 Our next caller is Joanna from Canada. Hey, Joanna, how can we help you? Hi, so first of all, big fan who are several months now actually got into listening to Mind Pump after I came back from deployment in Africa because I was quarantined and had not much to do. So I happened to cross your podcast and have been listening ever since. So basically I got into bodybuilding and fitness a few years ago, competitively, before that I would do resistance training, but not really with any specific goal in mind. And bodybuilding, especially unilateral training really helped me to identify like imbalances and stuff because I do have a pretty sedentary job and so that really helped. So my question is I'm ready to kind of change my programming up and I know you guys talk a lot about switching things up, increasing or decreasing respirators, incorporating supersets, changing tempo, stuff like that. So before I start to make changes, I would like to know how long should I incorporate these changes until I should see a difference versus if I try it for a couple of weeks and I don't really notice anything, at what point should I move on and try incorporating a different kind of change, if that makes sense. Oh yeah, good question. That's a really good question. Okay, so number one, when you make a change in your programming and you want to monitor how it's working for you or if it's working, you have to know what to look for. So what do I mean by that? If I switch to a long rest period, low rep phase of training, what I'm looking for is strength. I'm looking to see if I'm moving more weight or doing more repetitions with the same amount of weight so long as I stay within the rep range, but usually it's more weight that I'm kind of looking for. Well, what if I'm doing supersets or shorter rest periods? What am I looking for? Now, strength is always welcome, but I'm not really looking for that. I'm looking for, do I have more strength stamina? Am I getting a better pump? Am I getting, is my technique even better with my exercises while I'm fatigued, right? Let's say my phase is more into mobility and practicing the technique. I don't care about any of that. What I care about is range of motion. I have control over. Do I feel it more in the target muscles? Am I doing better form and technique overall? You got to know what to look for because if you're looking for the wrong thing in the wrong phase- Yeah, you might think you're not doing a good job when you are. Totally. When I do supersets with short rest periods, I don't care about adding weight to the bar. In fact, in the past, when I did care about that with supersets, it would really screw me up. Now I'm looking for, am I getting a better pump, better feel, do I have more stamina at the end of my set? Am I breathing as hard as I did before? That kind of stuff. One thing to keep in mind if this is all confusing, which probably not for you, you've been working out for a while, but let's say somebody's listening and they're like, okay, I got to listen to my body, but what does that look like? Generally speaking, about three to five weeks is when you want to switch out of a phase. About three to five weeks, you want to move out and that'll prevent you from plateauing. That'll prevent you from hitting a wall. Usually people wait until they hit a wall before they switch. The problem with that is it's a little harder to back out when that happens. About three to five weeks, now that first week or two, here's why I typically don't tell people to switch out week one or week two. That first week or two, especially if you make big changes, is going to suck. If I go from heavy long rest periods to short rest periods or supersets, that first week is going to feel like crap. I'm going to do my squats or whatever and I'm going to be like, I'm weak, I don't feel good. It's just because my body is not used to that. You've got to give it at least two or three weeks before you can pass judgment on whether or not it's working for you. Yeah, if you're doing it right in the beginning, that should be a major shift for you in terms of your focus. That way you are going to go through that period of relearning some of these movements that you probably haven't incorporated in a while, so they are going to suck. It's going to be a grind. You have to give it ample time for your body to respond the way it needs to respond. At least three weeks a lot of times, you're not going to even really feel like you're getting good at it. Well, the only one that, just the one example you gave, Sal, where you increase your time, your rest period, that's about the only one you're going to see actually a very positive impact. Everything else, if you superset, you're going to give me right away. Yeah, well, when we talk about weight, you get it like, because that's like the easiest measure for everybody. It's like, oh, I'm getting stronger, everything else. Like if you're getting weaker, you're going to feel more tired. If you add supersets, you're going to feel more fatigued, right? If you cut your rest period, you're going to be weaker. Like that doesn't mean it's not working. Like it's, that's the adaptation that you're going after. So you kind of just have to trust the process and know that where you're really going to tell is when you go back to what you were doing before, right? So whatever you do most consistently, you move out of that, messing with tempo and rest periods and stuff like that. And then when you come back to that, that's where you should feel or notice like the biggest change. Well, it's a great point too, because I've got a lot of people reach out like phase two of performance. It's like totally different, right? It's not that, you know, strength is something that's like, you kind of like recognize that right away, but being able to move efficiently in different directions and then be strong in that is not something super obvious right away, but it's very beneficial. So, you know, there's ways of altering your programming that have massive benefit that aren't like so visibly obvious. Yeah, Joe, on it, here's a good rule of thumb. Stay in a phase until you feel like you're good at it. So that usually takes about three weeks. Usually takes about three weeks when you feel like, oh, man, I'm really good at this. And then you can start to think about switching out. Do not wait until it stops working. That's one of the biggest mistakes people make. I make that still because