Good morning folks. Today we are joined by Alexander Bokovi. He's a senior principal software engineer at Red Hat working on things security related and identity management. Today he'll be talking about how the next release of Fedora 39 is planning on providing basic functionality of passwordless authentication. Over to you Alexander. Yes, thank you. So we don't have actually anyone in the room yet because the keynote is still happening so it it will be a bit awkward so I'm as if well actually there are people coming. Great. I was about to start saying that I'm doing a remote presentation. Yeah, but the first two came in just at the beginning of the talk. So this talk is a variation on few talks that I gave earlier this year and I gave a talk at FOSTA in February and then in May at the Samba XP conference and this is the third one and it's like it's a progress talk because the work has been done in the upstreams and in distributions to implement all of what I believe we'll be talking about and that one is kind of the things are changing the target is also changing over time. So let me start with a bit of description who am I. So I'm working at Red Hat on all things related to identity management. Basically anything around free APS, SSD, Samba and Kerberos that's me or my team. I met Red Hat for 12 years now so there's a lot of history in the work that I will be describing today and in fact we kind of going back we follow this actually 30 almost 35 years into 80s and I will be talking about that one at the progress we have today in free APS and related components and the future so what will happen in Fedora 39 and later because it's still not everything is ready there. So past if we look into the past and past is literally like last 30 years for sure. The assumptions that we had on the operating system level were that you really have more or less compatible authentication mechanisms everywhere. So when you try to log into the system you expect that the system actually configured the same way you expect in it to be used so if it's not a system that uses the centralized identity management then you have to make sure that it has all the same user databases all the same passwords and or other other parts and you really want to be able to transfer this state of authentication from one system to another. So people went long way trying to solve this problem and for absolute majority of them only two of those survived it's typically use of the some sort of authentication agents that store you previously authenticated kind of credentials and consult over the network this is typical case for SSH for example when you do login over SSH you kind of have a chance to use authentication agent on your original system and get access to it piped through. There was recently a CVE actually in SSH on an open SSH that exploited this nature of the authentication agent by triggering a lot of literally anything into the authentication engine on your system like on your laptop while you're trying to log in into the remote server. So these things security-wise they have ups and downs even though certain implementations exist like for decades and a typical approach is literally you log in on your let's say desktop or laptop you unlock your secrets manager be it's authentication agent for SSH or it's your desktop like non desktop and then you use these secrets to use the authentication agent and then consume resources based on the secrets right. There's bunch of application specific issues literally you can choose any area you will find problems related to that but the most important problem is when you get you get to go and access resources that out of the scope of the protocol so you want SSH agent to be used or SSH keys to be used but you need to access file system go find a file system implementation like NFS or SMB or any other that actually uses SSH as your authentication method now. So you have to use something else there and typically it's a the password or use of things like Kerberos because Kerberos is another way of transferring your authentication state using the mechanism of issue insert service tickets and then presenting this service tickets between the applications that operate on the client side on the server side and so on. So it's important that in the Kerberos case a long time ago I think more than 30 years ago the decision was made to actually split a state we have the initial authentication from the actual use of the authenticated kind of concept so initial authentication can happen using whatever method you and your key distribution center agree with and over years these methods were developed in like maybe 20 years ago so the use of smart cards became more or less standard way of password list so to say authentication in Kerberos and that's the one used for example by the majority of governmental customers that simply means that you use as a smart card device and you use PKACS 11 smart cards to prove your identity. KDC to issue a ticket granting ticket that contains some information about you that you can use later to ask for service tickets to a particular services and that one is actually a fairly good mechanism because once you get the ticket you present it every time you need to talk to a new service and until this ticket is well it you don't need to reacquire your initial kind of credential use your initial credentials that builds up the idea of single sign-on because you really signed once whether this signed once happens at the login screen on the desktop or it happens well through some other mechanism it's secondary it's the part of the user experience that you build up there but this whole thing works like fairly fairly well and the interesting part is that in free APA and in Fedora specifically we do have this for like almost 10 years if we look at the complex things that you can do with this is what free APA is doing when you enable trust to active directory this is the typical authentication flow that you would see there this is from actually a rel documentation and it just shows that when you're trying to log in over SSH you get asked at the password that password well if there is a password need to use there it goes into the palm and through the palm stack SSSD kind of captures this and acquires a Kerberos ticket for you and on the login to the shell you will get that Kerberos ticket which you can use later but what's happening behind is is a whole machinery of different components being involved and one of them is actually let me try to show here is P11 child that's the one that actually goes with the smart card reader if the one exists and configure it and so on so these are typical things you can see that the smart card reader is more or less on the client side you don't need to get it connected to the server side and so on but if we look into the past actually in 2016 I gave sort of similar presentations for the enterprise desktop with GNOME and free APA also at the flock I think it was Krakow in Krakow and we use their free APA to log in into GNOME environment and we work it with the GNOME guys to extend GNOME to support all of this and this look at like the whole thing look at like this this is I think a VM at that point so I'm logging in with the password just a password to obtain a ticket you can see I have a ticket this is like 2016 and then I use that ticket to come up with the VPN connection and that VPN connection was obtained using Kerberos credentials so you got the service ticket to my open connect VPN endpoint that that side and the next step was actually using the application which is IPA management tool to add since this user can support can use OTP to add the Ubiqui based second factor and instead of being asked it for the password be asked it for actual first factor and second factor from this Ubiqui as soon as I added that Ubiqui I can now lock the screen and next attempt to log in will ask me for factors so now this is not just a password it's sort of password less in a sense that the whatever was your password becomes you're one of the factors to enter but the same way you can do smart cards and so on it's it's kind of the thing that exists in free APA and in Fedora since 2015 also and this is a new ticket now not the old one you can see the I need to stop this because this is the next one and you can use that for a lot of stuff so we did bunch of integrations we did the integration with the GNOME account so that if you have this Kerberos ticket obtained through the login whatever method was there then GNOME accounts tracks it and renews if needed then GNOME browser at that point and later Firefox and later Chrome all obtained the functionality to support single sign-on using Kerberos that that came in the 2015-2016 together with the Fedora and others and yeah that was kind of the base for all of this work you could use this everywhere whether it's in the at work like enterprise or at home this is like enabled many people to go there what happened though from from that time was that we effectively stopped we as as a society effectively stopped using the infrastructure as a as a driving factor for how we work we switched from infrastructure for applications we switched from infrastructure for people to infrastructure for applications you don't care whether your laptop is actually enrolled into the work space you're most likely using some browser as I said to access the resources that provided by applications on your workplace and six seven years ago that wasn't true you have to have your system enrolled you use resources on your domain and so on the change came actually with the profound use of the mobile devices and actually phones killed everything else in in terms of also application development and frameworks and so on so things became increasingly a new main frame ish in the sense that the browser became a new sort of main frame you be quit us in in terms of use and access and so on and for the authentication and most importantly authorization of the applications people switched to off to set of standards and framework of all these flows and to any organizations what happened is basically if you integrate new applications you integrate with the of you bring your authentication into the authorization framework provided by the of and this is important part so okay if my laptop is not anymore really on the network I probably not on the network that is trusted by the domains and so on then how I do trust all of this this all change actually went event eventually went into the situation that is outline and so sort of so called zero trust architecture where effectively organizations said and being forced by the governments around the world to say that we don't trust our infrastructure anymore we have to validate every single thing that happens there but we also don't trust neither end user devices nor we trust our applications so it it kind of changed the game and the idea with this is not new one it's basically a statement of facts everybody is doing that in the world and they have to reapply at the boundary where the application is running reapply this change of kind of see if the things are right authorize every single access and so on so what we get is yeah really things which to be a browser and this story is actually similar to what we had in 2016 except that in 2016 we we dealt with environments where we had captive portals and even today here you have a captive portal to get on the hotel network you have to solve this captive portal thing and in 2016 one of the problems that we outlined was about the same so okay if I want to log in and into my laptop with my enterprise credentials I need to be on the network but in order to be on the network before I log in I have to solve the capture portal and I cannot solve it because well it's it's meaning running untrusted code on a system with pretty much root privileges because of how a system works and this is not Linux only problem this problem is everywhere so some time ago I was talking with Microsoft engineers who were implementing live.com and whatever is called now Azure or Entra ID whatever methods that they use to login to Azure and other resources and they say they had the same issue running an unconfined page to login into the environment before the login into the machine is a constant pain and to