2661: Nine Old Forgotten Training Methods That Can Make You Fit and Tough & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth – Episode 2661: Nine Old Forgotten Training Methods That Can Make You Fit and Tough & More (Listener Live Coaching)

Release Date: August 13, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 2661 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth, hosts Sal DeStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews delve into nine old, forgotten training methods that were historically used to build fitness and toughness. Drawing from over 40 years of combined experience in the fitness industry, the hosts explore how these traditional techniques can be adapted for modern fitness enthusiasts. The episode also features listener live coaching segments, where the hosts provide personalized advice to fitness-related queries.

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Main Topic: Nine Old Forgotten Training Methods

1. Chopping Wood

Timestamp: 06:33

Adam Schafer introduces the concept of chopping wood, highlighting its historical use among fighters to develop explosive power.

Adam Schafer (06:33): "Chopping wood becomes sledgehammer on the tires... It’s an excellent core workout and functional strength builder."

Insights:

• Explosive Power: Mimics the powerful movements required in combat sports.
• Core Strength: Enhances stability and rotational strength essential for overall athletic performance.
• Modern Application: Many gyms now incorporate tools like sledgehammers and tires to replicate this training.

2. Water Training (Underwater Workouts)

Timestamp: 09:49

Justin Andrews discusses the benefits of exercising in water, emphasizing its low-impact nature and resistance properties.

Justin Andrews (10:21): "I was just sprinting in my pool... It’s a safe way to exercise your body."

Insights:

• Low Impact: Reduces stress on joints, making it ideal for beginners and those recovering from injuries.
• Resistance Training: Water’s density provides constant resistance, enhancing muscle engagement.
• Versatility: Suitable for all fitness levels; intensity can be adjusted by moving faster or adding resistance.

3. Hand Strengthening (Bucket Carrying and Clay Squeezing)

Timestamp: 11:03

The hosts emphasize the importance of hand and grip strength, often overlooked in conventional training.

Justin Andrews (11:03): "Bucket carrying and squeezing clay throughout the day builds incredible hand strength."

Insights:

• Functional Strength: Enhances grip for various lifts and daily activities.
• Balanced Development: Prevents imbalances that can lead to injuries.
• Application: Incorporate grip-specific exercises like farmer’s carries and using grip trainers or squeezing tools.

4. Running in Heavy Boots

Timestamp: 13:25

Adam Schafer explores the method of running with heavy boots, traditionally used to build toughness and endurance.

Adam Schafer (14:03): "Military often run in heavy boots... It’s about making daily tasks harder for added value."

Insights:

• Increased Load: Adds resistance, enhancing leg strength and cardiovascular endurance.
• Balance and Stability: Improves proprioception and ankle strength.
• Modern Adaptation: Alternatives include wearing weight vests or using resistance bands during sprints.

5. Punching Hard Objects (Hand and Shin Conditioning)

Timestamp: 15:35

The discussion turns to conditioning techniques used by martial artists to toughen their hands and shins.

Justin Andrews (16:39): "Training your hands by punching hard objects creates microfractures in bone, which heal stronger."

Insights:

• Bone Density: Microfractures stimulate bone growth, increasing strength over time.
• Mental Resilience: Builds toughness and pain tolerance.
• Caution: Should be approached carefully to avoid injuries; gradual progression is key.

6. Heavy Labor (Blacksmithing, Laying Bricks)

Timestamp: 20:19

Justin Andrews and the team discuss how heavy labor serves as functional training, especially beneficial for building work capacity.

Justin Andrews (20:19): "Doing hard labor like laying bricks builds incredible work capacity and functional strength."

Insights:

• Full-Body Workout: Engages multiple muscle groups simultaneously.
• Practical Strength: Translates to real-world tasks and enhances overall athleticism.
• Modern Relevance: Activities like rucking (carrying weighted backpacks) replicate the benefits of heavy labor.

7. Visualization

Timestamp: 25:38

The hosts delve into the power of visualization, supported by scientific studies demonstrating its efficacy in skill and performance enhancement.

Sal DeStefano (26:30): "Visualization improved free throw performance by 23%, almost equal to physical practice."

Insights:

• Mental Rehearsal: Strengthens neural pathways associated with the physical movement.
• Performance Enhancement: Can lead to significant improvements in skill-based activities.
• Application: Incorporate visualization techniques during rest periods or before workouts to reinforce proper form and execution.

8. Jumping Rope

Timestamp: 23:19

Jumping rope is highlighted as a powerful cardio and coordination tool that also benefits shoulder mobility.

Adam Schafer (24:14): "Jumping rope strengthens feet, ankles, and shoulders, enhancing overall coordination."

Insights:

• Cardiovascular Health: Excellent for improving heart rate and endurance.
• Coordination and Agility: Enhances footwork and hand-eye coordination.
• Scalability: Suitable for all fitness levels; intensity can be adjusted by speed and duration.

9. Hand Strengthening Through Specific Drills

Timestamp: 11:03

Beyond general hand strengthening, targeted drills like one-handed farmers carries are discussed to enhance unilateral grip strength and stability.

Adam Schafer (12:24): "Using wrist straps during bench presses can increase the weight you can lift by strengthening your grip."

Insights:

• Unilateral Training: Balances strength between both hands, preventing imbalances.
• Enhanced Grip: Directly translates to better performance in compound lifts.
• Variations: Incorporate exercises such as towel hangs, finger curls, and grip crushers to diversify hand strength training.

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Listener Live Coaching Segments

Caller: Sophie from Minnesota – Lifting Aids

Timestamp: 63:39

Question: Sophie, a 28-year-old consistent weightlifter, inquires about the benefits and safety of introducing lifting aids like belts and straps to maximize her one-rep max tests.

Host Responses:

• Adam Schafer (64:52): Emphasizes that lifting aids do not inherently increase safety but allow for lifting heavier weights, potentially altering biomechanics.

  "The safety is the same. So because of the stability that creates in your core, the only time I recommend those things... is when they're going to compete."

• Justin Andrews (66:58): Advises against dependency on aids for non-competitive lifters to maintain intrinsic strength.

  "You get dependent on it... I wish I wouldn't have included it because it didn't serve me at all."

• Doug Egge (69:02): Reinforces that functional strength and proper programming outweigh the necessity for academic qualifications in coaching.

"You just have to do what you’re doing... experience crushes all of it."

Conclusion: For Sophie, the recommendation is to focus on proper programming and consider lifting aids primarily if participating in competitions, while avoiding dependency for long-term strength development.

Caller: Corey from Kansas – Coaching Clients with Disabilities

Timestamp: 84:30

Question: Corey seeks advice on programming for a client with potential hypermobility and autism, struggling with communication and stability during workouts.

Host Responses:

• Adam Schafer (95:16): Highlights the importance of building a positive relationship with exercise and ensuring the client's safety.

  "As long as you don’t hurt him, you’re doing great. Meet him where he’s at."

• Justin Andrews (98:11): Suggests incorporating interests (e.g., animal flow) to engage the client more effectively.

  "If he’s fascinated with animals, everything about animal flow would be such a fun, cool thing for him to learn and teach."

• Doug Egge (99:48): Shares experiences with clients facing similar challenges, emphasizing gradual progression and meeting clients’ unique needs.

Conclusion: For Corey, the advice centers on building rapport, tailoring exercises to the client's interests, and progressing at a comfortable pace to ensure both safety and engagement.

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Additional Discussions

Swearing on the Podcast

Timestamp: 55:35

The hosts engage in a lighthearted debate about the use of swear words on the show, contemplating a challenge to minimize profanity to reach a broader audience. This segment underscores the balance between authenticity and audience expectations.

Adam Schafer (55:55): "I’m trying to stop saying curse words. If we put a jar on the show, every time you say a bad word, you put 100 bucks in there."

Personal Stories and Updates

Throughout the episode, the hosts share personal anecdotes, including Adam Schafer’s recent endeavors in filming a fitness series and Doug Egge’s experience as a caretaker during his wife Courtney's surgery. These stories provide a deeper connection with the audience, illustrating the hosts' commitment to both fitness and personal development.

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Conclusion

Episode 2661 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth offers a comprehensive exploration of traditional training methods that remain relevant today. By revisiting techniques like chopping wood, water training, and visualization, the hosts provide listeners with diverse tools to enhance their fitness routines. The live coaching segments further personalize the show, addressing real-world fitness challenges with expert advice. Whether you're a seasoned athlete or a fitness novice, this episode delivers valuable insights grounded in both history and modern science.

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Connect with Mind Pump:

• Instagram: @mindpumpmedia, @mindpumpsal, @mindpumpadam, @mindpumpjustin, @mindpumpdoug
• Website: mindpumppodcast.com
• Training Programs: mapsfitnessproducts.com

If you enjoyed this summary, consider subscribing to the Mind Pump podcast for more in-depth discussions on health, fitness, and performance.

Transcript

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[Adam Schafer]

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[Justin Andrews]

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[Adam Schafer]

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[Sal DeStefano]

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

[Adam Schafer]

Mind Pump Mind Pump with your hosts.

[Sal DeStefano]

Sal Destefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews.

[Adam Schafer]

You just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, callers called in. We got to coach them on air. We help people with fat loss and muscle gain and their health. But this was after the intro. So today's episode starts with an intro. It's 60 minutes long. In the intro we talk about fitness, science, fat loss, current events, family life. It's always a good time if you want to be coached on air by us. By the way, send us your [e-mail] now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Legion. Today I talked about their egg protein powder. Made with egg whites. It's as high quality as you can get, very high in branched chain amino acids and excellent for building muscle. It digests a little slower than whey, which for some people is a lot better. And if you can't have dairy, egg protein just as good for all of the performance benefits that you will get from a protein powder. Anyway, go check them out. Go to buylegion.com that's B-Y-L-I-O-N.com mindpump. Use the code mindpump and you can get yourself a massive discount. Right now it's buy one, get one 50% off if you're a new customer. This episode's also brought to you by our other podcast. We just started one called the Elite Trainer Podcast. This is a podcast only for personal trainers and coaches. You can find it on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, anywhere you can find a podcast. It's called the Elite Trainer Podcast. We also have a sale on a workout program this month. Maps 15 minutes daily. 15 minute workouts. That's it. Two exercises a day build muscle, burn body fat. It is extremely effective. Get it for half off. Go to maps15minutes.com, use the code muscle50 and get 50% off. That's maps. The number one. The number5minutes.com again, code muscle50 for the discount. Back to the show.

[Justin Andrews]

T shirt time.

[Sal DeStefano]

And it's T shirt time.

[Justin Andrews]

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

[Sal DeStefano]

We, we got four winners this week. Three for Apple podcasts, one for Facebook. The Apple podcast winners are boardwalk Foodie B. Harmon, 1994 and Honky Kong 53. And for Facebook, we have Isaiah Simmerman. All four of you are winners. I just send the name I just read to itunesindpumpmedia.com include your shirt size and your shipping address and we'll get that shirt right out to you.

[Adam Schafer]

People have been training their bodies for a long time. Oftentimes we forget methods that people used back in the day that produced tremendous results. We're going to talk about some of them today. Some of them may be valuable to you, maybe the lessons in them. Some of them maybe not so much. But today we're going to talk about nine old school forgotten training methods that they used to do back in the day to get fit and especially get tough.

[Doug]

These are the students you're trying to get my attention.

[Justin Andrews]

These are creative dudes.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, no, what I did up with this list, I'll tell you what I did right. I was reading about and I got. There's more that goes to this, but I was reading about how fighters in the late.

[Doug]

This is like Ross training methods in.

[Adam Schafer]

The late 1800s, early 1900s, up till about 1920. How did those guys train? Like, what were the things that they did to get their bodies ready for. Look, of all the sports that we could think of, we could talk about if I had to pick like the. Just the most tough, raw tough. Like it was fighters of those eras. Yeah. Like the rules were.

[Justin Andrews]

Was it. There was no. There was no.

[Adam Schafer]

There were.

[Justin Andrews]

There was no rounds. Right. It was just until the guy submitted.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, oftentimes. And then they narrowed it down over. Then they narrowed it down like 45 rounds.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I was gonna say.

[Adam Schafer]

And in order for, you know, now boxing, oftentimes, knockouts are because the ref steps in to stop the fight.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. Tko.

[Adam Schafer]

Do you know what it took for the ref to stop the fight?

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah. No, of course.

[Adam Schafer]

Your eyeball would have to fall out of your head for them to even come in and crazy carnage. Oh, it's insane. So I looked up old time fighters like Jack Dempsey. I don't know if you guys know, Jack Dempsey was, he was a tough, tough guy. And I looked up his training, surprisingly, Rocky Marciano. Marciano came a little later, but I'm very familiar with Marciano as well. But I'd say the era of Dempsey, once you get past that, boxing started to become more modernized.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, I mean, Dempsey is still boxing. This is his stance. It's like if his picture, it looks like this.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know if Dempsey was.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, pull it up, pull up.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Maybe that's how they pose for pictures. I'm trying to think right now.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, that's what I mean, he's like, he's like the last generation that would pose for a, a fight like that, by the way.

[Adam Schafer]

And you know, and I'm gonna tell you, listen, if you're listening to this and you're like, look, I just want to get in shape, there are things we can learn from them. So obviously, if you're not a boxer, that doesn't mean you're not going to get value. Otherwise I wouldn't have brought this up. By the way, do you know why they held their hands the way they did? Do you know why they did that? Yeah, look at that. That's Jack Dempsey. They held their hands that way because old time boxing, you, you went for the body more than the head because you hit in the head with, with the little, with the leather. They had leather gloves. You break your hand, you're out of the fight. So they would go for the body more than the head to, to, to take you out. And a good body shot will definitely do that. So that's why they held the hand so low, was to cover their body. Nobody was jabbed into the forehead back in those days, you know, didn't have as much. Okay, so here's some of the training methods they use. And then what I would like us to do as trainers is talk about the value and maybe how the average person who wants to get fit can apply or not some of this stuff. Okay, so the first thing. And we've seen this somewhat become popularized. It's not popular, but we've seen now variations of this in mma, which is chopping wood.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, chopping wood became sledgehammer on the tires.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, yes. Now chopping wood, here's, here's why that's such a. And fighters for a long time found this produced really, really explosive power. And for the average person doing something that emulates this, so you can do this in A gym. Many gyms now have a. They'll have a tire that you can. You can, you know, use a sledgehammer. In fact, it's not even a sledgehammer anymore. In fact, they make tools now that you can use to hit tires. You want to talk about a core workout? This will get your core very strong and very functional.

