 Yes, it's true on a gram per gram basis, animal protein is better. That being said, if you do use a plant protein, how would you try to get ones that have multiple sources of plant proteins? They tend to be complementary. In other words, some have some higher amounts of certain amino acids, lower amounts of other amino acids, and combining them with other plant proteins tends to fill the gaps. At the end of the day, if you get a protein powder that's plant-based, make sure it has multiple sources of plant proteins, it's probably going to be better for games. This all, of course, is negated if your protein intake is just super high, right? So if you're eating a lot of protein, then the sources don't make a difference. But for most people who are not eating the, you know, 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, then the protein type makes a difference. Again, with plant proteins, you'll find like some plant proteins are too low in, let's say, leucine or isoleucine or another amino acid, and then you complement it with other plant proteins that are higher in those, but lower in others. So they tend to be, you know, they tend to complement each other. Do you know what the most popular vegan protein source is? In terms of if they're going to go one source, is it pee? Or is it? It is now. Yeah. Yeah, pee protein by itself, if you're to compare. That's changed over time? It has, right? So if you're going to compare singular sources of plant proteins, pee protein is probably the one of the better ones. It used to be soy. Soy used to be the one that the go to. And then soy got a bad rap because of the potential zenoestrogen, you know, type deal, which was overblown, I think, in many cases. I think if you just had soy all the time, and that's all you had, then maybe, but infermented soy seems to not have the same effect that they find with the other types. But yeah, but yeah, I was like brown rice protein and pee protein seemed to be the most common. Now it's like they're adding. Is it from algae? There was another source that they're getting protein for. Is that like for? I haven't seen that. Okay. I haven't seen that. Okay. Yeah. I think the other thing is taste because like whey is pretty neutral. So you can have like chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, plant proteins aren't so neutral. Like pee protein is tough. Like pee protein chocolate tastes kind of like. I'm not a fan. Like you mowed the lawn. Yeah, exactly. And then shaving. So when I eat, like so when I use the organified vegan protein powder, I make my fruity shakes. So I find that like the berry like strawberries, blueberries, bananas tend to that the kind of tardy flavors mix better with vegan proteins. And then I think like, if I want something more savory, like if I do like, you know, if I use any sort of chocolate or peanut butter or something like that, then I like whey. Or if I just want it like straight, like his way, straight vanilla or chocolate whey to me, tastes really good. It's fine. Yeah. Yeah, but that being said, I mean, this was this was, I mean, we've been organified for how long we've been with them now? Six years? Five years? No, six or seven years. Six or seven years. Okay. It's been a long time. One of the selling points, because there's a whole long process when we work with the company, we have to take the products, like the products, meet the people, like the people, look at their business, you know, this is just like, we don't just work with anybody. But one of the selling points was their, their protein is vegan and it actually, I mean, compared to other vegan proteins, tastes good. Yeah. I have not had a vegan protein that tastes anywhere near good like theirs. And I've had a lot because I can't do whey. I can't do the dairy based ones and vegan, and you guys know me, I'll take any, if it's a supplement, whatever, I'll take it, but I still feel like I can't taste it. Vegan proteins are terrible, disgusting, typically. And theirs isn't bad, but they use a mix. So if you look at the types of, of proteins, the plants that they use, they use a blend and a blend is better because they tend to compliment each other. Like, so when you're a vegan, if you're going a whole food based vegan, which is the best type of a vegan diet, it's whole food based, just like it's the best type of omnivore diet, right? Whole food based. The challenge though is that vegans have to be more careful with how they combine their foods and where they get their nutrients because vegan sources of nutrients sometimes aren't as easily absorbed or harder to find. Like vitamin D, vegan sources of vitamin D don't absorb as well as like, let's say like that vitamin D you get from animal sources or the B vitamins, stuff like that. So you want to combine and source and just be more careful. And then proteins, you want to combine protein sources, like with animal sources, I could have just all beef or all chicken or all dairy, and I'm going to get good quality protein with vegan sources that you typically want to mix them together to get that. So it, you know, that holds true for protein powders too. If you're getting a vegan source of protein powder, look at the back and if it's just like brown rice protein or just pea protein or just you, you probably want to go with one that has, you know, three, four, five different sources so that you can get a better amino acid profile. And again, this doesn't matter if you eat a ton of protein. If you're eating your grandma protein per pound of body weight, then it really doesn't make, it doesn't make a difference. You're getting plenty of all the amino acids, but most people don't do that. Most people don't hit those. Yeah, I find this whole conversation overblown. I really do. I find that like we get into this, this, the, all the nuances of the different types of protein powders and making the cases of what's, what's worthless, what's more, what's better for this. What's, it's like, at the end of the day, the advice is really easy. It's like, do your best to get all of your protein, whether you're a vegan or an omnivore, get all of your protein sources from whole natural foods. If and only if you can't do that or you struggle in that day, use a protein. And hit those high targets. Yeah. And hit those high targets. Exactly. Hit your, hit your, hit your macros, hit your macros, do it through whole foods, whether you're a vegan or omnivore, it doesn't matter. Do your best to get it through whole foods. And if you don't, that's where you utilize your shake, get the best, get the best quality shake that you can and, and that you enjoy and that you'll actually use. So have you guys ever, have you guys had, because I've had a few clients like this, not a ton, but I've had a few clients that just they just, they refuse. They just couldn't get anywhere near the high protein targets that are optimal, like, and not even halfway there. It was just low. Like I had a guy, I had a guy that I worked with who, he was vegan. He didn't want to supplement with protein powders that much or whatever. And this, he was a 180 pound dude and he was getting like 65, 70 grams a day. And he didn't, he didn't want to just, we just couldn't change it. We couldn't. So I had him add a little bit of protein powder or I'd have him add brand shaming of acids. Huge, because his protein was so low, right? Huge difference in his performance and recovering strength. It like to the point where he was like, what are you giving me? This is making. Yeah, I had a client like that that was vegan and was trying really hard to get it from natural sources and from all the vegetables and fruit and everything else. And it was just like almost impossible to get, you know, the daily standard for protein. And so to convince him to supplement with protein powder was like a big step. But then it was like, it made a humongous difference. Otherwise it's like, yeah, it was it was, man, like the amount of volume in order to get the protein levels up was insane. Well, if you're a man or a woman and you're only eating on a regular day, 60 to 90 grams of protein and I give you a 30, 40 gram protein shake, you're talking about game changer. Yeah, you're increasing your protein intake by a third. I mean, that's a huge that's a significant difference. I think that's actually part of what perpetuates this whole argument about how all the superiority of certain protein powders and whether so amazing why people think they're considered like a health food themselves is because I'm sure many people who don't really track, pay attention to. They fall in that category. They fall in that category where all of a sudden they start taking a shake and wow, they're building muscle and they weren't building muscle before. And it's like, well, yeah, you were. There was a deficit there. Yeah, there was a massive deficit there. And then all of a sudden you give it a little bit in the right direction and your body responds to you. I mean, I'm this way, right? So when I, when I'm inconsistent with my training and diet, I just naturally gravitate to more starchy carb type foods. And even though I love meat, like eating two or three meals with a eight ounce piece of meat is still not enough protein for me. Three meals, eight ounces, eight ounces of meat, you're talking about maybe 35 grams per meal times three. I mean, that's 105 grams. I'm a 230 pound dude. That's not enough for me. So and that's and that's that would be a good day. All meals have a balanced eight ounce piece of meat. There might be a day where I skipped one of those meals, only two meals. Yeah. And I and even if I went 12 ounce and 12 ounce, I'm still significantly under. So I mean, and then so if I were to add a protein shake in there, I would feel and see a significant difference. This is true for all essential nutrients, by the way, I had this conversation with my son. I'm like, you need to drink more water. He's like, well, I drink when I'm thirsty, so I'm fine. I said, OK, there's a difference between what is essential. So you're not going to die. Right. OK. But then there's also minimum. But then there's optimal difference. There's a gap between essential and optimal. And all nutrients are like this. There's essential. There's optimal. And then there's also a lot of people also don't even get essential. Yeah, then there's deficient. Yeah. So like all nutrients, zinc, vitamin D, magnesium, vitamin C, and then you can consider proteins and fats there. Those are essential. Sometimes people are below even what's essential. Then they supplement and it's like you gave them a magic drug. I've had clients like this where we do we do we try to figure out what's going on, why they feel a certain way, whatever. And then we do some tests like, oh, your zinc is low. They supplement with zinc and it's like so life changing to them that they become evangelists for zinc. They tell everybody to take zinc and I'm like, listen, if you're low in zinc, it makes this difference. Taking more than you need isn't going to do anything. So with people with protein, it's like you ask the average person, do you eat enough protein? They'll be like, yeah. Oh, really? What do you eat for breakfast? Well, I have two eggs. So there's protein. What do you have for? Oh, I have like deli meat, deli sandwich. And oh, what about dinner? Oh, I have a chicken salad. Yeah, you do the math. You're like, you had 70 grams. Yeah. Yeah. You had 70 grams protein and some women I would have 40. Yeah. 40 in a day. And I'm like, no, no, no. Trust me, if we just add one shake, like one scoop, it's going to be a mind blowing. And then, of course, they become evangelists for protein thinking that it's magic. It's like, no, you were eating way too low. All right, today's program giveaway maps anabolic advanced. Here's how you can win. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop it. Also subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comment section that you want access to maps anabolic. Also, we got a sale going on right now in two programs. Maps anabolic, the original and map split, both 50% off. If you're interested, just click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, here comes the rest of the show. Anyway, speaking of your consistency, Adam, this is terrible. This is a fuck off. I saw you walking funny. You know, it's you know, it's crazy when I was thinking about what's going on, dude. I fucking hurt myself. So it's so stupid. Why are you hurt yourself? I always enjoy. He does, he does. Just when you thought you were going to catch me, ha, ha, ha. That's what that is. No, no, I hate it when you get hurt. I hate it. I don't like it. I don't want you to get hurt. But it's a boy with an opportunity to make money. Well, first of all, it's remember, I talked a long time ago on the show that I when we were talking to one of our episodes and we were talking about the importance of water. And I said, you know, I connected a long time ago that if I was dehydrated, I would always pull this quad muscle. So it's the same one? Same one, same one. And it'll always be what I'm doing like real heavy squats when I have an explode out of the hole or something. And it feels like it pops or it pulls. And then I'm pretty much down and out on my leg for about a week or so. And normally the day after or whatever, two days after I got a little bit of a limp from it. It's not, I know it's not a major tear because it heals. And it's, but it's the same thing. And I always notice it and it's always been connected to this dehydration. So yesterday, it's Easter and stuff, Easter Sunday where we decide we're going to play some family waffle ball, which sounds great. Problem is, yeah, I was doing the brisket all day. I skipped meals and all right, the only calories I consumed was alcohol. Hard alcohol and beer is all I've been consuming all afternoon. And it's the hottest day we've had all year. So I'm out in the sun. No, no water. Nothing but alcohol. And it was nothing. I mean, I literally, the ball was dehydration and I like moved to the moved like slightly explode. They'd be like real explosively, like kind of just a little fast. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, I played it off, though, like they didn't know. Like I didn't make a big deal. Yeah, totally. Because I don't want to be like, oh, I'm out already. We just started. And I'm like, so I like played the rest of the family members are like jumping totally, totally like that. So but yeah, you know, you know, alcohol, too, what it also does because it it's a dehydrates you. Well, no, besides that, it reduces inhibition. Oh, so you're also less. Your body's also less inhibited to prevent you. Yeah, from doing shit. Because I worked out one time in my life, I worked out a little drunk and I pulled a lap muscle. And I know why it's because my body's like the governors are a little off. Totally. Yeah, no. And you know, what's funny was I even kind of felt it. I was telling Katrina like I could feel like my neck was like tense, like my leg just didn't feel right. And I still still played anyways. And I just thought in my head like, I just won't go hard. But just that little bit of a movement and I did that. And you know what really sucks. And I'm glad I had good momentum going into this because this is to me how this is a classic example of how one falls off, right? Great rhythm right now. Have a stupid little injury like that. Not crazy. Probably sent me back a week. But here we go. We go. Then I roll into a holiday weekend. So there's drinking and maybe poor food choices. Then what do we go in two days? Two days we get on a plane and fly out of state for three three or four days. And and now I'm also nursing an injury and it's like, man, this is real. This is like right when those those moments tend to have a wonderful opportunity because I'm probably going to work out while we're over there. So you're going to I'm sure you're going to join me then do some extra. Oh, I'm definitely not stopping like I'm training today. You have to come to Justin. I'm just going to have to back off my just can't sleep in, bro. I'll film you again. I'll just back off the legs for like a week a week or so, which I mean, it's here's the thing. I was I was do. I was like leg extension, leg curls, if you can. And yeah, actually, leg extension would hurt worse. That's right where it's right. Yeah, so that would hurt more. Is it on the inner? Yeah, it's like just barely. You know, it's really it's a really muscle called. Is that Gracilis? I don't know if you get a massage on that one. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys share a room for that. Doug and I share a room. You guys share a room every time. So you'll be helping Justin has Justin's hands are chapped, though. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it doesn't feel the same as your dog's guy. Doug has the smoothest hands. Yeah. Yeah. I have magic fingers. We are. Damn, that sucks. Yeah. But you know, like I said, I was I was out of major injuries. It's not. It's not a major. I felt it. I was enough to like kind of back off. And so I am limping around today yesterday and I probably will be till tomorrow. But it takes and I've been here before it takes about a week to start feeling where I can start training or leg extensions. So you know what's weird about this? This is a good discussion because everybody's experiences where you have this one area that you if you're going to get hurt, you tend to get hurt here. And I'm not talking about like I understand when you have a joint problem and then the joint itself has some mechanical issues or there's some tissue there. That's not like you have a slightly torn meniscus or you dislocate your shoulder a bunch of time. So there's the groove that holds in the humerus is off or whatever. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about like the same muscle. Like I have in my up, like in my mid back, right in the thoracic area on my left side. If I hurt my upper mid back and there's an area I'll pop and it's the same damn place. So I have a theory around. Do you have anything like that? I have the same in my QL on the left side. OK, and it always just aggravates. OK, so here's my here's my thoughts because I get it if there's like a structural issue so that I'll tend to keep getting re-injured. I get that and it doesn't go away. I understand that. But you'll hear about this with like a muscle, which should be totally fine. So what I think that happens is I think that there's there's a physiological thing that happens when you get hurt. Muscle pulls inflammation. It heals. Muscles healed. No, physiologically, we cannot now look and see if there's anything wrong with it. We could look at it. We examine it, biopsy it totally fine. And yet same muscle will get hurt again another time. I think there's also a psychological injury, a psychological memory of that injury. And you move ever slow, slightly different than on out unless you fix that psychological whatever it is. That's my theory because why would that same muscle over and over and over? In other words, you create some kind of a pattern and even though the muscle gets better triggers the same governing response. Oh, I think there's something there. I think I think I don't think it's all physiological. I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't argue that either because I definitely think it's all connected like that. Although I think that it's more so like an overcompensation like so what I know about my left side if if I were to like getting like you can't see this and average person can't see as I can see it's my body and I know and I can feel and see this. I have this real slight like if I go into a deep heavy squat, my left foot will just barely move out to the left. So I know I get a little bit of overcompensation on this on this left side. So when I when I have a little bit of an imbalance when I do that, even with all the work I put in stuff like that, it's just it's just always this is my area of this. So and then I've been training heavy and hard lately with with squats and deads and everything right now. And so I think that I just been overcompensating on this side more than anything. And then I go and do something that I'm completely not trained for. I have not trained any reactive explosive type of movement plus the combination of the hydration. And so it's just the recipe for guarantee that's going. So so so with that, I think that in some cases, not all cases that there is not a structural or physiological reason for that compensation, rather psychological. In other words, you have a memory of that injury and unconscious subconscious part of its conscious part of its subconscious that maybe that injury always bothers you always stops in your tracks. Maybe it stopped you from doing something that was really awesome for you or you've just had it so many times that you've created this CNS memory that now creates this pattern. And until that gets fixed, you're never truly healed because you see this so often with people with these strange reoccurring injuries. So yeah, I think there is a movement pattern that's happening that's slightly different, but it may not be because of anything structural or physiological, rather psychological. I've been going through lately as my feet have been really bothering me in terms of like doing activities like that where I'm moving super fast or whatever. Like cause I always, I converted at one point to shoes that were flat and like don't give you any support and like are flexible on some level cause it's like I wanna be able to move and function my toes and be able to ground. And like when I was snowboarding, my boots just, the first thing that was fatigued on me and my feet would just burn up and I had to like sit out and a few runs and I'm like, dude, why am I such a bitch? Like why are my feet just not working for me anymore? You're so mean to yourself. And it was just so frustrating. And then like the same thing. So I just over the weekend took Ethan and his friends was like eight of his friends. We went paintballing and with Everett and I was wearing these old shoes cause you wanna wear all old clothes. You're gonna get destroyed, you know? And so I'm wearing these shoes that were like paper thin and I'm running and, you know, shooting kids which is really fun. Let me tell you, it's like, it should be illegal. But like, you know, it was like two adults and we're just like destroying all these kids, you know? It felt wrong, it really did. But it was fun. But good at the same time. But it was good. Yeah. It definitely filled some weird psychotic, you know, need that I had. And so my feet were on fire again and I'm like, oh my God, my feet are just killing me. So I'm like, I might actually start if I'm like running faster, accelerating I might start to be wearing shoes now look into ones with more support. New balance I heard makes it good. Yeah. Maybe I finally need to convert to the dad shoe. That's what I'm getting at. That sucks. Hey, the comfortable. I'm here. Yeah. I'm here you guys. Grass stains on it, you're good to go. Yeah, I don't know. It's an interesting conversation. I've had clients before. I definitely, I 100% get behind that theory for sure with some stuff. I definitely think. Yeah, I know, right? Yeah, yeah. But I mean like talk to, I know Katrina's told you this where a massage therapist, a really good one will work on someone, they'll find a nod or whatever you want to call it, right? Where they're tight, they'll press on it and the person will get an emotion. They'll cry. Or they'll laugh. Or something strange. They have store emotion in there. Yeah, no, if you want to, I mean you want to be entertained with that stuff the last, like we talked about the last time you can ask her, different parts of your body represents different, like one part represents finances, one is the female side, one is the male side. So she'll rub, she'll rub me and if she feels tension on one side or the other, she will, she'll question me like that. She'll go like, who are you getting an argument with that's a male or who, yeah, who have you been like, she'll be questioning me like that as she's rubbing me. So you really want to get tripped out by that type of stuff. So when you, when you're, when you're just trying to get she's like, get out of lie or something. Yeah, of course. Hey, so what were you doing last time? I take the fifth on everything, bro. I'm like, just rub me. I'm not fucking answering anything. Oh, I didn't do anything, honey. Just fix it. Just fix me. Yes. So I mean, they've said what like in the fascia is responsible for holding something. But also too, like I was just watching the show. I think it was, it's human, what lies beneath or something on Netflix and they were talking about the amygdala and how like basically the amygdala like also like carries a lot of this emotion, you know, through the nervous system based on like how you respond. Really fascinating show though, they had like one new breakthrough technology where the guy had like a missing an arm and this, I guess these researchers found that you could, you could basically put a sensor to connect to the existing nerves that used to be responsible for the hand that gives you that phantom limb kind of sensation. They're able to connect to that. Is so basically like the hand that they gave him had sensation. He could feel. He could actually feel like how hard to clasp but not just open clothes and the function of it but also like the touch of it. You can feel it. Yeah, so this is what I'm trying to say. You can't, here's the problem is we try to separate the brain and the mind from the body. You can't at the same extension. Phantom limb syndrome is a perfect example for people who aren't familiar with that. It's like somebody will lose an arm and they literally feel like they still have an arm. It's just in tremendous pain and there's nothing you could do about it. Pain killer is nothing you could do about it. Somebody invented something called a mirror box which actually solves a lot of these issues but you can't separate them. So I, you know, Jessica had a shoulder, when I first met her, she had injured her shoulder doing the silks. So that's where she learned how to do that when she used to travel with the circus. And it was a life-changing physical experience for her. It taught her she was athletic, she could be physical. She'd never done anything like that before, built lots of confidence. She was exceptional at it, loved it, overdid it, hurt her shoulder, couldn't do it anymore for a while. So she probably had developed some kind of trauma from it like, fuck, I can't do this thing anymore. Shoulder bothered her, she meets me. We do all this correctional exercise over and I'm doing this stuff with her. I'm like, you've got great shoulder function. Everything was working fine. This is very strange. And I suggested this to her at one point and I remember she was like thinking about it, working on it and then it went, it like literally disappeared. Like it just went away. And I remember her texting me like, the pain is gone and it's because I thought about the fact that maybe it was related to the psychological aspect of it or whatever. So I, you know, I think, and by the way, they've done this with therapy where people have back pain or neck pain or people with sexual trauma will have pain and then they'll go through therapy and the pain will go away. So this is- You wonder what that percentage looks like, you know, an average of like, how much of it's psychological versus physiological. It's gotta be a massive spectrum. Yeah, exactly. It's gotta be a massive spectrum. Somebody who's like, I mean, I imagine somebody who has more like a hypochondriac, right, like they're probably, and they- More sensitive. More sensitive, right? They get more in their head on the psychological side. Somebody who's not probably the other side and there's probably everything in the middle of that. I think it's not a black or white. I think it's everybody, but more on some, just like you said, more on the other. So I don't know, man. Sorry, you hurt yourself. Yeah, no, I mean, it's again- Not rubbing your leg though. I think I think I'll be all right. But what made me really frustrated was thinking about, wow, like the timing of going into a weekend of Easter and then a week where we travel, you know what I'm saying? It's like, man, that's really what sets you up for these like setbacks. Like right on, right in a nice rhythm right now. It's a perfect storm. Oh yeah. I really think that these are the most important times too, which is how I'll approach this week is like, man, if I thought I was good last week or the week before, I'm going to dial in even tighter this week because I know I have a challenge and it's like, I know it'll get easier on the other side if I, once I get past it. If you can stay consistent during the hardship, then you should. Yeah, 100%. That's why I always liked that. That's where I had that hack that I shared where when I began looking at weekends as like when the weekend and then it always set the tone for my week. Because the weeks were easy. I'm in a routine. I get up at a certain time. I work certain hours. It's like, those are my most routine days. It's weekends that are always different and up in the air. And so if I could win the weekend, it always set the tone for the week. You mentioned Easter. How'd you guys Easter, by the way? It was good, dude. Now you hosted. I did and I did my first brisket. Okay. So you sent pictures. Yeah. Was it as good as it looked? Because it looked incredible. Yeah. The family liked it. I'm pretty, I'm, I think Doug and I are like this where I'm pretty hard on myself when it comes to, like I have high standards for my, my, my. You did the whole deal, like hours and hours and hours. Yeah. Eight, almost 18 hours, right? Total. No, it was like 13, 14, 15. Did you wake up at 5 a.m.? No, I did the whole day before. The whole day before. So I started, I started at 11, 11 p.m. the day before. I got up at 4 a.m. to check it, got up at 6 a.m. again to check it. Oh my God. And then, and then transitioned it at 8 a.m., finished it by like about noon. And then we served it at like two. Oh my God. This whole time. So what, so what is, what's going on the whole time? It's just slowly cooking. Yeah. It's a slow, it's a slow smoke, right? And it was my first time. So that was the only reason why I was getting up. I was just nervous. Like you leave something on the grill overnight. I'm like, what if I run out of pellets? What if it gets down so cold that it cools the temp down? And then now I got it like so, you know, I was a little nervous. I didn't need to. I technically could have set it and left it and just let, and that's how I'll do it next time. I'll just let it be, right? So I was checking it a lot just to make sure everything was good because I mean, I was talking to Doug. I'm like, he's like, that's pretty ambitious to be hosting a party of 20 people in your first brisket. Like, I mean, everybody's counting on that being the main dish. Because brisket, you either do it right or it's gross. Oh yeah. I've never had in a movie. Yeah. You could really, you could really screw it up. And I don't think I did it all. The things that I found that were most challenging is that it was a big 16 pounder. It's huge, right? And I have had the literally half of it was this big fatty piece and then it like thinned out the other half of it. And so, you know, you want to take the temperature on the fattest part because you don't want to take it on the thin part and then pull it and then this thing's raw. All right. So you want the thickest part for sure cooked to the right temperature. I pulled it at about 195, 200 degrees, which is where you want to pull it. And that was just, that half was epic. I mean, like when I cut it, it's like when you see it on like the shows. Was it like when we went, when we go to Texas, when we went to Texas? I don't want to say I'm like at Franklin's or at law barbecue level yet, bro. That's like my first brisket. So, but I mean, it was, it was, it was better. Anything we got over here. Oh, good. I'll tell you right now. Like, yeah, it was better. Any brisket you buy over here, it wasn't quite Texas, you know, but yeah, you got to put the knife in it. And just as soon as I put the knife in, the juices squeeze out the middle. So it was, it was good, but there's things that I would have already, I'd go and do different, but it was a, it was a cool, cool experience. 20 people. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a big party. Yeah. That's Katrina's family. You know what I'm saying? Whenever we have her family, it's always a, dude, I was telling these guys, fucking we have two kids, right? Max and then my cousin, Daniel, Jerry's daughter, are the only two kids young enough to do eggs anymore. All the rest of us are all adults. And so because there's way more adults than there are kids hunting eggs and every adult brings an Easter basket for mass and brings toys for him, does the eggs. And we had 130 eggs for two kids. For two kids. Max had, Max had two, had to do two Easter baskets. He filled up this whole bucket and then he didn't get through opening half of them. He was already bored. Oh, that's hilarious. This is overkill, dude. That's hilarious. And so it's a weird, let's talk to my aunt and uncle, who grew up themselves incredibly conservative, raised their kids really conservative, lived off of one income and just, we were talking about like the pitfalls of just getting so much at such a young age. And it's like such a hard thing for me because, I mean, I literally can count on one hand, including clothes, okay? Including clothes, shoes and toys, how many things I've bought in my son. I've bought my son less than five things. Because everybody else. Because everybody else just buys so much stuff for him. He literally got. Maybe that's going to be his challenge when he grows up. Everybody bought me stuff with my dad. For sure. Yeah. My dad never got me anything. My dad never got me anything. Why did everybody buy me stuff? Oh God, don't say that. So good to be able to do it. Right. Right. So just. Yeah. So it's really hard. And then I'm always in this predicament of like, I know that's not an ideal situation, right? I know it's not ideal. But then who do I deprive that of? What aunt doesn't get to do it? What grandma doesn't get to do it? Like what, who gets screwed in that situation? Like getting some stuff from these guys is okay. But it's like when every family member wants to show their love that way, it's like where do you, as a father, where do you put your foot down? And then who do you choose can and can't? Yeah. That's tough. It's a predicament and a half, man. It really is. It's awesome. But you know, on the other end of it, you guys got a nice big family and they all love them. You know, and that's it. There's a more positive than negative, I think. And they do a good job. So I always say like, ah, you guys are spoiling them. Like it's not spoiled. My Katrina's mom was, it's not spoiled son. He's loved. He's loved. We love him. We're loving him. We're loving him. He's not spoiled all the time. But until I see, like, and I haven't seen this with him, like he's so far doesn't expect anything. He's not selfish with his toys. He doesn't, you know, throw it away when he's done, like he's appreciative of everything. So until I see a behavior shift, I'm going to let it ride. I'm going to let them love the way they want to love. I'm going to do my best of managing it as I can and just keep an eye on how he's growing up. And until I see, like, any behaviors that I think are leading to him acting spoiled or resentful or expecting things, and then I feel like that's the only move I got, right? Yeah. How about you, Jess? What did you guys do? Yeah, nothing crazy. I had my parents over and we kind of just did our own, like, Easter egg hunt and whatnot and played cornhole and like, you know, it was a nice weather. So do you guys have, is it just your kids? Were the only kids there? Yeah, it was only us. Yeah, we didn't do a big, like, usually we'll go to Courtney's family's a big family and like, they have all the cousins and whatnot and then it's a big deal. But this year, we just kind of stayed at my house and just chilled. So it was, yeah, it was low key. We did. We went to so much, you guys. You had like 20 or so more to play. So my, so I saw that video. So my grandfather passed away, you know, earlier this year and him and my grandmother hadn't been living at their house for a while. So it just kind of sits there. Is that whose garage you guys were in? Yeah. Oh, I was trying to figure out whose garage that was. We did eat the whole family got together and did Easter. My grandma wanted it at her house. Now she's not, she hasn't lived there for a while because she needs to be kind of taken care of and stuff. So we all went there and, and set it all up and I mean, I don't know how many people 50 something. I don't know. It was so many people and a lot of little kids. So you have my two little ones. My brother's got a little one. He's got one on the way, like, two of my cousins have little ones. One of them has one on the way. My sister has a little one. All these little kids, you know how fun it is doing Easter egg hunts with little, like, you know, two, three year olds run around one year old. Oh, that's when it actually. So this will be so fun. So I can't wait to see what it with Aurelius because Aurelius is next. Cause Aurelius is only what a year behind Max, right? He's two. So, okay. So last year when Max did Easter, he was just kind of figuring it out, like what we were doing. So I'm assuming Aurelius has kind of figured it out this year, like this is first year of kind of understanding the hiding and stuff for the next six months after Aurelius. He wanted to hide eggs every day. That's funny. So it'll be interesting if you get hit. That's funny because he did it today. Yeah. Bro, that was Matt. Max, after last year, like he was, he was like the first thing where the light bulb went off and he liked it so much that every day when I came home from work, day to day, I had to hide, like, you know, we had like eight or so of those plastic eggs and I'd hide them throughout the house and then he'd go look for them. It was like a thing. But it was, this was, we haven't had to get together like this in a long time because our family's huge, but you had the garage is where we filled up the garage. We filled up the living room. We filled up the kitchen and the backyard. Okay. So in her house is not a small house. My grandma's house is a, it's a track home, but it's like 20 something hundred square feet, you know, four or five bedroom, right? Try level. I mean, it's just, this is how I remember when I was a kid. Like everywhere you go, loud and just people. In fact, my two little ones are not used to this level of just insanity. So we walk in and I realized he's like, he's like, he's pinned to Jessica because as soon as my family is loud and affectionate, but we're very physically affectionate. It's like, kiss, hug, kiss, hug, kiss, hug. Another one, kiss, hug. So we go in. Oh my God. You know, whatever. My son's like, hold on. My daughter who's chill after a little while and she's, you know, she's only, she's five months. Oh, she's, that's it. She just started crying. Head taken to the room corner town. Everybody was squeezing and kissing on her, but it was a good time. I mean that's the, the dynamic that Jessica has with your two little ones is the same dynamic I have with Max and Katrina's family. It's always to this, no exception this time around. If my son cries or has any, like is not in his great move that he always is in ever. It's always because it's too much. Just a lot. It's too much. Like we got what he, the only time he cried. It's overstimulated. Yeah. He started crying because they got silly string and those confetti eggs. And all of a sudden the whole family, whole family, all the adults. They were pushing each other, scoring each other and they were trying to involve him. And he was like, oh, fucking touch me. Yeah. And I'm like, God, you guys not know my son yet? My no. Like he just said too much. It's already loud and crazy, but they, they're trying to include him in play. Well, you know what it is that, you know, when they were kids, they grew up in that all the time. So they're used to it. Your house is like mine's quiet. It's, you know, it's organized or whatever. I grew up in chaos. Like four kids, you know, loud-ass Italians, mom throwing across the road. Like it's just blah, you know, all the time. So we'd go to these, and we'd go to my grandma's house for Sunday dinner every single Sunday with all of our cousins. Well, these events where we have everybody together, they don't happen except for maybe a couple times a year now. Yeah. And considering, you know, every, this is two. This is like the second time he's been to one of these. This is the first time Dolly has ever been to one. And it's just a lot, man. You know, the thing that, it'd be great. I can't wait to talk to Jessica the next time we're all together because I'm curious to like her because there's a part of me, like I'm, I'm torn, right? There's part of me like Katrina's ads. He's like, don't worry. He'll adapt. You know, we'll see like he'll adapt. I'm like, Hey, part of me doesn't want my son to adapt. I like that side of him. I like that he's so chill. Like I don't want him to adapt to that environment so much that he's fucking all over the place. I love the fact that Max is like so chill. And I don't want to rob that of him or change that of him. So it's like, there's a part of me that's like, yeah, I want, I definitely want him integrated. He is like, I mean, obviously all day long, he was great. It was just at that one moment when everybody started doing that, that was a little much for him. So I kind of have this attitude of like, yeah, like, Hey, when, when I started to see that look on him where he's had enough for the day, like I'm ready. Like when we did the wedding, we're all stayed in this house with 30 people in like one house. By like the end of the trip, you could tell he was ready to go. And then the next day we got, we got back into San Jose and Katrina was talking to him and telling him that, Oh, your cousins are going to come see him. And he was like, who, he wanted to know who was all coming. And she's like, yeah, yeah. And she goes, just Danielle. He goes, just Danielle. Okay. Like he didn't want to see everybody. He was just like, I'm cool. Like I did that for like the last four days. Plus their babies to get all the attention. Yes. Yeah. Everybody wants to pick him up. Everybody wants to play with him and wrestle with him. And it's just like, yeah, he's not, sometimes he's into it. Sometimes it's aggressive, dude. My family is, they're, they're aggressively affectionate. And I didn't recognize it as a kid because you're used to it. Yeah. But then later on you see them pick up your kid and just, 15 kisses. Ah, and then another one grabs them. Ah, and it's around the room. And then you can see your kid like, oh, what's going on? Everybody's kissing me. But anyway, it was also nice cause at the end of the day, so we haven't moved stuff out of my grandma's house yet. So at the, at my grandma wanted people to take things that they wanted. So that at the end of it, you know, we were loading up a U-Haul and pulling out stuff out of the house. And you kind of go through things that, and I, you know, that's a house I grew up in. What's the plan for the house? Are you guys going to sell it or are you guys keeping it? I don't know. I don't know what they want. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's, I don't know. That's up to them. You know, my, my mom's family is very special because you hear stories about a lot of stories. So I have family, I have a lot of family that works in finance and works in the banking industry. And they will tell you endless stories of families getting torn apart because, because I remember my aunt telling me when I was younger, get a trust, get a trust. She's like, you have no idea how families get torn apart. The best families get torn apart when someone dies and they have to argue over who gets what or whatever. You know, make sure everything's planned out. So you hear stories about stuff like this where, you know, grandma dies, mom dies. Next thing you know, brothers and sisters and cousins and uncles are fighting over. But my mom's family is like, they're so special. They're just very much like whatever you want, you do this and I don't care. And we'll, you know, and it's, it's really nice. Like, so I don't know what they're going to do. They're going to sell it or they're going to keep it. His mom is, she's already put it in her will, that her house, she doesn't want sold. That's like, that's the community house. It's where everybody, we get together for 90% of the parties and so with that. That's nice. It's been in her mom's house. And so what she wants done is like, she's another, she has two properties. And she's like, you can sell the other property, divide it up. I don't give a shit. She was with this house. This was your, your papa's and I's house. And this is where we host everybody. I want this house to stay like this. And then the family's allowed to come here and use it all they want. But don't, I don't want to sell it. Divide it. That's nice. Yeah. So she's like stipulated that in her will. I'll tell you what though, I'm always reminded. What's, let me ask you guys, what's the most biggest pain in the ass thing to move when you're moving something out of a house and you got to go down the stairs and stuff? The dresser, dresser. That's one. That's definitely up there. But there's one that a lot of people just forget about. But then when you move it, you're like, this is the worst. From upstairs bedroom? Yeah. Dresser. Dresser sucks for sure. It used to be old school TVs, but those are easy now. What's worse than a dresser? A big ass mattress. A big ass high quality mattress. I mean, those, yeah. Those are pain in the ass. Awkward as fuck. I'll take that over a dresser. Yeah, you're right. Cause you know what? Cause it won't bang the walls up. You can shove it, turn it. But bro, picking it up. There's no handles on it. You know? You got to squeeze it and do some good shit with it. We have, we have. It's awkward. Awkward. Katrina has passed down like, like real like wood. Like that's like from like the 40s. What is it about old furniture? Because it weighs twice. It's made different. It's way heavy. With high quality, high quality, everything. It's heavy. The shit we make now is like. Cheap. Ikea shit. Garbage. Yeah. Like half the way. Dude, my grandma's dresser. Like we try, you try to pick that thing up. They make this set of, you know, concrete. Well, you know, it's great about this. So this one that we have in our master bedroom is actually been, it's, I believe it's from like the 40s. It's been, I'll have to ask, we're maybe even older. It's been re-sanded and re-finished. Like we paid big money to like the way it looks right now is I paid more money for that than I would have bought a new like nice quality. Yeah. But it's because we sanded it, redid it, put the new handles on it and made it look newer. But it's like it's still put together so well. But God, it's a motherfucker to carry up and downstairs. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's. Have you guys ever looked at the pictures of what two by fours when they used to build, what they build houses, what two by fours used to look like versus now? No. You haven't seen these? No. Okay. It's a measurement. So how would it look different? It's a two inch by four inch. Yeah. Maybe it's not two by four. It's what they used to build houses with. And the wood is, was so much thicker than what they use now. So I don't know how you can look that up. Four by fours? Maybe they were. Oh yeah. Just look at how what, what type of lumber was used for houses and whatever to, because yeah, because two by four represents the inches. And that would look different. You're right. Like two by four today is the same as a two by four. That's like what's heavier? A thousand pounds of foam. Yeah. But I remember someone had sent me a picture once and I looked at it and I'm like, because my sister, she lives in San Mateo and she lives in an old house. So these are the kind of houses that you could tell before people needed massive closets and stuff. You ever go to an old house? Yeah. Like if you go here in downtown San Jose, like how those houses look. Yeah. So my sister has one like that, but you go in there and you like, you like knock on the wall or like, you're like, oh, this is like, like new houses. Like I feel like I walk through the walls. Yeah. And my dad told me. It's like a shell. I know old houses like that actually use real wood. Yeah. My dad's like, because he did work for their house and he goes, Sal, he goes, you wouldn't even imagine how freaking like hard it was to break shit out of this house. Oh yeah. They made these things so sturdy. They have composite and they have all kinds of like materials that you can do instead that people use. But yeah, it's like a cheap shit. Yeah. That's crazy. Oh yeah. So they've actually made them smaller. Oh, see? So they're like one and a half by three and a half inches really. That's what I told you. Wow. Yeah. That's an old two by four. That's ridiculous. Look at that. Are you telling me that one of those is a true two by four inches? And then the other one is, so the two by what we call two by four today aren't even really two by four. Yeah, I believe. Three and a half. So I believe, yeah, now they're one and a half by three and a half inches. Is that right? Yeah. It has to do with maximum moisture content. Look at that. 1964. It has 30% less volume. Wow. That's crazy. So now you can, what's really crazy about it is that we called that a two by four. And then we called it a two by four. And then we shaved it down like a half inch and it's still a two by four. Fucking inflation. It's a motherfucker. Now you can light it all up. How big are you? I don't know. Back in 1964. Oh, that's different stuff. 30% off what I'm saying. It's a standard. Give yourself the half inch bump. But that's not a little difference, dude. Look at that piece of wood. That is very different. I had no idea that two by fours today are not true two by fours. I knew it. Look at that. That's crazy. I didn't know that either. I have a carpenter for a dad. I should know that. I always wondered about, honestly, because like we'd go by two by fours and it was like three and a half. And I'm like, why, like, I guess that was just the standard. I didn't know before it was actually a true four. So you've actually, you've actually measured these new two by fours. Yeah. Oh, see, I've never even noticed that. I've worked with them when my dad is a kid forever. You account for it. Because it's like, it's just like par for the course. You know, it's like it's three. In 2018, Home Depot filed a lawsuit that the common lumber sizing was misleading for consumers. But the judge dismissed it. No shit. I had no idea about that. Failure in the justice system. Jesus. This conspiracy is happening everywhere. They start with that. I didn't even look there. What's next? Yeah. Whoa, where are we going? I did not know that. Hey, can we, I see you two assholes have already taken a bite out of this piece. I couldn't help it. Yeah, dude, you put a cookie in front of me. Of course. Okay, so we called for it like a couple of weeks ago that we have heard people have been using the creatures of habit and making cookies out of it. So for people who don't know, creatures of habit is a high protein oatmeal. So it's an oatmeal you make in the morning 30 grams of protein. It's got probiotics, vitamin D, tastes amazing. So this is a creatures of habit, high protein oatmeal cookie. Yeah. So I can eat it now. I already took a bite, but it's really good. It's actually really, really good. Let's go. Now here's the deal. Adam is, he cannot lie when he thinks that was gross. Even if it's a sponsor, he'll admit it. Raisin. So what do you think? It's really good. It is, right? I told you. I told you. We have to thank Ben Shea out of Idaho. He's a pharmacist. He found us through John Deloni's show. Oh, wow. He went out and bought Sal's book and started doing the work out, the total dumbbell work out in the book. And then he's moved on to maps 15. Now he's into map suspension. Awesome. And he's going to be going into maps, anabolic. Oh, anyway, what are the ingredients? So yeah. So he sent an entire recipe. All right. Tasty. Right here. It's like any other cookie, of course. It's not like any type of special health recipe. There's butter and sugar in there. Got butter, egg, sugar, salt, cinnamon, of course, baking soda, two packets of creatures of habit, oatmeal and some flour. And yeah. We'll post it in the... Yeah. So, I mean, we may be getting some more since it's been some time here since we last asked. And I think some other people... Yeah, that's good. It's really good. You know what I want to know? It's like a real cookie. Macros. Yeah, is what the macros are. And more... It's going to be like a cookie. It's going to be sweet. But I'd like to know if each cookie had like at least 10 grams of protein. No. He figures about four grams of protein. Oh, he actually said it in there? Yeah. But hold on a second. It's only a cookie this big for four grams of protein is a lot. Yeah, it's small. Yeah, you need four of those. It's not bad. Just easy. You need 15 of them, probably 15. So he's just guessing. I mean, it's not scientific here. I mean, we could take this recipe and figure it out if we got so ambitious and gotten the exact macros. But yeah. I don't think we're going to go that far. But yeah, we'll share the recipe. What I like about stuff like that is that if I were to bake some cookies, like that's what I would do. Yeah, why not? At least I get some protein in there, right? Yeah, help blunt the insulin response and all that stuff. And they taste great. Oh, that would be cool to do that with the glucose monitor. Do you see a difference? Yeah. Oh, that would be a fun little test. Oh, by the way, he used vanilla creatures of habit. That was a flavor. Yeah, I mean, so I mean, he could have used like chocolate or something else. Maple is a good one. Maple might be good. You know what I really like is because I already liked all the stuff that's in the creature. You have like the seeds and everything that goes great with the cookie. It does. It does. Hey, speaking of math, I want to ask you, Adam, what you know about this proposal for 40 year mortgages that's going on. Which so we just went 30 and now we're jumping to 40. You definitely called this on a previous podcast. Long time ago. You predicted that they're probably going to do this to keep blowing up the, I guess the real estate pump. Pump it up. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I don't know much about what you sent over as far as like, is it, is it past? Is it government insured and backed? Like where it's at? I know that there was rumblings of this already over a year ago. And it just seemed obvious with what's happening with inflation, with the amount of money printing that we did and even like with what they think with life expectancy. So I think and what people are working later. So we have all these factors. Oh, so it makes sense in that regard. That's right. So we have the average person is now working longer than the old retirement age. So you're already working longer. We believe that life expectancy is going to increase on these people because of all the biohacking and health, you know, people are focused more on that. So that's going to go up. Then you figure inflation, then you figure money printing. It just seems like the obvious storm that we're going to normalize 40 year mortgages. No, it says right here. I just put up that the federal housing administration announced it's increasing the number of options to include a 40 year mortgage in May. So it's happening. So May, huh? Yeah. So FHA loan modifications are applied when borrows are in default of the existing. Okay. So this is going to be a new loan that you're going to see on the market. And I forgot the statistic, another factor to add to why I thought this too. So I saw a statistic one time of the percentage of people that make their home buying decision based off of their payment. So it's extremely high. It's like north of like 80%. So most everybody when they decide let's buy this house, they base it off of their monthly payment. They don't, they don't consider I'm going to pay it off. That's right. And the same, and we saw this, we saw the same thing in the car loans and maybe Doug, Doug, his car probably first before any of us. You know, it wasn't until recent did we ever see seven and eight year, I think there's even now a nine year car loan. Like that's crazy. Like that didn't exist way back when like. Do they have them for muddle cheese back then? Car loans were much shorter back then. Yeah, I think so I was in the car industry for like one year. I sold Chevrolets. What year do you remember? This was back in 1991. I believe or 1990. So what were our car loans back then? I think the longest you could go is either a five year or six year, but five years. Not a six, five. Probably a five year long. I mean before that there were cars that last a long time too if you go way back. I remember when cars, a hundred thousand miles in a car was like you throw it away. But at the dealership, they always sold the payment. They never sold the cost. That was always a way to sell someone. That's right. And the housing is the same way too. So when you think about that, it just makes sense that they would extend the loan because in the average American that looks and goes like, oh, we can now, this house that was no longer affordable by tacking on an extra 10 years, then now they can afford it. And so yeah, to me, I mean it wasn't like two Nostradamus for me to call that. I really felt like this kind of obvious to me. I was like, all these things add up. It's going to, it's going to go that route. It makes sense. It makes sense. All right, I got something interesting for you. Did you guys know, you ready for this? This is how you know. Well, this isn't just how you know. There's a lot of ways we know right now. But there's a new, New York is considering a bill that they're going to pass that's going to ban weight discrimination. What's that look like? Weight discrimination. So it's going to add to the, it's going to add weight to the list of protected groups. So right now you're a protected group based off of your race, your gender, religion, disability, but now they're going to include obesity to that. So how are they going to handle that when you don't have like a seat available or something on a bus and somebody or wherever, you know, where these discrepancies are going to have. Have no idea, but now if you get fired, don't get fired. Your boss treats your particular way. Something happens at a store. These aisles are too small. This is weight discrimination. And if it's a protected class, then yeah, you got yourself a case. It's like a hate crime. Is that what Heather's going to do? No, what is your, what is your flaw? It's calling someone fat. Like, yeah, you fat, whatever. That would be like a hate crime. By the way, all crimes are hate crimes. This is the thing about hate crime, crime laws is interesting to me. If you hurt someone, like, you know, if you shoot someone and because you just wanted to kill them versus if you shoot them because you want to kill them because you don't like their race. One of them gets punished more because it's a hate crime, but they're both hate crimes. You kill someone, you kill someone. It's always, so it's an interesting, yeah. The person prosecuting could create a good enough narrative where it looks like they had a hate, you know, motivation to extend their sentence. Yeah, so here, so literally, you know, what they're saying is that New York City's expected to approve a bill that would ban weight discrimination in housing and hiring. How do they prove that? How do they prove that? Dude, now, don't you, like, you tend to... This is insane. ...be more into the political stuff. Like, isn't this just a move to, because you know that a majority of people now are going to fit in this category and it's going that way even more, that all you're really trying to do is win over votes from that population? Yeah. Is that really all you, like, it doesn't even matter how this plays out, if it can even be enforced, it's that I'm really just pandering to the majority of people and make it sound like I'm advocating for them, right? Yeah. Isn't that really what it's all about? 