All right, check this out. How you think affects muscle growth. I'm not just talking about consistency in the psychology behind exercise. I mean, literally how you think while you do a lift can change how it affects your muscles. Studies have confirmed this. In other words, if you're focusing on a particular muscle, you improve its activation. If you focus on a movement, you can lift more weight.  This is totally overlooked. So, okay, explain that a little bit deeper. So do you mean like, say I go to the gym, I'm getting ready to do squats and I got in a fight with my wife right before I walked in there and I'm like doing, and like I'm thinking about that stuff, that will negatively impact the lift like weight-wise or, because sometimes I feel like that contributes. It's just being honest. You can either channel it or completely screw up there. So lift. So they've done study on this where they'll have someone do a lift and they'll have them focus on the muscle. So they'll say, I'll give an example, do a bench press and then focus on the chest working. Focus on the chest. So you mean in particular like what muscle I'm trying to have? Well, that's one, one aspect. And so those studies will show that there's more or better activation. So this is really valuable when you're trying to target a specific muscle group. But then also on the other side, how you think can also affect the amount of weight you can lift. So they've got studies where people will go in and psych themselves up or focus on being tight or just focus on perfect movement and not necessarily focusing on a specific muscle and then they can lift more weight. So now how can you use this? Well, if you're going in and you're doing low reps and your goal is to increase the weight that you're lifting then rather than focusing on the target muscle like when you're squatting like glutes, quads, hands whatever, it's about getting tight, driving, psyching yourself up. If your body building your body sculpting and you're doing a squat and you're like, I want my glutes to fire more or I want to feel this more in my quads then focusing on that muscle and its actions will actually do that. So how you do the lift from a mental and if people forget this, right? That muscles are dumb.  It's the brain, it's the central nervous system that controls the muscles. So how you think while you do the lift can actually have a significant effect to the point where if you do this for years and years and years you'll notice a difference in development and strength. Well, you know where I really saw this was working with high school kids and being able to teach them how to create that kind of stability and to be able to generate more tension throughout their body and their muscles to be able to kind of ground themselves. It was like a totally foreign concept to a lot of the kids because they just look at the exercise and they want to like produce the exercise and just kind of get through the workouts and that's just always been the intention is like I got to get through the workouts I'm exhausted, I sweat and that's sort of like the end result and to really spend that extra amount of time and like keep them in position and now to squeeze and produce force. So one thing that I did that was very helpful I took this from Joe DeFranco was using those grip testers.  So that was a good hack. You know, it's another example of what you're talking about too is, you know, have you seen these cases where somebody hits a PR because they actually didn't realize the weight that they put on there? There's a famous case of that where I think it was an Olympic lifter broke a world record because they misloaded the bar and actually landed it too much. And that just shows you the power of the mind of like, oh yeah, I've lifted this before. So automatically you already try that on your body. Somebody's going to hear this episode.  Yeah, my boobs that I can slide an extra 50 on there. You would know. I've done this to myself, by the way, where I've worked out in a gym once and the plates were in kilos. And you know, you could do the math right? One kilos, 2.2 pounds. I can so see you do it. But I purposefully didn't count. I just threw plates on when I felt like it could do more. And I said, I'll add it all up at the very end. And when I added it up, I was like, oh, crap, that was a PR. I actually hit a PR and I wonder if it would have psyched me out. I've heard, I've actually heard guys say that that's why they prefer kilograms so they don't get so focused on the weight because like doing the 2.2 math is like, I mean, if you've got enough fives and 10s and 25s on there, it's like, oh man, that's too difficult to do that. And I'm not really, I'm not focused on exactly the number. So it's funny because the reason why this was, you know, how I open is I did this today in my workout. So lately I've been doing a lot of bodybuilding where I'm like trying to sculpt and focus on target muscles. And today I did that. And so the goal with that is to slow down the rep field. I did back today. So I'm like feeling the target muscle, feel the lat squeeze or the rhomboid squeeze, whatever part of my back I'm trying to work. And then when I hit like, I can't do another rep, I switched my mentality. I said, let me squeeze out a few more reps with the same kind of mindset I use when I'm going heavy. And I got three, four more reps. So I couldn't have done it with the other mindset of feeling the muscle was almost like I went to failure. But then I got psyched up and I'm like, let me see if I can get three or four more and stop trying to feel the back, just move the weight. And I was able to do it. And I was like, man, it's so crazy how just that mindset can change how the exercise feels, how what you're working gets affected. And they've, again, they've backed us up with studies. It's funny because bodybuilders and strength athletes have been talking about this for, before we had technology where we could see muscles being activated, we could see muscle fiber recruitment, bodybuilders talked about this all the time. Arnold would say, when you're doing your curls, he'd say focus on the peak of the bicep and imagine the bicep growing or whatever and it sounded hokey. But he was actually onto something, you know? He was onto to- It's all about the squeeze and the feel and trying to really enhance that process. It's a- It's a- It's a coming.  People don't know that. It's as good as coming. You gotta watch Pumping Eye. Do you guys, how old were you when you first watched Pumping Eye? You know, that's a good question. I wonder when I, you know, I probably got introduced to it actually not till later because I didn't get into lifting until- So you're probably in your 20s? No, no, no. Probably 15, 16. Okay. Yeah, because we started, like I didn't get into like really like lifting until like 18, 19, but I was working out at my buddy's garage.  His dad had a garage gym. And of course, when we all started getting girlfriends and you know, that became like the main, like I think at one point, you know, or I think it's common that you like all of a sudden, like focus becomes girls.  And it never changes. Yeah, right. So, and I think that was right around like 15. And so I think that even though we weren't knew any, we had no idea what we were doing. The fact that his dad had that in the garage, we're in there getting arm pumps, you know, we're doing a lot of tricep pushdowns and barbell curls and stuff. So I watched, I think I was 14 when I first watched it. Oh, okay. So it was around the same time. Yeah. So I started lifting about 14 like seriously. And I was right away, right fell in love with it. And my cousin and I sexual imprint kind of timeframe. Yeah. Right. Right then. I can not do concentration curls without. No. So my cousin and I, we were already fans of Arnold because remember this was like, you know, late 80s, early 90s. And Arnold was like the action star or whatever. It was like the buff this, you know, guy.  So we got bought, first I got the encyclopedia bodybuilding. And then I figured out that there was pumping iron. So I, my dad went to the, at the time it was photo drive up, 24 hour photo drive was the name of it. This is where you could develop photos, but also rent movies. This is how it was back before even blockbuster. And we saw pumping iron. And I'm like, oh my God, I got to watch this. We got to watch this. And I remember putting it on, I had no idea what to expect. And I remember I'm 14 years old. And so my exposure to some of the stuff was really minimal.  And I remember as a kid being like, what? What is he talking about? What are you talking about? And I'm like, did he just say what I thought he said? And I was disappointed. I was actually disappointed as a kid. I was like, why would he say that?   He's so dumb. Then I got older and I was like, oh, that's hilarious. Oh man. Oh boy, check this out. Brand new maps program, maps and a Bollock advanced. It's the 10 year anniversary of maps and a Bollock. So we wrote a new program, maps and a Bollock advanced. This is the only maps program that utilizes volume training, failure training, weighted stretching and D load weeks, programs it properly to maximize muscle growth, maximize strength, maximize the metabolism, boosting effects of strength training. This will quickly become the most effective maps program we've ever created. I'm gonna give one away for free. Okay, here's how you can win. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop this video. Also subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If we declare you the winner, we'll let you know in the comments section that you got free access to maps and a Bollock advanced. Now everybody else, this is launch week, which means it's gonna be on sale. So it's going to retail for $157, but if you sign up right now, you get it for 97 bucks, plus we'll throw in two free ebooks, advanced training techniques and the carb cycling diet. Okay, so get that all for free. All you gotta do is go to an anabolicadvanced.com, use the coupon code AA60 to get the $60 off plus the two free ebooks. All right, here comes the show. You know, I'm gonna say something that I think is a little bit controversial.  I don't think that, and when you think, when we talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger, everybody, you know, he's just obviously the most famous bodybuilder of all time. I don't think he had one of the greatest physiques of all time.  I mean, I think Serge de Bray had a better physique even in pumping iron. And by the way, that is not to take away from his mass, his size, his unbelievable chest and arms, the guy had an incredible physique. So we're obviously splitting hairs by critiquing his physique, but I really believe that it was his personality.  You just, you had to like- He was the most memorable one.  Like he was hilarious. You also have to, he's very smart. Super charismatic. He was a millionaire before he became an actor and it wasn't through bodybuilding, he had businesses. I mean, he literally is the epitome of the American dream, right? He's a foreigner that comes to this country, the top bodybuilder in the world becomes a millionaire through business, decides he wants to be a Hollywood actor with the crazy, ridiculous long last name that nobody can pronounce. Can't speak English without accent. Everybody thinks he makes fun of them, says you're gonna be an actor, does it, becomes the highest paid actor, then says I'm gonna become the governor of the most populated state in California as a Republican and he does it. But all that aside, when it comes to his physique, bodybuilding has changed. One of his COVID stances, by the way, that I got through shade, yeah, well, you know, nobody's perfect. You had to go there.  You had to go there. As bodybuilding's ideals changed through the decades and the ideals for bodybuilding in that era was Arnold's type of physique, so it was. Okay, so I'm gonna disagree. So Serge Nebray looks more like the ideals that you would think for like bodybuilding later. Okay, so what I'm gonna challenge on that, because I disagree and why I disagree with that is that, because this is how it is today, okay? So, and it's been this way and I think Arnold was the beginning of this. When, and I know that this will probably upset a lot of people that compete right now, but here's the truth, like, that it's dominated by the people that put on those shows and sponsor that put big money behind it, which is most of your supplement brands, which are massive marketing machines. Well, back then it was all Weeder. And all the magazines. Yeah, he dominated it. But what they look for is somebody who is marketable. Of course. And yeah, you need to have a great physique. Even to get on stage, okay, at the highest level. 100%. Everybody has to be badass. And because the sport is so subjective, it's really easy to be like, it's like the argument we were talking about with the refs where it's like, you know, you can easily call it this way or that way. It's really easy to say like, oh, he does, or he like, what really makes a decision is that personality, that look that you have. And if you are more marketable and you see it today in men's physique and bodybuilding, if you've got a, which is why there was this, you know, you started to see this movement in the men's physique space. Like if you had a big following on social media, you- You got place-tire. You got place-tire. Right, like what would you say the percentage of that is in consideration for the judges when they're like kind of, you know, pitting the two together like towards the end, like, and one has a bit higher of a reach or is more marketable in terms of being more handsome. So that's, I think the way you set the table for that is the perfect way it happens. Do I think that they're gonna put somebody up there that has got a terrible physique just cause he's popular? No, but I think that it's gonna come down to the top three to five. And if you got five bodies that all look amazing, that you could easily argue, oh, his back was a little better than his, that's why he won't, you can make that, if you can make that argument, that's enough to then let it be swayed by, that's the look we're looking for. 100%. If you were looking for a blonde-haired blue-eyed guy or I wanted someone that was a little edgy looking with some tattoos, like if you have a vision of what you were looking for and you know that these guys that are sponsoring these things that are putting millions of dollars in these events are in the ears of the judges and are talking to them about, hey, this is the guy we like and letting them know. And they don't even have to do that. They don't even have to do that. It doesn't even have to be that planned. I think, yeah, because your stage presence, Arnold used to talk about this all the time, he would psych people out or he would appear to be more confident on stage. And when it's close like that, the judges are more likely to pick this guy over that guy. But that's not even the controversial Olympia. So that Olympia, there's no controversy. Most people would say that it was judged properly. The controversy would have been Lou versus Serge because Lou got third or no, Lou got, I think he got third and Serge got second. The controversy was the 1980 Mr. Olympia.  