 Boom! Welcome to Mind Pump. Did you know there's an exercise that you can do every single day to build muscle? Well, stay tuned and find out. Also, the guys talk about old wives tales regarding health. Are they just BS? Or is there some truth in them? In the second half of the show, the guys coach four live callers on questions like how can I build muscle and strength without any equipment? Can I get too old to build muscle? And finally, how can I get stronger at the deadlift? Finally, do you have friends and family that are just getting into fitness and you're having a hard time communicating with them exactly what they need to do? Well, we've got your back. We have Mind Pump clips right here on YouTube. Go over there, subscribe, and share those short clips with your friends and family. All right, here comes the show. Try this for big, muscular, strong legs. Push the sled every single day. Oh, I was just going to jump on the bandwagon with that. I saw Doug doing it yesterday and he said he felt great. And I know that's been like, you've like completely dropped squats and deads right now or what did you replace it with? So before I would incorporate variations of squats, either the belt squat or traditional squats or I do lunges, deadlifts. I'll still throw in here and there, but I don't do them super, super often these days. And what I did was I just said, you know, let me just see what happens if I push the sled every single day. Because really, if you think about it when you're driving the sled, it works the entire leg, including the calves. And this is where it came from. I noticed my calves were kind of growing a little bit. And I hadn't really changed my calf training at all. I'm like, what's going on? And then I said, oh, it's got to be the sled. Because when I pushed the sled, especially when I first started pushing the sled frequently, I would notice my feet and my calves would kind of start to get fatigued. And so one of the side effects was my calves and my feet started feeling really strong. I said, let me keep doing this and see what happens. And my legs are developing well. And I have no pain, no aches and pains. My body, my joints feel really good. And I think it's because, actually I'm pretty sure it's because of one of the quote unquote weaknesses of driving the sled is actually one of its strengths. Because it eliminates the eccentric motion, right? So you don't have any of the eccentric portion of the exercise. Yeah. So when you do it for people who don't understand what Adam's talking about, when you do a rep, you have the concentric portion of the rep, which is where you're lifting the weight. So that's a positive part of the rep. Then you have the pause, which would be isometric. And then you have the lowering part, which is the eccentric or the negative. And studies will show that the eccentric is most responsible. They're all responsible for muscle growth and strength. But the eccentric builds more muscle, causes more muscle damage, causes more soreness. So a lot of people are like, well. Needs more recovery. Yeah, pushing the sled then isn't going to be a great muscle builder because it doesn't have the eccentric. It's all positive, right? It's all, it's all concentric contractions. However, which is true. So I think on a rep for rep basis, it's probably not going to build as much muscle as squats or whatever. But if you look at that and think of it as a strength, which you just said, Justin, which is I'm not going to need nearly as much recovery. I can do this every single day, not get sore and really send this really frequent muscle building signal to my lower body and train the entire leg from my foot all the way up. It's funny to me that these hypertrophy trolls can't get that in their skull. That it has a lot of value to add in addition to squats and to all these other exercises that we do for building our leg muscles in particular. But like, yeah, gaining more strength and especially in the foot, like you had mentioned, to for me, feeling more secure, more stable in my squats, it makes a massive difference in terms of performance. And now I can add more load, which then adds to that systemic effect where I do build substantially more muscle because now I'm more secure, more stabilized when I'm squatting down, I can actually load more. I want to unpack something that you said about the difference between the eccentric portion and then the concentric portion. Traditionally, it's known that the eccentric portion of the exercise is what builds the most muscle. Now, do you think that a big portion of that is because traditionally the eccentric portion of the exercise is always the slower part? Like you take two to four seconds to lower a weight down where the concentric portion of exercise many times is only one second. And so do you think that a lot of that benefits is just purely the time under load during that portion of the movement? And if you were to compare, like let's just take total time and I'm gonna make up these numbers just to make my point, you do a barbell back squat for five reps and the total time is 10 seconds in the eccentric portion of the, let's just say, even though it's probably wrong, 10 seconds, you go drive the sled now and there's no eccentric portion, but you have a total of 30 seconds of concentric work to drive the sled across the gym. So the total amount of time that that muscle is being worked is equated to the same or potentially even more in that the driving sled. And do you think that that may be a factor in why you are seeing such great results in comparison to what we know is the king of all exercises for building your legs? It could contribute for sure. It's a good question because we can't really, we still haven't really determined why the eccentric or the lowering part of an exercise quote unquote builds more muscle. I wanna be clear before I continue, they all build muscle. So people get confused as they say. Isometrics build muscle. Yeah, so the isometric builds the most muscle. So therefore concentric and isometric looks like waste of time. No, no, no, they all build muscle, but if you compare them head to head, eccentric tends to build more, but eccentric also comes along with more damage and more recovery. And you try, try a negatives only workout or forced negatives or where you're going, you're gonna get super sore and it's gonna take longer to recover. So there's that, that drawback, right? But as far as time of detention is concerned, it's interesting because what I've done with the sled is I've done it many different ways. So it's not like I do the exact same thing every day. Sure. So some days what I'll do is I'll load the sled and I'll push it as fast as I can. I'm not running, but I'm trying to go fast. But it's explosive versus long, slow, grinding stride. Right, or 30 second rest versus rest as long as I can versus half the length of the grass with heavy, heavy, heavy weight versus light weight. Let's see how fast I can get across. So it's like a whole bunch of different varieties that I'm doing. So there's the portion that I was asking that I think has to be contributor, how direct it is in relation. It might be, right? Right, I think that. And then the other contributor you have to think is because you've lifted for 20 plus years, you've built a substantial amount of weight or strength and size in your legs. And all it takes is some good stimulation to maintain that mass. I would think that that also plays. Oh, for sure. Like if you had like a kid who's 17, two kids, 17, never lifted before. And one kid, I get to do nothing but barbell squats with the other kid, all I do is drive the sled with. I would still speculate that we would see significantly more gains in the barbell back squatter, but now take those same two kids 20 years later who have both built a lot of muscle by doing all the different exercises and then allow them just to drive the sled. And they probably could be, but here's the other side of it. First off, it's always, we're not making the either or argument, right? They all have values. I don't want people get confused from me say that, this exercise is better than all the others. Don't do anything else. The best results you're going to get are from doing a wide variety of different movements, doing eccentric, concentric, isometric contractions, split stance exercises, bilateral. So all that stuff has lots of value. But here's the deal. I think if you compare one kid doing barbell back squats three days a week to one kid driving the sled three days a week, you're going to see more gains with the back squat. However, here's the difference. The sled, you can do way more often than squatting, way more often than squatting. The volume and frequency really up. I bet you I could drive the sled twice a day if I wanted to and feel totally fine. I feel zero, nothing in my joints whatsoever. Versus when I squat or deadlift. And I'll, this is a statement I'll make right now. I guarantee you it'll be the last leg exercise I do as I get older. As I get older, I bet you that'll be the thing that I do a vast majority of just because it feels so easy and safe on the body, even at high intensities. So my point with this is there's tremendous value. And when you look at an exercise, look at its weakness and see how you can make that a strength. And so the weakness with the sled is you don't do the eccentric. So how can we make that a strength? Well, I can do this every single day. It's interesting to speculate on, you know, the value of that eccentric and what difference that is in comparison. Like, so what kind of different force demand that places on the muscles. And so that being that you're fighting forces that are actually pulling away, say they're gravitational or say, you know, the load itself, you know, you're fighting that on top of also contracting versus you contracting and be, and then let, you can let off at any point. And then there's no more force demand. But yeah, it's in terms of like that being communicated, I haven't heard anything really break that down. Well, there are also, then there's a third component that I think that makes a big difference in this case for you also, is that if you were to compare driving the sled and squats to you specifically, I think that driving the sled is more novel to your body than since squats. So if you were a sled driver your whole life and then now you're like really starting to squat, you would see. So I think that's what makes it so powerful for you is that there's those three big elements that make it. But I'll say this though, my upper legs I should say are pretty well developed. I mean, I think it's, you guys know this, it's like the one body part I have though, I could really build a lot of muscle. For me to get them to grow, I know what I'd have to do to really make them grow. If I wanted to make them grow, I'm surprised that they're growing. And I know it's the frequency. It's so many wrench. You don't think they're growing beyond a size though that you've already had them before? At this body weight, that's tough, right? Yeah, I don't think they're the biggest Dave ever. No, that's tough cause I'm also 43. Right, right. So a lot of that, you're bringing back muscle that you've had before. The thing that Justin, you said that I think is really interesting, that's really important to that. And you alluded to it also with how your joints feel. I would think that one of the most damning things that happens to the body from like squats is the change of direction of load. Always. Oh yeah. That's where you get hurt. Right, the eccentric portion. And then switch direction. Switch in the other direction with 300 pounds, like that has just got to be, the sheer physics of that have to be one of the most stressful things that you apply to the body where that's completely eliminated with the driving the sled. You were just going forward to your point, as soon as you let off, you let off. It's also so, it's also low skill. Driving the sled is a low skill. Oh yeah, so I loved it for clients. Great for kids. Anybody, right? If like a first time person exercising, you can have them push a light sled. I can't have any joint issues. Like it's beautiful for that. So it's just, it's my point with all this is that the sled has been thrown into the like sports athletic realm and people who just want to develop their muscles don't typically look at the sled and say, oh, that's a good muscle building exercise. False. Yeah, I actually, I ironically used it more during bodybuilding than I ever have in my life. I remember you saying that. Yeah, I used it all the time. I love the drags, I love pushes. And just like you said, some days it would be light and more explosive. Other days it would be this grinding strength. Other days I would be dragging it slow. Sometimes I'd drag it up high. Sometimes I'd squat down and like almost simulate a leg extension. I'd drop my hips down. Like if they drag it back. Yeah, and drag it back. Oh, that's normal. That's how I was doing a leg extension. And I mean, I remember after I found that and I believe again it was working with Justin, I never did leg extensions again. I was like, why would I ever do a leg extension if I could pretty much emulate the same thing where I'm actually moving. It's far more functional. I'm gonna burn more calories. I'm gonna build more strength from it. And it felt better doing that than sitting in a machine. There's also some clues too when