100%. Yeah, because... Yeah, you know, this is how it could play out. So I want people to consider... Open up a can of worms doing that. Let me put it to play it out for you. You hire somebody, okay? And they're like, I can't make it to work today. And this happens like 10 times in a row. You're like, listen, man, you don't come to work, you're fired. And they're like, listen, I'm 450 pounds and it's hard for me to walk down the stairs right now. My scooter died. Yeah, or whatever. Like, so, oh, I can't fire you. You got to pay for that person or whatever. This is strange. It's a very strange world that we're moving into with some of this, you know, kind of stuff. And yes, it is pandering because either A, you're overweight. And by the way, if you view the world in this lens, because I'm sure this happens, but if you view the... In other words, I'm not saying this doesn't happen, but if your lens is everybody's discriminating me against me because of X, Y, and Z, you're going to see it way more than it actually exists. You're going to see the person who didn't smile at you on the bus or the cashier that was an asshole or you did get fired or you have the interaction with somebody. And maybe it's just because you're an asshole. Maybe they had a bad day. Maybe their frickin' dog died. Who knows? But if that's the lens, then everything's going to fall under that category and you're going to see it when it's not there. And so this kind of stuff... You're going to attract it. Yeah. And you become this hyper-vigilant. It's because I'm fat. Everybody's... It's because I'm fat. They don't... Whatever. So it's an interesting sign of the times a little bit. Weird. Yeah. So anyway, we'll see what happens. Do we have a shout-out? So I have a shout-out and it came up when I was doing my day in the live thing and I was answering questions. And somebody was asking me about squat universities content, like how I would rate it. And I mean, I said 10 out of 10. I think their stuff is phenomenal. They're awesome. And the reason why I think they were asking is there's always like, for example, we all wear chucks. We talk about wearing chucks. He's done videos like breaking down why chucks are not a superior lifting shoe because what happens with your toe spray. But this isn't an area, and I know this is a shout-out for Squat University, but I also want to point something out that I don't like about our space and how people perpetuate this by starting these debates and conversations. You're talking about two companies, our company and a company like Squat University where I would say we're damn near 100% aligned on most content. That doesn't mean there's not going to be a thing that we communicate differently than he does. That's the best way to say it. Right. And so that doesn't mean that like you just, oh, his stuff is trash because we say this and he says that. It's like, no, it's like, humans are so nuanced. There's so many different ways to approach training and diet and stuff like that. We also like to focus on like the real big rock type stuff. That's right. The core of his philosophy that he teaches is phenomenal, and the content that he puts out is amazing. Does that not mean that between him and us who have put out combined tens of thousands of videos and podcasts that you're not going to be able to find something where he said different than we said and then, you know, therefore like, oh, you said you agree with him. Does that mean that we agree exactly on everything? No, it doesn't mean that. And nor does that mean that I can't still rate someone like that. I think a 10 out of 10 because I think the stuff he's putting out is phenomenal. All right, check this out. We work with a company called Joy Mode that makes some supplements. One in particular actually improves sexual benefits, sexual performance. You feel better while doing it. You want to do it more often. And these are all science-based ingredients and they're legit. So we wouldn't work with a company that makes up crap. This is legit. It actually works. The science backs it up. Go check them out. They also have testosterone boosters and other products on their site. But the sexual performance enhancer, that one's the real deal. Go check them out. Go to usejoymode.com forward slash mine pump. Use the code mine pump and check out for 20% off your first order. All right, here comes the rest of the show. Our first caller is Erica from Oklahoma. Hey, Erica. How can we help you? Hey, guys. Long time listener. I've been listening to you guys since 2019. Thank you for everything that you put out. Since November, I've actually been working with some of the MP hormones folks. Been having symptoms of low testosterone for a really, really long time. Kind of put it off for, I'd say, three or four years. Finally decided to work with a specialist. And I can say that I'm pretty happy with the results overall. Like I said, I've been on TRT since November. I've put on almost 10 pounds, just generally speaking. I'm thinking a lot of it is lean mass. My strength gains have gone up considerably to give you context. I've gone from basically like 135 pounds to 145 pounds within that span of five months. But my question is more along the lines of women in hormone therapy in general. My macros really haven't adjusted too much. So I didn't quite know if there's a way to just be putting on this much size without necessarily eating a lot more. I eat about 160 grams of protein every day. I track my macros pretty strictly. So I eat anywhere between 23, 24 hundred calories plus a day. But yeah, I just would love to hear your thoughts because there's just not a lot of information out there for women specifically, like going on hormone therapy and talking about their TRT. So I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Yeah, so if you went on first off, obviously we're not doctors. So this is just based off of our understanding from working with these people and of course our own experience. When you go from low testosterone to high normal testosterone, the muscle building signal goes from really low to high, okay? So even with your current, even if your diet stays the same, more of those calories, proteins, fats, carbohydrates will get shuttled towards building muscle than before, okay? So that's number one. And you are gonna see your strength gains go up partially because you build more muscle but also partially because there's lots of evidence that shows that testosterone really gets the CNS to fire up more. So like more energy, more strength, the ability to summon more power. Better recovery. Better recovery, all that stuff. Now the other part that a lot of people don't realize is there is an expected increase in water gain that comes from going on testosterone in both men and in women. Now it varies depending on the person and it can be bloat. Sometimes it's just intracellular fluid. Obviously working with a doctor, they'll be able to balance this out with you and you'll tell them how you feel and they'll look at other, because it's not just testosterone, it's testosterone relationship to estrogen and progesterone and then of course they're gonna go off of your subjective feeling step and stuff. So weight gain is expected just from that and if you get a body fat test, it won't show up because lean body mass is anything that's not body fat. So if you gained, let's say out of the eight pounds that you said you gained or 10 pounds, let's say four pounds was water and six pounds was muscle. All of that will register as lean body mass on a body fat test because body fat test just measures body fat. That being said, you really have to base it off of I would say how you feel muscle is very dense. If you're a lean 145 at your height versus a higher body fat percentage 130, it's gonna look very different. You might not even look bigger, you just might look, and oftentimes this is the case with people when I train people where they get a little leaner, build some muscle, they're heavy on the scale, but everybody's like, you look like you lost weight because muscle is shaped differently, it's more sculpted and that kind of stuff. So yeah, you're gonna see some of that gain and then the muscle gain, the initial year is where you'll see most of the muscle gain that you'll get from being on TRT and that's with good diet and exercise. After that, it's gonna slow down quite a bit because your body's used to that testosterone signal. So it's not like you're gonna be on this ramped up like I'm just gonna keep building crazy amounts of muscle and strength all the time. You're just, your body's... Yeah, that's what it feels like right now. It's like, just keep going. Like it's really wild. I don't really have a motion around it quite yet, but I'm just still kind of not wanting it to keep going and look like the hawk in 12 months, but I guess I probably won't. Don't worry, the other... Going the other direction is actually really easy. So it's not... You know what this really highlights though? This is just an example of why it isn't as simple as just calories and macros and then lifting is that, you know, if your hormone profile is off and is not optimal for building muscle and then you go and you balance that out like you've done, your body's responding. Your body's responding the way it should to all the hard work that you probably were doing in prior years, right? And this is a lot of times how we get clients like this is where we would recommend to go see a hormone specialist is I know like, I have a client who I've trusted that, you know, she's weighing her food. She's tracking everything. I know they're training good because I'm the one training them. It's like they're sleeping well, but yet for some reason the results aren't adding up and it's like, oh, then we go find out, we get their blood work done and their hormone profile is off and then the doctor balances out and then boom, all of a sudden, no change in diet, no change in routine, not doing anything different. And then all of a sudden they're getting stronger, they're building muscle, they're leaning out and that just highlights how important it is to have those hormones balanced out for you. Erica, the other thing too is you're doing testosterone replacement therapy, which is very different from an athlete, like a female athlete or bodybuilder taking anabolic steroids. Now they may also use testosterone, but they're not trying to get their levels to high normal or within a range. They're way above range. They're taking like, you know, like 10 times as much as you may be, five or 10 times as much as you're taking, plus stacking on top of it, other hormones and stuff to look the way that they look. So no, you're not going to, it's not going to be infinite. You're not going to just keep building muscle until, you know, you look like Justin or something like that. It's not going to happen, so. If you want to. Yeah, that's probably not going to happen, but also, but again, you're working with a specialist. So a lot of people think more is better. I mean, I know people who go on hormone replacement therapy and end up realizing that, oh, the dose is a little too high. Let me bring it down. And then other people were like, actually I feel better at a bit of a higher dose. Everybody thinks higher is going to feel better. That's not, especially with women. That's not the case, especially with women because they're so much more sensitive to testosterone than men are. So you're within a range and you're working with a specialist. And again, it's not, even if you were, even if you did have some crazy like unexpected like super muscle building effect, which isn't going to happen. But even if that did, it's not like you wouldn't be able to, you know, reverse core step of deal. But I'd like to hear your experience. You're saying it's been amazing so far. So you got your stronger, recoveries better, how's energy, how's appetite, libido, mood, all that stuff. Literally all of those things are better. It's been wild. And again, I'm, yeah, I'm someone who has dialed in for quite some time. So it was frustrating to not feel that way, despite taking really good care of myself, you know, having a pretty solid relationship with alcohol and all that stuff. Sex drive is amazing. And so well that my husband actually decided to do hormone replacement therapy as well. To keep up. No, literally, literally, I mean, within like the first four weeks, like my strength was fine for a really like long time. I was sort of plateaued in so many ways in some of my lifts. And like my back spot went from like being able to max out at like 155 to like, I can do like 225 now for one or two reps. Like it's really wild. Like how much has changed in that, in that realm. And sleep has been like a lot deeper too. I feel a lot better rested, less sore, definitely recovering a lot better. So literally all other biofeedback is awesome. I have skin issues, I will say, like some of like my breakouts are kind of like, which have always kind of been someone who's prone to like acne and that sort of thing. So that's sort of something that I'm working on with my doctor too. But that's really like nothing compared to everything else that's been going on. That's been positive. I'm so glad you said that because for anybody listening right now, you know, it's not the, it's not the cure all. Normal healthy levels of hormones are different than supplementing. Supplementing is definitely good when you're low and you can't fix it on your own or you can't figure out how to fix it on your own. But if you can raise it naturally or balance things out naturally, that's the way to go. And the reason why I'm saying that is I don't want people listening who lead an unhealthy lifestyle to think, well, I'm going to just do this and it's going to fix everything. This works best when you're already, you're doing everything. You're exercising, you're eating, you're, you know, you're trying to get good sleep and it's just, it's just for whatever reason not working. Then you add this and you adjust it and then it is like a total game changer. Sounds like it was the key that really unlocked all these results to finally happen. You're putting all the work in and it's like, you know, this was one of those last factors. So I've had clients like this before and so it's just really, you're just nervous because it's like it's all working so well right now. Yeah. Yeah. And I did a lot of self study. I just, I put it off. I knew I had another doctor actually who brought it up that I had low T and I honestly, at that point in time, a couple of years ago, we didn't really know enough about it. It wasn't like educated on it. And I was like, why do I need testosterone? Like who cares? I'm fine. And I was kind of looking at more thyroid stuff and that didn't end up actually helping at all, just looking at the thyroid. So yeah, it definitely has testosterone was the key for me for sure. Well, good deal. Well, you're definitely on the right track. I think you're doing everything right. You're the perfect candidate for something like this. So yeah, I like to Eric, I'd like to throw you in our, are you in our private forum or my, our mind pump private forum? No. Yeah. I'd love to throw you in there because we do have a lot of, a lot of people that actually ask questions and you could be a great resource to