 In this episode of Mind Pump, we answer fitness questions asked by people like you. In the beginning of the episode, we do our introductory conversations where we talk about current events, we talk about our lives, we talk about fitness, we mention our sponsors. Sometimes we go off. Here's the rundown of what happened in this episode of Mind Pump. We open up by talking about the Super Bowl. We're all a little sad because the 49ers did not win. They're my favorite sports ball team of all time. I know I liked you, Sal. Then we talked about the Super Bowl food that we all ate. We ate somewhat healthy and somewhat unhealthy. Some of the healthy stuff that we ate came from Butcher Box. Justin had their wings, which were incredible. And I had the pork chops. Now Butcher Box is a company that we work with that delivers grass-fed, high-quality meat to your door. Meat like Heritage Pork, which has an incredible flavor. It's more humanely raised. Of course, grass-fed meats, minimally processed bacon. And because it's delivered to your door, it eliminates the middleman. So the prices are phenomenal. And we have a fantastic deal for you right now with a Mind Pump code. Check this out. If you go to butcherbox.com forward slash mind pump for a limited time, you can get two free filet mignon and one pack of bacon for free. Both of those four free plus $20 off your first box. Make sure you use the code Mind Pump at checkout. Filets for days. Then we talked about Joe Rogan, how he's under fire for supporting Bernie Sanders. The guy can't do anything right. I talked about the Facebook group that I belong on Facebook that got into a debate with me with veganism. They didn't know who they were messing with. Then we talked about high intensity and low intensity exercise and its effects on the brain. That part was really, really fascinating. Then we made some speculations about blue light blocking glasses and how they may actually improve cognitive performance over time by reducing eye strain. So by wearing these glasses, if you're going to work a long time on your computer, not only does it protect your eyes, not only are they good to use at night so that you sleep better, but they may actually make you perform better by reducing eye strain by blocking out the high intensity blue light that comes off of your electronics. Now, our favorite company of blue light blocking glasses is Felix Gray. They look good. They work great. The glasses are not colorful. In other words, you don't put on a red lens or an orange lens. Things still look natural. We have a hookup for you. Go to Felix Gray Glasses, F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y, glasses.com forward slash mind pump, and get free shipping and free returns. Then we got into the fitness questions. The first question is, look, I know that full range of motion training is best, but is there ever an appropriate time to use partial rep training? So in other words, full squats versus half squats, full presses versus half presses, is there value to the partial reps? The next question, this person says, what exercise or exercises are a good replacement for the back squats? So if I can't do back squats, even though that's the best exercise ever, what are some good replacements? The next question, this person says, look, if my diet isn't super dialed in, not getting enough protein or not getting the right amount of calories, is it worth it going to the gym should I still make it a point to go? And the final question, what's the difference between reverse dieting and bulking? So you may have heard of those two terms. They're not really the same thing, although the strategy is similar. So we talk about the differences between those two things. Also, this month, our bodybuilder advanced muscle building body sculpting program is 50% off. We're talking about maps split. This is one of our more expensive workout programs normally. Now, the reason why we charge a little more for this one, it's more advanced. It is a split routine. This is where you break up body parts, train them on different days. Of course, we do it the right way. There's a mobility component that we included as well. Full workout demos, full videos of all the exercises. It's a great muscle building, metabolism boosting routine, but it's half off right now, literally 50% off. So you can get this program at a great discount. Here's what you do if you want to get that discount. Go to mapssplit.com. That's M-A-P-S-S-P-L-I-T.com. And use the code SPLIT50. That's S-P-L-I-T-5-0. No space for the discount. And it's t-shirt time. Ah, shit, Doug. You know it's my favorite time of the week. We have three winners for iTunes and five winners for Facebook. The iTunes winners are a Cowart 11, S9 Northrop, TheDoug Johnson, and for Facebook we have Rob Ruff, Chris Cating, Keanna Wilgus, Liz Rodman, and Kyle Blaine Miller. All of you are winners. Send the name I just read to iTunes at MimePumpMedia.com. Include your shirt size, your shipping address, and we'll get that shirt right out to you. Dude, so I got all excited about the sports ball game yesterday. I noticed you were wearing like, like apparel. Yeah, I was. I was so proud of you. You were wearing niner gear? Yeah. I was like, even if it's fake, I appreciate it. No, you know what it is. I mean, first off, I do enjoy, I don't seek watching sports. I really don't care. But if I do watch football, I can enjoy it. I understand the roles in the game and I can see the strategy. And 49ers is a local team. It's a big deal. We went over to my parents' house for kind of like a small Super Bowl party. So I wanted to get into the spirit. So I bought the kids and, you know, Jessica and I wore 49er shirts or whatever and had a good time watching the game. So good. Dude, it was, you know, I haven't been following the season. I don't follow the season ever, but I'm going to make a comment. You guys let me know if I'm on point or off point because you're both much more experienced with the current state of football and 49ers. But it seems like they fucking choked at the end. It seems like they totally choked. Yeah, you got that too. Okay, good. Well, that was clear. The big debate going into this, right? So one of my best friends, there's three of us that are like the hardcore sports fanatics there. We have a thread that's pretty much all we're discussing is that, and we used to be fantasy and all that shit like that, but I can't play that stuff anymore. I don't have time. What kind of fantasy? Yeah, role-play type stuff. Yeah, in the locker room. Yeah, those kinds of things. And so we've been talking, we totally been talking shit, of course, to my buddy who is the big Niner fan. You know, they've been having a hell of a season. You know, and then it gets to this time and, you know, I'm a Cowboys fan. My other friend is a Detroit Lions fan. Then we have the Niner fan. Oh, Detroit Lions. Yeah, right, isn't that funny? That's the first time I've heard their name. Right? We're at a place in our lives now that we're older. When were you younger? Like, it was no mercy. You berate the other guys, you talk shit about their team. It's kind of a lot softer now, huh? Oh yeah, now that we're older. Being my friends, too. Now we're older, like, I was set my rooting for the Niners. You know what I'm saying? Like, because I want them from the Bay Area, too. You know, I want to see, if I can't have joy today, I want my best friend. My Rams fan friend congratulated me that we were in the Super Bowl. I'm like, who are you? Yeah. Who are you? You used to give me shit. Like, who have 40 winers? That's all you'd say to me, like, every time. Right. So this is how it happens as you get older. So anyways, the big conversation heading in this game is that, you know, we've been all supportive. Oh, your Niners are going to make it. That's great. But my buddy and I, who are not Niners fans, are like, but we're really going to see what Jimmy G is all made of because no doubt you have one of the, I mean, they were rated as the second best defense. I would argue they're the first best. They have one of the best defensive lines. They were incredible all year long. And they say defenses when championships. Bosa. But this was a very interesting Super Bowl because you have the Chiefs, which has got one of the most high-powered offenses we've ever seen before, going against one of the best defenses. And, you know, at one point, what I said was that Jimmy G is going to have to put together a very, very important driver to in order to win this game, the Chiefs are going to score points. And let it be exactly how it played out. And we're all texting back and we weren't together the Super Bowl. We're texting back and forth as it's happening. And, you know, the Chiefs come back and they go up with what, less than five minutes left. I think there was three or four minutes left, or even less than that. Jimmy has the ball with an opportunity to drive it down and win the game. And I send the message over. I said, well, here you go. Will he choke or will he? Will he be able to take this team down and drive and score and win? Montana would have. Well, you're right. Yeah, I mean, you're right. Montana would have. Young would have. Akeman would have. You know, Peyton Manning would have. Tom Brady would have. All the great. And this is, so here, that's the debate. Now we've had examples of teams that have gone there with, you know, subpar quarterbacks, but for the most part. The Ravens. Yes, right. So Trent Dilfer that year. And then I forget who had, who was with the Bears. When the Bears defensive team won, just not that long ago or within the last two decades. And, but for the most part, you always see like a stud quarterback who could lead the team. And, you know, that was, that was the opportunity. And