Adam Schafer (3:39)

Is this secret? Is this inspired by Justin's interview with Kyle?

Sal Di Stefano (3:44)

No, I didn't listen to that.

Doug (3:45)

Was that good?

Adam Schafer (3:48)

I just want to point out that I'm probably the best friend of all of us. Yeah, it's like I, you know, I support all of you guys stuff always, you know.

Sal Di Stefano (3:56)

Well, I hug Justin.

Adam Schafer (3:57)

I watched it and it was actually, there's a, there's a portion of it where Kyle is asking Justin some really good programming. And I thought Justin did a really good job.

Sal Di Stefano (4:06)

He's the best at that.

Adam Schafer (4:07)

Of, well, not just that, but actually articulating the challenges of, of creating that. Right. And it's not just simply built around, you know, biomechanically. This is the most optimal thing to put right here. There's so many other things to consider and you know, and, and you know, Kyle shared being able to be a part of watching us build one was really enlightening for him to see the things that we take into consideration. And also Justin articulated that. Well, where, you know, it's difficult for us to explain that in, even in a podcast of, like when people ask. We get asked that question all the time.

Doug (4:40)

We really get into it because of all the nuance. Yeah, there's a lot in there that we have to kind of break down. And yeah, it's, it's, it's one of those. It takes a long conversation to really unpack it all.

Sal Di Stefano (4:51)

It does. And here's, here's the, here's the challenge. First off, here's why, by the way, what we're about to cover is shown in data to be incredibly effective. But here's why you probably don't know about what we're going to talk about. There's a couple reasons. One, most of the general programming that we understand when it comes to fitness around strength training comes from bodybuilders, which is good. There's nothing wrong necessarily from the programming that bodybuilders have figured out over decades and decades and decades to maximize muscle growth. But what's happened is we've lost the programming skills and science that have come from other strength sports. And I'll argue. And some of them have even more science and data to support them, like Olympic lifting. Olympic lifting, international competitions. At one point, the Soviets had invested millions of dollars in the science behind Olympic lifting. And we can learn a lot from that. Doesn't mean you have to Olympic lift, but you can learn a lot from what you, from what they've learned through the years. And we don't implement this. So that's number one. Number two, there's basic programming that is the most important. That's the solid foundation. If you don't get that, then all the other cool stuff doesn't make that big of a difference. In fact, focus on the bases or the basics, I should say first. So this is probably going to benefit, what I'm about to say is going to benefit the fitness fanatics the most. Those of you that are already consistent, those of you that do the basics, that get it, that are consistent, this is going to benefit you the most. So I'll start with the first one, which is training frequency or exercise practice frequency, I'll put it differently, is better for strength. So when you look at the data on building muscle, building strength, if you see a training frequency where they equate for volume, meaning same total volume for the week, but we'll compare five times training that exercise or that body part versus two times. So same total volume, the five times a week group did shorter Workouts just did them more frequently versus the other group. They did two workouts that were longer but total same volume. Muscle growth doesn't make that big of a difference. Once you hit two to three times frequency, you really don't get that much difference in muscle growth. But you almost always see a benefit in strength. Yeah, you almost always. And now here's what's crazy about this and here's where it gets wild. This is even true for ultra frequency. What am I saying here? Well, let's say today you're supposed to do five sets of squats and you want to take advantage of ultra frequency to maximize your strength. Doing one set five separate times today would probably give you more strength. So instead of doing five sets in one workout, you do one set, one hour, wait an hour, do another set, wait an hour. So you did five sets spread out over the course of five or eight hours. Probably the data shows this will translate to more strength than doing them all at once. So you can get really crazy and have a lot of fun with frequency to maximize strength. And a lot of this has to do with central nervous system adaptation. Practicing the exercise, there's no fatigue. But this is a rad one that I have experimented with and I'm going to tell you guys right now, play with this. If you're a fitness fanatic and you got the time, it's crazy.

Adam Schafer (8:06)

The gains that you see and why this is important to the person who says, I really don't care how much I lift, I just care about how I look. Because I can identify with being that kid that said that your ability to lift more weight will then in naturally increase your volume, which will then naturally increase your muscle. So you will build more muscle. Even though like in, in the short term of head, heads up, you know, 25 sets spread out versus 25 sets in one or two workouts doesn't show 16 weeks.

Sal Di Stefano (8:37)

Right. That's what the studies look like.

Adam Schafer (8:39)

Right?

Sal Di Stefano (8:39)

I. If you spread them out over a year OR 2, I 100% agree with you. Yes.

Adam Schafer (8:42)

You spread that out over a year of getting really good at that and getting really strong at that thing. More muscle will come.

Sal Di Stefano (8:49)

That's right.

Adam Schafer (8:50)

So that's why I think this is such an important, great tip, like you said, even for the advanced person. And it trumps what I think is most popular in the bodybuilding community, which is intensity.

Sal Di Stefano (9:02)

Yes.

Adam Schafer (9:02)

Intensity is oversold. We are told that intensity is so important for growth and gains. And the truth is most people don't apply that appropriately and so not Only is it not better, but it's significantly worse because it's also applied incorrectly. So intensity does have value. Intensity does have value. There are plenty of studies to support increasing the intensity or training to failure and the benefits that you can get from that. The problem is that's in a perfect environment, in a perfect study where somebody is applying it correctly, where the average person who just hears, oh, go to failure, or doing, you know, increase intensity, push harder, do more, and they over apply it, and so they get negative effects from it. If they would have just practiced it at a lower intensity, it would have.

Doug (9:50)

Seen way better results, the same as the skill development. And it's just, it's. It's strange that it. I don't know, I guess it's taken this long to really, you know, point that out with training. For me, even like as I was training clients back in the day, not realizing, you know, that it really emulates the same thing you do to build skills for sports. To build, you know, very specific, like, just like you practice, you're not trying to practice so hard that you're super fatigued and worthless at that point. Like, you have to go through the movement and your body's able to respond and memorize that movement so much more effectively when fatigue isn't really part of that equation.

Sal Di Stefano (10:28)

I will, I will give an example. I'll give a nice, easy, clean example of how you could apply this if you're like, ooh, I want to test this out here. Here would be an example. Let's say today you're working out chest, shoulders, and triceps. And let's just say for. For argument's sake, to make this easy, you're doing six sets for chest, six sets for shoulders, six sets for triceps. So six, six, six. Okay, here's what you would do if you want to take advantage of this.

Doug (10:52)

The beast.

Sal Di Stefano (10:52)

No, not like that. I should have chose a different number. What you would do is you would do two sets for chest, two sets for shoulders, two sets for triceps at 9am Then at noon, you would do two sets for chest, 2 sets for shoulders, 2 sets for triceps. Then at 4pm you would do two sets. Two sets, two sets, same total volume. You've just increased the frequency. So in other words, for the whole day, you're doing the same as you would normally do, except you've divided the workout out and you've done more frequency. Here's what you'll notice. You'll get stronger, faster, you'll feel less sore. You'll get better gains. That's how you can take advantage of frequency and ultra frequency when it comes to maximizing your gains. And by the way, yes, muscle fatigue, waist buildup correlates to growth to an extent. But the strongest correlate to muscle growth is strength. It's always been that way, 100%.

Adam Schafer (11:43)

Well, and that's a, that's a great example for somebody who has the luxury to potentially do this from home or something where they have all day access to a gym. But this still applies even through the week. So let's say for the week you typically train chest and you do a total volume of say 20 sets in two workouts. Spread that out over five workouts in a week. You'll get better games and you'll get better gains that way. Which what is why anybody that's familiar with the, the trend that was popular years ago on the squad every day.

Sal Di Stefano (12:12)

And people are getting crazy.

Adam Schafer (12:14)

People got strong. Yeah, people got so strong and saw all these gains. And so I, then it became, everyone was asking like, should I squat every day? And it's like, okay, there's a bit of a nuance. But the point is so many people had never tried frequently, frequently squatting that often. And what do you know, you had these huge benefits from it. So, yeah, no, you could apply that in a day or you could apply that in a week.

Sal Di Stefano (12:35)

Now here's the next one and this one's going to blow people's minds. I just read a study on this. They did a study on CrossFit athletes. I think it was 104 athletes. Now, if you're familiar with CrossFit programming, the goal with CrossFit programming is to make you good at CrossFit, have everything. Well, what they would say is, right, you want to be strong, you want to have stamina, you want to have endurance. And a typical CrossFit workout tends to combine them all in one workout. So you'll typically do your strength training, then you'll do your, your, your stamina style training or your conditioning. Sometimes you combine it all at once. That's what a competition looks like, so it kind of makes sense. Why wouldn't I do it all in a workout? If I go compete in CrossFit and I'm doing it all in a competition. Here's what the study did. They separated strength from endurance. Like this one week is only strength. They didn't even do strength and endurance in the same week. They did strength one week, the next week endurance the next week, strength the next week, endurance and they did this over eight weeks and they compared them to other athletes who did it traditionally, which was strength, you know, at first and then a little endurance at last or kind of throughout the week. Here's what they found. Twice, twice as good a performance.

Adam Schafer (13:43)

Shut up.

Doug (13:43)

And I read this twice.

Sal Di Stefano (13:45)

Two times. The improvements.

Adam Schafer (13:46)

How new is that?

Doug (13:47)

Is that new recent?

Sal Di Stefano (13:48)

It's relatively recent. And what they're going to do is they're doing another study to see if they get just as good of gains. Because for some athletes.

Doug (13:54)

Feel so validated.

Adam Schafer (13:55)

Yes, because for some athletes, I mean, let's be. This is how cave. If you, if you've been listening for nine or ten years, this is what we say. We came out early on and had a lot of things to say. We said a lot of positive things that CrossFit had done, but we said a lot of negative things about, in particular about the way they program the attributes and adaptations that you're seeking by doing that and that there is a better way. Mass performance was our answer to that, was if you like the things that you people do in CrossFit and you like all those attributes and you want that adaptation, let us show you a better way to go get all those, those results. And that was mass performance.

Sal Di Stefano (14:35)

That's right. So. And now what they're going to do is they're doing another study because for some athletes doesn't. This doesn't work with their, their programming, their schedule, how do they peak for whatever. So now they're going to do is they're going to do a strength day and endurance day. A strength day and endurance in the.

Doug (14:49)

Week, alternate day during the week.

Sal Di Stefano (14:50)

But I will make this. I will bet, I will bet. Maybe, maybe I'll be wrong, but I'll bet that the previous study where you had one week only focused on strength.

Adam Schafer (15:00)

Yes, still better, of course. I guarantee it.

Sal Di Stefano (15:02)

That's right. That's right.

Adam Schafer (15:04)

It flows perfectly from what you just said right before, which because of the practice and the frequency of that, you're going to reap more benefits.

Sal Di Stefano (15:10)

So if you're somebody that works out like a fanatic and you like all the physical attributes of fitness, you like strength, you like endurance and stamina, you like it. All your workouts probably look like a combination. You probably lift weights at first, then you get on a machine or you, you do your hiit cardio afterwards or whatever, try this instead. Just focus on strength for a week. Just focus on endurance for a week. And you don't lose gains doing this. You actually get better gains by Separating it all out, which is pretty cool.

Adam Schafer (15:35)

What a great study.

Sal Di Stefano (15:36)

Pretty cool, right?

Adam Schafer (15:37)

Yeah, I was not familiar with that.

Sal Di Stefano (15:38)

Next up, this is totally missed by people who like to work out for aesthetics. But you see this practiced by athletes and you see this practice by some strength athletes as well, in particular arm wrestlers. Arm wrestlers are great at this. That is daily low intensity lifting for gains. So what does this look like? Now we have something called trigger sessions in Maps Anabolic, which is an example of this. But here's what it would look like for let's say an arm wrestler. Arm wrestler does their traditional strength training workouts. They go to the gym, they do the workout, it's intense, it's what you would expect. Arm wrestling style workouts, exercises, your traditional strength training, it's, that's their workout. But every day what they may do is they'll grab a hand gripper and they'll squeeze it. Several times a day they'll just train their grip. Now the key with this is it's low intensity, it's not a workout, but they're just squeezing it and getting a little bit of a pump, just a little bit and they're just practicing it throughout the day. This is tremendously beneficial for gains, especially if you want to apply it to a specific lift. Another example, let's say you want to get better at pull ups and you can only get eight pull ups and you want more pull ups. Well here's what you would do. You would do one pull up throughout the day. So like five or six times a day, every hour.

Adam Schafer (16:52)

Every hour just keeps.

Sal Di Stefano (16:53)

And one pull up super easy. You could do eight. So you just go up to a pull up bar, you do one come down and then you're done and you just practice throughout the day. Here's what you'll find if you did something like that, you'll get yourself to 15 pull ups in a very short period of time.

Adam Schafer (17:04)

You know, I think we all have personal stories that we shared. Every time you bring this one, it's been a long time since we brought it up so it'll be fun to share it because maybe new people haven't heard this. I remember when I was 16, 17 years old and I wore to the dairy and you know, a typical shift could be six to eight hours for me. And there, where I, where I milked the cows, there was this bar that was just, just up. I just had barely had to jump up and I just, just for entertaining myself in the boring job that I'm by myself, I would just every time I let the cows pass through like that. I jump basically every hour or so. I'd get up and do a pull up or two.

Sal Di Stefano (17:41)

Just one or two.

Adam Schafer (17:41)

Just one or two dot not like not trying to hit my max at that time.

Sal Di Stefano (17:43)

You're not trying to work out.

Adam Schafer (17:44)

Yeah, I could easily do 10 back then, bro. I could rip. I got to a place where I could rip like 30 pull ups, dude. I had never. That's the strongest to this day. Even in my peak bodybuilding efforts, I was at pull ups was during that time and not really even to do it was more just messing around.

Sal Di Stefano (18:01)

That's right.

Adam Schafer (18:02)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (18:02)

Another example would be you want to develop your chest, let's say. And let's say if you push and rep out push ups, you could do 50. Well, here's what you do. You do like eight pushups throughout the day. You just get on the floor, eight put super easy. It's like no big deal. Get up, walk around every other hour or so or whenever you pass by your TV or you make a little place in your house or your office, you know, every hour, every other hour, alarm goes off, I go down, do you know, 10 push ups or whatever. You'll get some incredible gains.

Adam Schafer (18:29)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (18:30)

Just keep those body parts alive.

Doug (18:31)

It keeps that recruitment process a priority.

Sal Di Stefano (18:34)

So that's it. Boom.

Doug (18:36)

You just, it's almost like you just like get right into that mode.

