 I know some people get real antsy after having a baby and because muscle recruitment patterns are so different, starting slow is, is so important because it's not the same body that you had before muscle recruitment patterns and the way that your muscles fire and stabilize and the way that you move had to change to make room for baby and to prepare you for childbirth. I mean, there's hormones and things that are released in the body that loosen up your joints, your transverse abdominis has to stretch and become an atrophy essentially in order to make room. Your core learns how to stabilize differently. You walk and move differently. You have a different body. So then you have a baby and you got to go back to the gym and you remember how you'd worked out before maybe, or how you've moved in the past. Forget that. You have a new body and so that's why starting slow is so important. You have to relearn how to move, how to, how to get your body to connect, how to make certain movements feel a particular way. Otherwise you'll overdo it. It'll be inappropriate. And the point that I'm trying to make here with this is that the right training program will get you the fastest results, not the hardest one. Right. Right. So you got to ultimately listen to your body and you're always better off taking it slower and then building, building up to that. Exercise has a profound effect on recovery, strength and well-being postpartum. So, but how you exercise is extremely important. So make sure you make this a priority. You know, uh, this is an important topic, but I want to start with, because I know this episode is about what to do after you have a baby, but I think it's important we talk about going into the pregnancy and train during the pregnancy. Well, that makes a big difference. Yeah, that completely dictates what you can do afterwards. Huge, because a mistake. Well, actually it was first of all, the first mistake that I, I think I, that's common that I would see with that somebody has just got pregnant is, uh, they know that they have, you know, weight gain coming. They know that they're probably down. So then also they want to like start a program or like, go on a cut and like lean out during their pregnancy. Right. And it's like, no, if there was ever a time that I want you to, you know, feed your body and take care of it and, and actually take things slow. It's, it's at this point, right? So I think, I think it's important that, um, if you like, so I think the advice that I try and give to any, any of my clients that are trying to have a baby is that, you know, while you're trying, that's when you're getting after the training, like building, laying a solid foundation. So that gives us a lot of room and flexibility on what do we do during pregnancy and post pregnancy. It'll really set you up for success. I've trained a lot, a lot of women who've come to me who didn't work out, had a baby and then wanted to hire me. That's actually quite common. If you're a trainer, you'll get women that'll come to you and say, Hey, I just had a baby, you know, three months ago, four months ago, whatever I'd like to get in shape, but then they also had clients that I trained and that got pregnant, you know, while they were my clients and then I trained them during pregnancy and after and the difference in how quickly they recover, how their body respond, like the issues that we are challenged with or whatever, profound with the women who trained before, during and then after versus the ones that just trained after. So that's a big deal. So if you're watching this thinking about having a baby, start now and work out. Now, if you're watching this because you just had a baby, we're going to talk to that as well. Now, first things first, you do need to get clearance first to start an exercise program. So your doctor will tell you when it's safe to start exercising and moving in ways where you're training your body. And this is important because I know some people get real antsy after having a baby. And because muscle recruitment patterns are so different and your body went through such a traumatic, it's just a really big change that you could cause a lot of problems. And I've gotten clients like this where because they went into it too fast, then they'd hire me a year or two later. And it's like, we're having to go backwards to rehab and correct things that, that, you know, problems that they This is a very common one that I've had with clients that have come back and it's, you know, the body needs adequate time to heal even to begin with. So, and I know the urgency is there, especially if, you know, you're fit and active going into it. And it's something that you want to get back to add a lot of clients in that situation. And it's, it's a tough thing to, to really kind of ride it out and wait till your body is, is, is good and healed and ready to go. Would you guys say that, that timeframe is even longer for someone who has not trained leading up? Like, so let's say, say you have two different situations, the client one who is a consistent lifter, lifted through pregnancy, has the baby, obviously took some time off while she was having the baby, right? And then is ready to get back in a training and it is trying to evaluate the recovery time versus the other client who did no training during pregnancy in, but is now motivated after having a baby, say put on weight or doesn't feel good or wants to, likes wants to make an effort to really getting good shape. Now the recovery time that person, in my experience, the first client has a much shorter time that they should, they have to wait before they give you a hundred percent. I'm glad you said this because the doctor won't differentiate. You're right. That's right. The doctor is going to say, you know, a set time, but ultimately you have to listen to your body and you're a hundred percent right, Adam, if there's a big difference between going in condition versus decondition and what it's going to take. There's