 Hey, everyone. Welcome to Mind Pump. In this episode, we talk about why your fitness goals may actually be killing your gains and what you should be doing instead. We also talk about a big $15,000 giveaway that you may be able to win. Are you a winner? In the second half of the show, we coached four live callers on how to bulletproof your shoulders using may spell swings as well as what to do if your knees hurt when you're squatting. Do you have friends and family that are either into fitness or just getting into fitness? Well, we have the perfect thing for you. We have short digestible clips that you can share with them on our Mind Pump Clips YouTube channel. Go over there and subscribe and enjoy the rest of this show. Having fitness goals is killing your gains. All right. I like that. I like that because I agreed today, but I would have strongly disagreed say 10 years ago. Totally. Yeah. 100%. Now, okay, here's what's going on here with that because people are like, what do you mean? You're supposed to have goals. You guys tell us to have goals. Your programs have goals. Like, you know, people want to lose fat, build muscle. Like, what's the deal? Really, what it is, it's the obsession with goals, right? It's the focusing so heavily on the goal that you lose all sight of the journey. You lose the ability to enjoy the process. And it becomes all about accomplishing a specific goal, which at some point, if you stick to this long enough, you do this long enough as you get older, that will become a problem because at some point, you're not going to get leaner. You're not going to build more muscle. You're not going to accomplish these types of things. And if you do, on the other hand, if you do accomplish these goals and you work your ass off and you're so focused on this one goal, and once you get there, then you get stuck in this place where you're like, well, what do I do now? I lost the 100 pounds or I lost 50 pounds. A lot of times, you're just going to ignore those signals, your body is providing you in order to push your way through. So it just sort of reiterates that, that mentality, like a lot of athletes have where it's like, in spite of everything happening, I have to get to this destination and ignore how my body's like really breaking down simultaneously. So what, what type of client are you, are you mostly communicating this to? So you get somebody comes in there, maybe they just get started. And they, they want, I have a goal, I would lose 30 pounds. And would you say, no, no goal? What are you, who are you communicating this message to the most? Well, I'll say this, the people that I first realized, what I'm communicating right now, the people that really illuminated this for me were those clients that we got who said, I'm hiring you because I'm getting married in six months. Or I'm hiring you because I have this thing I got to go to and I need to lose weight for this particular thing. Or I have this marathon I want to train for. It's my first marathon. That's why I'm hiring you. And the reason why those people illuminated this for me is because like clockwork, if we got to their goal by the date, they lost all, you know, for lack of a better term, motivation or consistency afterwards, like they got where they wanted. And then afterwards it was hard to keep them going. I think this applies to everybody though, right? And there's nothing wrong with having goals really falling in love with the goal or worshiping the goal, that becomes the big issue. Yeah, I feel like this is a type of person. Like they always had to have like a marathon goal or had to have an event in order to motivate themselves to get in shape. And they never wanted to think beyond that specific goal. Just like, oh, I'll figure it out afterwards. Oh, how many times have you heard that? Oh, all the time. I mean, that was it. And to me, that's where I was, I think I was seeking that from you is that that's the client that I recall having this conversation a lot to was the person who would have this date in mind or marathon they're running or something they were competing with somebody. And I've never always say to them, like, okay, cool, you want to lose 30 pounds by this or you have this wedding? Did you want to put it all back on afterwards? And they'd be like, no, of course not. Okay, well, then how we go about this is so important than just like having this crazy goal that you want to achieve and being so focused on that. Let's talk about all the behaviors that will lead to this, not only getting you there, but then being able to maintain that for and I make and I get them to say that to me, do you want to maintain this for the rest of your life or to get there? And then, okay, well, then there's a there's a better way for us to approach this. Well, a lot of times too, because I remember having clients like this where they would sign up for an OCR race, they did, you know, get ready for Vegas trip. And then it's like, they're always thinking ahead of like, what's that next kind of crazy thing that I can get myself into. And it just became this this obsession over, you know, also comparing themselves to other people. It's like, well, I want to look like so and so and look like this person. Once I get there, I'm going to be happy. And it's always this sort of, you know, projecting themselves on these these other goals and these other things and not really internalizing the process. You know, I learned a lot too, from talking to some of the older, super consistent members that I'd have like people who are in their 50s, 60s and 70s, who like clockwork, they're always there at the same time, you know, same days of the week, working out, they were healthy, they were fit. And something that you're trained to do when you work in gyms by your managers is to ask people what the what's your goal? What's your workout goal? What's your fitness goal? Why were we trained to do that? Well, it's a good conversation starter. Get away to pitch a cell. It's also a great way to open up potential cell product, a supplement, personal training or whatever. Or you know, here's how I can help you type of deal. So when I would ask these client, these members who are older and super consistent. So these are people who were working out for 30 years or 40 years, you know, consistently, say, Hey, what are your goals? And they'd always like, Oh, I don't really have any goals. You know, and I remember thinking, like, What do you mean? Why are you working out? You're crazy. Yeah. Oh, I enjoy it. I just love working out. I love what I do. And what I realized was their goals were very much for the day. Like, Oh, my goal is to feel good today. My goal is to get this workout and then have, you know, no joint pain later or get this workout and have more energy to go to do gardening or and that's kind of how mine has changed a little bit. Now, of course, again, I'm not saying goals are bad, necessarily, it's the falling in love with them. Like I still have fitness goals. But now the more important goals for me, for example, are feeling good for the day. So like I work out, what's my goal today? I want to feel really good today when I come to work, get on the podcast, I want to have good energy when I go home and hang out my kids and, you know, help my wife make dinner. Like that's different than the like, I'm going to gain 10 pounds by this time and I'm all, you know, super laser focused on it. Because again, two things can happen with that one, you don't hit your goal, which we know how hard that is and what that can do. But then here's the second one nobody considers. What if you hit the goal? You've been so hyper focused on this one goal, and you've trained your butt off and you've done everything consistently for three months, four months, whatever. Then you hit that goal. And then you're in this really strange psychological phenomena where you're like, what do I do now? I had this thing that was driving me, I hit it. First off, I'm not as happy as I thought it would be if I hit that goal, because we all, we tend to create this imaginary delusion of, oh, if I do this goal, if I hit this goal, I'm going to be so happy. It's going to be so amazing. Then you get there like, well, it's not as great as I thought. And then what do I do now? Well, yeah, I've always tried to structure short attainable goals. And it's really just a shift of focus of things where I notice there's a lack of it in my program and there's a lack of it in my focus nutritionally. I'm not getting really good sleep. Like it's always going to rotate and there's going to be a lack of focus in one area or one aspect that could need more attention. So for me, it's really just taking that the emphasis and focus and deliberately moving it there for a few weeks to a month or maybe a couple months and then shifting it where I see the next deficit. Yeah, the biggest, the biggest change that I saw for myself was shifting it to the small obtainable goals. And when I was younger, I was always taught to, you know, shoot for the stars, land on the moon. Yeah. So I was always taught like big goals, dream big, big, big. Don't think small. And so that was built in me. So it took a long time for me to figure out that that was not the best approach for health and fitness for myself and then to teach it to others. Well, that's because this is a life pursuit. It makes sense if you're if it is a short pursuit like, okay, I'm going to school right now so I can accomplish this particular degree so then I can get a job type of it all. But if it's a life pursuit, which is fitness, like I'm going to do this for the rest of my life, then it becomes a problem. Yeah, that's right. That's why you have to go about it in a in a different manner. And what I've found it up working incredible was actually setting these crazy small easy goals. Goals that I should be able to knock out in the first week. Yeah. Oh, you know, the goal would be this week, I just want to get three workouts in. Oh, cool. I hit it. All right. Next goal. And then like, literally learning to do that to build momentum and to turn it into a lifestyle. I had tremendous success. And that became the key to teaching my clients was to actually, okay, I know you came to me and you hired me because you have this big goal of I want to lose 100 pounds or I want to look like this. Cool. Get that. But let's actually break that down week by week. Like, what are we going to accomplish this week together and give me something that is going to stretch you, but it's not going to stretch you so hard that you don't think it's realistic or it's going to be really difficult to achieve something you know you could definitely crush and then we would build on that. I just remember, I totally forgot about this, but just brought back a memory. I had a client. He was a younger guy. So let's say he probably went as it is the late 30s, but he was an entrepreneur. He owned restaurants and his him and his buddies. So he had a bunch of buddies and I met them all because I went out with him once and we all hung out great guys, right? But a bunch of very successful business owners. So they made a lot of money. Great guys really cool. And I trained this particular dude and he needed to lose a lot of weight. Well, anyway, they all came up with this idea because they all needed to lose weight. So they all said, that's it. Let's put money on the table. I was there when this happened. I tried to talk him out of it. So let's put money on the table. Five grand a piece. Okay, so there was five of them. I think there were five guys. So it's $25,000 was the pot. And in 60 days, let's see who loses the most weight. And I totally say, guys, you're going to gain all the weight back. And then some said that's not how it works. And I tried to explain it to them or whatever they say, Oh, no, no, don't worry about we're gonna lose weight and then we'll keep it off and whatever. But this will motivate us. And sure enough, they did they put them and they all lost a lot of weight. And the guy who won won the $25,000. What do you think happened afterwards? He put it all back. Now he gave it back. He stopped working out. He stopped working out for a period of time because, you know, for lack of a better term, he kind of burned himself out because he was so punishing himself to get there. He was so hyper focused on that goal that he within that period of time he developed kind of his bad relationship with exercise. He stopped working out with me for like a few months and then slowly ease himself in. And I remember having that conversation saying, you know, what made you stop working out? Was that stupid contest you did? You know, he's like, well, at least a 125 grand. It's okay, sure. I mean, I can get behind that. But still I'm bragging rights or whatever. Right. But still, you know, that's the thing. Link at the top of the description below to get signed up. All right, here comes the show. Speaking of bragging rights and stuff like that, I got to tell a story of an Adam, you just really touched my heart that you did this. What's that? The other day. So we're in here, you know, doing the we're doing a podcast and in between episodes, I get a phone call for or a text I should say from Jessica. She picked up my daughter from school that day. And she's like, oh, she goes, she's really upset right now. I'm like, what's going on? So I'm a very overprotective dad anyway to put it lightly, especially when it comes to my daughter. So I'm like, what happened? Why is she upset? And she goes, well, some boys were in her class, we're making fun of her shoes. I said, what? So