 The data is clear. If you want to improve your cognitive function, in other words, you want to think smarter, you want to feel sharper, you want a brain that works well into old age, one of the best things you can do. Now this again is according to the data, is to get stronger. Strength training in particular is one of the only forms of exercise or any non-medical intervention that shows improvements in cognitive function. In fact, some studies even show it stops the progression of the beta amyloid plaques that are related to Alzheimer's and dementia. So again, if you want to be smart, lift some weights. This one's pretty cool because the studies on this, I'm going to read you guys. Are there IQ studies like to show that I got a quick, I'll read you guys like a wild one. Okay. So this one, this one was done. Now the Alzheimer's one I quote in, in the book, the resistance training revolution because this was the first time that an intervention has halt, has been shown to halt the degeneration of the brain over a long period of time, you know, that's related to Alzheimer's. So I've talked about that one before and that was done out of Sydney, Australia and it blew people's minds because we'd never seen that progression stop, especially not with a non-medical intervention. But this other study was really interesting. That's a little bit of an older one, but and I had never seen this one before, but check this out. This particular study took a group of people, a total of 68 women and 32 men between the ages of 55 to 86. Okay. So this is when you, this is the age range. You start to see cognitive impairment, right? You start to see cognitive decline. One group did strength training twice a week. Okay. Just lift weights twice a week. The other group didn't do anything. They didn't do nothing. They did stretching exercises twice a week. So stretching exercises versus strength training. Yeah. Here's what they found. The strength training group scored significantly higher at the end of the study than at the beginning and they retained that gain 12 months later. Here's the best part though. The scores of the gains in the test scores was greatest for those who had the greatest gains in strength. Oh, interesting. There's a relationship between the increase in strength and the improvement in cognitive function by the end of the study. You think that has something to do with like the insulin sensitivity because of building more muscle and then you, okay. Yes. Directly. 100%. If you look at like the studies on neurodegenerative disorders or cognitive impairment, you'll typically see a slight boost or improvement when you take those people and you cut their carbs out and put them on a ketogenic diet. Now the solution isn't a ketogenic diet. Okay. So everybody, I want to be clear with that. But the reason why they see cognitive improvements is because there's this impaired ability for the brain to utilize glucose. That's what, that there's something going on there. Now we don't know if that's the root or if it's part of it, but we do know that there's an impairment in the brain's ability to utilize energy. So it's like you have a computer and now you're giving it half the power or, you know, maybe getting some power sometimes or not. So the computer is just not going to work as well. So what they do is they'll put them on a ketogenic diet, then they'll start to run off the ketones and they'll have improved cognitive function. All right. What does this have to do with building muscle? Building muscle is one of the most effective ways to improve insulin sensitivity because muscle stores glycogen, it's glycogen comes from carbohydrates and sugar. So your liver stores glycogen, but so do your muscles. So you make them bigger, you'll store, you'll have more, you'll have a larger capacity to pull sugar out of the blood and store it and utilize it. And muscle is also very insulin sensitive. So muscle and brain is very closely related in that particular sense. So the people who got strongest did the best. And that's my guess as to why. But it's really interesting. Have you seen any stuff on like a, like the amount of lean body mass, like a correlation between that and like diabetes and stuff like that? Have you seen anything around those? Yes. Yeah, I wonder if we have. Yes, people with diabetes are very often have sarcopenia, loss of muscle. Very closely related. So even people who are overweight with diabetes, we used to think, I remember this came out maybe 10 years ago, maybe a little more. It'd be cool to see. Sorry to interrupt you. No problem. I'm going to just down this rabbit hole of like, it would be cool to see like if we had a chart for based off of your weight, if you had X amount of pounds of lean body mass, your likelihood of diabetes would be reduced to this. Drops. Like. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like, oh, you're a, you're 180 pounds. If you've got a hundred and maybe a ratio of your height. Yeah. Yeah. Like some, some like that. Right. So like you're basically, I would just say, I think weight would be suffice. Right. You just, based off of this weight, if X amount of that is lean body mass, your potential of, you know, not having diabetes would be this high. Like, so people have like a really good target of like, okay, that's a good goal. I don't want that to happen. Yeah. This is going to be good for overall health. So this is how much I weigh. I want to make sure I have this and go on a muscle building. Yeah. Think of it. Think of it this way. Building muscle in all the studies that we have on this, building muscle is building the brain. Yeah. Losing muscle is probably also losing the brain. And there's a lot of, I mean it's very complicated. I said one thing, like it was very complicated, right? Cause what? Yeah. I was going to say there's going to be a multitude of factors to that as well. But I was just trying to think about that of like, you know, some kind of neural demand. Yes. So say like, you know, generating force and the overall demand output wise in terms of like your brain having to sort of send that signal louder signal for you to be able to lift objects and be able to utilize, you know, the muscle tissue for sure. Absolutely. You know, like your brain gets stronger. Like almost like a muscle tissue. I'm sure the brain has some sort of parallel muscle is a very, I mean, it's, it's, it's an organ of the body. I guess you could put it in that category. If you will. I know that's not technically what it is, but it's very sensitive. There's receptors in muscle that sense pressure and position a contraction. You know, it's a feedback mechanism tells the body when you're in danger, when you're in pain. It stores glycogen, like I said, it's got, it's, it's hormone sensitive. It puts out chemicals itself. When you exercise, there are chemicals and peptides that are put out for muscles that do things like reduce inflammation and, you know, increase BDNF in the brain, which is like, it's like fertilizer for, for brain cells. I was mentioning years ago, I don't remember how long I want to say 10 or 15 years ago. Do you guys remember there was a, it was like an image, an MRI image of an obese person and then a normal weight person and it, it completely dispelled the myth that if you were overweight, you probably also had more muscle mass. And what it showed was it's not true. Yeah. That if you're over. Yeah. We used to think that, oh, this person's 300 pounds. You got to carry that weight around. They also would have to have more muscle in order to do that. No. There's a sarcopenia connection too. Overweight people tend to have less muscle mass than people who are normal weight. So, so there's like muscle and it's like Dr. Gabriel Lyne talks about this, how we don't have an over, you know, an obesity issue. Under muscle. It's an undermuscled. Yeah. Type of issue. But yeah, for, for the brain, like build, like build muscle is what you want to do. Now, I know people are going to look at this and go to extremes and Jocks. Bodybuilders and stuff, but wrong. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not talking about the unnatural, right? But, and you're right too, Justin, you know, it's weird or sad. I should say is, is popular media has painted athletes and muscle as dumb. Yes. Which is not, it's not only not true, it's the opposite of true. So you take it, you take a dumb person, you have them exercise and build muscle. They're less dumb. Yeah. You know, of course it's not going to become a genius. Where do you think the little nerds have to have something? Today's giveaway here on YouTube is maps strong. If you want to enter to win, leave us a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we post this up. Also subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. Do all of those things. Then we'll go through the comments and if you win, we'll let you know in the comment section. We also have a sale going on this month on some workout programs. Maps performance is 50% off. And then our extreme fitness bundle of programs is also 50% off. If you're interested or you want to learn more, just click on the link at the top of the description below. All right. Back to the show. I mean, obviously that stigma comes from somewhere. Where do you think it stems from? I think it's, I think that generally speaking, people that were attracted, probably the whole, like, you know, the people who do the engineering and who do that kind of stuff are not interested in those other things. And they look a particular way, jocks look a particular way and they're more interested in maybe athletics. So that might be it. I think there's, I think there's a, there's a, it's not a good control. I think there's a dumb jock part that the vanity part that is that attracts probably a lower IQ, but then I think there's also the upper echelon of super high performing people that have actually hacked into knowing that health and fitness is also a part of super, super high performance. So I think it's somewhere in the middle is this like, oh yeah, this kind of dumb jock or like, oh, because they're not very smart, you've deferred to lifting weights and looking good. Right. But then there's the other end of the spectrum that is like super high performing people for the most part, not all, but for the most part have hacked into the importance of a healthy diet, a healthy sleep regimen and weight training and like those super high performing people tend to be healthy. I just think if you look at the extremes of, because we tend to look at the extremes and then we, we make generalizations. If you look at the extremes of performance, you don't have a lot of time to spend developing other areas of your life. Like if you're like a high level athlete, you're not like, you're probably not, yeah, you're not going to medical school and spending all your time doing that. And if you're going to medical school, like you ain't got tons of time to go be some super, you know, Jack person, the real study is take, take a person and have them be fit versus less fit and then measure their brain performance in their IQ. And you'll see a difference. You'll see it. It's funny because we forget the brain is a part of the body. Yeah. So a healthy body means you have a healthy brain as well. It's really interesting. It's going to impact the brain substantially. Yeah, it's going to work better. So yeah, the more you, all of your systems are working, you know, in unison, the more, you know, productive you are. So it's, yeah, it's, it's hilarious that we just like focus on, oh, if it's the brain, we're just going to read more and we're going to like, wow, that's, that stereotype goes all the way back to 500 BC when Greek athletes were criticized for the inordinate amount of time they used in preparation for competition and for neglecting their intellect. See, that's it. You spend so much time on one thing. That's all it is. It's because they're training constantly physically where the philosophers were up there like noodling about the meaning of life. Yeah, but I wondered in today's time, so this would be interesting too, to see how many athletes post their professional sport go on to be very successful in business, because I would think that some of the attributes that it was required in order to be a very successful athlete at the highest level, also play very, very well into building a business and be successful in life. Oh yeah. You know, I mean, we all know that. So, you know, even if you fall, yeah, right. You know, it's a thing too, is we confuse knowledge with like brain power or intellectual capacity. Like I'll use my wife as an example. She has incredible brain power. She learns things and she's very intelligent, but she grew up not valuing school. She hated school, so she didn't like learn things. But when I met her and we'd have these conversations, she's obviously very intelligent and then she went off on her own to learn certain things. So you could have knowledge and not have tons of brain power. You could have tons of brain power and not have knowledge. Exercise, strength training improves your brain power. It doesn't mean you're going to know shit. You still have to go learn stuff. I also think that you add in the fact too that school is like this, I mean, being good at school, it doesn't make you a smart person. Of course, no. I mean, she used to think that. She's like, well, I don't know a lot of things. I'm like, you went to shitty school. That's been so bastardized, dude. I mean, that was that was created to make you into a worker B, you know, in corporate America that wasn't designed to challenge you to be super smart or reach your upper limits of intellect. I don't think that's at all. So we've we've conflated this idea of, oh, you you're good at school. Therefore you're smart. Like, yeah, no, I don't agree with that at all. Not necessarily, not at all. I wish that it's funny that they used to, you know, they were talking about ancient Greece and all that. You know, they used to value philosophy, music, like this actual thinking, like how to think about things and conceptualize things. They don't do that anymore. I think that's such a loss. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's that's kind of like, what's his name? Who always spins, spins, spins it back. The guy we had on the show. Yeah. Oh, Jim Quick, Jim Quick. So yeah, he teaches people how to learn. Yeah, which is like something you don't know. There's no course like that in school, which I think is quite ridiculous, you know, to have them be able to think for themselves and like analyze, you know, the best way to kind of put it all together for, because it's such like an individual thing at the same time, too, like how everybody learns and like their best methods. So why not, you know, lean into that more as opposed to like just memorizing things? Did I tell you guys or did I talk about on the show about what Max's school, like what the teachers teach when they can't, when a kid can't solve a problem? So I didn't tell you guys, oh, so we had like this, the parent teacher conference thing for like the next grade and stuff like that. And one of the parents was all stressed out that these kids are like learning math at a high range. She was like, you know, within a year or two, I feel like I'm going to be able to teach my kid math, help him with his homework or like that. And one of the teachers said, well, that's not your job. Our job is to teach your kids math and these subjects. And if they don't, we've already taught your kid on what he's supposed to do. And she's like, what's that? And she's like, yeah, if you, if your kid has homework and they can't solve the problem, they know to circle it. They don't even have to answer it. They circle it and say, I don't know how to do this. And then when they come to class next day, the teacher works it out with them and teaches them the process of figuring that out. Like, I was like, oh, that's so cool that they do that. That's where they don't feel bad. Right. Versus exactly. You don't feel, and it's like, and you're not, you don't feel this pressure of like, you know, I don't know how to do it. So I'm either going to one cheat my way or ask my dad, give me the answer. Right. Or make up an answer like that. No, instead, I just, I don't, I don't know. So I circle and they, they're supposed to circle. I don't know. And then when they, when they get to class, teacher will sit down with them. And then before they leave that day, that kid will understand how to solve that problem. And I'm like, oh my God, that's so awesome that they're teaching them that like the critical thinking around that versus just this is the answer or expecting you to turn in a homework. It's either complete or incomplete. It's like, no, it's not about that. It's about you understanding how to solve the problem. There seems to be a shift in how people are viewing education and starting to look at it a little bit, a little bit better. Like we grew up and still up until recently, it's just about getting an education. It's like, no, no, go get your degree. That makes you work, make more money, whatever. And it's like, almost like it didn't matter. Yeah. What you learned, right? Like the conversation I have with my kids is until like, yeah, getting education is great, but look at the market and see what, where the value is. Otherwise you can go learn stuff for free. Where are you going to get return? Yeah, it makes no sense to go get a, you know, a 70,000 or 100,000 or plus dollar degree or get a loan, especially for where it's worth nothing on the market. What are you doing? You just, you literally have just put yourself backwards and it's not worth anything. And a lot of people have done that. A lot of people are just like, oh, no, no, I got to go to school. Well, what are you learning? And then they, their career, like they have to learn everything all over again, like from the scratch, just to like do their career. Well, don't you have, you have, uh, Jordan Peterson, you have, I believe Elon Musk now. I think Apple or Google. I mean, the education is getting disrupted. It's happening. It's happening this next decade. Like we are going to see it massively disrupted. Wait, did, is it, was it Tesla that says, they no longer require a bachelor? I believe it's, I believe it's, I think it was Tesla, but I know Elon's, I know he's, I know he's getting into that, into that realm. Also, I know that Peterson already launched his, right? His school that launched last November. I think it was. So his school, what's his name doing the same thing? Who's that ex-Navy seal? Jaco, doesn't he have one too? Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. I think he has like an, a course or school for. Sweet. What do you got here? Do you want to work at the Tesla? Yeah. You, yeah. Tesla, do not, Tesla does not require college degrees of any kind. Huh. Yep. And he put, literally he tweeted, educational background is irrelevant. How do you not like some stuff he said? Well, I mean, you don't, if you were, if you were the, the opposite family or kid that got brought up into it. And cause, I mean, you still, by the way, this conversation will offend the percentage of the people listening right now, because there's some people that that's their, they're, they're my mom's a teacher, my grandma's a teacher, like everybody were, like that was, that's still so important. And they value it for whatever reasons. And so. Well, the case. They feel offended by, I saw, in fact, somebody DM me after one of the last times we had a comment, a conversation about this. I don't remember what it was related to, but it was like, we were, we were talking about that and they were talking about, oh, I think we were talking about having a degree in business. And I think we were kind of pooping that whole, like what, you know, what's the point of having this, this degree in business, but you've never actually got out and tried to build a business and somebody, some girl, you know, she got a high paying job because she had that, you know, master's degree in that field. So because of that, it allowed her to get a job where they paid her very well for it. But as far as like her actual experience. Here's the argument that I would make, yeah, here's the argument that I would make. So how long did it take you to get that degree? So however many years, how long does it take to get a master's typically what, six years? Yeah, at least six. OK, so six years of intent of school, look at the debt that that put you in. So probably we could safely say what, $100,000 at the very least, $100,000 in debt after six years. What if she went and got a job entry level at the place she's she got a job at now, worked there for six years, had a mentor, where would she be at the end of six years? Well, yeah, that's if so the problem is, is that I believe that was the part of the argument is that you couldn't get that job without not that, but you could have got something else and maybe worked your way through. Sure, something else. That's that's a possibility. That's the thing, because people think that like that six years doesn't count. What are you going to do? You're going to sit at home for six years? I mean, there's also there's also the argument this like so like, I mean, I'm getting to watch this right first hand with my son and when the school is going through like and I've been very happy with the things that I'm watching them. And it's like, you know, would I have a different feeling about education had I gone through a different process through it? Like if I got if I was raised in a school like he is, it goes all the way to high school, right? So I have this great experience in high school, college prep. Yeah. And then I go off to a really good college that is maybe teaching me critical thinking so like that. I mean, Harvard's kind of known for that, isn't it? Harvard's known for like teaching a lot of their their students to think outside the box. A lot of these students create some crazy business while they're in Harvard Business School. And so there's there's schools that are pushing. Yeah, it's true. It really does. They're not all the same. School and the professor. Yeah, background. And yeah, like I, you know, when I was going for my business minor, I had a really good teacher because he was in it. Like he had he had two Fortune 500 businesses that he was running and like so he had a lot of really valuable contributions. I can only imagine. But there was a few that didn't right now. And so it was like, you know, it was hit or miss. But because I could that could OK, you go through school just like my son does. Then it goes to, let's say, college and it gets your professor for there who's got two Fortune 500. I mean, that's like being meant to I couldn't imagine being 18 years old. And because when I was 18, I was trying to figure this, you know, dairy personal training thing out. Like I'm trying to just swim. Had I been sitting after all that great schooling that I went through, like my son is going through, and then I get into a college and I get your professor who's already got two Fortune 500 companies or anything. I mean, that's like mentorship and knowing the type of kid that I am, I would have been pulling on a shirt all the time, being like, oh, what's it like? And what are the mistakes you made and asking him questions. And like, that's the other thing, too, about kids today. Like you can get that with networking, though, to your other point. You can. I mean, obviously, we're we're we're proof that I didn't obviously I'm proof that I didn't have to go to the college and do that. I also think in the defending the people that I know that get defensive when we have conversations like this is there is a path or a potential path that you could have had that could have been as successful or maybe even possibly more. If I would have got if you would have thrown me into Justin's college after going to school, like my son is going through right now. And I got a professor like that in business. You could argue that I'd be further along. There's a lot. The point isn't that it's it's worthless. The point is that there's a lot of paths, but the foot sold is that there's only one path. Sure. That's what sold. And there's nothing more unequal. People talk about, Oh, you know, things need to be equal and we need to equity. What are the most unequal thing you'll ever find in your life is public education. Ever. You go to a public school and very in a wealthy area versus one in a not so wealthy area, even though they're both publicly funded and you will find vastly different experience, vastly different. Yeah. And so it's not the same experience. So yeah, I, you know, I think I'm playing devil's advocate, right? I mean, obviously, I mean, you and I didn't write. So I had terrible. I didn't even go to bad. It's like I went to bad public school. But you know, the irony is, though, do you have a, do you have a friend? Do you have a single friend that has their PhD or their master's or the degree that makes more money than you? No. Either do I? Yeah. So I mean, I there is obviously other paths to do that. But I do think that they're, I do think there can be a really good path through school. If you choose the right, the right teachers, the right schooling, like, and honestly, that's probably you probably as a dad now, the biggest takeaway for me is that being involved in your knowing what your kids are with. To me, that is like because what you what one, paying attention to what are they teaching them and being involved in that as a parent may be the most powerful thing that you can do. So even maybe my son didn't have the greatest school ever. But if I am paying attention to these things, by the way, too, like the I don't know if you guys saw my story the other day with the the book thing that I'm so proud like it's taking him almost a week. I cannot believe that my son has a box, a present up on the shelf that he's working towards and he's working towards it. And it doesn't even face him. In fact, he took a day off of reading one day. How's this? That drips me the fuck out that he's got 11 books to read. He knows he can't open that until he finishes the books and he'll he knocks out two a day. You know, so he took a day off on the weekend because we were watching cartoons and movies and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Today this morning, he woke up. That is such a great tired and I said, hey, I told him, I said, you only got one more book today. Today you finish your book and then we'll open it up. He lit up, got all excited. So when you get off of school, we'll finish your last book and then we'll open that up. That's so great. But I'm like, damn, dude, like he's it's been up there for over a week now. That's hella patient. I know I'm way more patient than I ever would have been. I would have been out of way to climb. I would have read all I would have read like he technically could read all those books and easily a day or two. They're not like super long. They take him a while. They probably take 20. Yeah. And consistent. Yeah. That's so great. I know. So it's so cool. Watching it unfold. All right. So I'm going to take a left turn here because I read about a conspiracy theory that I was not aware of. And I'm going to bring it to Justin. Who's the who's the exact thing? This actually not a conspiracy theory. It's actually happened. Have you heard of Operation Popeye? No. This is a real. This was a real thing. Something to sell spinach. This isn't related to. Yeah. The cartoon is. No, I know. They name them weird shit. Was to sell spinach. Is that something to do that? No, dude. This is a real thing. OK. This is a military cloud seeding project carried out by the U.S. Air Force carried out. They actually did this during the Vietnam War in 1967 to 1972. The highly classified program attempted to extend the monsoon season over specific areas of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in order to disrupt the North Vietnamese military supplies by softening road surfaces and causing landslides. OK. So we say. So we tried to mess with the weather to cause monsoons over. This is. Did you say Vietnam war time? Yes. Try to extend the rainy season. They went. So listen to this. Thinking that that would benefit us. Because the Ho Chi Minh Trail was with the northern Vietnam Vietnamese army would carry supplies and stuff. So they thought if we can make them on season, long and wet, it'll disrupt their ability to deliver supplies. Interesting. And they actually did it. The 54th weather reclinic squadron carried out the operation using the slogan make mud, not war. Starting on March 20, 1967 and continuing through every rainy season until 1972. So this is what I was like five years. Where's that? Isn't that crazy? They did cloud seeding missions where they had three CC 130 Hercules aircraft and two F4C Phantom aircraft. Well, they would literally fly over and seed the clouds. So like Kim Troll type stuff. I didn't say that. I mean, is that what it's like, though? I mean, that's where the origins of that. Yeah, you seed it for more precipitation. It's just interesting that you would use it as like a weapon. Of course, we use it as a weapon as opposed to just like, you know, using it at like countries that are haven't had rainfall in decades, you know, to like help out humanity. They use that. We're just like lead iodide and silver iodide. They spray over the. It doesn't sound like it's healthy for now. It doesn't. Yeah. That's the precipitation is going to be. Doesn't stick my mouth open. And it was a chemical weather modification program. That's what it was. Isn't that insane? And that was way back then. I know. So imagine, yeah, what we have now. I mean, that's that's the kind that I think a lot of people just don't want to like recognize the fact that we we do have some really crazy messed up messed up things like now we can actually manipulate weather. We can create, you know, wind. We can replicate like earthquakes and like we have like ways to like mess with nature now that that's scary. Yeah. And it's like, oh, OK, cool. Like playing God, we'll probably use it for good. Playing God or you believe in one or not, we're playing it. You know what I'm saying? That's that's so so. Do you do you do you believe we got something crazy coming this year? Oh, because of election season. Yeah, you'd be dumb not to. I mean, I mean, like on the scale of like if if covid is like 10 crazy. Oh, like a like a like an election stopping event. Yes, yeah, like here's here's my thought, but here I think that there's a lot high leading that way. A lot of people are trying to like, you know, impose this fear. But I feel like there's a lot of fear already that they're just going to ride this fear and nothing really is going to happen in terms of like what's the best thing to do is have everybody just constantly afraid and paranoid. That's like the the best to manipulate people as opposed to having a real disaster. I that's a good question. You know, the conspiracy theorist side of me is looking at the polls and the polls right now are showing Donald Trump leading in a if a if a presidential election were to hand were to happen today, a general election. He obviously was crushed the primary, right? But a general election, he's ahead. Some polls by five points, which is a big, pretty decent lead. Well, if he if he has a strong lead leading up to the election, because all established whatever you want to call them forces, wherever they do not want him anywhere near the, you know, presidential position, they don't want him there at all. Everybody is the media. You see, I mean, it's just it's just there's a lot, right? Whether you like him or not, there's it's there's a lot against them. So I don't know the conspiracy theorist of me is like, yeah, they'll find a way to stop it or to make it so that they overturn these crazy states that have, like, took him off the ballot. And also with with Biden, you'd see like the reaction on the right, like taking him off the ballot on like somebody like that, like, is that how how is that that? Obviously, it's unconstitutional. It is. But does it even matter if it's a state that he wouldn't win anyways? I mean, that's exactly what's happening. Yeah. The California is taking truck. It's like, who cares? But then that's the then it's just like, well, it's rigged, you know, like at that point, right? I mean, yeah, I'm not arguing like whether I play a stupid game. It's it is stupid. They're so it's irrelevant. If the states that he would get his ass kicked in no matter what, pull him off the ballot, then who gives a fuck? Yeah. It's like, it's all just a it's all just a game. Like, it's like, who cares at that point? Like, it would be different if they were like swing states that were happening or conservative states that were doing that, which that's not going to happen. They're not going to pull them off of that, right? So. So it's like these states that are like super blue that are doing and it's like, OK, so what you're making a statement. But what there's I just find it ironic, I guess, because it's like, you know, you want to manipulate the way that people are allowed to vote. And then you're you're trying to like come down to anybody that says that, you know, there was some fraud in the election. I mean, I would be because if I was in that state, that would bother me if I was in that state. Right. Imagine being in that state and actually wanting to wanting to go. Well, you have to write them in like that would be that would still write them in. Oh, you can't. Yeah, you can still write them in. Oh, they're just not there. It's just not. It's not a box for you. Now, what would be crazy is if they get more because of that. They will. How funny would that be if it bites them in the ass? Yeah, they go out of their way to try and keep them on it. It would have been a blue state anyway. Here's here's what people write it in because here's what annoys a shadow me. It's the average the average voter annoys a shadow me. Sorry. But I they annoy me because we continue to vote. We don't punish this dirty, disgusting game of politics that they continue to play. Yeah. I think it look when the Republicans win, the Democrats say, oh, you guys cheat it. And then the then the Democrats say, oh, you cheat it. Right. It's this stupid game. We're going to impeach you game. We're going to do this game when you're in. And it's like it just all it does is it just sows the seeds of civil dislike. You know, like crazy dysfunction. Voters. I wish voters were like, hey, asshole, you're playing a disgusting game. I don't want you anywhere. I'm not going to vote for you. I wish people would just do that fair. But they're so easily swayed by this garbage. It just makes me so mean. Meanwhile, they're getting lunch together. I mean, that's what's really. Oh, yeah, dude. Behind closed doors are. Yeah. They're all. What are they doing? It's the Pepsi. They're doing hand closed doors, Justin. Talking to aliens. They're all wearing robes. I see. Drinking blood. We won. I won. No, we won. So what I was searching for from you is like, are we going to see, like, like a spaceship landing? Oh, yeah, like that. So I think actually. Oh, did you just tell me this about the lasers? Yeah. Yeah. So they've had laser technology for a long time that they can shoot up into the sky. So this kind of proves the fact that, yeah, some of these UFOs were just basically holograms that they are like projecting to see if they could trick people to see they can. Obviously it worked. So I love who was it? Was it you, Adam, that brought up that that somebody said the reason why we're seeing more UFO stuff is to drum up more funding for Space Force to cause fear. That is the that's the most. Yeah. Yeah. Plausological, right? Because now you're you need a threat. Yeah. You got to go into Congress and ask for money, you know, from the taxpayers. Well, because there's this ultimate threat. I mean, what's more of an ultimate threat than alien invasion? Well, and people are over the war, the welfare, all those things. So it's like, we need another big, big old money hole thing that we can just keep pouring money into that makes the most sense to me. Totally makes sense to me. And how smart is it to create all this stuff around it? Because then people who is and right now it's like, OK, this is great. This isn't like a country. We're not killing other people. These are aliens and we do want to protect ourselves from these aliens who's against building an army to protect herself from aliens. This makes a lot of sense. Like not a lot of people are going to push back against that, just like we probably were 60, 70 years ago with war with other countries. Oh, yeah. That's how it will be now with aliens. Because now we've all agreed that we're like, OK, we're all one. Nothing would human race. Oh, yeah. It'll unify us the most. Like nothing would unify people under a massive government. And Jesus, man, building spaceships real easy to hide billions of dollars, you know what I'm saying? Kind of hard. Kind of hard for a planer. Those are expensive. Yeah. Spaceships are really expensive. Space bases. Yeah. Really expensive. Aircraft carriers. Gas. Gas to get all the out to space. Really expensive. You know what I'm saying? Like we got a lot of engineering. We got to build a base on Mars. Yeah. How much does that cost? A few hundred trillion. 100 percent. This is the direction we're going. I feel like that's so that's so obvious to me that that we're going to go that way. And it makes total sense to all these crazy showings and to eat like partially tell the story at these government, these hearings and stuff like that. It's like in everything's no, no real facts. No one's dragging a body. No one's got a real proof or footage. Just a bunch of hearsay bullshit or fucking holograms to make you think and just here comes. Yeah, you just got to keep the deception alive. Meanwhile, we're fighting left and right and both of them agree that whoever gets elected that the first big watch you watch first gets when you know the first big bill that gets passed is like a oh, that's the trillion dollars for our first first spaceship. You know how everybody's always like like defense. Everybody's always like they should just get along so they can get things done. When they get along, there's when you're going to be like, oh, no. Yeah. They're getting shit done. That's not good. Yeah. How did that bill pass so quickly anyway? Hey, I was looking up some random strength facts. Don't ask me why, but I looked up a gorilla. See how strong they are. Yeah. You know how much a gorilla could deadlift just a regular old gorilla. They actually put it to the test. They just estimate. Oh, I don't see a gorilla. You want to take a deadlift just a just a run of the mill gorilla. I mean, I would I would guess they would be able to easily do a thousand pounds plus. Eighteen hundred pounds. Eighteen hundred pounds. They don't even lift weights. And they're so sick. That's crazy, though, because I had a theory that they eat meat. Most of these like vegetarian animals are not vegetarian completely. No, they're not. Because even they've shown that like deer, for instance, like they'll eat birds. They'll eat rodents. Like really? I don't know that. Because I mean, they're opportunists like if especially if it's like, you know, something that's on the ground and they'll just eat it. Because their body still needs protein. They still need amino acids. They still need. Yeah. But their bodies break down plant sources pretty down well and they have different, you know, digestives. I think, yeah. And I think evolutionarily, they train themselves to to eat like specific plants. But but gorillas are just insane. Yeah, they're not considered carnivores, but they may consume meat. They're like omnivores in zoos. So they're omnivores. Yeah. They consume leaves, stems, bark, flowers and fruits occasionally tiny vertebrae. It is. It is interesting that they're that there's no real vegetarian that their systems, though, I've been able to to live off of mostly plants and then to be able to hang on to that much muscle mass, considering how supposedly close they are not true for all and we can't hang on to muscle mass like that. No, it's not true for all animals are different. Put a lion on a vegan diet. They'll die. Yeah. So I know why it's interesting is because they're so so much closer related to us than any other than a lion. You're much closer to that. Chimps closer to us and chimps are they they'll eat each other. Yeah. Chimps are crazy. They're considered omnivores. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's well, monkeys are strong, bro. They are. Remember that? There was that one. You see that shaved chimp? They like actually shave. Have you seen that? One with no hair? Yeah. No. Have you seen it? Bro, look at shaved chimp. Scared really? I'm scared to see what comes up. I'm scared to see what they would just pop up with. Yeah. What kind of website on? Shavechimp.com, Doug. You go to that. Look at the watch this when it comes up here. Yeah, dude. Yeah, bro. They look like their chimps. Oh, it's scary, dude. They're just jacked, dude. They're clean looking, dude. But I mean, they'll like a chimp on the top left over there. Yeah. Damn. Yeah. You know, a chimp and a chimp is not huge, right? How heavy is a chimp? What are they like 160 pounds? 