costco does it, but the cool part is... You do the mine pump code, you get that. It's basically... Yeah, if you use the mine pump code, you get the free month and then you get $20 off your next three purchases as long as it's over $49. You basically get the money back that you'd have on the membership. So, and what's so awesome that a lot of people don't realize how it works and like how they can get away with being so cheap is that, and getting the product for wholesale is that there's hardly any margins on the selling of the food. They cut out all the middlemen and then what they do is where they make their money is the memberships. You know, their membership is where they make their money. They're not making it on the per item. Like you said, it's the Costco model online. Yeah, no, it's brilliant with Whole Foods, right? So, I mean, you're getting all organic Whole Foods instead of your Costco... Excellent, excellent stuff. Next question is from Taylor24. Can you give any insight on how to read studies? What to look for and how to determine if they are credible? Well, ask the study, man. This is a good... Ask Google magic over there. Study Sal, Professor Sal. Google magic, that's like my... You know what? That's like my name at Burning Man. Google is funny was today. Google magic. Hey, it's Google magic. He's so shiny. You never cease to amaze me with some of the things that you're able to recall. I mean, for listeners, literally I walked in this morning, one of the books, audio books I'm listening to right now is called Subliminal. And I came in to like... I told Sal, I said, man, you would love this book. It's about the unconscious mind and the conscious mind and they totally cite all these studies and I start to tell the study and he finishes the rest of the study. And I was just like, this motherfucker, I can't even one up you on this. Like, I don't know how you remember these studies and do you have a source that you go to, that's your go-to spot or are you all over the whole PubMed? Like, where are we talking about here? So I think... I've been thinking about this and I think most of us have this ability. It's just four things that we find super compelling. So I waste my time on baseball cards? Well... Fuck! Well, think about it this way. Think about it this way. I wish it don't work. Think of your hobbies and the things you really love to do the most. You probably know like the different names of whatever, whether it's cars or shoes or clothes or TV shows or quotes from a particular actor or whatever. For me, it's just for whatever reason it studies and it has, there was no value in it whatsoever until I got a podcast. So thank God we have a podcast. Now I can use this totally worthless, you know. Found your purpose. Yeah, it was cool at like parties and stuff and that was it. It's a party. It's good to see them up there with like a smoker's jacket. Just, hey guys, I want to tell you about this microbiome city. Did I read three years ago PubMed? Anybody? Where'd everybody go? Great way to pick up on girls. Hey, did you know blue eyes didn't show up until 30,000 years ago? What? Oh my God. Please share that. That's the truth. That's true, isn't it? I called you pussy. So no, I've heard this before. Okay, so blue eyes weren't always around. No, no, it's a relatively new, I don't know how long ago it was. Maybe it was 30,000 years ago, but it's a relatively new in the whole scheme of things. So what were the common colors? Do you remember all this stuff? No, I don't remember that. I know brown. Oh yeah. It was the most common one. I don't know. And again, it's random. I'll remember random shit. It's not directed, you know what I'm saying? I can't direct it. So here's the thing with studies. Bits and pieces. This is a good question because you see a lot of sensationalized articles on your social media that will say things like, red wine boosts fat loss. Super biased stuff. Yeah, eat chocolate if you want to gain muscle or a compound in chocolate was found to prevent Alzheimer's or whatever. And so you'll read these headlines and you're gonna be like, oh shit. And then you share it and you're like, dude, check out the study. It's fricking awesome. What you need to do is you need to look into the study and look at a few things. Controls. Number one, look at the sample size. So that means how many people are in the study? There's four people. You're relevant. They see studies like that. You're good. And you could pick four random people and just by chance pick four similar people who are then gonna skew the fuck out of a study or even 10 people. Like if I took 10 people from a gym and I sampled them and asked them fitness questions, they're gonna, the answers I'm gonna get aren't gonna really be representative of the population because you all can read. Because less than half the population is working out. So you're not even addressing half of them. That's it. Here's it. And in most studies, I hate to say this, most studies are done on males between I believe the ages of like 20 to 30, like college age or a little older males, white males. So that alone, we're the ones willing to experiment. Well, yeah, willing to experiment. Test on me. In college as projects. That's the only part that people don't understand about studies is most studies that we see that actually get promoted and put out there that are biased. It's cause they're expensive to do. And so it's not like we're running around doing all these great studies on stuff. So when you do see one nine times out of 10. It's funded by a company that it already had a desired outcome before they went into the fucking study. So it's as biased as it comes. And you can tweak data all over, like however you want. I used to tell clients all the time, like give me any topic you fucking have heard about with health, fitness wise, nutrition wise, I'll sell you on both sides of it. I'll sell you how it's the worst thing for you ever and I'll sell you how it's the best thing in the world for you. It's easy to spend the data. So sample size is important. How many people are in the study? Is it double blind? In