[Justin Andrews]

Hips, core, and rotation. I mean, you get the. And that's what throwing a punch is. I mean, you. That's. That's throwing a punch right there. And so you get really good at powering from your hips, core, and rotation.

[Adam Schafer]

And.

[Doug]

And that's especially that. That lateral chop that. Yeah. If you're actually chopping wood and chopping a tree and being able to organize all your muscles at once, and then, you know, it really. It's the acceleration training.

[Adam Schafer]

There you go.

[Doug]

Power, which doesn't get expressed that much, but if you can organize your body to produce, like, maximal power and then speed with it, it's so useful in sports.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Modern training. Modern popular training methodologies are really good at developing strength in the upper and lower extremities, but they don't do a good job of connecting the two at the trunk. So if you're not able to connect the upper and the lower body well, with a trunk that can withstand rotation, that can be stable when it needs to be and strong when it needs to be, what the result is, lots of back issues, a lot of lower back injuries, which is what you see oftentimes with people who are really strong in the gym. Then they go do something, you know, like throw a Frisbee or go play with their kids or twist a little quickly to grab the shampoo bottle. They're like, how did I hurt my back? I work out all the time. It's because they're not connecting very well, because your trunk, your core, it was.

[Doug]

Funny, like, train well, not knowing it, like, because that was my favorite chore. Like, I would chop wood, like, all day long. I would prefer it over anything. And so that was my big thing I would do growing up. And then that totally translates, especially in football, where they call. It's like that snap, that initial spark that you. You have to have that in order to be able to be fast enough so you can. You can evade somebody coming at you, or you could enforce, like, this type of power onto somebody.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. By the way, the reason why. One of the reasons why this is so effective is when I'm hitting a sledgehammer or chopping something, I can cause the acceleration, but the object that I hit helps me decelerate. Yeah. If you just swing an ax without hitting anything, prepare for injury because you have to then slow down and decelerate. But if I have something that's going to stop it, I can learn to generate as much power as I can. And the object that I'm hitting actually does the deceleration. That's why that's different than just twisting as fast as you can.

[Doug]

It's like that we boxing where you're not actually punching something.

[Adam Schafer]

And I've seen some bicep gets hurt. Yeah.

[Doug]

Hurt their shoulder.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right. That's right. Next up and we're gonna. We're gonna apply this to someone who's just working out, but they did a lot of shadow boxing and water where they'd go underwater and they'd.

[Justin Andrews]

Now I was just sprinting in my pool.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. For fitness. You know what's great about going in water is it's low impact. Every motion you do in there has resistance because water's thick. So walking, running, you know, you could practice exercises, leg swings in the water. It's a very safe way to exercise your body. This is why. And I think water training has gotten a bad rap because it's so safe that oftentimes when you see people exercising water, it's the elderly.

[Justin Andrews]

I was gonna say. I think that's why I got. Because people see elderly people doing it. It's like all your silver sneakers are in the pool doing the pool exercises.

[Adam Schafer]

So it must be because. So it's because it's easy. There's no value in it. Yeah. No, not true. If you're advanced, strong, you just push harder and you move harder.

[Doug]

I told you guys. When I worked with the San Jose City College, we went in the pool and worked on our sprinting for at least like 20 minutes or so. It was brutal. And you're just like all out effort because you're supported doesn't put that crazy.

[Adam Schafer]

Impact on your joints 100%. So. And it's a very great way to exercise. The thing about exercising in the water, don't get fooled. It's not just for older people or obese people or people in rehab. It's one of the few. There's very few things like this. There's very few things in fitness that will provide value to both beginners and extreme advanced. Oftentimes it's like, oh, this is maybe for more advanced. This is really mostly valuable for people in the beginning stages. Underwater or in the water type training is valuable for everybody. Because if you're stronger and faster, you could just push harder and move quicker. And if you have injuries or you're older, you just move slower and it's got that safety part of it. Next up, hand strengthening. You know what they did? They did a lot of bucket carrying and they would also squeeze clay throughout the day. I think this is valuable because if I took 50 gym fanatics, I bet you they all miss hand strength in relation to their body strength. I bet you most, although their hands are stronger than the average person because they lift weights, I bet you their hands in proportion to the rest of their body are still weak. They're still going to be weak. And you're missing limiting factor. Yes.

[Doug]

I mean, if you can get your hands strong and your grip strong, that just translates to every single lift you're going to do, especially the barbell.

[Adam Schafer]

People think it's all back exercises, by the way. That's not true. Go do a bench press and use wrist straps, the ones you would use for pulling on the bar with the bench press. So your grip is real tight. Tell me you can't lift more weight. Yeah, I know. Yeah.

[Doug]

It's crazy. You don't realize that because you don't understand and account for just that minimal amount of lateral or rotational force opposing it.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right. That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

I would put shoveling concrete and or bales of hay here.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean that's like the same category.

[Adam Schafer]

You just wait till we get to number seven.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting, you know, it's interesting. You know, as a kid when I used to help my dad in the summers, he did, he worked blue collar and he was a tile setter and oftentimes he would take me when they were doing a lot, like when they were floating floors, like lots and lots of cement on the floor. And I was, you know, I was a 14 year old kid so my job was just get the buckets and you know, bring them over here with, with, you know, for boy. Yeah. And man, my hands, I mean, I'll get blisters and whatever. My hands got so strong from doing that that when I was, when I'd go back to lifting weights, I could, I can just feel the transfer even on pressing movements, which people have. No idea. No idea. Here's another one. Running. They did lots of running, but they would run in heavy boots. Now, I don't know, this one was.

[Justin Andrews]

Funny that you had this. This is the one that I thought was so off. Right.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't know if there's an application for the average person. I think people are so terrible at running that if I put them in heavy anything, it's just gonna make things worse. Yeah. I could see the value of this for somebody who's a. Who really wants to toughen themselves. Maybe a soldier.

[Justin Andrews]

Is it also because it, it helps you stay on the balls of your feet because heels, you know, boxers of.

[Adam Schafer]

That day just did hard things to make them tough.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

That's.

[Doug]

That's all I would amount it to.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. So I don't know that there's, you know, who runs in heavy boots a lot. Soldiers.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Military a lot.

[Adam Schafer]

They don't give them running shoes. They're not like, here's your. Here's your balanced out. This will correct your pronation.

[Doug]

Your new ballot.

[Adam Schafer]

They're like, here's your booze.

[Justin Andrews]

You're on clouds.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Run your ass off.

[Justin Andrews]

So teasing my buddy, like, we're at it. We were at a country concert this weekend and he shows up in his on clouds, bro. Could you be more 45 or.

[Doug]

Yeah, one of those, like, you know, pop up chairs.

[Justin Andrews]

You know what I know what I did. I put my hands around his waist. You have back support right here.

[Adam Schafer]

Off, man. Now I will say what you could take away from this is the comfy life. It's so long as you know you've checked all the other boxes. I do think making daily things a little harder. I do think there's some value for some people. I'll use myself as an example. So I'm not one to advocate wearing a weight vest. I think wearing a weight vest can provide some value. But I think for most people, what they're looking for, there's better ways to do what they want without the weight vest. Like, someone's like, oh, I want to burn more calories. Better way to do it. Oh, I want to get stronger. Better way to do it. But if somebody goes backpacking, if they do rucking, I think it's good. But I do think there's value. If you check all the boxes, you already walk 10,000 steps a day. Let's say you already do a 45 minute walk every day. You're fit and you just want to make it harder because there's value sometimes in doing things that are harder. I think wearing a weight vest would be an example of like what they did with the heavy boots.

[Doug]

Just like crazy incline.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. And I've been doing that. I've been doing that recently. Three or four days a week, I walk to. There's a Park. That's like a 30 minute walk there and back. And I take my kids and I put on a 30 pound weight vest. It's not so heavy that it's like, but it's, it's harder and I can definitely see the value.

[Doug]

I mean, my favorite use for it when I used to wear a weight vest was doing dips in pull ups. Of course, just because it's like, it's, it's awkward any other way too. Like you have that belt and you have a hanging weight. It's like that actually makes sense to me.

[Adam Schafer]

It does, it does. All right, next up again, I don't know if this applies to people punching hard objects, you know. Now you know what's crazy about this, by the way? So just here's a fun, this is a fun little science fact. Old, old school martial artists did this. Muay Thai fighters, karate fighters, and then boxers did this. They would punch hard objects to toughen their hands, their shins, their feet. And we didn't, we now have the science to support what they did. They would produce micro fractures in bone and the bone would heal back stronger. So if you look at bone, if you look closely at bone, a cross section of bone, there's like this kind of honeycomb, like, you know, organization. Right. There's, there's spaces in between how the bone comes together where there's like air pockets almost. That's where you create the micro fractures. And then what happens is those pockets of air get filled in with more bone.

[Doug]

That's got to be such an art, you know, because it's got to be like, of the condition. They call it condition. I remember doing this too for Muay Thai, for, for my shins. And they called it like, you know, shin conditioning. Yeah, it's like conditioning the out of my shins.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

But like. Yeah, to be able to get it to a point where you can heal and then it can actually calcify and then it becomes harder. But then it's like, okay, but am I going to get arthritis really bad like later on in life? Like, I don't know. But it did make sense and I did get harder shins as a result.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, this reminds me of LLS training for marijuana plants. So it's low level stress training.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And what you, you told me about this, what you used to do, and it was, it's very, you learned a.

[Adam Schafer]

Lot through that whole thing. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You see the geeky science, every once.

[Adam Schafer]

In a while he applies it to fitness.

[Doug]

Yeah, well, no, it does make sense.

[Justin Andrews]

It's what this is. You're. You're making micro fractures.

[Adam Schafer]

You're like twisting it a little bit.

[Justin Andrews]

You take the. Yeah, you take the stimul. Gotta be very careful because you kill the plant if you break it. So you have to. You just. Just enough and you can kind of go and pop just a little bit. And then what happens is, like a knuckle will form and then the stem will get twice as strong and twice as thick and big. Which you have called, huh? Yeah. Low level stress training.

[Adam Schafer]

Wow.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I believe that was the term. I'm pretty sure that's what it was.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I think the application here for the average person is just that doing things that are challenging. And this is a physiological example of it. But mentally, this does make you more resilient. You become more resilient. Yeah. And that's a great physiological example. You can actually look at the bone and see that they become denser and harder through years and years of what they would call conditioning or whatever. But this is what happens to your mind. This is what happens to your body. This is what happens to your behavior, your tolerance for stress. If you're somebody that is easily overwhelmed with stress, you know, challenging yourself a little bit does have the. As long as you're not overwhelmed by it does have the ability of strengthening you, essentially. Making you tougher. Making you tougher. All right, next up. This one's interesting because you see fitness people doing this one, and I know they do this for the views, but fighters had a real reason for doing this. And these are medicine ball drills. What you would. You would get hit in the.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, I hate this trend.

[Adam Schafer]

I know.

[Justin Andrews]

I hate this trend. This is the trend of the kids punching each other in the abs when the guys do crunches.

[Adam Schafer]

This is not an ab workout. Everybody thinks it's an ab workout. No, it's not going to build your abs. It's not going to make your. But you know what it does for fighters is it conditions. It trains them, I should say.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. To brace on how to brace. Yeah. Brace for a punch. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. And to be doing it while breathing and exercising and stuff like that, there's a technique to it.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

The reason why that annoys me so much is because it's so specific. It is very specific. So it's like, hey, if you're a fighter and you're doing that, I got no problem. No problems with that. But if you're just some kid trying to get abs is a stupid way to do it.

[Adam Schafer]

Unless you work in a gym where someone.

[Justin Andrews]

And I know that's 95% of the Instagram viral videos that went that way. None of these guys were fighting. If you're fighting, makes total sense. It makes total sense why to do that. But that's an example of one of those things that is a very, you know, it's like the. Also the other trend. The trend where. Remember when it became popular to wear the, you know. Yeah. Deperation mask while you get on the StairMaster. It's like. Well, I mean, if you're a UFC fighter, it makes a little sense when someone's going to have their. Your arm around your. Your mouth while they're tackling. But all the rest of you fools. Yeah. This is not. Not beneficial. So, yeah, I think it's one of those. That very specific. If you're going to use something, these three in the middle are the. The. I think the like, least amount. Yes. Out of all. I like all the.

[Adam Schafer]

All of them. Now, number seven, I think is really cool. I think number seven is really cool. Yeah. Fighters of that era, they would actually go do heavy hard labor because it made them fit. They would go do black blacksmithing or they'd go chop trees down or they go lay bricks. Now, here's why I like this. There's a lot of kids watching and listening to this. Right. I say kids, these are teenagers, maybe early 20s, and you need to get a job anyway. And you want to be fit. You want to be fit and you want to. And you need a job. Instead of getting a job working at the front desk at Chipotle or whatever in over the summer, you want to get some fitness that you'll also get paid for that also make you tough. Go do some mix. Yeah, that's it.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, I apply this more now in. It was not till probably my mid-30s that I started doing this, but it just dawned on me at one point that there was these times where I would leave my house and go to the gym to go walk on the treadmill for an hour or whatever. And I was just like, what am I doing? Like, I may as well clean the house or wash a car or, you know, do pull weeds or scrub the tile. And like, there was just so many things that I could always do at the house that was like manual labor that also made my house better cleaner or whatever. It's like, what am I doing? Like, if the desired outcome is like this kind of low level calorie burn that I would go do on the treadmill, like so that's how I am now. There's times where I know that I'm trying to create more activity in my day where I won't even go to the, I won't go to the gym. I'll find, intentionally find something that it's labor around the house that's like, oh, I may as well do this thing right now because I'm trying to kick up. And I, I wish that was taught to me younger because as a kid, if I was playing in the middle of sports season, trying to get in shape, do those things, if, if my parents sold that right to me, they probably could have convinced me to do a lot of.

