 Oh boy, in this episode, 10 traits of successful lifters. If you know somebody that's very successful, has been doing it for a long time, gets great results, doesn't have a lot of injuries, looks amazing. Chances are they have all 10 of the traits that we talk about in this episode. Now here's the giveaway for today's YouTube podcast. Here's what we're giving away, the Prime Bundle. That includes Maps Prime and Maps Prime Pro. Great for correcting muscle imbalances, improving mobility, reducing pain. Here's how you can win. Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel and turn on your notifications. If we pick your comment, we'll notify you and you'll get free access to that incredible bundle. Also, we've put together three bundles in January for three different types of people. Beginners, intermediate, and advanced, okay? All three of the bundles include nine months of exercise programming, all mapped out, exercise demos, videos, the whole nine, okay? Here's what you do if you want to sign up. Head over to mapsjanuary.com and then you can click on one of the bundles and sign up. Also, if you just want to do one Maps program, if you've never tried a Maps program, you want to try one, do Maps anabolic. We're putting that 150% off. If you get that one, go to mapsred.com and then use the code January 50 for that discount. All right, here comes the show. All right, so here's what we did with today's episode. We talked about successful lifters, people who are successful long-term, we've been working out for a long time. What are the traits that they have that contribute to their long-term success? Let's talk about that a little bit. I like this, that we narrowed it down to 10, right? The common characteristics they all share. Totally, 100%. And I think we should all aspire to have this, right? If we don't, I mean, would you say, I would say that you're pretty good with all these, right? I'd like to think that I'm pretty good with most of these now. Absolutely, I think. It took me a while to get here, but I think we're here. Totally, and these are important to know, because I think majority of people, when they start working out, they're not trying to get in shape and out of shape, right? They want long-term success, although I'm sure the primary motivation is short-term. Nobody wants to lose weight and gain it back or do well only to hurt themselves and have to stop working out. So let's talk about the traits that make people successful long-term across the board and ultimately also produce the best results. I think the first one, this is very important, is when you find somebody who's a really successful lifter, you'll find that they prioritize technique and form with their exercise. They look at exercises like a skill, and that means that those exercises produce the best results when they're done properly, just like any other skill. If you do, it's not just about sweating and getting sore, it's about doing it right, because that's how you derive the most benefit. This is one of those things I walk into a gym, I immediately notice that. Yes. It sticks out of the crowd like a shining beacon, because this is one of those things I'm always trying to reiterate and to educate my clients of the importance of it. It's just going to carry your progress so much further forward into the future, and you're not going to have to battle all these things that come with not maintaining that proper form and technique. It's such an attractive quality when you see it too, when you see somebody who moves with beautiful form. Now, what would you say is the mindset that that person has to go into the gym? So when you go in the gym, I don't think anybody goes in thinking, I'm going to go have shitty form, but there is, like you said, Justin, when you walk in, it's very obvious. You can see somebody who is very meticulous about their form, and what do you think it is about their mindset? That's such a good question. I'm going to give you an analogy. Imagine somebody who goes on a basketball court with a basketball and thinks to themselves, I'm just going to sweat versus somebody who says, I'm going to go and get really good at basketball. There's a difference in the technique and the form and the focus, and so I think it's when people go to the gym and they understand that a squat done properly is extremely valuable, a squat done improperly, and that only is not valuable, but becomes a liability. Well, I guess to kind of keep in the basketball analogy, I look at hustle, right? Like, I'm very impressed with the effort, you know, I see some athletes put out there and they're the ones getting all the rebounds and they're doing all the things, but they have no handles. And, you know, there's just certain things I noticed that, you know, I'm very attracted to, you know, the athlete that tries gives it all. Like, leaves their heart out there in the field, but, you know, the ones that really, like, take it a step further are the ones that master the technique that they need to, you know, have that kind of skill. I think part of that comes with these little rituals. I bet you guys don't even realize that you do this in almost every exercise you do, even something as simple as a tricep push down. I mean, when I walk up to a cable machine, and I'm going to take a basic, because obviously squatting and deadlifting, there's definite rituals that we all know that you kind of go and check through before. But even something as basic as a tricep push down on a cable machine. I mean, I'll walk into it. I get in a certain distance from it. I, you know, puff my chest out a little bit. I pull the shoulders back and peel them down. I grab the handle. I suck the elbows in. Like, there's this ritual that I've created to prepare myself to go into that movement so that I can repeat it with perfect form. And that's been years of practice like that. And so I think that you've, the mindset is going into every movement with kind of this ritual to get in tune with your body. Yeah, getting you into this perfect position and knowing that the first few times that you do this, it won't be perfect, but you're working towards that. And you're trying to create these habits so that you can get into that rhythm as quick as you can. And I think that great lifters have learned to do this over time. And they probably, like I said, you guys probably don't even realize this, but you do this on every basic movement. 