 What's up? Welcome back. Mind pump time. Here's the giveaway for today. Maps Aesthetic. This is a bodybuilder style workout program. And one of you will get free access to it, but you gotta do this. Leave a comment below. In the first 24 hours that we dropped this episode, it helps us with the YouTube algorithm, okay? That's the truth. That's what we want. We want to rank higher because we're the best, but you know this already. Anyway, leave a comment, subscribe to this channel, turn on notifications. If we like your comment, we'll notify you and get free access to Maps Aesthetic. One more thing before we get started with the show, we're running a promotion right now. Maps Strong, this is a strongman-inspired workout program, and Maps PowerLift, this is a powerlifting workout program, are both combined in a power bundle. Now normally if you get both, they retail at 300 bucks, but with this bundle, Maps Strong and Maps PowerLift, together, $79.99. Again, it's $79.99, full access to both of those incredible programs. If you're interested, head over to mapsmarch.com. Here comes the show. If you do cardio in your resistance training workouts and your goal is to build muscle, strength, and speed up your metabolism, do cardio at the end of the workout, not at the beginning. Why is that? This happens to be a quite a common question, right? People are like, okay, I do, I lift weights and I do cardio, same workout, right? Should I do cardio before or should I do cardio after? Well, studies show that what you do at the beginning of the workout is the adaptation that you're gonna get more of than the second half or what you do at the end of the workout. In other words, if you do cardio in the beginning, you're gonna get more of the endurance, cardiovascular effects. If you do the strength training at the beginning, then you'll get more of the strength and muscle building effects. So if your goal is strength, muscle, metabolism boosting, save the cardio for the end. If your goal is stamina, endurance, you're gonna be an endurance athlete or whatever, then do cardio in the game. This question does come up a lot. I think there's a misconception around that too. Like some people think that doing cardio in the beginning is good because it gets the blood flowing, it warms up the muscles, gets it kind of prepared for the weight training set. But yeah, you're really prioritizing which one the body should concentrate on more. That's not where I think it's confusing. And I don't think that's why it's talked a lot about. I think it's talked a lot more about for the burn fat community. Yeah. That's where this gets a little confusing because if we are measuring by just the single workout, doing cardio first, then lifting weights would potentially promote more fat burn in that workout. Yeah, based on what though? Just measuring that single workout based on that you getting them into a place of burning off all their glycogen stores to then be utilizing fat as the primary source of fuel because you did cardio first. So now what you have, let's just say 20. This is not based on any studies, right? This is just what they're saying. No, there's plenty of studies to support that. There's plenty of studies that support that if you were to do 20 minutes of cardio before you go into weight training, your body's then gonna use fat as a source of fuel to propel you through your lifting routine. Oh, this is a great myth to hammer because when people look at fat oxidation versus glycolysis or burning glycogen, they mistaken that for fat loss. Yes, is where, that's what I'm saying. This is where there's a lot of confusion here because there's been plenty of studies to try and support that that's what's happening in this situation. And so you get people that want to burn more body fat. They're looking at it per that one hour. We're not talking about the whole entire day which is just kind of like the, it's just like the fasted cardio myth. It's very similar to that that when all things are created equal in the entire day before or after is not making a big difference. But in that one hour window, it looks like we are burning, we're using more fat as fuel during that workout versus using glycogen. Yeah, this goes right along with the false, I guess the myths around exercise in general where especially the mainstream, I guess, average person has been taught to value exercise primarily for its calorie burn because that's the way they look at things. Like, oh, calorie burns, what's most important? But it's not, it's the adaptation that's most important because that will get your body to change one way or another. It's not the calorie burn. The calorie burn is not nearly as important as what adaptation you're after, which is why I started and said, if you want strength and muscle and faster metabolism, right? Now, if you're using fat for fuel, which by the way, if you're in ketosis, you're using fat for fuel, but you can also be in ketosis and be in a calorie surplus which means you'll burn no body fat. You'll still be overweight, right? So that's not what's important. What's important at the end of the day is are you burning body fat more than you're storing? So that's what causes you to get leaner. And then what about the adaptations? Building muscle and strength moves your metabolism in more of a faster direction. It speeds up the metabolism. You're more likely to keep muscle or build muscle. You're more likely to burn body fat in the long term. If you're trying for endurance and stamina, then we all know that your body tends to want to pair muscle down to make you more efficient. So whether or not you're burning fat for fuel or carbohydrates for fuel, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it's about calorie deficit. We need to look at adaptation. That's the idea. Not only that, but I would even make the case too that the client, because to me it's only confusing for the clients that care about losing body fat. This isn't very confusing for somebody who wants to build muscle. Somebody who's looking for general health. It's also not very confusing for somebody who is trying to run for a marathon. They want to get good at that. That's kind of obvious where you're going to spend most of your time. Where it gets confusing because of a lot of stuff that's supported out there for them burning more body fat in that one hour period. It's the same community that's hung up on the fasted cardio. So if it's a burn fat person, that's who's getting, that thinks that, okay, maybe be better. But here's where I would challenge it even further is that, okay, if we did that, if we did cardio before we went into weight training, even if we did, let's just hypothetically say that we did burn a little bit more body fat that way, still wouldn't matter. Because then the effort that you put there would counter the benefits of building muscle that are going to be hindered now because you're gassed. Because I'm gassed out from doing cardio, now I'm not going to get the best weight training routine which in turn builds the most amount of muscle for myself. So the little bit of benefit you get up front, maybe for utilizing fat, you lose out on the muscle building side, which in turn is going to speed up your metabolism and help you build burn fat automatically. Yeah, I would make, again, and I would make the argument if you're just doing the cardio for the calorie burn, I mean, okay, you're okay then without glycogen. You can walk on the treadmill or just cruise along and make that happen. Where you need the intensity and the effort is in your strength training. And you want glycogen for that, right? We've all tried to lift weights in low calories or ketosis and low calories. It's hard, you don't get a good pump, you're tired, you're not going to send as loud of a muscle building signal. So yeah, 100% and that goes back to the adaptation, right? If I'm training for cardio stamina and performance, I'm also going to want to train in a way where I can maximize that, and not just kind of gruel it out, you know? And that's why the only client I see value in doing cardio first is someone with specific endurance goals. Everybody else, burn fat, muscle, overall health, I'm going to tell them to lift weights first and then do cardio afterwards. The only person that I'm going to tell, okay, we should do cardio before your weight training is if they have a very specific endurance goal, training for a marathon or getting ready for maybe, That's their primary goal. Yeah, that's their primary goal is to get good at running. Then yeah, let's put all of our efforts into it. Those are the people that I would train. I would train triathletes and people who did, like I had a couple clients that did Ironman, and that's what we do. The strength training was in the off season, we were trying to build a little strength, and then in season, I was just like, we're just trying to keep you from getting hurt. And if their schedule didn't permit them to separate the days, which often didn't, right? If you're training for an Ironman, you're doing some kind of endurance type of activity, almost on a daily basis. So then they'd come see me once a week, and they're like, should I do my run or my cycle after or before? I'm like, do it before, after, then you come see, and I would always want to try and separate it. So if you really want to split hairs, I would say go do your run, or go do your cycle or your swim, then eat, wait a couple hours and come see me so that we could have some energy to do a little bit of strength training. Well, if you want them familiar with that state of being depleted and still having to perform at a high intensity level too. So it just makes sense that that would be sort of the protocol for that. Yeah, but this is a great example of looking at the mechanistic actions that are happening in the body and then extrapolating overall fat loss, overall muscle gain, right? Oh, we see more fat utilization. And then we conclude this means more fat loss. It doesn't work that way. If you're not in a calorie deficit, it doesn't matter. You're going to gain body fat. You could be using fat for fuel, but that does not mean that you're gonna end up with less body fat on your body. Yeah, and you could also later on that afternoon go have 3,000 calories of French fries and completely change the results completely. Totally, yeah. But very, now as far as what you said, Justin, about the warming up aspect, I mean, obviously priming. Far superior. Now it's doing a little bit of movement before you work out better than nothing, probably. Not lots of it, but maybe a little bit. But if you had the choice, you know, instead of doing 10, 15 minutes on the treadmill, go do priming. The priming benefits the resistance training. It doesn't counter. It strengthens the muscles you want to connect to. It corrects imbalances. It gets you to move better. It gets you to feel more stable. That's where you should warm up. Not getting on, that's like the treadmill or the cycle. And I used to do this with clients because it's what we were taught. Okay, warm up for 10 minutes. It was such a cheap, you know, generic way to warm up. And it had a little bit of value, but not a ton. Yeah, I think there is a misconception about, I think you're right. The biggest confusion is the fat loss side of it. That's a great point. I think it's, I've just personally have seen it from athletes I've worked with and also just like that sort of thought process going into it is like, well, I want to get my cardio done first and then I'll get the weight trim. I'm always trying to talk them out of that in terms of like your priority right now is strength building. Like we need to build your body so we can focus on that. Now, one thing I could see where you might want to do cardio first is the person who knows if they do it first, they'll do it. If they don't do it first. That's a good point. They won't do it. What a great argument. You always have to take into account behaviors. 