There's one thing you can do that will force you to grow as a person more than almost anything else by the way this is backed by lots and lots of data. What is that thing? Have children. Having kids makes you reflect on yourself. It forces you to grow into a better person or completely disconnect.  It is an incredible growth tool because for the first time in your life you love something more than yourself. Yeah a little controversial. Isn't that funny? Is this controversial? Only because people still think that we're overpopulated. That's why. Okay. That's a factor. That is false. I know. It's beyond false. People don't realize how false it is. I was blown away by the, I don't even call it statistic or what, but when someone shared with me that we could literally fit like the entire world's population in Texas. Yeah with the population density that's less than like Tokyo. Yeah. So people will say resources. So they're in the 70s. I want to say there was this theory called, I want to say 70s or 60s called peak oil that we would, we were reaching a point where we could no longer get as much oil as we needed for energy demands. And the cost of retrieving it was going to exceed the benefit we're going to get from it. And then society would collapse. Today, we have access to more oil or more energy per person than we did back then. Okay. Why innovation? Innovation has led to that. And people say, well, what about food? We produce more food per person today, even though it's a larger population than we did 20, 30, 40 and definitely 50 years ago and beyond. Why? Again, innovation.  Less people in the world is not a good thing. Yeah. Now I'm sure at some point we would reach potential limits with the human ingenuity and innovation. That's like our greatest skill. So it's like right now, if we cut the population of the world in half, it would be a disaster. Like it would be an absolute disaster. People would starve and it would be terrible. More good people is a good thing. So this whole like we need to have less people type of thing or it's totally false. It hasn't worked out. Wasn't it in reverse in some countries? Like they're actually noticing a decline in the population. China, Japan, Europe is on the brink here. We're getting close and that collapse can cause, that's actually can cause collapse. It reminds me of like when you like Western medicine where you have like one doctor that like looks at one like a symptom and then like it understands one part of the body. But then like the fact that everything works synergistically, they don't communicate. That's how I feel like when you hear things that were like alarming that, oh, we're overpopulated coming from like an environmentalist. Based off of that, like, oh, we're polluting the earth and we're going that direction. But it's like, yeah, but if environmentalists actually spoke to an economist and actually told you what would happen to our economy if we actually did that, like you would understand like, oh, okay. So we shrink a little bit of the pollution by eliminating these people. But now what happens when our economy starts to tank because we have less people that's not growing, growing the GDP that's not feeding the elderly population. There's more, there's more people that are dying off them being born. Like you have any idea what that would do to civilization with, with murder, suicide rate, all the stuff that would increase with all that loss of innovation, productivity, but also this is a lot of, this is also something people don't realize is that the wealthier people become, and this is a fact. Now we can see this clearly, the better they are to the environment, the more they care about the environment.  All you care about is I need survival. I need shelter. I'm going to burn this, whatever I have, I don't care if it makes smoke. I'm going to throw stuff in the river. I don't care. We're starving right now. We just need to eat. Now when you make enough money and a society becomes wealthy enough to where people can think about these things, then they start to care, they start to innovate, they start to not worry so much about paying more for something that's more environmentally conscious, for example. So like, you know, if we want to move in that direction, then we need prosperity, not to hammer people to like, think about this way, if you're starving, and you're struggling, I don't care about electric gas, coal, pollution. I don't care about that. I just need food right now. And we need to survive right now. Well, also too, it's kind of a slow shift. Like we've seen this in programming with TV shows and everything growing up from kind of that shifting from the derpy kind of dad and then like this, this idea that it's just better to be single and just bang all the chicks and have this Peter Pan syndrome. And like, that's just a better lifestyle in general. And that's been like programmed. Well, along those lines, you know, what else is true about the more wealthy we would come to is the less likely you are to have kids, which is unfortunate, because you're, you're more equipped to probably raise more children, yet you're less likely to have someone's kind of backwards when you think about it. Yeah, well, there's a trade off and trade off is hedonistic value versus, I guess, meaning and maybe purpose. So men are a great, easy example, because theoretically, men don't have a biological clock like women do. So women, there's a biological clock that kind of can force them to have to make decisions sooner than men. Men, technically, we can have kids whenever up until the day we die. Obviously not ideal, but we don't lose our fertility. And so we kind of don't, like unless we have children, we don't really have a reason to grow up. And so we tend to live that way. We have kids, all of a sudden, you think about things differently. It's not about you.  Now I really got to look at them because I don't want my kids to do the same thing. I want my daughter to date someone who does these things. So it kind of forces you to take responsibility to grow. You're not going to be so driven by hedonism because you find value in different things. So now is it harder? Is it more expensive? Yeah, it is. But usually harder things are better for you. I mean, that's just, that's just the, you know, the way it is. And this, and again, the data is very clear on this. Having children for and other people are going to point out like terrible examples. So these people shouldn't have kids and these. Yeah, I get that.    Yeah, you should probably just worry about taking care of yourself for now. But for most people, the data shows like having children is a, it's harder for sure. I'm not going to lie. It's definitely harder. But it's a net positive and it provides a value that like, did you realize that you didn't love anything more than yourself until you had kids? I don't realize it. No. That was one of the biggest realizations I had. It's interesting how we're, we're actually genetically hardwired for that, right? I was listening to the interview with Zubi and Elon Musk and he's talking about, you know, having children and, and like how it's, it's in our genetic code and how it could take, and he used the example of like wild animals.  And was it, is this fierce animal yet that same animal all of a sudden can have kittens or have children and all of a sudden that their demeanor becomes this protective, caring, loving, like it's weird. And it's not like somebody trained that animal to do that. It's like in its genetic makeup to, to do that and we're hardwired the same way. And you don't, it's, it's innate. You don't really realize it until it happens.  But I mean, from my experience, from somebody who almost didn't have kids to having kids, it's like, it's so, it's so weird how everything that you, that you thought you, you knew about your purpose and what you cared about all of a sudden changes completely shifts and changes and gets up into it because for the first time in your life, you actually have something that you truly love more than yourself.  Yeah, there's a whole other level to this, and that doesn't mean you can't really love your wife and all those other people, but then when you actually have a child, it changes completely. Yeah, I heard this talk once about children and it really impacted me. It's like, you have an opportunity, by the way, what you just mentioned, I want to say this too before I go on, what you mentioned is why some people run away, because, and men are definitely much more likely to do this. It's because it's scary. It's the most responsible you'll ever have to be if you actually want to step up and take care of this thing and raise them.  So it is a scary thing. But here's, this is, here's the talk that I heard that I thought was so impactful. It's like, you have the opportunity to develop the deepest possible relationship you could ever develop ever. Okay? Like, you'll never have this opportunity with a friend or anyone else. Like, you're going to have, you have this opportunity to raise a human being for birth and develop the deepest, most profound relationship you can develop. And then the kicker is, that kid wants that more than anything. They want that more than anything. So tell me how you can find that anywhere else in the world. And if you, if you don't pursue that, or you shut it down because why? Because it's expensive. Because that means you have to go to bed early. It means you can't party with your friends, you can't buy a fast car or whatever. Like, that's not a great trade. It really isn't. One of the greatest regrets, by the way, of people when they, on their, on their deathbeds are people without kids. One of the greatest regrets is that they didn't have kids. So if it's so amazing, and it gives so much purpose, makes you such a better person, then why is it not promoted anymore like that? Why is, why, what is, what was the biggest shift in say, like the 40s to like now on why it, it isn't all very simple. Look at the spending and consumption habits of people with kids versus people without kids. And you'll see a vast difference.  So based on consumerism in general.  Yes. And that's not it. That's not because look, when you have even if it's subconsciously, they're driven that way. Right. Yeah. Well, think about it. Like they're about profits. Yeah. Like when you had kids or you had max, I mean your consumption habits. And look, objectively, you have, look, here's a funny thing. I hope you don't mind me sharing this. You have far more expendable income today, even with your kid than you did five years ago when he didn't, when he didn't exist. Yeah. Without him, yet your spending habits completely changed. It wasn't because you made less money. You're way more wealthy now than you were then. Drives my wife crazy. Yeah. It changes everything. Right. Right. And I was not funny. She's like, I don't understand you. She's like the more money you make, the more of a miser you become. It has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with the income going up. It has everything to do with having a child for the first time. Again, every, every decision I made financially pre five years ago was selfish. Oh, what do I want now? What do I want later? What does that look like? Like, and so all of my decision making was based off of that. As soon as you have a child that completely gets disrupted. Now it's like, all I care about is his future. And so the way I spend has to change. It just has to because it's no longer selfishly motivated. It's more predicated on how does this impact him? Everything from him seeing me blow money like that. Is that good for him to see or us or me giving him all those things? Does that, does that matter? Or me also setting his financial future up or teaching him good money lessons? Like now all of a sudden those factors all play a major role in my decisions where that didn't exist before. Right. You're also harder to manipulate in particular ways by politicians and again by marketers, because when you have kids, your values start to change.  So like you take somebody, let's say, who, you know, smokes cigarettes, right?  And you ask them, would you want your kids to develop this habit? Hell no. No, I don't. Yeah. So it makes it hard, makes it harder for you to be manipulated because now you're considering people that you treat better than you treat yourself or at least you're more conscious of how to treat them in a better way than you are for yourself. And I know there's a lot of men out there, especially in fact, I was talking to one yesterday where he had a kid young and he's like, you know, what now when I do certain things, ask myself like, because he has a daughter. And he says, now when I when I do things, ask myself, am I acting like the man I would want my daughter to be with? And he says, this totally motivates me to be responsible. That's how I answer. Like when someone asked me, like, what's the biggest difference in your life? Having a kid, there's lots of different things, right? But the biggest thing and it's cheesy to say this right? Remember when the WWJD thing was really popular? What would you do? Oh, the wrist bands? Remember that? What goes through my head is like, what would my son think? Right? With every aspect everything from how I talk to my wife, what money spending decisions I make, what kind of career I decide to do, like that just goes through and it's like, it's not like I actively have to think about it. I don't like to stop and like, oh, should I partake in this? What would my it's just there. So is you think that's something that that we all have or is hardwired in? Or is it something that just because I thought about fatherhood? I think with them or do you think that's something that everybody? I think it's both. I think if there's a hardwiring there, but also, of course, your own past trauma, your fear, all that stuff can step in and people can run away or be terrible people and not, you know, want to be there for their kids. But generally speaking, having kids tends to just drive those things. It tends to make us a little bit different or consider when you care about your kids, I should say, and look, you know, I know there's like I said, there's a lot of bad people out there and this is the argument people try to make. But most people care. They nobody's perfect, by the way. I know I'm far from perfect.  But generally speaking, this is the case, just like generally speaking, parents know what's best for their kids.  The the state knows better. The teachers know better. The doctor knows better. Most the case, most of the times they don't. Sometimes they do. But usually that's not the case. You know, I was actually thinking about this topic. And I was thinking about, and I always think of you when you, when I think like this, like evolutionary, like why? Why is it that, you know, and I understand the biological reasons why, you know, because women have a clock as far how long they can have children, that it's more advantageous for us to have children at younger ages when I think statistically, we are, it's where it's we're far better having children as we, as men as we get older. So it's kind of weird that as a society that we've, I don't know what the average age that somebody has children, but it's in this probably 20, 20 something year old age, when I would make the case that when you're in your mid 30s to 40, you, you raise a better kid, you're more prosperous, like you can feed them better, you can take care of them better, you can teach them better. So do you think that we are going to evolve in that direction? Like, do you think that the, the, the as we get healthier and we had technology and science evolves, like, will we go from the average age that a woman has a child? It was at, let's say, I don't know, maybe look that up for me, Doug. So I'm not just spouting off random numbers, but let's say it's 25 or 27. Does that move to 33 in our lifetime or like a later age and like, we start to slowly evolve to having children. We have to figure out how to how to make that happen. Is it happening or is it going the other direction? Do you know? And the age is going up because the strongest tie to that is women are pursuing more education and careers and then deciding to have children later on. I mean, that's a whole another discussion, like what's the right age or whatever. I think there's an emotional maturity that men don't reach at the same age that women do. Well, here's what I thought sounds not to interrupt you. This might be why you see older men and younger women. So it made so to me, it made sense hundreds of years ago when it was all about physical. So hundreds of years ago before we had all this technology and it was about if I had a kid, it would be best of my best interest to have a kid when I was 25 to 30, when I'm in my prime, I'm strongest, I'm fastest, I have the most energy to keep them protected when that was like the main way to raise and take care of a family. So it made sense having children much earlier in those times, but we in a short period of time, we talk about a hundred years, that's nothing in the grand scheme of things like in the last hundred years, that's completely shifted.  Well, in that you're used to the way you do it now is through educating them, financially providing for them, socially taking care of them, psychologically being there for them. Like it's a different it's a different war. So the way it would work in the past was more like this, not so much how young and physically able you are as a man that plays a role, but rather your status in the tribe or society. So an older man who survived like this is this is why men with scars on their face are considered more attractive. And so it shows he lasts he has some resources. And what they did was the older man would continue to have kids with with younger women. So he'd have this wife and they'd have kids. She would reach a certain age and have another wife as long as he had the resources and the status. So it wasn't so much about his physical prowess, although that played that also plays a role. It was more like this is why sense of humor, they think is such a good luck song Courtney on that. Yeah, I'm starting to try for yourself. This is hilarious. Well, honey, my resources are going up. I don't say you're not getting any younger. Oh, more intelligent. Yeah, I don't think I'm a picture on that. You don't want to do that. I mean, we can talk about that, too, is why it's more beneficial. Monogamy seems to work out much better. Where we go? Yeah, much, much better.  It's expensive. It's hard. Your days of fun are over. Yeah, you know, life's. And that's like all media, like movies or anything to depict it the other way. And then when they do depict dads, it makes us look like morons. But that's not the case, man. I mean, I hope that's one of the things that we're changing. I want to make being a dad cool. Yeah, I think I wish I wish I had more people that I looked up to in whatever space or thing I was into that promoted that because we definitely I feel like the 90s was like fast cars, bang lots of chicks, make lots of money, yachts like that. Bundy was an example. Or or that, right? So either you're or Homer Simpson. No, that's a good example.  Like it's like talking about how great life used to be. Yeah. Yep. Hunter. Yeah.  You know what I'm saying? You know, what's funny, too, is that men know this. Men know this instinctively. They don't like like man, listen to me right now, right? So think about a scenario. In fact, I talked about the guy I was talking about with the young dad. I told him the scenario. We were talking about it. Imagine this.  The other guy, also successful, lots of money, can sleep around, but chooses to be loyal to his wife. Who do you actually respect more? And most men will be like, actually, it's the dude that's loyal. It's no different than this.  So I had that happen to me once. When I used to train in Jiu-Jitsu, I went to a bar with a bunch of my buddies and a couple of them were pro fighters. Like these guys could wipe the floor without anybody. And I remember we went to a bar and some drunk jerk was totally taunting one of my buddies and eventually tried to start a fight and my buddy stepped back and this guy could easily like, easily could have handled him, right? He could have beat him up and ate a sandwich at the same time. It would have been embarrassing. But what did he do? He stepped back, say, hey man, listen, I don't want any trouble. And he was totally like, and I remember respect- Totally calm and collected. Bro, I respected him so much.   Right, right. And that shows restraint. 100% that showed that. Today's program giveaway is MAPS Aesthetic. Here's how you can win that program. Leave a comment below this video on the first 24 hours that we drop it. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you love those things and you win, we'll let you know in the comment section. We're also running a sale right now our beginner workout program MAPS Starter is 50% off. And then we have a bundle that includes MAPS Anabolic and MAPS Prime that's called a starter bundle. That's also 50% off. If you're interested, just click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, back to the show. You know, speaking of kids, you see the latest TikTok trend? Is this the one where they're- This one's not bad. I can get behind this a little bit. Is it better than the Tide Pods? It is way better than the Tide Pods. I can get behind this. It's, they're taking like the- Salt and Honey. Salt and Honey shots. Before workout. Yeah. There's actually some sciences- There is! That's why I'm- I'm way more for this than the gummy bear sour patch- Something crazy. Dexterous.   At least they're doing some- Honey and salt are great for you. Sugar, sodium, before you workout.  And honestly, case, the same science that the people that were using the sour patch kids like that, that is attached to the people that are using the honey. That's a much better source if you're going to do that. So I actually, I'm totally for it. And it tastes good. I mean, when you think of- Salt and honey probably taste good. Yeah. So that's probably- Well, that's okay. It's just like a pinch of salt. Sugar and sodium, that's the same science that it was, that made the, you know, what's doctor integrity push the sour kids thing, okay? Yeah, sour patch kids. But one of the arguments, you could probably go back and listen to that episode years ago that we did, is that we probably said honey and salt. If I were to, if you want that, go do it through natural sources that are healthier and better for you. Not all of the, all dyes and ultra-preserved impulses. I want to add this though. For most people, sugar pre-workout isn't necessary unless you're doing like these crazy long grueling workouts. Most people have plenty of likeage reserves. Likeage in stores, yeah. Hardcore athletes, definitely. But most people are fine. I'll make a case for somebody else. Who? If you're in a pretty hard restricted caloric deficit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you're dieting pretty hard. Yeah, then it might make sense. I mean, I used to. Because you're carb to come in. So I used to load carbs before my workouts because it made a significant difference. Now where I'm at now, where I'm eating when I'm hungry and I eat whatever, right? Not a big difference. It doesn't make a big difference. But when I know I'm cutting, I used to be cutting for like a show or something and I'd be depleted, depleted, depleted. And then getting a nice surge of 50 to 70 grams of carbohydrates an hour before that workout. It made a big difference. Yeah, that's so special population. I would refer to you like athlete. I just want to say that because I know somebody's going to try some science to work with. But average person. Just going to clip you on TikTok. Average person, this isn't going to make a difference. But the sodium might, the sodium probably will.  If you had a packet of element before your workout, you'll notice most people notice some performance enhancements. In fact, have you guys seen all the DMs? Yeah, for sure. People are like, I didn't realize that it would make this.  Maybe Duncan pulled up. One of you sent, I think, I thought sent that in our thread. Did one of you send the TikTok trend? Was it one of you? Who sent the TikTok trend? Oh, no, I don't know. Oh, maybe it was Jerry. Yeah, it was her. So looking up, what I don't know and I haven't looked closely is to see the amount that they're taking. Because if you're taking this like little... You know they're not measuring it. No, it can't possibly be as much as what's an element, right? There's no way. No, no, no, no. You're getting 1,000 milligrams with element plus some potassium and magnesium. How many tablespoons or teaspoons of table salt is that? Like three? By the way, table salt is just sodium. There's no magnesium or potassium. Right, yeah. And there's a lot of benefits of most, what over 60% of the population is deficient on magnesium. So the fact that you're getting something that... But the balance makes you utilize it better. And that. So not only that, but then you add in the fact too that you're deficient, you're deficient and you'll feel a difference for that too. Hey, we were talking earlier about families. I gotta tell you guys about how Jessica approached, is approaching potty training with Aurelius. I'm very fascinated in this by the way. Dude, I was... I'm rooting for you, but I don't know if I believe this is gonna work. Oh, hey, hey. So it's called, I think it's called... Oh, there's a name or a... Yeah, it's called Child Land. There you go, Doug, you're done. Yeah, Doug.   Now look at the TikTok stuff. Don't lie, guy. What was that? He just got back from Japan, he's still kind of, yeah, collabing with him as a video. Hey, did you see any of the vending machines while you were out there? Oh yeah. You know what? I look for them. Okay. Of course you did. I actually did. I look... Dirty Doug. You know what used to be that you could buy alcohol on the street. You could go get beer, whiskey even. Really? Sake out of a vending machine. I didn't see any of those anymore. So maybe they've removed a lot of those. Interesting. They still have a lot of vending machines, but it's mainly soda and ice cream. So right now, I was like, oh man, I wish I would have had Doug. Buy some for you? No. Oh, I see dirty things. I don't need you to smuggle me dirty panties. Okay. I can find some local dirty things. You're very resourceful, I'll give you that. You're very resourceful at home. Thanks for sharing. Hey, what is it? Okay, no, it's a good one. Hey, hold on. I don't want you to get left on that. So it's called, I think it's called child led potty training. I think it is. So she's talked to me about this up until recently. And I'm, you know, I trust her. She's super intuitive with kids. She knows how to read them very well and she's almost always right. So I trust her even though I'm very skeptical, right? So basically it's like, and I'm going to butcher it. Sorry, honey. She's going to tell me afterwards.  But anyway, it's like, don't make a big deal about it.  Don't talk about it. You got to potty here. You got to do that there. When he does choose, we don't make a, we don't over celebrate. It's got to kind of be his idea. He needs to discover it. So I'm like, all right, whatever. Well, anyway, the other day he's in the bath and it happened. He goes, mama, I got to go pee. And she goes, oh, okay. We got to wait till we get out of the bath. And he goes, but I need to go now. She goes, well, you can win the potty if you want. And nonchalantly, and I stayed silent because she'd coach me. And he goes, okay. From that day forward now, he has now every day has to go to pee. He has to go be taken to the potty on his own. And we don't make this big celebration about it. It's like he tells me, I'm like, wow, that's great, buddy. And I leave it at that because you're not trying to like overemphasize or under-emphasize it. It's got to be his idea. There's no resistance. It's all him doing on his own. So we're like on day three. And like he now tells Jessica when he needs to go to the bathroom. Now he hasn't done a poop in the bathroom yet, but that's coming on. I have a theory on why that's successful for you and then why did we do it? Why did it all of a sudden we change, right? Cause I thought about it when you brought it up the other day and you know, obviously I have Max in school right now. So I've- You have a timeline. That's right. And at each grade he has gone up now. So we've gone up now this second time where he's at like the school only do so much. So he has to be potty trained. Then it goes, he has to be able to wipe himself. So you have this timeline that you have to. So I bet historically before we had, you know, this school structure that we've had only for a hundred years. That's a great observation now. It probably was smarter to like, hey, when the kid is- When the time is time. Yeah, when the time is time and he's starting to piece it together at his pace and you don't make a big deal about it. Oh, oh good. It's probably a lot more natural that way. It's more natural. The problem probably with that is that that hits for some kids at two, hits some kids at five and that range. And when you're on the school timeline, oh, if you have a kid at pre-K, he's got to be able to do this. And then when he gets to kindergarten, he's got to be able to do this. It's all that anxiety you're bringing into the whole process. That's right. That makes the most sense to me on, because I'm sure that's like, and it makes a lot of sense because she's homeschooling, right, that you guys are going to control that. So that makes sense. That would be the smartest way to do it. There's a little pressure on, and some schools are different. Like my buddy's school, his kid won't, because Max can do everything, right? And he wipes himself even too, but I make him wipe with wet wipes. So he does a good job, because with dry stuff, he doesn't do as good of a job. And so- Boys' leaves can do it. He doesn't use the entire roll? Yeah, yeah. So, well, when we first, we first- Why are boys so bad at that, by the way? All boys are tired of that. I love that. I just like- I don't know why my toilets are like overflowing, dude. So I told Katrina, I said they're like the first, like, week he has school. I noticed that. I'm like, he's got tracks in his frickin' underwear.  I know, I know. You know, we're safe. You guys already have old kids. They think we're not cool. So they're not gonna- You know what I'm saying?  Yeah. Like, I'm gonna go back and listen to those hella episodes, even if they are about that. The podcast can be dinosaur, like- I know, right? It'll be like telepathy time to do, right? So, okay, he's got these skid marks. So I tell Katrina, I'm like, have him bring wipes and he'll do it just fine. And she's like, I don't know if the school let him. Well, our school lets him. My best friends at school won't let him. Why, because they clogged for us? Well, you can make the flushable ones. We use flushable ones. By the way, for all the people that always DM me about that too, they're just like, that's so bad for the environment. You should get the bidet and stuff like that. I had the bidet for a while. Those things don't work as good as a good old fashioned wet wipe. A real bidet does, but the bidet attachments. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, dude, the bidet attachments, that's a little strong. I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm gonna be into that. What do you mean, into? I'm just saying. Into wiping? What do you mean?  No, that's not what I'm doing. That's what I'm trying to say. So I did it for a while. That's what I'm saying. So I had the attachment thing going for a while and I can get kind of behind it, but the wet wipe is like, you know, yeah, you're in and out. You're in and out. You can serve toilet paper that way. It's better, like. Justin had an experience. You must have had an experience. He must have done it. Got some weird feelings. Not doing that again.  I don't like this. That's supposed to sit on a reverse. Most of it's somewhere in Europe, but yeah. It was strong. It was too strong. Yeah, no, it doesn't touch. So what is like Japan's pooping situation? Bro, have you seen Japanese toilets? No. That's why I asked. They have the most high tech toilets in the world. Yeah, they actually have built in bidets.  Oh, they do. You should see a picture. Have you ever seen a picture? Why are we so dirty and stinky in the U.S.? It wasn't until like my 20s until I met a girl who like schooled me on that. Like, and then I got my wiping game together. I did not have my wiping game together until I was 20. No, Japan, they have two kinds of toilets, basically. I mean, they have regular toilets, but they have like the old fashioned just hole in the ground, right? Squat down, okay. But that's still like... You still have those. Typically more in public places, maybe like train stations. Yeah, there's like a few feet print. But then you go into other places and they have the toilets and toilets in Japan, they've taken them to the next level.  If you don't know how to read Japanese, what do you do? Exactly. There's like 85 different functions. I know you pushed the wrong button. You're in for a good surprise. Justin would be really excited to push the wrong button. Look, look at that. I'm wrong. What if you sat on that? Wow. What do you do? I don't know. Wow. It's like a video game. Two of them have butt cheeks. Yeah, but what are they doing to the butt cheeks? What are the tits for? What? Those aren't tits.  Oh, those look like tits to me. And wash your tits while you're at it. Spray to the face. Sweet. Let's go it on here. Yeah, that's hella buttons, Doug. Yeah, and actually, the one up at the top, there's like a Chinese character means big and then the other one means small. Oh, so which one you are? So no, depends on what you do, number one or number two, right? So you push the small button if you do a number one and push the big button if you do a number two, if you need bigger, fleshing power, if you know what I mean. So they can serve water? Yeah, so, but that's really the only buttons you need to know about that machine, that panel, that's it. What are all those buttons on the side? I mean, that again, it's the bidet, it's the different sprays they've got. So it looks like there's- Yeah, you can actually change the position. I was just gonna say, it looks like there's a lot, like calibrating, so it's like- Yeah, you wanna have it, you know- So there's no- I feel like right at the old bullseye. You can calibrate it just to your butthole, so it's perfect. Yeah, exactly. So right now- You know what?  Just, need some custom. I would love messing with him. Going before him, super strength, ultra jet. That's why I wouldn't trust it. I said it- I calibrate it. You're ready, buddy? Ah, yeah. I watched the movie, was it Cars 3? That's why I knew about this. I know- Your analogies lately- No, all of them come from Disney cartoons. No, Mater goes into a Japanese bathroom and just stands to get out. Oh, that's right, that's right, yeah, yeah. That's how I'm like, is that real? I looked it up, I'm like, holy cow. Doug, can you, I know you can speak a little, can you read? I can read some, yeah. Oh, okay. The Chinese characters- I mean- You'd be okay in that situation. Yeah, I mean, there's no problem with that. They're very- Well, those are Japanese characters or Chinese characters? Well, they're- So the Japanese they use what's called kanji, which comes from Chinese. So it's basically the same characters as in Chinese. Oh, did you know that? But they combine it with their own writing styles. They have a couple of different writing styles they combine with. So, and the writing style that they have is phonetic. So it's, they have like this kakiku keko, which is, you know, the Japanese is always a consonant and a vowel basically, for the most part. Wow. Did you have to, when you taught English there, I guess you had to learn how to read some of it, right? Cause you had to translate? Oh, no, I didn't know translation. It's just more survival. You know, a couple of years ago, there was a theory that we were going to go back to like characters and emojis as communication. Like that was, as the emoji like thing really kicked off. Like, where are we at with that? Have you heard that? I don't know, but it's interesting cause the Chinese characters are really pictures. So for example, dog will mean dog in China or dog in Japan, but they're read differently. They different pronunciation. Cause it's a picture, it essentially means dog. Got it. That's like, it's in a sense emoji. Exactly. Have you guys ever seen the keyboards, the computer keyboards on a, I think they're called stenographers in courtrooms. Have you seen them? Have you seen the keys? I haven't seen the keyboard, no. They use something called a shorthand. And it's like, it's not all the letters. It's like, it's less, less, cause you have to type so fast. It's pretty wild. Have you seen them before? No, I haven't. They have these really weird like circular. Yeah, it's kind of like faced in. Yeah, and they can type super fast because they use a different form of language called, I think it's called shorthand, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense that we would go that direction cause you could communicate so much more with like a smaller amount.  Look at ancient Egypt. I mean, look at that little keyboard that the stenographers use in court. What? Yeah. Weird. Because they have to move so fast to get every word. Has it always been like that? I always thought she was typing the full words out. No, not the full words.  So basically she knows that when you put the PW, space R, something together, that means like a whole sentence or something. Oh, wow. Kind of. So you, you have to go to like school for that? Or you have, yeah.  How do they get paid up? They just make it up. Stenographers? I don't know. Maybe. I had no idea. I don't know. They're called stenographers? Sten. Not stone. Stenographers. Stop it. What, stenographer? Stenographer. Stenographer. Like a bubbleologist kind of. But I, I'm sure that profession's not going to exist soon with AI. It'll just record everything that's being said. Yeah. I'm just typing. It's not already doing that. Yeah. Yeah. Why do you even have that job anymore? Yeah. Well, they're so accurate. I think that you have to be pretty highly trained, especially the higher the court, the better you have to be at doing it. Yeah. So my mom learned to do shorthand. 31 to 69,000 a year in California. Yeah.  Oh, yeah. I don't know. You're in a court learning all kinds of weird stuff. Yeah, but I don't think you're sitting there trying to process what's going on. You're like... You're still listening. You're still listening. When you do that for a living, you do that in your sleep, pretty much. Yeah, but I think court cases are like, what police officer? You ever talk to a cop? Like, oh man, how exciting your daughter like a fire. 99% of the time is boring. Yeah, 99% is pretty boring. Yeah, I fight like one fire a year. Yeah. The rest is like boring. Not all murder type cases.  That's fair. Most of the time. That's fair. I don't know. So I wanted to take us a little bit into Adam's Wheelhouse for this. Whoa. Yeah, because we're always kind of conspiracy heavy over here. Okay. So... Exciting. Yeah, NBA, but specifically WNBA. That's your wheelhouse, Adam. It's Adam's Wheelhouse, so I wanted to ask you... I did a lot of trouble with my WNBA, but... I want to ask you if this is a valid suggestion, which I thought, okay, so Shaq, and you might have even already heard this, so actually put out there that he was like thinking, in terms of like all these other sports, you've seen how they've kind of restructured some rules and things to make the game more exciting and have like more action and like kind of eliminate a lot of the boring parts of it and whatnot.  So I've thought of the same thing because they play with a smaller ball. It's not like they're playing with the same sized ball as a man is. Sure. So like why would you keep the hoop? Is the hoop the same? But why is the hoop, yeah, 10 feet? No, I agree. I think that's a stupid... Oh yeah, that makes sense. That makes total sense. Yeah, why not have... Cause dude, think about that. Like when, you know, it's low and they can dunk and they can get a little more aggressive. Aggressive, yeah, because that's what people want to see and that's what makes it exciting.  A lot of truth there. And like, so, you know, or should we do these degrading kind of outfits like they did for like the lingerie football league? Oh my God.   Yeah, well, didn't they, now didn't they change? I mean, they changed professional sports like that time. They pumped so much money in the NBA and it doesn't make, WNBA doesn't make any money. Just to keep it afloat. Yeah, so, but don't they change professional sports all the time to make them more exciting? Yes. Yeah. They changed rules all the time. They just did for baseball. Yeah, don't they change? They changed the way you would do bigger bases. I mean, well, one, the three point line was created later on. That was something, the shot clock, like that didn't exist at all. Then it was a certain, I don't remember what the original time was. So pitcher now has a certain time before he has to throw the ball, which is, I love that. And same thing with basketball, shot clock, like you, it sped the game up and made it more, way more offensive and exciting because it has to be faster. Yeah, fight sports have changed a lot because that like the original MMA was no rounds. You hit the ground with the underground. That's a really good question. Like if you're changing all these things anyways, you've got a smaller ball you're playing with. Like why wouldn't you lower the hoop a little bit? We know that dunking is more exciting and stuff like that. Like I don't know what the thought process behind that and why they wouldn't just do that. I don't know if like all of a sudden people would think that, oh, just credit them. Like it's not the same game anymore, but it's like you're playing with a different sized ball. So it's not exactly the same already. It's not happening. So let's make it more exciting. You know, the part that I think is so funny about this is that like, because it's a lot of the push is like for, you know, equal, you know, everything's equal. Women should have this league and they should get paid the same and all stuff like that. It's like, well, if you want it all equal like that, then why don't you just put everybody in a league? And if you're a good enough girl to play, well, of course they won't. Of course they won't. But I mean, you can't ask for it to be like exactly equal, but then we also segregate it. Play into their strengths. Like I think that's ridiculous to think it's the same thing. It's not the same thing. The pay thing's silly. They actually make the, they actually, I don't remember, I think it was basketball, might be soccer, actually make a greater percentage of the amount of money they bring in than the men do. So. Well, let's say, what did you say? I think it's basketball, but it might be soccer. What? That the women's team, they make less than the men. Obviously in the argument, which is a very valid one is they just make, they just bring in less money. So you're making less money. But as a percentage of the money they bring in, they actually make a greater percentage than the men do. Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah, no, like significantly more. Yeah. And a lot of that is funded by like the NBA or the NFL or they're pumping money into it so they can pay those salaries and do that. It's not even built, it's not run, it's not run like a legitimate business. It's probably, now here's where I'll like, before I get, you know, crucified for all this stuff. There was a time when nobody watched men's basketball. There was a time when hardly anybody watched the NFL. Right. And part of what got it really popular was just the awareness around. Sure. So it could take time. So it could take time. Also, the game, if you watched basketball in the 50s and 60s, it looks like women's basketball right now. It was like very slow, a lot of layups, a lot of bank shots, you know, it just wasn't as exciting. And so, you know, maybe it's just gonna take time of evolving, more awareness, greater athletes getting introduced into that. And I think that is the thought process on like, why prop this up? Why keep trying to make it happen like that? Is that this hope that, you know, in 15, 20 years from now, women's basketball will look a lot different than what it looks like now because you've attracted a much greater population of people that are interested in it and they've gotten better and better at this sport. So now on the completely opposite flip of the coin into the men's realm, you see an example of somebody like a Rick Berry who used to shoot his percentage was like 89% free throw shooter and was like really one of the highest, you know, percentages out there in terms of consistency. You don't see that kind of like high average, but his style was completely unconventional, was like super like granny underhand shot. Nobody's done, replicated that since. Do you know that- You've had some guys do it a little bit. Okay, but- There's a player for, God, I'm gonna draw a blank right here, but it doesn't matter for the point who actually switched to shooting his free throws with the opposite hand and is a better free throw shooter. And so you've seen guys that have kind of tried it a little bit. Do you know why people try it by the way? The physics of underhand throwing a free throw is better. The odds of you making it- Because of the arc. The arc, the backspin, the physics of it are much better than the traditional way that they try to make the shot.  But with the free throw, I remember specifically I had a science teacher who broke it down and taught us- It was that and it was the indefensible like cream hook shot, right? The sky hook. That was another one you don't see ever since. Yeah, you don't see a lot, you don't see a lot of it. And I think a lot of it's just because it's not taught at a young age, don't keep doing it, but I bet you have somebody actually really promoted and taught that kind of underhand free throw. You know, since we're talking about sports, it's really cool to see a very small window to ever do this. I know. That you will find interesting. You did, you did. There's a baseball player. So I used to say that what we haven't seen yet in baseball and one day we're gonna see this is a player and there is a guy right now and of course I'm gonna draw a blank on his name too, that is a pitcher who's crushing home runs. Really? Yeah. Oh, that's rare, isn't it? That hasn't happened. We haven't had like a dominant pitcher who's also dominating home runs. And that, to me, would be the greatest like baseball player you could ever have. It's just your normal, you specialize in throwing. How nervous would you be as a general manager, like a coach? Oh, what? That he's doing both? Because if he's your star pitcher and then going up there to home play. Andrew, you probably know who it is. Yeah, his name's Shohei Otani. Thank you, buddy. And where did he come from? Japan. So he actually led Japan to win the world classic when they played against the US team USA and they won it. Wow. And what is he right, where is he right now in home runs for in comparison or like, where is he ranked right now? That's not number one. He's amongst like the top. He's like probably top five. Yeah. Wow.  He's like the best of the best pitching and hitting. Yeah. Oh, that's remarkable. That's never happened. That's super interesting. I don't know why I didn't think the default to you right away. Sorry, Andrew. He's our base pitcher. Yeah, we have the baseball guru guy in here right now. Oh, there he is. Yeah. That's really remarkable. Yeah. Baseball. Is that the most popular sport in Japan? Well, I don't know if it's the most popular, but it's very, very popular. Do they play differently there than they do here? Is there a different strategy or is it the same? Yeah. Don't you remember when, was it Ichiro was like one of the, like the strategy was, they play the game. But like he was like one of the first players to come over to the US and like focus on like these little dinkers, like intentionally. Like we have, we have this kind of like we glorify home runs and the big hits and crushing the ball and so like that. And he would like, He was old placement. Yeah. He would come up and like really just like slap the ball. You know, it's funny. You remember when Koran played with us? Yeah. So, you know, he was like, he referenced the other day about how we did softball, all of us as trainers and we ended up sucking. Koran, he played cricket growing up. And he was a world class badminton player too. Yeah.  Now you never played baseball or softball, but he's on our softball day and he was great. But what he would like slap it. It looks so unconventional, but he was like one of the best hitters on our team. Yeah. Because of the way he played. He used to hit those gaps like every time. Yeah. He was really good at placing the ball wherever he wanted to. And he looked where the gap was and then he just kind of slapped it over there. And it was a bit of a crush on the home run. That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, from an outside perspective, I guess, because sports, especially professional sports, it's such a like, it's to the point now where you're the best of the best complain so many people play the particular sport that the body types that make you the best at a particular position are not the same body types that make you good at other positions, right? I think football is probably the most clear. Like whatever makes you a great lineman, probably ain't gonna make you a good, maybe wide receiver or cornerback. Okay. Speaking of that, this is weird to me. Okay. Lewis Howes. Yeah. Who references being this, you know, pro football player guy or whatever at one point. Arena football, right? He did arena football and he posted the other day his card, never in my lot. And so in arena football, like you can't do this in the NFL, but in arena football, you can play both ways, just like high school and stuff. You can play defense and you can play offense. Will they call that iron, was it? Iron man? Will you just call that when you play, when they play both positions and they're a term for that? Going both ways? No, not that. I don't know if they have a term. Anyway, I don't think there was a term. I thought there was a term when you play football and everybody plays both sides. Bipositional. It's the same people play offense to defense. Well, it's actually not like that. It's just some guys are talented enough that they'll play both sides of the ball, but I've never seen what he had lined backer and wide receiver. That seems so odd. Yeah, to your point about body types and positions, like you would see a wide receiver go to corner or safety because you want to be leaner, fast, you know, agile. Yeah, lanky, like that. That's the same type of bodies. You can see this kind of crossover. I've never seen a crossover with a linebacker to a wide receiver, maybe tight end, but even that is weird. Interesting. Yeah, a linebacker, you're more beefy. You need to take on a lot more mass in front of you. So, and you got to be explosive and all that. So yeah, I don't see the pairing there linebacker. Yeah, beefy case. Yeah, you would see linebacker in what? Running back or something like that. Totally, that's usually the pairing. I thought running backs were typically shorter than linebacker, so. Linebackers aren't normally tall. Linebackers are normally short. Yeah, well, yeah, they're not typically that tall. I mean, really, it's like you're the bulldog out there like trying to basically establish that, like help support the defensive line and attack. You're the attacker. It's the most like war if you look at it, really.  You're the one that makes all the tackles if your system's working right. Ah, interesting. So I heard that, was you out on the brother's sub that the prime drink is getting sued potentially?  Over 200 milligrams. Wait, wait, hold on. What's explained the philosophy? I'm assuming it has to do with caffeine. Yes, okay. Yeah, saying that it's dangerous. So, and why I think it's getting news and why someone even is attempting to is because how popular it's become with kids. Probably, and you've brought this up, Justin. Like at your kid's school, like priming. Yeah, it's honestly, it's a status. Like they're like, I'm a prime, or like it's prime or Gatorade. It's like one or the other. And so I think that's why they're coming after prime is because I think for the first time, energy drinks were more popular for like high school and above. Like drinking caffeine, coffee, any of that stuff like that. And it's only been in the last like decade or two, not even two decades, less decade, has these energy drinks made its way to the younger population. And arguably prime is, I don't know, we need to find the stat if you guys could find the stat at all, but I bet you that prime has got to have the youngest caffeine drinking audience than any other energy drink. And so that's what they're coming up. But it's only 200. Bang and rain and all those other ones, they're 300 milliliters. So it's Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer is calling on the FDA to investigate high caffeine content and Logan Paul's prime energy drink. Now, okay, look, here's the deal. I kind of agree with this, but not prime. I do agree that caffeine should have some regulation. 100%. I agree too, but you can't single out prime. Well, he's doing that because it's pop. Prime, yeah, exactly. But I do think that caffeine should be regulated to some extent. DeMoscue's younger, 18 to 25 is much younger than the traditional sports drink market. Yeah, see, that's what I figured. And I would say, it says 18 to 25. Well, they have two, the confusing part is they have the primates like the Gatorade, right? It's just more electrolytes. It's like a sugar sports drink versus their one with caffeine. Yeah, but you know what you've got. But you know the ones, yeah, it's a drug. That's the thing, the kids will go to the ones with the caffeine. Yeah, well, look, okay, again. Actually, a lot of people don't realize this. Caffeine is a drug and it has legit withdrawal, it has addictive property. If we found caffeine today. It would be illegal. It would be illegal. Yes. We would 100%. We're also doing G Fuel, which is even worse. Yeah. Because of the video game culture. Yes, that is another one that's up there in caffeine. I don't know, G Fuel might be like 180, but still it's close. It's crazy. Yeah, it goes to, listen, the LD 50 for caffeine is low, meaning a certain amount, I forgot what the dose is. We'll kill like half the people. Well, the fact that there's any sort of negative effects and there is no, like a kid could go buy nine of them and no one tells them he can't drink nine in a row. That's dangerous. That would be hella dangerous. He wouldn't know.  