my daughter's mom. So, you know, she's her mom and I are divorced. So she's with her mom half the time, half with me. Her mom had bought her a pair of Jordans. And so my daughter was all excited to wear her new Jordans to school. Well, I guess these boys were telling her that those aren't real Jordans. Those are fake. I guess reps is the word you use for saying that they're, I don't know what the rep stands for. Replicas. Replicas, right? They're fake whatever. Got it. And so they made her really upset. So she got in the car, she was crying, right? Super upset. So I'm in here getting this text and you guys saw me. I was just trying to calm them down. Relax, bro. I was getting heated because I don't you know, like, if my kids get bullied or messed with it bothered me, especially my daughter, I got this really strong overprotective, right? So I'm like, and it's boys doing it too. So I'm like, oh, I'm just fuming, right? So I get home. This was like three hours later and she's in bed. She's upstairs in bed. So I'm like, I'm like, so I come on and say hi to Jessica. And I'm like, where's where's she? She's like, oh, she's upstairs. She didn't want to come out of her room. So I'm like, oh, man. So I walk up there. She's in bed. And I'm like, honey, I'm like, tell me what happened? Like what's it? She's like, I don't want to talk about it. You know, she's like kind of crying. I'm like, oh, so mad, right? So like, tell me, tell me what's going on. She's like, they said they were reps and they're not real. And I'm like, well, how do you know? I said, your mom bought them. They're Nike Nike. They got to be real. She's like, no, they're the stitching and this and the the label is that. And so I'm like, you know, maybe your mom got ripped off. Like what's going on? She was all worried because she had these faces. So I'm like, trying to figure out I'm going online. I'm like, oh, shit. I'm like, I know a guy actually knows more about knows more about sneakers than anybody. Like, fuck, I got to call Adam. Now, here's the funny thing, Adam, if I text him like after work, it'll take him usually hours to respond. But I texted him like, bro, about shoes, because you knew my daughter was upset. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like, bro, I got home and my daughter says that that she thinks that the shoes might be fake because this and that. So Adam right away responds. He goes, send me a picture of the box. Where did she buy the shoes? This, he's asking me all the questions. So then he replies back and he goes, no, those are real. Those are those are real. So I say, can you call her get on the phone with my daughter and help her out? So is that right? So I got him on the phone and he goes, you know, I know it's something like, you know, I'm a shoe connoisseur. You tell those stupid boys the fuck they're talking about those and I don't know what you told her that they were. I told what they really were. They were they were Midbury Jordans. And I knew that what the what the young boys probably thought was they look similar in color to like the original Reds, which are like three to five thousand dollars sneaker. They're made like a 1986. Yeah, they're like so they so I'm sure these these young boys thought they were reps because they probably thought she was rocking three to five thousand dollars sneakers. And they're like, there's no way they're real. So they're going to tease her when everything they were saying was bullshit. Like all that she she bought them from a very reputable place that authenticates shoes. So it's they weren't fake. The box was legit. Everything about them and they were legit colors, legit everything. And so they're just a bunch of and more likely what I think you alluded to at one point to us off air was that, you know, they're probably boys that like her and just trying to it's a flirt. It's a really bad flirt. Like back then, you don't know how to get girls attention. And so you see something and you're like, oh, yeah. Oh, bro, the smile on her face though, because before I got him on the phone because at first he called her and because they gave him her number and then she didn't want to answer. I don't want to talk to anybody because she's super set. And I said, listen, honey, I said, your uncle Adam owns literally probably hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of shoes like he collects them. Yeah, he knows more about shoes anyway. So I got him the phone and then he's using all the shoe lingo. So she knows that he's, you know, and then the smile on her face. And then he texted her was like, this is what you tell the stupid boys. I was like, yeah, I'm coming in. I bet you came back to school. Oh, so hot. She was smiling so hard. And kids are rough, dude. Kids are kids are really, really. And I, you know, I actually went down the rabbit hole after you sent that to me because I had never heard actually the term reps before. That was actually new to me. When we are kids, you just call them fakes or knockoffs or like, you know, so somebody. But of course, so I went down the rabbit hole and saw men. There's they have really come a long ways with with replicas. In fact, there's a lot of people that straight up rock them and they know their reps. But they've done like the sneaker game is came up so much back when I got, I bought a pair of fake sneakers like two decades ago, not knowing, right? I thought somebody was hooking me up with the real deal. And the way I found out was they like fell apart within like two months. That's a folk. Yeah, like after the first time I walked through a puddle, like the souls came out. So is that the worst feeling? Yeah. Well, you know, it's crazy. So they were my favorite Jordans because I played. I had they were my team shoe. And so he had them and I was so excited. This was back. This is before they started re-releasing them. So I should have known them, but I was naive and I bought them. And I remember the the second I put them on, they just didn't feel right. But they looked right at the first glance. And then, of course, over, you know, a month of wearing them, like they completely fell apart. Or now they have these, you know, replicas that actually sell for the same price that the real ones sell for. So they're not cheap, like you're paying full price for them because they they look totally different game they're playing. Yeah. They and it's gotten so popular because the resell market has got so crazy because there are some of these J's that will turn around sell for three, five thousand dollars. So you can make and if you do a good job of making like a very real looking replica, people will still pay one fifty for them. Wow. So you've got these people that are that are that are making these shoes. And and so there is a there is a genre of people that like rock replicas and like, yeah, fuck yeah, the replicas, why would I pay five thousand dollars for these things? Ninety nine percent of the people that walk by have no idea that they're fake. But, you know, just crazy how kids are in high school. Well, I mean, I tell you what, because you guys both have little boys. I don't know. It's just something about your daughter. Yeah, like if my son got bothered, I always bother me, right? And I would tell him like you need to handle it and do this and that. But then you think of your daughter with boys. I don't know. I think it's because it's a bigger threat or whatever. Plus, I know like I'm a boy, right? So I know how guys can be, especially at 13 years old, 14 years old. And so just the fumes were just coming out of my head like, thank God they were just making fun of her shoes. And they didn't like do something else because it would have been all bad. But yeah, they're probably flirting. Yeah. I mean, you know how stupid we are. I told this, I also told my daughter this. I said, honey, I said, guys, don't figure out how to flirt until we're like 30. I said, I mean, we're really dumb for a long time. Yeah. On that kind of stuff. And we'll say the opposite of what we mean. And we'll think that making you feel bad is how we're going to get you to like us or whatever. I said, we're just dumb. I said, they're not evil. They're just stupid. I said, so you got to understand that right now. They're just insecure and trying to get your attention for the most part and messing it up. Well, I told you guys to story my brother when he was in sixth grade, he had a huge crush on a girl. So what does he do when they're ready to get in line? No, he tripped her. And she broke both their arms. Oh my God, that's right. You'll never live that down. Did you imagine? That's the worst. Yeah, the huge. Imagine having a massive crush on some girl and then you're flirting with her. And you're like, hey, hey, hey, you want to spuddy? Hey, you had a huge crush on this girl. Trips her. She breaks, she falls and breaks both arms. Both arms. She has to go to school in cast. She's like this. He did. So his punishment was how did he not get killed by the father? Well, so he's like a little kid, right? And he was, he was crying when he did it. He was crying. He felt so bad, right? OK. So and so then he had to do her work for her. He had to handwrite all her work for her until her arms are broken. Anyway, this girl ends up becoming like an international model. Like, no way. Yeah, dude, they were friends. Oh, wow. And I always tease my brother. I'm always like, you can never date her, dude. You're the kind of brokerage where you traumatize her. She'll never go out with you. He's happily married now and all that stuff. So this is all joking. But you know, speaking of kids, I always I always don't want to sound like a like a grumpy old boomer when I do stuff like this. And so I I I hold back when I have the experiences where I meet like, you know, where we all that younger generation, they're so this. So they're social. We always sound like that. You know, I came home and I was I was like that. But she was like, what's wrong with you? And I'm like, you know, it's not me. I know it's not me because it happened in the same day by two different in two different situations. This generation is just weird with like social interaction. I go first. I'm I'm driving home and I have this like I've had a speed stack in forever. And I'm like, whoa, where'd you find a speed? Well, so I go I pull into our old 24 hour fitness in hopes to find obviously not the original with the ephedra. But I was excited for a second. Yeah, yeah, no. So I pull in and I walk in and there's a kid there's a kid working and it's actually a dead time in the gym. Like nobody's nobody's really and the guy behind the counter. I was first of all, he doesn't say hi. He just kind of looks at me all weird and I pointed over to the because I'm not going to walk into work. I was just getting in there. I was like, oh, I was just getting a drink and he was kind of like kind of head nods me already kind of awkward interaction. I go over, grab the drink and I'm scanning it up and he's got air pods in his ears at the front desk at the front desk. And so I asked him like, oh, who's the GM here? Because I was curious who's working there because it's been so long since we've been in there. And he pulls one out, huh? And I'm like, oh, who's the GM here? And he's like, oh, Jerry or some of that. And then he puts it back in. While he's working. He didn't turn his back on me. And then I tried to say something again to him and obviously the music was playing loud enough that he didn't hear me again. So I just said, whatever, forget it. So I'm already like, ah, it's so tear. Like I would, I also think about- Sounds like free workouts at that. Well, man, I'm thinking about when I was managing these places, I'm going like, I would be livid if I caught that, you know, or seen that, like no high in the first place, playing music in while you're doing that. Yeah, so that's like, like at one o'clock in the afternoon. Well, then it's like five or so. And Katrina's like, oh, I'm really craving pizza. Can we do pizza tonight? I'm like, yeah, I feel like pizza. That sounds good. So we order it from this pizza parlor and I show up to go pick it up. Girl, similar age is working behind there. And I come walking up. And again, weird greeting. Like just, I come walking up to the register to obviously buy or order a pizza or pick up my order. And she's just like, yes. Oh, I ordered a pizza. It's under Adam. Can I pick it up? And she goes, oh, okay. And then she turns around and then yells my name and then comes back and I said, oh, I wanted to get six sides of ranch too, please. And she goes, oh, that's more money. I go, yeah, I figured that. And she goes, okay. So then she's like, she rings me up for the ranches. It cost me like $4.50. And I go, what about the pizza? And she goes, oh, well, just do the ranch. And I'm like, okay. So I do my card for $4.50, sign the receipt, isn't that? Then out comes the pizza literally like 30 seconds later. And then she does the whole transaction again for the pizza separately. And then I sign for that and I'm standing there. And she looks at me again. She goes, what? She said like that? Yeah. I go, can I get my ranch? And she goes, oh, oh, sorry. And then runs over. And I'm just like, dude, the customer service with these and the awkwardness of the conversations with it. And I like to think that I'm like a social person. When I come to like a place. All combative. Yeah. How old would you say these kids were? At the latest 25 or six at the youngest, 1920. You got to, you know what I think. Somewhere in that range. You know what I think? I'm going to crap everybody