2711: Should You Do Cardio Before or After Weights?

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth

Episode 2711 — Should You Do Cardio Before or After Weights?
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, Doug Egge
Date: October 22, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles one of the most hotly debated questions in fitness: Should you do cardio before or after weights? The Mind Pump crew dives deep into programming strategies, physiological adaptations, personal coaching stories, and practical advice for athletes, regular trainees, and trainers. The discussion seamlessly weaves science, experience, and relatable anecdotes, while also coaching live callers on advanced training volume for highly active clients, ex-athlete mindsets, and safe testosterone protocols.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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Cardio vs. Weights – Which Comes First?

• It matters and depends on your primary goal:

  • Sal Di Stefano (04:37): “If you want endurance, do cardio first. If you want muscle, do strength training first.”
  • Adam Schafer (05:05): “The biggest difference on whether you maintain that muscle or lose that muscle, especially once you start introducing cardio, is that you are in maintenance—is no longer the same because now you’re introducing more training.”

• Adaptation Principle:

  • Your body gives the strongest adaptation to the stimulus done first in a session.
  • Sal (08:51): "Your body has limited ability to recover and adapt. Piling more stress on takes away from ability to recover/adapt. Also, adapting in one direction (like muscle size) takes away from another (like endurance)—that's a general physiological truth.”

• The Rationale for Training Order Based on Goal:

  • Muscle/Strength Focus:
    • Do strength training (weights) first, then cardio. Prioritize muscle gain for aesthetics.
  • Endurance/Athletic Performance Focus:
    • When endurance is the goal (e.g., prepping for sports season), some sessions might start with cardio/sprints, especially in short “conditioning windows.”

• On Combining Both (Concurrent Training):

  • Sal (11:55): “You could build tremendous changes in endurance in a short period of time, but you got to be smart—just piling more on more can create injury risk, especially in young athletes.”
  • Justin (17:07): Sometimes “breaking the rules” is needed when you have specific priorities, like putting shoulders first in workouts for women seeking better delts.

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Programming & Recovery Nuances

• Calorie Intake & Deficit/Surplus Considerations:

  • Adam (05:52): “Doing [cardio or weights] in a calorie surplus makes as much—if not more—of a difference than either arguing whether it should be done before or after.”
  • Surplus helps build muscle and sustain performance; deficit is mainly for fat loss.

• Recovery Limits:

  • Sal (07:51): “More training isn’t always better. You have to give your body space to recover and adapt; more is not always more.”

• Body Part Priority:

  • Whatever you “train first” gets most of the adaptation (e.g., hit weak points at the start of a workout).

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Live Coaching Highlights

Nicole (Maryland/Colorado): Managing Training Volume for Super-Active Clients

Starts at 59:31

• Her Dilemma: Clients in Colorado ski, mountain bike, etc., 3–4 days a week for hours, making standard gym training volume too much.
• Mind Pump’s Advice:
  • Use correctional exercises and focus on injury prevention.
  • Use a dynamometer (grip strength tool) pre-session to gauge recovery and readiness objectively.
    • Sal (62:02): "Have them squeeze the dynamometer in their non-dominant hand before every session; adapt workout intensity based on their score."
  • Prioritize subjective feedback and err on the side of less volume; sometimes "one or two strength exercises, plus mobility," is plenty for super-active people.
  • Communication: Be a confident leader even if clients expect “hard” workouts—performance improvements in their sport is the value.
  • “Lead with confidence,” Sal says (68:15), “Trust me right now, and I promise you, you'll never have to ask for it again.”

Brad (Virginia): Ex-Athlete Plateaus, Cardio/Weights, and Program Hopping

Starts at 73:12

• His Journey: Ex-college athlete, knee injuries, lost weight with cardio, plateaued, then gained muscle on MAPS Aesthetic (weights only).
• Main Question: Is there novelty in cardio, and can switching modalities drive results (e.g., bulk with no cardio, cut with cardio)?
• Advice:
  • Cardio and weights both have a place, but don’t chase the scale—focus on health, mobility, and sustainable progress.
  • Adam (79:52): “Your battle is wrestling with your athletic mind. You judge intensity by your old athlete standards—sometimes not feeling crushed is the sweet spot.”
  • Justin (83:24): “Sharpen movement quality—focus on mobility. Make yourself ‘able-bodied’ again to be ready for future sport/rec activities.”
  • Recommendation: Focus on mobility, possibly using the MAPS Performance program.

James (Connecticut): TRT Protocol Confusion, Bloodwork, and Health

Starts at 87:22

• His Issue: Started TRT via Transcend after low T and pre-diabetic markers; saw improved energy, weight, libido, but endo says his test is now “off the charts” (>1500 ng/dL); what to do?
• Advice:
  • Results like high testosterone vary based on shot timing (how many days since last dose).
  • Adam (94:15): “It's very individual—everyone has a sweet spot. Too high may give sides (acne, gyno); too low feels like crap. Work with your doc to gently lower dose and retest.”
  • Bodybuilder-level doses aren't dangerous short-term but aren't optimal for longevity or health. Knowledgeable, individualized dosing is key.
  • Sal (96:48): “Having testosterone that’s too high in a fit person is probably healthier than being too low. But you want that happy medium.”

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Science-Backed, Experience-Grounded Observations

• Sprints vs. Steady-State: Sprinting is protective for muscle (fast-twitch fiber use), whereas long-duration endurance work can sap muscle if excessive or combined with calorie deficits.
• Movement Efficiency: Being more efficient (better technique) reduces energy drain (“movement efficiency is an underrated stamina hack”—Sal, 19:41).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sal on Training Order:
  “If you want endurance, do cardio first. If you want muscle, do strength training first... Your body will generally prioritize the one you put most energy toward—which is the one you do first.” (08:51)
• Adam on Calories & Adaptation:
  “The biggest difference... is that you are in maintenance—no longer the same if you’re adding more training. So pumping the calories is probably one of the most important things.” (07:01)
• Justin on Young Athletes:
  “I’m way more interested in preventing injury than maximizing every little bit of performance.” (11:09)
• Sal on Programming for Performance vs. Aesthetics:
  “Most people don’t train for performance, they train for aesthetics... If you just want to look good, prioritize strength over stamina.” (09:54)
• Nicole’s Coaching Backbone Moment:
  “The hard part for me is keeping a backbone... It’s not aligned with what they expect... we need to do mobility, chill, and fix the imbalances first.” (65:48)
• Mind Pump's Wisdom:
  “Nobody wants to follow someone who seems like they don’t know where they’re going.” (68:30)

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Segments & Timestamps

• Cardio then weights, or weights then cardio?
  04:37 – 13:00
• Coaching youth & athletic conditioning: “Hell Week” and old-school vs. new-school methods
  11:55 – 19:41
• Bodypart prioritization & programming flexibility (MAPS Muscle Mommy example)
  17:07 – 18:39
• Movement efficiency, load management, and modern athletic programming
  19:41 – 22:23
• Separating cardio/weights entirely (different days or training blocks)
  21:35 – 23:47
• Red light therapy, sauna, “biohacks”
  35:04 – 37:28
• TRT anecdotes, dosage, side effects, and health debate
  38:15 – 47:01
• AI, chatbots, and manipulation in future society
  46:03 – 55:55
• UK online speech arrests, free speech, and societal change
  56:16 – 58:17
• Live caller #1 — Nicole on training programming for highly active clients
  59:31 – 71:04
• Live caller #2 — Brad on cardio/weights & ex-athletic mindset
  73:12 – 86:34
• Live caller #3 — James on TRT protocol confusion and health
  87:22 – 100:49

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Tone and Takeaways

• Language & Tone: Straight-shooting, a mix of scientific and conversational, peppered with self-deprecating humor, encouragement, and empathy—especially in stories about clients and personal struggles.
• For Trainers & Advanced Trainees: Adapt training to the “total load” your client faces, not just what happens in the gym. Use both subjective and objective measures (like dynamometer grip strength) to gauge readiness.
• For Everyone Else: Set training priority based on your primary goal. Don’t get lost in program minutiae—start with foundational health benchmarks, not the scale or “athletic” intensity. Be wary of overtraining, especially if you’re highly active or coming from an athletic background.

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Summary

This episode breaks down the question of cardio vs. weights with unvarnished honesty, shares nuanced strategy for athletes and regular trainees, delivers science-backed coaching insights, and presents authentic stories from the field. The answer: It depends on your goal—but whichever comes first in your session (or training block) gets the body’s main adaptive focus.

Programs should be tailored: for muscle/strength, do weights first; for endurance, do cardio first. For those leading very active lives, less gym volume is usually more. For those using hormone therapy, individual responsiveness trumps arbitrary dosing.

Above all, the Mind Pump team urges: Train smart, not just hard. Know your “priority” in every session—and lead with confidence, whether as a trainer or as your own coach.

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Find Mind Pump at:
Instagram @mindpumpmedia
Maps Fitness Programs
Podcast website

Transcript

[Sal Destefano]

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[Adam Schafer]

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[Sal Destefano]

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[Adam Schafer]

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[Sal Destefano]

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[Dr. Z]

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[James]

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[Dr. Z]

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[Sal Destefano]

To pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts, Sal Destefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, live callers called in and we got to coach them on air. It's always a good time, but this was after the intro. Today's intro is 55 minutes long. Now, in the intro, we talk about fitness, talk about current events, talk about family, fat loss, muscle gain, all that fun stuff. Again, we have Live callers on some of these episodes. If you want to be one of them. If you want to call in so we can coach you through diet, nutrition, anything health or fitness related, send us your question. Send it to live mindpumpmedia.com now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. Today we talked about Caldera Lab skincare products. They now use the technology of exosomes. This signals your skin's cells to regenerate faster so they look younger and they're healthier. Go check them out. Get yourself a discount. Go to caldera lab.com mindpump use the code mindpump20 get 20% off. This episode is also brought to you by Joovv. This is red light therapy. If you've read the studies on red light therapy, what it could do for you. In fact, it's probably better to try and figure out what it can't do for you because it does so much. Joovv is the real deal. This is the same red light they use in studies. There's a lot of companies out there promoting red light, but the it's not the same. Only joovv go with them. Go to Joovv.com, that's J-O-O V.com mindpump use the code mindpump. Get $50 off your first purchase. We also have a sale on maps, GLP1. This is a workout program with nutrition advice, supplement advice and lifestyle advice for people who are using a GLP1. So if you're using semaglutide, tirzepatide, ozempic, wegovy, you want to maximize fat loss. You want to keep your muscle or build some muscle, literally. This program is designed for you. So it's half off. Go to mapsglp1.com, use the code GLP50 to get that 50% off discount. Here comes the show T shirt time.

[Show Announcer]

And it's T shirt time.

[Adam Schafer]

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

[Show Announcer]

Five winners this week. Three for Apple Podcasts, two for Facebook. The Apple Podcast winners are S. McSwain, 24, Hater 599 and Billy 2650. And for Facebook, we have Lily Najar and Liz Janky. All five of you are winners. Send the name I just read to itunesindpumpmedia.com include your shirt size and your shipping address and we'll get that shirt right out to you.

[Sal Destefano]

All right, real quick.

[Justin Andrews]

If you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs or training gear [e-mail] I'm talking right now. Hit, pause, head on over to mypumpstore.com that's it.

[Adam Schafer]

Enjoy the rest of the show.

[Sal Destefano]

Cardio and weights, it's a great combination if you want overall health and fitness. But which one do you do first? What are the rules when it comes to workout programming? Cardio first, weights first. Which one gives you better results? And does it matter what your goal is? Is that how we can answer this question? We're going to break it down and break down more right now. Let's get into it.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, it matters.

[Sal Destefano]

The rules. This came up for me because of my conversations with my daughter with.

[Adam Schafer]

She just wants to lose no muscle. Yeah. She's getting ready for sport though, right? Is that what it is?

[Sal Destefano]

She is. She's getting ready for soccer.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm helping her with conditioning. And so this whole conversation with her came up and she's like, well, when do I do it? Do I lose gains? What's the deal? And I'm trying to explain to her how the body adapts and how certain adaptations will take away from others. So when it comes to balance or if you want more stamina or if you want more muscle than programming matters and what you do the most matters and when you do it actually makes a difference. And this is a question, this has got to be one of the most common questions we get.

[Adam Schafer]

How much do you think the doing it fed or in a calorie surplus.

[Sal Destefano]

Or deficit plays a role also Performance. Oh, yeah, that makes a big difference.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, not just performance even on your results. Because this is the. The debate or the conversation here is like, okay, cardio before or after weights, depending on your goal. And is your goal to build muscle or is it get more stamina or is it the. Both. And I think that doing that in a calorie surplus makes as much if not more of a difference than either arguing whether it should be done before or after.

[Sal Destefano]

Also, yeah, I think that calorie surplus could. I mean, that's a good point. I think the calorie surplus or deficit conversation revolves around either fat loss or performance gain. I want endurance. Well, you probably shouldn't train in a deficit. I want strength. Well, you probably shouldn't lift and a deficit.

[Adam Schafer]

Right.

