 In this episode of Mind Pump, the top fitness, health and entertainment podcast in the world, we answer fitness and health questions asked by listeners like you. And the way we open the episode is by talking about current events. We talk about our kids. We mentioned science articles that we've read. So here's what went down in this entire episode of Mind Pump. We start out by talking about the book, Give a Mouse a Cookie. I bet you didn't know there was a message in that. It's not just a funny kids book. Then we talked about disciplining our children and the effective strategies or what we think to be effective strategies. Adam talked about a newsletter called The Flipside, which will actually send you arguments on two sides of a topic, which I think is brilliant. That brought me to talk about the proposal that is in Congress right now, hasn't passed yet, to give everybody $2,000 a month for until the pandemic's over. I guess that means forever. I talked about the Stockdale Paradox. This is really interesting. We talked about gyms and the impact of what's going on with gyms. They're going to be having to pivot really hard here very, very soon. We talked about anxiety, mine in particular, and how I'm using full spectrum hemp oil to deal with my anxiety. Ned is my favorite company. So what I do is I take a dropper full of Ned hemp oil, and within about 30 minutes to an hour, I feel my body calm down. It helps me sleep. It helps take away, this is for me now, it helps take away the physical symptoms of anxiety. There's no THC in it or very, very low THC. It's perfectly legal, but it's full of other cannabinoids that give you that calm feeling. Now, Ned is one of our sponsors, and we have a discount for you. All you have to do is go to helloned.com. That's H-E-L-L-O-N-E-D.com forward slash mine pump. You'll get 15% off your first purchase. We talked about the beaches in Santa Cruz opening back up. Justin talked about how he liked wearing his favorite Viori shorts. Those are the Palm Gray core shorts while he went out there swimming. I bet his cakes looked really, really nice. By the way, Viori makes some of the best athleisure wear you'll find anywhere. And look, right now you're at home. You're probably in your ugly gray sweats. You're not looking very attractive for your partner. Get some Viori stuff. It's just as comfortable. That's actually more comfortable, but it looks good. It's very resilient. It'll last a long time. I wear Viori every single day and Viori has one of the best guarantees in the market. It's lifetime. You buy some of their stuff and it breaks down, take it back and get something else. Again, it's high quality, super comfortable. Don't look crappy anymore. Consider your significant other please. Get some Viori. It's way better than the gray sweat stuff. Anyway, we have a discount for you. 25% off because you're a mine pump listener. Go to Viori clothing. That's V-U-O-R-I clothing.com forward slash mine pump. There's a code on the page that'll come up. That'll give you 25% off. Then I talked about fake news that's kind of circulating right now. You need to keep your eyes open for that stuff. Then we got into answering the fitness questions. The first question, how should you breathe during heavy lifts? So when you're lifting a heavy, heavy weight, what is the best way to breathe to brace your core and support your body? Next question. What's a good way to balance cardio and running with the Maps Anywhere program? And really what we did is we went into talking about cardio in general, how you should manage your cardio if your goal is to get strong, speed up your metabolism, burn body fat, or if you just love doing cardio because it feels good for you. The next question, this person wants to know if you can actually lower your body fat percentage without actually losing body fat. I know that sounds kind of weird, but it's possible. We explain in that part of the episode. And the final question, this person wants to know, look, as we get older in our 40s, 50s, and beyond, how would you program the deadlift and squat into your routine? And is the one more important than the other? Also, all month long, this month, Maps Prime and Maps Prime Pro, both correctional exercise type programs are 50% off. Now Maps Prime takes you full through a self assessment and helps you design an individualized warm up or priming session for your current workout. So I don't care what kind of workout you're doing now, if you're running, swimming, if you're lifting weights, doing body weight exercises, how you prepare your body before your workout actually makes a huge difference. It helps you move better, connect to the movements better, get better mobility, fire more muscle fibers for better muscle growth and better results. So that's your priming session, but priming sessions are different from person to person. If you have poor shoulder mobility, poor posture, your priming sessions are going to be different than someone who has maybe hip issues or ankle issues. So Maps Prime helps you design that for yourself. Now Maps Prime Pro is all about correctional exercise. Go through all the big joints of the body, including the spine, find areas where you have issues, and follow the program to work on these issues every single day, 10 minutes at a time to give yourself better mobility and better connection and less pain. Again, both programs 50% off. Here's how you go get that discount. Go to mapsfitnessproducts.com, that's M-A-P-S-F-I-T-N-E-S-S, products.com, and use the code Prime50, that's P-R-I-M-E-5-0, no space for the discount. And it's t-shirt time. Ah, shit, dog, you know it's my favorite time of the week. We have five winners this week, two from iTunes, three from Facebook. The iTunes winners are T. Dinkel, Peyton Lane. For Facebook, we have Brock DeGleish, Nicky Duke, and Angela DeMarco. All of you are winners in the name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com. Include your shirt size and your shipping address, and we'll get that shirt right out to you. Boy, do I feel like an idiot. What? Yeah, that never happens. No, I just, what a moron. I'm so disappointed in myself. Why? Because I talk shit the other day about children's books. Oh, you said that, you just write it, Tee-Tee. Yeah, and so the reason why I feel like an idiot, because of course, of all the books that I chose to be like, that's a stupid book, there's nothing to it, there's a deep meaning to it that I had no idea. Yes, give a mouse a cookie. Okay, somebody show this on form. I wish I remembered who shared it because I'd love to give her a shout out. That's a great book. And I talked about on the show because it's like, you know, when you when you read it, and if you didn't know this about it, you would read it probably like how it is. This makes no sense. The sentences are like run on and whatever doesn't really flow or rhyme. It's like made no sense to me. But what I didn't know about the book that it was written in Reagan's administration, it was during a time when one of the big heated debates that was going on in politics was about welfare. And that's what the book is all about. Well, okay, so it's not specifically about welfare, by the way. It was because I know quite a bit about the history behind this book. I read that article and then it reminded me that I read about this a long time ago. What it's really teaching, of course, they're going to attach it to politics. But what it's really teaching is if you give a mouse a cookie, then he's going to want this, then he's going to want that, then he's going to want this, and he needs to learn how to be self-sufficient, take care of it, like everybody has to take care of themselves. Right. That's a direct connection to welfare. What are you talking about? Well, I mean, it could be, right? But that's not why the guy wrote it. He was writing a basic, no, a chick wrote it and she wrote it for that's what it's I read all about it after that after I felt like an idiot, I had to go specifically wrote it for that. Yes. Yes. That's what it was about. Well, now half of everyone's going to be like, I don't want to read that book. No, no. So I read it differently. Now I read it differently to my son, you know what I'm saying? So it's not just like before I have, I mean, and this is the part I think we were talking about how this came up, right? We're talking about different voices that we use. So my tone is like so different now because I was just reading it like this stupid kid giving a kid a cookie, but there's a lesson. Yeah. There's a lesson now. So between every time I say CSUN, this is why we don't want to do this because you think you're really helping the mouse, but you're not helping the mouse here. Oh, Jesus. Yes. There's old fables that have some interest like thousands of your old fables that have really interesting lessons. There's one about the, I'm going to screw this up. Almost all ASOPs fables are like that. There's one about the, is it an ASOPs fable, the one about the cricket and the ant? Is that the one or am I, am I, I don't know. Anyway, I read there was a story about the cricket and the ant, how the ants were working and saving and preparing and the crickets just playing music all day and like, oh, you guys are, who cares? Let's just have fun. The sun is out and they're like, no, no, no. We want to be ready for when winter comes or whatever. The locusts. And then the, the, you know, obviously food dries up, starts to snow, ants are safe in their, in their hill or whatever. And the cricket is like, I have nothing like what, but it's a great lesson to teach, you know, to teach, to teach your kids. Now, I feel like we've gotten away from that a little bit at like newer children's books and newer like kids cartoons have less of a meaning now, I feel like. Now, I don't know if that's just, again, I'm, I'm used to be about scaring the shit out of kids from staying out of the woods, staying out of the woods. There's wolves, there's bears, they're going to eat you, they're going to dress up like grandma, you know, they're going to be weird things to try and get you. Well, well, you guys know the popular song ring around the rosy. Yeah. What that's about. That's a black plague. That whole song is about the black plague. Yeah. It's literally about the symptoms you get from the black plague. And then at the end when they say, we all fall down. Yeah. It's everybody dying. Real, real uplifting. But if you think about it, it's, it's actually quite brilliant. It's like you want, you have to kind of lighten the mood a little bit because it's just the reality of what's going on. Yeah. So it's like, Hey kids, let's sing a song about the scary shit that's going on right now. Well, that was like, uh, when we watched that documentary on, on Mr. Rogers, like I had, I mean, I hadn't tuned into Mr. Rogers since I was a kid. And so when you're listening to it as a kid, you're just the puppets are playing their story. You're not really, it's a kid. Just like I felt, that's why I felt so stupid about the give a mouse a cookie book is like, I'm an adult. I should know better to try and read between the lines. You know what I'm saying? And I didn't even read between the lines while I was reading this, this little book, right? I had