 One of the simplest easiest ways to get your gains moving forward again is to simply do this. Change the tempo of your reps. Now check this out. Fast tempo reps build muscle. Slow tempo reps build muscle. Those in the middle also build muscle that they all work best when they're new. In other words, change the current tempo you've been using to a new tempo and watch things move forward. It's really easy. You don't have to change anything else. Just change the tempo. This actually used to be one of my favorites. It's been a while since we've talked about it. I do this music all the time. What did you say? Did you do some music? Yeah, that makes sense. I was watching Seinfeld last time. It's very parallel. It was that famous episode where Elaine dances. Yeah, all weird. Yeah, yes, yes, dude, the kick in the face. It totally sells it. This used to be one of my favorite things to do with somebody who's been lifting for a long time. They've somewhat understand programming and they've been consistent. They eat well, all these things, and they just haven't manipulated this variable yet. One of my favorite go-tos is because most of these people are trying to build more muscle, hypertrophy, is very few people ever follow a true 4-2-2 protocol. I challenge anybody who's listening to this. That's a 4-second negative. 2-second pause. 2-second at the bottom and then 2-second back up, which is what they have deemed the protocol for hypertrophy, right? That's the hypertrophy protocol tempo. And if you walk in the gym... Nobody does that. ...and you actually count that, you'll see nobody actually truly does that. Everybody adds an element of difficulty that people don't expect. Yeah. Everybody's 2 seconds down, 2 seconds up, 0 pause. Exactly. And here's the thing. You have to be aware. And a lot of this is because the gym still is predominantly young men. And young men have egos when they lift. And nobody wants to lift 30% less weight because they're weaker. They'd rather put more weight on and do a faster tempo and look stronger than everybody else. But if you're in the business of building muscle and you don't give a shit about if you're the strongest guy in the gym and not, but you care about body composition, changing your physique, changing your tempo to a 4-2-2 is one of the best things that you could possibly do. And you'll see most people don't do that. And even though you got to reduce weight a little bit, watch the strength gains. Well, here's the deal. You'll gain muscle and gain strength and it changes the rep range for you. So take a weight that you could do 10 reps with. And let's say your normal tempo is like everybody else. So 2-0-2, right? 2 reps down, no pause at the bottom, 2 seconds up, and then you do it again, right? That's everybody. Everybody does that. Don't change anything. Just go 4 seconds down, pause at the bottom for 2 seconds, come back up as fast as you normally do. Here's what will automatically happen. You'll cut your reps down by like 30-40%. So now you've changed two variables by simply changing one. By the way, all these speeds, now there's things to consider with the different speeds, right? Like you have to maybe go lighter. If you go slower, if you go fast, you got to have really good technique because risk of injury is a bit higher, that kind of stuff. But all that being considered, it's the simplest, easiest thing to change that changes your programming. It's very simple. You can manipulate any one of those three factors in that timing. And I would argue even that a lot of women I train, like to get them to move weight fast is completely game changer. Totally. Because so that's the thing is just kind of like picking up on your habits of like what you're normally doing and what you tend to fall in line with doing because it's comfortable and it's what you're used to. Like shake it up. Like try that tempo switch and it's going to... I'm glad you made that point, Jesse, because that's true because obviously if we were, you know, maybe there is somebody who's out there who actually does follow a 4-2-2, right? Like that, but it's rare. Very, very rare. Or maybe they even follow a slower tempo, right? They're just very, very timid. So they go really light and they go really slow and controlled. Teaching that person to do something explosive is going to give them the greatest change, right? Because it's the most unique or novel. That's the key here is to do something that's different from what you're currently doing. Today's giveaway is the RGB bundle of maps programs. Here's how you can win. When we post up this episode in that first 24-hour period, you post a comment. Also, subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comments section. We also have a sale going on, some workout programs. Every month there's a sale. This one's a pretty awesome one. Maps performance is half-off. And the extreme fitness bundle of maps programs is also half-off. If you're interested, just click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, back to the show. Here's a game that I like to play. I like to go to the gym. And this, I think, is more valuable for people who are more advanced. In other words, you're pretty experienced with your workouts. Here's a fun game. Put weight on the bar that you know is relatively light for you. Then go have a sandwich. Watch what happens. See you messes with it. It's fun. No, put a weight on the bar that you know is relatively light. And then say to yourself, I'm going to make myself get pretty close to failure with like eight reps or something like that. So in other words, I'll put a weight on the bar that I know I could do like 20 reps with. And then my goal is to see if I can make it feel like I'm failing at 10. And the way I do that is with my form and my technique and my speed. I'll slow down, I'll squeeze, I'll pause. Rather than adding weight to the bar, I'll make the weight feel heavier. And that has produced better results for me than just adding weight to the bar all the time. Now adding weight to the bar is something that you want to do, especially in the first couple of years of your training. But after a while, adding weight to the bar isn't the best, necessarily the best way to progress. Then it becomes like, can I make this weight feel heavier? And that has to do with tempo morning. Yeah, that's better in my game. I usually take the weight. Normally for my friend, I'll stack the same weight like in numbers, but it'll be in kilograms. We see, we see what happens. I actually, Sal, I actually, even with clients that, like we're just starting out, newbie gains are coming on. I like to go this tempo route first because people tend to get sloppier form as you increase weight. And then it turns into a just get the weight up off your chest or just squatted out the hole and mechanics start to get pushed back. And I just think that really stressing mechanics for the first few years of your training is so important because if you lay that solid foundation of what really good solid mechanics look like, I think you're better off. And you're hoping to make sure that you don't run into a lot of these nagging pains or, you know, poor muscle recruitment patterns because you got so caught up in the chasing weight thing and adding weight to the bar that your form has suffered. So I'd almost always rather, when I have a client and we choose a weight that they're moving, they're moving that and we're doing, say we're doing 10, 12 reps and they're getting stronger. I could tell it's like, okay, I could go add weight to the bar or I could slow the tempo down. Many times that would go that route first. Yeah, cause then you can cue them more effectively too. And you can be like, you know, you want to grip the bar and focus on bending an hour, whatever like the cues you can kind of like work through as they're slowly bringing the bar down and pressing it up. You have a lot more opportunity there to make those micro adjustments. I also love this tip within a set too when you choose a weight that is easier than you thought it was going to be. Exactly. So you start to make it feel harder. Yes. And so like I'd have clients sometimes where I'd put it on and it's okay, we're doing 15 reps. And we would, I could tell by the time they get to 12 and 13 like, oh shit, I underestimated, I could have went, I could have put 10, 15 more pounds. You start having them pause and slow down. So then what I would teach them is like, hey, instead of like stopping the set and then adding weight, just slow way down, take those last two or three reps and really slow the tempo down to make 15 reps really challenging. That is a really good solid technique that I don't see a lot of people use. They've been told or they follow a program and it says, oh, it's 15 reps. And so they choose a weight they think is right and they either underestimate or overestimate what that is. And then it's like, listen, you can go on the lighter side. And when you realize that you're going to get to the rep range, whether that be 12, 15, whatever the desired rep range is in the program and you realize it's too easy or it was too light, then just slow it way down and make those last three reps really challenging. It's so