 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump. Mind pump. With your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, we start out by talking to Doug about his six-week transformation strategy. The great reveal. There's a lot of talk about how, you know, is Sal gonna win, is Adam gonna win, is Justin gonna win? People forget. There's not a lot of talk, man. It's pretty loaded over here. It's pretty obvious. A lot of shit talk, I should say. But what a lot of people don't realize is Doug is, that guy's fucking disciplined as hell. He's the silent assassin? Yeah, so we talk about that in this part of this episode. Then we have a nice discussion around neat. Neat stands for non-exercise. We had a neat discussion about neat. Activity, thermogenesis. We talk about that and really good. Really, really good conversation. You're going to hear that part of this episode. We talk about activity and mood. How activity affects your mood and how that becomes a self-feeding cycle. We talk about the difference between knowledge and wisdom. There is a big difference. We talk about where fitness studies fail. What went into the creation of Maps Anabolic? This one, I came up with some of the concepts and how I sent the program to Adam. We talked about it and all this other stuff. He was sober for that one. Learned the history of how Maps Anabolic got started. And how to create long-term, sustainable progress with your workouts. I also want to mention that at the airing of this episode, there's only two days left for one of the biggest promotions we've done this year. 50% off Maps Anabolic, the foundational program. Great program for building muscle, building strength. And also for speeding up your metabolism, especially if you have a damaged metabolism and want to reverse that. Maps Anabolic, great program. Half off, so it's under $60. You can find it at mindpumpmedia.com. On that site, we also have bundles where we combine multiple Maps programs together for specific goals. For example, our super bundle is designed to get you from here to the end of the year. At least 365 days have all your workouts planned out for you. You can find all of our bundles and the Maps Anabolic. Here to next year. I like that one. And the 50% off Maps Anabolic all at mindpumpmedia.com. Doug, we've all talked a lot about how we've approached this six-week contest. How's your progress going? What are you doing? Yeah, or did you give up already? Give us up this week, Dougie. I have just started, really. Listen, I'm going to be honest with you guys. I know Doug very well. He's quietly competitive. I haven't bothered him at all or said anything or nothing because I know what this fucker's capable of. I've seen him. I've seen him. So what's going on? What are you doing? I'm following Maps Anabolic. The first two weeks are going to be, since it's a six-week period of time, the first two weeks are going to be phase one, the second two weeks, three weeks will be phase two, and then the final week will be phase three. Smart. Very smart. What about nutrition? Yeah, you know, I was doing the intuitive thing for the first few days, and then I realized I'm going to need to really get a real handle on my food intake. So I started tracking yesterday. What are you hitting? Yesterday it was about 1,800 calories. Oh, low. Was that a normal day of eating for you? Is that about what you think you eat? No, I was careful with my eating. A couple of things I do every day is I weigh myself and then I put a tape around my midsection just to see what's going on with that. And I was noticing I wasn't really moving on the scale or as far as my waist circumference was concerned, I wasn't moving on that either. So I thought, well, I better start tracking this and really making sure that the calorie intake is down. What do you think about your movement since you've been doing mind pump? Are you think you're less active or more active? Definitely less active. For sure. I don't do any cardio, and my walking is pretty much limited to walking the dog. That's the biggest challenge that I find doing this job compared to things I've done before is that, you know, as a trainer. You're moving all the day. Yeah, you're taking weights, racking weights. Yeah, I mean that adds up so much to sort of switch lifestyles to, you know, talking on the fucking podcast all day long and sitting doing YouTube or being on your phone all day. That really has changed. It's changed how I have to go, you know, after goals like this. It's completely different. Yeah, because I used to, when I trained clients all day long, I was on my feet all day long. I'd walk back and forth and it's not a lot, but it's more than what we're doing now. This is very common. This is what a lot of people get stuck at when, you know, I don't know how many clients I had like this or I don't know what happened all of a sudden I got older and I just started putting weight on them and then I started backtracking like they're, well listen dude, you were in college. You're eating like you did when you were. Yeah, when you were 25 and you were still like school and you had a job that was active and you were doing active things and then people don't realize how much like neat really, really matters. I didn't as a trainer for many years. I'd never coached to that. By the way, I do want to address something with that. So somebody tagged, did you guys get tagged on Instagram on what that dude was saying about neat? How they're trying to define it and Lane, when we had Lane here on our podcast, he said the same thing. I thought it was interesting. They're trying to define neat as all of the activity you do that doesn't include walking or move. That's just fidgeting. It's the technical term for it. It is and I want to be clear. The reason why we include steps with that is how do you track the other ways that you move? Tracking how your steps is the easiest way that we have currently. And it's the closest thing to the real actual neat. Because otherwise we need to sit there and fidget more. Exactly. Walking is, you're not burning that many more calories walking than you are fidgeting or tapping your foot or whatever. So technically, this is the thing that always cracks me up. People are so funny. Let's hold on to that shit. That's not neat. I've been training people for a long time. I know exactly what's going to be effective, how to communicate it, and how the fuck do you communicate to a client. Fidget more. Yeah, we need to increase your neat. Oh, you want me to get up and move more? No, that doesn't count as neat. What I want you to do is... Non-exercise activity thermogenesis. To me, that's unplanned movement. Exactly. Let's keep it to that. Your fucking crazy definition that you want to make sure is super specific. Otherwise what are you going to do? Blink your eyes more and talk more and move your fingers more. That's what counts. So technically it's not the definition of it, but that's how I've taught and spoke to clients for God knows how long. Dude, it's crazy though when you have people track their steps because that's the most accurate thing we have to measure activity. We don't have anything that measures fidgeting and all that stuff. At least nothing that you can use on your own or buy at the store. But I'll have people track their steps. 3,000 in a day. 3,000 steps. That's sad. Bro, average American is way lower. Bro, you know what that is, right? That's getting up out of bed, walking downstairs, eating breakfast, walking back upstairs, getting dressed, getting in the car, parking close. Yeah, walking to your office, sitting down, working all day, getting up, walking to your car, driving home. That's all it is. It's literally going from one sit station to another. Well, yeah, that's what blew my mind. I remember the first time when I first started tracking all that stuff, realizing that, holy cow, my average client's only stepping about 4,000 steps. And if I just go walk over to the treadmill and literally put it on a speed two and a half to three, which was like a slow walk. Yeah, it's a stroll. Yeah, it's a really... I could text on my phone and write while I'm doing that, right? That in a half hour's time, you'll surpass that. That's crazy. That's fucking... All day. Yeah. That's crazy. You know, that's... And it makes you feel... People don't realize... Here's an interesting thing too, is when you're in something long enough and consistent enough, you stop realizing... You stop realizing how shitty you feel or how it's affecting you, because you're always in it. You're in it so often, so much, you get used to it, so you don't have a contrast. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So when you're that inactive all day long, you don't realize how it makes you feel depressed or anxious or foggy-minded or how it increases cravings for... Irritable. Yeah, it increases cravings for foods that cause a spike in dopamine and serotonin, like sugars and processed carbohydrates, because if you're sitting there and you're feeling... What a great point right there you're making. Oh. That's so... You gotta elaborate on that, because that is so true. Anybody who's ever been on or off a diet and been consistent about things like that knows that it's so ironic that when you're actually training hard and being active and moving, it's easier to stay away from bad foods. When you could actually technically get away with these higher calorie foods are the times when you don't, and the times when most people choose to are at the worst time. There's a lot behind that. Part of it is the psychological. We have our comfort foods and things, and we don't realize that we reach to them because we feel flat and it doesn't have to be like this dramatic depression. When I say depressed, I don't mean you're clinically depressed. What I mean by that is take what your healthy baseline is and you're depressed below that. That's what I mean. You're not like the super sad person, but you are in this kind of depressed state because you haven't been moving all day long, and what you don't realize is that you will instinctually reach for foods that will elevate certain neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin to make yourself feel a little better. Part of that psychological because you have your emotional connection to them, and part of them is physiological. Because they do provide those. They do. You get a nice dopamine hit after, oh, that's satisfying, and then you get this rush of like euphoria almost for just a split second. Dude, you rely on caffeine and sugar in starches because starches fuel serotonin. Sugar does the same thing, but also with dopamine and caffeine is dopamine. So what you see the cycle is inactive all day long, lots of coffee, sugar processed carbohydrates, and people are, and then at night, something to depress them even more so they go to sleep like alcohol or whatever. And it's the cycle and then you live in this cycle for so long and then that becomes... That's your normal. Yeah. And so when you ask somebody how they feel, they think they feel great. That's why. I feel fine. I feel fine. This is why... That's because you've never felt great. Well, yeah. You haven't actively tried. I definitely can voice into this because of the noticing how little we move now like with this job, you know, transition and then like actively trying to accomplish more things around the house. Like I was power washing my house. I was, you know, trimming everything out. Like I'm like motivated to go outside, do things, be active, like accomplish tasks and it builds momentum. Every single time I do it, it builds even more charge, more momentum, more energy and that just cascades into the rest of the house. Also think about this way too. When you're in a state of... Without realizing, you don't even have to be conscious of it. But when you're in this kind of flat state because you're not moving your... And as a result, you're reaching for these foods which create more ups and downs. You feel crappy. You might not have a contrast. You don't necessarily realize it, but you still feel crappy. And so what do you do when you feel like you're in a kind of crappy mood or kind of a down situation? What do you do? You want to distract yourself from it. You want to remove yourself from it. And so then you end up going on your phone or your computer, social media. And this is when you start losing hours of the day dedicated to shit like Instagram, Facebook and mindless internet searching. And it's a cycle. It's the cycle of, you know, feeling like shit, trying to eat to make yourself feel better, not really realizing what you're doing, but you're still doing it, and then distracting yourself. Now, when you get up and move and do things, well, you're not distracted. You're actually focused. When you're power washing the house or when I'm doing something and I'm actually trying to do something in the backyard or I'm trying to go somewhere and go on a walk, you're not distracted. You're actually present. You're moving, so that makes you feel better. And because you feel better, you don't necessarily reach for the foods that you are going to give you that quick fix. So it's this, it really feeds into itself when people get stuck in this cycle and they stay in it for so long. This is why when I coach people, it's funny. Well, I'll coach people and then they'll be more active. They'll eat better. And then they'll have a weekend or something where they go off a little bit or they don't do anything all day long. And they'll tell me like, oh, man, I feel terrible. Like I used to do that all day long and it didn't bother me. I'm like, that's not true. The only reason why you're realizing it now consciously is you have a contrast. Right. Because you were feeling so much better before and now you're like, oh, this feels terrible. One of the benefits of having kids is it's hard to observe yourself, right? It's very difficult to observe things within yourself because you're in it. But when you have kids, it's easier because you can, and kids are very, kids have less filters. Like they don't necessarily understand. And they're not trying to put a facade on for you. Like they're going to be who they are and they're going to let things affect them, whatever. They don't realize like, oh, I... They're not as self-aware. Yeah, like, okay, I'm going to act moody or cranky or whatever. So I better not act that way because there's all these people around me. They just do it. And I can clearly see like, my kids during the day, during the summer, right? If they're not in the camp, then they go to grandma's house or grandpa's house. Now, my ex-wife's dad, old school Italian guy, and his wife died years ago. This was my ex-mother-in-law. And he doesn't know really what to do with kids. He doesn't know how to feed them. He ends up just taking them somewhere to eat. He doesn't really know what to do. He was just kind of raised that way. So when my kids go there, they just go on their computers and devices all day. And he does his stuff in the backyard. And that's his way of taking care of them, right? Right. What a contrast when I go pick up my kids. It's like I'm picking up two cranky zombies. When I go pick... It's literally, when I pick them up, it's two cranky zombies. And I know why. It's because they were sitting down, not moving all day long, not interacting on their devices for seven hours or eight hours. And when I do that and I take them, it takes me like an hour to get them out of that state. So I take them home. All right. We're going to go outside. Then I have to fight them to go outside because the last thing you want to do when you feel shitty is get up and move. You just want to stay in that state, right? Like I said, it feeds itself. Which is why I love to coach to need or coach to walking, whatever you want to technically call it, because it's not that much effort to do that. And it's... But it's still challenging to motivate somebody in that state. And it's even harder to motivate them. You got to go to the gym and kill it or crush it. That's a harder lifestyle and behavioral change. An easier behavioral change is monitor your activity throughout the day and try and increase the amount of steps that you do throughout the day. So now I have the autonomy to manage my daily activity level. And as I'm doing it, I'm working it into my daily life. And that is a much more effective way of manipulating or modifying my long-term behavior versus take out 30 minutes out of the day or an hour out of the day to go do scheduled cardiovascular activity. Like one of the things I love most about resistance training, I used to sell personal training this way. And it's true, it's 100% true. What I love most about resistance training is you don't need to do it all the time. Like you don't need to do a lot of it. For it to be effective for the average person, if I took the average person off the street and someone wants to get fit, stronger, be able to move better, I can do a lot with two days a week. I'm talking about people who aren't trying to get super ripped or muscular, just want to get stronger, feel better, be more fit, speed up the metabolism. I could do a lot with two days a week. Other than