There actually was a kid that died from, they were selling caffeine powder that you could take by the scoop. And the kid, yeah, he took a few too many scoops and he ended up dying. I've heard horrible stories about that too. And like the kid that's going to camp, that's bringing all of the drinks with caffeine to sell them, inevitably they had like a vending machine there. So all the kids were just buying them from the vending machine, ends up drinking them all himself. And then like, I don't know if he died, but he got very like death. Yeah, isn't it strange that like the things that we try and regulate and stop and so with that and that fact, but it has to be money though, right? I mean, there's so much money in energy drinks and caffeine and stuff like that, that it's like the toothpaste is out of the tube. Well, in the past, it wasn't really an issue to have to regulate caffeine because you've got caffeine from coffee and kids don't like coffee. Coffee, well, they might now because we make them like ticks like milkshake. Well, we talked about this on the show years ago. Starbucks is a thing. It was eight years ago when we first was, because I remember we had that Starbucks on Lincoln right down the road from the original studio. And I remember being super like, oh my God, like I walk into Starbucks and I'd see, you know, some lady in there with her two or three little kids that we're getting all these, you know, I think they had like a unicorn drink. They had all these like that were that had caffeine in it. I'm like, what are you doing? Like introducing that to them that early, like that's crazy. You know Starbucks regulates their nitro? Yeah, I can't get it. I can't get more than a grande. That's right. Pisses me off every time. Remember I had the hack for a while there. Oh yeah. I buy two. Yeah. Yeah. For a while there, I had a hack for that. I would like, cause they always ask you the size if you don't tell them size. Like, oh, I'll have a nitro cold brew. This is for my buddy. They're like, oh what size? The biggest you'll give me. You know, and then sometimes they want to be cool and like hook you up with a bigger size, but they're not allowed to. They're not supposed to give you more than a grande. Cause they know, they know that. Oh, that's a strong, I might be wrong. Okay, now explain the logic behind that. That's not over 200 milligrams in a grande. Yeah. Yeah, grande nitro is close to three. Give me the breakdown on that. It's close to three fifties. No, no, no, I think it's two seventy five or two. Two eighty. How much? Oh, two eighty. So it's almost three hundred. In a grande? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. You're right. It is flying. Wow. So boy, when I was getting those ventes.  You had a venti nitro? Yeah. I used to do those with you. Yeah. What would that be? So what's the ounces in it? Well, ounces, hello, Adam. Venti is, so a grande is what, 18 ounces and then the venti is the 20 ounces. So it's another two ounces. No, it's got to be more than that. So it must be 16 and 20. 16, I don't know. I think that's the one person. 12 and 16 for grande, venti is 24. Oh, snap. So you're like 400. Venti is 24? Yeah. 24 ounces. So you have like 400. Wouldn't that be venti quattro? No. Yeah. Wouldn't that be venti quattro to make sense? I don't know. You're the Spanish speaker. I say extra large. I just say extra large. Yeah. I thought they were always based off the... I don't care. You know they have one size bigger? The Trenta. 30. 31 ounces. That makes no sense. It would be 31. Why would that be? That makes no sense. Well, it's Italian probably. Isn't it not? Is Italian different with that? It's no, you got it. You got it. It's like very close to Spanish. It's very similar. There you go. Yeah, I wouldn't go with that. Adam the linguist. It's speaking of stimulants. I've been reading a lot lately about an herb that's been used traditionally for over 2000 years, ginseng. Been reading a lot about ginseng because one of our partners has a product that I started using and I really started to, I'm really enjoying its effects and I'm looking at the ingredients and I'm familiar with all the other ingredients but it's got ginseng in there which I haven't taken in a long time. And I think it's the ginseng that's added to it that's causing the effects. So it's joy mode and they advertise it as a supplement to improve sexual enjoyment, that kind of stuff. But really what it does is it boosts nitric oxide and so I use it as a pre-workout because you also want more blood flow when you work out. And you think that's the main reason why you feel that? Why it feels different than when I take other things that have all the other stuff in there like the citrulline and then, you know. Got it. Yeah, and it's gotta be the ginseng. Now ginseng, again, it's been around for a long time. Yeah, I've heard about ginseng. It's a classic adaptogen.  It's one of those herbs out there that's been used for so long. Longevity, it's a longevity herb. Really interesting. So I've been reading more and more about it and yeah, it's cool to rediscover something I haven't looked into. Do you know the first time I ever heard about ginseng? You guys remember the first like drinker thing that you remember ginseng in? Oh God. Sobi. Oh, sobi. I remember sobi. Remember sobies? Yeah. What happened to them? They had a... I don't know, they may still be around. They pick them up. Come up, Andrew. Where's sobi drinks at? Do you still see them? Remember when the little gecko? The popular is like power bars. Had the little geckos or whatever. They were huge at one point, weren't they? Yeah. They pixie dust the crowd. Yeah, they still sell them. They do. They're still around? Yeah, they're still around. Who do they own by? Are they old? Is it just sobi or is like Coke already bottom? Pepsi owns them. Pofors. Pepsi, yeah. Pepsi or Coke own every soft drink. I tried ginseng as a kid because my uncle's an herbalist and he, you know, I remember one time I saw something and I said I borrowed a little bottle of ginseng and I took it and I thought I felt something from it. I took it I was 12. So I don't know if that was a good age to do that. But you were like in class and you just like didn't want to answer any questions. No, no, that happened anyway. Do you think if you're an herbalist you're also probably a good cook too? What? Yeah. Why? Because you know a lot about all the herbs. Spicy. Not really. It's not like that. No. No, you ever have- I feel like you would be.  Yeah, my uncle. Oh, he's not a good cook. Have you ever- Theory already dismantled. Yeah, done. Different kinds of herbs. Have you ever had real, have either one of you ever been to someone who practices Chinese medicine and given you like powders and stuff to treat? No. You have? Yeah, my Katrina's, their acupuncturist is also an herbalist too. Do they ever taste good? No. Never. Well, I think of your knowledge behind it. So like, I mean, and your learnings around, or that you learn also the ones that you cook with too. I know, I understand that like you don't use, you know, ginseng in your pasta or whatever like that. So, but I mean, I would think that- Doug, you probably have the most experience, right? You've done a lot of Chinese medicine. Yeah. It never tastes good. He's also the best cook. Yeah. Well, he doesn't know how to- But I don't know how to formulate that stuff. It's really about the effect, right? Not about the flavor. Yeah. A lot of them are teas too. They'll give you powders and you have to make them into teas and then drink the powder at the bottom of the cup. Tinctures. Tinctures and stuff like that. Speaking of cooking, I have a different shout out for us today. So I follow this guy, and I think I found him because remember when Traeger sent us the Traeger and that we were- Yeah. Briefly? Oh, I saw this. Yeah, I follow him too. Working with, so that's, I think I originally found him because I think he's sponsored by Traeger also.  So there's his, I don't think you- Do you learn from him? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, no, so I watch, I mean, he's not the only guy I watch, but I watch.  Like I follow a few. I do. If there's something- BBQ.com. Yeah, I see some views. If there's something specific I want to cook, then I'll follow somebody for sure. So if I want to learn how to make a really good brisket, then I'll start doing research.  It's like, I remember when I first like started, I'm like, what am I doing? Like you've got these people that like are absolutely brilliant at doing, doing these things, like just follow their recipes. So yeah, a lot of the stuff that you've seen me grill, it's because that's not cause I figured it out. Yeah, you guys break it down. You and, you and Doug in particular. But that's not- You're scientific with your brother. It's not me, it's cause I've learned. I've followed enough of these guys and pay attention and I see these little hacks and they, everyone has different styles. And so I'll try something out and some styles mesh with my style. And so it's something that I'll adopt. And it's now- Well, I never, I never thought twice about barbecue until we went to Texas. And then it shattered my- Oh, it just destroys you from every other barbecue. I remember we ate the, for the first time, barbecue there and I was like, what the- You know what? What have we been doing? So I have a- This is so different. Doug, I would like hear your point and theory on this, like, why Texas is so special in that way. And my thought process is the two biggest factors. Obviously there's all kinds of style and different things. But the two biggest differences, I think, quality of meat and slow cooking is their thing. Slow cooking. Yeah, I think there's a whole culture too around it. So you've got so many people doing it, the cream rises to the top. Right, okay, that's a good point. That would add to that. That would add to that. So you have like this great source of meat. You've got a culture around slow cooking and being good at it. And so it just breathes- Look, it's the same reason why you'll get great Italian food in New York. You'll get great Mexican food in California. It's all about the culture.   It's so bad. But we got other food that's right.  To my point, it's because, you know what I'm saying, we, you know, California, the Bay Area, especially is like all about fast, fast life and stuff like that.  Of, you know, working the grill. So it's like, I gotta have the time and the weekend to do that. And I just, this- No wonder why dads like barbecuing. All right, I mean, I'll be outside for eight hours. Bro, don't bother me.  Those are like the three places a man can get away.  It is 40s with children and stuff like that. That sums it up. I can tell my wife, oh, I gotta go, I'm gonna grill that brisket. Oh, you know, brisket's, you know, it's a long cook. I'll be out there for 10 hours, I mean. Yeah, it's a wake up early. Yeah. Same thing with golf. Same thing with golf.  That's why I think like sooner or later, almost all dads, like no matter how shitty you are, you pick golf up cause you've figured that part out. Or mechanics, right? They'll just sit in there and like have a project where we just tinkering. They just literally are looking at the engine and drinking beer and just like, yeah, I'll figure that. How funny is that? Those are all the things that we're drawing down. Don't do any of those things. Look, if you eat a lot of meat because you're trying to get a lot of protein, check out Butcher Box. They deliver grass-fed meats to your door, including wild caught fish and heritage pork. It's healthy meat delivered to your door at great prices. Go check them out. Go to butcherbox.com forward slash mine pump. And in that link, you'll get New York Strips for a year with your box, plus $20 off. All right, back to the show. Our first caller is Brittany from Massachusetts. Hi, Brittany. How can we help you? Hi, how are you guys? Great.   And I listen to you guys every single day on my way to and from work. And I just wanna say thank you. You guys have helped me so much with coaching my clients, especially since I've only been doing it for a short time. Thank you, thank you, appreciate that. Great. All right, I'm just gonna read my email because there's a lot that goes into it. That's the way I can try to stay organized. A bit of a backstory. Four years ago, I was 200 pounds. Over the course of about two years, I lost 50 pounds naturally through diet and exercise. And ever since then, I've always gotten into the range of being like 150 to 155, around 25% body fat. And that's kind of like where my body likes to stay most of the time. When I get to lean out a little bit below that, around 18 to 20% body fat, usually like 140 to 147, I've gotten down into that range multiple times in my life. But every time that I go to reverse out of it and try to stay a bit leaner, I always tend to put on a lot of body fat. I feel like I struggle with occasional binging episodes. And I'm just not able to remain in a body fat percent in weight that I'm comfortable with unless I'm tracking my food. I did compete for WBFF in April this year and I got down to 17% body fat. And since then I put on about 13 pounds of fat back on. I did feel like I struggled with some of like the post-show binging and things like that. And I recently did a body scan and I'm back up to about 24% body fat. With that, about nine months ago, I was diagnosed with PCOS and endometriosis. So I have some hormonal issues. I got blood work done and my progesterone was completely undetectable and my testosterone was very, very low. So I've now started hormone replacement with creams with both of those drugs. Basically my question is, I just am in a place where I don't know where to turn. I've struggled over the last couple of years putting on muscle. I can't seem to stay in a place of leanness that makes me happy. I feel like I'm really good at coaching my clients. But when it comes to figuring out the right path for me, I'm just not sure which way to go. I'd like to get a little leaner, but I don't know if that's something I should focus on right now, where my focus should be and what steps I should take to progress over the next year. Yeah, great question. Yeah. Thank you. Based off of what you're saying, I would focus on getting healthy and that's gonna get you where you wanna go.  It was a healthy place to be for a woman, especially if she's fit. So if you work out and you're in that range, that's a healthy place to be. Because of the shows that you competed in, because you lost a lot of weight before, I'm gonna guess that there was a lot of potential overtraining, over dieting. Endometriosis and PCOS are very closely connected to insulin resistance as well. And sometimes this doesn't show up on tests. Low tests, and now hormone imbalances are often the result of and not necessarily the cause of certain issues. So what'll happen is you'll go on progesterone to testosterone, you'll feel better, but the root cause might not necessarily be addressed. Have you seen a functional medicine practitioner or has this only been through a hormone doctor? Okay. Just through a hormone doctor. Okay, a functional medicine practitioner would be where I would go. I would work with them and look at, I would look at your gut. In your email, you also wrote about inflammatory foods. So I was looking- That's what I think. I was gonna ask like how accurate you think those types of tests are, because I know you deal with a lot of gut issues and things like that. Well, they're a starting point, but they don't tell you the whole picture. But if you do one of those tests and there's like a bunch of foods that light up on that, then I would look at gut health is what I would do. And people who over train, over diet, lots of stress, those are all stresses on the body, tend to develop gut issues because it affects motility, gut, wall permeability. So I would work with a functional medicine practitioner to find some of the root issues and then I would work on getting healthy. And then what'll happen is you might get leaner just from doing that, you probably will without having to worry about cutting and overtraining and pushing yourself and all that stuff. So that's 100% where I would look.  They'll probably test your A1C. They'll look at your fasting glucose. They might look at your thyroid.  Levels look normal, but they don't look for things like antibodies.  So that's another thing that you'd wanna look at. So very often PCOS and endometriosis have lots of other things that are contributing to that. And you wanna kind of look and find the root cause versus covering it up.  Nothing wrong with hormone therapy, but at 30 years old and otherwise healthy, I would say there's something else that's probably contributing to that. And I would address those things. Otherwise what's gonna happen is you'll please catch up game for your entire life, which is it sounds like you're getting tired of playing that. It's been a long time. Like it's great to not be in that higher weight range anymore, but there's still just like that small area that I can't seem to break through. So that's good. Yeah. And I think too that you do your best. I mean, we're all gonna say almost the same thing, but definitely do your best to kind of let go of the body composition right now and purely focus on just health. So like my training focus with you would be like, let's talk about mobility. Let's talk about strength. Like we're focusing on those things. Like I don't want the scale. I don't want the body fat percentage. We're not gonna talk about stuff right now. Let's get you healthy. Let's talk about how you feel. Let's talk about how strong you are. Let's talk about how mobile you are and kind of let that go right now as we're trying to get to the root cause of what's going on. Because if you're constantly watching that, that'll kind of be a mind fuck, right? Cause you could easily go up a few body fat percentage in the pursuit of getting healthier and it doesn't mean you're going the wrong direction. You can actually be going in the right direction. But if you're hung up on that, it could cause you to take a left when you were heading the right direction. So my advice is if you were my client, let's not think about that right now. You're in a good place right now really body fat percentage wise. Let's really focus on the health aspect and the way I would do that through training would be focused on strength and mobility. Now, Brittany, the worst thing you could possibly do would be to try to do another show. So I hope you're not thinking about signing up for another show. That's absolutely okay, good. Don't do that. But just to sell this a little better, okay? If you work with a functional medicine practitioner, they find some kind of root issues that you could start to work with. Here's why that's such a good thing to do. It'll make being lean and strong and fit and healthy easy. So if right now it feels like a struggle, if it feels like you're always kind of clawing at it and if you just go off a little bit, oh my God, my body responding this weird way and I gotta push things into this. That's exactly what happens. Yeah, so you could literally put, by improving your health and finding some of these root issues, you're gonna get to a place where you're gonna be like, and I've seen this so many times with clients where they come to me and they go, this is really weird, like I'm doing half the work and I look and feel way better. It almost feels like it's too easy. I'm like, well, that's cause you're body, you're working with your body rather than fighting against it and not addressing some of these issues. So again, I think a functional medicine practitioner.  How long have you been training people? Two years. Okay. A functional medicine, you need to have one in your back pocket for your clients as well. Yeah, anyways. It's the best partnership I ever had for my clients was a good functional medicine practitioner.  It will make you an amazing trainer. You need to get it out of the way. And then you'll have somebody there that you could refer your clients to and you'll also know what to look for. The only reason why I know like what I'm saying to you about PCOS and endometriosis is not because I'm a functional medicine practitioner, it's because I've worked with them so many times that I've had clients like you and then they've come and solved those issues and I saw, oh, this was the issue and I can see these trends, but insulin insensitivity is very common with those things and there's lots of things that can cause it and gut inflammation tends to be at the top of those things. So again, look at those. We have a forum on Facebook called MP Holistic Health. Go ahead and get in there, it's totally free. They have functional medicine practitioners in there that'll answer questions for you. And then the practitioners in there will work with Dr. Stephen Cabral, he's one of the best in the business. So you could go with him, Dr. Becky Campbell's another good functional medicine practitioner. Go to Cabral. You could look into, they're all really, really good, but go to mpholistichealth.com. Thank you. You got it, no problem. By the way, workouts-wise, are you following any of our programs? I'm not following any of yours specifically. I did wanna purchase one when I was off of Show Prep and I just wasn't sure which one would have been right for me. So I am following a program right now, but it's not one of yours. Either Anabolic or 15.  I think Maps Anabolic will be great for you. I think Maps Prime Pro will be great for you for your clients. Thank you. So we're gonna send both those to you, okay? Very exciting, thank you guys so much for everything. Appreciate it. You got it, thanks for calling in. Yeah, I mean, you feel better with the hormone therapy, but if you don't solve the issue. That's probably one of the one knocks I have on hormone replacement therapy. As amazing as it can feel, it could also mask what really else is going on and you're just really kicking the can down the road and eventually you're gonna have to address that stuff anyways, but I mean, when you're a trainer, and if you have any, I wish I knew someone like Dr. Cabral when I was in my 20s and trying to figure my own shit out. One, it would be amazing to go through that process and learn about myself, but even more valuable like the education of like going through that so I can now communicate that to my clients. Like I would have been such a better coach and trainer had I had someone like him in my back pocket or it had gone through the testing and learn from him so I can then communicate that. I mean, he's even got, So we all learn that and that's why we have those forums established. He's got for coaches and trainers that are listening to this. I mean, Cabral has courses and certifications where he teaches you how to read labs. Like that's so valuable to be able to do that and help your clients out. Like 100% if I was still a trainer that would have been something that I would have done just for that reason. Selfishly you get the benefits of learning about your own body, which that's a kind of like a no-brainer, but then what that's gonna do for you as a coach and trainer. You set yourself aside from all the competition, you provide better service, your clients get better results. It's just, it's such a no-brainer. I mean, if you're not thinking constantly about how to better educate yourself as a trainer and how to like incorporate a bigger network of people that can help, then what are you doing? If you're as a trainer, you understand exercise, you understand technique and workout programming, you understand basics and nutrition. So that's your expertise, but you need people around you that you can work with that can solve problems that you can't. And when you can do that for your clients, you become invaluable. You become, they come to you for all the issues that the traditional medicine can't fix because he said, do you know somebody that can help me with this? And then you have somebody and it makes you just so valuable. Our next caller is Nate from Utah. Nate, what's happening? How can we help you? Good, how are you guys? Good, good. Good, man. Good, good. This is kind of surreal. I've been listening to you guys for a couple of years now and it's pretty awesome to see you guys in person or at least through the camera. Cool, thanks, man. Yeah, so just to give you some backstory before I asked my questions. So about six years ago, I kind of was super depressed, super overweight. I'm five foot eight and I was 240 pounds. So, you know, pretty big. Decided to, you know, enough was enough and I wanted to change. So I started getting into lifting. I started getting into running and I ended up losing. I ended up getting down to about 195 pounds just watching what I was eating, doing all that type of stuff. Kind of yoyoed back and forth for about six years. Started getting into endurance races, half marathons, marathons, kind of doing all that stuff. While I, you know, in between that I was kind of lifting as well. So keeping that in the mix. So fast forward until now which brings me, you know, to my questions. About a year ago, I decided to, I wanted to kind of step it up a little bit just cause I'm super goal oriented. And I signed up for, well, I hired a coach to do a bodybuilding competition. So I started with him in October of last year and we did about, so about nine months and kind of went through that whole entire process of prep, the grueling, all that stuff. And I, yeah, I competed June 10th, so about four weeks ago. With that being said, the prep messed me up pretty bad. I got down to, so again, I was 5'8". When I first started with this prep I was 196 pounds. I got down to, so the day of my show I weighed in at 169 pounds. And I was eating 1,400 calories, 1,400 to 1,500 calories a day doing two hours plus cardio a day. It was, as you guys obviously know, it was pretty grueling and it taxed me pretty good. So anyway, I got on stage, I competed, I checked off that goal. Well now, which brings me to my question, my coach kind of just left me high and dry afterwards, didn't help me through the reverse process, didn't help me through that whole entire, that period where from what I was reading and from the research I was doing is extremely pertinent, especially getting back to healthy, hormone levels and all that stuff. So I did my own research again, internet can tell you all sorts of stuff. And from what I researched, the studies, they did studies on going right back to what you started prep at. So for me, starting prep, I was eating about 2,500 calories right at the beginning. So I kind of pretty quickly went back to that. Well, as you guys can probably already know and already tell or whatever, but I ended up putting on some weight pretty quickly. So just to give you some context, I was 169 pounds obviously, like I said, and now I'm sitting at about 180 pounds. The crazy thing, obviously I put some weight on. The crazy thing about it is that it's not super crazy because I obviously know the hormones are a lot better, but I feel phenomenal in the gym right now. Like I mean, I feel like I've never felt before, which is pretty crazy. So I guess my question for you is, I guess where do I start, right? Do I go back and kind of like, because my big thing is I wanna be, I don't have any plans of competing again right now in the future, but I wanna stay lean, right? I don't ever wanna get up to that point. I'm having a hard time mentally seeing myself the way that I am right now. So. So 169 to 180 is actually not that bad. I mean, it's 11 pounds. And it may feel that way because you were so lean and so shredded, but you gotta keep factoring. Half of that's water. Yeah, water depletion, carbohydrate depletion. You're gonna put a quick five to six on that's healthy and good right away. So even if you put a couple extra pounds on, it's not bad. I've seen people put 30 pounds on bro in a week. Like that's, yeah, that's where it gets really bad. So I actually think that you're not that bad. Now, I wouldn't have taken you from 1500 back to your show prep, 2400 cut. I would have actually went from 1500 to 1700 to 1800. I would have walked you up that way while simultaneously backing you out of the cardio. So like we might, we would probably start at, let's say, you know, 2000 calories and then, you know, take carve off an hour of cardio. And we'd stay there for a little bit to let your body level out.  So I would, that's kind of how I would do it. And we in, there is no, the reason why there's so much damn information on the internet. There's no perfect right answer because it's gonna be individual to the person. And this is where the coaching process with me would be like, okay, how do you feel? How are we looking? Are we not putting on too much weight? And as long as we're not putting on excessive weight as we reverse diet out, I'm gonna just keep etching those calories up and start to slowly back out all the cardio that you're doing. You are, you did highlight something that I've talked about on the show many times and Sal's experienced this because he's dieted so extreme before too. It's the feeling of refeeding the body after it's been depleted for so long is the most anabolic feeling. It feels more anabolic than steroids does to me. It's the wildest feeling. And so that's, I mean, and I think a lot of that is just your body thanking you and telling you like, this is, I needed that. I needed to be fed. And yeah, and it's just you're primed to build right now. So you're in a good place. I don't think you're doing a bad job either, bro.  