2898: How to Do Pull Ups in 30 Days (The Exact Method That Actually Works)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mind Pump 2898 – How to Do Pull Ups in 30 Days (The Exact Method That Actually Works)

Date: July 10, 2026
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, Doug Egge

---

Overview

This episode of Mind Pump dives deep into a highly requested topic: How to master pull ups in 30 days using a surprisingly simple, skill-based protocol. Sal, Adam, and Justin debunk common myths around pull up progress and provide an exact, actionable method for rapid improvement, drawing on personal experiences, client successes, and insights from classic strength training literature.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Pull Ups as a Skill, Not Just a Strength Movement

(02:00 – 04:30)

• Most people think doing more back exercises or increasing lat pull downs will lead to more pull ups. The hosts emphasize that pull ups are a skill requiring specific practice, not just stronger back muscles.
• Sal: "All exercises are skills... There’s a much faster way to get good at this."
• Analogy: Throwing a baseball further is better developed by practicing throws, not just strengthening involved muscles.

2. The Power of Frequency and Low-Intensity Practice

(05:30 – 09:00)

• Instead of grueling workouts, the fastest progress comes from daily, easy practice.
• Justin: Shares a story about accidentally achieving crazy pull up ability by doing a casual 3–5 reps every day while working at a dairy, never pushing himself to failure.
• Sal: Recounts a trainer who benched 400+ lbs not by hard workouts, but by frequently doing a couple of playful reps throughout the day.

Memorable quote:

• Sal (07:21): "The key is frequency of practice and in low intensity… You practice them at a low to moderate intensity every day, maybe a couple times a day, without pushing the intensity."

3. Practical Protocol: Daily Practice Over Workouts

(09:00 – 13:30)

• Set up a pull up bar at home, use a band for assistance if you can’t do one yet.
• "Practice" means 1–2 easy reps, 2–3 times a day. Not a workout—don’t train to failure or even fatigue.
• Isometric holds and assisted negatives (slowly lowering from the bar) are effective for absolute beginners.
• Over a few weeks, this frequent, easy exposure rapidly improves neuromuscular coordination.

4. Avoiding Junk Volume & Other Training During the Challenge

(13:30 – 16:40)

• For 30 days, avoid traditional back workouts (pull downs, rows, deadlifts). All energy should focus on skill practice.
• Adam: "You have to kind of trade it out and get rid of the junk volume."
• Trust the process—skipping your usual back routine won’t shrink your back if you’re improving at pull ups.

5. Supportive Habits: Nutrition, Recovery, and Testing

(15:23 – 17:10)

• Don’t be in a calorie deficit. Try to be at maintenance or a slight surplus to maximize strength gains.
• Prioritize sleep. Go to bed and wake up at the same time for 30 days.
• Four to five days before testing yourself, take complete rest so you’re fully recovered.
• Sal: “You add this to what we said and, you know, watch what happens…”

6. How Much Practice? Less is More

(18:13 – 21:00)

• If your max is 5 pull ups, do singles, no more than 5 easy reps throughout the day.
• All hosts stress that most people overdo it, which backfires. It should feel easy every time.
• Sal: “It’s remarkably less intense than you think to practice something like this.”

---

Fast Reference – Protocol Steps & Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | Summary | |-----------------------------|:-------------:|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | Busting pull up myths | 02:00 | Training back doesn’t directly equal more pull ups | | Frequency > Intensity | 07:21 | Why low-intensity daily practice works | | Assisted practice methods | 09:00–10:37 | How to use bands, negatives, and isometrics | | Why skip other back work? | 13:37 | Focus all nervous system adaptation on pull ups | | Supporting strength gains | 15:23 | Nutrition, sleep, and managing other variables | | Testing & maximizing PRs | 16:40–18:12 | How and when to test your improved pull up capacity | | How much volume is right? | 18:41–21:13 | Why “playing” with easy reps beats grinding out hard sets |

---

Notable Quotes

• Sal: “All exercises are skills. Practice them as a skill and you’ll surpass what your muscles alone would allow.” (03:33)
• Justin: “It needs to feel like practice. Don’t make it a workout.” (13:38)
• Adam: “If you want to get seriously good at one lift, you need to focus to exclusion—cut out the junk work.” (14:29)
• Sal: “Nothing kills strength gains like poor sleep. Nothing increases injury like poor sleep.” (16:17)
• Sal: “The mistake is people push it a little. And then they don’t see the progress. It should feel easy.” (19:31)

---

Additional Insights & Tangent Topics

• Strength “Greasing the Groove” Methods: Inspired by Soviet athletes; light, frequent lifts build rapid neural adaptation.
• Nutrition Digression: Emphasis on real food protein (e.g., Paleo Valley beef sticks) over processed supplements; discussion on nutrient bioavailability and satiety.
• Community & Consistency: The powerful role of community in sustaining fitness habits (e.g., why CrossFit is sticky for so many).
• Sun, Sunscreen & Cancer (44:00–53:00): In-depth tangent on observational studies questioning chemical sunscreen safety, with stats, state-by-state skin cancer rates, and mineral vs chemical sunscreen recommendations.

---

Summary of the 30-Day Pull Up Method

1. Install a pull up bar at home (use a resistance band if you can’t yet complete a full rep).

2. Practice pull ups every day, multiple times (1–2 easy, non-fatiguing reps, 2–3 times per day).

• Use negatives (slow descents) or isometrics if you can’t get above the bar.

3. Do NOT perform other intense back exercises for the month. Focus energy and adaptation on pull up skill.

4. Eat at maintenance or surplus calories and prioritize sleep.

5. Rest completely for 4–5 days before your test day.

6. Film your new PR!

---

Closing Notes

This episode is a must-listen for anyone stuck at their first pull up or eager to rapidly improve their numbers. The hosts emphasize skill practice, minimalism, consistency, and patience, weaving in personal anecdotes and science for both the fitness nerd and the everyday enthusiast.

For full details, listen from:

• [02:00 – 22:00] for the core pull-up method and coaching discussion.

---

Mind Pump Contact & Programs:

• Instagram: @mindpumpmedia, @mindpumpsal, @mindpumpadam, @mindpumpjustin, @mindpumpdoug
• Pull Up program/support: mapsupperlower.com (MAPS Upper/Lower), MAPS 15 protocols

---

For feedback or questions, DM on Instagram or visit mindpumppodcast.com

Transcript

[Doug]

If you want to pump your body

[Sal Destefano]

and expand 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 fitness entertainment health podcast approaching over half a billion downloads. This is Mind Pump. So today we answered listeners questions. We picked them off Instagram Mind Pump Media. But this was after the intro. Today's intro was 54 minutes long. Now in the intro we talk about fitness and fat loss and current events and all that fun stuff. Now this episode is brought to you by some sponsors. The first one is Paleo Valley. Today we talked about their grass fed beef meat sticks. They're delicious, high in protein. I think it's better than a protein powder. Why not eat meat? It's better for you. Go check them out. Go to paleovalley.com mind pump that link will get you 15% off. This episode is also brought to you by Crisp Power. These are high protein pretzels. They're delicious and each bag is up to 28 grams of protein. Go to crisppower.com mindpump use the code mindpump. Get 10% off. Also we have a brand new Maps workout program. Maps. Upper Lower. It's a four day split bodybuilding, inspired body sculpting, shaping, building program four days a week. Upper lower. You hit both the upper and lower body twice in that week. We have a men and women's version in there. Slightly different programming for different focuses. The program comes with everything that you need. Also, if you sign up during the launch period, you get 40% off and you get life coaching with our top trainer Cole. Go to mapsupperlower.com use the code launch. Get it for 40% off. All right, real quick.

[Adam Schafer]

If you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs or training gear? Over atmypumpstore.com I'm talking right now.

[Justin Andrews]

Hit pause. Head on over tomy pump store.com.

[Adam Schafer]

that's it.

[Justin Andrews]

Enjoy the rest of the show.

[Sal Destefano]

Being able to do a pull up or pull ups, it's a great accomplishment. But you struggle. You've been trying for a long time. You can't do it. We're going to give you the formula. Be able to do pull ups in 30 days. Let's get to it.

[Justin Andrews]

Justin's been trying for 45 years.

[Sal Destefano]

He's still so close. He's the heavy cakes. He's got hold my bottom. It keeps it up. This was. Did you guys get this often with your clients? Especially Female clients, where they're like, I want to be able to do a pull up.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it was a big goal.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I think it's a fun goal. It's a great exercise, but it's high resistance.

[Adam Schafer]

Right.

[Sal Destefano]

You're lifting your body weight but being able to do it, it's fun. It's a great back exercise, very functional. And a lot of people who want to do more pull ups go about it the wrong way. I think that they believe if they just train their back more or add in more pull, pull downs and just increase the volume, that that's going to do it. Not realizing that there is a way to get better at a skill, which is all. All exercises or skills. There's a much faster way to get good at this.

[Justin Andrews]

It's actually interesting how little getting really strong on your back actually plays a role. Yes, you can get really strong on your back and see a minimal difference. Now if you take somebody who's never lifted and you get a strong back, you tell, let's say you test them the first day and they can't do a single p or maybe they can do one and then you'll get them a strong back. They could probably do a couple, but there's not a lot of carryover. Not like you would think there would be.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, again, people, strength to weight ratio,

[Adam Schafer]

it's like you'd probably do better just getting leaner there.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, so there's strength to weight ratio, but also this is a big one, is that people, you know, when they look at exercises, they look at exercises as it relates to body parts. So it's like those are chest exercises, those are shoulder exercises, those are leg exercises. And that's true, but exercises are skills. And so if, for example, if your goal was to throw a baseball twice as far as you currently can and you wanted to get really good at throwing a baseball really far, there's two approaches you could take. The approach that would be wrong would be, let me strengthen all the muscles involved in throwing a baseball. So I got my lats involved, there's some forearm flexors involved. I got the infraspinatus and okay, I got to strengthen my hips a little bit. So I go to the gym and just work on those muscles. Or I could practice throwing a baseball. Which one is going to get accomplish the goal faster practicing throwing a baseball because it's a skill. When we look at exercises, we just don't look at them that way. We just look at the muscles involved and think, well, let's just get those muscles Stronger, which is part of it, but the other part of it is this is a skill. So the number one with being able to do pull ups, if you really want to be able to do pull ups in 30 days, cut your legs off. Cut your legs off. That'll do it. Is you practice them daily. Every day you practice them. Now this is different than training them every single day. So the mistake someone would make with this is they go and do, you know, a pull up workout every single day. That is a great way to get yourself to do less than you currently can do. That's how you overtrain yourself. What you do is you go and you practice. And there's a variety of different ways to do this, but you practice them at a low to moderate intensity every day, maybe a couple times a day, without pushing the intensity. And what you'll find is strength gains in this specific movement increase dramatically and rapidly.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it's. I know the audience is probably tired of hearing the story that I think we've all shared because I think we all have a personal story related to this. And I. Mine is so vivid because it's still. I don't think I ever have exceeded this, this pull up feat for me. And it was so unintentional. It wasn't even like a big workout I was into. I was working out in high school, but like very minimal and not appropriately not doing a lot. I was doing a lot of things wrong. You know, nutritionally, program wise, everything. But when I worked at the dairy, which I worked at five, sometimes six, seven days a week, and I milked cows, there was the. Where you came in to where the stalls were, there were these bars that were just these big thick bars above me that were just a little bit above. I just had to hop up for a second. And just as tradition, I would walk in and I'd jump on it real quick and I'd swing up and I'd literally only do like three to five. Yeah, it was not.

[Sal Destefano]

It wasn't a workout.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't like doing it to work out. I like did it just like, I

[Sal Destefano]

did it just to mess around.

[Justin Andrews]

Mess around. I was messing around. And I did it every, every day. Every day I would jump around, jump up there and do that. And you know, that was. I worked there for years and before I knew it, it was just like, it felt like nothing. It actually felt like it was so easy for me to pull my body weight up. I felt like I could just do as many as I wanted. And it Was so wild to see that. And then years later, getting in the gym and lifting weights and trying to build my back and build muscle, I was never that. I could never get that good. But I never had applied it to that level where I just every day dedicated doing a handful of them. And it's wild. What a difference that makes.

[Sal Destefano]

The key to what you're saying is frequency of practice and in low intensity.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, I wasn't going. I never went to.

[Sal Destefano]

You could have probably repped out 15.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

But you're doing three. Yeah. Just so that people get an idea of what that intensity looks like. I had a similar experience. It wasn't with pull ups, it was with bench press. I had this, I've told this story before. I had this trainer that worked for me that he could bench press four plates. Okay. So he was just really, really strong at the bench press. And I never really saw him work out. And it wasn't because he didn't work out. I just don't think I was there paying attention to the times. But what I did notice was that in between his clients, he'd load up the bench. So remember this guy who could bench press £400, he would load up like 275 or 315. He'd get under the. He would mess around, basically. He'd get into the bar, he'd do like a couple reps and rack it up. And I always thought, I actually didn't think anything of it. I thought he was just playing around. And one day, you know, I had a chance to hang out with him. And at this time, you know, I'm a young kid and then, you know, in the 90s, bench press was like the lift. That's how you talked about how strong you were. And I'm like, dude, how did you get so strong at bench press? Because he wasn't a huge guy. He was a big guy, but not big enough to where you could think you bench a 405. And he goes, oh, I don't even train it. I'm like, what? Like, so you're just naturally strong at bench press? He goes, no, he goes all day, throughout the day. He goes, I just go onto the bench and I fool around and mess around throughout the day. Like that's all you do.

[Adam Schafer]

He said, yeah, practice it.

[Sal Destefano]

And then I read Soviet era studies on strength training and how they train some of their athletes and. And they had similar approaches to getting their athletes to increase their strength in a specific lift dramatically. And so this is what it looks like for someone Listening. Right. So let's say you can't do any pull ups because maybe you can't do any at all. And you're like, I want to be able to do at least one or two. You'd set up a pull up bar in a doorway somewhere in your house. Set it up with assistance with a band so you could hook your knee or your leg underneath it and you would, you know, two or three times a day you go up there and do like one or two easy pull ups and you would just practice them every single day.

[Adam Schafer]

It's just pattern recognition.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

At the end of the day it's just like learning a language. Like you're going to get more knowledgeable about the sequencing of that and your, your body's going to respond so much better the more that you, you know, expose it to it. So it's, it's, it really is that. And it's like, you know, maybe we, you know, we add a little bit more stress to that. And you know, there's certain techniques you can do. Like if you can't do a pull up right away, you know, you might want to just hold, you might want to have isometric, you might want to work on the eccentric part. But it's really the exposure of like going through that entire range of motion, maybe assisted. But the more frequently you can do that with, you know, less stress and more skill, the better.

[Sal Destefano]

So years ago I had a female client that I did exactly that. So she came to me. I really wanted. We had been training her for a while, so she'd already been working out. But she's like, I really want to do pull ups. So I said, and I did all the stuff we're going to talk about on top of this. But one thing that I said was, I said set up a pull up bar. And you can't do a pull up. So what I want you to do is get a step so you could get up to the pull up bar so that you're already, it's like you already finished a pull up. Then bend your knees and slowly lower yourself and that's it. And you do that one time and do that like three times a day. And it wasn't very long at all. She was able to do more than one. She was able to do like two or three full pull ups.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, we all have these crazy stories. When I was Hillsdale, so I'm 25, I had this guy Rafael from New York who was in his mid-40s at the time. And of course this is my 20, 20 something year old brain defaulted to. Oh, he takes all kinds of steroids. That's why he looks like he's probably

[Adam Schafer]

really good with size.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. He never worked out. He never had a half hour hour block of training. Never one. And he worked for me for years and he was absolutely jacked and claimed he was natural. And I didn't believe it, especially because the way I saw he worked out and the way he worked out was we all know Sal tells the story of how he used to stuff food down between the five to ten clients. Five, ten minutes, right? Everyone has about five to ten minutes between clients. What he did was walk over the dumbbell rack and did two sets of curls or walk over the bench press and just do two sets of bench press between clients, Just between clients. All day long. All day long. And I actually interpreted it too as like one, I thought he was on steroids or two, this guy's so insecure

[Sal Destefano]

he has to keep lifting.

[Justin Andrews]

He has to keep lifting to keep a pump all the time. And that's his thing. But he's like, that's how I work out. I just, I don't ever do a full hour workout. I don't have time to do that. And it's easier for me just to do this all day. And I just didn't believe him. I, I didn't believe him whatsoever. And I'm so inspired by that way of training that, you know, part of the motivation. I've talked off air, I think, to you guys. I don't know if I've publicly talked about this, but you know, I'm working on building an outdoor gym at my house and I'm outside a lot, especially with Max in the pool, stuff like that. And I'm just going to make it a goal. I'm going to log it too. So I'm not going to just willy nilly do it. I'm going to try and kind of track it to get an idea of what I'm doing and just kind of keep a little notebook there and just like, oh, did two sets of this, do this and just kind of see where everything lands. But I'm, I'm inspired to not do any traditional kind of lifting and just make an effort. Every, you know, every time I walk outside or I go for a swim or I lay out or I go in my sauna, all those things are outside and I'm barbecuing out there, just going to walk over to the dumbbell or the pull up or the squat, right? And just Do a set or two and then walk away and just see if I can tally up what would be a general workout in a day or two and just see what happens.

[Sal Destefano]

And that's, that's the, the Soviets wr a lot about that style of training for building.

[Justin Andrews]

And I know it's not realistic for the average listener. Right. Like not everybody has that luxury. So I get why we've all kind of as a society conform to this one hour blocks, three days a week or whatever like that. But you know, from everything that I've seen, what I've experienced personally, from the stories you guys just shared, it almost seems like this would be ideal if you had that. If you had that luxury.

[Sal Destefano]

I think so. And again, for someone listening who wants to do this with poly pull ups, this is actually, this is easy with pull ups because pull up bars are really inexpensive, right.

[Justin Andrews]

You put them in a doorway, put

[Sal Destefano]

in your doorway and you just practice this literally two or three times a day. And it has to feel like practice. Don't make it a workout. Which takes us to the second point here which is avoid any other back work. So this will not work if you also once or twice a week have a long intense back workout. Yeah, you fatigue your gotta avoid all other back work for 30 days and all your back work is going to be this, you know, daily, two or three times a day I go up and I hop up and I practice.

[Justin Andrews]

Which by the way don't all because that might, you know, discourage somebody because like, oh my God, I don't want

[Sal Destefano]

to lose my like, nope, you will

[Justin Andrews]

develop a Pull ups are such a great exercise for developing the back. And so if you, if you go from not being good at pull ups to being great at pull ups in 30 days, they will, you missed you skip deadlifting for a while or you skip doing rows for a while. Trust me, you're going to have a good back.

[Adam Schafer]

I mean this is how you get good at any lift. You have to kind of trade it out like in focus on that and get rid of the junk volume. And that's kind of like, you know, it's the recipe. If you really, if this is a goal of yours to get better at it, you know, you just have to, you know, get rid of some of the other exercises that are kind of deterring you from just all your focus on this.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

Well you just recently learned that lesson again. Yeah, right. Going through your whole journey with the push press and you were trying to complement it with all these auxiliary things

[Adam Schafer]

and yeah, and it like, logically you think it makes sense to kind of build up from, you know, the whole like. So I'm, I need to like get all these other ranges of motion to kind of, you know, make sure like the joint stable and this and that and the other. But really it was taking away from, you know, the, the bucket of, of what I could really output. And so if like, you know, if you just emphasize that more and you just focus completely on that, you're gonna get really good fast.

