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The code for both, for 50% off, is FEB50. So you can use that code, get 50 off Performance or 50% off Aesthetic or get 50% off both, works on both. Once again, it's FEB50. Okay, here comes the show. Eating a lot of protein could be killing your bulk. All right, let's talk about bulking and a lot of protein. Just refuses to say gains. I know. Well, you know why? It's specifically about, it's specific about bulking because, you know what's funny? So I got, what did I do this? You killed your gains too, no? In bulking, yeah. I was, yeah. No, so here's why. I was talking to somebody the other day. I think it was on a, oh no, here's what it was. I was on the NCI group last night with the trainers and coaches. And there was a young lady on there that was talking about having a client that was a hard gainer. It was a female client, really skinny, who feels really full eating anything over 1200 calories. Yeah. And she's like, what do I do? It's gonna be really, it's really hard for her to eat more than 1200 calories. She's super full and she's got a super fast, or based on her appetite, her metabolism is faster than what she's eating. We can't get her to gain any muscle. I said, well, what's her protein intake like? And she said, oh, we're aiming for a gram of protein per pound of body weight. And I said, that might be the problem. Yeah, she's eating all protein. From natural sources too. Yeah. So here's the issue with bulking, is that she has a high protein diet does help with muscle gains. It's also the most satiating macronutrient. Protein will kill your appetite faster than carbs or fats, much faster. So if you're eating a high calorie diet and you have a fast metabolism, you're trying to put on size, and you're eating a lot of protein can make it very, very challenging. Now the interesting thing is studies show that high protein or really high protein is more important on a cut than it is on a bulk, right? So when you're bulking, as long as you're eating like 0.6, 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight and your calories are above surplus, you're doing fine. It's when you're cutting that you want the higher protein because it preserves muscle and it of course helps with appetite. But I remember this with myself, as a kid trying to eat more food, if I ate too much protein it would kill my appetite. I couldn't eat more. It becomes a chore really fast. And that's where, I think supplement companies really like peered into that and tried to make it so. You get as many calories as possible and try to make it palatable so you could consume 1,100 calories in one sitting. But man, you'd pay the price as you're digesting it. Well, I really think there's a fine line here because I also went through the phase where I was eating plenty of calories but I wasn't getting, in a bulk, but I wasn't getting enough protein. Yeah, you're right. I'm not saying low protein. Right, right. So that's why it's not that simple, right? Like I think sometimes the fitness space oversimplifies it. Like, oh, you just got to get your protein. And I remember when we first started the podcast we would go back and forth on this because it's like I'm really careful about that message because I know that a majority of my clients didn't get enough protein. But then if I'm talking to a hardcore fitness person who knows protein is like this, you know, magical macronutrient that helps you build muscle, they over consume. And sometimes they over consume so much that it fucks digestion and then they have a hard time bulking or putting on muscle. So there really is like this sweet spot that you wanna be at. And I feel like a lot of people tend to be on the extremes. Either they grossly under eat it so that's why they're not building any muscle or they eat so much of it chasing it thinking that it's the magical macronutrient and then their digestion is kind of fucked up and then they can't. Or they just have their appetite just doesn't allow them. Right. Because they're so satiated. Yeah, and the example of this young woman that we were talking about I think she said she was like 109 pounds. And I said, you know, if she ate 75 grams of protein that would be plenty for her body weight. And then she could eat the rest of the calories in more palatable carbohydrates and fats because those don't hammer your appetite nearly as much. I mean, this is even for the case with me when I'm trying to gain, you know, I weigh right now I'm maybe closer to 215, 215 grams of protein for me if it's from food in particular because I can add shakes and shakes don't do this as much. But if I eat 215 grams of protein of food my appetite is shot. It is really hard. And yeah, so I know we've given the advice in terms of like trying to cut down where we start with protein. Would you reverse that in this situation where you're trying to like go carbs, you know, then fattening protein in terms of like the order of it? Yeah, it depends on the person. If it's one of those situations where you're, you know what? I think it's important to paint the context that I'm talking about people who are challenged with eating enough calories to be in a surplus. Yeah, that's who we're talking about. Yeah, so if it's easy, if a surplus is easy for you then maybe this is not that big of a deal. But if you're somebody's like, man, I can't eat enough and it's really hard for me to eat all the calories that I need to in order to gain any additional muscle. In that particular case, I would say, okay, so long as we're getting, you know, about like I said 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight, after that go for the more easily digestible, palatable macronutrients, carbohydrates and even fats, right? Fats and carbohydrates, especially when you combine them with, you know, salt or a little bit of sweetness are very palatable. Protein is just, and we know it's for fact, it's a fact, it will bring down your appetite. I mean, you eat a bunch of chicken, especially lean chicken or lean protein and you're just like, I can't eat anymore. Well, I also think this is, here's an example, right? Of where, and something that we don't advocate for, but where it sometimes makes sense is eating processed foods and foods that are super palatable. More palatable. Yeah, just because it's, I mean, I did that when I was trying to hit my cal, when my calories had to be like 4,000 plus, it was just, It's hard, man. Yeah, it was impossible to do it with all whole foods. I mean, maybe I could do that once in a while, but consistently to maintain that muscle mass that I mean, I had to pile on. But the thing that I did was I just, I made it a rule that, okay, I'm gonna get like all of my protein intake that I need through whole foods and natural sources and then I'll pile the calories on after that. Like, so it was like, okay, I still was eating, a bulk of my nutrition was coming from clean quote unquote foods. And then it was like, okay, I just had this dinner. You know, it'd be really tough for me to have another, like, and I hit, let's say I hit all my protein, what I need to as far as hitting my protein targets, but I'm like short of 1,000 calories. Be really hard for me to have a double or a triple serving of the dinner I just had, but I definitely could sit down and have some ice cream. I could definitely have sit down and have like magic spoon cereal. I could definitely do something that was super palatable like that or a process that would help me do it. And I know we don't for health, it's not the ideal thing for you to do, but for someone who's really struggling with putting weight on or bulking, that was a strategy that I found I had to do in order to break through that struggle. Yeah, for me, it's like, you know, as long as I hit right now 150 to 170 grams of protein through food, then I'll eat the rest and more palatable, macros like I'll have potatoes and I'll even fry the potatoes sometimes. White rice is good and I'll add butter to the rice, which makes it more palatable and salt. And then at the end of the day, for me it's easier to add a shake for the protein because if I have a lot of protein from whole natural foods, my appetite, it's done. I just can't eat anymore. So that's what I'll do if I'm still chasing protein, but what would happen sometimes is, when I was again, back to the 4,000, 5,000 calorie days, I'd hit my 220 grams of protein at like, say 3,000 calorie mark, but then I knew I needed another 1,000 calories. Now you're throwing the other stuff on. Yeah, that's where I would slap on the ice cream or do something like that to keep my calorie. You know, I remember I had a client just like this and it was somebody who, and it was a woman who just, I don't know if you guys, and this is not super common, right? It's nine out of 10 times, it's the opposite. It's somebody who has an issue with eating too much. But every once in a while, you get a challenge where you have somebody who's, and they're being very sincere. It's like, I just don't, I can't eat anymore. Like I feel like I'm stuffed and I'm just not hungry. And I remember I had a client like this and I kept pushing the protein, and she's like, Sal, after I eat the chicken breasts and stuff that you tell me, I can't eat anymore. And then I said, you know, let's try cutting your protein down a little bit and seeing if we can get more calories by doing that. And it totally worked. She was able to eat more food as a result and then gain some muscle. And again, the studies show this, that the upper limit for most people for gains from protein is around 0.6, 0.7 grams per pound of body weight, if you're relatively lean. More than that, and you really don't get any additional benefit. Now the additional benefit you may get from eating more than that is really good when you're cutting, because there seems to be a muscle preserving effect when your calories are low. And also the appetite suppressing effect that you get from protein, that's really handy when you're trying to cut. But when you're doing the other side of that, ooh, that can make it really hard. And what's the theory or the science behind that? It's that when you're low calorie, I mean, your calories is what gets converted over into sugar and energy and fuel. Because you're low calorie, you have minimal amount of that. So then the body starts looking for other resources. I'm assuming that's why a higher protein diet in a calorie deficit is more advantageous than a higher protein diet in a bulk. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna say this very carefully because context matters. I'm gonna get somebody who's gonna get all, but I mean for the general population to get an understanding like that's kind of how I would try and explain. Yeah, and really protein, and again, I'm gonna be careful with this because context matters quite a bit and it's not as cut and dry as it's gonna sound right now, but protein has an anabolic effect. High protein has a pro muscle building effect. So it's like you're sending a build muscle signal while you're also cutting calories. And cutting calories generally is a get rid of muscle signal. Catabolic. It's catabolic, right? Because your body's always trying to balance the energy and a great way for it to do it is reduce muscle because muscle's expensive, it burns a lot of calories. So eating high protein in that particular state tends to preserve more muscle. Now the reason why I'm careful with this is because people will hear this and be like, oh cool, the more protein the better and I'm gonna build more muscle if I just eat a ton of protein. It's not that simple. But yeah, when you're cutting you have a muscle preserving effect when you do that. And when you're in a bulk, you don't need as many grams of protein to build muscle. It's just because you're already in a surplus, it's not nearly as important. High protein's important, just the super high protein intake doesn't really make that big difference. Well, just simply being in a calorie surplus, that, and we now switch from being, in a deficit, you're in a catabolic state. When you're in a surplus, you're in an anabolic state. So just simply being in a surplus, you're already pro building or pro adding, right? So that makes sense, right? And when you're low like that, your body's looking for other resources for fuel and so it would help. Yeah, it's interesting to me too, but just even on the training side of it, like how people don't really attribute or think about the muscle preserving strategies in terms of when you're on a cut, all they wanna do is cut down. And so they're trying to reduce calories and then get high intensity movement, almost cardiovascular based type of exercises instead of focusing more on actual strength training to provide that signal that we still need the muscle. Oh dude, the key to cutting 100% is muscle preservation. That's the key. Focus all your energy on muscle preservation while you're in a deficit and you are more likely to end up leaner from a body fat perspective. But do you guys see that message very often in this space? No, I don't, like ever. No, the message is very much like the scale. How much weight you lost, how much size you lost, are you smaller, that type of deal. Muscle preservation is the most important thing whenever you're trying to get lean. Because what you don't wanna do is you don't wanna, especially this. That's all your work you're losing. Yeah, and regardless, I don't care if your goal is to look sculpted or not, you don't wanna end up at the end of a weight loss journey with a significantly slower metabolism. Good luck maintaining that, right? So you're eating 2,500 calories a day and you're overweight, you lost 30 pounds, now you're eating 1,200 calories a day and that's what you gotta eat to maintain. That's a big difference and that's forever. That's a tough position to be in. That's usually why we see. You know what was really tough for me and I don't think I've shared this on the show before, was after using all those strategies to push calories for as long as I did during the competitive years, was now that my metabolism is so different than what it was then, is breaking behaviors, eating behaviors. Like I had to train, I trained an example of what. That's a tough one. Like an example of an extreme one, right? I got to a point where for at least four or five years there that if I ordered like a five guys, it was always two double, double burgers and whatever else on the side, right? And when I'm slamming four, 5,000 calories, that's only like 1,600 calories. It's just a fraction of my day or whatever. It's actually helping you hit your target. Yeah, it would be high protein and so I would need it for the day. Where, and because I got so used to doing that, that if, you know, and now like, oh, Katrina and I we just ordered five guys the other day and you know, it's my natural thing is the order to those. It's like, I mean, I'm like, more like 3,000 calories a day right now. But you know, for the longest time, I would still do that. I would still go back and still order that and then way over consume, but think I need to eat that much. It took me a while to get out of that mindset of I don't need that much anymore. And just one of those will satisfy me. It'll give me my caloric intake I need. But I train myself so hard on always pushing the calories for such a consistent period of time that you get these habits of, you know, certain dishes that you eat or what that and the serving size that you would do it in. Totally, and the reverse is true. Right. Yeah, like right now, right? I've been trying to bulk. It's been really hard. Now my metabolism's way faster than it's been in a long time, especially ever since starting TRT. So I've gained some muscle. Metabolism's really fast. My gut health has always been the limiting factor or I should I say for the last maybe eight to 10 years it's been a limiting factor. And there's been some stuff that I've done over the last year or so. My gut health seems to be really good. So I'm pushing calories and it's really weird and really hard because my eating habits were the way they were for so long where, you know, I didn't eat all the time. I didn't have to worry about eating all the time. That's just, it was better for my gut health than that's what it was in my metabolism. Now it's like, holy cow, man. I gotta really, my goal was let's see if I can go from two 10 to, you know, two 20 or so gain 10 pounds. And I'm sitting at two 15 right now and there's no way. There's no way I'm gonna be able to, no way. I don't want to. It's way too much food. You know what happened? You know what's been happening? I'm snoring now. I'm snoring at night now on my side. I'll sleep on my side. Last night I wake up in the middle night. My wife's not in bed. I'm like, where'd she go? She went in my daughter's room to go to sleep. Because I was snoring. We used to get shit all the time on the podcast cause you would hear me breathing back in the early days when we first started the podcast. Like that was like one of the, we get criticized for that all the time. Cause I'd be like, I remember when we had, was it, who do we have here? Jordan Shallow. Oh, Shallow. I need to roll him under the butts. Yeah. He's a heavy breather. Shallow is like that. He was just sitting there. He's a big guy though. I feel like everybody has a different threshold too. Like I don't think my body is like getting over two 10 for me is really hard, right? Some people over two 10, no problem. And they feel comfortable for me. I'm like forcing that my body, I don't think it's that good. Oh, watching, I mean watching you right now so reminds me of, you know, show years, like because the way you have to eat to just to maintain your size right now. It's silly. It's like having a whole nother job on top of the. It's expensive. It's silly. It takes up a lot of time. Yeah. It looks cool though. It's fun for a second. Dude, I mean, you never show it off. So, come on guy. I had a, no, I got a pump. I don't want you to use that for marketing reasons so we can make some money, man. I had a pump today that was, I have, this hasn't happened to me in years. Give the fans what they want, dude. Shut your face. No, listen, I had a, I had a pump today where I couldn't wash my clothes on you. I couldn't change my shirt. Remember that? I haven't had that in years where you get such a pump that you're like trying to do your shirt and you can't do it. But you know what I've been doing that's helped a lot is at the end of the day, I add protein if I need it. And the only one that I can do that doesn't really make me feel like, oh my God, I'm so stuffed. Is the bone broth protein? The bone broth one. Yeah, from Paleo. I can throw, I can have 60 grams serving of protein with that and it's like water. It's super smooth. Easy. It's just because there's nothing in it. It's just, there's no flavor, there's no color. Oh, so you use it too. So I haven't used it. I'm so terrible, right? Yeah, I haven't tried you. But I know you both get a little more