 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Hey, in this episode of Mind Pump, we have some pretty good conversations. It starts off when we're talking about parasites. Oh, yeah. Talk about my parasite cleanse. There's not a lot of bro talk in this one today, so you might want to hang in for the whole episode. Those of you that just come in here for the information, this one's got a lot of it full of it. I know you're going to miss it, so you people that come just for that, don't worry. I'll bring it back hard. Adam talks about his flotation tank experience. We examine Zach Efron's Baywatch workout, and we tell you if it's good or if it's stupid. And then we get into some pretty good questions. We actually talk about personal, emotional, psychological growth and how that affects the gains. That's what the Zee at the end. We also talk about feeling the burn, what that means and should you aim for it and will it make you build muscle and burn body fat faster? Of course, you'd go get some medication. Then we talk about cluster sets and circuit sets. Are they effective or can they make you hurt yourself faster? Lastly, what is the fat but fit movement? You get to hear our opinions on that. And by the way, for those of you who are new to Mind Pump and you're kind of a beginner here, Adam talks about something that we got just for you somewhere in the middle of the episode. So don't fast forward anything at all. Ooh, little Easter egg. And I think today's the last day for our T-shirt promo, if I'm not mistaken, right? Enroll in the maps. Final day! Thank you, Adam. Enroll in the maps RGB bundle, which is nine months of exercise programming, all broken down for you, or the super bundle, which is almost a year's worth of exercise programming. Enroll in one of those two, and by the way, those are massively discounted. You'll get your choice of two shirts. And by the way, these shirts are amazing. We had them personally blessed by a Tibetan monk, or Justin, one of those two. Well, yeah, I put my essence on it. You'll get two shirts for almost free, I think less than a dollar. You can find out about all of this at mindpumpmedia.com. Plus, we wanna give away some shirts. Give away some shirts. Oh, yeah! Yeah, we got 12 reviews this last week. That's not bad. Not bad. Yeah, and we're gonna give away four shirts. Oh, good. So the winners are Eat Sleep Imagine, Kayla Resick. Ooh, Imagine. Jay Kokoski, and Will Sands. All of you are winners. You're all brilliant review leavers. Yeah, absolutely, great job. What? So we do wanna get those shirts out to you, so send the name, the one I just read, to itunes at mindpumpmedia.com, send your shirt size and your shipping address, and we'll get it right over to ya. Do you know who else has a Kermit-y quality to their voice? Besides your girl that you threw under the bus? Your girl didn't like that. She hates it when I say it, but it sounds good on her. Sounds hot. But do you know who else has a Kermit-y quality? And I can't explain it, it's that, a little bit of that, right? Yoda. Yeah, I know. Yeah, come on, man. Fucking Yoda, dude. That's right, bitch. Why don't you call me Yoda instead of Kermit? Was that supposed to be mind-blowing? Yeah. No, dude, you get Kermit. But I wouldn't mind you did. Can I put you guys on the spot real quick? Is that possible? This is what I want you guys to do. Spot me, bro. Because I'm tripping out right now. On what? So, I did... Mescaline. Yeah. Yeah, I decided to do mescaline. It's just a little mescaline before we go ahead. I'm taking it way back. I'm doing opium. So, I started three, no, four or five days ago, I bought this parasite, anti-parasite kit. And all it is is just these certain herbs that you take, like it's got wormwood and black walnut, husk and garlic and, you know, caprylic acid and a few other things, right? And it's a 15-day protocol. And the reason why I bought it was because my gut was just fucking off, dude. It was really irritating. I did a whole insta-story on this. And these are known as antimicrobials, but they're also effective, legit effective, for potential parasites. In fact, I was reading that wormwood is actually used to treat malaria. It's pretty cool stuff. So, started taking it. And the first couple days I had what they describe on the internet as a, felt like a die-off, like I felt kind of shitty. And now I feel, wow, man, I feel really fucking good. Doesn't mean I have, I don't think, I don't know who knows if I had a parasite or not, but they're also help balance out if you have bacterial overgrowth. And right now, I feel really fucking good. I think you guys should try it. Cool. I really do. I really think you guys should fucking try it. I'm on a kick right now, if you have a die-off. Well, it's pretty interesting because I've never really done anything like this before. What is it required? Did you need to go fasted into it? Do you need to do anything? Or can you just take it with whatever you're consuming? You just take it. Yeah, now they recommend. I can do that. They recommend you eliminate sugar and all these other stuff, which we pretty much don't do anyway. I went 48 arrow fast and then I started doing it. But it's pretty interesting. And I also learned that parasites are more common than people think, especially if you eat a lot of sushi, believe it or not. Oh, wow. If you eat a lot of sushi, there's not great odds. It's not like everybody has them, but it's more common than you would think. Well, what's the contributor to that? Which fish? Raw fish. It's not just one specific fish. No, I think just raw fish. The one I took, Doug, was called Perasmart. So no affiliation. We're not affiliated with them. Although we should put it in the show notes. Might as well put it in the show notes so people have a link to it. Can you get it on Amazon? Yeah, that's where I got it from. And the stuff in there, like I said, if you have gut imbalances, even just bacterial, it might help you. But what a lot of people notice when they take this stuff is the first couple of days, they feel like they're getting worse. Yeah, I don't know if I, I'm not feeling that. That's the only thing right now. Not everybody. Not everybody's like that. And remember, I was going into it already feeling pretty shitty. So it's addressing the overgrowth, like potential overgrowth in certain areas. That and or if you do have, in fact, parasite stuff going on. And it's funny because my tolerance for caffeine is much better. So I feel like- Well, what's the symptoms if you have a parasite? Oh man. Here's the problem is there's acute symptoms. So Richard would be obvious, like severe diarrhea, nausea, all that stuff. But there's a lot of other symptoms that are kind of vague, like anxiety and depression and fatigue and, you know- Don't you think those ones come after the major ones though? Like diarrhea and the like- Not always. So you remember Dr. Roussio talking about how he discovered he had parasite when he was in college? He didn't have any gastro symptoms whatsoever. All he had were these kind of psychological symptoms. He just wasn't feeling himself. I didn't remember him talking about that. And he went and got tested in the life of life. Was that on air or off air he talked to us? It was on our show, our episode with him. And the cool thing is that the over-the-counter kits are relatively effective for treating parasites. So pretty interesting that I've never done it before, but I'm pretty in touch with my body and it's pretty crazy. Any concern that you'll need to take this now, like because you've, like one of the things I didn't like when we started like on our kombucha kick was kombucha, kombucha, kombucha, however the fuck you want to say it, tomato, tomato, potato, potato, potato, potato. Kombucha. It went, when I started, I got on this kick where I started taking them like every day. And then I became like dependent on it for my stomach to feel good. No, no, no, as a matter of fact, you wouldn't want to take these types of herbs more than two or three cycles a year max because they can be pretty harsh on the body. And it even says so on the box. So no, you should not take this all the time. Now there's certain things you can take relatively frequently or consistently like garlic, which has its own antimicrobial effects or whatever, but you know, like wormwood. It gives you great burps. They don't want you taking it for long periods of time because it can be not good for you. Where are you, is there anywhere else that we can get wormwood besides? Yeah, you could buy this, it's a supplement. You could get it, you can just go online and so forth. So when you flip the box around. But there's other things you want to combine it with because there's different stages in a parasite's life cycle and different things kill it during different stages. So like one herb may be good for killing them when they're alive, another one may be good for killing the larvae or the eggs or damaging the eggs so that the other herb can kill it. It's pretty disgusting. You know it's crazy, so I- Like get out of me. Dude, if you dive into like, you go online and you start reading about people's experiences, what people do is they take a picture of their poop and they'll have, they'll show- Oh, rateyourpoo.com. They'll have pictures and they'll show like, oh, this is a parasite. This is a parasite, let's talk them out. That's so gross. Fucking disgusting. But like skin issues can be a result of it, anxieties, like all these psychological effects can be a result of it. Like that's what Ruseo said he experienced when he was in college, like he was just feeling fatigued, like he wasn't recovering. Today, and by the way, I have not been eating high calorie at all, I've been eating low calorie because I'm trying to kind of compound the effect so I'm eliminating lots of things. And I did not expect to be as strong as I felt today. And my energy feels, I don't know, better than it's felt on a long time. And I think it's directly a result of this, 100%, because I was doing all the probiotics and everything else before. Well, take a pic of your poo. Well, I did, so I'm gonna show you guys right now. I think I need to do it just so we have some balance in this conversation. So, I- Yeah, I'd love to see what you guys- Yeah, I mean, if I can do it- That's not expensive. If I can do it with, because I just literally said, okay, I'm on my kick again and back to tracking and doing all that and- Let's see you guys the biggest worm. I did, yes. If it doesn't require me to change or shift what I'm doing, I can just add it into my routine right now, that I'm game for that. So you wanna hear something gross too, is that- Do we have a choice? Even grosser. Do you wanna hear something gross? Please, yes! You start telling the story? Even grosser. If you're sexually involved with someone- Okay. The odds that they'll- Which we all are. They'll, well, that person, so let's say you do this treatment, right? And you do in fact have like, parasite and you're feeling a lot better. Your significant other probably has it too, because you guys- Because you put your mouth down there and you have sex and all that kind of stuff, they're gonna get it, they might, the likelihood that they'll have it is high too. So if you're doing it and you're feeling great, you might wanna buy a box for your girl and be like, honey, you gotta do this too, otherwise we're gonna be passing around the person. Do you go through the whole box, is that the deal? It's 15 day, the one I bought is a 15 day cycle. And I- Oh, how many days are you on right now? I'm on day, I wanna say five or six. You're only five days in? Oh my God. But, what do you mean, oh my God? You and you're like- What's the opposite of a hypochondriac who thinks like everything, hypochondriac thinks like everything that is wrong with- Well, so here's- You're so that