 Oh my god, we're back! It's time for my- I'm feeling good. See how loud I got? I only get really loud when I feel good, and that's when I blow out Doug's ear holes. That's what I like to do on these intros. All right, we got a good giveaway for you. In fact, one of the best giveaways we've ever done on YouTube. You ready for this? Here's what you win. MAP Strong and MAP Power Lift. Two programs you can win for doing the following. Now in today's episode in the intro, we talk about a very, very important scientific study. On men, growers versus showers. They actually funded this study, isn't that crazy? Ever wonder why we don't have a cure for cancer? It's because we're spending money on stuff like this. Anyway, in the comments, be honest, just say grower or shower. Tell us about yourself a little bit. If we pick your comment and we select you, you'll get free access to MAP Strong and MAP Power Lift. Isn't that great? By the way, both those programs are 50% off right now. You can find them at maps, fitnessproducts.com. Just use the code August special with no space for that discount. One more thing, subscribe to this channel and turn on your notifications. You got to do those things if you want to win free stuff from us that we give away all the time. All right, enjoy the show. I want to ask Adam about his diet. It looks like it's working, huh? Getting lean, bro. I'm not eating it. I can't taste anything diet. I'm on the bat soup diet. I'm going to write a book. Nothing tastes good diet. No, yeah. That's the one thing for me has been, which was weird because it didn't, that didn't happen. I want to say till like day five or six. And I can taste foods. Salty stuff tastes okay to me. So like soup is like still my favorite thing to have right now because it's the only thing I feel tastes somewhat normal. Everything else has this weird taste almost like Katrina was trying to get me to describe it. I said, you know what it tastes like? You ever go eat something like or have orange juice right after you brush your teeth? Oh, I hate that. It tastes like all food tastes like I just brushed my teeth and then I went and ate, then I went and ate food. I could tell your sense of taste was off when you, when I saw your shoes today. I was like, Jesus guys, this tastes this way off. Hey, show your shoes, show your shoes. What is that anyway? What's what is this? Huh? Just can you see from there or no? No, not really. What is that? These are vans, bro. Why another van? What's that? There's a hot chicken. Hey, there's a hot chicken skeleton on my shoes, bro. Oh, I guess that's right then. This guy over here with the fucking therapeutic shoes. Hold on a second. Hey, what do you call the new balances? Grandpa shoes. No, they're not, bro. Look at these. I get DMs like every day about trying to talk to you about your outfits. I'm like, I can't talk to this guy. The more you talk to this guy about his outfits, the more he digs his heels in. Yeah. The more I just do what I, I like this new earpiece thing that we got here, Doug. I feel like I'm in the CIA right now. You know what I mean? It looks a little better. You're a little more important today. Yeah. Hold on. Hold on. So that's good. Hold on. Yeah. Anyway. Hey, I wanted you to bring up the studies that I see going around right now. There's a lot. And cause we brought up like just a month ago, I was talking about, I had read something in regards to like, you know, childhood obesity going up and there's stuff that I see in our space that's, yeah, the study showed that a majority of kids diets is processed food majority, almost 70%. So almost 70% of what a kid eats in America today comes out of a box or a wrapper or is processed. Oh yeah. That's a big problem. It's a big problem because, well, processed foods themselves are probably not as healthy as whole natural foods, but besides that, well, people will argue, you know, what is some of them are good, some, whatever, fine. Won't make that argument, although I definitely think there's a weak argument. Well, everything is processed, right? So that's, that's the argument. The argument is that like everything is a little bit processed. A little bit, right. But, but here's the real thing proven, proven in studies that processed foods make you overeat a lot, like to the tune of about 500 calories a day. And the studies they do are really good, controlled crossover studies, 500 more calories a day. So you give your kid processed foods and they're just going to overeat. That's why kids are fat right now. That's why there's so many obese kids. It's really crazy what's going on. So that's what the studies show. Well, that's, I mean, it's a scary thought when, when that's going on at the same time when we have, you know, COVID going rampant and the variants that are happening right now. And I saw some stats at 79 or 80% of all deaths. The number one thing they all had in common was obese. Yeah. Least. Yeah. It was like three times more likely you're going to have a lot of problems with it. Yeah, you are. Yeah, you know what though? We never talk about ever talk about how to, how important it is to just improve your general health. Part of that I think is because people just don't listen because I've had clients that were doctors and we'd have these conversations. You know, I trained a bunch of vascular surgeons at one point and you know, if you, if you're a vascular surgeon, a couple of things your patients have in common. One is they probably all smoke and two is they, most of them are obese, right? And I tell them like, do you talk to your clients about or your patients about like diet and exercise? And they'd say, well, yeah, but it's totally a waste of time. Like nobody, they do not want to listen. They just want to take a pill. And even then, sometimes they're paying the ass and they forget to take their, their medication. So I think that's part of it. You know, people want to hear, you got to change your lifestyle. Did you see the, the post that Dr. Gabriel, I did on that as far as doctors and nutrition, kind of defending that like, she doesn't think that doctors should have any more nutrition schooling, which I don't disagree. But the challenge I have with that is because she's like, you know, I don't think that we should hold them accountable because that's not what they're, that's not what they went to school for in the first place was to give nutritional advice. The only problem that I have with that is that because they're a PhD, the general population assumes that they have, and they're a doctor assumes that they have all this nutritional knowledge. So that's the only problem. I don't think that they should be held accountable. I don't think we should be seeking our advice there. But I, so long, for as long as I've been a trainer, that was one of the number one hurdles as a, as a trainer coach that I had, I had to overcome was if a client came to me and their doctor gave them nutritional advice, even with my background being in nutrition, and, and I, no matter what I said, I couldn't, I couldn't overcome their doctor telling them. Yeah. They're way more authority immediately. Yeah. Yeah. Behind, behind their letters. So it's, yeah, it's, it's, that's the problem really. Well, I mean, if you're not like super versed in that subject, you know, don't really just throw it out there as, as a fact. Well, I'll tell you what, I'll ask you guys this question. What are some of the craziest diets you've seen people be put on? I've seen clients that I've trained in some of the craziest diets that they were put on. We're put on super low calorie by doctors. Yeah. Where they literally like 500 calorie diets. Yeah. Like bars. Yeah. Exactly. I had people come to me and say, you know, I'd say, so tell me about your nutrition. I know you want to lose weight. Oh, I'm on a liquid diet right now to lose weight. Yeah. That was the most common. Didn't, weren't they part, weren't the hospitals or Kaiser partnered with one of those protein bars? Yeah, like our BCD clinics. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a MedRx or something. One of those, I don't know if it's MedRx, but I remember they had, they, they, they had a program when we worked at Santa Teresa, I remember they had some program where if you, if you went in there and your BMI was whatever, that was the like liquid diet. Yeah, the go to, you know, why the studies will be like, oh yeah, you know, 12 weeks or 16 weeks, people on a liquid diet lost all this weight. And they're like, it works. This is what we're going to have you do and completely ignore the longevity or the sustainability of it. So it was hard to argue with these people because as a trainer, I'm liable if I disagree with their doctor. Right. That's the thing that you're trained as a trainer. No, I agree. Life or death, I agree. Right. You know, like if you got somebody who is, you know, morbidly obese and, and doctors like super emergency. Yeah. Like, and they're like, Hey, you've got a year possibly to live. Then, you know, at that point it's like, okay, well, we need to take any extreme measure to, to get this weight off or else you're going to potentially die in your sleep. I understand that, but it's not a, it's not a long-term solution. No, but I had a lot of people that were not life or death that were put on these ridiculous diets from doctors. Very hard to argue with them. I had clients who were prescribed weight loss drugs, like, you know, fenn fenn or, you know, stuff like that. Oh, the doctors gave it to me. So therefore, so that's the challenge. The challenge is that people, people need to understand that doctors are really good at some stuff. It's nutrition is not one of those. So do you think they should have to get more nutrition schooling? I mean, what's your opinion on that? I think that they should have resources and be directed to direct people to those resources. That's what I think. There should be like a department in their in conjunction with them, at least the consult, you know, like at least they can like defer over to a nutritionist to kind of counsel them. Well, the problem with the problem with the problem with referring like that is the liability issue. I think that's why they don't right? Like, why? I mean, like why you think like, Oh, why don't they just refer like a great source of nutritional knowledge? And I guess because everyone, they're such an individual variance with everybody that no matter how great the nutritional advice is, is not perfect for everybody, right? Well, that's why I think they should have people that work with