 Hello, everyone. Welcome to Mind Pump. In the first half of this episode, we talk about four novel lifting techniques that will get your body to respond as well as other topics. In the second half of the show, the guy is coached four live callers on questions such as, I'm going on vacation. How can I avoid losing my gains? I like the snowboard and wakeboard. What is the best way for me to work out? I'm having a hard time moving from a split routine to a full-body workout. What do you suggest to make the mental leap? And my legs are a lot bigger than my upper body. How can I achieve balance between the two? Finally, we have another channel called Mind Pump Clips. We are posting up a lot of videos there. These are videos taken from this show. They're short clips, easy to watch and easy to share. Go over there, Mind Pump Clips and subscribe. All right, enjoy the show. Here are four novel ways to get a body part to respond when you use strength training. Here they are. Let's say you're doing 12 sets for a body part. Here's four different ways you can do that. Option one, four exercises for that body part, three sets each. Option two, three exercises for that body part, four sets each. Option three, two exercises, six sets each. And option four, do one exercise for 12 sets. All of them are different. All of them provide different value, but all of them build muscle. Where'd it go, math guy? The magical number 12. I know he wrote that down and rehearsed it like five times. One and 12, like three and four. No, you know, do you guys remember when you figured this out where you didn't have to do like you could do the same amount of sets, but do like one exercise or just two? Like they're all valuable, especially when they're novel. Like if you always, because I did a tweet on this and people are like, what, isn't it better to do more exercises? And I said, well, you know, generally, yes, but if that's what you always do, I said, try going to the gym on chest day or shoulder day, pick a big gross motor movement and do just all your sets with that one movement and watch what happens. Watch how you feel. It'll blow you away. Yeah, yeah. How often do you guys change this up? Like where you, this was one of those things that, you know, we talk about how like, oh, you shifted something in your training or thinking around, you know, programming that like made this huge leap for your gains or whatever. This was one of them where I, for the longest time, I was three sets, three sets of whatever exercise and. Well, cause it's promoted as like the best muscle building like zone was like three. Yeah, three to four, right? Three to four sets was like the standard for hypertrophy training. And so that was the area I was starting. I actually remember just this way. And this was before I even really started to track volume or any of this stuff. I trained in the three set thing forever. And it was again, I think somebody who gave me that advice to ask me another, an actually good trainer who I was talking to was just like, well, have you ever organized it to where you have four, you do four sets of everything? And I'm like, no, I never thought of that. I remember doing that and like huge gains, you know, that was actually the first transition of going like, oh, okay, well, this is all I did was really increase the volume and then also recognizing that, oh man, I can do just like what you said, three sets, four sets, I could do six sets, like, you know, and we can start to play with that a little bit. I do that all the time. And you can keep the volume, like you could keep the total sets the same. So it's not like, you know, you did four sets. Now you're doing a bunch more sets. You cut out an exercise or do less of other exercises. The first time I figured this out, I was reading about Paul Anderson. He's one of the strongest athletes of all time. He's an Olympic weightlifter American. He's like one of the most decorated American Olympic lifters. And I was reading about how he would, he, you know, had a farmhouse and he would go and do squats and he would do like 15 sets of just squats. I said, God, you know, I've never done a workout. Like I always do the same thing. I would do three sets of this exercise, three sets of that exercise. And I said, why don't, instead of doing, you know, three or four exercises for chess, what if I just did bench press and I just did all the sets? Just did all the sets of just bench press. And I remember the pump I got, how I felt my strength gains. I was like, oh, it was like paradigm shattering. I said, oh my God, I could do this for any exercise, any body part. By the way, it doesn't have to be a compound gross motor movement either. You could do 12 sets of laterals. You know, it obviously, that's not going to be as loud of a signal. But my point with this is you can have that flexibility and it's one way to change your workout. Make a novel. So you're going in to do X amount of sets. You can still do those sets. You could do, in fact, you can even go as crazy as doing one set of 12 exercises. Well, that's what I was just going to bring up. It wasn't 12, but it was 10. And I remember doing that with a buddy of mine in college and it was like, well, let's, let's try this out. We had heard it from somewhere. I don't know, like a power lifter or somebody that was talking to us about, you know, like structuring it that way. And they're like, well, let's try this. And let's see, you know, of course we're like, you know, picking a weight that's like pretty close to our like max rep because it's like, it's only one rep, right? And then, oh my God, it just buried us. Like it was insane. But then like I did it again in a better way in terms of like like shaving down quite a bit of like more like 70% of intensity and it was so much better. And it actually got a lot better. My performance like increased because of the rest in between and then the approach to it was totally different. Yeah, that's something else to consider too. If you do something like this and you're doing all your sets with one exercise, consider that by the 10th set you have to be able to perform the reps that you're looking for. So if you normally do three sets of bench press with X amount of pounds, you're going to have to go a lot lighter if you plan on doing 10 sets of that exercise. Well, especially if you never do it. Like you, I think that's a mistake I make a lot, right? When I do these, you know, interrupt my training to with a, you know, 10 set day, like the GBT type of training. And I just, you know, and typical training or programming for me is like somewhere between the, you know, three to maybe five or six set ranges where I, so jumping all the way to 10 or 12, you really overestimate what you can do. You know what I'm saying? And it's amazing how adapted the body gets to these amount of sets. Like that always is such a reminder to me. It's just like, I don't think on that much weaker but I'm so used to stopping it like set five and then I don't have to do it anymore that when I push six, seven, eight sets and something like that, I get dramatically weaker. But this is always for me to just highlight such that different mindset going into these different structures. Like, it's just, it was so different for me to just get in and like, you know, you kind of get into the groove when you get more of a, a lot more reps. Like you're able to kind of like work your way into the rep in a sense versus like, I really had to like laser focus and then get ready and then perform, you know, for just that one rep. So it was completely different. Oh, you're talking about 10 singles or whatever? Yeah. Oh yeah. I love that. It's just such a different mindset. Yeah. It's so awesome. So how, okay. You didn't say 12 sets of, I mean, 12 exercises of one set. You could do that too. You could, but would you make the case? I would make the case that that is, I think anything under two and even two is pushing it. I know in some of our pre faced stuff, we go two sets. Yeah, but you would have to be pretty like advanced to the point where you could get into the groove with one set. A lot of people need to do one set before they can do another set. Well, I would make this case though. I'd actually say it's the two extremes. Either you'd have to be very advanced or so new that just touching, you know what I'm saying? That you get stimulus and change from that, right? So I feel like the two ends of the spectrum could get away with one set of an exercise, one or two sets of an exercise because what, if you're extremely brand new and a squat or anything, one set of them and there's a good chance that you'll, you'll get sore and you'll feel that even if they, if they aren't the most effect done effectively, right? Then the other in the extreme, if you're really, really advanced and you can, you've already maybe primed your body and you can get connected really well, maybe you can get some better challenges like most people can't think of 12 exercises. Yeah, like 12 shoulder exercises. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah, unless you're a trainer, I'd be pretty tough for somebody. I don't like personally, I don't like going less than three. And again, I know that in our pre phase, we do two sets that obviously for the thought process behind that is a brand new person. That's the total exception of the rule. But it, even with my priming, I still feel like I want about one set to really get in the group. Isolation movements, I could do less because those are pretty easy to jump into. That's a good point. You know, like a cable movement or, you know. That's a good point. Yeah, the compound stuff, I agree with you, same thing. But, you know, that's personal preference, but my point is that I think we, we get, I did the same, we all did this. You get stuck in your pattern and you think change exercises, change reps, you know, maybe change total volume, but nobody thinks that they could go in and do less sets, more exercises, or less exercises and more sets and hit the same volume. That's something that most people don't think about. This is why you brought up GVT, which is German volume training, where they'll tell you to do 10 sets of 10 reps of an exercise or 10 sets of five reps of an exercise. This is why when people switch over to it, they get such crazy gains because it's so radically different from what they're used to that it's so novel. So you're advanced, you've been working out for three, four years and you've never done this before. Try it and watch what happens. Your body all of a sudden responds. All right, everybody, today's free program giveaway is Maps Strong. Here's how you can win that program. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Also subscribe to this channel and then click on notifications. If we declare you the winner, we'll let you know in the comments section. Also, we've got three, these three bundles on sale right now, but it's only gonna be on sale for the next four days. After that, they are gone. Each bundle gives you up to nine months of planned workouts. Each bundle is $300 or more off. So again, it's a huge promotion. If you're interested, just click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, here comes the show. All right, so I'm gonna go at the risk of Adam going off onto a tangent because I know the AI conversation's been. I mean, so far we haven't got any complaint or at least I haven't got a complaint yet. Most people seem to be interested. So I think we're all, yeah, dude, it's a big shift. You know, I'm sure people are all speculating right now what's gonna happen. And to be fair, everybody's talking about it. So I'm am teasing you. I would like to tease you though. Dude, I just learned something about AI that is remarkable. I didn't even think of. And this is just highlights. There's so much that we don't even consider the possibilities that we don't even consider. So check this out. When pharmaceutical companies are creating new drugs to try to target a particular receptor or to treat a particular disorder or symptom, there's two main ways that they will test a particular drug or new compound. There's what's called in vitro. And in vitro is in a petri dish or a test tube. Okay, so vitro meaning glass. Then there's in vivo, which means it's in a living organism. So an animal and then of course human testing. So in vivo, in vitro, well, they have a way of testing now that AI is starting to make like not just possible, but this is going to be how pharmaceutical companies are going to narrow down their pipeline. So let me back up for a second. A pipeline is pharmaceutical company gets their scientists together and they come up with a hundred different concepts for different molecules and compounds that may target a particular receptor. And then through that, they have to pick the ones that they're gonna test in vitro and that's expensive. And then through that it narrows down. And so there's potentially thousands and thousands of possibilities that they never test because they're too risky, it's too expensive. And when you're a pharma company, the FDA process is it's like a billion dollars to take something from concept to market through all the trials, which means if you're a pharmaceutical company, let's say you're gonna make a pain drug and your options are an opiate, so a different type of opiate and then this new radical different compound that is something we've never tried before, you're not gonna take that risk because you're like, I'm not gonna spend hundreds of millions of dollars on something that's probably gonna fail. Opiates, we know they work and whatever so we're just gonna stick with this particular compound. Well, now they're doing what's called in silica. So AI is able to now take a compound in the computer and test it through the computer. Simulate through the computer like you're doing it in vitro or in vivo. So you guys remember Iron Man, like when Iron Man was testing like compounds and he's doing the thing with his hands and he's testing different thing, that's what they were