read it like every single night for like two weeks. I think self sufficiency is one of the greatest lessons you can ever teach your kid. Oh, so this is has to be boy. This is, this is going to be, you know, I get a lot of DMs about people when I talk about like the fatherhood stuff and the challenging things. So one of the challenges that I already know I'm going to have is Katrina is the, the youngest of her family and I'm the oldest in mine. And so the way we were raised was very, very different. And one of the things that I know I'm going to have to work on and have a lot is I'm very grateful for the adversity that I went through. And I know that it was very important to develop me, developing my character today. And so we had this moment just the other, just this yesterday. And he's like, he's crawling. He's real close to like, like, he's not crawling, crawling everywhere yet. It's like, he's, he makes a couple of calls. So we're like, it's any day it's going to start happening. Can I just tell you real quick, just to interrupt you, I can, I cannot take, you post in, you know, private, you know, whatever, private pictures and videos of your kid. It's so hard. I have to come over your house and squeeze the shit out of him. It's happening. Well, he's getting really fun, right? So the milestones are starting to happen, right? That are fun. Like in, so we're, we're getting ready to crawl right now. So it's like every day I take him upstairs in our, in our, in our master room. And I set him on one side of the room, sit him up and I go across the room and I play with toys to make him come over and training and just start playing with his toys. Yeah. He just sit over there in the morning. I do. I do. I do. I move across the room and I start playing with his toys to get him to, to start crawling over and playing with dollar bills. You train him early. Well, so I go part of why I go upstairs is because, you know, Katrina, just if he, as soon as he cries, she just, she just breaks down as a mother. You know what I'm saying? Like right away wants to rescue him. And so I'm up there and I'm, and he's like, this was literally like a whole, I think it was like six or seven minutes. I was actually recording this. So I'll show you guys off air, the recording, but I wouldn't share it because then people think I'm mean because he's coming. He's, he starts to, he starts to crawl and I'm like, yeah, I'm so pumped. I'm about to catch video of like his first like crawl across the room right now. And so I'm like trying to encourage him. And then he starts getting really frustrated, you know, he can sprawls out and then he can't get his footing and he's looking at the toys. He wants to get to him. So he's starting to cry, but I'm still talking to him. Come on, son, you can do this. You can do this. Yeah, right. And I'm pushing him to do it. Oh man. I tell you, my heart melted at one point. He stops crawling for a second and he's crying so hard. He has to like wipe his tears. And I'm like, Oh God, dude, come on, son, you could do this. Like I want him just to bet and Katrina comes walking. What are you doing? You know, like so pissed that she's like, didn't you see he's crying? And I'm like, yeah, he needs more motivation. That's why I put a monster in the other corner. So it sparks this big debate back and forth between her and I. And she's like, listen, there's going to be plenty of times for you to teach him adversity. And my argument is like, no, it starts right now. These are the little things that are, this is hard for him right now is crawling, right? Like, of course, when he's 16, it's not going to be about crawling. It's going to be something that's obviously a lot harder and more difficult. Way, way, way worse to deal with. Right. And so what I'm trying to explain to her is like, listen, this stuff starts to become hardwired right now. Now, listen, I'm going to love this shit out of him too. So I'm not a father who's just going to be an asshole and be pushing, pushing, pushing through adversity and never show that other side. As soon as we're done, like I wrap him up and hug him and hold him and kiss him. I'm proud of you and all that stuff. I said, so it's a good thing. You have Katrina for balance. Well, that's, you know, I know that's the same thing with me, dude. Same thing. Yeah. Well, like these arguments are very common. You know what, that's really, that's such a good thing that you have that that's that's exactly what what it's supposed to be like, where you have one push, one one, and you end up with a nice balance. And now, you know, statistically speaking, it typically is the dad is usually the one that this is just, and it's not always this way, obviously, but statistics will show that it's usually the dad that does this. And it's the mom that's a little softer. You know, what's interesting after I got divorced and, you know, the kids would come and stay with me half the time. I started to take on both roles. I actually softened up a lot because, you know, because mom isn't there very weird. I can only imagine being a single parent. It's like you're juggling because when you have another partner, yeah, you can lean on them to be that right. I can be kind of tough knowing that she's gonna come right behind me and pick them up. Totally. I love you. Absolutely. It's really, really strange, but I think that's, you know, and you're right. You bring up a great point. They say, you know, you want to show your kids consequences when the consequences aren't terrible and when they get older than the consequences become. This is my point that I was trying to make was that, listen, I know you think it's not a big deal because it's just him trying to learn how to crawl, but that's just it. It is not a big deal right now. It's a little thing. So if I can teach him, if I can instill this in him now, when he starts to hit other things as he gets a little bit older, that it's going to be innate in him versus the other way, if every time he cries or every time he struggles, we go to save him just because he's little and it's challenging for him, then that will be his innate behavior. You know, what's cool about this too is, I mean, this is obviously, you can think back logically, but the way you keep clients, you know, motivated and consistent is you show them challenge, but you also allow them to have little wins. You know what I mean? So he's coming across the room, he's crying, he gave up, you give him a little toy, now he has a little bit of a win, then he wants to move forward again. You know, that type of strategy, which is what you do as a trainer. It's so difficult for a client that they just fail all the time. They're discouraged and they never come back. Well, I knew this was coming for us because we had our, I mean, before we had a kid, we got a dog together, right? We had Bentley and then we had Mazzie and they're bulldogs, right? So there are stubborn personalities and she never had a dog before and she was so loving all the time and it was never disciplined. It was like, you know, shower them with love and affection. And of course, when the dogs don't feel well, they always Mazzie over to her, but then when it comes to respect and listening, like she doesn't have the same response with them because she hasn't instilled that into their behaviors. It's like, I, and I was that from day one, it was very, I established myself as the alpha, the leader of the pack. And then when I say stop or I do, they freeze because I have that where she can do that and they overrun her and it gets her really. And now she's, I see her paying for it as they're older because she'll be juggling things in the kitchen and doing some dogs are misbehaving and she doesn't matter if she yells or does whatever, they're not going to, they don't listen the same way as if I come in and do the same thing. And I feel, I saw that in her early and I thought, oh man, when we have a kid, this is going to be it. She's going to have a hard time when I want to be the one that's like, you know, push him to be, it's okay that he struggles. It's all right. But that's good. There's two of you. No, you're right. It creates that balance. You're right. Because I know that I'm very self-aware to know that I'm the extreme version because of all the shit that I went through. Sure. Right. So I have, and I know I'm well, I'm old enough and wise enough to know that I don't want to, I don't want to put my kids through the same thing. I went, just because I think that worked out for me, there's got to be another side to that, that I, in which she's definitely going to balance that. Yeah. They show, studies show that very, very disciplined households that have no love actually have some of the worst outcomes. So when you have just discipline, just structure, just got to do it this way, but there is no love behind it. They've got really, really bad outcomes. The best outcomes are houses that have both lots of love and lots of discipline. So both, you got to show both. So it's so great that, and of course, you're a loving guy too. It's not like you're just disciplined anyway. And that's where I was trying to defend myself because I could tell she was very, you could tell she was upset with me. You're a loving person. And I'm like, listen, I said, I would totally understand if I played that role only. Like if I was just the asshole or just a, come on, make a push through and always like, no, come on. Like I'm very, very loving and playful and show my affection and love to him on a very regular basis. But when there's things that I know that we're trying to progress him through, and that's one example. Other examples are like when we're trying to retrain him to sleep in his bed and not come back to bed with her. It's like, listen, we're going to have some rough nights. We're going to have some nights when he's going to cry for like 30 minutes plus straight. The reality is too, is that she may not admit this, but she also wants to sleep with him in the bed. Of course. Like, no, he's crying. You just want to cuddle with him too. I get it. And I get it too because I like that sometimes. When he was going to that whole thing where he was sick, I was the one to say like, just let him in. I want to, I want to lay with him. I know he doesn't feel good. I want him in, I want him next to me and I want him to feel like that I'm there. Like, so I get that, you know, so, you know, it's been heavily recommended to me along those lines. There's a book and a course called Love and Logic. Have you guys heard of this? No. Okay. So it's been heavily recommended to Jessica and I, my aunt did the whole thing. She said it was extremely valuable. I've heard great reviews. So we actually signed up for their online course and we're going to take it and it's apparently, it's about, When's it start? So once you sign, okay. So I hope I get this right. I think once you sign up, you have like six months to just complete all the modules. So it's totally up to you because it's all virtual or whatever. Is this through Gottman or different? No, this is something different, but it again, it's been recommended to me by so many people and Jessica has been reading the book and there are parts of the book that she really, you know, that she's