share your story if you're willing to when people ask, cause there's some people in there that have been asking questions about female hormones and are nervous to potentially do TRT. And so having more people like yourself that can share your experience, I think would be a value for them. Oh, for sure. Happy to do. Awesome. Doug will put you in there. You're in there. Thanks for calling in Erica. Yeah. Thanks so much. You got it. Yeah. You know, unfortunately estrogen has been labeled the female hormone and testosterone has been labeled the male hormone and the average person as if both aren't important to both sexes. Yes. People don't realize that they're both. Now the ratios from between, you know, men and women of how much testosterone, how much estrogen is very different. Yeah. But they're both critical hormones for both genders. If your estrogen is off as a male, you will lose strength. You'll become depressed. Your bones will get weaker. You'll have less energy. You'll feel more pain. You're going to be less healthy. You'll have more risk of heart disease. If your testosterone is off and you're a woman, you'll also gain all those things. So they're both very important. The key is the balance and how your body is reacting to those. So like men, like for example, if you go on a testosterone replacement therapy and then take something to reduce conversion to estrogen and actually reduce your estrogen too much, you'll feel like garbage. You'll feel like total garbage. You need to have estrogen if you're a man and you need to have testosterone if you're a woman. It's just the ratios. This is why I think the hardest clients ever to help for me was like women going through menopause. Like when they're getting hit with that like just tornado of hormones up and down and all over the place. Yeah. Like it is so hard to show that client really good results because of this. You're fighting it. Yeah. I mean it's such, I always had such a hard time with clients that were going through menopause because of the situation. Like if your hormones are not balanced out like to get your body to build muscle and to burn body. It's like in survival mode and trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. So to ask it to go do something for you in addition to that, it's just hard. And then the idea that you want to push it or stress it more to get it to respond away, it's just, it's an uphill battle. So I just think it just highlights that. Our next caller is Kerry from Maryland. Kerry, what's happening? How can we help you? Not much man. How you guys doing? Good, man. Hey, I just started recently listening to your guys show, man. And I take a lot of good advice from you guys. So I'm hoping you can help me with my question. Just to give a little backstory though. Just started recently competing last year. I did my first show before I was 39. I was getting ready to turn 40. It was just another goal for me to reach as far as my fitness journey. I did three shows last year. My first show I weighed in roughly 185. My last show I weighed in roughly 193. After the second show, I actually trained. I relocated from Texas to Maryland now. And I started working with a new nutrition coach. Now the thing is he's had me on a boat since I once said December. And to the middle of March, I got up to 220 pounds. That's the biggest I've ever been. And I'm kind of concerned that I put on a little more fat than I needed to. I posted a video to my Instagram. And my former coach made a comment that he said I was bulking up. I look good, but I was holding too much weight around my core area. And so I was just wanting to ask the question now. When will be a good time for me? If I'm eight weeks out, I'll say when will be a good time to start my cutting process? And then you're going to provide any tips to to give as far as to keep my lean muscle mass wild cut. So I have a lot of thoughts around this, Kari. One, do you know where your body fat percentage is right now? My body fat percentage, the thing is I heard, I've heard you guys talk about doing a Dexter scan. I haven't actually went and done those, but I did do like a what is it like a body analysis that one of the little fitness shops around here. And the reading that it came back, it was saying that my body fat was like 30 something, but it was saying that I was overweight. But the guy told me not to really pay that, not don't pay any attention because it doesn't take it to account my shoulder width. Yeah, you don't look no 30% body fat brother. I know what you're 30% body fat. Yeah, no, you're not 30% body fat. So, okay, I would, I mean, I'm used to I'm used to being at my core close to my show weight. So me being I'm currently 215 now. I was telling my nutrition coach, Hey, maybe we should start cutting some things. So he did cut out a bagel because post-workout I would have two scoops of my protein shake and then a bagel. So he took the bagel away and he increased my cardio from 30 minutes to 40 minutes two times a day. Yeah, have you so have you just started listening to the show so you didn't get to listen to my whole journey to pro and stuff like that, did you? No, and actually the show that I'm well I'm doing a warm up so that I'm eight weeks out from what I'm actually trying to go on to get my pro card. That's what I'm going to do now. So if you actually Google mind pump, Adam's journey to pro card, you can actually listen to the episodes where I share a lot of the stuff going on with my diet and training heading up to my pro card. Okay. But I come from the camp of more like your your first nutrition coach. I don't like I think a mistake a lot of coaches make is bulking their their competitors up way too much in the off season. I want to stay I want to stay somewhere between five to six percent body fat from what I want my stage body fat to be. So I'm I like to hover in the off season nine to 11 maybe 12% at the highest because I'm kind of I'm going to come into stage around three, four percent tops body fat and the reason why I want to do that is because what's going to happen to you right now with this hard this this big of a bulk is to try and cut all that body fat out in a short period of time with that you're going to start doing things like cutting calories like crazy increasing cardio like crazy and then the body will start to adapt right it'll respond for about a week then you'll have to do it again and then it'll respond for about a week or two then you'll do it again and then before you know it you're four or five weeks still out and you're like starving and you're doing already an hour or more cardio a day just revolts I mean it's it's going to say dude you're not feeding me enough you're stressing me you're pushing me too hard and then competitors show up to stage and they're not as lean as what they were before because the body just and by the way this gets more and more difficult for you and I as as the shows keep compiling up right show after show after show after show of you continually stressing the body through diet like that and the greater the swings of body fat to reducing the body fat the more you're stressing the body out and the less likely it's going to respond the same way so competitors run into this all time where they're like man all the shit that I did at the last show it produced a way better result than I did the same formula I ate the same way I trained the same way I did cardio the same mapped out and then I didn't look as good and so they help they always had to keep ramping up intensity and eventually you hit a wall and the body stops responding and so you know you you're in a situation right now here it's hard to say because your only option is probably what your coach is going to start doing which is just starting to cut your calories increase your cardio to try and lean you out as fast as possible but I really think he's kind of setting you up for failure because of how high you got your body your your body weight to what you because you hit stage you said it how much 190 or I'll just go back to my last show I was at 193 I've never really been over 200 pounds I think the highest I've been before was 205 maybe but for me to go to 220 yeah and now I'm 215 currently I think there's a lot of stuff I need to start doing yeah so here here's a generic is a generic answer because it's going to be every but a generic rule of thumb for me is I know that if I've dieted well in the off season I've done a good job on my program and I've kept myself at a decent I can drop a half a percent to a percent of body fat that is that is a safe kind of goal right now I want I'm always planning for a half but I know if I push the body I could probably get a percent down a week so do the math on that like if you're carrying yourself 10% higher body fat percentage then your your your stage body fat percentage and you've only got eight weeks you're fucked like you're gonna you're gonna you're not gonna get to the the body fat percentage you want and that's saying 1% a week and I don't like the plan for that I like to plan for 1% a week is what I'm going to drop so so that's how I do the math on how far I got to start my prep to get ready for a show and the leaner you keep yourself in the off season the easier that's going to be the more body fat percentage you put on the harder that's going to be yeah I would say you have a test show before the real show that really matters I would I would do sorry I was just going to say the test show that I was going to do is actually eight weeks out my show to get pro chords actually 10 weeks out now okay I would do it careful smooth and control for the first show yeah and just see what and then don't worry about where your placing is and then from there decide if you want to do the big show you gotta do you can't don't what you you're gonna fuck yourself if you try and come to this pre show really really tight you just got to accept that you're gonna be soft like you're not gonna look great just accept that because if you come in if you come and try to come in too hard clean to this show you're gonna fuck your prep for the he's looking to lose because you're 216 215 and you want to get down to 193 probably I want to get no I want to get down to at least 200 so you want to lose a minimum of 15 pounds in eight weeks yeah that's aggressive I mean that's that's going to be a bit aggressive especially without trying to lose muscle so that's going to be the other thing I don't want to lose the muscle master that I did yeah and then just by the way this is exactly what happens to competitors when they bulk too much in the off season they put on so much body fat and then they get in a predicament where they have to cut aggressively to get down to the weight and then at the end of the show if you did a if you let you did a body fat test before and then after they look at all that hard work and they literally at the same that the same lean body mass they didn't gain any muscle they did all that hard bulking and then at the end of the cut they ended up having to lose just as much muscle as they did fat to get down to that stage way because they this is hard bro because if you if I was coaching you if I was still doing this and you called me up like this and you like hey Adam I don't like my coach will you take me on I would I would actually refuse you I'd be like I'm not in a position to do you right this close to the show I would say let's let's plan for a show further out for your pro card and let's really let's really slowly lean you out in a very slow controlled way and honestly bro I wouldn't even have you doing any cardio yet I'd want you doing it through diet manipulation and training to slowly kind of lean you out until you're at a closer body fat percentage and then you and I'd be talking to be like all right care you're you're right around eight nine percent right now now let's go target a show eight eight weeks out and then I would and I'd want your metabolism also to be in a good place too so I don't know where your calories are at right now are you tell me you're right now I'm at um I started at roughly three thousand but now I'm at 2400 you're already at 2400 and you got to drop yeah yeah that's yeah I would slow down I would wait you know here's a rule of thumb don't force your body to make the show find a show that's gonna work with your body so what Adam basically said is slowly cut do it the right way slowly cut to your about 98% and then find a show that's like 10 weeks out and then try and do that they actually have another pro show that I could do which is actually what if it's 10 weeks I think it would probably be 13 weeks out it's just in a different location which is a little further out but I didn't mind driving there because it was either going to be the one that I'm planning for or that one so I just wanted whichever one I was going to be ready for I just know a lot of those guys are extra big and I was just trying to put on as much muscle as possible I mean you're also going to get on stage and still be fluffy either what class are you how tall are you um six one okay look is that f is that f is that the is that the tall is d yeah okay yeah I look big and smooth will always lose to smaller and lean so a lot of guys play the size game and being conditioned usually beats out size of course conditioned in size is always the best but you play the size game take your time I look the key to not losing muscle when you're cutting is how fat you let yourself get in the bulking process and then how short the cut is that's the biggest key everybody wants to know the secret to not lose muscle in 10 weeks and it's like you got to lose 20 pounds in 10 weeks I mean yeah high protein lift weights all that stuff but there's not much you could do you're going to lose some muscle Kerry I'm going to have Doug put you in our private forum for free and um the guys and I are in there I also have there's other competitors that are in there that have done shows there's also even some uh athletes that I've coached and trained that are in there I want you to get in there and just keep keep me updated okay just update me every week or every two weeks and when you when you when you up let me know like hey how the training the diet what your coach is telling you everything just give me a little bit of an update tag me so might so it pops up because we get a lot of people talking in there if you don't tag me I won't see but if you tag me I'll see it and I'll keep an eye on you I'll keep an eye on what what your coach has got you doing where you're currently at I do recommend going and getting like a legit body fat test it's worth it's worth doing that so we have a better gauge and then in the future a really good rule of thumb like I said is to plan a show wherever your body fat percentage is at you plan on you're losing a half a percent a week if you're if your metabolism is healthy you're in a good place a half a percent is a safe spot yes we could probably get a percent off a week really aggressively but I don't want to plan for that I want to plan for a half a percent a week knowing that in my back pocket I could get you to ramp it up and hit a percent a week so do it do it that way that's a that's a good gauge on okay is this enough time for me to hit