showing in there is that he's basically his computer is testing compounds before he ever tests it in real life. AI is gonna be able to do that now. So they're gonna be able to go in, have a target receptor or a protein or a pathway and say we wanna work with this pathway, we want to agonize this receptor, antagonize this receptor, affect this particular pathway, whatever. Here's all these different options. Here's 150 different... Based on all labs that they've been able to collect and record and it just... They'll be able to take a molecule, change it in the computer, plug it in, how's that gonna work? Oh, it doesn't work, change it this way. Or the AI itself is gonna say, we're gonna figure out, you'll put the molecule in or the compound and the AI itself will make it work for whatever target you're looking. Then it'll spit out, here are five ways or five different compounds or molecules with a according to our testing 98% effective rate. Now the pharma company can take those out of thousands of options and test them in vitro and save tremendous amounts of money and just open up the doors for potential drug discoveries. Just an immediate disruption. It's crazy, I don't think people realize just how radical- That's such a... And like you said, the barrier to entry, it's insane the billions of dollars we have to pour in to test something. So it was that unlocks like all new potential for different compounds we never would have thought of. We are on the verge of a breakthrough in biology and in medicine that's gonna be, it's gonna make antibiotics look like vitamins. It's gonna blow our minds because what's gonna happen is once... We accidentally ate mold. Yay, like Nobel Prize. Exactly, accidents, they were all accidents. So we're gonna be able to put in a receptor, a pathway into the AI and then say, create five potential compounds that can affect whatever we're looking for and show us the ones with over 95% accuracy that you think, whatever. And then it'll spit them out. Nobel Prize. They'll create the drugs. What a shrimp, dude. Saving too much. Billions and billions of billions of dollars of development. Can we slow down? So wild, right? It's gonna be this year. I mean, this year we're gonna see, I think when everybody kind of wakes completely up. Obviously it is popular. A lot of people are talking about, but there's still a lot of people that don't. When I did a post the other day, at least half of the messages I got were, what is that? Or how do I do that? Or tell me more? Like there's a lot of people that still are not privy to exactly what it's doing. I think unless you've gone on chat GBT and play with it, I don't think you really can grasp the capabilities of it. And then also how to... I'm still challenging myself on to think this way, right? We have so many habits of like how we would solve problems ourselves that I'm trying to train myself every time I have... Ask better questions, right? Right, so I mean, here's another one, right? So Katrina talking to me yesterday, she has interviews today. And we're looking for somebody for the apparel side of the business. And she's like, hey, and she knows that for a long period of my career, a lot of it was spent doing interviews. And so, you know, I've learned some good things to ask in interviews for getting, you know, out the character of the person and stuff like that. And so she's, hey, could you sit down with me and help me prepare for some of these interviews that I'm gonna do? And I said, have you thought about using chat GBT? And she's like, how would I use that for an interview? I'm like, okay, well, prompt it first to ask, what are the best characteristics for somebody to have an apparel business? Or what are the best characteristics for a... What are the questions I should ask somebody? Right, and then after it gives you the characteristics of what makes a successful apparel line or what about that, then ask how to ask questions to get those answers from somebody and then ask it to limit you to 10 questions or whatever, the top 10 questions to ask for those characteristics. And now you have basically an interview. In 10 seconds. And yeah, just instantly. And I'm like, now I have the ability because I've been doing it for a long time to probably sit down with you for an hour and formulate that. But I mean, you could literally prompt chat GBT with maybe two or three different unique prompts and get a better, probably interview than I would probably give you. At least a baseline then you can add to it or subtract. So that's what I mean. I mean, that's just is learning to think like that. Like, you know, how... So I've really tried to be, you know, cognizant of that as we go through the day now when there's like little things, it's like, okay, well, how... Yeah, I'm gonna, I would go search or read or reach out to someone else. Well, what if I prompt chat GBT to get to the bottom of it? Well, I just... Productivity, yeah, it makes perfect sense. I just read an article. So you guys know what the singularity is. Well, in physics, the singularity is like when you pass what's known as the event horizon in a black hole, where you go past the event horizon and the singularity is the point of the black hole where the gravity is so strong nothing can escape or whatever. But they've taken that term and used it for AI. And I think it was Ray Kurzweil who came up with it first. And the singularity with technology is when AI gets so intelligent that it can create AI smarter than itself. And they call that the singularity because there's no turning back. At that point, AI will evolve so rapidly that we will be left in the dust. Once it can design things smarter than itself and then that can design things smarter than itself, then we're screwed and that's it. We don't do anything anymore. And so there's this organization in Rome. I think it's a university if I'm not mistaken. And that's what these scientists do is they come up with ways to figure out when would this potential singularity happen? Well, they just came up with a number, seven years. They think that in seven years that their best calculation is within seven years we will reach the singularity with AI technology. Isn't that wild? I liked when it was like 25 years old. I had a little bit of like chill about it, man. But it does seem like that. Everything's moving so quickly. That's not that far of a speculation. Now, when you guys sit and like ponder on this is that I'm sure we all do think about this outside of here. Do you go more the optimistic or pessimistic view of it? Like, do you naturally gravitate and go like, man, you start thinking of all the negative things or all the things that, boy, this could be dangerous and lead this way? Or do you have more of the attitude like, wow, this is going to be really interesting. All the things it's going to solve and fix and help. Unfortunately, I kind of go to... Well, you're the anti-Christ believer of the AI. So I know where you go. Well, because I pay attention to history. So there's civilizations hit a peak and this is a peak like that we're facing. So I don't know a civilization that survived once we've hit this kind of a monumental shift. And so it scares the hell out of me to be honest with you. But I think that you're going to have... I'm going to have to listen to somebody that can sell me on all of the benefits to it like long-term to really kind of like pull me out of that dark place. Yeah, I could flip back and forth depending on my mood. So on the positive side, I'm like, okay, we now have... We're pretty close to having the potential to solve all of our biggest challenges like energy, travel, food, productivity, efficiency, you know, that kind of stuff. And then the other side, and this is more recent, is that I can get negative with the... I guess the philosophical moral question, which is if every person has the ability to get everything they want, if every person could walk around with a genie, like imagine if every human had a genie right now. Like that would be a disaster. What would that be like? And at best, we're going to be challenged with things that we don't even... We can't even fully comprehend. Like for example, Elon Musk just did a post a couple days ago where he said like two of the most... I don't remember what the other one was, but one of them was like two of the worst curses, one would be to live forever and people were debating him. And I'm like, no, that would be a curse. Like lots of meaning is provided because life is finite. We humans have never lived forever. And I think we don't... I don't think we can even conceptualize what challenge that would place on us if we lived forever. If we just lived forever, what would that do to us? It would be a philosophical... Boy, would that be a challenge for us? Yeah, I think in terms of... It depends on the person you're speaking to as well and where they are in their journey and their life. So if there's like a paycheck to paycheck, there's a lot of like crazy struggle, like this could be like a godsend, you know? Like the future in terms of alleviating them of this constant grind and being on the hamster wheel of like trying to make it work, you know? Like this is gonna help resolve like a lot of people's... Who are like in the trenches in terms of like trying to make sense out of like purpose and like making... But again, to like thinking long term, I just, I feel like we're gonna lose sense of our own purpose, our own drive, our own will to make sense out of why we're here, yeah. I mean, you got to think that the fact that you can walk in and switch on a heater or turn a flight switch in my fireplace comes on or I can have somebody else fix my plumbing when it goes. I mean, you have to... And you got to think that there's a scary bad side to all of those even simple things that you've just adapted to too, right? Like if I had to build my home, I would be fucked, right? If I was out and if I had to go hunt for my food, I would be fucked and we've just let go of those skills. And so if you were to travel back thousands of years and say this is what I'm gonna... You're not gonna be able to do a start a fire. I'm not gonna be able to build a home. I'm not gonna be able to hunt food. They'd be like, oh, you're gonna be decimated or you're never gonna survive. You'll never live. So I always try and put myself into that frame too that, okay, that's how I see it right now because it seems like how could we give up the skill of critical thinking and learning and reading and stuff like that? I mean, audio books came out. I'm sure there was a fear of like, oh my God, we're gonna lose how to read because these books just read are read to you now. No, you're making a good point. I think anytime we think of something radically changing it sounds scary because we don't know what to anticipate. But I don't know. I think historically, whenever we've solved one problem there's just other problems on the other end of it. Like we solved food in modern societies and now we have obesity. So not saying one is better than the other. It will be both. It'll just be a little more on the extremes of like, you know, pure euphoria and pure hell, you know. I just see it like in terms of like, you know, things that we're gonna be challenged with the whole new thing that we probably didn't even consider. And so, you know, there'll be some people that will really take advantage of it and there'll be some people that will just be completely decimated by it. Yeah, that's how I think. Adam's plugged and plugged in, isn't he? Yeah, no, I definitely, I think we're gonna, it's gonna be like that. But I definitely think that there's going to be, it's going to solve some more problems than, I mean, think about how crazy the internet was, like how many problems that solved and how many things it made better. But then look at all the things that we're seeing now with kids and pornography and like, there's a lot of really bad dark sides of the internet and what, so that's exactly what's gonna happen with this. I feel like it's going to maybe arguably solve more problems and make more things in life better than maybe anything that we've seen in our lifetime. But it's the same in the same token or same breath. In terms of struggle. It will create new problems that we never even knew would probably exist. Here's the positive side that I'll say. Maybe it pushes humanity to progress psychologically, philosophically, you know, in a philosophical way and spiritually because we will reach a point where we're gonna get everything that we want. So why am I saying this? Because if we get everything that we want and we're left sad and anxious and depressed, then maybe then people will start to look in that direction. Okay, well, we got everything and I'm still feeling this way. So it might do that, right? It might just drive us to positive progress. So I agree now that that's the one pessimistic or scary thing that I see and that's just because it'll be our lifetime and probably our kid's lifetime. They'll have to go through the shit for us to look back on history and go like, remember when we thought we wanted everything? Like we're, it's not gonna happen quick. That's not gonna happen quick. I mean, it's gonna be- Yeah, we don't learn fast like AI. No, no. I mean, it took, you know, almost 30 years of my life of chasing this dollar amount that I thought was going to make me happy. And then when I got there, it doesn't matter how brilliant of a person could sat me down and said, listen, you're gonna realize that this is not it. No, fuck you, I need to find out for myself. Oh, and then justifying, I'm looking at my life. It's so amazing, I'm having such a good time. So, you know, to me, that's a small example of what our entire society is gonna have to go through for probably decades before we can then reflect on it and go, remember when we thought we wanted everything. Unless the AI can simulate- And teach you that. Can simulate it. Hey, if we go on this path, what's it gonna look like in 25 years? And then it spits it out. Now, we would have