 Most accepted workout programs give you results. Most of them work, none of them work forever. And of course, some of them work longer than others. I think it's important to communicate because there's so many different workout plans that are out there. Lots of evangelists too. I feel like you're trying to justify your bullshit bro split right now. No. Although, although that did make me think of a table. You guys have an idea. Setting the table right here. That did make me think of this. No, because you'll see lots of, and I say accepted, like workout programs that lots of people do, lots of people swear by, and they're very different from other workout programs. You're like, how is this possible? Which one works? Which one doesn't work? They all can definitely work, but none of them work forever. I think that's the most important thing to consider is that if you do the same thing for too long, regardless of how good the programming is, it won't work. And then on the flip side, if something is novel, so long as it's appropriate, meaning it's not like overtraining you and beating you up, you know, past your capacity, if it's novel, it'll probably get your body to respond. And that's the, those are the two most important things to consider. I think you could add to that and say, almost everything works, but there definitely is a hierarchy of which workouts are more superior than others. Of course. Like some workout. Just like exercises, there's certain, like doing all the downstream effects. Doing any exercise safely is probably good and healthy for you, but that doesn't mean that there's not other exercises that are better than that exercise. Yeah, and that's why I said accepted because, you know, there's workouts out there that are just terrible, just across the board. But when I say accepted, I mean the ones that tend to be done by lots of people. So you have like your bro split, like you just mentioned, right? Powerlifting workouts. You have strongman type workouts. You have traditional full body style type workouts. Like they all exist. They've all been done by thousands and thousands of people and lots of people swear by them. But you know, it's important, especially if you're somebody's plans on news for a long time, understand that if you change your routine and it's novel, so long as it's appropriate, you're gonna get some results, but also understand that no matter what you do, how great it is, no matter how awesome your workout is, at some point it's gonna stop working. And that doesn't matter what the program is. At some point it'll just stop working. Even my butts and guts program. Did you ever run a butts and guts? I did. You did? Yeah, yeah, butts and guts. Oh my gosh. So you were around, I don't know if Justin was around for this. It used to be really popular in Sal's era and my era at 24 Fitness, where I think it was once a quarter we used to do the seminars and the company would send you a box of like a t-shirt to like hype it up and like all kinds of material. That was almost to happen right after I left. Oh really? Oh, I thought that was, goes all the way back to, cause I think they started to phase it out when Justin was kind of coming on board. But I mean, they were, they would always have some like gimmicky name like that. And that was like the theme of it to get everybody to come in for free for the seminar. And I had to put together some sort of an hour talk around butts and guts and give demos. But then your goal was to of course book some assessments. Yeah, yeah, right. It gives many people the free seminar then hopefully book as many people as you could on assessments with your trainers and then turn it into something very successful. No, the reason why I'm bringing this up is, well there was a study, there was a meta analysis done on volume by Brad, I hope I'm saying his last name. Shelfield? Yeah. I really, I mean, one of the top researchers when it comes to strength training and in his meta analysis, the conclusion was that, regardless of whether or not you work a body part once a week or three days a week, the results will be very similar so long as the volume is equated, so long as the volume is the same. Now that's true, but the reason why we tend to advocate for full body style workouts for most people is because behaviors and lifestyles typically means or usually results in the fact that you'll miss a workout. If you're doing one body part a day, you miss that and that's it, you're done for the week versus full body, you get to hit that body part again. People tend to not hit the body part with sufficient intensity. Plus it's hard to equate volume completely because let's say you work your chest twice a week and you do 10 sets each workout versus doing it for 20 sets in one workout, even if the exercises are the same, if all 20 sets are done in that same workout, you're not gonna be nearly as strong at the end of the workout. So you can take the load off the volume equation, now it's less volume, right? So, you know, but that being said, like you mentioned, I'm doing this bro split this week just because it's so different. I haven't done like a classic one body part a day workout in probably 15 years and it was Sunday and I'm like, you know what, I haven't done that. Like let me just, let's do it. It's gonna be different. Let's see what happens. And I mean, it's definitely different. The pump is definitely intense. You know, it gives me some nostalgia for how I used to work out when I was a kid. I could see how this will probably work for me for a few weeks, but then I'll have to switch back. But it did remind me. It's like, it's important to communicate this to people that things typically work, but nothing works forever. And then of course, some things work longer. Have you ever done that? Bro split? Like that, like a single body part. Like chest, back, shoulders. I mean, I probably did when I was in the 24 hour fitness setting a few times. Yeah, and you worked out with me or something? Yeah, and I worked out. I think you're the one that probably put me through that bullshit. He's like, what are we doing today? I'm like, chest? Yeah. What else? To the point where like, I walk out and I couldn't even like hug anybody or... I was like, what is this? Yeah, cause that used to be a big thing. It was just like, you didn't want to destroy that body part. I knew that was like part of the whole bodybuilder kind of culture at one point was just like, if you're not like unable to walk the next day from leg day, then you're not doing it right. Well, honestly. Once a week. Well, also, like my understanding as a young, even as a young trainer, I didn't fully grasp the recovery process, the adaptation process. Like I didn't understand the science like I do today. I really thought that the more damaged I induced and the more rest I could give, the more muscle I would build. I really think, and I calories, right? I was like, eat enough calories, you train as hard as you can to do as much damage to the muscles possible and then allow it to rest as much as you can without going too long. Like cause I remember reading studies that said, like atrophy doesn't really set in until three to four days post recovery. Meaning if I'm sore for three to four days, it's not till another three or four days after that does atrophy even begin to happen? Therefore, as long as I hit a muscle group once every eight days, I'm good to go, especially if I get it hard. And so that was kind of like the training philosophy was crush it and then eat and rest as much as possible and that would build the most muscle. Yeah, I think it can work if you're advanced enough to be able to hit the body part with sufficient control and intensity. And consistency. And consistency, you can't miss a workout. You miss one workout, there's your back workout for the week, now you're screwed, right? You can never miss a workout. You also have to be able to pick the right exercises cause what a lot of people do when they do this one body part a day type of thing is they'll do like two good exercises and the rest are these fluff movements that don't have a ton of value. And I do think now, but on the flip side, there's value in like really maximizing the waste, byproducts, right? The waste buildup, the pump, the ability to really squeeze and contract the muscle. I think there's some value in that as well. So definitely some value, but for the average person it just usually isn't as effective because it's just too much. They don't do the best exercises. Like we said, you tend to miss workout. So for most people, full body just across the board, but there is that those people at the end is 10% where this can be valuable, but especially if it's novel, especially if it's novel. Yeah, well, that's, I guess it was gonna be my point was the novelty factor because of the fact of, so for me being introduced to that kind of training like opened up a lot of these like angles and movements and exercises, like I never would have pursued, right? Like there was, it was just meat and potatoes constantly like here's the barbell lifts for that. Here's the dumbbell lifts for that, and that's it, right? And then there's all these different machines and cables and things to provide a different kind of stimulus. So maybe like weaving in and out in terms of me being exposed to like a new stimulus was beneficial. Honestly, I don't know. So it's interesting since out of the three of us I probably trained the bro split way, single muscle, the longest. And the irony of that is I can't imagine me doing that right now or anytime soon because I can't even remember the last time that I actually consistently trained five to six days a week in a month straight or more. Like I haven't had that kind of consistency in my lifting in a really long time. It would be inappropriate. It would totally be inappropriate. It would be a terrible idea. Like to do that now, I would, so for me, I would first have to prove consistency for at least a couple months of five to six day a week type of training consistently before I go, okay, now let me split it up for value. You want to put it at the top of your hierarchy is like how can I, am I going to be able to keep performing this and adhere to this for the amount of time like possible for me to actually reap benefit from it? I actually think that we talk about like how the consistency of, or I mean how our bodies as we've gotten older is stayed, I stay fitter longer, right? Without with least- It sticks around. Yeah, for less work. I really think that a lot of that has to do too with switching out of the single body part. Cause when I look back at like my entire career of lifting, I'm not any more or less consistent today really than any other time. And really what it is, is that I've switched to a more full body or at least splitting the upper lower body type of approach. And so I just, even when I'm inconsistent, I still am getting more work done than I ever did before. I can't, and so looking back, I go- Yeah, you work out three days, you hit the whole body three times. If you work out with the bro split and you miss a workout or two workouts, there's whole swaths of your body that you haven't been able to hit. And the natural thing that people do is gravitate towards the things they're good at and they like. And so those are the things that continue to get more attention. Yeah, they never miss arm day. That's right. And then the stuff that you don't like. Behavioral element, right? Yeah, so man, it's really a very small part of the population that I would ever really recommend now, which is crazy, because I'm admittedly was like that for- That's because bodybuilding had such a strong influence on strength training, that that's how you did strength training. That's really, unless you were an athletic trainer and understood that, when you were a trainer, when I was a trainer, everything I knew about strength training was- Yeah, a lot of it came from bodybuilding. So that's how I trained people. I trained people body parts at a time. And full body was just a game changer. Well, that's how the gyms are set up. I mean, they had all of those machines deliberately sectioned out. So you work on your this body part, then you go to this one. Yep, yep. And that's the influence of bodybuilding. But to give you guys kind of, to give the audience kind of a timeline of how this has progressed for me, because again, this is very novel. I'll probably do it for three, four weeks and I'll go to something else. But it starts, I did a MAPS anabolic style workout for a while. MAPS anabolic style workouts, I tend to get really strong. Then I did MAPS 15-ish. It was probably 25 minutes a day. I hit a PR and deadlift. I got really, really strong doing that. But once I start to lift real heavy, I start to notice more joints or whatever. So then I switched to more of a MAPS aesthetic where I'm going full body with focus sessions type of stuff. Then I did maybe an upper lower split for a few weeks. And now I'm doing this real classic bro split. Very different feel though. Like it's, I don't pay attention to the weight at all. In fact, if you see me working out, I'm constantly going lighter because the goal is to feel the muscle. And if I do a set and I go, I bet I could feel it more if I took 20 pounds off. So I'm constantly going lighter and lighter trying to feel. So it's very, very bodybuilder-ish. There's almost no emphasis on how much weight I'm lifting. In fact, I did back today and I did deadlifts at the end of my back workout because I wanted to get a really hard pump and get fatigue, go light with the deadlift and squeeze at the top, which is not how you traditionally would deadlift. So it's a very different feel. I get real sore. I'll tell you that much. I'm like, my chest is now, it was really sore from working out yesterday. Whereas the full body stuff, I almost never get sore. When, Doug, how much longer till we can start to reveal the new program that's coming out? I mean, it's around the corner right now, right? Yeah, so we're gonna be launching in a couple of weeks here. Yeah. Can't say too much more. Can't say too much yet, but there is something coming. Come on. Let's just say I haven't been this excited for a mass program in a long time. I feel like we say that a lot. No, no, no, no. This one really excited. No, I am very excited. Really excited. They'll know why when we release it. They'll know why. This one's gonna be a lot of fun. Can we at least say that you're the cover modelist? We haven't done that in a long time? That's so weird. That's so weird. Yeah, you're the cover model. For some reason, the markers are like, let's put the old guy on the cover and see what happens. No, there's no reason for that. You'll find out. No, I'm actually really excited about this one too. Yeah. All right, everybody. Today's giveaway is MAPS Power Lift. Here's how you can win the program. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we dropped this video. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. And if you win, we'll let you know in the comment section. Also, we got a sale going on this month. Three workout programs are all 50% off, okay? So three of them, half off. MAPS performance, MAPS aesthetic, MAPS hit. If you're interested in any one of those, just click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, here comes the show. Anyway, speaking of strength training, there was a meta analysis that was just done on strength training and health. Oh, that's the one I sent you, right? It is, yes. And you know what I like about this? Thank you for creditin' me. You're welcome. You didn't do the study, but you did send it to me. You got sent to me. Yeah, middleman. You know what I like about this is that- It's a meta analysis too. Well, I like that it's a meta analysis, but what I really like is, you know, it wasn't that long ago where you could not find a study on strength training and health. You just couldn't. None of them existed. It was all about- Performance. Performance and maybe then there was muscle gain and then fat loss finally followed, but none really done on health. In fact, when we were trainers in the late 90s, early 2000s, almost nobody advocated for strength training for health or longevity. It just wasn't even in the conversation. There were no studies done on it. Nobody talked about it. People did strength training because they wanted to look good, but it was never in the conversation of health or longevity at all. Well, this meta analysis came out and it showed that strength training, okay, by itself resulted in about a 17%, 17 to 20% reduction in all cause mortality. Wow. Just from strength training. That's cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes. So affected all the chronic health issues. That's a big drop from just strength training. Now you combine that with diet, lifestyle, all that stuff. And sauna. Wasn't sauna up there? Wasn't that one up there? Sanna was up there. Sanna was up there with a really high, as far as all cause mortality, right? Mimics exercise, right? And it's got vasodilating effects and the strength is so hard. It was like 20%, all cause mortality. Just from sauna use. I mean, so think about that. I think I feel like introducing like hot, cold therapy with strength training two to three times a week, like talk about extreme health benefits for longevity. Dude, for longevity, if you just did strength training twice a week, walked every day like 10 to 15,000 steps a day, there was another study done on walking that showed this like reduction in all cause mortality as the steps went up once it got to like 18,000 steps and there wasn't really more benefit. But like, you know, 7,000 steps, 10,000 steps, 15,000 steps, more and more benefit. So if you just walked every day, did some strength training twice a week and you throw some sauna in there, man, you've got like 90%. It'd be interesting if we ever got a good study where you took like your, you know, your Davidson Clairs and your people out there that like really advocate for this longevity and like, you know, living as long as possible and their methods versus like applying methods where your strength training, you know, on top of that, where the quality of life factor is something that we're evaluating. So here's what I think it would be an interesting. Of those things, do you think that they are that profound or are we getting that decondition that that little bit of work is enough to make that big of a difference? That's it, yeah. So it's less that those things are so, because obviously when you hear stuff like that and in our space, it's all obviously, it's beneficial to sell that hard. Like look at it, like the stats on this is crazy. But one of the things I can't help, but think it's like, man, is it really that profound or is it more we have gotten that decondition, that lazy, that out of shape and unhealthy that's simply making a few steps in the right direction health wise, makes a dramatic difference. That's what it is. So easy not to. Yes, I'll give you an analogy. It would be like taking a bunch of people who are vitamin D deficient, giving them vitamin D and then you'd see these profound effects. And it's not because the vitamin D is a miracle compound, it's because they were deficient. So the reason why strength training and walking have such a profound effect on our health is not because they're miracle things, it's because we don't do them. So our health is poor because when you do them, you get this huge effect. If you did them and you do them right, you're more- Your body is starving for it. Yes, like in other words, if you did the right amount doing more, at some point you wouldn't get any more benefit. In fact, they'll probably start to get negative effects. But you take the average person, I'm strength training twice a week, they're huge, huge benefits because they do nothing. It doesn't even need to be that crazy intensive. No, and that's because they just do nothing at all. Anyway, I wanted to bring something up about one of our partners that I'm surprised you guys didn't know about, because this has to do with sports. This has to do with sports. Sports. What's that? So Viori, do you guys know that Viori partnered with, let me get the name of the company, I pulled it up here. I know they're doing, I know they're doing, no way. They partnered up with Exos as the exclusive apparel partner. So break down Exos for me. So that's a, they help produce elite talent through the combine and draft season, that's what it says. Yeah, they're very athletically driven, functional, fitness, they're at the high level in terms of like somebody I would, an athlete I would send through a programming. Like they had an actual facility here up in Mountain View. Mountain View, that's how I'm familiar with them. I don't know, I had, I knew a couple of trainers that worked for them and they were always elite trainers. They all had their CSCS and they were centered around sports performance. But I don't- I don't have a cutting edge out of any other kind of like methods. But I don't know the origin of it. I don't know the origin of it, who created it. All I read was- I just know they had a great reputation. They work with a lot of the NFL. So, I mean, it was definitely a hot spot for professional athletes to come in and train and get like kind of the best coaches that they could get exposed to for there. And two, they used, they were like some of the first to use a lot of the sensor technology and things to manage stress. That's what it was. I remember that. So they adopted a lot of these, the latest technology- Yeah, they were like the first to use HRV and stuff like that, right? Yeah, they were really- They incorporated all of it. Yeah, I remember that too. You know, speaking of viewers, you brought them up, you know, yesterday, we shot some of those nutrition videos that you and I were doing and I didn't have, I had those olive pants of theirs and I was like, oh, shit, I want black on black and Doug's like, oh, we have some pants here and so I asked Jerry, Jerry gives them to me and I put them on, I'm like, what are these? I've never wore these before. They kind of look like the Sunday joggers, but they're not, they're even softer material and they're the, what were they, the Ponto? Ponto. Are they Ponto joggers? Cause Ponto, there's several Ponto. Yeah, I don't know. I think it was- They're already Ponto. Yeah, but no, but there's, I know, you know how they have like- They call it the Ponto performance pants. Yes, those ones. Man, those are like pajama comfy. Yeah, they're super soft. Super light, super soft, but then they also have kind of a fit, kind of like the Sunday joggers, they're not as thick of material and as tight, they're a looser fit. I've never even tried those on before. It's wild to see if you're just crushing, just absolutely crushing from where they started when we started working with them to now. It's bittersweet for me. Yeah, why? Cause we didn't get to invest. We were so young when we met. Too early. We, I think we have this incredible model that we just timed horribly, right? Like literally, I'm very proud that we got to a place where we were smart, financially and in a place to be able to invest capital in these brands that we're already excited about. But we literally missed the boat on two home runs that we would have for sure been all over and it would have done great. And it was before the peak of all these evaluations and now these, they're all so high. It's just like, dude, I got something for you. So it's a little bittersweet for me. Speaking of investments, I just read this on what page was it? It was insider, insider business. You'll love this one. Oh God. ChadGBT explains Warren Buffett's investment strategy and names two stocks that would align with the billionaire's portfolio. Wow. So are you doing stock predictions? Does it, does it give them? The two stocks or no? It did not. Although you could, I think you could go to a website and figure it out. But nonetheless, whoa, if ChadGBT could do that, if you could pick the top investment people in the world and ask it to mirror them and then give me stocks that would fit their strategy and then it picks them for you, you have a financial advisor. So I found a few things that it actually, so it's interesting it got, maybe because it asked about Warren Buffett and there's the history that- It was prompted differently. But yeah, because I tried to prompt it for some stock stuff and it gave me a very similar response as like the gambling, like saying, it said something like, the stock market is so unpredictable that it can't, it couldn't predict these. So I was like, oh, that sucks. I wanted to use it. It sounds like that's a get-around, right? Yeah. So, hey, ChadGBT, what would Warren Buffett do right now in the market or something like that? Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. I sent it to my cousins who are all financially- ChadGBT, why did Bill Gates just solve his stock in vaccines? He sold his stock in vaccines? Is that true? Or are you spraying rumors? No, I just thought- Okay, look it up and confirm. He hasn't been wrong in it. Because- Ever since those, Ever since the peptides. Oh, Ever since the peptides. It's been there the whole time. 2000 episodes of accuracy. Yeah. He normally doesn't like double down, but when he does, he's on point. Yeah, I don't guess anymore. Conveniently, okay, so there's been, and now you start to see him in the public sphere with these videos where he's actually like, criticizing the vaccines, which he was the biggest proponent of it, you know, years even before the pandemic. He's cool though, now he may keep- Apparently, yeah, he made off okay. Everybody has a Microsoft chip in their arm now. What does it say there, Doug? Yeah. According to this, Bill Gates after reaping huge profits selling bio and tech shares, trashes effectiveness of COVID vaccines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. So, you know, he's smart. I can't wrap my brain around him, right? So I have a hard time- That's a hard one for me. I have a hard time criticizing him about financial moves when he's the largest philanthropist, right? In the world. In the world. So he gives away more money than anybody else in the world. So I have a hard time hopping on the conspiracy theory. Justin said about- I know, I know, I know. Look into some of those charities. So, okay. What's happened with the experimentation? I mean, I don't- I've heard that. I don't think that story behind him aligns when you're- I mean, right? Isn't that weird? I haven't looked deep enough into it to have an opinion. He has some statements and some things. I know, but here's the thing though, man, God, everything I feel like it's so distorted and manipulated and in headlines. He does say stupid stuff on diet, nutrition and, you know, moving people on it. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people say a lot of stupid stuff. Yes, they do. So I'm not saying that he's any dumber. He just says some stupid stuff. And by the way, I'm not defending Bill Gates for the people that are ready to jump down my throat right now. I know him. Speaking of conspiracy theories, you saw his wife when they interviewed her about his relationship with Epstein. You guys saw that, right? Yes. Yeah, she was like, I mean, they speculated- Oh, she was like, I'm out. Like right when she, that came out. Because Bill was like friends with Epstein with the island. Yeah, they asked his wife about it on an interview and you could tell she was like, oh, I don't know. Like invisibly disgusted. Yeah, like then we cut the, like that almost, it was implied maybe that contributed to their divorce. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's weird. But look, here's the deal. He's very smart with his investment because if you played it right, you're watching the media and you're buying shares in these vaccine companies. Because they're being pushed, they're being pushed. And then you see the narrative start to change as- And then you get out. The data goes, oh wait, it's not 90% effective. Oh wait, it's 75%. Oh wait, you can still spread it to other people. Business as usual. Oh, it's getting investigated for potential, you know, increasing blood clots and, oh, myocarditis, that might be a thing. And now the, you know, people are saying, I'm not gonna get boosted with this very ineffective, crappy vaccine or whatever it's all that people are saying now. So he's smart to sell. It's just hard. He's seen the media. You know what I thought was interesting was we brought this up, I think like last week, we had a little bit of a, you know, the vaccine talk. And I think I made a comment about not hearing too many people that got it, that now regret it. And we actually, did you see all the comments? No, you had a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, no. On the YouTube channel, I saw a lot of people that had said that, hey, openly, I've taken two of them already and I'm one of those people that would regret it now, wish I didn't do it. Like there's a lot of quiet people. Even within my circle, I was telling you guys this when we were talking off air that I think the part that I'm most, I'm really, I'm not pissed, the government and the Pfizer and they're all, if you didn't think they were corrupt before this and stuff like that, then you've been walking around blind. So I'm more upset at like my family and friends and the people that are connected to me that haven't come forward and said they're sorry. Like how about the people that are, like those are people that people I'm most upset. Like you got manipulated by the narrative that was being pushed out there to a point where you were ostracizing some of your people that were in your own family and friends of yours. That's the part of relationships. Yeah, and you created this divide, it's us versus you type of thing. And then now all this comes out and it's pretty goddamn obvious that if you're a healthy fit person who's under the age of 40 years old, why would you even consider doing this? And even if you did, that's your choice, totally fine. But then for you to be so venomous towards those that maybe chose to opt out of that that are healthy young fit, where the fuck are you at? Where are you at? Where is the sorry or my bad? Like you guys remember the White House, sorry about overreacting. Do you remember the White House had like their official statement when it was going into the winter of, I don't know what it was, 2020 or right afterwards? And it said something like, for those of you that are vaccinated, literally the words were something like, for those of you that are vaccinated, I hope you have a great Christmas. Those that aren't, you're gonna have a winter of death and suffering. Death. Fuck you. It's like the craziest propaganda I've ever seen, dude, in our time. What is wrong with this? I mean, they were doing, I mean, to me, they were doing, they knew what they were doing. I mean, they were selling, man. They were selling and there's enough. Can I say something though? I'll tell you right now. You put all your faith in these morally bankrupt leaders. Cause I based my opinion on accepted data cause you can go in either direction. And if, I'm saying if, okay. If it comes out that the risks associated with the vaccines for groups of people who are forced to get vaccinated, cause a lot of people were forced essentially by their jobs and mandates and all that kind of stuff. If it comes out that the, that it was a net negative, okay. Meaning the risks outweighed the potential benefits. So you got all those people who were forced to do it. If that data ever really comes out, the governments of the world will never, never stop pushing propaganda and the opposite because that could potentially mean massive civil unrest. When you push people through mandates and laws and then later it comes out that you hurt potentially a lot of people, that could come back on you big time. So it's, they have every incentive to never, never accept any of that data if it ever comes out. So that's just all, that's what I'm going to say. So maybe two, three generations from now, we could get potentially the truth, but I don't trust them as far as I can throw them because. I don't think it matters even if it comes out that way. I think they've already spun that narrative to, you know, we did our best with what we knew when we knew it and what's happening now. That's the part that, and they'll stick to that. They'll stick to that storyline, no matter what the outcome of all this investigation, all that stuff, that will be the, and that's even the defense that I hear of some of the people that are still kind of behind all of it, that are just like, well, you know, this is what we knew. So you're seeing as you did a terrible job. Yeah. Is what you're saying. Yeah, I mean that's. It whips, you know, like we should have done better. Yeah, it was, I don't care that we had to do something. I don't care that there was emergency use because of the circumstances. I don't care about any of that. I care that you ostracized and silenced people, that you influenced private companies to do so, that's proven, and that you created mandates. So if a private company wanted to fire people for not being vaccinated, that's your business. But if a private company was forced by government laws, that's a big problem. That's what I care about. But the fact that they, look, that's the way it should be. If we have a pandemic, we should have an opportunity to push things through because potentially this could, you know, save a lot of people. I don't have to screw with you. It just shows me any power dynamic, no matter what it is, needs pushback. Always, always, always. You can't stuff out criticism just because it conveniently doesn't fit within the way that your perspective is being portrayed. You need to always allow the pushback because guess what? Sometimes you're wrong. It is hard, it sucks, and it stings, but we need to realize that you can be wrong. What's weird was, I mean, just this, I think this was a great study in human behavior because you could see how tribal people got. Like, how weird is this? Wearing a mask became equivalent to a mega hat. Like, if you were wearing a mask outside, people would assume they knew your politics and kind of how you were. Like, if you had a mega hat on, how strange is that? How strange is it that people were advertising their medical choices and then ostracizing those that didn't make the same choices? That's all human behavior. Very interesting. And it's not going to change. Human behavior never changes. So people are like, oh, we'll learn on this, no, we won't. Speaking of bullshit, Doug, I'll transition us out of here for you. Thank you. Did you see? This is sweating over there. Yeah, I could see. I could see him like, oh, let's look, watching his watch. It's been seven minutes now. I'm moving along. I, did you guys see that Logan Paul just signed with the UFC his fucking trashy prime drink? Wait, hold on. Did he sign the fight or his drink? No, his drink. They are now the official drink of UFC crime. Oh, my God. He is such a smart, like he has weaseled himself in. So haven't they had like a beef going on forever, ever since they created these fights? Well, I know his brother and him. Yeah, Jake and Dana have beef. Oh, so Logan hasn't been in this. Yeah, Logan hasn't really been, hasn't jumped on that with like Jake. I mean, I'm sure he said some things here, but he's not like, Jake has like been going after Dana for the last year because he's starting his own fight. Who was it that signed for pro wrestling? Was it Logan or Jake? Logan. Logan. Yeah, I saw that. You say this video, he's good. He's great. Yeah, he is. He's very athletic, funny to watch. Yeah, no, he's really good. I mean, the guy is, by the way, yeah, he's talented as shit. And, you know, more power to him for doing that. So this is not me hating. It's just that it's crazy that, I mean, just go show you how important, you know, the disappointing part of this is, you know, Dana White has the power of the authority, the money to partner with any company that he wants with something like this. And this is a complete, you know, PR move to partner with somebody who's got this much power as far as celebrity wise over a superior product. There are lots of superior products in that same space that would be a better suit for that company as far as what it provides for the fighters. It's just a glorified energy drink. I mean, it says it's got electrolyte. Doesn't even have enough sodium in it. It just, it tastes good is what it is. It tastes really good. And it's got the power of the, of those brothers who've got crazy social media. That's the only reason why. I mean, when you look at Elementy, you look at Liquid IV, you look, there's like, there's like a good, I'd say, four companies in the, you know, electrolyte space that are a superior product than that product. So you have efficacious doses of like what you're looking for. Well, especially for fighters, athletes that are training. Yeah. And you talk, you bring up the, the sodium thing, which is probably the most important part for them to have. And because of how intense their training is, and you're totally underdosing in that, and then you're putting artificial sweeteners. So it tastes good. They don't have nearly enough sodium as what it is. So by the way, symptoms of low sodium, I wanted to bring this up. I'm glad you went in this direction. Weak, groggy, nauseous. So nausea, you ever work out, or you ever have client work out, and they start to get nauseous? Yeah. Sort of red. Electrolyte imbalance can be one of those reasons. So sometimes you just give someone some salt, and they're like, oh, I don't feel so nauseous anymore. So if you're working out, and you feel weak, shaky, nauseous, people automatically assume it's blood sugar. Right. That's what I would assume. Yeah. Which it could be, but oftentimes it's not. It's more often low sodium. That's the culprit. Also, if you lose two pounds of sweat per hour, your sodium losses can become quite significant. 4,000 milligrams, that's a lot when you're sweating that much. So if you sweat a lot while you work out, you're going to need to consciously add sodium to your diet, unless you have a lot of processed foods in your diet, in which case you're probably hitting enough. But sodium is a game changer if it's low. So it's okay, like we talked about vitamin D earlier in exercise. Sodium by itself or electrolytes by themselves aren't going to do anything unless you're low. If you're low and then you supplement, it's like miracle. Oh my God, I can't believe how much better I feel. Look at my pumps, look how strong I am. I've got way more energy. If that happens to you when you add element, like if you drink element and your workouts all of a sudden go through the roof, you were low. You were too low before. So do you think, and Justin, you'd be a good person asked with your boys, does prime become the Gatorade of this generation coming up? Yes. They're already talking about it. And as you guys were kind of bringing this up, it was remind me of a few conversations I've had recently with Ethan, especially in that age demographic, like the 12 to 15 kind of range. Boys, they're very much into seeing your Logan Pauls and all of this social media kind of influencer people and what they're kind of pushing and promoting. And in the video game culture and all this stuff, this is where I'm getting in a whole new conundrum. It's like I'm not having to talk to him about alcohol and weed and all that kind of stuff quite as much. Because I think like there's already been kind of some hesitation and seeing because of the alarmist kind of parents about like drugs and all this, like kids kind of naturally kind of weave around that stuff. But the caffeine, like so G fuel. So this is something like they're already experimenting with it and kind of testing each other because they feel the effects of it. They're like, wow, I had all this like crazy performance. He's coming back and kind of trying to describe this feeling to me. And I'm like, oh my God, like you're almost 13 or 12. Like, okay, I have to like kind of put myself back. I'm like, when did I really start drinking caffeine? Not till like way later. Like I didn't start drinking. There were no caffeine drinks for kids. Well, there was a Red Bull was around, but I don't remember how old I was when I started drinking. Now when we were 12? Do we dare each other for like Jolt or Jolt? No, not 12. It was really low. It wasn't around yet. But what I'm saying though is like, so can you look up Doug when Red Bull actually came because I'm trying to figure out exactly. I'm pretty sure I was drinking it by the time it came out. And the question is, had it been around when I was already 12, would I have drank it? Especially when they've attached themselves to X games in their own. So I probably would have. I had Jolt Cola and we would like dare each other. Mountain Dew is another one, right? I think Jolt Cola has like 35 milligrams. Yeah, 30 or 40 milligrams of caffeine, which is like a coffee. Nothing. So 1996, but it definitely. So I'm a freshman in high school. Yeah, but it wasn't even popular. No, no, no. Yeah, it took like four years before it became huge, right? When they started, you know, they're famous. How much caffeine in Jolt Cola, Doug? Maybe you can find that. Yeah, and then look up G Fuel after that because what's alarming to me is there's. Well, G Fuel is all attached to the video game world. They were the big company that signed with the video game. And there's kids that'll bring backpacks of it and sell it at school as like kind of a, and I know this is not just an isolated school that does this. Like this is, you know, a thing because of that video game culture and the ties. What these kids have to. That's not, that's not what it was when I was a kid. Look at Doug found Jolt Cola. 190 milligrams of caffeine in the bottle. It goes to the 12 ounce can is 71.2. Oh, wow. That's high. No, that's when we were 50. No, when we were kids, it was, see that's a 71 for 12 ounces. It was lower than that when I was a kid. I don't think so, bro. It was 100 percent. 100 percent. What I think you're seeing what you're forgetting and this is, is notorious and I love never, I don't know if we ever talk about this. One of the smartest hustles in the, the food industry, including food and beverage is to show people calories on something that you would consider a single serving, but it's two to two and a half servings. So this is another one of those examples of something that you would look at the calorie and say the caffeine and it'd be like, oh, it's only 35 grams of caffeine. But then you would look at the top of the can and it would say there's two and a half servings for a bottle. And so I wouldn't be surprised if that's what you recall is it was probably. So you said 70 was jolt. Is that what we should? Now, right? 12 ounce. Now this is 300. Yeah, 300 is G full. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, that'll send kid to a hospital if they're sent into it. That's what I was trying to tell them. And it's like, it's nothing to mess around with, you know? And it's two, he was starting to recognize the marketing around like even some of those which I know bodybuilders are kind of big in like candy flavored shit. Yeah. Like, you know, and cotton candy and fucking. But you throw the bodybuilder. He's right though. Because dude, this is also freaking kids. You know who's fault that is? Fucking doctor integrities. Oh no. It's his fault. We haven't talked about him in a long time. We haven't talked shit about him in a long time. Like Jolly Rancher flavors and shit. He was the doctor and he's tied to bodybuilding, okay, to prove your point. He's a bodybuilding.com representative. And he shared the studies that talked about. Gummy worms. Yeah, but dextrose in particular, right? Dextrose post workout, all the benefits with protein synthesis and the anabolic window and all this fluff, right? All splitting hair bullshit. But really what he did was justify getting eating gummy bears and sour patch kids post workout because the dextrose that was used inside of them. Makes me jacked. So yeah. So that became and that became a very popular. I remember when he when he talked about that almost 10 years ago. And then shortly after, I remember being in the gym, right? Because I was consistently working out before and after that, seeing, you know, young guys in their, you know, their gym bag, every, you know, like. Just popping gummy bears. Yeah. You see like gummy bears and sour patch kids and said they're buzzing. What was the name of the, the cretin drink that was filled with dextrose? It was like 70 grams of sugar when shot. Are you talking about cell tech? Cell tech, bro. Oh, cell tech. Cell tech. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. That was actually the first supplement that put weight on me. Yeah. Because it was 70 grams of sugar for a post workout. Yeah, I know. It's so much sugar. And I used to double it up. Bro, I literally felt myself become diabetic. Like I would drink it. I would drink it in nausea. It's probably why I have autoimmune issues with fucking sit with sugar. Bro, after every workout. You would smash cell. Oh yeah. Well, to, to bounce it out a little. I mean, in the athletic realm, like we had big league chew that promoted you to like chew tobacco later on. Yeah. So it's like, what the fuck are we doing? You're pretending like. Yeah. I'm like, oh, look at me. Look, dad. I'm just like you. It's like a terrible thing that we do. I'm going to lose my lip like you did, dad. I'm chewing on this. Well, so I didn't have caffeine until, or I should say consistently as a pre-workout until I was 17 or 18. But it wasn't, there weren't really energy drinks. What it was, was the hardcore bodybuilding space had ultimate orange. Ultimate orange. Dan Dukane, who's now passed away. He would write, you know, books on steroids and on like the, you know, the black market, gray market supplement. So of course, as a 17 year old, I'm like, these are all the secrets are, you know, how to build muscle. So he had a product called Ultimate Orange and it had ephedra, ephedra and caffeine. And let me tell you, that's drugs. It's effective. That is drugs, bro. As a 17 year old taking it. Yeah, it's real effective. And I remember being like, I just worked out for two and a half hours. Like I just crushed everything. This is the most amazing thing I've ever taken my life. And then that progressed into rip fuel and all that other. You guys just, talking about this candy and all of a sudden you reminded me of something. I just watched, I watched it two nights ago. There's a documentary on Netflix called The Pez, The Pez Gangster. The Pez, look, check it for me, Doug. Pez something. And it's a fascinating story. I love Pez. You have, you, so do I. The Pez Outlaw. The Pez Outlaw. Thank you. The Pez Outlaw. That sounds ridiculous. You, it is, is ridiculous. It's the origin of Pez. What a weird candy. Since I, dude, do you know how, do you realize how big they are, what a phenomenon they were, how much collectors are around it? It's a fascinating story. Because they would get on imagine bobblehead people and Pez like cross paths. So without ruining the whole, the whole premise of this documentary, I'll give you a little snippet of it that I thought was really fabulous. So first of all, I didn't realize how massive of a company they were. They're worldwide. They've been around for a long time, right? Very long time. And their home base is over in Europe. And what allowed this thing to happen was in the United States, so you have Europe with the home base of Pez, and it used to distribute to all the other continents, okay, except for the, in the U.S. Okay. The U.S. was the only place in the world that had its own hub, and it had a, it had a contract, but they actually ran like separate companies, but they were all underneath the umbrella of Pez, and they ran theirs as almost like an individual entity. And they would say, what we did get to distribute everything in the United States. You can handle the rest of the world, but we decide. And so, and part of why they did that was, they would decide what Pez dispensers were allowed and not allowed. And I guess that in Europe, they kind of let everything go through. It didn't matter, like, if it was something that might have been a little racist or like everywhere else in the world would let these little dispensers, and they would approve all the designs. In the U.S., in the U.S., they were really picky. You know, everything had to be PC, like, so they went, so what did that do? It created a collector's market for these like real rare ones. Oh, I can see that, yeah. And this dude who is like, comes, is like poor, has, is, he's making money. The way this guy makes money, originally, is by, he's got OCD, and he is, okay, on cereal boxes, when you turn in the, there's like, but remember back in the days when you could cut out the thing, you mail it in, you mail, you do 40 of them, you mail it in, you get like a hat or something like that. So on there, if you guys have ever seen there on those, those things, and almost all mail-ins now, they have like a warning, not a warning, but a, what's a disclaimer or whatever, not a disclaimer, I don't, for lack of a better word, we'll use that, that says, for one, one per household, that, on there, on all those, those, those labels was created because of this guy. Because he would just get a bunch of them. Because he would go to recycling places, and he would, he could not, and he was getting thousands of these toys shipped, and then he was going to trade shows, and he was flipping them and selling them. That's how he made his original income, and then he came across these Pez dispensers, and then he turned into like, he made millions flipping Pez dispensers from Europe. Yes, it's a great story. You have to, and there's so much more details into it. Just goes to show you how wealthy society is, that you could actually make money doing that. When did it start, Doug, does it say? The 1920s. Wow. It was in Vienna, Austria, and it was an alternative to smoking. It actually comes from a German word for peppermint. Oh, interesting. It didn't cover that in the documentary. An alternative for smoking. It actually didn't go over all the history, so I wanted to actually kind of do some digging afterwards because I was so fascinated by this story. See, I like, I'm a cheap candy person. I like cheap, just the main ingredient is sugar and nothing else. So Pez to me, delicious. I love it. Give me some Pez, give me some candy corn, circus peanuts. I didn't realize what a, like a, circus peanuts. Like a cult, like following that it had, in a collector's market. I mean, bro, there's people. Okay. I want to see that. Paying thousands of thousands of dollars for a dispenser because they're so rare. Like they didn't have ones that like, they just, they did. They only made a hundred of them or what like that. When you guys would get Pez as a kid, did you actually load your Pez dispenser? Oh, yeah. You see the candy. No, no, I loaded it. Oh, you loaded it? You did the whole thing? Whole thing. I never did that. Yeah. I just, I didn't see you walk around. Now the irony of that would, I would, within five minutes, I'd eat them all. Immediately. But I would take the time to load them and then do that, which is. Speaking of candy, you know, I just, so I bought some tic-tacs. I was with my daughter, went to the grocery store and I got some tic-tacs, candy colored ones or whatever. And you look at the back of them, you know tic-tacs per serving, zero calories. So my daughter, we're eating them and she's looking at it. She goes, this thing, this whole thing is zero calories. I said, no, they consider one tic-tac a serving and because it's less than a calorie. Just get under the standard. So you know what the FDA allows, right? So if it's under, if a serving is under five calories, you can go to zero, which is a major hustle. So it looks like misleading. Which, so you know, another one that gets people like crazy is I can't believe it's not butter, butterspray. People think that's zero calorie. That is not zero calorie. In fact, that entire bottle has like a thousand calories in it. A lot. So you can't multiply each serving because it's still zero. But it's like per spray is zero calories. What's a spray? Like. Yeah, one pump. But who does one pump of the butter when they, when they, I mean, you just soak your food in it. And I can't remember the, because I did all this math. I remember actually, I remember this actually changing one of my clients, like one of my clients used that like on everything because it was zero calories. And she couldn't figure out why she wasn't losing any weight. And then I remember like looking at it. Oh, he was eating all you, I can't believe it's not butter tic-tac. This is how I learned all this about the FDA. I didn't know this, right? So I was like, this, this can't be right. This tastes just like butter. How could it possibly be zero? So I had to do a bunch of digging. Then I found out, oh, FDA allows you to put it to zero. If a serving size is under that. Oh, you have these tiny things like tic-tac or one spray thing, but nobody has one. Just by the way, your, those dressings that you see that are in those bottles, same thing. Be it to be, pay very close attention to it being sold to you like it's a zero calorie thing. But that's because the serving size is ridiculously lower than you would ever use. And you've actually pumped 30 times on there. You get about 80, 90 calories. They give you a serving size if you're like a Kiebler elf. You know what I mean? Like this is what a serving size is. What about for a grown human? It's just like the hustle I was telling you about the jolts. I mean, that was such a, a brilliant marketing strategy because we're so easily manipulated. Did you guys get butter when you were kids or did you guys have margarine? No, we had, we did. My parents did margarine. They thought that was the same. We thought we were being healthy. Country crock. We have the big old tub, the brown tub. We just have that at the center. Yeah, and my mom would wash it out and use it for sauce after that. Yes, dude. I'd open it up. Oh, mom, it's a sauce, not butter. You guys had actual butter? We did. And then it, yeah, then we went through a phase of the, the margarine. Yeah, margarine. It was disgusting. And I was like, I hate this. And like, I remember like visibly, I was like, no, I don't want this. And then, you know, convince her to bring the butter back. See, I was really into dairy. You know, I would drink a gallon in like a day of milk. And I have no problems. Obviously. None. Zero. I did the, I did the same thing, but I ended up with a dairy. It's strange. Yeah. Weird. Hey, it sucks to be you. Six to be someone who acknowledges their dairy. You know what? You know what though? I'll tell you what, dude, if you can tolerate dairy, it is the cheapest, most effective weight gain drink. You milk, whole milk. Bro. If you're trying to pack on size, you got a fast metabolism. Yeah. Just drink like glasses of whole milk. It's like protein, calories. My youngest is figuring this out. Oh, did you just like grabbing glasses of milk all the time? They did a study that I remember, I shared this a long time ago, where they compared two groups that were taking like a protein powder versus just a chocolate milk. Like chocolate milk post workout. Oh, post workout, same thing. Yeah. And the benefits were like right in line. It was like crazy. So it's like. Dude, if you can have dairy, I'm at like whole milk. Maybe look that study up for me, Doug. Full fat cottage cheese, like you can't beat those two things. For bulking. Chocolate milk versus protein powder. I wish you could have it straight from the teeth. Yeah. What? But like right out without any, like how Adam used to drink it, the dairy. You ever seen milk straight out of a cow? It's like blue or something. No. No, it's like a thick, real thick. Frothy. Yeah. You got to shake it. I just imagine it's probably way tastier. You would put. It's warm, bro. It ain't cold. That's a little weird. It's kind of cool. It's different. Like I mean, I actually didn't. Of course, it's probably because I've been training. Well, I mean, think of this. It's so fat. That's what I mean. Yeah, it's creamier. It's got to, it tastes a lot different. Like I remember not liking it in my cereal, right? As a kid, I ate a lot of cereal and I had it with, you know, low-fat, non-fat type of milk my whole life. And then I get introduced to the dairy when I'm in high school and college. And I tried and they would give me like a gallon a week. I could bring home and I would use it. But I didn't like it. Because you were used to the wine. Yeah, because I was used to the other one. Like, and so it just, it made my. You can buy raw milk. You ever try raw? No, I've been meaning to. You can find it. So raw un-homogenized or non-homogenized milk. But it's been pasteurized though. No, it's not. No, raw means un-pasteurized. But homogenized. Non-homogenized. So there's something different. I got to look up what is different about the raw that's sold at the store versus like straight up raw that I got out of the cow. Because it still looks way different. It don't look nothing like that. Oh, I don't know. I don't know what they do. They do, they're still a process. They're allowed to do it. They're still calling raw. But it's not pasteurized. I don't remember what it was though. It's not pasteurized. It's not homogenized. So homogenization is when they take milk and they force it through filters with small enough holes that crush the fat into tiny particles so that it's suspended within the milk. Because real milk, the cream separates. You have to shake it. So if you buy raw milk and it's been in the fridge for a day, you have to shake it before. It'll sit like a top of it. I think like this and you shake it around and like it's so thick it coats the inside of it. The worst part about that, right, is that when you do that, you lose a lot of the digestive enzymes, right? Lactase is naturally present. Not a ton, but naturally present raw milk. Also, here's what's weird. Take raw milk, leave it out. Take pasteurized milk, leave it out. Both whole milk. Pasteurized milk goes sour. Raw milk does not. Raw milk turns into butter milk. Like curdles, right? It does not become sour because raw milk contains beneficial bacteria, which offsets the negative stuff. Whereas pasteurized milk, it's like devoid of any bacteria. So you're probably better with remembering the history on what, there probably was some crazy thing that happened where lots of people got sick. And so all of a sudden, we made a hard change. They were feeding cows what they called brewers mash, which was leftovers from... It's like silage, right? Yeah, like corn mash and all kinds of things. Beer breweries were throwing away waste. They were using that and feeding it to the cows. They also had cows that were in cramped quarters dirty. This was during the, this was like 1800s, early 1900s. And the milk would come out bad because the cows were sick. So kids were dying and people getting sick from this milk. It was a blue tint, like you said, because it wasn't very healthy. So Louis Pasteur invented the pasteurization process, which was to basically make the milk totally devoid of any bacteria. Now you can have this bad milk and not die. But if you have raw milk from healthy cows, it's fine. It's totally fine. It's wild how we make a knee-jerk reaction over something that happened. You know it's illegal to sell raw milk in most states. I've heard that, yeah, crazy. They make laws against it. There were people, I could, I should find this. I remember I saw this a long time ago. That's some crony capitalism bullshit. Bullshit. Oh, it's full of lobby and shit. Stuff out competition. You can find these videos where there's a raw dairy selling raw milk directly to people. And there's literally agents from the government raiding them like if they're cooking milk bottles. I've seen videos like that. Yeah, dude. And these are like farmers, like what are you doing? That's going to all strap up. Was it you? Who brought up the Skittles? Who brought that up? No. Did we talk about that on the show? Or was that Off Air? We talked about that. Chris Williamson, I believe. Oh, was it Chris Williamson that brought that up? Eating Skittles to the cows? Yes. I was like, what? I never heard of that. What are you talking about? Yes. Look that up too, Doug. That was, that was the Skittles. Did you find it? Just tons and tons of Skittles to fatten them up. That's funny to me. Yeah. The cows are happy though. Pooping rainbows. Oh, who's our shout out? Oh, I got one for you. Yeah, yeah. I got a trainer on Twitter. She's pretty good. I like her content. I couldn't find her based on this spelling of her name. I got it. Her, so her. She's on Twitter? On Twitter, Mackenzie Smith. So M-A-C-K-E-N-Z-I-E and then Smith. So at Smith Mackenzie on Twitter is what you'll find. At Smith Mackenzie. Anyway, she's a trainer, really good. She's got about 84,000 followers. I like some of her content. So you can go check her out. Just recently found her. I've never heard you talk about her. Yeah, I found her. She commented on some of my stuff and I said, do you listen to Mind Pump? Absolutely. I looked through her stuff. I said, this would be a good shout out. Oh, cool. Very cool. Hey, check this out. We work with a company called Organifi. We've been with them for years because they're phenomenal. They make superfood blends that make it easy and convenient to improve your health, wellness and athletic performance. They have a vegan protein that actually tastes amazing. One of my favorite products is their peak power. This is a caffeine-based herbal supplement that gives you tons of energy for incredible workouts and creativity with no crash, no jitters. You feel great. It's amazing. Go check this company out. Go to organifi.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com. Forward slash Mind Pump. Then use the code Mind Pump for 20% off. All right. Here comes the rest of the show. Our first caller is Alex from Indiana. Alex, what's happening? How's it going? Good. How can we help you? It's cool to talk to you guys. Okay. So I've got kind of a general question, and then I'll give you some background as to why I'm asking for me. So what is happening if someone is building strength consistently but not really putting on a whole lot of muscle mass? And for me in particular, I'm wondering if part of it is my family. We're a small people. My parents are very small too. And then I also have like a 15-year history of really heavy endurance training. So like marathons, ultra marathons, and things like that. Okay. So a couple of things. Yeah. So there's a lot of factors that play into strength. There's the size of the muscle fiber. Strength is also a skill. So there could be improvements in skill, improvements in how muscles are working together. There could be energy production. Like you could take caffeine and you'll be a little stronger. You could take creatine, increase ATP, get a little stronger. You get more central nervous system output. So there's a lot of things that contribute to strength that have nothing to do with muscle fiber size. Also, sometimes people gain muscle and lose a little body fat and they can't really tell. So they think that they haven't gained anything. Nonetheless, if you continue to get stronger, you can almost always guarantee that muscle fiber size increases will follow. So that's always going to happen. But when it comes to strength, strength is so many different things, not just muscle. In fact, on the flip side, you can get bigger muscle fibers and actually be less strong. And you see this with bodybuilders versus strength athletes like power lifters. Or when a power lifter switches to bodybuilding, for example, they'll often get bigger but lose a little bit of strength because they're training for muscle fiber size less than the other things that I mentioned. The most common answer is that you are just not eating enough calories to put actually weight and size on. And but you are improving your skill at the exercises and your CNS is getting better. And so you're seeing that translate into more weight on the bar, but you're not seeing more size on your body because we're just not getting enough calories. So it puts a little louder. So yeah, that's the most common answer. This is not uncommon. This has happened many times with clients of mine. And normally it's just we simply are not eating in a surplus enough to actually put size and weight on. But we're getting stronger and you're getting stronger because you're getting better at the skills that you're doing in the gym. Yeah, oftentimes with a client, Alex, I would train somebody and we would see strength gain, strength gain, strength gain, strength gain and then all of a sudden boom, muscle size would pop on their body. So at some point you'll see muscle, but also how much stronger are you? You're talking about being stronger. Like what would we looking at in terms of your lifts and your training or is it nominal or is it a big change? It's pretty big. I mean, like I said, I shifted from like ultra endurance training. So primarily just running, just cycling switched over to almost exclusively strength training. And so in the past year, like my deadlift, for example, has gone from 145 to 225. My squat went from about one, back squat went from about 125 to 175. So it pretty significant, but for someone my size, maybe that's, you know, maybe I just need to be putting more calories in to see the muscle mass. What does that look like, your calorie intake? So I just started tracking about two weeks ago and I'm 5'8", about 150 pounds. And I would say it's about 2,800 to 3,200. Now that I'm tracking and really trying to shovel food in, I mean, I know when I was endurance training, I know now that I'm tracking, I was under eating for probably a decade plus. So there's also the possibility that you're having a very nice exchange too. So where maybe sometimes you're a little bit in a surplus, other times you're a little bit in a deficit. So you are building muscle, you are getting stronger, but then you're also kind of leaning out too. So how do you, how do you feel like, are you happy with the way you look? Do you want to be bigger? And do you feel like you're kind of getting leaner too? Like what, tell me. Yeah, yeah, have you gained any muscle? Do you, are you tracking this? Yeah, I'm not tracking as far as, I haven't been taking pictures. I'm not measuring my biceps or my legs or anything. It's really just how I look in the mirror. I definitely would say I'm leaning out a bit. Oh, that's what's happening. Yeah, bro, you've got a nice exchange going on. What's happening is you're getting, you're building muscle, but you're also leaning out. And it goes back to the calories, which means you probably have a couple of days where you're like, man, I hit my good calorie intake. And then you have a couple of days where you're like, ah, shit, I didn't get enough calories. So you lean out on the low calorie days. And so you lose a little bit of body fat. The days you're in a surplus and training good, you're adding a little bit of muscle. And then what it's looking like in the mirror for you is, you don't feel like you're getting bigger or more muscle because you're not getting bigger in size, but you're getting leaner. I would make the case you're, you're actually in a really good place. But if you want more size, then just simply adding more calories or reducing, I don't know what your activity looks like outside of the gym if you're a really active guy still. You know, here's the other thing too. The strength gains that you listed are not, I wouldn't expect a lot of muscle from those strength gains considering you went from ultra endurance training to strength training. So that's, that's expected. I would expect to see somebody who does pure endurance training to go to strength training and gain 60 pounds on their deadlift or squat. I would expect that. And I wouldn't see a lot of muscle from that. I would see like four, four pounds or five pounds of lean body mass. Now at this point, at this point, pushing the calories, continuing strength train, you're going to see more muscle gains. You're going to see more size. Start shifting for sure. Yeah. And if your weight has stayed the same, but you lose, you've lost some body fat or you look leaner, you've definitely gained muscle and burn body fat. So it's probably like four to four. You probably gain four pounds of lean body mass and lost four pounds of body fat or something along those lines. Got it. Okay. Yeah. And then along those lines, I'm also wondering, because I still, I still love to run and cycle, but I'm almost afraid to go, to go back to, you know, running or cycling too much and then affect my strength training. So is there like a ratio? I mean, I'm really just, I'm probably doing full body lifting three to four days a week and then maybe running and biking two or three days a week. And I try to keep it under, under 60 minutes. Yeah. Well, look, here's the challenge though. You love it. Yeah. I mean, you love it. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I mean, I don't think it's worth a few extra pounds of muscle if you really enjoy and love doing it. It's also, it, here's a, here's a good experiment to do with yourself because, and this is always a challenging predicament that we get in when we're advising or coaching people. Like I never want to tell somebody like, Hey, you like running and it's good for you. It's healthy. Stop doing it. But you also are having this challenge with putting weight and size on. So if I was coaching, you were my client and you were expressing that to me. I'd say, Hey, you know what? The next month we're going to, I don't want you doing any of that stuff. Let's just see what happens when we completely reduce that and see if you're, you're happy with the size you see coming on. And then afterwards, if you're like, man, Adam, I did put a little bit of size on, but boy, I really miss running. And I'm like, let's do it. Then we can get back to it. So it wouldn't hurt to run in an experiment on yourself to see what happens when I cut out all this extra activity. And by the way, this is a similar situation that I was in in my mid 20s, when I was early 20s, when I was trying to put size on and playing basketball every day. And I love playing basketball. It was a passion of mine to play pickup games every day. I had a court in the gym that I worked, but I was struggling so bad. So I, you know, I said, okay, I'm going to cut out basketball for a month. Doesn't mean I'm going to cut out basketball for the rest of my life. I just want to see, and I put 10 pounds on. And it was like, oh, well, okay, well, there it is. I'm burning way more calories than I'm consuming. And that much activity is just too much for my goals currently. So I would encourage you just to do a 30 day experiment so you can see what that would potentially do to your body. And then you make the decision at the end of that, how much you liked that, and do you miss the running and then go from there? I'll predict that you'll miss it. If you've been doing endurance this long and you enjoy doing it, I think it's not going to be a worthy trade. Of course you will. I still miss basketball. Yeah, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, Alex, here's another option. You're doing cycling and running, you said three days a week? Yeah. I would lift two days a week. Two full body workouts with that, I bet you'll gain muscle. You'll probably gain size from doing that. Three days a week plus that is too much of everything. So I would cut the strength running down to two days a week full body and you'll probably see size gains from that and continue doing your cycling and your running. Okay. And bump in, keep the calories consistent. Bump in your calories, yeah. Yeah, and keep the calories consistent. Alex, are you running one of our programs? What are you running right now? No, just something that I've made up. Oh, shit. Oh, geez. Okay, let's, let's see here. Maps and a ball. Yeah, Maps and a ball coming your way. Yeah, Maps and a ball, two foundational workouts a week. That'll be perfect for you. Okay, great. Appreciate it. You got it, man. Thanks for calling in. All right. Yeah, thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate the help. You got it. So I wanted to wait for him to hang up for me to argue with you because I don't want to keep going with him. Yeah, yeah. Like, really? I don't, I don't agree with that. Yeah. I don't agree with that. I think. At the bare minimum. If he keeps, if he keeps his cardio, if he keeps his running and cycling the same, three to four days a week of lifting, plus three days a week of running and cycling, it's just too much of everything. Oh, yeah, I don't disagree with that. That's what I was, that's what I meant. But the recommendation of scale the, the lifting down. If he keeps the, if he keeps the running and cycling, that was the, that was the context. Yeah, yeah, but you know, but you just kind of told the guy what he naturally would gravitate. That'd be like telling me the basketball kid, like, hey, you know, keep your basketball going that way, but just drop your strength training and let's see what happens. Well, that means. I'm not going to build any muscle. That's, that's a member. That's after I said, you'll probably going to miss it. Yeah, but he didn't hear that, bro. He's, he's like. Well, he'll hear it now. I feel like, I feel like the, this is a perfect example of when people are, are kind of teetering back and forth between two things they really want, right? And he, for most of his life, it sounds like he's been this ultimate. What with 30 days of like cutting it out for a while, just to show this guy this, this experiment of what it, that potentially. No, I see, I see what you're doing. I 100% see what you're doing. Like if he was my client, that's what we're doing. Well, yeah, because it's more 100%. Look, here's the deal. When we communicate to people on the show, you know, there's two elements to it. One of it is this is like a client. The other one is this other people listening. When you're working with a client, the most effective thing you can do, which is what you did, is have the person reveal it to themselves. Yes. Because if you say it, it's true or false. If they say it, it's true. Right. So yes. Now what I, the reason why I said what I said was because we're not going to, he's not my client. I'll get to talk to him again. And so if he reaches that point and he's like, I miss it, but I still want to build some muscle. And I said, okay, keep doing what you're doing, but scale down the strength training down from three to four days a week down to two. And you'll still build a little muscle, you know, doing that. But you know, in terms of the strength gains without the muscle following, you can gain, especially as a beginner, you're going to gain strength quite rapidly before you see any size. Yes, that's quite common. I also, I also don't know if just one, dropping one day of weight training is going to be the thing. I mean, that's such a minimal amount of calorie expenditure. So what you're going to do is calorie wise is going to be so minimal. I think one of his number one problems right now, aside from doing too much totally, which I think we're all in agreeance in, is that he's doing a lot of cardio activity. Yeah, it's not for the calories. That's not why I said that. It's just too much work. He just, he's just training too. I know, but if he's still, my point is if he's still burning that many calories because you didn't tell him to reduce some of that, he's still not going to go anywhere. He's still mixed signal and the signal is so loud from years and years of the same thing. So you haven't really reset the programming there yet. Yeah, look, when I've trained some pretty hardcore endurance athletes towards the end of my career, a couple Ironman athletes and triathletes, and they gained muscle with one day a week of strength training. I had to scale it. Now this was, of course, they didn't cut down their other training. So the whole point was if you don't cut the cardio, then you can't do a lot of strength training. If you want to build muscle, three to four days a week of strength training for the average person who doesn't do running and cycling. I don't disagree with it. I don't under the assumption he's just going to keep piling on the cardio. That's it. That makes sense in that area. Yes, that's what I'm saying. I don't disagree with that. I agree with that. We're on the same page with that. I just, I think we just set this guy off on a path of in the next 30 days, he's going to see shit. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Well, I mean, he'll listen. He'll listen to hopefully this is back out. It's all about his priorities. Yeah, whatever. So he can go in both directions, but whichever one he chooses, like if you really want to gain that muscle, you got to really have a halt stop and reprogram what you're doing. Listen, and I know part of the dance that you are trying to do right now too, because it does come off hearing me go like, cut out, you're running and doing that. I know there's people that freak out, like that's such terrible advice, that's so healthy. I'm not, if it's for... Yeah, but if you were trained for ultramarathon, you wouldn't be loading all the calories and just purely focus on anaerobic training. Right, right. That'd be ridiculous. And what Sal said is exactly right. I want to reveal to him. That's right. You want him to see it for himself? That's right, and 30 days, by the way, if you're a hardcore marathon person, taking 30 days off of that is probably going to be healthy for you. So it's not healthy. And I'm not saying that he shouldn't... He probably gained size just from taking time off. That's why I want him to, like to me, I was like, that person, just like, all I did different. I wasn't even programming well back then. When I remember my early 20s, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I was lifting like crazy. You just cut out the basketball. I just cut out the basketball, put on 10 pounds of muscle. Literally, it felt like overnight. And so to me, it's like, you just... And then going forward, I didn't stop playing basketball forever, but it really opened my eyes of like, okay, there's definitely too much. There's a trade-off. Yeah, there's a little bit of a trade-off. And so how do I still incorporate what I love, but then recognize, too, that I can easily let that get away? Because just like I'm sure this site who does this, it's, I mean, I can get lost in playing basketball and go, oh, I'm gonna go play one game for 30 minutes. And then I'm there for three hours, because I love it. You're gonna miscalculate. Yeah, which is what someone like this does. If you love that endurance type of sport, it's like, he probably goes, I'm gonna go for a little light job four hours later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or hard, you know? Yeah, yeah. Easily. Yeah, no, it's like, it's, you know, working with clients, you know, and for at risk of sounding, you know, condescending, it's a lot like raising kids in the sense that like, you could tell your kid to wear a jacket because it's cold. Yeah. It's not nearly as effective as your kid not wanting to wear a jacket, you go outside. That's just human psychology. And they're like, oh my God, it's cold. I need to wear this jacket. So, you know, what you were doing was essentially that. It's like, here, try it for 30 days and then the answer will reveal itself to you. Yes. You know, I'm just, I also, now I'm aware, you said that, so I'm trying to communicate to the audience at large at the same point, but if you were my client, I would say exactly what you said. So. Our next caller is Stephanie from California. Stephanie, how can we help you? Hey guys, well, I got to say, I really appreciate having this time to ask my question on air. It's just awesome. You guys have been an amazing contributor to my days and for perspective on fitness and health and lifestyle. You're refreshing. I don't know how you guys found each other, but you make an amazing combination. Thank you for everything. Thank you, Stephanie. It was a tender. I want to read off from my original question as Doug had asked. And basically it says here, I am writing you all because all my life I have been an intuitive eater. It occurred to me a while ago though that measuring food can be helpful for some people. And recently you all have had, have inspired me to be intentional about the idea. And I want to learn how to measure out my food to get a knowledge, the best practices of how to incorporate weighing food to get an idea of what I eat and how that breaks down also in macros and calories. This will be very helpful to coach my clients. I'm finding intuitive eating is not the way for everyone. To get the results. So it's really important that somehow I convey that to, not just for, I'm going to try it, but I'd like to convey it to my clients as well. This is a good question. Before I let Adam, because Adam is, he's definitely the expert when it comes to this, but before I let him go, I'll say this with intuitive eating. Your intuition, if you will, just for lack of a better term, is going to be based on your knowledge of what you're eating and what's in the food. So in all how you feel and how it affects you. So weighing your food, measuring your food is a part of getting the intuition or eating in a way where it's intuitive eating towards very, very effective and accurate. Without that knowledge, then you go off how you feel, which is still good, but you don't have all the details. So you don't know grams of proteins, fats and carbs. You don't know calories. So this information helps with the intuitive eating type process. So it's not separate from, it's actually a part of. So I'm assuming the question is, in regards to things like, do I weigh my food before I cook it, or is that where we're heading with this question? Well, in the most practical sense. So let's say, you know, you normally go and you go to the kitchen and you get your food for the day. Now, putting the scale into, inserting that into that process. Okay. And making it really a smooth process, like it's actually woven into the flow of basically adding in this extra step. And how do you do that without making it kind of bumpy? Okay, that's a great question. This is where I think meal prepping is really valuable. Like the idea that you're going to cook every single meal or make it in the kitchen, real time, right before you eat it and consistently also weigh it is unrealistic and you'll probably not be consistent. So anytime I teach clients how to calculate or track macros, we schedule a prep day in the week. So and that whatever day that you have where you could spend, you know, four hours or so in the kitchen or barbecuing or however you want to prepare your meal, but then you do it in bulk. So like, let's say, you know, the primary sources of meat for the week for me is going to be, you know, salmon, chicken and steak. I like to barbecue a lot. And so I will barbecue all of it on the grill and then I will portion it all out into Tupperware. And I will weigh, you know, for me, I'm eating eight to 12 ounces of meat. And so I'm weighing all that out. I'm putting a piece of it. Then I go cook a huge thing of rice and sweet potatoes. And I portion all that way, all of it, portion it out. And so now I have in my refrigerator, you know, two or three different types of meals and say, you know, a total of 15 to 20 of them that are stacked up that I can pull from. And I really, I don't force myself to make every single meal for the day. I realize that, you know, there's gonna be a time when I swing into Chipotle or I do something like that that's not prepared. Ideally, I want my clients to eat 90% of the food that they prepared themselves only because there's so much room for air if you eat out a lot. Where people make a mistake that are measuring or tracking macros is if, you know, half of their food is eating out. And that's really tough because of how controlled, how uncontrolled that is, for example, you go to Chipotle and just because you can get online and say, oh, a protein bullet Chipotle is, you know, 600 calories. Well, if you've ever been to Chipotle, you know, and you get, you know, Susie on Tuesdays, she's super stingy with the chicken. And then, but, you know, Richard on Fridays, boy, he's got a heavy hand. He's tricky. So, you know, they can be off by a lot. So, like leaning on the stats that are on, you know, the internet or on their board or whatever that says, that's not a good way. So you want to measure and track and weigh yourself to get an idea, but that's what it looks like. And before or after you cook it, I think that matters with that is being consistent. So I normally will cook all my meat and then weigh it afterwards. So there's, so that's a common question I get, like, oh, do I do it before I cook it or after? Well, whatever you decide to do, do it consistently. Because at the end of the day, we have to first track to get an idea of your baseline. And so whatever you're going to do consistently is the most practical way to do it. And we're splitting hairs on arguing, oh, well, after you cook it, you lose the water. Yeah, you lose the water and there's, you know, it's like, that doesn't matter. Like as long as you're consistently weighing and measuring the same time. But that's how I would structure it. Does that kind of answer what you're looking for? Yeah, in a big way. Okay. Yeah, I didn't even, that didn't even occur to me to treat, you know, just make it ahead. And this is, and it also makes the flow of actually eating. You know, you think about it one time and one clump of four hours or whatever it is. And then it's all waiting. You don't have to think about it for another, whatever, five days or something like that. Stephanie, this is also a great way to navigate the world. You know, if you live in a modern society, food is everywhere. It's, you know, it's alluring. It's cheap and expensive and fast. But if you have all your meals set up, you're planned ahead. And so it's very easy to eat healthy in this fashion. The other thing too is, once you do this for a little while, you get a pretty good, now, unless you're a bodybuilder. So if you're a bodybuilder, you're competing on stage, you got to measure to the gram. I mean, you want to be perfect. But most people don't care about that. They're not trying to get on stage 2% body fat. They just want to look good and be healthy. Once you get a good idea of what three ounces of chicken looks like, of what a medium sweet potato looks like, a cup of rice looks like, you know, a cup of broccoli looks like, once you can eyeball it afterwards, and you're going to be close enough to where you'll have a pretty good grasp of what your body needs. So I, you know, when I would track and measure, I only did it for a short period of time, now I can eyeball something and have a pretty good idea of, okay, that's 12 ounces or that's eight ounces of whatever I'm eating. I know how many grams of protein and fat is in that kind of particular food or whatever. And from then on, I don't have to do it as much, unless I'm trying to get super detailed. It's incredibly revealing for your clients to do this. I have never met a client, one, who I've made track, measure, weigh food, and it was their first time doing it. And they did not come back to me going, holy shit, I had no idea, fill in the blank. You know, I had no idea that the sweet potato I was eating was as high a calorie as I thought it was. I thought that was a medium one. When I weighed it and measured it, it was like four times the size of what I thought I was. Or on the flip side, I had no idea that, you know, six ounces of chicken was that much. I was only eating three ounces. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Oh, I thought I, yeah, I thought I ate a lot of protein because they have a, you know, a turkey sandwich for lunch and they always eat like a steak or chicken dinner at night. And so then their head, they're like, oh yeah, I eat protein a lot. But then when they measure it, they go, oh shit, I'm not even getting half of the protein. I should be. So incredible, incredible tool for a coach or a trainer to give insight to your clients. And then the ultimate goal is to be, like Sal said, intuitive eating. I mean, that's, but this is laying the foundation so you can do that properly because you now have been educated on like your own habits and behaviors around food. Think of it this way, Stephanie. You're obviously a trainer. You mentioned your clients. So think of it this way. If you, and I see here in your notes, you didn't bring this up, but you were a sparring partner for boxing. So you understand, you know how to box. Okay. At your level and skill, obviously you were a sparring partner. When you're throwing punches and you're slipping jabs and you're moving, at this point, it's somewhat instinctual, right? You know how to move. You got the footwork, but it wasn't instinctual at first. At first you had to like count and pay attention and move your body this way. And here's how you throw a jab. Make sure your hip goes in this position here. And when you throw a hook, put your hand in this position. So before you could become intuitive, you had to be super aware of every step that you were taking. This is how people get to intuitive eating. They have to know the steps, count the steps. They have to be hyper aware, focus on them, and then eventually they can become intuitive. But intuitive doesn't come from not knowing the steps. Then you're just intuitive off of nothing. Then it's just guesswork or my cravings, in which case it'll never work. Can I ask another question? Go for it. What about when you're, maybe it's just not a meat, a vegetable and say a rice, whatever. What if you're adding the oil and the other little ingredients that go into say, if it's a combined dish like a casserole, would you measure out the spices and the only little ingredients as well? And that's all. Just the calorie dense ones. If someone's using and honestly, I actually didn't even, I actually didn't even, this is competing. I actually didn't even track my olive oil, which some people might think that's crazy, but I knew how much I was using, so I had an idea. So I really would, I would make a client just become aware, like, because you might find this, and I have had this where I'm like, I'm scratching my head. I can't figure out why my client isn't losing weight. And then I find out they cook every single meal three times a day with olive oil, and they're doing four tablespoons in there. It's like, oh, shit. Well, we're missing way more than 400 calories. Yeah, so, okay, for those reasons, yes. But if you are lightly using it to coat the pan, to cook your meat and stuff like that, I'm not really worried about that, especially if you consistently eat that way. It'll get factored in by you just being consistent with your eating and realizing if you're gaining or losing. I think that those little details like that are a bit overkill. Okay, got it. Okay, that's very, very helpful. I can picture this. Thank you. Thanks for calling in, Stephanie. Stephanie, are you... All right, thank you guys. Are you currently using any of our programs right now? I went and got your January offer, so I've got a bundle of anabolic prime, and I think I'll say I've got prime anabolic performant and aesthetic. You came in a bundle. Yeah, perfect. Just trying it out for the first time this month. Oh, awesome. You got it. Yeah. Keep us posted as you go through it. Use prime on your clients. That'll be valuable for them. Yes, absolutely. I love it. Thank you. Thank you for everything, guys. All right, Stephanie. All right. You know, it's such a... If you've been doing this for a long time, like us, you don't even remember to answer or talk about this kind of stuff. But you know how many people listening right now? Yeah. That just was so valuable because it's so basic, but it's such a big rock in nutrition. Like what we just talked about right now for people who are getting started makes such a huge difference in their progress. That's very insightful. I'm glad we had that question. Yeah. Yeah, I want to elaborate a little bit on my statement around olive oil because I know that it's going to trigger somebody for sure that's going to be like, whoa, that's fucking crazy. Try and break down the math for me on how much... The point that I was trying to make that I think sometimes people really overcomplicate this process. If you consistently use olive oil in your foods and it's... In the same amount. The same amount, the same... Like I said, coating the pan or you always add so much to your vinaigrette dressing or whatever. If you do that consistently and you go through a process of weighing, measuring and tracking your food for say a couple of weeks to figure out where your caloric maintenance is at, it's not a big deal. No, because it's going to be there. That's right. It's going to... It'll work itself out and just be consistent with that. Now, that doesn't mean I'm saying that the calories in olive oil doesn't count. It's that it's a small enough thing that you're doing and or it's something that you're doing a lot of. If you're doing a lot of it, then you become aware of that just through this process of tracking everything. But I went all the way to the level of competing on stage and never measured and weighed. Because it was already accounted for. So to put it differently, if you were tracking your food and then you're like, okay, looks like my maintenance calories is 2,500 and then you go and you aim for 2,500 and then you add olive oil. Now it makes a difference. But if you originally tracked it and you didn't count the olive oil and you said, oh, it's 2,500, but there's an extra, let's say 200 calories of olive oil in there. And then you go and you aim for that 2,500, but the olive oil is still in there. It's the same both times. It's there. Yeah. It really doesn't matter what the number says. It's all there. So it's consistent and you're tracking and you're seeing how your body is responding. It doesn't matter. So that's... And I'm glad you brought that back up because people are like, well, of course, you have to count the calories. Well, you do if you add it and it's new, but if it's always been there and you've been tracking, then it's already accounted for. Yes. All right. Our next caller is Cole from Wisconsin. Cole, what's happening? How can we help you? What's up, guys? How's it going? I appreciate you guys having me on and answering my question. I've kind of spammed it out to all of your platforms over the last week or so. So I appreciate you getting to me. Awesome. Thank you so much. I want to start this a little bit different than the typical thanks for all you do. So to keep it short and sweet, Sal, I really admire how you articulate when educating the audience on the different topics that you guys discuss. Adam, I love how you're authentically yourself and your opinions are your opinions, but you also have no problem emitting when you're wrong. Justin, I resonate with you the most and as what I perceive to be the most reserved one, but when a topic comes up that you're confident in talking about, you jump right in and own it, and then Doug, shout out to you for managing all these big personalities. Thanks, man. That's right on. Thanks, dude. Appreciate that. Sure. Yep. And also a real quick shout out to my girlfriend for introducing me to your guys' podcast a couple of years ago. You guys have had a really big impact on how I've sort of reshaped my fitness journey for the first eight to 10 years of my fitness life. I was the guy in the gym doing way too much, beating my body up seven days a week, no matter how I was feeling, and how I'm in a place where I listened to my body and although I'm still in the gym, probably five, six days a week, two or three of those days are low intensity mobility type training that I stole from MAPS Performance. So thank you for that. Sounds like a keeper. Yeah. And then so to get to my question, I recently turned 30 and I wanted to start focusing more on just my overall wellness instead of just focusing on trying to get big, which is where I've been for the last 10 years. I definitely identify with the hard gainer, but I guess I'm just going to approach that as more of like just focusing on my overall strength. I know you guys have talked about in the past how even if you're macros and programming and sleep are all right, your results won't be there if you have any hormone imbalances or nutrient deficiencies. So I'm looking for advice on where to start with getting tested or getting testing done with those things. I basically just want to do a full diagnostics test on my body to check for hormone imbalances, nutrient deficiencies, and also just to get like an idea of my overall gut health if that's something that I can do. Some things I've noticed, it's hard for me to put on and keep muscle. I've got some like low energy here and there and then I can also be moody, which I know Adam relates to. I've heard you guys talk about Dr. Karol, regenerative, transcend, all on your podcast. Do you recommend that I go through one of them or should I go through my PCP? And also at what point do I start looking at my metabolism as perhaps being too fast? I don't know that this is for sure a bulk, but based off of like some of the macro calculators I've used, I've been needing like 36 to 3,800 calories a day. And I'm getting stronger, but the scale hasn't gone up at all. So I'm just looking for like overall thoughts and opinions on all that. All right. I would start. So I would go Dr. Stephen Cabral. For sure. What's he called, Sal? What's he called the big four or the big five? Yeah, I can't remember. There's four or five specific tests that he'll do that'll look at things like inflammation, they'll look at gut health, they'll look at stress, markers of stress on the body. So I would do that. I would also go to mphormones.com and I would schedule a hormone lab test for two reasons. One, I don't think based off what you're saying you have, it plus your age, you just turned 30. You're probably okay, but it's a good idea to get a baseline because if everything is good and then when you turn 40 and you notice big changes, you can reference back to the time you got your hormones tested and you can see where they were. Also, you could do the things that Dr. Stephen Cabral's team tells you to do and see if how that affects key hormones like testosterone, for example. So if you did those two things, you would have all your bases totally covered. And then from there, you can follow the protocols. Dr. Stephen Cabral's team is going to go the natural route and that's always the best place to start. Adding exogenous hormones, that's the second option. That's when all the natural stuff isn't helping. You're at some deficiencies that are causing declines in quality of life, in which case exogenous hormones then can become the risk versus benefit starts to look pretty favorable. But I would start with Dr. Stephen Cabral and get a baseline hormone lab test and then take it from there, follow the advice of Dr. Stephen Cabral's team and then get another hormone test maybe three months later and see how things have changed. But that would be the place to start. And if there's anything that you could modify or change, one of the tests that the functional medicine practitioners at Dr. Stephen Cabral's team, one of those tests will say, we'll show you, it'll tell you what you need to focus on if there's a nutrient deficiency because they do mineral testing, they do stress testing. You'll be able to see how to optimize yourself naturally for sure. So valuable. I think that one of my favorite things that we've got to do in the last eight years is to link up with both the teams that you're referring to. And even all the years that I've been doing this, I get so excited every time I get to actually sit down and talk to both of them because the insight that I get, I mean, I'm still learning to this day and every time I get shocked or I learned something new after we go through one of these tests. Also, take advantage of the forums. I don't know if you're on there yet or not already, but part of them being partnered with us, we've created two free forums on Facebook that have got their team and they're working. So you could literally go in there and ask whatever question, and they're very responsive. So both those forums are incredibly valuable. I know we don't promote them or talk a lot about them on the show, but definitely take advantage of being in there, especially once you go through the testing and all the questions you may have or alternatives, like, hey, I'm trying X, Y, and Z. Are these or something else I can do to help these levels out? And they're an even better resource than we are for those specific things. Doug, what's the website for Dr. Stephen Cabral? Is it stevencabral.com? Okay, so stevencabral.com, Stephen spelled with a P-H. Got it. So is that different than the MPHormones.com? Yes, MPHormones.com. You're going to get, that's where you're working with, hormone specialist getting a hormones test. Dr. Stephen Cabral's team is all functional medicine. So they're looking at inflammatory markers, mineral tests, nutrient deficiencies, and they're going to work with you on, they'll use supplements, but everything's natural. There's no exogenous hormones, nothing like that. The hormone test I think is important just to get a baseline and also to see how the natural changes may affect your hormones. Worst case scenario, which I don't think is the case because your age and your history of exercise, worst case scenario, you're in a position where the natural means aren't helping, you have some kind of a hormone deficiency that's at a range, it's causing quality of life to decline, in which case then you use medical treatments, but I would do both. If you're looking to optimize everything, I would do both. But that order you outlined specifically is so important, and I wish everybody could listen to this in terms of going that route first to find any underlying issue, and this could be any kind of autoimmune underlying issue. This could be inflammation, this could be a deficiency, but to tackle that a lot of times will be transformative on its own, which then you'll feel and experience in terms of how your hormones will just naturally balance themselves out from that. But too, to that point of just getting blood work done, I think having that baseline, knowing exactly where you are, to be able to navigate from there, so the combo of both is a powerful thing. I wish I had for my clients back when I trained. Yeah, that's great. That was one thing that I was concerned about is I don't have any sort of baseline. So even if there was some sort of deficiency, like I wouldn't even know. So I think it's a good point that having that baseline for when I do turn 35, 40 sometime in the future is a good place to start at the very least. No, this is perfect, good timing too. Yeah, I'd love to hear your feedback after you go through. It's always interesting, somebody who's into health fitness, take care of themselves, your age, and then gets these tests done to see how enlightening it was for them. Cool, yeah, absolutely. That's super helpful. I appreciate that. Awesome, cool. Thanks for calling in. Yeah, definitely. Thanks, guys. Keep up the good work. Yeah, I want to emphasize the doing things with lifestyle naturally is always optimal, always optimal. That doesn't mean, however, that it's always going to work. It often does. Oh, look what happened to me. That's right. I spent almost two years going the natural route after I came off a testosterone, working my ass off, and I saw some, but not enough for me to be like, this is how I want to feel for the rest of my life, which is what led me down that route. Because the key with using hormones exogenously is it's a risk versus benefit reward. Nothing's as healthy as having great hormone levels naturally. You can't even perfectly copy them with exogenous hormones. It doesn't work that way. Testosterone, exogenous testosterone isn't going to hit your body identically to how your body produces testosterone, for example. That being said, if it's low, you're doing everything naturally, you're exercising, you're eating right, and usually this happens to men over the age of 40, especially if they've used anabolic steroids in the past or some underlying condition or situation they can't figure out. If it's low, then exogenous testosterone is game changer. But the natural routes always first, always do that first, especially if you're young. And if you're under 30, you can make some pretty profound differences to your hormones and how you feel just by figuring out what you're lacking, right? Just by figuring out the things that you need to supplement with or lifestyle changes. Our next caller is Olivia from Portugal. Olivia, how can we help you? Hi, guys. I just want to say thank you so much for everything you do. I've been listening for about a year now. Shout out to my friend Monica for putting me on to you. A little bit about myself. I'm an American Provogal player, but I currently play in Portugal. During my offseason, I'm also a personal trainer and I help run an online volleyball strength and vertical program. Cool. And my question for you guys is regarding sleep. So you guys talk a lot about waking up and going to bed at the same time to stay consistent with your sleep schedule. Otherwise, you kind of create the jet lag for yourself when you wake up at different times. As an athlete, is it beneficial to sleep in after a hard practice the evening before? Okay. So does that mean you're going to bed later than you normally would? Yeah. Occasionally, sometimes due to gym availability, we'll have practice later or I'll have to see my physio or make a post-practice meal, stuff like that. Okay. So there's two options here, Olivia. Option one is you can't really control the consistency of your sleep and you're sleeping in because you're tired. In which case, that's better than nothing. Option two would be ideal, which is try to pick a bedtime and awake time that accounts for this. So if you go to bed let's say a late night for you when you can't get the gym at the time you want is 10.30, try to make every night 10.30 so it's consistent as possible. That way when that happens, it's not a big deal. If it doesn't happen, you still stay up till 10.30. But if it doesn't work that way, sleeping in, you get some benefit. It's just not as perfect as being consistent every single day. How often is this happening? And like I said, every week, multiple times a week, is it once in a while? Like how often does this happen? It depends because oftentimes we'll have two or three trainings a day and then there's one day where we'll just have one training and so I think, okay, maybe I'll sleep in on that Tuesday or something. So generally, two to three times a week we'll have the morning quote unquote off. Oh, I see. Yeah, if it's just like that, there's nothing wrong with sleeping extra, especially the amount of training that you're probably doing if you're tired. There's not an issue with that. Unless it disrupts your eating. Are you ramped up? Like, yeah. So is it hard for you to kind of like bring yourself down before bed after you have these late night practices? Yeah, sometimes I feel like I get home and I'm just super hungry so I make food. Then I go and get ready for bed but it does kind of keep me up a little bit at night. Yeah. Yeah, I would say if you can make it consistent every night, that's great. Also, if you need to sleep in because you're tired, that's not a big deal. The only time that might be an issue is if you're sleeping in the morning and then that effect you're evening sleep. So it's like, okay, I slept in today but now I can't go to bed. I don't feel like I'm tired for two hours past my normal bedtime in which case now it's starting to interfere. But otherwise, it's not that big of a deal. Sleep is such an individualized thing too and ritual wise like what you do to prep for sleep and all that. Do you track it all? Like, so I know that Dr. Cabral, he recommended the aura ring for this in terms of like really understanding your own patterns of deep sleep and REM and being able to get to that point. So, you know, that would be something if you're not doing to look into in terms of being able to actually see your patterns and when this happens and occurs when you have these practices like how you can kind of make micro adjustments in terms of like your ritual going into that sleep. Yeah, I have heard of the aura ring definitely a cool concept so I'll have to maybe pull the trigger one day by it. Yeah, I think that's a definitely worthwhile investment especially for a pro athlete like you. I mean, you're at a high performance. You're at a, yeah, such a high level that, you know, getting insight to like you, what you might be surprised is even the type of meal you decide to eat that late may affect the way you sleep. Like, and that could be just a small adjustment of like, oh, wow, when I eat these, you know, high carb, you know, type of pasta meals at this time, this is how I feel if I at least stay lower on that and eat a higher fat, higher protein type of meal I feel way better or vice versa. Like that's what's great about tools like this is you can you can play with things like that and then see how it affects your sleep and then you're not having to radically change your life. You just, you change some decisions based off of that. So too, yeah. And like temperature obviously is another factor. So you play around with these types of things in terms of like, if you can, like if you can control the climate and, you know, maybe you do better and get more deep sleep in a colder temperature or, you know, maybe you draw a bath or something beforehand and like call them the central nervous system, you know, whatever it is, like, you know, to be able to kind of repeat that process when this occurs, I think would be helpful. Well, here try this because when you're doing your practice, when you're practicing your indoors, the lights are pretty bright in those indoor gyms. I would wear, as soon as you're done practice, I would put on really strong blue light blocking glasses as soon as practice is over. Put them on. Boom. That way your brain starts to kind of wind down automatically. I would also immediately after my training use a magnesium supplement. I was just here. So I would go with like, like Ned Mello is really good. Athletes tend to need magnesium more than the average person. And 60% of the population are already under on that. Yeah, and female, females in particular. So right after, you could take like Mello, which has got the magnesium in it and it's got some other stuff or you could just take magnesium, like glycinate, which is pretty inexpensive. Mello would be a little better because it's got some other forms, but you could go with like magnesium glycinate right after your training, put on the blue light blocking glasses and then see if that helps with the sleep afterwards. Okay, great. Yeah. Actually, I've got my Phyllis Drazon right now. So. Oh, awesome. Yeah, excellent. Yeah. Have you played with Carrie Walsh yet? Have you guys crossed paths? No. That would be pretty cool to play with her, but no. Well, you'll have to, you'll have to message her and tell her that you were on Mind Pump. She's actually a friend of ours. So she's been listening to Mind Pump since almost the beginning. Wow. Awesome. Yeah, yeah. Well, good deal. We'll kick ass over there. Yeah, best of luck to you. All right. Wait, actually, can I have a quick follow-up with that? Yeah. Can I have a quick follow-up with that? Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. So I take athletic greens in the morning, and I believe it does have the magnesium. I started with a G. What did you say? Glycinate. Glycinate, yeah. So I think it has that. So would it be beneficial to still take it after training, even though I've already taken it in the morning? Yeah. It's probably not a ton. And I would anyway. Magnesium also has a calming effect on the central nervous system anyway. So it's unlikely you'll take too much of it. So I would still do it afterwards. Yeah, it doesn't, athletic greens, do they have, it has ashwagandha in there, too, doesn't it? Um, not sure. Do you know if it has ashwagandha in there? In my... Not sure. Yeah. I don't think it's got enough of the magnesium in it. But yeah, I would just take it afterwards, take magnesium supplement afterwards. Okay, awesome. Good deal. Thank you guys. You got it. All right, Olivia. Thank you. Yeah. The whole sleep, she's overthinking, I think a little bit. Especially at her level of training, sleeping in is probably a good thing. But that's the thing about high performance athletes, like they're looking for that like edge anywhere they can find it. And so, you know, sometimes these like sleep aids and things might actually like, you know, be something to incorporate. Maybe it is just like one of those things where you just got to kind of keep as much of a pattern as you can. Yeah, no, I think we went the right direction with her. I mean, I think that you're right. I think it's like you're talking about something super, I mean, your body's telling you it needs to extra sleep. Like you wouldn't want to deny it of that, like let it, you know, sleep in your training hardest and athlete. But, you know, that we mentioned a few things that I think could help optimize her sleep. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but like what type of food I eat before bed could make a difference on how I sleep. You know what's funny? They still studies will show now this, of course, if as long as digestion is okay. So if it doesn't affect your digestion negatively, so that's the caveat here. But carbs and now a couple hours before bed improve sleep in most people. Yeah. Now, if it affects your digestion poorly, like a lot of people with you know, acid reflux or, you know, yeah, then that's not a good idea. But for otherwise, like a well, it easily digestible, you know, meal that contains a decent amount of carbs, like a couple hours before bed is like great for sleep in shows. Yeah, you're, I mean, you're an athlete, you're, you're trying to find these little tweaks. And so I feel like, you know, how that's why I like Justin's recommendation of like an O-ring of like, you're just, you're testing that. Oh, when I eat this type of meal, I feel like this way. Oh, when I get this, by this time, I feel that like, so yeah, I mean, when you're at that level, you're tweaking all these little things. I don't think it's as big of a deal though, that she has this every once in a while. I mean, that's, that's part of being young and playing sports and probably doing school and everything, you know, bouncing back. Look, if you like Mind Pump, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out all of our free stuff. We've got a lot of free guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. Justin is on Instagram, Mind Pump Justin. Adam is on Instagram, Mind Pump Adam. And you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. Today, we're going to teach you everything you need to know to build a strong, well-developed chest. When I think of weak points and areas that I struggled with developing for a really long time, chest was up there with the work. Yeah, it was for me. It was for me for sure. I got more caught up in the weight I could lift versus how I was developing my body. I think it's one of the most challenging muscles to develop for most people because the form and technique