I think he won six in a row. Then he leaves, says he's gonna retire. Then he comes back in 1980 and says, I'm gonna make a comeback. Comes back with a smaller, less impressive physique. Meanwhile, all the other bodybuilders had gotten much better. Arnold wins and it's still to this day one of the most controversial Mr. Olympias of all time. If you look at the pictures. You gotta know that Weeder gave it to him because of who he was. Yes, and that was right when Arnold was starting to make a name for himself. So that one was the most controversial. I mean, I think we see this in sports all the time. Like there's, I mean, even in like, like we just saw the Super Bowl, like there is a huge interest in specific teams making it. If you have two like out of market teams, like Oklahoma or something like from a state and a small town, like there's not a big following. You want the big, you want the Dallas Cowboys in there. You want these teams that have massive following because it's way more revenue for them. So very much, you cannot think that these things aren't swayed that way because you know that it's gonna be contracts or anything else. Come on, you gotta play it factor.  I'll tell you this right now. If he were a natural born citizen, he would he would a hundred percent been president. Hundred percent. No doubt in my mind. No doubt in my mind. Well, that's why I think the rock will be in our, in our generation. Just if you had not, you know.  I think the rock has been set in the table for that for quite some time now. And we will see that in the next 12 years or so. Yeah, he's got a chance. You think the rock will do it? I do. Would he really want it? That's crazy. I don't want it. I mean, I don't want that.  I mean, I feel like that he's already setting the table for this stuff. I think if you want to be president, you're already in a category of people that probably shouldn't be president personally. A hundred percent. You know, if you want that, that bad. The best.  The best people to lead are the people that don't want it. That's the way, you know, that's the way that government was originally designed in this country.  And then, Is that George Washington's story? Isn't that his story? George, well, George Washington, they wanted to make him king. All the people that followed him said, let's make you king. Reluctant. And he said, no. I'm not going to do that. But now it's like a full time job. You know, people in Congress make like 200 grand a year, which isn't a ton. And yet they're millionaires.   All you got to do is follow the stock trade. Yeah, dude. How did this happen? Was it true that George Washington was like six, two, or like he was like a really tall guy? Oh, he was? Yeah. Like I read that somewhere and I didn't know for sure. Like if you fact check me on that, like, oh, he's six foot. Okay. Back then they exaggerate a bit. Well, back then, I mean, the, the nutrients that she's huge. We're so high. Yeah, that was like six, five. No, it's a big, that's a big car, though. Yeah.  The tallest? Yeah. Oh yeah. I know the heaviest was tapped. I think the heaviest was tapped. I think it was six, four. Who? Oh yeah, I think it was six, four. Yeah. And he was a bare knuckle fighter too, right? Not bare knuckle. He was a catch wrestler. Oh.  Apparently he was bad. And six, four?   They were harassing someone or whatever. And he got on the boat and threw all four of them off the boat into the river. Maybe you can look that up, Andrew. That's, that's dope. Yeah, what happened? Yeah. We said some like presidents that could throw down. Bro, Teddy Roosevelt, because you imagine Trump or Biden fighting somebody. Oh my God. Nobody, nobody compares to, nobody compares to Teddy Robes of Roosevelt. Yeah. No one. This guy. I feel like, I feel like Obama would have a little bit of the ump probably really Teddy Roosevelt when he's like, I'm talking about like that. No, you're going way back. I'm talking like in the last, like the last five presidents, like who, who's like out of the last five presidents. I think Obama wins the fight in a fight. Yeah, the fight, bro.  Bill. He's a dork. Hello, everybody.   Reagan was a, was a, I think college football player. That's not five presidents back, but okay. Is it? No, no. You had the Bushes and then you got, you got Obama, you have Trump, you have Biden, so that's more than, but I mean, I'll give you that. That's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe, you know what?  Maybe Bush senior would have been like a, he seems like he. Bush junior. Junior, it looks like a little athlete though. Like, I don't know. He was, wasn't he in college? Oh, bro, in college. Like a frat boy, wasn't he? In college, he was doing cocaine and, and K stands. That's, that's what I'm talking about. I'm going to put my money on, on Bush. Oh, he's such a. He's a wild card, right? So I would do that too. So you, you kind of want to back the guy that you know. But Roosevelt, if you read about him, he, he went and wanted to fight in a war against their orders, took a bunch of men and went to the front lines to go fight. The guy used to go out. That's pretty gangster. He used to go out at night and fight crime. This is what Batman was based off of, apparently. Is that true? I've heard that. Is that, is that who Batman's based on? Yeah. Lucille based off of him. Lucille based off of him. He was a judo, I think he learned judo from a Japanese instructor, learned how to box, worked out. He was a sickly kid who then built up his body and is not shot. Wasn't he the one that got shot, finished his speech? Oh my God. After he got shot. I think so. Back up. What happened to our presidents, man? I know that's what I'm saying. They used to be tough. Now you got Biden walking. He looks like he, like, step, step. You just watched the last one where he was walking. Take another step. He has like a different gate every time I see him. See guys. I knew him.  Huh? So Roosevelt was the original inspiration for Batman. And he did get shot, spoke for 84 minutes before completing his speech and accepting medical attention.  Why is that not a movie? That should be like a movie. It should be, yeah, the real Batman. There was a documentary on Roosevelt. Why is there a, that would make a good movie, you know? What are they called? What was his, him and his, his, his crew that went to fight in a war. Was it the Roughnecks? I think they were called. Maybe you could look that up on horseback. Sure. Yeah. On horseback. Cowboys. Yeah. And they had their pistols and their rifles. And the guys like, don't go to the front lines.   They don't make men like. What happened to us, dude? What happened? I don't know. Did you guys see, have you guys? I hurt my back yesterday. You didn't have a band. You know what I mean? Oh. Time for my shoe. Roughriders. Roughriders. Is that where the, wow. That's like a popular like bike gang and like Roughriders because it's been in rap songs. Like that's like a total like. Whoa. Yeah. That's where that's the origin of that, huh? Yes. Yeah. Now all that means is. I wonder how many people even know that. Ghost ride in your whip, you know? And you walk around and dance. Oh, gosh. Right? That's your Justin's rapper name, by the way. He came up with today. He came up with it? Is that his own? Yeah. What was it? It was chocolate cheese. Chocolate cheese. Spit in them bars. He said that earlier today. I was dying, bro. What did you end up with? Chocolate cheese. What was Adams? You came up with. Fat face killer. It's pretty good though. Yeah. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. I like that. That's pretty good. I'll take that one. Hey, you guys watch it. Have you guys, because we all watched this one, right? There are very few shows we all get into and watch. I think you is the only one that we all watch, right? Oh, I haven't watched the last one. I haven't started that yet. Oh, sorry. I'm excited. Is this as good as the other one? You know, that's why I wanted to talk to you guys. I hope they bring back the chick he killed, or they made it look like he killed. I hope they bring it back. They haven't yet, and I'm already. Well, I don't want no spoilers. So, I mean, like every other season, it's like a whole new situation. It's always been that way. He's got to move, because he obviously. So, why I wanted to talk to you guys about is, because I can't quite wrap my brain around why I like it so much. Like, it's kind of like, I know what's kind of going to happen, yet I still, well, I don't know what's going to happen, and maybe that's what it is, is that, but obviously, I get the gist of what's probably going to happen. Kind of like a voyeur, or whatever, into the mind of a serial killer. Yeah, is that what it, so maybe that's what it is, because. Yeah, but that's not a real serial killer. It's not likeable, come on. No, yeah, of course not. I just mean like. How do you know, you don't know any, do you? Bro. A real serial killer? If you were into, peered into the mind of like Jeffrey Domery, but oh, you'd be horrified. Well, I mean, that was one of the most, that was one of the most viral Netflix shows ever. Mindhunter, remember that show Mindhunter? It was the psychologist that would interview all the great shows. That was a great show. Serial killer. You never saw Mindhunter? It was a great show. That's a good one.  Happened like two or three times. Was it Bundy? I don't remember. He's urged to kill him so bad. Your wife is the serial killer, right? She is. Yeah, she's really into all those shows. So does she like you? Does she love you? Yeah, she likes that show. I think she's really more into like the actual, like factual.  Yeah, exactly. This is too fake for me. That's not how he would do it. Yeah, yeah. You guys were right about Bundy. So he was put in a jail cell, escaped, within two weeks, settled near Florida State University, and began raping and killing more young women. Wow. The number he hit was a lot, right? Wasn't Bundy one of the most prolific as far as the mountain? No, that was the green something killer, I think that killed like the estimated. But what is that? Like, I'm trying to wrap my brain around, what is it that like makes me like that show so much? And maybe, I think, Justin, you're right. Like, I'm trying to think of another show that they do a couple of things really unique. Like, can you name another show? If you make them likeable to your point, which, yeah, it's like, they don't do that. They don't make like the villain, like you gravitate towards them because it's like so interesting how he looks at things. You know what I think too is unique. I don't know if I've seen another show like this, maybe correct me if I'm wrong, like where it's like narrated, where it's in his mind, it's like, so there's several times in every episode where you're watching him doing something and there's no talking, it's him narrating how he's thinking. And I just think that's a really interesting way to write, right? Like it's like, there's no internal monologue it's going off. Yeah, have you ever seen that? Have you seen that before? Can you think of a movie or a show where you get your, where it's constantly, because they have some shows where you'll- The Wonder Years. All right, The Wonder Years. Did they do it in Wonder Years? Remember that? Did you ever watch Wonder Years? He was always narrating like his entire day, basically. Do you guys have a crush on the girl? What's her name? Winnie? Winnie, she's cute. You know, my crush was always Kelly Kopowski, dude. Who's that one? Bro, that's Saved by the Bell. I don't know all these names, dude. What, names Saved by the Bell? Well, no, I know the names of the show, but I can't see yet the poster, dude. To this day, aside from Britney Spears, I know no famous, like, hot girls, and I never followed actresses and actresses. Oh, that was like her show name. I don't know what her real name is. Oh, yeah. Kelly, dude. Adam was a Slater guy. He's a Slater. Yeah, he likes Slater. Yeah, I don't, I've never been good about keeping up with all this. Remember when Slater would dance, he'd do like ballet moves? Saved by the Bell, like what? Yeah. Well, you're busting that out. Just randomly. Yeah, anyway. So, girls loved it. So, is this season good? Yeah, I mean, that's where my point is like, maybe somebody else is like, oh, you know how it's going to play out, so it's not that good, but it's still good. You know, because they do a good job of like, it's all new characters. So, I'm already intrigued by learning the new characters. And then, of course, what I know is going to happen is like, he's going to fall in love with a girl. He's going to, you know what I'm saying, that eventually all the crazy shit's going to, so you kind of know kind of? I hope that the girl from the last one comes back somehow. That's what I hope. He killed her. Didn't he kill her? They didn't show her die. He'd set the house on fire and left. So, that leaves the door open. I remember how it ended. That leaves the door open. Remember, he cut off some of his toes to leave like evidence that, so they thought he died in there too? Yeah, that's his baby's mama, where you're talking about. Yes, and he left the kid. Remember, he abandoned the kid, which by the way, can I say something? That ruined it for me. I kind of liked him as a character.  