funny. I totally forgot about this. I just had a guy, so I work out in the morning. And if I go to a gym, there's one gym that I typically go to. And in the morning crowd, typically it's pretty consistent. So if you've worked in a gym for any period of time, you'll notice that the six amp crowd is always the same people. So this is this guy that I see. And if I go four or five days in the week, I'll run into him at least two or three days. So he's there pretty consistently and we'll say hi to each other, whatever. Anyway, he came up to me the other day. Now seeing him, you know, if I go consistently to this place, because sometimes I'll work out here at home, but I've probably seen this guy now over the last two or three years, right? So now we say hi to each other. It's all cool. So he came up to me and he goes, I got to ask you a weird question. So yeah, what's going on? He goes, I've noticed that you'll do the same exercises with half the weight sometimes and sometimes with twice the weight, but it always looks hard. He goes, what's the difference between when you're so much stronger and so much weaker? I said, it's not that I'm so much stronger and so much weaker. Sometimes I choose to make the weight feel heavy. Sometimes I choose to make the weight feel light. And he goes, how do you do that? So with my form, technique and concentration, sometimes the idea is to move the weight. And so I'm focusing on the movement itself and really getting everything to fire and just move the weight. Sometimes I'm like, I'm going to go half the weight. I'm going to try and feel the muscles. I'm going to fire every muscle fiber possible with this lift. Yeah. And he goes, wow. He goes, you can do this because it looks hard every time. He goes, I thought it was like had to do with your diet or what I said, no, it's just how I, how I'm approaching the workout. And sometimes I want to go heavy and sometimes I don't, but I'm always training with an appropriate intensity and it really has to do with how you concentrate. This is definitely a bodybuilding attribute or skill that a lot of people, like bodybuilders are really good. Really good. Bodybuilders are really good. They'll take a lightweight. Yeah. They'll take an eight pound dumbbell and just burn out their rear delts by. Not by doing a million reps. Yeah. Yeah. Just by just really concentrating and slowing it down and pausing where in the flex position and the stretch position. And so there's definitely a skill and tremendous value to that. Being able to target an area and to be able to make a lightweight feel super, super heavy. Yeah. Well, I mean, think about the longevity with your routine when you can, when you can do that. If the only way you can get a good workout. That's why I said this is such a good tool for people who've been working out for a while because after a while like putting 300 pounds on the bar, like, you know, it's like, okay, I want to get a good workout but I don't want to play with 300 pounds right now. I want to be able to do this with 150 pounds. It could take a toll on your joints after all. It could take a toll on your joints and if my form and technique is off a little bit, you know, whatever and it'll send, it'll stress my CNS differently. So yeah, it's definitely a skill but when, if you, I bet you, and I'm sure this test, these studies exist. If they did a study on a bodybuilder, I bet that bodybuilder will be able to fire as many muscle fibers with a lighter weight as they could with a heavy weight. Now beginners can't necessarily do this because they don't know how to necessarily make this happen. Yeah. You know? But if you can build, if you, I mean, the muscle doesn't understand the pounds that are on the bar. No. It understands perceived intensity. That's right. And so if you can take a 150 pound squat and full the body and the muscles into thinking it's three or 400 pounds, the adaptation probably, you're going to get, you're going to build muscle from that the same way that someone's doing the 300 pounds. By the way, if you, not that they're always the best examples because I think the highest level athletes are terrible examples for the average person. But here's an example where I think this kind of makes sense. If you look at like the top bodybuilders, that the ones with longevity, the Dexter Jackson's that have been training and now they're in their fifties. They competed in their late forties at the highest level and you compare them to other bodybuilders who also did very well, but trained very differently. You'll notice there's a difference in longevity. Like Dexter Jackson still lift the weight, still looks good, still everything good. You know, Jay Cutler was very smart with his training. You got monsters like Ronnie Coleman and Dorian Yates who trained with the utmost intensity, not taking anything away from them. They obviously accomplished tremendous things, but the injury and the stuff that they did to their body versus these bodybuilders with longevity, it's a surgeon of brain, another example. Like here was a bodybuilder who in his sixties, Frank Zane, like in his seventies, they still look amazing. You watch them work out. They have the ability to take a lightweight and make it feel heavier than muscles and now they have longevity in their training because throwing around super heavy weights at some point, you know, becomes like, okay, versus reward, you know, ratio. And is this, you know, making sense? Speaking of which, I got to make a comment on this and this happens every single time I go on a ketogenic diet. Now I'm not doing this for any fat loss or muscle gain reasons or whatever. I do this purely for two reasons. One, I think for me, it's a good idea to cycle in and out of ketosis once or twice a year. Metabolic flexibility, I think is a good idea. I also noticed cognitive benefits when I do this, which is the main reason why I did it. I just feel sharper. But I do notice that I do not really get sore or I don't seem to, like the damage that it caused in my body when I lift weights on keto is so much less. Like as soon as I start bumping up my carbs. Is that just the inflammation factor? Either the inflammation or the strength gains from the carbs and the weight that I'm using is heavier. But I feel like I could do way more volume, way more frequency, not feel any soreness versus when I eat carbohydrates where I'll get like this deep soreness sometimes, which is really interesting. And I don't know if you guys- What do you attribute it to? I think it, I don't know. It could be the reduction in inflammation that the ketogenic diet tends to produce or it could be that I'm stronger when I eat carbs so I'm lifting heavier and that's causing more damage. I don't know. What's his name, Dom DiAgostino? Yeah. So I just remember him like deadlifting, like a substantial amount like, and he's just been keto for a long time. Yeah. But yeah, same thing like low inflammation but still had those like crazy strength gains. Yeah, I don't know. It's weird. I just don't get sore and I just feel like I could train more volume, more frequency. I definitely noticed some performance drops. I think I know with carbs I'm stronger but I don't- It's definitely a tough one to keep up. It's weird. I don't get sore. I think there are other thoughts too on just, okay, like the body has this crazy ability to adapt to like everything. Yeah, yeah. You know, our skin, our brain, our metabolism. Like there has to be some sort of an adaptation process that happens with diet also. Of course. And there's got to be something as far as a novel stimulus that happens to metabolically or digestively that happens by I've always believed that. I've always believed that. There's got to be some tremendous, there's got to be some value to switching up the way you eat occasionally just simply from that. Evolutionarily speaking, it makes perfect sense because you ate according to the season. You're not going to eat the same foods that you will in the winter, that you will in the summer or the spring. Things pop up. It's an artificial thing. We've hacked, you know, in order to provide, you know, abundance when we, so we don't starve. But yeah, I mean, we always followed the seasons. We followed what was out there, what kind of plants were out there, what kind of animals were available. I could go to the grocery store and I could get any fruit or vegetable I want at any time of the year. At any time of the year. Like there's never a season, you know what I mean? I could get strawberries 24 hours, you know, 365 days a year, right? Yeah. We didn't evolve that way. So I think it does make sense out of it. I do notice most of the benefits of going keto, most of the benefits of adding carbs back in in that first three month period, two month period. Right, in that process. And then I start to kind of play. I feel that way kind of about almost every diet that I've done before. Yep, yep. Any time I change something up, I mean, and we've, we used to talk about this a lot, right? At the beginning when we first started the show, we used to talk, we all were playing with different diets and I remember you used to do a vegan day every week, I believe you were doing it for. Once a