that, the daily, day-to-day activity is very, very important. And my options are schedule cardio every day or let's change your daily behavior and neat is by far a more effective long-term strategy. Well, I think that's why we always voice it so much because I remember when we talked about motivation and there was a little bit of push against because a lot of people really do seek motivation and they seek other people, what other people are doing and they want to feed off that energy and they want that to kind of be the catalyst and get things moving and because they're thinking too much, they're thinking they have to accomplish too much like right out of the gates where if we can get you to think of something that you barely even notice that makes a humongous impact, that's what's gonna create these momentum builders. Absolutely. Imagine waiting till you were motivated to take a shower or brush your teeth. Imagine if you just sat down and you're like, I'm not motivated. I gotta wait for the motivation. You know what I'm saying? Like you do it. Get some stank-ass breath. Yeah, you don't get motivated to brush your teeth. You just do it. It's just part of your day and so when you incorporate it into your day that way, you know, your need and your activity, it's a much more effective way to change your lifestyle. And it's just meshing into your daily life. So what ends up happening is I'll have clients who will say things like, oh, I find myself doing more chores now because I'm more aware of, because that's what it is. Rather than aimlessly getting on a machine and pedaling away or walking away, it's like, okay, you know, Sal told me to watch my steps and I'm only hitting 3,000. He wants me to 6,000. I needed to clean the garage out anyways. Exactly. Right, it's like I needed to do this stuff anyways like, oh, this gives me a good excuse to make sure I do it. And that's lifestyle. Right. Now you're finding purpose behind it, like Justin doing all this shit around the house. Not only were you active, but you also have the dual benefit of feeling like purposeful. Yeah, you accomplish something. Man, you get a lot of whatever. I don't know if it's like euphoria or like what a good word is for that, but basically like you just feel great. Like you feel like things are working, you know, and moving forward and I'm contributing and, you know, I think about my family and how to benefit them. It's like, why wasn't I doing this before? It's because I was, you know, I was trying to kind of manage that. Like it was more like I was at like maintenance and managing versus like being ahead, being active, doing things that are actively contributing. The kids see what you're doing, you know, like my wife sees what I'm doing and it's all for the positive while you're, you know, actually benefiting, contributing to your physique and your body. And simultaneously, you know, and ironically spreading activity out through, if you're just looking at calorie burn, like we're just looking at cardio and we just want to burn calories. We're not necessarily sending a signal. That's the part that pisses me off is this is where people get into this debate about this shit is that it's, oh, you know, like if you do it, if we do a heads up study, you know, on, you know, cardio versus walking all the time, like the cardio is going to win for fat burning, like from study to stuff. Well, if you look at time spent, you know, they're doing what studies because they've done this. They've taken groups and they've said, this group over here does an hour of cardio every day. This group over here does two minute, two 30 minute sessions a day. So same total time. And this group over here does three 20 minute sessions. Guess which ones burn the most body fat? Yeah, the 320. That's right. So probably no one's going to do 320. And here's the thing. But need is spread out. Right. And I don't need, and I don't need a study to tell me this. I've been training in people for so long that it's realistic to sustain. Like there's certain things that, you know, people can keep up forever. And very few people can make doing, you know, a half hour hour run every single day or cardio every single day part of their lifestyle. And who the fuck would want to anyways? Like it just, it's not real. Unless you really find the benefit in taking the time aside. And you enjoy that. Now that's totally right. And there's nothing wrong with that. And there's, and when I have that client in front of me, it's a different conversation. You know, a lot of the information that we provide on the show and the YouTube, it's a collection of our experience and what works with the average person because that's what we're used to dealing with. I get really annoyed when we get into these stupid debates with other wannabe professionals who've just started being a trainer or think they know a bunch of shit. Like the other day on my YouTube video we're talking about bicep curls and somebody's getting technical about how the shoulder is part of the... Oh, how the bicep does a little flexion of the shoulder. Right. And the idea is I'm trying to teach people good mechanics on a bicep curl and one of the most common mistakes is the rocking of the shoulder and the elbow. I mean, when you look at a bicep curl on 80% of the people that are in the gym that really don't understand mechanics... They've gone too far at that point. Yeah, they're rocking the shit out of it. Now, does that mean that like it's bad? It doesn't work? No, it doesn't mean any of those things. It just means like if I can teach some good habits of keeping them in a prison, does that... And then you had somebody who wants to argue and debate like, well, technically... You know what's funny about that? I love that you're saying this, by the way. Who is it? I think it was Paul Check that said knowledge or information plus experience equals wisdom. Yes, I know. I was going to go through this throughout. Right. So Adam, you're on the YouTube channel and you are teaching based off of wisdom. Wisdom. You know the biomechanics. Earned knowledge. You know the science. Right. But you've also trained thousands of people over two decades. Yeah. So you know you have wisdom and the wisdom says this, if I teach people to do a curl... Applied knowledge. Yeah. If I teach people to do a curl and flex at the shoulder because that is technically part of the bicep function. It's a secondary function, really. But it's kind of part of its function because the bicep tendon goes over the shoulder. Here's what's going to happen. Shitty form, bicep tendon inflammation. Right. So my wisdom tells me... Right. Don't teach people to do it this way. Right. And the shoulder ends up taking more of the movement because now you're thinking about doing that and you're actually encouraging them. Right, right, right. It's just like, dude, I don't want to get into semantics with you. And it's crazy because I still preface it with it's impossible to isolate a part of muscle and still you get nephalitis. Yeah, it's going to isometrically be contracting anyway through the process, but that's all little semantics that you want to get hung up on. Like, get out of here with that bullshit where you're not helping the people that are reading and watching this anymore by trying to debate something like that over that you idiot. You're teaching a technique that is sound. Right, that's it. And again, that's just that experience. And I think when we communicate things, that's what's the most important thing because you know what works and what determines if something works. Like you take a bunch of people, you train a bunch of clients. What determines whether something works was a few components. One of the components is efficacy. So is this thing that I'm teaching effective? It needs to be effective. Not the most effective, not necessarily, but it needs to be effective. But we also have to look at other factors that we have to add into that. For example, how likely is it that the person's going to do this? That's one of the things. Efficacy, how likely is it that they're going to do this? What are the behaviors that we've noticed in clients when we've tried to communicate this? And what has worked for people long-term? These are all... And what has it? What are common mistakes? What order you'd put it in? Yeah, so like I can look at the most efficacious application of cardio and I can say, I can say because of the studies in science, hey, if you wake up at 5 a.m. on an empty stomach and go do HIIT cardio, you're going to burn the most body fat. But I know through experience, you're going to fizz a lot