 Ladies and gentlemen, Salah Mike back with another video. We're bringing an old school. I'm taking your questions from Instagram. That's Salah Mike with 2Ks. If those of you, comment below and don't lie. If you've been around forever, five ever, I think five years ago or so is when I started this YouTube channel and basically it was me and iPad and your questions. And it seemed like you guys really enjoy those questions. So those type of videos. So we're gonna dive in, I'm taking your questions. Be sure to subscribe. New videos coming out Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. I really appreciate you guys. Let's see if we can get to 1500 likes, man. The likes and views on these videos. The support has been dope. I appreciate you. I got a lot of requests for vlogs coming up. So I gotta see if I can make my life a little more interesting because a lot of it is filming with you, filming on the podcast, working on my laptop, drinking coffee. But if I have some adventures coming up, we may vlog, may come back to the channel. Obviously the training's always gonna be here overlaid and I'm gonna try to help you guys reach your goals, entertain you a little bit. Let's dive in. Tips for losing weight for either gender, methods, et cetera. Now when we're talking weight loss, hopefully the majority of us want to reduce fat out of post-tissue, we want to get leaner. Not only getting leaner helps all our health factors, allows us to live a healthier life, but it also allows us to look better. Now when you just lose weight, some people do look better, but I guarantee you that 99.987, 30% of people look better when they have more muscle and they have less fat. So they're leaner with more muscle. Everyone's gonna look better, regardless of your body type. And you're gonna feel better. There's a certain leanness, you start to get into 12, 10, 8, sub 10% body fat. You might not feel great in terms of energy, libido, even how your mind works and maybe even your relationship with food. But for males, if we're 15 to 20% and ladies maybe 18 to 23, 25% body fat and we're active, if we're healthy individuals, those ranges, we're gonna look pretty good and we're gonna feel pretty good. So number one, obviously to lose any kind of weight, we gotta be in a calorie deficit and this word's getting thrown around the internet and people are still confusing it, I think, but basically all that means is daily, we're eating slightly less than we use, right? So that fluctuates, that fluctuates based on the humidity in the air, how much I sleep, how much I exercise, and then the obvious things, how much I eat, how much muscle I have, genetics, et cetera, et cetera, not every single day, even for the same individual will be the exact same. Maybe today I need 2000 calories to stay at my body weight. Maybe tomorrow I need 2100, maybe the next day it's 1950. Point is, is that we can't be perfectly accurate with how much we burn because of so many mini factors, how much I'm twitching my hand, how much I walk. But what we can do is try to isolate some variables. So my exercise, we try to isolate our sleep, we try to isolate our cardio, even though neat our cardio in between non-exercise calories burn basically can change and will change, but we want to isolate those and obviously we want to isolate how many calories we eat a day. So that's why people track their macronutrients. I am a big fan of it. If you've never tracked your food, I would get an app, my fitness pal is simple, get a weight scale. They're like 10 bucks on Amazon and measure and weigh every single thing that you put in your mouth for maybe months. Put it in your phone, track it, that is the best way. I do think a balanced approach with some kind of strength training, really good health benefits, as well as some type of cardio, not only to burn calories, but the older I get, the more I'm pushing cardio for the mental point of it. Obviously the health circulation working your cardiovascular system, your heart, but I do think it helps mentally a lot plus getting the shreds life with it. You all have some weird questions. Like I almost asked this, but I'm not going to ask it. Why don't you share more about yourself on YouTube anymore? And I'm guessing that's prefer to kind of the vlogs in my daily life. I took two years after kind of starting a new career, starting my own path to travel the world. I wanted to travel everywhere. I wanted to make connections. I wanted to have fun and I wanted to vlog. And we did that and the channel did really well. Your guys' support was awesome. I had some great times. I had some bad times. It was a little harsh on my wallet. Traveling costs a lot, especially when you're bringing in a film crew, AKA Connor, the hotels, long stays, et cetera, et cetera. It just ended up costing me a lot of money. I obviously wanted to buy a house and I want to have a little more stable financial future when you work for yourself or you work in the world that I do, you don't get retirement, you don't get benefits, you don't get paid to leave, you don't get vacations, you don't get any of these things paid for. So you really have to be budgeting well. And it just didn't make sense at the time. And when I'm in town, when I'm at home right here, oh, a beautiful home, I'm very, very lucky, but as many of you know, I have shared in the past is that I'm a very anxious human and I'm much of an introvert. So I'm either filming and giving all my gas, pumping all my energy into YouTube, podcast, et cetera, et cetera. Or I'm on my computer by myself, either trying to entertain myself or I'm working on emails, projects, et cetera, et cetera. So a lot of it, it's hard to vlog. We try to vlog in the gym a little bit, try to get you guys some of that information, some of that content. But otherwise, I may have some traveling coming up and we may have some vlogs coming up, no promises, but I would like to do that. Benefits of submaximal training and skill acquisition in powerlifting. So submaximal training is a generic term in the sense that it can mean anything, obviously it just means less than maximal. You know, in my head, that's anything below like an RPE-9. Although an RPE-9 is not max, it is still very heavy, often associated with 90% or so, depending on the extra, depending on the individual. Yeah, 90% or below, maybe, 85% and below is kind of where I'm gonna throw it in there. Skill acquisition basically