Yeah, but do you want the kid hanging out with a serial killer? Well, that's it. So, okay. I have a little bit. I have like both sides of that. I agree with you. Like that first initial like, how could you? He was a father. Yeah, he kills hella people. But then I go like, well, you know, if I knew I had this internal conflict and I was constantly killing people, I probably wouldn't want my son to go down the same path as me. So, by probably giving him away, is the best father decision you can make, right? Yeah, they dealt with that. I mean, that's how good it is, though. That says a great point. That's a great example of a scene or something that happens in that show, where you even probably have internal conflict on how you feel about it. Well, the dad of me goes, hell no right away. But then the logical side goes, wait a second, if I have an addiction to killing people. If I'm that damaged and I'm trying really hard not to pass that on, that's a tough conundrum to be at.   You know, and Jess goes like, what do you mean? He's just a guy's mirror is killing hella people. As soon as he gets rid of his kid, I'm like, screw this guy. He should have brought him along for all the serial killer. Raise him up. Teach him how to do it the right way. Ear muffs. We're going to watch that tonight. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, you have to watch.  Dude, I gotta tell you guys about my toddler. He cracks me up, dude. So I get texts from Jessica every morning about something else he's doing. This morning, she goes to wake him up and he's laying on his hands and he's looking at her and he's giggling. She's like, what are you doing? He's like, nothing. She's like, what are you doing? What are you doing? He's like, hey, hey, hey, hey.  I'm just like, what? He had a booger on his back. He thought it was hilarious. Yes. Dude, last night before last, we're going upstairs and like the routine, I'm downstairs, kind of cleaning up and stuff like that. Katrina's normally bathing him, getting him ready for bed. He now come like, she'll be like, Max wants to say goodnight, hon.  And then he wants me, he wants to see me go to bed also at the same time and like into my room. All right, Daddy, come on. You go to bed too. And so I got to pretend like, yeah, so I come up and we're holding his hand and we're walking down the hall. His room's right here and then ours is down the hall. He's like, okay, Daddy, you go to bed now and mommy and I go to our bed and Katrina's like, no, no, no, no. This is not our bed because he's been getting up in the middle of the night since we've been to the new place and like, she'll take him back. And a lot of times she'll fall asleep in his room and then stay in his room. So that's happened enough times now and he's gotten used to mommy coming to his bed. So like he's saying, he says good night, tells me to go to my room and mommy and I go to our room. That's not yours and mommy's room. That video you sent of him and Aralea's playing when we came over. Yeah. I loved it, man. Oh, you know, I told Katrina. They're similar. They're similar little guys, you know. No, no, very. It was actually, there was a moment where I don't know if I said anything to Justin or not, but I actually thought it was hilarious. So like there was a scene where Max and Aralea sort of like playing with the stand and they're all like quiet and doing their thing and the Justin's two boys are bodice slamming each other right now. I'm like, if this isn't like our kids do a tee right here, like this is hilarious. Like they're over there being all quiet playing. You know what I'm saying? The Justin's boys are like, slam, body slamming on the lawn. Typical. Yeah. I wish I would have caught that. That would have been a good clip of what I'm doing. But I got the boys. Jessica works out in the morning in the garage and so she has to bring a realize and he's starting to like lift things and mimic her working out. Yeah, you're getting all excited. Oh, I'm getting so pumped, bro. I just want one. I just want one kid that's into lifting weights. That's all. I'm not asking for video. Oh, I still think that you're one. You're older ones. I still think that. I mean, they're still young. Yeah, look how late we got into it. Yeah. You know, I think like what's cool about being dads that are lifting even at our age and as consistent as we all do. Like that's imprinted in their minds.   And you and you have this whether that happens in your teens, 20s or 30s. Eventually that happens. Yeah. But what I mean is not that they'll start working out.  I want one kid.  Yes, I want to come home and be like a son. You've been in the garage for two and a half hours. You need to stop. That's hilarious. And then like, no, you got to stop and then look at Jessica and be like, uh-huh. Yeah. He's crazy like I was. I'm trying to promote that as much as possible with like, you know, the electronic conversation we had. Like I've been like, literally dictator guy coming in with, you know, it's not just the jacket. It's, uh- You got your North Korean jacket. I was going to ask you about your Nazi jacket. Yeah. No, no, no. It's not that. It's North Korean, bro. It's more like North Korean, you know, like Kim Jong-il. That's the kind of vibes I'm bringing in here today. But yeah. So I've been like, I've just taken away and it's been amazing, the transformation already. It's so annoying because you realize that's literally what it is. And I could pinpoint it to the amount of time just spent just glued to this thing. Yeah, me too. And I mean, they're helpful now. Like they interact with us. Like we all do things of family switch easier. Like the friction to go from one place to the other has gone down and I'm just like, so annoyed by it. Yeah. Do you notice that when you first take them off, there's like a, I don't know, 20, 30 minute period where they're just like- Oh yeah. It's like ripping the band-aid off. Yeah. I mean, you're like, all right, we'll gotta wait. Wait it out. You'll feel better in a second. Right. I know. Yeah. You have to kind of like, just yeah, calculated weight. That's so annoying.  I mean, that's a good- I wonder if like, right, have I ever truly tracked and measured? This is my, like my suggestion to any parents that are going through similar things or phases that we have is like, like, you know, maybe your kid's not, but like, it's worth teasing it out, right? And I've done it enough times because I've even questioned myself, like, oh, maybe I feel that way. I'm being a bit of an alarmist. Let me allow, let me allow him to do it a little bit more. And it's, I've done that enough times where I allow it and then take it away. It's clear. It's very clear to me. Yeah, yeah. Exactly, very clear. I think it's just like anything else. It's the awareness of it. Like, it's so easy to kind of go through the day-to-day things and just try and stay on top of like whatever constant kind of disciplines and things you normally do, but things like that, that you can, you can parse it out and like really examine it and look at it and test, do a little bit of an experimentation with it. Take it away, bring it back in, like just see, see what happens as a result of that and it becomes pretty obvious. The challenge is that, that this stuff hasn't been around so long. So there's not a ton of data to back up what parents are feeling, but there is data to show now that kids who spend a lot of time occupied on electronics or whatever, they don't, they're not able to regulate their emotions as well because the electronics act as a distraction. So the kid doesn't feel and process frustration, anger, boredom, whatever it is, because they're watching this thing. So when you take it away, when, one of the, I mean, if you'll notice, right, you take it away, especially from a little kid, they get irritable all of a sudden. It's because they're, they're not processing their feelings when they're on their distracted. You know what annoys me is like, how many parents or people out there like need these studies and these books and all these things to determine these things for them. And so just using their own intuition, you know, just paying attention and consciously like putting effort. Like it, to me, that's just annoying to me because it's, it's like, there's always like some new method or some new book or like, just be there, be present, like pay attention. Well, that was, that was the, so the thing, the thing that I learned from all this or the, the attitude that I'm trying to have going into it is really instead of being upset or disciplined or structure around my kids, I'm really trying to take the responsibility as a dad, right? And be like, listen, I'm the adult in this situation. Of course they love it. If I was a kid, I would love the same thing too. I'd want to do it. Like it's shame on me for like being upset that they would want to do it. It's my responsibility to try and insert other things into their life. And like, you know, which is, it's just, hey, it's hard, it takes discipline we all, everyone listening probably or our dads at work and work a lot of hours and are busy. You can't become a better parent without becoming a better person. That's why it's over. Yeah. So it's not just about doing things.  Like that's hard on a consistent and it takes work. On a basis. Yeah, no. Constantly need to talk about it too. Just to figure it out. And look, Justin, to your point, I have compassion for parents because there's so much conflicting advice and information and literally we're told not to trust or intuition. We're told not to trust, you know, what we think we're observing. And so as a parent, you ever deal with like, talk like a new mom, especially new moms, right?  Trust your intuition, trust your feelings. And they're like, I don't know what to trust. I don't know how to, what I'm supposed to do, what I'm supposed to feel. And then after they, you know, they get through it, they go, oh yeah, I was definitely on point when I thought my baby needed more food or I thought my baby, you know, something was wrong or whatever. But you're constantly challenged and gaslit by people and doctors and other people's opinions. So it's like, I mean, I have compassion for parents. Yeah, and it too. And you see that all change when, when the second kid comes and, you know, and like they've been through that, the unknown, navigated through those waters. But I do feel like it's, to me, it's disheartening because I just feel like there's just a lot of people out there that don't really listen to their own their own intelligence, their own way of looking at it. And it's, we're just so bombarded with information and people trying to like have all these answers. Well, I mean, I don't think they really, I mean, think about it that much, right? Because it was so new, right? Like, I mean, you guys as old, you guys as kids are older. So when they first were born, it wasn't really, maybe you didn't think about it. You know what I'm saying? Maybe you didn't, you maybe, and maybe what you only saw were the benefits like, oh, wow, this is nice. I get a little, like my kids are actually entertained while I get to do this. Like, oh, it's not that much different from television. And so I'm sure in their mind, they probably were just not, not thinking about it. You know what I think that's exciting or optimistic is the generation now, you know, we tend to always harp on the young generation coming up right now and say, talk about all the negative things. But one of the things that I think that's, and it's been highlighted in studies and some of that is the level of self-awareness that the kids have, the younger, this generation coming up has. And some of them are already police themselves. I mean, no FAP as an example of that. You have these kids now that are buying flip phones instead of having it because they want it. So, so they're, they're, you know, unfortunately, you're, you're Sal's oldest and yours or we're at an age where it was kind of like in the beginning of it, where now there's enough awareness around it that even these young kids are smart enough to see. Less of them are getting on social media. Yeah. Yeah, it's now because I love to see it. It's like a flex now as like a popular kid in school now. It's like, yeah, I don't, I don't get on social media. So there's like, it's definitely changing. It went from like, that was so focused, like to be on social and to have an Instagram and to have all these things. It seems like there's kind of a shift happening right now where it's a bit of a flex if you don't, you know what I'm saying? You don't need it. You don't need it. I don't need to be on social. Speaking of families and stuff, Chelsea Handler, I think that's her last name, she put out one of the saddest videos I've ever seen. Who's that? So she's that comedian, Chelsea Handler. Am I saying anything? She had a show, yeah, Chelsea Handler. So she did this video. So she's his fifth. She's married to Joe Coy, I believe. Say what? Oh, really? The comedian? Oh, is she married to him? Okay. So she's this 50-year-old woman and she always talks about how great it is to not have kids. Fine. You don't want to have kids. That's your business. But she did this whole video about like, here's how my day looks. I wake up at 6.30 and I have an edible because I don't have kids and I get to do this. And to the whole day. She says it like that too?  And I don't have to listen to toddler screaming. And I went to Paris for lunch and I did this. And I'm watching and I'm like, this just comes across as defensiveness. You know that one person. Bro, the irony of that is that you literally just said she starts her day with getting high. Yeah. Like you were literally using substance to disconnect for a reason. Like that's not a big enough red flag.  