2799: The Ultimate Showdown: Which Modality is BEST For Fat Loss and Muscle Gain?

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth

Episode 2799: The Ultimate Showdown – Which Modality is BEST For Fat Loss and Muscle Gain?
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, Doug Egge
Date: February 21, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the Mind Pump crew takes on the most heated and controversial debates in the fitness world, comparing popular training modalities for fat loss and muscle gain:

• Free Weights vs. Machines
• Slow Reps vs. Fast Reps
• Strict Form vs. Looser Form
• Full Range of Motion vs. Short Range of Motion
• HIIT Cardio vs. Steady State Cardio

Sal, Adam, and Justin dig into both the science and their extensive coaching experience, aiming to bust dogmatic thinking and help listeners understand how (and when) each method should be used. The show also features lively listener Q&A on topics ranging from overtraining, muscle-building roadblocks, long-term health, and troubleshooting difficult health conditions such as SIBO and mold exposure.

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Segment Breakdown & Key Insights

1. The Ultimate Showdown: Fat Loss & Muscle Gain Modalities

[04:09–24:59]

Free Weights vs. Machines

• Framing the Debate: Most people focus only on muscle hypertrophy, but the hosts stress that strength, function, mobility, and exercise fit to the individual are equally important (05:08).
• Short-Term vs. Long-Term Gains:
  • Short studies often show similar gains for both, but Sal argues longer-term adaptations (skill, CNS, function) favor free weights; machines plateau sooner (06:40-10:00).
  • Quote (Sal, 05:55): “Machines don’t work well for everybody. Free weights, I can adapt to anyone. The free weight adapts to your body... A machine is designed for a five foot nine man.”
  • Adam notes: Machines can be great tools as regressions or for injury/rehab, but if your only goal is maximal muscle gain, free weights have the edge.

Slow Reps vs. Fast Reps (Tempo)

• Risk & Results:
  • For muscle building, both are similar. However, slow reps (e.g., 4:2:2) are lower risk, especially for most gym-goers.
  • Fast, explosive reps translate better to athletic performance, but injury risk is much higher for the average trainee (14:35-18:49).
  • Quote (Sal, 17:58): “If you’ve been strength training for years... and you decide next week I’m going to start going 1-1-1, real careful, go real light, because you got a lot of muscle, you got a lot of strength, you’re not used to moving quickly... Injury city for people.”
  • Adam’s take: Novelty wins; the rep speed that’s different from your norm is what likely grows muscle fastest, but use caution (17:36-18:50).

Full Range of Motion (ROM) vs. Short ROM

• Best for Most: Full range is best for almost everyone; builds more muscle and transferable strength.
  • Short ROM is only for elite athletes or to bust through sticking points (20:00-22:42).
  • Quote (Sal, 20:20): “There are applications for short range of motion… but otherwise it’s always full range of motion.”
  • Justin and Adam add: Short ROM often aids in skill preservation for pro athletes but is otherwise a compromise.

HIIT Cardio vs. Steady State

• HIIT Pros & Cons: Burns more calories, preserves muscle, and improves athletic performance but is not appropriate for most due to intensity and risk.
• Steady State Wins for Most: Lower risk, easier to recover from, universally applicable—especially for those seeking fat loss and aesthetics (23:19-24:59).
• Quote (Adam, 24:59): “If we’re talking about general, get ripped, get in shape, aesthetics... steady state all day long.”

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2. Listener Q&A: Coaching & Case Studies

[60:12–103:02]

Overtraining, Reward and Food Mindset (Jesse from Alberta)

• Issue: Training 5-6 days a week, cardio, 30,000 steps daily, fears scaling back means losing muscle or having to eat less (61:16-68:27).
• Advice:
  • Scaling back is safe—likely will lead to more muscle and better metabolism if strength training is prioritized.
  • Quote (Sal, 64:04): “You’ll do less work and get the same result in terms of body fat... you’ll actually have more muscle, strength, and energy.”
  • Track muscle/fat changes and don’t fear the scale; body may thrive on less (65:00).
  • Add mobility; more is not always better.
  • Takeaway: Sometimes “busy to be busy” is less effective than focused effort. Consider experiment for a few months with less—worst case, you can always go back.

Rebuilding After Injury / Tennis Elbow (Matthew from Nebraska & Brian from Minnesota)

• Theme: Returning to training with joint or tendon pain after periods off (72:52-87:10).
• Coaches advise prioritizing correctional exercise, mobility, rotational/unilateral work (MAPS Symmetry, Performance), and skipping heavy bilateral work until stable.
  • Quote (Adam, 77:17): “Once a year, make sure you do either Symmetry or MAPS Performance. That’ll do a good job of addressing imbalances.”
  • Sal: “Once you get rid of the pain, that doesn’t mean you’re all the way back to where you need to be.”
  • Refrain from chasing PRs for a cycle or two of corrective work.

Stubborn Physique & Healing from SIBO/Mold (Abigail from South Carolina)

• Problem: SIBO recurrence, severe inflammation, fatigue, brain fog, and no physique response despite strict diet and training. Mold discovered in home (92:18–103:02).
• Mind Pump’s Approach:
  • “When you’re fighting something like mold/sibo, muscle gain or fat loss should not be the goal—support recovery first.”
  • Keep training easy: 2-3 days a week, low volume, only mild-to-moderate effort. Use sauna, focus on gentle recovery.
  • Quote (Sal, 98:21): “Mild to moderate at best. You push your body too hard with any kind of stress and you’re gonna crash... right now, everything should be used to support that [healing].”
  • If moving is needed due to mold, deep clean or discard all porous items; spores travel.
  • Individual sensitivity to mold varies, so even “small” findings may be problematic.

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3. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Individualizing Tools:
  • Adam (04:43): “They’re all tools... people get in camps… ‘this is the way’ or ‘this is better’ and that’s all they do.”
• On Machine/Free Weight Studies:
  • Sal (06:17): “There’s no year-long studies. At best are [up to] 16 weeks. Machines plateau, free weights keep progressing.”
• On Athletic Performance:
  • Sal (16:25): “For athletic performance, 1-1-1 is a silly argument. Duh. That translates to the field way better.”
• On Recovery Trap:
  • Adam (72:34): “His body’s just doing what it can just to recover. It doesn’t ever adapt and get stronger... he’s constant[ly] in the recovery trap.”
• On Mold Clean-Up:
  • Sal (97:25): “You gotta throw everything away and clean everything with anti-mold stuff... I’ve heard so many horror stories... [when] they brought the mold with them.”

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4. Fun & Relatable asides

• Childhood jobs: hosts share their hustles — from mowing lawns, dog walking, working with family (41:04–47:11).
• Mind Pump banter: Debating gym filming etiquette, coloring book nostalgia, and parenting lessons sneaking into the fitness talk.

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Key Takeaways

• No Ultimate Winner—But Better Tools for Each Job: Almost every training modality has value, but free weights, slow tempo, and full ROM are the must-haves for long-term progress and safety, unless you’re an elite athlete with specific needs.
• Stop Overcomplicating – Simpler Often Wins: Overtraining, excessive cardio, or frantically combining everything is less productive than focused strength training, good recovery, and mobility.
• Respect Your Body’s Signals During Health Setbacks: Sickness or toxic exposures (mold, SIBO) require scaling back and shifting goals toward recovery, not aesthetics or performance.
• Training Should Serve Your Life, Not the Other Way Around: If your training is interfering with family, work, or general well-being, it’s time to reassess and rebalance.
• Consistency with “Right Dose” Trumps All: More isn’t better—better is better.

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Notable Timestamps

• [04:09] – Start of Ultimate Showdown: Modality Debates
• [10:19] – Dysfunction and adaptation: Machine vs. free weight for years
• [15:16] – Novelty and adaptation with rep speed
• [18:16] – Explosive reps: Risks/benefits
• [20:00] – Full vs. Partial Range of Motion
• [23:19] – HIIT vs. Steady State Cardio
• [61:16] – Jesse’s overtraining & “earned eating” discussion
• [77:17] – The role of MAPS Symmetry & Performance for joint health
• [92:18] – Mold/SIBO case: Abigail’s story
• [98:21] – Why you must scale training during health crises

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Final Thoughts

The Mind Pump hosts deliver a refreshingly honest and science-backed take on the most controversial fitness topics, using both evidence and real-world experience. For listeners confused by dogmatic advice, this episode clarifies when to use each tool in your fitness arsenal — and reminds everyone that health and balance come before chasing "more."

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Find More: mindpumppodcast.com | IG: @mindpumpmedia

Transcript

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[Podcast Host Intro]

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[Sal Destefano]

your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts, Sal Destefano, Adam Schafer and Justin Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast in the world. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we had callers call in and we got to coach them live on air. But this was after the Intro. Today's intro, 55 minutes long. This is where we talk about fat loss, muscle gain, fitness, current events, family life. Always a good time. If you want to be on an episode like this one, send your question to mplifecaller.com now. This episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is organifi. Today we talked about their happy drops. They contain efficacious dosage of saffron which has been shown to raise serotonin levels in your brain. That's why they're called happy drops. They make you feel happy. Go check them out. Go to organifi.com mindpump that's O R-A-N-I-F I.com mindpump Use the code mindpump. Get 20% off. This episode is also brought to you by Manukora. This type of honey is super high, the highest in mgo. This is antimicrobial, anti inflammatory. Healthy for gut. Healthy. It's great stuff. It tastes good, but again, it's good for overall health. So if you like honey and you want the medicinal Benefits, go to manukora.com that's M A N U K O R-A.com mindpump Use the code mindpump and get yourself a discount. Also, brand new maps program. Maps. Great eight. It's eight lifts, only one lift a day. It's the most simple yet effective workout program we've ever created. It's half off right now. Go to mapsgreat8.com, mapsgreat8.com, use the code launch. Get 50% off. We'll throw in a nutrition guide for free. And if you sign up before the 22nd, you'll get five days of coaching with Cole included. Go check it out. All right, real quick.

[Justin Andrews]

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

[Sal Destefano]

It's the ultimate showdown. Free weights versus machines, Slow reps versus fast reps, strict form versus looser form, Full range of motion versus short range of motion. And hiit cardio versus steady state cardio. If you always wondered which one was superior, just stay tuned. We're going to answer that for you. Let's go. The ultimate showdown. I wanted to pick the ones that tend to cause the most questions and controversy and debate and discussion, and the ones that have a little bit of science to support each side.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

These are, these are good conversations, I think. I mean, I. I think the, the common theme we'll find in all of them is they're all tools. But it does seem as though people get in camps with each of them totally. Where it's like, this is the way or this is better. So that's what they do more of or only of. And so I think that's. So it makes for a good discussion and probably for us to make the case of why and how you use.

[Justin Andrews]

Totally.

[Sal Destefano]

All right, let's start with the first one. Free weights versus machines. We've talked about this before. I think we have to frame this properly because the debate or the discussion or I should I say people will disagree when they don't have the proper framing. People typically look at strength training and just look at hypertrophy. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

They just say, what builds the muscle activation and hypertrophy? That's their entire argument.

[Sal Destefano]

That's it. And if it's just about building muscle, I can make the argument that free weights are better, but there's data that says that they're kind of similar, if not the same. But so you have that. So I'll just all agree with that. Fine. Let's just say they're the same. Is that all you get from strength training? No, you also get strength and you need usable strength. How does it work in the real world? You also have individuality. How does the exercise fit the person? And then you have health and mobility. Which one is gonna, if done properly, is gonna lead to healthier joints and healthier movement patterns. Yeah, now that I framed it that way, I think it's a easy knockout.

[Adam Schafer]

I'd like to see the free weights, I'd like to even see the studies because I know we have some of our, we have some smart friends of ours that are big advocates for machines on hypertrophy, but I'd like to see those. Yeah, one, I'd like to see those done in extended long term studies. Long term, it's even just a year. Like, I don't need like super long term, but a year, a year worth.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, you won't find a year long.

[Adam Schafer]

And then I'd also like to see things more than just like muscle activation stuff, because that's where a lot of the argument comes from that.

[Sal Destefano]

Right.

[Adam Schafer]

Because machines do a really good job. They don't isolate. But emphasizing a muscle, you have less to worry about. Yeah. Because there's, there's less stability involved. You're locked in a position, you can really focus on that muscle. And so when you, when you use the machines that show like the lighting up of the muscle, it's like, oh, this is really lighting it up. But I would argue the stabilization part and due to the free weights and skill and CNS piece and adaptation. You get to that. The carryover to that of. For total muscle building long term. Yeah, I would think that those studies would, would pretty much.

[Justin Andrews]

And looking at like continual benefits that you gain.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So like if, if you're continuously using this style, like if you were to draw this up, even the year to two years and like you stayed in that, that camp, like, I would be very interested to look at the difference between that person and their strength abilities.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I'll back, I'll back you guys up. So when you're doing an exercise, there's a skill component and then there's the adaptations that occur or that are induced from the exercise. There's a learning curve with the skill. So in the beginning, you have to get good enough at the exercise before you can do it well enough to induce the muscle growth adaptations. Okay. So you gotta learn how to do it first. So there's a learning curve. In other words, if you gave me 50 random people and 25 of them did the leg press for 30 days and then 25 of them did the barbell squat for 30 days, you're going to see more strength gains in the leg press group. Why? Because a leg press requires very little skill. I could take the average person to have a leg press. The average person is probably going to take me 60 days to get them good enough at a squat to be able to do it in a way to where now we're starting to build muscles.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

So when studies are short, it doesn't tell the whole story. Now, I agree with you, Adam. Because of the skill involved, because it's more of a technical exercise, the gains continue far longer than they would in a leg press, whereas the leg press will cause a faster plateau. That's based on my experience. We don't have studies to support that. Because you're right. There are no studies that are a year long. Well, at best are 16 weeks.

[Justin Andrews]

Also, the limitation you have with machines, that doesn't translate into other exercises very well at all or any. Just movement in general doesn't translate very well.

