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Enjoy this podcast. Let's talk about The 11 ways to build muscle Faster faster faster. Everyone wants to build muscle But everybody wants to build it faster. Hell. Yes, I do. No, this is a good topic because uh, Actually, I think what's gonna happen in this discussion is people will listen and realize that they're not doing something From what we're talking about here, you know building muscles tough. It's not easy. It's funny. We I I talk about this on a lot of podcasts. I'm on now Especially when I'm talking about to women about building muscle is that it's it's not an easy process It takes a lot of time. It could be very challenging And there's a oftentimes there's things that we do or don't do that just slow the process down and some of them are simple But oftentimes overlooked so I think we should definitely cover This subject because uh, I know these are pitfalls I ran into that I had issues with my clients did Well, I'm also excited to do this too because A lot of times You may be building muscle and you don't think you are So the idea behind this like when we first kind of created this was you know Let's give people kind of like a check off list of are you are you hitting the the big 11 things? To build muscle as fast as you can because what can happen sometimes is the scale doesn't move And you start to stray away from some of these things, right? You start to freak out or adjust or move or do things differently because oh my god My goal was to build as much muscle as possible And my scale is either staying the same or maybe even a drop to pound and so you start freaking out and so You know, I would have you know, and I didn't quite organize it the way we organized this episode today But I'd have kind of a list of things similar to this That I'd I'd go over with my clients say listen. Are you doing this? Are you doing this if we're doing all these things? Okay, and I promise you We're changing your body composition. Even if you think we're not we we're on the right track We're checking all the boxes, right the first thing which I think is the most important and the most basic Is to focus on strength now I know eventually when you get advanced this one changes because you're not gonna Get stronger forever all the time if that were the case I think I'd be you know, I'd be lifting thousands of pounds in each one of my exercises So at some point this changes But in the beginning and in the intermediate, uh, this is the most Important thing if you the most tangible way to actually be able to measure your progress I think that that's that's just one of those things that if we if if you want to be serious about this and and this is where All this stuff matters and why we have this all stacked The way it is because to be efficient in building muscle We have to really be critical of all these, uh, you know types of ways of measuring it It's also one of the first places it goes when you fall off for a couple weeks So it's such an easy place for me to go back and measure like oh am I on the right track again Like if you if I take a week or two off, especially if I take two weeks or beyond where I've been inconsistent and not lifting One of the first things I see that I start to drop or lose is my strength So it's also one of the best ways for me to know that okay I'm back on the right track when I start to see that go up and your measure is not Oh, what's my pr and I'm not pring now. It's like where where did you start when you got back? Yeah, where did I start when I got back into training again or back to being consistent with all the things I'm doing Now and how am I progressing from there? Yeah, some of the best advice I got as a kid working out was exactly this So we had a family friend who used to be a bodybuilder. He was a chiropractor And as a kid working out anytime we'd see this person I was always like oh man I can't I can't wait to ask him questions because he was the buffest guy that I knew And I finally I remember one day I took him aside and I built up the courage to to ask this guy and I said hey What are the most what's the most important things I can do and he said, you know Eat a lot of high quality food and get strong and I remember thinking like what do you mean just get strong? He goes look If you double your squat if you double your bench press, I promise you you'll be bigger I promise you you're gonna have more muscle your body will need to get bigger and nothing Nothing has consistently built more muscle on me and on my clients than just getting stronger consistently You're you can get stronger and not see muscle for a little while, but if you keep getting stronger Eventually you'll see more muscle on right because you can be getting better at this and we'll cover this right the skill and things like that But ultimately if you are sending a signal to the body that you need to get stronger Then it's also telling the body we should build more muscle You know in order for us to get stronger one of the most efficient ways that we can be stronger is to add Muscle to build muscle So that is like the loudest signal that you can send to the body to build the right And I mean this was the part of the cornerstone of the first maps program Which is maps anabolic is uh, you know get stronger and people who Don't necessarily focus on this to go to the gym and focus on the burn or the sweat or the pump They'll follow a program like that and they'll be like I can't believe the results that i'm getting i'm like well Yeah, strength is the foundational Pursuit that's the thing that above all that muscle does is it contracts And allows you to move things lift things And as those muscles get bigger You can lift more So focus on strength, especially if you're in that beginner to intermediate stage, especially if you're in the first few years Of your training career If if you get stronger at some of those very important exercises your squats and your dead lifts and your overhead