2603: Muscle-Building Showdown!…Barbells vs. Dumbbells vs. Machines & More (Listener Coaching)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mind Pump Episode 2603 – "Muscle-Building Showdown!…Barbells vs. Dumbbells vs. Machines & More (Listener Coaching)"

Release Date: May 23, 2025

In Episode 2603 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth, hosts Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, and producer Doug Egge engage in an in-depth discussion comparing the efficacy of barbells, dumbbells, and machines for muscle building. The episode seamlessly blends expert analysis with listener coaching, offering actionable insights for fitness enthusiasts of all levels.

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1. Muscle Building Showdown: Barbells vs. Dumbbells vs. Machines

a. Barbells: The Foundation of Strength

Pros:

• Maximum Loading Capacity: Adam Schafer highlights barbells' ability to handle significant weight, emphasizing the importance of progressive overload for muscle hypertrophy. "You can load them the best, right? You can just add a lot of weight." (02:05)
• Foundational Strength: Justin Andrews underscores barbells' role in developing foundational strength, crucial for athletic performance. "Foundational strength... gives you a competitive advantage." (03:37)
• Essential Exercises: The hosts agree that exercises like the deadlift, squat, and overhead press are best executed with barbells, offering unparalleled benefits. "All the best general exercises are done with the moves." (05:45)

Cons:

• Asymmetry Issues: Doug Egge points out that barbells may not effectively address muscular imbalances, as both sides work in unison. "If you only train bilateral barbell movements, it's only going to exacerbate that asymmetry over time." (06:47)
• Limited Isolation: Adam notes that barbells are not ideal for isolation exercises essential in bodybuilding. "A barbell isn't great for isolation." (07:46)

b. Dumbbells: Versatile and Symmetry-Focused

Pros:

• Enhancing Symmetry: Dumbbells allow independent movement of each limb, effectively exposing and addressing muscular asymmetries. "Dumbbells are amazing for that." (09:13)
• Exercise Variety: Justin Andrews praises the versatility of dumbbells, enabling a broader range of exercises and training modalities. "There's just like, it's pretty crazy what you can do with dumbbells versus a barbell." (10:24)
• Stability and Joint Integrity: Adam emphasizes dumbbells' role in improving joint stability and overall muscle control. "Dumbbells are the best for stability." (13:34)

Cons:

• Limited Loading Capacity: As Adam Schafer mentions, managing heavy weights with dumbbells, especially for lower body exercises, can be cumbersome. "With dumbbells, like, at some point it just gets silly and you need a barbell." (14:58)
• Stability Challenges: The inherent need to stabilize each dumbbell can limit the amount of weight lifted, posing a challenge for advanced strength training. "The stability component starts to get in the way." (16:46)

c. Machines: Precision and Safety in Isolation

Pros:

• Superior Isolation: Machines excel at targeting specific muscles without the need for balancing, making them ideal for isolation work. "They have the most brilliant broader base of variety too." (18:34)
• Safety and Rehabilitation: Adam Schafer points out that machines are beneficial for individuals recovering from injuries, allowing controlled movement. "If you have an injury, you can use a machine to limit the range of motion." (20:07)
• High-Volume Training: Machines facilitate high-volume workouts without overtaxing the central nervous system, beneficial for bodybuilders aiming for muscle hypertrophy. "Machines and cables become great ways to add volume to the body." (21:35)

Cons:

• Limited Real-World Transfer: Adam argues that free weights better mimic real-life movements, offering a 20% strength gain advantage. "Free weights just, it's more like real life." (22:09)
• Fit and Individualization Issues: Machines are often designed for average body types, making them less effective or even risky for individuals outside standard measurements. "They’re not individualized for different bodies." (27:29)
• Reduced Mobility and Stability: Exclusive machine training can lead to decreased joint mobility and stability over time. "If you switch purely to machines, you'll lose mobility." (24:11)

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2. Supplement Spotlight: Shilajit

Adam Schafer introduces Shilajit, a supplement gaining popularity for its purported health benefits.

• Sources and Quality: Authentic Shilajit is sourced exclusively from the Himalayan and Altai Mountains. "Himalayan mountains ones are superior." (32:26) Prima V is recommended for its purity and standardized dosing. "Prima V is the best. It's purified, it's made... standardized." (33:20)
• Health Benefits: Shilajit is noted for its steroidogenic activity, promoting natural hormone production, and enhancing collagen synthesis, which may improve skin health. "It helps with testosterone production... upregulate the expression of genes that are responsible for synthesizing collagen." (34:11)
• Caution Against Lab-Made Shilajit: The hosts warn against artificially produced Shilajit, stressing that only naturally occurring Shilajit is effective. "There's only one type of shilajit, it's naturally occurring." (31:00)

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3. Societal Topics: Fertility Laws in Hungary

The conversation shifts to Hungary's recently enacted laws aimed at countering population decline.

• Tax Incentives for Families: Adam highlights a law offering women a 25% reduction in income tax for life for having four children, effectively waiving income taxes. "If a woman has a child, she gets a 25% reduction in her income tax for life. She has four kids. She pays no income taxes for life." (37:10)
• Impact on Social Metrics: Doug notes significant changes in societal behavior, including doubled marriages, halved divorces, and reduced abortion rates. "Marriages have doubled, divorces have halved because of some of these laws." (38:51)
• Potential Global Implications: The hosts discuss the feasibility and potential outcomes if similar policies were adopted elsewhere, considering economic and social factors. "If you were to do something like that, I thought that we have some stuff in the works like that right now." (41:57)

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4. Industry Insights: The "Liver Kings" Documentary

Doug Egge reviews the Netflix documentary "Untold Stories: Liver Kings," delving into the pitfalls of algorithm-driven fame.

• Persona and Authenticity: The documentary reveals how the Liver Kings’ persona was shaped more by marketing strategies than genuine lifestyle practices. "He hired a company to help create his Persona... now he's a character driven by the algorithm." (43:14)
• Negative Effects of Virality: The hosts discuss the psychological toll of seeking virality, highlighting how it can lead to a loss of authenticity and personal turmoil. "He became a character... a curse to be in." (46:49)
• Maintaining Integrity: Adam and Doug reflect on how Mind Pump resisted algorithm-driven content, maintaining their commitment to authentic, community-serving content over viral trends. "We're going to do it the way we've always been doing it, because it's not helping." (48:09)
• Long-Term Consequences: The episode emphasizes the importance of staying true to one's values to avoid the psychological pitfalls associated with forced fame. "Best famous people are the people that didn't want it." (53:28)

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5. Listener Coaching: Q&A Session

a. Targeting Individual Tricep Heads

Question from JT70374 at 57:30

• Discussion: Adam explains that while it's impossible to completely isolate a muscle, specific exercises can emphasize different heads of the triceps. Overhead tricep extensions place the long head in a stretched position, promoting its growth. "Overhead tricep extension. You will target the long head more than you will with exercises like press." (58:12)
• Doug's Insight: Emphasizes that while isolation isn't entirely feasible, varying elbow positioning during exercises can cover all muscle bases for optimal arm development. "Approach every time, training your triceps... cover all your bases." (61:25)

b. Staying Motivated with Disliked Exercises

Question from Tracy McCormick at 63:30

• Doug's Perspective: Reframes disliked exercises as essential for optimal gains, encouraging a mindset shift from aversion to appreciation of the benefits. "Recognizing that the biggest gains come from the things you don't like doing." (62:08)
• Adam's Advice: Advocates for discipline over motivation, suggesting that consistency driven by discipline is more sustainable. "Discipline breeds consistency, not motivation." (63:57)
• Practical Tip: If an exercise significantly hampers motivation, consider substituting it with an alternative that still targets the desired muscle group effectively. "If you just despise doing it, then don't do that exercise. It's better to do something than nothing." (64:03)

c. Collagen Protein vs. Whey/Pea Protein

Question from Mrs. Virginia Davis at 65:16

• Adam's Explanation: Collagen is highly digestible and unlikely to cause digestive issues, but it is an incomplete protein and less effective for muscle synthesis compared to whey. "Collagen is the easiest to digest... But whey is better if you digest it easily." (65:16)
• Doug's Warning: Cautions against purchasing low-quality protein powders, highlighting issues like amino acid spiking where actual protein content is misrepresented. "Make sure you're buying from a reputable brand... companies have been caught amino acid spiking." (66:42)
• Final Takeaway: Prioritize protein powders based on digestibility and brand credibility to ensure effective muscle building. "Your 50 grams of protein is actually 20 grams of protein, in which case it's not very good." (66:53)

d. Training with Osteopenia

Question from Jen Garner at 67:30

• Adam's Strategy: Recommends strength training twice a week using full-body routines coupled with a calorie surplus to combat bone density loss. "Strength train twice a week, follow Maps Anabolic, eat in a calorie surplus." (68:11)
• Doug's Insight: Highlights the importance of dietary adjustments alongside appropriate training to effectively reverse osteopenia. "Eat more and strength train... build muscle and reverse osteopenia." (68:05)
• Progress Monitoring: Suggests tracking strength gains as an indicator of improving bone density. "If you're lifting more, you're strengthening your bones." (69:34)

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6. Final Thoughts and Recommendations

The episode concludes with a series of promotions for Mind Pump’s training programs and supplements, encouraging listeners to engage with their content and products to further enhance their fitness journeys.

Sal Di Stefano wraps up by highlighting the RGB Super Bundle, offering extensive workout programming designed by the hosts to transform one's body and performance. Listeners are encouraged to visit mindpumpmedia.com for more information and to utilize exclusive discount codes.

