 In this episode of Mind Pump, we talk all about training to failure and why you probably shouldn't do it. Sal also talks about why he's cutting caffeine and how he's doing it. I'm drinking the shit out of the red juice. We also get into, hey, why are Mind Pump sponsor programs or products so expensive? It's all about quality people. And finally we had four questions that we took from our Instagram account. One question was about training for VO2 Max versus training for cardiovascular health. Another question was about when did you guys decide to go all in on Mind Pump? Well, if you don't want to listen to the entire episode and you need just short highlights from the show, go to Mind Pump Clips and subscribe there on our other YouTube channel and you can get everything broken down into digestible pieces. All right, here comes the show. Enjoy. Lifting to failure can produce accelerated muscle growth. However, there's some very interesting caveats. Don't listen to the caveats and you will burn yourself out. All right, so I want to talk about... So there's a place for this. There is. I want to talk about it because it's constantly brought up, constantly, about lifting to failure. I saw this study. I did this thing. They talk about, you know, you got to go real hard, real intense and whatever. And so I wanted to talk about lifting to failure and its potential benefit and why for most people it's just too much intensity most of the time. But used at the right times, it could produce some pretty interesting results. Pretty interesting results. Obviously there's some prerequisites that you got to consider before we get into this kind of intensity. Yeah, well, I'm going to define failure first. So I'm not talking about literally failing in the lift. Like you're working out and you can't move it anymore and you fall down or you drop the weight. That's what I'm talking about. I talk about form failure. So what I'm referring to is you cannot possibly lift the weight for another good form rep. So you stop. That means you failed. Okay. Not that you can't lift it at all anymore. That's not the kind of failure I'm talking about. So I'm talking about technical failure. I think some people refer to. So that's number one because if you train to crappy form failure, you end up training poor recruitment patterns. You dramatically increase your risk of injury. And then it really just becomes about how much weight you can add to the bar, how many more reps you can squeeze out, how much more you can move. And you really start to increase the risk versus reward ratio or change the risk versus reward ratio so that the risk starts making the reward just not worth it. The second thing is you have to account for volume. A failure set is worth like four or five traditional sets in terms of how it affects your central nervous system in your body. So if you're traditionally doing a chest workout with nine sets and you decide you're going to go to failure in that workout, I would say cut it down from nine sets to three sets, something along those lines. This is going to be different from person to person, but you should definitely equate volume for intensity. And then the last caveat I'll say is failure tends to work with higher reps better than it does with lower reps. Lower rep failure just doesn't have the right amount of volume for a lot of exercises to really give you the benefit. So like if I go to failure for five reps on an exercise, you just tend to not get as great results as if you go to failure with 10 to 12 or even 15 reps because you still want volume, right? You still want volume, but that intensity is there. And studies show that higher reps can be very effective so long as intensity is very high. So this is an interesting conversation right now because I'm doing this, you know, these kind of 20, 30 minute workouts. I've been now consistently doing it for like a month and a half. One of the things that I'm doing different also is I'm really challenging myself to pretty much never go to failure. And what I'm noticing with myself is I'm not, this is the longest I've been consistent in the last, I don't know, say five, six years of training with as far end frequency almost every day, at least four to five times a week and not battling joint issues. And on top of that, when I started this program, my thought process was, you know, I really just want to stay strong. I don't want to lose any of the muscle I currently have. And I'll tighten the diet up, hopefully kind of lean out slowly over time in no hurry that way. But it was really, I wasn't looking at this training program, I'm going to pack on all this muscle. But what I'm finding is I'm building muscle. And I'm getting stronger and that really wasn't the intent. I mean, obviously whenever we're training, it kind of always is, but I really wasn't pushing the intensity. I wasn't really trying to scale up. But I'm finding my body really, and why this is interesting to me is because I tend to keep learning this lesson over and over for myself. I mean, we've been touting on this podcast for over five years about not training to failure. Yet I still love to test that. I still like to see where my kind of, where my max is. I still like to throw in a couple sets here or there and a workout every now and then where I go to failure. And I'm really challenging myself not to really at all. And I'm feeling the best I've ever felt and I'm seeing great results. And so I really think that failure training is grossly overrated. And it was something that I feel like I adopted for most of my training career. And it's to the point that it's difficult to completely wean it off. Yeah, you know, I'm going to speak to that for a second because I agree with you. I think most people should live for the most part in their training where they don't train to failure. Now there's intensity, so you're still training intensely, but you're not training to failure. I do think most people should live there. Now the challenge is when people flirt with going to failure and they do it for the first time or they do it in the first week or so, you do see rapid strength gains. You do see like a big gain. So, you know, if you train, you know, smart and consistent and intelligent, you don't go to failure. And then you're like, okay, I read this article, I'm going to test it out. You're going to see strength gains right away. They go away quickly though, right? What I mean is you hit a plateau very fast because that button, once you use it, like you can't just keep using it. So there's a smart way to do it. And the way that I use it and the way that I'm really seeing that it works well is I'll do it a couple times. Three times a month. You know, like three, four times a month max where depending on the workout, depending on the timeframe that I can train and the exercise, I may do it and cut all the volume out. So my workout is only going to be four exercise, but each one is a set to failure and I'm done with the whole workout type of deal. Of course, once I'm warmed up and stuff. And I don't do it again and again and again. I'll do it once and then I'll kind of back off. That's why I don't like to communicate this because most people don't know how to intelligently put it in a program. Here's the giveaway for today's episode. Maps anabolic. The program that started all the most popular maps program. Great for muscle and strength and speeding up the metabolism. You can get it for free. Here's how you win. Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel. Click on notifications. Do all those things. If we like your comment, we'll notify you in the comment section that you won that program for free. Also, we got a sale going on right now. This skinny guy bundle, which includes all of these incredible programs is 50% off. And the fit mom bundle, which includes all these other great programs is also 50% off. So if you want to get the 50% off discount, click on the link at the top of the description below to get the discount. All right. Here comes the rest of the show. Well, I think there's multiple ways to kind of stretch your capacity, which is really what I mean this whole training process. You have to figure out where the line is to begin with. And so it really depends on who I'm talking to. I think the general audience of who we're speaking to the most, what Adam's bringing up makes the most sense. There's really not a whole lot of need for you to go to that level of intensity. There's other variables we can manipulate and we can focus on to be able to get you a new kind of a stimulus. So your muscle does respond and maybe up the volume. Maybe we hold in the tempo position. We up the isometric so you can really produce and generate force, but it's not as damaging as say now I'm overloading my body to that degree. But also for me from a performance perspective and angle, if I'm dealing with somebody that's somewhat young and resilient and is in an athletic performance driven path. This is something that I would program and schedule this up to a pinnacle, to a peak of like here we've put in all this work for base strength. And now we need to test our threshold and our capacity to be able to see how resilient, how strong we actually are in this environment. Yeah, you bring up a good point. So one thing that I noticed when I mess with this is I actually it sets the the gauge or for where I can predict failure is the next workout. So what I mean by that is, you know, if I haven't trained a failure a long time, I go for a long time without ever trained a failure. Just because I got like we were like we're saying the risk versus reward ratio isn't very good. And when you use it too often, it just doesn't work. In fact, these tend to go backwards. But I'll do barbell squats and I'll be like, okay, I haven't gone to failure on a set of squats for, you know, six months. So let me try going to failure. And as I'm going through the set, I'll always be like, oh my God, this is going to be the last rep. And then I'll do another rep. Oh, no, I think this is going to be the last surprise yourself. I surprise myself because I start to lose kind of the feel for where that end is. So stopping to rep short of failure changes after that because then I start to develop a new gauge, right? The other thing too is when I do it, and I do it very short for again, I'm messing with it, but I do it for a very short period. So like if I haven't trained to failure for three weeks, I'll take my workouts for a week, cut the volume by a third, and I'll go to failure. And I'll come back the next work and I'm stronger. But I don't keep hammering it, right? I don't keep hammering it. And really what you want to consider with programming, there's a lot of factors that go into programming, but the three big ones are like frequency. How often you train a body par or how often you train your body volume that's total reps, total weight, you know, so it's weight times reps, I think times sets, right? So volume, frequency and intensity. And sometimes what you could do is you can go extreme on one of them, but you got to you got to take away from the other ones. So I can't just dramatically increase the frequency without reducing the volume and also adjusting the intensity. I can't just dramatically increase the intensity without reducing frequency and or with volume, right? You got to look at all that and it's okay, especially once you're kind of like, you know how to train your body, you've been working out for a while. It's okay to go extreme with one of them to take away from the other ones just to see how that novelty affects your body. And oftentimes you start to learn some new things about your body and how your body responds and how well you do. And I will say this, there are individual variances. Now we speak very generally because we're trying to hit most people, but I know people who do very well with high intensity, very low volume, low frequent workouts. That's not the rule. It's the exception, but I know people. Then I know people that really, really do