190. I mean, they're not like a gorilla is huge. Yeah. A chimp is not huge. If a chimp wanted to, it could grab you and then grab your arm and pull it off. Pull your arm off your body. Lins and male chimps is between 88 and 130 pounds. So a freaking 90 pound chimp could take your leg and probably pull it off your body and throw it. Yeah, it's pure fast twitch muscle. It's ready to shred you. There was this one game show. It might have been a Japanese game show. I'm only saying that because Japanese game shows are the best. Yeah, they're the best. They come with the best ideas. They're amazing. There was one where it was like human versus animal. And there was this like 90 pound chimp and he was playing tug-of-war with like a sumo wrestler and a bodybuilder or whatever. And they were on the other end and they were just like and the chimp was just like it looked like he was just kind of resting. Yeah. And then his handler was telling him to pull and he'd like pull like he was like doing nothing and just people fly around. Yeah, yeah, really cool. You come up with the best idea. I know the best game show ever. Hey, oh, Adam, I want to ask you what's up? I've been reading about so and Tara is one of our partners. They have skincare products that are peptide based and one of the main peptides and the skincare products is called GHKCU which is just this really remarkable peptide. It's considered the best anti aging peptide that it's remarkable when you read about it. And by the way, you could really tell when you use it. I mean, you could tell within three applications. It's just you could feel your skin and tighten and all that stuff. So it boosts the production of collagen. It also works on elastin and apparently when people inject GHK it helps with their bladder with people who have issues with bladder. Now you have a small bladder. You always got to pee every five seconds. Have you noticed any difference because you use topical GHK but then I know you're using the injectable. I did, but I've gone through my injectable. So it'd be like now you're making me like trying to think back. Like if I'd noticed that I went through a little phase there where I was getting up the last times in the night because I only had about a month of that injectable. So I already went through the injectable cycle of it. All I use the topical daily though. So the topical I rub like the, they told me to rub it on my psoriasis. So I use it. So I use entera for my face and then I use my other stuff for the psoriasis which is all of it's the GHK CU base. So they both have that. I use the transcend one for my psoriasis and then I use the entera one for my face. So they have so on the study. So will I still get it? I mean, I imagine it's getting into my, is it getting into my bloodstream? No, I'm more local. It is local. It doesn't penetrate. Yeah, if you rub it on your skin, it's on your skin. You'll get some systemically, but not like injecting. But there are reviews of human clinical trials. Topical GHK CU creams outperformed vitamin C products, vitamin K products, retinol products, matrix, matrix old 3000. These are all like well-known ways to improve the appearance of your skin. It literally killed them all. It crushed them. It's also good against UV radiation and damage. So if you get a sunburn, put this on and it'll heal your skin. Pretty interesting stuff. I mean, I know it's not like a cheap, like, you know, a stack, but the caldera stack with the entera is like, to me, like the gold standard of like, I'm using the peptide GHK CU for my face, and then I use the caldera serum and then the base layer. And it's like those things, I feel like have made a big difference. Katrina's been on it now for a while too, because she noticed a huge difference. It's also good for wounds, scars and injuries. That's why they have it on my psoriasis. So yeah, they've used it on my, they have me use it on my psoriasis. And I can totally tell they're... Speaking of weird stuff, you know what I just learned about? That's been around for over a hundred years. That is just starting to make its way on social media. Have you guys seen posts of people sticking their tongue out and it's all blue and they're like, oh, I'm using XX whatever. Okay. It's something called methylene blue. Have you guys ever heard of this before? I thought I heard you say something about it. Because I brought it up. I brought it up off air and I was talking to Doug about it. So methylene blue and anti... It's been around for a long time. A long time, like over a hundred years. It was a dye product, but it resembles vitamin C. They weren't just like in other pops or... No, no. What was I doing? No, I don't think they use methylene blue in other pops. No, no other pop. But what's it for? So it helps your mitochondria really boosts energy production in mitochondria. And so I'm reading people are saying the craziest shit online. Okay, so I know this is... Like it's fixed in my brain fog, it did this, it did that. What doesn't help your mitochondria? I just got to call that a toxin. I mean poor diet, yeah. Okay, so this is the opposite? Does good sleep help your mitochondria? Does the sun help your mitochondria? Yes, but that's all, but that's not gonna help your mitochondria. But that's not above and beyond what it would normally do. So like, yes, exercise and diet. So then you should attach that statement when you say stuff, because I feel like it's getting to a point where we're like, and we're, we have products, right? Juve is example. Yeah, mitochondria is like, which just felt funny because it was really like the word I was used to throw in there was like, it's how I used to make fun of you. Let me say this word to sound smart real quick. Mitochondria. How mitochondria health is affected in external influence if for your mitochondria you can be compromised by oxidative stress. So it's a redox chemical is methylene blue, meaning that it helps with oxidative stress. And people are talking about it for like, all kinds of crazy shit. The brain function, fatigue, gut health. Now I know this is social media land. But what was interesting to me is that this has been around for so long. I thought it was this new thing. And I looked it up. I feel like everything that comes out, we should have to have like, we should have to have sleep, diet, exercise. First. Yeah, like this, right? Like put up on a chart. And then anything and everything that comes out. Yeah. Peptides, Juve lids. Hormones even. Everything. Should have to be put next to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? To show the difference. Yes, to show that. So, because what I think happens, it's like a, remember when you were a kid and you got your first car because you didn't make any money. All of us didn't make any money. So the first thing you did, what'd you do? Put a cane in the air filter. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Spoiler on it right there. Ooh, I'm gonna put an air filter so it's faster. Got a whole four more horsepower. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's out of my 130, you know what I'm saying? That's sort of, I mean, so, and just to put it in perspective for everybody, because we get inundated with all this great new science and these cool studies and all these great peptides and hormones and all this cool stuff. And it's just like, meanwhile, we're fucking sleeping with our phones on our face till midnight one in the morning. We're scrolling like crazy, comparing ourselves to other people. So are they eating this? Like what is that? Yeah, you eat it. You eat it. By the way, Adam, you're ruining this whole like fun with weird chemicals. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Side of the, you know, there's a lot of people. Sound gets excited by new stuff. I know. I just, someone has to be the balance of that. You know, someone has to be the balance of that. We're a lot of fanatics. Hey, we're not selling methylene blue. No, we're not. Yeah, that's why. That's why I feel like I'm shit all over it. Shit all over it. By the way, Ben Greenfield, I messaged him because he's like, of course, what did he say? Sticking up your ass. No, he said, oh, he wrote a whole article on it. But he did. He did a whole article. And because it's been around for so long, a lot of people use it and I asked them, did you notice the difference? He goes, yeah, I noticed some improvements in, you know, like brain fog and stuff like that. But then I read his article. I don't know what Ben, why does Ben always put everything as a suppository? Why does everything have to go up his butt? Like he talks about the different ways he uses. His preferred method. Yeah, and then, boom, suppositories in there as well. Like, come on, Ben, why everything has to go up his butt? Maybe he's hacked into something we don't know about. You know what I'm saying? How to go viral? How to go viral. He's quicker than the bloodstream. Have you guys used Crayteam? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You ever put it up your butt? Your ass? I mean, we've always said, and I still stand by this, I mean, he is the guy who, and I know he gets a lot of hate from people. You know what is weird about Ben? When we see him, do you ever notice how young he looks? No, he's got incredible, in person, if you meet Ben. He looks really young for his age. And he has this, so what's interesting too is that he has, he has like, gorilla hands, that he has these big, fat, calloused fingers. So you could tell he just does. Climbed shit. Yeah, climbed shit all day long, outside, and it's all callous, dirty. It looks like he hasn't cleaned his nails in like 10 years. But then he has like this gorgeous face that looks like it's like perfect skin and perfect hair. He just came out of a spa. Like, yeah, he just came from a spa. So it's like. And you know he's outside in the elements? He knocked the cucumbers off his eyes. Yeah, it's just this interesting contrast, right? Well, you know he's out in the sun, he's out in the snow, he's always outside. His face should look weathered. Would you say, okay, of all of our healthy friends in the space, would you say he looks the healthiest? Would you say he's the healthiest, actually? I would make that case. I don't know, he's so extreme. Who would you challenge? Who would you, okay, of our friends, that's a good question. We have a lot of health and fitness nuts. Who comes close to him? To looking that way? Who would you say is as healthy or healthier than Ben? Paul Cech. Ooh, okay. Paul Cech's gonna be more balanced. Paul Cech's more balanced. I mean, he's just as fucking weird. Well, no, no, hold on. I'm gonna say weird, he's more balanced. I guarantee he's stuff, he probably stuff just as much as my shit on his ass too. I love you, Paul. Hey, Paul, hey, Paul and Ben. He looks fantastic. Hey, if Paul and Ben have, I was like, hey, oh no, just a talk that's going in, it's never been in this thing. Come on, Adam. I guarantee Paul would say that. Listen, Paul versus Ben in a weird off, who wins. In a weird off? Yeah, it's a weird off. Who wins? That's tough. Ben and stuff that he does, Paul are the things he talks about. I bet you Paul's done some. I don't know, dude, I think Paul. Okay, so that's a good, Paul has two wives. I would agree. Exactly. I would agree, Paul, do you have something to say, Doug? No, I'm just fixing my life. He wants to make sure you get it off. Are you going to be able to jump in? Shut this down if I have to. No, no, this is actually, I thought about this before and I've actually wanted to talk to the guys about this because we have so many friends that are in Hellspace and there's definitely a wide spectrum of what I consider like. They're all weird, though. Most of our friends in space, every one of them. Are we weird? We're weird, are we weird? I'm pretty sure, yeah. No way, dude, we're the cool kids. 100%. Yeah, at least I am. Yeah. I can't speak for you guys. You're a hell of a cool kid, but you're super weird. Okay, who's next? You sit down to pee. Yeah. Which I, bro, I'm starting a revolution. I know you are. You're selling them so hard. You're selling them so hard. You're jelly, dawg. I'm changing people's lives in the dishwasher. Peanut Butter first, sit down on the toilet. Wait till I write my book. You know what I'm saying? That'll be a new man. Nothing to do with fitness. Hated toilet. Okay, who's next? Who's next? We got Paul and Ben, arguably one and two. I think that's, I don't think anybody can disagree with that. Who comes next? You know who's weird that you wouldn't think is weird? But when you get to know him, you're like, you're fucking weird, bro. Who? Mike Matthews. He would also be out there and healthy for me. And he's a different type of healthy because he's like a little more bound. He's too stressed, bro. In a way. No way. Mike? Matthews? Yes. Bro, he's a stress machine, dude. He's not stressed. Yes, he is. You are way more stressed than he is. I didn't say, I'm not comparing anybody against myself. In the context of stress, Mike is stressed, bro. He's not. Mike is Mr. Conspiracy Theory with you guys and like, oh, like over the top of that, but he has a different attitude about it. He has like, he has a comedic approach to it. Like he like laughs at it. It's like ridiculous. Oh no, man. He was just, he talks about, he can't sleep and all that stuff. I think he's, yeah, oh yeah. Really? Oh yeah. Well, he's not told me that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But okay, so he's, but then you can't put him up there. We're not about healthy. Yeah. Oh, healthy? Yeah, yeah. Who are our healthiest people? For sure, I think Paul and Ben are one and two. Dr. Cabral, I think I'd put him up there. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what? He could arguably pass one of those. Well, maybe two weirdos. He worked so hard, you know, that might take away a little bit, right? Cabral is pretty, he's like, workaholic. He only has white shirts too. That's it. It's like, did you ever notice that? Yeah, yeah. I've met Cabral at least 20 times. I've only seen him in a while. He has a closet just of all white shirts. He does. He really does. That's gotta be unhealthy. No. That's good. I don't know. There's something unhealthy about it. Simplicity, you know, like he's just, he cuts out all the options. That was a good one though. That was a good one to add. I think Cabral would be up there with probably one of our healthiest friends, for sure. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. We might be weird too though, that's all I'm saying. I'm pretty sure we're up there. That's all I'm trying to say right now. In different degrees. This wasn't supposed to go, I mean, we went weird with those guys. I was more curious of like ranking our super. Just the thing about this. How about this? Like how many people, without throwing people onto the bus, I feel like there's a lot of people in the health and fitness space that are way more unhealthy than people realize. That are like riddled with stress. That overdue their training, overdue their dieting. That's what I was trying to think of some and then I'd be like, oh, yeah. Not that person, maybe not that person. There's a lot like that, bro. I mean, you're gonna find more, I mean, we've said this so many times, you'll find more dysfunction in our space than you will in others. You know, and part of it too is just society, right? Cause we are just off air. We are watching David Goggins story, right? And we tend to, as a society, glorify the extremes. I mean, he had a terrible childhood. And he's obviously found a way to cope. And the way he copes is with dysfunction through exercise and discipline and all that stuff. And people are like, ooh, I wish I could be like that. No, you don't. You don't wanna wish you could be like that. That's turmoil. That is a lot of turmoil on the inside. No way. And I think that's what happens to a lot of people is that they have found a way to overcome this trauma or this crazy thing. And they have turned it into a superpower of theirs. Better than being an alcoholic. Yeah, no, yeah, no. But I think that's what happens though. And then we put them on a pedestal, it's like they're the epitome of health or that this is what we should aspire to be like. Not really understanding the mechanisms that have caused them to be this way. Yeah. And they might not even be happy. You know, sometimes you look at these high producers and you're like, oh, wow, that's awesome. What was it Elon? Wasn't Elon on an interview? And I don't remember, was it Joe Rogan? He's like, so is it hard to be you? And you could tell he was like fighting back tears. He's like, he's tormented. And that's why he creates and works so hard. He's tormented. Yeah, he just has all these ideas. He feels like he has to birth them all out while he's here. Oh, crazy. Hey, NCI is doing something. And we need to mention this in today's episode. Doug, can you bring that up? They have a plug and play. So what they're calling is a plug and play system that every coach needs. So this is a coaches toolkit. And I believe, are they offering this to people who go on the link, Doug? Is that what's going on? That's it, yeah, go to the link and it's free. Okay, so it's what you need to generate leads, what you need to turn those leads into playing clients, how to onboard those clients. It's a toolkit that you can get for free by going to the link that we're going to provide. What is that? ncimindpump.com forward slash toolkit 2024. Wanted to say that, because that's a pretty cool. Since you brought up NCI, we should also mention to everybody that we were in Florida, right? In April? Yes, April. April, we're there for the coaching. Oh yeah, that'll be a good time. Yeah, yeah, so we're there for that. And we're in Arnold. So we got Arnold coming up first. Arnold is what, in February? No, March. March, sorry, we're in February right now. March, first through the second. So it's around the corner, right? Yeah, no, that's like here. So if you're planning on going to Arnold, and we are going to do a meet and greet. So where, when exactly, what day are we at that? We will be there. We will do a meet and greet, so. Where is that going to be, by the way? Ohio? It's Ohio always. Isn't it always? I believe so, yes. Yeah, I think so. You know, I went to the Arnold once, and it was there, and then I went to the Arnold, and then I went outside the Arnold to try and see what else there is to do, and there's nothing. There's nothing on Ohio. Nothing. It's Ohio, dude, yeah. That was one of our best live events, though, you know that? Yeah, yeah. It was one of our best live events. I really liked that. It was unfortunate that happened right when COVID did, and we didn't get a chance to do the event, because I'd never been to Arnold. I've only been to Olympia. And everyone says that's one of the oldest. That's right, we went out there for that event, and everybody was scared of COVID, and we came back, and I got hella sick, but it wasn't COVID. At least I thought, maybe I wasn't, I don't know. Remember we got sick, but Doug got sick first, gave it to me, I got, everybody got sick. Yeah. I don't remember that. You gave it to me, Doug. I did, okay. You always do. I didn't know that. We got a shout out? Different shout out today. It's been a while since we've shouted out a show. I found a show, I think Doug's already seen it, and I forget what, I wanna say, I found it on Apple, but it might be like connected to Peacock, or one of those other ones like that. I know I can pay for it through Apple. Slow Horses, it's good. You guys would like it. Both of you guys would like it. Slow Horses? Yeah, it's a, what is, is it, MI4 is the, the British version of- MI5? Or MI5, the British version of the CIA. The British version of the CIA. Yeah, isn't that what it is? Okay, so it's like basically that. What's interesting, or what I'm enjoying about it, like I've already gone through almost the first season, I think there's three seasons of it right now, is you can't help but think of like all the political games that are played in the United States. Worldwide this stuff happens all over. Sounds good. Yeah, so you guys would like it. It's a good acting, good storyline to it. Really enjoying it, so check it out. One of my favorite protein powders is made by a company called Paleo Valley. It is a collagen based bone broth protein that tastes amazing. In fact, their chocolate protein is the best tasting protein powder I've ever had in my life. It's also extremely unprocessed, meaning it doesn't have a bunch of stuff in it. It's all natural, very easy to digest. I can't handle dairy. Plant based proteins are okay, but if I have too many of them, I also start to get gastro distress. Well, Paleo Valley's bone broth protein I can have all day long and digest very easily. Anyway, go check it out. Go to paleovalley.com forward slash mind pump, and that link will give you an automatic 15% off your first order. All right, back to the show. The first caller is Clint from Illinois. What's happening, Clint? How come we're not manned? Hey, good afternoon, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my question. This is the second time I've been on, so I feel like I kinda won the fitness lottery here, getting to talk to you guys twice. So, this is awesome. We gotta talk to our assistant. People sliding, slipping through. Yeah, maybe my fault. So, this go around, I just wanna say, like I'm 39 turning 40. I've got six of your programs so I've been following you guys for years. You guys are great. Unlike some of the callers too, don't have any of your programs after following you for years, which makes no sense to me. Those are my favorite. So, they're mine too, in a very frustrating way. So, anyway, used to be big in a long endurance events. I've cut back dramatically. And so, what my fitness routine now is from October through March, I use that timeframe to kinda bulk up and do my strength training, which generally resolves around anabolic, aesthetic, sometimes hit. And I bought maps 15, which haven't done yet. And then when the summer hits, I like to get outside, so I'll do farmer carries, some rucking. I still run three to four times a week when I can. But one thing that I've found is that I still kinda lack that feel good hormones I get from running. And so, what I like to do occasionally is do a dip in the cold plunge, because I feel like I can get in that for three minutes and I get the same after effects as it would if I went out for a five or six mile run. But I've been hearing through various sources, like Andrew Hureman and other people, that it can blunt the effect of muscle growth. And so, Hureman says to do it four hours after a session, at least there's other people out there, like the dude from reticence, periodization that says maybe don't do it at all. I figured you guys would be a good middle ground to see what your thoughts are. And if I am doing it, like if I'm running in a bollock, should I be doing this on my trigger session days or later in the day after my workout? Like right now I'm on week three of aesthetic, like maybe not doing it all since the focus sessions are a little bit more intense. And with turning 40, I wanna maximize my gains and I don't want to blunt anything with being older. It's like right now since October to current I've put on about 22 pounds and I'm feeling good. So just wanted to get your advice on when I should do it or if not at all and the timing of it. That's a good question. Here's why I like this question so much, Clint, because it highlights the idiocracy. It highlights the idiocracy in the health and fitness space. So I'll give you another example, okay? If you look at a ketogenic diet and you look at the mechanisms of energy production through that, what you'll find is higher rates of fat oxidation, right? Cause you're not eating carbohydrates or your body's using fat and turning it into ketones. So then what people would do is they would deduce from that and say you burn more body fat on a ketogenic diet. Now later on they did studies where they actually looked at fat loss, not just fat oxidation. And what they found was it doesn't result in more fat loss. It's the calorie deficit that makes a difference. Anything protein has more of an influence on fat loss just through the muscle building process. All right, why am I saying this? When you do a cold dip or an ice bath, what they're looking at are markers of inflammation that have also been shown to signal muscle growth. What we have yet to see is a study that actually looks at the end of a 18 week, 24 week, 36 week, whatever study to show, okay, this group ice bath, this group didn't, who built more muscle? All we see are these markers that are changing. Now, even with the markers that are affected, you're looking at a nominal effect. I would bet you that if we compared two groups of people, one ice bath, one didn't, the benefits of the ice bath, so long as all the other things are controlled and good and everybody's healthy, would outweigh the negatives and you would probably see no difference in muscle growth because although you might have a blunted signal that, you know, a slightly blunted signal, what you'll also find is the ability to train harder, more frequently, increase volume, et cetera. So here's the best time to do your ice bath, whenever you want, it's not gonna, it's not gonna affect your progress at all. You are finding benefit from it, mental benefits, which I think are the benefits that we need to focus on. Like I feel good, I feel energized, that's why I do it and I think that's great. I think just do it whenever you want. I don't think there's a wrong time to do it. I definitely don't think there's a wrong time to do it. I do think there is a more optimal, which would be pre-workout. I think as a pre-workout, it's incredible. Yeah, I mean, if you haven't done an ice bath right before you get into a lift, it's actually one of my favorite feelings ever. You get this massive adrenaline rush. I feel like I can get right into my lift and I feel amazing afterwards. But to Sal's point, like it's such a splitting hair difference on, you know, your gains in building muscle and you have to ask yourself, like, what are the cognitive benefits and just also the mental benefits of doing hard things and overcoming that that you get from that? So it's not as simple as like, oh, doing this is, you're gonna build a little bit less muscle this way. It's like, there's a compounding effect of doing hard shit when you don't wanna do it. And there's also that, also the mental benefits of, okay, how much more productive are you throughout the rest of your day and are you a better father? I mean, it's like, there's so many other things that it could be carrying over to that isn't just specific to building muscle and the stuff that the studies that show that it blunts some of that, it's so, so small. It's not even worth having a debate over. But of course, because we live in this social media world where, you know, this type of stuff, you know, you know why it's making its rounds of the negative stuff is because it blew up and got so popular. And so now it'll become popular to send the counter message of why it's so bad. You'll get more hits on social media. Yeah, and they're gonna highlight that just because it's clickbait and it's stuff that people wanna like argue and debate about. But really, are you really that consistent in terms of like, if you were to incorporate that on days that you work out, would this be just as consistent as your workouts, I guess is my question. Because, you know, in terms of like how you structure that, I would honestly like probably go, probably later beyond your workout in terms of letting that, you know, allowing your body to have that natural bit of inflammation, but then, you know, towards the end of the day, you know, maybe apply it then or do the pre before the workout. Honestly, it's not gonna make like a huge difference. So really it's like, to Sal's point, it's kind of like really up to you in terms of like how often you apply it. Yeah, and I was only doing it, you know, three times a week, four times at most. And, you know, like the whole inflammation bit, like I'm pretty against insets as a whole. And so the cold therapy, I was like, well, I hopefully it's not like hitting, like, you know, taking Tylenol and Motrin and stuff. And no one to the point