presses and your bench presses and your rows And you do so consistently You will build muscle. That's just basically uh the bottom line Now the second one Also very important and this one took me a long time to figure out Was training frequency You know i was i'm old enough to remember when we were all told to train each body part once a week This was a law. This wasn't just a recommendation This was the law like If you wanted to build muscle how dare you work out your shoulders more than once a week You have to rest them for seven days What a mistake The thing there is the rest because we know that rest is a vital component in building muscle But the their definition of the rest was just off, right? So we would we would destroy one muscle group and we think the rest We have to we have to stay away from that muscle group and let it build back and develop You know as it should but really what we should be doing is adding more activity to to aid in the recovery of it It actually helps to promote A muscle group more effectively and to to be able to touch that same muscle group with you know a bit less Intensity so we can get more volume. Well, I remember even as a trainer. I actually Misunderstood this I actually I thought and I even taught this for a while That if my body was sore still There's not only was do I not need to train that muscle again. It was bad. It was bad. Yeah That that you know and I used to say it like this that oh, you know You're tearing and breaking down when you go in and you train and when you intensely train And if you come back in two or three days and that muscle still soar and you go train it again You're just tearing and breaking down again and you're never allowing yourself to repair and grow So and there's there's some truth to this but I abused it to the point where I thought okay It was all about intensely training and hammering the muscles hard That could and then it's all about as giving it as much rest as I possibly could Then then hit it again And I would never want to touch that muscle for at least seven days before I did it again Bro, this was such a mind blowing revelation for me the first time I applied this and by the way when I'm talking about frequency Uh, I mean that your volume and your intensity. You're still controlled But the amount of times you train the muscle is more often. So what I mean by that is it's the difference between Let's say hitting your chest on Monday for 21 sets Versus doing seven sets three days a week. Yeah, you're still doing 21 sets for the whole week Same amount, but the difference is rather than doing all in one workout. You've got triple the frequency Triple the frequency with the same volume We'll give most people better results and I find this to be more true Especially for people who really have a challenge building muscle Hard gainers seem to do the best with this where I take their total volume and I divide it up among more frequent workouts They seem to be to do much better and when I did this for myself It blew my mind partially because I was at them like you I thought uh, you never train a muscle group more than that more frequently, especially if it's sore But I remember when I first applied this I trained body parts when they were a little sore And I noticed not only did they not get more sore. They actually felt a little better And oh my gosh, I'm getting stronger and I'm building more muscle. What the hell is going on here Well, the most important part that you just mentioned right now is actually Explaining how you divided the same volume up. So the the next mistake that I made was okay I found and I don't remember exactly the study that I read when I came across this But I finally read the research around frequency and it says, you know, two to three times a week is ideal for the most muscle, right? So then all I did was take the same Intensity mindset that I was that one day just doubled the set and then I doubled it or tripled it, you know to throughout the week And then I didn't see that much progress from that whatsoever So you have to understand that as you increase frequency You also have to reduce the intensity and intensity can be driven because of by reducing it through volume Or then how hard or hand or how hard you're training in the workout Because that that is where that part is true that I that I believe before which is if you are hammering it that hard Two or three times a week and never allowing the body to ever recover then you can get stuck in that recovery Yes, and now here's the thing a lot of the things that get communicated in the fitness space Especially in the early days were coming from these really genetically gifted Individuals and I use this example all the time to illustrate kind of what I'm talking about but If you look at the the genetic ability of your body to build muscle There's a spectrum right on one end is Very very your body just doesn't build muscle on the other end is are your body builders most of us Are somewhere in the middle and to use a different example If you look at height is a good example of this right on one end You have people are seven feet tall the other end you have people with dwarfism, right? In real life forget watching basketball games for forget going to mba How often have you ever seen someone that's seven feet tall, right? Almost never if you did you'll remember it because it's so rare That's how rare Extreme muscle building genetics are now. Why is this important because a lot of the information we got And still permeates comes from these genetically gifted individuals that make up 0.01 percent Of the population Part of what makes them genetically gifted is they send a muscle building signal And their body is in positive building mode for a week or two weeks The average person that signal lasts like 24 to 48 hours It's gone after that after that your body is not trying to build more muscle even if you're sore So this is why some people can work a body part once a week get great results But why most people do better working the body part? Two or three days a week now Of course, you got to control the volume and the intensity So you're not doing 21 sets on monday wednesday and friday, but you're doing what i said earlier, which is seven sets Monday wednesday and friday, but there's other benefits to this number one You're fresher For all seven sets right because if you do 21 sets in one workout by the time you get done with six or seven sets The rest of the workout is like you're just kind of hanging in there and you're getting a pump But when you you're fresh you tend to focus on more effective exercises You're stronger You don't do these finishers that tend to be at the end of this long super long workout It's the more effect and you have this triple frequency and you also practice More often. Well, yeah practice this that's where the athletic mind, you know Kind of went in this direction and realized like if if you look at it like i'm i'm playing in You know a high intensity game like it's something like that That's going to be a bit damaging on the body, but i if i was to do that Multiple times a week and that's going to be taxing on your body. It's the same type of mentality going into the workouts if if that's always going to be my mindset of crushing this this workout You know, it's going to be really taxing on your body. Your body is not going to have a chance to really fully recover Versus practicing and going a little bit lighter You know really practicing these same moves In adjusting things accordingly to then feel fresh feel like you're energized Leading into like let's say every now and then you're going to test your abilities Now the next one that I think goes hand-in-hand with Increasing the frequency of how much you're training is also incorporating priming and mobility work This was something too way later in my career. I did I finally figure all this gets in the way for so many people For building muscle. I know well, I think As if you were to tell 22 year old me about this I know that I would it would be tough to get it through to my head would trust it because I I would see it as like, um, oh, this is like, you know, this is like, uh, yoga flexibility stuff Like i'm trying to build as much muscle as I possibly want this how i'm not getting sore from this I'm not sweating from this. It's not really hard like You know, I'm spending 10 or 10 minutes before I get started in my workout I could be doing three more sets of something intensely inside my workout And so the young kid in me, uh, thought it was a waste of time in my pursuit of building the most muscle It wasn't till later. Did I realize how much this would accelerate my muscle building problem? No, if you could if you could give a point A score I should say to an exercise. Let's say Let's say you could give squats a 10 right on a scale of 1 to 10 For building muscle. Let's say squats score a 10 That doesn't mean Doing squats any way you want will give you a 10 The 10 comes from squats done well Full range of motion being connected Feeling and the muscles that are supposed to be work good control good control That's what gives it the 10 the worst you do squats the less Points you get for doing them in terms of its muscle building ability I think back to when I was a kid Working out the first time I started doing squats. I remember the difference in my leg development from doing half squats doing full squats It was like a completely different exercise Same thing with shoulder presses same thing with the bench press, right? The fuller range of motion with good control It was like I was doing a brand new exercise in terms of its effectiveness It makes that big of a difference and a lot of people Because they don't prime properly because they don't work on mobility properly They're not able to do some of the most effective exercise or they do those exercises But they can't do them effectively Yeah, I look at it too Is you get a stock car that has all these governings it on them to not allow you to go the certain speed You know the engine is is fully capable of going But the the systems aren't in place to be able to handle that kind of stress It's going to place on the car. It's the same with the the body has is very smart It it it adjusts and makes sure that you know these ranges of motion and these types of activities You don't apply too much of what you already could produce Because you're going to injure yourself And so we're working against these systems that we already have so priming itself Will really unlock a whole amount of new potential For you to produce force not to mention the amount of muscle fibers that you recruit when you do an exercise Actually is directly correlated to the amount of strength And muscle you gain from that exercise So when you look at muscles if you were to look at them under a microscope They're made up of lots of different fibers. I'm just going to give a number Let's say you have this is not accurate, but just for argument's sake. Let's say in your bicep You have 100 fibers. That's total muscle fibers in your bicep But when you do curls your body's only really calling on 60 of them Okay, there's gonna be a big difference between your body calling upon 60 or recruiting 100 Part of what allows you to recruit more muscle fibers Is how connected you are to the exercise how stable you are to that exercise This is why some people not not all the reasons but part of the reason why Some people Don't build Their glutes is effectively doing squats as someone else or their chest is effectively when doing bench press As someone else they're not able to recruit the same amount of muscle fibers because they're not as connected They don't have that technique and the form mobility and priming is a very integral part of not just avoiding injury But of maximizing your workouts so you can build the most amount of that dramatically adds up over time So most people are following some sort of a routine where they have you know Squats bench press whatever exercise we're talking about where they have to do three to four sets of each exercise Well, most people that don't do priming and set themselves up for all those exercises to your point only recruiting so much muscle fiber Sets one and two they only get x amount percent out of that where they could potentially double or triple the amount They get out of all those sets you add that up over workouts over weeks and over months and over years That really starts to compound. It makes a huge difference. So uh maps our program maps prime maps prime pro focus Especially specifically on that. We do have a free webinar. I want to mention that so people can go and Learn some of the stuff. They don't have to buy anything. It's uh maps prime pro or excuse me maps prime webinar Dot com so you can go there Now the second then the next one is also very very important This one is one we communicate all the time, but I think it we can't say it enough And that is if you want to build muscle Focus on the most effective exercises. I mean there's a lot of exercises all of them have some value But not all of them are equal and when it comes to building muscle, they're definitely not equal Some are really good at building muscle Others are not very good at all at building muscle The most effective exercises for building muscle are compound Exercises or compound lifts the term compound means you're you're using more than one joint when doing the lift So a non compound movement an isolation movement or a single joint exercise would be Like a like a curl, right? A compound movement that would work the biceps would be like a chin up with my with my palms facing back in a supernative grip That would be a compound lift for my biceps other compound lifts include squats dead lifts bench presses overhead presses rows horizontal presses those are all the big muscle building exercises If you get good at those you'll build way more muscle than if you get good At single joint and of course, um, these are the ones that Require a bit more skill in terms of the performing of the exercise where in a controlled setting where Uh, you're in a machine It's a lot of those things have been accounted for and so It's great for rehab. It's great for being able to really hone in on very specific muscles But when we're trying to build muscle, we need to send the loudest signal we possibly can and so these These types of lifts where we use multi joint Really put a lot of demand on the body which then in turn signal signals to the body Okay, we need to be able to build Some muscle to be able to resist this well So you gotta you gotta tell your your speaker and amp analogy that you give a lot that we haven't talked about very very much lately in the podcast because There is this movement right now in the the muscle building community Around you know doing these exercises where you feel it the most in it and it and that's more important than these compound lifts In fact, I know there's a lot and they're very smart intelligent people that are promoting this message Which I think is a terrible message for the masses, which is this oh, you know, you don't need to do squats You don't need to do these compound lifts You can do exercises that target the quads or target the hamstrings or target the clues glutes better But there's there's massive benefits that go into compound lifting for reasons It's not just about feeling a specific muscle that's going to build the most muscle There's also other benefits Primarily talking about the central nervous system. Yeah, so the cns is the controller, right? That's what tells your muscles to contract or relax Your brain is a part of the central nervous system And the cns would be like your amplifier if you were to have a stereo system. That's the amp That's what sends the juice and the speakers are like muscle Well, you could have Whatever speakers you want, but they're not going to do anything if the amp is is very very weak And training your central nervous system leads to better muscle fiber recruitment and a louder muscle building signal Compound lifts are a loud signal Isolation lifts are not you don't believe me go do a set of leg extensions to failure And then go do a set of barbell squats to failure and tell you how you feel Afterwards, right? It's a very loud very big signal And it calls upon your body to elicit the strongest adaptation response Remember adaptation is what we're looking for when we're working out Our body's trying to get better at what we're telling it to do compound lifts are just way more effective Partially because they activate so much muscle in the body they tell everything to turn on Your cns is loud when it's when you're doing these exercises And so it's like Nothing's going to build more muscle if you add 50 pounds to your squat Look at how much muscle you build on your legs versus adding 50 pounds on the leg extension I mean, there's no there's no comparison a 50 pound add to your squat. You're going to see more muscle 50 pounds on a leg extension. You might not even notice that much of a difference That's how big of a difference it is when we're talking about these these compound lifts And for a lot of people who are training If you're looking at your routine and you're like, why am I not building muscle and you look at your workout And two thirds of your workout is our single joint exercises Okay, you got to flip that two thirds should be compound One third should be the the single joint isolation movement Now this next one is really funny. I'm gonna tell a story Kind of illustrate what it's all about. I remember years ago I got this guy that hired this kid. He was 17 years old And he wanted to get bigger. He wanted to build more muscle And so when I when I talked to him, he wanted to hire me and so we started talking about his routine And it kind of sounded like he knew what he was talking about And he was doing the right diet taking the right supplements and I said, well, let me look