 Ladies, here's one of the biggest red flags when it comes to an online workout program. If it says it's made for women, that's right. 99% of the workouts that say for women online are actually watered down terrible workouts that were previously done for men. For some reason, the fitness industry thinks that women's workouts are super high rep, lots of band burn exercises, exercises that are terrible and inferior to other superior ones. Workouts for women online are typically terrible. It's a big red flag, pay attention. God, I'm torn on this one, bro. I have a hard time with this because for our personal journey of selling digital programs online has been an interesting one to say the least. We have been told by our marketing team for years now how important it is for us to separate that. And they've even come down to me, I don't care. If you guys tailor it, not or for, it doesn't matter. It's that we present it that way. It's effective. Because it is extremely effective and you gotta stop thinking like everybody thinks like you and that people understand there's a difference. 90% of people think that it's that way. So by you not doing that, you're losing a massive amount of people. Now, the integrity in us goes, who cares then? We don't care. It's not just about money for us, but the way that a good marketing guy sells it to you that makes you go like, okay, maybe he's right is because you are so stubborn about not doing that, you've lost out on 1000, maybe tens of thousands of people that you could have at least brought them into your circle and then educated them on how it really works. And so because you're so stubborn that you don't want to do, so I have struggled with this since the day that we have started selling. We're trying to like change the culture of everything and it's such a bigger ship to steer. Way bigger. You know, in terms of like, like you said, and we've even gotten in discussions with some of our peers about this because they'll do, they'll present that argument. Like, well, I'm reaching more people and I'm like, by at least like marketing in that direction, it's like I can at least get their attention, pull them in and then we, you know, give them good valuable information and there's an argument to that. But if everybody does that, then the message is never gonna change. Yeah, yeah, there's a big difference between people have no idea, by the way. But it's so hard. You're right. We sacrificed by doing that. This is a debate with our advertising team or marketing team all the time. Has been for six years. They hate us. Listen, there's a big difference between marketing a program to women and it's the same program that you give to men. I still don't like that either. But that's still better than what they'll do often where they'll take workouts and then design workouts for women and you look at the work. And make it gimmicky. And they're the worst workouts. Yeah, yeah. I used to tell my female clients this and say, well, what do you think about this online program? It's all the ineffective exercise. Yeah, I'd like, look, if it says it's for women, it's the worst workout. But this is what Justin's saying is this is why this, that's why it's so true is that this is what sucks is you're right. There is a difference. There's a difference between marketing to women to get to, and but yet giving them a good program. Give them a good program. But the problem is that it gets convoluted so much with all the people that are giving shitty ones because we're all marketing the same way. And so it's like, how do you do that? Now the marketing damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. Now the marketing to women aspect, the challenge I have with that is it perpetuates the myth that women need to train differently than men. That somehow there's, there are exercises that are effective for men, exercises that are effective for women, that women need to train different rep ranges, that there's, that myth right there is one of the biggest, hardest myths all of us have had to overcome as trainers. Think about the biggest, most challenging myth we've had to overcome. It is so hard that there is literally somebody listening right now at this moment that is shaking their head, that is going like, well, I actually follow this program that someone gave me that I do this during my cycle. And ever since I have, it has been the, it has been the fictitious. Or I follow this person's program who, you know, puts these exercises in for these reasons for women and it has been, so yeah, it's that hard that you could be a mind pump listener for years and I guarantee there is a good amount of people right now, women right now, shaking their head, disagreeing with what you're saying. Look, there are general things that women tend to seek out when they strength training. They want to work out their butts more, their hamstrings more, shoulders more, men tend to be more interested in chest and arms and that kind of stuff. I get that. The whole cycle training, that's again, another general thing, but at the end of the day, it's down to the individual. So are there differences between individuals and how they should train? Yes, that's what you pay attention to. Not your gender, that's just marketing. And that's annoying. But yeah, the workouts themselves, if you were to take, first of all, if I were to take a hundred workout programs online, just period, most of them suck, most of them are terrible. Terrible programming. Besides the competitive strength market ones like Power Lift, Think Olympic, where the program actually has to be good, the fitness ones, they're all almost all terrible. But if you take a subgroup and you say the ones that are just four women that say four women, they're even worse, they're terrible. Well, there's no compound lifts. There's nothing under 10 reps that God forbid. And it's just like, do you think that squats, deadlifts, overhead press, barbell rows, those types of things are valuable for women? Of course, but you don't see that in a lot of these programs. You'll see a lot of booty bands and you'll see a lot of high rep and body weight specific type exercise. You know what's a good example or a great point to this and you've brought this up many times on the show is where the best programming has always been in the fitness space has been in powerlifting or Olympic lifting. Strength sports. Strength sports, where you have to go up and perform and show that you're better than what you were before or better than the other guy or the other girl. Super objective. And if you look at all the programming from the best of the best coaches in the world for the last, since the beginning of time that we've been making these programs, you'll see that there's never been an Olympic coach or a powerlifting coach that's worth their weight and soul that has ever wrote a program different for a woman than a man. Like literally, never. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist in a sport where it fucking matters that you get stronger and you get stronger than the other guy or the other girl in a certain period of time. That coach is not writing a program. You scale the intensity appropriately. The same thing that he gives to 135 pound Susie is the same thing he's given to big old Sam. Besides the individual. 280. Exactly. An individual coach is gonna work on imbalances and prior injuries and your body tends to be able to handle more volume than this girl or that guy but as far as the sex difference, zero. There's zero difference in that program. No, and look, this is, here's why this really annoys me because you're right, we could reach more people by using, for lack of utterance, shady marketing, okay? It's true. But the reason why we don't do that, because we could reach more people, but why don't we do it? Well, because the biggest problem in our space is bad information. It's myths. It's information that's inaccurate. It's narratives that aren't true. So if that's the biggest problem, why would we, being at the moment, one of the top health and fitness podcasts in the world, continue to promote these lies? Even if we reach people and then we change their mind as they come in, a lot of other people will hear about it and it's just gonna continue to proliferate and we need to stop it. Look, the fitness space has done a lot of damage to everybody because of the crappy stuff that they put out but women have been damaged more than men. That's a fact. When I train men versus women, the bullshit that has sold to women is 10 to one. It's just 10 to one. More diet crap, more pills, more workout, false information. You know how long it took us to convince women to lift weights, for God's sakes? We're finally getting there. It took us decades to do so. This is getting silly now. I mean, the image that we've sold to women has been so far off for so long too. I mean, think back, at least for the guys, the male model, physique look, whatever you wanna say that image was, say 20, 30 years ago, it's been relatively consistent and somewhat good, right? I'm not, I'm talking about it. It's extreme, but I see what you're saying. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like to build muscle, be muscular, going up in weight or size is actually could be a healthy, good thing. It's not bad. I'm not saying that Arnold Schwarzenegger is something that the average joe should aspire to be like. What I'm saying is like, that's a far better goal to have because most people never even reached that than to have a goal of looking like the 80s Coke model. Right. You'll never, that's true. Like you trying to pursue Arnold, your whole life, which you will probably never reach is a healthier pursuit than the woman that's been marketed to look like the 80s Coke model. Like that's a very dangerous, unhealthy direction for you to be going. And even if you can make the argument that yeah, of course, some of these bodybuilders on steroids but you pursuing that physique or goal is far less detrimental. And that's extreme. That's extreme. The mainstream male representations of ideal, which are also unattainable on that stuff, right? For most people, but those at least, you're right, at the very least, there's a certain level of health for women. Like for men, you'll never see someone who looks like they're on heroin be our beauty standard. Right. That and yes, that was the point I'm trying to make. You know what I'm saying? It's like, of course, I'm not celebrating the extremes. It's just that the extreme for men is still been a way healthier pursuit than the extreme that we've presented to women for so long. And I just think that, and it really it's gotten better, but it still hasn't gone away. No. And if you look at the gimmicks in the space, the gimmicks and the fads, who do they hit the most? Like this is a dirty secret in the fitness industry, okay? You want to make millions of dollars with the fad, you target women. Yeah. They're the buyers. That's because they're the consumers, but also they're used to being marketed to that way. Well, we're here to tell you, don't buy the crap. It's all bullshit. And I used to love telling, like I said, I love telling my female clients that, like if it says it's for women, it's almost always a crappy, shitty routine, throw it away. Why? What do you mean? Because that's, first off, the marketing alone is baloney. Second off, they typically will take an effective workout and then they'll just make it ineffective and say, here you go, ladies. We put the barbells down and the heavy dumbbells down and we replaced everything with, I don't know, this flexible stick or I don't know what they, anything they use and we do 85 reps, it burns, therefore you're not gonna get big, you're just gonna sculpt. Yeah. It's also because I think that, women are emotional creatures and that's an emotional buy and sell by doing that. They play, like marketing plays into that side. And it's not that the men don't have emotions also, but we operate differently when it makes to buying decisions and things like that than the average female does. So they double and triple down. Well, I mean, along those lines. Men are not very loyal customers, that's for sure. Yeah. Like you ask a guy, like, no, I mean, there's not, we're just not very loyal for the most part with products and stuff. Like you ask a guy, like, asking about any of the products he uses. He'll be like, I don't know. Yeah. The best deal. Yeah, I'll just use this one or that one. What's that meme where there's like a, they show like a shower and it's like, this is for hair, this is for body, this is for whatever and the dude has like dish soap. Yeah. Hair, body, balls. He scrubs his balls with, you know, as he puts on his hair. Yeah. I was trying to think this whole time, you guys are talking of like an example of a heroin guy, you know, and I'm like, there's gotta be, you know, it's usually in like the rock and roll. The rock and roll. That's different. It's not the physical ideal. It is different. Yeah, like, you don't look at a rock and roll guy and go like, I'm gonna work out to look like, you know, Mick Jagger, you know what I'm saying? Like no one is doing that. No, no. Like that's, but that is a good example of people that people tend to admire or aspire to be like, but not for their physique. So I just think that, you know, women for the most, and it's changing for the good. I mean, that's the positive. The good thing is that we are moving in the right direction with marketing to women, but we've, we still, it's still there. It's still lingering. It's still a challenge that you have to overcome. But it is exciting to say that being in the space as long as we have, there's definitely a clear difference in a conversation that I have with a female client today versus a female client 20 years ago. Like the fact that things like muscle mommy trends or one of our hottest episodes. Just bulking in general for women. It's a really positive, exciting thing. It's so different. Like you would never put those two words together 20 years ago. I haven't gone to the gym in a while. I've been working out here, but I just back this week, I went back to the gym and it's like the freeway area is 50% women. Now nobody thinks about it now, but I mean, it wasn't that long, well, it was a long time ago, but for me it wasn't that long ago. There were no women in the freeway area, none ever, ever. If they were, they were in the corner, but it was all just, it was all dude. So there's definitely been some, you know, some bigger. Have we done an episode like that Doug, where we've done all the positive, no, like the positive changes of the, that would be good. Like the five most positive things that the space has done, like in the last decade or so. I don't think we have done a specific effort. That would be kind of a fun one for us to like, like make a list of what we think have been the most positive change. Maybe then maybe we do one on the opposite side too, like the five things that got worse or something. Let's do that. Today's program giveaway is Maps Split. This is a bodybuilder workout program. If you want to win it, do this. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop it. Subscribe to this channel and then turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comment section. We're also running a sale right now. Maps symmetry is half off and the RGB bundle is half off. If you're interested in either one or both, just click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, here comes the show. So I got some more negative stuff for you. So, hey, do you know what they just came out with? They're trying to market it. Vegan count food. Yes. Yeah, right. I swear. I thought that was like a slow death. Wasn't that a hashtag or a movement for a while there where people were doing that and their cats were looking like they're gonna die? What are people doing, dude? This is a, listen, this is, they're carnivores. First of all, here's the website. It would only be a cat person that would do something like this, too. Here's the page. The page, the page. God, people don't do still. It's on Twitter or X or whatever, right? It's called plant-based news. So there's no. No bias. Yeah, I'm sure there's no bias there. Plant-based news. Can cats really be vegan? A new study, I wanna see the study, has added to a growing body of research. Shut your face. Growing a body of it. Yeah, bro. Wow, I didn't know there was a whole body of it. A research on the safety of plant-based diets for our companion animals. So here's the irony of this. What a crock of shit. Here's the irony of this. It's actually quite clever. The irony, here's the irony. The irony is in order to save animals that people normally eat or give a shit about, we're gonna starve your pet that you love so much. We're gonna make them malnourished. I also think it's a really clever way to, again, play to people's heartstrings, right? I mean, you're saving the planet. You're now kind of healthy or diet for your cat. It's just another angle to hit people on why. We rather cats running outside looking for any kind of rodent to fill their void of protein. Someone's gotta make a little five-minute cartoon or reel of that. It's like catching birds, like a parody, right? Like do a parody of the cat. So you get to be in the cat's perspective of how pissed the cat is. Bro, take a food or vegetable, walk up to your cat, see if he wants to eat it. Hey, what's up? Want an apple? Hey, these are the people that don't watch. Shout out to Nature as metal. That's one of my favorite, or the dark side of Nature. Like those are such awesome Instagram pages to follow. But people need to follow that. You do, because you can see how it really goes down. Nature is not like Disney movie. No, it's not forgiving at all. No, and it's just like it's in our DNA. Like there's just certain things like we need. We need nutrients. And yes, there's cruelty in some of that, but that's just like it's part of the animal world we live in. And then the show alone. Those two things. Yeah, that's my favorite one. Are the two things that like. You ever see the vegans on alone? Yep. Done. Done. They switched so fast. Tap out. Yeah. I found these berries and this whatever and like day three that are like, ah. Nature is metal and the alone are two of the most basic raw examples of like this is how we got here. You know what I'm saying? Like this is how it was, how it's been forever. Just recently in the last 50 to 100 years if we've gotten so arrogant that we think it should all change. I mean, look, the truth. I love, I have to put, I love animals. You know, like I bash on this stuff a lot. I like that people want to be nice and thoughtful and careful, but you have to live in reality. That's all I'm saying. Well, look, okay. Paul Chex says this very well. The most important animal is you. Yep. And you got to care for yourself. Now, can you eat a diet that's vegan and can it be healthy for you? For some people, yes. It does take a lot more planning. And thankfully we have the technology in the markets that allow you to give you the variety and the supplements that can help meet some of those nutrient deficiencies. But some people, no matter what, I had clients like this. They were such devout vegans for moral reasons. I had one lady on there. I forgot she was devout, right? And it was for moral reasons. But man, all of her symptoms were nutrient deficiency related and she took supplements. She took vitamins. Her hair was falling out. She saw functional medicine practitioner. Finally, she agreed to add eggs to her diet. Then she agreed to add fish eggs to her diet. And her health made such a radical turn. And I remember having a conversation with her about this and she's like, yeah, I had to like take care of myself because I can't help anybody else if I'm so sick. She was getting depressed and anxious and lots. And for some people, that's the case because it's just not, you don't assimilate it as well. And for some people, it's essential. For most people, it's essential, I'll say. You know what? When was the last time you looked at like a chart on the growth in vegans? Like how many? Oh, how many people identify as vegans? Yeah, yeah. Have you seen something like that, Doug? Can we look at something? I'd love to see something like over the last, like say 20 years ago. Is veganism on the rise? Put that up. Because also too, isn't the burgers and the meat that's like, I can't believe it's, okay, be honest with you. I can't believe this is a meat. I don't know what the hell it's called. They should call that. I can't believe it's not meat. It probably is. Like I feel like that's on the decline. They pulled it out of a lot of restaurants. That's why I'm curious. I want to see, and we've heard more and more people that are... It was such a fad. It was like, it tastes almost as good, but it's actually worse for you across the board. Yeah, because all the oils, yeah. It's just like, word got out. What does it say there, Doug? In Q1 of 2022, the global score for veganism popularity dipped below 60, which I don't know what that means exactly. It went down. But it did go down. The peak was in 2019. Yeah. It gave me something else. I don't know if I'd like that stat. Even though it tells us... No, I said report shows decline. I know, I know. Okay, so that gives me the general, whatever I already thought, right? I already thought it was on the decline, right? But I want to know, I'd like to see a graph. I'd like to see like... Speaking of which... 3 million people identified as vegan in 1990, and now it's what... So speaking of which, so people always wonder, well, why are we pushing not eating meat or animal products as a way to be healthy when it's not true, it's not true. A healthy omnivore diet is going to be healthier for the vast majority of people. Follow the money. Then a healthy vegan one. Follow the money. It's because you can patent plants. That's right, follow the money. Once they did GMO plants, and then products like beyond meat is a patty that is patented. Yeah. A burger patty is not patented. You can't because it's cows. So that's what they can do. They can patent and control the market. This is why they push people in this direction. By the way... Listen, if you saw what just happened to us in the last three years where they used a pandemic to push a vaccine for all of us to take and shoot into ourselves, to think they would not manipulate information and data to convince you to switch to another diet because they can patent that other diet, you are a fool. Yeah. You are a fool. Somebody just red-pilled his coffee. I mean, that's not even like conspiracy to me. That's like business 101. Watching the train. If you're about making money, and that's what you want to do, that is a smart strategy. Yeah. So forget the moral side. Forget the conspiracy. It's all about the money. Yeah. Like, that is a brilliant strategy if you want to make a ton of money. It's been happening forever. The food pyramid was heavily, heavily influenced by the food industry. Remember the time... Remember there was a... I think this was in 2000... I want to say 2009 or 10. They were trying to pass laws saying that vegetables must be present in school, lunches. Well, they lobbied government to qualify pizza sauce. Pizza. Tomatoes. I remember that. I remember that. Oh, that's bullshit. Here's your vegetable. Yeah. Yeah, pizza sauce and ketchup. Doug, what are you reading right there? Well, it says between 2004 and 2019, there was a 30-fold increase in vegans in the United States. Wow, 30-fold. But I'm looking through this article and I don't know really how they're determining that. I don't think there's any... There'd have to be a massive survey. Well, that other article that you showed, so that's from 2004 to 2019. That other article said since 2019 to now we've been in a 60-point drop. Right. And I think one of the things that they're using is the increase in vegan products being purchased. Oh, that's probably what it is. That doesn't necessarily mean that everybody's totally plant-based, if you will. That's more of a trend thing. It's a more of a trend. Oh, yeah. So I don't think they have any real stats on this. By the way, you know what they just successfully did? Huh. They grew fruit in a lab. Really? Yeah. Like lab-grown fruit now they're working on. What? I know. They're really moving in this direction because they're going to be able to patent everything. Yes. Like why? It's already... Well, they say it's for the climate, this and that. By the way, did you know lab-grown meat is far worse the environment? You know what I want to be... I also... Okay, why are we talking about this too? Because I know we're probably already lost half the people that have already drank the Kool-Aid. I do want to make the point that I'm actually not against this. Because if this can feed people that are starving in other countries. Sure. And if you had no... It's like I can't... By the way, there's millions of people that are on less than like a thousand calories a day that if we can produce things by the masses with like zero... Like very little minimal effort and money that could save lives. Sure. I don't care that it's not as healthy. Yeah, the technology I think... I am for that. But what I'm not for is pushing a bullshit narrative just for these companies to make money and to manipulate other people who have the option to actually make the healthier better choice. Well, they don't present it right. What they say is this is better for the environment and it's gonna save money and feed more people. But what they need to say, if they're honest, is right now it's way more expensive than the real deal and it's way worse for the environment but we're just learning, it's a new technology and we're working on it. And it has potential to save... That's it. Millions of lives. But they don't do that. If we could feed them. No, they sell it as like this is better. It's not... And I could get behind that. Yeah, sure. I could totally get behind that. Dude, let me get this straight though. Like, so I heard a stat and I have to get like fact-checked on this because it was pretty crazy. Like, so how much carbon do you think is in the atmosphere? Oh, I heard this. Oh, yeah, yeah. I just give a guess. So everyone was guessing all the professors I saw were guessing 5%. But it's like... 5% or 20%, even like... Some people would think because, you know, there's a lot of like urgency around this. Like, oh my God, we're putting so much carbon in the air. Right. 0.04%. Wow. And before that, like thousands of years before that was like 0.02%. Yeah. And anything less than that is the ice age. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we're looking at. Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah, I saw that. Do you know what... Like, where's the hysteria? I'm just... The greenhouse gases were much higher during the time of dinosaurs. And that's why there was so much... There's a lot of growth. Things were so big. We've also made a massive improvement since the 80s and the 90s. In the 80s and the 90s, we were like, when we didn't give a shit, we were just pumping everything out and there was no effort at all to make a better choice. Like, we were way worse than what we were just at. Just where we're at now. Well, I don't know. I'm just trying to stay in a logical frame of mind. Look, here's the thing. If people want to... If they really want to be objective about this, then what they need to realize is this. Is that if we impose restrictions on emissions, that the poorest of the poor are dead. Okay? There are people that have just come out of poverty over the last 20 years, and they cannot survive these kind of regulations. So we'll kill lots of people. We'll slam them into poverty. Now, if you're rich and you're doing okay, you're a wealthy country, some people will hurt, middle class and lower will hurt, but you'll be okay. But these other people will die. The second thing is nuclear power right now, of the technologies available right now, is the answer. But it's so embroiled with crazy regulations and fears that nobody wants to touch it. But the truth is, we could have the solution. We could create some of the cleanest, most plentiful energy with these new generation nuclear reactors that people don't want to touch. Yeah, you know what I am worried about those. I was watching this documentary about plastics and microplastics and how it's just so pervasive, and it literally is in everything now to the point where we were recycling it at one point, and then I guess, because the pollution was so bad for when China hosted the Olympics, they took on a lot of the world's plastic, and they were the only ones recycling it because they didn't have regulations for burning it and putting it up in the atmosphere. And so it was so bad, they couldn't even see it. So they stopped allowing that, those practices. So then that actually put the halt on a lot of countries' outlet for being able to recycle plastics. And now they just get rid of it in the ocean and they just disperse it all over the place. And it's a real big problem. So there needs to be innovation for sure in that. And I am worried about environment. You know how much of your stuff it gets recycled? Most of it doesn't. Just the aluminum. That's it. It's been that way for a long time. Yeah. Because they were shipping it out. It's frustrating. I know, it's super frustrating. Put it in there, we're recycling. Now it goes in the garbage. I know I have a buddy that works at waste management places. He goes in the same container. I'm like, oh my god. That makes me so mad. Why am I separating it out? It's a lot that you think all this is getting accounted for. It's just not. Hey, I want to tell you guys, this is kind of cool. So you know how I... I think Doug first said this, and he hit the nail on the head. You know the chocolate bone broth from Paleo Valley? Yeah. And how everybody's like... It's the best tasting protein, period. End of story. There's no protein powder that tastes better. But Doug nailed it, hit the nail on the head. He said it tastes like chocolate donuts. I'm like, it is chocolate donuts. Yeah. We've been saying on the show. Yeah. They advertise it now. I saw that. With chocolate donuts in the picture. A little chocolate donut in the picture. Yeah. Because once you drink it, you know. You're like, that's what it tastes like. It literally tastes like... That's from you. 100%. I mean, I know because I obviously handle that side of the house like that. We're by far their biggest partner. And I'm sure that when we talk about their product, how we talk about their... Which by the way, kudos to them for being one of the smarter partners that do that. I think it's so funny when some of these partners don't take the time to pay attention and see that thing. It's like, that's how much like the information that we're communicating related to their brands makes a difference. That why wouldn't you not use that marketing tool like in your benefit by going out and putting money behind it like that. So I'd love to see brands that actually are paying attention to stuff like that. You've been taking a lot of that because you can't have dairy now. So it's so funny how I was so late to the party on it. And of course, now I don't have much of a choice. So I'm on that like crazy. My favorite part about it, aside from it, it does taste really good. It does taste like you said. It's great. And even with just like water. I know I make it with the almond milk when I'm at home. If I'm here, I just mix it with water. Both ways taste phenomenal. My favorite part about it is that I can do like four or five scoops of it. It doesn't bother your gut at all. It's so easy to digest. At all. So if I need a lot, like if I'm way behind on protein and I need like a, you know, a 50 gram protein shake, I can literally, I don't know how many scoops. Because I think it's like what, 16 grams? That's like four or five scoops. Like 12 grams per scoop if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. Something like that, right? So I mean, I could literally load up the scoops and it does not where in the past I remember when I used to do that with way. If I had anything over like it, and I've said this before that I know when I had two products that were like heavy and like way like that in the day, like it would definitely mess up my gut, which obviously we know why now. But yeah, I'm like hard. I've experimented. I've gone as high as over 100 grams of protein from just the bone broth from Paleo Valley. Wow. Yeah. Which I haven't pushed that high yet. Yeah. Not in one, not in one serving, but like three or four. Yeah. But still that's 100 grams. I mean, I have 200, maybe to 215 grams a day. So that means on that day I would push my protein up to 300. Just as an experiment. Yeah. No, no negative issues on my gut. It's the only protein powder I could probably go crazy with. You know, I'm glad you brought that up too though, because I know we did an episode recently where we were recommending to people that they don't do that. And it doesn't mean that there isn't examples of where one of us has done that or do that. Sure. But I don't think if I were to ask you, Sal. Is it better than food? Or I would say would you score your day today a perfect day of eating just because you hit your protein intake. If you were like, well, you know, I was on the go like crazy, something like that. I only got two whole meals and then I had to have a bunch of shakes for the day. You would be like it was a perfect day of eating just because you hit your quote unquote macros. You'd be like, oh, it's pretty good. I stayed in my calorie balance. It's better than not. Yeah, better than not. But I'm not trying to celebrate a day like that as like that is ideal. It's like that's in case you're better off doing something like that. I think that's an important point to make because we had that episode and I know there was like pushback from the people. Oh, I love my shakes. I love my bars. Like, okay, we're not saying none of us have that do that. It's just that if you're always striving to be better diet, exercise and health wise, you should strive to always get it through whole foods and only use these things as a supplement in case in case you can't get it. Another reality is that tends to happen a lot and people who have very busy lives or struggle like we saw a bunch of vegans that were on there that were like, well, I don't, you know, it's as a vegan, I have a hard time getting, okay, that that makes sense. Then I'm going to tell you to do that. I'm not going to shame you from having two protein shakes and say, well, don't do it at all. It's better than missing your protein. Yeah, now you miss your protein it takes. But, you know, I'm at this point right now, I'm back to kind of like I'm loosely tracking. I'm not hardcore tracking. If I don't do my creatures of habit first thing in the morning, which is a solid 30 to 32 grams of protein to start my day, I'm always behind. I'm almost still behind unless I'm like actively getting it. Well, what are you aiming for? 200 something grams? Yeah, I would like, I'll even let myself hit 180 and consider it an okay day because I'm not. But I deal what? 200. Yeah, 200. That's hard. If you don't have, you don't start the day with 30 to 50 grams. It's like you're going to eat 70 grams of protein with each meal then. I know, that's why. And that's hard. That's what I mean. If I don't hit, and I'm okay with there's nothing wrong with also there's another point too to make. There's nothing wrong with having one day of low protein. In fact, we, if you go further and far enough back, we used to talk a lot about the, what we think a lot of benefits behind protein cycling where you have extremely low day, one low day, and then you go back up, right? So there is value in missing a day of protein low, but not consecutively. And what I, and I'm more like, I notice if I get in the behavior of not getting my creatures of habit in the morning, I could string three to five days of under 140 grams of protein. And so at that point, I know I'm potentially losing muscle because I'm not even giving my body adequate protein to hang on to the muscle. Totally, totally. I gotta tell you about some books that I got that I think you'd be interested in Adam for Max. I found these on, where did I, I was on, I think it was an Instagram post. There's like these parenting Instagram pages that everybody like, where they, you know, I see things on there all time like, oh, that's really cool. I'm gonna get that for my kid. There's a book. It's written by, it's a book series written by Chris Ferry. And here's the books. Okay. The first one is general relativity for babies. Then they have rocket science for babies. Then they have Newtonian physics for babies and quantum physics for babies. These are books for kids. Have you opened it and looked at it? Yes. You know what I like about them? How do they introduce it? I'm curious. I'm learning a shit. Yeah, I was gonna say it's probably best to learn. Well, I mean, it's actually really, it's really good. And as a parent, I'm reading it. I'm like, oh, that's string theory for a child. It's actually really, it's really, really good. Yeah. My kid is like looking through them and I'm, so, you know, a big mistake I've made in the past is if I really want my kid to do something, I'll be over excited and I'll go present it and they'll say no and then I lost the opportunity. Yeah. So there it is. Look at all the, look at all the different, look at neural networks for kids. Astrophysics for, for baby. Look at that. Can you show the, I want to see the inside of one. Like, is it like, is it, do they do it basic through this way? You're introducing the words. You are, but, but it's not, it's not like, I mean, hey, here's, it's good. And you learn as a parent. Like I said, one of the things that I've been most impressed about Max's education and schooling in, in comparison to anything that I ever got. Like I was, I didn't get, I don't know about you guys. I didn't get introduced to any sort of school structure until I was five. My son has been in, in schools since he was three years old. So, or even two and a half actually, if you count the, the Montessori, right? So we had Montessori at two, two and a half. And then he went to regular school at three and four. They teach him, like you think presidents, like what is my son doing losing a president? But he already can see images and, and connect name. Like, Oh, Lincoln, like he'll know. So I, even though he probably can't give me a whole dissertation on it. I know that when he gets older and as they teach that in classes older, like it'll probably, yeah, it'll sink in. Well, look at this book. Start with the first one, Doug. Like the first picture or whatever, whoever's clicking that. So it says, this is a ball. This ball has energy. And then you go to the next one. Keep going. This ball has zero energy. So, and so you kind of explain. Yeah, that's great. This ball, all balls are made of atoms. There are, what does that say? Neutrons. Then they have electrons. Then it talks about, you know, how things have mass. Oh my God, it's great. I mean, it's really cool. So yeah, I'm like, and it's fun from, I enjoy reading these, it's a great shout out today. Cause I, I did not know about this author. So throw that author up as, I just found out, I got so cool. Who, did you just see it on Instagram? Yeah. Somebody shared it. Stuff like that. Somebody shared it on Instagram that they like for their kids and I'm like, what? They make books like this. So I went on, I went on Amazon and they're, I mean, I definitely did a lot of the, uh, uh, programming in terms of music. So I, I did like all of the ACDC and Metallica, Lullaby stuff. And it stuck. You know, that's the weird part is like, and mix in with like classical music. Um, but, uh, yeah, like all that stuff, dude, if you can introduce it to him the right way, I feel like it's, it does promote, uh, interest later on. Isn't there research around, uh, classical music and learning? Yeah. Oh yeah. There is, right? Yes. You know, it has to, you know what they think it, well, so there's a lot of mystery around music and how it helps with learning. Yeah. Part of it is the, learning you get from the tempo and the beats. They think that that contributes to your ability to conceptualize math. The other thing has to do with just how it lights up the whole brain. So it may improve communication between different regions of the brain, but there's a lot of mystery too as to why music has such a, an effect on our ability to process information. I wish I had like access to this one. This video explains, I think it's Mozart, uh, one of his main pieces, but, um, they were talking about the genius of it because you could literally play it forward and backwards, exactly the same. And like, they were like, basically upside down in it, like all, all different directions. And it had a whole sequence that made sense. So it was like this, this very alien like ability he had to, to kind of, uh, string all of these notes together. And it, I don't know, like I'll have to like add that in. Maybe the show notes, I'll add the video that explains it, but it would just trip me out. I'm super fascinated by music and the role it plays. And I still think that there's so much that we haven't fully uncovered. I mean, I think, you know that like, uh, grocery stores play a very specific type of music to get you to shop longer and buy. Yeah, they know you'll stay longer. Yeah, I know. You can, you can play certain types for, for learning. I mean it's just, I think that's really interesting that we, I mean, I've told you guys that one of the coolest things I ever saw was my, my cousin who homeschools all her kids and they, they, the homeschooling teaches like over years, a single song that they build on it. Yeah. That's teaching them the, like history and a timeline. I'm like, oh my God, it's like, and I think that these kids are long, you know, disconnected from that now and could still recite that, like the power of that is incredible. I mean, that has to be how we got this far for so long before there was pen and paper and places. Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, all that and like Jim Quick, like when he was breaking all that down about memorizing things and associating and like creating visuals within like that memory. So you, you know, associate it. It's so much easier to recall it. Listen, say the ABC's in your head right now without singing it. Exactly. You're gonna sing it. It's just the way it is. It is. I know. Hey, Justin, this is cool. I thought you would find this interesting. I saw a link with the image, right? It's a picture of the fastest animals in the world. So the fastest land animal, the fastest animal in water, and the fastest animal in the air. So do you guys know which one, what they are? Land animals is probably easy. You guys probably know that. Well, the air is Falcon. Yeah. There's a specific type of Falcon. Yeah. What is that called? It's called a pregoreen. Paragon. Pregoreen. P-R-E-G-U-R-I-N-E. Land is the cheetah. Cheetah. Okay. And then what was my other water? Yeah. Dolphin. No. Water. The fastest in the water. Yeah. It's not a dolphin. Sailfish. Oh, a sailfish. So here's what's crazy. So first off, these are on kilometers. I don't know how many miles this is. Maybe we can look this up. But the Falcon can fit. Is this a streamlined, I guess. Well, so I'm gonna tell you what tripped me out, right? So let's start with the fastest, right? The Falcon. 