also a big, there's also can be a big difference between the kind of labor that you have. Was it a natural kind of like no issues labor or was it long and extended, traumatic? Did something tear or did you have a C-section? All these things play a role in how long it's going to take before you get, you get clearance. Now movement early on is okay and your doctor will tell you this will encourage you to move a little bit, but even that people over do, like I've had clients and friends who they're like, okay, I can't work out, but I'm going to just, I'm going to walk and do stuff around the house and stuff like that. And it really hits them hard. It's like, no, no, no, just, just light movement, light movement, meaning like, you know, very low, slow scroll, getting up to do something very, very easy. Don't overburden your body. And this can take a few weeks or sometimes longer in some people. So light movement is okay, but workouts are very different. And with workouts, you want that clearance. I saw a really dramatic difference with Katrina. A lot of people don't know this, but we, we had lost a second baby right in the, right after the first trimester. And so when she, and so she experienced like this recovery time afterwards, even though she didn't go through full pregnancy and deliver a baby, she actually needed more recovery time from that than she did the first pregnancy because she was so conditioned in the first, she came, she went into max, having max really good shape and training really consistent through it, like literally bounced right back, relatively quick. She was getting back to her strength. And I mean, I think I remember it being about four weeks before she was already kind of hitting the ground, ground running and getting her, her strength back to where she kind of was, which was really remarkable. And then the next time she was not off training, but inconsistent. And then what didn't contain as, as hard going into the pregnancy. So she also, I kept her very moderate during pregnancy because she wasn't training very much going into it. And then so when she had, when after the miscarriage, she ended up having to like really take time off and really go slow. Like remember, we put her on starter and I remember her having to constantly talk to her like, you know, because she had a setback of training and I was like, that's because you're, you're trying to do too much. Yeah. Back it off. And so it really makes a huge difference on your conditioning going into the pregnancy and what you were able to maintain is where I would start you coming out of. Yeah, we had a similar experience with Courtney coming in the second time around too. It was just a more difficult pregnancy and it was things we had to go through, you know, leading up to a lot of activity levels were way lower second time around. Then also afterwards hormones shifted quite a bit and it changed her entire profile. And so like working back to find homeostasis again and balance took a bit longer to get there. So we had, and it's just one of those things like the first one was misleading because we just thought, oh, it was going to be a great bounce back. It was like almost immediate with her. But this one was like, you know, months and months after that we really had to slowly progress her back. You actually hear, you'll hear people say this all the time. They'll say that no two pregnancies are alike and I think that's, and that's very true. So. Well, and it highlights the point that you made, Sal, that I think is important getting into this conversation is the doctor will normally give you a very generic. They have, they have the number that they tell you. Yeah, they have a generic say, oh, take six to eight weeks off of anything heavy or this weight. So they'll give you a very generic but it, boy, it can be dramatically different. The same woman that went through two different pregnancies may have to approach this, this training routine right now completely based off of what happened. And that's, so your, your example, my example are the, I mean, basically the same situation, same woman, but two different pregnancies and the way they went into probably the pregnancy and then what came out of it made a difference on how they had to start. So it's very important that no matter what advice we give right now and we'll do our best to give the best advice is that you got to ultimately listen to your body and you're always better off taking it slower and then building, building up to that versus the temptation of, I know I can do this or I've done this before. So rushing to get there, you know, because the beauty is set back. Yeah. The beauty is everybody ends up taking a few, at least a few weeks off of training and just taking those few weeks off. It is not going to hurt you. And this is what I try to explain to Katrina because she's just like, starters seem so easy for me. And I'm like, yeah, but actually follow. I promise you, you're going to feel it. You'll get better results because it's more perfect. Yeah. And I remember her after a few of the workouts, she's like, man, you know what? She goes, I was more sore than I thought I was going to be from that thing. And I was like, yeah, it's because you haven't been training. Well, so my experience, you're looking at four to eight weeks for natural childbirth, you know, nothing really big or traumatic, but it can take much longer. And it's, you know, starting slow is so important because it's not the same body that you had before. This is the thing that, and I don't mean this in a bad or good way. Some of the most fit people I've ever trained in my entire life had multiple kids. It's not that it's a bad thing. It's just things changed and moved. And yes, the baby's out, but muscle recruitment patterns and the way that your muscles fire and stabilize and the way that you move had to change to make room for baby and to prepare you for childbirth. I mean, there's hormones and things that are released in