[Adam Schafer]

Around that.

[Doug]

I mean, they definitely got that with me.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Threw me out.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, I had to do a lot of that labor too. But they weren't, they weren't selling it to me like it was gonna improve my game or else I would have.

[Adam Schafer]

It is a paradigm shift. It's a massive paradigm shift. You're walking on a treadmill and you're going nowhere. You're doing it for exercise. But the point is you're not going to a destination. You're not accomplishing anything else productive. You could go do something around the house that you have to do anyway. You should. But the paradigm shift for somebody who's fitness minded, suddenly will make it enjoyable. Yes, that's what happens. I remember when this happened to some of my clients. When the body bug first came out, this was one of the first movement trackers, calorie tracking, how many calories you burned type of deal. It was one of the first devices to do it. I had clients that were like, oh my God, I'm doing more stuff around the house now because I can see now how beneficial the activity is. And it just was a paradigm shift. But this hard labor one or heavy labor one is a great one. Like if it's in summertime, you're not going to school and you're like, I need to get a summer job instead of working at the mall, go mix some concrete or go build up that work capacity.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, go find a local farm, dude. There's always work to be done and.

[Adam Schafer]

They'Re going to give you and you're going to get some skills that are valuable.

[Justin Andrews]

When I was in high school, that was the thought process. Although I wasn't looking for it for exercise, I just did. I like in my town was so.

[Adam Schafer]

Small, that's all there was.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Either fat, you either worked at fast food, which I was like, there's no way I'M gonna be in a fast food line where my friends are gonna come mess with me every day. No way I'm doing that. I'd rather do the labor. And so you work at a farm. So. And there, so everywhere there's. Even if you live in a city, right outside of your city is probably some farms. You go find a farm, there's probably somebody looking for work.

[Adam Schafer]

For sure. Next up. And I think this is just a great way to do cardio. Especially hiit cardio is jumping rope. Yep. Jumping rope is a phenomenal workout. Now, it is a skill. You've never done it. You're not good at it. Start slow, but it strengthens your feet, your ankles. Of course, it gives you great. It's actually good for shoulder mobility. People don't realize that for shoulder stability. It's really good being able to hold the rope where it is and just.

[Doug]

Organizing your whole body to produce that one movement and clean and, you know, having really good form because every time you, you, you attempt it, you get better and you get more efficient at it. So then it's like, it kind of compiles from there. So. Yeah, I just started doing this again just to try and like, keep some kind of like speed and snap, you know, with my feet.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. And I, I have yet to see someone who does a lot of rope jumping who doesn't have great, decent looking cats, great calves. I mean.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I have a couple buddies that they were big and they swear by all the time.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Every time they see me training my cats, like, bro, just jump rope. There's not a lot of things that I' uncoordinated with. That's one of those things.

[Adam Schafer]

Is it really?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I think part of it was because for the longest time I had no idea that there was different rope sizes. And so I was probably using what everybody. Yeah, the one that everybody else jumps on. The 6 foot 3 guy hitting the back of my head all the time, I was like, this is stupid. I'm not doing this anymore. And then it was like years later, I figured out, like, oh, there's, there's rope sizes here. They're not all just like standard.

[Doug]

The leather rope without shoes and, and barefoot.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah.

[Doug]

So you pay for it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. But you gotta bear, you gotta, you gotta build up to that.

[Doug]

The average person goes barefoot with those levels.

[Adam Schafer]

Dude, you're talking plantar fasciitis city or whatever. All right, lastly, and this is an interesting one because there's a lot of value to it. I don't know if People do this a lot anymore. Athletes still do it. It's visualization. You know, it's funny. They've done studies.

[Justin Andrews]

There's one of my favorite studies. It's a basketball study.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

It's a free throw study.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

It's such a cool study. And I don't remember what year they did that, but it's relatively new. It's not like an old, old study.

[Adam Schafer]

It's a few decades old, isn't it?

[Justin Andrews]

No, I don't think it's that old.

[Doug]

It's less than 10 years.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it's more like that. Yeah, it's. It's. It's relatively new. And they took three groups. They took a group that I forgot how many they shot. Maybe don't confine the exact numbers here, but they shot a certain amount. And then they had another group that I did, I think significantly more than that. And then another group that just visualize it, didn't do any of it and.

[Adam Schafer]

Thought about doing the shots.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes. And the one that, like, shot about doing the shots ended up with, like, as good of a percentage, like an equal, like. Yes.

[Doug]

Showing.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes. It was fascinating. Are you looking it up, Doug? I am, yeah. Free throw. Visualization.

[Adam Schafer]

Visualization.

[Sal DeStefano]

Visualization. It was in the University of Chicago in 1996.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, see, I told you.

[Justin Andrews]

No, you're right.

[Adam Schafer]

It was. Yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

So there's three groups. It looks like the first one, don't touch a basketball for 30 days.

[Justin Andrews]

That's it.

[Sal DeStefano]

That's it.

[Justin Andrews]

Nothing but visual aids, right?

[Sal DeStefano]

No, no visualization. The second group was told to practice shooting free throws for half an hour a day for 30 days. And the third group was to come to the gym for 30 days, spend a half hour with their eyes closed, simply visualizing hitting every free throw. So after 30 days, the first group, who did not practice at all, showed no improvement, as you would think. The second group had practiced every day and showed a 24% improvement. The third group, who had simply visualized successful free throws, showed a 23%.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So amazing.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, that just. It's as valuable as just practicing, which is crazy.

[Adam Schafer]

Now, of course, you're not training the muscles, but you're training the central nervous system, but the brain doesn't know the difference.

[Justin Andrews]

That's the part that's so fascinating, is because you know that obviously practicing the repetitions because the muscle memory part of it is. Is going to be beneficial. There was no doubt that second group was going to improve because they practice it. What's fascinating is that the group that didn't practice at all actually gain that much benefit.

[Adam Schafer]

Here's the application.

[Justin Andrews]

Do both is the takeaway.

[Adam Schafer]

I was just going to say, here's the application. Like, there's a lot of exercises. There's a lot of exercises that are technical. You know, squatting, deadlifting, overhead pressing, Olympic lifts especially. And you're going to go do them because you're working out, right? You're going to go squat because you want to develop your legs. You're going to go deadlift because you want to get stronger in the posterior chain or whatever. But also visualizing will probably add to how fast you get good at that exercise. And what this looks like. What this would look like in my experience is you're going. You're on your way to the gym, you're gonna go, or tomorrow's your workout. Just sit and think about getting that perfect rep and getting in the groove and knowing where your feet are and how you press off the floor and where the bar sits. That is not hokey. It actually works when the data shows.

[Doug]

Or do that when you're supposed to be resting in between sets.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, great point, Justin.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, I. I wonder. I wonder how much of this. Because I guarantee anybody who is a. A pro bodybuilder that's listening to this, this is your life. So this is 100. It's the only time in my life I ever thought about working out that much. And you, you. We're. No one's really talking about. We talk all about their programming, their diet, all stuff like that. Like how much of their benefit is coming from just the thinking about lifting all the time. Like, I can't imagine what it is if. You know that the. Just thinking about the free throws made a difference. I have a list if you guys.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah, you're in a list.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, Yeah, I gotta. Since we did. Since we're doing lists right now, I. I saw this and I thought, oh, this would be funny to ask the guy. So these are the top, top 10 jobs gin alpha want to be when they grow up. And I think Gen Alpha. Doug, can you look up what the exact age they're like?

[Adam Schafer]

They're like adolescent to young, early teens.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. My. My. My son to maybe Everett's somewhere around there, I would guess.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, so that young?

[Justin Andrews]

I think so. Let me see. Let's ask Doug what Gen Alpha is.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So it'll tell you what year they were born. But what do you guys think, why he's looking that up? What do you think? Specific jobs, too. Okay. So when you think of it don't think of a general job, think of a various, like, specific jobs are the top ten. I have all ten.

[Adam Schafer]

I. I think a YouTuber would be. Would be.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay, YouTubers number one.

[Doug]

Yeah, of course.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay, say what Gen Alpha is what, 2010 to 2024.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay. Okay, so someone could be 15 right now.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Is that.

[Doug]

Does that cover two? Like, no.

[Justin Andrews]

There's streaming. No, no, just like, it's literally YouTubers like its own thing. So. So you say streamer. Twitch Streamer is number eight. Okay, so YouTubers number one. Streamers, number eight. Throw out some more. You guys got.

[Doug]

Oh, I mean, you got doordash.

[Adam Schafer]

No.

[Doug]

My son's like, I can't wait to doordash.

[Justin Andrews]

Just to give you. Just to give you a little bit hint there. There are some traditional jobs on here. Not many, but there are some, like, what a kid in the 80s would say too. Probably firefighter. No.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Sal DeStefano]

Astronaut, Social media influencer.

[Justin Andrews]

I thought I saw influencer on here. I'll give you. I'll give you Tick Tock creator, Doug.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, God. That's the other real specific number two.

[Justin Andrews]

Youtubers one, Tick Tock creators. Number two, you're missing number three and four and five and six and seven.

[Sal DeStefano]

Podcaster.

[Justin Andrews]

Nope.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah, no, they don't listen to podcasts.

[Justin Andrews]

Not yet.

[Doug]

Yeah, they're gonna do it.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't know, bro. Give me them. That's weird.

[Justin Andrews]

So the app game developer.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

Is four.

[Adam Schafer]

Sure.

[Justin Andrews]

Doctor and nurse is still number three. Okay, so that's still up there. Number five is still entrepreneur.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, good.

[Justin Andrews]

Six is artist. Seven is professional athlete. Eight, Doug Neil, online streamer. Nine is musician, tennis teacher. But YouTube.

[Doug]

All of those, like, two are real options are realistic.

[Adam Schafer]

The rest are just. That's true. Oh, man. Like, name the ones that are realistic in there.

[Justin Andrews]

Entrepreneur. Yeah, Teacher.

[Adam Schafer]

Teacher.

[Doug]

That's about it.

[Justin Andrews]

Maybe app game developer is a realistic.

[Adam Schafer]

Like working as a developer.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, if you. If you.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean. Okay, so three out of ten.

[Doug]

Yeah, I suppose.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

The rest are YouTuber. Yeah. Right. Okay. TikTok, right? Yeah. Right. Artists. Well, maybe if you're, you know, professional. I mean, those are some.

[Doug]

What does that mean?

[Justin Andrews]

Online streamer. Yeah, there's quite a few of a musician. Quite a few of these are like.

[Adam Schafer]

Whenever somebody tells artist. Musician.

[Doug]

Nah, dude, that's. That's passion. But it's not like, oh, I'm gonna be a career.

[Adam Schafer]

If somebody ever says, like to you, like, hey, what do you do for a living? Oh, I'm an artist. You know what I hear? Unemployed, broke yeah, broke. Oh, you're unemployed. You have a job.

[Doug]

I love it and I'm into it, but.

[Justin Andrews]

I know, but I mean it leads to broke. Pretty crazy to think that wanted. Because I bet you in the 80s you said firefighter. I bet you in the 80s astronaut. Was firefighter. Astronaut. I wonder if that list is out there. Maybe look for in the 1980s, top.

[Adam Schafer]

10 jobs that kids wanted.

[Justin Andrews]

That kids wanted. I wonder.

[Adam Schafer]

Pro wrestler would have been in there. You think so? In the 80s.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, I definitely like your. I like your firefighter for sure. I like cop in there for sure. Those were two probably the 80s that.

[Adam Schafer]

Were still pro wrestlers. Got to be in there.

[Justin Andrews]

You think so, bro?

[Adam Schafer]

The eight. Do you guys remember?

[Justin Andrews]

Of course I do.

[Doug]

I want to be like a Navy seal. You know, when I was a kid.

[Adam Schafer]

Did you really? I didn't know they existed when I was a kid.

[Doug]

I. I always.

[Adam Schafer]

I knew Green Beret when I was a kid. Navy Seal, Rambo. That's right.

[Doug]

Oh, Rambo.

[Justin Andrews]

Your entire education of the kid is.

[Adam Schafer]

That's all you. Rocky and Rambo.

[Justin Andrews]

That's where most of your knowledge comes from.

[Adam Schafer]

From that. So in the 80s, popular dream jobs were athlete, doctor, teacher and musician.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, all the same.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Boys often aspired to be firefighters, engineers, astronauts.

[Justin Andrews]

There you go.

[Adam Schafer]

While girls wanted to be doctors, teachers, scientists, or chef. Chef or a baker. All many other common ones.

[Justin Andrews]

So that was what I was looking for is what replaced Tik Tok and YouTuber. Right. Because that's one and two.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, a movie. An actor, I guess would. Would have been. They would have said back then.

[Justin Andrews]

They didn't say that though.

[Doug]

Yeah, nobody. That's funny, man. That's Hollywood actors.

[Adam Schafer]

Detective and investigator was a common one back then. That's. That's interesting.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. What was so popular in the 80s? I'm trying a show that we watched.

[Adam Schafer]

That was Spectre Gadget. Yes. I showed my kids that the other day. I think it's hilarious. Dude, I gotta tell you guys, this just reminded me of something I did over the weekend. What my wife got. She went.

[Justin Andrews]

Where were you guys all this weekend?

[Adam Schafer]

Did you go somewhere?

[Doug]

Sorry, I was just taking care of Courtney and all.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, that's right. She had the appendix removed.

[Justin Andrews]

How is she?

[Doug]

She's good now. I mean it's. Yeah. You know, it is after a surgery. You think it's going to be no big deal. And it's like, you know, she couldn't even like it's all core related. Everything. Everything hurts for. So it's just. She's in love.

[Adam Schafer]

It took my buddy two weeks. Go back to work. Yeah. Removed.

[Doug]

So, yeah, it's. Yeah, it was scary. And then it's good because we got answers, and then we were able to do it that same day and then come home. But, yeah, it was like, a lot of. I was, like, putting my little nurse hat on.

[Adam Schafer]

Are you a good caretaker or are you, like, adorable?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Did you say, like, me?