390 kilometers an hour. What is that mile? So divided by two. Is that it? I mean, roughly. I think it's like 2.2 kilometers per mile or something like that. Didn't they model something in their nose? That's very similar. Yeah, it's very similar. What is it? You say 390 kilometers per hour? Yeah. That's 240 miles per hour. Oh my God. So what is the math? So that's not right. So what is it? I think it's 0.6 or something like that. Oh, 0.6. Around there. 290 miles an hour in animal? Yeah. Oh my God. There's something specific. Like, if you look that they modeled, I think jet airplanes after. The stealth airplanes? Yeah. Like in their nose. They're all kind of like... Also the way that they're... The way that they dive so quick. Yeah. Like they had to have something specific about their nose. Also the way that they're shaped. If you look at them when they're peak speed and how the air moves around them, this is the base to stealth bomber off of them. Oh yeah. If you look at how it's kind of like a little bigger in the front. That's how we always advance, you know, technology. It's crazy. All right. So Cheetah. Just wild. The one for me goes 120 kilometers an hour. Yeah. So they were like 60. Like a Cheetah is like 60 miles an hour. No, that's faster than that. 74. 75 miles an hour. Just hella fast. Do you imagine you're on a freeway? Yeah. We were always told it was like 100 miles an hour, you know, ability. That's crazy. Yeah. That's still really fast. Here's what tripped me out. The sailfish. It's in water. Water is hard to go fast in. 110 kilometers an hour. It only goes 10 kilometers slower than the Cheetah. Wow. In the water. Yeah. It's impressive. In the water. That's insane. I wonder if that sail gives it some aerodynamic. Well, obviously not aero, but torpedo dynamic. What do you say in the water? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, obviously air would make the most sense to be the fastest. Of course. It is interesting that the water is slower. It's just not as. Way slower. Well, I mean, then the. 10 kilometers? Yeah. That's nothing. Then land. Yeah, it's interesting. That's a lot of power. There's a lot of power here of Falcon diving. Yeah. Tell me what it looks like. It's a stealth bomber. Yeah. I told you. Yeah. Right there up in the left. Actually, in fact, there should be a. There's a picture, I guarantee comparing them. Scroll down. Is that one right there? Oh yeah. Right there. Look at it. Oh my God. Yeah. See, it's identical. Look up its nose, Dugs. I don't sound crazy. Now they, you know, they hunt by the birds. Nose. Yeah. Like they use to some, like you would fight or do a massive. So they hunt birds, right? They fly real high and they see another bird, another fast bird and they, phew. Yeah, that's the crazy part. I always forget that. Like birds are, they prey on each other all the time. You ever seen some of those, I don't know what they're called. I can get into that kind of part. Carpe Eagles or yeah, I know. Yeah. I don't know if I could ever be the bird watching guy who got his little boat out and he's in his backyard. Oh, watch that. Yeah, but I would totally do it. Yeah, but would you even know what's going on? Geez, it's so fast. Have you seen, have you seen those? I think they're called harpy, either it's like harpy eagles and golden eagles. They're so big, they're like pick up goats and shit and throw them off cliffs. Yeah, I always go back to that one culture that uses them to hunt. Oh, the Mongolian? Yeah, the Mongolian culture is so badass. It's so badass. Do you know that the, who was it? I want to say the US or it might have been England was looking at using dolphins as a way to attack some marines, I believe in World War II. US and I think the Russians too. Yeah. Like an explosive. Yeah, they had, I think they even used like torpedoes and things and I mean, did like suicide missions with them. Dude, I can't believe we forgot to talk about why we were talking about the whole vegan diet culture and so that. Oh. I, okay, you sent over. First of all, you talked about the other day, the doctors that are getting paid. Doctors and dieticians are getting paid by the food industry to promote bullshit. What I didn't tell you guys, you sent over this horror. It just came out. This was like literally last week, just not even, not even a week over a week or two ago. One of our buddies, Brad Jensen who he is, I'm trying to remember the name of his podcast. He's been on, I think we had him on our show a long time ago or he came on here and he interviewed us. Do you remember who I'm talking about? Oh yeah, I recall. Buff guy, recovered from a drug addiction. Yeah, great story. Great guy. He did like this shout out of listing off like, you know, five people you must follow in fitness. And, you know, I always appreciate it when people give us love and shout us out that way. But then there's always somebody in their list. I'm just like, ah, man, I don't know. He shouted that guy out. Oh. And I actually had this, like, I wanted to send something to him. One of the fake doctors. And I wanted to send some to him, but I was like, ah, you know, whatever. Like, I'm not like that. Like, I'm gonna hate somebody, I don't have to. But now that that came out, like, I have to go, I have to reach out to him. Maybe he'll hear this. I know he listens to the show. Like that guy is a piece of shit. I knew he was a piece of shit. I knew he was a piece of shit when we first had an encounter with him over a year and a half, two years ago. He's so annoying. When we got into it over, I don't even remember what it was over. Was it cardio that we were getting into it with him? He just, okay. So his name on social media. Eric gets fucked. I don't like that guy. Anybody who follows him, go ahead and send him this clip. Be like, they were talking shit. You should, you should go after them. He's a puke. Please come after us. His name, Dr. Idz. Is it IDZ? And he gets on there and he's super arrogant and like. Where's his lab coat in his video? Blah, blah, blah. And then sugar is fine. Blah, blah, blah. The vaccine, good for you, blah, blah. Anyway, I got in a debate with, I don't remember what it was a while ago. I'm like, this is bad information. And we went back and forth and he was such an arrogant, well, you know, I have a PhD and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, well, it turns out you're one of the people that are paid off. So. Yeah. How did that come? How do you come across that? Max Lugavir posted. So the investigative journalists who found out these influencers were being paid off. Yeah. Listed, I guess, some of them as the ones that he uncovered. And this one. You've been out at full. What's his following? He's got a big following. He's got a big following. What's he up to now? I don't know. You know, and by the way, I mean. I would love to talk to him. I want our listeners to fuck him. I love. I'm gonna give him. I wouldn't even give him the opportunity to do that. Fuck him. We've had a lot of people. The reason why I really wanted to bring him up too, I know it's like, I sound salty as fuck over this, but this is a guy who I know we've been tagged many times or people think he's great or has good information because he's countered some of the information that we've talked about. And we've gone back and forth with this dude for over a couple of years now. And it's like, at this point, we were like, whatever about it. But the fact that this came up now and now it's fucking coming after him. 248,000 followers. Yeah, so he's got a quarter million people that are paying attention to him. But he's also on TikTok. He's a lot of followers there. Yeah, even more there. Yeah. Because he is. He's like a TikTok doctor. That's exactly what I put him in. Put him in the category of TikTok doctor. You go back to TikTok and stay there. Yeah, so you're a punk. So, so happy that came out, dude, on something like that. But you know what? I'm not surprised. I'm not either. How crazy is this? Like how this stuff unfolds like this? I know. Somebody who like- Who had a justice. We got into it with it years ago and just something didn't rub any of us the right way. And here, by the way, we have people that are friends of ours who we disagree with stuff. Like, Lane Norton's a perfect example of someone who doesn't align with our exact messaging, but I have so much respect. And I like that guy. Like, because he has integrity. That's right. And we can have that conversation. This guy was not like that. This was some of this guy that was a punk. The most, look, I don't like people who put out bad stuff anyway, who just, who don't have integrity, right? Nobody likes that. But what I really hate, I really hate is that people who have letters by their name, PhD, doctor, whatever, who also have terrible integrity and who are out there putting out bad information. Why? You're way more dangerous. Way more dangerous. Way more dangerous. Like, you know, you went through all that schooling. You did this. If you did. What is the oath called? The Hippocratic Oath that they do. And then you come out and you're a piece of shit. It's like when you're a scientist. Okay, I tell you what though. If you did, remember the other guy too, who was the, who created the fucking rubber band bar thing that wanted to be on the show a hundred times. Everybody talks about him too. That is all like steroid, it jacked out. And so it's like, I'd get it from the, from the band bar. Just my band. Yeah, yeah. I found out later that that dude, like, did one of those like, you know, online fake universities to have that kind of degree. So I wouldn't even put it, if that guy has it, if this doctor has that kind of integrity to sell out like this, don't for a minute think that he's not the same guy too, that would get some bullshit degree just so he says he has a PhD. So. BSU. Yeah, on a more positive note, Justin, you're correct. Yeah. So when designing jets, because when they do supersonic speeds, the engine can choke because of the airflow. Oh. And so there's some special baffle or cone inside the Falcon's nose that breaks up the air somehow. Yeah. So that you don't have that issue. So they design that into the fighter plane. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. Even more interesting, I'll figure that out. Like, oh yeah. I know. Like running those speeds and then figuring out, like the thing's probably crashing or not. Well, I mean, think about it. How the burger gonna breathe going that fast. They still have to breathe. It's like, it's gonna hold for breath. Yeah. You haven't skydived yet before. That's actually one of the hardest parts. One of the hardest parts is when you, when you jump out is the air is blowing so fast in your mouth. You almost kind of feel like you can't breathe. Yeah. And you can't like. It's a weird feeling. That makes me want to jump out of plane even more. I knew you wouldn't anyway, so who cares? I did it once, so I'm looking good, dude. No, man. It's like the other day when you guys made me go on the fucking boat, dude. That is, this is not for me, guys. That was a normal cruising experience, dude. No, it wasn't. It was a sailboat. And I got so freaking seasick. Oh, it was terrible. We can't take you anywhere, dude. It's a bummer, dude, because it wasn't even like windy or anything. It was windy. I was going sideways. Anyway, listen, I get seasick hella easy. No, yeah. I felt bad for you, bro. I took Zofran and everything. I have like, it was a prescription. That's what's crazy. But you got to be a captain for the last few weeks. You actually took medication. Bro, it hit me hard. And then once it gets you to, it's impossible to recover. And then the captain, dudes, he saw me. He saw my face like, you all right? I'm like, nope. He goes, come up here, grab the wheel a little help. So the whole time I'm, you know, steering the ship looking like I'm awesome, but in reality I'm just holding on for your life. Like, please God, don't let me throw up in front of my staff. This will totally be like. I knew it because we're throwing jokes. He was like, ugh. Yeah. I'm like, oh, South Africa. He's not firing back, so it's roughly 15, dude. Yeah, exactly. Hey, I want to give a shout out, or hopefully this guy hears this. I don't remember his name. It's probably better that I don't remember his name. But if you're listening to this, email our team, okay? Email it at info at mindputtingmedia.com. I got pulled over by a CHP and he could have been a total prick to me and was like, super cool. And I didn't get to thank him or say anything like that. And he like, he totally went right back to his bike and left. And I'm like, oh man, and I was a mind pump fan, obviously, because when he saw, yeah, no, that's not why. I mean, he was, he was, but that's not why it was. It was like, he saw the name and I was like, oh, that's crazy. Like, and then he didn't even get a chance to talk to me left. So you email in, I would love to be able to thank you or talk to you. So shout out to that CHP. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We appreciate what they do. Yeah, we definitely appreciate it. Yeah, my brother-in-law is a police officer and he'd tell me stories and stuff. They'd be like, man, I hate, I hate how sometimes the media goes so, so, so south on police officers because you go do that job, man. They got to deal with the craziest shit. Dude, impossible job. I mean, come on. No, I mean, I think of like police officers and teachers are like some of the probably the least valued people that have, least appreciated positions that do some of the most important work to our culture. And it's unfortunate that they are undervalued for what they deliver for us. And because you have one bad teacher or one bad cop or bad experience, it all of a sudden, like everybody, it's just like, it's so terrible if you have a bad, you have one bad experience with a personal trainer. I think they're like all trainers are scumbags or bad people. Yeah, but there's certain jobs that most people wouldn't want to do because, precisely because they're dangerous and scary. Police officer, go fight overseas. You know, when people criticize other people join the military, go fight. Like, what are you doing, dude? I'm not seeing you sign up to go over there and do that shit and put your life on the line. Firefighters, like really? Yeah. So like, you know, these are jobs that most people, I wouldn't want to be a cop. I don't know how I'd be able to deal with that. That's tough. And that's a job we need, you know what I mean? And I feel like today, more than ever, the bullshit that they have to take. Totally. You know, like just because they make them like fit in the lines like so much is so like crazy to me, like how much they're scrutinized. So shout out to him. Much love. And then the shout out to the author of the books that I got is Chris F-E-R-R-I-E. And he's the author of Science for Babies, Science for Babies series, really good stuff. Your sleep plays a massive role in your health, your ability to burn body fat, build muscle, and even just think clearly, well, there is a product called Sleep Breakthrough that has in greens have been shown to just improve the quality of your sleep. Now these aren't crazy sedatives, you don't wake up groggy. They do nourish your body though, and they do encourage more restful sleep, the kind of sleep that you go to bed, you wake up in the morning, you don't wake up in between, you just feel amazing. It's all natural. It's a great product, go check it out. Go to sleepbreakthrough.com forward slash mind pump, use the code mind pump 10 and get a discount. All right, back to the show. Our first caller is Tucker from California. Tucker, what's up man? What's up, man? How you doing gentlemen? Good, it's happening. It's good to hear, nothing, nothing. So I actually been a fan of the podcast for a while now. I listen to it a lot on my drives from here at USC to back to Colorado. And when I was one of the drives, I was like, I have been having this trap pain for ever now. I was like, you know what, I'm gonna submit a question to you guys and see if I just happened to get a response that I did. But basically, I have this trap pain and almost forward shoulder, it feels like. I had submitted a video to the thing as well, but when I do pull ups and stuff, it almost feels like I have to compensate on one side. Or even when I'm doing a bench press, it feels like I have to move my right hand further away and almost like kind of drive my shoulder back in a different way. And I was trying to see if you guys had any advice for that or what you guys think it could be. Did you have any injury, any sort of an injury, sport injury or anything like that? I did, I had a pretty traumatic hand injury in my sophomore year of college. I had some glass go through my hand, injured all my entire hand, all the muscle, artery, punctured all the nerves, all the tendons, everything. Still getting some feeling back in the fingers, but during that time, I couldn't, like my hand was paralyzed so I couldn't do any work on my left side. So I had a lot of work on my right side and I'm kind of scared that I might have over compensated that side. And then when I was getting back to it, I was trying to do different kinds of, pull variations or whatever it was. And I had to use a wrap because I didn't have mobility in my fingers to pull. Yeah, I don't know. Do you have any of our programs right now? I do not. Okay, map symmetry, bro. That's what- Map symmetry? Yeah, yeah, we'll send map symmetry over to you. And have you ever trained like a whole, like a whole training block, meaning for like months of unilateral work or one side of everything? I've never done, I've always just, I've done like some unilateral stuff when I work out. Like this morning I did like one unilateral exercise, but I've never done it as an entire block for a period of time. Yeah, I think you'll get tremendous benefit. I mean, I can see on the right side, I can see what you're talking about. Before doing that though, let me ask you some more questions. Do you have any neck injuries or neck pain? My, I always have to crack my right side of my neck. Yeah, we have to go like, I just crack right there where I just have, when I do that side it does not. Where do you feel, can you point to the trap pain? Like, I guess kind of- On the top? It's not as severe right now, but then also sometimes like kind of, I guess I'm holding my shirt, but right here too. Yeah, I don't think it's your trap. I think it's the maybe levitate or scapulae muscle. So it's one of the muscles that elevates the shoulder blade. I don't think it's a muscle issue though. I think it might be coming from your neck. So what happens when a muscle feels chronically tight or like it kind of hurts? Oftentimes what's happening is there's a instability that your body is sensing. And so it tightens muscles up around the instability to provide stability. But then what happens, like if you were flexing your bicep constantly, that muscle will start to get tight and kind of feel fatigued and it feels better to press on it. You'll get too early relief, but then it kind of comes back. So I feel like this is coming from your neck. I think doing movements that will help with traction through the spine might be a good idea. I think like the wall test in maps prime would probably be pretty good. I think a prone cobra exercise where you depress the scapula and create length in your spine where you're kind of lifting the very, very top of your head and trying to create length throughout the spine might help. I don't think you should do, I don't think you should do any pulldown movements for now. I think rowing is okay, but I would go really light and I would focus on bringing the shoulder blades back, but down. Yeah, all unilateral work done. Back, but down. Really squeezing back and down and going really light because what you're trying to do is create length in the spine. So you want to create length between the shoulder and the spine, but I don't want you to create length by turning your head too often or crack. The cracking of the neck will feel okay or feel better because you're probably articulating small joints that are also tight with some stabilizer muscles, but that's not going to be like a permanent solution. So I don't know if you want to add something. Well, I just think Prime Pro is a little more specific to like neck and upper back, any kind of like instability and addressing a kind of range of motion issue. So I think going through that would be a good idea too, even if it's like, so we have neck cars, but just finding out kind of limitations with that and maybe some restrictions in terms of like the ability of you to rotate with your neck and have control and strength there and support. And then also too with the shoulder blades in terms of like each one of it. So it takes you through all the different abilities of elevating, depressing, retracting and protracting and just kind of taking it through those ranges of motion to sort of get it to respond appropriately. Maybe sometimes like it's just not responding appropriately. And so we need to strengthen better movement patterns. And really that's what the work needs to go in that direction for you then to go into training with weights and be able to add a bit of load. You might need to take like a lacrosse ball to kind of relate to first. That might help open up. So the first thing I would do is probably take a lacrosse ball against the wall or the floor if you can handle that pressure and kind of roll that area that gives you temporary relief that'll get the CNS to kind of calm down a little bit. Then I would go to the Maps Prime Pro movements that Justin's referring to. And then when I go to training, I would train map symmetry. And when I train, I would take the advice that Sal is saying which is really, really pay attention when you get onto that side of retracting and depressing the shoulder and like taking the movement nice and slow. Don't get obsessed with trying to increase weight, add more weight, add more weight, get obsessed with the technique in the form of it. I mean, that would be... I'm gonna, I'll try something right now through video. It might be kind of hard, but you can see me, right Tucker? Yes, I did. Okay, so put your, so it's your, what is it? Your right arm? Yeah. Okay, so extend your right arm up above your head. Nice and straight, really straighten your elbow out. Yeah, lock your elbow. Okay, but keep your head straight because I see you turning here. So try and be real hard. Try and press your body down. Okay, now while keeping your arm and everything elevated, can you bring your shoulder down? Can you shrug your shoulder down? Yeah, just like this. Oh, okay, try that again. So lift your arm up. Now, while locking your elbow out, drop your shoulder down. Bring your shoulder down. Bring it down, down, down, down. Keep pressing down. He's trying right now. Okay, now while you're depressing the shoulder with that happening, this is what I want you to do with your head. Without turning your head, now bring your left ear down towards your shoulder. Without turning my head. Without turning your head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, press your arm up and drop your shoulder. Really drop your shoulder, really pull it down. That's it. It's real hard, but do it. I'm trying, I'm trying. Okay, now bring your ear down slowly on the other side and you'll feel a little bit of relief, or you should. Yeah, I mean he's anchoring it. You feel that? Okay, I want you to hold that. Keep bringing the shoulder down as hard as you can. It's a slivator schedule, yeah. Notice how challenging that is just to do that. Now it's so hard. Okay, now keep doing that. Keep doing that, but keep that elbow locked. Keep that elbow locked out. Yeah, lock the elbow. Yeah, but drop the shoulder, drop the shoulder. Okay, now slowly come out and come back down to regular position. You can put your arm down at your side. And just kind of chill there for a second. Do you notice any difference in how that area feels? Does it feel a little bit better? Move around, I don't know, test it a little bit? No, it almost feels like it wants to like, like kind of pull me back, like up in a way. Like it feels like my posture wants to be kind of re-corrected in a way. Did you notice any relief or like you were stretching some of the areas that were tight? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I saw it was like, it was almost a workout too in a way as well for like back here and then there was a stretch kind of going up here. There's some instability there, yeah. Yeah, there's some instability there. And so, you know, I like the wall test better than anything else that we said because you really are gonna have, but you gotta do it right. It's gonna create some natural traction in the spine. So traction is the spine trying to lengthen, but not passively. It's you with your muscles in the wall test creating this tall position, holding everything. It's stacking everything where it needs to be. And pulling things down. And that'll help kind of create the space where your body's gonna feel a little more stable. Is that in Prime Pro 2 or is it only in Prime? That specific movement is only in Prime. That's only in Prime. So then, we're gonna have to give you both a share. You get three programs, woo! So I almost want you to get in the form too so I can actually see you do the movement because one of the things that's really important, you notice when Sal was telling you that the tendencies that you had to wanna move your head and then you notice your elbow wanted to break, the key to this is recognizing that. If you just go through the movement where you're just like, lift my arm and then I tilt my head. If you allow yourself to cheat the movement and it's not really difficult and hard, we're not working on that stability. We're not firing those neurons over that area and lighten it all up. And so you'll just deviate from that. So it is important how you do this. When you watch the videos in Prime and Prime Pro, you'll hear the coaching cues that Dr. Brink is doing with one of us. It's so important that you really pay attention to that when you do it if you just kind of go through the motions. What I did was very far from ideal because in a perfect world, I'd be there with you. I'd hold your elbow. I'd help you pull in the position. I'd press on the muscle that I'm trying to get to relax. I'd help put you in where you need to. We'll have a rigid surface, like a wall like that to give you feedback in terms of your spine is gonna be really helpful. But we'll send you all that stuff but look at the wall test and do it exactly as it's laid out and try to create the feeling that we created here when I walked you through that movement and do that before your workouts and then do symmetry. And by the way, it's so great. You look at a young guy, so it's good that you're aware of this now and you're trying to address it because you don't know how many 40, 50-year-old clients that we used to get that had this at 20 years old just kept going about their life. Now they can't raise their arm a little bit. Yeah, and then to undo that when you're 50 is so much more work. It would take me months as a trainer. So being aware of it now and already starting to work towards that is so important but stick to the unilateral work and symmetry. Listen, honestly, God, within four to six weeks, if you do it right, you should notice a pretty significant difference. And I should keep my weight more on the light side. I know I should, it's not one of the biggest pain in the butt that was going to the gym and being like, I know I can lift so much more weight than this. Focus on muscle connection. As soon as I do my form kind of twitching back. Now, if you go heavier than you can do with this, with what we're trying to do, your body's going to revert to its old recruitment pattern. Because right now you're stronger with the poor recruitment pattern than you are with a good or proper recruitment pattern. So if you add weight, you're just going to go back to crappy recruitment patterns and you're going to strengthen them. You're going to make them worse. You can still, I mean, this is a great time to, like you probably heard me talk on the show about tempo. Like this is a good time to really mess with tempo. Slow down your tempo, get a good squeeze at the top. You can still build muscle. Yeah, exactly. People think that, oh man, I got to