the body that loosen up your joints, your transverse abdominis has to stretch and become an atrophy essentially in order to make room. Your core learns how to stabilize differently. You walk and move differently. You have a different body. So then you have a baby and you got to go back to the gym and you remember how you did, how you worked out before maybe or how you've moved in the past. Forget that. You have a new body. And so that's why starting slow is so important. You have to relearn essentially how to move, how to get your body to connect, how to make certain movements feel a particular way. Otherwise you'll start to, you'll overdo it. It'll be inappropriate. And the point that I'm trying to make here with this is that the right training program will get you the fastest results, not the hardest one. Right, right. It's the most appropriate one. Yes, the most important one. And there's a difference between what you can do and what you should do. Absolutely. And that's, I can get away with a lot. I don't mean it's the best thing for you. That's right. And that's the thing I kind of had to keep reminding Katrina is when she was going through starter and she fell, I feel like I can do so much more. And it's like, I bet you can. But it's not about what you this is the perfect dose for you. Yeah. I'm like, trust me, I know you. I know what you've been doing. This is more than what you've been doing for the past six weeks. So this is perfect for you right now. And you're going to get results from it just because you know that you can do more doesn't mean it's what you should necessarily do. Right. What's up, everybody? Here's the giveaway for today. So today's episode, we talk about training after you have a baby. We put together a bundle of programs, which is map starter, maps resistance and maps prime. It's called the postpartum bundle. We're going to give that away for free first. So one of you will win that for free, but you got to do this. Leave a comment below the first 24 hours that we drop this episode, subscribe to this channel, turn on notifications, do all those things. And then you'll get the postpartum bundle for free. Now everybody else, that entire bundle is only $99.99. So this is a limited sale. This promotion is not going to go on for very long. Each program normally costs $100 each. So it's like over 300 bucks. But again, right now, the postpartum bundle, which maps starter, maps resistance and maps prime is only $99.99. And you can find it only at mapsbaby.com. All right. Here comes the show. Now, before we get into workout stuff, I think it's important that we address nutrition a little bit. And this is real important because a lot of women will try to do this. Is they'll try to go on a cut after having a baby. Okay, time to lose weight. Now this is more common in women who don't breastfeed because women who breastfeed will notice right away. Ooh, I can't cut my calories too much because I'm not making breast milk. But even then, sometimes I've seen them try to push it. You don't want to go on a cut. You want to nourish and feed your body because what we're going to do with exercise is rebuild your body and rebuilding your body gets your metabolism where you want it and makes the fat loss easier and more sustainable. If we don't rebuild the body and we go straight into a cut, we're going to head to slow metabolism land and you're going to get that, you know, that stubborn 10 to 15 pounds that that sticks to my body after each kid. And now I can't get it off type of deal. So don't try to cut. You're not going to cut for a long time. In fact, my clients that had babies, I wouldn't have them go on a cut, but they would still get leaner because of the building process. Yes. And it wasn't until like eight months, nine months a year later that we would maybe start to cut and they went in such a good position to do so. Yeah, you got to fight the urge to want to look really amazing, you know, again, as soon as possible and think more in alignment of like, I want a strong, stable, supported body that I can build off of from here. So it's it's just fighting that natural urge to just, you know, throttle down from every angle of like lower my calorie intake, you know, do as much high intensity stuff as I can and just, you know, race my way there. Listen, we need to build muscle. We need to build strength and that's going to build your metabolism in order to build, build anything. You need a calorie surplus. Yep. You got to be huge. Yeah, it doesn't have to be a lot, but you've got to feed the body those, those, those things that needs to build that muscle. And if you don't do that, then we're not going to. And like to your point, Sal, we're only going to be putting ourselves in a, in a worse predicament, you know, two, three months. I would get clients like this all the time. I had a baby a year ago. I don't know why I can, you know, it's not working and I'm eating so little and I'm doing all this activity is because of how they, they went into a cut right away. They went hardcore into workouts and it's just you're, you're, you're pushing a big, bolder uphill and it's impossible. So don't go into a cut, feed your body, of course, feed it appropriately. Make sure you eat enough protein, definitely enough fats and carbohydrates as well, but feed your body because we're going to build. All right. The next point is to use a physio ball. This is one of the cases where I love physio ball training. A physio ball is that big ball. You know, some people call it yoga ball or Swiss ball or stability ball. It's those big balls that people will sit on and do exercises. Now I like these because you have to engage your body differently, differently, just to maintain balance to do an exercise like curls or overhead presses or lateral raises or anything else when you're using the ball, it forces you to engage your core and to stabilize. And this is a crucial time to relearn how to connect to the core muscle. So you're going to relearn