really enjoyed. So I'll let you guys know as I go through it. I don't want to say anything on it because I'm sure I'll misrepresent it because I haven't taken the courses yet. You know, speaking of recommendations, somebody recommended a newsletter, a new one for me to subscribe to. I just subscribed to it last weekend. I've been getting the emails and I really like it. So I thought I'd share on the podcast. It's called the flip side, which this is cool because You told me about this. Yeah. You know, we talked like, I don't know, a while back about, you know, one of the things that's going to become very important for the generation coming up right now in the future is because the Facebook and Google and the algorithms have become so good, they know how to feed you what you want to hear. And that so one of the greatest challenges, a lot of confirmation bias. Right, exactly. It's going to continue to feed your own, your own bias. So one of the things that, you know, I know personally, I always actively go do is I go read the opposing side, the side that I already disagree with. So I can hopefully learn more, potentially change my mind or strengthen my argument. And so I think the future of, you know, reading content online is going to either one take somebody really active or newsletters and things like this, which I thought this is what's really cool that obviously we're not the only ones that think this way. And there's already companies trying to find ways to cater to people that are wise enough to know that they need to read both sides. I love that. So it's called the flip side. And so the newsletter opens up with like a very current political topic that's going on right now that just like released the day or two before. And then it actually shows you this is the right side and this is the left side and gives you how they're reporting that topic, each side, really, really cool. Isn't it funny? By the way, if you want to do this on your own, this is all you got to do, right? Tune in to CNN or MSNBC and then tune in to Fox. Just flip the channel. The same topic reported so insanely different. Completely different. It is frightening. It's frightening. It's the same thing. And I'm like, wait a minute, this is insane. How is this so opposite? It's crazy. That's why I think it's really good that, I mean, they put it all, instead of having to bounce between two channels, you've got it all in one letter right there. It breaks it down for you and then it allows you to kind of come up with your own conclusion. Speaking of which, something really dawned on me recently and that is that our public school system has done such a terrible job of explaining what money actually, what gives it value and what it represents. I don't think a lot of people, I think if you ask them, then they can start to say, oh yeah, that makes sense. But I think just subconsciously, we never are taught this that money is only valuable because it represents a product by something. Well, besides that, we could all agree, you know, whatever, but it has to, what gives it value is that it represents product services or some kind of efficiency. So the only way, if you want money to be accurate, to really accurately represent value, money increases, paper increases, when we've made more products become more efficient. That's the only way it happens. If we don't do that and we just make more money and give it to people, all it does is reduce the value of the existing money because that new money doesn't, it's not tied to anything. And the reason why I'm bringing that up is, and we're going to see this by the way, what you're going to see in politics is going to be a contest between who can give more free stuff because of what's going on. There's a proposal in Congress, hasn't passed yet, but the proposal is to give Americans $2,000 a month, every single month, and this ready, here's the end date, until the pandemic is over. So this is money not tied to any value, all they're doing is creating more money, which just devalues whatever money's already out there. So really it's a tax. But the worst part is, there isn't, let's just say they pass this, they pass this thing, $2,000 to everybody, and we'll stop it. Just like the war on terror. Exactly. We'll stop it when the pandemic's over. There isn't a politician on earth that would win an election who says, I'm going to end the checks. So what'll end up happening is it'll be forever. It would never end. It would never end because imagine if you were trying to, you know, win an election, you're like, okay, everybody, you know, we're going to end these checks, economy's good, everybody's doing great, and it's devaluing to be like, I'm not voting for you. I want to keep my checks. So I'm like, man, people need to really understand the value of what money actually represents because if we don't, they're going to play this like this magic trick with us constantly and mess with us and promise things and it doesn't work out. Was that universal basic income? Wasn't that the whole like stage that I believe it's Andrew Yang, correct me if I'm wrong? Last time I said his name wrong. But that was his whole like, like his whole policy he was coming in, trying to like, and now they're actually doing that anyway. So it's like, it's crazy. Yeah. It's crazy because they can say they can do it. And then you think, oh, this is going to be just like the money I earn from work. It's going to be the same thing. But it actually has devalued all the money because it's not attached to anything. It's just them, you know, creating, which actually brings me into another thing. You guys, have you guys heard of the, I saw a video this morning. I thought that was awesome. Have you guys heard of the Stockdale paradox? No. Have you heard of this? I haven't. So Stockdale, this is really, it's a very, very cool thing to kind of ponder, especially right now. So Stockdale was a, one of the highest ranking. He was an admiral in Hanoi. This was during the Vietnam War and got captured in the 1960s as a prisoner of war. And he wrote a book. I can't remember what the book was called, but he talks about how he knew, he never knew when he was going to get out because you're a prisoner of war. You don't know when they're going to let you out, if they're going to let you out. They could torture you at any moment. So at any moment, they could take him out. And they did, they would take him out of his cell and beat the shit out of him and do terrible things to him. This was a very, very scary, you know, just kind of difficult period of time, but he came out of it, very strong, very healthy, wrote a book. Didn't he, it was like it over a year, it was a long time. He was in there for a long time. For years, right? Yes, for a very long time. And so they afterwards, lots of psychologists and authors wanted to know like, how did you survive this? Like this is such a, personally, I can't imagine of a more challenging, you know, thing to go through. Not just that you're, you know, if you're in jail, you know when you're going to get out. But you're in there, you don't know when you're going to get out. They could do anything they want to you whenever they want. You have no control or you feel seven years, thanks Doug. Wow. He was a prisoner, so seven years he was in there. Seven years of being tortured, probably fed hardly anything. Whatever, right? Going through dysentery on. Yeah, when you're going to get out. So what they found was that he always had very, very strong belief and faith that he would get out at some point. So that was, he knew like, I'm going to make it through this. And when I do, this moment will define me and make me a stronger, better person. But then there's a, another side to it. He also was not an optimist. This is the part that, that is fascinating to me. Because when they asked them afterwards, who are the people that suffered the most? The people that were in there with you, who are the ones that just did the worst? And he goes, oh, that's the optimist. He goes, these are the people that would say things like, oh, they'll let us out by Christmas. And then Christmas would come. And they weren't out. Oh, they'll let us out by New Year's. New Year's would come. And they just keep getting crushed. Yes. They suffered from a, what he said, they would suffer from a broken heart. And so the key he said was, and there's a book called Good to Great, a great business book, and the author in there talks about this, that the successful businesses are the ones that they are, they believe that they'll come out the other end. But they're also the ones who completely accept reality. They're not like making pie in the sky dreams. They're saying, all right, here's the reality. We're in a whatever, recession, things suck. They're probably never going to go back. So they accept the facts, but at the same time, yeah, they're not glorifying like this grandiose vision of being out at a certain time. I love that you're bringing this up because this is what's going to happen to a lot of people when we do go back, right? So when shelter in place is no longer and there's definitely a portion of people that are extremely negative. There's a portion of people that are very real about this. And then there's people that are like overly optimistic. And the truth is of this is that there's a very good chance that when things go back, they'll never go back to how they were before. Right. Yeah. And you have to know to be okay with making peace with that. If you are holding in shelter in place right now and your attitude is, okay, any day now we're going to be out and we're going to be out. It's going to be, we're going to be back to normal. We'll be fine. It'll be all like it used to be is, I don't know. I mean, that reminds me of the Dave Ramsey story that I shared. Like, you know, everybody is getting a call right now. Like everybody is. It just depends on what that is for you. Like it's, this is a, you know, spouse thing, your kids thing. Is it a financial thing? But everybody is, their doors get knocked on right now. And the question is, you know, is this is what we went through right now. Are you aware of what that, what your, your call is? And will that fundamentally change you for the rest of your life? And will it be a defining moment and you will change whatever behavior is going forward? It reminds me too of just, you know, it's true belief. Like, so it's not like you're, you're not writing based off momentum. And I think that's why we've always tried to steer people away from like always catching this momentum wave and like, oh my God, everything's so positive, positive, positive. You know, like, because we're only presented with either you're an optimist or a pessimist, right? Like this other option needs to be highlighted more. I think, I think it's okay to think and feel positively, but don't, but don't feel positive about an outcome that you expect. It has to be based on reality. Feel what I was going to say is be positive about your ability to handle whatever outcome happens. So it's very different. Yeah. If you, if you start a business and you're like, oh, and your mind is set, oh, I'm going to make $5 million in five years, you may be setting yourself up for devastating reality if that