 Most people stop wanting to tell people their age right around the age of 40, but here's an observation. People who work out and are fit, they love to brag about their age once they turn 40. All right. What's the fit tip? Start working out. You want to be proud of your age? Start lifting weights. One of the best ways to do that. That is an interesting point. Isn't that funny? It is. You ever noticed? No, very much so. If you're in really good shape, you're so quick to tell people like, yeah, I'm 65. Yeah, you love it. Right. You love it. But if you're not like, if you ask someone their age, they're like, how dare you ask my age? It's like, never mind. They don't want to tell you. I just always noticed this, you know, working in gyms, like really fit older people. It's like they try to get an opportunity to tell you how they want you to know. That's so true. I'm 48. That's so funny. I haven't really thought about that, but that's so true. It's the reason why I stood out. Obviously, I had a birthday this weekend, so I was thinking about this and it's just the thought or the memories of all these, these times just stood out to me, not because, you know, people want to say their age because it's so opposite of the average person. Like the average person, they don't want it. Not only do they not want to bring up their age, they're, they're in fact quite embarrassed or shy or whatever, especially, you know, women tend to be more than men, but even men, they don't want to talk about it. But then you get like fitness fanatics and trainers and people who work all the time. And it's like they try to find a reason to tell you how old they are, you know? Yeah. You know, can you believe I'm whatever? And it's like, oh man. But you know, it's, it's so true and it's really because you, God, that the, again, I was at the gym working out this weekend and I was talking to this gentleman who was in his sixties and he was just so happy to tell me his age and I was looking at this guy and he's not like this crazy rip, whatever, but he's been working out for years on his own. So he's very fit and you look at this guy, move and work out and then I think about the average, I forgot how old he was, sixty four or something like that, the average sixty four year old, he's like a different species. It's not even close, you know what I mean? Like he's just moving, he's exercising, he's got all kind of great mobility, he was squatting and doing leg curls and he's just standing with tall posture, all his energy and vitality make you feel it and then I think of the other sixty year olds in my family that I know or, or neighbors and it's not even, it's not even close. Yeah, and it's probably like he probably gets a lot of people commented on that as well, you know, it gets reinforced cause it's like you, it's rare to see people that like able-bodied and active and you know, not complaining about whatever is going wrong with their body. So it's almost like you feel compelled to sort of like share the gospel a bit, you know, of what they're doing. Yeah, no, it's a, it's a big one and those were always my favorite members too. As a gym manager, I loved people like over the age of 40 that were consistent. They always had a lot of wisdom around exercise. They were always the most consistent and they were not fanatical the way that my 20 or 30 year old members were, where sometimes they were still motivated by insecurities. Once you get past a certain age, you have this kind of calm consistency that they would show up with and they'd work out and I would just love to see it. The first time that I encountered that, I was 18. I had just become a trainer. I was working the front desk trying to set up goal assessments, which is a common way to introduce yourself to new members. They come in, you scan them and you see if they want to train with you. So I was doing that and this guy walks in and I'd seen him already three or four different times and he was kind of tall, maybe six, one, he had this really good posture. I remember he had silver hair, right? He would always wear a tank top and I scanned his card and I used to catch people. Do you guys remember catching people who would use other people's membership cards at the front desk? So it was a great way to like take the membership away and be like, do you want to buy one or whatever? So I scanned it and I thought he was using someone else's card because it was 74 years old on the birthday and I looked at this guy, I thought he was like 50-something. Excuse me, sir, and he turns around and said, when's your birthday? Quick quiz, right? And he gives me the whole day and I said, what? I said, you're 74 years old? He goes, yeah. I said, let me see your driver's license he showed me and we became friends and I'm like, dude, what is like, what's the deal? Like, what's your secret? I've been lifting weights. He goes, since I was in my 20s, I'll never stop. I feel amazed. And I was so shocked as an 18-year-old kid to see the 74-year-old man that I thought was like 50-something years old. That was like the beginning of my infatuation. This is why I think there's a lot of parallels in lifting weights, strength training, as there is in investing. It really is like, I mean. Compounding. Yeah, it's very compounding and you and just like investing, starting off, you know, saving 500 bucks, you know, a month way back when you're like, well, I'm not going to get rich this way. But over time, you start stringing some decades together of consistently doing that. Before you know it, you have millions of dollars that you've actually saved and put away because of compounding interest, right? I think the same thing is when you get in first getting to working out, you think like, oh, my God, like I can't see any change. Or it's oh, I've been working so hard in this last six months and all I've moved the needle is this and or I'm only this strong. But it's like, man, you string together some decades of consistently doing that. And the beauty just like investing, the less of it you have to do as you get older, like you once you've built a really good nest egg and you were smart with the way you invested your money, the effort going forward, it gets easier with time. And I don't think that's expressed enough about weight training. And for me, getting into my 40s now and looking back at like my journey of lifting weights, that's the thing that I, which is probably why I bring it up so much, why I'm what I'm most surprised about that. I didn't feel like a lot of people communicate to me as this like, hey, you're going to get to a point where you've been doing this for so long that actually you've got to do very little to just maintain it and keep it and keep it going because you've invested for so long in hours and days and weeks and months and years of lifting weights. Now you just get in there and touch some weights here and there and believe it or not, make some good food choices and you'd be surprised how much you will actually stay that way. And I really this couple of weeks ago, I talked about how I went to up to the truckie house with my Hampton group. I don't know if I told you guys on the oldest. Yeah. Oh, you told me so I didn't know I was the oldest. I just I just without insulting anybody that I was with, like I just assumed there was a handful of them that I thought were well, their success level makes you think that they're especially older to yeah. And you know, and right now I don't feel I would say I would be if I was like grading myself on my fitness right now, I would be in the lower like one to 10, I would give myself like a two or three as far as like my level of fitness and consistency training diet stuff. And so, you know, I don't I don't feel like super great about it right now. But then I'm in a situation like that with a bunch of other smart, successful people. And I thought that they were older than me, but they were all younger than I was. Oh, man, that's great. And then all of them like, oh, they're making comments about how buff and strong. And I'm just like, wow, that's that's weird because in my head, like that's distorted because of what how I perceive myself and how I've been training. But it's like, when you get around your peers, yeah, and use and the ones that haven't been training like you've been doing for decades, you really see that gap, you know. Yeah, it makes you wonder a lot in terms of how much aging affects the body versus the things that we attribute to aging that are really just a result of our lifestyle and activity. You know, it's crazy, right? If you look at the data on longevity, if you make it to the what's the current life expectancy 77 or something like that 75, 75. That's what it is. So if you make it to 75 without heart disease, diabetes, like all the major ones, the odds that you'll make it into the 15 years are extremely high. Yeah. So it's like, if you're fit and healthy, and you and you make it to 75, like you're going to make another 15, 20 years, almost 100%. It's almost positive. It's funny you mentioned because I was actually having this conversation with Everett, and we were kind of plotting out because he's getting really cocky about getting strong right now. They got six pack and they're like, you know, feeling themselves. You know, really like he's wrapping out pull-ups and stuff. And he's like speculating. He's like, Dad, I think he's like, I'm trying to think when I'm going to take you out. He's like already planning. He thinks it's 70. He thinks when I turn 70, he's going to overpower me and like be strong and so I'm like, you know, that gave me extra bit of like gasoline to keep up and make sure I'm still fainting. Well, that's good that that's good that he still thinks you got 30 more years before he could catch it. Why would he wait that long? I don't know. That was just what he's like, I think you're going to be a strong old man, but I'm going to be able to take you out. I think when you're you know, that's kind of a compliment. It is a compliment. You're so, so strong. Yeah, because I think I took that. I was like, OK, he'll be at his peeking in about 10, 10 years in 10, 10 years will actually be his best shot. I'm screwed. Yeah. Yeah. That's what he's going to have his best shot at you was around, you know, 10, 15 years from now. Yeah, sure. So the fact that he's giving you 30 damn near that's a lot of respect. Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's awesome. We'll see. We'll see how this plays out, you know, I'm going to be trained still. I'm not going to stop. No, it's like I find myself even now people asking my age and I almost am like, oh, yeah, let me tell you how old I just turned or whatever. You know, you get those comments and stuff. It's kind of yeah, it's kind of cool. But it does make me think like how much of our life stuff, how much of the that we the the aches and pains and ills and problems that we associate with aging have nothing to do with aging at all. I'm saying that you don't get older and change. Of course happens, but when you look at the difference between a fit and healthy person who's, you know, what someone might consider old versus their counterpart, who's not fit and healthy, the difference is so vast that you'd realize aging doesn't play it's the role that we there's way more of a correlation than a causation connected to it. And that's why we've really done society a disservice by doing all these studies and attaching it to age. It's such bullshit. It really is because, yes, there's some correlation there, but it has more to do with the habits that they've had for so many years and that the average person doesn't do this, doesn't do that, makes these choices. And therefore, you know, we can say, oh, when people get this age, these things happen. It's like, man, that's so not true because for every study that shows that I can give you an example of a client that I know that I train that was the opposite of that. And so it really gives people this perception of like, oh, well, you know, who cares? Anyways, I'm going to get old eventually. Everybody gets old. And what do you I mean? I remember when family used to say that to me when I told them that I was doing fitness for a career. What do you do to get older? You can't do that when you get older. They used to say that was like a thing like, oh, that's cool for your 20s and 30s. But what are you going to do when you get old, old? You know what I'm saying? You can't be a fitness trainer. Dude, I had trainers say that, like, yes, the old guy trainer. I'm like, why not? Yeah, like, what's the fuck is up with that? Then I can't have this as a career. You know, that's the whole point of this career is that I'm trying to slow down that process or improve getting older, you know what I'm saying? Like, so I just think it's but it's that perception that we have in these studies that we do that, you know, correlate all these things to old age. I think we just we're doing people a disservice because I think a lot the average person who doesn't understand a lot about what you're communicating, they just go, oh, well, I'm going to get old anyways. So I may as well enjoy my youth and not give a fuck and eat whatever and not train and not do those things. It's like, oh, man, they're just a total misconception around. Yeah, today's YouTube giveaway is maps aesthetic. Here's how you can win. Leave a comment below this video on the first 24 hours that we drop it. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comment section. We also have a sale going on right now. Maps performance is half off and our extreme fitness bundle, which is maps hit maps performance maps prime and the intuitive nutrition guide is also half off. Both of those 50 percent off if you're interested, just click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, back to the show. I was working out at the UFC gym over here by Ogre Jamal in the morning. And it's a different crowd, right? It's a totally different crowd than than when I go to the the country club that I typically were at. So the country club place. And by the way, I always work out early. It's like six a.m. It's an older crowd at the country club place. And at the UFC gym, it's a younger crowd. But still that morning crowd tends to be very serious or whatever. Couple observations. One, this made me sad that you at the UFC gym because it's a younger crowd. I saw I saw probably three or four like workout partner groups, you know, dudes working out. All of them had phone stands and we're recording and we're filming bits of their workout to post on social media. Yeah. And it made me kind of sad because the atmosphere of the gym has changed so much in that sense. Like I remember when I first started, I mean, people had headphones and Walkmans, you know, when I first started, but not everybody wore them. Most people listening to the music in the gym, which kind of made you a part of the gym while you worked out. Then everybody started wearing headphones so they kind of isolated themselves. Now everybody's got a phone. The recording and you're kind of like on your own island type of deal. And it made me a little sad to see these kids do that because none of them look like, I mean, like no disrespect. You know, if that's your business, fine. But I don't think this was their business. I think they're just posting their, you know, their workouts and did you hear Vicky and I talking about this morning? No. Oh, yeah. So we have a I didn't even know we had this like mutual friend that we that we both know she actually lived with this person for a little bit without rolling this person on the bus. But she we I knew the husband that and she knew the wife and they were fitness professionals, right? So and they're in there on Instagram and they have one of them compete and stuff like that, or they both compete. Sorry. And she told me that I was like, oh, wouldn't you stop hanging out? She's like, honestly, she was I just I was so tired of like everywhere. We couldn't even have dinner or do things like that. They were on their we're recording everything that they did. And I remember I remember when we when we were first hanging out with Craig and he was doing the same thing like and I was like, dude, why do you like it's like crazy how much how many people get sucked into the social media space. And then and then I think that one of the worst things that ever could happen to them is they actually make a little bit of a business out of it because then you can easily justify it. I mean, if you have like you have no following, nobody gives a shit like and you're trying to do it and stuff like that. And then after a while it doesn't take and you're like, oh, whatever, this isn't for me or and maybe you don't fall you don't just follow through. But I think one of the worst things that happens is get a little bit of confirmation. Like, oh, I grew my following to do this. They want to see my food. They want to see this. Yes. And then it turns into and then maybe you make a little bit of money online. And so now you've like you justify it to the people around you like, oh, you know, or maybe even worse, you think it's cool and you're bragging about it that you have this thing. And so it's become more and more common. It's just weird to see these kids do it. And I felt sad for them because they're not experiencing what I experienced at their age, which was you're there, which was a guy coming and smashing your phone and be like, get that out of here. Well, you know, we got thrown the trash. Let's be honest. Let's play play. Try this. If you work out and you have your phone and you tend to look at it in between sets, which I can be guilty of as well. Try a practice where you don't pull out your phone at all and you just start in the workout. It actually changes the effectiveness and the feel and the benefits. Listen, all this stuff is coming. So we've we've been talking about this for nauseam for I don't know how many year. I mean, when was when was the Adam Altler book where you guys forever, right? This is we've been talking about on this show for fucking five years, right? That's the first one I heard you pronounce it. Altler, Altler, Altler, Altler. Yeah, I used to say Atler. Yeah, it's Alt is the else first, right? So anyways, we've been saying it forever. The pendulum is swinging back and it's going to become a trend and a thing now to do not do that stuff. I guarantee you the generation coming up. You know what I was thinking? Yes. But also, have you guys seen the Apple goggles? It's all my notes to talk about. Yeah, you see I had to. Yeah, driving and I went because have you seen anybody in person like wearing it? No, I haven't seen in person. I just saw videos and was like, OK, well, I know Apple released that. I'm like, well, you know, what's the response? Like, what are the tech people saying about a lot? So I actually watched a few of the videos of people kind of like doing their reviews and whatnot. And I was like, OK, this is going to take over phones. It's going to take it's because it's going to walk around these things. They're just you don't need a phone. People are dry. It's it's not. It's it's so it's basically like augmented. Yeah, you have cameras that are recording outside and then it portrays it. And so basically, you can see the outside world, the real world while it's augmented with virtual reality. So they're interacting and they're doing all these weird things. We're not going to look at each other anymore, guys. So these will allow us to, right? So that's the interesting. No, you're going to look at people like that. No, I know, I know. I mean, but you we see each other. So if you had them on, I had them on. We see each other. I know that. But I mean, they're so dorky, but like it's enough. But but think about this. How many dorky people are just going to sit there at dinner and like stare at their phone and not even interact with you already? What's what's the difference between that and like wearing dumb goggles? This is weird, man. You know, yeah, we're you know what it is, dude, is that people? I mean, we don't fully appreciate just how much how important human connection is, like real human connection that we're substituting it with false human connection. And we're suffering the consequences, but we're so distracted. It's so addicting. We continue to move in that direction. This is going to take off again. I guess, dude, it's like you can watch whatever you want. Like it. So if I'm just in a commute, I watch TV, like people are driving, like doing work. Yeah, you know, it's like this is so bad. There's videos already of people and they're Tesla's while they're the Tesla's driving and they're doing it because now so it'll be interesting to see the laws around this, right? Because you're looking outside. So you still are. It's not like you're not viewing outside. It's just it's it's augmented reality. So it just adds to, I mean, is this not the beginning of the plugged in and unplugged call? I mean, this is like the hybrid of it. Because at least you're like, you know, you still can walk and like go outside and do things. But it's like you're basically just fully immersed at the same time. You know what I was thinking this whole time. And you just this really even strengthens what I was thinking. So I was just fantasizing, right? See these this jam. I'm in there and I'm thinking about, you know, what it was like working out when I was younger and all that stuff. And I thought, man, if we ever opened a gym, because we've talked about making where you can't have phones. We've already talked about this that one day maybe we'll open a gym. We don't care about making money or not. It would just be for us. And I love this idea. I thought, you know what? We would make it to where you're not allowed to bring. I your if you bring your phone out in the workout floor, you're out. No, you have a place you check it in when you come in. Check in. That's it. It's fucking workout. We have like, yeah, definitely just workout. I think would have like one camera where it has your PR station, right? And then so you can get like the footage after you're done. But, you know, because people are going to want that. Maybe or not. Like, I like imagine imagine right now us walking into a gym where you have to check your phone. Yeah. At first you might be a little left. The reason why it's a brilliant idea is because again, it's there's going to be it's going to be like you need that. It's going to be no, it's going to be like left and right. Right. It's just going to be like politics. There is going to be a divide. There's going to be people that go the other direction. Right. You see like the Bradley Martin's gym where like encouraged, take your shirt off, bring in video cameras. Everybody's like, I hate that. That's encouraged, right? Well, I mean, and he's got a full gym. So there's obviously a part of the population that want that direction. Then there's going to be a part of the population that values and appreciates exactly your point you're making. And so there'll be there'll be a divide. There'll be this. There'll be enough people that will want that. Yeah. And there'll be enough people that want the other thing. This is where we're going to start to see people go one way or the other with being plugged in or unplugged. And I think that these types of things that you're alluding to, I think are going to become more and more popular. I think as as the research continues to come out, we see what we're doing to children that are getting plugged into these iPads and iPhones so early and we're starting to see the repercussions of that. I think there'll be a portion of the population that wise up like we always do. It's typically what we do when we will we progress is we jump headfirst into it. We realize that's dangerous and not a good idea. We we reassess. We come back and we go, OK, well, how can we still utilize these tools integrated into our life, but they're not also be consumed by them? And so the future looks like. Yeah. And you know, if you look at fitness trends that explode because trends come and go, but there's always an element of like truth in each one of them, like, OK, that's why that one took off. And that, you know, like curves in the late 90s, early 2000s. It's because there was a lot of women that were intimidated by gyms, they were able to track these these women to work out type of crossfit was the last big massive shift in the fitness space. And it's definitely died off, but it has some lasting impact. And what it did very well is it tapped into that. It tapped into the community. It tapped into community grit. Yeah, you're not on your phone or whatever. You're freaking. We're doing this together. You know, it's like and that people went in there and just became they just loved it. They became zealots because of that feeling. You know, old school gyms didn't even play music. You would just hear them the weights. I can see this happen. I mean, even I know, stand up, they've taken phones and it's been like they've had amazing results because that because people are just like engaged in their, you know, they're they're present and they're they're involved in and I can see like the gym definitely like taking taking a piece of that because it's like, dude, every like you said, every every gym now that you go to, it's like somebody bow guarding some station just to set themselves up for it. And at the same time, you have the like I said, the Bradley Martins and seeing more gyms that are accepting people coming in with their their camera crew and no shirts and all that stuff like that. So there's going to be there's going to be both. There's opportunity for for both because there's going to be I don't know if it's a huge market demand for what I'm it's not yet. But I but but but if we did what we wanted, which is literally just for the audience, we said one day we'll open the counter to it. We didn't care if it makes money or not. It'll be just an awesome gym. That's the way to do it. That's the way to do it because that's what I'm going to want to walk in. I'm not going to want to walk in and see a bunch of people terrible. Terrible business strategy. My friends grow it. Nobody ever shared. Nobody to share it. Nobody to like talk about it. You never know. It could be one of those. It's like Fight Club, dude. It's like, you know, you have to have the special handshake to get in or something. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's I see. I think things like that will come. I mean, that used to be what was cool, right? Things that were cool when I was younger was like that the stuff that you. Yeah. When you were on to something that not everybody knew about, like that was what made something cool. Yeah. And if it was like underground like that. So I do think that there's there's possibility for that. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're on to something. Oh, man. I think so. Anyway, how did you guys do with the storm? It was pretty crazy. It was gnarly. Did you guys lose power? Anybody lose power? I didn't lose power. You always lose power that when stuff like that happened. There's always this one transformer to just like blows every time. Like, I don't know if there's this like tree that just drops these huge branches on or what. But yeah, I mean, we have a generac and so it kind of makes it a lot less painful. But dude, I swear there's something. There's like one service person for like generators in like a hundred mile radius. Like there's like nobody to service these things. I'm like, what a business opportunity for somebody to come in and like have like a fleet of like, you know, service people and like, dude, it there's so much need for that, especially with all the people who live in the woods and everything else because it powers always an issue. Yeah, just like shutting off. No, we went to my parents house. My mom wanted us over there for my birthday and it was just windy and storming. And then that day, the two little ones were just they were a handful. And right now my daughter, my youngest has transitioned into like just she's a rascal. All of a sudden you can't take your eyes off her. She'll climb anything and it's dangerous. So now it's like exhausting to be with her and my three year old. So all day, you know, we were doing that managing that or whatever. And we're just all tired. Then we go to my mom's house and it's raining and windy and whatever and we get there and the kids are nuts. And you know, it can be stressful my parents house too because you got my siblings there, their kids, the whole deal is loud. So then we're getting ready to leave. I'm like, let's go. We get a text from our neighbor that our power went out back at our house. The problem was that we locked all the inside doors with a top lock that there's no way to open from the outside. And I just realized, oh, shit, we can't open the garage. So I'm like, are we gonna have to sleep in my mom's house with the kids? No. Oh, bro. I was like, oh, I could feel like the stress and anxiety. I'm like, I don't got nothing ready for tomorrow. I got to work tomorrow. What am I going to do? My daughter won't go to sleep. I'm like, and then I'm like, wait a minute, I'm going to break the door down. That's what I'm going to do. So we go home. We get in the car. We drive home. And then I remembered that I did have a key to a door that we could I was fully prepared. Oh, I was fully prepared. Yeah. And then just pay for the door to get fixed. Oh, my God. And do all that. But it was, man, it was the wind was wild. It's been one of the nasty. We I can't tell you the last time, if ever, Katrina and I literally did nothing. I don't think we left. We left the couch like twice to go and get up to get food. Like, I don't think we've had that lazy. Granted, she heard her back on Friday. So again, yes, she she tweaked it pretty bad. I mean, she's blaming it on the marathon sex that we had on Friday night. But I don't think it was that because it was because it was only two minutes. Yeah. So it's after that. Although she was doing some really acrobatic crazy things. Could have been the case. Could have been the case. So no, she got out of the jacuzzi with Max on on a real barely. It's weird. It's gonna be dude, bro. Weird stuff she's having me do. Yeah. Really, you want me to do that? That's kind of weird. Like push down sex. You'll be so mad. I said that on the podcast. But she really did. She heard her back and she tweaked something and she was like super immobile and laid around and put her on a heat pad and just laid up and watch movies. But I can't remember the last time that we had a storm that bad, man. It was, I mean, every all my shit was blown around on the back yard and stuff like that. And and the I have that California room with all that that nice furniture outside and normally it's designed to where it overhangs. And so I've got a good, you know, three, four feet before there's any carpet or like nice furniture. But the wind was blowing so hard. It was blowing rain came in. Yeah. So I had to go like set up stuff to protect all that furniture and shit. So it was it was a pain in the ass. Yeah, I had to cut our trip short. We were up in Truckee and then it was like we had a little bit of snow, but it wasn't anything crazy. But there was just signs everywhere. Like if you are here Sunday at all, like you will be here through Tuesday. Like just plan on that. Like you were just going to get snowed in. And so we're like, we got to go. Yeah, I had to. We brought up one of Ethan's friends, too. So I was like, I was responsible for another kid. And so I was like, we just got to. Well, so I had this like realization. Well, I had two realizations. The first one, the fast one was that my little ones sleep. We use a hatch light and a hatch light, you know, like there's different colors. So one means like we're getting ready for bed. One means you're sleeping. The other one means you get up and you train your kid with them and it's pretty good. And it makes, you know, white noise or rain sound or whatever to help them sleep. Well, that you got to plug those in. So you got a power outage. Your kid won't go to sleep because they're so used to it. So I'm trying to make my three year old go to sleep. He's got no, there's no power. Yeah. So I had to like sit in there with him until we got power like late at night because he was scared. He could even, he's used to this like sound machine. You know, just running it off your phone. Yeah, I run brain FM when that happens because we use a hatch also and my phone was was dying and I had nowhere to plug it in because remember, we're at my mom's house. Here's the second. Here's the second realization that I had. This was a big realization that my family and maybe you could say it's about my culture, right? But my family in particular, boundaries don't exist. There are no boundaries. Jessica's always trying to tell me about this, right? And I grew up in it. So it's hard for me to really see, but it's true. They just, they simply do not exist. Like if you say something to someone in my family, like, hey, you know, my kid doesn't want to be kissed. Don't go kiss. I'm like, oh yeah, okay, no problem. I don't have to do it anyway or please. And then they'll do it or whatever. They just, there's no boundaries. Like to this day, if mail is delivered to my mom's house on my name on it and I go by, she'll hand it to me. It'll be open. She'll read, she'll open it. Yeah, till this day. So I'm like, I'm having these like realizations like, God, I grew up without any freaking. So I was talking to Jessica about that. She's like, well, what do you mean? I'm like, well, I mean, I moved out when I was 20 or 21. I'm like up until that age, like my mom would go and clean my room, go through my stuff. She's like, what? I'm like, yeah, she would just go through and she's like, well, how did you have privacy? I'm like, you learned to hide things in life. She's like, oh, that makes, you know, but none, no bound, like none. And that's just how my family operates. Yeah, Katrina's family side. They'll just, yeah. You know, they don't really hide stuff though. They're, I mean, they operate from, it's what's hard I think for people like you and her to, why to see it is because they operate from a place of love. Sure. Right. So it's not like they're being intrusive. Like your mom's like, so nosy, she's got to do that. She's like, she's want to make sure you're okay. I want to make sure I checked your bills and make sure it wasn't something you had to miss. And so it was an emergency. Like that's how like they operate too, is like the play, they're coming from a place of love. And so, which is also the part that I always have to try and be compassionate when I'm challenged with it is because I know they don't, they don't mean any harm. I know that it's that she's been conditioned that this is how things are and this is normal. But it's like, that's the thing that we're always trying to, we're always trying to have that conversation which is like, let's agree that I'm not normal and you're not normal. And then we're trying to land somewhere in the middle here. Like that is the hardest part. It always was like, I was so not normal. And that is normal. It's like, no, it's not. That's not normal either. No, it's not. Yeah, exactly. That's not normal either because you were raised that way and you think it's healthy and it's good. Yeah. But you know, you go to like the average person and you know, you say, hey, they're taking pictures. Oh, I don't want to be in the picture right now. They're like, okay, no problem. You think my family? No, no, no, don't worry about it. No, we'll take it. It's okay, you look fine. You look fine, we'll take it. You're like, no, I don't want to take it. No, no, you look good. Don't worry about it. They'll do it anyway. Like I said, I grew up with it. So I'm just like. Now, how are you so? Cause one of the things I know that like Katrina's like working through that's really challenging for her is to like, to tell her family or tell her no. That's the hardest thing in the world. That's the part that like we just had this again where. It's hard, bro. It's hard because it's, I don't know how to explain it. She understands it, right? I don't know how to explain it because you grew up in a way so much that to even create those now feels like you're, you know, it's like disrespectful almost. Yes. Yes. That's how she, that's how she like, so this, Justin and I were talking off air before you came in here about Super Bowl. And, you know, we had made plans. I've made plans for a couple of my best friends who were like hardcore football fanatics with me. And so at that, we're going to watch the Super Bowl. Well, come to find out Katrina's family. This was just a couple of nights ago. They text us on the group thread or like that. Like, oh, one of our family members, Melissa, she got this big raise, right? And so we celebrate that. And they're like, hey, let's plan it on Super Bowl weekend. We'll watch Super Bowl, we'll do all this. Let's have everybody over, let's do a big party and we'll do the Super Bowl. And Katrina goes, do you care if I invite everybody over? And I said, yeah, no. I said, no. And she's like, oh, okay. And I'm just like, because they don't watch football. And it's going to be about her racing. I want to watch football. That's how, and I plan that like that. And so she's like, well, what should I tell them? Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, dude, I know what that's like. Exactly. Tell them that, I don't want them over. Exactly. That's why I was just like, tell them we already have plans. You know what I'm saying? Or tell them, no. You know what I'm saying? Or don't even tell them. You just say, like, we won't be there. You know what I'm saying? Like, to me, it's like that simple. But I see, I'm watching her. Like, I don't, she doesn't even know this, right? She's going to hear this on the podcast. Like, I was watching her, like just stare at her phone for like fucking an hour trying to like formulate. With the conjurer. Yes. Like, how do I fucking phrase this while I don't insult my, like she's a phrase. She didn't insult them or be disrespectful to them. And I'm like, it's fucking easy. You know what I'm saying? Like we had already planned this like a month in advance. Like we're, it's like it is. They're not big football fans. They're more about the party for her. That's the conundrum with Super Bowls too. It's like, it turns into this like, it's a party. And like, no, I'm like invested in this game. That's how I feel. I could care less about like, oh, who's bringing the dip? And his, get out of here, dude. Like, let me just like, focus. It's just weird. It's very strange. But I mean, I get it because, and she has the same thing and I can see that. And it's very similar, you know, verbiage. Like I don't want to disrespect them or I don't want to hurt their feelings. So she's like wrestling. Well then what happens too is cause Jessica wants to, she wants to please people. So she has a tough time then drawing it herself because she doesn't want to disappoint anyone. But then what that does, it builds resentment or whatever. And then I'm on the other end and you know, half the time I'm oblivious. So something will happen. I'll be oblivious and she's like, why don't you back me up? I'm like, what are you talking about? That thing that happened, whatever. That's the same. And I'm like, huh? What do you mean? Cause it's so like, you know. Well it's touching. I'm literally becoming aware of it. You don't see it. Cause you're having it. From her perspective, and it's the same thing that I said, or I said, you know, what it makes me feel like is that you choose them over me all the time. And I'm your partner. It's you and I first than everybody else. And it's like, so, but like her oblivious to it too, like I don't feel like I'm choosing them. Like you are though. In that situation. Like you're not asking me. It's a tough thing, bro. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely one of the, cause you have a dynamic with your fam, especially if you're close with them. And it's, first you have to become aware of it, which took me forever to become aware. And then the second part is, oh, what do I do about it now? Yeah. You know? And then, okay, I got it. And then I'm gonna hurt people's feelings, whatever. So it's. And then also you add in the other layer. How do you do it and not roll your wife under the bus? Right? Like, how do you do it not be, cause the easy default is like, well, Jessica doesn't want to come up with it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like that's the easy default. She gets uncomfortable. Which I'm sure there's people in relationships today that the partner just doesn't like, fuck it, I'm not gonna deal with my family. I'll just blame it on my husband. I'll just blame it on my wife. I don't need to do that. Say it. Well, that's me too. I don't give a fuck that much. You just tell them, let them resent me. But that's not bad. That's actually a good thing. Cause that means that you can draw your own. Yeah. People eventually will start to respect you. That's right. I'm okay with that. Like I'm not, that's why I'm like, you just tell, that's why I say. Just tell them I said no. Yeah. Tell them Adam doesn't want to go. You know what I'm saying? He's got plans. I'm not afraid of that conversation. You know what I'm saying? I'm very comfortable with who I am, how I want to run my family, how I want to do things like that. But I understand the dynamic because you guys both have very similar challenges, but she's the same way too. And this literally just happened this weekend. So I'm like laughing, you hearing, you're talking about this cause I was like, had this moment where I'm like, watching her in the corner of my eye on her phone. Yeah. Just staring at it for like 30 minutes. What's wrong? What to say? I was like, I didn't have a chance to plan what I actually wanted to do. So these plans are happening outside of like, and I'm like a big fan of like, my team's actually in the Super Bowl. And I'm like, nobody even asked me what I wanted to do. You know what? It's just so, it's so weird because even at the, you know, I'm 45, right? So I even have 45 years old. There are things that you start to become aware of and then you become aware that you were not before. So it's like, I start to see all this. Like I've been told this before, but it's very different to be told things than to actually like see them and go, oh, shit. Hold on a second. That's true. Like if somebody says, don't do that, you just don't do it. Why wouldn't you do it? Whereas before I was like, well, what's the big deal type of deal? Cause I grew up that way. So you become aware and it's like, okay, how do I balance this now? How do I do this? The good part of the good part of that, I think about getting older, at least this is how I feel with Katrina and our relationship is like, we're aware of these things enough now. I could say she's come like full circle on that too. And so there is at least this like acceptance of each other, like how you're going to handle it. Like, you know, like if I were to be, if I staunch about it, I'm not doing this. And she's like, I really want to go do this. Be like, okay, you know, you go do that. I'll go do this. And it's like, it's not a big fight. No, it's not, but you know what? It took me forever. What took me forever, this I'm well aware of now, but what took me forever to even become aware of was the dysfunction around food that is so common in just like in my family, in my culture. Like they take pride in who can make a kid eat the most food. Okay. And I grew up with it so much that I didn't even see it. I didn't even see it. Now it's like clear as hell. Like I'll see like my nephews sitting over there and everybody keeps trying to feed them and they're trying to convince them and who can distract them so they can fit more food in his mouth. And I'm sitting there watching and I'm like, this kid is well nourished. There is no reason. Like he's a thick, he's a strong, thick guy. Like there is no reason. Like that was a great mentality, right? After the great depression. That's why that's like, that's exactly what that generational dysfunction. 