 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's all Mike. Another video. Welcome to the fucking video. I heard you're not supposed to curse in the beginning because they get all mad at you. Look at this lighting. I fixed it up for you guys. Look at that hair. Beanie on the fleek as the kids say. I don't wanna do like a greatest mistakes video or like what I regret would not don't regret a single letter, not even a single whatever that quote is. That's an underrated movie. We wear the Millers. But that's probably where this video is gonna go because the questions I've gotten in the DMs recently, the majority of questions I've gotten from y'all are like Mike, whether it's COVID, injuries, life. I think a lot of you have kind of grown with me and shout out for that because when I started YouTube, you know, I'm 22, 23, now I'm 32. And so a lot of you guys maybe started watching me when you're 17, 18 or in your early 20s and now you guys are mid 20s, late 20s, 30s and maybe you have more intensive jobs. Maybe some of you guys have gotten married over this time, more of a routine, turn to more adult and just have more responsibilities. Maybe some of you guys have little ones running around and so your schedule has changed or maybe you just can't train like you used to but now it's important for you personally your life wise to find time for that. So a lot of questions on how to come back into the training portion, which if you guys go back into the vlogs, I talk about how I'm doing it, the recharge guysentraining.com, how we've been doing that for myself but can also, how you get your strength back but the question is like, oh, I'm, you know whatever percent body fat or I'm 10 pounds overweight and I've lost a muscle, do I start to lose fat? Do I start to build my muscle? What do I do? What are the first steps nutritionally or what do I do in the gym? So if you guys are interested in my advice on how to get jacked or lose fat or build muscle, coming back to the gym, give this thing a thumbs up, man, like the freaking video, help your boy out. See if we can get a thousand likes. Thanks so much, man, for rocking with me. New videos Monday, Wednesday, maybe take, maybe not. I mean, all the holidays are on the weekend like New Year's or whatever, so we might not take a day off. We might just be grinding. So there's no right answer to this. There's no right answer on how to come back but if you have had a extended period off of the gym, extended period off your nutrition, lifting heavy, any physical activity, there are decent chances of muscle memory and being able to kind of recomp. So recomposition meaning gaining muscle and lose body fat at the same time. Now, this is possible for any lifter but it is slightly easier or more likely when you're new to lifting or training, strength training or if you are coming back, you can also get similar effects. Now, if you're a super advanced lifter, it's unlikely but possible if you add copious amounts of volume to an area that has not recently gotten that type of stimulus. So say you only train biceps three sets a week and then you go into a diet phase and you start hammering your biceps, you may be able to gain some muscle there if your protein is adequate and recovery is adequate while you're losing weight. For the typical person having some type of off season or building phase, some kind of cut or diet phase typically how we'll go through those waves and for most strength athletes, focusing in on kind of maintenance, finding a weight class that's comfortable for life, comfortable for you, because hopefully our identities aren't so tied into this thing. You can love powerlifting, you can consider yourself a powerlifter but hopefully we have some goals of longevity, of feeling good, of our families, of our health outside of that. So maintenance, slight surplus to gain most efficiently muscle and strength in training. Now for multiple reasons to come back into training I think a more general approach is great. So we can be specific in a barbell movements if you'd like. Again, I'm doing a higher intensity, lower volume phases to get the most out of my time and that volume. If you come back and start banging out 10 sets of 10, what happens when you plateau in a month or two, right? So I'm doing one heavy set, single double triple and a back down set three, five. And once I start to plateau there, then I'll start to add in more volumes on the downsets or the top sets, whatever it is. For the nutrition, I made a little pact with myself because if you guys don't know, I find myself to be a very confident person in general. I'm very aware and confident of who I am, that I'm a good human, that I treat people well, that I do the right things in front, behind the camera, in front and behind closed doors. But I'm not the most confident person in my looks for those that have rocked and rolled with me. I'm pretty self-conscious of my body. I don't really get naked here on this channel, looking around YouTube the other day for titles and what other content creators are doing and everyone's still half naked. I'm just not comfortable with that. One, I don't want you to follow or listen to me because of how strong I am or what I look like or what car I drive. I want you to listen to me because you believe I have well thought out opinions with experience and knowledge that I've gathered from other very intelligent lifters and coaches over the years. And that I hopefully put it in a way that you understand. Point being, I'm not very confident in my Bob. And that's just the truth. And I know we all deal with some self-esteem stuff whether other people might not like the way they do this or they do that. And we all have little things about our bodies but point being, I don't like being heavy. I don't feel very comfortable in my skin when I'm heavy. And right now I'm hovering around 220, 225, 230 on some days. But I made a pact with myself that I'm gonna maintain 220 to 230 pound body weight. I'm not going to pay attention to it. I'm gonna try to get more protein in since we've kind of done this little recharge which started in maybe October. And really try to build back some of that muscle and give myself a good six to nine months to hopefully build back and even maybe extend the most muscle mass I've ever had. Now