[Sal Destefano]

What do you mean you're lifting in the real world, you're always lifting something that is free. You're never lifting something on a track or in some kind of controlled manner. It's. It's where it's controlled for you. If I have to move this table or a couch or my kids or anything, it's free. So the transfer of strength isolated.

[Adam Schafer]

Most of these studies are what, at best, 10 to 16 weeks long.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, typically so I mean, at least the ones you want to pay attention.

[Adam Schafer]

And what I would guess what we would see on a graph is, you know, relatively close as far as muscle gain in Those, those say 16 weeks and then what. But if we were to extend that out for an entire year, what I think you would see is that you'd see the machines start to plateau and you.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

You would see the freeways continue to. And the gap would increase. The more time, the more that gap would increase.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

So if we took somebody and we literally said you only can do two exercises, you can do a leg press or a hack squat. And this person learned barbell back squat in two years.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Only those two movements and extended all the way out.

[Sal Destefano]

No competition.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, not to mention the dysfunction that's going to create if you get that strong for that long doing the same thing and it's not in combination with a movement pattern that is beneficial. Like it, you're going to end up being too strong in one specific area which the other. If you're not like in combination.

[Adam Schafer]

I think what you're saying supplementing. I think what you're saying is, is, is not argued. Like, I think that's a, like, like no functional person would be like, yeah. Would make the argument that the machine is better. The argument that, that I think that Sal's alluding to the most is the hypertrophy one. There's a, there's a hypertrophy camp.

[Justin Andrews]

That's their argument that will really push

[Adam Schafer]

the machine argument more. And I, that one's more fun to debate to me because I think yours is like a lace.

[Justin Andrews]

I know, but that's, that's how my brain.

[Adam Schafer]

I know, that's what I mean. That's like, like your, your argument is like, like, yeah, find me a functional person that would argue that what you're saying isn't true. Like, or find me even a muscle building person that wouldn't, would, would try and argue against you what you're saying. Because that's obvious to me. But there's a lot of people that will, in the, in the muscle building hypertrophy community that will say machines are as good or better at hypertrophy than free weights are. And I would, I like that argument. That's more fun to me because we, what we see in these studies. They're so short.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

And there doesn't tell the whole story about free weights. And you know, if you just were to take two simple movements like a leg press or hack squat for the from the machine camp to pick either one of those or both, I don't care. And then just put it against a barbell back squat. But extend it for two years. And the groups could only do those things.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, God.

[Adam Schafer]

The barbell back squat is going to. It's going to smoke that person.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Now again from a hypertrophy point. And now just to kind of mix both of them together, let's just say for argument's sake, they're equivalent for muscle growth. They're the same. What if I could throw in some extra. You're stronger in the real world. You've got better function and you'll rest longer. Like cool. Like, okay, so now we have a winner. But I argue the same thing, say Adam. And we train people for years and we trained ourselves for years, but mainly clients for years. Machines are. There's value in machines, but when you're comparing to free weights, they're limited. Here's the other thing. Machines don't work well for everybody. Free weights, I can adapt to anyone. The free weight adapts to your body machine. Your body has to adapt to the machine. There's many times a guy like me, and I'm not huge, I'm only six foot tall, but I'm taller than the average where I have to get in the machine and angle my body differently so that it works properly. Because a machine is designed for a five foot nine man. Yeah, that's what the. So if you're a short girl, if you're a tall guy, if you've got a movement that isn't somewhat outside of whatever, then machines can be kind of weird. Whereas a free weight follows your body and it fits everybody.

[Adam Schafer]

Now, just to play devil's advocate. And so we like. Because this, I know how quickly this can turn into like the, you know, get clipped and it's like we're making this argument for throw machines away. Like there's plenty of times where I, I'm using machines with a client and not using a free barbell, back squat or something like that.

[Sal Destefano]

We're not saying don't use machines, especially

[Justin Andrews]

if you're talking risk factors.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, well, there's a, there is a lot of, of times where I'm going to use a machine over the free weights with a client for a very specific reason. But if we're talking in general and we're trying to compare somebody who's looking for the, the max amount of muscle they want to build, there is arguments that it's been tried to be made on the hypertrophy side for machines. And I disagree. I think free weights is better.

[Sal Destefano]

All right, now reps, slow reps versus fast reps, or I'll say slow rep would be a tempo. What's a traditional tempo? Is it a 2 2, 1, 4. Is that what it is?

[Adam Schafer]

For what?

[Sal Destefano]

For a slow, for like bodybuilding. 4 2, 2, 4 2, 2. Sorry, 4 2, 2. So that's a 4 second negative 2 second positive 2 second pause versus faster reps. These are reps that are 1, 1, 1. Yeah, 1, 1, 1. Okay. For most people, by the way, from a muscle building standpoint. Okay, so we'll start there because everybody's interested in that. They're pretty similar. They're probably identical. 1, 1, 1 versus a 4, 2, 2. You're gonna build probably the same amount of muscle and it's gonna look the same. Now there's a difference in risk.

[Justin Andrews]

Risk is.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

And there's also a very big difference in athletic performance risk. Way lower with a four two, two, way lower with slow reps, fast reps, the risk goes through the roof in comparison for athletic performance. Fast reps are going to translate better to the field than slow reps. So here you got to kind of pick which one works best for you. But I can tell you this, 90% of the people listening right now are going to be better off doing the slower reps than the faster reps. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I would make the argument they would even build more muscle if we, if we had to extend again, extend something out for a, you know, one year period of time. And one group only did fast reps, one group did 4, 2, 2. I would make the case that you would, you would build more.

[Sal Destefano]

Why are you throwing in that you're gonna hurt yourself or that'll stop the.

[Adam Schafer]

No, not even that. Let's just, let's assume you have, you have great technique in both.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh really?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, great technique in both. And let's assume it's novel for both. Like those. Although all things being equal, I know this would be very hard to put a study together like this where you'd have, you know, equal skill sets and, and novelty for both these. But let's just pretend that I, I would argue the four two, two for, for building muscle because with a one, one, one, there's, there's more maybe hypertrophy wise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hypertrophies. You would, you could, you would get maybe stronger off of 11.

[Justin Andrews]

I think so.

[Adam Schafer]

So I think you would get stronger, but I think you would build more muscle on a four two, two.

[Justin Andrews]

Your Capacity to generate force.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right. Like so. So in other words, what would end up happening. We would end up is you would, you would look like let's again, this is generalizing but the One who goes 1, 1, 11 would be stronger like a Olympic lifter and the 422 would be weaker. But for athletic, that would be my argument.

[Sal Destefano]

So for athletic performance, 1, 1, 1. That's a silly argument. Duh. Like that's translate to athletic performance way better because that's sports. Sports moves quick, the slower reps. Here's what the data shows. The data shows that they, they're pretty similar when it comes to building muscle. However, I'll agree with you guys. Why when you look at the strength sports, when you look at all the sports that use weights, the ones that tend to build the most muscle are the ones that tend to have athletes that look the most muscular. And this isn't the best way to measure things, but bodybuilders and powerlifters tend to train with slower reps. Olympic lifters definitely train with the faster reps and you'll see a difference in the way they look generally speaking. Now, yes, I know that there's some genetic polymorphisms that tend to make you better at one or the other, but there's definitely been crossovers. There's definitely been athletes. Sergio Olivia is an example of that. Sergio olivia bodybuilder the 60s and 70s was an Olympic lifter before he became a bodybuilder. And his style of training changed and so did his physique. So as he changed.

[Justin Andrews]

So my favorite Marinovich is, you know, pretty muscular, but it was all fast twitch.

[Adam Schafer]

So my favorite argument to make with this in regards to building muscle is that the one that's more novel will build the most muscle for you. So if you are somebody who typically only trains in like the slow rep range and you're. And you. Because and we're making that four, two, two. Right. So you train like a bodybuilder and you always train that way. You'll see tremendous muscle gains by going to 1:1.

[Sal Destefano]

I agree. Let me caution people right now. If you've been strength training for years and you built a lot of muscle and you decide next week I'm going to start going 1, 1, 1, real careful, go real light because you got a lot of muscle, you got a lot of strength, you're not used to moving quickly. And this is injury city for people.

[Justin Andrews]

Tendons and joints.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you got to.

[Sal Destefano]

Or muscle tear.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, muscles.

[Sal Destefano]

So it's a Skill that you got to slowly build yourself up to. And there's also a reason why personal trainers Almost never train 1, 1, 1. The risk factor is just very high strength training, especially as you're pushing intensity, there's always a risk of injury. If you want to multiply that times 10, just do the same thing faster. So that's the big reason why. But if you're an athlete, like, this is how you make your strength explosive. This is explosive strength. Explosive strength. And explosive strength counts more than any other type of strength.

[Adam Schafer]

The best thing I ever did as a, you know, someone who identifies as like the bodybuilder type was moving away from the 422 I trained that way for so long.

[Sal Destefano]

Would you do. Is it just, just high cleans or.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, I did a bunch of stuff. If it's just even like a bench press explosive. That's stuff that I would never have done in the past. I was so the opposite at that. All movements done in an explosive type of fashion. You know, my push presses, I didn't do push presses till I hung out with Justin. Like, I didn't do movements like that because you know that bodybuilders didn't train that way. I didn't think that. And I again, I fell for the trap of Hypertrophy training is 4, 2, 2, you know, so like, why would I ever. I'm not trying to be an Olympic lifter. What do I care if I get. But, but simply moving out of that box and going, oh, what if I did train like a Olympic lifter or power lifter for a while and see what happens? I mean, I saw some of the greatest muscle gains I've ever seen. And so you just gave me some ideas.

[Sal Destefano]

Cool.

[Adam Schafer]

If you are a hypertrophy guy and you've never just experimented with some of your movements done in that. And again, I caution you, but if you're an advanced lifter, like, I trust that you would be able to do that. No problem. Like move to some of these, you know, explosive type movement and watch the gains. Come on.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. All right. Full range of motion. This is probably the easiest one versus short range of motion. There's no, no comparison. There are applications for short range of motion high level competitive athletes. What I mean by high level is like basketball player. Yeah. Like the higher, higher ages in high school and up.

[Adam Schafer]

But definitely why LeBron James does quarter squats. And it went viral.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, that's right. For example. That's right. But early athletes, full range of motion. But as you get more Specialized short range of motion is more applicable to athletics. Short range of motion can also be good if you're targeting a range of motion that you need help in. So if it's like at the bottom or if it's lockout or whatever, otherwise it's always full range of motion. The strength that you build really translates or comes from the range of motion you train. So it'd be stupid for most people to build strength, anything other than the full range of motion. And then the data does show full range of motion produces the most muscle growth. So aesthetically speaking, that's what you want.

[Adam Schafer]

It's almost always that. Right? It's almost, it's almost always a very specific. Whenever there's a case for short range motion, it has to be a very specific athletic application or sticking point type of application. Right. I mean I can't, I can't ever see.

[Sal Destefano]

You'll see bodybuilders. Bodybuilders will do it sometimes where they're doing like the pumping wraps and that kind of stretch position. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

For sticking points.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Well, no, bodybuilders I think do it because like the pump that it does,

[Justin Andrews]

if you're watching, it's novelty too though. I mean for the most part they like to interrupt their normal training and do these shortened reps. But yeah, to your point is it's athletics. It actually can make a solid argument for that just because of the amount. Like if you look specifically of where we need to focus on generating the most force most effectively, like why, why steer beyond that? Because this is, this is where all the gold is. Let's stay there and emphasize.

[Sal Destefano]

And it's not just that, Justin. Although that's a big part of the other part of it is when you're training a high level athlete, what you don't want preservation, you also don't want to mess up their skill. Yep. So if so some. A basketball player has to kind of do a partial squat to jump and there's a risk of training full range of motion squats to where it starts to mess with their technique. Yeah. So the. So you're always strengthening their technique rather than giving them general strength. Otherwise things can kind of.

[Justin Andrews]

It would throw it off.

[Sal Destefano]

It's like taking a pro basketball player who has, you know, movement patterns and like I'm going to correct your movement patterns. Don't correct the movement patterns because they're so good with the movement patterns that if you correct them now, you've changed everything.

[Justin Andrews]

The same thing like you know, stretching and making sure you're super Loose, like, you know, it's like you need that tightness, you need that rigidity to really create and optimize your force direction.

[Sal Destefano]

By the way, you know who has what? Bodybuilder has some of the best technique and range of motion I've ever seen. Chris Bumstead. Have you seen his workouts? His full. He's got the fullest, like a full range of motion, a squeeze. His technique is, like, flawless. Yeah. It's like he's a personal trainer, except he trained. Yeah. He's a bodybuilder. All right, Last high intensity interval training. This is hit cardio versus steady state. It depends on what you bring in.

[Adam Schafer]

Chris Homestead. And then you go right into that. Did you see what happened to him, though, when he tried to incorporate sprints?

[Sal Destefano]

Did he hurt himself? Yeah, yeah, of course.

[Adam Schafer]

Pulled like a hammy, like, right away.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah, of course.

[Justin Andrews]

Especially with the new skin skill. Yeah. You're trying to develop.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Hit cardio burns more fat, burns more calories in a shorter period of time. Studies will show it preserves more muscle because it's explosive. There's better athletic performance benefits. Yada, yada, yada. Here's the problem with HIIT cardio. It's. It does it most. For most people, it's inappropriate.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. It requires. It's prerequisites are required.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right. Yes. It's just too intense. It burns them out.

[Justin Andrews]

Risk factors, you know, that's how you really weigh this one out.

[Sal Destefano]

Steady state works for everybody.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. I.