where it's kind of keeping me off of that chronic cardio bandwagon, the fact that I can do this and have that same effect. It's made that, it's less than that addiction to have to go out and pound the pavement. I mean, that makes it worth it by itself right there. That alone is enough of a reason if you are a client of mine and say, yeah, let's keep doing it. And I really don't give a shit when you do it. I want you to do it whenever it's most convenient for you. Now, in a perfect world, you could do it before we work out, but I don't, as if you were my client, I wouldn't give a shit if you told me that right there, that you get that kind of benefit from it. That's enough to cancel out the bullshit that's out there on the negatives. To put it differently, it does make you feel better. It does reduce inflammation. Now, we act like those things happen in a vacuum in regards to our behaviors. It doesn't, right? If you reduce inflammation, you get those feel-good chemicals that are produced from the cold bath. It influences your behaviors. Well, what might that do for your behaviors? You might work out a little more. I mean, if you're a fitness fanatic, if you're a fitness fanatic, you're probably able to train more and not result in as much damage to the body, which is probably gonna offset any, I definitely would offset any potential negative muscle building, whatever, but people are putting so much focus on this, it's ridiculous. It's literally a complete waste of time. The only people I would tell to not do cold dips or cold baths are people whose stress bucket is so high that the additional stress from the cold... That was Doug. Doug got recommended not to do it from Cabral. Right, like your cortisol is all over the place and you've got bad sleep and all that stuff, then I'd say, yeah, let's not have you do it. But otherwise, it's totally fine. And the time of day, if it, as long as it doesn't interfere with sleep, like you probably don't wanna do it right before bed or something like that, you're totally fine. Oh yeah, no, yeah. Right, awesome. That's great sound advice. And it's not one extreme of the other, so I greatly appreciate it. So yeah, I'll just, as soon as the temperature outside gets above 20 degrees, I'll be popping back outside and doing it. That's awesome. Clint, are you in our forum? Yeah, in the forum, I've got performance hit, aesthetic, anabolic, anywhere 15. I mean, I've run the gamut. You guys have been, it's been great programming. I follow it to a T every time and I've seen nothing but great results and like low to no injuries. So it's been good. Now I do all of it from home. I've got a squat rack and a bench press. So I'm missing some of the hamstring stuff, but other than that, it's good. Now I see here that you did maps on a ball that can got your deadlift from 155 to 315. Wow. Yeah, and that was, that's because that's all the weight plates that I have right now. So that's. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. That's phenomenal. Hey, can I send you? Yeah, great. Can I send you maps? Can I send you maps? Prime pro Clint or something like that to kind of help with the, you know, if you need any correctional exercise, you have that? I don't. Yeah, that'd be, I mean, that's great. I'm not looking to get anything, but if you want to send it my way, that'd be, I would greatly appreciate it. Yeah, we'll send it over. Okay. Yeah, thanks a lot guys. I appreciate it. You got it. Take it easy. Hey, and stay safe down there in California. I heard you guys are getting some pretty nasty weather. Yeah. It's nasty in the context of California. It's really not. It's not. All right. All right. It is funny. I had some neighbors that are not from California and they're like, it's so funny how everybody just freaks out to this windy. You know what I mean? They're like, the news just over. Yeah. It's not that bad. Like one tree fell over and I was like freaking out over here. I was scared a lot. But yeah, this whole thing with the cold dip is, you hit the nail on the head, Adam. It got so popular that then it became smart on social media to counter it. Yes. And a great, scary message is it plus the muscle building signal. Yeah. But I bet you if they did a study and looked at strength gains and muscle gains and compared both groups, I bet you it would be nominal. I mean, it also reminds me very, it's very similar to the popularity of fasting. Right? Yeah. And the benefits that are attached to that. It's like people argue the wrong thing about it. Like talking about fasting and building muscle and stuff like that. It's like, or losing body fat. It's like, that's the wrong reason to even do that. The cold plunged, same thing. If you're cold plunging to try and get jacked, that's not the best reason to cold plunge is to get jacked. I guess what I was trying to clumsily get to was like, nobody's that consistent with ice baths. Let's be fucking honest. Yeah. They can like purport that like, well, if I do it after this time and like, you're not going to do it that often. I'm going to be honest with you. Like, and if you do, then, you know, maybe we can talk, but it's not even going to make that big impact anyways. Well, and then what Sal said, it's like, I don't even care if a study does come out and show that, oh, this group built more muscle. It's like, okay, well, did they follow you around and see if you were a better dad and a better husband and that you were more productive at work or that you were more focused when you sat down to read? Yeah, there's like all these other cascading effects that come from the benefits of doing that. And it's like, even in an isolated study with two groups where one did ice bath every single day, one never did ice bath, who built more muscle? Even if it came back that the group that didn't do it built a little bit more muscle, it wouldn't be enough for me to tell people not to do it because it has other benefits just like fasting. I think if someone came out with a study, it showed, oh, the people that fasted didn't build as much muscle as the people that it's like, that doesn't matter because that's not the reason why I'm encouraging people to do it. So it's- Not everything you do has to do with building muscle. Right. And burning body fat. And yet, and to your point again that, you know, you have to ask yourself too that, okay, so maybe it blunts the signal a little bit, you build a fraction less muscle, but because of that, you now can train harder or train an extra day. Yeah, better technique, you got better mental benefit. Yeah. So then you have to, how do you factor in the increased volume or intensity because you now are- That's right. So it's like, come on, dude. Our next caller is Dave from Oklahoma. Dave, what's up, man? What up, Dave? Hey, gentlemen, thanks for taking my call, my question. I love what you guys do. I'm a father and an entrepreneur as well. And so I always love it when you guys dial into those subjects, I get a lot from those conversations. So- Awesome. Hey, thanks, I'll jump right in. I'm on week eight of MAPS PowerLift. I've run Aesthetic a couple times and Symmetry and decided I really wanted to get good at those foundational lifts that you guys keep talking about and maybe set a couple more PRs before I get put out the pasture here. And so during that process, I actually started looking into like powerlifting competitions and meets and decided that it might be fun to give it a shot. And so I actually went to my first one a couple of weeks ago as a spectator and looked at some of the totals of what people are lifting and it felt like I could potentially be competitive. But one of the things that I've learned that I'm doing wrong or that I need some advice on is especially on the bench, I have always been doing bench presses where I kind of stop at the parallel with my elbows. I've heard that that was like better for your shoulders or whatever. I don't know if that's right, but they obviously have to touch your chest. And as I went back and I started benching that way, so my lift would actually count as a good lift according to the judges. I've lost a lot of strength doing that like 20 or 30 pounds on my bench, which is really, really frustrating just those couple of inches matter, boys. And so I didn't know if you had any suggestions or advice on things I could do to train that range of motion, just that lower range of motion. And any other general advice that you'd have for someone that wants to compete in their first powerlifting competition at the age of 39. I got some really good news for you, Dave, about that. So I remember that this was one of the biggest leaps I saw in like gains on my chest was when I, so our national certifications as trainers, when we were all in our early 20s, Sal teenager when we took these, actually recommended that clients only went down to 90 degrees. And that's just for, yeah, it's for safety reasons, right? So this, and that was, this is one of the things that we talked about later on of like, you know, this is like not ideal. Ideally you take clients through full range of motion. We were taught to have them stop at 90 degrees. So of course I trained that way myself for many years. And I remember like learning that, oh no, I should go the full range and all the way down and like how much I had to reduce the weight. But what's great, it's like, it's almost like finding a new exercise when you haven't done that for most of your life. And even though you're weaker initially when you first started, the gains will come on fast if you stick to it. Just don't bail on it, right? A lot of guys will happen as a big, oh fuck this, I'm way stronger going down to 90. I don't want to have to reduce the weight. If you throw that out the window and you actually do keep focusing on that, you'll watch your strength come up and you'll see the development in your chest blow up more than you have probably in a very long time in your life. I guess two hacks that I had a similar issue for a bit really focused on deep dips and then weighted dips at the very lowest position with that and grinding my way out and then also overhead press and starting in the rack position. So very much in the lower position with the bar, so not up here where the bodybuilder kind of elbows are. So all the way down and in and like keeping that shoulder packed and then pressing from that angle, like both of those from a dead position there and grinding your way through and just keep adding, just keep at it and keep working on the strength there. It's gonna help tremendously. I'll give you the two exercises or modifications you could do that'll get this up the fastest. One is to pause your bench press at the chest. Okay, very simple. Bring the bar down to your chest, touch your chest, don't rest the bar on your chest but keep everything tight, hold it for three to four seconds and then press up. That'll get, that is adding an isometric component in the portion of the rep that you're weakest and that'll get your strength up very quickly in that bottom portion. Within a few months you'll be up to your normal bench press just from doing that alone. The other one is to do a press off the bottom pins so you essentially get underneath a barbell that's set to your chest. So you kind of have to shimmy yourself underneath it, get real tight and then press it off the rack. So you don't have the opportunity of lowering the weight before pressing it. One word of caution is go much lighter. Floating, I'm sorry? Exploding or isn't it explosive press or is this a normal press? You can work up to an explosive one but start off very controlled because without lowering the weight you're gonna feel a lot looser at the bottom. You'll see when you try it. You don't have the stretch reflex, you don't have the built up energy from the negative portion of the rep but if you get good at that then you'll get real strong at the bottom. Now the irony of the certifications in those early days, they don't teach this anymore or that people say it's safer to stop at 90 degrees. The irony is that although the technique is easier, this is where they say the safety it's safer because it's safer in the sense that it's easier to learn that way. But the irony is it actually increases your risk of injury down the line because what ends up happening is you end up getting strong in a shortened range of motion and then the discrepancy between that range of motion and the deeper range of motion starts to get so big that if you ever have to move out of something deep you have no stability and you injure yourself. So this is the paradox of short range of motion. People go, I do short range of motion because it doesn't hurt. They actually increase the risk of injury later on because they're actually so- They're un-familiar there. They're unfamiliar outside this range of motion. And in fact, you can see people start to move in a very tight way as a result of it because the body tries to keep them in the range of motion that they train. So it's actually worse for you to not learn the technique and strengthen in those full range of motion. Yes, so it's just gonna take you some time to familiarize yourself with that range of motion at the bottom to be able to generate force there. So really spending that extra bit of time, like if he's talking about on the pins and like from the very bottom position generating the force almost isometrically and then pressing is gonna help a lot. You just have to train your body to be able to produce force there. That's it. Well, I appreciate it guys. I'm kind of going through this journey solo more or less with your programs and just trying to figure it out as I go. So any advice is awesome. And I appreciate you guys taking the time to talk to me. And Adam, if you ever wanna watch good basketball, you should come to OKC. I'll take you to a game. Oh hell yeah. Nice. I would love to do that. We got places out there. Maybe I'll make an excuse to come travel out there sometime. It's fun, man. Thank you