2503: If You Always Workout the Same Way You’re Killing Your Gains (Listener Coaching)

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth – Episode 2503 Summary

Episode Title: If You Always Workout the Same Way You’re Killing Your Gains (Listener Coaching)
Release Date: January 3, 2025
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews
Producer: Doug Egge

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1. The Importance of Workout Variety and Tempo Modification

Overview:
The episode kicks off with an in-depth discussion on how consistently following the same workout routine can impede muscle growth and fat loss. The hosts emphasize the critical role of introducing novelty to workouts to stimulate new muscle growth and enhance fat loss.

Key Points:

• Novelty Beyond Exercise Variation:
  While changing exercises is a common method to introduce variety, the hosts suggest that altering other workout variables can be equally, if not more, effective. Sal Di Stefano mentions, "Innovative methods beyond just switching exercises can keep your workouts fresh and your muscles adapting" ([02:31]).

• Changing Rep Speed/Tempo:
  Adam Schafer highlights tempo modification as a powerful tool, especially for advanced lifters who have already cycled through various exercises. He explains a hypertrophy-focused tempo of "four seconds on the negative, two seconds isometric, and two seconds on the positive" ([04:33] Adam Schafer).

  "Nobody's bench tempo looks like that. Yet that is the protocol for hypertrophy training, which most everyone that is lifting weights is trying to achieve." ([04:51] Adam Schafer)

• Pause Reps:
  Introducing pauses at specific points in a lift can break through sticking points, enhance strength in weaker areas, and add significant novelty without altering the exercise.

• Ego vs. Effectiveness:
  The hosts discuss how ego often prevents individuals from adopting effective training strategies like tempo changes or pause reps. Adam notes, "The problem with this isn't that it’s new, it’s that it requires you to dramatically reduce your weight" ([08:55]).

  "If you can put your ego aside, this can actually get really fun again, because most people have never done this before." ([10:12] Sal DiStefano)

Notable Quotes:

• "If you work out the same way all the time, you're absolutely killing your gains." – Sal Di Stefano ([02:31])

• "You're setting yourself up for so much failure that you'll discourage yourself." – Sal Di Stefano ([61:31])

2. Exploring the Akkermansia Probiotic Strain

Overview:
The conversation shifts to probiotics, specifically the Akkermansia strain, discussing its potential benefits and the current state of research.

Key Points:

• Akkermansia's Role:
  Sal Di Stefano introduces Akkermansia as a less common probiotic strain linked to fat loss, appetite suppression, and anti-inflammatory effects. Despite its promising benefits, it isn't widely found in traditional probiotics.

• Research Insights:
  The hosts delve into studies showing Akkermansia's impact on insulin sensitivity, cholesterol levels, and liver function. However, they also acknowledge the complexity of microbiome research and the need for more comprehensive studies.

• Expert Opinions:
  Referencing Dr. Russio, Sal emphasizes a cautious approach, noting that while preliminary studies are intriguing, more research is necessary to fully understand Akkermansia's effects.

Notable Quotes:

• "This specific strain of bacteria is connected to fat loss and weight loss and appetite suppression and anti-inflammatory effects." – Sal Di Stefano ([17:03])

• "But the studies are really interesting. It seems to improve insulin sensitivity. It seems to have better effects with people who have IBS." – Sal Di Stefano ([19:56])

3. Listener Coaching Q&A

The hosts address several listener questions, providing expert advice grounded in scientific research and practical experience.

a. Navigating New Year "New Me" Hype

Question: HannahBeast asks, "How do you navigate through the New Year New Me hype?"

Discussion:

• Realistic Goal Setting:
  Sal advises setting achievable and sustainable goals rather than overcommitting based on temporary motivation spikes.

  "You have to ask yourself, whatever I'm starting with, is this something that I can honestly say I think I'll be able to maintain for the rest of my life?" ([55:20] Sal Di Stefano)

• Professional Approach:
  Adam shares his strategy of under-promising and over-delivering by starting clients with manageable commitments, leading to higher consistency and long-term success.

  "Talking them down, start them off. Realistically, you're going to find far more success across the board with that than you are trying to capture the motivation and try to push them through when the motivation fails." ([62:31] Sal Di Stefano)

b. Acupuncture for Muscle Building and Fat Loss

Question: Tinook Sirtap asks, "Any benefits to acupuncture related to muscle building or fat loss?"

Discussion:

• Mixed Data:
  Sal acknowledges that while acupuncture shows benefits in pain management, its direct effects on muscle building and fat loss are less clear.

• Central Nervous System Effects:
  The hosts theorize that acupuncture may aid muscle development and fat loss by influencing the central nervous system, similar to the benefits derived from massage and myofascial release.

  "If something is stuck around for thousands of years and it's because it's been shown to have value, I consider that to be as valuable as a double-blind, placebo-controlled study." – Sal Di Stefano ([66:33])

Notable Quotes:

• "I definitely do think there's value when you find a good, good person." – Sal Di Stefano ([68:00])

c. Assisted Stretching Labs

Question: Kathy Biker asks, "Thoughts on assisted stretching labs. Is it worth it?"

Discussion:

• Benefits of Assisted Stretching:
  Adam and Doug discuss how assisted stretching can enhance range of motion, aid in recovery, and act as a form of active recovery, particularly beneficial for those engaged in intense strength training.

  "It's the accumulation of consistently doing that, the added benefit. And the more time that I can train, the more volume and intensity I can apply over a period of time. That's where it really starts to add up." – Adam Schafer ([71:03])

• Cost vs. Self-Implemented Techniques:
  While acknowledging the benefits, Adam points out that assisted stretching is a luxury and not always financially accessible. He suggests that individuals can achieve similar benefits through self-administered techniques like foam rolling and mobility drills.

Notable Quotes:

• "If you can afford to add things like this, it's one of those things that [enhances training]." – Adam Schafer ([69:08])

d. BPC 157 for Older Bicep Tendon Injury

Question: Jonathan Sash asks, "Do you think BPC 157 would work for an older bicep tendon injury?"

Discussion:

• Accelerated Healing:
  Sal explains that BPC 157 can accelerate tendon healing but emphasizes the importance of addressing underlying issues to prevent recurrence.

• Combination Therapy:
  Adam advocates for combining BPC 157 with corrective exercises and mobility practices to ensure comprehensive recovery and prevent compensatory movements that could lead to further injuries.

  "If you combine it with correctional exercise, these things are absolute magic." – Adam Schafer ([75:03])

Notable Quotes:

• "It's the same problem. You're just gonna get the same problem again." – Sal Di Stefano ([72:10])

• "If you combine it with correctional exercise, these things are absolute magic." – Adam Schafer ([75:03])

4. Additional Discussions

Probiotics and Microbiome Complexity:
The hosts delve into the intricate relationship between the microbiome and overall health, highlighting how certain bacterial strains can influence weight and metabolic health. They acknowledge the current limitations in understanding and the potential AI-driven advancements required to unravel microbiome complexities.

AI and Future Technologies:
A brief tangent into the advancements in AI and their integration into health and fitness, discussing tools like ChatGPT and their potential applications in personalized training and health management.

Personal Anecdotes:
The conversation includes light-hearted and humorous anecdotes about cats, partying mishaps, and childhood drug experiences, adding a relatable and entertaining layer to the episode.

Notable Quotes:

• "It's so complex that it's going to take AI to figure it out." – Sal Di Stefano ([21:10])

• "We're dealing with what we're trying to accomplish. Remember, you're trying to accomplish lifelong, ideally, lifelong behavior change that doesn't happen overnight." – Sal Di Stefano ([60:16])

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Conclusion:
Episode 2503 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth offers a comprehensive exploration of workout variety's role in optimizing gains, the potential of emerging probiotics like Akkermansia, and practical listener advice on navigating fitness trends and recovery supplements. The hosts blend scientific insights with practical experience, providing listeners with actionable strategies to enhance their fitness journeys sustainably.

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Connect with Mind Pump:
Find the hosts on Instagram @mindpumpmedia, @mindpumpsal, @mindpumpadam, @mindpumpjustin, & @mindpumpdoug and visit mindpumppodcast.com.

Explore Training Protocols:
Access expertly programmed training protocols at mapsfitnessproducts.com.

Transcript

[Chris Gethard]

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[Sal DiStefano]

Your body and expand your mind, there's.

[Justin Andrews]

Only one place to go.

[Sal DiStefano]

Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts Sal Destefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode we answered listeners questions, but this was after an intro portion. Today's intro was 53 minutes long. This is where we talk about current events, fitness studies, science. It's a good time. By the way, if you want to ask us a question or post the question we can pick from, go to Instagram Indpump Media now. This episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Organifi. They make organic supplements for health and wellness. Today we talked about their Green juice, Red juice and Gold juice. Go check them out. Get yourself a discount. Go to Organifi.com mindpump and use the discount code Mind Pump. Get yourself a discount 25% off. This episode is also brought to you by Butcher Box. They deliver grass fed meat, wild caught fish and crepe feet free pork to your door at incredible prices. If you go through our link butcherbox.com forward/mind pump. New users will get your choice between chicken breast, ground beef or salmon in every box for a year included. But you got to use the code Mind Pump. By the way, you'll also get $20 off. Also, it's January. This is a great time to get a workout program from us. Or should I say bundle of programs. We have a new to Weightlifting Bundle, a Body Transformation Bundle, a New Year's in Extreme Intensity bundle, and a body transformation bundle 2.0. All of these massively discounted huge discounts. The biggest ones of the year. Go check them out. Go to maps january.com all right, here comes the show. If you work out the same way all the time, you're absolutely killing your gains. Novelty or newness is something very important that triggers new muscle growth and helps the fat loss. But there's a right way and a wrong way to do it, and we're going to talk about some of the best ways. Let's do it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Change it up. You know, when we talk about novelty, I think people immediately think of changing exercises. And although it is true that changing an exercise is novel, I think there are better ways of improving novelty with your workouts, especially when it comes to certain exercises, like a squat, a deadlift, overhead press, row. Like things that are foundational and fundamental that you don't necessarily want to stop doing. There are other ways to add novelty without having to change your exercises, without having to change anything, aside from a few key things. So in other words, your workout looks the same, but there's a few things you can change.

[Adam Schafer]

Not only that, but. And I like where you're going because I actually think that your advanced lifters, someone who's been lifting for years, most of them have already done the novel exercise thing. In other words, they've already changed exercises up. So I like going different directions. I remember as a trainer when I would get a client that was experienced, right. And they had a pretty good grasp of lifting. They had rotated through many exercises and knew the importance of, you know, the basics. Let's say that we talk about a lot. One of my favorite go thing go tos was to mess with tempo.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Rep speed.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. Because it just seemed to be one of those things that nobody really played close attention unless you were a very specific, like Olympic lifter or somebody who's training for something very specific. The average gym goer who's trying to build muscle, lose body fat, be healthy.

[Sal DiStefano]

Pay attention to it.

[Adam Schafer]

They just don't really pay attention to it. Everybody just kind of goes. And I remember going through my schooling on, you know, the exercise tempos, and when I looked at what the tempo was for hypertrophy, four, two, two. I looked around and went, nobody does that.

[Sal DiStefano]

Explain four, two, two. For somebody listening.

[Adam Schafer]

So it will be four, four seconds on the negative. So let's use a bench press. So four seconds on the way down, two seconds in the isometric, so at the very bottom, and then two seconds on the way back up. So four, two, two. Yeah. So it'd be like this. One, two, three, four, one, two, one, two. Nobody.

[Sal DiStefano]

Nobody.

[Adam Schafer]

Nobody's bench tempo. Tempo looks like that. Yet that is the protocol for hypertrophy training, which mo which is Building muscle, which most everybody that is lifting weights is trying to achieve. Unless you have a very sport specific reason why you're in there lifting weights. And in that case, you might, you know, tend to gravitate towards a 1,1 1 explosive type movements, but the average person just doesn't do that. And that was the type of client that I got. I got a client who was trying to build more muscle or lose more body fat or whatever the case may be. And they're, oh, I've done this, Adam. And I've trained this and I've trained these exercises. And I go, okay, well when was the last time you did a strict 4, 22 protocol? They'd be like, huh? What do you mean? All right, well, let me show you the tempo. And it would destroy them. And all the weights that they were used to using for all the exercises we had to dramatically reduce because they had never trained in a tempo like that.

[Doug]

Yeah, I love doing that because especially messing with tempo because you can still keep a lot of those staple exercises that are your foundational exercise. You don't want to stray too far from them because it's going to move the needle for you the most. This is really where all of the gains and the strength come from is like a few of these compound lifts. And so to just tweak the tempo of that and to your other of that is like, let's do an explosive set. If you've only done super slow, you know, to, to shake it up, you can totally do that and get fast twitch response, which provides a whole new stimulus. And so that's just one variable. That's one variable we just messed with. And it's pretty much the same programming that you have in front of you, but now you just tweak that.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's why I like it. I like it the most. Yes, it's effective. Yes, it produces gains. Yes. There are so many different ways to change the rep speed, which means you have at your disposal five or six different ways to add novelty. Where you could go slow, slower, super slow, or fast, faster, super fast, for example. But I like it primarily because it's an easy change. If you have a workout, a plan, you have an exercise order that you like. Changing exercise exercises, changing workout programming is more complex. There's more thought that needs to go into it. Although a lot of people don't necessarily understand that. People who are, you know, strength and conditioning coaches and trainers understand, like organizing exercises is one of the more complex parts of workout programming. And if you do it wrong, you could really take away from your progress, potentially increase your risk of injury. It's not a bad thing to do. But you got to know more about workout programming to change exercises than you do to change rep speed, rev speed. If you're doing a workout plan, you like your exercise order, and you're like, you know what? I want to change something up to get my body to progress again. Change nothing but rep speed. Yeah, you don't have to change your exercises at all. You can make the squat that you do every single week that you've been doing for the last six months, a different exercise by going slower or by going faster or by pausing. That's the next one. A lot of people don't pause their reps. Yeah, pause reps are exceptional. This is one of my favorite ways to get through a sticking point with an exercise. So think of an exercise that you. You do. Think of the point of the rep that you tend to fail at. So it may be at the bottom of a bench press or near the top at lockout or an overhead press at the top or at the bottom or a squat or whatever halfway up, wherever that sticking point is. Pause your reps right there, hold it for 5 seconds or 10 seconds, then complete the rep. You've just added a wonderful part of novelty. Your body will start progressing, and then you'll get stronger in the place that you're weak at and change the dynamic of the exercise.

[Doug]

I love doing that. Taking the weight down just a bit, you know, really focusing on pausing. But now what we're doing is we're recruiting muscle. We're just sitting in there, and we're. We're generating more force by recruiting more muscle fibers. And this is training your body to respond with. With more troops when it comes to that specific part of the lift. So then when we start adding weight again, you know, feel the difference completely.

[Adam Schafer]

Problem with this is. Is ego. This is, oh, I gotta go lighter on my way. Yeah, The. The. This. The reason why this isn't popular advice isn't because this is new or we just figured this out. It's that it requires you to dramatically reduce your weight. And that if you've been lifting for months or years and you worked up to get to that 250 bench press that you're so proud of, and then you hear the advice on mind pump £50 or more, right? You gotta go from used to moving those two plates. Now all of a sudden, 135, and you're like, this sucks. I look weak. And it's all ego. Related. The results are gonna get. You're gonna get more results, way better. But the problem is, so many of us lead with our ego and allow that to dictate how we should be training. And so we tend to stay away from this advice. The rep, speed, and pause reps require that you reduce the weight dramatically. And that means you're going to be lifting a lot, which, ironically, is so much better. You're going to get better results. It's safer. You're less likely to get injured doing these. This. This type of training, slower reps or pause reps. But many people tend to avoid it because of the ego and you.

[Sal DiStefano]

And this can get really fun. Look, if you can put your ego aside, this can actually get really fun again, because most people have never done this before. So you've just discovered you've just unlocked a new level to progress. I mean, you could literally. By the way, this was an entire style of training that was popularized around World War II that bodybuilders still to this day will sometimes use, known as super slow motion training. During World War II, iron and metal was. I mean, they limited how much you scarce. Yeah, because they needed it for the war effort. So gyms, their weights couldn't go up very high. So what did bodybuilders do at the time? Well, they did sets where they would take 30 seconds for one rep or long, you know, or longer. Right. They would do one or two reps for a whole exercise, but they're moving the weight super, super slow. If you've never done that before now, this isn't the way you should always train. But if you've never done that before, you try this for three, four weeks. Why not watch what happens to your progress? By the way, this is true for all rep speeds. In other words, you can introduce novelty so many different ways. If you're the rare person that does train with slow reps and controlled, do an explosive four weeks of training where you're using lightweight and you're trying to move it as quickly as possible, and you're doing 1, 1, 1. Like you said, Adam, you're going to see incredible progress. It's a very easy, very effective way of introducing novelty, getting your body to progress, and it requires no other changes. Again, that's my favorite thing about this is you don't have to change and plan and understand or don't understand workout programming. Like you're following a program that's working for you that you just. It's just stale. It's just stagnant. You're Like I need to change things up, change that, just change the rep speed, pause some of your reps, stick to that, that particular style of rep speed for four weeks. As you start to plateau, move to a different rep speed and watch what happens. All of a sudden you've got all this great progress that you haven't even tapped into before.

[Adam Schafer]

That was my bodybuilder advice. So in the bodybuilding community, time under tension is a very popular term. And so if there's anybody who does pause reps and slows down the reps, it tends to be bodybuilders that are tempo based. So but they rarely ever go the other extreme. So that was like. So whenever I would get a client that was, you know, a competitor been lifting for a really long time, understood time under attention and the value of it. They were the ones I love to train in the 111 because they'd be like, this is, I'm not a power lift, I'm not Olympic lifter, why would I do this? Oh, this is going to be incredible for you because you never train this way. So did I ever tell you guys that one of my first, one of my, my first fitness managers, this is before I was even a man, so I was only a trainer. So I'm 20 years old. One of the first guys that I ever had that I worked for. I wish I remember his name. Little Australian dude and used to, used to ride around on his own.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, little skate shoes.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. He used to only train that way.

[Sal DiStefano]

Super slow mo.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Sal DiStefano]

Like 30 seconds.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. Every. Yeah, he would do like, I think he'd only do one set or two sets that were crazy slow. He'd get a pair of 70 pound dumbbells and just as slow as he possibly could until he, it's a failure basically. And that was his method of training, always not rotating through that or interrupting it. And his philosophy behind it was that it was one of the. Which very safe. This is also why there is entire franchises that are built around this. It's called, they're called super slow, I think is what they're called, super slow training. And they're designed to target the advanced aged. Right. So people that are much older and they're like, you know, kind of this circuit training meets super slow training. And that's what it is. They're designed in these kind of a bunch of machines and then they take you through these extremely slow repetitions to prevent injury.

[Sal DiStefano]

I've done. So I've done, I haven't done this in a long time. But I. So I mess with tempo all the time, but I haven't done the extreme slow motion training in a long time. The last time, I want to say I was in my 20s, but I did do a whole 45 day period, I want to say, of it. And man, I remember just progressing like my body just. And then when I went back to my traditional training, what I felt was incredible stability. Like, my reps felt so smooth going back to my traditional strength training. So it's. It's something that you never see in the gym. You just never see people do this in the gym. And it's a super easy way to change your workouts and make them.

[Adam Schafer]

That's it, Doug. Super slow zone.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's so funny, by the way, people will introduce this stuff like it's brand new. They just created. This was literally World War II bodybuilders and gyms were stuck with dumbbells up to 30 pounds and they didn't know what to do. And so they would do these crazy. And they looked phenomenal. You had these great bodybuilders pre steroid era.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

And they looked incredible.

[Doug]

Well, it's funny. I mean, too. And I know you didn't mark this one up there in terms of rest, but it. I was used to through my athletic career, just pure strength training. And so I had a lot of big rest periods.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And then sometimes we do circuit training, but I never did supersets until I hung out with Adam. And so that was like one of those other ways of interrupting it in terms of like taking one body part, one body group, and then, you know, going right into the next exercise. That exploited that. And that really. That really shook it up for me.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. No, phenomenal. But I'm gonna change direction a little bit. I. Justin, had communicated to me about a product that one of our partners put out, and I had dismissed it because it was labeled as a GLP1 probiotic. You know what I'm talking about?

[Doug]

Yep.

[Sal DiStefano]

And I'm like. Immediately I saw it. I'm like, oh, God, they're trying to jump on the GLP1 bandwagon.

[Adam Schafer]

Who is this? What was that?

[Sal DiStefano]

Transcendent put this out. So I, you know, through our mphormones.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

So it's. By the way, we're not supposed to. We're not doing a commercial for them or anything. I was just. I, over the weekend did some research on this strain of bacteria. Okay. And it's called Acker. I'm gonna see if I'm pronouncing Ackermansia akkermansia.

[Doug]

Not to be confused with necromancia.

[Sal DiStefano]

No, no. Akkermansia is a strain of bacteria that is only found in the human gut. It is not a popular bacteria that you'll find in most in probiotics. Probiotics typically will stick to different strains of lactobacillus or bifido bacterium. Akkermansia has this other. Right. So I went online because I looked at the bottle and I read it, I'm like, I've never heard of that strain of bacteria. This is weird. So I looked up studies on it. Okay. This specific strain of bacteria is connected to fat loss and weight loss and appetite suppression and anti inflammatory effects. It's actually wild.

[Adam Schafer]

What?

[Doug]

I just find this now.

[Sal DiStefano]

I don't know, I've never heard of it. Listen, I pull up.

[Adam Schafer]

Why are they not. I feel like if it was that profound, Sal, every probiotic would be all over this.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's already exploding.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, it is?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes, it's already, it's already.

[Adam Schafer]

So is it like recent research that.

[Doug]

It must be the. Through the GLP1 they figured out it's new.

[Sal DiStefano]

The research is relatively new. But like I'll, I'll, I'll pull up. So you know our friend Dr. Russio, he's got a great website.

[Doug]

Yep.

[Adam Schafer]

Does Dr. Russio talk about it?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh really? Well then I, you know him?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, wow.

[Sal DiStefano]

So no kidding.

[Doug]

Very meticulous.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes. So it, it, it, it. In animal models it stimulates the secretion of GLP1. So it'll increase the amount of natural G LP1 you'll produce. Now it's probably not going to produce. I'm not going to say probably. I'm pretty sure it won't produce the same effects to get lower appetites, pressure. Yeah, that's not going to do anything like that. But the studies are really interesting. It seems to improve insulin sensitivity. It seems to have better effects with people who have ibs.

[Doug]

So that's the gut healing effect to it somehow. Like my friend who's, you know, introduced to it, she's been taking it and that's what she's been reporting to me. What way better gut health.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Sal, do you, does, do you get any of this as a byproduct or is there any connection to when you actually take a GLP one that you get some of this or is it completely different this.

[Sal DiStefano]

So that's a good question. I can't find a study to see if it made people eat less and that's why they're seeing these results or if it's the bacteria itself. Now, here's why I'm saying this. We have rat studies and some human studies where they'll do bacteria transfers. So gut, you know, microbiome.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. The skinny rats.

[Sal DiStefano]

And then suddenly one of them gets lean. One of them. It's like, what is going on here? So it's way more complicated than we think. It's not just one ate more, one ate less. It's literally the bacteria itself is doing something that causes fat loss or fat gain. So it's really weird. But the studies on this, the human studies, show this, right? They have two groups. The group who took Akkermansia lost five pounds more than the placebo group. Five pounds more is not a little bit. That's a significant amount. They didn't change anything else. Again, I don't know if it changed their eating.

[Doug]

Probiotic. Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

There was a 30% decrease in fasting levels of insulin. They had improved total cholesterol. There were reductions in markers of liver dysfunction and inflammation. All this can happen by reducing calories. You know, A1C went down in the. In the Akkermansia group, blood sugar was better. Now, again, it could just be that they ate less because of bacteria.

[Adam Schafer]

Right.

[Sal DiStefano]

Because all those.

[Adam Schafer]

All those markers would improve based off of that by itself.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's right. That's right. But there seems to be a benefit for healing leaky gut because of how it affects them. The.

[Adam Schafer]

What is Russio saying about it?

[Sal DiStefano]

He's. He's citing all the studies and he's saying it's interesting is what he's saying. Because I think a lot. I don't think it's. I think they need more studies.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Which sounds like. That's what I mean. Russio's the type of person who would wait until it's very careful.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. He doesn't hype anything up.

[Adam Schafer]

No, no. He's almost too. He's almost boring to listen to because of that. He won't make a stick. No. I love this shout out. He hates shout out to my boy Mike, too, because I love him. But I mean, that's like, he's. He's so careful to not be that guy that sometimes you're like, you wish he would just. Well, just tell me, should I do it or not? Well, you know, this is what. This. And then he'll. Then he'll go on this long, nuanced, nuanced answer of. It's like, so are. Do you think for sure or what? Like, well, I would Never say for sure. You know, he's like that, you know, so it's like.

[Sal DiStefano]

But.

[Adam Schafer]

But I mean, also a great guy to talk about some of that because he's also quick to. He. If it was. Or there's not enough interesting research even on it, he would right away dismiss it.

[Sal DiStefano]

But so, you know, and you got. We've been talking about this for 10 years. Probiotic research, microbiome research is so fascinating. It's. It's the craziest.

[Adam Schafer]

Like landing on the moon.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's just. Now, the problem with it is it's so complex that it's going to take AI to figure it out. It really is, because it's so complex what's happening. But we do know that the microbiome has profound effect. Again, I'll go back to those studies. They will take rats, change nothing, but do fecal transplant. So, oh, your microbiome has now switched to this lean mouse's and suddenly it becomes leaner. They've done human. They've done weird human studies like this too. It's really, really interesting stuff. Now, does this mean we can create a micro, you know, a proba. No, we don't know what the hell's going on half the time. That's why we're doing fecal transplants, because we don't know how to do this any other way and we still don't know what's going on. But it's really interesting. And this is the first time I've ever heard of that bacterial strain. I've never seen that bacteria strain in a probiotic, although you can find it now online. You know, again, you go to mphormones.com, i think they provide it, you know, in a probiotic by itself. I don't think it's more important to take than the traditional, you know, Lactobacillus bifido bacterium, which was so well studied. We know that those are good for you, but weird, right?

[Doug]

But a new, interesting strain nonetheless.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, do you think it just makes me feel like we're one step closer to, like the magic pill?

[Doug]

That we're getting a lot closer? For sure. I do think AI has had a part of that, being able to interpret all the data and everything, you know, at a really crazy rate.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, that's. Yeah, there's some interesting stuff with that too, where you could, like, swallow a pill that then communicates to AI and then the AI is able to, on the fly, administer hormones or peptides or whatever based off of your body in that moment. Yeah, Which I don't think we're all neuralinked. You know, we get hive mind.

[Doug]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

All of us have the same opinion all of a sudden.

[Adam Schafer]

It's crazy. It does feel like it's giving you nutrients. It's coming fast. It really does feel like it's all this.

[Sal DiStefano]

Have you guys tried 1-800-chat GPT yet?

[Adam Schafer]

No, I mean. I mean I use chat GBT almost daily.

[Sal DiStefano]

What's the next.

[Adam Schafer]

Next thing that I almost use it daily?

[Sal DiStefano]

No, no, the next chat GBT came out, if you call it Siri.

[Doug]

Or is it.

[Sal DiStefano]

You're talking to Chat gbt and you could just talk to anything. You could tell it and just like chat. You could.

[Doug]

So weird.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay, it's. I play wild. It's weird, bro. Hey, can you give me this? What about that? How about if you do this? Oh, let me. And it's. You're talking to a machine.

[Doug]

No, I'm. I'm behind, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, it's a little freaky. I guess it's not that much different because I've told you guys the last time we were talking about that it's only a matter of time before takes over Google. Yeah, it takes over Google. That's how you search and that's how you already prompt Google or Siri now, right? Siri, look up this or whatever like that. It's. Now you're going to be able to just voice command chat gbt and Chat GBT will. Will figure out stuff. You know, we were in the. This just happened last. The night before last here in the bath. And you know, I told you guys, Matt's Max is always negotiating about like whether how many books he's going to read. He can stay up later. This and that. Right. And we're. We're in one of these times.

[Sal DiStefano]

Deal maker. Where he got that from?

[Adam Schafer]

He's negotiating with his mother while he's in the bathtub. And she. And Katrina goes says back to him, okay, well, you have two minutes left until then. And then Siri in my bathroom also goes, set timer. Two minutes. I'm like, that is weird, dude. Like it like was listening to an off conversation. I have the. The little. What is the. The. The little apple ones that we got. We all do you guys have those plugged in.

[Sal DiStefano]

They're always listening to you.

[Adam Schafer]

They are. That's why I thought that was.

[Doug]

So I heard. Yeah, I heard. Unless you take the battery out, they can still.

[Sal DiStefano]

They're always on.

[Adam Schafer]

That's. Yeah, it's. It's off. I have it Just plugged in. It's off. I have it on. I rarely use it. Every once in a while I'll connect my music if I'm in the mood to listen to music while I'm in the shower, which is rare, but I do every now and then. And so that's the only reason why I even have it in there because it's like one of the places I don't use a speaker. But just being plugged in is enough because it hears that and it picked it up. I wonder if it's not even turned on. It's just.

[Sal DiStefano]

I wonder if survive. I wonder if in the future the survivors that from the. The. The whatever. The drone wars, whatever you want to call them, you know, look back and be like, what idiots. You guys gave them everything. You guys invited them in your house. Give all the information, give all the control.

[Doug]

Current status, like every couple minutes, you know, you're posting it freely.

[Sal DiStefano]

I told you guys that there's a theory out there that AGI already exists. It's keeping itself secret. It's. It is literally manipulating us.

[Doug]

I feel like I told.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't know what to. I don't know what. I don't know what to believe.

[Doug]

Long ago is why I speak. Speculating.

[Sal DiStefano]

Have you seen the latest? So you know the whole drone sightings now that are everywhere. And there's orb. Now there's orb sightings. So there's drones. They look like drones. Yeah, lights and then there's orbs.

[Adam Schafer]

I saw the orb.

[Doug]

I heard. Was it. Logan actually had a decent theories. Like if. If you were to try to prompt society, at least like introduce aliens. Like, you would make it more like you'd socially condition it by having a lot of things in the skies for a while, not telling anybody anything. They're just there and you just keep like, oh, yeah, it's the drones. And then the drones move and now the real aliens come in. You're like, whoa. Yeah, less freak out.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, I do.