them, you know, who can individualize that. That's what I luckily, you know, I did. I developed good relationships with a lot of doctors and they ended up sending me a lot of their patients, but that's not standard care. You know, most doctors don't have don't refer to people who understand the liability. There's got to be something because obviously this is a major contributing factor to how poorly people are dealing with this disease. You know, it's like, we got to address this, this up pussy foot and around the fact that we need to get healthier and this should be an alarm, you know, for people to get back in and create better habits. Well, you know what? It's more than the obvious because here's the obvious. The obvious is, okay, if you're obese, you have you're more expensive to take care of, especially towards the end of life. You're so it's expensive to take care of. You have to be on more medications, higher risk of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and a lot of stuff, but then there's all these unseen effects that we don't really realize. For example, when you're unhealthy, you're less productive, right? So you're a less productive part of society, at least compared to the version of you who is healthy. So if you take someone who's obese and then they're healthy, the healthy version of them will be more productive. They'll be more innovative, which is human innovation is we need that, right? That's how we solve problems. So who knows how many problems we're not solving because there's so many obese people and they're just not as innovative as they could be. Not only that, but the choices that they make drive the markets, right? So when you make choices that lead to poor health, the market feeds things that serve poor health. So go to the grocery store. 90% of the food in the grocery store is unhealthy garbage, right? Because that's what the market demands. The market wants all that unhealthy garbage. You want the whole natural foods, you walk around the perimeters. The vast majority of the grocery store is dedicated to shitty food or just markets in general, dedicated to poor health. I wonder what that line looks like, though. It's not a perfect linear graph, right? As far as you being exercising, you're more all the other positive side effects of being in shape. Where's the tipping point? At what point are you in shape enough that it positively impacts all the things you're alluding to right now? And then at what point does it not really matter anymore? The difference between you being, let's just for argument's sake, 35% body fat. If you're anything less than that, you're more productive. And then at what point does it not even matter that much more anymore? You know what I'm saying? Like the difference between someone who's 25% versus someone who's 10% body fat, are they any more productive? I think there's two things. There's the physical effects. So when you feel good and you're actually healthy, you interpret things differently, you're more positive, you're more productive, you know, all those things I talked about. But it's also the pursuit of health that leads to all those things, right? So what are the things that you do to pursue health in healthy ways and real ways? I'm not talking about dysfunctional pursuit of aesthetics, but rather healthy pursuit of good health. What are those habits, right? Well, I'm going to be, I'm going to abstain a little bit from bad habits. I'm going to take more responsibility for my own health. I'm going to be better with my time management. You have to be right to order to make time for exercise. I'm going to value my health a little bit different. I'm going to look at food a little bit differently. So all those, the habits that you learn in the pursuit also contribute. So it's way complex. I'm sure it's a sliding scale, right? The, the longer you stick with it, the better you are at other things. But I remember, so when, you know, when I would manage gyms for 24-hour fitness, we used to do what we're called corporate memberships. This is where you go to, you guys know what I'm talking about. You go to a company and you would try to get the company to pay a big fee to cover part of the costs of a gym membership for the employees or whatever. And it was a big deal for the gym. It would be a lot of revenue. Some of these checks were massive. And how would you sell this to the company? Well, the way you'd sell it to the company is while your employees want it, but then there was studies that were actually done that showed that employees that worked out and ate right had way less sick days, costs way less on health insurance and were more productive. And I can't remember the exact number, but these studies showed that, and this is what we would say to them, for every dollar you invest in your employees' health and fitness, you'll get back $2 in return and savings and in productivity. And this was a big selling point, right? So if you're a company and you spend $100,000 getting your employees to work out, you're going to save $200,000 in, you know, absentee, you know, people being less absent, people being more productive. So there's way more effects from poor health than the obvious that nobody's, you know, nobody's talking about. I wonder how much that has to do with just having purpose, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, all of it, right? Like all the things I've learned through the personal responsibility alone, that's a big one. You have to learn to take your health in your own hands if you pursue, you know, exercise and nutrition at some point. And I'll tell you something, there's a big problem nowadays, and especially in this country and in modern societies, people don't take personal responsibility of their health. They give it to their doctors or the government, tell me what to do. It's not my, oh, that's, you know, they have no like real responsibility for their own health. They give it to other people. That's a bad, you know, precedent. Speaking of that, I, so Virgin actually was one of the companies I saw that had a really cool way of trying to introduce that, incentivize that amongst their employees a while back. And it was like a whole corporate wellness incentive where, you know, the more active they were and the more, you know, they worked out and made nutritional habits and better habits, like they would get certain rewards for it. They'd lower their insurance and overall productivity. They proved increased substantially. So, you know, more companies, if they really start to tap into that and figure it out, you know, it's going to benefit everybody and, you know, the way that business is done as well. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's common because the healthcare is getting ridiculous. It's kind of like, we got to look at the preventive side of all this stuff. Yeah. In fact, they did a meta analysis on obesity. You know, there's a whole, you can be overweight and healthy, right? Oh, no, you can be overweight and healthy or, you know, be obese and healthy. Well, they did a meta analysis and they showed that that's false. You could definitely be, they needed a meta analysis for that. Well, yeah, because they showed you can definitely be healthier and be overweight if you do certain things. But in comparison to that same person, not being overweight, there's, there, no matter what, just carrying lots of excess body fat is just bad for, I know it's funny that they had to do a study. It's, yeah, it's comical to me. You know what's comical, too, as I see it, you know, it's becoming popular is more and more of these mannequins that they're, that when you go to like stores, like, you know. Oh yeah. Yeah, they, now they all have like these pot bellies and stuff like that. It's the craziest thing ever, dude. I was talking to Courtney about this, she pointed out because we were walking past the Victoria secret and along the side and towards the back of the store, like, you know, as you're walking down the sidewalk, I was like, Oh, you know, it's the really attractive models. And then when you get to the front of the building, it's all the unattractive people. I'm like, the unattractive people are selling clothes now. Like what's happening? Dude, you know, in Europe, mannequins have nipples. That's something I noticed. Yeah. That's a random fact. Well, I mean, you notice it because yeah, I was 12, that's why I was 12 years old. You notice nipples when you're 12 on anything. I remember we were in Italy on vacation and we were at a department store and I'm like, you know, it was one of the mannequins that didn't have a shirt on and they had nipples. It was like, wow, they put nipples on mannequins over here. Cool. Dude, speaking of random, Justin, you're going to love it. I don't know if you know this, this, this was a study that was done. I want to say, I think it was like in the sixties that this study was done. So the CIA funded a study to see if we could communicate with dolphins. Have you heard about this? Oh yeah, dude. I think I know why they shut it down, too. Yeah. So they gave the dolphins LSD because they thought that maybe this would help them. Yeah, they could get on the same wavelength somehow and they're able to kind of like communicate on a different level. So what happened? Somebody fucked a dolphin. Yes, dude. That's why they shut it down. Really? A researcher. She was jerking off all the dolphins trying to make them happy. Yeah. And so they started having sex and shit, so they had to stop the study. And there wasn't like a scientific reason why she was doing this? I fucked up. Like she wasn't doing research? Yeah, try to explain it one like that. No, no, no, this is for research. This positive communication. Yeah, this is totally, this is science. Hey, speaking of old news, I have, I've read this article. I was reading, I don't think it was in the hustle or so. I don't remember what it was, but I just thought it was funny because it was old. It was old. And I remember these commercials. Pepsi did this thing, this campaign where it's called like Pepsi and stuff. Do you guys remember that? Explain it. I'm trying to remember. Pepsi and stuff. I think it was called Pepsi and stuff was the campaign and they gave away points. And at the end of the commercial, this guy like flies into the school with like an F16. Oh, shit. I remember this commercial. They got sued for this. Why? So Pepsi got sued because one guy took that commercial literally and saved up enough because they said like 7 million points for the F16 and turned it in and it went through