2531: The Top 5 Fat Burning & Muscle Building Super Foods

Summary

Mind Pump Episode 2531: The Top 5 Fat Burning & Muscle Building Super Foods

In Episode 2531 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth, hosts Sal DeStefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, and producer Doug Egge delve deep into the world of nutrition, highlighting the top five superfoods that turbocharge fat burning and muscle building. This comprehensive episode not only outlines these powerhouse foods but also explores their benefits, practical incorporation methods, and related insights on aging and fitness.

---

1. Organ Meats: The Nutrient Powerhouses

[03:53] Justin Andrews:
"Organ meats can be incredibly beneficial for fat burning and muscle building. They taste gross though. That's the problem."

The episode kicks off with a passionate discussion on organ meats, particularly liver. Recognized for their unparalleled nutrient density, organ meats are rich in essential vitamins and minerals like iron and B vitamins. Historically prescribed to combat nutrient deficiencies, they are lauded for their ability to support muscular development. However, their strong taste poses a challenge for many. To overcome this, Justin suggests mixing organ meats into ground beef—[07:12] Justin Andrews: "You take an ounce of liver and mix it into a pound of ground beef. It's so nutrient-dense that you won't taste it." This method ensures individuals can reap the benefits without compromising on flavor.

2. Whole Milk: Beyond the Skim

[09:03] Justin Andrews:
"Whole milk, as opposed to skim milk, allows for better absorption of fat-soluble vitamins like Vitamin D, enhancing bone health and muscle function."

Whole milk emerges as the second superfood, emphasizing its superiority over skim variants. While the latter was popularized in the 1980s amid concerns over dietary fat, studies have since revealed that whole milk fosters better absorption of vital nutrients like Vitamin D, essential for bone mineralization. Additionally, whole milk offers a balanced macro profile, combining high-quality proteins from whey and casein, making it an excellent post-workout recovery drink.

3. Berries: The Antioxidant-Rich Delights

[11:17] Justin Andrews:
"Berries are high in fiber, low in calories, and packed with antioxidants that support digestion and reduce inflammation."

Berries take the third spot, celebrated for their versatility and rich nutritional profile. High in fiber and low in calories, berries aid in digestion and promote a healthy gut microbiome. Their antioxidant properties combat free radicals, potentially reducing the risk of chronic diseases. Justin highlights their palatability, making them an enjoyable addition to any diet. For those seeking to boost fiber intake without the grittiness, incorporating a couple of cups of berries daily can be both satisfying and beneficial.

4. Greek Yogurt: The Probiotic Powerhouse

[12:52] Justin Andrews:
"Greek yogurt offers high-quality protein and probiotics, enhancing muscle repair and gut health."

Greek yogurt stands out as the fourth superfood, combining protein richness with probiotic goodness. Its high protein content supports muscle synthesis, while the presence of beneficial bacteria promotes a healthy digestive system. Justin shares personal anecdotes on how his family enjoys Greek yogurt mixed with berries and seeds, transforming it into a delicious and nutritious parfait. This makes it not only a perfect post-workout snack but also a versatile component of daily meals.

5. Whole Eggs: Nature's Complete Protein Source

[14:16] Justin Andrews:
"Whole eggs are nature's multivitamin, packed with choline and essential amino acids that drive muscle protein synthesis."

Rounding out the top five is the humble whole egg. Described as "nature's multivitamin," eggs are lauded for their complete protein profile and abundance of choline, a nutrient crucial for brain health and muscle function. Contrary to past misconceptions, dietary cholesterol from eggs does not adversely affect blood cholesterol levels for most individuals. In fact, studies highlighted in the episode indicate that whole eggs outperform egg whites in stimulating muscle protein synthesis, making them indispensable for muscle growth and recovery.

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Beyond Superfoods: Aging, Stress, and Fitness

Transitioning from nutrition, the hosts engage in a profound discussion on the impact of aging and stress on fitness. They identify critical periods—mid-40s and 60s—where biological markers indicate significant aging spikes. [15:58] Justin Andrews:
"Our bodies undergo non-linear changes, experiencing spurts of aging that coincide with life’s major transitions like midlife crises or retirement."

Stress emerges as a pivotal factor influencing these aging spikes. Major life events, such as career transitions, divorce, or loss of loved ones, can catalyze physiological changes that accelerate aging. The conversation underscores the importance of maintaining exercise routines to mitigate these effects. [24:03] Justin Andrews:
"Exercise is the most powerful tool to slow down aging, enhancing mobility and reducing chronic disease risk."

The hosts emphasize that consistent physical activity not only preserves muscle mass and bone density but also fosters mental well-being, making it crucial for longevity and quality of life.

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Listener Interaction: Q&A Sessions

Throughout the episode, the hosts interact with listeners, addressing real-life fitness queries. One notable call-in from Kira, a college volleyball athlete, seeks advice on optimizing leg growth during a bulking phase while preparing for an upcoming season. The hosts provide tailored recommendations, balancing strength training with sport-specific conditioning to prevent injury and ensure sustained muscle retention.

Another caller, BJ from New York, grapples with unexpected weight gain despite rigorous training and calorie tracking. The hosts diagnose potential metabolic adaptations from prolonged calorie deficits and suggest strategies like reverse dieting to recalibrate metabolism and support sustainable muscle growth.

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Key Takeaways and Conclusions

• Nutrient Density is Crucial: Incorporating highly nutrient-dense foods like organ meats and whole eggs can significantly enhance muscle building and fat loss efforts.

• Balance and Practicality: Finding ways to include strong-tasting superfoods into palatable meals ensures consistency without compromising on taste or enjoyment.

• Holistic Approach to Aging: Regular exercise remains paramount in slowing down biological aging processes, with a focus on mobility and multi-directional strength to prevent injuries.

• Individualized Training and Nutrition: Personalized programs that consider an individual's lifestyle, stress levels, and specific fitness goals are essential for optimal results.

Throughout the episode, the hosts reinforce the philosophy of debunking fitness myths and embracing evidence-based practices to achieve sustainable health and performance gains.

Notable Quotes:

• Justin Andrews [03:53]:
  "Organ meats can be incredibly beneficial for fat burning and muscle building. They taste gross though. That's the problem."

• Justin Andrews [09:03]:
  "Whole milk, as opposed to skim milk, allows for better absorption of fat-soluble vitamins like Vitamin D, enhancing bone health and muscle function."

• Justin Andrews [12:52]:
  "Greek yogurt offers high-quality protein and probiotics, enhancing muscle repair and gut health."

• Justin Andrews [14:16]:
  "Whole eggs are nature's multivitamin, packed with choline and essential amino acids that drive muscle protein synthesis."

• Justin Andrews [24:03]:
  "Exercise is the most powerful tool to slow down aging, enhancing mobility and reducing chronic disease risk."

---

This episode of Mind Pump serves as a valuable resource for fitness enthusiasts seeking to optimize their nutrition and understand the broader implications of aging and stress on their health journey.

Transcript

[Sal DeStefano]

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[Adam Schafer]

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[Adam Schafer]

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[Adam Schafer]

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[Sal DeStefano]

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[Doug]

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump Mind Pump with your hosts Sal Destefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews.

[Justin Andrews]

You just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode we had people call in and we got to coach them on air. But this was after the intro. In the intro we talk about fitness studies, diet advice, coaching, personal training and current events and family stuff. That was 53 minutes long. Then we got to the live callers. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this, email us your [e-mail] now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is ned. This is Full Spectrum Hemp oil extract high in cbd. It's the best CBD product you'll find anywhere you feel it. You take this and you feel you took something about 40 minutes later. Go check them out. Go to helloned.com that's H E L L O N E D.com mindpump use the code mindpump get 20% off. This episode's also brought to you by pre alcohol by ZBiotics. You drink this before you drink and the bacteria. The probiotic that has been genetically modified. You won't find it anywhere else in Zebiotics. Breaks down some of the negative byproducts of alcohol. Again, it's a pre alcohol supplement. Go try them out. Go to zbiotics.com that's Z B I O-T-I C S.com mindpump25 that'll give you a discount especially if you use the code. You have to use the code. I should say mindpump 2.5. That'll give you 15% off for first time purchasers. We also have a program sale this month. Maps Anabolic is combined with the no BS six pack formula. You get them both for the price total of $59.99. That's $114 off. If you're interested, go to maps February.com all right, here comes the show.

[Adam Schafer]

T shirt time.

[Doug]

And it's T shirt time.

[Adam Schafer]

Ah, shit, Doug, you know it's my favorite time of the week.

[Doug]

Only one winner this week for Apple Podcasts. Mazda 1041 3. You won. Send your name that I just read to itunesindpumpmedia.com include your shirt size and your shipping address and we'll get that shirt right out to you. And for the rest of you, if you want a good chance to win, leave a review.

[Justin Andrews]

Fat burning and muscle building foods. These are the top five of them. They will help you get to your goals faster than other foods. Let's get to it. I'm going to give you the first one. Organ meats. Yes, some of the hype is true. Organ meats can be incredibly beneficial for fat burning and muscle building. They taste gross though. That's the problem. Let's talk about this.

[Adam Schafer]

I can't wait to hear how you're going to explain this. So these are, these are the top five foods that are great for both building muscle and losing by fat.

[Justin Andrews]

Now to be clear, okay, There is no magic food, okay? There are foods that are higher in nutrients. There are foods that are going to be more appetite suppressing foods that tend to contribute to better results because of what they contain. And that's. And when I say superfoods, that is such a terrible term, right? It's been marketed to heck. But these are foods that just, it's really hard to compare them to other foods in terms of the, the nutrients that they deliver.

[Adam Schafer]

I was gonna say that so that the, the, the qualifier for me would be it needs to be a good macro balance, nutrient dense, most likely high protein. And if it's not high protein, it has to have some other really major benefit that the body needs that you're la something or average people would lack.

[Justin Andrews]

How about this, Let me, let me do this qualifier. This might help. What are the. These are foods that, that we noticed in our career training clients where.

[Adam Schafer]

Positive benefits.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, when they implemented, we saw positive benefits. Okay, Organ meats for sure are up there. Organ meats are so high in nutrients, like liver, for example. It's so high in certain nutrients, you can actually overdose on the consumption of liver, livers by getting too much iron. By the way, back in the day when people were anemic, when you saw issues with nutrient deficiencies, B vitamin deficiency, that kind of stuff, organ meats were prescribed. This was Actually, doctors would tell moms, hey, make your kid eat some liver, because they're showing this signs of weakness and fatigue and signs of anemia. Now the challenge with organ meats is this is a real challenge. They don't taste good.

[Caller]

You know, kids, eat your spleen and brains.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, my earliest organ meat memory as a trainer is, is we were taught this was early, early trainer day school was that. And by the way, just so the audience knows that the reason we were taught this was to position it to sell supplements. And you used to tell people that, oh, yeah, I eat real good or I eat enough. Right. Is that if you were to give the body what it needs, nutrient wise, everything that it needs, you need to eat liver X amount of times a.

[Justin Andrews]

Week because it's so nutrient.

[Adam Schafer]

And that used to be, you would ask people like, do you eat liver? And nobody says, I eat liver. Three, four, five times a week.

[Justin Andrews]

We took the same course. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So then you would, you would position it by, by putting them on that. Unless you were doing that, which you knew, and nobody was doing that. But I remember being taught and it was like an average of 3,500 calories and liver a day in order to hit all the body's, you know, RDA for all the different nutrients.

[Justin Andrews]

So that's. Then we would sell multivitamins.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

So here's what you do, because I get the whole taste thing now. I can choke them down. But like, I never had a client, maybe actually Doug. Doug was the only client I ever had who actually went and bought organ meats and would them. He was from deli and him and I would share. Yeah. You know, it's one of the reasons.

[Caller]

Why it's cheap too. I mean, that's a bonus.

[Justin Andrews]

Very inexpensive.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So. And by the way, liver, if you go back into, you know, bodybuilding history, the most popular early days, supplements that bodybuilders used to store liver capsules, they were desiccated liver tablets.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And these were like, like still you look at Vince Karanda and all these old bodybuilders who were considered like back then, gurus, which today still the reference to as gurus, they would recommend 10 liver, you know, desiccated liver tablets with every meal. Like people were taking these by the handful.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

All right, so how do you eat liver when it tastes so bad? I'm not going to give you some special, you know, way of cooking them.

[Adam Schafer]

Blend it with the ground beef.

[Justin Andrews]

That's it. You take an out, you take a half an ounce or an ounce of chicken Liver one to like four. Put it in a pound of ground beef.

[Adam Schafer]

I say one to four is like a good ratio. Like one ounce of it to your four to five ounces of you.

[Justin Andrews]

That like one ounce in a whole pound of ground beef is enough. That's enough to give you.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, really?

[Justin Andrews]

It's so nutrient dense. If you look back liver and you did this consistently. If you did this consistently, that's not.

[Adam Schafer]

Bad at all, Sal. One ounce in a whole. Yeah, because I used to do more than that. That's actually not bad at all.

[Justin Andrews]

No, you won't taste it. So. In fact, my wife is really good about this. She makes these big, you know, servings of ground beef and rice because the kids. It's really easy way to give the kids, you know, good, nutrient dense food and they like it. She'll add a little taco seasoning, salt, and she'll throw in an ounce of. Of liver and whole pound. Kids don't know the difference. You can't taste it.

[Caller]

I'd rather that I keep getting kale snuck in there and get pissed off. What is this?

[Adam Schafer]

Kale and ground beef?

[Caller]

Yeah, Kale says all the time to me and then my tacos, and I'm.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, oh, man, that's like an evil. Ruin my tacos.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, I do want to say kale is not on this list.