guys. Right on. Stick to it though, I'm telling you right now this is some of the best gains I ever had in my chest was when I switched from 90 down to that. And the two things that Justin suggested were two of the biggest things that made a difference for myself personally. So just stick with that one. I'll let you know how it goes. All right, brother. Good luck. Yeah, they don't teach that anymore, the 90 degree type deal. And they don't. I don't think so. Oh, really? I think they do. I don't see anybody doing that anymore in the gyms. I don't see trainers training that way anymore. Yeah, that's because they listen to mind pump. Maybe. We may have influenced that a little bit. I mean, isn't it funny though? Because when I trained like that, where I stopped at 90 in overhead press and the bench press, I had worse shoulder stability. Of course. I had more shoulder injuries. Yeah, no 100%. It's more harm than good. It causes far more harm than good to do it that way. But and then the isometric part, man, that made my strength go up so quick. And that's for any lift, for anybody watching this. If there's a part of the rep that you're doing where you're weak, if you just pause there for three, four seconds, you're gonna have to go lighter to do so. But just every time you do a rep, you pause, that's it. Yeah, powerlifters are great at that. Yes. Being able to segment different portions of the lift. Yes. Really like focusing on that. It helps a lot. Our next caller is Julian from Tennessee. Julian, what's up? How can we help you? What's going on, guys? What's up? What's up, dude? What's up? All right. You want me to just read off my question first? Yeah, do it. Let's do it. All right, all right. So I started my fitness journey in September 2018. I was about 100 or 250 pounds. In about a year and a half, I was able to lose 50 pounds, mostly by doing bro splits six days a week while doing cardio three to five times a week and jujitsu four to six times a week. I wasn't really tracking back then, but when I was tracking, I'd hit about 130 grams of protein at about 2,300 calories. Then COVID hit. I gained all the way back. And then I started to hit the gym again in July, 2021, by doing six days a week split and doing jujitsu six days a week. I was not tracking, but I did start cutting out from certain foods and was intermittent fasting, which helped, but then I eventually hit a plateau about a year later in October of 2022, which is when I went, when I found you guys and started tracking again. And around that time, my wife found an online coach with first form, which did help me out, but around the third or fourth month with the coach, he started putting me on a pretty aggressive cut while suggesting facet cardio in the morning, 10,000 steps a day, plus 20 minute hit sessions on non-full body workout days. But after about three months, my mood and energy were being affected. So when I told him this, he said, it was just my body adjusting and it eventually go away, but never improved. And he didn't want to change my macros. So I dropped him, started doing a verse diet in June of last year and went up all the way to 3,000 calories. I've put on about 20 pounds on the scale, but my lifts have all gone up to deadlifting, 315 squatting, 295 benching, 225. And I was just wondering the weight on the scale is that normal? Should I be on the cut? Some people on the private forum were saying that I should be on the cut for longer than six weeks because I did do a cut down to 2,500 calories during the holidays. And then do I do cardio? I'm walking 10,000 steps a day, sometimes a little bit more when it's nice out like today, but so should I do more cardio? Should I cut? Just needing some of my advice here, guys. All right, so what's the goal with the cardio? Why do more cardio? Why would you want to do more of it? Is it because you enjoy it? It's something you really like to do and the numbers are for the weight loss? Mostly for the weight loss, I really hate cardio. I'm kind of like Fat Amy, don't put me down for cardio. The answer is no then. Now with your history, Julie, I'm going to tell you right now that you have a history of chronically overtraining, like way overdoing it. So it's no surprise that you lost weight, gained it back, lost weight, gained it back a few times. So knowing that you have that tendency, I'm going to tell you no, don't do any cardio, addicted traditional strength training. If you want to go on a cut at 2,500 calories, that's okay. That's not too low of calories. Although I'd like to see you stay in this kind of strength phase for a little longer, just to get you out of that mindset. How's your relationship with exercise and stuff now? Like, do you have that kind of a personality where you just tend to- All or nothing. All or nothing or you feel like it's distracting you or something or what's the deal with it? Yeah, yeah. I used to definitely be the chronic overtrainer. I think just finding you guys really helped that. I definitely liked the MAPS anabolic style. I've done MAPS anabolic twice, Aesthetics twice, Personal Worms twice, and I'm on strong now. So I definitely started to rewire my brain a little bit more on that, but I'm always like, what can I do more? What can I do more? Just cause I do, don't feel comfortable in my skin at the moment, but I'm like, okay, patience, just do what they say and just be patient with it. You might be in the Goldilocks zone right now. That's why I'm, before I give advice on what to go from where you're at, I don't know if I want to move you because if you're eating 3,000 calories, which is a good amount of calories for your size, healthy, and you're seeing strength go up, my question would be one, how long or how consistent have you actually done body fat testing? Like I would actually have loved to see where your body fat test was before the 3,000 calories, or the increase of 3,000 calories, where it is now, and then probably have you check back in in two to three weeks again for me so I can see it. Maybe where you're at right now is a really nice place and I don't know if you necessarily need to cut right now. So do you have any idea of where the body fat percentage was before the 3,000 calorie bump and where it is now? No, so I just started doing that, I would say right around the holidays, just because my brother and I were just, we're trying to both get fit and we did a body, you know, did the whole measuring around the wrist and all that stuff. So I was about 33% body fat. That was at the beginning of the year, but I haven't checked my weight since then. I really haven't checked measurements since then, and I really didn't want to up until maybe about April or so, just kind of wait the 90 days out to just kind of see where I'm at. The only reason why I would suggest doing it sooner than later is just so that we can get an idea of if maybe nothing needs to be changed and you just need to keep heading this direction, right? So for example, if we bumped to 3,000 calories since the beginning of the year and you're not gaining any body fat, if your body fat percentage has stayed the same or gone down, we're doing really good. And people that are chronic overtrainers that already know you have kind of a tendency this tend to do this to themselves. They sabotage themselves, not even realizing it. Like they're actually doing really good and actually moving in the perfect direction, but because it's not happening fast enough or they feel like they can do more, they change everything up and then you end up shooting yourself in the foot when it's like actually we're perfect where we're at. So I'd love for you to get a body fat test again and see where you're at and what I'd be looking for is with that increase of calories, did your body fat percentage stay the same or go down? If it stayed the same or went down, you're probably in a really good place right now. Now, if it went up, say a few percent and you also gained weight on the scale, then maybe we need to adjust your calories a little bit and reduce a little bit, but I have a feeling you might be in a nice little sweet spot right now and it's just purely, you just need to string some time together of being consistent with the reverse, like trying to build strength because I think that's serving you right now. Both metabolically, strength-wise, building muscle-wise, I think it's probably, you're probably in a good place. Yeah, I agree. Julian, you mentioned you feel uncomfortable in your skin. Is that a feeling that you felt for a long time before you got to 250, all that stuff? Is this something like looking back? Do you feel like, I'm just uncomfortable? Okay. So... Yeah, yeah. I mean, even in high school, I was 140 pounds and I was like, I don't like this. Okay. So you got, there's something underlying here and the workouts aren't gonna fix it or shall I say, the results from the workouts aren't gonna fix it. Now, if you use your workouts as a way to become more present, as a way to feel your body more, as a way to become more comfortable within your own skin, then it can definitely be a tool that can help you work with that. But the results from the workout, the weight loss or whatever, I'm gonna tell you right now, if I snap my fingers and make you ripped, you're not gonna have permanent resolvment of that feeling uncomfortable in your own skin. This is coming from someone who deals with that themselves. So this is something else. And what you don't wanna do is turn exercise into a drug that you abuse because it will damage you like a drug will, for sure. And many times when this is like, if he's hitting it right on spot here, like a lot of times that will cause you to make corrections when you don't need to. That's right. So you start getting in your own head and you're not happy with the results or you don't, you're not happy with the way you look. And so even though you are like in the perfect spot and things are going great, somehow you convince yourself otherwise and then you make a drastic change and then the results are worse and then you get even more frustrated and you're doing more work. Holy, so describe your workouts to me. When you're following a workout, are you, yeah, I know that, but not the actual workout, but are you, do you have headphones on? Are you, what are you doing in between sets? Are you working out alone? What does it look like? Yeah, usually just working out alone, have headsets in and then usually either have, you guys in as a podcast or just some music in or something just the, and then in between right now since it's, I have two minutes resting between sets, I'm just either on Instagram or something just kind of relaxing, just trying not to do anything. I'm gonna give you some advice. It's gonna be really hard, okay? And even this is gonna hurt us too. So I don't want you to listen to anything while you work out. I want you to work out with no music, no podcast, no nothing. I don't want you to take your phone with you and I want you to have a notebook. And in your notebook, you can have your workout and you can write down how many sets you did, how many reps, all that stuff. And I want you to just sit in your body with your workout. So we're gonna practice feeling your body while you work out. And what that's gonna do is it's gonna turn the workout into a tool that's gonna help you feel more comfortable in your own skin. It's gonna feel very awkward at first, but you'll find at the end of the workout, you're gonna feel something different than you did before. So while you're working out, no music, no nothing, no book, no distractions and you're just sitting in it. Just give that a shot and see what happens. If you take that advice and do something that'll help you because it is challenging for us to do this. When I'm doing this, I'm sitting down, a lot of times I'll close my eyes, I'll be with my heads down and I'm like envisioning the lift I just did and I'm thinking about the next one, right? I'm thinking about how I felt going through that. You're just being present. That dumbbell press, where did I feel it the most? And like, what did the form look like? I'm envisioning what the next set looks like and so that process will help. So you're not just like, thoughts are wandering. I'm really thinking about the movement and what I'm doing at that moment. Yeah, workouts can be either extremely effective at making you feel present and in your body or it's a double edged sword. You can use workouts to distract the hell out of yourself and take yourself outside of your body. All depends on how you do it. So if you do that practice, it'll help you become more comfortable in your own skin. I want to put you in the form if you're not already in there and then. Yeah, I'm in the form. Okay, so I would love for you when you get a chance to go test your body fat the same way you did last time and give me an update on that and then we can be a little more precise with what potentially to do with the calories and stuff because I have a feeling you're probably actually in a really good place. If you are, that's great, I would stay there. Yeah, so let's stick to making sure what you always hear us talk about, right? So protein intake is most important, right? So hit that protein intake, whatever your goal weight is, the weight that you ideally want to be, hit that in grams of protein every single day. Don't miss that, be religious about that. And then as far as where your calories are, let's keep them where they're at for now until you get that body fat test and give me feedback on. And then just tag us in the forum. Yeah, and then from there, I'll give you better advice on whether I think you should cut or just stay where you're at. Got it, okay, that's actually what I was gonna ask you. So what I was doing is that every phase, I just kind of up anywhere from 50 to 100 calories and was kind of going up from there. So before doing that, I guess going to the next phase, you guys want me to do the measurements again and just kind of