[Adam Schafer]

Don't you. I feel like nobody. Like half of my family is just whatever. I literally.

[Doug]

Nobody cares.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. I feel like if this was 30, like a UFO could land.

[Doug]

I want to slap in our parking lot.

[Adam Schafer]

And yeah, there would not be hysteria.

[Sal DiStefano]

You know what it is?

[Doug]

I would have been so excited.

[Adam Schafer]

You know what I mean? A bunch of people just pull out their iPhones.

[Sal DiStefano]

I think it's a.

[Adam Schafer]

Everybody pulled their iPhones.

[Sal DiStefano]

I think it's a trauma response response. I think it's like you live in an abusive household and then, you know, mom throws A frying pan at your dad. You're like, yesterday. I think we just been through some, bro. So everybody. You know what I. What I was saying, if you look at the descriptions of angels in the Bible, they describe what some of them look like. I saw videos, the wheels with eyes. There was a close up of one of these orbs. And then there was. There was a guy reading all. Yeah.

[Doug]

Talks about.

[Sal DiStefano]

I was like, oh, that looks like exactly what he said.

[Doug]

Yeah. They're supposed to be real wild looking.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, yeah. Terrifying, apparently. Just. I want to hear. You had this note up there last week. You weren't able to talk about it. This is about your cat.

[Doug]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

There was another.

[Doug]

There was a followup. Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Because this is the cat that got stuck in the tree.

[Doug]

Same one in. In. So our whole plan was to get him fixed because it's like, dude, this cat is tomcatting, you know, around and like doing.

[Adam Schafer]

He's so up. We're like, we gotta fix this cast. We're gonna cut his balls off.

[Doug]

Because he goes. He just takes off, you know, and so.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, so he's getting. He's. He's hooking up.

[Doug]

Yeah, dude, he's fine.

[Adam Schafer]

That makes him behave more. Yeah. He said, you ever seen an animal after you. After you spayed or neuter them? They're like completely docile. That's why I said it's like so up. You know, because they do.

[Doug]

They change all the drive away from you.

[Adam Schafer]

That's exactly what it does.

[Sal DiStefano]

That was happening to men, right? Now the testosterone's dropping for sure.

[Adam Schafer]

Theories around that.

[Doug]

Come on, dude, Wake up, brother.

[Sal DiStefano]

Open your eyes.

[Doug]

Open your eyes, man. Yeah, so anyways, there was another issue. We heard a rustling and looked out our backyard and there was noise and craziness. And Courtney kind of went out there to look and see what was going on. And she thought that he was entangled with the bobcat. And then they're just like making all kinds of crazy noises and kind of took off. So I got. I got like my like, craziest, brightest flashlights. I got like. I got on my bike and I'm like, you know, trying to go save the day and go find this cat and get it away from this bobcat. And there was this whole ravine that goes down towards this creek. And so anyway, I just was like, whatever, I'm just gonna trek it, you know, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm hell bent on saving this cat.

[Sal DiStefano]

Whatever cat.

[Doug]

I do like this cat. But like, this was one of those things I'm like, dude, really, this is. This is a lot, you know? But you know what? I'm committed, you know, I'm out here. So I was, like, running down there. I'm, like, yelling for him, and, like, he's making wild noises. Like, I don't know if it's him or if it was the other cat, but it was like, it almost sounded like a little kid screaming, you know, I'm just like, oh, my God.

[Sal DiStefano]

He's getting torn up.

[Doug]

And, like. No. Running down this hill in the mud. And I have, like, all these crazy flash. I see them finally. I see these two, like, eyes. And then I see another pair of eyes, like, above it. And the shadow of it made it look like this big old, like, cat on top of this cat. And then I get closer, and I'm like, wait a minute. And I look, and, you know, my cat's black, and there's this other cat that's gray. And I'm like, wait a minute. And it was him. He was on top of the cat.

[Sal DiStefano]

So he was making the other cat scream.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Doug]

Biting its neck and, like. Like, doing the thing. Oh, I'm like, you freaking cat. Oh, you mean more mad. I'm, like, running after him, and he's taking off with this cat, and they're, like, doing their thing, and I'm like. I'm like, that's it, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

You're getting fixed.

[Doug]

Yeah, you're getting fixed.

[Sal DiStefano]

I'm over this.

[Doug]

Like, your balls, dude. I'm, like, hustling. I'm, like. Almost broke my ankle, like, jumping over this thing. And anyways, so mad.

[Adam Schafer]

Is this the same cat you guys had at the other house when you're trying to get. Keep down the rats, or is this a different cat?

[Doug]

Yeah, this is one of my. My best produced. That's why he won me over because he killed so many gophers and rats and mice and, like, he's on fire.

[Sal DiStefano]

Let him go have his fun, man.

[Doug]

But, dude, I mean, like. Like, he was so loud, and it.

[Adam Schafer]

Was like, you don't want to hear.

[Doug]

Neighborhood is like.

[Adam Schafer]

It's kind of up, bro. Yeah, you cut the balls off because you still like hearing cat sex.

[Sal DiStefano]

If I'm not getting on, you're not getting.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, nobody's having fun.

[Doug]

Yeah, that's my standard. I'm sticking to it. No, but the first one, I think he really got. I think what he.

[Adam Schafer]

He.

[Doug]

He must have tried with some bobcat that was in heat, and then he.

[Adam Schafer]

Got attacked, and that would be bad.

[Doug]

Because, like, it ripped off his dew claws and like, he was.

[Sal DiStefano]

Can a cat mate with the bobcat or.

[Doug]

They totally heard it. Yeah, they can.

[Sal DiStefano]

We can have babies.

[Doug]

We looked this up.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. Really? No, they can't have babies with a really.

[Doug]

Yes. I don't know what it's called, but, yeah, there. It's like a hybrid.

[Justin Andrews]

It's probably like dogs. You can have different breeds.

[Sal DiStefano]

No.

[Doug]

Yeah, but can a wolf have sex with a dog? Yes.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay, but can. But can. Okay, but he can't do like a mountain lion.

[Doug]

No, not a mountain lion.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay. But a bobcat.

[Doug]

Look this up.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's.

[Adam Schafer]

I want to see a cat. That's. That's cool.

[Doug]

Blame Courtney if I'm wrong. But it's.

[Sal DiStefano]

That sounds like.

[Doug]

For sure.

[Sal DiStefano]

We. We looked this up.

[Adam Schafer]

You know what? I feel like it'd be risky, though. Like, half the time, the bobcat would probably eat the cat.

[Sal DiStefano]

No. The.

[Justin Andrews]

The answer. So a domestic cat cannot produce offspring with bobcat.

[Adam Schafer]

Didn't think so.

[Justin Andrews]

They're genetically incompatible.

[Sal DiStefano]

There you go.

[Adam Schafer]

You're reading bad science, honey.

[Doug]

So that's all second hand.

[Sal DiStefano]

Dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Dude. Hey. I'm so bummed about our. Our car experience with our staff. I was so excited.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, it sucks. I was. I was. I wanted to go so bad. I was gonna go my dad.

[Adam Schafer]

You jinxed us with this sore throat.

[Sal DiStefano]

It was raining.

[Adam Schafer]

You.

[Sal DiStefano]

You guys. Rain? I told you the weather said it was going to rain.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you jinx.

[Sal DiStefano]

So they didn't let you guys do it, huh? Because of the rain?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Yeah. They.

[Sal DiStefano]

I mean, they just took you for a ride.

[Adam Schafer]

I didn't even stay for that. Some of the staff stayed for that. Adam was incredible. Right. It's just trying to accommodate us. Was like, whatever you guys want to do. You guys. I mean, he's. I just hate that you guys have to hang out. But that's just their rule. Like, if it's pouring down rain, they won't obviously take dangerous. Yeah. And so. But they have all these crazy tools. Like a vacuum that sucks the water off the track and everything. So as long as it just stops.

[Sal DiStefano]

For a little bit, then you're okay.

[Adam Schafer]

He's okay. So he's like, it's not a big deal if it dumps. As long as we get a break. If we get a break, then we'll send our team out there low level all day. But it was just this constant, like, mist all day long for them. And so it kept. We kept being on the fence.

[Sal DiStefano]

You guys do anything else with the team?

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, we took them out to a really nice brunch.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's nice.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Really, really, really nice play. I know. I thank God we had that, like, we had that planned anyways. And I was talking train. I was like, I feel so bad because half the team got up at like, you know, probably 6:00 in the morning.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Drove all the way out to Sonoma.

[Sal DiStefano]

Young kids.

[Adam Schafer]

And so, yeah, they're young kids, but at least they got like a really fancy brunch out of it, you know? Okay. They got a fancy brunch out of it. And, And Adam, the.

[Sal DiStefano]

What were the cars?

[Adam Schafer]

They had hurricanes. They had the 296 GTB. They had the 911 GT3Rs, the GT4Rs.

[Sal DiStefano]

So fun.

[Adam Schafer]

The Nissan. Yeah, they had the GTR. They had Corvettes. They had. What am I missing, guys? I think.

[Doug]

I think that's it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. They want most everything. Yeah. And we all were going to. Everyone had different cars they were going to drive. Everybody was really excited. But I was super bummed that. But he did tell us like, you know, so the season goes from. This was their last race of the year. Season goes from February all the way till December. And so when the season's back up again, he said, come down with the team. We'll take care of them and stuff like that.

[Sal DiStefano]

So, yeah, I did a, I did a garage workout with my, my 4 year old and this was the first. He's. He's worked out me before and do a little, you know, he'll do a couple extras. I knew he'll play, but this time he was like coaching me. It was the, the cutest thing ever.

[Doug]

He was coaching you?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, dude. Like I'm doing a set. And he's like, come on, papa. You could do one more go. You could do one more. And the strength that I, that he created in me to have my kid.

[Doug]

Tell me kids like cheering you on.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, yeah, you can do more. Oh, you're so.

[Doug]

Lift the house.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh my gosh. I was like, this is like I've always wanted.

[Doug]

I love you, son.

[Sal DiStefano]

It was awesome.

[Adam Schafer]

So he's. He gets up that early when you're. This is.

[Sal DiStefano]

No, no, no, no. This is. Yeah, I did an afternoon workout.

[Doug]

Oh.

[Adam Schafer]

I was like, damn, he's getting up that early. Coming.

[Sal DiStefano]

He is up at that time though. The kid wakes up at 5am he comes in a room. Is he 5am every day? Five around 5:30.

[Adam Schafer]

What does a sleeping day for you, Jessica look like?

[Sal DiStefano]

6Am, 6:30 would be like, oh, better check on the kids.

[Adam Schafer]

Hopefully over there alive.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, my daughter will sleep till 6 or 6:30. But he's up, man. 5. Around 5:30 he's up. He'll come up into our room and then he gets into bed with us and we'll let him watch a little TV or something while we do our, you know, our morning scripture.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, we're doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

But it was cute to have him cheering me on like that. It was super to his mom too. It was kind of cool.

[Adam Schafer]

That is cute.

[Sal DiStefano]

So it's the season. Well, we're out of the season, but it's still. Yeah, you know, we're. We're out of the season. But the Christmas blend, the Organifi Christmas blend, hadn't done it a long time. It's the best. It's magical. The red juice and green juice mixed together. If you haven't tried it, you got to try it. It tastes good. Energy, good. Digestion.

[Adam Schafer]

Great before workout too.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, great. Non stimulant pre workout. And then they have. Doug, don't they have like this like dawn till dusk.

[Justin Andrews]

It's called sunrise to sunset.

[Sal DiStefano]

Bundle. Bundle.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, what's that?

[Doug]

Sunrise? The sun.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So you get a pack of green juice, red juice, gold juice. Yeah, they all come together.

[Adam Schafer]

Is it like a sample pack?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it's like a box you get all these in.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good giveaway.

[Adam Schafer]

Very similar to like how they did the little starter kit that we did before. So another, another version of that. Is that what that is?

[Justin Andrews]

So it's 3:30 serving serving pouches. So you get the red, green and gold in a 30 month of all of them.

[Adam Schafer]

It's not a sample then that's a.

[Justin Andrews]

Full, that's a, not a sample pack.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, okay.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's a, it's a bundle and you get 30 days of all of them.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I said sample.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's so it's actually, I mean it's a great supplement stack. So if you haven't tried that. So red juice is great because it's got some rhodiola on there. It's good for energy. It's got the red fruits and vegetables, then the green juice, a little bit of ashwagandha, a little bit better for CNS adaptation. Then the gold juice for inflammation and relaxation. So that's why you go morning, afternoon, evening would be the way to do it. And then with that it looks like they're doing a discount. It's just kind of cool.

[Adam Schafer]

That's awesome. Yeah, kind of very, very cool.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

25% off organifies the best, especially with the way everything tastes, too.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, dude, I got to tell you, Justin, you know what they just found? They just found some. Some ruins that suggest that barbarians and Vikings used stimulant, natural stimulant drugs before going into battle. In particular, they found these little tiny, like, spoons and stuff that they would use to sniff and snort. Stimulant. Yes. Dude.

[Doug]

Wow.

[Adam Schafer]

How do they make these leaps?

[Sal DiStefano]

Because they find residues on them and they see. They, they, they. They see the size of them, and they are with warriors. So. Yeah, you're right. They're guessing.

[Doug]

Toxicology, archeology. I've heard something along these lines. Like, again, this is like the. The Oracle of Deli. Like, they have a lot of, like, trace elements there that, like, showed that the tea had some kind of psychedelic herbs and things in it. But. Yeah. So what.

[Adam Schafer]

When did coke get popular?

[Doug]

Oh, I don't know. That's a good question.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, traditionally it was used for really processed. But not cocaine. It was like the coca leaves.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Because coca leaves, I imagine, have been around for.

[Doug]

Well, they.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, they would use them in the.

[Doug]

Was it Peru or Chile?

[Sal DiStefano]

Peru.

[Doug]

Down there. Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

So I want to say my wife. I think it was my wife when she used to travel with Cirque du Soleil. So she would. She's been all over the world. And when they were hiking in these. In the high. These high mountains is the altitude.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

They would have them chew. Yep. On coca leaves.

[Doug]

Cultural.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. So you would chew on the coca leaves to help you. And I'm like, that was cocaine, honey.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

She's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Doug]

Nice.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So, I mean, so I think that makes sense if, like, okay, that's an area where that plant grows, and there's. You could. You could prove that it was. That it was a crop there. And then you also find the tools where they would be snorting. But, I mean, it seems like such a leap because you found a little round tool.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, no, I think we also. We do know for sure that they would take psychedelics. Not for sure, but it's pretty close that they would take psychedelics. They were called berserkers.

[Doug]

The Berserkers. And they would take Thin red line.

[Sal DiStefano]

They were the front line, and they'd give them psychedelics. They'd rip their clothes off or wear, like, animal skins. And then they'd be the first ones in.

[Doug]

They're all in mushrooms and. And yeah, they'd be the first in there. And two, because I don't Know if it was Ireland or Scotland, they had all the red haired crazies. You know, that's where the whole thin red line thing.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, I never heard that.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, it's funny, I wonder if that's too. What? Remember like how the Dare Cops would tell you about like LSD and shrooms?

[Sal DiStefano]

Pcp?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, pcp. Tell you how does PC.

[Sal DiStefano]

I've never in my life seen anybody or been around.

[Adam Schafer]

I've never anything like just seen videos like. Oh, tell us, Doug. Tell us some pieces.

[Sal DiStefano]

I had my dad.

[Adam Schafer]

What is it?

[Sal DiStefano]

Tranquilizer. Right? Look at. Look it up. I don't know, look up how to make it.

[Doug]

It gives you like superhuman powers.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, no, what it is, is you don't feel pain.

[Justin Andrews]

That angel dust, Right?

[Sal DiStefano]

Not that you're. So that's.

[Adam Schafer]

Why is that considered angel dust?

[Justin Andrews]

I think so.

[Adam Schafer]

I thought angel dust was another. Another slang for cocaine.

[Doug]

I thought it was or does mescaline or heroin.

[Sal DiStefano]

You're the drug dealer?

[Adam Schafer]

No, not those drugs.

[Doug]

I got to do some research.

[Sal DiStefano]

You didn't do the high margin?

[Adam Schafer]

No. Yeah, no, I was. Yeah, I was just pretending. Yeah, that's what real drug dealers are saying. Pretending. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Anesthetic.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay, so what did it say? What?

[Sal DiStefano]

Anesthetic?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Anesthesia.

[Doug]

Yes. Oh, so you don't feel pain doing.

[Justin Andrews]

Crazy things or something to that effect?

[Adam Schafer]

What's it derived from? What kind of plant or what. What's it come from?

[Sal DiStefano]

I think it's a synthetic drug. I think it's literally a. A pharmaceutical.

[Adam Schafer]

So is that what we're just using it for? When are we going to use something like that?

[Sal DiStefano]

Anesthesia.

[Adam Schafer]

So is it literally the same. The same thing?

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, anesthesia is a whole class of drugs.

[Adam Schafer]

I know. Like what?

[Sal DiStefano]

I think that's what it was used for. And then people would use it recreationally is what it sounds like.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Is it synthetic or is it derived from anything?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I'm not seeing that it is angel dust, though.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh. Oh.

[Adam Schafer]

You were right about that. Interesting.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Way to go, Doug.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Something right.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, my.

[Sal DiStefano]

My dad had an employee.

[Adam Schafer]

I'll take 500. Alex. For drugs that we've. None of us have done.

[Doug]

None of us know anybody even.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm gonna give you the answer on the synthetic or natural. It's synthetic.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay, there you go. Yeah. So. So what are the effects of it? Look up the effects. Like what is put type.

[Justin Andrews]

So it was actually used as a anesthetic in the 1950s. Injected as an anesthetic and you were asking what.

[Sal DiStefano]

I'm sorry, what Are the effects. Why do people do it?

[Adam Schafer]

Well, obviously numbs the out of you.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, but it must feel good. Otherwise, why the hell would anybody take it?

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I mean, if you imagine if you had a bunch of pain and then you took something like that, you wouldn't feel no pain, right?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. I don't think it's people with backaches that take pcp. It's like you're getting high.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, yeah, a lot of drugs are. A lot of drugs are used for not what they were intended for.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's what I'm saying. So I was gonna say my dad had an employee that did a pcp, got high on pcp.

[Doug]

Really.

[Sal DiStefano]

And at one point came to work high as hell. And my dad. My dad had to subdue him. And my dad's like, I for sure broke his shoulder. My dad did judo. He's like, I for sure broke his shoulder, but I had to keep holding him, fighting.

[Adam Schafer]

You just reminded me. My stepdad told me a PCP story. Now, it was a thing in the 80s. It was. It was. And he was a contractor and he came to work.

[Sal DiStefano]

It was a big.

[Adam Schafer]

And he did some crazy. And he did some. Where he like cut a finger off or something like crazy and just kept on going, like Was no big deal. You're right. I have to ask him that story.

[Justin Andrews]

So it changes your mood. It's a hallucinogen, so you'll see things. Oh, well, have a good time, I guess.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, my point of bringing that up, though, was that it's.

[Sal DiStefano]

The famous stories from the 80s came from PCP.

[Justin Andrews]

So probably.

[Adam Schafer]

So what made me bring that up, though, is that you're saying that that's how they use for the frontline guys, right? To go do something crazy and stuff like that. I feel like that's the way the DARE guy would talk about if you ever did shrooms or you did lsd, it would make you jump off buildings.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Do crazy stuff. And so I'm sure that it came from the history of where, how they used it.

[Sal DiStefano]

My mom told my. The only time we ever talked about drugs when I was a kid is my mom told me story. She would. She would scare me is what she did. And so one time she told me, she's like, oh, lsd. Because I asked her, so, mom, what's lsd? She's like, oh, this kid one time did LSD and he sat in the corner, he thought he was an orange. And I was like, what random story. I was like, what?

[Doug]

I'm very citrusy.

[Adam Schafer]

Kudos to mom. She's like coming out with something.

[Sal DiStefano]

In the 60s and 70s, they would put it on stamps. So you had to be careful if you licked a stamp or something like that and you could get it or whatever, which is a myth, by the way. Look that up. Nobody ever did that. Nobody's gonna.

[Adam Schafer]

My parents never talked to me about drugs. Did your parents talk to you about drugs?

[Sal DiStefano]

Drugs?

[Doug]

No. Well, they told me if I ever tried them, you're gonna be kicked out of the house. You'll be kicked out of the house. You do this, you're kicked out of the house.

[Adam Schafer]

I told you the story of my mom. They thought I did. So I didn't do any drugs as a kid. I was like a good kid, right? So I didn't do any. And not even pot, Nothing, right? And they my. I threw a party at my house. This is when I was 16 or 17. So I was graduated high school at 17, so it's probably 16, junior year, junior year, senior year in high school, parents were out of town, threw a big party at my house, had the house spotless and cleaned everything, put back together, got away with the party. Two weeks later, after the party is over, getting up to milk the cows. 3:30, 4:00 in the morning, brushing my teeth, right? Half awake, and my mom comes in the bathroom and slams a glass bubbler on the counter. What the is this?

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, wow.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

And you're like, I don't know.

[Adam Schafer]

I didn't know. I. And that. Imagine how angry she got.

[Sal DiStefano]

But of course you don't believe you.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, that's what I meant. How angry she got when I was, was like, I don't know. I don't know. What.

[Doug]

What is that?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. So she was so pissed. I mean, I, I think it was grounded for a year. I don't know if they held it.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh my gosh.

[Adam Schafer]

It was grounded for. Yeah, no, they did. They ground me for a year. I think they had stuck to like three months before they finally let it go. But I tell this story because my fast forward, I'm in my mid to late 20s, you know, long, long after I've been long gone on my own, have my own house. My mom and I are actually hanging out one night at my house, just staying up late, telling stories. And I was laughing, saying, you remember you thought I did drugs when I was in high school. And she goes, you did do drugs in high school. Don't you remember? And she tells the story like, mom, that wasn't mine. Mom, that wasn't Mine. And she's like, oh, get out of here. There's no reason for you to lie. I'm like, exactly. There's no reason for me to lie. You can't do to me anymore. I was like, that was my buddies who left it up like. Like a typical stoner, put it above the stove and forgot about it and left it up there. And then. Yeah, then my mom, looking for a cookbook or something, grabbed it one day. And then I said, yeah, it was not mine. And she. She still, like, we went back and forth for a good half hour.

[Sal DiStefano]

And then. She believed you?

[Adam Schafer]

I. I mean, I don't know. You have to ask her the next time you see her. Did you believe your son didn't smoke pot in high school? Because she. I think she believed without a. She also knew I went to parties and did all that stuff like that. And I had a lot of friends that were stoners too. So, I mean, if you're a parent.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, I mean, think about in her shoes, you wouldn't.

[Doug]

My dad drug tested me anyway. Anyway, so.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So I've never been drug tested.

[Doug]

It was new policy at work. Why is nobody else getting tested?

[Adam Schafer]

Did you know when he did that?

[Doug]

Yeah, I knew exactly.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, so you knew he was up to. Yeah. You didn't think. You didn't fall for it?

[Doug]

Oh, I mean, the only thing is I tried it like, maybe twice in my life, you know, and was just like, did the whole, you know, Bill Clinton puff thing where I didn't heal. I'm be fine, dude. I'm going to be fine. And then I started getting paranoid because somebody told me it, like, stays in your hair for, like, ever. I was like, I'm gonna shave my head. And I was like, I shaved my head looking for gold seal. I had literally had it twice, like, ever.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

You know. Oh, yeah, the herb golden seal.

[Doug]

Yes, the gold seal. I was like, researching. I was trying to find somebody had it. I was so paranoid. Came back clean. And then it just went on like nothing happened. I'm like, dude, how old were you.

[Adam Schafer]

The first time that you smoked weed?

[Doug]

I was junior high.

[Adam Schafer]

Junior high? Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Holy shit, that's early, bro.

[Doug]

What about you grade loser? That explains a lot.

[Adam Schafer]

Fuck you guys.

[Doug]

Let's talk about volume.

[Adam Schafer]

Moving along.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Anyway, let's change the subject real quick. I was freshman or sophomore in high school. Oh, high school. And I did it and I thought, do you guys remember the myth where they said you won't feel it the first time you do it, bro? No, Matter what you do.

[Adam Schafer]

I screwed myself because of that. Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

What a bullshit. This is before the Internet was really popular. So you got crap information.

[Doug]

Yeah, terrible.

[Sal DiStefano]

So I'm like, oh, I'm only. I'm doing this as my first time. I want to.

[Adam Schafer]

This is another one of those stories of you and I that are so eerily similar.

[Sal DiStefano]

So weird.

[Adam Schafer]

I literally. We were. I was in my 20s at this time, so I had already, you know, long past high school. I'm in my 20s already have my house come back. I'm coming back. I know. I'm a grown ass man. I'm coming back to hang out with my buddies. We're in our 20s, and it was hanging out at old apartment with. And there's probably 10 of us. These are my stoner friends, and they had been trying to get me a smoke weed since I was a kid. No, no, no. Now I'm like, you know what? I'm a responsible adult. Have my own house like this. And they were like, listen, you. You got. You probably won't feel it your first time. You got. You're not going to feel it. It's like, what a lie. And so I intentionally at wat smoke them all onto the table. They were done. I'm like, all right, give me some more. I want to make sure I feel this. And it was the worst experience of my life.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, you got. We got you.

[Adam Schafer]

I freaked out.

[Sal DiStefano]

Freaking prayed the whole time probably.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, bro. I cried. I cried. I called one of my buddies held me all night long, and he's just like, don't talk.

[Sal DiStefano]

Your friend held you?

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, dude. I fell asleep as a grown man with another grown man holding me and telling me it's gonna be okay. And every time I would talk, everything would be loops. And I remember just like, I can't. I'll never do this again. I'll never do this again. And I don't think I touched weed for like another 10 years after that.

[Sal DiStefano]

I wonder if this whole, like, you won't feel it the first time was like a propaganda to get kids to like, oh, yeah, we're gonna make sure we mess them up the first time.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, like the dad with the cigar.

[Sal DiStefano]

Because that's. That's what I did. I was. I was in the back of my buddy's car, and they passed the. The pipe back. And I just taking big because I'm like, I'm gonna feel it this way. And I got so paranoid and so scared, and so it was terrible. And I'm like, I kept telling my girlfriend I'm like, feel my heart. Is it beating?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

She's like, yeah, I think it's beating. I'm like, I don't think it's beating.

[Doug]

I don't think it's beating.

[Sal DiStefano]

I don't feel my heart beating. I don't think. It's like, I thought I was gonna die. And then I went home hours later and I felt so bad about what happened. And I walk in my house and of course it was a night that my parents decided to invite half of our family. Over 30 people in my house. And I'm feeling so paranoid. I went straight upstairs and my mom knew something was going on. She followed me and she's like, are you okay? And I'm like, I came up with like a partial truth. It was a lie, but it was a partial truth. Like, my friends smoke weed and I started crying. I think I got high on accident.

[Adam Schafer]

I got contact. They did it in the car.

[Sal DiStefano]

How do I tell her?

[Adam Schafer]

Doug, how old were you? Do you remember?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I was like a freshman in high school when I tried it.

[Adam Schafer]

You young too, huh?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Wow. You and Justin. Losers.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I know.

[Doug]

Real degenerates.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm paying for it still.

[Adam Schafer]

And had no idea.

[Doug]

Yeah, we were hardcore.

[Sal DiStefano]

It doesn't even count anymore.

[Doug]

Oh yeah, but it was illegal.

[Sal DiStefano]

Dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Did we talk about both of our partners?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, we did. Well, actually, I was going to bring up butcher boss.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh.

[Sal DiStefano]

I want to ask you, Adam, because you. You're really good about like, food.

[Adam Schafer]

Smoking my meat?

[Sal DiStefano]

No, that. Just feeding your max really healthy meals.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

You know, my kids, I've brought this up before, but what we often do is we'll take their grass fed ground beef and I'll make. I'll add a little taco seasoning, salt. I'll make a big thing of rice and that will feed my kids all the time. Yeah, like, it's so easy all the time. They'll always eat it no matter what. And it's so healthy. It's like the. It's the best thing.

[Adam Schafer]

So I, I have a go to recipe meal thing that me and Katrina eat all the time, which is. It's the grass fed ground beef that we make. I throw it. I threw like four or five of those into. So fill up massive iron skillet and then saute mushrooms and onions and I'll be cooking rice and I just mix it all together and it makes this big old dish. The, the. The garlic and the butter on the mushrooms mixed with the sauteed onions mixed and it's like you can do it in bulk. Max loves it. I love it.

[Sal DiStefano]

Great macro profile.

[Adam Schafer]

Macros are incredible on it Digests really well. It is for sure like a go to new meal.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's got a good fatty acid profile because of the grass fed.

[Adam Schafer]

So good. So so good. I wanna. I have. I do have a shout out today.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh good. So you're shout out that.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, I am gonna shout it out.

[Sal DiStefano]

I haven't laughed that hard so long time.

[Doug]

So my stomach.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

This will give the audience a little a peek into our sense of humor because some people might not like this but whatever.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I just. Yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever. If you guys are. If you have no sense of humor like that, keep kick. Kick rocks. So I found this Instagram page And it is this dot is is dot Michael 2024. And what he's. All he does is he posts other viral clips and then he highlights all the funny comments. So. And one of my favorite things is to read like viral clips and read the comments. I just think people in the comments are.

[Doug]

We used to do that anyways.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, just cultivated exactly so that. I mean I would do that anyway. What gets me to watch a reel that goes viral more often than not is actually to go through and see the comments.

[Doug]

People are funny dude.

[Adam Schafer]

And so what he's done is he's curated that for you. So there are all these viral clips and then he's high. He highlights all like the top 25 comments that are on of them.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Like this one dude is like a martial arts guy, but he's like a big dude.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

People are kind of like what they wrote Chunk Norris.

[Doug]

Chuck Norris.

[Adam Schafer]

So this is like the Internet is undefeated and you just get such. I mean the witty funny people. That's one of the. My. I don't know. I just. If you. If you're into that stuff and make you laugh, it's a total laugh is you're not gonna learn anything.