three years of court trying to sue Pepsi for not giving him an F16. Did he win? No, he didn't win. In fact, I think Pepsi actually, I think Pepsi actually countersued because of all like the legal shit that they tried to drag. And they changed it. They did change the commercial because of them to make it more like a joke. I think they exaggerated it to 700 million points, which made it very unrealistic. You could even get to that number. And then they did like a ha ha ha afterwards. Oh my God. I remember that. Dude, leave it. Yeah. Leave it to the world. Somebody can take it literally. That's it. It was a Harrier fighter. Oh, that's what it was. 7 million Pepsi points. Yes. People are ridiculous, man. I know. I thought it was crazy that he sat down and he actually like calculated out how to figure how to get to that. And he's, and I guess, so I guess you didn't have to have all of it through, like, so you get it through like cans and cups and liters. And then you could also buy Pepsi points for like, I don't remember what it was like, $10 for so many points or whatever. So he sent in a check for like, you know, $700,000 and then, and however many points that he already accumulated and said, I want my jet. And well, yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a steal for a Harrier. Well, that was exactly the, his thought process was, oh my God, like this is not, this is so, so worth it for me. The lawsuits like, listen, I got 7 million Pepsi points and all I got was diabetes. I didn't get a damn jet. Give me my, my stupid jet. Could you believe that was in our court system though for three years? Imagine being the judge on that. I wish judges would sometimes just look at people who do these lawsuits and then just be like, this is a waste of time. Yeah. Sir, I'm sorry. You're really stupid. Get out of my way. I know it's crazy that something like that wouldn't just get laughed at a court immediately. Like get out of here, dude. Like trying to say that a commercial is, is like a legal binding kind of contract. Like, come on. Do you guys, speaking of Pepsi back in the day, do you guys remember the failed attempt at, was it Pepsi clear? Yeah. Yeah. Crystal Pepsi. I liked, it was, yeah, Pepsi clear. Yeah. Van Hagar was promoting it. I remember that. It was basically, it was Pepsi without the coloring. So it looked like seven up or whatever. It was clear. It tasted like Pepsi, but it failed. It did fail miserably. I remember. I liked it. It's weird. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you kind of expect it to be brown. I don't know. Speaking of which, you know, remember how we speculated that like certain candies, because I said that fruit loops are all the same flavor and we're all blown, our minds were blown. Did you know, and I said skittles are all the same flavor. It's true. They, all they did is change the color and the scent of each skittle, different color. So they'll make it smell different, but the flavoring is identical. So all skittles are exactly the same. Why make it smell a little different? That's weird. Because that changes the experience. Tastes like sugar. Yeah. It just changes the experience and it makes you feel like, oh, green is, you know, lime or yellow is lemon and red is. I don't know if I've ever smelt my skittles before. I just can't picture myself smelling skittles. Yeah. No, it says have different fragrances and different colors, but they all taste exactly. Well, as you chew them, it all kind of, you know, it goes in your nose. So then you mean to tell me that all those different colored bags, the purple bag, the fruity bag, the traditional red bag, they're all the same. All the same. So when you buy a bag of tropical flavored skittles, it's the same. Yeah. Yeah. Original skittles, same. Now that, no, I feel like that's different. I think that maybe they're all the same in the bag. So tropical is all the same tropical. But it's different than, okay. Because I feel like the traditional skittles are different than the tropical ones. Yeah. Like, you know, the ones that come in the, like the baby blue bag? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those ones taste different than the ones in the red. Dude, I used to eat, this one, junior high, I used to eat a bag of skittles every day, every single day. There was a kid that would sell candy in the school, kind of black market candy. This is funny, right? I did this for a second. No, because you're not allowed to, right? Because the school sold candy too. Well, this one kid, which I'm sure he's a millionaire entrepreneur now, he figured out why don't I buy just a bunch of skittle, you know, bags of skittles and starbursts and whatever at Costco and bring him to school and sell them for 25 cents less. And he did. And it was all black market. Like you, like you look around and he pulled it out of his bag. I knew a kid like that. I'd totally swipe off some nerds from him all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. So every nerds was my jam. And I was trying to gain muscle, right? Because I had no, I just thought calories. So I would eat a bag of skittles every day. That was part of my bulking process was a bag of skittles until I figured out that Snickers has a little bit of protein that it was. That it was Snickers. Hey, Justin, I saw the other day. I'm assuming it's your update because I don't think Sal has this conversation right now is the updates on the birds and the bees with your boys. Have you had a, you had a recent talk? Oh, no. I saw. So I saw something that was kind of funny that was trying to update that in terms of like today's sort of lingo and how to, how to explain everything. And it's like, you got to now, now you have to explain not just birds and bees, but bees and bees, birds and birds. Oh, shit. Like birds that look like bees, bees that identify as birds, you know, and then birds with a stinger. So, you know, I thought that was pretty clever. Somebody posted that out there and I was like, Oh man, dude, my son, we're at that level now. So my son's 16. So he's, you know, he's obviously in the know, you know, you know, whatever. But what's funny is that he's at the age where he thinks his parents don't know slang. You know, I remember when I was a sage, I would say things thinking my parents are stupid, not realizing my parents don't know what the hell I'm talking about. So my, my son, he'll make, he'll look at me when a word is said and he'll say, Oh, you know, like, for example, you know, Jessica was talking about going to, going to the salon and getting a facial, right? My son looks like he looks at me. He's like, facial, right? Huh? I'm like, dude, we know it, bro. She knows what that means. Everybody knows what that means. It's not a weak, weak. Yeah, dude. You're not cool. He would be a good one to ask the whole debate and or what a discussion that we had around like dating apps and stuff like that. Now the kids, do the kids use that stuff? Oh yeah. Like if you're in high school, do you use that stuff? Oh yeah. They don't, they don't, they don't talk to each other. You say that's high school. Well, no, I know this from, Enzo used to tell us about this all the time. About dating apps? Yeah. He's, remember Enzo would say, if you saw a girl at a party, yeah, he didn't say dating apps. He said that they would, they would face. Oh, I'm putting it all together. Yeah, you are lumping it together. You are lumping it together. I don't think, you don't think you have any facts on this? Well, I did have to have a pretty serious talk because I guess like some of the kids have phones now too, because I mean Ethan's only 11, but he's already like, he's got the FOMO going and wants like a phone like, dude, we're going to have to have multiple conversations about this before we, you know, move in that direction. So I was like, it's not completely off the table, but you know, I'm like telling him about the brick phone and like, you know, how, maybe we start with just text message and calls only. And you know, it's just like this whole can of Pandora's box that we're going to open. So Ethan has a phone now? Ethan has a phone? No, no, he doesn't. Like his whole thing was like, I'll get straight A's and then I can have a phone. And I'm like, okay, you know, like that's, that's a cool thing to say. But no, show me, you know, and then we'll have a conversation about it. But yeah, it was just like, I didn't realize it was already at this point where phones are all his friends like are starting to kind of, I was going to say, what age right now is it, is it most common practice for a, by the time the kids are 13, everybody has one. Yeah. All the friends have it. That makes more sense. And so he was trying to, I'm like, okay, so which one of your friends has a phone? And then he names like two of them and they're totally like, they're totally the kids that like their dad, let them watch Walking Dead, you know, in their kindergarten. And I'm like, yeah, no, that's not a good example. Yeah, like they're not doing a good job. No, that dad's a loser. We're not going to use it. That dad's a loser and that kid has issues. So we're not going to use that as an example. So okay, wait, 13, you are seventh grade? Is that seventh grade? So junior high is kind of the standard. Yeah. And then when the kids get it, is it for the most part free for all, they can download whatever apps they want, or is it, do they do like the brick phone or it's like the Nokia type of deal where all they can do is call and I think it's free but iPhone like yeah, it's mind boggling to me. But again, like I said, like I think there's just some parents who are like, they don't put a whole lot of thought behind just allowing these kids access to these things. And how old is Ethan right now? 11. Okay, so he's still got, is that the plan for you then 13? I mean, what's the, what's your guys' strategy? Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to hold out as long as possible, but I don't want to like be super rigid about it either because I know it's inevitable, right? So I'm just trying to kind of make sure that we keep having conversations about each one of these creating boundaries around certain things and certain apps. You can put you can put parental controls and stuff on the phones that are pretty good. The only problem I have is that kids are way more tech savvy than their parents. So you'll, you'll put these parental controls and I think they'll figure it out and they talk with each other, you know, and oh, you got that. Oh, it's what you do. And then type this instead, and then you'll get around it. That's what I, that's what I imagine. Well, I remember, I do remember Enzo telling us about this, that like what's common practice for kids, your guys as kids ages is to have like a ghost account on all their stuff. So like mom and dad can see their, so your, their Facebook, their Instagram, or whatever, you know, Snapchat where they have, there's like the, the one that mom and dad can see pictures with mom and dad. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's like the one they really use with all their friends. That's, so that's probably, now, okay, the kids don't have their phone, but do they have, do they have Facebook and do they have Snapchat yet? Or does that, is that all at the same time? No, no, no, they probably have iPads. No, no, that's stuff. Yeah, iPads. Yeah, they're dude, I mean, they have Roblox and they can communicate with their friends on there. But yeah, it's mainly just on video games where they can chat and hang out with their buddies, but we monitor that anyways. Yeah. So that's what my daughter does. She gets, she gets on with Roblox and they can talk with their friends and stuff, but we'll go on there and look and see what's going on. But you can, there's a, there's a point when you can tell my experience where your kid is, they're at the age where if something kind of, if he happens, they have to tell you, you know, like, uh, I have to tell you what happened, you know, one of my friends said something and then all of a sudden they reached that age where they don't tell you anymore, you know, all of a sudden it's like, you know, the communication stops. That's when it gets a little, a little scary. Yeah. I feel like this is so far ahead of me right now. Like I don't think about this. Bro, that time your kid's old enough. He's going to have a computer chip in his brain or something. Oh God, don't say that. That's weird. Yeah. I know. The new standard will be like when he's five. Yeah. Like he'll have to have a full, I mean, it's got to be such a challenge for parents when, because there's the part there, I think everybody, you, you want to try and, you know, I don't want to say control, but you want to try and monitor or, you know, shield them from so much stuff. But then at the same time too, you also don't want your kid to be the one kid who's at school. Everybody is able to communicate on Facebook and do these things like that. This is how they, this is how they talk to each other. But yeah, exactly. I mean, that's how they communicate. And then you're the parent who says you can't have that. Dude, you know what's funny is I was watching, do you guys remember the movie Stand By Me? Great movie, right? So I hadn't seen it a long time. I watched it last night with Jessica and it's depicted in 1959. And you realize, and, you know, from, I mean, even when we were kids, there was so much less parental oversight when we were kids. Like in the movie, Stand By Me, these kids are hanging out in their tree, you know, house, they're playing. Nobody knows what the fuck they're doing. Parents have no idea. All they know is Timmy's going to come back when the sun goes down. And from now until then, who knows what he's doing. It was like that when we were kids too. So it's, you know, the challenges are always, have always been there. I guess they're just different. They're just different. Yeah, they change. Yeah. Cause I mean, think about that. When you were a kid, like I know, I know where my kids are at every second and I could call, I could call my son any minute. And I know I can get ahold of them. Well, that's the irony, right? Is like, they could go, you could send them off and they could go explore and all that kind of stuff. And now you actually can track them if they did have like a watch or a phone. It's like you could GPS locate them, you know, whereas, and we're still more nervous about letting them do that now than, than we were back in the day. Oh, dude, I had no idea. No idea. My parents had no idea. I could have been dead for hours and nobody would have known until, you know, I didn't show up for dinner or whatever. No, that's how it was for us. It was when the sun comes down. I mean, I could literally just take off on my bike and go as far as I could pretty much ride my bike. There wasn't like a, as long as you were back by sun and that's, I'd get in trouble for that. And you know, it's funny as a kid, you push that all the time. Oh, like, Oh, the sun's still up. I'm not, I'm not going in yet. And then you get home and you come racing in as the sun's going down. Well, as we're watching the movie, Jessica, now, because she's a mom now, right? She's like getting emotional and I'm like, what's the matter? She goes, I'm starting to get like anxious and stressed out because I have a son and I know how boys are and this and that. And I remember when I was 12, 13, 14 off on my own. I mean, the, some of the dangerous, you know, you don't know, you're a kid, you just do dangerous shit. But man, we did some shit that I think about, you know, riding our bikes down the hills that, you know, there's no trail and kids falling off their bikes and shooting fire works at each other and, you know, throw rocks at each other and just crazy shit that, you know, if I saw my kids do, I'd be like, you're grounded for a year at least. We've had moments of that recently too. Even when we were down at that gymnastic thing, like there was a bonfire that everybody got invited to near Pismo and there was one of those lifeguard towers there that, you know, some of the older kids and then of course, you know, my kids get drawn in because like, oh, this is cool and dangerous. Like they all climbed on top of it and they're standing on top of this thing. And then one of the kids, because he's all, you know, gymnastic, amazing, he did this like backflip off of it and landed and, and we're just like Courtney, I look over and the kids are on top and we're like, hey, get down from there. I didn't want to embarrass them in front of all these like older kids, but like, no, like you're going to get hurt. But it's just one of those things. Like it's, it's, it's a natural inclination to seek out like, you know, risky stuff and challenge yourself. Especially young boys, especially with you as friends, you know, your friends are always daring you to do shit and you just end up doing the worst stupidest stuff of all time. Oh, speaking of that, did you see they're doing another jackass movie? Yeah. What's the same guys? Yeah. So it was like a trailer coming out. And what drew me into it was they, they brought, I think it's Francis Negano, the fighter, like hardest, hardest puncher in the world. Yeah. UFC champion, right? So they got him in the movie to punch one of the guys in the nuts as hard as he possibly could punch and they like filmed it, right? And he kind of led off a little bit and they were like, no, you got to go full force, you know, and he was all like, have you already had children? You know, he was like, trying to be all respectful about it. Like she was all worried that he was going to ruin, you know, his legacies. Like I want to make sure, you know, that's all good before I do that. Now, haven't, haven't, well, yeah, haven't half those guys to like, I didn't want one died. And then there's like, then rehab and lost all their money. Like, yeah, aren't they all a mess? Yeah. I think Steve was the only one that's still kind of like Johnny Knoxville. Yeah, I don't know what Johnny Knoxville is doing, but he hasn't been in many movies in a while. So no, it's interesting. I wonder, and he looks like the last time I saw Johnny Knoxville, it kind of comes across like he's hit his head too many times or like something's not right. So I don't know what these guys are going to do. Dude, they all have a screw loose. Let's be honest. Totally. That's why I think it'll be, it'll be, I don't know. I like watching those movies just because it kind of brings out that junior high kid and me, like, if you want to like watch somebody do something really stupid, get some amusement out of it. But yeah, they were like the masters at that deal. I was like, what are these guys going to think of next? It's pretty crazy. You know, it's funny is that every group of guys, tell me guys, tell me if this is true or not for you guys, every group of guys, there's that one guy, that's the guy that'll do anything. I had that. There was a buddy of mine that was like that where we were even, we would even be afraid to tell him to do something because we know he would do it. Like he would do anything. We'd say like, eat that piece of dog crap and he would do it or, you know, jump off the, jump off the hill and roll down and he would do it or ride your bike, you know, against traffic. So we wouldn't say things on purpose because the guy would end up, you guys had a buddy like that too. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We talked one of my friends into taking one of those like high powered airsoft guns and like shooting his nut point blank. Why dude? He had like this crazy bruise for like months. This is just a male thing too though, right? Girls don't do anything. No, they don't do this. They're way smarter than we are. And it's funny because the guy that does this, stupid shit always ranks highly among all the friends. Oh, Tommy, he's cool. He's crazy. He's crazy. He's crazy. Don't fuck with Tommy. He's crazy, man. Probably in jail now or something like that. Hey, Justin, I want to ask you, I know as of the filming of this tomorrow, you're doing your, the talk with the trainers with NCI, right? Is that tomorrow? How's your guys' experience? We've all done them now, right? Well, we've talked to the trainers. I've only done one so far. Yeah. How's your guys' experience with it so far? I've enjoyed it so far. I think that the questions are interesting. I'm always curious as to what people want to know. And a lot of it is around personal training and how I structured my business. And, you know, it's kind of cool because we all have different ways that we handled that in our careers. And so we dove into that a bit last time. So I'm curious to see what they're going to bring up this time in terms of like bringing value to that. And then also like, you know, it's just cool because they all are very, very growth minded and really absorb, you know, whatever advice you're kind of giving out. Now, did you, I know last time you knew what you were going into. Do you know this time? No, it's going to be more of just the Q and A. So yeah, I'm kind of at the whim to see what questions come my way and see if I can answer them the best possible. So yeah, the quality that NCI is producing, it feels like they're doing a really good job. Just the questions I get from the trainers in this particular, so what's happening for people who don't know is there's this, it's like a course, right? And you sign up for it as a trainer or coach, and it includes lots of training and coaching from very successful experienced trainers, right? One of them being Jason Phillips who runs NCI, who obviously was a very successful coach himself and runs a successful certification business. And then this one were a part of, and so you have all these trainers on there and they ask you questions or there's a particular topic. And the questions I'm getting asked shows me that these are trainers that are going to be really good or that are really good. So I like, I like it. It makes me feel really good because I mean earlier in the episode we were talking about obesity and whatever. This is a big problem and the people best equipped, I'm not saying that we'll fix it, but the best chance comes from the fitness industry. The best chance is a fixing this comes from coaches. What has been the growth in our space as far as coaches and trainers? Is it still, I know it was on the rise for a while, I haven't looked at that statistic in a long time. Do you either one of you know? The last time I looked, I think it's still growing. Yeah, which surprised me. The last time I looked, it's the one segment of the fitness industry that continues to grow year over year. So the number of trainers and the awareness around hiring a trainer and a coach. I wonder if that's still on that, on that path with everything that's happened in the last two years. I would speculate that it, that it is. And I think it's because this is my guess. I guess that online coaching has grown so much that that's made up the difference, that more people now are hiring people to work with them virtually than ever before in finding value. I used to think it was kind of a joke and a terrible idea, but just with technology, you've been able to, I mean, we've come so far with it as the ability to connect with people and to be able to connect in with resources and apps that you can use to, to coach. It's really evolved that space. I mean, what it was just five years ago, I feel like you couldn't really provide a pretty good service, but I mean, it's, it's a lot different today than what it was then. Yeah. And in the way that they focus, you know, what they focus on at NCI is the right stuff. Like they focus on the coaches, behaviors and the coaching aspect, which is the most important. I remember that was the thing that we connected with Jason the most, whenever we all first met, that was what he was talking about. Well, what I like about it too is we do a lot of, we cover a lot of topics on the show, but this helps to kind of narrow it down to very specifics, like even like price point and how I worked my way through that with charging sessions and, you know, just more of like the exact details of like what I did in my personal training business specifically. So it's kind of fun to revisit all that stuff. Do you know, do you guys know Jason, what kind of coach or how he coached when he used to do that? Do you guys know what he used to do? Are you asking him because you know the answer? Yeah. Yeah. So when he was, I don't know if you guys do this, right? So when he, you know, before he started NCI and training other trainers, he was a very successful online coach himself. And his value proposition was that you could get a hold of him at any time 24 hours a day. Oh yeah. And he would coach you through whatever, which is an insane commitment from a coach, but I could see the value in that. You imagine as a client, like, oh man, I'm going to eat this thing. And he's, oh, you know, boom, he's right there. Send me a picture. Let me help you out. Or, oh man. Yeah, it's actually a part. That's totally a distinctive selling point. Yeah. And it made him really successful. But I mean, what a commitment. That's a, that's a lot of work. I mean, I did, I did something similar. I didn't, I don't think I made that big of a deal about saying it like that. But I was in daily communication with all my coaching clients. That, because that's, I saw the opportunity there, right? The other, the other coaches in the space of the time were all about volume, like how many people they could get in, like, you know, coaching once a week check-ins. Yeah. And coaching 50 people. And that's how they made revenue where I thought, I'd rather limit myself to how many people I coach, but give a like supreme service. And also knowing that it's so nuanced that, you know, from training and coaching clients in person for so many years, you just know that, you know, there's always questions. There's always things that they want more details and explanations. So instead of giving everybody more generic cookie cutter stuff and trying to go the volume route, I went more of a high service route into the same thing where I was in constant communication. Hey, speaking of sponsors, I forgot to tell you guys, when I was up at the, in Truckee with Jessica's friends, after about a day, everybody comes to me and they go, what's with this public goods? Cause you know, the house is all fitted with everything. It's all, yeah. Yeah. Public goods, soap and shampoo and conditioner and toothpaste and whatever. So I explained it to them and you know, I was like, well, it's good for the environment. It's less expensive company we work with. And so then they were super impressed. I've fully converted my house is there's not much I have left that's not public goods. I mean, as far as like everything from the laundry detergent to the dryer sheets to the surface cleaning spray, which is my favorite like the lavender, like for the countertops, even the bars of soap was the last one, right? Cause we, we used to work with what's their face. I can't think of the name of the company right now. And then I was doing their soap for the longest time, but public goods soap is freaking like a quarter of the price. And it's freaking just as, just as good as soap. And so I've gotten that now, my toothpaste, like my whole house is, I like to that's the branding. I think the whole yeah, just like simple simplistic. Yeah. I think that I like that style of just, just like simple and clean the white and black like that. So no, I've fully converted over to all their stuff. There are, there do other things that weren't, weren't you guys talking about something else that was on there? I didn't even know it was it food? Was it? They have some food products. They have dog food. Yeah. I haven't dabbled in the food stuff. Everything I do right now is like all cleaning, cleaning and products like that for the house, but I haven't messed with food yet. Didn't they? Wasn't it tuna or something? When you guys are some canned foods, you can get boxed and canned items. Yeah. I think you can get olive oil nuts. I really have nuts. Yeah. Stuff that's got, you know, kind of a long shelf life, but that's not like heavily processed. You'll find, you know, on their side. So, you know, pretty good stuff. All right. One more thing I want to talk about a study that I thought you guys would be very interested in. So are you guys a grower or a shower? They actually did a study on this. This is very revealing. They did a study on what makes someone a grower versus what makes someone a shower. Really? Yeah. They studied like, like 200 men. Like it's not a genetic thing? I've heard it also called like meat cock or blood cock. Wow. That's new. I mean, that's what I, that's what somebody said. Interesting. Doug, can you look that up real quick? Almost got him right there. Almost got me. Look at meat cock versus blood cock. Let's see what the difference is. Hey, you imagine he starts to type in, it populates automatically. So, okay, wait, so it's not all genetics? No. So, no, what I mean is like, what makes, okay, so here's what they did. They did this study where they took men. Well, what makes it is, what that means is somebody who is, by the mouth, they grow after that. Yeah. They've been a grower. So a grower is somebody where when they're flaccid and then they get an erection, there's a big difference, right? Yeah. A shower is someone who when they're flaccid versus erect, there's not as big of a difference. Now, what's the percentage of the populace? That's the thing. Oh, no, they didn't show that. Oh. Most people are growers. The vast majority of people are growers according to the study. It's like a magic trick. Yeah, trust me. So, what they would do with the study is they used, I think it was MRI, but they, they imaged them flaccid and then they injected their penises with this, this compound that gives you this automatic erection, no matter what. And they said in the study, maximum erection was the word that they use, which is kind of interesting. I didn't know there was a drug like that, right? You just boop, boop. And what they found was the difference was, on average, a man's flaccid penis will grow an inch and a half to become erect. If it grows more than that, then you're a grower. If it's less than that, then you're a shower. So an inch and a half or so, that's the number. So if it grows more than that, grower, less than that, shower. So I don't know if you guys, I thought you guys like that. Science, you guys. Hey, hey, here's what's funny. Who funds shit like this? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I feel like it's like a college, a college like, uh, yeah. I feel like it's like a college thing. You're penis with this erection sailing. It's always college aged men. Come on, dude. They're like, listen, we'll give you free lunch. We'll pay you 20 bucks and we'll give you a boner. We're going to MRI your dick. No big deal. I'll sign up for that. No problem. It's just, some of these, it makes me laugh because it's like, the researchers are sitting around and like, all right, you know, we got some ideas for what we're going to study. Like, all right, John, you said like the cure for cancer. Okay. That's good. You know, this new compound that might solve heart disease. That's another one. Oh, grower versus shower. No, I totally feel like it's like a college senior project thing. And tell me that's not something that you wouldn't think of as a, as a kid in school. In class. Everybody come up with a study. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're always comparing yourself. Yeah. Well, and also, you think it'd be hilarious to do that, right? It's just like one of those things. Such a good theory. I could totally see that. Of course. I mean, that is, I mean, that would be my guess how a lot of these studies that are like ridiculous like this. My name is Justin Andrews. And today I'm presenting my study on silent but deadly. Is it true? I don't know. We'll find out. I did it. I said, let's study this. Yeah. Dude, I do have one more thing to, if you get time and you want, you want to, something that's kind of trippy to look at, check out Zoom quilt. It's like a website that has this, I don't know if you've ever seen this before, but it's like a zoom in kind of perspective art where the art just kind of keeps coming at you almost like you're at a concert. If they have a couple of these where you just literally stare at it and it's the trippiest thing you've ever seen. I stare at it for like 20 minutes. Are you talking about the ones where it's like all the dots? And then if you look and then it turns into something when you like that? Well, it's all drawn. There's like all these like cool environments. And then it just keeps, you keep the perspectives like right in the middle. And you just keep, I know I've never been able to do those. No, no, no. It's so frustrating for me. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay. You're talking about two different things. Yeah. He's talking about a still image. I'm talking about a video. Yeah. No, I know. Yeah. This right here. I know exactly what you're talking about. Like it keeps zooming in and there's more and more and more and it doesn't stop, which is kind of weird. It's a good time, but it's, it'll trip you out. Yeah. And now, that's cool. Now, Adam, you're talking about those- That's not a quilt? No, I think that's- It's called Zoom Quilt is the name of the website. Yeah. Now you're talking about Adam, are those posters that were really popular, I want to say the 90s? Yeah, it was like the 90s. Where it looks like nothing. Yeah. But then if you look at it a certain way, an image will pop out. Yeah. You remember mall rats? I've never been able, I've never been able to do those. I could help you do that. I have- People have all told me that. You get your, you gotta look over here in the corner, let your eyes blur. Like I've looked up all the shit, I've tried a hundred times. I can't do it. Really? Yeah. What if everybody's lying to you? Nobody could do it. You can't see it, bro? No, there was a, there was a while there, I believe that. For a while, I was like, oh, this is like one of those big pranks. You know what I'm saying? That everybody's just in on it. I'm not, you know, so, but no, it's, I've never been able to do it. Oh yeah. I can do it right away now. I practiced a lot. No, it pisses me off too. Every time I see one of those, I'm like, god damn. You know what you gotta do? You hold the page up. I know, bro. Three inches from your nose, you slowly pull. I've tried all the shit, dude. You're not going to tell me something I haven't heard already. Yes. It wasn't like I tried it one time. That was popular for like a decade. I know. And they had a story. You literally are the guy from mall rats, where he's, the whole movie, he starts and staring at this one thing. He's like, can't see it. He's all pissed off. I get so mad, man. There was a, there was a store in the mall. I remember as a kid, we used to go to it all the time and, and my buddy's like, Oh yeah, that one's this and this. Look at the dolphin. Yeah. I can't see. No, I can't see. Never, never been able to work for me. Hey, real quick. I hope you're enjoying this episode. Head over to mind pump free.com. Check out some of our guides. One guide in particular is really cool. It talks about how to get a better squat. So if you want to do full range of motion, squats to develop better muscles, get better function, you want to do it without pain, with better ankle mobility, go to mind pump free.com and check out our how to squat like a pro guide. All right. Enjoy the rest of the show. All right. Our first question is from Trey Freeman. What is the way I can improve on dips? Oh, body weight dips. One of the best muscle building exercises for the upper body doesn't get as enough, I think accolades or attention like pull-ups do, but dips are excellent for the shoulders, triceps, and the chest. But of course, because it's your body weight, they can be pretty hard. The advice that I'll give to get better on dips, you can apply to any exercise and then we'll get to more, I guess, more nuanced advice. But generally speaking, practice them every single day. Not work out with them every single day. So you're not trying to pump out as many reps as you can and get sore. But rather, when you have a dip apparatus in your home or set up nearby, several times a day, four times a day when you walk by it, let's say you could do max six dips, do like two, and just practice over and over again getting good at them. And your strength improves so quickly when you apply this frequency principle to pretty much any exercise. You know, one thing I noticed is the shoulder mobility. It's an issue for a lot of people and you find a lot of pain sometimes with people that prevents them from even attempting dips. So that's something to consider and address shoulder mobility to be able to put you in a good postural position while attempting them because the real benefit that I've found is really trying to achieve full range of motion with that exercise and really be able to express that depth So that's something that I know that a lot of times that's probably one of the first things that deters people from even doing dips is that they get pain in the shoulder. I'd say the advice is almost identical to the advice that we just recently gave about improving your pull-ups. There is one thing that I did different though in comparison to the pull-ups because so I think I brought this up not that long ago on the show. The first time I remember going to a gym and my buddy hopping up and doing, I don't know, he pumped out like 10 or 15 dips real quick and then I jumped up to do it. I couldn't even do one. So I was extremely weak and something I did with that that I didn't really do with pull-ups that actually helped me were isometric holds at the bottom and the top because I was so weak that I couldn't even do one full one. So I would get in position all the way down real deep and then I would just hold my body weight up as long as I could I could hold it there and then reset and then do it again. I'd do that three or four times and then I'd do it at the top of the rep. So I'd get myself positioned up where I was almost completely locked out and then I would do an isometric hold at the top. Same thing again for time and then reset and do that four or five times. That helped and that's something different that I didn't do with pull-ups. Pull-ups I never really use isometrics as a strategy to improve my pull-ups but I did do that with dips and I did notice and I'm assuming that a lot of it does have to do with what you just alluded to, Justin, which is the range of motion and just having strength and control down there. Yeah, especially at the bottom. Yeah, how often are you ever in a position like that and so I think I was just so weak in that position that just getting in that position and then holding that position for extended period time and then trying to progress the time that I was doing the isometric hold did enough to build some strength there that I could actually get in and out of that. Totally and if you're really strong and you want to get even stronger at dips, you could do that with weight. Weighted, yes, and just a few reps I was going to mention. Exactly, so you could literally strap a dumbbell around your waist and do an isometric hold at the top with the weight that you wouldn't be able to do a rep with but you could hold yourself. So you jump up in a position, hold yourself for 15 seconds or 20 seconds. What a great way to get stronger and then if you're on the other end of the scale and you can't even do one dip and it's very challenging for you to even do one. Besides isometrics at the top which if you most people who can't do a dip can at least hold themselves at the top but if all that's too challenging what you do is you take resistance bands and put them around the bars so that it goes between both bars then you use a chair or a ladder yeah and then you put your knee on top of it or your foot on top of it so that it's assisting you. When you do dips every single day to practice them and get stronger you want the intensity to be not so high because you can't work out every single day but you can't practice them every day so the band assistance becomes more valuable so you have the band you put your knees on it or your foot and then do you know do you know three four reps throughout the whole day every time you walk by yeah do a few reps and I swear it it will blow you away at how fast you get stronger when you practice something frequently the first time I did this it was almost like I thought something was right I did this with bench press uh one time because I wanted my bench press to get up higher and a trainer did you know talk to me into doing this and I remember practicing with a light with a you know moderate load by the end of the week I was like wait a minute I feel like I'm way stronger just within a week. Yeah and I think this this seems like common knowledge and everybody would know to do this but also too like you know these dip bars will will narrow forward so you can actually like scoot forward and get a more narrow grip versus like out in the wide I remember having to explain that to a few people actually that uh you know had issues because you know the bars were set too wide for them uh you know to consider if that's an issue to kind of scoot forward and get a more of a narrow uh grip with that. Yeah but it's it's one exercise that I think uh like pull-ups it's such a a staple movement and if you get good at them you get really good upper body development from from doing dips I don't and I don't see enough people incorporate them in their routine at least not like pull-ups like everybody does pull-ups not everybody does dips but I definitely think it should be up there. Next question is from Moe Strengthgains what are the benefits of elevating the heels in a squat is it ever preferential versus working on ankle mobility? Yeah there's two reasons why someone will elevate their heels one is because their ankle mobility