Hey there! In this episode of Mind Pump, we talk about what bodybuilders can learn from powerlifters and what powerlifters can learn from bodybuilders. We also talk about reverse band exercises and a lot of other topics. It feels incredible and your strength goes through the roof when you train this way. In the second half of the episode, we have four live callers where we answer questions such as, hey, I can't do pull-ups. How can I do one? And we teach all about how to do that. Also, we talk about switching from a split to a full body routine. Hey, you might want to try that. Finally, if you want short clips from this show, go to our YouTube channel, Mind Pump Clips, and subscribe. All right, enjoy the show. Powerlifters have it half right and half wrong. Bodybuilders also have it half right and half wrong. There's a lot you can learn from both if you want to maximize your gains. You gotta explain that. So powerlifters, or if you train with a powerlifting mentality, low reps, you're trying to maximize strength, the goal is to make the weight feel as light as possible. If you ever train with a powerlifter, they're really good at maximizing biomechanics and leverage and the technique of the lift, right? They're not thinking about the muscles. Not at all. They're just moving the weight. They're moving the weight. As effectively as possible. Yes, and they're trying to make it light. They're trying to make it feel light. Whereas a bodybuilder, what they're trying to do is they're trying to take an exercise and how can they make this weight feel as heavy as possible? How can they make the weight feel harder to create more tension on the muscle? Both have tremendous value. Both build muscle. Both are valuable skills depending on the phase of training that you're in. I believe they're mindsets. Yes. I love this tip because I actually think this takes a while of training consistently before you learn to like really apply this into your program. Totally. And what I mean by that is all of us, whether we like it or not, tend to identify somewhat to some camp, right? As much as we talk about how we all of us tend to gravitate towards a way of training. If I were to critique myself, I gravitate towards more of a bodybuilder type of mentality when I lift. If I were to critique you two, I think you guys gravitate more towards a strongman or powerlifting. And so what does that mean? Well, that means when Justin and Sal go to do 15, 20 reps, they have a tendency probably to want to put more weight on the bar and lift as much weight as they can for those 15 reps. Right. What I tend to do with powerlifting reps, if I'm doing five, let's say one to five reps, I have a tendency to not put enough weight on the bar because I'm trying to feel my glutes and squeeze or feel my back and squeeze. And so learning how to take yourself out of that character and think like the person that tends to gravitate towards that type of rep range and learn how to apply that into your program. That takes a lot of skill. Oh, if you've ever worked out, if you've ever done like a low rep training cycle with a bodybuilder or a high rep training cycle with a powerlifter, you can clearly see this, the powerlifter doing the cable crossovers and the laterals and other stuff. It's like they have the same powerlifting mentality. It's about biomechanics and leverage. Whereas with the bodybuilder, you take them and you have them deadlift and you can tell like what are you trying to do? You're trying to feel your lats.  Don't do that. Just lift the weight in the most efficient effective way possible. And like MAPCetabolic, for example, is a great example of this. Phase one, the goal is to lift the weight and do it in the most effective efficient way possible. You get to phase two and phase three. The weight isn't as important. It's about making the weight feel heavy. And if you cross those over, you mess up the whole thing. The clearest example I always see is when a bodybuilder goes to deadlift and you see like they're bending their elbow and they're always like pulling with a lot of upper body strength and really trying to muscle it up as opposed to using that leverage and like their whole body in this simultaneous type of fluid movement to pull it up off the ground. And then on the other end of it, seeing a powerlifter like somebody like me, like when we were in Ben, Pekolski's gym, and I'm like, you know, just trying to get through the reps.  Well, let's unpack it a little bit more, right? Like, what are some of the characteristics that are positive about each of those like types of like great direction, right? So a bodybuilder does like they a lot of times incorporate a little an isometric pause. They're slow. The tempo is slow and controlled. They squeeze at the top like they're thinking about the muscle like so weight is is is not normally a major focus. Yes, they progressively overload lift more weight, but they are trying to make that weight as heavy as possible. They're more into the technique. They're more into slowing the tempo down and squeezing. When you go over to the power lifter or bodybuilder, I mean, it's speed firing your CNS, like explosiveness, like just moving the weight as as fast and as hard as you possibly can. Very, very different adaptations. And so if you train in that way or like that way for a long period of time, and then you ask each of those characters to move into the opposite type of rep range, meaning the opposite of the spectrum, like the bodybuilder who does supersets 15 to 20 reps, a lot of pumping stuff and say, okay, now I want you to run singles. He still thinks like a bodybuilder and he wants to apply that to the one to five. And the opposite is true for the power lifter who lifts one to five reps and grind and explosive fire in the scene. And then he goes over to do 15 reps and he tries to apply that speed explosive grinding type of reps to the bodybuilder or the hypertrophy type training. And they both have a lot to learn from 100%. Okay, so here's the big discrepancies I can see. Let's use an exercise like the bench press technique. Let's start with that. Power lifter is, they're both, by the way, I want to say this before we continue, they're both technical, a bodybuilder and a power lifter are both focusing on technique, but what they're focusing on is different. The power lifter is modifying the technique to maximize leverage. How can I change my technique and positioning and form to lift the most amount away? The bodybuilder is thinking technique as well. But what they're thinking is how can I move and change my body and positioning to feel this the most in the chest? Increase their time and retention? Yes, two very different things. And then let's talk about stress on the muscle. The power lifter, although they're not necessarily thinking stress on the muscle because they're thinking weight, their primary means of doing so is extrinsic. I'm saying that wrong. There you go. It's adding weight to the bar. Whereas a bodybuilder is more intrinsic. Can I make this feel harder by squeezing and contracting the muscle? They're both valuable. Yes. With the power lifter, you're teaching first off, you're learning your really good leverage and technique for maximizing the amount of weight you can lift. And that's going to carry over into the bodybuilding style training. You're also creating tremendous tension. You're also teaching your muscles how to organize and work together to lift something which is a very valuable skill that you have to learn and strengthen because that's what makes you strong in the real world. Bodybuilders, what's the value there? They can target hypertrophy. They can target and focus, right? If a power lifter is if you're always benching like a power lifter and it just doesn't activate your chest as much because that's the best leverage for you. You're not going to develop the most muscular chest doing it that way versus a bodybuilder who can change their positioning to focus and feel on the area that they want to target. And by the way, with a power lifter whose technique doesn't activate the chest as much and has good leverage, would they benefit from still having a bigger chest? They would. So then switching over to some bodybuilding training, get some hypertrophy, they would actually get stronger and vice versa. The power, the bodybuilder would gain from learning how to organize their muscles in a way to maximize force. So there's tremendous value, but the key here to understand if you're listening to this and you don't care about competing in either sport, the key, the thing you want to understand here is if you're lifting a really low rep ranges, train like the best people who lift in low rep ranges, train like them. Who's the best strength athletes in low rep ranges? Power lifters. So you want to follow their mentality and their focus. Well, who are the best people at targeted hypertrophy? Bodybuilders. So when you get in those hypertrophy rep ranges, the 12 or 15 rep ranges where you're getting the pump and your target sculpting your body, you want to follow their mentality and learn from both. And then if you cycle between them, do phases, you end up minimizing the negatives because what are the negatives of power lifting training? Eventually start to get joint pain. You start to stress your basically the scenes, right? Yeah, you start to fry yourself a little bit. What are the negatives of the bodybuilding training? Well, you don't get the muscle density. You don't get the ability to really fire your muscles in a unified way as organized as you'd like compartmentalized. Yeah, you become you can kind of become very compartmentalized. You'll see this with bodybuilders, by the way, when you ever tried to have a bodybuilder do like a kettlebell swing. It's like they're doing a front shoulder raise, you know, reverse curl type of deal. So they both can benefit. You can benefit from learning both. What you don't want to do is use the wrong mentality for the wrong training cycle. That's when things get mixed up. Well, the true masters of kinesiology have the ability to to move in and out of this. And that's when I see somebody who is really, really understands human movement and understands all these different the values of all these different modalities, like you have that I mean, it takes a lot of self awareness. It takes I think a lot of practice, like this is not a year one of lifting. Have you figured this out? I mean, it takes some time under the bar to be able to figure this out how to do this. I don't mind this can't be overstated. The the mental aspect of training for long term success is it's the most important parts more important than anything else. And the reason why if you follow one of our maps programs, the way we phase our workouts are typically in three and four week blocks. So for three or four weeks, you're training the slow rep range. The mentality is more like a power lifter. You're looking at leverage and technique in that particular context. And then okay, phase three or phase two, higher reps trying to get a pump, change the mentality, train more like a bodybuilder focus on the glutes, focus on the hamstrings, the lats, the pecs, whatever the exercise calls for. The reason why we phase them that way versus Monday is heavy, Wednesday is light Friday is in between like because studies show that both both methods seem to be relatively equal in terms of muscle growth. But I disagree because the mental logical component getting into the mental space of training like a power lifter typically takes me three or four workouts, three or four workouts into it. Now I've got the feel for the lifts for the bodybuilding styles. The same thing getting out of that powerlifting mentality, getting into feel the muscle not pay attention so much to the weight that requires another three or four workouts. And when I switch back and forth, it can sometimes get mixed up and I'm experienced. So I can't imagine the average person trying to do something like that. I would like to add to this conversation another very valuable character to emulate would be the athlete. Yeah. You know, because that's a whole nother mindset and way of thinking going in your training. Totally. Like the ability to stabilize and decelerate and accelerate explosively. Accelerate and control. Yeah. And with speed, right? And power. Like I mean, those all three of those are very unique. You know, when you think of a power lifter bodybuilder and then you think of like the athlete slash maybe Olympic lifter would be like as someone who would be close to explaining that. And like those are they they're very different the way you approach the bar and how you lift the weight. So I will say this about fast loose about think Oh God, hit the nail on the head. Athletes. So power lifters understand tension and like let's just ramp up the CNS and go right in a power lifter would be more like an athlete in terms of strength sports than the bodybuilder more so right because they compete in actual like competition in that sense. Athletes, they know how to be tense and they also know when to be loose.  