you look at the strength training realm of athletes that train with the highest frequency of all strength athletes, which are Olympic lifters. Olympic lifters generally lift more often than any other lifter. They train, I mean, gosh. Several times a day they'll practice their lifts. But Olympic lifts, many of their lifts don't include the negative portion of a repetition. They throw it weight up and they drop it. If you ever watch Olympic lifters lift, they don't do lots of negatives. Then they might practice with squats, but even their squats, the negative is minimized. You ever watch an Olympic lifter squat versus a power lifter or a bodybuilder? Olympic lifter, like they go into the hole and they bounce back up. And I'm not recommending that. I think it's a very high skill movement. But my point with this is when you eliminate or somewhat limit the damaging effects of the eccentric portion of a rep, that means you could dramatically increase the volume and frequency. So it's like, yes, eccentric portions of reps are very important. I'm not saying remove those. But if you did somewhat limit those or remove those, like you would with a sled, or if you're doing some type of an Olympic lift or maybe even modify other exercises, do so, you could dramatically increase the amount of times that you practice that exercise, which comes with its own benefits. The benefits are strength, muscle, performance, all that stuff. It's really interesting to me because like I said, I did it every single day. I just got the sled. I did three sets, three to five sets every single day. And every day I felt good. I didn't feel like, oh, I gotta go easy today. Like I would if I tried to squat every day. I just said, well, I feel really interesting. My knees feel good, my hips feel good, ankles. Everything felt really good. And it's such an easy tool to use. It's really interesting. Well, you know that I hurt my hamstring the other day. So I, and I saw Doug doing the sled after you. And I'm like, I'm going to jump on the bandwagon. So I'll report back because I haven't done that. I don't think I've actually just, like when I did the sled a lot, I was doing it. You added it. Yeah, I've added it to increase volume. It was my way of, okay, I can't squat or deadlift anymore. This week it's too taxing, but I still want to keep working my legs. And so the sled, the sled drags and pushes became something I used a lot in bodybuilding. But I haven't done it like that, like right now. So I'll do that in replace of like some of my leg training and see how Doug, are you, what day are you on now? Cause you just started doing it every day. It's probably about four or five days now. And what do you, do you feel okay? I feel great. I mean, I definitely can tell that I've been doing something. My body is definitely, I feel it in my muscles. One of the things though that happened for me is I'd hurt my knee a little bit. And so I was still squatting, but I had a little bit of knee pain. And the nice thing about this is my knee is just like perfectly fine. Yeah, it'll be the exercise I do when I'm in my 80s. I guarantee it. It'll be like the one leg exercise that I'll always be doing cause it just doesn't hurt anything. Yeah. It's beautiful now. They have those torque sleds and you have ones with wheels and you can adjust the, you know, the tension on them. So you can really make it a lifestyle thing. Like I could just take it out of my garage and I'm just moving around. And just like I would do anything else was just like a daily activity. How does it feel? I've never used a torque sled. It's great, man. Really? Is a torque side the one with the big like four wheel wheels on it? Yeah, those look cool. Yeah. You can adjust and add some more resistance. So it kind of like adds, I don't know if it's like a braking or some kind of like a... Yeah, cause I used to take the sled, the regular one that drag outside of my house and get dirty looks from it. Five o'clock in the morning, just sparking. Could you imagine that? Sparking everywhere. Who is this asshole? I did that down with the high school kids down at the campus. And it was like this beautiful concrete area and everything. They had like some plastic pieces on the bottom initially. So it was like, okay, I could push it. And then those came off and then it was just pure sparks. And like we just put marks everywhere. I'm like, we can't do this. We got to order some of these torque slits. I'm gonna get in trouble with the administration. All right, here's the giveaway. It's the new program that we just launched. Maps 15 minutes. So if you work out for 15 minutes every single day, you can get better results. And if you did like two longer workouts during the week, we designed this program to be extremely convenient and extremely effective. And we also added a bonus advanced version for those of you that like compound, heavy barbell movement. So there's a 20 to 25 minute daily workout you can do that's included in this program. I'm gonna give one away for free though. Here's how you can enter to win. Leave a comment below on the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. Do all those things. Like your comment. We'll notify you in the comment section that you got free access to Maps 15 minutes. Now everybody else, it's a brand new program. We're just launching it. So here's what you get if you sign up right now. You get $20 off plus you get two free eBooks. The power of sleep and the inclusion training guide. Both included for free plus $20 off. The brand new program Maps 15 minutes, which also includes the bonus advanced version again for those of you that like heavy barbell lifting. Go check this particular workout out. It's amazing. Go to maps15minutes.com and then use the code 15special for the discount and the free giveaways. All right, here comes the show. Speaking of grinding metal and the sparks and stuff. Adam, I wanna hear about your, this is the second time now you've curbed your rims. Oh, why are you gonna bring that to Turkey? I didn't know that was on the agenda to talk about that dude. This is like- Oh, dare you, bro, listen. You only get two of these in your life as a man. This is happening to me. Okay, every car I've owned since I was 17 years old except for one, I've put custom wheels on. So I've been driving around with custom wheels since I was a kid on all my vehicles. And so I'm like, and I just, Jerry took my car. You guys were in here once you and Jerry took the car. I'm like, oh, be curved, you know, like I make a big deal about the rims, right? Be curved when you parked that, you know? And driving, I'm driving the car the other day. And dude, it was, it was probably the worst ever, I meant Starbucks. And I pull up to go pay. And it was like, oh, as she's opening the window. Thank God she didn't make a big deal about it because like inside I was like so angry, wanted to blame it on somebody. But this is the second time it's happened to me. And it's only happened in the Starbucks driveway. They have the low ass driver. They have low and they do the hard turns. It's like, if you're like, okay, I'm in my car so shame on me, I still should have been fine because my car is little in comparison to like the truck or my SUV. And so like when I'm in the truck and SUV, it's hard not to drive up on the curb on there because it's such a tight, narrow turn. And then when you pull up to the Starbucks window, the window is, the curb sticks out further than the window. So if you want to get up close, like some of those ATMs and stuff like that to where you don't have to like open the door, I have to get close and oh, rod curb the fuck out of the rims, dude. I'm so, so angry about that right now. Yeah, it's only happened to me twice, both times in Starbucks. So the two times that I've done it once was at the mall because in the parking lot, they had curbs in the middle of the parking lot to show you where to turn, but they're so low. You can't kind of, you really can't see them very well. So I turn and it's like, and it's like, ruin the whole day and I'm so pissed off, right? That's one time. The other time was at a Starbucks and it wasn't pulling into the window. It was turning out. Cause when you turn out, they have two curbs that make you, you have to turn. And if you don't hit them perfectly, you'll hit the back rim. They're so narrow that they make those driveways. Hell of narrow. There's something about it too. That's first off, it's infuriating because it's your current grade it up. So it's not like a hard line. I think that that's the point that pisses me off. Like I can't, you can tell I'm not the only one that does it. I mean, the whole fucking thing is just got marks all around it. So it's like, it happens to so many people. And I'm like, this is like the type of person. I'm like, I'm so angry at Starbucks. Like I'm not going to drink Starbucks for like a year. I know they won't feel that, but it's like, I'm so angry about it. It's like, you lose my $5 a fucking day for the next year because I'm so mad that that's like such a simple fix. Like make the curb smooth or widen it by two feet or like, or make the door thing, the window thing hang out by six more inches instead of it being inside. It's like, why? You would think that there would be some kind of a sense. I jumped it with the truck for sure. I know you're talking about it. Well, when you had a truck who gives a shit, you just went over everything. I just had moto over everything. Yeah, they, you would think cause in our, in my car, I have sensors if I get too close or whatever, but for some reason it doesn't work with just the rims. You would think that they would do that by now. Okay, some luxury cars do you have that? Okay, just for the rims. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, some will have a 360 camera that will. Now, well that's what I do now is I hit the camera and I watched from the camera because it's hard to judge, especially when you're trying to turn. Yeah, cause your beamer has the park assist, doesn't it? Where it gives you a 360 view of all of it. Yeah, and of course, I mean, I have that and I didn't even, I didn't hit that. I just don't, I didn't think that to do it, especially when I was in my car, my car is small. For some reason too, it's also just, I don't know why, but just as a man, it's the most embarrassing thing to get rid of. Well, it is, cause here, I mean, you know, obviously, super sexist, I'm saying that to Jerry when she walks in, be careful of the rims, fucking next day I curbed the shit out of my wheels, see what I'm saying? She's like, ah, so, yeah, no, it's fucking awful, dude. That's super annoying. Ruin my day, dude, that totally ruined my day. Sorry for bringing that up. Yeah, I know you're gonna go, Hey, so I gotta tell you guys something really interesting. So, you know, one of, you know, you guys know this, one of my favorite things is when old wisdom gets proven right by science. Like things that like, that we would call, let's say old wives tale, right? Like do this if you have a cold or do this if you feel this particular way. Is it wives tale or wives tale? Wives, old wives tale. Why is it an old wives tale? Because moms and wives were the ones that would administer care when you were ill or sick. And historically it was the women that knew which herbs and plants and remedies to give to their children. So, like if you had a cough and they gave you honey to help you with your cough and stuff like that, right? It wasn't dad, it was mom. So they labeled them old wives tales because what they try to do is they try to discredit them and say, well, there's no evidence to support that this particular thing works. And it's just an old wives tale. So it's a way of saying that's bullshit, right? It's like saying like an urban legend. Yes, okay, got it. So yesterday we had our doula come and visit because we're like, I think we're four weeks away from due date and we've got this really amazing doula. She's super smart, wonderful, wonderful woman. And we hung out for like three hours. I mean, it was only supposed to be an hour meeting or whatever we're hanging out, we're talking and great conversations about delivery and birth. And she's telling stories about some of the shit that she's heard doctors say when women are trying to give birth. For example, this is going a little sideways but I thought this was interesting. So you know when a baby's born and the baby comes out, the umbilical cord is still attached and the placenta is still in the mom. The mom still has to deliver the placenta. Well, the cord and the placenta continue to pump blood into the baby. And it's essentially the baby's blood. So the whole delayed cord clamping, that's where that's from. Now here, if you go to the hospital and you deliver a baby, delayed cord clamping will give you 30 seconds maybe, maybe a minute. She's like, I'm lucky if they let me do it for a minute. I said, well, when you do home deliveries or you go to like a birthing center, like run by midwives, how long do you wait? She goes, till it's done, till the placenta is delivered. And she was talking about how, so she makes, she'll make like tinctures and stuff out of the placenta because this is a traditional remedy for, you know, postpartum depression, whatever and women will take it. So this is an old practice. And she says, I could tell when I get the umbilical cord in the placenta from women who delivered in hospitals versus birthing center, she goes, one's still got blood in it, the other one's pale because it pumped it back into the baby. So we're talking all these stories and stuff. And then we're talking about like things that can help induce labor. So she goes, oh, let's get you some medjool dates. Do you guys know what medjool dates are? Well, you know what dates are. Yeah. So medjool is a type of a date. She goes, yeah, eat these and it helps with better labor, more likely to have the, you know, better cervical ripening and all these different things. And I'm like dates. She was like, yeah, they've been used for thousands of years. In fact, one of the first... Isn't that the one in Indiana Jones where the monkey ate it and died because it was poison? Oh, I don't know. Yeah. No, they're not poisonous. I don't know if it's random. Check that. In fact, check me on that one, but that's true. He's got to make up for his not knowing star wars. Medjool date. Yeah. I know my Harrison Ford movies anyway. So she was saying this, right? So I'm like, what? So I'm like, this is fascinating because so far everything she said to me, I've gone back and looked it up and found like all those evidence and stuff. So I'm like, this is so fascinating, right? Like, why don't we ever talk about this stuff? Yeah, yeah. So I looked it up. Their studies have been done on medjool dates and they definitely help induce labor and they definitely help with better labors. And there's several studies that support this. Some of the first times it was used or recorded to be used was in the times when Jesus was born. This is an old practice that women and midwives have been doing for a long time. Interesting. I didn't know that about dates. I mean, I've heard all these different spices and like the spicier the food that goes helps to induce labor. And so in Courtney's case, this was actually true. There was like a pizza that this place was like famous for that a lot of pregnant ladies would go to and like eat it. It was like the spiciest, craziest pizza and eating it and we're walking up West Cliff and you know, I think it was really like a lot of it was the walking and going upstairs and the whole thing. But like it for sure that night or water broke and it was like on like Donkey Kong. So I don't know. Interesting. Well, so check this by the way, he looked up the dates and it wasn't a medjool date. It was just the date that he ate in the end of the year. So you're half right. It was just a date. I don't know the differences. Be honest with you. I don't know what a medjool date is. I don't know, but we're going to go buy on. Despite just where our region it's from, I would imagine I have no idea, but check this out, right? So one study showed that it prompted cervical ripening and pregnant mothers who were 37 to 38. So after the study researchers found that mothers who ate 70 to 75 grams of dates every day. So like five or six dates a day had lower rates of C-section, lower rates of vacuum or forceps use, lower rates of oxytocin, pitocin use and higher bishop scores at the onset of labor. And another study, researchers had 65 women eat six dates a day for four weeks leading to their date delivery and left 45 pregnant women without any dates, okay? So they did a control and whatever. At the end of the study, spontaneous labor occurred in 96% of those who consumed the dates compared to 79% of the women who didn't have the dates. Also the women who ate dates had lower rates of pitocin use and shorter first stages of labor. Dates! Dates, man. So it's funny, before studies like this, could you imagine bringing that up to like a Western medicine like practitioner doctor? They laugh at you with your face. They laugh you out of the building. They're like jades of fruit. I love this kind of stuff. Have you checked to see if like, because there's like stacks of like pills that the doctor recommends now for your, I'm sure your wife to take, right? Like the, what is it? There's a prenatal vitamin. Thank you. Not just prenatal, but there's like a whole plethora of different vitamins I've seen that are recommended at different stages of the pregnancy and leading up to the birth. Have you looked to see if like, some of those already have that in there? I wouldn't be surprised if they've extracted that and then put it in some of the supplements. I mean, you know, here's the deal. So I did look this up. I said, what's in these dates that's doing this? It's like it's high in fiber. It's got good antioxidants. It's got B vitamins. It's got some iron. I'm like, that can't be it, right? There's something else that we just haven't identified. Yeah, because all those things are in like your prenatal. There's all kinds of foods that have that kind of stuff. Like there's all kinds of fruit that has all that kind of stuff, not just dates. And why have these dates been used for thousands of years? And why are they showing to have this effect? I find this kind of stuff fascinating. And what this shows me is old wisdom, we're so quick to discard if there isn't a study backing it up. But old wisdom, yes, it's anecdote, but it's anecdote that's been done, that's been backed by thousands of years of people and millions of people using this particular thing or doing a particular thing. We're also quick to jump to conclusion on what it is that it's put, that's how. Right. Like, oh, it's got fiber, this and this. Maybe vitamin iron, vitamin, okay, let's take that extract that, put that in a pill and now we've got the best benefits of that. It's concentrated. Yeah, assume that that's what it is and there's not something else there. That's the part that drives me. The other stuff that was very interesting, so I was listening to a podcast. Gosh, can you please look up Dr. Becky Campbell's podcast? I want to give her a shout. She did an amazing podcast with a OBGYN who now does home deliveries. So he's a doctor surgeon. Now he does home deliveries and he talks about the whole process of birth in the hospital. And he said a couple of things on there that were so just riveting to me. He said, first off, he said, having a baby, he's like, you ain't gonna stop it. Your body, it's gonna happen. He's like, it's like trying to, it's like trying to, you have to go, you have to poop, try stopping it. It's gonna happen at some point. He's like, it's a natural, it's a, it's an automatic thing that happens. I was dealing with that on my way to work. Yeah. It's an automatic thing that happens to your body. And he goes, also adrenaline stops the process of labor. So he says, so when an animal, for examples, is giving birth or in the process of labor, and then there's a forest fire, labor will stop so that the animal can escape. Right, or predators. And he goes, what do you, what's the name of the podcast, by the way? Health Babes. Health Babes, there you go, great podcast. Health Babes. Then he says, you know, what do you do, what do you do when you have a pet that's going into labor, right? You leave, what do you say? Leave it alone, be quiet, let it do its thing, right? Cause that helps everything happen. He goes, you wanna know why so many women go into labor, go to the hospital and all of a sudden stop. He goes, they show up in labor, fill out these forms, hook you up to these wires. Let me check your cervix, let me stick my hand inside you. Let's see what's going on. And then he's like, and then we wonder why labor stops so often when women all of a sudden go to the hospital. I'm like, oh my God, this is so crazy. The whole white coat syndrome. Yeah, we're treating this like so wild, you know? So anyway. Why is it so controversial though? I think it's so interesting. Because it's so embedded in how we view certain things that I was it years ago, remember years ago I said on the podcast how childbirth was so dangerous. And then a midwife contacted us and was like, no, you're actually wrong. It's not, here's why. And she totally, you know, explained everything to me. I was like, oh shit, I was wrong. I had no idea. But I mean, really fascinating stuff. So a lot of the stuff that we think is just like whatever. I mean, look into it. It's really interesting. Is Jessica using the juve? Because Katrina used the juve during her pregnancy. Did she, did she? For stretch marks? Yeah. I mean, it definitely works for sure. It definitely works at preventing and or reducing the appearance of stretch. But that's backed by data 100% with red light therapy. So like especially after you have your baby, you can use it. I think during you can use it a little bit as well. I laid there with him too. So we did both. So I laid there with him. I asked my doctor if he thought it was fine. He said, absolutely. There's no problem with that. So I used to lay with Max afterwards, but she was really consistent with that. That was like one of her biggest, like what her big fears of having a kid was like having stretch marks. Yeah, having stretch marks afterwards. She didn't have anything, but that was like, she was very adamant about training consistently, deadlifting, squatting all the way up until where Max came out. And then using the red light, she did both those things like super consistent. That's awesome. Is there anything different that Jessica's doing this pregnancy versus the last one? Yeah. A couple of things. She's not trying to overdo it. I think she thinks we, she may have overdone like the workouts and the split stance exercises and single leg exercises that may have caused some torsion on her pelvis while she was pregnant with Aurelius. Oh, interesting. So she just much more careful. Like she's like, oh, I'm super sedentary. And that's funny. Cause like I said, the doula came and she's like, well, what's different this time? She's like, well, I'm really sedentary. So she's like, well, define sedentary. So she's explained to her. She's like, you're not sedentary. You're just, you're just taking it easier compared to what you did the first time around. So that, that would be. And are they, they're obviously probably very pro that they're probably telling her that's not a good, bad thing. There's a balance. Like you can overdo it, you know, for sure. So that would be the bigger, I think the bigger difference. And then of course she, you know, she has a little kid to take care of while she's pregnant. So that makes things a lot different. You know, was it just her? How is he right now? Is, how's the phase you sent the video last? Did you guys see what he's, did you see the video trying to say truck was hilarious? He says, he says truck, but he says, fuck. So I'm having fun with him right now. I'm like, really? I say truck, fuck. I'm like, say, oh, truck. Oh, fuck. It's so funny. Jessica's like, stop. Immediately reminded me of the meet the fuckers where he's watching that little kid and he starts saying like, ash. Whoo. Ash. No, no, no. You don't want to say that word though. We don't want to say that word because that's a bad word. Gets in trouble for that. It is funny that my kids were dying like watching that video. Oh yeah. Trying to say truck. Oh, it's hilarious. So now it's like, you know, I try to get him to say it all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so funny. Such a fun, such a fun age right now. It is. And he says, it's funny too, cause I don't know, does Max do this? Well, he says a word that he kind of made up to mean something. So you have to figure out like, what the hell is he saying? Like, what is that? He, so he's doing something now. He did something the other day that I thought was really cute that it reminded me of my, so my youngest sister is like, what is she, 12 years younger than me, 10 or 12 years younger than me. And when she was his age growing up, and if we were, the adults were in the room or in older, I was a teenager at that time, we're in the room, and if we were to use a swear word, we would spell it out, you know? So we'd like, S-H-I-T, you know? Like if we were, so the baby couldn't pick it up. And I remember Sarah developed this thing where she started to pick up on, it's so amazing how we do this, right? Like, she learned to pick up on that we would spell something when there was like an emotion of like anger or frustration. That was when we, so she pieced that together, and I saw, I caught Max do the same thing, right? Cause there's been a couple of times where I cussed by spelling it to Katrina in front of him. So he didn't hear me cuss. So he does, they're not the same letters, but Sarah is still stuck in my head. She used to go, PSRT, right? She'd be doing something and she'd get frustrated. PSRT. Yeah, it was always those same letters. She just knew to say these letters, and those were the letters that came to her mind. And she knew to do it when she was frustrated or mad or whatever like that. And so she would, it was her way of spelling a curse word, but she had no idea what she was doing. And so I caught him doing that the other day of spelling, trying to spell something that I spelt that was a bad word, it was completely off. Like he's not spelling anything, you know what I'm saying? But he gets that, you know, dad said that when he was frustrated about something you're expressing emotion and just wild that they pick up. Yeah, now he's at that age where he just, he says words that I don't even know he knows. Like we were looking at a book and he goes, treasure, I'm like, treasure, who the hell taught you treasure? You know, he just words are just popping out left and right. His