out. But I really do think, and I think people are starting to see this. Actually the data is starting to show this. I think the pandemic really fucked them up. It has to. It really fucked them up, dude. For that to happen in the same day like that, I just feel like. Well, for like two years, especially here in California, a lot of these kids' social interactions declined tremendously. And then when they had them, they wore masks which covers your facial expressions. And that part of the brain requires facial, I mean, we read, you know how much of communication is non-verbal? It's like a majority of it. You know what, I think it really had a profound effect. I agree. And I told Katrina, like, I don't, like I didn't feel like either one of them were like in a bad mood or trying to be rude. I literally think that they just. Just clueless. Just clueless. Like it did not come off as like, that she's being bitchy or he was being a dick. I just literally think that they think that those practices are okay. Like that's acceptable. Yeah, that's okay to act like that in that situation. And I'm like, wow, that is wild. You know, it's funny. It's such a big disconnect. You know what's funny about that? Jessica's super, super staunch about not letting Aurelius watch too much TV. She's really against lots of TV. I don't like trying time. Now that doesn't mean he doesn't watch TV, but she's very, very judicious with it. And she will not put on any recent type of education, like entertainment for children. So she puts on Sesame Street. Not Sesame Street now, but when we were kids. Mr. Rogers. And then there's a cartoon called Franklin that she puts on. Now, you know what they all have in common? They're slow as hell. I'm watching them and they're slow as hell. And so her and I had this conversation. She did lots of research and she says, you know, the quick cuts in the scenes and the changing directions and doing a lot of stuff that really encourages this kind of fragmented, you know, poor attention span in children. Terrible attention span. I've noticed that specifically, especially with all my kids friends that are just glued to their devices and just the way that they talk to you as an adult, they want to get out of the conversation as quick as possible and have no patience in terms of like interacting and communicating. So we do the same thing with Max intentionally do that. You watch this the slowest. Yeah, yeah, like I love like Einstein kids or what that like shows that are like slower, more educational. When's the last time you watched Mr. Rogers? Yeah, it's always super slow. I watched. Well, I mean, he intentionally, remember, he would like, let's put one minute and a second. Yes, yes. And as I'm watching, I'm like, and what a difference in my son when he does that versus when we put on some of the other stuff that's super. Speaking of this, this younger generation doing crazy shit. Did you guys see this? Is this real? They said, please don't marinate your chicken in Nyquil. There's this new Nyquil chicken. That was a TikTok challenge that. Did you hear about this? Oh, that's what it was. Okay, so I did see it, but I didn't know, I assume that it was probably something stupid. Do you know those Tide Pod things that just became like, oh, this is actually becoming a trend and we need to address this and be like, no, this is not a good idea for you guys to do this. Why would you cook chicken in Nyquil? Does it make you high? Like what's the point? I have no idea. Isn't it wild that the news has already came out? Like it's now, I don't know if it's common knowledge, but more people know that the whole algorithm is different for us than it is like in China. And yet we still just, we don't care. We don't care. We don't care. Give me more Nyquil and chicken. Come on, how many things do people do? Give me more Tide Pods. That's bad for them. They don't care. Just wild though. I know. Although you did bring up something. I don't remember if it was on a previous episode. It might have been Adam, where you speculated that the trend for the younger generation is gonna be to be less on social media. I do. I do think that. You know, I've been thinking a lot about that. And I think you're right. I think that that may be, I don't know how far it's gonna go, but I could see that being a thing where they're just, they use it so much in this younger generation coming up like, that's dumb. I don't wanna be on those things. I think it's the sense of like, an overbearing presence of everybody being in your business too. Cause it's like, you know that you don't have privacy. There's no privacy online. There's no privacy in any social setting. You can pretend that you have apps that control all that, but it's not true. And so like, these kids are getting more privy to that and realizing the only way that they can literally be away from the adults is to either play, I mean, even their video games, it's like in chatting, they're gonna realize that that gets monitored. So to do things, you know, with each other outside of the adults, I think that might become more appealing. Well, it's just, it's become so fake and extra and the filters. And so the new generation of cool kids see that. And they're just like, so it's come in the other way. I feel like they're going just like, well, I don't even pay attention to that shit anymore. Half of it's fake. I mean, I remember when I brought that stat up like, I don't know, a couple of years ago about the face altering filter, how many millions of people down with it. That means millions of them photos that everybody's looking at that think, I mean, they're a nice airbrush. Yeah, everybody's airbrushed or they've changed their waistline. And so, you know, like the kids are smart. They figure that out. And then after a while, they're like, why would I waste my time on that stupid thing? So I think it's, I think it's coming back. Well, I mean, speaking of weirdness too, I read about a school, like I should have saved it, maybe Doug confined it. I read about the school where this girl, a student identifies as a cat and the school agreed to validate that she's a cat. So they treat her like she's a cat. When she goes to school. Steve did. Yeah. And I was reading the comments under this article and some people are like, well, they're helping the girl. But I'm like, they're not helping her by encouraging this crazy reality that's not real. Well, are there such thing as mental disorders anymore? No, I think maybe we need to talk about that. Is that illegal? Yeah. Like to say that somebody has a mental problem we should address. I don't know, Doug, did you find it? What is that teen who identifies a cat allowed by school to act feline and not speak? It's ridiculous, dude. I know. I know. Yeah. You know what though? We're going to bring back paddling. So the thing that I said that I feel like some states already do. I don't know. I don't even know what to believe anymore because half the, now I think it's controlled. Yes. I actually think it's gone so extreme. Maybe the kid's like, I don't want to fucking do school anymore. No, I still can't. OK, now this is something I would do as a kid. I was type of kid that would think this is so ridiculous and dumb that the way I would buck the system would be by trolling the school. I would get with my buddies and be like, let's pretend like we're dogs. We're going to be a dog for the end. Like we would like push that. Like that's the type of kid that I would. This is Rob's little fetus dog. Yeah, yeah, let's go. Hey, bro, I'm going to take a shit on the grass. And no one's going to say anything. I mean, it's totally my buddies and I. We would totally do some shit like that to mess with the school. I can see us making a bet like, all right, we're going to act like dogs. Let's see who gives up first. Yes. What did you, I feel like we saw this. Come on, you, if you saw that, if this was happening in our, in our era when we were in school, do not tell me that we're not the group of guys that would be like, would totally like be like, you know what, let's, let's see. OK, they want to go that route. OK, let's go. Let's see who's going to wear my furrier suit. Start smelling people's butts and yeah. Hey, I have, I have something I wanted to share. Doug, will you pull up? I want to see hopefully the news article when it comes up fit and all, fit and all in Halloween candy. Oh, I love this. And I want to hear what you guys just initial thoughts because I have a thought around. So every year there's, there's something right with the candy. And so this is rotating. So what can they promote fear in the hearts of every parent? So hold on, I have a family member that works. I think I can say this for the FBI. So she works in the FBI and part of her job. And she can't tell us much because apparently what she does is kind of like classified. But she's sending us articles and saying, hey, candy colored, very strong fentanyl. So these are pills that are candy colored and they have like little stamps on them. Yes, yes. Little kids will like. That's the article I read. It's circulating right now. OK, so the fact that you have some inside FBI will is makes my thought or makes my theory wrong. If you're right, because I don't believe it. I just, I've been around that space, let's say, for a decent part of my life. And I've never met a drug dealer that would give away his drugs. Yeah, no, that's stupid. Yes, you're right. I've never, ever, ever, ever. And what neighborhood are we talking about here? Especially to kids who are not returned customers. Children giving away my drugs. You're not going to get free drugs. Yeah, you're not. One, you're never going to give away free junk. And by the way, some people are all, they're trying to do it so they get hooked and get them like, OK, you're not passing out. Kids are not going to know what happened. Yes, right. The kids are going to know what happened. So you're not, and he doesn't know where it came from. So he's not, that's, that's a stupid theory that they're trying to give them hooked at an early age so they can sell them what, 10 years later and hope they cross pass. No, what they did was is that there's definitely candy colored. And because, you know, this is what the black market does. They'll take drugs and they'll make it look cute, right? They'll put a stamp on it for like a bunny or whatever. That's the, that's why everybody's freaking out. And there have been some overdoses in high schools of kids using this, this new. Yeah, that's all true. But I can't just stick with every year candies. Every year just monitor it that way. But I agree with you, bro. Nobody's putting their drugs in. If you know anybody who has drugs, the last thing they're going to do is give it away to people. Especially the kids, especially the kids who aren't going to be returning customers. You know what I'm saying? Maybe, maybe. Okay, if you're like just a great marketing drug dealer, you know who to give some of your adult friends some free stuff that hopefully they get hooked and come back to you. But you are not dropping it in some random strangers bag that makes no sense whatsoever. And I've never met a drug dealer that is not a hardcore hustler who doesn't care about money. And there's no way they're losing that kind of money to harm kids. It is a dumbest theory. That's why I stick to candy corn, right? During shit and candy corn. But just, but you are delicious. If we strutting this thing. That's my favorite one. I'm the only one. I know that likes candy corn crazy. We're going to stay on this, this theme of like ridiculous kids stuff, right? That I checked this out. Look up a vlogger play set. Tell me what you think about this. Oh, no. This is something that you can buy for kids now. No, it's not. I can guess. Yeah, it is. No, it's not. So it's like they have. Look it, look it, bro. It's a fake vlogger. It's a studio. Yeah, fake light, the camera, the whole thing. The ring light. Yes, the fake ring light. You see it, Doug? Dude. Yeah, I see it. Dude. Can you blow it up for the guys to look at it? Why would you want your kid to play that? I just, you know. You know, my daughter said she wanted to start a YouTube channel. I said, you can have a YouTube channel as long as you're not on it. Well, why would I make one then? I don't care. Think of something else. But you're not going to be on your YouTube channel. Yeah. Wow. Little selfie stick included. The camera stand, the fake lighting. Is that wild or what? Wow. And you know what? Only four left in stock. They must be selling them out like crazy. Oh, does it say? Yeah, right there. Wow. Holy Toledo. That's crazy. I mean, I think from their perspective, like, who do they idolize? Who do they think is killing right now? Oh, I mean, from a toy brand, brilliant. Yeah. Brilliant. I mean, that's where they're spending the most time, is watching their mom and dad buy their favorite influencer, break things down for them. Well, Justin, when you ask your kids, they're friends, right? Because your son, your oldest is my daughter's age and your youngest is younger. Yeah. How many of their friends say they want to be YouTube stars? Yeah, that's a common. That's the majority now. It's a common theme, yeah. But that's what they think they want. Oh, no. I thought I saw a poll on that. Like, that is completely shifted to that. Like, it used to be like athlete, actor, actress, like these or lawyer, doctor, all the same with that. Like the number one thing for like the generation coming up is they all think that they're going to be a star. I told my cousin that. I told my