100%. And if you love weight training and you never miss weight training routines but you hate getting on the treadmill for 20 or 30 minutes with that, what a great example of, this is where the studies don't even fucking matter. No, it doesn't. Because now it's about, I need you to do this, you won't do it unless it is. What a great, that's a great point. It's like eating a plate of food and you're like, okay, this is the stuff I should eat and this is what I really want to eat. And you're like, I'll eat the stuff I should eat first because I know I'll eat the other stuff. That's right. So in that case, I'd be like, then that's fine. Do your cardio. But everybody, I mean, to me, mainly the people that I always had to go back and forth with was somebody who was, I want to build muscle and I want to burn body fat. It's the burning body fat. And then what is out there as far as like that one hour window, just like the fasted cardio research that's out there that makes people think that, wait a second, my body's utilizing fat right now and instead of taking in account of the entire day and it's negligible when we're talking. By the way, if you want to burn body fat and build muscle, first off, doing it at the same time is unless you're a beginner, very, very impossible, almost impossible to do, very challenging. But if that's still your goal and you want to try and do the impossible, focus on the building part. Allow your body to burn those calories. Don't try to do them manually yourself because then you start to send competing signals and it gets really, really challenging. But if you build muscle, you know, this is what I would see with clients, right? And if I did a good job, I would convince them of this. For the first few months, they wouldn't lose much body fat, but then the metabolism really starts to kick in and then they'd come to me, oh, and then they'd come to me and be like, this is so weird and I would love this conversation because I would tell them that they're gonna have this with me. I'll tell them three months ahead of time, I'd say, in three months, you're gonna come to me and wonder why you're burning body fat because you're gonna feel like you're eating a lot. And they'd be like, yeah, right. And I'd say, okay, watch. And I'd write it down, literally, in their file so I could show them again and then they'd tell me and I'd say, oh, wait, hold on, and I'd grab their file and show them. So remember when I told you this, your metabolism is speeding up and of course they'd get real excited because that's exactly what was happening. That's why my goal was always to get a client, get their metabolism up to a place where it was hard for them to consume the amount of calories that I needed. That's like the goal, right? Because everybody would always ask like, well, then what calorie target should I go for or how long should I do this for? And I'd say, you know, my goal personally is to keep increasing you calorie-wise till you finally look back at me and go, Adam. This is too much. It's too much, it's hard for me to keep up with that. Perfect, now we're in a great place to go the other direction. And then it's almost like all I have to do is be like, oh, just don't worry about it. Don't try and get the 3,000 calories I was trying to get you to have and just see where we land. Oh, look, you naturally land around 25. Totally. And guess what ends up happening? The body starts to dry. Absolutely. Hey, you guys, so this weekend I got a funny story to share with you guys or a cool story. Does your wife ever done one thing and you knew unequivocally, like she did that one thing or like, she really loves me. Yeah. Yeah, I got one for you, right? Okay, so what is it? So we're at the park, we took the baby to the park and we're hanging out and we go down by the creek and I'm teaching him to throw rocks. So he's throwing rocks and in the water and it's funny, by the way, if you're watching a one and a half year old try to throw a rock, it's like, it releases all off. He's like, let me go straight down or whatever. But we're having fun, right? We're playing or whatever. Then we get up and we start to walk out. And so a little backstory, you guys know, I think I've told you guys my wife's, I'd say borderline phobia of spiders. I told you guys about it. So it's like, it's almost like borderline phobia. She almost made us move. Yeah, like she didn't wanna live in the house because she found some spiders. Almost, yeah, we signed a two year lease and everything. She wanted to move because she saw like three spiders. So this is how bad it is, right? So we're walking and she, all of a sudden her face, she looks at me with this face and then she goes on attack mode and like hits my neck and like does this thing and then pulls my jacket off or whatever. And I'm like, what? And she's like, you had a big ass spider on you. I'm like, babe. And she got it, huh? I'm like, you didn't even flinch. And then she was like, I didn't. Like, you saved my life. Like, normally you see a spider. This is love. Bro, we could be watching a movie. If a spider shows up on the screen, she'll freak out. Like that's how scared she is. She saw one on me, dude, and she saved my life. Wow. Yeah. I don't know how big it was. She's bypassed your own personal fear. I told her right there. I was like, I was like, yeah, you really, you really love me. He saved my life. Was that this weekend or? That was this weekend too. Oh, it's funny that we were out throwing rocks with Max too. Really? Yeah, yeah, I was doing, I thought I'd put a video, I think I posted a video on my story of us. We were out at Lake Tahoe throwing the rocks. You know what, it's too many of the kids, the new funny thing that he does that I think is so funny, because words are coming now, right? All these single words. Occasionally he'll put string two together, and then you can't get him to repeat. You know, and he's very aware when it's time to change his diaper now and stuff, and so his new thing is this, like, so like, let's say him and I are playing or doing something like that, and like, he's got a poo poo diaper or something. He's like, oh, let me change your diaper, and she'll go grab him, and she'll take him to go do it, and he doesn't want to stop playing or whatever, and so he's like fighting her and he says things like, help me, help me, help me, daddy. No, it's you. Yeah, dude. It's like, oh, honey, just let him be for a little bit. No, he's not gonna sit and poop for a while. It's like, oh, it's so cute. So you take his side? Oh, no wonder he said that. It's hard not to, he doesn't say much, and then he says some shit like that. Help me, help me. Hey, I was having fun the other day because he came in, and he didn't want to leave the studio, we had to record. So first, I'll tell the audience, right? First, Adam is like, come on, buddy, we gotta walk out. And he's like, no. And then he goes and jumps on Justin's lap. No, this kid's smart. So now Justin's playing with him. So you guys leave him for a second, right? Then Justin has to go, so then he comes and sits on my lap. And then I had fun because Katrina comes in to get him. He's like, no, no. And it's on playing along with it. I'm like, hey, listen, I'm sorry, your mom wants it. I want you to stay with me. You can stay with me if you want. You want to stay with me? And Katrina's looking at me like, motherfucker, you can stay with me. I do it all the time. He gets so mad at me. It's just so fun to play. He's definitely at this phase right now where he's starting to understand what he wants to do, what he doesn't want to do, or what changing the diaper means. Getting the haircut means, he's definitely at that phase right now where he realizes everything that's going on around him. He knows what he likes to do, what he doesn't like to do. And he's starting to put up this little, nah, I don't want to do that. I love it. I realize it'll become a little tiring now. He gets angry and he walks around the house and he finds shit and throws it. So anything. He gets mad at me, because what do you do? He did something like, he did something and I looked at him and I said, no. And he gives me this little angry look and he turns around and Jessica goes, watch, watch what he does. I'm like, what's he gonna do? And he walks over to one of the cupboards, opens it, grabs something, throws it on the floor. I'm like, oh my God. And then he walks over to the thing, knocks something off the table. Then he walks over and he's just walking around the house throwing shit everywhere. You're like, he owns it. I'm like, this kid is a tyrant. Like Godzilla. Yeah, and then I grabbed them and I held them and I was like, I'm gonna put you in time out. And then he hugged me. Like just an abusive relationship. This kid is hilarious. Dude, it was funny. So I went to Vegas over the weekend for my kid's gymnastics tournament. And it was funny because there was the same experience me and Courtney both had when we went to the bathroom. And this is like, yeah, I know, wait. But there was like somebody on their speakerphone. So like, I was like they just, okay. So this guy was like, he might have even been on FaceTime. And he's just there near like the sink just talking to his girl. Like having like a heartfelt moment with his girl. Like they're working stuff out. Like, I don't know if I can trust you, honey. In the bathroom? Yeah. I'm not sure if you love me. Like I need you to love me. And I'm sitting there like in the urinal, just like, you know. You should have jumped in. Like what? I would have jumped in. I would be like, give him a chance. Give him another chance. You think here's a safe space to like let everybody in on your private moments. Some people are like, that's weird. I'm like, what is this? Like, and then same thing. Courtney was like, there was a stall next to her. If they were talking to each other. The lady, maybe it was like, yeah, maybe it was. I didn't think about that. Yeah, yeah. And like there's, you know, she's like, yeah. There was like, there's some people lighten it up in there. And like she's just like on speakerphone, just having all these conversations like where everybody could hear it. Dude, what is wrong with people? Like what, what are they doing? I always wonder like, what's going through someone? Cause there's people, I almost feel like some people do that, like to be heard. Like you hear the way they're talking all super loud in here. Do you like people who take a picture of themselves crying and post it on social media? It's probably same people. Same people. Can I just say that right now? If you're crying and you pause and take a picture of yourself and then post it. I don't know. How are we going to embarrass them yourself? So I don't know what, I don't know what's worse. Look how sad I am. I don't know what's worse. Everyone. The people that do that or the hundreds of people that, that comment and be like, oh my God, like that play right into it. Who's worse? The person who stops and photographs himself to show this, this vulnerable moment supposedly or hundreds of people that get wheeled right into it. You know, like, there's nothing wrong with crying and there's nothing wrong with someone catches you on camera crying. That would suck, but that's the deal, right? But if you're crying and it's genuine and you have, and you pause and you take out your own phone to take a picture of yourself. You get on the, yeah. Like, oh, this is good. Hey, listen, we, we said this a long time ago. Okay. Hence why we, we, we trademarked to stay authentic thing that, that this space would have this, this, you know, social media and putting yourself out there was going to have to move in the direction of being authentic. And it most certainly is moving in that direction, but part of what comes with it moving in that direction is a lot of people that manufacture it. Yeah. Is people trying. Tears are real. Yeah. Trying to be authentic or trying to be real or trying to be vulnerable by doing things like that. I remember when I brought up the girls that there was a kick there for, I don't know, maybe six months. Oh, I had a peer, look at my period. Yeah. They'd have an accident and then be like, photographing it and then showing it on line. It's like, I want a guy to do it. It'd be like, oh man, I sharded. Oh dear. The airport totally sucks. Here's a picture. I don't get, I don't understand. I don't understand that. Shit, down my leg. I don't think a single, I don't think a single woman has ever, that has had their period has never not experienced an embarrassment for that. And I don't think a single guy who's been with a girl, you know, ever. That happens. Right. It's just part of life. Why would you take a picture? I feel like talking about like, is a funny story or like making like light of it is great, but like taking a picture, you know, that just seems so bizarre that you would think that that's your first thought is, oh, I need to capture this. Speaking of regrettable things that are out in the media, Justin, you made a comment about gymnastics in the previous episode. Thank you for bringing this up. You're what? You feel a little bit guilty. Remember when we talked about gymnastics? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's like, I just want them to do another explore one that I, you search for the word. I believe I used an adjective manly. Yeah. I was like, oh, regrettably. I have been thinking. I've been milling that over over the weekend, especially because like I was at the tournament and I'm like watching these incredible feeds of, you know, amazing, manly kids, just incredible. You know, like, well, that's true. But I'm serious. It's crazy. I don't know why you said that. Because here's the thing, dude, you know, my brain is and I'm insecure, obviously, you know, with the way I grew up. I'm like, anything pink or anything this. I'm like, you know, that's, that's my shit. You wear sandpaper from to wear. Yeah, I just, I'm like, I just don't like anything that's like, anyways, like, so, so that's, that's where I'm coming from. And then my kids chose gymnastics. I was like, all about it because I know, like, logically, like they're, they're going to get stronger. They're going to have better body awareness. Like all this stuff. It's the best, translate the best physical sport a kid could start with sports. I want to see him play. Right. There you go. And that's where I'm coming from. But they're really getting into gymnastics, which is exciting and like. Dude, your kid's talented for them. Yeah, one of them win the first place. And yeah, Ethan won first place in the tumbling event. And it ever had a really rough, rough weekend. But before that, he had showed first place in a couple of the events. So it's a big tournament is a big tournament. And the thing was it was cool about it is I actually was able to see everything because what was frustrating in the other events was like, you go to a gym that was like more of a like kind of a warehouse where it's like it's hard to see what's going on. You don't know who's up and who's not. This was very organized. Like you had a huge room where you could see the entire room and like it was kind of fenced off. So you kind of go sit down and you watch one event. You go around, you watch the other event. All of their scores get get posted immediately. So it was like it was just cool to watch like everything how they had it all organized. And so this was much better setup. But yeah, so I did feel guilty about that. I'm like, so now I'm like, I need to pour myself more into this world and understand it more. And so I've been like trying to like figure out how they score things, all the little nuances. And I'm like getting back, got inspired to get back into ring training. And so I set that up at my house under my deck. So I'm going to start doing that again. You know what, you're... That's a good, by the way, that's a good dad right there. Cause you have the things that... I'm going to come to your defense, Justin. You have the things that... For your Archie Bunker moment? No. Yeah. You know what it is? Totally was. I think you actually are starting to go through this, Adam. What's that? You have the things that you enjoy, that you did as a kid or that you do now, that you connect with. You want your kid to do those things cause you already like them. You already like those things. And then your kid maybe chooses something different. So there's a moment there where you're like, damn it, why don't you like what, you know whatever. And then you know what? If you really love your kid, you're like, then you get into what they get into. Like my son, my son did robotics. He competed at a high level robotics. I don't know anything. I didn't know anything about robotics at all. I did judo and weight training, but I did the same thing. I went to a robotics tournament, had no idea what the hell was going on. But I dived my, you know, I kind of dived into it and learned about it. And you know, that's what you do. No, I'm kind of, yeah. I'm trying to like get into it. I got a sweatshirt, you know? I'm like, oh man, I'm like, gymnastic dad. I saw a dad out there at this point. I connect gymnastic dad. This one dad. He had one that was like gymnastic dad and he had a barcode scan here for money. I was like, that's brilliant. I need that shirt. Cause it is, it's always like, oh, you got to pay for this. Didn't mean to cut you off on over here. Oh yeah, no. Justin's Archie Bunker story was reminding me of something I saw bear, you know, contain yourself here too. I thought was really, really interesting stats. So 2012, 3.5% of the population identified with the LGBTQ community in 2012. Now that's jumped up to 7.5% today. Gen Z is estimated at 20.3%. Wow. Wow. That's a lot. It's a big jump. Yeah. So, and someone, you know, identifies as in, they're a part of it? Right. Okay. Yeah. And I mean, so they, they're speculating that it's the real numbers probably closer to 10. I mean, and it kind of highlights, and I don't know if we talked on there, we've talked to Offair about this, about that the pendulum had swung from one direction and now it's kind of over-correcting the other and we'll probably land somewhere more even, like say around 10% because 20-something percent is a pretty high number as far as how many kids that probably identify with that, but they're also probably going through this young phase, which I was telling you the other day when we were talking about this with I know what your kid went through, what was it like six months ago or whatever at school, Justin. Like when he went through that, I was like, that's so crazy to me that that's happening at schools right now. But I mean, it also is very normal that kids kind of do that, right? We rebel against one direction, then go the opposite direction. And so... Well, I think it highlights something that's true, that sexuality is not black and white. It's been, it's a spectrum. We've identified it as a spectrum for a long time. And I think that when you're a kid and you're getting, you're coming of age, right? You're going to be more open to experiences, you're learning different things. And because it's more acceptable and maybe even considered cool by some of your friends or not, it doesn't matter, but it's definitely more acceptable, you're more likely to either experiment or experiment verbally and with your thoughts. But it's obvious it's a fucking spectrum, okay? There's a lot of real manly straight dudes that go to prison and act very, very gay when they go to prison. Women obviously much more acceptable for a long time for them to do certain things. Part of it's because other men encourage it, right? They'll watch the girls make out in the club or whatever. But it's definitely a spectrum. So that's all we're seeing right now. I think part of it though has become trendy and cool. Sure. Which I think that highlights that. 3% to 7% to jump to 20% is a huge number. And I think it's, again, it's from the overcorrection from where we were just say 20 years ago to now where it's become like a cool thing. To say that you do. Yeah, it's way more complicated than we make it look. And sex is not, boy, you know what percentage of sex is to procreate that humans use? Such a small percentage. The majority of everything we do sexually is to connect to whatever, like there's lots of other reasons why we have sex and only a small percentage of it is to procreate. So it's very complex. So it makes perfect sense to me that you would see that, especially in a younger generation. Now do you, I know Justin shows, do your kids share any of that? Do you hear it from them coming from school? Well, I'm actually really proud of my kids because when we were growing up in the 90s, if you came out and said, hey, look, if somebody's gay or whatever, like I don't care, it's not a big deal. Or if you came out and said, yeah, you gotta remember gay marriage was not even supported by a majority of Americans up until like after 2008. It hasn't been that long. When we were kids, majority definitely did not support. It wasn't even a topic, right? So if you came out, when we were kids and said that, it was like a big deal and you might even get bullied or whatever, now it's much different. And I like to see that in my kids because I see my kids are very much like, hey man, people are gonna, if they're cool, they're cool and it's not a big deal. And I have friends that are gay, I have friends that are straight. So it's not the same like when we were kids at all. I think that's not a bad thing, obviously. No, I don't think it's like that at all. That's why I was curious to see here if your kids talk about it more or not, like I might don't have kids that are in age where that's like, I feel like you don't start talking about stuff like that until like junior high going into high school, no? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if I brought that story up on the show, just with how that kind of went down. And it really, it was just once Ethan got into like junior high where it started to kind of, like that became more prevalent in terms of, people identifying with that like strongly. And so like he would walk past a group of kids that were very outspoken with their pride and whatnot and we're actually punking kids. For not. Straight kids. For not being gay. Yeah, which is weird. Very strange. But it's again, to again, the pendulum swinging. And so yeah, and so he's just been struggling through that as like, what do I say? Cause it's always been, we've always thought of that as like, we're trying to like make sure like, you know, they're considered and protected. And like this is all like that, you know, my generation, like looking out for kids that have like differences and whatnot. And then it's like, just to see the bullying happen from that side is really frustrating. Oh yeah, super. I'll tell you what's setting them back. Also the LGBT community right now, I'll make a very controversial, I don't think it's controversial statement. What's hurting them right now, more than anything are these athletes, these trans athletes that are competing with cisgender women. That is pure gaslighting. And anybody with a brain can see, there was a college athlete that just blew away records. The swimmer? Swim, blew away records. Like, I mean, you guys know how close, how closely competitive. Well, he was ranked as a man. Right, so as a biological man, then transition, competed with women and blowing them away, crushing records. Which now, the whole reason why they were separated in the first place was because otherwise women would have no opportunities for scholarships, for recognition. They would get blown away in most sports. This is not a controversial thing. This is very factual. The physical advantages do not get erased completely. Some do, but not all of them with hormone therapy and transition stuff. So this to me is hurting them because lots of very open, accepting, loving people are looking at this and going, wait a minute, this is a little too far. Like, you know, this woman is obviously has a massive advantage over these other competitors and is not just breaking, beating them, they're smashing records by margins that you don't see. I think they just weren't right. I don't think they were ready for this to happen like this. And I personally think it's gonna get corrected. I think that they're gonna do a separate category. So, but I don't think it's gonna, I don't think it's getting too much attention. And I don't see too many people that are supportive of it, especially anybody that understands that. Like, of course, the first initial reaction is leave them alone, it's, you know, whatever. But it's like, if you don't understand, if you don't understand the science of what's going on here. Well, even beyond the competing side of it, like there's parents that have, you know, made sure to voice their concerns about even just the locker room because, you know, like she obviously still has her, her bits, you know, has her, her penis and whatnot. And it's like, you know, dressing, you know, in front of all the girls in there and like in, in flaunting it around. And so it's like, you don't wanna talk about these things as it's an uncomfortable truth. But, you know, this has been happening too with like science camp that I read recently with, you know, counselors that identify as non-binary that are in, you know, young girls cabins. And so where do you draw the line? Like, honestly, you have to consider these things you can't, you can't just be ultra accepting knowing that there's gonna be wrongs that are gonna happen as a result. No, the problem is, is that there's no like clean easy answer when no one's feelings get hurt. That's the challenge. Yeah. So it's like, you know, the answer is to be objective and say, okay, I understand that you're, you transitioned and you are now, you know, by law considered female and that's totally fine and you identify as a female. And I think if you're a good person respecting someone and you know someone, I think you should consider them that way. I don't think you should, you know, call them anything else. That being said, there are clear scientific, biological, physical advantages that do not get erased. So we can objectively say there is a biological advantage coming from the fact that you were born a biological male. You can say that and then you can say we have these categories and unfortunately this is not fair to people who were born female. So we're gonna have to create another category. Yes, does that mean that they're being pointed out or you know, are they gonna, yeah, it does and it sucks, but that doesn't mean you can change the kind of the facts. And in the meantime, you're getting like, there's there's female athletes who've trained their entire lives who, right? So let's say, you know, first, second and third, let's say they normally would have been third, now they're out because first place was this other person or let's say you're second and you broke the record by like a millisecond, but it doesn't count because the person who went ahead of you broke the record by five seconds or something ridiculous like that. And I think it's harming, it's definitely harming the movement. I think people need to be objective, that's all. I definitely think people should be treated with respect, but this right here is a little, it's just- Well, do you think it's gonna get corrected? I think it's gonna get corrected. I think it's just, I think like I said, I don't think we saw this coming as fast as it, like it seems like almost every day there's an article about somebody who's breaking a woman's record now. And I think once you start seeing more and more biological females losing scholarships or losing out on a medal by a quarter of a second or whatever like that, I think the more and more those stories come forward, the more they're gonna realize that, okay, these aren't just one or two anomalies, like it's getting increasingly higher and more happening more often than not, it's time we figure this out. The problem is, is that these major governing bodies have already made their decision. So you have governing bodies for college sports. Yeah, but it wouldn't be the first time they go back on something. You have the Olympics. These are the gold standard, right? So now what the governing bodies are gonna have to do, which is gonna be really hard, is you're gonna have to come out and admit we messed up, we were wrong. That is a much harder thing to do than first coming out and saying, ah, let's do more studies at the very least if they don't wanna be super honest and clear or come out and say, I'm sorry there are advantages that don't get erased from, you know, from transition therapy and hormone therapy. But now they've already made the decision, getting them to go back, backwards, and it's been politicized now. Ian just seems both sides just dig their heels in and there's no like real reasonable answer provided so far in terms of how we're gonna move forward and it's gonna be objective. Well, speaking of hormones, are you guys excited for me to make some ribs that have no hormones in it for you guys? No, I want some. Like that transition, Doug, to get us out of there? That's very good. I got you, Doug, get me out of this, get me out of this. I got you, Doug, about that non-hormone meat I'm gonna be making you guys. So hold on, what are you doing? I am excited about ribs. Are you gonna do a rub? Yeah, yeah, I know, I'll smoke some ribs for us, so I'm excited, so I'm excited for all of us to go. Which ones are the beef or pork? Pork, yeah. These are the heritage pork from... Now you're the one that pours like a bit of beer on it, right? Yeah, well actually I used beer one time because I didn't have something, I think I didn't have applesauce. Yeah. Or apple juice, excuse me. And Doug was like, oh, you could use beer. And I was like, really? And I was like, all right. Was it better? It was really good. So since then I've actually used beer, so I actually like the beer. I feel like ribs, you either do a really great job or they're terrible. Not you, but people. In general, that's true. In general, like if I have ribs, it's either really good or this is terrible. Have you seen that video of there's this place, I think it was on Barstool, but they did it with chicken where it's like, if it doesn't fall off the bone, then you get it for free. It just shakes it like this and the meat just falls right off. Oh, so good. That's when you got it like. So you have had the ribs from Butcher Box. You haven't had the pork chops yet. The pork from Butcher Box, taste-wise, forget health and all that stuff, that's important. Taste-wise, blows everybody away. Well, I remember when I first started smoking their pork ribs. And I can't remember, it was like, it was right when I was on a kick where I was doing it a lot. Like almost every weekend I was smoking these ribs because they were so good and messing with the recipe. And one week I didn't have their pork ribs. So I went down to like Safeway and grabbed some pork ribs and didn't realize how much. And it didn't dawn on me because I was expecting, you know, how the grass-fed beef is, where if I go and get regular beef, that it tastes, it actually tastes. Grass-fed beef is less fatty, therefore, sometimes not as like tasty or whatever. Yeah, I mean, let's be honest. It's heritage pork. Yeah, which is different. So I kind of expected that same, I thought, oh man, I was out of the butcher box. I was like, oh, this is gonna be cool. I'll experiment with Safeway's. It'll see how good it tastes or it could it'll be fatty or whatever. I thought it was actually gonna taste better. And it tastes like shit compared to theirs. So I was really surprised. Now I won't even mess with pork ribs. Dude, I'm not a pork fan. I don't like pork chops. I'll have ribs sometimes. But it was when we got the butcher box. Pork chops. And I ate them. You know what you're reminding me of? When I went to France years ago, went on vacation to Paris and I had some pork and I couldn't believe how good it tasted. And then I had some ham and then I had some bacon and I asked somebody there, so why is the pork so good here? And then they told me something about the pigs being different. I think they were serving heritage pork. And that's the butcher. It's totally different. You guys have a favorite side dish to go with ribs? What do you prefer, Doug? Do you have at least something you like to put on? I do. It's not the most healthy. Well, yeah, mashed potatoes. I love baked beans. Oh, okay. And of course, cornbread. Oh, cornbread and mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes. Yeah, mashed potatoes and even potato salad. I can't do milk though. If you make mashed potatoes, butter's fine, but no milk. I know, what are you gonna do? Yeah, yeah. I know, stupid. I'm such a man. No dairy. Yeah, there you go. You gotta do the dirty voice you're talking about. Hey, you guys might hear an old man moment. So every once in a while, if you guys, I'm sure you guys have experienced this, we're older, we're wiser. The young man ego gets quelled, but every once in a while, something triggers the male ego. We get hair in our ears now. Yeah, some triggers your male ego and you're just like, oh, there's my 18 year old. All right, where were you peacocking at? What was it? Dude, I was driving. So I was driving over here and this car pulls up next to me and it's a Mustang and it's all souped up or whatever. There's two kids in there, right? I say two kids, they're probably in their 20s. And they see me and obviously my car's performance or whatever. So they, I could see them looking at me and the guy's inching forward. And in my head, and I used to drive like an asshole when I was, I still drive like an asshole, but I used to drive like a real asshole back in the day. So I can, I have a sixth sense for when there's assholes trying to race me or whatever. So I'm like, oh, this guy's trying to fuck you. Yeah, but I'm looking straight ahead. I wanna even make eye contact cause I know if I make eye contact then I have to race him cause otherwise I'm gonna push you. You have to. I have to. So I'm not gonna do anything. So he starts inching forward, light turns green, he takes off, right? So then I kind of take off and I go a little faster than normal but I don't do anything. And then he slows down and comes next to me and then he takes off a little bit and slows down. And he looks over at you like. And he's like, slow down. And I'm like, so I had to look. I had to look and the dude gives me a thumbs up and he's like, yeah, you know, let's, whatever, let's go. Right? And I'm like, fuck man. Okay. So the next one. No wife and kid in the car? Hell no. Car seat in the back though. No, yeah, I do have a car seat in the back. If Jessica's in the car, she would have murdered me. Robotics dad sticker. So yeah, we drive. So we hit the next light. So I switch it into like performance mode or whatever. I'm like, all right, dude, we're gonna make this happen. I haven't raced somebody a long time, bro. Light turns green. Boom, we take off and I smoke them, right? And I smoke them. I go in front of him, do the hazards, the whole deal. You know, you get in front of him, hit the hazard lights. I won. He pulls up, he pulls up next to me. We give each other, we give each other the thumbs up. And I was like, man, that feels good. Yeah, sometimes it does. Wasn't it him who was giving, was he razzing me when I told that story? I think you were razzing me when I told that story. The same exact thing where that kid pulled up next to me and I was driving the- Because I was, when you told the story, I was my wiser, older self listening, you understand? So I could be a little- The cool car that he has now- That's all the difference, you know what I'm saying? It's like- Bro, I raced anybody anything back in the day. It's an asshole. Yeah, but when you finally have someone that's got as much power as what you got now, it's a little tempting. Yeah, have the reason why you get that much power so you can pull it out every now and then. Every now and then, yeah. But yeah, I know, I'm gonna let it out. You make it happen. Afterwards, you think to yourself, why did I do that? Was that even, you know? Like 10 minutes later- Bro, I had a huge rush from this. It felt hella good. I did it and I was on a high for the next hour. Two seconds. Now I remember why I did that as a kid. I told you guys the story of my dad, right? So my dad, he's worse with this kind of stuff. Him and my brother drove in separate cars once to Sacramento to visit family on the way back. Remember, he's doing this with his son. So this was even 10 levels worse. They're racing on the freeway and they're hitting 100, 120, whatever on the freeway. My brother gets pulled over by a police officer by a highway patrol because my dad was ahead. My brother gets pulled over. My dad gets off on the exit and comes back around and the cop, my dad pulls up. My dad, my cop comes out and goes, hey, I wasn't gonna let you go because I saw you racing, but now you're gonna get a ticket too. So they had to go home and my dad had to explain to my mom how my brother, who at the time was like 19, got a ticket racing him. So you can imagine how mad my mom was. At my dad the whole time. Destroyed him. I know, anyway. Hey, I got something cool to talk about with training. So you know how we typically recommend on the podcast, like going to failure is too much intensity most of the time for most people, which is true. It tends to get abused. However, it can be a tool that can be utilized to really speed up gains in a short period of time. And I've been experimenting a lot with failure training. This is for a new potential program that will maybe put together in the future. But anyway, a couple of things I learned about going to failure that I think are really important. First off, you should definitely use it sparingly. But second, going to failure with higher reps is far more effective than going to failure with lower reps. So like instead of picking a weight that makes you fail and of course always do it safely, but