how to, and here's the difference between working the core and connecting to the core with other movements. You can, sometimes people after pregnancy can try doing sit ups and stuff like that, but the problem is how do I engage my core which no longer is so stretched out while I do all these other activities because throughout your day you're picking things up, you're putting things above in the cabinet and you're moving, you're twisting. The core has to stabilize in order to support all that. Physioball allows you to engage that and stabilize while you do all these other exercises. So it's a very, very important tool for women after having a baby. It's an incredible tool that's got a terrible wrap in the fitness community in the last five to 10 years. Yeah. Um, I mean it came out of nowhere 20, 25 years ago or whatever it was when it first hit the scene and then like anything in fitness we take a little something good and then we abuse the shit out of it and then it comes the end all be all and then now the natural curve of it coming back down again of people being like, Oh, that's so stupid. Why would you ever do, you know, 90 pound dumbbell circus tricks with it? Or 90 pound dumbbell chest press on the ball, stability ball, like you're trying to build strength, you're trying to lift heavy. Why that's such a dumb way to do that. Wrong tool. Yeah, it is exactly. Wrong tool for the wrong situation here, right? Where with a, a client that just had a baby and core stability, TVA activation, understood working on that now takes a precedence over me. Now, now that we don't want to get stronger, that is the goal. And yes, we want to lift more weight and get to that, that place. But we first want to make sure that they have that ability to stabilize your core really, really will activate it and be able to do that. And so incorporating the stability ball and a lot of these basic movements that you would normally do on a flat bench or some sort of a machine, this is where this has, I think, tremendous value and I think it's lost its love. Yeah, it's also, it also slows you down. You know, when you're on a physio ball, you can't do fast choppy movements. You'll fall off the ball. It encourages slow control movement, very important at this time of your life. Yeah, to build strength and to, you're going to need to add load inevitably, but you know, you need to first work on your bracing and bracing the core, the TVA. These are things that were just naturally stretched out through the process of pregnancy and to be able to reconnect and to be able to gain that ability to draw into, to be able to brace and support your spine while under load is essential for you and through the longevity of your fitness career. Yeah, and you know, that kind of brings us to the next point, which is a focus on core connection and how do you focus on that all the time? So you got your workout, you're using your physio ball, that's great. But also you're standing in line at the grocery store, drawing your belly button and do a few reps or tighten, embrace your core when you're, you know, at the kitchen sink or you're, you know, driving, right? Remember to try to connect because the connection has changed or and so for lack of a better term, you've lost connection to some muscles. That's not really quite what's happening, but it's going to feel that way. You're going to notice when you go to draw in, like I can't do that or I can't squeeze those muscles like I used to. So work on core connection quite frequently because once that connection comes online and is, you know, enough to stabilize you with when you're doing other exercises, then you can start to progressively overload, overload. So now I know you didn't put this on this list, but I think it falls right here and that's like breath work stuff. I think that's part of core connection. Right. So I think that's a and this is where like, you know, cold plunge stuff is really cool. I think Justin talks highlights a lot how, how much the Wim Hof breathing method was so powerful for him to work through that while also getting involved in the cold plunge. Cold plunge kind of forces you to work on your breath work. So if you're somebody who's like, I don't understand what do you mean work, I breathe every day and I don't understand what you mean by breathing, working on your breathing. You can test it in the ice bath. Right. And that's one of the things that I love about the ice bath is it forces you to learn how to do that. So if you don't understand what you're trying to do with like box breathing or understand what we're trying to communicate right now, a tool that I think is excellent for that is like a cold plunge. Yeah, I would, I would go cold shower you think postpartum lack of sleep, tired. Oh, cold plunge might be a little too much stress on the body. But a cold shower will do it. And also just, just belly breathing, just full diaphragmatic breathing. You know what happens when you have a baby is you lose that full diaphragmatic breath because, you know, babies in the way. And so what happens is your that diaphragm starts to, it learns to move that way. You got to retrain it to move the way that it's supposed to move when you don't have a baby. So breath work very, very important for that core connection. Next would be to work on mobility but we got to explain mobility really well here because people confuse mobility with range of motion. Yeah. Mobility is range of motion but being able to connect to having access to that. Yeah, like you can connect to it, not just that you're flexible. And the reason why I'm saying that is Elastin, this is some, this is the name of actually a chemical or hormone that's released in the body during pregnancy, that is preparing the body for childbirth and it loosens up the joints. And oftentimes you'll see women who are pregnant, who hurt their, who hurt their tailbone or they feel pelvic pain or they feel hip pain or even post after having the baby. It's because the