solve it there is no real solution other than really running isolated scratched environment they tried to provide like filtering on the level of what URIs are supported but federation as a part of the OAuth space kills it all so if I want to log in let's say to Red Hat's single sign-on system I go to SSO.redhat.com and there I say that I want to log in with my Google stuff so it actually forwards me to the Google page so from the perspective of of the login system like GDM or Windows login system now I am dealing with the content that might from the Google forward to another resource that actually handles my authentication if I never gave the credentials to Google when I created Google account it's like there's simply not possible to solve this in a safe and sane way so we didn't solve that problem for captive portals because that's exactly the same thing we did not solve this yet for today's kind of login in this online services thingy again I'm talking about the login to the session first and then using the browser we don't have yet browser running and the problem is really the same how to bridge these things together how we get there we started with the other side so looking in into the environments we realize that okay you have a browser somewhere you really have a browser when your device and if it's an online service that you have to authenticate with then probably you can run it on the other device to login here so in free IPA we implemented last year and it's available in Fedora 37 and rel 8 7 I think and later you can instruct users to visit the off to base it identity provider and authorize the access so we did some sort of a magic which is based on the device authorization grant flow describe it in the RFC 86 28 which is similar to how you authorize your TV to use your YouTube account sign into YouTube here you sign in into your SSH server but really not into the server you're signing in in your Kerberos environment instead of doing this every time you get the Kerberos ticket and then continue using Kerberos ticket so this looks like this there's a lot of flow things happening but I will let me let me show you I really hope it will work yes so this this looks like this so I use key club here as of to identity provider and this user is authenticated with the password first so now I don't have a security key which is the fighter to key associated with it but I want to associate so I've resister it you can see I'm using the browser here on the other system other system in this case of course these are running on the same system but it doesn't matter I created this key so basically web often and of authentication here and I configured key clock to use web both an authentication if the user is there and then when I try to SSH to the end system I get asked it of these prompt that says hey go to this URI and confirm that you want to access this environment and as a user I get to log in there and use a security key to log in of course the Firefox asks me to confirm what I want to use this key and then asks me to confirm that I want to log in into the system so I logged into the system I got the Kerberos key so what happened here is I traded web often authentication somewhere at some other place into authorization to access the token user info token on this user on that identity provider and I use it that fact as action to issue your ticket granting ticket in Kerberos so it's starting from here I can use Kerberos ticket for everything else I need because this is the ticket granting ticket I can trade it for other services of course doing this every time as is kind of weird and the most weird part is of course I cannot do this in the login because you see the size of the URI I cannot really even display it in GDM it will be cut off at the beginning so authenticate at HTT and then the rest will be cut off you wouldn't see nothing basic there so we need to do something to kind of fix this okay but can we actually go and get away from the network and because this really wants to have this networking thing to happen let's see if I can do that so this is relatively recent demo that I made at Samba XP where I basically took the fighter to token and used it to login into the GNOME environment it still cuts off some information luckily in this case the important one is to enter a PIN and effectively ask user to validate their presence by touching the device is what you really need and it's shown so it works this is actually Rohit at that point but you need a special version of free IPA which is not in Rohit yet it's at this point everything is in the free IPA upstream already but not released we are gonna release this maybe in a couple weeks and so so this is how I log in on this machine as well already and it works also with the environments where you don't have networking access the only thing that is needed is to provision a local account information that SSSD keeps in the cache about this user but the information comes from the network and so you you need to be at least once in the network to get there and so this is good I get the Kerberos ticket and that's that's great it will be a kind of configurable the same way we do this configuration in the rest of IPA authentication type so you can see that you can do the OTP in the same way I did in 2016 you can do a smart cards that's PK in it public key infrastructure use you can do external IDP provider like I show it in the demo before this one or you can use the 5.2 basis tokens which we call pass keys intentionally because we support anything that lipo 5.2 supports and lipo 5.2 plans to also support the Bluetooth base at once and these whatever Android and iOS support but they are not supportable yet but we will get there at some point and it's also a bit complex scheme but it's built on the same architecture we use for other stuff so it's a radius backend to Kerberos that simulates certain things it it just uses radius protocol between Kerberos KDC and itself but it doesn't use other radio stuff so it's kind of a way to extend things we build up this I think in 2012 or 13 to support the two-factor authentication in IPA for Kerberos and for the rest but it's also used for all the other stuff and the same technology can be used also for enabling Samba ID well there is dependency on MIT Kerberos so it will not work with Heimdall that's fine because they don't have a pluggable mechanisms for all these methods we only have them for MIT Kerberos and of course right now it doesn't but I mean extending use of IPA infra to plug behind the Samba ID is possible because it's it's just the LDAP storage of certain bits and then the same utilities can be used to manipulate it so that's in my plans again not Red Hat but my upstream plans to have this support but then other problem is what to target so if we talk about this this is not going to be supported by Microsoft so Windows systems are out of this story they are not going to work on anything like this you can extend authentication packages in Windows and provide your own but reading that for certain things is a bit cumbersome and it's really where you want to have customers because it's it's a lot of work to do so targeting Linux systems we can and we will probably target them given that now with the Fedora OpenQA supporting the testing of Samba AD we can actually test the whole cycle in OpenQA from the client system login and go in there the same way for both IPA and Samba AD once it went in there that's the beauty of the architecture we have in OpenQA so for the desktop integration the bigger kind of thing is of course inadequacy of the UI in well in this case in GDM but it's really extended to other desktop environments as well they are inadequate to anything but like passwords the GDM is more advanced here because we work it together with the GNOME folks and they cover a few other methods as well so for the smart cards for example in 2019 we extended GDM to allow kind of choose which smart card to use for which account to map into and so on and we kind of work now well with them to design how all this extends for all of these methods not just the one because we need to cover the login with external identity provider we need to cover pass keys we need to for the pass keys some of them like the physically ones they work already so we just need to have a bit of nicer UI but the the phone-based pass keys they will require scanning QR codes from the screen and that means also enabling this triangle kind of connection between the different services to discover what to negotiate with and so on so this is like you need to have an infra and if you want to expand this beyond just one desktop environment it needs to be more or less independent of just one so there's a lot of discussion ongoing it's not most of it not public because in the initial steps we have to calibrate tightly over the things but some of it already can be seen in the GNOME's GitLab environment there are some branches there are tickets open and so on so let me show how this looks like this is the proof of concept it's not a full working thing raised road who maintains GDM he wrote a proof of concept for both GDM side and he wrote a special pump module that kind of interoperates with it's not part of SSSD but it's just a separate module to test the proof of concept thing so this is a login with the like imaginary user that has actual authentication associated with some external identity provider and when this user tries to log in it gets to get to see this different dialogue that says okay continue to initiate web login and authenticate with an external device and when the user touches these left right angles arrows and you proceed in the flow so this kind of says okay you can get back and choose another authentication mechanism or you can go forward it's already different from what was before it it's not necessarily the final one but we kind of been discussing this with the UX people so in this case once you proceed a request is being made and the new authentication you are is generated so then convert it into the QR code and then once you did all your job you press the next button and you get logging if you're right at this point when you log in you get the Kerberos ticket issued okay not in this proof of concept of course but the in the real environment if you run with this you get the Kerberos ticket issued and then again you can use this for for the rest in the browser in the other applications mounting your home directory actually and so on but there are other things there is a lot of other things so for example in the real life you often have to log in for example with this token you want to log in but you don't have a network okay you can do that but how you differentiate this case for the user to say that your single sign-on experience will not be there yes you you're logged in because you're allowed to login offline but we need to tell them we need to pop up some information we need to differentiate whether this was a graphical login so that this information this warning will be a pop up somewhere and we need to show the message in a console if it was a SSH for example login and you were unable to get the things in and so on so this is a lot of UX work and improvement on that one to get these things done and then this is where the hard thing comes in it all has to work together it's not just the one project doing their job or two projects or three projects you have to coordinate how things are delivered to and appear together in the distribution that's how we work and we have the Fedora typical we don't advertise most of this work because well coordinating is hard enough promising something when every party can sleep and delay their delivery is also possible so in the true open source fashion it's ready when it's done that's that's how we work but there's we are not the only ones who doing this so there's a lot of parallel efforts from overall community so there are people who are looking at how to get the these past keys information shared across different execution environments so how to get them in flat packs without exposing everything how to get these details back and forth in in different places most of them is not using Kerberos or not really relying on Kerberos so we are not overlapping with anyone we kind of getting this