Sal Di Stefano (18:39)

This is a complete lost art that strength athletes in the past, especially the bronze era athletes would do. A lot of it was their labor, this was part of their job. Or they're swinging hammers or breaking rocks or whatever. If you've ever worked with a blue collar worker, you just like, their hands are just like. Does it make sense? I'll start. I remember this was like my dad and his workers and here I am, a 17 year old kid lifting weight. I've been lifting weights for three years. I'm strong, stronger than all of them if we go lift weights. But when it came to their hands, it was like, I don't understand how their hands are so strong and why they have so much stamina. None of them work out well. All day long they're, they're throwing mud up on the wall and they're swinging hammers. It was this kind of daily low intensity lifting. So. And nobody practices this. People in prison oftentimes will do this, by the way. Yeah. Where they just do, you know, the workout six times a day, doing the same thing over and over and over. Next up is now this is somewhat well known in the Athletic space, especially the, the Olympic lifting space. But it's called post activation potentiation. And so what this looks like is if you ever, if you want to improve your power, your ability to accelerate and also activate as many muscle fibers as possible, what you do is you go do one heavy rep of an exercise. Right afterwards you go jump as high as you can. So like an, or do an explosive movement for that body part. So it would look like this. Let's say I could squat 315 for 10 reps. Well, I'd go put 350 on the bar, or 330 on the bar. I would do one which would be kind of heavy, rack it up and then right afterwards do an explosive jump. Let's say you do this with bench press. Let's say My max is £300. Well, I put 250 on the bar, I do one rep racket, get up, do a jumping push up. It's called post activation potentiation. And this has been shown in the data to activate more muscle fibers than almost anything else.

Adam Schafer (20:28)

You know, the first time I ever noticed the power of this was like again, another unintentional thing. It was around the time that I was heavy, deadlifting and I was training singles. And so, and again, I wasn't doing max, but I was training very heavy singles. And I did a heavy single deadlift. And then I turned over, turned around and just kind of jumped up and grabbed the pull up bar. My body never felt so light in my life. It was the wildest thing ever. And I remember being, what the hell? That was the only time I've grabbed.

Doug (20:55)

The rim for basketball. And I was just messing around. And too, I did this for pring, for doing a football combine. I remembered that that was like such a rad strategy going in.

Sal Di Stefano (21:08)

Yeah. So awesome. All right, last is isometrics. You've heard us talk about them before. Nobody does them because they don't look sexy and because I think people don't understand the power of them. But isometrics build tendon strength. You want tendon strength and they build grit, meaning you reduces your risk of injury. It makes you tough. It makes your body tough. Now, now, now, people use isometrics. Wrong. Here's what they do. People will do isometrics at the end of a workout, kind of as an afterthought. Or maybe they'll use it in the beginning as a way to prime their body, which is totally fine. But I'm talking about isometrics is your workout. You are doing a week or two of Only yielding, overcoming force. Isometrics. So this is an isometrics where you're flexing. That's an isometric, but that's not what I'm talking about. This is like where you grab a bar that's chained to the ground, pushing in a movable and you're, you're driving, you're trying to deadlift it off the ground or you get under a bar like you're going to squat, but it's got more weight than you can move and you drive against it and you do this for 15 to 30 seconds. This builds and the data builds tendon strength faster than anything else. And this will make you strong. And the strength gains you get from isometrics are very rapid. Your force production I'm talking about dramatically goes up within a few workouts alone.

Doug (22:25)

Yeah, yeah. With tendon strength, that's not something that a lot of athletes are really considering, which, you know it. To be able to have long term health and, and performance like to, to address that alongside getting super strong with these compound lifts, like it's such a great complement to that and like really.

Adam Schafer (22:45)

Low risk, you know, it's not probably talked about enough. This is probably one of the more brilliant things as far as in our, some of our maps programs map symmetry. It starts off with two weeks of isometrics phase one and then you go into unilateral work and then you finish with bilateral. And so talk about a really cool. If someone. You've never done this before, you're not sure how to program it or I'm not all the way bought in following a program at symmetry where we only commit you to two weeks of the isometrics like that, then you move to unilateral. Then you get to, then you get to see that expressed at the end of the program. So really good example to the people.

Sal Di Stefano (23:24)

That stick through phase one because isometrics are so confusing to people and people just want to go left. Well, I remember you were missing out.

Doug (23:31)

If you remember, for people to get.

Adam Schafer (23:33)

If you guys remember, I fought for us to only do two weeks because I was nervous that too many people would, even though we knew that there was benefits, to do it even longer.

Doug (23:42)

Oh yeah. I took the high school kids through like four weeks and I totally agreed because it was like at that point, after two weeks it started to get.

Sal Di Stefano (23:50)

Like, I just want to do.

Doug (23:51)

Yeah, they were, they were fighting back.

Adam Schafer (23:52)

Yeah. I mean that to me that's the hardest part about this is adherence for people because it's so unique and different and you're. You're not moving. And so you get. You could get bored or you're like. But it's like, man, it's. If you're looking for the most benefits and the gains and also the most benefits and gains for the safety. Right. Like, it's like you're not risking a lot when you're doing isometrics, the fastest.

Sal Di Stefano (24:15)

Way now, it's not the only way. In other words, you don't just do isometrics. Okay. But it's the fastest way to bulletproof your body if you want to have a body that doesn't get injured when you go and you push it hard. Isometrics will do this in weeks. In weeks. Whereas traditional strength training may take months. This will happen in weeks, and people just don't do it. And the data on it is. I mean, I was aware of isometrics just because I'm a big fan of strength training culture in history. And I knew that bronze era strength athletes like Eugene Sandow, like, they were so strong for their size.

Doug (24:51)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (24:52)

And I remember, I know that they did isometrics and they would sell isometric courses back in the day in magazines or books. So I was aware. But I never gave it a lot of value or credence until we started. Until I started working with Justin. And Justin talked about it, sent me some articles. I looked at the studies. I was like, oh, my God.

Doug (25:07)

Yeah, it's crazy.

Sal Di Stefano (25:08)

This is insane. Yeah, it's crazy. The value that they provide. And they're in. Listen, give your. Just do a week. If you're watching this, you know you want to mix it up. Do a week of those type of isometrics for each body part. Go back to your workout. Tell me you don't notice a difference.

Doug (25:21)

Completely worth it.

Sal Di Stefano (25:22)

Yeah. Anyway, I. Speaking of studies, our editor Josh sent me some studies again, huh? Yeah. He's doing a great job. So any. What he did is he opened like a can of worms for me on photobiomodulation, which is the term. This is a scientific term for light therapy receptors. Yeah. Well, it's light therapy to induce changes in the body. In particular, red light therapy, like our partners at joovv. Right. So red light therapy. Weird, but super backed by data, decades of data. It really does work. And we know this for skin. We know this for recovery, raises testosterone, essentially. Just to give you a little nutshell for people who are like, what is it? A particular wavelength of red light gets your cells. Any cell that this red light touches, it gets the mitochondria to produce more energy and to essentially function more optimally. So whatever cell it touches works better. So your skin looks younger, your muscles recover faster, your joints don't hurt. I didn't know this. There's a whole host of studies on what's known as transcranial photobiomodulation. All right, what is that? You put red light on your skull, and a certain amount of this red light gets through the skull and goes to your brain. Okay. You know what the data shows? Improve cognition, improve visual, visual memory, verbal fluency, anti depression, anti anxiety. Like, it makes your brain better if you shine it on your head.

Adam Schafer (26:51)

And you know, so that's part of the skull. When I sit in front of it, one of the things I do. But mine was preferred.

Sal Di Stefano (26:58)

Yeah.

Adam Schafer (26:59)

I would sit like. So my red lights here. And then I'll. I'll. I'll. At least a few minutes at the time, I'm sitting with the thing just right on top of my head.

Sal Di Stefano (27:07)

So, dude, I read a study for pain. So for people in opiate withdrawal, doing this on their brain reduced pain and withdrawal symptoms.

Adam Schafer (27:16)

Interesting.

Sal Di Stefano (27:16)

I read one for anxiety. I read one for depression.

Doug (27:19)

Lower inflammation too. Or is it just.

Sal Di Stefano (27:21)

It's literally making your brain operate better, Just functions better? Yeah. There's studies on Alzheimer's and dementia because, you know, one of the hallmarks is that their brains just don't utilize energy very well, which is why who thought like, light. Light, dude.

Adam Schafer (27:35)

Well, induce when you kind of think. I mean, it kind of makes sense. Yeah. Think about how important the sun is to plants and all in the pro. That process. Like, it kind of makes sense when you. When you think.

Doug (27:44)

Well, it's weird that you have receptors inside your nose and inside your ears.

Sal Di Stefano (27:48)

Yeah. For light or your brain. Why your brain doesn't ever see the light. Yeah. Your brain's in a dark head. When it gets red light, it triggers this response. By the way, for people who are like, oh, let me look up places where I could get red light therapy, There's a particular wavelength and a particular strength that's using these studies. Joovv uses the same like they use the. The study grade stuff. If you get like, the cheaper stuff, you'll have to use it 20, 30.

Adam Schafer (28:16)

Times by the way I looked. I looked all that up. I looked up because I had. Some of my family members had heard us talk about it, and then they told me, like, oh, hey, I got this. And they showed me, and it was only this much. And then I looked it up, and you can actually. You can Actually break down and I forget what the measurement is of the red lights. But they all have like a measurement, right. That you can look at and then it tells you, like, the benefits by the time. And so, yeah, they save like, let's say half the money on it, but it takes them four times the amount of time in front of the light to get the same amount that. That. That does.

Doug (28:48)

So it's not as concentrated.

Sal Di Stefano (28:49)

No.

Adam Schafer (28:49)

And it's not one of those, like, it's. It's already you to discipline yourself to sit in front of it three times a week for 10 to 20 minutes.

Sal Di Stefano (28:57)

Difficult enough.

Adam Schafer (28:58)

Is already tough to be consistent with people. So if you have to do four times the amount of that. Yeah, it's not gonna work. I guess you could save the money and then dedicate four times the amount of time, but it's just like. Or you could spend the money, get.

Sal Di Stefano (29:10)

The best three times four times a.

Adam Schafer (29:11)

Week and do crazy results. Yeah, so totally.

Sal Di Stefano (29:14)

So take a left. I just learned the mo. The just the wildest thing about my family.

Adam Schafer (29:20)

Oh, dying to hear what you've been.

Doug (29:22)

Holding on to this. And like, dude, I need to.

Sal Di Stefano (29:24)

So have you guys ever done, like, Family Tree or, you know, whatever? What's that one website?

Adam Schafer (29:30)

24 of me. Yeah, 43 of me.

Sal Di Stefano (29:36)

Had. I've got one more that's a mutant. Yeah. All right. So. So anyway, do you guys have any. Any like. Like, ancestors that you know of that I have.

Adam Schafer (29:48)

I bought that box 23andMe. Or maybe I bought 24 of me. Maybe I got ripped off.

Sal Di Stefano (29:53)

Bad news for you.

Doug (29:54)

That's too much of a concern.

Adam Schafer (29:56)

I bought 23 me a year and a half ago when my aunt was telling me, like, oh, man, we found some people connected like that, and I was about to do it, and it just so happened to be. It was during a time when we. I don't know, was conspiracy theory. Conversation was like, heavy in our. In our. Our podcast or whatever. And I'm like, the idea of giving them all that data of. Oh, yeah. So it's still sitting there. I still have it and I haven't done it.

Sal Di Stefano (30:18)

Well, you found. Didn't you?

Doug (30:19)

Yeah, it's been breached.

Sal Di Stefano (30:21)

It has, yeah.

Doug (30:22)

So that's why I was like, nah.

Sal Di Stefano (30:24)

Yeah. So didn't you find. Isn't that sword relate. Related to you somehow?

Adam Schafer (30:27)

Yeah, that's my. And we don't talk about it much because we don't know if it's a positive thing or not. So.

Sal Di Stefano (30:34)

Were they like a crusader?

Adam Schafer (30:36)

Like, what is that's why I think we tried to do some homework on it. Okay. So it's. It's attached to my. My. My great grandfather's side. Right. And so. And my. My aunt, she's like, I figured you'd like to like. Oh, awesome. So I totally took it. And then later on she told me she did, like, more research on him, and it. I don't think he's like. Was one of the greatest people.

Sal Di Stefano (30:56)

Oh, yeah. Sort of headings. Yeah.

Adam Schafer (31:01)

Yeah. I'm not sure if it was.

Sal Di Stefano (31:03)

Well, I just. I don't know. Okay. This is wild, right? So When I was 12, we went to Italy on vacation, and my mom's side of the family, although now we're from Sicily, like my dad's. If you go back a certain amount of generations, they came from northern Italy. So my mom's maiden name is Visconti. Visconti is one of the. More. One of the most significant royal names in Italy, which I knew at 12 because we went to Milan and we saw the Visconti Castle. We saw this, that, and the other. But I never identified strongly with my mom's side. I think it's because I was a boy and I wanted to be like my dad and his approval. So I didn't really look into it, but I knew that her side were, you know, they were essentially kings and.

Adam Schafer (31:46)

Queens of northern descendants of them.

Sal Di Stefano (31:47)

Yeah, Kings and queens of northern. In fact, if you're. If you're Italian, you learn this in history school. And again, you go to Milan, you'll see cathedrals and stuff with Visconti, the coat of arms, the whole deal. It's kind of wild, right? For whatever reason, yesterday, out of the blue, I was just like, I feel like learning about them. Let me read a little bit about the Viscontis. So I go and I start doing some digging. One of the most significant popes in Catholic history was a Visconti, one of my family members. So Pope Gregory X was. That's Visconti Castle right there. No, that's a museum. Yeah, there you go.

Adam Schafer (32:24)

Top left.

Sal Di Stefano (32:24)

So Pope Gregory X, his birth name was Theobaldo Visconti. So once you become elected as pope, you pick a different name. Incidentally, by the way, the first American Pope took on the name Gregory as well. But anyway, he was a pope. So I have a family member back in. I think it's 11. I don't remember what year. It's like in the 1100s who was a pope. So it's funny. So I have a text. I text Father Steve he's the producer of Bishop Barron's podcast. Yeah. And I'm like, dude, I just learned this now. He's like a history. He's obviously a priest. He's like, dude, he was one of the most significant popes in our history. And I guess he had. He. He was beautified, which is like one step towards becoming a saint or whatever. And he helped unify the church. That's his picture right there. How cool is that? How crazy is that? Dude, I have a Pope in my family.

Justin Andrews (33:13)

Looks just like you.

Sal Di Stefano (33:14)

Yeah, right? Yeah, right.

Doug (33:16)

So glad you're not an atheist anymore.

Sal Di Stefano (33:18)

So he reigned from September 1, 1271 to 1276, and he was born in 1210 in Piacenza. Piacenza, Italy. Diabaldo Visconti.

Adam Schafer (33:29)

Now, did you. I'm assuming after you found this out, you must have told all your family and told your family did. They didn't know.

Sal Di Stefano (33:34)

My cousin knew. I said to my cousin, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You didn't know. That's kind of. We had an archbishop and then a pope. So we also have a archbishop. I think his name was Otoni Visconti. Who was with.

Adam Schafer (33:47)

Now is that. I. I don't know the structure. So is. Is archbishop is below. Right below. So in order to become a pope, you have to be an archbishop. I believe so even be opportunity.

Sal Di Stefano (33:58)

But I read of the history. So I guess there was a three year vacancy and there was some stuff.

Adam Schafer (34:03)

To have a vacancy like that.

Sal Di Stefano (34:04)

If they can't come to a. If they can't come to a. I know they do.

Adam Schafer (34:09)

I know they do the whole smoke thing and there's a process and it.

Sal Di Stefano (34:11)

Lasted for three years.

Adam Schafer (34:13)

Is that. Is that normal?

Sal Di Stefano (34:14)

No.

Adam Schafer (34:15)

Does it ever last? I didn't know that.

Sal Di Stefano (34:16)

No. Yeah. And so it lasted for three years and he reorganized or reunified the church and so he's like considered a significant Pope. In the horse wild. Yeah.

Doug (34:30)

That's cool.

Sal Di Stefano (34:30)

I had a family member. Do you like that? I know it's wild. I'm glad I didn't learn something. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Schafer (34:35)

I'm not sure about mine over here. It's the German side of my family too. So I'm like, you know, we'll leave.

Doug (34:42)

That's kind of how I found out.

Adam Schafer (34:43)

Cool sword.

Sal Di Stefano (34:44)

But we'll leave it alone. Yeah.

Doug (34:46)

I wasn't. I wasn't Irish.

Justin Andrews (34:48)

They call it a conclave.

Sal Di Stefano (34:50)

Yeah.

Justin Andrews (34:50)

So that was the longest one.

Sal Di Stefano (34:52)

Oh, wow. For Pope Gregory.

Adam Schafer (34:53)

Yeah, exactly.

Sal Di Stefano (34:54)

In fact, I think they tried to elect an anti Pope at the time. So There was like. I. I don't know that I.

Adam Schafer (34:59)

You know, I don't just throws terms around, you know what I'm saying?

Sal Di Stefano (35:02)

Because I think that there was like. Like, there was a little bit of a. Like, where they were infighting and so, like, no, we want this guy to be put. Whatever. So he came and reunified them.

Adam Schafer (35:10)

Okay.

Sal Di Stefano (35:10)

Yeah. So I don't know.

Doug (35:11)

Not like the grape hope. And there's all these other.

Sal Di Stefano (35:15)

Dude, the history is crazy.

Doug (35:16)

Yeah. Look at if I was on that one conspiracy theorist podcast and they were talking about that kind of stuff, like, all the different types of popes, like, that exist.

Sal Di Stefano (35:26)

Yeah.

Doug (35:26)

And I'm like, is this true?

Sal Di Stefano (35:27)

Yeah. Yeah, it's wild. Anyway, I'm going to make a comparison right now between two social media people. One of them very popular, one not so popular. So you sent a clip?

Adam Schafer (35:40)

I couldn't help it, bro. I couldn't hide.

Sal Di Stefano (35:42)

I can't. I couldn't finish it.

Adam Schafer (35:43)

Oh, you couldn't.

Sal Di Stefano (35:44)

I ended up watching the whole thing five times.

Adam Schafer (35:46)

It's like pure entertainment for me. I watched like, five. Like, this is.

Sal Di Stefano (35:50)

This is so epic. Aubrey Marcus. Oh, yeah, dude. So, yeah, there was a post of him and his wife talking about their open relationship. Yeah.

Doug (36:00)

What did he call?

Adam Schafer (36:01)

Yeah, the constellation.

Sal Di Stefano (36:04)

Our relational, like, love constellation, which essentially had an opening. We just have a bunch.

Adam Schafer (36:10)

Yeah, our relational constellation had an opening.

Sal Di Stefano (36:14)

Something like that. So in other words, my wife wanted.

Adam Schafer (36:16)

To bang some other dude.

Doug (36:17)

Such an eloquent way to put that.

Sal Di Stefano (36:21)

It's so beautiful that she's having pleasure with this other. Whatever. I was, like, listening to this guy. Oh, my God, dude, what are you doing? Like, and then at the end, the guy that's, I guess now sleeping with his wife because they all. Whatever. They all love each other. You guys need to bring a baby, you know, Aubrey Marcus into the world. Like, please don't do that. Please don't bring a kid into this weirdness. Like, that's. That's terrible. But anyway, I'm gonna compare him.

Adam Schafer (36:47)

Yeah. Who you comparing him to?

Sal Di Stefano (36:48)

Andrew Tate.

Adam Schafer (36:49)

What?

Sal Di Stefano (36:50)

Well, hold on. Here's why. Andrew Tate did this post that went viral, talking about all of his go viral, but this one went really viral, caused a lot of controversy.

Adam Schafer (36:57)

Okay.

Sal Di Stefano (36:58)

Where he said that the future is for polygamy, that men with high status need to have lots of different wives.

Adam Schafer (37:07)

Oh, interesting. They're better.

Sal Di Stefano (37:08)

Yes. Because this is the way we did in history. This, that, and the other. And so he's going in a different direction. That. Yeah, he's going in A different direction, but kind of similar to where they're like the notion of one man, one woman, like they're trying to break that.

Adam Schafer (37:22)

So it's interesting that you say, you bring up Andrew, take his women. Recently, I hadn't, I hadn't watched such stuff in a long time. And I just, I was like, you know, what going on with him? Is he arrested? I haven't, I haven't paid attention to him in a long time since we probably talked about him back when. So I just recently found some of his stuff and was going through some of his posts and I sense an interesting tune tone in his content that reminds me of the same journey that Dan Baherian went down. Yeah, you can he, I mean, he was, he was. And he, I, I, he's hilarious to me. So like, he's pure entertainment for me to, to watch because some of the stuff he says is just so outlandish and that I, it's comical.

Sal Di Stefano (38:03)

That's the comparison I was gonna make is that Aubrey Marcus is, in my opinion, I think they're both dangerous because the way they promote things that are not great, they're not great for society, not great for people. You want the data. There's plenty of it. It's especially not good for children. In fact, I heard a woman say, one of the ways we should judge, like, culture or changes in culture that's good for our kids is by judging it against the most vulnerable of us.

Adam Schafer (38:30)

I know who said that. That was the lady there, feminist debate, which was really good.

Sal Di Stefano (38:35)

Yeah. So it's like, how, okay, Erica.

Adam Schafer (38:37)

Not Erica. It was the other girl. Yeah, it was the other girl. It was a really good way to present it.

Sal Di Stefano (38:41)

It is, because it's like, okay, cool, we want to do this thing and I want to let my wife sleep with men. And I think, you know, how is this going to affect our children?

Adam Schafer (38:47)

You know, why that resonated so strongly with me is one of the things I've communicated before when people ask me about how things are different with fatherhood for me, one of the things that organically happened, I don't actively do this. I can't help but not see it through his eyes.

Sal Di Stefano (39:01)

Yes.

Adam Schafer (39:01)

So. And even the silliest of decisions, like, let's say, making a purchase on something, but say it's a, it's a little bit of, you know, blowing money or this and that. I think that, oh, one day my son's going to ask me about that and how will I.

Sal Di Stefano (39:12)

It's a great litmus test.

Adam Schafer (39:14)

I don't like I said, I don't. I don't even intentionally do. It just happened when I became a father. But when I think about, it's like, what a good way to look at it. Because you're. If you can't. If I have. If I find myself in just through the exercise of thinking about having that conversation, struggling to explain it to my kid on the justification of why I did.

Sal Di Stefano (39:32)

That's right.

Adam Schafer (39:32)

Sad thing. Maybe it's not a good thing.

Sal Di Stefano (39:35)

That's right.

Doug (39:35)

Maybe it's just self indulgent bullshit.

Adam Schafer (39:38)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (39:38)

You know? Yeah.

Doug (39:38)

It's just like, it's self serving.

Adam Schafer (39:40)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (39:40)

It's 100%. So here's why I don't like, this is why I think they're both douches or whatever. But I think Andrew Tate is better. Not because I think he's better, but because he's comedy. He's not pretending to be. Yeah, yeah. A warrior poet or whatever.

Adam Schafer (39:54)

Openly. I'm an asshole.

Sal Di Stefano (39:55)

He's just like, you can take a lot of what he says in tongue in cheek. And if you're a smart guy, you do. You watch him for the comedy and you don't go, oh, I'm gonna take his advice. Cause it's all funny.

Adam Schafer (40:03)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (40:04)

Aubrey takes himself really seriously.

Adam Schafer (40:06)

Yes.

Sal Di Stefano (40:06)

He's like, this is spiritual evolution. This is the right thing to do, or whatever. Which is. And you're right, it's a self indulgent insanity. And you know, really what you. Here's the. I like to take it back to fitness. I think everybody listening to this can understand when I do that. Is the person who says, I just want to eat whatever I want. Are they more free than the person who says, no, I'm going to eat in a way that's healthy. Even though the person that says, I'm going to eat healthy is restricting themselves from not eating the things that are, let's say, super tasty or hyper palatable or whatever, who's actually more free. The person who's going in the healthy.

Adam Schafer (40:42)

Way for the reasons of, you're now healthy. You can do so much more.

Sal Di Stefano (40:45)

You are free. And now in the spiritual sense or the religious sense, you're free from sin or whatever. But someone like Aubrey, like, no, we're free. We're free to love whoever we want. No, you're actually under the tyranny of your lust or whatever the hell it is, your pleasure, your own self indulgences. You're actually more free when you find a woman and both of you dedicate yourselves to Each other.

Adam Schafer (41:04)

I think the thing, you know, since you brought them up and we're comparing them right now, and they are very different. That's the thing, I think they both are in common is that's the piece of their life they haven't figured out, which is. I think that's probably why you feel so strongly about their. Both. Their advice being not ideal.

Sal Di Stefano (41:19)

Yeah.

Adam Schafer (41:20)

For the young generation that's coming up is that they both. They have. They both have maybe figured a lot of other things out in their life and giving them some credit. Intelligent in some realms. But the relationship and that part, I think they. And that's the sense I get when I listen to some of his content right now. Recently, he. He sounds. And it's been really fun to watch Dan Bilzerian's transition in the last.

Sal Di Stefano (41:46)

He's completely different.

Adam Schafer (41:47)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (41:47)

But.

Adam Schafer (41:48)

But also seeing how much he still struggles because he. He did that. He slept with so many.

Doug (41:55)

He's so known for that.

Adam Schafer (41:56)

And. And because he did now. Now knowing that monogamy is the direction that he wants. Still struggling with that because of all these behaviors and patterns that he has caused damage. Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (42:06)

To himself.

Adam Schafer (42:07)

Yes. And so I find Tate is very similar with that and money. Like, they. I mean, one of the clips I had just recently seen him was just kind of ranting just about how boring life is. And he's. Because he has so much access, he has everything he could possibly want. He can't. He can't spend his way to happiness and enjoyment. And it's like, you know, it's so crazy because so many of us set that as this bar. And then our whole life, we're working towards it. So. And really, the. It's the working towards part where the gold is at. And a lot of people, because they never reach that, get that opportunity. Maybe one of the greatest curses is to get all of that so early and so fast in your life, because then you. Then you go.

Sal Di Stefano (42:48)

It's so funny. I'm reading Ecclesiastes right now, which was written by King Solomon, who was widely regarded at the time as, like, having the most money, the most wealth, the most. He had thousands of concubines yet. And in Ecclesiastes, which he wrote, he's like, it's meaningless. It's nothing. I'm lost. What is it? It's just like chasing the wind. This and that. Because he got all the worldly things, and he's left in this place where he's like, oh, this is not what I thought it would be. Yeah.

Adam Schafer (43:13)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (43:13)

You know, but Andrew Tate, the thing about him that makes him dangerous is he attracts vulnerable young men who probably didn't have either father figures or, or they had bad father figures. And so they are attracted to this fake, this false idea of masculinity and this ultra machismo.

Adam Schafer (43:35)

I think the reason why he is also, though, because there, there is this.

Sal Di Stefano (43:39)

I like, I think he's funny, but I think if you keep on that, I think.

Adam Schafer (43:42)

I think there's a part of. Of him that is needed in our society. So that's why it works. It works because there's this such a decline in, in masculinity.

Sal Di Stefano (43:52)

So you think this could be used for good.

Adam Schafer (43:54)

It's not. I'm not even making that argument necessarily. Right. I'm not even going to try and make the argument that he is good. I'm saying that the reason, what makes him so popular is that there is an underlying need in our void.

Sal Di Stefano (44:05)

Yes, exactly.

Adam Schafer (44:06)

There's a void in our society of good masculinity. Alpha. And we've gone so extreme the other way. And that of course, yeah, you're gonna find he's not the ideal antagonist. Arises. Right. He is the. The complete opposite of the, you know, woke.

Sal Di Stefano (44:22)

The white.

Adam Schafer (44:23)

Yeah. And so, and so that, that. And so then the truth is, it's probably somewhere in the middle that we.

Sal Di Stefano (44:30)

Sure.

Adam Schafer (44:31)

That is ideal, but you're going to get a lot of popularity because he's going to. He's going to buck that opposite side.

Sal Di Stefano (44:38)

So I think that's the truth is masculine. I don't know.

Adam Schafer (44:40)

I don't know where to categorize it. Aubrey Marcus. I mean, that's just, that's all, that's all the hippie recycled. I mean, hippie recycled.

Doug (44:53)

I've seen Cults and I like, you know, and it's, it's very on brand, but it's not.

Sal Di Stefano (44:56)

It's. If I had to categorize him, if I had to use a stereotype or a popular word, it would actually be beta for Abby Marcus. That kind of like. Like I'm this evolved, you know. No, do whatever and it's all good.

Adam Schafer (45:09)

I mean, I don't know what you categorize somebody who. You don't mind your wife going and banging other dudes. Yes. But it's, it's beta maybe is. I don't know.

Doug (45:16)

There's a word for it.

Sal Di Stefano (45:18)

There's no strength there. There's no like. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

Adam Schafer (45:22)

It's like a movie, man.

Sal Di Stefano (45:24)

He would say it Takes a lot of strength to be okay with you, bro. Why do you think you feel like about it?

Adam Schafer (45:29)

I mean, I. I feel like, why? So I know because I know Justin is very turned off by, like, cult leader guys, so I know that's, like.

Sal Di Stefano (45:37)

He'S got the cult leaders.