week. We used to fast once a month. We all ran keto. And so, you know, something that I've noticed is that whenever I tend to have any sort of like structured regimen, and maybe there's something to be said about that too, like you're making a change. So you're getting more structured again. Like you probably intuitively eat most time when you make a decision that you're going to, Oh, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go keto or I'm going to go vegan. Like now, all of a sudden you bring structure back into the diet and there's probably some value around that also. Right. So I could tell you the two things that are the big difference besides the carbs being gone, right? So carbs are gone. The way I bump my calories up, probably also I would say does definitely increase my protein as well. Yeah. So when I tend to eat keto, I also tend to bump my protein because I'm trying to make up the calories that I'm losing from not eating the carbohydrates. And so it's coming from things like fish, meat, and eggs. There's got to be some other benefit too because I know it's, you know, low inflammation in the brain but like running on ketones versus like glucose. Yeah. And it just seems like the brain operates better when you interrupt that, that sort of energy that you're introducing. It does. And then, of course, I've worked with clients, so they were going keto for so long, they started to get negative effects. We threw carbs in and it was like a miracle. Yeah. Even the zealots, even the extreme people like Paul Selvino. Yeah. Have you noticed the evolution of his diet? I know. Pure carbs like carnivore and fruit now is all of a sudden. Yeah. Then some fruit, then some honey on top of it and he feels, you know, better on it. It's true. You can also look, they talk about insulin sensitivity going ketogenic. You know, if you stay no carb for too long, you actually start to become insensitive. You start to develop insulin issues as a result and you have to throw some carbs in as well. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. The thing that I noticed about going, I mean, I went keto way back when we used to talk about it a lot. I've never been the carb guy was after that. So for the first time in my life. Change of relationship. It did. Completely did. And the thing, the big takeaway I got from it, my favorite part of keto is the cravings. So somebody who is a major sweet craver and loves carbohydrates and has always been challenged with hitting protein intake by switching to a higher protein, allowing more fat in the diet and a lower carbohydrate type of diet. It's actually made the discipline around not reaching for carb snacks or sweets way easier for me. It's weird. I had the same experience with the carnivore diet. It was very much like, like at night, especially was when I would get those cravings to go grab something that was like either like peanut butter, you know, chocolate, like something, you know, something sweet, you know, I'm like looking around. And yeah, I just don't have that. I don't have that as much anymore. Do you do, do you get peanut butter, actual peanut butter and put it on chocolate or do you do Reese's? Yeah, bro, actual peanut butter on chocolate. On chocolate. Is it Hershey's? Is this plain old Hershey's chocolate? Yeah, probably. Well, no, it's like, I mean, it's a very, you ever heard of like Tony's? Tony's Chocoloni? They're so good. Yeah, dude. So that's the one. So my wife is a chocolate. Now you're going to get me back on the chocolate train. Bro. That sounds really bad. That's the only girly thing about you. I know you like chocolate so much. Yeah. My, hey, my. Valentine's Day is coming up, so I'm eating it to you like this, like the tub between his legs and he's fucking scooping the peanut butter. He bites the chocolate. Does he? No, no, no. You know what? You're probably right. Do you put the chocolate on it? Do you do my Discovery Channel show? Yeah. Do you put the peanut butter on the chocolate or do you bite the chocolate, eat the peanut butter? Bite the chocolate. I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you. Why would I smear it on it? Hey, Katrina's a dipper. She's like, she's not a chocolate. She's apple, apples and peanut butter's like her. So good. Yeah. But that is like one of her favorite snacks ever. But that's what she'll do. You know what's really good for people that have that, that have that craving or struggle with that? I actually think the little individual packets was one of the smallest things. Smallest things ever. They have those little dip packets. Oh. I think Jeff makes them. Oh, really? Yeah. And they come in and they're already measured out. So you know how many calories you're getting and they're perfect for dipping. And then it's like, because one of the things that's dangerous is dipping in that. Any time I need to lose weight, I'm just no paying by our note. You dropped weight. 100%. Yeah. Alcohol, of course. How many calories of it? Hold on. Are you seeing what I put in my protein shakes? Yeah. Oh, really? It's crazy. What is it? It's gobs. It's like four tables. Hold on. More than that. Do you do processed peanut butter, like Jiff and Skippy, or do you do like the legit? I do the legit, but I love the process. Can I just tell you, bro? I didn't realize there was that big of a difference until I got married. My wife is like, she's like, no, we are not getting that crappy peanut butter. So we get the like, where it separates, you have to fucking mix it. Yeah. Then the other day, I was at the grocery store and I bought the old process shit. Yeah. It's very processed. It's so processed. But it's like candy peanut butter. Yeah. It is like candy. Yeah, that's why. It's not the same. It's not the same. Yeah, I don't feed that to my fans. How do they make it like that? It's like, it's different. I have no idea. It's delicious. They've mastered it. It's very, very different. There's some stores where you can like put the actual peanuts in and then you can, yeah, you can actually get it. I know you can do that. They do that in Op Hill. Yeah. I know there's some grocery stores I've been to where you can actually like make the peanut butter right there. Oh, that's the move. But yeah, I mean, I had to cut that habit out. That was like when I was bodybuilding, that was like a go-to. Like peanut butter was like the trick. Oh yeah. But the processed peanut butter, I just did it the other day and I'm like, oh my God. I haven't had it in so long. This is like candy peanut butter. It's not actual peanut butter. It's like candy peanut butter. Yeah. It tastes so different. Yeah, it tastes different. It looks different. It mixes, spreads different. It's all the above. Oh, I could eat it like a whole bunch of it by itself. Like just spoons of it. Yeah. Oh man. You know, the peanut butter, the personality of that conversation. Oh, of the PDJ. And I tell you what, I mean, when I was first giving you guys a hard time, I just thought like, oh man. It's silly, dude. I bet you know what's funny about you, Adam? I bet you there's like 15 things like that. You know what I mean? Like regular stuff that we all do. Yeah. That you have figured out. He does it in a totally quirky way. Are you guys watching the people though? You know what's really interesting to see is that there's some people that are just like, oh, that's ridiculous. And then there's other people that are like, open mind. They're like, you know what? I've never done that this way. And then they're doing it or changing. Well, there's always like a method to your madness in any of these things. And so it's like, okay, well, I can see why you think that way. I just, I don't think like that. I think it's weird that anybody would be married to it. Who cares how you put your peanut butter jelly on? If somebody says something that makes sense. Why would someone get married? Oh, I know. I mean, that's just, you probably don't like me. That's right. You know how our audience is. Like we have a, like you're a, you know, a sal fan don't like me. You know what I'm saying? All right, let me ask this. What sock do you put on first? Left or right? Left. Most people are left. Is that true? Yeah. Does that not have anything to do with right or left? I have no idea. Now I know you're ambidextrous, right? Yeah, yeah. So I do. You're bi-handed? Well, I try to. He's a bi-handy. Yeah. I usually try to like put my socks on standing up. So I do the whole like balance thing. Oh, yeah. Like the star ants actually brought that up in there. I actually, I'm glad you brought that up because this has been on my mind a couple of times. And I, I, I catch myself doing more of this stuff as I've gotten older. And we talked about this one episode a long time ago with Ben Greenfield. And I do think that there's something here like, I don't know whether we, like how we teach it or like whatever. It's like daily things. Yes. Like there's always something in your day where you could choose the easier path or you could just make it a little challenging for yourself. And it's, and it's just good to do that. And the things that I, like walking upstairs, I'll do weird stuff where I calf raise with like a little balance. Like it'll, I'll step up, calf raise to balance. I wish I saw that. I wish I saw that. Hold on a second. I wish I saw you do that. Yeah. I do stuff like that. Or, or when I put on socks, I'll balance on one leg, why I put it on and then switch over and balance, balance on the other foot and do that. I do that with, put my underwear on things like that. I challenge myself stability wise because I've, I've noticed that I've lost it. If you don't, if you don't train that shit, it goes. No, you're right. 100% sitting on the floor. That's another one. Yeah. Like sit on the floor. I play with my kids on the floor. Now I'm like, why am I uncomfortable on the floor? I need to sit on the floor of this bro. Yeah. Even laying flat, like on your back on the ground. And then I'll, I'll do basically the wall test. And like flat and just watch, even like press into the floor. Like it just helps like counter a lot. Are you, are you guys socks or underwear first when you get dressed? That's another one. Underwear. That's weird. So you go underwear first. Oh yeah. So I had a doctor. You go socks first? Yup. Really? Hey, I'm about to blow your mind right now. I'm waiting. Why you should always put your socks on first. Oh, because like foot fungus and shit like that on the floor. If you're in, especially if you're in a gym. Well that's different. You could carry the, the, a fungus on your foot. That's different. Put on your underwear. How many times do you have a jock itch? Huh? Uh, Hey, he puts his socks on and then he sits naked. His naked ass on the bench. To put my socks on. His balls are resting on the bench. I gotta take care of this. Don't worry though. No athletes foot here. In my shower. Got gonorrhea, but I don't got no athletes foot. No, I don't want to. Got gonorrhea. Got gonorrhea. No, I think, I don't think I've ever had that. I know I've had athletes foot a bunch of times, maybe one time. So that's different. Okay. That is, I mean that's like logical because you're inside of a gym and that's different. But now I always do it like that because he told me that one time. Oh, see, I'm like, if I'm home, I'm not, you know, but you have, we've already teased me about that. Sure. That's a t-shirt. I don't know. That's so weird. No bottoms. I'm like Winnie the Pooh. Or Piglet. Or Duddleduck. Yeah. Duddleduck. Yeah. Or peanut guy. They never wear pants. You know what? I'm telling you, bro, the whole Disney conspiracy is real. All of them are naked from the bottom. Oh, God. What do you think they're trying to teach kids? Oh, God, here we go. There's so many innuendos and phallic symbols. Here we go. Weird. Trust me. Weird, bro. I gotta tell you guys a crazy story to do for my sister-in-law. She told me this morning and I'm like, can I please share this? This is insane. So she's a nurse. She works in the emergency, but she also does like labor and delivery. And I know you're Courtney who worked as a nurse. So you must have heard. Yeah, my Courtney does that. You must have heard so many crazy stories from her when she would come home. Yeah. So she tells a story. Crazy stories. Oh, this is insane. I gotta tell you guys. She was delivering a baby and the cord was prolapsed and compressed. So she had to put her hand in and push the baby's head up off the cord and stay in there. Oh, my God. Holding it until she was cut out. She would have died within minutes. She's all doing this shit. Baby might die. Mama's freaking out and she's in there and she told me this and I'm like, and it was, dude, that's like, give me like PTSD. It took for 12 minutes. She had to do this until they could get to the, get to the, the operating room or get the instruments out to the doctors. That's insane. And I'm like, that just happened like last night or the night before what? Yeah, because she didn't reply to some texts and then she gets on. She's like, sorry guys. And she tells this whole story. Busy saving lives. I said, I said, you, it's crazy because, you know, we joke around in the fitness industry. We're saving lives, right? But, but, and I guess technically you could say that, but that baby and that mom, if she wasn't there doing that, that baby wouldn't be here. I know just all those stories. Courtney would come home and tell me and then also to just even like providing medication and like getting the right exact like dosage and like making sure all these things are like completely. That's why she's so attention and detail and it's like, you know, now she kind of helps out with our company does emails and things like, she was like really like had all this anxiety and like all this stuff about like doing work for us. I'm like, you're not going to kill anybody. You know what I mean? Like you can relax. This is, oh yeah, you're right. My sister in law's name is Kate Rothenburg. I want to give her a shout out. She watches the show. What cracks me about your wife too is I know when you do your, your peptide or whatever she preps it for you. Yeah. So she sits it up and wipes. Adam and I are like, Adam and I are fighting like an old woman. Reused needles. She uses, how long ago did you use this? I'll give it to me. Yeah. She couldn't, she couldn't take that as a joke. She was like, ah, stressed out like sitting just down and talking, you need to talk to Adam about this right now. I'm all conditioned like, oh, this is how it is. You know, everything is so, so political. So my wife worked as a phlebotomist for a, for a little while and so she's seen me subcure or whatever. She's like, it's not at 45 degrees. Put it in the whatever. I'm like, Yeah. Worst. Put it in at the point and you're fine. You're okay. Of course, you're freaking out every nurse. I know, I know, you're not supposed to do it. And listen, right now our partner at MP Hormones is like, shut up. Hey, speaking of partners, I have some, I have exciting news right to announce. So this is somebody that we have worked with for actually one of our longest standing partners. We don't talk about it on the show that much because we actually didn't have a paid partnership with it. It was a company that when we first started that we all fell in love with and we worked out an affiliate deal on day one. Now over the years we've done well, we've performed from them. Now over time they've noticed obviously that there's like, man, there's just these random huge spikes that we give from you guys. Well, it's because we randomly bring it up in conversation when it comes up. We've never formally like advertised with them before. They signed a contract to actually do paid advertising, which is great because this is a product that I still to this day and it's been, what, I don't know, eight years ago. It's like a big secret. Who's the company? Brain FM. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. Brain FM and we haven't, we've never done paid advertising with them before. They're paid advertising this year and it's cool because that product is so fucking good. I have it on my phone right now. Always use it. It's actually, no, no, listen, it's weird. It is weird. It's weird. So they have figured out how to get your brain into different states that they've identified with Alpha Way. Didn't we, didn't we have the founder on it and talked about the science? We did. We did a long time ago. And it's really weird. So do you know what, okay. He was talking about it to counter a lot of the ADD medication and like had like if I listen to focus. So focus is a category. If I listen to that while I'm working within about takes me about seven minutes. It changes my state. I notice I'm all of a sudden my kids make fun of me because I'll like anytime I do any work, like I'll throw that on because it just helps me to stay right there. Can I tell you the best, the number one, like the thing that pops up for me with brain FM a success story for me personally that was just and I'll say as I tell the story, you guys remember this because I know we all have a little bit of PTSD from this. Do you guys remember that plane that we got on? Was it a propeller plane? It was right? It was a chicken plane and it was we got on this plane. It was late, right? Late at night. It was crazy storming outside. We get on this plane and we all joked about it because it was a tiny propeller plane like whatever it was only supposed to be what a two hour flight or something like that. Not even now. Not even now. We get on there and I swear to I am not exaggerating. I know I could be dramatic. This is true. You guys all you guys all back me up. You were messed. I was laughing. I was like, this is ridiculous. It's worse than bro. There were people on the plane that were crying. I heard there was a woman praying out loud. She was doing the rosary. Someone vomited. Yeah. If you didn't have your seatbelt on your throat and I this is the success story. And I getting just on planes anyway. First of all, I have a level of anxiety that's higher than everybody anyway. Put me on a plane. It goes up a little bit. You put me on a plane and it was like animals like just flying around in there and like crates. And I mean it was up and down so violent that you feel like you're going up and down in roller coaster. That's how big it was. I had my arms crossed. I had my headphones