puzzle solved a piece here a piece there and then combining these efforts together so for example I know that system D has some support for fighter 2 integration through leap fighter 2 so we have some hopeful things that the definitions of these past keys in free APA could eventually be used to sign in the encryption of the disk drive and secure boot and all of these things together at the same time we hope and that would be interesting to see how you can actually get this to pre boot environment and get this booting happen there you have to cash some data that ssd provides you have to use it beyond this kind of network able environments and so on so this is a lot of work and it's not like the thing that is the whole experience is delivered in the single release it may well take several releases to complete all this delivery so I know that the GNOME parts wouldn't be ready until maybe March next year if we are happy with what we get which I heard we are not yet so there is still discussion across us and GNOME developers from other distributions how to get all these things working together but the basics are there and I'm really excited that actually it works so I I do log in in my system here with it and I can actually show you it here as a sort of an environment I locked the system so this is using PAM for Vlock authentication so now I can unlock the system it starts blinking on my device because I enabled the user verification and I did verify it I'm sorry and you probably see that my ticket is old oh this is actually a different one this is the Red Hat one let me switch to mine it's this 1215 1215 here that's the new one this is also I'm not on the VPN to my home system but this Kerberos environment uses so-called KDC proxy mechanism so it's proxy in over HTTPS to to my environment similar how we use in Fedora for Kerberos login that's why the login works but I'm officially I'm offline in terms of IPA and SSSD environment so that thing is is here let me grab okay this will not work wouldn't work because I don't have the VPN right let me let me log in there why I don't is this up so I do have now a VPN connection I can actually run it yeah so there is a passkey mapping in my IPA account for well this is my home setup so it's it's like and this one of these keys that you can see there are multiple of them registered I'm just guinea pig in myself with all this thing yeah so this is here as far as we are but really it's enabling you to do all this stuff one thing I did not say is that I can now use this Kerberos ticket or any Kerberos ticket to actually authenticate not just to any other system and that's really SSH to other system right but I can use this to authenticate as a part of the palm authentication on the same machine which makes possible things like if you have a Kerberos ticket you can do sudo base it not on the password or enter in the game into the authorization cycle but with your Kerberos ticket and this is supported in Fedora and rail for about two years now it's a document in the documentation you can actually tune SSSD to specify which Kerberos ticket can be used for that so you can say that the Kerberos ticket obtained it with the PASCII is the one that I'm allowed to use for raising sudo just password will not work just like anything else will not work only if I use FIDO 2 or I use smart card and that kind of thing is already in Fedora I'm I'm asking myself for couple months now that I should write down an article this about all of this because many of the things they exist but they are not discoverable right of course we have this in the humongous rail ID documentation but go find things there that's another part of the story but yeah this is all I have and if you have any questions I think we have maybe five minutes or so thank you okay so I have a few questions so I'll try to take one question then if somebody want to ask they can ask and then I will go back and forth so for your first demo when you were using the UP key and you did configure the UP key through the I think it was free IPA well this is an oath or the token what kind of token did it use there because it wasn't an FIDO 2 you're talking about the first demo yes the first demo from 2016 yes was using UP key with TOTP yeah the TOTP here was just the six digits right I don't I don't recall the exact technical term for okay so this is good how it could configure because the UP key need to have the secret for this yeah this is integrated in free AP it will configure the UP key and yeah okay you can you can set up it with like software one or you can set up with UP key and so on the secret is actually if you don't use this special comment that I had this whatever OTP at UP key if you don't use that one it will print your QR code and it will print you a secret there that you will use to program your UP key manually but if you have if you use that command it will use Python bindings to the UP key thing to program the USB device directly so that's kind of transparent but you need to run that command on the device where you configure it that that's kind of that is the thing that exists for like forever now and maybe you mentioned it I was a little bit distracted so I apologize in advance if it was mentioned but is it possible to set this up standalone without a full-blown free IPA infrastructure so we are focusing on making this work with free APA on the first stage the client side meaning SSSD side only needs to have this information in the local database the local cache that they have the information can be injected into the local database they don't have utilities for that yet there is SSS control but it doesn't have a mode to inject this this is on the plants we will we will do that the idea is to have a replacement for the palm UTF thingy completely because from our experience palm UTF is actually a bit insecure in terms of the configuration management and you really have to split these things this is another part we need to provide the user utilities to make it nicer manageable for common folk right now it's more usable for the admins who know what they do excellent and I'm looking forward to some nice blog post or documentation that would be really helpful thank you yeah okay other questions okay so for the second demo when we're using key clock with I was with with free IPA you were using the key clock interface to configure or fetch a ticket that will be added for the user as far as understood when you clicked on configure secret does this mean that the free IPA is your main ITP and then it just extended the authentication to a Kerberos server where you configure your Kerberos environment which is a free IPA in this case this one is is all done through the Kerberos and only in free IPA so you cannot do this first you cannot do this offline because you have to communicate with both Kerberos KDC and the Kerberos KDC have to communicate with the online identity provider so this requires Kerberos you cannot configure this like standalone okay thank you thank you any more questions thank you


Summer is around the corner.   That's right gonna be walking around some pools.  We got something just for you. It's our summer fitness starter pack. We hooked it up It's more than 50% I think it's almost 60% it is it's almost 60% Fantastic everything that you need to get you in the best shape of your life It starts off with our maps prime program And this is so important for you to go through this first and this don't skip through this is going to Assess your posture to see any of those to point out any of those muscle imbalances an at-home test for you to take and Has a compass that directs you to what exercises you should be doing to not only help the imbalances But to also optimize your current program that you're following even if you're not following maps And then it also includes our maps red our maps anabolic our foundational program Training three days a week with some of those good barbell movements and trigger sessions And then you also get our nutrition and fasting guide Which is huge and we're all big fans of incorporating fasting for its health benefits And then a nutrition guide to help guide you guys through what foods you should be targeting and then all of this comes with Access to the forum the forum probably The most powerful piece to all this because you have access to not only the three of us on there on daily You also get tons of other Professionals massage you the whole way through other trainers doctors and Therapists you name it lots of brilliant minds on there other competitors all kinds of people that can help you along This process so you can find all of that at mind pump media dot com Expand your mind. There's only one place to go mind With your hosts Salda Stefano Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews in this episode of mind pump We open up and have a little debate on Technology still on that kick man Like photographers they ruined artists and rap music.  Let's stick with gangster rap. Yeah, let's and we talked about the resistance from the old timers we talked about technology addiction and Overcoming the distraction and becoming more present and then we get into the fitness questions The first question is can you build more muscle without building strength? If you're one of those weirdos that likes to get more muscle and not be stronger Is that a goal you might want to listen to that up that that question then we talked about all these Coaches online who have zero Qualifications and have only ever gotten themselves in shape for a show. What do we think about them? Are they great or are they yeah some things to say Adam has a lot of things to say on that Also, how do you handle fit shaming?  We talk about all of that in this upcoming episode of mine pump Do you want to know it still blows me away to this day Stire foam cup with a string that attaches and then you could talk to each other No, this is what blows me I find that fast till this day does that work till this day It does work. Yes, it does. Yeah. No, I know but till this day. This still baffles me It's old science, but it still baffles me.    Isn't that what I mean? vibrations and waves Yeah, yeah, you'll sound like ridiculous if you try and explain it I think the same thing about I bet you it's not that calm television to me is just mind-blank Could you know it's easy could you man? Doug? Do you remember what it was like when television first came around and you guys were like that all in the magic box? Do you remember? Hey, Doug. Do you remember that magic? Do you remember the industrial revolution when that first came out? What was it like to see a steamboat? Just pretty excited. I Mean hey, Doug. What was it dinosaur life? How many of your relatives do you have to eat to get to California? No, just just imagine being a kid growing up in that era where You were listening the radio was already entertaining fast You know our kids that kids back then used to sit around the radio, right? And you just listen the radio and that was like you listen to these shows Imagine when the television came out and you now could be entertained visually By the not only sounds but now you had these these things to look at like how that had been just so Fascinating to be watching humans. Yeah on a television. How did it get the nickname boob tube? That's our that's a good question.  I just walk over and talk to people. Yeah, what's wrong with talking people in person?  Did you know trip all this when photography became an art? Artists who painted were like you're not an artist. Yeah, you're not painting. You're just taking pictures of things That's not hard. It's too easy. It's like everybody and you know something new happens then the older generation always Thinks it's dumb. Do you find that every time do you find millennials? Do you think that you're culprit of that yourself or do you think you're I always check it always check it every time I Look at like a new thing and I want to think to myself like I have this younger generation. I go wait a minute Is it just cuz I'm just used to a particular way of life.  I think I at least I try to check. I'm gonna call you both out Then call me out because you guys are both this way with the new rap music new rap. Oh, it's horrible Still an art well a skill and it's still take in there hold on a second. Hold on a second. This is why I'm right Okay, let's hear this. Let's hear this logic here How many re like straight-up rap Albums or songs are on the top ten of the billboards now. I Don't know that zero. Yeah, they used to be rebranded it. They used to be All the time I don't know but rap used to dominate music and now it doesn't you know what it sounds like now It the rap that's popular now is not rap. It's freaking house music with rapping. Well, okay Now that's it's mumbling and then you've got the mumble rappers So now you sound now you sound like paint painters and artists that seen photographers taking photos and saying that that's not a talent It's very similar and if you're true and it's true too. If it's so easy Why don't I do it exactly right and the logic I'm gonna start doing the logic that you're trying to explain what's the billboard Actually talked about in the book hit makers So if you read the book hit makers you would actually understand that more than what you're trying to explain it So there's more to it that makes a song In fact, what immediate reaction, you know to something is like I don't like that what makes like there's something there What makes a song a hit Actually, there's a lot more that goes to it then actually how talented the artist That's the problem too. It's it's a double-edged sword because it became a formula. Well, and that's why it's been that way for a very Yeah, it's been that way for a very long time. There's been a formula to hit the mass So that the billboards is not a good example of I was just trying to say that that my opinion That's why I've always liked more of the underground music forever. I've always liked underground music.  There may be one out there.  I gotta get exposed to underground stuff I caught myself Well, then you like J Cole was a great example someone like that So if you know, I caught myself saying the same thing you guys were saying because I was a huge Tupac fan and that and that biggie era I think then that era of rap music I feel like was the best and was so awesome and and I felt like we went through this transition of shitty rappers It came afterwards and all this it's mumble since synthesizer bullshit. There's just more meaning behind it Well, okay. Well, then that's not true. None of that's true. There's there's actually a lot of it's true There's actually some raise your hand if it's true You're outnumbered still three to two Here miles miles in your mind. I think Miles a young kid miles you're familiar with Tupac biggie. You feel me with like little yachty and frickin way Not who's better. What's like immediate reaction like what you don't even compare. Yeah, what do you get fired if you're wrong? What is What's it? What's on your playlist right now? Okay, so what like what's a what's a rapper you just listened to yesterday? Okay ASAP Okay, it's that for there's a lot of ASAPs.  Okay. Yeah, see You know what though so when it comes to music that's all opinion I'm that's not I'm not and I'm not saying that it's ruining Society, you know I'm talking about like new technologies and stuff that people will say are ruining like here Here's a good example, but it is popular. No, a lot of people think that believe it or not when rap music Right when rap music came out a lot of people thought it was ruining music and It a lot of people would ruin music. Well the same. I don't know. How do you ruin art? Like if photographer, how does the time period? Oh, no, no, I understand that but this is the analogy I'm giving based off of what you were saying. That's I think it's a fair analogy That is fair.  So I so it's almost like I just bought a book We didn't start a world war. I just bought a book called irresistible. It's the rise of addictive picture of me on it The rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked. I'm really excited to read it My client turned me on to it. Is it is it on Amazon? I didn't buy it on Amazon, but it probably is on Amazon. I'm sure I'm sure it's on Yeah, no, well, I she told me it was great. I haven't started reading it yet. I'm still finishing up Hitmakers right now.  This has been a hot topic on our show So I was like, oh, this is perfect read right now because we just had this Discussion with who was it? We were just having this discussion with what guests do we talk about? Technology and is it is it for better or for worse? We had a Q&A question somebody asked about it Then we were discussing it with one of our guests. I don't remember. Yes. It was Josh Trent. Maybe. Oh, maybe it was Josh Yes, it was Josh. It was Josh Trent We are discussing it with then we had it on Q&A and then I think we had another one that we talked about it So it's been a hot topic for us and I think it's a really good Debate I think Sal made some extremely extremely good points the other day But I'm really fascinated to read this book because she said already in the first couple chapters that she was reading They talked about did you know that?  I didn't know that thing. Yeah, I did not know I didn't know that well my kids are my kids aren't allowed to listen to mine pump. So yeah, you know Hey, no way. It's a little bit different. But yeah, I get it I phone sprees But I didn't know that and I think that's really fascinating Something that you know you create and you create it because you think it's going to evolve us better And then you don't you don't allow your kids to utilize the tool There's got to be a reason and I think that's the point the book is making is it's more because he understands the addictive Properties that come with it. Yeah, and he he sees he foreseen had foreseen the The pitfalls that came with that that hey, it's a great tool But maybe you're not old enough yet to use a tool like this because of its addictive properties And how much goes into engineering it to get you addictive to it? Oh, of course There's an app actually engineer all that stuff is there's an app that I just downloaded yesterday I haven't fired it up yet. It's called Well, just just having a new email and then popping up like how many like you can't if you put your phone down like they I remember like This was all when I was researching like Games and how they make them more addictive and like just that that hit of How many emails I have or like missed calls or this that like it is so like Compelling like you can't stop thinking about it until you pick it up And then you you check to check it and see who it was and like we've never had that before we had the iPhone I think I think there's a lot of unintended consequences inside effects of All this new technology that we're just gonna have to we're just gonna have to learn to manage because we've never been presented With these things ever there's there's an app called moment app and it tells you how addicted you are to your your iPhone So like so I don't know so stage in like yes Yes, so every time you pick it up and swipe or turn your turn it on or use it It tracks the total amount of time in the day that you are being consumed by it And so I just downloaded it. I haven't started trying yet. I already know I'm gonna fail Visibly at it.  Oh, dude now I have everything right here I never even opened my laptop anymore. I and I and I feel like, you know I don't know how how you you justify that or how how you handle that because you know, it's not like I'm was like back in the days when I was training clients ten clients in a Day, well, yeah My phone actually sat in my desk all day long because I was interacting with people and training them one-on-one Where now, you know, I'm virtually coaching or talking to people or I'm having to do post and respond to people on There or we're listening to podcasts or we're emailing or answering something on the forum Yes, everything is connected Your next post it's so it's so addicting.  Why right? Oh, it's my work or here's one for me That as a parent I guarantee you all the parents listening can understand. I'll go somewhere and I'll be like Should I leave my phone in the car? I really should disconnect like no No, I have kids just in case an emergency. I better have my phone on me and they end up looking at it You know when I'm doing shit, you know, it's interesting I found like with the focus brain of them if I'm like working either on my phone or on the computer How much more like how I can block out a lot of the distractions? That way it's really interesting because like I'll do that sometimes when I'm because I know if I'm on my phone I want to keep it business related because Almost within it would be interesting to see like how quickly it happens But like within a couple of seconds sometimes you just oh and then you check in Facebook It's like holy shit. It's like this crazy like like drug response Dude, it wasn't that long ago where we went somewhere and that was it. We were there and when we got back home We checked the fucking, you know, you checked your answering machine to see if anybody called for you Yeah, I mean it wasn't that long that it was like so we just writing it down for you It just wasn't that long. I didn't get a hold of that where you were a kid.  I'm gonna go ride my bike to wherever.   Well, I just that's just it's weird It is to think about it how weird it is.   Well, I tell you what hard to create boundaries anymore I you know, I pride myself on being a very self-aware person and something that I I know for sure That I've caught myself in the last five five years or so more than ever I Have a really hard time being present now more than I've ever had in my life I it is it is It's crazy to me to think that you know, I can have this beautiful woman sitting next to me who's wanting to have this conversation and I can't disconnect myself from everywhere else and I got busted for that this morning.  Because they're there every day. I know she'll be there when I get home I know we'll be able to talk about things So there's a part of me that has that it just without even thinking about it some consciously just kind of It's I'm not there's not a priority there and then of course Everybody has work. Everybody has stress So then there's a natural distraction there and then you add the fact in that we have now built a business that is a hundred percent online and virtually and There's always a platform that is demanding my attention There is never there's never like always do something. Yes. They're exactly There's there's no like like okay in this time frame in this period, you know I'll I'll answer and address your questions, right? You know, you can you can find me over here at this time or it's like all day 24 24 hours Yeah, and I think I think for me and I've started doing this already like so literally, you know, I actually and I'm almost embarrassed to say this but it it's part of me Transitioning out of this because I know that I need to find ways to to put or find systems or ways to Get more connected and present and if that means I got to pay somebody else, which is what I do now Like I don't check my emails.  It's not even it's that but it's also If you actually calculated the amount of time that you spent you got to be honest now Totally honest, and we're all businessmen. We're all having online business But if you actually calculated the time you're on there You were on there where you weren't really being productive for it's a lot of time, dude You know, and that's where the frustration lies like cuz like I said like you get distracted while you're you're trying to be productive even and like There's there's got to be a way and I'm trying to figure this out, too So this is like this is this is one of those things with technology where Now of a sudden you have all this access to all these things at once and you're trying to accommodate as many people as you can and You know, it's like figure out how to balance that with family time and and also like just friends and like real life Conversations, it's tough.  