Tension restricts movement. Yes. So that's a great I'm so glad you said that because learning how to do like mobility and train a multi-planar movements and have an athletic mindset is neither bodybuilder or power lifter. That's right.  It's not going to work that way. Yeah. If you think like a power lift, you need to gas out after 30 seconds because you got to know when to be loose, when to conserve energy and when to expel it. Yeah, it's interesting to think about because it is kind of the ultimate hybrid of those mentalities and to be able to generate as much force as you can from like your power lifter. So the power lifters entire process is to just generate as much force as possible and then have the mechanics to go through that movement as efficiently as they can. Whereas the athlete wants to be able to spark that type of force production, but then control that and be loose to be able to manipulate their body so they can propel their body in certain directions in a fluid way, but then bring it back under control right away. So it's like it gets in terms of complexity, I would say. Well, I guess power lifting and body building are probably somewhat equal, but but then that's sort of another layer of components. Oh, I would say athletic athletics. Oh, that's the ultimate expression. That's the pentacle.  Yeah, because I mean, we the closest thing that you would relate to that outside of like sports, sports specific training would be Olympic lifting. Yes. And that is the pentacle. That would be the one sort of in between. I would yeah, I know it's absolutely the pentacle. I just I mean, one, this tip that I know you didn't intend for this to be like this massive maps commercial. But I mean, literally this is this is why I recently came out and said, like, man, I would love to hear from somebody who literally goes through every single maps program and follows it to a T because we have thought about that in the programming of all these that you should get some of that application throughout all all these programs as you go through and when you get done, like you have a lot of tools in your tool belt. And this is something I I take a lot of pride in the fact that I can I can get in the gym and I can lift and look kind of like a if I if you saw me deadlifting squad, I've got pretty good depth and range, got pretty good form and technique that you could and I can lift pretty good weight that's like OK, not the strongest guy in the gym by any means, but it's like, oh, that guy could that guy can power lift pretty well. He's strong like that. Then I can also get out there. I could do a jump box and look like an athlete when I do it. And then I get out there and I can train with great control and technique like a bodybuilder and move in and out a lot of stuff. And by the way, training in these different modalities just for people who are more aesthetic focused actually produces the best aesthetics. And and I need to explain that for a second. Aesthetics isn't just how you look posing in a picture. Aesthetics in the real world is you're watching someone move and walk. You're OK.  So aesthetics isn't just how ripped a muscular look when you're standing posing, but rather also how you move. And we all seen that guy or girl, right? They look really amazing standing still. But as soon as they start moving, they look very nonfluid, almost awkward, right?  You look healthy and you look like you can move around. I remember experiencing that in jujitsu.  So very experienced doing jujitsu for nine to 10 years who I could I could cream them with stamina and endurance and strength in the gym at the time. This is when I was doing jujitsu for a while. I could beat them in stamina. I could beat them in a circuit. I could beat them lifting. But then we hit the mats and I'd be gassed out and those guys will be like whatever. And I and they would tell me it's because they're like, I know when to relax. Like you're sitting there tense this whole time and they know how to relax them flow. You ever ride.   Yes. So athletes know how to do that. And that's an important skill as well.   Yeah, that's a skill you acquire through practice. And then that's the biggest thing is like most athletes are going to be rigid like that. They're going to be stiff. They're going to be tense. And it takes your body already has these natural governings in place to keep you safe and protect your joints and all that stuff. It takes, you know, that many hours and hours of practice to be able to provide that feedback that everything's going to be safe and is under control and you have the strength and ability to control your body on that level. Yes. I think for the general population that's listening, one of the things to take away that is we all tend to gravitate towards a way of training or identify as a group. And the more you challenge yourself, the more benefits that you can receive. Right.  Like you're only allowing yourself to reap so so many benefits from training through all. When you learn to move in and out of these modalities and take those mentalities into lifting, you'll you'll open up more more. Each one of these avatars have desirable characteristics.  I want those right out of here. Or if I'm an athlete, I want to be able to move at this, you know, level and be explosive. And you could do that along the board of all these different types of avatars we create. But there's something to be said about like being able to extract those characteristics and incorporate, you know, all of those. And even for people who compete in these sports, there's someone listening, he's like, well, I'm a power lifter, like I compete in powerlifting. Well, you don't have to devote equal time to bodybuilding style training into mobility as you do to powerlifting, but it will benefit you to dip into those to break up your normal training cycle. So it would be great if you're if you do like a 12 week powerlifting block, it'd be good to throw in a couple of weeks of bodybuilding or mobility focus type training and you'll end up just getting strong. Same thing with a bodybuilder. You're going to need to eventually and I'll tell you why you know what eventually happens is you hit your goal. Like so I admittedly I 100% identified as the bodybuilder type of guy for well, then eventually I hit my my ultimate bodybuilding goal. And then it was kind of like, oh, boring what now? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like I reached the pinnacle of that that this thing that I had been chasing my whole life as a young boy into young adulthood into training.  Well, I no longer have this big goal anymore because I've achieved it. So it's kind of like I just keep doing the same thing over and then and it's I'm always in a fall short now of what that like. So for me for sanity reasons and I think that everybody will eventually reach this if you're super focused on one thing. If you want to be the best OCR racer, you want to be the best power, you eventually kind of reached that goal.  If I compared my my physique always to my my top physique that I've had before, I'm going to be let down about my training all time. So I have a better mobility. Yeah, right. So I had to force myself to go like, OK, I'm no longer the bodybuilding guy. I need to identify as the mobility guy for a while or the strength guy for a while, you know, or the sport guy for a while. Like you it's I think it's it's important to do that if you want to make this a lifelong pursuit. This is all fitness wisdom is what it is. You talk to people who have been doing for a long time, like 10 plus years consistently, who are people who worked out consistently for 10 years are very likely to work out for the rest of life to keep it consistent. That's fitness wisdom. So that's the kind of advice that's going to help you stay consistent and do this forever. Here's a giveaway for today's episode maps strong. This is the strongman inspired resistance training program. You can get it for free. Here's how you win. Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel. Turn on notifications. Do all of those things. If we like your comment, we'll notify you in the comment section that you won free access to maps strong. We won't notify you any other way. So there's a lot of people out there trying to rip people off. It's the comment section. That's what you'll see if you won or not. Also, three days left for the big sale we're doing this month. The skinny guy bundle, which includes all these programs is 50 percent off and the fit mom bundle, which includes all these other programs is also 50 percent off again. This sale ends in three days, 72 hours and then it's over and it won't come back till probably next year. So if you want to get set up, click on the link at the top of the description below to get the 50 percent off discount. All right, here comes the show. I have just figured out that the PRX racks are really set up exceptionally well for band either assistance or resistance to add to the bar. I just you left them up on there and I did it for the first time the other day. It's set up. It's so perfect. It is. I don't know why I didn't think it was same here. I was just looking around and I saw because I don't know that you think that they do you think they intended it? No, no, I don't think so either. It's just a pull up bar and then they also have the safeties underneath. So so. OK, so to kind of break down what's going on if this is a wonderful training technique and way to really advance your progress, especially if you're already advanced, you can add bands. So with the PRX racks, it folds up against the wall. So the thing with PRX is it's designed to minimize space. So if you have like a small area when it's up against the wall, it comes off like, I don't know, like not even 12 inches. I think six. I think actually four. Oh, four inches. Holy cow. Then you pull the rack and it kind of folds off the wall, hits the floor super stable. It's actually more stable than a traditional commercial rack. And now you have yourself a normal squat rack. Well, it has a pull up bar.  