quick. Most people aren't going to do that and if they do, they're going to burn out and it's not going to be something you'll do long-term. So that actually makes it less effective. So I'm going to communicate it in a way or I'm going to deliver that message in a way or I'm not going to deliver that message. I'm going to deliver a different message like this. Hey, the time of day and whether or not you ate before a cardio really doesn't matter. What's more important is what you prefer. Pick the time that you prefer and pick how you feel before cardio. Pick what you prefer and then do it that way. Where's your most consistent hour? Where does that lie? That's it. So that's where that kind of comes from and it's funny too. Even with our programs and how we write them out, this is what we put behind the programs that we write. What's the most effective? Oh, we ping pong all these variables with every single decision that we make in the process of building things from phase one through whatever phase and how many and what we're trying to determine will lead them to this very specific attribute. The most sound way where it's like we're considering safety, we're considering what to put in front of the other, which tempo to use. There's so many different variables that I would love to discuss a lot of these variables just to give people to kind of peer into a little bit of the process. And think sustainability. You could take a, you could argue and say, let's put maps in a box because that's the foundation and that's what Sal originally created. And this is what was so brilliant about it. I remember when he first shared it with me, I was like, you're right. I could take a six-day-a-week program that's a split that I've put a bunch more volume into the workouts and put them up, heads up and say, hey, in four weeks' time this one could outperform this program. But the reality of it is very few people consistently month-in, year-out train six days a week or more and can maintain that high of a volume on the body. So what we know from experience is that 90% of the people that are coming in here that are trying to learn how to train their body properly are way better off following something that's more of a three-day-a-week routine that touches all the muscles, so a full body type of workout because that's something that's realistic. Even on a busy week, even if you traveled, even if you did some things, you could still keep up that program, which we know, and we've said this a million times, is that an inferior program done consistently is far better than a superior program done inconsistently. That's right. And then, of course, the trigger sessions are thrown in there for people who are the super consistent, I'm going to do this thing every day. And then, of course, watch. It's funny, I just got, so I was on Max Lugaviers' podcast and I got some messages from people who listened to that podcast. I had a couple people contact me. One of them was this young lady and she says to me, I'm stuck at 18% body fat. I can't get leaner. I liked what you said on Max's podcast. What do you think I should do? I said, OK, well, what's your routine look like now and how many calories you're eating? She's eating 1,500 calories a day. She's doing two soul cycle classes a week plus a Pilates class. Super restricted calories. Super calorie. Plus a Pilates class. Plus she's doing circuit training throughout the week. And that's her weight training. Right. That's her weight training. Now, as we're talking about it, she's like, well, studies show that hit training and circuit training is more effective for fat loss and I'm doing all the things that are effective for fat loss. I said, yes, science will show that in a six-week or 10-week period or even 12-week period, that is going to be more effective for fat loss. However, you've been doing this for a very long time and now you're at the point because you've been hammering. Very adapted. You've hammered this for so long that now, doing all that activity, you're only consuming 15 of her calories and you can't get leaner. Where do we go from here? I said, we need to build the base and strengthen your body and build your metabolism. So I recommended MAPS anabolic and here's what's going to happen if she follows through with my advice. She's going to follow MAPS anabolic and I told her to slowly cut out and cut down all that crazy intensity stuff. I told her to cut out the circuits right now, leave in the soul cycle but cut that out eventually as well because I don't want a huge rebound. Slowly increase your calories. Here's what's going to happen. Her body weight's not going to change. Nothing's going to change except she's going to get stronger and she's going to be able to eat more calories. After about anywhere between, depending on how good and healthier her body is, between four to eight weeks, she's going to see that her calories are up by a few hundred calories, if not more every day with less intense activity. She's going to be stronger. She's going to be more sculpted and then when she's going to cut her calories, boom, her body's going to get lean and she's going to feel amazing. But people don't communicate this and the studies don't necessarily show this because studies are, they're short. You know what I mean? And I know this when I, look, when I, you know, put together maps in a ball like I looked at it and I said, okay, can I create a program that in theory, based on my experience and based on science, that people will be able to go through the full thing, which is if you do pre-phases 12 weeks, if you don't do pre-phases, it's nine weeks, but who will be able to go through, learn about their body, be able to modify it and theoretically be able to cycle through that program indefinitely and get close to reaching their genetic potential because that's always the goal. The goal is, if you look at your ultimate genetic potential of fitness, strength, muscle, your ability to lose fat, all that stuff, you may have a limit, right? A genetic limit. Most of us don't even come close to that because all the variables like our sleep, our training, is it good, is it not good, our food, all that stuff. This is where studies go wrong for us, is they control for all these variables that the average human doesn't. It's like, yeah, okay, well, when everything is all equal, this type of cardio could be better, or this type of training, or this type of eating could be better for you, but the problem is what we know is that most people fuck up all those other variables that potentially really affect what this whole study is trying to prove. So this is where I get frustrated with studies because people hang on to the detail zone and they argue and debate them. Well, technically that girl was doing all the stuff that the study said she should do, right? Here's a good example. And those are usually with athletes in these studies. Dude, here's a great example. A study will show that doing hard-core sprints for 15 minutes is going to burn more body fat than just increasing your steps and doing more neat throughout the day. Now, if I took 100 people off the street who wanted to get in shape, how many of them, what percentage of them would you prescribe hard-core sprints 15 minutes? You know what I'm saying? 10%, maybe 5%. If that, yeah. Maybe, first off, people can't sprint without hurting themselves. It's recipe for disaster immediately. That's right. And second of all, if they could sprint, they probably have so much stress in their life anyway or lack of sleep or whatever that throwing super intense stuff is going to cause them to burn out like in four weeks. You see what I'm saying? So when I put the program together, I said, okay, can I design something that people can effectively cycle through and modify as they learn their own body but always be able to continue doing that. If you go through a phase one, two, and three, could you change your trigger sessions and is this something that you can do theoretically and definitely and get your body to continue to progress? And the answer is yes. The other thing I did when I put that together is I had to decide where do I put the phases? You have your heavy training of phase one. You have your moderate reps of phase two and your higher reps and supersets of phase three. And I could have put the phases in lots of different directions. For myself, the average person that's going to get this program is going to have some experience in the gym. It's not necessarily for beginners, although I did control for that by putting pre-phase in there. But the average person is going to be like, okay, I've worked out before, I worked out a little bit. Which phase is going to be the one to cause the most change to take them out of what they're probably doing the most of? Well, that's phase one. Most people are probably stuck in the 8 to 15 rep range and doing the traditional. So I put phase one first. Phase two would follow best. And then phase three is something that would be a great way to finish up on. And I put pre-phase for people who I thought to myself, okay, but some people are not going to be prepared to train in that one to five rep range. What do I do for those people? I put pre-phase in there. Yeah, that phase one is super intimidating for your average person because you're relying on now loading a substantial amount of weight to be able to get the true benefit from it. You know, somewhat what you're doing. So that pre-phase is a great addition to it. I've also had messages from people who say oh, studies show that phasing your workouts throughout the week are more effective in studies. Like for example, instead of doing three weeks of a particular phase, three weeks of another phase, they'll say oh, do one workout heavy during the week, do another workout that's lighter during the week and do it all in the same week. And here's, again, where experience comes in. I know if I take the average person and I move them through low rep, heavy training, moderate and high rep all in the same week, that is a mind shift that's too fast. It changes the focus of the because there's a completely different mentality. It's also hard to tell what your body's really responding to. And you don't know what's working. You don't know exactly what's working. That's another thing when you go to the studies where we talk about the daily undulation and stuff. It's like, okay, well, it shows that it's as good or more beneficial. I was trained. I used to did the whole muscle confusion where I was constantly, that's how as a kid I was always trying different things, different things and overall I was in shape, but what I didn't, I wasn't learning my body. I wasn't learning like, hey, when I do this this is how it responds and when I do this this is how that responds. That's where the benefits of following a phase for three or four weeks at a time so you can really measure like, oh, wow, because here's the other variables that nobody talks about is, you know, all these within all these phases different people are going to respond better to different phases. So I always look at the way and this is again why I loved anabolic when you first introduced it to me was it's not just giving you a badass program it's teaching you it's teaching you how, and that was really the ultimate goal is that getting people to understand the things that really matter the most and if you can go through these programs you can also learn how to do it yourself. It's like the idea isn't that you have to rely on us for it just like when you used to train a client, like my goal always with a client was not that you would have to rely on me to write your workout for the rest of your life I used to annoy me if a client would be like, oh, just tell me what to do. It's like, no, no, no, no, no you're going to fucking learn this shit because you don't want to be dependent on jazzercise. Yeah, no, it's not going to be me just sitting here randomly throwing things at it because really if it's going to evolve and you're going to get better you're really going to learn your body how it responds and you'll know even better than I do what works better for you. That's and that's the difference between I think between people who are writing workouts for people and just like here follow this follow and a lot of programs are sold that way. Here's the workout. Here's the workout. Yeah. No, I want to write and we do give you a workout we do write it out for but the goal really is to get you to a point where you figure your body out you can modify and which is happening which is fucking exciting very exciting for me to see in our forum. Our forum is so, this is why the forum is so rad because in the forum most of our OGs that have been around since they know this is how I do, this is my version of Maps on a Bog or here's how I do my programming and I'm looking at the programs that these people are writing and sometimes I'll help them and be like okay maybe you need to put this here that there but many times I look at it and they go they're pretty intuitive. Yeah, I'm like well they fucking learn they're starting to figure this out and they're able to do this for themselves this is phenomenal. Now the reason why a lot of trouble teaching that is because they're afraid they're going to lose a customer. They're afraid well if I teach them how to do this then they're never going to need me ever again. My 20 years as a trainer and your guys's same experience in this industry has proven otherwise. The reason why I was as successful as I was as a trainer and I know you guys were is because we took a different approach. Our approach was I'm going to teach this person how to really be able to do this you build and establish trust and now that's the bottom line it's like they trust you when they know you have their best interest in mind. I'm not trying to get you to just run through the workout. That's right. You literally have to own the process and ask questions and you know like provide that feedback we'll give you feedback as well and it's all an open ended conversation the whole way through. Excellent. Did I tell you guys how I tested Maps on a Bollack initially when I first created it with clients. Yeah so so here's what I did right so I wrote the program and of course it was a accumulation of knowledge and you know and it's not not breakthrough in the sense that wasn't something that I you know I was a breakthrough it was really accumulation of a lot of knowledge I had through experience and also through observing old school bodybuilder routines and strongman routines and all these other things. So when I first created it I thought to myself okay I need I know it's going to work for sure but you always want to test it out and I wanted to test it out to see a are people going to do it how are they going to feel what's their feedback like everything right so I looked for a beginner I looked for someone who was an advanced age I looked for someone who I looked for just the average Joe client I looked for the bodybuilder and I found all those people so I actually had you know I had a female friend of mine very experienced figure competitor who's basically the state she's a bodybuilder she just doesn't take steroids so I had her test it I had my client Jim who'd been working out for 30 years fit but he's also 70 years old so I had him test it of course I had Doug test it who would be your more dedicated you know average person right just regular dude want to get fit also dedicated tested it on myself and then I sent it to a bunch of friends and dudes that are kind of the younger guys who've been doing body parts splits and then I got my feedback and it was it was incredible you also sent it to people like myself what I wanted from you because I knew I mean I knew you I didn't know Justin at the time but I knew you knew what you were doing you've been doing this as long as I was and I knew about your success and so I'm like I wanted you to look at it and see how how it was put together and how it was presented and I wanted your opinion as I specifically told you and one of the things that you haven't really touched on that I knew was so important and because I had I had fallen for the opposite trick as a trainer I used to do the you know come up with the most creative exercises you know like I was always writing program 90x approach right I was always writing these programs that the way I would impress a client is I would teach them a movement that they had never seen before you know and then they would feel it from that and they would get sore from that and then that and so I was feeding into that when in reality I wasn't teaching what was probably benefiting the majority of people's bodies that's not to say what I was doing wasn't helping people or wasn't changing their bodies too and so that's where I got stuck in there for a long time because I was successful and this was a it wasn't until later in my career as a trainer did I really start looking at the programming and looking at what was really the best bang for the buck and really I noticed it because like Sal said I know he's the same way I was training my clients really well but I was training myself that way you know doing