 Ladies and gentlemen, Salah Mike, Q&A time. Answering your questions from Instagram, follow me, Salah Mike with 2Ks. Salah Mike with 2Ks and the number two on Twitch. Be sure to subscribe here so you don't miss a video where we're dropping videos Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. Ladies and gentlemen, let's dig into your question. Guys, if you enjoy some of the clothing, some of the snapback, the tees that I'm rocking in this video, it's Barbara Brigade's Mischief Collection. It's dropping now. Link in the bio. Be sure to check it out, BarbaraBrigade.com. What age did you start training? Biggest mistake you ever started when you start training. So I started training eighth grade for sports with a trainer. But when I started training on my own, kind of figuring it out, doing a lot of research, trying to figure out what bodybuilding is compared to strength training, compared to powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, and trying to measure it all together to do what I enjoyed and what I liked. I was probably more like 19 or 20 years old. I was on the cusp of dropping out of college. And the biggest mistake, the biggest mistake for me was, I don't know, multiple things. I spent way too much money trying to find the easy way. Supplements this program, this, that. Yes, you need a program, but at that time, we're talking 2008 to 2010. There's a lot less information. So some of these programs were super gimmicky. Put three inches on your arms in four weeks, things of that nature. I'm following stuff like that. And yes, I'm 18 and I don't know that much about strength conditioning yet, but you just start to think logically, if that doesn't make sense, it's probably not real, right? Like, how could you put three inches on your arms? Like, everybody would have big arms then if it was that easy to do in three or four weeks. I think trying to find the secret answer or trying to find the holy grail of training, whether it be supplements or whatever it might be, that was one thing. Two, I wasn't just focused in on the basics. Once I finally got a book and started reading about squat, bench, dead, and periodization, my gains went through the freaking roof. My best gains ever, both muscle wise and strength wise, have always come with no supplements, focusing on food, sleep, and a solid progression in training. So I'd say, I spun my wheels for years, trying to buy gains rather than just having a little bit of patience and focusing on big things. The other thing, once I got a little bit more even advanced and I was still, I understood training, but I was still dumb enough, is being too stuck in trying to gain weight, gain muscle, and still be lean. Yes, that is possible to kind of gain muscle and stay kind of lean with a controlled bulk, but if your goal is strength, go after it a little bit, especially when you're young. Try to focus on longer phases of gaining muscle and gaining strength. Eat, don't eat like an idiot, but eating in a calorie surplus for a long period of time will get the most amount of gains. Don't get locked up into what so and so is doing at what weight class, what a good bench looks like at age 23, weighing 200 pounds. Just focus on progressing for yourself and obviously a calorie surplus is one of the best ways. Arnold or Sly. Now, when you guys are talking about who I like the most or whose movies I like the most, it might be different. Look, I haven't personally met either of them. Hopefully one day I'll be able to sit down, chat, have a brusky, maybe have them on Mama's Voice podcast, but pure movies, I think I'm an Arnold guy. Even though I haven't seen them all, Predators is one of my top favorite movies of all time. Hands down, Predators one through 18, all of them. Even the newest one that's about to come out, I know I'm gonna love it. The one with Adrian Brody, even though it's not technically an Arnold movie, I feel like it's an Arnold movie and I love it. Sly, I love Rocky. I can't even think what else Sly's even in. But I think as a person, at least my outside of Hollywood vision of the person, I think I like Sly better. I think I like Sly better. But movies Arnold. He's in Demolition Man. Never seen it. There's a lot of classics I've never seen. I went through a large phase from probably when I was age 10 through age like last year, up until last year, that I couldn't see movies that felt old. There's something about the look of it, I just couldn't handle it. I think one of it, I blame my mom. Look, my mom's the best woman in the world. She's done so much for me. Greatest lady on the planet. But she tortured me. One summer, her and my sister went on this kick where we're only watching old movies. I felt like I hadn't seen a colored TV in three months and I think it burnt into my head that my life sucks when I watch old movies. So I stopped watching old movies. But now I'm okay. Now I could probably do it. But if you're an old movie, we don't get along. Barbell box squats. Oh, bah, bah, bah. Barbell back squats kill my knees. Our goblet squats a good way to work up to it. So if something's killing your knees or killing your shoulder or hurting, we got to figure out why and how we can fix that. Is it overtraining? Which I doubt it, but potentially doing too much volume too soon. Most likely it's technique or warming up. So a goblet squat can help you get into position and teach yourself how to squat. But I'd suggest just lowering the weight and learning the proper movement patterns. Forcing those knees out a little bit forward, trying to get that knee over your midfoot, hips back a little bit, and you should be just fine. The issue with the goblet squat is you can't load it the same. And so one, it's a little bit more uncomfortable. And two, you can't overload as easily. You can't handle as much weight. So less weight, less stimulus, less volume, less gains in the quads. Somebody complimented my teardrop and it made me feel so good. I've never had to compliment to my legs the other day, but a lot of squats. That's how you're gonna build those legs up. Goblet squat is a decent movement. Kind of use it as a warmup or a cue. But the only way to get better at squats is squatting. Is there a discount code for a power building program? I believe he's talking about kaisentrending.com. That's where you can find all my programs and things. There's not a discount code right now. When we launch a new program, we often give you guys a week or two to get the pre-sale and we make it insanely cheap. We make it 30, 40% off. And then periodically throughout the year, we will run a couple of sales, but not too often. So there's not a discount code. I'm sorry, my man, but kaisentrending.com if you guys wanna check out any of my coaching or programming, this is good. This question's for you first. I guess I can't ask the question without answering the question. Have you, that was deep. You can't ask the question without answering the question. It's