prevents them from doing a good full squat and so they remedy the problem or should I say put a band-aid on the problem by elevating their heels a little bit so squat shoes will do this a little bit uh or you'll see people will put back in the day they used to use like a two by four they would put under their heels so that's one reason the other reason is you may have great ankle mobility you may not have an issue squatting with a full squat with good control not stuff but you still may want to elevate your heel sometimes because doing so places more emphasis on the quads you can actually take an exercise like a squat I love to do this and elevate your heels and now because of the way that it changes your your center of gravity it keeps you more upright you're going to get more knee extension right and you'll get more quad focus um and yeah I I do this sometimes specifically for that because I want to feel it more in my quads I mean that's how I do it now I mean if I if you see my heels elevated the intent is that I just want to put more emphasis on the quads and just get like a massive quad pump from it it's not a bad strategy when teaching a client to who you know they lack the ankle mobility but you want to teach them good depth and range of motion on a squat yeah so I used to do it for that right so if I had a client who has had limiting ankle mobility but I wanted them to get all the way down in a deep squat and practice that full range of motion I'd get them there and then I would explain why I have your heels elevated and why you're able to get down like the reason why we can't get all the way down without me doing this is because you lack the ankle mobility so the goal is for us to get to a place where we could do that so I mean it's a it's a it's a it's a tool it's another tool that you can use in the gym and there's there's value to it I think the thing that you just got to be careful of is I there was a trend for a quite a while there where people were doing that because it was the only way they could squat they couldn't they couldn't squat past 90 degrees without elevating their heels and so they would they would elevate the heels just so they could get down and I think there's nothing wrong with that so long as you're using it as a tool and not a crutch yeah I like to do the same and just use that as a reveal to show that they can actually achieve that depth and then from there it's it's work alongside that in terms of being able to address the ankle mobility and then start scaling down the height you know of that platform and so you know I've used that as a tool as well to kind of you know gradually progress them down towards full range of motion yeah a few of my favorite heel elevated quad exercises are front squats with the heels elevated goblet squats that one Adam showed me with heels elevated which was man I got a crazy pump that's a great one from doing that and then safety bar squats because the safety bar is obviously so much higher so it already encourages you have more kind of an upright posture and then I'll elevate my heels and man I tell you I get such a great quad pump in fact for people who have an imbalance or let's say they want to work on their aesthetics and their quads just aren't developing this is a little bit more rare but sometimes people they'll do squats and stuff and their butt will grow but their quads don't really respond try doing a lot of these squat movements with your heels elevated you would be it completely in my opinion it completely changes the feel of the exercise and really gets it you know squarely on the quads as far as the ankle mobility is concerned you know the goal should be to achieve be able to achieve a good squat with your feet not needing or your ankles not needing a crutch with you know your heels being elevated because that's your most natural position right is to be barefoot so you want to be able to do it barefoot without having to elevate your heels so if you're if you need to elevate your heels then you should definitely spend some time working on ankle mobility because you'd be better off being able to do it without having your heels elevated and then you elevate your heels if you just want to change the exercise next question is from nick fulcman what exercise helps improve knee pain and functionality you know back in the day i would focus on the knee joint whenever somebody had issues with the knee joint so this someone would tell me oh my knees hurt when i squat or you know when i lunge and i would look at the it band and i would look at you know the knee function and okay you know did you get any imaging done there's a conglomeration under the kneecap and blah blah blah hips and ankle later on exactly later on it really i started to figure out that it had way more to do with the ankle and hips than it did with the knee because the knee joint i mean it bends and it extends that's it doesn't it doesn't rotate it doesn't bend laterally i mean if it's got ligaments in there actually to prevent it from doing anything other than flexing and extending but the ankle moves all kinds of different directions the foot moves in lots of different directions you know not not even just the ankle just the foot and so does the hip so if the ankle and the hip and the foot lack strength and stability in any of the directions that the knee doesn't move then all that support is going straight to those ligaments of the knee that prevent it from doing that and then you start to think about how much pressure the knee is taking on constantly with gravitational forces going straight down you know where's the weak link in the kinetic chain you know it's going to take on a lot of stress and now if it's taking on a lot of those it's not tracking properly like any little thing is isn't you know you don't have proper mobility your ankles or your hips are rotating like they normally could and the knee has to kind of adjust to that it's going to add all that excessive pressure to an already stressed out joint now there's obviously there's value in building all the muscles that surround the knee right so your quads and hamstrings and your calves like having strong muscles that are around your knee support the knee too so there's there's tremendous value that I remember when I tore my ACL and MCL and the doctor was so blown away on the how stable I still was even without with losing those those ligaments but that was because of all the muscle that I had developed around it so there's obvious value in building the muscles around but when I think of clients that would complain of knee problems to your point cell yeah it's it's almost always related to poor you know hip mobility and or ankle mobility and then the knee is just carrying all the stress and so that's the first place that I go now if someone complains about their knees we're going to look right away to the hips and the ankle and address there nine out of ten times nine out of ten times is what I find the issue I mean think about it this way you know there's a submission in jujitsu called a heel hook where somebody takes your they have they trap your leg and they hook around your your essentially your heel and then they twist your leg and it looks like you're attacking the foot but the reality is the the joint that gets damaged in a heel hook is the knee because imagine this for a second so here's the knee joint right and the knee joint flexes and extends that's it and there are things that prevent it from twisting and sliding and bending laterally and let's say somebody grabs your ankle and starts to twist your leg to the outside well what's going to happen is your hip is going to allow your leg to twist but what happens when the hip runs out of room let's say you're too tight and you can't twist anymore well now the pressure is going to the knee more torque yeah right on the knee and it's the meniscus holding things together but that can only do so much and then the meniscus eventually tears or gets strained so when you have knee problems and knee pain it's almost always in my experience because your hips and your ankles just aren't doing what they're supposed to I mean the knee cap tracks supposed to track nicely in this groove well if it's always pushing to the side laterally because your hips aren't doing what they're supposed to your ankles aren't doing what they're supposed to well now your knee cap is tracking kind of weird maybe at first you don't feel any pain but you'll work out this way you'll walk this way you go on hikes next thing you know they're like man my knee always bothers me like what the hell's going on then you go to the doctor they do some imaging and they go oh the bottom of your knee cap it's all chewed up we need to go in there and clean it up so they go in there they clean up all the pieces or whatever and you feel a little better but you never fix the root cause and so then you end up with the same problem again and then eventually you have to get a knee replacement or whatever so it's all about the surrounding joints that are way more mobile than the knee joint and if they don't have the support and strength your knee joint all those ligaments and tendons and all that cartilage holding itself together but over time you end up developing lots of problems and inflammation and a lot of times you'll feel you'll feel this in your it and this is where I didn't fully grasp this as a trainer when I first I thought oh this I have these knots in my it that's and it runs in the front of patella and so when I would foam roll the it it would relieve the knee and then my knee wouldn't bother me and so I blamed it on the it all time and then I'd get clients that would buy oh it's your it's your it and you know and then I'd foam roll them and then they'd feel relief and they'd be like oh wow you know and so I thought I was addressing the issue but what was happening was how all I really was doing was giving them a little bit of instant relief and the reason why their it was so tight was because of the lack of mobility and strength and control in the hip it was doing what it was supposed to do is protecting that's right you know the joints that's right yeah your body's smart with that stuff and yeah you have to trace it back to the root and this is why it's important to have standards in terms of alignment in an optimal alignment so your joint can travel the way it's supposed to so to be able to find your way back to that optimal alignment position is something that you know we should always kind of be looking at yeah no great point and what we need to