all kinds of weird stuff all the time but then I was like if I stayed to the staple full body type of routines to the client two or three times they're bodies are responding and changing and you know it was those movements that I had been neglecting like the squatting like the dead lifting like the overhead pressing because you know what they're fucking hard they're hard they're hard they're hard to teach they're hard to do they're hard they're hard to get up for and it's much easier to sit on a machine or it's much easier to go do some fun creative exercise that you're doing but in reality those the ones that are really the biggest bang for the buck will for the most part really change somebody's physique because they're probably not doing those and when I looked at them like you know it's great is the beauty within the program is its simplicity in in the choices of exercises which is remember when we first started there would be like a little bit of a pushback on that because people are still so trained I know all those exercises and they want something like they hope you know flashy enough yeah right it's like oh this is just squatting and deadlifting and overhead pressing and rowing and bench press like these have been around forever it's like there's a reason why right exactly the ones that work yeah it's funny to it you know it was a what was the program was it the God I can't remember what's ripetos program starting straight yeah you know starting strength was a program that still to this day has got lots of value and that's why that right there has staying power because he has people doing the most effective exercise I remember when I for me it was just a mind blowing moment while I was training my clients and I started to realize like wait a minute I don't care who this person is I don't care how old they are how decondition they are my goal is to get them to be able to do first to be able to do a squat a deadlift and overhead press a bench press a row whatever basic movements and then when they're able to do them I can use other exercise and stuff to get them better to do the at those movements and get them stronger at those and so I started applying that on my clients and holy shit the results especially with my older clients everybody got great great results but my older clients fucking their progress exploded and I know why is because every trainer they've been to before was afraid to have them even attempt to do some of these movements yeah but now I got these 70 some year old clients who sometimes it would take me months or a year to even get them to attempt to do just the bar on a deadlift but once we got to that point and then we started deadlifting and I started adding weight and I was very smart about it of course I trained them appropriately they would come to me and they'd be like I've never I haven't felt like this for 20 years or I can reach up above my head and grab a glass out of the cupboard or I can close the trunk or I walk up the stairs now without holding on to the railing and I remember thinking like and this is like after literally this would be after weeks of doing of getting to the point where you do squats and deadlifts as soon as I can get them to do those movements and we could add weight it was like within a matter of weeks they come to me like what the hell is going on my body well we got you the point now where you could do these fucking awesome movements and that's why those are the staples in that type of a program that's why we call it the foundational program or why we tend to send people theirs yeah we try really hard not to stray away from those that I mean we basically call it the meat and potatoes of like it's the bone structure of of the entire map system and that's something that we make sure to stay true to because it's the further away you get from those very staple exercise that you mentioned you by at that point it's just like it gets away from you and it just becomes this sort of flash in the pan and fancy skilled type moves where you know what really works and what's going to drive your body forward the most you know that's that's always going to be well it needs to be the foundation I mean those are the those are the real foundational movements and then and I was trapped in this where I was reading the magazines and reading what Ronnie Coleman was doing and you know all the guys and and they talk these guys talk all about the the little stuff right and how to like sculpt the physique and working on these little muscles and doing these unique moves to target a part of a well yeah those guys have built a crazy foundation over the last 15 years plus of their life and so they can look at these little movements that address that that help shape and school the body and it absolutely does work in a smart but you can't do that without the foundation you can't do that very successfully without the foundational movements which is the the big gross motor movements that give you the biggest pain for you know the foundation is so important I mean if you're let's say you're a woman and you want to get leaner and I say this because it's easier to communicate this to men because if I tell guys build muscle and strength like cool I'll do that but sometimes when they say this to women it's the you know the the meaning is lost or whatever and so it's what it's like to communicate to them it's like look would you like to be in a position where maintaining a lean physique requires less work and where you can eat more and get away with eating more and would you like to be in a position where your hormones feel balanced most of the time or at least you're not depressing your hormones are causing crazy imbalances because you're applying too much exercise or whatever and the answers yes and then I tell them okay that's good now sometimes we're going to throw in these advanced techniques sometimes we're going to throw in these crazy workouts but for the most part that's where you want to be focus on getting stronger focus on the foundation and focus on building a healthy strong metabolism that's what's going to give you what you're looking for that's going to put and I've done this so many times with clients where they'll come to me in particular female clients where they're doing all this exercise they're eating so low calories their bodies rebelling they don't know what to do with it and I tell them give me six months we're going to try and reverse ass and fix this and then they come to me and they're like what's happened recently I had a client who I'm coaching right now who I've had to every day I'm on text with her every single day I'm like consoling her like listen I know right now you're eating more I know you're not doing all the crazy cardio I know I'm having you do all these heavy lifts and you're afraid of getting bulky trust the process trust the process you know this is what's going to happen and you know she goes and weighs herself you know two months later and she texts me she's like I can't believe it and I'm like what she's like I lost two pounds I don't want to lose weight not moving as much eating more and focus on lifting heavy and I said the funny thing is we're not even trying to get you to lose weight that's not even the goal that's happening because your metabolism is faster I said now forget all that how do you feel oh I have more energy I sleep better my libido is better I don't have you know I don't feel like hormonal swings happen as often this is where you want to be now when we want to get you leaner we can use certain things to get you there but this is it to be in the spot and we're only scratching the surface we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg and that's where you want to be and that comes from when we talk about the context of modern life that comes from building your metabolism through building muscle increasing mobility through your strength and it comes through working with those things in inappropriate ways long term that's where it comes from now if you want to lose weight in three weeks you want to get in shape in two weeks and hit crazy cardio and restricting calories and all that stuff I get that but you're going to be alive for a lot longer than two weeks you're going to live with this body for a long time don't get stuck in that cycle because I promise you you're going to end up six months a year from now two years from now going why can't I lose a single pound even though I'm only eating 1300 calories I'm doing all this cardio or why do I feel so stressed out all the time why does my body feel squishy my body and the reason why is