 You know what? Ever since B came by, swung by and swung by and hung out with us, I've been back on being consistent with listening to his stuff. Dude, he's always dropping fucking knowledge on his podcast. Ben Greenfield, the Ben Greenfield podcast, Ben Greenfield Fitness you can find on iTunes, is one of our favorite podcasts. If you like- It's like our brother channel. I don't want to say sister. Great information. And believe it or not, Ben's actually a hilarious guy too. He's got some good humor in some of his podcasts, but great information. I just listened to why you can't get away from toxins like glyphosates. This episode was pretty mind blowing for me. Glyphosates are those herbicides that they spray all over GMOs and we've talked about them. We've talked about it a little bit, but he goes into great detail. This is a great episode. I suggest you check it out. Hey, guess what time it is, guys? It's t-shirt time! It's the motherfucking t-shirt time! I was waiting for you to say that. Sorry. All right, Doug, who are we giving shirts? How many reviews do we get by the way? 14 reviews. Hey, we're doing it still. Yeah, giving out four shirts this week. People still like us. They do. Are they good reviews, Doug? All of them are five stars glowing and absolutely amazing. Because I didn't read them this week. How does it glow? Who gets better reviews? Me, Justin or Adam? Oh, we gotta tell you this up. It's tough. It's tough. It's Justin, isn't it? Yeah, Justin tends to win. I am aware. Don't get it, dude. I am aware. Can you guys leave me reviews? You're more likely to get a shirt. Not true. He doesn't control that, everybody. All right, so our four winners this week are the Jersey Gent, Ibanezzer, Shooky73, Callan Cooper. All of you are winners. Send the name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com, your shirt size, your shipping address, and we'll get that right out to you. If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, we get a little confused with some song lyrics. Yeah. Thanks to Justin, we figure them out. Well, you know, you sing these songs all the time and you're probably singing them wrong. Yeah, we did. Let's be honest. We did. Yeah. We talk about child rearing. Should you be an authoritarian or should you just let your kids do whatever the hell they want? And we talk about your fingers. We talk about the unpredictability of all of that in spite of the rearing. And we scare everybody, but actually Adam didn't want to have a kid before. Now for sure. He definitely doesn't. He doesn't want to have a kid. And then we get into the questions. So that's about 14 minutes. And then we get into some good questions. We talk about the best strength training type for athletes. We also talk about how you can get into the single digit body fat range. We also talk about cardio and its effect on strength and muscle mass. And lastly, we talk about which steroid we would pick for our own selves. We should have said what steroids. We should have talked about which steroids we pick for each other because I know what I picked for Justin. Which one? The ones that make your cakes bigger. Hey there. Also, this month buy one, get one for free. This is available with the Maps Super Bundle. So it's the logo, everybody. The Super Bundle includes all of our Maps programs. It's one years worth of exercise programming. All planned out for your week by week. It's detailed with videos and demos. It's freaking awesome. It is the answer to your question. Enroll in that. It's a big discount by the way because we put all the programs together and discount them. So you enroll in that and you actually get one for free and you can give it to anybody you want. You can give it to a friend, family, your spouse, whatever. The place to enroll in that is mindpumpmedia.com. I need to listen to that one today. That's a good one. What is he saying that? Holy MacGyver, right? Yeah, MacGyver. That was the read. They did the that's why you were singing it. So he says, holy diver. What is that? I don't know. Okay, so he is. I thought that's what he said. And every time I listen to him, I can't be saying that. What the fuck is it? Holy diver. Oh, I know. I gotta find that out. Now I gotta find that scuba dives. The MacGyver. Right, the tiger. Yes, that makes sense. Yeah. Right, the tiger. He doesn't want to ride a tiger. Yeah, but what's a holy diver? I don't know. There's a lot of songs like that where you hear the words and you're like, that's not what they're about. I think they're really high when you wrote that. You know, like a lot of times that's the case. Maybe. What's that one song by Prince? I used to think he used to say, Raspberry Sorbet. Raspberry Sorbet. Yeah. I like that. I like Raspberry Sorbet. Enough to write a song about it. Bring me your iron lung. That's what I thought. That's what I thought that one said. What was it saying? Bring me an iron lung. I thought it was a higher love. It sounded like iron lung. I was like, what's an iron lung? That sounds real thing. It sounds metal though. It sounds more tough. It does. Like, don't bring even a higher love. It would have been more badass. Yeah, bring me the iron lung. I'm about to fuck shit up. I'm going to be put in an iron lung. Put me on that iron lung. Yeah. Hey, so we had Stephanie, my cousin come through here this past weekend, right? She flew in, which by the way, she hasn't stopped talking about how excited she was to meet you now. That's awesome. She was very cool. She did tell me I was her favorite one. So I did? Yeah. Well, she said everybody in Seattle loved me. Actually, how funny is that? She's my cousin. Sal's her favorite and everybody in Seattle likes Justin. She's used to you. She's not used to us. She didn't tell me. She didn't tell me I was her favorite, but she wanted to. I could tell. I could tell. I could tell she was eyeballing. So that is the cousin of mine. I've shared stories before on this podcast, early episodes, that I have an aunt and uncle who are like super, super extreme conservatives to the point. So they have four daughters. She's one of them like super religious and all that stuff. Yeah. Like, I mean, really, really like hardcore. Like they were like, I remember coming over as a teenager in high school, like 15, 16 years old. And like, her parents wouldn't let them watch PG 13 movies. Oh, wow. Yeah. So we watched a lot. They let you over the house. A lot of Disney. Yeah, no. And I imagined, dude, I was like, the bad kid. Like I just did, I did all the bad things, right? Which was like, watch. How's it going, fuckers? Yeah. Right. No, totally, totally. So I was the potty mouth and the watch. Hey guys, I brought drugs. So after her, she spent the day here at Mind Pump and her and I spent the day together. Later that night, my uncle and aunt came to pick her up and we had dinner together. I hadn't had a chance. I haven't had dinner with them in a while like that, not since Thanksgiving. And we sit down and Katrina comes. So it's Katrina, me and my cousin Stephanie and then her parents, my uncle and aunt. Now, we're sitting there and it's so funny to listen like my uncle and he's the one, all of them, he's the most like hardcore conservative. And he's telling this story, right? And we're talking about like jury duties and stuff like that. And he's talking about, oh, I was on like my longest one. And he's going into telling the story about an 18 month long jury duty, like forever, right? And it's funny to listen to him tell the story of the case, like, because he's like, well, I can't repeat what they said, but then they said something like that. Following all the rules. Yeah, like, yeah, yeah, right. Well, not only that, but like not using the swear words that like the gangsters were using inside a court, you know? So he's like, so he can't even repeat the story. Well, he's like 10 minutes into the story and out comes, it was this guy named Tupac. And I'm like, wait a second. You sat on the case for Tupac. He's like, yeah. And I'm like, no way. Yes, dude. What? Yes. It was 18 months long, dude. He was 18 months. This was the, what do you call? What the fuck? You could write a book and make money. Well, he is the, I go, have you watched any of the, he's like, no, no, I wouldn't watch any of that stuff. Like I could barely sit in the courtroom. There was so much profanity, you know? Like, you do know who that is, right? And he's like, yeah, yeah. And so it was great. I wonder he got picked as a jury. So here's the trippy part though, listening to him tell a story. Now I wish I remember how this all went down back then now. What do you call that? What's the, what's like the pre-court before court? Like before they decide it's going to go full blown trial. The court primer? I don't know. No, what's it called? Jury selection? No, no, no, no. It's something else. I'm, don't worry, our super smart forum. Somebody will let me know. Court systems. No, that's not it. But good try, Doug. Something along those lines. But anyway, so that's what it took 18 months to even decide if this is going to go to like a full blown jury. So he sat on that, that jury, which I don't understand how that'll work. So I tended to dodge all my jury. Inception. Yeah. Levels of jury. Jury levels. But when he was telling the story, I was thinking like they had