 Hello everyone, welcome to Mind Pump. In this episode we talk about the best post-workout recovery meals, weight training for kids, and more. In the second half of the episode, the guys coach three live callers on questions such as, how could I learn to train like an old time strongman? What are the best testosterone boosting supplements? What is the best way to recover after an extreme deficit after a bodybuilding show? And no, it's not pop tarts and donuts. Finally, if time is limited for you and you can't always watch our full episodes, go to our other channel, Mind Pump Clips, here on YouTube and subscribe. All right, enjoy the show. The best post-workout meals for recovery tend to contain a good combination of carbohydrates and proteins, not just protein. Carbohydrates do play a role in post-workout recovery. Now I want to define what I mean by post-workout recovery because there's some confusion around this. I used to think that it meant just general recovery. Like if I don't eat this, you know, proteins and carbohydrates post-workout, I'm just not going to recover. No, no, no, you'll still recover. It's just you're not going to recover as quickly, meaning if you want to do another workout later or you want to do like you divide your workouts or you have something physical later to do, or you want the, you basically just want to recover a little faster, then your post-workout nutrition can make a difference. The studies do show that having some carbohydrate with your protein, it does it better than just having protein by itself. No, okay. I remember reading two to one, four to one. Where are we at with the science on the ratio of carbohydrates to protein that is the most beneficial? It's all over the place. So it depends on the type of, like what athletic endeavor you did or workout you did before. And if it was like super endurance focused, where you burn tons of glycogen, then you're going to want a higher carbohydrate to protein ratio, like three to one or two to one, four to one. Yeah. If you're like lifting weights, even a one to one is perfectly fine. You just want some carbohydrates in there to help shuttle in the amino acids, replenish some of the glycogen. But here's the things that people really need to consider with their post-workout nutrition. Besides protein carbohydrates, it's inflammation and digestibility because after your workout, you have this general, just kind of systemic inflammation is a little higher. Like if you, someone tested your blood post-workout, they would notice inflammatory markers would be a little higher. This is normal. You just did a workout. It's supposed to happen. But part of that is your gut. Your gut is also slightly inflamed. And what you don't want to do is throw foods on top of that situation that are already hard to digest. So you want to pick foods that are easy to digest, that you can consume, that feel good, not too heavy. What would be a good example of that? Well, so white rice, chicken is typically pretty good. The company we work with now, Creatures of Habit, they're oatmeal with the plant protein. It's one of the best, like it's super easy for me. I have, you know, a sensitive gut. It's one of the easiest things I've ever eaten to digest. I eat it and I feel like it's like, I eat nothing. And it's also super convenient. So, and that typically is for most people, right, oatmeal plus some protein plus it's got the digestive enzymes already in there. But I think the key is what you have post-workout. You want to have both carbohydrates and proteins, but you want to make sure it's very easily digestible. It's super important. You would like as high calorie, bloating, inflammatory producing meal. You can cause yourself problems, especially in an inflammatory. Which isn't even really a consideration that's being promoted at all, which is probably the highest one to consider. Because like before that, it's the hysteria of I'm going to lose that muscle building window with that, that anabolic sort of window where I can shuttle in this amount of protein and get the building blocks to kind of promote this. But, you know, to, to that point, I just think that this really you consider, you may be doing yourself more harm if, if it's not something that you're digesting properly. You know, speaking of that creatures habit, the, there's a little bit of, I don't know, I'd say half and half the people, which I did not see this coming that like or don't like this part about it. And that was because it's my favorite part is the seeds. I love the seeds. Oh yeah. That's my favorite part of it. And actually, after we get a nice mouthfeel in the crunch, it makes me it makes it feel fuller. It's a different texture. So I like it. But I think so. Like if you really like your, your oatmeal, like soup, like runny, runny or really like almost like cream of wheat, like then maybe that texture throws you off, but I just didn't see that coming. Like I thought, you know, I was wanting everyone to report back on and I got over the last month and a half, we got all these people, you know, it was like a split of people that loved it or don't that. So that everybody like the macros, of course, are amazing. The fact that it has plant protein, the fact that it has vitamin D, everyone that's that's all amazing. Right. But the one thing that I got back that was negative feedback is if someone didn't like the seeds or whatever like that in there, they were like, oh, it's just a different. I used to add seeds to my I love. I like that. I used to add pumpkin seeds and I would add sesame seeds. Some flax seeds, flax seeds. No, it's, you know, this, this point really can't be overstated because they, okay. So when they look at people with gut issues, one of the causes of gut issues or one of the, I guess, root issues is something known as a intestinal wall hyper permeability. We used to call this leaky gut syndrome. So this is where, you know, your gut, it's basically a barrier between you and your food. And it only is supposed to allow certain things in and not other things in at the right moment. And what happens when the gut is inflamed, that wall, it's more, well, it becomes leaky in essence and it allows proteins and compounds to travel through into the bloodstream when they're not supposed to. And then what happens? Your body mounts an immune response. So it identifies these, these proteins when they're not supposed to be there, you build up an immune response and all of a sudden this food that you ate all the time, now all of a sudden you can't digest anymore or causes problems. And so now, by the way, Western medicine now identifies this or acknowledges this in the past. If you said leaky gut syndrome, I remember saying leaky gut syndrome to doctors and they laughed me out of the room, but now it's something that we know that can happen. Well, you have generally speaking, you have more inflammation in your body right after your workout. So what was happening was that these athletes would use crazy hard workouts and they pound a bunch of food trying to recover and they were developing gut issues. So that's why it's so important. Like right after your workout, one of the most important considerations aside from, you know, proteins and carbohydrates is, does this digest well? Like, so like the protein powders that give people gas and blow and they're having it right after the workout. Like, you turn yourself into a ticking time bomb. Right. Or, you know, people will go eat like a huge meal. People, especially on a bulk, like, oh, we just finished our workouts, get a bunch of fast food. Yeah. Like you, you're potentially sending yourself up for some, some bad problems. So pick something really easily digestible right after your workout and it'll, it'll help the recovery process and not produce problems down the road. And so, and the reason why I brought up creatures of habit is because it's like very few processed meals that I could find with good macros that are things that I can eat on a regular basis. Cause I'm so sensitive that I could do things here and there, but I have that every day. Do you have a favorite flavor yet? Uh, I like the maple. Yeah. I want the best. What about you, Joe? You're probably, are you peanut butter? Peanut butter is usually the one I go with. Doug. Yeah, maple, maple for me. Yeah. Maple and then the blueberry one, those two are my, are my favorites for sure. All of them taste good though. Yeah, they're all my favorites. All right. Today's contest, you can win free access to maps aesthetic. Here's how you enter. Leave a comment below on the first 24 hours that we dropped this episode. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. Do all those things. If we pick you as the winner, we'll notify you in the comments section and boom, free access to maps aesthetic. We also have a sale going on this month. Two programs are 50% off. Maps OCR 50% off and maps cardio 50% off. If you're interested, just click on the link at the top of the description below to get yourself set up. All right, here comes the show. You know, he just reminded me. So I pick up my son the other day. I don't normally pick him up from school. And, uh, and I did just yesterday and I pick him up and he always normally has a few snacks or something like that left over. And, um, he had a banana in there. And so he, uh, he's, you know, I'm driving and I'm trying to, you know, peel the banana for him. And what made me think of this is I want to ask you guys this, so you can think about this while I'm telling the story of like, like little corks that your kids have that were, that are funny or like the way they dress or they eat or they do certain things. And I wasn't aware of this, right? So this is how my learning experiences I'm driving. I peel the banana and then, you know, it's a big old banana. So I break it in half and I had, I hand it back to him. Oh, he flipped out on me. You broke his banana. I didn't know what it was at first. And, and then I think, oh, he wants the other one. So they give the other one. He's young. So then he's getting, and he's in the back and he's getting so pissed because he can't fix it. He's trying to, he's trying to put it back together. Oh, dude. So I'm driving and I'm trying to actually shove it back in the peel and then roll it back up. Get some tape. Yeah. It's anything that I'm having to hold in that's fallen over and stuff like that. And he's getting so pissed. And I'm like, and I'm getting frustrated. I get home like, why didn't you tell me he eats his banana in a specific way? By the way, that's not a, that's not a weird thing that Max does. All kids right around that age, like I know this because I have older kids. Yeah. If I give like a cookie or a treat to my son, I know better than to break it off or ask him because they freak out. If you give them something and it's different than what they're used to. Yeah. Ah, they hate it. Cause chaos. I mean, the only kind of definitive one is definitely has that like barrier. You know how used to have like, this food is right here in this court. Doesn't touch this one like ever. It's real particular about like if the foods touch or like the certain consistency. Yeah. Everett's a real picky eater. I think I've ate with him before. There's been a few times where you guys got to get him something else because and it's even like textures of stuff. Right. Yeah. Certain textures. He's like, can you just, he's out before I'm like, dude. And it's, it literally just keeps constantly testing if I can like sell the idea. Yeah. And it's like constantly trying to sell him the idea, eat more protein, some eggs, like he's finally coming around, but it's, it's just a constant battle. Were you picky like that as a kid? I was mainly with vegetables, like everything else. I ate so much meat. Like that was, I was just