[Sal Destefano]

No, real good. That's. And again, this is 30 days. So if you're like, okay, I'll give this a shot. Just give it a shot for 30 days and watch now the next thing is you're trying to get stronger. Don't do this in a deficit. So, and I don't mean you need to be in a crazy bulk, but feed your body because we're trying to get you stronger. There is, of course there can be an argument for losing weight to be able to do a pull up. Totally get that. So for some people who have a lot of weight to lose, it might be better to strategize to lose some weight to be able to do a pull up. But for most people, don't do, don't under eat to try to get stronger. It's typically a terrible. No.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean if you want a crazy recipe for getting better, badass. The pull ups is you follow what you're saying in a surplus for 30 days and then you go on a 30 day cut and keep it going

[Sal Destefano]

and watch what happens.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, drop an extra 5, 10 pounds or 15 pounds and keep doing the pull up thing. And all of a sudden you'll see your pull ups go double, triple what you were doing after you did the 30 days of bulking.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right. Here's the other thing. You're doing this for 30 days. For 30 days. Also get really good sleep. So prioritize your sleep. Nothing kills strength gains like poor sleep. Nothing increases risk of injury like poor sleep. Nothing will hammer your hormones as terribly as poor sleep. So you're doing a 30 day challenge. So for the next 30 days, just sign up for, I'm going to bed at the same time every night and I'm waking up at the same time every morning. And you add this to what we said and you know, watch what happens. And then lastly, set up your test day. So you're going to have a day where you're like, okay, this is the day 30 days from now or 40 days from now. This is the Day I'm going to see if I can hit a new PR and pull ups or if I could do a pull up. Here's what you're going to do to set yourself up. Take four to five days off before that. You want to give yourself enough time to be totally fresh. Set yourself up, film yourself, send it to us. I'd love to see people be able to do pull ups.

[Justin Andrews]

Now, would you not Recommend during this, 30 days, once a week, having a day where you kind of rep out? No, still no.

[Sal Destefano]

No, just, just literally it's, this is a third. So if it was a longer ch, if we're doing this for 90 days, if we're doing this for, then yes. But when you're doing it for a short period of time, you want low level frequent stimulus daily and that's it. And you will shock yourself. Yeah. At how strong you are when you finally go test yourself. It's pretty wild. So again, the Soviets did this with certain lifts. Like they do do this with squats. They would take a lift. Like let's say you had a, let's say you had an athlete who you know could do 500 pounds for five reps in a barbell squat. They would go 3:15 and they would do five reps every day. That's it. Three. And they were, no matter what, it was always the same. 315, five reps and it would feel easy. 3:15. And what would end up happening over 30 days? It kind of felt easier and easier and easier. Then they would give them some time off, test it and then they'd hit 10 reps with 500 pounds.

[Adam Schafer]

It's like your new floor.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

This is like the new baseline.

[Justin Andrews]

So let's, let's imagine I'm somebody who can only get about five pull ups in right now. Yep. And I'm going to do this for the next 30 days and I'm going to practice this throughout the day. So I have, I go and invest in. I don't even think those pull up bars are very expensive. 20, 40 bucks at most. For those ones that go in your door frame, which I would put it in my bedroom door frame that I walk in and out of the most out of anything. And I'm only, I'm guessing I would only do two pull ups.

[Sal Destefano]

One or two.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, one or two pull ups five times plus a day.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. If you're doing it that much. I do one. If it's five times, you just do it. One. You're hopping up. One pull up come.

[Justin Andrews]

No way.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

No, no, no.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

No, no, no, no. If my, If I can do five, you're saying do singles, five is failure.

[Sal Destefano]

That would be three reps short of failure to do two.

[Justin Andrews]

I. Yeah. Three sets. Three reps short of, of, of failure.

[Sal Destefano]

If you're going to practice it that often, it's got to be much lower. I mean, I've tested this so many times. It has to be like you're playing like one and then walk. If you're doing it five times in a day. Yeah, it's literally just one. And that's if you're doing it twice in a day, maybe. But if you're going to practice that often, it literally needs to feel like you're just.

[Justin Andrews]

Because I feel like you need to do at least the amount of volume that you could already do. Right. So it makes sense that you wouldn't go, you wouldn't go less than 5 total.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm glad you asked this. It's remarkably less intense than you think to practice something like this. It's way less. In fact, that's where everybody messes up, is they push it a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. And then they don't see the progress.

[Justin Andrews]

Because I feel like if I was going to do single, so my. We're just gonna stick with this number five.

[Sal Destefano]

That's like five is your max.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, five is my max. If I was to do singles and I'd want to try and do it like eight times or more a day that way I'm still, I'm still getting more total volume than what I could do in a single set. Almost it, but not at a high intensity.

[Sal Destefano]

I mean, you could practice it that way. I think five is a lot for every single day for 30 days. But, you know, experiment with it. But I'm gonna say this. I'm gonna hammer this home. I mean, I guess way less than you think.

[Justin Andrews]

I guess you're to your point. What I wouldn't want to see. So let's say I do go about it because I'm pretty confident that if I could do five in a row and I do singles for five times in a day, I'm never gonna feel like I can't get that one. That'll feel easy every time. It'll feel easy every time. But I could see if I did that eight times, maybe by times seven or eight, like it's maybe a little bit, maybe a little target.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, let me ask you this. When you were doing this as a kid.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

When you were practicing how many pull ups do you think you could do max at that time before you got.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, I mean it gets you a good point. I could probably do 15 and I was doing like three.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

It's, it's literally, it needs to feel like easy.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

And you're doing it so you're fine

[Adam Schafer]

with a ton of space in between.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. A lot of time in between.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes. That's how this works. If it starts to feel like I'm getting a little bit of a workout, you're probably going too hard.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Which is, which is really hard to

[Justin Andrews]

do is me like just doing two or three. And it was throughout, like every hour. Every hour.

[Sal Destefano]

Exactly.

[Justin Andrews]

For the five hour.

[Sal Destefano]

Exactly.

[Justin Andrews]

The five hours, six hour shift I would do.

[Sal Destefano]

Yep. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Okay. Yeah, I mean that's fair.

[Sal Destefano]

That's wild. We talked about eating more, which made me think about this. So, you know, a lot of times people increase their protein intake through protein powder, which is totally fine, very convenient, easy. But you know, I think a good strategy for some people, a better strategy might be just to eat like three or four of the Paleo Valley meat steaks throughout the day. Like, it's meat. It's minimally processed.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

It's got more nutrients, tastes good. It's got long shelf life. So it's just, it's actually more convenient. You have to put it in a shaker cup, take them with you, eat one in between your meals. You know, three of those is going to give you, what is that going to give you? 28 grams, 26 grams of protein.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Bump in your protein.

[Sal Destefano]

Totally.

[Justin Andrews]

Now does that, you said it has more nutrients. Does it have more natural, nurturing nutrients and not fortified? Because supplements are fortified with a lot of nutrients.

[Sal Destefano]

It's meat. Yeah. It's grass fed meat.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

You know, and so you're getting better source. Yeah, dude. So you're just eating. It's again, it's closer to whole natural.

[Justin Andrews]

Comparing. That is what we're comparing. When we compare compared to something that is fortified in nutrients and heavily processed versus something that's minimally processed and more natural nutrients, is it just the bioavailability?

[Sal Destefano]

Usually. Is that usually. And no, there's companies out there, really good protein powder companies that will put like good nutrients in there, but sometimes they put nutrients that don't have good bioavailability, like versions of certain nutrients just to show on the label. And some protein powders don't add any because people aren't looking for, you know, vitamins and minerals and take a protein powder Like, I don't care if I take a protein. I just want the protein.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

So with the meat stick, with the Paleo Valley meat stick, it's. I mean, it comes along with it. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It's just closer to a whole food. And I, you know, it is.

[Sal Destefano]

It's super close.

[Justin Andrews]

I still. I still believe, you know, I know

[Sal Destefano]

you've experimented with this.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. I still believe. We're so arrogant with our science sometimes, you know, that we know everything, you know, and. And there's. There's studies to show if you do this, that these. A lot of things are very, very similar in comparison. We just make this leap of it's exactly the same. And it's like. I just don't believe that. I don't believe that if all things are controlled carbohydrates, fats, calories, and you take it. One of them in a processed protein bar versus something that you measured out to be the. Just the right amount of rice, you know, vegetables and. And chicken, and it's the. The same. It's not. The something else is not the same.

[Sal Destefano]

You know what's crazy about what you're saying? We lie to ourselves with our arrogance, Put protein powder on the table and put some food on the table. Are they the same? No, obviously they're not the same thing, but they have the same stuff in them that's not the same, though.

[Justin Andrews]

I know.

[Sal Destefano]

It's wild.

[Justin Andrews]

And. And we. And we do these studies where we measure, like, certain important markers, protein synthesis and, like, total calories and what it. Like, thermogenesis. Like, there's some things that we. And then we. We. And those things are really important when it comes to fat loss or building muscle. And so we just jump to this. Like, they're the same, and it's like they're not.

[Sal Destefano]

No, we negate the experience. Also, like, do they feel like they're the same?

[Adam Schafer]

That means they're gonna use it the same way.

[Justin Andrews]

And then also behaviorally, which we always talk like that. That's clear to me. Like, I mean, because you can. You can argue the science part that I can't beat you on to figure out, because I don't know what else is going on in the gut that I can't prove that. That so many. We again, also act like we know everything about which we know very little about. I mean, the gut, the ocean, and the universe are like three of the most complex the brain. Right. The four most complex things that we act as if we know everything about

[Sal Destefano]

yet we've really explored, like, Discoveries every day. Yeah. Just discovered this new thing. Yeah. But we know.