doesn't happen. Instead, what you can say to yourself is I'm starting a business. I don't know what the outcome is, but I'm positive. Whatever the outcome is, I'll be able to handle and I'll be able to learn from if it succeeds or it fails. Very, very different. So the, the, the optimist that he was talking about, and this is why it's a paradox. The paradox is faith that I know I'm going to handle this and I'm going to come out of it better, but also having the discipline to say, here's the reality. So it's, it's, it's optimism in yourself, not in the, in, you know, the end result, which we don't know what the end result is. And look, we're probably not going to be the same for a long time. You know, I'm looking at, I'm following very closely the brick and mortar gym industry, which in my opinion, the brick and mortar gym industry is going to be hit among the hardest. It was a devastating hit. Totally. They're going to have, they're going to have to do the biggest changes. I mean, I, I, maybe the restaurant industry, service industries, travel, but travel a lot of times is considered essential. I think the brick and mortar gym industry, if they don't have this attitude, they're going to be fucked. You already, you already saw it like gold gyms shutting down, permanently shutting down tons of locations. The last I counted, there's 30 completely shutting down. 24 our fitness is now looking at bankruptcy, talking about bankruptcy. I think that the gyms that, if you're a gym that built your model on lots of people being in your gym, so you know, you go to 24 fitness in prime time, it's packed. Lots of group exercise classes with lots of people, cheap membership fees in order to feed this model. You're going to have to completely change your model because even if there are no laws against this, I cannot foresee people going to a gym. The volume is going to go way down. You're not going to want to go in there. I actually think that's not the reason why they're filling. I think the reason why, so we've seen this in the two decades that we were a part of the gym industry, and that was the race to the bottom. Planet fitness is an example of this, right? And so, you know, in probably the early or mid 2000s, I'd say gyms began to undercut each other like crazy. It now became less about, you know, making your experience in the gym better or the things that the amenities that you had, and it all began. Or keeping people consistent. Right, exactly. That's what I mean. Keeping people coming there and adding value to their lives, right, like a good business model was built off of. And it was all about how low can we make this to where people will actually just say, fuck it, I'm paying $9 a month, whatever. I'll just keep it. I'll just let it happen. And so, that's what happened. So, almost all, especially 24-hour fitness, especially the planet fitness, their model is actually built on the success of the people not showing up and utilizing it. Well, you mean to them sticking around and not getting... That's what, that it's built on. We know that so many people will buy this, and because it's so low, it doesn't matter. 70% of them will probably not use it three months, but they'll still keep paying us for a minimum, and they've done studies on this for seven months after that. So, they know they're making all this money off of people that aren't even getting any real value from the business. And guess what? They continue to leverage by building more and more and more. That's right. Okay, we have enough. We have enough EFT memberships now, that pace for this location. Okay, now let's leverage and get the next one, and let's leverage and get the next one. And they've been scaling rapidly for the last 10 years or more on this model. And guess what happened? Is now that the rug has been pulled out, and now everybody who is looking at their finances, like most all of us were during this time, is like, oh, shit, I need to look at all the things that I was spending money on and not using. And guess what? When more than half of your model is built on people not using your shit, but still paying you for it, those people all want their money back. It is. And again, if you're one of these clubs, Planet Fitness, 24 Fitness or whatever, that built your model around this, think about the environment of a gym like that when most people attend. Now, most people don't attend these gyms. If you were to look at, and we used to look at this when we would run gyms, you could clearly see when the bulk of your members would show up to work out, when you look at all your total amount of members that show up, when do most of them come to the gym? They call it prime time, right? Prime time, after work, there's a little bit of a rush in the early morning, and then the rest of the time, it's pretty much dead. There's a few people working out here and there, but for the most part, people have come before work, and most people come after work. And what it looks like is it's crowded. It's crowded in there, but it's okay. If you maneuver and you know what you're doing, you could probably get around to work out or whatever, but it's relatively crowded. Okay, these gyms open back up. Now you've got orders from governors that are like, all right, stay, the shelter at home is ended, but here are the new things that we recommend. You want to keep six foot distance apart, okay? You tell me one gym that used to run before this all went down that had enough space for prime time where you had six feet between people. Doesn't exist. Then people are not going to want to go to these gyms. Even if the laws don't tell the gyms they have to do this, I'm not going to want to go into a gym that's packed. I'm not going to want to also go to a gym where the equipment doesn't get wiped down every single time somebody uses it, and group exercise classes are fucked in the way that they used to run. Nobody's going to take a cardio kickboxing class with 40 people in there. They're probably going to have to limit it to like, eight or 10 in the same space. At least for as long as this is all still going on. Until we have a vaccine and we see numbers. Until consumer confidence is there, which could take years. Yeah, could take a year or two years. And these gyms can't survive a month. They are already showing they can't survive a month of being shut down. So what I think they're going to have to do is they're going to have to go to a higher priced model. They're going to have to now rely on, because this is how the old model worked. The old model, gyms like 24-Hour Fitness and Planet Fitness and those kind of clubs lost money on their most consistent members. Because they're the ones that are paying the 20 bucks a month or 9 bucks a month like Planet Fitness, but they're using the gym and wearing everything out five days a week. I'm actually losing money on that. I'm making money on the people that are like I said. So those people are more likely, the fitness fanatics. I know what's going to happen. The gyms all open tomorrow, let's say. The only people going to show up are the fitness fanatics. The hard course. Yeah, because they're like, this is important. This is something that I'm willing to take the risk. This is for my health. Those are the people that the gyms are going to have to now profit off of. It's interesting when you look at the lifetime. We're so familiar with 24 because it's where we grew up, right? So I'm very familiar with the origin story, very familiar with the arch of the arc of the actual business and where it peaked and kind of where. And it's funny because when it was built, when Maestro first did it, it was built on the value model. I mean, he was the first one to really start it to create like trainer staff and they were doing personal training in the facility and that was all part of the actual team there, the EFT model. The thing was really built on value of changing people's lives. And then it hit a point where it then became all about how many more can we open up? How much can we save? How much can we leverage? How much money can we make off of the people that aren't utilizing it and just. Bro, 1998 or 99, right after I started there, when 24 our fitness had, I don't know how many I had that time, 100 locations. So now they have like 400 something, right? So maybe 100 locations. This is after they merged with family fitness. If you wanted an all club membership, in the late in the 90s, you want an all club membership. It costs you $300 to sign up. That includes the enrollment fee, processing fee for some last month. It was around 300 bucks and you were going to spend 45 bucks a month. You find me a gym in that category now that charges that much. They don't. It's way more expensive because they did exactly what you said. And so now that model is fucked. It's going to be totally screwed because in order for these gyms to survive, they have to give the consumer a feeling of safety because people are going to be a little scared, which means you need space between members. You need space in group exercise classes. I bet you they're probably going to invest in one-on-one training way more than they ever did because it's a high ticket amount and they're probably going to have to charge four or five times more per month. In order to keep their doors open. So they're going to rely on the people who are consistent. This is going to be very, very interesting. And I also see the virtual side really starting to take off. I'm really interested to see companies like Peloton and... MIR. All that stuff. You know, like they're going to do it virtually because I feel like a lot more people... It's a tech integration would be interesting. Yeah, totally. Well, there is, man, there's some hope out there humanity-wise. I watched this show on Apple right now. It's called House, I believe. But Sweden, there's this guy in Sweden who created a house for basically, he had an idea for this log cabin forever that he wanted to build. And he has a family and a growing family. And one of his kids actually, he found out had autism. And then after this whole thing, like it sort of sidetracked him from like creating his ultimate dream house. And like this was his whole thing was to create this house and build it and do all this stuff. So he started researching more about it. And I had no idea. I've never seen this done before, but he basically created like a house. So he built a log cabin type house, but on the outside of it was a greenhouse. So the outside shell of the entire thing, this huge house was covered with, you know, all this like glass and kept like this constant temperature so he could have, you know, vines of grapes. And he has like all these trees and all this like internal like nature and like goes outside, picks stuff from the garden for dinner and all this kind of stuff. Anyways, like the whole thing, it was just so amazing. I had no idea like that was an option. You know, it's like, it's just crazy to think like people like think way outside the box because now it's all self sustainable. He has like all his septics kind of hooked up to where he could reuse it within the plants. The plants use that. He doesn't have to, you know, use the city's septic. Like he's got all like the natural energy and stuff he