2545: Transform Your Body in 90 Days

Summary

Mind Pump Podcast Episode 2545: "Transform Your Body in 90 Days"

Release Date: March 3, 2025
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews
Producer: Doug Egge

In Episode 2545 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth, hosts Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews delve deep into the mechanics of achieving a significant body transformation within a 90-day timeframe. Drawing from over four decades of combined experience in the fitness industry, the trio dismantles common myths surrounding rapid physique changes and presents a scientifically-backed, structured approach to sustainable body recomposition.

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1. Debunking the Quick Transformation Myth

The episode kicks off with a candid discussion about the skepticism surrounding 90-day body transformations. Justin Andrews emphasizes that while achieving remarkable changes in 90 days is “possible” (01:10), it requires precision and adherence to a well-designed plan. The hosts caution against the allure of “before and after” transformations that often lack authenticity, highlighting the importance of realistic expectations and sustainable practices.

Justin Andrews [01:10]: "Transform your body in 90 days. It is possible. Okay, it is not likely, but it is possible. You have to do it right."

2. The Structured 90-Day Transformation Plan

The core of the episode revolves around a meticulously crafted 90-day transformation strategy, segmented into three distinct phases—each lasting approximately 30 days.

a. Month 1: Building the Foundation

• Focus: Establishing a solid base through consistent strength training and initiating a reverse diet.
• Training Approach: Daily mini workouts comprising 2-3 strength exercises for about 20 minutes, five days a week. The emphasis is on moderate intensity to “send that muscle building signal frequently” (12:19).
• Diet Strategy: Implementing a reverse diet by increasing protein intake to “about 1 gram of protein per pound of target body weight” (12:19). This phase aims to accelerate metabolism by building muscle, which in turn enhances fat-burning capabilities.

Justin Andrews [03:30]: "What you're trying to do is you're trying to maximize adaptation and minimize recovery time."

b. Month 2: Enhancing Volume and Intensity

• Focus: Gradually increasing workout volume and intensity while introducing mini cuts and bulks.
• Training Approach: Transitioning to a four-day workout week with increased sets and intensity. This phase balances muscle building with incorporating periods of caloric deficit (mini cuts) and surplus (mini bulks) to optimize fat loss and muscle retention.
• Diet Strategy: Alternating between slight caloric deficits and surpluses ensures sustained metabolic rates and prevents plateauing.

Justin Andrews [18:14]: "Second 30 days is where you start to push the weight a little bit."

c. Month 3: Cutting Fat and Refining

• Focus: Maximizing fat loss while preserving muscle mass.
• Training Approach: Shifting to a three-day full-body workout routine to maintain muscle while introducing High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and Low-Intensity Steady State (LISS) cardio to accelerate fat burning.
• Diet Strategy: Maintaining a consistent caloric deficit, supported by the enhanced metabolism from the first two months, allows for significant fat reduction without sacrificing muscle quality.

Justin Andrews [26:04]: "We are now in a phase where I don't want to be doing all kinds of volume and extra intensity right now. I want to do what, the bare minimum to hang on to that muscle that we've built over the last two months while I start to lean you out."

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3. Leveraging Muscle Memory for Optimal Results

Adam Schafer, leveraging his background as a former professional physique competitor, shares insights into muscle memory and its pivotal role in rapid muscle regain. He recounts his personal experience of regaining “20 pounds of muscle in the first month” (14:16) due to prior training and muscle memory, underscoring that previous conditioning can significantly amplify transformation results.

Adam Schafer [13:30]: "I didn't know how much, but I was pretty confident that we'd probably be able to get 25."

4. Diet and Metabolic Optimization

A cornerstone of the 90-day plan is metabolic optimization through a reverse diet and strategic caloric cycling:

• Reverse Dieting: In the initial phase, increasing caloric intake, particularly protein, sets the stage for muscle growth and metabolic acceleration.
• Mini Cuts and Bulks: The second month’s alternating caloric phases prevent metabolic slowdown and promote efficient fat loss while maintaining muscle mass.
• Sustainability: By the final month, the enhanced metabolism allows for effective fat loss at higher caloric intakes than typically expected, facilitating a more sustainable and less restrictive dieting approach.

Justin Andrews [21:28]: "Most people have a tendency to do what you said... overloading you with stress. You're not giving the body enough recovery, not giving you enough recovery time."