That's what that is. You're closing yourself. It's such a- I mean, everybody, we're all guilty of that. It pissed off a lot of people. There's a lot of parents on there like, oh, God, you know, you're going to be so lonely this and that. I saw it more as like, I felt bad. Yeah. Like you felt the need to make this video to defend yourself. You know, like, you're very defensive about not having kids because she- she did a whole stand-up act and half the act was about that. Very sad video. If you watch it, watch it through that lens and you'll see what I'm talking about. Is it on Netflix? Where'd you see it on YouTube? No, it's just- It was on Twitter. She probably posted on Instagram too. Okay, I'll look it up. Yeah, super sad. You're talking about substance. Why don't you do our neg commercial right now? Oh, I was going to talk about the brain blend. We haven't brought that up in a long time. That's- Yeah, we haven't. That's my favorite, favorite- And we are- This is almost on my second bottle of it already. We've been pumping- Tell me that wasn't a home run. No, I do like it. I do like it a lot. Yeah, because you have the regular hemp oil blend, which obviously feels good, but that one, because of the focus on cannabinoids that improve cognitive performance and the addition of things like Lion's Mane, which by the way, Lion's Mane, I have a study we'll post it in the show notes. They have isolated the compound in Lion's Mane that now they show, okay, this is why it stimulates nerve and brain cell growth. But nonetheless, it's in the brain blend. So they put the Lion's Mane on their- You know, it has a very similar feel, and maybe you can help me understand why, as pure. Yeah. Yeah, it's got like a neutropic kind of feel to it. Yeah, not at all, stimulant like caffeine or anything like that, just clear, sharp, very similar as pure. Is it, is there anything they both share in there? No, nothing. No, no, they both have different ingredients, but- I don't think I've actually combined them yet. Oh well, there you go. I might as well try that. Now you're talking my language. So it does. Throw them all together. Try it pre-workout. Do it an hour and a half before your workout, then 45 minutes before do your normal caffeine, and then watch how you feel in your workout. For body, for like body parts, focused workouts, it's phenomenal.  I don't really work out anymore.  Huh? Just stop. I was getting too buff. I was like, there's a muscle thing over it. Making everybody insecure? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, you know, I'm tired of people feeling uncomfortable talking about nutrition around me. Speaking of, speaking of looking good, I noticed how nice and shiny your head looks and how nice and smooth. Are you putting the, are you putting the caldera on it? I do. It looks good. I do, I do. It makes your head look really nice. I do the, I always forget all the names. What's the- Everything. Well, no, I just do the, do what I have on here. The serum is second, right?  And I like the way that feels and looks right away. And then before we podcast, I normally shine it up a little bit with the, with the serum. I had something to ask. So it, didn't you bring up a study about it being able to reduce like skin wrinkles? Yeah. Yeah. Because I was just talking to Courtney about that because she was talking about her friends at Botox and all the stuff and like how they have these parties and whatever and all that stuff. Yeah. They do Botox parties where they like all hang out and then the Botox and wine. Those are super popular. You're not familiar with those? Dude, it's a total- A Botox party? Racket, dude. Yeah. Huge racket. It's like, it's like the, I was actually trying to like, hey man, we can hustle this because she was a nurse. I'm like, what's the angle here? Bro. You know, I would make money off this. Bro, that's a serious side hustle. Dude, especially since she's a nurse. Mind pump Botox party?  It's like, they're like those- Botox. They're also like MOM style. Like they do them like those candle parties and stuff like that. So nurses, who administers the Botox of the parties? They're like- Yeah.  A nurse. You just have to be underneath a doctor.  So you get underneath- Technician almost. Yes. You get so underneath a doctor, I don't know the exact specifics. Yeah, I know. But you get under one of them, right? And then now you can host these parties. Then I have these parties. I invite my 10 girlfriends over. We sit down. We gossip. We do our thing. Have our wine.  And every one of those things are costing money. You're making a little bit of cream on them. So what's the pro version of this? I was just gonna say- Where I'm getting- Here's- This is so interesting because I've heard of parties like this for women for- Candles. Candles, makeup, sex toys. Yeah. Like lots of different things. Yeah, yeah. Guys don't really do that. No. Do we? No, we just have poker now. Why don't we do that? I don't think we buy things- We don't plan things well. We don't buy things or we're sold differently. You know what I'm saying? I don't think it's the same. Really? Yeah. Maybe- Maybe some- Okay, let me put it this way.  Well, that's what I'm saying. Imagine you went to like- Imagine I invited you guys over. I'm like, oh, and by the way, guys, we're gonna do, I don't know, what was something that we're all into? I don't know. We're gonna do- We're gonna have a create team part. I don't know. Maybe that's why. Because guys don't have to party. Like, okay, I've seen candles.  I've seen the Botox. What is it that we would do in Com? There's not even a thing, right? Well, first of all, all of those wouldn't work.  Hey, guys, come over. I'm gonna show you guys some- Yeah. No. I'm gonna put one over. I mean, I could- I actually- I can actually see that more likely than almost anything else. I mean- What?   Of all the things that you could think of, that we would do, I mean, let's- Okay. You're the guy who orders one like every month. No, hold on a second. So- Stop trying to take the spotlight off yourself.  Listen, you've already sold yourself out.  You're already into all the cool toys anyways.   Yeah. That is lies. Justin might not show up, but you would be there. No, I wouldn't. You would be the first one there. Here's the deal.  Yeah, but you're right. Yeah, but you're right if you're- Yeah, but you're right if you're- No, hold on a second.  That's just a fact. Fact. 100%. True. Women, they definitely get- For now. For now. Oh, that's true.    Yeah. You know? No. Did you guys see the Jordan Peterson clip talking about AI and pornography? Yeah. It's going to be kind of crazy, right? Yeah.  I know. Remember, like I was telling you, like, because depression is so high that- It's all the other stuff. And anxiety is so high that what you're going to see, I guarantee we're going to see this, you're going to have, oh, here's a person, here's a group of people that suffer from anxiety and depression.  Yeah. Wasn't it the movie Her? That like- Yeah. It was- So it was- Yes. They're psychologists, basically. Like the therapist. Yeah. Constantly talking about- We're going to be in a program to make you feel good. Okay. Now here's- Now here- That'll be a debate and discussion, but here's where it's going to get really crazy. Because remember, it's not a real person. Where are the lines going to be? For marriage and stuff like that. No, just forget that. Rights. No, no. Forget that. What if there's a, here's your virtual sex partner and you can murder them. You can rape them. You can- They look like this. They look like that. Are there going to be any lines? Are people going to be like, wait a minute, you can't do that. That is a- Well, they- That is an underage- There won't be initially, but then there eventually will when we start to give it like real rights, like humans.  Well, that's going to be weird. You know that's going to happen. I know. Of course that's going to go that direction. There's already been dudes that try, of course it's the guys. There was a guy that- First the market. Well, you know what, you know what Peterson was talking about, which was such a good point is this like, because I know there's probably a lot of people, I mean, even when I told Katrina, like, oh really? I'm like, you know what, you're thinking like a woman right now. That's your problem. You have to think like a man. Okay. And a man- I bet that went over well. Yeah, it never goes over well when you start off like that. Are you mansplaining me right now? Yeah. So, no, like guys are superficial like that, where it's about the, and if it can fool you enough to look real enough, like that's all that matters. I mean, let's be honest, strip clubs are in business and no guy is under the impression that they're coming home with them, but yet we still go and spend all kinds of money and tell ourselves that, even though we know. Yeah. There's nobody- Nobody goes to strip clubs. Because I'm different. Yeah.  There's always that guy, right? You don't care. She actually liked me. Yeah. You don't care. I got her number. There's always, there's always, there's always, there is always that moron who actually thinks that maybe he has a shot or whatever, or that, oh, it's me. She really, okay. There is a percentage, but they would be out of business if they relied just on that percentage. They're in business because a majority of them still go, knowing damn well they're not coming home with anybody. Yeah, but women would just be fooled differently than men. You know, it would be more, I mean, if it's smart, it would be more compassionate. It would listen. And just be a constant compliment machine. That's what I said. Affirmations all day long. God, you look great. No, that's too fake. Did you do something? No, dude, I agree with him. All the things his husbands are terrible at like, he never tells me how good I look. He never tells me. Your skin is radiant today. Did you guys ever watch, there was a, was it the Chappelle show? It might have been the Chappelle show where you could rent a guy for your wife to do the stuff you don't want to do.  Does he cut like the spooning afterwards for you? Yeah, dude. That's so funny. Dude, that's messed up. Dude, speaking of stuff that's messed up, this was a relatively, it was like a few years old, but I found this article. Did you guys know that they potentially have the technology to erase your memories? Well, that's not scary. Yeah, did you guys, did you know that? You're talking like men in black kind of look into this pen. They don't need any technology for me. That just tends to happen naturally.  Just hit me in the head a few times. Just because they have the opposite sal because I give that to you. Yeah. No, they've done it with animals. Where an animal go through a maze and they can target the memory. So it's not like the animal forgets everything and becomes amnesiac. They can target the memory so that the animal then forgot the maze. And so the way that they're selling it is they're like, this could be an amazing technology because you could. Like for my trauma. Get rid of like what? Wow. Now I could see the market for that. Is that better or is it better to deal with it? Of course it's not better. That's the question. No, it's not. Because your body is still like, okay, so how much of that do they take into account in terms of like what they talk about stored memory within your body? Well, let's just theoretically say they could erase all of it. Are you then the same person? Would you be the same person you are without your? Of course not. No, it's. Of course not. Adversity.  Imagine that. What was that movie with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Do you ever watch that? Is that the one Jim Carrey? Yeah. I never have. You guys brought that up a long time ago and I actually never. It's so. I was waiting for Doug to do it. I'm going to ruin it for you because you probably won't watch it. I'll ruin it for you. Go ahead. He meets this girl and they just fall for each other. And it turns out, here's the spoiler. So if you don't want to spoiler fast forward, it turns out that they had fallen in love before and broken up and it was so devastating that both of them agreed to have their memories erased. But then they happened to run into each other again and fall in love all over again. And then they, and it's how crazy is that? You know what, there has to be, maybe Andrew could live this track. There has to be a spoiler alert. Like, you know how there's like the seven second rule of food falls on the ground? You can eat it after. If you can eat it. I thought it was five second. Is it five or are those seven? It's five. But anyways, you can eat it, right? If it's five seconds. It goes 10 or longer. You can't eat it. Whatever. Back to where you need to get yours. There's got to be a time frame for spoiler alert that it's spoiler alert because if it's a year old movie, it's no longer a spoiler for it.  But there's got to be, like for you, I shouldn't be sharing anything with you because that's just dropped, right? Really like a week ago, right? There's got to be like an unsaid rule that it's considered spoiler alert if it's within the first month. I don't think that should only be for those types of movies or shows where they're trying to reveal like a M. Night Shyamalan kind of a twist. Yeah, like a twist where it's like super unexpected. Otherwise, like tough. There's got to be like to market. There's got to be like an unsaid rule somewhere. Just like you're not really in a relationship until it's on Facebook, you know what I'm saying? Until it says like in a relationship, you're not in a relationship. Like there's got to be an unsaid rule. But Blair Witch Project though, like they should have gone as long as possible because like people really believed like that it was real. That it was real. And it made it like, and I, somebody ruined it for me right before I went into the theater and was like, oh yeah, this was all stage and all this kind of stuff. I'm like, really? And then I watched it and everybody else was tripping out.   