 In this episode of Mind Pump, so the first half of this episode, we talk about current events, we talk about our lives, we bring up studies, and then the second part of this episode is where we answer questions that are asked by listeners like you on our Instagram page, and they're all usually fitness related. Where it says quass out. So here's what we talk about the intro portion. This is the first 37 minutes. We start out by talking about the masks people wear on their faces around town. Like what's the deal with that? Is it just to prevent illness? Is that a metaphor or is that a real thing? Or is it to hide their faces? Then we talked about strange fetishes. Justin brought that one up. That was all just what I'm good for today. We talked about what I discussed with our private forum last night, talking about speeding up the metabolism to our private forum. By the way, we do have a private forum for people. So if you want to check that out, you can go to mindpumpmedia.com. We talked about how PG&E cut off the power to like 800,000 people in California because they suck. We talked about the new sauna here at Mind Pump. It's a clear light infrared sauna. It's awesome. It's the best sauna we've ever used. And we have a hookup for you. In fact, if you go to infraredsana.com forward slash mind pump, one of their representatives can call you, but make sure you mention Mind Pump. You can get up to $600 off the purchase of a sauna. So massive, massive discount. It fits three large men, just so you know. Then we talked about my workout yesterday and how I deadlifted a lot of weight. And I'm trying to get up to 600 pounds. You guys will never see that number. We talked about genetically edited babies in Russia with the hell's going on over there. Justin brought up the new copper camp mug from Mir that we're going to use for Moscow Mules. That's the official Mind Pump drink. But these copper mugs are insulated like a lot of the products from Mir and Mir is one of our sponsors. If you go to mir.com, M-I-I-R.com and use the code Mind Pump, you'll get 25% off your entire order. I talked about a study that showed that owning a dog reduces your all cause mortality. Dogs make you healthy. And then I talked about how some studies showed that the prehistoric humans were storing food kind of like the same way we store canned foods. I don't think it's bullshit. That's interesting. Then we got the fitness portion of the episode. This is where we answer questions. The first question, this person says, you know, they've heard us talking about using a sauna right after a workout, but if time is limited, when are other good times to use a sauna? So we talk all about sauna use, its benefits and the best times to use one. The next question, this person wants to get stronger with their bench press. So we talk all about techniques and tools you can use to get your bench press numbers to go up. The next question, this person wants to know about reverse dieting. What is it and what are the benefits? What the hell is a reverse diet? That's in reverse. And the final question, this is a personal trainer that wants to know what we think about them taking the leads and stuff they get from the gym that they work out, taking them outside the gym and train these people in their homes or other places to make more money. Adam goes off on that part of the episode. Also this month, MAPS Anabolic, our most popular workout program, which comes complete with workout videos and explanations, exercise blueprints. There's three phases to the program. It's all set up for you. It's a program designed to build muscle, strength and speed up the metabolism. It's the best program we have for most people for those three things. This program is 50% off, half off. It's the only time we do the sale all year long for MAPS Anabolic. Here's how you get the discount. Go to mapsred.com. That's M-A-P-S-R-E-D .com and use the code Red 50, R-E-D-5-0, no space for the discount. You know the other day we were talking about those face masks? You guys remember that? Yeah, what is it called? It's not a face mask. What is that called, Doug? There's not a name for it, is it? It's just the surgical kind of mask that they wear when they don't want to get sick or get other people sick. I guess it's like a handkerchief. That was your theory and my theory somewhat too. I was like, I just think it's more than that because I see there's a younger generation that's doing it all the time now. It actually dates back a long time. Well, and now it gets for the facial recognition stuff? No, no. That's what they were doing in Hong Kong. So I got DM'd about this. This is what it said, say, hey, just listen to an episode on Mindful about why people like hip hop artists and other festival goers wear those face masks. I know people wear them because A, you can make them out of beads and look quote unquote mysterious. That shows kind of like a homemade costume. Or if you're ugly. And B, and B, you can hide your mouth and face if you're rolling or tripping so nobody can see you chipping or chewing or grinding your teeth. Oh, wow. What about their eyes? I know. They got to hide their eyes too. I knew there was something up with that old Asian lady at the bus stop today. She was on Molly. You're friendly. Rolling hard there, huh, lady? Yeah, why you put your head on my shoulder? That's why they also do the pacifiers. You guys ever see pictures of that? Actually, the rest of the DM says that she goes, it's similar to why people do the pacifiers. I think that draws more attention to you as a grown man. Yeah, hold on a second. I think it's weirder to be at a party. Maybe people won't notice me grinding my teeth, but I'm chewing on a fucking pacifier. Look like a moron. That started it boys in the hood, right? I don't think it started there, but it was there. It wasn't there. Was it boys in the hood or was it? Yeah, it was. Don't be a menace to society while shipping. They mocked boys in the hood though. There was two. There was boys in the hood and then there was menace to society, which was not a mocking. That was an actual movie. And then there was the one that mocked it. That was called don't be a menace while sipping your juice in the hood. That's what it was. That was the one. And the Wayne's brothers did that, right? Yeah. And they had the, but they were making fun of the original people that I'd never seen. They're making fun of all those movies. I had never seen anybody do it until boys in the hood. And right after boys in the hood came out, there was like a little spike in pacifier sales because they were, I saw them around. I saw them within my peers and stuff. It's all baby style if you think about it. Pants falling down, pacifier. That was a great movie by the way, boys in the hood. I love that movie. There's a big community. Well, I guess not really big, but there's people that are into that whole thing of like, you know, diaper changing and all that as an adult. Oh my God. I'm like, what is this? That's immediately what I think of when I think of somebody with a pacifier. Like a fetish? Yeah. It's real, dude. That's a real fetish. You know what always concerns me more? It's a big fat guys too. What's more concerning to me is that when we talk about these weird fetishes, Sal can always confirm them. Yeah. Like I hear you say it might have been from Sal. How did this happen? Hold on a second. Wait a minute. How do I even know about this? Just brings it up. Yeah, I know. But you're always the one to give her, oh, absolutely. Just because I remember all the weird shit. First of all, Yeah, I actually have the link right here. Just because you forget everything you've ever read. What are these days? So I can't confirm it. Touche. No, but I remember a long time ago, I read an article because it was you're right, Justin. It's like a fat dude. He's wearing a diaper. And there's like things that like what are they called? Not festivals, but conventions where they show up and they like to have people change their diaper and stuff. No, it's a thing. I remember watching. You guys never watched a show taboo. Oh my God, I remember that. Dude, they covered like all of these crazy fetishes. Wait, where was that show taboo on? I don't know. I think it was like. Was it like Nat Geo or something? Yeah, Nat Geo Discovery or one of those. Yeah, where it was like, you know, it had a lot of like animal, like, you know, stuff like that. Like I would normally watch for entertainment, but then it got this weird show on there. And it was like really fascinating to see what people were into. And like if, you know, they had different names for each of these things. Like somebody that was like in love with inanimate objects. Yes, there was, I saw one where there's people that are sexually aroused by cars or furniture or weird shit. There's this one dude that, yeah, he was in a sexual relationship with his car. Yes, I saw that one. And he just loved it. Now, do you think there's something that obviously happens to all these people that have? Yeah, I love that exhaust pipe. These off. Just wait till the car cools down. Oh God, you bad visual. Is there something that you think that happens to these people in their early years, like childhood or something? Or maybe like they were. Probably. Has to be. Right? That whole imprint, right? Like there's like one, there's part of the developmental process where it's like you're exposed to something. I'm sure like that's part of it. Right. I envision like someone has a weird car finish like that. Like how does that happen? It's probably like they're in their, locked in their car seat from ages like two to five and their parents fucking the car all the time. Oh my God. Right? Something. And it gets imprinted on that kid's head. He doesn't know. He just wants, he just gets older and wants to fuck cars also. Oh, it's weird, man. You don't think that's how it goes down? I really don't know how that happens. In my, but you know humans were such complex animals that we take everything that's essential to life. So think of all the essential things. Food, shelter, clothing, sex. And because they're essential, we create cultures around them and then we make them really complex and weird. So like look at food. Like what do we need for food? We need sustenance and that's it. But we have all this weirdness around food and we cook all kinds of foods that look weird and different and colorful and all kinds of, same thing with our homes and our clothes. Like all we need are clothes to protect us from the elements. But