5. Avoiding Common Pitfalls

The hosts address frequent mistakes individuals make during body transformations:

• Overtraining: Increasing workout volume and intensity during caloric deficits leads to insufficient recovery and hindered progress.
• Underestimating Diet’s Role: Relying excessively on exercise, such as adding unnecessary cardio early on, can impede muscle-building and metabolic enhancement.
• Inconsistent Application: Deviating from the structured plan by sporadically increasing intensity or altering dietary strategies undermines the transformation process.

Adam Schafer [22:27]: "I have to do what you said. We're cutting your calories right now... you're going to lean out."

6. Practical Insights and Success Stories

Drawing from their extensive coaching experiences, the hosts share real-world examples illustrating the effectiveness of the 90-day plan. Adam discusses his own journey, achieving a 20-pound muscle gain in the first month, while Justin highlights client successes, emphasizing that sustainable, disciplined approaches yield the most gratifying results.

Justin Andrews [07:57]: "But everybody screws it up. Almost nobody does this. Right. And that's the thing that we need to cover."

7. Comprehensive Support Through 'Maps Transform'

To facilitate listeners' transformation journeys, the hosts introduce their new program, Maps Transform. Priced affordably with a $70 discount using code transform70, the program offers:

• Detailed workout blueprints with over 35 videos.
• Customized diet guides focusing on macronutrient optimization.
• A 90-day body recomp journal to track progress.
• Both gym-based and at-home workout options to accommodate diverse lifestyles.

Justin Andrews [33:51]: "It's a 90 day transformational program. Everything's in there that you need to follow it."

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Conclusion

Episode 2545 of Mind Pump presents a thorough and scientifically grounded blueprint for achieving significant body transformation in 90 days. By emphasizing structured progression, metabolic optimization, and the critical balance between training and recovery, Sal, Adam, and Justin provide listeners with actionable insights to achieve lasting fitness goals. The introduction of the Maps Transform program further empowers individuals to embark on their transformation journeys with confidence and expert guidance.

For those seeking to dramatically reshape their physique, enhance overall health, and maximize performance, this episode serves as an invaluable resource, blending expert advice with practical application to make the 90-day transformation both achievable and sustainable.

Transcript

[Sal Destefano]

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[Adam Schaefer]

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[Sal Destefano]

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]

Transform your body in 90 days. It is possible. Okay, it is not likely, but it is possible. You have to do it right. We talk about it in today's episode. Month by month, first month, second month, third month. How you can get your body from fat to fit or to look like a before and after. You can do it if you do it right. By the way, we are launching a brand new program. It's our 90 day transformational program. It's called Maps Transform. Now you can listen to the episode and we tell you how to do it. But you can also get the program and have it all laid out for you. Exercises, sets, reps, what to do, when to do it, diet, supplements, the whole thing. Brand new program. It's $70 off because it's a brand new launch. It's maps transform.com use the code transform70. So transform70 that gives you $70 off. That includes some freebies. You get a 90 day body recomp journal. You follow Adam along with his 90 day transformation. We also give you a Transformation diet guide. By the way, this program can be done in the gym, but we also have an at home version that's included for free. Now this episode is brought to you by HIA Health. If you want to give supplements, multivitamins to your kids, most of them are garbage that are out there. They're candy. They don't have adequate nutrients. Well, HAHI Health is different. No sugar, it's not candy. No artificial anything. And it's got the appropriate nutrients for your children to thrive. This is the only vitamin we give our kids. Go check them out. Go to hyahealth.com that's H I Y A health.com mind pump on that link. You'll get 50% off your first order. Again, new program maps transform.com. the code is transform70 for $70 off and some free stuff. Check it out. 90 day before and afters. Usually they're fake, but you can actually create one, make it real. Dramatic changes in 90 days. But you can't screw up. Everybody messes up. We're gonna talk today about how you can do your own transformation in 90 days, step by step, month one, month two, and month three. Let's start.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I'm excited to talk about this because I think I finally get to clear the room with my whole thing. I didn't realize how many people would think that was fake when we did that.

