 First question is from Katie Konten. What's the best way to get rid of a mom pooch? Everything else has returned but the midsection. Oh, yeah. This can be super frustrating for... So many names for this, by the way. Yeah, and not just... This isn't just a mom thing. Well, there's a couple things that... We called it the foopa. You're right. There's a couple things I want to thanks, Justin. Holy cow. No problem. There's a couple things I want to talk about here with this because if it's excess body fat, you can get leaner, that's the main reason why a lot of people have a pooch, but specifically to moms or to women who just had a baby or can't seem to get lean. They work their abs, their obliques, they train their body, and even though their body fat percentage is down, they have this kind of lower belly pooch that sticks out a little bit and they can't figure out why. Very frustrating because they're doing everything they're supposed to. I've trained women in this particular situation and really this is the result. If you're lean and you're fit and you're working out and everything else is good and you still have this, this is because your TVA muscle has not been properly strengthened post-pregnancy. So this is a muscle... TVA stands for transversive dominance and it's a muscle that is deep in the core so it's under the abs and the obliques and it surrounds the midsection and it's kind of like a corset or a weight belt. So when you're at the beach and you suck in your stomach, the muscle that sucks in your stomach is your TVA. When you're pregnant, this muscle has to stretch an atrophy to make room for baby. This muscle in particular has to stretch an atrophy because it's the one that shrinks your midsection. So when it stretches in atrophies, as the baby grows, then you have the baby and then it... There's nothing in there anymore, there's no more baby in there, this muscle remains atrophied and weak and so you strengthen your abs, you work out your obliques, you get leaner but because you didn't strengthen this specific muscle that tightens up and shrinks the waist, your organs kind of push out a little bit because the midsection's full organs, right? Push out a little bit. So you get this lower belly pooch, so the solution for this in this particular situation is to do exercises that specifically work the TVA, one of them is drawing in maneuvers. That's it, one of them in particular is called a stomach vacuum. This is an old school exercise bodybuilders used to do. We actually have a great YouTube video on Mind Pump TV about this specific exercise so we'll make sure we link it in the show notes where I teach how to do it. But this exercise is great for strengthening that and getting rid of that particular... Yeah, also cat cow and techniques like that but definitely they all revolve around that drawing in maneuver. We have this as a component in our prime test, the wall test, and so that's something that you can check whether or not you have access to that properly where your ribs will then flare out a bit if it's not contracting properly. So that's something to consider too in terms of your overall bracing when you get back into weightlifting. You want to be able to have that reestablished so you're stabilizing everything correctly. So I agree with you guys but I don't think this is the only thing going on here and this... I didn't realize this until it happened to me so that's why I made this statement that this isn't just... You got the dad pooch? Yeah, like a... So... Dad bumper. And I know there's going to be a ton of people that relate to this because after this happened to me and then I've spoken about this before in the podcast a long time ago and I had tons of DMs in regards to it after I talked about it and I remember when I was getting ready before I was going to actually get on stage I had the first year of like... I told myself if I'm going to do this thing where I'm going to compete and get on stage I'm going to do a year of training and dieting without a show in mind, right? Which is what I recommend most people. So before you decide you're going to sign up for a show and just compete why not run a dry run of pretending like you're going to get ready for stage so you can get a feel of what it's going to be like. So I did that the year leading up into competing and up into that point I had never pushed myself into a low 7% body fat. 7.5%, 8% was the lowest I'd ever been in my life until I was deciding that I was going to actually compete, right? So I was sub 6% body fat. And here I am a year before I decide I'm going to get to start competing and actually one of the things that blew me away that I just couldn't figure it out at first was I was shredded, it was lean, it was 6% or less but I had this little tiny pooch still in my lower abdomen. Of body fat? Of body fat. And it just didn't make sense to me yet I'm shredded, vascular everywhere else but then it just seems like I had this little bit of stubborn fat. Now, here's my theory. We talk about on the show a lot every time why yo-yo dieting is so bad every time you lose body fat then gain it back and then lose it and gain it back we talk about that the body actually can add fat cells and we've also talked about how you know everybody has different stubborn areas on their body and areas that you tend to put the body fat on first is always seems to be the last place that you lose it also so that's for a lot of men and women it can be that lower kind of pooch area so what I realized was even when I got that lean I still had this now I was training core and abs and doing a lot of things to you know draw it in I actually hit stage the very first time I still had this now you can't tell because I'm using the drawing I'm drawing in I'm keeping my abs contracted so in photos and what everybody saw on stage you can't really tell but I knew you know I knew I still kind of had this little pooch thing even though I was fucking shredded and it wasn't until about the third show so I had to get as shredded