well with high frequency type workouts with very low intensity. And, you know, there's one with volume too. So it's great to learn this about yourself and to manipulate and play with it a little bit. But I would never recommend failure to anybody who doesn't have a lot of experience and know what they're doing. That's the last thing I do with a client when I train a client is say, hey, we're going to take a set to failure. I think there's a genetic component. And then I also think there's what season of your life you're in too. Like I think part of why maybe I feel the way I do now is I'm just, I mean, I'm 40 years old. I have a kid. We have a very important job that I'm doing pretty much around the clock. I have different stressors that I probably didn't have when I was 25 years old. So maybe my body could handle that type of training at a higher frequency. So I think there's more than one thing at play here other than just like certain people can handle that. It's like, okay, certain people can. Yeah, context, life context. Yeah, life context has to matter too. Like maybe at this point in your life, maybe you think, because here's the thing, I thought I was that person. And because I identified as that person because that I was probably in my teens and 20s. It took me a while to accept that I'm not anymore. In fact, I would, I would say I would argue that intensity is the one that you have to take away from the most as you age. Sure. And the next one would be volume and then it would be frequency. So as you get older, you got to drop the intensity. So you're not going to see a 70 year old or 65 year old going to failure as often as just get 25 year old. But they might be able to keep up volume and frequency a little bit. But then volume is going to drop and then eventually frequency is going to drop. Like for example, Jacqueline, who is widely regarded as the godfather of the fitness industry, one of the most fit men of all time set world records and push ups and pull ups at 50. And at 70 did some crazy stuff. But anyway, in his 90s and 80s and 90s, he was working out for 30 minutes a day, I think. Yeah. Right. So way less volume, way less intensity he did when he was in his 20s and his 30s. So that makes a lot of sense. You know, what you're saying there, Adam. So I want to address something else you said, because I've heard you say it before. And I don't know if you mean it for all exercises or just a couple in particular, because I've only experienced it with two exercises. And you were talking about how using training to failure to get a good gauge on what you should set. I only find this useful for me for squats and deadlifts. Every other exercise, I can tell doing it like how much I got. You know what I mean? Like there's been times when I've been squatting and I think I don't have any more. And I squeeze three, four more out. Yeah. Same thing with deadlifting. But overhead press, bench press, bicep curls, tricep push downs. I would say the more complex to lift, the more overall fatigue and challenge it is, the more likely you are to overestimate when failure is coming. So I would agree with that because squats is the one that I'm always way off. I'm always like, wow, I did five more than I thought. Yeah. Curls I know right away. Yeah, right away. You know, it's like, I don't need any, I don't need a single joint lifts. Yeah. It's like, come on, it's pretty straightforward. I mean, I even feel that way with overhead press, overhead press. I like, no, oh, that's all I got. You know what I'm saying? I can tell by the way the last rep went up, like there's definitely not another one or else I'm really going to compromise the movement. Yeah. It's deadlifting and squatting are the only two. I really... 100%. And I will say this too. So sometimes you may think this is going to cut down on the time you work out because like, okay, instead of doing 20 sets, I'm only going to do seven sets today because those are the failure ones and I'm cutting the volume down. Here's what ends up happening, especially if you're strong and you're advanced. Those seven sets will take as long as 20 sets because it takes a lot out of you. Now maybe not single joint failure, but you go to failure on compound lifts. You're resting for like six minutes. Yeah. I mean, you guys saw me today even I was trying to do it. You know, most of the time because it's exhausting to go that hard. You know, so I would not take it lightly if you're going to mess around with this a little bit, but if you're advanced, you've got good control and you can honestly stop when you have technical failure because it's very tempting to do another set or sorry, another rep when your form is already starting to break down. It's very tempting to try and beat your previous record by three. You have two disciplines, right? You got to have the discipline to be able to ramp up to that degree to even be able to handle it. Then you have the discipline to know when to back off and okay, that's it. I'm done. I think we get a little bit of pushback on this conversation because there's obviously research to support the benefits of training to failure when it comes to building muscle. But my opinion is that it's even in this contradicts probably what the research says and that's that I just don't think it's that valuable for most people. I really don't. I think that considering that we understand that the research supports its benefits to building muscle. There's far more factors that you should be trying to play with and manipulate and get better at that are going to serve you way more in pursuit of building more muscle than training to failure. And I feel like the training to failure is such an easy add to your experience. You can just go until you can't do it. Yeah, like that's such a small, small minded way of approaching trying to build muscle. In my opinion, there's so many other things in your programming and training and diet that you should tweak that are going to benefit you a lot more than that. To be fair, though, Adam, there's lots of evidence now and research to show that it's not something that contributes to better results. So there's studies that'll compare it going to failure, not going to failure. And they'll say they'll find that it's actually not beneficial. Some say it may be beneficial. Some say it may it may actually be detrimental. I don't think it's this great panacea. I mean, when I started working out, there was a lot of debate around this because in the 70s, everybody, you know, Arnold was Mr. Olympia. That's where strength training or I should say bodybuilding advice came from. And he was a high volume guy, 20 sets per body part double split routine. So it worked out twice a day. Every body part getting hit all the time. So super high volume in the 80s. It was also high volume, but you started to see it drop off. During this time, Mike Mencer comes out with something called heavy duty, which is like, only do one set to failure. And that's it. And some people got great results with that, but that kind of stayed in the fringes. Then you had Dorian Nates who came out in the 90s, this mass monster who crushed everybody. And he was an advocate of Mike Mencer. So he did what's called blood and guts, a little bit more volume than heavy duty. He named his blood and guts, but it was still high intensity, max outset, way less volume. Well, because he's Mr. Olympia, everything started going in that direction. Now we see that it's volume, frequency and intensity. They're all very important. They can all be overdone. And again, the studies can go in either way. I'm just saying, look, this is a potential tool. Yeah. And if you're, if you have good technique, good form, you've got experience, you can definitely play with a little bit and see what happens. And you will see some short term, especially because it's novel, you'll see some short term boosts and gains from it. But like to your seasons of life thing. I mean, I saw this with like high school kids. It's like they don't, they don't even understand how much effort that they can really push and provide. Like you can work so much harder. And that's a, that's a discipline and a mental shift that needs to happen first. So, you know, where do you, where do you kind of toe that line in terms of value? Well, I definitely see that in terms of your, your overall knowledge and self-awareness of like what you can actually produce while you're in the gym. And now we got to kind of gauge that and be more studious. What we need to stop doing is listening to the top bodybuilders and top strength athletes. First off, these people do not represent the average person. In fact, if you're watching this or listening to this, you have nothing in common with them. I'll tell you right now. They're, they are anomalies on the genetic spectrum. No different. It's so hard though when you're talking to like someone who wants to be them though, you know, you're not, you can't change your genetics. I could, I could try to be a bodybuilder. You don't want to be a powerlifter. So I'm going to listen to it. Look, I could try to be seven feet tall as much as I want. It ain't going to happen. That's what I mean. It's, it's, it's not going to happen. You can work with what you got, but it ain't going to happen. What we should be taking advice from is are the trainers and coaches that train lots of everyday people that train. For example, Ben Contreras did the post about here's what you should do to build muscle. And I'm looking at, and Brett Contreras is trained a lot of people over time, lots and lots and lots and lots of people. He's seen what works. Yeah. And I read his stuff and I'm like, this looks like a maps program. Like he put together all the points. Why? Because he trains a lot of people. He comes to the same conclusions, you know, like all of us, I didn't work with you guys until we started Mind Pump. We sat down and started trading notes and they're all the same. Yeah. We all came to the same conclusion. So, dude, speaking of the post and other people in our peers and stuff like that, did you see a Ben Pollock response to Lift Run Bang Guy, Paul Carter's Oh, comparing machines to like free. Yeah. So, I mean, poor Ben Pollock gets the same BS that we get, you know, when we talk about barbell squatting and stuff like that, that everybody references that Paul Carter guy or whatever. And I thought Ben Pollock did a good job of kind of explaining. He basically said, I like barbell squatting because it's harder than the other lifts. And because it's harder, I learn how to I perceive effort and challenge differently. So then when I go to the machines, I can put forth more intensity into the exercise. And I agree with that point. I think there's more to it, but I agree with that point. I love that. I love that point. And the reason why I'm bringing it up is because what Justin's talking about right now, it's like you talk about the importance of learning how to train intensely how important that is one of the what another another great benefit of barbell back squatting and deadlifting is the hardest thing you can do in gym. It is. It is literally like one of the hardest movements that you're gonna and getting good at that then carries over into the machine row after you do barbell deadlift. It's going to feel a lot easier than a deadlift. Yeah. No, I thought that was a really interesting point that Ben Pollock brought up. All right. Anyway, I want to tell you guys about let's talk about the weekend a little bit and get to see you guys. So this weekend, my daughter's school did their annual carnival festival things. You know, they have like the ride set up games and all that stuff. Okay. So I took what you're excellent at. Yeah. Carnival game. For people that don't know this, like Sal has a million eggs. How many stuffed animals have you wondered? Yeah. Okay. So you're only saying that carnival Sal is like one of his nicknames. Okay. For people to understand there's sports. I got one for you guys. There's three things that happened that this is why this happened. That's why they say that one years ago, I was across our gym. I was like way on the other side and we have this tiny little basketball hoop on top of one of the ones that you throw your garbage in. Yeah. And I had a ball in my hand that literally barely fits in the hoop. I'm way across there and I go, I'm going to make it. And Adam says, yeah, right. If you make that, I'll buy you a car. And I threw it and it right inside. Legit. So that's one. Two, we all went to a gym in Vegas once and played horse. It's not really basketball, but still with a basketball. Yeah. And I beat them both and they're both objectively basically the boardwalk where you have like another way better. There's another stupid golf. Oh, that's right. Topgolf. Oh, yeah. He just like, like consistently hitting those points. Literally dragged it across and it just rolled in like, like you're going to score points. Well, anyway, I took. So I went to this festival and I brought the baby. Right. So he's not even two yet. And I'm like, oh, I can't wait to play these carnival games with them. What a mistake. What a mistake. We go to one and there's these ducks that are floating around these plat, these rubber ducks and you got to throw a ring over their head or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. He don't give a shit about the game. He wants to jump in the water with the duck. He's trying to climb the wall. He's screaming. I want to play with the duck. I want to grab it. You don't care about what I'm trying to do. Then I did another one where I hit this hammer on this little thing and it flips a frog into these. I don't know what they are. Like whatever they are. Lily pads. Lily pads. Yeah. He don't care, bro. He's crying because he wants to hold the hammer. He wants to play with my screaming kid away from these games. And Jessica's like, I don't know if this is a good idea. I thought he would have fun. He don't care. I want to win him something. He doesn't care about the prizes. He wants to jump in there with the games. How about his new haircut? Oh. Yeah. Bro, he looks like he looks like Mo from the Three Stooges. You know Mo from the Three Stooges. I think it's like a bowl cut. It's like a good solid year you have to deal with. You're entering it right now. And I'm sure you remember this arc, right? Like, oh, wow. He does really good getting his haircut because he's like. Yeah, right. Yeah. And then they all said he gets fussy. Well, Jessica was in a hurry and there's this haircut place. And so she was grocery shopping. So I'm going to go in there and just do this real quick. And they have like those chairs that look like spaceships and stuff. He was screaming the whole time. And the lady sucked. Yeah. Bro, she messed. It's like this. He looks like the Queen's Gambit. What's her name? Chess movie or whatever with the high bangs. Right across here. In the back. I don't know what she thought. One side is in more than the other side. She's like, I can fix it just because like, no, we're done. She leaves. I'm like, damn, poor kid. He's too young though. He's a notice. So right now we're putting hats on him. Will he keep the hat on? Yeah. Yo, at least he'll keep the hat on. We're just wearing hats now. We started potty training. Oh, how's that going? That's right. So on this podcast, I have shared dad hacks and things that I think we've we've implemented or done well with our son and stuff like that. I think it's only fair that I offer up the things that I think we didn't do well. And this is this. There's only been two big things so far. Highlights that I don't think we did very well and we and I now feel the backfire later on. The first one and I think I brought it up a long time ago was we we hand fed Max forever. Right. Which you for speech development. That's not and a lot of that was, you know, Katrina and I are pretty neat people. We didn't want to have to clean up a mess like crazy. And so it was like, we'll just keep feeding him. Are you guys ever worried he's going to choke? Is that also why that? Yes. Katrina is like super. She's more so though. I mean, I am too. Like, of course, I'm worried about my son. So by the way, you could buy these little I know you have them. I didn't order it, but I've seen it. The only reason why I did it was because my wife is it will not let my son chew on something that she can choke on. She cuts everything into like drinking size. Look, you could drink a steak. Jessica gives gives Aurelia's a freaking lamb chop. So I'm more like that. I'm in the corner. I'm like, I like, I like hand. I like I'll hand him like the full chicken leg or something like that. She's like, what are you doing? And then she'll peel it apart or whatever. So that was the first one because here we are. He's finally at, you know, three, three years plus starting to somewhat feed himself. And it feels like we have a, you know, a one year old trying to feed himself. So that was one of the things I think we could have done better. The second one that is is now the potty training. I didn't realize this and I take responsibility for this one because Katrina had brought it up several times. I'm like, ah, just we haven't had three days in a row when we're home and I get blown it off, blown it off, blown it off. We'll get around to it. We'll get around to it. And my thought process was he because he was kind of delayed in speech and he wasn't communicating very well yet. I'm like, I don't want to like get into the potty training stuff. I can't communicate very well with them stuff. So I was reading the books on it. I was wrong. In fact, they say as soon as you can tell your kid to like throw something in the trash and they understand, they don't have to be able to speak or say anything. They just understand how to take something and go put it somewhere. They're ready and you should start then. So as early as like one to definitely buy two. And as you, as time goes on, the longer you wait, the more difficult this phase is for us right now. So here we are at three and for most people that like the three day knock it out thing is really successful. And then they're good to go where it says like it should take us probably a week or longer because we waited till three years old. So it's been, you gotta do like a whole vacation, bro. It's been, yeah. Katrina's like full court press run. And let me tell you it's like it's all hands on deck. Oh my God. I mean, and all I could do to support I felt like was everything else in the house, right? So I just, I took care of the rest of the house. Why she is like manning him 24 seven. And it's an alarm goes off every 15, I think 10 or 15 minutes in the toilet. Yes. So my all day. So my mom loves to talk about how she got us all padded train. I think it was a year or under a year and a half. And she said what she would do is she would sit me on the little potty and she just sit me there and just talk and read, hang out with me or whatever. And then I'd use the bat and egg P and she'd make a big deal about it. So I'm like, you did that all day. She's like, oh yeah, when I would potty train you, I would literally sit you on and you would just hang out camp out all day long. I'm like, oh my gosh. The discipline to do that. I'm watching Katrina right now and like I just have so much empathy for her. Just put a newspaper all over the house. Well, she's what she did when she, so we have, when you come in our house in the entryway, we have a pretty big entryway back with that massive tree was that right? It's all tile. So she's like kind of, you know, quarantined him to that little area and brought all his toys. And then I think it also tells you to keep him active doing things. Like, so she's like, day one is nothing on. So he's naked, right? I came, I came home naked and hung around all day with them. I thought I'd make him feel comfortable. So we were. Naked party. Just no pants. I had a shirt on. Watch daddy do it. You overflow that little see where my son to feel comfortable. You know what I'm saying? So what a great idea. Although, although maybe made him uncomfortable. Put your pants on. Just a shirt on. What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Donald Duck. When he the poo, that's when he the poo. That's when the poo. Planter guy day war is no no no. No pants, no diaper, no underwear, no nothing. Day two, they say it's like a regression is underwear on and he's gonna make some mistakes and so you go through like 12 pieces, 12 things of underwear, whatever. And then the third day is underwear on all day and then you go try and have like a normal routine of like you're not just Like you're not just every 10 minutes, you're just asking him to get him to do it. But definitely it was, it was, these three days have been tough. Katrina is still dealing with it now. She'll be dealing with it all week. And I'm like, damn, that's like been full court press. Like we weren't able to do anything else. I mean, you're not. Yeah. So if you're, if you're a, I gotta let Jessica know, because she's, she's waiting cause Aralea shows signs, like he'll, he'll, he'll go around the kitchen table. He's in this corner where he goes to the bathroom. Yeah. So he'll go back to him. It was the same way. He does this, he's the cutest thing spot. He goes back there and he covers his eyes. So he was through it. Like, so here's why it becomes really difficult. And then so you're, and so maybe Jessica can learn from my mistake on that. Cause I thought the same thing. I was like, I was waiting for more signs of him really getting the whole like being ready and we can communicate a little bit, which was like the not the way thing that what you're trying to do is catch them before they actually start having potty behaviors where they go behind and they squat because then it becomes a routine now becomes way more difficult cause now you got to break that versus having as soon as they can, you can command them to go throw something in the trash and they have the awareness to do that. They are ready to know that this goes in the potty and that you're supposed to do it then. And it's much easier to transition the longer you wait and the more behaviors they have around going in there, the harder it's going. And that's what we're dealing with. You're going to get, you're going to get, so you go from diapers to potty to use the toilet, but then you're going to go through a long phase of when they're in the bathroom. Dad. Yeah, you're going to wipe his butt. Yeah. That's always my favorite. Yeah. You just had a party or something. Dad. You do that anymore. So many butts had to wipe. Oh, yeah. I remember teaching my oldest. He was obviously the oldest, the first one. And I remember the first time I'm like, all right, it's your turn to, you know, I'm going to try and teach him to wipe himself and he got the toilet paper and he just wiped his cheek, like on the side right here. Like that's not, that's not where it happens, dude. You guys go in the middle, bro. I used to use a whole toilet roll. I'm like, who's kid is this? Right? You know, just. Yeah. And he'd like plug the toilet because he used a whole freaking thing, dude. It's like everywhere. I'm like, you only need a little bit. It's, I mean, I'm, you guys are so, so much further ahead than I am right as far as like your kids really taking on your traits and stuff like that. And if Sal's son, dude, is so has Sal's dark sense of humor, I heard about that. Oh my God. I died. I was working out the other day and he made some comment to me and I just fell off. You could say what he said. It's bad. It's dark humor. So keep in mind, he knows this audience. Yeah. Yes. No, he definitely confronts him about, like, you say this and he goes, yeah, like, damn, it actually took a second to register. I mean, I'm in the, I'm in our gym, right? I'm working out and he's, he was up to front office. I actually didn't even know he was here at the time and I've got the, I've got my music blaring and I've just been on a random Lincoln Park kick again. So I'm playing like old Lincoln Park. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was even that song, right? So and I'm super angsty and I'm, I'm getting ready to lift and so that I'm like so focused in my head. I'm looking straight ahead and he comes over and he says something to me and I go, huh? And he goes, is this you? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes, you're gonna go shoot up a school later. Wow. What did you just say? Wow. What did you just say? It's like, I was like, oh my God, if you are so, you're freaking father's son to say some shit that dark. You know, my daughter's worse. Is she really worse? I can't imagine. Bro, she makes, she'll make a joke and I'm like, wow. And I appreciate it because I appreciate that sense of humor. It's so interesting. Yeah. But I had to have a conversation with him and I, she's, I don't know if I have to, did I say it to her? I think I talked to her about this too, but to him for sure, about knowing his audience. Yeah. She's like, I know you make those jokes. I said, just make sure it's okay with the person you talk to because some people don't take that the right way. I wonder if there's like a 50-50 split nowadays because it's so taboo. Everybody's feelings get so hurt so easily, right? But then there's other kids that aren't and they're the ones that are just like, this is ridiculous. The younger generation is darker. I, because, because my kids, like friends are like real dark humor stuff, like, and they're just out in the open with them. Like, you guys don't see us at school, do you? You know, like, so you get in trouble speaking of that. So my, where I'm at in terms of the development of like what I'm going through with Ethan being in Junior High and all this kind of stuff, it's like he wants to get into more dangerous things and to, you know, kind of explore other ways to have fun with his friends and all this kind of stuff. And he's like totally over-banned. He's like, oh man, there's just a bunch of nerds in here. Wow. Like, yeah, but it's. The apple doesn't fall far from you. You know, it's like, I try to tell him, like, I regretted giving up piano when I did. Like, I wish I would have kept it up, but at the same time, I thought the same thing. I was like, this is so nerdy and not like what I want to be doing. Tell him his uncle Sal's a nerd. Yeah, maybe he'll feel better about it. Yeah, maybe. Or maybe he'll be like, no. Maybe that term a little bit. So he's like really into airsoft right now. Like that's the next thing is he used to play, you know, nerf battles all the time outside. Like he's always just been into this whole, you know, shoot guns outside in the woods. And I'm like, you know, that's just boy energy. That's super fun. Yeah. And it's fun. It's like, so I'm like, OK, these are way more realistic. The only like difference really of a lot of these guns these days are a little bit of an orange tip. At the end, that's it. They literally look exactly the way they weigh the same, you know, it's like, it's the real deal. And so, I mean, it all sparked because I got one for my Halloween costume, you know, because I wanted it to be like authentic looking, you know, spend $1,000 on an airsoft gun. The airsoft gun is like, I was like, oh, this is sick. And of course, the first thing like his eyes get like this, because he's like, dad, let me try this and he goes outside and like pops off some rounds of these airsoft and he got like so pumped. Now he's trying to literally call he called every friend he knew and he's like, we have to like create like a place where we can all play capture flag and do all stuff out in the woods. And and so I was like, OK, this could actually be pretty cool. But inevitably he runs into some parents that are like, you just mentioned the word gun and like you got to tell them how your son was selling it though to the kids or the parents. OK, so like he's selling it like the way the commercial sell to the kids real, real, realistic. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's just like military grade. You know, like, you don't say that to the parents, you don't say so we have to have a conversation. Like this is how you need to sell it. I'm like, this is an extension of Nerf gun battles, right? Like this is like the next level that like like you call them airsoft guns, you don't call them like regular like, yeah, you take this tech nine and oh my God, oh my God, yeah. No wonder they're freaking out. Like so we had to have this conversation. Then it was so funny because he was like, OK, I want to do a good job with this with parents. Like there's two of them that are going to be a real challenge for me because they've already basically said, well, guns. No, no, no, no. And I'm like, OK, so let's start with the easy ones and then work our way out. So he started kind of like, you know, building up this presentation of how he's going to pitch it to him. And he did it in front of me in Courtney and we're like kind of coach him through it. Like, oh, don't say that word, you know, and say it. So it turned out that we were like sitting through this and I was laughing because it was a lot like stepbrothers where they're like doing the whole prestige worldwide. And there's like, I can just imagine like, you know, the music and everything going with his like presentation. He actually had one of his friends create a slideshow. Prestige worldwide, why, why, why, why, why? Oh, my God, showing Nerf guns and then this and that. And then the evolution showed, you know, more of like the less threatening looking airsoft guns that were painted. You know, so it was it was quite the, you know, you know, it was actually even funnier. Justin was telling me that I thought was interesting because he's been off air. We've talked about this about the transition that is his oldest is going through. And now where he's starting to want to separate himself from his younger brother. Oh yeah. Cause the age difference makes it, yeah. But the, the fun thing that I found hella funny that's ironic about this, the story he's telling right now is that his oldest, Ethan's having such a hard time getting enough kids that can play. So now he wants to bring his brother. So now his brother gets to play. So I'm like, I, so he has a dummy to shoot. Yeah, let's, let's talk about this. Cause you know, they're all going to gang up on course, dude. This happened to me, I was younger, bro. And I was like the shooting dummy for like paintball. I remember that. And like, they just turned on me and like, so I was like, we can't, okay, I'll have to referee some of these, make sure your brother. Have you seen the videos of the attack? Cause airsoft for adults gets crazy. Have you seen it? They wear like full tactical gear. There's this guy on YouTube that he's a dick and what he does, he's got a sniper airsoft and he's talking into the camera and you're not supposed to do like neck shots and face shots, but he talks to the camera. He's like in the bushes and you're like hit someone's face to look around and he does all these videos. It's hilarious. He's kind of messed up. Speaking of school and stuff. Okay. Just when you think things can't get any crazier and weirder, did you guys see the teacher? Oh my God. The math teacher with the prosthetic breasts. No, it wasn't a math teacher, it was a wood shop teacher. Oh, wood shop teacher. Sorry. Did you see that? Yes. Okay. So this is a, I guess they're transgender wood shop teacher. No, it's not even a transgender. He just came to school one day and decided that he identified. I thought they were true. No. It just, he can't use it. It couldn't have been one day because those things were huge. Bro, no, no, he can't, one day decided going forward that he was gonna do that. So one day he- So now he's saying I am, this is me. Yes. This is my identity. Okay, these are massive, massive cartoons. Heavy hangers. Big nipple boobs. Like through the sweater, doesn't even wear a bra. They're just like, boop. And then, okay, and he teaches a class this way. And it's not a joke. He's teaching, they're very sexualized fake boobs. They're not real, they're prosthetic. And then the school defended him. Yeah. That's the- The crazy part is now that he did it. The crazy part is that the school didn't do anything about it. If you're a female teacher- We're not gonna think at all about his motivation of doing that. Like nobody's gonna put their mind there. Bro, did you know if you're a female teacher and you wear too low cut of a dress, they'll make you go home? Exactly, the dress code. But this dude shows up in these, with these huge puppies. Have you just seen the pictures? I saw it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Big old nipples poking out and he's teaching a class. You might as well- Dude, I thought he was gonna end up sawing one of them. We got all close, they're so big. And the school defended him. What the fuck world are we in right now? That doesn't make any sense. Does that mean a teacher could go in with big fake penis, just big old bowls with their pants when you're down here? But we're sorry, identify now. I bet you. Well, why could you? If you can do that, why can't you do that? Where do we draw the line in terms of standards and all that, it's just like it's all over the place. It's insanity and it just, you know what it highlights? Was it Texas? Wasn't it Texas? It was Texas. I know you would think that would be like in our backyard. Yeah, yeah. What this highlights is the weakness in human reason. Okay, so reason is wonderful, but the problem with human reason is we can reason anything into existence and make it sound like it's okay. And this is one of those things. So the reasoning that they're doing as well, it's his identification or her identification. It's part of who she is, we wanna be inclusive. No, no, no, no. They're wearing big ass fake titties to school in front of children. Obviously there's, at the very least it's distracting at the most it's extremely inappropriate. Well, I think this also highlights the way we've structured school systems too. It was just, to me, that's what, I mean, it should be a competitive system. Teachers should not be protected like they are for, once they get tenure, now they're like almost untouchable. It's like almost impossible to fire a teacher. It should be built as a competitive environment. It really should be. So you get the best of the best teachers and let the market decide. You know, let that teacher show up with his crazy ginormous boobs and then the school, because of it, starts suffering attendance. And then let it be to where they go listen. We're gonna find someone better for this position because unfortunately our attendance is suffering because you wanna do this. Go do it somewhere else. The irony is if there was actually a woman with boobs like that, which wouldn't exist. I think they're the, I mean, I don't know if that, that could even exist. That's how comically massive they are. So they're not like normal. It's kind of like, well, I wanna put this on there. If a woman actually had that, she would probably try to cover and feel kind of like, ooh, self-conscious about it or whatever. This is to me, okay, it's my opinion, an obvious attempt at look at me, check me out, and these are sexualized boobs. They're not just normal boobs. They're like, I mean, again, if you're watching YouTube, you got the picture up. You can see what they look like. It doesn't make any sense to me. Meanwhile, you're trying to make a cutting board for your mom for Christmas, you know? It's stupid. So, hey, speaking of cutting, I'll transition out of this. Speaking of cutting, you've been cutting caffeine for the last, what, week now? How's that going? So this'll be week number, I think we're into like week, one and a half. So I'm like one and a half weeks into cutting caffeine. And how's that going? It's hard, dude. It is brought at this time than last time or what? Cause it wasn't that long ago when you did before, right? It's always hard. You know, it makes me appreciate just how powerful of a drug caffeine is. And also makes me appreciate that caffeine has positive effects and can also have just as bad negative effects. And I was starting to feel some of the negative effects. One of which is I got my caffeine intake because slowly, here's what happens. It slowly ramps up, right? You need more, you need more, you need more cause your body adapts. And I started to get these crazy energy crashes in the afternoon with a high dose of caffeine. And I noticed that while my caffeine gets too high, I'll get a boost of energy and then I crash so hard that I literally can't even keep my eyes open when I'm driving, when I'm going home. And I start to get other effects too, like stress responses and just, I don't feel good. And if I added even more caffeine, I don't even get energy at that point. I just fall asleep. So I'm like, okay, it started to hit like the 400 milligram mark per day. So what I did is I started scaling it down. And usually what I'll do is try to go cold turkey and just be an insufferable asshole for the next week or whatever. But Jessica's like, just cut it down by 25 or 50 milligrams, hold it at that place until you feel normal and then keep bringing it down. So I said, all right, you're right. By the way, the motivation for this is one, the caffeine was getting too high and two, I want to be off caffeine completely when the baby comes in November. Cause I want to have that. I want to actually feel it again. Yeah, I want to have that because I know I'm gonna- That's my only motivation. Yes. So I'm down to like 150 to 200 milligrams a day. And I'm, or off. Are you using anything to supplement? The red juice. I'm drinking the shit out of the red juice. Organifies red juice. Like two a day or is that what you- Yeah, so I'll have one later in the afternoon or sometimes I'll have two. One in the early afternoon, one later afternoon. I noticed a big difference when I utilized it. It's not like caffeine. No, no. But it takes the edge off. It mitigates the bad feeling. Yes. That I was getting when I was coming off of it. Yes. You know what's interesting is like, there's a really good study there to be had and nobody's gonna fund it and do it. And nobody has and nobody will, but I bet you there's like, because what you're talking to, you're sharing something that I know for sure a lot of people have experienced, especially for someone who's aware. There is definitely this milligram threshold before the adverse effects. Right now most of the studies are all the support, all the cognitive benefits, the energy benefits. It's all positive, positive, positive, positive. But nobody talks about, okay, all these great things. I've been taking it, taking it, taking it. And then I went from 100 milligrams, 200, 400, 600. Now, because I have the exact same thing. And I have nailed it down to, for me, it's literally if I do like a coffee and then two energy drinks or say an energy drink in a pre-workout, that's when the adverse effects start happening. That's when the third pre-workout or energy drink or whatever it is that I'm having, I feel it and then like, feels like less than an hour later, I feel tired. Like I'm yawning. Big yawns in the afternoon. And then it's always, and that is my reminder, I gotta go the other direction and come back down again. But nobody has done anything on that. Nobody is talking about that. We always do it in these short windows to show all the positive benefits. But I know that I've talked to enough people that are self-aware that have used caffeine like this. And everybody kind of says the same thing is that after a certain point, I actually start to feel adverse. Caffeine is a legit drug. If it got discovered today, it would be banned. That's a fact. It's just present, present in human civilization forever. It's very powerful, very addictive. Your body develops adaptation, adapts to it. It's normalized it. The withdrawal to caffeine is nasty, okay? Anybody who, look, you get migraines, tired, irritability, depressed. Those are all normal withdrawal symptoms from caffeine. Luckily it doesn't last typically longer than a week or so. And the LD50 on caffeine is relatively low. LD50 is the amount of caffeine or the amount of whatever it is that they're using this to rank that would take to kill half the people. Caffeine is relatively low and a lot of people don't know this, but it's one of the number one, aside from the heart attacks and that kind of stuff, it's one of the number one reasons why people go to emergency rooms is caffeine overdose. A lot of people don't know that. Caffeine overdoses are relatively common to where people go to the emergency room. So- Is it really that high? Very high. I didn't know that. I knew a lot of kids especially get into trouble because they start having access to energy drinks and it becomes like somewhat competitive. They'll play video games and they'll stay up all night. And it's a real big problem when they overdose on caffeine. And the beauty of caffeine is if you have the discipline and the awareness to be like, it's too high, bring it down. And the strategy that I'm using right now is I'm going down 25 to 50 milligrams. That's for me, right? So I'll cut it down to 25 to 50 and then I'll wait until that feels okay. And then I'll cut it down again and then again. And the goal is to get down to zero. And I noticed the lower I get and I adjust, the better the low dose feels. So right now, 200 milligrams or 150 milligrams is energizing. I feel good. I have a great workout. Whereas a week and a half ago, 200 milligrams was like, that was enough just to keep me being able to speak English because I got used to 400 milligrams. Yeah, I noticed it's like, for me it's like a snowball effect of poor, awful sleep. Like, you know, maybe one or two nights in a row and then the amount goes up substantially to try and like make up for do. And then it's that kind of sticks around too long. And then, you know, really for me besides, I haven't gone the red juice route. I needed to mess with that, but it was really just like, I got to really increase my water intake in between cups. Oh, that makes a big difference too. And that definitely made a difference to me. I'm glad you said that in salt too. Little sodium too. All right, so I want to address something that has been brought up about one of the brands that we work with. And it's been brought up on other brands You're talking about my rant on the Facebook? Yeah, dude, people. So we're working with Creatures of Habit and they have an oatmeal that's got 30 grams of protein and vitamin D and omega threes in it. And so, and you know, we put this out and we love it and we're promoting it and we're thinking about investing in it. And Adam asked people in our forum, hey, try this out, let us know what you think of the taste because we're thinking about investing in this company. Which by the way, I've never done. Never. Seven years we've done this part. Never asked people to do that for us. And inevitably someone's in there saying, oh, it's too expensive. You could buy oatmeal at the store for blah, blah, blah, or whatever. We do this with Magic Spoon. So Magic Spoon is a great example because it's cereal that's high in protein. So you get 25, 30, 35 grams of protein for a serving. It's not fruit loops. Yeah, they're like, oh, I could buy a box of cereal for a third of the price or whatever. It's like, okay, two things. One, we never promote the cheapest products on Mind Pump. We don't care about the cheapest products. You can find the cheapest products anywhere and easy. We care about the best quality. And two, if you're gonna do comparisons, go apples to apples, not apples to oranges. When you eat a bowl of Magic Spoon, you're getting 25, 35 grams of high quality whey protein in that. Protein's expensive. It ain't cheap. Carbs are cheap. I can make a carb whatever I want and charge nothing for it. So. No, I mean, I went on a little rant and I listed off all of our brands, right? I went through Neds and the Vioris and the Organifies and the Magic Spoon. And I'm like, every brand legion, every brand I listed, I can show you a brand that is significantly cheaper than this. I don't know what gave anybody the impression that we were gonna build this business around introducing the cheapest brands that are out there. That was never our intention. In fact, we weren't even gonna advertise for other brands for the long term until we said, you know what? I would like to introduce our audience to the brands that we love, that we find, that we spend money on, that we like and introduce it to our audience. And we work out deals so we did try to reduce some price, man. I just think it's so funny when people get all weird like that. It's just like, okay, well, then go do that. Already matters. Yes, we advocate for whole foods always. And we always say this, if you can get everything through whole foods, that is the best. However, if you're going to supplement, if you're gonna add a cereal, then we wanna make sure it's best quality. And Magic Spoon hits the nail in the head. It's super good quality. It's grain-free. The protein is high quality. It tastes really good. So you get that benefit because if someone's gonna eat cereal, they want it to taste good as well. Otherwise, why? Listen, I used to, I don't know if you guys ever did this. I did this for years. So if you wanna do it, go do it. I used to make my own protein oatmeal. I used to put whey protein in regular cereal because I wanted, if I was gonna have a bowl of cereal, I wanted to put protein milk. So I wanted to have 25, 30 grams of protein in it. So I used to do that myself. It did not taste near as good as Magic Spoon. Highly doubt that. Yeah, at all. And it really wasn't that much cheaper to do it that way. You still gotta pay for the protein powder. You're still buying the box of cereal. It's like, I would much rather pay a little bit more for a formulation that is already done for me and tastes amazing and has all different kinds of flavors for me. And the same thing goes for the oatmeal. I used to, that is what made me connect to Mike when he showed me, shared the oatmeal with me. He was like, oh my God, I used to make a very similar concoction myself. But you know what? I mean, he's got the omegas in there. He's got the vitamin D in there. He's got the seeds in there. He's got the plant protein in there. I mean, you know what a pain in the ass it is to bring all that stuff out every single morning where now I can rip it and drop it in and like, and you're gonna charge me what, a dollar or something more or whatever that than doing it myself. It's so funny to me when people get away like that. And the market's spoken by the way. Magic Spoon's crushing. Yes. Crushing. It's like one of the fastest for itself. It's one of the fastest growing companies. Yeah. And I think he's, I think Critch's to have it's gonna do the same thing. I really do. I agree. It's like a taste phenomenal and it's convenient. And it's delicious. Solid, solid product for sure. So I just, you know, I didn't see very many people respond to that rant because it's the truth. Like, I don't think we're ever going to try and bring a product that we think is the cheapest one out there. And if that's what you're, if you're looking for the cheapest or anything, I mean, that's just what Amazon's so great for. Hey, look, if you want to save money, whole food, stick with whole foods. That's the best. Always. And there's many ways you could save money with. Yeah. You buy your supplements at Alibaba. Yeah. I mean, that's probably the cheapest you'll get. Have some lead with your, your fat burner. Isn't there a controversy going on around Alibaba right now? I thought I heard something on the news. Is there more? I mean, still the guy. I remember the, the, the founder, right? Like kind of disappeared for a while. And did he ever come, did he resurface ever? Kind of came back and. Oh, cause China put some pressure on him. Oh yeah. I remember that. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It was all apologetic. There's a new documentary out. You guys should watch, you know, and it's a German company called, did you see this Doug? I know you're, you normally catch shows. I like it's on Netflix. It's called Scandal. And it's the wire, wire card. Hmm. Not familiar. Yeah. Look, look it up from your quick Netflix wire card. I believe Scandal wire card. If you search that it should pop up. Crazy story. I had no idea about companies been around for over a decade. And it's a, it's a fintech company that they, in Germany, they were so proud of because it rivaled the Facebooks and the Googles as far as its valuation. I think it was a couple hundred billion dollars. It's like a PayPal you were saying. Exactly. Totally like a PayPal. Same thing, basically digital currency. Now what it later, like over a decade later, we got, yeah, that's it right there, Doug. Wirecard. Is that what I said? Did I call it? Yeah. Wirecard. Yeah. Wirecard. Okay. Really fascinating story. And it, and what they were doing is they were, I don't want to ruin the show for people. They watched the show. It's got, it's a, it's a really good documentary on this, but a massive, massive over a hundred billion dollar company that everybody was rooting for for the longest time. It was making its way to the U.S. when a lot of this stuff got serviced. And it just happened a couple of years ago. I think, I think it came out. I think the allegations came out in 2019, something like that. Wow. It says until I find a, a tenacious team of journalists exposed massive fraud. Oh, very interesting. Whoops. What's up everybody? Okay. Look, there's this product that we work with called Z Biotics and this product helps you, or at least allows you to drink alcohol. So we're all health conscious here, but we like the occasional drink. And, but alcohol can cause some serious problems. Well, here's what Z Biotics does. You drink this before you drink alcohol and it's a genetically modified probiotic drink that breaks down acetaldehyde in the gut. So acetaldehyde can build up in the stomach, get to your bloodstream and this is where it wreaks, wreaks havoc. Well, Z Biotics gets in your gut, these little bacteria that have been engineered to break down acetaldehyde help prevent that from happening. Now this is not an herb or vitamin supplement that you could take for, you know, hangover remedies or whatever. It's not like that. This is legit breaks down acetaldehyde. This is the real deal and it's patented. So this is real science, ladies and gentlemen, this product really works. Go try it out. Head over to ZBiotics.com, that's Z-B-I-O-T-I-C-S.com forward slash mine pump and then use the code minepump22 for 10% off your first order. All right, here comes the rest of the show. First question is Huevos Revuletos. How can I feel more activation of my chest rather than my shoulders when bench pressing? Ah, yes. You know, they've done studies on this where people will think about a muscle while they're doing an exercise and they'll actually show more activation. So just trying to focus on the chest more during a bench press can definitely help, but there are some things you can do with your technique concentrate that make a difference. One of them is to flare the elbows out a little bit more. Okay, now you wanna be careful with two flared of elbows. If you don't have the mobility and the control that can sometimes cause problems, but flare the elbows more and when you grab the bar, imagine you're trying to pull your hands together on the bar and I actually do it, but actually you create inside force or force dragging the hands together while you grip the bar tightly as you bench and slow down, you're gonna have to go much lighter this way, but you will feel more chest activation because the action of the chest is to pull the upper arm in towards the center of the body. So that's what you're trying to do is trying to create tension in that direction. And also the setup, right, is real important in terms of like you having protracted shoulders and versus being nice and retracted and set so that that force is distributed properly and you're open and activated with your chest, but you do have to do some work there in terms of the connectivity first. So I would then sort of regress and try to get like more chest activity and be able to connect there and maybe prime ahead of time by, you know, using some rubber bands or doing it in a way where you could be a little more isolated and focus on the chest and the squeeze and then go into the lift. So I wanna stress what you just said, Justin. I lifted a chest yesterday. So yesterday I did incline barbell press and I went into it cold. I did a couple like light, real, real light, like the bar slowed down the movement. I actually did a little bit of an isometric hold even to kind of get in there. Did actually some in the isometric position to kind of squeeze in the bar just to kind of thinking that I'd be able to just go into it and get going through 135 on the bar. First set already felt my left shoulder clicking and felt it in my shoulder too much. Set the bar down, grab the bands and head. So even for somebody like me who's been lifting for over two decades completely understands the way my technique needs to be in order to use my chest. Great, great mind to muscle connection I would think, right? Still I have to go prime my body and set it up to make sure I can activate my chest really well. So I can't stress enough how important that is first and then it makes the advice that Sal gave that much better because even if you don't have basic good form, forget it. No, I mean, and you, I got good form. Like I, you know what I'm saying? That's how important habits. That's just it because most of the day we sit like this and even with me getting, I get under there. I even had this routine where I grab the two bars and I retract and depress and I get on that position and I want to squeeze my shoulder blades down and I get in there. And if I haven't done a good job of really priming my shoulders and then priming my upper back for that position, it just doesn't feel that stable. And I ended up feeling more in the shoulder than I actually do really. And I feel my chest still working and I could just work through it but I can feel my shoulders really getting involved way more. They just don't feel stable. So going in and priming my shoulders really well, priming my upper back to where I can hold it more, more comfortably and that kind of retract the depressed position. And then taking the tips that you're saying, Sal with a little elbow slightly, like flare them out and then grip the bar tight and drive the hands in as you go down and up. That should get that. But you're right, a hundred percent. I was assuming they had scapular retraction. You need to have that first so you could get the chest to really activate properly. Next question is from Mike. What are good mobility practices for tight hamstrings for someone who drives for a living? Now, isn't tight hamstrings way less common than people think? And it's more often than not weak hamstrings that are making people think that they're tight hamstrings. Well, okay. So you have to ask yourself about hip flexors too. But you have to ask yourself, what makes a muscle tight? Is it the muscle or is it the central nervous system? Right. So we tend to think of a tight muscle and we compare it to like a piece of rubber. And we think, oh, if a piece of rubber is cold or not malleable or if it's not malleable, then it doesn't stretch for it. It doesn't work that way. Your muscles, your muscles are always warm. They're always alive, right? So they got blood flow, they're connected. So unless it's got removed from your body or you have a blood clot or something terrible, the muscles there and it's just as malleable in that sense as other muscles. The difference is your central nervous system keeps it within a particular range of motion. Why does it do that? Protection. Yes, it does so because it doesn't feel strong or stable outside of that range of motion. So this is why sometimes bodybuilders get really tight. Bodybuilders can get really tight when they train in short ranges of motion because they build a lot of strength in those short ranges of motion and then the body doesn't feel comfortable moving outside of that. So the person moves and does things very tightly because all the strength is in that particular range of motion and outside of that, now you lose a lot of strength and that's just how strength works. If I build strength, if I do a half press, I get some carryover outside of that but the further away I move from that range of motion, the less of the strength that I gain gets crossed over. So my body just keeps it tight to keep me stable. So your hamstrings are tight because they're weak. They're weak, they don't feel strong. So does this mean you go work your hamstrings? Yes, but also, it's not just work your hamstrings, also work them and work on good full ranges of motion and work on improving that range of motion. Yeah, so that's the key. I've actually was gonna run it through, this is one of the athletes I've been working with because it's just, oh, my hamstrings and they're so tight and one of the trainers was trying to just apply the old static stretching and they're just thinking it's like, we need to get them loose and I'm like, no, no, no, this is like an instability we're dealing with here. This is a lack of strength and trying to then coach them on, look, you're gonna still need to strength train, you're gonna need to do with appropriate load and intensity so you're lighting the intensity of it because each step of that, in terms of like regaining access to that range of motion is gonna require different strength that you have a deficit in it and so now to be able to gradually progressively overload that and get you to respond properly is gonna take some work. So I love Romanian deadlifts for this and slowly progress the weight as you challenge range of motion. I would start with no weight. Yeah, right, really. You could literally just do, and that would be the mobility or the kind of priming, right? Is you just doing it just body weight to get yourself in that position. But I mean, I think you could very lightly load the bar safely and take it to the end range of motion so to where it feels as comfortable and then try and challenge that range getting in a little bit more, a little bit more every few weeks. So I did this, I had a client once that was a truck driver and this was an issue and we started with, because they were so tight that loading just felt inappropriate. So we started with body weight, good mornings and I think, I don't know what they're called do you have your hands behind your head? Yeah, it's like prisoner spots. And all we did is I focused on hip hinging, right? So keeping, yeah, keeping really, really good kind of neutral spine leading with the chest couldn't go down very far. And as soon as his back started rounding, okay, that's not, we're not going to go any further. Don't we have waiter bows in prime? Or one of our programs? We do, we do, prime pro, if I'm not mistaken. And performance. And I had them do them and each rep I had them challenge that range of motion without breaking form. And we would actually add a good four inches, five inches of range of motion within the workout. Then as he started getting stronger and it got easier and easier then we would do a little bit of load. But what you're trying to do is you're trying to build strength and tell your CNS, it's okay, it's safe. We can move into these new ranges of motion. Static stretching will increase range of motion but it's nothing to increase strength. Or I should say very little to increase strength just a little to nothing. So if you just tell your CNS, ah, relax and you do this by holding a long static stretch. You actually can put yourself in a bad position because your body's tight for a reason and if you get it to move outside of that and then you go do something that requires any type of strength at all, you see risk of injury go up. And this is why there was that paramount study and I don't remember what was done. I wanna say the late 90s or the 2000s where they found that static stretching before athletics increased injury. That's exactly why. Next question is from Jason Miller, 56. Is there a difference in training cardio for cardiovascular health versus training to increase VO2 max? What's the best way to train for overall cardiovascular health? Yes, there is, but there's a lot of crossover. It's like a Venn diagram. So in the middle is health and on one end is just health or one of them's health, one of them is performance and in the middle is like longevity health, right? If you push VO2 max at some point you start to sacrifice health for VO2 max. So in the beginning, any kind of cardio increases your VO2 max. You take somebody who doesn't do cardio, you get them on elliptical, they're gonna get a boost in VO2 max. But at some point when you're trying to push VO2 max and you're trying to really push performance, this is true for strength by the way, this is true for any physical endeavor. Once you go past a certain point you start to trade longevity and health for performance. So like you look at top power lifters, they're not as healthy as someone who just strength training just for health, right? But at some point when they started they were just getting health benefits but then they passed that to go for extreme strength. Same thing with VO2 max. If you look at like the top, top, top VO2 max athletes like top marathon runners or super distance runners they don't have the best longevity because they're pushing their bodies too hard. But in the beginning of training you get both. So now that I've said that what's the difference between the two? Cardiovascular health you wanna train consistently and you wanna maintain a decent cardiovascular system. So at some point you're not trying to push your times. You're not trying to go crazy with your performance. You're just doing it for enjoyment. You're doing it for consistency and you're doing it to feel good. So I would say that's the big difference. Well it really depends on what your desired outcome is. Like what are you trying to gain from it? Because what you're trying to gain from your cardiovascular training would dictate how I would have you do it, right? It's almost like asking the same thing. What's the best way to lift weights? It's like, well, I mean, it depends. It depends on- It's a pretty general broad topic. Yeah, be more specific like they said. What's the best way to lift weights for health? What's the best way for cardiovascular health? Well, I mean, there's a lot of health benefits to different types of cardio modalities. Well, it's just it. There's a lot of different versions. Like it's not just running and jogging and everything straight ahead. You can do all kinds of cardiovascular training in multiple planes and explosively. And you know, there's just, but that requires a completely different skill set that you need to acquire. Totally. Do you want to have increased endurance and stamina? Do you want to be able to run for an hour straight and be okay doing that? Do you want to have more explosive cardiovascular density or something in shorter durations but you can push higher, which would be like VO2 max stuff. So it really depends on, and each have their benefits. It's nice to have a little blend of both, but I mean, it's tough to answer a question like that. And then it also depends on where you're currently at and what you're trying to achieve outside of that as far as building muscle and things like that because you could tell me that, Adam, I want to be good at cardiovascular endurance. I want to be able to run for an hour or two hours. But then you also go, and I'm really trying to build 15 to 20 pounds of muscle right now. Okay, well, those are very challenging to do at the same time. Maybe we focus on one more than the other. And so this is a bit of a depends question for the person that's asking. Yeah, that all being said, I'll make a general, I guess, piece of advice around this or I'll give a general answer. I think it's true for most people. If you look at the whole context of the thing, so longevity and you factor in risk of injury, you factor in the technical skill involved, because running is a highly technical type of movement that most of us can no longer do well because we stop running when we're 12. So if you factor all of that in availability and consistency, like the likelihood someone's gonna stay consistent, the likelihood that they'll have access to this particular type of movement as they get older, if you factor all of that in, then walking has to be the winner because it's still something we can all do. We're not in Wally World yet. I'm sure we'll get there soon, but for now, everybody could still walk. It's very accessible to people. You just walk, you can go outside and walk. You can walk on a treadmill, you can walk anywhere. So it doesn't require lots of stuff. The risk of injury is low as a result. And for longevity, I mean, daily walking, if you're walking a decent amount every single day, you're gonna reap tremendous health benefits over time. Now you're not gonna be a phenomenal runner or athlete by doing this, but if it's just for health, with all those things that I said, it's hard to beat walking, it really is. Next question is from Ferum Labush. When did you all know it was time to go all in with mine pump? Oh man. I lost this one. Yeah, what do you mean? I lost this one. Oh, you tried to go over there. Do you not remember? I do. Yeah, Adam definitely tried to incentivize us to jump in earlier, I think, than we were ready for, but. Well, he was, and I understand why. He saw the writing on the wall. He's very good at reading business signals, but also, you know, we all had kids and those responsibilities, and so it places a different price. One of our own individual businesses at the time that we were all. Yeah, yeah. I wanted us all a little scared. Yeah, I did. I really did. I wanted us all to be. It's really scary when you have kids that support you. Which is why I lost, right? That's how, that was actually the, if I had a kid at the time, and I still want to, I might have won that argument, because I've been like, I'm in the same boat as you motherfuckers, right? Or would you have made that decision? Yeah. I don't know. Maybe. Yeah, probably still. This is crazy, I think. It wasn't crazy though. You were pretty logical about it. It wasn't like you were just like, let's just do this. It was really nilly or anything. Yeah. Yeah, we were already producing good, decent revenue. We weren't taking from the business yet. So what people have to know is that so for the first year, we didn't monetize anything. By year two, we started to monetize. And we had our normal businesses and jobs this whole time. That's right. And we were, yeah, everyone was making their livelihood elsewhere than mine pump. Mine pump was starting to generate revenue, even though we weren't taking any of the proceeds yet for ourselves. But it was getting to a point where it was pretty consistent every month. Not enough for any, and this is where I wanted to go. It wasn't enough for anybody to quit their jobs and it would replace the income they were all making elsewhere. But that's what I was trying to, I was trying to seize that moment was, I didn't want us to wait till everybody was making the same kind of money they were making, doing other things. I wanted us to be a little hungry, hungrier, I should say. Now in hindsight, do you think we do, I mean, obviously everything worked out well, but do you think we waited too long? Or do you think? I think I do. I still think it's part of our Achilles heel. I do. I think if... We're hungry enough. Yeah, I just think that, and I'm just as guilty, right? So this isn't me like, I told you guy, it's like, I feel like sometimes because we, because this was a passion project, because we had security and other things that we sometimes lack urgency in this business. In fact, off air before this podcast started, the four of us, literally all in agreeance. This is something we need to do for the business. We all agree it's important, it's important, it's important, but because we're not starving or we don't like, if we don't do it right now, we're all fine financially, we kind of drag our feet a lot. And I feel like, had we had that switch a little bit, because I've seen it in us, right? There was a time right before COVID hit. We got a little nervous. Yeah, we did. We all got a little like, that was the most nervous I've seen us in seven years. Justin was turning tricks on the streets. Making extra money. Yeah, dude, man. That's it, that's it. $20, $20, you know what I mean? But we had a little, we got a little nervous and it was really neat to see just how dangerous the four of us could be if we were starving. So I'm gonna give you, because I agree, but I also I'm gonna give a little pushback just for sake of conversation because I respect tremendously what you have to say about this particular thing. I think it's not, you definitely have a genius when it comes to business. But I'll push back a little bit and here's the counter. The counter's gonna be that what it allowed us to do by waiting a little longer was by never compromising our integrity because we had a lot of offers for deals and money and sell this product and push this way, this particular thing this way or sell it this particular way. That's true. But because we weren't backed into a corner, we could give them the finger and say, no, we're gonna do it our way. And let me tell you. We didn't have to have it. We didn't have to. And I like being in a position where I don't have to because then what I can do, because I'll tell you something right now, as much integrity as I have, if it's between integrity and my family's survival, I don't know where I'm gonna go. I don't know if I'll compromise my integrity or not. I'm not saying I would, but I've never been in a position where I feel scared for, oh crap, are my kids gonna have to move? Are we gonna have to take them out of their school? Are we gonna, whatever? I'll concede to that. I'll concede to that. I don't disagree with that statement at all. I think that's a very fair evaluation. And I don't even know myself. I'd like to believe that we would still, sacrifice, but I think that's a very fair point because it did give us that luxury of, no, we're not, I mean, we- We had to zero fucks out of here. We didn't monetize for a year. And then when we actually started to monetize the programs, we didn't take advertising for another year after that when we could have. We could have taken advertising a year earlier than what we did and we didn't because we wanted to wait. I mean, we priced the programs away we did based off integrity or we could have like, wheeled and deal, we didn't do subscription model. Thankfully, looking back, that would have not worked out so well would have been a nightmare. There's a lot of things. We turned down a lot of sponsors. We didn't do a lot of the tricks that people do on social media and with media in general to get attention just to get a few eyes. And it put us in a pretty strong position but I 100% get what you're saying because I know that when you're backs up against the wall we all have another gear. I know that. I know that for a fact. And here's how I look at it. It's hard to like, yeah, like manufacture that. Just when you're fat and happy, right? Like when things are going well and to, but you're always considering that like there's gonna be dark days. There's always gonna be something to consider and to try to generate that without any kind of real conflict or something that's like pushing you. It's difficult. It's a difficult thing to create amongst us but I think it's possible. Now the irony of all this is, this is the best success all of us have ever had. And we've all done lots of businesses. We've all had our backs against the wall in that position. So it's easy for me to look back and be like, we did everything right because of what we're at. But I get what you're saying. I know that. I know if we're in a position where we're like, it's swim or die, you know? We're all gonna find a way to swim. What are your thoughts, Doug? I mean, I feel like we did it the right way personally. Honestly, I- You already stressed enough, that's why. Yeah. So yeah, my- It's back to the wall. It already feels like a stress content already. My cortisol's already pegged to the upper level. I don't think you need more. No, I just feel like, I mean, I'm capable of pushing through things and making things happen when I have to, but I mean, I don't need to add more stress to my life, honestly. And I think we did do it the right way. I tell you what though, had we, I mean, again, maybe this goes in favor of my argument. If all of us did this before we had kids and mortgages and we were supporting our families. I was feeling it would look a lot different. I don't know. I think it would have- Like in terms of like the overall vibe. I mean, I know we would have been animals. So can you take, so I agree, but that also that would rewind us back to our early 20s, right? So to me it's less to do with the kids, less to do with the family, more to do with being a bunch of 25-year-olds. Cause if you gave our maturity and wisdom that we all have where we're at in our lives now, and we were, I think we would have been fine. Yeah, I think we would have been fine. I think that that's the part that matters even more was that we've seen a lot more in our lifetime and Doug especially, right? Cause he's almost lived two lifetimes, has seen so much more that you were, I think that wisdom, if we could bring that back to 25, it would be better. You know, and I think with the question, right? So the question is when did we know? So you want it to happen faster? I knew early. I knew, or I knew, actually, and so- How much sooner? I think you even knew early. I mean, I think we knew as soon as the podcast started to take off. Before money was even involved, I think. Oh, I knew. I knew this was gonna go well. Yeah, I mean, I think everyone said it and felt it very early on. And so- How much sooner did you push it and before we actually stood all quit our jobs? Almost a year. Was it a year before? Almost a year. Yeah, I think we waited almost a year longer than I would have liked us to. For me, I was in a weird position because I'm very conservative when it comes to investments, but when it comes to business, I'm very risky. I'll take a chance if I believe in it. But I was in a weird position because I had just gotten divorced, left the house to the ex so that my kids didn't have to move. And remember, I stayed with you, then I slept on my brother's couch and then I had a tiny little apartment and I had just sold my studio and so I was just training people to make ends meet. And my biggest fear was my kids had been going to the school that they really liked. My biggest fear was having to pull them out because my whole goal during that period was I don't wanna shake my kids' world anymore than I have to because their dad and their mom are getting divorced. So that kept me more like, so for me, I had to, when I felt like, okay, I can stop training people and not have to pull my kids out of school or do anything like that, that's when I felt that kind of safety, but that did make me wait longer than I think I would have. Yeah, because you were the last person to cut all clients off, weren't you? Because even after we kind of went all in, I know we all still had a couple clients, but I think you had the roster the longest. I did online a little bit for a while, but I did that not so much for the money, it was more to, because you had worked with online clients and you had gotten a lot of insight into training online and because that was such a developing field, I had no experience. So I did it more for the insight, what was going on, but... Yeah, by the time you were doing online, because online came after you'd cut your clients, you were already fine financially. I know you didn't need to deal with financially. I think you did it more, but the clients in person, you still... I'm trying to remember when I did that. I don't remember. Yeah, I know I did kind of similar. Yeah, I started to kind of farm out a lot of my clients to other trainers I knew that I trusted and that was a big struggle, mainly between the conversations I'd have with Courtney because she's the solid, was a nurse and I was grounded in the fact that we had like insurance and all that. So that was like my anchor, but then it was like at a point, she was miserable in her job. And I'm like, I know she wants to transition out of this and to stay home. And I'm like, now I'm like, oh no, well, I'm actually just ditching this completely and starting this whole new thing. And she was like, I don't know about that. I've done this to her multiple times in our management. It took a while before Courtney was even sold. The business was hella successful. She still hasn't even sold on it. You know why? I remember that. He's a serial entrepreneur. She married to a serial entrepreneur. That's it. I've done this in the past so many times and she sees how the patterns go. Hey, you gotta swing the bat, baby. I swing, man. That's just it. And it's difficult because it put a lot of stress on our marriage and everything, but to that point as well about us having maturity coming into this, we reinvested a lot of our money. And so it was like, if we made money, we kept putting it back in. We took a tiny little seller. So she never saw that in our bank account. So her whole thought of like how much money we were making was only what's in our bank account. I'm like, no, no, babe, we got in here and then we got over here and it's like, pfft. She's like, I don't care. I don't have it. I still drive here in Corolla. That's what she do. Well, I mean, you know what? You've talked about clients going to, you know what was hard for me that I dreaded was telling people that I trained for 10 years, 12 years, 13 years that I wasn't going to train. I know, I still struggle with that cause it still hurts me to talk about it cause I had developed terrible following up. Oh, I had tear. I know I had developed such relationships with these people. Some of them, it was their entire fitness career. Like it was how they started fitness. And I'm telling them, I'm going to have them train with someone else. It's like, you know, you can't replace that relationship. But I just, you know, look at the look on their face and they all told me, I knew this was coming cause they knew about mind pump. They're like happy for you, but they're also like, they were super bummed out. Oh, it was a hard conversation. It broke my heart to do it. That was one of the hardest things to do. So for trainers to do that, man, I feel it. I think part of the reason why we were able to make it work is because there's, without like putting ourselves, I think if I was by myself, I would have had to force myself in the corner. But because we had each other to lean on and the strengths of other guys to be able to lean on, I felt like that's also part of why it still worked out. Like I feel there's, at least for me, I feel like if there's no way, if I had something that I saw like, oh, there's opportunity here, I can make this happen. And I'm not jumping all over it right away. Actually, that's fair. If I was by myself, I probably would have jumped faster because I don't know how I would have done it in the other way. I think the advice I would give to a younger entrepreneur is if you don't have, as I tell people this all the time, especially in the NCI coaching group, if you don't have a lot of responsibilities, and I mean real responsibilities, so don't get offended, but look, unless you're taking care of your family, you're invincible. I was, before I had all this, I don't give a shit. Like a parent, you have to feed, you count. I know that I could end up on the streets and I'll be fine the next day by myself, but when my kids depend on me, my wife, if you have parents that depend on that kind of stuff. But if you're that free, where you don't have, you're not married, you don't have kids, you don't have anybody to worry, that's the time to take the biggest risk. Well, the reason why, because it, okay, we talk all the time about how, motivation is bullshit, self-belief is everything, right? And that if you rely on motivation to get yourself in shape and stuff like that, you're eventually gonna fall out of shape and it's not like that. The same thing goes for being successful in business. When are we highly motivated? When it's a new idea and it's fresh and you're just getting started. So when the motivation eventually wears off, it's really hard for the average person to get up every day, still grind those hours in, unless it is literally the only way you fucking eat. If you, it is do or die. That's right. You got the built-in motivation every day. This is why I like that. This is why I like putting myself in that situation because then I'm not counting the hours all day. I'm counting my next meal. How am I gonna eat next? I'm not stopping work until I've figured that out. Like where if you have that luxury and you have that cushion and you do it, then you rely on it to be exciting all the time. And this is the only business, which so all the other ones I've ever built, the very beginning there's a honeymoon stage and it's amazing and it's fun and you're trying to figure things out and then you prove yourself, you figured it out. Then you make a little bit of money doing it. Now you make a nice little living off of it and then it's like, wah wah wah. This is the first one that I have ever done that is seven years deep and I'm arguably as excited. To come to work or more every day today. The only time it's ever happened. That's like the first thing, like again to the point of being the serial entrepreneur of different, it's the interest level. It just goes away. Cause you like building stuff. I love building stuff. We're not done building this. There's a lot of. Exactly, there's much more to go. But I'm just happy that, I don't know man, back against the wall back then, we might have ended up with a line of fat burning. Or something like that. You bring up a really good point that I said, I'll concede to that. Cause here's the thing, you said maybe you would, I'll be straight up. If it came down to feeding my son or giving me food, I'll steal. That's just, if it was do or die, like I'll risk going to jail to make sure my kid lives and my wife is fed. I get that. To me, that's 100% I know that I'm that person and so you're right, by doing so, I never had to question that. There was never a point where it's like. We were in a great position man. And we could tell people to eff off all day long. And we did. We told a lot of people to eff off in those early years. Now, I mean, we still do. We still tell a lot of, we don't say it like that though. We're much nicer now. We're a little nicer. We had a little bit of a chip on the early days, right? Anyway, look, if you like Mind Pump, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal and they're all free. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Mind Pump Justin on Instagram. Adam is at Mind Pump Adam on Instagram. And you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump South. This one's really important. And that is to phase your training. If somebody trains for a full year doing a bench press and they're always aiming for five reps, if you compared that person to a person who did a bench press where they did three or four weeks of five reps, but then they did three or four weeks of 12 reps and then three or four weeks of, let's say, 15 to 20 reps. And then they'll throw in some supersets. At the end of that year, you're gonna see more consistent progress from the person who's moving in and out. And less injury, that's another thing. You'll see less injury as well.