at your workout And I looked at his workout and I quickly realized That he didn't spend much time Training his legs And so I asked him I said, this is common for people, right? They'll they'll not focus on a body part because it may be not flashy for them or whatever Or it's hard or it's hard, right? But legs is one, right? You know, the beach muscles, right? He's chest and biceps all the time and you know, my legs, I can wear pants That was his whole deal And he was a kid. So I said, why aren't you working your legs that much? He goes, I don't really care about having super muscular legs But what I want to do Is I want to add more size to my arms So I said, okay, here's what we're going to do I'm going to get you really strong at squats and build your legs And he's like, well, that doesn't make any sense I said, oh, it will make sense once we do it. I said, but here's a deal Your we can build a body part and that body part will definitely build But there's a signal that it sends to the whole body Get this kind of whole body systemic effect And I remember as a kid reading articles saying If you wanted to get bigger arms, you got to get better at squats And I thought it was silly, but I tested it myself as a kid Totally worked It worked on this kid too His squat went up, of course, his legs got bigger But the rest of his body built as well There are studies that show, for example, let's kind of illustrate this Where they'll have somebody will put one arm, they'll immobilize one arm So your left arm immobilized And when you do that, like if you have your arm in the cast You'll notice lots of muscle loss But in these studies, the participants will train the right arm Here's what they find The right arm definitely gets stronger The arm that's immobilized loses less muscle In fact, when they don't immobilize one of the arms But they still train one arm Most of the gains go in that one arm they train Some of the gains go in the other arm It's like you get this localized muscle building effect But you also get this systemic muscle building effect Now let's talk about the legs for a second That's half of your body Training your legs sends Definitely there's a local signal that goes to the legs But there's a very loud systemic signal that goes to the rest of your body So call out the concept, it's irradiation As you put stress in one joint Your body is still stabilizing It's still actively contracting And it's affecting your body in a lot more ways Than you actually realize So you training your legs definitely puts your upper body Is going to be affected by that In your overall body in general The more type of demand you're going to put on You're going to build muscle as a result Well this is why too I really like Sal the speaker and amplifier analogy That you talk about too Because that makes total sense when you think of it like that too Knowing that the legs are so big If you are training those compound lifts and you're doing it You're going to get some benefit to the amplifier So even though you didn't maybe upgrade the speakers in your arms Like you can get bigger speakers necessarily right away But you're now sending a louder signal to those Because you've trained those lifts So that's why I like that analogy so much Because it makes sense to me That even if someone is not training that right arm Like you're talking about And they're only training the left arm It still stretches your capacity That's right They're still getting a better amplifier So that going forward when they do those other lifts They're going to get more bang for their buck There it is, it's true And so let's extend this a little further Don't skip body parts Skipping body parts means that Even though you have a body part that like I don't really care about training it that much Yes, you're not going to develop that body part But you're also not going to develop the other body parts To the full potential Your body will limit the muscle building signal Number one because it wants to maintain some sort of balance And number two because you're missing that systemic Muscle building effect So if you're training in a way that Skips body parts You're actually limiting your capacity to build muscle Especially if it's a big body part In guys it tends to be legs In women it tends to be like chest I've had a lot of female clients I don't need to train my chest I'm like but you want nice shoulders You want nice back Well yeah Well let's train your chest And see what happens And sure enough They would notice better results in the rest of the body Now the next one this one's important Because I think sometimes people Especially people who want to build muscle But they also are afraid of gaining body fat They tend to shy away from carbohydrates I tell you what This is coming from someone who often eats Very very low carbohydrates And sometimes even eats ketogenic Now I do those things because Not because I'm trying to build muscle And not because I'm trying to get lean But rather it works on an individual basis For my gut health This is why I do it But believe me if I had a choice I would eat carbs Not just because they're delicious But because you build muscle way easier When you build carbs And when you eat carbs And it's also just easier to get the calories that way It's really tough Most people that struggle with building muscle Also struggle with getting enough calories I mean I know this was where I was stuck For so many years was I was a trainer I was active I liked to play sports I did all this stuff that was burning So many calories And I just was not fueling the body Enough carbohydrates To stay up with my core can take So that I can build You can lift weights all day long But if you're not giving your body enough calories To build muscle It's gonna have a really hard time Putting any muscle Yeah the other part to that And this one's very obvious Is don't miss your protein intake That is very That's why I like to target that first Right So like if I'm For myself This is even if I'm not tracking Like if I'm not logging everything I eat The first thing I'll do is I'll go Okay I'm just gonna really focus on Making sure I hit my protein intake I'll just track my protein Make sure I hit my protein And then I'll just I'll pile on the carbohydrates And allow fat to get in there Like that But if you hit that first And make sure you hit those numbers And then you pile on the other calories From carbs and fat Much easier strategy Totally The next one This one is more for the hard gainer The person who You know has a tough time gaining Daily weigh-ins can be really good They can kind of keep you on track This was a big one for me As a kid Because I could see every single day What was going on It also kept me on track With my nutrition Well I think it's important too that we You know This episode is geared towards Someone who's like a hard gainer Yeah it's like needs a bit Because I know someone hears you say that And they're like wait a second I hear mine pump all the time And they actually normally tell people Like don't get hung up on the scale You got to remember who we're talking to right now I don't think that Weighing every single day for the person Who has body image issues And is got you know Freaked out about the scale going up or down This is for the person who is Struggling to build muscle And being able to check in on the scale As far as an accountability piece To see where you're at There is tremendous value in doing it For that person Now then also to make sure Like what kind of weight you're gaining That's right And that's going to be highlighted Most if you're gaining weight a bit too fast And you know you're really looking at Your consumption versus your activity levels And to be able to see like Not so much of progress for a while Is probably going to be the better approach Where you're recombing your body So now we're gaining more lean muscle Yeah now there's one caveat to this Which is don't get hung up on the day to day changes Look at the trends You know so I would chart this And I would see on a week by week basis The trends Because daily you can lose or gain water Also weigh yourself at the same time With the same clothes on Or no clothes at all At all on Because your body weight will fluctuate Between morning and evening But what you're looking for is the trend If you get hung up on the day to day You may find yourself Eating foods that promote water retention Or weighing yourselves You know at the end of the day Because you're like oh I'm a little heavier At the end of the day to see what's going on It's really there just to like Justin said To help you calibrate Right so if you've done a very good job You're following a meal plan Or you've figured out your macros And you know where you're supposed to be In order for you to gain muscle All right you stick there Now what we know is that Even the best macro calculator out there Is not precise to you And this is where you use the scale As a tool for you to kind of measure Like how accurate it was to you So I figured out where I'm supposed to be Calorie and macro wise And then I'm weighing every day to see And what I'm really looking for Is massive swings in one direction or the other And then I'm adjusting accordingly Like you said If I see my scale go up four pounds You know consistently in two days in a row Okay I probably need to scale back on my calories Well this is what's tough Because we do have tools out there That are great Like our macro calculators And all these things that will help To give you some sort of structure Which is those numbers are useful However you have to individualize that even more By doing those other things Like by taking pictures By also like you know Weighing and measuring yourself To be able to see how all these Work together and where you really are Yeah now the next one This one you were a big one on Adam Which was a food journal Keeping a food journal Writing down what you're eating You know it's funny with this one Is even the hard gainers of the issue The people that have issues trying to put on muscle They oftentimes overestimate How many calories or protein that they have Protein is a big one Like oh I eat a lot I eat all the time I have this Then they keep a food journal We add it up It's like hey man You're 150 pounds You're eating 70 grams of protein Well listen we Again this is another one of those things That's kind of counter to some of the stuff That we talk about on the podcast When we're talking in general This is a very specific targeted episode Toward somebody who is a hard gainer Or struggling to put on muscle Or who wants to put on the most muscle As fast as you can If you're trying to put on as much muscle As you possibly can As fast as you can Then these types of things This is where this becomes important Like you can't tell me that that's your goal And then you say oh I don't really feel like tracking though Because then I'm going to challenge you Say well we're not going to build the most muscle The fastest if you're not willing to do that work Because I've got to be able to track with you And then recalibrate if we need to So that's why you want to do this And then to your point Sal Almost everybody either overestimates Or underestimates I still to this day Like before I even started tracking just recently again I was going okay I think I'm around this Or I'm kind of guessing where I'm at As soon as I start writing down I'm always off a little bit Specific goals I mean They require just more attention to detail And that's just the bottom line I mean there's a lot of healthy approaches out there Where we can sort of go through intuitively What I feel is good for my body What I want to train for the day And all that kind of stuff for lifestyle But when we're really trying to focus in Gaining muscle and like how to do that In the most efficient way possible Have to be really Pay attention to those details It's also going to help you dial in the weight thing Right? If you have figured