So now I'm getting band assistant. So meaning the weight is heaviest at the top, lightest at the bottom. So it's kind of matching my strength curve and it feels incredible and your strength goes through the roof when you train this way. And the other thing you could do with the safeties is I take the bands and put them around the bottom of the safeties around the bar to add resistance. So now it's harder as I push up or squat or whatever. It's perfect. All you need are bands. Everything's right there. I haven't done the PRX yet, but that was definitely a go to for me for quite a bit. You know, it's just it's a great addition, especially if you're if you're feeling any kind of plateau or anything weight that you've been putting up. It's it's one of those kind of in between methods to really, you know, get you to break through. I wouldn't have thought to do it, except for he left the bands up there. And I was doing incline press that day. It was just a couple of days ago. And I was like, oh, you know, it's been forever since I did. And we, of course, we just had a conversation with one of our friends and we were talking about. Yeah, what a great tool. Reverse bands. Yeah, bands were. So that's what always happens to me. Like we have we talked to one of our really smart friends and we're talking about different and still I go like, oh man, it's been a long time since I applied that. And I sure enough, Sal had left the bands up there. And I just I didn't think PRX was set up well for that. I really didn't. I just assumed that because I didn't see any like hooks specific to some of these racks and things have hooks. Yeah, well, how specific hooks that you're like, oh, it's got the safeties on the bottom. It's just easy to put the bands around and then the pull bar. And it's right underneath, right on top of underneath where the bar would. No, it was great. It was great. I hadn't done that long. You know what I like about it? The besides the strength gains and stuff because I get really strong, really fast when I use bands in addition to the weight. What I really like about it is when I start to feel aches and pains. If you start to feel aches and pains like like hip pain from your squatting or knee pain or, you know, maybe pain at the insertion when you're benching here at the pack, use the bands for assistance. And it allows you to train with a high intensity and you feel almost nothing on those areas. I did it today. So I have a little strain here at the insertion of my pack and I use the bands today and it's like I couldn't and I pushed it with the intensity. I couldn't have done that smoother resistance. Yes. I really know how to describe it other than that. It's really weird.  Well, the sling, the slingshot. Yeah. So I so I like the slingshot law. I think it's way more convenient. You don't need to attach bands or anything. So slingshot you could use on any batch. Similar sort of premise.   At the very bottom of the left where you need it the most and, you know, sort of comes. So it all goes within the same premise of what you said. So what I didn't like about the slingshot was that it pulled. I was just going to say it changes your technique. Yeah, it changes. That's not how I would bench, right? So it's not that's not exactly where my elbows were where you have to focus on more narrow almost. Yeah, yeah. And so when I when I'm wanting just when I'm just playing with the strength curve, which is what we're doing with bands. I don't want to have to manipulate my normal technique because I'm looking for the carryover when I don't have the assistance, right? The idea is that I can just get rid of these bands. And now I'm and I feel like and I know that and the tool is awesome because I know Mark has got all kinds of stuff to back, like how much it has helped benching and stuff like that. And it absolutely. Oh, I love it. Yeah. Yeah, this isn't by far. This is not by any means is not a knock on the tool. I just prefer a lot. I just prefer the bands. Well, so it makes a difference on the size, too, like because I was using one that's a little too small pinch, you know, to like restrict a little bit of blood flow, big old pipes. You got there. Yeah. You know, you know what it is, is that the slingshot encourages a power lifter bench press. Yeah, encourages that tucked kind of ice up tight. Yeah, if you're going for like a bodybuilder bench, what I found is that because, you know, elbows more flared, it's you have to like really extend your elbows out. Oh, you can't know what that thing. Yeah, you can't and it makes the bench kind of different, right? Makes it different.  All right. So did you guys hear about? I think it was Walmart is removing their checkout, their self-checkout standards. They're doing that now. That's not the only thing they're doing. That's where I've because I've heard that was it Whole Foods because Amazon took them over. They were going to like overhaul the Whole Foods at one point and you're just going to be able to walk through that. That is happening. That's still going on.  I believe it's called. And then what he's referring to, I believe, has to do with theft. Yes. Oh. So I mean, there's not just Walmart. There's like a lot of grocery store chains that are getting rid of their self-checkout because theft is exploded recently. And it's obviously due to the prices of everything have just inflated like crazy. And I'm sure people, you know, when inflation goes crazy, it's like the people at the bottom that really suffer who are like, oh, I barely saved 20 bucks a month. Like, what am I going to now? So I guess those self-checkouts make it easy to steal.   Like there's people. There's one person very well managed. Well, what is I can't I can't believe I can't think of the name. There's a term for that when you're with.  I remember when that was so a loss prevention. You know, that's LP is what you is the company or the part of the department that's responsible for this. Is it called shrink? Or is it called? Oh, oh, oh, there's there's a name for it. Right. It's like at the tip of my tongue right now. I can't think of what it's called.  Yeah, exactly. I mean, a lot of companies just fact, I mean, 20 I didn't know it until I had to manage to factor it in. Yeah, you just factors into it. Oh, we have and I'm just going to call it shrink for now until Doug figures out what the actual term is. I don't think that's it that, you know, you we have you know, this is our average 10 to 15,000 every month. That's like, whoa. And I remember when we before I was there before LP came along and then LP came later on. And one of the biggest offenders was our own employees. Yes, own employees. Same when I worked at the restaurant. See, I mean, I wonder what is shrinkage. Oh, it is shrinkage. So I was okay. It's like when you take a cold like, yeah, when you walk out of the pool and it's cold. So it is shrinkage. Yeah, so we we would adjust for that. And I remember that they're just for shrinkage. I don't know about your husband over there, but it was it was a really high now. I mean, you figure thousands of dollars for per facility. And when you talk about 24 offenders or Walmart, I mean, locations, Walmart have. You're talking about millions millions of dollars. You know, Walmart's the biggest employer in America. Yeah, I know. So you know what's funny about that is and I remember talking to I actually fired well, I fired many people for stealing, but I got rid of somebody for for for stealing from the gym, right? So it's a corporate gym, big 24 fitness locations, right? So I don't know how many at the time we had 200 or something locations. And they I fired them for stealing a protein bar. And I remember them being like, what's the big deal? It's just it's a big corporation, like whom I hurting. I said, do you know that that they have to account for all this loss? Takes away from the profit, which means people like you mean everybody else gets paid less and we have to charge the consumer more.  In fact, right now you got caught and you got you're getting fired. But besides that, you think it's this nameless, faceless entity. But because of this, you think you get away with it. Maybe you do. But the times you do buy things, all those prices reflect their shrinkage that they have to calculate. So when they do that 10,000, 15,000 a month calculation, that goes into the price of products, services and goods, which for the honest person who's barely making ends meet. So it's not cool. Initially, when you mentioned this to me off air, that my first thing was, OK, well, of course, you know, Walmart attracts lower income and then things like inflation or tighter. So of course, it's just going to drive people and then it's easy to steal. So it's going to drive them to steal. But actually, maybe it's employees. Maybe it's more employees. Maybe it's employees or always employees who are in an inflationary economy right now who didn't get a raise and are getting paid low wages while everything is increasing within the place that they work.  Well, bro, they have that same attitude. Think about how easy this would be. You're the one kid who's working the self-checkout stands, right? So there's what it's normally about six or eight and there's one person watching and your friend knows to come shop at the time you're there. You're going to turn a blind eye. That's that's what I think is happening. I think it's like my buddy works at this time. I show up, take a couple of steaks. Nobody knows the difference. I've done that when we were kids. Did you really? I did. Is this your confessional? Your confession. I used to maybe I hadn't even thought about that memory in a long time. At a grocery store? Yeah. My best friend was my best friend was a checker at this grocery store called New Deal when we were kids. We were like 16, 17 years old. And I remember that we would come in late at night and we'd fill up our grocery cart and then he would we would know when he would know because he knows what the manager is and when they would go in the back to do like inventory or something. And then we would go through and we would we would pay for some but it would be like skip three things pay for so it looked like so we go through the whole process. And I mean we probably take something that was a three four hundred dollar grocery bill and make it like a fifty dollar grocery bill or something that we did that several times. You know, I so I I only stole one time in my life and it was beads of all things. Do you guys remember when I know you guys are like what's going on here before you make fun of me? All right. Do you know where the hippie fascination comes? No, no. Do you guys remember when parkas were the thing? The big sport like starter parkas? Yes. Yeah. Yes. And so where I went to where I went to school, I don't know if it was a thing where you guys when you guys went to school, but I had I had a San Francisco 49er park I got for Christmas was like a hundred bucks. My parents got it for me. I begged for it. And then the cool thing was to put the the drawstrings to put beads on them. I don't know if you guys remember this. Do you guys do this? Totally did. OK. And I want to get beads. I went with my buddies. These were all bad influences. These weren't the greatest friends. And they were like, just take them, dude, just take them. And under that pressure, you know, that whatever. And I could have bought them, but I took them. I swore to God, every day, not every day, but I regret it so much every time I think about it.  I was like five. Well, I mean, I think of that age. I mean, when I think back to I was doing it more to be cool, I think. Yeah. That wasn't my. I was we didn't have a lot of money. I was actually living on my own by this time and have my own stuff to pay for. So I justified it like that. You had real reasons. I mean, I still think they're unexcusable, right? And I think as my probably as a young kid, you know, I didn't understand how it works and I don't understand how that trickles down to everybody.  I think too many people. I mean, that's wrong. It's wrong with our society right now as we think that, you know, oh, it's the rich or it's, oh, this guy get over and it's like, man, I potentially if I do if I do that and other people do that and then there's a single mother who works two jobs who needs that job who now gets laid off because their profit margins are gone. Like you don't think like that.  