test? Yes, yes, let's test and see. And that might be exactly the advice we give is. We may say, stay on that. Yeah, stay on that path of every phase or so, bump the calories because I think it's serving you. I mean, I think just without having the exact numbers in front of us where the fact that you saw strength go up, you're able to eat 3,000, you didn't make any comments of saying like, oh, I feel like I put all body fat on. So it sounds like you are heading in the right direction. We may just stay the course with what you're doing. And I dropped my protein down to about 165 grams. I was doing about, when I was in the cut, I was about 210. And then I dropped it down to about 180 and then 165, just cause I don't really know what target weight is good for me. And so I just kind of did lean body mass. And when I did the- That works. Yeah, it's fine. It's 165. Okay. I was doing, okay, okay. No, no, that's good. I didn't know if it was too low or not. I know it's not too low, but I would shoot for 165 to 180. Yeah, you're fine. You're fine going a little over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you go, going a little over would be great, but I wouldn't go much lower than the 160, but that's fine. It's good. Okay, okay. Yeah, that works. I think I was just like you said, I was just getting in my head is just I don't see any body fat going down. So I was just like, okay, I guess I'm just in the same place that was a year ago. No, no, let's test. Let's test. I have a feeling that you've at least built muscle, which will also cause the body fat percentage to most likely go down. So let's see where your body fat test is. We'll go from there. Okay. Sounds good. All right, Brian. That underlying feeling, I mean, that's me right there. And boy, I can make my workouts work for me or work against me, depending on how present I am within them. Yeah, I think this is so common where somebody cares advice or it decides that, okay, this is what I need to do. And then they don't see fast enough results or they have body dysmorphia and they didn't matter even if they were seeing results, they'd still find a way to distort that. And then they make a course correction when they were actually in this like perfect. No need. Yeah, what I hope we hear from him, right? Is that he's actually stayed the same or maybe even reduced his body fat percentage while cutting out cardio and increasing to 3000 calories. That is a massive win. Yeah. And that means we are moving in the right. He did say in his question too, he feels better, he's getting better sleep, he's got better mood. Stronger. So that tells me that he's probably nourishing himself. Our next caller is Danielle from Indiana. Hey Danielle, how can we help you? Okay, to be somewhat respectful of your time, I'm just gonna read straight up of my email or else we'll be here for the next hour. And I don't think any of us have time for that. So I am a pediatric speech language pathologist, which is also known as a speech therapist who works with kids. I just recently went full-time in my own private practice. I contract through my business with a school district three days a week. And then twice a week I'm in my own office. This is not public knowledge, but might be after this airs. I am expanding and will be done with the school contract and going full-time in my own office in May, which I'm very excited about. I was previously a personal trainer before and during grad school and I legitimately loved it, but knew I wanted to pursue a career full-time working with kids. My late mother was a personal trainer as well, and being in that world made me feel close to her. So as I've looked at expanding my business and building my quote-unquote dream career, I would really like to bring fitness into my speech therapy sessions. There are two SLPs in Arizona who are doing it, so I know it's not like too crazy, and just a few brief reasons as to why I wanna do this. Obviously, the physical and mental benefits of exercise, providing a safe space for caregivers and their children to exercise, providing social opportunities for people with varying ability levels, and have a space in which they can learn to be a part of a team, or just a space that they can be part of a team. I also, this is the biggest one I think, is I really would like to offer some access to some gym equipment, so caregivers, while I'm working with their kids, can go and take like 20 to 30 minutes for themselves, because that's often not built into their schedules. They do so much for their children, and it would be nice to have a space that they can go, great, you're working with my kid, I'm gonna go lift some weights. In theory, I would like to incorporate fitness into sessions in which it's appropriate for that particular client. I'm not gonna throw an 18 month old kid on a kettlebell, but for my older kids, it would be really nice to incorporate some physical movement and introduce them to weightlifting. I would also love to have an evening group fitness, don't hate me yet, opportunity that would be like a small class size, and focus on practicing those movements, and then cheering each other on, which is that social aspect of things. So my two questions are, one, if I pursue this, would you recommend doing an adaptive personal training certification, or something through somewhere like NASM? The adaptive offers a lot of specifics regarding working with people with different ability levels, which I really do like, but if I do this, I also don't wanna just do something to say I have a certification and go do it. I wanna make sure it's a good certification that helps me help people in the best capacity that I can in the setting that I'm in. And then number two, if I do pursue this and don't have a shit ton of money because I'm a new small business, what would you recommend in terms of having like, key pieces of equipment to have available for the clients and their caregivers? This is great, I love this idea so much. I love it too. I absolutely love this idea. You should be though in our trainer coaching course already by the way. Yeah, this is the type of stuff that we talk about in there with all of it. Yeah, we have a new trainer course. I'm sorry? I said I know I wanted to get in on it, but I wasn't quite sure if it was appropriate for someone like me. 100% it is appropriate for someone like you. What you'll get from it really is about. It's the business side. It's how to build a business. Now, as far as like exercise applications, okay. So number one, I think this is a phenomenal idea. I think it's going to help the parents. I think it's gonna also help the children. I think movement and moving the whole body probably has carry over to improvements in speech. You would know this better than I would, but I would bet money that this would also help quite a bit. Just knowing how the muscles interact and how kinesthetic awareness builds and all that stuff. So I think this would be huge. I think for an exercise cert, so our cert is or our course is gonna teach you how to build your business, how to get more clients, how to network, how to get leads, all that stuff. As far as a course for exercise and so correctional exercise certifications are gonna be your best bet. So you have your NESM CPT and then they have a correctional exercise specialist. I think you're gonna get the most value out of that because you're probably gonna have the parent do 20, 30 minutes worth of movement. Correctional exercise is gonna give you the best bang for your buck. There's also gonna be carry over to children. I think that's gonna be better. And then as far as equipment is concerned, you don't need equipment. Man, you need like dumbbells, physio ball, bands, that's it. You'll need nothing else. Maybe a suspension trainer. Yeah, I would say a suspension trainer. I'd use a suspension trainer for damn near everything. If in a perfect world, I would enroll you in NASM ASAP, enroll you in our coaching course ASAP. Those would be the two things you'd be going through right now. So we're helping you on the business side. Also you're networking with all the other coaches and trainers that are also scaling unique businesses like this inside there. And then after you finish the NASAM CPT, then moving to the CES like Sal said, and I literally would invest in a suspension trainer and some bands to start off with. Like that's it. Like that would be literally all I would need to get going on my idea. And then most of what you're, this is such a great idea, but I think it's so novel that the most of the effort work would be, how would I structure this? How would I put my packages together? How would I present this to my clients? How would I not? Because you had a lot of really good ideas. I would probably help you try and focus on a couple of these to roll out and then we could always build on that, right? What you don't want to do is spread yourself so thin you have all these different offerings. It's like, let's one, let's test and see what are some of these parents needing or wanting more? And then we can start to gather. Okay, this seems to be that your group idea is the best idea. Or maybe you see like, oh wow, maybe it's the whenever I'm coaching a child, I also have a routine that I can give them to do. So let's figure out what they want and then let's build the structure as far as your offer around that. But this is, again, this is the stuff that I think that's in our course that you're going to get a lot of benefit from is the business side from us and then the NASM. And then I know you mentioned too about not having a shit ton of money, there's a payment option for ours. So it's like a monthly thing. So it's not like a big, you can pay one lump sum or you can do the monthly offering and it also. So it's a little bit easier. You know, off the top of my head Danielle, the group, small group exercise would be good for this benefit here. You would get other parents to meet each other who are going through similar things with their kids, okay? Now, as far as the workout stuff, I would not, this is me personally, but I bet money on this. I don't think it'd be valuable to focus on fat loss, muscle gain, like fitness goals. It would be about functionality, correctional exercise, feel better, neck pain, shoulder pain, like stress. And that's all correctional exercise stuff. So what I wanna send you is if you don't have Maps Prime Pro, I'm gonna send that to you because there's movements in there that you could use that are all correctional exercise based, okay? And you could use those right now and none of them require any equipment. So I'll give you that just so you can look at that and see what it is. And then the rest that I said, I think, again, I think this is a phenomenal idea. I think if you really do this right and piece it together right, I think you're gonna develop some long-term clientele from this particular approach. But just too, in terms of our course and why it's so relevant to you, the business end of it is the most important. The ideas are great, but really being able to sustain it, to be able to keep revenue coming in, to have consistent revenue, to have predictability to it, create systems out of it, that is your biggest priority and then the ideas will form themselves around that. Totally. Okay, cool. I'm really appreciative that you guys didn't say it was a terrible idea. That's very, very comforting. No, I love it. I think it's a great idea. It's a good idea, but the way you execute it is gonna determine whether or not it's gonna succeed or not. We want it to succeed. It's also parents that invest in this. I hired a speech therapist, okay? I mean, that type of person is a good potential client. If you're willing to spend that kind of money to help your kid with his speech come along, I'm most likely to invest in myself on things like that, especially if you can tie the, connecting the two of them together of like, hey, you doing this, your child seeing you do this, together you guys could do these things. It's only gonna benefit you. It's gonna benefit them. Like I could totally see the presentation on this. Like so I love it. Awesome, thanks. And I appreciate the input on the business side of things. That's very much where I lack. I know how to help people, but the actual business side of things is very much an area of growth for me, I should say. Okay, most good trainers. Go to mindpumpfitnesscoaching.com. That's where you'll learn about the course and that's all it's about is building that. Yep. Awesome. Okay, thanks guys so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. You know, this just reminded me of a conversation I had with a therapist. I asked her, cause she sees kids too. And I said, so what's it like seeing like little kids? Like what do you do? What do you do when you sit down and talk to an eight year old? She says, it's all the parents. It has the kids or don't have the problems. It comes from the parents. And so my point with this is when you're dealing with situations like this, and I'm not saying this is not in that same category, but my point is we place so much focus on the kids that the parents are under stress. It's difficult. Maybe they're working two jobs or whatever. And it's so much less effective because the parents can't be as effective, right? But now imagine the parent goes in there, the kid is doing 30 minutes of speech therapy and mom is over there doing correctional exercise movements that makes her feel amazing at the end of it. Like you don't think this is gonna have a carry over to the kid. It's a great idea. No, it's a brilliant idea. But building the business part, that's the challenge, 100%. That's the challenge for all trainers and coaches. Look, if you love the show, head over to mindpumpfree.com, check out all of our free fitness guides. They can help you with your fitness goals and they're free. You can also find us on Instagram, Justin is at Mind Pump, Justin. I'm at Mind Pump to Stefano. Adam is at Mind Pump, Adam.