[Doug]

I really, like. I really, like, was outside of my normal self to try and, like, over compensate for that fact that I'm not, like, that nurturing.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, Katrina said he was. She went. She went and saw Courtney, and she said, you know, Justin was like. He wouldn't even leave her side and didn't want to leave. He was gonna sleep out in the parking lot, came to my house.

[Adam Schafer]

Her point of reference is you. He was smiling. Yeah, he's amazing. He was there.

[Doug]

It's more like, yeah, I'm there to celebrate them. I'm not there to. To make you things and fluff your pillow.

[Justin Andrews]

No, I'm with you. I'm terrible.

[Adam Schafer]

Hey, the one thing, though, you're a terrible patient, too.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I am.

[Adam Schafer]

Both just angry.

[Justin Andrews]

But Katrina, I mean, we talk about this a lot, right? Like, I'm. I'm good. If you ask me what I'm not good is to just to do it that I'm not, like. So she. And she. And I said that. And I feel like in our relationship, we've communicated that enough. It's like, hey, that's like, you just gotta. And. Because what she's bad about, too, is my. And I'm sure Courtney's like this. She's tough. She's. I can handle it. Like, you know, my wife is. I got it. I'm good. Right? So she has that D1 mentality goes into everything she does. So she'll act like she's not really hurting or that sick until she gets snaps at me, and then I'm like, whoa, what's.

[Doug]

Courtney toughs it out a lot. And then she has a very specific way in an order of sequence of.

[Justin Andrews]

Things, because she's a nurse. So she has like, what are you doing?

[Doug]

One of those things in that sequence? It's like. I'm like, okay, well, figure it out.

[Adam Schafer]

My wife's very. She's very good at telling me exactly. Jessica's got, like, a list. So just tell me. Can you. Yeah. Rub my feet. Not like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. No, no, you're not doing a good job.

[Doug]

She did say I did a Good job, though. So I, I, I, you know, I came through.

[Adam Schafer]

No, you guys do work it out. I'm all joking, bro. When your wife was really sick, you were. You were.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, that's.

[Adam Schafer]

You were there.

[Justin Andrews]

That was like, a lot of you, actually.

[Doug]

The whole thing. I was like, oh, my God, dude. Because that was so long. And it was scary and scary the whole time. We don't have answers.

[Justin Andrews]

Seven days, Mexico, dog. Seven days.

[Adam Schafer]

And it was a scary seven.

[Justin Andrews]

Seven days in Mexico with a language.

[Adam Schafer]

Barrier, like, and it was she. And you didn't know. I mean, it was scary.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah. I didn't know anything. I mean. And all I'm hearing is that she could go septic and die.

[Adam Schafer]

And.

[Justin Andrews]

And to see she was not there. Like, the first. The first day and a half, she wasn't even coherent.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So I can't even get feedback from her. I don't speak Spanish, so I'm, like, trying to do. Do that whole thing and figure it all out. Then I'm, like, texting you and all my doctor friends, like, what does this mean? Like, oh, my God. And then. Yeah. Dragged on for seven days.

[Doug]

Yeah, that was the thing, because I was trying really hard to, like, communicate to all her. She wanted me to communicate all her friends or family. And, like, you know, I had, like, you know, 10 different threads going at the same time and was just like, towards the end, got her home and everything's settled. And then, like, I kind of, like, stepped outside and I started getting, like, you know, I don't know. It just was, like, it. It all kind of rushed at once. Like, what had happened? It kind of sunk in. And then I. I get, like, angry and, like. And so I had to, like, take it outside on my own and kind of vent out.

[Justin Andrews]

And, like, oh, I snapped on the family.

[Doug]

I had to, like. I had to, like, get away from everybody.

[Justin Andrews]

I snapped at everybody. Like, I told everyone, like, you know, I'm. Do not talk to me. Talk to somebody else about, like, nobody cares more than I care. I'm here. Nobody's more connected to, like, medical professionals than I am in this family. So I don't want anybody to. Like, everyone was trying to give me opinion back home, and I'm like, dude, I do not. That's not what I need. Right. Oh, yeah, I'll call you and act like I trust me. I was calling my friends that I wanted their opinion on that stuff. You got a call from me. But the family that all started everyone and they care. Right? So you. I get it. I understand. Why? But in that moment, I'm just like, oh, I couldn't handle that too.

[Adam Schafer]

Caretaking is considered one of the most stressful things that people will go through. When they list the most stressful things you'll go through.

[Justin Andrews]

I believe it.

[Adam Schafer]

It's long term caretaking, like taking care of it like an elderly parent. Yeah. And they'll show.

[Justin Andrews]

Like Katrina said when she came home, she said she just looked like he ran a marathon. She's like, he. I could just see how exhausted exhaust he was.

[Adam Schafer]

It's tough.

[Doug]

I had to keep going.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, it's physically and emotionally. That's why. You know what I'm saying?

[Adam Schafer]

Well, if you care about the per. It's not like you're just hired to help them, you know, it's like somebody you actually care about.

[Justin Andrews]

So I don't, I mean, I don't know if you. Where you felt this afterwards. I, I mean, I. The thing for Katrina and I, I get. And because maybe it was so life or death situation. Boy, the, the connection that it gave us afterwards, it was like. And she, she admits that up into that point, she actually, she just talked about this. This weekend we were talking, we're opening up and sharing some stories like this. And she brought this up and she's just like, you know, I have to admit that before that day happened, like, I didn't think you love me that much. Oh, it wasn't until that moment that she realized, like, that's nice. Oh, yeah, no, it was great. I think that's why it, it brought us on a deeper level.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, that's all. I mean, anytime you go through something really challenging with your partner, the other end of it can be incredible.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, especially, especially if you're terrible. Like, I am, like, I'm. I'm terrible at expressing that stuff and showing, saying that stuff and then. But of course, in the moment, like, of course I would take a bullet for her or do whatever. Right. So. So it took that for her to see it and feel it at the level. So a lot of that's my bad. Right. Leading up to that, I hadn't made her feel that way enough. But that moment, it gave her that though. So we're. Now that she's checked that box, like, okay. There's no question in my mind, like, would he be there for me? Because we went through that.

[Doug]

So yeah, we had a little bit of that. I think the, the silver lining really. And I told you guys, like kind of the state of where Everett's at with. It's been a Bit, like, confrontational. A little bit of friction between Courtney and him as he's going through puberty and, like, changing all this, kind of pushing her away from being the little baby. You know, he doesn't want to be known as a little baby and all this. And so all this happened. He was asleep. I. You know, we were about to podcast, and I took off and then went home and. And picked her up, took her to the er, but Everett was still, like, in his room and was asleep and didn't know all this was happening. I was, like, leaning on Ethan to really kind of help get all the things and prepare her to help, you know, bring her to the car. And so he found out as, like, we had gone and, like, we were at the hospital, and he's like, what?

[Justin Andrews]

Mom's at the hospital?

[Doug]

And, like, it. He freaked him out. And it was great because he went. He came in after she kind of came home from the surgery and all this stuff and was just like. Like, broke down. He's just like, I'm so sorry I've.

[Justin Andrews]

Been so hard on you.

[Doug]

And, you know, and it was like. It was great because it's like, you know, puts in perspective. It's like, dude, like, you almost lost your mom, like, you know, in your mind, but. Right. And so he. He really took that to heart.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, that's wonderful.

[Justin Andrews]

So that ended up. Ended up being a good thing at the end of all of it.

[Adam Schafer]

It's always great to see how. How God can turn tough, hard things into. He can turn it around into something really good.

[Justin Andrews]

We. I totally hijacked your story. Sorry. I was. I was reminded of Justin's thing. So that was. I just.

[Adam Schafer]

Weekend.

[Justin Andrews]

So what. So what happened?

[Adam Schafer]

Well, first. So I. We had a couple things. So Friday, I filmed the first of the series that I'm gonna do.

[Doug]

Oh, you filmed it?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I filmed it with Dylan. So let me ask you guys this. When was the last time you guys saw me get really visibly nervous to be on camera?

[Doug]

Never, bro. You love the camera.

[Adam Schafer]

Never.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. Never.

[Adam Schafer]

It's never happened.

[Justin Andrews]

You're only. If I ever see it, that's only. Get. Get on stage.

[Adam Schafer]

And even then you guys see me, like, no, no, no, no, no. I've never. Okay, day one, when Doug filmed me for maps anabolic. This is when I knew that this was. Oh, this is something I can do. He put me on camera. I felt very. Right away, very comfortable. I don't know what it is, but never bothered me whatsoever. Anything I do on camera. In fact, you put Me in front of a crowd, in front of a camera. And I look at the camera, I won't even be nervous anymore. Don't know why I have never. And my buddy Chuck, he's one of the pastors of the church I go to because, you know, the whole topic of the series is like, how do I. How do I gear. How do I do. How do I do fitness for. For. For God's glory. Not for mine, not for anybody else. Like, it's always been for me, right? It's always been this kind of like, back and forth dysfunctional thing. And he warned me. He goes, bro. He goes, it's gonna be a lot harder than you think. He goes, it's. It's gonna be a lot harder than you think. And so, sure enough, dude, first off, morning of. Literally, morning of, Dylan's supposed to meet me at my house at like 6:45. Because we were gonna.

[Justin Andrews]

He made you get up at that time?

[Adam Schafer]

That's the time I woke up, bro.

[Doug]

You see what sounds.

[Justin Andrews]

You're a champ, bro. That was a chat.

[Doug]

Three o'.

[Adam Schafer]

Clock.

[Justin Andrews]

I'll see you.

[Adam Schafer]

He's a champ, dude. I'm so glad he's the one on the other side of the camera, by the way. But we. I was originally gonna go to Santa Cruz Fitness. The Santa Cruz gym.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, that was the plan, right? Get a.

[Adam Schafer]

That was the plan. But I woke up in the morning and the night before, I was just. Just disturbed about it, I guess would be the word that I want to use. Just like. It was just. It was kind of consuming. I had it in the back of my mind, but it was consuming a little bit. It was just. It's like, I'm gonna do this thing. It's gonna be hard or whatever. Wake up in the morning. The morning's going great. I don't remember what happened with Jessica, but she said something to me and I just laid into her, which I'm like, what am I? And I just totally hammered her and started this big fight. And, you know, shortly after, I'm like, oh, my God. That was like, why am I such a. What's going on here? Try to repair that a little bit. Then we. I'm like, hey, Dylan, I want to go to the studio. Because I know the way I feel. And if I'm in a gym like that, it's gonna be even worse, right?

[Justin Andrews]

Take me to a place, I feel like home.

[Adam Schafer]

So we come here and this is 100% being 100 honest. We go out here and I'm like, Dylan, I gotta go to the bathroom. I'm in the bathroom for 20 minutes. Feel like I'm gonna throw up.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, my God.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, dude. Wow. Like, I'm like, visibly shaking and nervous. I'm like, what am. I don't know how to do this. Like, I'm praying, like, okay, what is this gonna look like? And we did it on the way here. He's filming me and I'm talking in the car about what I'm trying to do. I don't know what this is gonna look like. I'm gonna try and submit and let go. And again. And so it was interesting. We did it and it was great when we did it. And Dylan is like. I said he's the right guy for the job, but really weird. Really, really weird that happened. Never felt like that before.

[Doug]

I feel like, extra vulnerable with this.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, there's a few ways to look at it.

[Justin Andrews]

I would imagine there's a part of you that is wrestling with your old tendencies of what you'll want to do and what you're supposed to do. And then you're also being filmed while working that out. And you get to privately normally do that, publicly do that.

[Adam Schafer]

That's part of it. That's part of it. I guess the secular side of me would say that although I can get vulnerable talking on here, and it doesn't bother me, the other. Here's this, here's the spiritual side. So if you're not religious, you can tune out or think it's silly. Those of us who are believe in this. But there's also the spiritual side of it where when you get closer to. To moving towards God or you're gonna maybe potentially even influence people in that direction that you become a target. And it was like I said, I've never. Not only have I never felt that kind of nervous in front of a camera, I can't think of the last time I felt nervous like that. Ever.

[Justin Andrews]

Jeez.

[Adam Schafer]

It was really weird.

[Doug]

Strange.

[Adam Schafer]

It was really.

[Justin Andrews]

Did you get a sense of relief.

[Adam Schafer]

Afterwards, the sense I have, or did you just drag.

[Justin Andrews]

God, I gotta do this again.

[Adam Schafer]

The sensei. There's two. I have a very strong sense of purpose behind it.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

But I also have this understanding that it's gonna be a tough season. There's gonna be. Let's give a three month period where it's gonna suck. Yeah. And it's probably gonna be all over the place. So I don't know. But it was interesting.

[Justin Andrews]

When is it. When does it go live? When. When you go live.

[Adam Schafer]

I Think the first episode will be. Yeah, this week. Oh, cool. So by the time this airs, it should be, it should be. It should be up.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I'm gonna. And I'm. I'm gonna. This is me thinking out loud a little bit. Right. I'm gonna include a few friends who've also had a relationship with fitness. That's that I think will, will convey it well. Like Dennis Roberts.

[Doug]

Oh, nice.

[Adam Schafer]

He's a one of the world class jiu jitsu fighter. Fought in MMA because he's been so sing. And I've already asked these people permission because he's been so single minded in the past. He's injured his body and hurt himself in ways that. Yeah, you know, he says maybe could have been avoided. Yeah, I mean I have Johnny Sebastian on pro bodybuilder also.

[Justin Andrews]

Probably wrestles with the same thing as.

[Adam Schafer]

You do right now. He is for sure. He's definitely resting. He's in prep right now in fact for a competition. So I'm gonna have Chuck, who's one of my good mentors, you know, Christian mentors. So we're gonna talk about it. He also likes to work out, but really just from a theological standpoint. I can ask him these questions and then I'll probably have some with you guys, where we're gonna sit down for 20 minutes and I'm gonna ask you guys what my problem is and you guys can tell me.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, I can't wait for that one.

[Adam Schafer]

I can't wait for that one. I sold it to you.

[Justin Andrews]

I've already got a list I've been actually working on. It's funny.