[Justin Andrews]

We know everything about it. It's like, man, it's. It's clear that they. They affect you differently. And I know for sure they affect you differently behaviorally because, you know, I eat a. I eat a protein bar and 15 minutes later I want another one or I'm craving something where I eat an egg, the whole boiled egg or something like that.

[Adam Schafer]

It's a different experience. And I mean, even the fermenting process that they use to make this, like, is more friendly for the gut, for me. So I'm sure. Yeah, that plays a factor.

[Sal Destefano]

It is. I want to ask you guys, because we hadn't seen each other for a while, because we're on vacation stuff. I want to ask you guys about your Father's Day because we didn't see each other after Father's Day, did we? No, no, we did that, and then we all went on vacation.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, mine was all weird because it, like, it was before. So I did like the weekend before. Oh, did you? Yeah, because we were all split up, you know, the next weekend. Everybody.

[Sal Destefano]

I gotta tell you guys about one of the presents that my. My five year old gave me. My, you know, Aurelius. Yeah, so. So she. So Jessica took him to store the kids and had them pick whatever they wanted to get me, which I think is so fun.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

You know, my son. Coffee.

[Justin Andrews]

What?

[Sal Destefano]

A trophy.

[Doug]

What?

[Sal Destefano]

It was a plastic trophy or what did he say? It's like a blank trophy. He's supposed to write on it.

[Justin Andrews]

You know what he'd say it was for?

[Sal Destefano]

He just number one dad. Yeah, he just like. He's just like, you're the best, you know, he gave me a trophy. I'm like, this is the coolest gift I think I've ever gotten, dude. So I have like this blank, you know, trophy sitting on my desk that my son gave me for Father's Day. Isn't that so awesome that he thought to give his dad trophy?

[Justin Andrews]

Those are those things that you got to make sure you put away and you remember, keep that stuff. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's a. I actually don't know what we did for father.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. What you get for father? Did you get anything?

[Justin Andrews]

I don't. I'm gonna. My wife's gonna roast me if I did and I didn't. I can't think of what she hasn't thought out, Jeff. Like, oh, this is not gonna go well right now. I mean, I. I know what my son did my son. My son's school is really good. I mean, they.

[Sal Destefano]

They.

[Justin Andrews]

They always have him create something, and he created a. A drawing of, you know, what he. What he wanted to be. He. He. If you ask my son, he wants to be. He wants to be a father. That's what he says.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, wow.

[Justin Andrews]

And so he drew this picture of him as. As a father and then also running Mind Pump. Well, it's just. So he said that. Yeah. Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

So Mike, my son wants to work at my pump, too.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

So I hope that stays. You know what I'm saying? I hope. I hope that continues on. And so I. I always tell Katrina, too. Like, I tell you what, that's why I don't trip about the sports thing, because I know that's like a. A soft spot for me is I. I want him to want to. Want to really be into that, and it's just not his jam. But if he likes business as much or more than sports, like, I'll. I'll be as excited or more excited, probably.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm sure more excited.

[Justin Andrews]

I think I would be more excited. So I'm just like. Then there's. There's still a lot of hope for that because I feel like he's. He's interested and he. And he's into all that stuff. So. But yeah, I don't know what. What day, because that was right before. That was before we left on vacation. Right. And so I don't know what we. What we did. I know Justin had to celebrate his Father's Day like, a week early.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I did that. I went to Carmel. We went hiking and stuff and then had to hit up the cheese shop. So I, like, I ended up.

[Sal Destefano]

You was talking about that place, dude.

[Adam Schafer]

It's like my jam.

[Justin Andrews]

It's amazing.

[Adam Schafer]

I wish there was more of them. Like, there's nothing.

[Justin Andrews]

Like. There's nothing. There's nothing like that place. Place. Yeah, that place. I tell everybody European.

[Sal Destefano]

In Europe, you find places.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, it's totally European.

[Justin Andrews]

Does European have stuff like.

[Sal Destefano]

Like, I mean, I know in Italy.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, like, yeah, Italy, the place that

[Justin Andrews]

Justin is talking about, has cheese from all over the world. Every kind of cheese you can think of. All over the world. And then they. And then they have all these wines, and then the guy behind the counter pairs them.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, until he gets your pallet for, like, what types of, you know, hard, soft, you know, cheeses or, like, you know, what. What kind of, like, whatever direction you get to try them all first. And so I brought the kid the Kids have never been there, and so they were kind of tripping out because there was just so many options, you know? And you're, like, trying out, and they're doing the truffle this with. It's like. They do combos of some of them. And so anyway, yeah, we. We were in there a really long time.

[Sal Destefano]

Do you like, like, blue cheeses? Strong blue cheese? Yeah, me too.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Love them.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. People.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. Because it's. You know, some people are like, associate the whole mold thing and. And all that stinky ones, you know, you're kind of like, yikes.

[Sal Destefano]

I haven't found a stinky cheese that I didn't like. I like the really strong. Jesus.

[Justin Andrews]

It has to go with something for me. I don't. I don't.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, you got to put it on a cracker.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So you gotta put it. You gotta put it.

[Sal Destefano]

There's a cheese. I want to say it's an Italian cheese.

[Justin Andrews]

The maggot one.

[Sal Destefano]

Yep.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

It's got. They leave the maggots in there.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

And, like, they flick them off before they give you the cheese.

[Adam Schafer]

It's not mimolette, is it?

[Sal Destefano]

I don't know, but I would not. That's one cheese. I'm not. Cool.

[Adam Schafer]

That's one of my favorites.

[Justin Andrews]

But that place that Justin's talking about, I don't. Did you guys go. Did you guys stay at a hotel, too, or.

[Adam Schafer]

No, it was just a day thing. Yeah. Then we went to.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, we did. That's what we did. We did a drive. That's what we did. Katrina and I. Katrina and I did a. Did a drive and did a. Did our spotlight. That's kind of our thing where we'll go take off for the day and. And do a nice.

[Sal Destefano]

It's a Sardinian cheese casu marzu.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Sheep milk cheese for being infested with live maggots, which ferment the cheese, giving you a very soft, creamy, pungent smell. It's probably delicious.

[Adam Schafer]

It's funny, though. It's like, you got to be the first one to try it. There's like. Like, maggots on there. You're like, oh, it's delicious.

[Sal Destefano]

I don't think you eat the maggot. I think they get the maggots off before they give it to you, Right?

[Doug]

I would think so.

[Justin Andrews]

They look really tiny, though. Like, you could easily miss some of them.

[Sal Destefano]

It's like, I'm not down, and.

[Justin Andrews]

And it blends in with the cheese pretty good. I'm like, look at that. Look at how they look? Tell me you would not miss some of those. I wouldn't even trust someone be like, oh, yeah, we clean them all off. Oh, sure you did, buddy.

[Sal Destefano]

Roast. Sure.

[Doug]

They're high in protein.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Doug, Doug. What?

[Adam Schafer]

Did you.

[Sal Destefano]

Did you do anything for dad? For.

[Doug]

Well, you see, Father's Day was almost as same day as my birthday this year.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh.

[Doug]

And so they got combined. So I ended up having dinner with Briana and she was going to pay for dinner, but I chose a. An expensive Japanese restaurant, so I ended up paying for it.

[Sal Destefano]

Do you have saved? I'm sure you do. You're such a sentimental guy. I bet you have a bunch of Father's Day cards and stuff you've saved.

[Doug]

Yeah, I save all that stuff.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm.

[Doug]

I am very sentimental actually.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

That's so great.

[Justin Andrews]

Do you plan to do anything with it or do you just keep it?

[Doug]

Like I keep that. I mean I have a lot of video and stuff like that. That's just the things I do more with photos and video. But the cards, you know, just every once in a while you, you run into them, you pull something out and say, oh, I remember that.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, Katrina saves all hers.

[Doug]

I. Yeah, I'm kind of a pack rat that way. Which is not very positive because generally speaking, you may look at it one or once every 10 years.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Doug]

But you know, when you do see it, it does something for you.

[Sal Destefano]

It does. You bring it up. Especially when your kids grow up.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, I think the key is to make something out of it that's like a. Like a book or something like that. Because. Because what happens, it ends up turning into. Because Katrina does this and she keeps all of it. And that drives me crazy. And I'm just like, you know, be

[Sal Destefano]

a good gift for her at some point. What it would be for you to organize. Like maybe like when Matt.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, yeah. No, no, you're right. No, that's her.

[Sal Destefano]

I.

[Justin Andrews]

When I told you guys when the first five years we were together, I made books of every our first five years. So that was me who did the photos and then I put together. So there we have a chronological order of these photo books of our first five years together. Haven't done it since then, but I'm sure she would love that with, you

[Sal Destefano]

know what Jessica organized for us because we're up at Yellowstone. Yeah. And we went up there with her mom and her brother and her sister in law and they're in the kids and all that. She organized a day with a photographer. So we drove not to Yellowstone, but kind of like almost like off the grid a little bit, because there was a spot and this photographer met us out there. And I can't wait to see how the photos turned out, because it was like, the background was incredible with the mountains were like, in this meadow. Yeah, yeah. And we were just like dusk, so. But I got to tell you this. You know what I got to tell you guys. So I rented a. I had. Because we had so many people, I had to rent a minivan. And I get to drove it. Minivans are pretty amazing.

[Adam Schafer]

You try to sell something else.

[Sal Destefano]

Listen, the amount of people and the cargo. And then I went off road with that thing because she took us off road and it had rain the day before, and I was a little bit like, are we going to make it? Let me tell you, bro, I just. That minivan made it.

[Justin Andrews]

I just rewatched.

[Sal Destefano]

I was going off.

[Adam Schafer]

I just rewatched Friends trying to sell me on minivan.

[Justin Andrews]

You guys remember John Travolta and Get Shorty? I just.

[Doug]

That's a great movie.

[Justin Andrews]

Great movie.

[Adam Schafer]

I just.

[Sal Destefano]

I never watched that.