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Notable Quotes:

• "Barbells are the best man, you get a high school kid to get stronger at a squat, you'll see it." – Adam Schafer (03:37)
• "Dumbbells are the go-to tool for the bodybuilder." – Doug Egge (10:59)
• "Machines are designed by like, what, they have a 5, 8, 100 and something pound guy." – Adam Schafer (27:29)
• "If you have great mobility from strength training with free weights and then you switch purely to machines, you'll lose mobility." – Adam Schafer (24:11)
• "The best famous people are the people that didn't want it." – Doug Egge (53:28)

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Conclusion:

Episode 2603 of Mind Pump provides a comprehensive analysis of barbells, dumbbells, and machines, offering listeners nuanced perspectives on each tool's advantages and limitations. Coupled with insightful listener coaching and discussions on broader topics like supplements and societal trends, the episode serves as a valuable resource for anyone aiming to optimize their muscle-building strategies while maintaining overall health and authenticity in their fitness endeavors.

Transcript

[Sal Destefano]

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

[Adam Schafer]

Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts Sal Destefano, Adam Schafer and Justin Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode. We answer questions that listeners wrote in at Mind Pump Media on Instagram. But this was after the intro. Today's intro was 56 minutes long. In the intro we talk about fitness, science, muscle building, fat loss, current events, family life. It's a good time. By the way, trainers and coaches go to trainerwebinar.com on June 3rd live. I'm doing a sales training. Go sign up. It's free. It costs nothing. Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Organifi. Today we talked about their shilajit gummies. Go check them out. Get 20% off. Go to Organifi.com that's O R G-A-N-I-F I.com mindpump. Use the code mindpump. Get 20% off. This episode is also brought to you by LMNT Element. This is an electrolyte powder with no artificial sweeteners, no sugar. It's got 1,000 milligrams of sodium per serving. That's the right amount of sodium for those of you that work out hard who don't eat heavily processed foods, especially if you're on a low carb diet. Go check them out. Go to drinklmnt.com mindpump Get a free sample pack with any drink mix purchase. We also have a sale this month. Maps 15 performance in the RGB bundle. Both half off right now. If you're Interested, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code MAY50 for that discount. Here comes the show. It's a muscle building showdown. Barbells versus dumbbells versus machines. Which ones are best? Which ones are worst? Let's get into it. We'll start with barbells.

[Justin Andrews]

Race them.

[Adam Schafer]

We will start with barbells and I think I'll start with the pros. Like what are barbells the best at? And I think I can say this pretty confidently. You can load them the best, right? You can just add a lot of weight.

[Justin Andrews]

Stack all the weights on.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, yes, 100%.

[Doug]

Well, and considering how important progressive overload is to seeing progress and hypertrophy, that is a massive pro. So it's not like a kind of pro because somebody might hear that and be like, okay, cool, no big deal. But that's like a big deal when.

[Adam Schafer]

You think of it like that. Now I. So by the way, this discussion is kind of silly because a good.

[Doug]

Why limit yourself to just that, right?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, you use them all but one or the other.

[Adam Schafer]

But really what we're trying to do here is talk about what each one is best at and what each one is worst at. This way, when you put your routine together, there are ways of using barbells that'll maximize their benefit. There are ways of using dumbbells that will maximize their benefit. Same thing with machines. And if you do this properly, you can program them in ways to where you get the best out of all of them.

[Justin Andrews]

And you minimize the weaknesses, typically bilateral movements. I mean, you can lunges, you can do like long lever type overhead presses with just one arm. I mean, it's insanely difficult. But the best uses of it are typically bilateral exercises.

[Adam Schafer]

And for athletic performance in the. Especially in the earlier days, right. When as you get more specialized in your athletic pursuits, like when you get to college and at that level, then this isn't so as important. But for just general athletic performance, like barbells are the best man, you get, you get a high school kid to get stronger at a squat, you'll see it. Well, you see on the court, you.

[Justin Andrews]

See on the field, foundational strength.

[Doug]

Yeah, I was just going to say so to me that that wasn't written on your pro. I think that is a point in itself is it's pro. Is it's the best for building foundational strength. Yes, I think that's. I think you're right. As we get into an athlete, into maybe their later years of high school or college, and definitely into the pros, their warmups, their training becomes far more specialized, becomes far more into injury prevention than it is. But early on, the kid who learns to build strength early or first has a massive competitive advantage versus his peers.

[Adam Schafer]

When you coached your football team, Justin and you guys, you guys did a lot of barbell exercise.

[Justin Andrews]

We did, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

What did you notice with these kids? Because they were all high school, right? Like sophomore juniors. Like.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

What did you see?

[Justin Andrews]

Just, I mean, you saw so many things. Just their overall. Even their coordination, which you don't think, like. Because you're not doing complicated multiplanar movements.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, per se.

[Justin Andrews]

But like just the overall strength, they could summon their power, their snap, their overall confidence. And of course they built muscle, which you could see, like everybody gained, you know, 5 to 15 pounds or so. And you know, and that amount of muscle just translated so well to the field.

[Adam Schafer]

I think also with barbells, you have the best exercise now. Okay. All exercises have value if applied properly. And there's always better exercises than others, depending on the situation. But generally speaking, generally the best exercises, the best strength training exercises to ever exist are the barbell ones. Your overhead press, your deadlift, your squat, your front squat, your power clean, your like. All the best general exercises are done with a barbell. That's to me, one of the biggest pros of training with barbells. You get to pick these incredible exercises that are performed best with the moves.

[Justin Andrews]

The needle the most. Yeah, that's why we stick with them.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. Cons, let's get to the cons of the barbell. I think with a barbell you can get some, some asymmetry or at least it doesn't address asymmetry as well as other methods. So now it'll address gross asymmetries, but you know, a two rep difference between right to left or a little bit of a balance or stability difference between right to left. Like you could train a long time with barbells and it just that asymmetry sticks because your body learns how to compensate because you're. Both sides are lifting the barbell. It's not independent.

[Doug]

Well, this is the case. This is the case. I would make on why you can't just do barbells because at some point, and I, I've never met a perfectly symmetrical person yet, never met somebody who doesn't have some sort of asymmetry. And so you will get this and it will develop. And if you only train, you know, bilateral barbell type movements, it's only going to exacerbate that asymmetry over time.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And so at some point, even if you use barbells for your foundational strength and your athleticism and to build that initial hypertrophy and strength, you will eventually need to move beyond just that to address the asymmetry. Otherwise it will manifest into injury, chronic pain and other things.

[Adam Schafer]

Exercise or even performance leagues.

[Doug]

Sure.

[Adam Schafer]

You know. Yeah. Next. It's just, it's not. Obviously I think this is obvious, but it's not great for isolation work. And isolation work has real value for both hypertrophy. So bodybuilders will utilize isolation work and also just to work on target muscles where you don't want other muscles doing the work necessarily. So you could address certain things like obviously a barbell isn't great for isolation. Now there are bilateral quote unquote isolation exercises, but they're not. It's Barbells are not. If I'm thinking of an isolation exercise. I'm not picking a barbell. Yeah. To do that kind of work.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Correctional work. Here's another one where it's not great. Now I will say this. That building strength in general is correctional. But if I'm doing specific correctional exercise with someone, I'm typically not grabbing a barbell. I'm typically going for dumbbells or machines.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. You'd rather have like independent weight and just something that's a little more manageable to kind of work. Work around that.

[Doug]

I. I don't. I'm trying to think of a situation where I would ever have used a.

[Adam Schafer]

Barbell for correctional work.

[Doug]

You. You would never do that.

[Adam Schafer]

Usually not.

[Doug]

I can't even. Can you think?

[Adam Schafer]

I'm sure there is. If I had to really.

[Doug]

I know. I'm trying. Where you were saying that I'm like. Wait a second. Where.

[Adam Schafer]

It's the last thing I would grab.

[Doug]

Yeah. It's like where you.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't shoehorn it. I mean.

[Doug]

Yeah. I guess if you like. I guess if you had no dumbbells and I had to find a way to kind of balance you out. I think we could be forced to. But I would say it's terrible for that. I mean it's just correctional work. Typically with correctional work there is some sort of asymmetry between left to right, which is most common. Right.

[Adam Schafer]

Just imbalances in general.

[Doug]

And. And a barbell. Even though you can do things like suitcase carries and some things where a Turkish get up with a barbell. And there's some. There's some unique one arm exercises for the barbell. But very unique for the most part. You don't do anything with one arm on the barbell. Therefore if you have a discrepancy from left to right and you need to try and balance that out, it's almost necessary to have.

[Justin Andrews]

The only thing I could potentially think that might relate is like addressing sticking points. But that would be for specific lifts.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And not necessarily corrective postural type movement.

[Doug]

Yeah. I don't know if I would put. I wouldn't categorize corrective or asymmetry. Right. So for. I think for corrective work it's almost irrelevant. Non existent right now.

[Adam Schafer]

Now the best exercises with barbells that I think you can't find great replacements for deadlift. Like, you know. Can you do deadlifts with dumbbells?

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Could other machines with deadly. Yeah. But it's not really the same thing. Not even close.

[Doug]

No.

[Adam Schafer]

And And a back squat. Yep. Those two exercises are pretty exclusive barbell movements for sure. Let's get to dumbbells. So dumbbells are also free weights. They're also great. I think dumbbells are great for symmetry. Yes, they really are. Like, like you have two independent weights, you know, your asymmetries become quite glaring and there are ways of really showing yourself asymmetry. Like if I do two dumbbells at the same time, I'll notice. If I do one dumbbell without the other one and count the reps, then I really notice. So when you're trying to build symmetry in the body, right to left symmetry, like dumbbells are amazing for that.

[Justin Andrews]

It gives you such a brilliant broader base of, of variety too. The way that you can train with them even just like unilaterally or you know, having alternating or having one holding in an isometric and. Yeah, so there's just like, it's pretty crazy what you can do with dumbbells versus a barbell.

[Doug]

Well, this is why I would say that the, the dumbbell is the go to tool for the bodybuilder. Yeah, you, you don't do a lot of barbell lifts. Although I would say I did more than probably the average early years.

[Adam Schafer]

Right. Build that mass.

[Doug]

Yeah, but you really, I mean primarily most of my lifts were dumbbell related, aside from the couple exclusive things like squatting and deadlifting. Like you said. The rest of the time I'm like, if I'm going to bench press, I'm going to use dumbbells, you know, just for the, for the, the body sculptor, the person that wants to really focus on symmetry. It is so good for that. And, and as you get more experience, you can start to kind of catch that real time. And what I mean by that is like I could be doing a dumbbell press, right. And I feel my left starting to fatigue and get out and then I'll stop the exercise right there. Right. So, and, and that would be weird with a, a barbell you wouldn't feel, you wouldn't notice it, you wouldn't feel that, you wouldn't feel the discrepancy from left to right. The bar would slow down or not move, but you wouldn't know it's because the left isn't giving as much power as the right. And so when, when I was training for bodybuilding, I would be doing an exercise with dumbbells and if I noticed one side was starting to fatigue or give out, that's the end of the rep. Whereas if that was A barbell, I would have finished that rep out. And so that again, just continues to exacerbate that asymmetry. Whereas if you're, if you're trying to balance that, that's a great way to kind of balance that is catching it in real time. That's a huge pro to the dumbbell.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you know, what you said, Justin too, it just, it's versatile. Like dumbbells are super versatile. There's so many exercises I could do with dumbbells. So much variety. It's even versatile for power. Like if I want to develop power, dumbbells require less skill. It's, it's way less skill involved doing a, you know, a snatch with a dumbbell than it is with a barbell. So I could versatile versatility wise, I could take somebody and teach them. It would take far less time for us to get to the power movement with a dumbbell.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, yeah, and you can keep it more like centrally located to your body so you have way more control over that, which may. It brings the risk factor a lot further down.

[Doug]

And again, back to the, the bodybuilding. When it comes to sculpting of a Zeke and targeting smaller muscle groups, you know, we, you think of the big barbell lifts and that gives you overall general strength in, in, in, in the, in the big muscle groups. When you get into sculpting the body, you might be trying to target just the rear delt, you know, or you might just be trying to.

[Adam Schafer]

Try doing that with a dumbbell.

[Doug]

Yeah, try doing that with a barbell. Trying to target a very small muscle. It's not that it's impossible, but it's very difficult. And there's a lot of ways to do that when you have dumbbells. And so for the, the people that are into sculpting a physique. Yes, again, the dumbbells are incredible for this.

[Adam Schafer]

Dumbbells are the best for stability. Uh, you want to develop stability in a joint. The ability to support and stay steady. Like dumbbell exercises are excellent for that. It's a great way to develop that joint integrity, that stability that, that where the joint is, it feels secure because you're balancing away. Barbells are good for this too, but a dumbbell's even better because you have one arm or, you know, one side of your body doing the work.

[Doug]

Well, this is actually why most of my clients, not all, but most of my clients, since we trained middle aged or older, deconditioned clients that didn't have a lot of strength, I almost always started on dumbbell movements for that stability. And if you look at the way Map Starter is designed. Map Starter, and I know you hear us talk about Map Syna B being like our foundational program. It really is. But it's a foundational program for people that have already been introduced to strength training and have some familiarity with some of the barbell movements. That's really it. Otherwise, total beginner. Yeah, total. Total beginner is like going into Map Starter, which is all dumbbell focused. And for that reason right there, because you take somebody who's never lifted away before and you put them in with these independent dumbbells, that's a quick way to get that stability. And then when they carry, they'll carry that over into the barbell and be able to get more out of the barbell.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right. All right. Some cons, I mean, for some lifts, it's just harder to load. Like doing lower body exercises, for example.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

With dumbbells, like, at some point it just gets silly and you need a barbell. You know, there's a lot of lifts like that where loading heavy starts to get a bit silly with dumbbells because they're hard to wield, they're hard to maneuver, and the stability component starts to get in the way.

[Doug]

Well, and you can, you can hold on to with two hands or both feet, significantly more weight.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right.

[Doug]

So not only just the loading aspect, but you can just, you can hold on to more, more weight when you're utilizing both hands or both feet in a movement. And so at some point, this becomes the limiting factor for the client who only does dumbbell stuff. Is that, hey, and this is common. You've heard it probably on the podcast. We'll get somebody who's working out from home. They've been working out from home for years, doing all the movements that we recommend, and they just, they're, they're already holding on to 80 pound dumbbells for deadlifts. And it's like, like, how do I get better results?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, get a barbell.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it's anymore.

[Doug]

Yeah. And for the strong person who's been, you know, deadlifting or exercising for a couple years, £160 on the deadlift is not crazy. I mean, Katrina could dead at one point was deadlifting. 275. So what? She would never be able to get even remotely close to that if all she had was dumbbells.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right. Which, you know, it's the next point. You really can't effectively do some of the best exercises like squats and deadlifts. Squats and deadlifts. You know, they're good when you get started with dumbbells, but then they suck with dumbbells. As you start to reach a certain.

[Justin Andrews]

You really have to modify it. Yeah. And I mean, you could put yourself in the split stance, and you could, but now we're really just exaggerating that instability to try and work on that type of training, which is valuable, but.

[Adam Schafer]

It'S not the exercise.

[Justin Andrews]

But it's not loading. It's not that. That big signal.

[Adam Schafer]

Right.

[Doug]

Oh, you. And you bring up a really good point. Like, I think that's. I think what you're trying to make this point where this conversation, it's not. Nobody here is saying it's impossible or saying one is necessary. It's just that some of them have advantages and disadvantages. Like Justin said, if I only had dumbbells, it doesn't mean I couldn't get a client. Great results. Like, I would find a way, a workaround. We wouldn't be doing a lot of. We wouldn't be doing any barbell backs. We have a barbell. We would be doing things like, yeah, like Bulgarian split squats and lunges and stuff like that, and we can get great results. But you do. You do. You are forced to become more creative. You are where, you know, the bar. Loading the barbell for a back squat or deadlift leaves a lot of room to progress.

[Justin Andrews]

Such a big signal.

[Doug]

Yeah. And for a long time, I mean, you could work on getting stronger in those. Those big movements for years and years and years. Years. Years and years of perfecting those movements and adding weight to the bar without the. The weight ever being a. Like a factor of, oh, I can't hold it anymore because I've got both hands or both feet.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. Favorite exercises with dumbbells. I mean, anything for shoulders. Anything for arms. I think dumbbells are the best. Like, you really want to develop incredible, strong, stable shoulders. Dumbbells are great. You want to do isolation exercises for the upper body. Dumbbells are absolutely great. And even for chest and back, dumbbells are really, really great. So. But for me, if I had to pick, like, a favorite exercise with dumbbells, like, you know, one arm overhead press or two arm overhead presses, like, man, I could get the range of motion. I love barbell overhead press. Don't get me wrong. It's a close second, but if I had to pick one or the other, it'd be dumbbells for sure. All right, let's get to machines. Machines, they're the best for isolation. The best. Like you cannot isolate a muscle as effectively as you can with a machine because you don't have to balance it.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

You don't have to worry about the, you know, going in the wrong direction. It's on a track, it's going in the right direction. All you got to figure, all you got to focus on is feeling the target muscle and moving it in isolation. Like, you cannot isolate a muscle like you can on a machine.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, they have like all the padding and all the different positional help for rest. You know, where we can now really just focus in on the. The one action versus trying to stabilize your whole body up in. Against gravity.

[Doug]

Well, gravity was the point I was going to make. The, the one major con that both the barbell and dumbbell share is that they require to work against gravity.

[Adam Schafer]

Right.

[Doug]

Where with a cable machine, I can position that anywhere. And so if I want to target a certain muscle, I don't have to think of like, oh, gravity, gravity. Gravity is going to be pulling down this. So I have to put my body all sideways to.

[Justin Andrews]

To anchor my legs here.

[Doug]

So it's great that you can target a muscle. You do not have to factor in gravity to target that muscle. And that's a huge con because. Or a pro because you could get into a cable machine. It was also what I liked about cables too, is it's. It's so versatile that you could take a client had done this before where it was. I remember having. I'm sure you guys did the same thing. Gym. So packed, everything's got aligned. Do all your workout right until train the whole workout. On a cable machine, I can get an entire full body workout and never have to change anything but the. The weight and the. Maybe the arm angles and. And I can hit every muscle on the body.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right. They're also good for training while injured. I mean, if you have an injury, typically you can use a machine before you could do anything else. Because you get in the machine, you can limit the range of motion. I don't need to balance it. I don't need to stabilize it. It's safe. I'm not gonna drop something on myself or re. Injure myself. In fact, this was why machines were invented in the first place. The first machines that were really commercially built or used, some of the first ones were for rehab. So when it comes to injuries, if I had a client that was injured, oftentimes it was bans. And then past that, it was machines which were the best for that, you know, Next it's, they're not as taxing. I think the reason why bodybuilders, I can say this pretty confidently. One of the reasons why bodybuilders love machines so much and remember these body bodybuilders are huge. They're already massive, tons of muscle. I think they love the isolation component. And it's also not as taxing. I mean, when you're £250 and just jacked and you're trying to do exercise, that's a lot of muscle to move. It gets exhausting, it gets taxing. So you want to isolate, get the muscle and the machine just does some of that work for you by stabilizing it. And then I can just focus on developing that muscle. I think that's got to be one of the reasons why.

[Doug]

Yeah. Whether they know that or have just subconsciously figured that out, I agree with you. Because you can have. When you, when you're training as much as a bodybuilder is you're in the gym seven times a week, sometimes twice. Seven times a week. Right. And so you can, you just cannot do.

[Adam Schafer]

Imagine doing barbells.

[Doug]

You cannot do barbell squats, deadlifts and overhead presses 14 times in a week. And, and see, and see any sort of progress in your body.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, especially if you need volume.

[Doug]

Yes. So, so, so the, the machines and cables and stuff become great ways to add volume to the body and the training without over taxing the cns. And I think that's, and whether they know that going into it or they've just figured that out, like, oh, I can do those extra cable exercises. And it, it doesn't totally screw me over for recovery. It is why for sure.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Now some of the console machines, they, they don't have as much carryover to everyday life. All right? And here's the simple reason why. So getting stronger in general will always make life easier. So I want to say that first, because you get those fitness nerds that are like, this is baloney. You get strong. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you get stronger. You're probably going to move better in life. But we're comparing machines to barbells, to dumbbells. In life, you're never lifting anything that isn't free. Everything's a free weight in life. A table, a couch, a box, a jug of water, your kids. Nothing's on a track, nothing's a weight stack. It's all free. And so free weights just, it's more like real life. And so you gain 20% more strength with free weights. You'll feel that more in life than you will if you gain 20% of strength with machines.

[Doug]

Well, and there's also this interesting thing, phenomenon that you've talked about before also where it's like if you get really, really strong in a machine exercise or let's say, let's use something like the leg press and then you like, let's say you get really strong on the leg press, you started off at £200 and now you're pressing £900 on the leg press. You may not even see your squat go up out of your barbell, back squat. But if you get really, really good, if you go from £200 to £400 on the bar, I guarantee your leg press will significantly go up. And so the, the strength doesn't carry over from the cable cable machine strength the same way that freeway strength carries over into the cable and machine.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. So if you want to feel it in the real world, like, you know, free weights will do that.

[Justin Andrews]

I always remember that too with, you know, Smith Machine and some of my clients and would prefer it and I would try and explain that, but then we'd have to physically take them over to the bench press and feel the difference. And it's just like having a track and having this minimal amount of variability in that exercise. Like it, you, you take all these other variables you don't even foresee on the bench press and now it's like an entirely different experience.

[Adam Schafer]

It's also, machines also aren't the best for mobility or stability because you're not requiring much of training in that regard. In fact, I've experienced personally. Now again, I'm going to be clear for the fitness nerds that are going to try and counter this, getting stronger generally improves mobility. Okay, just generally does. But again, we're comparing and if you have great mobility from strength training with free weights and then you switch purely to machines, you'll lose mobility. I've experienced this. I've experienced going from pure free weight training using the overhead press as an example. I've gone from doing only overhead presses with free weights to only using overhead presses with machines. Great Delt development. I'm getting hypertrophy. Go back to free weights. I lose, I lost mobility. Now my shoulder starts to hurt when I use a barbell for overhead presses. And I got to go and retrain myself with the barbell. And then as far as stability is concerned, you know, again, just, just terrible misinformation that you'll get from these fitness nerds they'll highlight these studies and they'll say, look, all the stabilizer muscles are just as active. That's not the same thing. You can act. I could put, I could put ems. I could put electrodes on Adam's body and activate all his muscles. That doesn't mean he can move them and operate them in a particular way. There isn't just activation. Yes, you activate stabilizer muscles anytime you do a machine. Okay, that's true, but it's different than practicing and using and training the central nervous system to use those stabilizers in real ways.

[Justin Andrews]

Range of motion, it's the, the whole like full range of motion that doesn't get expressed. So now you're leaving yourself susceptible if you know, first you do grab a weight that's like not on a track and it's just like the minute, like a millimeter difference in your body is just trained to be strong with, with specificity where I've trained it and stressed it. And if you haven't stressed it there, you don't have the strength.

[Doug]

Now since we're talking about cons of the machine, I think that we, we should add this, this bit of the conversation in there that I think is a mistake that people make is many times, and I already alluded to it, what did I say? Our, our starter program is completely comprised of. It's a bunch of dumbbell free weight, stability ball type stuff for the, for that. But there is this misconception for the average consumer who comes in the gym and think, and I understand why, because you can look at the picture on the side of the machine and it, and in red, it tells you what muscles it's working. It's simple. You get in there, you push, you pull, you do the thing. And so I understand the, the you know, desire to go that path, but it is not the ideal way to start your strength training routine. Your ideal way of start strength training would be free weights. Just start light and easy.

[Adam Schafer]

By the way, your body is a free weight body weight exercise.

[Doug]

Yeah. And so to, to get, to start training yourself and get strong with these machines, you are losing out on the extra benefits that you would get for the same amount of time in the gym and effort. If it was that was just put towards the free weight training first, you'll reap more benefits, you'll have more carryover and strength. You'll see more results. But people tend to gravitate towards the machines because they think, oh, this is for beginners. And it's easy because I can just go in There. But in reality, I would never start the beginner on the machine.

[Adam Schafer]

What makes the machine easier is you look at the picture and it tells you what to do. Whereas with the dumbbell, you look at it and it's just a bunch of potential.

[Doug]

Right.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't know all the exercise, but there's an infinite number.

[Justin Andrews]

Hold my body.

[Adam Schafer]

Here's the. Here's a con with machines that a lot of people don't realize is they're just not individualized for different bodies. They're not.

[Doug]

They're designed by like, what, they have 5, 8, 100 and something pound guy. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And there's some variance up or down, but if you're tall, your arms are longer. Like, like even a guy like Adam, like Adam, you know, Adam goes in and I know you. I have to even do this. I'm only six foot. I'm not this giant guy. I'm six foot tall. But even when I use machines, I have to maneuver, you know, position my body differently to align my elbow with the, you know, the pivot point. Because if I just go in the machine the way I'm supposed to, it's off. Because my body doesn't fit the way the machine was designed. In fact, this is why machines actually can oftentimes have a high injury rate. It's not because the machine isn't safe. It's because the person's body doesn't match the way the machine was designed. And this typically happens with people who are shorter or taller than the average.

[Doug]

Yeah, if you fall into the very average body type, then this doesn't really apply that much to you. But most, I mean, a lot of people don't. That is the average. So I get that there's a percentage of people that, oh, they're fine. But for the most part, if you're above average or below average when it comes to height or size and weight like machines are, I've always had to position myself all awkward or different in them, you know, and luckily I understand.

[Adam Schafer]

You understand biomechanics.

[Doug]

I understand biomechanics. So I need. I understand. I know how I need to position my body in order to get the most of the machine. Most people don't. Most people will sit in there and just go about it. And so to your point, and even if it's not a risk and injury thing, it's just that you're not reaping the most benefits for that. I mean, there's so many. There's so many better things that you could be doing free weight wise. And I just.

[Adam Schafer]

Free weights, they go to your body. So you move a free weight. It moves according to your body. When you move in a machine, you're moving according to the machine.

[Doug]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

So favorite exercises? I like back exercises with machines because the back is such a big. There's so many muscles on the back and there's so many different angles you get it from. And I personally can use a lot of volume for my back. And so machines. If I'm ever going to be in a gym and be like, ooh, I'm going to do like a machine only workout, it's probably for back. I almost never do it. A pure machine workout for anything.

[Doug]

I don't know if I have like a favorite. Actually, I have a. I mean, I.

[Adam Schafer]

Have a favorite machine. I could.

[Doug]

So I have you. You talk about this and I think I have a favorite way. I like to use machines. I love to use machines as a. Just going in and touching the weights. I'm not trying to.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

It's like I've already trained a couple times that week on free weights. Maybe I'm in a hotel or gym and it's just like I just want to get in there, get a little bit of a pump move. You know, I'm odd being I'm in lazy mood. I'm not in a mood to get after it. I don't need to. Already did earlier that week. It's like I'm gonna go in there and just kind of go through the motions. And so almost like we talk about focus or trigger sessions. Yeah, that's kind of how I. I love to use. Or let's say I overreached on. Let's say I'm running a MAPS anabolic program. I'm on. I'm on my third foundational day and my second foundational day. I really push things too far. And so maybe I exchange all the exercises that are barbell and stuff and I go all machines that day because I overreached on Wednesday or whatever. And so that's how I like to use machines.

