but for most people practicing lifts more often just improves their skill faster. Yeah. Just the bottom line, like you just get better at it. You do, like if you did 10 sets of squats in one day or you did 10 sets over three days, even though you're doing the same amount of sets, you're probably going to get better at squats faster by practicing it more frequently, even though the volume is the same. And that skill acquisition from strength training is so valuable, especially for most people. Boom. Here's the giveaway. It's our newest program, map symmetry. I'm going to give away map symmetry for free to only one of you. This is how you can do it though. Leave a comment in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode, subscribe to this channel, turn on notifications. If we like your comment, we'll notify you in the comment section and you'll get free access to the brand new maps symmetry program, very popular program. Also, big sale, okay? Because it's June. Everybody's trying to get lean. It's summertime. You want to look good. So here's the sale. We have a shredded summer bundle, which is multiple programs, maps aesthetic, maps hit, maps prime, and the intuitive nutrition guide. You got diet and workout all covered. That's a bundle, meaning it's already discounted, but we took an additional 50% off. So we got that and we also have maps hit by itself 50% off. So if you just want to try one program, see what all the talk is about, why everybody loves maps programs, maps hit by itself also 50% off. Here's how you can get the discount. Go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code June 50 for that 50% off discount. All right. Here comes the show. Look, here's the truth. For most of you, the ideal frequency you should train each body part when all of the things are equal and controlled for is about three days a week. For most of you training your body parts three days a week is ideal for strength gains, muscle gains, and for improving exercise technique. You know, this is like a hotly contested, consistently contested debate that we... By who? The no days off people? We're talking about... No, they like body parts split, so it's not really... The research points to two to three times, right? Two to four. Two to four is... Yeah, you'll see in the research it'll point to two to four, and some say two is a little better, some say maybe four in some ways. And it kind of lands in the three range. And you mentioned body part splits. You can break up the body in a lot of different ways and still achieve each body part getting hit three days a week. That's hard though. I think it's more realistic too when you do splits. Yeah, like two days a week, right? Yeah, because it's typically like upper, lower legs or something like that. Repeat. And if you split even less than that down to one or two body parts, it's almost impossible to go two or three times, more than two times. But the data is pretty clear that definitely more than one. And now you've got to consider that they're controlling for volume here too. So it doesn't mean if you hit a body part three days a week that you're doing triple the volume. We have to control everything, meaning if you did, let's say 25 sets for back, is it more effective to do it all in one workout, in two workouts or three workouts or maybe four, right? And in our experience, three is ideal. Mainly for this, because I know there's studies that show that two and three are pretty similar, although I have seen some studies that point that strengthings might be a little better with more frequency. I like hitting the body parts three days a week for a few different reasons. One, people tend to do the most effective exercises more often when that happens. Like if I do 12 sets in one workout for legs, I'll do squats once. If I do 12 sets spread out over three workouts, I'm more likely to squat three times, right? Because as I'm doing my workout all in one, I start to get fatigue. Now I'm going to move the leg extensions and other... Yeah, do the machines because you're exhausted, fatigue, but you still want the volume. So if you can spread it out throughout the week, like you usually tend to pick the most effective compound lifts, for the most part. The other reason why I like it is especially for... Maybe this doesn't necessarily apply to super advanced lifters, but for most people, practicing lifts more often just improves their skill faster. Yeah. Just the bottom line. Like you just get better at it. You do like if you did 10 sets of squats in one day, or you did 10 sets over three days, even though you're doing the same amount of sets, you're probably going to get better at squats faster by practicing it more frequently, even though the volume is the same. And that skill acquisition from strength training is so valuable, especially for most people. Maybe not the super advanced who've been working out for a while, and they've really got the skills of lots of lifts, but most people don't fall into that category. And most people haven't been training more consistently for longer than a year or two, and that consistent practice, that frequent practice makes a big difference. Yeah, I just love the cadence of the three workouts per week, with the rest days kind of in between. Oh, you like the full body. Yeah, the full body. Yeah, I just prefer that. Just how I can accomplish all the body parts, but then feel like I don't really run into that fatigue, and I feel like the most energetic going into the following day after. I mean, I like it for the reasons, too, that the inevitable happens. You miss one. Yeah, that's it. So what?  So what? You missed, you know, and I missed four or five days of that week of training anything, but at least I got a single full body workout in that week. And so I think that's one of my favorite things about switching from a body part split to a more full body type of training routine, is that, you know, there's this less pressure to like, oh, I got to hit the gym because I'm going to miss this body part, or when I do miss or get sick, and then I come back going like, oh, what was it I did last? I forgot, like, what muscle group I on? And the natural thing is always, I'll just do the one I like to do, which is I think everybody does. Chest. But I want to go back to something you said, because I remember when I first read that study, and I made a mistake that I think a lot of people do when they decide, where they hear like, oh, the frequency thing is so important, is I start, and I know you said it, but I think people just, we still fall in that same trap of thinking more is better, you know? And that is if I trained, you know, because for me, for me, when I was doing body part splits, it was typically 12 to 15 sets per muscle group, okay, is what I did. And I hammered it right for that one workout. Yeah, right. And so what I ended up doing was, oh, frequency is two to three times a week for optimal muscle gaining. So what I tried to do was, you know, two more work at one to two more workouts that mirrored that one that I was currently doing for versus going, oh, I'm going to take the work I was doing in that one workout and just divided over two or three days. Because it didn't register for me. I thought, oh, okay, well, now I understand frequency is important. So I'm going to try and do at least what I'm doing on this day or more on another day or two days later. And now you just tripled the volume. Yeah, way too much. And just way too much. No, this is all things being controlled for. But I'll go back to what I said about exercise selection. Like, let's say, let's say you're going to work your shoulders. Okay. And it's 15 sets in today's workout. I'm doing a typical body part split. So I'm not hitting my body part, my shoulders three times this week. I'm going to hit it once. So I'm going to do 15 sets in one workout. Probably three or four sets will be some kind of an overhead press. Most workouts, justifiably, because it's a good way to program, is to start your workout with a compound lift, a heavy one, the one that, you know, it's kind of the biggest bang for your buck. And then each successive exercise starts to move down towards more isolation type movements, more getting a pump, what bodybuilders would call finishers. Because you're not going to do 15 sets of overhead presses in one workout, for the most part, super exhausting. However, let's say I did shoulders three days in the week, five sets each day, right? So it's still 15 sets. I'm starting out each workout and I'm more likely to do more of these big gross motor movement, these kind of this overhead press. I'm probably going to overhead press at least two of those workouts, if not all of them, for a majority of the sets and maybe throw in some isolation stuff for one or two sets at the end of the workout, right? So you end up doing these more effective exercises. You practice these exercises that require more skill, so you get more out of them. Now, what this also requires is how to modulate intensity, which this is another reason why I love training this way, is it really teaches you how to modulate the intensity appropriately, which is a very valuable skill, because when you're working a body part once and you're done for the week for that body part, it's like hard or nothing. I'm not going to be able to do this body part again till next Monday. You leave it all there. Right, but if it's shoulders three days a week, Monday might be hard. Wednesday comes around, I'm a little sore from Monday. Let me go a little easier, get more of a pump. And then Friday comes around, I feel good again. I'll go hard again type of deal. So the skills you learn from training this way are also better. And then I'm going to make this argument, and there's no evidence to support this is my own theory, but when you send a muscle building signal through exercise, most of it is, I guess you could use for lack of better term, it's localized. In other words, if I work out my biceps, most of the muscle building signal goes to the bicep, right? But there is a systemic muscle building effect. And there are studies that show this. For example, if I have a broken left arm, and I train my right arm, I will actually prevent as much muscle loss from a left arm that could happen if I never worked out my right arm. So my left arm is not doing anything, but because I'm training my right arm, I actually lose less muscle. And they've done studies on this. And they show this with either limb, the right arm, left arm, left leg, right leg, back to chest, whatever. If you have an injury, training the rest of your body actually sends this kind of systemic muscle building signal, which makes evolutionary sense. It would make no sense for your body to have all be local and zero systemic effects. Well, and what do we attribute that to? Mostly CNS, the signaling, because you're getting a louder, stronger signal. The CNS is being trained. And so it being trained and becoming more efficient or stronger then still contributes to other parts of the body. Well, it's communicating what the environment consists of. There you go. That's all right. So it's like, yeah, it's like how your body needs to be able to overcome this stress, this force. So it just will, I'm guessing like this is, like it'll prioritize building muscle in certain areas of your body to withstand, even though you're probably just focusing on one side versus the other, you know, systemically, your whole body needs to respond. Yeah, because think about from an evolutionary standpoint, when in nature would you just need your biceps to be strong or just need your quads, right? It's probably whatever movement you're doing, okay, majority of the gains will go to the quads, but we also need to bolster the rest of the body a little bit. So you get this kind of carryover effect. It's not huge, but it's still there. So I think full body workouts, because that's the more common way to do, you hit the body three times in terms of, you know, body part frequency. I feel like a full body workout sends a louder general muscle building signal than dividing up the body. Now, is there any theory or is there a study to prove like, okay, I would assume to the point you're making right now that, okay, if I just did left arm bicep curls, I do get a little bit of benefit to my right side. Obviously not as much as localized, but I get some benefit. Now, I would think that doing barbell back squats sends a louder systemic signal than a left arm bicep curl does. Do we have research to show that?  