so much more information and he knew way more about the case than I ever did from any of the documentaries that I watched. So I was, it was really fascinating to listen to him tell what he had seen. But it was, The Ned Flanders version. I was so blown away that I'm like, you haven't watched any of the documentaries or haven't cared about any of that stuff. Of course to him, it's just, he doesn't care, you know, no, that stuff. He's so anti all of that. Like he's like, oh, he thinks rap is all bad and everything too. Now, does he? He's like the devil's music and stuff. Have you, does he seem like a very happy man? Oh, that's a very hard question for me to answer there. You know, I always wonder people like that. No, I think if I'm being completely honest, and think God, he doesn't listen to my poor cousin. Now, she, well, she would tell you too, though, I think that we actually talked about this at lunch. So you're making me share a little more than I thought I was going to share. But here we go. He, no, man, I think he's actually, I think he battles a lot like in internally, you know, I think he had such a, and the unfortunate part is that he ended up having a daughter who married into a very, very abusive, nasty relationship who happened to be a relationship that they tried, they basically put like an arranged marriage. Oh, they fostered. Yeah, they were so, they're like, they're so concerned of that they would encourage the daughters to marry other kids or other like courting them. Yes, they would court them and they would be other families from church. So my uncle knew their family really well, and the, and the, and the son and like, they wanted, well, he ends up being a total fucking lunatic, like crazy lunatic to the point where I was going to pay him a visit years back when stuff was going on. So long story short, you know, a lot of things I feel bad for my uncle. And now he has one of his daughters who has four kids, teenage boys that are living in his house right now. And he was planning, I'm sure he was planning to be retired by now. And now he's helping support one of his daughters and their, their kids at their home. So, yeah, no, I think he's got actually a lot, a lot of stuff inside that is bottled up and he's unhappy. And it's, it's tough to see that, you know, you feel, you feel bad, you know, it's again, too, a lot of my, my lessons in life, I feel like I've been my experience, you know, I've experienced different extremes in my, in my own personal family and relationships that I've had. And that's one of them. I've seen, yeah, I've seen many examples of that with like extreme conservative homes that, you know, and the kids just, just like crazy, crazy kids, like what they've done, like, especially like they have a term for that, right? The preacher's kid, you know, they, they tend to be a little more rebellious. And I saw that I had a couple of friends that were like that, too, that was just like, just everything was like, you know, so micromanaged on every level. Nothing replaces like a good, loving, warm family. So I've known people who are super conservative who have that, and I've known people who are not who have that, and people tend to turn out, turn out okay. I think you can have all the rules you want, but if they don't have that environment of, you know, love and support, then. Well, you gotta have communication part of that, too. So if you can still have that, as long as the communication is there, what happens a lot of times is you don't feel like you can communicate when somebody's like such an authoritative, you know, hammer that, that's going to strike you. It could definitely, yeah, I could see it. Well, I have other sides in my family that are the complete opposite, too. They were, they were very liberal and they were allowed their kids to, you know, they communicated well and they had a great loving home. They had everything they needed. They were, went to private schools, got into, you know, beautiful four-year colleges and like had all the toys and all the things they needed growing up and stuff. I mean, some might argue spoiled, not spoiled, whatever, but you know, I thought that my uncle, that uncle and aunt did an incredible job of raising those kids and communicating with them and giving them a fair amount of freedom and freedom of choice. And, you know, they both went off to college and ended up partying real hard. One of them ended up getting hooked on pills and still is to this day. And, you know, and then I watched the stress that she carried, like she carries that burden so much that she's so embarrassed to talk about it or discuss it. And so, you know, it's, it's crazy to see like, God, that's terrifying. Yeah, it is. When you have kids, man, it's so terrifying. It's got, I mean, you do everything right. You always feel, yeah, like incapable. When you, when you listen to like those that really, really know me, right? And they, like, know my childhood story, my own personal story, and then my relationships with friends and my, my immediate family, it explains a lot of maybe everyone always thinks I have like this fear of like commitment, like, oh, you're just fear, you're scared to get committed. Like, no, motherfucker, I've seen like a lot of shit. And there's the fear is that I don't want that for my life. And so a lot of me is trying to do as much as I can to personally grow. So that if that, if I do end up in that situation that I'm best equipped to handle that. And that, to me, that's all you can do, right? All you can do is to. All you can do is model, really, at the end of the day. Right. And, but a part of modeling though, because people, I mean, there's a lot of shitty models, you know, there's a lot of shitty parent models that are out there. And I think that's the lack of personal growth that they went through before they stepped into this world of birthing a fucking child. And that's where I feel like I have a lot to grow a lot to learn. And I feel like I want to be in a position where if I'm going to raise a child, I should be pretty damn well done raising my fucking self first. And I feel like a lot of people are not. Yeah. I don't think anybody's ever done though. That's the thing. It's scary, man. I mean, imagine you ever meet a parent, never have it down. You ever meet a parent whose kid is like a legit like situation, you know what I mean? Where like, their kid is like addicted to some drugs or like they're in jail or something like that. And you meet these parents and they're just, and they're, you know, if they're kind of good people, they're like destroyed. They look like they've been through war. I couldn't imagine that. That's what my aunt looks like. My aunt, I feel so bad for her that it's because she was, she's my favorite aunt. Like literally, I love her to death. Like she's fucking so rad, so fun to be around, such a good person, huge heart. Like I like, I looked the way that she raised her kids. I'm like, I don't know if I would do anything different. Yeah. I don't know what you say then. It's like, she should have maybe beat them more or something. He's supposed to do the opposite. Yeah. I was too good. I need to be more of a, I don't know, man. Dude, this weekend, this is hilarious, a little funny story that my daughter, a little funny quote from my daughter. So my girlfriend, she drinks a little bit of whiskey, probably two or three nights a week. She just loves the taste of it. She likes to drink like an old man. But anyway, so she buys apparently, apparently it's a good whiskey, Hudson, baby bourbon, I think it's called. Anyway, she buys a bottle of it and I go to my mom's house and she tells me, Hey, make sure you take the bottle of the car when you go in the house. I fucking forgot, wasn't paying attention or whatever. So in the hot ass heat, this bottle of whiskey was sitting in my car and it was on its side and the cap or whatever the wax must have melted and popped the fricking top off. Oh no. Half of it spills in my car. So my car smells like whiskey, hard core, right? So we get in there and my kids are like. But the real tragedy is you lost some whiskey. All more than half a bottle. It smells super bad. So we're in the car driving with the kids and like, please don't get pulled over because it smells like alcohol. I have an open bottle in here. I'm driving two kids. So I'm talking about this and my daughter's in the back and she goes, if the police man just pulls you over, just tell them you're the pope on the way to church. I'm like, what? Why would I say that? She's like, because they drink wine. I'm like, oh, why? Is that funny? I know. The pope just drinks a bunch of wine. He's a real wine owner. Dad, just tell me you're the pope. Excuse me, officer, I'm the pope. That might actually make the officer for sure think I'm drunk. I'll bless you. Now, when your kid says that you just burst out laughing, as you say, how do you not just like die laughing? I just cracked up. Can you imagine that? Peace be with you, officer. Do you remember the Cosby show, the kids say the darndest things? Yes. That was a great one. Oh, well, it was great. Do they still do that? Obviously, he's not doing it. Yeah, he's not going to host it. Yeah. He gets a laugh. Oh, that's horrible. Yeah, he's just not the figure that we once thought. Yeah, kids