thing right now, and I don't know where he gets, where this is, hmm. He puts his hand on his. Yeah, he puts his hand on his, hmm, yeah. I think I'm gonna, hmm. What are you hoping about, dude? Walk around that like we'll be playing to do something. And I'll be like, what do you want to do? Hmm. And then he'll walk. Hmm. Like what do you do? He knows where, so we use, I actually don't think I share this with the audience. For his party training, we did use these little tiny dumb, dumb suckers, right? So up until this point, we've really had like no sugar. And then Katrina read that read, I don't remember what book, I know people are gonna ask me, so I'll look it up, read a book, and it actually addressed parents that have avoided using sugar. And like, you know, don't be afraid. This is something that you can do for this short period of time, and you can remove it out of their diet. It's not gonna, you know, alter the kid's palate forever. And so it really relieved her of that, because up until this point, we've been very strict about, you know, introducing sugar foods to him, so at that. And this was obviously a, I, you know what's funny too, like the party training phase was more challenging than I think a lot of people made it sound. I actually never heard a lot of people talk about it. I don't remember it that much for some reason, with my younger siblings, with that for us, but boy, that was an intense week for us of like really, especially the first three days, because we did the whole three day thing where he's like naked, and then you like just your every five minutes, you're asking him, you know? It's such a timing thing. Oh, it's a crazy timing thing. And you can really see how quickly, that's why I commend Katrina for really owning this, because I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I know probably day two or three of asking my son every 15 minutes you have to pee, and taking him to the toilet, like a hundred times that he doesn't go, I'd get lazy. I know I'd be like, just let me know, you know? And then I'm sure, but she executed that really well. And if he pooped in the toilet, he would get a lollipop. But now he's connected, you know, the lollipop to that, and then also where it's at. So he's, you know, he walks around the house and acting like he doesn't know where it's at. And he'll stand underneath the, where it's up in the- I wonder what's in there. Yeah, he's like, I wonder what's in there. And he points out for you, open it like, no, bro. But so that was our first introduction to sugar. And, but it's been great because she's like already, because it's now been what, almost two weeks, obviously he doesn't get a lollipop every time he poops anymore. And he's already started to forget about it. You know, every once in a while, he'll remember. And then she normally will let him every now and then. Does he give you one after you poop? Yeah, that's it, that's it. Daddy, good job. He did, so he's literally, so this is the toilet, his wieners like right here. Right? So, he just hits the seat. Yeah, yeah, so, him and I are getting ready to get in the bath just like a couple of nights ago. And Katrina was just saying to me, like, okay, now that he's like totally potty trained now, let's start trying to teach him how to stand up. And I said, yeah, he's, I said, I've been watching. I said, he's just, we need about two more inches for it to be like really good. Oh, he's gonna pee. Right, right. So, I had him like two nights ago before we get in the bath to do it. We're both standing there naked and stuff like that. And I'm holding it going over. And he's like, lean, he's holding onto me and like leaning. He's trying to get in. Yeah, we're both peeing in there. So, that was like a for sure moment. I'll never forget it. You gotta get him a little toilet. Yeah, so he's got like, he's got one of those little plastic ones. You know what, oh, you know what he uses? That I didn't even know this existed. So, I don't know if you guys got this or if you had this, but it's a travel potty that folds completely flat. It, so it completes this flat. It goes like this, bink, bink, it opens up and it has like, you know, about, it sits about this high with the legs that pop under. And then you have these plastic bags that go over the top of it. And then he sits right on it. And then you just close it up. And then you think, he's so comfortable doing that. And when we draw it, so we keep it in the back of the rover. And then when he's got to go, he'll just tell Katrina and he goes, sits back there. He wants the back closed. So, he sits back there and he asks you to close the door. So, he closes, takes a shit in there and then waits. And then Katrina will pop her head in every car. I don't think they make one for adults. I know, I thought that. And then no problem doing that. He like, he actually likes doing that. He has this thing where when he poops, he wants to be alone. Oh, all kids, Aurelius will try and hide. And then he does this, he covers his face with his eyes with his hands. So, he does this. So, it doesn't matter where you are. We're at my mom's the other day and he was just, he walked over the corner and he covered his eyes. And then we're like, right. I know exactly what's happening right now. He's trying to, yeah, poor kid is trying to poop right now. So, we're in a kind of a different spot, but Ethan's really at that kind of phase where he's embarrassed by us now, right? So, he's like going full in to like the teenage mode and is like trying to be cool kid and like, you're such a cool dad though. See you later. It doesn't matter bro. You guys, dude, that's what I thought, right? I'm like, I'm pretty cool. You're pretty cool. Like, I think we're gonna do okay, but apparently we're not cool enough. So, it was funny that Courtney, so the kids got into gymnastics cause I guess I was talking to Courtney about this. When she was a kid, she always wanted to do it. And her parents like never let her. And so, this was kind of a goal of her. She didn't even really tell me about that. Right, to live vicariously today. Yeah, and I didn't know that she had attached that and you know, somewhat was really into it. Cause I saw her kind of watching a lot of the practices and would kind of go out there and go on the trampoline. One of the days they let the parents kind of come in and I missed out. I wanted to do it with her too, but missed out my opportunity, but I guess they actually have like an adult class. So, like one day a week- For gymnastics? They have a gym. And I was like- That sounds dangerous. Right, for adults? This is absurd. This is crazy. Just tumbling. So now- Roll on the floor. Yeah, dude. So, I'm like, like Courtney's like, we're gonna do this. Like let's do this. You too? We're talking about this. Yeah, cause I was like, you know, I want to, I always want to challenge my body in different ways. And this was one of those. I actually did a whole course, a gymnastic course like a long time ago, just when I was going through different certifications. Bro, I want to see you do a backflip so bad. Dude, I can't, like even just doing like a front roll, like tucking, like I don't have like the thoracic flexibility. I just would flop. I'd get to this point. Please, Andrew, photoshop a leotard on this guy too. Oh, I'm going all in, you guys. You have no idea. Oh, so what does Ethan- Exactly. So, he's going to be in the class before us and he'd have to wait for us right after that. No, well- I'm gonna just be like, I'm here with Ethan. You know, and I'm gonna be there like waving to him and doing flips and all that. Bro, hold on a second. He's like so mad at me. Hold on a second. Don't blame it on being a teenager. That's embarrassing as hell. Would you want to watch your parents do gymnastics? Oh my God. I know, dude. That's why I want to do it, dude. That is hilarious. I'm embarrassed that I'm not even like that. I don't want to go watching it. Okay, so you just made me think of something that I think is interesting. Now you, obviously you have two boys so you don't have to deal with this, but I've always thought like if I had a girl, one of the things like that would probably be one of the more challenging things as a father is when your daughter starts to get into like, you know, teenage womanhood years and she wants to start wearing the kind of like risque clothes. Doug is probably the one who could speak to this the most. Is like that wants to use the cute tops and the shorts and stuff like that. Like, oh my God, how do I handle this as a dad? And I think the best way is as a dad is you show up to square in the same shit. You have to square in the same shit. You have to square in the same shit. I feel like that's the only thing you could do, right? Like I think if you push her too hard, she's gonna rebel. So I think the only thing that you could do as a dad is like to embarrass her that like, listen, this is how I feel when dropping you off. You look like this, I feel the same way. You know, thankfully my daughter's not there at all. Well, she's uniform. She's still young. Well, but she doesn't want to either. She's not very much like I'll wear this or wear that. She's very, so far, right? She's only 13, so who knows if that might change. Yeah, but do you think, okay, so another good question in regards to that, and I do eventually want to hear Doug's opinion on that situation. Do you think that, because I actually like the idea of uniforms for schools for that, because I actually think that, do you think that played a role in why it isn't that big of a deal to her? Because she's been trained for so many years that you go to school in a uniform, where when I grew up in public schools, where you could wear whatever you wanted. So I was very much so into what I wore. I think uniform is a great thing in schools. I think it's great. I think it eliminates a few different things. One, it makes it harder for kids to be like, well, I got this, you got that. I'm, you know, this, whatever. I think it also takes that out of the equation where, you know, you start playing with the risque clothes and it also as a kid, now looking back, I think kids will be like, I want to wear what I want, but the reality is, think of all the stress and stuff you went through as a kid or deciding what to wear and what, and if that was just taken out, because you couldn't, probably would have made things easier. Well, it's also a small microcosm of what like social media is comparing yourself. Totally. You show up and you see so-and-so's got whatever shoes or she has whatever dress or he's got whatever, you know, designer jeans and you don't like, I mean, when we all are in the same uniform, there's less of that kind of comparing to each other. I think that that is probably, now, Doug, you have the opposite challenge, right? Cause she doesn't, Brie doesn't have a uniform, right? No uniform. And she does like the kind of, you know, crop top. I mean, we went shopping actually for school clothes. They don't sell a whole shirt. I swear. I was looking at it. Hey, could you imagine Doug like walking and shouting like, honey, where are the full shirts at? She needs them for school because her school doesn't allow crop tops. And so we were going to, I don't know, how many different stores, like five different stores. And I was looking everywhere. I was really searching cause I really wanted her to get those and they don't sell them. It's so hard to find those. Wow. That's wild. Wow. So it's like the big and tall store. Yeah. Buy two shirts, honey. We're gonna sew them together. It's really tough. But, you know, your whole idea of coming to school dressed like that, I've threatened her with that, but it didn't seem to faze her much. That's why you gotta do it. Well, who's gonna, what's the end result gonna be? I'm gonna look like a fool and she's not gonna pay any attention to me. And the truth is, I just bite my tongue a lot about her clothing. I do chime in here and there when I think things are like way over the top. I don't wanna be that dad too that's always like, well, you gotta, you know, put on a turtleneck. Well, yeah, cause then she rebels anyways. Then she put a turtleneck on and then underneath she has something even sluttier and then she pulls it off when she gets out for school. The challenge that I have with that is walking around with your daughter and they start to grow up, right? They start to become a woman. And, you know, if they dress a particular way, you can imagine catching the glances of grown men or guys that are way older or whatever looking at your kid. Like, how are you gonna react in public? Like, I don't know how I'm gonna react in public. I know how overprotective I am. So maybe she wouldn't wear them just cause she doesn't want her dad to embarrass her by yelling at people. You know, I don't know. But I can't imagine walking with my daughter and catching some dude look at her and then being like. I gotta think that a lot. I mean, cause she's, the whole time she's been uniformed, right? Yeah. Yeah, see, I think that has more to do with that. I think that she just doesn't even know any better. Had you gone to a school where everybody is dressed different which is more breeze upbringing where she's seen that her whole life. Well, now where she goes now they have school, her school does have a pretty strict dress code, right? They do. Which is good, which I think is good. So even if my, so the high school my daughter might go to doesn't have a uniform, but they do have a dress code. Yeah. But it's stricter than what you would find like at a public school. Did you guys have dress codes at all? We couldn't wear, we couldn't wear like gang colors. Yeah. That was the thing in the 90s. Yeah, yeah. You couldn't wear like- Don't wear too much red or blue. Don't wear a whole lot of that. I mean, there was just a lot of flannels and Hick, you know, gear. Yeah. It wasn't anything that flashy. So yeah, it wasn't like we had like strict, I mean, in terms of like having two short of shorts and you know, all that kind of stuff. Like, yeah, I think they had basic standard stuff like that, but nothing crazy. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I had a rude awakening, well not rude awakening, just a realization going to Europe as a teenager. Like you think that kids dress risqué here, go to like Italy, France. Oh, it's more there, huh? Oh, my God. I mean, I don't know if it's like that now, but it was when I was a kid. I couldn't believe this shit. Oh really, I didn't know that. Yeah. I couldn't believe what they were wearing. I thought we were like the worst when it comes to that. No. Go to Brazil, go to like, you know, like I said, I don't know what it's like now, but when I was a teenager going to Italy, I'd see my cousins who were my age or younger and I couldn't believe what they were wearing. And I was like, I thought, dad, I thought you said that, you know, our culture doesn't, whatever. It's like, it's changed a lot since I was a kid. I was like, yeah, because this is crazy, you know. They're very, they're, they're, they're very lax about that kind of stuff over there. Well, isn't it over there is too, where they could have the commercials that have like sexual commercials and nudity and stuff like that. Oh, I remember, I remember 12 or 13, I'm watching TV at my grandma's house in Sicily and there's a soap commercial and there's a woman in the shower and you're looking through the glass of the shower and it's sudsy. So you can kind of see her like her silhouette. And then she wipes the suds off and she's topless. This is a commercial. In the middle of the day. Remember this I was 12 or 13. This is before internet, you know. So I'm like, wow. It's still like that, right? Is it like that? You know, if it's like that still. I don't know. I think it is. Yeah, I think, I think. Well, they're just more lax with nudity in general. You know, a beach over there. Yeah, beaches and stuff like that. So yeah. Nudity itself isn't bad. I think it's the suggestion and the way that it can be used. But nudity itself is just a human body, right? Well, and I think that's how they do those commercials, right? They're more like that where it's just, she's just in the, it's normal to be naked in the shower, but they wouldn't be showing like pornographic. No, not that, but they did do it because it was an attractive woman. Come on. I'm pretty sure they weren't just advertising. This is what we do when we shower. No, they use the model. I remember it distinctively. Very clear what happened there. Anyway, Justin, I want to hear about the shark attacks. You were supposed to bring that up. Yeah, I was just literally going to talk about it because I didn't realize like the last year or so there's been two reported shark attacks in our area in off of a Pacific Grove Lovers Point. And so near me, same place. Yeah, and two different sharks, great whites. And so one guy that was on a paddle board, I guess got attacked and he was out there with his dog. Both were fine. I guess he was injured. The guy before that that was attacked like had got serious injuries to stomach and leg and like got bit. Isn't that where you're at, that part of Northern California, the beaches there, isn't that one of the highest concentration of great white sharks roughly? They're definitely part of the, I don't know if it's like a migratory pattern where they come up and then they stay there. They come all the way from Mexico and work their way out. Yeah, so yeah, usually there in Aptos is another one where this cement ship that was. That's right, there's like an underwater ship or something. Yeah, there's one there. And so that's like, I always see them there. Like even if you don't hear about any reports or... What do you mean you see them? Okay, so we've taken the sailboats out. What do you mean you didn't see them? I mean, did you see them or saw them? Yeah, like you could see, we took a catamaran and it goes along the coast with the kids and we're having a nice Sunday and we look over and there's probably five great whites just doing their thing. Maybe like, I want to say like 200 yards or so away from the shore. Oh, hell no. And so then there's surfers there and there's people swimming in the water, just oblivious that they're like just a ways out doing their thing. But yeah, I pretty much think they're everywhere. But I'm not in the ocean. I'm like, they're here. It's just a matter of if they're hungry. Is it true that you're most likely to get attacked if you have like a shiny type of material on or shiny clothes on? Like I heard that they're attracted to that. Like they don't want to eat like a human being. Now I thought it was different. I thought it was when you wore a black wetsuit because you look like a seal. Oh really? That's what I looked at first. Yeah, because I don't know which one they're more attracted to because I've kind of heard both in terms of like if you have something. Well, those are very opposite. Because they eat up. Exactly. Fish, they have reflective quality to them, right? Yes. And then seals, it probably depends on I guess what they're hungry for. Well, so it's so funny you brought that up because I just read a statistic that highlights how irrational fear can be. I know. We hear about sharks. You're like more likely to get hit with lightning at you. It doesn't happen. More people die every year from vending machines falling on them than shark attacks. Vending machines? Vending machines. I didn't even know if vending machines fall on people. Oh, I've heard this. Yeah. That's a fact. They're trying to get the... Shut the fuck up. More people die from that than shark attack. Yeah, like the soda out, like it's stuck and so they get on, they think it's a good idea to shake it and then it falls right on them. And it's... So I actually watched this show that talks about, what did that say there, Doug? So it's sound rather than sight or smell. So your regular sounds like made by a swimmer in trouble or a damaged fish. Don't fart in the water, Justin. Yeah. Don't flail about when you're swimming. Oh, interesting. Wow. Well, so I watched this show on irrational fears. It was really illuminating because of how, as humans, where we place our fear. And they talked about... So there was a cultural phenomenon that happened in the 1970s that shifted, completely shifted everybody's fears around going in the water. And it was Jaws. It was the movie Jaws. Before Jaws, shark attack, nobody talked about it. Nobody really cared. It wasn't that big of a deal. After Jaws, sharks was like the scariest thing ever. And they did these polls before and after Jaws. How, you know, how afraid are you of shark attacks? How often do you think they happen? Before Jaws, it was like barely registered. After Jaws, everybody's like, oh my God. And that would happen because of the cultural phenomenon of Jaws. Anytime one happened. Newspapers reported it. Everybody wanted to know about it. So people got the skewed. This is how I feel about news and media in general. Oh, totally. It's just like one isolated incident that they just, you know, now it's so easy to spread it worldwide that it looks like it's happening all over the place. But yeah, that's to that point. It really doesn't happen often at all. And so I'm not like out here promoting like, oh no, the fear of shark attacks. Cause even then they were attacked, but it's like they didn't eat them. Like they realized, oh, this isn't the food I was going for. Yeah. And then they escaped. Well, not just that. Think of how many surfers are in the water in that area. Swimmers and surfers. Every day. It's not like that water is like nobody's ever in there. That's like one of the most popular places in the world to surf. And you hear about shark attacks is so rare, right? So it's not a very common thing at all. You have to think that's what causes so much of the anxiety that I feel like our society is plagued with right now. It's just because- Irrational. Yeah. So not- Totally irrational. Every crazy thing you now hear about like on social media, if it's the crazier it is, the faster it goes viral and the more it feels real and close to home even though it couldn't be further from the curve. People don't realize that like kidnappings, kids getting kidnapped. Like this is the safest time ever in terms of kidnappings. But you wouldn't think that. But if you talk to parents, they think it's the scariest time. You know how much more likely it was to get kidnapped when we were kids? Oh, I know. Versus today? Oh, totally. You didn't have any trackers or anything that you could then, you know, find my phone, find, like you have, I mean, they have great options now for kids with like watches and things. So you can at least like, no. There was this comedian that did a whole bit on it. It was so funny. He's like, kids were hotter back in the day. That's why I got kidnapped. What is this? Dude. We were better looking kids, I did. He's like, that's why they're not kidnapping kids anymore. I was like, oh my God. That's what it is, dude. That's hilarious. Anyway, so Adam, I want to ask you about this thing with the contact lenses with Felix Gray. Are they, they're making a promotion, right? Yeah, they're making a big push on it right now. I think they have like some promotion. It's like $5 for a month. To try out their comfort. Yeah, is that what it is, Doug? Make sure you double check my. Yeah, that's what you told me earlier. Let me check. Yeah, make sure. I think I heard that. So for $5 you test out, and these are specifically super comfortable contacts. That also, I think, block out the blue light. So they're not just con, that's what we talked about. Yeah, we talked about it last time and I think that we were under the impression that they're just getting in the contact space and they're just regular contacts, but they're designed to protect from the blue light. So they're not just regular, they're not just regular contacts. They're contacts that are designed to also, yeah, protect from the blue light. That's gotta be one of the first ones. I think it is. Okay. Yeah, I think it is. What we really need is actually to talk to them and see how well it's doing it if it's taking off or not. Was it, am I right, Doug, is it? You are right. So it's $5 for 60 lenses. Okay, so it's daily use or whatever. And what does it say into the features or what's the deal there? Well, it's what I mentioned last time. It's got the, what they call it ultra thin optical center point, which helps improve visual acuity. So they're more water rich so that they're more comfortable to wear, 58% more water. So, I mean, again, I don't know about the blue light. I was reading that. So I know, yeah, I read either a review or on their website that it's more than just contact lenses. But for five bucks for a month supply, if you wear them, might as well try them. I've never had contacts. Is that a hell of a good deal or what? I would think so. I mean, I don't ever wear these kinds of lenses, but if I did, I would try them out. Well, you're the only one that's actually wore any contacts, right? Yeah, I've always worn hard lenses. And like I said before, I wear them at night. So I take them out in the day and they reshaped the eye. So they're totally different. I wore contacts for a very short period of time because I did Lasik eye surgery years ago. I didn't know you did that. Oh yeah. I did it like, I want to say 14 years ago. And my eye still, Did you just wear glasses? I wore glasses when I would drive. And if I needed to look at something like if I'm in a classroom to look kind of far away or whatever. And then I tried contact lenses, hated them, hated putting them on and was a pain in the ass. So I just have them here and there. And then when I started doing jiu-jitsu a lot, I didn't want, I was like, I want my vision to be really good. Can't wear glasses while I'm doing jiu-jitsu. I did the Lasik surgery, which I don't know if you guys are familiar with the process. It's a lot better now even. It's like in and out same day here. It's like 30 seconds. When I do the other eye out in like two minutes. Yeah, it's crazy. It looks scary, but it's nothing. Well, I mean, I saw them peel part of my freaking. Yeah, that's why I'm like, ooh. It feels weird, but it's like you feel nothing. It was done. And today, we're looking at, I'm like 13, 14 years later, my eyesight is still better than normal. So I know it's supposed to over time. Maybe you wear off a little bit, but it's still phenomenal. Oh, do you sometimes have to redo it? Is that, oh. Just cause you get older and your eyes, you know, change a little bit. But I mean, it won't help me with like my ability of my eyes to contract to look at things near. So at some point people tend to have to wear glasses for that as they get older. At least it doesn't. I think it was me who brought up that it was a myth that I thought it was true was the, if you have light colored eyes that you're more likely to end up wearing glasses. Yeah. You got debunked. I thought that was true. I've never heard that. There was a myth that the best snipers had light blue or gray eyes. That was also a myth. That they're supposed to have the best vision and they could shoot the furthest or whatever. Oh, see, I heard they were the worst vision. I heard the opposite that they're more likely to end up having to wear glasses by having light. And I can't remember what, that's something the way the color eye filtered regular light and just put more strain on light colored eyes, I think, versus like a dark colored eye. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either. Check this out. You're not what you eat. You're what you digest. How you break food down is crucial in terms of getting nutrients to the tissues you want like muscles and helping you feel better, not get bloated, constipated, diarrhea. Really digestion is one of the most important factors to consider when it comes to your diet. And you can take digestive enzymes to really help this process. Now there's only one company that we recommend when it comes to digestive enzymes, mass enzymes. These are digestive enzymes for people interested in building muscle, burning body fat and improving their health. Go check this company out. It's called masszymes.com. That's M-A-S-S-Z-Y-M-E-S.com. Mind Pump and then use the code MINDPUMP10 for 10% off any order. All right, here comes the rest of the show. Our first caller is Nick from Washington. Nick, what's happening? How can we help you? Hi guys. Thanks to, as everybody says, thanks for what you guys do. Thanks for all the content. I've been listening to the podcast now for basically since the start of COVID, I found you guys. I have been training pretty much consistently for the last four years. I have been lifting for probably 24 years since I was a kid. My primary goal is to try and stay as functionally strong as I can. I love to occasionally lift heavy, but really wasn't for a long time until I kind of got into your guys' maps programs. I started back into some more heavier lifting when I started the anabolic program. Before that, I was pretty much doing the kind of traditional total body routine. Three days a week total body, some kind of push, some kind of squat, some kind of pull, some kind of hip hinge, some kind of core work, and then some kind of accessory movement, biceps, triceps, whatever, whatever I felt like doing at that point. Over the last year, I started anabolic about a year ago and over the last year, so I went anabolic performance, I went back to anabolic and now I'm on phase two of aesthetic. And excuse my voice, my son had a sinus infection, so I have been recovering from that. Anyway, in the first phase of aesthetic, I kind of have noticed this trend over the last few years. I was never a big deadlifter when I was younger, but my deadlift has always traditionally been lower than my squat. So during phase one, I dropped the rep range down to singles in the last week of phase one for aesthetic, and I'd see what I could do. And once again, my single for squat was probably about 20 or 30 pounds heavier than my single for deadlift. I guess my first question, as a physical therapist, I see a lot of patients who have a lot of weird abnormalities, a lot of differences from either side to side or front to back, but is having that level of asymmetry from front to back, is that abnormal? And then second of all, if it's not abnormal, what can I do that wouldn't necessarily focus on just my deadlift that would still help bring it up to where it's at least even with my squat, if not better than my squat? Yeah, it's so rare to meet anybody who has that, or that's the case. You normally are better at one than the other. Yeah. So it's not abnormal, but it's not common. So what I mean by that is, the fact that your squat is better than your deadlift, it is definitely more common that someone can deadlift more than they can squat, but it's not abnormal in the sense that there's something wrong with you. As I say, Justin's like this. Yeah, and it was mainly because of the practice and the amount of time spent on the squat, specifically, never even did the deadlift, except for power clean version, which was a lot lighter. But yeah, like that took me years after the fact to start kind of building up my deadlift strength. And it was just basically mastering the technique of it and getting my body acclimated to, adding quite substantial more weight. But still today, you're still a bigger squatter than you are deadlift, right? Yeah, still. Yeah, still I could make it out perform. There's like leverage stuff and body, different body shapes. So like if you looked at like the top level, like the strongest deadlifters, especially deadlifters that are maybe not small, so taller deadlifters tend to have long arms. They tend to have really long limbs, right? They also tend to not be very good at bench press because bench press requires or a heavy- Short arms. Well, there you go. I was just gonna say it. You probably have shorter arms, you have shorter limbs. And so you're probably built better to press and squat than you may be to pull, right? Now, the only time I would say this is an issue is if your deadlifts cause you a lot of pain and you have issues with your low back or your hips or something like that. But if there's no pain, I wouldn't worry too much about the fact that your squat is heavier than deadlift just because most people are the other way around. It's not that big of a deal. Now, your other question was how can I do things that'll help me get better at the deadlift that aren't necessarily a deadlift? Well, yeah, of course you can. Usually squatting more will get you a better deadlift, but if someone like you, I would recommend single leg deadlifts. Single leg deadlifts are really good. Unilateral work would be good. Yeah, and just unilateral work in general, I think would be really good for somebody like you. And then maybe something that would help work on rotation, maybe the QL a little bit like windmills. Windmills might be pretty good for someone like yourself to see if you get the QL and core stability really good. That could translate over to a better deadlift sometimes. But other than that, I wouldn't worry about the discrepancy and the weight too much. It's not a huge, it's not like you could squat four or five, but you can only deadlift 105, that'd be really strange. They're close enough in, yeah, they're close enough in weight to where, again, although it's more common the other way around, it's not that big of a deal. It's not something you worry about. It's not abnormal, it's just not common. I tend to toggle back and forth, depending on like my goal, right? Of what I tend to do more of in my programming based off of what I want, right? So when I'm chasing, increasing my deadlift, I'm deadlifting more frequently than I am squatting in my routine. And therefore I scale back a little bit on my squatting and vice versa, when I'm really trying to move my squat, I just, I scale back on the deadlifting a little bit and I'm squatting more often. That's a simple way to look at this too, is just like if you are, let's say front squatting and back squatting and then deadlifting in a week, maybe I do two rounds of deadlifting and one of squatting in the week. So depending on what your routine looks like, I normally will interchange. And they're both, they both have such tremendous carryover that you're not gonna like regress big time by doing that. You'll just probably get a little bit more emphasis on the one that you're doing more frequently. And so, and I love to toggle back and forth. I go on a kick for a while, that it's like I really wanna improve the squat. So I'm just doing that a little more frequently. And then other times when I really wanna move the deadlift and I just do that more frequently. Yeah, besides, you know, lateral work, I know one thing that really helped me because of, you know, the initial bit from the beginning doing a deficit deadlift really and focusing on, you know, pulling from a lower position really helped me dig more weight up from that initial pull. So that was definitely a focus of mine that helped to improve the overall performance. It's not something I've never done. That would be a really cool thing to try and work in. Yeah, give it a shot. Just go real light. Just light, yes. When you start with that. It's compromising. And if you're gonna move, knowing kind of where I've started from as far as you guys' programs go, if I was gonna move from aesthetic into something that would kind of gear me in that direction, which one would you guys lean for? Symmetry. I like symmetry for you. Okay. I'll send that to you, Nick, if you don't have that, okay? I don't, that'd be great. Thank you guys so much. You got it, man, no problem. Thanks, Nick. Thanks for calling him. Go Niners. Hey, thanks again for what you guys do. I have a three-year-old little boy, so I hear you guys' stories about your kids growing up, and it's just been kind of fun to hear your stories and to compare them to my own. And mine's been a little physical therapy experiment to see how he develops, and to hear you guys go back and forth too. It's just been a ton of fun. Thank you guys for what you do. Thank you, Nick. Thank you. I just say go Niners. Because he's wearing a Seattle shirt. Oh, I see. You're doing so well. I know. This is the shit that I don't care about. Obviously, you do, you ask. You know what's interesting about this? So if you look at like top lifters, for example, if you look at the world's strongest squatters, they squat way more than they deadlift. If you look at the world's strongest deadlifters, they did lift way more than they squat. If you look at the world's strongest like overhead pressers, they overhead press more than they bench press. So this stuff gets kind of weird when you look at those top levels, not because necessarily they train a specific way, although that's part of it. The other part of it is sometimes your body is built in a way that makes you better. That gives you advantage. Yeah, like I- Deadlifting is way easier for me than squatting. Yeah, I'm definitely built to pull things. You guys crush me a bit. Yeah, I can row and pull and do pull-ups with significantly more weight than I can pressing or squatting, just the way my body- I squatted longer than I deadlifted. I've been squatting a lot longer than I deadlifted. I barely got into deadlifting not that long ago and progressed with it just because it's- I built more for it. Yeah, I'm built better for it. So it's very normal for somebody to have one that they're stronger than the other, but- It's usually the other way around. But don't you guys just, I mean, this is how I- This is, I would just, I focus on one more than the other always in my routine. Sometimes I'm on a squat kick and so my routine looks a little more heavily around squats. Other times I'm on a deadlift kick and it's just more. And then you brought up things like deficit deads. So that's how my frequency of deadlifting increases, but then one day it's like the heavy hard training and then other days I'm doing things like deficit deads or single leg deadlifts, like things that aren't as taxing as heavy, heavy deadlifts. You can build volume and also like add some technique and focus. And I always see a great movement in that category when I focus like that. Our next caller is Mary Grace from New York. Hi, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here and I'm super thankful for all the content you put out. I have a question about osteoporosis and weightlifting. I was diagnosed with osteoporosis about five years ago and my doctor suggested that at my age I work on treating it through lifestyle rather than medication. So that means for me, making sure that my body fat is high enough that I'm producing enough estrogen and it also means weightlifting. I was wondering if it would make more sense to focus on specific areas where my bones are weakest or if I should just focus on full body exercises and benefit from the systemic effects of weight bearing exercise, if that makes sense. Good question. Really good question. And so five years ago, how old were you when you first got diagnosed? Because you're gonna look young. Yeah, 30. 30 years old. Do you mind if I ask you, you don't have to answer this, but do you mind if I ask you a personal question? Sure. Have you struggled with any disordered eating? I definitely wasn't eating enough in my 20s and my weight was a lot lower than it is now. Was it diagnosed or is this just your self diagnosis? In terms of eating or in terms of, yeah, self diagnosis. Okay, so the reason why I'm asking you that, Mary, is typically when you find a young lady with bone loss, there's usually a dysfunctional or disordered eating connected to it, usually anorexia. And so this is the main cause of what's happening. Now, the strength training is gonna send a signal to build bone and muscle, okay? And to answer the question that you asked, you wanna focus on full body exercises. That's gonna give you the most bang for your buck. So deadlifts, squats, bench presses, rows, overhead presses. Now, the problem is, is if you don't feed yourself appropriately, the strength training is not gonna do anything for you. So you're gonna need to go on a bulk while you lift the weights. Now, if this sounds or feels challenging or triggering or if you're like, oh, I don't wanna gain any weight, and again, you don't have to answer this on this, but just within yourself, if what I'm saying makes you feel uncomfortable, like, oh man, I don't wanna go on a bulk. Like just the word bulk makes me feel uncomfortable. I suggest you work with somebody who's an expert in this, so you can work with a therapist, work on your issues with food and then work with the strength training in conjunction with that. Because the strength training won't help you otherwise. Otherwise, what you'll do is, you'll just be sending a signal to your body, but your body's not gonna have the building blocks to do so. It's not gonna be able to do anything. Now, if you combine it with an increase in calories, so number one is gonna be calories. You wanna have your calories be higher than what they were at. Number two is gonna be the essential macro nutrients, proteins and fats. Number three are gonna be your essential micronutrients in particular, vitamin D, magnesium, calcium, vitamin K and the like, so make sure you don't have any nutrient deficiencies. And then lastly, carbohydrates. But if you're hitting your calories, proteins, fats and those micronutrients and you're lifting weights two or three days a week, that's about all I would have you do. Two or three days a week of weight training, you're gonna see your bone loss reverse. You will have tremendous results. And the best way to gauge this is gonna be strength. What you probably don't wanna do is weigh yourself on the scale. In fact, what I would tell you to do, and this is likely what the person you work with is gonna recommend you do, is to not weigh yourself at all, but rather just look at the weights that you can lift in the gym. If your strength is going up, then that's a great sign that you're getting enough to eat and that you're lifting weights in a way that's going to stimulate bone growth. It's gonna stimulate strengthening of the bones. Okay, does that make sense to you? Yeah, that totally makes sense. Do you have? Go ahead. Super comfortable. Oh, I'm also super comfortable bulking and eating more. 10 years ago, I might not have been, but now I just wanna build strength. You're in a great place. If that doesn't bother you and you're comfortable increasing your calories and going on a bulk, following maps in a bulk, which we'll give you if you don't have, do you have maps in a bulk by chance or no? Nope. Okay, we'll send that over to you because that on a bulk and just literally following that program to a T and I think you're gonna see tremendous results. You'll get incredible results but really take your mindset and wrap it around strength. If strength goes up, muscle and bone are gonna get better or gonna get stronger. That's what you wanna think. So don't gauge it off anything else, but strength. Just use that as your primary metric to measure. Oh my God, I added 10 pounds to my squat. I know I'm gonna get bigger muscles and I know my bones, which my muscles anchor to are gonna get stronger and continue down that path. I've worked with several people in a similar situation to yours and the results we got, in fact, one lady was so, the results were so remarkable that her doctor actually turned into a case study because they couldn't believe just how, and she was in her 60s. So she wasn't even young like you are. So I'm gonna send you maps in a bulk, follow that program and I would take your, whatever your caloric intake is now and I would increase it by a pretty significant amount. Maybe by 700 calories or 800 calories or so and then watch the weight in the gym and if it goes up, you're doing the right thing. Mary, I'm gonna have Doug give you free access to our private forum too. I'd love to hear your progress as you go through this and if you have any challenges along the way and mainly probably nutrition stuff, if you have questions along that as you're going through this. So I'll have Doug throw you in there too. Awesome, thank you so much. You got it. Thank you so much for calling in. Thank you. Yeah, the whole hormone thing that she mentioned, like I need to get more fat on my body. So my estrogen, which is true, right? If your estrogen's too low, you can cause bone loss, but that's a side effect, right? The side effect of just not eating enough. It's not the root of it. Yeah. And again, when it's somebody at this age, it's so rare, it's almost always because a person is depriving themselves of nutritional deficiency of some sort. For years. It sounds like that's where she was, right? It sounds like she came from that place. Sounds like she's in a place where she, I mean, she would like no hesitation, said I have no problem bulking. Normally you can hear it in someone's voice. They're like, yeah, I could do that. You know, and they're like, you're probably working through this fight a lot. Yes, and if she's listening right now, what I would say to her is I would still work with someone and say, hey, look, here's a deal. I feel like I don't have any issues going in this direction, but I'd like to work with you maybe every other week, so twice a month, just in case I start to exhibit some of the behaviors. I mean, I know we're not therapists, but that's why I want her in the forum for that example. I know you did. Yeah, just so we can hear updates and how it's going, stuff like that. And hopefully we hear from her. It's a built-in support system. Yeah, hopefully we hear from her once a month or about that. Yeah, when you're around other women who are trying to get stronger, it can be very, very encouraging. Our next caller is Dan from Canada. Dan, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey guys, well, first of all, it's Thanksgiving Day here in Canada. And so happy Thanksgiving, and I'm giving thanks to have this opportunity to chat with you guys. So I'm gonna be 64 this year, a little bit of background, actually 64 in about four days. And I've been a lifelong musician, mainly as a sideman, but the last 10 years ago, I decided to try and do a solo career. And so it was basically, I knew I had to make some changes, so lifestyle. So I started working out consistently, doing tons of cardio, low-calorie diet, intermittent fasting for longevity benefits. And then I discovered Mayan pump and realized I was doing everything wrong. So I realized that, I learned so much through your podcast and sales book. I bought the RGB bundle and several other bundles the past three years. And I've been consistently following and tracking maps, anabolic and aesthetic. Lifting has really become a second passion for me. And I appreciate that like the benefits as I age. So I've continued to practice and improve my technique, getting deeper in my squats and better range of motion as you guys are always preaching. And that provides a level of satisfaction, but I'm wondering if I should be using metrics other than strength and muscle gain to measure my progress. And why I'm asking is I've checked out other podcasts that are geared towards my demographic, but they're usually hosted by guys who have lifted forever. I've only started, you know, so they don't resemble me or my history. So where I only started three years ago, I'm wondering how realistic is strength and muscle gain. And over the past two years, whenever I attempt to like bulk, lean bulk, really tracking my macros accurately, the way I gain seems to be like mainly fat is then when I try and do a cut, I return to like my previous body measurements and similar lift results. So I should say that because I was about 40 pounds overweight when I started this journey, I know that I do get a little reluctant to eat in a calorie surplus for a long period of time when I see the scale go up by more than 10 pounds. So I know you guys are probably gonna say that's probably the issue as well. But now shut up and ask for your advice. You look great, bro, by the way. Yeah, you look phenomenal. Thanks, man. I gotta keep up with my band is all 25 years younger than me. You know, Dan, for most adults, in consistent strength training, the results happen very quickly in that first year. After the first year, it really does tend to slow down and after year three, it slows down significantly. Okay, and this is for any adult male. Now at your age, it's probably a little bit, it's probably gonna happen a little faster because you start to, once you get to 70, then what you're doing, you're kind of fighting the decline is what you're doing with strength training. And it really, and you already know this, you don't wanna compare yourself to people or to yourself in your 20s. Look at yourself in comparison to other people in your age group. Your light years more fit, probably more mobile and have better energy than most 64 year olds do. So that's really the only fair comparison. As far as bulky is concerned, I would bulk and I would use health and energy as the metric with the bulk, not necessarily weight on the scale and maybe not even necessarily too much weight on the bar. You will see the weight go up on the bar, but at some point pushing strength and just size, you start to take away from things like health, longevity and energy. So bulking is okay, but use kind of energy and how you feel. When you start to feel bogged down, when you start to feel like I'm kind of stuffed or my digestion's off, then reverse out of it. That's how I would treat the bulk. So it's probably gonna be a short bulk. You're probably gonna bulk for three weeks or four weeks at a time and then go back to maintenance versus like a 12 week bulk. That's exactly what I was gonna suggest is like our mini cuts, mini bulk. So you're never gonna be in a calorie surplus longer than a couple weeks and then you go right back to your deficit. Back to a surplus, back to a deficit. So you're spending a little more time in the surplus than you are deficit, but you're going right back. And again, like to Sal's point, I mean, I think you look phenomenal or doing killer right now, dude. I think that if you maintaining the way you look and feel and if we're feeling good in the morning and your joints are feeling good. I mean, to me, that's the most important thing we got. Does that mean you can't build more muscle at your age? Absolutely you can. But I think the longevity, staying healthy, feeling good, that stuff matters so much more, especially with what you're trying to do. It's about performance and feeling good while you're probably on stage for hours. So yeah, that's the stuff that I would be asking feedback. So to me, if you were my client and you just did, you just got done with a set and I'm like, how'd you feel afterwards? Like I care more about that than you're like, hey, did we hit our benchmarks last week? I wanna hear that you got to crush the thing that you love and you felt great doing it. That means however we're training and dieting, I'm honing in on that. So that's, to me, that's the greatest feedback. Cool man, cause that's, I do feel fantastic. My, I guess my point was like, I was wondering about, should I continue to even bulk? Should I just look at maintaining? I was thinking about you Adam, actually, when you were, I talked about how you used to, use that five pounds up, five pounds down when you were going through and not worry about like bulking a whole bunch, but just, where you changed your whole physique kind of thing with that. And so my, yeah, my question was really like, should I just look at maintaining or sounds like, I'd love to try that approach. Cause what happens to me is I gain and then I kind of get nervous and I'm like, oh man, I just, I don't feel right. So that's perfect advice, man. Thanks so much. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, just go for short bulks. And then when you start to feel like, I'm done with it and back out of it. So it'll probably be like two to four weeks at the most. That's probably what you're looking at. Dan, do you have maps prime or prime pro, either one of those? I got both of them. Yeah. I was going to try and give you something. I got to, you know, focus more on that. Cause I understand totally, you know, that's what I want to be able to, you know, maintain my mobility and flexibility for sure. Yeah, no, you're good, man. You're set. You're doing a lot of guitar whips and jump hacks on stage or what? You know, man, I can't, I probably can't keep up with you. I'm sure about that. Yeah. No, I'm like, wow, you already look great, man. I'm just, yeah, wondering like, you know, what more can we do? I so appreciate you guys so much. I was saying that, you know, my whole lifestyle and approach to fitness, you know, I know everybody says this to you, but it's been your approach. I've got sales book and it's like, my whole approach has been because of you guys. So thanks so much. You got it. Appreciate the support, dad. Thank you so much. Alrighty, thanks guys. You got it. Yeah, you know, this brings up a good point. I love talking to people like that. So do I. This really brings up a good point where we preach a lot about, you know, building muscle and getting strong and how important that is. But at some point, you don't focus on that anymore. You can only go so far. I mean, look at us, right? We've been working out for so long. I mean, I could push and try and I'm not going to gain that much more muscle, you know, anymore. It just, and if I keep pushing in that direction, I start to sacrifice quality of life and health. And so at some point it just becomes feeling good. And it's a back and forth thing. I gain a little bit, I lose a little bit and a little bit more ability and more strength and maybe a little bit more stamina. And just because you're enjoying the process, that's really what the focus at that point. Well, especially, I mean, dude looks like he was 30. Yeah. I mean, he looks great. He looks great. I think he's just, you know, he's out in public a lot more. He's going to be like on display and he's around a bunch of young people. And so it's like, you know, he's in his head a bit, right? He's like, he looks awesome. It's like, you know, what can I do to maybe add a little bit more, you know, to my physique? So I get that. But I mean, at the end of the day, again, going back to what I said to him is that the feedback I'm wanting to hear is that is like, I care more about, you know, touching bases with him on a bi-weekly basis and going, hey, how did we sleep last week? How was your, you know, your guitar practice? How was the concert? Like, and you telling me, oh man, Adam, I felt good and I felt he slept well and I kicked ass out like, okay, versus you going like, oh, you know, my bench press, it dropped back like, you know, 15, 20 pounds. I don't give a shit where he's at, like just feeling good. And now that being said, if somebody's watching right now in their sixties and they're starting strength training and they're wondering, can I build muscle and strength? Yes. Significant muscle and strength. Just slows down after a few years, that's all. Our next caller is Dan from London. Dan, what's happening? How can we help you? Hi guys, nice to be here. I'm calling about resistance bands. I'm a trainer. I've been a personal trainer certified for a year now. So still early on my journey and thanks to all you guys for all your help and your programs as well. They've really been massive value to me just early on in this process and I'm loving it. And what I train, well, who I train in particular is dads in middle age, many of whom haven't got experience of training before and they often have no equipment. They don't have access to a gym. And what I like to do is to get them working with body weight and then into resistance bands and introduce them to resistance exercise. Now, what I find is that this may be my own experience as a trainer, but I find that I want to get them into heavier stuff. I want to get them into different types of exercise with dumbbells, kettlebells, but I find that there's a sort of a cost problem sometimes with that, that they don't want to get invested more equipment and whether resistance bands in themselves can be that sole form of resistance training, whether I'm doing justice to the program that I'm creating by sticking with that or whether it's too limited. Is there enough scope for development using resistance bands? Yeah, I mean there is. Especially if you combine it with body weight exercises and or suspension trainer. So if somebody's looking for minimal equipment, bands, suspension trainer and body weight, you could go really far with that. Now you're not gonna get like a max squad or a deadlift with those because you can't really squad or deadlift, but those and strength is relatively specific. But can you build good muscle strength function using just what I said? Absolutely, 100%, absolutely. And look, I used to manage a gym. I grand opened a gym once and before we opened the weight area, we opened the cardio area and we sold memberships and all my trainers were freaking out, how are we gonna train clients? And all they did were bands. They only use bands, it was like six months or four months of just band work and the clients liked it so much and the trainers liked it so much that a lot of them stuck with mainly bands and body weight. So there's a lot you could do with those things. So no, you're not limited. You'd be limited if you're talking about more like hardcore bodybuilding or powerlifting or strength specific type stuff, but otherwise you're totally fine. Yeah, and you can manipulate the other variables like rest, tempo and have some more isometric components in there so you can add in some other ways of increasing strength demand and give them a little bit of a novelty so that way you can kind of interrupt what you've been doing with them with resistance bands and with just body weight explicitly. So, but yeah, eventually at some point maybe they will want to do more and at that point you can introduce them into weight training with dumbbells or kettlebells and eventually barbells, but I think you can do a whole lot for quite some time with that limitation. So you just got to get a little more creative is all. I mean, I love Sal's idea too. I mean, as a trainer, if you don't have this already, I mean, I would definitely grab a suspension trainer. That's such a great tool to progress these clients. I mean, I'm always, and I remember this exact challenge but I totally remember getting clients like this and I'm like, damn, because I actually went to clients houses and trained them for a while too. And, you know, I'd have these clients that had like nothing and all I had was really bands we're going, and it'll do the job, absolutely. But I always want to encourage them to want to progress to a place where we eventually get the dumbbells and barbells but the reality is some people just won't or some people can't afford it. So that's understandable. So the suspension trainer ended up being like just a godsend for me. I mean, that was something that I used all the time because you can make that real challenging and it does a really good job of regressing it. So like when you have someone in the middle, it's like, it's really easy to tell you like, oh, well you can progress a client to a single leg pistol squat and that's really hard and you'll build some muscle through that. But like how many middle aged dads who, you know, just got good at body weight lunges is gonna be able to do a pistol squat with good form and not, you know, blowing their knees out, right? So, but having a suspension trainer, I can regress that, right? I can back it up to where they're using that and I make it where they get a lot of assistance and then I make it a little more challenging, a little more challenging until eventually they are doing a single leg squat which I guarantee you it will build some serious muscle doing that. So yeah, I think the suspension trainer would be a nice tool for you to keep in addition to the bands. And then of course we're always trying to encourage our clients to get to barbell and dumbbell. I used to run into this a lot too, training people at their house and so I used to carry with me like at least three different types of kettlebells. So that way at least I had one that they could press, one that they could pull and then one that was more specifically for squatting and deadlifting. At least I had that as an option to then kind of introduce it to them and start getting them a little bit of work that way but that's obviously an investment on your part, bringing that in. Yeah, you know Dan, here's a little trainer secret. You became a trainer a year ago? Yeah, that's right. All right, one of the most, I mean, when I learned this and I figured this out, it really made me a wizard with clients. And that was- Training with no pants on? Yeah, no. Works every time. That's why Adam got fired. Resignable, by the way. Resignable. No, really when I wanted somebody to do something and they were reluctant, I would wait and then they would eventually want to do it. Justin kind of hinted at that a little bit. Like I want a client to use weights and they say, no, I don't want to use the weights. I just want to use bands. Okay, no problem. And I would just train them with bands and then eventually nine out of 10 times- Get them addicted. They would be like, hey, can we try some dumbbell exercises? Or a client says, I only want to work out one day a week. No problem, one day a week, let's just do that. Knowing that if they were consistent and they showed up and I trained them and they enjoyed it, eventually they'd want to work out more than once a week. So that's a little trainer secret. So what'll probably happen is you tell your clients, because what you don't want to do, the opposite is this, or the other side of the coin is this. You don't want to make your client feel like they're wasting their time just because they're not using barbells and dumbbells. That's a big mistake. So a big mistake a lot of trainers make is they make the case so hard for a piece of equipment or for a gym access that then the client feels like, well, why am I doing this? If I can't do what he just said, because he said it's so awesome, then what I'm doing is really just a best second fiddle. So I don't even want to do this anymore. So you don't want to make the case so hard that you set yourself up that way. So instead, I don't want to use dumbbells and barbells. No problem, we'll just use body weight and bands. Then that's it, don't say anything else. Train them long enough, have fun, let them see results, make it consistent or keep them consistent. And eventually, I swear to God, 90% of them will say, you know what? I want to use dumbbells and barbells and then you'll go right back to where you wanted to in the first place. Do you know what that's interesting? Because I think some of my worries come from the fact that personally, I love to go to the gym and train with the heavy stuff, the barbells and the dumbbells. So there's a bit of me that feels hypocritical or misleading by saying that they can continue, even though I feel like it's great for them because they're relatively early in the journey. I just lack that sort of knowledge. Having not done it for myself for a long period of time, training with resistance bands only, that I can say for sure you should do this, you see. Yeah, look here, the comparison you're making is wrong. The comparison is what you're doing with them versus what they were doing before. Is what you're doing with them better than what they were doing before? Of course, miles better. Well, there you go, you're done, that's it. So don't look at perfect, don't worry about that. What they're doing now is so much better than what they were doing before. So when they say, hey, I only want to use bands, no problem, I can work with that. You don't want to give them any inkling of a feeling. You don't want them to feel at all like they're doing a subpar decision. Just, oh yeah, no problem, we could totally work with that. No big deal. Dan, do you own a map suspension yet? I do not actually, no. I'm gonna have Doug send that to you. Yeah, and then you just get a suspension trigger. Yeah, we'll send that over to you and then if you don't have one already, invest in that. And I think that's a great tool for a trainer to have to progress these clients. So take a look at that and take the programming out of there. You'll like it. Oh, excellent, thank you. No problem. Hey, when are you guys gonna do a resistance span one? Well, we talked about this actually. Pure resistance span one, I don't know, but Maps Anywhere has a body weight resistance. Get the bones of it, but yeah, we'll see some someday. All right, you guys are brilliant. Thanks a lot for your help. All right, Dan, thank you. Do you guys remember figuring that out as a trainer where instead of like, selling them so hard on doing something they don't want, you just be like, yeah, we'll do that, knowing that eventually they're gonna want to do it. It was a long time though. It took a while, right? Yeah, it was a long time. It was a long time. That was most of my in-home clients. I mean, I have a similar situation as that. And I would get so bored eventually that I would start bringing one new thing in and just to introduce it and then they would wanna invest and buy it themselves and keep it there. And I was like, oh, okay. Did you get affiliate codes with the equipment company? I should have. I should have. I think the hardest part is the creative thinking for the trainer on the lower body. Totally. That's where it gets. Totally. I think that's where- Yeah, upper body use a lot more options. Yeah, I think that's real. And you can get an incredible workout, upper body with bands, I think, you know, just, and you can also with lower body. It just takes a little bit more creativity to do things like dead lifts and you're doing Bulgarian splits, squats. Exactly. So stuff like that, I think is what gets challenging for trainers. Totally. Look, if you like the show, go to mindpumpfree.com and check out our free resources. We put a lot of stuff together that can help people with almost any health or fitness goal. And again, it's all free. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam. And you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. This one's really important and that is to phase your training. If somebody trains for a full year doing a bench press and they're always aiming for five reps, if you compared that person to a person who did a bench press where they did three or four weeks of five reps, but then they did three or four weeks of 12 reps and then three or four weeks of, let's say, 15 to 20 reps and then they'll throw in some supersets, at the end of that year, you're gonna see more consistent progress from the person who's moving in and out. And less injury, that's another thing. You'll see less injury as well.