do this rehab bullshit. I'm not going to get, I'm going to lose my muscle and I can't, you know, you can still build muscle. You can still look great. Like, but just get obsessed with the technique now. Okay, perfect. And then also kind of quick question on that note, is swimming okay? I'm in a swimming class right now here at USC. And I, do you think that's bad? Because I know I'm kind of going over my shoulder. I mean, you're- You're fine, you're fine, unless it's hurting you. Okay, listen, you're fine, but here's an example of actually, when you go through the exercises we're teaching, you should definitely do these, those zone one stuff before you go do your swim class. Like you don't take, it'll take you like literally two or three minutes. Like if I'm sure there's a wall somewhere in the, in the class, I get against the wall, warm up and prime yourself really well before, that will make a big difference in your mechanics in the way you swim. I would prime before and after. Yes. And you know, that'll, that'll be all right. That'll help. Okay, perfect. I appreciate you guys' time a lot. Also a quick side note, I never grew up with a father figure, so kind of hearing the way you guys interact with your kids and your wives and all that has kind of meant a lot to me. And just to like, I am honest to learn a lot from it. And I take it into like my various relationships that I've had with, you know, women at my age. So I, I appreciated it a lot, you guys. You got it, dude. Thank you, man. Thanks, dude. Of course. Enjoy the rest of your day. Take it easy. I guess mustaches are back in style. They are. It's a cool mustach. A lot of kids with the stashes. Yeah. What he had, I mean, that's super common, what he feels. And it oftentimes, the way he explained it, it feels, it's typically instability in the neck or in the scapula. And all we're doing is we're trying, for people watching and listening, all we're doing is essentially, this is generally what's happening. You're telling the body it's safe to move in the way that you need it to move. It's protective. Yes. Your body's trying to protect, you know, any kind of instability. And it just exaggerates when you're doing your everyday activities where you're just kind of sitting at your desk and you're leaning forward. And so this is something, you know, the quicker he addresses this, the easier it's gonna be for him to alleviate. We didn't get a chance to see, because he sent a video of him doing pull-ups from behind. But a lot of times you also see this manifest in the imbalance in their chest. Because he's got this slight rolling forward. So I had this, right? So I had, this is what I had in my 20s. And I had this, and what I noticed more than pain, because I actually didn't get a lot of pain so much. But I did have the rolling of the shoulder and I had this massive discrepancy between the left and my right. Yeah, so you end up having this asymmetry when you go to the press. Yes, so it is very common. Like where it manifests, how it feels to the person as far as like pain, or they just notice the imbalance or whatever with that. By the way, you know what's really good at what I said with the spinal traction? Eldoa. Oh yeah. Eldoa, for people that don't know, spinal traction, coaches and trainers, Eldoa is one of the best. You know what, we actually have some on the Mind Pump TV channel, a couple really good ones. I think you even did a few. I did, and that is traction through, not passive, but active. And it really makes a big difference for stuff like this. Yeah, I've done that. Our next caller is Madison from Indiana. Hi Madison, how can we help you? Hi guys, how are you? We're good, how are you? Good, this is crazy. I'm a little nervous as most people are, so. No problem, Justin's nervous too. Yep. It's obvious. How can we help you? Well, I guess I will get straight into my question. A little bit of background. I have come from a big weight loss journey. I do have to say thank you to you guys. I've done this three times in the last 10 years of my life. I have lost and gained significant amounts of weight and following yours guys' advice has helped me keep it off. So thank you so much. You got it. Thank you. But anyways, so I had planned all this year to run PowerLift this fall. I did have the intention of leaning down a little more to about 145 before I started it so that I had a little wiggle room to eat so that I could get the most out of the program. But like I said, my email long story short that didn't happen. I am currently sitting at about 155 and I'm just wondering how to approach starting the program with my nutrition since I don't have as much wiggle room as I had intended to have. Yeah, good question. Yeah, there's more in your question that we can read just so you know for the audience that you had lost 100 pounds. You did it a lot through OTF five days a week and look like you restricted calories. Where are your calories at right now? Currently I'm maintaining at about 2,100. Oh, you're not in a bad place. Madison, you mentioned, do you mind if I read if I talk a little bit more about the question that you sent in to the audience? Yeah, for sure. It says in here that you had developed a binge eating disorder? Yeah. How is that now? I'm actually just over a year binge free with very little urges, which is awesome. I did recently, I find that when I tried to intentionally cut, I get about three to four weeks consistently into the cut before I start noticing those binge thoughts coming back, which I like to prioritize my binge recovery over, you know what I mean, cutting. So I had to kind of bump the calories back up and I think that's why I didn't get to where I wanted to be. Madison, that's- You're doing a great job. That's exactly what you- Yeah, that's right, it's a great mentality. All right, first off, that's exactly what you should do. You need to prioritize that over any kind of aesthetic goal or calorie goal. In fact, if you find that counting calories and tracking things is a trigger for you, the last thing you should do is track your calories and count things. I don't think you should do that at all if you find that as a trigger. You mind if I ask you a question, Madison? Yeah, for sure. And I want you to answer honestly, okay? Yeah. Do you love yourself? I do, I'm still working on it, but I definitely do more than I used to. Okay, what comes up for you when you wanna binge? What is the feeling? Is it the distraction of it or is it the lack of control feeling? I think it's the lack of control. I definitely am known to be a control freak in my life, for sure. And I think it's also the fear of having to restrict forever, which I know I don't have to, but like I said, I've done, I've overly restricted for so long that the thought of gaining that back does kind of trigger that for me. Yeah, we don't need to go deep into this, but sometimes what happens is that people either, they have a relationship with restrictions and control, and it can come from a lot of different places, like feeling like you were too controlled as a kid or feeling like you had no control, so you put a lot on yourself, a lot of parameters, and then what happens is you rebel against it, and there's a version of you that's rebelling, and it's probably a young version of yourself, and so you need to tell that person that it's okay, that it's safe now, they don't have to do that anymore, that you appreciate that they were there for you, but you don't need them to do that anymore. And then what I want you to do is I want you to work out and eat in a way that is unstructured. I know that sounds crazy. You can follow the program that we laid out, but I don't want you to put too many parameters. I don't want you to put parameters on your diet because that's gonna result as it has in the past, like you're feeling confined, and the rebellion is gonna put you in the opposite direction, okay? What I want you to do literally, literally is I want you to eat when you're hungry, I want you to not eat when you're hungry, and I don't want you to worry about how much you eat, I just want you to eat foods that are healthy. So eat as much as you want, eat as much as you want, just pick foods that are gonna nourish you, and this is the way that I want you to approach it. Don't approach it from a restriction mentality, these are the only foods I can eat, I can't eat these other foods, these are healthy, these are unhealthy, that's not what I want you to do. What I want you to do is say, I'm hungry, I'm gonna eat, I'm just gonna take care of myself, so here's the foods that I'm gonna eat, and that's it, and don't restrict, don't cut, don't tell yourself I gotta stop eating, I'm eating too much, don't judge what happened after the meal, you just eat until you're satisfied, I want you to learn what that feels like to feel satisfied, it's very different than feeling stuffed, satisfied is a different feeling, it's like 70% of stuffed, so just wait, just learn how to understand what that feels like, eat until you're satisfied, and then all I want you to do with your workout is try to get strong, that's it, and I don't want you to worry about the scale, I don't want you to worry about the scale, I don't want you to worry about the mirror, this is a season of self-care, okay, and at the end of it, you're gonna get what you want, but the irony is you can't chase what you want cause you won't get it, so stop chasing the, I wanna look a particular way or way a particular way, that's gonna make you go in the opposite direction, just I'm gonna get strong, I'm gonna get strong, I'm gonna eat when I'm hungry, I'm gonna stop when I'm satisfied, and I'm gonna eat foods that nourish my body, cause I wanna take care of myself, just start there, that's all I want you to do, start there, that'll put you in the right direction, anything else is gonna probably result in you feeling too confined or controlled or like you're being tyrannized, and then you're gonna rebel, that small side of you, that little version of you, that little girl version of you is gonna say, I'm out of here, I don't wanna feel this anymore, I'm gonna do what I want, type of deal, and then you're gonna be in conflict with that person, so that's where you need to start, if you were my client, what have you tracked anything? Two things to add to that, one, since you're already falling power with, by the way, I think it's a perfect program, perfect program for you to follow right now, we're gonna put you in the forum for free if you're not already in there, so we can keep an eye on this journey, okay? So I'm gonna have to, yeah, we're gonna have Doug put you in there, and here's the thing that's cool, just to add to what Sal was saying, is that if you can do this, if you can eat and feed yourself like you love yourself and nourishing your body and thinking like that and not obsessing over, oh, how many calories was that? And not worrying about that, it's amazing what the body will naturally do for you. When you have a great lifting session and you hit a new PR, you'll find out you're probably a little bit hungry and you eat a little more, which is okay, because guess what? Those calories will go to building muscle, and guess what? When you build some more muscle, it speeds the metabolism up, so then you'll probably naturally lean out a little bit also. It's amazing when we allow the body to do what it's supposed to do, we don't abuse it, and we let it talk to us on what it needs, and we just focus on the training and get stronger. So this way will actually get you to the goal that you ultimately want, whether that's some arbitrary number of 10 more pounds off, I guarantee you'll get the body you're chasing, the physique that you might be chasing, that will happen, regardless of like the weight or none of that stuff needs to happen if you focus this way and just get strong following the program, it'll work out the way you want to work out. Madison, after you have those, when you feel like you're getting triggered, you're gonna move in that direction, and let's say you do, let's say you do move in that direction. Afterwards, how do you feel about yourself and what happened? After I've been, I definitely don't feel good. I do give myself more grace now than I used to, for sure. So yeah, like I said, the last year, I've definitely worked on that a lot, and I'm really proud of myself. And I guess I thought because I was doing so well in recovery that I was ready to cut, but like I said, I got about four weeks in and I was like, I'm not sure if this is what, if I'm ready for this yet. That's great, that's great self-awareness. Have empathy for that side of you, okay? So in other words, like look at that side of you and be like, you know what? You've protected me for a long time, and I appreciate that. I don't need that anymore, but I appreciate you being there and trying to protect me. That's the conversation you should have. And the last thing I'm gonna say is this, Madison, if you do what I'm saying, okay, you're going to get the look that you want. Now I don't want you to do it to get the look. This is the irony of what I'm saying, because if you do it for the look, it's not gonna work. Just trust that you're gonna look the way you want. If you do this for the reasons that I said, that's the only way to get there. That's the only way, but it has to be true. It can't be fake. It can't be like, well, I'm gonna do this thing so I can look this way. You gotta be like, I'm gonna do this thing. I'm not gonna care what the result is, but I'm here to assure you that the result's gonna be a healthy, vibrant-looking version of yourself. You're absolutely crushing it though. I wanna point that out. I mean, your level of self-awareness, your journey, where you came from, what you're doing right now, the fact that you've been bench-free for a year, your mindset to go to power lift. I mean, you're winning on all accounts right now. This is just like the next level if you were a client that we'd try to take you to. I mean, you're putting you in the forum so we can keep an eye on you and just communicate with us. Just trust your intuition with us. Yeah, just let us know how you're doing every month. I can't wait to see how this is for the next six months for you, because I think you're crushing it. Yeah, I mean, I'm excited too. The thought of not tracking does, I don't think I've ever done that for more, at least since I lost weight for more than