There definitely is something about the value that you're getting from just a heavy barbell back squat by itself in comparison to a single arm dumbbell curl.  Yeah, everything's for a big exercise like that. So yeah, there's definitely going to be some carryover. I mean, doing a leg press is not going to build the same low back and core stability that a squat would, for example. Definitely not thoracic, you're not holding anything on your back. So these movements can be practiced more frequently when the train is on that way. And again, I think that the signal, the general muscle building signal is just louder because you're doing the whole body. There's more demand, right? There's more muscle involvement, there's more muscle tension involved, isometrically to maintain posture, maintain position through the mechanics.  I'm sure, I mean, you're not going to need to produce as much force throughout your body to just do a bicep curl versus a back squat. And often the advice that we get or we read is like in this ideal context, in this ideal situation, right? But the reality is the average person typically has a normal life, kind of busy, wants to maximize the time that they're spending in the gym, probably should practice the skill of lifting because their skill on some of these compound lifts isn't like perfect. They're probably going to miss over the course of a year, 10 workouts or more, you know? So I mean, if you gave me 100 people, everyday regular people who are somewhat serious about their fitness, want to build muscle, build strength, and you said what general split would probably work best for the majority of them? I'd be like full body two, three days a week. That'll outperform all the other stuff because of all the other factors that we're talking about. Especially over the course of a year, two years, when you talk about long term. I'm not interested in short term success. I know you guys aren't either. Everything we tend to hear in fitness space is about short term success. That's part of the problem though is all the studies are done that way. Every study is done in a six, I mean, very rarely do you run across a study that they did over a year or whatever like that. Most studies are six, 12 weeks, maybe tops. Yeah, especially in terms of training. Yeah, and so then in the fitness space, we'll take a piece of information from a study like that and then build this huge argument around why you should train this way. Why shouldn't it? It's like, well, there's so many other factors and when you're only talking about six weeks, like okay, yeah, in a very controlled environment, that makes sense or that is close to. Because right now that's part of the argument too, right? With a body part split versus the full body routine, like in a six week controlled study, we're not talking about a massive difference. You're not talking about a huge difference for someone like that. But over the course of six months, eight months a year, two years of training, that should go out out. There was a poll that I wish I could find it and hopefully I do by the time this airs, but I found a poll where they asked some of the top strength and conditioning coaches and trainers and these are well known names. And all of them, I think, said full body three days a week is probably the most effective for about 80%. Well, and that's experience talking. That's what that is. That's not someone referencing a study, well, this study says this and shows this, therefore this, you're talking about probably coaches that have been doing this for decades and can say, well, which you've also read the studies too, but then also have paid attention to behaviors and consistency around training and said, yeah, they may be close in a six week study, but and then that's why I keep bringing up though my favorite part about it is the inevitable always happens. So it just came off of being sick. Wasn't that long ago we're traveling? We're getting ready to travel in another month again. It's like rarely ever, I mean, in that small window of my life when I was so heavily focused on competing, did I never miss workouts? You know, along those lines too, I do want to mention that oftentimes we look at the top athletes of a particular category and we use them as the example of how most people should train. So wrong. Bodybuilders are very different from 99.9% of people watching this or listening to this. You're so different from a bodybuilder. It's not even funny. You're the distance between- Why do we think that just by lifting weights we can end up looking like that? You couldn't. And look, the difference between 99.9% of people watching this and a pro bodybuilder is the same distance as them from Stephen Hawking's or Elon Musk or LeBron James. Okay. That's the distance. So if I look at LeBron James and I'm like, hey, well, it works for him. That ain't probably going to work for me. Pro bodybuilders, there's a lot of factors that make them so genetically gifted when it comes to building muscle. Forget the drugs that they take. They're just so gifted at building muscle naturally that they probably lift weights and that muscle building signal for them lasts 10 times as long as it does for the average person. And back to your sport analogy, it's not just the genetic component. It's also their desire to be the best at their sport that they're competing at. So their discipline level is- Oh, that's all I do.  I'm saying I'm traveling. I'm going to be with my family. I'm going to relax. I'm not going to carry tub wear around to this or make some weird order like this. But when you're normal people that want to be healthy and fit and I like to look good and feel good and all those same things, but it's not as much of a priority. And I just don't think that- So it's a, they're a terrible example for us to pull from and say, this guy does this or that guy does this. Therefore, this is what I should do. It's just like, no, you're nothing like that. Plus when you, again, back to the genetics, like when you see someone like this, they'll get big muscles from running long distance. Like literally, like they're so gifted at building muscle. It's really, it's not a good idea to extrapolate what works for them and kind of apply it to yourself. That's the worst is like when you get at one of those athletes that's like an extreme endurance, and they're jacked and you're like, and then your client tries to like ask you what they're doing and like- You're like, dude, it's not, it doesn't make sense. This guy's an anomaly, so let's move on. I know. Anyway, I got to tell you guys some funny stuff. So this past weekend, we had the family over for dinner. So we had all my parents and my brother and my sister and they brought their kids. I don't know, have I told you guys about Italian time? Have I explained that to you guys? Italian time. Is that- You mean as far as like being late? I mean, okay. Like I know this, but I always, you know, I kind of give them the benefit of the doubt. So I'll tell them. Is that like the first thing in the morning where everybody yells at each other? No, that's- Because I've been to some Italian families. It's fun. We're not yelling, it's fun. We're just talking. Right, ah! I give them a time and it's all, that doesn't matter. The first person will always show up a minimum of 45 minutes late. And that, and when they show up, this is the funny part. They'll say, everybody four o'clock. Okay, I got food coming. Please show up at four o'clock. The first person to show up is my parents. And I think there was like four, 45. And I'm like, mom, are you late? I told you guys, what do you mean? Like we're on time. It's only four, 45. Like they think you're on time because they're not- Because you're in that window of four. To the point where we're going to start lying. Like what time does the party start? Three o'clock. You know what I mean? Tell them.  I feel like that's wife time too. I do that. I've been doing that Katrina for years, man. What do you mean? Yeah. Just tell, I always lie to her about what time I have to be somewhere. Oh, I don't know if she's not punctual. I mean, if she has to be somewhere meeting business-wise, that's different, right? But when it comes to us, like, or if we're going to a friend's house or, and you know how I am about packing up and going somewhere, right? Oh my God. Like I'm like, annoying. I'm super military about that, right? I want to be like- It's like nine a.m. He's like, we got to be there at one. I want to be ready. Five minutes early is late to me, right? So that's how I just, I run. I definitely run like that. So could you imagine if she's even slightly on the other side? And then of course, you guys bury each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, I learned early on. So I just, when, if it's something that I'm organizing and I want us to be somewhere at a certain time, I just, I lie. I just say we have to be there an hour before. And so- That's the difference. If I want to be somewhere super punctual, if I don't want to be somewhere, I'm like, we're going to be fashionably late. We're going to be 20 to 40 minutes late. Oh dude, my family- Every time. Is consistent. And my mom, I love her so, but she used to say, oh, I have four kids. That's why it's so hard to be on time.  Well, yeah, four kids, you got a man. I'm like, mom, it's you and dad. You literally have nothing to do today, aside from being here at four o'clock. You know why she's just so accustomed to using that excuse? Because it is the best excuse. Of course. One of my favorite things about having a kid is that excuse. Oh yeah, and you get to leave parties early too. Yeah, automatic out.  Automatic out. Baby's tired. And you don't feel bad. You don't say, oh, I would love to do that. But you know, we got to take my son here. Well, there's another thing that my family does. And I think in my cult, just in our culture in particular does this, which is the estimating the right amount of food. Not the hand signals, just a little racist there. My, the food estimates are always ridiculous. So, oh, it's always too much food. Bro, so I ordered a bunch of food, right? So we had all this chicken and food and it gets there. And you know, my parents are there. We're waiting for my brother and my sister, of course. And my, my, my dad's like, is there more coming? I'm like, no, this is, we have, I think we had 10, 10 total people. I'm like, I got enough food for 14 people. And he looks at that and he goes, um, no, since he goes, you know, just six of us could eat all this. And I'm like, starting to question myself.  My mom's like, yeah, you should probably order some more. So I'm like, are you sure? Like, yeah, like we had seven people the other day. And we ate twice some, some damn. So I'm like, I'm, I'm ordering more food. I'm like, how much more should I order? Like, you know, get like, get like twice as much, get at least twice as much. And then we'll probably be okay. I think this is not just an Italian, this is a Mexican thing too. Cause this is Katrina's family is like this.  And I'm like, who's all coming? Oh, this is everybody. Like there's six of us. We're going to feed like 30 people. I ordered twice as much, of course. It's been the opposite though. You're, that's the first amount was enough. And the food was sitting there afterwards. Cause I've been to parties, like my family's thrown and I'll throw them under the bus.  And I'm like, what? This isn't even a party. I think that's why I don't complain, right? Cause I'm with you, Justin. That's like super annoying.  