to accept it and be like, okay, I think that's, we're gonna believe this. So, I mean, I don't know. It's so wide open, right? I think this has been one of those things that like philosophers and people have been trying to kind of anticipate because like the whole argument of do we even have free will, right? Or is it all predestined? It's like, we're getting so close to that point where we may actually lose all free will if we completely abandoned, you know, our own autonomy in terms of like the way that we cognitively rationalized thing and think our own way through it versus like dependency on machine. You know what's weird about this is that old wisdom is so, it just never goes away. It's so applicable. Like the eating the apple in the Garden of Eden, right? That story, right? Of knowledge, right? And then what that created. Pandora's box, the story of Pandora's box, opening it up for this, all the knowledge and then it's, oh, we can't close it now and we're totally screwed. It's just so funny how like, they've known this for thousands of years. We've talked about this and the dangers or the potential dangers, I should say. And yet here we are. That's pretty. But it's coming. I'll get the popcorn now. You can't stop it. All right, Adam, I want to ask you about your move because I know you've been moving and that's a pain in the ass and you had to do all the moving yourself. We did. I shouldn't say we didn't do all of it ourselves. We contracted about a quarter of it out, all the heavy stuff, which was really funny. Justin and I appreciate that by the way. Yeah, I didn't call you guys, right? It's a good friend. A good friend doesn't call another friend for a move. That's why I'm going to start that. Right in the airport. Yeah, good friends don't do that to other good friends. So I didn't call and bug you guys. I'll tell you a funny story since today this episode is brought to you by SleepMe. So this is a great commercial for them because we got all of our stuff. We're all situated and got our bed set up, got our SleepMe set up and everything. And I always talk about how they save marriages. Well, they could also cause a divorce in a marriage too, right? Because Katrina woke up like enraged at me because I didn't... When I moved, I didn't like tag. Did you switch them up? And we didn't have Wi-Fi so I couldn't go in and change it. So she wakes up and like freezing. Five o'clock in the morning. Like she'll wrinkle like, I got your ruler. She's like so pissed. And I was over there hot though, sweating because of hers. I was all pissed off. So I didn't even think about it. It didn't even dawn on me like that. I might have flip-flopped him on accident. Isn't that funny how individual that is? Yeah. Like freezing for you, sleep good. Yeah. Hot for her, sleep good. Oh, yeah. She woke up shaking me up, all mad at me. So like, I've got your ruler. It's freezing over here. So what'd you guys do? Just switch sides in the morning? I haven't even switched it. That just happened. Literally just happened. And so I... But we get Wi-Fi handled. So I'll be able to go in. Have you messed with the feature where it warms up towards the morning to wake you up? Yeah. So that's how mine is set. Mine is set to you get into bed and it gets really, really cool. And now the reason why we didn't know this was because we had plugged him in that night. Oh. So it didn't get time. It just started getting like two hours in the bed. Yeah, it kicked on. And so we didn't, we didn't really know what either side was going to produce until long. We'd already fallen asleep, right? But mine's set to get the coolest setting. And I set it to normally two hours before when I have Wi-Fi to control of it. I have it set to kick on. I'm really cold. And then at like, I think I have it at five in the morning, 5.30 or so. It starts to slowly warm up and then hits its peak to where it's like hot. Just wakes you up normally. Yeah. If I'm not, if I'm not out of bed by 6.30, my bed's like, it will make me wake up. It'll be so, so warm inside. It's so cool because it simulates how we evolved to wake up with the getting warm. You know, I try, you know, Katrina listens to the show and she knows that. And I know she's heard us tout all the health benefits of sleeping cold with that. She still ignores all that and she sleeps hot the whole way through. And I'm just like, how do you do that? She's like, because I don't feel hot. I'm like, I don't know how you don't feel hot. It's like 90 on your side. Hey, so, so I just read, I just posted this to him on Twitter. There was a Rasmussen report. You guys know what Rasmussen, okay. So this is a polling company and they do polls and they're, I mean, they're, you know, people respect them. They do polls for like elections, who's going to win, polls on what people think on policy, what people think about certain things happening in the world. And I mean, they're so accurate that they'll influence Vegas odds and they'll influence politicians. Okay. So Rasmussen posted on people who got the COVID vaccine, 7%, okay. So 7% of people, according to Rasmussen, got side effects from the vaccine that were bad enough to have to go back to the doctor or the hospital and or take time off work. Wow. Okay. So with that right there, now that's- Sal, isn't the CDC right now launching a big old on strokes? Right. Yeah, potential strokes. Okay. So we're potentially going to see a lot of stuff come out. Well, so based on that data and then add to that the data that was accepted, this is all accepted data. So that 7% isn't accepted. That's based off of a trusted poll source, but let's just put that aside. Add to that the data of how effective the vaccines are, how long they last in terms of their effectiveness and whether or not they prevent transmission, which they don't. And then you add to that the profit of these vaccines. What we have currently are simultaneously, this is wild when you think about it, we have simultaneously the most dangerous based on these side effects, based off the Rasmussen poll, the most dangerous least effective is these vaccines will provide protection for like three months. They don't reduce trans, they don't stop transmission, still transmit it, least effective and also simultaneously most profitable vaccines, I think in history. Of all time. I think in history. So most dangerous, least effective, most profitable, this is insane. Yeah, and see, I was always promoting vaccine, but the one thing for me that, and this was not really that controversial for me in the beginning, it was just like, why is this protected for many investigation before it even was like mandated? I'm like, to have this kind of like safe asylum and no real human trials, I didn't have enough time to adequately go through the normal process of being able to find these kind of side effects and then it's just pushed through. That was enough of a red flag for me to wait. Yeah, and you were not in a category of people where you were high risk, you don't have any type of morbidity, you're not old, you're healthy, you know, blah, blah, blah. Again, I would consider it if I was unhealthy. Now, all this stuff coming out and at least in my family, my circle of friends, so I thought I don't have anybody that's changing their tune still. I do. Oh, you do? Yeah, I have some family members that got it and they're like, I wish I didn't. Oh, okay. I haven't heard that. I've just, I've heard the doubling down. Like I've had friends now that like, they've now finally got COVID once or twice and they're like, oh man, thank God I was vaccinated because I probably would have died because I was so sick when I got it. I was like, or maybe it would have been the same. Well, based on the current data, if you're older and you have cold morbidities, then there's a protective effect. If you're young and healthy, there seems to be a no net positive and it's just based off of what I've read and in some cases a net negative. If you look at, this is accepted data. So, but the part that blows me away is, first off, just based off of what's accepted under normal circumstance, obviously we push these through very quickly, pandemic, governments like we need to get these through, but under normal circumstances, these, this particular vaccines would have never passed trials because the standards for vaccines is so high. It's so high that you could have one or two, you can have like two or three cases of something happening amongst, 50,000 test participants and they'll halt it. So it would have never passed, but it's wild. It's wild that they're the most profitable on top of all this stuff. It's pretty wild. And this is, again, it's Erasmus Impulse. So it's not a scientific study, but if it comes out that 7% or even 5%, 2%, if 2% of people had side effects that were bad enough that they had to go back to the doctor hospital, miss work type of deal, that sucks. That's a terrible, that's terrible. Yeah, there's been some examples of, you know, people, public figures and people kind of coming out and saying like, you know, admitting that, you know, at this point, it looks like it was, it was the wrong decision. Scott Adams. Yeah, Scott Adams came out. He was like, the ad type of actor was one. He said they won because he said when you, when you don't trust people who don't trust the government and big business, especially when they're partnered, he says you almost always can't go wrong. And I agree, historically, when they partner together, that's like the unholy reliance. And, you know, that's when you, now, you know, if you listen to our podcast and you listen back, you know, I was, I'd be on the fence. I'd go back and forth, but I would look at the data and consider my health to, well, you know, I'm not in this category of people where I'm really high risk. So I think I'll wait is what I kept saying. I think I'll wait. I think I'll wait. Just advocating for our own, you know, thoughts and our own health. It's like, I gotta be my own advocate. It's pretty wild. Have you guys listened to Neil deGrasse Tyson talk about it with his, I heard him and Patrick by David. He has a fundamental misunderstanding of what freedom is. I'm talking about Neil deGrasse. Fundamental, he, his understanding, which is wrong, is that, you know, you are not free to get somebody sick. So you have to get that. First off, that's not how it works. You are free to take your own risks, meaning in a world with diseases that are out there, I have the freedom to go out and to meet with people or talk with people or not. Also, if you own a business or a home, you should have the freedom to put a sign on your door that says you can't come in here unless you're vaccinated or you can't come to my house unless you're vaccinated or vice versa. That's freedom. Freedom is not go out and then, oh, you know, you can't get me sick therefore you're infringing on my freedom. No, no, no. You're free for yourself, not for other people. That's how it works. He completely doesn't understand it. Yeah, I was surprised that Patrick Bet David didn't go harder on that angle with him. He got more into a debate with him about the efficacy of the actual vaccine and stuff like that and if the process of how they do it. And so it turned into him defending like, listen, where it's at now, it doesn't matter. We did it the best way. We could have done it back then. And so they got into that argument back and forth where he didn't jump all over what he said about freedom. And I thought, I think you're right. I think that would have been the argument is just like, that's not what freedom is. Like you can't force somebody else to do that for the sake of your health and your family's health. If you're that concerned, stay in your fucking cave. Stay in your cave and hide with your family as you have the right to do it. And again, if you own businesses and homes and your neighborhood and everybody decides this is what we want to do, you should have the freedom to say, nobody can come in here unless you're vaccinated or unvaccinated or whatever. That's how freedom works. So he had a fundamental misunderstanding of it and that annoyed the hell out of me. But he did make good points. It's like, we didn't know during this period of time. We didn't know and we were pushing these things through and it was kind of scary and I get that. So, you know, I'm not like hammering people during that period of time. But now, now, like people who advocate for children to wear masks now, and I say children because there is a medical protocol to wearing masks. And if you don't have the right protocol, it doesn't help. If you touch it wrong and touch your face and don't use the same mask over and over again, then it doesn't work. So to force kids to wear masks, if you advocate for that now, you're an idiot. And I have no sympathy for you. Now, adults, you can make your arguments or whatever, but I don't know. Do you know any adults that handled masks according to medical protocol and didn't use the same one over and over again and didn't touch it like, you know, so. But with kids, if you advocate for kids, you know, third graders, like get out of here, you know? Your fear is harming children because you're a coward. That's my opinion. Speaking of freedom, you reminded me of, you know, the eye pencil thing. That I've heard you talk about so many times. Yeah, Milton Friedman said that. Do you know, did you know that's not Milton Friedman? Yeah, I know. He quoted someone else. Yeah, I didn't know that. I've heard that so many times and I know you tell that story. It's actually from the 50s from a guy named Leonard Reed. It was an essay that he wrote. I had no idea about that. It's a whole essay on it. Yeah, yeah. I found, I don't know how I came across. Oh, you know what it was? I was reading this Tuttle Twins ad and went down the rabbit hole of all the books and stuff they stuff, because for Max and everything, so I get hit with some of their stuff because I bought books for him. And I was just really interested. And then they start sharing the pencil story and they rewrote it, which then, you know, attributed Milton Friedman, who then he said, like, well, then it really originally came from a guy named Leonard Reed. It just really highlights how well, like how markets encourage people to work together who've never met each other, don't have the same beliefs. And for anyone who's never seen Milton, it's a very short class, like four minutes long, three minutes long. Anyone who hasn't seen it, maybe we'll attach it to this on YouTube. You can watch it, but it's brilliant. It's the first video I saw of Milton Friedman and then I became a huge fan of his and watched it. That was the first one? Fair first one. I saw it on YouTube and I'm like, what? And then I watched all his stuff and it was huge. I read his books and everything. It was pretty awesome. Anyway, speaking of science and stuff, you know Caldera runs their own tests on their skincare products. Oh, nice. And they're all third party, I mean, they're all cross-referenced or whatever. 