little cousin, I want to be a YouTuber. I said, you have a better chance of becoming an astronaut. Yeah, it's like. Than being a famous YouTuber. Just because it's a low barrier entry, you know? It's like you get this misconception that like you're all of a sudden get all these followers and be better than whoever you're watching right now. Oh, speaking of watching. So I put on the Dahmer series that's what we're talking about. Yes. Okay, so you know, you know what? Okay, so I'm so. So creepy. Well, here's why I'm conflicted. I'm conflicted because. You like it? No. What is this? Why am I around? Because I'm always hungry afterwards. Oh, I've always liked meat. Honey, go get the liver out of the fridge. I know, here's why I'm conflicted because I know, I know this from the data. This is a fact that glorifying. Yeah, I know. Serial killers create. This is what I said. I mean, I said one of the things that I thought was most disrupt or disturbing is that it's like the number one. Yes, the number one everywhere. Yikes. You know what's crazy too? Okay, so check this out. People are going to dress up like him for Halloween. Yep. Okay. Imagine if somebody went around dressed up like Hitler. Would people accept that? I've seen that. Where? That would be very unacceptable. A long time ago, like, but like it was. You see that college party. College parties, it was like, oh my God. But imagine today, if someone was walking around like Hitler, people would be like, you better take that off or whatever. Exactly. Dumber, everybody's like, oh, that's cool. You're like, Dumber, what we're doing is we're glorifying. And what happens is people who are like borderline crazy, part of the issues, they want to go out with a bang. So I was conflicted. Now besides that, it's super disturbing because it's real, bro. When I watched it, I'm like, when he lobotomized that kid or whatever, I was like, oh, come on, man, that's messed up, dude. That was like the second episode, third episode. Oh, I mean, no, it's graphic, it's eerie, it's, I don't know, they did, I haven't had a show that fucks me up nightmare-wise in a long time. I cannot watch it as the last thing that I watched before going to bed because it's- What are you, okay, so let's say you watch Dumber, and you're like, I gotta go to bed. What do you put on as a buffer? I remember that Katrina picked those. I think it was Bling Ring last time. What? It's like an Asian reality show, like super filthy rich people. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Told you, we're gonna hang out and watch a movie. Hey, Adam, tell me that or that real estate show, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the models. That's, if I'm by myself, that's why I will, that's Max and I's favorite show. Oh, we like Max is bigger than you will say. I need something to make me feel cozy, put something about a lot of money on. Oh, thank you, I'm gonna use that. Coming back to Earth. Hey, speaking of money, did you guys see Viori's going big time international? Yes, yeah, oh, yeah, finally. You know how many people from Canada and everybody that be bugging us for the last four years? So check this out, right? They're going, they just announced, they just announced, like with the last few weeks, they're launching in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Middle East, and Mexico. So they're making those big launches right now. This company is- Does that mean still no Canada? Big news crushing. I think it's in Canada, isn't it? That was suckin'. It wasn't before. They went to those places in Canada. Yeah, they were elsewhere in Canada, sorry guys. What is it about Canada? So many of our brands don't go to Canada, but they go to other places. They just have really strict border laws that makes it difficult for these companies, these direct-to-consumer companies. That's a good question. Yeah, why is it so expensive? I would imagine, right? Because don't you guys, I get- Because that market's so similar to ours. I would think it wouldn't be a hard leap for that. Yeah. So I don't know why that is, but there's several brands that we work with that don't go to Canada. Yeah. One, two, three, four, Canada deserves mom. Viori. And I don't, I'm assuming it's something about their strict laws or else it's random that we have all these brands in common that they just don't go to Canada. But they are in Canada, Doug said. Oh, good, they're in Canada. Oh, good, oh, good, good. My brother fell in love with these pants. What are these called, the Meta, these Meta? That's Meta, right? Totally Meta, yeah. You got the same ones? These aren't Viori. Oh, never mind. Sorry. I was just wondering why they look so shitty. It looks so shitty. Seams are all pussing. No, it's not. It's old and tight. Yeah, it's not. Dude, it's old and tight. You know, did we share with the audience that we had to do like a photo shoot just recently? Like, so far, I can count on one hand how many... We're not good at the face. I know. I can count on one hand how many things we don't like doing in this business. I feel so blessed that we built something that I truly enjoy pretty much every aspect of it. The... Like posing and pretending? I can't do it. The photo shoot stuff. I'm just so awkward. It never isn't. Yeah. Sal, pretend like you're reading the label. We almost always get frustrated and irritated with each other. You know those things? Because we just... You can tell no one likes it. Doug doesn't like having to shoot us. We don't like having to pose. So it ends up being like fighting amongst each other. Well, fucking Doug, tell me then. Tell me it looks stupid. Why would you let me make that face? And then Doug's like, yeah. Doug's like, you don't do something. It's like, what do you mean do something? Tell me what to do. What do I do with my hands? Doug, just take pictures of us being ourselves. We're just hanging out over here. At normal. This is not normal. Dude, so I had quite a busy weekend. Friday, I actually decided to go up and do another concert venue, which I'm just... I saw that. They have a god? I'm addicted. Yeah, so they were on the bill, but there was a bunch of bands there. Oh, what? It was aftershocks. It was up in Sacramento. There was like tons of these rock bands. And... Do you meet the same friends? So I just went... No, I went with my brother because he lives up in Benisha. So I went up there with him and then we were going to try to make it to one of our buddies. He's a big fan of the show, supporter of our show, Christian. He's the guitarist for Falling in Reverse. Oh, this... Yeah, so I got... Yeah, that guitar from him. And so I was able to make it for his performance, which was cool and everything. But it was like, dude, there's thousands of people there and it was just like hot as hell. And so it was like, it just didn't happen as an opportunity. But he was like, he was already there kind of backstage. And so I kind of missed out on an opportunity to come say hi and hang out. So I'll have to do that again. And he wanted to hang out with you guys as well. But was this how was it similar or different to the one you went to in Alabama? So OK, let's let's let's break this down. The other the other festival was like a completely different culture. I just wanted to talk about this because it was like hilarious to me, like like stepping in because it's Sacramento. Already you're dealing with a different breed of person. I mean, it's it's different. I like it. It's it's interesting, but it's different. We walk in. So first of all, just to kind of paint the picture, there's a guy selling puka shells as you're walking up. They're coming back, bro. They're coming back. I was like, how excited are you? How many puka shells did you wear? I kept them. I still got them. No, you don't. No, I don't. Yeah, I wish I did. I swear to God, like the uniform is like temporary barbed wire tattoo. You know, you got puka shells in and then you have like spiky hair. What the hell? It looks like 1992 explode in like hot topic store just exploded. What the heck? Yeah. It was like everybody looked literally like they walked right out of the mall. Now, was it older crowd or younger crowd? Must be younger. Older. Oh, actually. Well, maybe they just kept the same clothes they had when they were two years old. They just didn't change a lot of a lot of God. That's that sound strategy. He's been he's been saying that for a while like a broken clock. I mean, ours isn't any better. Like, so just the difference in being the other festivals that it was like, you know, a lot of like full body tats and like ear gauges and like, you know, long shorts and real pulled up socks and like very cholo kind of, you know, gangster looking people. And it was, you know, a completely different thing. But it was just funny to me because I'm trying to like get down to Lamb of God. And they're a really heavy band. And like you could just tell like nobody knew what to do with that kind of music. And they were just kind of like jumping and kind of bouncing into each other. And I'm just like trying to throw people and start this. Nobody's on board. And I'm just like, well, you're terrifying. Maybe that's why Justin. No, I'm like, dude, this is Lamb of God. The hell out of the way. That big guy where there's throwing people. Did you go solo or are you with somebody? So I was with my brother and he's not the, the, the Mosh guy. So I, he was like, you know, so I literally grabbed him. I threw him in. Like getting swept in. I'm like, dude, it's not bad. These people don't even, they're not throwing any kind of dangerous things out there. You're going to be fine. And he was fine. Nobody got hurt. You know, it was good time. Doug, what is it? What is this episode officially air? What day? On Friday. Oh, this Friday. Oh, so we'll miss it. Nevermind. Well, it doesn't even matter now. Well, I actually will tell the audience because I'm going to do this on a more regular basis. I don't know if I told you guys are not, but you know, my buddy Chris Nagibi from the higher standards podcast. So him and I talk all the time. Just, I just respect. He's super smart. Yeah. Super smart guy. I mean he's a lawyer, broker and banker. And I love bouncing things off with him real estate wise. So I thought, you know, it'd be kind of cool. I get a lot of questions around that. And so I just thought it would be neat content and we'll see where it goes. Where when I have these calls with him is to do it live on my story. So our audience could hear the questions that I'm asking when we're looking at a particular area, or if I'm concerned about what's going on with interest rates or whatever. And so they can hear us kind of have dialogue back and forth about the market since I get a lot of questions and see, and if it gets good traction and I get a lot of people paying attention and saying that they got value from it, I'll do it on a more regular basis right now. I think we're going to start biweekly. So twice a month, I'll do it on Fridays, Friday afternoon. And so, so even though you probably missed it or from this episode, I will going forward, let people know ahead of time that it'll be on a Friday afternoon and you pay attention to my story. That's where that's all sweet. Hey, speaking of value, did you guys see NCI's giveaway? Because they keep doing giveaways, right? Is this the one? Is this going to be the one where they include the impersonal here? You get a full scholarship, plus you come to Mind Pump Headquarters with Jason. Oh, yeah. All expenses paid and you sit in on an episode. So full ride scholarship, meaning you get all their education, all the stuff that you would normally pay for. Plus he will fly you over here to California, sit in on an episode and Justin will give you a pair of signs. What's the total value of that, Doug? Does he have it broken down? Let me see here. I remember when he, oh yeah, he does. He does. It's $15,000 plus whatever the, you know, flight is and everything else. Yeah, that's great. Be a good time. So, whoever wins this, it'll be great meeting you. Yeah, we'll see you there. Huh? Hey, real quick, check this out. There's a company we work with called Elementee and they make electrolyte powder that has the right amount of sodium to propel your workouts, give you better pumps and to make you feel better. Plus it tastes great. No artificial sweeteners. And right now they're offering free sample packs with any order. So you get eight single serving packets for free with any LMNT order. Go check them out. Go to drinkLMNT.com forward slash Mind Pump. All right. Here comes the rest of the show. All right. Our first caller is Boss from Belgium. Boss, what's happening, man? How can we help you? Hey, guys, really nice to meet you. First of all, I want to say you had an amazing impact on my life since I started listening to you guys. I've been a guy like Sal who totally over trains a lot, but a little bit of background. I've been always an athletic child. I did swimming for 13 years, but then at age 14, around 14, 15, I totally quit swimming. And then I got actually really fat because of gaming. And at age 16, I was around 116 kilos. So and then I at age 17, I found fitness. I made a shift. I got to 70 kilos again. And now 10 years later, I'm not around close to 90 kilos. I'm pretty lean. So now my question is, lately, I've been more focused into fighting. So I currently do one day of Jiu Jitsu and two days of kickboxing in the week. But I wanted to know how you guys would approach putting lifting in there because I really do enjoy training full bodies or push pull legs. But I know if I do