there's that. I mean, there's also like before the half was a telltale sign for me. Like in terms of like bad decision making and not, you know, creating an opportunity that was obviously there to. What are you talking about? I'm talking about, they didn't score right before the half. And they could have got a time out and extended their time. And it was just piss poor time management. And I don't know if that was from the coaching staff or what the fuck was going on. Yeah, I think the intention of the end of the first half was we're going in tide. We know that we are playing. And they're happy with that, which is again, this is a mentality. I think he's a cancer. Well, if you're the, if you're the coach and you, you know, you're not really supposed to say that to your quarterback, but you have more faith in your defense than you do in your quarterback. Right. And there's less than a minute left to drive down. You know, again, if that's Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Bill Belichick said, Well, look at that dude's confidence though going into that last drive that was so pivotal for him to shine. Oh, interesting. You think it's like that. I don't, you know, I thought it was a smart strategy by Shanahan, but I think that they surprised himself when they did that little dump off pass that ended up going for 25 yards. So that all of a sudden, oh, shit. Now, if you're a fan, you're watching like, oh, shit, we actually have a chance to score right now. I think that was a play that got broken open. They weren't anticipating to get broken open. It did. Then all of a sudden as a fan, you're like, oh, fuck, we could have, we could go score. They ran out of time. It looked like poor clock management. You know, there's so many things you can go back in and pick apart. They could have even just scored three points though, if they would have managed it correctly, even without that 25-yard pass, like they had like another like 30-something seconds that could add it. Yeah. Whatever. Do you guys watch the half-time show? I'm just about that. Do you guys watch the half-time performance? What? This guy. Katrina actually said something to me that I thought was interesting because you sent a text over after she had said this. Oh, what did she say? She just said, she looked over and she goes, are you getting this woman, this whole woman message that's coming through right here? And I go, yeah, no, I see it. I get it, you know, because there was commercials like that. Camell empowerment stuff? Yes. Yeah. Here's what it, so the half-time show kind of annoyed me a little bit and here's what it is. It was obviously, okay, my opinion, it was over sexualized. Now, I don't have a problem with sexy. I don't have a problem with, you know, that being presented. And of course it's, you know, the media reflects what the consumer wants. So it's obviously going to, they're doing what's going to get the most attention, the most views and all that stuff, but it keeps hammering the message that that's the only value that they have to present. You got J.Lo, who's 50. And Shakira, by the way, She looked great. Yeah, I don't know. She did look great, but she could have done a classy performance instead of like, you know, like in Shakira with her tongue flicking and, you know, and look, as a man, I'm watching it. I'm like, oh, this is, but I'm also thinking to myself like, man, it's like, you got so much more value. You're both great performers. You didn't have to over sexualize this, especially to a family audience. It was a little bit of a turnoff. Oh, that's an interesting point that you're, because I thought it, I mean, we're with the, any of these shows now, it's like, it's been at least a decade and a half that we've seen this where it's got, it's more risque, more, I mean, Janet Jackson's boob fell out, Britney Spears goes out one year in the all nude looking outfit that looks like she was naked, but she really, I mean, that's been happening now for a long time. So I didn't feel like it was. Oh, I don't think it's that part. I felt, I see now I got more of the other, like, did you see like, there was a point where the camera went over to the guy that was, I don't know who the guy was that was singing with them. I'm not familiar with, you look like a, the Spanish singer. Yeah. I don't know who that was either, but there was a part where it like, the camera cuts off of J-Lo over to him and he slaps the camera back to her. Yeah. I'm sure that was all choreographed, to put in there. So there was that, to me, there was a lot of that that was going on and then a lot of underlining messages. I did hear though that the, the female coach for the Niners, even though they made a small thing about it, they actually wanted to make a bigger deal about that and she turned that down, which I thought was cool. Oh, that's classy. I thought that was really classy of her that she's like, I didn't want it to be about me being a woman and being a coach. Like I want to be known as being a great coach. Yeah, that's right. So she had turned down like an interview and turned down a bunch of stuff that they wanted to do with her. They highlighted her a little bit, but she said she didn't want to get wrapped up in the message. No, I mean, I'm just watching it and I'm sure part of this, the reason why I feel this way is I'm watching it with my kids. So here's my daughter watching it. She's 10. Yeah, I can see that. And I mean, there's no nudity or whatever, but as I'm watching it, I'm thinking to myself, like my God, the message my daughter's getting right now is that female value is sex, sexiness, hot. And it's just, there's no balance on the other end here. Again, you have two very talented performers like Shakira and JLo and they could have done a more classy, you know, you know what, I get that though, because Craig had a video of his daughter and her friend and they were like two inches from the screen during the halftime show emulating all the dance. I want to see like women that are smart. I like wisdom. You never see wisdom. Like older women try to be as young as possible in media. Like show wisdom so that when you, because everybody ages, if you're lucky you age, everybody ages at some point you're going to get older and if you think that all your value is your youth and sexy appeal, that's a fucking terrible, you know, way to get older or whatever. So I'm just, as I'm watching, like God, my daughter right now, all she's seeing is that's what gets value. I totally agree. But I also think that that's sort of, that's the platform. That's the entertainment monster that, you know, the consumers. Yeah, the consumers have dictated that and they kind of want to see, you know, that side of JLo and Shakira and I don't know, it's almost like it's part of their act, doing that all the time. Now it's like in the forefront. It's what we pay for, right? Yeah. It's like, I could have changed the channel, turned it off or whatever. Well, what I was impressed with was, and talking about intelligence, I thought the commercials were intelligent this year. Yeah. Totally. I thought there was, you know, there might not have been the commercial that goes viral because it was so trendy and funny or whatever. But I thought the marketing was really smart. There was a lot, there was a lot, quite a few companies that I thought did really good. Shit, the blue one was epic. And I'll tell you, it's epic because Tom Brady's is up for free agency. So that's the, was the whole, just, and that's like big news right now in the sports world, like is Tom Brady going to re-sign with the Patriots or is he going to explore free agency. And he opted to set his contract up this way. So they wanted to put him in a longer contract. He opted to go up for free agency for whatever reason, whether that be his agent strategy to negotiate more money, whatever. We don't, as the public, we don't know exactly. So that's the big conversation. Is it possible, the Raiders will go after him? Is it possible someone else is going to acquire Tom Brady? And so Hulu does this commercial, obviously playing on that, which was brilliant. And the commercial starts off with Tom Brady. I have like this announcement that he wants to make. And it's like, you know, him walking through the dark tunnel and you think like, oh yeah, you think, oh shit, this is super bull. He's going, it's going to be different. And then he cuts to the, you know, oh, who has live sports and does all that. I thought that was pretty epic. I noticed Snickers one. Oh, I didn't see that. Oh, it was my favorite. Cause here's the thing. So like it, it, it sort of embodied this whole like crazy woke culture. And like, there was like this pit where, where they were like throwing people in. And there's like these influencers. They just threw in the pit and they're just like, you know, everybody just needs a Snickers hole. Everybody needs a Snickers hole. Bro, I'm going to start this, right? So I said, whenever we see stupid shit on Instagram, I'm going to just start like hashtag Snickers hole. Yeah, throw them in the Snickers hole. That's hilarious. Did you guys notice the trend of all these luxury car brands coming out with a new electric car? Yeah. You guys see that? Oh yeah. Boy, that's a big, all the players, all the players are coming out. Yeah, all kinds of brand new electric vehicles. Boy, what a gamble by Elon and obviously is setting a trend 100%. He was laughed at when he came out with it. Oh yeah. I mean, we brought this up like, shit, this was almost two years ago when I was talking about this. Once that happened, Toyota, Honda, Honda, like, I mean, they all dumped billions into that side. Well, the brilliance is not the electric car, per se, because it's how he changed the way we viewed electric