I wanted to believe. That's sad, dude. That's so sad. So ready for some fun conspiracy theory stuff, Justin? Wow. I am always ready. Do you guys know what HARP is? So this is the weather altering technology? Yeah, look this up, Andrew. It's H-A-A-R-P. Is this where they do the jet streams that everyone used to say is like causing stuff? Is that the same thing? Isn't it like seeding? You know what I'm talking about? Clouds for... Wait, you don't know what I'm talking about? That's been a conspiracy forever where you see all the... Oh, the jet streams. Oh, and they make the white... Yes. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, okay, it's not that. So HARP stands for...  You know the molecules? It stands for High Frequency Active Ororal Research Program. So basically what it does is it blasts certain frequencies of... I'm not quite sure what, but it... Brown note. Brown note. What does that say, Andrew? Original purpose to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance. Okay, so technically... Just what I was gonna say. Technically, this... Technically, this technology could change... Could affect the weather. And here's the conspiracy theory. If you shoot it into the ground, it'll aggravate the ions enough to work to trigger massive earthquakes. Volcanoes and earthquakes, yes. Yes, really? And so this big conspiracy is that HARP is a weather control super weapon.   You never heard of that? No. Yeah, dude. Anything is fair game at this point. It looks like it's been around since 1993. It's been around for a long time. That's when it was... Well, I thought... Because I thought this was responsible. Maybe it's a different technology for cloud seeding. That's different. Is that the... What's the thing I'm talking about with the streams? What's that? That's called something. Oh, that's a... God, what's that conspiracy theory? It's... So that's like up in Alaska? No, no, no. You see when you see... Remember when a jet flies and it leaves like that? Oh, you're talking about... Chemtrails. Chemtrails. Chemtrails. Yes. That's totally... Yeah. So that's not... No. No. That's not real. That's unsubstantiated. It is? Yeah. Are you sure? HARP is real. I watched some pretty good YouTube videos. All right, there's... Yeah, that's the thing about YouTube videos. But yeah, it's... There's a lot of people who still think that because they think that it's some way of control of like... Again, if you want to go globally about all of the conspiracies and what they all have in common, it's anything and everything possible to make us weaker. Like psychologically, physically... Scared. Yeah, just scared and oppressed. And so like anything in that direction, like so that would like fall into chemically controlling the way that we have all these toxins and all these things we're fighting internally. Chemically castrate us, the whole deal. Yeah, so the reason why I'm reading about our HARP popped up is it was that huge earthquake, and I think it was Turkey. One of the worst you guys hear about this? Terrible, terrible earthquake. Six points something. Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy. Oh, wow. Yeah, maybe you could look it up, Andrew. It was terrible.  And then there's all the conspiracy theorists and like, well, Turkey just opposed another country's joining into NATO, and everybody, all the Western nations were pissed off about it. And then there was film, and so this is unsubstantiated. This is just, again, this is fun conspiracy theory corner. So this is not, you know, don't take this seriously. But there was film of apparently one of the signatures of HARP is strange electrical disturbances because of how it works. It creates this crazy looking lightning. And apparently there's film of that happening, like, a bunch of weird looking, not normal lightning, and then the earthquake hitting. Okay, so you know what you're just describing? Look, look, look. Did you see all the electrical disturbance? So that same exact electrical disturbance, and like, that was the same thing that happened when we had those rains, and when all of a sudden we had fire. Actually, it wasn't even rain, right? It was just an electrical storm that we got hit with, and all of a sudden now we got the craziest fires California ever had. What about when I was up that night, and you look over in the distance over this mountain, and you could literally see all these sporadic lightning storms, and I'm like, where did this come from? Like, where does this generate out in the ocean, and there's no rain, and there's barely any wind, it's just purely electrical. Yeah, so this is weird. Yeah, so this is, again, this is all unsubstantiated, but this video's apparently we're showing like this weird-looking lightning. Did you guys see the one word in Rio where Jesus got struck? Yeah. Oh yeah. Did you see that? The statue? Yeah, it was a wild, trippy picture. Yeah, it's a super trippy picture I saw. I was like, I didn't know if it was real. You know, I was at dinner with my aunt and uncle last night, we were actually talking about conspiracy theories and sharing stuff online, and it's like, we're quickly moving into a time where, I'm always hesitant to share or show somebody something because now my default is it's fake. It's rare now, and that's only gonna get worse is all these deep fakes. There's so much trust in media now, it's crazy. Yeah, so it's like, is that gonna be a thing in the future where it's like, if someone sent you something, like you automatically default, it's not real. You need to have X amount of things to cross-reference it. That's gonna increase? Increase tribalism, because if everybody- Because then you only trust people in your group. That's right. And then whatever they say is what you're gonna trust, unless it comes from that source, you don't trust it because anything could be deep fake, anything could be fake news. And so it's a weird time. It's a really, really strange, strange time. Today's shout out is gonna be to Ryan Micler. Oh yeah. We love the guy, he's got a great podcast. Good person to shout out right now because we've been talking a lot of fatherhood stuff, and I think that he has some really good conversations in particular for men and fathers. I really like Ryan's. I remember when we first met him and we all liked him. Yeah, he's a great guy. So his Instagram is at ryan and then Micler's M-I-C-H-L-E-R. Let's go check him out. All right, check this out. Go to mphormones.com and see if hormone optimization and peptide therapy is right for you. This stuff takes your fitness to the next level. We're talking about growth hormone releasing peptides, that improve cognitive performance. This is legit stuff, by the way. You're working with a doctor. We're also looking at hormone optimization. Testosterone. Do you have low testosterone? You can use testosterone to boost it up and build more muscle and burn more body fat. This is both for men and for women. Go check them out. Go to mphormones.com. See if it's right for you. All right, here comes the show. Our first caller is Jennifer from Ontario. Hey Jennifer, how can we help you? Hi guys, how are you? Good, good. Thank you so much for having me on the show and I'm really excited to just get on started with my question. So I am 19 years old and I resistance train five days a week and I'm trying to bulk. I weigh 120 pounds and I've been eating in a caloric surplus for months on end now. And my maintenance is 1800 and or like 2000 and I'm currently eating 2600. I barely gain any weight and all I've noticed is my body fat percentage is going up while my muscle mass percentage is also decreasing.  Now it's 24. Is this a problem with my nutrition or training? Also, I have scoliosis so I can't really do the main compound lifts like barbell back squat or dead lifts and stuff like that. Oh, okay. Now you're eating 2600 calories. You're hitting your protein targets I'm assuming. Yeah, I eat 130 grams of protein. Okay. And then in your question that you sent us it says you're working out five days a week? Yeah. Okay. It's probably a training problem. I'm glad you told us you have scoliosis because I would have recommended MAPS and Ebola but knowing that MAPS symmetry is perfect for you.  That's probably what's happening. You're not sending the right muscle building signal either you're over training or not being effective. And so those excess calories are just going to body fat.  I'd bring them down to maybe 2400 calories and then take it from there. See if your strength goes up and how your body progresses.  How do you know it went from 16 to 24? Well, I have like my own scale at home. I know they're not like super accurate. I've heard at least, but yeah, I do that. Okay. Are you consistent with the time that you use that at and that you're not fed first thing in the morning? Yeah, that's what I do when I wake up. Okay. Okay, good. Yeah.  So that's, you know, this is almost certainly a, what does your training look like? You say five days a week. Do you have a type of training like that you tend to train like?  Like I used to train a lot like I'd say to failure and then I was listening to you guys and you said it's honestly more beneficial to do like two reps in reserve and stuff. So now I do that. And I've noticed like I'm getting stronger in the gym, which as before, I was like plateaued for a long time.  But also I don't notice any weight on my body when I look at myself. It's just according to the scale. Wait a minute. Has your, has your body weight changed? No, not at all. Wait a minute. So, so your body weight stayed the same, but your body fat percentage went from 16 to 24. And you got stronger. Yeah. Yes. Oh yeah, that doesn't make any sense. That makes no sense whatsoever.  Yeah. Oh no, no. Yeah, those are, that's way, that's something's, something's off there. If you're stronger, your body weight is the same and you've been working out hitting protein targets in your, in your scale, saying you went up 8% body fat while your body weight stayed the same, which means you lost a ton of muscle at the same time. That does not make any sense. Have you been measuring your, your waist and like circumference measurements at all? I did, but I haven't like updated that. So, yeah. But according to her, she says she doesn't notice that she's gaining any inches. Yeah.  I wouldn't think that you've gained that much at all, especially if you, you notice strength, you don't feel like you've put on any body fat, your weight has stayed the same and we're getting stronger in the gym. I mean, these are all signs you're actually probably doing pretty well. So that combined with maybe, you know, Dude, she would have had to gained, she would have had to gain something like, like, yeah, like 14 pounds of body fat and lost 14 pounds of muscle. Yeah. That's not, that's not happening. There's no way, while you're lifting weights and getting stronger, there's no way your measurements are off. Yeah. And I mean, shifting your training is definitely going to make an impact. So, you know, what, what I guess we're trying to dig into is like what you tend to lean towards. So was that like a lot of reps you determined, whether you're getting stronger or have you gone to like really low reps and like just adding progressively, adding weight as like your main focus? For me, I'm usually in like the eight to 10 rep range. And then I also just like heard what you guys said. It's better to switch up your rep ranges every like three to four weeks. So now just recently, I've been doing like 12 to 15 to 20 reps right now. Okay. So you're going to, you're going to benefit a lot from symmetry. Yeah, symmetry. And yeah, get rid of that scale. If you're going to get your body fat percentage tested, I would use, I would have a trainer either test your body fat, do underwater weighing, or here's an easy way to do it. Every two weeks, take a picture of yourself at the same time, wearing the same clothes or whatever, just for yourself. And then you can adjust it from there and you can see what's going on. But this, it does not, and there's no way you gained, you know, what is it? 13 pounds of body fat, lost 13 pounds of muscle while getting stronger and working out. That doesn't make it. And the scale not going out. And the scale hasn't changed. It doesn't make any sense. It actually sounds like you're in a pretty dangling.  You're doing well.  I mean, how do you feel? I feel good. I just feel like I haven't gained any muscle, but it also just could be because I look at myself every day. Yeah. Also don't keep, also factor this in, right?  Okay.   Your body's going to hold a little bit more water. And so sometimes because, and you're in a bulk, right? So we're not trying to get lean right now. It may look as if you're not building a bunch of muscle and you don't really notice that until like, let's say we go into a cut. So I would actually stay the course. I think you're doing really good. Follow symmetry.  And then I would judge how much muscle I've put on or what I look like based off of that. Cause that alone is going to distort what you think right now. You increase your calories by 6, 700 calories. I mean, you're, you're definitely holding, holding more water and you've got more carbohydrates in your body. So it's going to look different. So Jennifer, give me an example of, of the strength gain that you've, you've experienced. Can you give me an exercise of like, like a specific exercise with the weight that you started and then what you're at now? So, um, so hip thrust. Maybe I do like before I've been stuck on maybe 245 or 255 around there. Now I can do 315 for seven reps.  You're throwing your scale out the window. You're, there's, it's totally wrong. That's, you know what happened? I'll tell you what happened.  If your weight is the same on the scale and your strength went up like that, you're, you've probably done the opposite of what you think. You probably gained muscle and lost body fat. And I think you, and the only reason why you don't really see a huge difference is to the point I was making, you're eating some calories.   This is really good. 2600 calories, body weight staying the same. You're getting stronger. Hip thrusting 315 pounds.  It could be just fine. I mean, it's far commendable.  