guy. Hypersensitism. Well, so here's the thing. If- He's a believer. I'm very, well no, you guys know this. I'm very, very in tune with how my body feels, especially food, because I'm so sensitive. And I've been dealing with gut issues and all my normal stuff, all my avoiding this and eating that and taking this probiotic and fasting was not helping me and it was like three weeks, dude. It was like three weeks of like all these symptoms that were really fucking annoying. And I did this and the first day, the first one or two days I did it, I was feeling almost like a little worse. And then by the third day I was like, whoa, I'm feeling. And then by day four, like I had the best poop I've had in a long time. You're also coming- And I'm still having it. You're also coming off of 48 hour fast, right? The 48 hour fast, I came out of the 48 fast, started this treatment and I got a little worse for like the first couple of days, which really, really, what's the word? Sucked? Made me, yeah, like disappointed, like what the fuck is going on here? I was really angry. But by day three, four, five- Well, I would think that has something to do with you being on a complete empty stomach and then ingesting something like that. That's just like whenever- Well, like I said, I know my body really well and I've done this before. And usually if I come off a 48 hour fast and then I introduce the right foods, I'm like cured. It didn't seem to be the case. But now I feel really good. Again, this is my personal anecdote. However, if you like talking to Dr. Roussio, Dr. Roussio said this to me, quote, he said, I said, dude, how common are, because he had, you know, Paris, I actually tested for him. I said, how common are they? And he said, they're not super common, but they're more common than people realize because in modern Western societies, we think that never happens, right? And he goes, it's more common than we think, it's not super common. He goes, what's really common is dysbiosis, where we have our gut flora is just all over the place. And he said, the things that are in these parasite cleanses are also antimicrobials in which, and remember he talked about this on the podcast, how for some people just controlling the overall growth of their bacteria will help them because they just have this environment where shit's just growing out of control. And he said, these are people- That sounds like Justin's telling me. Maybe. And these are people- I picture his stomach just like crazy stuff. Yeah, it's just like this afro of bacteria. Whenever I follow him after he's gone to the bathroom, I just assume that like, there must be like this crazy fucking shit storm of a party going on. There's a lot of bacteria. Listen, we know how to get down. And they don't want to die. Inside me. They cling to the side of the toilet. Oh, okay. Adam, how was your speaking of floaters? How was your floats, your float tables? Let me tell you, I am- Because you did the float station for the first time. I am beyond excited for these guys to be down the street. I got a chance to meet the owner, Ryan. So a little shout out to Ryan. And we get to- The float station, is that the name? Yeah, did you? I'm jealous. I'm the only one now who hasn't done it. And here, and you know what's crazy? Sometimes like, you know, Sal, you never know if he's like over excited and exaggerating because he does it so much. So I went into it with like this, you know, whatever type of- I have to roll my eyes really hard. Let's be honest. You sing your the greatest song. If you listen to Mind Pump Long enough, this is the typical thing you'll hear. I'll say something. Adam will be like, Boo, bullshit. Adam does it and he's like, it's the greatest thing ever. So- And then it's like- It's like we have this idea. And then it becomes- No, no, no. Okay, not the float like he did later. Anyway, just tell us your experience. Let me tell you a couple things, okay? So right away, what I was most, the facility is fucking awesome. It's beautiful. Yeah, beautiful. They designed it amazing. I love that they're building upon that. Yeah, I know. They're putting like a whole meditation- Yes. There's going to be an outside lounge area. We can get some sun and like, it's going to be dope. Like it's already dope and it's going to be like 10 times better. Don't burp. I'm very excited to do so. I'm actually going to get him, by the way. So you guys know, I'm inviting him down here to meet and hang out with all of us. I've already got him to agree to, we're going to go into a whole video vlog series in there. So that'll be awesome. Brad. So we'll introduce everybody to the actual location. Now, right away after I went and I said this on my Insta story, there was some things that I would do differently now that I've experienced it because it really wasn't that amazing for me. And I didn't get like this, whoa, this was so great and so relaxing. In fact, I never fell asleep. It took till almost the very end when the music came on to tell me I had 10 minutes left for me to finally fully relax. And I know there's a lot of reasons why that was one. I was really excited to be there. Like I was really excited to check it out. I can't wait. Yeah, I was talking to the owner. I can't wait to relax. I was talking to the owner. You're gonna relax the fuck out of this. Exactly. I went in and I should know better like that. Katrina and I had a really intense training session, maybe a couple of hours before that. So I had- Is that what you call it? Yeah. I had a pump on. I had some adrenaline going because of the place. It was a new place. I was excited of it. So I could tell that I was really uneasy when I got in there. And there was some things that I should have done that I didn't do to about halfway through. What I thought was super dope. And Justin, this is the part you will dig. Yes. I would use this like different ways each time. So I would use this one to go in just to purely meditate, fall asleep and relax. Then I would actually love doing tension movements while you're floating in salt water is sick. Because I would take- So once I got where I was floating completely and I couldn't completely relax, I'm like, well, fuck, I'm in this thing. I may as well like kind of stretch out everything and take it through full internal, external rotation, stretching my fingers. And I started taking like while I'm floating, I took my hips and I rotated my femur as far as I could internally than as far as I could externally. And then I could feel- And you're all like free and suspended. Yes. You're so free and suspended. And I could see, I could feel all of my imbalances like my hips. I could, I squeezed my glutes and kind of I could feel myself neutralize my spine. And then I got my posture where it, so I was like totally doing like posture check on myself while I was floating. And because you're suspended. Yeah, because you're suspended. So I got like this kind of great core work and did all this stuff while I was in it. Now you didn't feel when you, because when I came out, I felt like my central nervous system was so- Sensitive. So sensitive because it really brings it down. I could see this being like CNS recovery. And when they come out, lights were really bright. Like lots of people was almost too much. Like I almost wanted to go meditate afterwards to like reacclimate to the world. You're right. But you said that, so I was kind of ready for it. So right away before I even walked out the room, I put my shades on. I didn't want to get blasted by the light outside because it was still light outside. I did notice too that the music when it came on the second time, so I had earplugs in and I'm laying under the water. And when the music, the music's really faint. If you have earplugs in and you're under the water, it's really, really faint. Well, after I had relaxed for an entire hour and then the music at the last 10 minutes comes back on, it was, I could hear, it was so loud. It was like, it sounded like it was twice as loud, but it wasn't louder. It was just that I was, I'd laid there in complete silence. My breathing sounded loud. Like that was part of why I couldn't settle too. So think about that. Think about that, right? Think about how our CNS is being constantly bombarded with signals, electronic signals, people, loudness. All these frequencies. This is why, one of the reasons why it's so rejuvenating, and I find this more as I get older, it's so rejuvenating to go in nature where you're not getting bombarded with shit and why you feel so replenished, right? So you go in this float tank and it's sensory deprivation, literally. It is completely limiting. It's like a reset. Yeah, and that's what I felt. I felt like my CNS got a crazy reset, which is why when you come out, you don't want to go to, like we went to a restaurant to eat lunch. Yeah, it's like too much. And I was like, this is too much. Like I feel too sensitive to this. I need to let my body react to me. I could see how doing this, if you're in really hard training and you're pushing your body to the limit and you're on that brink of like overdoing it or not doing it enough, you know, especially for athletes where you're always pushing that limit, I could totally see how this has it here. Did you notice he had stealing fire up there also? So I mean, as soon as I walked in, I was like, oh man, great book, right? And started talking to him and he's like, oh, you've read it. I'm like, yeah, not only have I read it, I've actually interviewed Jamie Will and Steven Collar. He's like, what? And so then I told him all about Mind Pop and then I said, I would love to come in here, shoot a whole vlog series. So we exchanged numbers and I'm follow up on him. But I also thought after I did it like, wow, now if I could go back and do it again, I would do some things leading up to that, to like get the maximum benefit of like completely relaxing. Well, what everybody says to do is to have some cannabis beforehand and edible. Apparently it's supposed to be a much more, what do they call it, Transcendent Experience? Transcendent. Transcendent, I just made up a word. Hey, Adam. Transcendental Railroading. Shout out to my boy, Adam. Rubbing off on you a little bit. So I don't know. Yes, I got him. And you know, when people analyze what happens when you sleep with the right amount of cannabinoids, improves the relaxation state or whatever the right brain waves when you're sleeping. So I went in high. So I went in, I went of course, come on. Silly sound. Yeah, come on, dude. Of course. It's a weekend, I'm going in. Absolutely, I'm gonna smoke before I went in. So I did, because I didn't fall asleep, I can't say that it helped or didn't help. I think like I said. I noticed this with you though. It seems like you resist, because you don't remember. You know why? Because he's analyzing too much. Either that or, so they talk about this in meditation or when people take psychedelics and do shamanic voyages or whatever, that some people have a tough time letting go is what the words that they'll use it. And I noticed this when we all did the, what was it called? The Lucid Light Therapy. Lucid Light Therapy, right. Like me, Justin and Taylor were able to like chill because the lights are flashing your eyes and it is a lot, but then when you relax you can go into it and you, it feels very expansive and you see like all these lights and stuff. And you were saying Adam, how it was just too much, you wanted to blink your eyes and then you don't like it until it like stopped. Yeah, it was really annoying. And then you've also said how it's real hard for you to just sit and meditate. Like you need to do stuff and whatever. So I'm, I've been thinking about this too, because I had a lot of the same mechanisms in place when I go through anything like that too. And this is why we, when we started using like Brent Epheminal that I was like, oh cool, cause it's like guided and you can kind of follow something. And it's not like you're just sitting there and trying to like get to that place. But then even for me, more impactful was going through that Wim Hof breathing. And so this is like, so my two cents is like, I'm curious to see if Adam will, if he goes through that, does the ice plunge? Like if that kind of force, cause it really does, it forces you to not analyze anything. Like you can't tense, you can't like focus on anything else other than just trying to get outside of yourself. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, that's the only time it's ever worked for me, dude. Well, Brent FM has been a game changer for me. And you've talked about this in the past. Yeah. Brent FM has been a game changer for me. And don't forget, you know, my woman of six plus years is like, She's an expert on this. Is a meditation genius, bro. And her whole family is. So this is not a new path for me, which I always got to make that clear to all our listeners. Like, oh, Adam's experienced all this. No, I've been in fucking in this. And before that, I was religious and prayer and all that stuff. So this is all familiar territory for me. Right. I just, and I, as soon as I got in there. That's what a hesitancy is though, right? Well, because, you know, I think a lot of people take a lot of this stuff, which has been around, the float tanks have been around since the 70s. It's not fucking new technology. I think even the 60s maybe. Yeah. Yeah, it's been around for a while. Yeah, 60s or 70s. I know it's been around for a very long time. And why it's so popular right now is because of it's the counterculture to being plugged in so much. And it, I think it's a great tool, a great resource. Now, when people start getting very religious about it and get woo-woo about it is when I roll my eyes because I've been around all this for a very long time. And I'll tell you like the lucid light, like annoying as fuck to have a light flickering in your face. I don't give a fuck who you are. Like it maybe that it relaxes you and it helps you. That's good. That's you. You know, everybody is different. Oh no, no doubt. No doubt everybody's different. You've just, you've said, you've talked about this many times at how you have a tough time settling down. Yeah. And when I went in the float tank, man, I got in and right away, like, you know, because they let you can play the music, you can have the lights going, you can do all that stuff. You know, I shut everything down. I focused on my breathing. I did my box breathing to really trying to settle me down. Like I said, I rotated everything in and out and kind of like stretched everything out. So I wasn't in there like, you know, oh come on, work, work for me. No, I know better than to do that. But there was things like I said, I was excited to be in there that probably didn't help the cause. We had a really hard training session a couple of hours before that. So I was probably amped and pumped still from that. I drink a lot of water and fluids. So I probably was, you know, even though I went pee right before, I had to go pee again towards the end. So, you know, there was a lot of factors that came into play that didn't allow me to get fully relaxed. Yeah, I don't, I definitely don't think it's a competition or, you know, one person's better or worse, I think. Well, what I'm saying is that- I think it's just, it's just, your experience is different. I'm not fighting it either, you know. So that's, it's never been, I mean, I think right now, I do arguably probably the most of this stuff, you know? I don't talk about it cause I'm not a big fan of the, like how I feel like how people can get when they start talking about the meditation and being connected to the ground. Like every day I do all these things to, and it's made a huge improvement on life. I'll tell you what though, above all the things that we've experienced and we've done, Brain FM has been the biggest game changer for me. I, all of them have helped, all of them have helped me settle down, become more present. Brain FM has been the game changer of all of them. I've seen it first hand too, when you're in Mexico and you're like on the couch and you're going through just the meditation part, like you're completely, he started snoring and was completely gone, like within like a couple of minutes. In a room full of everybody watching TV was doing stuff, it was crazy. I wonder if, do they sell waterproof headphones? Yeah. I'm wondering if you could get, like put your phone in like a good sealed bag or something where you can listen to it in the float tank. So I already talked to him about it. Oh, okay. So I already talked to him about it, like they're gonna implement it into the float tank. Oh, so it'll be already in there? Yeah, it'll be playing in it. That would be weird. Well, so check this out. This is what I did when I was in Mexico. I got on one of the- Oh, you told us, that's right. Yes, I got on a raft, I put my Bose headphones on and my Bluetooth so I could have the phone outside, right, with all the water, and I floated on top of the water with my meditation brain FM. Oh, bro, nothing has been more relaxing than that. So for me, that's another thing. If I were to go back, I actually enjoy the music to kind of, brain FM really, really helps settle me into that position. Otherwise, it is tough to get a lot of the stuff going on in my head to fully settle down. I did notice it towards the end once I, you know- Do you think if you had stayed in, let's say they didn't kick you out after an hour and you stayed for two hours, you think it would have a second hour would have been different? It's hard to say. Yeah, that's hard to say, because there was a part of me too that was wondering, you know, like, oh, I wonder if I've been in here for 30 minutes or not. Because even when I did it, I didn't write away. At first, I was kind of like, I felt like my body was, here's what I did when I was in there, is I felt like, did you experience this where you're laying flat, relaxed, and then you get the sensation like you may be spinning or floating to one side and you don't know and you wanna go reach and touch the wall, did you get that at all? Oh, of course, yeah, you definitely did. So what I did was, is when I was in that and I was kind of like, and it kept me preoccupied, is I just said, fuck it, I'm gonna imagine that I'm spinning and I went into it to make myself feel it more, then that actually helped me meditate. Instead of being like, okay, I'm not spinning, I said, all right, I'm spinning, let's go into it and see if I could actually, like almost play mind games with myself, like make myself feel it even more. And then I noticed that I was able to get into it, but the first, and it's hard, did you lose perception of time in there? Cause I almost felt like- Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, there was a point where I was like, man, I still got like another 45 minutes or so. Weird, right? Yeah, and then all of a sudden the music came on, I was like, okay. It just goes to show you that your perception of time is you perceive it based on external stimulus a lot. I mean, there's an internal rhythm too, but, and they've done studies of this where they've locked people in a room and then they don't tell them if it's night or day and see what happens. And it's weird because it's an hour, felt like 15 minutes to me, which was very strange. I'm very excited to do it again, knowing what the experience was like, getting out the first one, so now I can like prep myself and getting into it, because I'm going to. Yeah, I'm gonna yoga stretch and do some of my movements, like this on my body is completely relaxed. I'm definitely doing that. Yeah, tension stuff. Yeah. Oh dude, that sounds awesome. That in itself is worth, so I was telling Katrina, I wouldn't mind actually going in there sometimes and actually playing music that I'm not trying to fall asleep and just doing tension, because my body. You're against the machine. Yeah, no. My body felt so good just being suspended like that and feeling all my imbalances, like I was tucking my chin, my hip, and it was crazy because I could feel like I could move my hips here and move my spine. Well, it makes a lot of sense because then it brings it back to everything is intrinsic and that you take gravity out of it so it's not like you're fighting forces. You're creating forces. You may have just, the marketing side of me just made, I mean, you may have created a new correctional exercise, totally. I'm self-assessment. That to me, this time, because I didn't, like I said, I didn't get as meditative of an experience out of it this time because like I said, I think of how I went into it, but it fucking felt great on my body. I felt like I reset my CNS, everything after, and I felt amazing afterwards and I spent a majority of the time, like I said, connecting all that, extending my foot all the way out, all the way up, rotating my shoulders in, out, and touching all those areas. And then trying, and then what I would do is I literally, intrinsically try and hold myself in this perfect neutral spine alignment where I know all my imbalances, right? I have this slight forward head. I know I have an anterior pelvic tilt. I know that one side of my foot slightly internally. So I know where all these issues are. So I'm like trying to address all of them intrinsically and keep myself neutral. Now did you try like in between sets? Just like, I found this really hard to completely relax. Well, that's what I would do between. It took me stages. Like I'd relax and I'd be like, okay, I'm totally relaxed. I'm like, oh no, wait a minute. I'm kind of tensing this a little bit. All right, relax that. So then what I did is I did a checklist. All right, toes, totally relaxed. Feet, oh shit. We got to relax those ankles. And as I moved up, I realized I was holding at the slightest bit of tension in each part of my body where I was holding my position a little bit. And it was really weird to just go through and be totally, totally, totally relaxed. I didn't realize how hard that was. Very difficult. Did you guys, not to change the subject, but did you guys, what's the deal with this whole Zac Efron body, Baywatch workout thing? So Baywatch just came out this weekend. So it just got released this weekend. So of course, all over the cover of all the magazines and the grocery store and everything like that is the sexy Zac Efron and what he looks like. And how he's like when 300 came out. He's so handsome. And you know what? This reminds me of something that has been on my mind anyways that we should do because so many of these terrible celebrity trainers get all this fucking notoriety for doing shit workouts. I looked at the workout so they published the workout. You can see what it is. And it's not horrible. It just could be a lot better. It's like a bro split. You know, a push, right? There is, I'm looking for a workout. It's the movements they chose could be, you could do so much better. Can I just tell you what happened here? I'll tell you 100% what happened. Number one, pretty sure I bet a lot of money that this is not the workout that he did all the time. 100%. Guarantee you what they did is they just put exercises together because now you can pay for this. You can also pay for this Baywatch workout. And it also helps pump up the movie itself. But I'm looking at it right now and there's nothing spectacular about it. In fact, I think the exercise order is a little bit interesting. I don't really even like it, the way they put some of these exercises together. And his celebrity, here's the thing with celebrity trainers. Have you guys seen so far a celebrity trainer that's worth like their salt? You know what I mean? I haven't seen any of them