other words, double blind, meaning the study participants don't know that they're the ones that are being, either the control group or the tested group. So in other words, they don't know if they're getting the active ingredient when they're taking the supplement or pill or whatever. It could be whatever. The people giving the test don't know either. That's important because we know that if the, even if you can have an influence, so double blind, meaning nobody knows who's getting what. So it's this big guess. The only people knowing are at the end of the study, we're getting the data. Then there's placebo controlled. Placebo controlled means if we're gonna give someone, if I'm gonna test something like an herb like turmeric and I'm looking at inflammation and I've got 500 people, I'm gonna give 250 of them turmeric and the other 250. Nothing at all that's related to it. Something that looks like turmeric, but isn't. You know, like here's this pill and it's got like sugar in it or something like that. And because. Which is a very bad example because if you're testing for inflammation and you gave sugar pills. Wow, he's levels. Skyrocketing. That's a good point. What the hell's going on in there? I'm just gonna call you on it because if you fuck with me on that one for sure. Wow, looks like turmeric lowers blood sugar. Heroin, that's everybody asleep. Yeah, so that's important. Double blind placebo controlled. You wanna see if it's peer reviewed. In other words, has it been reviewed by other people in this field? And then look at the consensus of studies. There's meta analysis where they'll take many studies on this subject and you're gonna see this general trend because one study will point you in a direction but rarely is one study conclusive. It's typically gonna tell you, oh wow, looks like people who take multivitamins tend to live longer, let's do more studies. Let's do more studies. And rarely ever can they duplicate a study exactly the same. So many times even like the best studies is like, okay, take this in generals, right? General speaking, this is what it's like. Each time there's new variables. It's interesting you say that. So even when they make the study as close to as the previous studies possible, and they try to mirror it, even then there's a large minority, but it's not a majority, but still a large percentage. I forgot what it was, something like 20% or something that are not able to be duplicated. So they'll take, what I mean by that is they'll do the same study and the results are different. So they can't find the same results that were found with the first study. That percentage goes up with psychological based studies or behavioral studies. Behavioral studies, I think something like 40% of them, they can't be duplicated. They can't mimic them. So they'll find like, oh, people who listen to this music tend to act this particular way or whatever. Then they copy the study, comes out to listen. Well, now you're getting me excited because this is exactly what I was reading this morning with subliminal, they talk about, that's because like 95% of the information that our brain is downloading is unconscious. Like there's only a small percentage is actually conscious that you're doing. Your eyes are downloading information, absorbing and taking it in. So it's so easy for that to manipulate make you biased on your decision. So when you talk about behavioral science and stuff, this is where this gets crazy. Even with movement, right? They say that like, are you really in control of your movement or does your movement happen and then you perceive it right afterwards? Well, and you could be walking into the study and somebody says something to you that has nothing to do with the study right before and it could influence and change how you react to certain questions. I'll give you an example. So, and you're right, and the brain can be primed to think certain things on axis. So I'll give you guys an example. I want you right now to imagine the color gray. Just imagine the color gray. Now really quick, think of an animal. And it's likely that you thought of an elephant. Very likely. I almost said donkey. Yeah. It's very, very likely that you thought of an elephant. And it's just, there's lots of these tricks that happen in the brain. Well, we use this in sales. We use this in sales with leading questions, right? When you're leading people into a sale and a close and tying them down by getting them, you're priming them to say yes, right? That's what magicians do. Oh, hey. Yeah, they put an idea in your head and they're like, oh. But yeah, as far as studies are concerned, they can direct you, look at the consensus, look at the controls. That's another one. How did they control the study? I love to give this example because it's a classic one. It wasn't that long ago, probably 30 years ago or so, that coffee was thought to cause to be a carcinogen. So it's thought that coffee was bad for you because the studies done on coffee drinker showed that they had a higher rate of cancer. The problem was in these studies, they never controlled for cigarette smoking. And 30 years ago, people who drank lots of coffee also smoked a lot of cigarettes. So it's just a basic example. You wanna look at controls, how are they controlling the studies? Look at all these things and then start to form an opinion. But I also don't wanna throw a anecdote. Although anecdote is not evidence, a lot of anecdote points to different directions. And thankfully, because we have technology and we have the internet, we can go on forums, we can read what people are saying. And you can kind of figure things out before studies come out. For example, people have been talking about how artificial sweeteners affect their gut poorly way before the recent studies showing that it negatively affects the gut microbiome. People have been talking about how certain things will affect inflammation in a positive way, way before studies come out saying, oh yeah, they're absolutely right. Eating these particular foods or whatever has good effects on inflammation. Those are all the things you