← Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2741: The Best Training For Stamina, Power, Strength, and Mobility
01:50:52
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- [00:00]
Adam Schaefer
Oh, hey, welcome to gift wrapping.
- [00:02]
Doug
Whoa. So is Saldana.
- [00:03]
Sal Destefano
Hey, can you wrap these please?
- [00:05]
Doug
Wow. IPhone 17s.
- [00:07]
Emily
You splurged at T Mobile. You can get four iPhone 17s on them. The new center stage front camera is.
- [00:12]
Sal Destefano
Amazing for group selfies.
- [00:13]
Emily
It's the perfect gift for everyone.
- [00:15]
Doug
I'm the worst.
- [00:16]
Adam Schaefer
I only got my mom a robe.
- [00:17]
Sal Destefano
Well, it's better than socks.
- [00:19]
Doug
So I have to trade in my old phone, right?
- [00:21]
Emily
No AT T Mobile. There's no trade ins needed when you switch. Keep your old phone or give it as a gift.
- [00:26]
Doug
Incredible.
- [00:27]
Emily
In fact, wrap up my old phone too for my aunt Rosa.
- [00:30]
Jessica
Forget that.
- [00:30]
Emily
Aunt Liz will be jealous.
- [00:32]
Sal Destefano
Like my family drama. Oh, I got it.
- [00:34]
Emily
I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with. Hey, where are you going?
- [00:37]
Doug
To T Mobile. The holidays are better. AT T Mobile get four iPhone 17s on us. No trade in needed when you switch plus four lines for just 25 bucks a line. And now T Mobile is available in US cellular stores with 24 monthly bill credits and 4 eligible board ins on.
- [00:51]
Adam Schaefer
Essentials for well qualified customers.
- [00:52]
Doug
Auto pay + taxes fees and $35 device connection charge credits ended balance due.
- [00:55]
Sal Destefano
If you pay off earlier, cancel contact.
- [00:56]
Doug
US Finance Agreement 256GB$830 required.
- [00:59]
Sponsor Voice
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- [01:57]
Justin Andrews
If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.
- [02:02]
Sal Destefano
Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts Sal Destefano, Adam Schaefer.
- [02:08]
Justin Andrews
And Justin Andrews, you just found the.
- [02:10]
Sal Destefano
Most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we coached people on air. They called in, we helped them with their fitness and health. But this was after the intro. Today's intro is 50 minutes long. This we talk about fitness and current events. Fat loss, muscle gain, family life. It's always a good time. By the way, if you want to be on an episode like this one, submit your question, send it to mplifecaller.com now. This episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is deep clean coaching. If you go to deepcleancoaching.com mindpump, you can get a free copy of the last relapse book. This has helped 20,000 men quit pornography. If you want to stop using pornography, reclaim your Freedom, go to deepcleancoaching.com mindpump this episode is also brought to you by ZBiotics. This is the pre alcohol drink. It's a genetically modified probiotic that breaks down acetaldehyde. So you take it, then you drink alcohol. You feel way better. Go check it out. Go to zbiotics.com that's zbiotics.com mindpump25. Use the code mind pump25. Get 15% off. Also, we got something cool for you right now happening right now until the 6th. Okay? So right now to the 6th of December, we are offering 45 minute coaching calls with our coaches for reverse dieting. They are going to make you a 90 day customized reverse diet plan. If you want to learn how to reverse diet, you want to do it the right way, work with one of our coaches. By the way, this is normally a $99 call. It's $49 right now. So for 49 bucks, work with a real coach with a mind pump coach. Have them set you up with a 90 day customized reverse diet plan. Go to reverse diet call dot com.
- [04:06]
Doug
T shirt time.
- [04:08]
Justin Andrews
And it's T shirt time.
- [04:10]
Doug
Ah, shit, Doug, you know it's my favorite time of the week.
- [04:13]
Justin Andrews
Two winners this week. Actually one winner this week. One for Apple podcast is be better tattoo. You are the winner. Send the name I just read to iTunesdpumpmedia.com include your shirt size and your shipping address and we'll get that shirt right out to you.
- [04:26]
Sal Destefano
All right, real quick.
- [04:27]
Adam Schaefer
If you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over@mypumpstore.com I'm talking right now. Hit pause, head on over to my pump store.
- [04:38]
Doug
Com.
- [04:39]
Adam Schaefer
That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show.
- [04:41]
Sal Destefano
Strength, strength, stamina, power, mobility. They're all awesome attributes. They're athletic and physical attributes. How do you train for each one? What's the best way to structure your workouts? So you can get those. And what if you just want one, not the others? What if you want all of them? You're going to hear from three experienced trainers right now on how to do that. Let's go. Yeah, three experienced trainers. That's us.
- [05:07]
Adam Schaefer
All different pursuits.
- [05:08]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, these are all different physical pursuits. And use your workouts. Well, I should say your workouts or how you train will contribute largely to one, but not to the others. And so I think what will be cool is if we kind of talk about what we think if you're trying to get somebody to improve each one of these attributes and then maybe at the end what a routine would look like that would give you.
- [05:33]
Doug
Let's talk a little bit about what not to do and probably the mistake that all of us probably made early on in our career and you probably see consistently, which is this idea that, well, my sport requires all these things. So therefore my workouts are going to look. Incorporate all of it, all of it at one time or very CrossFit esque. Right. You had a lot of, remember when CrossFit got popular, you had a lot of sports teams like going like, oh, put our players through this. Yeah, let's, let's do, let's do CrossFit because they address my old high school, all these things in a workout. So isn't that a good idea? Like, so you got to explain that. Well, that's kind of common knowledge is to think to do that.
- [06:12]
Sal Destefano
It is. And here's what used to be common knowledge now, although not so much. But if you want to get the physical attributes of a sport and you want to improve those, the best way to do it is to practice more of that sport. That used to be common knowledge. Okay, that used to be the way people trained. Now that's not to say there aren't. You can't incorporate other forms of exercise to do things like improve power and strength and speed and you know, all these other things. But what I'm talking about here is what you do in the gym. Like if you want, if you're an athlete and you want to get better at your sport and get more fit for your sport, what you do in the gym is actually quite small in comparison to what you do out on the field, let's say. So that's the best way, the best way to get in shape for jiu jitsu is do more jiu jitsu, best way to get in shape for basketball, play more basketball and so on. That being said, there's a lot of people who are like Look, I'm not necessarily actively playing a sport. You know, maybe I do a little club ball here and there, but I just want, how do I improve my stamina? Like what, do I just go run for a long time? Or power. What is power? Strength, you know, okay, I know it's strength training, but what's the best way to improve strength? Or what about mobility? So that's kind of what I, you know, the direction I want to go to start with. Because again with athletics it can get a bit nuanced. Yep. But the general thing, again I want to say this very clear. The general thing with athletics is if you want to improve the physical attributes of your sport, practice your sport, that'll give you the most carryover because there isn't any carryover because you're doing the.
- [07:41]
Doug
Actual, you know what it, I wonder what happened because you talk about how that was kind of like common knowledge before it shifted. And if you, if you've studied the great ones in like basketball for example, which I'm more familiar with, like the Kobe Bryant's, the Steph Currys, the Michael Jordans, the, the amount of time that these guys spend in the gym, they spend a little bit of time in the gym.
- [08:04]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [08:05]
Doug
But a majority of it is just practicing basketball.
- [08:08]
Sal Destefano
That's right.
- [08:08]
Doug
I mean they like Kobe was notorious for getting up at like 4 o' clock in the morning and going, hitting a little bit of weights. But then from 5am all the way.
- [08:15]
Sal Destefano
Till that's right, it's all skill, it's.
- [08:17]
Doug
All skill, it's all basketball, it's all shot, it's a thousand shots, it's you know, a hundred and something free throws. It's, I mean they just, yeah, they did their sport but. But yet people were so curious about what did he do in the gym, his workouts. When it's like if you looked at a pie chart of, of it, it wouldn't, it would even take up a 10% of their, their time. It's like such a fraction. And if you look at Steph Curry, who's you know, younger, newer, most of his strength training is very rehab looking, focused playing band distracted type stuff like he's rotational movements he's at his training actually looks a lot like stuff to protect his body and not like. And then granted you look his, everybody who looks at him goes oh my God, he put like 20 pounds of muscle on in his career. And so he did build some muscle on the way. But a lot of that's through diet and some strength training. But we we highlight on this podcast all the time. You don't got to do that much weight training in order to build some muscle, you know.
- [09:12]
Adam Schaefer
Well, and it too depends on what stage the athlete's in.
- [09:16]
Sal Destefano
Yes.
- [09:16]
Adam Schaefer
And so you're talking about really, you know, the. The peak of their career, you know, in the pinnacle of where they're only focused on their skill and then preservation and like maintaining this level, they've already built up strength wise, performance, power wise. However, when you're starting from the very beginning, the foundational strength and establishing that and the body mechanics and just the overall coordination required to then apply the skill better, you know, that actually matters a lot more. And then we focus on that, and then we start kind of tapering off and then, you know, incorporating a lot more of the skill, specific type drilling. But however, we have to establish that first and then build upon that.
- [10:02]
Sal Destefano
Right. But, you know, again, like, if someone said to me, I need more stamina for jiu jitsu, what's a great way to build stamina? There are ways to train to improve general stamina, very effective ways, which we'll get into. But there's also movement efficiency that comes from being very proficient in a particular movement pattern or movement, and that comes from practicing the sport. So I remember doing this as doing jiu jitsu. And at one point I was training a lot. I had great jujitsu stamina. But then I practiced boxing and I gassed. But it wasn't because I was out of shape. It was because my movement efficiency was terrible.
- [10:39]
Doug
Boxing, that was the first time I.
- [10:40]
Sal Destefano
Did that, you know, and it was like I thought I was in shape. Round two.
- [10:43]
Doug
Dying.
- [10:43]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [10:44]
Doug
Choking on my mouthpiece.
- [10:45]
Sal Destefano
That's right. So there's jet Troun. That's right. There's general fitness, and then there's fitness that's specific to a particular activity or sport. You want to get better at running, you should run. You want to get better at cycling, you should cycle. If you want general, better endurance or stamina. Let's talk about that. You want general strength again, I can get really strong in the gym, but if I want to get really strong at wrestling, wrestling is going to get me really strong, wrestle more. That's right. But let's talk a little bit about these physical attributes, because there's a lot of people who, they're listening, they're like, I just want.
- [11:19]
Doug
Yeah, they're not playing a sport, but they want those attributes.
- [11:21]
Sal Destefano
They want the athletic, they want the physical attributes.
- [11:23]
Doug
Sure.
- [11:24]
Sal Destefano
Right, so we'll talk about stamina now. A lot of now there's. You could kind of break stamina up into different categories. You have the kind of that steady state, you know, where you're kind of exerting yourself at a low level. It's long endurance. Right. And what that looks like is, is your traditional cardio. I'm going to get on a machine and I'm going to plug away for 30 minutes, 40 minutes or an hour and challenge myself somewhat. Just how long can I endure? Right. This is like long distance running. Looks like this. The kind of stamina, though, that I have found that most people are interested in is less of this. And it's more of the kind of stamina that requires high exertion, repeated high exertions. And what I mean by that is I would get clients that say, I want stamina. And I'd say, for what? Well, when I go to the park and I chase my kids. Yeah. You know, or I'm doing work in.
- [12:15]
Adam Schaefer
The yard or it's available, it's there.
- [12:17]
Sal Destefano
It's, you know, I'm moving for like, like the kind of stamina that, you know, it's, it's not this like steady, constant. Yeah. It's successful. That comes from hit style, cardio. That's the best way to accomplish this form of stamina. What does that look like? Sprints interrupted by recuperative interval.
- [12:37]
Doug
Short sprints. Short sprints, 15 seconds all out. Then letting the heart rate come all the way down.
- [12:42]
Sal Destefano
That's right.
- [12:43]
Adam Schaefer
Heart rate and then repeating.
- [12:45]
Sal Destefano
And what happens is that period of time in between the sprints where you're waiting for your heart rate to come down. As you become more fit, that gets shorter and shorter, I would add.
- [12:54]
Doug
There's, there's another endurance that people like that I think we should touch on is strength. Endurance. Yes.
- [13:00]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah.
- [13:00]
Doug
More capacity.
- [13:01]
Adam Schaefer
Work capacity. Thank you. I was thinking along the same lines. And really it's like, how long can I, you know, hold this load? How long can I hold these weights and carry them and, and still be able to, to maintain my composure, maintain my posture, maintain like this grip and to, you know, that that's a very valuable asset, especially when lifting weights or pursuing anything like athletically.
- [13:30]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. Now, strength training is the best for that. But the type of strength training looks very much like big, gross motor movement type exercises for higher reps, compound lifts, bit higher wraps and. Or unconventional type exercises.
- [13:43]
Doug
Carries.
- [13:44]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, carries. Turkish get ups, you know, using a sled, you know, carries either at the side, like suitcase carries overhead carries. Those, those really contribute well to work capacity. The kind that you'll want when you're doing things like yard work.
- [13:59]
Doug
And the reason why I wanted to touch on that is because, you know, one of the things that will get recommended is so it's common someone gets started in their strength training program. I mean, I, I feel this too when I, especially when I've been off for a little bit. I'm getting about to feel this today. When I get in, it's like my strength endurance will be really down. It's like, it's not like my capacity to lift more load is there, but it's like by the time, oh, it fades quick. Because I don't have any strangers. A lot of people recommend, oh, well then go get on some cardio or treadmill. If they're like, no, if I keep high reps in my squatting and stuff like that, that'll get there better and faster. It translates way better to that. And there's this idea because that's also one of the arguments you hear fitness influencers make for why people should do cardio. Oh, it improves your strength stamina inside the gym. Well, it does have some carryover, but if you, if you do 20 reps and squats. Yeah. You'll get way better strength endurance than you will.
- [14:54]
Sal Destefano
That's right.
- [14:54]
Doug
So just that's why I wanted to point that out because that's a common things spoken about with fitness influencers that are making the case for why these people should be doing this cardio. Because for the endurance inside their training.
- [15:06]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah. And I want to just add like the, the real value is like, you know, how long can I stave off fatigue? Because that's really like what cardio is like. It's superpower like it. And two to the work capacity point, it's like, you know, how long can I perform this thing without like the fatigue coming in which then interrupts everything.
- [15:26]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, Yep, totally. So, you know, okay, so what does a routine look like, you know, three or four days a week? If this is what you want, you want stamina. This is your main thing about three days a week of this hit style training with maybe a couple sessions of steady state recuperative type cardio. You'll get stamina pretty quick training this way. And your strength training. If you want strength stamina, it's high rep stuff, supersets, high rep stuff. But you're not doing a ton of it. This is where people mess up. Five days a week of high rep supersets. Good luck. You're not gonna recover very well. It's like two days a week. You still need to train it like. Treat it like strength training, if you want that. Then we get to power. Power. Building power. People mess up building power because they allow fatigue to enter into the. The mix, into the formula. You can't build power when fatigue comes in. Now you can improve your capacity to be able to exert power without fatiguing as much. But that comes from training your stamina.
- [16:24]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah.
- [16:24]
Sal Destefano
Building power is. I need to be able to. What I'm trying to train my body to do is to produce force quickly. So I have to practice the ability to produce force quickly. So if I practice jumping, I have to wait until I'm ready to exert maximal force. If I jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, and I'm fatigued, I'm no longer training and building power. I'm just training endurance.
- [16:47]
Adam Schaefer
At that point, you're not able to summon that same amount of force. And. And so it actually degrades a lot of the value of that exercise that you're performing if you're at the point where it's fatigued. So that's why the thing about when you're training, you're practicing these things, you want to practice them with that same perfect type of mechanics. The same something that you want to replicate every single time is like, this is the standard. Because that's what telling your body, this is how I perform it every time.
- [17:19]
Sal Destefano
Well, think about it this way. If you. If I'm trying to throw a ball as far as I can, let's forget about biomechanics and technique and skill for a second. Let's just say it's the same every time. I want to throw a ball as far as I can. So my first throw, I throw it and it goes, I don't know, you know, 50 yards. Like, I throw it real far, 50 yards. And they're like, okay, I want you to beat that throw with the next one. Am I going to throw it right away? No, I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait until I'm totally ready to throw it as hard as I can again. What I'm doing is I'm training power with that. That's how you treat your plyometrics. This is how you treat your power if you're training with Olympic lifts, is you wait until you're able to try to beat what you did previously.
- [17:57]
Doug
This is another thing that people get wrong. So you can always tell when you've got a really good trainer inside of a gym with how he trains. He or she Trains plyometrics with their client. Right away, I can walk in and see someone doing jump boxes with a client. And I know that that trainer understands these principles or not by the.
- [18:16]
Sal Destefano
Yep. But the first two, two or three.
- [18:18]
Doug
Reps they do with that client, is it either.
- [18:19]
Sal Destefano
Is it a placeholder for just something to get your client tired, or are they actually training power?
- [18:23]
Doug
Right. And you will tell you what, what a good trainer will do is they will do that rep, and then they'll be talking for the next 30 seconds to a minute, breaking down what they just did. Like, okay, I want to try and explode more on your hips. Get your feet more like this. And like, there's this long rest period between each rep. And they're putting so much intent on them generating that force in order to jump as hard and as high as they can. Versus. All right, let's do 10 jump boxes. And you just see a client jump, jump, jump.
- [18:50]
Sal Destefano
Oh, my gosh.
- [18:51]
Doug
Which you see all the time.
- [18:52]
Sal Destefano
Totally. Mobility. Let's get to mobility. Mobility. You're. You're looking at challenging ranges of motion, but you're trying to own the ranges of motion. So it's not passive. So you're getting into the range of motion through your own ability, and you're moving into them while keeping your muscles active. And here's the thing with mobility programming. This is probably the most simple of all programming. This is one of the ones. The more the merrier. You practice these all day long if you want, and the more you do this. Now, of course, there's a limit, but I have yet to know somebody that would reach this limit, except for maybe the most crazy, fanatical person. But if you did mobility work three times a day, you would get mobility faster than if you did it once a day.
- [19:33]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with it because you're active in it and you're not passive. Because when you start getting passive, this is where we can get dysfunction. When you're in a range of motion that you don't really own, like, I don't have access. I can't all of a sudden recruit a bunch of muscle fibers to take me out of this, you know, safely, effectively, with strength to support my joint in that it's like you're not really supported in some of these movements if you get there passively. So really, it's a strength at the end of the day, like, mobility is strength, and it's just expressing that in its. Its longer form.
- [20:07]
Sal Destefano
That's right.
- [20:08]
Doug
I think that' the most difficult part about Explaining mobility is, to the average eye, it looks just like stretching. It looks like something that you're passively.
- [20:20]
Sal Destefano
Doing or just like a warmup.
- [20:22]
Doug
Yeah. So it's so important, the intent that you go into the mobility movement and how much you're trying to contract all those muscles while you're in this stretch position.
- [20:35]
Sal Destefano
An example would be like, I'm trying to improve my squat depth, so I'll get down and sit in a squat and just relax there. That's not what we're talking about. What it would look like is I get down to the bottom, but I'm supporting myself, my muscles are supporting me, and I'm active, as if someone was going to jump on me. So it's like, if someone were to jump on me right now, I could hold them. So that's the position I'm taking. That's the intent that I'm taking. Not like, I'm so relaxed that if my kid comes and jumps on me, I'm going to hurt myself. Which is what people will feel in a stretch. Like when they're doing a deep stretch, like, don't touch me. If you do, I'm going to tear some. You should be able to support something or someone if they would come push on you because you're in these positions and you're active. And the more the merrier, which is cool. Mobility. If you want to improve your mobility, it's like really easy with programming. Pick some mobility movements that you can connect to. Do it all throughout the day, practice them all day long throughout the day, and you'll see dramatic improvements.
- [21:26]
Doug
I mean, I think my recommendation always to clients is pick one or two. That's it. And drill those down as many times so you can. So you can see the benefits of when you really. Versus what happens sometimes is you have these people that have all this, like, dysfunction, and they have aches and pains, and there's like, they're doing like 10 different mobility moves, and they're really. The likelihood that they're going to do 10 different mobility moves three times, four times a day is so unlikely. Versus if I go, hey, let's pick one. Let's pick one area that's like, really egregious. And let's just. Let's do that one mobility move, and let's just try. You try and do that four or five times a day, and let's be consistent with that for a while and watch what an improve that we can make. So I can sell you on the idea of why you want to do.
- [22:06]
Sal Destefano
All These other ones, now we get to strength. This one we talk about all the time. But with strength, you know, for most people, if you were to practice a handful of movements, the best movements, you know, the. The five to eight movements that you. That are the best ones. Your bench presses, your rows, your squats, your deadlifts, your overhead presses, you know, something with rotation or something lateral. If you practice those few movements a couple days a week, two days a week, or three days a week, you go in the gym and you practice them and you use a moderate to high intensity. You're not trained to failure, but you're training a decent intensity and you're practicing them and you feed yourself appropriately. You will see very nice strength. Gains pretty consistent strength. Especially if this is the first few years of your strength training routine or whatever, you'll see some nice strength. So now the question is, like, how do I combine all of these? Here's what's interesting. First off, mobility, you can combine with any of these. So mobility is one of those ones that if I work on this while I'm doing everything else, it'll help all of them. Definitely won't hurt all of them. But when you get to stamina, power and strength, really, the ones that you want to be careful with balancing are stamina and power and strength, power and strength. You can both. You can work on those together. That looks a little bit different, but stamina is the one that you want to alternate. Now, there's a couple ways you do this. You could do this where you have a stamina day and a strength day, or a stamina day and a power day.
- [23:31]
Doug
Don't you think weeks or phases, that's.
- [23:33]
Sal Destefano
What the data is showing? The data is showing if you did a stamina week and then a strength week and then a stamina week and then a strength, you'll do better at both than if you did. If you did them all in the same week, and definitely better than if you did them all in the same workout. So this is what's interesting. And a lot of people don't do this, but give it a shot. One week of stamina, one week of strength, One week of stamina, one week of strength, you'll get better. You'll get better at both than had you combined them in that same way.
- [23:58]
Doug
Love that.
- [23:58]
Sal Destefano
Anyway, I pulled up some. So we have. So Inner Circle has given access to. Oh, I was gonna ask our listeners.
- [24:08]
Doug
I've been meaning to ask you since we've been. Since we've been working with him. You know, I know you, you've openly talked about, you know, for a while now, you working. Because it's been over a year now for you, right?
- [24:18]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. Yeah.
- [24:19]
Doug
How long has it been?
- [24:20]
Sal Destefano
No, Yeah, I, I know po pornography for me for longer than that. It's been almost two.
- [24:25]
Doug
Has it really?
- [24:26]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. Been almost two years. Wow.
- [24:28]
Doug
Now after all these, this long of time, urges creep back in and you still need to.
- [24:33]
Sal Destefano
You know what's interesting? This is what's interesting. So. And I'll just mention this inner circle is a, this is a course or a group that helps people break the addiction because pornography is an addiction for a lot of people. And by the way, this is like a couple times a week. So a lot of people, oh, it's only a couple times a week and they try to stop and they find that they can't do it. And I was going to get into some of the negative brain changes, which we'll get to, but one thing I want to mention, he's giving. He's giving away a book. Doug. Yeah.
- [25:02]
Justin Andrews
Yes.
- [25:03]
Sal Destefano
It's.
- [25:03]
Justin Andrews
It's the last relapse.
- [25:05]
Sal Destefano
So where they go for that? So.
- [25:07]
Justin Andrews
Yeah, let me pull that.
- [25:08]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. So you could get this book, deep.
- [25:11]
Justin Andrews
Clean coaching.com forward/mind pump.
- [25:14]
Sal Destefano
Okay. All right, so check that. Anyway, so back to what you're saying, Adam. What's interesting is for a long time I thought if, okay, if I don't have that outlet or whatever, whatever you want to refer to it as, am I just going to be. Is my libido just going to go crazy? Like, what's going to happen? Really? Yeah. Because, I mean, ever since I was a kid, you know, since I was a teenager, am I going to go crazy? And I have a.
- [25:40]
Adam Schaefer
Is your head going to explode?
- [25:41]
Sal Destefano
And I have a high libido. I do have a very high libido. So I thought, is, what's that going to be like? Is it going to put so much pressure on my spouse that she's going to, you know, this and that and the other. No. Here's what's weird is that because of the, the way that affects the brain, the novelty effect, it's got drug like effects on the brain which we can get into when you stop using it over time. The, that lust, which is, it's actually loss. It's not libido, it's lust, which is different. Yeah. It, it starts to come down and then you have more of a healthy libido. So I have a very good libido for my wife. Yeah. But I'm not walking around, like, you know, I'm not getting my drug, which is pretty wild. So. No, yeah. No, I don't get these. The urges were worse when I was using it.
- [26:29]
Doug
Yeah, it was always. It was never. I mean, we all have our thing, right? If anyone's been listening, I openly shared what I went through and stuff like that. I never had pornography addiction and even the dabbling in and out with it, like, one of the things that keeps me not to. And Katrina and I both have connected because we're both not anti the other person doing that at all. It's like, whatever. But what we realize is, like, our sex and intimacy is so much better if. If the other person doesn't. And we know each other so well that, you know, if the other person did. So it's like, what, dude?
- [27:02]
Sal Destefano
Come on.
- [27:03]
Doug
You know, it's been two days, you know. You know, say it's like you did. Oh, man. I couldn't help. It was just a rough day. I needed it. Like, so we've talked about that so many times in our relationship that for a long time, it's just been like a. Like a pack. Because it's like, clear difference how the level.
- [27:19]
Sal Destefano
That's everybody. That's what the data show.
- [27:21]
Doug
I mean, it is like, it's not even in this. Like, we are, no matter what, we have great intimacy and great sex, but it's like in another stratosphere when you're not. When the. When your partner. Two of you are not doing that, it's like.
- [27:33]
Sal Destefano
Well, the way that it wires the brain is pretty wild because of the novelty, because of the imagery. It desensitizes your brain so much that it will affect. It does factually affect intimacy with a partner. It's like. It's like using a drug and then going to something that's natural. Your brain is wired for the drug. And so it.
- [27:58]
Doug
Well, I can only imagine, like, okay, so again, the reason why I share that is I think I, like Katrina, and I have a very healthy, good relationship. And, like, very, very po. Like, I see a difference even now. I can only imagine if we were struggling and going through things, and that's kind of my outlet. And it's just like, man, that would just be compounding on how much harder it would make the connection and the intimacy and our sex work if. If I was. That was my outlet in addition to that. So I see how it can impact a very healthy, good, balanced relationship that doesn't have any. Any issues going on. I can only imagine if we had other stuff going On.
- [28:33]
Sal Destefano
Well, here's. Here's what you see in the data from just normal. What they would consider normal users. Okay. What. Which, by the way, a significant percentage of pornography consumers are daily users. Okay. And daily would be considered, like, problematic. So I know a lot of people listening right now are like, oh, is that really me? Reduced gray matter in reward areas of the brain, lower volume in the stratum, especially nucleus accumbens, and parts of the prefrontal cortex, similar to patterns seen in substance addictions. In other words, part of your brain is smaller, literally atrophies. There's downregulation of dopamine receptors. There's hypofrontality or weakened prefrontal control, desensitized and reduced sexual responsiveness, altered reward prediction, error signaling, craving and cue reactivity patterns, and changes in white matter connectivity. So from a health perspective, it has pretty. I mean, measurable effects. And we're not just talking about, like, you know, questionnaires.
- [29:46]
Doug
If all this stuff has been studied and we know all the negative effects, why is it that you have sex therapists that are pretty pro pornography then?
- [29:53]
Sal Destefano
I don't know if. If they're any more. I think they might have been, but I don't know if they could say that they are anymore.
- [29:58]
Doug
Oh, really?
- [29:59]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, I don't. I don't know. I think sex therapists will now say, like, this is actually a. It's not a good idea.
- [30:05]
Doug
Oh, interesting. I didn't know that.
- [30:07]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [30:08]
Doug
I was under the impression they're still all pro.
- [30:10]
Sal Destefano
I think you have people that are like. They call themselves, like, pro. What do they call themselves? Like, pro sex people. Yeah. Which really. They were just. It's like talking to.
- [30:19]
Adam Schaefer
They're just hyper sex trying to. Trying to sell you on some toys. And, like, that's all I. That's all I get out of those.
- [30:29]
Sal Destefano
You know, it's like, you know, it's like, bro, it's like when you talk to a pothead about the benefits of weed. You ever talk to a pothead? That's what I sounded like back in the day. Oh, it's got all these great benefits. And, you know, it's good for this and it's good for that. It's like you're an addict.
- [30:42]
Doug
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:43]
Adam Schaefer
Because it really just always amounts to the intimacy between the relationship, you know, and it's like, you're not just gonna get that from the visual aspect. And, like, you know, yeah, for men, it's definitely a powerful draw, but it's not like, that's not what the, you know, the nucleus of, of the, the problem is?
- [31:01]
Sal Destefano
Well, I was listening.
- [31:02]
Doug
That's why it was such an easy sell for me to Nas. Like it was such a clear difference with the intimacy with the wife.
- [31:08]
Sal Destefano
We didn't, we also didn't grow up with.
- [31:10]
Doug
Yeah, no, I know. Like, I mean I feel grateful for that because I for sure being a 16 year old boy, I would not have.
- [31:16]
Sal Destefano
With an iPhone.
- [31:17]
Doug
Yeah, that's self discipline.
- [31:18]
Sal Destefano
No. Oh God, no.
- [31:20]
Doug
I'd be, I'd be an idiot. I'd be an idiot.
- [31:22]
Sal Destefano
So, I mean imagine. So my, my.