as I had ever been then put on good lean mass not put a bunch of body fat on put a good muscle on speed the metabolism back up then shred back down again then do that I had to do that about three times it was about my third show before I actually completely eliminated that low pooch and again like right now where I percentage were you at the third time I was about 3% so after my first show I'd say my first show well now I should say my first show I came in about that lean so I was leaner even on my very first show so I'll put pictures up sometimes so people can see I know you guys have seen them before where I have like my arm out straight like this I'd never been that straight we have a poster in the bathroom yeah I mean I was gaunt that was the first time too that I had ever messed with the the computer all and I thought it was so insane my body was just like melting fat off of it and and muscle and it was like it was crazy how I felt no discount code for that yeah we don't sell that and I don't recommend it by any means no reputable companies definitely was one of the scariest things that I ever messed with but it did get me leaner than I'd ever been in my life but yet still I still had that pooch so my point is that sometimes even when you get all the way down that you might still have these stubborn areas of body fat because of years and years and years of adding fat cells to your body and that it may not just come off the very first time that you get lean you may have to get leaner than you've ever been before you know stay consistent still dieting and training build muscle build metabolism up then come back down again to finally like get because it's I think what makes it stubborn it's stored energy right and if you're feeding your body you have a body fat other places the body will get it wherever it's easiest fat cells can actually convert to they can become brown fat which is more likely to burn and produce heat for the body and other types of fat are much more stubborn and doing the yo-yo dieting can reduce the amount of brown fat you have on your body your body becomes more resistant to losing it and back to competitors competitors that bulk the wrong way that just put on a ton of body fat and go crazy and then try and get lean again you notice them each show unable to get that's why this is my theory this is also why I think they struggle with that I think because each time they put on all that extra weight they add more fat cells which makes it harder especially if they kind of have they think they've figured their body out and they have this like system like oh I cut this many calories I eat these meals I do this much cardio I get this lean and each time it gets more and more difficult now what makes this especially frustrating though for moms because I've had a few clients like this that were they worked out going into pregnancy they worked out during pregnancy they had good nutrition these are healthy healthy people with good fitness routines then they worked out and then they'd come to me and be like what this is so weird I can't get my midsection used to be so flat I'm lean I testing my body fat what's going on I don't necessarily have a lot of body fat there but my lower midsection part seems to pooch out a little bit and it was because their TVA muscles weren't tight or strong and then here's the flip of that by the way you can actually shrink your waist without getting in leaner by strengthening your TVA I talked about the vacuum exercise that's a direct exercise but here's something else you can do every time you do an ab exercise or a oblique exercise while you're doing the movement let's say you're doing crunches while you're doing the crunches draw in your midsection like you're trying to bring your belly button to your spine do that in combination with the ab exercise it'll make it much more difficult but what it does is simultaneously tightens up the TVA and gives you a tighter smaller waist from a performance standpoint TVA muscles extremely important strong TVA will strengthen your stability your spine prevent injury and if you are an athlete you definitely want a strong TVA because it's going to make you more powerful it's just going to make you more stiff and stable and especially the moms and you know back issues like tightnesses and pains and whatnot that's something that's going to help to address that and keep you in good posture which you know you're going to be very much front loaded all the time carrying your kid around and doing everything right in front of you so it's something to consider is really to be able to maintain that and to draw in is still going to help support you know the spine in that position where you're always like kind of curling forward dude you get someone who just had a baby and they're cleared to exercise and you get them to try to do a vacuum and half the time they can't even activate the muscles like they can't even draw in it takes a lot of work it does because those muscles had to turn off so you need to that is 100% should be a part of your routine in fact we have a fit mom bundle which is a bundle of maps programs that we put together specifically for moms or people who just had kids and once you get cleared so long as you're free of injury the way you follow the bundle is it starts with maps anywhere it's a great program to start with and there are drawing in maneuvers and exercises specifically designed to really strengthen the core it's a great work out generally overall great place to start and then it's got hit in there which is a great way to burn excess calories because a number one goal for for you know moms after you know having all these good youtube videos and there's great youtube videos and then there's maps anabolic in there for the metabolism so if you're looking for like a like okay I just want instruction and I want to follow something and you get clearance to work out and you're free of injury take a look at the fit mom bundle that'll handle this and a lot of other things