I get excited about a particular phase, especially if it's heavy. I just want to keep going and then I hit a wall and then it takes me like two weeks to back out and I have to de-load and do all that other crap. So you're better off moving out before you plateau. The opposite is true, though, too. There's a lot of people that will, you know, oh, I'm going to try it and they try it for two workouts and they're like, oh, I don't know. You got to go longer than that. Yeah, trust the process. At least three weeks. I like being more like four or five. So and you'll find out everybody's body is a little bit different. So stick to it for at least three or so weeks. And then and then you can go back and measure how your progress don't want to do. Do you have any of our programs? I have most of your programs. Are you in our forum? That's why you're in good shape. I am in the forum. Oh, all right. Yeah, we got nothing to give you, girl. Don't you do you want anything for free? Do we have anything for free? Yeah, pictures of Adam or something like last month. So I'm like everywhere. Excellent. Well, we we appreciate you. I do have another question, though, that was in my initial email. OK. So it's about my glutes and hamstrings, which I know is like a bikini bodybuilders. Nemesis. So I have a I have a lot of trouble gaining muscle in my bottom half as well as losing fat there because, you know, hormones or whatever. So I do have a program that has three lower body and two upper body days a week. But I do have maps in a ball like and I'm hoping to start that. Probably next week is my plan. So my question is about the trigger sessions. Should they be incorporated like and I did notice the calendar, but it's there every day that you're not doing a foundational exercise, right? Yeah. Yeah. But we have we have we have a but builder bun or do you have that? I have that. OK, you can also do trigger sessions and make them focus on the glutes and hamstrings and then start your lower body workouts with glute and hamstring work. So rather than going straight into squats, I would do a glute exercise like hip thrusts. I would do something for hamstrings and then move into the rest of the walks of the leg work out. So prioritize those those, you know, target areas always in your workouts. That'll that'll be the best thing you could do. Yeah. The other thing that when when training my bikini competitors is it's it's hard to build to if you're in a cut a lot. So you got to be you have to understand that. Like if you're trying to build your glutes and you're also leaning out at the time, the likelihood of you actually seeing your glutes build and develop is very unlikely. So you got to put you got to you got to be on a bulk. So you got to definitely increase your calorie intake while you're also training or switching your programming up to develop the glutes. So a lot of times when I get these can be bikini competitors and I look at their diet, I'm like, well, you're not feeding enough. It's just it's no different than the guy who wants to build his biceps. If he's in a calorie deficit all the time, he could do all the bicep curls in the world. He's not going to see his biceps get any bigger. So the same thing goes for that. So I would the calories and then also, you know, being able to have good glute activation in those big movements like the squats and deadlifts. So priming the glutes before any of my my leg days for sure. Those are the two main keys that I would make sure you're paying attention to. You look pretty lean. So I think a bulk would probably be a good idea for this for this particular goal. Yeah, I pulled out of competing this year. So we're doing my reverse right now. And the goal is to move into wellness next year because I think it's the more sustainable and like, yes, don't work with me. I'll crush you with my legs kind of look that I like. For trigger sessions, though, is it basically any exercise can be a trigger? Yep, kind of exercise, as long as it's on that. Yep. As long as it's low intensity and you're just getting a pump. That's the key that the thing that people end up doing is they turn it into like a workout. It's they're designed to be 12 minutes with rubber bands. And so if you are going to do, let's say, like glute bridges or something instead of like, you know, rubber band, bison curls, which everybody does. Just just keep in mind that you're just trying to get like a light pump. You're not trying to really fatigue the muscle. Right. All right. Well, thanks for call. Thanks for calling, Joanna. Sorry, we couldn't give you anything for free. And make sure you say hi in the forum. We appreciate your patronage. Thank you. Thank you. No problem. Yeah, good, good question about the whole phasing. Canada has a military. Yeah, they just go to rising, right? I just know they just go to the first person I ever heard. They just go to the enemy and apologize. No, sorry, sorry. Just kidding. You know, good question, right? Because that's the biggest that's still a challenge for me is knowing when your glutes to move. No, I have excellent knowing when to move in and out of phases, like when do you switch, when do you come out? When do you go into the, you know, and especially when there's phases that you just don't have as much fun in. So always a challenge. Well, that's why, too, it's it's a good idea to have a program. So you have something that kind of takes you through that. Yeah, on a schedule and a lot of times you can you can go through that and find out, oh, that's why I kept doing this for an extended amount of time, because like your own intuition, a lot of times can trick you. You said she looked, I couldn't see her from here. You said she looked really lean. She looked like she lifts weights and she's lean. She looked really pretty well developed on the, you know, the neck up or whatever from the shoulders. Yeah, all the bikini competitors, I train. That was always the, the glute and hamstring. That's everything right for those shows. That's what wins shows for sure for the girls. But most of them were trying to build a butt and one, they were doing all these high rep exercises and stay in fricking and that's a great point. And they're in a deficit. It's like, yeah, they're in a deficit and they're doing all these, like, you know, pumping butt exercise. It's like, oh, dude, you're never going to grow. Throw yourself on a nice bulk and go get, get some heavy squats of deadness.