If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, mind pump with your hosts. Sal de Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, for the first 26 minutes, we have some fun conversation before we get into the questions. We talk about Adam's super expensive whole foods cashews. So unnecessary. Call me out because of our sponsor. Yeah, you actually was like 16 ounces, like $15 for cashews, where I got mine at Thrive Market. Burn it. He just has money to throw it. Under $10, same thing. Again, Thrive Market, organic, non-GMO foods, online, for the same price, or even cheaper than their conventional counterparts.  Go to ThriveMarket.com forward slash mind pump, and you'll get $20 off the first three orders of $49 or more, free shipping, and a free month membership. We also talk about my need to save money because of the cost of private school. Yeah. Breaking the bank. I'll be driving the Jetta forever. Got to be frifty, man. We talk about the difference between public and private schools. We talk about high school reunions. I refuse to go to mine. Lane. And the lawsuits against. I'm popular. He's got no friends. You guys are my friends, right? And the lawsuits against the soda companies, apparently people are saying that diet sodas. Made you fat. Are making them fat, and they're suing them. This is crazy. What do we think about that? This is crazy. I did a post on my IG. Giant truck made me fat. We also mentioned our sponsor Organify.  Then we get into the questions. The first question was, what kind of hobbies do we have outside of fitness and optimization? Again, Sal has no life. And do we think it impacts us? I wear a clown suit. And our abilities and perspectives. You do what? I have no friends. You're so weird. You didn't know that about me? The next question was, do we have a go-to routine to bounce back after a night of drinking just and lays down the wisdom in that question? Oh, yeah. He's very experienced. I navigate. Then we talk about the benefit of having.  Which one is better? That's right. Does your workout partner suck? Fire your gym buddy. Exactly. And the final question. In episode 610, one of our guests, Dr. Andy Galpin, a great guy, very smart dude, talks about how orange theory took an old proven wrong concept of optimal training with their heart rate zone. He actually got it wrong. It's epoch is what they talk about. We dispel it a little bit. And we talk about orange theory. And we talk about, and Adam talks about his experiences at Orange Theory. Also, I'd like to remind everybody that we offer something called a Maps Super Bundle. And I want to say that because we have a lot of new listeners coming on the show. I've been on a few podcasts, and the boys have also been on some other podcasts. We might have some new listeners. Here's what this Maps Super Bundle is. We took all of our best programs. We put them together so that people can enroll in something and have a year's worth of detailed exercise programming. In other words, if you enroll in the Maps Super Bundle, you'll have your year planned out for you. You'll know what to do when. It's different phases, different adaptations. You'll go from training for strength to training for athletic performance to training for aesthetics to body weight training. There's correctional exercises in there, video demos. It's blueprints. It's our explanations breaking it down. It's like having us as your coach. It's almost as good as having us as your coach. But it's all in this Super Bundle. It's a year's worth of exercise programming. We're probably the only fitness podcast on earth that's gonna tell you it's gonna take longer than 30 days to get your ideal shape. And you can find it at mindpumpmedia.com. T-shirt time. Give away some shirts, Doug. How many reviews do we do? 18. Hey. Not bad. Legal. I like it. Yeah, finally legal. All right, we're giving out five shirts starting with Chris 18, Gussie Gussie, Sharice Brady 7, Daniria, Painter Raider. All of you are winners. I got a case of Daniria. Send the name I just read to itunes at mindpumpmedia.com. Send your shirt size, your shipping address, and we'll get that right out to you. Thanks, guys and girls. Also, if you wanna leave a review and win a t-shirt because your odds are super high, just go to your podcast app, click on it. You gotta search the name Mind Pump even if you subscribe. Like you have never met us. Click on an icon. When it comes up, there'll be a little section that says reviews. Leave a five-star review. Leave a great review. If we like it, you'll get a free t-shirt and these shirts are worth a lot of money. How about the Can City podcast? Making fun of my voice. Oh my God, dude, I love them for that intro. That was so funny, I was dying. You know what it is? We're so hospitable. They're like, oh, we're friends now. We're not that close.  We're not that close. You can't make fun of that. The Maps Doritos were pretty awesome. Pizza rolls. Yeah, that was a good one. Naps and pizza rolls. They're good guys. Good guys. Dude, why are you getting cashies from Whole Foods, bro? Why are you gonna bust me out like that? You know what it is? You know what it is? You know we have a sponsor, right? I was already there. I was already there. I paid the extra money.  Bro, what'd you pay? Like 15 bucks. That's like $15, right? Yeah, yeah, I know. The one I get from Thrive is under $10.  Dude, let me ask you. He's not because he doesn't have kids. That's why he's rich. That's why he just like spends on whatever.  This weekend I went and did these open houses at some of these private high schools around here. I don't wanna name what they are because I don't like to put where my kids go and all that stuff, but they're in the area. I'm looking at these private schools. First of all, you guys went to public school, right? So did I.   Totally. Our teachers. That's okay. Certain areas that are better than others.  It's really that not the teachers fall in many, many cases. I think we don't need to get into that, but I do think that teachers that do really well don't even get compensated for it.  And then you have a public school that you gotta send your kids to that is horrible on top of it. So it's just, obviously things are super expensive here, but these high schools, dude, the difference between private elementary and then private high school. No, no, no, no, no, I forget the price because it is expensive on top of, you know, paying my taxes for public school.  But it's a different world. Like, I remember my high school that I went to, and it wasn't necessarily a bad, it wasn't really a bad high school, but the difference in the quality of the, like these high school campuses like college, dude, it's like you're walking on a college campus. I'm going in the science department or whatever, and it's like laboratories. Like, I don't remember any of this stuff in school. I'm going to the robotics. They have the, one of these high schools, they're like the reigning champions of the world for robotics. I go in the robotics lab or whatever, and I'm like, I feel like I'm in like Tesla, you know what I mean?  It's a whole other world. I couldn't imagine being in that world growing up, and you know, where I may have been, or what would have happened. Oh, I always wonder that same thing too. This is an ongoing debate between, the irony is Katrina and I don't have kids, and it's an ongoing debate that we have all the time, because she grew up in public school, and so did her siblings, but you know, my mom, my best friend, they're in teaching, and my- Half of my family's teachers. Yeah, you know, so I have a ton of teachers, and principals, and vice principals, and stuff like that in my family, and anyone that's in the system is like, if you can afford to put your kids in private school, put your kids in private school, and that's them saying that, working in public schools, you know, and they know, it's just, it's not, you can't compare it, you can't get, you don't get the same type of attention, there's less control in it, it's, it's a, you know, and it's not to say that you can't come- But it's good, it breaks the bank, dude, especially around here, because you know, in Silicon Valley, everything is crazy, like everything is super expensive, so no matter, because there's so much competition. Well, it's like college, right? The high schools over here for private are like- 20 grand a year, yeah, you'll be spending, if you count books and everything, close to 100 grand for four years of high school. That's crazy, dude. But, but, and you're right, it is crazy, but when you, like, I've taken, because I've done open houses at the public schools, because I'm like, okay, let's, you know, the high schools and stuff, there's no, it's like a totally different world. It's completely different, like just the resources that they have, and the, you know, the, just, just everything. Like at one of the high schools I was going, I went to, they're, they have a science department that works with NASA. You know what I'm saying? Cool. So like, if you have a kid that is, like a high performing kid, and you're really involved or whatever, like it's a, it's a, you present- Buzz Aldrin in the mix here. Creates like crazy opportunities. Nonetheless, I'm going to have to start saving. I'll be driving the Jetta for a while. Yeah, yeah, sounds like it. My pump's gonna, my pump can blow