you look around, everybody in here wearing something different to look. So it makes sense that with sex, we'll do the same thing. So, and they just get weirder and weirder. But think of like the other fetishes, like the more common ones, like a foot fetish. That's actually a quite common one. A month. Like why are people attracted to feet? That's, you can't procreate with feet. I don't know, man. You know what I'm saying? That one just, no, I don't get it. Yeah, so. What are your questions looking like? Cause you've been doing the live forum questions. What kind of questions are you getting inside of them? Oh yeah, yeah. None of these. None of this stuff. Save the good stuff. I would say our forum is like, probably more interested about the science to support whatever it is that we talk about on the show. I feel like that's. The forum seems to be so, a lot of listeners don't know. We have a private Facebook forum and it's a small group. It's about 3000 people and we like it that way. And it's, it's kind of a split between people who like really dark humor, people who like the science about fitness and health. And then, you know, people who like to talk about current events. Yeah. And so we have this private forum for people to meet each other, discuss things. And what we've been doing recently is every Wednesday, I'll pop up on there and do a live talk and the live Q and A. So each time I try and pick a topic. And this last time I did, I talked about speeding up the metabolism. So I talked for about 15 minutes on how you go about speeding up the metabolism, how you go about doing that with diet and exercise and all that stuff. And then I open it up for just the Q and A. And usually the questions are related to what I talked about, but sometimes they're random. You know what I mean? Sometimes we're like, Hey, Sal, what's your favorite? You know, whatever. I'll answer that. Yeah. Yeah. That was cool. But I did this one in my house last time. No, I saw that. Did you see that? I did see that. I did see that. You're going to talk shit? I was going to come and talk shit, but I figure I better not do that. Well, I do. I love that. No, no, no. Sometimes I feel like I don't want to, I don't want to overdo it, you know, especially if you're on a roll and you're dropping really special. I can't mess with me, dude. You guys have tried to mess up my flow. Yeah, you do. You do have like a bit of a stone wall with that. I don't know how you did. I did show, did you watch the very beginning when I showed, because when I first get on there, I wait for people to come on. So I kind of, so I thought, what can I, what can I do for the first few minutes to wait for people to pop on? You start juggling or? No, I can't juggle. Try it. I showed everybody my original Arnold Schwarzenegger encyclopedia bodybuild. The real, the original. The ones all duct taped together. Yeah, dude. So I showed everybody that, that thing's like my, it's so important to me. You open it just. Oh, yeah. Hey, did either one of you guys get affected by the power outage yet? Yeah, this guy. Oh, really? Hello. Did you see my story? I did a, I did a story on, because someone, my sister sent me a great meme. And I was like, oh, this is so perfect for her and I, because we both know what it's like. And it said, it's something along the lines of all of you that have never, never been poor and never had your electricity out for a day or two. It shows. Because you're freaking out. Yeah, because everybody's freaking out. Dude, this is such. Apply that to camping. So here, here's a great example of why we don't want, because our energy is supplied by one company, PG&E. We have no competitors. And that's because it's such a regulated market that anybody trying to enter that market, it's impossible. So it's basically like a combination of market and government. So now we're stuck with one. And could you imagine? We're worried about the wind. It's not windy. Okay. I just, I imagine in my head, like, you know, a group of the executives, like, oh yeah, you guys want to sue us for being responsible for all this? Hey, how you like not having power? How you like that, huh? Where are you going to get it? Nowhere. That's what happened because they got sued for the fires. The reality is those fires were there because environmentalists were not allowing us to go in and clear out all that old brush and stuff. So it was this buildup of all this dry brush. Then there was a fire and they were terrible. So PG&E gets blamed. Oh, wow. So is this what's going on right now? So these are all, this is all, what's the word? Proactive? Yeah. They're saying, and they're saying that this is Preventive? Yes. They're saying this is the new norm. So now what they're saying is This is a total, like, fuck you for coming after it. It is. Wow. It is. I did not know that. It completely smells it. I don't think it's a necessarily a fuck what is it? It's supposed to be this crazy wind. It hasn't been, I have, I'm super sensitive to wind because of my allergies. It hurts your feelings? Yeah, totally. Ow, stop wind. So when the wind picks up, I know right away, even just the slightest bit. And we've had no wind. We've had no wind in the Bay Area right now. It's not windy. First of all, you guys are arguing the wrong thing. Like, okay. Fuck you, PGD. Relax. That's the whole argument. Like it was dangerous. No, the forecasters can never be 100%. So it was forecast that there was supposed to be tons of wind. And before, because they had those monumental lawsuits that they got, you know, blamed for for the fires, what they're trying to do is trying to prevent potential fires. So they're turning off everybody. Are they trying to prevent? Are they trying to say fuck you? I think they're trying to prevent because, guess what? Like, no way. I'm not susceptible. I'm with Justin. This is everybody's power. You don't know when it's coming back on. You know, they're giving us all these arbitrary numbers. Dude, maybe it's 24. Maybe it's four days. Maybe it's a week, you know. Let me let you sit. Well, it's just smells of this. Regardless of whether or not it's an FU or it's they're actually trying to prevent potential forest fire or whatever potential fire. Here's the bottom line. There's no way in hell a company like this would survive doing this shit if there was competition. No, absolutely. Imagine how mad you are if they're like your neighbors all lit up like a Christmas tree and you're living in your cooler. That's what I'm saying. Yes, motherfucker. Okay, imagine who's your cell phone provider? AT&T? Yeah. Okay. Imagine if AT&T was like, Hey, everybody, you're not going to have cell servers for the next five days. Verizon would get a surge of new customers. Again, I have no cell phones. I have no internet. I have no power. Like nothing. So we can't do shit because we can't do shit because PG&E is it. So where are we going to go? So they can basically be like, Yeah, whatever. What are you going to do? That's why I think it's tough. That's why I think it's an ultimate flex. That's why. Yeah. That's how I think. Tough titties. It just smells of that. So anyway, so I'm like trying to get trying to get all up and ready to go this morning and like, Oh, wait a minute. Aren't you leaving town anyway? Yeah. And I'm leaving. I feel bad. So your wife and kids are going to be there. Yes. So I'm like that guy. That's like, Hey, see you later. But I don't even know where I'm going to have power. So we'll see how this whole weekend plays out. Where were you supposed to go? Tahoe. Are they are they messing with Tahoe? I'm pretty sure. No, I think it's all Bay, bro. Is this just the Bay? I looked at the map and there's a lot, man. There's a huge, like how many, it was like 800,000. It was a lot. Residents. Yeah, it was a lot. I'm in the safe zone. So I'm not getting any, you know, power cut out. But this irritates the shit out of me. I hate this. I hate feeling like I have no choice. You know what I'm saying? I got no sleep. So that's where I'm, you know, dealing with it. Well, because I mean my kids like, they go to sleep to like white noise, all kind of stuff. And it's like, so they're coming up and backing down. They're scared and all. And so then the dogs like throwing up. What'd you do with all your throwing up? Yeah, he just woke up in the middle and started throwing up on the ground. I couldn't see anything. I'm stumbling and like, I slipped in it. And then I like knocked my head on, you know, one of my drawers and, oh man, dude, I'm a mess. You're having a terrible time. I'm a mess today. I love your dog too. Your dog does a good job of just throwing shit on top of shit. Yeah, he does. He just likes to add insult to injury every time. Anyway, it annoys me. It reminds me of the DMV. When I go to the DMV, and I'm in their ridiculous line and I'm looking at their redundancy of everything they do. It's so archaic. And I think to myself, I can't go anywhere else. Yeah. This is really not that bad. I like complaining like an old man. Oh, it annoys a shit of me. What'd you do with your food? Yeah. Well, so we have to put in all these different coolers. Like we have like three of them. And we're just trying to put like all, especially all the perishable meat and stuff like that that's like going to go real fast milk and all that. But yeah. We don't know when they're going to turn it back on. So are they, are your, is your wife and kids going to mom's house or something? Yeah, they're going to take off. And I told them to go find somewhere where they could put themselves up with the dog and be, you know, cool and have power. And you're cool, right, Adam? Yeah, we haven't had, we haven't been hit yet. But Katrina's freaked out. I'm more worried about the milk, right? That's like, the breast milk. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's, that's gold. Yeah, it is gold. It can't get really in. That's titty gold. You can't get, you can't go to the grocery store and go buy that if it goes bad. So that's like, we're, we're on high alert for that. So, but I didn't know that it was being. Have you been drinking it? The milk? Yeah. Have you tried it yet? Yeah. Maybe. See, I don't know. Not maybe, you gotta confirm. Do I look, do I look? I admitted it. Do I look more buff than you? Yeah, you might be getting a little bit more. Because I looked at you today and I'm like, he's looking anabolic. I told you. It's a little sweet, right? A little side house. What are you doing? Tea ball and breast milk, dude. I'm trying to tell you right now. The breast milk protein synthesis hack or whatever. I actually haven't tasted it, dude. Really? Yeah, I talked, I talked a big game like I would. And I was just, it just hasn't came around, you know. Her nipples are all sensitive, bro. I can't even get near them. Right from the source. Yeah. I get close to them. She's like, ah. Yeah. Yeah. You just suddenly get pissed off. Yeah, really. That's mine. Yeah. He's like this pushing me away. I can't get no, I can't get no love. I just, I just picture a picture of a baby here out of the big ass ball bed on this side. Yeah. I tried, dude. I got denied, dude. I got denied on it. So, and I just don't feel, I feel weird about taking it from a bottle. You know, I'm good with it. Yeah. I'm good, I'm good taking it out of the nipple. Right after we talk about the baby, the weird baby fetish thing, you know, where people dress up like babies. Yeah. Oh my god. We see Adam in the car. What are you doing, bro? Just as a feel, as a feel, right. Hey, how's the, how's the new sauna? We got all up and going. Did you guys hear, so, do you guys know how that came about? Did you know that I posted that on Instagram? What did you, what do you mean? So, I was, I was in our old sauna about a month and a half or two ago and I did a story saying that I want a bigger, better sauna. Some sauna companies reach out and say, That's how that happened. Yeah, bro. I didn't know that. Yeah, that's the power of Instagram now, dude. Wow. Yeah, that was the ultimate flex. So, what do you think of this one? Flexing. Oh, bro, the Clearlight one is, is so much better. It's got, and one of the things that I love about it right now, one, I noticed that it heats up a lot faster than the other one. The other one I had to, I'd have to turn it on like a good 30 minutes plus before. Yeah. So, it's bigger and it still heats up faster than the smaller one, which doesn't even make sense to me. How many will fit all of us in there easily now? Is this a five-person one that we have? So, it's considered, Oh, we've tried. It's considered a four-person, but what I also like about this one too is the bench that's in there. I don't know if you guys know this. That bench, you just pull it right out. So, it's portable. So, you can stretch in there. So, yeah, so you could do like full on. I mean, it's big enough for me to still stretch even with the bench in there, but if I really want to like starfish out and spread all the way out and do all kinds of yoga in there, you pull the bench out and then I lay the yoga mats down in there and then I stretch. Have you done that yet? That's all I do. Stretching in heat is amazing. That's great. Yeah, because the heat, what happens is the heat causes the central nervous... Okay, so you ever notice in hot weather you feel kind of tired? Because heat depresses the central nervous system. It makes everything kind of come down and it's the central nervous system that regulates whether or not a muscle can be stretched or not. This is why when you're cold, you're tight. So, you're our science guy. And to your point of making fun of me, the shit that I've read and I forget, I've read this and I know that there's science to support this and I know I've talked to Ben Greenfield about this and of all the things that I love the most about the infrared sauna, the single thing that I love the most is if I have like the last couple of days I was really groggy. So, I came in yesterday to the sauna just to do the sauna because I was so groggy from two days of not sleeping and I could just feel my circadian rhythm off and just feeling awful and I had already pushed through that the day before training so I'm like, I can't do that again. Like, my body needs rest or I need to do something to feel better. Anytime I feel like that, jet lag, just didn't get any sleep and I do that sauna for 20 minutes and I come out, it's like no other sauna I've done before and I know it has something to do with the infrared and I know Ben Greenfield recommends that anytime that you fly like out of the country or you would throw off your natural circadian rhythm that it like resets it. So, I'm not familiar with any science supporting that but I've heard lots of anecdote in my theory. Yeah, I've experienced it. Yeah, and my theory is that it's like any kind of stress on the body, you know, when you're training your body's ability to acclimate to temperature and you throw a stimulus, it's like a workout. Like when you have a good workout, how do you feel afterwards? Yeah, you feel good. You're energized, right? Cold shower obviously would do that but that's more obvious I think people because the cold shower kind of makes you wake up but no, I get the same. Real alert, yeah. I get the same effect from the sauna. I feel just better and more energized. 100%. My ideal way to start my day is with a sauna. Wake up in the morning and I'll do the sauna then I'll come out of their shower, eat. It's my ideal way to start my day. Yeah, if I had a bigger place right now, 100%, I'd have that thing inside my house because I would like that too. It would just be nice to be able to walk down stairs and climb in it. But I mean, here's close. I mean, I'm getting in it right now at least three times a week. Sometimes you just have to wear some clothing. That's the only thing because it's here in the studio. I've also read somewhere too the benefits of it like post workout. Like it's supposed to be really good too for recovery purposes. It reduces inflammation. So that could go either way. So like, for example, yesterday, I don't know if you guys saw this. I know you did. I'm sure people messaged you, the big ass deadlift that I did. Push the... Those are for the live version. I had popcorn and everything. Such an asshole, dude. He hasn't done any lift posts. I haven't done a post in a while. I'm kind of feeling good. I'm like starting to work way back on my strength. I pull like 440 or something. I don't remember where it was. It wasn't over 500. You got to pick a different lift, bro. Yeah, I know. That's the one I figured out. I know what an asshole is. Yeah, you can have that deadlift. 24 hours later, he's pulling over 500 and posting, and I'm like, you're such a prank. I didn't income all the DMs. Yo, did you see Sal's deadlift? No, motherfucker, I didn't see his deadlift. Of course I saw his deadlift. Fuck any more. We see each other every day. I think, in fact, I think I did I texted you guys? Yeah. I think I would have sent it to the dude. No, you know what I'm thinking right now? I'm feeling good. For me, it's all about gut health. If my gut stays healthy, then I can just put on muscle and feel strong and feel good. If it's not healthy, then I got to monitor my food intake, then it becomes all about my health and I can't push my body. But I'm thinking, I turned 40 back in February. It would be cool to pull, I've only pulled 600 pound one time. It was years ago. It would be cool to get up to a 600 pound deadlift again over the age of 40, all natural. I think that would be, that'd be a cool goal. Yeah, I mean, I just want to put it out there. Since we've hung out together, you haven't pulled more than I've pulled. Since we've hung out together. What do you mean? So my, I... I pulled 575 when we were... Oh, we did? Oh, you did. I thought you hit 555 with me. No, I did. When we were together, but I pulled 570 or 575. When nobody was looking. No, I recorded it in the dark corner. No, I haven't saved. Yeah, he's like, don't worry, it's safe. No, but the goal is to get, I want to be able to get a 600 pound pull and I want it to look good. And it's just, but I'll tell you what, it's different now than it used to be. Like I can't just recklessly go out there and fucking chase. Now, do you guys have personal numbers that like, like for me, it's not, I don't even need to go there. Like 500 pull, a 400 squat. Yeah, you got, you have the 300. And a 300 bench is like, those are my, those are like, I'm, I feel really... If I'm... That's a really good, that's a really good combo. Right. I feel like that's a, that's a good balance. I'm pretty strong on all of them. Obviously I'm not breaking records with any of those or anything impressive, but for me... None of us are. No. I'm not gonna throw it out. For a bunch of average guys, you know what I'm saying? I feel like that those are good. Those are all good. Those are really good. Is that your goal to be able to get to those? To be able to be pulling that where I'm at right. All at the same time. Yeah. All at the same time and all natural. That's where I'd like to be. It'd be cool to do them all in one lit, like one workout, just to do the 300, 400, you know, 500. I mean, I don't see why. I mean, I've pulled 550. I've squatted 420. I've benched 375. I don't see why that's not doable. Now, which one's the hardest for you right now? Well, I'm squatting right now, like 375. So I'm not far. So that one's pretty close. Right. I'm just deadlifted the other day, 440 something. So I'm not far there. You have a 500 pound deadlift right now. If you use an alternate grip. Yeah. In a belt, I think you got that right now. I think if I could push, I could, well, I mean, I pulled 550, right? So I think I could pull 500 if I stretched myself, especially if I trained for a couple of weeks on a row of actually trying to progress that. Right, right, right, right. Probably the bench would be the hardest to be over 300 right now. My bench is pretty, I'm working out with, you know, 225 with blocks of five and by about the third or fourth set, that's pretty challenging for me. So if I'm at 225 right now, maybe I squeeze out 250, 275. Well, probably 250 would be easy. 275 is probably around where I'm at right now. So that would probably be the most challenging to get over 300. Yeah, what about you, Justin? You're the big overhead press guy, didn't you? Yeah. What was your, what's your all-time overhead press best? Uh, was, well, it was a bit of a push press, just to be fair, but I pushed press 275. Damn. And I wanted to get up to three plates. So that was like a goal I've always had. It was like training. Yeah, I'm not even gonna try. 315. With that maybe, Bench, I got 405 when I was back at NorCal. And so I, I've been slowly trying to build that back up and I've been, you know, increasing my bench. That's probably the one that has been rising up the most. As of late, my squats kind of, you know, teeter around the same. Like I'm pretty much, you know, I'll hit like 405 every now and then when I feel like saucy and I'm like, oh, I got some juice today. But other than that, I haven't really pressed that like any further, but I would like to try that. I love the strength stuff. I really do. I love pushing strength. It's my favorite, favorite thing to do with lifting. The only drawback to it is you hurt yourself. You know what I mean? You start pushing it and you start feeling, you know, it's the threshold. You first start feeling energized and, you know, oh, there it goes. I tweak myself and I got to back way the fuck down. Do you see Justin's 15 pound kettlebell windmill yesterday? 