[Justin Andrews]

So here's the deal with before and afters and transformations. They often aren't real. Now, that being said, the question is, what kind of results can someone actually get in 90 days? And if they do it right. Now, here's the thing. Doing it right does not mean doing it as hard as possible and doing everything all at the same time. That's not what that means. If you want your body to adapt and change, you have to do it right. The right dose. Do it the right way will get you the fastest results. And if you do things the right way, you can make dramatic, visible changes in 90 days, especially. Now, here's the asterisk. And this applies to you, Adam, especially if you were in really good shape a while ago. Right. If you fell out of shape. Yeah. Because. Yes. Then you have muscle memory on your side. And then if you tap into that, oh, my God. Can you get your body to change in radical ways in just three months? But everybody screws us up. Everybody messes us up. And the main way they mess this up is they go all out all at once.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Too hard, too fast.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

And you can get rapid results like you're saying, but you can get results that actually stick and are sustainable. And it's something. You're building better habits. And this is all something that you're. You're going through this, and you're. You're doing everything dialed in completely, like, in tune with your body instead of doing it in spite of your body.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

This is one of my favorite parts about the journey I had when I got to compete. What I love about training clients, why I Still love doing this. And talking about this today is there's a real art to it. It's not like anything else. Most other things in life, if you apply more pressure, more force, more effort, more hours, more work towards it, you're rewarded for it. You, you're better, you make more money, you're more successful. And so a lot of people use that approach when it comes to a body transformation like this or getting in shape. And that's why the, the 30 day challenges are so popular and why people love that is because everybody has this, I shouldn't say everybody. It's an over generalization. A lot of people have this attitude of I can do anything for 30 days or 90 days and so I'm willing to go all in on this thing. And they think that that approach is the right approach or the right attitude. And in fact, it, not only is it the wrong attitude, but it will get you there or get less of the results than what you if had you learned to do it correctly.

[Justin Andrews]

That's the most important thing you're saying, Adam, is that because people will say, well, I don't care if it doesn't stick. I'm just going to get faster results, get better results. No, no, you'll get worse results. You'll. Best results. You'll get. Yeah, you're what you're dealing with. And this, this I think illustrates it, right? You're dealing with when you're trying to burn body fat and you're trying to build muscle and sculpt the body and shape the body. You are dealing with the human body. You're not just building, you know, something out of bricks. You're building the human body, which means you are working with your body's capacity to adapt and to change. Okay? And it really, I've used this analogy many times, but it's no different than if you were trying to get the best looking fastest tan possible. And so one guy goes outside and says, I'm going to stay out in the sun as long as I possibly can. Day one, they're not going to get the best tan. They're going to sunburn. The guy or girl that goes out that does the perfect dose of UV rays every single day, he knows or she knows what the perfect dose is. Every single day will get the tan that's the best and get to the fastest. That's the same exact thing. When you're talking about getting in shape in 90 days is what is the perfect dose? How do I do this? How do I figure this out to get the fastest results. And if I do any more than is necessary, I'll get less results. I'll actually hamper my progress. And so when you. The real question is, what kind of results can people get? If they did everything perfectly, if they did everything perfectly, if they were training their body, maximize adaptation, if they fed themselves perfectly with their diet, if they did all the things in the right way, could you get the kind of results in 90 days that people would typically see in a before and after picture? And the answer is yes, you can. But everybody screws it up. Almost nobody does this. Right. And that's the thing that we need to cover.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah, I just think it's more like body recomps or transformations. Right. Losing a bunch of body fat, building a bunch of muscle is more like building a cake or baking a cake than it is like getting good at a sport. But we approach it with this kind of sport mentality of going hard and get in again, practicing more and more and doing more. And it's more like baking a cake than it is like a sport where there's, there's an art, there's a science to it. You just don't just throw a bunch of stuff together and go as hard as you possibly can. You won't get the results. And I think that's why so many people stall out. It's not by lack of effort. I don't know how many clients have hired me that. And normally when they come, when they came to one of us, they'd already exhausted their resources. They had already tapped their friend who did it that one diet. They already talked, talked to their friend who did that one program. They'd already tried countless different classes and they'd done all these different things, and for some reason they just weren't able to get to the results that they were promised or told or thought they could do. And a lot of it was just going about it all the wrong way. Everything from the way they did their macros and calories to the amount of intensity they applied to the amount of volume that they applied, I mean, everything is wrong.