up, and I'll be driving my Jetta, dude, because it's, it breaks the bank. Like, son, you got to use the internet. That's my, yeah. I told my kid, it's either like, hey, I either pay for a high school or college, take a pic, because I can't do both, dude. Well, didn't you see some of these parents that'd be popping out three, four or five kids, and be thinking, oh my God, damn, dude, that's like- Dude, don't get me started with that. Well, some of the private schools, what is it, Harker? Yeah. You know how much Harker costs? Dude, Harker's insane. Harker Elementary School is, the elementary school, 40, I think $40,000 a year. Yeah. For the elementary school, see that? I had a client. Your kid's in first grade, bro. Yeah, I had a client, his- Like, what are you teaching my kid in first grade that it's like 40,000 dudes? Yeah, what, what does that consist of? When you think about that, when it's that much money, if whatever profession you or your wife have, you could almost like not work and just stay home and dedicate yourself into teaching those kids. Well, it's almost the same. It's like, yeah. So what's crazy about this, to me, which is, and it's, I can see why some people get angry about it, especially if you're like, you know, you work hard and you want your kids, everybody, here's the thing that all parents or most parents have in common, not all parents, some parents are shit, but most parents have in common is that we just want what's best for our kids. We just want the best for our children. We love our kids. We want them to do well. We want them to have the same opportunities for the right opportunities. And this doesn't work that way. Life isn't like that. You know, some kids have better opportunities. It's not the same. And it's, I can see why some people get angry, but the part that's crazy is that even if you have the money, let's say you've got the money and you go to some of these schools and you're like, okay, I'm gonna pay 40 grand a year.  It's even, it's competitive even at that level. Wow. You know what I'm saying? You still have to apply to get in. You still have to apply and yeah, it's just, it's crazy. It's all about the network.  Well, that and when you look at it like in case of your internship, you grow up with these kids, right? So, you know, and if you have a normal childhood with friendships and relationships with other students, there's a good likelihood, especially going through a private school like that, that if you don't turn out to be or get the job at NASA, that one of your friends or what like that, like the percentage of those kids that go on to do and make really good money or go on to bigger colleges and then go on from there. Like, I mean, the rates, I can't remember. I'm sure you know, because you've been there, but I had looked at it before a long time ago and it's like, it's huge difference, right? Well, there's a lot of factors considered too, because I was thinking about this quite a bit. I'm like, okay, because you can look at the numbers like if a kid goes through private school system, the odds that they'll go to college are far higher. They're typically, you know, they'll do better in school. Typically the classes they'll take will be more advanced and blah, blah, blah. And these are just objective numbers. But there's a lot of factors in there, right? Like, okay, maybe the school's better. Maybe the teachers are more involved. You know, you could make an argument that teachers may be more involved because there's a little bit more of a motivation in the sense that in private schools, teachers, if they perform well, probably can get rewarded more. If they do bad, they'll get booted.  But then there's this other factor in the sense that the parents that can afford to send their kids to private schools, so there's that environment at home. And then maybe also the parents who send their kids to these schools may find education to be more important in place, more important so I'm more involved. I was just saying, all these factors. I would imagine that if I'm a parent and I'm spending $40,000 a year on my kid to go to school, I'm definitely heavily invested in his homework.  You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not paying 40 grand a year. Your kid's like, I don't know. Your kid's like, you didn't know from the teacher? Your kid didn't do his homework. You just see dollar signs disappearing. Right away. So it's different, right? Like if it's, I could easily see if my kid's going to public school and those things slacking off.  Whatever the case may be, right? But when you're shelling out, when you're having to drive your Jetta and you don't get to drive your Lamborghini that you want. Well, if money means something to you like that.  He's like, dad, I want to be an artist. Like, no, son, I'm sorry. You have to be a brain surgeon in order for me to get a return to the money I invested. Brain surgeon or corporate attorney. Well, then you got to see like the other end of that, like the kid that just totally rebels, like the parent that just has the money and just sends them to that school and expects it all to happen and is passive with it. I mean, it's still there. We were actually having this conversation ironically this weekend. We had a bunch of family over and stuff and did paella at Katrina's family's house. And my uncle had a really rough upbringing. So did I. And my uncle's done very, very well for himself. And because of that, he had kids that he put, they had everything.  I'll never forget, I've shared on the show before that like Rad was like my childhood movie, right? I still have to watch that. You guys keep talking about it. So. Send me an angel. Right, yeah. So I always wanted like the Harrow or the Mongoose bike or whatever like that. And I was like 10, 12, 13 years old and that was like my dream bike. And my parents, I remember when I finally got a bike, it was like the BMX like $80 bike, that wasn't the $400 or $600 GT or Harrow or whatever. And my cousins that were like four and five years old had like Mongoose bikes with training wheels on them. They're not even old enough to know what the bikes they were they were riding. They were like the Rolls Royce power wheels. Everything.  Like they just had everything.  And now he's finding something. He's got three of them, you know, that he's still kind of financially helping. He's got two of them that, you know, he's paying for and he's got another one in college. It for sure doesn't guarantee success. That's a huge myth. You know what I mean? The drug use rate in private schools can be pretty high. And there are some public schools in California that rank pretty high, but it's typically in the ones that are, you know, super inaccessible. Like you have to buy a $3 million house to go to them or whatever. And I remember my business, I had a wellness studio. My wellness studio is in Los Gatos, which is a very expensive part of Silicon Valley. You know, an average house, there's probably $2 million or whatever. And I remember there was like a five year period where there were suicides happening at the high school there. Like one suicide is you hear about one at a high school and that blows you away because they're not super common. There were like three or something like that that happened over a course of a five year period. And it makes you wonder, you know what I mean? It makes you wonder if the parents are just not involved or if there's, I don't know. So it doesn't guarantee success, you know, whatsoever. Cause you do see a lot of these like celebrity kids too where they're super spoiled and they become just assholes and douchebags. I mean, I just want my kids to be to fulfill, to feel fulfilled and to be at peace. At the end of the day, it's always gonna come back down to the parenting, right?  Parents play the biggest role. However involved you are with the process. Right. To determine things. Right. Cause I could see how my kid goes to the privates. If I had a kid goes to private school or a public school and I could see him turning out either way based off of really on my involvement in that whole process. If you're a parent who invests $40,000 a year to put him in private school and you think that's just the answer and so then you're just, you have a very poor relationship with your child and you just think that, oh, the school will take care of him being successful later. You're probably up for a surprise later on in life. There's also, you can't forget like challenges in life. They can forge incredible individuals. Well, this is what my uncle was saying this weekend.  He says, I wish I allowed more adversity for my kids growing up. He says they needed it. Obviously looking, he says looking back now is they're all in their late 20s and mid 20s and he's like, and where they're at in their life. He's like, man, I guess they didn't have enough. You know, he was trying to protect him cause he felt he had too much of adversity to overcome and that's what made him to who he is today. And then by protecting them too much and not allowing them to go through some adversity, now he has these kids that just don't seem to want to struggle at all because they've had it, they've had it handed to them for most of their life. By the way, when I say that the California Public Schools are just terrible. I'm talking about the rankings. Like we're 42 in the nation, by the way. So one of the richest states in the, I think the, if not the richest state and we're 42 in the nation. So it is pretty bad. I'm just being objective here. It's not just my opinion. There's actual numbers. On average. You should see, by the way, the weight rooms of these high school gyms. Cause of course, you know, I'm doing the tour, you know, and it's the students that are touring us. And I was really impressed with the kids, by the way, super like poised and charismatic and, you know, well-spoken.  