because you are why do you think that is what's the number one reason why people fall into this trap what do you think I think the information that they're getting is I think if people communicated what we're doing right now and they heard it enough and they tried it then it would start to become more popular and I think it's starting to happen but for the longest time I don't think people are informed they're expected to lose fat lose weight I try and give people a little bit more credibility that and I think going through this six week thing that we're going through right now the things that come to mind for me are just you know I even myself I struggle with the results not coming fast enough or you want to see this quick transformation and you know when you're doing things really the right way it really is very slow like if you are training correctly and you're eating correctly there's not these huge swings in weight there's not these huge physical changes in the mirror it's very very gradual and slow you're slowly burning some fat and you're slowly building a little bit of muscle which results in little to no movement on the scale and very little change in the mirror and it takes time so learning to trust the process I think is probably what I think is one of the number one things that people there's people listening right now to this show that still struggle with this you're absolutely right we're conditioned for quick efficient everything like technology it's entire mission is to make everything quick efficient and that way that everything we do is optimized to the nth level so you don't have to spend so much time to get the result of what you want and much of life is put in where with fitness it's a little bit different it's not about it's not an effort thing it's not like hey the harder I work and the more effort I put into this the more results I'm going to get well maybe effort but effort shifted in a different direction it's not always physical effort or intensity some of that effort is mental discipline and consistency versus that but we well the work is the benefit you know which is a hard concept to wrap your head around because like me going in and putting in work oh my god that's a benefit to my body well I think also the information I mean look for how long now when people the recommendations for activity or what 30 minutes of vigorous activity every single day what is the and what does that mean vigorous activity cardio right what is the the information that's been pushed forever about fat loss burn calories burn as many calories as possible sweat get sore you know go running or you know you need to do that I remember how many times have you had a client where you train him in the first session like I'm not even sweating that much are we doing anything it's like we're doing a lot like that's not that's not how you guess what you'll be ready for tomorrow you know the best way to gauge your progress is by your progress not how hard it feels or how shitty you feel or any of that stuff gauge about how you feel in a good way and also gauge it by your progress in the long term because right in the short term we can get people lose I'm gonna have someone lose five pounds in two days that's not hard right two day five pound weight loss like you want a two day program the funny shitty thing is I put out a program like that I bet we'd sell a whole bunch of them well look what happened with it I mean hit was and we knew it which is why we waited as long as we did because it's counter the message that we're trying to send to people but we also know there is a place for it is a very useful tool so of course we're gonna put it out there but you know so many I mean you can't tell me that it being one of our number one selling programs isn't because that people are drawn to that they're drawn to the oh it's two weeks and fast and hard and intense and it's like it's unfortunate even strength training like let's look at it this way right even with strength training we've seen a research a huge growth in people's interest in lifting weights in a lot of that is the female consumer because they've now entered into the lifting weights market more than ever and a lot of it's due to CrossFit but even that even that message is time yeah because it is it's the fucking go for it balls the wall switch your ass off non-stop you know type of movement it's like this it's like what we always do as humans we swung one way so hard and then you swing the other way and that the beauty is like you know and this is the positive side of CrossFit is it was it's getting people in the gym it's getting people to go back it's swinging the pendulum back to the right direction right it's like there's good exercises in there yeah yeah that's what I mean that's that's the good part about it is that it's swinging people away from this this silly bodybuilder everyone trying to be a bodybuilder when you have no business trying to be like a bodybuilder because you know we're near that yet that type of lifting or training and you should be doing these types of movements and so you know I could totally praise CrossFit but like anything else we swing one way really hard now we swing the other way and that's what you're getting with the the wads and the intensity and the and the reps to failure and and ramps and so like that like I think if we if we sell the message of speeding up your metabolism versus just trying to burn calories if we sell that well enough I think that message is going to spread and I think people will start to get it I really do because it's it's an it's a good message and it's an easy one to communicate like I can tell someone would you like a fast metabolism or would you like a slow metabolism everybody's going to be like oh I'd like a faster metabolism I'd like to be able to burn more calories just without doing anything extra okay this is the way to do it I think if we communicate it like that I think we'll have a chance versus the this burns because it used to be look people used to measure a workout by calories burned in fact that's how they sell cardio equipment you get on there how many calories I burn oh that means it was the most effective or they start equating that to like your menu and burgers and being it you know the cheesecake factory well if I burn 500 extra calories you know I can eat this yeah so I think if we if we sell the you know speeds up your metabolism message I think people will start to kind of come over a little bit and and it's it's changing I tell you what you know it's here's a funny thing too when when Doug and I first put together the marketing for maps anabolic first of all the name is not female friendly right has anabolic in the title it talks all about building muscle it's got all those heavy lifts it's me in there talking it's not some some some woman but I did know that look dude heavy I gotta push this message I gotta push the right message and not cater to the bullshit message and the irony now I think we might have we might have more women on maps anabolic the man or maybe at least half yeah which when I first came we first came out with it I was like oh this will be interesting to see surprising but it really isn't because of what they have in the market well to them when it comes to it the results let's be honest with our experience it will benefit women more than it'll benefit men from as it if we're looking at a total contrast yeah yeah that's what I mean like because women have been sold the toning high rat high reps circuit training for years for sure for yeah for years and years and years so and it's not to say that it's not incredibly beneficial for most men to just that contrast but there's a such a great contrast with women that you know our women clients that go through it it's like holy shit game changer and so that's only my body changing which is why I think it's it's this is like when you when you know you've done really well pat ourselves in the back here like business wise right when it's organically grown because it's the results like we don't have to push all kinds of advertising when we first started this business because we knew that if five women pick this program up and they started following it that minimum four or five of them we're going to be blown away from it things are changing too because you know you guys remember when we first started how we had to make the case for full body workouts remember that yeah we had to have that debate yeah nobody's having that debate anymore I think and it really is it really isn't I think people are realizing like training the body more