like a week at a time. So the thought of giving up that control is slightly hard, but I think it'll be good and I think I can do it. You're ready, you're ready, and you have us. So we're gonna be with you through that. So if you do have challenges with it, tag us, right to us in the forum. It's gonna feel scary, but freeing. It's like taking off the training wheels on your bike. At first you're kind of scared, but then you're like, oh my God, I can go real fast, and I can do really cool stuff. So that's what's gonna, that's on the other end of this. Now, should I finish power lift when after I've not tracked? At what point would it be beneficial to me to start tracking again? Never. Or would I need to? Never, hopefully you never have to. Never. Hopefully the goal is you trust this process and you feel better and you continue to look better and you feel more free than you've ever felt. You're gonna get really in tune with your body this way. Most women, okay, if they do it this way, will walk around between 18 to 22, 23% body fat, which is lean, sculpted, and shapely. Most women, their body will fall right in, right in that body fat percentage range without ever tracking a single calorie. Tracking becomes necessary when you start to push your body beyond healthy, okay? That's when it starts to become more necessary. But in your case, you're gonna get what you want if you just do it this way and you'll never have to track. Okay, I mean, that would be amazing. It is amazing, because that's what's gonna happen. Yep. We're gonna have Doug get you in the forum. We'll see you in there. You got this. Well, thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. You got it Madison. All right. Well, that's good self-awareness because most people would have just. Oh yeah. She's killing. She's killing it, bro. I mean, even where her calories are right now, especially coming from somebody who did it with the aggressive cut. Yeah, when she said 2,100 and she's 5'5", 157. She's actually in a. She's fine. Yeah. Her weight probably is. She's in a good amount. Her weight is already actually in a good spot. I bet if she just, like you said, eat when you're hungry, feed yourself good foods, train hard, get strong. She'll have this beautiful exchange of she probably won't move that much on the scale. She'll just get leaner, stronger, tighter, and like feel amazing. She's doing really good. Our next caller is John from California. John, what's up, man? How are we helping? John. How's it going fellas? Good. What's happening? Thanks for taking my call. I'll just get right into my question real quick. I'm 41, six feet tall, 240 pounds, about 14 and a half percent body fat, according to a DEXA scan. I feel great, strength is good. I don't really have much, many aches or pains. Cardio is good enough for what I do, hiking, walking, stuff like that. Run through power lift, symmetry, maps 15. Just a quick update, I finished anabolic and now I'm doing symmetry again. I was able to gain five pounds of muscle after, or sorry, after anabolic last time and no change in body fat. I attribute that to you guys and your programs and I'm really happy with the results. I'm on TRT working with MP hormones. My question is, is there any downside to carrying that much muscle in terms of longevity and health span? I definitely enjoy the heavier lifting, like the five by five style, even though I have done the symmetry. This is my second time. But since I've built this much muscle, is there, should I be doing anything different to kind of change my focus, maybe like a maps cardio that puts a little less emphasis on building muscle and or like a maps 15 where I do 15 minutes and then kind of do some cardio stuff for help? Yeah, we're gonna put you on maps Pilates. All right, sounds good. Maps Breathetarian. John, how do you feel like joints, movement, like mobility, the ability to sit down, like are you, do you feel good? Overall, pretty good. I definitely could use a little bit more mobility stuff in like shoulders and ankles mostly, but no pain really, just- How's your stamina? Just stamina is fine. Like I go on hikes and stuff and I don't have any problems there. A lot of times I do it with a weighted vest even and just no problem. I go on 15 minute walks, three times a day after each meal basically and brisk walks, but overall, yeah, I'd say- You're in a pretty good- Yeah, what are you concerned about? You just, too much attention from the ladies? No, I'm married, so I don't need any of that. That could be a really good turn, yeah. No, I mean, I guess I could be guilty of comparing myself. I know Sal, you're like 205 or 10 pounds, so I see myself at 240 and I'm like, whoa, I'm maybe- Way bigger than Sal, is that what you're thinking? He's like, I'm just like, wait a minute, I'm like- Why am I so much bigger than Sal? No, okay, so- You know what, Sal's life, he's like obsessed with the gym, dude, you don't want to be that guy. No, listen, listen, here's the general question that I hear is, is there an issue with a lot of muscle mass and longevity? Right, that's the main general question, is that correct, John? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Just a good question. It is, this is a great question. Yeah. Okay, so muscle mass is very strongly associated with longevity, meaning the more muscle you have, the longer you're probably gonna live. Now, of course, people then say, well, what do you mean? What about a bodybuilder or a power lifter or a strong, you know, man athlete? Like, what about those people? That's, and to that I say, look, those are extremes. Any extreme pursuit you are gonna trade longevity for performance. If you build a certain amount of muscle naturally, it's probably gonna be healthy. But what you need to look at are the methods that you're using to get to that muscle, and that'll tell you more about your longevity than the muscle itself. Great point. So what does that mean? Well, let's say you're 240 pounds, you're 14% body fat, you're eating pretty healthy, you're training, you're doing your cardiovascular training, you feel good, but you wanna gain another 10 pounds of lean body mass. So now you're going on a bulk and you're really pushing the calories and it's hard to eat that many calories, but you're kind of forcing yourself. And maybe now you're going to the gym and you're pushing weights that are borderline, you know, injury risk is starting to get up high, you're starting to feel your joints ache a little bit. And then maybe you push your TRT a little bit, you know? You go from your normal dose to a little higher because you want the extra lean body mass. Well, now you're sacrificing longevity for performance. So it's really about the methods used to get where you want, not the muscle itself. Some people can sit around, you know, like you, I don't know necessarily what your lifestyle looks like, but if you have the genetics that allows you to carry 240 pounds at a relatively lean body fat percentage, and you're not doing these crazy extreme things where you're going beyond the longevity and just pushing extreme performance, that's healthy for you. There's going to be a genetic variance between people. It's protective. I'm not going to carry as much muscle mass as let's say Justin will, living the same lifestyle. I'm just not, my body doesn't naturally do that. For me to carry the muscle mass that Justin would have, for example, I would have to go beyond longevity and push more into performance. You do a lot of cheese. Yeah, so that's really what you're looking at is look at your lifestyle and say, okay, am I doing things that are going beyond longevity to push my body into kind of these extreme pursuits? And by the way, there's nothing wrong with that. There's also quality of life. You know, that plays a role. Like I definitely sacrifice longevity all the time for performance and I'll readily admit that. And that's okay for me. I wouldn't recommend other people do it because I'm a better trainer for other people than myself, but that's just kind of full disclosure. So that's really the conversation that you want to have with yourself. Such a great way to put it, Sal. And I also think that there, I mean, also have, I don't know, some latitude or empathy for yourself. I think it's okay to have moments of time when you do that. Like, so I agree. You know, I think that there's times where I'm not the best trainer for myself where I'm pushing the boundaries. Oh, I really want to gain right now. But then I'll come out of that. Like I won't stay in that mindset. Like I just, I'm going to chase a PR for a while. So I'm going to push calories. I'm really going to push weight. I know that's not ideal for longevity for me to be chasing that aggressively. And then I might do that for, you know, a period of time. And then I go, okay, you know what? Now it's time to go through like a mobility kick. I'm going to reduce my calories. And I'm going to be the mobility guy for the next six months. I mean, when you, when we're all in our 40s, right? So when we get to this point in our life, like, I think that's just important that you kind of cycle through that mindset. And I think if longevity is the goal, it's good to move in and out of all those kinds of mindsets. There's definitely value to building some muscle and getting really strong. Then there's also a lot of value of letting go of that for a little while and saying, hey, I'm going to get really mobile for a while. And I'm going to see, I'm going to maybe push endurance. You know, the other side of that too is the, the mental growth that comes from doing that. Cause again, I don't know you personally, John, but let's just say you're very attached to this amount of muscle size and strength. And this is like, you don't want to lose it. Well, there could be some growth from moving out of heavy strength training and moving purely into mobility and allowing yourself to lose some of that size and muscle because of the, the personal growth that you may go through detaching from always having to look, you know, 240 pounds and be this big guy. So, so there's a lot of different, it's more complex than just being like, you know, this much muscle is good and this much muscle is bad. But again, there's muscle itself by itself is correlated with longevity. It's really about how you got the muscle. That's what you need to examine and see if you're, you're, you're healthier or if you're now pushing beyond health and more into performance. Yeah. I mean, I totally agree with all I think too, like in terms of risk reward because you're so drawn towards like five by five and kind of like stacking plates and, and, you know, lifting heavy amounts of weight. You know, that's where like when we start to really talk about longevity, we got to interrupt that. And, and either with mobility or you're already doing that kind of naturally with symmetry, which I think is smart. But really to consider just all the different planes of movement and to be able to strengthen and support your body in those pursuits. So you go back, you sort of reinforce and you build strength around the joints and then you come back and you press it a bit. So it's a bit of an undulating approach where we can bring in that intensity again and we can get back to kind of what you love but you just have to just break it up naturally and just keep moving in a direction where it's benefiting your body. Yep. Does that answer, does that help you a little bit? Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, I think, I've, I think I've had a fairly healthy relationship with it. I, you know, I basically just follow your programs to a T and I'm not pushing the TRT harder than it needs to be at all. Like, so yeah, and I don't think that I would, and I know I know I wouldn't enjoy. The mobility stuff as much because I am kind of stuck on how I look and feel but I know that it would be beneficial to work on my mobility, especially my shoulder and my ankles and stuff. So. Were you an athlete? Were you an athlete in college, high school? No, I mean, I played baseball in the summers and stuff but not really competitively at all. So I'm just corn fed farm boy kind of central valley. Yeah, I mean, you, where in the central valley are you from? Well, Clovis, but Fresno. Okay. So you look kind of familiar too. Are you a police officer? You look like a cop. No. She's just there. Just like, I know you. Not cop. Adam and Justin recognize me. Maybe you're a cop. Maybe you pulled him over. We're on a motorcycle? I mean, this is my, I have called in before though. So. Oh, okay. Okay, that's probably why then. I just say you look familiar to get on it. Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's about it, dude. Do you have maps? Okay. Do you have mass performance? Yeah. I have mass performance. Okay. I got halfway through. And then I moved to power lift when I first got into you guys. So. I like, I like, I like the mobility sessions for you. Yeah. You should do, you should do those on your off days. I think that'll be good. Yeah, that's a good point too. By the way, you're now, it sounds like you are pretty well versed in our programs. Now you can kind of start to play with them a little bit, right? So maybe you're running like a power lift type of protocol, but then, you know, you got two days of the week where you're like, you know what, today I'm just going to do all mobility work. Mass programming, you know, You talk about doing your hikes, right? So like I might go, say we're running power lift and then on Saturdays you like to do these hikes. I might say, hey, before you go do your, you know, hour hike or whatever, spend 20 to 30 minutes doing a mobility session. So I, you know, if you were my client and this was kind of the question, I would also encourage you to kind of start to mold our programs a little bit to what you know you need with what you know you like to do and balancing them out. Here's Adam's hack for that, that he really does a good job with is fall in love with the new goal and that way you're okay with, you know, like, okay, that's it. I'm going to become like excellent at mobility and it makes it a lot easier to move away from the strength and size aspect because now you're focused so hard on a different goal. It's a nice hack for those of us that get attached to the muscle and strength. Okay. Yeah, that sounds good. You got it. Thanks for calling John. See you John. All right. Thanks guys. Take care. Just to hammer this home. So there was a study that I brought up a while ago on pro bodybuilders. Okay. Now, pro bodybuilders are The extreme. Not the healthiest athletes to put it lightly. These are extreme athletes. Everything they do is extreme. Their training is extreme. Their dieting is extreme. The drugs that they use to look the way they do is extreme. So they don't do anything for health. It's all for extreme pursuits of muscle growth. Here's the funny, this is how protective muscle is. Their lifespans on average match those of the average American. So you think, okay, well the average American is not very healthy. Sure, but they're not doing the crazy shit that bodybuilders are doing. But here's where it's crazy. Bodybuilders have a significant lower rate of cancer. Even though they live that and they take growth hormone like you wouldn't even believe in testosterone and steroids. And they just, oh, terrible stuff. And yet they get cancer at lower rates because muscle and they have diabetes at far lower rates. Cause that's how protective muscle it. And I'm using one of the unhealthiest groups of athletes just so that people understand how protective muscle is. It's really about what you do to get the muscle. That's what can make you unhealthy. I actually want Doug to write that down for you to do that as an opener to one of our quads because I don't think I've ever heard you actually say it like that. And I think that's really, really good advice. Cause how often do we get asked like question like that where I'm this percent body fat on this old, is this healthy or there's such a wide spectrum of how much muscle you should or shouldn't have for health and longevity for every person that it's individualized. And so probably the best advice you've ever, I've ever heard you give like in regards to that was just now was that it's how you got there. That matters more than that. If you had to, just like if you were shredded and you had to like starve yourself to do that or do hours and hours about it's probably not really healthy. Versus like this is what you said. Yeah, if you're a 6% body fat, which I would normally say for the average person that's not a healthy place to be. But you do that naturally without really trying just by making good food choices and training five days a week. Well, you're a person. You're just humming. Yeah, you're a person who that does make sense. And that's why there's, we can't just say, oh, that percentage is unhealthy. I used Justin as an example cause I would say him and I are on two sides of this particular spectrum. For me to carry the muscle mass that he can carry in a healthy way, I would have to push myself beyond health. And I think for leanness it would be the same for you. Right, Justin? For you to walk around at 7%. I'd be pushing it hard. It would be things that were healthy. So, I mean, that's just an example of where that spectrum was. Next caller is Garrett from California. Garrett, welcome back. Hey, thanks for having me back. Yeah, I called in a year and a half ago or so. I don't know if you, you probably, you know, you get a lot of calls. So I'm not sure you remember my question, but my original question was around training for two seasonal athletic events, an ultramarathon in July and teaching skiing in December and January. Oh yeah, I remember that. And you all ended up giving me a maps performance and you gave me some advice on how to kind of structure that training. And I just wanted to kind of, one of the reasons I wanted to call in was to give a progress report and just say that like it worked out great. I ran maps performance a bunch of times in a row. I managed to stay healthy through the ultra and then this year through all of my marathon and ultramarathon training. And then for, you know, as you're probably aware, we had a pretty epic ski season last year. And I, you know, hit the ground running with that and felt really good and was able to ski strong all season. So yeah, I wanted to say really appreciated that, all of that. Awesome, right on. And yeah, for my follow-up question, I've noticed that there are several places kind of in a sort of a cluster where I feel like I'm weak. And so the three places are when I'm skating during skiing, my side butt, which I think is like the gluteus medius, it just gets really exhausted like really quickly, like takes a while. And yeah, after a while, I sort of build up that, you know, strength and endurance. When I'm running sprints, those will just destroy my hamstrings. And then in maps performance, when I'm doing like a lot of the, kind of more of the high volume lunges, my hips get really sore. And that just seems to be consistent. That doesn't seem to get any better. And so minor update from my question, I'm wrapping up ultramarathon training here at the end of October. And I'm gonna be switching gears back into more weightlifting. And so I wanted to kind of be, you know, earlier on in the season, I was doing maps performance and just like switching out all of the bilateral training for like unilateral, you know, single leg RDLs and a lot more lunges and, you know, that kind of thing to try and train that sort of strength. But I just wanted to, my question was, is that the right approach or is there a better program or, you know, what's sort of the best? I was gonna say symmetry, but you're kind of doing that. So that's a great mod to what you've decided to do because I was gonna, before you even got to that point, tell you map symmetry would do you really well. So that is the program that is already mapped out that way. But what you're doing is actually a really smart choice too. Do you do any mobility priming before you start your workouts? Are you doing anything like that? Like. Yeah, I do a lot of like the 1990s combat stretch. Those are the ones that really seem to help me. And then I have some mobility stuff from a climbing coach that I brought climbing coach that I do. I think I got something that's gonna make this a lot better. Do you have access to a sled? So we don't have a sled, but we have a, you know, the tires that have like the handles and I think they're meant that you could drag them. That's fine. That works. So I want you to do all kinds of lateral dragging with the tire. Lateral meaning you're like, do you know what a karaoke is? Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Literally you're gonna drag a tire and you're gonna go in one direction and then you're gonna drag a tire and go the other direction. You're gonna do karaoke's. You're gonna bring the feet together, separate them apart. You're gonna do a reverse karaoke. You step over, you kind of step out. You step over. I want you to do literally like substitute some of your leg workouts for just a bunch of, and then also do front, you know, forward, you know, driving and back, you know, and back dragging. But I want you to start with lateral move, do like three to six sets of just lateral dragging and then you can do where you push and you pull. And that'll make a significant improvement because what you're noticing with the, and this is connected to the hamstring too, your lateral stability is lacking a little bit. That's why you're feeling that. That fatigue in the side, you know, in the gluteus medius. And I think the hamstring is probably, I think your hip is trying to stabilize with some of the other muscles because your lateral stability is lacking. And most workout programs just, there's a lot of focus on moving forward and back and just not a lot laterally. So, and for someone like, which is okay, like mass performance is very well balanced. Yeah. For an average person, not a skier. Right. You're really putting a lot of lateral demands on your body because of what, the skiing in particular. So I would, I would like, I mean. I may even replace some of the squats for like a lateral lunges, caustic squats, you know, and just kind of go through it and sub out, you know, with that. But I think symmetry is on the right track with that and to, you know, to go through that. So you do kind of gain that stability as you're a bit more like in an unstable situation, especially when you're doing like an RDL, make sure like your, your foot and your hips don't turn at all. And that's really the biggest focus for you is to be able to maintain that anti-rotational ability. So that's going to provide that lateral stability support as well. I think there's really good Mind Pump TV videos of you doing the lateral slits, slits drags. So looking at that. That's perfect. Yeah. That's such an easy thing to apply right away. And it's going to. And you can add a lot of volume with that because it's harder to over train with a sled than it is with traditional strength training because you're not getting the negative, you know, portion of the rep. So literally what I would do is every day you'll work out, I would do like three sets of some kind of lateral dragging and then getting a workout. And if it becomes too much, you can reduce volume when the other leg exercises don't take out the lateral dragging. And you'll notice a significant improvement in exactly what you talked about. I love, I love to playing with how you do it, meaning sometimes you go light and are very technical and kind of speed focused on it. And then other days do kind of grinding and heavy too. So you get benefits from, you know, playing with how you do it laterally also. I don't remember, I think you were more grinding and slow when you did the, on the video, right? Yeah. But you could really lighten it up and be kind of more speed focused or like Sal was talking about the feet together exploding. I love to take a band around my knees and explode, explode, explode out and then come back to the other direction. Yeah, two walking would be good too, but just some kind of. I do some, a little bit of lateral band walks, but I'll try. Not enough. Yeah. It's just some kind of lateral dragging I would do on a, almost every time you work out. If you can take one of those big long rubber bands and a lot of times I'll do two of them together. So I'll wrap one around the squat posts and then I'll extend it out, you know, put it up over my hips and then I'll walk it out and get that resistance as far out as I can go on a lateral walk. And then I'm coming back in too. So now I'm having that resistance pulling me as I'm sort of decelerating my way back. So that too is going to be really helpful because of two, if you're hamstring is one of those things you're finding out is like fatiguing a lot too. We're going to want to strengthen that decelerating process as well. Yeah. Okay, cool. That makes a lot of sense because I think with the sprints, I think it's the really hard short sprints with like the, you know, the quick deceleration. I think that's the- Yeah, but I mean, look, the hamstring is a very big hip stabilizing and moving muscle. And if you're lacking stability somewhere, then what happens is your body transfers that stability to other muscles. Probably what's happening with your hamstrings. Yeah, the recommendation on the heavy sleds is going to make all the world difference. You're going to, it'll translate really well. I mean, within a few weeks, you'll notice a difference. And it's so important, you know, just to reiterate what the guys are saying. It's so important that it's not a big deal. A guy like you is not a big deal if you're doing backloaded squats. I would get rid of that if it's getting in the way of the sledger. Yeah, don't take away the sledger. Let that be the cornerstone is literally the getting good, get good and strong at that. You get good and strong at that. And that's going to really carry over into the things that you do. With the, so with just like practically the tire that they have at our gym, it's like the, you know, it's the kind of, it sort of has a wrapper around it. And then it has like the handles. Yeah. And do you just, do you just like use like a strap or something to like attach that? It doesn't matter. Yeah, sure. Or you could just hold onto it like this across. So like one hand is over here across and the other one's fully extended. And then we're just dragging it. You can hold onto it. You can find a way to attach it around your waist. You know, you can involve more of your core or less of your core, but really what's important is that you're doing some kind of lateral dragging in your workout. And hey, at one point, like because of what you do so often, this might even be a worth investment for yourself personally to have at home too. So you can get relatively inexpensive like like basic sleds too, that aren't crazy over the top. I'm a big fan of the TORQ sled, look into them. Yeah, sure. They're awesome, they're expensive, but those are the best. Yeah, there's a few options. But you can find, like you can get some pretty basic shit that will do its job. And it's probably worth having since this is something that would carry over into what you do so often. Yeah, right on. Awesome, cool. And you think stick with the performance or symmetry or? Either one before I'm. Yeah. Either one's fine. In fact, it's really rotate between those two programs for what you do. Okay, yep. Yeah, I think it'd be worth trying out symmetry just because I've run performance now. I don't know. Oh yeah. Okay, then go symmetry here. You'll get a lot of benefit from that. Cool. Yep. All right. Cool, thank you. All right, man. Thanks buddy. Thanks, have a good one. I think the sled has got to be. Yeah, yeah, great call. It should be the cornerstone. It should be his cornerstone for what he does being like a downhill ski guy like that. I'm convinced in the athlete. I mean, it's especially to like backwards as well, just dragging it like just for the overall knee longevity and health and like just getting that kind of volume and strength without a lot of the damage. It's just beautiful. It's one of the safest, most functional, most effective, least damaging. I don't know any other tool that would fit in the same categories as sled. That's how valuable it is. Look, if you like Mind Pump, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out some of our free fitness guides. They cost nothing and they can help you with so many different fitness goals. You can also find all of us on social media. Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. I'm on Instagram at Mind Pump DeStefano and Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam.