2596: Five Ways to Build Muscle Without Adding Weight to the Bar & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth – Episode 2596 Summary
Title: Five Ways to Build Muscle Without Adding Weight to the Bar & More (Listener Live Coaching)
Release Date: May 14, 2025
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schaefer, Justin Andrews, Doug Egge

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1. Progressive Overload Without Adding Weight to the Bar

Sal Di Stefano introduces a critical topic in muscle building: progressive overload without the necessity of adding more weight to the bar. He emphasizes the importance of this approach, especially as lifters advance and the risks associated with increasing weight become more significant.

Sal Di Stefano [02:00]: "Progressive overload is crucial when it comes to gaining muscle and strength. That's what all the studies show."

Justin Andrews and Sal discuss alternative methods to traditional weight increments, highlighting the potential for safer and equally effective muscle growth.

a. Slowing Down Repetitions

Slowing the tempo of reps increases muscle tension, making the same weight more challenging without additional load.

Sal Di Stefano [06:36]: "Slower reps with the same weight... does that require more strength? It does."

Justin Andrews shares his personal approach, adjusting reps based on how he feels each workout day.

Justin Andrews [09:05]: "Just pick a weight and then make it hard."

b. Increasing Range of Motion

Extending the range of motion in exercises like squats can significantly increase muscle engagement without adding extra weight.

Sal Di Stefano [09:50]: "Longer ranges of motion challenges your body differently. It adds more tension in areas where you're not as strong."

c. Pausing Repetitions

Introducing pauses at specific points in a lift (e.g., the bottom of a squat) enhances muscle recruitment and strength.

Sal Di Stefano [14:57]: "Pause the reps. Pause at the bottom of a squat... as if I added weight."

d. Lifting Faster (Velocity Training)

Executing lifts with higher speed can develop explosive strength, beneficial for athletic performance.

Sal Di Stefano [17:55]: "If you can move the same weight faster, you've exerted more force."

However, Sal advises this method primarily for advanced lifters due to its inherent risks.

Sal Di Stefano [19:27]: "Save this for the people who are advanced."

e. Intrinsic Tension

Maximizing tension through techniques like using lighter weights with stricter form can make workouts more effective.

Sal Di Stefano [20:23]: "Bodybuilders are experts at creating tension without necessarily adding more weight."

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2. Addressing the "Arrival Fallacy" and Sustaining Motivation

Sal Di Stefano delves into the psychological aspect of fitness: the "arrival fallacy." This concept explains the misconception that achieving a specific goal will lead to lasting happiness and satisfaction.

Sal Di Stefano [27:25]: "We are wired to progress. We're not wired to arrive."

Drawing insights from Jordan Peterson and Mark Manson, the hosts discuss the importance of continuous progress and redefining goals to maintain motivation.

Justin Andrews [30:35]: "The fact is, if it didn't have this part of it either, then the good side of it wouldn't be as good."

This segment underscores the necessity of viewing fitness as a lifelong journey rather than a finite goal.

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3. Health Concerns: Salt vs. Chlorine in Pools

A significant portion of the episode addresses the health implications of chlorine in swimming pools. Justin Andrews reveals alarming findings about chlorine absorption through the skin.

Justin Andrews [32:02]: "They do a study where chlorine was entirely absorbed after an hour of swimming."

Sal Di Stefano and the hosts express concern over the potential negative impacts on the microbiome and overall health, advocating for alternatives like saltwater pools.

Sal Di Stefano [34:04]: "Your body absorbs approximately 64% of the chlorine it comes in contact with."

This conversation highlights the importance of considering environmental factors in overall health and fitness routines.

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4. Listener Live Coaching

The episode features live coaching sessions with listeners, providing personalized advice on fitness and health challenges.

a. James from California

James, a 52-year-old active individual aiming to lose belly fat while building muscle, shares his regimen and struggles with protein intake and sustainable diet practices.

Sal Di Stefano [58:24]: "Follow Maps Anabolic... eliminate hit cardio."

Justin Andrews emphasizes gradual dietary adjustments over drastic changes to ensure long-term sustainability.

Justin Andrews [64:07]: "Instead of radically changing, make one or two tweaks to your current diet."

b. Kyle from Texas

Kyle seeks advice on balancing cardiovascular endurance with muscle gain. He reports maintaining body fat while gaining strength.

Sal Di Stefano [76:16]: "Cut strength training to three days a week and focus on diet alignment."

Justin Andrews recommends continued strength progression and tighter dietary control to achieve desired body composition.

Justin Andrews [86:33]: "Focus on tempo training and pair up kids to monitor each other's form."

c. Tracy from Wyoming

Tracy, a group fitness instructor working with youth athletes, inquires about effective training programs for middle school athletes. The hosts advise focusing on fundamental movements and perfecting techniques through isometric holds and peer-led form corrections.

Sal Di Stefano [81:46]: "Break down movements into parts to perfect technique, similar to teaching a sports skill."

d. Lisa from Ohio

Lisa discusses her struggle with sleep due to trauma and hormonal imbalances. Despite consistent strength training and dietary efforts, her sleep issues persist. The hosts recommend reducing workout intensity and exploring therapeutic options like EMDR to address underlying trauma.

Sal Di Stefano [93:00]: "Cut strength training to three days a week and consider EMDR therapy for trauma."

This segment emphasizes the interplay between mental health and physical fitness, advocating for a holistic approach to wellness.

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5. Key Takeaways and Insights

• Alternative Progressive Overload Methods: Building muscle doesn't solely rely on increasing weight. Techniques like slowing reps, increasing range of motion, pausing reps, lifting faster, and maximizing intrinsic tension offer effective alternatives that can reduce injury risk and promote sustainable growth.

• Psychological Aspects of Fitness: Understanding the "arrival fallacy" helps in setting realistic, ongoing goals that maintain motivation and prevent burnout. Viewing fitness as a lifelong journey rather than a finite achievement fosters better adherence and satisfaction.

• Environmental Health Considerations: Awareness of how common fitness environments, such as chlorinated pools, can impact health is crucial. Exploring healthier alternatives or mitigating negative effects can enhance overall wellness.

• Personalized Coaching: Tailoring fitness and nutrition plans to individual needs, goals, and lifestyles ensures better results and sustainability. Whether addressing age-related concerns, balancing cardio with strength, training youth, or managing mental health, personalized approaches are essential.

• Holistic Wellness: Physical training is intertwined with mental and emotional health. Addressing issues like trauma and sleep disturbances is vital for optimal fitness outcomes.

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Notable Quotes

• Sal Di Stefano [02:00]: "Progressive overload is crucial when it comes to gaining muscle and strength. That's what all the studies show."

• Justin Andrews [09:05]: "Just pick a weight and then make it hard."

• Sal Di Stefano [14:57]: "Pause the reps. Pause at the bottom of a squat... as if I added weight."

• Sal Di Stefano [27:25]: "We are wired to progress. We're not wired to arrive."

• Justin Andrews [30:35]: "The fact is, if it didn't have this part of it either, then the good side of it wouldn't be as good."

• Justin Andrews [32:02]: "They do a study where chlorine was entirely absorbed after an hour of swimming."

• Sal Di Stefano [58:24]: "Follow Maps Anabolic... eliminate hit cardio."

• Sal Di Stefano [81:46]: "Break down movements into parts to perfect technique, similar to teaching a sports skill."

• Sal Di Stefano [93:00]: "Cut strength training to three days a week and consider EMDR therapy for trauma."

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Conclusion

Episode 2596 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth offers a holistic exploration of muscle building techniques that transcend traditional weight increments, delves into the psychological facets of fitness motivation, addresses environmental health concerns, and provides personalized coaching insights for a diverse listener base. The hosts emphasize sustainable, science-backed methods that prioritize long-term health and functional performance over quick fixes, reinforcing their commitment to debunking fitness myths and promoting genuine wellness.

Transcript

[Sal DiStefano]

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.

[Adam Schaefer]

Mind Pump.

[Sal DiStefano]

Mind Pump. With your hosts, Sal Destefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we had live callers call in and we got to help them out on air. But this was after the intro. Today's intro is 56 minutes long. In the intro, we talk about fitness, science, muscle building, fat loss, current events. It's a good time. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this one, email us your [e-mail] now, this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Mind Pump Group coaching. We offer group coaching because we actually have trainers. Mind Pump has trainers. Now we got two groups opening up, 50 people each. That's it. Go to mindpumpgroupcoaching.com Sign yourself up. The two groups are. One is fat loss. The other one is muscle gain. This episode is also brought to you by Ned. This is full spectrum hemp oil extracts high in cannabinoids like cbd. Today I talked about how they literally do produce a euphoric feeling. I love Ned. You can feel. It's the one CBD product you can feel. 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. We also have a sale on some programs this month. Maps 15 performance and the RGB bundle. 50% off. If you're interested, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code MAY50 for the discount. Here comes the show.

[Justin Andrews]

T shirt time.

[Doug]

And it's T shirt time.

[Justin Andrews]

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

[Doug]

We have three winners this week. One for Apple Podcasts, two for Facebook. The Apple podcast winner is sure Break Jake. And for Facebook, we have Hope deboe and Costa Popolius. All three of you are winners. Send the name I just read to itunesindpumpmedia.com include your shirt size and your shipping address and we'll get that shirt right out to you.

[Sal DiStefano]

Progressive overload is crucial when it comes to gaining muscle and strength. That's what all the studies show. But is there a way to progressively overload your muscles without adding weight? There are. There's five ways that's we're going to talk about Today, progressively overload your body without adding weight.

[Justin Andrews]

It's such a good conversation because I think that there's so many people that assume that progressive overload just means adding weight to the bar.

[Sal DiStefano]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

And yes, there's a case to be made for that. And I think we're, I think we all utilize that. But in my training career, I can think of many other ways that I would progressively overload the bar or overload the body without adding weight to the bar.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

And I can think of many cases where that was the more appropriate way to overload the body than to just.

[Unknown]

Add weight with eliminating a lot of the risk involved. Because you get to point where it's like you're, you're, you're looking at a substantial amount of weight. That's, you know, you're only getting so much benefit and with the risks are really high.

[Sal DiStefano]

Listen, this is super important to understand because if you, if you do this right, you do a good job and you're consistent and this becomes a lifestyle, you're going to be hit in the face with this at some point because you can't keep adding weight to the bar. At some point, the risk versus reward becomes, well, too risky. Right. Like you're, you're squatting a lot of weight. Adding 20 pounds to the bar now dramatically increases your risk of injury. And the gains you get from that extra 20 pounds aren't really going to be that substantial. Where do you go? So this is a problem, or should I say this is a, an avenue you want to go down right out the gates. Now, for trainers and coaches, this is crucial because if you're the trainer that just adds weight to the bar, you're not going to be a very good trainer. You have to figure out how to overload the muscles or how to tap into this without adding weight to the bar. And like you said, Adam, I think the ways that we're going to cover in many cases is more appropriate, is better, more effective.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, 100% when I'm trying, I was trying to think when you first wrote this, like, you know, if I actually had to like, like do like a pie chart of all my clients and I said like all these different ways and obviously weight adding weight to the bar is one of these ways to overload the body. I don't even know if it takes up the majority. I think more than half the time, if not more, I utilize other tools. Just because we, the average person that we dealt with was middle aged, overweight, pretty new to weightlifting, pretty inexperienced. Yeah. Pretty experienced. Not like I was training a bunch of you. If I was training you guys, then of course we would be probably mostly adding weight to the bar for a big portion of it. But even us, and this was the point I wanted to make to you, Sal, is that I think we're guilty of progressively overloading with weight to the bar when we probably should go the other direction, because the return we've already reached, all of us in here have reached a level of strength where we're really not squeezing that much more out by adding more weight to the bar. And in fact, it would behoove us to do that, even if it's not just purely the point you were making about injury. Like, yeah, when you put 400 or £500 on your back to squat and a little bit goes off, that puts you at risk for injury. But even not just that, it's just stressful on your body and your joints. And even if you don't get hurt, like a serious injury, that. That extra wear and tear everywhere else on your body for the return that you're getting from it. Does it. Is it. Is it really that much better than if you would have just used another method of.

[Sal DiStefano]

I want to be very clear, because someone may be getting confused. Progressively overloading your muscles means they get stronger. That's true. Every one that we're going to cover today means you're getting stronger, but that doesn't mean there's more weight on the bar. So I'll explain. Let me go with the first one. Right. Here's an easy way to progressively overload your muscles without adding weight to the bar. Let's just say you do curls with a 50 pound barbell. Okay. And that's hard for you. 50 pound barbell is hard to do. 10 reps and you get stronger. You're like, you know what? Should I add weight to the bar? I could. I could add five pounds of the bar, which means I'm stronger, or I can make the reps go slower, or I could slow down the reps. I can make the reps take an extra second or two on the way up, on the. On all the way down, so that now I'm doing the same amount of reps with the same weight, but it's much harder. Now, the way I'll pose this is this. Slower reps with the same weight doesn't mean you have. Does that require more strength? It does, yeah. Somebody who could squat 300 pounds and take five seconds on the way down, five seconds on the way up is stronger than somebody who squats the same weight two seconds up, two seconds down. So you're still getting stronger, you're just not adding weight.

