 Our next caller is Sarah from California. Hey, Sarah. How can we help you? Hi, Mind Palm. Thanks so much for taking my call. It's great to talk with you. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. So I have a question about something that I've seen circulating on social media recently that I just really wanted to put on. So I've heard some others in the fitness space talking recently about the benefits to women specifically training glutes where the weight is indirectly loading the spine for the purpose of avoiding bulking through the midsection. And I understand that as performing exercises like hip thrusts, barbell split squats, lunges, deadlifts, where the weight is below the spine to avoid that bulking effect that can happen. And I'm just wondering if you think there's any truth to that or any merit or benefit to women or anyone training that way who want to grow glutes but stinging. Tiny bit of truth. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to stop following all those idiots on social media. I'd follow them. What they're doing is they're using very smart but also sneaky and slimy marketing tactics, which is women are afraid of growing their waist, but they want to grow their butt. So what they will do is they'll position themselves differently or try to by saying, I have the butt exercises that also don't grow your waist implying that the best exercises you could possibly do. Don't do those. They're going to make your waist grow. Don't worry about that. That's the dumbest thing ever. I hate that almost more than anything in the fitness space, this whole mentality about freaking out over growing the muscles around your waist. Sarah, even if I trained your core muscles like a bodybuilder and even if my goal was to make your muscles of your core grow as much as possible, it wouldn't happen. What you would get is a very sculpted, strong midsection. It's very hard to grow those muscles. They don't grow that much anyway. And it's very rare to see somebody with really overly developed muscles of the core. And if in those individuals are the super genetically gifted, I wouldn't worry about that at all. The best exercises to grow your glutes are the best exercises. Barbell squats is one of them. Is it going to activate the core? Of course it is. It's just going to give you a stronger, more sculpted core. Do not worry about growing your waist with that. If you're really worried about that, you just maintain a lean body fat percentage, that makes the biggest difference. The muscle, don't worry about that. Well, before Adam kind of takes you into the aesthetic sculpting world, this is like nails on a chalkboard to me in terms of dysfunction. In terms of protecting your spine and having the ability to avoid pain and future problems down the road, we need to consider building up the core to be able to protect itself appropriately and also have the strength to support your lower back. So in terms of avoiding it by loading your spine, I think it's a disservice to put that kind of information out there. So to address the tiny bit of truth to this, if a female client who wants to build her butt is working with me and we are doing heavy loaded deadlifts and we're in a calorie surplus, yeah, her butt's going to grow, her hamstrings are growing, legs are growing and maybe she adds a millimeter onto her waist because her core is having to stabilize that, that is going to build some muscle, you're in a calorie surplus, so you may build a tiny bit. But the ratio of the waist to the butt will not, I mean, your butt will outgrow what that waist is going to grow. So as far as it's... The hip to waist ratio is totally different. Yeah. And actually, even though I'm talking aesthetics, Justin's point is so important and I used to die when I'd see my peers and when I was competing. This is very common in the men's physique world too. So you have all these men's physique guys wearing these corsets or screams around their waist to shrink their waist and then avoiding squats and movements like that because they don't want to bulk their waist because judges score us on a shoulder to waist ratio. And if I have big broad shoulders and I have this tiny little waist, then they score me better on that. And the same thing goes for like bikini models. So there's this movement in the space to let's atrophy and shrink the waist area as much as possible and try everything we can to build that. And in theory, there's a little bit of truth to that. But at the risk of what Justin is pointing out... As to that. Yeah. It's a stupid idea. And then to what Sal was saying, like the ratio, you visually are gonna... If you build the butt doing the best exercises, which happen to be things like squats, which load the spine, you are missing out on one of the best ways to grow the butt. So the ratio is still gonna outweigh what you might see in the waist. And you would never want to, to Justin's point, not train the core because of that. So it's a dumb idea that you see... It's been circulating for quite some time now. In fact, you can go all the way back to early episodes in Mind Pump. And it was one of the first things that we came out and addressed because it was just... I was in the middle of competing and I was telling these guys... At that point, none of them... We couldn't believe it, right? They couldn't believe me when I come and say, you guys won't believe this. But would you believe that I've got bodybuilder buddies of mine that won't squat? And they actually wear these waist trainers all day long and they just didn't believe this was really happening. And yeah, it still is circulating and popular. And yes, there is a tiny bit of truth to it, but it's splitting hairs, what you're talking about. And it's a stupid way to go about it. Yeah, I'll tell you what, it's a very clear red flag that the person you're listening to is an idiot and doesn't know fitness and health. No, I swear to God. If a fitness and health professional... We're just gonna show brass tassels. No, no, 100%. If a fitness and health professional is telling people or women, you don't want to grow your waist, don't do squats, just do that. That's an idiot. Don't follow them. And I'll say that all day long. That's a terrible, terrible information. Don't worry about that. Your physique will look its best if you strengthen all of it. Not if you avoid some of it for fear of some aesthetic... Strength is sexy. Well, here's the thing. We have to remember that these bikini athletes and these men's physique competitors, who I think is what who's perpetuating this problem, they're not thinking about that. These are the people that shoot all kinds of drugs in them and do all kinds of... It's a different world. Yeah, they do not care about health and what's ideal for them. They purely want every little competitive edge that will score them one more point higher on stage. So a lot of them, because that's their life, will sacrifice some of this stuff in pursuit of getting that millimeter advantage, yet they're risking something that is crazy, but they'll do it for that reason. Yeah. By the way, in real life, the best-looking midsections are developed. They're not just small. They're developed. And so that's muscle, like anything else. But like I said, I could train your core with trying to build it as much as possible. And I might, like Adam said, I might be lucky if I grow your waist through muscle by a millimeter. If I'm lucky, it's just not going to happen. So don't worry about that. Are you following one of our programs at the moment? I'm not. I'm relatively new to weight training. And I totally hear you guys about, you know, avoiding the social media hype of all of these different, like quick fixes and things. I definitely think of you guys as the gold standard. That's why I wanted to ask this question, but I'm not currently following program. All right. Well, thank you. You're on the right track. I'm going to send you maps on a ball. I think that's the program you should start with. Start in pre-phase, follow pre-phase for about six weeks, then move to phase one, and so on. And I think you'll love the results. Okay. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And I appreciate your time. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Sarah. Man, that is frustrating that there's, there's like people with still persists that just say the dumbest shit and in poor, you know, she's 24. Luckily she found us, but you know, you're at that age and you know, you judge authority by followers and by attention and all the person looks good. And you end up harming yourself or just spinning your, your tires in the dirt for years. And then later on realizing, oh my God, that person was dumb. I should never follow that. Yeah, too. And, and I know a lot of this is coming from the, the aesthetic side, right? This is not, these are definitely not performance people. These are not definitely people that are thinking about longevity. This is somebody who's like, can I make my ass look as big as I can with my waist being as small as awesome ratios that hourglass and even though it has a little bit of true tiny, tiny fraction of truth behind it, it's, it really doesn't because if you eliminate the, the single best exercise, your butts won't grow as much. Yeah. Your butt won't grow as much. So, okay. So maybe you make sure that waist doesn't grow anything by putting this corset on it or whatever like that. But then you don't do something like squatting and you only do all the other movements that also build the butt. Great. Hip thrust, amazing for that. All those are amazing moves. But to just eliminate one of the best exercises for doing that, you're missing out on those automatic gains on that ass. And you, even if it takes the waist up another millimeter, the inch you're giving up on the butt, you're losing in this one. Yeah. It's like, it'll be like removing two ribs to get a smaller waist. Wow. Look, my waist is smaller. You got two less ribs. Yeah. I love that tag. Like, automatic gains on that ass.