100%. Yeah, when you said that, I right away thought of every exercise that I'll do. And I do. I have a position I get into. I know how to get in the right position. Well, you grip with your hands, right? The feel, exactly. Now that takes us to the next one, which is connected, which is that really successful lifters practice foundational lifts and they practice them often. So practice is different than working out. Practice literally means I'm walking up to the squat rack and I'm practicing my form. I'm practicing my technique. I'm getting better at the skill of squatting or the skill of deadlifting or the skill of an overhead press or a row or a bench press. These are all considered foundational lifts. You'll notice that really, really skilled lifters are skilled in those lifts. They know how to position themselves where the weight should be on their foot. They position their knees right and they consistently practice the technique over and over again. So I know we know, people talk about variety with your workouts and stuff, but you'll find successful lifters with foundational lifts actually do those quite consistently. This one took me a little bit longer. The first one I felt like as soon as I became a trainer, I became very meticulous about form. But I did neglect a lot of the foundational lifts because they were hard. Because they were hard, because they got me gassed and out of breath and they were difficult to get the form down. I tended to avoid these movements. It wasn't until later in my career did I first realize how important those movements were and then to realize that I don't need to kill myself. So I was still early on as a young trainer caught in that intensity trap of thinking that every workout need to be a failure and training the shit out of myself every time I entered the gym. It took me years to get to a place where sometimes I go to the gym and I'm like, I'm not trying to crush myself. I actually just, I'm gonna go practice a few movements and get really good at them. And then it took even more years to go by before I started to realize the biggest bang for your buck movements, which are those foundational lifts you're talking about and get good at practicing those. Well, these specific lifts are just, they look simple, right, on the outside when you're coming in and to your point of them being hard and a lot of times like, you know, intermediate to beginner level lifters will avoid some of them because you can get good muscle pumps, you can get stimulated in other ways, but what it provides you is just so much more involved in terms of your entire body and training your body as a whole. And so this is one of those things. You don't master this until like decades, like these types of lifts. And so to keep sharpening them, keep practicing them continuously, you start to see all kinds of different types of benefits that your body receives that translate to everything else. Yeah, they're complex lifts. They involve a lot of the central nervous system. They fire a lot of muscles. You should list some of them so people know what you mean. Barbell squat, right, your overhead press, your deadlift, your rows, pull-ups, your horizontal presses, like your bench presses, your incline presses. Like those are considered foundational lifts. And they just have tremendous bang for their buck results. Like a barbell squat will do so much more for your lower body than five other lower body exercises usually. And that's just to show how effective they are. You know, about eight years into my career as a trainer, I'll never forget this. I had clients that, at this point, I started to get good and clients would stay with me. And then one of my strategies was, okay, you train with me now three days a week, but eventually I move you to two days a week, one day a week, and then you'll do workouts on your own. But it was always tough when they would go on their own. They would always either work out too hard or apply intensity wrong or do something a little off. So then it dawned on me and I told my clients, here's what I want you to do. I don't want you to work out on your own anymore. When you go to the gym, I want you to practice these four lifts. Just go and get good at them. Don't worry about how hard you're working out, just practice them. And everybody's results exploded because of the mentality. It wasn't about, I'm going to go get my legs tired and sore. It was, I got to get better at the squat. It wasn't, I'm going to hammer my shoulders. It was, I got to practice my overhead press. That practice mentality produced some of the best results I'd ever seen in clients. And of course, applying it to myself made a big difference. Now, Adam, you mentioned intensity. Intensity is one of the tools in your tool belt when it comes to getting your body to respond and adapt and change. But experienced successful lifters understand that like any tool, there's an appropriate time to use it. And then there's a time to put it away. So it's like you have a hammer, you're not going to use a hammer to screw screws into the wall and to plaster the walls. And I mean, you could try, but it's a terrible tool to do all those things. Right. Intensity, a lot of people, people are not successful. This is that, like, you know, like the commercial with the big red button that you hit for everything. Yeah. People use intensity for everything hard all the time. And that's a terrible approach. You manipulate intensity and use it the right way. And then it works for you. Burnout is a real thing. I mean, it's, you can, you can overdo it. There is the right dose that that applied. Your body will respond to and, you know, adapt and take you further forward. Once you figure that out, like how to manipulate the right amount of intensity for your programming. And so that's going to really, you know, set you apart. And it contradicts a lot of, you know, from the athletic world, what's being pushed from a lot of coaches of, you know, showing up and giving like 100, 110 percent in like no pain, no gain. Because, you know, at certain