muscles their joints and everything's loose and they don't have the strength to support it. So it's not because they're, necessarily lifted something heavy, just they're moving these ranges of motion they don't own and they have new ranges of motion because they're a little more flexible than they might have been before. So mobility is moving through ranges of motion and connecting. So this would be like, I'm stretching but I'm not just sitting they're stretching. I'm getting into a stretch and then trying to connect to the muscle that I'm stretching. We have a program called Prime Pro that helps a little bit about with that but really an easy way to do this is go full range of motion and slow with exercises. Mobility is range of motion with strength. Yes. At the end of the day, it's usable. So like, not only do you need to be able to have the ability to get into that degree of angle but you have to be able to, you know, connect, squeeze the muscle and be able to move in that, be able to lift your arm, be able to, you know, hold weight or just maintain tension within that range of motion. So it's more than just the ability to then get into that and relax in that position. It's also to be able to do work in that position. I mean, we obviously, we don't train clients when I want anymore but if I was training a client in this situation, I would actually just prescribe the Prime Pro webinar that I did because I take them through full body. Yeah, that's good. And it's a. It's free. Yeah, it's free. It's at home. They can, they can, or they can literally do it in their living room. I would prescribe that as something like literally, I just want you to do this. That's primeprowebinar.com. Yeah, do this a couple times a week and that will really help address everything we're talking about. And along these lines, when you're doing your exercises, you may want to do like this really deep, you know, you know, squat or whatever, only go down as far as you have control over. And then you can work from there, but always stay connected. That's the key here with the mobility postpartum is to stay connected through full ranges of motion. So like I own this whole range of motion, not like, oh, the stuff far as I can stretch type of deal. That's the difference. Also, nothing fast or ballistic. Now, I don't know if I necessarily need to communicate this a lot because I think you'll figure this out real quick because your pelvic floor muscles, you know, there's there's, you got to strengthen them again, postpartum and doing things faster, ballistic, you know, things can happen. And I've had clients, you know, tell me that, you know, that they, they pee themselves a little bit if they jump or if they run, but it's not just that. Like even if that doesn't happen to you, your pelvic floor muscles are supporting internal organs and stabilizing. And if because of childbirth and because of pregnancy, they're weaker, they're not as connected and fast ballistic movements can become quite dangerous. They can, the risk of injury goes through the roof because those muscles aren't so stable. Well, it's also the, the pinnacle of strength training. It's not even the proper order. If we're talking about this person, we're regressing them all the way back to map starter or trying to get them to understand they need to start to relay this, this foundation. It just, it's the wrong order. Like you would never, any client would never take any client that is decondition or just starting with me and I would let them do anything ballistic or explosive. I mean, that is like at the pinnacle of weight training is that, oh, I've laid a solid foundation with this person after a year, two years plus of training with them. Now we can do some fun explosive ballistic type of movements. I would also include in this too is the things like the orange theory classes and the circuit-based stuff. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. So high intent. So you may not think that's ballistic, but the, you know, running, sprinting on the treadmills, sprinting on the rowers, yeah, and doing things. They do plyometric jumps, exercises in there, like avoid that and you would see that. It's common that I would see women after pregnancy come to a class like this because they like meeting up with their friends and they go do it all together and they enjoy it. It's fun and stuff like that. This is definitely not, and it's not saying that you can't eventually get to a class like that if you love doing that and it keeps you consistent. This is not the time to do that at all, for sure. Yeah, even slow running. I wouldn't put any, I wouldn't even have people do slow running until stabilization is brought back. Yeah. Because if you can't do something with good stability slow, all that's going to happen when you do that same thing fast is you're going to make it way worse, right? So if you can't stabilize in a lunge and feel really stable and the core is stable the way it should and when you twist or whatever, like running, boy, you're asking for trouble. Well, I mean, that takes us to the next point, which is, I mean, I'm prescribing lots of walking slash hiking. You know, that's what you can do. Like that you want to do some good cardiovascular work and we go for it. And walking is great. Yes. It's something we do very naturally. It's something we still practice daily. You know, we still don't live in like Wally World where we're on these floating devices. So, no, but seriously, we still have the skill of walking for the most part. Yeah, get your vitamin D from the sun, be outside with it. Yeah, there's just a lot of benefits to it. And walk the baby. And walking the baby, yeah, just being active in general. It's just a good practice. And when we say walk, I want to be careful. Don't treat it like a workout. I mean, you can if you want, but really the best results are going to come from frequent, just enjoyable walking because frequency is going to trump over hard and tense, like power