Yeah, and then 10 minutes into it, of course We're having yeah a great time. It reminds me of the problem like the the issues and problems that we encountered as societies when food became so cheap and easily produced where all of a sudden we had to like Monitor our food intake because we were becoming obese It kind of reminds me of this like we're gonna this is gonna have to be something that we're gonna have to learn how to manage Yeah, you know, I mean, it's not gonna happen naturally. We solved one problem We created a ton of other, you know, pending issues that don't seem that big a deal But we'll compile over time. Well, this is why we see this rise on these companies like float station and all these Meditation things and these all these yet the structure the next big business Hunter I tell you what right now if you're like a you know guy who invests in stock pay attention to companies that are That are moving in this direction. I think Whether there be courses classes tools That have that help us put into practice.   I'm done for the day no matter what and this is how I'm gonna transition From that, you know workflow to it's now time to be present with my girl And I tell you what man, it's 10 minutes and it makes a huge huge difference for me man, that's it's been a major one does I mean my advice is just Disconnect from everything shut everything off except for mine pump TV on YouTube Bring the bird that will help bring the bird on Today's quads being brought to you by Chimera coffee is the only coffee that is infused with all natural Pics for a cleaner calmer and more focused buzz without the crash put the Chimera link at mind pump media comm and input the discount code Mind pump a check out for 10% off All right, our first question is from Carter's consumptions can you build muscle without building strength?  Yeah, bodybuilders. Yep. You can you can I have done I've done it I've actually well you're talking just about how big it looks. Yeah. Well. Yeah, cuz you're built It's not really building. Oh, I guess Well think about it this way like you could become You can become stronger without building muscle right by by making by really central nervous system Effective and efficient CNS activation which is so the opposite must also be true, too Absolutely, this is why this is a great question because I think only like six people below this question wasn't so we're kind of doubling this Question up was a female who asked can I build strength without building muscle because she wants to be stronger?  So yes I do I do believe it's true that the guy who doesn't want to get stronger But wants to build build bigger looking muscle Is I know I don't get it doesn't resonate with me Oh, it totally it totally makes my car look faster. It's I don't want it to be fast. Oh, it totally resonates with me I know why would you want to be like a bubble? Why would you want to be bigger without being stronger though? Well, here's here's why because when it when you train to be strong the there is a lot of Potential risk that comes with that too. Okay. Sure. I could see that and to So just so you don't have to move the heavy weight. Yes, I'll tell you I'll tell you right now I I dealt with more issues When I started training low repetitions and heavy strength training Then I ever did now I got stronger and a byproduct of that later on was I built more muscle and stuff But when I was just training for aesthetics to look good on stage and to look awesome when I took my shirt off I was all in the hypertrophy phase all the time high reps high reps high reps and I was not a really strong guy and I used to say this like I never once in my life Took my clothes off and a girl said how much do you squat or how much do you bench press?  This is kind of cool now because let's break it down even further Can you cause muscle fibers to grow without them getting stronger? That's a better question because you can actually make your muscles look bigger Without growing the muscle fibers themselves a bigger muscle fiber Contracts harder than a smaller muscle fiber if all other things are equal. So if you have two muscles Let's say, you know, both identical except one has bigger muscle fibers than the other and everything else is equal in terms of The energy usage and efficiency and central nervous system adaptation the bigger fiber is going to be stronger always All those things being equal. However, you can make your muscles bigger in size without increasing Muscle fiber size and a lot of this has to do with the what they call it's called sarcoplasm within muscles And this represents all of the non muscle fiber structures within muscle and all the fluid and stuff within muscle And this actually makes up a majority of your muscle that the size at least so when you flex your bicep And you're looking at your bicep You're looking at a lot of its size coming from sarcoplasm more so than actual muscle fibers Which is why I could take someone to hydrate the hell out of them and their muscle fibers the same size But they've lost lots of size because they've probably lost that sarcoplasm. So You can definitely do those things. What's more common that I see because this is kind of uncommon I've never in my life had someone specifically tell me even people like you Adam who train I don't they don't necessarily aim for this. Yeah, I wouldn't be I was an anti-strength. Yeah.  I see the opposite though more I've had lots of people athletes in particular especially athletes and weight classes and women and women Definitely who say hey look I want to be strong, but I want to look like a big yeah But I don't want to get big and that really comes most of that comes from CNS activation and efficiency like really getting the central nervous system which Most of it you see them doing like a lot of high reps right in professed where it's like You know like why don't you try like one to three reps? Yeah I want you to give that a shot and like see how much strength you're gonna get from that if you're not trying to build You know size and or do some a limp like like explosive type lifts like like a little bit of the best examples I can think of of strength without size is an Olympic lifter Not and I'm not saying that Olympic lifters aren't muscular because they are But if you look at the amount of weight that they can move yeah in relationship to the strength Holy you'll find a hundred and fifty pound Chinese weight lifters squatting I'm not talking about a snatch or any just regular squats with 500 pounds I don't know very many hundred and fifty pound anybody that can even squat You know three or four hundred pounds let alone a way that they're not huge so efficient at that recruitment process Like like so quick yeah, and they can they can charge up this then amp way up You know with their sense and here's the other thing like If you really did build lots of muscle without strength You've like reduced your performance a lot. All you've done has gotten heavier with less strength So now you don't move as well. You're not as you're not gonna be very comfortable. Yeah like in your body at that point Yeah, I mean you'd be better off getting really really strong and being the same way I mean imagine if if I had if I had my strength, so I weigh about a hundred and eighty eight pounds right now Let's say I weighed a hundred and twenty pounds, but I had the same strength Oh my god I could do I'd do pull-ups like I'd fucking like nothing like I'd I'd be able to do handstands and run around on my fingertips And do all kinds of crazy shit So but I think there's an ad that's why there's an adversion like I have like like internally It's cuz like you just know like if that's your goal and then and then you extreme of that is Now I'm losing a lot of function, you know as a result because like my strength isn't really like matching my new body mass The other thing too is one thing that I noticed for myself and for my clients is When I was able to increase their body's ability to handle more frequent workload that Sometimes they didn't necessarily get stronger But their body adapted in ways that allowed them to work out more frequently and that resulted in more muscle Mm-hmm. So like, you know, you were squatting Twice a week real heavy now we're squatting three days a week or we're adding trigger sessions or whatever focus sessions So you're not and there's maybe their strength didn't really go up a whole lot but the now that their body's able to handle more frequency and They they see more muscle size. Oh, yeah, because then they naturally drive their volume up, right? Exactly. So volume is one of those two because a little bit of strength and endurance I mean strength endurance will contribute to muscle size as well, too. So and I guess that is strength, right? So what I mean by that is it's a different type. What I mean by that is let's say your max reps with 300 pounds in the squat is 10. Let's say that that's the most you could do for 10 reps and Now and when you do five sets of that by the time you get to the fifth set You're at six reps because you're fatigued so much now. Let's say you train and you got more strength endurance Let's say that your your max ever for squats still hasn't gone up So you can still only do 10 but when you do five sets now in your fifth set You're still doing 10 so or nine or whatever You're not stronger in the classical sense like you haven't done more reps with that weight You know max reps, but you're able to do more reps Because you have better strength stamina strength endurance that will equate to more muscle. Yeah So I do think that for the most part building muscle will we'll see you'll see some type of a change in improvement in some type of performance And you may see some negatives and other types of performance. So like like long long endurance Building lots of muscle will probably take away from that like if I'm a long-distance runner and I gain 10 pounds of muscle I'm all might get stronger, but I may lose endurance because now I'm running with 10 more pounds on my body So but very good question though. I thought it was good. You know, it seems silly when you say it at first But no, I know it surprisingly has a lot of yeah, we had a lot of conversation there. I didn't think Initially, yeah from the question I had saw the girl had posted not underneath at the opposite of it. So there'll be good discussion because People quick interruption by our sponsors you guys lots of people been asking us how they can support the mind pump mafia family Our first one is our Chimera coffee that we love you guys go to Chimera coffee calm That's Chimera with a K for 10% off. Don't forget mind pump at the checkout We also have our big top beard company calm for 33% off also mind pump at the checkout check out Also brain FM. We talked so much about this for sleep and meditation. It's brain FM for 20% off Also, mind pump at the checkout you guys we also talk a lot about books on here all the time We're using that audible you guys can get a free trial 30-day trial plus one free audio book if you go to audible trial comm forward slash Mind pump and then last we get lots of people asking about Ben Greenfield CBD supplement So we hit him up to hook you guys up you go to get natured blend comm forward slash mind pump for that discount Our next question is from Jenny burns How do you feel about fitness lifestyle prep coaches who don't have any Certifications or credentials and not a whole lot of experience What do you think is the best recipe for a perfect hole? Oh Jenny? Jenny Jenny Wow, so this you must be just tuning into mind pump because I think I Must have went on like a six-month rant about this when we first started mind pump because it was hot I'll be olden days. It was a hot topic for me when I was when I was competing I Was floored by this? I am I'm connected to a lot of pro men's physique and bodybuilders and bikini athletes and their coaches and without saying any names lots of them are our big big names in the industry and Have a lot of big name athletes underneath them And so I thought well this is great because when I start competing I have these people to kind of reach out to and in here their advice on how I should get ready for a show Since I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I mean, I know a lot about nutrition I know a lot about training, but I don't know shit about competing and I didn't and I know it's a sport So there's it's unique in itself, and I'd never been in that shape before so I thought I would get some great advice Well, what I started doing was I started before I even was in prep I was just proving to myself that I could diet and get into that into stage ready shape I started going around and you know talking to my buddies and their coaches and Listening to the advice they gave me and I'm not the type of person that when I hear really stupid advice I don't just say like hey, that's really stupid advice or like point that out to somebody like I'm that's I'm I'm more respectful than that and I'm in your world you your bodybuilding coach You've been one for ten years and you've you've done all this all these at you've had all these accolades and in in your career So I don't want to come in and you know who am I to say what you're doing is wrong I'm just there to receive information So I'm gathering all this information and I went from coach to coach to coach and I start realizing.  