[Unknown]

You're eliminating a lot of the momentum.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's right.

[Unknown]

Involved with that. And yeah, and it's, it, it's also, it's, it's a more focused kind of discipline type of an approach, which again, it bodes well for a beginner, but also too, if you're, if you're trying to challenge, you know, the normal way that you're approaching weightlifting and, and even us, you know, seasoned vets in, in the gym could change up just the tempo of it and really receive a totally different experience.

[Justin Andrews]

I also think that if your overall goal is like real world training, you're not, this is, we're not talking about the person who's chasing a PR for their powerlifting meet, right?

[Sal DiStefano]

Every.

[Justin Andrews]

Everybody else who wants to look good, feel good, be strong in real life, challenging with like slowing it down and the other things you're going to talk about like that you don't, we don't live in a, a world where when I go to pick up the couch, I stop my buddy before grab it. Hold on, let me get my four seconds down and then a two seconds the bottom, then we grab it, then make sure we come up in two seconds. Like, you don't do that. Like, sometimes you have to get down and you're working your hands and you're holding that position for a little while. Sometimes you do it slow, sometimes you do it fast. Like there's, there's lots of ways that you want to be strong that in this, this perfect four, two, two cadence or whatever you move the barbell in and so moving it slower, moving it faster, all these way, pausing, all these things that you're going to talk about, I think are, are so important for protecting the body out into the real world, right?

[Sal DiStefano]

And the muscles aren't perceiving the weight on the bar. Or should I say they're not perceiving it's objective weight. It's the tension. And slowing the rep down increases the tension. Here's how I used to use this with clients when I would have a client that I'm training and my target rep for them range, let's just say 10 reps. And I'm watching them and they're on rep 8 and I'm like, oh, they could do probably four or five more the next two reps, I slow them down.

[Unknown]

Isn't that, I mean, they've shown that that's like the biggest Mover is mechanical tension.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes.

[Unknown]

In terms of muscle building. So you could definitely meddle with that without a lot of weight.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Oh yeah. I'll tell people right now. Do 4 second negatives on all your lifts and you're going to have to go lighter.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Period.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, that. What the. I used to do the same thing with my client that you just described and I think this is a good skill for everybody to learn to do because I don't know if you go to enough gyms with different machines and weights and have days where you have good rest, not so good rest and train, you're going to find that many times in your life you're going to choose a weight that ends up feeling lighter than what you probably could have done. And like having that skill to be.

[Unknown]

Able to slow down, to just slow down.

[Justin Andrews]

So that's how I train today. Like I don't even really, like I don't find myself. Yesterday was the first time I training in a while, like almost 30 days. So I know I'm weak. So I know I'm much weaker than what I was when I was riding the swing of things. And I'm not. And I'm, I'm getting ready to do lap, pull down and I'm not going like, God, am I at my 180 right now or am I at 120?

[Sal DiStefano]

Just pick a weight and then make it hard.

[Justin Andrews]

And then I make it hard, it doesn't even matter what I pick. And so I just, in fact, I don't even remember what it was. I just slid it in. Now I knew better than I slid it in my pr. You know what I'm saying? But I just picked a light weight that I know that is, is, it isn't going to hurt me. And then as I was doing, I was like, oh, that was really easy. And so the last like five reps I just, I squeezed, I paused.

[Unknown]

Grip it harder. Yeah, you can set yourself up, you know, really work on the mechanics of the whole thing and intensify that process. There's all kinds you can do.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's right. The weight on the bar only matters because the tension it provides. And you can increase the tension by simply slowing the reps down. And so now you've progressively overloaded your body or the target muscle without having to add weight to the bar. The next one is to increase the range of motion. This one's a big one, especially for certain exercises like squats. Like a lot of people have challenges doing a really deep squat. So if you always squat down to parallel, and you find yourself, like, ready to add 10 pounds to the bar. Try squatting one or two inches lower. That's all. Just an inch or two. Don't go crazy with the depth because maybe you can't control that much. Go a little lower and watch what happens. I remember as a kid when this really was evident to me as a kid, we learned as early trainers that the safe way to bench press. And I can't believe they taught this so such a. They don't teach us anymore.

[Justin Andrews]

I thought this for a long time.

[Sal DiStefano]

I don't think they teach this anymore. But this was something that, you know, in the late 90s, I learned my certifications. They said the safe way to bench press was to come down to where the. The back of your arm is 90 degrees. 90 degrees, right? So your arms are bent in 90 degrees, arms parallel to the floor. So when I would stop my bench press, I mean, it was like a good. I don't know how many inches that. 12, you know, 12 inches off my chest. And we were taught to bench press that way. And so I bench pressed that way for a while, and I got my bench press up to. I don't remember what it was, but it was high. It's £300, something like that. And my buddy's like, you're not going all the way down. I'm like, what's the difference? He's like, try going all the way down. And I. I brought it down, and that was it, man. Yeah. I'm like, I need help lift this bar off my chest. I couldn't believe how much weaker I was with just a little bit more of a range of motion. So longer range, by the way, what they taught was dumb. Fuller ranges of motion, so long as you control them, are also better for building more muscle, by the way. But longer ranges of motions challenges your body differently. It adds more tension in areas where you're not as strong. And if you could do a squat to parallel with 200 pounds, going down 2 more inches, it's like adding 10 pounds of the bar. That's what it feels like.

[Justin Andrews]

I. I would add to the movement. So I think this matters in all movements, but I think the squat is number one, a close number two. Justin will probably appreciate this with what he's been doing right now is a full range of motion. Overhead press. Oh, yeah, yeah. Those two. Those two right there, which people call that the squat of the upper body.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Justin Andrews]

Is the. Over is the overhead press.

[Unknown]

Those two.

[Justin Andrews]

I neglected range of motion for so long. And I had to do what you said. I had to lighten the load in order to increase the depth on the squat, in order for me to bring the bar all the way down and all the way above my head. And those were some of the greatest gains I ever saw in my legs and in my shoulders. Was starting to practice.

[Unknown]

Aren't those like two the most visible. When you see some average person that comes into the gym, whether or not they've continuously lifted overhead or they've squatted to depth, like you can immediately see, it's. It's a stark limitation that they have. And then they try and compensate with it immediately. But it's. Those are those two. It's just glaring to me, always.

[Justin Andrews]

Me too. And I'll add to that for the people that don't care about the aesthetics, like maybe I do, because I know I speak from that perspective a lot of times. It's also the two things that bulletproofed my low back and hips and my shoulders more than anything else. Of course, when I could, when I started to full range of motion, shoulder press and full range motion squat, a lot of the aches and pains and tightness and stuff that I had going on in my shoulders, necks and, and my hips and my low back, gone. And now all I have to do, it took a lot of corrective work, took a lot of working on that range of motion. Now all I do is half the full range motion, solar press, full range motion, squat, and it keeps all that stuff at bay.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. So your body, your muscles will get really strong in pretty specific ways. Meaning if you train in a particular range of motion, most of the strength you gain is in the range of motion that you train. So when you go outside of that range of motion, it's a brand new range of motion. So you'll tap in newbie gains. In fact, of all of the ones we're going to talk about today, this one right here in particular is connected to more muscle growth and gains. In other words, two exercises done identically, except one has a greater range of motion. The greater range of motion is going to produce more muscle growth. So this is a great way to add resistance. Right. To progressively overload. But it's also a better way to build muscle, period. End of story. So number two, this is my second. This was my favorite one. Next up is to pause the reps. Pause the reps. I love this one, especially for exercises where, like for me, barbell squats, if I train them regularly and I'm careful, I could get pretty strong but my squats are always an issue for me. And with my squats, when I get past a certain weight for myself, I know I start playing in the territory of injury or aches and pains. And it's just because mobility for me is not. Not always. It's typically not like this big focus. I'd have to do lots of mobility work to really get to this point, but I don't. And so I get stronger and I start to notice issues. So one way I've gotten around that is rather than adding weight is I pause at the bottom of a squat. So I'm feeling really strong today. Rather than going up to 375 on my squat, I'll keep it at 315 and I'll hold the bottom for five seconds. And it's as if I added weight.

[Unknown]

To the bottom, the hardest part of the movement. And that's where we're summoning the troops. We're staying there to try and get more effective and efficient at actually recruiting muscle fibers. And so just even back to your bench pressing visual, it's like getting that depth and then holding that at the bottom part of the lift and really squeezing and owning recruiting. So that way you have the strength now. You can build upon that so much more effectively.

[Justin Andrews]

What's it. So does that, does this also overlap with the research in regards to, like isometrics and the gaining the extra 20 to 30, 30 in both directions?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So you take someone like you, for example, who may not be able to get Astagrass squat, but you can get a little deeper than parallel. And then you also pause down there. Are you getting some of the benefits north and south 30 more so than you would just.

[Unknown]

Just coming right back up.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

So that's a huge value in itself right there.

[Sal DiStefano]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

So let's say you're somebody like you and that the squat applies, but apply this to any movement. Right. You can't. You can't fully get that in range. So you pause at those end ranges and you're at least getting some of the benefits. North and south of that or now for muscle building?

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, two things. First off, you could pause the rep anywhere. You could pause it at the top, squeeze. You could pause it at the bottom, hold. It has to be under tension, so don't pause.

[Justin Andrews]

The rep at the end ranges would probably be the most beneficial though, right?

[Sal DiStefano]

The stretch for muscle. Right. So for muscle gains, it's the stretch, but that doesn't mean avoid, you know, and, you know, the end range of motion, the Fully contracted position, because that's beneficial as well. Nonetheless. Always have tension is what I'm trying to say. Because what you don't want to do, for example, with the bench press is bring the bar down your chest and let it sit on your chest. That's not what we're talking about. No. You want to pause it, but hold and support the weight while you're doing it. This one's one of my favorite ones. This is the one. This is one of the ones I do on a regular basis. When I'm in a set and I feel stronger than the rep range that I thought I was going to hit, I just start pausing and I'll pause in the stretch typically. And it's amazing. It's really amazing.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, again, it's like you're incorporating the value. And we've talked nauseam on the show about isometrics.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And so you're including that just a much safer way to intensify something and gain that extra access.

[Unknown]

And you're just signaling you're strong, you're, you're safe, secure in the joint. So that way too now it actually like allows your body to produce more force.

[Sal DiStefano]

Right. Next up is to go faster, actually lift faster. This is the riskiest of all the ways to progressively overload. But what you do is you take a weight that you can move relatively quickly and then try to see if you can move it faster. This is like Olympic weightlifters do this. So an Olympic weightlifter who move, let's say they can lift 135 pounds. Let's think if they can throw up 135 pounds, it takes them one second to do it. If they can do it in half a second, they've exerted more force. They've actually progressively overload. Even though it's the same weight, they've moved it faster. This one's especially important for athletes. You get good at this, it makes you dangerous on the field because fast strength is what translates.

[Unknown]

Everything happens in a split second.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's right.

[Unknown]

So to be able to recruit and maximize that recruitment process, a really high level and have that explosive strength on command is such an advantage. And you can train that way by working on your velocity and working on that kind of speed in your training.

[Justin Andrews]

Speed power is the pinnacle.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, but I, you know, I'm just thinking about as you were discussing this because I'm, I'm envisioning like you making this decision. Right. Your yourself personally and knowing where your level of strength is at right now. And you know, I don't know where your current heavy squad is at, but I know you're north of 400. So let's say you know, it's, it's a day and you're feeling, you're feeling good and you're like contemplating 400 and something pounds or more on the barbell. Or do I put it down to 135 and do something explosive? Even though typically we're. And we were taught as trainers is speed power is the pinnacle. This is the top. You would actually teach regular grinding strength before you teach speed power. Speed powers the pent.

[Sal DiStefano]

You have to own all the other stuff before you.

[Justin Andrews]

Right. But at what point does it actually does that kind of change a little? Because I would think at your level of expertise and experience that the decision for you to drop down to 135 today and work on some, some speed power with 135 versus slapping on 450 is lower risk than, than the 450.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes, yes. But I would only do this if you really own the lift really well because then it could just become dangerous. You could thr lightweight real fast and hurt yourself.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, but do you get what I'm asking right now?

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Like at what point exactly?

[Justin Andrews]

Because obviously when I, when I. Let's take another example so the audience can understand where I'm getting at with this question. I'm just posing a question to create a conversation that I was just thinking, right. Like you're a, a beginner, you've only been lifting for six months.

[Unknown]

And because of the maturity of his skills.