[Justin Andrews]

What? Oh, what a great film. I just rewatched it the other day. And there's a scene where he's, you know, he's a. He's like a. A debt collector, right? Whatever. Like, muscle guy or whatever. And he's. He's getting off his plane to get his rented car that he had ordered. He. I think he ordered, like, a nice Cadillac or like that. And he pulls up and it's like a minivan. He looks at the lady. He's like, what is this? He's. She's like, it's the Cadillac of minivans. And so, like, there's like a whole scene of him, like, driving around the minivan, and then he sees Danny DeVito. And Danny DeVito's like, hey, is that that new minivan? He's like, yeah, it's the Cadillac. He's like, can I take it for a spin?

[Sal Destefano]

You know?

[Adam Schafer]

So you remember that one commercial, they even tried to have like a. A puma in the back of it?

[Sal Destefano]

Like.

[Adam Schafer]

Like, this is the manliest mini ever seen.

[Justin Andrews]

I love those old you guys. Okay, so since you brought up Father's Day and stuff like that, and do you have in mind what a perfect Father's Day looks like for you? Like what? Like, is there, like. Did you want something in particular? You're so easy. I bet you have nothing to say. Yeah, but I bet. I bet.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm sure you're very specific. I'm sure you need to know exactly.

[Justin Andrews]

I feel like Justin and I will be. Doug might be, too. I'm curious. I like, what. Like a. Like a good Father's Day kind of looks like.

[Sal Destefano]

What does that.

[Justin Andrews]

What does that look like for you? Do you know.

[Sal Destefano]

Do you have an idea for me? Oh, I just want to feel. I just want to be around my kids, dude. My kids and my wife, and I want to feel.

[Justin Andrews]

There's not a thing that you want to do specifically with them.

[Sal Destefano]

There's not like a. I just want to feel loved by them. I want to feel. I want them to hug me. I want to be around them. I want to have dinner with them. It would be awesome if everybody said something they liked, you know, about their dad or told some story. That'd be crazy. Yeah, I want to be around. I just want to be around.

[Justin Andrews]

Did you see that? The viral memes of the. Like the. The Mother's Day versus the Father's Day. The Mother's Day, it's, like, accurate. You're like, margaritas, girls Day. There's, like, a party. Some of that. The dad's barbecuing on Father's Day.

[Adam Schafer]

Doing all this stuff anyways.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Judge? Do you have, like. Do you think, like, that's a. That's a perfect father?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I. I'm like. I love going on, like, nature hikes and stuff with the kids and. And, like, getting away from the house and tech and. I don't know. I like it. I like when everybody's, like, on the same page and we're all doing one thing together, and it's like, something active, but. And then obviously, like, the. For me, the perfect scenario would be for me to, like, you know, do that, and then I, like, go and get a massage or something. Like, just, you know, relax and chill. And then.

[Justin Andrews]

Oh, you are a massage guy.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm totally missing.

[Justin Andrews]

I know. You did that for your ears. And I actually. I. I heard about it, and I was just like, I wonder if that was, like, Justin's idea.

[Sal Destefano]

You let them touch your feet or you. No, no. Feet guy.

[Justin Andrews]

I would have. I actually totally called that. That was not your thing. That's hilarious.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

No, I'm so wrong.

[Adam Schafer]

I.

[Sal Destefano]

It's.

[Adam Schafer]

That's the thing. Like, it's. Dude, I'm so wound up all the time. Like, that's, like, a one. I kind of do it more like, on plan. If it's like a vacation or something. Like, I want to at least get one day like that where I'm just like, you know, you work all the knots out and then I can just like decompress. Yeah, but it's really like decompressing, so I'm in a better mood. Come back, hang out with everybody because I'm like, ah, I'm. I'm really tense all the time and like always like trying to, you know, do stuff. So I don't know.

[Justin Andrews]

I totally did. I did not call that at all because I knew you did that. And I was totally talking about you on that day. And I was just like, I wonder if that was Justin's idea or that was just Courtney thought I would love a massage. So I'm gonna get him a massage.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm not.

[Adam Schafer]

Or go to like a concert. It would be.

[Sal Destefano]

Right.

[Adam Schafer]

That'd be cool.

[Sal Destefano]

No, And I always have bad experiences. You guys got my text yesterday. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Doug]

You.

[Justin Andrews]

You definitely don't know how to pick a good.

[Sal Destefano]

Well, so here's the deal. So here's the deal.

[Doug]

Get the mall.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, yeah.

[Doug]

Goes to a mall.

[Justin Andrews]

Massage.

[Sal Destefano]

No, I'm not a big massage. I've had, quote, unquote, I've had good massages also. I'm just not a. It doesn't do a lot for me. Worked. You know, I just. It's not a huge thing. And that's okay.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, you know what, what I say to that? I say that, that you are a person who says, I feel good. I know I already feel great. I don't need. But you don't know what great feels like. And until you feel great, you don't realize what you were missing. Because there is there, there's, there is absolutely levels to massage. And I have had the whole gamut and spectrum. Okay. Being married to one. So I know what it's. I've. I've had hundreds of massages and everything in between. And there is a very clear difference between horrible. Okay. Good and holy life.

[Sal Destefano]

So I've had lots of massages and I've had some that were horrible. I've had some that were good. I just fall asleep. That's all that happens to me. I just fall asleep with the good ones. So I'm like, I could do that by myself.

[Justin Andrews]

If you can. If a massage puts you to sleep and you feel relaxed.

[Sal Destefano]

And I know the benefit of correctional massage, I think it's super valuable. But you know, yesterday Jessica and I had some time without the kids. They were at my parents house and she goes to this place in the mall. It's one of those like Chinese massage places. You know where they.

[Justin Andrews]

For 20 bucks.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, it's like 20 bucks, whatever. Which was just so funny how they figured out around the laws and they're able to do that anyway. And they know her by name. She goes there every single week. It's like her thing. She loves it. She goes there, gets a massage, reads her Bible, does her whole thing. So I'm like, let's go, let's go do that.

[Adam Schafer]

So.

[Sal Destefano]

And she gets excited because she loves it. So I go over there and I don't like foot massages because I'm way too ticklish. Like, you touch my feet, I'll kick you.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I have a scar in the bottom of mine.

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, that's right.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. It doesn't feel right.

[Sal Destefano]

No, I don't like that. So I'm like, I'll lay on my stomach. You can work on my back. That's totally fine. And I get this dude who. Big Chinese dude. Like big, big old potato head guy. Like, big dude. He's like, I'll work on you. Barely speaks English. I'm like, cool. It was the most violent massage I've ever had in my life. No, no, it was violent.

[Adam Schafer]

He was like head butting your face.

[Sal Destefano]

No, no, listen, listen. He was. It's not. Just, wasn't just like working on me. There were times he's like working on my hands. I'm laying flat and he's like. And then he like punched my hands a couple times. And I'm like, my face is down and I'm laughing. So what is he doing? Why is he punching my hands? Or he'd hit my back, you know, but like, like, is he trying to like, fight me? Like, what's going on here?

[Adam Schafer]

He's like overcompensating.

[Sal Destefano]

It was, it was just. It was violent. After we were done, I looked at my wife. I'm like, dude, yeah. I was laughing halfway through that because it was. It was too much.

[Justin Andrews]

What about you, Doug?

[Doug]

Me? Just quality time with Brianna mainly. And the massage sounds great though. Next year I'm going to request that.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, that totally shocked me with Justin. Totally shocked me. I did not. I would not have guessed you as like.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm going to guess.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm not like a frugal flyer, but I love it.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm going to guess you want presents, Adam.

[Justin Andrews]

No, actually, no, I actually don't. I'm a terrible gift receiver. You should know that. You know that.

[Sal Destefano]

Not if it's expensive.

[Justin Andrews]

No. Even my wife fails at that.

[Sal Destefano]

She got your really expensive present.

[Justin Andrews]

She hates that. Do you know, the last really expensive present I have is. Is I've never used. Is sitting in my closet. I got to return it. I haven't returned it. Like, I just really. Yeah, I'm. I'm. I'm really difficult to. To. To purchase for, and I know that. And I'm a terrible gift receiver, so I actually don't like receiving gifts. Father's Day, for me is like the. The perfect day. Looks like breakfast and coffee. Like, coffee met to me before I get out of my bed. Like, that's a.

[Adam Schafer]

That's a big one.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's when Katrina does that for me on the weekends a lot or like. Or for Father's Day, for sure. Like, getting handed a cup of coffee before I even sit up out of bed is like, oh, yeah, this is. That's. That's super, super nice. And then I spend some time with my son, and he normally participates in making breakfast for me with Katrina, which is always cute. We get to do that for a little bit. That's fun. And. And then my house being cleaned for me for the day before I have to leave the house.

[Sal Destefano]

So I know it sounds like Mother's Day, especially.

[Justin Andrews]

Like, it's spotless. And then I want to drive, and then I want to. And then with my wife, I like, go a. Drive somewhere where we land at a place that we like to eat and go eat some fancy restaurant and have some drinks and then drive back and then. And then actually have the. So where I might be different, where I think a lot of. A lot of dads want to spend the time with their kid. I spend a lot of time with my kid. So actually, that's a. That's a day where I'm like, I like to see him in the morning, and I like to do that with him in the morning. But then I actually like, this is. We normally have her mom take him or somebody, and then it's me and Katrina. And so I actually like a night alone with her and day like that. And to come home to the house spotless. Had spent the time with my son, started it with coffee, a great drive to a great restaurant with good drinks, and then come back to our house.

[Sal Destefano]

Nice.

[Justin Andrews]

That's like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't. The gifting's not like, that's nice. Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm not a big gift guy either, but I like sentimental, like, you know, like the ones.

[Justin Andrews]

I love to give gifts.

[Sal Destefano]

Me too.

[Justin Andrews]

So. So for Mother's Day, I love to surprise Katrina with gifts, and I do Get. I love to buy gifts, but I'm not. I'm horrible at receiving them. Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

So if. If one of us was to like, show you love, what would we do?

[Justin Andrews]

You guys could buy me a gift.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. Cuz you guys could afford the gifts that I.

[Sal Destefano]

You're like, this is coming out of Mike. I don't like this.

[Justin Andrews]

You know, if I buy.

[Sal Destefano]

If it's your money. Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

My wife buys me a watch. I'm like, I bought that. I would have bought a better one. Yeah. If I was gonna spend that kind of money, I would have bought this model. You know what I'm saying?

[Sal Destefano]

But.

[Justin Andrews]

You know what I'm saying?

[Sal Destefano]

Since it was my.

[Justin Andrews]

But you guys could buy me that, I'd be like, damn, yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I'll be pretty pumped. That's true. Huh? Even if you missed a little bit.

[Adam Schafer]

True.

[Sal Destefano]

She buys you a gift. Like, I bought that.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

It's.

[Justin Andrews]

Hey, that's such a bad. I guess it's so awful to say that, but it's like there's a part

[Sal Destefano]

of you that goes, of course, you

[Justin Andrews]

know, oh, my God, you spent that much money. And it's like, if I was gonna spend that much money, I probably would have done this thing where if it's coming from you. You guys.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It's free gift. Yeah. And it's nice. It's like, okay, that's cool.

[Sal Destefano]

I like that. Yeah. So maybe did you guys. I'll change the subject. Do you guys see the big skin cancer observational study that people are talking about on social media? Do you guys see this?

[Adam Schafer]

No.

[Sal Destefano]

All right, so I'm going to pull it up because it's flying all over social media. It was actually the study itself. It was an observational analysis from the UK Biobank cohort. So this was published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. And it had over 440,000 people with controls. And they found. And so they found thousands of skin cancer cases. And they tried to make some associations. Here's what they found. Frequent sunscreen users showed higher observed rates of skin cancers compared to people who didn't use it very often, even after they made adjustments for factors like age, sex, skin type, tanning ability, sunburn history, sun lamp use, and time spent outdoors. So actually, even though it's observational, they did make some corrections for certain things. And here's what they found. The associations included up to 292% higher risk of invasive melanoma, a 140% higher risk of basal cell carcinoma, and 126% higher rate of squamous cell carcinoma. And there was a dose response pattern meaning more frequent sunscreen use was linked to higher cancer. Skin cancer risks.

[Adam Schafer]

That's crazy.

[Sal Destefano]

That does not look good.

[Doug]

I'm assuming they're using like chemical based.

[Sal Destefano]

These are chemical based, right?

[Justin Andrews]

Right. So if we're using things that are non. That you're correct. Okay.

[Sal Destefano]

These, the vast majority of sunscreen users use the, you know, the more popular sunscreens that contain these kind of chemicals that will absorb and scatter UV rays and those have hormone like effects in the body. And studies consistently show that the, that the amount of those chemicals that, that they can find in your blood are far higher than what our even FDA would say would be safe.

[Justin Andrews]

Now is there any correlation between when you use all natural stuff or nothing at all? You also have to manage your time that you're being exposed to the sun because you're. Or is that being controlled in this situation?

[Sal Destefano]

These are the factors they adjusted for again. Age, sex, skin type. So this was one that I would have thought out the gates. Like okay, well maybe people who are dark don't use a lot of sunscreen. They controlled for that tanning ability. So sunburn history, sun lamp use and then time spent outdoors. So it's not a perfectly controlled, you know, placebo controlled study which I don't know how you'd be able to do that with, with, with long, long, long explaining. It's really hard to do that. But so many people in there, over 400000 people and you had higher rates and it was dose response connected. So the more sunscreen.

[Adam Schafer]

Pretty concerning.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, very concerning. Dude man. Very concerning.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

So you know these, I know sunburns aren't good for you and in the chemical based sunscreens will reduce.

[Justin Andrews]

Have you ever seen the brain burns?

[Sal Destefano]

But, but are those chemicals causing cancer on that?

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, I was like, you know somebody that had a frequent like really bad sunburns or like to the point where it like had blisters and like with that, you know, over time, you know how that affected the skin. But I mean it sounds like the, the chemical exposure like continuous.

[Justin Andrews]

What does state by state look like

[Sal Destefano]

for, for skin cancer?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

You would expect skin cancer rates to be higher in sunnier states, right.

[Justin Andrews]

California and Florida.

[Sal Destefano]

I bet you they're lower.

[Justin Andrews]

That's why I want to see.

[Sal Destefano]

I bet you they're lower. But you could be. I could be wrong.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm curious, I'm curious which states, which

[Sal Destefano]

states in the US have the highest skin cancer rates. Doug. That's what I would look up. I bet you they're.

[Justin Andrews]

And we need to know. We need to know per capita, not by person because obviously Florida and California it would be.

[Sal Destefano]

But it would be rate. It would be skin cancer rate which would be okay.

[Adam Schafer]

Which is interesting. That's why I told you guys.

[Justin Andrews]

Utah, Vermont, Iowa, Minnesota and Idaho. Look at that.

[Sal Destefano]

Wow. Look at Utah, Vermont, Iowa, Minnesota and Idaho. The highest incidence rates. Wow. And now they're higher elevations. Yeah, that could be part of it. They're outdoors a lot. Could be part of it. But people in Florida, California, Hawaii, like you guys are outside a lot too. Too.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Also more fair skinned residents in those states.

[Sal Destefano]

Okay. Yeah. I mean true. I wonder if they control for that what we would see. Scroll down more Doug, because there's a higher.

[Justin Andrews]

That's fascinating to me. Would you. I guarantee you guys wouldn't have guessed any of those states.

[Sal Destefano]

No, no, no, no.

[Adam Schafer]

Dude, put those on the list.

[Sal Destefano]

That is wild. That's crazy.

[Justin Andrews]

And it is perk pack. So this is controlled.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. Yep. So here's the thing. Because we've treated the sun like it's like this really dangerous thing which is crazy.

[Adam Schafer]

Crazy.

[Sal Destefano]

I think you definitely don't want to go and burn yourself but I think it's a good idea to get your body conditioned exposure to the sun.

[Adam Schafer]

Small amounts.

[Sal Destefano]

Small amounts. Get your body conditioned to the sun. Vitamin D very good for you. Also anti cancer. Or should I say if you have low vitamin D cancer rates go up. And then if you're going to use sunscreen. Use the mineral ones. Yeah, use the mineral ones.

[Justin Andrews]

You know the altitude does play a factor.

[Sal Destefano]

It should.

[Justin Andrews]

It's so wild. I can tell. So I just came back right from. From Nevada.

[Sal Destefano]

Look up countries with the highest skin cancer rates.

[Justin Andrews]

And I'm up in the mountains and like Reno area and met laying out in. So I And you guys know this summer I've been laying out a lot at our own pool. Like a ton. We've been out around the pool and it is. I can feel a difference in less than an hour's time of laying out around the pool up in Reno.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Versus oh yeah. Hours around my intense. It is intense.

[Sal Destefano]

Yep.

[Justin Andrews]

And the temperature doesn't even have to be hotter. So it's not like. Yeah, yeah. It the difference of totally 80 degrees at my house versus 80 degrees over in Reno. And an hour, an hour of each in there. Night and day difference.

[Sal Destefano]

You know what's crazy?

[Justin Andrews]

You can feel it. I can Feel it.

[Sal Destefano]

You know what I would like to see, Doug? Maybe we don't have this data. So there's one country in the world that had a national effort, like they funded this nationally to get everybody to wear sunscreen. It was Australia. There was actually a.

[Justin Andrews]

Right there.

[Sal Destefano]

Yes, they have high rates of skin cancer. I want to know if, did Australia's sunscreen efforts reduce skin cancer rates or did it increase? Yeah, because they actually had this whole national campaign for decades where they were trying to encourage people. And so I want to see. And then the other thing is, did it reduce skin cancer but increase other cancers? Because sometimes what you see is a reduction in skin cancer. But then vitamin D. Yeah, the iconic slip. Oh, slip, slop, slap. That's what it was. Sun smart program. It reduced skin cancer rates in younger generations. So it did. In that case, I'd like to see if the other regular cancers went up, though.

[Justin Andrews]

I'd also like to see how much.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, general. Younger, Younger Australians born are estimated to be four times less likely to develop skin cancer compared to older core events shows that. Evidence shows that Australians age 18 to 40 who use sunscreen regularly in childhood reduce their risk by developing melanoma by 40%. Okay. I don't know, man. It's interesting to me. Here's the deal. I don't think sunscreen's bad. I think chemical sunscreens should be avoided. That's, that's the, that's the position I would take. Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. I don't think. I mean, your, your skin's a major organ.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, it's interesting because all the things you guys are reading right now, though, they're just blankets saying sunscreen. They're not like saying natural or what. And it's reducing. So it almost seems like even chemical sunscreen is better than no sunscreen.

[Sal Destefano]

When I looked at this, when the study that I just read seems to point in the other direction, that it's, it's not good. And like I said, we see, we see that there are. We know that there are like hormone like effects from these chemicals and they build up in the blood much higher than, than we think is.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, I mean, it's been an interesting experiment for us and our family with the sestax Anthin like, supplement and it's, it's like still get like a little bit of a burn, but it doesn't last. And it pretty much recovers like a lot faster than it would say, you know, without it. So I don't know.

[Sal Destefano]

I'm.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm very curious to see if this is, like, the answer instead of sunscreen anymore.