Adam Schafer (45:38)

Yeah, I know that. I know that, like, turns and cringes him inside, but I feel like. I mean, when I look at the comments on that post I saw, I mean, at least half, if not more than half people are. Are very aware of what's going on in front of them. They're not. They're not suck. I don't. There's only a small percentage of people that were like, this is so beautiful. Most everybody else was like, I pray. I pray that this love never finds me.

Sal Di Stefano (46:01)

One guy goes. One guy. Or I don't know if it was a guy or girls. Like, this is cool if that's what you want to do. But this is so performative. Like, why you guys? Or whatever.

Adam Schafer (46:10)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (46:10)

So it's already interesting. Anyway, I was talking to Tom from Rock Recovery the other day, and it's really cool. I love the guys over there. And you know what he'll do every once in a while is if someone.

Adam Schafer (46:21)

Catch up with Tom, if someone went.

Sal Di Stefano (46:22)

To rock through our show, he'll ask me, hey, can you send a video? And let them know that of course he gets their permission. So I'll always do that just to encourage them or whatever. But, you know, one thing that they do really well, and I. I'll be careful because I don't want to call anybody out, but a friend of mine has a friend who's dealing with addiction right now, alcohol addiction. And he. And I reached out to him and I said, look, if he. If there's anything he needs, if he needs help and he's into fitness, let me know. Because especially from what I learned from Tom, fitness is a incredible vehicle to help break substance abuse. And they use it at Rock Recovery a lot because it's the discipline, it's the structure, it's the pain. Then you see your body change. You see yourself getting stronger, and it's a night. It's a. It's an easier way to take your addiction from alcohol. And then now you can become addicted to fitness, but using fitness as part of their. They use fitness as part of the strategy with rehab.

Doug (47:18)

And he says, purpose, self growth, growth. Like, there's so much there to. To put you back on the right path.

Sal Di Stefano (47:24)

I don't know about you guys, but I've I've known many people in the gyms that I've managed and even people that work for me who found fitness as a way to break alcohol addiction or other things.

Adam Schafer (47:38)

I'm gonna use that. This opportunity, since you brought up Tom, to apologize to him publicly, because I know that he has messaged me a couple times in the last couple weeks at just the worst times, in the middle of all the stuff that we've got going on. And I'm really good normally about getting back to people. So, Tom, if you're listening to this, my bad. I got you. I'll reach back out to you. Because him and I actually communicate quite often, and I just. He literally couldn't have timed it worse as far as when his messages came through, we were in. We were in the thick of all the stuff we were dealing with.

Sal Di Stefano (48:03)

And they've given out a few scholarships now already to some of our listeners. I love that they help all of us.

Doug (48:08)

Such a cool thing that we have.

Sal Di Stefano (48:10)

It's like a 30,000, 40,000. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Anyway, I want to hear about this muscle suit, Justin.

Doug (48:17)

I put that in as, like a.

Adam Schafer (48:18)

Yeah, just like a placeholder Aaron was talking about on our show. Are you talking about that?

Doug (48:23)

No, no, no, no. This isn't, like, cool and sciency. Yeah, like performance. I don't know why I got targeted for an ad. Apparently, it's very exposing.

Sal Di Stefano (48:39)

Those algorithms are really good.

Adam Schafer (48:42)

Stopped.

Doug (48:43)

And I had to watch because I was like, this is bizarre. Like, it was so weird.

Sal Di Stefano (48:46)

What is it?

Doug (48:47)

Well, because, like, it. If you. If you think about. What are they called? Like, furries. You know, like, there's this whole community of that. And then, like, people get, like, weird with, like, putting, you know, dress it up and, you know, bringing that into the bedroom. Anyways, there's this, like, mask. Like, you've seen those masks where it's just like, holes in the eyes and, like, a mouth and, like, it zips up. So they have that.

Sal Di Stefano (49:07)

But, Justin, like.

Doug (49:11)

Like, it's a suit that, like. It's like a huge muscle suit, like, guy.

Adam Schafer (49:16)

For people that are into that.

Doug (49:17)

People are into that. It reminded me of, like, when you were talking about bodybuilder muscle. Muscle worship.

Adam Schafer (49:22)

Yeah, yeah.

Doug (49:23)

But now it's like.

Sal Di Stefano (49:24)

Hold on. It's a.

Doug (49:25)

It's like padded suit.

Sal Di Stefano (49:26)

It's like muscle suit for sex. Yes.

Doug (49:29)

Yeah. Like, you look like a huge bodybuilder, but, like, you're just.

Adam Schafer (49:32)

I mean, it makes kind of sense because. Well, first of all, it only. It makes sense if you know about the muscle worship community, because that. I was completely unaware.

Sal Di Stefano (49:39)

That's such a weird. It was weird.

Doug (49:41)

I was like, I didn't know.

Adam Schafer (49:42)

I did not know that was.

Sal Di Stefano (49:43)

That's. Especially women like Jack. Female bodybuilders that are like. It's really one.

Adam Schafer (49:48)

It's one of. It's one of the number one ways that people in that space have found a way to make money, because it's not a very profitable space to be a bodybuilder for. Still. Today is not.

Sal Di Stefano (49:58)

No. You're broke, dude. Yeah.

Adam Schafer (50:01)

Even the. The best of the best, the champion barely makes enough to cover his steroids like that. That check. He wins for first place in the world.

Sal Di Stefano (50:08)

Oh, that's his steroids. It's like literally, like his $150,000 check cover.

Adam Schafer (50:12)

Yeah. It's his pharmaceutical bill. So there's no money in it. Yes. You can get sponsors and. But even that, it's not. It's not a lot. So a lot of them. And that's, by the way, half point zero one percent. Right. So the rest of them make money doing that. And there's a huge community of people that pay for, like, videos of you just flexing a muscle or. Or.

Sal Di Stefano (50:33)

Or they'll oil you up.

Adam Schafer (50:34)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (50:35)

Come to my house and flex and I'll just put.

Adam Schafer (50:37)

Yeah, I'll pay you $1,000 just to rub oil on your biceps.

Doug (50:39)

You know, this reminds me of the o' Hearn movie that.

Adam Schafer (50:43)

Yes. Maybe watch. Yes. I was like, yes, yes, yes. That's exactly what went through my head when I'm like, bro, you.

Sal Di Stefano (50:48)

But this is a.

Adam Schafer (50:49)

Making this video.

Sal Di Stefano (50:50)

So. But hold on. This is. But this is a fake.

Doug (50:52)

Just fake suit. And it's padded, but, like, huge. Like, like.

Sal Di Stefano (50:56)

So let's play this out. A wife tells her husband. Yeah, it would be really exciting, honey, if you almost want to bust out, you put on a muscle suit. That would really turn me out. First of all. Poor guy.

Adam Schafer (51:05)

Right?

Sal Di Stefano (51:05)

He feels so. But then let's flip it. I wonder if there's dudes that are like, hey, babe, can you put on a muscle suit? Oh, my God. Of course, of course. That's.

Adam Schafer (51:13)

Of course.

Sal Di Stefano (51:14)

What is wrong with people?

Adam Schafer (51:15)

Yeah. Somebody created the company because they realized there's a need in the market. So.

Doug (51:20)

Yeah, that was a new one I just had to share.

Sal Di Stefano (51:22)

Well, so. Female body. I read about this a long time ago. I was too young to read about this, but I subscribed to Muscle magazine back in the day, Muscle Media 2000. And it was like, the all the dark, like, black market conversations around bodybuilding. I was fast. I was always. I was fascinating as a 15 year old kid in the whole world of building muscle. So this magazine would talk about steroids, but it also talked about how female bodybuilders, men would pay them to show up at their house and then like beat them up. Yeah. Like they'd show them wrestling. Yeah. Get them in scissor holes with their legs.

Adam Schafer (51:57)

There's a documentary on that girl that was. There's a whole documentary on Netflix.

Sal Di Stefano (52:01)

Oh, that did. Oh, the one that got killed by her boyfriend.

Adam Schafer (52:04)

Yes. And it was because of Stella.

Sal Di Stefano (52:06)

Was that Bertle Fox? I forgot it was Bertle Fox.

Adam Schafer (52:08)

Is that the name?

Sal Di Stefano (52:09)

I think Myrtle Fox is the one that.

Adam Schafer (52:12)

Yeah. That was an interesting documentary.

Sal Di Stefano (52:14)

I remember.

Doug (52:14)

Funny, because I, I. And we, we have brought it up a bunch. But like the show Taboo. I was so into that show because I just like, I don't know, I'd like peering into, like really weird people. Like, it's just like, like that, that guy fell in love with his car and he's just like making out with his car. I'm like, what?

Sal Di Stefano (52:32)

Who's most likely to do that with a car? Car.

Adam Schafer (52:33)

Stupid Jay. Just because I have coffee in my garage.

Doug (52:41)

Do they all have girl names at least?

Sal Di Stefano (52:45)

Don't lie.

Doug (52:46)

No, Eleanor's in there.

Adam Schafer (52:47)

They don't have.

Sal Di Stefano (52:47)

Okay, bro. If I ever see you kiss your car, bro.

Adam Schafer (52:50)

I've never done. I've never done that.

Sal Di Stefano (52:53)

We'll have an intervention in here.

Adam Schafer (52:54)

I mean, I do have chairs in the garage to sit in there, but it's not. I don't be kissing.

Sal Di Stefano (52:58)

You have chairs in the garage?

Adam Schafer (52:59)

I do. That's like the biggest thing everybody laughs about when they, they come over.

Doug (53:01)

You just sit there, look out and drink.

Adam Schafer (53:03)

But I've also struck.

Sal Di Stefano (53:04)

I've also, I've also.

Adam Schafer (53:06)

I do not do that. I've structured it as like a piece of art. Right. So that's how I look at it. Look at. It's art that I get to drive every once in a while.

Sal Di Stefano (53:13)

It tells Ferrella. Ferrella is all his problems. I don't understand.

Doug (53:19)

I name all my guitars, so I can't.

Adam Schafer (53:22)

He has names in his guitars.

Sal Di Stefano (53:23)

Yeah, yeah.

Adam Schafer (53:25)

He's more likely throw me on the bus like that.

Sal Di Stefano (53:27)

That's gross. I just thought of you. I just thought of you having a relationship with the guitar right now. That's terrible. I just want. I don't understand why you didn't hit with this algorithm as a muscle Suit.

Adam Schafer (53:36)

Because he's more likely.

Doug (53:39)

I watch weird things, man, and I don't know.

Sal Di Stefano (53:42)

I want to see this muscle suit. Doug, is there a way you can find this?

Justin Andrews (53:44)

Oh, great.

Doug (53:44)

Yeah, put it on.

Adam Schafer (53:45)

Come on.

Doug (53:46)

Put it on his album.

Sal Di Stefano (53:46)

Your Google search is all messed up, and you're already being. You're already being watched.

Adam Schafer (53:49)

You're already screwed.

Sal Di Stefano (53:50)

Yeah, we did that to you a long time ago. What would you. What would you type in muscle suit? Snm.

Adam Schafer (53:56)

Hey, why, he's. Which one of you had the Gen Z trained? Young women. What's that?

Sal Di Stefano (53:59)

Oh, that's.

Adam Schafer (54:00)

Can you tell me that?

Sal Di Stefano (54:01)

That's wild. So first I'm gonna see the suit because it'll be a weird transition.

Justin Andrews (54:05)

Yeah, it's seeing some stuff here.

Sal Di Stefano (54:08)

Pull it up here real quick.

Doug (54:09)

All right.

Sal Di Stefano (54:10)

Look at this. Well, let's. Oh.

Adam Schafer (54:13)

Oh, wow.

Sal Di Stefano (54:13)

Yeah, it's actually kind of expensive, huh?

Doug (54:16)

Yeah, it's more like the one in the middle, but. But it was bigger than that. Like, it was like, way oversized.

Sal Di Stefano (54:22)

Let me get some more in. Just work out.

Doug (54:24)

Yeah, just.

Justin Andrews (54:24)

Well, get like that.

Adam Schafer (54:26)

This would be a lot easier. I mean, this is.

Sal Di Stefano (54:27)

Yeah.

Doug (54:27)

What a hack for a little skinny guy, you know?

Sal Di Stefano (54:30)

Dude, that's weird. That's kind of creepy.

Doug (54:33)

It is.

Sal Di Stefano (54:33)

Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you what, those are like, actually. Oh, yeah. More like that one.

Doug (54:37)

You see that one?

Adam Schafer (54:38)

They're like, really good.

Sal Di Stefano (54:39)

This one here. Yeah. I'll tell you what. Right now.

Adam Schafer (54:41)

Like, really? Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (54:43)

If you bought that. But it was all black. If you bought that for me as an 8 year old kid, I would wear that shit every day. Every day as an 8 year old kid. Oh, yeah. I got my son.

Adam Schafer (54:51)

I mean, this would be a fun Halloween costume.

Doug (54:53)

That would be a fun.

Sal Di Stefano (54:54)

Always. I got my son Hulk, they say. Who'd you find, Doug? I found.

Adam Schafer (54:58)

I found.

Sal Di Stefano (54:58)

I.

Justin Andrews (54:58)

You can see this has a zipper, you know, so it makes sense.

Sal Di Stefano (55:02)

Oh, in the front. Yeah. Oh, in the.

Adam Schafer (55:04)

Wow. $2,000 for that one.

Sal Di Stefano (55:06)

Oh, God. Yeah. I.

Adam Schafer (55:08)

That's definitely got to be it right there. That's what Justin is talking about.

Doug (55:12)

Yeah.

Adam Schafer (55:12)

Look at. No emphasis on the calves, though. Nobody cares.

Sal Di Stefano (55:17)

Accurate.

Adam Schafer (55:18)

Very accurate.

Sal Di Stefano (55:19)

Fine. Yeah, we're good. I got my s. You're going to get that. I got my son Hulk pajamas. I don't know if. Does your kid do this whenever I get him superhero pajamas, maybe Said told him this. He. He gets the powers and I pretend like he's got powers. So he puts on these Hulk pajamas and he comes and wrestles me and act like, he, like, beats me up. Yeah. I'm like, it's not fair. You got me down. Anyway. All right, Gen Z. Young women, you want to hear what a trend is happening with young women? Yeah, they're going to.

Adam Schafer (55:44)

It's not the trad wife thing.

Sal Di Stefano (55:45)

No, dude, they're going to conclaves to. To hang out with nuns for like a week or two at a time and pray. And that's this. I literally saw this. A trend trend with these young women. Interesting. Who are like. And I get it, because with social media, convents. What's a conclave?

Justin Andrews (56:04)

That's the thing for the Pope.

Sal Di Stefano (56:06)

Oh, my bad. Convents. They would go. They go to convents and they go. And they live with them for like a week or two.

Adam Schafer (56:11)

Really?

Sal Di Stefano (56:11)

Yeah.

Doug (56:13)

That's pretty cool.

Sal Di Stefano (56:14)

Think about it. Makes sense, right? Like, if you're a kid right now, bombarded by social media, pornography, electronics, no connection that could feel like I could see how some.

Adam Schafer (56:22)

Well, to maybe back you up a little bit, I told you guys about the other day that my neighbor. We had the little neighborhood party. So I don't know if I talked about this on the podcast. I don't think I did. And I'm talking to one of my neighbors who's like a tech dude, engineer guy, and he's got four kids and they got large gaps. And he's telling me that, you know, the ones that were already using iPads, iPhones during COVID It just. He's like, I lost them never. But his youngest. It saw the older siblings like that and they like, they intentionally restrict and they're restricting themselves. Not him or anyone. Wow. She was standing right there. I had the conversation and that. The. It was like nodding her head like, yeah, I know. They're. They're. This generation coming up is more aware of that than the generation that was kind of born with it in, like. So I feel like the. What. I don't know what age that group that is, but it seems like preteen and teens now. Early teens.

Doug (57:20)

There's some hope.

Adam Schafer (57:21)

Yeah, yeah. It'll be interesting to hear from you guys because. Especially you. Because you have one that's coming up on. How old's Everett right now?

Doug (57:28)

Yeah, he's 12.

Adam Schafer (57:29)

He's 12. So he's right at that. Right at that age.

Doug (57:31)

But he's probably pretty much a teen. He acts just like a teen right now. It's crazy, dude.

Sal Di Stefano (57:36)

Happens so fast.

Doug (57:37)

It's tough.

Sal Di Stefano (57:38)

The change just happens so fast. No, my. My 15 year old got back from a. A Christian camp for a week and there was no reception up there. And she was talking all about it. And I'm like, do you see the difference of connection when you're with people and no phones? And she's like, I do. She's like, I totally do. And then, and then she said, you know what's hard? She goes, what's hard is when you're with your friends and everyone is on their phones and you're not. She's like. And then you're like, what do I do?

Adam Schafer (58:04)

You know, I'll tell you what. What. Ha. And this is what. And I bet it's happening already with the kid that's the popular, confident kind of leader personality calls it out. We're all sitting here together.

Sal Di Stefano (58:16)

What are you doing?

Adam Schafer (58:16)

Your phones. Yeah, we're all right here. Like it's gonna take, it's gonna take that kid. I agree to be kind of like that. And then, and then that kid. And then it starts to spread out.

Doug (58:26)

Shake him out of it.

Adam Schafer (58:26)

And so all it takes is the kid that kind of is the leader of the group that, that becomes the person who starts to say that. And if they're aware.

Sal Di Stefano (58:35)

It's so hard, dude, when they're so surrounded by. Because I know I, I put restrictions on my daughter and she gives me pushback a lot because like my friends could do this, my friends could do that. But when you find other parents who are aligned and then they hang out with those kids way easier. And the reality is this, your teenage kids are more influenced by their peers than they are by you. So it's important that you find, you help find. I don't know how you would curate this, but help find a friend group where the parents align with you because otherwise it's up to you.

Adam Schafer (59:05)

Do you also think a lot of it has to do though with like putting the toothpaste back in the tube for you where it's like totally. You're, you're like if you would have like from the before. Oh yeah, like communicated why we don't.

Doug (59:15)

That's the thing to hold out as long as possible.

Adam Schafer (59:16)

Because my, I really believe in that. My cousin Stephanie, they, they were like that from day one. And I. One of the things I was most impressed with was Talking to their 16 year old daughter, right. Who's in the thick of all that stuff, who has very strict restrictions around social media and, and like asking her like, how do you feel about that? She's like, oh man, it sucks. I wish, I wish I could use it more and There's a lot of times where it's like my time limits up and, you know, my friends. And she's saying all the things and I'm like. And then she'd say something like, yeah, but, you know, I get it. I understand where my parents are coming from. I said, well, one day you're going to be a parent. And I said, well, would you. Would you do the same thing or would you. How would you do it? And she goes, oh, no, I would. I would do the exact way my parents are doing. To me, that's like such a good sign. Is that because you can admit, yeah, it's hard. Yes. I want it. Yeah. All those things. And then also admit. But I totally understand where my parents are coming from. And I, too, will parent the same way. To me, you won as a parent. If you. If you got that message through. It's. It's normal for them to have a little resistance, to be bummed out. They're not. But if they can admit that I would do the same thing as if. Which I think that to me, I. I took away from that. I was like, oh, that's. I'm totally gonna use that exercise with.

Sal Di Stefano (60:27)

It's with max 100. And it's like this look and this again, I'm gonna speak to the fitness to fitness, because that's our audience, and I think they'll get this. If you do what everybody else does from a health perspective, you're going to be fat, unhealthy, and sick. It's a fact. Do what everybody else does, eat the way everybody else eats and exercise, or don't exercise like everybody. And the result of that is you will be sick, obese, unhealthy, diabetes, chronic disease, all that stuff. Right? That's true for everything. That's true for everything. If you live like everybody does, you're also going to have mental illness, you're going to have anxiety, you're going to have depression, you're going to have poor crime. And the data on this is clear. In other words, you have to be different. You can't be like everyone else.

Doug (61:08)

How do we get an Amish person on the show? Dude, I would love. I keep thinking about that. Did you hear about a lot, dude, going to Texas and just like, building and rebuilding buildings and everything and just.

Adam Schafer (61:19)

No, it's.

Doug (61:19)

It's. It's like the coolest. I don't know. I'm just so impressed by that culture and what they have stood their ground and how they're, like, not incorporating. It just shows like it's a, a. It's a, it's a great example to see that contrast of like, you know, it has. Technology really benefited us.

Adam Schafer (61:39)

I would love to have someone on the show. I'm fascinated with the, with the, with the culture. I would like somebody. I mean, it's extreme, but it's one of them listening right now and they're pirating it or something like that. Come on the show. Wouldn't that be some wild. Somebody's got to have a family friend or connected.

Sal Di Stefano (61:54)

I do. If, If I'm not mistaken, because I read there was a moment there for like a day where I was into their.

Adam Schafer (61:58)

Like, maybe we catch them on the. What's it called?

Sal Di Stefano (62:00)

I think they have like one computer for. We have to like go.

Adam Schafer (62:03)

We know, we just need to catch one that's on the. What's it called when they, when they get the. Yes, when they can go wild. They go wild for. Is it a year? They get Rum Springer. They get like a year. Right. So we just need to catch one that's on the year of their wild. They can do everything and then get them on the show.

Sal Di Stefano (62:19)

Imagine we have them come on and they pull up in their. In a horse.

Adam Schafer (62:23)

What's it called?

Justin Andrews (62:24)

Yeah, it's Room Springer.

Adam Schafer (62:26)

And it, it lasts one year and it's when they turn 15 or 16 or 18. How old?

Doug (62:31)

Ramsho.

Sal Di Stefano (62:31)

Yes.

Justin Andrews (62:32)

Period of adolescence. Boys and girls are given greater, greater personal freedom. Let me see, as far as the.

Adam Schafer (62:37)

Age even that I'm fascinated with that strategy. Right. Restrict, restrict. And it's like, okay, now go bananas for a year and, and live it up and then see, see. And then come back and majority comes.

Doug (62:49)

Back in some state.

Sal Di Stefano (62:50)

Right.

Justin Andrews (62:50)

So around age 16, it could be a few months, several years and up to five years.

Adam Schafer (62:55)

What is the percentage of them that come back?

Sal Di Stefano (62:57)

Majority. Yeah, the majority. I don't know what the percentage is, but it's a majority.

Adam Schafer (63:00)

I want to know how many. Well, I want to know, is it 50, rare? Is it 51? Or is it like 80, 90. Because that's impressive.

Sal Di Stefano (63:05)

If I'm not mistaken. It's. It's in the 90s.

Justin Andrews (63:07)

85 to 90%.

Doug (63:09)

Wow, there you go.

Adam Schafer (63:10)

Talk about that. Is that is kind of significant.

Sal Di Stefano (63:13)

Like, why would they, why wouldn't. Why would they go back? And a lot of it is their community, their family, their culture.

Adam Schafer (63:19)

Yeah, well, what, what I imagine it happens is they value that over all the crazy other things that the world has to offer. And they go, yeah, cool. Oh, that's Great. Oh, yeah. But I would. I would give all that up to be back to. That's. That's impressive. Yeah, yeah, I'd love to have someone on the show to talk to them about that.

Sal Di Stefano (63:39)

Brain FM are engineered sounds that have been shown in studies to induce different states of mind. In other words, they can make your brain waves appear to be the kind of brainwaves that you need for focus, concentration, sleep, meditation. The studies show it really does work. I love Brain fm. I love it for focusing. So if I want to do something difficult, I put it on within 10 minutes, I can feel like I'm more focused. I can also use it for sleep or meditation. By the way, try it out for 30 days for yourself. Literally, just head over to Brain FM mindpump. Try it for 30 days. Do it once, you'll feel the difference. Back to the show.

Justin Andrews (64:20)

Our first caller is Yaros from the Czech Republic.

Sal Di Stefano (64:23)

What's up, Yaros? What's happening, dude?

Adam Schafer (64:24)

How you doing?

Caller Yaros (64:25)

Hey guys. How's going? Well, thank you so much for taking my call and big hello from over the other side of the pond.

Sal Di Stefano (64:30)

Yeah, how can we help you?

Caller Yaros (64:32)

Awesome. So I'll jump right in to give a little bit of background to my question. A while ago I started with Maps Anabolic and after doing that for some time, I ended up developing a little some joint pain, specifically in my left elbow, the left knee and the right wrist. I ended up getting Maps prime to address some of those issues. And that was really helpful as well. But what I found was quite some big, glaring differences in some different sides of the body. So for example, really obvious one would be when doing the 1990, for example, sitting on one side of the body, like sitting on my right side of the body, having the legs on the left side was completely comfortable and felt really, really good. But then on the other side it was really, really a lot more challenging. And the same with the wrists, I noticed big differences in the wrists. And my main question is, how would you recommend to address this if I should be doing kind of focusing just on the side that is worse, or if I should be kind of half and half anyways doing both sides with these things or something in between? And then I'd have two quick follow ups as well. That's okay.

Sal Di Stefano (65:37)

Yeah, good question. So do you still want to do both but you want to focus more on the side that needs the help? Okay, so what it looks like is more intensity, more focus on the side that is, that is the problem area. Now what you would do, what this would look like. Let's say you're doing the 9090 is when you get into position, you start with the side that. Let's say you start with the side that's easy. You sit in that position and just kind of hold it for a little bit and just kind of sit there for a little. Then when you get to the other side, you really work at improving mobility. So that's what it looks like. What you don't want to do is ignore one side completely because you can actually cause problems doing that as well. So you do both, but more of the focus and the intensity is on the side that needs more help.

Adam Schafer (66:19)

I actually even like my clients and myself to. I actually like the same way we recommend the lifting. I actually do the weaker side first just to. So your intent is there. Right? So, like, I'm okay. The. The. And this is. By the way, this is really common. Some people, it's more glaring than others. I had the exact same thing, you know, just. I lacked internal rotation on the right side versus the left. And so I just. I. I started on that, and I just. A lot more. A lot of intensity into really working on it. It. And then when I got to the side that I'm already good at, was just kind of like it was more going through the motions, let's say. So when I went on to the side that I'm. I have less mobility, less connection to, I'm really. I'm starting on that side. There's a lot of intent, there's a lot of focus. And then when I get to the side that has good mobility, I just kind of go through the motion. So I still want to do it and practice it, but the intent and focus is just really on that side that I. I lack the most. So you're so to Sal's point, you're going to still do both, but you're really focused on the other side. And then if you don't have already, I love to send you Map Symmetry. That's the program for you. So if you pair Map Symmetry with some of those Maps Prime Pro 90 90s and movements together, it's such a great. This will really balance you out. After a full cycle of that, you'll notice a huge progression by running those together. Do you have that yet?

Caller Yaros (67:37)

No, no, I have Maps, Anabolic Maps, Prime Maps Prime Pro.

Adam Schafer (67:41)

Yeah. This would be a great time for you to do a lot of unilateral work, which is Map symmetry is based off that. So keep doing what you're doing already from Prime Pro. And, and by the way too, like.

Doug (67:50)

What'S the natural progression from there? Because then we strengthen it, right. So you regain that sort of range of motion where you're stable and controlled and then start strengthening it with tension and then we start adding a bit of load through, you know, isolating it with this unilateral focus. But yeah, I think that would be a great follow up for you.

Adam Schafer (68:07)

And, and keep in mind, you know, frequency is king here over intensity. Right. So like when I talk to clients about stuff like this, you know, they might be good at like right before their workout or maybe one day they focus on mobility and it's like, man, I would rather you get down and get in that 90, 93, four times in the day for two minutes. Then you know, one day a week for an hour. Right. It's more valuable to you to just, just every time you kind of think about it, you're at home playing with the kids, doing your thing, you just slide down, you get in the 90 night, we just work on it.

Doug (68:39)

That replace your sitting with it as much as possible.

Adam Schafer (68:41)

Yeah, that will serve you and move you along so much faster than like just one day a week of high intensity mobility or only doing it when you work out. You'll notice, you'll notice your progression a lot more that way.

Sal Di Stefano (68:54)

The other thing to consider, Yaros, is when you start to see repeated pain and injuries. So it's like multiple joints, multiple issues, and you didn't injure it, it's not like you did something to hurt it, but it's just like starts to ache and whatever. That often points to a few different things. One, overuse injury, I'm doing the same plain of movement too much, I'm not moving outside of that. Two, I'm doing too much exercise or too much intensity for what I can handle at the moment. And that's could be quite complex. I'm getting poor sleep. So now the same workout is too much workout, or I've been working out too hard for too long. Or it could be my, I'm not feeding myself appropriately. So you gotta look at all that. Cause whenever I start to feel all these like, oh, one thing hurts, now another thing hurts, now the other thing hurts. Yeah, it's typically that it's not just I got mobility issues.

Doug (69:44)

It's like most time it's a deficiency of like how, how often do you move laterally, how often do you rotate?

Adam Schafer (69:50)

Yeah.

Doug (69:51)

So you got to really kind of assess that in your programming, in your.

Adam Schafer (69:54)

Daily activities, which by the way, that would be the ultimate progression from symmetry. Right. So the. The ideal pathway we go right now is we do what you're doing right now. Keep focusing on Prime Pro, go through symmetry. And then after symmetry, we do a program like, let's say, old timing, something that's going to challenge like rotation and some of those things, and to keep that mobility, to keep that stability and strength. The other thing to consider too, is, I don't know if you've tried to figure out the root cause. Like, you know, and it could be all the things the guy said. It could also be your job. I don't know what you do all day. Sometimes people that have, what is it?

Caller Yaros (70:31)

So my job. So I. I don't want to say I'm a dancer. I have a dance school, but it's not something that I'm doing, like extremely professionally or very intensively. I think the root cause was probably too much weight. I feel like that was it. And for example, with the knees, I think a skill level of technique was having an issue. So I ended up figuring out that I tend to stand a little bit on the inside of my foot, and that causes my knees to go in a little bit. But maybe along this, what we're talking about right now, would you mind if I just kind of tell you them three things that I've changed in my workouts in order to joint shoes, and you tell me if you feel like I'm kind of missing something or not.

Adam Schafer (71:09)

Yeah.

Caller Yaros (71:10)

So basically I mentioned that I was doing Maps Anabolic. I'm still doing that one. And before I was just doing that by myself. I would get right into it. Start off with a couple sets of higher and higher weights. For example, for the deadlift, starting three sets or something of slightly increasing weights and then going into the program. Right now, what I started doing is I started taking about 15 minutes before every workout to focus on this mobility stuff, specifically on the issues, stuff from Maps, Pump Pro, Prime Pro, mainly. So I started to take about 15 minutes before the workouts on this. I started, generally speaking, trying to focus on slightly lowering the weight and increasing reps first several times before increasing weight. I feel like the issues were probably coming from too much weight. And now that I loaded and focusing first on growing the reps before adding weight, that's the second thing that I'm doing. And so third thing is that when I was feeling like it's active, the pain and still there, then I'm kind of skipping out completely some exercises or replacing them again with mobility. So, for example, instead of biceps curls or triceps extensions from behind the back. So I would just do, like, light sets of Zachmans and then jump into the other Maps Anabolic workouts. So those are the three things that I'm kind of adapted, and I feel like it's important improving and helping, but would love to hear if you feel like it's along the right track.

Sal Di Stefano (72:37)

Yaros, how many times have you done Maps Anabolic in a row now?

Caller Yaros (72:41)

So I did it two years ago for, like, three months, and then now half a year ago, I went back into it. And for the last maybe three months or so, I've been doing it relatively consistently twice a week.

Sal Di Stefano (72:55)

Okay. And then. So you got. So you've redone it a couple times in a row.

Caller Yaros (73:02)

I got stuck in phase one, and I just was progressing in the one phase. Like, I think there are, like, three phases.

Adam Schafer (73:10)

Right.

Caller Yaros (73:11)

I was just kind of in one phase, slowly growing the reps, weights in that one phase, which might be.

Adam Schafer (73:18)

Yes, that's absolutely.

Sal Di Stefano (73:19)

So here's the deal. What you're doing right now is band aids. So if I was training a power lifter with a competition, then we would do what you're doing, because not moving out into different programming, you got a competition coming up. That's not really an option. So we're going to have to kind of band aid things until we get to the competition. What you need to do is cycle out of maps and a ball. Maps Anabolic is so effective at getting you really strong in one plane of movement. What tends to happen to people is they stay there.

Adam Schafer (73:46)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (73:47)

And then they're going to hurt. You're going to hurt. And I don't care how much mobility you do, because the mobility is never going to equate the same intensity and drive, wave and focus is the workout. Unless your mobility is taking, you're spending more time on that than the workouts, which is almost never the case. So you need to go into symmetry, then you need to go in performance, and then maybe go back into Maps Anabolic. But you've been stuck in Maps Anabolic for. For too long, especially phase one.

Adam Schafer (74:11)

Yeah, gotcha, Gotcha.

Caller Yaros (74:13)

Makes sense.

Adam Schafer (74:13)

Yeah. And it does makes. By the way, it does make sense that you feel better doing the things you're doing. Those are good. Like Sal said, band aids, like that was, those were good options if you were going to continue that path.

Sal Di Stefano (74:22)

But.

Adam Schafer (74:22)

But there's better options for you right now, and a better option for you right now would be to go to symmetry, focus on the mobility, move through Move through all the phases as they're laid out, stuff like that. There definitely is a reason why we only block things in three or four weeks and then we move on because that this is very common and, and the idea that we try and build in all the programming is to make sure that it's balanced like that. And if you stay in a phase for a really long time, this tends to happen especially analogy.

Caller Yaros (74:48)

And so would you recommend I go to phase two of anabolic or I write the symmetry?

Sal Di Stefano (74:53)

No, go right to symmetry. You're done with maps. Anabolic.

Adam Schafer (74:57)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, yeah. Right to some. And I wouldn't bring you back like Sal said to anabolic till after a whole cycle of symmetry, a whole cycle of performance or old timey and then go back, then go back to maps. Now what's cool is if we do you do a good job and consistent with your prime Pro, you do good in symmetry and consistent in you go through performance. When you come back to Mass Anabolic, you're going to feel like a beast. Yep. You're going to feel love all the.

Doug (75:22)

Strength, stability around your joint.

Adam Schafer (75:24)

You'll feel stronger than you've ever felt. You'll feel, you won't have the aches and pains. You're going to feel amazing when you do that. If you follow it that way.

Caller Yaros (75:32)

Gotcha, gotcha. Makes perfect sense. And maybe just super quick last follow up. Is there any Jesus Supplements for joint specifically? I know I was in Spain right now visiting my dad. He said something about collagen. I don't know anything about it but is there something would you recommend for joint pain?

Sal Di Stefano (75:50)

No. I mean you could take things that are again gonna kind of band aid things if you stay well hydrated, you're eating adequate protein. There's some supplements that'll help with inflammation. Fish oil, high epa fish oil and.

Doug (76:00)

A regular red light therapy if you have access.

Sal Di Stefano (76:02)

But yeah, but it's not gonna, it's not gonna fix. It's not gonna fix the problem.

Adam Schafer (76:06)

Gotcha, gotcha.

Sal Di Stefano (76:07)

Cool.

Caller Yaros (76:07)

Makes sense. All right, thank you so much. That was really, really helpful and I'll be really looking forward to the map symmetry. Thank you so much. I appreciate it and thank you guys for all the episodes that you do you my health and fitness life to a better direction over the last couple of years. So really appreciate your time.

Adam Schafer (76:23)

Thanks brother.

Sal Di Stefano (76:24)

Appreciate it brother. Yeah. I think here's why we write our programs the way we do. It's. It's not to necessarily. Yes it is to continue you progressing. But what Are we considering with that plateaus with progress? Yes. Potential injury. Yes. That's also what's going to plateau.

Doug (76:44)

You getting too strong? Just in one direction.

Sal Di Stefano (76:46)

Yeah. Now, the reason why I knew, I knew knew what the answer was. I just had to figure I had to ask him the questions just to confirm it. And it's because it wasn't just one joint. It's like my right wrist, my left elbow, my left knee.

Adam Schafer (76:57)

Whole body's talking.

Sal Di Stefano (76:58)

Yeah.

Doug (76:58)

So it's like chain issues.

Sal Di Stefano (77:00)

Either you're over trained, you have terrible sleep, or you're doing the same things over and over and over and over again and you're not moving outside of that and you can do mobility to remedy it to an extent, but it's not going to outweigh it just dampens the signal. That's right.

Doug (77:14)

Yeah. It doesn't fix it.

Sal Di Stefano (77:15)

100.

Adam Schafer (77:15)

Yeah.

Justin Andrews (77:16)

Our next caller is Lori from Canada.

Sal Di Stefano (77:18)

Hi, Laurie. Laurie.

Doug (77:20)

Hi guys.

Caller Lori (77:21)

This is incredibly surreal talking to you, so thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I just want to take a couple of minutes to really thank you for everything you do. I honestly can't even count how many times I've referred to my podcast when I talk about mind pump. I really appreciate everything you share, not just about fitness, but parenting and your faith journey. I've been listening for just over a year and have learned so much. And I really want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for how much your content carried me through my first pregnancy and postpartum. And try not to get emotional because I'm still postpartum. I blame my hormones. I was honestly really nervous about how I'd manage pregnancy, weight gain just because of issues I've had in the past. But from what I learned from you guys, I didn't fall into crash dieting or over training. I felt informed and empowered and able to trust my body. I used maps 15 during my third trimester, all the way up until the day before I went into labor. And I did map starter postpartum. Then 15 and 15 performance gave me structure and confidence during an overwhelming time. I'm proud of how I managed it, but I give a lot of credit to you guys for helping getting me through it. So thank you so much.

Adam Schafer (78:28)

Wow.

Sal Di Stefano (78:29)

Awesome.

Adam Schafer (78:29)

Thank you.

Caller Neely (78:31)

So now to my question.

Caller Lori (78:33)

I'm going to provide a little bit of context after I ask it, just for where the question is questions coming from. So my question is, what advice do you have for raising kids to have a healthy relationship with food? For the context, I have struggled with my weight and body image for most of my life. I was overweight from a really young age. And although I started going to the gym and getting healthier in my 20s and I'm now 32, I spent years doing all of the wrong things. Endless cardio program, hopping over training under eating, and then led to dealing with binge eating, orthorexia and body dysmorphia for many years. The last five years have been much better and honestly, your podcast has helped a lot with that in the last year and a half. But I do still struggle with food noise and feeling a lot of guilt when I eat off track. So now I'm a mom to a nine month old son and I do hope to have more children, but I worry about passing on my struggles with food down to my kids. Adam, I've heard you talk a lot about how you've managed to sugar with Max, and I love the approach. I've talked to my husband a lot about it and he's very much on board and I've tried implementing it already and I've already gotten some pushback from friends and family. When I say something like, yeah, he doesn't need a lick of your ice cream, it's okay. I get responses like, oh, erdem. Or, you know, comments that I'm being too restrictive or that I might be projecting my issues onto my son. I just don't feel that a nine month old really needs added sugar at this point in his life. And again, like I said, my husband is fully on board and supportive and happy to step in if someone's not listening, but still, just not, not only managing our home, but also input and judgment from others. It's a challenge. So I just love to hear your thoughts both on how to help kids develop a healthy relationship with food and how to confidently hold those boundaries when others are questioning your parenting choices regarding health and fitness.

Adam Schafer (80:22)

Great, great, great question, Battle. And I, I mean personally, I mean, I can only speak to this from my personal experience. Like, by no means do I think I'm an expert in this at all, but I do think that one of the best decisions that Katrina ever made was sticking together on this. We, we too had a conversation around this. We kind of knew that we both have families, a lot of sugar, a lot of stuff like that around that it was going to be challenging. And so I think the number one thing, which is what you guys have already done is make sure that you're united on that. I think this is good. And I would, I would communicate to them when they. When they say things like that, because of course they would say that, oh, you're going to. He's going to binge when he gets older because he's going to rebel. And it's. It's like, oh, no. I. He's going to be able to have candy and ice cream as a kid. Like, I. Absolutely. When he can talk to me and ask me for it, I'll cross that bridge. But until he can talk, it's a. Hell, no right now. Because he doesn't even. He doesn't even know if he wants it or not. And so I don't feel like introducing that to him. Like, and so I. We really stuck hard to that. It was. The first year was probably a little rough with the family, but then after a while, they started to get it and respect it. And especially when I would confirm with them, like, hey, don't worry, I do want him. I want him to have ice cream. I want him to have. Enjoy those things. But please don't rob that of me, like, as the parent. Like, I want to be able to give them that and do that with them. And you going behind my back or doing things like that is. You're robbing me of that. And that's not fair there. And don't worry, he's gonna get his ice cream and candy, and one day you guys can go get a scoop together. And I look forward to that. And. But right now, we've just agreed at these early stages that we want to help shape his palate. And so. And. And a lot of that looked like, for me, just, you know, Max ate what we ate, you know, just chopped up smaller versions of it, and so we just normalize. Like, we didn't. We never talked about food. I never said, said, this is a good food. This is a bad food. This is. This is what we eat. And so I think a lot of it stems from just consistency around the two of you as parents and what you guys make for dinner and what you're around. We just. We never ate fast food. We never did things like that. We. We cooked. In fact, when we had him, we really ramped up the consistency around making our meals for, like, now. Now he's older and he knows what chicken on the stick is. And we delete. We get food delivered and it's all. And by the way, my son gets ice cream cake. He gets all the things now. But it's amazing to watch his relationship with it. He has no crazy pull for it. I can offer him one bite of it and he's fine. He doesn't ask for more. Like, there's a lot of times where I've actually given him unfettered access because he's at a. A party with other kids and he'll take a bite and put it down and. And he doesn't care. He doesn't have this pull and urgent. And a lot of times some of the stuff is so sweet and overpowering. He's like, ah, Daddy, I don't like it. And he prefers things like fruit and cocoa whip. Like that. Cocoa whip and fruit to my son is like the most. And I really attribute that to shaping his palate in those early years by being consistent with the types of foods that we ate and keeping every. All the family members at bay with feeding him the sugar. And so. And now I don't even manage it. It's incredible. It's a really cool whole thing that I think we both look back and go, like, yeah, that was. That was the right call. So that's been my experience and kind of how we handled both the family and then also about, like, I do think, and I'm sure you've heard Sal talk with us before, like, you really do not want your kids to catch you, you know, shaming yourself for diet choices or talking about your body in relation to the food that we eat. It's, you know, it's fuel, it's energy that. It's all positive in that, in that matter. And honestly, I don't think you even need to have that much of a conversation around it for a long time. I don't think it's necessary yet. With my son, we just do the thing. That's how we eat, you know.

Sal Di Stefano (84:14)

Yeah. Lori, I want to address the shame part because that could be really, really challenging. And I mean, you know, this. You mentioned faith. Like, we're all in need of grace. Like, no, we're so far from deserving it, it's not even funny. The more you realize it, the more you can extend it to other people, including yourself. So. And this is very difficult when you have children because the mistakes you make become so obvious because you love this human so much. And so it's really easy to be like, oh, my God, I'm not perfect. Oh my God, I did this thing. So be, you know, be careful with that and, and feel, you know, feel God's grace. That's the only way you'll be able to extend it. When it comes to the habits that our children develop, the data is pretty clear on it. Children, they, their habits come from our habits, not from what we tell them to do. So the most effective thing you can do to help your children develop a better relationship with food is for you to have a better relationship with food. That's 90 something percent of it.

Adam Schafer (85:18)

Working a lot on that.

Sal Di Stefano (85:20)

That's it. That's going to do everything. Everything. That's gonna do everything. Now let's get to the family part because this becomes a little bit more complicated. How often are your children with family? Is grandma watching them on a regular basis or is it more like visiting? Like, what does it look like we.

Caller Lori (85:36)

Visit with my mom? Like right now she's at home full time recovering from an injury, so. And I'm on maternity leave, so we're there pretty frequently. And you know, she's got the classic like, well, she's at. That he's at Beppa's house. It's okay. And I'm just like, ew, no, I hate that rule. Like, it's just. And she's getting it. I think that's a big part of it. It's just, it seems like every new person that we encounter and we're pretty social people, so he's not often somewhere without me at this stage, just because that's just how it kind of is. But yeah, I know that time will come as he gets a little bit older, that he'll spend more time with people that. When I might not be there, especially when I go back to work.

Sal Di Stefano (86:13)

So here's the. Here are the things that you need to balance out. This is, this is where it gets, I think, more clear. The most important thing that your son or your children can get with your. This is your mom or your mother in law. My mom. Your mom. Okay. The most important thing that your children are going to get with your mom is not the food that she gives them, it's the relationship that they have with her. There's nothing more important than that. Like their relationship with grandma is going to outweigh by far. It's not even the same universe to the foods that she gives them. So that's the, that's what you weigh. Okay, now because you guys are there so often and because it's your mom, this is gonna. You can have lots of conversations with her and you can explain this to her and you can say, mom, I really need you to respect this because it's so important to me and I love you so much. And this is just, it's so important. Now if this becomes a. This is gonna ruin or really cause stress on the Relationship between your mom and your children, because that can happen sometimes. You know, in my culture, my mom, she almost doesn't know how to show love in any other way than feeding you and hugging and kissing you. So it's like I took her hands and tied him behind her back. Okay, so there's a lot of conversation and my mom tries to do her best, but she, she goes outside the lines all the time and I'm okay with it because she, she, this is how she shows love and this is her limitation. And honestly, I want her relationship and my children's relationship to feel good because what ended up happening with my mom is she started to feel anxious. I don't know what to do. And should we get texts? Is this okay? She'd send us pictures of things. Is that okay? Is this, can I do this? I'm like, oh, this is making it so that she, she can't develop this relationship with my, with my children. So I loosened up quite a bit, but there was a lot of conversations around. So that's what you end up up, you know, weighing, you know, end up weighing out with your kids and your mom. And it's a, it's a lot of conversation and your mom will probably learn to respect it and get it because she doesn't get it now maybe, but she'll probably start to get it and then it's going to be okay. And it's, it's never going to be like it is with you. Like your kids, the way that they eat and the way that they're, that you are with them will never be the same as it is with grandma or someone else that you really trust and love. But that's okay. It's okay that it's looser at grandma's house because that's grandma and they have that kind of relationship. It'll probably be like that with you and your grandkids and that's okay. So that's the balance. And I can't give you the perfect answer because I don't know what that is. I don't know what your relationship is. You know how you're gonna see that? You'll have a much better read on that. But that's the thing, because what can end up happening sometimes with fitness fanatics or people are really fitness minded is we could put so many restrictions that then we can turn it into a fight. Like, no, this is a line in the sand. I've actually, I've actually heard and have, I've heard fitness fanatics say, well, I'm not taking him to grandma's house because she refuses to respect me.

Caller Lori (89:15)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (89:15)

Oh, really? What happened? Did they give her. What did she do? She gives her a lolly, gives him a lollipop. I'm like, I don't know if that's really a good trade off. You know, she's not handing him cigarettes. So I don't know if that's really a good. You know. So that's the balancing that you kind of have to make. And then the other thing I would say is you want to minimize the conversations with mom in front of child, because that's what the child internalizes. So she's going to hand them ice cream. Mom, he can't eat that. Kid hears that. So you know what you do? You let him have the ice cream.

Adam Schafer (89:43)

Then when you go home, talk to.

Sal Di Stefano (89:45)

Mom later, say, hey, Mom, I know you gave. You know you gave him ice cream.

Adam Schafer (89:48)

Please don't do that.

Sal Di Stefano (89:48)

Please don't do that anymore. Like, it's really important to me. But not in front of the kid.

Caller Lori (89:53)

Because that's a really good point.

Sal Di Stefano (89:55)

Oh, it's a big deal. Because the kid. What they start to do is they start to pick sides.

Adam Schafer (89:59)

Yeah. And that's where they'll rebel. That will cause a rebellious behavior because they'll be like, my mom never lets me do this. And then it's like everybody else wants it.

Sal Di Stefano (90:06)

Or what's more likely to happen because your mom is when they're little now, when they're older, they'll rebel against you. But when they're little, they go. They side with mom. Grandma's not good. Grandma doesn't care about us. Grandma doesn't care about my health. That's what happens when they're really little. I mean, you know, I think about that when you were a kid, if you overheard your mom talk about someone in a particular way, that became your opinion about that person later, you were able to make a better judgment. Sometimes you see this happen with divorced couples. Right. Mom talks about dad, Dax. Now the kid has to pick a side. So always keep it in front of the kid. Oh, they're eating the ice cream. Just swallow it. I was. All right. It's fine.

Adam Schafer (90:41)

Just to address, though, the challenge that he's. One of the ways we handled this challenge, and we still do this today, is when we drop Max off at family. Family. We send him with his food.

Sal Di Stefano (90:50)

That's what we do. Exactly.

Adam Schafer (90:51)

Yeah.

Caller Lori (90:52)

That was kind of something.

Adam Schafer (90:54)

I always bring food that solves. 90% of that is just. And they appreciate it because he's already got his meals ready. They don't got to think about. They just get to play with him and enjoy him. And you can let it. And Katrina would be like, hey, at 11 o', clock, he eats this. At 1 o', clock, he eats this. And, you know, and sometimes he doesn't eat all of it, whatever. But they have something laid out. There's. There's not an excuse for them to go. Go feed him something else. He's already got his food with him. That solves 90% of that right there. And that, yes, that takes a little extra effort on our part to prepare and do that, but we cared that much about that. And I think the family starts to get it. When you see. They see you putting that effort into it, they're like, okay. They're really trying to, you know, control the way he's eating these foods. Maybe I should help. I. And we had a little bit of the push back early, but because we consistently spoke to the family about it, because we did the meals like that, it. They. They started to get on board. And now, I tell you what, you talk to any of them, they're. They're all blown away. They're all, damn. We were. We were wrong about that because he's got this incredible relationship with. With. With sweets and stuff.

Sal Di Stefano (91:56)

And by the way, you know, speak encouragement to pe. To people that really, you know, you know, the people that really love your kids. Your mom probably really loves your kids. So it's not some.

Caller Lori (92:03)

You know, she adores him.

Sal Di Stefano (92:04)

So. So with my mom, at first, it turned into, like, this is the way it is. Mom respect me. And it just turned into this weird, weird. And then it was like, you know, I love how much you love the kids. I love how much you want them to enjoy these things. And that changed the dynamic around that conversation. But I did what Adam. That's what we do with now. What Adam said is we send them with food, and then it becomes much easier for them to manage. Yeah.

Adam Schafer (92:25)

And another way to say that and how it helped us, too, is I asked them to help me. Hey, this is. This is hard for me to be consistent with this. I don't want to give them processed foods. I don't want to give them stuff like that. And it takes a lot extra effort. So any way you can help me, please help me, because this is. And so framing it like that, then I have other family members who was like, a stern talk. Don't give him any long box. I'm gonna whoop your ass, like, so Just depends if you're talking to grandma. That's right, exactly. So if I'm talking to my brother in law, that's how I'm talking to him. Right. If it's my, my mother in law, it's like, mom, can you help me? You know, and so, you know, you gotta approach everybody a little bit different, but those are the things. I think that that's all. And there, let me tell you, there was a couple times in there where we had, had it happened. It wasn't a big deal. If as long consistency around them Whole Foods and the way we did stuff like that, I think it's, it was one of the best things we ever did.

Caller Neely (93:10)

Awesome.

Sal Di Stefano (93:11)

Yeah.

Caller Lori (93:12)

All right, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you guys taking the time.

Sal Di Stefano (93:15)

Yeah, thank you so much for calling in.

Caller Lori (93:17)

Thank you very much. Have a great day.

Adam Schafer (93:19)

Good luck.

Sal Di Stefano (93:21)

Yeah. Parents that smoke rarely ever tell their kids to smoke. They almost always tell their kids not to smoke. What does the data show the kids? Kids are far more likely to smoke. Parents that yell, parents that, you know, drink. Whatever your kids, what you do is far more impactful than what you say.

Adam Schafer (93:39)

For sure.

Sal Di Stefano (93:40)

And so if you're everything, if you have a relationship with food that is dysfunctional and you don't want your kids to have that relationship, the best thing you could do is work on yourself. It's just a fact.

Adam Schafer (93:51)

Listen, one of the, one of the hardest things to do in this scenario is to do the things that you can do and not worry about the uncontrollables. Right. Like the one time grandma does the lollipop or the, it's like it's already difficult enough to eat whole foods and cook for a family every single night and be consistent with that and, or send your kid with their food already? Like, that's work. It takes a lot of work. So I the, you should be mainly focusing on that. And if you crush that and do that consistently, then even if some of the family members don't listen and don't abide and step out of the boundary of the diet, you're going to be okay.

Sal Di Stefano (94:24)

It's not that big of a deal.

Adam Schafer (94:25)

It's not that big of a deal. And eventually you'll be fine anyways. But, but if you're inconsistent with that and then they're also doing that.

Sal Di Stefano (94:32)

Well, no, it's always inconsistent.

Adam Schafer (94:33)

Yeah, then it's very inconsistent. And then really which one is really affecting them more? The inconsistency you're doing at home or the once in a while that grandma or uncle or does the thing. So, you know, that's. I think the main focus should be on ourselves.

Justin Andrews (94:46)

Our next caller is Neely from Texas.

Sal Di Stefano (94:48)

Hi, Neely.

Adam Schafer (94:49)

How you doing?

Sal Di Stefano (94:50)

Hi.

Caller Neely (94:50)

Hi, guys. I'm like starstruck right now and also, but also feel like I'm talking to myself. My friend slash probably therapist a little bit. So this is good.

Sal Di Stefano (95:03)

Help you.

Caller Neely (95:05)

So I want to start like everybody else. Thank y' all so much. Really appreciate all of yalls advice and just information that you put out. It really feels good to know that there are people advocating for health and fitness the correct way. And also from, you know, the faith aspect, it's really, really cool to have that as a part of this is something I'm so passionate about. So I do want to say that I apologize in advance. I'm a little bit long winded and my question slash story here is a bit long. So just cut me off if you need to. But I think y' all heard I am a doctor. I'm an optometrist. I'm 27. I just graduated a year ago, so still kind of new to, you know, doing it all on my own and not being in the school environment. But I am currently weighing in about £170. Switching focuses to the health side, that's typically where I feel comfortable. I am a chronic extreme over trainer. This is going on 10 plus years. I've pushed my body to pretty much every limit possible. Never felt like I did enough. All the mottos that y' all say not to use, like, I'll sleep when I'm dead. No pain, no gain, no days off. That is how I live my life. I didn't leave the gym unless I couldn't walk out or was drenched in sweat. So, yeah, basically every time y' all say one of those things, I'm like, ouch. That's me. Obviously, this was a body dysmorphia issue, but the gym was also my safe place, and it's where I went to release stress from all of the schooling. Four years in optometry school, there was a lot of stress on the school sides of things, so I went to the gym to try to release some of that. This probably started after my second knee injury in high school. So I tore cartilage off the bone in my left knee my junior year of high school. I tore my ACL my senior year in high school in my right knee. So probably my identity was a little bit tied up in the athlete thing. I went on to college not pursuing an athletic career, so it's kind of hard to let go, especially considering majority of my family played some sport at a collegiate level. But all of that, this just developed a very unhealthy relationship with food, my body, a toxic cycle that just kind of has continued throughout all the years. In 2023, about two years ago now, I had a third major knee surgery. During one of my extreme workouts, I had a injury. It wasn't anything crazy, but it felt different. Since both my surgeries in high school, I had dealt with pain and told myself I was a wimp. Anytime I would be like, oh, maybe I shouldn't work out today, I convinced myself that I needed to keep going. This felt different. And I was like, I know I need to go see a doctor. So I did. That area where I had had that cartilage repaired was completely gone. So I was just bone on bone. They also told me that I had bone spurs in both knees. And they kind of told me that I like moderate stage arthritis. I had two options. I could just live my life as a normal human and just plan to have a knee replacement at around 35, or I could undergo this major knee surgery. It was a combination. These are big, fancy words, but osteochondrial osteograft combined with a distal femoral osteotomy. So basically just shy of a total knee replacement. They thought it would help my pain and kind of prolong having to have the knee replacement. And so far, that has been true. So I did have this surgery, and they pretty much told me that either option, I was really gonna have to cut back on the way that I was training for. Get running. I ran every day, so all of these things were just a lot to take in. Thankfully, recovery did go as smoothly as possible. And it was during recovery that I found Yalls podcast, and it was really a relief to hear. Like, this may have actually been, like, a major blessing that I, like, am now forced to stop training like an idiot and really cut back. Obviously, I didn't see it that way for a really long time. And that's kind of where I'm still at. Struggling with just that mentality of, like, wanting to do more, but trying to listen to my body and take care of it. My training has changed considerably. I'm really just lifting right now and not anything heavy, not near what I was before. So that has just been really difficult to kind of overcome as well as, like, the food aspect again, y' all have helped me a lot there. Whereas before just eating literally as little as I could during the day. And also always feeling like I was starving to now, like, I do prioritize, like protein. I'm eating full meals, three full meals at the very least. I don't track because of my history with issues, but I know I'm around 150 grams of proteins a day. So just to add to all of that, I did recently get blood work done because I was in a period where I felt like I was gaining all this weight, and I was just very unhappy and refused to believe that it was just because I had turned 27 that, you know, my hormones were out of whack or whatever. So my testosterone was low, which is what I went in telling the doctor I was worried about. She didn't offer me any advice surrounding that. She actually didn't even reach out to me. After the lab results, I had to go to a different doctor with my results. Results. My progesterone and my DHEA were normal, but they were both also on the lower end. Of course, I was deficient in vitamin D. So all that to say, after I went to the second doctor with my results, she actually recommended me to start a GLP one. I was not opposed to this, as I have used one before. And the way that it. It changed the mental side of things, which Adam has talked on a lot. That was, like, the biggest game changer for me was to, like, have a quiet mind and not, like, be so in my head. So I did start that again at the lowest dose. And honestly, after using it for a couple weeks, I would. I felt 10 times better than I did before starting it. Now I've been using that for a couple of months. Months. And my appetite really isn't suppressed. I still am eating about the same. It's just, like, I feel better. So I'm. I'm at this point where I am debating, like, coming back off of that and seeing what happens. She also recommends starting testosterone. And that was in. One of my original questions when I wrote all of this was like, whether or not that should. That is something I pursue. I feel like I hear y' all talk about it a lot with men. I just wasn't super clear on, like, female hormone replacement therapy with testosterone. However, again, since I wrote this, I did. I did start it, and I've been using it for almost two weeks now. So, again, I apologize. That was long winded and probably too scatterbrained. I guess my question. Go ahead. Sorry.

Sal Di Stefano (103:06)

No, that's great. You just gave us context.

Adam Schafer (103:09)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (103:09)

Yeah. So. So, Neely, so let me just quickly address the hormone replacement therapy. Therapy. I'm always. I'm typically pro that. But because you're so young, do you have children?

Caller Neely (103:20)

I don't.

Sal Di Stefano (103:21)

Do you plan on having children?

Caller Neely (103:24)

Probably. And that is something she talked about. And I'm doing a cream because of that.

Sal Di Stefano (103:30)

Yeah. So because of your age, typically, what we can do when you work with a functional medicine practitioner is we can see the hormones typically respond pretty well. Well on their own. So that would be the direction that I would go, especially considering the context you gave us of over training. You're a doctor. I've trained a lot of doctors. I know the mentality that it takes to become a doctor. It's also the mentality that it takes for you to be a hardcore athlete. It's this like, I can go and I'm going to go and nothing's going to stop me type of attitude. But the side effect of that is you. You wear yourself down and you beat yourself up. You have a tolerance for pain, you have a tolerance for stress that's above and beyond most people, but it doesn't come without a cost. So I. I think a functional medicine practitioner would be much more appropriate. Because of your age, you're not done having kids. You don't have any yet. And I think you could probably get them balanced out by managing stress, managing gut health with somebody who's an expert in that. So I think that would be the direction that I would point you if you were my client. Client. Now, let's talk about workout. The. The workout portion, you did throw a wrench in. What I typically would advise. So typically, if I get a female who says I may have some body dysmorphia, I would push them towards focusing on performance. The problem with that, with someone like you, is you were an athlete. Yeah. And if I push you towards performance, it's not going to help. You're just going to hurt yourself. You're going to go too far in that direction. That's the potential risk with that. So I'm not going to push you towards performance. What I am going to say is there's a few things that you could do. One is, I don't know if you're on social media, but I would get off social media because any. Any subconscious comparison to other people is going to skew your view of yourself. So I would get off social media completely. Like, literally no Instagram, no nothing. Don't go on it at all. You can listen to our podcast. Of course. Course. But just get rid of it completely and that'll Actually start to change your attitude towards yourself. The second thing I would do, and you did mention faith, so I'm going to go there a little bit, is there's a myth that you are. And this is a myth that, by the way, I identify so much with a lot of what you said. I still struggle with this. The myth is that you're in control. The myth is that you decide. But I think you know that that's not true. And so you're going to have to let go a little bit. And what I mean by that is it's going to give you a lot of worldly things, but it's going to come at a terrible cost. Career, workouts, all that stuff. Good things, terrible gods, they will tyrannize you if they become an idol. So take a step back. Remember, care for yourself like somebody worth caring for. And the thing you're going to have to focus on and. And I hate saying this because it sounds a bit broad, is health. So that's. Don't aim for performance because you're so performance oriented. That's going to move you in the rock trip. Don't aim towards aesthetics, because we know that's going to go. Start aiming towards health. And I think a functional medicine practitioner will be the best coach in that regard because they're going to look at a lot of different metrics that take into account stress, inflammation, hormones. They're probably going to recommend that you do things like. Like, if I were to give you a program right now, it would probably look like maps 15.

Adam Schafer (106:51)

Yes.

Sal Di Stefano (106:52)

If I were to recommend anything else, it would be yin yoga. If I were to recommend any additional activity, it would be walking, prayer, meditation. Because what we're gonna try and do is take you out of this identity that has served you in a worldly way. This identity made you a good athlete. It also has gotten you to become a doctor, which is a very difficult thing to do. You have your own practice, it looks like. But that now is. It's starting to tyrannize you. And maybe it has. It has for a while. So you're gonna have to kind of move out of that. So you'll have to submit. You're gonna point up, work with someone on health, and aim towards health. And then what will probably happen, Neely, is you'll start to see hormones balance out. You'll start to feel less pain. When you go get, you know, tested for osteoarthritis, it'll probably start to regress. You're so young and healthy that you'll probably see lots of really, really good improvements, but it's going to be a huge struggle because you have to break away from this relationship that in many ways has served you. But now you're. And by the way, I want to commend you. The awareness that you have right now, I didn't get at 27. I'm starting to get it now at 46. And the awareness is, is this is not. This is not serving me. That's the hardest step. That's the hardest step. The rest of it now is just being obedient.

Adam Schafer (108:12)

So I. And I'm glad you went the direction of letting go, because it's where my mind went right away. And I want you to train with one of my trainers. And the reason why I want that is I. Not. Because I don't think you're smart enough to figure it out. And we don't have the program that you can follow, but so you can let go and you can outsource it to somebody you trust. And I think that working with one of my coaches will help you do that. So you can just focus on the getting healthy, healing, and kind of outsourcing that, you know, that let them be your guide like that. And. Because I think one of the hardest parts about where you're currently at is getting in your own way. This is not something that you're gonna muscle your way through or grit your grit it and go like it's you. It's. And it's so different than what has served you for so many years, getting to where you're at in your life, but both in sports and in business. So I. I would highly recommend outsourcing that. I would love to have one of my coaches or trainers call you and work with you through this process, but it's going to look a lot different than probably how you've approached things for. And to know that that's going to be challenging, you know, to know that, you know, doing this a different way is going to be hard. There's gonna be many times where you. You're going to be fighting with yourself, oh, I should do this. Or, oh, I feel great. So I'm going to do this. This. And having somebody in your ear going, no, no, no, no. Let's just stay the course. You're doing great. Focus on these things. This is what I want you to do for this week, I think would be extremely valuable through this process.

Sal Di Stefano (109:39)

And let me just sell this a little bit to you, Neely, at the end of this, what it's going to feel like is good. You're going to feel balanced. Hormones are going to feel good. You're not going to hurt. You're going to have this realization of, wow, I can do way less and get way more more. You'll have more time for other things in your life. But it's going to be a hard. A bit of a hard journey because it's gonna be hard to let go because it sounds like it's something you've held on to really tight for a really long time, but it's causing problems. And the problems are going to start to get worse. They're going to start to compound. So you can band aid things with hormones at 27, but it's going to. It's just going to. The signals are going to start to get really loud crowd as you start to get into your 30s and especially in your 40s.

Adam Schafer (110:25)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (110:26)

So this is like a great place to. To. To take a different turn, for sure.

Doug (110:31)

I feel for you. And something that kind of I went through that was a real big metaphor and something that really kind of took me to that headspace was the first time I did, like, an ice cold plunge and realized, you know, bearing down and really tightening up and getting through it does not work. Letting go and breathing your way through, that was the only way through. And so that kind of stuck with me just as like a physical and a. A mental image that I use to. To try to reframe everything. Like, this is what's going to be the. The path. This is what I have to focus on. And it's hard because it's completely opposite of your operating system. So, you know, the.

Sal Di Stefano (111:15)

The.

Adam Schafer (111:15)

The.

Doug (111:16)

Like Adam said, I think a coach will really help to kind of bring that out.

Caller Neely (111:21)

Yeah. And I had a feeling that the conversation would go this way, which I almost just needed to hear. But, I mean, and it. It is. Y' all probably all experiences. And I've heard other callers, like, say it too, like, how hard it is to let go of that and the fact that I've allowed it to be the stress release, but then also, like, it is an idol and it is, like, the thing that I have the hardest time, like, letting go of. I definitely think, like, accountability would be good. I assumed y' all would tell me to just do maps 15 and, like, get over it. But, yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with those things. It's just like, really hard to, like, when I feel like it's the thing that makes my day, makes me a better person. So it's like I struggle with, well, I'm going to be in a bad mood if I don't go. So, like, I'm still going to go.

Sal Di Stefano (112:16)

Totally. I know exactly what you're talking about. I know exactly what you feel. Exercise is good. Diet is good. It's not. God, it's not the ultimate good, but it is good. So finding where that is is hard. So. Yeah. And by the way, when you break. Break the chains of an idol, at first you do get angry. It's almost like withdrawal. Like, oh, my thing. You know, the thing that I use this. I'm struggling with this. Right. I'm trying to work through this right now myself. Does this look like not working out? That doesn't sound like a good idea. Like, I thought exercise is good. And just like you, man, I feel better when I do it. So how do I find that balance? So it's. That's why it's a hard needle to thread. We're not talking about cocaine. I could be like, hey, stop. Stop using cocaine. It's not serving you in any way. We're talking about exercise. Most people don't even exercise, so. So I totally get it.

Caller Neely (113:11)

And as far as, like, you know, I mentioned I still am microdosing the GLP one. Is that something you think I should probably try to, like, get off of? I mean, I do genuinely think that it has made me feel better, but I can also admit that on the other side of things, I know what it's doing for me, image wise.

Adam Schafer (113:31)

And eventually, eventually, y. It's okay. Right now you're. You're like, say you get started with one of the coaches. That's not the first thing they're going to say, oh, let's get rid of your GLP1. That's not even. That's, you know, if you feel it's helping you, it's also not, you know, killing the appetite. So I know you can get the need. The food that I need you to get. I'm not even worrying about that right now. You know, cross that bridge.

Sal Di Stefano (113:53)

Yeah. Microdosing GLP1 seem to reduce inflammation in the brain. So you're not getting this huge appetite suppression. You're saying. Saying. But you probably feel better because there was some chronic inflammation that you're dealing with. So it's probably. Probably good.

Adam Schafer (114:07)

Yeah.

Sal Di Stefano (114:07)

So, yeah, that's not even. That's not like the top 10 things that a coach, a good coach would have you, you know, work on right now. It's not even in that yet. Yeah, I. Look, I tell you what. I'm. I. I really want to commend you for calling in. And the awareness at 27 years old is remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. And I 100 identify with your struggles. I know what it's like. The other end of this is probably going to be amazing.

Adam Schafer (114:34)

So you're going to enjoy Sal's series that he's about.

Sal Di Stefano (114:37)

I'm going to start series on this and it's going to suck. And I know it is actually very related.

Adam Schafer (114:42)

It's going to be centered around what we're talking about right now. So you're going to enjoy. Yeah, you're enjoy that series.

Sal Di Stefano (114:47)

Yeah. You get to see me sweat and squirm on the other end of this conversation. I get to give myself advice, which I hate.

Caller Neely (114:54)

Well, yeah, I've really appreciated all of Yalls transparency, but especially around that. That is something that I've like, I listened to that episode, like, immediately it came out. I was like, yeah, I need to hear this. So it's obviously good to know other people. Like, it's good to hear. Which is why this email has sat in my drafts for so long, because I was like, they hear this all the time. But then also, you know, it is encouraging when I hear someone else say similar things to me.

Adam Schafer (115:21)

Like, knowing Neely, this is so, so common. You have no. And part of. I want you to. I want you to. I want to repeat something that Sal said earlier. And this is the reason why I. I'm willing to say 80%, maybe more. Of all the fitness influencers that you follow struggle with this.

Sal Di Stefano (115:40)

Oh, yeah.

Adam Schafer (115:40)

And that is what has made them these influencers is they're obsessed with it. They have made it their idol. They grit through it. And you have no idea. All the things that they're struggling with internally and all the other in their life that's out of balance. Balance. But we, you know, admire them and work towards this thing. And they're. But they're suffering that. And they're not going to admit it and tell you because they're selling health and fitness to you and they've used their physiques and their bodies and their success with that as a way to sell whatever it is they're selling. Very few are going to admit it, but let me tell you, way more people suffer from this.

Sal Di Stefano (116:15)

It's actually rare to find a fitness fanatic that doesn't struggle with this. Yeah, it's actually very rare.

Caller Neely (116:21)

Yeah, for sure.

Sal Di Stefano (116:22)

Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Schafer (116:23)

All right, Neely, I'm gonna have. I'm gonna have one of our coaches reach out to you and schedule a call, and then hopefully we'd be hearing back from you too. No matter what. I'd like to. Regardless, if you go with one of our coaches, I'd like to hear back from you.

Caller Neely (116:34)

Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate that and Yalls time and everything y' all do.

Sal Di Stefano (116:43)

Girl.

Adam Schafer (116:43)

Yeah, it's tough.

Sal Di Stefano (116:44)

That's tough.

Adam Schafer (116:44)

But like you said, 27 years old. Good for you to be able to see that early.

Sal Di Stefano (116:48)

Would I have number one? Would I have said any of that at 27? No. Would I have said it on a podcast? Hell, no. I was me. I was all in. And it was, this is me, and this is what I do, and this is how I get what I want and whatever, and I got control, and I can make it happen. That was me for my whole life. But it causes some serious. Some serious problems. And it's much more common, and it's so common in our space, it's not even funny. Like I said, like, I can't even think, to be honest with you.

Adam Schafer (117:17)

I can't even think of a. 80 is a conservative number.

Sal Di Stefano (117:19)

You're being nice.

Adam Schafer (117:20)

Yeah, I think 80s conservative number. Totally.

Sal Di Stefano (117:22)

But, you know, and it's. Here's. Look, here's the other one. By the way, this looks different for different people. I mean, to become a doctor or to get into a very challenging field, you adept. You. Excuse me. Adopt a Persona and an identity that gets you through it.

Adam Schafer (117:40)

It served her.

Sal Di Stefano (117:41)

And then how do you get out of that?

Adam Schafer (117:42)

Because it served you for so long. That's why I really hope that. That she. I hope she takes our advice with the coach, because I know. I mean. And you know, you're right.

Sal Di Stefano (117:50)

Outsourcing it.

Adam Schafer (117:51)

Yeah, exactly. I'll do what you said when you said let go. That I was already on that place. It's like you just let go of this. Like, you probably have the dispensable income to do this. This is something you should invest in and watch it. Watch her be better at her craft, better at all the other things in life.

Sal Di Stefano (118:04)

She can let go because she's probably got a grip on all of it.

Adam Schafer (118:07)

Yeah, for sure.

Sal Di Stefano (118:07)

Look, if you like Mind Pump, come find us on Instagram. You can find us at Mind Pump Media. We'll see you there.

Justin Andrews (118:13)

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape. Shape your body dramatically, improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle@mindpumpmedia.com. the RGB Super Bundle includes maps, anabolic maps, performance and maps Aesthetic Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free resources@mindpumpmedia.com 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.