I'm thinking selfishly just about me, my needs is not. And I'm comparing it to the guy who's at the top of this and how rich he is. And it's like, man, it's like, if someone if I had somebody that was wise enough to sit me down and explain that to me, I think I'm a good enough person that I would have put that together. But right away, the way you justify it is like, oh, the man, it's the man. He's rich. It's like, he's not going to miss $75 worth of groceries. My buddy, I'll say my cousin. So I don't have to say any of them. I have so many cousins. So they won't know what my cousin got caught because he did the same thing, peer pressure. And he him and his friend would steal ties from Macy's and then return them at another Macy's store credit and get what they wanted because ties were easy to steal, got caught in my family's very their old school. You don't steal. You're honest.  Like, I let my I disappointed my dad so bad. Like, he felt so terrible. They made him he had to go back, return everything. They threatened to put him in jail. His dad's like, if that's what you guys are going to do, that's what you got to do. You got to pay the price. So but luckily that they let him off the hook. So does this mean then for Wal-Mart's that they're going to add checkers again and like employ more people in replace of that? Yeah, because I think what they're calculating is the loss versus the extra cost of employing someone. And they're like, Oh, we're going to lose this much less.  They just hired more employees. So bad to say that. Maybe that would be very clear at that point, right? Like narrowed it down. We hired more people. We got more theft going.   You know what? When you originally when you had Wal-Mart in those, I thought you know, Wal-Mart is getting in the banking. I heard you say this. Yeah, Doug, dad, dad. Dad, dad. Well, you, uh, dad. Hey, Freudian slips today. I don't know. You guys go on a lot of trips. Hey, daddy, would you would you look up Wal-Mart into the banking banking sector? Doug's definitely the he's the dad. Look this up, dad. Time I shoot. Why are you doing that? Tell me about your your thieving stories. I know you were a big thief when you were younger. Oh, I can tell you one story that I'm aware of. I may have done it more than once, but I remember a friend of mine had a not a friend. There was a neighbor. He had a softball. And for some reason I wanted that softball, so I took it. I mean, I don't know.  Right. Did you ever find out or did you give it back? No, I don't think you ever found out. I think you don't know it. Doug is like I think I may have eventually just taken it and threw it back into his garage. You're like one of the best people I know. Seriously, I'm not joking. So to hear you tell that, it cracks me up. Yeah, Doug will never do it. Mine's pretty weak. I didn't tell me, but it was just like a pack of gum. And then we got caught and I had to put it back. Yeah. But the other one. 25 cent packs. Adam robbed a bank or something. Yeah, dude. I was hanging out with the grocery store store. It's as far as I'm going to go. For sure. I was hanging out with dudes, though, that were doing like B and E's. And I was like and I was with them in one of them and just was like, what's that?  Like somebody just like kind of walks over to this house that we knew to because we're in an area that has like cabins and people aren't always there. And so they knew that this one was like not occupied. And so they just like went in there, let's go check this out. All through the thrill. And then they kicked the door and they all went in there and they're like, come on. I'm like, and then I just had this like I was in a pickle. Like, do I go with my friends? I'm not. And then I just be-lined it out of there. I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm not a job. I could never I could never do something like that. I think this only it's I totally remember the rationale behind the grocery store. Like you I literally you don't have a face to the person. You don't think it just seems yet you think corporate. You think like so it totally that's what you're thinking.  Oh, I had someone broke into my house and it was awful. Bro, awful. We came first of all, I became a vigilante for like a year afterwards.  Oh, as a father, I was like, I'm going to I'm not going to sleep and hopefully you get a soul. Like it was shitty. I got all kinds of stuff. The finest cutlery. All freshly stemmed. I went shopping. From me to stars. We'll be trapped. Jucks. Bro, they stole. They my son was five. He was five years old. They stole his piggy bank. It's so dirty.  You know, he was like he was so he looked at me.   Actually, I had to talk. I've talked with him about being because this for especially for well, this is true for girls too, but especially for boys where you're hanging out with a bunch of buddies and then they all start doing something that you're in. All of a sudden you're in a situation where you're like, uh oh, I need to break away or not like that is a tough situation for a boy to be in. What does that say there? So it looks like they're getting into checking accounts. Um, yeah, I mean, it doesn't have a lot of details about what they're going to call their bank or, you know, what they're going to provide as far as services, but checking is the big thing it looks like. So my buddy who has a bank, um, you know, says that it's like obviously extremely difficult, but then I've also heard people tell me that like it's kind of like owning a sports team. Like it's guaranteed to be profitable. It's one of those things that like if you if you can like the hardest part of the bank supposedly and the same thing with getting a team is like is acquiring the team or actually getting the bank, like through going through all the process must be the process, the regulations, everything like that. But once you get it, like I thought I heard that like everyone is profitable. Well, think of the leverage that will probably insured like a lot of the transaction. That's why I think that's why I think it's so profitable.  That's what I've heard. I'm wondering about how they're going to leverage this because if you have a checking account with Walmart, do you get discounts? Do you get special offers on products? If you use of course, you're checking. I'm sure you'll check your car. So they could really leverage the hell out. Speaking of money, I read an article. I thought that was very interesting. And it was by investment advisors and people who work with teaching people how to kind of work with money and stuff. And they all agreed that a person should spend no more than 10 percent of their gross annual income on a car. So in other words, if you make a hundred grand a year, OK, 10 grand, that's what they all agreed on. OK, so does that mean 10 grand total for the car? If you make 100 grand a year, you shouldn't be driving cars or 10 grand a year. 10 grand a year. OK, so 10 percent, 10 percent, no less than 10 or more than 10 percent. OK, so that's different than payments. When you, yeah, exactly. So when you and I first originally, I was thinking, like, that's crazy. Someone who makes 100k only they're justifying only a $10,000 car. But the average car loan, let's say, is five to seven years. So say five years, that's a $50,000 car. So that's basically a $50,000 car, right? Is what your what your is, which that seems reasonable for hold on, let me let me pull it up here. It says here. I remember that stat in the the millionaire next door actually talked about I thought this was really interesting. You know that it's more common that no, it's a purchase price. I was wrong. That's crazy. And no more than nobody does that. Nobody does that. 10,000 car. Yeah, he says 100k. He literally says if you make forty two grand a year, you should limit your budget to four thousand two hundred dollars. And now the reason for this is that nothing will lose you more money faster than a car, like almost nothing. It's a terrible investment. It's horrible. It loses money the day you buy it. And then they talk about the maintenance costs, opportunity cost, obviously is massive. It's a classic and you don't drive it. Yeah, but you know, financing has changed the show. That's the thing. Car financing has changed all of that. You got people making a hundred grand a year buying 50,000 lower cars. More than that. A lot of people have a hundred. Most people that make a hundred grand a year go out and get a hundred grand car. That's crazy. I mean, pretty close. Yeah, that's crazy. Really? I mean, 50,000 dollars, you don't you don't get much for a 50,000 dollar car these days. I mean, that's kind of like your I don't even know. What is the average purchase price of a car now? I believe it's up towards. I think it's I think I read that 40. No, it can't be that high. Average is up to 40. That's crazy. Yes.  Not 50 grand. Forty seven thousand. Oh, my God. That's the average. Yeah, that's all the economic, you know, the economy cars are in that class. Like it's all like 40 to 50. Oh, yeah, you try. You want to like your car. You're definitely up there.  I remember my buddy sitting me down and he explained it to me. He goes, the sales guy is going to try to close you on the monthly payments. He goes, don't worry about that until you get the price you want because what they'll do is like, how much do you pay per month and they finagle it into whatever car I remember. So that so our buddy Jason were a good good friend of ours and been in the car industry forever. I've actually bought several cars from him. Is he still at DGDG? If you're in the Bay Area and you go go get a car, DGDG, you can ask for Jason. Yeah, he was he was the finance manager forever and I'll never forget the first car. We were good friends, right? And we were I was buying my first truck that I got through him and he he runs all my credit and exactly like that. He's like, you know, and he's doing it still even as a friend. He's like, you know, where do you want to use it more about the payment you want? Or is like, I was like, yeah, just keep my pan. I don't remember what it was back then. I think back then I wanted my payments to be under $500 or something, right? Like it needs to be under $500 a month. And then what can we do that? He's like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Then he then what they so what they do is they they when they run the they call the bank and they normally do this phone call away from you. So they normally will go, OK, let me go talk to my manager or let me go run your credit and they'll walk away so they can then call the bank and they'll call the bank and say, hey, I've got this kid. He's 25 years old.  He makes $80,000 a year. You know, what can he get? And then the bank will go, oh, we will we will approve him for a five five year loan for 5.6 percent interest. And then the sales guy comes walking back and he says, hey, great news. I got off the phone with the bank. The bank says you're approved for 6.8 percent. Awesome. And then you go, yeah, and they make the cream. That's how they just add. Yes. And they add whatever they in back in the days, they used to be able to do is now I think there's more regulation around it today. But back in the days, they were able to juice that as much as they want. Wow. That's why they hate when I go to a credit union first and get the loan and then go to the car dealership. Well, and then what they do to use this. So they get you pinned and why they want you to say payment. So let's say they can fit whatever they want. Well, then they go like this, like, OK, so let's say I got approved for a 5.6 for five years for and that would have had my payment right around there. Then he goes like, you know, or we can get your payment down to like 480 Adam and but it's a seven year. But then it's now but it's now 6.9 or 7.2 percent. They're getting the extra. Uh huh. So that's that they make the difference between two. Those fucking. So he called the bank in front of me and on speakerphone. And the guy's like, oh, yeah, I'm here with my buddies in this night. He goes, do you want to take me off speakerphone? And he's like, no, no, no, it's OK.  