[Adam Schafer]

I know.

[Justin Andrews]

That's over meat.

[Caller]

Let's go.

[Justin Andrews]

No, no. Organ meats are, by the way, with organ meats. So glandular supplement theory. This is an old, ancient practice of supplementation that actually has some credence and they go too far with it. But if you eat an organ, that organ has nutrients that correspond to the nutrients that your organ that that same organ require. In other words, for example, CoQ10 is a very important nutrient for heart function. In fact, doctors will prescribe this oftentimes in combination with statins or other things for. For people with heart issues, Coq10 is very healthy. It's something your heart needs. Right. Where do you find high amounts of CoQ10 in animal products? Heart. When you eat heart. So it's really interesting. So this is an old science where, like, oh, you have liver issues, you have kidney issues, you're gonna eat kidney, you're gonna eat liver. They used to do this.

[Caller]

The actual organ. Yeah, that's right.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay, what's next?

[Justin Andrews]

That's right. Next. Whole milk. Of course, whole milk.

[Adam Schafer]

So why. If. If whole milk is one of these superfoods and you put it on there. How. Why did. Why were we not allowed to advertise chocolate milk when they came to us and tried to give us money. You shot down Katrina on that. I mean, why? It's just got some chocolate flavor to it. It's whole milk.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. It was not just chocolate flavors that.

[Adam Schafer]

Did you look at the ingredients? Did you see what it was? Was it a bunch of fake or what?

[Justin Andrews]

Well, here's the deal. You know what's interesting? Chocolate milk is or just milk in general, but even chocolate. Chocolate or milk in general, protein shakes. I mean, it's what it is, it's.

[Adam Schafer]

That with 10 more grams of protein, because the milk alone by itself, just so you know, if you drank a, a glass the size of your protein shake, you're getting about 10 to 12 grams of protein just from that. And most protein shakes are 20 to 40. 40 is a high one. 20 to 30, so it's just 10 more grams. It's like 10 grams of whey throwing in milk and you add a bunch of artificial flav, which. That's what I mean, that's what my.

[Caller]

Point with the chocolate I just got. My kids are drinking a glass of milk with every meal. So it's just one of those things because like they're struggling to get enough protein anyway. And it's like, let's get those calories coming in now.

[Adam Schafer]

You guys use whole. Do you guys use a whole vitamin D? Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes, always. In fact, they did studies. Okay, so we grew up in the.

[Adam Schafer]

I grew, I grew up on non fat.

[Justin Andrews]

In the 80s, fat was demonized and so whole milk lost favor. So everybody bought skim milk, fat free milk. You know what they found this contributed to bone mineral loss. Okay, why? Well, they were putting vitamin D in it and calcium. Supposed to help your bones, but they're both. But vitamin D is fat soluble. They took the fat out.

[Caller]

You're not absorbing any of it.

[Justin Andrews]

All these people were drinking skim milk and getting zero of the benefits from the vitamin D. But yeah, whole milk, I mean milk in general. Right. The protein found in milk is way all, you know, popular whey protein. To get it, milk and casein, both of them together, I would argue is a perfect combination of a fast releasing, slow releasing type of protein. Both some of the best sources of protein you get found in this very inexpensive natural source.

[Caller]

So does the body get.

[Justin Andrews]

All right, next up in totally 100%, I'll make this case all day long. The superfood of fruits is berries, period. End of thigh berries are high, they're high in fiber, low calorie, for how.

[Adam Schafer]

Much nutrients you're getting.

[Justin Andrews]

They taste great.

[Adam Schafer]

This is why.

[Justin Andrews]

So here's why I like berries so much for my clients. Because it was a treat. It's like one of the tastiest natural foods or berries, period. End of story. They were also high in fiber. Whenever I needed a client to bump their fiber, rather than having them eat.

[Adam Schafer]

Like bran or cup or two cups of blueberries. That was always my recipe was like, if they were having any sort of like, you know, they hadn't. They were constipated or anything like that. The very first thing we would go to is I'd bump them with a couple days in a row of two cups of berries, and then all of a sudden they'd be good.

[Justin Andrews]

Totally. And then all of these, you know, all the. The stuff we hear, which I think is overstated, but there's some truth to the antioxidant benefit. And these, you know, these. These compounds that you find in fruit that are anti cancer, anti inflammatory, liga free berries radicals are concentrated in them. Concentrated. I remember there was a point there where I say berries were advertised. You know what I say?

[Adam Schafer]

If you look. If. Yeah. And if you look at blueberry of.

[Caller]

Down in Brazil, and if you.

[Adam Schafer]

If you look at them blueberry, as far as, like, all the breakdown, it's identical.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, identical.

[Adam Schafer]

So berries ex Monav. That's it, wasn't it Mon that made all their money. The. The. The network marketing company that made money off of that. Trying to say it was like this super.

[Justin Andrews]

This is the most consistent fruit that my kids have. Blackberries, blueberries and raspberries. Because of. Yes, they're just so good for digestion. Good fiber, low glycemic index. And in terms of how they affect your blood sugar just. And they t. Again, they taste good. Which is.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, I love that. I see your next one that's coming up and I pair these together. I just had it right before we started this podcast. I paired the two of those.

[Justin Andrews]

Greek yogurt.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, Greek yogurt and blueberries is high protein.

[Justin Andrews]

It's convenient, it's high quality. It's probiotics because it's fermented. One of the best place ways to get probiotics, where I should say the. One of the more convenient ways. I love it when, you know, health people or health influencers throw out, like, ways of getting, you know, probiotics that people that like, eat a bunch of kefir and eat a bunch of kimchi.

[Caller]

It's like average person would eat a rotten, stinky stuff.

[Justin Andrews]

They wouldn't mind by the way, those things are great. But the average person, Greek yogurt, you're going to get these beneficial bacteria. It's high protein. Get whole so you can get way more enjoyable. Throw some berries in there, maybe some seeds if you want.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean a little bit of granola, drizzle some real natural honey on it and it's fire. I mean it's like a little parfait.

[Justin Andrews]

That's my daughter's breakfast every morning now before she goes to school. She has high protein Greek yogurt with, with some gluten free granola, a little bit of fruit.

[Adam Schafer]

We've trained Max to think that it's like an ice cream dessert treat. So it's like post dinner he's like, when he wants something else, we make that like it's a big treat and he thinks he's eating ice cream. It's like awesome.

[Justin Andrews]

Now lastly, this one I don't think is gonna be a surprise for our listeners. Whole eggs. Whole eggs are amazing. They're, they're nature's multivitamin. Very high source of choline, which some people would argue is an essential nutrient. It's not listed as one. But when your choline levels are low in your diet, you see cognitive defects. As a result, it's high in cholesterol. We now know that's not bad for you. By the way, the highest concentration of cholesterol is in your brain. Brain is very high in cholesterol. Children who grow up eating whole eggs have higher iq.

[Caller]

Higher iq, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Better health. And then whole eggs are incredibly anabolic when they look at studies and how they stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Whole eggs do phenomenal. In fact, a whole egg is better than egg whites. So they compare egg whites, control calories and everything, egg white to whole egg and they'll say for some reason the whole egg stimulates muscle protein synthesis is this signal of muscle building. And they're like, we don't know why. I'll tell you why. It's a cholesterol. Bodybuilders have known this for a long time that eating a lot of eggs, like eight eggs, 10 eggs in a day. If you're a heavy lifter, you'll see within a week strain gains. And it's from this dietary cholesterol which seems to have this kind of recovery muscle building effect.

[Adam Schafer]

Do you think you would add an honorable mention to maybe like any sort of like lentils or beans or anything like that? Here's why I wouldn't put a bean can. It could be a decent. It can complete Similar to an egg, I would say.

[Justin Andrews]

It's up there for sure. Especially for vegans. Yeah. Lagoons are interesting in how they affect people's digestion. Although I did put dairy in there, too. But a lot of people don't know that they have intolerances to legumes and they still consume them. Yeah, they're like, oh, beans are supposed to make you, you know, super gassy. Not necessarily. You know what I mean? Some people, a lot of people have an intolerance to it. So, anyway, cool stuff. All right. I have another veggies. Very, very cool study to bring up to you guys. So let me ask you guys this. When you think of the decades of aging, can you. Can you think of two decades that are considered that people would say, like, oh, you start to really feel.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

That you're getting older?

[Adam Schafer]

30, 40.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay, so 40s is 40s, I would say, is common. Right? People say.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you either say 30, 40s or 40s, 50s.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I mean, it's so 40s. That's a common one. Doug, you've, you're, you're older than all of us.

[Adam Schafer]

You live so many, you've live so many decades. Tell us which one you've noticed it the most.

[Doug]

I'd say the 80s and 90s.

[Justin Andrews]

Shut up.

[Doug]

No, for me, it was hitting 50. I definitely noticed some things changing.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay.

[Doug]

That I didn't like.

[Adam Schafer]

So you would say probably 40, 50s, or would you say 50s?

[Doug]

Yeah, I'd say 50s for me.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Doug]

I think it probably varies per person.

[Justin Andrews]

So I noticed this with clients. I also noticed this with conversations that 40s and 60s, like, people start to feel at more advanced age. When I would train someone 60 ish, 60s, and then 40s was very different than 30s. 30s is different than 20s, but 40s is more different than 30s than 30s is different.

[Adam Schafer]

I feel the biggest thing that the, the deciding factor in that is. Are we talking about a client that you took on that's never worked out before or was an active, fit, fit person in their life? Oh, just because I remember. I remember taking people on that had never trained before, and they're like 32. And that the reason why they were training with me at 32 was like they already started to feel the effects of aging. But that's because they didn't do all through their 20s exercise and, and dieting wise. And so they were already feeling that the people that were, you know, exercise maybe not really consistent, but, you know, sporadically, like a lot of people train. I would say 50s was probably when they would say it the most. You know, maybe some of them in.

[Caller]

The 40s, I think amongst friends of mine and just sort of peers. Like, I've seen the most drastic changes in health concerns around 40. Yeah, like right when everybody turned 40, all of a sudden these health issues started really popping up for them. It was interesting because I, I was like, I felt fine. I didn't feel much of a change. You know, I'm starting to kind of creep in there and you're feeling like the, the achiness and all that kind of stuff. But in terms of like, yeah, keeping yourself in, in shape, you're going to be able to kind of, you know, push through all that.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, so I have, I mean, I have, I cheated because I have the answer here.

[Adam Schafer]

But they did a study on this.

[Justin Andrews]

They did. So they find aging spikes. So you remember how in kids they show that there's growth spikes, like growth.

[Adam Schafer]

Spurts at certain times.

[Justin Andrews]

So there's also aging spikes as you get older. When they look at different biological markers that they associate with aging. I'll pull my phone out because I have these charts that are just phenomenal. I'll make sure the team puts them up on the screen too. They have these charts that show these markers and they stay kind of consistent. They kind of go up as you age and then all of a sudden they spike within two decades and they're really interesting. So the decades are mid-40s and 60s. So say 40s and 60s, you see this peak of these particular molecules, microbes, metabolism markers, cytokines, RNA molecules, lipids, certain proteins that they identify that correlate to aging spike right in there. Now, because I had the answer, maybe I'm a little bit biased, but I do think like if I were to say the difference between a 35 year old and a 25 year old, you could tell. But the difference between a 45 year old and 35 year old, way bigger. It feels bigger. And the difference between a 65 year old and a 55 year old is also pretty drastic.

[Adam Schafer]

Now because we know how powerful the effects of stress are in someone's life. How much do you think that's potentially related to common periods of people's lives where they, they experience high levels of stress?

[Caller]

When you're fully in your career, I.

[Adam Schafer]

Would think that maybe there's some sort of correlation with something like that. Like you're going through midlife, midlife crisis periods. Like mid-40s to 50s is midlife crisis time. What am I going to do? I've been working this job for 20 years. You know, like, what's going on with my life, or I haven't done anything with it and I'm already reaching this age. And so I could see that causing. Or I was married, now I'm divorced, transitioning. So I would think that there's a lot of common things that shifts in life that happen there that would also potentially cause those spikes.

[Justin Andrews]

That's, that's. I mean, I would agree. Like, how do you separate the two?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So in the mid-60s, you got like another big change. Right. Retirement, kids, moving out. Yeah, that's a stressful time.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Mid forties, empty nesters. Right. At that time in the sixties. Right.

[Justin Andrews]

And mid forties is like, this is when you've got your mortgage, your kids, you're like in the middle of it. So. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I don't know what the correlation is, but it is really interesting that you see these spikes in those. And it kind of makes sense. You know, our bodies don't age. They don't seem to age or grow linearly ever. It's like we go through these spurts of changes.

[Caller]

Are they still like measuring this through metric of like telomere length and all that? Is that still a thing?

[Justin Andrews]

That's one of many.

[Caller]

Yeah. That was like. It was so highlighted as like a main contributor.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, I love.

[Adam Schafer]

We don't know enough.

[Justin Andrews]

Exactly. I'm so glad you said that.

[Caller]

No, but it was like that. That's unrelata.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I'm glad you said that because there's these like tests you could take that, that will tell you your. This is what this, this says your biological age, even though your chronic logical age is whatever. In fact, I was having a conversation with my cousins. I'll tell you guys a funny story. My cousin sends his. Okay. The guy that has the most injuries, the most problems, the most whatever, brag.

[Adam Schafer]

Because he's my biological age.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm 10 years younger. And the rest of us are laughing. Yeah, get your money back.