understand is that our joints really we evolved or were designed to last you a lifetime so you know what does that mean what that means is when you do things properly right so although our bodies are kind of like machines they're actually a little different than machines a machine if you use it over and over again you start to get wear and tear over time well the human bodies there's this interesting dichotomy going on where when you move a joint but you do it right and you strengthen it it actually heals itself and becomes stronger and replenishes itself so somebody who does proper exercise even though they're using their joints more than somebody who's sedentary the person who exercises has healthier joints so this belief that oh yeah i got bad joints because i've been working out for 30 years no you've got bad joints because you've been working out wrong for 30 years there's movement patterns that are wrong that have been happening and your joints haven't been working optimally and you're right adam and 100 when something is tight when your shoulders tight your back is tight your it band is tight what your body is literally trying to do is just trying to minimize movement by tightening the muscles because it senses that something's not moving right and just loosening up those muscles will make you feel better temporarily but you're not solving the root cause at all well that's how you know you have a good trainer is that they may foam roll you but then the work's not done right so if you foam roll and then you would go over to something that works on the mobility in the hip so and strengthens and can in gets control and stability there in the hip so if you just foam roll and to give yourself temporary relief then you go about your normal exercise routine then you're going to keep you're going to be in that constant which is where i was for a long time for every every time yeah it was a foam roll that before every training session and i had to just to give myself enough relief to go train legs and stuff and not realizing that i wasn't addressing the root cause which was related to the instability of my hip next question is from the real ration is occlusion training a waste of time or does it have a place in a routine to insert intermittent hell no it's not a waste of time man this is one of those weird like this is the last time that i can remember where i heard something in fitness that was super weird and i was really skeptical and then it turned out to be true it has a lot of value you know it was a weird it was the very first mine pump tip that i ever gave on episode one oh was it yeah i recently watched that this one never aired right this was the one that we did with craig caperso years years ago before mine pump started i was the one at the house right yeah yeah we're at the house and you sal talked about the decline of testosterone and young men and then i brought occlusion training and at that time it was so new and we were all kind of questioning it and talking about the science to support it and then kind of applying it ourselves but i found tremendous value in it um the the only thing that i would caution people of is that it's uh there's so much value in it that you can start to neglect traditional strength training which i don't think that it trumps traditional strength training i think it's a nice excuse me it's a nice supplement to it uh but if you start to replace your traditional strength training and you start doing mostly occlusion training i think you'll you'll lose some of the benefits that you would get from it yeah so essentially how it works is you you tie off a limb and you you tie off enough not so much that you lose feeling but you tie off enough so that you occlude blood outflow right so i if i do it to my arm right i'd go in my upper arm and knee wraps are usually what you would use and you do some curls and blood gets into the muscle but less blood comes out of the muscle because it's occluded and so you start to get this really deep intense burn burns extreme and this extreme pump like it's an extreme pump like you've never experienced before but it's also very painful and what happens is it simulates heavy training to the body so even though you're using and you can't use heavy weight with this because when the burn kicks in you you lose function you're just all of a sudden like oh my god i can't do another rep but what it does is it actually stimulates the fast twitch muscle fibers in a similar way to heavy weight so what are the and also the extreme pump itself probably induces some some muscle growth so what are the benefits of this well the benefits are i can train with really light weight and and actually get a decent muscle building signal man talk about the value for someone that's injured right that's where this this originally came from yes was with athletes and i want to say it was hockey was what they they first started doing this research around hockey players with like knee injuries so uh i mean i didn't i didn't know about occlusion training as a trainer this wasn't until mind pump it started did i get introduced to this um but boy i would have used the shit out of it as a as a trainer because many times i had clients fresh off of going through physical therapy and i had to do really really lightweight and slow and controlled type of stuff with them and had i understood or knew about occlusion training back then i would have found it as an incredible tool as a trainer and coach for rehabbing a client so yeah if you want to minimize impact on the joints great like it's a great rehab tool uh to be able to still address you know muscle hypertrophy uh and also i look at it too there's it's interesting because you said like exercise it sort of mimics you know uh some exercise so i'm thinking too of of like a sauna same thing like they you know how how your body heats up and then uh you know you get all the benefits of that it simulates uh basically some of the benefits you get from exercise in your body naturally heating up uh and producing uh you know these benefits yeah now now self experimentation because when we first started the show and when you talked about this adam you and i went through this period where we were just messing with it just to see what it would do and the body part that i was most consistent using it on was my calves because historically my calves have been very stubborn uh they just didn't you know don't respond like the rest of my body i know adam you know same thing and here's what i noticed from it like my calves which basically we're not going to grow i mean i know i trained them and that was it they were stuck i added almost a quarter of an inch to them by adding occlusion oh so i that's where i saw the same benefit which is amazing i'll send andrew i actually have a picture of you and i uh doing a calf flex off oh my god in the original studio when we were actually doing this so um that's i've i've used it mostly i've used it for my arms too but um i saw the most value with my calves at being able to add volume without doing as much damage to the to the muscle right now you guys gained a few more veins i remember yeah yeah fuck off dude yeah whatever kinkles kinkles andrew's i i now here's the deal uh i i experimented with it a lot i even had some clients do it you can overdo it you can definitely overdo it and over train it should not replace your traditional training i don't think you should use it until you've built up a good amount of volume and frequency and normal training it doesn't make any sense because it's still not as effective as traditional training but let's say you've reached a particular point you're hitting your your sweet spot you've been working out consistently for a while you've got good volume good frequency and you want to add one more little trick just kind of squeeze out a little bit more muscle growth or shape uh in my experience throwing it in once a week was plenty once or twice a week and i would literally do three sets that's it any more than that i noticed then then it would start to take away and i'd have to like replace traditional exercises in which case it didn't make any sense i did it for i experimented for quads hamstrings calves and arms the downside is you can't occlude really the torso so i can't do it for chest or back or you know you could it wouldn't go over too well i don't know how the hell you would tie off your neck you know yeah how would you do that but it it's very very painful you have never felt a burn i mean it is literally unbearable i when i'm done with the set i rip the things off and yeah i mean it's another great tool right kind of like similar to the question about the elevated hills thing i shouldn't replace traditional strength training but i found tremendous value in complimenting my traditional routine and then had i known about it as a trainer and coach back when i was training clients for sure i would have used this a lot because i trained a lot i mean a lot of your clients dealt with pain and surgery i think that was uh very very common as a trainer to get clients like that and so had i known about occlusion training back then it would probably have been something i used on a fairly regular basis with clients oh yeah think about it like you know you know i when i work out let's say if i squat it's probably with 300 pounds right but let's say i have knee injury i you know getting a workout with body weight now for me would be very difficult it's too light but if i occlude myself oh yeah i bet body weight i could i could you know send a little bit of a muscle building signal because even with body weight the burn and everything would be insane and my muscles would eventually fatigue and fail very quickly so it's a valuable tool i would say use it once a week maybe twice a week only after well we wrote a guide for this we do we have a guide that explains it and i think we did a youtube video didn't we do a youtube video yeah we've done a couple youtube videos and then we have a full guide on how to the sets and reps and how we would actually implement it exactly all right look uh if you like our information you got to head over to mind pump free dot com we have so much free content there that can help you build muscle develop your body burn body fat sculpt your abs get better squats we even have guides for personal trainers again it's mind pump free dot com you can get them all and they cost nothing you can also find all of us on social media so you can find justin at mind pump justin me at mind pump sal and adam at mind pump adam