The fact that you put 11 pounds, that's not that big of a deal. Nate, are you still doing all that cardio? I'm not. I pretty quickly dropped it off just cause, you know, time commitments. I'm actually, I'm an electrician. So I'm out in the heat. I'm out in all my feet walking. I mean, I was walking without the cardio about 10,000 steps a day. And then added the cardio on top of it. It was just extra.  They're just the absolute worst. But you said something. So I want to help you out and I want to work with you rather than trying to work against your nature. So first off, we have a reverse dieting guide. I'll send that to you. So it's kind of breaks down with a reverse diet. You know, it kind of generally should look like. So I'll send that to you. But you mentioned how your goal oriented you did endurance running, then you went to bodybuilding. It sounds like you really have, you really enjoy training for a goal or a target. Is that, is that correct? Absolutely. Okay.   They're not all great, but they're usually okay or good.  So you can find yourself a powerlifting coach.  That'll be your program. If you don't get a coach, find a competition, find a weight class that you feel like you want to compete in. That'll help you maintain a relatively lean body. Because I know there's a whole like, you know, belief or view on powerlifters that get fat. Really that's powerlifters in the unlimited weight category but every other powerlifter has to train within a category. They have to control their body weight. So if you're competing in the, you know, 180 to 185, it's like you can't go above 185, otherwise you're in a new weight category. I think powerlifting and a powerlifting competition is the best way to get your mentality to switch over to something a little bit better. And you're going to get, you have to get stronger with powerlifting. That's the goal. And why is that good? Because it's hard to underfeed your body and over train and get stronger. It's almost impossible. So I think that's going to put you in a better direction in terms of getting you out of this mental state that you, that the bodybuilding puts you in. I love that advice. Even if you don't want to actually do a competition, I think that advice is still good. Like to at least go through the program and pretend like you're going to do a competition. I think that's a good place to focus and train. And I think you're going to see lots of benefits. As you're seeing already right now being fat again, like your strength probably feels amazing. Your lifts and workouts probably feel great. Great time to, you know, really focus on getting strong in the gym. So I love that advice and it's great advice. Even if you, like I said, even if you're not, you know, excited about going and doing a competition, you don't necessarily have to do that. Just follow the program as if you were. That's right. Awesome. So would you guys, would you guys recommend like upping the calories into that as well or just kind of stay? I mean, what would you recommend for that? Depends. I think you're okay. Actually, I think your jump was okay. Not that I would have done it that way, but based on what you're saying. As long as you don't keep seeing dramatic, like if you put on another 10 pounds this week, then I'd be like, okay, we went too fast. But are you, is it good food or is it bad food? So obviously, like right after I had, you know, all these cravings, whatever, I did have like a couple of cheat meals.  But I have, like I introduced, like right at the end of that prep for the last three weeks, I was like zero carbs. So nothing completely depleted.  But- Nate, out of the 11 pounds that you gained, now that I know you went zero carbs. Yeah. Like eight or nine of it is just like- It's all good. It's all good. Yeah. That's why I said when you first told me when I went on that zero to that, I could make, I could go 15 pounds swing with zero to carbs. Like it easy and it not be any body fat. So I would keep your calories where they're at. Keep them where they're at, do maps, power lift, and then continue to reverse diet from there. So maybe for the next few weeks, couple of weeks, keep it at 2,400 calories. And then read the guide. It'll encourage you to add 100 to 200 calories a week and then do that and see where it takes you. I bet you'll probably get around to close to 3,000 calories without any substantial fat gain, but some really good strength gains. That's when we know we're doing really good is if you can get through that, that maps strong progress or maps power lift program and you've increased calories and we really haven't put on much body fat at all. Totally. Awesome. Sounds great. You got it, man. Thanks for calling in. Hey, by the way- Yeah, thank you guys. Thanks for the work that you do. You're gonna be one of the last few employed people when the AI takes over. Yeah, I love your guys' conversation about that, so it keeps me motivated. Yeah, he did. Right on, Nate. He's strong, man. Great. Thanks, guys. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Hey, I won't be doing his job for a little while. You know what I'm saying? I love that advice, Sal. Although when we were in Utah, since he is in Utah, remember when we saw, that was the first time I ever seen one of those dirt compactors that was all robot control. Oh, really? Yeah, we remember with that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When we last time, we went to our Park City place. Right, and they were talking about somebody still has to operate. Yeah, yeah.  No, I think if you used to goal-oriented, like go power lift and get out of bodybuilding, man.  Again, going from like, and I get it, you know, it's like you lose weight, you get excited that your body's changing, and now, no, I'm not a competition kind of guy, you go and, but that's like the last competition I would have sent in, too. You know, this is why I know that I get a lot of flak, and so do anybody who says competing is a sport, but this is why I like to compare it to a sport, because I would never recommend a sport for somebody to get healthy in shape. It's just not a great approach to doing that, and there's a lot of competitiveness within competing, and so there's a lot of things are similar about sport. Yes, I know you get prance around in a fucking, you know, board shorts, and it's not hard and tough, and you're not slamming. Like a pony. Yeah, it's a different type of a competition, and so it gets a lot of shit and grief from people that are like real athletes, because you don't have to be athletic to do a bodybuilding competition, but as far as the extreme aspects of it, the consistency, the discipline, the unhealthy side of it, it's very much like a sport, and when you're trying to be fit and healthy, it is actually not, people think it's a good route because you lose body fat, so people think, oh, this is a good way to get healthy, it's not. I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna say this right now.  Besides the unlimited weight classes, you're gonna have to maintain your body weight or you could drop weight and get into a better body weight class because getting a lighter one often makes you more competitive. Powerlifting will serve people so much better. Think about them starting with powerlifting to then go transition to bikini or to bodybuilding. It's just a better route in general. Everything we talk about in terms of building muscle to start with is the focus. Our next caller is Connor from Ohio. Connor, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey guys, first off, I'm gonna give the obligatory thank you. I appreciate you guys answering my email. And I found you guys a little over a year ago and you guys changed my complete perspective on fitness. You guys changed everything from my workout plan, the way I eat, everything. I thank you guys for that. Awesome, thank you. So my question revolves around band training. I started working out about two, three years ago and I didn't mostly body weight and then I tried searching for weights but didn't have the room or the money to be able to afford a home gym. So I looked into loops out resistance bands and fell in love with them. And I found you guys based off of the videos you guys have. And my question revolves around left ranges with the bands. I know you guys talk about going to failure when training bands, whether it's every day, three days a week, et cetera.  I know you guys talk about more reps to failure how the studies on that. But I also know you guys talk about going to low rep ranges as well. And I'm just confused on where to go with bands. Okay. The reason why higher reps, we tend to advocate for, and higher reps like 12 plus, not necessarily 20, to failure is just the safety component, the form component, there tends to be not as much volume in the lower rep because you're doing lower volume anyway, typically when you go to failure. That being said, eight reps, 10 reps, even six reps to failure, totally fine. Just make sure your form and technique are good. Do you have maps bands by the way or what are you following for your band program? Actually, I went back to you guys earlier episodes, episode 13, eight.   You guys say do three times a week every set to failure and three sets for exercise. I've been trying to follow that. That's a good workout, but it's not as good as maps bands. Maps bands, we fully programmed out. We phased it.  And then the other thing, I know you have limited space. I think it would be wise to invest in a couple adjustable dumbbells or a kettlebell or two. And then I think it would also be wise for you to incorporate some body weight movement. Or map suspension. Yeah. I think map suspension, you can get a suspension trainer for 50 to 100 bucks, we have them on our site and we'll send you the program. So with maps bands, we'll also send you a map suspension so you got that program for free. And literally all you need is a suspension trainer. And I actually think you can progress a lot from those two. Those two programs. You can do low reps or suspension training. Those two programs right there, you can put on some serious muscle. You can do more. That's the thing is the tool itself is more conducive towards certain types of training. So the bands, if you start to get into low reps and you wanna have that kind of heavy resistance, a lot of times it's really challenging and difficult for people to get into the right position and hold their posture correctly. Because it's yeah, that tension in that force is really gonna pull you all over the place. And so in terms of like getting an effective, efficient workout, that's why we tend to structure it a little more towards the 10 to 15 kind of range there. So you get a more effective workout that way. But yeah, the suspension trainer you can. There's ways to get, provide angles and gravitational forces against you where you can actually go down in reps and struggle through that a little bit more.  Yeah, those. Suspension will be perfect. And the only reason why I interrupted it is because I don't disagree, by the way, was so like obviously at one point you would love to get some dumbbells, you would love to get a barbell, you would love to get a gym membership where you can go to that. But if I'm thinking what's the least expensive, least amount of space, like best thing I can do to progress you, bands and suspension trainer, I can get a lot done with bands and suspension trainer and spend little to no money and little to no space. So those two would be a great place for you to hang out until you get to a place where you can get a gym membership or get a good, you know, free weight set up. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I literally work out like in front of my front door and that's the only space I need. Like I do everything there and it works. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, this is awesome. This is perfect for you, bro. We're gonna send that over to you. Okay. And I do have one more small question. It's not related to band training at all. Okay. And I'll give you a little bit of context. For about six months now, I've been dealing with a little bit of low back pain and it happened when I was doing dead lifts with bands. I was doing conventional dead lifts and I was doing high reps. I got my first set done fine and it was 20 reps and then I did six and it had stopped. And usually the pain starts in like in the morning, like when I get out of bed, but as I walk and move throughout the day, it goes away. And I've been told it's like my piriformis, but I'm not exactly too sure. I think this has a lot to do with what Justin said. When you do low reps with like a move, like I'm not a fan of, even though you can do dead lifts with bands and it's possible, right? We've programmed that. It's definitely not my favorite way to progress somebody on deadlifting because of that exact reason right there. Deadlifting is already a very technical exercise. And then when you've got like a heavy resistance band that's pulling on you while you go through the reps, it's just really tough to keep very strict form. Is the resistance as variable as you're doing the same? Yeah. And so I think the point that Justin was making earlier about why low reps with bands are just not ideal is the way it's pulling on you. And deadlifts is probably the most difficult exercise to progressively overload with just bands. So I think you need to drop that. And I think you need to just follow what we got going on in suspension for stuff like that. I don't think it's your piriformis by the way because you don't feel it in your like butt cheek, right? You don't feel it down your leg. You said it's in your back. Like it's the middle of like my lower back all the way at the bottom of my spine where like my glute connects. And every now and then I like to feel it a little bit on one side of my glute, but other than that, that's it. Oh, well then it might be the piriformis if that's the case. So there's a seated chair