[Sal Destefano]

Interesting. By the way, it says there that the incidence of melanoma initially rose alongside sunscreen adoption. And then. Yeah, you know, I want to look a little deeper into that and to see what effects were, you know, because I've read other studies that have connected people avoiding the sun to higher rates of other types of cancers versus people actually seek out going out into the sun.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

So I don't know. Interesting. Anyway, I got to tell you guys, yesterday I was doing social media. I was, you know, you guys know, I was out there doing social media clips and stuff. Yesterday, one of the clips I was doing was with the Chris Power. Yeah. Which by the way, our social media team has been just crushing. You know, it's funny to see comments underneath people saying, social media team is kicking butt. Really, really cool. So anyway, I was doing it like this thing with Chris Power where Danny was having me say, you know, up to 28 grams of protein per bag. And then I had to do it with different emotions. Excited, angry, sarcastic. So I had to do, like, these different.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

Type emotions. But in between, you know, I'd eat one of the crispr. Those things are so addictive.

[Justin Andrews]

I know.

[Adam Schafer]

I'm glad they have those bigger bags. I was, like, sitting on the couch.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, they are, but so, I mean, I had one last yesterday.

[Sal Destefano]

They're like. It's like, you might as well eat potato chips.

[Justin Andrews]

I had them on my drive. I mean, I have them almost every day, but I was. I had them last night on my drive home from here. And I'm actually so impressed by how satisfying a bag tastes.

[Sal Destefano]

So when you're done because of the protein.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes. I can't think of. You remember, they come in those size. You remember we just went up to Truckee and my. My friends families bought the Costco size variety pack of Cheetos, Doritos. All the. All the.

[Sal Destefano]

You know, you ain't eating one bag of that.

[Justin Andrews]

You don't.

[Sal Destefano]

No way.

[Justin Andrews]

You don't. You. Not even the kids. The kid. I had to limit the kid. I said, I see their kids eating them. I'm like, hey, that's already two bags. I just saw you eat back to back. You better ask your mom and dad if you're okay. Like, I mean, you could just crush those things.

[Sal Destefano]

Totally.

[Justin Andrews]

I have one little bag of those Chris Power, and I am fine. I do. I do not have the sensation of, like, I need an. Another one. Which.

[Sal Destefano]

They are so delicious.

[Justin Andrews]

No, they are. They're fantastic. And I, and I enjoy it, but I don't think I've ever had a small bag of something like that and feel satisfied. I have to after having it and to know that I just took it, took in a 28 gram protein snack is. It's cool.

[Sal Destefano]

They hit the formula because they're crushing right now. I'm seeing them in all kinds of big retailers.

[Justin Andrews]

They're Costco and now.

[Sal Destefano]

I knew it when we first were introduced to them and I tried it. I was like, oh, they're gonna. If you can make something that's high protein, taste really good. Like, not like it has high protein. Because a lot of high protein foods you could taste, it's got protein in it. If you can make something palatable that's high protein, you're gonna make a lot of money. And, and because people are just going to crush it.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, especially a, a salty carb snack. Yeah, that's traditionally a salty carbstone. It doesn't taste far off from the real thing because that's the other thing too is like you, you'll, you'll see some of these products and they'll be high protein and then it's just like,

[Sal Destefano]

that's what I mean. You could taste this protein.

[Justin Andrews]

It's like, yeah, this, this is not good.

[Sal Destefano]

No, they taste like pretzels with the, you know, nacho cheese on them or pretzels with flaming.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

No, they did a good job, dude.

[Justin Andrews]

They abs. They absolutely crushed it.

[Sal Destefano]

Look, if you've been listening to Mind Pump for any longer than like one episode, you know how important we take gut health. Gut health is very important. It controls your happiness. Anxiety can contribute to depression. If it's off inflammation. Good gut health makes you recover faster, build more muscle and burn more body fat. Well, one of the best products we've ever found that helps contribute to good gut health is seed. So seed has a probiotic. It's the world's best probiotic. These are leading scientists that work on this. The best researchers. It is the leading probiotic in the world. When it comes to the science, they have a patent pending capsule that delivers live bacteria, healthy bacteria to the parts of your body that need it. Other probiotics don't have this. They deliver bacteria to your gut, your body destroys it and you don't get a lot of the benefits you gotta get with seed. Try them out. Go to seed.com mindpump use the code 25. Mindpump. Get 25% off. Back to the show.

[Doug]

First question is from fitmechanic king I do crossfit four to five times per week for fun and, and as a sport. I love the community and the competitions. I want to build strength outside CrossFit classes. What program would you recommend? I'm considering Maps 15 strong or Maps 15 performance.

[Sal Destefano]

Nothing. Nothing. I recommend nothing. On top of your four. Yeah. Listen, if you're going to do CrossFit four to five times a week and you want to add something to it. Don't.

[Justin Andrews]

Good recipe to get weaker.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah. You're not going to. There's nothing we could add that'll make you stronger. But there is something we could do that'll make you stronger. Do CrossFit twice a week. Follow Maps 15 Performance, Maps 15 Mass 15 Power Lift and you will get stronger. Yeah, but it ain't gonna happen doing this much exercise, this much cross.

[Adam Schafer]

Just do mass performance and ditch CrossFit.

[Justin Andrews]

I'm so. I want to see this person's profile too because it's fit mechanic king. Is this guy also a full time mechanic?

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, I don't know. Well, he's the king, so he's probably. Probably is. Look, I tell you what, I mean, talk about. I tell you what, if you're doing CrossFit because. And he said the right things. It's for fun, sport, love the community. Awesome.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah. That's all she'd be.

[Justin Andrews]

That's what everybody says, bro. But then deep down they want to build muscle or they want to look better.

[Sal Destefano]

I was just going to say. But you also, you also said you want to build strength. It ain't going to happen doing all that.

[Justin Andrews]

No.

[Sal Destefano]

So you got to pick. You have to pick which one you're going to do.

[Justin Andrews]

It's a terrible recipe what you're already doing.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

It's not. That's not the recipe to get stronger and to get fitter and to look better. It's like if that, if you want that then. And you could still listen. Doing CrossFit two times a week is still fun. Still have some fun doing it.

[Sal Destefano]

You know what the problem is or join.

[Justin Andrews]

Because I do know this. CrossFit has evolved since Mind Pump has been on it for 10 years and it has turned into. There's a lot of good coaches that have modified it or allow people to do their own thing, which it's not really CrossFit anymore. You know, it's now it's becoming more like personal training.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Now it's more like functional.

[Justin Andrews]

And so if, if you like showing up to the CrossFit gym with your community and you can say hey, two times a week I'm gonna enjoy the class with everybody. And then the other three times a week I'm gonna do mass 15. You could totally do that.

[Sal Destefano]

I'll tell, look, I'll say this right now. CrossFit programming has generally in a lot of gyms gotten better, but it's still CrossFit, it's still WADS, it's still combining exercises, it's still around a lot. High intensity approach. I get the community aspect. This is what gyms are crap at and CrossFit's great at. They did a great job. And look, I'm going to tell you this right now, and this is just a big epiphany for me in more recent years. Now I'm a fanatic. So in other words, I'm the rare person who goes to the gym, can do it by myself and enjoy it. But for most people, community, one of the strongest correlates to consistency, like if someone's gonna stay consistent for the rest of their life with fitness, one of the strongest correlates is community. It just is, it's a fact. Now I didn't get that before because I'm a fanatic. I do it no matter what, but it's so, it's very important. So I like that part of it. But CrossFit is, it's, you're doing CrossFit and it's not the best way to do, to accomplish aesthetic goals or strength goals. You'll get good at CrossFit. And I'll tell you this much right now, this is a big problem. People, and people do this with all sports. They look at the top competitors and they say, well, that's how I need to train to be good at this particular sport. Like, if you want to be, you want to build muscle, don't train like a pro bodybuilder. You want to be great at CrossFit, don't train like the CrossFit competitors, like the top ones. They're doing way more than you can tolerate. The average person would get better at CrossFit faster if they did it like twice a week.

[Adam Schafer]

Well, not, it's the mentality that's wrong. It's, it's just if you look at it as a sport, then you're going to treat it differently.

[Sal Destefano]

Yep.

[Adam Schafer]

And so, you know, knowing that, like how often do you compete in a sport? It's like it's, you're going to be limited in the amount of times you compete. Therefore the training should supplement that and, and build you up towards it. So the Problem with me is always they've merged the two together and it doesn't work.

[Justin Andrews]

It's not just that. So this person is also a fitness coach, a trainer. And a lot of times what happens to people that love fitness is you do what you can handle and tolerate, and therefore you think it's okay. So it's like, just because you can do CrossFit five times a week doesn't make it optimal for results. And so everybody in this room is living proof of this. Also, at one point in our careers, all, listen, there was a time when I trained seven days a week, double days. You know what I'm saying? And I could do it. I did it for a long time.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And. And, you know, and I was quote, unquote fit. I just would have been way fitter, doing a lot less being, doing it a lot smarter than the way he did. So it's like.

[Sal Destefano]

That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

Everything you're doing is way too much to garner the results that you want from it. You want to be strong, you want to be mobile, you want to be fit, you want to. You want to look good, you want all those things, well trained. Way different. The training four to five times a day or four or five times a week of CrossFit plus trying to do a MAPS program.

[Sal Destefano]

If you. If you.

[Justin Andrews]

Is not the recipe.

[Sal Destefano]

If you did CrossFit twice a week and did Maps 15, one of our Maps 15 programs, do that for 60 days. If you're listening to this, do this for 60 days. You'll get stronger at every single lift and you'll probably get better. It's your CrossFit that'll work.

[Doug]

Next question is from Brenda Partika. At 63, is there a limit to how much you can push your progressive overload? Training? I competed at age 58 and hit PR as I never thought I'd be able to do. Now I train for health and physique, but feel overwhelmed not hitting PRs like I did 4 years ago.

[Sal Destefano]

Great question. So you've obviously been training consistently that whole time, and you were training consistently before age 58, because that's when you were hitting PRs. So here's a deal with getting stronger. It's one of the best things to chase for the first few years. It's the best thing to chase for the first few years. After that, chasing strength gives you diminishing returns and then eventually becomes a not worth the squeeze. It becomes too much of a risk factor for injury. Okay, so getting stronger is great, but at this point in your lifting Career. What you want to do is you just want to get better at movement. You want to get better at movements you're not good at. You want to work on mobility. You want to just continue to maintain where you're at. You can't possibly hit PRS 5, 10, 15 years into your lifting career unless you start. When you're 15 years old and you're obviously growing into your body, it's just not going to happen. And it's not really a good thing to continue chasing because you will hurt yourself.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, I'm going to put a little twist on that. Yes, you can hit PRs, but the way that you suggested it, do something you don't do. Have you ever got really good at Turkish getups? Go start those and watch how weak you are when you first start doing them. And watch you PR doing it after you've been doing it for two months. You ever got good at windmills? Go get really good at windmills and watch what happens. You're going to hit PRs in that when people say things like PRs, they automatically default to the bench, squat, deadlift,

[Sal Destefano]

overhead press, which they've maxed out, by

[Justin Andrews]

the way, which they, they've. They've trained for four years, five years, eight years, and they've reached these epic numbers that they never thought that maybe they could get. And now they're no longer seeing those. Maybe they even seen a little bit of regression, and now it discourages them because they're not seeing PRs anymore. Well, like, if you want to see PRs, go practice a lift that you've never done or rarely ever do and go get good at it. And those, the. Some of the ones that just get,

[Adam Schafer]

go do the unconventional ones.

[Justin Andrews]

Learn how to do a circus press. Learn to do farmer carries. These are all great movements. They all have great movements that have great carryover and benefit to your overall health, physique and strength. And you can still get that thrill of watching yourself get stronger doing it. But if you're still focused on the four main lifts that we talk about that are so great for you and still trying to hit PRs, the ROI on that at this point in your life is just not there.

[Doug]

Next question is from my best friend Jack. How about a guide on how to build a chest when both shoulders have chronic pain?

[Sal Destefano]

Okay, so a lot of this determines on what's causing the issue with your shoulder stability. But I would focus on shoulder mobility movements like handcuffs with rotation or wall circles or scapular circles. You can find these all in maps prime pro. And then I would go light and slow with my chest exercises to make the light weight feel heavy. Okay. So in the meantime, you're doing your normal pressing movements. You're picking a weight that's light, and your goal is to make it feel heavy through slowing the movement down, squeezing, and just making it feel more difficult. But the focus is going to be on shoulder mobility.

[Justin Andrews]

The key to this is, is not what chest exercises you do to build a chest through this, it's what you need to do to fix the chronic pain in the shoulders. Chronic pain is movement pattern issues. It's weakness and instability in joints. That's what that is. It's. Unless you had some acute injury where some your shoulder was torn or you had some rotator cuff, something major has happened, which is not most people. Most people have like this sharp pain in the front of their shoulder or they have this clicking noise that they notice or they go to lift over their head and they feel grinding of the like. That's that chronic pain. That's a movement issue. And that can be corrected and fixed by putting some effort towards fixing the shoulders. You fix the shoulders, you build mobility, stability and strength in the shoulders and the chest will come up, you will just get stronger in all your chest.

[Adam Schafer]

And we. Yeah, most of the time it's to your point. It's, it's the rotation, because it's not. You have to be very intentional to focus on introducing that into your everyday training. Or just like your movement in general, you have to be focusing on where do I add rotation, where do I. Where do I implement this? So that way. Now this isn't something that's an instability. My, my body will recognize this. It'll add more stability to the joint, which then helps you get through the, the pain signal and then it helps you actually like produce more force. So a lot of the times, like, you know, you start with the mobility. You start with like your limitations and range of motion. You find out what those limitations are. You work through that, you regain the stability. Then we just gradually load that.

[Sal Destefano]

It's really amazing. When you look at the shoulder joint, not to get too technical, but I don't know if this is an accurate statement, but I think it is. It's one of the, or if not the most complex joint it is in the body. It's floating, it's very complex and it has incredible mobility. It's got incredible mobility rotation. It's designed or it evolved, whatever you believe, to be able to throw things with accuracy, to be able to, to Hang to do incredible things. But that means it needs to remain balanced and stable with strength that supports all that movement. But when you get there, your shoulders are capable of incredible things. And oftentimes this pain comes from I'm training the same kind of movement over and over again and not working on those other areas. And so that produces this kind of like huge imbalance of strength, which is where the inside stability.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, to your point, the. The shoulder is so complex, can do so many amazing things like throw, like hang, like do move in this full range. And if you stop doing it as we age, your body prunes the ability to do it. Now, that doesn't mean you can't get it back. You can absolutely get it back. And there to answer the a guide for that. That is prime, bro. That is why we wrote that program. That program is designed to help people address every major joint in their body when they suffer from chronic pain or lack mobility and instability in those joints. And you just need to live in the shoulder and shoulder girdle area. Just those are the movements that you do all the time. You do it every day, as many times a day. Again, most certainly you always do it before you lift and lift on chest day.

[Doug]

Next question is from the gut check. Are you guys willing to take on an eager, inexperienced, recently certified NASM personal trainer?

[Sal Destefano]

Look. That's what we look for. We don't hire trainers here. We make them.

[Adam Schafer]

We make them.

[Sal Destefano]

We make them. What we look for is character. What we're looking for are people who have the right passion, dedication, sense of purpose, who understand the culture of mind pump. So it helps that you listen to the show often and that you have our course because we coach you through the course. But you got to be willing. You got to be someone who's willing to go through through it because it is a privilege to work here. Now, why is it a privilege to work here? Well, number one, our trainers, we compensate them really well. We provide them with some of the best clients they'll ever get because it comes through the show and they get some of the best training that I've ever seen, ever. I'm jealous and envious of the training that our coaches get. I wish I had that kind of training. And it's just because, you know, we have access to such incredible resources because of the podcast. But I don't care how experienced you are, that's great, that's cool. But you got to have the right attitude. You got to be the person like, I'll talk about one of our top trainers Marcelo. So he's been with us. How long has Marcelo been with us? About 18 months, year and a half. He now runs the sales training for our coaches. He's also a coach himself. The guy gets raving. Like the reviews he gets are just raving. Phenomenal results with his clients. People are getting great results. Love working with him. He does such a phenomenal job. A year and a half ago, he was a cop. He had no experience. Do you know how you got a job here? He kept showing up. He kept showing up here at Mind Pump and saying, I want to work for you guys. I want to work in fitness. And I think we probably saw him, what, three times before we gave him a shot. Was that it? Two or three times?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

And. And he had the right attitude. And now the guy's incredible. And those are the people we look for.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, I have a. I have a hot take on this. I don't like experienced trainers. What comes with that is ego and bad habits. They have an ego. They think they better than what they. They are. Typically they have bad habits or way of doing. Just like if you were to ask a golf pro, would you rather take a blank slate, somebody who's never swung a club, and teach them how to swing a club great. And be a pro, or would you rather have the guy who's been swinging a club like for five years and then try and get them to swing a club? You'll take that person who's brand new all day long and you'll make them a better golfer. I feel the same way about personal training. We've been doing this for so damn long. I feel confident I can take a police officer who's not trained somebody and make them a badass trainer within six months to a year. Then I can take a four or five year trainer with five national certs and train clients and thinks they know everything and thinks they are entitled to all this. So I prefer a trainer that is eager to learn, that is listened to the podcast, that is inexperienced and is hungry. That trainer ends up being a better coach, 100%.

[Sal Destefano]

And you know, it's funny, that's a. That's an old martial arts quote. There's an old martial arts quote which is like, it's easier to teach a beginner how to kick effectively than someone who's been kicking wrong for 20 years. So it's 100% and you get. You're 100% right. Adam. All the most successful coaches that I ever had working for me were these beginners that learned and through the process and just became super, super good. But here's the deal. Like, you got to really show that you want to work here. Like, so if you're listening, you want to be a trainer here, like, you got to be willing to show you really want to work here. We're not going to come chase you down. We got more applicants than we can handle. You got to show it. There's a clip in the movie Fight Club that reminds me of this. You guys remember that clip where.

[Adam Schafer]

Where Tyler Durden just turns everybody away?

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

And they've got that house that like broken. That beat down house. And there's a dude that shows up and he's like, he wants to be in the club and he's like, get out of here.

[Adam Schafer]

And he shuts the door, sprays him with water.

[Sal Destefano]

The guy just sits there for days, just through the. And finally he's like, you can come in.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

You know, that's the kind of attitude you gotta be resilient.

[Justin Andrews]

Did you see the clip I shared with you guys? What a flop that was?

[Sal Destefano]

Oh, when it first came out.

[Justin Andrews]

I didn't know that.

[Sal Destefano]

I know.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it was a massive fail when

[Sal Destefano]

it first turned into like one of

[Justin Andrews]

the greatest classics and cult following things down the road, but was a massive flop when it first hit. I did not know that. Crazy.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Sal Destefano]

But yeah, I mean, we love, we love trainers. We love hiring trainers. So if you want to work, where's our. Where do people apply here? Is it MP mindpumpjobs.com? but I'm gonna tell you right now, if you don't have that attitude, don't apply. Yeah. I don't want to hire you. Don't want you in my place. Don't want you in the culture, don't want you training.

[Justin Andrews]

I'd say the things that I see, the, the ones that are doing really well are we. We've got quite a few coaches and trainers that are new coaches. Trainers, but have been listening to the podcast for a long. Have listened to a lot of them.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, you got to be bought into the.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, we teach. We teach coaching and philosophy on here. If you've listened to us coach people answer these questions, I want air. I mean that education, like I said, I'll take that over. The trainer who went out and got eight national certifications, worked at some big box gym for six years and he's listened to 10 episodes and wants a job than the trainer who's listened to most all the episodes but has never coached anybody. Because what you've learned listening to us coach people and from our experience, far more valuable.

[Sal Destefano]

Yeah, look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. It's Mind Pump Media.

[Doug]

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