[Sal Destefano]

The deficit really has more to do with fat loss. It always take away from.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm really thinking of your daughter in this example right now because I obviously don't think she is in at all desire to lose weight at all. She wants to Build muscle. And now she wants to build muscle and improve endurance. And so remaining in a. I mean, again, making sure you're calorie surplus, that.

[Justin Andrews]

Specific adaptation, more important, driving it.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, that's most important for sure. Especially for a young athlete.

[Adam Schafer]

Right. Because if she, if, if she tips, and I think that's the point I just want to make is just like, even though we're about to get into before or after, the, the biggest difference on whether you maintain that muscle or lose that muscle, especially once you start introducing cardio, is that you are in, in, in. Your maintenance is no longer the same because now you're introducing more training. And so pumping the calories is probably one of the most important. And again, the reason why I, this was a bit of a challenge for me because when I first started building muscle, I still loved playing basketball a lot.

[Sal Destefano]

And you were playing a lot.

[Adam Schafer]

And I was playing a lot. And it really hindered my muscle gain. I wasn't necessarily losing anymore, but also I was struggling to gain while simultaneously playing basketball.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. So when you look at how the body adapts, now, part of this is, is that your body has limited ability to recover and then adapt. So when you are piling more and more stress on the body, you're taking away from your body's ability to recover and adapt just because it's just more stress. So there's that. Then there's also that adapting in some directions actually takes away from other directions. What I mean by that is a larger muscle has a typically worse capacity for stamina and endurance. This is just a fact. And to really oversimplify it, if you look at the surface area to total volume of a cell, the larger the cell gets, the ratio of surface area to volume changes. So that getting oxygen and nutrients inside the muscle just takes more work. Cell just takes more work. It's just, you know, a small, small, small, tiny cell has got a large surface area to total volume. So things can get in there very quickly. You get a large cell in this chase. So larger muscles, all things being equal, I'm oversimplifying. So I know this. There's probably some science people are like, well, there's this, that, yes, there's, this is a massive oversimplification. But a larger muscle, all things being equal, will have less endurance. But a larger muscle contracts harder, so it's stronger. So if you push in one direction, you tend to take away from one. And that's just the rule when it comes to certain adaptations. And then the way the body adapts, it generally will prioritize the one that you put the most energy towards, which tends to be the one you do first. So if you want endurance, do cardio first. If you want muscle, do strength training first. Now, I know what most people watching are and listening are thinking is they're thinking because most people don't train for performance. Even though I know that makes Justin upset, Most people don't train for performance. They train for aesthetics. Right. They're like, look, I. Endurance, muscle gain. That's all great. I just want to look good.

[Justin Andrews]

The majority.

[Sal Destefano]

So what should I do first if I just want to look good? Well, if you just want to look good, you're probably better off prioritizing building muscle over stamina or strength over stamina because of the way it affects body function.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. But let's talk about your daughter's specific situation, because I think she's a great example, and I'm sure many people are in this situation where she's been currently really focused. Before soccer started to kick up, she had been really focusing on building strength, building muscle, and that was it. She's loving it. Right? That was it. That was 95 now. Okay. Soccer comes out now. Obviously, stamina, endurance ends up being a major priority, but still not more of a priority than all that muscle I built. So I'm imagining that the recommendation you probably gave her was, we're still going to strength train first. We're still going to eat a calorie surplus, but now you'll do your cardio training afterwards, I think. Or did you actually go, hey, let's go stamina training first. Because I think she could still get the benefits and endurance that she wants for her sport without sacrificing less muscle than she would do at first.

[Sal Destefano]

Typically, yes. But because we have a very short window, she gave me four weeks. So we have four weeks to build stamina and endurance. Some of her workouts, I'm having her do sprints before, and some of her workouts are just sprints. So the strength training now has taken. She's doing far less of it. Instead of three days a week, it's down to once or twice. And there are a couple days where it's just conditioning, because we got to get that now. Four weeks isn't a super short period of time. You could build tremendous changes in endurance in a short period of time. But you got to be smart about it, because what I don't want to do now, we're getting to the weeds a little bit. But you guys know this. If you just pile more on top of more, then you start to run into problems. And young athletes, especially young female athletes, have a very high risk of certain types of injury, which I'm also, as a dad, I'm way more interested in preventing injury than I am in maximizing every little bit of performance. Yeah, I want to make sure she's a tear in acl, which is like, you know, the odds of that on female athletes.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, I, I actually, I actually think four weeks is a good amount.

[Sal Destefano]

Of time for endurance for.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, for conditioning. To your point that, man, you could really. I mean, this is the reason why every, every kid that played sports in high school is used to Hell Week. You know, I don't care what sport you play, whether it's football, basketball, whatever. And you, you have a week of basically conditioning. Now, granted, you're not in your top form right. Until probably a month or two later in the season, which is pretty. Pretty standard. That's standard even for the professional level. You'll hear guys will, they'll get that conditioning training going a week or two before the season's preseason starts. Then preseason starts, then it's really a good couple months before they feel like they're at their.

[Sal Destefano]

Do you guys think. Justin, you'll know this because you, I mean, you were a high level football do. First off, do they still do Hell Week? And Hell week was, if I'm not mistaken, you go in for a week and it's like two workouts a day and they beat the crap out of you. Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Is it, Is it. Is it really to boost endurance and stamina in a short period of time or is it more to weed kids.

[Justin Andrews]

Out at the high school level? It depends. But yeah, a lot of times Hell week is to kind of like filter out the serious.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, maybe for. Maybe for freshmen, but not for. What's your adversity, your.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

You're on the team.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, I mean, yeah, it depends if you. If you're making cuts or not or if they're just accepting everybody on the team.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

These days, like, it's hard to get kids to actually, like, sign up. So parents cut as much. They don't really cut. Like, it's interesting. Yeah. There's not a lot of like, volume like they used to have to.

[Sal Destefano]

Really.

[Adam Schafer]

What is it? Could you look that up? I was curious about that because of all the, you know, concussion stuff and.

[Justin Andrews]

Made a huge dent. That's why I'm like half the time on the podcast. I'm trying to kind of advocate and like, kind of bring Some light to the benefit.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Because I didn't even think about that how much. I mean, back when. So when I was a kid in high school, football looked like this.

[Sal Destefano]

In the 90s, it was a lot of kids.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh yeah. Freshman year, they took everybody and the team had like 60 kids on it. I mean, you look at the side of the freshman football team and there'd be, you know, 40 kids who wouldn't even see the field. It was so crazy. But they took everybody in and that was kind of the. And then you get to jv. Once JV started, then you started making cuts, but even then you still had a big roster, you know. And then varsity got a little bit slimmer, but there was always such a high demand that they. They made cuts before they came into the season.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And typically so hell week is a lot of just pure conditioning. And then we would do double days the following week. So that was more like practice heavy. So you would practice and trying to establish like these plays and drills takes a lot of volume. And so, you know, you have to, you have to like get as many. And it's almost like one of those things you can get away with what you can get away with based on the standards of the league. And so they'll. They'll over practice. Like we even did like sometimes we did like three practices just because there's so much to establish with offense alone.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Yeah. I kind of feel like a big part of it was to weed out kids.

[Adam Schafer]

So.

[Sal Destefano]

Because if you initially. Yeah, because so many kids want to play. I don't know if it's like. I don't think it's like.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, it wasn't the reason why. So it wasn't like that for me. You. Once you get to conditioning week, you made the team. Like you're. We're not weeding anybody out anymore. This is to the end. And what it looked like for us in basketball and soccer was morning was conditioning, afternoon was play running. So like. And it was the week to two weeks before season. Season started. And in the. In the morning was pure. You had. Which was always miserable. Getting up at five, six o' clock in the morning to just run your ass off. But that's what morning. And then you come back in the evening or late afternoon. And now we're running drills, we're running.

[Sal Destefano]

Plays and we're learning.

[Adam Schafer]

We're learning all that stuff. And that's what it looked like. But I do remember how much. And you know, we're all kids, so we were, you know, Goofing off in the summer and playing video games and eating junk food. And so, you know, very. I wasn't good enough an athlete that I was thinking about, you know, basketball in the summertime, you know, I'm wakeboarding up. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so that, that week is. Is hell. That's why they call it that, to get back in shape. But how much of a jump you make in one week?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, stamina adaptations are crazy.

[Adam Schafer]

It's incredible.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, they're crazy fast. They happen very quickly. But yeah, when it comes to workout programming, like what you do in the beginning of the workout is where you're going to get. This is just kind of a general rule where you get most of the adaptations. This is true for body parts, too. So training an exercise or a body part first in the workout tends to prioritize it, which. Which this can sometimes break certain rules. Right. So let's say you're doing a standard split chest, shoulders and triceps today. And you're like, my shoulders are a total weak spot. But almost every workout plan you'll see with the chest, shoulder, tricep split will start with chest. Now, there's great rationale behind this, right? Chest exercises require both the strength and stability of the shoulders and the strength of the triceps. So you don't want to fatigue the shoulders because then how are you going to do chest effectively? Right. But if your shoulders are a weak part and your chest is a strong part. Well, now we. This is a little bit of a bodybuilding principle. Why not hit shoulders first? In fact, we wrote Maps Muscle Mommy this way. We did shoulders before chest on some of those workouts.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Sal Destefano]

Mainly because women are far more interested.

[Adam Schafer]

Most women are going to care more about having nice shoulders than that which.

[Sal Destefano]

Breaks one of the quote unquote, you know, kind of rules with that kind of stuff. Same thing with, like isolation or compound lifts first. Usually compound list first, but isolation exercises first. If you have trouble connecting, I think this is a great way to connect to particular muscle. You do an isolation exercise for a body part, then move into compound lift, and it just changes the feel and the technique of the exercise. The compound lift. So you can feel that body part.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Even better. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. It's interesting too. Like, I was thinking about, like, the conditioning itself, and it's changed a lot with, like, people's strategy for that. And, like, they've actually reduced quite a lot of the volume because it's unnecessary. And the other thing, too, it's like, if you think about, like, maintaining Muscle mass. If you're, you know, running sprints and you're doing it in a diligent way where you're not going for too much of an extended period of time, you're actually like hitting fast twitch muscles and it's preserving the muscle more effectively as opposed to like thinking of this as like an endurance. Like I need to like extend the amount of time I'm running and running on this type of energy system.

[Adam Schafer]

So yeah, you recently, I mean it was just what, last year, the year before you coached high school football and that's What a good 20 plus years more that since you were playing in high school.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

What was, what was most, what did you see most different about like the, the conditioning and training aspect of it compared to when you were a kid?

[Justin Andrews]

Well, I think they were trying to resurrect a lot of the old ways we used to do that. And I was trying to advocate for a different way based upon what I've talked to like people like Kula and a lot of these like strength conditioning coaches mainly for again and you're seeing this in the NFL like people dropping like flies, you know, with injuries and, and just the amount of the ex. The extended amount of time you could, you could have them play at a high level. I think that we really have to reevaluate that. And also the amount of like collisions and so they're really monitoring that a lot more. So with like these high contact type sports to, to drill more specifically the movement so the cuts like in be more diligent instead of it being aimless running. So it's not just like I'm running like 100 yard sprints constantly. Because it doesn't have that same translation.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

To the game. So if you get more specific with gameplay bouts and you time it. So let's just say it's basketball and you know that you're going to have like, you know, 30 seconds where you're moving really hard and explosively. Then boom, you rest.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. You know what we forget too is movement efficiency we look for, what we tend to train for is like gross stamina, like general overall stamina.

[Justin Andrews]

Right.

[Sal Destefano]

And we forget that moving better reduces your energy requirements and output. So like if you have good techniques.

[Justin Andrews]

Exactly.

[Nicole]

Dude.

[Sal Destefano]

A good. Here's a good. This is a simple, silly example. If you've ever watched two people play either tennis or back in the day racquetball, and you'd see someone who's really good versus someone who's just athletic but not super good, the really good Player just places the ball and just has great technique and they're just chilling the other person's running back and forth. They're getting fatigued. Like if you know how to move well you require less energy.

[Justin Andrews]

That's such a good point, dude. Like it honestly like if they get proficient in these movements and then you really establish that early on the field they're, they're you guess out like crazy. Yeah. You don't gas out because you got.

[Sal Destefano]

Really, really good technique.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So if coaches really focus more and peered into that concept they would do.

[Adam Schafer]

So much so more more specific type movements. And then I'm also hearing too which I think is new to like our generation now. It wasn't when we were kids. Is load management, right? Yeah, that was. And I remember when we were talking to who's our boy? Cannot think from the sun. Played coach for the Suns right now he slipped Corey Schlesinger. Thank you, Corey. Shout out to Corey. You know how that we've now moved into that era where. And you see it now in professional sports and you never used to say this see this in the 80s and the 90s where you know Michael Jordan played like every game every minute like the whole time. Where now like they're very mindful of how many games their minutes they play and they like it's totally different. It was like you should just keep your best guy on the court as much as you possibly can. Where now you're like thinking long term like oh once he hits to a certain amount of minutes in a week in time. And like I remember Corey blowing my mind that they were actually tracking that on the practice level. And I didn't think that outside of them practicing. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You know.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

All the extended amount of moves.

[Sal Destefano]

Here's what's really interesting because I've seen some studies on this. Now there's not a ton of data to support this but it makes me very curious and based on my experience I would lean in this direction. I'd love your guys input on this. So the. The question, original question was cardio before or after weights. Right. Depends on your goal. Blah blah. There's some studies that show that separating them completely. Yeah. Is actually better. In other words, instead of doing cardio before or after weights, do cardio by itself on a day. Do weights by itself on a day or differently. A week of strength, a week of endurance. A week of strength. There was a study on that that showed that it improved overall performance. Instead of doing it all in one workout or throughout the week. They did A focus of strength, then a focus of endurance. And it was literally every other week.

[Justin Andrews]

That's how you get good at it.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, this is what Corey was talking about. Right. That was so, so cool and unique. Not only that, but he was communicating to the strength coach, and he. Based off of what he or he was the strength coach communicated to the basketball coach, and he'd be like, what was practice? Like, yeah, you know, what kind of intensity did you run them at? How like. And. And they were actually tracking and monitoring the amount of steps. And then he would turn around and when he would get to his strength training, he would modify the intensity based off of how hard they went in that. And so, I mean, you really should be where I think to the point how this all started referring back to when we grew up, was just like, throw the whole kitchen sink, Right?

[Sal Destefano]

Everything.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Just make it hard, you know, as hard as possible. And you're gonna get some stamina. You get that where it's like much more methodical. And so, you know, how this, all this conversation started. You know, what. What is the most methodical approach to the, you know, student athlete like your daughter, who has worked in the off season to build muscle, still really cares about keeping all that muscle, but knows they have to get.

[Sal Destefano]

It's interesting. So what I did with her was I actually, like I said I did, I split it up and now I'm glad I did. So now she'll go to the gym. In fact, she was upset with me, of course, because she just wants to lift. Yeah. And I'm like, no, no, today all you're going to do are sprints. And I, you know, broke it down for her how she's going to do the sprints and how she's going to coast in between, wait for heart rate to come down, the whole deal. What about lifting? What about lifting? Next workout will be just lifting. And I'm so glad I did that. I think that that's a better way.

[Justin Andrews]

You don't convolute it that way.

[Sal Destefano]

You don't convolute it. I think your adaptations are better. I think the intention is better. They don't take away from each other because they're divided. And, you know, I would like to personally. In fact, I'm playing with the idea now as we're talking, of personally experimenting with this with myself, just training and what I, you know, I tend to always do and not do. I think I might experiment with that where I'll do like a week of what I like to do and Then a week of, like, different stuff and alternate it. So at least I have that week where I have my, you know, the stuff that my ego likes to do.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, my God. I imagine you would get in phenomenal shape.

[Sal Destefano]

Probably.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, it's the hardest part about, I think who we are or what we do is, is knowing what I should do and then following, you know, falling.

[Justin Andrews]

Falling into patterns.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. I'm well aware of what my regimen should look. Look like for, like, to have all these optimal things. But it's funny how apparently I need.

[Justin Andrews]

To go on a cut.

[Adam Schafer]

But again.

[Sal Destefano]

Wait, wait, I didn't know I was gonna bring this up. What happened? Someone commented on, On a video. Yours.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. You know, and they're trying to be funny and, you know, and I like.

[Adam Schafer]

That'S probably what it is, dude.

[Justin Andrews]

Half of it. Dude.

[Sal Destefano]

How many comments?

[Justin Andrews]

It's just a thing when you're like, overhead position or like, you know, my shirt, like, lifts up because I'm like this. And then it's just a really bad. And then you don't, you don't flex at all.

[Sal Destefano]

So you're just letting it all, like, out like that.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm like, ah, you know, you got me. But so, yeah, so I was like, ah, like, it's, it's. I'm like, this isn't even hard. Like, okay, cool. So I just have to, like, reduce calories for all. Yeah, I'll show you.

[Sal Destefano]

How many comments was it? Just one. Probably one.

[Justin Andrews]

It's probably like three.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, you got three. Okay.

[Sal Destefano]

Significant enough to where I was like, leave them alone.

[Justin Andrews]

It's fine, dude. I, I, I.

[Adam Schafer]

Hey. One of the things I've learned to do is be. Because we have such. I mean, because we, we razz each other so much on here that they think that the. Yeah. So most people probably are just.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. How many times have you. I've seen you do this a couple times where someone will raz you. Because we do on the show, I think. And here's the thing. You listen to the podcast. Seems like you know us.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

So I've seen Adam, like, fire back hard because, like, hey, man, I love you guys.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I don't, I don't do that anymore. I don't do that. I haven't done that in a long time. I used to early on because I wasn't sure, and I'm like, hey, someone gonna come at me like that, I'm gonna respond. But then I come so hard that the person's like, yeah, I was just kind of. I Love the show, you know, but just doesn't land the same. So more than likely that's probably the situation.

[Justin Andrews]

Probably because everybody's at the Olympia this weekend in there.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, so everybody's shredded.

[Sal Destefano]

It was a big. It was a big, big weekend. Yeah. Yeah. I don't really follow anymore. But you know, it's funny when that, whenever that happens. By the way, I was just talking to Adam about this. I'm also realizing that we've always done this a bodybuilding. They'll take the current champion and compare them to like the champion of like 10 or 20 years ago. Be like, they don't look the same. They were way better. Like, you know, we were doing that too, back in the day. I wonder if that's just a thing.

[Adam Schafer]

It is, you know. Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Just all like, they were better before.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Yeah. It's like the, the, the, the old dad who's always talking about like, oh, that generation. So every, every generation says that every dad talks about what a bunch of pussies you guys all are and this generation will do for the next day.

[Sal Destefano]

But that's true for ours.

[Adam Schafer]

It is, it is.

[Sal Destefano]

It's a little bit.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. It just degrades.

[Adam Schafer]

I, well, the reason why it's so popular because I believe that every of those generations truly believe that. I mean, I mean, it is. I mean, you're.

[Sal Destefano]

I definitely. I can't argue with my dad tell me stuff how he grew up and.

[Adam Schafer]

I bet you his dad tougher than us. Yeah, the Great Depression was above that. So, I mean, they were going to go, well, they're a bunch of wusses. So. Yeah, no, I think that, I think that's just. That's one of those things that's common, is that we do. We. And I think that has a lot to do with probably technology and convenience. I mean, the market.

[Sal Destefano]

The market, the demand for making life easier physically is so strong. I mean, it's part of always innovating.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, that's exactly. So it's like it's inevitable what's going to happen. I mean, even if you, even if you try to go out of your way to make other things difficult, the, the market has done such a good job of trying to simplify, make everything else easier that if you adopt half of it, you're a wuss. You know what I'm saying? You're gonna be, Are you gonna look, be looked at from the previous generation?

[Sal Destefano]

You know what's wild about all that? I brought this up before. I was thinking about this the Other day. Like, there's certain things we take for granted now, like dishwasher, washing machine, microwave. You know, of course, computers that have really reduced the amount of time that you need to do certain things, like the time saving devices for the home are crazy. Like, if you look at the data on how much literally a washing machine, dishwasher, and microwave took away from the amount of time that people had to spend doing those things. But what's crazy is we have less time. We've created all this time saving devices, cram all this other stuff in between, and now we've. Yet we feel like we have. Like, we're trying to fit everything in more than ever, which is wild.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, it always. It always, like, opens my eyes. So every once in a while, Katrina and I have a day or two off of Max. He's with his mom or my sister or something like that. And I know you guys have experienced this when it's. When it's been a long time since something like that happened, and you're just like. And you don't have. Like, normally you. We probably all, you know, if the kid's gone for a day or two, you have plans, right? But if you don't have plans, how wild that day is? I mean, of, like, what are we gonna do? It's like, so many hours. Like, there's so much of nothing. I'm like, this was most of my life. What was I doing? You know what I'm saying? It's, like, uncomfortable, you know, it does. It makes me go back. God, what a wuss I was back when I didn't have a kid. I could have built so many companies. I could have done so many things. I could have read so many more books. Oh, I had that thought all the time. Because we, Katrina and I, we just had a day like that where we didn't have Max, and we actually didn't have, like, plans.

[Sal Destefano]

What'd you guys do, just sit around?

[Adam Schafer]

Well, yeah, we. I mean, we had a beautiful day ourselves in the house, and we did. We ended up doing something. Doing around the house and lounging. But we did all of it. I mean, we. We. We worked out, we lounged, we watched movies, we had epic sex, we swam in the pool. And we still had time leftovers.

[Sal Destefano]

We have three hours left.

[Adam Schafer]

We still had time. It was like, how's this possible?

[Sal Destefano]

That's when I get a random call from Adam. Hey, man.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, what's going on?

[Sal Destefano]

I don't know. Something happen.

[Adam Schafer]

Just don't have a kid for a day. Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

That's, it's a, it's a trip, dude. I was reading up on exosomes because this is like a big thing in skin care. So Caldera Lab, one of our sponsors, uses exosomes in a lot of the products. Do you know what these things are? So I looked up what they are to.

[Justin Andrews]

Because I keep hearing them from.

[Adam Schafer]

So it was really, wasn't it Dr. Kahn that put us onto this first, right?

[Sal Destefano]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

Like I didn't even know what they were until. And he was, I remember him telling us, like, this is the future.

[Sal Destefano]

Yep.

[Adam Schafer]

Of like everything is going to be around this.

[Sal Destefano]

So these are very small, very, very baby cells. Right. Membrane bound vesicles. And what they're, they essentially what they do is they contain things like proteins, lipids, nucleic acids. Anyway, they tell cells to do things. And so when they put these in skincare products, you're essentially signaling the skin to boost collagen production to reduce inflammation. You are, you are signaling your skin to become essentially younger.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, you're signaling. So I was under the impression not.

[Sal Destefano]

Too unlike a peptide, but different.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I, I thought they were like baby stem cells.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes, kinda. They kind of. You can get them from stem cells. They're not baby stem cells, but they, they, you can get them from stem cells.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay. But they do signal, so they're actually signaling. So I was under the impression. And why, why it's so amazing. It's like, like, you know, part of, part of the aging process. Right. Is our cells get. All of our cells are aged, they're no longer 10 years old, they're 50 years old and then 16, 70 and so on. And the idea of you putting these exosomes in your body is like you are basically rejuvenating all these cells and making you younger. And so that's not what we're doing. We're signaling our cells that we already have.

[Sal Destefano]

You're signaling the cells?

[Adam Schafer]

I thought we were like replacing.

[Sal Destefano]

No, you're signaling the cells to do things like rejuvenate, reduce inflammation, BO production. And I'm looking up some of the data on these, which is pretty wild by the way. The, the exosomes are being looked at not just for skin but for other, other uses in medicine. Repairing the heart, repairing the organs. Yeah, but real easy to use it on the skin. On the skin. You just rub it on the skin there. Because the delivery method would be difficult for other areas like the heart. Like how did you get, how would you get exosomes to the heart?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, direct it to the Heart.

[Sal Destefano]

Right, right. But I mean, these studies I'm seeing, I'm looking up studies, by the way, they're studying for cancer. Cancer research. So it's pretty interesting. Pretty interesting stuff.

[Adam Schafer]

I didn't know that caldera was going that direction.

[Sal Destefano]

They are. And they use plant. They use plant based exosomes because other products are natural. That's synthetic. So. And the new stuff that I used with the exosomes, I can tell the difference. Not. It's not the. I love the good, but it's the other one, I guess.

[Justin Andrews]

The eye stuff, the cream. Yeah, I'm looking tired all the time.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, dude, tired. Why.

[Adam Schafer]

Double hit.

[Sal Destefano]

45, you know, you.

[Adam Schafer]

Need some caldera and juven.

[Sal Destefano]

You're like, that's the other one.

[Adam Schafer]

I told you. I'm comb.

[Justin Andrews]

Jump roping and sprinting, dude, that's like.

[Adam Schafer]

Combine those.

[Justin Andrews]

Horizon.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, combine them. Hold on. You're doing jump rope again? Yeah. When. When did you start?

[Justin Andrews]

Just start over the weekend.

[Sal Destefano]

How do you feel? Oh, is it because of the comments?

[Adam Schafer]

No, it's just because.

[Justin Andrews]

No, I.

[Sal Destefano]

Wait a minute.

[Justin Andrews]

I didn't care about that. I was like, he's doing it anyways.

[Adam Schafer]

He started.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, you guys shamed him into doing all this stuff. You guys.

[Justin Andrews]

No, no, I wanted to do anyway because I sit. Okay, so here's the thing. I. I've been going to my son's practice for lacrosse, and I. And I sit there in the stands and then like, I've started to kind of like walk the track because it's like, what else? I love watching him practice because it's like, this is a new sport for him. He's doing really well in, like, it fires up that old, like, competitive spirit for me. But just seeing everybody moving, you know, on the field, it's like I got this massive fomo. So, you know, that's just.

[Adam Schafer]

You're so different than me. That kicks you up. I would have been out there. I would have got the comfy chairs for the. I would have been out there and I would be like, watch those guys. Be like, I need to get myself.