so true. This guy got me. I think maybe he knew that. What is the, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it and it's gonna sound weird, but I think you'll get the gist. What's the proper way to pronounce the thing that I can't say the thing or I'll answer the question. What's the proper way to pronounce like the opposite of chocolate and not vanilla? The golden thing? The golden thing that can be replaced in chocolate like a Sunday? It's a type of candy. It's in s'mores or not s'mores. It's in Twix, it's in Snickers. Caramel. So what's the proper way to pronounce? Caramel. It's not caramel. It's both. See, that's how I answered the question with the question. What's the proper way to pronounce caramel? It's caramel, you dumb shit. It's not caramel. It's caramel. Give me a caramel chocolate bar. What kind of belt do you use? Most of my lifting, I do beltless currently, but if I'm powerlifting, I just use an Inser belt. You know, it's old, it's old, old steady. What's that? Old sturdy, old reliable. Old reliable, old reliable Inser. Yeah, solid belt. My teacher used to do this, this piss you off. I'm gonna answer the question and then I'm gonna be my teacher. Can I deadlift twice a week? I don't know, can you? You know, what are you doing like in proper English or something? Fuck. Fuckin' torture. Can I go to the bathroom? I don't know, can you? Can I grab some water? I don't know, can you? You mean may you? May you, are you capable? Yeah, dude, you can definitely deadlift twice a week. Let's say currently, easy wait for you guys to add frequency to your training. Let's say currently, you know, you're following up whatever program, but you're doing three sets of working weight deadlifts a week. All we're gonna do is do three more sets two or three days later and we're just gonna use 50, 60% to get used to it just for two or three weeks and then you can start to up that load and now you're doing literally double the volume or you can take away a set. So if you're doing three sets a week, one day a week, three sets a day, one day a week, then what you can do is do two sets for two days in a week and then slowly build up the volume, slowly build up the weight from there, just an easy way to adjust. Dude, people are too nice today on Instagram. You know, there's some days that I just read Instagram and I say, man, the internet hates me. I still love you, but the internet hates me. And then some days I look at the other thing, the guys complimenting my quad sweep, you know, the nicest things are coming in. How did you get into lifting and BTW? I love you dog. I love you dog. I love you dog. I got into lifting around seventh grade. I set my first goals as a human being, as an adult, as a 13 year old adult, mini adult. I decided that I wanted to go play professional basketball and I knew to do that, that my grandpa was 5'5", my father was 5'6", and my mother's maybe 5'7". Genetics were not on my side in the height department that I had to get stronger, I had to get faster, I had to outwork everybody else. And so luckily I had super supportive parents and my dad found me a strength conditioning coach and I started lifting, doing conditioning in all my off-season of basketball and even a little bit during and playing basketball as much as I could. So that's how I got into it. And then as I started to, my career started to wind down, played a little bit of college, played a little bit of like semi pro, like an A league. I turned my focus into coaching, basketball and strength and conditioning itself and that kind of led me to powerlifting. Are you Italian? Eh? Eh? I don't know, am I? Amphal, hey dude, we're getting some video game questions. I mean we got the Twitch fam on Instagram. Hey, top three favorite video games all time. All time. I think I gotta go. I don't think I played GoldenEye. I think I played the other one. N64, there was two. And I think GoldenEye was the most popular but there was a slightly newer one. I played the crap out of that. Something to die, live another day. Die tomorrow or something? Or die another day? I think I played Die Another Day. N64 James Bond game. The world is not enough. Ah, that's it. I played the living hell and I was optic. I was phase. I was ninja. I was ninja. At the world is not enough, dude. I knew all the tunnels and you're out there floating around trying to find a rocket launcher cause that's the only way your dumb ass is gonna kill me. And I'm just up there. I have some kind of little pistol AR and you are done, dude. You are done. I remember the snow map. There's two tunnels and it went like this and I went to the top one and you hide behind a rock and your little dumb ass is down there and we're literally sitting next to each other so you can see what's happening on my screen and you still can't stop me. You can see cause it's split screen cause we're back down to 2001. Maybe before. We're probably back down to 1999 and you can see exactly what I'm doing and you still can't stop me. I'm ninja times a thousand. World is not enough. Mario Kart. All of them. And then probably Halo. Probably Halo, dude. And I guess if I had to choose probably a Halo two just cause you need that online action. Maybe Halo three. Probably my favorite. Those are probably like top, top. Tip it, tip it, tip it, tip it, top. How do you deal with injuries mentally? It's hard, man. It's hard. I'm dealing with a couple of friends and clients right now that are going through some injuries and preparation for a competition. And whether you compete, whether you just like to train or whether you just like to live life, being in pain is never fun. So one, I think you have to focus on what you can do. You start to look at the positive and that's very hard. I say these things, I preach these things because I personally struggle with them. And it's something that I'm slowly always trying to work on and it's something that does help me although it is a struggle. Much easier said than done. But you start focusing on things you can do. So right now, my back's a little beat up. It doesn't hurt that bad right now but I know I can't dig into the heavy dead lifts that I want to. So what do I do? I focus on what I can do. I can condition, I can focus on my nutrition, I can get good sleep and I can get bigger, juicier peaches and biceps. So that's what I'm focusing on right now. And that's what you gotta do for yourself. You know, if you hurt your pinky finger, focus on a safety squat bar, focus on some lunges, focus on what you can. And then two, obviously, how did you get injured? Was it a freak thing? Are you actually injured and not just hurt? I think that's a big definition we have to go into. And then trying to prevent it going down the road. Appreciate you guys. Give this thing a thumbs up. Turn on notifications. Brand new videos Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, vlogs, food, some Q and A's trying to help you guys out. Silent Mike, I'm outta here.