cars because up until that point, electric vehicles were, you know, they saved gas, they were good for the environment. And they're ugly as hell. So yeah, like a Prius or whatever, Tesla comes out and it's like it's a performance car. Oh, and by the way, it's faster than pretty much any other car in a, you know, 60, zero to 60 or whatever. So he kind of changed the way that we view it and now you have these luxury brands coming out with, they're not even selling the fact that it's electric and better for the environment. They're selling the fact that it's fast, that it's cool, which is effective. That's effective marketing. So it's an interesting, interesting to see. No, no, that was really good. What'd you guys eat? Did you guys eat a bunch of Super Bowl food? Did you end up with heartburn and shit? Yeah, actually, yeah. Like I, I had planned on eating, you know, replacing some things and doing some things healthy and actually, you know, I had planned, I mean, I had a bunch of it, but then it ended up like there was Doritos out there too, which would kind of ruin the whole thing. But I mean, originally we had like celery, we had carrots, we had, you know, we had those chicken wings. So I actually tried out the chicken wings from a butcher box. Oh really? Yeah. Courtney baked them and so we put them with seasoning everything. They're great. Yeah, they're really good. So did you make them spicy or regular? How did you make them? Spicy. Oh yeah, spicy. With the buffalo sauce? No, not with the buffalo sauce. Like a rub. It was just like a rub. Yeah, okay. It was like a rub and then we dipped it in this ranch dressing and anyway, it was like fantastic. I want to try using the air fryer that we've been talking about. The air fryer. We got to get on that. Well, I mean, it's, I've only used it a few times but you could almost get your food to feel like it's fried. Almost. It's not quite, but it's got that same feel and texture and flavor. Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's a way healthier, lower calorie option. So that's for sure something I want to try putting in there, especially because it's a smaller piece of meat. You have to cook all the way through or whatever. Sounds like, we did the pork, but I am not, here's the deal. I am not a fan of pork. I never liked pork. Wasn't a big deal except for bacon. Yeah. Their pork chops are insane. Amazing. Yeah. Have you tried them? The super flavor. No, I haven't done them. Oh, cast iron skillet. Jessica does them in a cast iron skillet and pours this like butter thing that she makes for it. And it's, it's like the tastiest meat I've ever, it's one of the tastiest meats I've ever had. We had, we did the pork butt and sous, that we had. And I should share it because I got a ton of DMs from posting a picture of it. We take these, the rice paper wonton, you've seen those before, the little, they're like wonton rice paper. Can you eat them? Yeah. No, I don't know that. Yeah, yeah. They're like super thin, like hardly any calorie in a minute whatsoever. But we, we put them in the, you know those, what do you call them? Do they have half ton ones because I can't eat them? This is stupid. Sorry. I couldn't help the dad and they're in, we put them in those, what do you call them, like a cupcake pan or a muffin pan or whatever like that. And so you stick all the, the wonton, the wonton paper, rice paper in there. And then we do ground turkey. We season it like taco seasoning. Oh, I saw this picture. This looked good. Yeah. And then put a little bit of your favorite cheese sprinkled over it, a little bit of cilantro or salsa over it. And they make incredible. And we do you bake it? Yeah. And then they come out of the tin without sticking to the sides or whatever. Oh yeah, right out. You don't have to do that. Oh, I'm going to try that. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds easy too. Yeah. It's super easy. It's like what it's like a go to Super Bowl treat. That when, when Katrina and I are going somewhere, we always bring it with us because there's always the people that have the ranch dressing dip and Doritos on the table. And we're like, you know, there's got to be something healthy that we can have that tastes still pretty good. So I mean, you're really, you're takes hardly for a little thing like that takes hardly any cheese to give it a little bit of flavor with the taco meat and the rice paper is like next to nothing. And then a little bit of sauce on it. No, we just had the pork chops and then my dad is like, I'm going to go get some some tri tips. And my parents have this thing where they feel like if there's let's say five people coming over. Yeah. We better prepare for 50. Just in case. Just in case. There's a bust. My dad bought pounds of massive pieces of like no joke. They're like this big of ribeyes bone in and grilled all those up. My mom made tons of potatoes and vegetables. And after we're done, there's like pounds of meat and food left. Yeah. And my dad's like, I feel like I didn't get enough. And he was serious. He's like, I feel like we didn't have enough food to eat. Yeah. I was supposed to have people over, dude. They all went to other parties. And so it was just like me and the boys and Courtney. And we had this just plethora, the smorgasbord of food. And it was like, dude, not even a quarter of it was. That's embarrassing. Your friends didn't show up. They didn't want to bring it up and my team lost. So yeah. Oh my God. It was a rough weekend. All your friends with you guys. All your friends to show up. Yeah. But I only invited two. So they texted each other. Yeah. They hate you. Are you going? We're going over here. Yeah. Yeah. They were, you know, who would have showed up. They don't want to hang out. You know, who would have totally showed up if you invited him? This guy. Yeah. Well, I didn't know. You had gear, bro. Yeah. I've seen your shirt. You don't want bad mojo. As far as I know, I haven't met anybody in your family. That's like a big sports fan. So who's like into the game? Are you guys all watching it? Like confused? If it's a big, no. They're all gearing out. They're like a flag for what? No, no, no, no. I know the rules of football pretty damn well. And my dad does too. So when we... Does anybody watch football? No, no. It's because it's a big cultural man. And it was the, you know, it's a Bay Area team. And my dad, he's part of a motorcycle group that he goes riding long distance with. And all those guys are huge football fans. So now my dad's like, they have matching t-shirts or whatever. So then at your house, is it more about the event and celebrating and being with family and eating and not really huddled around the TV and so like the games are gone, but you guys are more... Correct, correct. So you're more like hanging out. So my house is... It's on in the background. My house is different. It's like nobody says shit. I had my headphones on distracted by any baby. I'm sitting up, you know, like, in there the whole time. My phone's with my thread with my buddies that we're talking shit at every single time. Oh, I was talking shit on my phone the whole time. It was funny because, like, my kids were getting really into it, you know, and so they're like just yelling things. Like, just like if there was hype at all or like somebody was, no, we gotta win the game. Like, oh, I'm like, shh. Like I'm trying to like listen and watch the game. Like the details, like, just don't just yell to yell, you know, but I had to appreciate that they're like excited. No, and this is what it's like in my family. It's on the background. We're all talking, whatever, and then... Something big happens. And then my mom will be like, oh my God, look at this commercial. And then we'll all be quiet to laugh at the... The electric commercial. Did you have a favorite commercial? I liked the Alexa one. I figured you would love the Rick and Morty one. Oh, Rick and Morty. Rick and Morty was great. Yeah, because that was pretty original. That was the Pringles. I thought it was clever tied. They did a smart chain of commercials. Oh, yeah. I love that. That was hilarious. Yeah, I thought that was interesting. Tide did something with Bud Light. That's what it was. Bud Light. They did something together. And then one other one that I see where they co... There was a couple co-branded commercials. Yeah, I wonder if they're still getting their money worth. Two million. Is it two million per... Two million per 30 seconds. For 30 seconds. For 30 seconds. And I read an article actually about startups that did it. So in the 2000s... Oh, I saw a couple. That's right. So in the 2000 something, 2001 or two or whatever, somewhere around there, it was a become a thing where startup companies were starting to take, allocating $2 million towards these commercials. And all but like one of them are actually don't exist anymore. So it's not a very good investment for startups. I feel like it's a better investment for a national brand. Like if you're that big and you just want... Brand awareness. Yes. Then I could see it being of value. Otherwise, I don't see how you would recoup your $2 million investment. If you're a smaller company and it's not one of those. It's just such a big investment. Beer companies and soda companies. Yeah, that's about it. Exactly. I just don't... Doritos. Yeah, it's... To me, it's even more like... It is. It's more like a... I mean, obviously it's a total brand awareness play. It's not a... Hey, we spent $2 million. Hopefully today we have a spike. Right. Excuse me. But if you do something clever that gets people to... Like I told you guys that mayhem commercial one. I mean, they saw... They saw millions of people go over to their website like immediately. And then it spiked for like the next month or