[Adam Schafer]

Because that's, you know, you know what made me bring up. I had my, I had my mother in law over this weekend. She stopped by on Saturday and we were, we were visiting, catching up. We actually talked about this period of time in her life and I remember this. So I mean, you guys are. You guys all know Tina really well and I don't know if you know, do you guys know how old she is?

[Caller]

Oh, yeah, maybe.

[Adam Schafer]

No, tried late 70s. So. And Tina, and Tina is always been like, it's Hard to look like it at all. Yeah, she's always. Everyone's always 10 years or more. At least that. At least that. And she was that way when I first came in the family 15 years ago. Like, she always looked way younger than her age and her peers and stuff like that. She's always been healthy. But I remember when she lost Troy when her husband died. Oh, my God. In one year, she looked like she aged 20 years.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Adam Schafer]

And now what's cool, which I thought was really interesting, is, you know, she regained her health back after that, and it looks like she went back again, which is kind of, like, really cool to. For someone that might have gone through something tragic like that, like, she totally adapts. Yeah, she looks like she totally went back, but I think a lot of people never get out of that. Right. She got in this funk, and it looked like she aged 10 years in one year. And it took her a year to get out of the funk and then start to get back on her health, her training and all this stuff like that. And since then, I feel like she's kind of gained a lot of that time back. But that just goes back to why I was asking, you know, how much that played a factor, because, man, that could really age somebody when they go through something traumatic like that in their life. And I would think that those periods of time, like your mid-40s, you also probably lose. A lot of people. Lose their parents, probably.

[Justin Andrews]

That's also the peak of divorce, right?

[Adam Schafer]

Peak of divorce, lose parents. These are major tragedies that a lot of people go through in their life. And I've seen firsthand how it ages somebody. That probably plays a big role.

[Justin Andrews]

I remember during COVID with my grandparents, we. None of us. We were always over there, and we all stayed away from them for at least about six months. We would drop off groceries and stuff like that. Finally, we just got. Which said, screw it. We got to go see them. And when I saw my grandparents, they look like they. They aged so fast in that short period of time because they were isolated, crazy. And you see this in. In care homes and stuff like that. Like, what a big role. But now here's. Now here's the good news. When you look at these markers, also when you look at just objective measures like mobility, chronic disease risk, you know, all that stuff, exercise, there is nothing. Nothing. Now, if you had to pick, obviously diet plays a role, so to sleep and stress. But if you had to pick one thing, exercise is the most powerful by far, hands down, at slowing down the.

[Caller]

Negative anti Aging effects.

[Justin Andrews]

Aging, yeah, like doesn't even come close. And, and the. We all know this, by the way. I think if I were to say this, we all know this. When you see someone who's fit, who's older, they're so different from their peers that the older they are, the more radical it appears. Like if you ever meet a 75 year old that has been exercising consistently for decades, the difference between them and their peers is the difference between like, you know, they're, they're independent, they can do everything on their own, they're not on any medications, they feel great, lots of energy and their friends are on 15 medications, they've already had a surgery or healthcare. They're, you know, they can't necessarily be independent all the time. Like it's so drastic, it's incredible. And that's from exercise.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So it's one of the most by far.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean you've always given that analogy of like, you know, when you're a teenager and you, you do that, it's like it's this close. Right. But when you go, you take those lines out, oh, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 years.

[Justin Andrews]

So different.

[Adam Schafer]

The gap is massive. With the same consistent amount of effort towards exercise and nutrition. Maybe doesn't make that big of a difference at 16 years old and 20 years old, but fast forward that that over 40, 50 years and holy crap, that gap.

[Justin Andrews]

Since we're in this topic of, of aging. I, you know, I've heard this before and I'm embarrassed to say. I, I never did a ton of research on this and I'm embarrassed because it's a very well researched supplement we can put in the supplement category because you can buy it over the more, you know, over the counter. You can get it on Amazon. You go buy the supplement store. That has profound benefits for people as they age, especially after they get to like their mid-40s and especially in their 60s and 70s.

[Adam Schafer]

Profound in what category?

[Justin Andrews]

Health. Muscle.

[Adam Schafer]

General vitality.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So immune system, muscle gain, fat loss, sleep improvement, libido, antidepressant. It's dhea. Oh, dga D H E A which is a, you know, they would call it, I think I'm using the term right. Like a parent hormone because it gets.

[Adam Schafer]

Why did Southern. Why? I mean I remember when DHEA was such a hot.

[Justin Andrews]

Because it was one of the first hormones to become legal.

[Adam Schafer]

Is that why?

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

When we first were trainers 20 something years ago. Right. DHEA was like a, you know, popping them. In fact, I remember the stack methoxy bolic DHEA over the counter? Yes, yes. And DHEA was like the. But then it kind of fell out of favor and people stopped talking about it so much.

[Justin Andrews]

So I don't remember exactly how this, I don't know how exactly this works, but with the, with the regulations around hormones, DHEA fell in this category of it wasn't regulated because I believe it occurs also in nature. If I'm not mistaken, I think wild yams contain a compound that's almost identical or identical to dhea. And so they never regulated it because they saw these health benefits. Although they did regulate androstenedione, which also fell and that category became legal for a second. It was popular because DHEA is used, it's like two steps above testosterone or three steps. Right. So it's dha. Then it converts to, it can convert to estrogen or estradiol to androstaniol and then it can turn into testosterone. I'm sure I'm getting this wrong, but I know it's a couple steps above testosterone. So it was like this legal steroid. And it is a steroid. Right. It's a steroid molecule. It's this legal thing. And so people in the fitness space and in the athletic world were taking it thinking like that's why, that's why Sal.

[Adam Schafer]

It used to lead to you thinking you're going to increase testosterone.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Like it's going to boost.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And it does raise testosterone in somebody if you're low. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

If you're like 60 or 70 years old, you get a little, little spike in testosterone.

[Adam Schafer]

Is it still considered like a, a natural protocol that like because I, no.

[Justin Andrews]

It'S, it's banned by most competing.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, it is?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So you can't take DHEA if you're competing in a drug tested sport. That being said, like if you're over 40, you're probably going to see benefits from taking DHEA and you could buy it almost anywhere. Like, and again, I, I, this was last night. I was looking at the research and it's healthy as people get older, helps with sleep. Well, I mean you could go through MP hormones. They'll send you some.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay. But you could also buy just like does Legion carry it? I would think Mike would have something like that.

[Doug]

No, I don't think so.

[Adam Schafer]

Interesting.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, huh. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

But you can get it through MP hormones.

[Justin Andrews]

MP hormones. Will. They could send you DHE because synthetic or pill. It's pill, not inject this pill.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. It's very well tolerated. But I mean I could bring up some of the data on it. It's very well studied. It's actually pretty incredible.

[Adam Schafer]

I thought you were going to go either fish oil or vitamin D route. Everything you were saying.

[Justin Andrews]

No, no, no, no. I was looking it up and I was reading about all these incredible benefits. I was like, holy cow. Like I'm surprised that I didn't know. I knew about it. But I didn't know about it. You know. Andrew. Standardeon was available for a while but that one got banned because it was too close to testosterone. And there were people were doing funny things with it or whatever. But I remember as a teenager. So that's how stupid I was. I. All I heard was hormones. So I bought a bunch of DHE and took it.

[Caller]

You know, I'm sure I took it. My mom had like a bottle of it and she took it. Since I've known.

[Justin Andrews]

So has she been taking it?

[Caller]

Yeah, she's been taking it pretty consistently.

[Justin Andrews]

Perimenopausal menopausal women often see benefit from taking.

[Adam Schafer]

Does. Does that. That logic still apply to the young man today as it did to us back then? Like I bought the supplement that had the syringe on the front.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Or yeah. So the more illegal, you know, like made in a lab it looked. Of course the more likely I was to purchase it. Thinking that it would do more than something else. Yeah. Scared to death to mess with legal steroids or anything.

[Justin Andrews]

That's just the thing when you're.

[Adam Schafer]

But I mean. So is that still a thing or that just a thing in the 80s and 90s.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, it's like that now. Man. You should see the questions our editors will ask. These are all bunch of guys and they're girls in their. Oh yeah. You can see they're like trying to ask me and I'll bring up. Oh, you shouldn't take this.

[Adam Schafer]

Like which one is it?

[Caller]

Oh shoot. I already bought it. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You know what I mean?

[Caller]

Looking for that age.

[Justin Andrews]

Pretty interesting. All right. So more studies. I was looking up studies on cannabinoids and their effect on sleep. So cannabinoids are what you find in cannabis but also hemp plants. CBD seems to have really positive effects on sleep. Especially with REM sleep.

[Adam Schafer]

Now what is. Okay, so Ned has a different. Because I always get confused with the. The sleep. The calm. The regular one. Like what is the sleep one? Would the sleep Ned product have in it? Is it a different molecule of the cbd? Cbn? Cbg like always.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay. So. So all. So Ned is all full spectrum from the hemp Plant. So you're gonna get all the cannabinoids from hemp minus the thc, because it's hemp, not. Not cannabis. You're also going to get the terpenes. They all work together. So they have these kind of synergistic effects. But when they, when they take. They took their general product and they made a sleep one, they took hemp plants that were higher in cbn. So CBN has one of those. A sleepier effect than cbd. It's also high in cbd.

[Adam Schafer]

Now is that.

[Justin Andrews]

And they added like valerian roots.

[Adam Schafer]

Now is that what we find like. So in the. The marijuana plant, you. Your most generic way to explain this would be like comparing an indica or a sativa plant. And this is an indica plant. I'm assuming it has higher levels of CBN then.

[Justin Andrews]

You know what's funny is that this, the data shows that actually there's no difference. You know, it's the difference between them both really. Terpenes.

[Adam Schafer]

The terpenes.

[Justin Andrews]

It's the terpenes.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I remember because you have high.

[Justin Andrews]

CBD sativas and you know, you know, high thc, you know, high CBN sativa, like it doesn't really make. It's the terpenes that people are noticing because it's like the, the terpenes in combination with the THC or whatever either will make you more up or more like, you know, what do they call it? Couch lock.

[Caller]

They still try and like match if it's one to one kind of ratio with like CBD with the th.

[Justin Andrews]

Dude, cannabis, they just trying to get you as high.

[Caller]

I just heard it like, it sort of mitigates the effects of like paranoia and whatnot.

[Justin Andrews]

We can. We completely. We. We quit cannabis a while ago. 100. Not even you and Jessica never.

[Adam Schafer]

How long has it been?

[Justin Andrews]

What? It's been a while now. It's been a journey, but it's been a complete while.

[Adam Schafer]

And how do you feel?

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, it's way better.

[Adam Schafer]

Really?

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah. I mean, I get the whole like occasional use, but I feel like.

[Adam Schafer]

I feel like it's so much better with it.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, no, yeah. I could see, you know, I think it depends on. It depends on where your heart is. You know what happens to me when I play with the. Like it's a little bit very.

[Adam Schafer]

It's quickly ramp up. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And I noticed.

[Adam Schafer]

I could see that. I could see that like for some reason. I think that's one of the things that I've liked about cannabis for me for so long is it is of all the things that I've dabbled with in and out, I feel like I have the most control and ease with it.

[Caller]

Like it easily.

[Adam Schafer]

I know you've talked about, you do.

[Justin Andrews]

A good job of the fence. You're really good at walking the fence.

[Adam Schafer]

And I find that there's. I do that with a lot of things, but I find that one the easiest. Like I easily travel. Oh, I forgot my cannabis. I don't need to go to. Yeah, I don't need to go to a store and go find. It's like, oh, four or five days, don't have it, no big deal, come back, have it.

[Justin Andrews]

You're not turning tricks for.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. And I, and I, I'm assuming that's because I keep. Well, here's the thing too. I really, I, when I do this, like, let's say like a Saturday, if I, if I ever am liable to take in intake more than what I would consider like my regular kind of dose of it, it would be like on a weekend, right. Where all of a sudden I decide, because it's normally a very late night after Max goes down in bed. And then it's something I'll have like right before we watch a little bit TV or something. And it's literally two puffs of something.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

If it's like a Saturday or something that you might catch me do that earlier, like say 5:00 and then I do it again. What I notice when I do it twice or three times, one night, even just a couple puffs, I get a headache, I don't sleep as well. If I have it, just a mild dose of it, it seems to have positive and if it's, if I go over, I see negative.

[Justin Andrews]

So I used to base it off of that. Like I'd base it off of my physical symptoms and how I'm playing with or whatever. But ever since I, you know, came to faith, it really became about, well, where's my, where's my heart with this? Why am I going here? And it's really to become not sober minded. That was for me at least. So I'm like, I want to be sober minded and I want to, I don't want to rely on the world in that, in that sense because of my faith and it's made a big difference. And there was actually, there was, there was a recent study on cannabis now that since it became more loosely regulated. We have now studies that have been being conducted for a while. There was a lot. This, this study is pretty big. Researchers track brain changes in a 1000 person study of people who use cannabis, people who have used cannabis more than a thousand times, which I did for sure. Okay. Show reduced brain activity during memory tasks, even long after stopping use. So the memory effects from cannabis linger for a while.

[Adam Schafer]

That's probably the one thing that I admittedly I don't like about it that I definitely noticed. I definitely know that that's. I can feel a difference when because I've smoked that many times that I don't have the best memory whatsoever. I don't know if that's a negative thing though, that necessarily system part is probably good. I know that I don't remember a lot of like that.

[Caller]

It's funny. I'm sure that's true. I, I had the opposite effect with that though, initially, because I think it was like a brain inflammation thing.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes. I'm so sad. Glad he said that. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

What do you mean the opposite of. Explain what you're saying.

[Caller]

So meaning I was able to actually recall memory.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, better because. Oh, interesting.

[Caller]

And I was on like low dose.

[Justin Andrews]

He's. He. Justin's an example of medicinal use of, of. Of where I can see medicinal value because of his, his. All the concussions and you know, he's.

[Adam Schafer]

Got to play football because you're mild retardation.

[Caller]

Yeah, it's just mild. So thankfully it's not full blown like.

[Justin Andrews]

It used to be.

[Caller]

But yeah, like. So I'm trying to switch though to your point of like being a bit more sober minded. I'm trying to kind of toggle between the two with CBD more specifically. It does help. Yeah. So I'll do like the relax like now instead of like sometimes I'll take an edible or something like you know, two hours before bed. And I do get good sleep with that. But I've upped the CBD dose and I'm trying to kind of toggle between the two and it's helping.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, no, no, I mean it does show neuroprotective effects, especially when it comes to brain inflammation. And yeah, I think they'll have medications based off of cannabinoids for people with high impact. Like sports. Like soccer. Football. I know I said soccer on purpose. Did you know that they have a lot of CTE as well?

[Caller]

Yeah, dude.

[Justin Andrews]

Because of heading the ball mostly.

[Adam Schafer]

It's actually some of the worst. Soccer. Yeah, yeah. Because it rattles the brain when they do. Oh, yeah. No, that makes sense.

[Caller]

I know, I know. That's what's funny. It's just football gets targeted because it's.

[Adam Schafer]

Like so it's also more constant. Like, you'll go. You'll play 10 soccer games and maybe never even had the ball where you're not going to play 10 football games and not last it. Yeah, that's going to happen multiple times.

[Justin Andrews]

So it's probably boxing. Probably at the top.

[Caller]

Boxing.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I think. Yeah, it is. I think it's top.

[Justin Andrews]

You had a study, Adam?

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, I have been waiting to share.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm excited to hear this.

[Adam Schafer]

I know I never have studies. That's why. And this was. They did this. This, like, parenting on. On children's behavior. And they were. They were measuring where. When children misbehave the most. And what they did was they. They. They took them through, like, this situation where they. They would test them in front of a. A father, a mother, a grandparent, a stranger, a t. Like all these different people. Oh, and then measure where the kid was most likely to misbehave, who they.

[Justin Andrews]

Were most likely to behave in front of.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, misbehave.

[Justin Andrews]

Misbehave.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Do bad things. Push the boundaries. Disobey.

[Justin Andrews]

Can I guess?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, Yeah. I want you guys. And. And then.

[Justin Andrews]

And then.

[Adam Schafer]

And they even. They broke it down to the percentage. So there was one that was greater, and then there was a percentage of how much greater it was. I want you to guess what it was, and then what percentage.

[Justin Andrews]

So I'm gonna. I don't know the percent, but I'll guess that. Because every parent has had this experience.

[Adam Schafer]

Where your kid goes to somebody else and you say, come home. He's an angel.

[Caller]

They're the best.

[Adam Schafer]

This is exactly what Katrina and I said. Katrina was. I goes. She goes. I know right away it's not the stranger. Because it's such a common story that people say when they know they have a little kid and they. And somebody's like, oh, your kid was so good.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, what kid did you watch that' Tommy.

[Adam Schafer]

So we both agreed on that.

[Justin Andrews]

So I say teacher is probably the one where they do the best or something like that.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, this is misbehav. They're checking misbehavior.

[Justin Andrews]

They're not even like, who is.

[Adam Schafer]

This is it. This is all we're measuring.

[Justin Andrews]

They're the least likely to misbehave in front of. I would say a teacher.

[Adam Schafer]

That's.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't even know if that. That didn't get highlighted in this. So it's like, who. Who did they misbehave the most in front of?

[Justin Andrews]

Probably the person the most comfortable with, which is Mom, I would assume Mom. Was at the worst.

[Adam Schafer]

What's your. What's your bet?

[Caller]

Yeah, definitely Mom.

[Adam Schafer]

What a good. Very, very good that you guys thought of that. And, you know, it's parents, dude. Well, you know, it's crazy. Well, yeah, I mean, I kind of thought that, too, but the reason being is what you said, which that didn't dawn on me. I. You know, it's because they can communicate the most with. Well, so they feel the most comfortable. So. Okay, so what the. The outcome was, by the way? It's 900 more with mom.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Adam Schafer]

900 more.

[Justin Andrews]

This is so. It's inside of the gift that moms have. So I tell this to my wife.

[Adam Schafer]

I was telling this to Katrina the same thing, too, because this is. She will talk about this stuff. Like, I. When I had him for this weekend, this is how this all came out. Yeah, he's like, so, like, literally never had to repeat my. Never. Like, you just did everything I told him, like. And she's just like, this is.

[Justin Andrews]

Get in the car.

[Caller]

They put your clothes. Right.

[Adam Schafer]

But it's a positive reason why they are. And this is also. I love stuff like this because this is not a. It's better. I'm better, she's worse. It's that we. We provide different things for them. And what it is that a mother provides is safety and security. They feel kids feel the most comfortable and confident and safe with their mother and with their emotions, just in general.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

And so therefore. Yeah. I mean, not physically, like, dangerous, just in general. They feel the most when they get sick, and then this is when they're most likely to test boundaries and try, like, oh, am I allowed to touch that thing? Or am I, you know, am I allowed to take that toy from that kid? Like, they're more likely to do it in the. In front of mom because they feel they're at the. They're at safe and they're thinking about that. When you're a kid and you're learning the rules of the game of the world, and you don't know, are you supposed to touch that or do that thing or push that kid, and you have no idea what the consequences are, you're more likely to do it when you feel the safest and it's in front of mom, but 900% more.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, it's. Anytime you're going to take a risk and be vulnerable and take a risk and just who you are or whatever, you're going to do it in front of the person that you feel most secure with, who's not going to Go away is not going to react in a way that makes you feel still.

[Adam Schafer]

Going to love you no matter what.

[Justin Andrews]

And that's mom. And moms are just. I mean, they're just. They're gifted in this way. My wife is like this. Like, I work really hard at this, okay? Like, I really make a concentrated effort to try to do. To, you know, even come close to her. And I don't even get close. Like, my kids when they're having a breakdown or whatever. Like, this happened the other day. My son was having this. He's kind of been fighting a cold, so he's a little, you know, off or whatever. And he was having this issue with my. With my daughter, with his young. With his younger sister. And she sat with him, and he's, like, freaking out. First I sat with him, okay. And I held him for, like, 10 minutes. And she's always coaching me, like, just hold him. Just be there. And so that's what I'm doing. And it's not in my head. I'm thinking it's not working, but really, I'm not giving it enough time. So I'm sitting there, whatever. She comes over, she starts holding him to it, and it all starts to come out. And she starts saying, oh, is it that you feel this way? And he's kind of, oh, finally it came out. Like, I feel like, Dalia. Dalia. What did he say? Dalia doesn't love me. I would have never guessed. I thought he was just mad that his sister didn't want to play with him. But really what it was was he thought his younger sister.

[Adam Schafer]

He felt that way, didn't know how to express it.

[Justin Andrews]

She. She talked to him about it, and it, like, it was incredible. And I'm like, God, okay, thank God I have you. Because I would have been like, all right, you're done crying. Like, I held you for 30 minutes.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, this.

[Justin Andrews]

This distract you.

[Adam Schafer]

This all came up. I normally don't share this stuff with Katrina. I like her to because she listens to the show. So it's. I think it's. For some reason, it's. Is better than. She hears it like a listener, and then she tells. Then we talk about it afterwards. But this came up last night, and so I shared with her early because she was talking about how she. She'll check in on his camera right when I'm. When she's not there. And so she watched, like, his going to bed and everything. She's like, he slept in his bed all night long by himself.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, when you weren't like, what did you do? Or what I said. Well, I said, I. She's like, you did. You wouldn't let him sleep with you? I was like, no, I would have. I would have let him sleep with me. But what we would. Did. I said, I never won. I never told him he could or we would. I would have. But I said, we'll stay up and we'll watch movies. And then what I would do with him is if he's laying in bed with me, and he knows that, like, he's past his bedtime and he should be in bed. And we're like. And I'm like, this has happened before, where it's just him and I. I'm watching a basketball game. Warriors play late. You know, it's supposed to be in his bed. I'm like, I don't want to miss the game. So I'm just like, you know, hey, lay on, dad. You're staying up late type of deal. And he'll. Because he knows he's getting away with it. He'll, like, be so still and good and rest his head on me. And we'll watch against this. Yeah, exactly. And then he'll. He'll go see. Well, he knew that it was boys weekend. It's the weekend you're gonna. I'm gonna stay up and have popcorn. We're watching movies late. So he was already knowing he was gonna do that. Well, because of that, we're laying down, watching the movie, and he's restless. You know, not to mention, I let him have some things. Treats that he normally wouldn't have. And so he's kind of bouncing off the walls a little bit, and it's already, like a half hour. Hour past his bedtime. And I go, max, I said, hey, you need to settle down. We're already up past your bedtime. If you don't settle down, then daddy's gonna put you to bed. And he probably did that three times that I had to say that. And then I literally said, okay, you're. It's. You're obviously tired. Let's go to bed.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

And then I just took him to bed and went to bed. So that happened all three nights. And she was just like, I don't understand. Then you slept all night. I said, well, that's kind of how it went down.

[Justin Andrews]

But kids, dealing with his feelings alone. Yeah, I'll share this with mom, dude.

[Caller]

I mean, one of the biggest things I noticed is like. Like, Courtney, just cheat. She'll give them a bunch of different options. Like, you know, if you want to eat, you get options. You know, if you want to, you don't do that, do this, you don't get options.

[Adam Schafer]

That's. That's like, with me, too. This is what we're doing.

[Justin Andrews]

This is it.

[Caller]

And this is it.

[Adam Schafer]

You get two options. Is not what you want to do.

[Caller]

Oh, no, I. I'm. I don't get options. I have to do this, you know, and then that's it. It's just as clear as that. But again, this is like a. But what's great about is the balance, because she's inviting a lot of that. Their voice is being heard. They know, like, you know, I can. I can communicate this. And, like, you're listening. And so it's like, if I. If I want to eat something different, I don't like that. And I'm just like, well, you know, you don't get an option. Well, you know, it's like, we can arrange things in the next meal and all this, and we can kind of figure out, like, the tastes and the. So it's a balance. It's definitely, like, a stark contrast between me and her.

[Adam Schafer]

It's a beautiful. It's a very beautiful thing. You know, I think it just goes.

[Justin Andrews]

To show, like, how valuable and how.

[Adam Schafer]

Different and what we each provide. I mean, because here's the spin on that study, because somebody might hear that, right, and get defensive and be like, my kid behaves. Listen, don't take it that way. It's like, there's a very positive thing that the child feels so safe that they want to. That's part of life is. And if they didn't feel safe and never tried to rebound it, then you have this kid who's stuck in a shell and afraid to try anything, and.

[Justin Andrews]

You wouldn't want that turn into a nasty rebellion.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. So you want. You want to kid who tries to test and do those things to learn the rules of the game. And if he's more likely to do that with mom and he doesn't do that with dad or somebody else, that wouldn't be like. It wouldn't be a good thing if she wasn't in there.

[Justin Andrews]

We've had. We've had a couple experiences where my son will say, be. Be more like mom or be more like Papa. And they're totally different because I think there's definitely things my wife is better at, and there's a few things that I'm good at that the kids say, be more like dad. One of them is playing, and she's experienced this. They'll start playing and be like, well, play with me like papa does, right?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

But he'll say to me when I'm trying to put him to bed or he doesn't feel good, you know, do it like mama does. Make me feel good the way mama does. And I'm like, I'm doing everything she tells me. I'm scratching your back, I'm rubbing your head, I'm hugging you. But it's just. It's just not the same. I think it's beautiful. I think it's. And I tease her sometimes because the kids will always want to go to her. And sometimes she's tired and I'm like, hey, buddy, let me take you to bed. No, I want mom. Let me help you brush your teeth. No, I want mom, you know, And I look at, I'm like, this is. It's a double edged sword. Like, you're the favorite.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So. But you also get to do yourself this other stuff. So.

[Caller]

I did have, I did have a good win though, the other day where it's. There's a fine line there because it was a lot of fear. That was like, that was what I, you know, grew up in. Like, I was afraid of my dad. I wasn't gonna do something wrong, you know, no way. And so, you know, if I did do something that was, you know, like, let's just say like I. I borrowed something to his and I lost it or like I scratched it up or I did something like that, I'd be like, oh, God. I'd try and fix it and never tell him, you know. And so I've been trying really hard to, like, I'm not very materialistic in terms of, like, this is mine. You can't. You ever use this? And so I have like this e bike and. And you know, Ethan wants to hang out with his friend. Like, yeah, take it. You know, just be careful with it. You wear a helmet, all that kind of stuff. And. And like, he comes back, he comes right up to me, he's like, dad, like, I scratched your bike. And I was like, I would have. Have never said that to my dad ever. You know, I was like, thank you for telling me. You know, it wasn't even that bad. But just the fact that he, like, manned up and like, right to me.

[Justin Andrews]

Was like, he felt safe to tell you.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that was cool. I was like, oh, yeah, Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I remember I was with a buddy of mine and his dad, we were gonna play with our bikes or whatever. And his bike was hanging. You know, he had this hooks in the garage was above his dad's car. And his dad had a nice car.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And his dad said, don't ever get your bike down. Always get me to take it down. And it's because he doesn't want to scratch his car. Well, his dad wasn't home. We wanted to play.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, God.

[Justin Andrews]

He takes his bike down, he scratches his dad's car. That kid was so. He was so stressed out. I felt. And I understood it too, because I would have been the same way. Like, my dad's gonna kill me.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You don't want that. You know what I mean? You don't want your feet be so fearful that you just. You end up lying as a result because you end up with a worse relationship.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, from all that.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I was really cool. Study.

[Justin Andrews]

Really cool.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Where was.

[Justin Andrews]

That's interesting.

[Adam Schafer]

I. They didn't rank them. It was like. And the whole point was just to show where they misbehave. And it was so much more from. I think everybody else was pretty close. I think that was what was how it came about. I didn't go and actually read the abstract or that it was actually a podcast talking about it and sharing the results. So I don't know. Maybe. Maybe it was. But I'm guessing that all the rest were probably pretty close. And then there was this huge difference with. It was so alarming. Different for mom versus everybody else. Which highlighted how safe they felt with mom compared to anybody else.

[Justin Andrews]

Your wives have any. Jessica has this really crazy, like, I call it superpower. It's weird. Do your wives have any, like a suit. Weird superpowers? Like my wife will. Can tell my kids temperature to the decimal point by touching them. She'll put their. And then in the beginning, I used to be like, nah, they're fine. And then we take their temperature. She won't. She'll say, say, oh, he's like 101.3. We'll take it 101.3. She's accurate as hell with her hand. I don't understand it. Your wife's have anything like that?

[Adam Schafer]

Not like that. I mean. I mean her thing. Her watching her with my son is. It just. Every bit of. It's incredible the. The way she's able to teach him and navigate him through life. And so much of our. I. We saw this thing the other day. Somebody was talking and forget who it was. And I'm like, oh, that's a really cool Thing Katrina always I so interesting when somebody asks her what she does for a living. And so that I listened to her fumble around. It's so funny to me because it's like she doesn't have this like, official title that we've ever given her, but she was responsible for so much. And the thing that I thought was really cool, so she. Oh, it was. I know what it was. She was talking to this really successful guy while she was out in Park City, and they asked about his wife and he said, she's the. She's the vice president. And he said the vice president of his last name entities. And the girls were like, what, what does she do? She goes like, she runs the house and everything about that. And he made this point of like, it is the most important for sure job, like, heard. And I'm like, that is 100% Katrina. And you guys know this because you know my personal life so well. Like, she runs so much so effectively. It. That's a superpower in itself. The fact that she manages everything that she does within this company and has been a part of the scaling and success of this. She has simultaneously done that with our house and then done that while also raising our kid. Like, that is a crazy that I couldn't. I mean, I. I do one thing good. Like, I've been able to provide for us financially. Really good. And so. And she's allowed me to just be able to hone in and focus on that while making sure that everything else is always in order. And I literally. And sometimes I tell you, when we had that scare, when with her in Mexico, probably was the first time ever, I think I really felt the gravity of her and that because everything I do, like, I mean, I probably text her, you know, 12, 15 times a day because as soon as something important comes to me, I right away delegate it. Like, I instantly go, like, we need to do this. And by that means I need to do it. You have to make sure I get it done and manage or go handle it for me. And there's no talk after that. It's literally just that. And I can guarantee that it gets completed and done. It's like. And it gets. It's understated. How powerful and how talented it is to be able to. I mean, it's hard to do that for yourself. Yeah, you're doing that for multiple people and a business and doing all that. That's a. That's a superpower, you know, for sure.

[Justin Andrews]

Really, really well said. Hey, I was gonna ask you guys. Just gonna side Topic here. What's the one product or company we work with that is easily the most used by friends and family? Once you introduce them one time. Time. Because I have. I have a clear winner for me.

[Adam Schafer]

Clear of all of our products.

[Justin Andrews]

Like there's one for me. Once I say it, you guys are gonna know. I'm sure you guys are same. But there's one product I'll introduce my family to once. And it's the thing that they. Everybody will come out talks about, regardless.

[Adam Schafer]

If they're health and fitness people.

[Justin Andrews]

Doesn't matter.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

Zbonic.

[Adam Schafer]

Ah.

[Caller]

Oh yeah, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

If they're drinkers, that's the one that I. My friends that don't even work out because everybody.

[Caller]

I hand those out like candy. Especially to any. Because if we have a party, we're going somewhere and we. We meet up with friends and I'm always asking if they've tried it and because they have no idea, like if they've never tried it, it's mind blowing.

[Adam Schafer]

It's a bit of a fight in our house. And I'll tell you why. Because we always keep about. I don't know the case of. I think there's. I think there's a case that has like 20 or so. I forget what the little. The case comes with or whatever that we get. And our whole. Her whole family, Katrina's whole family, our family all like to drink and party and everybody's experienced it and it's like.

[Justin Andrews]

They'Ll come take them for.

[Adam Schafer]

They just come take them.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, and it's like, I don't mind sharing a little bit here and there, but it's like they'll come and clean me out in one party. And it's like. And I'm just restocking. And they're not. I mean, they're not crazy expensive, but they're also not cheap. You know what I'm saying? It's like. And everybody drinks.

[Caller]

Keep them.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, me too.

[Caller]

Their friend wants to be introduced to it. They want to introduce their friend. And so they want extra product and they come to me, I'm like, look, they have a website.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, it's been life changing for me because you. I mean, anybody who's been listening to.

[Justin Andrews]

This podcast, very similar.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. If you've been listening to this podcast class for, you know, eight, 10 years, you remember me talking about alcohol before we met. Zebiotics.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm like, you. I just. It never did affect me, period. End of story. Glass doesn't matter. Yeah, Every time.

[Adam Schafer]

And so I've just never been a fan of that. And so ever since then, I've been able to enjoy a drink here and there.

[Justin Andrews]

And so they call it now a pre alcohol, which I think that's. That's a smart way to label it pre alcohol. So take it.

[Caller]

So take it preemptively.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

You know what I'm most surprised about that company is that. But we still haven't seen it like at bars. Like I. You would think that they matter.

[Justin Andrews]

Time. It's a matter of time, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

That's what I was saying years ago. I thought for sure you own a.

[Caller]

Restaurant, you should just have those available.

[Justin Andrews]

If you're a bar, you'll sell a hella.

[Adam Schafer]

That's why I don't understand, once people.

[Justin Andrews]

Try them, they come back, everyone's gonna buy them.

[Adam Schafer]

I'd love to hear from them. What you got? You know, they. The owners have had to gone to try and solicit to bars.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't think so.

[Adam Schafer]

Come on, that would be one of the first places you are bars hard.

[Justin Andrews]

To sell new things to? I have no idea.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, they need product.

[Caller]

Yeah, I mean we got pitched all the time. I mean we had.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, that's right, you were a bartender.

[Caller]

Yeah, we had.

[Justin Andrews]

It was.

[Caller]

Starbucks was coming out with a new liqueur and they wanted us to make all of these types of martinis with it. And so they gave us all this product and we, we use it, the product. And it's really. It's a testing thing. It's like you want to see if the customers are into it, if it's like not really a hit. And it wasn't a hit and apparently it flopped later for them. But it's like, like you. Yeah, you have to kind of try it out. And like they need physical product. You can't just talk about it.

[Adam Schafer]

That's why. So I'm wondering like what. Like if they had to approach and they maybe they just did it the wrong way, I would do something. Because if I'm trying to sell it to a bar, what's the bar most interested people drinking more alcohol. Of course, that's their money, that's their formula.

[Justin Andrews]

So you could say that though. What are you gonna say?

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I would say drink more, feel better. Or I would run a study if I was in that. That the app. And I'm sure you could easily put this together because the average person who uses Ebiotic can have X amount more drinks. And so the pitch would be, listen, why can't I say that?

[Justin Andrews]

I don't think they want anybody to say that. Yeah, they don't.

[Caller]

Yeah, of course they don't want.

[Justin Andrews]

Here's what I would do.

[Adam Schafer]

Percentage. You don't need to say this is what. I would drink 13 more drinks if.

[Justin Andrews]

I, if I was a bar. This is what I would do if I was a bar. I would tell my bar. College kids would do that. Anytime someone orders a drink, ask them, hey, for a dollar or whatever. 2. For $2 would you like to add a pre alcohol to that? That. What's that? Oh, you take this for your drink and it makes you feel better. And then I would tell the bartender every time you sell one of these you get 50% commission. And the bartenders would sell it and after they did that for a few months. Yeah, it would sell itself. That's what I would do.

[Caller]

That's actually, that's a good, I mean.

[Adam Schafer]

But you got to first sell it on the bar owner, on accepting it in there. So I feel like I have to, you'd have to use my pitch first. That it's going to make you more money.

[Caller]

You got to go there. And I think that's part of it. You just need, you need people to, to go, you know, in person.

[Justin Andrews]

You can't. I don't think they did.

[Caller]

I don't think so.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't think they tried.

[Caller]

I think we need to, I hope.

[Adam Schafer]

They hear, nudge them a bit and then they, they go do that thing. Because that's to me that's like low hanging fruits, like 100 all the time there. And if you could mitigate the fact how they feel afterwards significantly and you.

[Justin Andrews]

Made them aware of why you're going to feel better.

[Adam Schafer]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

Check it out.

[Adam Schafer]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

Come back.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I think, yeah, no, I agree.

[Justin Andrews]

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[Doug]

Our first caller is Kira from Michigan.

[Justin Andrews]

Kira, how's it going? Hello.

[Caller]

Hello.

Good, how are you?

[Justin Andrews]

Good. How can we help you?

[Caller]

So I'm just gonna go ahead, read my email. So a little bit of background about me. I'm a senior in college and a student athlete on the volleyball team. I currently study biochemistry With a minor in nutrition, I've also recently completed my NASM certification for nutrition. I'm working towards getting my personal trainer certification too. I've been lifting weights consistently for almost four and a half years and I've been tracking macros on and off for three years, but the last year has been fully consistent. I prioritize whole foods, eat at least 1 gram per pound of body weight and protein daily, exceed fiber goals, supplement with electrolytes and creatine, all the things so in November of 2024 after being at a maintenance phase coming off of my volleyball season, I decided I wanted to do my first bulk. So I've cut in the past. I've done a slower verse diet, but I've never properly bulked before and the potential to put on more muscle mass was really exciting but also very scary for me. So I figured if I haven't ever done it before then there's a lot of potential for growth. So I'm relatively tall at five nine and a half. When I started the process I weighed 147 pounds about with 69.2 pounds of skeletal muscle mass and 24 pounds of body fat mass at 16.2% body fat. Over the past two and a half months I reverse dieted from 1800 calories to almost 3000 calories now by slowly increasing my intake by 100ish calories a week. I've been utilizing the three to one week bulk to cut ratio that was suggested by you as well. I started Maps Aesthetic with two focus days, one for quads and one for glutes. Because my goal was to mainly grow my legs. I also added in two days a week of the no BS abs mod to my focus sessions. I limited mild intensity cardio to 60 minutes per total per week, usually on the Stairmaster. And I get 10k steps per day. So during this entire process I haven't had any volleyball practices. So I just did my last in body scan. My muscle mass increased by 4.2 pounds, my body fat decreased by 1.2 pounds and my overall body fat percentage decreased to 14.9%. So looking at my muscle distribution, every area increased, which was really nice to see. My numbers in the gym have also reflected this. All of my lifts have increased in both weight and reps steadily over the past two and a half months. I've also noticed that through phase three of aesthetic I've been able to grow my muscular endurance because of the superset. So I think that will translate really nicely to volleyball. I'm finishing Maps Aesthetic this week and starting spring season training for volleyball next week. So with that background, my two questions are as follows. And they kind of go hand in hand. My first question is, what are some ways I can get my legs to grow more muscle with the two months I have left in my bulk? And now that I've built this muscle, how do I retain and continue this growth over the next few months through volleyball practices? It's a non negotiable. I'm on scholarship, so I'm required to be there. I have to go to three our practices and I have these four to five times a week in the off season. And I worked really hard and I don't want to lose what I have built.

[Justin Andrews]

Good.

[Adam Schafer]

Great question. Great detail. And you're killing it.

[Justin Andrews]

You're crushing. So there's a couple things happening. You went. Your calories went from 1800 to 3000.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You got leaner.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. And built muscle and lost body fat. You hit the Goldilocks zone. You did. I mean, you killed.

[Justin Andrews]

You could go higher with your calories, especially because you got leaner. You're so lean, in fact, that. Are you mentioning against. Do you have a, a regular period or are you not getting a period?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay, good.

[Caller]

So I actually just got it back during this process.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay, good. So. And you could gain body fat. You'd be totally fine gaining body fat too. In fact, I would be. I would be fine with you going up a few percent body fat. I know you're an athlete, but 14 is really, really low.

[Adam Schafer]

So I. The first thing that jumps out at me, because obviously you're doing everything so well, is I agree. I would like increase calories and maybe actually drop from maps aesthetic, which is such a high volume, to something more maps anabolic or power lift or something like that for the last two months.

[Justin Andrews]

That's. Okay. So are you going to be doing. Are you gonna, you're gonna start practice in two months, is that correct?

[Caller]

Yeah, basically next week.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay. And practice is how long?

[Caller]

Practice is three hours. So two to three hours. And I have it four times a week.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay, that changes my.

[Justin Andrews]

Totally different.

[Adam Schafer]

That changes then.

[Justin Andrews]

Totally different. You're gonna, you're gonna really drop the volume on your strength training. Okay. Keeping muscle requires so little volume in comparison to what, by the way, what you did to build muscle is a lot of volume for most people. I think the reason why it worked for you.

[Adam Schafer]

She's an athlete.

[Justin Andrews]

You're an athlete. You've got really good genetics. Okay. I think you might actually get. If I could go Back in time, I would have had you not do any of the StairMaster cardio, and I would have had you do a little bit less volume everywhere else and add more to the legs or overall less. You probably would have gained a little bit more.

[Adam Schafer]

We're splitting hairs, but we're splitting hairs.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, you've got your genetically gifted, you're college athlete, you gained. Your metabolism is healthy. Now that you're going into practice, you're gonna have to really cut down on your volume. I think maps 15 would keep it. Maps 15 would keep it, and I'd keep your calories high, and if you start to see weight loss on the scale, then I would bump the calories up even more. But I think what you're gonna see when you start to get back into. At first, it's gonna feel kind of weird because you haven't practiced for a little while. You know how that, how that is. But once you get back into it, you're gonna feel strong. You're going to feel really strong, which is going to be cool. It might even throw you off for a bit because you're going to be so much stronger than when you left off. But once you acclimate, I think you're going to have a great, a great season. But Maps 15 performance might actually be better for you because what we don't want to run into is injury. Okay. We don't want to run into injury because now you're. You're putting out more power, you've got more muscle.

[Caller]

We're going to express all these different planes of motion effectively and, you know, build strength and resilience towards that. So that's really, you know, we're. And two, in the, the more advanced one, we did get into a little bit more of, like, plyometrics and, you know, speed, power. So just obviously gonna be doing that in your practice. So, you know, that's, that's all going to be applied anyways. But the strength and stability component, for you, for longevity in your sport and really expressing that, I think, you know, performance.

[Justin Andrews]

Are you playing any volleyball at all right now?

[Caller]

No. So right now I'm not doing any volleyball. I'm just doing weightlifting. But I start practice next week.

[Justin Andrews]

How long have you not played volleyball for?

[Adam Schafer]

For?

[Caller]

I have not played volleyball for two and a half months.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay.

[Caller]

So during this bulking process, I haven't played volleyball.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay. I would have. Before you start practice, I would go start. Get on the court and just start messing around a little bit because you have a different body. Because you have a different body and you're so much stronger. There isn't a re acclimation period because you haven't been playing while building this muscle. And so what I don't want you to do is hurt yourself.

[Caller]

So I would go ankle mobility practices.

[Justin Andrews]

But big time, yes, go on the court and just do some drills on your own at like 75%, see how you feel, up it a little bit, you know, practice hitting the ball, practice, you know, recovering, do all that stuff just to kind of see how you feel. But Mass 15 performance would be the routine to do while you're in season.

[Adam Schafer]

If you were my client, care, the one thing that I'd be communicating to you daily if I was talking to you is don't get greedy. You have pretty much killed what an off season would look like. I mean, this is if you were my client and I had you long term and we had an off season, we had an on season and you and I went into our off season, said, let's go build. Build some muscle, Build some. Like, you crushed it. You did perfect. Now I'm like, okay, we got to switch our mind over. It's time to get ready for your sport. And that now becomes the highest priority of everything else. You've killed it. If we, if we reduce the volume significantly, you're going to hang on to that muscle. You're going to be just fine. I want to make sure I'm doing all those drills to prepare you for the sport. The one mistake that you could potentially make is trying to do too much, is getting greedy, is going, oh, I also want to make more gains or I want to do this or I feel so good. So I'm going to do all this other stuff. Stuff. It's like, no, it's like you killed it. And don't worry, next off season, we're going to kill it again. Let's take care of your body, let's focus on your sport. That's what you're pretty much getting paid to do. So let's do that. And then when we, when we get your off season again, we'll continue to crush these goals. But don't make the mistake of trying to do too much right now. Take care of that body you work so hard to get.

[Caller]

Yeah, I ran into that problem last season. Last spring season, I did maps anabolic, but I did it over my spring season season training. I got about a month and a half in. I was also probably in a calorie deficit majority of that time and I got injured. So that was what happened in the past, and I'm trying to prevent that from happening again. And I also know that when that practice increases, when that cardio increases, it's mandatory. Right. So I don't have an option. I have to be doing it. But I haven't held onto muscle well in the past during that process, and I don't want to lose what I felt.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. The two things that are going to help you avoid injury, three things. Don't over train Mass 15 performance, I think will be appropriate. Skip the workouts if you feel tired even on that. So don't over train, don't under feed. That's the second thing that'll cause injury, is if you're just not feeding yourself enough. And then the third thing, sleep. If you get poor sleep, actually nothing will increase your risk of injury like getting a bad night of sleep. So really prioritize going to bed and waking up at the same time every single day, and you'll do great. But I do, again, I want you to get on the court and just start messing around and start getting used to this new body you have because you're so much stronger, such a fast metabolism. You want to kind of start getting used to this new, you know, this new physique.

[Adam Schafer]

Are you in our private forum?

[Caller]

I'm not, no.

[Adam Schafer]

I'll have Doug put you in there. And then as we ease our way into the season and you're going through this process, you'll be in there. Anytime you have questions or challenges or things that you're questioning, just tag us inside there and then we'll help you through this.

[Justin Andrews]

But we'll send you Mass15 performance right now.

[Adam Schafer]

Yep.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Thank you. So you think doing the Mass 15 every single day, that's going to be enough, especially with the lower body?

Totally.

Totally.

[Adam Schafer]

Again, the biggest mistake you can make is to overdo it. Sal's advice of if today's a training day and you didn't sleep well last night or you're fatigued from practice, skip it. You can afford to. You can afford to skip days even on mass performance at 15, and you can still hold on to that, that strength.

[Justin Andrews]

Now, keep this in mind. Okay. May lose some strength anyway because you're going to be training. So now with more stamina and endurance.

[Caller]

You'Re sharpening your skill.

[Justin Andrews]

Now, the amount of muscle and strength you'll lose over training would be way more. So don't be like, oh, my God, my strength went down a little bit, you know? No, no, no. Doing more will make it happen. Even faster. One of the biggest mistakes.

[Caller]

This is why, I mean, good.

[Adam Schafer]

I just, this is why I was saying don't be greedy. That's what I would be communicating. Don't be greedy. Don't be greedy. Of course we're going to lose a little bit of strength, very minimal. And you're going to get all of it back and some when we get back to training again. But the priority now is you being a good athlete and protected. So don't let that get in your way. Don't worry, we'll feed yourself.

[Caller]

Keeping that in mind, like going into the season, even like I wouldn't every day is not probably a good schedule, but adding a few throughout the week of these 15 minute workouts is going to help maintain and sustain your strength throughout the duration of the season. Which is something that I made a mistake as a coach and didn't apply, you know, with athletes which, you know, in hindsight that is something I would definitely would have applied because it's, you want to maintain the strength in, in order to, you know, be able to respond, be resilient while you're, you're facing all of these, you know, forces. So just keep that in mind.

[Adam Schafer]

Did you listen to the episode we did with Corey Schlesinger? The NBA? Okay, go back and listen. That'll be a good one. That'll be a good one for you to listen to. That's he, he was at that time, he was the strength and conditioning coach for the Phoenix Suns. Good friend of ours. And we talked a lot about these micro workouts throughout the season. And so even though it's basketball, a lot of the same exact philosophies will apply to you and what you're doing. So that'll be a good episode for you to listen to.

[Caller]

Okay, thank you.

[Justin Andrews]

All right, got it.

[Adam Schafer]

All right. Care.

[Justin Andrews]

I, I, so, okay, again, I'm going to just, you know, set the context here. She's a high level athlete. That being said, I just want people to understand it is possible to reverse diet strength, train and dramatically speed up your metabolism and get incredible results. She went from 1800 to 3000 calories by gaining 4 pounds of muscle. So all the people who are like, I'm pounding muscle only burns this many calories. You're a moron. I've seen this a million times. She went, that's a lot. That's a 1200 calorie increase I've seen this time.

[Adam Schafer]

So that's why, that's why that, that argument pisses me off so much that people Hang on to the.

[Justin Andrews]

And she's burning less calories. Effectivity. She's not doing three hour practices. She's just lifting weights.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. The one mistake she can make is getting greedy, wanting too much.

[Justin Andrews]

If we went back in time, what I would have had her do is I would have had her not do cardio and I would have had her do a little bit of all skills.

[Adam Schafer]

A little skills training instead of that third hour of treadmill or Stairmaster. It should have been skills training. That's it.

[Caller]

I'm a little bit worried. Yeah. About her explosive performance and really like getting that acclimation like you're talking about her new body. So she's gonna have to work on that.

[Doug]

Our next caller is BJ from New York.

[Adam Schafer]

What's up bj?

[Justin Andrews]

What's up bj?

[Adam Schafer]

What's up guys?

[Justin Andrews]

You doing, how can we help you?

[Caller]

I kind of trying to remember to stick to the email. I'm getting to be a little bit older. I still compete at powerlifting and the weight, no matter what I do, keeps creeping up. I usually compete right around 275. You know, in between training I can kind of hang out around 280, but it seems like now it's, instead of hanging out at 280, it's, I'm hanging out at 290 and everything. I'm doing the cut calories. I'm trying to keep the protein intake up, but even trying to take in 240 grams of protein is, it's like an impossible mountain to climb. It feels like I'm still weight training three times a week. So playing basketball one or two nights a week. I'm active. My strength is going through the roof, but the weight is just, it's going right with everything else.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay, well the, the most obvious thing, the fact that you're getting stronger and the weight is going up would just tell me you're just in a surplus. But it's, you sound like you're confused. I'm assuming it's the same. You're tracking your calories and that's stayed the same for a long time or what's going on with your calories?

[Caller]

I'm pretty regimented just because of my work. I'm at work every day by 6:00am So I, you know, breakfast every day is a cup of Greek yogurt, a hard boiled egg, my cup, my instant coffee with my creatine and my whey protein. My lunch every day is a little prepackaged salads you get, you know, with 2 ounces of carrots, added two more hard boiled eggs and a protein bar for a snack. Dinner is kind of hit or miss when you're running in and out with two or three kids running around all night long. Calorie wise, I'm there, but I'm trying to figure out if there's another way, whether I should be upping the workouts, should I be cutting stuff back? I'm trying to follow the 1 gram of protein per pound and it's just, it's leaving me chasing protein all day.

[Adam Schafer]

Long, it sounds like. And I wonder how long you've been in this place of kind of chronically under eating. For a guy your size as active as you are, I'd have you 4,000 plus calories. Well, we don't even know.

[Justin Andrews]

Right. Cause what's happening for dinner and all that.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I mean, I mean, What a fucking 3,000 calorie dinner. I just did the math in my, I just did the math in my head right now and he's saying he's struggling to even get 200 grams of protein. That to me tells me we're probably. You, you've probably chronically under eight and trained and you're, you've probably gotten very efficient at trading hard and being very active on such low calories and you're just metabolically adapted. And so it's, and then, so when you go on maybe a little bit of a cut for a few weeks or like that, you see very little results. And then as soon as you go back to eating hard the way before all of a sudden the weight comes back on. I mean, that, that, that would be my guess what's going on. And what we would need to do is do a slow reverse diet and really focused on your metabolism more than a lot of the other things that you probably got going between basketball and powerlifting and all this stuff like that. Metabolically, we need to really re. Get you back because guy your size should be able to not only eat 200 grams of protein, no problem, but should be eating 4,000 calories for maintenance. And then you go on a cut with 3,000 calories and you just drop weight.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. The only way to know is if you really tracked everything, specifically food and drink for a couple weeks so we could get an idea of where your maintenance is at and then we would know which direction to go. Otherwise we're, it'll be, it's going to be hard to, it's going to be hard to advise without knowing specifically, you know, what the averages are looking like.

[Caller]

I, I Had a nutrition plan for my powerlifting coach two or three summers ago, and it worked. But honest to God, I was absolutely miserable all summer. I got down to about 250 and then Covid hit and I actually caught Covid and they ended up dropping to like 2:30. Just in the course of a week.

[Adam Schafer]

Week.

[Caller]

Just not eating on the couch. I look like I was 17 years old again instead of 45 years old.

[Justin Andrews]

Do you know how many calories that diet was at with the one that you were set up for?

[Caller]

Roughly right around 2,000 to 2,500 calories.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, that's low. Here's the starting point's gonna be here. It's gonna be tracking everything. You get an app like Fat Secret, Track everything.

[Caller]

I'm sorry, I use MyFitnessPal now until.

[Adam Schafer]

I know what I'm at.

[Caller]

And then go off the rails at dinner, if anything.

[Justin Andrews]

That's it. So track everything, including dinner. That's the only way to know. So track every meal. Track things that you drink as well. So if you add anything with calories, put it in there after two weeks, find where your average is at. If you're below 3,000 calories on average, I would do a reverse. I would do a slow reverse diet and try and bump the protein. I don't think a guy your size cutting from. If your maintenance is. If you're finding Your maintenance is 2,600 calories, where are we going to go?

[Adam Schafer]

Where are we going? That's what this screams to me. This screams to me that probably for a very long time he's been, I mean, he's been able to be strong, an athlete, push his body with lower type calories. And so that when he tries to do any sort of a cut whatsoever, not only does he have to go super low, but it's just not maintainable.

[Justin Andrews]

When you, when you say go off the rails with dinner, give me an example of what that is. What's going off the rails?

[Caller]

We had, we had dirty rice last night. So it's, you know, two or three pounds of ground turkey meat, you know, in the mix, rice, all sorts of fresh vegetables. I eat two or three bowls of it. And I'm not talking a little guy bowl. I eat a bowl of it.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, okay.

[Adam Schafer]

That's a lot of calories.

[Caller]

It's not.

[Adam Schafer]

That's good.

[Caller]

There are those, you know, like holidays. Yeah, I'll eat half a cheesecake because it's good and it's the holidays. But other than that, it's not a everyday occurrence.

[Justin Andrews]

It's Tough. You know, we, it's really hard to know without tracking for a couple weeks. I, you know, I've, I've hung around a few power lifters and it's not common to see a power lifter with a slow metabolism. You train, consist. You've been lifting for a while. I'm looking at your stats here. You took second place at the USPA North American Championships. You're not, you're strong. You're strong as hell. It would be, it would be strange to have a really slow metabolism for a guy your size. But I would track and just be. And don't change your diet while you're tracking. Eat like you normally do. You want to go off, go off rail, whatever, track everything. See what the average is and then we'll know, we'll know where to go.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, how, I mean, how serious are you? I mean, I'm sure when you were, when you're getting ready for a championship and stuff like that, you've got a powerlifting coach. I mean, I mean, I could set you up with somebody online that could, you know, coach you virtually diet wise. If we really want to work on this metabolism and do that. Is that something that you really want to do right now or are you just kind of trying to troubleshoot right now? Because if you're. That.

[Caller]

I'm kind of trying to troubleshoot right now because I'm in my off season. My next big meet isn't until June, so I'm getting back with my coach to meet, prep or to. I can't think of the word right now. Kind of there for my peaking program.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah.

[Caller]

Late February, early March. So I'm, I'm trying to basically put as much mass on. Not mass, but strength and muscle and size on. And then I hit my peaking program where I slowly kind of start my taper off so I'm fully rested, got it, feeling great.

[Justin Andrews]

What are your, what are your top lifts? I'm curious.

[Caller]

I squatted 5:10 in October in the RPS National Championship. I benched 355 in June. I had hit 360 at a meet. So I was kind of mad. I went down a little bit and I deadlifted 600.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Strong.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. We got a track. I, I would be. I mean, look, there's two things that I've, I've seen with power lifters. I've never met a power lifter that didn't eat a lot and I've never met a powerlifter with a slow metabolism. Just they Strength train. And they strength train better than bodybuilders because they're, they're focusing. Yeah. So. So I would see you. I would like for you to track because you could be way off.

[Adam Schafer]

Are you bj? Are you in our. In our private forum? No, I'm gonna have Doug put you in our private forum and I'll tell you what. Yeah, I'll tell you what. As for an accountability piece, and I'm with Sal, if you, if you track everything you eat, including dinner, everything you eat my fitness pal and you update us on a weekly basis on what that looks like, we'll be able to give you some. We'll be able to give you some advice from that, Just from that. But you, as long as you get. That's one thing I need from you. You got to be consistent with logging everything. And then if we can see everything week by week, as. As you go by, we'll be able to give you adjustments on what, what might be going on diet wise.

[Caller]

That'd be awesome. I really appreciate it.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay, let's do that. All right, I'm gonna get you in the forum and then start tracking now and then give us weekly updates on. Hey, this is what I ate this week. Calorie wise, macro wise, everything like that could even just screenshot the my fitness pal or do it yourself. Whether. Either one. But share it with us so we can look at it it and then I think we'll get better insight. Like, totally awesome.

[Caller]

Thank you, guys. Really appreciate it.

[Justin Andrews]

You got it, my man.

[Adam Schafer]

All right, bj.

[Justin Andrews]

Awesome. Thanks, brother.

[Caller]

Thank you so much.

[Justin Andrews]

Got it. Yeah, we got to see those.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, that wasn't adding up when he was, when he was doing his thing. I'm doing the math in my head. I'm like, okay, salad, a egg, the lunch especially. I'm like, I'm like, Bro, 600 calories at night time. So he's going into dinner at 600, but then he goes, I eat three of these. Massive. Okay, so he maybe.

[Justin Andrews]

And he's a big dude. What's a massive bowl for you? I. Look, I don't, I don't know. I've, I've. Like I said, I've been around. I remember one guy in particular, by the way, if he was an obese. Like, I don't lift weights, I don't exercise. I struggle my weight. I've been dieting on and off. Okay, well, maybe slow metabolism might be the thing, but he's been powerlifting for years. He's competitive.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And he's been Crushing numbers.

[Justin Andrews]

He's crushing numbers. It doesn't add up. Like, I had a buddy that was like this, and I remember him complaining, I can't, I can't. And he's a big, strong guy, but, you know, he was a power lifter. I, I, I don't eat this much. Whatever. And I would see his breakfast and his lunch. I'm like, oh, my God, you are eating very little. Then I went out and I ate dinner with him once. I'm like, bro, you just ate 3,000.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, that could be it. Because that's, because I tell you right now, when he was doing the calculations on the earlier, I'm like, bro, this guy ain't. But then, then he made, he alluded to his dirty rice meal.

[Justin Andrews]

He's saying, going off the railroad nails.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. And so it's also the type of guy, too, who grabs the, like the, the whole penis jar and, like, throws it in his palm. And every once in a while I have a couple peanuts, you know what I'm saying? Like, 900 nuts. 900, 900 calories and nuts.

[Justin Andrews]

My buddy literally was like, well, you know, for dinner, I'll have like a burrito or whatever. I went out to him, he three, three super burritos. Like, bro, that's three, that's over 3, 000 calories right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay, well, let's see if he tracks for us so we get an idea because, yeah, something's not. That'd be weird.

[Justin Andrews]

He Powerlifter with a really slow method.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I mean, you could get metabolically adapted for someone who, and he's not.

[Justin Andrews]

A cardio fanatic or. You're right, it's possible, but likely, I don't know. We'll see.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Yep.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Dwayne from Jamaica.

[Adam Schafer]

What up, Dwayne?

[Justin Andrews]

How you doing, man?

[Caller]

Good morning, gentlemen. How are you today? So, coming around to, to my question, sort of a little bit of history of who I am. 27 years policing in Toronto, retired in 2016. Dabbled in fitness. Bit of a weekend warrior throughout my career. Went from new triathlons to mountain biking to rock climbing to some time in the gym. What I realized is, and you guys talk about this a lot, the importance of sleep and routine and shift work is a young man's sport. It's a young man's game. And shift work kills me. The flatbeds became a nap time some days because you're just too tired to work out. So since I left policing my life, I got a good routine. I Got a good workout program last year, my gym, I got a report in January. I was at the gym 254 times, which is probably too much. I hear those words, you know, do the get the best benefit for the least amount of work. And I hear you guys say that in my head every time I go to the gym because I'm probably there too much. I do a three on one off split. You know, I'm 55 years old now, so I'm doing it just something probably from the 70s, you know, back by chest, dry shoulders, legs. I'm enjoying it. I do a little bit of cardio on the fourth day when I feel like it. So I'm confident you guys are going to probably tell me I'm doing too much, which is where my question comes in. And then I'll just see. Once I get the question, I'll show up and let you guys start talking. But I'm. When I leave the gym, I feel ready to tackle the day. And I'm sure you guys understand exactly where I'm coming from. When I put on my suit, I walk into the office, I'm confident, I'm ready to go. I feel energized. Doesn't matter what meeting it is, who's in that meeting, I'm ready for it. And I don't get that same, you know, that endorphin. Ross, to use some words I don't quite understand, I don't get that same thing when I don't get to the gym. And the harder the workout is, is the better it feels when you walk through the doors of that office. And so I'm trying to figure out, okay, how do I not over train, but how do I get up and get to work every morning and feel like I'm ready to tackle the day?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, no good. You can go every day. You just got to change, modify intensity and modify intensity. And you could do mobility work. You could do hot and cold contrast, cold dip. You could challenge your body's ability to adapt to temperature. You know, a lot of people will say what about. And I've seen your question about the mental health benefits of training and, you know, the discipline that goes around it. You know, for someone who really enjoys workouts and you start to develop a relationship where you can't miss a workout. There's mental discipline in skipping sometimes as well. Right. Because that challenges you a bit to skip that kind of workout out and try something different, you know. Also, cortisol also feels good.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

And so you could be pushing your cortisol up each time, and that gives you that temporary energy rush. But if you're noticing energy crashes later, sleep disturbances, you're not progressing in the gym. Stiffness, you know, you might be overdoing it, but you can go to the gym every day. That's not a problem. It's just you got to modify the intensity in the workouts.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, if I, if you, I was coaching you, you were my client, and you're telling me this about how you like. I, I wouldn't take away the going to the gym every day. I like that. I would say, fine, but I want you to follow like a Maps Anabolic routine. Like, I'd want you on Maps Anabolic. And then the way Maps Anabolic is structured, it's basically Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you have like a full body lifting routine. Tuesdays and Thursdays would be this kind of trigger sessions, and those days would be some of this low intensity cardio. So I'd. You'd still go to the gym, you do your trigger session. Maybe I have you do some mobility drills. Depending on after I assessed you and saw your ankle, knee, hip, shoulders, how that all feels, I'd probably do a few things that I think could. Would improve that. I think everybody gets up to our age or more, and there's always something shoulder, neck, hip, something that I could improve and help you. And I'd probably have you do some of that on those less intense days. But I love the idea of going to the gym every day and that you have that routine. And I never want to take that from a client and tell them, oh, you're, you're going to the gym too much. Well, no, it's. What we're doing at the gym might be too much. And so we have our three days of getting after it, which I love. And full body routine is just going to serve you better. And then on the Tuesday and Thursdays, let's address the other things. Let's address the mobility. Let's do a little bit of cardio if you want that endurance on those days and keep you going like that. And so long as you're hitting protein intake, you're fed training like that, you're not overtraining, you're doing, you're doing just fine. But Sal already touched what I was gonna say right away is many clients mistake or misunderstand the feeling they feel. That feels so good going right after that workout with that. It's healthy for me. And it's actually just this adrenaline rush that you get from the cortisol because that is a very normal feeling. And you've probably heard us talk about that. We call those cortisol junkies right there. They're addicted to that feeling and they've now attached punishing themselves in the gym with that feeling that they get. And they think it's healthy and good and they justify it because they're exercising. But there is a better approach. And of course you've, you already tried to say it right this, the goal is to do as little as possible, elicit the most change and tweaking a little bit of your intensity and what you're doing inside the gym is just going to make all those things better and your results even better.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. By the way, if you're okay maintaining, like, are you, is your strength, do you use the same weights you've been using for the last few years when you're working out? Do you see strength gain? Like, what are your goals?

[Caller]

You know what, as I tell my wife, you can't flex cardio at the beach. So my goal is just to look good. You know, I upped my, you know, my max one set, one rep bench, just 255 now on my heavy days, because I go light, medium, heavy, change the reps around. So I'm getting stronger. You know, there's some good growth. I'm about 16 to 17 body fat and I like that range. I don't see my abs at that range, but I'm not, I, I can't be disciplined enough and I don't think I'd be healthy. I never hit my protein intake trying to get down to a spot where my body fat percentage would allow me to see what my abs look like. So I'll pretend they're there. And you talked about Anabolic because after I heard you the first time, found your website, bought Anabolic, bought performance, I just, I'll just side destroy your program. Like it was just not enough. And I just started doing it every day and I literally, you know, added I could probably do like your three weeks in a week and a half. Right. And so it was good. I enjoyed the exercise, enjoyed the routine. It threw some, some different exercises into my program that I wasn't already doing. Like, oh, I never thought about doing that before. It made me play with some of the reps that I was doing and some of the sets. But yeah, and so I, I tried performance and, and that was just not for me. It just seemed a little old person set in the ways. I hate to say it, but that's what it sounds like when I say it out loud. And so I went back to Anabolic and I destroyed it again. And I did a bit better this time because I was listening to you guys more and I want to trust. And then I'm there and I'm looking at this program thinking, that's not enough. There's no way. And so there's that. That trust versus is what I know from my years of taking no training at all in how to be a personal trainer. You know it.

[Adam Schafer]

Dwayne, Dwayne, there's. There's two ways I handle a client like you, right? There's this. There's one way I'm tell you, right? This is how I handle someone like you. I say, listen, for your age, what you're doing, you're doing great. You look great, you're strong, you're fit, you're in a healthy body fit range, you've got this routine you like. And if you're okay with just kind of maintaining there, there, that's an awesome place to be. Nothing wrong with that. But if you're coming to me as your train trainer and you're like, adam, I want more. I'd like to see my strength go up even more. I'd like to see my abs. I want more from my workouts. And I say, oh, there's a better way. So. But I'm okay with either one. You have to make that decision. But if you want more, I'm the guy that can help you get more. But you have to trust me when I tell you this is what you need to do. And you can't change my. Because then you're not doing what I'm telling you to. But I'm okay with you. I'm okay with you doing what you want to do because look where you're at. You're great, man. You're 50 something years old, you're in great shape, you're strong, you look good, you've got energy for your work. I mean, you're in a great place, man. And I don't ever want to that up for somebody who's got a routine and they love that. But if you're coming to me and you're like, I want more, can I do more? Is there more? I would say yeah, there's a, there's a better way to do things, to get more results from what you're currently doing, and I absolutely can help you do that. The question is, do you want to?

[Caller]

Yeah, it is. It becomes that. And you talk about, you know, training all the time and that, you know, start off at one day a week and build up slowly, and I'm at the point where maybe I'll clip back on the anabolic, you know, and I'll follow it religiously. It'll be. You know, it'll be that. That goal I give myself for 20, 25, maybe, just to follow the program religiously day by day, word by word, letter by letter, and. And give your collective experience a chance to. To see where I can be. And if at the end of this, you know, end of the time, it. You know, I'm the same. Nothing, Right.

[Justin Andrews]

Exactly.

[Caller]

Yep.