kickboxing two days and Jiu Jitsu one day, I can easily over train because I also have a very demanding job with a lot of steps. Heavy packages I have to carry stuff like that. So good deal. Important question first, how's your ranking on call of duty? Yeah, I know the last five years I haven't game. So good deal. In your question, boss, it also says that you swim. So you do Jiu Jitsu once two days a week of kickboxing and then you swim once a week. Any of it? Yeah, I swim around 30 to 45 minutes. You know, once a week of full body strength training would be it. That's all I would do. And I would keep the intensity moderate. I would do maybe maybe three compound lifts and maybe one like, you know, ancillary lift and that's it. Keep it super basic and keep the intensity very moderate. And what you'll find is it'll, it'll improve your performance in Jiu Jitsu and kickboxing. If you're, if adding strength training reduces your performance in all of those, in other words, you go to practice and you find that you're just more fatigued and stiff and sore and you can't really train like you normally could, then the lifting is too much. There's too much volume or too much intensity or too many exercises. So if it makes everything else feel good, then you're doing the right thing. If it takes away from everything else, then you're probably doing too much. So generally speaking, you're looking at about 40 minutes of strength training or 60 minutes. If you do long rest periods where it's just very basic, very basic, you know, like I said, three compound lifts, one or two ancillary lifts. And that's kind of it. Boss, are you, are you following any of our programs yet? Yeah. So I've, I've done maps on the board a couple of times, but I adjusted a couple of exercises because I have a lot of experience. I also did strong and I also did a static. Yeah. Now, keep in mind our programs are designed to be run alone. So when someone buys one of our programs, we're considering that they don't do other workouts and stuff like that on their own, but considering you do so much, um, our programs as written would be inappropriate. They're just going to be too much for you. So I would take one of the foundational workouts from one of our workouts and you can pick either maps, performance or anabolic or strong. And I would do that one workout once a week, but I would even cut that a little short. I would even remove some of the extra, you know, ancillary lifts that are in there and just kind of focus on the compound stuff. And that should make you feel good. And you should know right away, boss. Once you do it within the first week or two, you should feel good. If you feel fried or too tired or sore or stiff, then it's probably too much. I, I'd like to give you a mass performance because I think that because you're, you're an athlete and you're doing all these sports, I think that workout will translate the most over into the sports that you're playing as far as being beneficial. Plus, let's say you have a heavy week of training and doing sports and all the things you're doing, you know, instead of actually doing a lifting day, maybe you'll take a mobility day out of there and that and be a little more recuperative for the body. And that's how I actually would use performance. So like Sal's advice, I would only be strength training one day, maybe max two days a week. If you have a like a slow week on sports and or utilizing the mobility days as active recovery. So on days when you got after it pretty hard, maybe the next day after, you know, jiu-jitsu or swimming or something like that, I do like a nice mobility workout to help facilitate recovery. So I think that program, in my opinion, would benefit you the most. Yeah. By the way, you, you, a lot of people don't know this, but Belgium's got some of the best fighters in the world of all time. So I'm sure you're a big fan of, of some of those guys like God, what was his name? Grigium. Am I saying his right name? Right. And is boss written? Was he from Belgium? Yes, I think so. Yes. Oh yeah. Good fighters. Good places. Yeah. Kickboxing, one of the one of the best places in the world for kickboxing. A lot of people don't know that. So good for you. How long have you been training in those? Kickboxing, I've been doing around almost three years and jiu-jitsu for five months. Good for you. Good for you. Which one, which one's harder for you? I think it's, it's, it's a pretty, I think jiu-jitsu is harder, but kickboxing is more the manual on my muscles. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. So I just got to ask if you've ever taken like time out to do like an off season where you just focused on strength training exclusively and maybe then supplementing, you know, your, your skills training which you jiu-jitsu. Well, yeah. Well, actually, most of my last five years were most strength training. OK. Yeah. So I've been building up this point. Like in the start, when I kickboxed, I only did like one day of kickboxing and I, I go to the gym like five days. So it's mainly, and I didn't always swim. I didn't always swim, but yeah, my, my main last six years were actually on building muscle and going to the gym. OK, great. Yeah. Well, I think then this, this is sound advice for just once a week to just supplement what you're doing now, because that's the heavy emphasis. Yeah. You want to keep, keep, keep this in mind, boss. When you're, when you're doing the kind of training that you're doing, the emphasis is going to be whatever you do will be to make those things better. OK, so if you add anything and it takes away from your performance or your ability in your kickboxing and jiu-jitsu, then it's not appropriate. And the reason why I'm, I'm wording it this way is because sometimes people, they'll start, they'll add strength training to their, their, their total regime and their, their athletes and then they get into the mindset of aesthetics and developing muscles and looking a particular way. And then they start to sacrifice their performance, but then they get stuck in this conundrum. I don't want to reduce the amount of kickboxing I do. I don't want to reduce the amount of jiu-jitsu I do. And I'm still trying to develop a more bodybuilder looking physique. And what ends up happening is you get nothing, your performance drops and you don't develop the physique that you're looking for. So it's got to be one or the other, but it sounds to me like you're pretty focused on your kickboxing and jiu-jitsu. In which case, like I said, your best bet is to approach strength training from a very moderate intensity level. You go in there, you practice the movements, you feel good why you do them. You should not feel at the end of your strength training workout like you do at the end of your kickboxing workout. Like when you're done with kickboxing, you need to go lay down. You feel like you just went through like, oh man, this is, that was, I got beat up. You should, you should not feel like that at all with strength. If anything, you should feel better and rejuvenated at the end of your strength training sessions. If you do it that way, you'll get great results. If you do it, if you treat it like your kickboxing workouts or jiu-jitsu where you're in there and you beat yourself up in the gym, all you're going to notice is everything is going to go downhill. Yeah, I already had an idea you would say something like this, but I had a little bit of fear because I'm actually really proud of the physique I built and I had a little bit of fear that it will go away because of all the fighting and swimming, but I do enjoy it a lot and I want to get better at it, but I really want to not, not, yeah, not get skinny. Yeah, well, look, here's what's going to happen. You're going to get, you probably will, your body will maybe pair down a little muscle, but you're not going to get skinny. I mean, kickboxing jiu-jitsu with a little strength training, you'll have an athletic, you know, muscular, you're just not going to be as big. That's all. Yeah, it's just season. So you're doing a season and your focus right now is on these sports. So, you know, you'll come back to strength training and it'll respond appropriately. It comes back fast, man. Real fast. If you decide to stop and go back to just more strength training, but I mean, yeah, you're like, you know, that's it. You add a little bit and you're fine. You'll notice improvements. So you would say one day of performance each week and only the mobility I take with it. Yeah, you can do mobility whenever you want. That's, that's recuperative. So in fact, in fact, you know how I do the mobility sessions. I would do them before your jiu-jitsu or kickboxing class. I would do like a, like 20 minutes of mobility flow session. Okay, please. Yep. All right. All right, man. We're going to send you performance if you don't have it. Okay, boss. Yeah, I have it. I have it. Oh, beautiful. Well, thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for calling from all over. Thank you. Thank you so much, guys. No problem. No problem. Yep. Take care. You got it. What, uh, what, what percentage would you guys guess actually listen to us with the athletes, right? Oh. In particular. I thought you were going to ask how many people asked similar questions. Well, so, okay, that's the reason why I'm bringing that up, because we do get this question a lot. Like, it's just different. It's, it's the same question. Same question, different sport, different pursuit. So what, what I am asking this is because I have this sneaky suspicion that a very small percentage actually, and the reason why I think a small percentage actually listen to us is because the athletic mind is, it's like what I can handle. And I know, and I love that you always say that like the, the right dose isn't what technically you can handle. The right dose is the right dose for your body. And it's not the max you can tolerate. That's right. And that's, and unfortunately, and fortunately, because that's also what makes some of these athletes really good is they have this ability to endure so much, right? And they become resilient. And they've, they've, they've got good at their sport by overcoming these things. And so hearing someone like us go, hey, we want you to back off, you know, and do, do less, and you're going to probably have more muscle. I just, I have this crazy. Yeah, I want to, I want to believe that everybody trusts us enough that they just go listen to us. Well, what I'm hoping is that they, because I, you know, athletes that train quite a bit, they know this, like I'm sure they've heard it a million times and they know it. They just don't follow it. So what I'm hoping is, is that, because he said, oh, that's what I thought. Right, like we confirm it. We confirm is like, all right, fine, I'll finally do it. I hope, I hope that's the case. Otherwise you'll learn the hard way because here's what will happen if he doesn't listen. What will happen is you'll add more and more strength training. He'll, he won't pay attention to his declining performance. And then inevitably you get hurt. Yeah, he's just going to over train. You get over, you end up injuring yourself in kickboxing or jiu-jitsu. Or, you know, less detrimental and just you, you don't really progress it either. That's, that's right. Right, you're doing, you're doing all this stuff and you're not really getting any more muscle and you're not, and you're not getting really better at the sport, but you're working your ass off in both categories. And it's like, you know, just kind of pulling back a little bit on the strength training and you might actually see progression in both. It's pretty cool though. Okay. He did kickboxing in Belgium. I don't know if you guys know, because I used to watch K1, which was a really high level. Belgium, Belgium, the kickboxers from that area, just they rewrote the books on, on certain styles of kickboxing. Oh yeah. And it was just, it was awesome to watch them because you could see just like boxing, like they have. It was like the Netherlands too. They had like, yeah, the Dutch, yeah, Dutch styles of kickboxing. And you'd see these, they'd finish every combo with a leg kick and just, it was brutal. It was great. And Boss Rooton, one of the most famous fighters, he wasn't necessarily a kickboxer. He fought in, I think it was called, he did that like open hand, like strikes. The rules were you couldn't close fists, punch, but you could slap to the face and you would knock people out with an open hand. It was awesome. It's so awesome. Our next caller is Travis from Virginia. Travis, what's happening, man? How can we help you? Hey guys. Long time listener. First time caller. I'm a 33 year old electrician, been teaching full time for about four years now at our apprenticeship. Through my second round of anabolic at the moment, which by the way, I love the program. It's been a lot of fun. Between my history in athletics and working in the trades, I've had some, some good luck with mobility in my shoulders. Haven't had any issues. But I'd like to maintain that and maintain strength. So I invested in the May spell after hearing y'all talk about it. Got in the mail and then realized that, you know, I don't know how to use a May spell. So I started looking up videos and trying to figure out how to use it. And I can mirror those movements, but I don't have any idea as far as cues or what kind of muscles I should be engaging. Didn't know if y'all had any resources or any tips. So that way, when I do eventually try to scale up and wait that I don't rip my shoulder apart. Yeah, we actually shot some video with John Wolf from On It. And he came in and we did a YouTube series where we just did sort of the real basics in terms of like a 360 swing, which the 360 swing for me like covers pretty much the basis of all mace movements that like it gives you the biggest bang for your buck for what you're trying to do. And so there is quite a bit of technique with it in terms of like how to hold your body and make sure that everything is in good composure. And so if you go through that, you'll see how we kind of break down each step. And he kind of, he shows me how to kind of hold it up. So it's going to be at the most effective angle. But this is just something to like, what weight did you get? Like did you get a 20 pounder, a 15 or a 10 pounder? Like did you, did you start with a lighter one or the heavy one? I got started off with the 10 pound, which has been pretty forgiving. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah. So just go through that series and we kind of break down each part of the movement. It's really about control and like being able to be loose when you need to be loose and be able to sort of create muscle tension to decelerate the movement. So a lot of it is just based on control and flexibility to create that sort of stable environment there in your shoulders. But great. It's a great tool and a great exercise to improve upon and like build that skill. I actually would suggest even that you start with, I would say a kettlebell and doing some halos with that to start just to get that rotation down pat and to be able to kind of get through that, bringing it overhead and then right behind your head. So I don't know how much your external rotation is, but the wall test that we have in prime would be a great way to kind of test that and see what your ability is with that first. And because a lot of times like we don't, we don't press anything behind our head anymore. That's been kind of like shunned and taken out of people's programming or even doing pull-ups behind our heads. So we don't have really good external rotation. So that's something to make sure you check first because otherwise you're going to compensate with that with your lower back and you're going to flare up with your ribs. A lot of these things are going to show up in terms of compensation. So to do the wall test first to make sure you're bracing properly and getting that connectivity first would be everything. I want to address your question about, how do you progress your weight but without tearing your shoulder off and so that because I just recently actually brought this up. I don't know how long ago it was but remember when we were having this conversation about May spells and I said, you know, the one thing I, because I absolutely love them. Justin introduced to me, it's been an absolute game changer for my shoulder mobility. It's one of my favorite ways to prime when I do any sort of upper body exercises. But I actually don't really progress that weight. I've gone, I've worked my way up a little bit but the reason why I don't is because I feel like I get the main benefits from swinging even the 10 or 15 pounder. Like if your goal is to bulletproof your shoulders, which it sounds like yours is, it's not like you're trying to be the best mace bell swinger or you're trying to, it really doesn't matter how, as long as you have some sort of resistance, 10 to 15 pounds will do the job. It'll, it'll, it'll wake up all them stabilizer muscles. It'll keep the shoulders nice and mobile and primed before you go into your workouts. So I don't really worry too much about going up and I think that it's become popular and when we find mace bell guys online, it's very trendy to see them swing in and it's cool. Like it's impressive for me to see Justin swing way more weight than I can. And I think that there's nothing wrong with having that as a goal. But if your main goal is you're doing it to keep healthy shoulders, then believe it or not, that the 10 pound mace is, is in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, and I think order operation too, I would even suggest doing the Indian clubs first, just because we can end up, we can have one at a time and, and really build and develop that skill of, of rotation in all areas too. So the heart swings really good at that. So you, you get control in those rotations all the way from your, your wrist elbows to shoulders. And, you know, building upon that, I think is, is, is an easier way to learn how to organize that track. Oh, go ahead. Travis, do you, do you play sport? Do you play any sports or did you play any sports when you were younger in high school? I did. Yeah. Um, football through the discus, and I did powerlifting. Okay, good. Okay. So, so the reason why I asked you that is I'm going to try and kind of convey something to you because you said something Sports analogy. In your question. And, uh, yep, it's coming. You said something in your question that is, is pretty illuminating. Now, bodybuilding has brought a lot of good things to strength training, but it's also brought some bad things to, to strength training. And one of the bad things that it brought to strength training is it got people to think that every time they do an exercise with any resistance whatsoever, they have to think about the muscles they're working. Now for bodybuilding, this is perfect, right? I want to isolate a muscle or I want to feel a connection to a particular area. But when you're doing a skill or a movement, like swinging a macebell, it's like when you threw the discus. Imagine if you were coaching someone with the discus and they said, okay, what muscles should I be focusing on? And you're like, no, no, no, don't focus on muscles. Practice the movement. Because if I sit there and think shoulder, core, bicep, it's going to segment the movement and it's not going to become very fluid. The same is true with the macebell. You don't want to think about what muscles necessarily that you need to activate or feel it in. Think about perfecting the skill and the movement. It's much more of a skill than it is a muscle specific exercise. Otherwise, because if you watch bodybuilders do something like a kettlebell swing, because they know, they segment everything all the time when they lift, it doesn't look like a kettlebell swing. It looks like an upright row reverse curl squat if you ever watch them do it. It's like they're trying to figure out what muscles to activate and where do I feel it. You can't do that when you do a movement like a macebell. It's not about shoulders, biceps, core. Yeah, those are all active while you're doing the movement. But don't think of it that way. Think of it as a fluid skill. That's the idea. These are hilarious to me because they're so hard to articulate what's happening because it's a very specific type of a movement that you have to practice continuously to get sharper at it, to have more fluidity in the movement. And also to be able to stabilize your entire body, the whole goal of it really is anti-rotation everywhere else that's set for the shoulders. To be able to create that, it takes a lot of practice and ability to loosen your shoulders when you need them to be loose and then brace and control the momentum of the macebell. The muscles you use and you feel afterwards is a side effect. Don't think of it as a primary effect. You don't want to think about what muscles do I need to activate and use when I'm doing this movement. Just perfect the movement. Think of it as a sport. Think of it as throwing a discus or playing any other sport, throwing a baseball. Perfect the technique. And then if you feel something sore afterwards, well, that's just the byproduct of the fact that your body needs to get used to doing this particular movement. That's a good cue what Justin just said though. I want to go back to that because I'm actually, as you're asking this question, I actually have, I was out of personal training when I got introduced to macebell. So I actually haven't even had the opportunity to practice articulating this to someone. So it's interesting going through this question and hearing everybody kind of describe it to you over a podcast. I know, it's a very visual thing. So that's tough. Yeah, but Justin just said something that I think this is what I would do with you. It's like I would actually, I would start with the halo with the like a, you know, a 25 pound plate or something. And what I would cue is, all right, our goal is for you to keep your entire body still, except for your shoulders. Can I keep you from arching your back or leaning to the side? Can I keep you completely rigid while allowing your shoulders to move that weight all the way around your head and then get you to understand that now this is the goal when we're swinging this big old mace is can we keep everything else stable while allowing the shoulders to rotate the bar around your head and thinking like that? Like that's the goal is to get to that place. It's tipping the weight like a pendulum and then our elbows are really a point of focus in the whole thing. So it's, you know, there's a lot to it in terms of the skill and like that video, this actually motivates me to want to do a video describing it after I'm showing you the actual movement because it'll be a lot easier for me to kind of convey some of those subtleties that you need to consider. For now, let's, Travis, are you on Facebook? Do you have a Facebook? Yes, I am. I'm going to throw you in the forum. If you're not, are you not in the forum? Are you? Not in the forum, no. Okay, so we're going to, I'm going to throw you in the forum for free and what I want you to do is actually shoot a video for us of you swinging it and then Justin could probably give you some cues and tips by watching you do it, which would probably be easier for me to describe. Yeah, it'd be easier to describe what he sees potentially wrong with the swing or subtle adjustments versus us trying to, you know, articulate the entire movement without seeing you. That'll help both of us. Awesome, awesome. And I did have one more question, too. Who are my trigger sessions? Would a 10-pound May spell would that be an appropriate level of intensity for trigger session work? It's not the same thing as a trigger session, but you could replace it. So that's totally fine. Yeah, trigger sessions are more muscle-focused, more bodybuilding, whereas the May spell is, again, more movement. You're working some muscles, too. But yeah, you could switch them and if you really want to get good at the May spell, I would suggest... Yeah, it's not a bad idea. I mean, it's pretty close to our mobility days, so I would probably throw it in there. Yeah, if you want to get better at it, that would be a good idea instead of doing trigger sessions to do the May spell. Gotcha. All right. All right, thank you guys, man. It's been an honor. Thank you for what all four of y'all do for the industry. You got it, man. Thanks for calling in. Cool. Do you guys remember having... I'm really proud of you, dude. Why? You've been hitting it pretty well on the sports. I understand enough about sports to convey what I need to convey. You know? I bet if somebody who was a first-time listener, they would have no idea, dude. Yeah, I don't know names of athletes. I don't even know the rules of most sports or all the rules. But I understand the mentality. Like you'll just throw them out there. I know movement. Like, whoa, what? And I also hear enough to be able to bullshit if I need to. Yeah. I'm proud of you, dude. No, you know what, though? It's funny. Do you guys remember the first time watching a bodybuilder do kettlebell swing? That's a great... You gave a great... That's why I'm being serious. I know I'm rousing you a little bit, but I'm actually being serious. I think that was a great analogy. Because you would never tell an athlete, you would never break a baseball swing, a baseball bat swing. Yeah, activate your obliques, use your biceps. Yeah, you wouldn't say, okay, you know, break down all the muscles. That would fuck up someone's movement. It would mess up the skill of the whole thing, you know? This is why Olympic lifting is so skill-oriented. Olympic lifting is so different than bodybuilding. It's so different because you don't care about what muscles you're using, you care about the movement perfecting the movement. And to that point, in terms of strength, coaches, if we're looking at a movement like that, we're watching the movement in real time and queuing as they're performing. So it's the same on this level. Like I really would, to your point, of bring them in the form. I think that's the way to go. Because I need to see it to be able to queue like one little subtlety that they could focus on in order to shape that movement in a better direction. Well, especially, and you brought up, you know, that you would have him do zone one first because he may not even be able to swing it properly because he's not primed enough to be able to pull his shoulders in external rotation. Like if he can't get into that position, well, we could try all we want to swing that thing pretty. It's not going to be if we don't geogally otherwise. Our next caller is Fatima from the UK. Fatima, how can we help you? Hi, hi guys. It's great to meet you and thanks for having me on. I've been listening to the podcast for about six months and I've already learned so much about strength training. So thank you so much for your content. My question today is about how to get stronger. So I'm 29. I've been doing some form of strength training for