will say some shit, man. Make you crack up. Bird time? Yeah. Is it the bird? Bring that bitch. Is the word? Today's Quas being brought to you by Chimera Coffee. It's the only coffee that is infused with all natural neutral picks for a cleaner, calmer, and more focused buzz without the crash. Click the Chimera link at minepumpmedia.com and input the discount code Minepump a check out for 10% off. It's the motherfucking quaw. The eagle has landed. All right. Our first question is from MESBN. What's the best kind of strength training for athletes? Best strength training for athletes. Strength training. Yeah. The one that gets you stronger. The one that, yeah. The ball ground strength training. No, it's, so some of this depends on the sport. Yeah. And a lot of it depends on the athlete. But overall, generally, I would say you want to build lots of base strength, but you also want to have a way to convert that into strength that is usable in the particular. Specific, yeah, to your sport. Let's give some examples of that, right? So let's talk about like someone who has like a football player, right? There's certain types of strength that you want to be a football player versus someone who is a sprinter, right? Like there's different types of strengths that each one of those athletes. Well, so a football player, you're looking for anaerobic? I love that he chimes in first. Yeah, it's fine. I was like, looking over at Justin, the chimera. So let me take this one from all of my experience. I know enough about sports to know kind of physical You do know I'm just busting your balls. Yeah, I'm just busting your balls because I actually picked this question for Justin. Whatever I'm done. Go ahead. No, no, you can't stop. I'm joking. You know, I wouldn't stop anyway. So with football, you need for most positions and every position is a little different, but you need a lot of anaerobic strength and you need to be able to recover after the down is over. So it's not lots of endurance, not tons of strength endurance, but lots of power that you can repeat down after down, right? So fast, which movement so there's definitely going to be heavy barbell movements with lots of hip strength, hip power. So squats and dead lifts power clean and then incorporate power movements like power cleans and snatches and the Olympic lifts. I think I have a good a good place, but you also want to incorporate lots of rotational and lateral movement because a lot of the injuries that happen from football happen from people getting hit or hitting in these kind of lateral awkward kind of positions and you'll see people's knees will, you know, they're not getting a lot of knee and ankle injuries as a result. So rotational movements, power, strength. And then while you're building the strength, it's important you do lots of drills on the field because with football, with a lot of the positions in football, size can be an attribute. However, if you just get bigger without converting that strength into something usable on the field, then you become it becomes a detriment instead of an attribute. So one of the worst things you could do is gain all the strength and size and then go play football without having practiced in between because now you're not coordinated to your new body. Well, and I think, okay, so I think there's there's different approaches to this like based off of like if you're a young athlete or if you're sort of a mid level athlete where I'm not like quite in a professional kind of setting or I'm not in college or, you know, I'm not trying to get into the pros. Like I need to really focus on strength training and I need to I need to build my body up. So there's a whole process that, you know, has to happen why barbells are so good for that and why we do want to kind of focus on, you know, loading it specifically. So it's in a balanced situation. So, you know, you're going to get the most bang for your buck, the most maximal strength that way that you can apply. But yeah, you do want to maintain mobility and function and multi planar movement. But that should be the basis of what you're doing. But then as it progresses and evolves, the further you get into the sport, it becomes more focused needs to be on, you know, the explosive specific movements and then also, you know, the health of your joints and joint specific strengths. So it's kind of a process that young athletes need to kind of plan out. So part of why I picked this question because I know it was vague, right? So I knew that we could have an open discussion on it. And I knew that we'd all have different points. And I was going to contribute like when I think about the just general like Justin brings up a great point. I mean, everyone's going to be different, right? Every case when I get, whether it be a young adult, a young kid or an older man who's training for a sport, how I train them for that sport is obviously going to be unique based off off of them and what they're capable of currently. But some general things to take into consideration. And what I think we've talked about on the show before that we see wrong. I know Justin tends to scoff at athletes that he sees doing CrossFit for football, right? Like, why doesn't that make sense? And so the way I would give an example of that and like how your training should kind of mirror more of the what the sport you're doing is comparing like a football player and an MMA player. Okay. So a football player, what do you think a play lasts? How many seconds, Justin? How many seconds does the average play? Yeah, nine seconds, right? It's nine seconds, maybe or something like that? Yeah, maybe 10. Yeah, 10.4. So exactly. Yeah. So under under under 10 seconds, right? So and what you need in that 10 seconds, you need to be explosive and be able to express that strength in that that short amount of time. And then guess what, then you get to go back to the huddle, and you get to rest for a few seconds, and then you have to do it again. So think about that. Your training should be closer to that than like a CrossFit type of deal where you're doing nonstop. That's more endurance space, which that mirrors a little bit more in my opinion, like a MMA fighter, it makes sense to me why MMA fighters appeal to like the are drawn to the, you know, a CrossFit type of modality, circuit training, circuit type training, because they have to fight for three minutes, right inside the ring, or five minutes, right? Three to five minutes, depending on what a lot of them time it around that specific amount. So that's good that you mentioned that. Yeah, like the specifics of like these time frames, because, you know, like the most and also like the time of day, like you play games and all these types of things you kind of like take into account in your workout regimen. But yeah, like explosive movement is at the the utmost. And, you know, you do want to have stamina. And so that's why, you know, within something like mass performance, like we have these phases specifically outlining like the focus and endurance, you know, it does play a factor. You want to outlast and you want to outlast the other team, because if you're dogging it out there, you know, you're not going to be very effective. I also don't want to get carried away though, because people, the whole concept of training, like the sport in the gym, where you're mimicking the sport, I've seen so many people get carried away with it that they lose the the main benefit of resistance training. Resistance training does one thing better than anything else. And that's get you stronger. So you can build endurance with it. You can build stamina. You can do all those things. But resistance training is by far excellent and the best at making you stronger. So like when I used to train in jiu-jitsu, some of those guys would go to the gym and all they would do is circuits and stuff, because they're like, well, that's that's how I train in jiu-jitsu. And I used to tell them, look, if you're only going to the gym twice a week and lifting, just focus on getting stronger there. When you do your jiu-jitsu, just do more jiu-jitsu for that. You know what I'm saying? And if you, and I was going to say, and if you have the accessibility of this, here's something you can do that's really awesome is if you're in a sport like where you're exerting lots of endurance and stamina and you're near a gym or you're near a barbell or something like that, here's something cool I used to do for jiu-jitsu. I would grapple and do like three minute match. Then I'd get up and I'd go do a couple singles of the deadlift. Then I'd go back and do my grappling. So it was like kind of combining the two. But again, you don't want to get carried away with that like build strength. Yeah, we got into a little discussion with that. We're talking about bilateral versus unilateral type mentality. And it does make a lot of sense with unilateral training being sport specific, being that it's modeling a lot of what you're doing on the field and you're making cuts and you're doing all these types of things from a split stance. But this is why I outlined the fact that there's phases like I want to focus specifically on just getting stronger. And so bilateral like it provides the best situation for my body to just focus on that specific adaptation in its pure form. So building that foundation is essential. And a lot of times like, so for instance, like Mike Boyle, he brings that up but he's training like professional athletes who have already built and established this ridiculous foundational strength. And so now when you're getting these athletes that are coming in that are at that level, like it really is all just about the function, you know, the joint health and preservation. So it's totally different. Well, I think that's why we said too that it really matters. Every case is different, you know, and even what Sal's saying and cautioning everybody. It's like, I think that even matters to what part of your training you're at. Like am I getting you ready for the comp? Like you're getting ready for a comp. I actually want you in the best condition as possible. I don't I'm all my building the muscle is already done. That's right. So if I already did all my great work in the offseason, like so I if I was why there is an offseason, right, exactly. So if I am if I'm assessing an athlete, and I decide like, let's say it's a young athlete, and I decide that or coach does or whoever does decides that he needs to put some more mass and he needs to be stronger. Our offseason is heavily focused on that and very little conditioning just enough to keep him in condition. But and it's separate from that training. I want to get him stronger. I want to get him bigger. I want to do just enough conditioning that like, I don't know who's just said it's out, Justin, but as far as not losing their mobility in these multi planes while they're building the size, I want him I want him or her comfortable with their newfound strength and size. So I still want them to be able to apply that express that in their sport. So they're going to get little bits of that in the in the offseason. Now then when it comes game time or close to season time, and I'm getting ready for you now conditioning becomes more of a priority because now I need you to be able to use that. Now let's take all that strength and muscle you've built. Now let's learn to be able to express that and express that as fast and as hard and as long as you can. Yeah, well, to be honest, too, like this is where the thought process came into the mobility sessions and, you know, a spin off of like our trigger session concept because now I can focus more on joint ability and health and support with with joint specific, you know, multi planar movement. And, you know, like, if I was to evolve this program even further and make it even more like, well, you know, football specific, you know, swimming specific, you know, baseball specific, like I would add in those drills and those specific practices and movements that, you know, you want to really hone in on and sharpen because frequency is everything. So well, this this is what I've given as a, you know, I've had these athletes reach out and say, Hey, what do you think, you know, I should do on my mobility days and they're a basketball player or they're a swimmer, he said, this is a perfect place to, you know, during the offseason that you would inject these swim practices or inject these basketball working on your crossover, that would be part of your mobility day. Because you are working on the mobility that you need to perform your sport. So that's how we structured maps performance was you've got your foundational strength and power and hypertrophy type building in those phases. And then you have your mobility days, which you would incorporate whatever your specific sport is like you're saying. Quick commercial break. Hey, people ask us all the time how they can support mind pump. Here's what you can do. You can go to www.brain.fm forward slash mind pump and get 20% off brain FM for meditation or focus. You can also go to audible trial.com forward slash mind pump and get a 30 day trial plus one free audio book. Lastly, you can go to get nature blend.com forward slash mind pump and you will get a discount on Ben Greenfield CBD products. Hills zero. How do you get to single digit body fat? Very carefully. Yeah. You know, I've done this for me personally. I'll just speak because I haven't done a ton of this with clients only because clients tend to not want to necessarily get to that point. I have a few in one word. Yeah. But most people, you know, most of the guys I've trained got real happy around 10, 11% body fat and women. The females that I've trained in the past, usually when they get around the high teens or even low 20s, they're very, very happy. But single digit body fat for men is very difficult for women is, I wouldn't even recommend it at all. But I know for myself, I tend to walk around right around single digit body fat, but high single digit. So I'm usually around eight or 9% body fat, but I've gotten as low as five or maybe even 4% body fat. And something very interesting happens once I get below, I'd say seven and a half, seven percent. Getting down to seven and a half, seven percent. I'm consistent with my nutrition, my training. Everything's good. I, my calories are a little bit lower. I use intermittent fasting a little bit more, you know, in my normal day to day eating. Once I hit about seven and a half to seven percent, some interesting things happen. Appetite takes a whole, that's a whole other thing. Cravings, that's when I start to get cravings. And they're very interesting cravings. Like, I'll be thinking about an apple all day long, like the apple I'm going to have for lunch. Like, I know I'm going to eat it, but I'm thinking about it and it's 10 a.m. and I have to wait, you know, two hours for it because I'm working or whatever. I notice my body temperature changes and I get colder, which is a sign that my metabolism is trying to adapt and slow down. You have less insulation too. I mean, I think it's that, but I think more than that, it's just my body slowing down, right? Like, it's really, and it's an interesting cold. Like, I'll be in a room and I'll need, even now, I'll be colder than the average person, but when I get like that, it's like, I need to cover up. My sleep gets a little bit affected, especially when I start to get real low. But the way you get to single body fat percentage for some, for a lot of people is you've got to be really consistent. Like, I noticed when I got down to like, when I get down like 7% body fat, 6% body fat, one meal. Yeah. There's way, I'm glad you went there. There's way less room for air when you start getting into that. Well, and think about it because we're talking about a percentage, right? So when you're only like 5% or 6% body fat, you have very, very low amount of body fat on you. So it doesn't take very much for that percent to go way up. Like for you to go, for you to jump like from 5% to 8% can happen overnight. For you to go from 20% body fat to 21% body fat is actually really hard to do. It would take more than a day normally. Does that make sense? Because you're talking about a very, very small number when you're talking about a 5% to a 6% versus it's... Dude, you gain one or two pounds and you go up a percent and your body wants to gain that weight very quickly once you get to real lean. And I noticed that. I'll have a weekend where I'm enjoying myself and I'm up a percent body fat whereas before it would take me a lot more to do something like that. But to get down to the single digit, you have to be consistent all the time. All the time. I think that's some of the best advice for sure with that because I've actually coached a lot of people that have wanted this. And many times, and many of them have and many of them have not, got there. And the ones that have not got there, it was because as bad as they said they wanted to see themselves at single digit body fat, they didn't want it bad enough to give up a lot of the other things in their life. And that's what it comes down to because once you start getting that low, there's so much room or there's so little room for air like Sal was saying, one meal could throw you off a percent of body fat. Your level of sacrifice and discipline and commitment to that is greatly increased when you start to get down to single digit. I think that a lot of the average person, the average person, I think a majority of people, if we're talking about men, we'll say men first, I think a majority of the population can fairly easily get down to 10 to 15 percent body fat very easily. I think that's a with a little bit of discipline and focus on diet. A healthy lifestyle. You should be able to make good choices exercising regularly. I think 10 to 15 percent body fat is a very realistic, very easy, not easy, but easier, manageable, more real and you can maintain it. Yeah. And maintaining it, feeling good, like not having the signs that Sal's saying for a female that's numbers probably 15 to 19 percent, you know, for her 15 to 20 percent is what I would say for a female. Same thing at anything below that for the male and the female. Now you're at a new level of commitment and I would tell my clients that wanted this, but struggle with it. I'd say, well, you know, have you strung like literally like three or four weeks together of like literally consistently eating to your plan and training without any hiccups? And that's just like, well, you know, I only did this and I only did that and I said, well, yeah, that's why you look great and you're 10 percent body fat. But if you want to be seven or six, like there's going to be a lot more times of you feeling hungry and those moments of craving an apple and you not, you know, doing something that you really wanted to do because your friends are all going out and having drinks or eating this way because you care so much about hitting that body fat percentage. I've seen more people screw up getting down to the single digit body fat percentages because once they got down and got closer to it, then they just pushed it even more with more cardio, less calories, and then they're shocked to find that their body fat actually went up a little bit. So that's it. Okay. Another good point that you bring up by saying that too is a lot of people heading towards the single digit body fat, they start off at a much higher number, say 15 percent to 20 percent or maybe even greater and that this is their ultimate goal. My goal is to get down to single digit body fat, which I can totally connect to because when I started my transformation journey, I checked my body fat at 19.8 percent and my exact goal was I want to be the lowest single digit body fat I've ever been in my life. So I can totally relate to this being a goal, but I also did that over a, you know, six to nine month process of slowly chipping away at that and building your metabolism up beforehand. I think it's so crucial to having success at this because if you go about it, which I, the way I feel like a lot of people do, which is all of a sudden just boom all at once, you went from being fat and out of shape and not really working out, not paying attention to what you're eating to all of a sudden intense training sessions, you're doing cardio. You're on the hamster wheel. Yeah. All of a sudden, and you throttle down right out the gates and you go from 19 percent body fat down to 14 or 15 really quick, but then every percent after that is extremely difficult for you because you've slowed your metabolism down so much. And the leaner you get, the harder it is. Your body fights it more and more and it becomes more consuming. It consumes you a little more because you have to focus a little more. You can't, like I said earlier, you can't go off nutrition as often as you did before. But I do want to say this, there's really no need, unless you're, I mean, I know how some people have a goal of doing this, but you don't really need to. Men look pretty good usually around 10, 11 percent. 10, 11 percent, you take your shirt off and you're going to look pretty good. Who are we to say that for some reason? Well, I'm just saying, That's not our place to say that. Well, I just want people to kind of, because a lot of people have never been to even 10 percent. And so they're thinking single-digit body fat. Like 10 percent, you can get to 10 percent if you're a man and it's not super hard. It's not crazy to maintain. You'll still be able to be strong in the gym. You don't have to worry about so much stuff with your nutrition. You still got to be relatively disciplined, but, and you'll look good. You'll look good. And for women, God, I mean, most women in the high teens, 17, 18 percent body fat, you look like you're fit and you're kind of like an athlete. I agree, but I also think that, and I think we all have this conversation with our clients, you know, I learned so much about myself pushing. I mean, how much did you learn about yourself when you saw yourself at five? Just the simple fact that you know what you're giving this advice for that reason, because you know how weird the body starts to act and how certain foods affect you differently. And you get to, you just notice all that. And you, and when you get really, really lean, it's amazing how sensitive everything becomes. Like I, my sense is to my, like every type of food that I eat is like super heightened when I'm that low. And I, and it's crazy when you deplete the body for that hard, that long, and then, and it's, it seems to always be starving for nutrients. Like how quick you can tell that, oh, wow, my body totally agreed with that. Or, oh, wow, it totally rejected that. Or, oh, you know, like it responds really fast when it's starving for nutrients all the time. And you're finally giving it nutrients. And what you give it tells you a lot about your body. And it, it taught me a lot about the, the mental discipline that was involved with that. So, I don't know if I wanted to tour someone for setting that as a goal. I think just if you're going to do something like that, the approach is so important. And, and making sure that mentally and physically you're, you're, you're set to do that, you know. Picks by Leo. He's got the distinct impression you guys don't like to do cardio as a way to burn fat if you want to maintain muscle mass. Does your advice change if your goal is to maintain strength, but you don't really care about muscle mass? For example, preparing for a powerlifting or Olympic lifting competition. Okay, so let's first be clear. There should be a certain amount of cardio. And I hate to use the word cardio because when I say that people think they're on a treadmill, on a bike, on elliptical, like actually doing cardio, but there is a certain amount more options. There's tons of everything. I mean walking fast, hiking, you know, that kind of stuff. Like there's a certain amount of cardio or activity you should do for health. And if you do it and you optimize your health, it will maximize your ability to build muscle and strength. Okay. So that being said, adding extra cardio and pushing cardio will do nothing, but take away muscle and take away strength. And in fact, it'll take away strength faster than take away muscle. That's one of the first things you'll notice is you'll lose strength before you start to lose muscle mass. So when I train strength athletes and I work with strength athletes who want to maximize their strength, I don't tell them to not do cardio. I'm not one of those people. It's like, avoid cardio at all costs. I think there's a certain level of cardiovascular conditioning and shape that benefits strength, even if it's powerlifting. I just don't tell them to do intense cardio. And I don't tell them to do lots of endurance stuff, but I will say things like, you know, on your off day, go do a hike or go walk for an hour or something like that because it's good for you. I mean, the heart is a muscle and it's the muscle responsible for pumping all this blood to all the rest of your muscles. So think about like, I think I want that strong, right? And I think exercising it to the point to where it's got some strength and it has some endurance and it has some capabilities of doing that is going to be beneficial to all, all pursuits, but using it as the main source or main tool to lose body fat, which I feel like the majority of, and that's a lot of the reason why you hear on Mind Pump, we talk out, because I, you, you will most certainly catch me hiking. You will most certainly catch me on a treadmill. It's just cardio is overdone. Yeah. It's, it's grossly overdone. And so we, we take the, the opposite side, not because we're like anti-cardio. I'm not anti-cardio whatsoever. I just, I implement it. It's just common, commonly thrown out there as that's the answer that everybody has in their head. It's like, I got to run all this weight off. And there's a lot more efficient ways to do that, that we try and bring up, especially just being more active and concentrating on neat and, um, you know, like using cardio more restoratively, uh, to benefit you in your strength lifts, you know, things like that. It's a different mindset. Here's something I noticed because I, obviously I grew up lifting and I just wanted to build muscle and I knew cardio burn calories. So it was the last thing I did ever was do cardio later on as I, you know, became more self-aware and started educating myself a little more. And I started doing a little bit of cardio here and there even, and this was during periods of time. I wasn't trying to get lean or anything like that. I just would throw it in. I noticed a benefit. I noticed that I started building muscle a little bit better and I started getting a little stronger. And at first I didn't really make the connection, but I noticed it because I would stop the activity, the cardio, the hiking or whatever. And then I would reimplement it again. And I noticed that I would be better with my squats, with my deadlifts. And I just build more muscle. I just felt healthier. We have to understand that the, a healthy body, a total healthy body, is the perfect environment for adaptation. It's the best environment for adaptation. So if you're avoiding cardio like it's the plague, because I need to build muscle, and so what you do is you just sit on the couch all day long, except for when you lift weights because you need to conserve calories. That's the wrong approach most of the time, because that's sending a signal to your body as well. That's also telling your body that you don't need muscle. And so if you have two people who, you know, you got two twins, one of them lifts weights and then is zero activity all the time. And the other one lifts weights into some moderate activity and just is overall active and going outside. The person that's doing some of that activity is going to build muscle a little easier and have just because of the better health. So I don't like telling people don't ever do cardio. I just don't use that word cardio. I say move and be active. Yeah, I think that's what I mean, I probably speak out the most against it, right? I think I'm the most vocal about it because of the how it's abused in my competitive world. But if you, if those that are paying attention and watching my Instastory, you'll see, I mean, I'm getting 15 to 20,000 steps a day. That's a lot of fucking moving, you know, my heart is working. My heart has got to work. It's got to pump a ton of blood to in order to do that. So even though I'm not getting on a treadmill, and I'm not pumping away as hard as I can for 30 minutes to an hour, I'm still exercising my heart. It's still having to work. And I'm conscious of the days that I don't do that, that that would be a day that Hey, this would be a great day for me to do some steady state type cardio because I flew on a plane to Tampa and I sat all the first six hours and hey, this would be a great time for me to do this. And then I'm smart about it like, Oh, wow, this was a day that I took 20,000 steps and burned 5,000 calories. There's no real need for me to go now hop on a treadmill for another 45 minutes to an hour and bust away doing cardio. That's now and that's the part where I speak out on this because this is where people think that by doing that they're going to get to their goal faster. And a lot of people get motivated by a day like that, like, Oh, I've already stepped this much. Now I'm going to go do cardio for an hour and like burn up all kinds of fat where no, it's like, you've already moved enough your body has already probably expended some fat throughout the day because you move so much that this would not be the most ideal time for you to do cardio but flip that on on the opposite. Hey, it's a day where you were you moved like the average American, which is 4,000 steps a day. Well, fuck yeah, you should do some cardio. And also consider there's different there's cardiovascular goals that people have to sometimes like they want to build endurance and stamina and they want to challenge their cardio. If that's the case, then yeah, you need to do the cardio and you need to program it just like you would program your workout. Because, you know, look, I lift weights and I don't necessarily lift weights specifically for longevity. Longevity is always a priority of mine, but I also lift weights to just push myself to get stronger and build more muscle. Now I don't treat cardio that way. Right. I treat cardio as just being active and for longevity. Well, if you flip that and you're somebody who really prioritizes cardiovascular endurance and stamina, then you treat resistance training the way I treat cardio. You would go in the gym and you'd lift weights a little bit here and there to maintain strength and mobility. So also look at what your goals are. You know, again, you know, my approach, the way I do it for myself is based on what I enjoy doing. It's based on my priorities. I also like having a little bit of a faster metabolism, which muscle kind of provides me. I enjoy lifting weights way more than I enjoy doing stamina endurance type of work, but there's nothing wrong with doing the opposite. You just need to realize that. I'm so glad you said that. That's a great point. You know, so many people think that we're, we're so anti-cardio. It's just the way we like to train. Yeah, it is. It's our training. Yeah. If someone came to me and you're training for a Spartan race or you love doing cardio and you don't care about building a bunch of muscle, then your programming that I would set for you would be on its head. Yeah, it would completely be different than how I train myself right now. So I think when we talk about things like that, we're talking to the majority of people. Like if you ask me that your goal, okay, is to build muscle and you burn fat, cardio is not the best way to do that. It's just not to do either one of those. It cardio is not the best way to burn fat and it's definitely not the best way to build muscle. So I honestly do some cardio like in high-intensity versions like sporadically, like, you know, intermittently because, mainly because I want to be able to have the abilities of these movements. So I'm pursuing these explosive, you know, intense type movements that I want to have ability and endurance towards. So if I'm jump roping or I'm sprinting with the sled or I'm, you know, I'm running up a hill, you know, whatever the case is, I just like to be able to maintain abilities. But I just, I weave in and out of that. That's just something that's a phase that I'll go through that I actually enjoy doing that sporadically. So that's, that's how I incorporate it. But I'm not, I'm not against cardio, but I would much rather focus on strength personally. So that's where I tend to end up. Yeah. So for me, like what I like to do is if I feel like I need more stamina and I want to challenge my cardiovascular training, then I typically will do a circuit or I do supersets or I'd rest last, or I do higher reps with my weights because just because I enjoy that more. Otherwise I'll just hike. Like I love hiking. I want to maintain good hiking cardio. That's, that's my extent of how much cardio I want. I don't care about having cardiovascular endurance to run, you know, five or 10 miles. I don't care about being able to swim a mile or anything like that. Just not interesting to me. From a longevity standpoint, I do the activity that I enjoy doing and, you know, to keep that particular cardio, you know, vascular shape and that's it. But you have to understand when you ask your body to get to, for different types of adaptations or specific types of adaptation, they tend to compete with each other. So if you train for maximum strength and muscle and maximum endurance, you'll get a little bit of each, but you'll get a lot of neither. So it's just one of those things, you know, look at what you enjoy and train that more if that's what you enjoy doing. If you had to speculate though, and which one has more carryover to the other? That's a very tough, well, I guess like if you strength, here's the thing, weights are way more versatile than cardio. Yeah, that's where I'm going. Way more versatile. Like I guess with cardio, if you throw in body weight stuff, now you can get real versatile, but that's not really cardio, right? Cardio I would consider, you know, running, cycling, that kind of stuff way more versatile with weights, because I can actually train a pretty decent amount of cardiovascular endurance with resistance training, maybe not the long type of endurance that you would get with and with like running long distance. And that's what I meant. So I would compare, this is what I would compare. I would compare the guy or girl who swims in a pool, right? And they're going to get some resistance. They're going to build some lats. They're going to build some muscle because they're getting some resistance in there, but they're still high. They're still more cardio based than anything else. So they're still not going to build a lot of muscle. So if you were to put them now into a gym setting, how strong would they be? And then flip that same body type of a person, he or she doesn't do any swimming in the pool, but they lift weights and they program maybe super setting sometimes and high intensity type workouts, you know, who has more carryover into the others. As long as they both have good swimming technique, I mean, I could definitely see how the weights are super versatile. That's it. That's the big factor because I mean, you see a lot of cardiovascular programs. It's very linear. It's just like one or two different specific movements that they're honing in on constantly. And it's like, you know, just this constant hitting those same type of movements, you know, over a period of time, it's going to have detriment. Quick commercial break, you guys. We keep getting asked all the time, how can I support the Mind Pump family? Here's one of the best ways you guys can. You guys love that Chimera coffee that we have Chimera coffee with a K you go to chimeracoffee.com, put in the discount code Mind Pump for 10% at the checkout. Also, if you guys want to know how I have this luxurious beard and you want one too, go to bigtopbeardcompany.com, put in the discount Mind Pump again, but this time for 33% off. Also, you guys, if you guys have not tried Ben Greenfield's new bars out there, fantastic. If you want some, go to bengreenfieldfitness.com forward slash nature bite, put in the code Mind Pump and get 10% off. Go check it out. Amanda K lifts. If you could each pick a steroid to use with no side effects, which one would you choose and why? Oh, God. D-Ball. I went through a phase where I really learned a lot about anabolic steroids. This was when probably my late teens, early 20s, where I was really into bodybuilding. I was really into supplements and how they affected the body. I started using, at the time, they had over-the-counter prohormones, which were more accurately called designer steroids because that's what they were. I really wanted to learn about why anabolic steroids built muscle and why some were used for certain things and other ones were used for other things because I knew on a very basic level that all anabolic steroids were derivatives of testosterone. So they're all based on the testosterone molecule. Yet, you have bodybuilders saying, well, I use these particular steroids and these are the effects I get. For example, I remember, I would read, and I had books. Remember the underground Bible? Yeah, the anabolic Bible. Yeah, by Dan Duquesne, I read that and I read Muscle Media 2000 was lots of steroid information. Of course, I worked in gym, so I was friends with lots of bodybuilders and I'd ask them stuff. And they would say things like, oh, if you take this steroid, equapoise, which is a veterinary steroid, you get crazy pumps and it makes you really hungry. Or if you use masteron, your muscles get really hard looking and you get this real dry look to your muscles. Sounds like masteron. Yeah. Or if you use wind straw, that's great for pre-contest and anivar is very mild and women will use that and whatever. And so I'm like, why, if they're all derivatives of testosterone, how are they all having these different effects? And when you dig deep, what you actually find is that steroids have anabolic effects and they also have androgenic effects. And the anabolic effects are all of the, and you can rank them, by the way, you can actually rank them by this one is very anabolic and very low androgenic activity. And this one is very androgenic with very low anabolic activity. And the anabolic effects are the build muscle effects, the pro-tissue effects, the androgenic effects are the masculinizing effects that anabolic steroids will give you. Now you want to, of course, immediately people are like, well, why would anybody take an androgenic steroid? If I just want to build muscle, who gives a shit? Well, bodybuilders notice that the high androgenic steroids, the ones that are classified as high on that particular scale, produced the hard, grainy, dry-looking muscle and would also give them aggressiveness in the gym. And when they combined androgenic steroids with anabolic steroids, they'd build way more muscle than if they just combined two anabolic steroids. So there was this synergistic effects happening here with the anabolic. So now that I've bored everybody with all that. I was like, I thought this was a fun question. He just ruined it. Well, no, no, no, that's, I think that was a good comment for sure. Yeah, no, I think that's in, I think that's important that they understand that because if we throw out a name like, I would pick D-Ball. Well, what's the reason? Well, what is that? That is because it's going to be one of the most anabolic steroids that are out there. And, you know, with the most anabolic typically come with the highest side effects too. Well, so D-Ball is actually interesting. I want a milestone in here. Yeah, if they actually have them. What's interesting about anabolics, and I remember reading a lot about this particular thing is it's hard. You can't just look at the rankings on anabolic activity androgenic activity and say, oh, this one's going to be the most effective. Because D-Ball, believe it or not, is less anabolic than Winstraw. Winstraw is very anabolic, but very low androgenic ability. Whereas D-Ball's got like a, I can't remember the number, but I think it was more like a one-to-one ratio of androgenic anabolic activity. Now, you take D-Ball, you're going to gain weight real fast. You take Winstraw, you're not going to gain that much weight with Winstraw. It's going to take a long time. So part of it may be the water retention. I don't know. So that all being said, I mean, the one that I would take if I were to use steroids is the one that would give me the best results over time. And that's just good old plain testosterone. Because it's got, I mean, it builds muscle over time. It's the one that seems to be the most consistent with it. And of course they said with no side effects. So, I mean, you could throw in the hardcore ones like anadrol, which was a, they called it guerrilla. Make your nose bleed. Yeah. That's the one that I guess puts weight on. I had a buddy that took anadrol and no joke, not exaggerating. I think he took 50 to 100 milligrams of anadrol a day, which you're never supposed to take more than 50 milligrams a day because it's so harsh on your liver. But the guy gained a pound a day. Oh my God. Yeah. And a lot of it was water. Yeah, of course. Within 30 days, his face looked like a... Anadrol is one that I have not taken. I've taken quite a few. I've taken most of them at one point. Which one's your favorite? D-Ball. That's why I said that. Why? You know, you talk about... Did you just feel good on it? Every day, I was gaining weight, gaining size, and gaining strength every day. Every single time I touched the weights, I literally felt bigger the next day. Nothing. I never... Sounds like a commercial for... It actually... We have an affiliate link for... Yeah, I know. It was... But it also had major side effects too. So, you know, it would make Gaito Mastio far out. Oh, you would get the estrogen side effect. Yeah. So it definitely had... Good point. It definitely had high side effects to it. So when she says, you know, or he, I don't know if he or she asked the question, side effects, like I wouldn't... Yeah, if it didn't have those side effects, it was unbelievable. It was so powerful that I actually started to feel insecure about how big I was getting. Because I was like, holy shit, everybody knows. Everybody has to know that I'm taking this stuff because I literally grew basketballs on my shoulders over two weeks time. You know what I'm saying? Like, you see me as a trainer lifting for a long time, and then all of a sudden I had these. And I have the... It's been... You know, we all have the way we stand, right? I have a habit of standing, and when I'm resting or breathing in the gym, like I put my hands on my hips. It's just how I breathe. I put my hand up on my hips. So I would do that, and that kind of rotates your delts forward, and then it would just create this crazy... Like, you literally look like I had basketballs on my shoulders. And I was like, I'll never forget I was training a client, and I'm standing like that, and I caught myself in the mirror, and I went, oh my God, like I put my hands off my hips right away. And so I was really self-conscious about how I was standing, because it had put so much mass on me and so much strength. It was... So from that side, or from that point, that's what I would take. But, you know, so I take testosterone, just regular testosterone and anthate. So that's what I take on a regular basis to just kind of mediate my testosterone levels. And, you know, if done on low doses like that, I don't have any side effects. Because that's what you're... I mean, that's your sex testosterone, so what you have naturally in your body. Yeah, yeah. And I take such a minimal dose of it that I'm not getting like... Are you at replacement levels or above replacement levels? I would still consider myself a little bit above replacement levels, because I think what Doc originally said was like, I want to say 50 or 75... Yeah, 50 or 75 a week. So I'm close to that. I'm 250 every 14 days. So what is that? 125 a week. So 125 a week is still considered higher. God, that's... You know what's funny? Bodybuilders listening right now are like, that doesn't even count. Yeah, and most guys say that most in the bodybuilding world, one cc a week or 250 milligrams is considered off. Isn't that hilarious? Yeah, it's gotten to that point where guys consider... So yeah, guys would... I would be considered natural. Well, so D-Ball, DianaBall is... I believe, if I'm not mistaken, is the first American steroid. It was the first one that the American weightlifting team used, and it was the first steroid that bodybuilders used. And it used to come... They used to sell it in five milligram doses, and that's what they would take every day, five milligrams. Do you know what... Nobody ever takes less than like 25 milligrams a day now, which is pretty crazy to think how different it's been. And I know back in Arnold's day, that was a staple. It was DianaBall and DECA, DECA Durable, and was the combination that people would take. Now, I took a designer, like an over-the-counter one, because there was a period of time when there was this gray market where chemists were going through old literature of tossed-away, you know, steroids that... They're like atom molecule or... Yeah, well, no, these were actual, like, antibiotics that companies were researching, and then they just never developed them. So chemists would go through these old ones, and then... Skip right over all the side effects, like, yeah, don't worry about that. Well, that's why a lot of them were never made, but they actually... They would make them because there were no laws that said they were illegal, and they could sell them over-the-counter. And I took one of them. It was called One Testosterone. I don't know if you guys remember that. It was over-the-counter, one test. And it was legit... Like, this shit was... Like, I gained, like, 20 pounds taking this thing. And I remember working out and just... I had... I would get pumps that were painful to the point where I had to stop my workout. And, of course, when you go off, it's like, whoosh, it goes away just as fast as you had it. And I definitely had suppression of my own testosterone. That's, you know, talk about... Again, she says no side effects, but... Oh, I know. Debal law gains are gone. Oh, God, yeah. For 100%, I mean, I was gaining strength. I was gaining muscle. I was gaining size. But 50% of that, for sure, was definitely a lot or two. So, even though I still was bigger or stronger, it was such a drastic difference that it's depressing. I mean, that to me was one of the main reasons, too, that kept me from doing high doses of anything ever. Other than... I mean, when I competed, you know, I would get up... So, my highest at a show when I was at Contra Costa, which I was told I was too big. And so that was the... The highest dosage I did was 500 milligrams. And that was... I was told I was too big. And so, after that point, I came down and then I never really ever went above 300 in a week during competition. And then just to be normal and healthy, I run the dosage that I just said. Well, when I took the debal, like, it was crazy. The amount of water, the amount of size, the amount of strength, but then the feeling of coming off of that was so bad that it was like... It's like in a week. Yeah. And that's really where guys get addicted on it. It's that. You can tell that's what it is. It's not like... There's not these addictive properties that are in steroids that are addictive. It's the feeling of how you feel while you're on them and how shitty the feeling is when you get off of them. And that's why when people ask me, you know, like, I'll get this all the time. Like, I just want to do one cycle. That's all I want to do is just do one cycle. Why? You're going to... With just one cycle, here's what's going to happen. When you go off, it'll take some time if you do everything right, but you'll still lose everything you gained. You're not going to keep any of it. It's not permanent. The signal that you're sending your body is a hormonal one, so that extra muscle that you have is due to that hormonal signal. Remove that hormonal signal, and it's no different than you stopping lifting weights. Signal's gone. Muscle is gone. Now, it's fine on the way up. There's no problem in gaining that muscle. It's fun. But could you imagine dealing with, because I've done this, like I said, with the pro hormone or whatever, dealing with the on the way down fucking sucks. And a lot of guys don't even lift weights anymore, because it sucks to go to the gym and become weaker every workout. That's what would happen to me. I mean, they're on or off, and you're either on or off everything, right? You're either on, you're on testosterone, you're lifting like crazy, you're eating like crazy, or you're off completely where you're not really lifting at all, you're eating whatever the fuck you want, and you're not taking testosterone, because workouts become so depressing, because there's nothing worse than being consistent, hitting the weights hard, and watching your strength decrease every single week. And your size, and your recovery, and your sex drive. Yeah, that's a, that's a shitty ass deal. For me, I would want to be on whatever Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire was on. Look me up. Balco. Yeah. Give me the Balco Drugs. The clear. Now, that all being said, here's something interesting that I was speculating back when we were talking to Ben Pack, or hanging out with him, I should say. There is lots of evidence that muscle fiber hyperplasia happens in humans, and this is where muscle fibers split and become, so one fiber becomes two fibers. And although muscles atrophy, when you stop lifting weights or whatever, there is- You don't lose the fibers. There is evidence that you don't lose extra muscle fibers. So here's something that's interesting, but I'm going to follow it up with a caveat. If you did steroids for years, and then you went off, you may have definitely created some permanent muscle on your body that you'll have for the rest of your life. However, with that comes the massive high, a very high risk that you've also completely shut off your own hormone levels, and then we'll have to rely on taking testosterone for the rest of your life. Which fucking sucks. I really feel for people who have to- Adam, you have to do that. It sucks. I would hate to have to do that, right? If you could stop that. Well, no, that's why, and people ask me too, what's with every 14 days? Isn't the ester supposed to be five to six days? Yes, yes, I understand all that. I don't like fucking pinning myself. I don't want to do that. What I do know is that when I don't, my sex drive goes through the shitter, and I happen to like to have sex. And then you too, I can tell my testosterone levels affect my energy, my sleep, my motivation to train. So I like just to be fucking normal. I'm happy with just being good and normal to where I feel motivated to live. I actually want to have sex multiple times a week. Like those things matter to me. So yeah, no, it absolutely sucks to have to do that. So, and I've had to learn to manage that where it's like, okay, what's the, again, going back to what we always discussed, the lowest amount that I- The least effective dose. Yeah, right, the least I can take to get what I'm trying to get out of this without overdoing it. Because real quick, that can lead to I want more, I want more, I want more. So this kind of reminds me of other topics that we talked about, like getting ready for someone to even compete. I believe that before, because once again too, mind pump is very, very big on to each their own. Like if you want to take steroids, fucking who are we to say not to take steroids? Like I'm, we're here to caution and tell you like the science and what could possibly potentially happen to you. But who the fuck am I to say you can't take steroids? I fucking take them. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, so I think that it's more about educating the population and getting them to fully understand because there's a lot of myths and a lot of bullshit out there. And I think the most important thing is that anyone who does any of this stuff, that you, that you, and no one knows but you are, if you're mentally ready for something like that. Like, do you have the right relationship with yourself to do something like that? I mean, and, and I wasn't, I wasn't when I did, you know, I wish I was in a place like now, you know, which is why most people tell if you, if you just started now using them, you'd be so much smarter, right? Well, I would, yeah, because then I wouldn't be dependent on them, right? If I, because then I would, I would have been way smarter about how I cycled off of them. I would have never taken the, the amount that I took when I was 22, the irony is this, right? 22 years old or 23 or somewhere in that range, when I took my first cycle, it was, it was easily five times the amount that I'm taking currently right now and at least three times more than I ever took competing on stage. And I was nowhere near the shape that I was at the competitive level. So, and that was really like the big thing for me to kind of express to people is like, it's not the answer to getting you in the shape on stage for sure. I unfortunately made that mistake when I was younger, had to learn the hard way, went through everything that I went through for 10 plus years, learned how to diet, learned how to train, learned how to program design correctly, then adding something like that in my, yeah, then it takes me to the elite level. Yeah, then I can go compete with the best in the world or best in the United States in men's physique, because I now have all the other tools. And then I've added the testosterone in there to hang with all these 25 year old fucking kids. Check this out. The 13th, we are going to be doing a free open to everybody webinar where we're actually going to break down and go through our new maps program that we're releasing Maps Prime Pro. It's a correctional version of maps. So if you're, if you're looking for mobility, if you're looking for better overall function, but or if you just have pain, you're going to want to tune into this. It's going to be me, Justin and Adam and Dr. Brink. And we're actually going to go through our program. We're going to open it up to everybody for free, go through the assessments, go through some of the movements. We're going to teach you guys movements. I guarantee you've never seen these things done. Most of these movements I've never seen before. So it's really, really good stuff. The way you register for this is you go to mapsprimepro.com. Also, if you want to ask us a question that we answer on one of these episodes, place to do it is on Instagram. The page is mine pump media. You can also look at our own personal pages. My personal page is mine pump sal. Adam has one. It's mine pump Adam. Justin is mine pump Justin. And Doug is mine pump Doug. Thank you for listening to mine pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at minepumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at minepumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes, and by introducing mine pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is mine pump.