[Justin Andrews]

Exactly. Like you're only six months. I'm not going to go speed power with that person. No, they, they, they're.

[Sal DiStefano]

This is probably more valuable for the experienced lifter. This is probably more valuable for, for somebody who's been doing it for a while.

[Unknown]

Right. And I guess to your, your other point with that, it's valuable for him to, to create novelty with that. But is it like necessarily a big shift in his training to, to be able to now just focus exclusively on that, go like aggressive with speed training?

[Sal DiStefano]

Of all of these, this would be the one. I would say save this for the people who are advanced. For sure. Yeah, for sure.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Next up is. And this is like bodybuilders are experts at. This is just intrinsic tension. Yeah, this is just. And this I can do really well. I know Adam could do this really, really well. Justin can do this really well. Like, this comes with experience, but you could give me a weight that is 90% lighter than what I would normally do. And I could make that weight through tension feel heavy. Yeah, you could give me. I mean, I could, you know, I could overhead press for reps, let's say 135 pounds. Could I make 50 pounds feel just as hard for 10 reps?

[Unknown]

I could, yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, yeah, I could. With tension and, and the, the speed of the rep and squeezing the bar and feeling where I need to feel it. Bodybuilders are experts at this. Like, you can watch a pro bodybuilder who's got more muscle on their body than anybody you've ever seen, who's obviously could lift a lot of weight. And, and for the inexperienced lifter, if you've ever seen a pro bodybuilder lift, I guarantee you this has happened, because this happens to me. The first time I saw a pro bodybuilder workout, I was a teenage boy. And I remember being like, he's not as strong as I. He's not strong at all. He's barely lifting any weight. Not understanding that what they were doing was making those reps count so much because they know how to create tension. So that right there.

[Justin Andrews]

And not that other athletes don't have the same thing either, but I know, like, for a bodybuilder, because it, it is all based off of the way you look. You cannot risk getting injured. And so I think that's what really Dr. Them. And that's not to say there's not examples of bodybuilders that break this rule, right? Oh, you have, you have bodybuilders that were doing Ronnie Coleman. Yeah, yeah. And who's the other was a white boy with the bald head that was always, like, doing crazy, intense lifts.

[Sal DiStefano]

The. Branch Warner.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes, Branch Warren.

[Sal DiStefano]

Thank you.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, like, there's definitely. Yeah, I know there's definitely examples of guys that are like, totally. But for the most part, most bodybuilders are just like, why, why put more weight? Their attitude is, why put more weight on the bar? If I can get more out of this, if I can build as much muscle with, with less weight. And they're, they're great examples of utilizing all the other ways of progressive overloading besides just adding weight to the bar. Yes, they add weight to the bar, too. But like you said, I, this was something I prided myself on, like, my early years in training. Like, I used to love to go find the guy who I thought looked out of shape, and that was lifting really heavy weight. I go do the exercise with a quarter of the weight he was doing and be looking all shredded. And knowing that he's looking next to me, knowing that he wants to look like that, but I'm doing it with half the weight and going like, wait a second, am I doing it to start up a conversation? Because you don't have to move this crazy amount of weight to build a ton of muscle on the body.

[Unknown]

Well, and I think, too, this is something that falls in this category, but it's a little bit more, I guess, on the old school or, like, athletic side of the fence, where you're. You're adding a little more stress testing in terms of balance. So, for instance, like, I'm. I'm adding a. A light weight, but I'm adding a little bit more of a chaotic influence of forces. So there's a lot more. So say I'm doing a bottoms up kettlebell press, and now I'm. I'm fighting two lateral forces, rotational forces, and, you know, normal gravitational forces while I'm also doing. And so I have to stay completely tense while I'm doing the same thing with adding a longer lever to something. And so for. For like a. A single arm press, but with.

[Sal DiStefano]

With the barbell. Barbell.

[Unknown]

Right. That's a lot more challenging, a lot harder. But it's. It's not necessarily like a ton more weight. It's just. You have to be more focused and concentrate on your attention.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, no, you're. You're talking about where you're now. So I saw when Sal put the five up, we did an episode that it was the nine ways to progress. And there's things like instability is another way to do instability. Right. So if you.

[Unknown]

You.

[Justin Andrews]

You create, you know, instability, and now you're having to deal with these outside forces to make the unstable that you now have to intrinsically fire. That's another way.

[Unknown]

Intrinsically. Yeah. Enhancing your.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So you could. You could subcategorize some of these into other categories to stretch it beyond just five ways, because five, It's. There's more than five ways to press.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's funny you brought up the long lever. I remember seeing bodybuilders do laterals with a barbell, and I remember thinking how dumb they were, now realizing just how smart they were.

[Unknown]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Because with the barbell, you got to keep your hand level and be steady.

[Unknown]

I was doing side that.

[Justin Andrews]

I used to do those.

[Sal DiStefano]

Rich.

[Justin Andrews]

We used to do the lateral raises with the. With the straight bar.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, with the straight. With the. Like the barbell curl bar or whatever. Yeah, dude. Oh, my God.

[Justin Andrews]

Totally.

[Sal DiStefano]

Anyway, I got to bring up Something very interesting that I've observed. And I didn't realize that I've observed this until we just had Dr. Ben. What was the last name Douglan on the show. So that'll air later. But he was talking about how they're going to do this study and he reminded me of something I. So we, we partner with Element. This is electrolyte powder, high in sodium, thousand milligrams per can or per dose. And I noticed that and I noticed this with clients back in the day too and myself. High salt or sodium, no calorie either foods or beverages are great ways to curb hunger.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Great ways. Bodybuilders know this. Bodybuilders would love to snack. What's one of your favorite snacks?

[Unknown]

Salt.

[Justin Andrews]

We would salt the hell out of stuff.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And what was your beef jerky? For sure.

[Sal DiStefano]

Or what about a pickle? Oh yeah.

[Unknown]

Pick.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh yeah, for sure.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh like five calories.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, yeah, so that was part of also my. So I would sodium load in prep and I would eat two large dill pickles on top of my already high sodium diet to push it even further.

[Sal DiStefano]

But I remember doing this that the few times I really, really, really try to get super, super shredded. I would have salty low calorie foods or I would add salt. What I used to do, I say I used to get like sparkling water and I would add salt to it and I drink it and it would really.

[Justin Andrews]

The dill pickle thing is actually a really good hack that we've never really talked about on this podcast because you're also getting. I mean they're crunching. Yeah, you're crunching on something. It's pretty good size and it's like super low calorie. Like it's hardly any calories. High in. High in sodium. You. So it keeps your mouth busy. There's. It's got a lot of surface. So it's not like. So yeah, I think that's such a.

[Sal DiStefano]

Hack for pickles were a diet food back in the day like a real popular one.

[Justin Andrews]

It should be.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's just.

[Justin Andrews]

It's a smart. It's a smart. And you add in the fact if someone's low calorie they're probably low sodium too and so probably good for them staying hydrated like that too. So it's interesting that we don't hear or see more it talked about more often because in the community that was like a well known thing that you. You ate dill pickles all the time.

[Sal DiStefano]

You should look to bodybuilders more for Some of these hacks.

[Justin Andrews]

I love it, bro. I love that feel like I'm like full circle. Yeah, it is full circle. You know what I'm saying? I feel like we're getting. It's a comeback.

[Sal DiStefano]

So for us, anyway, I gotta bring up a top. We were talking about progressive overload. It reminded me about a fallacy. I didn't know there was a name to it. It's called the arrival fallacy. So this is the fallacy that when you arrive at your destination, you arrive at your goal, that you're gonna be so happy and satisfied.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Sal DiStefano]

Like. Like, I remember. Remember we had Mark Manson on the.

[Unknown]

Podcast Depressed because he hit. Yeah, that bestseller.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, yeah. This is this. He was. He's the author of Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. That's an old podcast episode. We interviewed him. I remember him saying the most depressed he ever was was after accomplishing this massive goal of him.

[Justin Andrews]

It was shortly after, too.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes. Yeah. And so I was reading about this, and really, we're wired this way. We're right. We are wired to progress. We're not wired to arrive. So. And so one of the examples I heard being explained was like, like diet, like, I'm trying to lose 30 pounds, and my goal is to lose 30 pounds. Therefore, I'm going to avoid these foods and do this workout. And then when I'm there, what's my reward? I never get to eat those foods again. Like, that sucks. And so people fail all the time. This is why we talk about the journey so much. This is why we talk about all the ways that we train the behavior, why it's about discipline and not motivation. But I do find this fascinating. I heard Jordan Peterson talk about this, and he said that you have this framework, this motivational framework that is geared towards progressing, but once you arrive, the motivational framework breaks down at a biological level. We are wired to desire things. We are not wired to get them or have them.

[Justin Andrews]

It's a trip. When you think about that.

[Sal DiStefano]

How crazy is that? So when I'm thinking about some of the tricks, for lack of a better term that I've used for fitness, like, how could people. Like, how do you work out forever? Like, how do you stay consistent for the rest of your life? One of the things that I do, and I know you talk about this, and Justin, you talk about this, one of the things that we do is we just. We change the goal. Yeah. So there's. Because there's always something that I can progress at. Yeah. So it's like mobility.

[Unknown]

So much There.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, dude. So towards strange, endless fat loss, muscle gain. Like, and if you keep doing that, I think that helps that motivation.

[Justin Andrews]

I think that's a massive hack because. And. And the, the longer you've been doing this, the better you get at certain things. You always move away from another one. So if you get super strong guy, I guarantee you're losing some mobility. You get super performance guy, and I bet you don't get as much grinding. There's always something that you can be getting better at.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's why it's a journey.

[Justin Andrews]

And that's why too. It's it. Embrace the. Almost like you're starting over feeling. You know, this is also why. And you. I know you guys have heard and this. People have listened to the show for a long time. Probably tired of me telling this story, but the. One of the most powerful moments that I've shared in business was the phone call to Katrina bitching about my day, you know, and. And her stopping and waiting till I was done and then saying, would you have it any other way? I just think that was such a powerful moment for myself because after her saying that, I went, you're so right. Yeah. Like, if it was bored, it was easy, and every time I tried something, it worked and I won, then they would be lame. What makes it so great is that it is hard that I do fail. That it does. I get frustrated. Like, I think that us as humans, understanding that in all aspects, not just fitness, but obviously fitness too, is so powerful. It's so powerful just to.

[Sal DiStefano]

In.

[Justin Andrews]

Because then when you're in those moments, because they're inevitable in anything that you do, you embrace it more. You allow it to happen and you go, this sucks right now.

[Sal DiStefano]

New challenge.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, no, this is. This is shitty. I don't like it. But the fact is, if it didn't have this part of it either, then the good side of it wouldn't be as good.

[Sal DiStefano]

So I was thinking about this and its relation to finding purpose and why religion in particular, so good. It's actually the ultimate way that we found in the data, this is secular data at finding purpose. It's because your aim is at this infinite good.

[Justin Andrews]

You can't ever catch it. You'll never be.

[Sal DiStefano]

Never get to it.

[Justin Andrews]

You'll never be as good as him.

[Sal DiStefano]

However it comes with, especially in the most popular faith in Western societies, which is Christianity, it comes with ultimate grace at the same time, because you'll always fail. You're always going to fail. And nobody likes to fail, but you're giving yourself you're getting grace along the way, and you're aiming for something that you'll never accomplish. So it gives you this ultimate sense of purpose. Really interesting. It's a system that we have that is geared towards progress, and that system breaks down and dissolves when you arrive. So there was a quote I heard it was, woe to the man who accomplishes his dreams only to realize he dreamed the wrong thing. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. That's a terrible place to be. You know what I mean?

[Justin Andrews]

No, no. Such a good point. I'm gonna bring it back to the salt because you brought salt up, and it just triggered something that I wanted to talk to you guys about. So I'm changing my pool to salt water right now.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, you're swimming pool.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I'm about to.

[Sal DiStefano]

So you were saying off air, easy conversion for you.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. Luckily it is. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. My pool guy said that we have the setup to make it pretty easy, and it was very, very inexpensive.

[Sal DiStefano]

So why is it just because ch things messing with your skin?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I'm already ultra sensitive to it, so it was something I should do. No matter how expensive it was going to be. I should. I. It should. I should make the investment, considering I have a pool now. But the. What really tipped me over was and I saw this for. I saw a clip and they were. They were touting some study, and I was like, no way. Can't be that crazy. And so then I went down the rabbit hole googling and looking it up, and I found some a little bit conflicting with what it said, but most all of it was 60 to 80%. And this. This podcast thing, I don't remember when.

[Unknown]

I first saw it, but they were.

[Justin Andrews]

Saying that they did a study where they basically chlorinated a pool with the amount of whatever amount. I don't remember what the measurement was. And then everybody swam in it for like an hour. Then they tested the pool again, and all the chlorine was gone, meaning that it got all absorbed into their skin. And then I was like, that's crazy. That much gets. We are really. So within 15 minutes of being in a pool, your body eats up. And this is where there's a little bit of 60 to 80% of the chlorine.

[Sal DiStefano]

Your body absorbs it all.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Sal DiStefano]

I've never heard of that.

[Unknown]

Yes.

[Sal DiStefano]

Look that up.

[Unknown]

I want to read fact that.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's weird. The.

[Unknown]

The smell of chlorine is really like. The main smell of it is really just urine.

[Justin Andrews]

That's an old Trick to get your mom. Your mom told you to say, you know, piss in the pool, dog. That's what that is. That's like the old blue dye. You know saying when your mom used to tell you that sure, don't piss in the pool or else if it's. It's like if you smell chlorine, son, that means someone's pissing.

[Unknown]

You smell that like, and it's really pungent. Like there's probably a lot of piss in the pool.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yes. The body absorbs chlorine when swimming in a chlorinated pool.

[Justin Andrews]

See that one says 64. I've read everywhere between 60 and 82.

[Sal DiStefano]

Your body absorbs approximately 64 of the chlorine it comes in contact with.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes. So within 15 minutes it was sucking up 60 and.

[Sal DiStefano]

Hold on a second. What would that do to the point body, bro?

[Justin Andrews]

And it doesn't. Doesn't just expel it.

[Unknown]

That's the worst.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes, yes.

[Unknown]

Does it go into your bloodstream?

[Sal DiStefano]

Does that kill your microbiome? That's kind of. Well, definitely kills the microbiome, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I went down the rabbit hole. Look at all the long term. It's not good. Let's put it that way. It is not good.

[Unknown]

I didn't realize that at all.

[Justin Andrews]

And which. Okay, so. So shout out to whoever it was who DM me. I actually had a couple people DM me the same thing about the spraying. The. What was it on my skin? The vitamin C. So I. I'm ordering that so I can get that. I know you can make it at home, but I'll just. I just bought. Found something to buy it. And then on top of that, I'm also going to go to salt water. After I read that, I was just like that. Can't bro your skin taking up that much chlorine in 15 minutes and my little son swimming in it all the time like Doug, what does chlorine do.

[Sal DiStefano]

In the body when you absorb it?

[Unknown]

I know.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Doug]

I mean there's all kinds of symptoms here.

[Sal DiStefano]

I mean those are the ones I'm, you know, I understand. Like your skin gets irritated.

[Justin Andrews]

Let me search that.

[Sal DiStefano]

Messed up. But that's weird. I didn't know that you're absorbing it.

[Justin Andrews]

I know. I didn't either.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, that makes me not want to go in a pool anymore.

[Unknown]

It's a creepy fat that sucks.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, again, this is the cool part about salt water, right? So even salt water uses a little bit of chlorine.

[Unknown]

They don't use.

[Justin Andrews]

It's very minimal. Have to use some yeah, they still have to use some. It's very minimal. Like our. Our Jacuzzi in Tahoe is in porcelain. Are both.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Salt water, but they still use a couple tablespoons of chlorine versus the ones that are like the other ones, they use like jugs of that. So a lot. And then the thing that yours, like your skin is like a sponge to it. It just like sucks.

[Sal DiStefano]

Will that make your. Make it easier to swim in your pool too? Right. Because it's more because of the salt. Yeah. Salt does that.

[Justin Andrews]

I should. I mean, it does. When I do a salt bath, I can feel it.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh no, it always does that. Like, for example, one of my like bucket list things is to go to the Dead Sea and float on it. What a stupid thing. That's so cool. Well, no, it's not. It's cool.

[Justin Andrews]

I want to go all the way to Dead Sea just so I can float on top of the water.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, dude. No, my. Hey, listen.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, exactly.

[Sal DiStefano]

Is it that. I don't think it's got as much salt in it.

[Unknown]

You don't think so?

[Sal DiStefano]

No, dude, look up Salt Lake. I mean, yeah.

[Unknown]

Dead Sea Sea is ridiculous.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Cuz my. My aunt and uncle. First of all, I'd go to Israel for many other reasons, but I want to go.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, but it just sounds funny you say, like, I'm going to fly all the way over. There's like a float and some more.

[Sal DiStefano]

Don't you think that's cool?

[Justin Andrews]

I'm like, bro, I'll just throw some salt in the bath. All.

[Sal DiStefano]

Dude, my aunt said she went in there. She's like, if you're not careful, you can't get your feet back down to the sand to walk back. She's like, you'll float and then you'll be stuck.

[Justin Andrews]

Right?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Dude, you float so high on the water.

[Unknown]

Well, I know how it is with those deprivation tanks.

[Sal DiStefano]

Right?

[Unknown]

Like that you go, I've. That's a weird.

[Justin Andrews]

That's a good example of what it feels like. I'm sure that's exactly.

[Sal DiStefano]

Look at the difference. 34 in the Dead Sea. Great. Salt Lake is 5 to 27, depending on the season. So you're not even getting close.

[Unknown]

Okay.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, that's good. That's gonna be fair enough.

[Justin Andrews]

What Justin said is. Yeah, would probably trump all that. If you go in a float tank, I bet you that's more powerful than anything.

[Sal DiStefano]

We've all done that.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Yeah. And you're like super boy.

[Sal DiStefano]

I thought that was so like, you can't.

[Justin Andrews]

You can't you can't even, you couldn't sink to the bottom if you tried. So that's how buoyant you are.

[Sal DiStefano]

Super cool. I had a friend change subject. I had a friend I was talking to yesterday who had a, it was a little concerned because their, their friend is going to put their, their younger kid on ADHD medication. And I, I'm diagnosed with adhd. So we were talking about this and they're like, what do you think about like kids being on these? And I'm not a doctor, so this is just my personal opinion, but I, I think we're being a little bit, I don't think we're being honest if we don't think it's going to, it's going to impact the modeling of the brain, the growing brain, because you have medications that alter the chemistry of the brain, either through dopamine or through other ways. Dopamine, the most common one. Right. Like Ritalin. And it's got to change the way the brain develops because of this higher exposure to dopamine. I find it interesting. It's really interesting.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, I mean, Ritalin and Adderall is like crystal meth, isn't it?

[Sal DiStefano]

It's related. Yeah. They're methamphetamines.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It's just a controlled dose of it. I mean, it's the same thing of what OxyContin is to heroin.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, it's very similar to this. So the idea of giving a kid a drug like that and, and by the way, I'll never forget the first time I tried that. I was in my 30s.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So I never, I, I've never had anything like that, although I thought that I've had add. You and I both have talked about that. I remember the first time I think I took a 5 milligram. I don't know what the low, the low, low doses. Holy shit, was that? And to think that we give that to children.

[Unknown]

Well, what kills me is it's like a lot of times it's, I mean, okay, of course there's gonna be severe cases and where, you know, we do need medications. So I'm not like dismissing that, but like, just to get a kid to sit still and like that's the entire goal is just to have them do nothing and sit there. Like, adjust your education, like, adjust your entire plan. Like, make it interactive. Like, you know, put push back on the teachers to do a better job.

[Sal DiStefano]

What's the percentage of boys vs girls on ADHD medication?

[Justin Andrews]

Way higher because. So the other, the other Thing that. So I was actually looking at this also Sal. And the other thing that I was curious about was just how much the, the amount of iPad and video gaming and YouTube exacerbates this in kids. And what I found, which was very alarming to me was how little research we have to show that. And in fact, if you just Google search it, it tries to dispel that really quick. Like if I was a norm, just a normal dad or mom who heard that and you want anyone does, is video games good for my kid who's got ADHD with that, like they don't every. Everything that pops up does not say anything bad whatsoever. And I just think that that's crazy to me. I think the thought that these things that, that get that program your kid to want to keep doing it, want to do it, want to do it in loops has no change in their brain chemistry or their potential behavior. You mean to. You really think that like I don't need a study to show me that I can. I've seen it firsthand in my own son, what it looks like when that's in his life and when it's not in his life. And it's obvious I can observe things.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

Capable of that.

So.

[Justin Andrews]

But, but if you Google it right now.

[Unknown]

Google.

[Justin Andrews]

Google video games and adhd and what they, what they do say is that kids that have ADHD are more likely to potentially get addicted to video games, but not that a video game playing and screen time has any sort of, any sort of correlation to.

[Sal DiStefano]

I know people, I know kids who grew up with some, some trauma, much higher rates of add adhd. Some, some people would say it's a, it's a. Some. It's like a learned trauma response in some cases. I've read that before. I think it's interesting because now there's always extreme cases like there are for lots of different things. But you know, school is not designed at all for the kid who needs to move while they learn.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

And there's adults like boys. Yeah.

[Unknown]

Like come on.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. So. So. And that's, that's a lot of the fuel behind it is my kid needs to sit.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay. So imagine, imagine that. And then. Okay, anybody who is seen Coco Melon or, or watched, you know, any sort of name the Mario Brothers video game, whatever, any of those things. And the amount of lights and movement and screen cutting, it's. It is, it's sucking. It sucks the brain in. And so you, you have a classroom that sits the little boy down all day long to where he's not moving, but twice a day for 15 minutes or 30 minutes for recess. What that? And he's having to keep his attention. Then he gets home and he, he's in front of these YouTube channels that are screen cutting like crazy. So his, his brain's firing a million times mile faster while his body is sitting still all day long. And you don't think that, you don't think that changes?

[Sal DiStefano]

I also think, I also think this, like, how able are you guys? I'll just ask you guys. All right. Obviously successful men built businesses. You guys have families. Let me ask you this. How hard is it for you to pay attention when you're sitting down and learning stuff you don't want to learn? Can you pay attention when you're learning boring shit or stuff you're not into? What? Like, I feel like that's normal. So if my kid is sitting in.

[Unknown]

Class, that's why I push back.

[Sal DiStefano]

If my kids sitting in class and they're being fort like, you got to learn this, you got to learn this. And then my kids say, I'm not interested in that. Well, when I'm not interested in something, good luck.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, and so back to my point. And then I think that's exacerbated when the tech they're getting is feeding that dopamine hit so fast, so hard all the time. So it's like when I'm not at school, I get these constant dopamine hits like crazy in my video game and my YouTube channel that I watch all day long. Then my mom and dad want me to sit in a classroom that I got to learn about boring history or boring whatever. Like, no wonder they can't sit still for that hour because they're just thinking.

[Unknown]

Of where else they can get it next. Yes, where can I get that?

[Justin Andrews]

And so, so maybe there's not a direct correlation between the diagnosis of ADHD and video games, but you cannot tell me that allowing kids to be on YouTube and allowing kids to be watching things like Cocomelon to be doing things like that, like that and then. And on non stop screen time and then put them in a school setting and then not think that that's not making it worse is crazy.

[Unknown]

Wasn't. So. I know we had the creator for Brain FM on the show a long time ago and he was talking about this big initiative to create like FDA get approval for them to be, be a viable option instead of taking 80 ADHD medication.

[Sal DiStefano]

I, I don't know. The way, the way I look at it is, first of all if, if, if I'm doing something, if I'm being told to do something that I'm not interested in, it's very hard for me to pay attention. I think it's true for everybody. I think that's true for anybody. For me, definitely. Very true. Yeah. You know, good luck. You're sitting in a class all day long. Classrooms are not designed in particular for boys. I wanted you to look up, Doug, like boys versus girls on adhd. I know it's much higher.

[Justin Andrews]

Not only that, and also you're gonna.

[Sal DiStefano]

Put them on medicine, which is altering the brain chemistry. That's the point. That's what it does. Their brain is still modeling, it's still building. And there are permanent, there are certain permanent things that happen that you're building as a kid and adolescent until you hit the age of like 25. Right. And those, those, those you can't change much afterwards. That's why you can learn languages as a kid and not have an accent. So what you do is you're gonna, you're gonna flood the brain with certain chemicals that's going to affect the long term development of that brain. Has to.

[Justin Andrews]

And why do we have to look at this like it's a, a deficiency?

[Sal DiStefano]

What.

[Justin Andrews]

This could be a superpower. I, you know how many entrepreneurs that I know are very aware they have.

[Unknown]

Edc, find what their interest is and watch that.

[Justin Andrews]

That's right, like that. And they, they attribute their success to their adhd because, and a lot of them will say that, they'll say like, I'm, I'm very aware that I have this and I've learned to focus it on the things that I'm into. And now I have a superpower. It's like, instead, but no, let's take a drug that's going to like this, just kill that.

[Sal DiStefano]

Three times as many boys as girls. Now let's look this up. What percentage of entrepreneurs have ADHD versus the regular population?

[Justin Andrews]

I believe it's 80.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's a, it's crazy.

[Justin Andrews]

I believe it's 80.

[Unknown]

It'S real high.

[Sal DiStefano]

Much higher.

[Justin Andrews]

It's a super superpower. We're, we, we're, we're teaching these kids to think that they have a problem.

[Unknown]

We all have varied degrees, that they're.

[Justin Andrews]

Bad, they're bad, but it's like, no, they're doing, they don't like doing you. And then again, I'm adding the video game thing because I just think that exacerbates all this. It makes that kid really difficult to sit still.

[Sal DiStefano]

What is it it's 20, 30. And then Doug, look up the average population. What percentage of your. That's much higher for entrepreneurs. I know that. Yeah. I, I don't know. It's an interesting conversation to me. And I know that there's varying degrees. I get that. But I know that. I know diet affects it. I know it does for me. I know for people around me. Yeah. Look, 4% versus 20 or 30. So, okay, diet, exercise makes a big difference. You take these boys that are having trouble sitting down and have them do things active.

[Justin Andrews]

I didn't even add that. And that's another talking point too is like if you allow your kid to eat highly processed foods and sugars and.

[Sal DiStefano]

And have you seen food dies in connection? Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

You talked about they're noticing a difference in your kids behavior by, by having the red die. So, so, okay, so think of that as a. This good kid, right? He's got, he's got school that is boring as he's got to sit down. So he's got parents that are super busy. And so he's on screen a lot. The stuff he's watching on screen is explosions, fast move, cocomelon type and video games jumping all over the place. And so he's getting hours of that a day and, and then on top of that, he's feeding himself, pressing movement, processed foods and food dies and things like that. And then like we're mad at him because he can't sit through fucking biology or whatever the kid is learning at that age, history or whatever. That is like boring as hell for an hour. Like, no kidding. It's boring for me.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, it's boring for me. You know what's crazy to me is, is we don't think about this with animals. Like, if you have a dog that you keep inside all day long and then you bring him to the vet and you're like, this dog's crazy. He's jumping on the furniture.

[Justin Andrews]

Shoot up my shoe on. What do they say to you? And the dog's like, did you exercise him?

[Sal DiStefano]

Are they outside? No. Oh, he's got add. No, it's gonna be like, dude, get.

[Unknown]

Him outside, medicate a little bit, Sedate him.

[Sal DiStefano]

I know, dude. So many things that, so many problems that we're medicating are really just symptoms of a lifestyle that just.

[Unknown]

What do you.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay, so if as parents, okay, list off the things that at all, at all costs you're trying to avoid. Right, I understand. Justin made the point. He's. He covered our basis for. There's exceptions to the rule or you know, there's going to be somebody who I understand. Right. But for the most part as a dad. Right. Like antibiotics, Adderall. What are the things that we've, we're giving to kids that we just are, you know. Yeah. Handing them out like candy that you think about as parents, like at all cost. Like by the way, if my kid needed a life or death thing to take an antibiotic, my kid's getting an antibiotic, I'm gonna give it to him. But then at the same time too, if I can do it the natural way, any way possible, I'm not gonna give them an antibiotic.

[Unknown]

That's, that's one or even like pain medication. I mean I, I, I've seen it in with other parents and there's like just a skin knee and they're given immediately giving them pain medication. Like what, what are you doing? Like we're setting them up for long term codependence to this.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. I don't know, man. I think it's really interesting. I think we're, we're, we're in a society where we see symptoms of poor health and the solution is to medicate it, not to address the poor. It's the first thought not to address the poor health. And I mean, and kids are not doing great. Although I will say this, they are trying now to reduce the amount of prescriptions for these methamphetamines for kids. Because people are calling it out like this is a lot, you guys. We're gonna put that many kids on these drugs, these addictive drugs that really affect dopamine system.

[Justin Andrews]

I definitely think that any parent, before you put your kid on that, you should take a couple of those pills. And by the way, you should take double whatever you give your kid.

[Unknown]

Because your kid, you know what they'll say?

[Justin Andrews]

A quarter the size you are, you know, take it and take it and then actually think about if want to.

[Unknown]

Give your kid that.

[Justin Andrews]

That's, to me, that's, go do that.

[Unknown]

Like you, you want to, you want.

[Justin Andrews]

To give your kid this prescription. You know that they weigh about whatever.

[Unknown]

40 to 80 pounds.

[Justin Andrews]

Whatever their range is, you weigh double or triple that. So whatever your weight is, you take two to three times the dose that.

[Unknown]

They want your kid to take.

[Justin Andrews]

And then just think about that like just that's how powerful that stuff is.

[Sal DiStefano]

I want, I would love to see what percentage of kids who are homeschooled are on medication versus those in school. School. Because I wonder how many parents who homeschool their kids Just change the way that they teach their kids based off of the fact that, you know, oh, my son has a tough time when I try to do it this way, so I'm going to do it this other way.

[Unknown]

Well, and also, it's more intentional because they're working with them constantly.

[Justin Andrews]

Right.

[Unknown]

So they have that allotted time spent with them versus, like, I think this probably happens a lot more with the parents are both working or both.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Unknown]

You know what I mean?

[Justin Andrews]

Like, let's just add on that. That'll be an interesting status. How many of the kids on ADHD have been, like, both working parents that are busy like that?

[Sal DiStefano]

You know, you were talking about earlier about, like, the. The entertainment that is, you know, geared towards children, like, cocomelon stuff. Yeah, My kids, My. My wife's really, really strict about TV and entertainment, but the one thing my kids can watch unlimited amounts of is Mr. Rogers.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, you said that.

[Sal DiStefano]

And Mr. Rogers. If you watch it now, it is painfully slow in comparison to TV for kids now. It is painful. Painfully slow. And my kids can't handle more than 30 minutes max. And they want to turn it off because they're like, let's go do something else. But if I put a YouTube children's show on there, they'll watch that.

[Justin Andrews]

I share. I shared this with you guys with the original Nintendo. I noticed that with regular Nintendo.

[Unknown]

With Max.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So Max can't play any new video games.

[Unknown]

Like, he's not too.

Huh?

It ends.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah. It's like. It's just.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's just.

[Justin Andrews]

It's just. It's just boring as. Yeah. There's not an endless loop. You get three lives. If you. You ruin those three lives in a short amount of time, it's like, over. Yeah, start over. It's. It's not visually stimulating. It's like they barely had figured the graphics out. So the science that we. That has gone into video gaming wasn't there yet. So if he wants to play video games, yeah, let's go upstairs, we'll play. And I swear to God, every time we stop playing, it's. I'm not done playing.

[Unknown]

I'm ready.

[Justin Andrews]

I want to keep playing. He's like, I'm over, dad. Like, he's not interested. But you let him sit with his friend who's playing, like, the new games that these kids play. He'll sit there for as long as you let him sit there.

[Unknown]

It's the sandbox versus a real. You know, the old school physics is what was highlighted in that. Right. And you had to figure out, like, you know, what the best combo was. And it was a really frustrating. But what it taught you was like overcoming challenges, which I don't think that's stressed at all in these new video games. No, it's. It's just literally, how long can we keep them all there so we can.

[Justin Andrews]

Capitalize on such a great point, Justin. The. The old games stress the physics, the challenge, the not giving up, keep doing it over and over again. Because if Mario, you couldn't figure out how to do that, you had to do it a thousand times over the other game. It's designed to give you rewards and keep you coming back in the open loop.

[Sal DiStefano]

By the way, it's not because old game designers were like these altruistic.

[Justin Andrews]

No, they just didn't know yet.

[Sal DiStefano]

They just didn't figure out how to make it just what we knew.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, they didn't know any better. It's just no different than when we first created processed foods. It wasn't like, let's get everyone addicted to this. It was literally like, oh, more people eat. Yeah, yeah, let's. It was probably. It was actually rooted in probably something very good. And then we realized, like, oh, wow, people were becoming a little ditched to this. How can we manipulate that? And how can we make more money?

[Unknown]

Yeah, but that's why I prefer old games, too. I. I'm the same way. It's just like, I feel like they'll walk away from it because it. It's like, it's frustrating. You suck at it, and then you get better and then you get excited because it's like, oh, my God, I actually, like, accomplished something. You never feel you accomplish something. These new games.

[Justin Andrews]

No, it just pull. It just pulls you in.

[Sal DiStefano]

Like, you know, I want to. I'm gonna change directions and bring up our. Our new group training that we're. We're doing coming up.

[Unknown]

That's right.

[Sal DiStefano]

We got. We got another. We got two groups we're gonna open up. So we did an experiment with this, and it turned out so well. I think we're going to continue doing this so well.

[Justin Andrews]

We did. We did, we did. The original GLP1 had great feedback from that. Then the boys ran another group, which is almost. Almost done Transform, which we've had incredible results.

[Sal DiStefano]

So these are groups of 50 people. Essentially, it's around 50 people. You get in there and you get coached by mind pump trainers, and they meet with you weekly and they coach you through your fitness journey. And the two groups we're gonna do, one is for muscle Gain and the other one's for fat loss. We have two groups, this time running at the same time. So if you're interested in fat loss, we have one. And if you're interested in just building muscle, we have another one. And we keep the groups small on purpose because we want good service. But we doubled that. We could do two groups now because we have more trainers now. So we're slowly adding trainers to our roster. So we now have two groups that we're gonna be running. So fat loss and muscle gain.

[Unknown]

We have to bring up that stat, though. Was it like the average was like 2 inches around the waist?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, the average. The average person in our last group, which was a combination, they went through a reverse diet, then a cut, and they're not done yet. So that was like, midway through. Average person lost two and a half inches around their way already.

[Unknown]

Pretty awesome.

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

No, no, it's been exciting.

[Sal DiStefano]

So this is mindpump. Groupcoaching.com is where you can go sign up, but it's only 50 people for each. After that, we're done. But we'll run another group later on for maybe another goal.

[Justin Andrews]

I thought I saw Doug. Did you scroll down?

[Unknown]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Do we have Ned as a commercial today? Yeah, we do.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, I gotta tell you guys with Ned, man, I gotta tell you, I haven't used cannabis in so long. Right. But Ned has really become a great way for me to get that kind of euphoric feeling that I'm looking for.

[Unknown]

I'll add to that.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, yeah. So I'll use Ned when I'm trying to be creative or in a social setting in some ways.

[Justin Andrews]

And do you think you feel more of it because you're not smoking? And so you have.

[Sal DiStefano]

And it's also cleaner. It's not like I'm high. I'm not like that. But I get this nice, calm, euphoric feeling.

[Unknown]

Is that the one they call de stress?

[Sal DiStefano]

It's so. I like all of them, but I. So I typically will use the. Just the regular Ned.

[Unknown]

Yeah, so that one I. Because I've been trying to scale off of, like, taking edibles and, like, you know, the whole thing before, because it did help me sleep and it helped me calm down at the end of the night. So just been doing drops of. Of the de stress is, you know, instead of that. And then, you know, first there's a little bit of a, you know, a big difference. I've. I didn't feel it. But then, like, over, you know, the. A week of doing this now it's like, oh, I get in that state and it's starting to kind of, really, kind of take me.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's, it's like, yeah, I'm getting this nice. You. I get a nice euphoric feeling from Ned. Nice, calm euphoric feeling. It's. And it's, it's hemp. It's hemp oil.

[Justin Andrews]

I think you feel it no matter what, even if you actually do smoke like I do. But I actually think that it's probably more obvious when you're, when you're completely off. I mean, I imagine that you probably feel a lot more.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. And again, I don't get this. The negative effects. It's not cannabis. So I'm not, you know, hammering my body with THC or whatever. So Element T is the best electrolyte powder in the world. No artificial sweeteners, no sugar and the right amount of sodium. Go through our link drinklement.com forward/mindpump pump and get a free sample pack with any drink mix purchase. All right, back to the show.

[Doug]

Our first caller is James from California.

[Sal DiStefano]

What's up, James?

[Unknown]

What's happening?

How's it going, guys?

[Sal DiStefano]

We're doing good. How are you?

[Unknown]

Oh, excellent. I really just want to say I've been really inspired by your podcast and the pumps anabolic. And it's been very informative listening to your podcast on the commute every day and inspirational.

[Sal DiStefano]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Unknown]

Thanks for taking my call.

[Sal DiStefano]

You got it.

[Unknown]

What you got for us, James?

Oh, oh, so you got my, in my, in my email, I sent pretty much a 52 year old man, athletic, I would consider, and pretty out there as far as doing cycling and surfing, etc. And since I turned 50, so my belly is getting bigger. And so I've been working for the past couple months on dumping almost like 200 grams of protein into my, into my body. I weigh 235 and I just came up with that number randomly because I want to get a bit lighter on my feet, on my surfboard and get rid of the belly fat. I also want to, of course, be looking better, but function and faction as far as being stronger, upper body having more of a chest. And so I've been lifting three nights a week, going very low reps, very low weight, and then also doing a bunch of hit classes, aerobic classes. And I know it's a marathon, not a sprint, but I've been going at this for about two months and specific questions are, you know, going from 235 to 200, but yet wanting to get a bigger chest and shoulders and more of an upper body for, for function and fashion. You know, is, is, is that number.