means getting better at the skill or the sport you're trying to do. So both of those I think do go hand in hand a lot. There's videos we did years ago and people, Alan talked about, Mr. Thrall, shout out to my guy, talked about taking heavy singles as the most specific practice you can for powerlifting. I talked about the reasons why maybe I wouldn't prescribe heavy singles for most people or maybe not most, but some people. And I think the truth is it all depends on the individual, it all depends on the goals, obviously, and that answer sucks. But sub-maximal training I think works for everybody. I think if we're working in the 65% to 85% of the range for the meat of our volume, we're gonna get clean reps, which allows us to get better at the skill of being aware of our technique. We'll be able to handle the right amount of volume to not only get stronger, but also get bigger, and depending again on your phase of training and your goals, that's gonna be key. Getting more volume in for strength, getting more volume in for hypertrophy. And then the skill acquisitions, that's why kind of they go hand in hand. Now if we're peaking, even in off-season, taking some singles, doubles, or triples around an RPE-9 to start off a session before you get into the meat and potatoes of your volume can be a great strategy for many people. I don't prescribe it all the time with every exercise variation. In the off-season, we're doing more exercise variation. It is something I use with majority of my athletes and programs when we're peaking, especially for middle intermediate, late intermediate, or advanced athlete. Getting those singles is gonna be very, very important. Sometimes I just think that the beginner or early intermediate takes too many singles, builds bad habits, starts cutting squats high, starts missing press commands on the bench, et cetera, et cetera. And that's kind of why my argument's against it. But those are the general benefits you can really practice your technique. You can get more explosive, lifting the weight as fast and as hard as you can, even 80% for like triples. You recruit more muscle fibers, which again, allows you to get stronger motor recruitment, as well as bigger muscles and more strength over time. Do you listen to metal? Now, I get a lot of comments on Instagram because I train at Alchem Athletics, shout-out to my guy Ben and Untamed Strength, who are both metal fanatics. They listen to a lot of heavy rock and roll-up. I do not. I listen to a broad scale of music, but it's not metal. I'll listen to it if it's on in the gym. I really don't mind. I'm not the guy that's gonna be like, E, this is so gross. I really don't mind when I'm working out or if someone else wants to listen to it even if we're in a car. It's not my go-to, it's not what I would put on. But they have tons of banners in the background. And so if I'm deadlifting or if I'm putting on a video on Instagram or even here, we get so many comments about those banners and I'm sorry to tell you, I have a confession to make. I don't know any of those bands. If I heard a song, I mean, I know Metallica and stuff like that, but I don't really know. And I know Slayer, but I can't really name like a Slayer album or song. But if you played a song, I could say, yes, I've heard that. Maybe even be able to sing a little bit with it, but I cannot name the band or anything like that. Whereas other genres, you're talking R&B, reggae, afro beats, hip hop, oldies, 50s, 60s, 70s. I can hear it. I can name the person often, artist. I'm really into a wide variety of music, but just not in particularly metal. Never got into it. I don't know why. Do you know your videos, specifically the dancing ones, make people's day? I appreciate that. And I don't, I don't. As much as I'd like to say I do, and I do support you guys, I really appreciate you guys and the support. Trust me, I really, really do. It's hard to feel sometimes the effects you have when your job's on the internet. Through podcasting, my episodes have been downloaded over like 20 million times, 20 million downloads total for every podcast I've ever been on. This YouTube channel has hundreds of thousands of views. I've been on, you know, Omar and all these other channels with hundreds if not millions of views, hundreds of thousands of people I've interacted with on Instagram, but you don't really feel the full effect. Like I know somewhere in me that I think I'm doing good. I'm trying to help you guys towards your goals and I'm trying to entertain you every day. But the truth is I don't know. It does feel very different when you're training someone one-on-one or coaching high school basketball and you can just see on their face the improvement or the happiness you bring an athlete or a person. It's hard on the internet. It's really hard. Talking about this, things I struggle with finding fulfillment is I think something that we always, all of us are always striving for. We're trying to find something that makes us feel good and want to work harder. And I always wanna work hard and I'm continuing to work harder. I have no issues with that right now, but feeling it is something I've struggled with my whole time, my whole life, even when it comes to my own goals, accomplishments. Noticing and feeling the small victories, celebrating the small victories has been something I struggle with. And I think that's part of my NASCAR brain of what's next, what can I do better? Being a self-critical kind of chip on your shoulder style athlete is what's translated into my work ethic as kind of a content creator and a businessman. And so I never really do well at smelling the roses, enjoying the moment. Hence, if anyone has any anxiety out there, you know, thoughts of the future, thoughts of the past, not living in the moment is what's really jacking me up. But it's also what pushes me to work hard and it's also what has allowed me to be in the position I am. And I am very lucky and I'm very happy to be where I am, but it can be very difficult. It can be very difficult. But I do appreciate the comments, I really do. It helps remind me why I'm on this course, why I'm trying to help you towards your goals or entertain you. We've been in some dark places, I've been in some dark places, I understand. And so if I can entertain you guys with an act and a fool on the Instagram or here on YouTube, I'm gonna continue to do so. So I do appreciate it.