on and I had brain fn meditate and I swore to God to save me. The whole time I was listening to meditate and I was just and we were good. You know where else it works that I've used even with you if we share a room and one of you snoring it drowns that out completely. So if you put it so if you're ever like that's been a go to for me if I'm ever in a hotel room and I'm sharing a room with somebody else if I put it on between the two of us it'll drown that out. I used to use it for the dogs when we had the dogs with fireworks and stuff like that you could put it by the door and it would drown out any of the fireworks noise to calm them down like crazy like there's a lot of signs. We use it with max anytime that we travel especially if we don't have his nest with us or like that we just fire up that we have brain fm on his iPad and all of our phones if we're working on something where we're having to do research or read or write a bunch of stuff down playing focus in the background light it's been like it's one of the one of the companies I use the most. Like I said it's on my phone right now. You know and since we've been working with them and I don't know how much you go through the I mean they've changed the user interface big time. So the sleep one that they have music options if I'm in a car or on a plane and I can normally fall asleep pretty easily anyway but one of the secrets is I put brain fm on and I'm out so I'm excited that we're officially officially officially partnered with them I mean we've always been working with them it was something that we occasionally brought up every now and then but they're you know officially on the sponsor. Oh I wanted to say Doug maybe you could pull this gym up so we're going to be at the Arnold Classic March what are the dates of that let's find the dates March 1st March 1st 2 to 4 p.m. Pro's Gym we're going to be at Pro's Gym March 1st between 2 to 4 show up we'll probably answer questions on I'll give you the no thumb handshake why do you do that I had just a mess of people I don't understand I don't understand I'm going to see what this gym looks like it sounds like a pretty a pretty awesome place to work out yeah okay okay so it's a pretty it's a pretty legit gym this will be fun yeah this will be a lot of fun it's not one that we went into last time was it because we were out there last time we went to one last time we did and I'm trying to Doug do you have pictures of the actual gym inside I'm looking for it right now okay I'd like to see what they sell apparel because it looks like it's kind of in the same area does look like the same yeah I've seen some pictures of Arnold being there and the rock and so they that was like a body's come true yeah yeah I think that's the one we went into do you remember I'm pretty sure that might be it was it an old world gym oh I don't know if it was a world and they have Arnold Passeds as well you can't find a photo of the gym I'm trying to find one you know you do Doug this what you do you type in Pro's Gym Columbus photos and then you go to images you guys know Doug's brother might be working with one of the mind pump trainers one of the trainers that went through one of our courses he was looking for a personal trainer and so Doug went to our forum with with all of our trainers so Doug's got a little side hustle on our business he's gonna get commission none of us guys would do it I'm excited I'm excited to hear about this to see to see what it's what it looks like for yeah yeah that's good because these are good these are obviously trainers that listen to show and we have them in the for Doug okay I found a picture okay I'm not sure if that's the same one there's also another one called the powerhouse gym nothing's coming up so maybe that's the one might have been the power oh yeah we don't see it it didn't switch that's what I see I remember going to a gym and the building looked like the one that's on this picture yeah that was either it was like a worlds or it was a powerhouse I think the powerhouse sounds like it oh no wait that is it the Pro's Gym is here the powerhouse is here oh okay so the powerhouse one is the one we went to yeah powerhouse that's not the same one okay that's not the same one okay so we're going to Pro's Pro's Gym Doug your brother what are his fitness goals do you guys have similar build genetics I mean he actually has better genetics than I do as far as building muscle really he was always one that could put on size fairly easily he's been very much into endurance type type activities he got into long distance cycling and he's of the mindset too he's one of these you know no pain no gain guys he likes to really push and I've been encouraging him for a long time just do some resistance training just you know change your mindset a little bit about it so he's open to it awesome we'll see what happens yeah that'll be exciting so I did I posted on the forum for all the trainers and said anybody in this area and a couple people you know raise your hand and here we go can we can we order the apple goggles why is it a company experience we have to figure out how to we talked about it I've been kind of like searching around like the different applications and stuff like that there is some cool stuff there is some cool stuff so I mean I know none of us are like big like F1 racing guys but I saw the F1 racing feature think about this hold on how much money you spend on things that you don't use after a week I know like the Oculus was fun he doesn't do it on his own anymore you guys notice he pulls everybody in I know I bought those Oculus I think I used it once yeah see and whose idea it was my kids I'll be honest oh yeah you were you were used at the party the other day and my dog didn't chew mine up you still use mine there's been a couple of times where I wish I had him maybe I'll buy you guys this from here so I I definitely would still kind of use it not a lot so could you play a lot of games on this like do you sit down and pretend no no it's not even like it's literally for spectators watching so you're watching you're watching the race on TV because you can see through the goggles down see the top yeah so yeah so I'm like watching TV like everybody else is but then down below I can kind of glance down and I can see like a bird's eye view of the whole track and where their cars are so just it gives you another layer dimension at what point do you guys think or if at all do you think watching TV with friends and families gonna be that where everybody has for sure goggles on for sure especially if you're gonna be able to interact I imagine we're all watching the same thing but they have to make it feel like sitting with people dude you don't want to be I see the two is like skill acquisition because they have like apps where you can learn music and it like literally lights up a key on the piano and it'll show you exactly like it's right here and you push it and you do it with timing almost like it's a game and then I mean they have stuff like that too where eventually I guarantee like instead of watching a YouTube video about how to fix something you know they're gonna have like actual like you know information is helping you did any of you guys ever watch the Gran Turismo movie I told you to watch no I did I watched it good right is that not fascinating as shit that a kid is like self-taught on video games is now like a fucking F1 racing like racing cars and stuff is crazy you know what I'm thinking about with these goggles or whatever imagine the access now to hyper-talented surgeons or people that have to do intricate work they could put the goggles on a you know a machine that follows your movement exactly and they could operate from a distance which they've already done that by the way they've already done that with technology that's not good the gesturing is really interesting so imagine that like you need the top heart surgeon or whatever can't afford to fly to but boom they'll operate on you virtually so here's the hilarious one that I saw though that I was like oh this this could be really interesting your face I could turn you into like Matt Damon you know like the face will just like over your face and you'll talk and I'm just like I'm sitting here with Matt Damon but now let's imagine like imagine it's your wife and it's like oh but maybe you're somebody else right now alright bro that's gonna cause so many fights that's gonna cause so many fights why are you doing it with the goggles again tonight you know why what the hell honey I put your goggles on everybody oh my god that'll be interesting that's not cool that's I don't know that's not cool that means better than going out and doing it right I mean come on is it? I don't know I don't know I don't know it adds a new wrinkle it's a little weird it is you know it's gonna be used that way I feel so uncomfortable with all of this it's so weird like you know the direction we're moving is so and we make parodies of it because we know it's weird it's uncomfortable because of and it was uncomfortable not because it was too accurate yes because it was like ooh I could see that happening it made me feel super uncomfortable yeah it's you know I