- [31:24]
Doug
I have a, for, for the 20 year old listening right now. I have so much empathy for just not knowing, you know, because talk about trying to unwind that, trying to unwind a decade or more of that.
- [31:36]
Sal Destefano
I was listening. So I was listening to this woman who was explaining and she did such a good job. She. I don't remember what her background was. I know it was a medical background, but she also talked about just the behavioral effects and cultural. And she said that sexual intimacy, that the act of sex or sexual release flows should come from intimacy. Right. So it's a result of intimacy. But what we've done is we've separated them and severed them so strongly that now what's happened is we think that they're separate, we objectified, it's totally separate. And, or the sexual release a lot of people believe leads to the intimacy. So they're like, I'm going to start here with someone with a one night stand or hookup or whatever. And hopefully it will lead to the intimacy. Now women are more aware of that. So women will often say, yeah, that's kind of what I'm looking for. A lot of guys are like, nah. But the reality is they are. Because when you really boil it down, and especially when they're in a relationship where they have real intimacy, they're like, yeah, dude, I don't want to go back to what it was like before. But we've severed, we've totally separated the two as if they're supposed to be.
- [32:49]
Doug
What do you mean by that? What do you mean we've separated though?
- [32:52]
Sal Destefano
There's like sexual release and then there's intimacy. Sexual release is supposed to be a result of intimacy. Not by itself, not without any intimacy. So it's like we've taken the, it's like what we've done to process food. The enjoyment of eating which should flow from nutrition and nourishment and connection. Yeah. Now it's just all about hyper palatability. And what does processed food do?
- [33:18]
Doug
Okay.
- [33:19]
Sal Destefano
Causes disease. Yeah. You know, although we haven't completely separated them, we're. We've done a decent job with food, but with pornography, it's totally separate. There is no intimacy. There is no relationship. That's only stimulation. It's only sexual, personal, you know, gratification, release with nothing else.
- [33:38]
Doug
Yeah.
- [33:38]
Kay
Yeah.
- [33:39]
Sal Destefano
Which is very, very damaging. And. And again, the data on this is. Is super, super.
- [33:44]
Adam Schaefer
Well, what do you say? It was like, just like three times a week was problematic.
- [33:48]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [33:48]
Adam Schaefer
Right. Yeah. Even I'm like, I've been known to do that before.
- [33:54]
Doug
I mean, I know it's not hard for me. One time is. Will is enough to change the. The level of intimacy that we have. 100. It's like, it's a joke in our relationship. Like, we talk. Like, we'll call somebody out. Like. Like, we have, like, your only rule. You're only allowed to masturbate if one of us is traveling. Like, you're out of town for a week. Like, okay, you get a pass. But if I'm in town, we're in town together.
- [34:17]
Adam Schaefer
Area code.
- [34:17]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [34:18]
Doug
Yeah. It's like, you don't do that.
- [34:20]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, yeah. No, it's. It's wild. And, you know, talking to. I was talking to some friends the other day who were doing this. Like, they're just like a high school ministry, so they talk to kids about sex and this and that. And we were talking, and they're like, focusing on all the scare stuff. I'm like, I said, you guys, you can't scare kids into not doing this kind of. It's never worked for thousands of years. No, I said talk to them about what they're missing out. Yeah. Not that it's scary.
- [34:45]
Doug
Yeah.
- [34:46]
Sal Destefano
You can get pregnant. You can. That's all true. They know that already. Hasn't stopped them. Tell them about what they're missing out.
- [34:52]
Doug
That's what tells me. That's, like, how amazing it is on the other side. On the other side.
- [34:56]
Sal Destefano
Well, one of the things I was pointing out was, like, you look at the data on. I wish I knew this, you know, before. People who report the most satisfied or the best satisfaction from their sexual sex lives are married couples that are old, who are in their 60s.
- [35:14]
Doug
Yeah, they're old.
- [35:16]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. Okay. That's way outside of what you would think. Yeah. Because the world sold you that it's about how young you are.
- [35:22]
Doug
Yeah. You would think it would be prime young 20s, one night stand.
- [35:26]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. Lots of promiscuity and craziness.
- [35:28]
Adam Schaefer
Shows you also how long it takes for you find those buttons.
- [35:31]
Sal Destefano
You. 40 years. Took me to figure that one out. 40 years.
- [35:38]
Doug
Finally nailed it.
- [35:40]
Adam Schaefer
You know, figured it out.
- [35:45]
Doug
Up, up, down, left, right. Why you just tell me that everybody from the.
- [35:53]
Sal Destefano
Everybody from the 90s knows that code Konami code Super Contra.
- [36:00]
Adam Schaefer
Finally a master.
- [36:01]
Sal Destefano
Anyway, I was reading this study on. On strength training comparing eccentric to concentric training. Yes, it was really interesting article. So if I were to tell you.
- [36:10]
Doug
Guys this is going back and forth by the way the science.
- [36:12]
Sal Destefano
So if I was to tell you guys which one causes more muscle damage.
- [36:16]
Doug
Okay. So everybody has like all the science and literature had pointed to the eccentric. But that's also comparing a 4 second negative to like a regular one or two. What we know now is they're equal.
- [36:27]
Sal Destefano
Well so here's what I was reading kind of along those lines that number one people don't practice eccentric. So the second they practice it. And novel. Yep. Messes them up.
- [36:38]
Adam Schaefer
Of course.
- [36:38]
Sal Destefano
Here's the other one too. The load is never the same. Whatever you could do concentrically you can add. I don't know what it is like 20 or 40. No, it's way more now.
- [36:47]
Doug
It's like double or double. Yeah, you can double. You can take. You can.
- [36:50]
Sal Destefano
It's a big.
- [36:51]
Doug
You can lower twice as much as what you can.
- [36:53]
Sal Destefano
Is that what it is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, of course it's gonna hurt more, you know because you're using way more load. But if you control for that, it's all the same.
- [37:00]
Doug
Yeah, that's what. So we've always been like all this. All the books and stuff you we read back in our starting time.
- [37:05]
Sal Destefano
Right.
- [37:05]
Doug
Was like the eccentric does all the. All the extra damage. But that's the point right there.
- [37:09]
Sal Destefano
It's like.
- [37:09]
Doug
Yeah, well you're slowing it down and.
- [37:11]
Sal Destefano
You could do more load. You guys remember they used to make these machines. I have never seen them. I haven't seen them since. But in the late 90s when I was working in gyms they used to have these and I think it was. I want to say Nautilus made them. I'm not sure but you could low. It was a electronic resistance so there wasn't a weight stack. So you type in the number. So let's say I would bench press 150. When I press it would be 150 but then it would automatically adjust to lower with a much heavier weight. Do you guys remember those machines?
- [37:38]
Doug
No, not those. I mean you can do the tonal kind of like that. Yeah, yeah, the tonal kind of does that.
- [37:45]
Sal Destefano
So you know what sucked about those machines?
- [37:47]
Doug
What?
- [37:47]
Sal Destefano
The second that would change directions, the weight would hit.
- [37:54]
Doug
That before.
- [37:54]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. Oh, you have. Yeah, dude, I have. I haven't done, like, legit eccentric training in so long. It requires partners.
- [38:02]
Adam Schaefer
It does.
- [38:03]
Sal Destefano
Like, I can't. I'm not gonna do it.
- [38:04]
Doug
It's also so, like. I mean, all this stuff is novel and so cool. It's like. I mean, I don't know. At least my training is so much more simple today than it was.
- [38:14]
Adam Schaefer
I just get so much further with just frequently doing, like, the.
- [38:19]
Doug
Yeah. I mean, like, it's so my mindset at my age now. It's just like, what is the coolness? What's the least amount of things I can do to maintain this health and strength thing that I want? It's like, exactly. Trying a bunch of novels works.
- [38:34]
Adam Schaefer
It's tried and true.
- [38:35]
Doug
Yeah.
- [38:35]
Adam Schaefer
I'm gonna feel good afterwards.
- [38:36]
Sal Destefano
I think I'd like to try. I think what I want to do. Only thing is a pain in the butt, but I think I'd like to do eccentric squats. Like, go in there, rack it up, bring it out, and just lower it to the rack and then get out.
- [38:48]
Doug
I mean, I tell you what, if you do. I mean, I rem. Remember. I remember doing those. And it. It was a big. Obviously it was the first time, so of course novel and probably made the biggest difference. But just gnarly loading something that you can't technically squat, right. You can't go up.
- [39:03]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, exactly. You could lower. Yeah, just lower it. Real control.
- [39:06]
Doug
What it. Just for everything else. I guarantee you'll hit a PR after that. Yeah, I guarantee you will. Just like doing that.
- [39:13]
Sal Destefano
Sold.
- [39:13]
Doug
You have serious, like, you'll hit up. You'll. If you, like, you put. I don't know what's like, really heavy. You put five plates on there and you. And you.
- [39:20]
Adam Schaefer
You.
- [39:20]
Doug
You train lowering it for a couple weeks, and then you decide to go for a pr. You'll hit a pr.
- [39:25]
Adam Schaefer
I just too. Psychologically.
- [39:27]
Doug
Yes. It's just getting over. Getting that feeling of, oh, I. I'm. Yeah, I'm. I'm bringing down more than I could ever come up. And you get comfortable with that. So then when you go to the PR weight, it's lighter than what you were, and then you find a way to get out.
- [39:38]
Adam Schaefer
I mean, that's half of what I was battling. I remember trying to do this PR for, you know, push, press, and it was like just holding the weight initially was good. Was crushing. And you're like, dude, what am I doing? Like, it's just a psychological mind.
- [39:50]
Doug
Yes.
- [39:51]
Sal Destefano
And the split press.
- [39:52]
Adam Schaefer
Yes.
- [40:04]
Sal Destefano
I will never talk.
- [40:05]
Adam Schaefer
You know, my, my back foot was like, crooked and doesn't count.
- [40:11]
Sal Destefano
Double appointed. Yeah.
- [40:12]
Adam Schaefer
Obviously you're unstable. Touche. Fair enough.
- [40:18]
Sal Destefano
I hate it when people talk crap they couldn't even do. I've seen videos. I've seen videos criticizing, like, I wish we, like, Ronnie Coleman's like, dead.
- [40:29]
Doug
I wish I knew.
- [40:29]
Adam Schaefer
People were full of shit. Once we had like, Mike Salemi, who's like the most accomplished kettlebell person I've ever met.
- [40:35]
Doug
Somebody talking about Mike.
- [40:37]
Adam Schaefer
They were talking about his technique and form when we were doing, like, he was teaching me, like, techniques and I was looking at the comments and I'm like, this is wild, dude. Where are you getting your information from?
- [40:48]
Doug
Yeah, like, I want to look and.
- [40:50]
Adam Schaefer
I look through and they have nothing, you know, no, like, background to even like, back their claims.
- [40:55]
Doug
You know, we have this big, this big 10 year anniversary thing that we're doing this year. Right. I know. I'm excited to work together. You know what I wish we would have done? I wish we would have kept every negative comment from each that was said about each of us and would have played that on for.
- [41:11]
Sal Destefano
That have been hilarious. You guys have. Do you guys have one that stands out to you?
- [41:16]
Doug
Like, weak chest.
- [41:17]
Sal Destefano
That's mine, bro.
- [41:19]
Doug
I have so many. I can't.
- [41:20]
Sal Destefano
I can't think of the.
- [41:21]
Adam Schaefer
So school, you know, dude, bully.
- [41:24]
Sal Destefano
Somebody.
- [41:25]
Doug
Somebody got me really good one time. What did they say? It was a really good insult that it got me good. What did they say?
- [41:32]
Sal Destefano
I.
- [41:32]
Doug
We. We repeated it for a long time too. Like the weak chess, when it was like ones that have stuck around for a while that, that like, somebody said something that was like, really good yesterday.
- [41:41]
Sal Destefano
I was sitting down.
- [41:41]
Doug
I don't want to encourage this, by the way. I know we're talking about this now. We're going to get a bunch of.
- [41:46]
Sal Destefano
Plenty of.
- [41:46]
Doug
Because you know why? Because, you know, it took me a long time to like, realize that a lot of them were actually, like fans of the show that were just kind of joshing with you.
- [41:54]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [41:55]
Doug
And it's just like, you know, they come in hot.
- [41:57]
Sal Destefano
So you just fire back and you realize, hey, man, big fan of the show.
- [42:01]
Doug
Owned all the programs. It was like, oh, yeah, sorry, bro.
- [42:04]
Sal Destefano
Just came in hot. You know what I'm saying?
- [42:06]
Doug
You didn't give me a.
- [42:07]
Sal Destefano
You give me a warm up.
- [42:07]
Doug
What up, bro?
- [42:08]
Sal Destefano
Before you came at me you know, I had that. I just had couple a conversation with Jessica yesterday because we were sitting on the couch, and, like, I'm like, be honest with me, babe. She already rolls her eyes. She's like, all right, what's going. What are you gonna ask me? I'm like, is it really. Is it disproportionate? Is my chest disproportionate?
- [42:25]
Adam Schaefer
You can be honest. We're safe here.
- [42:26]
Sal Destefano
I actually had a comment under the series, I'm doing someone, and they're lying. This is not true. But underneath it, they're like. It's actually a strong body part on you. It's not a weak one. Like, all right, thanks, buddy. Yeah, lying is worse. You could say it's improved. Thanks, Mom.
- [42:43]
Doug
Your calves are huge, dog.
- [42:45]
Sal Destefano
Stop it. Stop it. Come on, bro. Anyway, I want to hear about this. Sounds to me, when I read one of your notes here, Justin, it sounds like an urban dictionary like thing.
- [42:57]
Adam Schaefer
Which one are we talking about?
- [42:58]
Sal Destefano
Navy SEAL goggles. Oh, yeah. Does that sound like.
- [43:01]
Adam Schaefer
Sounds like a technique.
- [43:02]
Sal Destefano
You've tried the dirty sand.
- [43:03]
Doug
You guys have it.
- [43:04]
Adam Schaefer
You guys haven't done this.
- [43:05]
Sal Destefano
Have you tried the Navy SEALS goggles technique? It's great, dude.
- [43:09]
Adam Schaefer
It does sound like.
- [43:10]
Sal Destefano
What is that?
- [43:10]
Adam Schaefer
No, I saw his cool video, and it was this guy that was, like, describing. Well, he actually went down into one of those pools and showed how without goggles, he could. He was able to see clearly, like, because they had to find, like, I don't know if it was like, some kind of nut and bolt and something a little.
- [43:31]
Sal Destefano
Anyway. Oh, yeah.
- [43:32]
Doug
It's part of their training part. At the bottom of the pool, they have to, like, put together.
- [43:35]
Adam Schaefer
Put together something and.
- [43:36]
Doug
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [43:38]
Adam Schaefer
So he's like. I claim he could do without any goggles. And so he goes down there and he just basically blows air and bubbles and holds his hands like this over his eyes. And then the bubbles come up and they kind of glued his face like this.
- [43:53]
Sponsor Voice
What?
- [43:53]
Adam Schaefer
And it. It creates this, like, weird, like, you know, air pocket.
- [43:57]
Sal Destefano
That's cool.
- [43:58]
Adam Schaefer
And so he's looking down like this with this air pocket, like, bubble. I thought it was like some guy.
- [44:03]
Doug
Thought of that, you know, like, I.
- [44:04]
Adam Schaefer
Wonder if it works.
- [44:05]
Doug
I try it.
- [44:05]
Adam Schaefer
Can you.
- [44:06]
Doug
Come on, Doug, Google away. I want to see if that's true.
- [44:08]
Sal Destefano
That is cool.
- [44:09]
Doug
I've never seen. So I feel like I would have seen that on Tick Tock or on Facebook.
- [44:12]
Adam Schaefer
That's why I was like. I was. I was like, man, why hadn't I seen this before? That just seems like such a.
- [44:17]
Doug
To keep them from both not popping would be insane.
- [44:20]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah, he just had his hands, like, kind of shielded over, like this, so the bubbles right here, and he could look through.
- [44:25]
Doug
Yeah, so he's blowing. So he has to be blowing. You have to close this off, though. Wouldn't you have to close.
- [44:32]
Adam Schaefer
They just go up.
- [44:33]
Doug
They're not gonna come up here.
- [44:34]
Justin Andrews
Apparently, it's real.
- [44:35]
Doug
It is.
- [44:36]
Sal Destefano
Boom.
- [44:37]
Doug
Yeah.
- [44:37]
Adam Schaefer
I'm gonna try it and.
- [44:39]
Sal Destefano
And report back, you know, you never know what.
- [44:42]
Doug
I might have to put some bolts.
- [44:44]
Sal Destefano
Some bolts together at the bottom of my pool. I don't know. It's called an air bubble mask.
- [44:48]
Adam Schaefer
Let me see it.
- [44:49]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, that's what it's called. I want to see it. He's gonna do this.
- [44:52]
Justin Andrews
You want to see?
- [44:53]
Doug
I'm gonna try this.
- [44:53]
Kay
Okay.
- [44:54]
Sal Destefano
I can play Animals takes a bath. And then, you know, I'm not a bath guy anymore.
- [44:58]
Doug
I don't have.
- [44:59]
Adam Schaefer
Make this a bedroom technique.
- [45:00]
Doug
I don't know.
- [45:01]
Sal Destefano
Why don't you take this? So the.
- [45:03]
Doug
I only have one bath, and it's one of those spare bedroom or spare bathrooms, so. So when I was going through my whole withdrawals thing, we did. I did take a bath one time. I had never been in that thing.
- [45:14]
Sal Destefano
And Katrina got it all ready for.
- [45:16]
Doug
Me, and she's like, I don't know if you can use it. I don't know the last time you've been in, like, a. Like, a little bath.
- [45:20]
Sal Destefano
Oh, they're tiny, bro.
- [45:21]
Doug
It's like I could only get, you know, either my legs wet or my upper body.
- [45:25]
Sal Destefano
So I'm like, watch this. Oh, look at that. Wait, it works, dude.
- [45:30]
Doug
See? Let's see it.
- [45:31]
Adam Schaefer
Get down there.
- [45:32]
Doug
Okay. Smashes over.
- [45:34]
Adam Schaefer
Okay, here's how we're gonna do it. And then do it.
- [45:37]
Sal Destefano
Wow.
- [45:38]
Doug
I don't see the bubbles.
- [45:40]
Adam Schaefer
This is a terrible video that I seen.
- [45:43]
Sal Destefano
Wow, that's cool. Anyways, we'll give it a shot. Yeah, I believe. I believe the video. Yeah, dude, they dive deep without anything.
- [45:55]
Adam Schaefer
It's crazy.
- [45:55]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [45:55]
Doug
Did you ever watch that documentary?
- [45:57]
Sal Destefano
No.
- [45:57]
Doug
Oh, it's a good documentary. It's called.
- [45:59]
Sal Destefano
No, no.
- [46:00]
Doug
It's called Free Dive or something. It was a really good documentary of the world record holders of, like. It's crazy how far down they go.
- [46:07]
Adam Schaefer
Real deep.
- [46:07]
Sal Destefano
I don't know if I ever told you guys this, but although I'm a terrible swimmer, I'm gonna hold your breath for a long time. A long time. I don't know why you can't. A long Time.
- [46:15]
Adam Schaefer
Did you not work for me?
- [46:16]
Sal Destefano
I don't know why. It was just. I remember I learned this as a kid. I took swimming lessons as a kid.
- [46:21]
Doug
Yes. Free diver.
- [46:21]
Sal Destefano
And they told all of us to hold our breath underwater. And I smoked everybody.
- [46:25]
Adam Schaefer
I am, like the worst swimmer, so I think that's probably part of it.
- [46:28]
Doug
When we were kids, we used to have challenges. How many times back and forth on the pool length could you go with. Without.
- [46:34]
Sal Destefano
You're a good swimmer, too. I. You swim better than me, dude.
- [46:37]
Adam Schaefer
Well, I mean, I swim.
- [46:39]
Doug
It's just like, you know, Justin swims better than you.
- [46:41]
Sal Destefano
You have a heavy butt.
- [46:42]
Adam Schaefer
I think, dude, he should not eat.
- [46:44]
Doug
Yeah, he's like a tugboat. He should not be able to. He should not be able to swim better than you.
- [46:49]
Sal Destefano
I don't. I'm just.
- [46:49]
Doug
You have a bird. You have like a nice. Like, you should be able to go through the water like this, like a boat, you know? Say you should just park the water.
- [46:59]
Sal Destefano
Hell, easy, dude.
- [47:01]
Doug
Kick your darrow waist.
- [47:04]
Sal Destefano
I got the floating raft in the bottom. No, I just. I'm not a good swimmer, dude. I think I get a little anxiousy. You know what I mean?
- [47:11]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah.
- [47:11]
Sal Destefano
In the water.
- [47:12]
Doug
Yeah.
- [47:12]
Sal Destefano
I'm just not comfortable, you know? Like, you don't. When my feet can't touch the bottom.
- [47:16]
Doug
Do you think you had, like a. Did you have a traumatic thing when you're a kid?
- [47:18]
Sal Destefano
You know what's crazy? I used to be. I used to not. Not mind at all. But my mom is terrified of. Of swimming. Terrified. So she won't go in the water below, like, if it's like, above her waist, she's like, not. I don't know if it, like, inherited.
- [47:31]
Doug
Imprinted on you something. I wouldn't be surprised. This is something I always give Katrina a hard time is like, Katrina is, like, terrified of bees because she claims to be allergic to bees, right? So I don't know if there's a lot of proof for that or not, but she says that she's allergic to bees, right? So if a bee is in the backyard, anywhere, she's runs in the house. I go. And only because my son has seen that. He's like that now. And I'm like, so, Max, you're fine. I was like, they don't. It doesn't even hurt that bad. If it stings you, it's not a big deal. But because of that, I'm like, yeah. So I'm always trying to get onto him. Like, can you calm down just a little bit? When you see a bee.
- [48:01]
Sal Destefano
Definitely.
- [48:02]
Doug
Because my son is now going to be terrified of bees because you're terrified. So I. I. Cause I try and play with them when they're around. Like, look, they're fine. You know what I'm saying? Like, it doesn't even hurt that bad. It's not a big deal. Like. But you see him getting that way because he sees.
- [48:13]
Sal Destefano
Definitely. I think things can imprint for sure.
- [48:15]
Doug
I can. I watch it and watch it happen.
- [48:17]
Sal Destefano
Because my mom was also terrified of spiders. Although I'm not. Not that bad anymore. I had to learn to not be scared of spiders because that's different. I'm a man. And my wife.
- [48:27]
Sponsor Voice
Yeah.
- [48:27]
Sal Destefano
But my. But my brother. My. You guys know my brother. He's a big dude.
- [48:31]
Doug
Yeah, bro.
- [48:31]
Sal Destefano
You put the tiniest spider next to him, you will. He will move like you've never seen before in your life. He will jump and move. I've seen him jump off a bike. He was on his bike and there was a spider on a handlebar.
- [48:42]
Doug
I think that's.
- [48:42]
Sal Destefano
And he jumped off.
- [48:43]
Doug
That's what makes spiders is.
- [48:45]
Sal Destefano
Is.
- [48:45]
Doug
Is because of how small they are. I am. So a big tarantula will creep me out way less than a little. Tiny little.
- [48:53]
Sal Destefano
Really. So if you're driving in a tarantula.
- [48:55]
Doug
So we grew up. So October season is. Was when all that. When they all come out. Right. And I grew up where they used to be everywhere. And we'd let them crawl on us. So I'd let a tarantula crawl on my arm. But a little spider in my house. I do not.
- [49:08]
Sal Destefano
Have you seen those videos where there's like. It looks like a. Looks like a furry wall and then they tap it and it's bazillions of little spiders.
- [49:16]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [49:16]
Sal Destefano
Have you seen that?
- [49:17]
Adam Schaefer
This is in Australia where they had those. Where it was just like just blankets of webs and it was just like all in the bushes, all in the power lines and all this like. And it just happens a couple times a year or something where they, like, they breed and it's like this crazy. Like.
- [49:34]
Sal Destefano
Does Australia have the worst. Too much.
- [49:36]
Doug
Yes. Yes.
- [49:37]
Adam Schaefer
I think it was.
- [49:37]
Doug
I think so. But remember when we talked about this? We talked about this years ago, going to Australia. Yeah. We talked about spiders. And so that. And somebody sent in a picture of a spider carrying a rat up of. That was enough for me.
- [49:53]
Sal Destefano
Never going there.
- [49:54]
Doug
That's enough for like, that. A spider carrying a rat. Like, doesn't even make sense.
- [49:58]
Sal Destefano
That's not supposed to happen.
- [49:59]
Doug
No, it's not supposed to happen. Dude, it's like crazy, man.
- [50:03]
Sal Destefano
Did you. Are you guys all stocked up on your zbotics for the holidays? We got.
- [50:07]
Doug
No, I just ran out and I need to get some.
- [50:08]
Adam Schaefer
I'm actually ordering some cuz yeah, I've gone through.
- [50:11]
Sal Destefano
This is not crazy. We're sponsored by them. I know I am. Ourselves.
- [50:14]
Adam Schaefer
This is where we're at now.
- [50:16]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [50:18]
Doug
Dude, it's because of staff. They all send us stuff for free. But now you got. What do you got, 20 something people in here.
- [50:23]
Sal Destefano
Plus, are they taking them all?
- [50:24]
Adam Schaefer
Well, I make the mistake of hyping it up to all my friends too. And then they're like, they come over.
- [50:28]
Sal Destefano
And see you're talking about.
- [50:31]
Doug
They just grab them.
- [50:31]
Sal Destefano
Well, it works. Yeah, it really, it really works. I'm still shocked that they don't. That bars don't carry them.
- [50:37]
Doug
I think I heard them say they were getting into something. I thought I heard that.
- [50:40]
Justin Andrews
So yeah, I think a few do now. I, I don't know if they're actively.
- [50:45]
Doug
Silly for bars not to because I mean it would increase the, the amount of drinks they would probably sell if they were to do that.
- [50:51]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah, it would be really nightclubs or something.
- [50:53]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, I think it would be great.
- [50:55]
Doug
But anyway, I think the reason, I mean, I know they were always so careful about that. Like they're not trying to promote like binge drinking or lots of drinking.
- [51:05]
Sal Destefano
Not the binge drinking, but alcohol.
- [51:07]
Doug
I know. Well, that's what it's for, right? So did you. Have you ever followed up on them on like. Because they were. The last time we had talked to them. They did that because it was like easy. Remember they're, they're, they're in the first product genetic modifying.
- [51:21]
Sal Destefano
Oh yeah.
- [51:21]
Doug
Remember like that, that was like. It was like low hanging fruit was why they started the company so they could fund all the other projects that they were going to do.
- [51:27]
Sal Destefano
I haven't talked to them, but I remember there's some stuff I can't talk about. On the pipeline.
- [51:31]
Justin Andrews
They have the sugar to fiber product.
- [51:34]
Doug
How come we haven't tried that, Doug?
- [51:35]
Justin Andrews
We have.
- [51:36]
Sal Destefano
We, we all got it. You take it, you eat sugar, it converts it to fiber. For reals.
- [51:41]
Doug
Have you tried it?
- [51:42]
Justin Andrews
I've tried it, yeah.
- [51:42]
Sal Destefano
Doug's tried it.
- [51:43]
Justin Andrews
Yeah, yeah, it's great for regularity.
- [51:46]
Sal Destefano
Seriously? Yeah, dude, I'd like to try that right now. Huh? I said you don't need regulator.
- [51:52]
Doug
No, no, no, no, no, no.
- [51:54]
Sal Destefano
Thanks a lot, dude. Sorry, I didn't mean to Put you up last.
- [51:56]
Doug
Hey, speaking of that. No, my, my son peed his pants at school, right? And we get a call.
- [52:05]
Sal Destefano
It happens.
- [52:07]
Doug
Listen, though, we get it. We get a call and I was with Katrina. She's like, oh, my God, school called right now. I said, what? What's going on? She's like, max didn't make it to the bathroom. And I'm like, what? I'm like, okay, weird. And she's like, I'm going now. I'll be back. So she goes to pick him up and, you know, I'm wondering like, oh, man, did he get embarrassed? Is this going to be like a traumatic thing? So I actually, like, I greet them at the, I, I, I see him pull up in the driveway and I get out, want to see, see if he's doing okay. And he climbs out and he's like at these like, like some other kids, high water, pants on, stuff like that.
- [52:38]
Sal Destefano
He's like, you know, all the chippery. And she comes right up.
- [52:41]
Doug
Hey, Dad. I was just like, how was school, buddy? That was good. It was like. Anything happened?
- [52:47]
Sal Destefano
No.
- [52:47]
Doug
Oh, I peed my pants.
- [52:48]
Sal Destefano
I was just like, what happened?
- [52:51]
Doug
He's just like, oh, I didn't make it. It's not a big deal.
- [52:53]
Sal Destefano
And he just walked. That's great, dude. He was so. Wow.
- [52:56]
Doug
I looked at Katrina and she just kind of like, she just shrugged.
- [52:59]
Sal Destefano
Oh, that's great.
- [52:59]
Doug
Yeah, she, he goes, she goes. I try to talk to him. He just kept telling me, mom, it's not a big deal. I just, just, I didn't make it in time. I was, you know, I was playing in the sandbox and I held it too long and she kept, he's like, mom, it's not a big, Kept telling.
- [53:10]
Sal Destefano
Her, it's not a big deal.
- [53:11]
Doug
She's like, all right, it's not a big deal.
- [53:13]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. Yeah.
- [53:13]
Doug
I was ready for him to be.
- [53:14]
Sal Destefano
Kind of like, well, yeah, because that could.
- [53:16]
Doug
No, no, I thought about that, you know, like, so in again.
- [53:19]
Sal Destefano
Probably my own Justin never lived that down when he.
- [53:23]
Doug
Yeah, I mean, I was also, I.
- [53:24]
Adam Schaefer
Was known as Pee Pee Boy.
- [53:26]
Doug
I was, I was totally prepared to like, hey, it's okay, buddy. Like, accidents happen. Hey. Next. Next to like the whole dad speech.
- [53:32]
Sal Destefano
And be there for him.
- [53:33]
Doug
That's why I met him at the door. He just walked right past me.
- [53:36]
Sal Destefano
That's awesome.
- [53:36]
Doug
Yeah.
- [53:36]
Sal Destefano
No big deal, dad.
- [53:38]
Doug
He's wearing these little tiny pants of.
- [53:40]
Sal Destefano
So hilarious. That's so great.
- [53:43]
Doug
It's too much.
- [53:45]
Sal Destefano
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- [54:11]
Justin Andrews
Our first caller is Stephanie from Ontario.
- [54:14]
Sal Destefano
Hi, Stephanie.
- [54:14]
Adam Schaefer
Hello.
- [54:15]
Jessica
Hello.
- [54:16]
Stephanie
How's it going?
- [54:17]
Sal Destefano
We're good. How can we help you? Good.
- [54:19]
Stephanie
So I've adjusted my question a little bit because I've had a bit of an update, but I will just go right into it. So I've been a listener for about five years now and I absolutely love your show. It's completely changed my relationship with health and fitness and I follow all of your programs and even got my dad to change his lifestyle thanks to you guys. He used to be the Atkins Diet's biggest fan, and now he's no longer afraid of carbs. A bit about my journey. I've been an athlete all my life, but always struggled with my weight being taller and bigger than most of the other girls. Over the years, I've done a few bulking and cutting cycles, have been able to get down to around 20 body fat. And that's where I would ideally like to maintain somewhere in and around those low 20s. The challenge is at the end of my cuts, I really don't want to track everything that I eat. Um, so I typically track up to around maintenance and then I'll stop tracking and weighing myself because it just feels like a bit of a negative relationship. Um, and then inevitably my body fat always tends to creep back up. So I guess the update is that I ended a cut in March and decided to reverse back up to maintenance. And then over the summer I was no longer tracking, and I'd say my body fat now is probably around 25%. Originally, I planned to do a bulk for the last three months of the year, but like Adam talks about, I actually hit a place where I was just kind of like, tired of eating, wasn't really hungry or having too many cravings or anything, so. Which I had never actually experienced. So I figured it'd be a good time to start a cut. So this is probably the longest I've spent out of a cut in a while. So at the start of November, I began a cut, eating around 1900-00 to 2000 calories with 150 to 160 grams of protein. Um, I'm currently running map symmetry on phase two. I'm still not weighing myself, but I Am tracking my food. So my current plan is to continue cutting till probably around Christmas, take a week or two, break over the holidays, and then go back into a cut for maybe around seven or so weeks. For context, I'm five, ten. I play soccer one to twice a week. Strength training three to four times a week, eight to ten K steps, 150, 160 grams of protein. I do have PCOS managed with birth control. And yeah, feel better eating higher fat, which is like 70, 80 grams minimum.
- [56:42]
Doug
I like this plan.
- [56:43]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, I like this.
- [56:44]
Doug
I like this plan a lot.
- [56:45]
Sal Destefano
You're doing great.
- [56:46]
Doug
I think you're doing phenomenal.
- [56:47]
Sal Destefano
You're doing great, by the way. A lot of times I'm not surprised that you do better on a higher fat. Oftentimes women with pcos do better with a lower carbohydrate, higher fat approach. And the exercise you're doing is perfect. Strength training is great for that. Okay, One other thing I'd like to comment on is, so let me ask you this. When you're feeling healthy, what I mean by that is like, you're consistent, diet is good, workout is good, but you're also mentally healthy about it. You don't feel like you're controlling everything, tracking everything. You just feel good in the kind of. When you imagine that sphere of health. Where does your body fat, if you were to guess, where does your body fat percentage tend to like to maintain?
- [57:32]
Stephanie
Probably this like 24%. And that's not tracking.
- [57:38]
Sal Destefano
Yes. So and the reason I'm glad, I'm so glad I asked this question. So in my experience, female athletes, especially strong athletes, their body fat percentage, when they're all healthy and doing everything right, tends to sit in the kind of low to mid-20s, which by the way, is a healthy body fat percentage. And now, give or take, right, there's this individual variance. Like some women will sit leaner, other women will sit a little higher. But that's a great, that's a great place to be. It's fit, it's healthy, you're strong, your hormones are balanced. You're not like obsessing about food. You don't feel stressed about it. And so that's probably where. And that's a great place to be. And so the reason why I'm communicating this is don't get too caught up with the. I gotta get down to 20, 21% body fat. You're talking about 3, 4% difference, which you know. And you gotta ask yourself, is it gonna be worth the, you know, the mental. You know, stress about it because also.
- [58:38]
Doug
The potential lack of performance.
- [58:39]
Sal Destefano
That's right.
- [58:40]
Doug
Because, yeah, you know, we could technically cut down to 1800 calories for longer and be stricter and, you know, and then, okay, maybe you shred off another percent or two body fat, but then, you know, then does soccer suck? You know, and do you feel like you're, like, restricting all day long and so you're just thinking about food and it's like, I mean, yeah, we could do that, but you're in a very healthy, good place right now. You have a great plan, the way you're going about this.
- [59:07]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [59:07]
Doug
I think you're in a really good place.
- [59:09]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. So there's this kind of genetic, you know, fit and healthy body fat percentage range. And there's a range there because for some people it's leaner, and for some people it's a bit higher, and it's your healthy range. And so if you're sitting at, like, 24 and you're, like, active and you're strong and you could play soccer and you feel like you're kicking butt and you're not, like, stressed over your diet and stuff like that, you're just like, you just really have this good quality of life. That's great. Go for it.
- [59:40]
Stephanie
In fact, I just aesthetically like being lower, which I feel like probably everybody.
- [59:47]
Sal Destefano
Yes. You know what we've done, Stephanie, is we've placed this aesthetic quote, unquote ideal, which is. Oh, it's always so funny to me how it's always 3% away from where you like to be healthy or whatever. Right. But we've placed. We've taken this aesthetic, quote, unquote, ideal, and we've elevated it above where it should be. And so we've sacrificed all these things that are more valuable, if you really look at it, to you, than just this, like, how much better of a quality of life do you have when you're at 21% body fat, but you're also tracking and stressed about your life with the food. Right. So is it really a better quality of life? No, it's not. So. So that's just the thing that, you know, I want you to think about when you're doing this. And then here's a little kicker. Here's where I'm going to sell it to you. If you start to get comfortable in this kind of zone, oftentimes people do get a little leaner, because what kind of happens is this bouncing up and down while we're playing with it. And then when people kind of Settle into this healthy kind of place. Then what usually happens is you see a little bit of body fat loss anyway.
- [60:54]
Stephanie
Okay.
- [60:54]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [60:54]
Stephanie
And then what would you guys suggest? So let's say I, you know, go through the maintenance cut or maintenance for two weeks after Christmas and then continue to cut, and then I'm around again that low 20s. Would you suggest doing like slowly maintain and then every couple months add a couple hundred calories to get my maintenance up from there?
- [61:14]
Doug
Sure, yeah, sure.
- [61:15]
Sal Destefano
If you want to.
- [61:16]
Stephanie
Okay. And then do you have a suggestion on which program to follow after Symmetry?
- [61:22]
Sal Destefano
Oh, gosh. I like, like power lift and strong.
- [61:26]
Stephanie
Okay. I've never done either of those ones. I have aesthetic muscle, mommy and anabolic.
- [61:32]
Sal Destefano
You know what you probably would really like strong. Yeah, I bet you would like strong. Let's send that to you.
- [61:39]
Stephanie
Okay. How many days a week is that?
- [61:40]
Jessica
One?
- [61:41]
Sal Destefano
I think it's. I believe it's. It's four or five. Well, it's five, but that's because of the work sessions.
- [61:46]
Adam Schaefer
Work sessions.
- [61:47]
Sal Destefano
So there's like two workouts and three.
- [61:49]
Adam Schaefer
Work sessions foundational, and then the rest are work.
- [61:51]
Doug
So in other words, if you are also playing like soccer or something, you could literally, you could literally cut the work sessions out and just do the three foundational days. So it's like three foundational days. Then we have the two work session days. If you're doing some other sport or activity modify, you can modify and drop the work session for however many of these. So if you got two days of soccer, drop the two work sessions, you've got one day of soccer, drop one.
- [62:11]
Sal Destefano
Of this, one of them.
- [62:12]
Doug
You could totally do that.
- [62:13]
Stephanie
Okay, cool. And then in terms of cardio, I typically just add like maybe 10 minutes on the stairmaster at the end of my workout. Do you guys think that's totally fine?
- [62:23]
Doug
Totally fine.
- [62:24]
Stephanie
Good enough. Not pushing. Okay, cool.
- [62:26]
Sal Destefano
No, you're good. I mean, how do you feel with on. On the soccer field?
- [62:28]
Stephanie
How's your performance since adding quite a bit more muscle? It's definitely different, but it's kind of cool. Um, but it's still good. I think I should. I probably need to get my cardio up a little bit more for soccer right now.
- [62:44]
Doug
You could, you could do those, those 10 minutes of StairMaster. Do more like interval training for those 12 minutes. Yeah, so like hit style cardio post workout would be great. Especially the way soccer is where you have just bouts of sprints like that. And so you could do those bouts of sprints in a short 12 minute window. And you'll get some good benefits just from that.
- [63:03]
Sal Destefano
By the way, the things that you're doing is great. Everything you're doing is good. I'm just talking about the mindset around it, which I think you're heading in that direction anyway.
- [63:15]
Stephanie
Yeah, I think you. Sometimes you hear, like, obviously I listen to you guys and you've listened to other callers and stuff, and you're like, oh, does that apply of me? And you kind of.
- [63:22]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [63:22]
Stephanie
Like, I don't want to deviate my plan too much, so I just wanted to, I guess, confirm it's right.
- [63:27]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, no, you're good.
- [63:28]
Doug
Doing great.
- [63:28]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, you're doing great.
- [63:29]
Adam Schaefer
Sounds good.
- [63:30]
Doug
We'll send Strong over to you.
- [63:31]
Stephanie
Okay, awesome. Thanks so much, guys.
- [63:33]
Sal Destefano
You got it. Bye. Bye. Yeah, that was good.
- [63:35]
Doug
Do you think too. You know, because she's talking only about like 2, 2 or 3%. And with. With birth control and autoimmune, how much water weight you think she holds on a regular basis?
- [63:46]
Sal Destefano
I mean, it depends on what it. You know, it depends on. On the person, but because in my.
- [63:50]
Doug
Experience, someone who's got autoimmune and taking birth control pills. Yeah, you got just that layer of what they think is fat is just. Is just water retention.
- [63:59]
Sal Destefano
A lot of times could be. You know, it's interesting. I'm like, okay, so, you know, where I was getting at with her is oftentimes you take someone that. Like this and you get. You take away that little bit of stress over cutting bulk and cutting bulking, and they settle. They tend to get leaner. Yeah, it just tends to happen rather than the ping pong, you know, but she's not extreme. She's doing good.
- [64:18]
Adam Schaefer
No, you allow your boy to actually acclimate.
- [64:19]
Doug
Great plan. I think she has a great plan.
- [64:22]
Justin Andrews
Our next caller is Emily from Colorado.
- [64:24]
Sal Destefano
Hi, Emily.
- [64:25]
Justin Andrews
Hello.
- [64:26]
Emily
Hi, guys. Thank you so much for taking my question. And just first and foremost, I just want to thank you guys for all you do. I've been listening to y' all since 2021, and you have become my North Star when it comes to health and fitness. So thank you so much.
- [64:41]
Sal Destefano
Thank you so much. How can we help you?
- [64:43]
Emily
Yeah, so I'll just read my question as I wrote it here. I hear a lot of conflicting information on the usefulness and safety of ask to grass squats. How do you know if it's safe to do so? If I'm able to do it unweighted, does that mean it's safe to try with weight? I'm asking this because I'd like To improve my squat depth. But I definitely have ankle mobility issues and chronic knee pain probably as a result. But I've noticed elevating my heels does help a lot. I'm able to get all the way down, so is it best to start with lifted heels with the goal to eventually not need that, or should I just avoid squatting altogether and only work on my ankle mobility?
- [65:22]
Sal Destefano
Good question. You can do what I do. So I. I just don't mow my lawn for a long time. And then it's easy to go ass to grass. I just go barely down. All right, so it's definitely a mobility issue. You've pointed it out. Yeah, we'll send you. Sorry. Do you have Prime Pro?
- [65:38]
Emily
I don't.
- [65:39]
Sal Destefano
Okay, so Prime Pro and use the ankle and hip mobility movements in there. Practice them once or twice a day, every day. Watch the videos and then as so practice those regularly. And then when you squat, range of motion is very important, but it has to be range of motion that you.
- [66:00]
Adam Schaefer
Can own and control strength and supported range.
- [66:02]
Sal Destefano
Range of motion. If you move outside of the range of motion that you can control and support with good stability, good strength, you are now in the realm of injury. So ask the grass is only good if. If you can own that. If you can't, do not do it.
- [66:18]
Doug
But if you look, if you can elevate your ankles and you can own it and make a squat look really good just by elevating, which, by the way, happens a lot. There's so many clients that I had, it's common, that couldn't do a good ass to grass squat. But it was because their ankle mobility was so bad. But as soon as I elevated their heels, they could drop right down. It looked British. It looked beautiful. Everything looked good. So what I would do is I would ask the grass squat with them with heels elevated while we worked on those mobility drills. So that just becomes a ritual for you. And do that as much as you can, like every day. If you can, multiple times a day. And for sure, before you always squat, like so mandatory. Always before you squat. I'm doing my hip and ankle mobility. That's a bare minimum. But then I'm trying to do it every day as many times I can, Even if it's just five minutes, get down on the ground, do some of my 90 90s, do some of my combat. The more frequency you do those, those mobility drills, primarily combat stretch and 90 90s is going to open those hips up, get you better connected, and also get you greater range of motion in the ankles. And then eventually you can, you can peel the heel, raise out, but doing it simultaneously is totally okay because there's also value. And getting your hips and the rest of your body comfortable with that deep range of motion while you're still working on those things.
- [67:30]
Sal Destefano
Good point.
- [67:31]
Adam Schaefer
The more you can actually, like, add and infuse more isometric tension at the bottom of the squat, and that being the focus for you, the more likely you're going to be strong and stable in that position, which is where we can start thinking about loading it. And, and I think too, like, even slowly and gradually adding load, but then still working on that, that pause squat. So down at the bottom, I'm really emphasizing that muscle recruitment process. And then you'll feel a lot more comfortable and confident going astrographs.
- [68:03]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. It's a mistake that you might make with Prime Pro is you'll watch the video and just copy the movement. It's all about the cues. Be very careful to listen to the video and the cues. How you activate your body and muscles in the pose or in the movement makes all the difference in the world. So just watch the videos associated with, like, Combat Stretch is probably going to be good for you, and the 90, 90 variations will probably be good for you, but there's others. So when you're doing it, watch the video, listen to the cues, and do what the cues are telling you. That'll make all the difference.
- [68:37]
Doug
What's my Prime Pro video Doug called.
- [68:39]
Sal Destefano
Where's the webinar primepro webinar.com for anybody who doesn't have it.
- [68:44]
Doug
Yeah. But even if you do, like, I think, think what I did on that a little bit better than what we did in the Prime Pro program is what you just said.
- [68:51]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [68:51]
Doug
And so in prime on the Prime Pro webinar, which is free. So we'll send you the program, and then we'll send you. And then go to the primepro webinar.com and go to that. Go to that webinar I did. And in there, I'm coaching through the whole thing. So you can hear me telling you, intensify it. Drive your knee into the floor. And so you get the coaching kind of with it. I do recommend going through that with me, because then you'll get kind of like the idea of like, oh, okay. This isn't just like a, A yoga stretch. When you do this. You're supposed to be working in these, in these movements. But. And also, squat shoes are a decent investment unless you got like a. Unless the gym has a nice Little heel raise that. You can just get foam. One or one of those nice ones. Or if you're having to, like, put plates underneath your shoes all the time, you know, I'd buy some. Some squat shoes, and when I. When I'm squatting, I'd bring them with me, and. And I'd continue to work on my ankle mobility, and then. Yeah, it'll come together.
- [69:43]
Sal Destefano
Okay.
- [69:43]
Emily
Yeah. I'm currently. I work out at home, so I'm using plates, and it does kind of add a little extra time that I don't particularly like spending doing. So I might consider. Yeah. Getting some squat shoes. I wasn't sure if I was kind of going down the wrong path by elevating my heels and practicing that without doing mobility. So it's good to know I can do both at the same time.
- [70:04]
Sal Destefano
Yes.
- [70:04]
Emily
And I'm essentially doing it with, like, basically no weight. I don't have a standard bar, or I have. I don't have an Olympic bar, so my bar is only £15.
- [70:12]
Sal Destefano
That's fine.
- [70:12]
Emily
So I'm doing it with that. Just an empty bar, and feels okay. I. But, yeah, I just wasn't sure if I was gonna end up injuring myself because I don't have that mobility.
- [70:21]
Sal Destefano
No, no, you're good. Yeah. You follow prime pro mobility. Those movements. Keep practicing the squat. Just be safe, and you'll progress. You'll see a potential with it.
- [70:30]
Doug
Yeah, you're doing a good job. I will tell you this, though. There's an interesting thing that I. I find unique to squatting, that there's this when you start to load it, and I'm not saying, like, load it so heavy, you're scared to squat down in it, but all of a sudden, once you put a. A good amount of weight where stabilize and you have to really posture, your form gets better. So if I literally, to this day, with all the years I've been squatting, if I go out there and do a 135 squat, it'll look worse than my 225 squat. It's just because as soon as I get about 225 on my back, my body goes, okay, we got some weight on there. Even though it's not Matt, it's enough for me to go, okay, I need to really tense up. And that's so important to a good squat. And so I do recommend at one point, you kind of loading it a little bit to where you kind of get that feeling you don't need to go so crazy. You feel scared, but enough to where it's like, ooh, this is a good amount of weight that I got to move. And you'll find it interesting how your body naturally kind of goes, oh, I need to tighten up and tense up. And that's really good for squatting.
- [71:24]
Emily
Okay. Okay. That's good to know. I've kind of wondered if maybe my knee pain could be because I only squat to parallel, and I have for years, and I'm wondering if maybe because I haven't gotten strong in the full range of motion, that that could be affected by it.
- [71:41]
Sal Destefano
It could be a few things. So it could be a few things, but knee pain. Pain oftentimes. Where's your knee hurt?
- [71:46]
Adam Schaefer
Tracking.
- [71:47]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. Let me know where it hurts.
- [71:49]
Emily
The inside area, essentially. Like, if you're looking at the kneecap, it's kind of like on the inside of the leg, right below it.
- [71:58]
Sal Destefano
Okay, so that's probably. That's probably coming from your ankle. Yes. Yeah. Your knees are either probably doing this or there's tension going in that direction.
- [72:07]
Doug
It is almost always when it's just like. Unless you had an acute injury, it's almost always ankles or hips.
- [72:13]
Adam Schaefer
Hips.
- [72:13]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [72:13]
Doug
So, yeah. And then the knee is just taking that stress because our ankles are weak and lack mobility, and our hips leak are weak and lack mobility. Once you get gain mobility, gain strength in those areas, it takes all the stress off the knees. It's incredible how that works.
- [72:28]
Emily
Yeah. It's been a long progress. I've gone to an orthopedist and my pcp, even podiatrist to see if it could be related to. You know, I've got some feet issues, too, but. But I haven't had any injury. It definitely occurred after having my baby back in 2018. And about a year after that, I started working out again, and the knee pain came, so I went to physical therapy, and they suspected it was from pregnancy and how it kind of changes your gait and your stance. So.
- [72:57]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, no, you're on the right path. Yep.
- [73:00]
Stephanie
Okay.
- [73:00]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [73:01]
Emily
Thank you guys so much.
- [73:02]
Sal Destefano
You got it.
- [73:02]
Doug
All right, Emily.
- [73:03]
Sal Destefano
Thank you. Yeah. When it comes to what you said, Adam, where you add weight to the bar and it puts you. If somebody.
- [73:12]
Doug
It's so wild how that is, Right?
- [73:13]
Sal Destefano
Well, so if you're strong but tight, it'll help, but if you're weak and loose, it doesn't help. And I want to say that because. Because sometimes someone could be, like, weak and, like, loosey goosey, and you add weight to them, and it's. But like, you or I definitely. Me.
- [73:30]
Adam Schaefer
Me.
- [73:31]
Sal Destefano
I'M strong but tight. And so what happens is it'll force my ankles into mobility, it'll force me.
- [73:38]
Adam Schaefer
Into position versus not.
- [73:41]
Doug
It also, it also forces my upper posture to push my chest up high.
- [73:46]
Sal Destefano
So the bar is super aware of.
- [73:48]
Doug
Where my core has to tighten up because I, I, because it's wanting me to fall. So it, it's a, it's a trip how much loading the bar on my clients, I realized like, and you don't, it has to, you don't have to load it. It crazy.
- [73:59]
Sal Destefano
Just to give them some feedback.
- [74:00]
Doug
Yeah, but if you, I mean, you tell me she's got a 15 pound bar on her back, that's like, that's like 25. Yeah, she could do it. She could do at least a 45 pound bar. And that alone, that kind of weight will make her body kind of stiffen up a little.
- [74:12]
Justin Andrews
Our next caller is Kay from Denmark.
- [74:14]
Sal Destefano
Hey, how you doing?
- [74:16]
Kay
Hey, guys. So this is surreal. So I wrote this email because I feel like I'm at a crossroads on my fitness journey. I started working out as of January 2025 and have been going at it consistently for 11. You guys have been a huge inspiration and driving force for me to keep bettering myself. And with your help and guidance, I feel like I have achieved a far better physique than he had expected. I have just completed maps on a ballic and have the entire RGB super bundle to go through. So that's very exciting. My driving force when I started out was football or soccer as you call it in America. I love playing football, but since I was about 20 years old, I have weighed about 220 pounds. So playing the sport I love felt really difficult. So I ended up just stopping. My feet and legs wouldn't connect to my mind as I wanted to. And every turn, chop and burst of speed turned sour as my legs burned out from the attempts. I have now dropped down to 190 pounds and I'm currently packing 97 pounds of muscle. And when last on an in body scanner, my butterfly Percentage was at 14.8%, although I think it's a little bit higher. Through my teens, I was very active playing football and volleyball, even playing volleyball at under 17s and under 19s for the Faroese national team. I'm not expecting to go back to that level. I just want to feel athletic again. So here's my question to you guys. Is there any form of workout routine or diet that will get my feet and legs to act like I want them to so that I can do like one chop and sprint away from someone without losing my balance or slowing down or does my age of 32 just limit that factor? Well, I could of course try some stuff out myself and see, but I really want to hear what you guys have to say about it. My big dream now is to get to play one more completed season of football where I feel proud of myself and feel good on the pitch.
- [76:20]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, good, good, Good question.
- [76:23]
Doug
This is cool. Well, what's really cool is that got the way. If you got the super bundle and you've just completed Anabolic Nexus performance, which would be the foundational thing we would do first and then, and then probably progress you in that direction athletically. But that's. That would lay a nice foundation in that pursuit.
- [76:41]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. Okay. There's also so just a unique situation because you played at a high level. So what you are referring to in terms of your performance, your benchmark is what you used to be able to do at a very high level. In other words, if you, if I were to take you out and test your athleticism right now, you would be remarkable. But compared to how you used to be, you feel slow and unresponsive. And I'm going to tell you the best way you're going to get back to if that's what you're looking for. It's not going to be gym workouts. Now, we can give you gym workouts that are athletic, but to make you feel the way you did before, the best thing you could do is a little bit of strength training and a lot of playing.
- [77:28]
Doug
Yeah.
- [77:28]
Sal Destefano
Okay. Nothing will rep. Nothing is going to replace getting on the field and playing in terms of giving you that feeling that you're looking for, that athletic feeling.
- [77:39]
Doug
So if I had you and we didn't have like a very. If you didn't say, hey, I need by this month, this, that and we had a nice timeframe, what it would look like would be taking you through performance the way it's laid out and then, then after that reducing to like a one day a week of it or like a, like a mass 15 performance and starting to train and go practice and go practice your sport because that'll lay a nice foundation of muscle. It's going to address some multiplanear stuff, mobility stuff, a little bit of endurance training. It's going to lay a nice little foundation and then we really start to ramp up the amount of sport that you're playing and reduce the time in the gym.
- [78:14]
Adam Schaefer
And honestly, all that volume is accountable wanted for in performance advanced. There's two major, like foundational workouts per week. But it's the skills that's highlighted the most. And we don't talk about this a lot because there's not a lot of people like very much focused on their sports specific. You know, you can be intentional about getting faster, getting more responsive with organizing your body. So you know, when you. When you go to move, you're efficient with your movement, which there is. There is a lot of value in that. You know, that does translate immediately to field play. And so if, if I were. And again, these skill training days aren't that long, so, you know, it could be anywhere from like 20 to 45 minutes. It's not going to be super fatiguing because it's. The reps are very intentional. And so it's really. It's just drilling. So if you want to, like, compare it to something, it would be like if I was practicing and drilling my specific movements. So I would recommend that. And then on top of that, even like getting in again, the actual gameplay in the movement of it and putting it all together. But you do lose that. You lose that ability to immediately access that kind of like quick and powerful movement ability and control.
- [79:33]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. I'm assuming you're pretty tall. How tall are you?
- [79:36]
Kay
I am 180cm.
- [79:40]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. What is that in feet is. He's a big guy. Especially if you played on the national team for Hollywood.
- [79:44]
Kay
I'm not. I'm not very big. I. My. I could jump real high.
- [79:49]
Sal Destefano
Okay.
- [79:50]
Kay
But you're also like, let's say I think it's 511.
- [79:53]
Justin Andrews
According to this is 5, 9. 180 is 5 9.
- [79:56]
Doug
You said 182.
- [79:57]
Sal Destefano
Oh, oh.
- [79:58]
Justin Andrews
182.
- [79:58]
Sal Destefano
Okay.
- [79:59]
Justin Andrews
Let me fix that.
- [79:59]
Sal Destefano
Right? Let's. Yeah. Okay.
- [80:00]
Justin Andrews
You said 182.
- [80:02]
Sal Destefano
Okay. Well, all right. Nonetheless. So when you're 5, 10. Okay. So keep. Yeah, 5, 10, 5. So keep this in mind.
- [80:08]
Doug
Right, right.
- [80:09]
Sal Destefano
That there's definitely a size component and a fitness component to what you're looking for, but there's also a skill component that you'll lose if you don't practice the skill often.
- [80:21]
Doug
Well, so.
- [80:22]
Sal Destefano
So, Matt, per. I. I like what Justin said.
- [80:24]
Doug
I love what just said. But I think what matters difference in all of our advice right now is that is when you want to do this. Like when do you want to be on the field again? Is it like by next summer? Is it like in a couple months or. Because I think so. Yeah.
- [80:36]
Kay
So right now we're out of season.
- [80:38]
Doug
Yeah.
- [80:40]
Kay
I'm playing Once a week with my friends, like an indoor game. So I'm keeping myself going.
- [80:47]
Sal Destefano
Good.
- [80:47]
Kay
And I'm actually. I am doing the maps performance right now.
- [80:52]
Adam Schaefer
Okay.
- [80:53]
Kay
I'm in phase one.
- [80:54]
Adam Schaefer
Okay.
- [80:54]
Kay
So. Because after maps on a bolic, I felt that my body after phase three, it, like, took a toll on me. I started feeling a bit of pain and something, and my endurance was really not there. Yeah, not there exactly.
- [81:11]
Doug
But.
- [81:11]
Kay
But I feel like I am getting to a place where I. I ran a 5k in 22 minutes the other month, last month. So my endurance is getting better.
- [81:25]
Doug
But the.
- [81:26]
Kay
The season starts in March, March, April.
- [81:29]
Sal Destefano
Okay.
- [81:30]
Doug
So reverse it. Right, Justin, Maybe January.
- [81:32]
Adam Schaefer
Start January, start Advanced. Advanced and just focus on power.
- [81:35]
Doug
Yeah.
- [81:36]
Sal Destefano
We'll send that to you. Performance advanced, Follow that in January. And then make sure you practice more soccer. And then diet wise, eat for performance.
- [81:46]
Kay
Yeah.
- [81:47]
Sal Destefano
Okay. So eat for performance. So whole natural foods, high protein. Make sure you eat carbohydrates.
- [81:51]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah.
- [81:52]
Sal Destefano
Gain enough energy and eat for performance. So judge your diet based on your performance, not on how you look. Okay.
- [81:59]
Doug
But what he's doing. What he's doing right now is great for right now. So what you're doing, running, performance, playing soccer once a week to kind of maintain. And then in January is we're going to follow Justin's protocol. Go to performance advance. That'll really ramp up the soccer. And then play as much soccer with it as you can.
- [82:14]
Kay
Yeah.
- [82:15]
Sal Destefano
Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah.
- [82:16]
Adam Schaefer
You get it back for sure.
- [82:17]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [82:18]
Adam Schaefer
If you just.
- [82:18]
Doug
That's a good plan right there. Yeah.
- [82:20]
Kay
I would be very thankful if. If that would be the case. My last complete season I played. I think I was 21.
- [82:29]
Adam Schaefer
So.
- [82:30]
Kay
So I will. It would be amazing if I could, like, stick to it. And the reason I stop is because I expect so much more of myself.
- [82:38]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, of course.
- [82:38]
Kay
And when I can't deliver, I get, like. What do you call it?
- [82:44]
Sal Destefano
Discouraged.
- [82:45]
Kay
Discouraged.
- [82:46]
Doug
Yeah.
- [82:46]
Kay
Thank you.
- [82:46]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to the club. Yeah.
- [82:48]
Sponsor Voice
Okay.
- [82:49]
Jessica
Okay.
- [82:49]
Doug
The one. The one mistake that you could make. Okay. Is when you start to really pick up soccer more than once, once a week, and it goes to two, three times a week and you're practicing more, is to try and maintain the strength training along with it. Make sure you reduce that. Yeah. So once you get to a place where you're playing, if you're playing soccer three times a week or more, weight training needs to be one time. That's it. No more.
- [83:13]
Kay
Okay.
- [83:13]
Doug
So that's a mistake that athletes will make, and that's where you'll get Injured.
- [83:17]
Sal Destefano
Is if you save the intensity for the sport.
- [83:20]
Doug
Yes. As like right now, your plan's perfect. The match performance one day a week of soccer. January comes, you're going to follow Justin's performance advance chance. But you start hitting soccer four times. Three, four times or more a week. Scale back on the, on the weight training should only be like one day a week.
- [83:36]
Sal Destefano
Yep.
- [83:37]
Kay
Okay, so it would be like a full foundational workout for like an hour.
- [83:40]
Sal Destefano
No, like three, four exercises. That's it.
- [83:43]
Doug
Yes. Very, very minimal. Very, very minimal. At that point that. That is going to make you great on the field and protect you from getting injured.
- [83:50]
Sal Destefano
That's right.
- [83:51]
Doug
Your mistake that you could make that people make every. Everybody man, is they try and keep the weightlifting routine up. And now they're playing soccer four days a week because they. And they. That's where they get hurt.
- [84:00]
Sal Destefano
That's right.
- [84:01]
Kay
Okay, so. So we're thinking like four compound movements.
- [84:04]
Sal Destefano
Or like three, three, three, four compound movements at most. Yep.
- [84:08]
Kay
Okay, cool.
- [84:09]
Sal Destefano
Yep, yep.
- [84:10]
Doug
And even at that. And even at moderate intensity does not need to be. Going to fail. Don't be. Just because you're. Now you're only doing one day, don't go, oh, I gotta go to failure because I'm only doing this one day. You're just, you're just trying to maintain the muscle and strength that you've built in the off season.
- [84:22]
Sal Destefano
You're not trying to progress in the gym.
- [84:23]
Doug
No.
- [84:24]
Sal Destefano
Trying to progress on.
- [84:25]
Doug
And it takes very. It takes very little.
- [84:27]
Sal Destefano
That's right.
- [84:27]
Doug
Volume and intensity to maintain the muscle mass you built. So just you get in there, do those four good compound lifts. Do it at moderate intensity. Get out. It's soccer time. And that's your focus.
- [84:37]
Sal Destefano
Soccer time.
- [84:38]
Adam Schaefer
It's soccer time.
- [84:39]
Kay
Soccer time.
- [84:41]
Doug
You like that? Well, I'd love to hear back from UK you'd be a fun person to talk to after. After January. So if you.
- [84:50]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, yeah.
- [84:51]
Doug
I'd love to circle back and hear. Hear how your. Hear how it went from you.
- [84:54]
Kay
Yeah, of course. That would be. That would be very cool.
- [84:57]
Doug
Yes. All right.
- [84:58]
Jessica
And.
- [84:58]
Kay
And I just have to say that, like, I just started. It feels like I've just started working out and to be here talking with you guys already. If you told me this a year ago, I would have told you to take a hike.
- [85:10]
Sal Destefano
This is.
- [85:11]
Kay
This is really incredible, guys. And I'm so thankful that you are willing to have me on.
- [85:15]
Sal Destefano
Of course, man. We'll have you back on.
- [85:17]
Doug
All right.
- [85:17]
Kay
Okay, perfect.
- [85:19]
Doug
Take it easy, brother. Thank you.
- [85:21]
Sal Destefano
Thank you.
- [85:21]
Doug
Bye.
- [85:22]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, just athletic training is totally, just to put it differently. Okay. And this is even more pronounced. The more advanced or more elite you are in athleticism, the more pronounced this is. So just to illustrate this for people.
- [85:36]
Adam Schaefer
Your base is already there.
- [85:37]
Sal Destefano
If you took an athlete that was at a very high level, college level, definitely pro level, but like you're really good and you improve, you increase their strength by 20%, they're gonna, their timing is gonna be off suddenly. So you have to match your strength, gains everything. All your gains match the skill. The skill has to follow, otherwise it throws you off. And then suddenly at that level, I'm stronger, but my timing's off a little bit. My performance isn't any better. It might even be worse.
- [86:07]
Adam Schaefer
Your conditioning, your endurance.
- [86:08]
Sal Destefano
So it's a very. Everything, it's totally different.
- [86:11]
Justin Andrews
Our next caller is Jessica from California.
- [86:13]
Sal Destefano
Hi Jessica, how you doing?
- [86:14]
Doug
Hello.
- [86:16]
Sal Destefano
Hi. What's happening?
- [86:17]
Jessica
This is so wild. I know everybody says that when they come on, they're like, ah, this is so weird. I've been listening to you guys for a while, so it's really awesome. Thank you for taking my call. I really appreciate it as most people do. I guess I will just read my email. It's quite long. I hope you'll bear with me trying to provide all the relevant data and details in here. So I here's my story. I'm a 49 year old married, working mother of three. One of my kids is in college, but I still have a 14 year old and a 9 year old at home. For many years I was a serious long distance runner and occasional triathlete. And I sort of lifted a little bit in there, but not seriously. I wasn't seriously weight training. I was also a yoga teacher in my 20s and continued to practice yoga and Pilates as a complement to my running in my 30s and early 40s. My third pregnancy and perimenopause both kind of really threw me in for a loop. And among other extremely annoying symptoms, I developed a lot of hip pain and tendonitis and had to take long breaks from running. And for the first time outside of pregnancy, I gained about 20 pounds. I finally had to give up running entirely and subsequently went all in on lifting about two and a half years ago, by the way. I was ultimately diagnosed with moderate hip dysplasia, labral tears in both hips, and early signs of arthritis in both hips. So that's crappy. When I first got into lifting, I went for traditional lifts. I actually started with strong lifts, five by five. And I did try to chase the deep squat, but my MO is going too hard, so I went too hard, too heavy, too deep. And I'm pretty sure that that led to more hip problems. I'm pretty sure that spring I got a new labral tear and so I kind of had to back off. I realized that, okay, after my diagnosis, like, I have shallow hip sockets, so deep squatting may not be the best exercise for me. Another thing that I had to come to grips with was that pain means stop. So as a distance runner, you get really good at ignoring pain and discomfort and powering through. So when things would hurt in the gym, I just was like, oh, that just means I have to work harder. So eventually I had six months of really good physical therapy with a great pt. I got into your podcast and I started trying to accept the gospel of rest. So now I try to focus on good form, rest and recovery. And I really am trying to work with my body rather than against it. As part of that, I realized I've been under eating for years. That was just my lifestyle. Not too bad. I wasn't eating like 1200 calories a day, but I was definitely in a calorie deficit. And even up until last year, 2024, I know I was in a calorie deficit all year because I was tracking. I pretty much, I don't know if I was a deficit. Let's just say my maintenance was low because I lived at 17, 1800 calories a day and I'm 5 7. So in January of this past year, I decided to try my first reverse diet. I made it up to about 2150 with a slow increase over three months while I was running Maps Anabolic. Then I did a little bit of a cut for about eight to ten weeks, cut back to 1800 and did performance 15. And then I switched to a two day a week full body workout at around maintenance. Calories like, like 1900ish. So what I'm trying to do now is start. I just started Muscle Mommy a couple weeks ago and I'm trying to do another kind of bulk during this program. As an aside, I also walk about 9 to 10,000 steps a day. Like a low day for me would be about 8,000, a high day about 12,000. So it averages out to about 10,000. Let me give you some data from my DEXA scans. I've been getting approximately quarterly DEXA scans for about two years. So between December end of December 2024 and a recent DEXA scan I had at the end of October, I have gained about 7 pounds of lean mass. And I took my body fat percentage down from about 29.1 to about 28%. So a little bit of a decrease, even though technically according my scan, I gained a little bit of fat, like about 0.4 pounds of fat over that time. So I'm really pumped about the lean mass increase even if it's not 7 pounds. Like if there's error, even if it was 5 pounds or 4 pounds, I think at 49, to gain that much muscle in a year or 10 months is pretty good. But I'm frustrated by body fat percentage not really going down. I realize now in the past that I was kind of skinny fat. In January of 2024, I was at 33% body fat. So now that I'm at 28, that's better. But as much as I work out and as active as I am, my goal is to get more into the range of 25%. I gained muscle everywhere, but especially in my arms and my back and my chest. I put a lot of details in the email, but the bottom line is I'm very strong in my upper body and like I'm 90th percentile for lean mass for my age in my arms and my trunk. But my DEXA scan says I'm in the 10th percentile of lean mass for my legs. Also, my fat percentage of my legs is much higher than my body overall. So I can tell I'm getting stronger everywhere and I'm happy about that. My shoulders, my arms, my back, they look awesome. But progress is slower than I would like in both strength gains in the legs and in fat loss. Okay, I told you this was long. A lot of background. Now I'm ready to get to my questions. So my first question is, considering my history of hip injury and having to modify a lot of leg stuff, what's the best way to go about building up my leg strength? I definitely have gotten stronger. So I've gone from, for example, being able to only do body weight Bulgarian split squats to Now I hold 30 pounds while I'm doing them for 12 reps. Same for step ups. I went from body weight step ups to holding a 30 pound dumbbell. My hip thrust I got up to 195, so I'm definitely getting stronger. But. But I can do more with my upper body. So for example, I can only do a sumo squat holding like 40 pounds, but I can overhead barbell press 75 pounds. I can curl 22.5 pounds for reps with my biceps, but I'm only holding 15s in each hand when I do Bulgarians. So it just seems nuts to me that I can do heavier weight in some of my upper body lifts than in my lower body. I'm doing muscle, mommy. But it just doesn't seem like it has enough lower body work towards correcting this huge difference in body composition and strength between my upper and lower body. So how, if at all, can I modify the workout? Can I add. Substitute. You know, substitute in a low. A lower body lift into the workouts or something just to get myself more. More balanced?
- [94:00]
Doug
Jessica. Jessica, I love you.
- [94:01]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. So hold on.
- [94:02]
Doug
You're so great.
- [94:03]
Sal Destefano
Let me put this all in a nutshell. Is that okay if I kind of summarize real quick? Okay. You increased your calories. Body fat percentage went down. You got stronger. You built more muscle everywhere. Lots. Lots of. You had some injuries in both hips and lower body, and your M.O. is to overdo it.
- [94:24]
Jessica
Yes.
- [94:25]
Sal Destefano
Okay. What's the complaint?
- [94:28]
Doug
She wants to be more muscular.
- [94:30]
Sal Destefano
What's the complaint? I want to hear.
- [94:33]
Jessica
I just. I. I want to be stronger in my lower body, and I want to lose fat in my lower body.
- [94:38]
Sal Destefano
Now, now, you do realize that it's. It's not only normal, but it's healthy for a woman to store more body fat in the lower body.
- [94:45]
Doug
Not only that, but that's.
- [94:46]
Sal Destefano
That's.
- [94:46]
Doug
For over a decade. We beat the hell out of our hips.
- [94:49]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. So. So. So that's a. You're gonna have more body fat in your lower body as a woman. That's just. You're supposed to. It's actually a healthy sign. So that's number. That's number 1 1.
- [94:59]
Doug
Okay.
- [94:59]
Sal Destefano
So let's focus on it. You got way stronger. Also, remember when you're doing a squat, if I overhead press 45 pounds, but I do a squat holding 30, you're forgetting that your body weight's in the squat. You're not overhead pressing your body weight plus 45, so your legs are much stronger than your upper body. Okay. So that. Also consider that. Would you say your heart if I were to ask your husband or your friends that really care about you, and I'm like, hey, it's just a. Jessica too hard on herself. What would they say?
- [95:32]
Jessica
Yes.
- [95:33]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [95:34]
Jessica
I mean, I call myself a recovering perfectionist. I'm trying. I'm trying.
- [95:40]
Sal Destefano
You are. And I think you're being. You are kicking butt.
- [95:43]
Doug
Yeah.
- [95:44]
Sal Destefano
You've done incredible. And you're recovering from probably a decade of not being so kind to yourself, and you're doing really? Well, now I could give you some advice. First of all, muscle. Mommy's got plenty of volume.
- [95:55]
Doug
Yeah, that's not the answer.
- [95:56]
Sal Destefano
And especially lower body volume, not more.
- [95:58]
Doug
Lower body strength.
- [95:59]
Sal Destefano
No, no, no. You're doing everything. You're good right now, but you're a perfect candidate for having a personal trainer work with you through this process. I know you're in the Bay Area. Are we close to you? Are you near San Jose?
- [96:11]
Jessica
No, no, I'm East Bay. San Jose is like an hour and a half away.
- [96:14]
Sal Destefano
Okay, forget it then. I think you would be a perfect candidate for coaching or personal training because they'd be able to move you through this process. By the way, pounds of fat gained on, on a DEXA scan don't matter. Body fat percentage matters. So if you gained 4 pounds of body fat but your body fat percentage went down, you got leaner. So it doesn't matter what you're. So in other words, 10 pounds of body fat on a 100 pound person is a higher percentage than 15 pounds of body fat on a 200 pound person.
- [96:52]
Jessica
Yeah. Well, and I can tell from my progress photos, like, I'm definitely leaner, like.
- [96:57]
Doug
Even though I'm heavier. You're doing so good. Honestly, the. You, you would probably, you would probably see the progression in your upper body and your lower body at the same pace if we didn't have decades of beating our hips up.
- [97:09]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [97:10]
Doug
So I know if you've been listening to us long enough, this is why we scream at people about endurance running. It is so rough on the body. And you said it to us already that you were the type of person. Oh, that pain, just keep running through it, you know what I'm saying? Like, and you did that for years. And so.
- [97:26]
Jessica
20 years. 20 years.
- [97:27]
Doug
20 years. Okay. And then yet in a year, you've already gotten strong in those legs.
- [97:32]
Sal Destefano
It's crazy.
- [97:33]
Doug
So you're, you're, you're doing incredible.
- [97:35]
Sal Destefano
Really well.
- [97:35]
Doug
Incredible.
- [97:36]
Sal Destefano
The good news is you're going to keep progressing.
- [97:38]
Doug
Yes.
- [97:38]
Sal Destefano
So, so whatever you did with the.
- [97:40]
Doug
20 years of whatever, but the answer isn't more. No more intensity. More stuff to legs. Just keep the pace, girl.
- [97:48]
Sal Destefano
No, you're. Keep it. You're doing so good. You got to be kind. Your body adapts and, and, and, and I'm gonna relax into this. Just relax into it. You're doing great. Just chill into what you're doing. Trust the process like you have been.
- [98:03]
Adam Schaefer
It'll move you so much further if you do.
- [98:05]
Doug
Yeah.
- [98:05]
Sal Destefano
The fact that you got leaner, bumped Your calories got stronger. You're like, there's. I mean, what else could we do right now? There's not much. I just keep going. Yeah, just keep going. Then the worst thing you can do right now is add more. That's absolutely not what you should do. Yeah.
- [98:20]
Doug
Especially to an area that's already been beat to death for 20 years. Like, that's not, it doesn't need to be beat through the weights now. Like, that would be the, the word that will set you back if we're trying to build.
- [98:30]
Sal Destefano
I think you would benefit from working with a coach through this process. I could have somebody call you because I think it would be beneficial just to guide you through this process because what will happen for someone like you, and you're probably like this in your career as well, where you like get after it and you go for it. What would really help someone like you is pull their brains back for them to help you get out of your way.
- [98:51]
Doug
Yes.
- [98:52]
Sal Destefano
You know, so you got that person to bounce off of like, and remind.
- [98:54]
Doug
You how awesome you are.
- [98:56]
Jessica
You know, I was thinking about that just this morning. I was thinking about, what are they going to say? They're probably going to tell me, I need a coach to tell me to chill.
- [99:06]
Sal Destefano
Just through the process, through this process. But honest to God, you're, you're doing, I mean, yeah, I read your email before you came on. I heard you talk about it and.
- [99:15]
Adam Schaefer
I'm like, you're doing, you're very hard on yourself.
- [99:17]
Sal Destefano
You're doing really good.
- [99:19]
Jessica
Yeah, well, I have been trying to do this on my end. I'm big on data and evidence and so I've been trying to follow an evidence based process. I've been trying to keep track of everything. But honestly, like, you know, when I was younger I just had so much energy and I could do so many things and I was so physically strong. And then this whole thing with being in my 40s and perimenopause and everything being different, it's been a real challenge. It's just been very challenging.
- [99:52]
Sal Destefano
We all get older, but you also have three kids, a job, a house. Like, yeah, daily habits are completely different. It is not the same. It is not the same. But you're doing really well. I mean, you're doing exceptionally well. So just like stay the course, relax into it because you've got another three or four years of consistent progress with this. Like, literally you've got like another three years ahead of you where you're just going to continue to progress at a nice pace. So long as you don't overdo it and get in your own way.
- [100:24]
Jessica
That's the key. Yes, And I do that.
- [100:27]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [100:27]
Adam Schaefer
Well, that's why.
- [100:28]
Doug
I mean, that's why Sal is suggesting the coach thing. I mean, if you're open to that, we'll have one of our coaches call you, and they can talk to you, and you can decide if you want to do something like that or not.
- [100:36]
Sal Destefano
Yep.
- [100:37]
Jessica
I mean, I think I was thinking about that this morning. Like, maybe. Maybe it's time. Maybe it's time. Because it's not that I don't have discipline or consistency or even knowledge.
- [100:51]
Sal Destefano
Correct.
- [100:52]
Doug
But you're the best client to coach. You're my favorite type of client to coach because I know if I tell you to do it, you're going to go do it.
- [100:59]
Sal Destefano
And, Data, if you just put your.
- [101:00]
Doug
Trust in me, that'll. Okay, he knows what he's doing. He's been doing this for a long time. He's probably trained a lot of people like me. You just trust the process.
- [101:07]
Sal Destefano
Jessica, for someone like you, this is really important to hear. Okay? Data is very important. If it connects you to your body, if it pulls you away from connection to your body, data is no good. And so there definitely are people, and many of them fit that kind of personality profile that you have have, where the data becomes the idol. And I start to ignore my body, and I start to look at the numbers and the data and compare and what's happening here. And if it disconnects you from your body, it is not such a good point.
- [101:38]
Doug
Because if I was coaching you, I would have some reason. For some reason, we did a. You did a DEXA scan, and the DEXA scan didn't come out exactly how you want it, but I knew in my heart we're moving the right direction. I would have to counter you.
- [101:48]
Sal Destefano
You know what I did?
- [101:49]
Doug
You would go, adam, the data. We're going the wrong way. And I'd be like, no, we're not. So stay the course.
- [101:53]
Adam Schaefer
I know we're all to myself, and I'll show you till way later.
- [101:57]
Sal Destefano
That's right. This is what we would do with clients with you like you is I would get the measurements and I wouldn't tell you.
- [102:02]
Adam Schaefer
Yep.
- [102:02]
Sal Destefano
Like, no, I'm not going to tell you. It's for me, not for you.
- [102:05]
Adam Schaefer
You're progressing.
- [102:05]
Doug
That's all you need.
- [102:06]
Sal Destefano
Yeah.
- [102:09]
Jessica
All right. All right. I think I needed to hear this. I kind of knew you were going to say this, but I guess I just needed somebody to Tell me you're.
- [102:16]
Sal Destefano
Going to do so well with the coach. You will do so well with the coach. I'm going to have someone call you. I'm excited to see what happens.
- [102:23]
Jessica
Great. I do have another question which is that I just am really finding bulking quite challenging. I found it difficult the first time too. I'm trying, I really am trying to get my calories up, but I'm consistently hitting my protein, my BMR again. According to the DEXA scan, it's like I'm something like 1640 at rest RMR or something like that. So I'm trying to. I know I can handle more calories. I'm up to about 2,200 calories on average right now. And I am just so uncomfortable. Like I'm physically uncomfortable. Like I feel bloated, I feel overfull. I wake up full from dinner the night before. I think it's affecting my sleep. I do eat mostly whole natural foods. I really don't eat junk food or fast food. But that said, I can't meet my protein goal without at least one scoop of protein powder a day. And I'm considering including two just so I don't, you know, because it's just easier to take a smoothie or something like that than to feel like I'm force feeding myself another piece of chicken. Yeah, I have stopped weighing myself because that definitely messes with my head. So I don't weigh myself but I can definitely tell I'm putting on fat. And I guess that's all part for the part for the course. It's just I do want to trust this process. It's just, it feels like it's impossible to imagine getting up to like 2,500.
- [103:56]
Doug
It's not, it's not as difficult as you think. And there's, there's multiple options. There's not one way only to do this. I doubt I would ever do it through chicken breasts that produce so much satiety. With you it would be like this all your meals. Whatever, whatever. I don't know what your carb of choice is. Rice, sweet potato. I don't know what you're doing.
- [104:13]
Sal Destefano
Doing.
- [104:14]
Doug
Add one ounce every meal. Okay. One more ounce of that carbohydrate, we'll do that. Or if the shake is convenient and you like it and that's easy on you. Digest like that's fine too. It doesn't need to be this like add a meal and, and, and everyone wants to go to protein because protein is this great healthy satiate. But if it's hard for you and you feel bloated from it. I'm not going to force you to eat a protein meal, especially if you're already hitting your protein.
- [104:39]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. But there's two sides to this. There's digestive issues, which if you're experiencing digestive issues, then we need to examine what you're eating and maybe identify any intolerances. And then there's this. When people are disconnected from their body, what can happen to somebody who chronically used to over, sorry, under eat and over train is when they feed themselves appropriately, it's uncomfortable. Okay. So it might also be that. It might also be that I'm so used to being underfed and feeling what that feels like, which feels like empty, which feels like, oh, everything's empty. And I feel. And then you start to identify, you start to connect that to good, then feeling fed is uncomfortable. And so this is what I mean by the disconnect from the body. So I've worked with people like that where like we're feeding them appropriately. I can't eat more than this much food. And so we start to talk a little bit. It's like you just don't know what it feels like to be properly fed. Now that's separate from digestive issues. If you're experiencing legit digestive issues, then I'd want to examine the foods that you're eating and maybe move towards things that are easier to digest, avoiding things like gluten, dairy, sometimes legumes can sometimes cause issues, which is totally different now. And digestive issues tend to be much more pronounced. It's like, man, at the end of the night, I look like I'm pregnant. My belly is really painfully bloated. Or gas or constipation, heartburn, constipation. But sometimes it's just, it's uncomfortable because I'm not used to being fed.
- [106:08]
Jessica
Yeah, I think it might be a combination of both. Like, I definitely feel like kind of bloated at the end of the day. I do eat a ton of dairy because Greek yogurt is like one of my go tos for protein and I like it. And I do eat a lot of beans for fiber. I actually do better with beans. Like on a day I have beans, I feel like my digestion is better. I eat some bread, not a ton, just naturally. I do eat other grains like oats and rice and bananas.
- [106:40]
Sal Destefano
You could try, try psyllium husk with, with, with a couple meals as a fiber. If it's a fiber issue, that'll make A big difference.
- [106:49]
Jessica
I'm definitely. I've tracked fiber. I easily. I'll get 30 grams of fiber a day. I get a lot of fiber, but.
- [106:55]
Sal Destefano
There'S soluble and insoluble fiber. And some fibers can cause bloat. And so psyllium husk doesn't do that. Psyllium husk isn't. Your body isn't doing anything with it other than it just helps things move through. So if you don't have good.
- [107:07]
Jessica
I've tried that.
- [107:08]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. So if you don't have good motility, then that may help. Just give it a shot.
- [107:12]
Jessica
I should try that. But I also do think that there is a thing in what you said about sort of like the feeling of being fed because. Yeah, I. I actually had this thought the other day of, like, I don't, like, never feeling hungry. Weird. It's weird to me.
- [107:32]
Sal Destefano
Like, you know how we tell people, listen to your body. Okay.
- [107:37]
Doug
Ignore yours.
- [107:38]
Sal Destefano
Yeah. I.
- [107:39]
Doug
There.
- [107:39]
Sal Destefano
Are you listening to your body works when you. When you understand the signals of your body and when they're not distorted. Yeah. So. So there are many times when I have a client and I'm like, ignore your body right now. And we're going to rebuild a new relationship with it where it's like, I'll give you an example. For me, I force fed myself for so many years that not getting stuff from a meal felt like I was hungry. And then I realized, like, wait, I'm not hungry. I'm just not stuffed. So. And that took me a while to kind of figure out.
- [108:09]
Doug
This is why I like the strategy of 1-2 oz of the carb in every meal because it's like, so subtle. And if you came back to me and said, like, oh, Adam, that extra ounce was too much, I'd be like, one ounce of one ounce of rice or one ounce of carb is not gonna make you feel stuffed. Of a difference. That's definitely psychological. And so I could creep in those extra calories spread out over your meal. So it doesn't feel like this coaching is gonna.
- [108:32]
Sal Destefano
You're gonna really do well with coaching.
- [108:33]
Doug
Yeah. This is all stuff that we work on. And you know what? We. There's not. None of us have the perfect answer right now. We're throwing a bunch of things at you that we might. But this is what your coach experiment with it. Your coach would say, hey, this week we're gonna do this. And then you feedback. You're like, well, that's. That was horrible. And I didn't feel it. Okay. Cool. We'll try this. Now, until you guys figure out the perfect recipe to get you into a good, healthy reverse diet, which, by the way, is really going to support this leg. Leg building you want to do, because that might also be part of our problem right now is you're so at under. You're under calorie and just at maintenance. That and you. And you're doing all the right things. Strength training. And the body wants to grow, but it's saying, hey, you're not giving enough building blocks. You're not giving. I mean, you want these legs to build some muscle them. But I need more. I need more nutrients.
- [109:12]
Sal Destefano
But I will say gaining seven pounds of lean body mass is phenomenal. That's phenomenal.
- [109:18]
Doug
But she could also. That she could be getting towards her peak until she gets to more calories. So you may be tapping out of what your body is capable to do with the nutrients you're giving it. And this is where. Why you might be feeling like you're not putting on any more muscle in there. We gotta get these calories up.
- [109:33]
Jessica
Yeah, yeah.
- [109:35]
Doug
But slowly and correctly.
- [109:37]
Sal Destefano
And I'm going to help you. You're going to love. Yeah. I'm gonna have someone call you.
- [109:40]
Doug
Got you.
- [109:40]
Sal Destefano
This should be great.
- [109:41]
Doug
And then I'd love to talk to you in like three months because I think you're gonna be in such a cool place.
- [109:45]
Jessica
Yeah, yeah. I'll be very curious. I mean, my, my idea is to go through muscle Mommy. Sort of bulking and kind of natural over the holidays, too. Good time to do it. And then I want to set myself up for a cut so I can take off a little bit more body fat. And I don't want to be extreme, but I'm going to turn 50 next summer and I want to look great, I want to feel great, I want to feel strong. I want to be able to do some strict pull ups. I can already do some strict pull ups, but I want to be able to do like 10 strict pull ups.
- [110:18]
Sal Destefano
Wow, that's a big goal. Yeah. You know, you probably got really good genetics being a triathlete. You just. You just never really. You're tapping into them now.
- [110:26]
Doug
Just promise me, Jessica, you'll listen to our coaches. They're all trained by us. We took a. We were very, very tough to even come work for us. They're all very, very good. Good. And they will.
- [110:35]
Jessica
I like being an A student, so.
- [110:36]
Sal Destefano
I'll listen to the kids. All right, good.
- [110:39]
Doug
I like, I like, I like to hear that.
- [110:40]
Sal Destefano
This will be great.
- [110:41]
Doug
All right, Jessica, thank you so much.
- [110:44]
Jessica
I really appreciate it, guys.
- [110:46]
Sal Destefano
Thank you.
- [110:47]
Jessica
Bye.
- [110:49]
Sal Destefano
Yeah, she's. That's, that's a great client to work with a coach.
- [110:52]
Doug
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [110:53]
Adam Schaefer
So open to educated.
- [110:55]
Sal Destefano
My sense, we're not coaching her. So you'll figure this out as you work with someone. But my sense is the discomfort for meeting is really just.
- [111:02]
Doug
No, that was a great call. You hit it on the head. Right? Because I could tell by the way she looked and responded. I'm like, oh, you're right. But that, but my advice is spot on then, because that's a perfect way to do it with someone because you add. If you add one ounce, I can't do. Yeah, it's like one. If one ounce is like a couple spoonfuls, you're not telling me I just.
- [111:19]
Sal Destefano
Bloated you for two.
- [111:20]
Doug
So that's how. That's when you know somebody has that bad relationship with. That is when they'll come back. So. But no wonder, because eating a full and then choosing something like a chicken breast to add, that would feel. That's so satiety producing and dry and boring. It's like, oh, yeah, that's not gonna feel good. No.
- [111:37]
Sal Destefano
Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram indpump Media. We'll see you there.
- [111:40]
Justin Andrews
Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super bundle@mindpumpmedia.com the RGB Super Bundle includes Maps, Anabolic Maps, Performance and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free resources@mindpumpmedia.com if you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.