[Adam Schafer]

You're going to do this. I've been writing a list off the.

[Doug]

Whole like grocery list.

[Adam Schafer]

That's literally what I'm gonna ask you. What do you guys think my problem is? Because I trust you guys and we get to film it. So anyway, so that's, that's what's going on. I was gonna. What I was gonna talk about.

[Justin Andrews]

So that was your weekend. You did?

[Adam Schafer]

No, then, then we. My uncle who passed away, you know, a few weeks ago, we. We put his ashes with my grandparents. So we also did that. So that was also on my mind. But it was really nice, man. I gotta tell you guys. It was by my house where the cemetery is. And my wife very graciously offered up our home for the whole family. And my wife did such an amazing. She's so. She's so gifted at creating a space for people when they're going through difficult times. My family is so grateful and she did that, man. You know, all I did was order the food that we had. But she organized the home and where people would sit and the music and the energy and the children can, you know, play over here. And my whole family was just like, man, you guys. And they're thanking me too. And I'm like, I did nothing. My wife did all of it. So you gotta thank her. So it was a very painful but also healing time. It was like the final. Like, this is it. Yeah, we're done with all that stuff. So, yeah, it's really good. But other than that, that's it. That was this weekend. Anyway, I wanted to talk about Legion's egg protein. I think I brought it up on an earlier podcast. I love it. I love. Have you guys used it?

[Justin Andrews]

I have not. Because it's relatively new, right? They didn't have it before? Yeah, no, I haven't had it.

[Adam Schafer]

It tastes.

[Justin Andrews]

Do we have some here?

[Adam Schafer]

I think I took it.

[Sal DeStefano]

We did. I did get a bag. I have one.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't.

[Adam Schafer]

Have you been using it though? I have. I love it.

[Sal DeStefano]

It tastes good too.

[Adam Schafer]

It tastes super good. The amino acid profile on it is incredible. It's just as good as whey for building muscle recovery, all that stuff.

[Justin Andrews]

How would you guys compare it? Because Wade, his whey tastes bomb. So how would.

[Sal DeStefano]

I think it's better than whey, actually.

[Justin Andrews]

So I used to, I used to, like, I used to get the old.

[Adam Schafer]

It'S got better mouth feel.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes. Like, I used to intentionally pump egg whites into my shakes just for the mouth, not because I was trying. Oh, there's 20 more grams. No, it's more like, gives you a little bit more of a creamy frost. The, like, smoothie, it makes it even better. So I imagine it would have a taste like that.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. So for people who can't digest dairy very well and they want like a high quality muscle building protein, that's. That's a great alternative.

[Sal DeStefano]

I had a concern before I started taking it though, was it's going to upset my stomach. No, no problem.

[Adam Schafer]

Same. Yeah, same.

[Justin Andrews]

Here is. Speaking of you, Doug, is. Are you next on the fitness podcast?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes, I think it's going live today, which is when we're recording this episode.

[Adam Schafer]

So it's our elite trainer podcast.

[Sal DeStefano]

I don't think it's up yet. It's going up this episode.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, it will be because by this, by the time this time airs this, it'll have already been up. I know Dylan's putting it up this. This today or this afternoon or whatever. So you're next.

[Sal DeStefano]

I'm next. I'm talking financial, so I'm talking about how to structure your business, you know, whether you should form an entity or not form an entity. Some tax things. I mean, for full disclosure, I'm not a cpa, but I do have a lot of experience, and that's what I'm sharing.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, your stuff.

[Justin Andrews]

I really. I really hope. I mean, I have high hopes for this podcast because obviously, I don't expect it to be the size of mind pump, because we're not going after the general population. We're going for very specific helping trainers. Trainers, coaches, and any health professionals that want to scale, build their business or even start being a personal trainer. So. And the point of having all of us like that is to be very well rounded. Obviously, there's many things that's not related to knowing personal training that requires this business to go. And. And that's why I'm so glad he has Doug doing that, because there's so many things that he does that's a.

[Adam Schafer]

That's a blind spot for coaches and trainers, big time.

[Sal DeStefano]

Oh, yeah, it is for a lot of entrepreneurs.

[Adam Schafer]

Just.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes, exactly.

[Adam Schafer]

Just especially trainers. Yeah. The train. Not know any of that stuff. I have never met a trainer who understood that very well, ever. I didn't at all. So.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. So pretty crazy. No. Excited for it. I got. I also got to talk about my brother's success in the new car he bought.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, you're sharing it?

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. Yes. Well, so, okay, so my brother, he cracks me up. Right. Great father, good man. He's been doing really well at work as a financial advisor, and he's. He's. He's conservative with his money.

[Justin Andrews]

Very much so.

[Adam Schafer]

He does a good job. He takes care of his family.

[Justin Andrews]

He could have bought that car a long time ago.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, he takes care of his family. He's not one to go just, like, be flash or whatever, but he, like you, Adam, he loves cars. Yes. Like, he gets. He genuinely gets joy out of, you know, cool cars, fast cars, whatever. And he's been probably for the last year or two talking about the Corvette Z6.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, longer than that. I was talking to him two years, two or three years ago at the Christmas party and how bad he wanted that car.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And I knew he could go buy it then, but the market was crazy.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

People found one for crazy, bro.

[Justin Andrews]

He got a steal deal when he. When he. When he got that. Just to give some numbers of. I. I specked that exact car, and I was gonna Buy it. And the reason why I didn't was after I did the whole thing, so I got an allocation. I got all excited because this dealer said, I got one. Someone gave it up. You can have it. Specked it out, look identical to that. Everything he had on it, I put on it. So it was so crazy to see that's what he got. And then at the very end, the dealer hits me for a $25,000 markup on top of that, and I'm like, f off. I'm not going to pay supercar money. It's not a Ferrari or Lamborghini. It's awesome in that caliber. But I'm not gonna pay that because they won't. They won't hold their value like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. Like, I want to. I want to pay what it's worth, not pay over. So. And he got it for, I think, 60,000 less than what I was earmarked to get it for steal. Just a steal for that.

[Adam Schafer]

He was. He's so happy about it. Like, keeps talking about it. So. Yeah. Shares with everybody, brings it to the house. And that's the first time I've driven that caliber of a. Of like, a race car. I've been. I've been.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, he lets you drive it?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. He let all of us drive it. Right? That's scary fast. Yeah, bro. You hit that. We're on the freeway, and you hit it, and it pulls. And then it pulls harder. And then it pulls harder. And I'm like, this is crazy. This is a lot of fun. I told him, like, there's no way you'll drive the speed limit in this because it's boring.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

How could you possibly drive the speed anyway? It's pretty awesome.

[Doug]

Didn't they release, like, three versions of it?

[Justin Andrews]

Well, yeah. Well, the new ones. That's so part of why he got a good deal finally, is. And this is what I. I was waiting for. The same thing for this car is that once the new ZR1 and the ZR1X or whatever came out, which those.

[Adam Schafer]

Are now, because this is a 670 but naturally aspirated V8.

[Doug]

Naturally aspirated.

[Justin Andrews]

This is. What was that. They took Ferrari's 458 engine and put it in a Corvette. So it's literally the same thing.

[Adam Schafer]

Is it?

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

Same mid engine, Right?

[Justin Andrews]

It is the exact. That. That's what. And what an incredible pool for. For Corvette. Chevy to do this is. They. That's what they did. They went out. Which, by the way, is one of the most valuable Ferraris that will hold forever. Was the last naturally aspirated Ferrari was the 458. And that engine is known as one of the greatest V8s ever built. They Chevy goes and takes it. They bought one, completely took it apart, reverse engineered it and built their version of it. But it's the same thing. I mean, horsepower, the way it puts it down, the way it feels. That's how badass that car is. So it's like you're getting a. I mean, I mean, other than the shell, you're getting a Ferrari type of car.

[Adam Schafer]

I gotta say, I'm so proud of my brother, though. He does such a good job. He's such a good dad. And he's. He's done well and now he's got one of his dream cars. But I will say this too. It is funny because he's a giant dude. He's a big dude. He's like 6, 2.

[Justin Andrews]

Has he fitted in, bro?

[Adam Schafer]

See him get in, bro, I'd laugh so hard. He's a big ass. Yeah, he's just.

[Doug]

How does that go, bro?

[Adam Schafer]

It's on the floor. You need some serious mobility to just like roll in. Oh, yeah. Isn't this.

[Doug]

So the Porsche has like, more room, like, more roomy?

[Justin Andrews]

Well, yeah, I, well, mine you sat in, it has the, the bucket seats. And there's nothing to the bucket seats. So if you get like conventional seats, you lose some of that headroom.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So like, like for certain cars, Lamborghinis like this. I, I, the one of the things I don't like a. If you're as tall as I am, you're like this. The cockpit. The cockpit so tight your head's like.

[Adam Schafer]

For Italian.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

The little ones. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

But I, I remember the Corvette has better. A better room than most of those supercars, but similar.

[Adam Schafer]

So I gotta tell you guys about a challenge. Not a challenge. Something I'm gonna try and do, and I'd like your guys help. If you guys would like to join, which I doubt you would, we can make a bet on it, which I think would be fun. We'll let the audience try to influence everybody. I'm going to try to stop saying curse words.

[Justin Andrews]

Wow.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm gonna try to stop using that kind of language. Moving forward.

[Justin Andrews]

Justin and I gotta kick it up anyway.

[Adam Schafer]

As soon as I said that it's your guys's impul, bro.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't. I, I live by that. I don't trust anybody who doesn't swear, bro.

[Doug]

Thank you.

[Justin Andrews]

I Don't trust anybody who doesn't swear.

[Doug]

That's been my mo.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't know if there's data to support that.

[Justin Andrews]

I. I don't. I don't care about the data.

[Doug]

Anecdotal evidence.

[Adam Schafer]

Look at Doug's skeptical face.

[Sal DeStefano]

Very skeptical. I grew up around a lot of people who didn't swear. They were some very trustworthy people.

[Justin Andrews]

So I don't know. Those are the ones had the most skeletons.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't know about that.

[Justin Andrews]

I think.

[Sal DeStefano]

I think it's more a moral code than that. You know, I mean, there could be other reasons, but I think you can.

[Adam Schafer]

Make points and connections without it. I agree.

[Doug]

You can filter yourself.

[Justin Andrews]

And I want.

[Adam Schafer]

And it's just. Look, I was asking myself this, like, do I need to? No, I don't. So let me. Let me try. Anyway, the challenge, I was saying is if you guys want to put a jar on the show while we're recording, and every time you say a bad word, you got to put 100 bucks in there.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm not going to play this game, but you can. All right? I don't have a desire not to. I like that part of me.

[Adam Schafer]

You don't want to make that money.

[Justin Andrews]

No, I like that part of me.

[Adam Schafer]

You imagine. Do you think you would lose that? Is that why?

[Justin Andrews]

No, it's cuz I like that part of me. Like, I keep saying to you, I.

[Adam Schafer]

Don'T want to win a jar full of hundreds.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't want to give that up. If it was something that I. If I did.

[Adam Schafer]

If we put 500 every time, would it matter? Really?

[Justin Andrews]

I'm not that motivated by that.

[Adam Schafer]

Sorry, Doug.

[Justin Andrews]

I. I mean, I'm. I'm competitive, all the things, but that's not.

[Doug]

Yeah. If it's overdone, it's.

[Justin Andrews]

I agree with that. I agree that. And I remember when we first started the podcast, I. I swore way more. More.

[Adam Schafer]

We all did.

[Justin Andrews]

And it was. And admittedly it was nerves. And that's. Normally, swearing is a sign of. That is, you know, less intelligent because you can't find the right.

[Adam Schafer]

You're not creative.

[Justin Andrews]

Nervous. But I don't feel that way anymore. Like, I'm. This is so. I'm, you know, I'm so comfortable doing what we do. If I swear, I swear, you know, it's not because I. I'm nervous or can't find.

[Adam Schafer]

So you're turning the competition down, so.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I'll hold you accountable. If you want, I'll put a jar out there and every Time. I'll make sure you.

[Adam Schafer]

Who's gonna take the money? Money? I got to give it to you guys.

[Justin Andrews]

Maybe Doug, because Doug seems to be pro it. You. You might as well.

[Doug]

You took all our money for the driving machine.

[Justin Andrews]

So I'll.

[Doug]

I'll be happy to take.

[Adam Schafer]

Is it a good investment? You guys still stand by that forever? All right, all right, all right. But I'm going to try. I'm going to try to not say bad words.

[Justin Andrews]

Were you a lot on here?

[Adam Schafer]

What on here do I say on the show? Yeah, not a ton, but I'll throw them in. Yeah, I'll throw him.

[Sal DeStefano]

Much better now.

[Justin Andrews]

He had more vulgar stuff.

[Adam Schafer]

Stuff. Yes.

[Sal DeStefano]

Back in the day, that's what he.

[Justin Andrews]

Was more known for, was saying vulgar things, which. That I have. I think that's worse.

[Adam Schafer]

Of course. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I feel like. Like a good swear word in the right place to add humor or.

[Adam Schafer]

I like how you do this. Your hand, like it's.

[Justin Andrews]

Like it's an exclamation.

[Doug]

Like it's very small.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

Like it's the field of your Italian side.

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, I. I guess there was. I. I know that I made it a conscious effort when we had Max. Like, so I don't swear around him.

[Adam Schafer]

You don't?

[Justin Andrews]

No.

[Adam Schafer]

He never hears a bad word.

[Justin Andrews]

No way.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, really?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. I'm very aware that when we'.

[Adam Schafer]

Home, I don't swear. Oh, wow.

[Justin Andrews]

So. But when I'm with my buddies.

[Adam Schafer]

100. Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

100.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, that's part of my storytelling. Is that you take that away from me. I might be a terrible storyteller.

[Adam Schafer]

You don't want.

[Justin Andrews]

Do you want that? I'm a good storyteller. Don't you think?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. I don't know if you're bad, if you're.

[Justin Andrews]

Am I a good storyteller?

[Adam Schafer]

You don't.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, you are. Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. But I don't know if the cussing is what makes it a good story.