upset with the way. Although I do notice things when I've had, I've told you before, I've had multiple things a day of whey, but I haven't been, I haven't messed with that yet. Dude, I just- It's like water. It doesn't taste like a protein broth. No, no, no, no, no. You taste it. You taste like bone broth. There's no flavor. There's no nothing in it. It's literally just- Have you thought of making it like in a soup or a stew or something like that? You can. It's like something you would use like a normal broth. We tried that with like a chicken soup. Oh, you guys, so I'm wondering if you tried something. I haven't. It was all right. Yeah, it was good. Was it good? Yeah. No, I just mix it with water, but I could have literally a 60 gram shake, drink it, and 10 minutes later, it's like I drink water. Wow. Versus if I do other proteins, 40 grams is where I'm at. If I go like 60, it doesn't matter what the source is. Well, don't you, do you pour it in your rice, right? Oh, if I do, if I do, yeah. Monster mash kind of thing. If I make it into hot broth, yeah, then you can use that instead of water. I've done that before, but not with the Paleo Valley protein powder. I did that back when we were working with Kettle and Fire. That would make the protein rice that you talked about. That I really liked. I thought it actually tasted really good. Oh dude, speaking of showing off or whatever. So yesterday was the, for me was the day in the life, right? So I'm posting stuff and usually, if I'm doing a workout, I'll do like a flexing pick or whatever, put it up there for my ego. Anyway, so I did an ab shot, right? And this is, I've done this now a few times where I'll flex the abs or whatever. Literally, what percentage of lewd DMs do you think come from men versus women? All men. Like what's the ratio? I've been saying this this day one. What I used to say was like four dicks to one, one boot set of boots or something like that. It's like four to one. Guys are just more likely to throw it out there. Yeah, like it's just in our nature. It's 10 to zero. There's no, it's all 10 to zero, it's dudes. And they'll say shit. And it's the same guys. They'll say some shit like, ooh, hot. Like I don't even respond to it, bro. So, okay, so the girls, the girls don't do that. They, they, they're just. They're a little more subtle. Yeah, they're more subtle. That's what I was looking for, right? They're like, guys are like, hey, I like you, or I'm gonna put it in your butt. Or just like, they're like direct. Whoa, bro. Like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Where a girl will say dinner first, right? Yeah, well, the girl will say something like, she'll compliment, like something like, oh, your hair looks really nice. Well, that lighting really costumates you. You know? No, dude, dudes are bad, dude. And it's like, you know, whenever that happens, I know like I could tell, I could feel for women, right? Oh, devour those clothes off you, right? Guys say shit like that. Guys say fucking over top. I don't even say have to shit, like that I get seeing some of these DMs. And I don't say nothing. I go back, I'm like, every time you say something terrible to me, I never respond to you to keep going. Persistent pig. No, it's funny because when I was younger, I remember I would hear like girls or women talk like complain about guys cat calling them. And I remember thinking like, what are you complaining about? Like if I was walking on the street and girls were like cat calling me, I would think it's awesome. And then I remember I had a female employee, she was talking about coming to work and some dude was saying something to her and I said that back to her. And she said, it's different. And I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, do you feel threatened by the girls? I'm like, no. She says, yeah, because they can't do shit to you. If you don't want them to, they can't. She goes, imagine walking through a room with a bunch of big buffed dudes that are after you and they're saying stuff. Now, how do you feel? I'm like, oh, I guess you're right. I feel like that with the DMs with these fucking pigs. I've shared, remember when I shared that story about Kyle, I mean, we joke about that story? No, I'm serious, we joke about that story, but there's a lot of truth to that. Never in my life had that ever clicked for me because I agree with you. I thought the same way too. It's like, ah, they're complimenting, they mean no harm. But there is, there's a lot of truth to that. If you're a 105 pound little girl and some group of three dudes that are 230, 240 or hollering at you, there is a very, even if they mean well and they're just floating. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. They're still a threatening feeling that you get from that. And that never really fully connected for me. Kyle Keesbury, gave your back a little bit. Yeah, I had that, what should I do feeling? Justin and I were there and I'm like, we can't help you, bro. He'll hold us down too, so you know, let's sit back and watch. I'll get the popcorn, I guess. So it gave me a whole different perspective on that. And men are persistent and they don't, I remember reading this study where if a woman says something to a man that's nice, he's far more likely to think that she wants to hook up with him versus if a man says something nice to a woman. And the evolutionary, I guess explanation was that men assume more often because that'll give them more opportunities. They're gonna be wrong a lot. Well, we're always looking for that. Yeah, and so they're gonna be, so but at least the odds are they're gonna be right sometimes and then they'll get to mate or whatever. I had a buddy who worked with me. I'll never forget this guy. And I'm trying to think, I think, I don't know if Justin had him as a counselor but anyways, he would literally pick up on at least 10 girls a day. Like just, and I'd always tell him like, like, you know. I'm just so calling people out for it. I didn't say his last name. Yeah, yeah. Who's Michael? So I won't tell you his last name. Oh, that guy was aggressive. So, but he was, I mean, sweet, nice guy, I wouldn't doubt, but he was just like, I mean, he would literally walk over to one of the gym and I would see him like try and get a number and then not even five minutes later be walking on the other side of the gym, trying to get it. And his whole logic and theory was like, Yeah, it's a numbers game. He says, you know, two out of 10 will say yes. And so, you know, I just every day we'll talk to like 10 of them eventually. It's a valid strategy and it works, but at the same time it's like, do you really want to be that guy? Yeah, I know. Look at you. Well, some guys don't mind. No shame to your game. And the truth is it teaches, first off, yeah, I don't want to be that guy. However, it does teach guys to be okay with rejection. You have to learn that. As a young man proving you have to learn that because when you're at a dance in junior high or high school, it's starting to change, but it's still the way it is. Well, isn't that the theory on why more men do sales? It's because they handle fast sales. Yeah, especially fast sales. They handle rejection better, right? Isn't that why the majority of salespeople are men? That's the theory. It's a very logical theory. Yeah, it's the theory because like I said, you're at a junior high dance or high school dance, more guys are gonna go and approach the girl to ask them for dance. And they're more likely to get a no, right? Girls typically don't approach guys, not nearly as much. And if they do and they get a no, it tends to be a little bit more devastating because they're not as used to it, I guess. Whereas guys are just like, oh. Well, unto the approach is different. It feels a lot more like friendship. I don't know if this is my own experience, but I've been approached sometimes. It was mixed signals. I didn't know that they're trying to get further along. It just felt more like, let's hang out. Are you talking about you getting trapped in the friend zone? No, I'm talking about when a girl actually wanted to go on a date. But the way that they asked was very like... Not as direct as a guy would be. Not direct, yes. Well, just like the flirting, like I was saying. I was like, Sal's not getting 10 to zero. It's just the women aren't as aggressive as the guys are. It's a different type of flirting. They're smarter about it. We're playing a long game. The guys, I just throw it out there, whatever. See what happens. Oh, he didn't respond this time. I'll try again next week. The girls are like, let me crack the door open and see if he steps in. Yeah, well, I don't give off that vibe. I'm a happily married man. But the guys don't give a shit. That's all I'm going to say. Speaking of happily married, I want to start this story with that just in case. He's like, I used to be musketeering. Yeah, I was like, I'm trying to like, I just want to make sure that I don't get roasted for this one later on, because we were just talking about, what was it we were talking about? Toys, toys and the kids. Oh, that's right. So on the podcast, we were talking about that. And I always try and tell Katrina before it airs, so she doesn't feel like she gets blindsided by a story out there. So we're talking about the tantrum thing and the toys and she's talking about how like, oh, he's fine. It's just, we just had Christmas and we had family we didn't see. And so I totally lost that argument. And I'm like, okay. Yeah, this was when we were talking about how you thought you just had too many toys. Yeah, yeah. It just gives like, it seems like every single day. And I tried to like approach that and say, hey, can we try and limit that? Or maybe we get rid of some stuff. So I completely lost that argument. And I lost it to the, the one that I don't know if you guys have dealt with before, but the, well, I'm with him all day long. And this is what he winds up doing at this night. So I'm like, okay. I surrender. She pulled the I'm in charge. Yeah, so. Hey, which they win were even there. Nine out of ten times. Yeah, so then I make this comment about like, well, maybe, maybe I haven't seen this tantrum thing because my relationship is going to be different from yours that, which also was not. Yeah, that's not a good thing to say. Yeah, it was not a good direction to go either. Right. So I'm like, I'm drowning. Maybe I'm just better than you. These are thoughts we keep in here. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm drowning in this conversation for sure. Right. So anyways, the reason why I'm bringing it up was I saw his first kind of like tantrum. Like I haven't seen this yet. And it was, I'm just getting out. I can't imagine your son throwing it. He's the sweetest kid. Ever. I can't imagine the happy kid. Oh, yeah. But he's, so he's going through this phase right now where he's learning what he wants and what he doesn't want. And he's starting, even though he's not fully there where he can communicate with us, but he's starting to understand like what, no, no, I don't want to do this or I'm going to do it. Or if you can't. So anyway, so I wake up to hearing it and he's downstairs at the bottom of the stairs. And I, you know, I kind of hear it for a minute and like it's not getting better. It's getting worse. Are you screaming or is it just crying? He's, he's crying. I mean, he's crying good enough to where when I went out, went and saw him, he had like a snot covered tear face. You know what I'm saying? So he's definitely not like him. Like I don't hear him like get like this. He's such a quiet kid that he doesn't get super loud crying like this. And this is the loudest I've heard him. I've heard him get. So, and I'm Maximus. You know, I'm standing at the top of stairs and I look down and he is just uncontrollably crying. And he's holding his pillow downstairs. And I go walking down and I go, what's, what is going on? What Katrina, what is going on? And she's like doing her thing. Like she's just letting him, letting him cry at the bottom of stairs. And she's like, he's pissed off that I took his pillow off his bed. I'm like, well, why did you take it off his bed? She's like, well, hunt, we're leaving today to go to truckie. I, I want his pillow for his bed there. And he's going to want the pillow, but he doesn't understand why I'm taking off the bed. And so I'm like trying to explain to her. I'm like, well, just why, why? Like just leave it. I'll bring it or grab it or we'll hide it or sneak it on or something like that. But no, she's just like, she took it down there and brought it down and like, okay, he's going to throw a tantrum, let him do his thing. And so I come down there and I, and I look at him and I go, Hey, hey, what are you doing? What are you doing? And he's like holding onto his pillow, you know, sucking up all the snot bubbles and stuff like that. And so I just let him, I said, I'll, I'll put it in the suitcase or I'll, I'll bring it down later like that. And he was so funny, dude. He carried his pillow all the way back up the stairs and wanted to put it back on his bed. And then he was fine. He was totally okay about it. But the part that I was like, and I couldn't win this, this conversation and I won't probably win it here again. So you took his side over hers. Yeah. It's like, well, so Justin and I had this conversation. I don't want to completely roll him on the bus seat. Here we go. He's going to include you in this. I'm going to, I'm going down. He's going down with me right here. We're a team here. We're a team. Don't include me. Okay. Basically his boys are older. So he's experienced some of this stuff already. And, you know, I was talking to him about how Katrina has told me that, you know, Max is going through this phase now where he's starting to, you know, defy her every once in a while or throw a tantrum and it's kind of out of character. It's rare, but it's, she's seen it. I hadn't seen it yet. And I was telling him, I'm wondering when we get back, this one we were over in Florida. I said, I wonder when we get back if, if I'm going to see like this new side of him that I haven't seen. He's like, nah, bro, I don't, I think you're going to, it'll probably be like how it is for me. And I'm like, what do you mean? And he's like, oh, well, I, like he's like Everett is literally like me. And so he just has to be handled different. And he's not consistent. He goes, Ethan's like, you can be very consistent with the way you discipline him. And if he's acting out and it's like, Yeah, he's easy to read and handle. He goes, but he goes Everett is, you know, one day he'll be acting out a certain way. And if you discipline him that this, that way, and he's fine. And then the next day you just put him the same for the same type of thing. And then he freaks out and he goes, you know, I bet you, you and your son are going to be like that. And then, so again, this was like the first situation. And I just think I would have just handled that differently. I'm like, just leave the pillow. It's like, and then, but her argument is like, he can't get his way all the time. Cause if I let it, if I give him all this leeway, then he's going to take, take advantage of me later on the day. Well, she took a stand at that point. Well, yeah, so at that point she is like, it's just like, okay, you're in, you've committed to it. Pull the card, yeah. Yeah, but so now I'm really interested to see like, if this is going to be this kind of like similar situation that Justin was talking about is like, because I understand him or I see myself in him. And I'm just like, Hey, just leave me alone with the pillow. You understand? Like we can take a stand somewhere else. I'm like, wait a second. We're, I'm more concerned that he's going to have this spoiled attitude because he gets everything he wants right now and has all these toys. You're worried about a pillow? Like I'm like, I'm like, we're on different planets right now on the things that we're concerned about. I'm like, let him, let him have his damn pillow. Well, it's different. Moms and dads and then the experiences and it's, you know what it is. Sometimes, and I've done this before where you take a stand and then you're going through it and you realize, if I could go back in time, I wouldn't have taken that stand. But now that I did, I got to stick to my- Yeah, I imagine that's probably where she was at it. I think she probably realized- She probably got upset or frustrated, took a stand and now you got to follow through. Yeah, cause in her defense, okay? Cause I, again, like, you know, Katrina's super woman, she's handling everything. She's not, she's getting him ready in the morning. She's packing up for them to take off. She's doing his breakfast, like, you know, so she's carrying this, doing that. And then, like, she's getting pushed back on grabbing his pillow and she's just probably not in the mood to like- And dad comes down and is merciful. Yeah, dad comes down like, go ahead, son, go put your pillow back in your bed. Oh, I see, I see, she was hard on you, son. I will allow it. I'm probably not getting sex for two weeks now. Hey, so Aurelius, he gets mad and he's, bro, it is, I have to turn my head and laugh because I don't want him to think it's funny when he does this shit, but he'll get mad, he'll get up and he'll walk and knock shit around. Like, he'll walk over something, knock it off a shelf, grab something and throw it. And just, I'm like, what's he doing? And Jessica's like- He's wrecking shit. He's showing us he's mad. And he just walks around and does that, dude. Like, what the hell's he doing? He's like throwing, he's like, just throwing shit. Or he'll sit, he was sitting at his little, you know, high chair or whatever, eating. And then he'll like, he's done. So he'll say, I'll done, I'll done, right? But we're still eating. So like, okay, honey, we'll be there in a second. I'll done, he gives you five seconds. After five seconds, throwing this off the table, throwing out, take my water, and then you'll go to catch the water. He'll switch to the hand, throw it behind him. He's like, no, everything's going on the floor. And he looks right at you while he's doing it. He just looks at you and just throws it and throws it. Like, and then I try not to laugh, right? I turn my head. Yeah, Katrina said Max was doing this thing. I haven't seen this yet either. Like, they were getting ready to go to school. And, you know, so she's on a time schedule and he, you know, went over and was wanting to go outside. And she says, no, no, no, we're not going outside. Now we're gonna get ready for school. And she turned around and he like slid the slider open. And then she's like, no, no, no. And then he stepped outside and then looked back and she said he would like take one step, you know, and then like look back at her. Yeah, just you could see that he's like testing what he can get away with with her right now. And I'm like, oh, wow. I just, he hasn't messed with me like that yet. So it's gonna be interesting to see what happens. No, it really will get mad. And he'll like squeeze your face and he'll make this look on his face. Like, and he's got these little, little, little strong little nubby fingers. I'll just dig in and then he'll do it. And then he'll see that he like, he'll squeeze it and then he'll kiss you. Oh, I'm sorry. And then he'll do it again. And then, oh, like, man, this is a, this is an abusive relationship. You're like, you hurt me, then you love me right after. Yeah, I had to get every punching bag. You know, that was like the best thing ever. Cause he just like, sometimes he'll have that where he just doesn't know how to like get rid of all this like anger and like, I don't know. I'm like, put it here, you know? And then he'll just like hammer at it. And he actually, what does he call him? Jimmy. So it's like his little, like, his little punching bag. He just named him Jimmy. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna let Jimmy have it. He's like, Jimmy's like some kid at school. And I'm like, just let him, just let him get it out. I mean, just let him get it out. It's hilarious. And I, you know, okay. Truth be told, I don't deal with this nearly as much as Jessica, right? She's at home with that. That's why we lose these arguments. We do. Hey, listen. She pulled that card on me to my mind. A higher percent, yeah. Well, no. That's the point. If she came in to tell me about, about what I do, right? I would say the same thing. I get it. And, but, you know, so that also means when I see it once or twice, I'm not as frustrated because I didn't see it 15 times all day long. Right, right. So it's hard for me, the challenge is, cause this just makes it worse is to not laugh because I see this little, you know, one, not even one and a half year old. I totally feel you. He terrorizes my wife. She'll change it. Dude, she was changing his diaper the other day and he would not sit still and she's on the floor of them and he's kicking his legs. It's all messy. Dude, dude, he, he grabbed the remote control, tried to throw it and then he kicked the diaper a little bit and a little poo marble fell out onto the cart, onto the rug. And she just like she got so, and I'm like, try, I like held it in. I was like, dude, I want to laugh so hard that I'll make this all go bad. You know what I mean? Oh, dude. It's so, it's so funny. No, you're so right. That has something to do with it too because I mean, I see the tantrum for the first time and there's a part of me that thinks it's comical. I'm like, oh my God. You know what it is? Because I'm like, it's cute. I'm like, oh my God. It's his new sheets and his new pillow that he just got, his mario. It's a little human. They're getting super angry. It's just, it's funny. Over something ridiculous, right? So I'm just like, let him, and just watching him like sniffle and cry and drag his pillow back to her like, are we happy now? Back on the bed, bro. Like, yeah, all the world is back at peace. You know what works on Aurelius is if he's really pissed off, if I start trying to make him laugh. So I'll like tickle him and he'll get really mad. But if I get him, then he'll start giggling or if I throw him in the air when he's pissed, he gets a little more mad, but then he starts to laugh. That used to not work on my daughter at all. If I did anything- Oh, that's the go-to diffuser. No, it made my daughter worse when she was little. I learned real quick, just leave her alone. But he's funny, the little one, I just, I'll play with him while he's angry and he's, ah, and I'll kiss him and hold him and tickle him and then eventually I'll win it over. But yeah, it's a good time. But yeah, I couldn't imagine dealing with that all day long because especially when they get old enough to like run around and cause a little damage and throw shit. Oh yeah, and it's a compilation of a bunch of these interactions, right? And it like usually like boils up to that point and you end up seeing where it got boiled up like as you walk in and you're like, ah, what is this? When I was younger, sorry mom, but this is true. Okay, so my mom had four kids and we were, I was three years older than my sister but then it went like two years or less between each one. So four kids, she didn't have a nanny or anything like that. We'd go to my grandma's house sometimes but ultimately my mom did. She grocery shopped with us, went to the post office with us, had to clean the house with us, all the stuff. And we were crazy kids. My brother and my sister were maniacs but you know, when I was a kid, I didn't really, I didn't understand this. So every once in my mom would lose her shit. I remember one time I told her, I don't remember how old I was, I was 10, maybe 11 or maybe younger and she just got, she got super mad. She grabbed this magazine and she threw it and she's like, ah! And I remember I looked at her and said, mom, you need to calm down. What is going on here? And she looked at me like, you see what boy we're a boy, you know? Yeah. But then you become a parent and I'm like, oh, that's why. Oh, I understand it now. I totally get why she lost her shit, you know? She probably cleaned that same area 15 times in a row and just finally lost it. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to the public time, right? That to like, like me, I have a lot of patience I think when it's in our house, like I think I would just be like, let them figure it out, you know, let them sit there and throw his tantrum or you know, be frustrated for a minute, we'll work it all out and then we'll talk about it. But I can't imagine if he were to do that. And I know that's coming, right? Everybody says that that day comes, right? Where you're in the grocery store or somewhere in public and they just decide that they're gonna be a shit. What you're supposed to do and actually doing it is really hard. So what you're supposed to do is you let them lose their shit and you don't give them any attention and you walk away, you know, with an eyesight, obviously you don't wanna leave your kid alone in the store but you let them lose their shit and whatever. That sounds great in theory, right? Well, yeah, that's why I say at home, that's really, that's exactly how I would do it. But when they're screaming in the grocery store and then they realize that if they go and they knock the cereal boxes off the aisle open a bag of supplement spread everywhere, then you start to, then you're like, okay, this isn't working anymore. All of these you're gonna pay for. Yeah, no, my mom actually let, my brother did that, he was losing his shit. And so my mom said, I'm gonna leave you in the store and he kept doing it. So she went, she parked in front of the store so that she could see in the store. So she went in the car, so he thought she left. He didn't know. And she was watching him lose his shit. Well, anyway, fucking the manager comes, you know, finds my mom, ma'am, you can't leave your son and she's like, I'm not leaving him, I just saw it. I tried to get him to realize. Until the storm comes down, right? Yeah, I tried to make him realize. Anyway, it's all fun, it's all good time. So I was reading a cool article about the market that Viori is now starting to crush in. Do you guys know that that market, that active wear market is poised to grow 25% over the next like four years? 25%, that is massive, massive growth. The article I was reading about Viori was talking about how Viori as a company totally came in and disrupted that market, really disrupted it. And they were showing how they came in. I wonder how much of the market share they have in comparison to Lulu. Obviously Lulu was one of the first, right? And then I know they've been chasing them. Well, when did Viori kick off like 2012, 2011? It wasn't that long ago. That's a good question. It was like nine years ago, maybe? We got them when they were pretty damn new. Yeah, and then now they're almost, I think they're getting close to 1,000 employees. Really? Something like that. Yeah, so they've exploded. Which is a ton considering they're mainly a direct-to-consumer brand. Yeah, and so what the article was saying was that, because Viori at first focused on men and they crushed it with that, and then women were buying some of the men's stuff for themselves because they liked it so much. And that's what gave them the impetus to say, all right, let's go after the female market. In which case now they're also exploding. You know, I always think about too, because I experienced this when I moved to Chicago and I was out there and I felt like I was on this weird island of fashion because it was like, there's like coastal kind of surf influence and all that kind of stuff, which didn't really make its way into the Midwest, but I've seen that sort of change and seen more people wearing, you know, athleisure wear and all that, like within like the heartland and all that. I wonder if that's like an expanded market through there too. I bet it is, because it doesn't look like it used to. I would think what we just went through too, like everybody now moving to Zoom and working home part-time too, probably accelerated that, the growth also. So did you know that? It's comfort, but it's also stylish, which is the advantage. So the athleisure wear market actually took a hit during the pandemic. Really? The Viori crushed. So a Viori crushed, but the overall market dropped down. Really, the overall market dropped. Well, I guess maybe people aren't, you know, the whole market, right, is because there's obviously a lot of people that aren't