Makes sense at all or the 200 grams makes sense. But let's back up on the programming right now. So let me make sure I get everything clear. You're, you're lifting weights three times a week, plus you're doing hit classes. And then are you also doing the running and swimming and surfing and all the other stuff in addition to that?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

On the weekends?

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay.

[Unknown]

We're not, we're not going to build.

[Justin Andrews]

A chest like that.

[Unknown]

James.

[Sal DiStefano]

Are you, are you, are you following any of our programs?

[Unknown]

I was, I had the maps Anabolic because I, I've never lifted weights before and my awesome roommate, she got me this, she got me this, the program. And I know how to lift weight, so I've been following it, but not to the T. I've been going in and, and doing everything to do with chest, biceps and shoulders. Low reps like eight to 12, three sets, not going to fail. I'm talking like just the Olympic bar, like really slow. Just getting the most out of it.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, no, that's not gonna work. So, okay, so follow maps anabolic. As it's laid out, the intensity does need to be a little higher. Okay. So it does need to be a struggle as you're working out. In other words, if it says 8 reps, the 8th rep is a struggle. Now you might be able to squeeze one or two more out, but the eighth one is a struggle. Okay. If you don't have sufficient intensity, it's not gonna do much for you. And then we would want you to eliminate the hit cardio classes. Now your weekends, keep that up. You love doing that. But stay away from all the hiit cardio type of stuff and just focus on the strength training. And then let's get to the diet part. You're eating 200 grams of protein a day. What does that look like?

[Unknown]

Okay, so in the morning, one glass of Metamucil, no protein, but one to two cups of Greek yogurt with no sugar with some blueberries and one like Aussie bite, like a little cereal crunchy thing. It's got eight grams of sugar, so I haven't measuring it. I know I need to, but that's almost like 20 grams of protein. Maybe 30 with the, with the non fat Greek yogurt and then a cup of coffee with plain cream or milk. But I've been looking at. Because I'm a surfer, I'm A big fan of Laird Hamilton, but I know you. I just discovered you guys have the Paleo Valley, but some sort of protein coffee supplement.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay.

[Unknown]

And then liquids. I'm starting the day off. I have a three quart jug of water that I put tea bags in. So I'm drinking that by the end of the day. As far as liquids, one or two sparkling waters, one or two cups of hot tea, and I put throw in one of those fair life chocolate protein drinks. You know, this is all Costco materials. That's 30 grams of protein. So like I'm at 50. Then at lunch I learned this by watching Bobby Fischer shopping at Costco. But it's two cans of tuna with a cup of cottage cheese, or it's two cans of sardines with a small hunk of cheese, or it's one can of chicken with 30 grams of protein. So the two cans of tuna is 60, the two cans of sardines is 44. The one can of chicken is 30. And then I'll add two hard boiled eggs to any one of those for 12 grams. Okay, and then dinner. This is getting kind of boring and not sustainable. It's two frozen salmon burgers or one large burger, right? Those, the two salmon burgers are 40 grams of protein. The large burgers about 20 grams. And with either of those, another two hard boiled eggs at 12 grams. And then you guys, one of your podcasts, the proteins, you know, the five, whatever that podcast was, it was great. But eat the proteins first, then the veggies, etc. Then the starch. So I'll have a salad with cheese and occasionally those burgers may end up between two slices of homemade sourdough bread and a handful of chips. So yeah, that's my protein intake for the day.

[Sal DiStefano]

You know what your total calories are averaging.

[Unknown]

I have not totaled the calories.

[Sal DiStefano]

So what I want you to do is stick to whole natural foods for this to work, which means also avoiding shakes. So the reason why we tell people hit high protein. Well, there's a few reasons, but one of them, especially when you're trying to lose weight, is it produces satiety. But when you take it in supplement form, like shakes and powders, you lose a lot of that effect. Okay, so powders and shakes are good for people who struggle with hitting their calories, but people who want to cut or lose weight, whole natural foods is going to do that much more effectively. That also means no but no bread, no chips. You're going to eat things like potato, rice, meat, fruit, vegetables, yam, you know, sweet potato yam, that kind of stuff. If you stick to just whole foods, so foods that are one ingredient. So salmon burger, I don't know if you're making it yourself or. No, you're buying them. They're frozen, so it's a, a. It's a bit more processed. Right. So like salmon, just salmon would be more whole. Now, the other option, if you don't want to go that route, would be to have to track your calories so we could see what you're consuming on a regular basis and then go from there. Because with. Without whole natural foods, it's, it's you people tend to overeat. And then the workout part, stick to maps, anabolic. Don't do the hit cardio. And then on the weekends, go and do your activities. That's where I'd start. That's where I'd start with you, James.

[Unknown]

How different is the, the current diet than kind of how you were eating just say, a month or two ago? Right. You said you've been doing this for two months, so take me back three, four months ago. Like, how, how radically different is this, this, this food intake compared to what you used to eat?

Oh, thanks. Great question. Yeah. My whole life I've just eaten whatever I wanted pretty much. And it's usually been yogurt and some, you know, like cereal with the yogurt. It's been Trader Joe's salad, salads, Caesar salads, etc, and then dinner is just kind of in random whatever, you know?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, whatever.

[Unknown]

A lot of pastas, really late night, which I know is bad, but I've never put thought to it up until, like, January.

Yeah, that helps. I mean, it helps me a lot. The reason why I asked that we just recorded an episode that we're gonna, I think, release in a couple weeks here. That. And we're talking about. It was two trainers and how we take a client, say, like yourself and the, the, the step, step one, what do we do? Step two, step three. And one of the mistakes as a young, early trainer we would make is, you know, sit down with a guy like you and go like, all right, here's your calories, here's your macros. Eat, eat these foods and radically shift you from what you've done your whole life to all of a sudden something totally different. And the reason why this doesn't work now, it may work temporarily, but why it doesn't work long term is it's. It's so unrealistic from how you ate. And so what I do instead is I'd find out kind of how you ate, and then I would make one or two tweaks. I'd go, okay, James, that, that's okay right there. But let's just add this to that and that's better. Or let's eliminate this and trade that for that. But keeping things similar, but slowly modifying in the direction of eating the way I need you to eat in order to hit these goals. Because if I don't do it that way, you do this. Like, oh, I could do this. I switch over. And then you're eating all these foods you're not used to eating and you're not seeing the results fast enough. And eventually what happens is the client throws their arms up and say, well, f this, I don't look any better or feel any better than what I did three months ago, eating whatever the hell I wanted. And that was way less stress and less work. And then they go back the other direction. The other thing to consider is if we're eating in a. A calorie surplus and hitting our grams of protein and hoping to build our chest, but then we're doing activity like, like hit cardio and moving and trying to burn all the time. They're like conflicting goals. One of them is trying to burn and lose, lose, and the other ones to, you know, build muscle. And the body doesn't do that at the same time. It's either in. It's either anabolic, meaning it's already. It's trying to build muscle, or it's catabolic. It's trying to break down and burn body fat. And so we want to make sure the way we're eating and training kind of aligns so that you get the most out of your results. So one of the things I would like to do, if you, if, if you're open to it, is I'd love to put you in the private forum so that as we're going through this process, the guys and I can kind of step you through it on kind of how we would do this. Are you, Are you on Facebook? Can I do that?

Yeah, that'd be great. I appreciate that. I guess. You know, walking, not crazy. Like afterwards, eating after you eat, you know, I've been doing that, but that's good, I guess I'm not knowledgeable, although I'm learning, you know. Yeah, I want to, I want to. I want to build for looks and also for surf training and being stronger, you know, but. But I also enjoy the cardio, so I love to do cycling and cross country skiing and the classes. I enjoy the classes, kickboxing, etc. It's been good to get me.

I don't hyped up.

But you're saying that those two make things not work out as far as building muscle and they conflict each other.

They do. And so it's not that we, we.

[Justin Andrews]

Have to eliminate it forever.

[Unknown]

It's that, okay, hey, let's. Let's focus on a goal.

[Justin Andrews]

So let's say you.

[Unknown]

Again, let's say I, you hired me and we just got started and we agreed, okay, you and you give me the vision and I can see what you want. You're like, you want to lean down that waist, but we want broad shoulders and a chest and be strong and you want to be athletic and be able to do these sports look and feel good, all the above. But when we go about it just like building a house, you know, you tell me you want this. The biggest, big, beautiful vaulted ceilings and the French doors and all stuff that I'm like, hey, we got to lay the foundation first. Let's go build the foundation. And then I'm gonna get, I'm gonna build you that house. But we're not, we're not focusing on the French doors and the vaulted ceilings when we haven't even laid the foundation foundation yet. And so that's kind of what we would want to do first is like, okay, let's. Let's build some muscle and let's build your metabolism. Let's do that first because that's what's going to benefit this look in this athleticism that you want. And so the way we're gonna go about that is hitting that protein intake, doing it through whole natural foods, and getting strong in the gym. And that means we're not gonna waste a lot of time doing hiit, cardio and all this extra activity. Now, Sal made a point to say, hey, if you love, you know, your stuff on the weekends, we never wanna take that from a client. So even though it's not really serving us on the building muscle part, it's something you love to do and you've been doing it forever. There's no reason for us to eliminate that because it's a part of your lifestyle. But anything you're doing outside of your normal lifestyle in order to get these goals right now should be primarily focused just on building muscle and building your metabolism first. And so that's hitting the, the grams of protein, doing it through whole foods, lifting two to three times a week, getting strong, pushing the weights to get strong. That's Going to lay the best foundation for you, and then we start to structure the rest of the house.

Just got to prioritize it. So it's a block where this is our focus right now of building muscle. And then we can. You can build upon that, the endurance and, you know, get back to, you know, a little bit more of those other styles of training that you'd probably prefer. But to get you stronger and really maximize your muscle potential, you have to prioritize that first.

Build the muscle first, then cardio next.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. James, have you ever. I know this. You're just now getting into weight training. Have you ever considered maybe hiring a trainer to actually take you through all this stuff?

Yeah, I. I have, I have. And my gyms up at College of San Mateo and those. That staff up there is incredible. And so got to give a shout out to them, and I may hire one of their trainers because they're. They've been very inspirational and awesome, but on a teacher salary.

Yeah, I get it.

You don't buy here kind of doing it on my own with. With your program and stuff, but the nutrition, I think is really, you know, it's going to be the hard part. What's sustainable the next year, the next five years, you know what. And getting this 200 grams of protein into my. Into my mouth each day has been sort of like, wow, I almost feel like I'm overeating.

Yeah, it's like, work.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's gonna feel like that even more if you stick to whole natural foods with the trainer. You wouldn't, you know, for someone like you, if. If it's. It is a large investment, you know, work with them with the intention of learning the exercises, the technique, and feeling comfortable with them is how I would do it.

[Unknown]

Yeah. It's not. Not hiring them, like, get me all the way to my goal. It's more like, let's learn. As much like, here's this program.

[Sal DiStefano]

You know, I'm following it. I really want to be able to do. Am I doing this right? And if they say no, okay, well, what do I need to do to be able to do this right? What is it supposed to feel like? Like, get comfortable with the movements and the intensity so that you can move forward.

[Unknown]

James, do you. Do you know about our ask mind pump.com or AI?

I don't.

Okay. You'll love that, man. Okay, so every time you have a question, okay. Related to anything, nutrition, exercise, whatever, if you go to askmindpump.com it's an AI tool that we built years ago, and it will actually respond as if you're talking to one of us. And then it'll also recommend episodes and YouTube clips where we go deep into that. That conversation. So as you're going through this and you have questions about anything, we've probably got the content up there. You just go to ask my pump.com and so, you know, if we're talking about doing this as inexpensive as we can, but getting the best bang for your buck and the most knowledge, I would. The forum, I'm going to put you in there for free so we can, we can be close to you. And then the second thing I'd say is go to askminepump.com and use that resource with our program and then follow the programs that are laid out. Trust that process. And then when you have questions, either post them in the forum for us to. To respond to you or use askmindpump.com and then we're going to do our best to help you through this process.

I greatly appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Thanks for the inspiration.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, thank you.

[Unknown]

Keep it up. James.

[Sal DiStefano]

He's never, he's never strength trained before. Yeah. Part of the, Part of the challenge.

[Unknown]

Totally.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. As he was explaining it, you know, just figuring, just learning what it's. What it should feel like alone.

[Unknown]

It's a big hurdle to.

[Sal DiStefano]

Huge difference. Yeah. And then, you know, this is good. This is good for us to hear when somebody listens to our show for not a long period of time who has no experience to hear what they think we're communicating. Yeah. So he heard the get protein, which is true.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. But a lot of the ways he was doing it was with shakes and stuff. And he's trying to lose weight.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Sal DiStefano]

And he also was really trying to structure and figure out, like, this is what I'm eating every day. In fact, he made that call.