[Justin Andrews]

It adds to it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

That's character.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, if it's gonna. If it's gonna impede your ability to take. To tell awesome stories. I agree. Keep saying.

[Doug]

I like challenging the Ned Flanders out there.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. You know, that.

[Sal DeStefano]

That was.

[Adam Schafer]

Can I just tell you, that depiction on Ned Flanders, it's such an amazing job. It's so good at painting people who are trying to be moral as.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Doug]

As terrible, morally virtuous people who stick their nose up at everybody else. That's what I'm not about. So I will take down all the Ned Flanders.

[Justin Andrews]

Meanwhile, you Are a very good guy.

[Doug]

Yeah. That's all I want that to. To speak for herself.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. You don't want the self righteous.

[Doug]

And that's kind of why I feel like.

[Justin Andrews]

I feel Justin and I are a lot alike here. There's an area where we're in calm because. And I think you do the same thing. Like when I'm around kids, I get really annoyed. People swear around kids and stuff that I'm just like, dude, that's not. That's. There's a time and place. And when I'm with my buddies and we've built this around this being like with my buddies. You're Doug and you are probably would like it that way because it would probably reach a larger audience. Yeah. Because I mean, if you want people.

[Doug]

We'D be very Ryan Seacrest and you'd be happy.

[Adam Schafer]

No, we'll never be that great. Look, here's the deal.

[Justin Andrews]

It's not for me.

[Sal DeStefano]

100.

[Adam Schafer]

What you're saying. Saying if you really want to help people achieve health and fitness, you want to reach more people, you just. You would stop cussing otherwise. If the love of helping people outweighs your urge really to say bad.

[Doug]

Maximizing your potential.

[Adam Schafer]

Because I really want to reach as many people as possible to help them. But that's all right.

[Doug]

I'm going to meditate on that.

[Sal DeStefano]

I'd be curious about this conversation, say three or four years ago.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, well, like, how resistant we would be.

[Sal DeStefano]

Well, I mean, where you would be sad, pal.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, I would be right where they are.

[Sal DeStefano]

Exactly. So it's a matter of timing.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal DeStefano]

You see what I'm saying? Because I had this conversation 10 years ago. I was very patient.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't know. And little by little, Justin and I found Jesus a long time ago. I'm not sure that's gonna make a difference. That's why it's like.

[Adam Schafer]

Doug's a good. He's a good splinter for the Ninja Turtles, bro. He's patient.

[Sal DeStefano]

I'm very patient.

[Adam Schafer]

He's. Right now he's mad because I'm messing up his thing that he's doing. No, no, that's fine.

[Sal DeStefano]

It's good to have people on my team.

[Adam Schafer]

Doug's like, you just missed it.

[Doug]

Eventually they come around, Doug. They your seeds and you know, we get there.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, There you go. Yeah, I'm.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm rooting for you though, so.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I appreciate it.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

How much on a scale of zero to F?

[Justin Andrews]

Like a seven.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm a seven.

[Adam Schafer]

Rooting for you. Yeah, I appreciate.

[Justin Andrews]

I'M I am all for you. Love you guys. Yeah, working on it. Always being a better dude. That's a good thing. I like that.

[Adam Schafer]

Just.

[Doug]

Just put your money right here when.

[Justin Andrews]

It happens, figure out what we'll do with it.

[Adam Schafer]

It's not a big deal.

[Doug]

Yeah, we'll have a pizza party.

[Sal DeStefano]

By the way, we need more trainers.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, we're hiring a lot more trainers. And can we talk about the virtual, the distance ones? Are we going to talk about that too?

[Sal DeStefano]

Yes, we can bring that up.

[Adam Schafer]

We're going to hire also trainers who want to coach people virtually so you don't necessarily have to be here.

[Justin Andrews]

But. Okay. I want to put a big but there.

[Sal DeStefano]

Massive.

[Justin Andrews]

But we. Okay, yeah, one.

[Caller]

Calm down.

[Justin Andrews]

We want more in house trainers. That's the number one focus is people that are.

[Adam Schafer]

And there's perks to be in house.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It'll definitely be much better to work here than. It'll be remotely guidance. What we've recognized is what's happened at. As we've taken on all these applications is there's been a few trainers that, you know, Kyle and I would be talking. I'm like, man, he's really good. Or she is really good. It's such a bummer they can't relocate. I hate to miss on a incredible employee just because of their constraint to move all the way across the country. And so that was kind of where we moved this. Okay, let's be. It's. We'll be very. We're even more picky for that. Just so you know, way more. So being in house is one thing be. To be remote, we have to really, really like that person. And so, yes, we're accepting applications, but we're looking for somebody who is very much so bought into the brand, very good at what they do or going to be very good at what they do in order to get that. So. But yes, remote location and also.

[Adam Schafer]

And it's mindpumpjobs.com that's where you can apply.

[Sal DeStefano]

Correct. And that's for trainers only. It's only not for other jobs here.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay. No. Most multivitamins for kids are really just glorified candy. They're gummy candies. A lot of sugar, not enough nutrients to actually make a difference. Well, there's a company called Hiya. This is the multivitamin that we give our kids. It's not candy in disguise, but it still tastes good. No artificial sweeteners and it has the right amount of nutrients that will help your child thrive. Check them out. Go to hyahealth.com that's H I Y A health.com mindpump on that link. If it's your first time, you'll get 50% off. Off back to the show.

[Sal DeStefano]

Our first caller is Sophie from Minnesota.

[Adam Schafer]

Hi Sophie. Hello.

[Sophie]

Hey guys, how's it going?

[Adam Schafer]

Good, how you doing?

[Sophie]

Good, good. Well, to avoid rambling, I'll just read off my question. I'm 28 and I've been lifting weights in some form for the last decade. I have been pretty consistent with TR strength training though for the last three years, about three to four days per week. And right now I'm really trying to push the limit on my one rep max so for squat, bench and deadlift. So about 10 weeks ago I started a 12 week cycle that ends in a 1 rep max test. 1 rep max test for each. And I want to do everything I can to maximize my results. I have no experience using lifting aids like belts or straps and I just was wondering what your guys opinion was on introducing those. So I'm curious if you thought that would be beneficial to introduce as part of my max test or if there's a certain body weight to barbell weight ratio where it becomes safer to lift with those aids. And then for reference, I'm £130 58 and my current maxes are 185 on the squat, 200 on the deadlift and 90 on the bench press. And before you guys ask, yes, I am eating in a surplus and consistently hitting protein.

[Adam Schafer]

Awesome.

[Justin Andrews]

Awesome. Nice.

[Adam Schafer]

Thank you, Sophie. All right, so there's a myth that those aids increase the safety of a lift. Here's what happens if you put on a weight belt. Okay. You can lift more weight. So all it does is increase the weight that you can lift lift. Therefore the safety is the same. So because of the stability that creates in your core, the only time I recommend those things to people are when they're going to compete in a competition that allows them. So if you're going to do a powerlifting meet, then I would say use the tools that they allow in the meet because you also have to learn how to use them properly and effectively because they do change the biomechanics a little bit. Muscle recruitment patterns change. When you wear a belt, for example, your core pushes out against it to create stability. When you don't wear a belt, it's different. So that would be it. Now if you're not going to compete in a, in a sport that allows them, there's really no use in using them. And yes, you will lift more weight with them, but it's. Those things are why you're lifting a little bit more weight. So, so it's not really. It's not really.

[Justin Andrews]

Especially somebody who hasn't already. The fact that you haven't. You, you're strong. You're already strong, and you're not, you're not going to get any benefit other than saying that, oh, you, you left, you lifted 10% more with the belt. If you were winning a trophy for it, that'd be a different story. But if, you know, you were my client, I would, I would encourage you not to start using it. I mean, I, I look back at my journey and regret that it was something that I included because you get dependent on it. You, you get really strong. I know what I can lift with a belt, and so, so I can't lift that without a belt. And so there's this part that psychologically I mess with, and yet I don't compete. So it's just like, why did I ever do that? So a lot of what you hear us communicating is because I think we, we feel like if we could go back and do it again, we would have done it different. Like, if I was. When I. The day I was in your shoes. Because there was a time when I was in your shoes and I hadn't done it yet. I wish I wouldn't have done it because it didn't serve. It didn't serve me at all. Right. Other than saying that I lifted this number.

[Adam Schafer]

Number.

[Justin Andrews]

You're. I think you are also. Even if you lift less weight, I think you're stronger because you are, you can. You're doing that intrinsically yourself. You're not using an artificial tool in order to do that. And that mimics more realistically how you would lift something in real life, too.

[Adam Schafer]

Are you going to compete? Yeah.

[Doug]

Or is this just.

[Sophie]

No, I have no plans. I'm just. Yeah, I think my progress on my maxes have been kind of slow. Like, over the last three years, I've maybe increased them like £10 on each. And I just wanted to see if there was something that could help me get that extra kind of push.

[Doug]

Have you used any kind of variable resistance, added bands or chains to your lifts or any kind of, like, fractional weights?

[Sophie]

I haven't. Not since college. I was a college tennis player and we used to do a lot of strength and conditioning playing with, like, speed squads, resistance band squats, that kind of a thing. But since then it's been pretty. Just traditional. I've done Some tempo work like, like pause squats or like a slow decline.

[Doug]

Yeah, that's all direction I would go.

[Adam Schafer]

I agree. I think using like chains or bands in addition to the weight that you're using, really effective for breaking through plateaus. And then programming is where I'd always look. Right. Are you following Maps Power Lift or are you following your. Like what kind of program are you following?

[Sophie]

I've been following Stronger by the Day by MEG squats I'm not sure if you guys heard of.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, how long have you been following it?

[Sophie]

That's what I've been using the last three years. So she's pretty powerlifting, focused. And then this cycle right now is just focused on one max. Testing for this, 12 weeks.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay, let's send you Maps Power Lift. When you're done with that, then follow.

[Doug]

Yeah, try our version of it.

[Adam Schafer]

It'd be cool. Yeah. Usually for powerlifting, I mean there could be a lot of reasons why someone plateaus, but. But programming sometimes is one of the reasons. So we'll send you Math Power Lift and when you're doing done, you can try our programming and see if it makes a difference. Okay. Yeah.

[Sophie]

How, just outta curiosity, like how, how much weight is normal to be gaining on your maxes, like overtime for an experienced weightlifter? Like should you be progressing, you know, ten pounds in a year or that's. Is there a normal.

[Adam Schafer]

That's impossible to answer.

[Justin Andrews]

Right.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, like there's so many factors that can influence that.

[Sophie]

Sure.

[Adam Schafer]

But you know, I think if you're following. Good, you know, at this point you've been lifting for a long time. You know, if you were to add, you know, in a three month period, you know, ten pounds to your lift.

[Doug]

That you're doing great, ten's a good amount.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sophie]

Cool.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Well, thanks. All right, you got it. We'll send you a Mass Power Lift. That way you got some different programming next time. Okay.

[Sophie]

Okay, great. Well, thanks guys.

[Adam Schafer]

Thanks, Sophie.

[Doug]

Right on.

[Adam Schafer]

Yep. Yeah, I'm going to just kind of address what you touched on, Adam, that if you use lifting aids like belts, wrist wraps, knee sleeves, that kind of stuff, knee wraps, especially if you use them often, what'll happen is you'll start to train your body to fire its muscles and operate well, or should I say it's most familiar against resistance with those aids. So what happens is you change your recruitment patterns, you take them off in the real world. You go to lift something heavy, your body goes and it reverts to this pattern that you train all the time. But now you don't have the belt on. Now you don't have the wraps on. Now you don't have the knee wraps on. And then you can cause problems. So it, it can actually cause issues.

[Doug]

Racing is completely different with the belt.

[Adam Schafer]

Very different.

[Doug]

It's a completely different process. So it's almost like it's, it's, it's competes with what you're doing without it. So therefore, it's like a completely different response that you're training, which isn't going to be beneficial for you to jump from one to the other.

[Adam Schafer]

No. And in fact, you know, I would say it's detrimental for many people. It's a very tough habit to break. It's real hard to tell yourself, I'm going to go down 50 pounds in this lift because I'm not using a belt anymore.

[Sal DeStefano]

Our next color is Jordan from Florida.

[Adam Schafer]

Jordan, what's happening?

[Justin Andrews]

Doing Jordan.

[Caller]

Hey, guys. How you doing?

[Adam Schafer]

Good, man. Good, man. What's happening?

[Caller]

Not much, man. I am very happy to be on here. I've been a long time listener of you guys. It's very exciting. And, you know, so just to jump into my question real quick, because I know I got a short time and it kind of has a little bit of backstory, but essentially my question is, is what do you. What qualifies a coach or trainer and specifically on degrees versus certifications? So a little bit about my backstory is, you know, I didn't finish college. I, you know, I was kind of an idiot growing up. But even, even after, I just didn't like learning like that. And so when I moved to Florida, you know, my goal was to become an athlete performance coach. That was the only thing I was interested understood. And so when I got here, I started looking into a lot of online certifications, got certified as a trainer, got an ASM certification. And then honestly, following you guys and Joe DeFranco's podcast, like, I got like stacks and stacks of books from you guys, and you guys pushed me into the nci. So I took a couple courses from them and, you know, did some internships, interned at Elliot Holtz's gym here in Florida. And now I work at Overtime athletes and train athletes full time. So, you know, getting into that, that's kind of just like my background. And, you know, I feel very fortunate. I've been coaching here full time five years, and now we work with other coaches and I help other coaches learn about athlete performance programming. So what spurred my question is, you know, about a month or so ago, I was seeing, I Looked, I saw an Instagram reel and there was a coach who, he had his PhD, multiple masters, but basically he was just saying is, you know, all coaches need to have a degree, period. And you know, he, if, if they don't, they're completely unqualified and all that and all that. I just left a comment on there and was just like, okay, well, here's my experience. And you know, we, at our gym, we have interns. I've had, I've been here long enough with OTA that, you know, I've had multiple coaches come through that had masters, had bachelors, and they didn't end up being good coaches. And that's all I was saying. Well, this guy just like proceeded to attack me in the comments and even start DMing me, attacking me, calling me unqualified, telling me I'm uneducated and all this stuff. So that I, I was actually kind of hilarious. But that's kind of what spurred my question. And I just want to kind of share that. That's the background of it. So I wanted to reach out to you guys and just kind of ask you, you know, what qualifies a coach? Like, you know, degrees versus certifications. And again, like I said, I've gotten a lot of information just from your podcast, from DeFranco's podcast and certification. And so, yeah, that was basically what my question was.

[Adam Schafer]

I would judge a coach's qualifications if I had to pick one thing by their experience and who mentored them way over anything else. If you told me right now, I got no certifications, I got no formal education, but I worked under Joe DeFranco for five years, I'd be like, you're awesome. I'd hire you over the guy with a PhD and Exercise Science for sure. So experience crushes all of it. Now education is important as well. This industry, formal education for coaching and fitness training, meh, the roi. And it sucks. Yeah, you go get a four year degree and you, you're gonna get, you're gonna take away from that what you would get in a certification oftentimes. And experience crushes all of it. So the person you were talking to sounds like someone who's a little jealous of what you're doing.

[Justin Andrews]

Insecure dude. Yeah, it's an insecure dude.

[Adam Schafer]

And they. To disqualify competitors because they're probably struggling getting clients because other trainers are outperforming them.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And they're like a weak thing to do. Yeah. But they don't have formal education. That's.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, no, you put you, you you know, you compare a degree, a basic, say, you know, sports medicine degree to like, going through Jordan Shallow certification, you're going to get way more for training athletes than you would in that degree in four years, years of school. Compared to the guy who goes through the certification with Jordan, you would get way more. You would get way more by just watching, listening, and learning from a Ben Bruno, From a Joe DeFranco, from Max Marzo, from Corey Schlesinger.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, that's, like, that's way worth so.

[Justin Andrews]

Much more if you're. If hopefully you're following all those guys, because.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I do.

[Caller]

I know all those guys.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. I mean, they're the best in the business. There's a reason why they've been on this podcast. Podcast. We've known a lot of PhDs, and it's not to say that all PhDs are, but those guys impress me way more. And some of them have their degrees and some of them don't.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

But like, to be honest with you, I don't. I don't even know off the top of my head which ones do and don't, because that's the last thing I'm paying attention to is their, Their formal education. It's their experience, and then also their results. I mean, look at, like, Ben Bruno, who, you know, a lot of people talk about, but look at the athletes that he's trained and the results that he's gotten. These athletes and these athletes that continue to train with them. There's a reason why that is. Is he's. He's created a brand for himself without any of those other things. You know, I don't really.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, no.

[Caller]

And, you know, I mean, I was insecure about that starting out for a long while, you know, as I was trying to gain experience. But, you know, one of the internships I did, I interned under a guy who had his master's degree. And I think this is what kind of of broke that for me was. Yeah, I interned under him. And not to like, too my own horn, I was just so unimpressed with him as a coach. That kind of, you know, broke. Broke that for me. And then it wasn't until I interned at strength camp under Chris Barnard, that's Elliot Holtz's former partner, and he's the owner of overtime athletes, who I work for now and have been here for five years, and now, you know, five years later, you know, we have our own coaches certification. We work with a lot of athlete performance coaches around the world, and I have dozens of online athletes. I work with and guys from Georgia, Bama, Michigan State. And I just sounded funny talking to that guy. It's not like that guy hurt my feelings. But I just, you know, after, after that whole episode I was just like, I could train like this for like 30 years, but according to that guy I would still be, be unqualified.

[Doug]

I guess there's no direct path from college to, to training. I mean I can't even point you to a curriculum that is that dialed in in comparison to you know, a certification that's more robust like your Jordan Shallows or something that's actually like very heavy with anatomy and physiology and function and really that's all you're going to get anyways from the college experience is maybe a little bit more anatomical information and you know, biomechanics. But even then for. That's a lot of memorization, that's a lot of understanding of you know, the human body. But the actual application is everything and the actual working with person personalities and you know, human psychology, it way surpasses that kind of information. So I've had both and I've, I lean so much more in application and mentorships. I just think it's, it's way more.

[Justin Andrews]

Valuable especially with pro athletes and athletes in general. I mean they just, they, they break the mold. So you know, training general pop. I have like certain things that I can say or that I found in common with training. But then train an athlete and it's totally different. Like the rules get thrown out the, out the window because it's different for them. They're, they're different breed and they have different goals and when you're, when you're training for high performance like that you, you have different things that you're taking into consideration than the average Jane or Joe that wants to come in and lose £15. So yeah, no, it's, you're on the right track. It sounds like you're following the right people. You've been mentored by great people. Keep getting quiet what I tell you and encourage you to do because what can happen. Okay, so let's talk about the one thing that can happen to somebody like in your situation is you can get in your own little bubble of this is like how Elliot's team and they do everything and then it becomes dogmatic even for you. Like be open minded to learn from all those guys that we talked about because there's something to take from all of them. And I, I don't believe believe one of them has it all figured out. I think they all bring something to the table. And you being the person who's open minded enough to learn from all of those guys, boy, you're going to be better than anybody that you currently work with right now. If all those guys that you currently with only follow under OTA and, and their philosophy, it's like yeah, you want to know that philosophy but then you also want to know the Jordan Shallows, the Ben Bruno's, the Max Marzos and, and learn from, you know, PGA performance. Like those guys are the best in the business. And if you, if you haven't already, I'd lean into getting some courses from some of them because they all got great courses too.

[Caller]

I'm actually looking at what Jordan Sh's prescript.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, right.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah, no, I've been looking at that one. I've talked to a couple of their guys and that's definitely the next one on my list. I'm still trying to figure because you guys pushed me a lot into nci. We actually worked with Jason Phillips when we were building our online program and I'm still trying to finish a lot of those programs I got. But you guys pushed me a lot into that.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, they did really, they did really good with nutrition coaching. That's what really attracted us to Jason and his team is that in the business applications. Yeah, they're really good at nutrition. Really good on the business side. I feel like as far as scaling and making money, that kind of deal. But as far as like education for athletes, I mean I don't know if you, if, if how, if you train more basketball, football, what?

[Caller]

But yeah, I think most, mostly football, baseball, basketball. But again I've worked with, I work with athletes all around the world and you know I got like guy kids in Ireland that played Gaelic football and so some sports I haven't even heard of before.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Paul Faverts has got incredible stuff too. So if you haven't gone kula for speed.

[Doug]

Yeah, it doesn't really. Yeah, I can't think of anybody better.

[Justin Andrews]

So yeah, dude, you get, you get tutelage or mentoring or courses from all those guys, you're gonna blow way 99.9% of every PhD out there in sports performance, dude, you will just.

[Doug]

It's different.

[Justin Andrews]

Keep doing that, dude. You know, allow that because I, I know what it's like. I had the same insecurity when I was a trainer because I was the least educated, least experienced. Was a great motivator for me to get great, you know. So let allow that to drive you to Be great, you know, and to learn more.

[Caller]

No, I'm. Believe me, I'm constantly reading books and stuff. And, yeah, I like, I'm trying to look up every sports performance coach in the business, even if I'm not doing a certification. So, yeah, I know all those guys. And no, I really appreciate it and appreciate you guys. Again, my wife did the. A couple of your programs after we had our kids. And, you know, your maps. Prime Pro was a huge one. I really loved as well.

[Justin Andrews]

Awesome. Perfect.

[Adam Schafer]

Thank you.

[Caller]

But, well, last thing before we finish off, you know, first, the first Sal, I just want to say, praise God, I've followed you for a while, and I really love, you know, everything you've been sharing the last couple years, man.

[Adam Schafer]

Appreciate that.

[Caller]

And Adam, for you, last little thing, I just. Just want to say peanut butter goes on the bread first.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Doug]

There you go. Big contention there.

[Adam Schafer]

Only men do that. Only men, man.

[Justin Andrews]

Hopefully. Hopefully your wife is the one doing all the cooking and stuff at the house, dude. So.

[Caller]

She agrees with me.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, God. Oh, God.

[Adam Schafer]

Good woman.

[Justin Andrews]

That's a lot of dishes over at that house.

[Caller]

You're right. But, hey, really, really glad it was. Really excited to jump on and great to talk to you guys and really appreciate it.

[Adam Schafer]

Thanks, man.

[Justin Andrews]

Keep it up, bro.

[Adam Schafer]

Take it easy.

[Caller]

Absolutely. Thank you.

[Adam Schafer]

Thank you. The irony is we often get messages from professors who use our content now to teach.

[Justin Andrews]

I love.

[Adam Schafer]

That's my favorite thing. I know. It's, you know, you know, talk about.

[Justin Andrews]

Full circle for us.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Well, definitely for you and I. We have zero.

[Justin Andrews]

I can identify with that. I mean, that was a big insecurity for me. That was a. I. You know, I've talked probably a lot about my money insecurities. I also had the. The education insecurity. Those were two big ones for me for a big portion of my career.

[Doug]

Yeah, I think, too, for me, going through that experience, like, I would get so frustrated because it was just. They. They were just lecturing, and so much of it was fluff and fat that I would just cut out. And I'm like, just teach me what's actually going to work and is usable. And it was never the case. And so I was just sitting there held hostage, it felt like. And I just didn't enjoy it. So, you know, it again, I think it applies into, like, a really clinical setting, and, like, if you're working in. With, like, physicians and, like, it's in kind of a facility setting. You know, there's. There's really good programs in that regard, but for General population and for sports performance, you're not going to get better than mentorships.

[Sal DeStefano]

Our next caller is Corey from Kansas.

[Adam Schafer]

What's up, Corey? I'm well. How are you? All good.

[Justin Andrews]

Good.

[Adam Schafer]

How can we help you?

[Justin Andrews]

Good. Hey.

[Jordan]

Yeah, so there's been a few episodes lately you guys have talked about the importance of keeping track of weekly load. So my question comes in with that in relation to progressive overloading. So in optimizing strength or hypertrophy for a lift, does progressive overload take precedence over total weekly training volume? For example, in the context of maps phase 2 or maps anabolic phase 2 and 3, where the rep ranges are higher, I often hit the top end of the rep range and then increased load, which is typically five pounds per dumbbell. Dumbbell. However, upon increasing the weight, I usually fall short of the previous week's rep count, resulting in a net decrease for weekly volume volume. While I'm achieving progressive overload through increased weight, overall volume drops. So from a programming standpoint, is it more beneficial to prioritize load progression or to maintain increased weekly volume for continued adaptation?

[Adam Schafer]

Here's the problem with tracking total volume. It's not perfect. So if I squat 50 pounds for 200 reps, I've done more volume at a. If I did, you know, three reps with 500 pounds. Okay. So obviously we know which one's going to build more muscle. So I don't. I think you're overthinking a little bit.

[Justin Andrews]

If you're progressive overloading and you know, you are, so you're. You're. You're doing the right thing.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. I would base it off of feel. Is it more important for me, do I feel better going a little higher in the reps with better form, or do I feel a little better going a little lower in the reps and going heavier? This is where it's not perfect. So this is where you kind of have to decide for yourself. We don't want to live and die by progressive overload because it does. It's not perfect. It doesn't work perfect. And you can't always progressively overload your volume.

[Doug]

That linear progression would be amazing.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. If that were the case, I'd be doing a thousand sets per body part by now. I've been working out for a while.

[Doug]

So I kind of toggle between the two.

[Justin Andrews]

You also have to factor in, even though we're thinking like in a week snapshot of total volume, you also have to think of where you're at daily, like some. So let's say today you're supposed to progressively overload, but that was a rough night of sleep last night. Of all the days that week, like, you know, and you. So you're like. And the smart thing to do is to not overload the body on that day and probably step back and you'll actually take steps forward versus, oh, today's the day I got to add volume or I got to progressively overload, therefore, I push anyways. And then you actually go five steps backwards. So it's like, there's also that factor that you have to consider in a. In a moment like that. Right. Not just the total volume of the week. It's also, how do I feel today day? I mean, the. The generic way I did it just worked really well for me when I was competing was I was just tracking total volume of the week. And my goal actually was not always necessarily to increase. It was sometimes just to maintain. It's just like, I just don't want to go backwards because what I found was when I tracked it without, like, trying to progress or just watching my own behaviors, I did a lot of this. So much where it was like, oh, I wasn't even. A lot of times I was going backwards in a week, and I didn't realize. And so I just would set a goal like, hey, the end of this week, I want to make sure I just accomplish the same amount of volume. And sometimes I might add a set, but I try and do it on the days that I feel best to do that. And then overall, look at the week and go like, hey, I accomplished the same amount of volume or more than the previous week. I'm winning. And so I just didn't want to go backwards, but I would use the day that I was feeling best in that week to potentially increase that volume.

[Adam Schafer]

Also, keep in mind, this is Adam competing peak shape. Like, you know, he lives.

[Justin Andrews]

It's the only time I did this.

[Adam Schafer]

Didn'T have a job on.

[Doug]

Yeah, the results.

[Adam Schafer]

And it doesn't work forever and sometimes drop oftentimes. Oftentimes reducing volume and load results and better results oftentimes. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[Jordan]

And that's. That's a lot. What kind of inspired this question, Adam, is you've kind of recapped over the last few months or reference back to your series that you recently did. And one of those moments was talking about just keeping an eye on weekly volume. And I've had that exact same scenario where I look at it and be like, man, that was a great work workout. And then if I look at it from the Totality of a week. It's like, oh, I fell short a little bit there.

[Justin Andrews]

So.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah, you don't want to live and die by it. It's just one, one of many factors that you can pay attention to.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I actually think, I think there's just a lot of benefit in paying attention like you're doing right now. I think there's a lot of value and just kind of tracking and, and, and then, then things tend to make sense. It's like, oh, okay. Well, that's probably why I really didn't progress this month is I had two weeks where I actually went backwards in volume, you know what I'm saying? Like, so I think the awareness around it is, is probably the most valuable thing versus, like, oh, how important is it? Unless it was a full time job for you, like it was for me during that time. Like, it was, it was that serious that I had to get on stage and be better than I was last time. Therefore I've got to do this thing. And so that's the only time in my life that I really, truly tracked volume like that. Because it was, you know, at that time, my job, you know.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, absolutely. This process is both a science and an art. So you want objective measure. You also want to base it off your feelings and you want to use both. Neither one is perfect. So if you felt like you had a great workout, you probably did. You know, you probably did. But sometimes feelings are wrong too. Like, oh my God, I'm, I can't, I'm, I'm going backwards. Then you look at your, your workouts over the last month. You're like, actually, I'm progressing.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So you want to, you want to use both, but don't live and die by either one. One.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Gotcha.

[Justin Andrews]

I do like, I do like the idea that you're, you're peering into it though, because I think it can be, it can be very well, it was enlightening for me. I had never really tracked like that and then it was like it was enlightening at the least. And I think just kind of like tracking food, someone who's never tracked food. And so it's like, just track it and see what happens. I'm not saying you got to measure away everything for rest of your life. It's just like, you know, it's very enlightening because we assume or think a lot of times and we're off and we're wrong. And so I think that part of you just doing that think is valuable.

[Jordan]

Very good. Awesome.

[Adam Schafer]

All Right, man?

[Justin Andrews]

Good. Cool question.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

[Jordan]

I appreciate you guys. Hey, I think you guys get shout outs all the time for the great work you do. Obviously, I want to acknowledge that, but also comment on how I think the three of you together and, and Doug too, you each bring a separate dynamic to the group and it makes this show just. It just knocks it out of the park. I, I can relate to each one of you throughout the course of a show, probably five times over. So I appreciate everything you guys guys do.

[Justin Andrews]

Thank you, Cory, for sharing that. We were just thinking about firing Justin so that I'm keep Justin chopping block.

[Jordan]

Yeah, Justin, we need your little D that you kind of throw in there, everybody. I like those digs.

[Adam Schafer]

I'll work on it, dude.

[Justin Andrews]

Thanks, Corey.

[Jordan]

Thank you guys.

[Adam Schafer]

Have a good one. You got it. Yeah. Justin makes us likable, that's for sure.

[Doug]

If it wasn't for Justin, we'd be.

[Adam Schafer]

Annoying all the time. You know, I'm glad he asked that question.

[Justin Andrews]

That's a good question. It's a good question.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, because you could get so caught up in tracking that like that becomes everything and then you start to, you know, like, it's helpful at first.

[Doug]

Like you said, insight is, is valuable.

[Adam Schafer]

But it's not per. It really is. Listen, if I did the volume for squatting 50 pounds 200 times, do that five, 50 times 200. That's a ton of volume versus 500 pounds for three reps. Now I know what you one is going to make my. Make me stronger, build more muscle. And it ain't the 50 pounds for 200 reps. So it's not a perfect formula, but it is one of many metrics that you can kind of pay attention to and watch how it trends.

[Justin Andrews]

I literally, I love it as a. Just peering in, not as a. To your point, just the science of like, oh, whoops, I need it. I have to. It's like, no, it's like just good to know if you've never done it. I mean, I think it's very similar to someone who's never tracked calories if you've never tracked before. I think it's a good exercise. I. And I don't encourage you to do tracking calories for the rest of your life. I don't think that's a way to live. But I do think everybody, at some point, barring you don't have some sort of eating disorder, it is very good for you to track and just see and get an idea. And I think that part of the exercise is the most valuable to live and die by it as it. This is what I have to do today because I'm at this much volume. Volume, I don't think is a good strategy for 99 of the people out there, but I think peering into that, I mean, it was very valuable to me. I'd been lifting a very long time and feel pretty confident in my programming. I do it. And then when I peered in on the volume, I realized, like, oh, wow, I. I have these patterns of how I train, and I could see how that.

[Doug]

Into those patterns. How do I interrupt this?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, exactly. And I could see how this could lead to a. A plateau for me. So. So that became this kind of little mini goal I gave myself. Okay, just don't go backwards at him on volume, because that would already be different than my previous patterns. And that was enough for me to be able to bring a more muscular, better physique to every time I got on stage.

[Sal DeStefano]

Our next caller is Adam from Minnesota.

[Adam Schafer]

What's up, Adam?

[Justin Andrews]

What's going on, Adam?

[Adam]

Hey, how's it going, guys?

[Adam Schafer]

Good. How can we help you?

[Adam]

So I'll just read off my question off of this email here, here. So I train at my college at the wellness center on campus, and I started working with a client who's got some. I'm not 100% sure what it is, but it's some sort of disability. It's really hard to communicate with him, and he's super unstable, has a lot of imbalances, and so I've tried to use some of the things from Maps prime and Prime Pro, but a lot of them are really difficult. And queuing him to getting, you know, moving how I want him to is hard.

[Adam Schafer]

So.

[Adam]

And some things that we have been able to do are like, farmers, carries overhead, carries, just simple stuff like that. So what would you guys recommend, you know, as far as programming to get them to be able to progress to do, like, squat, bench, deadlift, you know, the. The big human exercises like that, and then also be able to move him into being able to focus more on losing the weight that he needs to.

[Justin Andrews]

He. He may not be ready for that. We're unaware of his disability. Do you know what. What it is by any guess or anything?

[Adam]

Yeah, I don't know for sure it's hypermobile at all. It's some form of autism, I think, because. Okay, no, communication's hard. Um, I'll have to tell him, you know, repeatedly, you know, four, five, six times to do something, and then he still might not, you know, do It.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam]

And I have to break stuff down super specifically for him to do it.

[Adam Schafer]

You're doing a good job. Yeah.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Based on what you're saying, consider this.

[Doug]

This is a hard client.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Based on what you're saying. You're saying right now the most important thing to consider is that he has a good relationship with exercise. That's number. Number one. So if he shows up and it looks like he wants to be there, big win. Big win. Now, this is going to sound oversimplified, but it's actually quite true. So long as you don't hurt him, you're doing great. Okay. So anything you do with him, a lunge, elevated, push up. He could lift even machines. He could lift an empty bar off of a rack, so it's only thigh high. Having him sit down on a bench and stand up as a squat. All fine. All totally fine. So you really can't go wrong except for hurting him and progressing him too quickly. The struggle is. Sounds like the struggle for you as you're questioning the whole thing, but I think you're doing. I think you're doing. How often have you been seeing him or how long?

[Adam]

Well, so we started in January, middle of January, and then. Then we went through. It would have been the middle of June or the beginning of June, and then we both moved back home. It was only my. Both of our freshman year of college, so we both moved back home. I'm going to start it up again with him in about two or three weeks. I'm moving back.

[Adam Schafer]

Has he been consistent that whole time? Yeah. How often was he seeing you?

[Adam]

We're doing twice a week.

[Adam Schafer]

And he shows up to every session? Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, that's great.

[Adam Schafer]

You're crushing it, bro.

[Justin Andrews]

You're doing a good job.

[Adam Schafer]

So he seems. You think he's got a form of autism because he's having a tough time communicating, understanding, making eye contact, the whole deal. Yeah. He's probably incredibly uncomfortable, and yet he's showing up to see you. So that means he likes it and he values it. Huge win, Adam. Yeah. Great job.

[Doug]

I think the struggle is, you know, our innate kind of nature of wanting to progress our clients and move them along to these, like, desired goals that you might have for them, like even. Even to backload squad or to do these things, but really like, meeting them where they're at and just staying there and staying there, finding out what works, whether it's supported. Like, you get into the squat rack, you have them hold on to things the whole time you're lifting. There's Nothing wrong with that. And. And to progress. Just little bits of whether it's just with weight control, balance. And that's really where you need to just. Just focus on his comfort and ability to. To control himself and feel like, encouraged that he's. He's making progress.

[Justin Andrews]

This is a really good question for us to answer because I know that most people that listen to podcasts hear us talk about how good squatting is and deadlifting and overhead pressing. And we. And the goal is to always try and work towards that. But it's. I think it's good for you to hear that. There's a lot of my clients, we never got there.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And. And I. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at what I do. There's just some people that. That's so far from them that getting them to just do farmer carries. And a great, huge win is going from farmer carries, holding dumbbells in both hands to also be able to do it in one hand and keep their body stable. Like, that's a. For somebody like that, that could be a massive win. Or can we walk across the room doing walking lunges without tipping over? Could be like a massive win for somebody like. Like that. And so, yeah, you could potentially spend the rest of your college career training this person. And they never get to squad. That doesn't mean you failed as a trainer at all. Like, it. It sounds like that he's got a lot of challenges with stability, focus, all the above. And to Sal's point, the. The best thing that you could possibly do is to get him to enjoy what you guys are doing. And if you. If he's enjoying it and you're helping him make it a part of his lifestyle, that's a big win.

[Adam Schafer]

That's 95% of the whole thing.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Are there. I'll give you some tips. I've trained people like this.

[Doug]

Is there a sled?

[Adam Schafer]

I've had clients that their workouts didn't change for a long time, but it was such a win that they showed up. And I've got a few clients I can think of, like this where they just showed up and they were just there and I could see, oh, they were showing up. They're consistent and they started to enjoy it. And it took us years before, before they really were able to try to progress certain things. I'll give you some tips. Are there things that you bring up that he then starts getting real verbal with and starts talking about? Are there subjects he, like, starts just piping up and wants to talk to you about.

[Adam]

Oh, yeah. Sometimes, like, talking to him about his classes. He does animal science.

[Adam Schafer]

Good.

[Adam]

Talking about stuff like that.

[Adam Schafer]

Ask him about that.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, dude. If he likes animal science. Like, have you looked into, like, some animal flow type of movements? Like, where. Where he's, like, crawling and doing stuff like animals. If he's really like. So that's where Sal's going. This is how I would try and go.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

Find something he's. He's excited about and is interested in. If he loves animals, you need to talk about it. He's like, dude, let's do some animal flow.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. This is called a bear crawl.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, this is a. This is based off of a gorilla's movements, but. But also while in between the exercises, ask him about things that, you know, light them up, and it just gets him more excited. Invited to show up and talk with you. And then the side effect of that he's exercising and he's showing up. But the fact that just based off of how you described him, the fact that he was two days a week consistent for six months, he's getting value out of it. Huge win. Basically, it's don't hurt him and see if you can get him to move in ways that are beneficial. And that's it. Don't overthink it.

[Justin Andrews]

Yep. Yep.

[Adam Schafer]

All right, cool.

[Adam]

Trying to think of anything else again, just like everybody else said, says, you know, thank you, guys. Really enjoy the podcast.

[Adam Schafer]

I took your.

[Adam]

Your course for my CEUs. That was really valuable.

[Adam Schafer]

Awesome. Oh, good. Awesome, man. Yeah, appreciate that. Thanks, brother. How'd you enjoy it?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, so you're in our forum too, then, right?

[Adam Schafer]

Yep.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So, like, keep us posted as you're going through stuff like that. There's a lot of other great trainers in there, too, that have probably had similar challenges, and so you might get some ideas. So use that forum, dude. Use that forum to. To. To prod everybody else and see what they might have done. But I love the idea of, like, finding an animal flow that he likes, you know, that could be fun for him, and he. You might connect there. And like Sal said, man, you're getting him to show up consistently and move his body in beneficial ways. He may never squat and deadlift. That's okay. That's okay. Doesn't mean you failed as a trainer. Keep doing what you're doing. I think you're doing a good job.

[Adam Schafer]

Got it. Cool.

[Justin Andrews]

Right on, Adam.

[Adam Schafer]

All right, man. Thank you.

[Adam]

Thanks, guys.

[Adam Schafer]

You got. Got it. I had a client once.

[Justin Andrews]

Good question. For us to talk about.

[Adam Schafer]

Super good. I had a client one and you know, new trainers. This is hard to understand because you're just like, he's got to get better, he's not getting stronger, we're not progressing, I'm failing well.

[Justin Andrews]

And you hear us communicate a lot. We do push people to like, hey, the goal should be get in the.

[Adam Schafer]

Squat, of course, but you give me a different person like this and it's gonna be a different conversation. I had a client once that showed up, had a severe I, I to, I guess the, to use this doesn't 100 describe it, but he had like a bit of a psychotic break and severe depression. And literally when he showed up, we would find a time when no one else was there and I had to turn the lights off, play no music. And it was like a eight month period where we would go in the corner of the gym and we would do like two exercises. And that was all he could handle at the time. And that was it. But he was showing. That went up. Yeah. And it was a huge win. And then over the course of the following few years he started to slowly progress and come out of it. But within that, you know, initial eight month or however long it was, I think it was about eight month period of time, like he would literally, it was quiet on the floor, like two exercises for the whole.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean I had clients like this, right. I didn't have a lot, but I had a few clients like this. And sometimes it looks like there's one exercise they like doing. And I just found ways to challenge that exercise. And so like if, like, let's say the farmer carries that, there's a lot of different variations of farmer carries that. He can do that. If he, he likes doing it. You can progress it slowly and, and show him wins and get him excited about. And that might be all you do. It might be just all these cool.

[Doug]

I did that with Steppas. I had a lady with Ms. And it was like just her. I had to hold her and she had to hold on to me. And that's how we started. And then after that it was hold on to the, the squat rack. And then it was, I'm not holding on to it. And it's now it's like we increased the height and it was a huge, that was like a year long process to get there. And it's like, dude, it was massive, you know, progress.

[Adam Schafer]

I had one kid like this who just had difficulty connecting speaking, but when I asked him about Minecraft, he would go off every session, I would ask him about Minecraft.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, I mean, I'm so glad. Yeah, I'm so glad you asked that because I mean, to me, right away, if he's fascinated with animals, everything about animal flow would be such a fun, cool thing for him to learn and teach. And it may only be one or two different animal flows and that's all we practice and we get good at and we have fun with it. Like, yeah. So don't overthink it. You're doing a good job, Adam. Not everybody's going to be able to barbell back, squat and and deadlift. It doesn't mean you're a failure.

[Adam Schafer]

A trainer. Totally. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram indpump Media. We'll see you there.

[Sal DeStefano]

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically, improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super [e-mail] the RGB Super Bundle includes Maps, Anabolic Maps, Performance and Maps Aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free [e-mail] if you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.