the last two years, but I feel like my progress is very slow. My overall goal is to get stronger, but you don't have any aesthetic goals. Don't hate me, but I've been doing a strength program by Brett Contreras and the only reason for this is because I found him before I found you guys. And I've also been using Prime Pro to prevent injury. At the moment, my squat one rep max is only 143 pounds. My deadlift is about 175. My numbers are still going up, but very slowly. As a job, I'm an orthopedic surgery resident, so getting to the gym is difficult sometimes when I'm on call or when I'm on nights. And my job can be physically demanding. Sometimes I have to wear a lead apron for 12 hours a day. But overall, I've averaged two workouts a week for the last five months. I worry that it's my nutrition, which is affecting my strength gains because I don't eat a lot when I get stressed. I eat even less. I weigh about 110 pounds, approximately 15% body fat, according to a scale at the gym. I managed to gain about three kilos, but I had a bad week a couple of weeks ago and I'm pretty sure I lost it all again. When I'm dialed in, I aim for 2,000 calories a day, 110 grams of protein, but during stressful periods, I don't think I achieved that. I try and have at least one-way protein shake a day and a protein bar to boost my protein intake and I take creatine. So my questions are, how can I get a 225 pound deadlift? And if I'm in a really busy slash stressful period, is it better for me to just eat whatever processed high protein convenience food is available or just kind of not eat? Oh, these are good questions. Great questions. First of all, we need to break down because I've trained surgeons and I've trained residents. So I don't think people realize just how crazy your schedule is. So I need you to paint the picture for us and let us know what a typical day and week looks like so that we can answer your question properly. So my schedule at the moment is different than it usually is, but normally it's kind of like at least two to three, 12-hour shift days. And then I'll do night shifts, kind of four night shifts, maybe once a month kind of thing. So yeah, on average, maybe 50, 60 hours a week, something like that. Okay. And then there's more to this, right Fatima? So on your days off, do you study? Do you have to do more work for the residency or are you totally off and you don't have to do anything else? As in, well, that's when I catch up on at least like my life admin and just kind of living stuff. So yeah, so I do have to do work on my days off, yeah, but it's usually on my days off that I go to the gym. So before Sal gives you the answer or helps you with some of the things, I just want to point out that you're actually kicking ass. I mean, considering where you keep your body fat percentage, considering you're pretty damn strong and you're still getting stronger just slowly and that you know you don't have perfect nutrition, you have days where you're missing protein, I would say, and you have a high stress type of job long hours, I'd say you're doing pretty damn good considering what we're working with just so you know. Agreed because what we also throwing in there is your sleep disturbances are probably all over the place, you know, if you're on call. I think I sleep really well because when I get stressed, I sleep more. Like I put everything on pause and I just like as in, it's my way of kind of avoiding stress as I just go to sleep. So I definitely get on average eight to eight hours a day. So that's that's one thing that I do have dialed in. Right, but there's a difference between sleeping and sleeping because you're exhausted. Yeah, because so especially if you're circadian rhythms off, if you're doing a night shift and so you end up having to sleep during the day type of deal. So here's why I'm saying all this. First off, you're obviously a badass. You're obviously a high achieving individual and you are kicking ass, but what you don't want to do is get caught up in the I want everything right now mentality because what will happen is something's going to give. Okay, so is it possible to get your deadlift up another 50 pounds and to do all the things yet potentially, but the way that it's going to happen is by managing your workload, managing your stress and doing it very slowly. So your intensity of your workouts needs to mean and you need to maintain something very moderate. Oh, and by the way, just a comment on Brett Contreras, he has good workouts. His exercise programming is very sound, very solid. He's trained people for a very similar to ours. Very similar to ours, you know, because he knows he's doing a lot worse. He knows what he's doing. So I like his workout programming. I'll send you one of our programs anyway, just so you have something else. If you want to try something else, but you'll probably find that it's relatively similar to what you're going to see with just a little better. Yeah, just it's just better basically. Just kidding. So okay, so your question with the deadlift, you keep it slow, keep the intensity moderate and really, really, really play it safe when it comes to managing the stress on your body and the workload on your body. So what does that mean? That means because two things, number one, your baseline is probably more tired and stressed than the average person. And when you do it for a long time, when your baseline is like that for a long time, your perception of what is a lot of stress and a little bit of stress starts to become skewed. So then you may have that day or two where you feel closer to normal, but to you, you're gonna be like, oh my God, I got all this energy. I'm gonna go hit the gym hella hard. I don't want you to do that. What I want you to do is consider, you're probably until you get out of this, until you get into your career and you get a more regular schedule, you probably want to approach your workouts with like on a scale of one to 10, probably a six or seven intensity all the time. Never go above that. Okay, so six or seven moderate. And that you'll see strength gains with that. You'll actually see strength gains with that. If you go too high, then you're gonna stall and then if you go higher than that, then you'll see yourself maybe get injured or have some other problems. Now, as far as nutrition is concerned, I like the shakes. And I would say have those available with you at all times. And if you can add things to those shakes to give them a little bit more calories because whey is just protein. And if you mix it, do you mix it with anything or do you mix it with just water? I mix it with milk. Whole milk? No, semi-skimmed. I would go whole milk. So there you go. You got some extra calories right there with the whole milk. And then if you could have something very, an easy source of fat that you can even add to that like peanut butter. So you can literally do a teaspoon of peanut butter, have a shake. And you actually have a decent, like when it comes from macros and calories, you have a decent little easy meal right there. That's gonna be better than the heavily processed foods. Not necessarily from a macro perspective because you could find processed foods that might come close to the macros. The problem is those heavily processed foods tend to trigger some behavioral effects. They tend to cause things with blood sugar and they tend to make people feel any particular way that either makes them want to overeat or under eat. And it sounds like in your case, you'd go towards the under eating. So I would go whole milk, have a nice source of fat that's real convenient, throw the protein and shake in there or the way in there. And then there you go. That being said, I want to address the question around, should I do processed foods because maybe you're potentially missing macros. In that context, I would say yes. Always where you're gonna hear us preach whole natural foods whole. And we're gonna say that all the time. But if I have a client who is consistently potentially missing their protein intake, I'd rather see you get processed food with protein to get your, to hit your macros. Just the hierarchy of that, right? Obviously whole foods, organic, all those things are nice, but not if you're missing your macros, especially consistently and especially since we're trying to build strength. If you're trying to build strength and we're trying to get build muscle and you miss protein intake on a semi-regular basis, that could actually be one of the reasons, too, why you get stuck with your weight in plateauing. So I would- But I mean, consider, weight protein is processed. So that is a processed food. It's just a better option, especially when you mix it with whole milk, then then you maybe add something else to it. Otherwise the options tend to look like bakery items or a burger or something along those lines, something frozen that you throw in the microwave, which typically isn't as good. So that's why I say I would have the whole milk and the whey. And then, like I said, I can easy source of fat just to throw on top of it. I like peanut butter. Most of us can eat a teaspoon of peanut butter and feel great. And then just do that. And that should keep things pretty good because you're looking at, I mean, that's like a cup and a half of whole milk with whey and peanut butter. I was like, you know, you can do like five, six hundred calories right there. Yeah, I've been using that as kind of like a breakfast option. Like if I have a day in theater, then I'll have that to sustain me until lunchtime kind of thing. So yeah, I think adding the peanut butter will give it that extra boost. That would be very helpful. Excellent. And Fatima, I'm going to send you maps and a ball like, okay. Okay. Yeah, I think that'll be a good program for you to look at. There's a two day a week option in there, which probably sounds like it'll work with your schedule. No, that would be absolutely great. You got it. Yeah, thanks for calling in. Keep kicking ass, by the way. No, thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate it. She's doing really well. Yeah, really good. You know what this is like? Okay, so earlier you were talking about like the, I guess the gear that athletes go into, which is, you know, not what's ideal, but what can I tolerate? Yeah, yeah. When you're talking with somebody who's like a resident and, you know. High achiever. It's the same thing. Yeah. It's like more, more, more push, push, push. And they get so used to being fried that they didn't realize that they're fried. So I've trained people in this situation and I'm just like, okay, when can I add cycling? When can I add this? I'm like, no, no, no. You need to add nothing. Your body is fried right now, so let's just back way off. And then boom, lo and behold, shrinking. If I have a client who is doing everything that she's doing right now and we're seeing any sort of strength gain and she's maintaining her body fat percent, I'm like, stay there. Exactly. We are winning. Yeah. We are, because you're gonna remember that you're kicking ass in other aspects of life right now. So the fact that we're progressing in spite of everything else that you've got going on is a huge win. I know we always want our cake and eat it too, though. You know what I'm saying? It's like you want to get, you want to be the strongest person in the gym and then you also want to go work 12 hours a day. It's just, something's got to give. And right now, if something hasn't gave and you're not losing in one of those areas, this is just reminding this person that you're doing a great job. Because this is, she said 50 to 60 hours. This isn't 50 to 60 hours of normal work. This is stress. This is high stress work. Yeah. High demand. High demand and stress, definitely. Our next caller is Eddie from California. Eddie, what's happening, man? How can we help you? Hey, how's it going, guys? Good. Hey, just wanted to start off today. So thank you. You know, everyone thanks you guys for everything you guys do. You guys give great advice. I don't want to dwell on that too long. I know you guys hear it all the time. So to start off, I was running anabolic earlier this year and then made it halfway through performance. And I was in pretty much the best shape I'd been in since high school. All right. So I'm 28 now. Best shape I'd been in since high school, playing all these sports. I was playing beach volleyball one day, pulled my hammy. Didn't feel great. So I was out for a few weeks, several weeks, got a little out of shape, lost it, lost my groove. Started going back once I felt good, once my hammy felt good, I went back to the gym. Realized I wanted to focus on more mobility stuff because I don't want the hammy issue happening again. And then you guys have been talking about squat depth at the time on your podcast. So I decided to start going deeper on my squats. So I had previously been doing 90, about 90 degrees. And then just said, okay, let's send it all the way down as far as my legs will let me go. And I think after about four times doing that, my knees started bugging out. And I never went and got it checked, but I'm pretty sure there was something wrong with the tendon right underneath the kneecap. But I'm back now, started going back again, and I'm a few weeks back in performance. So my question to you guys is, what is the best way to really get the real deep squats? Increase mobility. And I also have an ankle mobility thing as well. I think I sent it too quick, you know? Yeah, no you did. So you're talking about patella tendonitis. Okay, so if the knees bother you, it's