He's a good friend of mine like that.  And then he told me. He's like, that's how we that's how we make our big money is people financing. And then we can get them a better loan or a better percentage. And then they they will finance it at a higher rate. Wow. Which by the way, the one of the best hustles for anybody who needs to get a good deal on a car loan is to let the dealership give you whatever you want and then turn right around and go to a credit union afterwards. And yeah, go through another bank and say, hey, I pay it off and then you got a better. Yeah. I mean, even if you know, yeah, even if you don't, yeah, you would pay it off through the credit union and they'll give you normally a credit union will give you one of the best rates that you can get to get out there. And then you're not playing the game. And they don't want you to do that, by the way, they know you don't tell them, don't disclose that. But you do that. That's the best way to get a better deal. That's 10,000 is. I mean, that's kind of unrealistic. I don't know anybody that does that.  But you know, you know, when you brought that point up, it reminded me of the book Millionaire Next Door. And I wish I could. And I'm probably going to screw it up. Maybe I'll look up later like the exact stats on how this works. But one of the things I was, I found really interesting when I read the book was one of the things that of most millionaires had in common was that well, not only do they live well below their means, one of those ways is like the cars they drove. So like as they were up in income, the the price range of the cars were much lower. Yeah. So you have like people that like and I can't remember exact. So don't quote me on this. But it was like someone who makes, you know, 80 to $100,000 a year has a car that's, you know, 80 to $100,000. But then the person who makes like a million dollars a year drives like a 50,000. So it was really kind of interesting. Why do you think that is? Do you think it's the money habits? Because they and that's what led to the successful number one factor in the book or this with the book, the number one, because there's when you look at millionaires all over the country, they range from everything from plumbers to teachers to lawyers to doctors to everything. Most of them make it in real estate, 85% of millionaires in America are self made. That's right. And most of them make it through real estate, right? They own a property that appreciated over years. So most of it has been made through owning a home early on and most of people that got there by living below their needs significantly well below their means. And they got there fast enough that they were able to hold on to their house for decades. And they've built these. So that's the number one thing that all millionaires have in common is the ability to live well below their means. Above all, they all they try and tie it to jobs or, you know, different characteristics. Like that's the number one thing that they all have. I had a client that I trained. He was a he was a vascular surgeon, very successful. Obviously, he probably made a ton of money and he drove this two hundred and something thousand mile Toyota forerunner. Like it was it was just beat up. Those things last forever. And he just never, you know, he never bought he never bought anything. He loved it. And this guy, I know he was a vascular surgeon. He made a lot of money. Well, this is why I think it's so the the journey to increasing your income. It reminds me a lot how you talk about like how important the journey of your weight loss goal is and everything you learn. I feel like that's how like when you're when you're making more and more money, I mean, when I think of my own trajectory, it looks kind of like this. Like it's kind of it's just, you know, if you look at the line, it's been a gradual increase with some dips and dips and, you know, peaks and valleys along the way. And along that whole journey, I've learned a lot of lessons and have built better behaviors around money. If I look at my behaviors and the way I spent money in my twenties, it's significantly different than in my thirties and I even in even more different in now my forties. And so I think the and then the most important part of all that was the the learned knowledge of years of like, you know, thinking I have a lot of money when really I don't have a lot of money or thinking this will never this gravy train will never end and then it does it does eventually and or thinking the economy is going to keep going in this direction and then it doesn't.  She's like this is so backwards. Well, speaking of markets, you know, it's interesting. So I was talking to some of my cousins about the sleep meat, which you know, previously known as the chili pad company we've been working with a long time. So one of my just changed their name recently sleep me. Yeah, now. So now it's sleep me. So instead of chili pad, same product, right? Sleep me, bro. What's your any any any? Sorry to interrupt your commercial, but what I'm just curious what your guys's thoughts are. Why they change. Yeah, I don't know. Is it because people thought chili pad was like spicy or or I mean, I don't know. Maybe they did a test group and that name just kind of popped out for them. Well, isn't isn't there isn't there number one competitor? The sleep number or something like that isn't like their number one competitor? No, I think it is. I think sleep numbers different sleep number changes the mattress firmness. Right. The sleep me is a pad that goes on the mattress that can cool a warm to bed and adjust to your body. So maybe there's an association there with the sleep number and then the sleep me is sort of the cool and heat. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, who knows. But either way, it's it's it's an all I mean, to me, I think it's it's kind of obvious. I mean, if you say chili pad or Uler to someone who has no idea what we're talking about, there they would they would not even have a close guess to what that means. If I just said to a random stranger, hey, you know what a chili pad or Uler is? And they'd be like, no idea. If you said sleep me, I bet you they have some sort of had something to do with sleep. Was it something to do sleep in you? Yeah. Well, you know, so I was talking down.  And he never took action. Well, anyway, I brought it up again. And then he brought up all these competitors. You know how much the market has grown? Yeah. It is exploded and which is a good sign. This means that people are seeing value, right? If you can cool or warm your bed, you'll notice significant improvements in sleep. But I was surprised to see how much that market has exploded. There's now mattresses that come with this type of technology that we buy the mattress and it has this technology. I was going to bring up with me and Adam. We're talking with Corey after we've done the podcast a bit and he was saying, oh, yeah, I've heard about those like that they actually had challenges amongst the players as to how low and they could they could bring the temperature down. And the byproduct of that was they both got the best sleeps they've had in their life. Yeah, you know how he tracks like HRV and all these things. And so it was kind of cool.  Yeah, that we're getting in competition of who can sleep with it the coldest.  And I was just an hour left for like I sleep at the very like we were already there as low as it'll go. And he goes, yeah, you know what the outcome was. And I'm like, of course, better sleep. He's like, yes, that's exactly what we saw was the colder they were willing to put that thing in sleep, the better sleep they call you guys experimented yet with it warming up. Yeah, it's all set. I have so nice. So it warms up to get your weight. Isn't that weird?  It's the weirdest thing. It's such a trip. Combine that with the light the alarm clock. Definitely do that. Yeah, I think the most important lesson for somebody who owns these are is looking to get one that that I have to communicate to everybody and that it took me a while to really figure it out is it really does matter, especially if you if you sleep hot, I sleep really hot to let it get to its temperature that you wanted at before you get into bed. Yes, I do 15 minutes before. Oh, I do hours before. Oh, I do like three hours before now. I used to do an hour and then sometimes it wouldn't be all the way down to 55 by the time I get in there. And so then because if that's right, because you guys are freezing, if it's trying to get about an hour, I should because it'll never get your body temperature is so hot. So if you're somebody who wants it at the bottom 55 and you get in and it's at 67, it's still working its way down. It'll never get down to 55. Your body temperature is so hot it'll counter it. I see. And it'll never get to that. So you have to let it get all the way to that cool. And then it does a great job of managing the temperature at there once it's there. But I mean, I don't think there's just enough horsepower in those suckers to to drop it when you got your body temperatures that's working against at the entire time, especially when you're super hot. Oh, yeah. Check this out. There's a company we work with called Organifi high quality ingredients, convenience, great tasting. Organifi's superfood blends make it easy and enjoyable to add more variety and nutrition to your day. Great products. They're all organic, plant based. My favorite right now is the red juice. I'm drinking this quite often because I'm off caffeine or at least I'm lowering my caffeine intake. So it's natural energy. Makes me feel good, but they have much more. You got to go check this company out. They're the longest sponsor we have that we've worked with for a reason. Go to organifi.com.  Then use the code mine pump for 20 percent off. All right, here comes the rest of the show. Our first caller is Amanda from Denmark. Amanda, thanks for calling in. It's good to have you. Thank you. Nice to see you guys. OK, I'm just going to read up when I've been written down. OK, thank you. My name is Amanda and I'm 25 years old. First, I have to say thank you very much for all the content that you put out. I've been listening to the podcast for a very long time and I've learned so much from you. And I even got my parents to start lifting weights with the personal trainer and they don't have any joint pain now. So thank you for learning me so I can learn them. Excellent. And after listening to you guys that I started lifting weights one and a half year ago and I've done maps and about twice and now I'm in maps in phase four of maps performance. My original question was that I don't really see any progress in my pull ups. I know that you had said that the exercise that you want to be better at you have to do more of. But my problem is that I can't even do one. Is there any exercise that I can do to strengthen the muscles that I have to use doing a pull up? Or do you have any tips on getting better at that? And also, what would you suggest that I do after my performance? I bought maps aesthetic but I'm not sure if I should do maps on a ball like again and then performance and then aesthetic. And I also have to mention that I have never been lifting very heavy before. So I'm still learning to go into my workouts with the mindset of lifting and not getting a sweat on because I've always been running a lot and doing a lot of like repetitions, hit cardio, you know. No, really, really good question. Great question. So to follow up with the maps performance, you can do maps on a ball again or you can get into maps aesthetic. Just keep in mind that maps aesthetic is very high volume. So if you start to feel burnt out or a little stiff or too sore, then I would back off on the volume and cut the sets down. But let's talk about pull ups for a second. Do you have access to like a pull up bar that you could have at home? Something you can put in your doorway that you can. No, I don't have one. But I was thinking about buying one. Yeah. So you can get one that really inexpensive. They go in the doorway and they have ones that kind of go like they anchor on the other side of the door. So they're very stable. And then what you do is you attach a resistance band to it, a long resistance band that you can step into that helps lift your body weight. So you can just step into it or put your knee into it, depending on how long the resistance band is. And you want to get one that's strong enough that will actually lift you so that you can do a rep or two. And then my suggestion is to practice doing a rep or two frequently, like literally like two or three times a day.  The key is to keep the intensity low. So you're not going to make it a hard pull-up.  And there's some effort, but it's not super hard. And just practice one or two at a time throughout the day. Now to offset that kind of volume, I would reduce the back volume in maps performance or maps aesthetic or maps anabolic just to make up the difference. But if you practice a moderate intensity pull-up several times a day on most days, you should rapidly see your strength improve and your ability to do a pull-up improve. Justin, are the the the bands that we have in the gym, are they PRX or those Kettlebell Kings? Whose bands are those thick ones? Kettlebell Kings and yeah, because we have rubber bandits that we have is like a bundled package. Yeah, but not that. That's not good for her. This is yeah, the Kettlebell Kings is great. Yeah, because you want so I think we should clarify it, right? The bands because you're going to when you need someone to when you need a band to assist for like pull-ups, typically the little bands that like what we sell actually are not enough in my opinion. Like you want something because you want something that you can assist you enough to where you could get like 10 pull-ups. And that's how I would I would get at least two or three bands and they'll tell you the strength on there. As far as like the support, the thicker ones and then start off with the one that really assists you and helps you get like 10.  And then you can get maybe five or eight with that one. And then you have one that barely assists you that maybe can only get one or two and work through the bands like that and get good at all levels. And then eventually be able to do it with no bands and then still sticking to the advice that Sal is saying where, you know, every day kind of try to hop up there and grab one or two. Now, if you want to make it more simple, if you have trouble finding the right bands and, you know, you want to make it really easy, you can get the pull up bar and you could get a chair so you could stand up to the pull up bar so that it's, you know, up to your chin, right?  And then to progress from there, you would hold on to the bar and then lower yourself with control and then practice that every day and then eventually get to the point where you could lift yourself with the bar. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. It does. Perfect. But yeah, after you're done with performance, I think aesthetic is perfectly fine. But if you feel like you need to drop the volume, I would go for Maps Anabolic again and then back to Maps Aesthetic. And one of the ways you could do that without actually even changing the program is switch out the focus sessions for the mobility days that are in performance. Since you have all those programs and performance, I don't know how much you're enjoying the mobility or days. Those are more recuperative type of workouts. So if you feel like aesthetic is a little taxing, sometimes what I'll do for somebody is just, hey, let's get rid of the the other two days of training and actually turn them into mobility days that tends to do the job for most people for Maps Aesthetic. So keep that in mind, too. OK, OK, yeah, that makes sense. Excellent. Yeah, I think that was it. All right, Amanda, we really appreciate you listening to the show and thanks for calling in all the way from Denmark. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much, guys. Bye, everyone. You know, so just and I hope she watches us just to get more more detailed. So before I use bands with pull ups for clients, I would actually use isometrics. Great advice. I actually don't think we've given that advice on here. And I forgot I did this early days and I had a client who would she would practice holding herself at the top and then another time of the day at have her practice holding herself midway and then another way where she was kind of all the way down. Yeah. And so she would just practice this all day and isometrics are pretty cool because you get strength games really fast and the straight gains carry over to a little bit beyond the six to I don't remember if it's six to 15 degree. Yeah, I think you said 15. I think it's 15. So if you did like top, middle, bottom and you practice that every day and you can hold it for three seconds or so, yeah, you're going to gain strength in that full range and then eventually gets the point where you can do. Well, wouldn't you? So wouldn't you also? So if you're prescribing that like I would tell a client to try and increase the time you hold, right? That that to be the goal. Like, you know, start off and even if you can only hold for three or five seconds, yeah, a couple seconds and then get to where you can hold for five seconds and then try and get to where you can hold 10 seconds. You get if you can get to a place where you can hold those isometric positions for longer and longer, it'll eventually get to a point. So I think it was great. If I don't think we've actually utilized that actually. Yeah, especially at the time.  So it's perfect for that. I can't help but think of, you know, we just had a great interview with a friend of ours that will air soon, Corey Schlesinger and, you know, the band, the assisted bands has got to be one of the best. I mean, that's the ideal, you know, but the pro I don't know how hard the pull up is for her. Right. For some people, you might need a really like strong band. That's hard to maneuver for sure. That's why I made that point. Well, yeah, no, that's a good point. I believe it's living fit. It's not kettlebell keying. So it's like a side adjacent business to that. But yeah, they make really quality bands. You want those thick thick. Yeah. So she's watching this video. It's not the little skinny bands or the tubes that people do like arm curls and like upper body exercises. You want the thick bands that normally you see people attached to like free weights. Yeah. That you need something with more support. Our next caller is Calvin from New York. Calvin, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey, guys, how's it going? Good to be here. Good. I'm calling in because I saw last month, I just finished the first phase of mass performance and I really liked it. So thank you for that. But then I just moved house. I've just had to move to New York there recently. And so I've got a lot of stuff going on, like getting the house ready, new jobs, stuff like that. So I don't have access to a gym. So I can't really complete mass performance. But I did just buy some suspension trainers like Olympic Rings. So I'm looking to incorporate them. It's really good for like upper body work out of field. But then I'm just afraid that like my lower body legs, like my squat, it's going to be, you know, it's not going to progress at all. So I'm wondering what kind of what I can do to yeah, just to keep progressing my legs while using suspension trainers or any sort of at home workout. A lot of single leg stuff. Yeah. Yeah, man. Single. I mean, pistol squats are not easy. I don't know. Have you ever done a single leg squat? I actually do pistol squats. Yeah. Excellent.  Real control, real slow. Single leg deadlifts, single leg toe touches, Bulgarian split squats. Yeah. And real slow down the tempo. You can also do explosive style stuff, but this depends on your control and stability. But like, you know, a plio plio jump, plio type landings like that. That stimulates fast switch muscle fibers as well. Now, keep in mind, you will get lose some strength in certain lifts because you're not practicing those lifts. So if you're not squatting with a barbell, you're even if you kept the muscle up, there's a certain amount of skill that you end up losing by not practicing that lift. So it doesn't necessarily mean you lost muscle. It just means you just have been out of practice with that particular skill or whatever.  Well, I think, too, you'd be surprised. It may feel like you're going to lose gains whenever you kind of shift into this direction. But a lot of times you're just reinforcing more stability around your joints that need it. Which then, you know, that's that's one of those it translates when you go back to any kind of byloaded type of exercise. So it there may be a bit of a drop off, but overall, you may be reinforcing things that need attention, which then may help you progress even further when you come back. I think the hardest part of this is just the mental aspect. You know, it's when you get when you're when you like to squat and deadlift and you've got you got pretty good strength in those areas. And then all of a sudden you lose, you know, the ability to get to that equipment or those tools and now you're forced to just figure it out body weight. I mean, the truth is I think you could even progress without that. I think that's very much so possible. But it's the discipline of, OK, now I'm doing these slow, single leg, you know, pistol squats and single leg deadlift stuff that's like it's just it's it's hard when you when you like gripping on to, you know, three, four hundred pounds and feeling the weight move like that. But if you don't ever train that way, I think your body actually could see great benefits from training that way. It's just when I've been in some more situations, what I find the most challenging is just I like to lift a heavy weight. But the truth is if I were to discipline myself and like really do slow tempo pistol squats, I mean, I know it would blow my legs up because I know I can there's been times where I can squat four hundred pounds but could barely do, you know, ten slow pistol squats. It's like so there's plenty of room for me to progress in that area and just and grow and build my legs without squatting. It's just that I just rarely discipline myself to do that long enough. So if you've got the mental discipline to do it, it the the capabilities are there, believe it or not. Yeah. And it says in your question, you do jiu-jitsu a few times a week. You may actually notice some improvements in your jiu-jitsu from changing your training, actually. OK. Yeah. And as like as a program to focus on, I was looking at my suspension or maps anywhere is either one you recommend to have the suspension trainer or is there any leg like development in the suspension training? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Program. Yeah. Yeah. It's full body. Yeah. That'd be a great one for you. Yeah, we'll send that to you, Calvin. OK. Great. Nice. All right. Thanks. Thanks for all the content, guys. We appreciate it. You got it, man. Thanks for calling in. All right. Go on. Have a great day. See you. He had his accent sounded a lot like Conor McGregor. Oh, yeah. I didn't catch that. Yeah. Yeah. You know that I get what you're saying, Adam, I think that's 100 percent because that's what would mess with me. It's not that I couldn't find exercises that would be good. It's doing them. Yeah, it's just doing them because I love barbells and dumbbells. I mean, there's been times where I'm just being completely transparent with the audience where I've told myself I'm going to do this and then I quit because I just don't I don't like it as much.  I mean, just being real. It's a it's a different feel. It is. Well, I mean, in terms of intensifying, like you said, super slow control and then holding it at the very difficult portion of the left, but also to being super explosive with it, which we don't recommend a lot. But in terms of body weight, yes, perfect situation to work on that. If you have the control and you're an athlete. So the carry over to like that you're still generating a ton of force. Yes. If you if you have the control and if it's appropriate for you, a very fast explosive body weight squat will activate as much or more fast switch muscle fibers and a slow grinding heavy exercise. Yeah. I mean, sprinting, for example, is a great lower body muscle builder, short, hard sprints. The drawback is you have to have the prerequisites. You have to have the right stability control because if you can't do something perfectly safe, slow, you definitely can't do it safe fast. That's the problem. Our next caller is Austin from Florida. Austin, what's happening, man? How can we help you? Hey, how's it going, guys? First, I just wanted to say thanks for having me on the show. I'm a fairly new listener, so I got some years of catching up to do. But everything that I've heard so far, just I just love and continue to follow you guys. So to share a little bit of background, the start of kind of the start of the pandemic, really, I was 262 pounds.  So started tracking everything through Weight Watchers, actually. And but started tracking everything started running because, you know, cardio is just what burns all the fat, right? So that's my thought process and ended up falling in love with running really and trained for a half marathon, ran that one, wasn't really too pleased with the time. So went back at it three months later, dropped about 20 and 30 minutes off of that time. So just really love running. But I also started to as things kind of open back up, I had a buddy who kind of pulled me along to the gym and started working out, you know, a couple of times a week. And and I found I lost about 50 pounds. I got down to like 212. And then holidays hit. And I just ate whatever I wanted and put on another, you know, eight to eight to 10 pounds. And since the start of 2022, really, I've been trying everything that I could do to get that, you know, to get back to where I was or even try to try to get even more lean and whatnot. And so my question is currently I run about four to five times a week for 45 minutes to an hour. And then I also go to the gym. I get about an hour session a day, four times a week. And so I know that building muscle can burn fat and also know that endurance training can sometimes break down muscle. So am I running too much? Or how is what is the balance there in terms of of doing what I need to really meet a goal of burning some fat here? Yeah, awesome. Is your goal just to lose weight on the scale? Or is your goal to be lean? So like muscle? Which one? Yeah, sorry, definitely to lean out. I'd like to, you know, I'm at like 28% body fat. So I'd like to get down to like under the 20s. I'm not trying to compete in any competition or anything or in the 10% whatever. But 15 to 18% would would be great and just just be more comfortable in in my skin. So are you are you going to do any more running competitions coming up? Does that even a thing? Or right now is the goal. Just I want to get lean. Yeah, so I did sign up for my first full marathon in February of 2023. And I expect that to be about a 16 week training cycle. So I have about seven or eight weeks until that starts. OK, so for just just for body composition purposes, so to be lean, more muscle, you are running too much. So I would cut the running down. You're also lifting too much doing an hour, four days a week plus running four or five days a week. You should be lifting maybe three days a week and you can keep running a couple of days a week, maybe two days a week and that would probably be more appropriate along with a good diet. Now, when you're training for a marathon that's different. I wouldn't worry about body fat percentage. That's more about performance. But long distance running and training for endurance does have it tends to get people to lose just overall body weight including muscle. So you'll end up a smaller kind of same body fat percentage version of yourself doing it that way. So I would do the strength training and make that the focus three days a week full body. If you don't have maps and a ball that would be the program I put you on. And then running, you can do one or two days a week of running just to maintain your stamina and endurance, especially if you enjoy it. And then what you'll see is the scale probably won't move much, but you'll start to get stronger and notice changes in body composition. So your waist will get smaller. You'll see more definition. And I wouldn't even look at the scale to be honest with you. I wouldn't even look at the scale. I would measure my waist, circumference, or if you could do body fat percentage testing. That's how I'd monitor the progress. The good news is that you have a solid seven weeks to kind of reverse diet. So I think that is I mean, we may potentially want more time than that for the most ideal situation. But at least you're not like it would this would be a really tough thing to help you with if you're calling us and you're like and tomorrow I start my 16 week training for my marathon.   So you at least have seven weeks to take Sal's advice. I mean, I think that that's the perfect advice. You don't have to cut the running out completely because there are some benefits to you still maintaining some stamina endurance. I think two times a week is plenty. I agree. It maps anabolic type of routine and you're just you're focused on slowly increasing calories and getting strong on the gym. Let your circumference measurements like he's saying be kind of your guide and the strength in the gym be your your north star. Like if I'm seeing my bench, my squat, my deadlifts slowly go up. I'm probably getting stronger muscle and my waist isn't getting exponentially bigger. And then and then my calories are getting higher. I mean, that would be the ultimate success in the next seven weeks is can I go from, you know, did you tell me how many calories you how many calories are you probably eating right now? Are you tracking at all? Yeah, I'm I started tracking about six weeks ago, switching from the ease of Weight Watchers to actually just calories. I do anywhere from twenty three to twenty five hundred. OK, yes. You know, guy your size, I would eventually maybe not in these next seven weeks, but eventually I'd want you north of three thousand thirty five thirty five hundred calories, right? Because you're not a small guy, right?  So we would want to be up there. So the goal for now for the next seven weeks was would be can I can I get you closer to the twenty seven twenty eight hundred calorie mark and not putting on any body fat and stronger before we go into the sixteen week training for a marathon. And and I wouldn't mess with calories if if anything, I might go up in your calories when you start the marathon running so you don't so you minimize how much muscle you actually potentially are going to reduce. OK, does that make sense to you? Yeah, that makes sense. So just to make sure I'm tracking completely, it's it would be to run maybe once or two times a week and in the gym three or four days a week. No, so follow maps and a ball. Yeah, we'll send you the program. Yeah, we'll send you the program. So follow maps and a ball to a tee. Yeah, yeah, follow that. Run maybe once or twice and you don't, you know, don't drop your calories.  You want to be in a position where your body is burning a lot of calories on its own. You don't want to be in the position where you have to burn the calories manually so often.  Like and you want more and you want to lose more body fat. I think it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the end of that is unsustainable.  So so if you follow our advice, you're going to slowly be able to get your metabolism to boost and you'll be able to eat more food and it'll be much easier to stay to maintain. You're a perfect person to talk to about this too, because you just you have this great story that you just experienced, which is you lost a bunch of weight through running like this.  That wouldn't have happened or it wouldn't happen as bad had you built more been more muscle focus during that time and less cardio focus because you actually would have had a faster metabolism so you would have more metabolic flexibility or nutritional flexibility, the ability to eat a little bit outside the diet and not let it feel like it packs all on you.   Yeah, definitely been in a plateau feels like all year. So yeah. Well, Austin, keep listening to the show because this is actually a topic we touch on quite a bit. So so we'll be able to help you out. Was it your buddy that introduced you to the show? The one that introduced you to weightlifting? How'd you find the show? Yeah, yeah, it was. It was. Yeah, good friend. Hang out with him more. He knows you do. Thanks for calling in, Austin. We'll send you. We'll send you maps in a ball. That's awesome. Well, I appreciate you guys. And one thing that I have learned throughout this, they're listening to you guys, is they're different. There's a difference between fitness and health. And I really appreciate you guys focusing on the health aspect and not just the fitness because there's a whole lot of unhealthy habits that can take place. And I appreciate it. Absolutely. You got it, man. Thank you, Austin. Thanks, brother. Thanks, guys. Yeah, it's it's still a thing, you know? This is what people do when they want to lose weight. It's definitely still a thing, bro. It's a big thing, you know? It's always be a thing, I think. Cut your calories. Keep talking about it. Run it off. I mean, what a great example.  He's a perfect example. He's 200. And what was he now? What did it say here? He was 260. He lost 50 pounds. So he's like a low 200.   He's working out like what like it's like how many hours? Like 10 hours a week because he's running plus lifting. Yeah, yeah. He should be eating north of 3,500 calories. I mean, I don't work out half as much as he does. And that's how much I right. So you want to get to that point. Otherwise, it's just unsustainable unless you plan on eating 15 or calories and just doing tons of exercise all time, which you could do. And if it's if it's OK, you know, it could be healthy too. It's just hard to maintain when you're talking about like 2400 or wherever he's at right now. And then like, you know, all this body fat he wants to lose and getting to that point, like to to really visualize that. And like, if I was to like have a client right now, and like this is the first conversation we're having and to be able to draw that and be like, OK, so let's just say we keep doing this as a math problem. And I'm taking you all the way down.  Does that sound like something that you can do? Yeah, paired with seven days of running, right? Yeah, exactly. Because you have to match that with your intensity. And then what you can't account for, what you can't account for on that math problem is how the body's metabolism adapts, right? Because people will do the math and they'll assume I'll be burning the same amount of calories the whole time. No, no, no, your body adapts. You lose muscle. Your metabolism burns less calories. No, which is why I brought up the seven day. Like eventually you have to increase the activity. Yeah, and the next thing you know, you're seven days a week of high intensity activity and 1100 calories. And you're like, yeah, I'd rather be fat. Way more enjoyable. Totally. Our next caller is Jared from Idaho. Jared, what's happening, man? How can we help you? Not a lot. I'm excited to be here. I want to thank you guys for the work that you do and for the truth and fitness, which is something appreciated. Good deal. I will, my wife says I get lung-winded, so I will just read my email straight away and then I'll answer it. You tell great stories. That's what that means. Yeah. Do you guys ask Paul questions and I'll look for your feedback after that. Okay, so my personal background, 45 years old, about five foot 10, 195 pounds. I'd say give or take about 20, 25% body fat. A high school, small college level athlete, been previously certified as a personal trainer with ACE, certified strength and conditioning specialist with NSCA, practicing physical therapist for the past 10 years, working out about five to seven days for most of my life and research and design my own programming for the last 15 years or so. Questions, I had two questions. My wife introduced me to MindPump about three to five months ago, so I'm fairly new. But for what I've heard, I like the background of philosophy behind the maps programs. I'm getting ready to try someone else's programming for the first time in a really long time. I'm gonna get ready to start Maps Anabolic because we've got the RGB bundle. One of the things I'm most interested in in monitoring and tracking is my physique, hoping to lower my body fat percentage. So the first question is, what would be the best slash most accurate way to track body fat percentage ideally at home, but simple and easy methods? And then my second question is, I had planned on starting Anabolic just because it seems like what I would like the most, just give them my background. But from what I've heard from previous podcasts, you guys often recommend of the most beneficial program would be the one that's least like what I've been doing for a long time. And so from what I gather, that'd be something like map symmetry for me. So I was wondering if that would be pretty better off still starting with Anabolic or getting and then kind of starting symmetry instead. Yeah, are you, do you have any aches or pains or any chronic type injuries right now? I ache because my daughter's turning 18, but other than that, I'm good.  I can't solve that, dude, I'm sorry. Sorry, no math program will help you with that, except getting bigger to scare the boys away.   I think you'd be fine starting a map's Anabolic. Map symmetry would be a great place to start also, but you could also follow it after maps Anabolic. And then, you know, with your background and experience, you could also of course modify the program as you see fit if something doesn't feel right. But yeah, I think you'd get great results trying maps Anabolic, especially if you haven't done a kind of full body-based workout before. If it was bodybuilding style, you probably did more of a split type routine, I'm assuming. Oh yeah, may not even just upper body lower. It's, you know, chest and tricep, tricep back. Oh, you're gonna love it.  Yeah, Anabolic, you're gonna respond great to that.  The muscle and strength gains in that are gonna blow your mind. It's just the superior way to train for most people. So give it a shot. I'd go through maps Anabolic. And then after that, map symmetry would be a phenomenal follow-up. As far as body fat percentage, I mean, that's really gonna come down to diet, right?   As far as a tool that you can do at home, to be honest, I've even used the shitty scales that are terrible. Electronic impedance. They're terrible, they're inaccurate. But you know what? As long as they are consistent and you're consistent with when you use it, I don't get hung up on, when I get on the scale, it says that I'm, you know, 27% and I know that I hydrostatic weighed, you know, a month ago and I was at like 8% to me, although that would never happen that much discrepancy, but you get the point that it doesn't matter to me that they're way off. What I care about is the one at home, what it starts out, and then as I'm manipulating my nutrition, you know, where is it moving? And I'm really watching the big swings because typically when you go into a cut or a diet like that, the most common thing, even professionals like ourselves that have certifications and knowledge and experience is too much, too fast, right? So I tend to go into cut and you wanna kinda do everything at once or you cut really extreme and then I see weight kinda come off too fast and I'm like, I don't need to do that. I wanna slow gradual process and so I would use any of those, just be very consistent about the time that you do it and most ideally that's morning, no food, no nothing in your system, first thing naked type of deal and the same day of the week consistently. Yeah, that in conjunction just with your basics or conference measurements. Yeah, true. In terms of like seeing growth where you wanna see growth and then seeing like let's say it's your waist that you wanna see like the most, difference in terms of like a decrease in size. So that's something you can consistently kinda revisit weekly or so just to give you an idea of where the trends are going. So remember to go back with what Adam said to be just to really, really hammer that home. The consistency with electronic impedance body fat testing is gonna be in the time of day, the amount of water and food you've had in your belly that you test this. So in other words, if you test it first thing in the morning on Monday morning, then that's what you always do. That way you're controlling all the controllables and that way you know that the scale, because the scale is gonna fluctuate depending on your water and your body and food and that kind of stuff. That's what makes them inaccurate. And then just watch the trends. Don't get hung up on a one or 2% swing. Just look over the course of weeks.  I really do. I like circumference better.  My strength, is it going up in the gym? And then is my circumference around my waist going down? If both of those are happening, then you're probably building muscle and getting leaner. That's the easiest, that's the most simple, easy way to do to test yourself. And you could do circumference measurements twice a week just to see where that looks. And do the same thing, do it at the same time every day. I think first thing in the morning is best because what you eat can affect like gut bloat and stuff like that. So I would go first thing in the morning right above the navel or right at the navel. And that's it. That and my strength. Am I getting stronger? Is my waist going down? Then I'm going in the right direction. Yeah, a waist measurement paired with some photos I love. I mean, when I was coaching online with clients, that was the check-in, right? Every Friday, first thing in the morning, before they ate, they would send me over their circumference measurements with photos of front, side, and back. And really, I'm looking at like two weeks because in a week, you could easily see a positive or negative swing that could throw you off that makes you try to adjust the program when you maybe don't, just you're holding a little extra water or something, maybe you had a little more sodium the day before or something or a little couple more carbs. Like those things could easily go off like that. So I'm looking at like two week snapshots. Like if I'm looking at your photos from two weeks ago compared to where it is today and you objectively look better and your waist is either staying the same or even potentially getting lower, like we're on the right track. Totally. Just had to make sure to wear nipple pasties when I sent them to you. Yes, yes. I appreciate that. Be classy about it. So Jared, I'm gonna send you map symmetry so you have that option. Oh nice. Yeah, so you could start with it if you want. I think you'll like maps that. I think start with maps enabolic. After enabolic, you could go into symmetry, then go into performance. You have all those other programs in there and then have some fun with it. I think with your background and your experience, once you go through our programming, I think you'll be able to modify it and start to figure out kind of what's gonna work best for your body. And that's what we recommend anyway, is that when people follow our programs that they start to individualize them. I've got to commit to following it to a T first because it's been a long time. So it'll be hard for me to give up that control but I've committed myself to giving it, for the first time through doing it to a T. I'm so glad you said that and you have that attitude because I agree with it. Because someone with your knowledge and experience, you don't want to tweak it. It'll be very tempting to want to tweak it. Even someone at your level, I would say just trust, please, trust the process all the way through and then go back and, you know. I think phase one of Maps and Ebola is gonna convince you. I think after the second week, when you start to see the strength gains go up, you're gonna be like, okay, I'm gonna stick with this to see what happens. That's my personal opinion. Nice. All right, man. And then with the impedance scales for at home, as long as I use the same one, do they stay relatively consistent? Yeah. As long as it's like I said, first thing in the morning, same food, same water. Same time. What Sal was saying is the thing that we'll throw, I can take one of those things and manipulate it by four or 5% within five minutes just by pounding some water, have some sodium, have some carbs and that's what really throws those things off. So if you're really consistent at every Friday at 7 a.m. when you wake up before you get in the shower or something, you check it. It'll be pretty consistent for you. Consistent enough with a guy with your experience and knowledge, consistent enough to give you an idea, am I headed in the right direction or the wrong direction and do I need to correct nutritionally? Nice. All right, Jared, thanks for calling in, man. Yeah. All right, thank you. Thanks for all that you do. Yeah, keep us posted, man. I'd really like to hear your experiences. You go through it. For sure, for sure. All right, Jared. He's gonna love basketball.   People see substantial change. Massive. When they switch over, I got that. Yeah, and the reason I put phase one where it is is because I know that that convinces people to continue on. I love that too, that he said that he is, for him to say it, not us have to tell him, he's committing to, I'm gonna follow it to a T because that's the most tempting, when you have that much education, that's the hardest thing is to take your ego out of it and be like. Well, he's a physical therapist. I'm sure he has patients who do the same thing. All right, I gotta be the patient. I mean, let's be honest, anybody sends us a program, like we'd go through that same process of like, oh no, I know my body. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, so I hope he does and I think that he's gonna see incredible results. So I'm excited. Look, if you like Mind Pump, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out some of our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal and they're all free. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Justin, Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Adam, and you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. This one's really important and that is to phase your training. If somebody trains for a full year doing a bench press and they're always aiming for five reps, if you compared that person to a person who did bench press where they did three or four weeks of five reps, but then they did three or four weeks of 12 reps and then three or four weeks of let's say 15 to 20 reps and then they'll throw in some supersets, at the end of that year, you're gonna see more consistent progress from the person who's moving in and out and less injury.