whatever. So, you know, if you hit like something out the park with like a viral commercial, that actually drives a ton of traffic. But I mean, the odds of that have to be like super low. And you got to take a massive risk. Yeah, like with the writing of it. Exactly. Anyway, do you guys see all the... What's that? The hoop log going on with Rogan? Yeah. I was just listening to... My uncle texts me. But I just... It was around Bernie Sanders stuff, right? Is that what it is? Because he endorsed him? Yeah. So I didn't read anything about it. But I listened to like one of his latest episodes. He was kind of talking about it. And like how, you know, like the left was like really attacking his character now. All of a sudden because of like some statements he's made about trans people in sports and like his stance on that trans athlete that went into the UFC. Or was the UFC... No. No. MMA. And his whole stance on that and like, you know, like his uncomfortable watching. Mainly because like he didn't disclose that he used to be a man, right? And then went in fighting as a woman against women. And it just looked like, you know, a man fighting. Did you watch those fights? I did not. I did. Oh, you did? Yes, I have. And it's somebody with no skill fighting skilled fighters but winning because they're just overpowered the fuck out of them. Yeah. Bigger, stronger and more violent. It was... It's not easy to watch. It looks... It doesn't look good. Yeah. Look, I agree. I haven't listed everything Rogan said about trans athletes. And I don't know if he talks about it with any cooth. You know, he's kind of rough sometimes the way he says things. But I agree with this that I do think that in certain sports it's a huge advantage, especially if you've gone through puberty as your biological sex and then you switch over or you competed as your biological space in the sport that you then transition and then compete against the... No question. Yeah. I agree. We're living in reality. There's definitely that as a factor. And I think that's just been in his stance the whole time. I've listened and he's been very consistent about his stance with that and very accepting and not transphobic necessarily, just more like in sports. This is A plus B. What are we doing here? We have to still live in reality with this. Now he's under fire because he's supporting Bernie and then Bernie supporters like... No, don't support Bernie because we don't like you because of the statements you've made. Yes. Right? Something like that? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Again, they're eating each other at this point. They don't want his endorsement. He doesn't want it. And he was in a weird position where he's like, I didn't want to be the face or poster boy for endorsing. He's like, I was just throwing that out there. Like, hey, I had him on the show. I liked him, whatever. I like what he has to say. And then same thing with Tulsi Gabbard and all that. And he's like, I was just like, I like where they're coming from. That was it. You know, I'm not like your guy to get you all the votes. If you listen to Rogan enough, it sounds very much like he's a socially liberal but fiscally conservative person. So it doesn't make sense to me that he would support Bernie Sanders because Bernie Sanders is socially liberal but also liberal with his economics. He's a big government, wants to socialize big, big segments of the market. Doesn't make any sense. It feels like Rogan is making more of a political play. Like, okay, I know you guys listen to my podcast. I have a lot of people who may be not happy with someone. So I'm going to support somebody to make it seem like, you know, I'm cool with this side over here. You think so? It feels like that. Because either that or he's really confused because... Yeah, I just don't... I don't think he's... Yeah, that versus in the economics of it. Yeah, I feel alright at the sense he just said something and when you get that big, this is what happens. Yeah. It's one of the things you just got to be careful with when you have a platform that massive is that you make a statement like, oh, hey, I like somebody. Boom, next thing I get is a million people quick, real quick, are going to respond. I think he's just now realizing his reach is so much bigger than he even anticipated. Like anything he says could be like turned into a movement. Oh, it's crazy. He's got a lot of influence and that right there just shows it. But I think it's so funny you got a guy that big with that much influence and power and then you have support someone but then that person's supporters are like, no, he's not pure enough. You're never going to find somebody pure enough to support your guy if you put the people through that same kind of scrutiny. It's going to be impossible. Yeah. And that's why I think they're going to self-destruct. I know. I really do. It's going to be interesting to watch this all unfold in front of our eyes. This election is going to be so ugly and gross. What does it really start ramping up, Sal? Oh, right now. It's starting to kick up already. It will. Yeah. Bernie is surging right now. He's getting up there with Biden for the Democrat to be the nominee for the Democrat Party. Although I do not think the Democrats will allow that the mainstream, you know, people in control of that party will allow Bernie to win that nomination. I do nothing. They already fucked with them. Exactly. I don't think, you know, why? Because he's an outright socialist. He's got a lot of stuff that he, he supported, you know, Cuba going, you know, I mean, as he's made some stuff, said some stuff in the past that's very anti kind of American. And I don't think he has a chance to win, or at least maybe that's their view. So I think that they'll shut him down somehow. They'll find a way to fuck him so that he can't compete in them. Biden, my money's, I think Biden's going to win the nomination a hundred percent. I saw the Bloomberg commercials during the. He's pressing hard. Yeah. Money. Yeah. He spent some money on the Super Bowl commercials. So he's, he's trying to still fight. Is he even in it at all? What's, what's happened with him? They are allowing him at the next debate, which I think is funny because he's not pulling well and yet he's allowed. So his money did something. He's just trying to buy his way up to the front. I think he did. I think he definitely did buy himself up. And it's funny because he's the opposite of what they wonder, what they kind of stand for. He's a billionaire, you know? Right guy. Yeah. So I don't know. Aren't they all? Who's not a billionaire in that circle? I know. It's hilarious. It is funny. Or hundreds of millions at least. Well, I can't even compete otherwise. I told you that was a thing that I, when I saw the one little debate that I saw, a democratic debate, it had turned it into like just a mud slinging thing over who's, you know, who's less rich. Yeah. It was a little funny, dude. I'm less privileged. Things get funny when you see the parties try to beat each other over their base because the base is extreme. So like if the, when the Republicans are doing it, it's like, I'm more American than you. Oh yeah. I'm more Christian than you. Yeah. You know, it's just funny to watch those two side. Speaking of silliness, I belong to a lot of groups on Facebook. I've talked about this on the podcast. It's a phenomenal way to get information. People always ask me where I get my articles and studies. And a lot of them are in these groups, different groups. I belong to economic ones. I belong to. Did you see that commercial for Facebook? Yes. I saw that. The specialty groups. Facebook is promoting groups that you can go and belong to all these different groups. And I think they're brilliant. Again, I love going on there because like I belong to this neuroscience group, right? And on this group, in this group, people will post studies that are related to neuroscience. And then in the comments, the people debating typically are pretty smart about that subject. Some of them are even experts in the subject because that's why they belong to the group. And I learn more because I can see them discussing and debating, right? So that's why I do this. And I almost never comment unless I want to hash something out and want to learn more. Or I feel like I want to see if my opinion stands the test of debate or whatever. So this guy posts this article in this neuroscience group. And it's this article on how the vegan diet may actually cause cognitive decline in some people. So it's a neuroscience group. It's an article saying vegan diets may actually reduce cognitive performance. And in the article, they pull up really, there's really only one study that they referenced that they said was the best evidence they have. And it was a study done on children. I don't remember where they were. I want to say it was in Africa. And they fed one group of children a vegan diet and another group of children a diet that included meat. And the group that included meat had consistently scored higher in cognitive performance. And then when they fed the kids who had the vegan diet meat, they saw their scores go up. So the whole article talks about lack of choline in the vegan diet, creatine in the vegan diet, B12 and that kind of stuff. So it's a cool article. So the guy posts it. Did he get hammered by a couple of radicals? There were vegans in the group that went nuts. So they started attacking him because he posted an article with studies. Let me guess that he's right to his character. Oh, they were. And so I'm, you know, this is closer to my expertise. We're not talking neuroscience. We're talking diet, right? So I'm like, I got to say something. So I get on there and I start, you know, rattling back