15. You like that? Yeah, I was fucking, how much is that thing weigh? This is a bastard. Then the kettlebell case comes in and like confirms it for you. I'm like, come on guys, what's up with that, dude? Everybody knows this is the gold one. That's, that's the, they call it big Bertha, right? Big Bertha. How much is it? What is it? What is it? It's 105. Yeah. 105.6. So I'll add the 0.6. Justin's got that cake power. You know what I mean? You sticks the hip out and that big ass glute of it. It's stealing it fucking trolls. You know, oh, your nails bent on that one. Did you get your form is horrible. Did you get trolled on that? Dude, I was just like, I was like, well, you know what? You might be right. But that version you're describing is fucking stupid. So this is how I do it. What you see, you know, it's funny because the three of us have been training our own bodies, obviously, for a very, very long time. A lot of the discrepancies between our lifts, it really has, it boils down to our genetics. So we all know how to work out. We all know how to eat right. We've all been working out for a long time, but we'll have our genetically, you know, the lifts that we're, we're, we're good at because of our genes or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of genetics, I read this article about genetically edited babies in Russia. What? Yeah. There was a Russian scientist that came out that said he wanted to use the CRISPR technology to. Remind me of the CRISPR technology again. Trying to get back in on the, the Olympic athletic way through genetics now instead of the. Yeah. Yeah. For steroids, steroids. So CRISPR technology, basically, I don't know a whole lot about it, but essentially it's a technology that allows you to go in and edit genes in the lab. So you can edit the gene and now you've, you've, you've, if you know what to do, you can edit a gene so that the, the baby is becomes, you know, taller or shorter or smarter or whatever, if you know what to do. And so this Russian scientist is saying that he can do it. And then there was this huge scientific organization, this huge science organization. That's like, don't do that. We don't want scientists, you know, messing with editing babies. And then he came out and he's like, you can't stop scientific progress. Yeah. You, you might be able to stop me, but someone else is going to do it. Wow. And you know what? Someone did. No, he's right. Yeah. Think about it. It's going to happen. Yeah. That's the, that's the problem. It is inevitable, right? Yeah. That's, that's the scare. But there still needs to be people out there putting the brakes on and checking the morality, you know, of like a lot of these decisions. There still needs to be that even though, yes, it might be inevitable, but we need more people to do that. Well, think about it. Think about it. So, so they had a meeting with, this scientist had a meeting with Vladimir Putin. So Putin went in there and, and talked to this guy. It was like a private meeting or whatever. Nobody knows what the results of that were, but at some point someone's going to do this. And it's like nuclear technology. Like we are, we discovered the nuclear, you know, how to make nuclear bombs. And that technology got stolen by the Soviets. And then now that I don't know how many countries have nukes. Like it's going to happen, dude. Like whether we like it or not. And what they're saying is so funny. This, this is what they said. China doesn't care. They're going all in. Fuck, I guarantee China's doing it right now. 100%. They're like, yeah. Yeah. They're, they're, people are saying, we need to make laws preventing private companies from doing this and only allowing governments the power to do this. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. I feel like that would be just as bad. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Like they're not going to make a, you know, super soldiers or some weird, you know, shit or whatever. Did you guys see, I think Mir actually watches a lot of my Instagram and like what I'm into and everything. Mirror the company. Yeah. The company mirror. Like we had Brian, you know, the CEO on the show and everything. And I just, I just saw one of their latest releases. It's a copper mug and you can use it for both coffee and you can also use it for like a Moscow mule. Oh man. And it's, and it's insulated. It's insulated. Like all the other stuff. Like the taste of like the copper and all that. So it's painted on the outside. And the, it's super sick. The Kuzi today. Oh, is that the way it is? They came in. So they, the two different sized ones. So I got it right now. You put your, what is that? I got Rachel's Red Bulls in here. She's been. Oh, that is that little Kuzi. Yeah, Rachel used to work for Red Bull. So she worked out a deal. I think she hooks them up with some of like our supplements. Did you guys know this? No. So that's why that refrigerator is full of like Red Bulls because she used to work for the company. She has a connection there and they wanted like protein powder or something like that. So she's been like trading protein powder and shit that we have in the back. It's got a little side hustle up there. I totally encouraged it. I'm like, yeah, yeah, go for it. We're not eating. There's like so many, there's like, we have so many. Companies send us stuff all the time that we don't work. We don't like and so we might as well. I mean, I go back there all the time. By the way, somebody who listens to the show sent her a DM like, because she manages the main page about what the statement you just made right now. I'm just, she's like, what do I say back to that? And I'm like, I fucking just let it be. You never know if people are being funny or they're being like rude, but they made a comment about, you know, that they find it really, I don't remember even the word that he used, but he was referring to that we talk about companies sending us free stuff as if it's like. Well, no, it's not. Look, here's the thing. If you want us to work with you, we have to try your product and see if we like it. If we don't like it, I'm not gonna get on the podcast and say, hey, so-and-so company sucks. No, no, no, he was. But I'm just not gonna work with it. He was referring to like Ned and Ned being expensive and that we get stuff for free. And it's like, we're, you know, oh, maybe they should drop their prices instead of giving you guys free stuff. And it was like. That's not gonna make, people don't understand how. What? No, people understand how prices work. Well, not to mention that was just a stupid statement. Okay, so five bottles. Take the price off of all their bottles. She says they don't give me away five bottles for free. You've got like half a cent off. You can't even just, no. You don't wanna go down that rabbit hole. She's like, what do I say back to something? Just ignore that shit. Don't answer that stuff. No, that's so ridiculous. Well, I'm definitely, so the reason I brought that up is because I'm gonna make that our new official like mine pump mule cup. That's dope. That's gonna be the one. Does it have a lid too, Doug? It does. Yeah. Swipe it over. I wanna see if it, I wanna see if it does. No, no, no, you're drinking coffee too. Yeah, for having a lid on there so it doesn't spill over yourself. No, no, it's insulated and it's got the insulated lid and everything. Super clean. By the way, Justin, you completely ruined Moscow mules for me. Completely. What? So I'm not. Nobody makes them the same. Nobody. Nobody. So I'm not a big drinker. I never have been. In fact, I've drank more alcohol since meeting you, Justin, than I ever have in my entire life. Hey, you're welcome. I mean, you're a cooler guy as a result. That's just how it goes. Makes me tolerable. Yeah. You sell a drink. He's annoying the fuck out of me with his random shit. Here, here, shove this in your face. No, but so the first mules that I really had were the ones that you made. Since then, I'm like, I like Moscow mules. So if I go out and I wanna have a drink, I ask for a Moscow mule. None of them are as good as yours. They miss ingredients all the time. It pisses me off. So what's the deal? Well, because most of them don't use mint. Mint is one of the number one, yeah. Let's know one of the number one. And they don't have the right ratio of lime juice. They always use too much lime juice and it makes it too tart or it just doesn't blend well. So yeah, I've figured out the exact formula for it. So that's my thing. And what you do with the mint is different. Did you share that in our newsletter? Did you give away the Moscow mule again? Not yet. Oh, you haven't yet? No, well, probably, I'll probably throw that in there next time. You should do that. But what he does with the mint is interesting too. He takes the mint leaves and then he like claps them in his hand. Right. He booty claps with some vests too. Yeah, he booty claps here. You haven't seen that? I've seen it. He always asked me when I come over to the Moscow mule. I don't know how to do that. Who's or what? Oh, that's Sal's? Watch this, Adam. Is that what it tastes familiar? Yeah, then he booty claps it. Oh, it tastes familiar. Oh, what? I know this flavor. Oh, goodness. Anyway, hey, so since we're a fitness and health podcast, I'm going to tell you guys about, yeah. Nice transition. Yeah. So I'm going to tell you guys about something that is, has been shown in studies, to reduce your risk of early death by 33%, 33% for people who are heart attack survivors. So if you've had a heart attack, there's one thing you can do that studies show that will, after you've had the heart attack and you've survived, that will reduce your risk of mortality after that by 33%, which is a massive amount. Strength, weight, exercise. No, this is something that you want. I'm pretty sure you won't guess. So what else? Diet, exercise. Yeah, all the basic stuff. No, owning a dog. They found that owning a dog. Well, this just supports your statement you made