do anything that's the trainers that I respect the most don't typically train. I read over his trainer, his book way back when, I don't know if it's the same trainer she has now or whatever. But I remember reading his, it wasn't bad. But for the most part, most of these guys are just, they're not the greatest programmers for sure. Dude, so Zac Efron's trainer is Patrick Murphy. And you know, Zac Efron reached 5% body fat after just 12 weeks of training. Well, obviously super dedicated diet exercise, probably on something as well. They're in Hollywood for fuck's sake and they make a lot of money. But it's just a regular three day split. Back, biceps, legs, shoulders, chest, arms. And I'm looking at the exercises and I really don't like the way they, it would be fun to actually take that exact workout and the basic bones and structure of it and just improve upon it. Yeah. Like how we would improve it. That would be fun. Yeah, to break it down and show like, okay, let's add some compound lifts in here. Let's do something that actually has some. I mean, they've got some, they've got some bang. This is a position I would, this is a position I'd love to have in this company where we had some one young kid who, all they are doing is like, what's hitting the fucking new stands right now? What's the latest thing that's trending? And then we would evaluate it and then improve upon it. Yeah. It's so for free. It still reminds me of 300 and it's like, anytime there's somebody in great shape has awesome abs and it like, it's so brilliant to just jump on that bandwagon and create like something that directly markets to that. Cause people are just like so superficial. Bro, how many trainers have become famous because of that, right? They become famous after, you know. The 300 workout, the Wolverines workout. Yeah, he got ready for Superman. What's his whole thing? Oh no. Oh yeah. What's his name? That one dude, the super handsome guy. Yeah, like his leg split starts with leg press. God, why are they doing leg press? Why are they having people leg press at all? I don't just have them squat barbell squat like the best exercise on earth. So we could, I think we should do that. Let's put that out. Dumbbell squat front raise. So there was this trend a while ago in fitness that was stupid. Why would you do that? Well, exactly. There was this trend in fitness that was probably about, I don't know, 15 years ago, do you remember this where trainers would take two exercises and combine them? Yeah. Like, okay, we're gonna do a walking lung side lateral twist. Yeah, exactly. It used to be competitive. You do like one move that did like three or four different things and you're just like, fuck. Well, let's, let's. For like a circus in here. I didn't do shit. I know we gotta get to our Q and A, but let's real quick, because you brought that one up, let's just right away explain why that is stupid to me. Like a squat to a front raise. One of the number one, okay, top, this is top three for sure, for everybody. When they squat, having good thoracic mobility because of the fact that everything is rounded and forward because we do everything in front of us, computers, driving, whatever. So your pecs, your delts, you're into. You're already fighting to get your shoulders to retract properly. Exactly. You already struggle to get your shoulders in a retracted position when you're in a deep squat. So to ask somebody to do a front shoulder raise while you're there, you're making a posture, an imbalance that a majority of people already have even worse. That's why that's just horrific. I can see that. You're better off doing like a squat to a reverse body. Tell me you're not gonna round your shoulders at all when you're trying to lift, core, and raise. Not only that, but so I think, so you know when people do a squat, they need to put their arms out in front of them for balance. Maybe that's where he's coming up with the rationale behind it. I could see this as a. This is a front loaded squat. I know, exactly. I could see how this could be maybe a conditioning exercise, you know, sometimes. A goblet squat. Yeah, where you're trying to get someone to like, you know, just move. So you're like, okay, here, do this. It's just aimless movements. You know what I mean? Yes. It has no purpose. No. And so. Well, and this is what's annoying. And this is what, here's the thing too. So what happens, why are these, why these keep servicing, why they keep getting all this attention is people put together these weird combinations. And because you've net, like maybe a consumer, you've never thought to put a. I've never done that. This is the special moves. And this is the part that always pisses me off is that this is, when you look at maps, if there's any knock on it, people are like, oh, I've seen those movements. It's so simple. Yeah, right? Especially red or anabolic. Right, because we took the biggest bang for your buck movements that are going to give you the most, build the most amount of muscle, burn the most amount of fat. That's how we've designed it. It's the beauty of it is the simplicity of it. And it'd be really easy to throw a bunch of crazy, unique exercises people have never seen and have a hard time doing all together and say, here's the maps program. That would be awful, be awful. That's not the idea. This is what drives me crazy. No, the magic is in doing the exercises properly and in programming them. So, but we know it's pretty conclusive. The exercises that are gonna give you the best results and they're the ones that you keep hearing about. Deadlift, squats, overhead presses, heavy rows, supine presses. Bench press. And then there's twisting exercises for that plane. I mean, it's not rocket science. Now, of course, if you're priming, there's where you're gonna get some more complex movements or if you're training for mobility. God, he got into men's fitness too. Is that the one we were in, men's fitness? No, we're in men's journal, men's journal. Man, it's terrible. All right, bring on the burp. Quas! Angle and glamour. Climera quas! Today's quas being brought to you by Chimera coffee. It's the only coffee that is infused with all natural nutrients for a cleaner, calmer and more focused buzz without the crash. Click the Chimera link at mindpumpmedia.com and input the discount code, Mindpump a checkout for 10% off. It's the motherfucking quas. The eagle has landed. Quiqua. First question is from the Logan Doherty. Do you think personal, emotional, psychological growth aids are detriments or positives for physical growth? For example, Adam focused on the ego check. Did that help or harm his fitness goals? Do you want to answer first Adam or since he talked about you? This has been on my mind a lot and this is actually a really good question because right now I am just transitioning back to tracking my food and getting really regimen about my training and my diet and I've been intuitive eating and intuitive training for quite some time now. It's been, I don't remember when I started but it's been a while now and it's been awesome. It's been very freeing. I've maintained myself in decent shape. I've made leaps and bounds with my mobility. Like I've never felt so great with my mobility. My back pain, I've got none of it. My connectivity to my feet and my, even the way my toes are spread out, looks different. Like so much I've made huge improvements and then you talk about, I've been reading aggressively right now so I'm knocking out at least one to two books every single month, spending more time meditating, doing things like the float tank that we talked about, doing a ton of this stuff and it's been awesome. All of it's been awesome, it's been great. Now that being said, it has slightly detoured me from my aesthetic goals. Yeah, from them gains, from trying to be, Mr. Big Buff Guy. So I don't think though it's made major detriments because it's just changed my focus. It's just those things have been a priority and the other ones, part of me completely letting them go is not because I couldn't manage them with all those things. Like I could track and still do all those things. I could increase my training volume and still do all those things. It's just that for me, part of truly letting go and being completely intuitive about how I train and how I eat required me not caring about those things. And so I intentionally let go of all that and I dove deeper into the reading, the meditating and doing all those things. So this will be something that'll be exciting as to what, well, maybe not exciting for everybody. For me, it'll be exciting to learn about myself is as I move forward right now, I'm going to put a lot of focus back on tracking, training and building my physique as if I was competing. In fact, I was even thinking about running myself to get ready for a show as if I was gonna do a show even if I don't do it. But alongside a schedule of one of the big shows that's coming up like USA's or Olympia or something and just diet for eight to 12 weeks and let people follow my journey while I do that even if I don't get on stage. So and meanwhile, I'm going to keep up all the reading, keep up the meditating, keep up all the things that I've been doing. And so I'll probably be able to speak to this even better in about three months while I'm trying to manage the two of them. So I don't think that it's been detrimental. I think it's definitely made such huge improvements that even if I decided to let them all go, it's connected some major dots for me on my own body and awareness and health and my relationship with exercise and food. And it's made me in relationship with myself and my own image. Like so I've been able to let that go and be like, I don't need to have the biggest arms or I don't need to look this certain way. Like as long as I'm healthy and I'm making self-improvement as far as my overall physique and psychological growth and emotional growth, that's a huge win for me. So. I think it's all on how you define, how are you defining physical growth? If you're, if I took a, let's say a top level national competitor bodybuilder, 260 pounds shredded on a shit ton of gear and probably not taking care of their body and their health very well. And then they go on a personal growth, a personal psychological, emotional, personal growth path where they're checking their ego. At the end of that, if they do it right, they probably will stop all the ridiculous gear. They probably will stop harming their body with the amount of food that they're eating. And they probably will lose muscle. But is that a negative? Is that a detriment? Or is that more a true reflection of their true selves? Excellent. And that's what you have to ask yourself. Here's what I noticed for myself. I noticed for me, and I've been doing this for, and I've been doing this for a very long time, is when I train intuitively, eat intuitively and when I'm really, really honest with myself, when I'm really honest with how I eat and I'm really in tune with doing things for overall wellness, my body likes to settle between 188 and 186 pounds. Just where it likes to settle. And I'm lean, I've got some strength and I feel good. Sometimes my ego creeps back in and I wanna get stronger again and I wanna build a little bit again and I start throwing in a little bit of extra food and I change my training a little bit and my weight creeps up into the low 190s, sometimes mid 190s. And so I've got kind of two body types, right? But I had this conversation with my girlfriend last night and she was saying like, oh, I looked at pictures of myself back when I was super skinny and I didn't like the way my face looks. I'm afraid of whatever going there or what if I don't like the way I look when I do this type of nutrition. And we were talking about this and I'm like, your body will kind of settle where it's gonna be it's healthiest