[Podcast Host Intro]

This.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, this really depends on, in my opinion, what the client is seeking. Right. Like, if you, if you like. What's great about hiit is that in a very short period of time, I can. I can reap some solid cardiovascular benefits. So if I had a client who's just like, hey, I want to. I want to build a little bit of, you know, endurance, stamina, Cardio, cardiovascular health. 12 minutes of HIIT cardio is a short window to do something like that. So makes sense. And that it would win for something. If we're talking about hypertrophies, body sculpting that direction, then steady state cardio all day long. It's lower intensity, more. More overall movement. Also easier to implement throughout your day, too, instead of.

[Justin Andrews]

It doesn't have to be recuperative as well. It gives you that muscle blood flow.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. So, like, these versus each other, really, to. To me, it has a lot to do with, like, okay, what are you trying to accomplish here? Because I could make an argument for hit for that. For Specific things. And I can also obviously make an argument for that. But if we're talking about general get ripped, get in shaped aesthetics, like.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Steady state all day long.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, totally. I gotta tell you guys a funny thing my son did out to dinner the other day, which is just. You know, when little kids will do something that you want to get mad, but you'll. You kind of hide your face and laugh first. Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Because especially if it's super honest.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes. You shouldn't have done that. But you got to hide your face. We were at a restaurant, we're all eating out, and my wife bought these, like, they're like coloring books, but you don't color them with, like, crayons or markers. They come with these, like, brushes that you add water to.

[Adam Schafer]

They're awesome.

[Sal Destefano]

Do you use them? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then when you paint with them, it's just water comes out. And then when water touches color, colors the paper. Yeah. So when it touches the paper, it's

[Adam Schafer]

the most brilliant thing they made for this.

[Sal Destefano]

The paper changes color, so they use the brush and the paper itself changes color. It's really cool. So she bought these, and it's easy at a restaurant. Cause you can just fill it up with the water from your cup. And so my kids are coloring me with this, right. My son, you know, my son Aurelius is walking around and he's coming back and painting, and he walks over and gets some water. And he walks over, and I'm looking at him, and I could tell he's like. He's got the, you know, cheeks like. Like, what's he doing? And he looks at down his page and just spits a bunch of water. He spits it on. It just spits all over the table. Hell of water. And I knew his what I know was mentality. He wants to see what happens. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

He's figuring out how this thing works.

[Sal Destefano]

Dude, he just spit all over the table. Like we're all eating or trying to eat dinner. He just spit water all over the table. You know, it's like full restaurant, people around us. Exactly what we do. Like, Jessica and I picked up the menus. We're just cracking up real quick before we scold him for spitting on the table.

[Justin Andrews]

He's smearing in it.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah. But I know his head, you know, he's like, oh, I wonder. That's water.

[Adam Schafer]

Trying to figure it out.

[Sal Destefano]

I mean, spit on.

[Adam Schafer]

He's trying to figure it out.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

He's obviously pieced it together on how it works.

[Sal Destefano]

But you got.

[Justin Andrews]

He's a modern artist.

[Sal Destefano]

You also got to be like. Because I remember what it was like to be a little boy. So you got to call, you got to make sure that you, like, don't do this. Like, you think to yourself, like, I shouldn't have to tell him to throw a napkin in the fire that's at the restaurant because I have a fire outside to be warm. Like. But I'm like, no, you need to tell your. You need to tell your 5 year

[Justin Andrews]

old to say that.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah. If you have a five year old, especially a little boy, you gotta tell him, hey, don't throw any napkins or anything in that fire. Because for sure he sees the fire

[Justin Andrews]

first thing they're gonna do.

[Sal Destefano]

And that's what I did. I would have been like, let me throw a straw in there. Let me see. Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I was trying to find insects.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, they make, they make the Crayola markers like that too, right?

[Sal Destefano]

So they're. Oh, you add water.

[Adam Schafer]

No, you don't even. They're actually built in. So they're like all the colors and they're white tips. But it'll.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

It'll be. Read on and then they'll come with certain books. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it was one of the most brilliant. Like, that didn't exist when we were kids. And I remember as a kid marking up tables and marking things up and I won't. Yeah, it doesn't mark anything.

[Sal Destefano]

Have you seen the one where you take the markers, you put them in this, like, device, you close it and then it blows air through and it becomes like an airbrush. No, it's also Crayola. So you'll airbrush with a regular marker. You put a regular marker in there.

[Justin Andrews]

Innovation. I missed.

[Sal Destefano]

And you can just start.

[Adam Schafer]

There's a lot of really. There's a really cool. I saw. I showed you guys too. Like the leap frog one for reading way back when where you, you push the pen down and as it goes over the words, it reads it to him. So you were.

[Sal Destefano]

Let's see. You were probably. I bet you Doug and Justin were big coloring book guys. Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I colored everything huge.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, you guys were.

[Adam Schafer]

My, my buddy did a thing for the 80s 80s starter pack for when you were sick. His said Gatorade, saltine crackers, price is right and.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, my God, all of that, bro.

[Adam Schafer]

So mine was almost like that. So mine was 7 up, saltine crackers, price is right and coloring book. My mom always brought me A coloring book whenever I was sick. And, like, literally, saltine crackers, seven Up. And then I would color and watch Prices right at home.

[Justin Andrews]

The recipe. I know that's a little tussin in there.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, that's an 80s. That's an 80s kid. Like, home from Prices.

[Justin Andrews]

Right.

[Sal Destefano]

This is how you know I'm ethnic, Right. Because mine was ginger ale, but I think some people have ginger ale.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Pastina. So pastina is these tiny little pastas. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

The little Italians give, like, a saltine cracker.

[Sal Destefano]

Kids whenever they're sick.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

And then she just let me watch TV all day, which is cool. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Which was Price is Right Prices.

[Sal Destefano]

Right. Was on at that time. Yeah. But. Yeah, so all you guys were big. I never had a big color.

[Justin Andrews]

I would color, but I would turn it into a. A war, you know, so, like, there would just be body parts, whatever, flying on fire. And then, like, what was in your head, bro?

[Sal Destefano]

What was going on? You know? If you were a kid today, they would have sent you to therapy. Yeah, they would. They would have been really.

[Adam Schafer]

What movies that super bad? Is it super bad? What movies kids like? Yeah, well, that's where draws all the dicks. Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So which.

[Justin Andrews]

That came later. That was like, when I was a teenager and I was just bored, you know, I was, like, in the DMV class especially, it was driver's.

[Adam Schafer]

Driver's ed.

[Justin Andrews]

Because you're in there and, like, you. I'm like, oh, my God. Like, this is so boring. You're probably really good at drawing.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Just all the little details.

[Sal Destefano]

Wow.

[Adam Schafer]

I still like the color. When Max has projects where he has to color, I always do it with.

[Justin Andrews]

Really?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

I hate it.

[Adam Schafer]

It really.

[Sal Destefano]

I hate it.

[Podcast Host Intro]

Oh, it's such a.

[Sal Destefano]

Like, my wife will color with the kids all the time.

[Justin Andrews]

It's like. It's, like, satisfying.

[Adam Schafer]

It is, yeah. It's meditative, for sure, for me.

[Sal Destefano]

That's why my wife does it.

[Adam Schafer]

I used to draw when I was

[Justin Andrews]

little, though, too, though.

[Adam Schafer]

Did you guys ever draw like I was. I actually draw stories. Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Huh. I used to read stories. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

I was better at drawing.

[Sal Destefano]

I wrote all kinds of crazy.

[Adam Schafer]

You know what's crazy was I was good. I'm not anymore. Yeah. So I. So my mom has, like, a whole bunch of stuff when I was, like, in, you know, elementary, junior high, even all the way to high school or where I drew a lot of really good pictures. And I've tried to sit down and draw again. I just. I'd not know where, like, I was better as a kid than I am now.

[Sal Destefano]

It's because of the drugs, stupid. Speaking of which, you're bro. I'm telling you right now, dude, this is like. I don't even know if this is a condition. Can we say the Moodys? Can we just say being moody is a condition? Can we say that, Doug?

[Podcast Host Intro]

I would say that's a condition because

[Sal Destefano]

organifies happy drops have cured more of a characteristic. Adam's moody.

[Adam Schafer]

It's the new tagline. Organifies happy drops, cures moody.

[Sal Destefano]

Just balance you out.

[Justin Andrews]

Gets rid of the Moody's.

[Sal Destefano]

If you come in and eat that, like, he's gonna be. You know, he's still gonna get mad. He's like, candy.

[Adam Schafer]

That's why it tastes like candy. It's.

[Sal Destefano]

Right.

[Adam Schafer]

It's nostalgic.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, hey, no. All joking aside, so try it with your wife. It's. If you look up. Doug, you can look this up. Saffron.

[Adam Schafer]

It is like one.

[Sal Destefano]

As an ssri, it's like one of

[Adam Schafer]

the most studied ones.

[Sal Destefano]

It is a natural ssr. It will naturally raise serotonin in your system by inhibiting, to an extent, the reuptake of serotonin. So when your body releases serotonin, it'll absorb a certain amount of it back up. And so SSRIs are drugs. Right. And what they do is they reduce the reuptake of it, increasing circulating serotonin, which gives you the calming effects, the mood lifting effects, all that stuff. Saffron is a. It's. See, it's a, well, potential SSRI alternative. Although it does increase serotonin levels, which. So they're calling it a natural ssr.

[Justin Andrews]

I wonder if I sneak this in. My youngest breakfast.

[Sal Destefano]

Is he moody?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, he's so angry in the morning.

[Adam Schafer]

Really? What is like, serotonin? Melatonin? Like, what's the. Is there an inverse relationship? Are they connected? Like, if you have low levels of one, does it tend to affect you?

[Sal Destefano]

What a great question. What made you ask that?

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I was just thinking about, like my all, like what I've been working on with my supplementation at night, getting better sleep, all those things. Like, if there's like some sort of

[Sal Destefano]

inverse or Too much melatonin can cause depression. A depressive effect. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And I was wondering if it would.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. But there's probably. I think there's a connection. You should look that up. Connection or relationship? There you go. I think super high. Like if you were to take a bunch.

[Adam Schafer]

A direct recursive product. Relationship where the brains. Yeah. Pineal gland Converts.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, there you go. The pineal gland converts serotonin into melanonin. Melatonin. Especially in the dark.

[Justin Andrews]

All right.

[Sal Destefano]

What a great question.

[Justin Andrews]

Third eye.

[Sal Destefano]

You're reading stuff, You hide it in your, in your car magazines.

[Justin Andrews]

All these supplements are kicking.

[Adam Schafer]

Benefits of not knowing much, you know. So you got a lot of questions.

[Sal Destefano]

Shut up, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Hey, dude, listen, I gotta, I got some. So you know, we did the whole thing with, with Scott.

[Sal Destefano]

With.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, that was. It's been so good for our staff and our families. So the newest one for me, I bought the three jars. We actually haven't even.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, I haven't done that yet.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, so I bought the three jars, haven't implemented.

[Sal Destefano]

Explain that again.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, so it's save, invest and give. So those are the three jars. Like, so what I asked him was because some of the money stuff, like his, like gigs that he teaches is kind of more towards, I'd say your guys's kids age. That's like, Max isn't quite at the age yet where he can understand for jobs. Yeah. Paying for jobs. Like where he's so he's, I'm like, so how can I start to introduce it? And he, he told me he's like three jars. There's, there's save, there's invest, and then there's give. And then as you know, as you get him to do little things or he gets gifted money, like you can teach him how to separate all this stuff. Well, he's accumulated quite a bit of money over, you know, the last four or five years or whatever just from like tooth fairy birthdays, things like that. And so he's up to like 100 and something bucks. And you know, we're like, okay, we're trying to start this. And so we're at the gate, he's just like, I want to buy this Lego. And Katrina and I are part of this is like, okay, hey, what we need to do to help him start to learn this relationship is just when he wants to buy something like this, like, let's help teach him how he needs to save for it and use his money or work, whatever. And so unless it's not his birthday. Right. So there's no reason. It's just a, it's like this hundred dollar Lego he wants. And so Katrina's like, okay, well let's, let's see how much money you have. And you know, so he's got like, he had like 110 or something and the Lego was like 105 or something like that. And so he's like, awesome.

[Sal Destefano]

I have enough.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, let's go buy it, you know? And I'm like, oh. I'm like, okay. I said, well, if you do that, then it's gonna be a really long time till you can get another one. He's like, I'll just figure. I'll figure out how to make more money. And I'm like, okay, so this is our first. I have no idea how this is gonna go because we literally just spent all of his money already that he had already kind of saved up on his first Lego. So I'm really interested to see.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, I'll predict. I'll predict. Your kid is not impulsive. I think he'll be perfectly fine. Yeah. It'll be really good at, like, waiting and working. And you've told me you've put things up and said, you can earn this.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Whereas Mike. So my. My daughter will. If she sees a toy she's supposed to get by getting so many stars.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

I mean, every day, she's going to cry for it, even though she knows she only has to get three stars. So some kids are a little bit more. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It was funny because I told you guys a long time ago with Everett, like, he had this monster goal of trying to get a pinball machine, you know, when he was young. And I was just like, those are really expensive, buddy. Like, I mean, I love that you have, like, a lofty goal, but, like, let's do, like, smaller. But I was like, you know, if you want to start saving. And we kind of went through that whole process, and he got pretty far to the point where it was like a quarter of the way there. And I was like, oh. But I'm like, once you get to half, you know, I'll start kind of matching. And then.

[Sal Destefano]

But we.

[Justin Andrews]

We never got past that quarter. And so it, you know, he learned that process, and now it's like, okay, I'm going to start. Everything now is like, a smaller goal, and he's like, an achievable thing, and he's going to build off of that, but, like, he had to kind of go through the pain of that.

[Adam Schafer]

That's why I'm like that. That's why I'm letting it go this way, because I'm like, it's gonna be a long time before he could save a hundred dollars again. Like, I'm like, maybe we should get, like, a small. No, I want that one. I'm like, okay, maybe one of his

[Sal Destefano]

uncles in here will give him 100

[Adam Schafer]

when we first Were starting to try and teach him how to, like, make money. Like, he was a little bit younger, and all he could do was color. And so. And he's all. The family is such a sucker. So he colored.