And so I'm going inside of these classrooms and stuff.   And I remember my high school gym had a universal machine. Like, I think one squat rack, if I'm not mistaken, it was just, it was terrible. Ours was as big as the studio. And it was just the fart box. You know? It was horrible. It was just like squat racks and benches. And like one platform and just smell. Well, I saw it. Duck tape on the fucking, on the seas. I was like, get me out of here. But I met the, I met, I would talk to like the strength and conditioning, like, I don't know if there were coaches or coordinators, whatever you would call them. And then we were sitting there talking about programming and stuff like that.  Like they're legit, you know, strength coaches who understand exercise programming. Cause I don't remember any of that at all. But again, keep in mind, I went to high school, you know, a little while ago. You know what I mean? It was just like yesterday. Yeah. In the black and white days, TV was like, no, that's not. Did you just pass your 20 year reunion? I did. Did you go? No. Come on, man. You didn't go to the 20s? No. What? It was, I don't know how many times I have to say this. School, for me, was so unmemorable that I couldn't even, I would go and I'd be like, what? You know, like, okay. So unmemorable for me. Total waste of time. I wanna go to my 20. Yeah. I didn't go to any of the other ones, but 20, I feel like that's a long time. Yeah, then you'll see some dramatic change in people. A lot. I know that I kind of see people on social media that I hadn't seen in years and then like everybody is very, very different. So it'd just be interesting to see everybody after 20 years, who's where in their life. Dude, I enjoyed high school.  I enjoyed it.  It was a tight-knit community, yeah. That's how our mind was too. I think that's totally different than when you go to, when you're in a big city. Yeah, you're probably right. You know what I mean? I feel like it's a different feel because I've had friends who went to those kinds of schools and it was very different.  We only had one high school in the whole town. So, you know, San Jose has got like 20 something or whatever. Shit tons of schools. Yeah, they have like 20 something high schools, but they're all relatively, because I think there's like a range. Would you get that like three to 5,000 students? Yeah, I don't think it's necessarily the size of the school. It's that there's so many. So like, okay, so when I managed the first gym that I ever managed was a 24-hour fitness in Salinas. It's right across the street from the rodeo over there. And when, I'll never forget, like my first, there was a high school game that came up, like the second month or whatever, high school football game. And I remember the town was like shut down for a high school football game. I'd never seen that before. Because in San Jose, there's so many schools, nobody really cares. But in towns like that, it's like, you see posters up. That's like a thing to do, yeah.  Oh, that's how it was for us. Our town was, you only had one main street.  Like you just- Yeah, all downtown. They had like this one, the gas station that would like, you could go in and get a deal if you like wore your jersey and everything. And so they were like, they would give back a lot. Yeah, to the high school football team. That's awesome. You know what else I wanted to bring up?  I posted it on my Instagram. So is it the soda companies or the artificial sweetener companies? No, no, no. So the soda companies are getting sued. So I didn't read that. It's Diet Coke, it's Pepsi Company, it's Snapple. Because they're saying that the Aspartame, they lied to them that they wouldn't make them fat. It's making me fat. And now there's some studies that show that it may contribute to diabetes and obesity. So what's interesting- Dude, this is huge. It is huge. People realize how big this is. It is huge. And that's why I posted it.  I posted it on my Instagram. I'm so divided on the way I feel. Well, so do I. Okay, let me tell you why. I haven't responded to anybody who's responding on my page right now because I don't want people to, I'd rather talk about on the show where I can explain myself because there's parts of it that I'm pro. Like I'm all for the law. I'm all for people suing them. And then there's parts of me that are just like, take responsibility for yourself. Well, because you want to keep them accountable, right?  But at the same time, you're the ones that are consuming it. And that's where I'm a little torn. But here, so when I read about the news article about it, I'm more in support than I am against because, so this is different than when people sued McDonald's for making mobies. Because at the time. Well, McDonald's wasn't marketing themselves as a place to diet either. That's right. Diet soda, diet sodas are presenting themselves like this is a better way, this is a healthier way for you to eat. So they're not suing. It would be different if McDonald's came out and said, you know, this is the fast, this is weight loss. This is the healthiest way to eat. Yeah, this is fast food weight loss. Then I think that I would be more behind those lawsuits. This is similar to, this reminds me of. The McHealthy burger. This reminds me of when people sued the tobacco companies because the tobacco companies came out and said, we don't cause cancer, we're not addictive. Then the studies came out and they're like, it does cause cancer. So then the family members of people who've got lung cancer sued them. It's similar in a sense because when I'm reading the news articles, it says that they're being sued for misleading ads. And what they're misleading, what's misleading is that the artificial sweeteners boost cravings for high calorie foods, promote inflammation, affect the vascular system, and alter hormones in the microbiome. So, which is true. It is true, studies are showing that and more and more studies are coming out to support that. So, and it is a bit misleading, right? Cause diet so does, it's like a healthy alternative. It's different. Yeah, exactly. It's different. If they were to have named it a long time ago as Aspartame Coke, or called it, you know, whatever Coke, and it wasn't called Diet Coke, or Diet Snapple or Diet. I mean, when you put that in there, you're implying that this is for people that are trying to lose weight. It's better for you. Yeah, that it's healthier for you, that it's better for you. Which also takes us back to the whole discussion of the shakes and using that as a weight loss strategy. And like we talked about with that one doctor that one day. So I'm torn on how I feel. Cause I believe that obviously we should all be accountable, and I don't believe in suing people because we're too dumb to see through advertising. But, you know, it is very misleading. When you think about where we've been going with diabetes and obesity in the last 10, 15 years, we're getting worse before we're getting better. So here you have products like this that are supposed to be on the market to help people. And in reality, it's probably accelerating the issue that's happening right now because people are confused on what's happening to them. They have no idea because they're not educating themselves. So that's partially their own fault. But then if we don't get, if these lawsuits don't happen, who's gonna finally stop us? Bring awareness. Right. So I mean, that's the only angle I really see. And I do understand where you're coming from with that. Cause I just, I'm just repulsed by all the lawsuits that exist out there. I feel like. Oh, it's so litigious. The society's so litigious. I'm so over it. I'm so over people not taking responsibility for what, you know, they're doing and trying to just take down whoever they can to profit off of them. And you know, not understand it from, you know, real like circumstantial cases where it makes sense, but like the overall like theme of today is like way overly litigious. Oh yeah. I'm over it. For sure. But this is such a big people. I don't think a lot of people realize how big of a deal this is. If they, if they win, which I doubt, and I'll tell you why I doubt that they're going to win. I doubt they're going to win because the companies that manufacture and make these products are massive. And they're all going to get together. And they're going to make, they're going to say, all we have said is that these sodas don't have calories and don't have sugar and that that can help you lose weight, which you can make that case. The sewers are trying to say, Hey, this is bad for us.  And then they're going to say, we didn't know it was bad for you because the studies are inconclusive. In fact, the FDA is still saying that. So I don't think they're going to win. But if they did win, holy fuck, that would set a, that would set a precedence that would destroy these companies. Cause everybody would come out of the woodworks and would start suing these companies left and right.  