frequently it's not really the full body is a great way to break it up when you do it this way but it doesn't necessarily have to be that way really it's about training muscles more frequently than once a week rather than doing the one day a week and hammer yourself way to the following week to hit that same muscle group it's about more frequency that's not a debate really anymore once we started just kind of noticed that like it was like gaining less opposition like we come up with split it's like I love that you know just because there's that whole dogmatic sort of stick with one thing that you've tried to put out there and really aggressively kind of change people's minds with but we're not married to that content well no even when we were pushing full body we were pushing it because a majority of people would benefit of it but no one was ever saying that it's superior for all people than it in a split it was never part of the right because if you're somebody I mean I I follow would like when we when we look at the programming that's put into split that most closely resembles the way I train for a show but when I train for a show I had also put in all the maps anabolic type of work before him I built up to that and I've made that consistency before I step into a program that's asking me to be in the gym six days it's also important to communicate this like some someone might hear that and say well I'm just going to skip that part and go right to the part that you're doing now because you're advanced what doesn't work yeah it doesn't work that way you can't know if you skip and jump to something your body will actually not progress not only not progress as fast in many cases it goes back to what we always say we're always trying to do as little as possible to elicit the most amount of change and if that's why would I want to jump right away to what we would consider an advanced program of ours when I know I could reap a ton of benefits from the foundational program here's what here's what's most exciting because now the the program's now been available the original right maps and blocks been available now for two and a half years at least and what's most exciting for me is I think people are finally starting to discover the importance of the consistency with the trigger sessions because I knew that that would be the one thing that people would kind of you know sometimes I do and sometimes I don't and now that people have done it gone through it enough times the people I'm starting to get messages where people like oh shit when I do them every day three times a day on the off days that makes a big difference definitely see how people used it as an afterthought like it was something that was a sort of in-betweener didn't put a lot emphasis on it you know didn't try it three times a day because that might have felt like well I don't know if I can do that or you know I can do maybe once but you know really just like going through it to the T it makes such an impact huge huge difference in fat loss and in muscle gain the fat loss because you do three trigger sessions a day you're doing an additional 20 to 30 minutes of activity because it's divided up right 5 to 10 minutes each time so you end up burning body fat the anabolic signal that it sends that one of the things that it does do is it helps your body want to take calories and put them to muscle and take some and bring in some fat and so and what that does is that's also reducing the potential metabolic adaptation or the slowing down of the metabolism that just lots of cardio may end up doing so it's got all these awesome dual benefits really what adaptation is is the body preparing for something that it's going to get hit with again because you keep telling it that this is going to be a regular thing so what's what better than to prepare the body for more muscle than to continually to be sending the signal that it's going to have to do work and that's where the acronym comes from that's where the you know map stands for muscular adaptation programming system adaptation is when you're working out your goal ultimately unless your goal is just to enjoy the time you're spending working out and you which is nothing wrong with that nothing wrong with that either but at the end of the day you know what people work out for start working out for is they want their body to change they want to get stronger more fit whatever and that's all adaptation that's all it is it's just an adaptation process and so the goal is how do I get my body to adapt in the most effective way possible that's it that's all it is it's not how hard I can work out it's not how sore I can get it's not how much I can beat my body up unless those things or what get your body to adapt in a more effective way none of that fucking matters all that matters is what can I do to get my body to adapt in the most effective way possible and that's why I wanted to put adaptation in the acronym or you know that's why I want to put in the name of the program so we could start to communicate that message rather than the message of how so would you get or how hard you work out or you want beast mode all the time if your body is not changing what does that matter unless the whole purpose is to have a beast mode work out which every once in a while well it's been great this is the first time ever since we've started Mind Pump that we ran a 50% off sale on the program all month long and we've sold more units this month than we have ever sold before so I'm really excited to see a wave of people coming through that are running the foundation lots of new users man it's exciting and I'm excited that a lot of the people doing it are what I'm seeing right now are people who first started now just started listening to us and then I'm also getting a lot of women who are like okay I want to speed up my metabolism like fuck yes like you're starting to hear the message like this is perfect because the build muscle message was easy to communicate that one's a little harder this airs I know the promotion is still going on but Doug that's correct there two days left when this airs that's correct okay so you're listening to this episode you have two days to get maps and a ball for half off which under 60 bucks and you get full access to the program for life you also when you get that when you get the program a lot of people don't know this is you get an option as soon as you buy it a thing will pop up and offer you 50% off the form so for under 100 bucks you can pretty much get the our what we call our foundational program then access to form which I highly recommend to anybody who's like at all even hesitant to get started on a program because they're nervous of oh I don't know if I'll be able to do it or I'm scared about form that's where the the form is really designed to support all of the programs and design it's we've built this community over the last three and a half years there's all kinds of brilliant minds in there a lot of the guests that you guys have heard on the show as far as some of the PhDs that we've had on here they're inside there so they're in there answering and helping and answering questions we're in there all the time we have people post videos of their movement so you could post a video of you doing some of the exercises for the program within minutes you'll have a response from either one of us or another professional that will get on there and then help you and coach you through that so don't forget about that I think a lot of we don't talk about that a lot but when you buy any of our programs they automatically give you an offer to get instant support system yeah 100% excellent also we have a lot of free guides so if you when we give out lots of free information so if you don't want to buy anything or whatever you just want more good information from Mind Pump go to mindpumpfree.com and then you can also check out our social media pages on Instagram my page is Mind Pump Sal Adam is Mind Pump Adam and Justin is Mind Pump Justin Thank you for listening to Mind Pump If your goal is to build and shape your body to improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com the RGB Superbundle includes maps anabolic maps performance and maps aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise program designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers but at a fraction of the price the RGB Superbundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com if you enjoy this show please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family we thank you for your support and until next time this is Mind Pump