instead of failing at six, seven or eight reps, which I would consider low reps in this context, pick a weight that makes you fail around 12, 13, 14, or 15. Is that just because it's a bit less damaging? It's actually less risky. So the risk is lower because the weight's lighter. Yeah, I was gonna say by that, by those rules, you could do it more frequently because of that too. Well, the damage is actually muscularly wise. You send a, I feel like I get more muscle and less joint tendon and CNS. So I feel like it's more beneficial. More frequent. The pressure, the hinge is quite intensively. Yeah, and if you read the studies on failure training, they show that high rep failure, lower rep failure. It really doesn't make a difference so long as you go to failure. And one of the big challenges I have with failure besides it being abused is at some point, especially if you become more advanced, the weight that you use to go to failure starts to get the risk factors too high, right? Cause now you're lifting heavier weight, you fail, your form falls off a little bit. You know, the risk factor is a little high for injury. But if you're aiming for 12 to 15 reps, it's probably a weight you can handle really well with good form. Well, I think this is why bodybuilders get away with it and I think why they do it so often because they don't, rarely ever do you see a bodybuilder failing at one, two, or three reps. Or even six, seven, or eight. Yeah, and normally they're training 10, 12, 15 reps. And so it's probably, I mean, and then you figure a lot of them are in hand so they can get away with it, I think more than the average person. The only thing that I would caution people with that is, you know, there is plenty to research to prove that there's benefits to doing it. The problem with it is that you get caught up in doing it all the time. That's exactly what happened. That's what I'm putting together right now. That's why, yeah, if you're gonna do it, I recommend that you do it programmed. So it's like, okay, this next phase, I'm gonna incorporate failure training, then I'm out of it, you know, versus, you know, oh wow, that felt great, or oh my God, I'm getting stronger, and then you're wanting to do it all the time. Well, without saying too much, I've been experimenting with some different programming myself, very effective, Doug's messing with it. I'm having Andrew mess with it and a couple of the people and the results are really good. So, and I'm not gonna say too much because I haven't ironed it out, but yeah, you know, stay tuned because I think there's gonna be some cool stuff that come out of it. Speaking of different stuff, and our other commercial, our partner with Felix Greys, I've been seeing tons of blue blockers on the market. It seems like everybody is kind of, and it used to be that they were like one of the only ones that were clear lenses and kind of fashionable, but now there's like all kinds of fashionable ones, there's all kinds of clear ones, and they're like way cheaper than what Felix Greys is, but I remember when we first were talking to Felix Greys, and they didn't they have like a patent on there? They do, don't they? Yeah, Doug, can you pull up? Oh, there you go. So, actually, good job, it's quick. So, they have a proprietary lens in its, so this is how they explain it. They embed a naturally occurring blue light filtering ocular pigment into the lens. Proprietary meaning it doesn't, no other blue blockers have this. So, it's a perfect balance between clear and effective. So, the problem with clear typically is they're not nearly as effective as the orange or red lenses. So, you have to trade, okay, do I either block a lot of blue light, but now I look at everything as orange or red, or do I go with the clear lenses, but it's not nearly as effective? So, that's always been the trade, but with Felix Greys it's not really. So, they say that it has the added benefit of blocking UV rays as well as applying a premium AR coating to block 100% of glare, and they have two, they also block a greater percentage of a particular type of blue light that comes off of electronics. Electronics, yeah. Yeah, so a lot of other clear lenses, there's a wavelength of blue. It's like 15 times more effective. Yeah, so it's like 15 times more. Yes, so you'll typically get in a lot of these other clear lenses, it'll block 2% of this particular wavelength of blue light that'll come off of electronics, which is almost nothing, whereas Felix Greys with their proprietary lens will block 30%. So, you're getting a lot of the benefits you get from colored lenses. So, if you've ever worn colored lenses, you know how strong that you put them on and get tired, you know, an hour into, which is great before bed. Then you wear clear lenses and it's not nearly as effective usually, but with Felix Greys you get the best of both worlds. It's clear, but it's also super effective. So, that's what you're paying for. Yeah, it's another example of you paying for what you, kind of like that conversation we just had with Mike the other day with supplements, you know, it's like sometimes people are trying to, oh, I can get it for half the price over here, you have to shit too. So, that's what happens all the time. Hey, real quick, you gotta check out Live On Labs. They have the best delivery methods for nutrients you'll find anywhere, okay? So, you can be taking B vitamins, you can be taking vitamin C or glutathione, but you're not getting it where you want to because it's destroyed in your digestive system. Not the case with Live On Labs, they have a liposomal technology delivery system. This was designed for pharmaceutical companies. So, this company's incredible and there's a huge promotion we're doing right now with them. You'll actually get free liposomal glutathione when you bundle it with the B vitamin complex and vitamin C, so you'll get free liposomal glutathione. I love it, by the way, I take that every single day. It's good for recovery, it's good for pumps, but more than anything, it's great for the immune system. Low levels of glutathione have been connected to severe cases of respiratory illnesses with specific viruses. Glutathione's amazing, liposomal glutathione, you actually absorb. So, go check them out. Head over to liveonlabs.com, that's L-I-V-O-N-L-A-B-S.com forward slash M-P for that promotion. All right, here comes the rest of the show. Our first caller is Chris from Wisconsin. What's up, Chris? How can we help you? Hey guys, thanks for having me. Of course. So, I just turned 41, been lifting for a while consistently for probably 10 years. But one of the things that I've noticed really in the last six to eight months is when I run a strength base, so five by five, or right now in MAPS anesthetic in the low rep, high weight range, I make pretty good progress for a couple weeks and adding weight to the bar and then I just get stuck. And the last time I ran a five by five at first two or three weeks, great. And then I just get stuck and can't seem to get anywhere. So I'm just wondering, is this an age thing? Is it something I should be doing different? How can I change my training so I don't get plateaued or stuck like that? Yeah, there's a lot to unpack here. So I'm gonna start with... Can we ask a couple more? I wanna know how long you've been training for. Yeah, he said many years. That's where I was gonna go. How many years have you been consistently working out? Assistantly strength training, probably about five or six years, so. Okay, okay. Now, are you noticing improvements in plateaus and then do you maintain those plateaus until you cycle out, go back in and then improve again, or does it go down and up? It goes down and up. Yeah. So there's a couple of things that we need to unpack here. Now, the first thing is that you may be only measuring your progress by one metric, which might not be the only metric you need to look at. Okay, so at some point, you're not gonna keep getting stronger, right? So at some point, there's limits to the amount that you're gonna be able to lift, like you and I are close in age. I don't look at strength gains like I used to, because I'm not gonna, I mean, if I was always gonna progress in strength by now, I'd be bench pressing a thousand pounds. So strength, although it's a great metric, it's one of my favorite metrics to look at, it's not the only metric. So you can also look at control, you can look at stability, mobility, range of motion, feel, connection, the pump, of course, stamina, endurance. These are all other metrics you might wanna measure because you've been working out for so long and because of your age, you might not wanna always look at strength. Now, the other thing I'd like to comment on is that it's not unusual for someone to progress for a few weeks and then plateau, which is why we phase all of our programs, right? And when we phase our programs in like a phase one, for example, of maps and a ball, like we are looking at strength, but by the time we get to phase two and three, I don't care so much about how strong you are, but rather how's the feel, how's the pump? Are you noticing better pumps in your workouts or are you getting better connected? Yeah, how's your technique in your form? So you wanna look at all this stuff. And if you look at progress, if we were to chart somebody's progress after, if it's the first year, we see relatively linear strength gains, right? I'm assuming your first year of training, you saw relatively consistent strength gains in most of your lifts. But when you stretch that out to three years, five years, six years, 10 years. It's increasingly difficult. Yeah, and it's not linear. It looks more like a step ladder and it comes down a little bit and it goes up a little bit. And then if we start to chart other things like my squat depth, my control, my pain, learning new exercises and stamina, then we see that we tend to trend upwards, but it doesn't look like this wonderful consistent line. You have to kind of look at the big picture. Now of course, we could, there could be an issue with diet. There could be an issue with sleep. You might be doing too much for your body. Like those are all the obvious things that because I'm assuming you probably looked at a lot of that considering you've been working out as long as you have. So- I have, you know, I, my real first foray in the strength training was the five by five. And I've been listening to you guys for a long time and I've run aesthetic twice and got tremendous results just because the hardest thing for me was to hear what you guys talk about so much as do, which is what you're not, which is getting out of that low rep, you know, grind. And so yeah, I have been lifting for a while and I've tempered down the volume. I mean, three days for me is 23 hard days. So yeah. Well, that brings up another potential point there too is you've been, not only have you been training, you know, pretty consistent for so many years, but the way you were training consistently for so many years was, it sounds like primarily five by five. So we're gonna see probably the least amount of gains in progress in, as far as weight and strength in the five by five. But I mean, are you paying attention to your, when you're in the 10 to 12 rep range, like how is that getting better? Like are you able to do more weight when you move into a phase like that because you haven't been doing it as long and are you still progressing in other phases? So the phase one of MAPs Anabolic is gonna be the hardest for you to see the most results from because it's what your body is most used to. So where I would be looking for the greatest gains or change or progression would be when I'm actually doing things that I hadn't been doing that consistently, like a new exercise, a new way of training, a different modality, stuff like that, form and technique, depth, range of motion, that type of thing is what I'd be kind of focused on right now and trying to progress in those areas. Chris, is there like a specific lift that you would like to see really go up or is it just in general? I think in general, my bench has always been the one that I've had the most trouble with. I'd like to get to that three, four, five plate that I think every guy wants to get to. I've realized I'm just maybe not gonna get there, but I just always struggle with my bench. Just cannot, just adding weight to it is just, you know, it's really tough. And that's always the one that I've been the weakest on. So it sounds like strength is your favorite thing about training. Have you looked at our MAPS power lift program? Mm-hmm. I have not. I've run aesthetic twice. Oh yeah. I love the mobility program you guys got. No, I have not. Yeah, let me send you MAPS power lift because that's a, strength is an interesting metric. Now I like it for most people, but it gets a little weird as you get more advanced. Like I've seen people lose weight and muscle mass and increase the amount of weight they can lift on specific exercises because their skill and technique got better, right? You see this in power lifting, especially in the weight classes. I've also seen people gain lots of muscle size with a very small concurrent rise in muscle and strength. So you'll see like a power lifter convert to bodybuilding gain 30 pounds of muscle but they only get like 10 pounds stronger in many of their lifts and some of the lifts don't go up at all. So it's very interesting once you get to a particular level. Now if I'm talking to the average person and I'm talking to, especially if I'm talking to a newbie, like strength is wonderful, let's go after it. But once you get more advanced, it's a very interesting metric and it can change because of technique and form and how amped your CNS is and you can also build muscle without getting stronger because of other factors. It'd be interesting if technique was the part of this equation that was sort of limiting your progress as well. And I think that a lot of people kind of don't really attribute that as maybe a factor of just polishing and refining the actual mechanics of the lift and really like hyper-focusing on it. So that means practicing it a lot but really monitoring your intensity around it so it's appropriate for you to progress and adapt. So I think that powerlifting, in my opinion, is probably a great shift for you to focus into. I would also, if you were a client of mine or a friend of mine, even Chris, I would try and persuade you. I know we just went and talked about powerlift and I would love to see you do it but I'd also like to try and persuade you to change our goals too a little bit, right? Cause you've been doing the five by five thing. You've been a very strength-focused metric is what you've been paying attention to. Sounds like you have listened to some of the advice we've given so you're starting to move out of the phases. I mean, the next progression for me as a coach for you would be like, okay, now I've at least got you dabbling in other phases. Now actually, let's talk about different goals. Like how about we really work on getting your squat depth or your technique on a certain lift or how about I teach you a new, like I don't know if you've done Turkish get-ups or done more like circus press. It's like, it's focused on a new conventional list. Yeah, exactly. Do something different and set some goals so you have something to kind of pursue and watch yourself progress. And I just, I find that there's definitely a mental advantage to doing this with yourself. I mean, this is the, for me, this is the only thing that's allowed me to be lifting consistently for 20 years is that I'm constantly also changing my goals. And a lot of times it's not necessarily cause I really want to. I think it's kind of a mental game that I'm playing with myself. It's like, okay, I've been chasing this, I want to look a certain way and get shredded and be this bodybuilder guy for so long. You know what? What if I'd completely disrupt that and go, I'm going to be mobility guy and I'm not going to think about weights. I know I'm going to get a little bit weaker. I don't really care. I know I can always get that back. Now I'm just going to see how mobile can I get? How deep can I get my squats and can I get rid of some of this pain that I was dealing with in my hips? Like, and I shift my goal. And what's nice is when you shift to a new goal that you've never really focused on like that before, that you get to experience some of those progressions like you got when you were a newbie again because it's kind of a new thing. But when you're still chasing the I want to get stronger, I want to get stronger. Yeah, you're changing phases, but you're still in that mindset. Sometimes it can get a little discouraging because it just doesn't come on like that anymore like it used to. Yeah, I do think you'll like Maps Powerlift though, just from what I'm hearing about what you enjoy doing. I think you'll like that program. I think you'll see the strength gains that you're looking for. Oh, thanks guys. I really appreciate it. And congrats on your success. You guys are awesome. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thanks for calling in. Yeah, keep us posted, man. See you guys. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's, it is interesting, right? Once you get to a certain level, strength is interesting. Like we were talking to Ben Pollock who gained like what, 80 pounds of mass and his strength was kind of what it was when he was competing at 190 pounds. You know, as a powerlifter versus now as a bodybuilder, right? But he's gained so much muscle. So it is interesting. And it's when you get stuck on a metric, at some point you're screwed. Like I don't care what that metric is, you know, muscle size, endurance, stamina, build like strength. Well, I think Adam, your advice is sound, but it's again, it's a hard one to sell. So I, you know, and I think that obviously like what drew him in is more the strength side and the focus of training was really like, you know, where he finds his happy place. But I think it would be great and beneficial for him to venture outside of that and really think broader about, you know, how to benefit his body and be motivated by other factors. But I also like, yeah, power lift will be that hyper focus on it and polishing and refining the technique will, I think at least, you know, get him to a place where he's like, man, I'm stoked about my strength again. Listen, I'd be walking around depressed every day if I attached my training success specifically to strength or my aesthetics. Since I believe I've probably reached close to my peak of both of those. I think I've seen some of my strongest days ever of lifting. I also for sure have seen my best physique that I'll probably ever build. And if I still, and if I attached my success in the gym today or my progress in the gym today to those metrics that I care so much about for so many years, I would be fucking depressed all the time. I'm nowhere near my squat bench dead PRs. I'm nowhere near my look that I had on stage. And the way that I still enjoy lifting and I still keep coming back is that I constantly am reframing my goals and changing why I'm here. My purpose is different. If you, that's the, that's the downfall of getting so fixated on a single metric that you love or you like it with training is eventually you will hit the peak of that. It reminds me of when I had to concede to the fact that I'm not, my identity isn't wrapped up in being an athlete anymore. I have to think about this differently. I have to think about it about what benefits my body, what makes me feel good, what keeps me pain free. And so that has to be a mental shift that you have to be honest with yourself and just have that conversation of what else can I focus on that's gonna keep me going long term. Maybe I'll come back, revisit some of that. But right now, like I still need to think more holistically about this. The dream is to do this forever, right? Till the day you die to be able to stay mobile and continue to stay active. I don't care how awesome you are. You're not gonna be your best when you're, you know, 70, you know, physically or performance wise. So what a tough position to be in if that's what you identify with, that you're gonna be screwed, man, it's not gonna work. If you talk to people who've been doing this for a very, very long time, what they've done is they've fallen in love with the process and the result becomes a side effect and they don't identify anymore with the extreme performance and that stuff. You have to make that decision. You have to make that change and that conversion. Otherwise, like you said, you'll be totally screwed. Yeah, well, we tell people how healthy and good it is to focus on strength. But the truth is, you know, we're being very, I think very nice and easy on Chris because if this person was somebody who was identifying or comparing their look, you know, as their results and they're just not progressing anymore and they've already achieved this, we would harp on them about how you gotta get out of that mindset and honestly, it's no different with strength. At one point, you have to move out of that mindset also, although we think that's probably one of the healthiest places that most people should put their focus on. Initially, it doesn't mean that it doesn't have its potential drawbacks too. Totally. You can become wrapped up in, I mean, and we see this with our friends who were like professional power lifters. They were power lifters and they've been known as like, eventually the body says, I can't do 600 pound deadlifts anymore and you've gotta learn to focus on other things. All right, our next caller is Jacob from New York. What up Jacob? How can we help you? Hey, I just wanna start off by saying thank you for taking my call, I really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. I have a few questions, so I'll just get right into it. I'm 20 years old, about 135 pounds. I'm on the golf team in college and I'm moderately active. I lift about three times a week for about a half an hour for our team lift program. My whole life, I've had pretty bad digestive issues. It's kept me from gaining weight. Recently, I've been able to eat a little bit more. My symptoms been getting a little bit better, but when I do, I don't feel as good after when I eat more, but I am physically able to eat more. I just wanna really take advantage of this just the time to eat more calories. I just wanna build as much muscle as possible and then I wanna cut to where I look bigger because I just haven't had that opportunity. I'm wondering if you think I should take creatine, protein powder. I know you're guys that stand on creatine and protein powder, but I just want a general guide of how I should be maximizing gains right now. Number one, let's talk about your digestive issues. If we don't solve that, it's gonna be really hard. Have you gone to see any specialists? Have you been diagnosed with anything? Yeah, so I've seen a lot of gastroenterologists before. We've weighed out a lot of the, I've gotten tested for a lot of things. I actually just sent in my test for SIBO, so I should hear back from that pretty soon, but I've gotten tested for a lot of things and it's taken a long time to fix. Is this your first SIBO test? Yes. Oh, wow. Okay, so I'm sure they already ruled out, you know, what's it called? Crohn's disease or the auto, okay. So, okay, so SIBO, this is very treatable. So if it comes back and you have SIBO, that literally could be the root. Change everything. That, I mean, it did for me. I mean, I treated SIBO and it took me a while and there was a couple ways I had to treat it and my gut health is better now than it's ever been. So once you get that solved, then eating more food shouldn't be an issue and it'll make a huge difference. Have you noticed any particular foods like, or is it just, are you ever tracked to that point or do you just think every time you overeat or eat a lot? It's definitely just the volume. I eat a good variety of foods, but mostly volume and then just red meats. I definitely can't eat red meat, but yeah. Very interesting. Yeah, so I hope you get that solved because once you do that, it'll make the biggest difference. Supplement-wise, yeah, creatine. Creatine's probably one of the best supplements you can take for muscle building. And then, you know, the kind of workout that you do is gonna be real important. Now, are you trying to stay good at golf or do you not care now and you just wanna get big? No, I definitely still wanna be good at golf, but I really wanna get big and strong. So you want both? Yeah, I think I'm practicing enough where if I focus more time on lifting and getting bigger, that I could maintain my skills in golf, so. Depends how much weight you gain, Jacob, because if you gain five pounds of muscle and you're still practicing golf, you might not notice a difference. You gain 10, 15 pounds. It's gonna change your- Those recruitment patterns are gonna shift on you. Just your positioning. Okay, so imagine if you put on like two thick sweaters or three thick sweaters on your upper body. Now think of where your arms are gonna position and how that's gonna affect your swing. So that's kind of what happens. So yeah, so be careful because you'll be trading one for the other and golf is so technical. I don't need to tell you that, right? But one degree off and you suck, right? I mean, maintaining your swing throughout this entire process is vital. I mean, if that's a goal of yours is to maintain any kind of performance that you've established. But yeah, I mean, it is possible to gain and it's just the focus now you're kind of compromising both, right? So you gotta figure out where that line is for you in terms of like how much you wanna gain versus how much golf you still wanna maintain. You asked about protein powder also. My recommendation would be obviously to track and see where you're at. I'm assuming that since you are probably on the lower calorie side, you might be missing your protein intake on a regular basis, which will also. Yes, so right now I'm kind, this is my rough estimate. I'm thinking I'm out about at 110 grams protein and then like just under 200 grams of carbs and about 40 grams of fat. Okay, if you're at 110 consistently, that's not that bad at all. But if you hit 110 and that's like a good or high day and then you miss it two or three days in a row, then that's a problem, right? Cause you're not, you're only 135 pounds. So you don't really need that much more. But I would say 100, 110 is about the lowest I want you to be. So I would say, okay, let's never let you go lower on that and then let's use a protein shake if you are ever below 100. So if you're below 100, I would tell you, all right, Jacob, at the end of the day, add the protein shake. And the one I would recommend is like a vegan protein like OrganiFi is probably going to be easier on Digestin or the bone broth one that sell. Yeah, collagen peptides or bone broth protein might be one. I don't know, that's easier for most people, but you'd have to test it out cause it can be quite individual. As far as workout is concerned, because you want to build muscle and you want to continue your performance in golf, I think maps performance would probably be the best cause it's the most multi-planar. It's got the most rotation. It's the most dynamic of our programs. Do you have that one? Cause we can send it to you. No, I don't have any of them. Okay, we'll send you maps performance. That's a great muscle building program, but it's also movement focused and specific, which is going to be good because you have, you know, two goals, right? You want to be good at golf, but you also want to put on mass. How much golf are we practicing a week? One, we, well, I'm in New York right now. So it's still snowing, but in the season we're playing every day. Okay, so you might, we're going to want to modify the training when you get into season. Right now it's obviously okay cause you're not golfing every day, but once you get to a place where you're spending an hour and a two hours minimum every day golfing, I'd probably scale you down to like one time a week of the strength training. Now don't make this mistake, Jacob. Don't build a bunch of mass in the off season and then go into the season. Cause that's going to screw up your technique. So practice your swings as much as you can, even if you just do it in your room, but just to keep your body, keep, you know, stay connected to your body as you gain size because if you don't, it'll be weird. You'll go back and you'll be like, my God, I'm so off. It's going to take a little while to get back and, you know, back on track. Yeah. And this is really where a lot of the muscle bound kind of myth stuff happens. And it's just because like, a lot of times athletes will build this kind of muscle and won't maintain that skill that they put so much effort into. So that's just like the biggest concern I have. Yeah. But yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what your results look like with SIBO. Cause if that's the case, it's a, it's pretty treatable. It's a pretty, and you can even treat, you can treat it with pharmaceuticals or you can treat it with herbal antimicrobials and studies show that they're both just as effective. The herbal ones just take a little longer. So if that comes back positive, that's good news. Cause that, that might be the reason why you, you've had so many digestive issues. Okay. All right, man. Well, thanks for coming in. Does that help? Quick question, if you don't mind. For the creatine, how, like, how much do you think I should be taking and like on what schedule do you think? Five grams a day in the morning is just fine. Or right after the workout, yeah. Just once a day, five grams. Yeah. They say post workout is the best, but we're talking about splitting hairs here. It's more important for you to be consistent with it. So consistently take five grams a day, you're going to be solid. Okay. Awesome. Well, thank you so much guys. Really appreciate it. No problem. Good luck, man. Thank you. Yeah, it's another one of those. I want to be really good at golf and build a lot of muscle, but the digestive stuff stuff. I know because when my gut is off, figure that out. It's game changer. Bro, when my gut is off, forget it. It's, I just can't fuel my body enough to gain any size. No matter, it doesn't matter how great my workout is, doesn't matter what anything else. That has to get solved first. Even that too. Like it's something you got to constantly, keep in mind because like, even if you do find the answer to it, you got to be consistent with that. Yes. Were we having this discussion on the podcast? Did we answer another golf question just recently? Or was that off air? Recently we did. Were we off air? No, we were on air. Oh, we were on air. Yeah, because it's like, remember we were talking about like of all the sports, this is the one that has the least amount of like forgiveness for gaining. Strength doesn't necessarily apply to like improving. Such a technical sport. Yeah, we were saying how like, you know, you could be a football alignment and put an extra five or 10 pounds. Yeah, but 20 pounds on your fine. Yeah, yeah, and not be not be that big of a deal, but you were like a pitcher, a golfer, something that is like the slightest bit of a difference makes all the difference in the ball, how it moves. So golf is a tough one, man. I normally, if I had golfers, we really would not be trying to change their weight and physique much. I could change their body composition a little bit. We could lose a little bit of body fat, add a little bit of muscle. But I generally like to keep their weight about the same where they're at, you know, sure. I just want to keep them loose mobile and their joints like completely bulletproof. Yep. Our next caller is Garrett from California. What's up, Garrett? How can we help you? Hey, thanks for taking my call, guys. So I'll just jump right in. So I have two big athletic events that I like to train for every year. I've been a ski instructor for 20 years over the Christmas New Year timeframe. I end up teaching for most of those two weeks, so about 10 days or so. And then I kind of ski recreational the rest of the winter. So I know that the general advice is to do your sport, but that's not really possible with this in this case because typically the mountain opens up like a few days or maybe a week in advance. So if I'm lucky, I get one day in before I'm just thrown right into tee skiing every day. And I end up teaching whoever shows up. So it could be anything from like beginners to advanced mogul lessons. The other thing that I like to train for is during the summer, around the end of July, I like to train up for a long run. This year, I think I might end up trying to do a 50K, 30 mile run. Last year it was a marathon. So I'm not trying to lose weight or anything. I just, I like doing it. I like going for these long trail runs. And then I do like to do a little bit of rock climbing kind of throughout the year. I don't really like train for it to anything though. That's mostly just a way for my wife and I to, you know hang out, spend some time together and everything. So the two events, the skiing, the big ski push and then the big run, they're roughly about six months apart. And I want to try and figure out like what is the best way to phase my training for those events? I'd like to do weightlifting to support those athletic endeavors and prevent injury, improve my performance and improve durability I guess. I think that's sort of the summary there. I'm not really trying to gain muscle or gain size I should say and I'm not trying to lose weight. Oh, Garrett, we made a program for someone just like you. Mass performance. That's maps performance all day long. Yeah, you want a well rounded routine that's going to give you strength and mobility. It's going to train you different planes of motion. You want something that's going to, you know just like you listed. I mean you literally said exactly what you want and that's exactly what you'd get from a program like Mass Performance. The other program that might help would be like Maps OCR because of the climbing that you do. And so essentially you're looking at, you might do some days where you're doing traditional strength training but a lot of it's going to be multi-planar type movement. You're going to focus heavily on mobility. I like the sled a lot for someone like you. It's great lower body exercise. Very, very, there's a lot of carryover from the sled to all the other stuff that you're doing. And then as far as rock climbing is concerned, lots of pulling movements, obviously pull ups are going to be really good for you. I'm sure you already know that. But the idea is just to have this kind of well rounded workout routine and your goal should feel, you should feel good after your workouts. I want you to always feel good after your workouts and feel mobile and mobility is going to be the main focus. Maps Performance by far, and if you don't have that we'll send that to you but by far that's the best program for someone like you. Maps OCR would be the other one that I would say, it's a little more specific but that would be the other one that I would say. Grip intensive. And so I think that's a good suggestion from the OCR. But yeah, good. So I typically, I lift weights like twice a week or so. I've been kind of doing like a modified 5.3.1 sort of program. So that would be awesome to get performance. During, like as the, as I ramp up in with the running and everything, I'm assuming like I probably need to cut back on that. So how, typically how would you do that sort of thing? So Maps Performance is three workouts in the gym and then you do mobility sessions on the off days which you could do at home. When you're in season, one day a week of resistance training is plenty and I don't focus on going hard with the weights. The goal should be to maintain mobility. So when you're in season, if I'm training an athlete in season, my goal is to keep them limber, loose and to feel good. I'm not trying to get them to progress in weight or progress in performance in the gym because if I do that, I'm increasing the risk of injury. So. Well, and it's mainly about stabilization and strengthening and supporting around the joints. So I don't wanna mislead you and think that we're just trying to keep you loose. It's really just about keeping the joints functioning and strong and efficient. And so the program itself is really about maximizing your movement patterns and really like strengthening those movement patterns. So you go through the phase, the first phase is really like intensive in terms of strength training focus and then you get into more like multi-planar movement and then you get into some speed power and then we finally kind of come to the point where we're working on endurance and durability like he had mentioned. So it's all phased in there specifically so that way your body can just focus on like one of those attributes at a time. Garrett, do you, oh, go ahead and get a question. Oh, I was just gonna say like, so the running, you know, the ramp up for running, it's not a race, I just go out and run. You know, but that's gonna start basically in March. So would you consider that the season, like March through July or would you kind of, you know, maybe come back like two months or something? Like how? So for every day of running, I would cut back a day of resistance training. So if you're doing three days a week of resistance training with mass performance and then you're like, oh, I wanna start running now, you know, two days a week or three days a week, then you're doing maybe one day a week of resistance training and reducing the intensity. Okay, cool. All right. Do you follow Kelly Starrett? Do you know who that is? I, yeah, you know, I don't follow him. I checked out his book once from the library, but he didn't get very far into it. Okay, yeah, it's pretty heavy. So it's pretty, yeah, it's for, unless you're like a personal trainer, it's a little heavy, but he's got great content. He literally, I just, so it's funny we're having this conversation right now because I saved a video post he did yesterday and I just got on this page. It's four videos back. His Instagram handle is called the ready stay. And it was a little five minute mobility session for skiing. Oh, really? Yeah, and I saved it personally because he includes a few movements that I don't currently do. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm so gonna do this before I ride. And maps performance has mobility days in there. And we always encourage people to, it's general, so it'll help you. But here's a perfect example how if you were a client of mine, I would take that Kelly Starrett mobility, like pre-ski thing. And when you're in kind of ski season, like that becomes your mobility days because that's kind of your focus that we care about the most and protecting you for that. That would be mostly what I would do on those mobility days would be the movements that he's teaching on that clip. So it's like four posts to go. He says it's a five minute warmup. You can see it on his Instagram page. I literally just saved it yesterday for myself personally because it's so good. Yeah, I can definitely check out Instagram. That sounds awesome. Thanks. Awesome. Yeah, if you guys end up coming up to go skiing or anything, let me know. It'd be great to- Bro, that's great. We're gonna hit you up. Yeah, we're up there actually all next week. In fact, if you're really serious, I would love for you to email back the email, just your personal information. I don't want you to put it on air, put you out there. But if you email us your personal information and contact info, I know that Justin is already multiple times hired guys to teach his kids ski lessons. So I'm sure he'll take advantage of that. I've never gone to ski. Oh, cool. And I've never skied in my entire life, Garrett. So he needs all the help. Sal, we're gonna start shaming you, man. Come on. I've been doing this for a long, long time. If you ever want to ski, Sal, I'd be happy to help you out. Appreciate it. Awesome. Thank you. Cool, man. All right, Garrett. Thanks. See you guys. Take it easy. Talk about a really, I guess, healthy approach to activity. Oh, what a- I know. So I was kind of listing everything off. I'm like, dude, just keep doing what you're doing. You know what I'm saying? Like, great, great. I mean, he's doing rock climbing to connect better with his wife because they do that together. I think that's so cool. Yeah, the reasoning was great. Goes on a phase where he is running for a while, but then he switches to, I mean, this is like, I love when I hear stuff like this because where he's kind of at is a place I'm trying to encourage all my clients to kind of go towards. You know, like- And not specifically what he's doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, exactly. The enjoyment aspect. I find the fun in it. And you know, so many times we get heat because people think that we're so anti-running, but here's such a great relationship with running, right? He's not getting crazy competitive. He likes doing it. He goes through a little phase of it every single year. That has tremendous value for you health-wise, but he's not crazy addicted to it. He can move out of it and get into rock climbing and do, I mean, I just, such a cool place, very healthy place to be when it comes to exercise and training. And mass performance like- Such the perfect program for him. So made for him. Yeah. Our next caller is Sam from Texas. Sam, what's happening? How can we help you? Hi, hey guys. So my question was just short and sweet. I've kind of fallen off my training. So I'm curious as to what I can do to get my metabolism right. I'm not hungry for breakfast at all. Sometimes I struggle to eat dinner on the same day. So I was wanting for some tips and tricks on around protein consumption on how to get my metabolism back up. Yeah, what is your training look like? So I just came off a marathon, half a marathon training, so I'm starting ground zero. That's why. Getting back into weightlifting, hopefully three days, four days a week. Yeah, that'll get your appetite going. You send the signal to build muscle. I'm gonna say, do you have MAPS anabolic? No. All right, I'm gonna send that to you. I think that's the program you should do. Do two months of pre-phase and then move into phase one, okay? Once you send a good muscle building signal, your appetite should go up. There's no mystery why your appetite is gone after the marathon. Things have really shut down. Your body's become more efficient. You've probably lost a little muscle. So MAPS anabolic's gonna get things moving again and get the appetite up. Now from there, in terms of protein, I'm sure you've heard you wanna aim for about a gram of protein per pound of body weight. That's really tough when your appetite is low. So this is where I recommend people eat hyper palatable foods. So try to pick protein sources that you enjoy eating for now, but also listen to your body, okay? So as your body starts to build muscle, you should see an increase in your appetite. Protein shakes can help a little bit with this because they're easy to consume. They don't require as much appetite, right? So you can have a protein shake in between meals and that'll get things moving up in the right direction. How much do you weigh right now? About, I'd say 163. Okay, we're relatively lean. See, that's the thing is I did it in body. I've heard you guys talk about those before. I don't know what your thoughts are, but I was sitting around 15%, so could be better. Okay, yeah, it could be better, but not bad either. Yeah, yeah, it could be better, but you're not bad. Sal's advice is perfect then. I mean, literally get started with that. Let the training drive the appetite, not the appetite drive the training, right? So once you get started on the program, it'll kick up the appetite naturally. Don't worry about trying to force feed yourself now. And then when you do start to add calories, make sure you're targeting protein. So normally with someone like you, that's the main, where I'm starting you on a map center blog program, the conversation is all around, hey, as you get hungrier, let's try and get more protein in the diet. And so we're pushing you in that direction to get more meats primarily to get you up to your grams of protein you need. If we need to, I might have you have a shake to do that because it's easy to digest and it doesn't feel very heavy. So if I find you're landing like around 100 grams of protein and I want you up at least another 20, 30, 40 grams of protein and we're having a hard time getting there, I might have you add a shake to do that because it's a little bit easier than sitting down and having an eight ounce steak. So that might be a strategy that we use, although I'm always gonna push you in the direction of trying to do it through Whole Foods first. Sam, did you do any resistance training or strength training before the marathon? Do you have any experience with it? Yeah, and some real quick context, guys. So last summer I prepped for a bodybuilding show. That was part of the reason behind the question is I did not reverse diet at all. The show fell through, it was in July and granted it's been like six months, but that was part of the question for you guys was like, am I still feeling like the backlog from that? Bro, plus training for, I didn't take my... Yeah, the one two punch. Plus you trained for the marathon right afterwards. That was like, you had a fire going on and you just threw some gasoline on it. It's a slow process, okay? So now that you added that context, like I'm gonna focus on sleep, rest. Restorative. Yeah, restorative. Maps metabolic is perfect. Pre-phase is perfect for the first couple months. Then you can move into phase one and so on and just slowly take your time and slowly move your calories up. You may not even see the scale go up for a little while, but you may notice a change in body composition. So you may gain a little muscle, lose a little body fat and then eventually the scale will start to move up in the right direction. But take your time with that. At a curiosity, what made you go from bodybuilding to marathon? So very different things. Well, so the bodybuilding thing, I got a job last second in Austin, Texas. I was gonna do an NPC show in St. Louis. Had to make a decision. So the marathon was kind of like a... And I only did a half for starters. So before you guys gas me up, it was really... Kind of wanted to finish something. I didn't have the energy to jump into another prep, but I kind of had a chip on my shoulder because I made it through 16 weeks and then didn't... So I was like, I gotta do something. I like fitness. I'm willing to change, but my heart and soul is in lifting. And this is in my life, like for eight years of lifting. I'm not hungry. My strength is down. I'm inconsistent. Yeah, give it some time. You might even be having a little bit of low testosterone right now from all of that. So give it some time. I'd say it might take you as much as three or four months before you really start to see some big changes. So funny, when you first prescribed him to do maps pre-phase for like two months, I was actually gonna interrupt and be like, God, that's kind of overkill, bro. But now that I hear where he's coming from, it's actually perfect. Yeah. And that's good. By the way, the challenge you're going to probably have is the... It sounds like you're a competitive person. And so you're gonna wanna do more probably too soon. So just keep that in mind that as you start to get better, as the appetite does start to come back a little bit and you start feeling good, that could potentially happen in a couple of weeks and you feel it right away. And I'd still listen to Sal's advice of sticking to the pre-phase for a solid two months or so before I move you into phase one of anabolic. I just think that you do yourself a favor. And once you get to phase one, then things will really start to kick into gear. Awesome. All right, man. Thanks for calling in, Sam. Yeah, thanks a lot, guys. I'll give you some updates in a couple months, hopefully. Awesome, thanks for that. Ooh, that's rough. Pre-contest, prep. I know, I'm trying to wrap my brain around that. Marathon, half marathon. Whoa! Well, it's shock to the system. Well, especially metabolically, right? That's exactly what I want. Prep dieting is one of the most extreme, obviously one of the most extreme ways to diet, right, is to be cutting and pushing the body for the extended period of time. Bro, that hammers your metabolism. Right, that already hammers the walking distance. And then you transition right into a half marathon and then teaching the body, like you need all this cardiovascular output. So the body is just going like, oh, shit, we may not get fed ever again. We're gonna have to conserve. We gotta hold on to everything. Yeah, slow way down. So yeah, I mean, this is a classic example. You know, he's an extreme version, but we talked about this the other day on the podcast is, you know, a lot of people fall somewhere on the spectrum when they don't realize that they're working against their body. And if they would just try and work with it instead of against it, it would make things a lot easier. You know, if he's listening to this, go to nphormones.com and schedule an appointment with one of their specialists and get your hormones tested too. Cause you probably hammered your testosterone levels as well. And although you might not need to go on TRT cause they may be able to at least monitor and recommend other things that help that move up because loss of appetite goes along, you know, kind of hand in hand with that. So, hey, look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any fitness goal. You can also find us all on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam. And I'm on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal.