Hello everyone, welcome to Mind Pump. In the first half of this episode we talk about how and when to train to failure. Who should do it? Who shouldn't do it? And how to do it? We talk about protein that is actually pulled from the air. This is protein you can make breads from. This is true manna from heaven and it's real as well as many other topics. In the second half of the show we answer four questions from our Mind Pump Media Instagram account. Questions such as what are the advantages of using cable exercises compared to dumbbell exercises?  Is intermittent fasting the same as calorie restriction? And how does a central nervous system influence performance and recovery? All right, enjoy the show. Check this out. Training to failure can definitely have some benefits you got to be smart about. Here's one tip. If you're going to do some sets to failure, make them high rep sets. One of the things that makes up failure training is low volume, right? The intensity is super high, so you're doing less sets, but low rep failure training doesn't seem to produce enough muscle stress to give you the results you're looking for. So if you're going to train to failure, obviously the volume is low, but try to pick a weight where you fail at 12 to 15 reps or maybe even as high as 20 reps, you'll find that you get better results that way. Is your opinion to do that more often than you would do heavy weight failure? Is that what you're, or always or risk factor down a bit, right? That's another one. Yeah. So there's a few benefits to this. So there is this kind of cumulative stress that you get when you do multiple sets, right? This is why volume has been closely connected to muscle growth. Well, failure training is really low volume by nature. The idea is to do a set to failure to muscular failure. So super high intensity, but then because it's so intense, you have to do less volume. And so that's like the selling point, right? And in, when it's novel, it does seem to produce some, some gains in a lot of people, especially if you're advanced, but the challenge is if you're doing a set to failure with like five reps, it's not enough muscular fatigue to produce the desired result. But if you do a set to failure at 15, now you're still getting some of that cumulative effect plus the intensity. And then with Justin said, I think it's a real important going to failure at five reps, the risk is high for injury, right?  When it's a set to 15, um, you can really make sure that your form is perfect. And I would say that's probably the most important factor to consider when you train to failure is technique because I mean, your technique has to be perfect. Otherwise it's a, it's a very risky form of training. I would say this is very, uh, you know, bodybuilder-esque. That's totally very much so. I think their philosophy. In fact, almost to a fault, I'd say most of my bodybuilder friends rarely train to failure, especially in, uh, you know, singles, doubles, triples, or even five by five, they rarely even run a five by five routine. And so the bodybuilding community tends to really lean hard into this tip. There's some truth there, right? Cause if you look at like the strength athletes, like power lifters who do train the low reps, they rarely train to failure. Uh, they, they don't train to failure unless they're really testing out what their PR is or their max is. Um, but they rarely ever like max out as part of their training protocol. Now bodybuilders obviously use failure much more often, but they do the higher reps, they definitely, now I've, you know, I, I've played with this quite a bit and it's a big difference. Like if I do a set to a failure to seven reps, it's not the same as 15 reps. It's almost like I get the CNS fatigue, but I don't get the muscle stimulating effects. Now what's cool too is studies that compare higher reps to lower reps. If the sets are taking a failure, the higher reps build just as much or if not more muscle. So it's just one of those things that if you want to try utilizing failure training, by the way, there's more that goes to this cause there's a lot of factors you want to consider and you want to be really smart. I think training to failure requires more precise programming than other methodologies because it's so high intense. But this is one thing to consider. Like if you're going to do it, keep the reps high and then you'll see more benefit than if you go, you know, really low. I don't know if you guys experimented with, with this yourselves. Well, yeah, I definitely think the fatigue factor is way different. Uh, when you go in the high rest versus like the low reps.  It's really hard to control at that point. So that's why I think that the, uh, the risk factor is definitely higher in that direction. I think it really matters on who we were talking to. I feel like failure training is, um, abused or overused in the fitness fanatic. It's underutilized in the casual. Yeah. The casual lifter, novice, someone who's just getting started in the gym. Um, they tend not to, uh, train to failure or push themselves, uh, as often and probably need to hear the advice that, Hey, you've got more. We could, we could probably put more in the bar or we could, you know, try harder or whatever, uh, but with your clients or with your, your people that are training, uh, you know, consistently for years and years. I mean, at least I fell in this trap. Yeah. They just hit that button too often. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I used to train to almost every exercise I did. And, uh, in the gym, uh, consistently, I would end up training at least one set, if not every set to failure. And I think that was a big, uh, mistake and probably stalled a lot of my progress. Had I not understood a lot of young mothers make that mistake? I mean, me included in that, and it's just like, you just want to test yourself constantly. And I do think that it's important to test yourself and your abilities and your strength and your technique and kind of put it on display. But, um, very less frequent than, than most people would think. Yeah. So it, well, you burn out easily. The volume required or not just required, the volume of failure training to make it effective has got to be low. So if I'm going to do normally 12 sets for a body part and I'm, if I go to failure training, I'm doing like two or three failure sets. So it's like way less volume. I'm going to use an analogy. I hope this works. So if you guys, if it sucks, you guys let me know, but you know what this reminds me of? It's like a car performance and nitrous, right? Nitrous is a real fast, easy way to get like 20, 30 horsepower.  Yeah, you, exactly. You have to be so precise with how you use it. That if you use it wrong, you're done. Your engine is done. Failure training is, can be super effective, but your programming has to be much more precise. You get, you get away with way less when you train to failure. So if you're going to use it, like you got to be really smart, really precise with it. Uh, otherwise, I think that, I think that analogy is really good because one of the problems with failure training is the temptation to want to do it. Cause you definitely feel or see a difference, right?  And so you become addicted to this, the speed that you get, you know, from the nitrous. And so I think it's a great analogy and anybody who's ever been in a car or you used nitrous before, you got to be very careful on, on how much you use that because the, the engine isn't built to handle that much all the time. And so the temptation to want to use it all the time is there because you definitely feel a difference when you blast it. But, uh, I think it's a great analogy or tires, the undercarriage, everything else supporting it. So it's like, you want to go full blasts as it affects the entire chain. Yeah. No, I'm glad, I'm glad that analogy worked. I was, I was thinking of a sports analogy. Just MC for if I go with. Hey, what's up everyone? The today's workout program giveaway maps strong. This is a strong man inspired workout program. Really heavy emphasis on the posture or chain. Get a strong back, strong glutes, strong hamstrings. It's a great program. A lot of fun. Here's how you can win it. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we dropped this episode. Also subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications, do all those things. And if we declare you the winner, uh, we'll let you know in the comments section. Nowhere else. So only in the comment section will you know if you won map strong for free. Also, we created three workout bundles this month. Each one of them giving you up to nine months of planned workouts, nine months of workout video demos, sets, reps, exercises, everything. Here's what the three bundles are owned. By the way, each one is, uh, like $300 or more off. So it's a huge discount. Go check them out. The first one is the new to weightlifting bundle. The second one is the body transformation bundle. And the third one is the new year extreme intensity bundle. You can find out more or sign up just by clicking on the link at the top of the description below. All right, here comes the show. Have you guys ever used nitrous, by the way, for reels in a car? I've been in a car with it. I haven't personally wanted to, but I've been in a car here. What? So I've never done it.   But it's like a hundred horsepower, like instantaneously. So if you've ever, I don't know if you've ever been in a car, well, you have. Your car has the ability to go from like regular to sport mode. I mean, I would say it's for what you're driving and I'm driving. It's like double that feeling of that, that throw you back in your seat. You get in the seat like crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, actually, no, I take that back. I was in the car. I had a buddy who had a Supra. Uh, remember the, remember the older Toyota Supra is that people used to love to like. I do remember him hitting nitrous. But one time he took me 185 miles an hour on the freeway. He didn't hit nitrous, but that was the most terrifying, uh, car ride I'd ever been in my entire life because I was a teenager.  So I'm just sitting in the car while he's getting up to, you know, 150, 160, 170. And I'm like, Knuckles. Yeah. And I'm like, please God, like just slow down, you know, but I'm not saying anything. It was terrible. Dude, speaking of cars, since you brought it up, have you guys seen the new, the 2023, um, uh, Ford GT? No. Doug, pull it up. This thing is bad. By the way, everybody's probably wondering like their race car. No, it's there.  Uh, and you've seen the Ford GT before. Remember the, the, the, what's the, um, the GT 40. The, the Ford GT. Yeah. Ford GT is GT 40. It is. Yeah. Let's pull it up. I don't know if it is GT. By, by the way, I want to, the reason why Justin's not here and he's on camera is, uh, he's on house arrest. He, uh, he, he broke some law. No, that's not what happened. Dude, start all these rumors, man. No, I'll just, yeah, show us your ankles. No, on his way here, he, uh, the, he has to drive over the hill and it's all shut down, right? Like the storm or to get this crazy storm here in the Bay Area here in California. And he sent us a picture. We'll post it on the YouTube. It's like a swing pool. On the freeway, you can't come over here. You're stuck. It was my last possible road to get through.  So I'm stuck here. That's, uh, there it is. Yeah, they're done. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's supposed to be up there in the Bugatti class now, bro. Wow. Yeah. It's like a million dollars for that. Oh, they're going to charge a million for that? Yes, dude. Wow. Yeah. I was watching, uh, what's that, what's that? Is it car and driver? I forget the tune. It's like your top fuel. One of those ones on, on YouTube and watch them dragging against a Z06 Corvette and, uh, about the same horsepower as the, uh, the Z06 Corvette, but then like half the weight. It's like way lighter. It looks bad though. Yeah. You know, it's funny, I've like thought about this, right? And it's just because the way I grew up, I'm sure if I grew up super wealthy, it would be different, but if I, I could have like a billion dollars. So a million dollar car to a billionaire is like nothing.  It's like chump change. But no matter what, I don't think I could ever own a car like that because I wouldn't be able to drive it or park it anywhere. Like, oh my God, one chip, one ding, one, like whatever. And I'd be like, ah, I mean, that's, okay. First of all, absolutely you would if you were a billionaire. You'd probably even considered it if you were a centa millionaire. So I think that you would have, I never heard that before, a centa millionaire. Yeah. Like a hundred million. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not like a centaur. That's a million. No, no. I mean, you would because it's your exact point when people see stuff like that. Sometimes it's, oh my God, that's such a waste of money. That's not, okay, well, then do you think your Toyota Prius is a waste of money? Because when you do the ratio of you make 150 grand a year and you drive a Prius, it's the same as a hundred millionaire driving something like that around. Right. So it's like he's just financially responsible as you are. Well, a billion to a million. That'd be like making a hundred grand to a thousand, right? Be like you're driving a thousand dollar car. Yeah. That's, that's why I said, even if you weren't a billionaire, I think if you were just a centa millionaire, I think you would still do that. You'd have it in a garage on Saturdays.  You know what I'm saying? If you just, you'd run the coast for fun and then come back, right? Just do those gumball runs, right? Yeah. Yeah. Is that a real thing or is that just movies? No, that's a real thing. No, that's a real thing. Oh, I don't know if like the actual race is. Yeah, there, I think there is. Like the groups that get together and then they go, okay, we're going to go from here to here. Let's see who gets there first. I believe so. How do we, how do we do that? I think we should do that. I think we shouldn't. Let's focus on being a sentiment there first. Yeah, let's not, one step at a time.  Let's try not to do that. Oh, you pussies. Hey, you're just going to appeal to my ego. It's just even worse. Hey, how, how is it for real though over at your place right now? Is it like, uh, like is your house actually flooded right around there? Is it down the road? Like how close is it? Is the flooding to you? Yeah, no, um, down the roadways, it is flooded. Yes. But we're up above in, in mountains. So there's one store I have access to and we got plenty of food, water, and whatever. So if we got a bunker out here, we're going to be fine. But yeah, it's all the rivers that go through and have elevated so high that they just like made their way through all these houses. And it's a real mess out there, dude. It's, it's going to be a lot of cleanup for everybody around here.  Yeah. Like my aunt, her, her like whole fence came down. So she's sent some pictures. I'm up against the foothills. So I'm up in the foothills, but then I'm against the foothills. So it's higher than I am. So I'm kind of somewhat nestled, which totally blunts the wind. So it's like super windy, but I think cause where I'm located, the wind doesn't hit us that hard. Yeah. But then when I go down the hill, I see like branches and so I'm like, holy cow, what happened? Well, Doug and I are down with the puzzle so we can get flooded. How thankful I am. I'm not in my old house. Oh, right. I see the guys that picture of like basically one of these branches that was a widowmaker just like skewered my ceiling of the house. Like there's thankfully this house has no trees that are like in close proximity.   That would have been horrible right now. I've been at places all flooded right now. Totally effed. Yeah. So you time that I'm sitting pretty out here. That's right. I got Wi-Fi. Adam's without internet for the next two weeks. Yeah, bro. That's weird. Yeah. Because I'm back in the 90s. Katrina and I, Katrina, she's a savage man. So we had, so this is so funny, right? We got a quote to move the house and it was just, it was ridiculous, dude. I was like, that's so much. I'm like, I don't want to spend that much. I'm like, let's see how much we can do of this ourselves. And then if we tap out and even if I could just save half the money, I'll be happy. So we were going to pay my brother-in-law to come down and basically, like he used to like work for a moving company. So he's like really good with like, you know, the speed of him being able to wrap all the furniture and do it all professional and stuff like that. So I was going to pay him $1,000 to basically prep the house.  Well, pod gets dropped off next day. Brother-in-law is supposed to come get a phone call. He threw his back out. So, and this thing's already scheduled to be picked up already. So we basically have 48 hours to, to load this thing. And it's just Katrina and I. So we, and then I was catching a cold too. So I'm like, she, her and I both catching a cold and loading. That's good bonding time. It's amazing. Actually, she made that comment at one point.  The fact that we, we, we powered through this and we didn't kill each other. She goes, I can't believe it. So, so we made it. We got over to the other place, but no internet for two weeks. So that was weird. You know, it's one thing, it's one thing to not have like, you know, your streaming services, but to not have any sort of internet connection at all. It really brought me back. You know, I'm saying like, what did we do when we didn't have that? It almost feels so, I mean, we were busy, right? Doing the house. So I'm exhausted and I had plenty of work to do. But even when we finally had that moment at night, we're like, okay, we're done. We're tapping out today. Let's take a break. We're both exhausted.  And it's like, you can't do anything. It's like, so we tell stories. Yeah. That's what it was like. We did talk about like old high school stories. It's probably a blessing in disguise. No, I mean, it's, I think it was, I think we both agreed that it's very illuminating, right? To see that, wow, you know, we're, we're so used to being able to just kind of distract ourselves when we're exhausted and tired and, you know, don't feel like talking. And then all of a sudden you do that. And it's like, you don't have it. It's interesting. Oh yeah. No, that's, I'm glad you guys did that well. When you have a lot of stress on you, because, you know, I've got a lot of stress going on right now with the babies and all that stuff. And it brings out the worst, man. So it's good that you guys did okay, you know? Yeah, yeah, I know. Well, thank you guys for killing each other. We had a moment like that in Scotland when I was driving manual stick shift and it started snowing and the roads got really bad. And I'm on the opposite side of the road. And it just was like, we were at each other trying to like get directions and everything and like get it right. And we're like, if we were early in our marriage, like that would have been a real problem, dude. We were like this close, dude. Just absolutely losing it. You know, you got to remind yourself. That's so important to know. You have to remind, because it's so hard to recognize when you're in it. Yeah. When you're in the shit, meaning like life stress, it's hard to realize that the reason why your spouse, your partner, yourself, whatever, your kids, that they're acting a particular way or maybe the way that you're perceiving them, a lot of it has to do with just the overall stress because it will bring out, it makes the bad of you worse and it makes the good of you not as great. So you're just dealing with the worst of each other and it's hard when you're in it because you think, oh. It's hella hard.  Like it's always challenging to be able to remove yourself from the moment. You know, Katrina and I have this thing that we do that and I think I'm lucky. I'm blessed that I have a partner who was like hardcore into sports like I was. And so we have this ability to like look at each other and be like, listen, like who at one person normally can remove the other one and be like, we're on the same team. Yeah.  What you're doing right now, okay, think about that. And you can right away, I can think of like playing in a game and thinking like, you'd be so pissed if like your teammate was talking down to you or not just standing there with their hands on their hips. I'm not going to do it. It's like, you would flip a lid, right?  Like, no. And so getting the other partner just to agree, like, hey, this whole thing life, right? We've agreed we're doing it together, right? We're on the same team. Okay. Well, then you tell me as a team player, are we playing as a team? And like that kind of reframing for us always kind of helps pull it back in like you're right. But damn, in the moment, it's hard. Oh, it's hard. It always takes, there's never, never both people do it. It's always like one person has the sense to be able to say it to the other person so we can kind of, and then because we have that in common, I feel like it relates really well for both of us. Like, yeah.  And it's because- What is Sal along that? No. What is the, what causes divorce the highest on things like that? Like, I know we talked to Gottman and he talked about contempt, right? Yeah. But what about things that happen to you, like losing a job, having a baby? Like, what are the- So things that are not direct insults on the relationship, right? Because then we could say, oh, infidelity or abuse, like eliminating that kind of stuff. Believe it or not, having babies are one of the highest threats for divorce because of the challenge of it. First off, if you don't have kids, it's hard to understand what it's like to have a relentless, you know, a human that's just, you care about them so much, it's relentless. There's nothing you can do. You can't take a break. You got no sleep. You know, your whole life is completely different. And then you're trying to do this with another person. You've never done it with this person before. So divorce rates go through the roof in the first, I think, two years of having a kid. Or it'll strengthen. Which is interesting because, yeah, I was going to say, you would think that, you know, having this child together would bond you more together. It tests you is what it does. Right. And the test can bond you or it could, you can fold. Now, do you think some of that's skewed to though, because I've actually, this is a common thing that happens in relationships that are challenged. Many times couples will actually have a child thinking that that is going to bring them together. What a terrible. I know. Yeah. No, of course. Of course. Strategy. Every year. I mean, as parents, we understand. That's like, that's literally like you're on fire. It's like trying to pour gasoline on me. No, it's even worse. It's even worse.   Oh yeah, that's a great idea. I was already on fire and I have a baby too. No, but I mean, it's like you have to, I think you have to, when you get the opportunity, because like I said, when you're in the moment, you can't, but when you're outside of it and you get a little break, you'd be like, okay, this is a season.  We're going to get time to get the rest and connect a little bit or whatever. So it could be hard, especially when kids are close in age.  It takes like a year and a half or so, like a year-ish, where you're like, oh, you're getting out of the clouds. You're like, everything's going great. Boom, she gets pregnant again. It's like, oh man. All right, here we go. Yeah, let's do this again. So yeah, that's a good time. Hey, I wanted to bring up, so in a recent episode, I talked about how obesity is not a disease. And I brought up this like documentary that was on TV about how medical professionals are trying to label it a disease. Well, there was a nurse practitioner who works with obesity in our forum who tried to make the argument that it's good that they're going to try and label it a disease because her point essentially is that it'll motivate people to get in shape somehow. And I said, well, first off, people get heart attacks and decide still not to get in shape. So I don't think that's going to help at all. But just to hammer home the point and really, really kind of just, you know, boil it down. Obesity right now, if it doesn't have any other medically treatable factors, in other words, if you don't have diabetes, hypertension, or anything else, let's just say you're obese. Obesity itself is not, unless it's extreme, is not covered by insurance. In other words, if you go to the doctor's, you're 30 pounds overweight, and everything else kind of looks okay, the insurance company's not going to cover a medication to solve your obesity because it has yet to be labeled as a disease. Now, the minute the medical establishment comes together and says, yes, it's a disease, the next step is for insurance companies to cover obesity, disease, quote, unquote, solving pharmaceuticals. It's interesting. So that's why that's the main, that is 100 percent. 100 percent. Really some pharmaceutical reasons. Yes. It's interesting to me that somebody who works in the, in the industry actually wouldn't see that. I mean, I feel like it's so obvious that it's, it, this is, I know we always wrap things like this and this like we care. You know, we care. We were trying to help others out, but there's, you know, nine times out of 10, it's, it's money motivated. And the fact that they can now prescribe drugs and insurance companies can cover it, there's going to be a ton of money being made. By the way, isn't that like what's hitting, training in the news right now is all these, these obesity, fat loss type supplements right now. So all that stuff is trending right now. These companies are popping up that are. If you're a pharma company, they did this with cholesterol lowering drugs. At one point, if your cholesterol was above, I think it was 220, then you could get prescribed a statin. And then they lowered the number to 200, your cholesterol at 200, which immediately added tens of millions of new potential customers. Okay. Because going from 220 to 200, like it opened up the market. If you could label something that a majority of Americans quote unquote have a disease, it is, it will literally become one of the most prof, if not the most profitable segment of the pharmaceutical industry. Now, I know what happens with people that work in medicine is there's, there's a lot of good people that work in medicine. I've trained a lot of people that work in medicine. They're very, they were all very good people, very smart, hardworking, caring people. I'm not talking about that. What I'm saying is that the system itself is fueled by the pharmaceutical industry, which is the high. It's the, it's the largest profit earning portion of the medical industry. And what they do is they set the narrative. And then when you work in that space, you work within the confines of this market that they've created. So it's hard to see.  I'm really trying to solve this. I recommend strength training. This isn't a shot at you. So you're conditioned to treat the symptoms. Right. This is often, uh, yeah, Western medicine practices. That's like their thought process. And if there's a way to do that pharmaceutically, then they feel like maybe eventually this person's going to come around. But what we've found, uh, you know, from training people like this, and I'm sure you guys have as well, have had like surgery and have invasive kind of ways of dealing with the obesity is it just rebounds. The behaviors don't change at all. Listen, this isn't, this is not a, a direct shot at the, you know, nurse practitioner and stuff like that. I think that's what I think. For the doctors, right? The doctors, like there's tons of amazing people that are in it. It's not that at all. It's the machine, man.  Like, okay, yeah, I don't disagree. Yeah, some of them do. Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a large part of, of how the industry, I mean, that will, I remember when we were talking about starting this, you know, years ago and, you know, one of the easiest ways to make money or the formulas is to gain some sort of attraction and attention, gain an audience, whether that through fame, magazines, whatever, podcasting, and then to create a supplement line and pedal supplements. It's one of the fastest, easiest ways to build a legitimate business in our space. It's the product, it's the product in the market. And the product in the medical market is pharmaceuticals. That's by far, by the way, it's one of the most profitable markets, period. Not just, we're not just talking about, oh, this is what's profitable medicine. Yeah, the last couple years. Yeah, so they, so they fund the research, they fund the studies, they fund the narrative. So you have to ask yourself, why label obesity a disease anyway? What's that going to do? Like, okay, whether we label it a disease or not, for the average person, how does that change anything? Here's how, once it is officially a disease, now drugs that simply target obesity, not diabetes, not hypertension, not blood lipid issues, not blood like strokes and clots and all the other issues that can become associated with obesity, just being obese now is going to be covered by insurance, which opens the floodgates for companies to- And what do you, what do you think? Do you think it's going to make it better or worse? No, it's going to make it worse because the unintended consequence of that is removing the responsibility from the average person. And that just, I don't mean this in a negative way, like people are just lazy, but what'll happen is you're going to disempower them because they're going to view it as this thing that they have, like I can't do anything about, when in fact the only thing you can do about it now and probably for the foreseeable future is change your lifestyle. And you're going to disempower people through this process. So it's damaging across the board.  You don't have to label a disease except to get insurance companies to be able to cover pharmaceuticals. That is coming in the pipeline. They're already preparing it. The narrative and the propaganda machine is going. So just remember, we said it here. Do you think it'll be as big or bigger than the ADD market? Bigger, way bigger, dude. That's just a way to be bigger. Way bigger. Think about how many people. That's great. What is that right now? That's in the trillions now, right? It's huge. It's huge. It's crazy. It's huge. But think about it this way. This, here's what'll happen.  It's very clear here. They're going to label it a disease because right now they're starting to propaganda. So they're going to label it a disease. Then they're going to lower the threshold for what obesity is considered. So right now obesity is, I don't remember what the BMI is, it's like over 22 or I don't remember what it was. First they're going to start, it's a disease. Then they're going to lower the threshold, thus making the market even larger. Yeah, but okay, I'm going to challenge that. The timeline of that is going to be, there's going to be a good solid year plus between that because that's how you boost your numbers. That's right. They're going to start out with it's a disease. And then they're going to say, oh, obesity now is considered this. And then oh, by the way, this is how we can increase profits by 30% next year. Because we're going to open it up for 30% more people. And then the way that they're going to sell it is they're going to say because obesity is strongly connected to hypertension, blood clots, stroke, dementia, whatever, everything, right? They're going to say, but this is good. This is a good thing. We are solving problems. And what will happen is within a decade, you'll probably see a majority of people on obesity prescriptions covered by insurance companies. So that's the game. That's the game that's happening right now. It is not to help people.  It's not to help people. It's all about selling more drugs.  We have two partners I mentioned today, which one we got. Oh, you know what? Let's talk about creatures of habit. So my oldest got his wisdom teeth pulled out, which is hilarious because... So he's like slurping food. Yeah. So I'm like, dude, we got some. I got some oatmeal, bro. So I'm making him protein shakes, and I'm making him oatmeal and scrambled eggs. And he's pretty much living off that right now. Do they put it out for that? I remember going out for that. He was, yeah, dude. They put him under general anesthesia for that. You believe that? Fun. I know. What? I said, fun. When you wake up, you're all loopy after work. You don't remember when... I watched those videos, those kids that wake up from that, and then they mess with them. Dude, I saw one video where this woman was at the dentist, and she was coming out, and her boyfriend was there, and she was talking about how sexy his friend was. Oh, I saw that video. Did you watch that? Yeah, I saw that video. Yeah, yeah, I saw that video.  Yeah, she kept going on and on and on. Yeah, yeah, that was...  Yeah, but you know what's so... I totally saw that video was cracking up, and I still made me laugh, but I'm like, what do you guys think? Like, do you take it personal? No, no, no, no. What do you guys think as far as how many people... Because the desire to want to go viral, how many of these videos that we share and we see and go, oh, my God, look at this. Oh, I know where you're going. Do you think are, like, staged? And then how many of these do you think... Wow. Really... 90% are staged. Do you really think that high? Do you think it's that high? Yeah, because to have everything, to have your phone on, video on, and be able to capture something that happens in a matter of seconds, damn near impossible. I am with Justin. Wow. I just read an article on reality TV. So remember reality was like all the rage? Yeah, yeah. And the article went through all these reality shows and interviewed the people who are on the shows, and they're all completely fake. They're all completely staged. Like, you'll have an argument with someone, and the producers will be like, hey, can you redo that again, but this time try to make this point and try and do that? Or, hey, your parents are coming, so I want you to act irritated with this, whatever. All totally fake, totally staged. So I agree with you, Justin. I bet you a lot of this stuff that's caught... I mean, I tell you what, I wouldn't bet against you guys, that's for sure. I mean, I definitely think it's, I do think it's greater than 50. I definitely think you have more than half of them. How would, you know what's, what's more weird as this? Okay, we all agree, and we know that. Yet we still watch it, share it, and talk about it. We like to be fooled. Isn't that funny? It's kind of believable, you know? You kind of want to believe it, don't you think? Yeah, that's just, I mean, that's, I don't know, I find that a very interesting...  Right, yeah. Yeah, so you're probably right, dude. This shit's all fake.  Like, he's like, no, no, she's not my girlfriend, because she's my fiance now. His buddy's on the phone. Yeah, but I can't help but go like, oh, come on, that's gotta be probably a stage show. This reminds me of that joke.  And he goes, no way. And she goes, yeah, I can. You'll be super happy and super pissed off at the same time. He goes, all right, go for it.  Dug over there, not to say it. Yes, not that one. It's a great joke, Dug. Come on. Hey, so I want to bring something 10,000 times, but I still funny.  Have you guys heard of... Let me see if I got the name here, right? It's called, I think, Solene. Have you heard of Solene, this new company that's making food? Why have I heard of this? Okay, tell me, tell me. Okay. This is a concept developed by NASA. It's a source of protein. It's a food that they create. You ready for this? Made out of CO2, water, and electricity. And it has protein in it? It's a food. It's a food that can be eaten up from the sky? Okay. So it's 50% protein, 5% to 10% fat, 20% to 25% carbs. 50% protein also? 50% protein. How? It reportedly looks and tastes like wheat flour, and essentially what they do is they take CO2, they combine it with water, nutrients, and vitamins. They use solar energy or whatever, that's fine. And then they use a fermentation process. So the yeast and bacteria. The yeast and vitamins, they skipped all that part. So it's not just like molecules. What are the vitamins and minerals? Yeah, what's a macro break? Well, it just says here. Some kind of substance. Yeah, it just says here what the proteins, fats, and carbs are. What? But they call it protein out of thin air. So it's literally taking CO2 out of the air, and through a fermentation process, the yeast and bacteria turn it into a food. This company isn't related to the Soylent Company, is it? I don't know. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. But how wild is this? Because not only does it get CO2 out of the air, but it's creating super cheap source of calories and energy. So you want to talk about a potential innovation that could be groundbreaking.  Yeah. If that. When you talk about this, you talk about fusion, you talk about open AI. Like, dude, it's crazy what the leap that we have made just in this last year, it feels like. Yeah. A lot of this stuff, all through those. So I was watching a show that's one of those speculation things about ancient technology and all that stuff. And they were talking about the arc of the Covenant. Well, what if it was actually a machine? And one guy actually speculated that it was a machine like this that could literally create manna from thin air, basically convert it from CO2 and all that. And they actually described the whole thing just like you're saying. Oh, weird. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah, so Doug brought up the website, and basically it's used like flour. So you can make foods, breads, whatever, because it's like flour. I'm assuming the shelf life on this is probably phenomenal. So I'm also assuming you have to pair it with other things then too, right? Yeah, you can turn it into things. That's what it's showing. Beverages, snacks, breads. But because it's got, it probably has a really long shelf life. It's probably really cheap to produce. And it takes CO2 out of the air. Now, whether it's healthy or not, because I don't know what this is, I don't know how it affects the body. Well, for somebody who's dying of starvation, it's amazing. Well, yes, that too. But besides all of that, this could be one of the most disruptive things to the food market that I could possibly think of. This could be crazy. Food market, energy market, and internet. Like literally three huge markets are being disrupted in this last year. It's so wild. What? We need to do a whole podcast where we have like an inventory of all of these new breakthroughs that are coming out, just to keep tabs, you know? So what else? I mean, we have like the open AI stuff. We have like all of that happening simultaneously. There's, you know, other breakthroughs, like medically that they've figured out. Like, who knows? Can we grow limbs now? Is that a thing? Well, no, but we can make ourselves two to four inches taller. Oh, I know. Well, so far, that's a massive surgery. Yeah. There's a lot of people doing it. I can't believe that. That's, you know what they do? Yes. They like, they basically break your femur and then add it. They cut it, they cut it, and then they separate the two pieces and connect metal rods and allow the bones to grow together.  They keep stretching it out, keep stretching out, allowing the bone to kind of start to grow. Oh, I thought they actually cut it. You know, like we almost have fusion. Yeah, like, yeah. No, no, no. Maybe Doug can look it up.   No, the bone actually grows that way. So they actually make your, your femur. Now the only funny thing about this is you get two inches or three inches taller, but it's all your femur. So it's like, you just got long, longer top legs. Well, I mean, there's, there's people that have like longer legs and torsos, right? And I don't know, is one or two inches enough to make it a little oddly? It would be weird if it looked really odd. Maybe online. Yeah, I guess you're right. Like a two inch lift isn't a big deal. You know what I'm saying, but what does it say there, Doug? Who's it Kevin Durant that has those really long skinny legs? Well athletes tend to running, running, you know, people who run a lot. So they add a magnetic lengthening rod and pins into the bone, which allows the leg to be controlled, have controlled lengthening over a period of time. Yeah. So you go in and they crank it, crank it, crank it. Oh, that's not what I thought. Whoa.  That's way fucked. There's only a torture. Yeah, it does. Oh my God. So if I come in one day and I'm looking a little taller and you'll know. I can't imagine what that feels like. Wow, look at the before and after. Yeah, that's a big difference. It's a huge difference. How much taller is it? It's a huge difference right there. Oh my God. Three inches. It's a three inch. It's a three inch.  That looks so crazy. Now, did you have braces or no? No. Oh, Doug, did you have braces? Yeah, I had an Invisalign. Yeah.  Oh. It's a ache. Yeah. That's weird.  It's super. So who's our next mention today? Is it Caldera, Doug? Are we talking about Caldera? It is Caldera, yeah. Yes. You know that they are from the social media that I see seem to be completely exploding. Yeah. Like everywhere. Yeah. This is a product that I admittedly, I'm going to be honest, didn't, not because I hadn't used it, I had, or because I used it. I hadn't used it, but we got approached by them, like skincare, well, whatever, you know, what's going to happen with this?  Do you think that's part of why, though, is, you know, like when you go watch a movie that you heard was not good, and then you watch it and it ends up being good, or you have expectations, it's not going to be good, and then you go and you watch it, and then it's great. Do you think that's part of why, one, you like it, and a lot of people, like especially in the men in the, I think that's the men. Yeah. Because men, because like, I know expectations and it way exceeded it. That's how I feel. I feel like you're not going to give me some, honestly, like up until Caldera, I've never been somebody who's, I'm the guy who does the, you know, bar of soap, and then he washes his face like that, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. This is how I've always. The soap.  Like, whatever. And thinking like, oh, I'm going to buy some oil or cream that, you know, makes this huge difference. I always thought it was just a hardcore, but it's one of those things that you will instantly see the difference. And I think that's what gets you is that it's like, let me see if I notice a difference.  No, I don't know how much they've grown since over the last couple of years, but it's got to be massive because I see them all over the place now. But my favorite thing is, is now Adam's like, commercial comes up all the time. And then also Mario Lopez follows it right after. That guy, man, I swear he's got to be 50 something, right? No, he's not 50 yet. Mario Lopez? He's at least 10 years older than we are. Is he in his fifties? Bro, Saved by the Bell, we were kids, right? He's 49. Yeah, see? Wow. He's almost 50. He looks like a baby. He does look young. His skin does look amazing. His skin looks so great. What's wrong with us right now?  Are you like, he's got so many like TV shows. It's kind of cringey to me. I never liked him, bro. I was not a Slater fan on Saved by the Bell. I liked what's his name. What's the other character's name? I liked him better when he had a curly mullet. Do you remember, do you remember in Saved by the Bell? So what's Zach? I like Zach. Remember in the Saved by the Bell, every once in a while Slater would bust out and dance. But he didn't like dance, like cool kids dance. He danced like, like he did like a, like modern dance or ballet or something like that. Remember that? He'd like do kicks and stuff. He'd always be in one of that, like that wrestling onesie. What are you doing, bro? Hey, did you guys, are you guys seeing what Larry Wheels has been up to? I saw his post where his face looked all fat and he said it looks like estrogen's up a little bit. Okay.  Freakish strength. Freakish strength as a young age, he was in his 20s or whatever. Anyway, he went off bodybuilder doses of anabolic steroids and went on pure TRT and he's literally, he's like labeling exactly what he's doing. So he's like, I'm only on hormone replacement because I've taken steroids since I was 17. Now I need hormone replacement, but I'm off all anabolic steroids. I'm off high doses of testosterone. I think he's using like 170 milligrams a week of testosterone to replace, which is a reasonable, normal dose of testosterone. And what he's doing is he's documenting the changes in his body and his strength levels. So he just did a mock powerlifting event. I'm going to pull it up for you. And this is over the course of, I want to say he's been off everything for a year and only been on TRT for a year. I want to say, I think that's- Has it been already here?  I think it's been almost a year if I want to say. But anyway, here's the numbers for his powerlifting. Okay. Yeah, yeah. He did, he did a squat. His squat went down 5.8% from his previous record. So it went from 771, 771 pounds to 727 pounds. So only on TRT. Not bad at all. No. His bench press went from 573 pounds to 507 pounds. So that's a 12% drop. His deadlift went down by 54 pounds. So 6.8%. So his deadlift came in at 771 pounds, which was 50 pounds lighter than normal. So this is what he's saying or this is what he's reporting. By the way, if you look at his face and his body, you could definitely tell he's not on the same stuff anymore. But what do you think about that? Do you think a year is enough time? No, no, definitely not. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Definitely not. I mean, especially the amounts that he was taking. And how long he'd been training. Yeah, yeah. I remember feeling the residuals of my stack after bodybuilding for feeling it six months later, probably still there for almost a year. So I'd be more interested to see. I hope it's. Like five years from now. Oh, even another year. Like just so we could see, is it continue on that percentage? Right? So if he lost 5%, 5.8% this year, and then he loses another 5.8%, like if he keeps staying on that trajectory, then you could probably guesstimate that, oh, maybe in five years he's back to like more of a reality.    But I don't agree with that anymore because I know how powerful muscle memory is. So if you build 10 pounds of muscle and it takes you a year to do so, and then you lose it all, you'll gain it back within a month. That's how fast, that's how powerful muscle memories. So if you gain 30 pounds of muscle by taking anabolic steroids for three years or whatever, and it's solid muscle, and then you go off and you lose some, you still have that muscle memory that's left over from before. So you're at an advantage. The technique, your CNS, your body's ability just to- And receptors? Yeah, your bones, I mean, your body is now adapted to, at least that's how I felt from it, right? I felt like, you know, that took me to this whole new level, my body, and then I was there long enough that my body got adapted to that. So even though I'm off and I'm nowhere near quite as strong as I was when I was on my big stacks, but I'm still way stronger than I was at my strongest. Or stronger than you would have gotten. Right. Had you not done anything? Right, right, right, right. I know, and that's it. It's a controversial thing to say because there may be some kid listening right now that's like, oh, then it's worth it. It's worth it to do, you know, all these antibiotics because I'll keep some of it or whatever, to which I say you are definitely risking having to take, you know, hormones for the rest of your life. So, but I mean, I don't know if that'll convince anybody. Wouldn't it convince me? Yeah, it wouldn't have convinced me either, but I would still say that because there are some people that I think are on the fence and if you told Mike, listen, if you go down this path, there's a very high potential you may be doing it for the rest of your life. So take that into consideration. I do think there's enough people that hopefully that message goes like, oh, yeah, I kind of want to try it, but not at the rate of the potential of me having to take this stuff forever. I don't think I want to be. Speaking of which, you know, mphormones.com, I went on this new protocol where they've introduced these kind of cognitive boosting compounds and peptides. Do you know the names of all of them? So I was to get mine soon. So I'm curious how it's working for you. Did you do the same stack? You did. Yeah. Look at you guys. That same peptide stack. Yeah, we're going to check it out and compare and contrast. So by the way, this is part of a larger thing.  I'm working with doctors and they're monitoring things because these are really active compounds. It's not like I'm taking vitamins and, you know, a mushroom supplement or whatever.  But anyway, one of them is dihexyl. The other one's called C-max. And it's now almost a week. And it's pretty wild. It's actually pretty remarkably wild. I am sleep deprived. We have an infant at home. We got a toddler. You know, it's just been very stressful at home. You've had family members die. You've got all kinds of stuff going on. Yeah, just a lot of stressful things a lot of people don't know about. But a lot of stuff going on. For all intents and purposes, I literally should feel way worse than I do. Way worse. And yet I feel sharp. So it's really strange. But this is one weekend. So you know what would be interesting to me is that I wonder if, like in your state is where you feel something like that the most, right? Oh, good point. Good point. Like if you, like if I was optimized. Right. You're already a healthy, optimized person, right?  Would I even notice? Would you notice very much? Or maybe it's really minor. But because you're under all that and you know how you should feel and because you're taking that. I would venture to say that it's kind of like taking testosterone supplements, right?  But if it's in the floor and you take some of these testosterone supplements Wow, what a good point. Yeah, the doctors actually told me that is like a lot of people like expect some kind of stimulus kind of response or something like you feel right away from it. But that's not the case. Like it's it's one of those that sort of increases cognitional that happens over time. Yeah. Well, I'm noticing that I feel it's not stimulatory. So it doesn't feel like a stimulant. It just feels calm and like memory recall and word recall is easier. So like words come to me faster and I feel I just feel smoother. But that's a great point, Adam. We'll see how it feels when things level out. I mean, either way, that's cool because let's say that that is the reason why then you have something like that that you can keep on hand for those moments when you know that's like, Oh man, I'm going to be going through it this next week because I got to be doing whatever, you know, late nights or whatever going on, right? Then you could utilize something like that. Well, I'll be the one lagging behind you guys. So we'll see if you guys grow a tail or anything. And if you don't, then maybe all Doug and I will try. You can follow us up. If I got skills or my eyes start twitching or something. Justin and I will be on here.  Do they have you on anything right now? Not yet, no. No, no. El natural guy. He's the healthiest one. Yeah, I know.  Doug, I tell you what, I ran into someone who I hadn't seen since Orange Stereo a while back and she was talking about, I didn't know she had been following the show. Like I met her when he first got into Orange Stereo. She was a trainer and was talking about all of us and it made a comment about you and I. About how much older we look? Yeah, how much older we look.   I know. He's a, what do they call it, energy vampire maybe? Yes, yes. I'm joking, but that would make sense, Doug. I'm just taking Solene from the air. Justin got more buff and more handsome. Doug looks younger and you and, so I think they literally sucked it all out of us. Damn. Yeah. That's the plan. Yeah, yeah. They're in the back quiet. Hey, those guys that talk a lot, don't worry. Yeah, we'll get them. Well, they're talking, we'll be taking something. Yeah, yeah, we'll get them in a little bit. Exactly, Doug. Hey, today for the shout out, I wanted to shout out somebody who I've shouted out before, but the reason why I'm going to bring them up again since we're like formally doing this every episode now, I've got a couple DMs where people, and by the way, I appreciate when people share people like this, like, oh, check this coach out or check this person out. And because sometimes I've found some really neat people that way. And somebody had shared this coach and guy was actually presenting pretty good information. But I still have yet to find anybody who I think is putting out better sports performance content than Paul Fabrits. I think that, I mean, I've been tracking him for seven years plus now. And not only has he put good content out, but I mean, his whole ecosystem, like he's got all kinds of great programs and stuff like that. And he communicates it very, very well. Yeah, and that's what I love. Like, so it's funny you say that because you didn't know what I was going to talk about. But this guy, I liked this guy. His content was really good. But he also, you know, and I don't know what this is, why people love, people love, like, when you use like technical terms and you get all wordy with stuff. Like you had this, you have this breakthrough bit of information about something. And it's just like, you know, and it's like, well, you know, all he's really saying is this, saying like in a really complex way to sound really, really smart. One of the things I love about Paul Fabrits and his handle is PJF performance is that he has that level of knowledge because you can go extremely deep. He's very intelligent, but then he does a great way. He does a great, great job of communicating that to the average person that is just looking for the, the average teenage guy or boy that's like, I just want to add four inches to my vertical. You know, I want to, I want to get this much faster or what about that? Like he communicates that so well. And so if you are in the sports performance world, he specializes in basketball, but a lot of the stuff that he does for basketball is transferable in almost any other sport. So if you haven't followed Paul, you got to follow Paul. I love his content. Hey, check it out. Go to this company called SleepMe. In fact, the link is sleep.me forward slash pump 30. This company makes products that dramatically improve your sleep. So like one of the devices, you put this pad on your mattress under your sheets and you control it with an app and it cools or warms your bed. It monitors the temperature, maintains the temperature. It could slowly warm up to wake you up in the morning, cool down at night to maximize things like growth hormone and melatonin production. It helps you fall asleep faster, stay asleep. It makes a tremendous difference in your sleep quality. Go check this company out. Again, it's sleep.me forward slash pump 30 and that'll offer you a discount on their products. All right. Here comes the rest of the show. First question is from and zero NBR. What is the benefit of cable movements when compared to their dumbbell counterparts? Oh boy, cables versus dumbbells. Cables are my favorite machine form of exercise because they're more like free weights than I would say like machines because they allow freedom of movement.  And they're super, super versatile. What's the benefit of cables? I'm not some tension. I would say. Yeah, that's the big one. And I'm not restricted by gravity. So with dumbbells, I'm just working against gravity. So I can't take a dumbbell and create resistance going down like I would with like a cable crossover. So cables allow me a lot of versatility and the constant tension. There's no, there's no like weight curve. Like what I mean by that is if I do a curl with the dumbbell, the heaviest point of the curl is going to be at the midpoint when I'm fighting gravity directly. When I'm up here at the top or at the bottom, it's actually not truly the stress isn't the same because I'm not fighting gravity directly. Whereas with cables, if it's 30 pounds, it's 30 pounds all the way through. Now this doesn't mean cables are better. It just means that they're a lot different than dumbbells, a lot more different. So when you put them together, you've got great variety. I'm glad you said it like that because I think this is coming up. This person probably follows, I forget his name. His handle is like the hypertrophy coach or something. He just did like a whole video on the whole, you know, cable versus free weight type of argument. And you know, and I don't like feeling like we're being forced into one camp or the other. I think you heard the message around free weights from us so much because we think that so many people neglected free weights, right? Like if they fell out of favor, yeah, they fell out of favor, right? Obviously early, you know, in the 70s, 80s and 90s, they were more popular. I'd say 90s was when the cables really started. Cables and machines started to really take over in the 90s, 2000s and so forth. So I think that the reason why you probably hear us advocating for free weight and barbell exercises so much is because we think that people neglect that more. Now, in a perfect world, you have both. I mean, both are amazing. And I just think that the only reason why you hear more about the free weight argument is the point that I'm making.  I love that and prefer that on a cable machine because when you come down, right, and you're at the bottom with the dumbbells, there's like no tension. No resistance. There's no resistance, no tension on the delt at all. Whereas when I'm on that cable and I'm pulled and it's stretched, I mean that stretch position and some of the highest tension is on it, which is completely opposite of what's going on with cables. I mean, excuse me, with free weights. And so the benefits of that when if all I ever did was dumbbell rear flies, I wouldn't get any of that because I have no tension there whatsoever. So, yeah, don't neglect either one. And I guess the real benefit of each of them individually comes from which one do you tend to do more of? If you find yourself using machines and cables all the time, you are missing out on all the great benefits of free weights. If all you ever do is free weights and you're like, oh, I'm an anti-machine cable guy, well, then you're missing out on a lot of benefits from cables. Put both in your program. Totally. I love cables for just increasing overall volume for specific body parts or following up on areas that I'm really trying to build and develop more exclusively. But yeah, in terms of that versus something else, like it's in combination. There's so many benefits from dumbbells and from barbells and in terms of overall muscle stimulus and growth to avoid that would be a mistake. I mean, I do think that this provides a lot of value to complement and pair with that. But exclusively, I think you're pretty limited. Yeah. And I want to add one thing because what we try to do, we're limited with our knowledge of different types of resistance and how they affect the body. Like it can be hard to explain why a free weight squat, let's say, would build more muscle effectively in the lower body than let's say a hack squat, for example. And we could talk about tension on the muscle and leverage, but at the end of the day, there's still some mystery. Like why is it that free weights tend to, I mean, I think it's dumb to pick one or the other. I think it's smart to utilize all of them. Okay. But if you absolutely have to pick one, I think free weights edge machines out. And the best argument I could use, which isn't a great argument still, is that our bodies evolved lifting resistance or working against resistance that more is more like free weights than it is like machines or cables. So lifting a boulder or a log or swinging something or throwing something, gravity has, for most of human history, operated in one way. And we didn't have bands, cables and machines. And so our bodies evolved in a particular way. That's the best argument I have. I know it's not a good one, but I definitely think that the reason why we tend to promote free weights so much, besides the fact that people neglect them, is that they just tend to be generally more effective when you look at the whole picture. And again, not a great argument. I'm sure we'll figure more things out later on, but that's kind of where I stand with it. But I think you're dumb if you go, well, I'm only going to pick this. Yeah, get out of the camp. There's no reason to be in a camp here. I do want to head off though, something that will probably come back to us whenever we're at someone, but oh, but why, if you guys advocate for both, then why does this program not have any of it in there? We have multiple programs. I know. And so that's because this always happens when we talk about a benefit of something. That's true for the right, yeah. I mean, always, it always happens. We talk about the benefits and then someone's like, well, then why doesn't your program have that? Well, it's because all of our, one program isn't designed to run that one. Those are all pieces of the puzzle. Yeah, that's right. So it's like you should run that for a while and then move into another program that does have them. Next question is from Olivia 11 Welch. Can or should women take the week off lifting during their period? And if so, what should they be doing in place of lifting? So here's why I don't like, first off, can you? Yeah, you can take a week off whenever you want. Should you? I don't think that's a good question because when you look at all of the things that can affect or influence whether or not you should take a week off, your period is way down the list. What's higher than that? Well, your sleep, your daily stress. Your nutrition. Your nutrition. Are you over-trained? Are you under-trained? Do you have joint pain? Whatever. So you could be on your period and everything feels great. So then what? Should you take the week off because you feel great? Like just because you're on your period, that doesn't make any sense, right? Or you could be during the week when you're supposedly your strongest, which may be ovulation, but you're over-trained. You're tired. You got poor sleep. Well, then take it off. At the end of the day, it's really about how you're feeling in the moment, not about when your period is coming or what time you're in the cycle, because you may be stronger during that period of time when you're on your period, not because you're on your period, but rather because of all the other factors that I talked about. We've answered this question a couple of times before. It's been a while, but I have recently seen more marketing material around this, which is why I'm assuming that this question has come back up again. Because it's an easy sell. It is, right? And so, and really... Crain with your natural cycle, right? So, really, that's what you're seeing as someone saying that. And the truth is, there's such an individual variance, not just from person to person genetically, but also all the factors that Sal said that it really depends on the person and programming specifically. So, there might be somebody who bought some program, where someone does this, well, and it's like, oh my God, that was the missing key for me. It might have been. I mean, maybe you are the person who, when that during that time... Or maybe you just need a week off. Yeah, or that, right? But I've had enough clients and dated enough girls that have been, had both sides of this, right? That are like, I've actually had girls that during this time actually felt great and loved to train hard during that week. And then I've had others that are like, they don't want to do anything. They can't move. They feel miserable. So, it just really depends. So, you know what's funny about this? I like to flip this on women, right? So, because you'll have female influencers or whatever selling programs around this. But I like to flip this on them. And I like to say, so, when your boyfriend says that during this time of the month, you're really irritable and you shouldn't be around you, is there truth to that?  Because this happened, right? Of course, because there's other factors that can influence how you feel, not just your hormones. And if you add up all those other factors, they can actually very strongly outweigh what's happening with your cycle. That doesn't mean don't consider it. That just means creating a program based on your cycle that doesn't take in, that makes you maybe ignore all these other signs and signals. It's not smart. It's not smart. By the way, at one point, I thought about writing a program like this. And the reason why I didn't was exactly that. I thought, well, this doesn't make any sense because somebody could have poor sleep or diet or stress or whatever. And I'm going to be telling them to work out harder just because they're ovulating or work out lighter just because what if that's not right for them at that moment? Yeah. I'm not teaching people how to train themselves properly. I'm actually teaching them how to ignore themselves is what I'm trying. Of all the factors, it's not even the top three of what should make the difference on whether you take the week off or not. That's right. That's the beauty, too. Resistance trainings is moldable. So you can titrate your intensity, your volume and all that. So it's more of a recovery. If this is something that's debilitating for you or if it's not really affecting you that much, it should be just fine. Next question is from Parler. Life is intermittent fasting the same as calorie restriction? Yeah, I like this question. Physiologically, the benefits that we see from intermittent fasting seem to mimic almost exactly the benefits you get from cutting your calories. In other words, the improvement in things like blood lipids and the way that it affects cell autophagy, all these buzzwords of these, mitochondrial, hollow-thought stuff. Isn't that what Dr. Walter Longo kind of showed in his studies with his low protein diet? His fasting mimicking diet. Yeah, so 500 calorie a day. Yeah, so physiologically, I think so far, the data shows that it's pretty much the same thing.  What about the psychological? There you go. That's where the difference is. From restricting from that? That's the difference. You're becoming present and actually learning what hunger really feels like versus cravings. By the way, if you've been listening to this show long enough, I think that's been the consistent messaging that we've presented intermittent fasting for years now. I mean, we wrote a guide on it, I don't know how many years ago, and we don't recommend it to the average person.  We recommend it for the relationship with food. Many people have no idea what real hunger feels like. They think they do, but it's normally cravings. A lot of the things that we do is out of cravings or out of habits and just reactions. I love teaching someone fasting for those reasons, not ever. In fact, if someone ever comes to me and goes, I want to do intermittent fasting because I want to shed 10 pounds, I normally, right away, say don't.  It's probably the oldest and most worldwide, I'd say, consistent dietary modification that we have in history is fasting, and it was never used as a way to lose weight. Of course, weight loss diets didn't exist until much later, but it's almost always been used as a spiritual practice as a way of detaching from earthly things of becoming present. So you don't eat food for a while. Now, of course, this would go in a dysfunctional direction. So if you have any type of eating disorder, I'm not talking to you, but for the average person who doesn't go three, four hours without food, or never has gone 24 hours without food, except for maybe when they were really sick, not eating anything for a day or two days or three days, there's definitely a component, a spiritual component. There's definitely a component where you start to realize, like, oh, I like to reach for food to numb myself when I'm stressed or when I'm sad or this is really weird. It's lunchtime. I'm not supposed to, you know, I'm not eating today. I'm finding myself, am I really hungry or is this just a craving? And then when hunger actually kicks in, wow, this is so different. I'll almost eat, I'll eat almost anything, whereas before I had preferences. So from that psychological spiritual side, fasting can have tremendous benefits. When it comes to, like, weight loss, the physiological effects, when you take that other part out, it's no different than just cutting your calories. Next question is from Jada Rankin. Could you explain more about the central nervous system and how it influences performance and recovery? I love that somebody asked this question. You know, of all the things that I think that we've shared with each other during this journey that we've been in for almost eight plus years now, one of my favorite things that you have ever said, was the speaker amplifier analogy. I have to admit, up until that point, I don't think I ever communicated central nervous system to my clients very well until that. And it just, I felt like a light bulb went off for me. Like, what a great way to explain its role because it is extremely complicated, but unbelievably important to your recovery and performance and muscle building. Yeah, muscles are dumb, right? If you take your bicep off your body, it just sits there. It doesn't do anything. The central nervous system is what tells it what to do. And so the analogy that I used is that your muscles are speakers and your central nervous system is the amplifier. And you could have very high-performance speakers, very big, powerful speakers, but if your amplifier is non-existent or sucks or weak, you're not going to get any performance out of the speakers. Or very minimal. Or very minimal. Or you could have subpar speakers, but a phenomenal amplifier and get incredible performance. And by the way, give the analogy of what that person kind of looks like, right? We've dealt with that with that, right? Oh, yeah. Like, you'll see Olympic lifters are great examples of this, right? They compete in weight classes. They can lift tremendous amounts of weight for their size. And what they've done is they become masters of CNS, of their central nervous system. They know how to just squeeze out every bit of juice and energy and fire in such a unified, efficient way that this 170-pound athlete can lift weights that a 270-pound bodybuilder can't even touch. So go ahead. It's been practiced so many times that it's basically been burying the subconscious where this is like a hardwired system now that now it allows these governings that are usually in place to kind of lower the amount of force you're able to produce. It allows a lot more force to come through. And this is an advantage that Olympic lifters have because of that discipline, dedication, all the nuance and the detail of being able to repeat this process perfectly. Totally. On a simple level, right, the CNS tells the muscle how hard to contract. On a more complex level, the CNS is what organizes the technique and the skill. So if you look at like throwing a baseball, okay, you take a bodybuilder who's obviously got far bigger, more powerful muscles than a high school baseball player. But the baseball player-centric nervous system organizes their body in a way to maximize technique and so the ball goes further. But then again, if you go down to the simple level and you just look at just the bicep, right, the CNS can make the muscle relax. By the way, this is what makes you flexible or not flexible. People think a muscle that's flexible is more pliable. Like it's rubber that you warm up or something like that, it doesn't work that way. It's literally a central nervous system allowing the muscle to stretch or to contract. So it's like the governor controls everything. And when you train your muscles, you train your CNS. You train them both all the time. And if you disregard the CNS, then you're going to not be able to reap all the maximum benefits that you're looking for from your training because you can actually fry your CNS. Here's a good example. Lose two nights of sleep. Go work out. You're way weaker. What happened? Are your muscles smaller? No. Your CNS is fried. On the flip side, you could give someone an injection of adrenaline and they'll go lift 10, 15% more weight. What happened? Their muscles get bigger? No. The adrenaline made their CNS fire. I love talking about this because I always used to be mystified as to how some of these smaller guys were able to pull off these superhuman feats of strength while these big muscular guys couldn't perform the same thing. And a lot of times too, it is adrenaline as part of that, but really it's that whole process of your body just allowing all that force to be generated when normally you're pretty much stifled from being able to do that because all the governing is in place keeping you safe.  Totally. Recovery is better. Performance is better. Strength is better. It's all better because you have a better communication.  That's how impactful having a strong central nervous system is. And so I love this conversation too. I think it's something that is one of the most overlooked things when like programming and thinking about the intensity applied in a training routine. I really think it's an area that even a lot of trainers neglect because again, it took me even years to understand it. Then I never had brought the words to be able to communicate it really well to clients. And until I remember us all hanging out and like Sal using that analogy, what a great way to explain that to the average person who's trying to understand what the hell is this thing? Yeah, it's interesting. I've read articles on this and a lot of these articles, they think that the average person can exert at any given moment up to like 50 or 60% of their actual potential strength. And that's because their CNS doesn't allow them to exert any more strength because it doesn't feel safe or unstable because it's got these kind of like, it's like a speed limiter on your car. If you're muscle up the bone sometimes. Yeah, well, Olympic athletes on the other hand. 80 or 90, right? Yeah, they can exert 80 to 90% of their total potential and the ones that go above 90 are obviously world champions.  By the way, these stories are true sometimes where you see these crazy feats of strength. Well, under extreme duress, the CNS is like, okay, we're going to injure ourselves because this is obviously worth it for whatever reason. And so boom, the juice hits and they injure themselves, but they move the car or they actually are able to lift something real heavy.  Yeah. I mean, there's examples of these high level Olympic athletes that can squat more weight than someone like Phil Heath and you're looking at, it's very obvious how strong one of those guys look, but the other one may not look as strong, but it is stronger because of this. I mean, that's the simplest explanation for the difference between those two. It is, and this is why you feel stronger when you're angry or when you're excited or that's why people, power lifters slap themselves in the face and sniff smelling salts. It's all you get the CNS. Yeah, totally. You get the CNS kind of fired up. So I love that. It's a great conversation. I think you need to consider both when you train your body.  So train everything personally. I like, I've always wanted to be stronger than I looked. That's just because that's what I appreciate. And so this conversation for me, if you ever want to read up on this kind of stuff, you just look at some of the Soviet era weightlifting studies because they were like masters of figuring this out. That's why they dominated weightlifting for decades. I feel like there's a pickup line in there like, hey girl, got beautiful looking speakers, but do they sound good? And with that, if you like Mind Pump, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So you can find Justin on Instagram at Mind Pump. Justin, Adam on Instagram at Mind Pump. Adam, you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. Today we're going to teach you everything you need to know to build a strong, well-developed chest. When I think of weak points and areas that I struggled with developing for a really long time, chest was up there with the work. Yeah, it was for me for sure. I got more caught up in the weight I could lift versus how I was developing my body. I think it's one of the most challenging muscles to develop for most people because the form and technique.