[Unknown]

He was going for convenience, which is understandable.

[Sal DiStefano]

And he also made the comment like, oh, this is getting kind of boring.

[Unknown]

Like, all right, that's what I heard. So right away, that's why I jumped on that, because I was like, man, this is. And we talk about this. This is why we don't put somebody, take somebody who's never really tried to follow a meal plan to putting them on a meal plan. It's just unsustainable. Instead, I would peer into his breakfast, let's say, for example, and go beef it up. Yeah. And what he's been doing consistently, instead of radically changing it, I'm just going to tweak it. I'M going to add something to it or maybe trade something out, but try and keep it close to what he's done his whole life because that's more realistic with someone like this. If all of a sudden you tell this guy, deep cans of tuna and frozen salmon, but, I mean, that's only gonna last so long. I mean, even if he gets good results, he ain't doing that for the rest of.

I wouldn't keep that up.

So, I mean, hopefully, and you know, to the audience that's listening, I gotta get back to. I mean, I. I know when we launched it, we talked about it a.

[Justin Andrews]

Lot, but we haven't really talked about it.

[Unknown]

And we are obviously getting, you know, thousands and thousands, thousands of new people every, every day practically coming in here. So.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Askminepump.com.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And let me tell you, it's been so wild to watch it. I don't know how often you guys get on there or not, but it's evolved over the last, like, four years. Like, it just keeps getting better. It was great from the jump, but now it's, like, really, really good.

We keep adding content, so it helps to.

Yeah.

Beef it up.

Yeah. No, so if you're, if you're not sure, use that. And then this is also an example. I know he's a teacher, but, man, if this is something you're really serious about, you want to make a change for the rest of your life, probably one of the best investments you could ever make, period. Yeah. Period. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, just you work with a.

[Sal DiStefano]

Trainer for three or four months to.

[Unknown]

Navigate forward, you know, to start with the, the right foot.

[Sal DiStefano]

It'll save him years of struggle.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Kyle from Texas.

[Sal DiStefano]

What's up, Kyle?

[Unknown]

How you doing, Kyle?

[Sal DiStefano]

Welcome back.

[Adam Schaefer]

Not a whole lot. Yeah, thanks. Yeah. So I had originally asked the question about getting more cardiovascular endurance, being able to run more while still gaining muscle. This is about three or four months ago, you guys had suggested just running maybe two or three times a week. Two times a week. And, you know, while I'm weight training so that I don't take away from the weight training, but can still increase that. And that's basically what I've done. I've really just done one longer run once a week, and my time has continually gotten less, and I've continued to gain muscle, so.

[Sal DiStefano]

All right. Yeah, good job, man.

[Unknown]

How's it. So tell us a little more.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Is weight maintaining or you, like, have.

[Justin Andrews]

You checked body fat at all?

[Unknown]

Like, what do you. What do you. What Are you seeing? What do you notice.

[Adam Schaefer]

According to, according to the scale? If it can, you know, the, it has the sensors that sense bottom of your feet. If it can sense through my leathery soles. The body fat stayed about the same right around 26% or so, which I know is high. I'm going to work on getting that down here eventually. But you know, I started the, my, you know, I started my story. I don't know. I started working out regularly in August of last year and I always waffled between 190 and 200 pounds and felt, felt overweight at 26 body. I felt like I, you know, get sore. I have a sit down job after, you know, everything. Up until two years ago, I always was in an active job and so I was between 190 and 200. And once I started exercising regularly, I gained about 40 pounds. So I went up to, I'm about 230 pounds right now, between 225 and 230 and I feel a whole lot better. And I still fit in the same clothes except some shirts. I can't, my back won't, won't fit in. But it's not my stomach anymore, it's my back.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay. All right, good. And you were following Mass 15, right?

[Adam Schaefer]

Yes, I was following Maps 15. Yes. I started off trying to do my own thing and I gained a little bit. But then once I started Maps 15, actually I had to come back when I got to the, I got through the 15, the high rep one. I had to cut back on sets because I wasn't sleeping well.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's right, I remember.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. I mean I'm the kind of person that I'm kind of low key most of the time, but if I get to, you know, once I start picking up weights, I'm like, no, I got to do, I got to do one more, you know, got to go, gotta go hard. And so yeah, I overdid it with it sometimes. But.

[Sal DiStefano]

Now since last time we talked to you, you've gotten faster at your running and you've seen some strength gains.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yes, still seeing strength gains. I'm kind of a nerd. So I made my spreadsheet so I can keep track of what weight I did with each thing.

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, give us some numbers.

[Unknown]

Yeah, give us some data.

[Adam Schaefer]

Well, so I have a limited, limited gym. I have dumbbells up to £50 and then I have like this old fashioned, it's called a solo flex. It was like before the Bowflex was.

[Sal DiStefano]

I remember that.

[Adam Schaefer]

And yeah, yeah. So that actually has Come in handy for heavier things like bench presses and that sort of thing. Obviously the weight is just rubber bands so I don't know what the weight is on those but rows. I'm exceeding my 50 pound dumbbells. I'm attaching a band now doing a 50 pound dumbbell for rows with bands. And I mean the curls. I can, I can do 8 reps of strict curls with 45s.

[Sal DiStefano]

So what did you start at?

[Adam Schaefer]

I haven't. What did I start at? Probably 30s.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's great.

[Adam Schaefer]

25. No, it would be 20 strength would be 25s that I started at. I could throw the 30s around.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, let's set you up with Maps 15 performance next so you can continue on this path.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay. Yeah, well that sounds great.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, let's send, we'll send that over to you.

[Adam Schaefer]

Is there something that. Can I ask one more question?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Is there something that you would suggest for. Because I have limited weights so I've started just this last week for like deadlift. I mean I have a 50 pound dumbbell so I can do 100 pounds. But is there something that you would suggest other than switching? Because what I did this week is I started switching to one legged. Doing one legged deadlifts for squats. I'm doing Bulgaries just, just because I, I'm. I'm exceeding the weight that I have at my fingertips.

[Unknown]

That's a, that's a great option because I'll tell you what, getting up to 50 pound dumbbell single leg is, is a nice workout.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And you'll get pretty damn strong getting up to that. So in fact, when I look back to someone.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay.

[Unknown]

The best I ever felt was when I was really getting strong in my single leg deadlifts like that. So you can get pretty far.

It'll carry you for away for sure.

[Adam Schaefer]

Okay, sounds good.

[Sal DiStefano]

All right.

[Unknown]

All right.

[Adam Schaefer]

Well thanks for all you do. I, I mostly wrote in just to thank you guys for, for that. You know, I, I've. I have eight kids, a ninth on the way. I'm a full time pastor and a work full time as insurance agent, so.

[Unknown]

That's right. That's right.

[Adam Schaefer]

Life is busy. But it, it's. It's easier when you feel better.

[Unknown]

That's awesome.

[Sal DiStefano]

Good for you, man. Congratulations, baby.

[Unknown]

I'm glad it's working out for you, man.

Yeah, it's awesome.

[Sal DiStefano]

I really remember you now.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

You were stressed.

[Adam Schaefer]

Everybody remembers the kids. Not me, but the kids.

[Sal DiStefano]

Because it's, it's awesome. Thank you guys. Good for you, man.

[Unknown]

Thanks Kyle, good job, buddy.

[Adam Schaefer]

All right. No problem.

[Sal DiStefano]

My kids, bro.

[Unknown]

Surviving is winning.

[Justin Andrews]

Reminds me of Total Recall.

[Unknown]

Can you survive?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, you don't need weights, bro, to grab your kids each time you have a kid. It's progressive resistance, you know. Yeah, yeah, he's doing good. I think, you know, at this point. I mean, he's progressing in performance, which is good. That's always a good measure. The next phase for him would be to be able to add some exercise equipment.

[Unknown]

That and probably tightening the diet up, of course.

[Sal DiStefano]

Right.

[Unknown]

So he's, he's at a place now where he really wants to drop the body fat percentage.

[Sal DiStefano]

He has to.

[Unknown]

Yeah, it'll be, it'll be the diet. Yeah, it'll be the diet.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Tracy from Wyoming.

[Sal DiStefano]

Hey, Tracy. Hello.

[Unknown]

How are you guys?

[Sal DiStefano]

Good, how are you? How can we help you?

[Unknown]

Hey, thanks for having me on the show. I'm a big fan.

Awesome.

[Sal DiStefano]

Thank you.

[Unknown]

So I'm a group fitness instructor and a newish personal trainer have recently, besides training women of all ages, I recently started training a lot more youth athletes, specifically middle school girls, like little wrestlers and track stars and swimmers. And so I've been experimenting with different formats, playing lots of games and then squishing like circuits of good lifts in the middle of games. But I'm curious what your experiences are with youth athletes. What works, what types of programs you've used in the past?

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, God, you thought so. Young athletes.

[Unknown]

12 you said.

[Justin Andrews]

Right, 12 years old.

[Unknown]

So you said 12.

They're anywhere from nine to 14.

[Sal DiStefano]

And what's the average like level of interest in them in exercise? Because that makes a big difference. Right. If I work out with a kid who's 11 because the parents hired me and they don't really want to be there, there's a completely different strategy from like the 11 year old kid that's like, I want to do this because I like my sport totally. Yeah.

[Unknown]

My swimmers, for example, they're on the USA swimmer team. They're very motivated. I have them in a group, they're all friends, they compete with each other. That seems to work really well. And then with my one on one athletes, it's more of if they get that positive reinforcement from their coach or their parents and they're like, oh my gosh, you have so much more power on your double whatever axle. And figure skating, you know.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. A lot of this is going to be focusing on basic exercises and a lot of teaching and instruction and perfection or perfecting, I should say.

[Unknown]

So it's like simplify the hell out of everything.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. So you have like a deadlift, let's say, and you're going to break it up into three separate parts of the movement and you're really going to perfect. It's like practicing a technique. Like we're going to practice it over and over and get really good at it. So it's not like you're doing 10 different exercises with you, it's like you're doing two, maybe two exercises. And I'm just the most of the session is really perfecting the.

[Unknown]

I like the games and you're doing that kind of in between. But yeah, I would probably reduce the amount of volume of what your focus is with the exercises and really kind of sharpen a few like real foundational movements to teach them. So that way they can kind of build upon that as they go. But yeah, I mean, like suspension trainers, I don't know if you use them or not. That's a real helpful tool, you know, with kids to kind of get. Yeah. Just. Just to direct their body a little more. I know that's. That's a big issue is really they're just, you know, have to get that body awareness established first and control. And so that's why it's slow reps and sometimes isometric holds and some of these things like to start with that is usually what I would steer towards initially and then start building their way towards loaded type of exercises. But really, you know, suspension trainer is great about increasing intensity while being able to kind of manage that appropriately.

[Sal DiStefano]

The thing to consider, you know, is like, you know, if you're training a kid who needs to improve their activity level or increase their activity level, it's different than when you're training an athlete who's already doing a lot of practice and training. So the consideration is like, how do I get them to prevent injury? How do I help stabilize their body versus the kid that's like, you know, my son plays lots of video games. I need him to work out. He needs to be active. It's a totally different approach. Completely different.

[Justin Andrews]

Would you guys take.

[Unknown]

I don't really have many of those kids.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Would you take say in a session where she's got a handful of these kids that are all these ex athletes. Would you guys take like just say the squat.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yep.

[Unknown]

And then break it up in three parts and do like an isometric hold in them?

[Sal DiStefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Unknown]

So it's like they come. They. I'd have them all in a group and go down halfway in the squat hold and they do like an isometric hold for 5 to 10 seconds, and then we come out, and then we do a hold at the bottom for five to ten seconds. And then they do full squats. And so maybe take complex movements like squats, lunges, push ups, all these different movements, and break them up in, like, different parts. With isometric holds in there. Yeah. And then that's when they're in the isometric hole. That's where, as the coach or teacher, I'm walking around and I'm kind of moving their bodies. Oh, nope, chest up a little bit more. You know, pull your shoulder blades back. And I'm. I'm going to critique where they're at in the isometric hole and how they're holding their posture and really. And really dive into like. Like really break down the squat into all the. And you could do that lots of different ways where they start at the bottom, then come up and. But take a. Take a movement and kind of nerd out on one movement. And use isometric holds for your ability to walk around and critique all of them. That's kind of a secret hack.

Yeah. And another thing, I guess that I would kind of like pile on to that, which I think that's a great advice would be to. To further educate the kids in terms of like, having. Having them buddy off, like, group them off. If you have enough kids, you can have them kind of in pairs where one is watching their form and you're kind of teaching them what to look for with the next kid. And they can kind of help. Help shape and guide them as well. So you're not like, kind of running, you know, from one to the next to the next. And also it empowers them to learn it more effectively.

Cool. Cool way to do that. Especially when you're teaching, like, hinge patterns, squatting, stuff like that is cheap PVC pipes.