collects for it. Dude, it's insane. And like the whole thing, I guess the healing aspect of it for his son has been amazing. Oh, so it was really motivated to keep his son. Yeah. Oh, wow, that's great. Yeah, I just got so inspired by it. I was like, I can't, you know, and I'm not like as radical as being like, oh my God, I'm going to go make a greenhouse house out of this. But it was like almost like I was considering it because of all of the benefits that it was providing his family. It was unreal. Fiction or nonfiction? No, this is real. Oh, this is a real story. Yeah. So you instead went and bought a fern? Yeah, so I got inspired. I just planted some plants. You want to know what's funny? This whole time you're talking about this house with the plants on the outside and all these plants on the inside. And what's going through my mind is like, this fucking hell of a spider is that house. I don't know if I'd like to say. Of course you'd think that. Yeah, I was all excited because I'm like, I get excited by nature. Like the top of it, he had this deck and so everything like, when it was like snowing outside and everything, everything was all like moderate temperature, 70 degrees and they're like playing ping-pong and stuff. Oh, wow. That's really cool. Yeah, dude. It's three spiders though. Sal, would you say you, have you always been like an anxious person? Are you somebody who, or is that something that as you got older or? It's weird. It depends. It really depends on the what. Like spiders or not? It really does. It really does depend. Like there's certain things that'll make me, you know, I'll give you an example. Like the first time we put the mics on or, you know, when I was on camera recording the first maps in a ball, I never done anything like that. It felt very natural, had no anxiety around it. I know a lot of people would feel anxious around that. But, you know, you, you know, if I'm in a room like Justin's talking about, I'm probably gonna be thinking about spiders, you know, is there gonna be a spider in my hair? Yeah. You know, I gotta get it out. It's hard nature, bro. Yeah. You know, right now is a very anxious challenge for me because I don't like getting sick and I can be a little bit of a hypochondriac and think that everything's terrible and of course we're in a pandemic. And dude, I'll tell you what's saving my ass right now though. I will tell you what is saving my ass, Ned. Every single night I take the hemp oil and oh man, it brings the physical, it's not gonna change my thoughts, but when you physically feel tense and you can't sleep. What is it though about the hemp that actually causes that? Because I actually use it very similar. So you just brought up that you don't get anxious on the camera or the pod, stuff like that. I still, to this day, I don't like the camera thing. I have no problem. I'm gonna be in a room which is weird, right? I'm opposite of what most people are. I can be in a room with hundreds, thousands of people and me talking to all of them, totally comfortable doing that, which is weird. And then I get in a room just me and Doug and I'm talking to the camera and I get that anxiety. So anytime I have to shoot content for us with the camera, I always take a couple drops of that. It settles me down. But what is it that's actually happening that causes me to feel better that way? Which is very similar to how you're using it. Yeah, so the way that the cannabinoids in hemp oil work. So THC itself is psychoactive, right? So if you have marijuana, THC itself has these psychoactive properties. CBD and other cannabinoids that are in the net hemp oil are not psychoactive. They don't make you feel high. That's why it's legal. That's why you could buy it and order it and you're not gonna get in trouble for it. But what they do is they improve your body's ability to use its own natural cannabinoids. So the whole reason why THC even works in humans to begin with is because we have these receptors that we've had probably since humans have been on earth and before that we produce our own natural cannabinoids that attach to these receptors and their function, among other things, is to make us feel good, feel calm. In fact, some people would say that this is one of the reasons why you get a runner's high. If you're running and pushing and running and pushing, they've shown in studies that your body will release its own. You'll get a burst of natural cannabinoids. They call them endocannabinoids because they're from your body. And they make you feel calm. They're anti-inflammatory. They reduce pain. That's why people get the runner's high. This is some speculation, but people get the runner's high and all of a sudden the run feels good and that's all painful. Mother's breast milk at certain times of the day will have high amounts, relatively high amounts of natural cannabinoids. If you've ever, you know this, you watch your son breastfeed at certain times of the day and they get that milk drunk like chill and relaxed or whatever, they think it might have something to do with that. So when you're taking the hemp oil extract, you're not getting the THC, but what these cannabinoids do is they improve your own body's ability to use its own cannabinoids. So what you feel is the feeling of what your natural cannabinoids are doing, but just better and a little stronger. That's what happens. So and to me, this is like, you know, in our space, it, you know, we partnered with Ned a long time ago and when it well before it became like the thing, like then all of a sudden we saw it became very popular in the fitness space. And the way I see most people, it's really, I think it's silly the way I see people promote it and sell it like a recovery thing. Because all those things... Like a flat burner or something. Well, no, it's just, you know, you see it in the muscle building community that they're taking it after a workout because it's going to help recover and it's pitched like it's going to help build, like I've never used it with those intentions of like, this is to help my recovery or it's going to make me recover and build more muscle. It's like, I don't see that. I don't see that being anything worth. I mean, you making sure you hit your macro intake or getting good rest, trumps the shit out of that all day long. But I do see the value in when I get anxious or have those moments of setting it up. And that's how I use it with my dogs. Same thing I use with them. Anytime I travel with them, they get super ancient to the point where Bentley starts panning. It looks like he's going to have a heart attack. So anytime we go somewhere, like I drop it in their mouth before we take off and I swear it freaking settles down. It doesn't calm them to the point where they're like sedated. No, no, no, you don't feel sedated. No, it's not a sedated feeling. It's just you feel a little bit more at ease. Totally, 100%. And right now it's completely saving my ass. So I'm very appreciative of that. I'm sure a lot of everybody's levels are extra high right now too in terms of just being uneasy and anxious. Yeah, this is an exercise and this is self-growth time. That's what it is really. They finally opened up the beaches, thank God. Oh, and Santa Cruz? Oh, they did. Yeah, so I drove by the other day. Yeah, but they don't have any of the parking lots aren't open, but they're allowing people to finally get back on the beach. And so it's great. I mean, I just ordered up some more shorts and core shorts from Viori. And I went out there and was going in and having some time with the kids walking on the beach again. It was just nice to be in nature and be allowed to be there because it was just like, it was tough, man. Just staying around the house the whole time and they want you to stay local so you don't go far to a different location and beach and so there's this cross-pollination with it. Is there anybody enforcing distance, like stay six feet away from other people? Yeah, so there's cops there and everything and they're watching with their masks and everything and most people are out there still have their masks on and stuff. But at least, I mean, we could walk out there and they didn't want you to stay there for very long too. They were regulating that as well. Dude, there's been protests in parts of the country where people are like, I forgot where it was, but they were protesting. We want to work. We want to work in the shutdown or whatever. And that's been happening, but there's also fake news around it like crazy. So I saw today, people were circulating this picture. It was like a swastika and like crazy posters and shit and fact checkers went back and said, this was at a Bernie Sanders rally like a year ago. This is not what's happening right now. So I think what's happening right now is China and Russia and other countries are trying to promote more division by showing that the people who want to go back to work are being super irrational and the people who don't want to go back to work or whatever, scared. I wonder if that post that my buddy sent me this morning then was like something like that because he sent me this video. Man, that sucks. This video of this lady who was in a dodge pickup, I believe, and there looked like a doctor or a nurse that was in their scrubs and had a mask on and was standing in the middle of the street stopping traffic and this lady was screaming out her window to, if you want communism to go back to China and had like a, you know, America is free like thing and hanging out her truck and she was like totally yelling. I don't know. It might be real, but you know, it might not be. Here's the deal. We know for a fact that they use social media to fuck with us. Yeah, to manipulate. Yeah. I mean, we do the same shit. Well, my sense is that they're being, they're starting to take it into tears and like phases. And so this is like one phase is like, they're starting to kind of reopen up state parks and all, you know, and like beaches and things like, you know, and just reintroduce like places where people can actually congregate again. And then, you know, the next phase, I'm sure they're going to do like certain types of businesses they'll probably start to reopen and all that. Like, I think that there is a lot of that pent up, like unrest and I want to work and let me work. And we have to, we have to. We have to let it happen. Now, expect this. This is, we need to expect it. First off, we need to show the world that we do this stuff voluntarily. We don't want it. We want to confirm that Americans can go out, voluntarily put on masks, distance ourselves, do the right stuff. But inevitably what we should expect are some spikes in infection. This is going to happen. And don't freak out about them. Do the right thing. But we're going to see some. That's just natural. So speaking of that, I haven't been, you've been watching that more than anybody now is the curve. What is it looking like right now? It definitely seems to be flattening in America and lots of places in the world. So it's just flattening. We haven't seen it actually start to decrease. In some places you have, but not here yet. In the U.S., it seems to be flattening. Now, remember, a flat curve means it lasts longer too. So it doesn't go up as fast. But when