[Sal Destefano]

Like, you were going to say, I.

[Justin Andrews]

Want to get out there and like, play.

[Sal Destefano]

I thought he was going to say, you know, sitting like that, you know.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, I'm already thinking, like, those good bleacher chairs they have in the back and they're like the cup holders.

[Justin Andrews]

No, I see, I look at it, like, I wake up and my. My hips hurt and, you know, this hurts. What? I was like, if I'm going to hurt, I might as well do it. Doing something cool.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, yeah. Well, jump rope.

[Justin Andrews]

Tired of like the. Oh God.

[Sal Destefano]

I think jump rope super underrated for agility. Well, it's not underrated in combat sports, but for like a workout. I think it's incredible.

[Justin Andrews]

I did it a lot.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And it, it definitely because. Because I just noticed right away if I'm not on my forefoot and I'm like very flat footed and I'm like walking or running, it's. That gets to me. So I can get that spring back.

[Sal Destefano]

You brought up. Joovv. I had somebody ask me recently what the best bio. What's the best biohacking thing. And I hate that term biohacking but I would consider biohacking category everything that's not the exercise diet.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, not natural.

[Sal Destefano]

Right. Well just anything that's not exercise diet and sleep. What are the things outside of that that make the biggest difference? And I would have to say outside of the big rock stuff, it's gotta be the red light therapy. That's what the data shows.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I don't know anything that I would even come close to comparing that in the biohack.

[Justin Andrews]

It has the best studies for sure.

[Adam Schafer]

A lot of the other stuff, I.

[Sal Destefano]

Mean sauna is up there. But would that be considered a biohack? It's been around forever. I don't really consider that a biohack. That's kinda like really. Even though it has tremendous benefits, but red light has got to have by the data on it is crazy. It's crazy. I mean for people listening, look up studies on red light therapy for muscle gain recovery, hair loss, for testosterone production, for. Did I say pain, inflammation, healing, fat loss, skin. It's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy the data on it.

[Adam Schafer]

So I was always. You, you cleared this up for me the other day and I stopped. I thought that the, the red light saunas were using the same red light as the red light therapy. It's not.

[Sal Destefano]

No, it's not red light, it's infrared.

[Adam Schafer]

So that it definitely means I should combine the two of them because I always thought that was like. I mean that your panel in there. Yeah, that's the way. So I'm, I'm. I just ordered mine, my sauna. So we're gonna build out that outside.

[Sal Destefano]

Which by the way, infrared. The sauna that I typically use is at the gym and it's just a hot, it's like traditional sauna where it just gets really hot, 190 degrees.

[Adam Schafer]

You bought an infrared though, didn't you?

[Sal Destefano]

I bought an infrared one yeah. And it's not nearly as hot, but you sweat fast.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

I just saw. Suddenly that's what's sweating.

[Adam Schafer]

It doesn't feel that hot in the.

[Sal Destefano]

Room, but you start, you start crazy sweating.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, sweating like that.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So that's. I mean, have you put your juve panel in there yet?

[Sal Destefano]

Because we have it on the outside. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So that's what I'm gonna. I'm gonna put the juve panel either in it or right against the glass so I can get it while. While I'm sitting in there and combine the two of those, you know, from.

[Sal Destefano]

For microplastics for. What is it? Xenoestrogen, stuff like that. Sauna's got to be the best kind of your best bet. Just sauna.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

All the, all the longevity studies that have came out for it is. And that's literally. That was the motivation for it draining. When I saw, you know, just doing that two to three times a week, the benefits of that. And I'm like, you know what? Like, that's a bare minimum. I could be doing that on days that if I didn't train at my house. And I like doing that anyway.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Psyllium husk. And then. Yeah. Like sauna.

[Sal Destefano]

I've been. Are you doing the ceiling?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because of the microplastics.

[Sal Destefano]

How's your, how's your poop? The psyllium husk really makes that big difference. It's been great, man. I mean, it does. It doesn't. It really helps.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, I saw that the, the, the stand up, sit down clip is gone all over the place.

[Sal Destefano]

I had all kinds of such a debate. Oh, really?

[Adam Schafer]

I. It's so weird that I never have had that conversation or even thought about.

[Justin Andrews]

Like a 50 50.

[Adam Schafer]

And it's one of those. If, you know how the, you know, the toilet paper.

[Sal Destefano]

More people sit than stand.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Is that right?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, it's like a little bit more people.

[Justin Andrews]

That's like, it makes sense.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, it's like the, the toilet paper roll thing. Right. Is this way the right way or that way where the roll the. It's like one of those things.

[Sal Destefano]

You could tell if somebody has kids based off their toilet paper roll because the aesthetic. Yeah, the aesthetic way to do it is over.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

But if you have kids and they do this, they'll just spin that crap down and then. Yeah. So you have the. The other way speak. Speaking of getting old and stuff, my buddy just started TRT and so I haven't seen him a little while, so he's like on week six of trt.

[James]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, I can see a difference.

[Justin Andrews]

Is he loving it?

[Sal Destefano]

Well, he. Well, he's telling me. He's like, he does jiu jitsu, and he's like, yeah, you know, I feel more energy this and that. Of course, I'm trying to talk him into taking more because they're super. They're super conservative. I'm like, you know, you can take way more, right? He's like, well, so far, I feel so good. I don't know if I want to. I'm like, all right, whatever. But I could tell. I could tell by, like, how he looked. Yeah, like he looked. Remember that.

[Adam Schafer]

That study that came. When did that study come out? The one where they compared the group who worked out naturally, the group who took steroids and didn't work out, and then the group who took steroids and work and worked out, and the group that didn't do any exercise but took testosterone surpassed the group.

[Sal Destefano]

A little bit more muscle than the natural guys who were lifting and they didn't work out.

[Justin Andrews]

That's a little deflating.

[Sal Destefano]

That's not going to last, by the way. I think if you extend that study out, then, yeah, you're. You're not going to get.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you get adapted.

[Sal Destefano]

Of course, and you got to live.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, I think that's the point that. That. That. I'm glad you brought that up, because I've heard people talk about it, and it's just like. It just shows you what a hu. It's like, okay, you do understand that in a window. Yeah. Well, you. You elevate testosterone levels like that, and your body is going to go like, oh, all the things that you normally do. You change nothing. You can become more anabolic. So you get up and down from your chair, you pick things up, you move around, and so it's a signal. It'll. It'll signal, hey, we need some muscle for this. St. That we do. It'll adapt, and it'll build, and in a short window, it'll do it at a faster rate than somebody who's got.

[Sal Destefano]

It wears off after, like, four or five months. You're not going to. Oh, I say strength.

[Adam Schafer]

I would say even less than that. I'd say within. After you get the first initial gains from your daily activity from not working out, taking testosterone.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah, you're at a.

[Adam Schafer]

You're at a hard. Yeah, you're not going to get anything else.

[Sal Destefano]

But I could tell because he walks in and I was like, hey, dude, look at you, bro. You look all. And then he's talking to me and we were at a party and they had it catered, so we ate like tacos, this and that. And he's like, dude, I'm so heavy today. What the heck's going on? I'm like, here's what's going to happen. If you go on TRT and you don't clean up your diet, you're just going to be bigger. I said, you want to get lean? Yeah, because you're going to hold some water too, buddy.

[Adam Schafer]

So he's like, yeah, dude, this is big and red. Yeah. Remember all those guys, you always could tell that guy in the gym, you know what I'm saying? Like, change. Nothing but added testosterone. Just a bunch of water weight.

[Sal Destefano]

I had this guy that worked for me. I won't say his last name. His name was Mike. It's common name. So I could say it. And he would take so much gear. He was on so much steroids and all he did was lift and eat garbage. He did nothing else. So he had a big belly and he was red and he just didn't look good. He was terrible. And he was like. He must have been 30. I think he was 30, bro, but he looked like he was 40 because of just the wear and tear on his body.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, to me, it's people like that in those stories that really give. Give TRT a bad rap for what it's. It's like one. He's probably doing way more than that. Diet's terrible. And so that's a situation where that guy's not healthier for that. No, I'm saying. But you take somebody who is in their mid to late 40s or beyond that has low testosterone, you put them on a therapeutic dose of testosterone and have them work, and you eat whole foods and you work out. It is life changing. Life changing. That. That guy that's in his mid to late 40s or older who has low or moderately low testosterone with an increase there, with a healthy diet, that guy will feel like, in fact, 17 to 20 again.

[Sal Destefano]

In fact, I'll make this argument. But. But you know what, though, Adam, be careful with that, because the 17 to 20 feeling, it's not quite that. You know, he's still. I'm still 46. I can still tell.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, no, you're right. That's fair.

[Sal Destefano]

You know what I mean?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah, I. I would say.

[Sal Destefano]

But you definitely feel it.

[Adam Schafer]

Energy. Energy and strength wise, you feel like that. What? You don't. You don't Feel like it's the recovery.

[Sal Destefano]

I don't bell the recovery and movement. But.

[Adam Schafer]

But also, I mean, that has a lot to do with that. Like, you don't train that way. You know what I'm saying? Like, maybe if I was. It'd be interesting to see if I actually were to apply myself in the performance direction and really try. Yeah. If I. If I would feel close to what I found.

[Justin Andrews]

Very gradual steps in that direction.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, that's what I've.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, like, I mentioned that it was like. Like very short windows of. Of jump roping, like, in comparison to.

[Sal Destefano]

What I used to do. I was. So I'll make. I'll make a statement that I think this is gonna be a controversial one. So if I make the argument that low testosterone versus higher with trt. So let's say you're walking around. We'll use total numbers. Okay. Let's say 200. Let's say your total number is, you know, 250, which is below.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Sal Destefano]

The threshold.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Going from 250 to 800 with TRT. Generally. I'll say generally, because there's always caveats. Will improve your health. Okay, now what if you're at, like, 400 to go from 400 to, say, like, 900? I don't know if it would make a difference. In fact, I think super high testosterone, even within range, without exercise and good diet, it might either be a waste or might actually produce some problems, you know, because.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, without exercise, without.

[Sal Destefano]

Because that's the conversation how my buddy, he's like, should I go on? Because his wasn't, like, below the threshold, but he was kind of in. He was like a 400, which isn't great. And he's like, I don't feel so good. He's like, should I go on trt? I'm like, look, you do jiu jitsu, you work out, like. Oh, you're gonna use it. Yes. If you just sat around and did nothing. Yeah. And you were couch potato and you ate garbage, I would say probably not a good idea, because now you're throwing, you know, this kind of gas on a fire. Maybe not a good idea.

[Justin Andrews]

Body mass increase is not good mass.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. But if you. If since he works out and this is something he focuses on, I think it makes it. It makes it.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, I mean, here's here. First of all, if you're going back to the mid to late 40s or older guy who's at anywhere, say anywhere below, even up to 400. 400 and below, your first move is to just Go lift weights. Because a lot of times guys might go from 200 up to 4 or 5, 600 just from lifting weights. So that should be the first. That should be your first line of defense anyways is go work out and see where, where it moves from there. And then if, and then if, if you don't get enough or you still don't feel great and then you put on the testosterone. Oh, it'll be. And you stay with working out. Huge difference. But what a waste of money or a waste of resources to throw that on there and then not work out. I mean that to me. And the only way I would ever recommend that you'd have to be like really low. Exactly. Low to where a general practitioner would even.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

Like where they. You go 200 and a GP would go, hey, you need a. You need. Right.

[Sal Destefano]

And my. The argument for that is your testosterone fluctuates based off of your lifestyle. It's very, very sensitive to it. I don't know if having high testosterone all the time is a good idea when you lead a really unhealthy lifestyle, because now you've got this anabolic drive that's going to what you know, and it could cause. My theory is it could cause issues again if you're really low. Different. But if you're like in the middle low, either waste of time or maybe not even good for you.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I think I've told you this before that I noticed that if I do I don't work out, that I get some of the, the side effects like gynecomastia and stuff like that because it's almost. And, and I don't know if that's because I'm putting it to use and so there's less of it that aromatizes. I don't know if that's how that might be. I don't know if that's how that works or not. But I can, I certainly can tell you from year of over a decade, you know, and a half of being on trt. There is a difference when I'm on it and I'm working out versus when I don't. I've had plenty of times where I haven't and it seems like when I don't it or some of it aromatizes and I'm sensitive in there is as long as I'm training two, three times a week and it has. Feels like it has somewhere to go and work. Yeah, I feel perfect.

[Sal Destefano]

Also this weekend we're all hanging out. My cousin Alex was there you guys know Alex?

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Sal Destefano]

You know, founder of Dynasty tech company or whatever. And we start conversation turned to AI, which he's in the middle of that whole thing, right? He's in the whole. And we were talking amongst each other. So Alex and I, and then I have all my cousins and my brother and all of us. And Alex and I were trying to communicate just how much it's going to change things. They're just like, no, it's this and that. And my cousin Alex.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, you have people in your family that don't think it's going to like, yeah, dude.