wanna consider. Or just fucking read Sal's Instagram page. There you go. I never quote, I never put down the study that people get so mad. What's the source? I get mad when people ask that, expect that. Go do your work. He spent 40 years of his life fucking doing it, you should do it too. Ooh, what a research. Yeah, tell me, lazy. All right, next is Mick the plant man. You guys talk about cardio not being a great component of longevity and Ben Greenfield has shared how triathlon training has significantly decreased his telomere length. With that being said, how are the 60 plus year olds crushing it? Tell Ben Greenfield I don't give a shit about his fucking telomeres. Fuck you Ben. It's a hot topic. Yeah, right. So I'll tell you what my telomeres are doing. So this is a great topic. I have no idea. Now telomeres are at the end of your DNA and they are a good signal for aging. So if you have your biological age and then your telomere will tell you how old your body is in terms of it's health or whatever. I feel like before you go further in the science here, I feel like there's going to be a very fine line here that you're talking about. You could easily overdo that and have adverse effects from it too, from other parts, from the running all the time. So you may have some benefits that show like, oh, for longevity, this part of running. And to me- Well, what he's saying is, so Ben Greenfield talked about a decrease, meaning when he trained for a triathlon, his body aged more rapidly. Oh, I thought he was saying he- No, no, no, no, no. That makes way more sense. I was thinking, just sorry, Ben. I was talking shit to you. No, no, no, no. It decreased- Yeah, no, absolutely. That makes perfect sense. That doesn't conflict with what we've said. No, no, and I don't think he's saying that. I think he's just saying, knowing that, knowing what we say about cardio, knowing what Ben Greenfield said, why is it that we see these 60 plus year olds who are crushing it in these competitions? Well, what's your goal? You can, it doesn't make sense to- He's efficient at that movement. Why'd you pick this question? Well, well- This is not a very good question. I'll tell you- No, I'll tell you what's wrong with it. One, we agree with that, with Ben, like absolutely. And you can be 60 years old and crushing your sport. I mean, we talk about this all the time, but it doesn't mean- Well, this is important because- This doesn't mean optimal health. I think, thank you. It's important- What do they look like? This is important because it's like- Like a fucking skinny raisin. Well, eating- That's what they look like. Eating and training. You're on that much. Show me somebody who's been running for fucking 60 years. They're just kind of raisin-esque. Tell me somebody who's been running- Show me a picture of somebody who's been running for 60 plus years, okay? You're getting closer to death. That doesn't look like a fucking skinny raisin. That's what they look like. Well, it's oxidative stress. And it's not just that all skinny raisin people run very long. That's not the correlation here. It's fucking that. When you do that- It makes you look like that. Yes, it makes you look like that. Skinny raisin disease. So, here's the thing. It's a thing. Hashtag. That's a new hashtag we're starting. Training and eating for maximum longevity is not the same as training and eating for maximum performance, and vice versa. If you train and eat to maximize your performance, especially for stamina-based and endurance-based sports, you are gonna be taking away from longevity. That's a fact. So, I hate to say that, but if you're kind of, you gotta balance the two. Now, if you're a competitive athlete, this is your livelihood, do your thing. If you're an everyday person that just wants to be fit and healthy, this is something you should look at, because I could push my body and squeeze out into the five pounds of muscle on it. Is it worth reducing my longevity and overall wellness? No, it's not. Because five pounds isn't that fucking big of a difference anyway. Same thing with taking 30 seconds off of your marathon time or whatever. So, you know, consider those two things. Longevity is very different. In fact, when they do studies on the world's blue zones, this is where people live, you have a disproportionate amount of people who live to a hundred or older, more so than the rest of the world. All of their activity, everything they do revolves around moderation. It's all consistent, daily, moderate, low to moderate intensity. Their movement, their activity. Yes, moderate, everything. They don't, none of them are hardcore exercises. None of them are competing in powerlifting. None of them are running marathons and doing CrossFit. They're all just, they're very chill. That's it. They're chill, they're active appropriately. They challenge themselves kind of a little bit on a daily basis, but nothing extreme or hardcore. So yeah, training hardcore, like these 60-year-olds that are crushing it. They literally are crushing it, crushing their back. And they've got the benefit of, you know, they probably eat healthy and they move. So they've got the benefit of that, but then they've got the judgment of overdoing it. So when they're not gonna necessarily live through their 90 or something, they're probably gonna live to their, you know, like the normal age, life expectancy that the average person gets to who doesn't exercise and doesn't eat right, see what I'm saying? Right, yeah, I know. I think that, and I think somebody who's been running, like, and I know we tease the runners all the time on here, right? Like we're anti-running. Poor runners. I just think that there's so many people in the running camp that think it's the best thing for your body because maybe they've been in the best shape of their lives while they're running. And I think that's mainly where we're always trying to address to people. It's like, no, and I definitely think that somebody who decides to run and make healthy choices of eating is far better off than the couch potato who never exercises and eats potato chips all day long. Like, yeah, if