[Justin Andrews]

Let's break this down. Okay, so let's talk about the first 30 days. Because when you're doing this transformation, this 90 day transformation where maybe you were in shape a couple years ago and you stopped or you haven't worked out for six months or whatever, and you're like, okay, in 90 days, I want to get back into incredible shape. Month one looks like this. The first 30 days looks like this. Number one, you got to start slow you want to start slow because you haven't been working out. And the fact that you haven't worked out in a while means your body's going to respond pretty rapidly to almost any proper stimulus. And more than that, it's going to compromise your body's ability to, to adapt. Really what you're trying to do is you're trying to maximize adaptation and minimize recovery time. What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to send the signal that maximizes the adaptation process. And in the first month, what I want, I don't care what your goal is, whether it's to build a lot of muscle and strength or burn a lot of body fat, month one should be about building because building muscle. Look, if your goal is to build muscle, that's obvious. But if your goal is to burn body fat, doesn't seem so obvious. Why should I build muscle in the first month? I want to lose, you know, 30 pounds or whatever. Well, because that muscle is going to set you up for more effective and sustainable fat loss later on. Because it's fat burning machinery, it boosts your metabolism, it makes your hormones work more, work better for you. So we want to start with that first 80 days, regardless of what your goal is to build. But we won't want to start slow. We want to send an adaptation signal that maximizes adaptation, but that doesn't tap too much into recovery. Because what my body will do if I go too hard, too fast is it'll spend more time healing and less time adapting. Right, because you have adaptation and recovery. But we use the word healing instead of recovery because I think that illustrates this a little better. There's an overlap between them, which is true. But if I go above and beyond what is necessary to maximize adaptation, my body's going to utilize all of its resources for healing. And so what'll happen if I do this wrong, which a lot of people do, is I'm going to get some results. By the way, this is where people will protest. This will say, well, I went real hard and I got, look at these results I got in the first 30 days. Yeah, but you don't know what kind of results you could have gotten, right?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Could have been better.

[Justin Andrews]

You might have built three pounds of muscle in your first month coming back, which is great, that's great. But you probably could have gained like eight pounds of muscle, which, if you had eight, by the way, if you have muscle memory working for you, building that, you know, eight pounds of muscle in a month is actually quite possible for a lot of people. If you have really good genetics and you had a lot of muscle that you lost initially, you could build a lot more than that, as Adam demonstrated. But nonetheless, you don't know what you could have done because you overdid it. What you don't want to do is get your body to focus so much on healing that it has no more resources or time to focus on recovery. So, excuse me, to focus on adaptation. So you want to start slow now. What does the workouts look like here? What is the best way to apply strength training during this process? Mini workouts every day.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Less is more every day.

[Justin Andrews]

So rather than doing like two days a week in the gym and I'm working out for an hour each time, you should probably spend about 20 minutes doing two or three strength training exercise every single day and send that muscle building signal frequently to get those gears in motion. Keep the intensity somewhat moderate, but that's kind of what it's going to look like. So five days a week, you're kind of doing like two, maybe three at most, especially if they're smaller exercises a day. And then people, you know, wonder, what's the diet look like? Feed your body, feed the muscle. So we're doing what's called a reverse diet. And this is the part, Adam, your first 30 days is where everybody thought it was fake. It wasn't the second 30. The third 30. It was the first 30.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because of muscle memory.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And you had now, now, Adam, you had a lot of muscle memory to work with.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because at your peak.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

50 pounds more muscle.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I've. I've had 50 more pounds of muscle on my body before. So obviously I had a huge advantage. I knew so that I knew going into it, which is why I remember when Dylan was putting together the first video, he's like, what do you want to say on here? Like, you know, ex bodybuilder in pursuit of 50 pounds of muscle. I'm like, don't say 50, because that's my peak. Right. And I'm not going to get back in peak shape, but I go 25 easy. I'm like, that's half of what my body's used to carrying. I've carried that much muscle on my body for a long time. It's not peak shape me at all. I said, so I feel pretty confident we'll get back 25 relatively quick. How quick? I wasn't 100% sure. I've never had a journey like this before where I really intentionally went after something like this in a short Period of time after losing that much muscle. So I didn't know how much, but I was pretty confident that we'd probably be able to get £25. And we did 20. We did 20 in the first month because of, like you said, the muscle memory. If I didn't have that muscle memory, still would have good results. But it wouldn't have been 20. It wouldn't have been £20.

[Justin Andrews]

And really, just to kind of illustrate what I was talking about earlier, had you overdone it, you would have still built a lot of muscle. Well, so that's, you wouldn't have maximized it.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

This is the part that I, what people need to understand is that when you're coming off of a layoff of training and you haven't been lifting or doing anything, any sort of signal of lifting or exercise is a signal in the right direction. Meaning if you didn't do anything the prior three, four, six weeks, months before that, and you decide you're going to do push ups every day like that already sends a signal to start building muscle. You are sending a signal that you have not been sitting at whatsoever. So you are more likely, when you're starting off like this, this is the mistake that most people make. You are more likely to overreach doing too much than doing too little. You can't really do too little. Anything is more than what you were doing. Yeah. Is more than what you were doing. And so anything will start to at least move you in the right direction. And really grasping that is tough for the person who is highly motivated in that moment to change. Right. Most people that are seeking a transformation journey, they been told by their doctor that something's wrong with them medically or they saw themselves in the mirror one day or they hit a weight they haven't hit forever and they have all this emotion and they're like, I'm going to make change today. And they're motivated to do that. And so part of that is like, I'm going to go and of course, day one, I'm going to get after it because I want to prove to myself I'm going to do this. But the opposite is true of what they should do. The opposite is like, listen, you haven't done for months or years, do some push ups, do one or two exercises, that's it. And don't go over the top. Intensity, moderate intensity.

[Justin Andrews]

Now, the data supports all this, by the way, people who are deconditioned. There was once, there's actually a couple studies on this where they did one isometric contraction once a week. And they saw like 20, 30% huge return week over week. I mean, an isometric contraction just for people listening, like one a week, that's like, literally they squeezed their hand or their leg for 30 seconds.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Tried for a little bit.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I love that study though, because it highlights. The point that I'm always trying to scream is like, dude, listen, it doesn't take that much. If you did one isolation contraction in a week, you'll see positive change, right? So if thinking in those terms it's like, wow, then I really don't want to do too much. Too much. I'm more likely to overreach. Yeah, I'm going to cut into my gains. But man, I could probably do just a little bit and be all right. And then I. It gives me so much more room to dial up.

[Justin Andrews]

So if you do this right, if you're listening to this and you're like, okay, I've done this before, I've tried to get back in shape before, it never works. I fall out of shape, whatever. And you're like, okay, I'm going to try what these guys are saying in that first 30 days. If you do this right, you'll see strength gains and muscle gains week over week over week in that first 30 days, especially if you do what's called a reverse diet. What is a reverse diet? You're actually adding more protein, especially to your diet. So you're taking your current food intake and you're adding, making sure you hit about 1 gram of protein per pound of target body weight, which is probably not what you're doing now. So you're adding to your diet along with this muscle building stimulus of five days a week, maybe two exercises in the gym. So it shouldn't take you, like I said, maybe 20 minutes. And what's gonna happen by the end of this 30 days is you'll have a faster metabolism. So phase one or first 30 days, I've built some muscle. So most people watching and listening to this now, if you were in shape before, you're gonna get more muscle. If you've never done this before, it'll be less. But you're probably going to see between five to ten pounds of muscle in that first month. Ten pounds being like, I used to have all this muscle before, 5, 4, 5 pounds of lean body mass for someone who's never worked out, which I would see with clients all the time with a good reverse diet. So now you're ending the first 30 days with the faster metabolism, which is going to make fat Loss a lot easier as you move into the second 30 days. So that's the first 30 days, right? Second 30 days. Well, this is where you bump the volume and the intensity of your workouts.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Just a little bit.

[Justin Andrews]

Just a little bit. But you cut down the amount of days you're in the gym to four days. So you're no longer doing five days a week, you're doing four days a week. And you can move to a general split here. So general split would be like an upper lower split. Some people like that. Other people like different kinds of ike, upper lower for something like this. And then what you're doing with diet, here's where it gets real fun, is you move into mini cuts in many bulks. So what does that look like? Well, a cut is when you're eating less than you're burning, and a bulk is when you're eating a little more than you're burning. And the idea here, which has been practiced many times by bodybuilders, been done for decades by bodybuilders, but we did this with clients. It's a very effective way to get the body to burn pure body fat and to maintain or build muscle. It's very hard to build muscle in a pure cut all the time. And you start to see metabolic adaptation go down. In other words, your metabolism starts to slow down. But in this particular phase, as we bump up the exercise volume a little bit, see, we add a few more sets, we're training a little bit harder. We're not in the gym five days a week, but now we're in there four days a week. Now what we're going to do is we're going to start doing a cut for a couple weeks and then a bulk for a couple weeks. This allows you to perm body fat, but then maintain the metabolism that you're trying to boost. Mini cut, mini bulks tend to result in better results over time than just an impure cut all the way through.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I, I think a lot of that has to do with. You're applying a very similar strategy of the minimal effect, the minimal effective dose. Like you do with the training.