wonder how many people are gonna adopt this like just you're aware right now it's it's really expensive right it's like 3500 or something like that and it's all big and there's a wire but you know that's gonna change yeah that technology in there like that's not far talk about like augmenting your senses so that you're more like a machine this is so sci-fi where I could look far away and I could easily focus in with this so this is what changes the lens of reality for you a couple of years ago we brought up we brought up this conversation and the conversation I propose to you guys is it gonna be AR, VR first and the the prevailing theory is that AR is gonna is it not VR VR was the big hype because it doesn't interrupt your lifestyle well not just that but VR feels fake whereas this just feels augmented and better enhanced yeah just think about that think about where this is gonna go you know that there's already apps and technology that can read a person's facial movements and gestures that you can't necessarily pick up on and tell you the likelihood that they're lying you imagine wearing some shit like that talking to someone oh where were you tell me again 75% chance that you're lying or whatever turn your machine off yeah I don't wanna talk to you did you guys see the other so I don't know if I sent this over I might have sent it to the YouTube group Andrew I don't remember there's a video I sent and this guy is wearing this and it was on was it 60 minutes it might have been 60 minutes I can't remember and he's wearing like a white earpiece around his ear connected to his jaw and it's basically connecting the internet to his brain oh yeah so they were asking him questions like like really tough math questions and history questions and so like that like three seconds yeah and it took him a few seconds and then he hears the answer and then processes it it's like literally like it's crazy this is why this is where we need philosophers we don't need scientists yeah we need philosophers because the question is we don't even need philosophers this stuff has been addressed in stoicism that's philosophy I know but my point is if you read stoicism it still applies to today well what I mean by that is not like we need new philosophers but we need philosophy to be valued yeah because the question isn't can we because we're going to be able to is this the MIT thing what is 45,689 divided by 67 he silently asked the computer and then hears the answer through vibrations transmitted through his skull and into his inner ear 681.92 5 exactly right so like here's a good philosophy question right the story of the vampire that lives forever okay if you could live forever only philosopher or somebody could think would be able to answer whether or not it's a good idea scientists would just say do it how long does it take you to be evil or lose your mind or like is there does it change the value of like these are all questions that we need to ask yeah having access to all of the recorded information instantly in your brain you think it's your own thought and be able to augment your ability to the point where you're limitless is that a good thing problem is we're not made up that way we're made up with we will keep going until we get burned and then we'll then we learn it's not I mean that's just how we are we're designed so and we're so far from living forever so it's like hey let's increase it by 20% let's increase it by 30% let's live for 50% longer and then then we'll wait until we realize like oh shit that wasn't a good idea in society so but in that wild where we're at and I'm like the back to the apple, driving all that like it's pretty trippy to see what how far technologies come that a kid could never get in a car can learn how to drive in the virtual world and then make it to that level and then make it to the professional level and compete at the highest level like actually be good I mean that is crazy let's be clear though yeah the game definitely was this training okay and also dealing with is a highly gifted individual because someone may be listening like oh this is how well yeah it's not going to happen for everybody no bro had he trained here's the real question the real question isn't was he was he able to do it with this video game the question is would he have been better had he done it in real life the conventional way and that's the question that we don't know well yes it is I mean here's the thing that you know is that that's what makes it so cool is that it makes it accessible so it already I always wonder how the hell the kids that's why I'm yeah I seriously I don't know if it's been since like the pandemic but I've seen more like virtuoso guitarists and musicians like that have just locked in on the skill that to where I'm like wow there's just so many really talented people out there that just emerged all of a sudden I don't know if that's just like imagine me me and my own perception but it seems to be the case I wouldn't you know with fitness it's going to be very interesting as well although you're always going to have to contend with human psychology which is always going to be the roadblock always always always but if beyond that I mean I could see just endless potential like imagine you know having something that literally shows you the intensity of muscle contractions while you're exercising I mean I think we already seen an example that with the the tonal mirror bullshit everybody was so excited about that oh yeah human psychology is always going to know you know what I'm saying where you all at now it's just so funny I mean everybody they got valued oh my god everybody was like so it's like it does all this cool shit you still got to get people to work out in Sicily yeah I don't know like I don't know if there's going to the thing that we'll have to disrupt that space or our space like that is like a pill that fuck you take and then your buff a pill you take as far as like so talk about a philosophical question people are going to realize very quick is not going to give you terrible idea well that's what's scary about this like this you know the MIT thing right with the you know if you could get quiet you can skip all the learning and the reading and all to get to be in brilliant you don't need to do any that because you automatically have a built in Google in your head is that a good thing or not I don't need to test it to know it's a bad idea as of right now the neural ink I mean we're kind of yeah we're going to see that soon the neural ink actually had a human test it yeah unless you could download wisdom but for now looks like the formula for wisdom is time plus mistakes and you know trying over and over again yeah you have to test it but if you could obstacles download wisdom then I guess you'd solve that problem I mean there is some possibilities there Sal right like you brought up right there like how like you know AI will get to a point where I can have a conversation with Justin AI that could support like this is 80% risk to do this this is 20 sure but that's not going to give you wisdom like wisdom is developed through time okay so wisdom isn't the right word for it but I mean you could you could get the answers that's about right well maybe they just get better at like simulating like they speed up that experience somehow by like simulating a lot of those obstacles that you have to work through like a video game or they put you in a like 10 years exactly I mean yeah and maybe we're in that now Justin stop and we just ended the podcast hey I got to tell you guys the juve like guess who's using it regularly now wait that's when we know my family of course I got a huge family I don't care I had something else I want to talk about you but go ahead oh my dad so my dad's always my back my back and I hired him a trainer which has made a big difference finally got him to use the juve regularly and he's like I sold the back pain I think what Justin shared is an even cooler commercial is the 49ers did you see that 49 did we send it to the YouTube channel like I said Justin he didn't know what he was saying what did I do which thing I did something brilliant surprise yourself sometimes oh yeah I did say that yeah no that was a really cool commercial that they did so I mean that's kind of cool to see so what did they do you didn't see it yes you didn't you were the worst about anybody sending you anything you know what we got to do I'm going to put in my phone number Sal DeStefano and I'm going to send it to you as if you're sending stuff to yourself and then maybe you'll actually watch it Sal's going to be like dude they have a whole recovery lab this is the smartest thing I've ever heard you say I'm like hey I have a great idea this is I'm so brilliant I sit myself I'm going to do that and your phone's going to be Sal DeStefano do you have the AI voice do you call me at my voice oh I'll definitely listen if it's me tell everyone to do stupid no Justin shared it with the group and I think he shared it with the YouTube group too did he share it with you guys Andrew did you guys get it I saw it I saw it I think it was just with you guys yeah it's cool it's right here so a great a great ad for them man I