always about just eating meat. But yeah, because of the way it was prepared though, I didn't realize that like I would have enjoyed it a lot more if they, the microwave didn't exist. And, you know, like Velveeta cheese and your parents really bad cook, save your whole life like that. Oh, just like for vegetables were the worst. Like it was just everything and my dad only would eat iceberg lettuce and like carrot and celery. That was like what he considered salad. I'm like, so this is like basically water. It's not even fiber. Yeah, it's not even this is like you get water from this. It's as much nutrients as you got in that salad. But yeah, it's between that and everything was overcooked and like kind of rubbery. So I didn't really know until I actually worked in a restaurant, you know, in college. And I got exposed to other types of salads and like the way that they cook asparagus. And I got into broccoli finally, which I never thought I would because I used to hide it. I used to like sit there at the dinner table till everybody leave. You have to finish your vegetables. You can't leave this table. So I stay there till everybody left. And then, you know, at every now and then they come in. And so I ended up start to hide it like around the car. Yeah, I got caught because it rot. You know, like it was in like in the room, a snow glove. I found a snow glove in the corner and I like would stuff it with like broccoli and like cauliflower. And I threw food away once and that was like the worst, the worst beating. You know, so when I when I was a kid, because I grew up, because I think when you're a kid, you often to want what you don't have not realizing. Maybe maybe not appreciating. So I obviously had homemade cooked Italian dinners and they were for all intents and purposes incredible. Yeah. But because that's all I knew, I would be jealous when I'd go to my friend's house and they would have like pizza or like McDonald's or something like, oh my God, you're so lucky. This is like the best ever. I love McDonald's. You know, my mom made a pasta and meat and made a homemade bread. You know, it was hilarious. Yeah, speaking of kids, Aurelius is going through. I forgot about this for a second. But then it's like I looked it up. I'm like, oh yeah. So, you know how kids go through, like when they're real young, they go through what are called leaps where they go through sleep regressions or whatever. I forgot there's a big one right around two years old. So right right now was a transition to going to toddler. Yeah. So right now my son's struggling with sleep. Now he's cool because he stays in bed, but we see him on the monitor. He's just up and he's talking to stuffed animals or, you know, he's just hanging out or whatever. And but and he's also acting. Is he is he out of the crib? No, he's still in the crib. Oh, so you're still a crib. Okay, all right. But he's he's he's definitely testing things more. He's putting words and sentences together, three words, four words together. So and I looked it up and it's that his brain is making ridiculous connections right now, which means he's going to act a little, you know, he's going to act up a little bit. He's not going to be sleeping as well. You're going to have more challenges around eating or whatever. I'm like, oh, this is perfect timing for us to have an infant. So let's just I hope he's right in the middle of this. Why would Jessica has the baby? It'll be great. You know, I really didn't think I was going to really like those apps as much as I do. I think that they they give you a little piece as a parent as a parent. Like, I know they're not perfect and exactly accurate to everyone, but they do a pretty good job. They do of communicating what the leaps and different challenges at those phases of their life are that when you're going through a time, it's definitely helped Katrina and I even us communicating, you know, because you're all trying to figure it out that he's trying to figure it out. You as as a dad and a mom are trying to decide what is it. And when it's when they're struggling at your struggling and sometimes that can cause tension between all of you. You don't know what's going on. Is he sick? What's wrong? They can't communicate. So we've leaned on that many times where if there's a moment where we like feel friendly, you know, when was the last time we lose the app and seeing what makes it big? And it's almost always right. It's been for us. It's been that way for us. Dude, I look it up spot on. I'm like, damn, that's exactly because Jessica and I were sitting there and we're like, is he what's wrong? She's like, what's wrong with my kid? She's like, he's not. No, we don't have none of that. Yeah, she's like, he's acting up like something's not right. And I'm like, you know, he doesn't seem sick. Like what's going on? I'm like, you know what? Let me look it up and I looked it up. And one of the things it said on there, it said all the stuff that we were experiencing, but then also said you may notice now that your child all of a sudden is scared of the dark because at this age is when their imagination starts to run wild and they start to fear the dark. Sure enough, that's exactly what's happened with him. All of a sudden, if there's the dark living room over there and he goes, but no. And I'm like, why buddy? And he goes dark, no dark, no dark. I'm like, you don't want to go in there. No, I'm like, this is so weird. He's never scared before. And then you read the, you know, the app or whatever it's totally on point. Speaking of kids, someone in our forum posted this video of this kid, probably I want to say six or seven years old doing like a clean and snatch with the barbell. Good technique, good form. But the post was, do you guys think this is OK to have like a seven or eight year old lift weights? And I said, you know, and I commented underneath, this is huge misconception about strength training in kids. And I said, so long as a form and technique is good and they've got good control, it's as safe as playing sports. Like nobody would question a seven year old playing soccer or baseball or basketball. But for some reason, when they lift weights, everybody freaks out and it's the same rules. Like if they do it right and they're not overdoing it and the technique is good, it's not only perfectly safe, it's extremely valuable. Well, there was this misconception it was like stunt their growth or something. And yeah, we need to do more work in dispelling that because yeah, if they have proper technique and in good form and they really learn like sound fundamentals, that's going to carry through the rest of their life better than anything else that can learn. So it's like, why not start with that? I mean, you could make the case that it would actually have huge carryover into sport for them to at that young age. General strength training. Oh, my God. You can, especially if you learn technique and form on something like a snatch, like that that's a that's a very technical. And you know what the challenge is, is making your kid do it because it's boring. Yeah, right. It's not nearly as fun as playing a sport. So that's why most kids don't do it is that it's not fun to get, you know. So when I see a video like that, I'm like, oh, man. Yeah, you can tell there's a difference when a kid is doing it and they're into it and they're performing and they're trying to work on it versus a parent trying to tell their kid, hey, you need to squat and put in barbell. And that's not safe to me is loading the kid up with a barbell when they don't even want to be squatting. And you're trying to tell them to squat like that. Not a safe idea. Well, even more so since having the kids in gymnastics, I see like the benefit of doing a little higher risk movements, you know, and like in terms of like the stress of it, the complication of it, like they're learning how to operate their body and control their body at a higher level, which then translates to strength as well. Because now they have more stability and control in their movements. So if they go to pick something up, it's just like it's such a better looking exercise that they can perform. But yeah, it's still like it's stressful for me because there's a high potential for injury, flipping and then doing all these crazy stunts on that level. So what are we talking about? Isn't that funny how the myth just continues to permeate, you know, with strength training? Well, there was a massive myth around it, though. They're like used to think that it like they used to say it like it would damage your growth plates. Yeah. You know how much weight your kid would have to lift. Yeah, I know. But I mean, you hear that. I mean, it's hard to get rid of that thought. And we're also protecting our children. And so and they're jumping off the top of a, you know, a playground thing and hitting the ground is going to produce way more force on your growth plates than what your kid is going to squat with proper form. You know, I mean, that's just the fact. No, that's a good point. Now, along the lines of children and stuff, I read something the other day I thought was crazy, crazy, but makes a lot of sense. So there's some research that is starting to show a potential correlation. So you guys are familiar with SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome. Very sad, right? Your kid seems healthy or whatever. Then they just, you know, die in their sleep or whatever. And there's like, they're always trying to find connections like what is what's going on here, what's happening? Well, there may be a correlation between circumcision and SIDS. What? Little boy, little baby infants getting circumcised and then SIDS. And I read why they think that, well, first off, they showed that there's a correlation in the data. So then what they did is they said, okay, let's try and find a potential cause. I did not know this. So an infant only has about 11 ounces of blood and they may easily lose one to two ounces in circumcision. That's the equivalent of two to four blood donations for an adult. Oh, interesting. Wow. That's interesting. Isn't that great? So it looks like you don't even consider that. My son didn't bleed at all when he did his. Well, that's very true, but sometimes they do. Oh, so that. And so they're showing that. God, that seems like such a leap though. In that situation, they're showing that there may be some correlation. Well, there's literally only two options, either they're circumcised or they're not. So it's already a 50-50 shot that you can make that correlation. And I mean, and that just. Basically, there's a higher rate of SIDS. What would be more? Among circumcised boys and uncircumcised. Right. They're trying to figure out if it's that or if there's something else. Now, what would be more interesting to me is to show, because I'm sure there are different, like when the kid does get circumcised, there are ones that do probably bleed a lot more than others. And if you could show like, oh, these ones that we had, an abnormal amount of blood, they were 80% more likely to have SIDS than someone that either didn't have a circumcision or had little to no blood. Like that to me would be a better. Do you guys know how big of a, how many less children or babies get circumcised today than when we were kids? Huge difference. Yeah, I know it's a lot. They try and talk you out of it like immediately now. Well, when we were kids, it was like 80% of boys were circumcised. Now it's like, I don't know what it is, not 30, 40%. It's dropped considerably. Yeah, I think that's not still total. I think that's comparing like the generation now, they have gone from 80 to down 30% or what that. No, I think it's total 30, 40%. They get circumcised now. Whereas when we were kids, it was 80%. You think seven out of 10 kids are not