So I, you know, okay. So look, check this out.  Just make sure you measure the same places. So I like to do upper thigh, waist, and hips. Those will be the three places that I would test. Strength is also an objective measure. And I say objective because we can be, we can really be misleading with ourselves when we look at the reflection of the mirror every single day. And it's subjective. It's not very objective. So weight on the bar or the dumbbells or reps or circumference measurements, so long as you're, you're doing them exactly the same. Those are objective and those will tell you you're doing the right thing. But if you're stronger and your weight is the same, you can pretty much get bad that you're, you're trending towards muscle building and fat loss. Also, um, do you think I've been in a surplus too long because I've been like really like, I guess you get stuffing my face for like a long time now, maybe like over six months. So I'm just like, you know. Does it feel like you're stuffing your face?  Yeah.  I think right now you have, you're having a hard time. What do you think when you're down like 2,100 calories? Yeah. Come down to like 2,200 calories for two weeks. And that's it. Follow, follow the programming and then, and then just see how you look, how you feel after that. And then I'd go back to my bulk again. Okay. Yep. All right. Yeah. Keep us posted too.   It's good for us. My old guys, sure there's some young people that are listening to us. My kids don't listen to me, but someone else, some other young kid will. All right, Jennifer, we're going to put you in the forum too, but we're going to send you a map symmetry. Follow that program. Okay. Yeah. Keep us posted. Thank you so much. You got it. Thanks for calling.  This is when, when I strain people in their late 20s, early 30s, it's usually around late teens where they go the wrong direction. Then they come see me. There's a lot of damage that we need to recover from, but she's, I mean, I mean, 2600 calories. Yeah, just living in a surplus. And she's comfortable eating that much. She's comfortable getting stronger. She's focusing on strength. Like what a phenomenal mindset to be in at that age. She's going to set herself up very, very well. It gives me hope when I hear that. Totally. You know what I'm saying? The generation coming up, doing things like that, like you just, that's not, you don't see that. You didn't see that that often 20 years ago when we were training people. So that's awesome to see. Our next caller is Tori from Colorado. Hi Tori, how can we help you? Hi, I'm good. How are you guys? Good, good. We're doing great. Good. I'm a new listener. I started listening this last summer, I guess, and just can't get enough. So thanks for all that you do. Thank you. So I finally bought a, the New Year's bundle package, or I finally bought a package, and it starts with the anabolic. And a little bit about me, I guess, I'm five nine. I'm a chronic over cardio person. I started working out 20 years ago with the body for life program. Did you guys ever remember that? Of course. We've heard a lot about them. So six days a week, I have literally worked out six days a week for the last 20 years. I fell in love with teaching spin, step aerobics, all that stuff, and always wanted to look like a bodybuilder. But now I'm realizing, well, obviously I was doing way too much cardio, like all the time. So anyway, I've cut that out. I'm not doing any cardio. And I started the anabolic.   And I'm a little perplexed on the anabolic. I feel like, I don't know, two things. It's only doing one leg exercise. I'm doing advanced. So three days a week. And the other one is like the shrugs. I haven't done shrugs like ever. And so I didn't know if I should be substituting that part out for like female figures or not. So I kind of have two parts of this question, I guess. All right. So let's address first MAPS anabolic. So MAPS anabolic is a general muscle building and strength building program. And the lower body exercises include the various variations of squats and deadlifts. Now you can definitely add hip thrust in there and you would be totally fine. Shrugs are in there because strengthening the shoulder girdle for people who are getting into that kind of training and strengthening is important. Nonetheless, if you want to take them out, you totally can. It's not going to hurt you. And I would say you could definitely add hip thrust to your program.  In fact, you remind me of a lot of the instructors that would work with me in my gyms.   You got to really go in a bulk to make that happen.  If you're sub 20% body fat, I would say go in a bulk and let your body fat come up a little bit as well, because that'll feed the muscle growth as well. Okay. Okay, yeah. So you do think, since my goal is to build the glute muscles that adding another leg or butt exercise would be good, and what would that look like? Would it be the four to six sets, one to four reps? So it would follow the same. It would follow similar sets and reps as the other exercises in the phase that you're in. On the days that you start your workouts with your deadlifts or squats, which actually would be every foundational day, I would start with hip thrust and then move to those exercises. I'm not going to completely disagree, but I like to challenge people to follow the program as laid out first. I think somebody that's coming from lots of cardio, borderline, maybe overtraining on a lot of things would benefit greatly from just falling anabolic and trusting the programming through the first round. And then at a point. And then the second time you go around, I'm not against maybe adding potential, but many times somebody that has overtrained for most of their life ends up seeing huge benefit by scaling back the total volume in the program. And it may be because butt is your focus.  Like that would be the way that if I was adding anything, I would be like, okay, Tori, before you do squats, we're going to do some floor bridges on the ground. And I have some YouTube videos that I've done clips of for building your butt. I don't know if you've looked at them or not, but on YouTube, we've done some stuff like that. And I would put some emphasis on that, like just making sure that you're connecting well the glutes, it's firing well, but actually really following the program, the way it's laid out and trying to get strong as hell. Like that's the goal. Let's get strong in all these lifts and do the calorie surplus, like Sal is saying, and kind of trust the process. I believe you will be surprised by just trusting it. Oh yeah. Drop the traps. The traps are like not a big deal if you drop some of the shrugs. Yeah, I just want to kind of piggyback on to what Adam's talking about in terms of like my experience of people who have been sort of doing the same type of routine for so long and not really incorporating these compound lifts. Because of the systemic effect that this provides your body for like a louder, a lot louder signal to build muscle, you may end up actually building a lot more muscles result in your legs. And it may not look like the volume of legs is that high, which we get a lot of criticism from that initially from people that haven't gone through the program exclusively as it's laid out. You'd be very surprised. And this has been the experience of a lot of women especially going through. Yeah, if your squats are going up and your deadlifts are going up, your butt is definitely most likely going to build along with that. Both the exercises are very glute, heavy. So I mean, Adam and Justin are saying is on point.  Do you know where your macros are in calories? I would say around 22 to 23. Okay, and it sounds like you're guessing. Do you track or is this kind of like what you're estimating? Well, I try to track most days.  And so then I just, you know, but I have been trying to increase like in breakfast. You guys said like try to get 40, 50. So I'm guessing I do pretty good with protein. Eating is not something that I really lack in. Again, so much cardio. I've had the habit of bad eating for years and then just making up for it with cardio kind of thing. Do you know what your body fat percentage is at, Tori, real quick? I'm going to say around 22. It's been a while since I've had it measured. Yeah, try and be in a surplus while you're doing this and get stronger. If you get stronger and you're in a surplus, you're going to build your butt for sure. Really make sure to we're hitting the protein consistently every day. Every day, you know, I don't know if you've got your weight list or you're weight listed in this question or not, but every day trying to hit the one to one ratio to where your current scale is at right now. Okay. Because even when you have those days, when you eat out, just at least make that a priority. Maybe you don't know exactly the calories because you went to a restaurant or whatever, but at least be paying attention to how much protein did I get and be very consistent with hitting it every day, day in and day out. So that's probably the main thing that I would stress with the nutrition. And then just trust the program. I think if you follow it all the way through, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the end of it. Okay. So, and then I just have a question because I did watch those YouTube videos where you say like fire the muscle with those thrusters, the frog thrusters and the single leg. So like, do I just do that one time before I know I'm going to do squats and then I do all my squats or every single set? No, just one, just one time before, unless you're still like, so let's say you were a client of mine, I get you down, we do some of those frog pumpers or we do some floor bridges and then I take you into squats. And then what I'd be asking you as your co-tractors, did you feel that in your, do you feel it in your glutes when you're doing it? And you're like, yeah, yeah, oh, I do. Okay, good. We're just going to keep going. But if you did a set of your squats and you go, and I still don't feel it in my butt at all, then I'd probably have you get down between sets and do a few of them to feel it again and then go back. So really trying to get you to feel it in the butt. But that's really what the idea of the priming the glutes before you go into those exercises is really just to make sure you feel it. So as long as you're feeling it, and if you can feel it just from doing one or two of those sets before, that's plenty, that's all you need. Then focus on being strong and adding weight. Okay, well, and I'm one that suffers, I've thrown out my back, my lower back, probably a good five times from running, childbirth, whatever. So when I actually, when I do squats, sometimes it does kind of hurt. And so I've been hesitant to load a lot of weight now and in the past and so forth. So for somebody who suffers with lower back, should I just kind of don't fight the pain, but still focus on doing lower body or squats, just lower the weight or still push that weight? Well, anytime we say push the weight, it's always within the context of perfect form and pain-free. So if your back is hurting, I wouldn't add any weight. I would add tension. I would slow down and squeeze more and make the exercise feel harder, but I wouldn't add weight. You know what, Tori, do you have maps? Do you have maps prime? Or symmetry. It might be in that bundle I just bought. I don't know. Okay, if you have prime, start priming your body according to the compass. That should help with your lower back. I want to do more too. I actually want to put you in our forum.  That way I can look at what's happening and maybe be able to point something out to you of why you're feeling it in your low back and we can address that. And then we'll be more specific with, you know, is it maps prime that will help you more? Is map symmetry going to help you? Is it a small cue? You need to do corrective exercises for a while. That's right. Or is there a cue that I can give you that will fix the form and technique? So get in that forum as soon as you can for me.  Another alternative when I have somebody, if we do end up having to do some corrective work, like Justin's saying, you know, sometimes I might sub out barbell back squats for like Bulgarian splits. Yeah, goblets or Bulgarian split squat stands. And that way we can load it and you feel safe and it doesn't hurt your low back. So there's options. There is definitely options because I really want, like for you to get the benefits of this and we want to grow our ass, like that's the plan here and you're coming from the type of training you do for, getting load is something I really want to do. That's my goal. And if you're hurting, then I want to figure out why you're hurting and address that so that we can load the weight up because that's where you're going to really see the gains in the butt when you start to really load the exercises. So I'm going to guess it's a core issue because you did mention childbirth or having children. I'm going to guess it has to do with your core, but we'll know better once we see you squat. Okay. Yeah, I don't have a lot of ankle mobility and I'm kind of wobbly going up. And so, yeah, I probably, even though I think I'm spot on with form, it's maybe, yeah, maybe that's key. Yeah, let us see. And we might move you over to symmetry first before we do that. That's what it's starting to sound like to me. So let us see before we start throwing too many guesses at you and making this question worse for you.  Now I feel like I know less than what I did when I go before. Now we'll let you in the forum so we can take a look, Tori. Okay. And also, my trigger sessions, should I focus more on lower body when I do those? Or no, just like two? Sure, sure, sure. That's fine. Yeah, yeah. This would be a great place.  