today about relationships and cigarettes. How interesting is that? And how do you measure that? Well, so they find that people who own dogs, and they, well, they control all the factors, right? And they'll say, okay, people that own dogs versus people that don't. And they control all the factors, smoking, diet, all the stuff we know to control. So it's not perfect, but if it's a big enough percentage, that means that there's something there. So for everyday regular people, forget about having, if you had a heart attack or not, you're just regular people. If you own a dog, your risk of all cause mortality goes down by 24%. And the thing, you know what I'd get from that? The thing, the takeaway that I get from that is, is all it's confirming for me, because it's the same point that you make with the relationships and cigarettes that we talked about the other day, is how important the mental aspect is. Totally. That, yes, the physical part, exercise, nutrition, diet, we all know that. It brings you to that calm state. Having those relationships, and dogs are wonderful. I mean, I was happy to see you. Yeah. You know, and they make phenomenal companions. Don't you guys think that people who don't like dogs or don't like music or psychopaths? I'm like, come on. I met a few people like, oh, no, no, no. For me, it's people who don't like kids. What's wrong with you? People who don't like kids. I'm always like, all right. Well, that's, I can kind of understand. Yeah, I can understand it too. Yeah. I did like kids for a long time. Get your snotty kid out of here. Wow, you guys are fucking out of here. I understand that more. I mean, I love my kids, but your kids, wow. I don't know about that. Makes sense though, because you guys are fucking slightly psychopathic. I would just a little bit of the asshole in here. Yeah, I would deal with that one, bro. I don't like all kids. Dogs? Yes, you know, all day. So another coal study, this was an interesting one. There was evidence, they found evidence in Israel and some old caves that prehistoric ancient man stored bone marrow to eat for later. So they found evidence that what hunters would do is they go out, kill the animal, strip the animal of meat and fat and eat whatever. But then they would take the bones back to their caves and store those bones for like up to nine weeks or longer so that later on they could open the bones up and eat the bone marrow and feast on it. So it's like, it's like the first, it's like the, or no, actually longer up to nine months, I should say. It's like the first evidence that of us storing food like we do now with like canned food or whatever. Before we figured out, it was like salt after that. And then I always find it fascinating how we figure this stuff out. Yeah, what do you mean? Like how do they know? Yeah, like the archeologists, I just picture them, they're digging the hole, they find a bone, right? They must have stored this. Yes, right? They're like, they for sure stored this for nine weeks and we're like, what the fuck? How do you come up with that? They have a guy like reenacting it. It's like, okay, I'm gonna go and like, like the fire was over here, this is over here. You know what? I bet they were doing this. Like, I mean, how much of it is just guessing? I know when it's one cave, what if it was like a joke, pre-stored joke, like, hey, you know, hey, Ugg is falling asleep, fall asleep. Let's put a bunch of bones next to his bed. Right. Shut up. 500,000 years later, they stored bones, I see. No, it's much more, more elegant and complex in that in terms of how they figure this out. But they're pretty sure that this is, this shows that we stored these bones like canned foods. Like we took the bones. Well, didn't we think forever? Like we've depicted the way dinosaurs look forever, and then there's been more research that proves that they probably have feathers all over them and shit. Yeah. Yeah. Like that was like a terrible, like they probably, they probably look nothing like all the books, creating all the narratives. I know, like the children's books probably looks nothing like what they really are. We know what their bones look like. Yeah. That's what we know. Well, fuck the study then. I don't mean to shit on it, I just, would I hear stuff like that? We don't know anything. And we, It's just not definitive. We talk so certain about something that I always go like, how did this happen? Like, I mean, obviously they're digging these bones up. Yes, we have carbon dating, so we can guess about when it happened. But it was that they were storing this for nine weeks, and they were doing it for the bone marrow. I think there were two. How the fuck do you not know? It wasn't like Lincoln Logs. They were a kid's toy set that was sitting there forever, that they were stacking bones together, and then they just like. I think their tool marks and the bones are far away from when the animals were hunted, because we didn't hunt animals, and then bring the whole carcass back to the cave. A lot of the evidence points that we would strip them, and you're right. I mean, who knows? Yeah. Fuck studies. Yeah. I love studies. All right. Our first question is from Beardfit91. I know you guys previously said that jumping in the sauna right after a workout isn't the best thing, but if time is limited, isn't it better to do it before or after a workout than not at all? Oh, I didn't even know you picked this question. Okay. So there's a little bit of controversy around sauna use post-workout. Yeah. I wouldn't jump in the sauna just so you know. Yeah. Thanks, dad. Joke. You're gonna sit down relaxed. So here's the deal. There are studies that show, and these are pretty good studies when it comes to endurance athletes, that they took a bunch of cyclists. There were a couple of these, and they had the cyclists train really hard, and they took half of them, and they had them also use a sauna post-workout. And what they found was the cyclists that used the sauna post-workout had far greater improvements in endurance adaptations and performance. So when I hear a study like that, right away, I think, okay, well, performance athletes and people that are trying to build muscle and is a different, is end burn calories or burn fat or fall in a different category than a bunch of cyclists who are trying to recover and come back to their sport. It could be, right? Because it's the same type of study that we would see with professional athletes that ice afterwards, right? There's lots of benefits to, and you see this in the NBA all the time. LeBron James goes out in the fourth quarter, they're basically already won. He's already got ice packs wrapped around his knees to bring down inflammation. He has to turn around and do the next day. Right, exactly. And so then it makes sense because I care more performance, but if I'm an athlete who is actually trying to build muscle, there's a lot of benefits to the inflammation and allowing the body to go its natural course and repair itself, right? It could be, but I think that that is splitting hairs. I think that the, uh-oh, we don't want to reduce the inflammation from the sauna post-workout because that'll reduce the muscle building signal. I think that's splitting hairs. And there are some studies that suggest that you may actually get stronger and build a little bit more muscle by using a sauna anyway. So the whole thing is about, should I use it post-workout? Now, here's a deal. For me personally, I notice benefit to using a sauna post-workout. I really do. If I lift and then I go in the sauna, I seem to improve faster in my lifts and feel better. Now, it could be because I tend to push my body towards its kind of its limit. Do you also think that it has something to do with that you're using our infrared sauna versus a regular traditional sauna? Regular traditional sauna just takes much longer to heat up the body, to get that core temperature up, because infrareds don't need to be as hot because they raise the core temperature up. There are supposed to be benefits for infrared versus traditional sauna. Again, splitting hairs, they're both awesome. They both, because their traditional sauna is hotter. It doesn't have the infrared that heats you up internally, but it's hotter overall. You're still getting the mitochondria benefits that you get in the infrared? Oh, yeah. You're getting all the same benefits. Oh, really? I didn't know that. Absolutely. I thought that that was the main benefit of the infrared opposed to a regular sauna. Immune boosting benefit is one of my favorites. So, you know how the body, when you start to get an infection, what happens? Your body gives you a fever, because the fever, the heating up of the body, reduces the virus or bacteria's ability to replicate. It also stimulates some of the white blood cells and stuff that are coming out to fight these infections. So, a fever is part of the infection fighting process. Well, a sauna simulates that. So, if you feel like you're getting sick, like, oh, I think I might be getting a cold, or I might be getting... Now, I don't recommend going into sauna when you're full-on already sick, but if you feel like you're getting sick, sauna use theoretically should help. And studies show that. Studies show that people who use saunas regularly have less infections and less illness as well. It's actually... There was a huge study, a Finnish study, that I think there were like 5,000 or 10,000 people in the study. They found that regular sauna use reduced all-cause mortality significantly. I noticed just when we started doing this, what almost four years ago, when we started talking about hot cold therapy. This was back when we were talking... This was way back in early episodes, like 200 something, when we were talking about the benefits of like cryotherapy and sauna. And I started to implement that for the first time in my life. So all of my training career, yes, I've used a cold plunge, yes, I've done cryo, yes, I've done sauna, but I've never like done it and treated it like a different system of the body and tried to train it. And for the first time in my life, a few years back when we talked about this, I actually, okay, I'm going to cold plunge and I'm going to train in the sauna at least three times a week every week. And that was... I've never gone that long and not been sick ever in my life. Like I've always had a very weak immune system. In fact, I'm very sensitive to getting sick. And somebody, I used to say, anytime someone around me is sick, I'm guaranteed one of the people that's going to get it. Where since I started doing that, I've been more resilient to colds than I have my entire life. Yeah, I look at it too. I started to use it post-workout and have felt like better acclimated when I do start to heat up. So I've been playing basketball every now and then, still trying to keep that up. And I do a fair bit of cardio, not that much cardio, like mainly just movement. And I'm trying to make sure like I'm... Everything is in check with my joints. But like using the sauna after I all work out, I get those, that same sort of a feeling afterwards where it's just like my whole body gets even that much more exaggerated in terms of like heating it all the way through. And that has kind of had some carry over into energy when I am playing. You don't overheat as easily. Yeah, so now I have also messed around with doing the sauna before a workout. Have you guys tried that yet? No. So sauna before the workout is interesting. I wouldn't think I would like it. Oh, no, no, no. If you want to just get a good... If you want a muscle... If you want to connect to muscle, get a pump, have really good mobility. So you're gonna go... Let's say you're gonna go to the gym and you're gonna go lighter and you want to go full range of motion and get a really good pump. The pumps you get are fast, like real fast, because you're so warmed up, towel off or whatever, let your body cool down a little bit. Then go to the gym, go do some full range... First of all, you'll notice your range of motion is instantly better just because the sauna heated you up. But the pumps you get are just insane. Now, I don't know if that's gonna lead to... I guess indirectly it could lead to better muscle gain, right? If you're... Because you're getting a better pump, because the blood flow is already improved or whatever. But at the end of the day, you know what? The time that you do your sauna doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that you're doing it anyway to begin with. So if you're like, hey, I can't do it post-workout or I have to do a post-workout or I have to... The only time I would say you probably don't want to do too much sauna is right before bed. I think that will probably disrupt your sleep if you get your core temperature up too high and then go straight to bed. Other than that, it doesn't really matter. Don't worry too much about the time. If you can pick the time, then I would say do it post-workout if you're gonna have a really hard workout and you think it may benefit you to have a little faster recovery. Otherwise, who cares? Do it any time of the day. The best I've ever felt is cryo or cold plunge before a workout, a workout, then sauna. Oh, so you go boom, boom. Yeah, that's been my combo. Dude, go hop in a cryo or do a cold plunge. Freezing shower, I've got it. And then yeah, or a freezing shower and then get into your workout. And man, I feel... The adrenaline rush that you get from that gets me into my workout more. I feel so alert and I feel connected for those reasons. It's like hyper-focused. And then afterwards, sitting in the sauna for me, that's the perfect format. But again, I think it's a great point and we talk about this on the show all the time that these are those things that sometimes annoy me about the fitness community is we'll argue and debate over all these studies of, oh, this is better for... Before the workout, after the workout, 22 minutes, no, 25 minutes. Yeah. Everybody relax. Right, exactly. It's a creatine argument. It's any of these... How is your body specifically responding? Yeah, it's the anabolic window bullshit stuff. It's like, if you're doing it, you're doing it. That's what matters. Next question is from Real Upset Stomach. I'm really weak at the bench press and can't seem to gain strength. I have checked and rechecked my form, but have found no issues. Well, Justin, what should I do next? You and I should handle this one. Look at the real professionals in on the bench press. I mean, it's really tough to answer this actually when you don't... When we can't see the person. Because a lot of times what makes somebody a great bencher is the way their body is, right? Their genetic maker, their anatomy. Like if you have really short limbs, it's very conducive for benching well. If you got a big barrel chest and you got short arms, you're going to be a much better bencher than some lanky looking dude like me. It's a long way the bench has to travel and it takes a lot more strength to move that. Because strength is weight over distance. And so somebody who has to go, has to travel the bar 15 inches versus somebody has to travel the bar six inches, that person has to travel 15 inches, could do less weight and be technically stronger than the person who's doing more weight. Does that make sense? It's also leverage and all that stuff. But regardless of your genetic build, one of the best ways to improve strength in any lift, I don't care if it's a bench press, squat, deadlift or curls, is to practice it often. People forget that strength is a skill. So it's not just that your chest, shoulders and triceps need to get bigger and stronger. That's part of it for sure. But it's also, are you perfecting the skill of the bench press and how your muscles fire together? Can you replicate it consistently? Yes. Can you get into that position, but also can you generate and maximize the amount of force output that you're providing to the bar? So one of the biggest things for me was really focusing in on leg drive and focusing in on how to connect to the rest of my body because when I can access a density across my entire body and get that irradiating effect where now I have even more stability overall in my entire body, it's amazing how much more force you can squeeze out just from that one thing. That's a good point. Tensing up the entire body will give you the ability to generate more power. So like if you were to test your grip strength and squeeze something, if you tried to squeeze something as hard as you could, but kept the rest of your body relaxed, you would not squeeze it nearly as hard as if you tensed up the rest of your body. So that's a very good point. I also find being able to keep yourself in a retracted position was like the biggest game changer for me. Like, you know, for the little- That's the shoulders pin back position. Right. Your shoulders peeled back and tucked down, right, when you're bench pressing so that your chest is taking over the load and the shoulders aren't doing a lot of the work and your triceps aren't doing a lot of the work. For me, that was the biggest game changer for improving my strength with my, because we were taught for the longest time to not arch your low back and that the way power lifted was wrong and that the right way to bench press is with this flat back. And, you know, so for many, many years, I was doing this, putting my feet up on the bench or flattening my back trying to bench press. And since we do everything in front of us, and we talk about this a lot, everybody is just naturally kind of rounded forward. Then you get into an exercise that is performed better when you actually have the shoulders in a peeled back or retracted position. You know, it's natural that you're going to go to your default pattern. It's natural you're going to roll forward, which is what you spend 23 of your 24 hours of the day in that position. And so getting to a place where I could train my body to be, to pen that and hold it back while I press. And for me, that's where like priming was like a game changer, like learning how important it was for me to prime my rhomboids, prime my back and my lats to pull my shoulder girdle back and be able to hold it in that position before I go on a bench. That was like game changer. There's also compartmentalizing the lift and really breaking it down. So if it's, you know, your lockout is the problem, for instance, and like putting a block there. So now like you're not coming all the way down, but now you're just waiting and emphasizing the lockout specifically in the lift and just working on that. And then also like, you know, at the very bottom, like using a pause and maybe exaggerating the time length of like the pause. So like lightening the load, but now like generating, focusing on generating that strength when you need it in its lowest position. Right, right. I remember years ago watching one of my trainers and he was a super, super strong at certain lifts and watching him train his clients. So what he would do is he would train his, he'd get a huge client load. So he'd train a few clients. Then he'd have like a 10 minute break. Then he'd go to the bench and he'd bench press. And then he'd go train some more clients and he had another break. And then he'd go back to the bench. And he'd bench press. And then he had some clients and he'd go down and he'd bench press. Now he wasn't bench pressing with tons of intensity. So it's not like he went out there and bench pressed a failure. Just practicing. But he would take a heavy weight that was decently heavy and he'd practice a few reps and put it up. And he would do this throughout the day. And this guy bench pressed a tremendous amount of weight for his size. And I remember watching this going, Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense. Let me try that out. And I did, I tried it out and I tried it out with several lifts. And I got stronger real fast. And so if you're following a traditional muscle building routine where you're hitting your bench press once or twice a week, try practicing it more frequently. That this doesn't mean you're going to work out real hard more frequently. It means you're going to go bench more frequently and practice more frequently. You can bench press four or five days a week if you go out and you adjust the intensity so you don't overdo it. But just that frequency and practice alone, man, that gets people strength through the roof. So I mean, I don't know what your routine looks like, but I can assume, I'm going to assume that you probably bench press real hard once a week and maybe do another day a week. I would say try benching three or four days a week. And a majority of that time, you're just practicing the lift. And maybe one of those times, you're actually going hard and heavy. Body building routines are completely different than strength training routines. Yeah. Look completely- To maximize one of the other. Yeah, the programming is totally different. You can have a very impressive looking chest and not be that strong and bench press. Yeah. So it- Yeah, a bunch. Yeah, if it's just, if you're just doing a lot of body building volume training and that's all you're doing, but if you're all your strength athletes, a powerlifting program, man, there's a ton of frequency in there. And it's all, and you're not always moving, you're not trying to get hella sore all the time, you're practicing the lift. So I think that's important, whoever this is that's asking this question is understanding too your real desired outcome. Are you just, are you trying to chase strength and get better at the bench press? If that's the case, do it more often and doesn't mean you have to go to failure or be sore from it, practice the lift like crazy, you will get significantly stronger and better at the lift. If your desired outcome is you're, you want to build a bigger, more impressive chest, well, that's a different story. We have a guide for that. We have a free guide that talks all about building your chest, but building your chest and then asking for strength, although they both- In a specific area. Right. Although they both have carryover to each other, there's a different type of focus. And there are exercises that will help you with your bench that are not just bench press. So like doing dumbbell presses will help you. Inclined presses will help you get stronger at a bench press. Sometimes you need to back off the bench press and just do incline for a while to address some weaknesses. Dips, dips can help people- Deep dips. Yeah, deep dips can help people with their bench press. So there's other exercises that can help as well. Next question is from Korn Van Groening. You guys always talk about reverse dieting. What exactly is it and what would be the best approach? So reverse dieting became popular- Going in the other direction. Yeah, when you have these like bikini competitors and physique competitors and bodybuilding competitors who would go on these 12 or 16-week diet protocols to get super, super shredded for a competition. And then what ended up happening is they would get really shredded. They'd restrict their calories, do lots of cardio, whatever, get really, really shredded. Then they would do their competition. Then the competition was over and then they'd just go nuts. They would just go nuts and eat a bunch of food and, okay, I'm done with my competition. And some of these people would gain 30, 40, 50 pounds in a very, very short period of time which is terribly unhealthy for the body and actually results in the creation of new fat cells actually makes it harder for you to get lean again later on. So then people started to learn about reverse dieting. And reverse dieting basically says this. If you have 12 weeks leading into a competition, you should have maybe six to 10 weeks leading out of it as well. And the reverse diet is literally kind of the opposite of what the diet was. You're slowly upping your calories in a structured way to prevent that crazy rebound in fat gain that people get post-show. Now, the way I look at it is the way I would look at somebody who uses anabolic steroids. Like someone's gonna go, I'm gonna do an eight-week cycle of anabolic steroids, but they don't have any post-cycle therapy planned. They're setting themselves up for failure. So like a good, you know, you talk to these pro-bodybuilders, they'll say a good steroid cycle is dictated by the post-cycle therapy. Well, a good diet, in my opinion, is dictated by the reverse diet. How good can you come out of it, speed up the metabolism, and minimize some of the problems that happen without reverse dieting? Well, I love this conversation because this is actually how I found Lane Norton. And when I was first getting into like the whole bodybuilding world and the community, I was like searching for, you know, bodybuilders that were presenting really good information around this. I knew this because I know how the body works. I know how the metabolism works or I understand it to somewhat that, you know, if we restrict calories, restrict calories, restrict calories to get lean, what ends up happening is the body adapts to that. And it becomes, this becomes your new caloric maintenance. I think a lot of people don't understand that our metabolism is this free-flowing thing. It is not a set number. You weren't born with a certain metabolism that burns X amount of calories. It's ever changing. Every time you add a couple pounds of muscle to your body, it changes. Every time you start exercising a certain way, it changes. If you become more sedentary, it changes. You restrict calories dramatically for weeks on weeks on weeks. It changes. It changes. It's adapting. It's adapting. And it's getting used to whatever that you're doing to it. So if you have somebody who's on a diet who is, you know, week over week over week has been increasing cardio and restricting calories and restricting calories, that person who started that diet, they might have had a caloric maintenance at say, let's say, 2,500 calories when they started this whole process. That's where their body stayed the same. That's what calorie maintenance means. And then over that time, they've restricted calories and maybe even added movement. And by the time they get to their ultimate goal, they look the way they want to or they lose their 20 pounds, their new calorie maintenance is no longer 2,500. It might be something like 1,400. And so what ends up happening a lot of time is people go, oh, awesome. I look amazing. This is what was my goal. Now, now I'm back to how I was eating before. And what ends up happening is now they're in a worse position than they were back when they were, they had, they had built their metabolism or calorie maintenance, excuse me, was at 2,500. Because now their calorie maintenance is at 1,400. And then they think they can go back to how they were eating that 2,500 to 3,000 calorie diet sometimes. And what ends up happening is just a ton of weight gets body fat gets put on them because they have a new, a new calorie maintenance. And what you want to do, like Sal was saying, is the same way you restricted every week over week to get down to that place, you want to slowly introduce calories back into the diet and ideally change your stimulus. So this is where I love to switch up the programming for my clients. So if I have a client, we reach our goal. You know, when she first hired me, her calorie maintenance was somewhere between 2,500, 2,600 calories. I've slowly reduced her and done, and we were following a certain program and she hits our goal. Awesome. Okay, well, my job isn't done now like because I don't want her only eating 1,400 calories for the rest of her life. So now I'm going to start coming the other way and I'm going to start adding calories to her diet. And when I do that, I'm also going to change the stimulus inside the gym. So switch up her programming. Maybe she's following like maps and a bulk. That's what got us down to that size. Now I'm going to go to maps performance or I'm going to go to something like map strong, something completely different. A new stimulus. So what I'm hoping by doing that, while I'm increasing calories back into her diet, I'm hoping any extra calories that her body is getting, that they're getting partitioned over to build muscle and to support this new adaptation, this new focus, this new modality that we're doing. So that's what reverse dieting is. And a lot of people didn't talk about this. I didn't learn about this until over a decade into personal training, how important this was. And you know, the way we were taught and the back in the days was just cut calories or straight, get them to lose weight. And then you're done. And then you're done. Yeah. You know, there was no, there was no talk about what do you do to these people? After they reach their goal. And there still isn't a lot of people talking about this. I mean, Lane was one of the first people that I came across. He's got a great book on this too. I think it's one of the better pieces of content that you can invest in for somebody who is, you know, wanting to diet, get down into great shape and then what is it look like to come out of it? Because if you care about staying fit for the rest of your life, that part of it is as important, if not more important than the journey there. Next question is from Rabri. If you're employed by a gym that provides you with leads and clients, is it inappropriate to also develop your training business outside of the club? Not everyone who wants to train with me wants to pay for the gym's membership. I'm glad you picked it. Would you pick this one? I picked this one. Yeah, I'm glad you picked this one. So I think it's bad. Oh, well, I was just going to say. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Look, here's the thing when it comes to your career and your business. One of the most important things, look, it's like fitness. When you look at your fitness goals, there's ways to get to a particular goal fast and then there's ways to get to a goal with integrity. Long term forever. Long term success, a lot of it's determined on your integrity and your integrity is determined by the people around you who've worked with you. And if you're working for a gym that's providing you with leads and clients to maintain your integrity, if those clients want to hire you, you train them in that gym. You don't take them outside that gym because that's, you might get more clients and make more money in the short term, but I'm going to tell you something right now in the long term, people will start to find out. It's a false, it's a false perception too. So I did this. Okay, so, and this was really important to me. So when I went through my 24-hour fitness career, there was a point about when I was 25-ish, somewhere around that range where they started to put a ceiling on how much money we could make and a guy like me hated that. One of the things I loved about that career was the more I worked, the more I sold, the more successful my club was, the more money I made. And so I was, and I was very money motivated. And at one point, the company sold and changed and they put a ceiling on it. And they got to a point where no matter how much money I sold, no matter what I did, I could no longer make any more income. And I had at that point in my life, I got used to making a certain amount of money. I had the lifestyle that I liked that I was used to, and I was like, what the fuck do I do? And it was forbidden. Moonlighting was forbidden there. If they found out that you