we're comparing those two, absolutely I'd rather see somebody run themselves to death than somebody sit and eat themselves to death on the couch. The person running themselves to death will probably outlast the person sitting on the couch and eating themselves to death. But both of them are not heading in the best way for longevity for yourself. And that's just the bottom line, but performance is different than longevity. Yeah, and there's quality of life. Like these 60-year-olds who are killing it in triathlon competitions, they probably love what they're doing. They probably have a lot of fun doing it. They're having a blast, you know? Okay, that's cool. Do your thing, man, like, you know. I love ice cream, you know what I mean? Whatever. Terrible analogy. Next. Our next question is from T-Fluid. Top five most functional lifts. Here we go. Let's start with number one. Squat, for sure. What is the number one most functional lift? I think we're all gonna say squat, right? I wonder if we're gonna have to disagree on all these. I don't think we'll disagree on any, but I think everybody will have more. The order, you weigh out. Oh, the order, you wanna go in order? Yeah, let's go in order. So most functional lift? Squat. It's gotta be the squat. For sure. What do you think the second most functional lift? Deadlift? I'm gonna go. Overhead press. I'm gonna go with Zurcher. Think about functionality, everyday behaviors. I see, I screw you on with that, yeah. How often do you walk around in a front loaded carry situation where you have to pick something up off the ground or grasp, to me? Well, they're so similar. I know, I know. But if you're going in order, one, then two, like that, I feel like... You'll outrank deadlifts. Let me take that box and put it up on the shelf. Deadlift is deadpressing. Deadlift is my third overhead press is my fourth. Okay, because I would go barbell squat, deadlift, then I would go overhead press, then I would go bench press, and then here's the problem with number five. I wanna throw something in there that's... Like a lunge? Rotational, though. Because everything's so like, you know what I'm saying? Well, you could do a rotational lunge or a multi-planier lunge, and now you're killing it. Yeah, I would say that. Or what about some kind of a row or a pull-up? Well, no, you already, you gotta, when you get your deadlift in there. I guess. Yeah, you get your deadlift in there. I don't know, to me, I go squat. I think we all agree on squat. I go Zurcher squat, even though they're similar. I still think that you gotta get a front-loaded, holding-something type of exercise where they do. I mean, you could combine the Zurcher with a multi-planier lunge to get real functional here. Yeah. You know, like, after you hit the big three or so, I feel like it's kind of like you could do it. Well, I would say goblet squat is very similar to just Zurcher squat, right? Cause it's like you're holding something in, but you're trying to keep, like you're not really gonna be lifting anything that's like much bigger than your body. Well, how about this? Let's go this way. What are the most functional or foundational movements? Because we can name, like, a Zurcher and a deadlift are both kind of hip-hinging, right? Like just the patterns? Yeah, like, what do they say they are? There's like, they're squatting. There's pushing horizontally, pushing overhead. There's pulling horizontally, pulling from overhead. You've got rotation, split stance position, you know, movements. Unilateral. Yeah, unilateral type movements, kind of lateral type movements. You'd have to have something rotational in there. So that's probably the only thing that we missed by all of us cause you gotta have something that's, so we're not stuck in the sagittal plane the entire time. Yeah, well, I like Cossack, but it's not like, I mean, it's very functional, but it's not like a staple. You know, I give everybody. Here's something controversial that I think we'll agree on, but maybe some people will freak out a little over. What's more functional? Overhead press or bench press? Overhead press. Overhead press? Yeah, all day. And I know a lot of people are gonna argue with that because it's part of the big three. Who argues with that? Just a simple fact that, just a simple fact that one of them, you're lying down on a bench and you can take half of your body out of the equation, already makes it, that's not even a debate to me. Someone tries to debate that. You're not stabilizing your spine like the same way. It's just like, yeah. Anything standing that you're having to do with your feet planted on the ground is gonna become more functional than anything else. And I see it being way more functional at all sports. Like I, Which is also why I thought the whole stability ball craze of standing on the stability ball and stuff like that is funny that we call that functional because how often will you ever stand on a fucking round ball that's about to roll somewhere? Sure in the circus. Exactly, if you were in the circus, that's a functional movement. Otherwise, not very functional. Back in the day, that was a test of strength. It was overhead press, it wasn't. Bench press came in later, much later. Bench press. That's a great one. You want a rotational one. Let's add the bent press for, yeah. So there you go, there's your rotational overhead strength and hip hinge all in one. Yeah, I like that one. Did we make a bent press video for YouTube? Yeah, Justin did. A long time ago. Not long at, long time ago. At the other gym. Oh good, so you can go to our YouTube channel and look up the bent press. It is an old school, extremely functional movement. Old timey. For you bodybuilder types for people who like to develop your muscles. Mind pump TV. It'll give you incredible back and delt development. Watch your back, yeah. It's a delicate movement if you haven't rotated like that before. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maths Anabolic, Maths Performance, and Maths Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. 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