Oh, for sure. Yeah. And we called it, we called this a long time ago, like the market is shifting. I'm going to make another call in right now because they've had it for, I think four plus years now and we're barely starting to see it be advertised. Watch the push in advertising the green coax now. Watch the push on that. They've been, they've had them for over four years. Many people that have heard this show and us talk, I've talked about them a bunch too. Okay, Institute Plan C. No, it's 100% you got to know, like that's how smart these companies are, right? This is, they've had it in place for this is like pull the parachute now.  We had over here why everybody else said it wasn't prepared. And I don't know how many of these other companies have done what like Coca-Cola did by having this line that is real sugar and stevia. So you get kind of the best of both worlds. It's a little bit lower calorie than it's all, it's used a natural sweetener instead of something like aspartame. So I'm really interested to see if all of a sudden we start seeing these commercials and stuff pop up like crazy. It's gonna, it's already gonna start cause now it's mainstream. Like mainstream is talking about this. So people are gonna, what's gonna happen is it's gonna spark a lot of debate. You're gonna see people talking about like on the one hand you're gonna have people say no, the perfectly safe, and then on the other hand you're gonna have people saying no, these studies are showing this. So now it's in the mainstream and people are gonna talk about it. It's gonna make it, it's gonna be very interesting. I'm very interested to see what ends up happening. If I, here's the thing. If I'm a company and I'm making sodas, I'm just gonna say like I'm gonna put on the bottle made with real sugar or made with, like I'm not gonna try to pretend. You know what I mean? That something's not what it is. Like, hey, it's a donut, you know? Donut with sugar, it's good, whatever.  Well, gone are those days, right? That you could be sort of vague about, you know, what's in your product. Like people wanna know exactly what's in there. And that's why I'm so surprised that whole, you know, that didn't pass about like labeling with GMO and everything here. It's just like, it's crazy to me. Some of the, some states that passed those laws are getting overturned from the federal government. Yeah. That they can't label. Don't get me started on that.   So I didn't know that we had some states that actually passed that. So some states actually started to put GMO on anything that had GMO in it. And then there was some federal laws that were an act that was passed that said you can't label, that states can't label to try and say no, sorry. I think Vermont was one in Hawaii and there's a lot of power there that's happening. And you know, where the federal government then steps in and tells the states, no, no, no, you can't label. Of course. Which is like so weird.  Corn and wheat is right up there with cigarettes and alcohol and fucking, you know, that's right up there, dude.   It's just, you better believe, you better believe someone's coming to the rescue on that. Yes. Yeah. No, it's crazy.  This clause brought to you by OrganiFi. For those days you fall short on getting your organic veggies or whole food nutrition. OrganiFi fills the gap with laboratory-tested certified organic superfoods to help give your health and performance the added edge. Try OrganiFi, totally risk-free for 60 days by going to OrganiFi.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com and use a coupon code MINEPOMP for 20% off at checkout. All right, first up is 111-2, Lauren, asking, what are your hobbies outside of fitness and optimization? If you don't have any, do you think it impacts you in terms of being more holistic in your abilities and perspective? Hobbies outside of fitness and optimization. That's outside of fitness and optimization. Constantly optimizing. So nothing related to fitness or optimization.  Like just purely out of entertainment. What do you enjoy to do on your? Well, this right now, you know what I'm doing that I love is watching Stranger Things. You guys see the new Stranger Things? Yeah, I didn't watch it. Oh, it's so good. How many episodes do you watch? I had four. No way. Do you watch four?  Well, it's crazy. Now they release that new season and it's like the whole things there. It's like, how do people like control themselves not to watch all of them at once? Oh, dude. It's like, it's just all there. I was almost late to something yesterday. I had to control myself. I was watching it. Otherwise, hobbies, I'm trying to think. Well, even that one. Because I love, I really, really enjoy doing things that tend to also optimize, but not necessarily because they optimize. Does that make sense? Yeah, well, you're not thinking about it. Well, I think, I could even argue. Okay, so it just says, if you don't have any, do you think the impacts of you in terms of being more holistic in your abilities and perspective? I think you could even put a spin on, you know, watching Netflix series occasionally, right? Cause you're, I think there's this fine line of the consumption, right? Like are you letting yourself get sucked into it and addicted to it and you burn four or five hours every day being sucked into Netflix? Or is it something that provides a release from you because you're normally working and focused on business and the kids and everybody else. And then it allows you this time to actually detach a little bit. Cause for me, that's kind of, I love movies. I love like Netflix series. I still manage to find them into my life, but you know, I'm also reading and doing playing sports and doing other things besides just that.  I become engulfed in the story that I forget about all the stuff that I have to handle that day and tomorrow. And so I think there's something healthy about that that comes from that. People sometimes we look at entertainment and we look at it as a waste of time and money and it can be abused, like anything can be abused. Even fitness can be abused. But if it's not being abused, entertainment plays a valuable role in society because like you're saying Adam, it could be a way to relax, a way to be in the present. It could be a way to enjoy your company around you to bond with other people. It could definitely increase the value. Alter your mood. Yeah. I mean, there's all kinds of benefits to it. And I go through this a lot because I'm always thinking about how to spend my time when I'm home and be more effective and be more present and all that kind of stuff, which is definitely an optimizing kind of mentality where I wanna spend as much time as I can with my kids while they're young and they're here and we'll go, I'll teach them how to throw a ball and we'll go outside and we'll play catch and all that stuff. I'm trying to be as focused as I can on what we're doing together. But yeah, then there's times where I'll just sneak off into the room and I'll just start playing guitar and that's strictly for myself. And it brings me peace and it calls me down. Do you actually still do that? Do you actually still get away and do that for yourself? I mean, not very frequently, but when I do, it makes a real big impact on me because it's just like, I just feel like, I don't know, it's really just my thing. Nobody else's thing. I think that's actually really important that you have these things. So I last year, I bought Katrina, I think for her birthday, like a whole snowboard setup and everything like that so I can get back into riding. And so, and this year, the goal was to get in a lot. I got in a few rides last year and just, it felt amazing and it felt amazing because I used to say, and I said that, I said this all through my twenties, if somebody asked like, where's your, where are you in your zen or where's your most like, where's your special place, right? And my special place was being up on top of a mountain and just a beautiful day and the sun and the board strapped up, headphones in my ear and all alone, like I don't have to be with anybody. I can share that with somebody, but for me, it's one of the most peaceful, relaxing, enjoyable moments and I always find when I do that, it rejuvenates me for everything else and I'm a better version of myself when I get back from doing that. And so, this year, a major goal was for me to get back and I used to be a season pass holder where I was going every free weekend that I had, I'd be up there and I'd be riding and I noticed how happy I am. And then I realized that as we get older, other things become a priority and that's how these things start to kind of take a backseat because we become so focused in the business, our children, our partners, bills, all the mortgages, all this stuff that becomes so important, but those things too, it's no different than how we talk about stresses in your life, right?  And I mean, I definitely have lost balance in my, especially the last 10 years because I've been so heavily focused on growth and finances and things like that that I stopped doing some of these things and I stopped doing them because I felt like I had to let them go if I was gonna excel at these other things but it's not true, it's just like the meditation thing we talk about.  But in reality, it's amazing how it rejuvenates you when you have these escapes. And so for me, like for sure, two big things that I noticed in my life, and this is just literally this last year, this is a big deal for me. I cut back on snowboarding a lot, which was really important to me and watching sports that I love, football and basketball are two things that I grew up my whole life, just heavily into it. And it was something I shared with my best friends and over the years, I've kind of, out of all of us, I've fallen off that because it takes time. It takes time to follow up on your sports and watch the games. Totally, drop the ball on that one.  I'm a happier person when I'm allowing those things into my life and finding that balance. So I think- Yeah, that's why this question's interesting because what are your hobbies outside of fitness and optimization? I understand the fitness part, but a hobby, unless it's something that you're obsessed with and you abuse, it's always optimization, right?  No matter what, it can be stamp collecting. I mean, if it's something you're into and it brings value to your life and again, you're not obsessed with it or it's not an addiction, then that's optimization. As a kid, I never really had a ton of hobbies. I loved, I did like reading, but it was always, I would always read biographies or science books or encyclopedia type stuff. When I was a real young kid, I really liked reading the Book of World Records, the Guinness Book of World Records was real fun for me, but it was always fact stuff, like stuff that I could learn that was like real. I wasn't into fiction. So that was kind of a hobby, but I collected baseball cards and football cards and comic books, but that wasn't really a huge passion of mine. It's been fitness since I was 13 and it's just, I love the history of it. I love the history of bodybuilding. I love the history of strength athletes. I love the history of supplements, the history of nutrition. I love learning about just, I've always been into that. So it's almost like when people ask me, like, what else are you into? I feel kind of bad saying it, but why? You know what I mean? It's just something I've always really enjoyed. I got really into jujitsu in my 20s and I did that for about six years, but the one thing that's always been a constant, at least since I was my early teens, was fitness, but it truly is my favorite hobby. It's not, there's nothing comes close to just enjoying reading about it and learning about it and doing it and anything that has to do with it. So other than that, I can't think of too many of the things that I kind of get into. I sound kind of boring, huh? I just really love fitness. Yeah, yeah. What else is there? Next question is Lucas Hunt 10. Do you have a go-to routine to bounce back after a night of drinking? I have three ad bills in a gallon of water. I have a protocol that I do, the night that when I am drinking, and then what I, you know, so what I do while I'm drinking, what I do before bed, and it seems to work. Now, rule number one, if you want to avoid feeling super shitty the next day, don't over drink. That's the rule number one. So I don't think there's any magic that you can do. Yeah, I don't think there's like any magic potion you can take that'll completely eliminate that. Can I hear something about theanine? I think somebody was talking about supplementing that and that lowering. I don't even think, like you could drink more and you wouldn't be as inebriated taking this. I don't know if you know much about theanine. Substances that allow you to drink more alcohol so that you feel better while you're drinking. It's not protecting you. It may be giving you the impression that you're, it's like when people do drugs, like, you know, I've actually hung out with people who will do, you know, who are friends with other people who are doing drugs.  It was really my first time ever even being around it. And I remember them saying like, oh, I love it, man. Like I could drink more when I'm on it. And I remember thinking like, that's probably not gonna pay off. Yeah, I don't think that takes, that might not be a good thing. Like I kind of liked the fact that I get drunk easier. I don't need to drink as much as much damage. But one thing that I do is I do have, I do make sure to drink lots of water. I do have electrolytes. So I'll take electrolytes with me because if you just drink tons of water, you can actually throw. What about just drink the green juice right there? I haven't done it yet with the green juice, but that's actually quite smart. So this funny that this question got brought up because literally this weekend, this is what I did. And so I was gonna ask you what you thought. I mean, I felt good afterwards because I don't drink hardly at all. You have a pretty bad reaction, alcohol. Yeah, I just, and that's why I don't drink. And it sucks because my family, Katrina's family, like food and alcohol, every event is surrounded around that.  Everybody makes it like it makes a big ol' ordeal.   We're gonna party all night. I'm like, whoa, dude, I'm just gonna have some beers. So I had, I think I had four beers, which for me, that's a lot because I don't drink at all. By two, I'm already feeling pretty buzzed. Three, four, it's got me pretty drunk because I'm a total lightweight.  So last night, I had, I took actually the green juice after I was done drinking. So this was the night before last, sorry. The green juice after I was done drinking before I went to bed. And I actually washed down a probiotic and then a probiotic in the morning time.  I actually, that's the best I have felt. So you did the, you did the Organifi Green Juice. Did you do their probiotic, did you Organifi? So the only reason why I did, because I normally wouldn't even think to try that, but because we have- They had this up before. Yeah, because I have these probiotics in my house and I'm like, and I'm not, you know, I do kombucha occasionally and that's one of those things. I don't really seem to have a lot of gut issues. But if I ever do, it's like when I drink, drinking messes my gut up. So I thought, you know what?  It's funny you say that because that's part of my protocol. Part of my protocol is I do the electrolytes, water, and then I do probiotic that night. And if I'm drinking heavily, I'll do activated charcoal while I'm drinking. Activated charcoal does, it- Absorbs the toxins. It binds to toxins, making them so that you can't absorb them and then you excrete them.   So, you know, if you drink too much, it's your fault. Do you know, do you actually know what actually causes us to feel the hungover feeling that we feel? Yeah, so- The inflammation in the liver? No. It's the spike, it's the hard spike of blood sugar and it's the hard crash of coming back down. Think about it, you're loading all this alcohol, right? So blood sugar, one after another, one beer, two beer, three beer, four beer.  And then all of a sudden you go to, you pass out, right?   What do you say? Isn't it what it's- Isn't it hair of the dog? Take a hair up there, what is it? I know it's not that. I like Adam's version. What is it, what is it, what is it? I know it's not take the hair off the dog. What is it, what is it? I think it's hair of the dog. Is it hair of the dog? Yeah, hair of the dog. What is it, Doug? Google it, I don't know. It's a core- Hair of the dog. Oh, Doug knows. It's a colloquial expression in the English language, predominately used to refer to alcohol that is consumed with the aim of lessening the effects of a hangover. Take the hair off the dog. What is it, what is it? What is it? Hair of the dog. Oh, hair of the dog.  I feel bad for your dogs.  So, you showed you how much I drink, right? You actually have to do this. It's like throwing a monkey in the wrench. Throwing a monkey in the wrench. I like it. So it spikes it back up, right? So it mitigates how much of the crash is.  So there's a lot of factors that are coming to play that affect you the next day. Right, hydration, things like that.  It can actually cause you to feel pressure in your head. There's also the alterations of certain chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, GABA. So GABA is a neurotransmitter that's a depressant. It makes you feel relaxed. Alcohol increases the amount of GABA that's put in the brain. That's why when you drink alcohol, you get relaxed and feel good. But what goes up must come down and the body does adapt to what it considers to be abnormal levels of anything. Anything in the body that gets abnormally high or low, the body adapts by downregulated receptors reducing its own production of these chemicals and so on. So when you're pushing out all this GABA with alcohol, then when the alcohol wears off, your brain is producing less GABA than it normally would which is why people who suffer from anxiety, for example, they will, this is why alcohol is not a good treatment for anxiety. If you, while you're drunk, you may feel less anxiety. The hangover, you talk to anybody with anxiety issues, they'll tell you the day after. Terrible. Oh, I imagine, because it goes up and then crashes back down the other direction. Terrible anxiety. Dopamine is another one. When you cause dopamine to spike, which lots of substances cause a high spike in dopamine but especially alcohol and drugs, the brain responds to high levels of dopamine very quickly. It very quickly downregulates receptors, reduces its own production of dopamine, which may give you that depressed feeling the day after because a hangover isn't just the physical feelings of headache and throwing up. It's shame. You also... Justin's like, oh no. The walk is out of the blue.  Justin's got the walk of shame a few times. You wake up next to you in the bed. Who's this? Walk it out of some sorority house. Oh, my God, I got these chunks on my shirt. Why am I a bed with Doug? Oh, God.  It's also the emotional feeling because I've had hangovers the day after work. I don't have a headache. I don't necessarily physically feel bad, but emotionally I'm flat. What's your thought about shrooms or ashwagandha or any of that type of stuff? What's your thoughts on that? So it makes sense that an adaptogen like ashwagandha would be a good thing to take the day after, but I don't want people to take that to heart, do some research because alcohol interacts with a lot of different substances and the interaction is what's important. So you may take something that sounds like, it sounds like a good idea and it's natural, but it may actually make things worse. So I'll give you another example, passion flower. Passion flower is a natural treatment for anxiety, for acute anxiety. It's actually quite effective.  Passion flower, the way it works is it raises GABA also. So if you take passion flower with alcohol, might not be a good thing. It might make you more drunk or the day after might just be kicking the can down the road where now it's like anything else, like I keep trying to get that GABA, don't let my brain reacclimate and then I make the hangover worse. Neutropics are an interesting one. So like the race attempts, you'll hear people say, oh, if I take, you know, Peristitum or whatever and then I drink, I only have to drink one drink and I get buzzed way faster and, you know, this and that or if I take it the next day and we went, when we went down to LA and met with, who was the guy we met with? The quality guy? No, he was at the, where you hook up your brain in the video game. Dr. Andrew Hill. Yeah, Andrew Hill. Yeah, I brought it up to him and he goes, yeah, it's probably doing more damage to your brain by combining it to do not combine Neutropics with alcohol. Because you'll read on the forums. I'm glad you actually said that because, you know, going back to the last episode we did where we talked about this Neutropic kick right now that everybody's on that, that will be something I'm sure people are either already trying with. Neutropic alcohol. Yeah. Watched it. Watched it. Smart.  Yeah. No, I think the best thing you can do is for what I found, make sure you're hydrated, electrolytes, you know, activated charcoal if you have a, you know, if your stomach feels off, probiotic was very, very smart from Adam. And here's the other thing too is don't, I feel way better if I drink during the day because then it wears off and then I can sleep at night.   Oh, it's a combination. Day drinking is the best. Day drinking, you don't get, you don't feel nearly as good. So all much more fun. Here's a product, I didn't even think about this. This was something because I don't drink like I used to drink when I was a kid. So when I had my condo, the complex, like a whole circle of the entire complex was almost a mile. And so if I came home and I was like staggering drunk where I knew like hangover tomorrow, potentially throwing up tonight or tomorrow, I'm so bad, I would walk until I walked it off. I would literally walk around my complex like stump for hours and just, I would just keep, if I felt that- I like to go for a drive. One of the worst- Yeah, yeah, just kidding, total joke. That's a joke. No, literally though, that's one of the best things you can do if you pushed it too far is don't lay down and go to sleep.    And so I just keep walking and walking until I started to feel better and then I come home.  Like, what's the one that you can remember? So my 21st birthday, I had a weird experience. I had the first time I had drank so much alcohol so fast that my body just rejected it. And I actually didn't get really sick from this, but my body, I never felt my body rejected like this.  It's like three beers or what, a two and a half, three beers at things. Yeah, one of those big old glass ones, right? And a couple beers are in there. I don't know how many fit in there. I know it's at least two. And they had me pound that, you know, pound, pound, they're all, it's my 21st birthday, right? So I do that, of course. Then they hand me the bong to take a bong rip. I take a bong rip to that. And then they hand me a combo. And then they hand me a beer bong that has three and a half beers in it, right? And I slammed the beer bong. And as soon as the beer gets all the way into my stomach, I pull the tube out and it just projectile vomit. I've never projectile vomited my life before. It just all got right out. They've gone flying out of my mouth like a tube of it. And I actually, after it got out, I felt it. You didn't have time to absorb it. Yeah, that's what happened. It rejected probably three beers, full beers just straight out. My body just said, no, it was too much, too fast, too soon. Wow, dude. And so that happened on my 21st. And then I'm trying to think of some other times. So I got a story before Justin, because I know Justin's going to have the best. No, I'm not. I know you are. I went to Vegas with two of my friends. One was my business partner. So when I first opened my wellness facility, I actually co-owned it with somebody for the first couple of years before I bought him out. And then it was just mine. And I went with him and this other guy. And we went to Vegas. And one of the guys I went with is this English dude.  It's like the Irish. It's part of the culture. It's what they do after work. So we go to the bars and we just start going hard, like one after another, one after another. And we're having a great time. We're drinking, drinking. And I look over at my business partner. And he's got this strange look on his face. Like, yeah. And we were in Vegas for the Olympia, by the way. Like, uh-oh. No, he was just like, you know the thousand miles there where the dude's just staring forward. He's just gone. And he's kind of like, you know, he's kind of wavering from side to side. And I tap him on the arm.  You all right? And he doesn't even say anything. He just shakes his head, no.  And so this is like three hours into like, we're just going hard.   And he's like, yes. So I'm like, all right, let's go. I'm gonna take you to the bathroom. So I said, let's go.  So now I know this is bad.  We go in there and he goes, I got a piss. I got a piss. So I'm like, all right, dude, like here's the urinal. So I put him up. I bring him up to the urinal and he falls. So he falls to the bathroom.  So I held him up and he pulls his pants all the way down to his ankles. And he's peeing at the urinal and I'm holding him from behind. You're holding him. Yes, this is what a good friend I am, dude. Wow. Like just bare butt cheeks. That's intimate. Bare butt cheeks.  No, he can't keep his balance.  My old business partner was a 240 pound bodybuilder. Okay, so he was a difficult motherfucker to support. So I had to like semi-embrace him. So I had like one underhook. Where are their dudes coming in? Oh yeah. What's going on over here? Oh no, no dudes are coming in. We got a few like dudes that were like, yeah, like that. Get after it.   So now he's pissing. He's having trouble aiming. And I'm like, yeah, definitely not going to help you with that, buddy.    I put a big glass of water next to him. Like, are you going to be okay? Cause I'm not done. I'm going to go downstairs. Yeah, I got more to do. So I leave him there. I leave, I go back downstairs, party some more. I come back at two AM and probably the most frightening moment of my life. Okay. Have you guys ever thought your friend was dead? Oh yeah. Okay. It's scary. Cause you're like, I'm going to get in trouble. So that's the first thing, like, oh no, he's dead.  Oh no. I'm not going to tell his girlfriend. So I walk in the room and he's not in the bed.  Where did he go? So I look over to the bathroom and I'm looking like, you can't see directly in the bathroom. You could just kind of see sideways, you know, like the, like, you know, I can't go in until I walk around the corner, but I see his legs sticking out like he's on the floor.  And I walk in there and he's laying on his face and there's puke everywhere.  So I'm like waking him up and no, he's not dead. I felt his pulse and he's kind of waking up.  So I'm like, this fucker's like, is this alcohol poisoning? So what's going on? So I'm like, dude, let me call an ambulance. He's like, no, no, no, don't call an ambulance. He's like, I'm just really hot, dude. I'm just really hot. I'm like, just leave me here. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to leave you on the floor, but I'm going to be right over here. So I go to lay down and I set my alarm. So every hour I woke up to check on him. After about the third hour, I wake up and I check and he's not on the floor now. So now I'm freaked out. I go in there, he's in the bathtub, totally naked in a cold tub.   