[Justin Andrews]

That's right.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

So here you go. The way you've laid this out, the first month, and this is how I, how I went through my process. First month, I'm reverse dieting. So I'm increasing calories, I'm increasing, especially protein. Right. I'm increasing my protein intake.

[Justin Andrews]

Where did you go from to where, like, let's, let's give them some numbers. What were you, do you think you were averaging before. And then what were you trying to hit in that first month?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, I was trying just to get to one, one to one, like whatever my body weight was. Right. So at that time I'm like 220 pounds. So the goal was 200 to 220 grams of protein.

[Justin Andrews]

What do you think you were eating before you started?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

90.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay, so you more than doubled your protein.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

Your calories went up.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah. Okay, so and, and, and that during that process, the thought process is okay, I'm just making it a goal to get that much protein. I'm just, I'm doing a couple exercises. Not really intense, just sending a consistent signal to build muscle. You want to make sure that in that first month you, like you said, you're setting the metabolism up. I like to think of it as like, if losing weight or losing fat is like digging a hole, I'm building the bigger shovel in that first month. And that first month I'm building that big shovel. And then when you go to the second month and you start to do these little mini cuts and mini bulks, I'm also not going to burn myself out of just digging, digging, digging, digging all the time because that'll get burnt out, out also. And so you apply these one or yeah, these little sprints of a calorie deficit. So I get to see myself lean out again and then I go back to building again, go back to building the shovel again. And then, then I get little sprints at it again and digging and versus what a lot of people do, which is just aggressively cut and they lose, lose, lose. And then they hit a plateau and they're so low a calorie they have nowhere to go. Instead of interrupting it with these kind of mini cuts and bulks, I just find that to be a far better long term strategy and approach both mentally and physically.

[Justin Andrews]

It just works better. And by the way, here's something else that's counterintuitive, or should I say counter what people tend to do when you're in your cut, when you're in your calorie cut, you need to reduce the volume of your training, not increase the volume. Everybody does the opposite. They're like, okay, now I'm trying to burn body fat. I'm in a calorie deficit. Let me bump up the exercises that I'm doing in the reps that I'm doing. No, no, you've actually reduced your body's ability to recover because you've cut nutrients out of your diet. Right. Proteins, fats, carbs, plus the micronutrients.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

So now you're overstressing yourself.

[Justin Andrews]

Right. So what you want to do in the cut is actually cut the volume a little bit. So you actually want to cut a set or two or three off of your workouts during the cut phase, during the bulk phase, you can bump the volume up a little. Not a huge difference, but you bump up the volume a little bit. So the volume is higher with the mini bulks, and it's lower with the many cuts. Not the way that opposite. That people tend to do it, where they're like, I need to gain, so I need to do less and I need to cut, so I need to do more of my workouts. Actually, the opposite is true.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

This is what. This is one of my favorite tips or hacks that you're talking about, whatever you want to label this as, because I think most people have a tendency to do what you said. When you're motivated to lose weight, you tend to increase volume, increase intensity, simultaneously decreasing calories, which, to Justin's point, is just overloading you with stress. You're not giving that. You're not giving the body enough recovery, not giving you enough recovery time. You're not. The intensity is too much. And then on top of that, you're not feeding it enough to recover from all that damage. So learning to scale back a little bit on the intensity. And what I like to tell clients with that is let the diet do the work. So when I'm coaching a client and I decided to cut them in the calories and they get motivated, well, Adam, can I go on a run or can I do this extra set or can I stay here longer? I'm like, no, no, no, let the diet do the work. We're cutting your calories right now. You're going to lean out. Guess what? You're going to lean out watching TV tonight because I'm putting you in a deficit right now. You've built some muscle from the previous month, so the metabolism's starting to kick up. You let that. Let it do its job. If you decide you're going to go try to do a run or add more intensity to it. Now you flirt with that. Overreaching over training, and then the body revolting because it's like, oh, not enough food over stressing, Then it holds on, and then it doesn't do what it wants to do. Let the diet do the work.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes. So in the first month, what you're going to see are pretty rapid strength gains. What you don't want to do in that first month, by the way, is push the strength right out the gates. Allow the strength gains to happen. Add weight to the bar, but don't go, let's see how much I can lift.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah, organically. Let it happen, let it happen.