thought it was I don't know I love that of course out of all the teams I'm like of course partial to this you believe that you've got a great staff that can cover you as a huge part oh wow found that red light therapy and then furthermore find yourself the best players learn how to do this find all the resources we've tried to provide that for our team you know I think this is a company who's found like in the model with this thing that's good right so this is why we need a tour I remember when we first met with you we all thought it was what this is weird of course it's got a lot of science and data backing it up okay and it goes back to the 70s or even 60s even some of the data on this it's amazing how far like this is massive they've gotten so huge yeah no it works well and you know too I mean professional teams they have the money the budget they have the resources the people that are doing that are looking into the most cutting edge stuff and so you know when you see a professional sport team adopt something like this you know it's like it's only they've done their homework they don't promote like 100% they don't have time to fuck around with something that you sit in front of for 12 minutes that's beneficial those guys can be doing other things that are going to improve their performance or improve their recovery and so if they've adopted that to do that you know that that's something that's super valuable for the recovery for the athlete so pretty cool though right shout out is that am I reading that correct this is the the prescript event that we're trying to go yeah that's it okay here yeah so prescript is doing an event here at mind pump headquarters it's going to be the date here well I know what we did is I know that prescript is holding a certification course here right so Jordan is going to be doing that by the way he's like he's like one of the best in the space for yeah we've been promoting Jordan for a long time and as far as like the guy's absolutely brilliant we call him beast right because he's like X-men beast he's just this big old buff dude that's super brilliant and his certification course a lot of our coaches and trainers have gone through it he's hosting it here I told him come down here why don't you host it here we'll do like a meet and greet with our listeners that come in that actually fly in that actually want to come do this certification so you'll be able to do it in person here the day before you'll get a chance to hang out with us inside the studio so that was the idea was that our audience that will come in here and I think he's also doing some sort of a discount too for our people yeah so it's March 15th 16th and 17th we're going to be meeting everybody on the 15th there's going to be some pump merch and we're going to do a live podcast for the first ten people who sign up oh wow in other words you can sit in and listen sit in and hang out with us now the link is that the link right there we need a better link yeah the link is not easy to say but I'm going to say it anyway it's pre-script dot com forward slash min dash pump dash PSL1 and we'll have it in that show note remember that yeah yeah on the video there's a company called sleep breakthrough that makes a drink called berry dreams that is a pre-bed drink that has been shown to improve the quality of your sleep and also help you fall asleep faster now it's not like a sedative it won't knock you out it's all about improving your natural sleep so you have better stages of sleep better recovery better memory retention and of course a better hormone profile go check them out go to sleep breakthrough dot com forward slash mine pump by the way to get that discount all right back to the show first question is from CMOS23 other than serious athletes shouldn't 95% of training be unilateral so we can fix muscle imbalances and then avoid them in the future you know this is actually a pretty good question I can see the rationale behind why somebody may think this way now there's the reason why I say no to this particular question which is 95% of training by the way if you only ever train unilateral you'd be totally fine there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever you could do that but you would be missing out on some potential strength and power gains that come from bilateral training because you're able to generate more force through the central nervous system when you're operating bilaterally so you'll always be able to bench press more on a barbell than you will with two individual dumbbells for example you're limited by load that's right we literally just had somebody call a caller on one of our last quads call in him he's been listening to the show I think he's listened to every single episode he's gone through most all of our programs but he's been working out from home and had incredible results so he's seen all kinds of great results and he's had a hundred pound dumbbells to go to a hundred pounds he's modified all of our programs to do it at home first time ever he got a gym membership and he's blown away by the gains he saw himself put 15 pounds of muscle on he saw his deadlift all these moves go up in strength and he's been training for a long time the reason why he called in was because this be possible and our answer was that that's exactly the benefits of barbell training can be and so by loading barbell training has tremendous value for building muscles speeding the metabolism up power strength all these things now if I had a client who didn't really care about any of those things and they literally hired me for like longevity and I just want to be strong enough and healthy enough and I love yeah I feel good I love unilateral training and I have no desire to get that much stronger I just want to be strong enough like then yeah but if I had that same client we hit a plateau and they're like man I don't like we haven't been gaining any more strength and I'd like to get a little stronger and we've been training for two years and all unilateral and I go well we could pick up the barbell and we're going to see a nice little bump because we haven't you haven't done that or are you content with where you're currently at and we can also keep that kind of how I would approach it yeah I mean you're going to stretch your capacity to produce more force bilaterally that's just like a fact and I know like even in the athletic realm some people have made arguments just for always doing unilateral training because you know in most situations like you're in a split stance or you're just using one arm or it's the other arm sure but to be able to train your body to you know maximize that potential of recruitment you know you're going to you're going to maximize that most effectively by bilateral training and then going back to you know it's all valuable and even with the athletes I would say younger athletes will get more benefit from bilateral training than advanced athletes who've been training for a long time in which case then more unilateral training makes sense but why does it make more sense for the younger athlete you're trying to build force and muscle and you maximize that with barbells it's a bit more than you do with unilateral style training the question is from SLB Anon are two days full body training enough to still see results if you're feeling burnt out yes yes in fact for the average person for the average person who wants to maximize their time who has a busy life it's not doesn't live for the gym but they want a faster metabolism they want to build muscle they want to feel great two full body training days with appropriate intensity is perfect it's perfect in fact 90 throughout my entire career well over 98% of my clients train this way two days a week in fact Doug trained two days a week with me got his dead lift up to 400 pounds there's so much you could do with two days a week before you have to add a third day now the question is if you're feeling burnt out you can even over train two days a week it depends on the person but two days a week for most people is great I wanted to address that part because if you were feeling burnt out I actually might push you in the direction of like a maps 15 like 20 minutes a day because that's if I'm feeling burnt out sometimes a full body workout for an hour it feels too much but doing two exercises every day actually feels a lot easier and better on my body so maybe consider that and both are incredible you could absolutely do maps anabolic two days a week see tremendous results you could also do the maps 15 routine and actually get just as good results also so I would consider that like if you feel burnt out and that's the reason why you're scaling back to two days a week maybe consider actually doing more days in the gym just way less intensity and volume sometimes the body will respond even better to that it probably a little every day is probably better than a lot you know every other day or twice a week even if you control the volume next question is from Cassandra Sieg what do you recommend for rotator cuff pain mobility rest strengthening other areas to support you know rotator cuff pain for in the context of somebody who works out regularly because the you