[Adam Schafer]

The other way to use it that I found is if I want to do a really high volume workout. If I want to do a really high volume workout, it's way too taxing to do just barbells and dumbbells. So I'll go in and do just a bunch of machines. And I could do a long workout because I like working out one of those weirdos without frying myself, without frying my body. All right. Hey, I gotta tell you guys, I so the shilajit market is exploding on social media. Right? Like nobody heard about it then, now everybody's heard about it. We were always proud because Organifi early is one of the first ones to come on and talk about it. And I knew about shilajit just because I'm a supplement fanatic and I knew about its value in ayurvedic medicine. I knew it had a lot of studies behind it. So every once in a while, if I have a little bit of time, I like to look up what's happening in this market. And a couple things have been quite apparent, which is really interesting. So I've done some reading. So first off, shilajit is either naturally occurring or some companies are trying to make it in a lab. That's not shilajit. So don't get lab made shilajit. There's only one type of shilajit, it's naturally occurring. However, whenever you have anything that's naturally occurring, there's a wide variance of quality and potency. Just wide. Like you take, you could take, you know, wild raspberries and you'll see a difference in nutrients. It's especially true for shilajit, which has been made over thousands of years by plant matter decomposing, be compressed, you know, comes out through rock as this plant kind of tarry material. So there's two main places and I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget that shilajit.

[Doug]

So is this. Okay, so you are saying this now? I'm going like, how does the consumer know that this is of the highest quality? Is it because where it came from or the dose? Like, what is it?

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, well, I'll get there. So there are, there are the Altai Mountains and the Himalayan mountains. Those are the two places that shilajit. That's it, yes. There's only two places that you'll find it that, that they'll actually go and source it from. The Himalayan mountains. This is the, the most potent, the highest in nutrients. It's the dark black resin type of shilajit. The ones from the Alta mountains, much weaker, not as nutrient dense. So Himalayan mountains ones are superior. Now, there's a company called Prima V that has been making that, has been using shilajit or has been selling shilajit to supplement companies or to companies for a long time. That's where Organifi sources it.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Prima V is the best. It's purified, it's made. They make sure they have very low heavy metal content and it's got the highest amount of Kind of nutrients in this. Standardized. They'll go in and they'll test it, make sure that every dose is the same.

[Justin Andrews]

How high up do they have to go to thousands of mountains.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I mean. I mean, thousands of. Yes. Feet. Sorry, malays or. Yeah. 18,000 to 23. It's up in the, like, you know, 10,000, 20,000ft.

[Doug]

Is that the only place it grows or in.

[Adam Schafer]

In the. In the Himalayan mountains. That's where it is. So you got to go way up there in order to get it.

[Justin Andrews]

Black gold up there.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. By the way, I didn't know this. So there's a patent on Prima V or some of the compounds in Prima V that shows that it promotes the natural production of hormones in the body. So it has steroidogenic activity.

[Justin Andrews]

How strange.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. I told you guys. It helps with testosterone production in people. It also. This is crazy, too. It seems to up regulate. Actually, the research shows us up regulate the expression of genes that are responsible for synthesizing collagen and other components of muscle cells. So this is probably why when they take it, people notice their skin gets better and all that stuff wild.

[Justin Andrews]

Now, would this be similar to, like, let's say if the soil was super condensed with minerals and nutrients and all that? Like. Like, is that where we're getting all the benefits from, like, the mineral content from it or like what.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, there's a lot of compounds in shilajit, fulvic acid, and the other one is there's another acid that's in there that they. They think there's a. There's a combination of things in there, but it literally is the Himalayan mountains. It was plants from thousands and thousands of years ago that have been decomposing and being. Being compressed in the mountains that then ooze out of the rock as this black.

[Doug]

That's so wild.

[Justin Andrews]

What's weird to me is they decided to eat it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, there was a dude thousands of years ago. It's probably some guy starving, you know, over the mountain.

[Doug]

I also feel like it's always that. It's always that supplement that blows up. It's the one that's so rare to find. It reminds me of, like, memorisai berries when they was.

[Adam Schafer]

They weren't rare, by the way.

[Doug]

Huh?

[Adam Schafer]

Those are like. Those aren't rare, by the way. They're rare here.

[Doug]

They were rare here. They were. They weren't. You couldn't find them here. You had to get them from like, you know, South Africa or something. No.

[Adam Schafer]

Brazil.

[Doug]

Is it Brazil? Yeah. I don't remember where they were. But I remember that was, like, the big thing was just, like, only can be found here. And there's something about the scarcity of something that makes it all sudden this popular. Great. You know, we have. I can't wait. We have Drew. We haven't seen Drew in a long time, and he comes in the studio next week, and since we've. Since his new products, I just. I. I'm so curious if he's the one who's on this, right? Or he's got somebody goes on these.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, quests to go even there in.

[Doug]

Person, because he's been. I mean, he's been on his game for. For as long as that company's been around. He seems to be, like, such a trendsetter when it comes to. Now. You obviously knew about it. I had no idea. I never heard about. I remember the first time I heard about it was when it. When Organifi shipped it to us. I'm like, what the hell is this?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. What's this? Black gummy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I got excited right away when I saw. Oh, you guys did it.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

It's just really cool.

[Doug]

He's so smart, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Speaking of trends and stuff, have you guys seen some of the laws that Hungary has passed to help with the depopulation thing that's going on? So, you know, there's this big problem in modern societies where, you know, they're calling it fertility, population collapse, right? People having less kids. And the way that society is organized now, if we don't have more people that are working to support people that aren't working, this could cause a big problem. So a lot of these. These modern societies are trying to figure this out. Like, how do we solve this? So Hungary passed some. Some crazy laws. You want to hear what? You want to hear? What?

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, is this with, like, robots or what?

[Adam Schafer]

No, dude.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

They give women. So if a woman has a child, she gets a 25% reduction in her income tax for life. She has four kids. She pays no income taxes. Whoa.

[Doug]

Talk about serious incentive.

[Adam Schafer]

Look at Adam. Adam's, like, off 12.

[Doug]

Serious incentive. Katrina and I were just talking about this last night because. So, I mean, you know, the U.S. what? The U.S. passed to help support this. And I was explaining it to her. She's like, why did he do that? I said, well, he's on the side of the fence of, we don't want. We don't want the US to be caught in the trap of the. The depopulation either, because that could be really bad for Our economy. So all the fertility stuff that you normally have to pay out of your pocket is. He's. He's forcing that to insurance to cover that.

[Adam Schafer]

Really?

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah. Like, Trump already passed that. So that, like, in the. In the. All the stuff that Katrina and I had paid for in the previous years, we had to pay out of pocket. Where now our insurance covers that.

[Adam Schafer]

That's just going to make insurance more expensive.

[Doug]

I mean, probably.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

But it also incentivizes the person who probably couldn't afford to encourage it. Oh, yeah, you have. I mean, it's not cheap to do stuff. It's crazy expensive.

[Adam Schafer]

I know. I think that the way that they'll encourage this is by doing, like, tax incentives. I think incentives that will help one of the. One, you know, if you're a married couple with children, there'll be an incentive for one of them to stay at home. That's a big deal. A lot of people, like, we both got to work. If someone's like, wow, I don't need to. I won't have to work. And then I'll, you know, get this incentive to have a kid, I think that might help, you know, because here's what's happened in Hungary. Marriages have doubled, divorces have halved, abortions have halved because of some of these laws that they pass over there. So it works.

[Doug]

Wow.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, you talk to people who don't have kids for a little while, and you ask them, why aren't you having them? And one of the main reasons is it's expensive. Yeah, it's expensive. I got to focus on my career, you know?

[Doug]

So, I mean, I joke about that all the time because people ask me about my. My. My toys and my expenses, and they compare me to you guys, like, are you getting paid more than the other guys? I said, no, bro. I said, I got four kids. If I had four. I said, I have four kids, I wouldn't have all them toys.

[Adam Schafer]

Remind my. My. My kid, my older kids, especially about that, you know, you. You could be a Ferrari. Yeah. While they're complaining. Yeah. I got to deal with you.

[Doug]

I saw somebody break time. You know what the average cost of kids from 0 to 18? What it is. It's. It's millions of dollars.

[Adam Schafer]

Is it millions?

[Doug]

It's over a million. Yeah, maybe look it up, Doug, and see what it is. Like, what the. The.

[Adam Schafer]

Doug don't type in. How much does a kid cost?

[Doug]

The. The average expense of raising a kid from 0 to 18 years old. I believe it's just over and that's.

[Adam Schafer]

If you don't send them to private school.

[Doug]

Oh, yeah. That has nothing. Oh, yeah, that's not. Oh, yeah. That's thrown out the window. You do stuff like that. You do private school or tutoring or anything that's like groceries and the bare necessities from 0 to 18 and I forget what it is.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

$414,000.

[Doug]

That was.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, that's a lot.

[Doug]

Oh, yeah, that's. That's a Ferrari. That's still.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, wow.

[Doug]

It is. It's still that.

[Adam Schafer]

You know what I'm saying?

[Doug]

And again, to your point, that's not. That's average for the country. That's not Bay Area. That's not.

[Adam Schafer]

But imagine, though. I don't imagine this, right? Imagine if the. The. The government's like, here's a deal. If you get married and you decide to have a kid, we'll give you a loan. Because this is what Hungary is doing. We'll give you a loan so that, you know, she could stay at home. But with each kid, you can get a reduction in income taxes, and you get four kids, you pay no income taxes for life. Could you imagine with the population explosion.

[Doug]

That that would cause?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, that would definitely go for.

[Doug]

The problem with that, though. This is. This. This is going to be controversial. Let me.

[Adam Schafer]

You have to stay married.

[Doug]

Let me see how I say this so I don't get roasted for this. The. It incentivizes the. The. The. The worst people having kids, and the best people wouldn't care. So the people that. That amount of money is irrelevant to them may not incentivize them to have more kids, but the people that are like, oh, shit, I can keep every bit of my minimum wage. I'm gonna have fucking four kids.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't think so.

[Doug]

I've seen that firsthand for myself.

[Adam Schafer]

I know, but I think if it was like, okay, let me put it. Because this. Are. These are big tax cuts. It's not a little one.

[Justin Andrews]

I've seen that movie.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I think. I think you'd have to stay. They'd have to have incentives for marriage, because I agree with you. But look, I know people who move to Puerto Rico so they can pay less taxes. I know people move different states.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, like. And I think wealthy people pay the biggest amount.

[Doug]

Well, so it would have. That's why it have to be equally fair to them. It couldn't. It can't be like how we've. We've scaled some of these other tax benefits where it's like, oh, if you only make this, then you get that benefit. It would have to go all the way up to the. The wealthy, which arguably are more educated and more affluent and probably kid people that you probably might want.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't think that somebody. Let's imagine some person making, you know, $2 million a year. Right. And they could pay no income taxes for having four kids.

[Doug]

I mean, that's a trade.

[Adam Schafer]

That's a great trade for some.

[Doug]

No, no. As long as it. But I feel like most these tax incentives don't work that way. They normally are on a sliding scale. And. And they. And. Which I understand. Right. And I'm. I'm not. That's not me, like, bitching. It's just that it. Is it really going to incentivize the part of the population that would probably be in our.

[Adam Schafer]

I think they don't care, honestly. Think they just. They need.

[Doug]

Well, no, they just need kids.

[Adam Schafer]

We need people.

[Doug]

Yeah, we need people. And so they're like, whatever. Not thinking about it. So. But I. I wonder if they. If we were to do something like that. I. I thought that we had some stuff in the works like that right now.

[Adam Schafer]

I. I know that they're looking at it and trying to figure out, like, how do we encourage this?

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, how do we help this situation?

[Doug]

Hey, did you guys. Did you guys see. Okay, so Netflix has a series. I've talked about the series before. It's probably. I think it's the best series that Netflix has ever done, which is their. Their version of 30 for 30. 30 for 30 is an ESPN series that they're done so well if. Even if you're not a sports person, they're such great documentaries, and they. Netflix has a series called Untold Stories that's like that. And they just released the Liver Kings a couple nights ago.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, my God.

[Doug]

And I had to watch it. Oh, yeah, I had to watch it. Yeah. I mean, so. So the audience knows, like, he'd been trying to get on our show long before one. Anybody even knew who he was. Then when we looked into him, we were like, nah, we're not supporting or helping that by having him on the show. So we denied that long time ago. Then all the steroid allegations came out in the fall, and then he wanted to come back on the show. He's reached out again to us recently. We've denied it. Although I think now that I've seen the documentary, I do want to have him on the show because I want to ask him some of the hard questions because this is. It was him and he told his whole story and was honest about all the stuff he did. And what. It was really neat for me, the whole thing that was. Or the takeaway that I got was we recently admitted that we had hired somebody to really help us with the algorithm. Right. Like, you know, we've never really invested in that. We invested it last year and said, let's have a professional, you know, help steer our content up into that point. We've been led by our gut and what we think is going to serve our community the best, not what would go the most viral, not what would make us the most money. It was always like, what would serve our community the best. And that's how we've created content, not.

[Adam Schafer]

What'S gonna get the most views.

[Doug]

Exactly. And you know, of course, after almost 10 years, we go, okay, maybe, maybe we try it another way and see and you know, maybe we can find a way to blend what we do with what they do. And, and we did it and we got more views. The company did not make any more money in this, the, in the series. A little spoiler alert that I share here. It's not, it's just a small part of this series or this show is he hired a company also to basically help him. He came, he had this vision of, of I want to build this supplement company. He'd actually already started the supplement company, so he had it going. He was already living this ancestral life. And supposedly, even though everyone's just like, I don't know what to believe about this guy anymore, his kids were like really sick and were like having rashes and they were in the hospital a lot, stuff like that. And that he did. He read Mark Sisson's book and Ancestral Living or whatever and started to eat this way and he noticed it cleared his kids skin up and they were doing better. And then the, the greedy money making side of him goes like, okay, I'm getting traction here, I want to figure this out. So we hired this company that basically helped create his Persona and they would literally like tell him things to do. Now when he came and talked to them, he pitched them on this whole thing of like, why is his reason behind it and his family and all this stuff and told them that he was living this lifestyle and was drug free. And so this company was like, we really thought, this is a great message. We want to get behind it. We're going to put all our resources to really helping this guy explode. This could be massive. And they did that. And he actually really struggled with it early on. Like, he. He said he took some, like, hundred cuts to do a. A 15 second Instagram video a hundred times, practicing and fumbling all over his words and not. And what happened? He goes, any. And he goes, the. This is the. The marketing company is speaking now saying, like, we would throw him all these ideas and he was just like, oh, that's not me, or I don't want to do this. And they would convince. And then finally he did one and it popped off. And then they said like a light switch went off for him. Like, oh, I get the game now. And so from that moment on, his content was driven by the algorithm.

[Adam Schafer]

And to the extreme, he became a character.

[Doug]

Totally. And why that was such a.

[Adam Schafer]

It's so funny. You said what you said earlier, Adam, you didn't hear us earlier. We went for a walk. You were with Doug. You had brought up this liver king thing. Then you took off and Jess and I were talking and literally what we said was because we fired that person. Right. For people that know we fired him because we weren't making an impact and it felt wrong and it wasn't working. And we were shoehorning episodes and trying to make it work, and it just wasn't right. Eventually we're like, done. We're going to do it the way we've always been doing it, because it's not helping. One of the worst things that could have happened is had we hired, that would have worked. And it crushed.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And all of a sudden we're making 10 times.

[Justin Andrews]

The business is exploding, asking the algorithm.

[Adam Schafer]

What to do now. Then we're stuck in this. Like, you become this thing, this monster, and you just keep.

[Doug]

That's exactly what. So happy that was the takeaway I got from watching this whole thing was I was like, wow, what a blessing it was that it didn't work. Work for us.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right.

[Doug]

Because if it did, imagine the fights we would have had. Like, imagine if just one of us had the pool of like, yeah, this doesn't feel right. Like, bro, what are you talking about? We're double our business in the last month. Yeah. We're crushing. And so.

[Adam Schafer]

And you could. You could justify. It's still good information.

[Doug]

Right? Right. Because it wasn't like we were. We weren't lying, we weren't putting. So it was still. But it still wasn't coming from, like, our. From us, from our gut, from our heart, from the things that have steered this company since day one. And so I thought it was. It's such a good watch for. For anybody who's in this space, and they want to build something. And. And because there's a lot of examples like him, there's a lot of people that have figured out how to hack virality. Right. How to get famous online and get attention. And I'm telling you right now, it's a curse. That. It is a curse. You may think on the outside looking in at these people because they're flaunting their cars and they're flying private and their lifestyle. And you're like, man, I want that. And you think you want that, but what a prison to be in to have to completely make your life change who you are a certain way you live a life. And. And he talks about. The marketers talk about how insidious it is because you just have. In order to keep it going, you have to keep upping the ante. Yeah, yeah, you got it.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, now you're eating liver raw.

[Doug]

Well, exactly. It's not enough to just bite into the testicle now you got to kill the cow and do it on live. And then you gotta. Then you gotta bite it right after you just killed it. Like, you got to just keep.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, my God.

[Doug]

Upping the level to keep the attention of these people, to then monetize those people. And so that was the big thing that I got from. It was probably just how tortured this dude is inside. And he's not even who he. It's all the big fight facade, dude, It's a curse.

[Adam Schafer]

This is my number one reason why the worst. I would never let my kids become famous. Never. I would stop it if it started to happen, because, first of all, it would be hard for an adult. Yeah, you're doing this thing, you're doing this act, and it gets popular and you're making money and it's all this affirmation. Okay, keep going this direction. It doesn't feel right, but the money feels good or the fate and the attention feels good, and you keep going. And it's just torturous. A child. Oh, my God. This is why they're so. This is why the. The. You know, these childhood actors, why they. One of the reasons why they get in so much problems is, like, as a kid, this is. It starts to. You literally believe.

[Doug]

Well, that's who I am.

[Justin Andrews]

Forces it around you too.

[Doug]

That's that other Netflix show I told you guys about. That were the parents. I forgot the name of that one. I shouted it out last time we were talking that you had a watch because it's crazy to see. It's crazy to Think like that there's parents that think the opposite of what you think right now. And they're like proud of their kid who's like, they just look at the.

[Adam Schafer]

Things that, that the world tells you is so valuable. But my kid's making so much money. It's not everything. No, it's not everything. And I wouldn't trade it for that to happen to my kid.

[Doug]

And I mean you see what this is? A grown ass man that got sucked into this.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right.

[Doug]

And in this trap like man, a teenage kid, then formative years and you're trying to piece all this kiss. Like that's like. I mean you see them spiral out after that. I mean, I don't know when the last time was the last time you guys checked up on what's his face. Connor Murphy. Remember we had him a long, long time ago.

[Adam Schafer]

He was weird.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, he spiraled a bit there for a minute.

[Doug]

I think he's still. I don't. I think he has never returned. Dude. I think he went off the deep end on that stuff and he was.

[Justin Andrews]

Like the shirt off guy to. Then he's like this like enlightened LSD guy.

[Doug]

It just it. But you know what? And what watching this documentary and hearing the, the. The marketers explain this, there just a switch went for me too. Because then, then that made so much sense to me. Like oh, that's why even that kid went that way. Because no longer was the pulling the shirt off and kissing girls didn't work the same. Everybody's seen it already. It's not cool anymore. It's not new, it's not novel. It's not crazy enough. It's like you know how to do something crazy.

[Adam Schafer]

This phenomena that you're talking about, by the way, this happens to, to people who don't even become famous. They, they as a child, they, they grow up people pleasing. This is what gets me attention. This is what gets me love.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

The way that my dad shows me love is I have to succeed at doing this thing or that My parents.

[Justin Andrews]

Feel like that's their only value.

[Adam Schafer]

Perfect. And you know what happens to a lot of these adults? They grow up, they don't know who they are and then what happens? These are the people that shock people. Where you got the guy who's married, looks like he's got the wife and kids, looks like he's happy. They're like, hey, did you. What happened to John? No, what happened? He left his wife and he's joined some whatever and he's like quit his job. What. How the hell the guy. Because they just go off the deep end because they've been living this quote unquote lie this whole time, not even know who they are. Yeah. Yeah. I. You know, I've had this conversation with, you know, with people where it's like, you know, people talk about fame like it's a good thing. I don't think it's ever a good. I don't think it's ever a good thing. I think it's. It's. It's a side effect. It could be a side effect.

[Justin Andrews]

Not when it's just related to your work and like to. To something that you're contributing to the world.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Side effect.

[Doug]

You know the interesting part about that, it's very similar to like leadership. Right. The best people to lead are the ones that don't want to.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right.

[Doug]

The best famous people are the people that didn't want it.

[Adam Schafer]

No.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Doug]

If you. And that's why politicians.

[Adam Schafer]

And so it's why politicians are often.

[Doug]

Just so if you want it, you better be careful.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Because that's not. It's not what you think it is. And so to me, that's like. Like if you got it because of. For some reason and it was a. Like you said, a byproduct. It wasn't like you were seeking it. That's another thing. Right. It's like it just happened because people so many. It resonated with so many people. That's. That may not be that bad. Right. Because you're in it for the right reasons and it just so happened to happen. But if you seek it, boy, it'll send you down the wrong path.

[Adam Schafer]

It's one of the cool things about it's imperfect. Perfect as they're humans. The founding fathers of this country are really interesting because they win this war and you know, George Washington got offered king. He could have become king. He said no easily.

[Justin Andrews]

He said they wanted him to be king.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Which is. Which is pretty cool. Speaking of wanting things. My fate. Okay. The black cherry lime can of Element is the best.

[Doug]

No way.

[Adam Schafer]

I like it the best.

[Doug]

No way.

[Adam Schafer]

You like it the best.

[Doug]

Oh, really?

[Justin Andrews]

So we fight over this.

[Doug]

I'm always mad that bro I'll come bring you I. My black cherries are my last ones.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, please give them to me.

[Adam Schafer]

Bring them here.

[Doug]

Yeah. No. Grapefruit and lime.

[Adam Schafer]

I like grapefruit.

[Doug]

Grapefruit and lime. And over a warm one over ice. That is the move.

[Adam Schafer]

But these cans kill it. They're so. I wonder how well they're doing with the cans.

[Justin Andrews]

Watermelon's my second, I think.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. I wonder how well the cans themselves do.

[Doug]

I don't know.

[Adam Schafer]

Sales.

[Doug]

I mean. Yeah, I.

[Adam Schafer]

Are they selling them in. In like retail stores yet?

[Doug]

I've seen them. Okay. I've seen him. Well, I've seen him.

[Justin Andrews]

I've seen him in gyms.

[Doug]

Yeah, I've seen him like in gyms and stuff like that. I might have seen it. I might have seen him in Target now.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. I'm trying to think if I've seen him in Grill.

[Doug]

I mean, they've just blown up Element. Element has been.

[Adam Schafer]

I got an argument with my cousin Alex, who I love to death. He's brilliant. He's probably going to be a billionaire at some point. He's. He sends a text to the group. I'm in this group thread, right. With my cousins and stuff. And he loves to be inflammatory. He's. He's like. Yeah. And I'm like that too. He just sends a text. He goes, there's no way. There isn't sugar in element either. They're lying.

[Doug]

That's so It's a Saltex right there.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm like, no, there's no sugar.

[Doug]

Just straight alarmist.

[Adam Schafer]

It tastes. Tastes too good.

[Doug]

What was he doing today? We're just walking. He was like, for sure this guy's gonna be this guy. You go that far?

[Adam Schafer]

I don't remember what I said. He's like. And so we're going back and forth and I'm like, closed. I told him, by the way, I'm like this. You're making a good commercial. I'm gonna make sure. I'm gonna tell people that you said this.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And I said it's the sodium. Sodium is one of the ingredients in palatability.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

If you want to make something tasty, sugar, salt and fat. Those are the three big ingredients.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

An element is 1,000 milligrams of sodium with stevia. Stevia is calorie free sweetener. But because of the sodium, when you drink it, it's like a soda.

[Justin Andrews]

It heightens it up.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. It tastes like it's damn soda. Even though it's calorie free.

[Doug]

Yeah, once. I mean, I never use the packets anymore now that I have that.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, dude. My wife.

[Justin Andrews]

I love the cans. I can't.

[Doug]

Katrina does. Katrina still carries a packet packets in her purse because she finds it handy, which if she'll. She obviously carry that a lot easier than these big cans. But I don't. I can't Tell you, the last time I shook up a powder. I've. I've. I've. Since the cans have come, I have pretty much only can.

[Adam Schafer]

So my wife grew up. I don't know. She won't get mad if I show. She grew up with the worst eating habit. Like, her family's had really bad eating habits. And she says, when I was a kid, I never drank water. We just had soda and juice. And so for her whole life. Well, I shouldn't say her whole life. When she got into her 20s and she started discovering fitness, it was a struggle to learn how to enjoy water. She used to hate water because she always had to drink something with flavor. So then she switched, and she was able to do it with water. Then we start working with Element. Okay, Element sends us these packets, so I bring them home. Now my wife won't drink water again without Element. All her water. Element, she picks. She fills up gallon jugs. That's it. And if we don't have Element, I'll come home and she'll have, like, a migraine. I'm like, what's the matter? She's like. I'm like, are you drinking water? She's like, no, we ran out of Element. I'm like, babe, you need to drink water. It's good.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

She likes the flavor so much so. Luminose by Entera uses peptide science to dramatically improve the health and youthfulness of your skin. They have the highest amounts of peptides that you can allow in skincare products. This stuff works, you'll notice after one or two applications. Go check them out. Go to enteraskincare.com that's e n t e r-a skincare.com mpm use the code mpm. Get 10% off your order. Back to the show.

[Sal Destefano]

First question is from JT70374. Is it possible to specifically target the individual heads of the triceps? I am seeing growth in the lateral heads, but very minimal in the long heads.

[Adam Schafer]

You know what's interesting?

[Doug]

Target. Yes. Isolate.

[Adam Schafer]

No. Well, what's cool about this. Yes, very true. Is that the triceps is one of the muscles where you can emphasize one head over the other because of the attachments. So the long head is the inner head of the tricep. Right. That's the big meaty part on the inner head. The lateral head is on the outside. Putting your arms overhead places the long head in a stretch position. Overhead tricep extension. You will target the long head more than you will with exercises like press.

[Doug]

Downs for Example, understanding this for both the bicep and tricep, in regards to what you're alluding to, elbow positioning was one of the biggest hacks in growing my arms. So what? And, well, I think the way it's communicated, there's like, there's a huge. There's huge debate. There's either somebody who will tell you, do this exercise to isolate this part of the tricep. Well, first of all, it's impossible. It's impossible to isolate a muscle. It's definitely impossible to isolate a part of a muscle. That meaning that your body works. All the muscles work synergistically. And so you can't just take one one muscle and only activate it. All the other surrounding muscles are always going to be activated and working to some degree. So isolating a muscle or a part of a muscle is absolutely impossible. But that doesn't mean you can't target, especially a muscle that has three heads, right? That. That has different attachments. You could definitely do that. You could. And same thing with the chest. You could target other areas. Now what I don't know, and I don't know if even though our studies are clear enough to make the argument if it's more because of the. The head that you're targeting or it's the novelty of the exercise that gives you the additional hypertrophy, because that's where it's like, could it be that, oh, it's because you now put it in the stretch position and so it's targeting that head, therefore I got bigger arms for that. Or is it. I never did that exercise. Now I'm doing that exercise, and I got gains from that exercise.

[Adam Schafer]

They. There are the studies that they've done on this in the past were. It was. It was hard. It was a lot of speculation, like which head of the tricep got the most activated. The problem with that is activation studies don't necessarily lead to hypertrophy. However, there are hypertrophy studies that have been done with the triceps where one arm is trained one way, the other arm is trained another way. And you do see more growth in the long head than you with an overhead exercise or like a skull crusher, except where you bring the barbell behind your head, we kind of really bring it back. You do see a little bit more hypertrophy in the long head doing it that way. So for someone like this, I would say your tricep exercises, like, make the bulk of the movement in over, like overhead dumbbell extension or try. Or the rope. You're Gonna get more in the long head that you will with the. With the other exercise.

[Justin Andrews]

You just want to get stronger.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I know. Justin hates.

[Doug]

No, bro. I want my triceps.

[Justin Andrews]

Heard somebody ask a question like this.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Let's move on.

[Adam Schafer]

Moving on.

[Doug]

Just because you have big, old blobby arms, he would, too.

[Justin Andrews]

We actually did some heavy weight.

[Doug]

Hey, no, there's a. And I'll have the guys. The boys have to link. There's a great. There's a great YouTube video that we did way back in the days, if I can get a laugh because how old the video is. But I remember it's one of the first ones we did. It was back in the days when Doug used to swoop in on the three of us talking, and we did the. We did. When you're doing your bicep, I forget what was titled, but you can look it up. Maybe the guys can attach it. And it's basically talking about doing the buys and tries. The most important thing you can do is the elbow positioning. And so if you just approach every time, training your triceps or your biceps. With that in mind, do an exercise with the elbows here, do an exercise with the elbows there. You're going to cover all your bases. You're going to get the best arms.

[Adam Schafer]

What would you do if you worked in a gym and someone approached you? Just push up.

[Doug]

You wouldn't even train them.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Oh, you go talk to.

[Justin Andrews]

Exactly.

[Adam Schafer]

He trains all the pussies.

[Justin Andrews]

Listen, you're. You're an Adam guy.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Go hang out.

[Sal Destefano]

All right. Our next question is from Tracy McCormick. 3:30. How do you stay motivated in a program where there is an exercise that you hate doing? For example, I despise Turkish getups to the point that I don't even want to do. Maps. 15 minutes.

[Adam Schafer]

You are picking all the people that Justin.

[Justin Andrews]

Wait.

[Doug]

You know what, though? I like. I like this question because I do think it's common that we. We all. We're all guilty of this to some extent, of gravitating to the stuff we like to do.

[Justin Andrews]

Absolutely.

[Doug]

Avoiding the stuff we don't like. The way I have reframed this, personally, that has worked really well for me is recognizing and actually reminding myself that where the biggest gains come from are the things. Yes. What I don't like doing, if I suck at it, I don't like doing it. It will give me the best benefits. It will build me the most muscle. It will get me the strongest. And so if you just reframe that of. So you're so you could trade those Turkish getups for the exercise you love to always do and get less gains, or you can do the thing you don't like to do and get more gains. To me, that reframing really helps me go, you know what? I'm going to do that shitty exercise because it's going to give me more return.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, agreed. I mean, you know, and by the way, use the word motivated. Like discipline or cons is. Is what breeds consistency, not motivation. Motivation breeds inconsistency. So if you rely on being motivated, you're going to. You're going to go through bouts of being consistent and then bouts of losing motivation not being consistent. That being said, if you can't figure this out and there is one exercise you hate so much that it makes you not want to work out, then don't do that exercise. Fine, you win. Like, if I had a client that came to me, the conversation I would have with them, you gotta check yourself with that. I would have this. I would have the same conversation we're having right now, and I would say to them, this is the best exercises for you. This is how you're gonna, you know, this is where you're gonna see the most results. And if I couldn't convince them and they're like, look, I just hate it, Sal. I don't. I just. I just despise coming in if we have to do it. I'd be like, okay, we won't do it. Then we'll do another exercise that's totally fine. Because it's better that you do some.

[Doug]

I mean, that's. I mean, I think that's a good point. You know, the. The exercise you love doing that you do all the time, that's gonna give you less benefits is still better than the not doing anything. So it's like, there is a. There is a fine line of, I wouldn't force my clients to do all the things they hate.

[Adam Schafer]

If the options are I don't. I don't work out right, or I skip this exercise. Okay, well, then.

[Justin Andrews]

But I would encourage one set of it.

[Doug]

Well, I would. I'd still encourage them. Right. And that's the way I would encourage them. I think most people don't realize that. I don't think most people think of it that way. That. That thing I don't like to do is actually going to give me the most return. If you had it, for example, you have a job, let's say, and within that job, there's lots of different duties. And one of the duties is Possibly cleaning the bathroom. The other one's filing paperwork. And filing paperwork is easy. You love doing. It takes you, you can, you can mindlessly listen to music. Cleaning the bathroom sucks. But if I told you you got paid five times the amount for cleaning the bathroom and it's the same hour of work you got to do, are you going to file cabinets or are you going to fucking clean the toilets? Like I'm cleaning the toilets for five times. Duty is for five times. For five times the return. I'm going to go do that. Right. So I think helping your refrain, reframing the way you look at the exercises like that helps motivate you or encourage you to do the things maybe you, you wouldn't do.

[Sal Destefano]

Browntown Next question is from Mrs. Virginia Davis. I've been told collagen is an incomplete protein. Does your body utilize it the same way it would whey or pea protein? Does it count towards your macros the same way as a whole protein?

[Adam Schafer]

So number one thing you should consider with a protein powder is how easily can I digest this? Okay, that's number one. That trumps everything else with that. If you consume a protein powder that's easy to digest, it means you can take more of it and more of cancels out the, maybe the fact that it's a lesser, it's not as anabolic or it doesn't have as great of. It doesn't contribute as much to protein synthesis or it's not as bioavailable as the other proteins. Okay, so collagen protein, I'll tell you this right now, of all the protein is the easiest to digest. It's the least likely to have intolerances. It's the least likely to cause gas digestive issues. It's the easiest to digest for most people. That being said, if it's between whey protein and collagen and you have zero issues digesting whey, whey is better. Whey is a superior protein. So pick whey if you digest it easily. But if you're like a lot of people, you know, you have a 60 gram shake away, you know, you might have gas, you might have some issues.

[Justin Andrews]

It causes you gastral distress. I mean it's a pretty, a pretty obvious choice at that point. That's right. And collagen has its own benefits as well.

[Adam Schafer]

You know that you can eat enough protein though, and you have all the amino acids.

[Doug]

I would put one thing in front of digestibility and that would be credibility because that's the other mistake that people make when picking a protein Source is they go get the cheapest one from GNC or cvs because it's the cheapest one.

[Adam Schafer]

Right.

[Doug]

So I would put. Make sure you're buying from a reputable brand, number one. Number two, can you digest it really well then.

[Adam Schafer]

Then companies have been caught. Amino acid spiking.

[Doug]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

Where it's a real thing.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, when you go test the protein powder for 50 grams per scoop, you're testing for specific amino acids and you're like, okay, this has 50 grams. And what companies have done is they've had less protein, but added a couple of those amino acids to fool the test.

[Doug]

Right.

[Adam Schafer]

So your 50 gram of protein is actually 20 grams of protein, in which case it's not very Good. So. So 100%.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Next question is from Jen Garner. How do you train with osteopenia? That is the result of overtraining and undereating.

[Adam Schafer]

So osteopenia is bone loss, bone weakening. This is when you get. This is the. The road or the step before osteoporosis. Okay. And you can get osteopenia from stressing your body like crazy and under eating. In fact, osteopenia is a side effect. Can be one of the common side effects of things like anorexia. Okay. How do you train? Well, you strength train. You try to get stronger coupled with eating more. Yeah. A calorie surplus.

[Doug]

I mean, wouldn't you say that this is because I want to be careful on. Who's asking this. Right. Is like step one is eat more. Because you. Training, weight training a bunch in. In. And you're.

[Justin Andrews]

You gotta be delicate with.

[Doug]

Yeah. And you're. And your approach grossly undereating. You're not serving yourself anything.

[Adam Schafer]

Right.

[Doug]

You know, so you got to eat more. And then also weight training.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. Now weight training. If you want to get great results for your osteopenia, strength train twice a week, full body, follow maps, anabolic, nothing else. No other strength training. You can stay active on the other days. I wouldn't do crazy cardio just walking. Lift weights twice a week and eat in a calorie surplus. And you will see a reversal in osteopenia that is remarkable. But you have to feed yourself and you have to strength train. But no more than twice a week. And I'm saying this because twice a week can be very effective.

[Justin Andrews]

Overdo it.

[Adam Schafer]

It can be very effective for everybody. It's a great amount of volume for everybody. But for the person who over trains, it's the best amount of.

[Doug]

Especially that person. Because this. Most people that I've had that have dealt with this, have a really hard time getting their calories up and eating enough. And so you take somebody who struggles with that and then you slap on five days a week of strength training. They're over trained, way over trained, you know, and that's, they're probably overtrained. Even if they were eating enough, they definitely are if they're struggling to hit those calories. Now you start hitting those calories, you do what you're the two days a week and you build a bunch of muscle and you reverse it. Then sure, I add more later on, but the, the mistake this person makes is thinking that just the strength training is all they need to do. And if you're not getting adequate calories and protein, then you're gonna get minimal benefits from that.

[Adam Schafer]

Now oftentimes the question is, how do I know if I'm moving in the right direction? Obviously you could get bone scans, but here's how you know you're stronger. If you're getting stronger, your bones are getting stronger. So if you can, if you're lifting weights, if you're listening to this and you follow our advice and you're working out and you're like, wow, I could do 10 more pounds on my bench press. I can do 10 more pounds on my squat, you're moving in the right direction. If you're not getting stronger, you're probably not strengthening your bones. So strength is the key. Get as strong as you possibly can. That will be the way that you gauge whether or not you're moving in the right direction. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is mindpumpjustin. I'm Mind Pump distefano. Adam is mindpump Adam, thank you for.

[Sal Destefano]

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 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.