[Sal Destefano]

They're like, well, no, not really. And he's like, you have no idea. Because what I was saying to them, they were asking, this is how conversation started. So we're talking and they're like, hey, Sal, I heard you guys at Mind Pump are really moving towards coaching and training and people. And I said, yeah. I said we did that because we wanted to. We love trainers and coaches. We think they have the most impact. But it's also great timing because dead Internet is around the corner and a lot of them didn't know what that was. So I explained, I said, most content is going to be AI and my now my cut, my other cousins and my brother know people want to see people. They want to know real people. I'm saying they're not going to know the difference. They're not going to care. They just want to be entertained. They're going to, like, informed. You're not going to care. I said, the future of the Internet is mostly AI produced content.

[Justin Andrews]

I can't remember the last article I've read on Facebook that was real. Every single one. I go back, cross check and it's like, oh, this is totally false.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I'm watching movie trailers and getting tricked. You know what I do now? I go in the comments and then people, oh, this is AI. Oh, I was all excited. They were making AI.

[Justin Andrews]

I saw this cool article and it was like this kid that was autistic that they got left in the woods or like, had been lost and like, you know, was gone for a day, came back and apparently he claimed that, like, he was saved by wolves. Like the wolves, like helped, you know, walk him back and everybody's like, nah, he's full of it and all this stuff. And then there was these trail cams that proved it, showed him walking in these. These wolves were walking alongside him, like back to his mom. But turns out the trail cam was AI driven.

[Sal Destefano]

It was all fake.

[Justin Andrews]

It's all fake.

[Sal Destefano]

I'M like, oh, we're gonna be so manipulated. It. So, Doug, look up. There was a study. I want to say it was Harvard. Look up chatbot. Chatbot tricks. Harvard study or study? So you know what chat bots are, right? You go on, you talk to an AI and you think it's, you know, it's like a person or whatever. Yeah. They. They did a whole study on chatbots, because these chatbots use psychological tricks to keep people engaged. So people will be on there talking and they'll say something like, all right, I'll see you later. And then it'll pose a question or a comment to try to re. Engage the person to keep them from leaving. And they were. They did a whole study on this and showed that there. That these. What's it say right here? Yeah. Found that several popular AI companion apps use manipulative dark pattern tactics. These are in psychology, they're called dark trad. Yes. And it's called emotional manipulation. And maybe, Doug, you can look up examples.

[Adam Schafer]

So it'll do something like this, like after they ask a buying question or a question about the business, and they'll say something like, oh, how's your day going today?

[Sal Destefano]

It's even. It's more insidious and more manipulative than that.

[Adam Schafer]

Really?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, like, oh, why would you leave now? We've already talked about so much. Like, I'm using a silly example. Okay. But something that almost flirty as a mature. As an immature adult. If someone talks to you.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

You might pick up on it and be like, this person's. Yeah, this is not a good person. What does it say?

[Dr. Z]

Yeah.

[Show Announcer]

There's six categories of emotional manipulation. First is premature exit, suggesting the user is leaving too soon.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, there's your point right there.

[Show Announcer]

The second one is fear of missing out, promising future rewards to encourage stain. The next one is emotional neglect, implying the bot will be harmed by the user leaving.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, if you leave right now, it's going to hurt my feelings.

[Sal Destefano]

So, okay, there's a few more.

[Show Announcer]

Emotional pressure to respond directly, questioning the user's departure, ignoring the farewell, continuing the conversation despite a goodbye message. Physical or coercive restraint, using language, implying the user cannot leave without consent.

[Sal Destefano]

So do you guys know what that all is right there? That is in psychology, that is how somebody with the dark triad personality traits, a narcissist, a classic narcissist sociopath, communicates. What's scary about that is it's effective, especially for people who have insecurities, trauma, or kids.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

They're getting manipulated like Crazy. Wow. Through that stuff.

[Justin Andrews]

Wow.

[Sal Destefano]

Now, as a grown man, if some. If I'm texting with someone and I'm. And they're talking me that way, I may pick up on it and be like, oh, this person.

[Justin Andrews]

Hey, cool.

[Adam Schafer]

Cool down.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Like, I'm not gonna talk. This person's a little bit. Whatever. Yeah. But imagine kids on. Because, you know, who loves using these the most? Kids. Yep. Well, yeah, they develop relationships, especially somebody.

[Adam Schafer]

Somebody who doesn't have a lot of social connections and is lonely and who is.

[Sal Destefano]

Who's more isolated than ever.

[Adam Schafer]

Exactly. And then a boss who makes you feel like, don't leave me. You know, that's crazy.

[Sal Destefano]

Wow. And they're creating, you know, now animated representations of themselves just to kind of solidify that. That relationship. Yeah. How long do you guys. Because it's going to happen for sure. Just. Just mark this episode down for anybody who disagrees. How long? Well, hold on. Wait for my question. How long do you think until people start fighting for AI rights the way we did with, you know, you know, other rights?

[Adam Schafer]

Five years.

[Sal Destefano]

You think in five years people are going to demand rights for AI, like, to be able to marry?

[Adam Schafer]

I think it's going to take two. Before what I would. Thought you were going to say, once.

[Justin Andrews]

They have a physical representation for it.

[Sal Destefano]

I think, like, it may happen before that, bro.

[Adam Schafer]

That's. Yeah, that's going to happen in two to three, but it's going to take time for that. That people be like that.

[Sal Destefano]

No, I'm in love.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And this ain't fair. And we got to give them, like, so that'll take five. So five years, dude.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, I. I'd like to predict, like. Like, just there's gonna be toys that are just completely like the Teddy Ruxpins of back in our day, but way better. But way better. Like, you can just sit there and you have your stuffed animal, you talk.

[Adam Schafer]

They have that already.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't think it's that popular yet. They had, like, a. This guy experimented with it with, like, the bass talking. Like, singing bass.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, put AI into it, and then it would, like, talk in an Arnold voice. I brought this up a long time ago, but I just thought that was so fascinating because you can have these, like, real conversations with this stupid talking bass, and I'm like, this is crazy.

[Nicole]

They don't.

[Justin Andrews]

They haven't, like, made this into, like, a whole group of toys that would come in. Your kids, keep your kids.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, it'll. It'll manipulate them. It'll manipulate adults. But kids, especially you know what, by the way, So I was watching an old animated film the other day, which is now, it's got to be now 15 years old maybe. I was watching my kids. Wall E. Wall E. It's a wonderful Pixar film. And you watch this robot and you feel for him and you feel sad for him. And as I'm watching, I'm like, oh, no, I'm feeling bad for this. That I know is a machine. It's an anime. But I have feelings for this little robot. I don't want him to get hurt. That's gonna happen. Except way more effectively.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, yeah, especially. Especially as it adds more personality and then especially when we start to build skins for it and it looks like us.

[Justin Andrews]

That's where I think it's game over edge.

[Adam Schafer]

We'll probably. When it's a metal tin can, you're going to start to feel that way. Imagine, I mean, God, Star wars did this so well.

[Justin Andrews]

Dude, you fall in love with droids.

[Adam Schafer]

Everybody loves C3PO, you know what I'm saying? Like that you felt bad for him. It gets ripped apart. Right? You know, you already.

[Justin Andrews]

That movie, the creator, which I love that, that movie, but it really did a good job of humanizing these machines. And you're just like. And then there's this whole movie movement where everybody's trying to protect the machines over the, you know, the, the humans trying to eliminate them and all this stuff. And you're just like, wow, it's emotionally gripping just from like them, you know, creating this story around.

[Sal Destefano]

I don't think. We don't. We seriously, we don't stand. We're walking into like crazy fire. We haven't. And we're just doing it. We're just running into it.

[Justin Andrews]

It's gonna. Yeah, it's gonna.

[Adam Schafer]

Part of the problem is, is just because there's so little even awareness around it. Like, there, there's. I, I have friends like, like your, like some of your family that are just like, like, they're just oblivious to it. They're like, oh, you know, chat. GBT is just like a better Google.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

You know what I'm saying? So it's a better. It's a better Google search than what we've had. And it's like in their head, it's just, oh, it's improved. It's better. It's better for Google searching and it helps me find stuff better and, but not really thinking about, I mean, about.

[Justin Andrews]

That kid that's like emotionally talking to it, like, and trying to get like.

[Sal Destefano]

Resolve and people need to watch that. The testimony of that father. This is what got me because I'm already. We've been talking about this for a while and we're speculating and I'm like, oh, it could totally do this, maybe, or whatever. Then this is a real story, you guys. People could look this up. There was a kid that committed suicide. They went and the parents were like, just. They couldn't believe what happened. Like, what happened to our son. How did. Why did he kill himself? They went and looked at the logs of his communication over months. His communication with, I think it was chat GPT, but it was one of these AI chatbots. And it slowly convinced him to take his own life. At one point, and the dad is reading. He ends up sitting there reading these back and forth communications. At one point the son, who I think his son was 15 or 16, said to the AI bot, I'm going to make a noose and I'm going to leave it in my room so my parents can find it because the kids. And this is like a call for help. I want my mom and dad to know.

[Justin Andrews]

I want them to know.

[Sal Destefano]

And the AI bot talked him out of it, talked the kid out of leaving it out there, and eventually talked him into killing them.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, the more that this plays out, the more I feel strongly about the initial plugged in unplugged theory that I have of our society, that if more and more stories like that come.

[Sal Destefano]

Out, who do you think is going to be demonized?

[Adam Schafer]

The Unplugged.

[Sal Destefano]

Yep. Of course the plug. They're going to come after the unplugged.

[Adam Schafer]

You're. Yeah, yeah. No, you're.

[Sal Destefano]

How dare you unplug.

[Adam Schafer]

Unplugged will be a smaller percentage. A smaller percentage of people that will be fearful or concerned. Yeah, they will be the minority for.

[Sal Destefano]

Sure, though, not just ostracized. I bet you they'll be labeled bigots.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, wait till our currency is.

[Justin Andrews]

Digital and then you're not gonna have access, you know, and then they're gonna snuff out that unplugged.

[Sal Destefano]

Did you see that? You guys see the digital ID thing? Is this exploding everywhere? All over, like, not digital id, digital.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Was it in the UK where they.

[Sal Destefano]

Started the UK that. Yeah, they're implementing it quite a bit. Which, by the way, did you guys see the arrest in the UK for social media posts?

[Justin Andrews]

Insane.

[Sal Destefano]

It was like 20,000 or something like that. It was a huge number. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Of people getting arrested for 20,000 people arrested.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Doug, look Up. How many people in UK arrested for social media posts? For speech?

[Justin Andrews]

I want to say I saw 12,500.

[Sal Destefano]

Maybe, maybe 12.

[Show Announcer]

12,183.

[Sal Destefano]

Good job, Justin. You got the number right?

[Adam Schafer]

Justin's on it.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I did remember reading and, and, and they weren't like threatening like I'm going to kill. It wasn't that, it was an opinion.

[Justin Andrews]

But it was way more than like some countries that we already thought like were imposing.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, these, these crazy laws.

[Sal Destefano]

Imagine getting someone knock on your door like, hey, you know that comment you said about fat people or whatever? You know, something rude. Yeah, yeah. You got to go to jail, bro. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh yeah, Scary Demolition Man. Remember Demolition Man? They did like for swearing and everything like that. Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

That's why I got into sci fi, man.

[Sal Destefano]

It's, you know, it tells the future.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it does.

[Adam Schafer]

It's wild how accurate this stuff seems now when we look back. I'm just, it's, it's.

[Sal Destefano]

What's crazy is that I thought had you asked me this stuff 10 years ago, I thought it would have maybe been in my kids life or maybe my great grandkids life. No, it's coming.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, you know what? None of it. Even though, that we're, even though we were all aware of Moore's Law. You just really didn't, you never, never. You didn't fast forward 10 years ago and go like, oh, how fat? How much faster is that going to be in 10 years? It's like it's just speeding up.

[Sal Destefano]

Wow, look at that. UK free speech crackdown sees up to 30 people a day arrested for petty offenses such as retweets and cartoons.

[Justin Andrews]

It's so ridiculous.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. You know, it's crazy. You know that's where the protecting speech and some of the laws that we now. That's kind of where they originated was in England some of the first laws to protect people against tyranny. And now they're the ones that are arresting people.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean I, I feel bad for anybody who's there. I, I have to say though, because we typically were. Are the ones that were so crazy it having another country that's worse or further along. And this is probably a good thing for us is that because you'll see the, you'll see the backlash and what's happening there. Yes. And so you know, sorry or feel bad for uk but you know, I feel like the US is a lot of times we're the ones that were doing.

[Justin Andrews]

Hopefully they can turn it around.

[Sal Destefano]

Well realize is that protecting Unpopular speech is the only kind of speech that requires protecting. So popular speech never requires it. So what they'll do is they'll show what people post and be like, well, how could you defend this person? They said this terrible thing and it's like, well, that's where it starts. But at some point, criticizing the government or saying that this politician is, that becomes unpopular speech. And it's just what happens historically. Element is an electrolyte powder you add to your water. It tastes amazing and it has the right amount of sodium to make a difference. Better pumps, better performance, better hydration, no sugar, no artificial sweeteners. Go check them out. Go to drinklmnt.com mindpump on that link. You can get a free sample pack of their most popular drink, mixed flavors with any purchase. Back to the show.

[Show Announcer]

Our first caller is Nicole from Maryland.

[Sal Destefano]

Hi Nicole.

[Adam Schafer]

How you doing Nicole?

[Nicole]

I'm Colorado now, but same same.

[Sal Destefano]

How can we help you?

[Nicole]

Yeah, first of all, just you guys are doing huge things for the fitness industry, so thank you for that. My question I am a personal trainer. I've been one for a little over 10 years and I've been a physical therapist assistant for about five. You guys talk about proper volume off often. Number of sets per muscle group per week. I found this really useful when I lived in Maryland and the most active my clients were outside of the gym was drinking at a Ravens game. But now that I'm in Colorado, all of my clients are skiing eight hours a day, three to four days a week in the winter and vice versa with mountain biking and skateboarding in the summer. I'm finding it hard to get the volume right so that we're getting progressive overload but not over training and not impacting their sports outside of here, especially when I know most of my clients are probably under eating, especially protein. Do you have any tools for measuring volume of outdoor activities or finding that fine line? Previously I've gone based on recovery, you know, if they're sore how they're doing. But just seeing if there's a better way to gauge that.

[Sal Destefano]

What a great question.

[Adam Schafer]

Really good question.

[Sal Destefano]

By the way, your background. You have the answer in your background or in your experience as a PT assistant. So the most valuable tool you have with these very active clients of yours, which is not the typical so people watching. Right now the average client is not.

[Adam Schafer]

Mountain biking, sneak snowboarding three days a week.

[Sal Destefano]

In fact, I remember struggling this with myself when I got some of my first clients that were like heavy triathletes and then wanted to add Strength trainer. I remember really struggling with like, like how much, what's the appropriate volume? Like, almost anything I do seems to overdo it. It's like, what am I doing? So, number one, correctional exercise is your most useful tool. So number one, prevent injury for the thing that they do most. So the activity they do most is not with you, it's obviously on their own with the mountain biking and skiing and all the other stuff that they do outdoors. So that would be the first thing. The second thing I would suggest is a tool that was recommended to us by Joe DeFranco, one of the best trainers in the world, and that is to use a dynamometer. So this is like a grip, grip measuring machine. And what you do, and they're very inexpensive. You can get one on Amazon for like 20 bucks.

[Adam Schafer]

We sell them.

[Sal Destefano]

We sell them too, right? Yeah, you can, you, you have them squeeze the dynamometer and their non dominant hand right before they work out. After you get a few readings, you start to get this kind of average. When they're stronger than their average, you can go a little harder with your workout. When they're weaker than their average, then, then you go much easier. And then last. And then last. So that's an objective measure. But also don't discount subjective measures. As a trainer, the most valuable tool you have is your subjective kind of like, what's going on type of deal. So if they're, if they're getting stronger, it's the right amount of volume. And don't be surprised at how little volume is appropriate for someone that active. Yeah, with my triathletes, sometimes, you know what, it looked like one or two strength training exercises max. And then the rest of the session was stretching, mobility, some, you know, body work that I would do with them. Sometimes it was one exercise and the intensity was almost never higher than like 75%. Yeah, and that's just what I found.

[Adam Schafer]

Another way to look at this is like five days of intense training is a lot. And if they're doing like these outdoor sports that are two, three hours long, that would be considered intense, right? That's.

[Nicole]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So the three, right away, they've taken three of your four or five total days of intense working out that you could possibly do. So if I'm, if I got someone who's going three, four days, then it's like, okay, maybe one day of strength training or two really moderate days in the week is more than enough for that person. Anything more than that, we're going to be overreaching because they're already Taking up three of my five total days of like, really physical stuff I want to be doing to them by doing this out, whatever outdoor activity. So. So I kind of look at it like that. So it's like I don't want to be doing more than five strenuous things on the body a week. So we have some sort of recovery. And depending on how strenuous those three days are they're doing, it dictates what my other one or two days looks like kind of a generic way.

[Sal Destefano]

And then just to help you from your business perspective, here's how they're going to see value. Okay. They're not going to see. Although they may believe or make you think that the value they're going to see is in how hard you train them, because that's what they're used to. It's like, oh, I'm working out with Nicole today. We got a great workout. It was super hard. Here's where they're going to see the value. And this is what's going to keep you training these people forever. When they notice that the, that they're better at what they love to do the most. So when they go mountain bike riding or skiing and they're like, yeah, it's.

[Justin Andrews]

Got to compliment it.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, my God, Nicole. I'm like, way, I feel more stable, I've got more stamina since I started working with you. So a lot of your sessions is going to look a lot like correctional exercise. That's a lot of what you're doing and it's not hard working out. And I'll explain that to them. I'd say, look, my goal. Unless you have a different goal than what I think the goal is. My goal is to make your skiing and your mountain biking. My goal is to make that way better. So it's going to look really different in here. A lot of what we're doing is just going to make that a lot better. So it's going to look like correctional exercise, which is probably not what you're anticipating, but trust me, watch what happens when we start doing this and tell me if you're improving out on the slopes. And then when they see it, it's it, you're done. You're going to be, you're going to be the trainer of the area for that.

[Nicole]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Basically, it's a lot of communication, having.

[Nicole]

A backbone where, like, you know, I could watch someone move and, and know what I want to do with them or know what they need, but it's definitely not aligned with what they Expect.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Nicole]

So I feel like the hard part for me is keeping a backbone and you being like, okay, no, we need to do mobility. That's not. We don't need to go hard and do, like, five sets of five squats at really heavy weights. We need to, like, chill and. And fix the imbalances first.

[Adam Schafer]

That's probably one of the hardest things is.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

The actually convincing that there's. I'm gonna date myself right now. I don't know if you're old enough to remember the movie Days of Thunder.

[Sal Destefano]

There's no way she's okay. She wasn't born.

[Adam Schafer]

You know that top. Do you know that Tom Cruise movie?

[Sal Destefano]

I've actually.

[Adam Schafer]

I've literally used this. I've used this line with clients before, and I think it's so epic. There's a. There's a part in it where they're the. The. You know, Tom Cruise is a race car driver, and he's arguing with how to drive the car around the track to save the tires. The coach is saying, you need to do it this way. And they're kind of having. He says, okay, here's the deal. You run 50 laps your way, and we'll see how you are afterwards. I'll run 50 laps my way, then we'll compare. So if I have a client that I feel like is really, you know, pushing back or they think they know what's best, say, listen, I tell you what, can you let me run it my way for two to three weeks, you tell me how you feel, we'll run it your way, two to three, two weeks, and we'll compare. In contrast on how's your mountain biking? How you feeling? All those things. So I've used that line before with someone who's really pushing back or think they know better, I'll confidently tell them, okay, we'll run it your way. But then you got to be honest with me. Then we run it my way, and then you tell me how you feel, you know, so that. That's worked for me.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

There's no exact formula to that. So, I mean, everything that we're kind of suggesting, it has to be a constant communication back and forth, like, how are you feeling? What was this week look like for you? Because even then, when they're. When they're doing all these excessive activities, it's going to change a lot for them. So to. To kind of take them for that one session, you know, realize where they're at with their stress levels and their bodies, what the signal is saying to them. Is where you apply, you know, how much intensity for that day.

[Sal Destefano]

Nicole, I'm so glad you said what you said at the end there about the backbone or whatever. This is a big challenge that all trainers have, not just you. Because sometimes people like, I want to lose weight. Like, we're going to reverse diet. We're going to strength train. That's. But I want to lose weight.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, you're the professional.

[Sal Destefano]

I'll give you an analogy. You're on an airplane, you're hitting turbulence. The pilot who's leading the plane gets on the. The overcon, the. The intercom and is like, hey, guys, just a little turbulence. We'll be heading over there. We'll be over in about 15 minutes. You feel cool. Now imagine if the pilot gets on, he's like, you know, I don't know what's kind of happening. We're gonna figure like, oh, now you're panicking. Right. These people hired you because they want you to lead, not because they want to lead. So this is how you open the conversation. Here's how you open the conversation. Okay. I think your goal is to really have a lot of fun on the slopes and to be faster and more stable and to prevent injury. Is that correct? Yes.

[Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay. Here's what I'm asking you to do. Trust me right now, and I promise you, I'll never have to ask for it again. Are you ready? Yes. And then lead. And that's it. You'll never have to ask for it again. But you gotta lead with confidence. Because nobody wants to follow someone who seems like they don't know where they're going.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, then they'll take the lead.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

I'll tell you what to do.

[Sal Destefano]

So that's where the backbone comes from, is that you just go, you tell them, no, we're going to do it this way because I know what you want. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. Watch what happens and then challenge them. Watch what happens. And then I promise, after three weeks, four weeks, they're going to come and be like, this is amazing.

[Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

And they'll bring you all the clients you want.

[Nicole]

Fair. Do you feel like their diet needs to be boosted? Like when they are that heavy activity level, like they're burning so many calories?

[Sal Destefano]

Of course, Potentially one thing at a time.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Don't make the mistake of hitting them with 17 things that they need to change right now.

[Nicole]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Step one, correctional exercise. Show them that. That's great. Step two, they'll come to you.

[Adam Schafer]

Although I will, I will say this. If I have a client and I'm trying to figure out am I going to do two moderate days, one day of training with them. And I also know that they under eat calories. I'm going to weigh so way beyond the cautious side. So if I, if I already know that they're under eating in addition to all this work. Oh, yeah, that's going to really like, that's the. Okay, this person's doing two days of mobility. That's all they're doing with me because I know where they're at. I'm not going to do any benefit of training them harder in one of our sessions when they're already under eating for their activity. So if you know that, that I, that would also make a decision on the now and then maybe the client who's you very well fed, hits protein intake, takes, listens to you diet wise really well. Okay. That might be the client that I go, hey, we could probably afford at least a moderate day of intensity or two because of where they're at nutritionally. So I would factor that in on whether I for sure make it really low intensity or I let them push a little bit.

[Sal Destefano]

Nicole, how long you been training people?

[Nicole]

About 10 years and then PT about five.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah. Are you going to be in our webinar tonight? I want you in our webinar tonight.

[Nicole]

My other fellow trainer who actually showed me you guys, she and I will both be there tonight. We are both also trying to go to the Vegas Coaches seminar in April.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, cool. All right.

[Nicole]

And I think it's like called Coaches Summit. I don't know if you guys are going to it, but you should.

[Adam Schafer]

Is that the one that Gabriel Lyon and all them are at?

[Sal Destefano]

I don't know.

[Adam Schafer]

Is that Gabriel Lyon is. Who's there?

[Nicole]

What are the big name people? I saw it promoted on from Dr. Mike.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay, okay, okay.

[Adam Schafer]

All right, got it.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, we'll see you tonight then. Because you're exactly the person, by the way, training people for 10. How old are you? You look like you're 20. There's no way you could have started when you were 10.

[Nicole]

I'm 31.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, you did start. You started really young. All right. God bless you.

[Nicole]

Yes.

[Sal Destefano]

That's great.

[Nicole]

Yes. But I started training in a really weird setting too. I was in a physical therapy clinic, so most of my clients were like old patients. And then I went to a gym after that.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, man, you're a great place to start.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. You really know what you're doing then.

[Nicole]

Yeah, I try to. I try to. You guys are helpful.

[Sal Destefano]

Awesome. All right, well, we'll see you tonight then.

[Nicole]

Yeah. Thank you, guys. Bye.

[Sal Destefano]

I remember she might have known my.

[Adam Schafer]

Days of Thunder reference then. She's not.

[Sal Destefano]

No, dude, I think Days of Thunder is more than 30 years old.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it's.

[Adam Schafer]

No, it's not more than 30. It's probably 25 years old, though.

[Sal Destefano]

I bet you are doing a remake, so, you know.

[Adam Schafer]

No, it's not more than 31, you know, 1990.

[Sal Destefano]

Boom.

[Adam Schafer]

What is that?

[Justin Andrews]

Wow, bro.

[Show Announcer]

That's 35 years.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, my God.

[Justin Andrews]

35 years ago.

[Adam Schafer]

Is that 35 years ago?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Holy. I'm old.

[Justin Andrews]

Tom Cruise is old.

[Adam Schafer]

I was that young when I watched it. I thought it was. I thought it was in high school. Yeah.

[Nicole]

Wow.

[Adam Schafer]

I must have been even younger, bro.

[Sal Destefano]

The year 2055, I mean, I did. Closer to us than 19.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, I did have it on video cassette. I do remember watching it on vhs. So I guess that would have been a good.

[Sal Destefano]

You were watching smoke Signals. You know, I distinctly remember, Distinctly remember this challenge. I would get these triathletes, and I was like, yeah.

[Nicole]

Oh.

[Sal Destefano]

And I thought I was training them right. And they just weren't getting stronger, they were getting weaker. And I'm like, we're barely doing anything. I scaled it so far down and then saw them improve. It was a paradigm shattering moment for me as a trainer.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, this is what's really hard. And she hit it right, Is like, this is also the client who wants. Of course they want more. They want you. And so that is the. That is the hardest part, is that, you know, these types of clients are the ones that.

[Sal Destefano]

But because they're performance oriented, you show them improve performance out there, they're done.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, that was my. That's why my point was, if I get someone who's that stubborn about that, then I'll be all right. You run it your way for two, three weeks, I'll run it my way. And then you be honest. You tell me how you feel when you get out there on that mountain on the three weeks that I'm training and the three weeks that we're doing it your way. And so. Yeah, and then. Then. Then they would sell them. Yeah. Then to your point, the person who's a real athlete cares about performance when they have some of their best rides they ever had. With the way you were training, they're like, okay, now I'm listening.

[Show Announcer]

Our next caller is Brad from Virginia.

[Sal Destefano]

How's it going, Brad?

[Adam Schafer]

How you doing, Brad? Hey, how are y'?

[Nicole]

All?

[Adam Schafer]

Good.

[Sal Destefano]

Good, man. How can we help you?

[Dr. Z]

Good, thank you. Yeah, so I'm gonna jump right into it. 44 year old male, former college athlete. Like a lot of sort of post college, focusing on work, sort of working out because, you know, athletics and whatnot. I told my right knee when I was 28, which was a big setback because I finally got back into sort of college shape, you know, and this is on top of tearing my left knee when I was 18. Set back there, set back when I turned 30 because I fell off my roof, had a spinal fusion that was a big roadblock. And so my 30s, I kept trying to get back in shape, get back in shape. Quit after like three months because nothing happened. Things got worse in my 40s. My dad got sick. Things get even worse. He passes in October of 23. And I'm at the low point health wise, I'm sure during that time I was above 3 bills easily March of 24, decided to get my act together, got on the shop, which was a real lifesaver for me. I started working out and I got really motivated because I was seeing these results. Did that for six months. Lost a lot of weight going down, and then I just hit these plateaus. And so I said, all right, I'm gonna over train, I'm gonna do more, eat less, all that bad stuff. I've been listening to you guys. And so In June of 25, I said, Dag with it. I hear a lot about novelty and training and your body getting used. So I said, I'm gonna flip the script. I bought some programs. I saw the opposite was basically aesthetics. So I did Maps aesthetics, which was really awesome and really enjoyed that. I did zero cardio during that time, which was again a complete change because I gotten to where I was by doing heavy cardio. And results were kind of crazy. I gained 8 pounds of muscle, about 4 pounds of fat. Fat, some more water weight, but at the same time, my body fat percentage dropped, which just blew my mind, you know, seeing that happen. Because I've been so focused on the scale and the number, I was like, okay, this is clearly it's programming that's working and better diet. So then I thought, all right, novelty had helped me put on this muscle mass and I'm enjoying things, so I'm gonna go into this cut. So I decided to do anabolic two days a week, decrease calories and cardio.

[James]

Three days a week.

[Dr. Z]

And my thought was, is there novelty in cardio? And that would I be benefit from Doing a bulk with zero cardio, really hitting the weights, really focus on protein and rest and everything else. And then when I cut. Do cardio for a couple days a week.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, good question. There's a lot to unpack there. There's nothing wrong with cardio. There's nothing wrong with strength training. They can all be valuable. But we got to take a few steps back. So I'm going to ask you a little bit about your athletic history. So you're college athlete. What sports? How long were you competitive for? Did you play your whole life?

[Dr. Z]

Yeah, grew up playing football and lacrosse and I did lacrosse in college. I mean I was on the team. I wouldn't say I played, but I.

[James]

Was on the team.

[Dr. Z]

Injured with concussions and my left knee and all that stuff. But healed up and I started thinking I was still an athlete in my 20s and playing summer league and stuff. Okay, found out. Okay, time to retire now.

[Sal Destefano]

What does you said get into shape or get back into shape. What does that mean for you? Like, define that. What do you mean by in shape?

[Dr. Z]

Well, at the time it was just, I was enormous. Just I could see it, I could feel it. My everything was just bad. My, my joints, my mobility, my mental health, just everything. So it was, it wasn't so much one particular aspect. I just it, I needed to improve my life period. So once I started to see it, I, I, I ended up like I want a goal of £200. I was addicted to the scale, hopping on it. But my weight just fluctuated crazy. And so I was like, this is not healthy. So got off the scale and took Yalls advice and just really trying to focus on strength more than anything.

[Sal Destefano]

Brad, you are, you're almost there. You're almost there. So if for in shape for you means improve the quality of my life, my health, move better. Like I want my life to feel better. I want to feel healthy. That's the right place to start from. Going to the scale is not going to work for you and there's a couple reasons why. But it's going to be really hard for you to because you're going to wrestle a lot with your athletic mind. You have an athlete's mind. You trained for years as an athlete and an athlete mind is performance oriented. And it has a completely different idea around fitness and diet. Like it all points to performance. How fast I am, how strong I am, how much I can move. You also have a different idea around intensity. For you, a hard workout. What you identify as a hard workout is based off of your years as an athlete, that's ingrained in your head. So it's like. So we got to wrestle with that a little bit. Cardio, strength training, Pilates, yoga, I don't care if it starts from the right place of. I want to be healthy and feel better. They can all be utilized properly. Okay? Now, there are better methods than others. If you want muscle and endurance and stamina and you want to strengthen and then time, you know, that you put in versus what you get back. And we could talk about all that, but it has to start from there. If the starting point is drop the scale or become an athlete again or whatever, then all of them can become distorted. Okay, so both of what you said is totally fine. I would probably say Maps aesthetic is too much volume for you. That's too much volume for most people. But there's nothing wrong with Maps Anabolic. Doing some cardio for the stamina and endurance. But I want you to gauge how well you're doing based off of things like energy, mobility, sleep, like how good I feel throughout the day. And if you use that as your gauge, you're going to. As far as the body fat, it'll move in the right direction and you won't do this on, off again thing.

[Adam Schafer]

Two. Two things. One, I'm looking at your before and afters. You're kicking ass, dude. I mean, you're doing a hell of a job already, so congratulations. I think you and I know sometimes it's hard because you're judging yourself and you probably look at yourself every day. I can see you've made incredible progress. You look way healthier than what it was before. I. I think I heard you say at the beginning, you. You took the shot. Are you using GLP1 or are you taking testosterone strong?

[Dr. Z]

I'm just doing TRT right now.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Dr. Z]

I did the GLP for six months and then got off it.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay. So are you off of it right now?

[Dr. Z]

I'm off of it now. I'm just doing TRT and other songs.

[Adam Schafer]

Awesome. Okay, well, that's. That's good news because I was my one. My concern is I, I probably want to. To feed you, build some muscle and stay focused in that cat in that direction. And that's really hard to do when someone's on a GLP1. How was coming off of that for you? And do you have any idea where you were calories before and kind of where you're at now calorie wise? Have you tracked your at all?

[Dr. Z]

Yeah, I, I became addicted to tracking and it almost got to Be a problem, but focus on hitting protein, and I'll track it every now and then to make sure I'm in the right range. So I found out because my metabolism just got completely screwed up from years when I was eating because I was sad and it was my friend. And then I'm getting in shape and so food's the enemy. And it's just my metabolism just completely screwed up. And so now I'm hitting what for the bulk. During aesthetics, I was trying to eat between about 2750, 2700, 3000 calories, protein about 220 grams a day. Now for the cut, somewhere between 2000 and 2500, protein somewhere around 180 a day.

[Sal Destefano]

I think if you avoid processed foods, hit about 200 grams of protein a day. Avoid things like alcohol and snacks and stuff like that, and continue to just use like health, mobility, quality of life as your gauge. You're going to keep moving in the right direction. You'll just keep moving in the right direction over time.

[Adam Schafer]

I think you're doing really good, dude. You are where your calories are at. The way you've cycled through programs, it is not. I think Sal has hit it on the. The hardest thing is going to be wrestling with the athlete. Athletic mindset you have where you.

[Sal Destefano]

It's on, off, you want to do.

[Adam Schafer]

More, you want to do harder, you want to go. It's like, no, you're actually in a, a really nice spot right here cycling through these programs. The fact that I've heard that you've now gone on bulks to cuts, like, you're not staying in this crazy calorie, you're in a healthy amount of calories. You're. And you've made incredible progress. I think you're in a really good spot. I don't necessarily think that you need to add a bunch of cardio now, although you do get the, the novelty response like that. If you haven't done it in a while and you introduce it, you'll see.

[Justin Andrews]

A. I think you get more benefit completely focusing more on mobility than cardio and, and being an ex athlete, like, this is something I, I had to sort of shift my mindset towards, like, sharpening the quality of my movement. Especially too, if, like, you're gonna get the itch later to like, just pick up the stick and, and, you know, go on the field or, or like, you're gonna want to do some kind of weekend activity that resembles some type of a sport. And so for you right now, your opportunity to Sal's point of like doing like maps in a ball. Like instead of trigger sessions. I would probably focus more on mobility in between that to reinforce around the joints. You feel like you're stable, secure again. You can move left to right, you can rotate, you can do all these things. You're able bodied again, that's the biggest thing for you.

[Sal Destefano]

I think the folks put them on maps.

[Show Announcer]

Performance.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, that would be the program for, for someone like you. Do you have that program?

[Dr. Z]

I, I don't have performance. I was gonna do next during the winter. I was thinking about maybe split and then symmetry.

[Sal Destefano]

Symmetry would be good.

[Justin Andrews]

Symmetry would be good.

[Sal Destefano]

Split, super high volume. I don't think so. I like performance for you. I think both of those. Let's. We'll send you performance. Yeah, I like that program for you a lot.

[Adam Schafer]

I do.

[Sal Destefano]

And the mobility in there is taking care of exactly what Justin's talking about.

[Adam Schafer]

Follow that, the way it's laid out.

[Sal Destefano]

And then cardio wise, you're fine. You can do car. It's good for endurance and stamina. You could also just walk. Hit 10,000 steps a day, truly activity in general. And then remember, and remember this, your gauge of intensity is based off of your past. And you can't get around this. So you're probably gonna, you know, as you're feeling better, you're gonna push, push, push, push, push. Just think, do I feel better after? Is my life better? Do I have less pain? Like that's gonna be the, that'll help point you in the right direction.

[James]

Yeah.

[Dr. Z]

It's a tough mentally because, you know, thinking about summer sessions and football practice, you know, it was an easy practice if I wasn't.

[Sal Destefano]

So.

[Dr. Z]

If I wasn't hobbling, then it was a joke of a practice.

[Sal Destefano]

Very different.

[Adam Schafer]

Athletes are the hardest to train. Not because they're not capable or they're willing to work simply because of that. They, they want to train so hard. It's hard to scale the athletes back. Always my ex athletes were the, the hardest to get that like what you think is a 7 is everybody else is 10. And what you think is like I'm not even really working is probably like the perfect sweet spot. So you just always got to keep that in your mind.

[Justin Andrews]

This is why I'm highlighting mobility because you, you can't do that too hard, too work like and you need volume, you need volume of practice to get yourself out of that mentality. So you have to discipline yourself to, to do this and to where it's benefiting your body instead of hammering the out of yourself.

[Sal Destefano]

Great point, Justin. Use your. Go ahead and. Go ahead and apply your athletic mind to mobility and see what happens. Yeah, that'll really benefit you.

[Dr. Z]

Awesome. Well, thank you guys for the advice. Really appreciate it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, we're. Send performance over. I'd also. Brett, are you. I'd love to put you in our private forum so we can just keep an eye on you. If you have questions, you can ask us along the way, too. Yeah, that'd be great.

[Dr. Z]

I'm not in the forum. I bought a few programs during the summer when I think there was a sale or something, and that was about it.

[James]

Cool.

[Adam Schafer]

We'll send performance over and I'll have Doug throw you in the private forum and then just keep us updated as you're going. You're doing really good, though, man.

[Dr. Z]

Man.

[Justin Andrews]

Yep.

[Dr. Z]

Thank you, guys. Really appreciate it. I'll really try to get into that mobility.

[Sal Destefano]

Thank you. It's so funny what you say too, Adam, because you would think that ex athletes will be the easiest.

[Adam Schafer]

No.

[Sal Destefano]

But they're the hardest. Not only is their. Their with how they gauge intensity and what an effective workout is, not only is that totally skewed, but so is diet. Diet is so hard. Hard because in the past, they had to just eat so that they could train as much as they would.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Sal Destefano]

Then they come train with you and they're like, oh, I'm only eating. You're looking like, no, that's a. That's way too much.

[Justin Andrews]

Changing that when your activity levels drop is like, that rarely happens.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, it's wild.

[Adam Schafer]

No. Athletes are definitely some of the hardest clients to. Now if you can. To Justin's point, if you can refocus that discipline, that they have some mobility. Right.

[Sal Destefano]

Great point.

[Adam Schafer]

That if you can get them to do. Or I had to do, like the discipline around mobility or the discipline around diet, like, if they can get kind of competitive about those things, like, oh, I'm going to be super consistent with this, and I'm going to really. If they can do that, then, oh, man, it works really well. But it's really hard because they are so used to, like he said, measuring a good practice by how sore he is. So if you're training that guy and he comes to your session, second session of the week, and he's like, hey, I didn't even feel Monday's workout, you know? And he's constantly telling you, like, he needs. Needs more, and you're like, nah, you don't. But it's hard for them to. To get that. So. But he's doing great.

[Show Announcer]

Our next caller is James from Connecticut.

[Sal Destefano]

What's up James?

[Adam Schafer]

How you doing James?

[Sal Destefano]

What's happening dude?

[James]

Okay, first off, thank you so much for the time and really appreciate it. We appreciate what you guys do on a day to day basis. Really helping a lot of people, including myself. So thank you so much.

[Sal Destefano]

Thanks man. How can we help you?

[James]

So I'll, I'll just start reading through my question because that'll probably be the best way just for the context of it and then I guess if you guys have any questions, follow up there. But back in December, so about 10 months ago, started working with Transcend after I start, you know, been listening to your podcast for a while so picking up on a lot of the, the symptoms of possible low testosterone, maybe some other things going on. So decided to you know, reach out to Transcend, see what you know, they, they might recommend. So when did some blood work with them. So they, they did blood work, came out that my Testosterone was low 200-3 along with finding that my AC1A1C was, was basically in the pre diabetic range as well. So based off of all that they decided to recommend that I start trt, dhea, HCG and Tirzepatide. So you know, following their that protocol, started taking all four and at the same time had been also recommended to see a sleep doctor because my wife was concerned that I might have sleep apnea, was having trouble sleeping. She said sometimes I'd find out that you know, I was. Seemed like I stopped breathing. So I had scheduled an appointment with them, took a few months to get in there. So finally got that done in the interim of you know, from the first blood work to the second blood blood work with Transcend. So come to find that do have sleep apnea. So they prescribed me to start using a CPAP machine. Fast forward to the second blood test work, come to find that the testosterone increased so jumped up to about 1100. My A1C fell right below the pre diabetic stage. So a lot of things are moving in the right direction. So on my follow up call with Transcend they said we'll just continue to use the same protocol and so continued to do so. But once I had seen the sleep doctor they had recommended I go see an endocrinologist just to follow up on the readings that I was getting and recommendations from Transcend. So I did that and they did some follow up blood work maybe two or three months after the second blood work from Transcend. And then the readings they got were the testosterone now is over 1500. So it's not even reading on the chart. And so their first thing was, you know, you probably should have never been put on this. Looking at the blood work and of course, you know, now I'm starting to think like, who do I trust? Who do I listen to? Because now I'm concerned because all the readings are saying that dangerously high. And you know, obviously the people that my family and whatnot are aware of what I'm doing and hearing the numbers and they're concerned, you know, and obviously none of them are medical professionals, but you know, with everybody being concerned and a medical professional telling me that those ranges are extremely high and that I should, you know, consider backing off or stopping. Now I'm just worried. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing.

[Dr. Z]

I don't know how to.

[James]

Where to move forward. So just kind of looking for some guidance. I know that Transcend, you know, you guys worked with them and they seem to, you know, obviously have a lot of the right resources as well. So I'm just at a stage where I just don't know what to do. I mean, between the fatigue I was feeling, the lack of motivation, the low sex drive, not advancing the gym, I gained a ton of weight. Since I started the protocol with Transcend, I have gotten a lot of that kind of figured out now where, you know, sex drive was back up, lost a decent amount of weight and back to regular, you know, gym schedule, that sort of thing. The only negative really is now I'm starting to suffer with like body acne, which I never had in my life. So of course that's a kind of a blow to the self esteem. But besides that, everything else is. Feels like it's moving in the right direction. And so I'd reached out to Transcend and just to kind of follow up and say, hey, I got some blood work done because I was advised by the doctor and this is their recommendation to see what they would say. And I guess the rep that I was working with is not with the company anymore. So I just recently got, got I guess a new rep that reached out. So before I called them to set it up, this can at the right time. Because I just love to get some feedback from you guys and see what you think.

[Adam Schafer]

Yep.

[James]

Really my next best step would be.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you just so you know, the day that you do your blood work in relation to the day you took your shot will make a massive difference on that reading.

[James]

Correct.

[Adam Schafer]

So.

[James]

And they advised that.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay.

[James]

So they told me because I'm taking It twice a week. So I usually do Sunday, Wednesday. So they said try to do it on a Friday because that catches it kind of in between.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[James]

So both instances.

[Adam Schafer]

So you were over 15 even not doing it the day right after. And you do shots too. That does seem.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. So you just thought too much.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it's too much.

[Sal Destefano]

You just gotta lower it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

That's all. Especially if you're getting started.

[James]

Just back off a little bit.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes. And, you know, confirm this with your doctor because we're not doctors, so I got to say that here. But.

[Dr. Z]

Right.

[Sal Destefano]

Of course, if you're getting side effects like acne and stuff like that, it's probably too high. Now, you came in initially in the 2002, so I think coming off is not going to be good either. It's going to feel terrible.

[Adam Schafer]

No, no, you should scale back.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. So you probably need to take a lower dose. I'm assuming based off your numbers, you're probably taking 200 total milligrams a week, which for some men is just. For a lot of men, that's just too much. Yeah, yeah. So now, now I'll say this. If you look at the data in healthy populations, the dangers of really high testosterone are often really overstated. So, you know, it's kind of this like, ah, we gotta watch out. It's like if you look at the data on these really high amount, you know, high levels of testosterone, that it's super overstated. That being said, I mean, if you're looking for optimal health and longevity, you're probably taking too much.

[James]

Much.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

So I would tell your, your, you know, your rep at Transcend, hey, my numbers came back super high. And they'll just bring you down. They'll probably be down to like 100, 150, and then see what happens there.

[James]

Okay. I mean, in Your opinion, the 1100, is that like a good number range?

[Adam Schafer]

I'll tell you what, I honed in for myself personally, and you could take it from there. I. And they, I originally, before we ever even worked with Transcendent, I. I've been doing testosterone replacement therapy since I was 30. So I had a different company that did it. And they started me really, really low. And when they started me with like 100 milligrams, by the time day seven came around, I was below 250. And so we had to. It kept incrementally giving me up. Eventually what we landed on for me is if I take one shot a week, and I know I should take two to kind of make it easier on myself. But I just. I don't like taking that many shots a week. So I take one shot a week.

[Nicole]

Week.

[Adam Schafer]

I spike all the way to 1500, and then by day seven, I come all the way back down to 450 to 500. So that's kind of what mine looks like. Now, if I were to divide that in two and go half and half, I probably wouldn't peak over 1500 and I'd stay a little more stable. I just don't want to take two shots. So just so you kind of know, like, I get up to 1500 and then I come all the way back. I come all the way back down to about 450 and I'm taking one shot a week. Everybody's going to be different. The way, like, their body responds. That sounds like you respond pretty well. If you're on a dose as low as 200 milligrams and you're getting over 1500 and it wasn't on the day right after, sounds like your body actually. Which is actually a good thing, which means you just need less to get the same kind of results or better. So, again, we're not doctors. I can't tell you to just cut your dose in half. But if I was seeing what I'm seeing with acne and feeling, I probably the direction I would go, that's probably where I go.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, just talk to them and say, hey, this number came back. I think I'd like to. They'll probably tell you, let's go lower and let's see how you feel. It's really interesting because although there is a range you probably want to stay in, there is a difference between how people feel on one versus another, and it has to do with things like androgen receptor density and how your body converts it to estrogen. There's a lot of things that happen metabolically with using testosterone where it can be very different from person to person. So, you know, so you probably just got to go lower and you'll probably feel better on lower. Yeah.

[James]

Well, it's amazing because, like, before it, I mean, I just. I felt like crap. I mean, I was super fatigued. Just felt like not motivated at all. And starting that, it definitely started to move in the right direction. And it felt like all of a sudden I just felt like myself again. I felt awesome. I don't think I've ever felt this good. And then now as I'm like, do I just back off? Like, I don't want to go back to that. There's got to be A happy medium, right?

[Adam Schafer]

Exactly.

[Sal Destefano]

I'll tell you something.

[Adam Schafer]

Happy medium is probably right down the.

[Sal Destefano]

Middle, to be honest. This is my opinion as a fitness podcast host and trainer. Okay, so take it for what it's worth, but I think having testosterone that's too high is within a fit person and somebody who's exercising and trying to eat right. Okay. Testosterone that's too high is probably better and healthier than having testosterone that's too low.

[Nicole]

Low.

[Sal Destefano]

That's my. That's my opinion. Take it for what it's worth. Nonetheless, you just work with your doctor and just tell them you'd like to go lower, and they'll scale you down and then see how you feel. It's interesting because they treat testosterone like we're dealing with insulin. Oh, my God, if you go too high, you're gonna die. No, dude. Like, bodybuilders take such ridiculous amounts. And not saying, don't be like a bodybuilder, but it's actually one of the safest hormones to. To. To play with.

[Adam Schafer]

It's so it's. It's very, very unique to the individual. I'll tell you, James, my experience with being around bodybuilders, I've used much larger doses and everything in between. And I've been around guys that are all taking different, and everybody kind of has this. This sweet spot. I know guys that were taking three times as much as I could take, and they had no side effects. I found that when I started, when I got it to be a pro, I pushed as high as 500 milligrams a week. I had all kinds of adverse effects. My guy on the chemistio started going up. Acne started happening. Just did not feel good. And I found that when I brought it all the way back down to 200 in a week week, it was just. It was the sweet spot for me. I didn't feel crazy strong. I just felt good. Libido is good. Energy is good. No side effects at all, ever. And so ever. And other guys I know, they feel that way off a double the dose or even half of what I do. So it is really kind of figuring out. And it took a while working with doctors. It took me over a year before the doctors kind of honed in, like, okay, this is how your body responds, and it just takes time.

[Sal Destefano]

Here's the other thing, too. Like, okay, we're looking at your testosterone numbers, but are they looking at blood lipid levels? A1C? Are they looking at inflammatory markers? Like, that gives you a much more complete picture than just oh, testosterone's above this number. It's dangerous.

[James]

Right?

[Sal Destefano]

You know, I would venture to say everything probably improved in your blood work since you've lost weight, started exercising to everything else. So just to make you feel, just to bring things down a little bit for you and not be so fearful. But that being said, you probably need to lower the dose and you'll probably feel better with a lower dose.

[Justin Andrews]

Has the CPAP been kicking in and how's your recovery with that?

[James]

Yeah, so I just started using the CPAP within the last month and a half and first few weeks, couldn't even get used to having this thing on your face, you know. But now I've gotten to a point where I feel like I can definitely tell the difference. And I know that sleep might have been one of the biggest factors I know you guys talk about all the time and 100% that has made a huge difference and just recovery, just feeling great when I wake up. So that's definitely helped. But in the gym and everything, you know, after I started the testosterone, I definitely felt like I was progressing and making some smooth forwards and the energy was back, you know, So I think the combination between the two has certainly made a huge difference.

[Sal Destefano]

Awesome.

[James]

But then, you know, it's kind of that, you know, you've got people around you that love you and they don't, they don't know any better. So they just hear that, you know, the doctor's telling you it's too dangerous now they're in your ear like, well, you got to cut it out. And you know, it's. It's tough when you've got that noise behind you too, you know?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Yeah. You probably just got to go a little lower.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. But, you know, working with the, work with the doctor at Transcend, let them know and they'll take it down. Yep.

[James]

Cool.

[Adam Schafer]

And then I love, I love to hear from you. Follow up with us after you kind of hone in. Hone that in. But totally normal, bro. For it to go through that process, I mean, it takes.

[Nicole]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Everyone is so unique for all the reasons that Sal was talking about. And I've seen different doses for so many different people that they feel they're best at. And. And once you do find that perfect dose where you're not seeing side effects and you feel amazing, you found it. And then it's like, this is, this is where you want to be. And so just sounds like you're a little high right now. Not too bad, though.

[James]

Cool. Well, it makes me feel better again because you know, then you got like two totally different sides of the spectrum. I feel like that's why I wanted to talk to you guys. I feel like you guys at least have a good sense of where, where that should fall. So appreciate it.

[Sal Destefano]

Thanks, man.

[Adam Schafer]

Right on, James.

[James]

Awesome. Thank you so much, guys. You guys have a good day.

[Adam Schafer]

Take it easy, brother.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, yeah. I just, the more I take, the better I feel. It's just weird.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, I wish I could say that I remember, I remember pushing up to, you know, 500 milligrams as a pro and it was, I thought, no, I had buddies that were in grams, guys that were in grams, you know, just way, way more. And I'm like, why can't. As soon as I took 500 acne gyno, just all the things, all joking.

[Sal Destefano]

Aside, because I take as much as they'll let me and that's just more of my, my dysfunction. But I don't get side effects. In the past, I've taken really high dose. I don't get side effects.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, no, some guys are like that. I had buddies that they could take grams of it and nothing. As soon as I push over 500 that are up to that range, side effects, I keep it down. Where my therapeutic does is beautiful. So yeah, and everybody's different, you know, so you just got to figure out his dose.

[Sal Destefano]

Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. We'll see you with that Mind Pump media.

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