just wearing it for work, they're wearing it for going out and playing sports and doing, you know, social active things. So that's interesting. Yeah. So the market went down, but Viori crushed, which is like, I mean, that's, if you're crushing in a down market in your space. Are you watching? I have not been checking in with the market at all lately. Yeah. Are you watching it right now? That's not good. That's probably why, yeah. Everything's going down. Yeah. You know, that's just happening when we're not talking about it on the show before? Yeah. That's our fault. Well, everything was like hitting, you know, for so long. Yeah. It's like inevitable. No, it's not doing so good right now. It's looking very interesting. You know, inflation numbers keep getting higher and higher. And so it's, I read this interesting statistic. I want to double check it, but did you guys know that more people, more citizens, I couldn't believe this, more citizens own crypto than have a savings account? You said that yesterday. That can't be possible. Maybe you can double check that, but it was like 25 to 24%. First of all, I didn't know that so few people had a savings account. I don't know what I'm more shocked about there is that there's that many people that have crypto now, or there's that few of people that have savings accounts. Well, like, okay, so did they move, did they originally have a savings account and then just be like, ah, this isn't gonna benefit me anymore. So I'm moving to crypto. Well, so I'm gonna guess, but I would love for Doug to confirm this, but I'm gonna guess that it's because a lot of young people who wouldn't get a savings account are buying crypto, right? So you're getting a lot of these teenagers, college kids? More Americans owned crypto than savings accounts for the first time. What do those stats say right there, Doug? That's crazy. Yeah, so a new study found that one in four Americans owned crypto marginally higher than the number of Americans with savings accounts for the first time ever. Wow. I think it has a lot to do with kids. Millennials were the biggest crypto fans. With younger, higher earning males dominating the ownership charts. Wow. Well, it's also two, I mean. Yeah, 24 to 23%. Savings accounts just what, two decades ago, you could actually make a couple percent on a savings account where now it's like a fraction of a percent. Well, here's another statistic that goes along with this. Did you guys know that 39 or 40% of Americans don't have $1,000 in their savings account? So almost. 40%? Almost, almost 40%. Could not survive a $1,000 emergency. Just to show you what percentage of people are living literally paycheck to paycheck, earning and spending, earning and spending. I think we see, I think that that's more common than not, especially over here in the Bay, like I think it's just, it's so hard. The cost of living, yeah. Yeah, the cost of living is so high and that everybody's so leveraged, you know, to be able to afford the lifestyle. Dual income is the only way to survive here. So yeah, I mean, it's hard to break through and then start really like saving. But there's a huge chasm between people like that and then people who have tons of money. That's why it's so expensive. It's gotten even wider. Yeah, if you live in the Bay area, either A, you cash out stock or whatever, you got a lot of money, or you earn a lot of money, you and your wife or whatever, or you're like struggling to be able to pay rent on your tiny apartment. It's like either or. I don't know too many people in the middle, in fact. It's just, again, a super, super high cost of living, low supply of property. Lots of people who have these, look at that. Oh, 56% of Americans are unable to cover a $1,000 emergency expense. That's crazy, dude. That's a high amount. That's a lot, yeah. Hey, one of the challenges with eating a healthy whole food diet can be digestive issues. You bumped up your fiber, you increased your protein, but now you find your body's trying to adjust and your digestion doesn't seem to be quite right. Well, one thing that can help are digestive enzymes. Digestive enzymes help your body break down proteins, fats, and carbohydrates to get them to the target tissues, muscles in particular. Now don't just go with any digestive enzymes from any company, go with ones that are designed for people like you, people who are into fitness. Try out Mass Zimes, that's the company we work with. I love them, it's made a huge difference with my digestion. Head over to mindpumppartners.com, click on Bio Optimizers. They have a Mass Zimes product in there, and it's great, again, for what we just talked about. By the way, the code for a discount, it believes 10% off, is Mind Pump 10. So Mind Pump 10, when you go to mindpumppartners.com, click on Bio Optimizers. That's the discount code for 10% off. All right, here comes the rest of the show. First question is from Heidi Lynn Swisher. How do you do drop sets properly? Ah, good old drop sets. Otherwise known as strip sets. This is where you do as many reps as you can with a particular weight. Then it's called a drop set, because you would put the weight down or drop it, grab a lighter pair of dumbbells or lighter weight, and then squeeze out more reps. And then you go down, and you can do this two or three, four times. Some people do it more than that. They'll do down the ladder, they'll go all the way down the dumbbell rack. I mean, the proper way to do a drop set, first of all, form is absolutely crucial with any set, but especially with drop sets, because drop sets are intensity-based. Like I explained, if you're doing as many reps as you can with, let's say, 30-pound dumbbells, and then you get to the 10th rep, and you know you can't perform an 11th rep, then you put them down and you get the 20-pound dumbbells, you'll get another three or four reps out. And so form is very, very important. And the one tip I have for drop sets is to drop the weight a little more than you think when you go from one weight to the other. The mistake I would usually make as a kid would be I'd go down five pounds, which only gets you like a rep. So I figured a bigger drop allowed me to squeeze out more reps. It's an intensity technique. It's great for an incredible pump. It's not something I would do on a consistent basis though, and I would save this for more for advanced lifters. Yeah, I'd save it for advanced, or I'd save it for a hypertrophy phase of your program. So like a phase three in a lot of our programs, I wouldn't be doing it in a strength phase. And I do think that that's the most common mistake when you see somebody doing a drop set is they drop down to a weight they can still do, but then their form kind of goes out the window. So it's like kind of defeating the purpose. If you're, especially if you're trying to target a specific muscle or get a pump in a specific muscle to not drop it enough weight that you can still concentrate on that muscle. So I agree. I think that's the one rule I would say as far as the time and like the actual percentage of the load. I think that's just going to depend on the person. And I don't think it's that we're splitting hairs of difference if it's a 15 second or a 30 second difference between getting it, if you do three or four or five drop sets in a row, like you're going to get a pump. I can't imagine doing this a bunch of times. Like it's definitely something you just do occasionally for fun more than anything. I mean, we used to do, it just kind of reminds me of some of these old techniques like even the 21s and all these fun type of like hypertrophy type of techniques and exercises to throw in, but it can get sloppy and get away from you really quick. That's exactly what happened. I'm not conscious of it. As a kid, I abused it. I did it all the time. I was constant. If I do it now, it'll look like this where I'm kind of rushed in my workout and I don't have a lot of time and like, So less volume, more intensity. Yeah, or like I realized like, like let's say I'm finishing up and it's on one of my last exercises I'm doing, you know, bench or something. And I look at the clock and I go, Oh shit, I gotta get out of here in 10 minutes or something like that. But I wanted to get, you know, a good lift on my bench and I just don't have the time to do five straight sets with rest periods. Like, you know what I'll do is I'll do a drop set real quick on this and just at least get a really nice pump from it. So it's kind of how I would like insert it into my workout now. If I have the time, I'm doing a more traditional type of lift. If I was rushed for some reason, like that might be like a quick way. Yeah, the benefit is you get the higher intensity. It's good for hypertrophy. Good for the pump. You can overdo it very easily. Form is where people always screw up because the idea is to get more reps. And so you tend to see people do this and then their form starts to get sloppy. I probably do drop sets, I would say twice a month maybe at most. I almost never do drop sets with a barbell. Almost never. And it's mainly because barbell exercises, if I'm doing a bench press or a squat or a deadlift or overhead press, I'm not working out with other people. So I would have to load it with a bunch of 10s I guess and throw one off and throw one off and get underneath it again. I like a drop set to have really minimal rest. Dumbbells are better. I get my three pairs of dumbbells and I go one, two, three, right? That's the only instance like I would say pretty much need a workout partner. Yes. If you have a barbell and you're doing like a bench press where you're like stripping the weight off. But other than that, yeah, I probably wouldn't do it. And they also lend themselves a little better to single joint exercises than they do to compound lifts. I would not do a drop set for an exercise where, like for example, with a deadlift, the difference between a safe deadlift and a bad deadlift or a dangerous deadlift is small, right? If your form is good, safe. If it's off a little bit, it can become pretty dangerous or risky, I should say. Unlike single joint exercises where if I'm doing a curl, I'm off a little bit, it's probably still safe. So I don't like to do drop sets with complex compound lifts. I like to do them typically with isolation, single joint exercises. My favorites are like laterals. Laterals are great for a drop set. Curls are great for a drop set. Cable exercises tend to be okay. Tricep pushdowns. Tricep pressdowns are good for a drop set. Any isolation exercise in general will tend to be good with a drop set, but not heavy complex. I agree, although the last time I did it, I actually just did it on a bench press. I did it on barbell. But I think something that's important too is that so when I'm doing a drop set, I'm not so hung up on what I wanna do rep wise, right? So if you're following like a, you're training 10 to 12 reps, I'm not trying to do a drop set and also stay within my 10 to 12 reps. I'm gonna take it to where the muscle fatigues. And I can't do another perfect rep. You can't perform it well. So that's what it looks like. So I might get under like the bench and let's say I do a set of 225 and then I drop down to say like 150, 160 range or whatever. And maybe I get seven out and I can already feel my form wanting to go off. Like that's it, I rack it. Like then I go drop again. Now I drop down to 90 pounds. Again, I'm pressing it out. Maybe only get six of those before my form starts to go and then I rack again. I'm not, even though I could have potentially got 10 reps, but I'm gonna roll my shoulder and arch my back and cheat it up just to get it up. I'm shutting it down before that. So that's how I would do it. I also usually don't drop down more than twice. So I have done the run the rack drop sets where you're literally starting at one end of the rack and you're stepping down. We have that in mass PED I believe. There is, there's a run the rack in there. But that's way too much for most people. I do, I'll go from one lift, excuse me, from one weight to another weight to another weight and that's it. It's usually three and then I'm done. I don't go any more than that. But yeah, the pumps can be intense. It's really cool. Totally can be easily abused. And like I said, I still, even now today, and I'm training really hard and consistent twice a month is that the most that I would do them. Next question is from PartyBoo Hat. What's the difference and or benefits between doing side raises with straight arms versus bent elbows? Ah, good question. So, okay, the action. So we're doing laterals, right? Or side lifts for the shoulders. The action of the delt is the same whether my arm is bent or straight because the action of the deltoid is to lift up the humerus, which is the upper part of my arm. So then why would I keep my elbows bent versus straight? Well, really straight arm lengthens the lever. So whatever weight, whatever weight you're using is going to be much heavier. The problem is when you start to really straighten the arm out, some people start to feel tension in the top of the elbow and it just doesn't feel as comfortable as good. And it also tends to, if you know, and I've seen people do laterals like this, it tends to encourage this external rotation at the hand where as a bent elbow allows the hand to fall a little bit and helps counter that tendency to want to turn it into this kind of like upright, you know, row or this upper back type exercise. Now, do you guys ever play with how bent or not bent your elbow is? Like, do you have some times where you'll go heavier and bend the elbow and then other times you'll go really light and straight arm? Not so much anymore. I used to, but now it's almost always with the slight bend my elbows. Do you guys, how about you? I'll play with it. And that's exactly how I'll decide on how they fit. If it's a day where it's like, I'm just really either touching the laterals or I'm gonna just, I'm going real light or just kind of chasing a pump and I'm not lifting heavy. I'm gonna go straight arm, slow, controlled and all I'm doing is really trying to pump blood into that muscle. Now, if it's a day where I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna go a little heavier on my laterals even though I don't recommend going really heavy on laterals because how many people incorporate their traps when they do that, I will all occasionally go heavy on them or heavy in comparison to the straight arm. And that's the time where I'm gonna bend my elbows a little bit in order to do it. I think mainly it's to protect some of those supporting muscles. Like for example, like a fly. A fly, you keep your arms slightly bent too. Now, if I straighten my arm out, the pec is doing the same thing in a fly too. But the tension at the bicep gets kind of annoying. Tension and ligaments. Yeah, and so when you have a straight arm lateral, and I've done this with, I've seen clients come to me and telling me their elbow hurts when doing laterals and I'd watch them do it and say, oh, bend your elbow a little bit and then they'll have less pain. So I think that's really the main reason why you almost always tend to see it with the bent elbow. I wish we could break down like, because here's the thing, as you go from almost completely straight to here, to here, to here, to here, as you go in, so let's say this is 15 pound laterals are hard, difficult, completely straight. 15 pounds completely straight is like doing 25 pounds here or doing 40 pounds here, you know what I'm saying? So a lot of people are fooled into thinking that, oh, I'm doing super heavy laterals, but it's like, well, you could also cut the weight in half and go completely straight and get just as good of a lift on your delts as you are on your laterals as you can with the heavy weight. Yeah, there's something about, I think, locked out joints, like I'm a little cautious to train that way very often. Like I always keep a bit of a soft knee or a bit of a soft elbow and most things just to keep that kind of cushion and allow for the force to distribute a little more effectively. But so even when I'm locked out or like I'm a straight arm in it, it's not completely straight. I agree, I'm the same way too. Like when I say straight arm, You just mean straighter? Yeah, straighter. It's almost all the way out, but there's always like a five to 10 degree bend. But I do see, I used to see this with clients that if their arms are too straight, it was really easy for them to do this, to rotate, externally rotate, right? Yeah, I've seen one. When the elbow is a little bent because now the resistance is in front of the arm, it puts them in a more, I guess, advantageous position for what we're trying to target, I should say, right? Well, now can you explain that to you because somebody that's not as much of a bodybuilder or like isolated focus guy, like I know that there was like emphasis on like kind of turning the thumbs down at the top. Was that a technique? Yeah, so this right here, this rotating of the wrist has nothing to do with the shoulder. This is this, the shoulder does not seep in your brain. But what this does is it turns the elbow. Yes, so if you look at that, that cue of pretend like you're, and I think it's an old Arnold cue. I want to, it is pretend like you're dumping out milk or whatever like that. All that is doing is it's keeping the elbow from doing what he was saying. Yeah, cause if you look at the, where the side deltoid connects at the, at the humerus, it's here. So this would be direct resistance when my hand is, when my arm is slightly rotated down, as they rotate up, now it's more front delt, right? In fact, an old school, nobody does this anymore, but an old school front delt exercise, what's actually called a standing fly. Oh, I used to do that. Remember those? Yes. Palms like facing up and you come down and come up. Like this is a front delt exercise and it's all about where the delt attaches at the humerus. So when you externally rotate this way, you're gonna get more front delt. And if you start to go heavy, then you start to shrug and squeeze the upper back and you start to get more traps, which if you're interested in power, if you're an athlete, that's probably better, right? Because you want that strong, what do they call it? A yoke, right? Up in your upper back. But if you're sculpting and you're trying to hit the side delt or whatever, well now it's all about connecting and feeling the target area, in which case it makes more sense. And I know there's people online that say things like, don't hold the dumbbell that way, it's bad for the shoulder. No, no, no. Listen, if you can do it with good stability and strength and control, it's fine. It's any exercise done without good stability starts to become dangerous. That one just requires a little bit more stability. The cue that Justin brought, I actually really like that cue, especially teaching like beginners, because it's harder to explain like internal, external rotation to them or try to break down the position of their elbow. It's easier to give a cue, like pretend like you're holding gallons of milk and you're pouring it out as you get up. Like that just, it's a, one of those great, I think trainer hack cues that is just, it's not technical, but it's a great cue to get people to do what you want them to do. Totally. Next question is from Rebecca Cara Martin. What are the pros and cons of taking a couple of weeks off from the gym entirely once in a while? Well, more pros and cons. Yeah, if I'm talking to somebody who's super consistent, it's different than if I'm talking to somebody who's not consistent. So if you're super consistent, the pros are better recovery, you're gonna get better results by doing this, less inflammation, less injury, a nice reset. The only con I can see for this super consistent person are you lose the mental effects that you can gain from exercise. I do this, right? I work out more for the mental effects than the physical. It's like meditation for me, it makes me feel good. And so moving and doing that kind of stuff makes me feel good. Not going to the gym for two weeks. You guys would see a change in my personality. Not only that, but most people, I mean, I can count on one hand how many times I program this for a client. Most people struggle with consistency. Most people take two weeks off. That's right, that's what I'm saying. Most people struggle with consistency that I don't need to program a week or two off in the year because it happens naturally, right? So I've literally less than five clients have I ever had to say, hey, you know what, we should probably take a whole week off because you've been going consistent for the last year with no breaks. Like that just doesn't happen that often. So but you're right, if I'm now, if you're a fitness nerd and you love training and you're borderline addicted to lifting and you rarely ever take a day off, there's tremendous value. There's tremendous value in somebody taking a week off from that and maybe doing something like more recuperative, walking, stretching, doing other stuff. I think, and the, what that study blew my mind when that came out that we talked about what a couple of months ago, it's a while ago when it talked about the, they had three months of consistent training and then they had a group that never missed any days for three months and then they had a group that every third week they took a whole week off, which sounds like a ton when you think about it over the course of three months, like they're missing almost a month of training in there and they actually got the same results as the client. At the end, there was no differences. Yeah, so I mean, that just highlights how important the week of rest and how beneficial it can be. Now to the person who gets the mental benefits from activity, what you could do is go to the gym and go super easy and super light. So you'll get some of the mental benefits of moving or whatever and this is how I would do it is I would go two weeks. Two weeks completely off for me would not be a mental, would not be good. Well, yeah, and I definitely would stress that I wouldn't want to stop the activity from happening. It would just be a different form of it that was very much more recuperative, restorative and low intensity. But to make sure that you're keeping the body in that path of healing and blood flow and all that, like I think that's essential. Just keeping the habit up. Yeah, that's you, the discipline. It took a long time to probably build the discipline of training every morning at five o'clock in the morning. You know you need to take some time off of hammering the weight. So I'm not gonna stop getting up at five in the morning and going to the gym or doing a thing. Instead now I'm just gonna walk or swim or do the sauna for an hour. It's like keep that habit that you've built of showing up to the location or wherever you're lifting or exercising. Keep that consistent, just modify it. Now what we don't know is this could be a question from somebody who's got like a week vacation coming up. Where they're taking off for a week somewhere. And if that's the case, then I just, I wouldn't worry about it. No, and I tell you what, when I go on vacations, I'll usually do some workouts if there's like a gym, but the hotel gyms are usually crap. So I'm not training it anywhere near the intensity or volume or whatever. So it's kind of like, it's not a week off, but it's kind of like D-load or whatever. When I come back, I always have the best workouts. So I would say if all things being equal, if you compare two very consistent people and one person took two weeks off every six months and the other person took no weeks off, physically speaking, the performance muscle and strength gains will be better with a person that took the weeks off. Because your body needs some of that. And it does resensitize your body to exercise. Next question is from Matthew Garcia. How long should I supplement with ashwagandha for? You know what's funny about ashwagandha? It is now becoming, because of the studies that they're doing on ashwagandha, it's becoming one of the most popular health and wellness and athletic performance herbs that you'll find anywhere. There's no drawbacks of doing every day, right? Well, drawbacks potentially. Could you down-regulate and like not? No, no. So what I mean by that is you could have an intolerance to night shade vegetables. So you might have an issue. It also changes your body's relationship with cortisol. So yeah, it could, one of the reasons, and in fact it lowers cortisol, right? Cause I guess your body becomes more efficient using cortisol. So that's why it's a good stress hormone, or excuse me, a stress supplement or what they would call an adaptogen. But the challenge with stuff like that is it may mask other stuff. So you may just allow yourself to keep, you know, messing your body up more and more. Oh, interesting. But that being said, it improves recovery, strength. It gives people better sleep, raises testosterone, and men. It's a remarkable herb and supplement. I personally do not see effects past 60 days. After two months, I go off. It does nothing for me anymore. Oh, interesting. And I noticed that with any, you know, herb or supplement that I could. So give me an example of somebody who you would for sure recommend like, oh, that type of person should take this. And then what person would you say like would avoid, you would say avoid it? Yeah, so the person I would give it to, they already have a good diet, they're exercising well, good sleep, right? So everything else, all the big stuff is taken care of. And they want a little extra performance. They want better recovery. Then I may recommend, hey, let's try Ashwagandha. A lot of people seem to feel real good on it. So let's give that a shot. The person I wouldn't would be the person who were dealing with, you know, HPA access dysfunction. Now, typically functional medicine practitioners will use Ashwagandha to help people with HPA access dysfunction. But because I'm not an expert in treating that, I wouldn't do it because what I'm afraid of doing is giving them something that makes them feel better, but then doesn't address the root issues. So like, it allows them to keep going on the bad, the wrong path. So like the cortisol junkie we talked about on the show the other day, you would avoid giving it to that client because you won't send a mask. Temporarily they would feel better. And they would probably cause more damage. Might even start ramping it up. Totally, right? So, and you know, functional medicine practitioner would look at all the other stuff first before, you know, or all together. But other than that, I mean, it's a great, I tell you, most people, if they take Ashwagandha, within a few weeks, we'll notice energy libido and athletic performance enhancement. So really it's just like you get adapted to it at some point, which then it probably loses a bit of its effectiveness overall. Yeah, and I have yet to find any product that doesn't do that. Yeah, right. Well, so the green juice organifies, they have with 600 milligrams of it inside there, inside of it, is that considered a reasonable dose? Is that okay? Yeah, that's a good dose. You could go higher if you're like, you know, super intense, lots of stress. The way I would use it, as I'd say, okay, I'm gonna go through six weeks of really intense workouts or I'm gonna add extra volume because I'm trying to cut or something like that. Then I would throw it in and it moves the overtraining line a little further. So now I can add more volume, more training, and I'm not so at risk. Because here's what I noticed with Ashwagandha. I don't get a sore and a stiff and I seem to be able to handle a lot more volume when I'm taking it. But again, it's one of the few supplements you'll actually notice. Most people will notice a difference. Not as profound as creatine and creatine is something you can take, you take all the time. It's not something you go off and on, you just take it all the time and you continue to reap the health benefits from it. I wonder if that's one of the major things that people do report back about the green juice, why it makes them feel so good. I 100% think so. Oh wow. 100% think so. I think the Ashwagandha makes that big of a difference. So it's good stuff. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So right now Justin and Adam are on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin. Adam at Mind Pump Adam and you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal.