 Remember this, like, yes, exercise and activity burns calories, but that's actually the least and, I guess, important part of exercise. What you really want to focus on are the adaptations. Because you're changing workouts, the adaptations are going to be quite favorable, so you're not going to get this, like, real negative effect from all of a sudden not burning as many calories as you were doing before. The performance is still a muscle-building-based program. They're all strength and resistance training-type programs. So I wouldn't worry about that. The second thing to consider is, and this is a fact, the amount of volume and training and frequency and intensity it's required to get the body to build muscle is far higher than what's required to maintain. In fact, the last study that I read was something like one-seventh the volume was required to maintain, which is quite a bit less. So, you know, a lot of people worry about that, right? They do all this volume. They get to a particular point. They want to maintain. Like, oh my God, if I don't do this exact same thing I've been doing, I'm going to go backwards. That's true. I mean, I've been training for a long time and if I want to just maintain the amount of volume I need to keep my body where it's at is so low compared to what it took to get it where it's at. So you're in actually a really good place and I'm going to make a prediction here, Sean. You're going to switch over to performance, bump your calories a little bit. You'll probably get a little leaner and build a little bit more muscle. Yeah, that's what's going to happen. All right. Quick break. Here's the giveaway for today's episode. Maps suspension. One of you will get free access to map suspension. You just got to do this. Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we dropped this episode. Subscribe to this channel. Turn on notifications. Do all those things. If we like your comment, we'll notify you when you get free access to that workout program. One more thing. We're running a sale right now. We put together a bundle called the Maps Power Bundle. This includes Maps Strong and Maps Power Lift. Both would retail at $300, but the bundle right now is $79.99. That means you get both programs for that one low price of $79.99. So if you're interested or you want to learn more or you want to sign up, go to mapsmarch.com. All right. Here comes the rest of the show. You want big biceps? Do heavy farmer walks. What? Yeah, I know. It's the one exercise that a lot of people, actually it's not one, there's many exercise like this, right? A lot of people don't really know what it works, so they don't do it. But the value is not just for strengthening the whole body. The tension that it creates in the arms and the biceps and that isometric position, that full extended position, your biceps will build. That's what happened to me. It's a byproduct. Yes. That's interesting. You mentioned that because that's one of those you don't anticipate, something like that's going to happen as a result. But I've been doing farmer walks. That was like a consistent exercise that I would include. There's always between biceps, shoulders, and upper back, it totally developed. Crossfit kids loving you right now. Crossfit kids are loving you. Farmer walks, do they? Of course they do. Do they? Yes. The crossfit community? They do them till they puke, probably. No, they do. Yeah, they do. They do farmer walks all the time. Well, you carry all kinds of different carry variations. Yeah. Now, you know, I've brought up gymnasts in the past and how like muscular biceps are from just pulling themselves up. And I've talked about how chin-ups are a great bicep exercise as well. I actually had a lot of gymnasts reach out to me and say, Sal, one of the best things that we do that builds our biceps, and I think I'm saying it right. Is it the iron cross? Mm-hmm. Where they hold themselves out with the rings? Yeah. They said the tension that that creates in the biceps, just that full extension, he goes, your arms grow every time you practice that. That's like one of the best bicep exercises I do. And of course, I believe them because of the ones doing it. And again, similar experience with heavy farmer walks. Now, of course, you get bigger forearms from holding on to heavy weight, but when do your biceps carry that much tension for that long? Yeah. In that end range kind of position, too, which is, I think, probably a factor that most people don't consider because bicep curls we're always trying to contract in flex versus being in that same amount of tension extended. Absolutely. I love this conversation because it also supports the argument that we always make about deadlifts, too. Yes. Because we get all this pushback about deadlifts not being a back exercise. Yeah. And if you break down the movement, of course, it's a hip dominant movement, right? It's more glutes and hamstrings than it is back, right? But this is an example of the spine is being held in a rigid position, which is basically isometrically contracting all the back muscles while you lift a pretty heavy load. A load you wouldn't be able to row or chin up with or any other exercise. Most people are deadlifting more than they're doing any other back exercise. And so you are getting the isometric benefits from deadlifting in the back. And I think anybody who's been deadlifting for a long time and has seen this knows how much deadlifting impacts their back. A lot of people don't know this, OK? So I'm going to go back a little bit and talk about isometrics. This is very applicable to what we're talking about. Isometrics was a very valued form of strength training for old-time strongmen, old-strength athletes, and Soviet-era weightlifters. And by the way, the Soviet Union, during the reign of the Soviet Union when they existed, dominated weightlifting, dominated. And it wasn't because they had the best drugs. It wasn't because they were doing weird gene therapy, which a lot of people speculated back then because the iron curtain, we knew very little what they did. It was their training. And we knew this because when the iron curtain fell down, their coaches came to the US and went to other countries and everybody else started crushing as well. And one thing that they did, among other things, there's lots of things they did, but one of them was isometrics training. They saw the value in isometrics training. So here's something a lot of people don't know. When you're doing an exercise, your body will recruit muscle fibers. As the exercise becomes more difficult, your body recruits more muscle fibers. So think of it like you have a V8 engine that has AI, and it conserves gas when it needs to, but when it needs to, it uses all the cylinders, right? So when you're driving and you're going slow, maybe only two cylinders turn on, you push the gas a little faster, four come on, then you go up to six and eight when you're really maxing out the car. This is what happens to your muscles as well. One type of muscle contraction activates the most amount of muscle fibers compared to the others. And it's not concentric, which is curling up, and it's not eccentric, which would be lowering the way down. It's isometric. When you're pushing against an immovable object or holding something that requires all of your muscles tension just to stabilize, your body will call upon all its muscle fibers to do so. Yeah, well, because if you think about that in terms of curling something up, all you need is that initial push in terms of force production, and then it rides a lot on momentum, so you don't really need a consistent, really high force output throughout the entire movement. So if you are just pushing into something and it's not moving, you're at your ultimate high amount of force production that you have to sustain. Yes, and your body's turning them on, on, on, on, and then it's still not moving, turn all the muscle fibers. Now, what is that, and why, is that eradication? Is that what they call that? Where irradiation when you're in isometric contraction and because it's not moving. So then the body is going, oh, we're not moving this, so I have to recruit more or more. Call all the troops. Right, yeah. Call all the troops. Versus if there's movement involved, the body's going, oh, I only need this much to do this. Yes, because we're always going for efficiency. Your body's very masterful at that. Yes. In terms of being able to produce just the amount that you need so it doesn't exhaust the system. Yeah, and this is not to say there's no value in obviously concentric and eccentric attractions. Those should make up the core and the bulk. No, it's just to highlight how underrated that the isometric contraction is because nobody really, I mean, very few people you see utilize this technique. Maybe every once in a while you see people doing things like pause quats or things like that in there, but which is like a very small example of where you could utilize isometric, but rarely ever, when was the last time you went to the gym and saw somebody doing like a bunch of isometric exercises? You just don't see that very often. You don't. And again, strength athletes will use them because with strength sports, it's very objective. You either move more weight or you don't. And so the most effective techniques move forward and the ones that aren't so effective tend to fall to the fray. Bodybuilding took over for a while and bodybuilding was about kind of how the body looks. Now, I do want to say this. If you ask a bodybuilder about the workout routine and ask them if they incorporate isometrics, they'll say no. But if you ask them this, They flex. Do you focus on the squeeze? And they'll say, oh yeah, oh yeah, I hold and squeeze a rep. Do you do a lot of posing in the off season or right before competition? Oh yeah, and you ask a bodybuilder how much posing they do an hour a day before competition? I mean, you know this. And that's all isometric type training. Now they don't realize that it's training. And in fact, what they'll often say is, oh, it just sharpens the body up or allows me to control my muscles more. But what they're actually doing is they're actually incorporating to the former training that's giving them great results. So, and again, the challenge with a lot of these exercises is where do I place it in my routine? What's a farmer walk work? It works everything. How do you structure this? Yeah, do I put on arm day? Do I put on back day? Look, I really don't, it doesn't matter. I'll tell you something right now. If you start an arm workout, a leg workout or a back workout with heavy farmer walks, do three sets. Start with heavy farmer walks, then go do the rest of your workout and tell me you don't notice a difference and how your muscles fire, excuse me, and how everything feels. The other thing, and by the way, I learned this doing farmer walks. So when we first created MAP Strong, we did that with MAP Robert Oberst and he wanted, of course, strongman competitions require you to be able to carry and walk very heavy load. So farmer walks are a part of the routine. And I worked up to 500 pound farmer walks with the trap bar very quickly. So my strength go up very quickly. And I was surprised at how sore my biceps would get from holding the weight. I was just gonna ask you what your guys' opinion on the comparison of soreness from all that. We know that if you do something like the sled, which is all concentric, you don't get very sore from that. We know if you really focus on the eccentric portion, you'll get really sore from it. Where would you rank isometrics in comparison to that? More or less than these concentric? Depends on what type of isometrics, because you're talking about loaded isometrics. Yeah, because then you're in range and a lot of times it's unfamiliar territory. So most of the time, I think when you get sore, it's just like your body's not quite as responsive or familiar with those types of movements. So it kind of gives you that feedback more strongly. But in terms of just body weight isometrics, very minimal soreness. Yeah, so it really depends, right? But yeah, farmer walks, more damaging. I would consider that I can exercise flexing without resistance, very little damage. You could add that to any strength or any routine. And if anything, you'll just facilitate recovery. Pushing against an immovable object, that could be pretty exhausting and damaging on the body. So it just depends. And of course, the more damaging, the more the results tend to be. But it just depends how you program. I would say though, I mean, you do get pretty fried. Like I've done a full super intense isometric workout where the whole time I'm just at full capacity of how much force I can output. Like if you've ever done that, like you get, if you go too far and get a bit lightheaded, like you have the breathing and all that, you really have to pay attention to, but the next day I was just taxed. So that does happen with the CNS. Well, I remember when I was a kid, we used to do, I remember I was lifting with these power lifters for a while. Went on a little kick for like a year. I was hanging out with him and a buddy and he would take me and he did this with squats. And I remember though, vividly how sore my chest was. I was like, man, I had been training chest for years and I can't remember being the sore. And he would take, and this was back when I don't even think I could do 225 on the bench. And he put like 315 on the bar. And then there would be like two spotters on the end and he'd make me hold. Just hold it. Hold that weight and try and press it up. I love doing that. Knowing that I can't get it, I can't do 225, we got 315 on there. Come on guy. But he would have me do that. And I would hold and drive for like a solid five to six seconds and then they'd rip, re-rack