[Sal Destefano]

20 bucks.

[Adam Schafer]

T. I sold 10 bucks. 20 bucks.

[Sal Destefano]

All of.

[Adam Schafer]

All the grandparents. That's how. Part of how you got that.

[Sal Destefano]

So my wife and I are. We're aligned on a lot of things, but one of the things that we can work on is when it comes to giving the kids money for jobs, we're so ridiculous, bro. They'll do a job and It'll be like 50 bucks. You go, the trash is like $50 for the teenagers. It's for the teenagers.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, we had a.

[Sal Destefano]

But it's like, they'll do something like. Like my daughter will cook dinner for us one night, and this includes prep, cooking, you know, cleaning up. Or my niece will, like, break down boxes and do something else. So it's like a job that'll take like two to three hours.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, hey, that's not.

[Sal Destefano]

I mean, it's like 50 bucks.

[Adam Schafer]

Hey, Cook, clean, and prep, all that.

[Sal Destefano]

That's a.

[Adam Schafer]

That's a.

[Sal Destefano]

You think 50 bucks is okay for that?

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, it's a little high for a kid just because it sets the barker, but that's not. That's not crazy.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay?

[Adam Schafer]

That's not.

[Sal Destefano]

I feel bad.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, it's not like taking out the trash.

[Sal Destefano]

50 bucks.

[Adam Schafer]

That's like. That's ridiculous. I feel better, though, because I mean that. I mean, just the hourly. Just the hourly on that alone.

[Sal Destefano]

You.

[Adam Schafer]

You figure at minimum wage would be almost that.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay, So I did that math in my head. Yeah, but I'm also like, you're not getting a real job, though.

[Adam Schafer]

No, no.

[Sal Destefano]

This is your dad.

[Adam Schafer]

No, no. I mean, real job. You should have done a little cheaper, but I don't think that's so crazy. Egregious. You know what I thought was egregious that we did that we got screwed in was like we had a.

[Sal Destefano]

We.

[Adam Schafer]

Max went through this phase just like a month ago where we, like, lost hella teeth and I just don't have cash on me all the time like that. And so, like, you know, we had some couple dollar bills laying around for the first few. Well, no. Well, it was a 20, but it was just like we. Yeah, it was like a one. The first one was like a $1 bill or a couple dollar. You know, we had laying around. And then we had like, no singles. I'm like, I have no.

[Sal Destefano]

We have nothing.

[Adam Schafer]

I Had very inflation twenties and hundreds at the house. That was all I had. And like. And it was late at night. It was like 8 o' clock at night. I'm like, look, I got to go. How am I going to get any small bills? And so, yeah, so he did get one tooth for 20 bucks.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I remember the first time standard, the first time I got paid by my parents. We're old school, right? So you just did, you know, work with her. But when I was maybe 3, 13 or 12, I think it was 13, I used to go to work with my dad all the time, probably since the age of eight, where he would take me in the summers to work, but I didn't really work. He was just now looking back. By the way, this gets me choked up because I'm doing that better man thing at the church and we're talking about our dads, and I'm having all these realizations. My dad, the way he connects, because he didn't really connect with his dad, but the way he connected was the way he learned how to connect, which was through work. Now, as a kid, I just thought my dad was taking me to work. Now as an adult, while I was talking, I'm like, this was my dad's way or attempt at connecting with his son. He would just take me to work. So eight years old, every summer I'd go to work with him. And as a kid, you know, really do anything. Just grab me the hammer, grab me this.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

And I go play outside or something like that. But right around 13, I could actually do some work. And there was this first summer when my cousin and I went to go work for my dad and my uncle. And we were legit. Like mixing cement, you know, carrying the buckets of sand in, you know, cleaning the tools or whatever. That's some. I remember that towards the end of that summer, I'm in the work van with my dad. And, you know, by this time I'm working, so I'm exhausted. I'm sitting there and my dad, you know, he looks at me, goes, sobuto. I'm like, yeah. And he goes, he gave me cash, and I didn't know what to do. He gave me this wad of cash. I'm like, no, I can't take it. He's like, no, no, you earn it. And I took this money and I bought a bike. I bought like a BMX bike. Oh, yeah, yeah. But I'll never forget, like, he gave me this. I didn't expect it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

And I did. I wanted to give it back to my dad. I'm like, I can't. I can't accept this or whatever. Oh, I took it, and it was. Yeah, Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't think.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm trying to remember, I think one summer, but most all the times that I went to work with my. My. My dad, I didn't get paid. It was like. That was just like, coming to work with me. Yeah. I didn't start getting. I didn't start getting paid till I

[Sal Destefano]

had your own job.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, till we figured it out. Like, I figured out the. The lawn mowing gig. I used that to mow our own lawn at home. That was part of chores, and I wasn't like, I got paid.

[Sal Destefano]

How old were you when you started doing that? 13. 14. 14. You were just doing the neighborhoods?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, we went to the. I, I. We. My art. My buddy and I both did it together. We made flyers, and our mom photocopied flyers. Yeah, yeah. A and J. Lawn mowing service. Oh, yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

You had a company. Of course you did. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I didn't have an llc, but we had a name. You know what I'm saying? You know the irony.

[Sal Destefano]

You have a logo.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, of course.

[Sal Destefano]

Of course.

[Adam Schafer]

And, you know. And, you know. And, you know, the. The logic was that, like, even though we never made the yellow pages, it was like A and J would be on the first.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, my God, bro. You were like that back then. All right. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So we thought that out, and we went. And we literally just. We had our moms drop us off in the rich neighborhoods on the other side of town. My mom had a minivan, so we said to, like, take out the back seat, put the lawnmowers and all the edgers.

[Sal Destefano]

That's great.

[Adam Schafer]

Inside the lawnmower. She. We would unload them down the block, and then we would push them down the street, walk up to the doors, knock on door to door, and then hand them their flyer and say, hey, we will mow, edger, front, back, lawn, whatever you want to do. And we would just. We get customers that way.

[Sal Destefano]

That's so great.

[Adam Schafer]

And then eventually that turned into like, hey, I need my fence stained. Would you guys do that? And would you, like, we. So we did all these kind of odd jobs, but it was 10 bucks. 10 bucks a lawn. And, you know, I made it. I mean, for a kid on the weekends. Like, I made good money in high school until I got, like, a real job where I was then once I got my license, then I worked a factory job. That was really early in the morning, so I do that. And that was assembly line stuff I've told you guys about before. And then eventually the dairy. And then the dairy was like my first real.

[Sal Destefano]

Doug, how old were you with your. When you had your first job? Were you young too?

[Podcast Host Intro]

16 was actually my first real job.

[Sal Destefano]

What'd you do?

[Podcast Host Intro]

I went to Boston and I worked for. My uncle has a. Had an automobile repair shop.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, wow, you had a legit job.

[Podcast Host Intro]

Yeah, I was out there for like the summer. Like for the summer. And, you know, if Boston is super humid.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Intro]

And I'd be outside because they didn't have enough room inside, so I'd be taking off, like pulling out spark plugs.

[Sal Destefano]

And do you remember what you got paid back then?

[Podcast Host Intro]

Oh, maybe two something an hour.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I was four. Yeah, I was four and a quarter. So you had to be way less.

[Podcast Host Intro]

But I will say, after that summer, I knew I didn't want to do that.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Intro]

And so the next summer, my brother and I, we started a business. It was 17. At 17, so we had a friend that had purchased a pressure washer and a van and a ladder, and he was going around to the neighbors and cleaning their roofs because there's, you know, Seattle, right?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Intro]

And there's moss that builds up on these cedar shake roofs. And so we went out, we bought a van. 1966 Dodge.

[Sal Destefano]

You were 17, you bought a van?

[Podcast Host Intro]

My brother and I did, yeah. So my brother's six years older than I am. So we bought this 1966 Dodge van that like, was a death trap. The steering was super loose. It was horrible. We bought a ladder, we bought a pressure washer, and we went around, knocked on doors all summer, got jobs. But the beautiful thing is we got paid like sometimes two, three hundred dollars a job.

[Adam Schafer]

Wow.

[Justin Andrews]

Wow.

[Podcast Host Intro]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

For some back then.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Intro]

So that's how I paid for college, is doing that in the summertime.

[Sal Destefano]

You paid for all your college by Washington washing roofs.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Wow.

[Podcast Host Intro]

That was my first entrepreneurial endeavor.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, that's a bit of a home run right out of the gates.

[Sal Destefano]

It was, it was.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Podcast Host Intro]

It spoiled me for life.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. You know, there was something about, like, I bet Justin can relate to this because I think you're. You still are. Like some of this. Like, I. When I was working the dairy and I mean, I was like, talk about a job. I mean, literally, I had to get. I had rubber boots and full jumpsuit coveralls that were just covered.

[Sal Destefano]

This is before school?

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, before, at like 4:00'. Clock. In the morning. Right. But I, I loved it. There was something about like something that was getting my hands dirty and hard work and like that I had to get out of a full jumpsuit of. You know, I mean it was just something about. Yeah, there was something about that that I, I enjoyed and I, I felt like I earned every penny of what I did for the day.

[Justin Andrews]

I think that's what it was. More bragging rights and like too like I, I prided myself in doing stuff that, that most people wouldn't do.

[Adam Schafer]

You know, maybe that's what it was.

[Sal Destefano]

How old were you, Justin? What's your first one?

[Justin Andrews]

Well, so I mean I was like 10 when I started like dog walking business. But it was like I, I walked all the neighbors dogs and then I fed all their animals. And so I was just saying.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, was that your idea or your did your dad?

[Justin Andrews]

It was. Well, yeah, this, this lady approached me. I was at like the post office and we were down there and she was like, like hey, you know, because she recognized me from the neighborhood and was asking me if I could ever like walk her dogs for her. And so I just started doing that and she paid me like a 50 cent piece and I thought it was so cool. I was like, oh, I want to get a bunch of these. Ended up getting like 300 worth.

[Sal Destefano]

Wow.

[Justin Andrews]

50 cent pieces. Every time I made 50 cents. And then like somebody else heard about it and then they recommended me and then I honestly like my neighborhood. I was like the whipping boy. Like everybody, like I was pulling weeds for everybody. I was washing cars. Like you name it, like I did everything.

[Sal Destefano]

You know, it's crazy if a 10 year old was randomly walking dogs right now, somebody would call authorities on the parent. If you just saw a random 10 year old doing a bunch of work by the.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, that's silly.

[Sal Destefano]

Nobody does that anymore.

[Justin Andrews]

So stupid. Yeah, yeah. So they started out doing that and then I was like eventually started working for my dad and he was in like the wind wood window business. And so I would go on jobs re glazing windows and replacing doors and then was responsible for the warehouse and like unloading, offloading trucks from. Yeah, 4am Till like 5pm and it was just exhausted, you know, and get home and just would crash. But then I would. From there it was all construction jobs. Like literally. Like I. My dad had me shadow a few guys who would just like I told you that one story where I was like this guy was like rebuilding this whole house and like I was underneath the house and he was teaching me about plumbing. And I had to replace a pipe and immediately it was the sewer line. And I had just old. Just sludgy, just fall on my arm. And it was so like, I. I literally got out and I left the job. Like, I'm never doing this again. So plumbing was out. But yeah, I was. I learned. Yeah. Elect electrical. I learned roofing. I learned framing. I mean, you name it, dude, I pretty much stem to stern. But again, like, I. I built a deck for my. For my dad. He used to hire me to do things around the house for that kind of stuff in a shed.

[Sal Destefano]

And.

[Justin Andrews]

And then, yeah, got busy with football.

[Sal Destefano]

That's awesome. I did. I was washing dishes. 15. My. My. My grandfather's old Italian buddy who owned a restaurant, Angelo's Restaurant, San Jose. It doesn't. It's not there anymore. And I'd be in the back hustle in washing dishes and eavesdropping on you guys.

[Adam Schafer]

Both were like, connected to family. Something like that. Or you and I were like, outside. I'd like doing something like. Like my family didn't. My family did. Although I did.

[Sal Destefano]

My.

[Adam Schafer]

My uncle. I painted for my uncle. So I did do one summer. I worked as we're talking about something like.

[Caller Matthew]

Oh, that's right.

[Adam Schafer]

I forgot I did that. I built fences. I did painting. I would. I would take anything I could.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Once I got to a place where I was making money.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. I wouldn't say no.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, I would like, if any. Anybody who had jobs or anything like that. And I remember always begging my. My boss for overtime on the weekend.

[Sal Destefano]

And you should hear the conversation. I won't say who they are because I don't want to. But like teenagers and like that. I know. Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

And we'll talk about getting work. Oh, I don't want to do that. It's too early. And I don't really want to do that. I don't want to work in that kind of environment. And I just like, pull my hair up. Like. Are you kidding me?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

When I was a kid, you just offered me a job.

[Adam Schafer]

I would take anything that you would pay.

[Sal Destefano]

I'll do it. What do you. I don't even know what you're offering. Yeah, I' just do it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

But you hear these complaints. It's like, oh, well.

[Podcast Host Intro]

I think the common denominator is all of our parents didn't have a lot of money.

[Sal Destefano]

That's true.

[Podcast Host Intro]

That's the only way we could get money.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

You know, to the construction site. As far as construction sites are concerned, for like a teenage boy. Boy, you become a man real quick.

[Justin Andrews]

You learn a lot.

[Sal Destefano]

You learn a lot, see a lot,

[Justin Andrews]

you hear a lot.

[Sal Destefano]

They treat you like you're a grown man. Like as a 14 year old boy on the construction site. I am a grown man now. That's how I'm treated.

[Justin Andrews]

Sorry. So my dad allowed this and he was like, I went out on a job that was like far. I had to stay like in a hotel. Like the, the guy I was working with, you know, drove the van and like we had to go to the sites and like replace the windows and do all this stuff. So like, you know, we're going to get something to eat. And he's like, I just want to make a stop real quick. And so he leaves me in the van. He's like, you got to stay in here though. Like you can't. And I, I was like waiting in the van and it was, he was in like a, like a titty bar.