point, you understand that, you know, it's not benefiting you. It's actually deterring you from, you know, progressing forward. Your strength is actually something that is a great indicator whether or not you're having success with your application or not. Well, it also contradicts some of the studies, you know, right before we got on the podcast, Sal is going back and forth with the doctor right now. And like one of the thing I'm talking about cardio, right? We've been debating cardio lately. And, you know, of course the doctor, you know, throws like one study out that proves, tries to prove his point. And this is one of the things that drove me crazy as a young trainer was, I was reading these studies and this is what drove my programming and my thinking is I'd read a study that's talked about the benefits of training to failure or intensity and like what that does for more muscle growth. And so my thought process is, oh my God, like I'm going to get more muscle, the more intense that I train or training to failure is going to benefit me. So then I was applying every workout like that, but it's not that simple. Like we don't, we don't live in this six week, you know, bubble of, you know, the controlled environment. There's so many other factors with stress and sleep and diet and everything else that's going on in your, in your life that you can't just take a study and say, oh, like in this six week window when people do this, they see extra, this much more benefit from it. And that's one of the problems that I have with our space is there's a lot of these studies that are out there that are, that were done either to support the sell of a supplement or support an idea before they even came into it. And so I was reading this stuff and thinking that this was the way to train. So this one took a long time for me to, to not only one, learn that that was not good advice and wrong. And then two, what you're saying, Justin, is find that, that sweet spot. Like what, well, if it's not, I'm not supposed to train this way all the time. When do I train this way? And what is too much? Like this took a long time to figure out. Here's a hint, right? If you're a hardcore lifter, you've been working out for a long time, do you come back from a layoff stronger? If you do, you will probably overplaying intensity, maybe volume as well. Studies show that those, those, those period, those weeks where people de-load is when they start to see the biggest gains, right? So intensity is definitely important. Okay. Intensity is essential for, for results when it comes to resistance training, but it must be applied appropriately and experienced, successful lifters understand that they know when to apply the intensity and when to back off the intensity. That's the important, that's the thing that we're, we're explaining here. It's not that intensity is not important. It is, but if you apply it all the time at a high level, it's going to work against you 100% guaranteed. Well, and it's not, and it's not necessary to, to apply it so hard in order to build maximal muscle. For what I mean by that is like when you, you talk about the mechanic, you talk about the, uh, the mailman, like to give that example, like a mechanic is not wrenching with all his effort. I mean he just, but what he's, he's, he's frequently doing that every single day over, and he's building muscle over a week. Yeah, weeks. And you've ever seen their forms and then seen how strong they are or if anybody's ever worked with their dad who may be his hand collar. Yeah, I remember the first time that I, my dad does, my dad did construction and I remember the first time, you know, I hammered some nails with them for the day and it was like an hour in and I was just like, I needed to take a break because my forms were so pumped and on fire and he's just hammering away like it was no thing because and the, so he's built muscle and got strong and adapted over years of doing that and he did not have to, you know, apply crazy amounts of intensity. In other words, it all, when applied properly and appropriately will contribute to your goals and intensity needs to be manipulated just like the other factors. Here's another one. Experience successful lifters aim to optimize efficiency. So what does that mean? Well, that means if two exercises does the benefit in the effects of five exercises, they're going to do the two exercises. That means if they can get a certain amount of results with a 45-minute workout, they're not going to do a 60-minute workout or 90-minute workout, right? If they can get great results four days a week, six days a week, if it doesn't really derive on many additional benefit, they're not going to do it. See, a lot of people who are not in this category of really successful lifters, they don't necessarily understand that. What they tend to do, and I get this because I fall into this trap as well, is rather than training for optimal results, we tend to push to the limit and get away with what our body can tolerate. And there's a very big difference, right? Your body may be able to tolerate this level of intensity, volume, and training frequency, but the optimal amount is somewhere over here. That means all this extra work that you're doing is not only just wasting time, but probably taking away from your body's ability to adapt and progress. So really good, successful lifters, always thinking about optimizing efficiency. Am I doing the best? What's that saying you say? I was just going to say, this is my favorite one to communicate. And our goal is to do the least amount as possible to elicit the most amount of change. And what it does too, not only are you optimizing at the moment, but you're also setting yourself up to break plateaus in the future. Totally. If I'm doing the least amount to elicit the most amount of change, that means I'm seeing change from doing the little bit I have to do to your point, doing only two sets to get the benefits that somebody may be doing five sets, what it sets me up for is eventually I can scale to three, to four, to five sets because I didn't come out the gates right away throwing the whole kitchen sink. And I think this is common. I think when people get motivated to get in the gym, whether it's to build muscle or to burn body fat or improve performance, they go from not doing anything to all of a sudden doing everything that they can or everything that they can tolerate, like you said. And the truth is that's not what we should be doing. We should actually be doing as little as we possibly can to elicit change. And if I'm seeing change week over week, I'm progressing. And when you're thinking about years and a lifetime of training, you want to set yourself up to where you're constantly seeing results and not that you get somewhere really quick and then you hit this hard plateau that you can never break. Well, and this is a tough one because as you're lifting over the years and you get better in a certain direction, you keep adding, right? And I keep adding more exercises and more of the same. And then you don't quite see that same type of progress to where this isn't even one of the points, but one of the things that I've noticed too is the ability to shift into a completely different phase or a different type of modality and having that kind of ability to step outside your comfort zone and be vulnerable again and be and suck at something to get good in order to benefit the whole. And so this is just something it does fall in line with this because we love once we get good it's something we love it, right? And we just want to keep adding and that doesn't necessarily always take you further. No, that's such a great point and that does fall under this point because that is optimizing efficiency at one point no matter how good you start and how perfect you program eventually the body will adapt to whatever it is that you're currently doing and it takes a lot it takes somebody who is always trying to optimize to go, hey, you know what? I probably too should switch this modality to something that maybe I don't like doing as much like I don't really care for the strong man lifts and doing some of these old-timey stuff but I know that I never do that and there's tremendous benefits for moving that way. Oh man, I know I'm not I don't like doing the mobility stuff and I'm not I don't like doing all the multi-plane shit or stability work that stuff's boring to me but it's like I never do that and if I want to continue to optimize and see results and benefits the best thing I can do is to move away from what I'm currently doing. No, that's true because the mistake is that people think if some is good more is better and that's not necessarily true and also by the way this is true now back by studies and experience that as you work out over years and years and years there's this almost it looks like a bell curve in terms of how your body responds to volume frequency and intensity and yes as you progress more volume more frequency and all that stuff gives you better results but then at some point it starts to drop off I know this now right I can build more muscle now with less work in fact I'll build less muscle with more work now as I'm older and I've been doing this for a long time now when I was younger I had to do a little bit more to get the same kind of result so it's about that efficiency and optimizing it and that's what makes a lot of these lifters successful especially in the long term here's another one and this is just this is such an important fact and my goal as a trainer when I became good at what I did was to really get my clients to love the journey I knew that if my clients loved the process not the goal not the fat loss not the perfect body not the looking good not the big arms with a nice butt but rather love the walking in the morning and the resistance training twice a week and love the preparation of healthy food and eating fresh whole foods if they loved that then the results were automatic it was a side effect of this journey that they enjoyed if you love walking you'll walk 5 miles 10 miles 100 miles it doesn't matter you're going to continue doing it so if you fall in love with the journey and this takes time but if you put your mind there and make it happen you're going to get all the results and you're going to keep getting the results because the journey is what gets you there I don't think this is a successful thing for lifting I think this is a successful thing for life Totally I think that this idea of in the pursuit of success and money this works the same way too like if you are hung up on the end result or the goal or the financial pinnacle that you're chasing you'll find what happens to people that finally reach that they're unhappy and that's because they missed out on where I mean the great book The Alchemist that's what this is all about it's all about the journey and becoming present and enjoying what you're currently in which is another reason why too not only do we want to start because it's more beneficial with the least amount possible to elicit the most amount of change but it's also important for learning to like let's say you honestly don't like to work out because I've had clients that Adam I don't like working out I hate exercise I don't like and but you're trying I'm here I want to make an effort well one of the worst things you could do with a client or a person that has that attitude about already about working out is to throw a ton of stuff at him right away it's like let's start to make some little subtle changes in them and let's see if I can get them to start to like it I mean how many things have you guys not liked and then eventually after you kind of try it a little bit or to implement it then you start to like it more then you eventually start to love it the same process happens with becoming like this really good lifter is maybe you didn't love lifting at first but maybe part of the reason why you didn't was because you failed at it so miserably because you threw so much shit at it right away instead why don't you focus on a few things that and then and then not only focus on those few things but think about the things that it improves out in your life that not everybody talks about like the weight loss the muscle building the but the things like that but the improved energy the libido the sleep your attitude your energy and even just so many other factors there's so many other factors yeah and even just the process just list loving the process like right now if you're watching this like imagine if you just enjoyed the process of exercise and you enjoyed the process of eating healthy and enjoyed the process of taking care of yourself right it'll always happen because it's something you enjoy and the process is ultimately what gets you there anyway well it's the it's Adam's point this is like a life lesson I mean this is this is about growth and this is about you know and you see that and that's why I love about fitness is because you you see tangible results you know as you're in it yeah and you know you don't always get that immediately but you know as you're going through hardships as you're going through you know that there's there's you know there's there's silver linings there's lessons there's there's things that you can extract and take throughout the entire process that you can focus on that aren't always negative and are things that provide you with with knowledge and experience and ways to you know approach things differently coming you know forward yeah now the next one is somewhat connected to this and that is that that successful lifters are disciplined not motivated okay it's a big difference now that doesn't mean they don't get motivated but like all people like all humans they go through periods of motivation and unmedivation unmotivation but the thing that's different about them is that they're always consistent now there is a difference between discipline and obsession right obsession takes away from other aspects of your life it decreases your quality of life it's addictive right discipline adds to the quality of your life discipline is like this with exercise right now I'm motivated I'm hyped I'm having hard workouts I'm hitting PRs I'm having a good time or right now I'm not feeling very good I'm not very motivated I'm gonna go to the gym I'm gonna take care of myself make myself feel better or I've had this terrible thing happen in my life I'm gonna go to the gym give myself a little bit of space give myself some time to be present care for myself to keep myself healthy so it becomes this tool that is molded and modified for everyday life and you're just consistent because it's discipline discipline says I get up and I do this regardless of how I feel regardless of what's going on in my life it's absolutely connected to the one before the only way you're gonna learn all the other benefits or learn to love the journey is to first start with the discipline and the first thing that comes to mind besides God it's loving the discipline though right yeah so the what comes to mind was you know I didn't I didn't start reading until I was in like my mid 20s obviously I read like the basic stuff that I had to read through school but I did it because I had to do it and I hated it it was miserable it was miserable reading and when I would when I would read as a kid when I was in school I'd be reading and I'd be like I have to do this and all I was connecting to was all the things that I didn't like about it this is sucking my time I could be playing video games I could be hanging out with my girlfriend I could be playing basketball like I'm slow at reading I hate doing this I lose my train of thought so I'm all I'm thinking about is this loop of all the things I don't like about it and so when I got out of school of course I was not wanting to read if there's no reason for me to do it I hated that I'm out of school I'm done I don't have to do it I'm an adult now why would I want to do that and it wasn't until later on in my life did I see all the other benefits but it started with a goal it started with okay I'm going to discipline myself and I'm going to start not and I believe back then I was like a book every three months which is not that crazy right so I was like I'm just going to chip away at a book every couple months now what it did was it was hard at first at first I still had those same kind of thoughts like oh I could be doing something I'm so slow oh I don't like these things but then I started to acquire knowledge and I started to see the benefits of that I saw the benefits of my vocabulary I saw the things that I was learning I saw the how it was benefiting my financially how it was benefiting in my job and then I started to attach that and then I started to like the process and then I started to speed up the amount I started doing more of it and more of it then I started to love it the thinnest thing is the same thing there's people that get into this and they don't like it and all that's the loop that's playing in their head are all the negative things oh my god it's so hard it burns I could be doing this instead I could be doing that and oh I'm not seeing the results I want I'm not good at this and I didn't my body still looks the same and they're attached to all the negative things and you first have to discipline yourself to be consistent with something and then you try to reframe that self-talk that's happening and that's when you start to fall in love with a journey so I think they go hand in hand yeah I remember I don't know if it was Jocko or was somebody else I heard talk about discipline is being the more disciplined you get the more freedom it provides and I always thought like wow that's I totally didn't think about that when I was younger I always thought that like to be more disciplined means that you have to do a bunch of extra hard stuff and it takes you away from having all the fun and the freedom and being able to have all this space to myself when in fact especially as you get older you have more responsibilities the more disciplined you get the more space you create and so this is something I had to learn the hard way by having a lot of chaos and always trying to put things out last minute and you know that project's coming up oh my god you know I wait too long because I'm not disciplined in the very beginning to accomplish it which then you know alleviates a whole lot of stress a whole lot of chaos and in my life so you know if you look at it on the other side of that it really does provide you know more more freedom and opportunity yeah the unsuccessful lifter waits for the feelings of motivation they wait for the inspiration right or rely on it yeah and when it kicks in oh I'm ready to do this here we go and then they're consistent and they're oh this is awesome and I feel great and then that feeling fades and what they're left with is nothing if you're disciplined what you're left with is disciplined right if you love discipline it's a skill and it's always with you if you fall in love with your feelings well good luck because feelings come and go and it's impossible to maintain that hyper motivated feeling you can't even do it with drugs so discipline is what gets you consistent always and that's a skill that you can always build upon now the next one this is an important one because successful lifters are people that tend to not have you know career ending injuries or injuries that get them to the point where they can't work out anymore and that is that they they don't take unnecessary risks that doesn't mean they don't take risks there's risks are inherent in any physical activity including resistance training or exercise or running or cardio there's always a risk right it's the unnecessary risks that they tend to avoid so an experienced lifter who's very successful will go to the gym and say man I know I could I feel like I could PR you know a 450 pound squat but they're like but why I think I'm going to stick to my 300 pound squat I'm going to get my I'm going to slow my tempo down I'm going to make it feel heavier because it's not necessary to go heavy for me to get the type of benefits and results I want and so they avoid taking these unnecessary risks and unnecessary literally means the risks that really aren't going to produce any better results or success for you so why do them now for me this typically means not lifting as heavy as I possibly can that's where the risks that those are the unnecessary risks I used to take as a kid where I can lift more let me add more weight now it's more about I can lift more let me slow my reps down or let me get a shorter rest period or let me see if I could pause this rep halfway that's how I'm going to make this feel more challenging this to me is you successful lifters don't ego lift yeah and it manifests as PR is a lot of time but it could even be something of simple we thought we talked recently on an episode about why we don't train together I mean we train in the same facility the same time but we actually don't work out together and part of the reason why that is is if Sal's deadlifting and let's say today is a heavy five by five day for him and I have no business doing heavy I already came out of a five by five phase to I'm working on hypertrophy but then we're lifting together it doesn't even need to be trying to hit a PR I just because he's lifting heavy I don't want to have to take I don't want to go put down to 145 and Sal's pulling 500 something like I want to be able to show that I could lift almost as much or as much as he can and so I'm going to keep that weight on there right so I think it's just not not ego lifting not allowing your ego to get in the way of your decision on what is best for your body and this one takes a long time like I I still think that this is like wisdom yeah I think that I'm constantly reminded of this because I still step out of this or make make bad decisions and I'm quickly reminded of like oh that was stupid I shouldn't have done that or I don't need to do that and so I think really good lifters you know catch this they have the self-awareness on this before they get themselves in that trouble where they can hurt themselves this one took me a while yeah because the competitive side of things sneaks in there and it is very tempting like it's the equivalent of your friend basically you know baiting you into a foot race and and you just and you haven't done any sprinting you know forever but you know you want to contest yourself and you're taking this unnecessary risk to prove a point which then may set you back you know like substantially after that and so I've done this many a time with lifts and and really kind of testing it against other people and you know the experienced lifter and the wisdom you know I have now is is really understanding where I'm at and what's going to be benefiting my body the most and where I should stick and stay and and allow you know the occasional test to come in when I'm prepared for it yeah oh this is when you work on this it actually helps you build confidence because you're okay with lifting less or not as hard or not as fast right because you're confident in yourself you don't have anything to prove to anybody so I'm going to do this the right way that's really what it's all about that's why it's wisdom right it takes some experience I I've I was terrible at this for a long time and it's still something I can struggle with so what I tend to do is not put myself in situations like you said Adam where this my wisdom tends to you know get suppressed and my egos tends to grow so I don't work out with strong dudes if I work out with other strong dudes I know that my wisdom tends to go out the window and then then my ego starts to inflate right so this is some of the these are some of the tricks you could do for yourself but you experience lifters just don't do this like when I would manage gyms and the 50 something or 60 something or even 70 something year olds were in there working out that really good experience lifters I would watch them work out and they did not there was no ego involved whatsoever yours certain pro bodybuilders I think Dexter Jackson is a great example of this right he still looks incredible as 50 something years old and you know that's how he works out very very smart and pretty much injury free his almost in his entire career now this next one is a very this one is really really a characteristic of really successful experienced lifters and that is if something hurts they don't avoid it they fix it there's a big difference between successful lifters and everybody else when it comes to this right everybody else tends to avoid oh I can't I'm sorry I can't bench press because it hurts my shoulder or oh yeah squats bothers my back I can't do squats or overhead presses nah it's not good for my elbow or whatever whereas a successful lifter says okay my shoulder hurts when I bench press let me find out why and let me fix it because I want to be able to do this fundamental foundational human exercise that is a part of human movement I want to be able to find out why my knee bothers me when I squat we're we're made our human bodies are designed to squat if I can't squat because my knee hurts it's not the squat something going on with my body maybe it's my knee maybe it's my hip or my ankle or my positioning or my stability let me figure this out and fix it so I can go back to doing my squats this one goes really good with the the previous one so I don't even know if you ordered these and intentionally like this but they definitely go hand in hand because I feel like the same guy who ego lifts and you know elbows hurt knees hurt shins or all these things hurt is also the same dude who rolls into their workout the next workout and they got the the wraps the straps and the wrist everything everything yeah they got all the all the gear on and you're asking what's with all the gear and like oh I've got bad elbows I've got bad knees I've been working out for 15 years yeah it's just like it's still put 500 right exactly but then they're still just ego lifting right and uh yeah good good experience lifters don't do this they feel something slightly off this is something that again taking years of experience knowledge I think to to figure this out right where instantly if I feel something off in my body if I feel a knot or tightness or something going on one side of my body instantly I'm trying to troubleshoot and figure out okay what what's going on or what did I do in my last lift that potentially could have caused this or maybe what was I doing yesterday and what can I do in the gym today to address it like so my workout immediately gets modified so even if I'm running a mass program I'm on foundational day too but also and I've got you know elbow pain I don't just go through the routine because that's what my routine is supposed to be today I'm now doing things to address the elbow pain I'm making sure that I'm doing mobility stuff to address probably my wrist and my shoulders before I go in that lift even if that means I'm sacrificing one of my lifts that I normally would do in there because I know that is more important for the longevity of my training humility is a good word in there or just you know remaining somewhat humble because you'll have experiences where it'll humble you right because you get the pain you get signals from the body that okay this is over doing this is over stressing the joint you know the body's screaming at you at this point like we need to we need to reinforce and to ignore that is definitely something that you'll see this a lot especially you know with with competitive weight lifters or because at that point it's you know we have to do it by all means necessary when in fact you know your your successful lifters will then go directly towards the source and you know take the time to to you know do the the unsexy lifts and do the the mobilizing and the strengthening of the joints to really support it and then you know it benefits the entire whole of the body yeah well look if I look let me put it this way okay imagine if you're normal and then all of a sudden you can't walk anymore because your hip hurts so bad do you just not walk anymore oh I can't walk my hip hurts so now I stop walking well no you're gonna try to figure out why and fix that so you could do this fundamental human movement I think the problem is because life has become so sedentary that we no longer consider deadlifting squatting pressing and rowing fundamental human movements because we don't really do them anymore right we sit in a chair and we type on a keyboard so if I never can squat again I think well what's the big deal uh it's not a big deal it is a big deal these are these are fundamental human movements and if you stop doing them there's a lot of things you start to lose and there's this cascading there's a series of events that is cascading from that if you stop squatting all of a sudden well now you're losing the benefits of squats even if you strengthen the leg muscles with other exercises you'll start to lose the ability to lunge then to deadlift and little by little you start to lose other abilities so successful lifters look at an issue and say this hurts I can't do this exercise let me figure out why let me fix that rather than let me just avoid that and do something completely different all right this next one has to do with nutrition I think this is important because when we talk about nutrition about 90% of the people watching this right now are thinking about body composition or aesthetics oh good diet that makes you lean makes you look good makes your skin look good that's all definitely true but experienced successful lifters often look at food in terms of performance now why is that a good thing well here's why it's very hard to eat unhealthy and to simultaneously improve your performance now you might be able to eat unhealthy and just improve strength but you'll definitely lose performance in other areas right when I say performance I mean all of it your strength your stamina ability to recover inflammation pain if you eat to feed those things right if you eat to solve those things or to avoid those things or to develop strength stamina to feel good you're probably eating healthy versus if I'm eating in a way to look a particular way there's a lot of bad unhealthy things that can do that will give me the short term aesthetic results crash dieting diet pills starving myself you know those types of things so eating for performance is a really really good strategy and you'll find successful lifters will often talk about food in that way well this reminds me of the statement that you always love to say which is the chase health and aesthetics will follow I think that as you get older you start to realize that man it's it's funny the more I focus on just eating healthy and being healthy I get all those other things that I was trying to pursue when I was younger like I wanted this this fit physique and I wanted to be able to maintain that I want to feel good I want to be strong I want to be fast I want to be able to stuff and yet I'm always trying to hack it with some supplement or some protein shake or bar or latest thing that came out or hack that when it's like you know what if I just focus on taking care of my body and feeding it correctly and giving it what it wants and it needs it's amazing how those things follow and I think I think we all go through that phases as an experienced lifters figure that out you know however long it may take you and I know it took me probably a decade to piece this all together but yeah the more I just focus on being healthy I get all those other things that I wanted anyway totally this was one of my favorite strategies with people who had body image issues or eating disorders is I would always work with their therapist and one of the things that and I got this from therapists they'd say you know what when it comes to their food have them focus on their performance right have them focus on getting stronger on feeling better on having more stamina because then they'll have to feed themselves properly and so this is part of where this kind of comes from so you'll see experienced lifters they'll say things like I'm gonna eat this way because tomorrow I have a hard workout or this is how many after works because it helps them recover or I'm gonna avoid that because it gives me inflammation right so this all feeds health and performance is closely connected to health even probably more so than even aesthetics now this last one I think is extremely important across the board for almost everything but definitely for fitness and that is that experienced successful lifters don't really compare themselves to other people just to themselves you versus you they only compare themselves to themselves now you know it's funny before we start this started this podcast Adam brings up this female lifting competitor and she probably weighs 150 pounds less and maybe less than that and he's laughing and he goes dude she squatted in this video 405 pounds 10 times now nobody in this room can do that right now none of the men in this room can do that right now but also I don't care and I'm using it as an example because I could very well you know it could affect my ego and oh I'm a guy I'm way over 200 pounds I should be able to do more than that I'm gonna go hurt myself or do all this crazy stuff to accomplish that but really the reality is you don't know anything about other people aside from what you see on social media or what you see when you look at them and it's also not a fair comparison the only fair comparison you have the only real fair comparison apples to apples is you versus you are you better than you were yesterday if the answer is yes you are doing phenomenal and it doesn't matter how well or bad anybody around you is doing and it doesn't always have to translate right into you know are you better than yesterday how you look or are you better than yesterday how much you lift yeah I'm glad you said that there's many aspects of improving yourself that could be your relationship with your partner that could be your sleep routine is getting better that could be your energy that could be your relationships with your friends and family it could be many other things that could be you your growth as far as reading and educating yourself it doesn't always have to be am I squatting more am I did lifting more all the time because that too can lead to the same the same type of behavior so first off you know shut off the Instagram and following all these people that you know you aspire to be like and quit comparing yourself to them focus on yourself and then also have some empathy you're not always going to make gains on your bench press and gains on your squat or your deadlift but there's always room for you to grow and improve and beat the older version of yourself and it doesn't always have to translate into weight you could be bettering yourself in other aspects of life yeah what do they say that the comparison is the thief of joy totally right because it's there's always going to be somebody out there that has whatever it is that you're you're aspiring to be they're doing it better than you but like to your point there's like so many other factors involved that you're balancing you're juggling all the time personally and it's really just where you are personally now as comparison to where you were previous to that or you know what you're shooting and aspiring personally to achieve going forward so if you just stick with that you're going to be happy with your own personal progress and be a happier person overall yeah you know there's a lot of speculation as to because we've seen anxiety I mean forget the last few years which have come being kind of crazy you know and I'm precedent but we've seen anxiety rising among the young people in America for a little while now and they connected to this that they are going on social media they're seeing you know prettier people happy looking people people with more stuff and more money and better boyfriends and girlfriends and partners and cars and you could have all this great stuff you could have all kinds of great good things going for yourself but when you start comparing yourself you feel bad and makes you feel inadequate sad you don't have gratitude for what you have and what's around you this is a big problem across the board but it's a huge problem in the health and fitness space like I can't tell you many times I had clients come to me and say oh you know they were sad and I said well why are you upset well you know I lost seven pounds of body fat but my friend lost 15 you still lost seven pounds of body fat like what does that have to do with you right think that way right compare yourself to yourself not anybody now this doesn't it's okay to admire other people it's okay to give people accolades but comparing yourself boy is that a big trap and don't fall into that trap I'd say it's probably the biggest one in the fitness space look if you like our information head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out all of the guides that we have we have so many guides and they can all help you with most of your fitness goals you can also find all of us on Instagram so Justin can be found at Mind Pump Justin I'm at Mind Pump Sal and Adam is at Mind Pump Adam