it. That would be a set. Then go back and do it again. Oh man, I remember my chest being so sore from that. And we did the same thing with squats. He'd stack the bar with more weight than I could even do one rep and then would just spot me and tell me to drive as if I was gonna be able to lift it. You know, that's so funny you bring that up. I was thinking about introducing that a bit to the high school kids I've been working with because I remember that being so effective of being able to actually feel the weight and acclimate to it to challenge myself then a little bit to press a little harder. Like I could handle it. I think there's so much psychology there if you're not familiar with how your body could progress and could literally put that much weight up. It made a huge difference for me because I remember as a kid, this was back when I couldn't even squat 225 either and stacking 315 on my back and just standing there. He would just have me unrack it. Just unrack it and just kind of hold it, hold it and stabilize there for a second and then walk it back up. I bet your core got sore, I bet your core got sore. And then like you said, Justin, I just you start to acclimate to holding that much weight and then before you, and I remember as like thinking and when I was doing that like, I'll never be able to do this. Like this just feels like it's going to crush me. And you know, to think where what I can squat today as like it's so weird how you do that. I'll give you a little hack, a little homework out hack for advanced lifters. So it's more of an advanced way of using isometrics. So here's what you do. You take some really sturdy hooks, metal hooks, and you bolt them into some concrete, okay? So they got to be in the real secure so that you can't rip them out. Then you get a chain, a long chain, and you get a bar that you can attach the chain to. You can now do pretty much any isometric, you know, against an immovable force exercise that you want to do. All you do is you attach the chain, each side of the bar, hook the chain to the hooks, depending on the length. And now you can get underneath it and squat against something that won't move. You could put a bench under it, you could press under something that won't move, you could row under something that won't move, overhead press, curl, whatever. And you can do adjust, you can adjust the length, right? So I could do a halfway up bench press, a full extension bench press, all the way down bench press, do this for all the exercises. And you know, here's the thing a lot of people don't know too. If you look at the studies on proper isometric training, now it definitely plateaus after a certain period. However, the fastest strain gains of all forms of lifting come from isometrics. Very quick in a very short period of time. That being said, just isometric training, you plateau very quickly. That's not the point though. The way you use it is you incorporate it into your normal routine. But it is one of those forgotten training methods and it's crazy because you mess with them and you get blown away. Maybe we can make it popular again, huh? We will make it popular again, absolutely. Speaking of classic strongman and stuff, on Twitter I posted a picture of what I think to be one of the classic male physique ideals. Steve Reeves, you guys know Steve Reeves, picture where he's standing there and he's like looking forward and he's not super shredded, but he's lean, he's got good muscle and strength. And the reason why I posted it is I said, this is before steroids were really popular, probably natural, most likely in the picture. Before supplements were around, the guy lifted weights three days a week, full body, dumbbells, barbells and that's it. And that's what he looked like. And how to eat whole natural meat, liver, eggs, milk, potatoes, that's it. And that's how we looked and that was the ideal. Reminding me right now of all the controversy right now around the liver king guy. Have you guys seen him yet? Dude, who is this guy? I get people sending me messages. I mean, yeah, I've only seen a video or two of his where he's just super jacked. Yeah, we got asked about him like a few months ago. I didn't even know. Yeah, I didn't know who he was back then. And I mean, the guy's got, I think he's like 100,000 followers or something like that. So he's, or maybe more, maybe he's close to, sorry, he's like a million, sorry. He's like up to a million followers now. So he's definitely popular on Instagram. When they first asked about him, I didn't even know who he was. I had to look up his whole stick, right? He's this super jacked. I think he's like five, four, five, six. He's like a pretty short dude, but he's like super ripped as all his videos with a shirt off and he's got the beard. And all his videos are him like biting into raw meat. But I think there's a bunch of controversy around him because I think I've heard that there's been people that were trying to emulate what he was doing and have had some issues. And I've now seen people like, I saw Chris Duffin coming after him. I think I saw Lane going after him. I mean, there's quite a few people. And I always hesitate to talk about someone like this because I'm not sure if it does any help by discussing it. I know people always want to hear our opinion on stuff like this, but I also think that's what's gained this guy so much of attention and why he's got almost a million followers is because you got people like Lane, like Chris Duffin, like these big names, like James Smith. These guys are all big, they have big followings himself, all talking about this guy and this guy's following just continues to grow. Nobody really wants to watch balanced, healthy people, right? The extreme, yeah, like some kind of gimmick that unfortunately the consumer drives those people up, they inflate them up to a level where we're just like, why are they getting some attention because it's like, it's a freak show. It's the opposite end of the spectrum. Over here you have the raw vegans, everything uncooked, that's a plant. And over here you have now people who eat raw meat. By the way, this is the silliest thing ever, okay? Humans- We have fire for a reason then. We started cooking with fire. It was one of the biggest advancements of all of human history. First off, cooking meat with fire predigests it, okay? Allows us to unlock more of its nutrients, its fats, its proteins, makes it safer. It also does that to plants too. Eating raw plants, not a great idea. Cooking it, typically will destroy a lot of the defense mechanisms, allow you to unlock more of the nutrients. Now the arguments are, this is how silly the arguments are. When you cook vegetables, you destroy 30% of its nutrients. Okay, that's true. But a rock is full of minerals. How much more can you- I just say- Yeah, you can't eat a rock. You could definitely eat 30% more when you actually cook it if it's raw. I can eat a bowl. I can eat a huge bowl of well-cooked vegetables. You give me a whole bowl of raw vegetables and that is gonna tear me up. Same thing with meat. Like we go bite into a raw, like go get a cow, kill it, skin it, go bite into it and see how much meat you get with your mouth, good luck. What are the chances of salmonella, some kind of bacteria, some kind of parasite? Like there's just reasons why we've cooked meat. Yeah, now certain organs and certain other foods, humans have historically eaten raw, like eggs for example, humans have eaten raw because you caught it and didn't cook it away. But for the most part, we cook food. So it's part of what makes us human. It's what makes us, one of the reasons why we're able to grow the brains that we have and become these apex predators, we learn how to harness fire. So I kind of thought the popularity comes from like, just like with politics, right? There's extreme left, extreme right. And it's like the whole vegan movement has been on the rise for like the last decade, I'd say, more so than ever, right? And politicized even. And I feel like this is like the revolt, you know? Look dad, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not a soy boy. I'm a caveman. Yeah, exactly, complete opposite, right? So I kind of feel like it's feeding into that. And then of course you have the look, right? I mean, if you're on steroids and you're all tanned up and you get the big crazy beard and stuff like that, I think that it's just, we're drawn to the end of that. Yeah, you're a character at that point. Yeah, just, it is funny, isn't it? That the vegan representatives look very different than the carnivore representatives. I had to choose one to look like that. And I'm not saying one causes one and one causes the other. That's not what I'm trying to say. I'm just saying that it's funny that the market, that's how they're represented in the market. The vegans kind of look like there's a, like if I say to you, picture a dude that's a raw vegan. Like you'd have a certain image in your mind. And if I said picture a dude that eats raw meat is a different kind of thing. I just think the human psychology around it's so interesting. It is, absolutely. How we are, we want to be in a camp so bad. It's like, why not both? I wanna belong. Why not, why not actually utilize some of the benefits of eating vegetables? Why not but use some of the benefits of organ meats and meat, like combine it? Yeah, and this idea that people think that one was more for them than the other. It's just like, no, it doesn't work that way. And for the most part, I think we ate both of these things. And so it's hilarious that how much we want to be in camp. Dude, speaking of the health space, did you guys see Max Lugovic? So one of my, obviously one of our favorite people, one of my favorite people in the world, Max Lugovic, I love the guy. I love how much he does his hair when he comes to see us. He doesn't. It's just messy. He's gangster, dude. He doesn't even look like- He's so good on camera, he's just, hey, I'm right. I fucking love Max so I could say this stuff. But he looks like he didn't even fucking run his hands through his hair. Like he didn't even, like he rolled out of bed like this and his hair is pressed like this. He sits up, he brushes his teeth in the morning and he thinks, nah, I can't fuck with you. No, I think you always, I think you get mad with people who have hair. Oh, shit. Little bit of jealousy. Little bit of jealousy. And I was like, you have hair, comb it, god damn it. Maybe a little bit. You should appreciate that shit. No, no, no, so Max is great. He's such a great guy, I love him. Pure heart, super, super nice guy. Very smart, obviously. Anyway, he posted his blood results. He did a blood test and posted his cholesterol, HDL, LDL and his total testosterone. Okay, can we take guesses? So not free, but total, so total testosterone. Now remember the range for men, depending on the lab is usually between 300 to like 1200 for men in testosterone. So 1200 is like upper, upper limit. 300 is like that's super low. 490 is my guess. Okay, so low and normal. What do you think? I'll say like 500. Oh jeez, can you be any closer? You know, just like 10 more. Price is right? $490. I'll take $1. $1. Any guesses, Doug? I'll give him 781. 781, 1100. Whoa, wow. He has, he's in the, he's in the- Shame on me. He's in the super testosterone. Him and Doug together, man. They're both like super testosterone. Yeah, he's hot. He's carrying some boulders around. Hell hi, dude. Now he's a very healthy guy. He's never messed with- Which is why I probably should have guessed higher because I do know he's a very healthy dude, but he, he doesn't come off like he's got tight. Like I feel like people with really high testosterone come off that way. Like, you know, Doug has that angry chimps eye doing that we've all seen. Hey, maybe it's like- You know the testosterone's flowing in that guy, you know what I'm saying? You're like, okay, I see it now. Where Max doesn't look like he would- Yeah, but the hair thing is like the no fuck's given, right? He's just show, dude, I own this. Well, he's first for him. First of all, Max is very assertive. He's a very nice guy, but he is not weak. I've seen him assertive. He's very confident. Yeah, he's very assertive. Like he's a very nice guy, but if you push him the wrong way, he's not one to fold or whatever. Well, he's intelligent. He's confident. Driven, very driven, right? Right to books. Well, those are all associated with testosterone. Very calm, right? He's not an anxious person. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, super high testosterone. Wow, good for you. He talks all the time about, you know, estrogens and he's pretty on top of like, you know, avoiding a lot of things. Now I'm really jealous. Hair and natural high testosterone. What the hell? No, and, you know, he's never messed with hormones. He never took, remember that pro-hormone craze that, you know, I fell for and most people, he didn't take steroids, you know, he's very healthy. So it makes sense that his testosterone would be high. So good for you, Max. What's your, what's your theory on hormone therapy in the next decade? It's going to explode. Yeah. Do you think it's going to, I mean, I feel like, sometimes I always wonder again, are we in this little bubble, you know, and it's like, because it's obviously in our space, it's becoming more and more popular, but is it going to be so big that like, even people that are not hardcore into working out are going to consider taking hormone replacement therapy because- When the downside- We're slowly declining. When the risks are low, taking testosterone in therapeutic doses, the health risks or whatever risks associated with it are very low. Testosterone is very safe. You can take, if you took, you know, 10 times the normal dose, now you're starting to run into problems. I'm talking about therapeutic doses. The risk is low. It's a, for men especially, it's a feel-good hormone. You take a man whose testosterone is on the lower end of the spectrum and you bring it to the upper end of the spectrum, they'll almost always just feel better. So it feels good. It's like an antidepressant. The major hurdle I see is the expense because the super rich and famous have been onto this for decades. I mean, like your actors and actresses that make a ton of money, they've been on growth hormone and testosterone. I don't know, man. Every new iPhone comes out. Everybody goes and buys that thing and pays hundreds of bucks on their cell service. I think when the, when the public- It hasn't been accessible to that point is like it has been just exclusively, you know, prescribed by doctors that were outside the fray. It has a stigma. Yeah. It also has a stigma. I look, I felt for the stigma. When I, Tess came back with low testosterone, I felt embarrassed and oh, I gotta take testosterone. That's a, you know, am I less of a man type of deal? These are thoughts that guys have. Once the stigma is gone and it's accepted and you know, especially therapeutic doses. I think everybody, I think it's to be so popular because it just, it feels good. Your health is better. Your health markers are better. Quality of life is higher. Like, I just- Well, I mean, technically I think you're healthier if you're someone like Doug where you don't naturally have to take- Oh yeah, don't compare it to natural. Yeah, of course. Yeah, like, I mean, if you could be fricking, what was he last time, 1300 or something? If you could be that high and what were you, 11? Not that high, like 1080 or something. 1080, yeah. Oh, okay. I wish it was 1300, but it's not. I'm working that direction. I don't think you need it anymore, dude. I think you're just fine. I think that's okay. But I mean, if you, again, if you have achieved that through- Well, of course. Good habits and behaviors, diet, obviously, way better than somebody who is taking- Absolutely. HRT, right? Absolutely. Yeah, no, it's just the stigma's the big thing. I think once the stigma's kind of erased or changed, I think a lot of guys, especially because testosterone levels are going down and it's an epidemic and we don't know why. Really don't know why. It's really, I'm not just making this up. You can look this up if you want, but for the last four or five decades, this is not a recent thing. We've been observing this for a long time. Well, you brought up the pornography thing the other day and what I think it is, I just think it's- It's a combination of things. Yes, it's so many different things. But there's definitely something environmental that's contributing to it. Sure. You know, estrogens. Yes. I think that's just it. You know, if you tease that one thing out, because you'll have people on the other, the science community that will like laugh at that, like, oh come on, your receipts aren't declining. You know, you touching your receipts or cooking in a certain pan and every once in a while is not making your testosterone drop 400 points. But if you- You combine that with lack of activity. Yeah, lack of activity. Don't strength train. You also, you know- You shitty food. How many studies out there that are gonna test a long enough period of time where that low of a dose of like, you know, you know, estrogens were actually making a fact. Like they just won't conduct that. Now you wanna hear another piece of this little theory. I've brought this up a long time on the show. So it's been a while. So studies will show this. Women, when they're on birth control, so they'll do these studies where they'll take a man's face and they'll masculinize it digitally or they'll feminize it. So same face. And if they feminize it, they make a little softer, less of a jaw line, less brow ridge, like there's a few things they do. And then they'll masculinize it. So they'll take the same face, more jaw line, a little bit more, you know, brow ridge. So basically higher signs of testosterone, lower signs of testosterone, same face. And they'll show women these pictures. When women are ovulating, they consistently pick the higher testosterone face. When they're not, they'll pick the neutral face or the lower testosterone phase. When they're on birth control, lower testosterone phase constantly, okay? Now birth control has been widely used now for decades. What if women now are selecting without realizing it, slowly selecting lower testosterone mates to have children with. And this is part of the factor. I totally believe that. I mean, I even feel that about the conversations you would have, think of, go back to, you know, junior high, high school and the kind of, you know, alpha dude that everybody, the girls liked when you were a kid and stuff like that. Like that changed over the course of the next 20 years. It turned more into a metrosexual type of like sensitive guy. Who's Bill Gates? Dude, did you know he's the hot one? He's the hot one. Nobody's saying Bill Gates is hot, dude. I don't know, man. What circles do you run in? He's pretty rich, I don't know. You know what though? Hey, this is so. Money. This is also a trip, look this up. Women who meet a man and get married while they're on birth control. So they're on birth control, they meet a guy, fall in love, get married on birth control. Then they're like, hey, let's have a baby. They go off birth control. The divorce rate goes up a little bit. So it's like. I feel like that's such a hard. How shitty would that be? That's such a correlation thing, not causation. No, no, even if they don't have kids. If they just go off birth control, there's a rise in divorce in statistics. Now, how shitty is that? You're attracted to someone and then your hormones change, all of a sudden you're like, oh. He's not that hot anymore. So, okay, so a girl gets off birth control, starts like looking at other men as more desirable, more attractive. Or the husband that she's with is no longer attractive like he was before. I see. Fucked up. Yeah. I feel like that's a really hard one to connect with. I wonder. Because of all the variables. No? I don't. I agree, but I think. And it's like saying that the giants win every time there's thunder and lightning in Idaho. Yeah. Oh, like what do they call it, an asperious correlation? Yeah. Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying, but when you combine that with the other studies, I think it does point to, look, here's the deal. Hormones drive to an extent some behaviors. I mean, I did see that study where they showed how they're more prone toward the jawline, the more masculinized face during ovulation. I mean, it makes perfect sense. I mean, like evolutionary, you always bring it back to that, right? Of like, who's gonna stick around versus the other guy that's like sort of. You want the strong genes. Yeah. You want the strong genes, but then you also want the nurture on top of that. Dude, they, nobody wants. Hey. Just me. Hey, you know how messed up that is? It is high five. You're in pal. Yeah. You know what they theorize? They theorize that. I don't know if this is true or not, but thousands of years ago before you had paternal tests or whatever, that the girl, that the female would mate with the fucking testosterone dude. And then when she's pregnant, it go and hook up with the dude that's gonna stick around. And he thinks that's his kid. So he ends up raising the freaking testosterone dudes kid. Where did you read? What'd you say? This was part of the theory, like part of what may have happened in the past. That there were a lot of, not all the time, but this happened much more than people realized where women had gotten pregnant from one man, but the child was raised by a father who didn't know that it wasn't theirs. Well, it's interesting. I remember all those, they're talking about like gladiators and like how, you know, a lot of women would like throw themselves at these gladiators. Oh. You know, they used to sell their sweat. Oh yeah. You know that? Yeah. At the Colisean. Like a drink? No, like in bottles, like in women would buy it, like in aphrodisiac. So these gladiators would scrape their sweat off and sell them in bottles and chicks would buy it. Really? Yeah, dude. I didn't know that was insane. Isn't that trippy? That is very trippy. Especially since they're probably stunk. I'd be annoyed. What are you, honey? So I mean, I feel like if shit like that was happening all the way back then, we can't make fun of like the whole like vagina candle or all those weird things. Come on, bro. We're all, We're all, we're all weird stuff. Yeah, it's all, So why don't you help make us millions, dude and figure out something you're Mister Evolutionary find something like that? Why weren't you on that? We could have been the first one to do a dick candle. Those are sharp jars, right? It's still happening. Nobody wants to buy a dick candle. That's not a, this is sound appealing at all. Hey, you can sell weird stuff. I mean, there's going to be somebody who thinks that's appealing. No, guys, guys? All right, let's be honest, okay. Men are the weirdos, we're the weirdos, dude. We're the ones that are weird, bro. Come on, you wait, look it, you wait. Do you think even gay guys like Dick Smell? I feel like they don't even like it. They're still guys, dude. They're still gonna be weird ones. Dude, listen, when you go to, I felt like Justin wouldn't know the answer to that. This is a new level for us. Listen, they have vending machines, and they have vending machines. Listen, Doug's notes, that's why I brought it up. Doug's shaking, Doug's like, make sure to talk about Dick Smell. Doesn't have a smell, I guess it does. They have vending machines in some parts of the world. I think Japan has these. No, Doug told us about that. Yeah, where they're like, they're dirty underwear. This is gonna be the fourth time he's brought this up, Doug. That girl's wore, and dudes will buy the underwear, okay? Were there ever vending machines with guys underwear? Never seen them. I mean, I didn't actually see the women's either, but I've heard about it, and I believe that's to be true. What would they look like? Guy's underwear, it's a big barge. Yeah, all ratty, big, big, big, big. Oh, gross, gross, gross. Tightly lightings, not so light. That's so gross, dude. He wants that. No, he wants that, dude. All right, we're gonna change. Yes, please change this up. Let's all change some of that. Doug, you shouldn't have put in your notes, and I would have brought it up. Anyway, sorry. Speaking of crazy people, though, I found this out. God, what's her name? I can't read up there, but there's this. Shannon Richardson. Thank you, Shannon Richardson. She's an actress that was in Walking Dead, and I guess, Vampire Diaries, whatever. Have you heard about her story? I guess she just went completely batshit crazy and was making her own kind of powdered poison, made out of some kind of bean, I don't know. I don't even know how you make it. Risen, Risen. Risen, thank you. And Lace, how do you know that? Yeah, I was like, how do I create my own poison? Because that's a CIA or intelligence agency poison, with a small amount and a dart, and you get a heart attack or you die. It's crazy to me that you can actually make, I guess my takeaway from it is that you can actually make that at your house. Like, that's crazy. And I think you can't, it's really legal. You can probably come up as beans, right? You die and they can't tell. I think you get a heart attack. You see Breaking Bad? That was part of one of his episodes. Oh, was it? Was it Risen that he used? It's R-I-C-I-N-A. You're right, I do remember that now. I do remember that. Doc, can you look up how to make Risen? Yeah. Flagged. It's made out of what, rice? Yeah, but so what was she doing with it? So she was actually, I guess, was trying to frame her husband. This is her third husband she was on. And she was writing letters to Obama and lacing it. What? And had it all addressed and everything. She was trying to frame her husband? And then actually called the FBI to say, oh, my husband has been doing this. Evil. And is about to send these off. And literally she was the one about to send all these letters off. So she's obviously in jail? Yeah, she's in jail. So how did this all come out? Do you know how it unfolded? I don't know, but she just came out one day and called the FBI and tried to get, basically tried to frame her husband. Oh, my God. For an evil person. Yeah, like, psycho, dude. Yeah, dude, no, we had the notes. Psychopaths like psychopaths, I feel like that's a perfect transition. Yeah, no, that was an old study that I read. Did you guys know that they've done studies on psychopathic behavior and find that people that are most attractive, attracted to people with psychopathic behavior are also psychopaths themselves? I feel like you didn't need to study for that. I know, right? Hey, guess what? Crazy people like crazy people. Yeah. Oh! Here's your sign. You like murder too? Yeah. You ever have that friend? I don't know, man. Every girl I date is fucking crazy, bro. You're looking at me. There's one common denominator, but I don't know, man. Weird, why are they finding their way to you? Yeah, how's that? I mean, I feel like we're all guilty to some extent to that point. I mean, how many people? Oh, you get attracted to the dysfunction and others that you have yourself. Yeah. Of course, bro. If you're like... Makes you feel comfortable. Oh, yes. Makes you feel at home. Of course, like if you drink too much and then you find a girl, oh, she likes to drink too. We're a perfect match, you know? Yeah, it's totally true. I think it takes a lot of self-awareness to actually try and date or go after people you know that are gonna call you on your shit because nobody wants that. But, I