like, well, here's the deal. And, you know, diets can be quite individual. Next thing you know, man, I'm getting fucking. They are ripping me, dude. Just venom coming out. Oh, bad, you know, like, well, what's your, what are you doing? So I told him what I did. Oh, well, yeah, you make money off selling meat. I'm like, actually I don't. And here's the deal. And we're going back and forth. And it was just, it went from science, a group of people interested in science to a bunch of back and forth slinging. Over diet. Over diet. It was one lady's like, oh, well, you know, you saying that eating meat is anti-inflammatory. I know you're already full of shit. And I'm like, well, here's a couple studies showing populations where it's anti-inflammatory to eat a keto diet or eat meat or whatever. And no, they don't want to hear that shit. I thought I was in a totally different group. I'll just show some studies. We'll have a good discussion. This is a smart group. No, dude. There won't be any of this. They were coming after me, dude. It was great. Was this yesterday? This was yesterday. Yeah. For like an hour and a half, I was going back and forth and I was like, oh shit, it's no different in this group than in some of the other ones. Anyway, so. So tribal. But I tell you what, dude, if you want to learn about a subject and if you want to strengthen your opinion or test your opinion, go on, sign up for these groups and discuss with people. Try to obviously reframe from being a jerk because they'll kick you out. And you'll learn more stuff in that than anywhere else. No, you got me doing that now. Are you following group? Yeah, I'm not. I don't think I'm as active as you are. I still don't use the Facebook platform anywhere near as I do like Instagram. I mean, none of them did I use. The only reason why I use Instagram more than anything else is because it's where we have the most interaction. So otherwise I wouldn't even be on the platforms. It just seems like it just sucks my day away. You know, I like Facebook more than Instagram specifically because of that, because I learn more from Facebook. I'm going to join a Jedi fencing academy. Yeah, I don't know how much you're going to learn there besides the fact that you guys are getting laid. Oh, here's something that they posted in there that I thought was really cool that I also commented on. So somebody posted an article that showed that different forms of exercise have different effects on the brain, different neurological effects. So I'm going to read some of the article. It's pretty cool. So a new study shows for the first time that low and high exercise intensities affect the brain differently. So high intensity exercise versus low intensity exercise, both have benefits for the brain, but both of them have different kinds of benefits. They discovered that low intensity exercise triggers brain networks involved in cognitive control or cognition control and attention processing. High intensity exercise, activated networks involved, involved in effective emotion processing. So what does that mean, right? Cognitive control is the process by which goals or plans influence behavior. So this is executive control. So this process inhibits automatic responses and influences working memory. It supports flexible adaptive responses and complex goal directive thoughts. So that's low intensity exercise. High intensity exercise, the emotional processing, is the ability of people to process stress and other extreme events and move past them. How cool is that? Now, I observed this training clients where they would tell me that lifting heavy weights, which is considered high intensity exercise, made them feel more strong in their lives. Like they could handle more stressful situations. This is emotionally balanced. This is also what makes the case for somebody who is training for athletic performance to lean on this type of training more often than somebody who is just a typical person trying to be healthy and in shape. Like it carries more weight why you might push an athlete to failure more often or do hit type of training or do that because of the mental resiliency that they're going to get from that, which then applies to their sport, right? How many times are you going to be in a game where you're fatigued, you're tired, you want to quit. You got to push. And you got to push through that. It's not about what's healthiest for the body. It's not about what's going to build the most muscle or give you the best athletic performance so much as it is. What's going to give you the mental resiliency to push through that. This is also what I see wrong with our space because we aspire to be like athletes so much and we see the way that they train and we think that, oh, I should train this way because so-and-so athlete works out this way. Well, his goals are different and the reason why we train an athlete like that is different than somebody who's trying to get results in the gym. Well, the best athletes, I mean, the examples are the ones that stay calm in the most intensive situations. And obviously to be able to train in a way where you can maintain emotional balance through all that stuff is essential. But yeah, to your point, like your average person really doesn't need to take all that on as frequently as an athlete. Well, two things. One is that intensity is individual. So what's considered high intensity for one person is low intensity for someone else. And number two, I don't care what kind of exercise you do, it has to be applied appropriately because you're not gonna get any benefit if you overdo any form of exercise. But if you do it appropriately, if you do it the right way, you apply it the way it should be applied to your individual body. Intense exercise, like resistance training, I think has more value in the modern life from a mental standpoint because like we just saw in this study, the low intensity stuff, it's good for the executive functioning. Like, oh, it gets me to think smoothly and think about things the right way. But what really are the challenges with modern life? It's handling everything. I got all this shit going on. How do I deal with the stressful thing? How do I move past this without killing myself with anxiety and fear and all that stuff, which is growing in modern populations? Resistance training trains the brain to be able to process these things more effectively. And I used to get that feedback from clients all the time, all the time. Well, they tell me, man, you know, it's like because I lift heavy with you, I get stressed out with the kids or my deadlines at work don't freak me out like they used to. Well, don't you feel part of that? Like part of a problem is people just aren't doing hard enough shit, you know, like they're out there just like, you know, finding problems and everything and they're not really like pursuing things that really challenge them every day. And it puts things in perspective too, doesn't it? Like if you go out and you go, you do a 72-hour fast or you go do some kind of hard camping trip and then you come back, all of a sudden, it's stressful, you know what I mean? It's like, that's not a big deal. Things are a little bit in perspective. So anyway, it's pretty interesting. Well, Justin, to your point, I think that it's just natural that we default to the easiest path always. I mean, that's, and as we evolve, we continue to make things easier for us. So we are, that's like... Which is not a bad thing necessarily, but we forget that there's value and challenge. Well, there's a dark side to that. Well, I think that's also why, people have exploded. People feel that they need it. Yeah, and it's subconsciously. I doubt that even half of the people that sign up for those courses even actively know why they're drawn to it. They just don't make them feel alive. Right, they're drawn to it because it makes them feel alive. They're missing that in their everyday life and there's something about that when they go through it. So I would make the argument that probably a majority of those people don't even realize it. And I think we're going to see more and more of it easier and easier for us. So it's only a matter of time before driving is of the past. I mean, that's like one of the toughest things you got to do. You don't have to think anymore. It just takes you where you want. All right, first question is from Dance Girl. I know a full range of motion is best, but is there ever an appropriate time to incorporate partials? What are the benefits of doing partial reps? Yeah, it's a good question because we talk so often about how your full range of motion that you own is the best range of motion to train in. But when you watch high-level athletes lifting weights like if you watch basketball players doing, you know, they'll do quarter squats. They'll do trap bar deadlifts from an elevated position. There's value in those because they're training specifically for a range of motion they're going to be in using the most power and the most performance in during their game. Maximizing and generating power where they're most likely to do it and, you know, that's not necessarily in the bottom position of a squat. That's right. And now it's not to say they don't do full range of motion training, but when you're at that level, partial rep training can be beneficial because you can specifically target a range of motion. And it's risk versus reward. That's right. Because it's less risky, right? It requires less stability. The other way I would use partial reps is, and what I mean by partial reps not going through the full range of motion is when I'm training someone who's hyper mobile. And I haven't had a lot of clients like this, but I have had a few where they're just they don't lift weights. They come and hire me. Their