100% generational problem. Rooted in something probably healthy and good, which is ironic about that, right? Is just like, there's probably a time where like, hey, you need to make sure. But it becomes generational because it's how you're, it's how you're raised. This feels normal that you apply it. But I mean, and I get it. Like you didn't know if you were going to get another meal. And so it's like, you better eat this. And I got to figure out how to make you eat this. Otherwise you are going to become malnourished because that was quite common. Now it's like, if my kid sits and doesn't want to eat, I'm like, okay, you don't have to eat buddy. Not a big deal. And I can feel, I can feel the older people in my family. Abundance everywhere. Bro, you know what I'm saying? Oh, I can feel my mom on the inside. She's like, oh, she has to get up and move away. My mom has a hard time with that too. She's like vacuuming the living room. Oh, bro. Staying busy. Because I told my kid he doesn't have, no, you don't have to eat that, buddy. It's not a big deal. Your kids passed up on my waffles. You know, I had like a whole conversation with my mom about this. She's so mad, you know, that they would pass on waffles and they'd pass on like desserts and this and that. And I'm just like, they don't need it. Oh, bro, it's just, I could see my siblings do it. I used to do it, you know, now I'm like aware of it. So you just got to, that generational shit is so hard to break. I mean, shit, that's like, that's 90% of therapy, bro. That's like, 90% of everybody who's in therapy is breaking fucking generational shit. That's 100%. Do you even higher than that? Do you guys have things in your family that like certain things that are, like my family anxiety is like, this is like what we have. Everybody has that. Oh, bro, like anxiety is a thing. And it's contagious and you learn it, right? From the people around it. Do you guys have anything like that in your family? Yeah, well, I have a really bad trait that I get from my family, which is like, we have this like- Criticism. No, you don't speak to each other where it becomes like an issue and then you just, okay. Just disconnect. Yeah, just disconnect. So that's a really bad habit that I know that I have that is from that, you know, it's like that. We've normalized that so much. There's just like somebody upset you or piss you off. Whatever. You just have that ability to just like cut it off, you know? So, which can be very unhealthy. And obviously I have now another side of a family that that's different for them to handle that. So I know that's an issue that I've always got to work on for sure. No, no, in my family, it's anxiety. And if they'll find something to be anxious about, something, news, world events, something's happening right now. What's happening there? Oh my God, that's so you, bro. Oh. I'll tell you something right now. I'm the calmest person in my family. Okay. No, actually, that's not true. I think my brother probably is probably one of the most, probably the calmest. But it's in there, dude. It's like, it's my family. You know what I'm saying? Go ahead, Justin. Sorry. Oh, I was just gonna say, we just find like, I just grew up like we find what's wrong with everybody else. I was like, okay, I'm very aware of what's wrong and dysfunctional. Yeah, it's so much talking shit that it's really hard for me to give people put ups. I've been really working on that. Oh, yeah. Cause I didn't like it, you know? And it's just, but it, again, you build sort of like a callus and like a, you know, thick skin from it. So I definitely have thick skin when people try and like come at me or whatever. But it's like, dude, like that's a problem, dude. Like growing up like that and like always like, and it's always in like some kind of sarcastic, you know, snarky, but like that shit adds up. And you're like, not everybody's a piece of shit. Yeah. Okay. Like, let's think better. You know, on the positive note of family stuff, kids, family, all that stuff. Dude, I am so blown away. So I, one of the last episodes we recorded, my shout out was the number blocks, Max. Did you guys see the video I posted of him last night? No. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. My son's pre-K bro, that's four years old and I was able to do. That's great. He was two plus two, four plus four. Two plus two, three plus three, four plus four, five all the way up to 10 plus 10 is 20. What's nine plus nine? Two. Yes, last one. What's 10 plus 10? 20. Yeah, I got a boy. That is a hundred percent that game. Like that's, I can't take the credit for like dad being this great dad. I mean, of course I interact with him and of course I play it with him a little bit, but he's become so obsessed with these number blocks and then the cartoon that goes along with it. Is he a numbers kid? Does he like numbers a lot? I mean, this is the first sign of that. Yeah, yes. So that's like the first sign of like, oh wow, maybe he's gonna have that same thing that I have. That's great. Cause that was one of my few strengths in school was math. Like I loved math. I still love math and numbers, right? So to see him to do that was really, really cool, especially considering that we're gonna hold him back, right? So we're holding him back this coming year. And also, and I'm sure any parent that's ever heard that from the teachers, you go, oh, in your stomach, you know, getting the news. Not in pre-K, yeah. I know what you mean though. Yeah, I don't care. I know what you're saying. And I know that it's like, oh, whatever. If your kid's like a sophomore. I just call you this. Then you go, oh, what's going on? Logically, I get it, but there's, that was the- A lot of people intentionally do that. Yes. Because their age is on the cusp. And he's that one. And they're smaller for sports and everything else. He's all the above, right? So, but I, so I mean, granted, that's not, like that's not how my brain operates, right? Like leadership rule number one, everything is my fault. What could have I done better as a parent? 100%, the two things, the things that they'll, cause the teachers are like, he shows signs of leadership, he raises his hand, he communicates with everybody, everybody loves it, like all these positive things. The thing that he's held back on is his confidence around writing the letters and actually writing letters and numbers and cutting with his scissors. All dexterity stuff, all stuff connected to the feeding thing. Yeah. So his development on his speech and that has a lot to do with him feeding himself. We deprived that of him early on thinking that, oh, whatever, you know, not a big deal. Didn't learn until we had the speech therapist that we handicapped him in that area a little bit. I shouldn't use that word cause I know that's not, like it's not necessarily true what happened, but we slowed his progress down by doing that. And so here's another way that it's showing up is that the other thing I didn't do as a dad, I wish I would have done more. I remember thinking this, like I was going to do this more with him. And I maybe one time did it where, and you did a video the other day, I think of this with, I don't know if it was your daughter or your son you did it with where you were hanging him or her from the bar and seen how long she could grip onto it. I wish, and so parents listening, I wish I would have done that more. Like, so we had good hand strength between feeding him longer than we should have, not doing more stuff like that where we, and we just, cause he wasn't really into the gymnastics and climbing stuff, so I didn't find ways to push it. And so now here we are in what it's manifested in is that he doesn't have a lot of confidence with his hand strength and dexterity and then his writing. And it all has, it's all interconnected to that. Everything else, like great on all other stuff. And obviously with numbers, like he's way ahead of where he should be, stuff like that. But that is enough that they're like, we want him to be fully confident. And so we're not telling you have to, it's a recommendation on our part. He's also young for his class already. So it's not like he's going to be, you know, way older than everybody. He'll be right in the same age cause we started him so young. So it's like, but still that, again, the, the, the initial like you, what did I miss? What did I not do? But those are the things that I wish would just wait to become teenagers and you really get hit with that shit. Oh, what do I do? I hope I don't got a lot of it. I hope I do a good job. I mean, this is what they talk about though, right? Everybody says it's an, it's impossible, right? As a parent, there's going to be things that you screw up on. There's going to be things that you didn't do. And so, you know, here's an area where, I mean, I take ownership on it. I don't, you know, I'm not going to beat myself up over it, but I recognize that, you know, and if I was giving advice to somebody who's going to have kids, these are areas we, we shouldn't, we should have let him feed himself from the jump. Let it be a mess. Let it do all those things instead of caring more about how messy he was going to get and the house was going to get. And then the other one was doing things where you were encouraging him to, even though he didn't like to climb, still encouraging things that we're going to strengthen his hands. Yeah. Well, my 14 month old, she, she won't stand by herself. She doesn't walk yet. She does a cruising thing, but she'll climb anything. It's really weird. It's like she, she skipped like 15 like steps. Like she'll climb anything to the point where you got to be careful. Yet she refuses to stand or walk on her own. But you'll see her climb things and you're like, Oh, how did she get up there? You got to go grab her, pull her down type of deal. And she'll fall sometimes. She also won't say papa. She refuses to say she calls me mama. At first I thought she was, at first I thought she was like taunting me. Like I'd say, I'd look at her and go papa. And she'd go mama and be like, no, no, no, it's me. Now I realize that she calls me mom. She says mama to me and then back on her. Not the mom. Maybe that's from the night feedings. That's what that is. Maybe she's connected to the doctor. I put on the fake boobs. Have you guys seen that? Yes. They actually make those fake boobs that you feel, you put milk in so that the dad can nurse the baby. Have you seen that Doug? Talking about giving the kid a compliment. Why, why are you doing? Yeah, terrible. Talk about confusing the kids. That's terrible. It's so stupid. Hey, another random chest tear. I got another message from somebody who I haven't spoken to in 15 plus years who sent me a message is, hey, is this the real deal of the Caldera? Oh, because of our commercials? Yes, yes. Do you know that I get recognized for our, what we call white label ads, Caldera ad, being one of them, more than I do for Mind Pump? I have people stop me and they go, oh, I've seen you before. And then I'll be like, oh, do you listen to Mind Pump? Like, no, no, it's a skincare thing. Like, oh my God. Of all the things too, of all the products that we work with, that's one that I would not have guessed that would have made this like random connection to all these people that I haven't talked to for forever. They see that. And it's not like, oh, look, you're famous or anything like that. It's actually asking about the product. Like, hey, is this legit? I saw you advertising this. I had someone ask me if I was a fitness model. I thought it was a compliment. And it wasn't because they thought I looked like a fitness model because they saw me on ads. Oh, you must, just what you do, right? You do commercials for like, no, I have a podcast for that's what I do. But that product is, I mean, I would love to see the growth of Caldera over the last five years. I know, I would too. The base layer and the serum. I mean, that's what I have right here on the, right here on my next week. It exploded. That's, I use that every single day. I almost feel like they have created like really widen the market for male skincare because before that, can you guys recall like a very popular men's skincare product? That's why I didn't think it was going to do as well as it did, but obviously there was a need there. Obviously there's a need for a product like that. And I think the few people that don't invest in it is because it's not cheap. It's expensive product, but it goes for, it lasts a long time. Oh yeah, you put a drop. That's the part that I always think I explain to someone is like, you know, don't be fooled by the price on it because it is, it's not cheap. It's an expensive product, but it'll last you a long time. Like, I mean, I don't even know how long this has been sitting on here, how long I've been going through this, but I use it every single day and swear by it for sure. Oh, that's awesome. Speaking of which, I got a DM from a gentleman who used one of our partners, Zebaotics. And so he was, he's actually a scientist. And he, yes, and he was, he's like, I was fascinated by the science. So if people don't know, they Zebaotics, the probiotic, and they genetically modify the bacteria in there to break down acetaldehyde in the gut. So when you drink alcohol, your, some acetaldehyde is produced and that gets processed by the liver, but some of it's released in the gut. And then it gets in your bloodstream and acetaldehyde makes you feel like garbage. So this essentially you take it before you drink alcohol and you'll feel better the next day. So he's like, I was fascinated by this science. And he goes and I tried it and he goes, and I can't believe how amazing it works. And then he went into how this science is gonna like revolutionize everything in terms of not necessarily for alcohol, but rather modifying bacteria to do all kinds of different things in the body, like produce more neurotransmitters. So if you're depressed or anxious, you could take a probiotic that specifically will help produce more. Well, remember when we first partnered with them and we talked to them, he said like, this was like the low hanging fruit, right? This was the easy. Yeah, this was like an easy product that everybody could connect to and understand and they could show people dramatic results. But this was not like the big vision for the company. That's, I mean, we're investors, right? So that was one of the things that I thought was, we all thought was so fascinating was, oh, wow, as amazing as this product is, this is like barely scratching the surface of the potential of these GMO type products that can alter like what you're saying. So it's gonna be really fast. You know, speaking of that, when was their last quarterly update from them? Have you seen? Yeah, we're due for that. You should make a note, Doug, for me to follow up on them and reach out to them. Curious to see how the company is doing because we haven't, I don't think I've seen a quarterly update. I also wanted to bring up, so we have our trainer forum now. So the new forum for trainers and coaches who went through or have the Mind Pump Trainer course. So right now it's a small group, less than a thousand people in there, and people are sharing their stories of building their business. So I wanted to share one, because I take for granted, or I'd say we took for granted, just how the things that we did when we were trainers, how effective they were. And I think, I don't know about you guys, but I assumed that they were like, common knowledge, and they did these things. They're still teaching it. Yeah. Yeah, these principles. So one of the things that we taught in the course was how to get leads. And one way you get leads, very easy, is you set up a body fat testing booth. You can set it up in businesses, you use calipers, because it gives you time to talk to people, and you have a chart that tells people different body fat percentage rate. And people want to test their body fat, and it's a great way to converse with people. And we talk all about it in the course, how to use it, how to convert whatever. Anyway, Rich Gonzalez in our forum posted about it. He did it. And he got seven appointments. Seven appointments. Boom, right away. Seven appointments for sitting about a body fat testing booth. And he did this in a, I think it was a supplement store. Yeah, at Vitamin Shop. You know, and smart. Connect this to the talk that I did on the three free day training that we put out there of understanding how many people you need to connect and how many appointments you need to book to just decide like how much money you want to make. Which is like one of the things that I was always fascinated that no trainer knew. Like I'd go around talking to these trainers or back when I used to inherit staff. If you do a good job, I'll tell you right now with those numbers, if I booked seven assessments from a body fat test booth, I could pretty much guarantee that would turn into at least two clients. That's it, two, right there. Boom, two clients from what probably took them an hour. It was probably an hour body fat test. Well, I think it's just, trainers are kind of throwing spaghetti on the wall and they're not really focused on like, I can really make predictable income. Especially if they're outside of like the corporate gym setting and they're getting a paycheck. It's really difficult to make predictable income unless you have systems like that that you're teaching. Like here's as many appointments that you need to book. You know, because the average is going to be this amount. And then now you can, you know, accurately sort of like structure that for your month. So the income can keep coming in. You have to keep doing it. Cause you know, that dries up and then you're left with whatever you have client wise. I think the biggest problem is that we, we've lumped trainers into the health space because technically they are. And when you think about health professionals, doctors, nurses, physical therapists, people like that, you don't think about sales and the importance of that as much. It's more around education and experience. And so for, since the beginning of time that trainers have existed as far as the market is concerned, the emphasis has always been put on education. It's always been put on how many certifications, do you understand biomechanics? Do you understand nutrition? And you know, you would tout your certs and your degrees and all that. It's been heavily weighted on that. Now the irony of that was all the hundreds of trainers that have worked for me in the decades that we worked as, you know, managers in the fitness space, the trainers that were the most successful were not the most educated. They weren't the ones with the most certifications. It was the ones that could effectively communicate or sell the best, sell themselves the best, were the most successful trainers. Yet no courses, no certifications, nobody puts emphasis on that part when it was the most important thing. And so I think that that's where we've missed for so long in the space, obviously why we tried to fill this gap. Our goal was not, are we gonna try and compete with NASM or NCSF or these other national certifications? No, it was there's a need in the market for somebody to teach these trainers how to build and scale a business and nobody is really servicing that market. Not like what we thought needed to be done. And I think that was the vision here. And to your point about the forum, this is also why too, in the forum, this forum, I plan to share more of the behind the scenes of the business, the numbers, the math, like what happens when we launch a program? How much does it sell? And what did it cost us to build that? And oh, when we do this webinar, like how many leads do we get from that? Because that is the part that I felt like, not a lot of people share that. And I wanna be able to share that with that community. So they have insight to even how we're figuring, how we figured things out to get here. Yeah, if you wanna learn, that's at mindpumpfitnesscoaching.com. And by the way, I wanna mention this too, we're gonna be at the Arnold Classic, that whole festival there. And if you're a trainer or coach, please come and say hi to us and stop by. And I think we're gonna try and schedule a talk, right? Yeah, we're trying to nail down a local gym that we can use, that we can meet with trainers. And I would love, yes, that's what I would love. Talk to trainers and coaches. Yeah, we will, we will. So if you're planning on being there, I think it's March 1st through the 3rd or something like that. Second, March 1st and 2nd, we'll be there. Yeah, so you could, and for the Arnold Classic, it's arnoldsports.com, if you wanna find out more about that. Yeah, at the Arnold Classic, and then between now and then, we will drill down a day and time or we'll get access to a gym that we can use where we can meet and greet with people. Totally. Look, children's vitamins are typically just candy, okay? They're gummy candies with a little bit of nutrients put in there. Anyway, there's a company called Haya that makes a multivitamin that doesn't have a bunch of sugar, it's not candy. And it has adequate doses of nutrients that your children need. It's the best multivitamin for kids you'll find anywhere. Go check them out. Go to HayaHealth.com, that's H-I-Y-A, health.com forward slash mind pump. And on that link you'll get 50% off your first order. All right, back to the show. Our first caller is JP from Canada. JP, what's up man? How can we help you? Hey, bonjour guys, how are you today? We're good. Good. Yeah, thank you very much for taking my call. And everybody's always being very impressed seeing you guys, so I'm gonna try to lie today and not act impressed, but I have no choice else I'm gonna lose all my English today. No worries at all. All right, so I'll go ahead with my question I sent via email. My question today is about my week squat. Why week? Well, if I can squat it, I can bench it and I'm totally not a strong bencher. Every time I'm trying to go over a hundred pounds, issues appear, it usually manifests itself by like a short electric shock in the lower back, like the muscle close to the spine. After that I'm gonna be stiff like in the lower back for a couple of days when you try to get up from a seated position it's always very stiff. So I can squat heavier even when no pen manifests. I try maps reds many times and usually the same story, it's no gain. So I went on a hunt to find a problem. Is it recruitment and balance, form, ankles, hips, wishcraft, I heard them all when asking around. I tried diagnosing the issue going back to maps prime that I bought years ago. I have a nubbius fail in zone three coming from the buttwink at the bottom of the squat. So I'm losing contact from the poll when doing the test. With that I'm trying adding primer exercises to my routine like 1990s, but with not much improvement. Prime has a lot of options outside primers and plenty to select from. So not being a professional, it's hard to pick the right stuff and there's like a certain limit to self diagnosing. Also from the buttwink problem, I listened to the glutes mastercraft. One thing that struck home when listening to the glute masterclass is about the glutes engagement during the big lift. Thinking back to my squat, I usually feel most of it in my legs, not in my butt. So having a relatively flat butt, I thought maybe there was something there. And finally, I purchased symmetry thinking that maybe this was an issue from to back that maybe symmetry could address. So that's the reason why I purchased this program. What's changed is my question. I did purchase Maps Prime Pro to investigate a little bit more. There's great stuff in there, but I think I just added like more variables into my investigation and now everything looks wrong. So I don't know where to look at. I've just completed Maps Symmetry and completed my faith four, the five by fives. I do feel a little bit stronger doing that program, but I also feel like I'm on thin line that everything could fall apart from there and maybe that I'm not that strong. And finally, I know you guys launched Maps 40 Plus not long ago and I'm actually I'm 43. So I think you guys have a different approach to squatting from this program, maybe to learn from there and not doing the full movement. So with all that, I'm kind of scared with weight on the bar. I have some ideas of what's happening, but there's a lot of variables, a lot of things that can happen. A lot of things that can go wrong. It's getting like pretty confusing from there. Okay. Okay, before we answer all this, are you hanging upside down right now? I just have to try this. It looks like the ground on the ceiling. You're ceiling, I'm very confused. Oh yeah. I have some things to improve the sound in my room because there's a room just upstairs and it was really noisy. It's a very small room here. So the sound is bouncing everywhere. So yeah, it looks weird, but I can flip, but... Yeah, it was like spinal traction. All right, so, okay, so it's a shooting pain that you feel in your low back. And does it... Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah, the movement is fine. I can squat deep and go up, but a certain moment's gonna like pinch and really get scared at that moment. That's a nerve. So you might have an impinged nerve. Have you ever had a back injury or have you ever been told you have a slipped disc or herniated disc? I had like a small, very small hernia in the lower back like 10 years ago. And we were able to fix it doing some physical therapy and some traction to try to pull it back inside. So that went well during this process. Since then in the last 10 years, I've been using a standing desk. I've been trying to avoid sitting position and give me all the chance to not use my back poorly. But in that movement, and even sometimes when doing good mornings, I could, it's like very risky to get hurt doing those movements. Yeah, there's excessive pelvic tilt. I mean, it could, but there's an impinged nerve. So, okay, so when you feel a zing or electric or heat or like a sudden shooting sharp pain, that's a nerve. So it's not muscular. There's a nerve that's being impinged. It could be the herniated disc. So the physical therapy, you wanna do some physical therapy to help alleviate whatever is being impinged. In the meantime, I don't think you should do any bilateral loaded exercises. I don't think you should do good mornings. I don't think you should do dead lifts. And I don't think you should do squats because the nerve is being impinged. And if you impinge the nerve hard enough, that's not, you don't want that, okay? So we wanna identify where the impingement's happening and then do physical therapy specifically to help with that. Now, did you work with a physical therapist 10 years ago? Yeah, we did. We did a couple of treatments, different treatments to make sure that everything was going fine. And I didn't have issues until then, but that being said, before doing MAPS Red and everything, I used to do a lot of body weight stuff. So I think you can get away with stuff when you just only do body weight. But when I start putting some weights on, that's where it kills very easily. Because you're loading the spine. So if your nerve is like almost impinged and you add a little bit of movement and it pushes on that nerve, then you're gonna feel it. And it's gonna feel like you just said. So are you familiar with Eldoa? No, I'm done. Okay, we're gonna send you a link to a YouTube video that I did a long time ago with an Eldoa specialist. So this is traction through using the fascia of the body. And it's quite effective. You do it on yourself. Yeah, you do it on yourself. It's very effective at spinal traction. In the meantime, I would only do unilateral exercises. And so symmetry is a great workout for you to continue to go through. And I would not do the last phase. I would skip the last phase and continue to go through MAPS symmetry. In the meantime, I would search for a specific diagnosis so you can address this issue. Otherwise, you're playing with fire. Yeah, you're gonna be playing with fire. How good are you about being consistent with training like your core and abs? I am. Carefully doing symmetry. Symmetry was three days a week. And I used the other two days during the week to do ab training and a little bit of lower back. Okay. Yeah, I would like you to do more like counter rotation and stability exercises for your core. Yeah, to prevent that impingement. Because lumbar flexion, like you're gonna get from ab exercises, totally fine unless there's a herniated disc and you're moving in a way that might not be appropriate. So like, I would go... I was just thinking no BS six pack abs. So you have the hip flexor deactivator in there. You have exercises in there that... You do, but because of the lumbar flexion, and if this is indeed what I think it is, I would wanna stay away from any type of fatigue around lumbar flexion. Because yeah, just a little off, which would be fine for most people. And I say off, what I mean is a deviation, right? A slight deviation can potentially cause you problems. So I would seek somebody to do physical therapy, map symmetry seems to be fine. Don't do the last phase. And then watch the LDOA video and practice that traction on yourself. So what traction essentially does is it opens up the space between the spinal column. Now the reason why LDOA is what I prefer over like an inversion table or something like that is because you're using your body's own strength and support to create traction. You're not just using gravity. It's not passive. It's active, in other words. Two more questions that I have. One, did you ever play with elevating your heels when you squatted? No, no, I don't. I've been running before. I was a long distance runner and I did the lung of a lot of barefoot running and not elevated shoes. So I always have plain shoes. I don't have anything elevated. I know some people told me maybe you should elevate the ankle so it might solve the butt-wink a little bit, but I didn't experiment with it yet. Yeah, that's why I'm asking that. And which would, by the way, that leads to that it could be ankle mobility that would be causing the wink, right? So and the wink is just making the issue. It doesn't solve if it's a nerve issue like Sal is alluding to. It doesn't solve that, but it definitely will make the squat safer. Yeah, safer and more comfortable. So that was, and then the other question I had like, when you do like Bulgarian split squats, how does that feel? Like, do you do those ever? Have you done those? Yeah, well, I think there were a couple in symmetry. And those feel fine. Okay, great. I think since it's a new movement, maybe I'm a little bit more aware of what's happening and I'm trying to do it right. Whereas squat, I've been squatting a lot but probably not squatting perfectly. So I probably was getting away with things that I'm not now, but yeah, the other movement are fine. For deadlift, I bought myself a trap bar. So I'm doing deadlift with those and those are doing fine, but it's really the squat and good mornings that are more dangerous movement for me. Yeah, like I said, I would avoid bilateral loading of the spine for now until you can get an accurate diagnosis and then in the meantime, stick to map symmetry phase one through three. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I just got 40 plus, should I do that also or should I go back? Stick with symmetry for now. Yeah, for now. So you've got a recruitment pattern. JP, are you already in our forum? Yes, I am. Okay, good. Yeah, just keep us updated. So just give us an update on the feedback you're getting and what's going on and then we can kind of, you have most all of our programs that we would recommend you to get. So we can just kind of, as we go through the process, give you, advise you which direction to go from there. Okay, and I was wondering about old time strain. Is there stuff in there that could help me with those issues without loading the bar? Not yet, eventually, yes, but not yet. Yeah, we got to figure out, let's get an accurate diagnosis and then when we're ready to load substantially, that would be the direction for sure. All right, makes sense. Quick closing comment before I go. I've been recommending your programs to my family, to my friends around here. And everybody I talk to is enjoying it and they listen to the podcast and they really love it. But everybody around here, and I know it sounds from my accent that we're all French speakers. Some people have English in second or third language. So if ever you guys wanna go ahead and work to reach the old market and translate your stuff and offer them to other people, just give me a call. It's wonderful programs. People are enjoying it, but I'm playing a lot of translation to help people going through it. So one day ever you wanna reach the French market, let me know. We're actually having a meeting today. Just so you know. We're trying to branch out eventually, yeah. Unfortunately, AI is doing it pretty well. Yeah. Are you familiar with labs.hagen.com? So labs.hgen.com, are you familiar with that? Not sure, no. Yeah, check it out. So we're, yeah, yeah. Thank you. All right, you got it, man. See y'all around. See you. Yeah, you know, it would be, it's so valuable for the average person to discern between muscle pain and nerve pain because both of them, there's some very specific characteristics that come with nerve pain. And it would help. It's elusive if you don't know what those are. Yeah, so if it's like numbness, tingling, burning. If it's a sharp zing, you know, if it's a pain that radiates and goes up and down your leg or up and down your back like that's nerve pain. And if you don't identify it as nerve pain, you know, what you'll do is address the muscle or address the like, oh, it's my, it's, you know, this part of my body, foam roll it, smash, massage it, whatever. But the nerve itself is sending the signal and it's being impinged. I would like to see the squat because it does seem like, and the good morning is obviously you have an excessive anterior pelvic tilt kind of naturally for most people. And if you already have that issue, it sounds like that's the only thing that where he's feeling this. And so is it possible that it's so excessive that that's what's pinching the nerve? Well, I mean, it's excessive enough to pinch the nerve. That's what I'm saying. But the fact that he said he had a herniated disc was like, that was a confirmation. Right, right. So that makes, obviously. Because herniated disc doesn't go away, which is still herniated. You just, you end up strengthening support around it. But he should use this time too to address one of those things he brought up with his ankles and like the mobility practice, you gotta rebuild those better patterns so that way now, like once that gets addressed, at the same time, you'll be able to kind of build better mechanics in the process. Our next caller is Bryn from California. Hi, Bryn. Hi. How can we help you? So I sent over an email. I guess I could just read kind of off my question. I have lost almost 130 pounds in the last year. Wow. I had gastric sleeve surgery in May of 2023. And I've lost about 110 pounds or a hundred of pounds of that since then. I was working out consistently as soon as I got clearance, but just doing like the body pump group fitness kind of stuff. And I knew I wanted to get more confident, like in the weight room section. So I hired a coach and I've been working with them for the last like four months. But they only have me on like 1,100 calories a day and I'm doing like an hour and 15 minutes of strength training five days a week with 30 minutes of cardio. So I figured that was a little much. So I went ahead and bought the body transformation and started anabolic this week. But I'm kind of like at a loss about like where to go with my macros. Cause I feel like I'm kind of in a unique situation in that like at 1,100 calories, but still more than I was eating six months ago. But like I want to be able to have a little bit more like flexibility in my, you know, calories and stuff. So I just I'm kind of like, where do I go right here? Where do I go from here? Like macro wise. Yeah. Well, you gotta, you're gonna have to eat more especially if you're strength training. Yeah. I know. Yeah. You want to build metabolism muscle. You could just slowly ramp it up. So you could go up. You're actually in a pretty good place by the way. It's not, you're not in a bad spot. I know it's low calorie, but. Yeah. I would go up. I would go up 150 calories. Keep it there for a few weeks. See how you feel. And then do that again. Bump it another 150 and then slowly bring it up to a point where you feel, and if you're doing good strength training, you're just going to get stronger and you'll build muscle and speed up. Yeah. Your metabolism. Now you had gastric sleeve. So you can't eat a lot at one time, right? So you're eating a bunch of small meals. Yeah. And I am required. Like I have no problem hitting my protein, but I do use like, I do have to use like some protein powder or a bar like I'm out and about a lot. So that helps me because they're small portions, but high protein. Yeah. I do use those throughout the day. Why do you want to eat more then if you're having trouble eating more? Like. Well, I just didn't know if I can, I can eat more, but I just didn't know if I like will put on muscle. Yeah. Like I would like to at the calories I'm at. Oh, you'll, yeah, you'll, you're going to probably need to eat more to put on, to put on some muscle. The challenge with gastric sleeves or bypass or those types of procedures is are things like nutrient deficiencies can sometimes become an issue. Right. And then it can be an issue to consume enough to go in a direction of building or whatnot. So you're probably going to have to eat like a bodybuilder meaning like six or seven meals a day and meal prep. Okay. Yeah. I do meal prep now and I just had all of my labs done, like a full vitamin panel, all that kind of stuff. And I take a shit ton of vitamins every day. So I'm pretty good. Like all my levels are good with that. So like, I don't know, like, should I just, you know, right now I'm eating like egg whites. Should I have more whole eggs? Yes. Yes. And I'm looking at your fat intake right now and you're barely eating enough fat. Yes, that's essential. Yeah. You're at 35 grams of fat. In fact, fat soluble vitamins tend to be the deficiencies that people with gastric, you know, procedures tend to get. If you don't consume enough fat, your body will not thrive, right? So 35 grams is, I would have you, I mean, no less than 50 grams. Yeah. I mean, you know, that's a result. That's the one drawback of getting your protein source from like- Super lean sources. Yeah. From like a whey or a powder is that a lot of those are really low in fat. And so this is a case where I'd really be encouraging you to do things like salmon, like chicken thighs, like steak, like I'd be pushing you in that direction. That'll naturally bring your fat up and hit your protein. So I'd be pushing you in the protein to, obviously keeping you in there. It sounds like you're doing a good job of that. But because you're having to get some of that from powders, those powders are so low in fat that you're not getting enough fat and that's going to be essential too. So I'm really trying to get you in the direction of, like I said, chicken thighs, salmon and steak would be great sources of protein for you. Whole eggs, are you? And whole eggs, yes. Are you taking digestive enzymes? How do you, are you digesting what you're eating? Okay. Yeah, yeah. I take digestive enzymes. Occasionally if I eat something like, sometimes if I eat like a dry or meat type situation, like or a lot of just like heavy meat, sometimes I'll take like digestive enzymes right afterwards. So I have like some chewable ones that I could take, but I don't take those every day. I did start with seed probiotic after you, talking about it. And I take like a bariatric multivitamin. I take D-zinc, magnesium, okay, fish oil. Yeah, I would take calcium. As you bump up your fat intake, I would also take a digestive enzyme with each meal. Just, yeah, because your absorption is a bit limited. And so breaking these, breaking it down may pose an issue and digestive enzymes are beneficial for most people that are inexpensive. So with every meal, I would take some digestive enzymes as you start to bump the calories up. But I would bump, yeah, I would, I mean, your protein's okay. I would just make your protein sources more fatty. And that should give you, that should give you the 150, 200 calories that we're looking for right now. And then slowly over time, you can start to bump that up. I mean, there's no reason why you can't be at some point around 2000 calories and just feel like strong. Yeah, I mean, that's what I want. Like the bypass was, or the sleeve surgery I had, like I've tried everything over, you know, so many years to yo-yo. And what it did for me, even though, like, yes, it helped my, like, I mean, just physically not be able to eat so much for a while, but like it changed my mindset to where like, okay, this is just how I live now. Like, post to being like on a diet or on a new training program or on a new, like, this is just how I live now. Now I have another question. I've have gotten into a good habit about being at the gym five days a week and I kind of love it. I know with anabolic, I can't, I, you know, I'm not doing, I'm just trigger working, doing my trigger workouts on some of those days. Is it okay to still, because I'm an esthetician and so at our office, like there's a lot of times I'm sitting down doing facials all day. Can I still on those days do like 20 minutes of like light walking on, like, you know, easy walking at the gym? Oh yeah, walking is great. Mobility, work would be good, yoga would be good. Like just, just, yeah, stuff that's, think of things you can do that are recuperative or regenerative. I don't even mind if you walk for like an hour, if you wanted to. Yeah, you, walking is okay. Getting those steps in like that, good movement, especially if you know you have a kind of a sedentary job. I'm super pro at that. Just avoid the getting after it, stair master, pushing hard on the elliptical, like don't try it. Yeah, kind of like where I was at with my last coach, which I'm no longer doing, but like it was like an hour and 15 minutes of glutes and hamstrings and then 25 minutes of stair master intervals. No. And I would just smoke. Yeah. God, no, God, no. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, we don't, in your case, we don't have a lot of calories that need to be burning. So, I mean, so the burning calorie approach is a terrible approach for you. We're trying to build muscle. Yeah, whole building right now. Okay. Yep. Okay. Yep. Thank you. Oh, fair way to ask one other question. Sure. Go ahead, go ahead. So I just started doing squats with the barbell. Like if I did my first preface workout and I just, in the mirror, if I really, really think about it, I can fix it, but if I'm just like doing my reps, I like my hips kind of shift a little bit on the way down. I was able to pass all the compass stuff on the prime, but like what is- It's a strength issue. A little asymmetry, yeah. It's a strength issue. And I'll say this, on all strength training exercises, do not just go through the movement. So it is not cardio. So you need to be, every time you do a rep, you need to be thinking very consciously of the rep. Otherwise your body will do what it wants. Lighten the load a tiny bit and go really slow. Because like you said, you know already, like if I'm aware of it, I won't do it. So stay aware of it and slow it down even more. And then you'll train it to do it. You'll train yourself to be able to do it right if you do it enough. Your body is just looking for stability wherever it can find it. So it'll go back to the sort of like patterns you've established. So you got to readjust your patterns and really focus on dialing that in. Brent, are you in the forum? I just got like, I just did it over the weekend with the discount. So I should be in it today. I just happened. Okay, good. So that's the best thing you could do is as you go through this process is just to update us. You can even give it like a lot of people do videos of their squats and movements. So if you have another question like that, we've got movement specialists in there like Dr. Brink. And of course we're in there. So definitely share with the community in there. It's been, it's incredible in there. Awesome. Thank you guys so much. I'm so excited. I found you guys. I was listening like it like really changed my mindset around strength training. So thank you. Awesome. Thanks Brent. Awesome. Thank you. You got it. Boy, I hate fitness coaches. I hate a lot of them. I don't hate fitness coaches. She's eating 1100 calories and they're like, yeah, let's do stair master. Let's burn. And Gaster, you had Gaster's sleeve. I like you need to burn calories right now. I'm telling people listening right now, if you hire yourself a fitness coach and you want to know if they're good or not, ask them if they have our coaching course. That's one way to know. Because there's a lot of terrible ones out there. We got to standardize this somehow. They're not just bad. That's like, that's not just like kind of wrong. It's just the opposite. That's the opposite of what you need to do. It's absolutely, it's so frustrating to hear shit like that from people in our field. It makes me. I tell you what though. She, we had the, I mean the audience that is on YouTube will get a chance to see it because she sent over her pictures. Like she looks great. She's in a great place right now too. I mean, a couple of tweaks like that. Simply getting her to eat whole foods and the three main, the salmon and the thighs. Bump some fat. Yeah, that'll bump her fat naturally. That'll increase the calories naturally. That tip alone and fall in anabolic. Watch what happens. Yep, yep. Our next caller is Casey from Texas. What's up Casey? Welcome back man. What up guy? Hey guys. Thanks for doing this. How you doing man? You got it. What's happening? How can we help you? Not much. So let's see. I'm just going to first give you background. I've been lifting for like 15 years and I just did it thinking that I can't reach any sort of goals because of my genetics. And then I found Mike Matthews like four years ago and learned about, you know, calories and inverse calories out of the whole thing. And so for the first time, I started to actually read some goals. And so what I ended up doing was hiring a coach to do one-on-one stuff for a year. And this guy had me bulk from 145 to 175. And I sent you a photo of what that looks like. Yeah, we're looking at it right now. All right, cool. So after a year of that, I figured I'm just going to take a break because a lot of it conflicted with mind pump stuff, right? So I'm like, all right, I'm not going to, you know, keep going with that guy. So from there, I've been cutting and you can see where I'm at now. My plan, so the whole reason I'm calling you is this. I'm going to tell you my plan and then you tell me if my plan sucks, but whatever you tell me is exactly what I'm going to do for the next five years, whatever. Imagine I'm someone who walks into your gym, I'm a client you know is going to follow what you say to the letter, okay? So here's my plan. Is to cut down to 10% and then do a bulk to 15 cut to 10, bulk to 15 cut to 10, over and over and over. Add him for nine of them. Is that a good plan or no? I mean, generally. Let me tell you what I think went wrong with your 54 week bulk. Do you know what your body fat percentage was at the 175? Honestly, no. I think, yeah. I mean, I think you, I can tell without him even telling us that you put way more body fat on than you needed because right now you're, I'm looking you're at nine pounds different than where you were before the starting point, right? So you put on way more body fat just to add a little bit of muscle and at the end of it, it's going to be like you had to put 30 pounds on just to gain a six, five or six pounds of muscle, which that wasn't necessary. It wasn't necessary to bulk that aggressively and your thought process of doing this, go 15 pounds and come down 10 and doing that strategy where you're doing like mini cuts, mini bulks like we like is going to be a better strategy for the long-term and you'll end up building more muscle in my opinion. Yeah, so the second thing I'll add is I think you should track and it sounds like you're going to track body fat percentage because if the scale goes up, you want to look at the trends and say, okay, you know, I gained 10 pounds on the scale. Oh, it looks like eight pounds of that or nine pounds of that was body fat. So this isn't really too successful and typically that means it's your programming. Typically it's a workout programming and the calories might be a little too high. Here's what I think you should, I think I don't know if a 5% swing back and forth from bulk to cut is going to be the best approach. That's a pretty big swing. What I would probably do is have you bulk up to 13% and then bring it down to maybe 11% or something like that. And you could do mini bulk, mini cut just by measuring body fat percentage or you could do a relatively consistent bulk where it's like three week bulk, one week mini cut, three week bulk, one week mini cut. That's another approach that you can do while tracking body fat percentage. How do you know on the mini cut? Because I've heard you guys talk about the four, one, three, one, how do you know in such a short amount of time that you've added the correct amount of calories? Because sometimes, you know, I could add what I think is a bulk, but then after three weeks, I'm like, oh my God, that's more like maintenance, right? And so it took me, and then I'm like, okay, now I'll correct, now I'm really on a bulk. You know what I mean? That's what I'm concerned about with the three on one off type thing. That's what I'm concerned about. No, 100%, you go by feel. So if you, let's say you bump your calories up to an amount that you feel is a bulk, here's what you're looking for. You're looking for strength gains. You're looking for better pumps and maybe the scale moves up a little bit. Remember lean body mass comes on slow, okay? So if in three weeks, the scale starts to trend up a pound, then you're probably in a bulk. If you got stronger, then you're probably in a bulk. And then I'd cut down from there, maybe 500 calories for a week and then go back to where you were before and then slowly trend it upwards. But you're gonna have to go by feel. What you don't wanna do is look for these huge swings on the scale. You're not gonna gain crazy amounts of mass on your body in a three week period. Maybe like more like it's trending in an upward direction, but you might not see too much on the scale. We've been doing training wise like through all this. So I've done in the last 24 weeks, I've done anabolic advanced twice through. I started to do three times through and then I bought aesthetic. And so now I'm on phase two of that. Which of the programs that you've done so far has put on the most strength? I don't know. I mean, honestly, I just go every day. And the fact is I've been in a cut throughout every single maps program. So for me gaining strength isn't what's happening now. Is your strength, that's gonna be a big difference right now. Are you somewhat stagnant in your big lifts? This whole time? Well yeah, because again, I've been in a cut. Like throughout every single week of any maps program, I had been cutting. You're in a bulk in power lift. Yeah, let's have you, I would measure your strength. That's actually not a bad idea what Justin just said. Yeah, a map power lift might be a good program for you. It'll get outside. Yeah, you just need to shake it up. Yeah, I want to see, you want to see strength gains. If you're trying to gain muscle, you want to see strength. I actually, okay. But shouldn't I cut down to something first? No, no, no, you're fine, bro. You're lean enough that you'll, so you know how you said like, it feels like sometimes you're gonna make it. You are, that's part of like, when you do a good job of just being in a nice light bulk, the reality is we know that there's gonna be some of these days where you actually might be a little bit in a deficit. That's how people actually lean out sometimes in a bulk. Is they're building muscle and as they build muscle, their metabolism speeds up and that naturally kind of leans them out in that process. So it's not as cut and dry as, oh, I'm at this many calories, therefore I'm always in a bulk versus I'm not. It's this kind of ebb and flow, especially when you're right where you need to be of this natural, oh, sometimes I'm gonna be cutting a little bit of calories without moving my calories, just naturally with my metabolism. Other times I'm gonna surplus and I'm gonna build and gain muscle. So with how lean you already are, even though you're not at your most shredded, but you're lean enough that I don't have to worry about body fat or that much. I would love to see you run the Power Lift program primarily in a bulk. So find a calorie somewhere in your calories that you're not losing weight, right? So whatever that number is. You know where you're at right now? Calories? 1900. Oh yeah, we need to be way higher. Well, you're at 3,100 for that big bulk, right? Yeah, we don't even go that high though. No, I would go 25. I'd go 2,500, do MAPS Power Lift and get strong. And this is what we're gonna do, okay? Because you have my cell so you can text me as we go through this process, okay? So I want you to follow the 2,500, go through Power Lift. And I would, if I wasn't talking to you, I would say every third or fourth week we would interrupt it with like a small mini cut. But since you can talk to me, every like couple of weeks, give me an update on what's going on with the scale, weight and your strength. And then based off of that, I will tell you like, okay, let's run a weak cut. So for now, stay in the 2,500 calories. We may not even have to necessarily do a actual cut with you because you're lean enough already and we're not gonna boost your calories all the way to 3,000. You're doing a new stimulus to Justin's point with Power Lift and focusing on that. We might just slowly increase your calories and what you might see is I get you to 2,500, then we go to 2,600, then we go to 2,700, 2,500 and you get lean while we go through the process. Are you at 10% right now? I mean, if they sent you the most recent picture, I actually sent one yesterday. Oh, Doug, you got that? No, I didn't. Do they have the red arrows? We got the one, we have the three, we have the start, we have the big bulk and then we have the initial like cutting. Do you know where you're at now? What body fat percentage? Do you have an idea? I would say 14% maybe. You look lean or not. Yeah, there's no way. Yeah, you're lean or not. Oh, that's right. Dude, honestly, I don't know. I'm gonna do the whole bioelectric impedance You look hungover in the last picture. Good. Well, it's, you know, first thing in the morning, dude. Just to track the ups and downs, what do you call it? Where the numbers not accurate, the trend, the trend. Adam, I just sent you what I look like today. Yeah, that was the comment about looking hungover. You're good, you're good. Anyway, so if you think I'm leaning up to start a book now, that's great news. I can in this column go eat another meal because I'm dying for it anyway. We're gonna get you. You gotta get strong. You gotta get strong. A bulk without strength gain is fat gain. And strength is one of the best, best, best, best. It's not perfect, but it's one of the best metrics of whether or not you have good workout programming. What you don't want to do is get caught up and they're like, I go to the gym and just do the exercises while I, you know, manipulate my diet type of that. That's like a pre-contest bodybuilding approach, which is terrible long term. Mike, my goal for you in power lift is to get strong as fuck and not put any fat on. I don't care if the scale goes up a little bit because then maybe we built some muscle and I don't care if it stays the same per se so long as we're building strength. So I may just keep increasing calories all the way through power lift. So start at the 25. We're gonna send over the power lift program to you so you have that and then just keep me updated. Like say every two weeks, check in with me. Just let me know. Let's do a follow up at the end of power lift. And then we'll follow up at the very end. So we'll do a public one where everybody can hear your story as we go through but check in with me about every two weeks, give me an update on calories, how your strength is feeling and then if you have access to test the body fat that would be really good for me. Okay, so access as in like go do a DEXA or just the trend. So go do a DEXA. Yeah, I would love for you to do that. That's fine. Okay, if that's easy for you to do that then the more data I have the better it's gonna be for me to be able to tell. Yeah, yeah, so just- No problem. Every two weeks, check in with me on the DEXA and then let me know how strength is going to let me know where your calories are. And then from there, I'll tell you what to do with the calories. But we may keep just slowly increasing your calories through that whole program. If all goes well. That sounds great. All right. You got it, dude. Adam, would you trade coming at this point? Oh, hell no, bro. Would you trade what? Are you kidding me right now? I know you're watching him right now. You have to trade good for good. Bro, no way. You can't just be like, oh, let's take- Last six games averaging over 20 points the last 20 something games, averaging over 10 points. He's now driving to the lane, putting his shoulder down. All right, so Sal, here's the deal. He's worried for it. They want a good player, right? I get it. But as soon as one of their good young players is good, they're like, well, we can't trade him. It's like, how are you gonna get someone good if you don't trade someone good? You're all delusional at this point. I'm not letting go of him. I'm not letting go of him. Get out of here. All right. Get out of here. I'll give up Clay first. All right, man. All right. Okay, so I'll talk to you later, okay? Okay, see you guys. Thank you. Yeah, podcast. Yeah, bro, he's a killer. He's a huge YouTube. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah. So he used to be like a sports announcer on TV. And then he did his own thing. And so he's got it. What's it? It's AM Hoops. Is this YouTube channel? I don't know. Oh, Andrew's pulling it up right now. I tell you though, if you're bulking and your strength isn't going up, like you're gaining body fat. That's a strength has got to be tied to the bulking. Well, you see what? It looks like that from this picture. Oh, yeah. You see what the guy put him on way too many calories. The guy needs to build a base, like a real solid muscular base. And so to just focus on that for a while is going to do him way better. Because then it's not like this yo-yoing back of like the calorie gain. My prediction, if we do it right, is he'll be able to run through MAPS Power Lift, which was a great suggestion, Justin. And he just is actually increasing the whole time. Yeah, yeah. You can see his lifts go up a lot. Yeah. And hopefully he like slowly leans out while getting stronger. And at the end of it, he'll be leaner, eating more calories and stronger than he's ever. Totally. And even though he might not be as shredded as he's been before, that'll be OK. He'll be at such a great base. We'll be at 30. He can manipulate that. Yeah, we'll be at 3,000 calories. We can cut him down to 2,500 like we had at the beginning. And then he'll get super shredded. Our next caller is Marco from New York. Marco, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey, guys. Hey, guys, how are you? What's happening? Thanks for having me on. I've been listening to you guys for many, many years. I'm a huge fan because I love that you talk about fitness. But you bring in different topics like science, peptide therapy, and recently, stem cell research. So it's cool to get a holistic approach to everything. So thank you for that. You got it. I appreciate it. So in short, about me, I'm a New York City firefighter, 5'9", and about 180 pounds. I've been training for roughly three years. And I've ran the RGB bundle as well as Maps PowerLift. So recently, I've been just in an effort to scale and appropriate my training, what I've been doing is undilating my periodization. So I've been running, for example, 10, 8, 6. Then I'll run a D-load. And then 8, 6, 4. I'll run a D-load and progress until I hit a new one rep max. So just in short, my 1RMs are 385 for back squat, about 445, maybe a little bit more on the deadlift, 225 bench, and 155 overhead press. That being said, I made majority of this progress while progressively cutting. Oh, wow. Yeah. So my biggest question and the concern that I have is I've developed a decent level of strength. But I've never, it's been over the course of the years, I haven't developed that level of muscularity that I'm searching for. It's like, I know it's not going to call density, but like that thickness or that solid look. So I'm just trying to get a better idea of how I can continue to approach that. Bro, we need a bulk. It's time to bulk. All right, well, what's your body fat percentage? You hold that strength. Do you know? So I was about 160 pounds, roughly 10%, 11% body fat. And this off season, I did bulk slowly for about six, seven months. So like I said, I'm about 180 pounds now. I think I'm somewhere in the neighborhood of 18% to 20%. Oh, OK. You need to cut them. Yeah, you need to cut them, not bulk. So when you get lean, that's what gives you that hard kind of dense look. By the way, you put up here that you do 60. 60 body weight pull-ups? In a row. No, I could do my body weight plus 60 pounds. Oh, OK. I was like, holy shit, that's a lot of pull-ups. I wish. Yeah, no, you got to just go back on a cut. I mean, it's interesting. When you get lean, how much bigger you tend to look, and the density and the definition really starts to show up. So I would go back on a cut and kind of aim back down towards that 10%, 11% and make it a nice, nice, slow, even cut while trying to maintain a lot of the strength gains. Because you're really strong. You're doing great with your lifts. Yeah, where's your consistent core can take right now? Right now, I've been tracking a lot more loosely, but it's definitely over 3,000 calories. Oh, OK. Yeah, yeah. When I was cutting, I started at roughly 2,400. And then towards the end, when I was weighing 157 to 160, it was about 2,000 to 1,800. I got a little bit more aggressive trying to get into that single digit, but my body was kind of starting to push back. So I knew it was time to take a break. I would do a cut. I just wouldn't do a really aggressive one. Maybe somewhere around 26 or 2,700 to start. And just see how your body responds to that before you drop any lower. Let's see what happens there. And then programming, what are we doing right now? Workout. So I typically, I really like low reps, heavy weight. That's just what my body always gravitate towards, rather. So typically, I run anabolic. But right now, what I'm doing is it's bigger lean or stronger by Mike Matthews. But I just wanted to try something new. But typically, like I said, I always run anabolic. Or I'll always go back to that or power lift. That's what I like the most. Yeah, I like either map strong for you, or if you want to try something different, old time strength. Only because of your job. I know you're a firefighter. And old time strength is going to give you really crazy, really transferable strength. But map strong will do the same thing. So I like those. Bigger lean or stronger is a great program too. Mike Matthews has. He's got decent programming as well. But we'll send you map strong if you don't have that. And I would do the cut. And once you start to feel like your body's resisting again, I would go on a bulk. But I wouldn't go bulk forever. I would bulk until you start to feel good again and then go back on the cut. That's how you get down. So for people listening and for you, when you start to cut and you start to get to a body fat percentage where you start to feel that resistance. And typically, it's anywhere before a man, if they're healthy, once you get to like 10%, 9%, you start to feel this kind of like my body's fighting it. Then what you do is you do a little bulk, get up to like 11%, 12%, build some strength, and then do the cut again. And that's usually enough to get you passed through that plateau. Otherwise, you got to keep cutting calories to the point where you're just fighting your body. You start losing muscle. I got you. Thank you very much. And then in terms of doing that slow cut, is there like a certain percentage, just to get an idea of what I should be aiming to lose per week? Is it like a pound roughly or maybe like 1% of my overall body weight that you guys recommend? Honestly, I don't want to see major weight come off the scale. Initially, there's always going to be a little bit of a bigger bump because of the water and the carbohydrates, things like that. So after the first week, I don't want to see major drops. I mean, like a pound would be plenty. I don't, because if we do a good job and we're not cutting that hard, you may actually build some strength in the process. And so, yeah, we're looking at when we're going to cut, I'm looking for two drastic of drops. And you don't want to do that. Just keep it to where it's a nice slow gradual. If you have access to body fat testing, I used to aim for 1.5 to 2% body fat loss a month. That's what I would aim for. That's a nice, that was a nice consistent, not too aggressive body fat percentage loss on a monthly basis, but it was nice and consistent. So I'd get tested every two weeks or every 30 days. And if it went down every 30 days, 1.5 or so percent or 2%, I was happy. If it went over 2%, I would bump my calories. Okay, understood. All right. And then just if you don't mind, I have one follow up question that relates to my, so my squat and my deadlift have always been the lifts that I've been able to push and get stronger and a lot quicker. My bench press has been lagging and it's been a lot more difficult to scale it. So I was just wondering if you guys had any tips to help progress and I guess 225 is currently my plateau. So the push past that plateau. You've already followed mass power lift, right? Yeah. Yeah. You know what's interesting? We told you to do a map strong. So map strong has a very heavy emphasis on overhead type pressing and that in my experience with people who tend to plateau with a bench press who've done power lifting routines before that tends to push them over the limit. So I'd be very interested to see where your bench press is post map strong. So let's see what happens. Yeah. All right, awesome. Thank you guys very much. I appreciate it. Thanks. Keep saving lives, huh? Yeah. Thank you. You got it. My bench press went up. I got stout, I remember what number it was, but I got stuck and then my overhead press is what made it go forward. I'm glad you asked him body fat percentage because I was like, you need a bulk and then I realized he was already out. He doesn't look hard because he's at 18%. No, no, totally. I assumed he was lower because I thought he put in there a lower weight. And he was getting strong on a cut and I'm like, wait a minute, like have you got strong on a bulk? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that density look that people are looking for is a combination of leanness and muscle fullness because you could also be lean and not look so dense because your muscles are flat. But if you're like lean for men, typically between nine to 11% body fat and you have nice full muscle bellies, you'll look dense. I'm glad you said that because I'll tell you what, Marco, when you listen to this, the biggest challenge as you go through this process, because you're gonna be in a cut and because you want that full look, you're gonna have the flat look. So you trust the process, right? And that was one of the hardest things for me, cutting for a show was the psychological part of being depleted all the time and training really hard and knowing that I want this big full hard look, but you have this, what we call in the bodybuilding with this flat look because the muscle bellies aren't filled up. Just stay the course, trust the process, trust that we know what we're doing. And I promise at the end of all this, you'll be happy with the way you look. That's right. Look, if you love the show, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our free fitness guides. You can find a lot out there to help you with your fitness goals and it's free. You can also find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump. DeStefano, Adam is at Mind Pump. Adam.