[Justin Andrews]

Second 30 days is where you start to push the weight a little bit. Now I'm like, okay, well, let me add a little more. Let me see what I can do. That's what I mean by increasing the intensity. By the way, that also increases the volume when the weight goes up on the bar. That adds volume to your overall load. But you're also going to add volume with a few more sets here and there. So that second 30 days is where you do start to push the weight a little bit. Now, I love what you said, Adam. You mentioned, like, where people like to add running and stuff. We're not adding any of that yet. We're still in the build phase. Although the first 30 days was build build. Second 30 days is build cut. When we move to the last 30 days, this is where we move to the cut. This is when we're really going to go and say, okay, here's where we're going to start to really burn body fat. Now, what does the workout look like here? Now we're working out three days a week now. Why? Well, first off, you were cutting every single day. The entire third 30 day period is a calorie deficit. Calorie deficit the whole entire time. We're going to move to a full body workout because that works much better. It's less volume. However, your strength should maintain or actually go up in this last 30 days because of the work, the way that we're organizing the workout, and because, again, this is. You're only 30 days or 90 days in now. I said 60 days in to this workout. This is the last.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Listen, my coaching sounds like this when I'm talking to a client. This phase, this is our muscle sparing phase. Okay? We are now in a phase where I don't want to be doing all kinds of volume and extra intensity right now. I want to do what, the bare minimum to hang on to that muscle that we've built over the last two months while I start to lean you out. Nice. And what we can do wrong here is overdo. It is to go, oh, I need to apply more intensity, increase everything. It's like, no, again, let the diet, let the calorie deficit do the leaning out process. Let's do just what you need to do inside the gym to maintain that muscle mass. And that's what it looks like. It looks like a three day a week full body routine. We're not trying to hit PRs. We're not pushing extra intensity, adding volume to it. We're letting the diet do the work and let it carve you away.

[Justin Andrews]

By the way, the, the, the exercises that you should be choosing throughout this entire program are the most valuable ones, right? Compound lifts like squats and deadlifts, split stance squats, overhead presses, bench presses, rows. They're just the most effective types of workout exercises. Isolation exercises are good too, for arms and maybe for adding a little extra volume. But really you want to focus on those, those big compound lifts. Now Again, this last 30 days is a cut. This is also why you, when you add the cardio. So now for the last segment of this 90 day transformation, I can add cardio to my routine to accelerate the fat loss. Now the question might be, why don't I do cardio? Month one, month two, why am I just doing it in the last 30 days? Well, first off, if your goal is endurance and stamina and overall fitness, you can add it whenever you want. But this is about the before and after aesthetic changes. I want to maximize the visual change. Remember that first 30 days about building metabolism? Cardio might get in the way of that. So we're not going to add that yet. We're going to really keep the energy towards the strength training. The second 30 days, kind of the same thing. The last 30 days will really get the effect from the cardio from a fat loss, visual perspective. Again, you could do it through the whole time if endurance and stamina is your goal. But if you're like, look, I want to get fit, I want to be healthy, but I want like before and after results. 90 days, you save it, you save it for the last 30 days. The question is what kind of cardio hiit cardio is very valuable here. LISS can also be valuable. LISS is the steady state. I'm on the treadmill, walking at a decent pace for 20, 30 minutes. Hit, hit. I really like for this last 30 days and with hit, you're looking at maybe 10 to 12 minutes. And it's like a sprint followed by a slow pace followed by a sprint followed by a slow pace. You know, 10 minutes or 12 minutes of hit in terms of calorie burn is as much as like 35 or 40 minutes of that kind of steady state type of cardio.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I mean, month one, month two was us getting, you know, getting back to your training volume and intensity slowly by building the Metabolism, building your shovel. Right. You've introduced a little bit of these mini cuts back to a bulk. So it's just small little sprints. The last 30 days. To me, this is like where I'm like, okay, we're digging away. This is where we dig away. We've built that metabolism up. You got a good healthy balance right now. Now we can start including these other things. And it's. I never like to do these cardio type sprints for remind. Remember too, we're not talking about somebody who comes to me and says, I want to build endurance or I want to train for a marathon. Body composition change. Right. If this is what we're talking about, how to change your body muscle, body fat percentage, the greatest change in the shortest period of time, I want to save that for the sprint the last 30 days. If you introduce it too early on, when the focus is building the metabolism and building your strength, it's only going to slow that process down and then it's only going to work less when you get to the final sprint. Whereas if we did it right and we saved that for the sprint, it's like every week you're getting a response. Every week you're seeing yourself lean out, lean out, lean out for those.

[Justin Andrews]

If you do this right, many of you, most of you will end up with a cut at the end where the calories aren't as low as you think they should be. You'll actually, because you've built your metabolism well in that first month, you've done your bulks in cuts in that second month. Month three, like when you get to the cut, you're going to be eating more than you would have anticipated for your cut. I remember with yours, Adam, at the end, I think you were eating more than you did before you started.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because of the amount of lean muscle.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

That you had gained. Now, of course, Adam's results were extreme. He used to be a pro physique competitor. He was working with 50 pounds of muscle memory. Right. 50 pounds of muscle that he used to have on his body. Nonetheless, I, I've trained many, many, many people and when they do this right, we end up in a cut, typically with calories that are right around where they started.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Which was making them gain body fat before. If you do this right. Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

This is such an alien concept. I would, I would assume for a high percentage of the population to even approach it with this type of, of mentality. To me, what you brought up earlier was like baking a cake. I was thinking of, like, it's finesse. It's like if I'm trying to rebuild and re. Establish a skill, I have to do it with the right amount, just the right amount of touch. Like, if I'm trying to improve my shot, I'm not going to go out there and just shoot as hard as I can, you know, into the hoop. Like, I have to just frequently do it. So frequency is a huge factor in the very beginning. But with finesse, it has to be the right amount of stress and we have to be able to manage that properly and get into that. Then the next one, we do the increase and we just barely increase it. And it's, it's a very finesse driven pursuit and I think people don't realize that.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Have you guys ever, have you guys ever watched crew before? Have you ever watched like a team crew? If you've ever watched that before? It's, it's really fascinating the, the detail of, I mean, like, they all have to balance together. The boat will like, kind of tip.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

If you don't. If they don't balance together, if. Then there's one, one guy or girl who's coaching everybody. So everything's in stride and it's not purely out of who's the strongest or who can row us. Like the, the ability for everybody to row together, to balance together is what makes the boat go faster. That's kind of how I think about it. When it's like getting lean as fast as you possibly can. It is not a muscle thing. It is not a how hard can you go? You, you really have to apply here. Everything has to work together.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes. We're talking about a 90 day transformation from, you know, fat to fit, right? From not working out to now I'm working out. And if you have muscle memory on your side, if you were in shape before and now you're out of shape, you have something working for you that if you do this right, if you do what we're saying, you tap into this, the results you get will blow you away for two reasons. One, because you're gonna see the results and be like, oh my God, I can't believe I look that different in 90 days. But two, because it's gonna feel like I didn't do as much as I thought I should have done. That's the part that really blows people away, is they're gonna be like, oh my God, my body was working for me. I wasn't fighting my body the entire time. So here's what we did, right? You could take what we just said apply it. You'll do great. Or we put together, put all of this together in a program. We're calling it Maps Transform. It's a brand new Maps program and in it we detail everything. Your workouts, your exercises, your sets, your reps. We teach you how to go on the to the cuts into the bulks with your calories, Talk about proteins, fats and carbs. Talk about supplements. We include a diet guide with this brand new program. We also include Adam's 90 Day Body Recomp Journal if you want to follow along with what he did. There's 35 workout videos in there. There's his Instagram stories in there, his favorite snacks and recipes. Again, remember, Adam coached many, many competitors himself. He's trained at a very, very high level. That's all included with this program called Maps transform. It's a 90 day transformational program. Everything's in there that you need to follow it. If you are interested, you go to maps transform.com it's $70 off because it's a brand new program so use the code transform70. So transform70 gives you the $70 off plus the 90 day body recomp journal plus the transformation diet guide. All included. By the way. By the way, this program comes with an at home version as well so you can follow the program if you have gym access. You can also follow the program if you only have at home workout access. So it's for everybody. Again, it's a 90 day transformational program. Maps transform.com the code for the discount and the free stuff is transform 70. Get it?

[Sal Destefano]

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically, improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super [e-mail] the RGB Super Bundle includes Maps, Anabolic Maps Performance and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal 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.

[Adam Schaefer]

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