joints are lax. They have, you know, they're super hyper flexible and I don't push them as low as I can. I stop them short and have them create tension to try and make themselves stronger before we even attempt to go into the deeper ranges of motion, you know? This is something I feel like is being discussed on social media a lot right now. In fact, I was just, I was reading a tweet that Smitty just posted out. I saw Eugene Tao talking about something the other day. I saw Shallow talking about something the other day. PJ Performance. There's this and it's a good question for us to address like where we stand on this conversation because I think that I don't want to draw a line in the sand of, you know, oh, we're a team, astagrass squats and that's how everybody should be squatting and you know, there's going to be exceptions to the rule and there's going to be a major individual variance by everybody that you train. So the goal for me when training a client that doesn't have specific needs like an athlete, like a bat, like a NBA basketball player, if I'm training that person, you're the 1% of the 1%. So I'm not talking, I'm talking about the general population I'm training. How do I decide if I'm going to squat with them to just 90, a little bit below 90 or astagrass and that is if they have the capability to go there and a lot of people because they hear us talk about and promote deep squatting, assume that, oh, that means everybody should just go in deep squat after listening to us talk about it and the reality is some people haven't done the prerequisites to get to a really good deep squat. Sure they can get there, but their mechanics are awful getting down there and they're risking more by injuring themselves by doing that. So the end goal is to be able to do an astagrass squat if you're general pop. It doesn't mean that you should be doing one right away. It means that the goal is to be able to do one with really good form and if you are doing a really good squat down to 90 and then as you get deeper into 90, sure you can still do it, but form breaks down. You don't have any business doing it yet. Your goal then should be to work on mobilizing things like most likely the hips, thoracic mobility, ankle mobility, addressing the areas that you lack mobility in and that's why the form doesn't look pretty at the bottom of the squat. You want a pretty squat. If you're going to astagrass, you want to have a pretty squat so there's this big debate of should you or should you not between all these coaches and trainers that are out there and the reality is that everybody should try and work towards taking a joint through its fullest range of motion. That is what's going to benefit us the most long term. Now as coaches and trainers I have to assess somebody and decide are they ready for that full range of motion right now and when I assess them some people are a lot of people are not that doesn't mean that I want to justify them doing partial reps or not going through full range of motion because they can't right now it's okay we can't do it safely yet right now my goal now is to give you the tools to work towards that. Yeah because I think you need to specify like what that means when you say you know we want to use the fullest range possible or to their capacity that doesn't mean that okay if I can get to the bottom of a squat then that means I do a full range of motion squat so that's not what we mean because a lot of people listening may say to themselves oh cool let me just go and see how low I can go and then oh that means that's the bottom of my squat no when we say capacity what we mean is use the fullest range of motion that you have complete control over not the fullest range of motion period so most people can't don't have full control and stability and perfect form all the way down most people break down once they get to a certain point then the goal is to increase that range of motion with control which takes time which takes mobility work which takes correctional exercise work that's the goal now what are the studies show the studies show that if you want to gain the most if you want to gain the widest spectrum of strength and you want to build more muscle or more muscle effectively full range is superior to partial range all things being equal in other words full range with good control versus partial ranges with good control in fact years ago and I want to say it was in the 90s there was this bodybuilding book that came out and I can't remember the name of it had a pal de mayo on the cover was a late bodybuilder called him quads illa back in the day and the the the goal the book was selling partial rep training and this theory was hey full range of motion is good but partial rep training is better because you can use so much more weight so it's like a full range of motion squat with 250 pounds is better than a 250 pound partial rep squat but what you want to do is overload the partial rep then you're using 400 pounds and because of all that overload that's on the muscle you're going to build more muscle okay that book was published a lot of people bought it a lot of people tested it and what they found was doesn't work actually doesn't work at all you full range of motion is superior even with lighter loads for building more muscle and again that wide spectrum wide ranging type of strength and again we're talking about the average person I'm trying to prepare them to be strong in the most full ways possible we're not specifically training for a sport I'm not trying to get you to you know be you know the best at one particular thing I'm trying to get you really good generally because that's the best there's so many individual you need to consider I mean we're talking about athletes in general for me like they build compensations that's like really what an athlete does is you know like build these patterns and hone in and fashion these patterns to get better and better at these very specific movements that they apply to their sport and you know a lot of times you try and train to have carry over for that for general strength for power output but in terms of the actual mechanics and power output you know there are like more advantageous ranges to work with and so that's why you will see maybe some shortened you know levered squats or shortened angular movements that might actually have more benefits to that specific athlete well and I think it's when we're talking about things like partial reps I think you know and this reminds me of like Eugene Tows post that I wanted to comment on about the leg press and what I love about Eugene is there's a lot of things that he says that I think is counter to a message that we tend to present on the podcast yet when he presents the information the application behind how he presents it matters so much for example he was making the case like how valuable the leg presses and but when he's talking about how he utilizes it towards the end of a workout after he's done the knee compound lifting and his muscles are fatigued it allows him to push without that the risk of really hurting himself doing something like a more you know challenging exercise like a squat or something else that's more complex and so and here we are guys who's talking about oh the leg press is terrible well yeah for the most part for the average person who hasn't even learned how to squat very well a less risky way to build volume in your in your workout exactly and that and that's was his case that he's making and I can agree with that even though we're the same guys that will turn around and say like leg pressing for most people you should spend most of your time learning how to just because we know how long it takes to learn how to squat really well the benefits that you'll get just from working towards that and the average person are you really consistent are you consistent long enough to be great at squatting and great at everything else in the gym now so yeah I understand where we're where he's coming from and I also understand we're coming from important that people always are careful about when they when they get into questions like this and they want to divide the fitness space up and oh these people are pro this these people are anti that listen everything that we've ever heard of of like different training tools there's a place for it there's a place for training and failure there's a place for a leg there's a place for a Smith machine there's a place a place for leg press when you hear us talk about these topics on this show always thinking about GP I'm always thinking of the general population the people that I saw day in and day out for two decades and what I'm the information that I provide is I'm trying to to give them the most value as possible I am not trying to in long-term benefits right I am not trying to make an argument with some other very intelligent person in our space and say he's wrong I'm right or she's wrong I'm right I don't give a shit about that I don't give a shit about drawing a line in the sand about modalities and who I'm trying to think of what I've been training my entire career and I've got a fucking ton of people to pull from as examples of when you teach this this is what normally happens and I care about helping the majority not the small one percent of people that might find value it's like debating the the you know the performance benefits of the bathing suit that you wear when you go swimming when you're talking to a bunch of people who aren't swimming need to learn how to swim or not Olympic level swimmer great point it makes no sense it doesn't make any sense to debate that because why what's that going to do for you it's not going to help you so partial rep training you know for aside from correctional purposes there's