you flatten it out, you tend to see it last a little longer because we don't get the herd immunity that you would get from everybody getting it all at once. But that would cause lots of problems. First question is from 00 Silk Drop. What is the best way to breathe during your heavy lifts? You know what? I'm glad it was asked this way because breathing during heavy lifts is a little bit different than breathing during high rep sets or when you're doing stretches or mobility type stuff. So the best way to breathe when you're doing a heavy lift, I'm going to assume this is really low reps too. So we're not talking about heavy low rep sets. You want to take a deep breath in and then you want to brace your core. Then you want to do your heavy lift. As you come up, you could do two things. Either one, especially if it's really low reps, you can let your breath out at the top of the rep when you're done. So you hold your breath the entire time. Or two, you let it out while bracing your core and keeping your diaphragm active and tight. So it sounds like... You're breathing through your teeth because you're really staying braced and tight. But it's restrictive air that's coming out. Some will just flat out, say hold breath. Even your most advanced power lifters, when they do a heavy bench press, a heavy deadlift or a heavy squat, they get in position and they brace their core. And when they brace, they tense and hold breath for that rep. And then at the top of the rep... But they're still going, which air is coming out. That's right. I was just going to say, I will allow the breath to come out, but I'll do that. I'll grunt or I'll make a sound. And that's my way of letting the breath out very controlled. You know, by the way, this is a technique they teach in a lot of practices in yoga. I was going to say, have you done any of those pregnancy breathing classes? No, not yet. Do they do that? Those are fun, dude. Yeah, they do that. I just, you know, when I picture that whole process, that I picture her just like looking at me like an asshole when I'm trying, Hey, honey, remember, breathe like this. It'll be better. You know what the hilarious thing is? I was in a class with that and you have, like for the husbands or the guys there, whatever, they made us like put our hand in ice and hold it and like try and breathe through it. I'm like, this has nothing to do with the pain they're going to experience. They're like, yeah. I feel like I can do this all day. Get you even bigger trouble. Honey, listen, I know, I know what it's like. I remember I had my hand in the ice. Yeah, he's bringing it up like... Yeah, like you saw how long I did it for. Come on, piece of cake. Yeah. No, I mean, you're, you know, again, it's in lots of practices. Yoga teaches a breath that comes through the back of the throat, they'll say, where you're tight and controlled and you breathe out. Martial artists teach us a lot. Boxers, you ever hear a boxer, you know, shadow boxing? What do you hear? Muay Thai fighters. So your breath actually, it's a big part of you being able to exert maximal force. And the reason is when you hold intense in your breath, you're maintaining really, really good tight stability throughout your core. So when you're getting those heavy breaths, you deep breath in, hold it. Like imagine you're doing a squat. Go down. As you come up, either continue to hold your breath or do what I do, which is breathe out, but through a grunt or, you know, through pressure. Well, this is where those core-activating techniques kind of come into play, where you're doing like cat, cow, or whatever, and you're just trying to brace and then teach your client then how to keep that tightness, but now breathe through it and like, you know, be able to still do that. Because you want it to be natural too at the same time. You don't want to think, you have to consciously think about how you're breathing while you're doing your reps. You end up getting dizzy and like ruins your performance. The only time I see this go wrong is when you give that advice to kind of like hold your breath through, which is totally fine for a heavy lift, a single lift is you hold it. Someone who's lifting like, let's say five heavy reps and they think it's a good idea to hold your breath the entire time through five reps. No, you'd have to breathe in between reps. Right, every rep you reset, right? Whether that be deadlifting, squatting, bench pressing overhead, whatever you're doing, you can hold and brace for that one lift and then breathe again, hold and brace for that next one too. You can even catch your breath at the top. That's what I'm saying. Sometimes you have to take two or three breaths. Yeah, no, absolutely. But now this isn't necessarily what you'd want to do with a high rep set. Like I'm not doing 20 reps of squats and doing that for every rep. I would end up, yeah, no way. It wouldn't work. It'd be 30 minutes of squats. So with that, with the higher reps, you tend to breathe in on the way down, breathe out on the way up. So that's the advice. That is the generic typical advice, but because we advocate for manipulating with tempo, meaning that there's times where you might do a four, six second negative, you're not going to breathe on that cadence. And so what I used to tell clients is the most important thing when we're lifting weights and we're doing this is that you remember to breathe. Because some people will, because it's challenging or hard, they get in their head so much, they hold their breath the entire time because they're like paying attention to what they're doing. They don't realize they're tensing up and holding breath. I do this like when I'm concentrating. It's a bad habit of mine. Like I'll be doing something and I'll be really focused on it. I'm so focused that I stop my breathing to like, and then also you're going to go, yeah, because I don't. So clients do this sometimes when they exercise. So I don't do that when I exercise. I do that when I'm like thinking on something, whether it be work or paper, some shit that I'm doing. That will cause me to do it. Some clients do that when they're exercising through 10 or 15 reps. You don't want to hold your breath. You want to breathe. Breathe in and out, normal. That's the idea while you're doing that. The only time that I would say you can hold your breath is for single reps at a time when you're doing heavy lifting. You want it for tension. Okay, now there's an opposite side to this. Let's say you're doing a yin yoga or static stretching, deep static stretching, or let's say you're on a foam roller and you're really trying to work out muscles and tight areas. Don't hold your breath, because holding your breath sends a signal to the central nervous system that says stay tight. When you're doing static stretches, which if you do them properly, can be a part of a mobility program, but properly, you gotta be done right. You don't want to hold your breath while holding its long static stretch. That's all about the exhale. I mean, the exhale is the release. Yeah, you want to relax into the stretch and breathe. You don't want to be tight and tense, because it'll prevent performance in that particular modality or whatever. So breathing is very important. Just think of it this way. Holding your breath or breathing tensely, that's when you want tension. Breathing smooth and slow, that's when you want things to be relaxed. Next question is from Amanda Medekely. What's a good way to balance cardio and running with the MAPS Anywhere program? Yeah, well, it depends on your goals. You know, I'm figuring this out for myself right now, again, this is something I constantly have to relearn, but because we're, you know, because our jobs involve sitting all day, so what we do now is we later sit in front of a mic, stand in front of a camera, or work on the internet, which involves no activity, I track my steps, and I could, honestly, especially now that we're kind of self... Well, we did that in anywhere, right, Doug? That's done in anywhere. Yes, yes. We gave step goals, right? Yeah, yeah. Step count. So that's where I was going. So what I'm figuring out for myself is that, wow, I get no steps every single day, so now I've made my goal to get about eight to 12,000 steps a day. Well, here's what I've noticed when I've done that. Yes, I've increased my need and I've increased my activity. I'm actually getting better results with my resistance training, and the reason why I'm making that argument is because I want... Sometimes I think people think we mean to say no cardio whatsoever, because all cardio reduces muscle gains. That's not true. If it improves your health, it will probably give you a better ability to build muscle. The way that cardio gets in the way is when the cardio becomes so dominant that you're always constantly training endurance, in which case you have competing strength or endurance, and your body will give you a little bit of each, but not a lot of either one. Yeah, that's why I like the activity and monitoring activity. It's just like it's something that... Yeah, you can throw cardio in there, and it could be a form of cardio, but at the same time, it's about the total amount. So the amount that you're moving throughout the day is important. It's making sure that you're getting all that energy expenditure, and you're able to monitor your fat, you're able to keep nice and active, get everything out of the systems working correctly. So it is a vital part to it, but in terms of having intensity, the intensity, once we ramp that up, can take over then that signal of strength that we're trying to promote. Well, there's two types of ways that I recommend this, and it would be based off of how this person falls. So if you're somebody who wants to do cardio or is doing cardio because of the relief that it gives you stress-wise, and it's a great time, you enjoy it. It's very relaxing for you. Your energy goes up when you go for a nice run or what like that. Then I mean, program it as accordingly. I mean, if you enjoy doing it, and it's therapeutic for you, and it gets you moving, and you enjoy doing it, then by all means, do it how you like. If you're somebody who's coming to me and say you want to do cardio because you want to maximize burning body fat, totally different. And that, if you're asking me like that, then I would handle you the same way I handle all the competitors. So anytime I train a competitor, obviously, if out of all the clients I've ever trained, it's the most important word is dialed as we can be and maximizing fat burn and muscle building. So everything that we do is very methodical. And that includes how do we include cardio? And so if you're being coached by me and you want to maximize body fat loss, I'm not going to just say, go do 30 minutes a day of cardio, generic like that. What I make all my clients do is, we need to know where your baseline is of movement, like Sal was alluding to with steps. Okay, so you on an average day, you only step six to 8,000 steps. So the way I start to prescribe cardio or movement, I prescribe movement first. Okay, you're six to 8,000. Now I want you to get eight to 10,000 steps every single day. Don't let it be less than that. And I inch them up through steps and movement. Now