[Adam Schafer]

You won't. You won't get weaker, you won't get fatter. I promise you all that. The only what. The only place ego is gonna die a little bit is better, is. Yeah, I promise that you'll only get better by doing that. And again, like I said, it really comes down to you, because you're not. You're also not in a bad place at all. You're doing great.

[Justin Andrews]

This isn't urgent. You're doing great.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, and I. And. And some clients, they just. They. They love to do that. Man, if I could get a Hold a Sal's routine, I'd cut his training in half, too.

[Justin Andrews]

I already did.

[Adam Schafer]

But he. He loves. He loves to go in the gym. Who am I to tell him he looks better than I do? So who am I to tell him what he should or shouldn't be doing? You enjoy it. It's part of your life. It's your meditation, those things. I get all that stuff. And so. But if you want more, I've got more for you. And. And I know how to get there, but you got to trust the process and stick with it. And then, you know, the other thing is knowing it sound like you know yourself really well, how you. How you can be in stubborn that way. Maybe investing in a coach, you know, having a coach who holds you accountable to that, where, you know, imagine if you had to talk to me every week, and I'm like, all right, Dwayne, this is what we're doing this week. And just that. I mean that. Just that accountability of making sure you follow those steps. That's a potential worthwhile investment, too, if that's something you really want to do.

[Caller]

I appreciate it, guys. I'll hear your words in my head. I'll give it a try and see if I can teach this old dog some new tricks.

[Adam Schafer]

All right, Dwayne. I'm rooting for you, brother.

[Justin Andrews]

Enjoy yourself.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, okay.

[Caller]

Cheers, gentlemen.

[Justin Andrews]

Thank you, ladies. You That's a tough one. It's a tough one because he. So here's the thing. We talk about overtraining, okay. There are obvious signs of overtraining and then there's just, you're not going to progress over training. But you're not gonna, you don't have all those crazy signs.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

You're not feeling fatigued, you're not losing.

[Caller]

You'Re not gonna move the needle forward.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Caller]

You're maintaining adequate rest.

[Justin Andrews]

You're okay. So it's like when I say over training people like, well, I'm not, you know, my sleep is okay. I don't feel all these injuries, I don't feel stiff. But you want to move forward a little bit. Like, you know, there's a couple directions we can go. We could do more, but I don't think that's the answer for somebody who's working out as much as him.

[Adam Schafer]

Definitely. That's definitely.

[Justin Andrews]

Or we could try doing less.

[Caller]

I was wondering about like a step ladder kind of approach where because, you know, isometrics are very, you know, like you can recover pretty well from the end. You get a really intense workout. Obviously it's going to be totally different. A lot of people get bored doing that. But you know, for some psychopaths out there that like, they can't handle just not doing something intense that day, that would be a great, Great.

[Justin Andrews]

That's it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you just, you have to, I mean, like I said this, there's two ways to handle a client like that. It's just, I'm not going to tell you, you look at, he's in 54 years old, dude's benching good weight, squatting good weight. He's at a great body fat percentage. He's talking about how he feels good at work, everything like that. Like, I ain't gonna that up and tell him don't do these things. But if he's gonna, if he was a client, right, and he was complaining, we're not progressing and how come I can't get lean and how come we can't get my bench press out? And I'd be like, well, bro, because there's a better way to do this. So. But the way you're doing it is done a good ass job for more than 90 of the population. And if you're okay with that, then keep doing what you're doing. But if you want more, I've got more for you if you really want to.

[Justin Andrews]

I know I, for me, I've really cut my volume down recently. But I've added time in the steam room, I've added time in the cold shower so you can go to the gym every day.

[Caller]

Well, and that's the thing like, like the cold plunge, it's challenging, it's hard. And so you get that, you get that kind of steam, you know, like his associ and psychological, well, being, going into, like feeling powerful, going into work. You do things like that, you do hard things that don't tax you as well.

[Adam Schafer]

Let me tell you something. Being disciplined to do mobility on a regular basis is hard too.

[Justin Andrews]

And that'll test your discipline.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right. And if you, if you want to push and train and there's, there's lots of ways, do a whole stretch, stretch yourself and push yourself to progress. That doesn't have to be with just intensity, with weights. There's a lot of things that you can do. So, yeah, no, there, I have the answers for the guy. But you gotta, you gotta want it, though.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Garth from Mississippi.

[Justin Andrews]

What's up, Garth?

[Caller]

What's up, man?

[Justin Andrews]

How can we help you?

[Sal DeStefano]

Hey, how's it going, guys?

[Justin Andrews]

Good.

[Sal DeStefano]

So I got a quick question of programming for a potential powerlifter going, going forward. I've been a baseball player for the last 20 odd years, since I was about 4 years old and, and came across the US to do autoplay at D1 program. And then I was at the program for about five years training as a pitcher though, so we couldn't really go too heavy. They kind of tried to protect us and not let us, you know, push ourselves in that regard because of the stress from pitching and all that kind of stuff. So when I finished with that program, got into running and I tried to, I thought I was going to become like a triathlon athletes and stuff like that because I still felt like I needed to compete. And, you know, then I found you guys and realized that that's not the part I wanted to go down and you know, like, I knew it was a, a good way going forward was to get into the gym. So I bought the Maps Anabolic Advanced and I thought that was like just for, you know, an advanced version of Maps Anabolic, not necessarily for advanced lifters. So I ran that. So I got good results, ended up buying Maps Performance and saw really good results there. And then after a while I realized that I wanted to get into powerlifting and I was like, well, I don't know how to transition from the previous programs that you guys had and the programs that I'd like to get Into So, so my first question was really like, what would a year of training look like for a powerlifter if they wanted to run like Maps products?

[Justin Andrews]

You just program.

[Adam Schafer]

You just came off a performance right now?

[Sal DeStefano]

No, so right now I just. Well, so I left out that in the past two or three years I was trading at Planet Fitness and obviously listening to you guys, I realized that that wasn't the gym to go to. So I found a gym that had bubble and free weights and stuff. Stuff. And I transitioned from there to Crunch Fitness and no, following your program on YouTube and your, your YouTube series, I realized that obviously with Planet Fitness that the Smith machines, I'm not going to be able to have that stability and that stabilizer muscles getting influenced. So when I transitioned, I started the strong lifts 5x5 and I ran that for the last two or three months. But I started at about. Because I know at the end of Map Symmetry, which is what I, what I had run previously, there was a, there's a 5x5 program in there. And so I use the weights from there for crunch. But I, I went like, sort of like 70 of what I was using in Symmetry so I could start off low and like train myself and get just the movement with the freeways. And then right now I'm actually pushing higher numbers than what I was using in Symmetry. And yeah, I wanted to get now from Smart, so thanks. Yeah, so I wanted to go from the strongest five by five. I was actually just about to start the Maps Anabolic Advanced again.

[Justin Andrews]

Maps Powerlift?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You want to do powerlifting? We have a powerlifting program.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, yeah, so I wanted to get, I wanted to get Power Lift, but we're busy going through a, like a whole adjustment of status process. This. So I just got married to. I'm from South Africa, so I got married to a U.S. citizen. And we're going through all the legal processes and the law fees and stuff. So we hadn't bought Powerlift yet. But I was wondering how I was going to implement powerlift because I know you guys say like not to run like two pro too many programs back to back or.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, you're doing a good job of interrupting that with symmetry and performance. That's why I was asking what you did before, because if you like, let's say you ran anabolic a 5x5 and that's what you've been training for like a year or two and then you're gonna go right into Power Lift. I might have you interrupt that and go into either performance or Symmetry first and then go into powerlift. But if you just came out of symmetry, you're okay. You could go right into Maps Power lift.

[Justin Andrews]

Right now if you really want to compete in powerlifting, I would go, you could go two cycles of power lift and then a cycle of symmetry or performance and then back to two cycles of power lift.

[Adam Schafer]

Love that.

[Justin Andrews]

So like a two to one kind of ratio type of deal.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

Yep.

[Sal DeStefano]

So you said. Sorry. So you said power lift and then like symmetry or performance and then back to power lift.

[Justin Andrews]

Yep, yep. But you could even go power lift probably two times in a row before doing symmetry.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, you'd be all right.

[Sal DeStefano]

So would I not be able to include like anabolic or like a hypertrophy program or.

[Justin Andrews]

You could, I mean you can, you can't.

[Adam Schafer]

So here's. Okay, here's what we're. So we can explain why we're, we're saying this. So power lift is very sagittal plane focused. I mean it's, it's bench squat dead. I mean it's just the main lifts, it's very specific. There's no, there's no unilateral, there's no rotational stuff going on. There's not a lot of things to protect your joints. Work on mobility, address strength in different directions. And if you get really, really strong in one direction, it's like a, a drag car. And then expecting a drag car to go on a racetrack with turns like that's where it gets dangerous. Right. You never take a thousand horsepower car to go straight and put it on the newing track and think it's going to do all right. Like you got to make sure you work on the suspension and do things like that. So, so as long as you do programs that work on the suspension, which is be like mobility, multi directional stuff that's map symmetry maps performance. At least once a year within your programming, you could bounce around to Aesthetic and Anabolic and some of the other programs and be okay. But my typical or my generic recommendation to like all athletes or anybody who's trying to get really strong is just make sure you run one cycle a year, which is three months of a program that really addresses all that. So you don't get so strong in one direction and you neglect that that's where injury ends up happening. So as long as you get at least one round or of performance or symmetry a year, you can, you can toggle between all those programs you recommended. Yep.

[Sal DeStefano]

So another follow up question from there is like now if I'm about To go into anabolic advanced or power lift. I know for like, for anabolic advanced there's different, like, days, obviously there's the, like the failure weekend in the volume week.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

Would you, would you suggest if I do low bar squat for powerlifting, but I. Should I stick with low bar squats or should I.

[Justin Andrews]

That's fine. No, no, it doesn't matter.

[Adam Schafer]

However you're gonna squat in your competition, you should, you should practice that the most.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Average person who just wants to get good at all those things, it's like, yeah, sure. High switch, back and forth, forth. Somebody who's going to go compete in a sport, whatever you're going to be doing in that sport, Practice that. Practice that the most.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, for sure.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Yep.

[Sal DeStefano]

Perfect. I had another question. Yeah. With regards to, like, how would you guys suggest our plan or like prep, obviously now, because you just said that I could do two cycles of power lift. Power lift. And you said it's about three. Three months each.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yep, yep.

[Sal DeStefano]

So that. Would, that. So then that means that would I be able to run a cycle of power lift leading up to like a regional or provincial tournament and then.

[Adam Schafer]

Yep.

[Sal DeStefano]

And then the national title is going to be three months after that. So would I just run it again?

[Justin Andrews]

Yep. Absolutely.

[Adam Schafer]

Yep.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay. Perfect.

[Adam Schafer]

Yep. And then after you run those two times, then give yourself a break for three months. You know, consider that your off season or whatever. But then we go into something like mic symmetry of performance. And then you can go right back into power lift again and you can just keep toggling back and forth like that. And then if you want to, like I said, you can insert aesthetic or anabolic or some of the other programs, so long as you just make sure. Never go more than nine months or so without starting a program that's addressing unilateral rotational work with symmetry or performance.

[Sal DeStefano]

Okay, and so you say I could alternate either one. So performance. Or do you guys have like a.

[Adam Schafer]

Either one of those are gonna. I mean, if you had very specific things you could tell us that, like, oh, this is nagging or bothering me. Maybe we would suggest one or the other other. But both of them do a good enough job of addressing unilateral work, working in multiple planes. And so totally either one would be.

[Justin Andrews]

Would be.

[Adam Schafer]

Would be the generic answer. Unless you had a very specific thing that you told us you had a problem with. And then maybe we'd go one over the other.

[Sal DeStefano]

Perfect. I really, really appreciate that.

[Adam Schafer]

Guys, we'll send you a power lift because I. You Don't. You don't have it yet, do you?

[Sal DeStefano]

No, not yet. No.

[Adam Schafer]

All right, we'll send it over to you.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. And congratulations on your, on your marriage.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes, thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

[Adam Schafer]

Hey, keep us posted. I'd love to hear how you do on your, your first powerlifting meet too.

[Sal DeStefano]

I will do. I'll let you guys know and I'll show you, I'll show your word everywhere. I really appreciate everything.

[Adam Schafer]

Thank you.

[Caller]

Thanks, man.

[Justin Andrews]

Good stuff.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it's cool.

[Justin Andrews]

That's good. You know, it's funny, he mentioned hypertrophy training. Someone listening might be like, why would a power lifter, power lifters these days understand even the value of some bodybuilding? Even for body parts like the biceps?

[Caller]

Exactly, exactly.

[Justin Andrews]

Because it was protecting their elbows.

[Caller]

Very vulnerable. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So hypertrophy training is also valuable for powerlifting. Just like I think powerlifting is valuable for bodybuilding. You just don't do a lot of it. But there's value in all these. It's just, you know, if you're in a sport, most of the time you're going to spend your training is going to be specifically for that sport. But moving out of it's one of the best ways to avoid injury, to.

[Adam Schafer]

Avoid burnout and also progress.

[Justin Andrews]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

Just novelty for a little bit and then coming back, what's the number one.

[Justin Andrews]

Thing that prevents progress in, in a consistent athlete? Injury Burnout. That's the number one thing. So avoiding those things means you're going to progress better than most people. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump to Stephano and Adam's at Mind Pump.

[Doug]

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 bundle at mindpump media. 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 trainers, 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 is Mind Pump. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to libsynads.

[Adam Schafer]

Com.

[Doug]

That's L I B S Y N Ads. Com.

[Adam Schafer]

Today.