out your macros And you know right where you're supposed to be And you don't see the scale going I don't care what the macro calculator said If you see the scale going down every single day You got more Yeah you need more calories You underestimated how much you're burning So that's why you have to do this tracking Doesn't mean you're going to track for the rest of your life But especially when we are first building this routine Or trying to get you started in the right direction We've got to figure all this stuff out Yeah now this next one This one's for the people that are challenged With eating enough calories I was one of these people myself I had a very fast metabolism Once I started to kind of track I realized wow I'm not eating enough I need to eat much more How am I going to do this? I'm full It's hard to consume And that's when adding liquid calories Actually makes a difference Of course remember We're talking to a specific person right now But adding liquid calories can make a huge difference Protein shakes are a great example Because they give you the protein that you might be missing And you get extra calories If you're not dairy intolerant Milk is incredible for this This is great especially for the person Who really struggles with putting on any body weight It's like how about this Eat what you're normally eating Just have a big glass of whole milk With every single meal Boom they added three or four hundred calories to the diet And some high quality protein Well this is one of my favorite ways To gain right here is that My goal is and I'm tracking is Is to hit my protein in targets Get all the calories I'm supposed to With whole foods within the day Right so that's my goal And then at the end of the day Is where I love to make like this Bulking type of shake Then I look at the end of the day And I go okay I was supposed to get to 3500 calories I just got to there I just hit barely my protein intake Now I'm going to have like this bulk shake At the end of the night And for somebody who struggles With eating enough calories Things like this become extremely beneficial And I have I think I've shared this one on the podcast before Where you go whole milk A whey protein A banana One tablespoon of Nutella Two tablespoons of peanut butter All blended on ice Like Damn that sounds good It is It's like an 800 calorie 800 calorie shake It's like 40 something grams of protein Depending on what way you're using And it tastes phenomenal It's a great way to end the night It's also great for somebody that It may be like me Who likes ice cream or sweets And so it gives me kind of that sweet taste But then I'm also getting this big punch Of protein at the end of the night Now this next one is funny It's a challenge Whether you're trying to lose weight Or gain weight No matter what your goals are I tend to find that People tend to Go off on the weekends Right So like people who are trying to lose weight They often find that on the weekends They go off and eat too much People trying to pack on muscle And size you the same thing Just in the reverse Like they do really well Monday through Friday Then the weekend comes They sleep in So that means they skip breakfast Or lunch wasn't that structured And next thing you know Their calories are low Their protein is low And remember it's all averaged out Right So if you're in a calorie surplus You know a 500 calories Monday through Friday But then you're in a deficit Of a thousand on Saturday and Sunday Well that means that you're Barely in a surplus for the whole week I like Because the weekend Makes a big difference I like this tip a lot Because you're right It does work both directions And this actually happened Way later in my career I started to piece this together It didn't matter if I was on a bulk Or a cut I just started to say Okay I'm not going to tell myself I can't have these These foods during the week I'm going to stop Just doing it on Saturday and Sunday And I'm going to start making Saturday and Sunday My more dialed in days And then if I want to have These other things Or I want to take a day off From lifting I'm going to schedule those days Somewhere in the week And what I found would happen is When I organized my weekends When I got work And I got all these things That are already scheduled in my day During the week I'm much better on the diet I'm more consistent with my workouts So if I just made it a goal That I'm going to be dialed On the weekends And I said And then I'll give myself Flexibility if I want it Or the freedom to take a day off Or whatever during the week What I found was I was more consistent When I did that This is just true with any goal I mean that I've found in my career And with clients in general It's just during the week People just tend to be more structured And have that going for them And so they can just add this in They're more regimented about it If this is a specific goal of yours To be able to carry that into the weekend Is going to do wonders for you Yes Now this last one Boy did this take me a long time To figure out How long did it take you guys To figure out the sleep component When it came to putting on muscle Oh man that wasn't until Forever Yeah it wasn't until a way later Because that was the I mean we've All sleep when I'm dead That's right We openly have discussed The young 20 year olds That we all were And all saying that Sleep is overrated And I'd work out And do things till late at night And get up super early every So I didn't realize what Because it's one of those ones That it's not like You can get away with not going Better or worse So you think that you're fine Yeah you don't see A swing in any direction Right away It's not like you get One bad night of rest And then the next day You lose five pounds of muscle Right It's got a compounding effect And the body is resilient as shit So it'll adapt to whatever You make it do all the time You'll be able to get through your day That's right And you'll be able to take a pre-workout And get your workout But are you maximizing? No I remember when I first Kind of started to peer into this I still didn't learn my lesson But I did enjoy some incredible benefits I would I had been reading articles and books And I remember I had read A few books and each one of them Made this big deal about getting enough sleep And I remember finally saying All right let me see what the deal Because I was one of those kids That like I could get away with Five hours of sleep and I was totally fine I thought oh this is This is not for me Well anyway I remember thinking that's it This the next 30 days I'm gonna make a concentrated effort To go to bed early To sleep At least eight hours every single night Which was a big improvement for me And to see what happens And sure enough I gained like Four or five pounds of muscle In that month Now the reason why I didn't keep doing it Is because I was a hard headed kid And you know sleeping is boring And being awake there's all kinds of things You could do Later on as an adult I put this together And it's importance And it's important for many other things Aside from just building muscle But I tell you right now Especially hard gainers I'd say probably seven out of 10 times 70% of time When someone comes to me and says Man I just my body doesn't build muscle Sleep is always an issue Like 70% of time I look at their sleep And I go oh well you're only sleeping six hours Value it until you can't get it anymore It's just like everything else You know like I didn't really realize The power of it until I couldn't sleep as much And I had to get up And I had to do all these I was all these responsibilities Now that I had in front of me You know didn't allow me to sleep And go through that like I used to But again it was always like I was working against my bodies How I felt when I wasn't getting sleep So it didn't even matter If I was young and resilient And all those things I could have benefited from it massively If I would have applied a structure To that where I had An allotted amount of time For me to sleep and recover It was like I'm always like Playing that catch-up game Which I'm sure a lot of young people can relate to Well wouldn't you say Sal too That a big part of that too Is just what's going on Hormonally and like with insulin And cortisol Oh man I mean those are such key indicators On you building muscle Or burning body fat And when you are When your sleep is off When your circadian rhythm is off That throws a lot of that off And so Big time Right and your body Telling your body that it's going To build muscle or burn body fat When those are all out of whack Is just really tough If someone If someone gave me If someone made a bet with me And gave me money and said Let's see how fast you could lower Your testosterone Or someone else's testosterone And you can only do one thing The one thing I would do Is do sleep deprivation It's guaranteed to hammer Your anabolic hormones Your growth hormone goes to shit Your testosterone totally drops Cortisol goes up Your body actually primes itself To reduce muscle And store body fat Lots and lots of literature On the connection between bad sleep And fat gain Or bad sleep and performance reductions Sleep really primes the body With these beneficial hormones Hormones that oftentimes people Take exogenously To build more muscle You know you produce less melatonin Which means you produce less growth hormone Which now means your body is becoming You know it's not going to burn body fat as well Your insulin sensitivity starts to drop Insulin is also very anabolic In women you see these imbalances Between estrogen and progesterone Just from not getting great sleep And by the way It's not just getting terrible sleep that does that It's getting anything less than optimal You start to see those changes Literally So it is a spectrum Meaning the best you get The best sleep you get Gives you the best results Anything less than that is less than that So it's not just the difference between Great sleep and shitty sleep It's like well you know I get seven hours or six and a half But I think I'm okay It'd be a big difference Just by prioritizing it Getting eight hours And allowing your body to kind of prime itself For you to build muscle Now a big part of this game Is the mental game Right We always talk about how you're You play mind games with yourself If you're gaining and you're losing I'm not sure I look at myself in the mirror Every single day I can't tell This is why I love using this episode If you're somebody who struggles With building muscle and you think Or you think you're not building muscle Use this as a check off list And start checking off all these things If you're doing all these things I promise you're headed in the right direction If you're doing all these things And you're following a good program in a routine I promise the body The body composition is changing You're probably building muscle Hopefully you're also burning some body fat So even if you're not seeing This huge fluctuation on the scale Or you're not getting people to every single day Complimenting you until you're getting Massive and building all kinds of muscle the next day Be patient Stay with it And just get good at all 11 of these things Very well said Look, if you like our information Head over to mindpumpfree.com We have lots of free stuff That we offer all of our listeners Great, great free information Mindpumpfree.com You can also find all of us on Instagram So you can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin Me at Mind Pump Salon Adam at Mind Pump Adam Are there some generic parameters As far as what you would tell them To, you know, stay your saturated fat Under this or it should be only this much It really doesn't even matter So here's the other thing If you're in a calorie deficit And you're losing weight Everything else makes no difference Like all your cardiovascular risk factors That we can measure go down Like they've done studies where people are in a