[Sal Destefano]

What made you wait?

[Justin Andrews]

So you wait there the whole time while he's in there throwing dollar bills.

[Sal Destefano]

Wow.

[Justin Andrews]

I told my dad so mad when I got. Oh yeah, I told him. But yeah, it was just so funny. But that's again like I was like, you know what's.

[Sal Destefano]

So I was having. What are you doing? I was having this conversation with my wife because she's like, you don't get care what bathroom we're near. You can just use the bathroom. She needs a clean, certain bathroom and if. In fact I'll wait till I get home and I don't care. She's like, why don't you care? I'm like, I worked construction as a kid. Yeah. Like the porta potties. You learn how to use a porta Potty. You don't. I don't care. You put me anywhere. I don't care. Those are the worst. Those were the worst, dude.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

You go in there after the big construction guy had his. You know what they call it? The doordash burrito. Oh yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Doordash burrito. And that's where I learned that too.

[Sal Destefano]

People even know what we're talking about. They think it's. You order doordash. Doordash burritos. You buy a frozen burrito, put it on the dashboard.

[Justin Andrews]

It's the cheese melted.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Wrapped in foil. Heat up right through that glass. Built in microwave or the, the concrete. The 50 pound concrete bag over your head. Can you hold it for 10 seconds?

[Justin Andrews]

I think everybody had to go to.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, can you hold this for 10 seconds over your head?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I could do that. Hey, look, I'll see acto knife all over you. Oh, everybody's. Everybody initiated.

[Adam Schafer]

Initiated.

[Sal Destefano]

That happened. Everybody.

[Adam Schafer]

I think that's like. I think that's like a universal thing that in construction.

[Caller Jesse]

If.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

If you got it. If you were a young kid, you did that.

[Sal Destefano]

They got me with that. I had to work the rest of the day with the dry concrete all over my hair. That's a good time. Anyway, I was going to ask you, Justin, because before the show started. I know. Was it last week when you were starting to get a cold?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It was all around and, like, my son had it and. And brought it into the house, and I was, like, feeling a little scratchiness. And usually we'll do, like, we'll just do hot water and lemon and then sometimes some honey in there. And I was like, oh, we have that Manuka.

[Sal Destefano]

The Manukura. The Manukura. Manuka is the name. The name of the type of honey that's in there. Yeah. Manukura is the brand.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

That we work with. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So I. I was like, oh, I'll use it this time. And it was. It was great. I mean, it totally coated my throat. I felt like. It felt great. But at the same time, like, the next day is when I. I noticed, like, it was pretty much gone. It was weird.

[Sal Destefano]

So the. The compound that's very high in the type of honey of Manukora. I can't remember the name of it. Doug's. Have to look it up.

[Podcast Host Intro]

MGO.

[Sal Destefano]

There you go. Mjo. It's antimicrobial. Very powerfully antimicrobial to the point where they've used it in studies for wounds.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. It heals wounds. I read that.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

Better for colds than just your standard honey, then.

[Sal Destefano]

So here's. Yes. So honey in general has got antimicrobial, but this compound is super antimicrobial. So lots of viruses replicate in the throat or in the nasal passage. And so that's why, like, zinc lozenges will work in studies. It's not that zinc. Now, yes. If your zinc is low and you take zinc, that's better for your immune system. But what zinc does when it coats your throat is it prevents the replication of the virus.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

So the. The Manukura honey blocks it. Yeah, Manukura honey. Antimicrobial. So it goes in your throat.

[Justin Andrews]

Must have kills that. Yeah. Because, I mean. Yeah, I probably. It was all around in.

[Sal Destefano]

In.

[Justin Andrews]

Everybody else was still, like, complaining.

[Adam Schafer]

I'll add that to my. My stack because I Noticed a huge difference on the zinc lozenges. Like that's, that's something you got me on a long time ago. And I always, if I'm on it

[Sal Destefano]

right away, I always. I noticed you putting the Monacora in your yogurt.

[Adam Schafer]

I put it in my yogurt. I just this weekend I did a post for them because I used it for my baby back ribs. So my, my baby back ribs.

[Sal Destefano]

What do you coat it and then you.

[Adam Schafer]

So when I, So part of the, my recipe is like I do my rub, I smoke for three hours. After that I wrap and foil and when I wrap and foil, I do brown sugar butter and drizzle honey. And then you wrap it, seal it and then I, I basically cook it for another two hours in the foil and then I, I peel out and then I smoke for one more hour after that and then.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah, it was really good.

[Sal Destefano]

I have a. I don't know if he's a bodybuilder or whatever. He's like a muscle building influencer. Andreas Mayev, can you look him up for me? Doug, I've seen that name because I've sent you some videos. Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I don't know if I've seen,

[Sal Destefano]

I haven't seen a mutant like this in a long time, bro. And when I mean mutant, I mean in every category you think of, he looks like a mutant. Muscle wise, he has strength like a mutant. This guy does things that I've never seen before. He's like a 300 something pound, six pack abs jack. Dude that does one arm pull ups.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh my.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, he does one arm.

[Adam Schafer]

I don't know if I've seen him.

[Sal Destefano]

He'll bench press for reps over 600 pounds. Oh my God. He's this Russian dude in his twenties. That's him. Look at it. Look at him.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Does he not, Is he not AI enhanced?

[Sal Destefano]

No, he's real, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

Really?

[Sal Destefano]

Yes, bro. Larry Wheels went to go hang out with him and Larry Wheels is like I've never seen anybody as big and wild.

[Justin Andrews]

One of those guys that looks as strong as they are. Yeah, like he literally looks.

[Sal Destefano]

You should see. Yes, bro. There's pictures of him when he was a teenager and he's crazy looking.

[Adam Schafer]

What is 65 cm? How many 65 centimeter arms? What is that?

[Sal Destefano]

I don't know how.

[Adam Schafer]

What is 65 centimeters?

[Sal Destefano]

Twenty something. What does that say? 58 centimeter forearms.

[Adam Schafer]

Wow.

[Sal Destefano]

And even his hands are big. Look at his hands.

[Podcast Host Intro]

Yeah, that's 25.59 inch 25 inches.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. And what's his forearms? That's more impressive to me. 58 centimeters. How big are his forearms? What is that?

[Podcast Host Intro]

22.83.

[Sal Destefano]

He's got 22 inch forearms, bro. So you gotta. If you go on his Instagram you'll. Because typically you'll see a freak that is either looks like a freak or can do freak like, like feats of strength.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean he's got a.

[Sal Destefano]

This guy does it all.

[Adam Schafer]

He has a small waist for how big he is too.

[Sal Destefano]

Look at him next to Larry Wheels doing, doing arm wrestling. Look at it. Oh, he's gigantic. And he's like 20 something years old, dude. Huge hands. Crazy bill.

[Adam Schafer]

He's only 20 something.

[Sal Destefano]

He's like in his 20s, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

I wonder if he has like giantism or something serum.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, I think he's on a lot of drugs too. But he's got crazy. Wow. I mean he's six five.

[Adam Schafer]

He's six five.

[Podcast Host Intro]

£350.

[Adam Schafer]

I wonder if he has giant bro 65. I always, I've always.

[Sal Destefano]

£350.

[Adam Schafer]

I've always wondered what Tony Robbins would look like if he was like a power. You know what I'm saying? Like if he actually.

[Sal Destefano]

Can you find him doing one arm pull ups. Just type his name. One arm pull up.

[Justin Andrews]

Tony Robbins just sounds like enormous.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Imagine if he like trained like a guy like this and took.

[Sal Destefano]

How bad do you think Tony Robbins snores? I bet he snores so bad when he sleeps.

[Podcast Host Intro]

He probably has overcome that somehow. His personality going to let anything you

[Sal Destefano]

use CPAP or whatever.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

No, dude, there's videos of this guy doing things that I like squats, bench press like curls.

[Adam Schafer]

I have not seen this guy.

[Sal Destefano]

I've seen him do good. Like nice looking 130 pound dumbbell curls. Like it's, it's. He's insane. He lives in Russia. He doesn't go anywhere else. I think from what I've. What I've seen. Yeah, he's 20 something.

[Justin Andrews]

He's already.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. We should look up his age just to double check. But he's. It's the most impressive crazy thing I've ever seen. 26.

[Podcast Host Intro]

Yeah, he's 26 years old. I don't know if he looks 48.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, he looks.

[Podcast Host Intro]

Larry Wheels not finding.

[Sal Destefano]

It's all right. You could, you could. Yeah. If you, you go through his Instagram, he's 26. I found it.

[Adam Schafer]

He literally looks like his mid to late 40s.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, dude. Yeah. But I mean that's terrifying. You know what's crazy? Someone that big in that freakish and that insane strength, like he could just. Like he could just kill you.

[Justin Andrews]

So crushing. Yeah, look at that bench press skeleton.

[Sal Destefano]

310 kilogram bench press, bro. That's. What is that, 600 with a pause? 30 something or. 30. Yeah. Oh, it's a clean bench press. Look at that. Look at that pull up that he's doing vertically where his body like. Like a gymnast with a plate on.

[Justin Andrews]

Absolute crazy.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, there's a plate on his lap.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, he's got a plate on his lap.

[Justin Andrews]

You could do like crazy calisthenic stuff too, which is like not typical.

[Sal Destefano]

No, dude, that's what I'm saying.

[Adam Schafer]

120 pound or 140 pound Preacher Curl.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Yeah, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

It's crazy. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Unreal.

[Adam Schafer]

I've never seen this guy.

[Sal Destefano]

You've never seen him?

[Adam Schafer]

No, I've never seen him.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, dude. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

We have different algorithms.

[Sal Destefano]

Hey, 30 reps, 190.

[Adam Schafer]

Have you noticed. Hey, have you noticed how much that that's changed?

[Sal Destefano]

What do you mean?

[Adam Schafer]

Like, so not just maybe three years ago, it would be less likely that someone this big, this famous one that we all wouldn't have seen just because everyone would see him. But the way the. The algorithms become more and more specific to you, that this is not made my algorithm at all. I have not. And so it's like there's we. That's how much the algorithm has changed us in the last couple years. Is even someone like this who's uber famous, probably, but because that's not the content I really watch. Invol.

[Sal Destefano]

I don't.

[Adam Schafer]

I've never came across him whatsoever.

[Sal Destefano]

Whenever I see like a crazy feat of strength, I tend to watch because that to me is just. Yeah, it's looking like a bodybuilder, like, whatever. But if you're doing some kind of crib. So I saw this guy do one arm pull ups. I'm like, listen, typically a guy that does one arm pull when you look like that.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Doesn't look like.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I don't. I don't watch this stuff because it makes me depressed. I don't know why you watch this. It's like, this is like, hey, this

[Sal Destefano]

is like you for you.

[Adam Schafer]

This is like us telling the bikini competitor girl, like, stop following all these other supermodel chicks.

[Sal Destefano]

Shots fired. Yeah, bro. It's like, that's what that is for you.

[Adam Schafer]

What are you doing?

[Sal Destefano]

Fire, bro. You got to see when he. What does that say? Rapidly going. He was a rapidly Growing teenager.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, but he has giantism, bro.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, look. Look at what he. Oh, bro. 17 years old. Look at that video right there on the left. 17.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, he must have giantism, right?

[Sal Destefano]

He's got something. He's got something.

[Justin Andrews]

Dude, he was really muscular.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, there you go, guys. Genetics.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

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[Podcast Host Intro]

Our first caller is Jesse from Alberta.

[Sal Destefano]

What's up, Jesse?

[Adam Schafer]

How you doing, Jesse?

[Sal Destefano]

Hey, guys. How are you?

[Justin Andrews]

Good, good.

[Sal Destefano]

Dude. What's happening?

[Caller Jesse]

No, first I just want to say thanks, guys, for listening for years. I think you do a great job and you give great advice and I appreciate your transparency in what you guys relay. So that's. That's really positive. My question is so kind of in Covid it started, you know, I've always worked out, but it kind of got some is better, then more's gotta be better. And I've kind of transitioned in that way where I've got to the point now where I lift about five to six days a week, structured cardio, at least half an hour a day type thing, if not more. And I tack on about 30,000 steps a day for the past couple of years on average. So just wanting to scale back a bit. And also, too, I eat a lot, you know, 4 to 5,000 calories a day. But I do like to eat. So I'm kind of in one of those mindsets where if I scale back the exercise and walking, then I have to scale back to eating. But I feel I could show up a bit better for life if I tailored it back a little bit, but just kind of stuck in that mindset a little bit. What are your guys advice on that?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, good question, Jesse. So explain a little bit as to why you're considering scaling back. You said you might be able to show up to life better. What do you mean by that?

[Caller Jesse]

Sometimes I can get, I think, a little bit fatigued, a little bit more than. Especially once I get to the evening, I'm a little more tired than I otherwise would be. Probably could show up a little bit better for work sometimes if I wasn't doing quite as much. So it's kind of. It's one of those things where I do want to scale back a little bit. Not crazy, but, you know, get rid of a few aches and pains and stuff like that.

[Sal Destefano]

What do you.

[Adam Schafer]

What do you. Just curious. 25 to 30,000 steps is a lot. The only few people I had that were doing that were like refs or had jobs or they were moving like crazy. What do you do to get 30,000 steps?

[Caller Jesse]

Well, I work part time. I'm accountant, so I just, I walk a lot. A lot of my cardio, like elliptical, some running, StairMaster. Get steps too, and then just walk a lot?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Wait, as an accountant?

[Caller Jesse]

No, no, as an accountant I sit at a desk, but outside of that I walk a lot.

[Sal Destefano]

So you make a lot of time to walk?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, you have to be okay. Yeah, that's a lot.

[Sal Destefano]

And, and so, so to. I'll just paraphrase or kind of put it in different words. Let me know if you agree. You're thinking you might get better life quality if you scale back a little bit or you're considering that.

[Caller Jesse]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay. And your fear is if you reduce that. What, what's the fear?

[Adam Schafer]

That he ought to change his diet a lot.

[Caller Jesse]

Yeah, exactly. There's kind of a reward. Like I'm a hard work kind of discipline type of guy, so if I put in the hard work and kind of earn it, then there's that dopamine reward, so to speak, in terms of the, the food that I get as a reward. So then I have to scale that back and it's, you know, sometimes it's a little bit daunting to think of it that way.

[Sal Destefano]

Gotcha. And growing up, were you overweight, underweight, athletic?

[Caller Jesse]

No, pretty athletic. I've kind of just maintained my weight. I mean, I was a little bit 180 at the tops. Now I'm about 160. So nothing too crazy in terms of fluctuations.

[Sal Destefano]

All right, so what you're saying is. I mean, it's a great question. Very valid. You're very disciplined. So I'll paint a worst case scenario for you. All right?

[Caller Jesse]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Worst case scenario, you cut your training way down into what would be considered appropriate and effective, which would probably look like four days a week of strength training and cutting out the cardio. And if you want to keep the steps up, that's fine, but I'd probably cut that too. But let's just say you cut out the cardio, maintain your steps, and you're only strength training four days a week. And let's paint a worst case scenario. Worst case scenario, you gain, you know, 8 pounds of body fat.

[Caller Jesse]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Do you think. Now I know the answer to this because you seem pretty disciplined, but do you think you'd be able to just go back to what you were doing before to lose the eight pounds?

[Caller Jesse]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay, so that's worst case scenario. Now let me tell you what will probably happen. You'll build more muscle, get a faster metabolism, and have no problem eating as much as you are now.

[Caller Jesse]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

So you'll do less work and get the same result in terms of body fat percentage wise, but you'll actually have more muscle strength and energy. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

You're burnt.

[Adam Schafer]

You're burning so much with your activity that you're, you're not allowing some of those calories to get partitioned over to building you some more muscle. So you'll probably build some muscle.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So if you were to, if you would lay off and even, and I mean, I'm assuming the, you, you hit protein intake, you're good with that, and then you just enjoy occasional things on top of that. So you're, and I think if you make sure you hit your protein intake and a more appropriate strength training program and reduce the cardio, saying you'll probably, at the, I think at the worst case scenario, you go up maybe a couple percent in body fat maybe. And, and you, but you build muscle. Like, I think you go, I think you go up to like 170.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I was just gonna say that. I think a guy like you following a good, appropriate strength training program, reducing some of the activity, keep your food the same.

[Caller Jesse]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

I'd say, I would probably predict that you gain 8 to 10 pounds of muscle pretty quickly.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay. But if I'm wrong, then you just go back to what you were doing before and it's all good and you experienced it and now you know. I don't think that'll happen though. I think, I think what's happening right now is you're, you're kind of pushing the limits of what you can do.

[Caller Jesse]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Which is okay. You seem okay. But the thing that's nagging at you is am I doing more than I need to and is it actually a detriment? Which I understand. And the only way to know that for sure is to try it. Yeah.

[Caller Jesse]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Gotta experiment with it for a while, see how it works.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. So I, I would put you on a different strength training program and I would have you cut the cardio out, keep everything else the same. Let's see what happens. I think what will happen is you're just going to gain muscle.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it'd probably be a good idea. I don't know how. If you got like a place where you can go get a hydrostatic way or Dexa scan or get a body fat test. Yeah. So you have. Because what might happen is the weight gain may mess with your head, like make you think that you're putting on fat when maybe you're not. And so you have like a. Something that's non biased that you can look at and just say, hey, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick to this plan. Guys gave me a maps program to follow. I'm gonna cut out my cardio, change nothing else, See what happens in two months, and then literally just test again in two months. And like Sal said, you know, make peace with the worst that could happen. You put on eight pounds of body fat, which, you know, you can ramp right back up and get off if you want. Or maybe what happens is you put 10 pounds of muscle on, which is what I think we will happen.

[Sal Destefano]

And you're, you're pretty confident with the amount of calories you're eating. That's, that's the number you've tracked before?

[Caller Jesse]

Oh, yeah, I tracked it and I'm very diligent in tracking. And it was, it was between 4,000 and 5,000. And that's being really strict with my tracking. So when I don't. I'm not as strict with tracking. It's a little bit more than that because I eat the same thing every day pretty much.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay. By the way, like 10% body fat looks great. Most people feel better. Most men feel better. Closer to 12.

[Caller Jesse]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Stronger, less joint pain. Testosterone levels tend to respond better. Not everybody, but just so you know that I see Your age is 43. You probably would feel more energy, higher libido, less pain at a slightly higher body. But just to give you an example, Jesse, okay, so you're doing 30,000 steps a day. 30 minutes of cardio a day, six days a week of strength training. I'll use my. I'll use myself as an example. Not because we're the same person. Just give you an idea. I do. And I'm. By the way, I'm not ideal. I need to do more of some of the other stuff that you're doing. But I do zero cardio. My steps are probably 4,000 a day because we sit here all day long. If I'm lucky, I strength train about four days a week and I eat as much as you do. And I sit. Yeah. And I sit right around. I don't know. If I had to guess, I'm probably around 10 body fat.

[Caller Jesse]

Okay.

[Sal Destefano]

So there's just different ways to do it. Now, I'd probably be healthier if I included. And I know this. If I included more. So I'm not saying that what I'm doing is ideal. Just give an idea.

[Adam Schafer]

That's the other extreme. Right. You're on one extreme. He's on the other extreme of eating that many calories. But you can both be 10 body fat. 1 looks like somebody who is very lean because they do a lot of cardio. The other one looks very muscular because they do no cardio. You probably want to land somewhere in the middle.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And be in a really good place.

[Sal Destefano]

I tell you what, I could send you a program where you'd be in the gym about three days a week. Yeah. So. And then you do no cardio. Keep everything else the same and give it. I don't know, give it like a month or two and see what happens. My prediction is your strength's gonna go through the roof. You're gonna get real strong, get good pumps, and you'll start to build muscle.

[Adam Schafer]

Yep.

[Caller Jesse]

My struggle with no cardio and is so my dad and grandpa both died early from Alzheimer's, so I'm kind of. The cardio aspect, it's kind of tough to give that away because I do believe there's some independent benefits with cardio and brain health.

[Adam Schafer]

Do you guys find that do it once a week.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Well, okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Once a week, too.

[Sal Destefano]

Hold on a second. So here's the deal. So look at the data on lots of activity and chronic health conditions, and you'll actually see. So there's a curve here. So on. On this end, you have, like, no activity, bad diet, Alzheimer's, obesity diet. It's all up here. You're on the other extreme. Then you get restorative. Yeah. You start to hit those nice longevity amounts. Everything goes way down. Then at the other end, when it gets too high, you actually get higher rates of other things because of the damage, the constant, you know, oxidative damage on the body.

[Justin Andrews]

Do you have any mobility practice or anything you're including with that?

[Caller Jesse]

No, but that's a good idea to include the mobility because then I can still get to the gym, feel I'm doing something, but it's not as stressful.

[Justin Andrews]

That's, that's my concern is just like, you're a busy person, you're disciplined. There's no need for you to cut out all disciplines. We just need to reprioritize it and also make it more restorative so you actually recover fully.

[Sal Destefano]

And, and as far as Alzheimer's is concerned, you're doing more than enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And strength training is actually in the data, is actually the best thing you could do. All activity is good, but strength training is actually the only thing that's been shown to stop the progression of Alzheimer's. They call it type 3 diabetes because it's probably a insulin resistance component. Building muscles like that fixes that. Yeah. So here's what we could do. Are you okay with functional type strength training or do you like bodybuilding style?

[Caller Jesse]

I like it all.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, okay. Mass performance. Mass performance will have you in the gym three, five days a week. But three days a week is strength training, two days a week is mobility.

[Adam Schafer]

And by the way, that program actually scales you up into kind of like endurance training towards it. So.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, you'll like it.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. So follow it the way it's laid out. Do the mobility days. And, and my, my goal for you would be get a body fat test right now and then do it in two months and then just watch what happens.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, yeah, I'll send that to you, dude.

[Caller Jesse]

And just keep eating the same thing.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, same thing, same thing. We just cut out the cardio. And remember, now you're gonna be, you're in the gym still five days a week right here. So you're going to be lifting, like traditional lifting three days a week. Two days are going to be mobility. And on those mobility days, I'm okay with you getting on the treadmill and going for a walk or a really. Or low intensity elliptical, like real low, like just to where you could have cars. And just no, like high, no, no hard cardio right now.

[Justin Andrews]

Heart rate like.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. And, and stick to that and watch what happens.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Caller Jesse]

Awesome.

[Sal Destefano]

Yep.

[Caller Jesse]

Okay, thanks. I really appreciate it.

[Sal Destefano]

You got it. You think we can have you back on in a few months? I'd love to see the before and after.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I'd love to hear, too.

[Caller Jesse]

Yeah. You know what? I think that's gonna. That would keep me accountable then and not trail back into what I'm used to.

[Sal Destefano]

All right. I'll predict the five to eight pound difference.

[Adam Schafer]

I think so, too. I think you'll see at least.

[Justin Andrews]

That's sick.

[Sal Destefano]

We'll send that to you and let's. Let's have you back on 90 days.

[Caller Jesse]

Awesome. Thanks very much, guys. I appreciate it.

[Sal Destefano]

You got it, dude. That's a good question. And it's a. It's a really good question because so many people are like, hey, if I stop doing all this exercise, am I just going to get really fat? Here's what happens with burning calories through activity. Does it burn calories? It does, but the body adapts to it so well. Let me put you this way. A highly trained athlete or a highly trained runner will burn less calories running than they did when they were intermediate.

[Justin Andrews]

They get way more efficient with it.

[Sal Destefano]

Your body learns. It learns how to become efficient at what it does. So the calorie burn isn't as much as you think. He's doing so much activity, it's insane. But if he scales that down and he transitions to building muscle, he'll have. It's like making money.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

I could work more hours. What if I had an investment that made money for me?

[Justin Andrews]

She's being busy to be busy.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

It makes it really hard, too, to add muscle when you're. You're burning that much manually and you're

[Sal Destefano]

telling your body to not.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. And then. And you're lifting that many days, too. It's just like, it's. He's constant. His body's just trying to recover all the time. It's never, it's. You talk about this all the time. Right? The. He gets stuck in this recovery trap.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

So he's doing all these things. His body's just doing what it can just to recover. It doesn't ever adapt and get stronger and keeps him in good shape. Keeps him at 10 body fat and able to eat 4 or 5. But he could do way less and be as healthier, if not healthier.

[Podcast Host Intro]

Our next caller is Matthew from Nebraska.

[Sal Destefano]

Matthew, what's happening?

[Adam Schafer]

How you doing, Matthew?

[Sal Destefano]

What's up, man?

[Caller Matthew]

Hello, guys. Thanks a lot for having me. I know time's a precious commodity and I appreciate you guys sharing a little bit of yours today. Thank you.

[Sal Destefano]

You got it, man. How can we help you?

[Caller Matthew]

So real quick Before I get to my question, the other day you guys mentioned on the podcast about people recording themselves at the gym when they're doing lifts. And Adam, you had said about doing that to check your form.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right.

[Caller Matthew]

And I've been having my wife record me on a couple of lifts at the gym and I sent it off to some of my friends and. And they really helped me with making some corrections because they're all out of state.

[Adam Schafer]

So I had your back then. Listen, had your back then brother anomalies.

[Sal Destefano]

If I see a guy like you with his wife, record is different than setting up a tripod and filming every damn exercise making duck face.

[Adam Schafer]

I just. I got a bunch of boomer hosts that don't know anything about what's going on these days. People.

[Sal Destefano]

Adam's so cool. He's so hip.

[Adam Schafer]

I got you though.

[Sal Destefano]

You.

[Adam Schafer]

I got you.

[Sal Destefano]

How can we help you?

[Caller Matthew]

So I'm 45 years old and I haven't done much structured lifting since high school. About 12 years ago, I started working on being healthier and in better shape for a while. I did a lot of 5k runs and cardio workouts and then I found you a couple of years ago through the Dr. John DeLoney Show.

[Justin Andrews]

Nice.

[Caller Matthew]

And have learned a lot from your podcast. My wife got me Maps Anabolic shortly after and we started working on it together. I then hurt my elbow and took most of last year off from lifting. The diagnosis was tennis elbow. We started the program towards the end of last year again and we're almost complete with it. I have to keep some of the lifts lighter than I like because of the elbow, but I'm feeling stronger and noticing changes in my body. Today I did my second evil scan and I was ecstatic about the results even though my weight had only changed by 1 pound since the first scan 23 days ago, I dropped almost 7% body fat and my visceral fat by 1.6%. I couldn't believe it. I am energized to finish this program and excited to move on to the next. One of my fitness goals for the year is to be able to bench 275 or more. I should mention that last time we did the Anabolic, I was able to match my high school bench, which just put me through the roof.

[Sal Destefano]

Awesome.

[Caller Matthew]

I've considered maps 15 or map symmetry but wanted your thoughts. What programs would you recommend for an inexperienced lifter of my age who wants to get healthier and stronger?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, they're both great. Yeah. Yeah. I like Symmetry because you've been doing maps Anabolic, and just a comment on the. How's the elbow now? Do you still feel it?

[Caller Matthew]

Yeah, I still feel it. I'm doing some physical therapy exercises every day, and I'm just slowly moving up on the weight on that.

[Sal Destefano]

But a really good correctional massage therapist that'll work on your forearms.

[Caller Jesse]

Okay.

[Sal Destefano]

That oftentimes takes care of it.

[Adam Schafer]

I wonder, too, if getting some rotational stuff for, like, wrist and shoulder for

[Sal Destefano]

him would probably benefit.

[Adam Schafer]

So maybe even, like, performance that a lot of times that's what the elbow stuff will be caused from is just lack of mobility and stability in the shoulder and in the wrist and address. I mean, I'm. I'm dealing with forearm stuff right now. And I know that's exactly what it is, is I've been pushing, pushing the weights and getting stronger, and I'm like, I haven't been addressing my wrist cars and shoulder stuff that I should be doing. And so that also could do. Do you really well. So, like, a performance type of program would actually be really beneficial also.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Symmetry performance. Those will be really good. And you. This is what your second round of Maps anabolic.

[Caller Matthew]

Yes, sir.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, let's. Let's go map symmetry. Map. Let's do map symmetry. I think map symmetry will be good for you. Get the deep tissue massage on the forearms and then see how you feel. But I think you'll like the way map symmetry feels. And you're doing great, bro. Yeah, you're progressing. I mean, incredibly. You look good, too. I could tell. You put on. You got some muscle on you. This is great.

[Adam Schafer]

It's a good. So now you're, like, in this rhythm. Kind of a general rule of thumb that we tell all of our clients that are consistent once a year, make sure you do either symmetry or maps performance. That'll do a good job of kind of addressing imbalances, you know, lateral work, some rotational stuff. It's just so. Maps Anabolic is so great for building muscle, building metabolism, laying a solid foundation. But all of it's bilateral. It's all in the sagittal plane. And so getting some rotational stuff involved in there, unilateral work in there, that'll help. That'll help challenge a lot of stability rotational work, and that'll keep you healthy a lot of times. And so just make. Be mindful that once a year, running through either. Either symmetry or performance, at least one of those programs every year, and that'll. That'll keep you pretty good. And then you can cycle back to Anabolic and some of the other ones that you really enjoy.

[Sal Destefano]

Awesome. Yep. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

You're doing good though, bro.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, man, we'll give it to you.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. All right.

[Justin Andrews]

Thanks.

[Caller Matthew]

And, and Sal, real quick, I. I appreciate hearing about your faith journey.

[Sal Destefano]

Keep.

[Caller Matthew]

Keep it up, man.

[Sal Destefano]

Thank you. I appreciate the encouragement. Appreciate that, man. Thanks, Matthew.

[Adam Schafer]

Yep. Appreciate it, dude.

[Caller Matthew]

Thanks.

[Sal Destefano]

Take it easy. What percentage of people filming themselves in the Gym is for 40 forum, do you think?

[Adam Schafer]

I think it's more than you think. Because, like, how. This is how you tell. Okay.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

When you, when you prop it up on the floor of a deadlift or you prop it up to show you squatting versus the person who's walking around with a, with an extension arm or have the. Like, to me, it's very obvious. The two. The. The wannabe influencer kid is got way more recording going on. The person who props it up only when they do exercise. You see it a lot. See it all the time now in goals. I mean, I, I'm nine times out of ten.

[Sal Destefano]

So you think over half.

[Adam Schafer]

No, nine times out of ten it's perform. Yes.

[Sal Destefano]

Really? Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, you. Unless you guys are talking about Bradley Martin's gym. Totally different. Yeah, that's a total. That's a total different. Right? That's like.

[Justin Andrews]

That does factor in.

[Adam Schafer]

So if you're in that. So. Yeah, so his one gym could bring that average down to 50. But if you go down to Gold over here, where all the bodybuilders and power lifters and everyone's lifting, you'll always see somebody by the squad or deadlift who's propping up to watch them. You'll see me do that. Propping it up and watching my mechanics. But then you go down to somewhere, Bradley Warren, where he allows people to take their shirts off and you got. Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

You got people talking to the phone

[Adam Schafer]

while they're working out, like, totally different.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, I see it not as frequent as probably, you know, around here, like the one I go to in Santa Cruz. It's like it's, it's. It's not that existent, but when it is, it's definitely for social media.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And so it's like, you know, it's pretty much 90, but it's, it's not as, as prevalent as I thought it

[Sal Destefano]

was going to be.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. I think, I think you. To me, it's pretty obvious to tell. You could tell by the. How they're shooting it, in my opinion, to like tell why what you're doing. Someone who's shooting it for Likes and attention. The angle they're shooting at like someone who's.

[Justin Andrews]

So if it's right behind them and they're squatting.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah. It's zoomed in. It's so close you can't even see ankles in it.

[Justin Andrews]

And it's like doing bicep curls, but it's all zoomed on the butt.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, like that's that.

[Sal Destefano]

I mean, I mean I'll get, I'll get filmed, you know, sometimes in the gym and you know, Dylan's followed me around and it always feels so, like I feel like the biggest douchebag.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, hey, well, yeah, that's, that's. You got a guy who's.

[Justin Andrews]

That's like a shreds movie, bro.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm like getting filmed and I like feel. I apologize to people around.

[Adam Schafer]

That look looks way more social media like.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, well, it is. You got a guy who's following you around. It's self physique. I mean, I, I'm ready to defend it any moment.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean I, I make money.

[Sal Destefano]

I make money is my job.

[Adam Schafer]

Long before, you know, we were even like a thing, I was, I would, I would video my squat and deadlift. I was also working on that, right? So like I would video a session, then go back and then I could see like what's going on with my ankles and.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So it wasn't to post.

[Sal Destefano]

And the videos you sent me weren't, Weren't exercising.

[Justin Andrews]

Those were different.

[Sal Destefano]

I saved them.

[Justin Andrews]

Spicy.

[Podcast Host Intro]

Our next caller is Brian from Minnesota.

[Sal Destefano]

What's up, Brian? Dude.

[Dr. Z]

Hey guys.

[Caller Brian]

How are you?

[Sal Destefano]

Good, man. How can we help you?

[Adam Schafer]

Long time.

[Caller Brian]

Yeah, I'll just jump right into my question here. So first off, thank you guys for the opportunity to ask my question. I was on with you about three years ago. You gave some, gave some great advice. Since then, I bought several of your programs. Hit prs and squat bench and dud left. So it's been really awesome experience over the last handful of years. So to get into my question a little bit more, about a year ago, I started having some pain in my right shoulder. I'd managed through it with some massage, extra stretching, occasional mo, occasional mobility work. Just kind of pushed through it. But about a month ago, I was five weeks into the old time strength program and I really started noticing a difference between my right and left shoulder. So I figured I better probably go get it checked out. So I went to a sports medicine clinic, had imaging done, and the doctor said I had some bicep tendonitis and some minor AC joint degeneration in the, in the right shoulder. So he recommended physical therapy. I started that about four weeks ago. Since then, it's definitely improving. I'm getting more range of motion back. And the pain, pain is slowly starting to go away. Right now, besides the pt, I'm lifting very lightweight, but with limitations. They have me doing no push moves or any kind of overhead work. I did just start doing bench pressing with the bar, only really focusing on my shoulder and placement and just real good form. So my question is, how should I approach training right now? What program or would you recommend I focus on? I'd like to try to minimize muscle and strength loss while I rehab so I can transition back to normal training as smoothly as possible.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, first you got to finish rehab and when you're done, I think map symmetry would be a good program for you. Here's the deal. Here's why you experienced what you did. Strength is amazing thing to chase, but if you keep chasing strength, at some point you'll start to develop issues if you don't balance it out with mobility and stability. And I think that's what you experience. You were hitting, you know, PRs and you keep pushing it, maybe staying in low rep, you know, ranges for too long, staying with the same kind of exercises, same plane of motion. And at some point you get the joint stuff starts to pop up. AC joint and bicep tendon tendonitis are easy to.

[Adam Schafer]

Super common.

[Sal Destefano]

You can fit. Yeah, you're good.

[Adam Schafer]

I have AC joint wear and tear and bicep tendonitis is like inflammation in there. And that's like, like due to what they're saying right now. Super solvable. But a lot of this is like shoulder this. So we just had another caller where I recommended the shoulder and wrist mobility type stuff. So is, is, is is Maps, performance and symmetry are the two programs that you want to rotate through. I just gave this to the last caller and I'll say it to you also. A really good rule of thumb is every year, never let yourself go for a full year and not run through at least maps, performance and symmetry and. Or one of them every year. At least once the whole, they do a good job of addressing unilateral mobility, rotational stuff like, and that'll help keep that keep you good. If you stay in like a maps, anabolic maps, aesthetic type of program, power lift, like, you'll get strong, but then all of a sudden you'll start feeling that wear and tear on the joint.

[Justin Andrews]

Because we got to reinforce the frame.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, yes.

[Justin Andrews]

We got to make sure. Everything is accounted for. And so you can keep loading the joint. And so to maintain that function, we got to take it through those range of motion with minimal load, with tension. So right now, even just going through a lot of the types of cars and things in our prime programs, you know, really adopting, incorporating that as ritual before your workouts and taking it through, really connecting back again to those ranges of motion is going to be everything.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. The challenge is this. So you'll do your rehab and then you'll feel good and then you'll want to get back to pushing it. So there's degeneration that causes pain. And once you get rid of the pain, that doesn't mean you're all the way back to where you need to be. Sure. Okay, so, so you. So I want you to just keep that in mind because you're going to feel good and like, I'm strong, I can push it. But don't go through map symmetry a couple times. Go through the first phase, don't skip that, but skip the last phase. Skip the five by five, Stay in the unilateral for a couple cycles, and then go back to the other stuff and you should be okay.

[Caller Brian]

Okay, that. That makes sense. It is tough when you start hitting these numbers, especially. I'm in my mid-40s and it, it's. It's kind of a major ego boost. And it's like, man, I really like this. And I feel stronger in my normal life. But yeah, when it started talking, it started talking real aggressive.

[Adam Schafer]

Hey, and just so you know this, you'll get back. I'm dealing with this right now. So it's. As much as we sit here and give this advice, we're still just as guilty of the same thing. It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of the. The prs, the gaining the strength, gaining the muscle. I'm in it right now. I've been on a nice run for like two and a half, three months, getting stronger, Feeling good, Feeling good. And now my forearm is talking. My forearm and elbow is talking to me. And I know it's because I'm not. I'm not taking my own advice. I'm giving you right now.

[Sal Destefano]

Sure.

[Justin Andrews]

It's got to allocate that effort to reinforce.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right. That's right.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay.

[Caller Brian]

I do have performance and symmetry.

[Adam Schafer]

Would you.

[Caller Brian]

It's probably been. I haven't done symmetry for the longest of those two. Would you recommend just jumping into symmetry

[Sal Destefano]

when I can Clear. Go to symmetry, skip the last phase, and I would do that maybe a couple times before you can start playing with the heavy bilateral stuff.

[Caller Brian]

Okay, I will definitely do that.

[Sal Destefano]

You got it, man.

[Adam Schafer]

All right, Brian.

[Sal Destefano]

All right.

[Caller Brian]

I just wanted to say one more thing. I think I speak for a lot of your listeners when I say it's. It's kind of odd to view you four almost as friends, even though we. You've never met a lot of us face to face. And I will just say, outside my closest friends, I've never prayed or wished success for more than I have for you. For what you guys do is absolutely awesome. I truly appreciate the advice. I listen to your podcast all the time and like I said, I'm lucky enough to been able to ask you guys two questions and I just really appreciate it. So keep up what you guys are doing.

[Sal Destefano]

Appreciate the prayers a lot, Brian. I appreciate that.

[Adam Schafer]

Thank you, brother. Thank you. Yeah.

[Caller Brian]

Thank you, guys.

[Sal Destefano]

You got it, man. Yeah, it's. It's funny, right? Because we communicate getting stronger so much on the show.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

But it's important to communicate the other end of that and in. And a lot of people don't get to this place because they have a difficulty staying consistent.

[Adam Schafer]

That's the reason why we preach that so much.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes. But this will get away from you too. You'll do this for a couple years and you'll be like, oh, my God, I'm just gonna keep getting strong. And at some point the imbalances kick up and things start to hurt. And what you don't want to do is ignore them or put band aids on them, which look like pain relievers or icy Hot or wraps. Wraps. Or changing my warm up and just sticking to the same thing.

[Adam Schafer]

The reason why we. We hammer the. The strength part and just focus on that first so much is because that's so hard to get so many people just to adopt that. Yeah. Getting him to do what we just told him. Super easy.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, yeah, he'll do it.

[Adam Schafer]

He's already so bought in. He's. What he's done changed his life. He's gotten so much benefit from it. Now we're just like, oh, let's.

[Justin Andrews]

Let's caught fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Now it's like, hey, now we need to do some of these old things.

[Sal Destefano]

Things.

[Adam Schafer]

And then, like, he'll do it like, you know, like he's done the hard part.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

And so that's the reason why we don't over communicate this early on is because a lot of people never make it to here.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

And so if we can just get you focusing on getting strong and lifting weights consistently, you'll build crazy amounts of muscle and you'll hit prs and then you might start to have some achy joints because you've been doing it so much. And then we could tell you how to fix that.

[Podcast Host Intro]

Our next caller is Abigail from South Carolina.

[Sal Destefano]

Hi, Abigail.

[Caller Abigail]

Hey, how are you guys doing?

[Sal Destefano]

We're great. How are you?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, good, good.

[Caller Abigail]

Thank you. Thank you guys so much for your time today. I am going to jump right into my email if that's all right.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, let's go.

[Caller Abigail]

Okay. All right, so I am a long time listener, first time caller. I'm a 29 year old female, around 55 and weigh around 140 pounds. But I do fluctuate between 135 and 145, but feel my best with some severe lower inflammation around 135. I did grow up playing sports, lacrosse, volleyball. I've been lifting since 2014, but more seriously with plans and I've had coaches since around 2020. I'm going on a trip end of February and I wanted to figure out the best 8 to 10 week plan, but now kind of updates. There's been some updates since the last census. The trip's in about two weeks, so we can kind of pivot away from that. But current overview is when I sent this in, I was not tracking any macros I have before, but I stopped for about a year and I was just intuitively eating and I did maintain my weight throughout that whole year without having to weigh any of my food or anything like that. This is part and due because I've worked with coaches in the past, learned about portion control, listening to my body and things like that. Oh, and I lost my email. But long story short is that is that I'm looking to figure out how to best proceed with some of these issues that I'm having. I start to track my macros again and I've been dealing with SIBO on and off for about three years. I did heal my Sibo one time in 2023 and it came back with absolute vengeance in 2025. Last October, after I took an anti inflammatory pill for a swollen ankle, it came back within 48 hours. So I'm basically trying to figure out how to proceed While I'm in this like healing phase, I've been trying to build and work on my body comp and physique, but I know when I'm in this healing phase, I can't really do that and I have to Do a little bit less. But then I go back and forth on wondering if I'm just kind of making excuses when I'm not getting my 10,000 steps or going to the gym five days a week and trying to figure out a best plan. So I have started to track macros again. I go to the gym three days a week. Right now when I wrote this email, I was doing Muscle Mommy. I did stop that or finished it. I've done anabolic and Muscle Mommy. And then because of this timeframe I had with my vacation, I started this kind of random six week program just because the timing lined up up. Three days in the gym, two days of Pilates that is coming to an end as I head to a trip in two weeks. And when I get back from this trip, I just want to figure out the best way to move forward. I've been listening to this like four years. I do have my NASM certification that I got several years ago. I don't do too much with it right now, but I'm very into the health wellness world. And I've done the antimicrobials, the antibiotic. I've done the elemental diet, which has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. If you've ever known anyone that's had to do that. And we're trying to find the main source, which could be mold. Hence why I'm outside getting my apartment literally tested today as we speak.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Okay, so what are your symptoms? Inflammation, sibo, what else?

[Caller Abigail]

Yeah, so I wake up a lot of times the descended stomach doesn't go away no matter what I eat. So it's not really a food trigger. I haven't been able to nail that down. Chronic fatigue when it's really bad. I literally can't keep my eyes open by 3pm but that's gotten a lot better. Hair loss, acne, brain fog. But the most frustrating part is the body not responding to anything I do. I eat and train like a bodybuilder for years and like my body doesn't budge. The scale doesn't budge. Even though I know that's not super important. It's just nice to see the results. And I'm getting none of it. And I'm kind of stuck in this cycle, in this loop.

[Sal Destefano]

Have you been tested for. So you're testing for mold, which is a great. And by the way, it's a thorough test.

[Caller Abigail]

Yes. He's been there for three hours right now doing, doing more than just the air spores because I've had that done and Those came back negative. And he just got into my H vac system and it's covered in mold, so that's okay.

[Sal Destefano]

So. So mold can cause a lot of that. Do you ever find yourself feeling better when you spend the night at other places for like a week or two?

[Caller Abigail]

Not really. And I've thought about that, but no, not really.

[Sal Destefano]

Sometimes that'll happen, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it takes longer. Molds can be. Have you been tested for heavy metals?

[Caller Brian]

No.

[Caller Abigail]

The only one I've done is a urine toxin toxicology test for mold.

[Sal Destefano]

The three tests I would recommend is mold. And by the way, you could do a urine mold test too, to help confirm mold, heavy metals, and parasites. Have you been tested by. For parasites?

[Caller Abigail]

Yes. No parasites.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay.

[Caller Abigail]

Just the overgrowth for bacteria, no fungal anything. Sibo has been the biggest one.

[Sal Destefano]

The thing with sibo, which is really. Which is really difficult, is people who get sibo tend to get it again. Yeah. By the way, you could test negative for a parasite and still have one because they can sometimes hide and be difficult to. To find. So if you. If it comes back mold negative, all that stuff's negative. A functional medicine practitioner or a doctor sometimes will just treat you for a parasite, and that can be life changing. It does sound like your autoimmune system is kind of reactive. So I think you're in the. I think you're going in the right direction. I really do. But it' sit's hard to do anything until we know what the culprit is. Now, once you figure that out, then you work on that. Everything else is to support that. So trying to push your body with strength or fat loss or stamina or endurance. If you're dealing with, like, mold or parasites or heavy metal, it's. It's just gonna feel like you're. You're running in place. In fact, it might make things feel worse. So I think you're moving in the right direction. I dealt with my. I should say my wife and kids dealt with more mold. I didn't have any symptoms or symptoms like they did. They had a bunch of mysterious symptoms, and we couldn't figure out what it was. And it wasn't until we had someone come in fully test the place, and we saw, oh, there's mold. We moved out, and it took like two or three months before we saw a reduction in some of those symptoms. And there was also a protocol. So, like, my kids are on this kind of mold detox protocol. In fact, they're still on it now because we have to be Very gentle with little ones. My wife went on when that was real aggressive, and it did make a really big difference. So I'd love to hear back to see if that was the case for you.

[Caller Abigail]

Well, so I did, I did do the mold test. And so I did test, like, off the charts for two very high mold toxins. And we're trying to figure out the source of it. So that's why I'm doing the apartment testing today. So it has been confirmed, though, that I have very high levels of two specific ones, which I can. I think I can pull that pull up if you wanted that one too. It's the ochratoxin and citrinen.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. I'm not super privy to the different types of mold, but if you did measure high, that's what you're dealing with. Everything should be used to support that. And I would look into encouraging the body's detox systems. So, like, sauna is really helpful. You don't want to eat foods that can be inflammatory because that can make things a lot worse. And of course, get out of wherever it is that you're getting this exposure to. And typically it's home or work.

[Adam Schafer]

Is it worth it for her to invest in, like, one of those, like, portable filters in her bedroom for at

[Sal Destefano]

least now that'll help.

[Adam Schafer]

It's better than just until.

[Justin Andrews]

By the way, Dr. Becky Campbell, that really was dealing with this.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

We had an episode we did with Fer talking about.

[Sal Destefano]

And I'll tell you this just so, just, just so you know, let's say you find all this mold in your apartment. You're like, okay, this is where it's at. I'm going to move. You take your furniture, you take your, your bedding, you take your whatever, stuffed animals, if you got any. My kids had them, and you take them to the new house. Guess what you took with you.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes.

[Sal Destefano]

Mold spores.

[Justin Andrews]

That's the thing. It follows you all over the place.

[Sal Destefano]

You got to throw everything away and clean everything with anti mold stuff. It's the biggest pain in the ass ever. Brutal. But I've heard so many horror stories of people that would move and then a year and a half later, same problem. And it's because they brought the mold over. I mean, it was the biggest pain in the ass ever. And I hate when people have to go through it because I went through it and it was such a nightmare.

[Adam Schafer]

I definitely would consider getting one of those air docks in your room.

[Sal Destefano]

For now, we have it. We put them in the new house because I'm like, Just in case we brought a new extra filter.

[Caller Abigail]

Okay. Yeah, that's definitely a daunting thought. I did ask the guy that's here. I was like, what you're seeing right now, is this enough for me to have to leave? Where I'm living, it's just a one bedroom apartment. He said no. But we haven't sent out the full report. It'll take a few days to get the actual results back. But in regards to training and nutrition, how should I be supporting my body through this? I'm definitely a gym rat. I go 5:30 every morning.

[Sal Destefano]

Mild. Mild to moderate. Mild to moderate. Yeah. You push your body too hard with any kind of stress and you're gonna crash. So that could be like, I stay up really late or I went out drinking, or I'm just, you know, training, you know. And by the way, hard for you. You might think to yourself like, this isn't that hard. Your body's just already. It's already fighting something. So you add too much to that and it's gonna crash. So it's gonna be mild to moderate at best. So you're probably gonna be strength training, moderate intensity, less volume than you used to walking.

[Caller Abigail]

Yeah, I did cut muscle, mommy, when I was doing it down a little bit to two sets instead of three, just because I thought that that worked better for me. But right now I'm just going Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, and Pilates on Tuesday, Thursdays. Would you recommend anything different from that or am I on the right path for that?

[Sal Destefano]

If you start to feel like you're getting stronger and you're feeling better. Good. Yeah. If you don't scale it down. Yeah, you got to scale it down.

[Caller Abigail]

Okay. Are you like maybe two times a week or more consistent?

[Sal Destefano]

No, I go two days a week and I cut down the Pilates, the ones and then walk. Are you. I know that's so disheartening to hear, but you'll feel better. Are you using a sauna?

[Caller Abigail]

I just started to. Yes, there is a regular sauna and then like an infrared sauna at this local sauna house here.

[Sal Destefano]

Yep.

[Caller Abigail]

So I've been doing that.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Sauna can speed up the process a little bit. So if you go to the gym a few, spending time anywhere, do that

[Adam Schafer]

at least three times.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I would go in the sauna

[Adam Schafer]

at least three times a week.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, that'll help.

[Caller Abigail]

Okay. And I think I do. I might have one of the MAPS 15 programs.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Caller Abigail]

Would that be better than going.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, yes, yes, totally.

[Caller Abigail]

It would.

[Sal Destefano]

Absolutely. Okay.

[Caller Abigail]

Would it be okay. To take some. Because I know it's seven days a week, right?

[Sal Destefano]

No, six days. I think it's six.

[Adam Schafer]

With an alternate six days. But you can pair. You could pair two of the days if you had to. So if, like, some days you. You can't make. If you can't make six days to the gym, you can pair some of the days.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Caller Abigail]

Okay, that's gonna be my question. Cause I definitely, on the weekends, fully rest and only walk. So I was gonna see if I could pair some throughout the week to bring it down.

[Sal Destefano]

You can. You can also follow it as a five day split and just start back up where you left off.

[Adam Schafer]

That's right.

[Sal Destefano]

You gotta be really ginger with. With how you apply things at the moment, so. And give your body a little bit of a break.

[Justin Andrews]

Take the weekend off.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. And you know, once you get out of this, you're gonna be like, whoa, my body is. I mean, the difference in my wife and kids was pretty remarkable.

[Caller Abigail]

Yeah. It's just super frustrating because it's been literally 16 months of this healing phase I've been in. I'm like, when can I start to actually see results again from the effort I put in at the gym and in the kitchen? So I'm just kind of like spinning my wheels on how to speed up this process.

[Sal Destefano]

And by the way, like, people have an individual variance to how sensitive they are to mold. So some people are more sensitive than others. Like I said, I was in the same house with my wife and kids, and I didn't really have any symptoms, but they did. So there's a difference. So, you know, your H Vac guy might be like, I've seen this before. Doesn't seem to cause a problem. You might be really sensitive to it. And I know people like that. Dr. Becky Campbell's been on our pocket, very sensitive to mold. So she's exposed to a little bit, and she causes a pretty big reaction.

[Caller Abigail]

Okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Sal Destefano]

All right.

[Caller Abigail]

Well, kind of, I guess, keep things status quo, cut down the volume overall a little bit and just try to find the actual culprit.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Caller Abigail]

Of why I have recurring sibo. Okay.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right. When did you move into your apartment, by the way? How long you been there?

[Caller Abigail]

Four years ago.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, let's.

[Caller Abigail]

That's when I first was diagnosed with sibo.

[Sal Destefano]

Really?

[Caller Abigail]

Three years ago? Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Sal Destefano]

I think we found this. We might have found the smoking gun.

[Caller Abigail]

I know, but I've had all these GI issues before. I just didn't know it was sibo. Back then. So I'm just kind of now wondering if I've had it this whole time and just only knew the name to call it the past three years. But, yes, it's definitely been worse the last three years.

[Sal Destefano]

Just so you know, one thing makes the other thing harder. So if you have sibo, you're not. You're going to be more sensitive to mold. If you have mold, you're more sensitive to heavy metals. If you have heavy metals, you're more sensitive to. To say it all contributes. So, yeah, you could have very well had gut issues. And then those gut issues, plus exposure to mold, now you're just the tipping point.

[Caller Abigail]

And when I did heal it the first time, I was eating around 2,500 calories, losing weight, losing inflammation. Should I try to work myself back up to there? I'm sitting around 22, 23. Or should I not really push the calories and protein right now?

[Sal Destefano]

If you're pushing it and you're like, whoa, I'm getting bloated, and this is causing digestive issues, then back down. Yeah. Okay.

[Caller Abigail]

All right, awesome. Well, thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it.

[Sal Destefano]

You got it. Good luck.

[Caller Abigail]

All right, thank you. Bye.

[Sal Destefano]

Bye. It's such a thing. Such a sucky, crappy, I guess, obviously, when I. Until we don't tell somebody to move, but I'm like, you guys remember what we went through? Yeah. Like, we found it. And I'm like, oh, we got to leave, dude. And we left, and literally we threw away everything. And then everything else we washed. Like, ridiculous. We went to the new house, got that tested. It was such. And I remember being like this. It can't be that bad. Like, I was, like, in denial, you know? Like, no way. There's no way, dude. And then I'd talk to all these other people. Oh, my God.

[Adam Schafer]

You got. You got all those air docks in the room, too.

[Sal Destefano]

I do now.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, Everywhere. Just in case, you know? Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean, I feel like. I feel like that would be like. I mean, obviously it doesn't prevent it completely, but it would. I would make a difference. I would imagine. Make a big difference.

[Sal Destefano]

Right. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media. We'll see you there.

[Podcast Host Intro]

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

[Sal Destefano]

We heard you shouldn't talk about going to the bathroom in public so we

[Caller Abigail]

decided to sing about it.

[Sal Destefano]

Charmin ultra strong you can use less

[Adam Schafer]

better than the rest Shaman ultra strong

[Sal Destefano]

booty pass the clean text summon with

[Justin Andrews]

texture it's the best Study up teach

[Sal Destefano]

a lesson on fresh your booty pass

[Justin Andrews]

the clean test

[Sal Destefano]

Charmin ultra strong with diamond weave texture cleans better than the leading one ply brand so you can

[Caller Abigail]

use less Enjoy the go with charming.