96% of people who use their skin, so 96% of men who use their skincare products report getting better skin, 96%. And this is studies. These are studies that they actually put together. So they do, that's a huge... Well, I think the last time we had an ad for them, I think one of the things that I was pointing out of why it's done so well with our audience, it's one of those things that you see the immediate return. I mean, that's like one of the things that's such a great selling point for any product. Like, how many times have you bought something and it's like, oh, you gotta take it for a while or wait till this. It's like, that's one of those things that you use and then like instantly look in the mirror and be like, oh, wow, that looks different and looks better. Like, and so I think that's why. Yeah, just build more credibility when you actually use it. And it's just one of those, you have to like actually physically go through that process in order to really become like an avid consumer of it. Do you guys, have you been watching this Power Slap League that Dana White invested in? Yeah, I heard, okay, you made a comment about this. He jumped a shark. You said that. I don't know, I don't know if I agree or not. Like, I don't know if I would consider that jumping the shark. I don't know, man, have you watched it? I mean, I have and I saw the guy, the guy who got really injured just recently and it is. The one guy's face was like this big on one side. I prefer the ones where I saw these girls that just slap each other's butts instead. I support that one. Not this face, like melting, like for me. Like, I'm like, dude, he's ruined this guy's face, dude. Yeah, so. Is this a butt slapping league? Yeah, that's hilarious. Yeah, it's amazing. There's something for everybody now, man. They're really. I don't know. I think Dana White jumped a shark, dude. Well, what's, okay, do you know, do you even know how, maybe Doug could look this up for us. Like, how invested is he? Like, I want to know how much like he's actually risking and like, is it really like a, because I mean, he could be, he could be hardly leveraged at all to be in that. And he's just, you know, it's kind of like his partnership with UFC gyms. I mean, I think that's like, I doubt he's like the major controller of all the decisions. Maybe he's just got a little bit. But you know, someone who represents fighting the purity, because he always, he's always hammering these other leagues about how they don't have good fighters, it's not fighting. And then he invests in his power slap. Well, do you think it's a response to, you know, sort of this circus freak show thing that the Paul brothers have created? I do. You know, he's just like, oh, well, they're profiting and you know, might as well find some kind of novel thing. That's an interesting theory. I 100% think about it. That's an interesting theory. I like that. That this is his response to like this, this new fight league division type stuff that's coming out with them. Like, that's, you know what? Yeah, especially for like Instagram and all that, like you're going to see probably a lot more influencers getting in this thing and just getting the slap. There is so much of that now. I can't even keep up. It's crazy how there is a fight, seems like every week of some other influencer person that is fighting another influencer person that's, you know, people think though, like because you're slapping someone that you can't give them brain damage or something. Like, first of all, you can, if you hit somebody defending it, you're just taking it. You might not break their skin like with a punch, but you hit someone with the paul, like especially the heel of your hand on their jaw, on their chin, you put them to sleep, your brain, and they're just taking it. Like, you have to, it's the crazy. Boss Root and fucking slap, you're out, dude, lights out. Oh, I know. But I watched some of it, there was one dude, his face was, I couldn't watch it because his face looks so deformed. Yeah. And he kept getting hit in that deformed side. I was like, oh. He actually won that one guy. That's what tripped me out. And he said, he won $5,000. He did all that for $5,000. His doctor bills are going to be more than that. Like, come on. I like how they chalk up their hand. So when they hit each other, they see the smoke, like the dust, they'll, pfft. You know, speaking of business, did I hear you say that Kim Kardashian was getting heat for speaking at Harvard for business? She spoke at Harvard, and I guess some people at Harvard didn't want her to speak, which I think is funny. So Harvard Business School, so she's talking about business. She knows more about business than most of their professors, that's my opinion. She's a brilliant business person, she really is. And so some people were all pissed off. It stings to say that, but it's true. It is true. I mean, she's built massive businesses. And yes, she's got her following and all that stuff, but you can only go so far with that. Yeah, but that's why she built it. She built it with the intent to, you know, use it to monetize. I mean, it goes all the way back to their parents. I mean, they saw that as a strategy early on. It was more about the ability for them to make money and make businesses. But you can only go so far, right? She has like, isn't one of her businesses a billion dollars? Isn't one of them worth a billion dollars? I think she, yeah, her net worth is 1.8 billion. Like you don't become, you could become a millionaire with fame, okay? So you could be famous and people know you and you become a millionaire, but to become a billionaire, you have to know what you're doing. Because to go from a hundred million to a billion just since 2014, from 2004. I mean, I love to use the seconds analogy that I used the other day for something like this to highlight the point you're making right now. Like the difference between a million seconds, a billion seconds and a trillion seconds, the leaps are unbelievable. So when people just like discount somebody who's worth millions of dollars like, oh well, she started with million, her family is rich and she has millions and now she's worth a billion. Like do you understand the gap between that? It's crazy. It's far easier to go from zero to a million than it is to go from a hundred million to a billion. It's a hundred million to a billion. I could give 10,000 people a hundred million dollars and none of them would turn it into a billion dollars. That's how hard it is. So for her to be worth a billion, 1.8 billion dollars, yes, she's famous and people know her so she can use that and leverage it. She knows business. She knows business. Well, I'm curious. I mean, were they mad about her coming in or were they mad about like the speech she delivered? Was it sort of like disruptive? Her coming in, I'm sure. I'm sure they get, you know what I'm saying? Cause she's a, she flies in the face of business. She's a drama reality show. Didn't she have a law degree? She also has a law degree. I think she passed the bar. Really? Yeah, Doug, look it up. I'm almost positive. I mean, you guys, your house is the house that's washing the Kardashians, buddy. So I'm not going to argue with you on this one. You got me there. Well, there was that whole thing with her mom, like who's it, one of her, who's her first boyfriend that had the sex tape? Anyway, that came out clean was like her mom put it out there deliberately. Doug, she's got a law degree, right? Yeah, in 2021. She passed, oh, what? Just recently passed the bar. You know who else? We passed the bar. Chad GBT. Yeah. Yeah, dude. It also got an MBA. Yes. Yes. That's messed up, dude. Yeah. That's messed up. That's so messed up. That's so messed up. Oh boy. They're going to have to create AI anymore. Dude, they're going to have to create AI to be able to find AI. You know what I mean? Like you'll turn in your test and the teacher's going to use AI to make sure you- That's what they already have. That's out already. So they already have software out that's already making its rounds. And it's already behind. Somebody's going to make a lot of money on that for schools. And so that schools are going to have to adopt it because there's this whole idea of everybody has to write in class is going to only last so long. They have to do homework. They have to do, you know what I'm saying? So they're going to have to find other ways. Yeah, I wonder about that, right? Like, because I know I told you my brother's approach to that and what they're doing to school. But like, I mean, how much of it can you do? Like, if you're doing a math equation and then you have to like show your work and like do all that, like go back to like the old school way of, you know, proving with just pen and paper. I mean, there's lighting essays and... Yeah, I mean, I imagine that's you're going to have to do the same thing, like show me your notes, show me your brainstorming, show all these things with it in order to prove or you have to do it in front of me. Otherwise... Yeah, how much are you going to learn otherwise? And even then, like, like the example I gave with how I have Katrina getting ready for the interview, I can still show you the work of putting that together to make it look like that we formulated it or we thought of most of it, you know what I'm saying? So it doesn't... Well, it's going to be interesting how they try to stop it. I guess it's narrowed, you have to narrow it down to this like, there's value in learning for the sake of learning. And then there's value in learning for the sake of your value in the market, how you support yourself, right? So you can learn all kinds of awesome stuff and it improves your character, it gives you depth, helps you grow as a person, but not necessarily improve or help your market viability. So in other words, if you need to learn something in school to give you skills for the market, at what point is it just learning how to prompt and use AI? Like at what point is it that and not show me the work, show me by hand? Like what use is that going to be in the market when the market requires none of that? Courtney and I have speculated, even before all this chat GBT stuff of like, there's just going to be an influx of developers, programmers, you know, everybody's so focused on building these aspects, it's just going to be oversaturated. So we were like, I'm okay if the boys want to go and go trade school route and like, you know, literally get back to the basics of like being electrician, being a plumber, being somebody that like, you know, is relevant. And we know so many electricians and plumbers are crushing it right now, making a lot of money. Well, I mean, it's such a shit on a profession which I think is hilarious to me. Well, no, you make up a good point of how interesting would that be if like blue collar work makes a comeback because that's where AI, we're not going to be at a place where the robots are going to take over a lot of the blue collar work. You have to build robots. Now, it will assist electricians on probably troubleshooting like things and so that and make the, but you'll still need something. But along those lines, you just remind me of something. I know our audience is probably tired of this conversation of us. So did you see the Jamba Juice? Oh, I did. Did you see that? Yeah, it was all automated 100%. Yeah, 100%. You go in, you order on a computer and it makes that the machine makes it. It's like an arm that makes it. It's like a kiosk and you walk up and you order it and then it does, it's a little arm, robotic arm, and it blends it, makes it, waits for you to pay it, then serves it to you. All, and I think it was, I think I read that it up to 12 or 18. Star Wars cantina. 18 different, you know, Jamba Juice drinks that it makes right now. So Jamba Juice is full. I mean, look out to see those all over the place. I was listening to all in podcast and they were talking about AI engineers. Based on these AI companies and how much they're getting bought for and valued, they calculated that the average AI engineer is worth $2 million. So I totally conveyed this to my son because he's going off the call. I'm like, hey, by the way, AI engineers right now are like, they're worth so much money. So you're gonna go into computer science. Maybe if you're interested, go into AI science. For sure. And do that. Oh yeah, wow. Kinda cool, right? Speaking of tech, did you see the January total for layoffs, what it ended up being? What was it? For in tech, 55,000 people just in January alone. Is that a lot? Cause I looked at the unemployment numbers, they look good. Yeah, they still, I hear that there's, there's, there's, I mean- Or are they messing with the numbers? Are they taking people out who aren't looking anymore? You know what I mean? Like, you know, they do- Yeah, how are they parsing that? I mean, I just, there's still a lot more to come. That's for sure. You know, it's not, it's, it's not done anytime soon. So- Yeah, I heard it was somewhat skewed because of, you know, they're not really interviewing a lot of these people that like have no desire to go back to work. Like it's sort of like, there was this lull of like, after a pandemic where there was like a substantial amount of people just weren't- So that's what they say. One of the most interesting stats right now is the amount of unemployed people to the amount of available jobs. Yeah. There's plenty of work. Yeah, like the opportunity's there, but it's not- Which is weird because that's not normally the case. Normally what happens in the recession- When they have just a bunch of savings, like how are they able to do it? Yeah, like, like mortgaging, like- That's, they have to be. I mean, credit card debt is at all time highs. You have more equity in the average home than ever. So yeah, people are living off of fake money, right? Equity that is, you know, they are now, but maybe not be there in say five years or what like that. And you have credit card, buy now, pay later, all record highs. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff like that. Yeah, it's strange, dude. Speaking of fake money, I know we're almost the end here, but I gotta read this to you just because you guys have been a part of, you guys have been in California as long as I have. Remember in 2008 when they had his vote to build a high-speed rail from LA to San Francisco? You guys remember that? I know a lot of shenanigans behind that. 2008, this is just a great example. I just want people to just understand this. This is a great example of why you don't want your government building things for you. It just always turns into crap. So in 2008, we voted here in California. I remember this and it was to pay for a high-speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco and it was supposed to be done by 2020. And they said in the, you know, what you voted for, they said the estimated cost will be $30 billion. Okay, here we are 2023. Okay, here's the high-speed rail. By the way, it's not high-speed, it's a normal train. It's no longer from LA to San Francisco, it's from Bakersfield to Merced. And they're hoping it'll be done by 2030 and the cost will be no less than $170 billion. So that's the biggest bait and switch I remember. Yeah, wow, bro. But we just need to be taxed more so we can give them more money to create these projects. Who's going to take a high-speed rail for, you know, what was it, what did I say? Bakersfield to Merced, $170 billion. Who's motivated for that? Look, we have done with that money. Wow, dude. Once you look into like who profited off that too. That's really interesting. One last stab before your shout out, hanging out that I saw this morning that I thought was really interesting. Over 50% of divorces on the, you know, the paperwork you gotta fill out for a divorce was that. Attribute it to social media, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. Over more than half. Wow. Have that written in the divorce, something along the lines of TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, what that were. Just like a hopeful message. Cheating, yeah, cheating and stuff like that. He liked a picture. Yeah. DMing. Yeah, dude. Isn't that crazy? Wow. More than, something that didn't even exist just, you know, 20 something years ago is now more than half of divorces. They say that cheating is more about opportunity than it is about morality. So it's like, you got, you know. Of course it is. That's one of my, one of my favorite lines is in stand-up lines is in Chris Rock when he's making fun of guys that like really shit on dudes that get caught up cheating with that. It's like, motherfucker, you couldn't cheat if you wanted to. Ain't nobody want to fuck you. It's real easy to be faithful when nobody, like, because he was comparing to like some super famous guy who got, who got, you know, caught up cheating. I'm not impressed by somebody who's like, I never, it's like, well, you couldn't. Yeah. Like I'm impressed by the person who could but doesn't. Yeah. Exactly. 100% right. That's funny. Our shout out, I have somebody who is new for me. I just started really following her content. She was in this mastermind group that I own. And I was just so impressed with her story and what she'd done. And I can't believe I had never heard of her before. Her name's Jasmine Starr. So if you're a entrepreneur, that's what her content is centered around. She's built multiple businesses, extremely successful, great personality, puts out really good content. So I just started really digging through a lot of stuff and I like what she's putting out there. So if you're a serial entrepreneur and you're looking for advice around content and social media and stuff like that, that's kind of her wheelhouse. So check her out. Hey, check this out. We just started working with this company, Mobility Wall. Look, do you like to foam roll your muscles to improve mobility range of motion? But getting on the floor is such a pain. It's hard. It's hard to support yourself. Well, Mobility Wall goes in your doorway and it acts like a foam roller and more. So you can improve your mobility, flexibility, your range of motion and help you connect to your muscles. It feels really good, especially when you're sore and you need to speed up recovery. Great company, it's a great product. Go check them out. Go to mobilitywall.com forward slash mind pump. And if you use code mind pump at checkout, you'll get 20% off your first order. All right, here comes the show. Our first caller is Cameron from Georgia. Hey Cameron, how can we help you? Hey, thanks Doug. Hey guys, how are you? Good, how are you? Fantastic, it's so good to be here. It's so surreal. Before I jump in, like so many other listeners, just wanted to say you truly changed my life. I've had a complete breakthrough and mindset and understanding of health and fitness since being introduced to you. And frankly, especially as a woman lifter feel more empowered than ever. So just wanted to say a big thank you. Awesome, awesome, thank you. Now that that's all the way though, more importantly, I wrote in with a three part question but I promised to be super efficient. For a little bit of context, I started weightlifting in 2017 after about a decade of exclusively practicing yoga. In 2018, I started with my first CPT and was with them for about four years. I thought I was in really great shape but had no idea what I was missing out on. We primarily trained, hit, high rep, low weight, minimal rest, lots of sweat, not to mention the fact that I, there was just a zero plan in place as far as what like week over week, month over month, year over year was going to look like. Last summer, I transitioned to a new CPT who eventually introduced me to Mind Pump. Originally I was super skeptical of her programming because it was really different than what I was used to. It was higher weight, lower volume, longer rest periods. I frankly just felt like I wasn't doing enough every day because I wasn't leaving with this crazy sweat. But it wasn't until I was introduced to you guys that I started like religiously listening to your podcast. I was going back through hundreds of episodes listening to listener questions and really eventually it just clicked for me and I decided last summer it was time for me to take control of my own body and programming and that's when I purchased Aesthetic which I started in September and y'all, I have never experienced transformation like this in my entire life, so thank you. I completed Aesthetic, I went immediately into performance and then transitioned into Anabolic a couple of weeks ago. Yes, it was backwards but probably not surprising that I went for Aesthetic. So I don't have a baseline from when I first started Aesthetic but in four months I lost 11 pounds of fat and gained five pounds of muscle and I also went from tracking zero food, no macro at all to tracking every bite and making sure that I never ever miss a protein target. So that's kind of where I'm at, long intro but my question is this, I am going on a month long vacation in February for my birthday and I'm really anxious about my gym routine and being out of it. One week kills me much less for but at least with one week I can take your advice around having some break and the rest of recovery and what it does for my body and so I'll have limited access to come, subpar hotel gyms and I did go ahead and buy maps anywhere but I'm wondering, is this enough? I'm really worried about regression and I just have made so much progress so I wanna make sure that I'm like doing everything I can to continue the progress and be in a good spot when I come home. Yeah, this is awesome. You're okay, so two things I'll say to that. One, if you do, first off you're very fit we could see you're very fit, you've made tremendous gains in progress with muscle and fat. Awesome, yeah, great job. Really good, even if you did regress in a month whatever regression you made in a month would come back in like a week or two of coming back. So even if you were to regress, it would be so temporary and the trade in my opinion would be worth it because it's a break from counting every fight that you put in your mouth and being so structured to being on vacation. Now that being said, if you did maps anywhere while you were gone, you probably won't regress at all. You'll probably be totally fine and if anything you might even come back a little stronger because it's different, it's novel and it's gonna give you a little bit of a break because maps anywhere doesn't use much equipment except for maybe bands. So you literally have nothing to worry about at all. Remember the way you thought originally when you first did a maps program and switched from your kind of training you were and thought, oh my God, I'm gonna lose all that. That same mentality you have right now and if you were to do anywhere I actually don't even think you need to do that but if you wanted to, you could. I think if you actually hit the gym once a week while you're out there. I feel like a full body workout for 45 minutes. You would maintain most everything you got and even if you had a tiny bit of a setback, it lit right, right way. As long as you don't do this, here's the mistake that people make when they go on a vacation like this is they go from being so dialed like you are right now to the complete opposite in the spectrum where they eat like an asshole, don't train whatsoever and then that's where you. So what he means by that Cameron is that it's not that you're not, you're going from tracking to not tracking, it's that you go from tracking. To binging. To binging. Yeah, to just. So where you're eating till you're uncomfortable. Drinking every night. Yeah, like it's like you're pushing it in the opposite direction. It's more of a behavior thing. So that's where some damage can happen and most of the damage even then wouldn't be physiological, it'd be psychological because then going from that to having to go back to tracking it really kind of encourages this on-off kind of mentality. But I think you're totally fine. You're going to be completely fine going over there. So here's, let me ask you this question Cameron, how valuable are your workouts for just setting your day up and the mental aspect of it? Forget the physical. Is it real important for the mental part too? I mean, I spend like two hours every morning in the gym when I wake up and it's not all lifting for two hours but just like being there and doing mobility and like I never miss a trigger session. I love being in the space to your point from a mental perspective. Okay, so try this then because I get most of the benefits I get from exercise now are mental for me. I really value it for that. So when I'm on vacation, my workouts aren't at all like the workouts when I'm home, my workouts more like I'm going to start my day with 30 minutes of something just to, it's like coffee for me or like it's like my antidepressant. So I wake up, I'll do 30 minutes in a hotel gym. It usually looks like a full body, machine to machine to machine, couple dumbbell exercises and then I'm done. So I just start my day that way just cause it feels good. So I mean, you can even do something like that where you do like a 30 minute something. It could be yoga. You said you did yoga before. It could be a few machines just to kind of touch the, each area of the body and just kind of feel good. And that's very valuable but I don't want you to think about like physical fitness. Yeah, I think the one thing you're gonna eat the common thread you're gonna hear from all of us is that so long as you don't go binge eating, drinking on your four weeks off and you have some sort of attempt to do any sort of exercise whether it be 15 minutes, 30 minutes, once a week, couple times, you're gonna be totally okay. You really are, you're gonna be fine. And in fact, because you've been so consistent for a while now, your body might want a little bit of a rest and you might see some actually real big benefits to kind of scaling back a little bit for a month and enjoying yourself. So I think you're gonna be just fine. Yeah, I'll do it kind of what Sal's talking about in terms of like, you know, something just to get me up and alert and, you know, enjoy my day more. So if that helps just like a cup of coffee or just like planning activities that you're just moving a lot more and like visiting and doing things that you normally wouldn't do like, you know, paddle boarding or whatever, you know, like things that I'm structuring. I know I'm gonna have some physicality to it. You know, you're gonna be just fine. It's honestly, it's a good break for your body. Anyways. You know, one more thing in regards to the eating part. If you do anything, even though you're gonna be on vacation, I don't expect you to track and I wouldn't make a client do this. But if you wanted to mitigate any sort of muscle loss is stick to the protein thing at least. So that would be kind of like, so what I know- Choose high protein meals. Yes, yeah, choose high protein meals or at least just pay attention to kind of the grams of protein during your time off because that's an area where you could see. So if you were to over consume, you know, junk food and alcohol and also under consumed protein and also not lift weights, you could see a pretty dramatic change in a month of like falling off of all this work you've done. But if you do a good job of eating most of your meals, being protein centric, you know, getting a few workouts in while you're out there and not binge eating, you're gonna be just fine. I would add the combo of not eating enough protein could be, you could lose some muscle mass. Let me put it a phrase it differently, okay? So two things to this. One is that if you look at the studies on deload weeks and they even have studies where people will do a deload for two weeks. So these are people like you consistent, they work out, they're totally on and then they'll do like a deload is basically essentially no exercise or minimal exercise. They gain more muscle in the deload week than they do during their consistent weeks. So that's from a physiological standpoint, but this might help, okay? Think of your mental health more than your physical health when you're on vacation. That's gonna give you, that's gonna point you in a better direction than thinking about your physical health. So to do it to kind of talk about what Adam said about protein, you could think to yourself, I need to eat the protein so I don't lose the muscle. But I think it'd be more effective to say, I need to eat the protein because protein's gonna make me feel more satiated. I'm gonna be less likely to wanna eat junk food. It's gonna give me more consistent blood sugar. So I'm not gonna have these energy highs and lows while I'm on vacation. It'll help mitigate feeling crappy from alcohol that I make. So think of things from a mental standpoint. Another example would be instead of thinking I need to work out because I'm gonna lose muscle, think, hey, I wanna tomorrow we're gonna go do that snorkeling or we're gonna go hiking. I'm gonna do some mobility beforehand so that I can feel really good on the hike, okay? If you think of it from a mental standpoint, then physically you'll actually get better results than if you think of it from a physical standpoint. If you think of everything from a physical standpoint you'll enjoy your vacation less and you may fall into this off on type of mentality. That's where people tend to screw up. So think of it from that standpoint. I think that makes the biggest difference. Also, do you have map suspension? Cause that's another great travel program. I think you named like the one program I don't have I own like, I think I own 12 or 14 programs. So I don't have suspension. Well, you got it. You got suspension now. We're gonna send it over to you. We're gonna send it to you. And if you have a suspension trainer like super easy to travel with and then you don't even need a hotel gym you can hang it in the doorway and then you're, you don't even have to leave your room. I believe when we send, I don't know Doug, when we send it for free does the email automatically kicker the 50% off? I believe it does. Okay, so you should when you get the program for free that we normally send an automatic email for 50% off of those, the straps too. So you get a really good deal on the strap. So we have it. So just so you know for sure. Yeah, I'll definitely do that. So really quick follow up. I will leave right close to the end of phase two of anabolic, which I'm loving. I just started two weeks ago, but it's been awesome. My strengthings have been crazy in two weeks. Like I've been really surprised. Would you want me to start back where I left off when I come home or like repeat something? And then lastly, what program should I do next? You could do the, I would do the program over a whole month. I'd start the program. I mean, honestly, it really doesn't matter. What matters most is that you give yourself a week because you're going to take a month off. So I'm going to assume that you're going to take a month off of like, like hard lifting. Give yourself a week of easy lifting. So I don't care where you start really doesn't make a big it's not like, so people think maps anabolic goes from phase one, two and three because it scales. That's not how it works. It's just different. It's just novel, just new novel stimulus. So phase one can be hard or easy depending on who you are and so on. So it really doesn't matter, but give yourself a week when you get back of easy workout. So I would do a week of pre-phase and then jump into whatever phase you want. It doesn't make, you can start over. If you want to do it that way, doesn't make a big difference. And then program next, have you done map strong? No, that's someone that's like on your list. I have it. You'll love it. You'll love it. Yeah, you'll love that. It's like one of our most popular programs. By women. By women. Yeah, they normally avoid. Yeah, it's one of the ones that they avoided and then they do it and they're like, oh my God, it's my favorite now. That you'll love it. Well, because it's like shorter every day has so, so many few, so much fewer exercises. So it's very different than what I'm used to doing from a volume perspective, but it looks really. Yeah, wait till the other. The work sessions. The work sessions. Are totally different. Yeah, strong is kind of flip-flops. Like, you know how trigger days are your easy days? Work session days are harder for a lot of people than the foundational days. Way harder, yeah. Yeah, yeah, so it'll be, it'll be very different from what you've been doing. So it'll be a nice shock for the system. You'll like it. Awesome. Fantastic. Really grateful for all the information and it's so awesome to meet you guys in person. Thanks Cameron. Have a good vacation. Keep killing it. Yeah, you got it. What, did you see her? Did you see the actually, her stats? I did. She sent them over. Great progress. Yeah, that was even not amazing. That's not even her taking it from the start. Man, if anybody's listening and they're doing like the traditional circuits and tons of running and all that stuff and especially for a female, just listen, you have nothing to lose. What's the worst thing that can happen? You try something for a few weeks and go back to what you were doing before. Try one of our programs and watch what happens to your body. Watch what happens to your metabolism. Watch how easy it becomes to lose body fat. It will blow your mind. The hardest step is gonna be just making that first step. That's the most difficult part is to get in that headspace that I'm gonna do something completely outside of my norm. But if you do that and you trust in it, man, the results will come. This is also why we take so much heat around the cardio conversation is cause people think that we're anti cardio. No, it's just that we know that that is our average client right there. She is somebody, she is the 80% of the people that came to me over those two decades. That's how they worked out. It was just like she was as far as her mentality towards lifting weights and to get them to transition from that thought process and the run and burn calories and thinking that way to getting strong lifting weights, long rest periods. And I mean, it just, that's why we keep hammering that message. It's not because we don't think people should do cardio and it's not healthy for them. It's that most people, especially if you actively listen to a fitness podcast or you're looking for information on that are in the very similar both. Especially if you're a female. Yes. Especially if you're a female. Our next caller is Todd from Utah. Todd, what's happening? How's it going? Todd. What's up guys? Yeah, I appreciate you bringing me on. Fairly new listener. Last couple of weeks really just been binging a bunch. So. Oh wow. Appreciate that. So I've just learned about trigger sessions and I think I understand the basic concept there but I just wanted to ask something kind of in regards to that. So a little backstory and kind of my goals. I've been working out for a long time. The last couple of years I've been doing more like F 45 style training. But this year I'm really just trying to work on like strength, like traditional gym strength exercises. Part of the reason for that is I think due to my snowboarding and wakeboarding my left leg is significantly weaker. So I really want to focus on kind of bringing that up. That being said, on my rest days I do like to do that more high intensity cardio whether it's like sprint intervals or rowing intervals or more like explosive plyometric type training. But is that too much for like those trigger sessions? Is that going to be like a trigger session that's going to actually weaken the rest or kind of where's the balance there? Yes, that's the biggest mistake that people make with the trigger sessions is actually doing too much. They're designed to facilitate recovery, not build muscle. Yes, that helps build muscle but the thought process of going in there tearing and breaking down and the way you approach the foundational days is completely opposite of how you approach the trigger session. You're literally just sending a signal pumping the muscle up with blood. You're not trying to get a major burn. You're not trying to get sore. That's all you're really trying to do. And so, yeah, plyometric work for sure would be, I mean, it's on the far end of the other spectrum of trigger sessions. Yeah, well, Todd, why are you doing the intervals in the circuit training? Do you want endurance and stamina too? Yeah, exactly. I just, I want to keep my kind of athleticism high and kind of, yeah, that performance, athletic aspect. So I'm not necessarily doing it for the burn, but obviously that's a side effect of sprinting like your legs are gonna burn, right? You'd be surprised. I don't know if I could just push that out to a different cycle of programming and kind of avoid that all together. It depends. It depends what you're looking for. So part of your question was, is that too much damage? I mean, too much for what or who? I mean, it depends on the context of your own recovery, your life and what's going on. If you want to continue to work on endurance and stamina along with strength, you'll get less of both, but you'll get some of both. If you want to maximize strength, then you should do less of the other stuff. If you want to maximize endurance, then you do less of the other stuff. So if you're okay with getting a little of both, but not a lot of either, then that's totally fine. There's nothing wrong with that. Most people want some of everything rather than a lot of something and less of other stuff. So it's fine. You'll build less muscle and you won't gain as much strength likely, but if you want this stamina and endurance along with some strength gains, there's nothing wrong with that. Now, how do you know if it becomes too much? If you're not getting either, you're just burnt out. You're not getting stronger. You're feeling stiff, sore. You're not getting good sleep. Then you're overtrained and then you need to probably drop the volume and intensity, improve things like sleep and nutrition. I struggled with this a lot being an ex-athlete and this is like the challenge for me and the mindset going into every workout was always to crush every workout, was to bring the intensity. And so with this, I would say to really try your best to focus on being able to reinforce and stabilize around your joints. So you're thinking longer term in terms of like high performance. So in order to maintain and keep that high performance accessible, we're gonna need to make sure that our joints are responding and the functionality of them maintains for as long as possible. And the more you get into mobility, the more you get into these types of trigger sessions where it's benefiting active recovery, you're gonna see the benefit like you've never seen because this is a brand new focus. So in terms of cardiovascular endurance, that's something that you can adapt towards fairly quickly. So if we just take a break and take a moment away from that and really just focus more on reinforcing the body in order to apply more of the stress onto it, you're gonna do so much further than you would be. Yeah, I like what he said. I liked what Justin said a lot. I think it'd be great for you to just focus on building muscle and strength for a few months. I agree with that. Now, depending on how important the wakeboarding and snowboarding is to you and staying up with the ability to do that, what I might do is this. So the program that comes to mind, their order for me would be symmetry, performance, then aesthetic in that order. The days that you're not weight training, foundational days, I would do 12 minutes of hit cardio. Because I know that when you snowboard and when you wakeboard, you're not up longer than about 12 minutes. So you're not gonna be, unless you're just cruising behind the boat, if you're doing any sort of tricks or playing aggressive at all, you probably ride for five to seven minutes then crash then get back up and then do your thing. Same thing with snowboarding, you're never riding down the mountain longer than five to eight minutes to get down to the bottom, even if you're riding one of the big places like Squaw Valley or like in Park City area, like you're not riding long. So that 12 minutes of hit cardio will give you enough of the stamina and endurance that you need to be good at your sports that you love doing. And it's probably not going to impede that much on your strength training. If you were to go do long bouts of cardio, lots of plyometrics, in addition to that, I don't see you building on strength, but I think you can absolutely build strength and still keep a little bit of that cardio endurance that you want. So when you hit the mountain or when you're wakeboarding, you don't feel like you're gassed. Well, Todd, are you gonna be, cause this brings up something else. Are you able to snowboard now? Are you doing that now while you're training? Not as much nowadays more than I used to, but yeah, I'll still go up. I'm going up to snowboard for a week next week. I'm here in Utah, so I'll go up quite a few and then I wakeboard quite a bit in the summer. Okay, so I mean, if you snowboarded once or twice a week while doing pure strength training program, you'll be fine. I don't know. I don't know how often. Yeah, unless you're... Yeah, I'm not gonna go that much. Yeah, so he just wants to be able to keep it. So that's what I'm saying. You do two to three days a week of 12 minutes of hit cardio. That will give you what you are looking for for wakeboarding and snowboarding. And this is coming from somebody who does both of those. That's plenty of cardiovascular endurance for that. So I'll, and then strength train. And I love symmetry because you made the point about having discrepancy between your left and right. That's what that program is designed for. Oh, that would be huge for that. Is to balance that out. I love performance for all the points that Justin was bringing up to follow that program up. And then aesthetic to take the symmetry thing even further. I love that order right there. And then I love the idea of 12 minutes of hit cardio while you're... And what that looks like is elliptical, stair master, treadmill, you know, going after it hard for, you know, 20 to 30 seconds, hard sprints, hard like that. And then letting the heart rate come all the way back down. Salt bike's awesome for that. Yeah, or a salt bike, any cardio tool, going as hard as you can for 20 seconds and then walking or slowing way down and letting the heart rate come all the way back. The mistake that people make with hit is they get online and they follow some protocol. It's like 20 on one offered. And they don't necessarily need that or they're not allowing themselves to fully recover. The heart rate to come back down, the real benefits of that is what happens of the heart recovers and then goes really hard and then recovers. That's where you get the max benefits for that. So if that takes you 45 seconds to fully recover, that's fine. If it takes you two minutes to fully recover, that's fine also. So, you know, fill it out based off of where your endurance is at. Do you have symmetry, Todd? I do not. All right, we'll send that to you. Okay, I really appreciate it guys. You got it man. Thanks for calling in. You bet. You know what the irony is of having one side significantly stronger than the other is that what will likely happen is as he balances himself out, you'll get stronger on the strong side as well because there's that kind of, there seems to be a limiting, you know, like a limiter in the body that doesn't allow one side to get too much stronger than the other one. So in other words, people, his performance will probably improve on both sides because he's working on the weak side, you know what I mean? A bit of that irradiation effect too. Yeah, absolutely. You know, this is such a common thing that we get where, you know, you want to eat your cake and have it too. Right. Or like, it's, you know, and so it's always, it's always, obviously it's always nuanced, but this, you know, a lot of times I think people need to really ask themselves, what is it I want the most? Or at least have some sort of a, that would help us, right? Here's my hierarchy. Like, this is most important to me than this, than this, than this. Because then the advice changes. Otherwise we have to sit there and ask a lot of questions to find out because if he started with, I want to build strength, I want to build muscle. Well, okay, well then, plyometrics and cardiovascular training and endurance is not the most ideal thing for us if that's really what you want. But then if you go like, well, I love the snowboard and wakeboard and I do that a lot and I don't want to lose performance there. Okay, well, how important is that in comparison? Because there's a lot of different ways that we can approach this programming with someone like this, but what really matters is what you really want the most, right? Desire it all cool. Our next caller is Jeff from Illinois. Jeff, what's happening? How can we help you? What up, Jeff? What's going on? Thanks for having me on. You got it. My question is based on the psychology of getting away from the bro splits and the old bodybuilding lifestyle. So I started out mostly like other people, started working out in high school because of sports and just got hooked on it. And I had great success with the bro split for a long time, probably 15 years. But then me and my wife had children and there's just not the time to be in the gym six hours a week, seven hours a week every week. And I've run through your guys, anabolic and performance programs. And I loved them. They got me in tremendous shape. But I always have that itch to go back to the bro split for the hypertrophy, the pumps, just the feeling. So I didn't know if you guys experienced that, if you guys went through a time where family, I mean, obviously family always comes first, but I didn't know how to, if there was a program out there to get those hypertrophic feelings back, only go into the gym like three days a week or how that worked for you guys. Have you done aesthetic? I haven't done aesthetic. So I looked at it and my only concern was the two hours, it's the three days a week, the two hours in the gym. Realistically, I have about an hour to an hour in 20 minutes on my three days a week that I can actually hit the weights. You know, when I switched from body parts splits to full body, the progress I got is what always kind of kept me there. That got me more excited. But I also like strength a lot. And so when I see my strength going up, I tend to also be motivated by that. You know what's funny is I hit a PR recently in a deadlift from doing maps 15, from doing kind of 20 minutes a day is kind of how mine looked about 20, 25 minutes a day. And I hit a PR. So that always keeps me excited, but the mental aspect is, I mean, that's gonna be kind of what you make it. It's, I get the whole like, you know, going to the gym every day, hitting us, you know, one or two body parts, getting that awesome pump. But I don't know, for me it was, you know, when the pump went away, I didn't get the same kind of gains. So it wasn't hard to kind of leave that behind. Now we do have split programs like map split, but that's six days a week in the gym. You can only go three days a week. You know, I think maps at a ball, it's gonna be the way to go. It's gonna be the way to go unless you want to do something like maps 15 where you're just doing 20 minutes a day. If you have a barbell at home, you could be able, you can even do that at home and follow that kind of 20 minute advanced version of it. And like I said, I hit a PR. I hit a PR, a lifetime PR in my 40s from doing that. Yeah, I mean, I totally remember going through this. And by the way, there's nothing that says you can't phase in and out of doing kind of a bro-ish split pump type of phase where you get a little bit of that and then transition back to more of the full body stuff. Just the challenge is mentally attaching the results to why you do those things, right? Is this that you've already gone through some of the programs so you know what good of results you get by running the full body. And so reminding yourself that, that's part of why I do this. Now, part of why we do this too sometimes though is just for the enjoyment of working out. So where you're at in your life too matters. So like there's times where I'm training and I know that the way I'm training is not resulting or is going to elicit the best results for me, but I don't care because it's what I wanna do because I'm in a mode of I wanna get good at my Turkish getup. And so I'm prioritizing that and I may be ignoring some other things. So there's that factor too. And I think when that really kind of hit home for me as I transitioned into fatherhood and my priorities started to shift and it was just like, I've already proven to myself I can be the super buff guy. Now I do this more for staying healthy and fit. And yes, I know if I were to follow MAPS anabolic protocol, this would be the best for building muscle and getting strength in my metabolism. And that's ideal. But don't feel like doing that right now. I'm gonna do these things. But then I'm also very realistic with my results from that. Like I know that there's something out there that I can be doing that's gonna give me better results. So I'm not gonna get disappointed by doing Turkish getups every day and being like, damn it, my fucking chest doesn't look as good as it looked six months ago when I was doing my bro split stuff. So there's also that aspect, right? Like we don't always have to be hitting the gym with the most ideal way to live. Sometimes you love, if you love getting a pump and you wanna do that, then do it. But I'll be mindful of that there is obviously. There's a trade-off. There's a trade-off. So going back to MAPS anabolic, because in terms of your scheduling and everything, I agree, like I think that's probably your best option of what you're trying to accomplish. Did you take full advantage of the trigger sessions? Did you apply multiple times a day in between? I know for me personally, like in terms of hypertrophy, that was something that helped at least like give me that kind of stimulus, especially, well, even phase two, phase three, I mean, it's very hypertrophy focus. It is a different because it's like total body. So I think there might be that kind of an adjustment period to that. But honestly, if you keep maintaining and doing multiple times a day, especially with the trigger sessions, you're gonna get filled out. You'll get that pump. Yeah, you'll get that pump. Yeah, did you do those consistently? So I did the trigger sessions. I only did them once a day. And the reason that I did that was I on my trigger session days, I felt great. But then when I went back to the weights, there were times that I felt certain muscles were kind of sore, not so sore that I couldn't lift, but the trigger sessions, I felt like I wasn't getting the most out of the weights because I was getting a little bit sore from the trigger session, which surprised me. Too intense. Yeah, go much lower intensity. Just get a pump. And more frequently. Just get a pump with the trigger session. Don't do nothing intense. I love having my, and I don't know if you wear in your house. This makes the most sense. My other house I was at, I had a door that was right by the living room where the TV kitchen was. And I used to just, Katrina and I would leave the bands strapped up to the door so they just were there. And if I caught myself sitting watching sports for an hour or two, at halftime I'd get up and get a cool little five minute pump real easy and then sit back. So you fill up, you know when you stop? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, are you, do you have access to maps 15? So I have maps anabolic, performance and 15, yeah. Okay, good. Have you tried it yet? Yes, I actually enjoyed it. It was, I felt myself focusing more on the time limit than what I was actually lifting though because it was, I was focusing on getting it done. So I enjoyed the workout and I felt like I did get a workout out of it, but I felt like I wasn't as intense as I could be on the lifts because I was more focused on like, okay, I got it, I got 20 minutes. I gotta get this done in 20 minutes. Right. I mean, if you have to get it done in 20 minutes, sure. But the other thing is someone might make the mistake and say it's gotta be done in 20 minutes, even though they don't necessarily have a time limit. We made it maps 15 because you can do the workout in 15 minutes. If you want to stretch it out to 30 minutes, that's totally fine. Here's another thing too. There's nothing wrong with doing a upper body one day, lower body another day, upper body another day. You're not gonna hit the body parts as frequently, we can do more volume. Yeah, I split anabolic like that sometimes. I love to do that where I'll take anabolic's protocol, but I'll run the upper body one day, the next day I go lower body and I just alternate back and forth. And then I end up doing like an extra set for each body part. So I can get that kind of pump feeling more because it sometimes just one exercise for a body part, I can't quite, but by the second exercise or the second or the additional sets, I will feel that for sure. Oh, okay, all right. That's an option. Yeah. Awesome. All right, man, well, good luck. I know you're a dad, so balancing family with all this could be real challenging. It's a whole new ball game. Yep. Yeah, well, I appreciate it. Thanks for all the info, guys. You got it. Stay excited. You didn't like any of our advice. No, I think he's just trying to take it all. Everybody's always looking for that, silver bullet or whatever that you're gonna give him, like, oh, that's what I was missing. And I wanna reiterate the point that I was trying to make is people ask us a lot of these questions and you can hear this underlying, well, I really wanna do this. It's like, well, then you can do that. You can do it, yeah. Then do it, but just, if you're gonna ask us what's the best for whatever desired outcome you have, we're gonna probably try and steer you as close as possible, but then there is times in my life when I know I'm not doing what is the best for me. Especially if you enjoy that. That's right. You look forward to it, like go for it for a while, you know, come back and change it up, but yeah, if that's something you thoroughly enjoy, there's no stopping you. Also, look, this is a hard transition when you have kids. He's got two little girls, he said in his question. Were they really little? I thought he had been a dad for a while. It says I'm a dad of two. Oh, I guess so. So maybe they aren't little, but he's got two kids. I mean, here's a bottom line, like nothing's gonna be the same anymore. Like go out to dinner, it's true. Go out to dinner with kids. Life just sucks now. No, it will suck. See, that's the problem. See, different. It's yes, it sucks if you think it has to be the same. If you think it has to be the same and you can't accept that it's different, it will suck. Like go out to dinner with kids. It's a very different dinner. You know what it is. It could be very fun, but if I expect to have this deep conversation with my wife and connect and romantic and it's quiet with kids, I'm gonna hate it now if I go and I expect, it's gonna be hectic, but we're gonna have fun. Are my kids gonna throw food? I'm gonna throw food back. We're gonna laugh, get the hell out real quick because the kids are, like you gotta expect something. So like I work out at six a.m. in the morning. Like I don't expect to get the same work I would get as if I worked out at one p.m., which is the ideal time for me. So it's everything's gonna be different. You can't have everything. No, you're right. I think that's such a great point especially with fatherhood. You either embrace it and look forward to the change in the new way that you're going to do things. No, you're gonna hate life. Or you resist it and keep trying to find ways to go back to how you liked things or did things before. And I guess I was lucky where I was out it'll be so late in life. Like I was so ready. You were ready to change. Ready for that transition that I've embraced this new way of training and the things that I care about. And so just the motivation. You know who struggles the most when they have kids are people who are like, oh, I'm gonna be exactly the same. I'm still gonna go out. We're still gonna do the same stuff. Well, you know why? We're doing the same shit. You know what that is? You're gonna have a tough time. You're gonna have a poker night every week. Yes. There's actually, you know why? Because there's like one side that talks about, oh my God, you have kids and your life is over. It's all this and it's whatever. Then you have the other side of like, that's not true at all. We brought our kids into our life and our life, we still do all the same thing. It's still different. Two year goes to the nightclub. Yeah, yeah, I just, I think that that's the, is to mislead people into thinking that. It's still different. Take them with you. It's gonna be just like it was before. No, it's not. It's gonna be very different. And hopefully you're excited about what very different. I know I have friends like that. They're like, well, we take our kids on all vacations. Like, well, good for you, but they're not the same, are they? That's not the same. Our next caller is Riley from Georgia. Riley, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey, Mind Pump team. Thanks so much for having me on and everything you guys do to help improve the online fitness space. Really helped my life dramatically in the lives of others. Really look forward to the content you guys put out each week. So thank you for that. You got it. Thank you, man. So I've always naturally had large muscular legs. I played sports, which emphasized lower center of gravity. Squatting came really easy to me. Able to move significant weight at a young age, probably some genetic factors at play. I'm basically in the category of lifters that can catch a glimpse of someone squatting at the gym and suddenly their pants don't fit. I've tried to transition to kind of a trimmer, leaner, more functional, proportionate, lower body, and despite very consistent work on my upper body, I've not really seen a balancing out in my physique. I never really squat nowadays, but do all the other core lifts, typically skip leg day pretty frequently, but you can never really tell by looking at me. I do carry a little bit of body fat at the moment, but even at my most trim, I still felt disproportionate. Wondering, is there a way to transition my lower body into a trimmer, more dense muscular structure, or even just shed size, would you recommend squatting at all, higher rep ranges, or other training modalities instead? I feel like avoiding legs altogether is probably not the answer, but I would like to get a place where I feel more kind of symmetrical from an upper lower perspective. Screw you Riley, we don't help guys like you. Riley, I thought that might be a response. Riley, besides, okay, so what you're saying is you got really big legs and your upper body doesn't match your lower body, right? Yes. Minitars, okay. And then do you store a lot of body fat in your lower body too, or do you store body fat, like the traditional way that men do in the belly area? I do store in the belly, that's where I notice it the most. I have had like caliper tests done, and they often get a very small reading on my legs, so I do think I carry not as much body fat in my legs. Okay, okay, because I was gonna give you a different answer if you also store in your lower body, in which case I'd have you get your hormones tested, but if it's muscle, I suggest, are you familiar with Tom Plats? Do you know who he is? The name sounds familiar, but I don't think I can place the philosophy. So Tom Plats was a bodybuilder, PLATZ. Greatest legs ever. In the 70s and 80s, known for having the best legs in bodybuilding, but he had this similar problem where his lower body, when he first started, just was far more developed in his upper body, that over time and over training, he was able to balance his body out quite a bit, and actually became quite a successful bodybuilder. So I would read up on him and what he did to kind of balance things out. As far as making your lower body shrink, yes, any kind of strength training is gonna keep your leg size. You can focus on mobility and flexibility in the lower body, which will maintain movement, and, but that'll also prevent the muscles from building. So you could simply strength train your upper body, and then on leg day, your goal is to work on mobility, stability, flexibility. So you're still doing something, you're just not doing any strength training. Yeah, I would do like bodyweight stuff, like these long, like walking lunges with like a balance in between, like I do stuff like that or multi-planar lunges and stuff like that, caustic squats, like I would do movements more like that, add a stability component in there. Are you flexible? Definitely could improve on that, comes and goes. Even static stretching is fine, especially if you're not gonna do heavy strength training for your lower body, like really focus on getting really flexible in the lower body, that'll help with movement and the mobility stuff. And then in the meantime, focus on heavy strength training for the upper body. So a routine may look like, how many days a week do you go to the gym? Four to six, I would say, depending on kind of where I'm at in my program. I would do, you know, you could do three days a week of upper body, one day a week of lower body with core. And on the lower body day, it's like mobility and stretching. I mean, you could do something like that. And give it time. Over time, you'll start to see things balance out. But I mean, I hear what you're saying, I'm reading your question, you're saying that the first time you ever squatted, you could rep 225. The first time? Yeah, so I mean, there are times when people just genetically, when yours is lower body, I knew a guy like this with his upper body, like with his shoulders, he was just crazy. And when you have this kind of genetics, like actually, in fact, I had a female trainer with legs like this and she did long distance running and her legs grew. This is how sensitive her muscles were. Same thing happened to me. Yeah, so. I thought endurance training would be the answer, couple of half marathons and still. They blew it. Not surprised that they grew, but. Yeah, so I mean, I would do flexibility, mobility, just to maintain movement, because you don't wanna get, you don't wanna lose movement, mobility, lower body, that'll suck. And then just strength train your upper body and then give yourself some time. Give yourself some time, do maybe a slow reverse diet. You wrote down your body fat percentage is 16%. That's not bad. I would maintain 16%, slowly reverse diet so you could build in the upper body and give yourself like a couple of years, like try to gain five to 10 pounds of lean body mass in your upper body to kind of balance those things out. But I mean, I hear what you're saying. It sounds to me like you're just the 0.1% of people, at least with your lower body, where it's just muscle fibers. Like they just wanna be better. Yeah. Not a bad problem to have Riley, just to let you know. Yeah, no, I knew that was kind of the reverse chicken leg situation. I feel like it's not something that happens around very often, but. But I get it though. I mean, obviously if you feel like there's a huge difference between your lower and upper. I mean, I think most people would want more symmetry there, but it is as simple as really backing off all of leg training. And the only thing you're really doing is addressing mobility and functionality, being able to move in different planes, good range of motion. So all body weight type of stuff and you're really not training it hard at all and then just getting hit in the upper body consistently. So. Yeah. Man, he also squatted in the 500s in high school. Bro, 225 repping your first time. I can't even, took me half my life to get to that. Adam can barely do that right now. Yeah, that is hard for me, bro. It's so crazy. But yeah, look up Tom Plats. Tom Plats was like, Branch Warren. Branch Warren is another bodybuilder. And if you saw him towards the end, you would never think that he was lower body dominant. But when he started as a bodybuilder, it was like, that's what he was known for. So I'll give you three bodybuilders. Branch Warren, Tom Plats, Paul DeMeo. Paul DeMeo's passed away, but those three bodybuilders all were known for having disproportionate lower bodies to upper bodies, but then towards the end of their careers became very balanced. And so you can find articles and stuff about interviews and stuff like that about how they balanced out there. And his bodybuilders, it's not like they wanted small legs. They just want to look balanced. You know, it's, I mean, I have the opposite problem. My life, I had the small legs, but I had upper body developed. And so what my training has looked like for most of my lifting career now is that I never miss a leg day. So in your case, I would never miss upper body. Like, and so if I've taken a couple of weeks off, even if the last thing I did was legs, I'm starting to get on legs. So I'm always thinking that way. And that's kind of how you would be the reverse mentality is just like, hey, you never missed that upper body training. And even if you took a time off and that was the last thing you did, you still start back up again with that. And so- In fact, do you have maps aesthetic? I do not know. Okay. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna send you maps aesthetic and here's how I want you to modify it. I'm gonna have you do maps aesthetic and on the foundational days, don't do the lower body exercises except for one of the days. And even then, if you want, you could substitute the lower body exercises for just flexibility. So essentially what you're doing is mostly, if not all upper body exercises on the foundational days. And then on the focus session days, you could do target upper body exercises, isolation stuff. So it's gonna be mostly upper body type work. So I'll send that to you. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. You got it, man. Thanks, guys. I'll tell you what's over. It's okay. So I have this massive dick and I don't know what to do. It's pretty much. That's why I couldn't understand. He didn't bring out the fact that like he played hockey for like years and years. Come on, dude. You know how much leg development like hockey players get like all that contributes. 500 pounds in high school, repping 225 the first time you, oh my God. Have you guys ever seen, there's a sprinter cyclist for the Olympics? Yes. Have you ever seen these guys? Yes, dude. I mean, they shake their legs and they're like. Oh my God. It's like humans inside each leg. It's a huge flesh. But I mean, look, I get it because as a man, you know, you expect a woman to be lower body dominant, right? As it for a man, it's not, and you know, I hope I don't hurt his feelings, but it's not aesthetic. It's gonna be more aesthetic to have a big upper body and a smaller lower body. That's not ideal either. But from an aesthetic standpoint, I understand what he's saying is like, because if you're a man and your legs are big and you look like a pair, right? You're gonna be insecure about that, but it'll take time. It's gonna take like two years. That's the thing. Decades of playing like such a, you gotta like put in perspective like how long of a period of just focusing exclusively on the upper body to kind of build and develop that to even come close. This is gonna take a while. I felt like it was at least five years for me of consistently having that mentality of never missing legs, right? So and still to this day, this is how I have to think, right? Because I've put so much training volume into my upper body in comparison to my lower that if I am all falling off or inconsistent, I let arms and shoulders and so that all the time I miss, but I don't miss legs. I got a squat. I got a deadlift. And so it's just a reverse mentality. It's just that over the course of the next five years, you never miss that. Neurotic about your upper body and work. You should see that I'm pulling it up right now. I'm like, you look at like Branch Warren when he won Nationals versus when he won the Arnold Classic. And you can see he really brought his upper body up because he was so low. So it can happen. It's just gonna take time. Look, if you love the show, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram, Mind Pump Justin. Adam is on Instagram, Mind Pump Adam. And you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. Today we're gonna 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 work. 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.