We never keep it stoked. Never run out of food. Yeah, ever. There's never been a food item where I'm like, oh, is there, oh, there's none left. Never. Never that way. Nope. There's a backup bowl in the refrigerator. It's always, way more. We always have potatoes somewhere in my family. Oh yeah, dude. So I was just, it was just funny. I was sitting there, I was just talking with Jessica about like, I don't know, I'm sorry. I can't, we're gonna have to lie. Yeah. So the late thing, isn't that, there's some kind of tie there with like cortisol and like, in terms of like people continuously just being late for, for events and late for, they like to rush. Well, I, that would be, that's true for people who are late to everything. Yeah. My, my, I mean, look, my brother's successful in his work. I know he's on time to work. My mom has, she's always on time for her job, a lot of stuff. I think it's just the expectations where it's to the point, if you show up on time, it's almost rude.  So we gotta wait at least an hour. Like, that's how it's gotten. Got to that point. So I'm like, because we'll show up on time, sometimes we'll party. We'll, oh, five minutes late. And we'll, and you know, we'll be like Russian. And then we'll walk in and like, there's no one there. And I'm like, of course, we're the first ones here, you know. Well, speaking of Mexican food, Adam, I, here's the thing. Okay. It was funny because like, Ethan was able to stay at one of his friends house and like stay overnight and all this stuff. I'm like, oh, how'd it go?  And he was like, yeah. And then his mom was going to have, make some Mexican food and like, and he was like, I'm like, well, how was it? He's like, well, you know, I was a little bit worried about how was it? Cause, okay. So basically she was like, hey kids, you guys want some quesadillas and some salsa? It's like, I wasn't very confident that the quality was going to be there, dad. And I was like, I get that, right? Some chimichangas, like, like not real authentic. Let's just say. You guys want some, some macaroni tacos? Cause I was dying because I was like, oh yeah, I would probably be a little worried too.  To finish that up, buddy. Yeah, I know.  And I'm like, lasagna. What are you putting cheddar in there? Like, what are you putting in your lasagna? That's not lasagna. Don't call it that. It's like pineapple on pizza.  Don't do that. That's the worst thing. Put the house pineapple on pizza. I'm with you now. That's like, so no one, did you guys barbecue? It was Memorial weekend. No one barbecue? Did you barbecue Doug? I know you did. I did, yeah. I smoked too. I feel like that's like you're supposed to. I went to a barbecue. That you're supposed to smoke on. Did the wind blow the tea out again?  Cause it was windy. So yeah, and it's always really windy at my house. So I'm, I'm, I'm grilling or smoking this weekend. And I did the, the, it's not a butcher box commercial, but I did their ribs. And I tell you what, dude, like. It's the heritage pork. It, there, I, I have several times now tried other great ribs from people recommending it. And I don't, I don't, I have yet to cook anything as good as the butcher box. Heritage pork tastes better. Yeah, just fact. Anyways, again, it's not a commercial. So it's not today's not day to talk about that really, but I'm out there and so it's so windy at my place. I was telling Doug this the other day, my only frustration with the smoker is it's a very, it's like a very small flame in there that, that, that heats up the whole thing. And it's a real slow cook, right? And it gets so windy at my place that it'll blow the flame out.  So a lot of times I'll get everything already. It's a four hour, six hour ordeal. I get it on there. Everything's fine outside. It's not that windy. And then I'm like, you know, watching basketball or doing stuff in the house. And then I go out there and my shit's been blown out and meat's been sitting in there cold for an hour. Just flux the whole thing up. So I had to like, so I'd like move my other grill to block some wind and move in furniture on my, I have like a California room and move all this furniture. I took my, this, this wicker, wicker and glass table. And I set it up on my other table that was out there. And I'm grilling a Katrina comes out there. And she's like, are you going to leave that there? And I'm like, no, I was just moving it because I had to get some room to block the wind, whatever. Right. So she comes in and I'm like, of course, I'm not going to leave there. So I finished grilling after ribs turned out phenomenal. And it's later on that night. And after the grill is cooled down to go put the covers on it. And I'm like looking out and it's like, now it's getting really windy.  I look out the slider and I'm like, I need to go put those, those covers on before they blow, blow out, out to my neighbors or something like that. Because it's getting that windy. And I, and I look and I'm like, I should do that right now. And then I'm looking at, it's the Celtics in Miami game. Still going and the, and Miami's making a run. They're coming back and it's like fourth quarter. I'm like, I'll get to it in just a minute. I'll sit down. So I sit down literally like five minutes later. I hear this. And I went, oh, fuck, right.  I walk out there and the wind picked up a wicker and glass table and flipped it and exploded on the ground. The shitty part about this and why my back is all tweaked from fricking shoveling. Oh, that's why you're, that's why you're reticent. Oh, I'm so sore right now. That's why you're sore.   So, hey, well, and, and I did it at like a level that I, because it's my son, right? Okay. So first of all, this glass is- You don't want any of that near him. Shattered.  Oh, it's because they make the safety glass. Yeah. So it just- So it just explodes. It exploded. It turns into fricking dust, sir. And it explodes into my son's sand pit. Oh, yeah, dude.   Impossible. Yeah. And then realized I'm going to be here for weeks trying to do this.  Yeah, I'm going to dig. Basically, I'm going to, I basically made a line of, I looked to see how far it shattered out, which was probably a, I don't know, five feet by, you know, eight feet long, like area, and then just said, I'm just going to throw away all the dirt, all the sand that's in that, in that area. So I was like, I mean, I shoveled like a whole trash can worth of sand out. It was just a lot. It was hours of shoveling. You know what? That rotational movement. Oh, bro, that's repetitive. You don't do it often. On the same side, too. It's, I remember that because I was digging up my septic tank. I remember when that happened. Dude, and I had to end up getting like a pickaxe because the ground got really hard. And it was like, dude, what am I doing? I was so sordid, the whole body. Dude, I didn't, you know what? I just remembered. So you know how I used to go help my dad in the summers when he would, you know, he'd have me come work with him. And a lot of what I would do is mix cement. So he would make the mud and I go mix it. And the mud is made with sand. Sand is one of the main ingredients. We actually had, I don't remember what it was that broke in the sand, but we go buy all the sand, right? And we're going to do a job. I don't remember what it was. Something in the van toppled over and glass broke in the sand. And we don't have time to go back and buy more. We got to do this job. So what we did, and this was actually kind of effective, what we did is we got a big, like not great, but almost like a screen, like screen, like you get on a screen door. But just a little bit bigger. We laid it out. We got two by fours on each side. So it was like a big thing. And then I would put a shovel of sand over it. So I was going to sift it out and it actually worked. So I was going to do something like that. Here's the shitty part about my house. Do you guys remember what's in my backyard? I have those black wood chips. So I've got all of these. So not only do I have this glass in my sand, but I also have all these wood chips. Because I thought the same thing.  I'll shake it all out. But then what would have been there would have been all the wood chips. And then it wouldn't have sifted. The wood chips won't sift through the sand. Then you have to throw the wood chips away. It was a nightmare. And I guess if it was just me and we didn't have a kid, I probably wouldn't have been so obsessive about it. But I'm like, I got it for the most part. That's right. Where he plays. He plays out their barefoot. Always. And I've trained. And here's the other thing. I've trained him so well to be barefoot everywhere that like asking him to put his shoes on in our backyard is like blasphemy. Like that. Like I like never let him put his shoes on in our backyard. The worst part of this is Katrina called it. No, she was good. She was because she came out. She saw me. She's just like drinking her coffee. Weird. If only we could have predicted.   It's not a light table. Pick that sucker up and. And they make that glass. It's safety glass because what they don't want it to do is to break and turn into long sharp shards. So what happens if you break something like that? It. Now, are you sure that's called safety glass? Because I thought safety glass is what's in our windshields, which it's spiders and it's stuck together tempered. Is it tempered the right word? Yeah, I think there's a different name. It's designed to basically turn into a bunch of pieces to prevent what happened to my dad, which I didn't find the cell to where he told me a story when he was playing kick ball, I believe, like when he was growing up. And he ended up like running through like a sliding glass door and it like almost got his artery. Yeah, sliced all the way. Yeah.  And I remember it popped. It didn't like crack and break into big pieces. The whole thing just explodes. Yeah. And that's what it's tempered glass. Yeah. And it's stronger, but then what does it do when it shatters? Unlike. Oh, yeah. See, it fractures into small relatively harmless pieces. Yeah. So they make it that way. So it's called tempered glass. Yeah. Yeah. I thought safety safety is the wrong thing. Safety glass is what's on the windshields, which if you ever see a windshield breaks spiders, yeah, it has, it has like, it's like sticky on both sides. So glass doesn't go anywhere. Like if you were to, I mean, shatter a windshield, it doesn't.  Is that bullshit? I don't know. That's Hollywood.  Yeah. Or shredding everything? Yeah. They don't have like cuts everywhere.  It wouldn't be very good for you. What does that say? Yeah. So these are all kinds of safety glasses, but the one Adam's talking about is laminated glass. Yeah. That's what's in the windshield. So it has like, you've ever seen it. Like the glass wall break, but it's all stuck together still Speaking of safety, because a lot of things are safer now, did you know that there's one thing that is far more dangerous today than ever before? House fires. Did you know that in the past it took, it took like, I think like five times as long for a house to catch full flame than it does today? Why? Because of all the composite and plastics and all these materials. All the chemicals. Yeah. Maybe Duncan looks up a house now, typical house now, if it catches fire. Get rid of asbestos, which actually was a great fire.  Is that why asbestos was so popular? Oh, it was fire. Oh, yeah, it blocked fire. Oh, I actually didn't know that.  Oh, is that what was on the ceiling, the popcorn? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Was that asbestos? Yes. Bro, I'm not sure if that's specific, but there really is. No, it absolutely is.  Just scrape it off. Yeah. Well, all I know is my cousin and I used to sit on his bunk bed and we'd make it snow by... So if I get... This explains so much. Oh, yeah.  We also ate paint chips.  Mixing chemicals and stuff, again, working in construction.  