eventually, if you stay consistent with that, like I would if someone's been coaching with me for months and months, getting ready for a show, is I got them at six or 8,000 steps. Eventually, I've worked them up week over week over week to where they're doing like 20,000 steps in a day. Now when you're getting 20,000 steps in a day, to do that in walks can get really challenging. To only, if like if you, especially if you have a sedentary job, you sit down or you're on the computer or you're at home because of this shelter in place. If I told Sal right now, Sal get 20,000 steps. I have to go on like six or seven 30 minute walks or longer. Which would be really tough to do. It would be much easier for him to go for an hour run to get those steps. So that's how I would prescribe to clients is let's just keep increasing the steps until you have a really hard time getting those walks in. And now it's becoming challenging just time consuming wise. Now I say, okay, go ahead and add a 30 minute run in there to accomplish those steps. So we still follow kind of the step rule. But now I'm allowing you to use, you know, more cardiovascular training to get to it. Because obviously if you walk to 10,000 steps, it takes a lot longer if you run to 10,000 steps. Significantly faster if you run it. So that's how I start to introduce the higher intensity cardio is actually through steps. And by doing that, you'll see one, if you're lift totally strength training, you're doing anywhere or one of our programs, you're going to see the benefits from the lifting as you're progressing. You're moving more. So you're going to see calorie expenditure. So you should see body fat reduce. You're not sending a signal to the body that you're primarily doing cardio and it's not beneficial to have muscle on it. You're just walking. So we don't want to start really running until later on. And that's how I recommend someone who's trying to maximize body fat loss. It's different than someone who's doing it for health. Perfect advice. And by the way, I keep getting DMs on this. Maps anywhere, yes, is still half off. We still have it half off. The code is white 50. So if that's something you're interested in, you don't have to DM me. It's still going on. Just use that code and you'll get the 50% off. Next question is from one coner. Can your body fat percentage decrease without actually losing fat? 100%. Yeah, well, okay. So I remember years ago when I figured this out, like it was like before I became a trainer and I started figuring out body fat percentage. And I actually learned how to test body fat before I even took a certification course. I actually bought one online and tried to do it on my cousin or whatever. And it was interesting. I gained weight and my measurements would go down. I thought I was doing something wrong. Like how is this possible? My body weight went up, but my body fat percentage is going down. I couldn't figure it out. And then my cousin who is better at math than me, that I am, he's like, well, yeah, it's a, if you have the same amount of body fat on your body but you weigh more, that same amount of body fat is a smaller percentage. It's a smaller percentage now. So if you weigh 100 pounds and you have 10 pounds of body fat on you, then you're at 10% body fat. 10% of your body is fat. If you went to 200 pounds and you're still have only 10 pounds of body fat, now it's half. Now it's 5%. You just went down in body fat percentage because it's a smaller percentage of your overall body weight. Not to mention, you've also sped your metabolism up by doing this. Oh, yeah. And I love talking about this because it's probably, I think this was a young guy who was asking this question. But the people that really need to perk up and listen to this conversation are my clients or the listener who has a large body fat percentage and has a long journey ahead of them of losing weight or losing fat. And this is a really hard concept to get them to understand is that that is actually what I want to do with that person. So a client comes in 50 pounds overweight or more and they say, Adam, I don't feel good. All the symptoms of why they're there, right? And I want to change this. Where do I start? I actually want to start right here. I don't want to decrease you on the scale, but I want your body fat percentage to go down, which may mean you may have hired me to lose 50 pounds on the scale because you thought that's what you wanted to do when I got you to understand that we really want to just lose fat. You want to keep your muscle. You understand that. Then a month has gone by and I gained you three pounds. You went up three pounds. If you can't explain this to a client, you could lose your job really quick. You need to explain this. You need to learn to explain this because what the client needs to understand is that is an excellent place to be. To have added three pounds, even though your goal was to lose 50 pounds, to add three pounds to the scale, but your body fat percentage went down a percent or two. What that tells us is that you've lost fat off your body, but you've also added muscle, which means we know muscle, tissue needs more calories to stay on your body. So if you're a higher weight and more of its muscle than it is fat than what it was when you started with me, that means you've got a faster metabolism and you're leaner than when we started, even though the scale says two pounds heavier. It makes it easier to continue to lose fat because one of the biggest challenges for people who have a lot of body fat to lose, one of the biggest challenges is not to lose the initial 10 pounds or 15 pounds. The hardest thing is to lose the last 10 or 15 pounds. And then what's even harder than that is to keep it off. And so what Adam's talking about is literally setting you up for success long term. That's what you're setting up for. Now we're having a faster metabolism and that means that the 50 pounds is more likely to be gone later and it's much more likely to be off forever. The other point that you want to make with people is if you're 200 pounds and your body fat percentage went down and you didn't lose any weight, you lost size. Remember body fat takes up more space than muscle does. Body fat's fluffy, it's not as dense. So five pounds of body fat versus five pounds of muscle, you can see a clear difference. It takes up more space on your body. So what I would do with my clients is I would show them the body fat percentage, then I would just circumference measurements and say, okay, you gained two pounds but your waist went down a quarter of an inch and your thighs went down a quarter of an inch. So you actually lost size, which at the end of the day, nobody gives a shit how much you weigh This is such an important conversation. It's also the bone that I have to pick with shows like The Biggest Loser is because technically, what we're seeing when we see that is not a good thing. So if a client came to me and this is later, right? This is later on in my career. Early on in my career, I fell right into like the biggest loser type of trap and that mentality of just let's burn, let's burn as much as we can, let's lose as much as we can as fast as we can because that's what they want. But later on in my career, I realized that that was a trap. So if I, if I, the same client hired me, okay, and this is, and you've got to get good if you're a trainer listening on communicating this. If you hired me to lose 50 pounds and you, and that first month goes by and I lost you 10 pounds, I didn't do a good job. That's, let that sink in for a second. You want to lose 50 pounds 30 days in and I lost you 10 pounds on the scale. I didn't do a good job. I would much rather see you have stayed the same or potentially increased your weight because we put a lot of energy and focus on building muscle and not so much on just losing weight. The weight thing will be easy. It will be easy if we build your metabolism up first. If we just go chasing the scale and the weight right away, sure, I could have lost you 15 pounds in the month instead of 10. If I would have just made you eat less calories and ran you more, just like what we see on biggest loser. But what I know is that set you up for failure. That's why 85% of those people put all the weight back on and some is because it's a terrible way to go after that. Next question is from Michael Lyfts247. As we get into our 40s and 50s, how would you program the deadlift and squat and is one better for us as we age? Okay, so, okay. Still doing it. I'm going to answer the last part is one better for us as we age. Okay, let me rephrase the question. As we get into our 40s and 50s, should I practice and maintain my ability to squat and bend over and pick things up? Yes, you should. I hope you maintain that till the day you die. I was going to say like I could see myself squatting and deadlifting when I'm 80. I hope. Those are fundamental human functions. So now is one more important than the other? I hate that question because they're both very important, but I guess if I had to pick one over the other, I'd say the squat probably edges out the deadlift in terms of function, but they're both extremely important. How would you program? It really depends on the individual. I think for the average person, squatting and deadlifting once a week and practicing once a week is probably so long as you have good mobility and all that stuff, you're probably okay. But the key is going to be to train yourself in a way to be able to maintain good mobility and form in those exercises as you age. And if you start to lose mobility, if you notice that in your 50s, I can't squat like I used to, don't abandon the squat, address the reason why you can't. Well, and I think to treating both of these with the proper intent and making it a skill that you want to maintain the whole time is utmost importance. And I think why it doesn't seem like you'd still do this when you're older is a lot of people that have the intention of always PR-ing or always having to have these aids in terms of like, oh, my knees kind of hurt so I'm going to work through that pain and I'm going to keep trying to add load. I'm going to wrap my knee. Yeah, and so they're going to do all these different things to just try and sort of patch up where the holes are instead of actually going and working on the holes simultaneously and reinforcing their joints along that journey. I think that's something that's totally disregarded, which is not the way that I foresee myself going through that as I age and going into the later years even like I want to maintain both of those simultaneously. So I was asked recently on one of my Instagram Q&A things if I were to pick three movements that I could only do for the rest of my life, what would those three movements be? And they said, and then why? And so I said squat, deadlift and overhead press. And the reason why is not because I think those three exercises are necessarily the best three exercises that anybody could possibly do. That's not the reason why, although they are arguably three of the best movements up there. The reason why is I know if I can properly do an overhead press, properly squat and properly deadlift that I'm late in my years, 70, 80, 90 years