stretch. I think I did. We have it on my pump TV. Is it my pump TV? Yeah, you've done some, there's some good stuff on. I've seen that. I've seen exactly that. Do some of those stretches and see if that doesn't alleviate a little bit. Yeah. Okay. All right, man. Well, thank you guys. All right Connor. You got it bro, thanks for calling in. Yeah, thank you. Goodbye. I mean, for overall fitness altering between suspension and band training is good. Yeah. Just to be efficient and like you said, economical and like he only has that devoted space. I think that's probably the perfect rest. Yeah, I wouldn't need to add anything. I mean, of course you want as many tools as possible, but if that remains to a limitation. We love barbells, but it's not always that accessible. No, I mean, I think that's the ultimate goal at one point. Hopefully he, I mean, he seems like he's young, right? He's 27 years old. I don't know if he's still in school or what, but you know, hopefully at one point he could get himself a gym membership and then follow something like anna ball because he really wants to pack on muscle. But I mean, with bands and suspension at his age where he's at. Oh, he's fine. Yeah, he can do a lot of great work there. Awesomely fit. Our next caller is Leonard from Scotland. Leonard, what's happening? Hey guys. What up? Man, this is quite surreal. It's like being in a matrix. It is. Which pill are you going to take? Both. Yeah, both at once. That's what happened. Correctly. Wow. How can we help you, man? Yeah. So I got some basic questions. And to start off the first question, I'll just give you maybe a little bit of background as to why I'm asking it. And that's in terms of my fitness background. So about 2007, so about when I was 15, I started training with just using my body the whole way for a pretty long time. Up to the year of 2021, I was pretty much doing bodyweight training at home every morning, like for an hour. It wasn't really until 2021 in January where I got into a proper structured strength training program by Mindballe, which taught me this principle of having a structure, even this thing of a rest day, to sort of structure my program much better. And later on, I discovered you. Guys, thanks to Max Lugavier. Big shout out to him. Yeah, love him. Yeah. And I dived into some of your programs as well, like anabolic and aesthetics. And I was really impressed by sort of strength gains I gained from them by having adapted them into my practice using bands, mainly. Because the thing is, I only have bands, really, because of my circumstances of having always needing to be mobile and not having really access to a gym regularly. So I really haven't really worked with weights as much as that. So my question really along to that line is what are the benefits and trade-offs between bands and weights, really? Because I've thought that I probably gained some new, more benefits with weights. You guys once talked about bands in a different podcast episode, which was really insightful. But I'm not quite sure where the benefits and the trade-offs are between the two if I go on or the other. Good question. Yeah. OK, so off, I mean, just raffigates, bands, the resistance becomes stronger the further you stretch it out. So the resistance you get from a band is very different from a fluid. It just feels different. And different resistance types, if they're introduced as novel stimulus, they can cause changes in the muscle to happen relatively rapidly. Meaning, if you always train with a particular type of resistance and then you switch to a different style, you'll start to see some results. So this is true if you start with weights and go with bands and vice versa. Bands are very versatile. I can attach them at different points. I can do all kinds of different exercises. They don't take up much space. The problem, the disadvantage of bands is some of the most effective just gross motor movements are not really done really well with bands. Compound movements are kind of tough. Yeah, squat, deadlift, bench press, you know. You're not going to be able to really do those like you can with free weights. Free weights mimic the real world more than bands. When you lift something in the real world, it's a free weight. So that's it. Heavy weight, low reps tends to be better with free weights. If you get really strong, bands can be actually challenging to work with. Like if you get somebody who could, let's say, row 300 pounds in trying to find a band with that kind of resistance, it actually gets a bit unwieldy and actually dangerous, believe it or not, with bands. So the pluses and minuses, though, with both of them really work well together. I mean, we never, you know, some circumstances bands are better and others free weights are better. In an ideal situation, you do both and you go through cycles of both. So I hope that kind of answers your question. Yeah, a simpler way to put this is you can be, you can get incredible shape and be healthy and very fit just by doing body weight and band stuff. But if you are trying to progress, build more muscle, get leaner, progress where you're currently at right now, one of the fastest ways you could do that is by doing a novel stimulus. A novel stimulus in this situation with you will be free weights. Because you do mostly bands and body weight, you just simply training with free weights is gonna be novel and your body is going to respond much quicker than any sort of band exercises you've been doing that so frequently for the last year to two years. So, but if you're happy where you're at physique-wise and health-wise, there's nothing wrong with doing bands and body weight for the rest of your life. There's many people that, that's all they do and they're in great, great shape. But it'll be much faster and easier for you to progress by switching to a novel stimulus. And bands, so each are different tools, right? So, and you have to kind of highlight what they do best. And one of them, with the bands, they're better for recovery. So therefore, building up more volume and frequency and kind of leaning in heavier into that side of the attributes is kind of where we structure with MAPS bands because it's gonna be able to provide that type of stimulus to your muscles which also produces building muscles, but that's a different attribute than say, like I'm lifting heavy weights and just focusing on those compound lifts which actually my force output is so high that I'm actually gonna require more rest and recovery to then allow my central nervous system to perform at that high level again. And so you have to alternate that and be more conscious of how you structure that versus with bands it's like, we can go and perform a lot of these exercises pretty frequently and get a totally different stimulus. Yeah, I mean, look, they're all tools and the more tools you have, the better you'll be able to work and the better, the easier. That's all, yeah, but can you do it with less tools? You can, you totally can. All right, wow, that's a pretty insightful responses to that. That actually gets me to, since Justin just mentioned MAPS bands as well. The thing is with MAPS bands because I compared it a little bit to anabolic and as FedEx whose philosophy are quite well understood with the compound movements and then going to more isolated movements which sort of gets much easier and much more comfortable than towards the end. But by MAPS bands it's, I don't see this sort of structure in a way it's akin to that what I've seen anabolic and as FedEx because the exercises just because of my background probably I'd lack the understanding on the sort of way that you structured it and the second phase looks a little bit more like a hypertrophy or a joint space really rather than a strength phase. Are you, yeah, very, they're different. That's why it's programmed different because it's different. Do you work in the fitness and health space? What do you mean by your back? Not at the moment. It's an endeavor that I have actually to move into into the personal training space actually and where I want to look into certification as well. So at the moment I'm sort of building first of all my own confidence. I even coaching my parents that like my mom is very eager with strength training at the moment and she's doing really nice progress from coaching. Are you an engineer right now because you mentioned your background that you're considering a background. Are you an engineer? Do you work with like a lot of numbers and plans? Well, I'm a physicist originally by background. Makes sense. Okay, definitely. So workout programming does have a structure and a sequence that you'll start to understand over time. It's far more complex than it seems on the surface. What you're identifying in anabolic and in aesthetic are the very obvious signs of some of the programming but there's a lot more that goes into exercise programming and this is why strength coaches, really good ones can be so valuable versus people that just understand how to work out. So we have to consider the type of resistance, the exercise selection, the order, how the days follow each other. The pairing of the exercises together. Tempo and sets and reps. What the whole picture looks like and you learn this through lots and lots and lots of experience. So... A simple analogy to this is building your body is like building a house and the tools that you use to build a house, you don't use a hammer the same way that you use, a screwdriver the same way you use a saw. All of them are valuable towards building the house but you're not gonna use the hammer the same way you use the saw. But it's even, it's okay, let me add to that. It's like building a house but then sometimes you're building the house on granite, other times you're building it on a slant, you're building it in the rain, you have more workers, less workers, different types of wood, different, so there's so many variables that go into programming. I mean, and we didn't even write a program for an individual, that's where it gets really crazy. We're writing a program for a general audience which is actually exponentially easier than it is when you're writing it for an individual and it gets even more challenging when you're working with more advanced individuals. If I have to create a program for a high level competitor, I gotta, the programming is very, very detailed versus a beginner, it works very simple. So if you're trying to figure this out, following the programs is step one, step two, getting certifications, step three, training other people and then through experience, it'll start to reveal itself over time. So, and you sound very analytical, you'll figure it out, but it's gonna take some time for sure. Yeah, I don't expect that going to be like a flash of light moment really, in any sense. It is a long endeavor and after all to learn with success and mistakes, along the process to make the best of it. Yeah, and I'm gonna make it sound even harder than you gotta, you gotta account for human behavior.  So, good luck, my friend. Yeah, I know that feeling. Actually, I have a certification as a functional medicine health coach, as I have a little bit of experience in terms of coaching and understanding the behavior of people and even convincing myself or even others is interesting. Let me put it this way. That's awesome. Hey, Leonard, are you in our private forum, the Mind Pump Private Forum? No, I'm not. I'm gonna have Doug give you access. I'd love to hear your process, especially if you're gonna get into being a coach and stuff like that. There's a ton of other trainers and coaches inside the forum, including us. So, we can hear your progress and how you're doing. Wow, wow, that's actually awesome. Whoa. Yeah, that's really great because I can just bombard my next few questions in there from there on rather than keep you guys tight up. I mean, it's like almost lunchtime by you guys. That's right. I'm getting hungry. Awesome. Well, thanks for calling in, man. We appreciate the support. Yeah, I really appreciate the support from you guys as well. I listen pretty much almost every day. Just listening to the one that you put out right now, I'm starting off with the chopping on beef as the best protein source, which I just had today. This lunch is a really big portion, so it makes me even more satisfied. Awesome. All right, thanks, man. Right on, Leonard. All right. Thanks, guys. That's awesome.  Well, here's why, because he's a scientist. You're right, but I mean, I think my point was enough for him to get like, oh, okay, I get it. It's different tools. Well, here's why. You just had to throw it in. Oh, it could be on a slant. You have three guys. Well, you know why I said that? Because he's a scientist and trying to figure it out. Here's what scientists do. This is what they do.  Is they look at the studies? Yes. Okay, you can have all the studies you want, but we're not training robots. We're training humans. You throw in human psychology, and now- It's not ones and zeros. It's not gonna work like this. No, it's not like Newtonian physics where you have a formula and then this is how it works.  So, programming is not necessarily an exact, there are components that are- Yeah, we have- There's laws of specificity. There's the law of thermodynamics. There are some laws within programming and building a physique or something like that, but then there's so many other factors that play a role and it's not as simple as two plus two. One of my favorite examples is this, is they'll say, how many times, the frequency a muscle is trained doesn't matter if their volume is equated for. The problem is in application when people train more frequently and split up the sets, they tend to do more volume because they're fresher and stronger, so it's never equated for. So in the real world in application, when you look at human behavior, it's actually better to break up workouts and to train more frequently than to do- They adhere to it better too. That's the other part, absolutely.  You can also find all of us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump, Justin. I'm at Mind Pump to Stefano and Adam is at Mind Pump, Adam.