Like nothing. It was just breathing in, cough it out, blow your nose. What's in that? Oh, look, the paper's dark and weird. Yeah, dude. I was on all kinds of construction. I'm sure I was exposed to like all that crazy chemicals. What does that say, Doug? That house is... Yeah, so they burn faster because they are lighter weight and use cheaper materials. Oh, that makes sense. Tinder box.  I saw... You know, I've seen several times now. Just happened again just like two days ago is those tiny houses are becoming more and more popular, man. Really? Yeah. Saw two of them on the freeway driving. What makes a house a tiny house? Molecule homes? What makes a house a tiny house? It's tiny. Well, I know that. But there's a lot of small houses. Like what's the... Where's the break-off line? Oh, where does it... Where does something go from small to tiny? Yeah, like what quality... Oh, that's amazing. What makes something a tiny house? Probably under 1,000 square feet. So a tiny house, I think... And not to say that you can't buy a regular house that's 900 square feet, but you're... Write that... Google that, put like... What defines a tiny house? So what is the criteria to make a tiny house? Because that's a... It's got to be under a square foot. It's got to be under a square foot. Yeah, because I would wonder that. Maybe under 800. One of my friends from high school actually made a business out of it. I think he called it Molecule Homes, but it was like... He was hoping it was going to take off. I wonder if he still had it. They're huge now, dude. Yeah. Okay, so there's a distinction made between small houses, which is between 400 and 1,000 square feet, and tiny houses, less than 400 square feet. Wow, less than 400. What? With some as small as 80 square feet. Wow. Now these were... 80 square feet? Now these were the thing... No, thanks. That's an 8 by 10 room. That's your home. Now, hold on a second. This was a thing in Tokyo for a while, right? Don't they have pods or...? Yeah, they have pods, but I think those are just for overnight stay. But I think it's Hong Kong, because they have the... I think they call them coffin homes, and they literally are about the size of a coffin. They're super, super tiny little rooms, and I can't imagine living in one. You know, there's something... There would be... I can see obviously the negatives, but I could also see the positive. There would be something freeing... Oh, my God. About living in so bare minimum, right? Not with a family. Fucking... I'd feel more like a prison cell. Yeah, no. Have you seen how they've innovated for some of these small spaces with folding things out, making the tables, like bringing the bed from the ceiling? Yeah. You got to get real creative in those tiny settings. Yeah, that's like...  I mean, I think it would be a value to go through a phase in your life as a minimalist, right? Yeah, minimalist mentality. Right. But I think you could also do that in your big giant house right now. Like, I've thought about this before. Like, I look at my closet, which I clear out every year, and it just like blows me away how much... I mean, of course... You don't clear out your closet. I do, too. I clear my closet all the time, every year.  And I go, you know, maybe this is the year where I'm going to pick... You know, I think there was a thing that went viral. I think it was... And then I think there was a book around it where you go down to 33 pieces of items. Yeah, I remember that number, yeah. Right, is that what it was? It was something like that. It was like 33. It was like a specific number. Like, this is it. Yeah. And so I thought, like, for briefly, for a moment, I thought about doing that. Like, okay, I'm going to... Let's... Could I... Could I rotate? Because when you think about it, too, you kind of do stick to probably the same 15 to 20 outfits, right? My grandfather would tell me cleaning house and like getting rid of stuff. I love that. Jessica's really good at that. Liberating. I appreciate that about her. She'll do that every year. Yeah, I'm all about that. My grandfather used to tell me, literally, he passed away as my dad's dad, but he'd be like... He was talking about growing up with all his siblings and how they were poor. And he'd say, yeah, he goes, you'd wake up and you'd go and quickly grab the shoes or the pants because there's not enough for all you and your siblings. I'm like, what? He goes, yeah, if there were no shoes left, I'd have no shoes that day. So you'd want to wake up first and go grab... I'm like, what if they don't fit you? He goes, you make them fit. So he would... You just make them fit. He had one pair of shoes. He told me a story once that finally he got a pair of shoes that were his, but they bought them hella big so that he could grow into them.  So what did his mom do? Cut up the toes. Cut the toes out. And now it's like sandals. And this is what they did, bro.  Of course. Yeah, because for the way I grew up, so my mom is like borderline hoarder, like would just acquire things. And would be like a bargain hunter. And I was always getting the second hand stuff from my brothers. I was the youngest and this and that. And so it's like, I am all about minimal. Minimal things that are the nicest things. I don't want a lot of stuff, but I want quality things.  You know, like that's it. And it's funny because you get into that position where like she wants to like donate things to my house constantly. And I'm always like, thank you. And then like... You know, my mom, they're okay about this. I wouldn't consider borders. They have a pretty clean, neat house, but they were brought up obviously by their parents, which were very poor, right? And so they kind of have some of that. My mom will not throw away containers. So here's what I mean by that. You know how you buy food that comes in a container? Katrina does this. Like you buy cheese and it's in a container. Or you buy this and it's in a container. She washes it and then that becomes a Tupperware. Or so there's literally a cupboard with containers I remember as a kid. They're still there. You know? Yeah, we have a trash in my house. And like it's... So when Katrina is getting Max ready for bed, I clean downstairs and part of cleaning is doing the dishes. My one of the only fights or things I get frustrated with is when I have to like, let's say like we just made her pasta dish and there's always leftovers and so I take the leftovers out and put it in Tupperware. But I refuse to do that because we have a Tupperware cabinet that is... I'll take a picture of it and send it to you guys some time.  Because she keeps every plastic thing that comes through. So if we bought something at Safeway and it came in a plastic thing, it now becomes this new Tupperware. And so I had bought... I think Doug actually got me one year, the glass ones. And I had a handful of ones that I like to use and stuff like that. And they were like, oh, and that. And now it's this... I mean, it is crazy, bro. I mean, we have thousands of them. So I'll go under there and I'll be so frustrated because I can never find the matching lid to the thing. Oh, you got that, yeah. So I just... I just... I leave it. That's like, you know what? When it comes to Tupperware or something, like I'm leaving on... I'll do everything else in the house. I'll do all the dishes, everything like that.  Oh, no, bro. They were when I was a kid. You had like AMPM cups. Yes, dude. Yes, yes. My parents used to do that, too. And I see the cups. Although I still love those. And I love the old Burger King Star Wars ones. I stole those from Paris. There were cups. I see the bite marks on them that I remember my brother putting on them. Oh, my God. When we were little. And they're still there. Are they still got them? Yeah. I'm like, there's bite marks on this. Oh, it's still good. Yeah. Why would I throw it away? It's not good. My God, man. I hope I never eat my words. I was in an apocalypse. Can't be good for you. Thank God. Drinking out of all of this old plastic. I know. Can't be healthy. More things that explain. Between breathing and asbestos. Now I'm all about optimizing my health. Speaking of optimizing, right? I read a study. So did you guys.  I didn't realize it was this big. There's an ideal range. And they say in the studies that it's around 67 degrees. And there's an individual variance. 65. When you find your number, did you guys know that is little as a 0.7 degree change? So not one degree. A 0.7 degree change. They can measure in your sleep quality and your REM sleep that much. So if your ideal sleep temperature, let's say is 65 degrees, 65.7, they can actually with. Who's more sensitive of that, dads? Yeah. Probably. I 100% believe I can feel that. Just a 0.7. I got up last night and left. And she was like, why did you leave last night? The room got warm. She's like, you literally left as soon as I closed the outside door. I felt it. I felt that half a degree went up. Oh, it's going to be uncomfortable tonight. I'm out of here. Well, you know, okay. So the challenge with this. And this is why, obviously, one of our partners is chilly and they make these, for people who don't know, it's like a pad that goes over your bed under your sheets. And it uses water to warm and cool. But what it isn't is a pad that you turn on and then it just stays hot or cold. What it does is it has the temperature gauge on it. You lay your body on it. Your body's hot. It regulates itself to maintain that exact temperature. Right. So as you heat up, like it'll. It'll boost its cooling, right? Or how, if the temperature of the room changes or if your spouse gets in or whatever, it always maintains that particular temperature, which is why I think it's such a game changer. Right. Because before, I mean, even though I had it, I liked 65 in terms of the outside environment, whatever. Now that I have the chillies, it's totally different. Like I can have that monitor specifically, but I would still wake up super hot if I had that fricking duvet on me or Courtney rolled over and body heat or whatever. Like it would just, I'd interrupt everything. So this is controlled. Got an argument with Jessica the other night over the sheets, because she kept pulling it and I had none. I'm like, what?    She's like, excuse me. I'm like, I have nothing. And I look and it's because the sheets are half on the floor. So she's got like a corner of it, but we were fighting. You guys not do two separate blankets? No. Oh, we do. Really? So, okay. So I ordered something for Katrina. You've been married for long enough. Maybe I could do that. Bro, okay. So I haven't opened it yet. I actually got it for Katrina for Christmas. You know, I bought her a bunch. I do this, right? Like I have like a couple of gifts that are like her nice gifts and then I have a bunch of like random like stuff that I saw online that all this look great. I bought this blanket and we actually have it unpacked. I totally forgot about it toward this conversation just happened. And it's, it's, it's a blanket, but it has a split down the middle. What? So it's split. Is it attached at the bottom? Yeah, it's still attached to the bottom. Oh, okay. But it's, it's so it's like, it's split right down the middle. So you have like almost your, his and her sheets. Oh my God. You know, I thought it was really brilliant. You guys realize that it wasn't until I want to say the sixties where it became commonplace that husbands and wives slept in the exact same bed before that it was common to have two beds in the room. No, I like, yeah, I like combining. It's just, you know, it's just an age old battle. Yeah, I don't know. I have a weird thing about that. Like if I feel like, would you be okay with that? Like who's more likely of all of us to have, it would be okay. You know, I feel weird not sleeping in the same bed or room as Jessica.   