Yep, just get a little pump. Two bucks. Okay. Very cool. One last question, creatine. So is this, I've been on and off with that through the years and then I feel like I'm good at taking it on my workout days, but not good on my off days. Is it extremely important to take it every day and or maybe if I'm in a deficit, do I focus on taking it then? I don't know. Creatine, you take all the time. It's always got benefit, so it's got cognitive benefit, health benefit, muscle building benefit, indirect fat loss benefits. You want to take it on an everyday basis. Okay, so. It doesn't hurt though, if you miss. No, it's not going to hurt once you get it. You know, the creatine levels up in the system, but just try to take it every single day. Try to find a time during the day that you can take it consistently. I mean, the best time to take it is post-workout, but if you take it first thing in the morning every day, you're totally fine. Okay, because the packaging says take it 30 minutes before your workout. No, don't worry about that. No, you know, and honestly with creatine, back to Sal's consistency point, the best time to take it is when you will consistently take it. So that doesn't matter when it is, because it's all about getting the levels up in your system. It's not like the research supports, it's best taken after a workout, but we're talking about splitting hair difference.  I would rather that every single night, every single morning, you get more benefits from that than you would be making sure you do it every workout but then you miss on your off day. So whenever you know you would be consistent about taking it, take it during that time and you'll see the most benefits. Okay, so like, that creatine is something that you guys take every single day, regardless what's going on your big advocate for that then, or do I really even need it?  So it's not like- But it's the most valuable performance supplement on the market. That's it. I mean, aside from like essential nutrients, like if you're lacking in essential nutrient, aside from that, creatine has so many benefits. It's not just a muscle building supplement or strength supplement. It's now a well-documented health and wellness supplement. You're going to start seeing it advertised to everybody for all kinds of different reasons. So it's good for you. The only people that need to be careful with creatine supplementation are people with compromised kidney health.  Even- I even- And I'm not going to say this to everybody else, but I even think it's at some point going to be giving to children. Interesting. Yeah. Okay, I'm at my 15-minute mark. Do you have time for one more question? Sure. It's here, Tori. Get your money's worth, girl. I'm freaking out. Get your money's worth, girl. Three Pete in here, huh? Okay. So it's in regards to eating before I work out. So again, for 20 years, I got up, had a cup of black coffee, and I do cardio, and then, you know, work out. And so I am never hungry in the morning. That's when I go work out is at 5 a.m. Should I really try to get something in my stomach? No, doesn't matter. Mm-hmm. No, you're fine. Because I don't feel a difference when I eat versus if I don't eat. Yeah, you're fine. How much cardio are you doing right now? Well, right now, zero. Oh, okay, okay, good. Okay, that's great. You work out at 5 a.m., yeah, I don't eat until 9 a.m., and I work out around 6.37 a.m. Yeah, you're good. You're fine. Okay, awesome. I love that answer. Okay. All right. Thanks, Tori. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Yeah, I like what you said, Adam. That's, you know, I didn't even think of that. That's 100% true. Coming for where she's coming from, like just getting stronger, she's going to gain muscle. And adding volume, she's probably already pushing the intensity anyway, knowing her, you know, her tendencies. So, yeah, I'm glad you went that direction.  So I hope she gets in the form. I hope she posts and tags so we can look and solve that issue. Because the one thing that will hinder her from building and growing her butt is if she can't really load. And it doesn't mean we can't slow it down and do isometrics and do some other things. But, man, this type of person who is, you know, circuit, cardio, go-go-go type, man, being able to do anabolic and get strong in your squats, get strong in your deadlifts, which means loading the bar and getting it, like that is going to translate to the most gains in her glutes. So hopefully we can address whatever breakdown in the form or issues that she's having so she can actually feel safe and comfortable loading the bar. Our next caller is Molly from Virginia. Hey, Molly, how can we help you? Guys, so happy to be on right now. Thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, you got it. Of course. All right, so I guess I'll get into my question. So my question is regarding its very bodybuilding-esque. So I'm a personal trainer, love fitness. That's all great. But my wedding is coming up and I don't know much about manipulating all the little tiny variables. So sodium intake or water intake and how that can make you look a little bit fluffier or watery and how to properly do sessions leading up into it so that way you don't have any excess inflammation and look kind of puffy.  So I'm going to ask you guys kind of how I can go about doing that. I love the honesty. How long do we have? What's our time frame here? So from now we have about four months almost to the day actually, four months in a day. Oh, wow, we can do a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, okay, so are you at the body fat percentage and weight and all that stuff that you want to be at? You're just asking for that last week. Not right now. Okay. Yeah, not right now. So I still have about, my guess is about 12 to 13 more pounds to go. Until I'm at probably the ideal body fat percentage. I'd like to be high teens, low 20s, ideally, and right now I'm 25%. Okay. Now, Molly, before I let Adam, because Adam, he's going to be the best person to answer this because he competed in bodybuilding and he knows how to peek and all that stuff. Before I let him answer, the vast majority of how good someone looks is accomplished way before you do any type of carb or sodium manipulation. In fact, that makes almost no difference unless you start to get really lean. So the biggest thing is going to be up until then, right? Like getting leaner, doing it the right way, building muscle, sculpting your body. And then the biggest thing is avoiding foods that you know cause bloat and inflammation. And you probably know what those foods are for you. Those two things right there will get you 98% of the way there. The other 2% or 1% is going to be what Adam's going to talk about which has to do with like water, sodium and all that stuff. Yeah. I'm going to give you a just very specific generic answer that I think will add value. But the main thing is this is what I want you to do. One, I want Doug to put you in the forum if you're not already in there. So you have access to that. Two, I want you to diet, train as if we're not even thinking about peak week but getting lean for your wedding day. And then literally the week before you head into your peak week or wedding week, you let me know where your macros are at right before that and then we can manipulate them before that final week. The one thing that I would say to do from now till then, so we have a lot of room to manipulate, is keep your sodium up. If you don't use LMNT, I would just, I would recommend using one to two packets of that for consistently all the way through. That way we keep your sodium high and that when we do potentially manipulate that, we're not doing it in an unhealthy way. I'm not asking you to go no sodium and I'm not a fan of that at all. It's essential and it's important. And you don't need to cut sodium as hard as everybody thinks. If you train your body to take in high sodium leading into peak week, you can reduce to a normal healthy level and you will get some of the water pooling effect that people want.  But like Sal said, right now till then is everything. If you slack off for the next month because you have so much time, that will make a greater difference than the best peak week advice I could give you when we get down to there. So right now is the real challenge. And Molly, I want to also, have you ever been to a bodybuilding or figure show? Have you ever been to any of those shows? I've never been to a show in person. I can live vicariously slightly through social media but that's about it. Okay, here's why I'm asking you this, okay? Saying it because the women look terrible. They look horrible. So here's the deal. When you're on stage and they're judging your physique, they're not looking at your face. They're looking at your muscles and the definition, whatever. If you look at those competitors in the face, they look like they're dying, especially the women. They don't look healthy. So you want to look good in your wedding pictures.  So it's not, I wouldn't approach it with, I would go with like 30% of the aggressiveness that a bodybuilder would. I wouldn't even go close to what they do because it's not going to look good. You might have a little bit more definition in your biceps and your quads but you're not going to look healthy. And what you really want to look on your wedding day, I'm assuming is you want to look healthy and vibrant. So the whole like water manipulation, sodium and car manipulation, you might drop a few pounds of water but that may make you look more tired and less healthy, not necessarily better, right? So that was the other thing I didn't tell you. I'm sorry, I should have told you that too, is keep the sodium high, keep the water high too. So make sure you're drinking a lot of water right now. Like a gallon a day, yeah. Yes, gallon a day, keep the sodium up all the way through this entire time and then when we get to the week before, you can literally hit me up and let me know where, and if you told me where your macros are at, where your water intake is at and you've been consistently doing like the elementy, like I'm saying, I literally just tell you, cut out the two packets of elementy, I would tell you to reduce the water intake, I would tell you to take your carbohydrates down by about 50% for the four or five days leading up to the wedding day and then the morning of, I would carb load you. That's kind of what, that's a generic idea of what it would look like. Yeah. Should I play around at all within these next four months to see how my body aesthetically responds to like, okay, if I have carbs on this day, what does my body look like the day after? Or if I go low carb, does my body look better? Or is it pretty safe to say that I should just drop carbs no matter what, four to five days before, and then load right beforehand? Here's why you should test it out, not because of how you look, but rather because of how you feel. Some people drop carbs, carb load, and they get gastro issues. I'm sure you don't want to be bloated or have diarrhea or whatever on the day of your wedding, right? So that's why- Not necessarily. Yeah, that's why I would test that out is to see how you feel. And look, I'm going to be very clear here, bodybuilders look terrible. If you see them in person, they look terrible. We look at the pictures of their muscles, but I don't think- Are you getting married in a speedo? You know what I mean? Are you going to be flexing? You're going to be up there in a wedding dress. You want to look healthy. You want to have good energy. Bodybuilders are like the walking dead. So are figure competitors and fitness competitors and bikini competitors. They have no energy. You're going to be interacting with people. You'll be up there with your husband. Like honestly, I would worry zero about peak week. I would worry 100% about just getting leaner up until then. Yeah. That would do everything. Yeah.  Than the best peak week setup I can do for you in that week. That doesn't mean that I don't appreciate that. I mean, being completely transparent, like I utilize these techniques to go to Vegas. You know, like once I learned how to manipulate this stuff and I knew I was going to be poolside in, you know, two or three weeks. Like I knew how to make my body look better when I hit the pool at 9am. Yeah, but it wasn't like you're like competing where you have to pull.  No. Right. No. And if I wanted to look my best, it would be the work that I did leading up to that. So that's really where this is going to be done. But that doesn't mean that you can't manipulate and play some of this. And we would play with the carbohydrates. We would play with the water intake. We would play with sodium. But you would not need to do it. And you don't. A lot of bodybuilders don't do this correctly. This is an area of, you know, Lane Norton had dispelled this a long time ago when I first started getting a bodybuilder. In fact, that's how I found Lane was talking about water and sodium manipulation and how body, a lot of bodybuilders do this wrong. A lot of them just they overpull and they put too much stress and emphasis on that. And a lot of times their body responds negatively to it because, which of course, because your body needs sodium, it needs water. These are important things.   Yeah. They look better in the week before with their, with their, because your muscles are set, you know, made up of mostly fluid. So you could manipulate everything, draw water out of your body and look more flat and flabby. So you want to pass out up there. Yeah. And or dizzy. Which is why I want you just to stay the course and do what you, and do the things I told you. And then the week before, where you're at would dictate what I told you to do. And I wouldn't do something drastic. It would literally, like I said, just drop the LMT packets. It would be reducing the carbohydrates by a certain percentage for a few days leading up. And then the morning of, I would refill your body up with some carbohydrates. So it fills those muscle bellies up. That's basically what I would do. I wouldn't want to put too much emphasis and stress on the sodium and water because we could end up, it could end up backfiring us. Yeah. No, that all sounds good. I guess another way I could have phrased is like, what should I not do right before the wedding to come in looking soft? So that makes a lot of sense. And I do plan, I mean, I've run pretty hardcore cuts before and sometimes I end up looking a little bit skinny fat-ish because I do lose some of that muscle fullness. So I started taking creatine. I will add in the sodium. But I guess the goal is to kind of still look lean and toned, if you will, in the dressing and not have that kind of skinny fat look that sometimes I would get when I get, when I lose some weight because I am not going to get shredded. I already know that and I don't want to. Molly, don't do anything radical too. Like the week before, the days before because it could affect you negatively. So I would say, get yourself fit, healthy, stay the course. And then the week of, I would just avoid foods that are inflammatory. I would eat things that make you feel good, give you good digestion. That's what's going to make you look the best. It really is because you could, and a lot of competitors do this, they eat in ways to look the most shredded, but those ways make them look the least healthy as well. They end up with really bad skin. If you've ever seen like bikini competitors, look at their skin, they break out hormone imbalances and yeah, okay, they're shredded, but they don't look healthy. They don't look good.  