almost always ankles and or hips. And so here's the deal with range of motion. A longer range of motion in exercise is better only if the person has complete control, complete stability and can perform the movement properly with that longer range of motion. Otherwise, the shorter range of motion is better. So in your case, going down to 90 degrees was better for you than going deeper because you forced yourself to go deeper than your mobility and your stability and control allowed. So you have to address the issues that are causing you to have pain when you go down into a full squat. And it's probably ankles and hips. So I would focus a lot on ankle and hip mobility. And then if you do practice going deeper with your squat during that process, you don't go from 90 to a full squat. You literally go down an inch deeper. That's it. Just an inch deeper and then get good at that. And then maybe another inch deeper once you feel perfect there. It's a very slow process. Otherwise, you will run into problems. Have you squatted with your heels elevated? And did you notice that you still have the pain? Yeah, usually one of the little something else underneath my heels, a little small weight. And you didn't notice any pain as you dropped down into your depth? Could you get a little lower? Yeah, I can get lower. Yeah, I can get lower with that. And there's no pain and I feel stable, which is why I think it took four. It took four different days for that pain to actually develop. So I was getting deep and it felt comfortable. It was just, I'm not sure what happened there. Yeah, so that's one of those tests Dr. Brink took us to. It clearly identifies an ankle mobility focus that you should have for that specifically. Obviously, the hips could contribute to that as well. But to gain that kind of control down in that depth, it's going to take some work. So it's a whole new exercise at that point once we can get into that depth. But to focus really on your ankle mobility is going to move you in that direction quite substantially. Yeah, I'm almost certain it's ankle mobility. And the mistake that I think a lot of people make, I made it when I was working on my squat depth is I start to get down in this deep squat and then immediately I want to start pressing the weight to chat like, oh man, yeah, okay, I'm all the way down. Okay, let's add a quarter. Okay, let's add another 55. And then, and so you quickly start pushing the weight up when you have to remind yourself that this is actually really new territory for you. I mean, before that, like you, I was only squatting down to 90 degrees. So to think in four weeks time, I'm all of a sudden loading really, really deep squats is a little silly. I shouldn't be doing that. So, you know, I would take it really slow when you are squatting either with your heels elevated or you're working on that depth. And I would actually mess with things like tempo and pause squats and things like that. Way before you add loads. Way before I add loads. So if you find like, let's just say, you know, you can do 135 really deep and comfortable and you're like, oh, I want to get to 185. Well, before you go to 185, you know, practice a pause squat down there or, you know, tempo squats where you go really, really slow on the way down or go all the way down, come up a little bit, pause and come up a little bit more than pause. So I would manipulate the time and attention and tempo and holds before I start to load it more. I also think you'll get tremendous value from the guy, knees over toes guy. He has a lot of really good exercises that he's doing that I think will help prime you to get you into a deeper, more comfortable squat. And you just got to get slow. It took me a long time to go from a 90 degree squatter all the way to astagrass and comfortably do it without feeling these things because I would do the same thing. I'd feel good. Oh, I'm down there. Start pressing the way a little bit. Oh, then my knees or my hips would start talking to me. And it's just like all what I was doing was I was loading the bar too fast. Yeah, speaking of the knees over toes, do you have access to a sled? Because sled drags would be amazing for you to build up strength and volume with your knee in that position over your toes. So that's definitely suggest that. Unfortunately, I don't. But, you know, I've always liked, I used to do sleds a long time ago. And I loved them. I just don't do them anymore, you know. But, you know, I might change some, change that to help me out a little bit. Yeah, that'll be good. I like that. Do you follow the knees over toes, guy? Do you know who I'm talking about? No. No. But is he on, where's he at? He's huge on, I mean, you'll find him on Instagram, YouTube, he's all, he's been making the rounds for the last couple of years. He's got great content specific to what we're talking about right now. So like literally, yeah, just go down the rabbit hole. He's got the sled drags that Justin's talking about and some great lunges where you really drive the knee over the toe and just good stuff to get you really primed to get comfortable in that deep position. I think adding some of that into your routine and taking it slow, you'll be fine. Eddie, do you have a MAPS Prime Pro? I do not, no. I'm going to send that to you because there's lots of ankle and hip mobility movements in there. So practice those regularly. Mm-hmm. All right. Okay, so I know you said go down inch by inch. Are you saying take it light? Like for a lightweight, go down inch by inch? Yes. Yes. You want to go, you want to go, when we say take it slow, we mean that with everything. Weight, with depth, and I mean absurdly slow, slower than you think. Okay, because here's what happens. You don't feel the pain from having a little bit of instability issues. You usually don't feel the pain in the workout. You usually feel it after, and sometimes it takes two or three workouts. If it's an ankle mobility issue though, which I think we all agree it probably is, then you could actually deep squat all the way down, but then just elevate your heels even more. So get yourself in a nice elevated position, and then you should feel pretty comfortable going all the way down. If you're going to stay with flat shoes or barefoot, and then what Sal is saying, 100%, you need to go inch by inch, take your time progressing it slowly, but you're basically artificially giving yourself more knee travel by elevating the heels. So if it is an ankle mobility issue, one of the things you can do to practice deep squatting, even though you don't have the ankle mobility, just don't neglect that. The problem that when I give that advice, someone's like, oh cool, so then they elevate, they elevate their heels, they squat comfortably, it doesn't bother them, and then they never address the root cause of the issue, which is the ankle mobility. So you can do both in conjunction, right? Yeah, I think too, of increasing muscle tension. So just like you can flex right now, your arms like without any kind of load, you're going to do that to your bodies, you drop down into that squat. The more that you're getting your muscles to engage, the more it's sending that signal that it's supported and stabilized. So that's really what we need to get that signal to the body. So that way, when you're in that kind of depth, you have that strength and control to dig your way out. Okay, all right, cool. All right, thanks for calling in Eddie. Yeah, thanks guys, appreciate it. No problem. Right. That's easily the biggest mistake people make whenever trying to do a greater range of motion with exercises. They either stay with the same weight or they get a greater range of motion, they're like, wow, that feels good, now let me load it. But it's hard to communicate just how slow you need to take it. You got to really take your time because oftentimes it's not in the workout. It's often not like, oh that hurt, while you're doing it, it's like the day or two later and you're like, what did I do? Your body's been so good at preventing you from going further in that angle. And so it's like, you think about how often you've practiced being in that angle. It's like, never. And so to add a bunch of load on that, you really have to treat it like it's a totally different exercise. To give an exact, I'll tell the story. I had a client once, she was an executive in War Heels all the time, all the time War Heels heals. And we were talking about ankle and foot strength and whatever, and she was like, you know what I'm gonna do? When I'm home, I'm just gonna go barefoot all the time. Well, she very quickly developed plantar fasciitis. Why? Because she was so used to walking in heels that she went from heels to flat foot all the time that it caused problems. So it's like, she had to go like five minutes at a time to get her body used to that. So that's kind of what happens when you've been working out a particular way and you challenge yourself with a new range of motion. You know, you got to treat yourself like a complete beginner. That's exactly what you got to do. I did the same thing. I mean, I went through the same process. You get excited because you're going deeper. Of course, and it feels good in the moment. Yeah, and it feels good. And so then you instantly want to start adding the weight and get back to the weight that you can, you know, traditionally squat. And so, yeah, no, I made this mistake multiple times and you just kind of regress it. And to Justin's point, get to the bottom, create tension on the bottom. I believe, so if he's listening to this afterwards, Eddie, I believe if you go back on my Instagram a little bit, you'll see some of the squat priming I do where I'm creating tension like Justin's talking about with just my body weight, where I'm trying to prime my ankles. I'm like basically hugging a squat rack and driving my knee over my toes, intensifying it, then going to the other side and, you know, pushing the knees out and engaging my glutes. Like, so, yeah, prime like that. And then even when you get into loading it, you know, load it with a little bit of weight and then do that same stuff at the bottom of your squat to create that tension Justin's talking about and then take your time. Exactly. Being hyper-focused on your fitness goals is killing your gains. It would have been more controversial just to say your goals are killing it. Just your goals are killing your gains. Yeah, I gotta be a little bit more clear. A little more click-baity. Yeah. Because that would have got more attention. You think so? Yeah, just what you said seems obvious. So I go with this one. Let's controversial. We'll do this again. Okay. Take two. Canceled. No, we're not. Let's keep going. I like where you're going though. I mean, I think... No, I'll do it. There we go. No, seriously? It's only happened three times in our life. Okay, well, let's see. Oh, shit. I was joking. Let's keep this. That's fine. Let's make it concise. Having goals is killing your gains. Is that a better one? Yes. You tried this 50 times. I want to talk about this because how often, how many times we had clients, or now we have callers call in, where they talk about... Can I stop you? This goal or that goal? No, you referenced something that the audience has zero clue about. It's like, is this a better one? What are you talking about? Because we didn't play for three. All right, take three. It doesn't... That part doesn't matter, Doug. The first one didn't matter. Jesus Christ. We couldn't work through it. You guys fucking stop it. You know, let's stop the show. Everybody's hungry. Jesus Christ. All right, let's go. I'll do it again. Let's go. That's fine. Yeah, it's like... You have to. When you referenced... When you... When you referenced... Pay you to agree with Doug. When you referenced something that people have zero clue of... That's fine, Doug. That's fine. That's no relevance. Let's go. Let's go. Take three. There we go. Doug is killing your gains. There you go. Here we go. Your goals are killing your gains. Is that better? It's good. That landed. You still did it to him. I know. I did that on purpose. I did that on purpose. Oh, it's Monday. Piss off, Doug. Yes, sir. Hands are rolling. Hold on, hold on. No, no, no. Listen. All right. Listen. Can you do this? Oh, shit. Whoa. Too far. Calm down, Carl. Are we recording, Doug? Just be sure you're recording. Just stop me because we're not recording. I'm really upset. Doug, fuck me. Postal. All right. All right. All right. Here we go. No, no, no. Are you doing it over again? No, you are. Oh, you are. No, he was fucking low. Well, I feel like you had... I like all of that. No, I did that with Doug. I did that for Doug. All right. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out some of our free guides and free information that we offer all of our viewers and listeners. Again, it's free, mindpumpfree.com. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam. And you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. This one's really important. And that is to phase your training. If somebody trains for a full year or doing a bench press and they're always aiming for five reps, if you compared that person to a person who did a bench press where they did three or four weeks of five reps, but then they did three or four weeks of 12 reps and then three or four weeks of, let's say, 15 to 20 reps. And then they'll throw in some supersets. At the end of that year, you're going to see more consistent progress from the person who's moving in and out. And less injury. That's another thing. You'll see less injury as well.