No, there's something about, there's something about it that makes me feel like, oh, that's not right. We're supposed to be together. You know what I mean? But I'm like, is it really or is it just because I've been used to it? You know, that's what I'm saying. Maybe that's the only way it would work for me is if we both had, or at least for me, I had it still had a king bed. I couldn't do a twin or a full. No, I'm not gonna sleep in a twin. Oh, yeah. I'd love to see you twin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One way, yeah. A long time. I mean, he was a small queen. I swear it was not like a full queen size, but we did that forever. And then when we made the jump to the king, it was like, this is what we should have been doing the whole time. I have my own land over here and you have yours. Yeah, no. I think maybe like two kings. My favorite part, one of my favorite parts about the chili is it keeps her over on her side. Go, because the temperature- Because she likes it so warm. And mine's like ice cold. So she starts to creep over. Oh my God, it's so cold. She should roll back to the other side. I'm like, oh, this is another chili commercial. I need to definitely, I need to talk about this. Like an invisible fence. There you go. It is an invisible fence. It's a shock. I was gonna say to make it electric shock. That's the next upgrade.  Have you seen these, there's these articles that come out talking about where there's like veterinarians and animal rights people saying, we need to stop breeding pugs and bulldogs. Oh, they've been saying that for a long time. This is becoming like a thing though. Because they have health issues and stuff. Yeah. That's just because they've been bred to look a particular way. They're saying it's animal cruelty that we need to stop doing it. We need to stop breeding them because of all the breathing issues and all the health issues. Let's just stop making chihuahuas. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm kind of torn, right? Because like what are you gonna do to not have that dog exist anymore? Like- Yeah, no, that's crazy. I don't know.   Oh, right. So a lot of people are just like, there's already so many bulldogs that are out there and it's already bad enough that they continue to breed them. Like, why would you buy? So I remember when I first got the boys and I'd post about them, like, part of why I stopped posting them.  I'm like, oh my God.  Like, they look very different. Like English Bulldog, you know what that used to look like? You ever seen what an American Bulldog looks like? Yeah, it looks more like American Bulldog. You ever seen an American Bulldog? They had longer snouts too so they could breathe better. Yeah, yeah, they look very different. Like an American Bulldog looks more like what an English Bulldog looks like. You can still see it. So they- Even, even- They're called Old English, right? So if you get an Old English Bulldog, they have the original traits. So they're a little more rare to find, but then they'll be taller and leaner and then they'll have like a little bit longer snout. Yeah, what's it called? The evolutionary like selective engineer, like what's it called breeding? Yeah, but like, I mean, in terms of any other species, have we seen something evolve to like from wolf to little tiny yapper dogs? No, I watched a documentary on this. Apparently dogs have something special about their genetic makeup that allows them to change rapidly because we've domesticated other animals and they've changed, but not to the degree that we don't- So radically different. Just speaking of wild dogs, so I was at the zoo this last weekend. Shout out to the Monterey Zoo, which is freaking- You didn't know that existed. I didn't even know existed. Right up the street. Beautiful, awesome spot. But that was the closest I've ever been to a hyena. They're big. I know. They were much bigger than what- When you watch documentaries- That's because you see next to a lion. They're not like a dog. Yeah, you see them next to lions and they look so skinny. Well, a hyena will eat a dog for lunch. Yeah, they're big. They're big. Yeah, yeah, of course. Do we know they're mean and stuff like that? Big-ass head. Yeah, but they don't- I mean, don't you think so? Like, when you're watching documentaries, they look like they're kind of scrawny and skinny and just like they're small. I feel like they look small, but you don't ever see them compared to another dog or anything like that. And to your point, you only see them next to like a lion, which is massive, but no, they're big. Yeah, I know. Seeing animals that you normally would never see, but seeing them in person, it changes your perception and just the relationship with them. Like, I remember as a kid, I was probably 10. We went to a zoo. I think it was San Diego. They had a huge lion exhibit. And you could go during feeding time. Oh, yeah.  It just vibrates like every cell in your body. Yeah. Yeah, it's nuts.  That could eat me and like hang out with its friends at the same time. I can worry about it easily. It's just crazy. Yeah. Hey, I got something really cool for you. Check this out. So we work with a company called Mass Zimes or Bioptimizer. One of the products is Mass Zimes. They make a lot of cool stuff. So my favorite product there is Mass Zimes. This is digestive enzymes for fitness enthusiasts. Why are they so important?  You digest them properly. I use them with every meal. Love their products. Well, anyway, here's the cool part. You get a free bottle. Okay. Just because you listen to Mind Pump, you can get a free bottle of Mass Zimes.  That's it. There's no catch. You don't get this continuity thing going on where they charge your credit card. You just get the free bottle. That's how confident they are that you'll love their product. Try it out and see if it doesn't improve your digestion or your physique. It probably will. It did for me. So here's the deal. Here's how you do it. Go to MassZimes.com. That's M-A-S-S-Z-Y-M-E-S.com. Forward slash Mind Pump free. And that's what you can do. By the way, it's only one free bottle per household. So don't take advantage of it in that way, but take advantage of the offer they're giving you. One free bottle. Go check it out. All right. Here comes the rest of the show. First caller is Julio from Georgia. Julio, what's happening, man? How can we help you? Man, how are you guys doing? I'm excited to be here. Doing good. Thanks for calling. I just want to let you guys know. Obviously, I know everybody says thank you and I appreciate you guys, but I'm trying to be a personal trainer and it's definitely been a journey. And I've definitely lost some motivation on the way, but ever since finding your guys' podcast, I'm fired up, man. I'm excited. Excellent. Oh, yeah. Definitely seen in a different light. Very cool. My first question, which I actually kind of feel bad about because I think you guys have answered this one a few weeks ago, but it's about, you know how they always say, you want to switch up your workouts, you want to get to stagnant. My problem's kind of the opposite. Since I want to become a personal trainer, I kind of get too excited, I guess. I see all these different workouts.  And I don't really stay consistent in the aspect of the same exercise. And I was just wondering if that's, you know, in a sense kind of hurting my gains. Because I guess for an example, you know, biceps, you know, I'll be doing close grip. I'll be doing preacher curls, doing spider curls. I'll go and do the isolation machines. And you the next week, it'll look completely different. So I was really just curious, you know. Yeah, that's a good question. So I'm going to answer this generally.  So generally speaking. And then leave nothing for Justin and I. Nothing. I'm going to say everything. All right, sounds good. Leave Justin. And no, I'm generally speaking.  So here's the general answer. Generally speaking. And this is, this is a, depending on the exercise, there's a skill acquisition period. And within that period of where you kind of, you need to gain this enough skill or enough mastery of the skill of the exercise to really reap its benefits. And that can take some time. Okay. So a barbell squat, for example, is a high skill exercise in comparison to like a curl. So, you know, changing up your, your leg exercises all the time, you may not be able to really reap the benefits of the barbell squat because you're not allowing yourself enough of an opportunity to develop that skill. Okay. So that's general.   So you can go from one exercise to another. And there isn't that huge, you know, kind of skill curve with the exercise. So it's not, and it depends on the exercise. You talked about biceps, doesn't make that big of a difference. When you're talking about big compound complex lifts, it makes a much bigger difference. So, and then, and then you got to consider this to like, if this is what you love doing, and this helps you stay consistent, that will outweigh the potential benefit of sticking to the same exercise. So if you enjoy doing it this way, then I'd say, you know, go for it. Yes and no, right? I mean, you've ended your question with is it killing my gains and my answer to you would be yes. This was me completely, all through my 20s as a trainer. And you actually sound the way I would have explained it too. I like, I loved, I loved, I used to take pride in actually telling people that I never did the same workout twice because I was, I would like to do all these creative workouts and different exercises and I love challenging my body. And I was really fit. But to Sal's point about the skill and getting better at a movement, especially when you talk about those compound lifts, there's so much benefit to practicing those same lifts over and getting better and better as far as building muscle. So my gains accelerated when I simplified my workout, when I stuck to four or five of these major lifts and just kept practicing them and getting better. And that was later on in my life. So it wasn't like I was getting newbie gains. It was just that I was practicing the skill of these lifts that generated so much force and generated so much muscle on my body versus coming into every single workout and creating a new unique workout all the time. Now, if you came to me and you said, Adam, I'm already, I have all the muscle I want. I'm lean. I feel great. And I like to train this way. Then I think there's like lots of benefit to training that way for staying healthy and fit. So I think there's lots of benefit to completely changing the routine up all the time. But if you're trying to make progress, strength gains, build more muscle, then I think you are losing out on that by constantly changing the routine up and not sticking to a routine more consistently and then letting your body adapt and then moving out of that.  But there's a way to still incorporate that novelty. And this is something too, as a trainer, like you're going to be in the gym setting quite a bit. You're going to be training yourself. You're going to be training your clients. You want to get them success. You want to get yourself to keep going forward. But to be able to also incorporate lifts intermittently, whether it's off days or whether it's complimentary towards whatever body parts that you're working on for that day or whatever your focus is for that day, I tend to gravitate towards that just to make sure I keep things interesting because it is a long haul. This is thinking long term, still moving the needle, but also like, yeah, you can still get that kind of stimulus you're looking for. Because I'm the same way. Like I need like some creativity. I need something like a little bit different for me to focus on that way. It keeps it interesting. Yeah. And Julio, this can also go to extremely the other direction, right? If all you ever do are these gross motor movements, eventually you can develop imbalances. Yeah. You're not training in different planes. You're not maybe, maybe you're building a lot of strength in a specific type of range of motion, not challenging other ranges of motion. So this can be extreme in either direction.  