for the general public, I kind of recommend that whether you're newbie, whether you're even intermediate or again, coming back on the recharge, spending time at maintenance and focusing in on training, focusing in on protein, focusing in on sleep. But also just getting some general physical preparedness going, I try to get a little elliptical in right now we have the assault bike. I try to get some kettlebell swings in. I try to superset some stuff so get my lungs going. Again, the general health look, I'm not saying eat maintenance, eat Doritos and just squat heavy once a week. What I'm saying is don't focus in on cutting the body fat right away. And obviously this depends person for person. If you are in a health risk for your body weight or your body fat percentage, this advice may not be for you. You may need to go straight into a cut to get down to a healthy range. For males that might be 10 to 20%, ladies that might be 15 to 25% depending on your build. And obviously these are all just eyeball judgments because we don't need to go get a test. You can kind of know where you're at. And I still, I think I'm in a healthiest range. Probably low 20s. I don't look great, but I'm not, you know, I'm soft but I'm not hopefully gonna have a heart attack. Find it, I try to find wood to knock. So you, those that are in an unhealthy range should probably focus on building a routine of eating more whole foods, getting some movement in whether it be like cardio lifting, finding an activity you enjoy and losing some weight. That's not bad advice at all. But for those that want to really optimize their physique, want to get stronger, want to get bigger and are focusing on aesthetic and strength like the majority of us, I think you are doing yourself a disservice by hopping back in and looking for those abs, looking to, you know, cut down your calories below 2000 and all this stuff. One, because your metabolism too, because building back that muscle does take time. It will come back a little bit faster because of muscle memory and because you're already conditioned for that, but it will take time. So whether you make a pact with yourself, you have some training buddies or you just build out a plan. I do recommend kind of going into a maintenance phase. Building back the habits is the number one thing I recommend. Those habits can be multitude of habits and it kind of depends per person on what you're good at, what you're bad at. I'm not great at my meals. So my habits are getting back to grocery shopping, getting back to cooking, getting back to anything I order out, focusing in on a protein packed meal. Even if I go to, you know, a drive through or something like that. Not going for the option I necessarily want but going for something close to what I want that still has a good nutritional value. For others, it might be sleep. If you're up late playing war zone with your friends, with your little negative KD and you're coming into me in the lobby and I'm shooting your head off, I'm 360, no scoping you and I'm creeping up and assassinating you from the back because I'm so much better than you. One, you need to get good, kid. Two, you need to put the controller down, set a routine of what time you're going to bed, what time you're going to sleep, what time you're waking up and make that a more regular thing. Getting your water in. If water is something that you struggle to get, find yourself a routine to do that whether you drink a glass of water every time you come and leave the kitchen, whether you grab a water bottle and travel with it. Whatever things set you up for success, those are the plans we need to start to build. If it's a routine thing in the gym and you can't find yourself going to the gym, put it in your phone, put an alarm, set an exact schedule, buy a new program, invest in a coach, invest in yourself so that you can get these things going a little bit better. Find a training partner and say, hey, Timmy, I'm going to meet you Monday, Wednesday, Friday at five o'clock and now you hold yourself accountable and Timmy accountable to meet at five o'clock Monday, Wednesday, Friday. These are the type of things, very small, we'll build up over time and once we do those for weeks, months, years, we'll get back to where we're going. So I have a lot of hope for me, my progress and strength. I think I got a lot of room to grow still. My ceiling is high as an athlete. I'm excited to share that with you. I got a heavy bench day today, light squat, heavy conventional beltless poles. So it's my second pole day but we're going to go all beltless conventional. Probably sets a three to six. See what that looks like. I got a podcast a little bit later, the boys are coming. Hopefully you guys enjoyed that. Hopefully you enjoyed the training footage, man. Thanks so much for riding with me, boys. Leave your comments below, what topics you want me to cover in this nature, just basic tips or my opinions on things as we throw it in with the vlogs and training footage. Sorry for the daily vlogs not being as exciting or as normal as they are now but I spent a lot of time here in the gym in the morning, whether I'm doing the clothing design, the orders, running the gym itself. I'm here rocking a roll and kind of by myself. So I can give you guys some of my thoughts during the day as a little journal but it's much more fun to kind of log out with the homies, you know, and Kyle and Dan and all my boys are around me. But that'll have to wait a little while. The holidays get a little weird. And again, I'm running the gym all morning long. So once we get some help or figure out our schedule that I'm not here early, early by myself, my energy will be a little bit higher. I'll be able to run around town because after I'm here I'm home back on the computer doing more work. So when that's kind of settled in I can have some not necessarily leisure time but time to vlog vlog. I'm excited to do that because I bought the school camera and I want to share with you all. So energy drink, I'm going to grab some foods. I'm going to train. Hopefully you enjoyed the video and the training. Like the video, my friends comment below. Salam Mike, we're out of here, 3sb.co. Check it out, Kyle's in training. Check it out, 50% facts. Check it out, follow me on Instagram, Salam Mike2kates.