So really that's, I would be the thing I would focus on, like stay hydrated, eat foods that you know affect you well, that you digest well, don't add anything radical, don't do something crazy that you think might help because it may affect, it may backfire. Molly, what program, are you following one of our mass programs yet? Not currently, I am doing like a very modified maps, anabolic program. And I've kind of spread it out over four days, took off some volume. So it almost, it has the same idea and it's phased very similarly, but I'm right towards the end of that. And I'm still kind of in a gray area of what I wanted to do afterwards. I've ran maps strong and that's, that was a lot of fun, but my only complaint is my traps were like up towards my ears. Yeah, yeah. Strong to do that. Which is probably great for all the guys listening or even girls who want large traps, but for me, it was like a little bit too much. So I don't, I would probably want to run something. I still like full body, but I haven't made a final decision on what I wanted to do afterwards. Or aesthetic. You want to try, well, which one do you want? Maps aesthetic or map symmetrics? I think both programs will be good for you. So this might help you guys answer this because I'm not really sure. I've looked in a maps aesthetic, but I have a pretty busy schedule and four days a week is a good consistent level for me, but I kind of have other life stressors. So I do try to keep the workouts relatively lower intensity, not in the workouts, but just as an overall feel is I'm not hitting volume really, really hard just because I, I can over train relatively easily with other stressors. So that's what kept me away from maps aesthetic because I have heard people say like it's a lot of volume and I don't want to really over train. I like symmetry then we're going to send you symmetry. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much guys. I appreciate that. I've been really curious about that one too. As a personal trainer, I wanted to get it to use on my clients. So I'll be happy to have it for myself and for them. Thank you and congratulations on your upcoming wedding. Yep. Thank you so much guys. I really appreciate it. Have a good rest of your day. You're welcome. You're welcome.  So I had a jujitsu tournament. My first tournament coming up what that I had it coming up and I thought, Oh, I've never carb loaded. I've never depleted and loaded because athletes will do this too. Right? Endurance athletes. So I did and it was a radical change. I chose foods that I normally don't eat and I ended up giving myself gastro issues the day of the tournament which obviously, obviously backfire, right? No pun intended. So, but I mean, look, it's, it's funny to, it's funny when someone says, how can I use the techniques bodybuilders use to look better on my wedding day or on this photo shoot, whatever, unless it's like a physique photo shoot, like you're not going to look better. You'll look worse. They all look terrible. I remember the first time I went to a bodybuilding show and it was my buddies and I went backstage and you look at them in the face and they just look like they're all dead. So it's not a healthy look. Everybody's laying down and just hungry. I mean, I get it because I could take right now, like let's say, let's just say I rip my shirt off right now, I took a photo of myself with the way I've been eating for the last week and I could manipulate what's going on in my diet over the next four or five days to make that picture look different, to make it look better, just by playing with carbohydrates. Yeah, but think about how much you know about your body. I mean, she's also a trainer, right? She's, and it sounds like she's already built. How long did it take you though to figure this out for yourself? Like you know to the gram. Oh yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I know. It's so different, right? And all the real work is done before. She didn't strike me as the average person who asked this question. She sounded like an experienced lifter. She's a trainer herself. She understands she's not trying to get crazy peak week, but hey, I know that there are some things that I can do with water and salt and carbohydrates to manipulate what does that look like and really what that looks like is consistency heading in. Like and not, I don't mean that just because the training and dieting will make the biggest difference, but also knowing, right? Like so that's why I just gave her generic advice of add two packets of LMNT, keep your water and take up there. That's very basic. Keep your carb high, carb up there, carbs up there. And then when we go to that week, we don't dramatically shift all those things. Dropping the LMNT packets, that's not going to be a big deal because she's going to get natural sodium in her diet, so she'll be okay there. Taking her water from a gallon to a half or a quarter, is that still a lot more water than the average person takes? She'll be totally fine.  Yeah, yeah. But I would never go like to a person who's like not dialed in, not do it, and then be like, hey, let's- Because you know what's going to happen, right?  Yeah, it's not the biggest. It's like, no, no, no. Going down 5% body fat is way, way more impactful than doing any of that stuff right there. And it doesn't make a difference unless you're lean anyway.  It doesn't make that huge of a difference. No. Our next caller is Jordan from Canada. Yeah. Jordan, what's happening? How can we help you? Hi, guys. How's it going? Good. How are you doing? I'm good. Thanks. I'm going to go ahead with my question here. I've been training pretty constantly for over a year now. I've gained a lot of muscle weight and gained a lot of extra, like weight in my lifts and everything, except bench press. And that's what's frustrating me the most right now. I've tried a lot of different things, different grips, different kind of workouts to adjust to it. And what I've noticed during my bench press is that my triceps usually seem to get fatigued pretty fast before I even feel my chest. And the other thing that I've noticed too is that I feel like my shoulders take a lot of the weight off my bench so I don't feel it as much. I seem to have stronger shoulders so I don't feel like my chest really has the chance to reach its full potential if it keeps going like this. Okay. I already see it. Do you see it? Do you see his examples? You wrote down some examples. You actually inclined dumbbell press more than you flat dumbbell press. Is that right? Yeah, exactly. Okay, bro. Have you ever heard us talk about why we use beginner? A lot of times we will teach the inclined press for beginners more than flat bench press. Have you ever heard us talk about that? Yeah, I've heard you talk about it. So the reason why we do that is because in the inclined bench, it naturally sets the shoulder girdle in a more optimal position to maximize using your chest. And so that's what I'm going to speculate why you're stronger actually is because your technique is better on the inclined than it is probably on the flat.  And this is a technique thing. Your setup is going to play a big factor into this.  Um, I would go with chest. All right, well, you got to press like a bodybuilder then. So that's why I ask that question. So you definitely want your shoulders retracted, pinned down. But you want your elbows flared out a little bit. And I want you to focus on the action of the chest as you press. Don't worry about the weight. If you want to build your chest, don't worry about the weight. Worry about the action of the chest through the movement. And what the chest does is it brings the humorous into the center line of the body. So the elbows are going to be a little bit more flared out than what a powerlifter would do when they press. Okay. Priming is going to be huge here. Yeah, and deep dips too, to address your, your fatiguing triceps in terms of getting those stronger is going to play a big factor in that and also allowing you to, to set that shoulder girl in a good position. I'm searching right now to see, I know I've done some videos on our Mind Pump TV channel. Do you, do you follow the, the YouTube Mind Pump TV? Do you follow that, that channel? No, I've seen a couple clips on it that I don't follow. Okay. Well, do, do yourself a favor and go on to the Mind Pump TV channel, search chest tips or five ways. Here's one right here, five ways to grow your chest. And we break this down pretty well. So it has an old video, all three of us. There's quite a few videos where we talk about getting yourself in that, in that position to really use the chest. And I think that maps prime would be a great program to send your way and making sure you're doing a good job of priming before you get into your bench press or dumbbell press so that we're, we're activating and using the chest more. That would be, are you following any maps programs right now? Well, I have maps that strength. Used it for like maybe two months. And then after that, I just I fell off there. Couldn't keep going. I need to be a bit more disciplined with the programming.  I would love to see you do. I actually would love to see you do maps power lift and give him maps prime and prime before you do the lifts. I know it includes that in the program too. And follow like power lift. What do you guys think? I mean, that'll get his bench up, but he's having trouble feeling his chest. So, but it'll definitely get your bench press up. Yeah. Well, I know Justin mentioned the dips earlier. And that's another thing that I found strange. Like I'm really good at doing dips. Maybe it's because my body weight's not very high, but when I feel it in my chest in that case, and like my chest will, my triceps won't give out before my chest when it comes to dips.  No. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's the move. Do you do sets of six to eight? Real deep. Even less four, you know. Get heavy and load that. That'll be, that'll, especially if he never does that. Yeah. Yeah. Load the, load the dips up. That'll really help your lock out too. So I just like get one of those change belts or something? Yeah, yeah. That'll be a worthwhile investment for you. I think that's great advice. And then I think taking the, the movements in prime for your chest, I think is going to benefit you the most. So priming before you go into any bench, dumbbell, any chest exercise ahead of time is, is going to, is going to benefit you. Even if you're not following one of our math programs, of course I'd rather see you follow a math program be consistent, but you being consistent going to the gym is even more important than that. Yeah. Yeah. I seem to stick to the exercises that like I enjoy doing that way. I keep going back. I have trouble sticking to a program. That's for sure. Yeah. That's, that's common issue. Yep. All right, man. Well, thanks for calling in. Yeah. Thanks a lot, guys. Take care. All right, Jordan. You got it, Adam. Boy, it was a, back in the day, it was, bench press was the exercise, wasn't it? That's everybody wanted a bigger bench, you know. Yeah.  There's definitely a lot of crossover, but you can get a bigger bench press and not necessarily really activate the chest more. It's because your technique is different. Your leverage is better. Bodybuilders do really good chest, you know, bench presses, right, to try to activate the chest.  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's, I think it's a whole setup issue. Yeah. He's like, yeah, if I could see his technique and how he's applying it to the bench, I think that'd make a big difference. Yeah. Which is why, and I know PowerLift is a PowerLifting program to increase your bench press, but, But the technical aspect. Yeah. There's a master class in there that shows you how to set up for the, I mean, I just think he would benefit from all those things.  If he's not doing those steps and he just gets another and he does it, and then the shoulders take over the movement, this is why. Yeah, the key points that he kind of brought up is that, you know, his shoulders were taking a lot of the brunt of the lift. And so, you know, to be able to kind of divert that a lot and open up and get your chest to kind of respond more so than your shoulders was is a crucial step. Yeah. Look, if you like Mind Pump, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram, at Mind Pump Justin. Adam is on Instagram, Mind Pump Adam. You can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. Today, we're going to teach you everything you need to know to build a strong, well-developed chest. When I think of weak points and areas that I struggled with developing for a really long time, my chest was up there with the work. Yeah, it was for me. It was for me for sure. I got more caught up in the weight I could lift versus how I was developing my body. I think it's one of the most challenging muscles to develop for most people because the form and technique.