When you train clients like with beginners, it's really important you stay consistent with certain key exercises because one of the fallies that trainers fall into is always trying to wow your client with a new, exciting, different workout. And that's the value you try and provide. Oh, today's workout, you've never seen these exercises before and here's a new movement or something different. And then the person never... Values on the experience. Yeah. And so really the value from the workout is kind of a calorie burn and not really the client never really gets good at specific exercises enough to really reap the benefit. So I like to pick certain core lifts, get the client good at those core lifts, and then I'll use novelty as a way to supplement and to enhance those.  You know, if I notice in their overhead press, maybe the extension is a little bit of an issue. I might do some overhead carries or some stabilization exercise for the shoulder. So it's going too extreme in either direction has its issues. But of course, at the end of the day also, you're doing this for life. So if you enjoy the variety, so much that that's what really makes you consistent what you look forward to, well, don't swap that out for something you're going to hate.  Hulia, I definitely just don't want it to affect how I train people, you know, so it makes sense. Absolutely. Hulia, have you or have you ran any of the maps programs? I actually, I remember there was a girl that she was trying to be a personal trainer too, where she was and she went on the podcast and you kind of tore into her for not buying it. She's like, I don't want to get lit up.     Seriously. That's the first thing I did, man. Adam's scared you to buy a pro. I got a lot of heat for that one, bro. I got to be nicer to the trainers. I mean, some of these trainers get a little sensitive today. No, man. It's like you got to yell at them, man. I got the anabology and the prize. Thank you, Julio. It's only because he loves it. It's love. Well, no, the reason why I was asking was because you can get kind of an idea on the way we program in there and how we introduce novelty. So you're not just literally following the same five exercises all the time, but then also phasing in a way that you do stick to certain exercises for at least a three or four week period before you face that. You see that formula. You see that we keep repeating certain patterns for a reason. But yeah, it does provide that stimulus too. Novel stimulus. That was the main reason I was asking you. But I'm glad you took the advice before. Awesome, bro. And it looks like you had another question about creatine. Yeah. So, you know, I just seen the directions for creatine. I just kind of started taking it. It's been about, you know, maybe a few months, but it doesn't say, you know, when to stop, when to take a break. It just kind of says take a scoop every day, five grams. So I just really wasn't sure, you know, there's a point where I should be taking a break if I should be, you know, taking while I'm trying to cut. Had you asked me that question 10 years ago, I would have said probably a good idea to cycle off of it. Now I don't think so. Okay. The creatine is really fascinating. It's obviously it was originally marketed as a strength and muscle building supplement. It's really good at that. But now we're learning that it's probably more valuable for health than it is for strength and muscle growth. It's phenomenal for mitochondrial health. There's cognitive benefits, heart health. So I think now, of course, there's going to be cases where you might not want to supplement creatine. You know, maybe if it causes gut issues or if you have a nephrologist, you know, if you have kidney issues, that might be something. But otherwise, I think everybody would benefit from supplementing with creatine. And it varying degrees, right? So if you have more muscle, you probably take more. If you have less muscle, take less. If you eat more meat, then you need less than somebody who's maybe a vegan. But yeah, no reason to go off. And if anything, it's all the evidence now. And it's been studied a lot. So we're looking at the over the last, God, at least 25 years, thousand or more really well done studies on creatine. It's the most studied ergogenic supplement there is. And the positives are insane in health. And we're going to see now the health community. You're going to start seeing wellness people promoting creatine, not bodybuilders, not people trying to tell you to build muscle, burn body fat, but people who are like, this will improve your health. This is good for longevity and all that stuff. Speaking of that, Julio, are you on Facebook at all? Julio? Oh, he just froze. Oh, can you hear me, though? I don't know. I don't think so. Do the sign language to him, Joe. I can't see him. He's frozen. Oh, he can't see you at all. Let's all take a moment of silence. Write him a letter. Yeah, I'm afraid we may have lost him. Well, Julio, if you listen to this episode afterwards, I think Adam want to let you in our forum. Is that where you're... No, well, yeah, we could let him in the private forum, but I was actually going to bring up the Mind Pump Holistic Health Forum, which we just launched, which is free to the audience. Oh, good idea. Yeah, that's MP Holistic Health. Yeah, MP Holistic Health. We just started it with Dr. Cabral. Him and his team are going to be there on a weekly basis.  This is more free, valuable content. So valuable. That we go out and we build as a service for you guys to support our community. If you are a trainer, you should be in that forum. The amount of knowledge and wisdom that you're going to get from that forum to help with your clients is unbelievable. It's absolutely free. It's on Facebook, MP Holistic Health. And your clients, send your clients there. I talk about this all the time. Troubleshooting is the amazing thing. Oh, the most effective thing I did as a trainer was develop a network of other professionals who were not trainers, people in other fields. And you send your clients there and they get that holistic wellness information from the best in the industry. We picked Dr. Cabral and his team for a reason. They're some of the best that are out there. You send your clients over there and the value they're going to get is going to be tremendous. It's really going to benefit you as a trainer because you will present that value to your clients. All right, so this whole variety, I need tons of variety in my workouts. I think fitness media marketing has done people a disservice by promoting things like muscle confusion and kind of preying on people's... That crazy weird workouts are fun and that's what's valuable about them. Well, don't you think too? I mean, it's kind of one of those things like who can come up with the new thing that sparks everybody's curiosity and motivation and can kind of get that market share. And so it's like there's been all these competing ideas for a reason to be different, which has convoluted the whole process somewhat. Yeah, when you're a trainer, I think there's a couple of things working here. One, to your point about the muscle confusion, I think that was one of the reasons why I thought that was a good strategy to design my programs.  Yeah. So there's... Not a bad strategy, by the way. It did work. Many times I'd be doing some different unique exercise and a member would ask me, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? And then they opened the door for me to book an assessment or an appointment with them. So it was great for generating leads and so it was really easy for me to kind of fall into that where... So there's nothing wrong with training this way. I mean, I was in very good shape. I do want to add though that because you were a trainer, because you had an athletic background, you had at least enough mastery of your body to gain benefit from such variety. You know, imagine putting a beginner on a different exercise all the time. No, I mean, I'm thinking of that as a trainer, right? Because we were talking to... He's a trainer, right? So I imagine that, we would hope, right? If you're a trainer, you have the desire to have really good technique and form and you're into lifting. Some experience, yeah. Yes, and some experience. And so I'm envisioning a very similar version of myself in my 20s that was training this way all the time. And you can be really fit. But what I heard from him as he asked a question was, is it killing my gains? And it was killing my gains. Because at that time, even though I was doing all those things, if you were to ask me, yo, man, what's your goal? I'd be like, oh, I want to get bigger. I want to get bigger, more muscle. I want to get stronger. But yet I was training that way. And so it was hindering that. It was even if I was slowly progressing in that direction by simply ignoring... Because I was missing the overhead press. I was missing the deadlift. I was missing the squat. There's no specificity if I have a goal. There was none of that going on. And if I did do any of those three movements, it was sporadically. You know, oh, I haven't deadlifted in months. So I'm going to deadlift this workout and then I wouldn't return to it forever. Oh, I haven't squatted for so I'd squat this one workout, then not return to it forever. Like, so I think that that is what was killing my gains. And if he's somebody who's changing his routine up that much, then... And he's missing out on those big five core lifts. It can be consistent with them. Then absolutely he's missing out. Totally. And some of the... I'm so lucky as a kid to have those older power lifters advise me as a teenager. And they said to me, and I'll never forget this because they're like, what's your goal? I'm like, I want to get big. Like, well, if you can squat 400 pounds, you're going to have big legs. If you could bench 300 pounds, you're going to have big shoulders, arms, and chest. And I remember... And if you could deadlift 500 pounds, you're going to have a big back. And I remember just focusing on thinking like, that's it, right there. It was the best advice I could ever have. So... Our next caller is TJ from Utah. TJ, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey, how's it going? Good. Good. Yeah. Hey, thanks for taking my question. First, I had the laugh when Justin was talking about his visit to Salt Lake recently. And all that he went through, I thought was kind of funny, but anyway, I'm just a little background. I'm 41 years old, 5'11". Growing up, I was involved in sports, mainly baseball and wrestling, and became a state champion, a wrestling champion my senior year. The next 20 years, I kind of bounced in and out of the gym, probably going, oh, three to six months, and then taking a few years break. Sometimes I'd get into running or ran a marathon once, which wasn't actually really fun for me. And then when I turned 40, that's when I started to think about life, and I thought, what could I give myself? And so I thought, I'm going to give myself the gift of life. So I started, I joined the gym, started to learn a lot about nutrition, macros, and strength training. Found you guys, and your podcast and YouTube channel has been really helpful. I did that, I made some progress, but I didn't, I had a goal, but not a specific goal. Then this year, beginning in January, I joined a 90-day challenge. And so from those 90 days, my weight started at 185, and I got down to 158.  And so my question now is, I'm at this lean state, but I want more muscle. And I'm just trying to figure out how can I competently bulk without ruining all progress that I've done. You're in a great position, yeah. Well, are you still doing 45 minutes a day of cardio? He's just walking. No, I do, no, I cut that back. I do walk about, I walk 30 minutes, three times a week. Okay, yeah, just a question, because the first thing I would have done is have you reduce that, but how do you bulk without gaining body fat? You should do it slowly. And you'll find it's going to go to muscle if you do so. So if you're really apprehensive, you could just bump your calories by 200 or 300 and weight and see how that feels. And then once you feel confident with that, then you move up another 200 or 300. The issue with bulking tends to happen when people swing so far from one end to the other.  