not a ton of value for the average person for athletes at super high levels there's a lot of potential value now what about single joint movements like in comparison to compound movements for partial repetitions from a correctional exercise standpoint I can see potential benefit but you know partial I mean partial on a single joint single joint movements typically you can use a fuller range of motion with them and you can get a scratch as an interrupter I would say well a bodybuilder chasing the pump if you're programming well and you're in a hypertrophy phase and all your desired outcome is to just get a massive pump partial reps will do that it's very it gets the similar benefits it's like blood occlusion so there's there is a person in a category we're in a time we're okay that can make sense have I ever done it you know small pumping bicep curls or tricep push downs because that's what I'm looking for right there I already lifted the heavy weight before now I'm trying to do is to pump as much blood as I possibly can in this muscle feel that burning that I'm out of there because I'm looking for suckle plasma hypertrophy that's the benefit I want but again to the point we're trying to make for the average person yeah you know very short term benefit yeah and little and very little very very very little splitting hair type of argument most people should be sticking to the basics getting better at the basics trying to break down why they can't do the basics to the fullest range of motion working towards that those things are going to still build tons of muscle for you tons of benefit tons of body fat you're going to burn because that and when you think of longevity that wins for sure next question is from chase mancia one if my diet isn't super dialed in for example not getting enough protein it feels like the gym isn't worth it should I still make a point to go yeah totally you should definitely always worth yeah that's the all or nothing mentality which prevents more people from not doing anything than I can think of I used I used to do this though I I mean I have to admit this this is this was my MO as even as a trainer I used to have this attitude of like if I'm not dialed nutritionally then why and a lot of that came from because I I knew how quick I could change my physique when I dialed everything in my nutrition was on point I was training really well I could really alter my physique and so I kind of had this attitude of all or nothing either I'm in it all the way and if I'm not then I'm doing other things and for me it was okay I was managing my quote-unquote health because if I wasn't I was playing basketball I was snowboarding I was wakeboarding I'm active I was active right and so I just wasn't focused on building my aesthetics and so I would justify this diets whack I'm not lifting weights right now I don't care because I'm not really going to build the maximum amount of muscle I'm not going to sculpt my physique the way I want I'm playing sports I'm doing these things and so I now that I'm older it's totally different I have the complete opposite approach that something is better than nothing always and sometimes even if my diet is whack just coming in and getting a good squat session in and knowing like the benefits of keeping my hips strong and mobile keeping working on the mobility work I'm trying to do keep practicing that movement that is that technical and trying to improve it there's so many other benefits other than am I building the most amount of muscle possible because my diet is or is not in check yeah it's like I mean you can think about a couple different ways one way is okay if my diet's bad not exercising is making everything worse so I'm just making a bad situation much worse by now not being active the second way you can look at it is this when you exercise appropriately you don't have to change your diet at all you're still sending a signal that says build muscle you're still positively influencing your metabolism and your hormones and your health just by working out now of course it's ideal to have a great diet with a great exercise plan of course that's ideal but not doing one does not completely negate the benefits of the other it's their their their best together but they're also good alone that's the bottom line I tell you what the vast majority of my clients that are trained towards the back half of my career when I became a really really effective trainer was just like this for a long time they would come see me they would train with me two or three days a week that's what you had to work with and they didn't fix their diet because the diet was the hardest part it always is and I didn't hammer them like I did early on because I knew it was a slow process so I'd be training people for a year two years three years without them dialing in diet at all all we're doing is exercising and here's what happened during that two year period of me working them out got stronger healthier hormones balance they can move better they felt better and all of that actually contributes significantly to then starting to better later on so then little by little they naturally wanted to change their diet because they just felt better from the exercise and all of them became permanent with their approach to exercise nutrition this attitude of if I'm not doing if I'm not doing one I'm not doing the other one is the all or nothing approach and it's all that's literally what your whole routines it'll look like it's either all or nothing yeah whichever one comes naturally easier that that's a healthy habit that you're already doing I mean keep going with that I've actually met one of my clients was really you know dialed in nutritionally but just was not into the movement side of it and that was like I'm like great like let's keep like fashioning in on that and we'll keep building like very slowly and get you comfortable with you know because wasn't very familiar with the fact that you know there was a burn element to it you know there was these other components like she wasn't very familiar with but you know again like you don't want to you don't want to squash any momentum going in the right direction I think no no and it just reminds me to and I would train sales people back in the day and they'd say things to me like what's the use if I go out and talk to those people over there they don't look like they're interested or I'm not super well versed yet or whatever and the thing that I would say to them is you have you going out and talking to people is is the percentage that you'll succeed is much higher than you not doing anything you sitting here it's a hundred percent you're not going to get any new sales or new leads you going out there even if you suck and most of people we talk to you are not interested it's more than zero your percent increase is more than zero so if everything's shitty and you're exercising it's better than if you weren't so definitely do something and in fact that's the long term approach to health and fitness the long term approach that is successful that I've always seen to be far more successful is taking exactly that type of an approach something is better than nothing a bird in the hand better than two in the bush boom yeah old school next question is from Aaron O'Donohoe Davis what exercise or exercises would you recommend if the back squat is not an option I love lunges lunges and all the varieties I would say Bulgarian split squat I would say the lunge is in the varieties the different versions of lunges fantastic exercise it's right up there with the squat it really is a single leg squat the front leg is doing the same thing it would do in a normal squat it's just different because you split your stance maybe it's easier on the back for you it was an exercise that I had people do before I'd have them learn how to squat so when I get older clients or whatever I'd have them hold on to something for balance and I'd put like thick pads down so that they didn't have to kneel so low and I was just teaching them how to lunge and that's the way I got them to be able to do a squat you can even make the argument that functionally speaking lunges are superior to a squat I've heard people make that argument I've heard the argument and I've also like a bit like in the beginning when I have somebody for the first time I tend to lean more towards lunges than I do in actual squat and reason being is there's just a lot of stability and there's a lot of work like in a split stance where I feel there's so much value to that to where if we can hone in on the mechanics of a lunge first and get the hips and the knees and everything in the right position and then build the strength and stability there at the same time and then apply that now to both feet I feel like a lot of times I've had a better response than going into a squat it's the second I would say I build muscle I build almost as much muscle doing lunge type movements as I do with back squats it's right up there near the top so if you can't do a back squat for whatever reason you're not missing a lot by doing the split stance exercise which I think are perfect I do want to say though too we're giving I think good generic advice the real question would be like why why can't you back squat and then based off of what that why is would really dictate what other exercises I would choose to do otherwise right so we are giving very generic advice right now when someone just says can't you know barbell back squats is it not an option because there's not a barbell in the gym is it not an option because you've got low back pain yeah you've got back pain like I would want I would want to know more as a trainer slash coach but if we were just let's pretend that we just can't have that exercise and we have