Hey, these guys are these guys are giving out bro science like really bad like And very dangerous advice and then you ask and then you ask yourself because I know the next thing that people think right away It's like well, I mean if they have mr. Olympia and they have these bikini competitors They have these people that I'd be doing something. Yeah, they're doing something right. Well.   So we have a friend who went through it Against our wishes Who's like hey, I'm gonna do a physique competition and this is a guy who's got decent genes He builds muscle pretty well as a big dude. I don't want to say his name But he went and hired this well-known coach in the area who's given some some of the dumbest advice I've ever seen and We saw his body like melt and I don't mean in a good way either and he hit the stage And one of the reasons why he hit the stage looking terrible was because he wasn't on gear He didn't take a lot of steroids and this coach who coaches people Typically coaches people who are on a lot of gear so they get away with this this crazy shitty dieting And you're natural you're gonna go up on stage You're just gonna look lose a lot of muscle and be smooth. Well, so somebody said this really well that you know a lot of these guys You know get the end girls get in this great of shape despite What what they're doing? I mean, it's just because they've got either really good genetics or they're hopped up on a ton of gear and So their diet and program design doesn't have to be that on point because they're they're taking so much Synthetics and they're pushing the body so hard and restricting so many calories that yeah, it's you know You're gonna get lean you're gonna get ripped by it by those factors But there is a way to do that in a much healthier way So this was what got me to get into coaching I had no first of all had no desire to compete then I got into competing because I wanted to show Everybody watching me go from fat to fit Watch me get into this get into a sport that I know I don't belong in and by way I mean I don't belong there is I don't have the right body type for a bodybuilder Okay, I'm not I'm going to have said this a bunch of times on the show. I'm built to swim in a pool I have little waist long thin legs huge wide back long monkey arms These this is not the best if you want to look Symmetrical on stage my body you're built like a canoe. Yeah, my body is not just not naturally Symmetrical which is why I wanted to do this because I wanted to prove that even somebody like me and somebody who is not Ideal for the sport can get into the sport and can do it So that was the whole idea and concept of me get in and then when I got in there I saw how terrible all these coaches were so then I thought okay Let me start helping some of these athletes and coach them and I actually built a very successful business Online coaching off of all the fucking athletes that were getting fucked up from all the other coaches That's pretty much all I coached. I didn't get a lot of first-timers I got a lot of people who had been coached by other people in the industry and had found out about me and how There were photocopying plans and handing them. Oh, I get blown everybody I get blown away by because I because now I'm doing some online coaching and I'm seeing some of the Stuff that they were sent from other coaches and what they do is they do a lot of meal plans The meal plans are very standard. Here's your 1200 calorie meal plan Here's your whatever and it's the same fucking thing that they send everybody so it's just eat these four meals a day and in this measurements and it's very very black and white very Unindividualized and it's just it can for some people it can be very dangerous because they're not asking about food and tolerances They're not asking about anything. There's nothing. There's no longevity involved.  So a lot of this is on the consumer Education does help so I think that's a first step like we're what kind of education you have what kind of certifications you have That at least shows a little bit of in that the that the person has some kind of incentive to learn You know how to be a coach You know so I'd say start there number two Look at their experience How many people have they worked with who have they worked with talk to those people talk to the people they've worked with yeah Definitely definitely talk to the experience exactly talk to people that they've worked with and talk to people who they worked with a long time ago because What you'll find especially with competitors is someone may have gotten in shape for a show But now it's a year later. They stopped competing because it's really done so much It's really tough though even with that because it is hard because a lot of these a lot of these even athletes that Hi, we're high by these coaches.  I was shredded. I was the best shape of my life But hang in there It's gonna be tough and then it turns more into that like motivating each other to keep going and press through and be smooth and you got this and no days off and It turns more into that than really like Stepping back and going like should it be like this should I have to like do I really need to go to this Do I really need to eat tilapia and fish and do cardio every single day for an hour? Plus my weight training every single day to get in shape like that. You know, nobody's asking the only formula Yeah, nobody's asking these questions and they should be asked and I and I and I have a big issue with it And I have a hard time. I kind of like let it go after a while I mean I ranted on this show for a for a good six months there Maybe more about the issues that I saw in the competing world and I don't think it's getting any word or any better I think it's getting worse because more people are getting involved and like the new trend is this You know, you hire a coach who teaches you how to get ready to compete you compete You then now become a coach because you've done a show and you now have lots of people that are asking you How you did what you did and it's just this this crazy, you know thing that's happening right now where Everybody who competes in a show now thinks that they're qualified to teach others how to get in shape for a show and it's a relatively new thing because of social media So here's what I think it's gonna happen. I think there's gonna be Some self-regulation going on. I would not be surprised if this is already in the works If if it doesn't already exist, I wouldn't be surprised if there was an online coaching certification Or if there's one in the works because we've talked about this Yeah, we've talked about doing something like that because this is a this is something that's new and growing because it really didn't exist much Let's be honest This is a demand for it because I know like even in the little gym that I train out of in Santa Cruz like I know a couple people that have done bikini and have done physique and Like they get hit up all the time just by random people because they're just in awe of that physique And they go up to them like I want to know the process, you know take me through and it's like they just competed You know, they don't really like they just followed the protocol with the the coach handed them And so I don't I don't really feel like they're and then they inherently know They're not really equipped to to teach this person specifics Right, but at the same time the demand is there And so I feel like some people just see that and they're constantly getting this influx of like emails And hey, I want you to coach and so it's like well, you know, so they'll start coaching them I had one lady who told me all the supplements her coach told her to take she was spending like 350 dollars a month on All these supplements many of which when I looked at showed her I told her said should tell me what you got and I looked up at the ingredients and I'm like this dude just sold you I mean, that's all he did was sell you supplements and This bottle of this supplement has got a lot of the same ingredients as this bottle of supplement But for whatever reason he says you need to take two of them, you know, these two things It was just there was no rhyme or reason. I I would venture to say there's a lot more shitty coaches than there are good ones Oh, there's no way way more. It's probably it's probably very difficult to find it. It's very hard I I would love to and you know put this on the list bucky We'll put this on the list of things for a mine pump to Accomplish and knock out because I think that I would love to do some sort of a mine pump approved you know, you know virtual coach because that is the future of Coaching and personal training. I do believe is virtual. We have the ability now to connect to people We have the tools and resources To assess them online and to be in to connect right away and for them to be able to watch their programming and everything I mean, it's it's where we're going. It is the direction and there is a need for somebody this and as the consumer Okay, the average coach cost somewhere between 250 and $500 a month for this coaching You can get if you're a competitor maps black is like a hundred and thirty something bucks Okay, so you get maps black you can get forum access Though and then our nutrition guide you can get all that for under the price of what it would cost you to have a Coach for a single month and the forum is full of not only the three of us and they're coaching and helping people But it's full of other doctors PTs Kairos Nutritionists there's all kinds of brilliant my other trainers that are inside their other Competitors that are at the professional amateur level that are inside there that have been going through the programming so you really want to help somebody like send them that way and They can they can learn about their body through guidance from all of us and others that have gone through that same process For a quarter of the price of what they would pay some shitty online coach That's actually gonna end up setting them backwards Do you did you get did you ever have frustrations where people would hire you Adam and they're just back? Well, just tell me what to tell me everything I need to eat and that's all I want to just give me a meal plan Oh, not only that I have a situation that's happening right now, and I know she listens to show everyone else every once in a while So I'm gonna bust her out a little bit shout out. Yeah, so She hired me first and last night.  She's a friend of our she's a friend of Katrina's and When she hired me I'm very transparent with people so I will look at your body and I'll tell you like you're not ready to compete You're just not you are you're way more than 10 weeks out from Finishing in top five of even an amateur show You've got a lot of building to do and see a lot of online coaches won't do this because they want the money because They just want to shred you down. Yeah, so and and that's how they get approached And so many times I get approached like this There's a show in November me and my friend want to do it, you know, and we heard your great coach can I can I hire you to coach me to that and When I look at where they're currently at and assess their nutrition assess their training I have a pretty good idea if that's even possible for me to do that in a healthy way And so what I'll tell them is you know, you're not ready for that You need me to coach you and get your diet ready Get your body ready before we head into prep because prep is just catabolic You're just destroying breaking down breaking down breaking down breaking down There is no building up going on in in prep prep means you've already built the physique That's ready to get presented on stage now We're just peeling away the body fat to present this physique and in order to do this in a healthy way You should have a healthy metabolism that's being fed properly And you should have a good regimen built and you should have a physique That's already kind of sculpted that's going to do pretty well on stage. Otherwise, you're spinning your wheels So this girl that hired me when I looked at her and I told her I said, you know What I what we're gonna do is I'm gonna start coaching you and we're gonna start building your physique getting your metabolism working Well, and during that process I will let you know when I think we're 10 to 12 weeks out from getting into a prep And she was with me for a good three four months Maybe longer actually I think she was with me like five or six months now. I think about it and She was really frustrated because she's like I really want to do this show. I really want to do this show and I'm like I can I can do that. I can do that if you want, but you're not ready You're not ready to do it right and you're not gonna do very well and you're not gonna feel very good going there long story short She went her separate way. She just recently about three months ago hired a coach to get her ready for a show and She's been prepping for this show and her and her and Katrina talk on a pretty regular basis and She's now expressing all her frustrations with Katrina because she's two weeks out from her show right now Katrina showed me a picture of where she's at She looks no better than what she did with me when I told her she's not even 10 weeks out for prepping for a show because she's still got a lot to build and sculpt and She is doing two hours of cardio every single day and weight training seven days a week and she's eating less than 1500 calories and She's seeing very little change every single week and she's got two weeks to go Her hormones are all over and she I know she's completely and at this point She's committed to just see it through because she told herself all the work in and I remember when Katrina when this when they first started talking about this about a month or two ago and Katrina's are getting all frustrated and I'm like honey relax.  How is it not registering for her? And I said you some people have to just go through it and see it for themselves I said you can't I said this is let them get burnt. This is I'm used to this I've seen this my whole career where no matter how much great information I tell somebody it's frustrating It is and you just as a coach and as a trainer like you finally learned that you can't all I can do is I can Provide you the information I could show you where the water is I can't force you to drink it and She is now in this process of finding out that it isn't just that simple of tell me to do this this and that and How I need to eat and how hard I need to train and I'll follow through and do it And then I'll be ready for a show. There's much more going to learn things as you go Yeah, and we just ox, but it's you know, it's part of it Well, and we recently talked about this on a on another Q&A where we talked about the body systems and how many of these systems are Crucial to your body working efficiently and if you're not fueling it properly and you've been abusing these other systems It doesn't run efficiently and when you ask it to get into competitive shape Oh my god, are you looking for an uphill battle if your systems aren't all running right? Yeah Next question is from Darcy Annie 90 She's asking how do you handle fit shaming from friends and co-workers?   That's right. It's all over the place already It kind of irritates me. It really makes me angry. It's and we do this across the board, right?  It's it really irritates the hell on me But before I get into the fit shaming I will say this If your family has a problem with your exercise and diet family and friends have problem with your exercise and diet Make sure that it's actually fit shaming that they're doing and they're not actually concerned for your health because I've been in many situations where I've actually tried to work with people who were over working out and Under-eating and they just thought they were being fit-shamed like there was this girl that I knew who Developed or she got she got divorced and developed horrible self-body image issues or just self-image issues in general because her husband left and whatever and She just started starving herself and over working and she got Unhealthily just very unhealthy thin like just very very skinny undernourished overworked skin look bad. She had bad energy and She would come complain to me About how her parents kept telling her that she was too skinny And she'd come tell me be like She's like God people just you know, they're so jealous because I'm just healthy now and I'm exercising and I'm eating and they keep telling me I'm too skinny and I remember she was having this whole conversation where she was talking before like 10 minutes about how people are just so jealous because Now she's fit and this and that and and I remember like thinking like how am I gonna put this to her? Like how am I gonna word this to her and I told her I said well look I said, you know because she was putting me in that category, right? And I said listen I said I'm in fitness. Okay. I'm in the industry. I understand what you're talking about said However, I think that some of their concerns may be valid.  They may actually be be concerned for you now that being said doesn't say that's one. Yeah Yeah, now that being said There is the real issue of fit-shaming where I've been to parties or I've been to events Where people are eating pizza and I'm enjoying myself I'm having a great time and I just don't want the pizza I just it just doesn't the risk though You know the bad sides of the pizza don't outweigh the benefits of it at the moment I don't think it's a big deal and so people will ask me. Well, why aren't you having any pizza? I've done this at birthday parties right for my kids Yeah, and the key the parents shit for not your cake all the time and the parents will be like Well, I'll have some pizza and I'll be like, oh, no, I'm cool. I'm cool, and I already had lunch I'm good. They're like, oh man. Come on man. You can have fun sometimes It's not that big of a deal like just one slice isn't gonna hurt your physique or and they'll fit shame me and That's I can totally understand how irritating it could be for somebody because first of all, I don't want the pizza. It's not that big of a deal and You're making it sound like You know here. I am this total this guy who doesn't like to enjoy himself. It doesn't enjoy food I'm super obsessive about my about the way my body looks Which is totally wrong, but in reality what they're doing is they're making themselves Feel a little bit better, you know, it's like it's like when you're working out And you're trying to get stronger and then you work out with that guy who just is twice as strong as you and He goes home and you're like, well, he's on steroids.  Yeah When in reality, he may not be he just may have superior genetics and just can kick your ass a lot of people They you know, they they say that you know because it makes them feel better About themselves about their lifestyles about the fact that they don't pay attention to these things It also sheds a light on their own sometimes their own other projecting their security. Well, they're also their unhealthy practices, you know, I have a family member who has kids who've got really bad food allergies and I will talk, you know what family parties and stuff because I have other family members who are I'm not the only one Of my family that's really into health and fitness. I have an uncle who's a Chinese herb specialist is actually a licensed herbalist I have an aunt who's a nutritionist Actual certified nutritionist, but then she's also very much in the wellness side And so when we have family functions a lot of times I'll be talking with the three of them about all these new things that we've been reading We have great conversations and have this other family member who sometimes will come and talk or listen to us And I'll be talking about for example like the role of the gut on autoimmune issues and how certain processed foods and Artificial sweeteners and certain things can affect that and she will get immediately offended, you know, like, oh well, you know It's it's not always that and you know my doctors and I can tell it's because She thinks I'm singling her out as if she's doing something wrong For her kids and maybe she isn't doing all the things that she could be doing and which I totally understand because Raising kids is hard as hell.  So people just take it kind of personally get really defensive. Yeah, like I've been to parties where I don't want to drink and Again, I there's a benefit to sometimes drinking with your buddies and friends But sometimes for me, it's just not worth the you know the negatives like I'm here. I'm already having a good time I don't feel like I want the alcohol or need it. I'm enjoying myself Maybe I had an edible earlier. So I'm already inebriated anyway, right?   I let him get to me. You know what I mean? I felt really really bad And so now really what you know, how long how long goes that was years ago I was gonna say it's probably a long time the way I imagine maybe more maybe 15 years ago The way I handle it now is I just I just don't let it bother me because I realize that that person is Probably projecting their own insecurities They probably feel bad or guilty for not eating healthy or a movie or maybe like they're failing And I just I just don't let it bother me. I don't even think it's a probably I think it's a certain It's a certainly and and this reminds me of of success shaming And oh, that's this another one and that was something that was common in my family that I struggled with when because I had a very early age I found success in business and I drove myself really hard to get there And you know it for me that was a big deal and I remember I had a really hard time because I'd come back to my family and I would share stuff and My family would some of my family members not all of them Some of my family members would make me feel almost guilty or make me feel bad For working hard and making money and it was and I struggled with that for a lot for a long time until I realized that That was their own insecurities because they weren't successful and it's very similar to the the fit shaming and When you learn to look at it like that that it's a direct reflection of their insecurities It's really a compliment to what you're doing Because you're doing such a fucking great job at it that they see it and they wish they had they wish they could they wish They could because I don't know anybody I don't know anybody who hasn't tried to get in shape at one point in their life, especially if you're mid 20s beyond I don't know anybody. I don't know anybody who's 25 years old or older That hasn't attempted to get in better shape than they currently are at one point in their life And most people are unsuccessful at it and then they see someone like you who's making sacrifices and not having pizza or cake or You know carrying your food around in Tupperware.  I can't I can't take it anymore I can't take every time I go if I bring my food because Everything they cook and make doesn't fall in line with what I'm currently doing for myself And they get offended because I bring my own food like I can't deal with it I can't I don't and I don't want to deal with it And then I want to it turns into this back-and-forth thing because they feel insecure About how they look and where they're at with their current health that they're gonna make me feel bad about doing some of that So I just won't put myself in that situation anymore So I remember having these discussions with her and the irony of all of it was When I first started that and they were first getting to know me and then they watched and then they watched my whole journey from You know fat to fit and then competing and then going pro and all that they were that was a you know several year process that they saw and to this day They've all sat me down many times and said you have no idea how much watching that was inspiring for me And he goes I remember when I used to give you shit for bringing your food around I've just never seen anybody say they're gonna do something like that and then stick all the way through it And then to that level so there's a part of them that that really deeply wants that so if they're fit shaming you Deep down inside they want what you have they want that discipline. They want And misery loves company.  It's it's it We're all can be guilty of it all of us. I mean I For me I use it as a moment to self-reflect when I meet someone or I read about someone who's doing something extraordinary my instinct is to Bring them down a few notches like if I see this dude who's successful and got a yacht and he's Traveling the world and he's the only I instinctually want to say like oh, he's he's on drugs Yeah, or he's not really happy.  He'd be stoked. Yeah, he could be totally stoked doing all these things and maybe I'm saying that because I'm not able to do what he's doing because I'm not doing the things that he did Right, and so it makes me feel better for not doing what they're doing. So it does one of two things for me a I self-examine and I say okay Am I not doing the things that that guy's doing to be where he's at? And if the answer is yes, then I know that I could if I did and the other and the other thing is If I'm not and I don't want to I'm okay with not being as good as that person that particular And that's fine too. Yeah, like they can be awesome at that.  Absolutely Austin a Smith is a marine who runs 20 to 25 miles per week The question is how does one run that much and gain muscle? Oh good question You can you can build you can build muscle, but you're gonna be uphill battle very challenged because Yes, you are burning a lot of calories. So you could make up for the calories with more food But that's not really the main issue That's part of the issue, but it's kind of a fat. That's an black and white easy remedy, right? Okay, if I'm I'm burning teaching your body Yeah, if I'm burning all these calories all I got to do is eat those calories and then voila. I should be able to build muscle it's not that simple because What's happening when you're running 20 to 25 miles per week, which is probably anywhere between? I mean you're looking at 40 to 5 4 to 5 miles a day 5 days a week Is you're sending a signal to your body to be very efficient at running which means? It's gonna want endurance and it's gonna want to be light which means muscle is not helping the car now so It's going to resist building muscle because muscle It's heavy and it costs a lot While you're trying to do these runs remember your body is gonna try and get good at whatever you're telling it to get good at and A big muscular body is not the ideal body to run, you know 4 to 5 miles every single day So that all being said knowing that that's the case Here's what I would do if I were in this situation Number one is I would focus on strength training Heavy strength training and I would not do a lot of it because you're doing so much volume of work And you're already doing so much endurance of stuff for someone who I know is doing 20 to 25 miles a week of running I'd have them bump their calories up, so we eat a lot more calories But then I'd also have them lift weights twice a week That's about as much as I'd have someone lift and it would be focused around The big heavy compound movements the workouts wouldn't be super long And the goal would be to try and get stronger on a week by week basis and that in my opinion Generally would be probably the best approach this reminds me of you know if I if I look back at my lifting career and If I had to pick the single most impactful thing that I did to help me go from being this You know 165 pounds six foot three, you know when blow me away type of deal physique To building some serious size on my body The number one thing was stopping playing basketball. I was playing ball every day I loved basketball and like an hour or two hours.  I was trying to consume and I just could not for the life of me I mean I could add maybe five to ten pounds But then within a couple weeks of just not focusing on eating enough it would come right off and I battled with this for many years until I finally decided that you know what? I cared more about building the physique than I cared about being in good basketball shape And it was like an instant 15 pounds like right away of muscle And that was just like what Sal was saying was I stopped sending this thing signal to my body that Because to be an agile Basketball player it is not advantageous to be a 250 50 pound ball of muscle running around They just don't complement each other and the body knows that and if you're spending more time Running around then and which you are right because if you're if you're running 20 to 25 miles like you said four or five miles a day You're running almost more than you're actually spinning lifting weights So the body is going to prioritize where you prioritize and if you prioritize it and being a good runner Then it's going to do it's going to build a physique that fits what a good runner looks like And so it's kind of tough to do both and I think the advice that you gave is phenomenal because the other thing that I put together was You know, I also had the mistake of the next big You know transition for me of putting size on was even when I stopped basketball I still was a seven day a week high intensity weightlifter and actually when I cut back to training three to four times a week and Slowed down and gave myself rest periods for, you know, two three minutes long. I never did that before I never two three minutes. I would I would go insane sitting down waiting for the next set that long you know as a Athlete is an athlete. It was just like the next thing the next thing next thing I had the endurance to do it So why wouldn't I be doing it? But I didn't realize how counterproductive that was for a guy who was trying to build muscle So once I cut my need that stark contrast. Yeah, that's all you're doing is prioritizing Your you know endurance portion of like your yeah, so I don't know if I cut as low as two times a week Like Sal said, although I don't think that would hurt I'd probably train three to four times of strength training in the gym with long rest periods in between and Increase my core can take and that's about all you really can do To try and build that muscular physique maybe start maybe start two days a week and then move it up You know to three if it's working. I just yeah I just I immediately say bring everything way back. That's a good point Yeah, ramp it ramp it back. That's a good point And I think too like it's probably easier to focus on building strength as far as like I mean is he trying to build size because that's that's damn near impossible with that kind of Endurance training that you're doing in combination So, you know if you're if you're just trying to focus a little bit more on central nervous system and getting that stark contrast between the two different Adaptations I feel like you know you could do you know that sort of protocol two to three times a week where we're just focused on that Intensively, however your body at a certain point. I mean recovery. That's a whole nother piece to this to this puzzle So just you know be mindful of that and like how how you're gonna be able to approach that and keep your body and your joints It is and keep this in mind like you're a Marine They're training you for battle and you know 220 pound bodybuilder and in battle is at a disadvantage They really are like hey, you're a bigger target to shoot and you're slower and you need more food and You're just not you're just not built for battle like a warrior Like what what's the average size of a seal aren't they like small like 170 160 170 and they're not super tall They're lean and 5 8 to 5 10 and like 170 Yeah, yeah, or you look at like that the Spartan race competitors like Mike's. Yeah, exactly Or like those those top Spartan race, you know, yeah Super strong. Yeah, Ben Greenfield is an example like he's muscular, but he's not big. He's kind of Wiring you know what I do want to point something out though because I know there's somebody listening right now That's shaking their head no Because I remember when I was competing too There was a handful of guys that actually did this much cardio and they competed on stage I now I thought it was silly for them to do that But they did and they could There is still always never forget a genetic component. Yeah, the outliers that trumps all this There is there is the guy who can go run five to ten miles every morning and still pack on muscle But he's the same guy too that will probably was in high school. It was you know more muscular than everybody else He's a mess or more. Yeah, but he could he would also gain a way more muscle if he stopped Exactly, and I guarantee you all those competitors that you knew that did all that cardio We're doing a cardio machine. They weren't running this guy's running outside sprinting. Yeah This is running outside for four to five miles a day Like I've never done anything that has made me lose muscle like actual running one of the guys that comes The mine is actually an ex-military guy That's why I wanted to point this out because I do remember a pro that I competed now. Were they natural or year I don't know. I mean I assume he was probably on gear But it you know point being that genetics are gonna play a huge role if you know There's outliers that are like this so if you have a marine buddy Who you're looking at whether he's all jacked and he's jacked do that Yeah, and he's running with you and you have more of a body type like mine and you're trying to do it It's just it's just not likely that it's gonna happen for you It's not me at the same time too. You probably are a better runner than he is, you know Then that's just how it works like you're probably more genetically geared towards being a great runner and not having a lot of Muscle where in he's the other way around he's just responds to the weights and Probably struggles a little more with the running. So Exactly 30 days of coaching for mine pump. It's available for free at mine pump media Dot-com also if you want to ask us a question that we'll answer in one of these episodes the place to do it is Instagram our page Is mine pump media? We also have our own personal pages mine is mine pumps out Adam is mine pump Adam Justin is Mine pump Justin and by the way if you want to learn in detail new exercise techniques Different movements to correct imbalances Movements to improve performance go to YouTube. Look up mind pump TV. We put up a new video every single day If your goal is to build and shape your body Dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted rgb Superbundle at mine pump media dot com the rgb Superbundle includes maths anabolic maths performance and maths aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos The rgb Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers But at a fraction of the price the rgb Superbundle has a full 30-day money back Guaranteed and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mine pump media comm If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by Introducing mine pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time. This is mine pump


Self-awareness can be a tricky thing. I train as hard as I need to to get to the level of skill that I want. I record myself then send those videos to some key people I've selected and I say What am I doing wrong? What am I doing? Well, how can I how can I get more efficient if one is truly humbled and willing to improve is one ever a master? Because I can say this I'm not a master, but I want to be and I'll do what it takes to get better and better. I Think master is more of a journey. It's more of a state of mind Than it is an actual thing. Being the gunner in the Second Marine Division What it means to me is every day I get up in the morning just trying to be good enough to hold that title What drives me in everything I can do Is the fact that I don't want to be unworthy of standing in front of a platoon of Marines