circumcised now? If I'm not mistaken, maybe Doug can look it up what the trends are now. There's a lot of amateurs out there. Yeah, I don't think so, dude. I do know, I do know, and I have seen that it has completely changed from when we were little, it's a lot more, but I don't think it's that high, bro. It's a big swing. I don't think it's more than half. 64%. R? R. Okay, and when we were kids it was 80% if I'm not mistaken. That sounds more like it. It's still a big, it's a huge drop. Yeah, no, it's almost half now. Almost half or it's now almost a 50-50 split. You think correlate to the drop in religion and religious practices? Probably. Although, you know, so Jewish religion, I think it's the only one that says that you should be circumcised, right? Yeah, I think so. I think by proxy, though. Christians, it's not in the religion. It's not in the religion, but it tends to be the practice. It was part of the culture for a little while. Yeah, it's really, I don't know. Really interesting to me. But I mean, when I heard that with the blood and the data, I was like, oh, shit, that's crazy to me. Because one ounce of blood is nothing, but for an infant. Yeah, for an infant, yes. That makes sense, though. I mean, especially if you had a situation where they, well, like I said, I'd like to see the situations where they blood a little more than they're supposed to, and I wonder if there was like an even higher correlation with that. And also, you may, look, you also may be like, okay, kids who get circumcised also tend to have parents that do this. You know, that's why they need to find that. Yeah, that's why I set up the religion. So it's unknown. There's a correlation. Well, I'm just saying like in terms of it being, they suffocated, you know what I mean? Versus like it was something, other physiological thing that happened that caused the death. They've made some other correlations too, like not breastfeeding, a C-section, not sleeping skin to skin on mom or dad. You know, those are a few, but correlation is not- No, I'm always- It's causation. Correlation stuff for me is such a reach. But the theory behind it was interesting. I mean, it obviously points in a direction we should look into it. Pay attention. So I agree with that. Exactly. To get too hyped up. Dude, you guys want to hear a funny story that I read? That was just so holy. It happened back in 1908, but that was the funniest thing I'd read in a long time. So there was this dog, I got to find out where it was. I think it was in England. There was a dog in England that got an award because it saved this child from a river. So the dog went in, oh, Paris. Sorry, this was in Paris. So this dog, it was a newfoundland dog, heard a child screaming and the kid had fallen into the river Sien. The dog went in, found the kid, pulled the kid out and saved the kid. And so they celebrated and gave this dog a big ass steak. Oh, that's rad. As part of the celebration, right? That's cool. Not that long after, the dog saved another kid from the river. And then another kid from the river. You know what they found out? The dog was putting him in the river. The dog was putting him in the river. Hahaha. Good boy, good boy, true. Bad dog. Bad, bad dog. The dog, hey, the dog was waiting because he got a steak. He got a steak, you know? I think he just dropped something. Bro, that's a true story. Yes. I read it, like, yeah, dude. That's ridiculous. The dog got a steak, you know? So he's like... He straight trained him to fucking... Yeah, he's like, wait a minute. So he would see, so they found, they were watching him, like, what's going on here? Oh my God. There'd be kids playing next to the river and he'd push him in and then he'd jump in and save him, you know? Bad dog. That's the dog. Bad dog. That's hilarious. What do you do at that point? You get mad or you're like... No, that's your bad. Smart dog. No, exactly. The dog was trained. Do you train them to do that? They say that, right? Like, always. Like, when dogs misbehave or something like that, it's like you're getting trained or they're getting trained. That's the such thing as a bad dog. Either you're getting trained as the owner or you're training them as the owner. So, no, that's hilarious. I mean, that makes sense. I have one for you guys. So last night, Katrina and I were doing... I love John Deloni, our friend. Oh, he's such a good guy. His cards. He has all those cards. Oh, we use them all the time. So, Katrina and I will just be sitting there and we'll pull them out. And so, she pulled one out that I thought started a really funny conversation. So, I'm going to ask you guys. So, what is a white lie that you told that actually ended up getting you in big trouble or causing a big problem? Oh, that's... I got to think about that. Think of a white lie that you did and then ended up backfiring probably pretty big or ended up being bigger than what you anticipated. I can't think off the top of my head right now. Do you have a good one? Yeah, I'll tell you what happened. I'll tell you the one I shared with her. I mean, what I love about these things, it really does promote having to think. It does. It's a good discussion. Like, hmm, let me think of a time where I'm sure that's happened. I'm sure I thought, there's all no big deals lying about this and then it was really bad because I did. So, for me, the one that jumped out was when I was in high school and so, I'm a junior or a senior and no, it was a senior. And Friday nights after football games, we would go to the party and it was, and I'm sure you guys have done this before too, where you tell your parents that you're spending the night at Justin's house. Justin tells his parents he spent the night at Adam's house. So, we're all lying about whose houses we're spending at so we can go out and be out at the party all night long. So, my buddy Justin, my cousin Travis and myself all did the little trifecta lie about so everybody's staying at each other's house, right? And that night, we got in a car accident driving from one party to another party and on top of that, we were driving my cousin's uncle's classic Mustang. Oh, I remember the story. And I was driving it and I actually had had a beer. So, I had one beer already and I was so paranoid that I was gonna get in trouble for driving that my best friend Justin, who was in the backseat, who hadn't started drinking yet, took the fall and said that he told the cops that he was driving this whole situation. And so, of course, this one tiny little small lie ended up being this massive lie that not only did we lie to our parents so I got in crazy trouble for that. We lied to my uncle about who was driving so he was absolutely pissed like, who the hell is this random kid who's driving? Not only did... And then my best friend had to get up in court and lie that he was the driver and explain how he got into the accident when it was really me who was driving. So, you know, all from this tiny little, oh, yeah, we're spending the night over each other and it worked like all the time and we just thought nothing of it. It was no big deal. I can think of one. I don't know why I just thought of this, but in high school... It's not really a white lie. It's just a lie. That wasn't real. Exactly. That's a white lie. It's like, come on. Like, you're spending the night... It's kind of semantics. We were spending the night somewhere. I got plenty of lies, dude. I'll open up about that. I'll give you a white lie, okay? There was this kid in high school and he was singing one time by the bathroom or whatever, and I kind of made like a comment and he goes, oh, you like how he's singing? He's like, I've been practicing or whatever, and I felt bad. He sounded like shit, right? Yeah, yeah. You're pretty good. Yeah, you're good, dude. You're good, right? It's like a total white lie. He's at the school talent thing. He signed up to speech. He got up and he fucking sang. Dude, he sucked. And he sucked. He said, that felt so bad. His sound was popular and he's a popular kid that he was kidding. I should have told him afterward. I should have told him the truth. Like, no, you sucked, dude. You should never see in front of people ever. Oh, my God. That's the only one I could think of. That's the top of my head. Yeah. Oh. So many lies for you. Is there some really bad ones? Is there like acceptable ones? Well, the main lie that I think always sticks out to me and is one that almost got me kicked out of my house completely, which, you know, was something I was kind of like fighting anyway because I was like off to college and I'm like, what do you mean kick me out of the house? I don't even live here anymore. You know, but this was just like a principal thing. Like me and my dad always fought about tattoo and just about like, you know, different passages and like, so they leaned on the heavy conservative side. I was like, you know, what inspired me with, and you guys know how I'm into all these crazy weird bands and all that is because it was like an outlet for me. And there was like a sub genre within, you know, the church where I could like feel like I'm kind of a rebel. You know, and so I was like all drawn to tattoos. So I was in a Christian college and I actually went with some of my friends and was just like, you know what, whatever, I'm gonna get my favorite band of tattoo to my arm. Like it's, I'm on my own. I'm living on campus, like whatever dude. I know my dad's, we hate this, no big deal. And then I get it done and we come back for Thanksgiving and like it's kind of poking out of my shirt, like right here. And my brother of course sees it at first and he wants to throw me under the bus and roast me. And I'm just like, like, oh, so I just, I had some like markers and I was like drawing other stuff on my arm. So it looked like it was all just scribble. You didn't think that out. They're gonna find out pretty soon. It was like, it was like, go to go with like henna tattoo or I was just going to go with like, I was just doodling, you know. And so I was like, made this whole like crazy stupid design on my arm with like a magic marker. And so anyways, like it just, he came to me this kind of skeptical look like, is there more, is there more there? I'm like, no, no, no, it's nothing. And then he found out and he pulled my arm all the way up and then it was like, and then we had slapped across your face. Yeah, we had a moment and we had to work through it, the counseling, all that stuff. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Here we are today. Hey. Everything's fine. You got that big of trouble? We hired a therapist son. Yeah. Holy shit. That's a good time. What about you Douglas? It was a big one. Yeah, I'm sitting here trying to think of one and I'm having a hard time. I feel like any white lie I've said is probably more like what Sal did is like complimenting somebody on somebody's fishing for a compliment. Those are good, those are funny white lies. It's like, yeah, it's like, you know, somebody asking, do I look fat? Oh, no, no, you don't, you know. So I think that's probably what I've done. I don't know if there's been a negative consequence because of it, but... You didn't tell that to a past girlfriend and then she put 50 more pounds on because you told her she looked all right. In fact, you're actually too skinny. Oh, really? Damn it. Yeah, does this look good on me? Oh, yeah, it looks great. You know what, you don't have any white lies at them because you either lie or you don't. I don't think you do a white lie. If someone asks you a question, make it feel nice, you'll just tell them. Do I look fat in this? Yes. No, you're right. I guess that to me seemed like a white lie then because we had done it so many times. It was kind of like the common behavior, like, hey, you know it's Friday night, you say you're at my house, we all say that and then we sleep wherever we end up and it was something we always did. So I thought it was kind of, I don't know if that's categorized as a white lie, but it's like, to me it was so no big deal but turned into be like one of the biggest deals ever. You have to be careful because you can bite you back. I remember telling one of my friends' moms, I'd eat over there sometimes. She made this dish and I'm like, oh, it's so good. Of course she made it every fucking time when I went there and I didn't like it. Yeah. So I had to eat it every single time. I've learned not to do that. You know what, here's one, it's not really a white lie, it's more of like a, this is more of like a, like I didn't say anything. There's this woman that I used to work with and she said my name, and this happens every once in a while, she said my name Saul, instead of Sal. Sometimes it happens when someone says Saul and I'll correct them. Oh, you didn't correct me. And I'll say no, no, no, it's Sal. And then she kept saying Saul. And I said no, no, no, it's Sal. And then she kept saying Saul. And I stopped correcting her. Well, anyway, I knew this one for like two years. Never told her by, I've never fixed it. Yeah. So I just, I was Saul to her. And then one day there were other people talking and she's like, Sal? She's like, is that how you say your name? Like, yeah. She's like two years later. That reminds me. Yeah. Cause so this one client I had just, for some reason in her head, I told her I played college football and so she's, you know, I was like, first was at San Jose State, then I went to Trinity and for some reason she thought like I had said organ, like like a long time ago. And I'm just like, yeah, yeah, whatever. And like I reaffirmed it for her one time, not even like catching it that she said organ instead of like, and so like later on she's like introducing me to somebody there. But did you have a Mr. Yeah. Like naming the coach and like other players. And I'm just like, yeah. And I'm like, wait, what school do you think I went to? Yeah. Those are good, those are good white lies. Well, you know, it's a common white lie that I do is if I, if somebody knows me, I'm so bad. Sometimes we'll faces and names like they'll come up. Hey, to remember that, whatever. Like, yeah, yeah. I don't remember anything. I have no idea who you are. No, anybody was going to write. You can say anything. And I'll say, yeah, cause it's uncomfortable for me. I don't want to be like, no, I don't remember you. And to do the back and forth. I just be like, yeah, I remember you. It's a common one. That's a terrible one. Anyway. I got this cool article to change gears here on AI generated music. Did you guys know that the recording industry association in America is actually trying to figure out legislation to protect against this in the future? Explain that again. So AI artificial intelligence. So basically to protect, I know we knew this was coming. How do you protect? Let's just say like someone who has such an iconic voice, like a Michael Jackson, right? From AI reproducing it themselves. And then you selling it as if, because it's, it's not him anymore. It's now this artificial intelligence, but they can do such a good job of mimicking. They do a blend of that. Right. Like James Brown and they just kind of mash it all. Yeah. Cause these, right now we have these, what are called AI music generators that'll, that'll, that are able to make music. And so they're like, holy shit. So basically what they said is they said, Yeah, what a trip. So they issued a statement condoning the use of AI music generators. So online services that use AI to extract or rather copy the vocals, instrumentals, or some portion of the instrumentals from a sound recording to generate master or remix a recording to be very similar to or almost as good as reference tracks by select, well-known sound recording artists or infringing on its members rights by making unauthorized copies of our members works. Do you know what this reminds me of self? It reminds me of the designer steroid market. So can you not see that this is going to be the hustle of the future is to take a hit song and then to use artificial intelligence to change it by a molecule, change it by a tune, just a little, like you remember when vanilla ice went through that whole thing with the original people. Was it sting? No. I forget who was who the original, the original. Remember that clip? Yeah. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. And he changed it. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, it was enough to keep. By the way, him explaining it, remember there was an interview where he was trying to explain why he wasn't. Yes, yes, yes. He's like, no, no, no. Mine goes, there's his dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Mine is dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. And it's not exactly the same. Yes. Ding, ding, ding, ding. That's the way theirs goes. Ours goes ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. That little bit he changed. It's not the same. Why? Yes. That's what made me think of it. So that is going to be. Was it Shignite that like came and shook him up about it? Held him over the balcony. Like over the balcony? Yeah. That was Vanilla. I see you did that too. Yeah. You did that to him too. I know he did to multiple guys. I don't remember it was Vanilla. I was kind of his move. But okay, do you get where I'm going though with this? Yeah. Like that is going to be, imagine what a hustle that is going to be. And it's still going to, it's probably going to be able to get through all these loopholes because no matter how much they legislate and protect and say, okay, you can't have a part of song. You can't have this. Can't have this. All you would need is someone to just barely change. You know what? A little bit of everything with that. And then what's to stop them? It's crazy because I mean, that's every artist is inspired by other music. Totally. And that's, and you're kind of brought up. It's, it's a weird thing because like I, I don't know. I kind of got back into like just making my own music and sounds and everything. And like you, you start to remember, you're like, oh my God, this is from that song. And then you're like, you try to like self-regulate on some level. It's like, this sounds way too similar to like something I've heard in this, but then it ends up blending a lot. So it's really hard to like, unless it's like super obvious, I feel like it, whatever, it's a creative interpretation. You know what though? The days of, I mean, they're trying to fight the inevitable at some point. Yeah. AI is going to generate brand new music. It's just going to happen. And it's going to, it's going to, because it's AI, it's going to figure out what lights up the brain the best, what produces the best serotonin and dopamine hits. And what's got the most catchy, like what makes things catchy, it's going to all become math and formulas. So AI is going to make music that's going to crush. Okay. I agree. But I also still, I actually think this is going to elevate. Okay. The music industry. And hear me out. Like I think that you're right. And I think that that is going to be a big portion, let's say of the music space. It's going to be this AI generated type shit. Right. And I say shit because what it won't have is that emotion and feeling and like energy. From like fucking brilliant people that like pour their heart into the song. And they do it. And I think that's what you're going to have like mostly AI stuff because they don't, it'll solve the basic club bouncing around music that you don't really, but then the, the, the, the like elite elite will still be able to separate themselves. I don't know. That's what I think. I don't know because conversation to me. Cause like I, I've noticed recently the music I'm most drawn to, it's not the high produced music. We've been getting so much of that over the years to where everything's in the recording studio. It's like everything's tracked on track, on track, on track, but like, there's not a lot of garage bands. There's not a lot of like just, you know, somebody with an instrument and then a cappello type stuff. Yeah. But just like raw. See, that's the thing though. We think, and maybe we're right, maybe we're wrong, that there's a magic involved, but maybe these AI machines can break down the formula and literally make something. So I think they will. Okay. So how long until there is a music is no longer making money because everybody has their own. They'll still be. Okay. So AI will be able to break down the formula of like, what be with what time in between to what pitch to like this to get like the, to invoke this type of feeling that we know what to be like. It's going to cover 80%. But then there's going to be that gap for that, that magical special voice or person that, and it will only be in that moment. It won't be pre-recorded track, edited up stuff. It'll be that. Improv. Yes. You know what it's going to be. That will be drawn to and we will be able to, and we as humans. Because we'll pick up on our heart beats. That's right. We will be able to sense the difference between that and that and that will make that more valuable because it's so rare. But for the most part, we listened to a lot of the stuff. I agree with you for different reasons, not for that because I think the computers will be able to figure that out. I think it'll be because of the story behind it. For example, classic cars. Okay. If classic cars didn't have the story behind them in the history, in reality, they're just pieces of shit. They are like driving an old car. You can't separate them. They're rough. I agree. You can't separate them. It's going to be the story. You're going to know the story of that person, what they've went through, what they came through, and when you're listening to them sing. And it's a human. And it's a person. And then you're going to connect to how they are coming through in the song. Right. And they won't be able to replace that. Right. And that's why you don't elevate the music industry because now all these fucking artists that are all auto tuned and they just do, they rip somebody else's music and make it kind of, and like are just like, they're talented at doing that shit, but they're not like this pure. It's going to be this kind of shelf life. It's like the same reason why I like old dungeon gyms. Not because their equipment's better. It's usually not better. It's just feeling in the, in the story behind the gym that I'm in. You know, so I like the classic car example. Because when you ride in one, unless you appreciate class, it's really just a shitty car. Like it's bumpy. It's loud. You got to do this to open the window. And turn it real well. It breaks down all the time. Just driving my dad's car for hardest nights. And then like pulling up just because of the elevation and coming off of the freeway. And then like idling just, just too long. And the fan didn't kick on properly. Like it was, I'm in this plume of steam. And it's just like, oh yeah, that happens. I got to switch gears here. Cause I want to ask you guys a question about personal training certifications. I think that there, I think a lot of them are missing out on some big, big components. What do you guys think is one of the main things that they miss out on? Well, I'll tell you the number one thing for me. It's what, it's what, it's why I had success as a manager at 24 Fitness was because nobody was, nobody was teaching these trainers how to build a business. That's it. Yeah. They teach you the training part, but nothing. I tell this, I actually talk about this when I do like the NCI coaching. And I tell them that I was not a very good trainer. I had many trainers that worked for me that were far more intelligent, that had way more experience. There were better trainers than me. Just when it came down to nutrition, biomechanics, anatomy, physiology, they just, they were on another level of experience and knowledge than I was. But what I saw was the ability to help these trainers build a business because none of the certifications, the degrees they all had were not in that. You know, it was, and they had no clue on really how to scale and how to, even how to like set out a business plan into like a whole like second half of education. Yes. You know, there was like that whole time period where I was like, man, I wish I was doing this at the same time of learning what I was learning in school in terms of like kinesiology and all that. The application part just wasn't there, man. I was, I'm a very hands on, and it's a hands on business. If you can't build a business, you can't help people. You can't train people with fitness. This is, so NCI has, is a big part of what they do with their certifications is teaching coaches and trainer how to build business, how to make money doing this. So you could actually do this for a living, and that happens to be the most popular part of their certification. That's the part that most of the coaches and trainers also make money. Because nobody else, nobody else does it. Well, and what, the reason why that's so important is many trainers that work for me that were brilliant and talented didn't make it because they couldn't run a business. That's right. I mean, you think when you get into the space that, oh, if I'm just the most educated, the most knowledgeable, I have all the answers for everybody, and people like me, I'm gonna all be the most, one of the more successful trainers. And unfortunately it doesn't work that way. You quickly find out that there's a lot of marketing and selling and, you know, learning how to organize, set a business plan, set goals for yourself. Like there's a lot more that goes into being very successful as a trainer. And if you're all focused on just the educational and you miss out on that business part, many times you won't make it. Majority of times. Yeah. Check this out. Home gyms are awesome, but they take up a lot of space and the quality often isn't that great. Well, there's a company called PRX, Performance, that makes commercial grade workout equipment that is also designed to maximize space in your home. For example, they have a squat rack that literally folds up into the wall and it comes off the wall by about four inches. Okay, four inches off the wall. That's how much space it takes. Then when you're ready to use it, you pull it off the wall and unfolds. Super stable. I've loaded up to 600 pounds on this thing and it's actually more stable than the squat racks I've used at the commercial gym. It's incredible, but they have lots of equipment. They have plates and barbells and dumbbells and cables and all kinds of great stuff for your home. Go check this company out. Go to prxperformance.com forward slash mind pump. And on that link, you'll get 5% off their products. First caller is Simon from Manitoba. Simon, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey there. First of all, just want to say really enjoy listening to you guys, listening to your podcasts and everything. It's helped me a lot in forming a solid workout routine. And just to kind of give all the background. So I've been training full body three times a week for at least two years now and I've learned a lot of workout stuff from y'all and incorporated that into my workout routine. Recently I heard Sal mention Eugene Sandow and he was an 1800 strongman. Now I'm a big strongman fan. I love watching Brian Shaw, Eddie Hall and all those guys. So having to hear that you, that there was a strongman in the 1800s got me curious. So I started doing some research on Eugene Sandow was very impressed by his strength and his physique and his amazing mustache. Knowing that he also did full body workouts gave me a confidence that I'll be able to reach my strength goals with full body workouts as well. So recently I decided that I wanted to train and work out like an 1800 strongman. The question being, what are the fundamental building blocks for training like an 1800 strongman or is even training like an 1800 strongman a good idea? Wow. I love this question because first off to answer that last part, yes, it's a great idea. You got to consider sometimes where you get where people get their advice from and a lot of the fitness advice that we hear out there in modern times comes from people that are very different from us. Both genetically, they tend to be pharmaceutical enhanced and so it's hard to apply their training principles to let's say if you're like most people like 99% of us kind of average, people in the late 1800s, early 1900s, they didn't even have supplements. I mean, let alone anabolic steroids and how they looked was not nearly as important as what the kind of performances they could display and how they built a living. And old time strongmen are different than strongmen today. Strongmen today, it's a regulated sport, there's specific lifts, there's competitions. Back in those days, they would do these performances and then they would challenge each other to different lifts. So you'd get like one strongman, he'd be really popular in one area and then there'd be another strongman from another area or maybe from Europe and then they'd cross paths and then they'd do these competitions to see who was stronger or sometimes they'd wrestle or arm wrestle or they would do a particular lift. So it's really cool history and really, really cool to learn about their training methodologies and there's books, there's books that were written by them or about them that you can find. I'm trying to think of the website where you can find some of these books. I think it's called... Talk about this all the time. I think it's called Old Time Strongman or something like that. And you'll find some of their... There's another book called Dinosaur Training which is a more modern book but it borrows on some of their training principles but you can narrow it down to something like this. So they trained typically three days a week. They trained lifts and not body parts so they didn't think about shoulders, chest, arms, that kind of stuff. It was more about like, let me get good at these particular feats of strength. They didn't train to failure. In fact, most of those books from back then talked about training hard but making sure that you could train hard again in a couple days or not over-exerting yourself. They would say stuff like that. So kind of like what we talk about where you train intensely but you're not out there maxing out and killing yourself every single time. They did lots of isometrics, partials and holds. So if somebody was going to perfect an old time lift like a bent press, they might start by getting underneath a weight and seeing if they could just hold it straight up or doing some kind of a partial lift to build their strength up. They practiced lifts meaning they would practice the lift over and over again rather than like training to get fatigued or tired. They ate diets that were typically heavy and full-fat cream, milk, eggs. A cholesterol they would add in there. Yeah, lots of meat, that kind of stuff. They would throw in carbohydrates in theirs well too but they would talk about eggs, meat and full-fat cream and organ meats. Do you remember how many strongman type lifts that we built in MapStrong? I know we have the circus press in there. I know we have a windmill in there. What else do we have? Do we do a bent press in there? I don't know if we did a bent press. I don't think so. No, we didn't do a bent press. Yeah, they were really big on overhead anything. So any kind of overhead press that was like the ultimate display of strength. Rounded back lifting. Yeah, like lifting these other. Hip thrust type lifts. They would call it like a hip hoist. There were a lot of competitions to see. One of them would lift like a horse, you know, in that kind of a lift. And it was just really about what you could do. Eugene Soundo's good. You could look up Hackensmith. I think his last name was George Hackensmith. That's where they got the hack machine from. What was the one they did with the barbell where they would start on one side and then get under it? Two hand anyhow. Yeah, anyhow. Anyhow, that's right. Two hand anyhow. That's a great lift. I'm trying to think of another. The mighty Adam, I think it was this guy's name and he was like a small dude that was like super strong. So really cool. You could find information on these guys and, you know, train the way that they did. And like I said, there were no supplements. There were no steroids. And it was, it was about competing and who could lift more. Some of them developed bodybuilder like physiques for the day. Like Eugene Soundo is the statue that you'll win for the Mr. Olympia. But some of them, you know, were just kind of thick. A lot of them. I mean, very impressive looking if you, if you look at some of those old pictures. So I think. Would you consider Charles that was one of them? I know he was big in isometrics. He was later. Yeah, he was later on. Yeah. I think the, I think the question that probably Simon's trying to get at right now is like, how would you program, because a lot of these are, are not traditional lifts where you fatigue a specific muscle and there's more things like bent press and Turkish getups and these, how would you guys program that? Or do we have something that would look similar to that and you would just maybe exchange some of these exercises? It's like skills training. I would say like even if, we kind of did this in our small kettlebell program that we did with the kettlebell for aesthetic where it was like, you had days where it was just devoted to skills. You pick a certain type of a lift, you refine it. You don't put a lot of intensity around it, but it's all about the frequency of the practicing. And so I would, I would do that with especially like a bent press, you know, any, any of these like real unique lifts, like you just need a lot of exposure to it. Honestly, the program that we have that mimics old classic strongman type training the most is actually maps on a ball, especially phase one. Even though the exercise is a more traditional in there like bench press and rows and overhead press and squats, the way especially phase one was laid out was heavily inspired by the way that they trained back in those days. Our map strong program is more on modern strongman training, also very effective. I mean, it'll also build incredible strength. But I mean, the principles that I gave you is really what you want to kind of stick to with your training. Do you have any of our programs by the way, Simon? No, I got nothing. Okay. I just kind of recently started listening to y'all. So I'm just kind of, yeah, living all the things. I say starting with starting with anabolic. Have ducks in him anabolic so he has that so you can see kind of how it's laid out. And then even though he's looking at really, really old man, I think strong will be a potential one for you to go into. I think strong and performance because performance is so movement focused that even though performance is more about modern athletics, it's going to make you better if you want to practice odd lifts. So I would say anabolic to start with and then you got strong and performance later on. Probably pretty good. I like that. Does that help answer your question a little bit? Yeah. Just because like what I'm doing right now is with my full body stuff. I'm doing like every, like one, each body part gets an exercise and I do three of those. And sometimes that goes for a whole hour more. So I'm just like, I made