were training- Fired. You're fired for sure. And so I had this dilemma, like, man, what do I do? Like, this is fucked. Like I'm in this situation where they won't allow me to go there. And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to do it. And then I did it, which I'm not supposed to do. But when I did it, the thing that I said to myself before I did it is like, I am not going to pull from any leads from this gym. If I'm going to look outside and build a business that's separate, I don't want, I don't want to have it, anything to do with this. And it wasn't just for, it was for integrity reasons because I definitely believe I have that and that was the purpose. It also was because I wanted to prove that I could build the business without the company's assistant help because if I just pulled from all their leads- You have a false sense of how awesome you think you are. And that's what I meant by the fault. You have a false perception of the ability to really build a business because you're using this company that's probably paying money to advertise or drive leads or they have a store front and so people come in and you don't have to pay for that. And so then you start- I mean, how many times have you guys seen that? How many guys have you had trainers that work for you that think that they're awesome that they could build a huge business but all they're doing is pulling from the lead? Well, because all they look at is then how much is getting carved off your paycheck. And they don't look at all the marketing materials. They don't look at the insurance umbrella that you're under. They don't look at all these different leads coming in every single day coming to you. When you're out there on your own, man, it is a harsh reality. Well, not only is it harsh, and I used to have this conversation a lot. This was a common conversation with trainers that work for me. And that is that, to your point, Justin, 24-hour fitness used to spend $25 million a year in advertising and lead generation. And as the small person on the podium told here, the trainer who clocks in and gets paid there, $25 to $50 an hour to train clients, is going like, oh my god, I'm only getting half the money. The business is getting it. And they don't do anything. They don't do anything. No, they do the most and fucking important thing. They get people to walk through that door because if they didn't walk through that door, where the fuck are you going to get them? The grocery store out on the street. You know how hard that is? That is unbelievable. That's the hardest part. It is the hardest part. By far. So by you poaching people that have already been driven into your gym so you can hustle and make a little bit more money, I mean, one, I think it's not having integrity. And two, you really haven't built a business. I don't care if it's generating an extra $50,000 to $100,000 a year for you. If the leads are coming from the business that you're currently working from, you didn't build a business. And if they cut that off, because I've had trainers do this with a like, I have tons of clients I've built on my own. I think I'm going to leave and go try on my own. And I know, yeah, I know how you're getting your clients. It's through the leads that the gym's generating. Then they go off on their own and they'll ask the grand total of six months because they no longer have those leads and no longer and clients drop off and then they're screwed. And now where are they going to go? They're not going to go back to the gym because the gym's like, screw you. You were taking over. I used to tell all my trainers that we're even considering going off and doing their own thing. If you haven't figured out how to be the number one guy or the number one girl in this facility, you're not going to do dick when you leave here. I'm sorry to tell you that, but if you can't figure it out with all the hard stuff that you don't think is really hard being taken care of for you, a facility that with the equipment that somebody's servicing and taking care of, somebody's scanning to check in and welcome them in, running all the back end systems and bookkeeping, somebody advertising generating leads for you, having the lights on for X amount of hours, all the shit that you don't think about, that's why you make only 50%. I remember having that conversation with you. It's one of those things like, I purposely shied away a lot of clients that were immediately going to follow me to the next gym, but I wanted to see if I could do it. The whole point of it was, how am I going to be able to keep building and sustaining my own business if I'm doing this on my own? What does this new venture look like? I need to be, I figured out right away, I had to be one of the trainers that was more professional, had everything together, had a website. None of these other trainers had their own website. Like there was so many steps I had to take, and if I wasn't going to look at that and really assess what needed to happen for me to start generating my own leads in my own business, I would have been all comfortable with the 10 to 20 clients that I brought over, and then that would have been in my whole business. And by the way, just because you are the top trainer in your gym, that still doesn't guarantee you're going to be successful in your own. No, no, that doesn't. It's just, it's a guarantee you're not going to be successful if you can't be the top trainer. And then you go off on your own. I can pretty much guarantee. It's still hard. I mean, I had many of my top guys or girls that worked for me that were killing it in the facility go off and try and do it on their own, and they just, they ended up coming back. More often than not. They come back because it's, there's a lot that you don't think about. So now there's a second part to this question, which is not everyone who wants to train me wants to pay for the gym's membership. Look, I'm going to tell you something right now. If you communicate to a client, if someone comes to you and says, Hey, look, I want to hire you, but I don't want to pay for the gym membership. But you know, so can we do this on the side? And you tell them, you know, unfortunately I can't. I work for the gym. I have an agreement with them. I only can train their client, the clients in here. That communicates a great level of integrity out to the people who want, may want, might want to hire you. And I tell you what, that goes very far. Yeah. Remember your, remember your job as a personal trainer, your job as a trainer is to help people get to their fitness and health goals. And that means they have to trust you. And if you've already built kind of this facade that you're sneaky on the side type of deal, you're going to lose your power as a trainer as well. It's all built on integrity, all of it, 100% built on integrity. If you're also struggling to convince somebody to spend an extra $30 a month, you got to become a better trainer. I'm sorry. I mean, if you, if you, if people's, you know, the reason why they're not signing up for you is because the 29.99 a month, they got to pay for the gym membership. Like what kind of value are you building in yourself? Yeah. You ain't that good. No. You got to work on your skills. You have that much time to go outside the gym and like all that wasted time, like where you could just be stacking clients. Like we're like, just focus on that. No, that's actually a good point too. I think a lot of trainers don't realize that like, let's say you train, equate to the same. Yeah. Let's say you train, you know, five people a day in that gym, and then you have like two clients off site. The going back and forth between them kills a lot of time. It actually doesn't make you as much money as you think because of all the different locations that you're training people. It's not as awesome as it sounds. Especially since the, if you're really maximizing your time and trying to build your business, every extra minute that you can spend on your floor in a gym, which by the way is providing the leads for you. Okay. Right now you listen to this shit probably on the treadmill or inside your fucking gym right now. Look around. And there's probably 30 to 50 people in there right now that you didn't have to go get. And they're right there for you to talk to. And if you're not talking to them and you're not getting those leads, you're already fucking missing out. That was one of my favorite things to do as a general manager is I would take my trainers in. We'd have conversations around this. And they'd be like, but how do I, how do I get leads or whatever? And I'd point to the, my office window and I go look out there. And then they'd be like, oh, I know, but it's so hard. So I'd say, you know what? Come with me. I used to do this all the time. I go come with me and we walk out to the workout floor. And within 30 minutes, I'd booked them several goal assessments. And sometimes I'd actually get them a client, right then on, right then in the middle of the form. You go easier there than outside of there. You know what's really hard. You had to convince them that fitness is a good idea. They already know, like they want to. They're there. But they're not doing it. It's a warm lead already. Yeah, it's like, come on. Try starting up a conversation with someone to do a goal assessment with you. That's in the grocery store. At the Starbucks. Really though, I mean, you're out of shape. I didn't get you in the gym. If you haven't done that before, you should, if you ever think about leaving a gym, like if you're, if you're a trainer listening right now, you're tired of your fucking corporate gym you work for, and you're going to, you're thinking about going private. I urge you to go to your local Safeway Starbucks and try and convince three to five people to come in the gym and do a free assessment with you. Yeah, just a free workout. If you haven't fucking done that yet, you better learn to do that because it's a lot harder to drive people into your private facility or location you're working on than it is working for so- Oh my God. I could, I could park myself at the front desk and book 10 appointments within an hour, easily at a gym. Yeah. Boy, do that out. The real world. It's almost too easy. Very difficult. And with that, go to mindpumpfree.com and download our guides. They're all absolutely free. You can also find all of us on Instagram. You can find Adam at Mind Pump Adam. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin and you can find me at Mind Pump Sal.