old, I am definitely probably pretty healthy overall as far as from a movement perspective. It means I've got pretty good. So, and those are the areas I picked the three that I think people lose. Like to do an overhead press at the age of 60 or 70 is very impressive. Not a lot of people can hold a barbell straight up above their head. Even if it's lightweight, straight up above their head. Most of them can't do it with no weight. I used to train people in advanced age and they could not raise their arm straight. They could not strain their arm up. So the point of me explaining that was it's not the exercise. It's the ability to be able to do that exercise. And so why I'm bringing that up with this question is that's the answer to this for this person when it comes to squatting and deadlifting. It's not so much the exercise itself. It's the ability for you to do it. And if you can't do it because you're older, the goal should be to get to a place you do it. Who cares if it's 200 pounds, 100 pounds, whatever. That doesn't matter. What matters is that you can perform a squat with good form, perform a deadlift with good form and do an overhead press with good form. If you can do those things, you're going to have a very healthy shoulders, very healthy hips, have a strong back, things that are extremely important as we age. And if you struggle with those things right now, the worst thing you could do is to abandon them. Don't abandon them. Work on getting better at them so you can perform those movements. And if you can stick to those three movements, because I tell you what, I foresee myself this way as I get older. I mean, I, of the three of us, I would say I'm probably, I don't know, maybe Justin Nicholas. Sal's the most neurotic when it comes to exercise. Consistent. Yeah. Right. Sal's the most neurotic when it comes to frame day. Call it however you want. Consistent, neurotic. And then, you know, Justin and I, Justin and I, I don't know, we're probably similar that in Doug. And I think that there's highs and lows. I see myself like this, like there's a lot of times, I already do this now and I'm not even 40 yet, where, you know, I might just be doing squatting those movements. That's it. Because I, and all the things that that make me do those movements well. So what I would include that is like the mobility webinar that I just did, those types of mobility exercises, those all helped me perform those three movements. You know what I'm saying? Or working on Indian clubs, like I know Justin likes to do all those things, but the reason why he does all those things is so he can do those three movements. I just said, you know, the reason why as it goes away, right? The reason why he does all those crazy Indian club and may spell stuff, because he does that, it allows him still to overhead press with comfort and strength really well. If you do all the 90-90 stuff and the combat stretch, that'll allow you to squat and deadlift to good depth and with good form. So I'll always be doing things and that to me, I'll always be watching that. Like, can I still deadlift a decent amount of weight? Can I, it doesn't need to be my PRs when I was younger and training seven days a week. I don't want to be able to just be strong enough to be able to be doing at least my body weight or more in these movements. And if I'm doing that, man, that's, I'm going to be very happy with myself in my 70s and 80s. Yeah, we have, like every now and then we'll get somebody asking about weight belts and, you know, the proper technique with those are like shoes, elevated shoes and all these sorts of things. And, you know, like I think it's great that you want to, you want to get in there and be able to lift heavier and be able to feel more support and feel good. But now you're negating the other half of training that you should be focused on, which is making sure everything joint wise is accounted for. Like I can go down to that depth. I can withstand that amount of load on my back and brace properly. I just want to, I want to personally train myself, like thinking into the future of when I'm 60, when I'm 70, when I'm 80, like I want to, I want to be able to pick something up and not have a bunch of shit that I'm relying on to do that. Yeah, you're going to walk around a weight belt your whole life. I, you know, it's, this reminds me, I totally forgot about this. When I first started working out as a kid, I used to hear this a lot from my family. And I always thought it was the most strange, odd question ever where I started building muscle. I started training and my family, family members would, would tell me, well, well, what happens when you stop? And I remember thinking to myself like, well, what do you think happens? Yeah. It goes away and they, well, that's why I don't want to do it because it goes away when you stop. Well, why are you going to stop? There's not a single, listen, there's not a single skill that you could learn as a human that doesn't degrade if you stop practicing it. It's just the bottom line. Look, stop talking for 15 years and then start talking again and see how your, your language comes out. Like nothing works that way. Nothing. I always thought it was so strange that people would ask that because I'd look at them like, of course. It's the same thing that I used to get weird when I first started becoming a personal trainer in my, when I was 20. And, you know, the, the critics would always say, well, what are you going to do when you get into your 40s and 50s? Exactly. That's my point. I'd be like, well, what do you mean? I'm still, you don't think there's, there's people that need still training even when I get older? I don't understand the question. There's like, well, yeah. I mean, sooner or later you're going to get old. Your body's not going to be all buff and fit. I'm like, huh? It's, it's like, no, I plan to lift my whole life. It's a practice. It's always a practice. The goal is to not lose any of these skills. Now, of course, the bottom line is age does affect the body. So am I going to lose my ability to deadlift 550 pounds? Yeah, probably. But what's more important to me is my ability to be able to deadlift. My ability to be able to move that way and feel good. My ability to live a full life and to have good mobility. And that comes from consistent daily practice. And I'll tell you what, it's more important to exercise consistently when you get older than it was. It is when you're younger. When you're younger, you're, you're, you're kind of resilient. You know, you're like, I can, I see kids, you know, they eat garbage, sit around, do whatever. And it's like, and they're kind of okay. And then you train them a little bit. And they change their diet and their body just magically transforms overnight. It doesn't necessarily happen that way as you get older. It takes a lot longer. So the consistency is even more, you know, as Adam will call it neuroticism, it's more important as you get older. Because as you get older, your body wants to, your body actually wants to adapt in the opposite direction faster and faster and faster as you get older. When you're 50 and you stop working out, your body moves backwards really fast. When you're 20 and you stop working out, it moves back, but not so quickly. To the point where I used to have clients in their 70s where, you know, they would train with me and we'd see some little progress, little progress, little progress. And then for whatever reason, sometimes they would stop. I wouldn't see them for like six months. They'd come back and it was like, oh my God, you aged 10 years in six months. Your body was just waiting for that opportunity to take everything back and then some. So your goal as you get older is the same goal you have now as when you're younger is can I continue to perform these very, very basic fundamental movements? And if I start to notice issues or problems with these, with these movements, rather like what Justin said, rather than patching it up and throwing on a belt and, you know, putting something around your elbow and rubbing Ben Gale over your body, figure out why. Why is my deadlift starting to feel more stiff? Why can I squat as good as you used to? Fix the issues that are causing that and so you can continue to do these. Well, this is, this is exactly why we wrote Maps Prime Pro. And I know that it was probably one of the more confusing programs for us to promote and to get out there. A lot of people confuse it with Prime and they think, oh, it's just a harder version. No, it's completely different. And we've actually talked about renaming it because I think it's confused so many people and really what it was designed to do. We go through seven, seven of the most important joints in your body and there's a test to do and it's pass or fail. Either you can take that joint through its fullest range of motion with control with good control and strength or you can't. And the truth is most people will fail quite a few of those tests. And that's especially as you age, right? If you're 20, maybe in your limber maybe you do all of them and you're like, oh, no big deal. But that's and that's normal for a very young kid. But as you get older because you haven't been addressing these things, you're going to fail more of those tests. Now, the answer is when you fail it isn't like, oh, like now I just skip all these. No, in there, then from there it shows you movements, mobility drills that you should do to help improve that and get better. And the perfect examples when we talk about squatting and deadlifting is the hips and ankle stuff which is what I was talking about with the 90-90. Like 90-90 completely changed my squat completely. It was just four years ago. You can go back and see old videos of me squatting and I've got this really wide stance and I can barely get down to 90 degrees and what people don't see in the videos after I was done squatting I was laying on the ground always grabbing my low back because it was on fire because my mechanics were off and the old version of me would have said something like well, squatting is just not for me. I'll leg press it instead and do leg session. That's the worst thing I could have done. The best thing would have been had I started doing what I'm doing now in my late 30s back in my 20s when I first started noticing that when I first started noticing the low back pain and the bursitis in my hips instead of eliminating exercises that seem to make it worse I should have tried to dig deeper into why is it making it worse? Why am I not able to do something as basic and functional as a squat and work towards getting better in that and that alone is a great goal for most people listening right now like that if you could just overhead press squat and deadlift the rest of your life and you did only those three movements and the stuff that you need to do to do those movements you would be in a great place when you get older. Yeah, the old adage you don't lose if you don't use it you lose it super, super true and with that go to mindpumpfree.com and download all of our guides and resources you can also find the three of us on Instagram you can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin you can find me at Mind Pump Sal and Adam at Mind Pump Adam