mean, in reality, that's probably what makes a better partnership if you're gonna do this thing called life with this other person for the rest of your life. Like, probably get somebody... It's annoying, though. This is a better disaster. What was it? Oh, I was, I was talking to Courtney about this while she's really into the whole murder stuff and was like, listen to the podcast, I'll watch the shows. She's buying a lot of beans lately, too. You know what? I haven't even... I'm glad we got that insurance thing here. No red flags at all for me. But yeah, she's got issues for a while. Yeah, I was like, ooh, she's like... Parasite? No, you know, maybe I'm eating something poisonous. Yeah, so she was telling me, like, I guess that they haven't really attributed any actual gene associated or correlated with psychopathic behavior. It was very much more attributed to trauma or brain injury or the environmental factors. My guess, what I will assume is that there's a combination of the right genes with the right trauma. So one without the other... For sure, the whole epigenetics case. But you know, yeah, like some kind of expression. Yeah, one without the other... What's that whole, what, one's the gun, then what loads the gas and fires? Yeah, your genes load the gun. What you do pulls the trigger. So if the bullets are in there, you pull the trigger for heart disease, cancer, or whatever. So lifestyle makes the biggest difference. Yeah, I keep thinking, like, after the whole, in the 70s, where we had like this surge of all these psychopaths and serial killers, like I feel like that was just, I wonder what the numbers are of like, if we're just more aware of them then than we were previously or... Well, before we didn't even know, right? Before we didn't have a name for them, I forgot what document... Well, Jack the Ripper was a very well-known serial killer. Yeah, I mean, there was a few, but it wasn't like, there was... Well, so... Did they call him a serial killer before the 70s or was it after the 70s? Because before the 70s, I don't even think they... The term came out. What did they call him? An MK Ultra and that all stuff. I mean, I had to have produced like, because you mean Ted Bundy and... Well, so I've read articles on this and the same thing with mass shooters is that that the more that these events happen and become popular through media, the more that they trigger. So like mimicking... Yeah, so like you're a crazy person, you're kind of on the edge, you know, and you can be pushed either way and then you're watching news articles of serial killers. They think that that pushes these small percentage of people over the edge. Same thing with mass shooters. You'll notice there'll be a mass shooting and then there'll be like three or four more that'll happen because they watch the news, gets lots of airtime and then they'll go and do the same thing. Yeah, 1974, it was a popular... So I bet you they didn't even call Jack the Ripper a serial killer until after the 70s. They just called them Jack the Ripper, which is way cooler than the 70s. Is it, was it the Unabomber? Was it Bundy who had the crazy manifesto? Have you guys ever read his manifesto? It's like spot on to like where we're at. Yeah, Unabomber. Is it either Unabomber? Yeah, I think it was a... If you had never read that before, you should read Kaczynski. Did you ever read the Zodiac? Did you ever see how the Zodiac killer, they freaking finally deciphered his notes and what he wrote? You hear about this? I watched the documentary. I don't know if they covered it. Yeah, I don't remember what it said, but they cracked the code because he used to write in code and stuff, send it to the newspapers and they couldn't figure out what the hell's going on. And then recently somebody cracked the code and figured out what it said. Yeah, I was like the last maybe five or 10 years but he couldn't find it where they figured out what he was saying. So it's kind of crazy. It is crazy. What is crazy about these crazy people is... They want to be known, by the way. They don't want... Part of the excitement is that other people talk about what they did. Well, they want to tell that line of getting caught too, you know, like leaving enough breadcrumbs out there so it's like you can get so far and so close. I know. It's thrilling. Well, isn't there a correlation with psychopaths and like brilliance too? Like a lot of them are really intelligent. Oh, this is cool. It's not like a lot of dummies that are running around and serial killing. There's definitely a line, a thinner line between a super genius and then also just dysfunction, dysfunctional thinking and craziness, for sure. I don't know about that. I don't know about serial killers though. Yeah, very weird. I mean, I figure if you get away with multiple murders, you have to be pretty intelligent about your way of doing it, right? I mean, me? You can't just like randomly go kill it while you're... Actually, randomly kill it. Maybe it's not that hard. You know, I don't know. Well, no, so supposedly the... Here we're going to talk about how to get away with murder. One of the best ways to get away with it is by being inconsistent about what you're doing. I think what is it? 80-something percent of all murders is related or connected to the... Well, so you doing like a... Like a super random... Bundy and some of that would just go in a parking lot and grab a random person. Did you guys ever read about the Iceman, the hit man for the mafia, that guy? They called him the Iceman because he figured out this brilliant way of not getting caught. He killed somebody, freeze the body, keep it for six, seven months, defrost it and then dump it somewhere. And then they couldn't connect the time of murder. The way he got caught was he didn't fully defrost the body, dropped it off, they saw ice crystals in it and said, oh, these bodies are being frozen. And then they went back and connected them to the murder. Yeah, but that's what he did. He would freeze them and do that. Or he would drop them in a vial of acid and melt everything and really fucked up guy, dude, if you ever read one of these guys. Anyway, speaking back to the poison, the ricin, I read about that because there was this other way of killing people that use like these radioactive isotopes. There was this journalist, I think it was in Russia, either a journalist or a politician who suddenly started to slowly die and couldn't figure out what was happening and they were speculating. Was it the doorknob that they touched? I've heard stories about that. Something and you can't trace it. And the dude like, they showed his face before and after. I don't know if that could find it. Really messed up shit, which led me down a rabbit hole of all this crap. Yeah, like there's levels, right? Like in terms of the intelligence agencies, I'm like, oh my God, what kind of methods do they have to get rid of people? Oh, that's wild. I wonder. I thought there was like someone famously historical that was like, his wife was like, just barely putting it in his breakfast every single. Wasn't there a story like that? Well, there's a lot of those. Those are called, what are they called? Well, munchausens with kids, but yeah, I guess. What's that one? I don't know if that applies. What is that one? It's four times the females. Yeah, for the most part, they want to keep their victims sick. Yeah, that's what I think the story, I think that's what she wanted. She wanted him to be sick, but not kill him. Like she was giving a dose that was not enough to kill him, but just to keep it fucked up. Isn't that weird? So that's one of the very few places where more women do it than men when it comes to murder. And it's that. And it's what the theory is that they'll slowly poison you. They don't want you to die, but they want you to always be sick to depend on them. Yeah, to be dependent. Because now they're always gonna have to care for you. Yeah, dude. And so there's moms, I'll do that to kids. And just keep them sick for years. Yeah, super. What was that in? That was in a six cents. Six cents, yeah. Oh, that wasn't there? I just recently watched that. I didn't scare the shit out of myself. I've watched it in a long time. It's so good. Oh my God, it's such a good movie. It's sad, dude. I forgot how sad that movie is. Speaking of TV and stuff, you are watching now Raised by Wolves? Yes, dude. Let's talk about this. I'm actually, I really am enjoying it. Told you, I knew you'd love it. I knew it. It's super original. And I just like, I like there's not a lot of original shit out there that I haven't seen before, especially in the science fiction kind of realm. But it's, I mean, it starts off with a bang. The very first episodes are really hard one to like hook and sell you on. And they did a really good job, like, you know, getting you all immersed in this environment and then crazy shit happens at the same time. You're like, wow, it is crazy. Well, they do a good job. And HBO always crushes it, right? It's an HBO series. You go from thinking these AI robots are evil to thinking they're good to the humans are evil to their good and their God is faked is their God real. And it just, you don't know what to think one episode to the next. And it checks all the boxes for me. Cause like, I love when science fiction can also explore religious undertones and they can figure out like the whole spiritual side alongside technology and also like humanity trying to figure out how to deal with basically being obliterated by the, you know, all these AI robots. Yeah. It's all sci-fi people. Did you hear, did you hear Justin and I talking about Marvel and stuff? No, what's going on? Well, we were talking about like series, right? How that's like the new thing is to like, you know, Marvel, Star Wars, all that. I can't wait for the Lord of the Rings one to come out. Well, no, you know what? And you've said this before that what you would love, what would be something to do a whole series on a character that you know, you said it before and you got all excited. The Rocky and doing the franchise. Okay, so. Are they gonna do Mickey? Well, no, listen, listen, dude, I'm just setting the table for you that there's a good chance that something that you said you would love to happen would pot is probably going to happen because I shared like, I think it was a year ago, maybe longer when Amazon bought the bought MGM for like eight billion dollars. Part of that strategy was all the feed, the prime video stuff. So they had an MGM owns the rights to Rocky, among other like very famous popular series. Mickey story would be so good. This is becoming the formula, right? Is to buy a franchise like this. And tell the story before the story. Yeah, and tell the all the spin offs. And it's because you've already got a built in loyal audience and then maybe you attract a new imagine 1920, 1930s America, Irish immigrant, Mickey, poor, rough fighting. The rules of boxing back then were crazy. Like the story of Mickey would be so fricking epic. Well, I'm calling that it's going to happen. So it's it's almost free. I mean, if you look at all these other streaming services, the strategy that they're all doing is they're buying these big franchises with the intent, I think, to make them all into spin offs. Hey, speaking of business, I've been reading about the high protein cereal market. So obviously we work with blowing up blowing up. So I obviously we work with magic spoon and they're the high protein, by the way, high protein cereal, the best have existed in the past. They sucked before they're not really high protein. If you look at the bad nine grams, it just tastes awful. Not even it's like seven grams of protein, high protein cereal. No, it's not high protein. Magic Spoon is really high protein, like 20 something grams for a small serving. So you're going to get good protein. That market is exploding right now. And partially because I think Magic Spoon showed the cereal producers, this is a market. People want this. Yeah. So I'm reading articles about how the big cereal producers now are looking at maybe moving into this market. Now I predict, do you guys think someone like Magic Spoon will get offers to buy them out? Well, I mean, you saw what happened to Primal Kitchen. Like they got bought up by what? Crafters or something. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. It's potentially a possibility. I mean, they've obviously proven that there's demand there and it's a viable option. Such a good and bad thing at the same time, right? You've got to be a little scared too. Like when you think about general meals and post and like these massive brands that have tons of resources and power, how hard do you really, really think it would be to reverse engineer what these proteins, these protein cereals could. But you know why they sometimes buy it is because they're easier. They have easier. Yeah. And they have to win over the consumers. It's just like what we just talked about with instead of redoing Rocky and writing, you buy the franchise so you have the right so you have the built-in audience. It's the same concept. It's like you buy Magic Spoon because it's already got millions of people that are bought into the brand and versus trying. But I don't know. Plus when it comes to health food, though, I'll say this, when it comes to health food, like look at Magic Spoon. A good percentage of their core consumers are fitness fanatics. People who want to build muscle, burn body fat, like who are interested in health and fitness and performance. If general meals came out with a high protein cereal, they will be so skeptical, right? I would look at a general meals high protein cereal. I'd be like, right, Captain Crunch high protein. No, thanks. Yeah. But Magic Spoon won me over. So if they bought Magic Spoon and left them alone, in my opinion, that would be the strategy, right? Yeah, it would be interesting to see what they did, too. I mean, I would love to see it happen just because it would get everybody shut up that thinks it's like Magic Spoon is like getting over on everybody price-wise. It's like even if- Protein's expensive. It's just expensive. If you take something that, if you're going to get a bowl of cereal, have 30, 40 grams of protein. Of like whey protein. Yeah, it's going to be a lot more than Lucky Charms or an off-brand of Lucky Charms. Corn wheat cereal. Yeah, so I mean, I would like to see it just for that reason alone to get everybody to understand that it's not the brand Magic Spoon that is just gouging people for prices. I bet their margins are probably the same or less than what the margins are for someone who's making Lucky Charms or Captain Crunch. I would totally agree. Speaking of sponsors, I just got, you might have talked about these before, but I haven't got them until recently. The Meta pants from Viori? Yeah. Meta joggers? No. Or the pants? Yeah, they're like slacks that are stretchy. The joggers become one of my favorites, the Metas. So I could wear them out to dinner, button down shirt, look real nice. They're nice-looking slacks, but they're not slacks. They're freaking Viori stretchy, comfortable material. You could wear them and work out in them, but they literally look like nice, like, yeah. Again, I could wear a button down shirt and go to a nice restaurant and wear them, which I did. I did the other night. Oh, wow. It's super, I had no idea. Get your squats in the morning and then you go out to dinner that night with the same pants. I have a pair of Nike golf slacks that are like that, that are sporty. You can dress them up, dress them down like that. I wonder if they're like that. So is it kind of like that material that like almost? Like they look like nice slacks. They don't look like workout pants. They look like, again, you can go with them. But they're not cotton. They're more this kind of like winery. So there's a elasticity to it. There's a elasticity and super comfortable, like you're wearing. I don't even remember seeing those. It's a leisure wear. The other ones. I'm like three of them. Yeah, dude, I love them. Oh, I thought the ones that you wear most of the time are the ripstop. No. Well, I do those, but my favorite's the meta, though. I'm with you. Yeah, I do. So the meta joggers. So Sunday joggers were my first. Like I was on a kick on that, have all the colors in that. And those are some of my favorite. But those are very, you know, sweat pantsy, like, you know, which is fine for what we do. But if I want to sweat pantsies. You sweat pants. But if I want to go, I want to go out or if I want to wear like a polo shirt, the meta joggers, that's why I like the meta joggers so much is because they I can put a polo shirt on with it and it looks sharp and I can put a t-shirt on it and I look, you know, sporty. Hey, speaking of looks and all this stuff. So we're now at this age. OK, this is finally happening. Are you guys seeing, except my daughter and my son now, sons in high school, daughters in junior high. And now I'm starting to see straight up kids are dressing the way that we dressed when we were kids. It's all come back now. Are you seeing this shit? Always happens. Do you have mullets? Kids are wearing mullets? Yeah. That's a thing now. Thank you. We made fun of that. I'm actually I was trying to, you know, shoe that in with the raised by a wolf's conversation, too, because they have mullets and they all have mullets. And I'm like, wait a minute. And then all of like, I'd be like Theo Vaughn and like some of these other comedians and like popular people and entertainment like literally have mullets. And it's like at first it's kind of novelty and funny and whatever like now literally people go and I was talking to Vicki about this too. And she was saying that people come in requesting specifically like this whole party in the front or party in the back and business in the front. Yeah, dude, like what? Yeah. If you read, I've brought this up before. I haven't talked about this book in a long time, but it's such a great. I think it's Derek Thompson. I think is the author. Maybe Doug could look for me. It's called Hit Makers. It was a recommendation from when I first met Tom Billu. He recommended it. And it's like the science of going viral. Yeah, I'm saying that, yeah. And this is part of that formula. And something works in music, works in movies. It works in clothing styles. You want something that is familiar enough that then also a little new, right? Exactly. And so there literally is a formula for things like this working. And there it is right there. It is Derek Thompson. Like I rarely ever remember the author. That's a great sharp lately. What's going on? Thank you. I wish I had a commercial to sell you on why I'm so sharp right now, but I don't. Are you? Yeah, no, I'm being. I'm not trying to sell shit. I'm not trying to sell shit. I mean, I'm serious. I've been sharp as fuck lately. I don't know how it's going on here. You know what's, you know, what is interesting that I have found right now, I would have to say that my, which totally goes against our, our probably our brand or probably a message. What I'm going to say. But it's all cocaine. No, no, no, no, no, no. Lots and lots of Adderall. My training volume is, is really low compared to what it's been in the last like 20 years. Like it's, but it's efficient. But consistent. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I know I'm consistently three times a week, you know, a bad week, maybe two, a really bad week, one, but I'll never string two weeks together right now with one time a week or some of that. So pretty consistent between two to three times a week. You feel healthy. Yeah. I just feel, and I noticed it in my sex drive. It just, I feel sharper. I'm getting better rest. It makes me wonder how much, and I know we talk about this, do I have that tendency to really overtrain? Of course. Like I start off in the right direction, doing really well and then get like, oh, loving the gains, loving the feel, loving the strength, like, and more and more and more. And even though we preach about it all day long, and for the first time in a long time, I'm really not even focused on anything. I have no, you know, strength goals right now. I have no even aesthetic goals right now. I'm more focused on many other aspects of my life, but I also recognize the importance of keeping that. You know what I'm saying? And so right now I'm kind of like idling in the training area in a way where I'm doing it to compliment everything else in my life. And I have to say that I feel some of the healthiest I've ever felt in my life. I can tell. But I know I don't look the sickest. Like I've looked way better. I know I've been way stronger, but I feel really, really good with this kind of balance that I have going on right now. Yeah, I know, when I cut my training volume down, I got better results. And I've already accepted the trade-off that, yeah, I'm probably overtraining a little bit, but mentally I like training so much that, okay, fine, you know, I've just accepted it. Also I'm a little hard headed. So I'm pretty sure I'd do better with four days a week. I'm at five days a week. I'll probably do better with four with hard training, but it's hard, dude. It's hard for me. Yeah, it's- It keeps me sane, that's the thing. You guys know, you guys know how I get when I don't work. No, and there is a deal with me. There is, and I think to each their own, and I also think that, you know, where you're at, Seasonal Life, you know, somebody on Instagram fired me up like about a month ago, like made a comment to me about that I make excuses for my training volume or whatever. I'm like, oh, I'm too busy, or I'm a dad, or it's just like, no, just the different seasons of my life. Like there's times where- Bro, training should be a tool, and you use the tool to improve the quality of your life. It shouldn't be your life. If training is your life, there's something- You're a loser. You're just a different, just a buff one. Yeah. Which is better than it's not a buff one. You're still a fucking loser, just a different kind of- Would you rather be a buff loser? That's right. Well, it's true. A weak loser. I mean, I just think that my personal journey, I've come full circle on that. I've done all the, I've chased the lifting PRs. I've chased the getting on stage look. I've done all that. I ran away from my insecurity of being a skinny guy for so long. And I just feel like I've come full circle- That's also because people don't know behind the scenes. I mean, you do so much on the, we have an investment arm of the company that Adam really runs quite well. And we all have full trust in him because he's smart and he does it right and whatever. That takes a lot of time. So it's not like you're not training and then you're doing nothing. You're training to compliment everything else. I think that's why I was so privately annoyed by the kids. They just don't know. They have no idea, dude. You fucking little shit. You're being lazy. That's what it probably is. That to me is like, that is the most opposite of my character is like to make exuse, so being a victim or being lazy. Like those two things, like such a, but then I had to question myself, well, why did that bother me so much? This fucking turd who I don't even know made a comment to me like that. You just don't know all of the other moving parts in your life, you know? That's, can't tell you right now. That's my learning lesson right now is to not get annoyed with people that don't matter. You know how hard that is? It is so hard, bro. That was a reminder for me of why again, why I want to move. Because it don't matter to this guy. Yeah, no, I don't even remember the kid's handle or whatever like that, you know? But you know what, I do remember. I do remember it had some like, you know, eat, sleep, repeat. Was this hashed in in his bio? It was like no days. I'm like, dude, you were the, you were telling me, yeah. No, you just haven't evolved yet, kid. You're still figuring it out right now. I mean, and I get it, I was there at 1.2 where, and I remember you giving Danny a hard time about this when you did, when he did the whole like giving people your audience a hard time about making excuses for not having enough time the day. It's like, you know, there's also this, we do, we go through seasons in our life and our priority shift. The things that you just mentioned, like I'm actually enjoying and I love that. So there are times. Yeah, so how's, I mean, I see this. How's your quality of life now? Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, so what else could you possibly ask for? I don't understand what people are, that's the key right there. Well, you know, what I think is, which is also what I love that what we're doing is I really, you know, I really do mean that we're here to disrupt this space. Like there is this, there is this idea around, you know, fitness people that they have to look a certain way and be all motivational. That's the dysfunctional side. It's all of it though. This whole industry is immature. They're not getting any like wisdom and maturity trickling in. It's like, everybody wants to just be drawn to this. Listen, it's hard to sell the wisdom, the maturity, the balance. It's hard to sell that. It's easy to sell the other shit. Yeah. If we had, listen, if we lacked integrity and we weren't trainers for two decades, let's say we just started Mind Plumbly, let's make a ton of money and, you know, whatever. We can very easily sell shit with that stupid, those stupid lines. Very easily lose 30 pounds in 30 days, take this magic pill. Here's the secret. You're a pussy if you don't work out every day. I could sell that very easily. It riles people up, it gets people excited. They buy your product, they disappear, you move on to the next customer. I'm not interested in that shit, man. I trained people for too long to know that that's a failing strategy. And I don't care. I don't care if that makes more money. And I knew that I was playing into that and using that with the whole competing thing at the beginning. I knew that I needed to get some attention, right? To get a little bit of an audience so that we had some sort of a platform to tell the whole story. I had no audience. That was really, that was the main, but I couldn't tell you how excited I was to leave that. It's not a lack of I don't have the discipline or whatever to do. It's just like, no, I don't want to live my life that way. What is my wife and my poor kid? I can't imagine if I did that. There's other parts in your life that I think we just... Daddy, can you play with me? Sorry, kid, it's like that. Can I give you my lift? Yeah. Sis, come on, dude. You can watch me train. I mean, I just think that there should be more of a conversation, especially in the, I don't even know what category we fall in because I don't think we're the hippie wellness people. I don't think we're the fucking sports performance people. I also don't think we're the bodybuilding community. I just think there's something to take from all of those communities and the real secret sauce to... I'd say we're the sexy, smart people. That's a new category. I like that. I like that. I can get down with that. And Humble. Sexy balance. The most humble. The humblest podcast ever. The humblest. It's too late. We already did an interview where we were all told we're narcissistic. We can't come out and say no. That's an old podcast. Don't bring it up. Hey, real quick. Look, if you're a fitness fanatic, eat a lot of protein, you fuel your body, you might also struggle with digestive issues. This is a tough issue for a lot of people. Gut issues can cause inflammation, spike cortisol, make your insulin go all over the place, basically make it hard to get lean and fit into build muscle, right? So how do you address this? Well, there's a lot of things you could do, but one thing you could do is utilize digestive enzymes designed for fitness people like you. Now, the company I like to work with is Bioptimizers. Their mass enzymes are incredible. I love them. I take them when I eat a high protein meal. I digest it so well, it is now a staple in my daily use, okay? So if you're interested in trying this out to see if it solves some of your digestive issues, go to mindpumppartners.com, click on Bioptimizers, and then the code is mindpump10, mindpump10 for a discount. All right, here comes the rest of the show. Our first caller is Sean from Maryland. What's up, Sean? How can we help you? Hey guys, great to be with you. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. Awesome. Well, I've listened to you guys for a while. I got MAPS aesthetic back in 2019. Little background, I'm 41 years old. I was trying to lose weight after I went into a dressing room and saw the pants were not fitting anymore. And so one of my friends told me, cut it to 1,800 calories and you'll see it fall off. And I did, but I didn't like what I saw once all the weight fell off. So I found you guys, I started this process of building and cutting and massing, cutting and massing. So I got myself to the point where I've run MAPS aesthetic multiple times. I just finished a 12 week cut, went from 213 this week, I'll be down at 193. So I'm at a place where I just wanna maintain from here on out. And running the type of volume that MAPS aesthetic has towards in the phase three especially, and then going to maintenance. I wanted to run into performance, but I know you guys are usually going, anabolic performance aesthetic. When you go lower the volume down and go to maintenance, I'm just worried that now the weight's gonna start coming back on. And I wanna talk through that progression of what that's like, you picking up on throwing down? Yeah, no, you're good, bro. You're gonna be fine, especially performance because performance actually has got, I mean, we have an additional phase in there, there's an endurance phase. The exercises, a lot of them in there are so novel, like you probably haven't done a lot of them. So it's gonna be a new stimulus. So even if you are in a slight calorie surplus to calorie burn ratio, because there's even if there was a tiny bit less volume, it's gonna be a new stimulus. You're gonna build muscle from it. I think you're in a great place right now. Where's your calorie intake right now? You said before 1800, but it sounds like you went up and... Yeah, so I went up, when I started the cutback at the beginning of January, it was like at 22 to 24. And right now I'm at, you know, on workout days, I'm getting about 1800 on the weekends when I'm resting, I'm cutting it down to about 14, which that's brutal. So I'm happy to be done with that soon. Yeah, yeah, no. So I mean, to put it differently, remember this like, yes, exercising activity burns calories, but that's actually the least in, I guess, important part of exercise. What you really wanna focus on are the adaptations. Because you're changing workouts, the adaptations are gonna be quite favorable. So you're not gonna get this like real negative effect from all of a sudden not burning as many calories as you were doing before. The performance is still a muscle building based program. They're all strength and resistance training type programs. So I wouldn't worry about that. The second thing to consider is, and this is a fact, the amount of volume and training and frequency and intensity it's required to get the body to build muscle is far higher than what's required to maintain. In fact, the last study that I read was something like one seventh, the volume was required to maintain, which is quite a bit less. So a lot of people worry about that, right? They do all this volume, they get to a particular point they wanna maintain, like, oh my God, if I don't do this exact same thing I've been doing, I'm gonna go backwards. And that's not true. I mean, I've been training for a long time. And if I wanna just maintain the amount of volume I need to keep my body where it's at is so low compared to what it took to get it where it's at. So you're in actually a really good place. And I'm gonna make a prediction here, Sean. You're gonna switch over to performance, bump your calories a little bit. You'll probably get a little leaner and build a little bit more muscle. That's probably what's gonna happen. Yeah, you're probably gonna respond completely differently. It's such a different pursuit in terms of a lot of exercise in there. People just haven't included it a lot and your muscles have to respond in different planes. And that's all just like new territory for your body to build upon. And you're gonna find that translates really well towards your aesthetic goals. Yeah, it's really cool about where you're at, Sean, is you could just now enjoy the workouts. Like forget, don't worry about goals. Just enjoy the process and the journey. And what you'll find is that's gonna get you, I mean, the side effect of that is gonna be like incredible fitness and aesthetics. And you're gonna maintain, you're gonna find yourself not swinging like you might have before. So I would say now change the mentality, go into your workouts and then just focus on the workout itself and enjoy the workout itself and enjoy the novelty and the difference in the exercises and how you're moving and how you're feeling and the performance aspect of it. And then don't even pay attention necessarily to trying to hit a specific goal. But the side effect of that, which is the irony of all that is the side effect is gonna be, you're gonna probably improve your aesthetics by doing that. That's great. I think that's one of the reasons I'm excited about with being 41 and just wanting to make sure I like the fact that there's mobility days in there and I want that movement. And I grew up an athlete. And so I actually like the way you guys have talked about performance. It's always made me wanna try it out. So I got it. And yeah, pretty stoked to try it. But that's encouraging to hear. I think it just messes with your mind when you're doing so much volume. So I appreciate you guys feeding back on me. Totally does, Sean. And then I'm gonna send you the intuitive nutrition guide to help you with the diet part because now that you're not looking at, trying to add or drop calories or necessarily count macros, you're kind of in this maintenance state of mind. The intuitive eating guide will help you with that. It's a really nice place to live. This is where you kind of wanna live most of the time that you're exercising or whatnot. So we'll send that over to you and I think that'll help you a little bit. Yeah, and if you're happy where your weight is at right now, this is a great time to kind of transition into not really calorie counting so much. I mean, my recommendation or transition for you right now at the stage where I would be, well, let's keep an eye on protein still because we wanna make sure that we build some muscle on this new program and maintain the physique that you have or that you like. So let's watch that a little bit. But for the most part, as far as like how I would feed you is, I'd really be asking you, like how do you feel? Are you hungry? And if you notice that you're hungry from the new workouts, I would say, hey, let's eat. Let's eat, let's feed you. Just make good choices. Like I always say, don't eat like an asshole. Eat what your body needs. That's Adam's diet book. Yeah, I'm gonna write that actually. It's a Tobin asshole. Don't eat like an asshole for optimal health. But I think you know what I mean when I say that, right? So, because it actually, there's a really good chance coming out of the low calories you are doing a program like performance, which is very different than aesthetic, is going to send a signal for your body to change, adapt, build muscle, and it's gonna want probably more calories. And you're gonna probably have this little hesitancy of like, ah, that's great. I don't wanna eat, I wanna eat all the time. I gotta hold back. I don't wanna put on a bunch of fat. But man, if you're lifting and you're making good choices when you add the extra calories, I'm gonna tell you most of it's gonna be muscle that's gonna get put on your body. Yeah, there's a lot of metabolic flexibility in there. Yeah. And would you say that's the same case, even like I'm going to Lebanon to work with Syrian refugees for a couple weeks and like doing some different traveling. So I have the anywhere and I have the suspension. Be the kind of the same thing for that, right? Then come back and get into performance. Yep, yep, absolutely. Cool. And hey, man, that's cool that you're doing that. Thanks. That's great. Yeah, yeah, you bet. Well, thank you guys for all you do. It's awesome to be on here with you. Love to see a concurrent training program come eventually where someone wants to like integrate running and lifting more. Stay tuned, Sean. This is gonna be a good year for someone like you then. Every minute of the way. Nice to be on this. Thanks for calling in, man. Yep. All right, you guys have a good day. Appreciate it. You know, Adam, one thing that you've said in the past that I really think is important to focus on is rather than taking things away at your diet, prioritizing and adding things in your diet that are beneficial, what the side effect being you end up naturally reducing the things in your diet that maybe aren't so beneficial. So for example, you know, you always say kind of keep your eye on protein. I mean, to put it differently, it's like there's a value ladder of foods and I would place protein at the top of it. Quality protein from whole foods. So when you're putting your meal together, that's the priority of the meal. What's the side effect of that? Lower appetite, obviously the performance enhancing muscle building effects of the protein. You're probably gonna eat less of other foods that maybe aren't so beneficial. The next thing I would probably look at would be maybe fats and vegetables and then starches would be third just because carbohydrates aren't essential. And I think that's a great long-term approach. So it's not counting calories and macros. You just understand the value of foods and you've chased the higher value foods and then allow the lower value foods kind of fall off the plate a little bit. Yeah, no, it's definitely a coaching hack or trick, right? You're playing with the human psychology a little bit. You're not telling a client they can't. You know, you can't do this, you can't have that or restrict and hold back this. But what you've found for years of training and I know you guys have come to the same conclusion is that if I get my client to just focus on that and not giving them crazy parameters, just say, hey, listen, just make sure every time you sit down, what's going through your head is make sure I'm getting good quality protein and enjoy it and have variety. You want some sausage, everyone's about fine. Have a good steak, have a good steak. You want some chicken thighs, have chicken thighs. But target that first and you do. You end up filling up and then what ends up happening is without you even trying to restrict from the starches and the other foods, you just naturally do. I just think it's a much better strategy for most people that aren't trying to compete. It's a strategy that works in real life. Yeah. Our next caller is Chris from Australia. Chris, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey guys, thanks for taking my call. It's really awesome to be on the show. Set on the email. It's awesome to hear some people from outside of America on the call and I've actually heard a couple of people from the Philippines and Australia recently. So yeah, congratulations for inviting other people on the show. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so I guess I'll just jump straight into it. And so I guess the key thing is I've spent the last, been working out for quite a few years, but over the last two years, I've been doing a lot of, I know you called bro splits. So I've been doing five to six times, five to six times a week. And I was doing some smaller 45 minute sessions and things like that. And that was, I've been listening to all your talks around, you know, going to the gym too much versus, you know, doing a, you know, doing your like maps, antibiotics sessions. And the only thing I would add to that is like, going every day was awesome after lockdown and getting back into it was fantastic. So I was going like five, six, seven, eight times a week and it really got me out of that lockdown mentality. But I started doing maps, antibiotics, and I've been seeing awesome results doing maps and Ebola, seeing like significant improvements in terms of like my performance, in terms of the aesthetics, in terms of everything and I'm loving it. And I'm loving the extra time that it's giving me my day now doing maps and Ebola. You know, I've got two or three days a week where I can spend some time with my girlfriend and things like that, which is really, really cool. But I guess the key thing is I'm planning to quit my job in the next six months and go traveling. While I'm planning to travel, I'm planning to spend a lot of time surfing snowboarding things like that. And I'm just wondering what should I do in terms of a lead-in to a long time off? Like I'm planning a holiday for like a year or two years. And the main focus would be, well, as I get closer to quitting my job, I'm gonna have a lot more free time. You know, as I wind down for my job and all that type of stuff, I'll have more time and I really enjoy hitting the gym. So, but I don't wanna go back to overdoing it again because I've been seeing such good results with MAPS and Ebola can cutting it down to two to three days a week. So, yeah, I've been really loving that. So I guess that's my, you know, my first question is, what would you recommend in terms of programming to get me into, or getting ready to go on a holiday? Chris. Yeah, I guess the, oh, sorry, yeah, go, go. Chris, are you, when you do this, do you have any plans to still train at all or is the plan to like just get in the best shape you can and then you're gonna be just snowboarding and surfing and stuff? Yes. So the plan is, I'm gonna try and do, when I'm traveling, I like going running, seeing new cities and things like that. But the plan is to be hardcore surfing and hardcore snowboarding, like, you know, surfing two to three times a day in Indonesia for three months. And then, you know, hitting Canada for the winter season and, you know, skiing, you know, snowboarding. You need a travel partner or what? I was thinking about leaving these knuckleheads anyways. You know what, Chris? Because you're gonna be gone for so long, it really doesn't matter what you lead into. The lead-in would be like, well, I'm gonna be off for three weeks, so I wanna be able to jump back in. That's why I asked, too, if he was gonna be training still, too, so we're gonna be... It doesn't really make a difference. So just do what you're still doing that works. And then when you go on vacation, I would say if you wanna work out a little bit when you're on vacation, use map suspension, because you can do that anywhere. You just bring your suspension trainers and it'll probably be a good addition to all the activity you're doing. Really, not as your foundational kind of focus of your workouts, but rather just to prevent injury and maintain some strength so you can perform when you're surfing or skiing or snowboarding or doing whatever, but it really doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter what you're leading into because you've been gone for so long. So whatever the results that linger after your workout, it's not gonna make a difference after about a month or two. So I would just say, just keep doing what you're doing. Enjoy yourself. And then when you're gone, if you wanna add one or two days a week of some type of strength training, just to compliment your current activities at the time, I would say map suspension would be perfect. Well, he does have... You do have six months, right? We have six months till this happens. So... Yeah, I've got six months and I'm gonna have a lot more spare time as I get closer to winding down. I really wanna get to peak... So I would do this then. I would do this. Sal's ride, what we do is kinda doesn't matter that much, but there's still enough time right now for you to slowly scale volume a little bit. You're having great results in anabolic, finish anabolic, go all the way through. Then I'd go to aesthetic and then I'd go to strong, something like that or split. Run them like that. That'll take you up until you travel and then do exactly what Sal said is, I think suspension would be an amazing tool to have because it fits in your duffel bag and you could tie it outside, do a tree and don't make it a big deal. Just, hey, one time a week. Yeah, especially with the amount of activity you're doing. Yeah, you're gonna be staying great shape because you're gonna be physically active all the time. But hey, if you have a down week or whatever or weather isn't lining up for you to do one of your sports, so you go do the suspension trainer and don't make it a big deal if a week goes by and you don't, but when you do have the time to do it, you strap it up to something and do it. Yeah, if you're going for really increasing volume, like I would go with Adam's suggestion. If you're trying to reinforce too what you're doing in terms of surfing and snowboarding, I would recommend you throw performance in the mix. That's a good point. You know, right after and then get into aesthetic or split, either one, as you could go that direction. But yeah, you're pretty much open to another two programs of ours. That's not a bad idea, Justin. Actually, I could go, I'd change my answer after he brings up a good point because especially since you're going into sports I mean, just to minimize, because when you get right into all that surfing, the risk of injuries is a little higher as your body acclimate. Yeah, so maybe this then. So maybe go anabolic, aesthetic, and then performance. So you're doing performance right before you take off on your trip. I like that order a lot. And by the way, there's no wrong answer here. I think you're going to benefit. You're going to do great no matter what, but I think you're seeing great results from anabolic with that type of volume. Continue that. Maps aesthetic is going to be more volumes. You're going to build even more muscle from that. And then performance is like a whole new adaptation that you're doing. So your body's going to probably build muscle on that, but it's more focused around mobility. And I think that like to Justin's point is going to benefit the sports and the things you're doing. And then again, still I would have the suspension trainer. So I think that that would be kind of the perfect situation. You're much covered at that point. Yeah, Chris, when you travel like that, I had a friend that used to do that. He would just take off for six months to a year. He didn't really have like a structured plan. Is that like you or are you going out there and you have like a place to do our jobs and everything? Yeah. Do you know where you're going to stay? Are you like, do you know where you're staying and what you're doing? Or you just kind of go there and figure it out? Yes, I'm a key when this is kind of in our DNA to go and do this every five or 10 years. So I know roughly what countries I'm going to hit at what times of the year to get the right seasons for the best waves and the best snow. But in terms of, you know, ins and outs, no idea. I've been working really hard for the last few years. So, you know, I'm just ready to take a holiday. I guess the other thing I would say is that, you know, when I change from doing, you know, going to the gym almost every day down to doing maps and a bollock, I've definitely noticed that my performance and surfing is increased massively because I'm not super fatigued all the time. You know, when I was hitting post lockdown, I was hitting, you know, five, six days in the gym. And I was just so wrecked that I had no stability. I had no, you know, I just had the doms all the time. So I just, my surfing was really suffering. So I'm noticing that a maps and a bollock has definitely improved my surfing massively because I'm not constantly just ruined. Yeah, no, that's a good point. It's great you connected that. And like I said, when you're out there, you know, when you're out taking that time off and doing all that activity, like one day a week of like a suspension trainer resistance training would be ideal. That's it. And you would get the same benefit. You'd feel the stability, the strength and that's pretty much it. The biggest mistake people make, especially people who are really active is they throw a bunch of gym time on top of their activity and then they don't, they can't figure out why they're not feeling great when they're working out so much. It's just too much. Chris, you have any plans to make it to the West Coast here, California? Canada, so I'll be in BC. That's the plan is to go and hit BC. That's maybe also Revelstoke as well. So a little bit further in, but yeah, mainly Canada. But yeah, I'll definitely be hitting through hitting through that way at some point. I haven't done West Coast. Sorry. Yeah, we got the Mavericks over here near Justin. Right out Justin's knee. It's the one one. Yeah, so. You're gonna have to surf a great way in short. All right, Chris. Oh yeah, I've heard of Mavericks before. Yeah, for sure. Chris, I'm gonna send you map suspension, okay? I'm gonna send that over to you, you'll have that. Awesome. One more quick question as well. I noticed you asked this, you answered this the other day for a couple of other guys, but why do I hate trigger sessions so much? I absolutely hate trigger sessions. And like, I've tried every different trick you've suggested to everyone else. I've tried going to a trigger session in the gym. I've tried, you know, I've tried building them into my day. I'm doing them, I'm doing them, but I'm struggling to get more than one or two in a day. Because it's not a full workout, you know? So if you love working out, it's like. It seems tedious, that's why. Yeah, it's like you're, you know, it's like. It's a bit of a tease. Yeah, it's like your girlfriend, you know, kisses you a little bit and then leaves and you're like, okay. But it's recuperative, man. So you gotta just look at it completely differently. Like this is helping you to recover more effectively. The longer you'll do them, the more you'll start to appreciate it. But it's not a workout, so that's why. A good move and strategy is to attach it to something else you do really consistently, okay? So if you have some sort of routine where you go for a walk at certain times, maybe you, I don't know if you have an animal or a dog, you walk or you have a place from work where you have to. Probably a koala. If you, if you. When you take your pet koala for a walk. If you attach it, if you attach it to something else that you do consistently, it'll help you with the consistency around the trigger sessions and don't get hung up so much on like, oh, this is the optimal time or oh, this is, you know, exactly two hours apart each time I do it. Just attach it to something that you do consistently already because it's only adding. Even so, one of the times, one of the things I started doing at one point with trigger sessions to be consistent because I struggled with the same thing was just, it was part of me. One of the times would be right before I go to bed and right when I wake up. It's like first thing in the morning, brush my teeth and I go over and do this little, you know, five to 10 minute pump real quick to start my day and then I would end it. And at least I was getting two times a day and then I would always try and get the third. Like that was probably the most consistent I was with trigger sessions was just when I start my day, when I end my day, I was doing that right before or right when I wake up. Yeah. First shout out. All right, Chris. Thanks for calling in, huh? Good luck, have fun. All right, cheers guys. You got it. Justin. Oh my God. I don't think I spent it though. You didn't enjoy that. Did you know that that koalas just off topic here? Did you know that they have like a... STD. Gonorrhea. Like crazy with the koala. Now, can they give it to humans? I mean, I've never had sex with a koala. Yeah, exactly. Definitely. I'm sure if you banged a koala, the least of your worries is gonorrhea. Justin, stop banging that koala, gonorrhea. Well, what if... Put on a condom. I mean, it's got serious claws. Like what if it scratched you and it bled on you and you... Oh yeah. So yeah. So I mean, you don't actually have to have sex with a koala to actually get the gonorrhea from them. No, just foreplay. But I mean, there's not a lot of... Like, dude, I thought a lot of diseases don't go, don't go from animal to human. Yeah, I think that one does, though. I think it's legit gonorrhea. Wow. Same kind. I know it's kind of great. Is that where you got it from? No. Oh, that's right. Those are the kangaroo. The other Australian animal. You know what, you know, kind of what he's saying, boy, that's a huge mistake, a lot of really active people. It's like, man, I run, I cycle, I want to add some strength training. So they add in like four days of strength training to their routine. And then they're like, oh, it doesn't work for me. I end up feeling worse. It's the strength training's fault. No, it's not. You're just doing too much. You're just doing way too much. Yeah, you know, the irony is, MAPS anabolic is a pure muscle-building, sagittal, plain workout, and he's noticing improvements in his surfing. Just the goes to show you. But the reason why is just backing off the volume. Yeah. He's just stronger. He's just stronger being over-trained. Yeah, I actually think it's, I mean, kudos to him for having the self-awareness to even connect the dots on that. A lot of people don't. They would think it's something else, like, oh, or something magical in the workout. It's like, no, it's just your volume. You're doing way too much. Our next caller is Marco from Ecuador. Marco, how can we help you? Hey, guys, first of all, thank you very much for everything you do. You may hear these a lot of times, but you truly change lives. I appreciate it. So my question is about blood donations and workout. I'm a bit skeptical of all the information one can find on the internet, health-related. And when you look for a blood donation, there's a long list of all the positives with very little negative. I would like to hear you guys about your experiences with this and how to prepare the days before and how to prepare for the days after a blood donation. Thank you. Good question. Actually, not much. What you don't want to do is strenuous physical activity for 24 to 48 hours after, just because you may find you might get a little dizzy. Now, I'm going to be honest. If I just gave blood, I noticed none of those effects afterwards. Now, I do. You do. I do. Is it from the sight of the blood or the fact that you gave blood? I mean, I don't know, but I assume it's because it's not just the moment after. It's the whole next day. I'm pretty fatigued. Now, did you donate blood or just get a blood test? No, no, no. I've donated blood before. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just recently did a blood test, but I've done where you give like, you know, was it three, four vials? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or the bag or whatever. Yeah, and that, you know, for the next 24 hours, I'm just, I normally take the next day off. Yeah, my wife is like that. So she donated blood and then felt really faint the day after. I felt nothing, but I definitely wouldn't recommend working out right afterwards. Now, leading into blood donation, I mean, it's all the stuff that they ask you not to do, drugs, unprotected sex, you know, the whole deal, right? So you want to make sure your blood is clean so that they, although they test it, you definitely want to give clean blood. As far as the benefits are concerned, most of the benefits of donating blood, besides the psychological benefits, right? Cause you feel good, you're helping people, that type of stuff. The physiological benefits, many of which, or most of which apply to men. Men don't obviously bleed regularly like women do. And we can often build up kind of toxic or dangerous levels of iron in our blood, or even if it's not toxic or too dangerous, just higher levels of iron can cause increased risks of heart disease and blood clots and cancers and stuff like that. So they find that men that give blood at least once a year have like a significant reduction in some of those things. So, and that's pretty much it. But the day after, I would say I wouldn't work out for 24 to 48 hours. Yeah, just to be safe. Yeah, just to be safe. Cause what you don't want to do is, you know, pass out, right? You want to do squats and then find yourself passing out. But after that, totally fine. I gave blood personally. I worked out about maybe two days later. I felt zero negative effects. But I'm glad you're doing this. You know, there's a huge blood shortage going on right now, especially after the pandemic. A lot of people stopped donating blood and they're in this massive shortage. And it's a big deal because we have yet to create synthetic blood that we can give to people. So good on you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. No problem. Thanks for calling in, Marco. Thank you for everything you do. Appreciate it. Yeah, you know, I got called back by the Red Cross because I donated. And all the STDs. Yeah, and they said, You can't take this. This is crazy. Too much myth in this one. But hanging out with Koala is too much. They said, yeah, a lot of weird supplements in your blood with the blood. Why is it yellow glowing? No, I'm O-positive, so I'm a universal donor. So they called me up right away and said, hey, can you come back in and we'll put you on a regular schedule because of whatever. I said, yeah, absolutely. The health benefits are what got me interested for men in particular. And if that motivates people to give blood, that's great. I know it kind of did for me. Yeah, in terms of iron, but also too just the amount of blood cells. Like, I guess that, you know, sometimes we get to a point where we produce too many blood cells and it actually has an adverse... Like thickening effect. Like a thickening effect. Yeah, so, yeah, I'm due. So this is one of those things. I'm like, yeah, I think I should schedule one here. Bodybuilders have been doing this for quite a while. Yeah, now they do it for different reasons. When they're on high doses of anabolic steroids, it makes your body produce more red blood cells. Your hematocrit goes up too high. So one way to regulate that in easy ways to give blood. So I know that they do that. Yeah, that's actually what, I mean, when I was taking all kinds of testosterone, that was one of the reasons why I did that down there. But I would do it more consistently if I didn't feel that way. I feel that way every time. So it's been a handful of times now that I've done it and every time I feel kind of... You wouldn't make a good warrior. And also it gets rid of all the demons. Yeah, that's the main reason. This was 5,000 years ago. Adam would be alive. My medieval doctor told me. On the battlefield. Imagine he gets a cut. Oh, God. I'd be extra motivated not to die, bro. That's it. I don't want to get cut. No, I'm just kidding. No infection. No, you know what? I tell you what, dude, people are always, I don't know if people are always doing this, but I know I was always thinking, how can I help? What can I do? Can I donate money? What an easy, very effective, direct way of helping people. Sometimes you give a random purse of money on the street. You don't know what they're doing with it. You give blood. It's gonna be used. It's a nice bag of blood. Yeah, for a good purpose. Unless it's weird celebrities using it to be young. You know what I mean, Justin? Our next caller is Brian from Minnesota. Brian, what's happening? How can we help you? Yeah, thanks for taking my call, guys. I really appreciate this. Just a little background for you. So I am 41 years old. I'm a single dad. I find it best to work out in the mornings with my schedule. So I work out between normally 5.30 to call it 7.30 in the morning. And I find that helps keep me consistent. So start lifting weights about 18 months ago after years of doing nothing but running. And really start running is how I'd get my results. And after I realized of running three to five miles a day, and I was at my heaviest, 245 pounds, that something needed to change. My blood work was kind of a mess. And I came across to you guys and I think the best thing that happened was my treadmill broke. And so I bought a pair of adjustable dumbbells, committed to just doing 10 minutes a day. And because I tend to, when I get after things, I really get after it and then can either cause injury or get frustrated and kind of move on. So started listening to you guys, kind of went more with a split style, was seeing some results, but then kind of hit plateau. So decided to go in on what you guys were saying and switched over. And so lost my job actually in October, which led to having a little time on my hand. So I bought anabolic and got gym memberships, started tracking macros, really got great results. So after that, I went into doing aesthetics. And really during about that last week of aesthetics, I had started noticing getting some pain that I hadn't experienced before, a little bit in the neck, back, just kind of all over. And I felt like my body was really pushing it. And I was getting to the point where, I needed to do something a little different. So my question for you guys is, where would I go next? I did finish aesthetics. I saw terrific results. I'm down to 200 pounds, got my body fat tested. I'm really proud of where I got to because of your guys' programs, but just feel like I need to train maybe in a little different plane, a little different program. And so where would you guys suggest I go next? Brian, by the way, aesthetic is a lot of volume. So, and I want people to know this, it's a lot of volume and for some people, it's too much. Okay, I'd say probably of all the people that buy it, a good 30 to 40% of the people, probably it's a little too much volume for them. So that's why you started kind of feeling that pain. Now to answer your question, mass performance, hands down would be the perfect program. Oh, this is such a, your story is a perfect example of, and I know we probably don't do this enough. We used to early on and we should revisit communicating this more, but when we wrote the programs, the ideal way to follow them is maps anabolic, maps performance and then maps aesthetic for the exact reason your experience right now is after doing the anabolic training with that, which is very heavily focused in the sagittal plane, jumping into aesthetic, which is also heavily focused in the sagittal plane and increasing volume tends to do this, especially for us guys that are older than 30 years old. You're 20 something, maybe you don't realize it or recognize it too much, but as we get older, this stuff really starts to show up and had you gone to performance first, I think that you would eliminate it, what you feel right now. Yeah, you're really pressuring the hinges at that point, right? So you've put in a lot of work there and anabolic and then added volume on top of that style of training. So you're going to do your body a whole bunch of good going through performance and going through the movements and reinforcing the joints and gaining stability and also to building muscle. So it's, you know, misconception is that you're going through performance to kind of, you know, just go through the mobility sessions and get better with, you know, the movement side of it, but really you're building muscle the entire time as well. So I think it's going to be a great follow up. We'll send overmaps performance to you, Brian, if you don't have it, okay? Oh, I really appreciate that. And you're right on there, just, that's kind of why I skipped that one was for the first time I saw such good results in muscle definition and stuff. I thought, oh, I'm not going to do performance. I'm jumping right to aesthetics. I need to keep this. You're not alone, brother. Here's the lesson for you, Brian, okay? Cause you actually did it. You actually kind of learned this lesson a little bit and then kind of forgot it. The lesson is to listen to what we say because we know what we're talking about. That's a true story. Listen, we say anabolic performance, okay? So, and I know you're like, I want to go aesthetic because I want to keep pushing things. Just, I promise you, Brian, we've been doing this for a long ass time. Decades, we communicate as trainers. We're not just trying to sell shit or whatever. That's the truth. So, maps performance do that all the way. You'll love the way it makes you look and feel. You'll feel better with maps performance than you did even with maps anabolic. That's 100% true. Sure. And to that point, I have really bought into what you guys preach or what you say and just one quick second is my way to say thanks, you guys, as I hope others hear this, is what makes you guys really different is in business, in life, you can really fake caring about results, especially if it's driven to make money. But what you can't fake is caring about people and getting a message out and you guys couldn't fake it as long as you have. So, you know you guys actually care. I appreciate that. So, I have bought into what you guys do and it's kind of funny. My girlfriend has actually joined in also and I've helped her actually get back into doing some weightlifting now and some stuff would die and other stuff. So, it's awesome what you guys do and really appreciate what you guys do. Thanks a whole lot, Brian. Brian, how many kids do you have, by the way? I just have one daughter. Good for you, man. She's 10 now and getting more and more active and that's what hurt is when she was eight and I wasn't keeping up with her at all. And I was like, something needs to change because I'm running three to five miles a day and I can't keep up with her. Hey, Brian, I'm gonna send you map suspension too. If your daughter shows any interest in doing any exercises with dad, that's a great thing for a kid to do. It's a great introduction. So, I'll send you that too, okay? That's awesome because she will every once in a while, like on like trigger days or something, you know, at home. She will jump in and maybe she just does obviously like body weight or something like that, but she will jump in every once in a while. Oh, good deal. Yeah, so we'll send you maps, performance and map suspension. That's awesome. I really appreciate it, guys. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate it, Brian. All right, thanks. You got it. Yeah, I mean, I get the whole, I get the allure, right? Wanting to go in a particular direction thinking you're gonna maybe respond a little different, but I mean, look, I'm gonna be honest. If I was Brian, I would have done the same thing. 100% I get it. Well, the results come on and it's addictive. You know, it's like, wow, look at my body changing and transforming. And so, yeah, it's just, it's a little bit different mindset to also now think more long-term about your training. Yeah, and people just, they're always pleasantly surprised. They'll do a program. They think, all right, you know, they tell me I should do this, but I wanna do this, but I'll do what they tell me. And then, you know, a month or two later, like, oh crap, this is exactly what I needed. Yeah, you know, every time this comes up, I actually, I always do have a mental note that I never follow through on it, which is, You should probably write it down. Yeah, maybe get dug to do it here. We really should highlight that somewhere on the website, because we think because we've said it 30 times. Like the perfect order on the show. And why? You know what I'm saying? Like, why you go this direction and not that you can't do it other ways, is that we wrote it with this intent for these reasons. And because this is a perfect example of why you want to follow it in the order that we say, regardless kind of what your goal is, even if your goal is to build a maximum amount of muscle, people don't realize that you are gonna do that by going through the performance program second. So we ought to put it on the website somewhere where we can explain that because. That's a good idea. Oh, there's a good chance that somebody listened to 500 episodes, but they've never heard us say that before. So. Yep, good deal. Look, if you lack our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any fitness goal and they're all free. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam. And you can only find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal.