 Our next caller is Craig from California. Hey, what's up, Craig? How can we help you? Hey gentlemen, how are you guys? It's great to hear you Over you know 20 years on 48 over 20 years ago I lost over a hundred pounds through like running lifting weights and eating correctly and then that eating correctly kind of turned more into a Orthorexa eating pattern and then I also suffered from body dysmorphia Now that I'm 48 I kind of want to focus on getting bigger and stronger. Obviously. I have a six-year-old daughter and I need to discourage your suitors by having some Exactly and I'd like to look like Sal and a wife beater, too, but I know that's impossible But the two things that hold me back When I lift heavy my joints start to hurt and And then my mind will just not let me eat enough calories to put on size So how would you guys go about attacking those? Situations are you currently following any of the maps programs right now? No, I had Aesthetics just because I was more into aesthetics I was thinking about getting strong But I just haven't got around to pulling the trigger yet. Yeah, what you're asking is a really really good question There's a lot. This is quite common not specifically what you're saying, but it's quite common for people to Fear going in one direction or another, you know, the person that was always skinny At one point may fear trying to get leaner and then vice versa the person that dealt with maybe being overweight Having trouble with trying to bulk or build muscle orthorexia by the way or orthorexic type eating for the listener is this Obsession with healthy eating so it's a dysfunctional form of eating but rather than restricting calories too much like you would find with maybe anorexia or Reverse anorexia, which is always stuffing yourself extremely prevalent in the bodybuilding. Yes It's like you're it's like everything has to be super healthy structured and perfect all and it can cause a lot of stress And it can make eating a chore or stress on the person's psyche and it is quite common So here's how I always tackle this with clients is I take the focus entirely Off of aesthetics. I take the focus entirely off of the scale So what I would say to you is I would take your scale and I would throw it in the closet or throw it away Or put it in the garage. Don't weigh yourself at all Also, don't don't flex in the mirror or sit and study your body in the mirror It's okay to look at yourself, of course But try to avoid Analyzing yourself in your body and the way it looks First off the way you perceive yourself can be a total lie as evidenced by the times that I'm sure you've looked at pictures of yourself And said wow I look pretty good, but I remember at the time I felt like I looked really bad this happens to a lot of us So I would avoid those things and focus entirely on performance Strength stamina mobility now the second-party question was the joint pain when I lift heavy my joints start hurt You can create more tension without adding weight on the body. So going heavy doesn't necessarily mean adding weight to the bar it could mean Slowing down it can mean creating more intrinsic tension on the body You know I kid if I want to just push heavy weight for example, and let's say I'm doing a I don't know an inclined dumbbell press. I might grab I might grab the 100 pound dumbbells and try to push them Hard I could get an equally challenging work out with 50 pound dumbbells If I try to make it harder myself intrinsically by slowing down Focusing on the squeeze and literally the goal is can I make this 50 pounds? Feel like a hundred pounds. That's what I would recommend to someone like you rather than trying to add weight to the bar Can you make the weight feel heavier with your technique form and concentration your body? Doesn't really know the difference. Well, let's get into programming. I mean, what are you? What are you leaning towards with him? I mean the first thing that comes to mind for me would be anabolic I asked a question too about if you were falling when currently because typically When my joints start talking to me, it's when I when I'm actually not doing what I should be doing It's when I'm overreaching and I'm like lifting too heavy too often And my programming is off which even as long as we've been doing this All of us have still a tendency to do this. So I think following something like a maps anabolic protocol Is ideal for you the other program I may I could be convinced Potentially by the other two guys to go is power lift. Yeah, I actually think that's kind of the direction I was going But Sal brings up a point about you know joint pain And that was something where I was like, okay. Well, maybe even performance because it's not specifically focused on you know hypertrophy and You know really like a physique type driven aesthetic Focus so it's it's very much driven towards, you know, your movement quality your your overall strength And to its addressing joint issues too at the same time with the mobility sessions So I think in my opinion, I think you know maps performance is probably You know the best because it's going to really shake up your mentality that you've been driving so far I agree 100 I maps performance is perfect and focus again On can I make if you're in a phase where that's low reps like phase one and mass performance, for example Rather than as you feel yourself getting stronger thinking. Oh, I think I can add 10 pounds Think to yourself. Can I make the same reps I did last week feel harder? And how do I do that slower? Squeeze concentrate technique intrinsic tension I mean these are I tell you what if you look at some of the most successful body builders Who've been training for decades who compete into their 40s and 50s? What they do is that exactly they'll use a light weight But you can when you watch them work out like Vince Taylor was really good at this It was can I make this weight feel heavier? And it's a very effective technique Especially for longevity really reduces the risk of injury and again your muscles Really don't know the difference your body doesn't know the difference if you do it that way So if we're if we're going to lean towards performance, which I can totally get behind it for the reasons that you guys said I'm actually even going to I know we normally would say a focus on strength and get I'm actually going to say I wouldn't even worry too much about more weight going on the bar because there's still a technique Yeah technique that that that program, uh, you're going to do exercises You've probably never done before and instead of when you feel like you're getting better at it trying to add weight I would be very meticulous about my movements. Can I make this even prettier? Like there's some stability components in there some multi-planar movements in there So when I'm doing these exercises that are challenging and unique that I've never done them before And just because I've got a couple weeks in and I start doing them better I wouldn't start adding load. I would actually just slow down like the guy said and try and make the my form perfect I think that with the mobility sessions, uh in between the foundational days are going to benefit you tremendously Now one more thing craig just to help you out with this because I know When you do this process and you say, okay, I'm not going to weigh myself. I'm not going to flex in the mirror When can I flex in the mirror? When can I check on my aesthetic performance? Do this right follow maps performance. It'll give you about three months In that three month period do what I'm talking about at the end of three months I want you to go ahead and flex look in the mirror weigh yourself And I would bet you money that you'll be surprised at the changes in your aesthetics at the end of three months But the three month period at least allow you to break those chains a little bit now when it comes to diet It's the same thing. I want you to judge your diet based on your performance So oh, I'm not feeling as strong. Maybe I need more Carbohydrates, maybe I need more proteins or I'm feeling kind of sluggish Maybe I over ate or my digestion's a little off So look at your food Rather than from an aesthetic standpoint look at it from a performance standpoint Oh, I could tell a difference in my performance based on how I ate yesterday or my digestion feels real good or my inflammation You know, you talked about your your joints this you know, you would encourage you to eat more Well-cooked leafy greens olive oil fish You could also try supplementing with something called bromelain You could take this a few times a day on an empty stomach. It's a very good natural anti-inflammatory So give that a shot but take it on an empty stomach Otherwise if you take it with food it acts more like a digestive enzyme But give it three months and even this might make it even more fun for you Take a picture before Of yourself front side back and then don't do shit in terms of looking at yourself and taking pictures until the end Of three months where all you did was focused on performance And I think you'll be pretty surprised. It's a nice byproduct. By the way, do you have maps performance? No, I don't okay. We're gonna send we'll send that over to you Oh, man. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you a thousand times. Thank you. No problem, man Good luck with that. So keep us posted. Can I take it? Can I take a second to thank you guys? Absolutely Okay, so We lost our daughter Seven years ago and then my wife was battling cancer and I found you guys in like 2016 And honestly going back and listening to every I've listened to every single episode. That's not hyperbole I've listened to every single episode because I just needed a distraction from life And your guys's banter and wit was so so Helpful and getting through a tough time. So and you guys ruined every other podcast for me, but I can't listen to them now because you guys are so good But I just want to thank you guys for everything you've done for just me in general Hey, man. God bless you. I appreciate that and I'm glad we could you could find value in our podcast What a huge compliment, man. Thank you. Thank you No, thank you guys. I appreciate it. All right, brother God bro today's gonna give me all teary-eyed and emotional today. Jesus man. I know, you know, it's I tell you what Fitness, of course, it's a tool like anything so it couldn't be abused But when it's used the right way Because it's such a personal growth And present, you know method of being present It really can be an effective tool during challenging times. I don't not that it's a cure for anything, of course But boy, does it uh, can it be very useful? So I appreciate him saying that. I mean, I think the The the the reasons why we do what we do is to really Help people in real ways. So well, these these are the people that and you know God gets me all emotional talking to both these back-to-back questions here that we got because this is who I really feel like we were thinking about when we thought about this podcast, right when we looked at the landscape on social media And in podcasting, you know, a lot of a lot of Fitness people were talking to other fitness people or other people That um were like them and there was this huge majority of normalized people that have Shit that happens in their life and you know, their fitness goes to hell for a while Because other major things happen and they are just trying to get back to feeling good And those were the clients that I remember training and helping and the conversation is so different Than what I see all over the place. It's not This this shit about uh, you know breaking down the the latest study on what what modality is better or Macro counting or the the latest and greatest It's too irrelevant. Yeah, it's all irrelevant and and these the people man. You help you help these people out and it's life changing So man, what a what a cool, uh, what a cool person to talk both these these back-to-back that we we just had have been Phenomenal and you know talk a little bit about the orthorexic or orthorexia that he mentioned like this is Uh, really really common in the the bodybuilding super prevalent and fitness Yeah, I didn't I and I didn't know that until until I got into it as heavy as I did with the competing and man um, it it's these people that a lot of the That we idolize and that are on magazine covers and we look up to and aspire to be like Many people have no idea that You know because they're sitting at this in the place of these two people, right? Over a hundred pounds overweight feel terrible so that and they look at this Perfect body and this guy's got a great hair and it's you know He loves to exercise every day And they think they got it all together and what they don't realize is they're broken as fuck too They're hella broken that you just but just because they look good on the outside They they're they're They're missing out on a lot of life because they can't go fucking two hours without Checking themselves in the mirror or weighing their food or figuring out what the next meal is odd, right? Yeah, 100 it's a front and you know, we've seen that and that's been our biggest Uh motivation is to really just reconnect with people and show them that you know There's a way to do this in a healthy manner and you can still attain a lot of really impressive Uh, you know goals that you set yourself out towards but doing it in a healthy way is everything