as true to yourself as you possibly can be with your food and nutrition, whatever that means. So at the end of the day, really focusing on your ego is always a positive. Always gonna end up being a positive. You may not look the way you did when it was all about your ego, but then again, was that a better place to be? Well, it's closer to balance. I mean, I feel like there's the opposite side of that because you guys are kind of coming from the muscular end of the world, right? Like we're focused on getting bigger and powerful and strong and improving your body from that aspect of it. Whereas being in a place like Paleo Effects or me growing up in Santa Cruz, it's like I get a lot of the check your ego, a lot of the mindfulness, a lot of this kind of like super in touch and in tune from that aspect, they just, they're not focused on strength. They're not focused on physicality of the body. There's extremes to both sides. So that's the thing, it's like the, you just have to kind of realize where you are currently and where you can navigate towards more balance. I think if you really are true about your ego check and you look and you're your true example of yourself, you will be very balanced and you said there's extreme on both sides. There's people, lots of them, we know them, we've met them who identify so strongly with, I'm gonna be healthy and I'm gonna be, I'm gonna meditate, I'm gonna explore my consciousness and whatever, that they identify with that so strongly that that become, they're like bodybuilders but just in that sense. Right, right, exactly. They're no better in my opinion. There is one person who I've met who has exemplified in my personal opinion the truest expression of themselves. Paul Check. Paul Check. And when you look at Paul, okay, from an objective standpoint, here's a man that is 55 years old. He takes his shirt off, he's muscular as fuck, he doesn't look like a bodybuilder but he got damn impressive. The dude can move like better than almost anybody I know and he's 55, he's got abs, he talks calm, he's, you know, he's just a true expression, he doesn't sit there and I have to get this much protein, I have to get this much fat. The guy went vegan for a while because his body was telling him he needed to do it and he said he lost some muscle while doing it but that was what his body was telling him to do. When I meet someone like that, I say that to me is a great example of true wellness and health because I've also met the other side, the hippie who, they look like they're pale, like they're dying because they've identified so strongly with that end that they're not even eating healthy either, like the wind blows and they just fall over. They're depriving their body of certain nutrients and they're not strength training because everything is all about stretching and relaxing and, you know, that side. I think Paul was a great example. When I met, years ago, when I met Jacquela Lane, Jacquela Lane blew me away and he was like that also. I looked at Jack and I'm like, and he was 90 something years old when I met him. So impressive to me and he gave off that energy and there's a few times in my life where I've met people who were older, who really blew me away with that. There was a woman that used to work out at one of the gyms that I managed. She came into my gym. She was in her 60s. She had long gray hair. She had these deep wrinkles in her face but she looked so healthy and vibrant. There was nothing fake about her. There was no facelift. There was no augmented breasts. There was no, you know, she wasn't coming in, you know, to look a particular way. She just did it because it made her feel good and she was healthy and sometimes she came in and she lifted weights heavy. Sometimes she came in and she would meditate in the aerobics room or she'd do yoga or she'd do body weight movement or whatever, you know, I would see her doing all these different things and her workouts at the time to me didn't make sense. Now they make plenty of sense. And I remember meeting this woman and being like so attracted to her and I don't mean it in the sexual sense. I just meant like she was a magnet and I would talk to her all the time because I was completely blown away by her approach and now looking back, she was just really, you know, listening to her body. Super in tune with her body. Exactly, so at the end of this path, here's what's gonna, here's what will happen, here's what will happen to me is I would go, the pendulum would swing in either direction. I'd go, oh, I'm intuitive eating, I'm intuitive training and it turned into I don't care. And then, okay, now I care, I'm gonna track and build up everything. Oh no, I care too much and now it's all ego and I go back and forth. But I noticed through each cycle, the pendulum swing a little less and a little less and I'm somewhere now in the fourth cycle of this, I'm nowhere near where I feel will be ideal. Well, that's the important thing is you can never really be fully comfortable. Like you have to introduce new stimulus. You have to like kind of check yourself where you are to, you know, okay, I'm here, now where do I improve from here? And it's just like, you know, you get to a place but then you wanna introduce something else to provide that change from either direction. And here's something else I noticed. I used to look at really shredded bodybuilders and, you know, bikini competitors and I would admire like how they look and I'd be like, fuck, I wish I could look like that guy without having to take steroids. Like, wow, they look so cool. Oh my God, that's so impressive. And as I've gone through this like self-examination, ego check, understand wellness and health from different levels and different understandings. When I see that now, what I see is dysfunction, both physical dysfunction and just their movement, you know, and you can see muscle imbalances and stuff, but also dysfunction internally. I can see it in their skin. I can see it in their health. I talk to them and I can just hear it in their voice like this person is just not healthy. It's all about how they look and it doesn't seem attractive to me anymore. And the reason why I wanna say that is there's people listening right now who are so closely, they're grabbing on so hard to their muscular goals that any, like any thought of them losing a little bit of muscle because they're gonna go on this path of wellness will keep them from doing it. And they would look at these people and they like idolize them. And what happens is you start to really see that the true, it's a reflection of what you think is gonna make you happy. And when you really move down that path, you start to look, like I said, you start to look at these people and you start to see kind of disease and dysfunction. And what's really interesting is the, for example, we'll talk about bodybuilders. You take a pro bodybuilder or even an amateur bodybuilder and you take a bunch of guys that wanna build muscle, they'll look at that guy and be like, I wanna look like that guy. The average woman looks at that guy and says he's gross. Those are the words that they use, that person looks gross. And I think it's because- You're using extreme analogy. Extreme, it's extreme, but I think- That doesn't happen with a men's physique looking guy. Well, there's a lot of- Ew! You know what? Think about it. Let me tell you. No, well think about it. We see them. Ah! Think about it. Would a physique like a Brad Pitt from Fight Club be more attractive to the mainstream than a top level men's physique competitor? I think so. I absolutely think so. So there's even instinctually- Those are pretty close though, so. Even instinct, no way, dude. Brad Pitt on stage on a men's physique contest maybe when it first came out, but now the guys are looking like- Well, yeah, if you're completely- Of course, yeah. My point is that he's- He's got millions and millions of dollars. Yeah, he's got a lot of that going for him. I want to defend this a little bit though, because one of the things I love about our show is that we've done a really good job of helping people connect these dots and become more in tune with their relationship with food, with exercise, and with their own body image. And I think that's a lot of our message. Now, during this time that we have spent talking about this, I also feel like we have somewhat demonized or made people feel guilty for wanting to look really fucking good. And I think that's not fair. No, no, I don't think so. I think that we have to be careful of that. And I just want to put it out there. First of all, a lot of people think they've seen like this crazy transition of me with my ego and all this stuff, because at the beginning of the show, I was labeled as Adam the Ego, and I've been working on all this stuff like that. The truth of the matter is, I happen to be a pretty fucking self-aware, emotional, intelligent guy, and that's what I've been. I've read books like this my entire life, so it hasn't been this huge, altering thing for me. And now, I loved Men's Physique so much, and now I'm super anti. I love to show people that you can't put me in a box, and you can't categorize me, and you can't tell me that I am a bodybuilder or I'm a hipster guy, like you're about to see me transition back into this bodybuilder type of mentality guy, which for me means I'm tracking my food, I'm increasing my volume and training, and I'm checking the scale, I'm measuring my food. I'm gonna do those things. And I don't think there's anything wrong with me doing those things. And my goal is to fucking look really awesome. That's what I'm gonna be working on right now. Am I gonna still include my mobility? Absolutely, am I still gonna include being mindful and float tank and meditating and brain FM? Absolutely, but there's nothing wrong with going after a physical goal like that. It's understanding and being aware of what that could lead to, which is people identifying with that. I don't identify, I didn't even identify with that before I went into competing, much less when I went through it and reached the pinnacle of it. It'll be interesting to see how much more, if at all efficient you may be this time around. You know what I mean? I want more effective. I think, I mean, every year that, I mean, I'm 15 plus years into this game. And I think every year I get a little bit better and a little more in tune. I mean, Abraham Lincoln said it, right? Like I have no respect for a man that is no wiser today than he was yesterday, right? So I live by that mantra of always growing and always evolving. And I think that every year I'll be better no matter what I don't, what I don't think is it has anything to fucking do with any books that I've read in the last year. I don't think it has anything to do with me going super mobile guide now. No, I was, that's the perception that people might have because they've been paying attention to this show. That hasn't been this great evolution of me. I'm gonna go back to like, sometimes like I get it so much now that makes me wanna go back and compete just to show motherfuckers that now I'm not like all stuck in this box and think that's so bad. Like there's nothing. When you go into it. Yeah, but I don't think you need to prove yourself anything. No, I don't, that's why I won't. But my point is that it's not, I don't want people to think that because you have a goal to compete and maybe one day be a pro and men's physique or bodybuilding bikini, that there's something wrong with that. You can do that. You can set goals like that. You can fucking kick ass at it and you can be very mindful and aware of what you're doing. Like I used to, when I was competing from day one, I used to tell people why I was tracking my progress. I'd say, listen, here's where the sport of it comes in. Right now, it's eight weeks out. I'm eating very healthy balance. I'm training very healthy, very balanced. As I get closer to show time and now I'm required to look a certain way on stage, watch me go to the sport side of this and I'm gonna start doing things that I'm very aware of that are not ideal for my body. I think it's important to point out that first off, there's growth that comes from challenging yourself and any way you do it. Absolutely. So I don't want the message to get mixed up that it's like if you go into it right, you challenge yourself, whether that means you're climbing Mount Everest which is not healthy or you compete in a bodybuilding show which is not healthy, you can come out of it with a lot of growth and that's true for any challenge on your body. I think, especially when you've been in fitness as long as you have, there's a lot of fun and learning you can do in all aspects of it. And that's just growth. It's not being growth-minded. And something else, I'll tell you right now, if I were to compare the year and a half or two years of whatever it was that I went through competing to, let's say the previous, or this last year or so of not competing and being mindful and being more connected and reading more, whatever, the amount of growth that I made as a trainer, as a coach, as nutrition training, I made more competing than ever in my life. That it made me so in tune with my body and I learned so much about food going through that process. I've become way better of a coach and a trainer because of it than I ever was previously. And that was because I took my body to these levels and extremes. And that's why, and I know I tease you sometimes, Sal, because you talk about being so in tune with your body because for me, I've never been as in tune as I was when I took my body to that level of where I was not only super incredibly lean and depleted, but then I also was tracking everything to the gram so I could increase my carbs by X amount at this day and I would evaluate how I felt. And when I started to connect those dots, it was like, whoa, so much blew my mind about how these foods were affecting me because I was so detailed about it. So that gave me a new level of awareness that I would never have accomplished had I not taken myself through that. So, I know I'm on my soapbox about this, but I felt like this is an important, I'm glad you picked this question because this has been on my mind a lot. And I feel like we've definitely, we've attracted a lot of the hippies. We've attracted a lot of the people that- I've been feeling the same thing and even with the message. Well, and you know why we've gone that direction is because our voice, we're talking to people that have the same mindset that we had forever, for years. And so to combat that and to bring them into the more healthy end of things, it's led us down into more mindfulness and, you know, intuitiveness and like figuring that piece of it out and extracting yourself from identifying with this like super human like body type that we have to like acquire and achieve. Like we're, so like I understand why we've gone this direction, but it's, it is at a point where it's like, I got a lot out of sports, you know? Like sports challenged me like on every level, like emotionally, physically, you know, like everything like to the breaking point, you know? I got to points where like my body just felt broken and, you know, my mental state like I felt beaten down and I overcame a lot of shit because of that. And like in the brotherhood and all that kind of stuff that I experienced with that I wouldn't replace that for the world. It's just, it's the transition process because I don't want to always, I'm not that guy. Like I'm not always that guy, that's an experience. There's always a danger of identifying with anything. Yeah, it's a level of awareness while you go through that process. I was just hiking with Taylor over the weekend and he was asking me questions about competing and what that was like and, you know, because of all the stuff that we talk about. And he's like, oh, do you, you know, do you see yourself never going or doing, I'm like, no, not at all, absolutely. I see myself like that. I'll say it, I'll say something right now. This is the fucking truth. That to this day, there is not a moment that, that it does not like, that I can't remember more clear in that feeling than the feeling of, and I, and he had never heard me tell it this way because he hasn't really paid attention to all the bodybuilding shit. I said, listen, USA's, when I went to USA's, first of all, those that have no idea about fucking competing, USA's is the most prestigious show besides Olympia. Okay, Olympia is the biggest show and then USA's is the next biggest show as far as how prestigious it is, as far as who comes, how big it is. It's in Las Vegas. It's all the first place winners in the entire country are going on to one place one time a year to compete to see who the best motherfucker is. The top two people get to go pro. I took second place on that stage. So now imagine when I'm standing inside of Wet Republic and Calvin Harris is spinning. So the place is sold out. There's probably 20,000 people fucking in this area. And I'm standing up on the highest VIP booth dancing and enjoying myself after taking second. That means I have, for sure, not maybe the best fucking physique in that entire fucking area at that time. That feeling that moment was one of the coolest fucking feelings ever. Does that make me a bad person? Does that make me somebody who's like, you know, identifies with that? No, it's interesting that you would say that though. Why would you say, does that make me? It's like you're defending it so strongly, which... I'm defending it so strongly right now because I feel like our message has been so anti that. That's why. You've never heard me share it that passionately before, but this conversation that we're having right now is reminding me of that. And this has been on my mind a lot because I feel like we've been on this kind of trend, right, we kind of go in waves on mine pump of we've been going the opposite way so long that I don't want to send the message to people that you should feel bad for that. Like I don't, I shouldn't feel guilty for that feeling or that moment. Like that was an incredible, credible moment. And we talk so bad about bodybuilders and like how they're so not aware. And this now, well, we don't necessarily know that maybe a majority of them, you know, because I've been around it and I see how bad it is. And we've talked. Well, there's the bodybuilding that is the minority which is people who compete all the time. And then there's the bodybuilding which is the majority. It's just people who like to lift weights and do bodybuilding exercises, you know. And most people have no desire to ever step on a stage and compete. Most people just wanna lift weights and look good and feel good. And a lot of what we talk to, I think, is that. Those are the people that we talk to the most. We do have a lot of competitors who we talk to. And like any extreme endeavor, I don't care if it's athletic or mental. I know people who go to school to pass the bar and go to extremes to do it and lose in touch of their health and their mental sanity just to do that. Same holds true for bodybuilding or physique or bikini is that you're going into an extreme endeavor and like any tool that has that much power, it can affect you very positively or it can affect you very negatively. And you just have to know what you're getting into. Again, like anything extreme, I mean, you can go and become addicted to marathons and have horrible results from it and it can really damage your body and your mind or you can go into marathons and come out with and become better as a result. And it really doesn't matter what it is. We talk about bodybuilding because we're closer to that world than I think almost anything else or at least I was a fan of it and Adam competed in it. But it's true for anything. Yeah, I think that this was just a good question and a good time because of our message, the way it's been for so long. And I think it's important that people know that, that I by no means am anti, I don't think we are anti bodybuilding or getting in shape that way and going to the extreme. You just got to approach it the same way how we feel about like CrossFit. It's a sport, it's a sport. It's not what's healthiest and ideal for the body to live in that world year round, year round. But it is something that I think you can do and be very aware of what you're doing to your body at the time and have some sort of balance because there is a lot of good that actually can come from it too. Quick interruption by our sponsors, you guys. Lots of people have been asking us how they can support the Mind Pump Mafia family. Our first one is our Chimera coffee that we love. You guys go to chimeracoffee.com. That's Chimera with a K for 10% off. Don't forget Mind Pump at the checkout. We also have our big top beard company.com for 33% off. Also Mind Pump at the checkout. Also Brain FM, we talk so much about this for sleep and meditation. It's brain.fm for 20% off. Also Mind Pump at the checkout. You guys, we also talk a lot about books on here all the time we're using that Audible. You guys can get a free trial, 30 day trial plus one free audio book. If you go to audibletrial.com forward slash Mind Pump. And then last, we get lots of people asking about Ben Greenfield CBD Supplement. So we hit him up to hook you guys up. You go to getnaturedblend.com forward slash Mind Pump for that discount. Our next question is from Yanuli. I recently heard that feeling the burn when lifting is not good. In the past, I always heard people talk about the burn. Is it good? Bad? Please explain. Neither. Ooh, gonorrhea. Exactly. Where are you burning? Yeah, where's the burning sensation coming from? Burning my biscuits. So feel the burn was a marketing term coined by the fitness industry to sell. And then repurposed by Bernie Sanders. Exactly. Exactly. Idiot. To sell exercise videos. So back in the 70s and 80s, like Jane Fonda and who's the other girl? Austin, something Denise Austin, made like tons of money and built these empires selling these home exercise videos to women. And they were all body weight based movements. And it was all about, you're not gonna build big muscles, you're gonna build, you're gonna tone and sculpt. And the way you do it is by doing a shit ton of reps and feel the burn or go for the burn, aim for the burn. And that was their marketing ploy. So now you hear people talking about feeling the burn is it good or bad? It's neither. It's not good or bad. It just is a signal that there's waste byproducts building up in the muscle. Fatigue is building in. It's not lactic acid. We used to think it was lactic acid building up, but it's not. Has more to do with I think the calcium channel. People still think it's that all constantly. Yeah, no, it's actually in fact lactic acid helps create more energy for muscles when you're moving. It's just a sign. Plus you would die if that happened, right? If you had all that much build up of lactic acid, you would die. I think your muscle, yeah. If your bloodstream had that much you away. Built up in it, you would die from it. Yeah, no, it's not the lactic acid. It has something to do with calcium channels. Although that's what I used to say when I was a young trainer. Yeah, same here. Damn it. You can train your body so that it doesn't, your muscles don't burn as soon. So, if I did an exercise with 12 pound dumbbells and I did 20 reps and it really burns like crazy at rep 25 and I can't do anymore, as I get more endurance, as my muscles become more efficient at utilizing energy and getting rid of waste, I'll burn at 30 reps or 35 reps. So, but no, it's just a signal that fatigue is happening and there's waste building up. It's not something you need to aim for, necessarily. Just listen to it like any other signal. Some training, you have no burn. I mean, phase one of, Yeah, you don't get a lot of burn at all. No. When you're working five rep range, there's little burn. There's no burn at all. You get a lot of, I could sit and put my arms out to my sides and rotate into little circles and I'll get my shoulders on fire after about two or three minutes of doing that nonstop. Is that gonna give me the best results for muscle building? Good analogy. It's not gonna give me the best results at all. I'll build a little bit of endurance within very short range of motion. So, you gotta be careful when you hear people saying like, No, you have to aim for this. Like, here's the fatigue you're looking for. Here's the feeling. Oh, it's good to bring up because I mean, like you just mentioned with like the phase one type training, it's like people are like, Oh, I don't know if I got anything out of that, because they're not feeling a burn afterwards. And it's like, there's too much rest, and it's just like, they don't understand like the process. Like we're focusing on central nervous system training. Like we're not trying to get you to a place where it's like I'm feeling that super muscle fatigue. Well, chasing the burn reminds me of people who chase the pump. It's very similar. Very similar. And I know we talk a lot about that. This was a major game changer for me also where we talk about paradigm shattering moments was when I started training in that one to five rep range. Because even as a trainer, I used to think to myself like, there's no, I never need to compete. I never need to lift maximum weight like that. I don't care. I don't know what my bench, what my squat, what my deadlift, what my max is. I never lift less than eight to 10 reps. I was always chasing the pump. I had a very, I trained very much so a bodybuilder mentality. Even though I knew the benefits of the different phases, I still stuck to that, which is crazy to me, which was also, I think what leads us all to know that there's probably tens of thousands of people that are listening that are probably the same way too, that are chasing this burn or chasing this pump. And if you're somebody who's like that, nothing's gonna benefit you more than probably heading over to the one to five rep range because you're gonna get some huge results from that because you never train that way. And the opposite is true. If you're the guy or girl who just loves to max out. Never feels the burn. Yeah, never feels the burn. It hits PRs. Guess what? Going to hit some supersets, chase the pump and find the burn and watch what kind of results you're gonna get from that. Yeah, that's interesting that you say that. It's a great point because I think what's, what may be more important to focus on is understand the type of fatigue that you're gonna feel or the body signals you're gonna feel based on the type of adaptation that you're trying to elicit. So I'll give you an example. Let's say I'm doing explosive plyo training. The last thing I wanna feel when I'm doing plyo training is the burn. Once I start to get fatigue in that particular sense, I'm no longer teaching my body to be explosive with its contractions. Now I'm training simply for endurance. Yeah, it's now becoming anaerobic. Yeah, and I just, I'm just doing box jumps as a result. I'm doing box jumps for endurance, which I might as well just go for a run or get on the stair master. With plyo jumps, I'm not looking for the burn at all. What I'm looking for is the ability to explode as quickly and as forcefully as possible, which means in between jumps, I need to rest as long as it takes for me to be able to do that. And when I notice that I'm no longer explosively creating this forceful jump, I'm done, I'm done with the exercise. And what you'll notice when you do plyo jumps is the first couple sets, you're almost getting into the groove by the third, fourth set, you're jumping harder and higher than you were before. And once you start to see that detriment, you're done with your training. Complete opposite from training for a burn or for a pump. Now on the flip side, if I'm training for muscle endurance and I'm not getting a burn, then I may wanna aim for it a little bit, right? I may wanna kinda go for that particular feel. So learn to understand what you're aiming for, what you're feel, what you're trying to feel for that type of adaptation. If I'm training for maximal strength, all I'm trying to do when I'm deadlifting for sets of one to three reps as I'm trying to feel as strong and as tight as possible. And when that hard core, when that fatigue starts to set in for those sets, now I'm really fatigued, I'm done, I'm done with that type of training. You're trying to channel into that highest amplitude you could possibly produce right then, and then that's it. I think if people start thinking of exercise as practice, they'll train so much more effectively versus beat myself up or do something to my muscle. When you think like that, it tends to stir. Or do squatted shoulder raises. Yeah, exactly. That's fucking idiot. It starts to steer you in the wrong direction a little bit, you know what I mean? I'm like, no, I gotta, if I'm thinking of practice and I'm perfecting this movement and aiming for this particular adaptation, you tend to be a little smarter with your training. Well, this month, all month long, we're doing something that we've never done before, which I'm really excited about, which is that we're starting a starter pack bundle, which is like, okay, if we have somebody who's just coming on board, they're listening to the show, what is the ideal way for us to start off with our programming? And that would be our Maps Red program with our nutrition, with our fasting guide, and access to the forum. So right now, that's gonna be running all month long. And you'll see within Maps Red, there's gonna be a phase where you're gonna feel that burn. And then there's gonna be another phase where you don't feel that at all. And they're both very important to you maximizing your results. So there is a way to phase that in and out. And in that program alone, you're gonna get all those benefits from that. To be clear, this episode is actually gonna release, I think on the last day of May. So that's the promotion for June, but we'll start it, since you said that, we'll start it today. And that's taking those things that you mentioned and making a massive discount. And the reason why we're doing it is because we've got a new flood of listeners coming in from some of the other podcasts that we've been on. So if that's okay, Doug, we can run that, start that on the last day of the month. Yeah, sounds good. Let's get going. All right. All right, our next question is from Sarah Getzfit underscore recovered. What are your thoughts on cluster sets? Are they effective or are they a recipe for injury? So I'm assuming they're talking about circuits, right? When you combine like three or more exercises. They're a cluster of fuck. Yeah, when you put three or more exercises together and do them. Now, the typical way people think of circuits is they think of circuits as these like fatigue-based type workouts or fatigue-based type programming. So I'm doing 20 reps here, 20 reps there, 20 reps on another exercise. And I'm just getting really exhausted and trying to burn a lot of calories. And my goal with the circuit is to burn more calories in a shorter period of time and lift weights at the same time. That's one way to do a cluster set or a circuit. It's in my view also the least effective way of doing them. I love to do circuits or cluster sets with strength training. I like to put three heavy sets together. In fact, I just did it today where I did a single or a double of squats, dips and pull-ups. And so I do like a heavy single with squats, rack up the weight, walk over the dips, strap the weight around my waist. A heavy single or double with dips, walk over to the pull-up bar, weight around my waist. With your most demanding one first. Yes, and what I find with that is it gives me this total body anabolic signal. It also teaches my body to be able to exert strength in these different planes and different movements. And it's just another, it's like I'm throwing my body a curve ball in terms of adaptation. So then the other way I like to do cluster sets is I'll do opposing body parts. So I'll go hamstring quad or back chest, bicep tricep, which are more like supersets. I think they're very effective if used properly. I think they can be a recipe for injury when you're doing a shit ton of fatigue-based programming and somewhere towards the end of your circuit, you're doing a very technical exercise like overhead squat or a snatch or a clean. And that definitely is not a good idea because you're doing a very technical movement. I think you need to get rid of them. And I'll tell you why. Have you been on her page yet? No. Okay, so I'm gonna address you directly. I'm gonna address you directly. And the reason why I'm looking at her page right now and she used to have an eating disorder. And she looks like she's doing great now with working on her body image issues and gaining weight is like her main focus right now. So if you get up on her page right now, you'll see that she used to be like super extreme running, starving her body and struggled with her body image. Now cluster setting, super setting, high intensity workouts are feeding into that same issue that you've always had. In fact, your training should probably have long rest periods and you should be training heavy. And I would get out all the, and maybe you're not ready to transition here yet, but this is the direction that you need to go eventually. And this is very common with somebody who has these body image issues where they feel that they, as soon as they eat, they gotta go run it off right away because they ate 500 calories and so they need to go run until they've surpassed 500 calories. So maybe you've gotten better about that and you've just now transitioned over using weight training instead of running as that. And so you're doing these high intensity type workouts. You're kinda trading one thing for the other. You're just getting more benefits because now you're resistance training so you're probably building a little bit of muscle. If you wanna really move on and continue to grow on the body image issues that you've suffered from before, then I would not recommend, and I've dealt with many clients in the exact same shoes that you were in and that you're currently in right now. And I would not be doing cluster sets. I would not be doing super sets. I would not be doing HIIT workouts. All those things are feeding into the stuff that you've struggled with. Your body probably just plain and simple needs a little strife with just straight strength training. Straight, set, strength training, focus on basic, like maps, anabolic for her would be perfect. And in fact, I would even have her take out the super sets of phase three and just do the HIIT rips of phase three. But phase one for you, Sarah, will blow your fucking mind. Your body will respond so well from training with, I mean, Adam's right on the button because I just looked at your page also. And that's a mental discipline. That's something that's gonna be a struggle to do, but just rest in the fact that it's so different and shocking and hard for you to wrap your brain around that it's gonna be transformative for your body. And here's another thing too, like when you look at some of these pages, I'm not talking about her anymore, I'm talking about just in general, you'll see, and if you just be objective, you'll see lots of signs that this person has, they've progressed to another level, but they've taken their obsession with food and it's moved into another phase, which is better than where it was, but it's still an obsession. And the way you can tell is if you look at your own page, if you, all of us who are listening, look at your own page and if you're someone that's dealt with body image issues, scroll through your feet, through all your pictures and if most of your pictures or a lot of your pictures are of food and there are foods that are like, I mixed cookies and cream with this and I was able to take peanut butter and put it on this and it fits my macros and here's some pancakes and it's all centered around that, you've taken your food obsession and just moved it to another level, but it's still there, you still have it. And that bleeds into exercise obsession as well. And I'm not saying this to single people out and I don't want you to feel bad about what you're doing, but be very objective and like Adam said, one of your best things you may want to try doing is going the opposite direction. If you were super endurance, super circuit, whatever. Well, I just wanna point out too that you're extremely common, believe it or not. You are not alone and I just said this on the episode the other day, it's amazing. Most of the people that are like, we're all, the opposite people are doing the opposite things, right? Like the hippie crunchy people that are doing all the meditating and the relaxing and being mindful and grounded and pleasant, they need some fucking beast mode in their life. They need to do some cluster sets. They need to super set. They need to go get after it every once in a while. Putting that stress on their body would probably do a lot of good for them. Unfortunately, they're so that extreme that they're anti that, right? And then the people that are beast mode getting after it, running like crazy, cluster setting, super setting like crazy. Those motherfuckers could probably be mindful a little bit and slow down and actually train like one to five reps and rest two to three minutes between the rest and maybe go do some meditating. So, I think all of us are guilty of this and I think all of us should look at ourselves and go like, well, where do I fall? And do I find a way to kind of incorporate all that? So we're all gonna gravitate towards one or the other for whatever reasons, whether it be we had an eating disorder or we just, we played sports when we were younger or we gravitate to a certain way. Doesn't matter, point being that we're all naturally gonna gravitate one way or the other and it's learning to be objective. Like Sal said, and look at that and say, oh wow, could this be another form of what I kind of was doing just a little bit, it's a little less worse than what it was before. And when I look at the profile and you ask a question like this with cluster sets, cluster sets, well, if you were a client of mine, I'll tell you right now, we would not be doing cluster sets. No, you'd be in phase one. Yeah. A map set of bars. And maybe longer than normal because I think that if anything, you would benefit from staying in that type of training for a while longer than the average person. So just keep that in mind. Next question is from Polkadot Squats. What do you think of the Fat But Fit movement? Oh, good question. Polkadot Squats, that's Brianna, good friend of mine. I coached her for a little while. She just took third place in her first powerlifting. Yeah. So she's on our forum. Congratulations to her. She was awesome to work with. This is a great question. The Fat But Fit movement. So I definitely like the message behind it because people in their healthy states when they're represented in their truest sense of their healthy states, come in different shapes and sizes. That means some of us are gonna look leaner than others. Some of us are gonna be curvier or heavier. That means some men are gonna be. We're gonna be husky. Some men are gonna have a little bit more body fat on them and some guys are gonna be a little skinnier, more ectomorphish. And this is true for women as well. And this means that some people are gonna be bigger but be very healthy and very fit. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I think there's a big problem with, I mean, God, I'm gonna be preaching to the choir here, right? When you look at all the marketing that comes at us, the understanding that we start to get, even as children, is that healthy looks like young and lean. That's what healthy is. Healthy is young and lean. And if you're anything but young and lean, it's not attractive. So even if you're lean but you're old, you're not healthy. Or if you're heavier because that's just your body's authentic representation of its health, that you're not healthy. You have to be this, what we see in magazines and what we see on the internet, which is super unattainable and is one particular way of looking. And many times, does it represent health even in the people that are posing for these pictures online? So I like the base of the fat but fit movement. You can definitely be based on model, mainstream model standards, fat, which by the way, is not hard to do, right? You can be overweight based on those standards, but be very healthy. Have a great mindset. Be very fit to where you can perform. I've known some athletes that never had a six pack in their lives but could fucking outperform. And look, okay, one of the best- Fador. That's what I was just gonna say. One of the best fighters of all time in mixed martial arts was Doi. He looked Doi. Now, he didn't look shredded and I don't think he was fat. Like if you met him in person, you'd be like, ooh, that's a big dude. But he wasn't like this ripped avatar of what we were thinking in a video game or what a good fighter should look like. And that dude could kick everyone's ass and did not get tired. His brother was the same way. Great endurance. Look at that other fighter. What's his name? The dude with the beard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just trying to think of his name too. Big country. Big country's another guy. You're just like, man, he's got a huge gut and man, the power that guy could produce. But you thought he would get exhausted. I was like, oh my God, this guy's gonna get destroyed and he was just killing fools. He was. And then I know people who, when you look at them, you look at their body, they're like, wow, that person looks super fit and they've got all these health problems. They've got all these mental issues with exercise and nutrition and they're not overall fit. So fat but fit movement, I totally support it. Now here's the problem with it. It also becomes this rally cry for people who. This is where I was in a chime and I was wondering if you're gonna go here. You just mentioned this on the show the other day that somebody asked, what was the question they asked that led you to talk about this? I love my body. I'm proud of my body. I don't care what, you know. Just like anything else, there, you know, whenever a movement period happens, we just got the beginning of this episode was about the whole fucking mindfulness and hippie movement. And then what happens extreme, you know, there's always, everybody has to take everything to the fucking extreme, man. That's human nature, dude. It's always gonna happen. It's like there's a lot of good that can come from this fat but fit movement. But then of course, what that turns into is actually a bunch of really insecure people about being fat that are trying to use that as a shield to deal with the issues that they're really dealing with inside because they're unhappy. Because if you're really, truly, you know, fit and taking care of your body, your body will normally reflect it. Like if you can see that, you can see it on their skin, you can see it in their eyes, you can see it on their way. You won't be carrying, you know, 30 extra pounds of body fat on you if you're really, really healthy. And it- Well, it's great to build that confidence, you know, wherever you are, as far as like, okay, if I'm overweight, but now all of a sudden, I have all this like extra confidence to carry myself with this. But let's now channel that into improvement. You know, like let's not just stop there and be like, hey, I'm, you know, I'm so great and I love my body. And then that's where I become complacent to where like I can improve, become healthier and whatever that looks like, everybody's individual. Like we're trying to describe with that. But yeah, it becomes an excuse. And in fact, I don't like, I don't even like the way that they named it. Like what does that mean? Fat, but fit. Like what it, like, it's almost like you're like, oh, I'm apologizing for the, I'm fat, but hold on a second. I know I'm fat. It's kind of an oxymoron. But I'm also fit. Like what does that mean? Why don't we just call it like fit? Why don't we just call it the fit movement or just the health movement? Why is this whole fat but fit? It's also, you know, if you're identifying your body image by what you don't look like, then you have a problem. What I mean by that is like, oh, I'm not skinny like that person over there, but I'm fit. Like what if that person didn't exist? What would you be? You know what I mean? That whole contrast, that type of thing. Like I've seen body shaming, like acceptable body shaming is when you body shame skinny people. Like for some reason it's cool to talk about, she's got a flat ass. She's skinny, she's got bones. Men want, you know, women with real curves. Or you guys, or guys are like, you know, abs on a skinny guys, like tits on a fat girl or whatever. Like it's all the same shit. Like I can see your ribs. It's all the same shit. And look. You're shitting on everybody. The goal should always be to love your body. Now let's just examine that for a second. If you truly love and care for your body, you're gonna eat a certain way. Just the way it is. You're not gonna feed it bad foods a lot. You might sometimes, because there's other benefits to sometimes celebrating things like birthdays and holidays. And hey, I'm gonna drink with my friends because we're bonding and we're enjoying this moment together. But you're not gonna do it very often because you truly love your body. Loving your body doesn't mean I love my body and I don't care about my body. So I'm gonna do whatever I want to my body. Well, that's the opposite of loving your body. That's not loving your body. It's hating your body and hating yourself. And that's where you can get some of the negatives of this particular movement. And like anything, people will take it, identify with it and turn it into something. Right, take it to the extreme. Take it to the extreme. So. Take it to the limit, take it to the limit. What was that in? Was that Scarface? I don't know. Yeah, I think it was Scarface. Was it? Yes, it was. Hey. Hello. 30 days of coaching. We have it at mindpumpmedia.com. It's free for anybody. It is an amazing resource of fitness information. It's, I mean, packed full of information with podcast episodes where we timestamp, where we talk about particular subjects, bullet points on those subjects, studies to back up our opinions and methods of training and exercise and meditation and all these different types of things. Highly recommended, everybody does it, whether you're a beginner or advanced, but especially if you're a beginner, you get it at mindpumpmedia.com. Also, if you wanna ask us a question that we can answer on these Q and A episodes, the place to do it is on Instagram. You go to Instagram, mindpumpmedia is the page. Ask the questions there. If we like your questions, we'll answer them on air. And lastly, each of us have our own Instagram pages and they're all unique and they all provide different fitness value. You can find my page at mindpumpsal. Adam is at mindpump, Adam. And Justin is at mindpump, Justin. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.