 In this episode of Mind Pump, we answer fitness and health questions asked by our audience. We do our best. But we also cover current events, talk about our lives, have a lot of fun. That's the intro portion of this episode, last about 42 minutes. So here's what we talked about in this whole episode of Mind Pump. We start out by talking about single parents, kudos to you. We are all not single parents. We know how tough it is. I can't even imagine what you guys must go through. So you guys are the champions. Then we talk about celebrities and politics. We just wish celebrities would shut up and act. That's how you should do. It's not hard. Then I talked about the focus that you need to have in between your sets. So when you're working out, oftentimes we focus on the exercise while we're doing it. In between, we tend to lose our focus. I think that makes a big difference. Then we talk about our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Look, if you have any questions on exercises, exercise technique, you want to watch and see what it looks like to do an exercise properly. Give it a gander. Go to YouTube, Mind Pump TV. We have hundreds of videos there. Then I talked about the latest wellness influencer trend, not drinking water. Don't do it. Don't follow their advice. Water is essential to be alive. So smart. Justin brought out Pixar and their new movie coming out called Soul. I talked about the mysterious space signal that's hitting Earth every 16 days on the dot. Dude, they're coming. Aliens. Justin gave us a little update on his improv classes. I talked about tension versus weight. What is more important than weight on the bar or the tension you feel in your muscles? And then we mentioned March 21st and 22nd, we have a NCI coaching specialist certification happening here at Mind Pump headquarters. Oh, by the way, we have a hookup for you. If you go to their website, ncicertifications.com forward slash mind pump, you can get a free thyroid masterclass. That's a $600 course for free only for Mind Pump listeners plus 10 winners will receive $500 in gift cards for more certification classes through NCI. The winners will be notified by tech, so make sure you enter the correct phone number when you register. Then we got into the fitness questions. The first question, this person wants to know what's the best way to retain muscle mass while getting leaner. So we talk about strategies for that. The next question, this person says, hey, look, powerlifting. Is it good for aesthetics? We know powerlifting is great for getting really strong. How does it affect the way I look? The next question, this person says, what are the top, excuse me, five things that Americans can do to improve their long term health? So we list our top things that people can do, simple things that will have massive impacts on their health. And the last question, this person says, what are the positives and negatives of being a trainer? If you're thinking about being a personal trainer, you'll definitely don't want to miss that part of the episode. Also all month long, maps split. This is our bodybuilding, body sculpting, body shaping program. It's six days a week in the gym. It's hardcore and advanced. So if you've been working out for a while, you want to take your body to the next level. You're super serious about training. If you love working out, you want to see what your body can do. Maps split, excellent program, it's 50% off. We cut the price in half only for February. Here's how you get that massive, massive discount. Go to mapssplit.com, that's M-A-P-S-S-P-L-I-T dot com and use the code split 50. That's S-P-L-I-T five zero, no space for the discount. Did you guys get some weird DMs sometimes? Right? Like a rhetorical question? Yeah. And by weird, what do you mean? Yeah, like how weird? Now, do you guys, do you guys have a weird DM that is common? You know, like someone will say something? I feel like you're setting us up for a trap. I know. Well, I just don't want to. I don't want to give anything away. Okay. Because I don't want to be the only one. Okay, so. You're trying to get us to give you material. I get, this is weird because I know I have a kermity quality to my voice. I know you guys make fun of me all the time for it and I know it's loud and piercing. But I get DMs and that's all they say. I love your voice. What? Really? What? Yeah. That's weird. Yeah, it's kind of weird fetishy. Is it? Yeah, it's a little cute. It's creepy-ish. It is. Yeah. Yesterday, I get that sometimes. So I had something I wanted. You get the creepy-ish a little? Yeah. That's what I was talking about. And I had this moment yesterday and it just kind of dawned on me and I felt like- This magic moment. Kind of not really like that. I know the rest of it. I tried to set you up, Justin. It made me sound stupid. Well, live so close to mine. First of all, and I don't know if I brought this up on the podcast before, but I really believe maybe the most important humans on this earth or the most impressive are single mothers. Oh, my God. Single parents are- Or yeah, I should say- Champion. I should say single parents because being a single- Most of them are moms. What can we do to help, right? Let's be honest. It's insane what they do. Oh, and most of them are moms. Well, we have a tremendous amount of support. We have a nanny. We have her family that's close by. She's got cousins and uncles and aunts and her grandparents and mine, even to them. My sister comes every single month. We have tons of support. So I'm extremely blessed to be in the situation that we're in. Katrina does an incredible job of carrying the rest of the load so I can work and do what I do. And I see how exhausted she is. So a lot of times we'll lay there and I'll look at her and I'm just like, God, it baffles me. I see how exhausted you are. I mean, that was part of why we went to the sanctuary last week was I knew I needed to get her out of the house, give her some support. I could be with her all day long and help with Max because she was so tired and stuff. And I'm like, first of all, how does a couple do this with no family support? That would be a no nanny. Because that's common. Right, right. That would already be challenging as fuck. Then imagine not having the other partner to support you and the amount of work that you'd have to do to carry the load for the household financially. And I'm going, yeah, this is unreal. This is insane. And then I had a moment yesterday when I was I'm heading home from work Mondays. Mondays typically are a little bit longer day for me just because it's Monday and getting caught up from all the weekend stuff. We got a busy week this week because we're sales traveling next week so that we're doing a little extra work. It's a manic Monday. Right, but, you know, again, very blessed. I still get out of work by 5.30, you know what I'm saying? That's a late day. Yeah, that's a late day. And I know better that like that is very lucky, right? Most people have to work much later. I've worked much later for most of my life and I'm driving home. I get home walking the door about 5.45 or so and he's already getting ready for the bath and that's, you know, he bath time, you know, feed, read, and then it's bedtime for him. And so I really, I didn't have a chance to really spend very much time with Max at all and get any like real dad's son time. And then I thought like, wait a second, like this is just one off night for me and, you know, I'm bummed out. I'm like, how the fuck does a dad do it who works till 7 or 8 o'clock at night? Like doesn't most kids go down like around 7 or 8? Don't most parents have their kids go down early? They don't see their kids that much except for... Weekends. Yeah, maybe weekends. Yeah. Absolutely. And if you're a single parent, all I can imagine is you're probably, your entire life probably revolves around what you have to do to take care of your kids and maintain that you have zero time to do anything for yourself. Zero. I have so much compassion. And the amount of organization. Could you imagine the amount of organization and scheduling that you would need to have to manage that? It gives me nightmares just thinking about it because that's my weakness. Like organization and time management are like my two, like that's my Achilles heel. Oh, and it gets as they get older, it gets worse because then they have school events and sports and other things. So then you have to remember all that stuff. And oh, I need you to take me to soccer, field trips coming up, like permission slips, this and that. Yeah, you got to really know what's coming ahead of you. No, man. Single parents are, my hat is off to you because that is so insanely difficult and challenging. Having a kid is challenging anyway. That's why it's one of the, this is a sad thing to say, but statistically speaking, there are things that cause higher divorce rates. And having a child is one of the top ones. Having a child, if you are in a relationship that isn't strong and you don't have a great friendship. There's any crack yet. It'll, it'll, it'll, it just, it just applies pressure, you know? It's a difficult, difficult thing. But anyway, I also have a bone to pick with you, Justin. Cool. Yeah. You know, probably, I don't know how long it was once upon a time been out, probably a year. Oh, yeah. I avoided watching once upon a time because Justin gave it a bad review. Justin reviewed it so shitty and I was like the preview wasn't enough to like really ties me, other than knowing like the cast. So obviously you liked it. I really liked it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You shit on it hard. I didn't like it. Did it win awards? Tons of awards. It did. Yes. It won all kinds. And that was what made me kind of go down the path because I was, I saw, by the way, I watched JoJo Rabbit 2, which was excellent. Oh, tell me that wasn't amazing. Come on. That was, that was really good. All right. Did you get emotional? Yeah, it got me a little bit. It did, right? Yeah, yeah, I did a little bit. It was just a very well written, very gutsy way to write too. Like, no, not a lot of people touched that, that topic. And they communicated it so well. From a satire side, right? Yeah. Not a lot of people do that. That was well done. Yeah, it was, it was very much from the kid's perspective, which made it like lighthearted and everything and like really tough subject matter from a kid's perspective is great. Yeah, very intelligently written. But yeah, I don't know, dude. Maybe it was like a mood I was going in or the, I don't even remember who I watched it with. Sometimes that affects like your overall viewing of something. Oh yeah. If you're watching with someone who's not into the show, like it would definitely like, I don't know, maybe that's it. I'm not giving myself excuses. I like just remembered that I was kind of like dozen off and then I would come back in when there was like one action scene and then the rest of it. And I love the actors that were in it. Like, I thought they did a great job. I just wasn't paying attention to the overall theme of it. It just didn't capture me. Well, I'll watch it now. I wasn't going to watch it either because of you, Justin. I'm serious. Wow, you guys really listen to me, though. That's what that says. Well, yeah, we trust your opinion. Well, I usually do a good job of reviewing. So maybe that was a miss. I used to trust your opinion. Apparently, well, Quentin Tarantino is in a quiet taste. You have to like, well, I like most his movies. That's the thing. Yeah, well, and you said they won a lot of awards. Speaking of which, these, this last Academy Award, whatever, yeah, got the lowest views and ratings that they've had in Asia very long time. I didn't even know they had one. It broke new records in terms of lows. Really? Yeah. The there are articles that are coming out talking about how the era of the celebrity is over. And I think finally, yeah, I know. And you know what I think it is funny, though? What do you want to bet? We see the same thing emerge for social media stars from YouTube. Oh, yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah, none of them want to. And that's the thing is it actually costs them money to jump on to TV shows and to movies and like none of like your Logan Paul's want to do that. Yeah, they make way more money. Just staying on their own YouTube, exactly their own network. No, one of the biggest gripes is is the when they go up there to accept their award and then they preached everybody. But they're oh God, but there's they there's such I mean and remember their actors. So they're really good at making you believe in what they're saying that they're likable, but they are hammering us about you know from a bubble. You know that they all had gift bags that were worth over twenty five thousand dollars with the stuff that was inside. Yeah, that's like a twelve. Yeah, like a twelve day cruise on a private ship gets them to show up and they and they and then when they talk up there and they lecture us about whatever climate change while they flew in on private jets or lecture us about how we need to, you know, better equality. That's why Ricky Gervais was just so amazing. I love that guy. And he yes. And I think he gave he probably would have would have helped them. So a twenty percent drop. Huge, dude. So I saw some number. I saw something with Joaquin Phoenix. Like he's been on a roll lately with lecturing the world about things. Yes, dude. It just act. Yeah, you're good at acting. Just act like I don't want to go watch a baseball game that's done by the world's top tech CEOs. I care less about your baseball skills. You're awesome at tech. Why don't you stick to that? You're an actor. Just keep acting. I don't want to hear your opinion. I feel like it's like just this. We see it even in social media. There's examples of it of people that you get start off relatively small on Instagram and blow up and blow up on YouTube. It seems like the natural progress. And I really think it's for advertising and marketing purposes is to pivot into the political side. We see this with like the Elliott Hulses. You see this with the Hodge twins. You see this. Who else are we? Who else are we following that we've talked about? Yeah, but rarely does that make somebody who's already massively famous more successful. Oh, yeah, it really hurts them. I disagree. You think so? Yeah, it looks like it hurts them because it definitely turns off a large portion of the audience. But because they take a stand. I mean, shit, this is what our marketing guy is always trying to tell us, you know? I wish you more divisive. Yeah, if more divisive. And by taking a stand politically, that's a real easy one. You're left or right. I mean, there's a few people that are liberal, I mean, libertarian, but for the most part, you're left or right. So taking a hard stand and drawing a line in the sand and taking a side. But if you're already huge, like if you're famous, like, you know, Lady Gaga or Madonna, and then you come out and you become divisive. Well, look, no, we have Taylor Swift. You get the people that are like really on your side and then you get the hate follows, you know? So you still win. Yeah, maybe. Taylor Swift spent. Have you guys watched that documentary on her right now? No, the one on Netflix? Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. No, I don't watch that. Very talented. Yeah, extremely talented. Extremely talented. Her entire career, she avoided talking about politics and got to a point where she couldn't take it anymore and she tweeted. And it was like the most viral. It's like, I think today it's still the most viral thing I've ever tweeted came from that. So, you know, she got a lot of hate too, you know? Listen, she's got tons of hate now from it, but it only blows you up in the grand scheme of like the world. Maybe. There's a ton of people that may not be a fan of her music, but for sure, every person either leans more conservative or leans more liberal. What did she tweet? I missed it. Oh, I don't even remember what the tweet was. It was a fucking, she was taking a stand on, oh, you know what? Her state that she's from, the person in office was trying to take rights away. I don't want to say take rights because it's not the right words for it. But she didn't agree with the policy. The person was hardcore conservative and the policies that they are trying to put in place as far as gay rights and as far as... Abortion, I'm assuming? Yes. OK. Yes, abortion and something else. I can't remember what it was. Interesting. Yeah, and so she vocalized. She said something. Back in the day, celebrities were encouraged to not ever bring up things like religion or politics. But I think now, because celebrities have such a close connection to their audiences through social media, it's becoming more and more of a thing. And maybe you're right, Adam, maybe because they're not seeing a huge backlash, that more and more feel emboldened to come out and say something, I don't know. It gets them more attention, it does. But it is true that they are getting less and less powerful. Like their influence is becoming smaller and smaller in terms of getting people to act in particular ways. And these award ceremonies are a bit That's why I think we're going to see a change in the guard because I think people on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook are gaining more power and more attention and authority in this side of the politics. And the people that are famous on television and movies are losing that because you can't connect with them the same way. Like I'm a big Robert De Niro Al Pacino fan. But honestly, I don't know any of their political views really because they're so untouchable. They're on the movie screen. Like I know how they act. Like I don't know much about their personal life. I don't follow any of them on social media because they probably either they don't do it very much or they're not into it or I don't give a shit enough to fall in that way. But if you have somebody who you've been following on Instagram and you've watched them go from zero to millions of followers and you've followed that entire journey, you have this connection in that bond with that person. The same thing, the connection that we build with our audience. Plus they're playing the same old game of like you have to say certain things because your producers and executive producers and everybody else up the chain is gonna fire you if you go off of the script and do things that are like and these platforms we have now you can just be a human being and say what's on your mind. And so it's like it's a completely different animal that's out there now and it's set free. Yeah. And you're right about the like it might affect their job. Sometimes I think they say what they think they're supposed to say so that they continue to work. 100%. They're trying to protect their job. What was the name of that producer that ended up being a total fucking scumbag but he was like a big, what's his name? Was it Weinstein? Weinstein. Weinstein. You know how many people knew about the shit that he was doing and made jokes about it? There's videos, if you go on YouTube. Yeah, I know it's gross. You can see clips of people at awards, celebrities at awards ceremonies making jokes about it. Like if Weinstein asked you to go up to his hotel room make sure you don't or whatever and they laugh. They knew that this guy was a piece of shit and nobody called him out because the dude was so powerful in Hollywood and doing so was basically suicide. It would kill your career. So he was allowed to conduct his shitty scumbaggery for a long time because of it. It's been disrupted now. Yeah. Oh, thank goodness. Yeah, I know. It's a good thing. Dude, I had a great workout this morning in my garage and I had some interesting thoughts about the way that people change have been changing kind of the way that they work out in particular what they do in between sets. So every once in a while I go to a commercial gym. I still am a member at one and I'll go every once in a while on average maybe two or three times a month. And one thing that I always notice is most people or a lot of people I should say in between sets of their exercises are doing something on their phone. They're texting or they're on social media. This is kind of a big thing. And it made me think, like I wonder how important maintaining focus is throughout the whole workout because that does break your focus a little bit. Like in one minute I'm doing my rows and I'm squeezing and I'm feeling the muscle and then the next minute I'm checking Instagram or I'm sending a text to my friends. It wasn't like that for a long time. For a long time you worked out and you either had, you had music. There was nobody brought a book. It was rare to see somebody bring a book or do something weird in between sets. It was typically... Or you're just like pacing around. You're pacing around and so I thought this and I'm guilty of it, right? I'm guilty of doing this in between sets as well. So today with my workout, I put my phone down in between sets and I noticed that doing so, I was way more connected and focused to the workout. And I think it's understated in terms of how much of an effect that'll have on your workout performance. You know, it's kind of, it's weird because I have two thoughts on that for me personally because I feel the exact same way. When I set my phone down connected to the Bluetooth and just ignore it and entire workout, I for sure have a better workout. Then there's the other side of me that the way I work out right now because I don't have these crazy goals to make major moves and like it's more about getting in and exercising for me. My workouts are, you know, stretched to be an hour and a half, two hours long, very slow, long rest periods. I'll come over, I'll sit down, I'll respond to DMs, I do email. And I know they're not my best workouts. They're not at all. They're nowhere near the performance or what I could be getting out of them. At the same time, I'm able to multitask and do other things. And right now I don't have anything that I'm like competitively trying to make moves in my physique. So I think it really just depends on where your mindset is currently in your priorities. Very fair, very, very fair thing to say. I agree with you 100%. But you know, studies will show that when somebody concentrates, for example, on a muscle, that that muscle actually activates more. And I don't need a study to show this. I've been training people forever and I've been working out for a long time. I know that. I know I can do a barbell row and just with my mind, you might not even be able to tell by watching my form unless you're really, really experienced that I can make it, I can feel it more in my rhomboids or my lats or I can feel it more in my traps or my biceps depending on how I concentrate on the exercise. So that focus and bodybuilders have known this for a long time. They call it the mind and muscle connection. That focus plays an integral part in how effective your workout is on what muscles you develop or how you develop them. So losing, breaking that concentration every single set, which is what a lot of people do, has gotta have a detrimental effect on at least your performance. And if you're really focused on your workout, it's gonna be a lot better. Yeah, it's interesting because I've actually noticed and I'm trying to keep a pulse on what's out there in terms of modalities and what sort of education is being promoted now in our space. And I see a lot of tendencies now towards the brain and to really like focus in on this, the cognitive boosting ways of training and to be able to really control and focus their body in a certain direction. And this really helps to enhance how your brain performs as well. And I actually know a few people that are like developing these methods and things and kind of pitching them and having me go through some of their content. And it's really good, it is along those lines, it's because of the distractibility that we have today is such the barrier now to really get those types of benefits that we used to receive. And we didn't really realize that that was a big component. Yeah, see, like when I did cardio, cardio, I liked it to be distracted because I'm repetitively walking, I'm not moving anywhere. Just wanna do my 30 minutes. Now, if I was a competitive endurance athlete, probably don't wanna be distracted, I wanna focus, I wanna make sure my running is perfect, when I'm lifting weights, if I'm trying to build muscle, connect to the muscle, maximize my form, make sure it's perfect. What I do when I'm not doing the set is important just like it is when I'm doing the set. Maybe not as important, of course you wanna be most focused when you're doing it. But because what happened is I put my phone down, didn't look at it, and I found I had a way better workout. I was just, I was in the, and it didn't leave the space, my mind didn't leave the space. It's part of why I have a hard time and I know like I should because anytime I post a video of me working out or throw it up in my story, like it gets by far the most views, the most attention, and for business reasons, I know it would behoove me to do that. But the truth is, I know it's, it fucks my workout up. To walk over, mount the phone up, hit record, do it all just for a fucking second, post it up. I honestly can't stand that. It drives me crazy because it interrupts that process, especially if I'm trying to lift heavy. Especially if I'm trying to get after it, like I don't wanna hear nothing but my fucking Metallica in the background and just be thinking about that bar getting up. That's all I wanna think about. It's interesting in bringing this up because I mean, I just got an email today about, you know, and these guys I've worked with before, they're developing apps. And one of this app, you know, like concept that they're developing right now is to be able to slide back and forth between your podcast and then music. And then it like, it switches like within your workout. So you have your music while you're working out and then when you're resting, it goes right back to your podcast. Oh, interesting. I thought that was an interesting concept. I wonder, you know, in terms of like now, I've talked to a lot of people, listen to our show, that listen to other shows, you know, that are fitness related, that actually do a lot of their consumption of podcasts while they're working out. Oh, 100%. I mean, okay. So that makes sense. It's a little bit of a distraction, but it's more, you're more in the space of working out when you're also listening to- Yeah, you're still consciously thinking about the workout. Yeah, and you're talking and people are teaching you about exercise and they're answering questions, especially as you're learning. That makes perfect sense. It makes more sense than going on Instagram, reading this article, texting my friend, where I'm leaving the space of the workout because for me at least, because I've been doing this for so long and I know you guys are the same, workouts to me are sacred. There's something that I do. I don't have to wanna build muscle. I don't have to wanna burn body fat. It's a very important part of my day. It's meditative for me. And I think respecting that, I just get the best connection and the best, the most out of it by doing that. But it was crazy, because I do the same thing. I'm in my garage and I'm, oh, I'm gonna do this post, I'm gonna do that or whatever. And I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna put my phone down. Put it down. And I'm gonna be in the workout the whole time. You know, you talking about your workout just reminded me of something I wanna announce on the podcast that you did today. And we really haven't put a lot of energy and effort into the YouTube. It's kind of, it's been a secondary thought for us business-wise. And although we continue to employ people to put content out on that to add value to our community, we really haven't really tried to grow it aggressively. Like we have other aspects of the business. And so that's a big focus for 2020. And one of the first things that we wanna do and lead this way, like we have with every other part of our business is to give. And so one of the things that we haven't done on the podcast is to tell our audience here that if you're not subscribed to Mind Pump TV and turn the notifications on, you're gonna wanna do that because the next video that Sal comes out with, we're gonna start doing giveaways within the first hour to 24 hours of people that get on there, comment or follow whatever instruction he gives. So we're really trying to put energy and focus in scaling that side of the business up this year. And one of the first ways that we wanna do that is by giving away people that are interacting with us on that. So look out for that. That should be coming in the next week or two. In our YouTube channel, we have so many videos because we've been posting between one to five a week now for years that if you have an exercise question or a body part you wanna focus on or free workouts, there's free workouts, entire workouts that we videotaped. I'm so glad you said this because this is one of the hardest things now is it's out of place where I can't, it's impossible to respond to every DM. And a lot of times the DMs are something that we've answered or we've already done, especially on the YouTube channel. So what I end up always saying to them is, Google, Mind Pump TV, and then what you're asking me. And you'll see in a right away- Chances are it's there. Yeah, chances are that so before you reach out to us in our DMs and this is just, I'm asking, like please do this, it just, it helps us help more people. So that's where I'm coming from here is because when I have 20 DMs that get flooded in there and they're all asking questions of if you would have just went to Mind Pump TV and literally typed in that, you would have got an incredible eight to 12 minute video giving you your answer. And you want me to go link it for you and do that for you. I didn't have a problem doing that when we had very little people that were DMing us, but it's got to a point where I can't even reach everybody anymore. So one of the things that you guys can do to help support us, to support our community is before you DM or before you ask one of us questions like that, first please go utilize the free resources that we've created and we spend money on to give value to the community, which is the YouTube channel, the blogs. You can subscribe to the blogs on the website, which we've got three, we're about to, just so you guys know, you guys don't even know this, we're about to start ramping up to nine fucking blogs a week. We're putting out tons of free content. All you have to do is go on there and search for a topic you want to learn about and we've probably spent the time and money putting in a really good video or a really good article. It's an information battle. It's a war on information and there's a lot of bad information in the fitness space. We're trying to crowd it out with good information as much as possible. Speaking of DMs and all that stuff, I read an article today about one of the latest wellness influencer trends and just when you thought that they couldn't do, I thought they're cracking down on the bullshit. What's happening now? Kidding me, the butthole sunning was just the last one. Okay, so butthole. I feel like that was a trolling move though. I don't know. No, it's true. It's growing, bro. I mean, I brought it up a bunch of time. I just thought it was funny. Dude, what's his name? Bulletproof, what's his name? Dave Asprey did it. Remember? He posted on Instagram. Get the fuck out of here. He shined his butthole to the sun and anyway. So okay. Of course he did. Okay, ridiculous, silly, stupid, not totally dangerous. Sure you could get a sunburn on your butthole. Oh yeah, that would suck. Yeah, but that's not gonna kill you. This next one is a terrible thing and they're actually promoting it. So there are people on social media with lots of followers right now who have sworn off, you ready for this? Water. They are now, no, swear to God. What? They're not drinking any water. They're saying they get all their hydration by eating their water through things like fruit. So yeah, I don't drink any water. I just eat fruit and like stuff like watermelon and I have all the- What could possibly go wrong? Yeah, it's like dry fasting they call it. And it's hilarious. It's so funny. You know what's funny, you look at the pictures of them and you can tell- I wanna know who like starts these things. You know, it's like, you see it just pop up and it's usually because at least, you know, 10 or 12 or so like influence or people like bought into this bullshit. This drives me crazy. Just too much. Just because you can does not mean you should. Yeah, and you know what's gonna, someone's gonna die and then we're gonna, and then we're not gonna hear about that they died. And even if they don't, even if someone doesn't die from it, again, just because we can't- It's your Darwin award. Just because our bodies are unbelievably resilient and badass- Yeah, if you get enough fluid through your food, you might be okay, but you ain't gonna be hydrated very well, you know? It's not ideal. Yeah, it's, you know what it is? Here's another part of it. A lot of times these influencers lie. So they'll say to you like, oh, I'm a vegan. This was actually a big deal for a second. You had these vegan influencers who got caught by fans. You saw them in public eating like fish or eggs. Burgers. And they'll film it and then post it. And then the person has to come on and apologize. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was hungry. Yeah, oh, I made a mistake. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. Massive, massive bullshit. It's crazy. It's bullshit. Go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say, you guys are big fans of Pixar like me, right? Yes, yes. Oh my God. So the last movie I saw that had a big impact was Inside Out. Did any of you watch that? Oh, I love that. It was so accurate. Like such an audacious idea to tackle like the human emotion and like portray it in the way they did. It was good. Well, dude, I just saw another like trailer. So they're on it again. Let's tackle the soul. Let's tackle the afterlife. Like what? Like that's crazy. What's it called? It's called Soul. Oh, wow. So it's about what happens to you after you die? Yeah, this guy like, I guess he falls into like a sewer and then they portray his soul as being the sort of blue little, you know, like ghostly looking thing. And then it like travels to the afterlife and that's really all we got so far. But I'm just like so intrigued by that company and their like how they write story and like how like it just reminds me of back when Disney was like all about, you know, the story of everything and like how they could like portray like major topics that are a better example would be Mr. Rogers, how he would like, you know, bring up like like think like war and like heavy topics with kids and like be able to show them like how to deal with that. Now does Disney and that own Pixar? Yeah, they own it. So speaking of Mr. Rogers, did you guys actually see the film that Mr. The Mr. Rogers story or Tom Hanks? Yes, with Tom Hanks. I did watch it. Oh, you did. I didn't see that one yet. So you know, that's an actual story. Yes. That's why I say, so I didn't, I wasn't in a hurry to watch it because I already watched both. Yeah, I loved the first one. I watched the, there's two documentaries out on. Yeah, this is an actual dramatization. It is really good. It's not bad. Because you already know the story because you've watched the documentary, but this actually tells it from a perspective of somebody who was supposed to interview him back then. A reporter. Super, super cynical reporter too. Really? Somebody who was just like, oh, this guy and he's like known for like writing really negative. Was it Esquire Magazine? I forget what magazine it was, but the, if you, because like I always go down the rabbit hole after I like get into like, is it a true story? And who was the writer? And he was really well known for like just tearing into people. Like ripping apart people that present themselves as these holy, holy or great people. And like, so they literally put him on this and you get to hear his whole experience with him. It's so good. And I mean, Tom Hanks is amazing. And you know that Mr. Rogers documentary I said was probably one of my all time favorite documentaries. Yeah, such a powerful documentary. It was really good. So some cool science news that's coming out. So there's this signal that we're receiving from space on a very consistent basis. Maybe Doug, you can look this up. I think it's like every 16 days. It's from the serious star. I don't remember where it's coming from, but it's a space signal that is extremely consistent. It's like every, there's a lot of period of time. It comes every time. And we know it's coming from a galaxy that is probably extinct or long gone because it's traveled millions of series. A mysterious radio signal from space is repeating every 16 days. And we have no idea where it's coming from or whatever. And it's accurate. Every 16 days it's coming to us. It's just like blips that are like continuous. Like what kind of signal is it? They deciphered it, said beware. It stopped. No, it's just some signal. We're coming. We're coming. Patting down the hatches. Yeah, so it's kind of cool, right, that we're getting this weird radio signal. I mean, it could be, obviously it could be a natural phenomena, but that it's every 16 days. I was gonna say they've timed it every 16 days. Yeah. That's trippy. Isn't that weird? Yeah, was that signals or signs? Or I forget what movie it was. Oh, was it named Jody Foster? Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. They were trying, like forever scientists have been hoping for something and they haven't gotten any sort of signal. So this is actually a big deal. Oh, I've been meaning to ask you, Justin, how was your class? You just had one this week. Yeah, I did. Oh yeah, you didn't give us the update on that. We missed one in between, too. Yeah, no, so it was actually kind of funny because this time we did pantomime, which, you know. Now what's pantomime again? So you know, like a mime. It's like charades, right? Like I'm in a box, you know, or this is a wall. So basically like you have to act these things out with your body and it's not about like how you say it, right, so in a sense. So we did all these like really uncomfortably weird like activities together. And that was probably one of the more like alien sort of a things for me to experience. Cause I was like, I just don't, I don't do, I mean, I have gestures. What'd you get? Well, so basically like what you have to do, like in one of these drills is like you have to like have a pretend ball of clay. And so in this ball of clay is passed to you from somebody else who created something out of it. So let's say like they molded something and they're like pantomiming this whole thing that they're making and now you have to receive whatever they gave you and then like act out what it is. And then if, and then if you don't do it right, they have to like, you know, figure out how to make it more presentable where you understand what they're doing. Oh, that's interesting. Which is really cool. Like, you know, on paper, but you know, in reality, I'm just like, I was like, what are you doing? Like cause some people are good at it. Some people are just like dog shit, you know? And it's like, I had a guy that was kind of dog shit like right next to me, like trying to like come up with. Yeah, he probably is. But it was, it was like a corkscrew. And so he's like trying to like pantomime this whole thing. And I'm like, I wasn't getting it. He was trying to pantomime a corkscrew. Mm-hmm. Oh my God. See, I would be so tempted to do something inappropriate. Yeah, like a cock. I know. I would so do it, Dick. Dude, that's mean. And then you hit it to somebody. Here you go. I have like ticks towards that. You know, I haven't even like, like not not like totally focused, but I've been called out a few times about like, you know, trying to go for the cheap laugh or, you know, like, or this or that or like, we had, okay, here's an awkward one for you guys. So we had like a room full of people that we all have poles. Okay. And then first thing the instructor's like, okay, it's not a stripper pole. You know, they just get that out of the way. Oh, like a pole pole. Yeah, like everybody has to have a pole. You create a pole. And this pole is in front of you. And so like it's a specific size, you know, it's bolted into the ground. And so like you have to just, you know, visualize this and it's basically creating like an object that's invisible that like has its own reality. And so now everybody has to buy into the fact that this pole is this size. It's this tall and you have to do all this without like telling anybody, you know, what you're doing. And now you have to like, you have to grab on somebody else's pole, which I thought was interesting. Like, hey sir, let me hold your pole. This is awkward. He's like, it's not the first time. He's like, okay, it's a big pole, dude. I'm like, all right, I got it. And so you go around and you have to keep one hand on your pole. And then like, so anyway, you have to like be able to like agree that this has, you know, some form of reality here, which everybody buys into. And by the end of the time, like, you have to have the same number of pole and they have to be the same size that they used to be. And so we failed like three times. There was one extra pole, there's one less pole. I don't get it. They're all different sizes. You have to remember, remember, remember each one. So, so I guess to explain it a little bit better. Mine is smaller. Let's pretend the three of us all have these poles. Yes. Okay, and start the drill with us. So now what you have to do is you created it, right? It's definitely the smaller one. Can you talk to me? Can you tell me? No. Oh, you can't talk to me. You just, you just create your pole. I'm just holding it, right? Yeah. And now I'm looking at you and sort of like gesturing, okay, I'm coming for your pole. I see where your arms are. Oh, so I made my pole like this. Yeah, of course you did. Yeah, look at that. Compensate. Yeah, I don't get it. Here's my pole. I get it, right? Okay, you got this massive pole. I'm coming in, okay? I'm stepping towards you. I'm holding mine still, okay? So you're holding your pole while you reach for his pole. Exactly, okay. So now somebody behind me might be going for my pole too and I'm like, all right. So you gotta watch out from the poles from behind. There's some people coming from my pole from behind. Okay. This is reality here, okay? So now they're gonna put their hand on my pole and I'm okay, you got my pole, kind of looking at them like, okay, cool. See, this is fun. This is fun talking about this actually because it was this ridiculous. Okay, and now I'm walking towards Adam's pole. I gotta balance his pole and then I release. So this person has my pole now. They know exactly how thick it is, how tall it is, all that. Now I'm going to yours. Now I'm holding your pole. You have to go find somebody else's. I'm gonna go to Sal. Sal has a very little pole, so I'm gonna go to his pole. He's got a tiny, tiny pole. We're inside my pole, that's how big it is. His pole imploded. So you're going to his pole and you work your way around the room. By the end of the time, you're with somebody else's pole and you're standing there and you freeze. And now it's like, okay, now the instructor goes around and counts how many poles there are based off of, like if you're holding it or not. Sometimes somebody could be holding two poles because they're like stabilizing and somebody doesn't even have one. So that's where it gets fucking crazy, don't they? Oh yeah. It is like skiing. Anyway, so that's an example of what we were doing. Wow, I feel like the skills you learn from practicing that are, number one, you just go with it. Don't be shy, scared, don't pour it. Here's one right away. It's a fact, 95% of all communication is not verbal. Yep, it's so obvious. 75%. No, it's 95%. Is it? Yeah, look it up. So I just read this actually. Really? Two days ago. Yeah, so I was actually going to write something about this. 95%. I've always heard 75. What was revealing to me was the first time, I guess, I forgot to mention, you could say certain words and cues. And so the second time, no communication. And so yeah, it was that. It's like you realized how much eye contact you're making. 93. And rounded up. Yeah, like what you're, you could totally talk just through your body. Well, it says that the nonverbal component, so this was a study done by Professor Mehehreben. I don't know if say it. It does, yeah. Combined the statistic. I don't know. Yeah, that was weird. So they combined the statistical results of two studies and came up with a now, with a famous 93% of communication is nonverbal. 55% being body language, 38% being tone. Right. Wow. Isn't that crazy? Well, that makes sense. Right. So it makes sense. So it makes sense why you would do so many drills where you guys aren't allowed to talk to each other, that you got to learn to use body language, eye contact, and gestures because, yeah, if only fucking 7% is actually verbal, that should be probably a smaller percentage of the time spent. Wow. Yeah, and if you're not real specific and you're more general and vague, people don't, you tend to fuck it up, right? Because you have to know specifically what it is. This is why a robot that's monotone and that talks like that would be terrible at communicating. You would not be able to get all that stuff. Yeah. Very interesting. I had a question in my DMs the other day that reminded me of a chicken or the egg. You know that little question, what came first? Yeah. Chicken or the egg. Person asked me, I thought it was a very interesting thing to bring up on the podcast. They said, what is more important for building muscle? Tension or weight? In other words, the weight that's on the bar or the tension that you feel. Tension. When you're lifting the weight. Tension. Well, I mean, they both play with each other, right? More weight adds more tension, but it's the tension. I agree with you. And the reason why I say that is because if you had heavy weight and you had, you could do one without the other, right? Well, you can influence tension without changing the weight by improving your form. Exactly. Slowing your form. And the importance of that, I think exceeds the importance of load because even, and regardless of what the studies say in this, the risk factor of just increasing load without having good tension is borderline dangerous. And you could still possibly do it. We see examples of this. You always have somebody who try and do a squat that has no tension and control. They just drop down and they bounce off the joints. Yeah, they bounce off and they come back up versus somebody who understands how to keep really good tension and they can actually decelerate really control. Now that being said, weight plays a very big role in tension, right? It's one of the number one ways you increase tension and it's very hard to intrinsically create tension, at least enough to really create muscle, lots of muscle growth and strength. I could create tension by slowing my rep down, squeezing my muscles, but if I did air squats, I could concentrate as much as I wanted, as much as I could, I would not be able to create the same amount of tension that I would. Well, it's funny, I geeked out on all that and that's why I was like trying to come up with the solution for that, you know, with like a stick and all that. But like, I mean, just to be able to convey, how important it is to be able to prepare your body for load. Right. And that's really, in a sense, if I could put it in a nutshell, like you need a specific amount of tension to be able to support your joints and to be able to safely move heavy objects or certain things in space. And the force of that, obviously it communicates through the cell, so adding that external load is gonna like, your body's gonna respond. Where are those questions for our class? That's a good question. It is, right? It wasn't on, nobody asked it in the call, I just got a DM, I mean, that's why I brought it up. I thought it would be interesting. Yeah, that's cool. I like questions like that, you know, cause it's, you know, we could go back and forth. And I bet you if you were to, if we were to like dig into the studies, you would probably support the load side, but I would tell you from experience. Well, that's just because people don't know how to really create tension and they need that external load. And this also, we, I mean, we're big advocates of isometric training. And I think it's just falling out of favor and it's just not cool. So not a lot of people do it, but there's a tremendous amount of value for it when trying to coach or teach a client. I mean, if I have somebody who is absolute, and obviously who I'm talking to matters, some clients have great control, can create tension right away. They've got, they have a, they have better mind muscle connection than some people. But then we've all trained for sure that's that percentage that they have no control. They just, they show a movement and they're all over the place. They need something external to create tension. Absolutely. They can't do it by tensing up their own body. Right. It's too esoteric. It's too hard for them to imagine. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I wanted to ask you, Adam, we have a certification coming up here at headquarters, right? Another one. Yeah, March, March 21st to the 22nd. We have Jason Phillips coming in. Oh, that's the, okay. So there you go. Nutrition certification for coaches who want to do online nutrition coaching. It's going to be here, March 21st and 22nd at Mime Pump Headquarters. And he's still giving away the thyroid masterclass, which if you were to buy that 600 bucks, he's giving it away for free for all Mime Pump listeners, which is really cool. And at the beginning of the episode in the intro, I give you the link where you can get that. Yeah, well, he's also doing out of those people that get that, 10 of those will be winners for a $500 NCI gift card that you can apply to any of the other courses. Oh, wow, that's sick. So not only do you get that for free, but then from the people that got the masterclass for free, thyroid masterclass for free, they'll also be thrown in a pool and he's going to pick 10 of them out of that and give them each $500 cards towards any of the other courses. So really, really love what NCI and Jason is doing as a partnership with Mime Pump, really hooking up our audience. Oh, it's great to see the response after using on, even on the show, like how people like, he just had such great information to give. And then he goes into even more depth in these seminars and everything. It's totally worth your time. All right, first question is from Nick Mag Four. What's the best way to retain muscle mass while decreasing body fat? Specifically in terms of how to alter training and how to split up my diet? Yeah, you know, when it comes to, I've been thinking a lot about questions like this and the goal with resistance training should almost always be to try and build muscle and gain strength. Now, why is that a goal when you're trying to cut? Because one of the inevitable side effects of decreasing body fat is that your body will try to reduce muscle mass to slow down your metabolism to make up for the difference. And one of the best ways to prevent the loss of muscle mass is to train as if you're trying to build. Now, your diet is what will reflect the fat loss goal. So if I eat in a calorie deficit, then I'm gonna burn body fat and I'm gonna lose the least amount of muscle if I lift weights like I'm trying to build. I think sometimes people think, oh, I'm cutting. Now, the way I train is gonna be to burn the most amount of calories all the time. And they lose that muscle building signal and they end up with muscle loss along with it. I like this question because we also get a lot of questions around all of our programs because they're all broken up in three or four phases. And people are always asking me like, how should I diet through this program? Should I be on a bulk? Should I be on deficit? Should I be on a bulk? Should I be on cut? I'll tell you how I like to do this with clients. And it all depends on where the person is metabolism wise, how fast is it or how slow is it on what I'm trying to do nutritionally with them. They're gonna follow the program as planned no matter what. Like to Sally's point, you're always training to build muscle or retain the most. And that's why programs are phased the way are because one of the ways you can almost guarantee you're probably gonna lose muscle mass is stay on the same program, the same training regimen for six plus months straight consistently and then go into a hardcore diet and cut, you're gonna lose muscle. Yeah, the muscle building signal is lost. It's luster and you're at a calorie deficit. Oh yeah. So one of my simple answer to this that I love to do is, and I'm about to do this right now. I'm helping out a couple close friends with diet and coaching, they're following. One of them's falling strong, one's falling anabolic. Both are female. I've been trying to speed up their metabolism. One of them's about 2,200 calories. The other one's around 2,500 calories. The goal I'm trying to get them closer to 3,000. And what I'll do is when I start to cut from them and reduce calories, I also like to time it on a transition in the phase of the programming. So like right now, one of them is on phase one of strong and technically I could start to cut her calories right now but I like to do it right when I send a really different signal to her body on a new phase. Makes sense. So you wanna cut the calories when she's getting the loudest, most effective muscle building signal to offset. And in my opinion, my theory is that that not only benefits her with building muscle and or retaining muscle at least, it also promotes fat burning because she's getting this unique signal now or different, the novelty side of it because she's been in a phase for three or four weeks in phase one and now boom, all of a sudden she's seeing new rep ranges, new exercises, body's going, oh wow, try and build muscle, adapt. Oh my God, we're not getting calories too so it's burning like crazy. So even though it's kind of a competing signal I find a lot of, this is how I used to train myself for shows is I always made moves in my diet when I was also making transitions in the phases to promote the greatest change. That's really smart, Adam. I've never thought of doing that but that makes perfect sense. I'll even also make intentionally bump their protein a little bit. So I'll cut calories but then I'll also elevate their protein because most of my girls I like running off like the 0.6 to 0.8 range. When we cut I'll normally bump them through like the more like the one to 1.25 range of protein but I'm also reducing calories and changing the protein. No, that's the second part is the other thing you can do is eat a high protein diet and push the upper limit of what is beneficial and studies show what you heard Adam referring to some numbers. Studies show about 0.6 to one gram of protein per pound of body weight is where you're gonna reap the benefits of a high protein diet. Any more than that you typically don't reap any additional benefits but when your calories are low a higher protein diet is actually more important. You actually can get away with lower protein when you're at a calorie surplus. This is because the excess calories are protein sparing. So body stops reaching for protein for energy. It's got plenty of calories from carbs and from fats and it's not as important. So if I'm in a bulk, believe it or not high protein is important but if I'm in a bulk it's less important than if I'm gonna cut. When I'm gonna cut and my calories are low that's when it makes the most sense to push the upper limit of the beneficial effects of protein and studies show consistently that that preserves the most muscle. They also show that they also help burn the most body fat probably through the indirect effect of maintaining a faster metabolism. So when you're trying to get whether you're trying to get cut or bulk up resistance training should be geared around building muscle. It'll give you the best results either way. Also consider this resistance training like any tool is very good at what it's designed for and it's kind of good for other stuff but it's really good for what it's designed for. Resistance training, can you build lots of stamina and endurance with it? Yes, can you get super flexible with it? Yes, but it's best for building muscle. Nothing, there's no modality that exists that builds muscle as effectively as resistance training. So when you do the resistance training, do it, use it the way it's best used which is build muscle and that's regardless of whether or not you're trying to burn body fat or gain weight. Next question is from Taylor Dinkel. What are your thoughts on powerlifting for aesthetics? Well, this is similar to a question that I had. Someone asked me of what I thought is a better place to start either bodybuilding or powerlifting and my response to them is I actually said I would lean towards powerlifting first. As a base? Yes, as a base, but I could also make the case for the other way. So this is not a, for sure one way or the other, I think there's value of somebody training for aesthetics or the mind muscle connection, bodybuilding technique of training that is extremely valuable from that perspective and what that benefits. Then there's a ton of value for somebody who's to build a really solid foundation like from powerlifting and what you get from that. Let's say somebody is completely brand new to working out. Would you guys prefer them to start in a powerlifting routine versus a bodybuilding routine? Now, you're not talking about competitive powerlifting, right? No, no, no. Just training like a powerlifting. Just stretching your capacity. Here's why I would lean, believe it or not, more towards powerlifting. And now this has granted the person that we're working with is free of major muscle amount. Exactly, because I'm gonna challenge. Let's take all that out because I can challenge either way very easily. But let's say somebody's free of major muscle imbalance. Because if that's the case, you have to focus on corrective exercise regardless of where we're gonna go. Which falls in the aesthetic bodybuilding. It might be, right? More connecting to muscle. Yeah, I'm probably going to go bodybuilding if there was issues. But let's say everything's fine and they don't have major muscle imbalances. Here's why I'll make the argument for powerlifting because powerlifting is so movement focused, they're more likely to learn biomechanically sound, squatting, deadlifting and bench pressing. You know, the core lifts and movements. Later on, once they've really got good at those lifts and they can do them well and they know how to maximize leverage and do it in a way to where they don't hurt themselves because that's what powerlifters do. They maximize leverage and efficiency so they can lift the most weight which means, believe it or not, reducing risk of injury. A powerlifter benches in the safest way possible that can lift the most amount of weight. Bodybuilders don't do this. Bodybuilders lift to feel it in the muscle. Now powerlifters tend to hurt themselves more but it's not because of the way they lift. It has more to do with the fact that they're always maxing out and pushing their limits but it'll teach sound technique and form and movement. Then from there, when they have that base, then I can say, okay, focus on your glutes, focus on your quads, focus on your lats and do those kinds of things. Yeah, if like, say we're taking this out, like if nobody has like these preexisting conditions like going into it, like otherwise I would probably lean more towards bodybuilding because now we can isolate and get a better recruitment like joint by joint but I've found in my experience in coaching people that if I were to train the movement like you're talking about, taking them from there to bodybuilding was a better transition versus the opposite. We're now taking a bodybuilder and trying to teach them like overall gross motor movements was challenging because certain parts of their joints wanna kick in like individually and they're gonna like pull like a deadlift with their biceps. Well now imagine we have somebody because we're also like there's so many different roads. There's so many ways to skin a cat. But let's pretend we've got a listener who has got years of experience, three, five, more than two years of experience lifting so they're not brands making new. They see all the maps programs, they see there's a powerlifting program, they see there's a maps aesthetics, they're so they're like, okay, where would I start? What would I do? Do you think that your powerlifting program is good So here's, if I had a year with you, powerlifting for sure would make its way into that training, right? So I would for sure use our maps aesthetic, our maps split program and our maps powerlifting program and probably even strong. Like those four I would use for this person. If you came to me, you said, I want to build the most aesthetic physique you've got me for one year at them. I'm gonna use all four of those programs because there's gonna be massive carryover for your overall goal. Totally, now the question is about aesthetics. Okay, now again, it depends who I'm talking to. If I'm talking to the person that's been powerlifting for a while, bodybuilding is gonna give them better aesthetics. If I'm talking to the person who is a relative beginner, free of imbalances, they're gonna get great aesthetics from powerlifting. Focusing on the movements is gonna give them the most muscle mass gains, general muscle building. Now bodybuilding, the strength of bodybuilding is they can isolate muscles and focus and sculpt on different parts of my body. The strengths in powerlifting are I get really good at these gross motor movements that work everything anyway. So when it comes to aesthetics, it really depends who I'm talking to. It does, because here's another person, myself, okay? Powerlifting contributed to my pro physique more than bodybuilding training. I train like a bodybuilder most of my life. I always wanted aesthetics. And so I neglected powerlifting as I just never identified with, oh, I don't need a deadlift fucking my max. I don't need to do squatting for my max. Like I never drop below five reps. It wasn't until I started powerlifting did my physique grow to the next level. So I would even say somebody who is like me, who has always done all the cable exercises, measheen exercises, isolation stuff, bodybuilding type of movements for most of their life or most of their training career, absolutely would benefit extremely from powerlifting for their aesthetics. It's what grew my back. It's what grew my legs. It bulked my shoulders. Those things, it put on a lot more mass onto my physique. And then when I peeled down, it was very obvious that that served my body. You know, where powerlifting works phenomenally for aesthetics and typically for me, I saw it be super effective with my female clients who were very body focused. The ones who are very aesthetic focused who'd been going to the gym for a while and it's all about, I gotta change how I look. I gotta change how I look. They'll watch the scale, watch the scale. I'd switch them to powerlifting because I knew that it would get them to focus on performance. I knew it would get them to focus on how strong they were. I knew it got them to move away from the small isolation movements where I gotta feel every little muscle. And I'm like, no, no, no, forget all that. We're gonna get you really strong at some of these core lifts. And they would get these phenomenal aesthetic gains. They'd come to me and be like, oh my God, my butt never looked bigger and better. My hamstrings look round, I have better posture. Then we would go back to the body sculpting, body building routines and they would get better results. 100%, if you have somebody who is, that's another great example. If you are a superset chaser, 15 to 20 reps, low rest period person training and lots of plyometric stuff and that's the stuff you love and you're also trying to sculpt this aesthetic physique, switch switching your mindset over to a powerlifting type of routine is going to build incredible amounts of muscle on you. So this is a depends question as always but it really, who I'm talking to would be where I would push this person but absolutely powerlifting could benefit aesthetics tremendously. Next question is from Cameron Stewart, 18. What are the top three to five things that the average American can do to improve their long-term health? Oh, great question. So I'll list what I think is number one. And the reason why I think it's number one is when I think of all the things that a person can do to positively affect their health when I think of the average person, I think of what will give me the most bang for buck? What's the one step that someone can take that's going to make the biggest general impact? Not perfect, because it's only one step. There's more steps, but what's the one thing that the average American can do that will really positively give them the biggest positive impact? And if we look at the average American and we look at the health problems, the vast majority of our health problems or chronic health problems are related to obesity and the overconsumption of food. That's number one, it really is. And even high sugar, high carb, high fat, the wrong foods, when you throw that on top of a lot of calories, they become catastrophic. So the number one thing, and if it's, because it's one thing, it can only make it one thing. So I'm not gonna say diet, because that's a lot of things, right? I'll say one thing. Avoid heavily processed foods, that's it. I've got three right away, and that's number one. I've got three right away that come to mind, number one, 100%, I agree with you, processed foods. Yeah, because that drops your calories by five to 600 calories a day. It's a simple, and it's not simple in what it takes discipline-wise, it's simple as in what it takes to follow. Yeah, just get rid of it, like eat whole foods. If you're hungry, eat whole foods. Not trying to tell you to count, not trying to pay attention to macros, none of that shit. Just literally eliminate processed foods. That single thing I think is the best thing to do. The second thing I would say is actually creating good habits and behaviors around movement, and it could be as simple as this. Add a 10 to 20 minute walk to meals. Every time you eat, that you just make a habit of you don't sit on your ass for the next 45 minutes, and it doesn't need to be hour, it'd be great if it's 45 minutes or an hour, but make the habit of going for 10 to 20 minute walk right after you eat. That's called ritualizing activity. Right. You're 100% right now, you might be thinking, I got a 10 minute walk, aren't you guys trainers, don't you guys teach people resistant training and all that? Yes, that would be great. That's actually the best possible thing you could do, but again, just like I said with eliminating processed foods, you ritualize some activity, the odds that you're consistent, the odds that you can fit in your day, and the impact it'll have because of that. Remember that. Impact doesn't necessarily mean the best thing. Impact has to take into account what will people actually do, how many people will this work for, and what you just said makes perfect sense. Ritualize a little bit of activity. This one isn't really fitness related. It's more like community related. And I think that based off that study that you had told us a while back about like relationships and like how that plays into a factor with your long-term health. And you see this in the blue zones, and you see this with we're social creatures. We're social animals. And I think that we've all gone way beyond that. And we think that we're being social by being on our phones and talking to people through social media and through all these things. We don't have any meaningful interactions with other human beings. And I think if you weren't to like kind of definitely work on that and like work on giving more of yourself into your community, making friendships, making relationships with people, like in terms of long-term health and have a massive impact. Statistically speaking, you're 100% right, Justin. Having good relationships is paramount. In fact, having bad relationships is equivalent to smoking. I think something like 15 cigarettes every single day. Think of the stress it causes. It's crazy, I didn't even think that. And you went to that point. And the reason why I knew the 95% communication thing was because what I was gonna write about was exactly this topic is, if the average person is claiming that they're spending four to five hours on social media every day, 95% of communication is non-verbal and actually physical, right? In front of somebody. How much are our social communication skills degrading as Americans right now by being- Why do you think there's so much conflict? So that's why we have emojis and all kinds of ways to try to make up for the difference, but it just doesn't, absolutely doesn't, and studies will prove this. And in regards to the relationships, you know, it's funny, Jessica and I like to walk around the neighborhood and we'll do this 30 minute loop. And we ran into an old friend of mine, this guy that I, way back when I first opened my personal training studio when I was 23, I think, I trained this guy for a second. Great guy, one of the nicest guys I've ever met. Lost contact, but I still remembered him and thought about him. Ran into him, he lives in our neighborhood. So we start talking, he's got kids and we're like, after we leave, you know, Jessica and I like, we should have them over for dinner. Now we didn't. Now, you know why we didn't? Because why most people don't? You think about all the time, the energy, we got to organize. But you know, we talked about it and I said, you know what, that prevents so many of us from not having these relationships. But the reality is every time we do it, I've never, I'm almost never- You never regret it. No, I've invited people, yes, it's a lot of work and all stuff, but then when they leave, I'm like, you know, that was a meaningful four hour, you know, conversation- Let me think of it, because I've been coaching and putting myself out there a little bit more and like interacting with other parents and kids and you know, I just forgot how much of an impact that made, you know, even on myself, not to mention, you know, everybody else that we're starting to connect with more. So I had three that came to mind the way. One was not what you just said, Justin, but I 100% agree that if we're going three to five, that has to be in one of those right there. The other one that I think is extremely important and extremely overlooked is building some sort, and I think it's getting worse, so this becomes more important, is building some sort of night ritual the same way you have a morning ritual. Oh yeah. And I like saying it like that versus telling you something specific to exactly do because everyone's gonna have an individual variance just like we have with our morning routines, but the one single thing you can do that will impact it is just make it a priority the same way you do a morning routine, the same way you- You get ready for your day. You allot yourself a certain amount of time to brush your teeth, to have your breakfast, to make your coffee, to maybe read, I don't know what you do in the morning, but for sure, yeah, poop, whatever. You for sure have somewhat of a routine that you start your day off with and some routines are probably better than others, but at least having one is set you up to have a successful day, right? Yeah, you're right. 100% because we go to bed, we hit the pillow, we expect, I'm gonna go to sleep, have great sleep. Right. And lack of quality sleep is very detrimental. 100% and only if you're going to bed, you're only getting worse with the phones coming into the bedroom, with the TVs coming into the bedroom, with the laptops being on your lap still and looking at in the lights and we talk about this all the time, disrupting sleep. So just having some sort of discipline around how you prepare yourself to sleep, which is one of the most important times of the day, even though you're asleep, as far as your body, hormonally and longevity-wise and stress-wise. So that to me, I think, if you treat that with care. What a great list, think about this. If the average American dramatically reduced, didn't even count calories, and he just dramatically reduced, heavily processed food consumption, ritualized a little bit of activity, maybe tying it to when I wake up or tying it to food, like you said, Adam. So I'll take a 10 minute walk after every meal, that's nothing. They prioritize relationships a little bit, like, okay, I'm gonna go out of my way to hang out with people a little bit and talk with them. And then the fourth one you said, just create a ritual so you can prepare yourself for sleep. They just did those four things. Boy, that alone would solve a huge chunk of the chronic health problems that we're suffering from right now. Totally. Next question is from Jeremy Longprey. What are the positives and negatives of being a trainer? Do you have any advice that you wish you knew when you first started? Hard to get rich. Yeah, I was gonna say, it's not if you're- Not a money grab. If you're super driven by money, and you just wanna make a lot of money. Which I was. Yeah, get into finance or investments. Work with money, that's how you're gonna make money. Either that or my defense, because I am this person, I was driven first by money before I was the passion to become a personal trainer. But because I was so driven by money, and I fell in love with personal training. You figured out a way. Exactly. It forced me to get better and better at my craft because just being a good trainer, you're not gonna get rich at all. And even being great, probably you're not. So it really forced me to continue to reinvent myself, to grow, to learn, to push, to be at a whole other level, to get to that small percent that make it to that kind of revenue. So yeah, that would be a negative, right? A negative would be it's- Potentially, right? Yeah. If you're trying to be a trainer- It's a struggle in the beginning. If you're trying to be a trainer and you're not passion driven by fitness, you're gonna have a tough time because that's what takes you through everything. Here's another negative. It's exhausting. It's a very exhausting job. Now, you might think, well, why? You're not doing construction. Carry the emotions of other people. Not just that. That's a big part of it. The other part of it is, let's say you work an eight hour shift. Yeah, you gotta split. Yeah. Very few trainers work a nine to five. Not only that, but let me take it a step further. Let's say you work an eight hour shift at an office. You have, there's a lot of time in that eight hours where you could take a break. You don't need to talk to anybody. You can relax. You could go on the internet. You can talk to your friend. If you're training eight clients in a day, first off, like what Adam said, never are they back to back. If you're training eight clients in a day, you're there for 12 hours because there's always gaps. But number two, you're on all eight hours. There's no break. Client shows up, I'm working. There is no break in between and that can be really, really exhausting. You determine the energy. And I think that's what you're getting at. It is like a suck in a sense where you gotta really amp yourself up so you can portray the best version of yourself constantly. Now, some of the positives are if you make it this, this is why too, right away when I meet another trainer and I ask them how long you've been doing it and if they've been doing it for beyond five years, I know they've already, they're probably pretty good at what they do because it's really tough if you're not a good trainer to have made it past five years because the things that we're talking about, even if you're really good, you're gonna struggle with this. Your schedule is gonna be tough. You're gonna go through clients you don't like training. You're not gonna make a lot of money. And so if you've persevered through that, you're probably a pretty damn good trainer if you've made five years or longer. But one of the positives are, once you do establish yourself and you build a good reputation for what you do and you're known for being a great trainer and the referrals begin to come in, then you can start to get very picky about who you train. And it took me a long time. And you get to hang out with cool people. Yeah, I mean, it definitely got to a point where towards the back half for sure of my 20 years is I definitely got really picky with who I trained. And then my clients got really exciting because I couldn't wait to see them because not only was I getting paid good because I had also moved my rates up by that time, but I was also gonna learn something. I always knew I was gonna get something from them. Like that would continue to grow. And that is the same thing that makes us very passionate about the podcasting is, that's even more accelerating than what training was. Training I love because I've got some CEO or I've got some author. I've got some brilliant tech person. And I love to communicate between sets and ask questions. And so, I get this like front row seat to these brilliant minds that I can pick whatever questions I wanna ask them because they're on each other's time. That is extremely valuable. And you develop a close relationship because these people see you for one to three undivided attention hours a week for years. So they spend more undivided time with you than they do with most of their family members. Other family members, yeah. So you actually develop a really close relationship and it's great when they're successful smart people. I mean, one of the reasons why I love trained doctors is you guys know I love science and I love medicine and I love health. I would ask them all kinds of insane questions. And because we're friends, they would talk to me about them and they valued the time as well. So it was really cool. The other part is this, is that there's a lot of jobs that are out there where you don't really feel your value. You don't really feel the meaning behind what you're doing because you're either pushing buttons or you're making a small part of a big product. And so you don't necessarily see the impact that you have in society. When you're training people and you're doing a good job and they lose weight, get better shape, they feel no more pain, their health improves, you see it directly. And so you have this incredible sense of meaning. The reward is right in front of you. Totally. I think that, I mean, that's initially what people get into, I think, personal training if they're really passionate about it. They wanna impact other people's lives and you can do that on a one-to-one basis and it's literally right in front of you. And I totally agree. I had some of the best conversations I've ever had is with some of my main clients that I see on a regular basis. And I just can't, you're not gonna get that from a regular job because you're not gonna be able to go that deep with somebody else because you're on this, it's like you're on this journey together. You become like, it's a deep bond that you share. Well, it's Sal's point about the meaning thing of all the professions. It's probably, it's not the only one. There's plenty of other ones that I think like doctors would say they probably feel similar with this too, is that it reveals your purpose really quick. Like if this was what you were meant to be doing, like the first time that you do something where you like fundamentally change somebody's life, like somebody came to you, they're 45 years old, they've struggled with weight loss forever, they're obese, they've tried this diet, they've done this and you unlock something for that person that like fundamentally changes them forever. It gets me emotional just talking about it because it reminds me of all those feelings that I've had when I've had a client like this. When you get that, holy shit, does that provide such a larger purpose in what you're doing? And if you just remember that as a trainer that that's your true North, then everything that you do before that to lead to that will really help guide you in your career and that's extremely rewarding. To me it's like it's truth, it's like finding truth. I feel like it's deep like that, like you're on this journey to find like answers like that. If you have one little key for them, that's a truth that they didn't have before. It's like something that you can help them find and you're like sort of this oracle, like you're here, here's where it is, but you have to find it yourself. And the reward in it is that they understand it and then they apply it themselves, that's the reward. And it's just positive, it's always positive and it can be with people who are totally different from you. I've had clients that are completely differing political views and religions and whatever, but they're there to get healthy, I help them get healthy and it's incredible. Some of them, I remember phone calls I would get from clients, I had one, I've told this story before, I had an older client who came in on her day off to tell me she was so excited, she was 80 years old. She had lost her independence. Her daughter came in and hired me to train her and after about seven or eight months of training, this woman regained her independence and she came into my gym on her off day to tell me that she was able to go grocery shopping for the first time in two years by herself. She was able to close the trunk of her car all by herself and she made the trip to come into my gym, walked in, gave me a hug and said, I'm independent again because of the training that you've given me and that right there was worth, it's worth more than money to me. It was worth way more than money. It's what kept me a personal train for a long time. Believe me, I had clients offer me jobs and wanted to pay me more and I was like, you know, I need to feel like I have some meaning behind what I do. You know, not to end this on a negative note, but yeah, we're all getting emotional and positive, I'm gonna crap you out for a second, but it just reminded me of something that really bothers me and it was something that I spoke to a lot as a leader of trainers for many, many years is the scarcity mindset. And if you really understand your purpose of helping and serving people and you've fallen in love with personal training and you claim that you love it so much and that is your purpose and what you're doing and you're listening, you're nodding your head and you're like, yes, that's the feeling's amazing and you're a trainer. But then you're also scared to direct your people towards information that it could be provided a better way through them than yourself in fear of losing financial gain. It's such a scarcity mindset and we'll put a ceiling on your cap of how great you become. You know, one of the things that made me very successful as a trainer is I never feared that because I truly believe that if my true North was that my ultimate goal was to unlock that key for this person is to provide that life-changing feeling or moment for them or forever, you know, change their behaviors. And if everything I was giving towards them wasn't doing that, or even if I was doing things for them, but I knew there was somebody else that could provide even more value for that person, I was okay with potentially losing them as a client to give them the answer or to help them better. If you come from that place, it always comes back to unfold. I might've lost a hundred percent. I might've lost $150 an hour because I sent her over to Dr. Ruscio who really needs to dive into her gut. And even though I understand that stuff really, really well and I've read lots of stuff, he's fucking 10 times better than I am at that. Even though that I lost the $150 an hour client, I pass it over to somebody who I think is really gonna change that person's life. What ends up happening is two, three years down the road, that person has not only talked about the great things that Mike did, but she'll always remember that it was me who sent her over there to help her. I get just as much credit for that and it may not directly affect my pocket right then and there, but I always end up getting three, five, 10 other people reaching out to me because of that. And you know what's funny? I've never lost the client because of that. It's never happened to me. If anything, they come to me more because I guided them in the right direction. As far as advice that I'd have for myself when I first started, I wish Mind Pump existed. I wish because my personal training knowledge came from certifications, bodybuilding magazines, my own research and my own experience. If Mind Pump had existed back then, I would have shaved. I mean, you can't ever replace experience, but I would have shaved a good, I don't know, five years off the amount of time it took me to go from sucky trainer to not bad trainer. And with that, go to mindpumpfree.com and download all of our guides, resources and books. They're all totally free. We have a personal trainer guide on there as well. Not just exercise and fat loss guides. We have guides for personal trainers. So again, mindpumpfree.com. You can also find the three of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin, me at Mind Pump Sal and Adam at Mind Pump Adam.