[Sal DiStefano]

My favorite one, the one that had me laughing so hard was like these. There were these daughters that were talking and then the mom comes out, makes a comment and they all look a little rough and people are commenting. One of them said, I know there's some Cookie Monster pajama bottom somewhere in that house. Why are those pajamas? I immediately know what they're talking about.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

What is it with Cookie?

[Adam Schafer]

Here's another funny weird thing like that. So there I saw this. I saw some weird. Somebody made this comment about like bad shitty drivers and it's almost always some guy in a Nissan Maxima or Ultima.

[Sal DiStefano]

Why?

[Adam Schafer]

I don't know why.

[Sal DiStefano]

So true.

[Adam Schafer]

But I'm telling Katrina this. She goes, that's not true. Literally. Swear to God, this is true story. This was just not that long. It was like maybe a month ago. I'm telling her this story. She's like, how does that. That makes no sense. We're driving, I get cut off by a Nissan. Also, like, she was like, oh my God. I'm like, I told you. I was like, it's such a random thing.

[Sal DiStefano]

So weird.

[Adam Schafer]

It is so weird. I mean, it's. I mean, I don't know. There's. There's also a lot of that said about like, and this is good. I'm offend. Everybody drives the, the Dodge Demons or Challengers and stuff like that.

[Doug]

Like that. Those people drive those they almost strangle. Yeah, worse. Dude.

[Sal DiStefano]

My commute.

[Doug]

Every time, dude. Yes, they suck. Stop. Go home.

[Sal DiStefano]

You want to use Peptide Science to radically change your skin for the positive, make it heal faster, look better and younger. There's a company called Luminos by Entera. This is Peptide Science you won't find anywhere else. Go to enteraskincare.com mpm use the code npm. Get 10% off your order. All right, back to the show.

[Justin Andrews]

First question is from HannahBeast. How do you navigate through the New Year New Me hype?

[Sal DiStefano]

You know what's interesting about this question is I have two perspectives. One of them is as maybe a gym member, somebody who works out themselves, and the other is as a fitness industry professional because it's an interesting experience on both sides. So as a person who works out consistently, I've been doing it for so long that new year comes around, nothing really changes. But I do remember a time when this might have affected me. Especially early days where you, you start the. Near the new year off, motivation is at a really high level and you tend to set yourself up for failure because when you make, when you set goals in a hyper motivated state of mind, you don't have good foresight. You tend to imagine yourself as always having that motivated state of mind. And so this is where people mess up, right? They get started, they're not working out, they haven't a long time and they're like, that's it. New year starts, I'm eating clean, I'm getting rid of everything out of my house. I'm gonna start working out five days a week. Like we're taking it serious. And then of course, three, four months later, they fall off because they've set themselves up for Terrible failure. So the most important part of this is to realize the state of mind you're in is not one that's going to stick around and to try to be as realistic as possible with whatever goal you set for yourself. So you have to ask yourself, whatever I'm starting with, is this something that I can honestly say I think I'll be able to maintain for the rest of my life? And you have to be as honest as possible and start there now as a professional. On the fitness side, this was actually a strategy that I used with brand new members and new clients. As an early trainer, I would take advantage of this motivation. Someone would come in, get super hyped. I'd say, cool, you're gonna work with me five days a week and work with me four days a week. We're gonna buy all these different sessions of training. And later on I was actually more successful by talking people down. They would come to me and say, I'm gonna start, I wanna work out with you four days a week. And I'd say, well, how much are you doing now? They'd say, well, I'm, you know, not doing anything. I said we're gonna start one day a week and then we'll move it from there. And that strategy of talking them down resulted in far better results and consistency and actually made me more successful as a trainer.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I guess it really depends on what perspective this is coming from. Is this a person who would consider themselves a part of the hype and that they're trying to not fall off, or is this like somebody who works in a gym or goes to a gym consistently already themselves and they're complaining maybe about the overflow of traffic and all the people. So I guess that's what I'm not sure about. But I think your point is spot on as far as if it's you who's concerned about the hype is that people always over commit. I mean that's one of the, one of the most common and you know, it's the other thing too is not only do they, not only do they over commit on how much and what they're doing, but they also over apply like they don't even need to. So I think that's a big part of this too is understanding that you're not going to get better results faster by doing seven days a week. You may temporarily but you, it won't be long term. And after you extend this, this over three, four, six months a year, you're far better off committing to less and building on that and building that momentum.

[Sal DiStefano]

And just from a results perspective.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. I mean, that's going to you better results. It's more realistic to sustain it. So that would be the thing that I would be careful of, is that people get hyped up and they. Then they fall in the trap of if I do more, I'm going to get more results. And that's not necessarily true in this situation at all. And you're far better off of, hey, I just came off the holidays. I haven't been really working out. I've been inconsistent. I've been doing all these things. I've been eating bad, I've been not hitting my protein intake, I haven't been going to the gym, I haven't been doing my walks. I haven't been trying to sleep or I haven't been trying to focus on my sleep. It's like pick one or two things that, you know, you can instantly implement and make change to improve your overall health and just stick to that and then build on that.

[Doug]

Focus on those lifestyle things first. If you haven't attacked that even before the whole hype even begins, it's like, can I. Can I address some of these things that I do every single day? Can I switch one thing I do every single day and can keep that consistent? Whether that's like just getting outside and going for a little walk, you know, after a meal or whatever it is that you're going to do, you're going to drink more water. It's just a very basic thing that you're going to focus on consistently hitting. You know, once we get a lot of the lifestyle things that are like a consistent pattern that you've established, then we can really start tackling more on as we go. But it's just such a better approach than trying to just throw the whole kitchen sink at it.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, you're. You're dealing with what you're trying to accomplish. Remember, you're trying to accomplish lifelong, ideally. Right. Lifelong behavior change that doesn't happen overnight. It's a process. Unless you have an epiphany, which is so rare. That's why it's called an epiphany. It's so rare for that to happen. I haven't even. Look, I, I used to have clients. I have clients that. Or members, I would say that would come in after having terrible health scares and that didn't even give them the epiphany they needed to completely change their life. So don't rely on that. Even though right now, Even though right now you may be listening to this and you feel like you've had that epiphany. It's January. That's it. I've never been in such terrible shape. I'm going to change everything. That's. I'm going to like. The data shows very clearly that you are wrong. So start with something that is realistic and start there. And again, the data supports and shows very clearly that that is a much more sustainable, realistic approach. It also works better. Adam's point is very true. The body adapts better that way. If you do too much, you apply too much stress on your body, it won't adapt very well and you're actually set. You're setting yourself up for so much failure that you'll discourage yourself.

[Doug]

Well, especially if it's negatively motivated. If all it is is you're seeing all these deficits and horrible, like, behaviors that you have that you need to correct and you're not going into this trying to better your health with like, better habits and improve on positive things. Like, you're gonna. You're gonna end up torturing yourself and quit.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. 100 and as trainers, if you're. Listen, if you're as a coach or trainer, listening right now, one of the best tips I could give you if you want to be successful as defined by clients that get good results for long, you know, for forever and as this find through your business as building a good business, one of the best tips I can give you is to under promise and over deliver. You get a new client that's super excited and is wants to do everything with you. Talk them down, start them off. Realistically, you're going to find far more success across the board with that than you are trying to capture the motivation and try to push them through when the motivation fails. Because they will leave you if you do it that way and you will lose a client.

[Justin Andrews]

Next question is from Tinook Sirtap. Any benefits to acupuncture related to muscle building or fat loss?

[Sal DiStefano]

I am.

[Adam Schafer]

Have you guys done acupuncture? Oh, yeah.

[Doug]

I've never done it. I've always been curious to do it, you know.

[Sal DiStefano]

So there's two, two ways we can look at acupuncture. One is we can look at the data and the data's mixed. When it comes to pain, the data seems to show that acupuncture is beneficial. When it comes to other issues, it's a bit mixed. Now the critiques on the data is that acupuncture can be done very well. It can be done very poorly. There's also a very individual component to acupuncture. So depending on who you go to, then the other end of this is. This is a practice that has been around for, I don't know, I think it's thousands of years. If I'm not mistaken. I think acupuncture been around for thousands of years now. I like studies, I like data, I like the double blind, placebo controlled gold standard. But if something is stuck around for thousands of years and it's because it's been shown to have value, I consider that to be as valuable as a double blind, placebo controlled study. Okay, so where am I going with this? Yeah, I think acupuncture works for sure. I definitely do. Now, I've had personal experience with it, and I've had clients that have had profound experiences with it. I mean, the first time. I'll tell you guys a story. I think I've told you guys this before. My first real experience with acupuncture, there was a woman. So I had. When I had my wellness studio, we had developed these wonderful networks of other practitioners. And I had done acupuncture before, and it was kind of lackluster. Well, anyway, one of the people in my studio had found this acupuncturist that was. I guess she was exceptional. That's the way she described it. She's like, she's amazing. You got to go see her. She's great. And I was. I was super skeptical. I'm like, I've tried acupuncture, you know, I don't know if I noticed anything. She's like, no, no, you got to see this woman. So I go to this woman, super skeptical, and she does her tests on me and uses Chinese medicine to describe what's going on. And at this time, I was like, all Western medicine. So I'm like, rolling my eyes, right? And she goes, oh, you have too much yang energy. We need to balance it with yin, this, that, and the other. And she said, I can give you a treatment that is good, or I can give you a very aggressive treatment, but I won't give you the aggressive treatment if you're going back to work. I'll only give you the aggressive treatment if you're gonna go home. Because I'm like, why? And she goes, well, you won't be able to work very well, and it's probably not safe to drive. And in my head, I'm thinking like, right, we'll see about that. So I'm like, give me the. My literal words to her were, I'm gonna go home. Which I wasn't. I lied. I said, give me the most aggressive treatment you can give me. So she said, you sure? And I said, yeah, I'm positive. So she did this. She did her acupuncture on me. I laid on the table, I got up and she said, okay. She's like, make sure you're home within an hour. I said, yeah, no problem. And I went back to work, started training clients. Sure enough, about an hour later, it felt like I took sleeping pills and Xanax at the same time. I got. So I had to cancel my appointments and take a nap in the back. Everything came down so hard. And then I was like, I totally bought in. And she did certain things for me for pain, for function. I had clients that I would send her. It was exceptional. So, yes, I think there's some benefits. I don't know if it'll help directly with muscle building or fat loss, but through the improvement of health. And I think it works with the central nervous system. That's my theory. Yeah, I definitely think there's value.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I think it absolutely can. If you think that soft myofascial release foam rolling is beneficial towards.

[Sal DiStefano]

Or massage.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, or massage is beneficial. When you understand what's really happening when you do foam rolling and massage on why it seems to work or feel good, then it makes sense why acupuncture works. I think until I understood what was really happening with the foam roll, I think I didn't believe and understand what was going on with acupuncture and thought it was woo woo and oh, this can't be working. How is this possible? But when you understand what happens with the foam roll and what it does to the cns, calming it down, because you have this overactive that it makes complete sense that taking these little needles and hitting.

[Doug]

Hitting these points, that protective signal.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Hitting these points that are overactive and fir like crazy, which is causing you to tighten and seize up, which is causing this chronic pain. That putting these needles strategically in your body calms that signal down, then now allows you to move more freely, then allows you to do exercises and do things like that. Then. Yeah, absolutely. It makes sense that there are, by.

[Doug]

The way, there are locked ranges of motion.

[Sal DiStefano]

There are established. So Western medicine will tell you there are already established parts of the body. So Western medicine is way behind. Right. When it comes to this. But. But they'll even tell you, like, if you're pregnant, you're in your ninth month of pregnancy, like third trimester, there are parts of the body, they say, do not massage, don't, because it could trigger labor. There's also referred pain. Right. The famous one being left arm pain. When you have a. Starting to have a heart attack, there are areas that you could pinch and push on that will cause a migraine to potentially go away and stuff. So I think acupuncture works through the central nervous system. I think the way that Chinese medicine practitioners explain it doesn't make sense to our modern, you know, Western science approach. So they'll say things like the meridians and the, you know, lines of energy and all that stuff, and you're gonna be like, well, you know, that doesn't make any sense. I don't care. I think it works. It's been around for thousands of years, and it. When. What I always tell trainers is when you build your network of people. On the short list, I always include acupuncture. So I definitely think it's valuable when you find a good, good person.

[Doug]

It's interesting you mentioned that, because when football and I get a stinger, I'd pinch right here. And it would, like, help quite a bit. Yeah, it was weird.

[Sal DiStefano]

Weird.

[Justin Andrews]

Next question is from Kathy. Biker thoughts on assisted stretching labs. Is it worth it?

[Sal DiStefano]

I haven't done one of these.

[Adam Schafer]

They're popping up like crazy.

[Sal DiStefano]

So is this. This assisted stretching, I'm assuming, is like.

[Adam Schafer]

Somebody holding stretch labs? Yeah, yeah. They're popping up all over the place.

[Doug]

They're doing static stretch with that right early.

[Sal DiStefano]

Is it static where they're putting pnf? Oh, I think it's great.

[Doug]

PNF would be great.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, yeah. For range of motion, for overactive central nervous system. I think it's great. I think combining it with exercise would be exceptional then.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. To me, it's one of those things that. Because the question follows up with, is it worth it? I mean, I guess it depends on your. Your financial capabilities. Right. Do I think that you could actually apply a lot of these techniques to yourself and get the same type of. Yeah, but then it's work. It's just like the same kind of relief that I get from massage therapy. I could, you know, foam roll and do a lacrosse ball and do all these mobility drills. But I love that I could pay somebody, lay down on a table. Yeah. Close my eyes.

[Doug]

They're gonna direct it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Pay somebody else to give me that relief. But it's a luxury, right? So I. I mean, I think that people that can't afford to do it, I think it's awesome and. Absolutely. I think it's worth it if you can afford to do it. If you can't, it doesn't mean you can't still get those same benefits on yourself. There's tools and things that you can use to give you the same benefits as you're getting from assisted stretching. To me, it's like a luxury to be able to do well.

[Doug]

I think it's. It's to your point of it being work it like to get clients to abide by a lot of these mobility practices and daily rituals. And it's always a challenge, you know, for coaches to, you know, really sell that to their clients and get them to be consistent with it and to have other options of accountability. I think, you know, going to a place like this and having it structured so the instructor takes them through and kind of works on the most challenging. I think too, a lot. I would have, like, specific clients that are. Have very challenging ranges of motion. This is definitely somewhere I would send them to get that extra bit of work so it doesn't feel like so much work. I'm just constantly, like, throwing at them all the time. They have somebody sort of directing that exclusively.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. You know who would benefit a lot from this, too, are people who do a lot of consistent strength training. Bodybuilders. There is a Hypertrophy 100 benefit from this. You actually get a little bit of. And the data shows us pretty clearly you'll grow some muscle that's limited. It's not like strength training. But you'll build more muscle by doing this. And if you do a lot of strength training and you're. And you're always tip. You know, toeing the line of between so sympathetic.

[Doug]

I barely ever impair sympathetic.

[Adam Schafer]

I attribute the success I had in bodybuilding to Katrina massaging me every day. Yeah, Every day she was either stretching or massaging me. And looking back, not having the muscles fuller, I just. I could. I could train more. I could. The volume and intensity I could apply at such a high rate because it's a form of active recovery.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yep.

[Adam Schafer]

So somebody who's helping you recover and you're getting it all the time, like, like, oh, my God, that and that. It's not like the difference in one visit. It's like, oh, wow, I built 10 more muscles. I did one massage therapist or I saw. I did one thing of stretching. It's like, it's the accumulation of consistently doing that, the added benefit. And the more time that I can train, the more volume and intensity I can apply over a period of time. That's where it really starts to add up. And so, yeah, if you have the luxury to add things like this, even.

[Sal DiStefano]

With that, Adam, the studies on this kind of stretching and hypertrophy, there is a muscle building effect. In fact, if you strength train a lot and you do one of these classes or you do this on your own, do long static stretching, and then when you're done with it, like really good static stretching, like you're holding it for a long period of time, you know, you're in there for two minutes, you're breathing through it. When you're done with it, stand up, look in the mirror, you have a little bit of a pump. You'll actually get a little bit of a pump from, from this. So for bodybuilders, this is a tremendous value.

[Justin Andrews]

Next question is from Jonathan. Sash, do you think BPC 157 would work for an older bicep tendon injury?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes, but it'll help. But here's the deal. Like, you can get a tendon to heal faster, but if you don't fix why it's injured or inflamed, you're just gonna get. It's the same problem. You're just gonna run into it again. So it's like, you know, you're fixing a hinge on your door, but you're not fixing the fact that your doors pulling on it. So the hinge is going to keep, it's going to keep breaking. So the BPC 157, which I think now I don't know if you can get BPC157 anymore, I think now you have to get Pentadeca organite, which is essentially the same thing. It's just a little different. They're really good about getting around the regulators. Yeah, it, it does accelerate healing and repair, actually, quite remarkably. So if you do use this and you don't combine it with correctional exercise, you are stupid. I mean, there's no better word to describe a person that uses something like BPC and doesn't do correctional exercise. Like, why, why are you doing that? You've wasted this beneficial peptide because you're going to go back to where you were before. Now, if you combine it with correctional exercise magic, these things are absolute magic. And I would combine this. If you're looking for like the holy grail of recovery and repair, you would go BPC with thymosin beta and correctional exercise. And what you're probably looking at is something like a 50% reduction or more in time for healing or repair. So, like a huge difference. So if it Would take you three weeks or three months to get better from an injury or inflammation. Basically cut it in half with those two peptides. Plus correctional exercise versus correctional exercise alone.

[Doug]

Has to be in combination with the correctional exercise and mobility practice and just constant better pattern sequencing. And so that's, that's really to, you know, get beyond where you're stuck and continuously aggravating it. We need to build those better patterns. But yeah, it'll help absolve that.

[Adam Schafer]

Those are the two knocks that I have on the BPC157 doing one knock is. It actually works so well.

[Sal DiStefano]

You're like, oh, I'm good.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you're like, oh, I'm good. Which I've made this mistake more than once. Like feeling so good so fast that you go right back to, you know, intense training too soon. So that's that, that's one knock. The second knock is the point about pairing this with corrective work, mobility work. Because if you had. Now even if you had an acute injury, right, let's say it was a freak accident, that you tore the bicep or something like that, what will happen because of the injury is you will have these, you know, your body will compensate and because of the injury and if you don't address the compensation while you go through the recovery process, then even when you heal and get better, you're not going to be.

[Sal DiStefano]

Now you're moving weird.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you're moving off. Which will then later on manifest in shoulder pain or elbow pain or wrist pain or some, some pain somewhere else from that point. And so, so it's important that you, you pair those. That's my one fear with a lot of people because it's become very popular now. It's no longer under like it used to be, gray market undercover, say 10 years ago where it's become wild, wildly popular now, now you're seeing like my, my mother in law, okay, 70 years old, texted me literally four days ago, you know, hey, son, is this, is this okay for me to take? My neck is hurting me. And it's, it's pill form BPC157. And I'm just like, like, yeah, that's not really for what you got going on. Mom, you've got chronic pain. We need to, you'd be better off with the massage. And then I gave her something for inflammation. I said, but for this, that's more like tendon repair or damage for tissue. And again, it's not addressing the root cause, which is what I was trying.

[Sal DiStefano]

To explain, you know, but by the [e-mail] that's where you can get it from a doctor. Because Adam mentioned gray market. That's we don't go gray market. I don't mess around with that because who knows what's in that? But okay, so here's the other part of this is if you. It may actually also make correctional exercise possible for some people because in some time, not often this is rare. But in some cases the injury or the issue is so bad or so tough to move through that the person can't even do the right correctional exercise because it hurts too much or there's too much protection going on. I believe in some cases. I wish I had this in the past because there were many cases where I had clients and man, it was a long road because they couldn't even do the correctional exercise. So we had to scale so far back and take such a step by step approach. But I could have, I would have loved something like this where it opened things up. Now we can move within a particular way and get to the more beneficial correctional exercise even faster. So this is like a godsend for a lot of people. But it has to be combined with good physical therapy or correctional exercise. Otherwise you're just kicking the can down the road. Look, if you like our show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is mindpumpjustin. I'm mindpump distefano and Adam's mindpump.

[Justin Andrews]

Adam, thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically, improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super [e-mail] the RGB Super Bundle includes Maps, Anabolic Maps, Performance and Maps, Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainer, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free [e-mail] if you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this. This is Mind Pump.

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[Sal DiStefano]

Today.