know typical decondition person you're looking at overall weakness overall you know need to improve or increase your strength and your pain is coming from just general overall weakness with the person who works out consistently this is more of an imbalance or to put it more clearly this is this is more to do one direction yeah this is more to do with a strength imbalance okay so when you look at the traditional lifts bench press row pull-ups overhead press you have these really big strong prime moving muscles the chest the deltoids right the front head the side head of the deltoid the lats for these back exercise rhomboids even for the shoulder blades like really strong big muscles and then you have like the infraspinatus supraspinatus subscapularis you know the terra's minor these are these little muscles that attach along the shoulder blade it's called the cuff and they and on the humerus so that's the long arm of the bone and they maintain stability they keep your arm from twisting off or from moving in the wrong direction because if you look in that pocket yeah if you look at the shoulder joint it's like the the bone of the arm moves in the shoulder joint then you have the shoulder blade that also it's a very complex loading it's a very complex joint it's one of our more complex joints because we evolved to throw with accuracy and at least that's the argument so when these stabilizers can't stabilize the weight that you can handle with these prime movers these big prime movers you develop problems this is why big strong people will all of a sudden hurt their shoulder because they grabbed a shampoo bottle wrong symmetry then performance yeah map symmetry yeah symmetry and performance I mean to me this is and this is actually more common with people that have been lifting I used to get power lifters I'd have power lifting clients all the time because I've gotten so strong in one direction on these bilateral type of movements and they just haven't addressed unilateral and stability stuff right this is why the first question the argument of could you do unilateral work forever this is one of the positive things of someone who trains unilaterally all the time and especially and rotational So you got to constantly assess your stability and your mobility and things like that as you're getting stronger so you can balance that out and compliment it because yes, you could get to a point where you can accelerate so quickly with your throw or I could like lift so much more weight. But if you don't have that stability and structure in place to keep your joint healthy, then it all goes to... Look, think of it this way. You have a truck that's pulling a trailer. The strength of the truck matters up until you exceed the strength of the attachment to the trailer. Once the trailer attachment breaks, you can get as strong as you want with the truck. It's going to break. You can't pull anymore. This is what happens when your stabilizers don't match the muscles that move things. So you have to keep up the strength. So you can actually have strong stabilizer. In fact, the average lifter has strong stabilizers compared to the average person. They're just too strongly the other average. And this is also why when we originally started creating all the programs that we did that we have the anabolic, the performance and aesthetic was designed to be like ran in that order and that you could recycle that order over and over is because we're always coming back and addressing this with like unilateral and rotational work in performance. And so even though anabolic is very much so sagittal, plain focused, aesthetic is very much so focused around building muscle, we want to make sure we always have that performance component in there. So things like this don't happen. Next question is from FitLife with Jen13. How does exercise and strength training improve brain function? I have a client recovering from meningitis and gets exhausted from focusing on movements and balance. I know it's good for brain health. Just not sure about the science behind it. Well, first off, the simple, very easy part to understand. And by the way, there's some studies that have been done on this where the initial strength gains that somebody makes. So when you first start working out, you'll notice like from one workout to the next like, wow, that's a huge improvement. Like I could only do one. Now I could do five, right? You don't see that much later on. But they've tested, are there changes in the muscle, the muscle fiber, or is it the central nervous system? And of course, the brain is the hub of the central nerve. It's the central and most of the gains you make in the beginning, especially the central nervous system. All right. So what's happening? Well, that, your brain is controlling movement and muscle contractions. It has to develop and build along with your muscles. And as your muscles build, so does your brain. Your brain is attached to all the fact. If you lost the limb, the, the part of the brain that is connected to that limb, or if you lost speech or you lost your eyes, you would start to potentially see some atrophy or some changes in that part of the brain. So it literally builds the brain because the brain controls the body. You know, strength training is amazing because it's so dynamic and moving in so many different directions and I can rotate and I can go forward and back and whatever and have to balance. So it requires arguably more brain development in that sense. I think we forget that. We think it's like automatic, but like as you're, you know, a child and you're having to go through all these developmental stages, like you're literally teaching your brain, you know, these patterns and then you get better at them and then you get stronger and at these muscle contractions and it all kind of follows in that alignment. It's the same thing with training is, you know, we have to really like introduce it and introduce it more frequently and get that pattern established so we get stronger and we send an effective movement pattern. Is it a fair comparison to say it's like reading for your vocabulary? Like doing, reading more is going to learn more words and learn more words, increase your vocabulary. Your ability to strain train is like your body's ability to communicate that that communication itself is going to strengthen the brain. Well, I always thought of it like a language. And Justin is a great example of motor skills with children. When they're assessing motor skills on children, they're not assessing your kids muscles necessarily. They're looking at brain development. So that's on the very surface level. And that's big, by the way, it's not just, you know, imagine that's not a big thing. But then there's more, right? There's your body's ability to utilize energy sources like glucose more effectively. Look, you know, Alzheimer's, a lot of researchers now, especially, I remember when this was controversial, but now a lot of researchers refer to Alzheimer's and dementia as type three diabetes because there's such a strong connection between your, between having issues with using glucose for energy, like insulin sensitivity or resistance or diabetes and brain dysfunction. The brain on a, on a, you know, weight per weight basis is actually uses a tremendous amount of energy. In fact, you're seeing the studies on chess players. Yeah. How many calories are burned? Calorie burns. It's crazy. It's the brain. So when your body can utilize energy more effectively, it works better and that includes your brain. So there's also a lot of interesting research in that area. In fact, there's a study that I quote all the time from Sydney, Australia that shows that strength training stopped the progression of Alzheimer's or seen to it's nothing's been able to show that that hasn't been like a medical intervention. Well, I mean, we think when you wiggle your fingers, okay, the muscles wiggle the fingers right here, but it's the brain that communicates to those muscles that allow that to do that in itself is training the brain. So if you're, if you're trying to strengthen the brain, you lifting weights is yes, effectively moving muscles, but it's the brain that communicates the ability to move those muscles. Therefore, of course, it's going to, by the way, people think that we take it for granted. The reason why it's taken so long for scientists to be able to get robots that move like humans is there's a lot of physics involved with balancing and walking and you ever seen the physics involved with like throwing a ball or catching a ball, like your brain has the process, the amount of math that you do in order to throw a fastball is incredible. It's crazy. So movement in general is one of the best ways to reduce, you know, to prevent the reduction of brain function, building muscle in particular seems to be one of the best ways to do it. Look, if you love the show, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out all of our free guides. We have a lot of free fitness guides that can help you with your health and fitness goals. You can also find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump Justin. I'm at Mind Pump DeStefano and Adam is at Mind Pump Adam.