walking that you do less frequently. So every day you could do, you know, two, 15 to 20 to 30 minute nice strolls around the neighborhood. And those make a big difference when it comes to health and, you know. I mean, I wouldn't be afraid to go longer if you want. I mean, because it's a walk, right? Sure. I mean, this is something, Katrina and I did this a lot in Max's first six months. She was following like starter and we were doing like this to go out at least twice a day, if not three times a day. Two of them would be short. One would be really long because we'd push him in the stroll until he fell asleep. Yeah, that's great. You know, he'd fall asleep and we'd walk. It was a great time to connect with your partner. That's a time where her and I are communicating. He's sleeping in the stroll or I'm getting my steps in. It's nice. It's easy on our body to be able to do that. So yeah, multiple times a day. To me, that's your form of cardiovascular training for now, you know, before we start to push the body at all. Now, when you are going back to the gym and you are training, you're better off training the full body in a workout than you are doing like one or two body parts. For a few different reasons. One, and this is actually the most important even though it might not sound like it, but the odds of missing a workout first off are high for most people, but really high when you just have a baby. Okay, so if you're scheduling three workouts a week and they're all full body and you miss one, that's okay. You still hit the whole body twice that week. Now, if you're doing like a split where you're training some body parts on this day, some body parts on that day, some body parts on that day and you miss that a workout. Like those areas never got touched. For that week. So that's the most important. Second is the body especially postpartum. It really works best if you train the whole thing at the same time. So what we're trying to do besides build muscle and look good and speed up the metabolism is to get the body to move well together and full body workouts. I mean, in a 45 minute workout, I mean, you train the whole body. That's partially what you're training is you're getting the whole body to move together. I mean, I think the best point you're making there is the one that is probably most realistic, which is the fact that you may not have three days every single week. Right. I mean, because there's the other thing that we will always communicate and talk about is like listening to your body and we all know we've been through this with our wives is you know that it's unpredictable. What kind of kid you're going to have? You know, are you going to have the kid that keeps you up all night long and you get horrible sleep all the time and maybe you get a little bit of relief once or twice a week on those days, you are those weeks that might be just a lot of walking and, you know, one day you got to train full body and that's it and you have to learn to work with your body, your schedule, your baby, what's going on and having the flexibility of knowing that hey, if I'm getting a full body workout every single week, I'm at least doing something I'm still moving in the right direction as far as building my body back and strengthening it and then on those good weeks where, you know, he or she actually sleeps for you a little bit. You get two you get two or three workouts in and so I think that is probably the most important point to make with this and understanding that even though you might have a goal of going three times a week learning to be flexible with that base off of your sleep and your feeding and all those other things. Yeah, totally. And then rep ranges people always ask me about rep ranges. I like higher reps postpartum, you know, 12 to 15, maybe even 20 because there's a little bit of strength stamina that we want to focus on that has to do with the stability and also the type of force you need to generate and brace and how we tend to push when we're lifting low reps doesn't lend itself well to pelvic floor muscles that maybe need to strengthen again or cores being unstable. Heavier weight if your form is off you're more likely to hurt yourself with heavier weight than you are with light weight. So I always like to keep the reps around 12 to 15 on average with when I with my clients for at least six months postpartum. Yeah, it's just a better strategy in terms of like being able to have a better gauge on intensity because you can still you know get all the benefits. It's just a different adaptation you're seeking by going more of the high reps route and you know it's great because of the fact that you're not loading a ton of weight as you would with the lower reps and it would kind of expose a lot of instability that you're still working on. Well it's a risk versus reward thing for me. I mean it's a another thing where I'm always going to lean on the you know moving slower and taking less risk right now with this client as we progress through and it's like I know that lifting you in the 10 to 15 rep range we're going to get plenty of benefits and adaptation and strength just from doing that. Sure you can make the case and argue that if we were lifting a 5x5 routine we would build more strength faster but at the at the potential of that person not being able to brace their core properly or their joints being all loose and you know just why would I do that with that client when I know that I'm going to get plenty of benefits by training them 10 to 15 rep range right now and then we can progress later on into a more heavy loaded type of thing. Yeah and you know you know this is interesting too this is I mean Jessica experienced this it's like when she would go to lift heavier in the and she's a trainer right so in the workout good form everything feels good I think it was great and then the day after she's like my hip hurts or my back hurts my shoulder hurts what's going on it's like it's like listen you know your body isn't