Yeah, we do a ton of those.

Okay.

With them at the beginning.

Yeah. That's awesome. So, yeah, using those is like, con. Like Justin's tip of contact or like having one coach the other.

You teach them.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

How to hold the contact points. So one's watching it for the other for the kid. So, I mean, that's kind of what I would really focus on. Just one or two things.

Tempo training and. Yeah, have them. Have them all, like, really go by that. You know, the count. So you might even have, like a beeping kind of timer for them to hit those positions.

And I hate the tempo. I just know it.

[Sal DiStefano]

Well, look, think of it this way, Tracy. It's like, if you're taking a kid and you're teaching them how to do a layup or how to play basketball. What you're doing is you're breaking it up into. Into different movements to learn the full technique. So first we're practice dribbling, and we're going to get really good at dribbling. Then we're going to get good at walking while dribbling. Then we're going to get good at running while dribbling. Then here, stand under the net. Let's practice getting it in, you know, off the backboard. And so you're breaking it up into pieces to learn the technique. So that's what you're doing with these athletes, which, again, is different than the kid who's inactive who just needs a workout.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Sal DiStefano]

These kids don't really need a workout. What they need is to really learn the skill of the bench press and the deadlift and the overhead press and the squat in a row. And, you know, they need to learn the skill of them. So your job is to get them to learn the skill of these lifts, and that's gonna. That's gonna pay them back in dividends for their entire life versus what a lot of trainers do with athletes. They think it's another workout. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna work them out.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Which. Which I don't think they get tons of value out of.

[Unknown]

I really don't need that. They're not. They're not.

[Sal DiStefano]

They can go play. They go. Go to do more practice to go play.

[Unknown]

Right. The overweight kid who doesn't do any exercise whatsoever.

[Sal DiStefano]

They gotta move.

[Unknown]

They get a move in circuits. They gotta keep them moving, keep them active. That's the best thing you could do for them. The athlete who's trying to improve in their sport.

[Sal DiStefano]

They're moving along. Yeah.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

It's.

[Unknown]

You need to sharpen their skill. Yeah.

Right On a lot. I appreciate the isometric and the tempo. So focus on that. That helps. Thank you.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Do you have, by the way, as a trainer, do you have maps prime or prime pro?

[Unknown]

Yeah. Or performance 15, actually would be a good skeleton to.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's a great one. Yeah. Do you have any of those that we just mentioned? Let's send you maps 15 performance. I think that there's some good movements.

[Unknown]

In there that is most appropriate. Yeah, you could really pluck from that and kind of arrange your schedule with it.

Love it. Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

[Sal DiStefano]

You got it.

[Justin Andrews]

You guys are great.

[Unknown]

All right, Tracy, thank you.

Go ahead.

Thanks.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, that's a. That's a, like, one of the biggest mistakes I think, that trainers make with high level. Any kind of athlete or even a client who, like, this is what happened with me with clients. Forget kids. I'd have these clients that were like, these high. Like, they were just very dedicated to. Like. I had a triathlete who was an Ironman competitor, and he worked out a lot. He worked out a ton because he's an Ironman competitor. And then he hired me to train him. And the big mistake I made initially was I got to work him out. No, no, he's working out a ton. I got to help solve some of the issues that are coming from his training. And so the workouts with me looked very different than they would with someone who's, you know, who never exercises. They need to get a good workout. For him, it was like stabilizing and strengthening and watching the volume. And with these kids, you're, it's. You're teaching them a new sport is what you're doing. You're teaching the sport of strength trainings that they'll learn the technique and the skill. They're getting plenty of workouts.

[Unknown]

I mean, they could do a whole 15 minutes of, 30 minutes of just taking off or the, The. This jump. Like. Right. The explosiveness of. Of a sprint. Like, you can really take. Pull apart a movement.

[Sal DiStefano]

That's right.

[Unknown]

And make the entire workout in it.

[Justin Andrews]

About that, you know.

[Doug]

Our next caller is Lisa from Ohio.

[Sal DiStefano]

Hi, Lisa.

[Unknown]

Hey, how are you guys doing?

[Sal DiStefano]

Good. How can we help you?

[Unknown]

Great.

So about three years ago, I started struggling with sleep, and I had some traumatic events happen in my life. My sister had passed away, my younger sister. And then I was studying for school, and. And then I think it was like, maybe a couple months later, I took the COVID shot. And I'm a hypochondriac. So as soon as I did it, I was like. Like, oh, my gosh. I think that I have a blood clot. I think all these things that you hear about taking the shot, and long story short, none of that happened, but it caused me to just be so fearful, and with all those things happening, I wasn't able to sleep. Like, I struggled with falling asleep. And then I think for, like, probably months, I would wake up all through the night, and then I couldn't fall asleep. But, like, the last year, I can now fall asleep. But I wake up all night long, and I've been to the doctor, got my hormones checked, and they put me on progesterone. I did A little bit of testosterone, but none of that has helped. And I've been working out consistently probably for a year and a half. A lot of strength training. I don't do a whole lot of cardio, but walking, but I just feel like nothing I do helps with it.

[Sal DiStefano]

With the sleep.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

And are you doing the normal checklist offenders? Caffeine, alcohol, cannabis?

[Unknown]

Yes. I don't do any of that. When I do drink, it's even worse. So I try to eliminate that as much as possible. But I try to go to bed same time every night. Just anything I've done, I've googled and nothing has helped with that. My question to you guys is, you know, should I continue to strength train four or five days a week? The only thing I haven't done is a sleep study, but I've probably spent thousands of dollars on supplements, magnesium of all kinds, and still nothing helps. And I feel like I have not been able to get any weight off. Like, over the last two years, I've probably gained 15 pounds. And I'm not great at tracking my food, but I don't feel like I eat terrible.

[Sal DiStefano]

So if it's.

[Unknown]

I'm sure that a lot of it is the fact that I don't sleep.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, that's all of it. I would cut the strength training down to like three days a week, and then I would look into therapy that could help. Like, EMDR therapy might be helpful. It's really, really effective for. For dealing with trauma. I think that's probably just based off what you're saying. They'll most likely culprit for your. Your sleep issues.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Sal DiStefano]

Have you ever looked into emdr?

[Unknown]

I have not.

[Sal DiStefano]

Okay. So it's. It's very well established, lots of data supporting it, especially for dealing with. For trauma. And it really helps with what it does essentially is allows the mind to feel safe enough to deal with some of the issues that might be plaguing you. And so what happens with certain traumatic events or issues is they stay with you because it's too painful to fully process. And I'm not an expert in it, but that's my understanding. But I would look into therapy and EMDR in particular at this point, because it sounds, based off what you're saying, it sounds like you've done a lot. You've got all the sleep hygiene, no caffeine, not the alcohol. You're exercising, you're not doing tons of cardio. Yeah. So that's what I would look into therapy to really deal with that first.

[Unknown]

Okay. And as far as working out. I've always just done, like, videos online, but I feel like it's been a one size fits all. So I have my own home gym, and then I kind of quit that about two weeks ago. And I've just been doing my own strength training routines.

[Sal DiStefano]

But I'll send you one.

[Unknown]

Do you have suggestions for that?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, you know, let's do maps 15. I think you'll. I think maps 15 will be appropriate with your lack of sleep.

[Unknown]

I like that.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, let's. Let's do that program for now now, and let's see how that feels.

[Unknown]

Okay. And as far as nutrition, do you think I should just stick with, you know, counting protein, whole foods?

[Sal DiStefano]

Yep. Yep. And I mean, you look healthy. You do look healthy. Yeah, I think.

[Unknown]

I think you're especially considering someone who's having trouble sleep.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. I think you're doing very well in spite of, I mean, poor sleep. Chronic poor sleep is killer. Is absolute devastating for, you know, people's, you know, fitness progress.

[Unknown]

And honestly, that's how if I'm coaching you around nutrition and exercise, it's all go. It's so I know that of course you might want to lean out or that might be part of the goal, but the main goal is to get good sleep. And so the food decisions, all those things. Like, I'm starting to really unpack. Like, okay, when you eat these dinners, is your sleep better or worse? And, like, versus how many calories or protein is it? Like, it's more about that. It's like, let's really start to peer into what types of meals you have at what time, and, you know, if you notice positive or negative effects. And that's how we kind of decide.

[Justin Andrews]

And then same thing with the workouts.

[Unknown]

Like, my workouts now become okay. When we train this way and we do this much volume and intensity, does it make your sleep better or worse? And trying to. Instead of like, going, oh, I want to lean out. So does this macros or is this workout program gonna know? It's more like, let's. Let's solve the sleep thing, because all those other things will. Will follow if we get that unlocked. And so that's kind of what we're peering into when we're making the decisions around nutrition and exercise.

Okay, that makes sense because I've just been so frustrated because I'm like, okay, I'm finally working out on a consistent basis. And, you know, I keep reading and hearing you need to work out in order to sleep better. But I. I don't think that mine Started with hormones. I think it was more the, the trauma, the stress of finishing school and then, you know, losing my sister and then taking the COVID shot. It was just all at once.

[Sal DiStefano]

Months. Yeah. Do you mind if I ask how long ago your sister passed away?

[Unknown]

Three years ago. So it was three years ago in March. And then I had, I was studying for some exams after I finished college and then like a month later I took the COVID shot. And you know, I, like I said, I thought, oh, I think I'm dying of everything.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah, yeah. You're in a vulnerable place. Your sister was younger than you, so she was young. Yeah. That'll place a ton of obviously challenge and maybe fear and anxiety. I lost somebody who was young in my life and it actually caused some PTSD in me because, you know, for me this was my experience. When they died, it felt like it came out of nowhere. They got sick and died. And then I thought I became very hypochondriac. I thought I had every. Everything I felt was something because how could this happen to this healthy person?

[Unknown]

Right.

[Sal DiStefano]

I had this long period of time with this kind of anxiety. So. And that, that hyper, that kind of like, you know, that, that hypervigilance, it's not going to let you sleep because your body's in this kind of, you know, like, I got to be ready all the time. Yeah, I gotta be ready. And so relaxing is, is almost impossible. So.

[Unknown]

Yeah, so I, so I got to the point where I could fall asleep. But I'm telling you what, I haven't slept through the night in three years. Like I will wake up anywhere between five to 20 times and then I just feel like it affects everything. Like I'll be concerned about my nutrition working out. And then, you know, I have a 15 year old daughter that is watching me, so I'm trying to be the best, you know, influence on her when it comes to working out nutrition. But. Okay, I got to get the sleep taken care of first because nothing else is working.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. With trauma. The best. From my experience, my research, I'm not an expert at it, but this is just from my research. The most effective secular treatments include emdr. And then if you have any kind of spiritual practice, the data shows that to be very powerful. So people who have a very strong faith and working with their community and through prayer and that also in the data shows to help a lot. So if that's you, I would combine the two and maybe even find a practitioner who follows the same faith as you, who does emdr, which they're out there, and then you can combine the two, and it could be. So if you go to a church, you can even ask them. They might even have a list of therapists. And EMDR is not like this weird. There's quite a few people now that practice it.

[Unknown]

Okay. Yeah. Because I've never heard of that, and I'm a Christian. My pastor has prayed with me. He at first was like, let's check your hormones. And they seem to come back fine. So it's just fine.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Ask them if they have a list of therapists who they like, because it's really strengthening. Right. To work with somebody who's a therapist who also follows your faith. I think that combination makes a big difference. So there you go. Yeah, do that. And then emdr, and you can read up on it. It's literally the acronym is emdr. Look it up. Okay.

[Unknown]

All right, I'll do that. Thank you guys so much. And then you said to do the Maps program then starting out.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yep. We're going to send it to you.

[Unknown]

Okay. Thank you guys so much. It was a pleasure meeting all of you.

[Sal DiStefano]

Let's put you in our forum, too. Lisa. I'd like to follow along. Okay. Okay.

[Unknown]

Okay. Thank you so much.

[Sal DiStefano]

You got it. Thank you.

[Justin Andrews]

All right.

[Unknown]

Take care.

[Sal DiStefano]

Yeah. Trauma affects sleep. That's, like, one of the first things.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And the main point that I want to drill home is that when I have a client that's like this, and let's say she wants to lose weight or everything's geared towards the sleep. Everything's geared towards the sleep.

[Sal DiStefano]

So if you don't fix that, forget it.

[Unknown]

Which does sound, like, different, Right? Because it's like, we're always talking about grams of protein and eating. It's like, no. Like, I'm gonna really start to unpack. Like, like, okay, you ate this. How did you feel? Did you. And what time did you eat? How did you feel? And, like, everything's more. How is the. How is that improving or not improving our sleep? And then we can build the macros and all this stuff later. Let's first solve that.

[Sal DiStefano]

Totally. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at mind pump. DiStefano. Adam is at Mind Pump. Out.

[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 [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.