peak for the show guys guys all right thanks guys yeah for sure Kerry keep it keep us posted man I will do man yeah what's it what's the name of that what what is it it's IFBB right I'm assuming that you're it's MP well the show that I'm doing for pro is MPC universe it's in T New Jersey okay but they also have another one that's going to be in Pittsburgh that's on July the 15th so I may take you guys advice and just push it out so I can get myself a little more time yeah I think you I think you should bro I totally think you should and I think you should just kind of slowly not aggressively lean out right now and do as little as cardio as you have to right now we want I always like to have the cardio button the last like couple weeks so we could get crazy if we have to like we're and if you haven't done it a lot in prep your body will respond but if you've already been doing a cardio an hour day every day for the last six weeks and me as a coach Tony to do an extra how half hour hour ramp it up and do much your body is already kind of pushing back at you but if you haven't done hardly any and you've manipulated your body fat percentage all through training intensity volume and then nutrition then when I tell you to kick up that cardio you'll drop and that's to me that's that's the place you want to be so try and lean out slowly through nutrition and training and and and not so much with bunch of cardio right now we want to save that in our back pocket if we can guys appreciate it man I got it thanks for calling him no problem you know it's interesting do you read Justin I mean is that what you you know it's interesting is obviously I never competed every on stage but you know I've done a few times tried to get really really lean and measured on a weekly basis my progress and that's the exact number that I came to was that a half a percent to a percent if I was doing everything right I would average about a half a percent to a percent and anytime I tried to push more than a percent backfire you know so and so I was exact same so when you're saying those numbers I'm like man that's exactly what I came to myself and I love planning that you're only gonna get a half a percent off a week because I know I can move some other needles to get a percent and I wanted so I want to plan for that knowing that if I if I don't like the way I'm shaping up heading into the last few weeks I can I can kick up those things to get an extra half what's interesting about that process you know someone listening has never done that is the leaner you get because the steps you take start to compile and what happens with this is as you get leaner messing up a little bit becomes a bigger impact than it did in the beginning like you get down to like four percent body fat and like you get off track just a little bit but four and a half five percent right away when you're ten percent doesn't make that big of a difference so I remember that whole process I you know like I said I've done a couple times and the body is interesting if you really you know pay attention there you know there's there's I was trying to think of an analogy I wanted to give and for some weird reason I was thinking of like things have been said to me by a tattoo artist right there's an art to this and you if you've ever had like an unfinished piece of tattoo or some of that and you try to get another artist to do it they will refuse to do it because there's like I can't it's like come on you're an artist you can do can't you know I don't I don't want to touch it somebody I won't do it because it's it's not from scratch not a blank canvas foundation that's how I feel when I get people like this they would call me or they fix this yeah help me out but I know my coach isn't doing me right my body's not responding I'm eleven weeks out from this and I'm like I can't because you're a wizard well it's like because what they have to understand is that to me I think the most important part of prep is done in the off season yes how well you built your metabolism up how like where you have scaled your your volume and intensity of training and if you did a really good job of training moderately both frequency intensity volume wise and you've got a healthy metabolism if you got all those levers to move with going into a prep and you've kept your body fat percentage within about a half a percent to a percent uh you know knowing the weeks going into the stage you're in a very good place I've got volume to manipulate I got intensity to manipulate I've got frequency I can manipulate I've also got cardio I can manipulate and I've got a healthy metabolism that I have a lot of calories that I can cut down and still be in a healthy place to me all that is done in the off season preparing the body to have a successful prep and if I get you mid prep and you're like fix me it's like nah it doesn't work that way our next caller is Brianne from Canada Brianne what's happening how can we help you hi thanks guys so much for taking my question I've been listening for a long time but I'll just dive right into it so overall I think I'm pretty strong my question really is how I can progress my bench press and I'll put a little context to it so I've been able to progress my deadlift to 295 pounds my squat to 275 pounds overhead press to 125 pounds but yeah I really can't progress my bench press I'm stuck at 125 pounds and I've been stuck at it for a few years now I can press 95 for like full pause reps and get 12 to 15 reps in but as soon as I start to add weight I really struggle when it comes down to my 1RM I can press like my reps increasing but I can't get my 1RM to increase now my competitive nature of me is that I want to join a powerlifting competition but I don't want to do that till I can bench my body weight which is 145 pounds I've done powerlifting programs through coaches I've done 555 training I've programmed myself I've done strength programs I've done so many different things and I'm starting to think it might just be a mental block and I'm looking for you guys for advice on how I can improve my bench press well you're not allowed to you're too good at everything else can't have everything I'll say this first Brianne I think you should compete before you hit that just to go through the competition and there's a lot that goes into it and the day of the competition that you'll learn I think you'll do better than you think just with the adrenaline everything else is going to kind of set in so to get this straight your overhead press and your bench press are the same yeah pretty much interesting have you worked with with bands and chains have you done have you tried working with resistance that's progressive okay yeah bands at home and then I also have some change at my own home gym too and I like to change it up a little bit I have a Swiss bar at my home gym as well and then I also have a commercial gym that I have access to which has a little bit less equipment than my home gym does okay do you feel a sticking point at any part in your bench press yeah definitely my lats so what do you mean you feel like you're not stable no when I'm at the lowest part of it so if I have like a pause drop for example it's definitely my lats that I feel the most engaged so the bar gets stuck at the bottom yeah yeah when it's my 1RM but I can progress lots of reps at like 115 pounds or even 105 pounds just I can't get 130 pounds up heavy dips yeah I was gonna say really deep dips have you focused on that at all yeah and adding weight to that so you're just doing less reps and more just like intense you know added weight on top of your body weight kind of dips um not super deep ones I've never done them with weight I can only get like five or six body weight form dips at this point yeah I would go I would slow down the rep and try and challenge the form with good technique don't hurt your shoulders and try and get more depth and rather doing five reps make it so that you only do two or one or one with the dips and practice them frequently the other thing too is taking volume away from other lifts and adding it to the bench press sometimes a mistake people make when they have a lift just focus on it more yeah where they're stuck at is they'll add stuff to that lift but they don't take anything else away or anything away from the other lifts so what ends up happening is their overall volume just keeps going up and up and up so like one of the best things I ever did to increase my overhead press was reduce my volume from other lifts and increase and then add it to my overhead press type lifts and I got much stronger the other thing is isometrics can be phenomenal one of the best types of isometrics for or isometric type lifts for power lifters is to get under a bar so here's what you do I don't know if you've done this already you set the safeties so that the bar is already as if it's on your chest then you shimmy yourself under the bar get into position get real tight and then press off the safeties and then bring it down so you practice doing singles or doubles from that position right there now don't go to failure but you want to have kind of a moderate high intensity so something that you can do maybe four reps with I would do a bunch of singles and doubles with it so I also like doing like a isometric hold at the bottom of a deep dip with a weight you can't even do one so loading like let's say like a twenty five pound kettlebell on it and getting in the dip position and it's really slow negative to get into it and then slowly come down and you can't even press it out I don't care well make sure you have some of the step on right there you don't obviously don't do it suspended five feet off the ground you know where you're going to rip the shoulders off so have like a box underneath there that all you have to do is put your feet down right so you have to bend your knees to do it right so you can get all the way to top with a weight you can't even do one time so just a little bit over that and then just resist the negative all the way down at the bottom and then hold an isometric hold at the bottom for like five seconds and then go ahead put your feet back down and then rest do that your leg drive I'm pretty good I try to keep an arch to it but I'll also practice more of like a flat bench to it too but I can like I use a lot more my leg purposefully as soon as I start to increase the weight a bit more but practice just like that complete flat no leg drive bench press to like I typically bench about twice a week okay yeah you know I would make one of the bench press sessions what I said literally set the safeties at the bottom position scoot underneath it after you warm up and do your mobility and stuff and then you press off the safeties so you don't get the you don't get the benefit of lowering the weight and pressing up you start at the bottom press it up and then bring it down let it sit on the safeties where you're actually kind of like relaxed get back into position get real tight and then do it again that's the most effective thing I've ever done for getting my bottom position squats and my bottom position presses to get stronger like nothing moved the needle more for me than that yeah that makes kind of like squats and you just search your squats and that's basically the same thing but take the bench element so that's actually a really good idea thank you yeah yeah and I was thinking too like some more advanced kind of things you can play around with like some paps where we do some explosive like medicine ball chest pass or we do like some put explosive push ups and then you know bring it over to the bench so you just ramp up the ability to produce force at a greater capacities just to kind of try that which would only be like one to three reps one to three reps of that explosive and then you go over something to consider to you work in the space do you work in the fitness space I do yes I'm a phys ed teacher I was a former trainer I've been in health space for over 10 years okay wonderful all right so you'll you'll get this then you know that there's a skill component to new movements that you have to learn before you can really start to ramp up intensity and strength okay so the the exercise that I gave you the bench press modification that I gave you of all the advice that we gave you is going to require the less the least amount of skill acquisition because it's still a bench press it's different so you're still going to take some getting used to but doing different exercises if there's going to be a period of time we're going to have to learn and kind of get into it and figure it out and that whole process right now literally your next bench press workout if the whole session is you getting under the bar to where it's set at the bottom and you just get tight and learn how to press from a dead position that's not going to require as much skill acquisition because you already know how to bench press the carry over is pretty direct because it's still a bench press and I bet you practicing that alone you'll probably see a gain within a couple weeks okay that'd be awesome because I've been stuck at this wait for years it's been yeah I do I do want to highlight and point out though you're very fucking strong yeah so and you have been doing this for a long time so there is a point too I mean I would love to have a 500 pound squat and I don't you know so I tend to I tend to peek out around 400 no matter how much I've been training and trying to do every technique I can to get a little bit more but what's the cool part about power lifting it's like never really balanced you know between all three of them yeah you're not really awesome at all of them there's always going to be that one that's just kind of a difficult one and she's really awesome at deadlifting and squatting that's that's good that's good ass weight right overhead presses yeah and you're over yeah she's not like that he's about my bench and like I it should be stronger I should be able to yeah yeah don't get caught up in that I should that's a game never play that game with with with your performance yeah yeah I know it's tough though listen don't do that because I'll go through Instagram and then there's these like female power lifters just bury me you know I should be able to lift why I've been working off don't do that game that'll get you right do you have our power lifting program I don't know okay let's have Doug send that over since it's the best one on the internet so yeah we're also going to send you I want to send you maps prime pro if you don't have that with your background I think you'll get a lot of value out of it okay awesome thank you guys so much you got it thanks for calling in good luck huh yeah thank you so much hopefully hopefully you got it you know what Justin what you said Justin about how there's always I don't know where to use there's a bit of an imbalance between the lifts for people that's because leverages that work well for some lifts yeah make you make it harder for this for example that's why I'm a great deadlifter in a terrible squatter yeah great deadlifter in a bad bencher right because if you have a great deadlifter has long arms yeah a bad bench presser has long arms right a great bench presser has short arms a bad deadlifter has short arms well then that's the point I'm trying to make to her because if she's deadlifting almost 300 pounds and she's not like a big old thick girl she's lean and thin like that's it that's good ass weight right there which is probably why she really struggles with the bench press I mean the the thought that which is this is totally me I can I can deadlift 550 pounds but benching over 315 is a struggle typical athlete I mean this is a deficit that she's like I gotta hone in on this and like master it and you know it's just like that's all part of the challenge of the sport so yeah I will say this though of all the of all those lifts that she listed and one that wasn't a technical you know technically a powerlifting overhead press the bench press is actually the least function I know so if you're going to be better to be a good at the red press true right yep our next caller is Lyle from Michigan Lyle what's happening how can we help you oh not much how about you guys good how much yeah so um I guess yeah my question for you guys is just about your maps prime pro program you um trying to focus on some mobility going on with my shoulder and um just kind of curious on I know the shoulders kind of a complicated uh joint and just how do you know which of the exercises are best to do good question yeah okay so when you look to prime pro and you find the joint that you want to work on I suggest you simply pick one or two and you practice them and see how you feel and if you notice an immediate difference and through that process when you find one that seems to feel pretty good stick to that one for a while until it becomes like second nature and then move on it's really hard to determine which one is going to affect you the best right out the gates without actually trying it out the first time through so we give you a whole bunch of different movements that you can choose from and that's going to meet that's that gives you the opportunity to kind of move through them and see because that's what I would do as a trainer anyway I mean I'd have a little bit more insight if I could watch you move and stuff like that um but I still even with clients I would have like three or four exercises that I think would work with them then we would go through them and then I'd ask them how they feel and that would help me narrow it down that being said I have some favorites to you Justin I do yeah I want to hear you well I mean just in terms of one that kind of covers the entire function of the shoulder which would be like the handcuffs rotation um that's just one that if you can very slowly take your um your arms and through that range of motion and all those different rotations even with the wrists and the elbows and um the extension um to be able to to get through that entire bit like you'll be able to it'll be very revealing let's put it that way um to see where those sticking points lie um and then also to just just our basic our most basic one in terms of our wall press just this is one that plagues everybody in terms of like we just are always so forward in our position in our posture at work in just everyday activities to to have that external rotation is something we lose uh so that that itself to to not be able to kind of press your your elbows and your wrists back to the wall uh would be a clear indication that that's something that you're going to need to work on yeah that's the the zone one and if you haven't watched the one where Justin that's the uh the prime webinar that Justin did where he takes you through that I also do it in the prime pro webinar too right so I do it in there I agree with just sounds right like of course I'm going to ask my client feedback and you know some clients they feel a certain mobility drill and it just seems to be more effective than for somebody else but personally if I had to choose one shoulder exercise or one mobility drill for the shoulder that I have its hand covered rotation for that simple fact that it takes the shoulder through it's the entire full range of motion I just don't as far as all the mobility drills that are in there I think that's the one that kind of encompasses every everything and so if you can perform that one I think that you're going to address most potential issues if that one feels uh to challenging or you get a lot of sticking points you can also do wall circles is where I would uh move down from that's the one that's a good regression yeah oh yeah yeah I've seen that because I haven't seen the prime webinar but I've seen the prime pro one and um yeah I did I've started doing those handcuffs with rotations and they felt really good and but yeah I mean might like my also kind of just sort of curious about what to sort of like expect how long this you know process should sort of take and um I guess I don't know for like clarification my um I'm dealing with a little bit of forward shoulder my left but a lot my right I um I do a lot of like work with my right hand more more commonly hence it kind of just sort of went forward so the biggest thing I'm trying to get is to almost try to get my shoulder blade back kind of where I was supposed to be and working in those in those full ranges of motion and uh here's what you'll notice when you when you pick the right movement you should feel a little bit better right afterwards in other words if you have a little bit of pain you shouldn't feel more pain after you should feel like oh it feels a little bit better that's a good indicator you might get a little sore later on and then over time over the course of a week or two weeks or three weeks you should notice the exercise the movements getting easier and then other exercises or movements that used to bother your shoulder don't bother it as much okay so basically you should see positive trends from the gate you should not see negative trends at all Lyle do you uh is uh PrimePro the only program that you have do you have any of our other programs as far as exercise um well I do have uh I also have Prime and then I have performance anabolic and symmetry yeah okay so I I'm gonna so are you a painter is that what you do do you paint is that what you do um well I do paint um so I kind of work do a few different things um I do I run a CNC machine for like wood cut out parts for cabinetry and then I also assemble and paint those cabinets so yeah based on your shirt I was going to guess either drywall or birds yeah yeah big birds so here's a deal because your question was like you know how long this may be something that you do definitely because of your profession because of the years of because like this isn't like one of these deals where oh if I do these mobility exercises I'm gonna fix my problem and I know I no longer have to do anymore because if you have a job where you're painting your cutting and you're rotating that shoulder forward because that you have to in order to perform your job and you're doing that for six eight hours a day every day you gotta do something in the gym to consistently combat that so that doesn't get progressively worse so it may become a staple thing that you just kind of always do before you exercise as you do these little prime movements before you go into your workout I am going to give you two other exercises that I think should become staple movements in your training based off of what I think you do for a profession it will help you which is a seated row and then I also like a a Z press and those those two movements I think will help with you keeping your shoulder girdle and then kind of a retracted and depressed position which I think might be part of why you're feeling an issue on the shoulder on that one side so if even if you're not following a maps program I would include seated rows and I would include Z presses in my training on top of those mobility moves that would be like staple movements that I do on a very regular basis for you yeah and I guess also kind of leads me to like a different question sort of if there's enough time the um I was just curious about as I'm going through this you know prime pro talks about doing it kind of throughout the day what should I try to be doing like focusing on in terms of like the gym because I do typically follow you guys for um your programs um they're awesome and um I've noticed a lot of good results but I'm also kind of curious on what would be a good route to go down any compliment any of the programs would be appropriate so long as you're doing the prime pro stuff throughout the day but I will say this in prime there's a zone one fortification workout okay I think that'll benefit you I think that's what you should do for your upper body for a little while and that workout is designed to correct and balances in the upper body which includes the shoulder and there's a seated row in there yeah so I would go zone one fortification workout from maps prime do that for your upper body create that strength stability there on the shoulder so you feel like you can then add adequate load when you get back to working out at an intense rate describe to me too we haven't even asked you this yeah where is it where is the pain when does it come up is it consistent throughout the day does it just flare up every once in a while where do you feel it what's going on um well I don't really notice any pain but I just noticed for the past couple or past few years that um as time goes on my my shoulder just kind of leans a little bit forward and what kind of brought this on was a um massage massage therapist was working on me I'd gotten a you know like a full body massage hour and a half and then the entire hour and a half ended up being just on that shoulder um I don't notice any pain from it but I don't want there to be pain down the road and then that kind of led me down to watching the prime pro webinar and getting the program and that's good yeah when they happen yeah okay cool that that's a different story now that you're in a good position then the fact that we're addressing this before it becomes something like chronic pain in your shoulder I think including the fortification says that Sal's talking about so including that once a week into your training and then like I said keep seated rows and any of our programs will be appropriate uh on top of that yep you just you understand what's happening right so you you're doing a job where your shoulder is rolling forward all time and so the exercises you want to just always include in there is the opposite is retracting and depressing down so you just want to you want to keep that kind of movement in a on a weekly basis in your training routine to combat all this all this work all day long yeah so think the opposite the opposite is a a seated row right like where you retract the shoulder and pull down to where I zone one fortifications is there is all yeah keep just keep that in there and you know throughout the day you can have bands this would be great if you had some like bands you could wrap around and just do some rows so like every like you know every hour or two hours or like that or whenever you get a little bit a couple minutes yeah do some some band and you're not trying to get like a great band pull apart so band pull apart and some rows every couple hours and you're not trying to get a hard workout you're just trying to get you're just activating yeah just squeezing those shoulder blades back because what's happening is you're just rolled forward all day long and then the massage therapist knows that she she's rubbing your back and she can feel all the knots that you probably have behind your your shoulder blade and that's probably what she was working out and the fact that you're already prevented trying to prevent this is you're in a good position we're not waiting till you have chronic pain alrighty yeah thanks and yeah just big thank you to all you guys you know the obligate obligatory whatever thanks for all the stuff you guys put out yeah I've been listening to you guys for a few years and I mean I'm a bit of a younger guy so it a few years back is quite quite significant like when I yeah when I first started listening to yours and like just a lot different place and just shout out to any of the younger listeners out there because if you keep listening to these guys they'll uh they'll definitely put you in a bit more of like a mature mental space I feel like oh cool nice to hear thank you take care of those birds take it easy man take it easy keep us close to that let us know how it goes man alright yeah we'll do thank you this you just made me think about the most I mean besides injuries right the most imbalanced from right to left client ever worked with was a high school pitcher who threw heat like he could hit 90 miles an hour okay in high school he just was working as accuracy and he was getting scouted and never worked out all he did was play baseball and just forms into that bro his the difference between his right and left was like it's like if you took two people cut them in half and then pasted them together I couldn't believe the imbalance between right and left because of the years and years and years of pitching I mean your body will form itself will you to become good at what you always do you were just and always bring up the there's a long bowman yeah the long bowman this the skeleton will change yeah I mean so the spine is twisted and here's what I mean it's so funny we're over here like troubleshooting we hadn't even asked him like hey where's the pain he's like I don't have any pain oh fuck awesome but how I mean it's so so great I mean that makes me so happy to hear a younger guy that's been listening to the show for years recognizes that he's not just like how do I get stronger and bigger right right and he recognizes there's something off there he's got enough to wear him and what a great like just notices the massage therapist is on there for an hour got knots in there but he doesn't have any chronic pain or anything bad yet but wants to know what I need to do and just you know this is what makes me why when I get frustrated with our space that tries to clown on the you know mobility stuff and the conversation around that because there's a classic example of like well he necessarily doesn't need it he's not nothing's hurting there's no pain so why it's like why address it's like well I mean dude if this dude addresses this right now he may prevent having any sort of shoulder issues or an injury that could end up happening five ten years down the road that's right look if you like mind pump head over to mind pump free calm and check out all of our free stuff we got free guides that can help you with any health or fitness goal almost any you can also find all of us on instagram so justin is at mine pump justin I'm at mine pump de stephano and Adam is at mine pump Adam today we're going to teach you everything you need to know to build a strong well developed chest when I think of weak points and areas that I struggled with developing for a really long time chest was up there with the yeah it was for me it was for me for sure I got more caught up in the weight I could lift versus how I was developing my body I think it's one of the most challenging muscles to develop for most people because the form and technique