stabilizing the way it used to so it's hard for you to gauge what feels right with heavier weight it's better to do it with lighter weight and learn how to reconnect build some of that strength stamina which happens at the higher reps and as far as building muscle is concerned there's no difference you're going to build just as much muscle speed of metabolism just like you would with the other rep ranges it's just a better rep range for this particular period right here now this last one has more to do with lifestyle than anything and I found this to be a very effective strategy for my clients when they first had a baby and that is to aim for the short frequent workouts so when you just have a baby now we're talking lifestyle okay you just had a baby like they got to take naps if you're breastfeeding breastfeeding is a big deal so every other couple hours they're on you and it's not like they're on you every two hours they're on you and they breastfeed for a certain period of time it's two hours from when they started so in reality it's like an hour every hour and a half or so you're breastfeeding maybe they don't sleep well you got stuff going on it's like taking a full hour to work out I mean a lot of people can make that happen but that can be very challenging but you can find 15 minutes at a time and in 15 minutes you could do two or three two or three sets of an exercise you string two or three of these together in a day you just did 30 to 45 minutes of working out yeah it's just the more efficient use of your time because of all those interruptions it's like it'd be great if like everything lines up and like you could go for a longer type of a workout but I have to be realistic at this point plus the more frequently you do these smaller workout sessions you know it's one of those things that it solidifies the habit quite a bit more and it's you build momentum with it which is great this is what Katrina calls one of the greatest mom hacks that she has found from us I don't remember what episode where we first talked about this but she says it gave me permission to take the workouts and it didn't matter she says what routine I was following at the time because she still follows these principles today because obviously she's still a mother with a three year old at home right and what she does is she opened our garage is right there as you enter into our kitchen and then the dining and living rooms all right all one big room right and so she keeps the door braced open with a dumbbell and she and Max can be playing with his cars and toys and she'll go do a set and then she comes back and she loves this idea and then if all said he needs a lot more attention getting set up and she has to take a break for a half hour or hour in her workout that's okay this idea that we we've traditionally always taught people like oh they're your hour workout you know because everything talks about it's like you can get the same benefits or more potentially from taking that same exact workout you do in an hour and breaking up over these small micro workouts all day and she that never dawned on her that that was something she could do she assumed that oh because I'm not sweating it's not burning as much it's not as difficult it's worthless am I not getting the same benefits so I'm like no you're getting as good a benefits maybe arguably better benefits because you have these long breaks and feeds and everything in between you might even have more strength as the workout continues to progress and so she's been like oh my god it was just so awesome that I could go oh I'm just gonna go do three sets of squats real quick and then I'm done with that and then I give it back to Max Max for an hour oh then he goes down for a nap now you put 20 minutes together and like so this is how she trains to this day is that these micro workouts and I think that that's such a great mom slash pregnancy type of it's it's massive and you said it all things being equal you don't get worse results you get at least the same results you get when your whole workouts done all together in fact some studies actually suggest and Adam said this you might actually get better results you know Olympic weight lifters in the Soviet Union would use this strategy and would kick everybody's ass I've experimented with this not because I had to but because I want to take my strength to the next level and it's actually quite remarkable it was more inconvenient for me it was actually more convenient for me to take a full hour which is why I don't do it all time but it works out just great so what you could do literally is you could have a physio ball and a pair of dumbbells and you put them there in the corner and if you have 10 minutes boom do three sets of an exercise and then go back to what you were doing oh I got another 15 minutes boom do it maybe two exercises and do some sets and then and throughout the day you add up the time you did a full workout so these frequent workouts because of their how easy they are to inject into your day you tend to work out more and more consistently when you do it this way in fact we have a program called map starter with the physio ball and dumbbells that's all you use so you can literally set it aside and do some of it go back to your day and then oh do some more go back to your day and so on it works phenomenally well look if you like our information head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out some of our guides we have free guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal they're all free go check them out you can also find us on social media Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam and you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal this one's really important and that is to phase your training if somebody trains for a 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 then 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 going to 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