it up on the spot just kind of like by listening to y'all and looking up stuff. But I don't know like it's been working, but I don't know if it's the greatest thing. So it's working because you've got the big rocks out of the way. What you just said is really basic, but fundamental. But maps anabolic is, I think you'll get blown away by the results you get from that program because it's much more specifically, you know, program. So we'll send that over to you, Simon. Follow that. Oh sweet. Yeah. And then dinosaur training. Check out that book on, you can buy that on Amazon. I think it's got some pretty cool stuff. Okay. I'll look up dinosaur training then. All right. Cool. Thank you so much. You got it. Yeah. I remember when I discovered like the old books of the way that they used to. Oh, I forgot to tell them. They did lots of grip training. I forgot to say that. Oh yeah. You know, when I found those old books, it was like, you know what I felt like? You know, in the movies when they're like looking for like an ancient book with wisdom and it's like, I felt like that. Like I opened them. I'm like, oh my God, this is so all these secrets. All these, like we forgot. It's funny. You came to that, to that place through a different pathway, but I came there through unconventional interests. Like, so I was into all the unconventional lifts and then it just kind of like traces it back to some of those old time strong men who would perform these feats of strength and hold like benches of people over their head. Yeah. You know, cool shit like that. Like I was always into that. I wonder if there's a big enough need in our audience to actually write something like that. Because we, I mean, I know we have things that like you said. Maps old time. That is literally like all those lifts. Forget anything else. It's like literally designed. Bro, that would be so fun to write. I love it. I would do it. I don't know if there'd be a market demand for it. Yeah. I don't know if there's enough of a demand for it. It's the first time we've ever had somebody call on and actually specifically want something just like that. It would be fun to write. And I just think there's tried to sprinkle little bits of it in. I know. That's, I was like thinking of all the program. Like, well, we have put this there, but I'm like, damn, that's like in that one. And then we have that in performance. It's like, we have bits of all that stuff in different programs, but we haven't like written one that's just for that. I mean, if you look at some of the pictures of these guys, like Doug, I don't know if you could look up George Hackinsmith, but if you look at some of the pictures of these guys from back then and you, they were impressive. And then you realize like they had full-time jobs. They probably worked manually. They weren't dying. They weren't even dying to be lean. They didn't do anything. I don't know. It wasn't even important to them. And they, you know, it was like a pastime that they would do. They didn't take supplements and you look at these guys and you're like, holy, and then you hear the feats of strength. Like, I think Eugene Sandow did like a bent press with 300 pounds. Click on that top left one, Doug. I mean, look, first of all, Yeah, he's a beast. Look at this guy. I mean, he just, he looks like a moose. Look at the size of the guy's neck. He ain't all shredded, but he's a beast. I mean, just, you know, and like I said, the feats of strength are just so impressive. Next caller is Jeff from California. What's up, Jeff? How can we help you? Hey, hey, I just want to say thank you to Kermit, Pudgy to Rip, the dazzled badge and the Doug. You've been listening for a while. You went back to the old one. Oh, Gene, dude. Yeah. Well, I started listening here in the bat soup disease time, but I've listened to so many of that. I've had to go, I had to go dig deep into the old ones. I liked Jeff a lot already. You're a good man. So my question is, I wouldn't got my testosterone and everything tested. And it came out to like 360, which I thought was pretty low. And before I went and did like TRT or whatever, I want to ask you guys what you thought about supplementing for this before I got the TRT route, specifically like, what is it? I'm going to screw these names up so bad, but like Long Jack or Tongue Cat Ali. Yeah, Tongue Cat Ali. And yeah, Fennu Greek, Fagoi, or Fagoi Agrestis, Sheila G. You know, supplements like that, like what am I going to get the most benefit from for raising my testosterone? Because I want to perform on my best, just like anybody else. Okay. So all the ones you mentioned have some clinical evidence. I've actually used all of them, but before we get to supplements, there's a couple questions I have. Do you know what your baseline total testosterone was? Before, in other words, you said it was, it sounds like total testosterone, 390 something now. Do you know what it was when you were, let's say in your early 30s or anything like that? I don't, this is the first time I've ever checked it. And it was a, it came out at 360 or 361 or something like that. And, and, oh, and I wanted to add it like, you know, my sleep is good, my diet's good, my protein's up. I take ashwagandha every day. You know, I'm like, like I said, I've been listening to long, long enough to where I've checked all those boxes. And yeah, just when I got the total testosterone of 360, I was like, well, that seems pretty damn low. And, and, yeah, I just feel like I've, I've kind of hit like a wall with training and everything. And I've done, I started with performance because I'm a carpenter and a rock climber. So that seemed the most logical. And then I went on to aesthetics. And then I did anabolic and now I'm back on performance. And all the, all the weights that I started with prior with performance, I'm doing the same weight. And it doesn't feel like I'm able to increase. Like I'm not maybe getting stronger. Did you notice any like recent changes in energy strength and libido or is this, is it kind of, do you feel like you've just got low testosterone now? If you look back, are you able to make that speculation? I would say it's probably been the same. Maybe. So here's a tough thing with now your total testosterone is definitely on the lower end of what the, what would be the scale that they would use as a reference. Especially for a guy with good diet and lifting too. Yes. The challenge is this, is that it's usually, you know, if it gets really low, then that's different. But if it's low plus symptoms, we don't know what your baseline was. So that kind of make it difficult to judge. And also androgen receptor density plays a bigger role than total testosterone. So they did this study on men to see how much testosterone plays a role in building muscle. And they had some men with like 500, some men with 900, you know, total and the men with higher androgen receptor density had a bigger impact, meaning, you know, more, more available androgens. So, so just testosterone levels alone is kind of hard to read unless it gets too low. And, but if it's accompanying by symptoms, then you kind of want to look at that. Now supplements can help, but it's not going to make typically a huge impact. There's a company that, we just had somebody on the show talking about testosterone boosters. And you can find it online stronger by science. He works with a company called Joy Mode. And he went through their products and basically approved, you know, whatever they're selling or not or and help them formulate it. So I trust his opinion because he's one of the go-to guys. So Joy Mode, I think would have a good testosterone booster. But you know, what's that going to do? 30% raise maybe 20, 30%. So it's not going to make like this huge boost. So I could, you could try the supplement. You could also test to see if you have any nutrient deficiencies like vitamin D or zinc. Although Joy Mode, I believe has zinc in it and some other nutrients that sometimes are low on men that can make a big impact. So I would take it for 30 to 60 days. I would make sure I got really good sleep. I'll reduce my volume and intensity with my training and then get retested, see where you're at. And if it's not that much higher, then you could talk to a hormone specialist. And there's two routes. One is to go exogenous testosterone. The other is to try medications to boost your testosterone then to see if it'll stay that way. Like HCG. Yeah, like HCG. I mean, he's really, where you're at, Jeff, is actually really similar to where I was at not that long ago, right? So he's similar in age. Naturally, my mind was actually two-something. So I was a little bit lower than you were. I did all the Oshogon. I did the Tunkat Alley. That's right. I did all that stuff. And I did feel a little bit better from it. Not very much though. Not like where I had felt in my 20s and early 30s. And so I did that for almost a year trying to bring it up naturally. And I felt like I made a little bit of a movement to Sal's point. Like I felt like it got a little bit better, but it still didn't feel like I used to feel like. And that's what made me go eventually to TRT. And then of course, once I got on TRT, it was a game changer. I think a lot of times, too, people, especially in the competitive body build and lifting world, they say TRT, and then they're on these crazy, super physiological doses where you don't need that much. I take a very mild dose, but it makes me feel absolutely amazing. And so if you've exhausted all your resources as far as trying to do it naturally and you've been consistently doing that and you feel like diets in check, sleeps in check, I mean, you're a classic example of somebody that I would push in the direction of our MP hormones. I would go that route and at least get a consultation by the doctor and have him talk to you. Some blood work done. Yeah, because you're over 40. You've got kids already. You're in that age group where if TRT is what you need, then it's all good. Versus like you're in your 20s, you don't have kids. That can be a little bit more of a risk. We just had somebody the other day that was like 27 and actually said kind of the same thing. And we actually pushed him over to Cabral and said go do all this testing first. Especially when you're that young. Yeah, but at 41 and healthy and eating right and sleeping right. Yeah, I would do like 60 days, Jeff, of trying some of the test boosters, making sure that you drop your volume, you're eating adequate calories, that your sleep is good, you're getting sunlight, doing all this stuff and then see how much it changes if at all. And then from there, and you could work with the doctors at mphormones.com throughout this process and then you can get tested again. And then you could try, like if you don't want to go on testosterone, you could try, and this again, this is with doctors approval and supervision, but I think they do like Clomid and HCG and sometimes that does it. And then guys testosterone's up and then they can maintain it. And other times they need to go on testosterone. So it's not as easy as like just do this I think there's a step-by-step process unless you just want to go on testosterone because you're like, I don't want to try all that and I just want to feel better in which case, then again, you could tell the doctors at mphormones.com. Yeah, yeah. As far as the supplements and of course the Eric Trexler recommendation, do I just try any of these or specific ones or just kind of keep it simple? So the company that he specifically works with is Joy Mode and their website, Doug wrote it up, it's usejoymode.com forward slash mind pump and then they have a testosterone booster there that he designed. Just try that one first. Yeah, try it and then get another test and then see what kind of an impact it has. And most importantly, how you feel to be honest with you because one of the things I've learned from the doctors from all the testing back and forth I've done is he's like, you can sometimes see somebody who, their numbers will elevate to say four, say we bring yours up to 450, but if you still feel like your energy level's low, your strength is down, if the symptoms are still there, he would say that you're still considered low because it's such a wide range. So really how you feel, where you're at, that's what I would be trying to judge that more than actually a number, right? Because you might even be able to take these supplements and get it up to say 450, but if 450 doesn't make you feel good, then I still think you're a potential candidate for this. And honestly, the thing that would make the biggest impact, supplement-wise, would be a nutrient deficiency that you filled. So if your zinc is low and then you take zinc, you'll see a big boost in testosterone. Same thing with other, you know, other denutrients, right? And I know JoyMode has those like boron, zinc, I think it has in there as well, which if those are low, magnesium I think. So I would, you know, you could try it, and then if it fills a nutrient gap within 45 to 60 days, you should feel and see a pretty big difference. If not, then like I said, you could go the other route and kind of, because you're in that age group now where it would make sense and the health benefits of taking exogenous testosterone to get you in a mid to high level versus being low is far outweighs the risks of taking testosterone and all that stuff. So, you know, there's a myth around that. And if your testosterone is low, there's a lot of health risks associated with that. So, but that's where I'd say. Right, exactly. You know, one last idea, and since we didn't give you anything, Jeff, I want to send you MAPS 15. And this was something that kind of blew me away a little bit. And you might be this guy because you look like you're really fit. You probably train pretty hard. You also are a construction worker, so you're doing maybe even scaling back a little bit on the amount of volume you're training. You just see what happens. Yeah, and just see what happens. You might see it. So I'm going to send it to you for free and for fun, maybe run it for a month while you're doing some of these things and see how that makes you feel. I was blown away by how much kind of reducing my volume of training made a big difference. So considering you have kids, you're a construction worker, and on top of that you live pretty intensely, that may make a difference too. I'll tell you what, Jeff, just to give you some hope, I've had several clients in this situation in the past. There's one guy in particular, remember, he seemed to be doing everything right and we scaled his volume way down. We had him supplement with nutrients that if he had a deficiency, you know, could cause a problem. His testosterone went from the 200 to the 700s. Okay, so that was a dramatic difference. Now, the reason why it went so high is because he had some nutrient deficiencies and he was over-trained, he just didn't realize it. And once we made those changes, it was a huge swing in his testosterone. So I've seen numbers dramatically change when there's a real reason to it being low in the first place. So just to give you some hope, because sometimes that can happen. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I definitely like fall the program to a T and so it's, you know, could be a lot of volume on top of what I'm already doing. Yeah, I'll try out that 15, see how that runs. You got, how old are your kids, by the way? Seven and nine. Okay, that's a good age. I was gonna say, if you had teenagers, maybe that's why you're testosterone. I got teenagers at home. It's driving me crazy. Pull your ear out. Yeah, you know, I just want to be, I want to just kick ass, take names, you know? I had everything that I do. So, you know, I'm trying to optimize. That's all. Thanks, yeah. Thanks for calling in, Jeff. Yeah, I appreciate you guys. Thank you. You got it, Jeff. Yeah, great suggestion, Adam. Yeah, yeah, you know, I just, I mean, as experienced as I am, and knowledgeable, quote unquote, I am, I constantly, slowly over train, like little by little, I bring myself to that. Well, you know, I mean, I'm looking at it too. Like he's got, you could see, he's got the forearms and shoulder, like he's above you. Yeah, he's got some base. Yeah, yeah. So he's definitely a serious lifter and probably been doing kissing. And then I started thinking, oh, you know what, kids, low tests a little bit. He's doing, you know what, maybe the dude's just doing, the combination of a slight nutrient deficiency combined with a lot of volume of training. Over to the over training. Yeah, with all and just so that potentially, now that being said, you know, I know that we are, we're trying to be as politically correct and we don't ever want to come off like we're, you know, pushing people to go take, you know, testosterone. We should, we will always be balanced. Yeah, we'll always stand by that, going the natural offers, but I will say this, he's a classic example of, if he was my friend and we were off air, like, and I knew that he would, I would have just said, bro, go probably look into the HRT route and talk to the doctor. It's one of those things that, especially as you get older as a man, it's the health benefits far outweigh the risk and it's a low risk hormone when used properly. People don't realize that. And that's what I mean by that. I mean, there's still a little bit of a stigma around it that I know that if we on this podcast with all the people that are listening, if we were to say something, we were to say something like, oh, go get your HRT, oh, freak out, right? But it's like, it's safer than thyroid. And if you have a little thyroid, they'll put you on thyroid, no problem. It's safer than estrogen or progesterone. Women take birth control of time. It's a low risk hormone when used appropriately in the right context. I want to say that too, because obviously you can use it the wrong way in the wrong context. It's just, it's got this strange stigma, but the studies will show, and man, when they're low, risk of cancer goes up. The risk of heart disease goes up. Dementia goes up. And then when you bring it up to healthy levels, all those things drop. So it's like, you know, if you try all the stuff and it doesn't work naturally, it's almost a no-brainer. Well, and he's at the right age in his life too, I feel like. We just had a call the other day by like a 27-year-old. And we were, that person, I'd be way more staunch about, hey, you're too young to be feeling all this stuff, bro. Yeah, something's going on. Yeah, something else is going on. Let's get to the bottom of that first before you decide to jump to that. This guy's like, I've done this. I've been listening to the show forever. I've been taking Oshikha on it every day. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. I'm like, okay, well, you might be a great candidate for this. And it could be life-changing for you to get on that. Our next caller is Allie from Georgia. Hey, Allie, how can we help you? Hey, guys. As everyone always says, long-time fan, big listener. So that's why my question comes with some hesitation and nerves because I do know better as a fan and someone with a fitness background. But essentially I want to paint a picture for you. I am 17 weeks into an 18-week bodybuilding prep. It's my very first show. So I've been self-coach my whole life and then got a coach last year. And I've been prepping with her and built up in the off-season to over 2,500 calories. Got into a really good position with cardio and all that. But I'm 10 days out and I found myself in two hours of cardio a day barely scratching over 1,000 calories. Really low fat. So I know from my hormonal profile that's impacting me as a woman. And truthfully, I'm realized I'm in too deep and I'm in a position where I want to come out post-show and absolutely do this again. I love bodybuilding. Love how much fun I've had. But I want to be able to do things. Get out of this cardio hole I'm in and out of while getting out of this deficit but at the same time optimizing how much muscle I can gain in the off-season. So coming out of this and I hear a lot of horror stories about people getting out of prep and just really not going well especially when you get in a bad position. So even though I've known better I have found myself in a really poor position so I was curious how can I coach myself out of this? How can I safely and effectively get out of this deficit as quickly as possible minimizing fat gain and optimizing muscle gain? This is like the perfect client for you, Adam. Exactly what we've worked with. Obviously we're going to finish because you're only, would you say, 10 days out or whatever from the show? The biggest thing that you need to worry about or that you need to be focused on is that first week as you come out because the temptation to want to just because you work so hard to get where you're at so I totally get like the afterwards like ah finally I go have my cheat meal or my cheat day and then you go kind of and it real quickly that sneaks up and so you're going to have to unfortunately almost pretend like you're still in prep mode for the next four plus weeks afterwards. I mean if you really want to come out of this successfully because of how big of a hole we've kind of dug ourselves in as far as the calorie deficit, how low the calories are how much training you're doing and you basically want to reverse out the way you went in. I don't think it's going to take a full 16 to 18 weeks to get out of there hopefully you're strong, you've been training you actually sound pretty good for somebody who's you know torturing herself that bad right now like some people like look and sound like they are walking death in this position but yeah so I would creep out so if you were if you're doing if you're at peak right now two hours of cardio and you're as low as a thousand calories a day then you know the day after my show I you know I'm going to slowly pull back I'm going to go from two hours maybe an hour cardio and it's mostly it looks like inclined walking so it's not like you're doing like hardcore intense cardio am I reading that correctly just to pull the inflammation out of the legs I'm doing all inclined walking keeping it easy to recover from okay yeah so I would just I would I would cut that back and then I would just barely increase calories which like I said is going to be difficult I mean I might allow you right after the show to fill back in to have a nice like you know afternoon evening to eat so you don't feel like you're continuing but then the very next day you know I'd say we'd be if you're a thousand forty calories you're at right now I'm not letting you go much over 1200 to 1300 at first and also reduce the hour cardio and then I'd probably keep you in a place like that for a week to two weeks until you give me feedback and then I'd want to also again increase a little bit more calories cut back a little bit again on the cardio maybe cut down to a half hour of it and then just and I just be inching you up by about a hundred calories to 200 calories while also kind of scaling back the amount of cardio you're doing and then if you're doing how many days a week are you lifting I'm sorry I'm reading your question at the same time I'm lifting six days a week on a body part split okay so I would I would potentially reduce that down to like a maps anabolic type of a program also but these would be like phases so it would be like one to two weeks we would we would make this change where we add a little bit of calories reduce some of the cardio get pay attention make sure we're not like blowing up what you shouldn't your body is probably going to thank you for for for peeling back a little bit and so hopefully it starts to respond the way and so long as you're not putting on weight rapidly obviously you're going to put on some water weight right after the show and so that that's totally normal but I mean consistently putting on body fat I would just be trying to inch you up about 200 calories is there a number of pounds that you'd be mounted like like is it okay to gain like two pounds a week or three pounds yeah I mean so obviously you're probably going to see an initial eight to ten right after the show because of water and everything like that water and carbohydrates coming back in so that that at first initial I'm not that worried about it's the consistently after that and I'd be okay with adding two pounds a week that's that's pointing fine but the goal really would be to kind of hover around the same way I actually would be trying to keep you if I saw two pounds then I might go okay let's kind of keep your calories and cardio where it's at now let's see what it does next week and see if it kind of slows down levels off okay now let's go up again so you're really you're pretty much just doing the opposite of what you did going into it I just think that you could probably get back up to a healthier calorie intake before 18 weeks I don't think you're gonna need to do it as slow so long as we didn't do too much damage right so if the body didn't you know but and again from what I hear from you right now you sound okay but this is a there isn't like a protocol it's like this was client by client I've done this with so many different ladies that some of my clients like within like three weeks we're back up to 2400 calories and you're doing little to no cardio and you've actually you know put on very little body fat and you feel amazing like so if you if your metabolism is still in a pretty good position you could potentially rebound like that and be totally fine but it would really be the communication with you and I back and forth are you in our private forum by chance so I'm gonna have Doug put you in the private forum also maps anabolic is the way I would go training protocol wise and then it would do it would do you well to go to performance and then aesthetic again so I think if you haven't ran that program for which is a very bodybuilding focused of what our training protocol would look like to kind of be your off season to get ready for prep again I literally have zero to add to that Adam's one of the best in the business when it comes to reverse dieting but I will ask this question Ali because you mentioned this maybe two or three times with your question which was I know better I know better I know better so my only question for you is why why are you doing or why are you going against what you know to be what's driving that for me it was the comparison so I'm in a couple private forums with other girls to have harder protocols and when I got into the mind's not that bad and very laser focused on you know I'm a very task oriented person that's probably why I was drawn to this so turning off the boxes really gave me a lot of fulfillment and it was that comparison like even though I know better I was talking to one of my girlfriends this morning like they're going to razz me up because I know better and that's why I was nervous to speak with you guys but I did I compared myself to like bikini athletes and I compete in figure so you know I am a little bit bigger so my deficit is probably just as significant you know first I'm not going to razz you because I know better I do a lot of shit that I know I shouldn't do and I know better too this is a challenge for everybody makes you human and then those of us who really have a passion for fitness actually struggle with this more than anybody else in our space because we love it so much probably border fanaticism sometimes driven by insecurities often times I should say and so we often do a lot of things to ourselves that are detrimental that really aren't helping us and in fact this is what helps me okay because I know at the end of the day I understand being healthy I do value it I have children that made a big difference having kids for me but I also it would be lying to myself if I didn't say that there's a piece of me that won't die that just falls in love with lifting heavy and looking ripped okay so the way that I sometimes convince myself is reminding myself that I'll look better if I do what's right for me and that's true so the truth is doing what's right for you you'll actually get a better physique than doing then going against what you know to be better the advice we give is not hey do what we say it's better for you you're not going to look as good the reality is if you do this and you do it right you'll look better so when you're in those positions where you're like oh man this ego or whatever it is whatever you want to call it is still gnawing at me and I know better remind yourself I'll actually look better if I do this the right way yeah I want to piggyback off of that too so when you get in this forum please I get in there and introduce yourself and say hi there's there's quite a few competitors that are in this forum and there's actually a couple of girls that I've actually coached for a show in there who were in very similar I got them in very similar situations as you are and they'll share with you about stories of like Adam putting me through a prep and actually us going and competing and not even having to do cardio so there is and I can tell by your shoulders and your traps that you've got some muscle mass on you so I know that I should have you in it and if you say you're a figure and you're already like a thicker body type you probably should be up north of 2400 calories with doing no cardio and maintaining a very lean physique and in a perfect world I could get you up on stage and we never have to go below say 1500 calories I mean that's that that would to me that would be our goal like if we were coach working together and you said hey I want to keep doing this Adam but let's do the goal would be and you wouldn't have to do that long of a prep so I took a lot of girls that used to do these 18 you know 16 18 week long preps and prep them in 8 weeks because if I do a good job in the off season of not allowing your body fat to get out of control and we only need to shred down 4 to 6% to get you stage ready that's a that's 6 to 8 weeks I mean I can do that in 6 especially if we've done a good job of phasing cardio out building the metabolism up to where you're burning it you're burning a lot of calories you're eating a lot of calories looking better yeah no you look better you'll feel better and and not have to go so aggressive with the the core deficit you know it's you know it's saving you right now Ali I can tell what's saving you is you actually besides your work ethic and consistency and all that stuff you you have really good muscle building genetics I would argue that you probably there were an athlete or you always kind of knew that you were strong stronger than your peers am I am I hitting the nail in the head as oddly I've always been super strong and I I'm the girl who picks up weights and puts on muscle I know she doesn't exist but you know that is my my genetics that is literally saving your ass right now like if you didn't have those genetics you know how bad you'd be feeling right now and how much muscle you would have lost so it's like you're doing as well as you are in spite of all the the bad you know wrong stuff that you're doing so the good news is there's so much potential there that you're not even realizing so once you get into your body and do it the right way like Adam's explaining it's gonna you're gonna blow yourself away by how amazingly your body responds and your metabolism is probably gonna be more flexible and have a better rebound because of your muscle building genetics so you're probably in a good position even though you're you've dug yourself a little bit of a hole very encouraging because I realize objectively like when I take myself out of my day to day where I'm at and so I was like well I'm not even gonna compete again until 2024 like there's so much you need to get corrected and get back into a really good place so I've been so afraid of post-show but I will share like a very optimistic I feel like I'm not stuck I'm not going to be bound to a crazy rebound so this is super encouraging you know really great to hear no you're gonna you're gonna be okay I'll get in the forum Doug's gonna send you over the the programs I listed off make sure that and I would love to see you follow in that in that order maps anabolic will give you for free so anabolic then performance and then aesthetic while we're also reversing out in the form give me make sure you give me feedback let me know how you're doing and so I can help you and then hopefully you can hear you'll hear some other testimonials of that of women that have actually trained either with me or done shows on their own so definitely reach out and stay in touch with us I appreciate you so much everything you do is awesome and now my good hands so thanks for taking my question I mean so much thank you good luck thank you I tell you that what do you think Adam she's probably one of those sounds like one of those women they have such good muscle building genetics they could do the worst she's she's built just like Monique my ex I can I can tell that she's built be curious to see how I don't know what her height is but you know my ex walked around at 165 yeah like lean year around and then first she got she'd hit the stage at high 140s to 150s as a figure competitor and she had the shoulders and traps just like her she's built like her and I will say that was one of her biggest challenge she put on muscle really easy but then when it came down to cutting she had a really hard time and her coach used to push her like this used to put her super super low and you know they just never did she never did a really good job of building her metabolism off in the office and this was long before I was coaching or I ever competed so I kind of stayed away from it and you know I never really my my girlfriends that was always so I let somebody else but I remember always constantly questioning like why is he got you doing this why are you doing that like are you sure are you sure like so yeah no I mean that's she's got that benefit of that I also bet you that she's she's overdoing it to just the training like 2 hours of cardio 6 days a week yeah thousand calories and the fact that she built muscle so easily I mean just just her doing maps anabolic protocol she's gonna build muscle like crazy and that would be the goal is and slowly increase calories let's see if we can get these calories up to 3000 plus which is where my ex after she went through this whole process and then started to work on the she got up to that place to where her and I were like eating the same amount of calories every day and she was still able to stay lean so I definitely think that she can get there when your girl from builds more muscle than you do it's tough yes it is it's a hard one this one's really important and that is to phase your training if somebody trains full year doing a bench press and they're always aiming for five reps if you compared that person to a person who did bench press where they did three or four weeks of five reps but then they did three or four weeks of 12 reps and three or four weeks of let's say 15 to 20 reps and then they'll throw in some supersets at the end of that year you're gonna see more consistent progress from the person who's moving in and out and less injury that's another thing you'll see less injury as well