And what happens with that, and I just want to let you know if this happens to you, is if you swing from 1600 calories to 2,600 calories or 3,000 calories, for the first like three weeks, you're not going to gain body fat. You're just going to feel strong and muscle's going to come in.  And that's when people run into a problem. So just do it slowly. Really, that's it. Just start slow, be patient, watch how you feel, watch your strength, watch how your body looks. And if anything, you'll just gain muscle. You might actually find yourself get a little leaner through the process. Yeah, no, you're in a great place right now, 158, 511.  So you're pretty lean right now, and only walking a few times a week, falling anabolic, eating around 1,600, 1,800 calories. I'd move you to 2,000 calories, and I'd switch your program, and then just stick to that for a while, and see how the weight comes on.  But watch it for a couple of weeks by changing the routine up and adding the couple hundred extra calories, and I think you should put on some good lean mass. Yeah, TJ, what doesn't happen is you eat more calories and then you wake up tomorrow and you gain 30 pounds of body fat. Okay, so the fear that you have, I get it, because I had the opposite fear, because I was skinny and wanted to gain weight. So I was afraid if I fasted or if I missed a meal, oh my god, I'm going to lose all this muscle overnight. It happens slower than that. Okay, it's a process.  Yeah, don't worry about that.  And like I said, like we're both saying here, you may actually find yourself get a little leaner as you build muscle, because it's going to go to muscle, and if your body weight goes up 5 pounds, but it's all muscle, your body fat percentage actually goes down. So that's really, that's the key. 200 calorie, 300 calorie bump. Hold it there until you feel confident, and then try it again. Really, that's key with all of this, is to take a slow methodical approach, add a few hundred calories, wait, see what happens. Switch is programming. That was the other thing I said. Yeah, there you go. So I said 2,000 calories, switch are programming to be more specific. Is it, is it maps? You're doing maps in a ball. Do you have maps performance? That would be a great follow-up. Yeah, I just did a phase one of performance. So I just actually started phase two this week. Stay the course. You're on track, TJ. You're doing good. Just do it slow. Yeah, trust the process, man. Can I ask a maps general question? Sure, sure. So when you outline specific workouts, how important is it to do those workouts in order, and that specific workout? For example, sometimes with anabolic, there would be a bench press, and I go to the bench and it's full. So I thought, well, I don't really want to wait. So I'm going to just go to the next exercise and see if it's available. And if it's not, I'll just go to the next exercise. And then once it's available, I'd go back. Or sometimes I would just go up. I'm going to do dumbbell press instead of bench today. Is there any benefits or? It's only really important. The order of the exercise is where it becomes really important is if that is an area that you're trying to focus on. So for example, we normally lead a lot of workouts with like squats or deadlifts, right? So if that's an area of focus for you, like maybe you think you have weak legs and you want stronger, bigger legs, and you go to bench press first, that's what will hinder you. But if maybe your goal is to build a bigger chest and starting. So whatever exercise you prioritize first, you're going to get the biggest bang for your buck for. Yeah, that and also too, just to eliminate some of the fatigue for some of those compound lifts. That's why we start off with them. So you're going to perform at the highest level. So but again, you got to consider if it's a really busy gym and it's not available and you're not trying to waste time. So that's something to consider where you just have to play that out for yourself. It's not like detrimental. It ain't killing. Yeah, it's not killing. It depends how much you mix it up. But I like your second option better rather than going, you know, skipping bench and doing shoulders first or something like that. You could go to dumbbells. I like that option better to be honest with you. So it'd be better to substitute the exercise with something similar than it would be to mix up the order. Yeah. Yeah. And that makes sense for the compound lifts. I actually never thought about how you do those first because it takes more energy. But yeah, that makes sense. Okay. You got it, TJ. Thanks, man. Thanks for calling in. All right. Well, I appreciate all the guys do. Awesome. Thank you, brother. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. We'll see you. Yeah, the fear of gaining body fat in a surplus and the fear of losing tons of muscle in a deficit really Very common. It's super common when that's your insecurity. Really hard to do. Like talking somebody who's dealt with obesity forever that, hey, you know, we're going to bump your calories. It's like, it's scary. They spent all that time working on reducing weight and body fat. And that was their entire focus to now completely shift in the other direction. Yes, a big psychological jump. Truth is though, he's got a ton of flexibility here. I mean, we gave a very conservative, like, hey, add two or 300 calories. But I tell you what, if he's following maps programming, which he is, and he's switching it up, and he's as lean as he is right now, so long as he's making good food choices, he could probably even get away with eating more than that. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? He's probably not going to gain more. Yeah, any extra calories is probably going to get partitioned over to helping him build muscle. I mean, so long, I wouldn't recommend eating over 1,000 calories, but I bet he could get away with probably eating up to that and probably be fine. And definitely if he's eating around two or 300 in a surplus, because what I think will happen is if he just adds 2,000, two or three weeks may go by and he might get leaner to your point. Yeah, that's why I said that. I'm really playing to psychology, because I know that it's like a bigger leap, right? I mean, this is why fasting was for me so such a, I mean, it just really transformed how I viewed things, because I was so afraid of skipping a single meal or being an hour late when I was supposed to eat, that I skipped a whole day of eating. You said you're going to shrink. And I was like, I felt like the doors had opened to so many other opportunities and things. So yeah, you got to play to that a little bit, I think. Our next caller is Jerome from Nevada. Jerome, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey, doing good. I appreciate you taking my call. Yeah, I have your, I've purchased your IdaBall like performances that explore different strengths. And right now I'm in the middle of performance, but sometimes in the public gym, when it's packed, it's kind of hard to do them in sequence. So I was wondering if you, if there's, if it's going to affect the program, if I don't do them in sequence. And also, are there any alternatives for particular exercises? Like for example, if the gym is packed, I can't do, for example, cable flights. Is there a way, or is there a way in your program that I could do alternative exercises besides, for example, cable flights versus tumble flights? Yeah, similar to a previous question. But all right, so here's the deal. What makes a workout program a program is the exercises, the reps, the sets, the sequence of the exercises, the sequence of the days in the workout, the sequence of the phases in the workout, and so on. All of that is part of the formula. So if you, it would be like if you were asking me, hey, how important is the reps that you prescribe? Or how important are the sets that you prescribe? I mean, it's all important, right? So the sequence is pretty important. Now, here's the problem though. We gotta be pragmatic. You're in a gym, it's not available. Okay, what do I do now? Because I don't have time to sit around and wait for the five dudes looking at their phone on the bench press to finish doing the thing. So what do I do? The next best thing is to do a similar exercise and the more similar, the better. So cable fly to dumbbell fly, I like that. Cable fly to lunges, I don't like that. You see what I'm saying? So if it's similar to the exercise, that's much better than if it's a completely different exercise. I would even say cable fly to like a peck deck or a machine like that would be even okay. Or even a band fly, grab a rubber band and wrap it around a pole and do flies like that. It's more similar than the dumbbell fly, because we probably have dumbbell flies programmed in that routine somewhere, right? So yeah, I mean, you have to be able to call an audible in a public gym during prime time, right?  Sometimes you're not going to be able, we just, Sal was talking about a guy we just talked to and we were talking about the order of the exercises and we put them in an order for a reason. So if it's, you're supposed to start off with squats, you're supposed to start off with squats. Does that mean if the squat machines or the squat racks are all taken and you have to start with bench, it's going to ruin the program? No, it's not going to ruin it. It's just ideally we want to try and fold as closely as possible, but we also recognize that there's times where you've got to call an audible like that and so you have to do a different exercise, but you want to choose exercises that are as closely related to the one that's programmed in there as possible. In worst case scenario, just alpha everybody out of your way. Yeah, that's always an option. You know, here's the other thing too, Jerome. How long have you been working out in gyms for? I started last year, but I found your program a few months ago and then I loved it because I saw tremendous improvements in my physics. And now that's why I kind of got to all your progress. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. They work for sure. Almost all of your progress. Yeah, they definitely work for sure, but okay, so a lot of people don't understand gym etiquette, especially if you haven't been in a gym for a long period of time. It is totally reasonable and it is the rule of the gym, and believe me, the manager of the gym, the employees will back you up. If somebody's doing an exercise and you want to do that exercise, it is totally reasonable to walk up to that person and say, hey, while you're resting, can I please jump in? Totally reasonable. And I do it all the time. Now, if somebody says no, totally fine.  And I look, I manage gyms for years and when people don't let other people jump in, I would defend the person that wants to jump in. That's just gym etiquette.  Can I work in? That's it. And usually they'll say yes, especially if they're experienced, they'll say yes. I did not know that there's that type of etiquette. Yeah, a lot of people don't know that, but it definitely is. It's a gym law and not only would a manager support you, but so will every experienced person in that gym. And if he doesn't take a picture of them and then send to us and we'll put them on blast in the podcast. Now, okay, I'm going to add one more thing. It's your responsibility, if you're asking someone to jump in to change the weight and put it back to what it was when it's their turn. Now, if they're a nice person, they'll help you. But if you're jumping in my set, don't expect me to help you unrack and rack it. I'll probably help you, but that's the job of the person jumping in. So that's the other part. I forgot to say. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. No problem, man. Thanks for calling in. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Thank you. Yeah, I forget that people don't... No, I'm actually so glad you actually even thought to mention that. I mean, it's been a while actually, since we did an episode on Jim etiquette a long time ago. A long time ago. But I forget, you know, you get somebody who is... We haven't been in a commercial gym since. Yeah, but you get somebody who's relatively new to lifting and Sal's right. It's such a great point that we maybe don't communicate enough on the podcast that, yeah, it's very much so Jim etiquette to ask somebody, hey, can I work in? Especially if they're doing like you're saying. Because normally, you know, most people are training three to five sets, right? Five on the high end. Most people are, you know, three to five range. And should be done in a couple minutes with the machine or an exercise or a bench you're using. And if they're not, because they're talking on their phone, they should not have a problem with you walking over and saying, hey, can I work in real quick and allowing you... Target the one that's like on their phone, messing around the longest. You know, it's like, hey, let me jump in here. Yeah, it's not a big deal. I don't care when someone asks me to jump in, but here's a deal, though, again, I want to... You have to re-rack the weights. Yeah, you go in, you take the weights off if you need to or add the weights and go to set it back to how they were using it before since they were the original one. Using it in some exercises just don't work well. Like if someone wants to jump into my deadlift and I got five plates on and they're going to go down to one, like, as long as you can un-rack it and rack it by the time it's my turn, we're not going to have an issue, but, you know, with deadlifts a little harder. Just don't be the guy that sets up a circuit in busy hours. That'll slap you. Yeah, and if people take your exercise because you're in a circuit, well, then that's the problem. Fine, you got to deal with it. Well, that's normally the guy who's blocking this guy. Yeah. That's what I mean.  You know what I'm saying?  It's not you. Totally. We're going to move them out. Our next caller is Chet from Oklahoma. Chet, what's happening? How can we help you? Hey, guys. I just have a quick question here. I'm going to keep the background short. So in the last two years, I've gotten a lot of questions from peers and sometimes strangers, how they can stay in shape as we get older. I'm currently 36 and I've been exercising, weight training for about 15 years on and off. The last four years, I found you guys, and it's helped quite a bit. So my current answer to anyone that asked her now is to binge listen to podcast and buy into everything you guys say and trust the process. It seems not to be working too well. It's a little bit of an information overload. It seems to be, and they complicated a lot more than it needs to be. So my question is, since I'm not educated in the space, should I be giving any fitness advice to other people at all based on my past experiences? If so, how do I go about doing so without giving the wrong advice? Oh, what a great question and a very thoughtful one, Chet. I appreciate you saying that. So you've been working out for a long time. You've got a lot of accrued wisdom that most people don't have. Now, you haven't trained lots of people, so that's kind of where you may go wrong. But you've got four years of listening to the podcast. Yeah. I mean, really, okay, here's where you're probably, if you're going to say anything wrong, here's what it would probably be. You might tell someone to go harder than they should, or you might give someone too much volume or too many exercises. This is where the mistake people often make when they have been training themselves for a long time and they talk to someone who's just getting started. In fact, this is a mistake most trainers make. It took me a while to figure this out. I would get a new client. I mean, literally, I could get someone who's deconditioned and we would do a set of standing squats. And that was it. That was plenty for the lower body. I would have never thought that was plenty in my first couple of years as a trainer. I would have thought we had to do more exercise. So that might be it. And I would stay away from pain relief advice or correctional exercise type stuff. But general advice, I think they're going to be better off asking you then going on the internet and just kind of searching randomly unless they find our podcast, in which case they'll probably get great advice. We also have a thing called 30 Days of Free Coaching on the website. We don't promote it or talk about it very much anymore. We created it a long time ago. It's due for a revamp. We've talked about actually improving it. But I mean, I think it's still extremely valuable. We still have hundreds of people that go through it every single month. And it's absolutely free. And it's basically an email sequence. Over the course of 30 days, we basically email drip people, little bite-sized information. So for example, I think day one is protein is the topic. And it's literally the size of one short email of just some really basic good information around protein. And then it has links to shows where we speak in detail about that. So if it's like a topic, they're like, for example, one of the days is gut health. And so maybe one of your friends is struggling with something that or wants more information with that, they can go and actually listen to the podcast versus just the little bite-sized information. I think that's a really good place. To start that's not as... Because obviously telling people to go listen to our podcast that's got 1,800 episodes is probably overwhelming for a lot of people. But signing up for a free email drip that goes to them and it's a short five minute or less read every day. And then they can choose to go deeper and listen to the podcast episodes that are linked to it or not. I think that's a really good place to start people. Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And as Dr. Sal's advice there telling them to go a little too hard, I think I got that down under control since I made those mistakes already. And so I have written down here, like that's one of my biggest fears, I guess, is sending like a good friend of mine to a personal trainer who doesn't listen to you guys first of all and gives them the wrong advice. Like I'm experiencing that right now with one of my close friends is... They got him on the heavy exercise and low calorie diet already. So it's hard to talk them out of it. Yeah, that's a tough one. I don't want to generalize, but usually experienced trainers or trainers who've been doing it for more than five years are better off than new trainers. Now this isn't always true. But it's more often than not true just because if you've been training people for five years and it's your profession, this is what you do for a living, not part-time or whatever. You have to figure this out because you won't last that long if you don't. So that's what I tell people. Like, yeah, make sure they've got the education, make sure this is what they do for a living, and then see if you can find someone who's experienced, who's been doing this for a long time. Experience in training people in real life too, not fitness and fluid search who's been selling programs or portals for the last five or 10 years because there's a big difference there. Okay. Yeah, that's good. Thank you, Chet. And by the way, here's another... Okay, you know what a great place to start would be for a beginner? My book, The Resistance Training Revolution. I wrote it specifically. Oh, we got her. Okay, perfect. Perfect. Yeah, that would be the place to start because that's what I'm taught. That's really who I'm talking to in that book. Okay. And the workouts in there too are really appropriate for a lot of people just getting started. Shame was bookplugged. Works. You get paid on it too, Adam. Thanks for calling, man. Thanks. Yeah. Hey, you know, you could tell he's been doing it for a long time because of how he asked that question. Yeah. You know, somebody's been working out for two years, oh, I can... I'll tell you what to do. But he's been doing it long enough to be like, okay, like, you know, I want to be careful to give the right advice because I've been doing this a long time and there was a lot of pitfalls. It is tough to kind of organize your thoughts in that direction sometimes when you just have all of this experience in like so many different directions you can point people to, to be able to simplify it. It really does require a lot of time and skill to like condense it down to like the, here's your very first steps. Dude, so true. Like how many times in your early days when you're helping someone, they're like, Justin, I need help. Oh, no. I want to lose weight. Oh my God, let me think about this. Here's your diet. Here's your workout. Here's your cardio. Here's your sleep schedule. Here's the supplements. And it's like, you give them like all the stuff. And they're like, wow. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It just went like, you know, three things. Exactly. Well, it's so nuanced. You can have somebody the same age, same goal, same experience. And I could, off the top of my head, think of five, 10, 15 different recommendations potentially based off of the information you receive from them. Yeah, you need all that info to move forward. Yeah. So it's not as simple as, oh, it's a new beginner. They're therefore pointing this way. Oh, this is a person who's moderately experienced, therefore pointing this way. It's like, there's such an individual variance with, especially with diet, including diet into that conversation. Oh boy, diet's a whole nother monster. Well, yeah. And that has to be considered, right?  Like I don't want that person to be training overly intense. And even if they have lots of experience, right?   Okay, 1800 episodes. I know. I'm like, whoa.  I have a life, you know what I'm saying? So, but that's why we did the 30 Days of Coaching. I know we don't talk about it very much on the show. Oh, that's a great recommendation. But it's, I mean, that was the vision for that when we first started the podcast, was when we first started getting this, these kind of nuanced questions. It's like, to me, going through that, I think is a really good place to start somebody who's like absolutely no idea where to go. Hey, look, if you love our show, you gotta go to mindpumpfree.com. We have tons of free guides that can help you with almost any fitness goal. Again, it's mindpumpfree.com. You can also find us on social media. So you can find Justin on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. You can find Adam on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam. And you can only find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal.


I can't even begin to say how awesome it is, how much of a dream come true it is for me. I mean, this is something I've dedicated my life to and then this is some validation of that. And on top of that, I've spent some time with the Falcons when my dad was there, so this is even more rewarding. Yeah, I mean, it's just something that's been in the back of my mind a little bit. Me and I was a little kid running around the facility, so I always thought they were pretty cool. So this is pretty awesome to come full circle with that. Complete relief, excitement, just all that.  Pretty much for as long as I can remember, like growing up with the dad that played in the NFL and coached and everything, it was something that was, I mean, I idolized him and always wanted to do that. So for as long as I can remember, this has been my goal, so it feels great to finally get there. And just a great culture out there.  So I'm excited to see it with some new eyes as an adult and I can't wait to get out there.