to try and you know build the best programming without it 100% lunges Bulgarian split squat goblet squat would be an incredible exercise also I like that because how deep you can get for most people yeah you may do maybe you might be able to do a front squat I've worked with clients who where the back squat wasn't working for them and we're working towards getting better at back squat but they could do a front squat right I put a barbell across their shoulders and it wasn't an issue and front squat is great right and that's why the why matters right somebody can't do a back squat potentially because they have horrible thoracic and shoulder mobility and they just can't get the hold the bar in that position so they end up rounding forward and it hurts their low back so I mean if I saw all that there's definitely different advices that I give to whoever or whatever reasons why you can't do it but generically speaking I think Bulgarian splits squat walking lunges reverse lunch those those step ups are good too step ups on a box are really good absolutely they require more more balance to that point too like if it's a shoulder wrist mobility issue whatever it is with the upper back you know maybe searchers are going to be an option for you to have it in a lower position so yeah there's ways around it I think it depends on what the limitations are next question is from Konichiwa what is the difference between reverse dieting and bulking how long can you stay in a calorie surplus before you get efficient with calories and to add on body fat I'll hold off the second part of this question and just answer the first one first which is the difference between reverse dieting and bulking the difference is the goal both of them you are working with a calorie surplus but really with the reverse diet what you're trying to do is you're trying to back out of a low calorie diet situation and you're trying to back out gracefully you're trying to do it in a way to where you don't have this crash weight gain that can happen from an extreme diet so you see reverse dieting used most often with like physique competitors bodybuilders bikini competitors who will get really really really shredded for an event and that usually means that they're towards the end of their cut or whatever their calories are as low as they're going to get often times very low their activity is through the roof they're doing lots of cardio lots of working out so to paint the scenario let's say this female goes into a contest eating 1200 calories a day or maybe even a little less she's doing an hour of cardio every day plus working out she does the contest she does really well what you don't want to do is go boom I'm off the diet I'm going to eat whatever I want and I'm going to just not do as much cardio that will cause really rapid weight gain may actually add fat cells to your body isn't very healthy so reverse dieting is rather than just going out of that is to slowly increase your calories and slowly reduce your cardiovascular activity it's a healthy way of coming out of that type of situation the other example that too would actually be the client who comes to me and you know he or she is 300 pounds they have yo-yo dieted their whole life and I have them track their food like I do everybody when we first start and just eat what you normally eat and then they provide their diet to me and they're eating 1100 calories and they're 300 pounds and that is another example of where we would take a reverse diet type of an approach where we are slowly trying to add calories back in the diet and get their body used to that without putting on any excess body fat which is similar to bulking it's really how quote-unquote bulking should be done I mean bulking is kind of an old term that we've used for a long time for increasing calories and what's happened is that what most people turn it into is what they call like a dirty bulk where it's okay I'm trying to gain weight right now so I can't have this out the window it doesn't exist anymore I can have whatever I want I can eat whatever calories I want because I'm trying to put size on but we recommend against that I think that creates a bad relationship with food I think most people that you see that bulk like this put on as much or more body fat than they actually do muscle and then when they decide to lean back down they just go right back to the same starting point or worse than they were in before so I think it's the old way of putting mass and size on that I think is slowly dying to be honest with you you want to increase your calories if you're trying to build muscle you don't need to increase them as much as you think and then just monitor how are you doing now the second part about you know how long can you stay in a calorie surplus before your body starts to add body fat well that's very different from person to person the only way to know when to stop is to monitor monitor yourself slowly add with some people I would add 50 to 100 calories per day per week so this week we went from 1200 calories to 1300 calories and we'll watch the scale watch the body fat calipers how do you feel okay everything looks good let's add a little bit more you want to you know kind of come to terms with the fact that you will gain some weight that's okay especially if you're coming out of a very very low situation the idea that was for that weight to be muscle so hopefully body fat percentage doesn't go up too much and you keep doing that approach until you start to notice diminishing gains until you start to notice I'm gaining more body fat than I am muscle then you can get back out of that sometimes doing a short cut will get your body right in the right state to go back to the higher calories this is a hard thing I think for people to grasp even somebody's been training for a long time I don't know if I told you Sal that I was helping our good friend Larry's ex-wife right now get in shape and she and she's somebody who's very familiar to the weight room and training and has kept herself in pretty good shape most her life and even where our starting point is she's not like way out of shape or anything but I'm trying to get her to approach it differently as she's training right now and one of the things that we're talking about is you know I want to get her calories up for somebody who is as active she steps more than 10,000 steps a day she's got a decent amount of lean body mass she's an active fit person as it is but she was only eating like 14-15 hundred calories when I first kind of assessed her diet and and also doing cardio so I've eliminated all cardio completely and we've been you know she's running maps anabolic right now and I've got her slowly increasing her calories and and I every time we communicate I'm always constantly saying okay this is you're doing great here doing great there add more here a little bit more of this no cardio no cardio she asked me there a day like when are we gonna be able to do cardio and I said well I before we even introduced cardio or even think about restricting calories my goal is to get you up to you know in 2000 plus mid 2000s is where I'd like to be calorie wise before I come the other way and I go right now we're in a really good place we've eliminated cardio you are stepping the same as you were before we are now up to 1800 to 2000 calories a day and her weight's like holding so what I and I and I see her food that she's making she's making good choices she's getting protein intake she's getting adequate fiber diet looks really good and we're increasing calories we're doing no cardio and yet her weight is holding the same now what I know is that that's a real mental fuck for most people because we want to see if I'm on the bulk I want to see scale going up like crazy if I'm on the cut I want to see scale going down but really if there's good programming if you're training correctly and you're eating well balance and you're hitting your macro targets and you want and you're being able to increase calories and the scale is staying the same I know good things are happening I know she she's getting stronger that's the response that I'm getting from her or dead lifters going up or squat is going up but the scale is not going up but their calories are going up so I know that there's probably a beautiful change happening right now we're probably losing a pound to a pound and a half of body fat we're gaining somewhere between a half a pound to a pound of muscle and it's you know the rest is probably water going in and out so we have a beautiful place to be but it's such a hard place for people to be comfortable and okay with because we always want to see these quick results and that's what I find myself coaching the most to is like listen if you're eating well and by well hitting your macro targets your protein intake like you're supposed to and making good food whole food choices and you're following like a maps program and your scale is staying the same you're in a really good place you're in an amazing place and we forget the mental component too one of the main reasons in my opinion the slow approach is better is the way you adapt to it mentally going from diet to bulk in extreme ways is a fantastic way to get you to binge develop bad relationship with food very very rarely do you know are we able to change our behaviors in such radical ways and do it in a healthy way it's typically a slow kind of step approach getting yourself used to things so the slow approach also works mentally as well and with that go to mindpumpfree.com and download all of our resources guides and books they're all absolutely free you can also find the three of us on instagram you can find Justin at Mindpump Justin you can find Adam at Mindpump Adam and you can find me at Mindpump Sal