You can't, you can't lay in the bathtub. He's like, I'm too hot. I'm like, I don't care.   And he owes me, dude. That's all I'm going to say. That's a lot of work, man.   I had to.  So every, so this is my senior year in high school. And talking about, you know, Justin and I, small towns, big football towns. So my senior year, I didn't play ball at all and I worked. But what I did do is I was at every game. Like, so I was, you know, all my best, all my buddies were players and stuff. And, and that we would go to all the event. We'd travel to all the way games and the home games. We would rope off an area that was like, and we were the rowdy group. Every touchdown we dog piled each other. And it was, we are crazy and loud. And we show up to the game blitzed already. So that was like that we would go somewhere we would pre-drink because we're in high school. So you're not supposed to be doing this shit, right? So we pre-drink somewhere else. We show up hammered at the games. Well, one of the games is a home game. We were, my buddy got really wasted. And we're sitting and there's, there's about three of the rows are all our friends. So there's about 15 of us that are all friends and we're all together. And I'm on one side.  And he's just kind of holding himself up. And you can just tell he's any moment he's ready to get sick. And then my other buddy's on the other side of him and he's drunk and he's just having a good time and being loud.  And he'd be like, Hey, cops are coming.   And my buddy would sit up and try and act normal and you could just see he was just done, right? He was totally done. And I kept telling my buddy Gary to stop doing this. I'm like, Gary, dude, leave him alone, man. He's just like, you just thought it was so funny that he would scare him every five minutes because he'd start to fall asleep in his hands.  And so he'd keep doing this to him.  Oh, no! All down the back of the neck of another one of my buddies.  It was a mess, dude. It was really bad. Damn it. They ripped his shirt off. He wanted to fight my other buddy. It was just this whole ordeal. We got paleopostin, dude. It was obvious that this was...  It's bad. Yeah, I guess I'll tell them mine. Mine was, I mean, I've had a few, but this one was probably... Like, I thought I had alcohol poisoning, I think. Like, it was pretty bad. It was an idea that we had. There was me and my friend, Joe, who, you know, I get in the most trouble with him, I'll be honest. He's all my friend, Joe, God bless his soul. He's still alive. We're still cool. But he's like my drinking buddy. And he's half Irish, half Italian. And so we always would talk about doing something for St. Patrick's Day. And so I would usually go, I'd go to the city with him or we'd go somewhere where we could find a cool pub to hang out. And so I actually had this little house that me and Courtney just got married. And so I have this little house to myself. I have this backyard, picket fence and all that. And so I had him over. And this was like maybe three o'clock in the afternoon. And I was like, you know, let's get started. You know, let's start this now. And then later tonight, you know, we can go hit up a cool bar and all that. And when Courtney gets off work, she can, you know, meet up with us.  Like, he brought like a full case of Guinness. And I had, I had some Baileys and I had some Irish whiskey. So I'm like, perfect. Let's do some car bombs. Yeah. So we started doing car bombs. Did eight car bombs in a row. Oh, and then like kept going too.  Dude, where it got to me though, I think it was the ninth where I was like, there was no more, there was no more Baileys. And so it was just like, yeah, whiskey dropping into, you know, Guinness. And I was like, you know, the gurgles started to happen a little bit. I was just like, and I was looking at the fence and I was like starting yelling profanities at like neighbors that weren't even there. And then he was yelling at me that we're yelling.  And I was yelling and then I started projectile vomiting over the fence.  And then like, I guess in this whole time we had called my other friend to come over and hang out with us. By that time he got there, like I was leaning into the fence, like motionless. And my friend was leaning it, like he was down face first in this planner's box.  And he was like trying to, trying to get us to calm down all that. And then we like, I ended up actually just going to bed. It was like four o'clock in the afternoon. That was it. That was the end of the story. I didn't even make it out. Did you ever get into bear fights? Did you ever have a bear fight before? Bear fights? Yeah.  That sounds like a game. Yeah, yeah, tell me, this is for all you kids out there that are into drinking. A bear fight. Bear fight. Yeah. Run back, run back. I'm scared to Google that. I know what's going to pop up. Google it. It is a drink. It's a Yeager bomb followed by an Irish car bomb. Oh man. You do back to back. Oh, that is an appropriate name. It's called a bear fight. That is an appropriate name. Yeah. We used to drink that. We run two of those. We come and we show up to a place. We'd order two each.  Just, you're done after that. It's just, it's the speed. Yeah. Like really, like it's such a bad idea.  For all the kids out there. Yeah, don't do it. Don't do it. Check out a bear fight. Next up is Michael Burns 33. Is there more of a benefit having someone spot you on the bench where they help with the rep versus just lowering the weight on the bar and doing the same number of reps without any help? So this is comparing a forced rep. Yeah, versus working out myself. To you, yeah, you doing it on your own. So let's talk about what a forced rep is. Now, I remember back in the day, I got a flex magazine. God, this is some of the benefits of having photographic memories. I can literally picture somebody can find this, send me a picture of this. It was a flex magazine article and it had, it was a mass building. I forgot the title. It was mass building secrets and had a picture of Mike Moderato, who was this bodybuilder in the 90s that I was a huge fan of. He ended up passing away not too long ago, but he had these massive arms. And it was like, it was like, it was flex, right?  It must have been like, I want to say 1994 or 95 and I open it. And in the magazine, there's an article of like principles of mass building and of principles of like cutting or something like that, right?  I didn't read those, but I looked at all the principles for mass building and what they were naming were these high intensity training techniques, these Weeder principles or training techniques that were great for building mass according to this magazine.  But anyway, the techniques were all like partial reps and forced reps and drop sets and like super high intensity things, which I of course did all of them in the same workout. Like I'm like, oh cool. This set I'm going to do partial reps, forced, you know, forced reps and ended up burning myself out. And I learned very quickly that these high intensity techniques should be used super rarely.  And, you know, which would never happen. Which would never, we'd never do curls. But let's just say we did. Let's say we got, yeah. Hypothetically. Yeah, whatever. I'm doing curls. I go to failure. It's my 10th rep. That's the last possible one I can perform. So now I'm going to go for an 11th rep and I'm trying to get it up. And I can only get it up like four inches and I'm struggling. And what Justin does is he applies just enough help to let me get the bar up, but with a lot of struggle. That's why it's called a forced rep. So I'm, it's not like he's helping me a lot. So the rep is easy. He's helping me a little bit. So the bar barely moves up as I curl it.  It causes a lot of muscle damage. Loss of damage. It's a technique you can utilize super, super rarely to the point where I recommend it for almost nobody unless you're super advanced and you've got great recovery ability and everything else is factored in and every, maybe once every macro cycle, like once every three to six months or so when I throw something like this in, that's how intense it is on the body. So if I'm going to compare a forced rep to not going to failure or doing it on your own, the one that I'm going to always, I'm going to air to you or the one that I'm going to say is far more effective is the one that you do on your own. Because as we've talked about many times on the show, intensity is important, but it can be overdone very easily. And for the most part, every time you work out, you shouldn't even go to failure. For the most part, if you stop one or two reps short of failure, you're going to see yourself progress right away. Well, this is such a game changing mentality for me to begin with. Just not having a spotter. Back in the day, it was like, if you worked out, especially in the gym, and you're doing these group workouts with the team, or I just thought you always had to have a spotter because you always had to go for that maximal exertion. And to have them around to make sure everything's safe and the weight's not crushing you, all that kind of stuff. Whereas I can't even remember the last time I had a spotter. And even then I get irritated because I've had somebody actually spot me on a squat.  Like, honestly, spotting a squat's funny, though. It's just kind of hug them. Yeah, it's funny, but it's unnecessary. I'd rather just dump it off my back. And I know I'm under control enough to be able to do that more effectively. As you should. And I feel like the spotter, it's awkward. It's like they don't know where exactly to apply force to help you in the right spot. I've never had success with that. I'm going to go even further and say that it's such a waste of time.  Because we did preface this with saying that, yes, when you do a force rep, there's all kinds of muscle damage that happens, which if that happens, that then in turn can build some more muscle. The problem is, and I think why I'm so passionate about it, because just like Justin, I was a kid like this, that when I was 17 to probably 23-ish, I always had a workout partner. And from the very first exercise I did, we were going to failure set one. Set one, right on the dumbbell press.   And it was all because we were young and full of testosterone. Just resilient. Because if I did that now, I would burn my, I would die. Back then I got away with it. I didn't progress like I could have, but the reason why we did is because you're 18 years old, you get all this testosterone flowing, so you just kind of get away with it. Yeah. You know what I mean?  And I still see it even beyond that. So I've got buddies, I just saw a buddy post this morning, you know, and he's like, oh, day one back in the gym.  Man, I feel great, you know, like, and I'm thinking to myself like day one back in the gym, like if there's ever a time that you don't want to crush yourself, it's that day. It's day one. Day one in the gym, like, okay. Recovered from my surgery, hammered my lady. Yeah. What? Right. It's like there is no reason to push to that point at that point in your programming because your body has now got adapted to you not working out. And so any sort of working out is going to send a new signal of stimulus to it to make it want to grow and build muscle. So I don't want to, why hammer myself? Because that's only going to impede my workout the next day or two. So this is completely overused and abused by so many people. Is there a place for it? Yes. If you ever see me use it, I might use it a little more frequently than what Sal recommended, although I agree with him that this is something that is very, very intermittently used throughout your training protocol. I typically use it as the last exercise, the last set, the last exercise of the day. If I'm going to do it, if I'm going to take my to complete failure or ask for a spot, this is it. I did this, I already did two or three different exercises for my chest or shoulders or arms or whatever it is that I'm about to take to failure. And it's the last set, the last exercise, and I'm going to try and force a rep out. And then it's done. It's like I've totally, I've pushed all the way to the limit. Starting a workout like that is so absurd. And it was something I did for many years. And looking back now, it's one of the dumbest things I ever did, which was right away, I would go right to my favorite exercise for that muscle group. So if it's, I'm working chest, it's either flat bench or dumbbell bench press, were my two favorite movements. And you better believe I was lifting the heaviest weight I possibly could on that exercise and taking it to failure or having somebody spot me. And then all the rest of my chest exercises that I would do in that workout were really minimal, what they were doing for me. Because I was already getting my central nervous systems already fried, my muscles already fatigued. So it's just pumping more blood in there. I'm just reinforcing the whole hypertrophy phase of programming. And so I lived in that phase forever because I thought that I needed to go to failure at every set, every exercise I did to get this maximal growth because of the articles like you read in Flex Magazine.  So yeah, it's grossly overused. I don't recommend spotters. You know, and also I think it's again, we're talking about the general population. There's, you're now talking about something completely different when you talk about somebody who's a powerlifter who's lifting for competition, right? Yeah, you need somebody there. Coach. If there's anybody who uses this technique more than anybody else, it would be these guys, right? But even then, they got to be even more careful. Even then, they're super calculated about it. Yes. Powerlifters rarely go to failure. That's the truth they rarely ever do. Yeah, exactly.  That's the only time you test yourself with your absolute max. Olympic lifters never go to failure, except for the day of their competition where they push themselves. Bodybuilders are the ones that use it the most. And I don't, a lot of it has to do with, I think, the drugs that they use and the fact that they've got these crazy genetics. Well, and it goes back to the hypertrophy thing that I was saying. Is sure if you're all hypertrophy and that's all you train and strength is not as much of a priority. And you can see it.  His legs are big.  I mean, he's for a little men's physique guy. He's massive. But then like, you know, deadlifting three plates is a big deal for him. You know, I saw him map his, he had a PR the other day at 500 pounds, which for as big as he is, he should be a lot stronger than as for as much gear that he's probably taken. He should be much stronger than that also. But when you don't train that, when you don't train that way, you don't train those movements and that's what happens. And you can look that impressive because you've trained hypertrophy all the time, but then your muscles don't have the ability to, to pull up something like that. Next question is from Ryan C. Jung. In episode 610, you spoke with Dr. Andy Galpin about how orange theory took an old, proven wrong concept of optimal training in the heart rate zone and built a business around it. As a PT, I'm being taught to work clients to this zone. Can you please explain how orange theory has implemented this concept? So the heart rate zone theory that we were taught when we were trainers goes like this. If you train within this particular heart rate zone, you will burn more body fat than if you train outside of this zone, outside of the zone.     Cardio is easy to get on the machine and do your cardio.  And you better believe that we use that angle for sure. We did. The reality is what the studies showed was that a greater percentage of your calories came from body fat if you trained within a certain zone. However, the total calories are really what matters most. And if you're just looking at cardio in that particular sense, now we've talked about cardio ad nauseam in this show and how it sends the wrong signal if you do too much of it.  Now, as far as orange theory is concerned, orange theory. They attach themselves more to epoch than they attach themselves to target. I think the reason why orange theory used it is it's a way for people to adjust their own intensity in the class when you have one instructor and you have, you know, 15 or 20 people, because now they can look up at the board, see what their heart rate is, and they can go harder or lower and judge it off of their own individual heart rate. So it's actually brilliant. Oh, yeah, I turned a game out of it. Yeah, it's actually brilliant in that particular sense. Is it more effective? No, it's a total myth. It doesn't matter. Perceived exertions more important really than anything than any of that. But it is a coaching tool that orange theory uses because, you know, orange theory is a large bits of business and they're going to use a lot of gimmicks to, you know, just like the orange light and the branding or whatever to, you know, attract more people. That being said, I mean, you know, we've talked about orange theory in the past and it's exploding. I definitely see in the future it's going to drop considerably because they're pretty limited.  And that type of training is not ideal anyway. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what they did really well is they latched onto the culture thing that CrossFit did really good and they're doing that really well.  The old proven wrong concept, though, that orange theory adopted, I think it was me who referred to that.  I was referring to epoch. So they, they, which is the orange zone, the orange zone and the orange theory is is pushing you beyond the target heart rate zone. And their theory is that if you spend 12 to 15 minutes in the, you know, in your maximal heart rate zone, which would be the orange zone from orange theory, then you are getting the benefits of what's called epoch. Epoch is excess post oxygen consumption, which is just a fancy acronym to tell us that, okay, because I pushed my body this hard, I'm going to burn X amount more calories per day. The numbers that they use are incredibly inflated and there's such a huge individual variance in every person from their current metabolism, their size, exactly how hard they pushed, what they ate right before they came in, where they fasted from the day before. There's so many variables that come into play to make that science true or not true that it's pretty much moot. So the fact that they use, they've completely built a brand around a concept that is kind of dead, like epoch is not, we've known about epoch for a very long time. It's just not worth talking about it because it's not that big of a difference. You're talking about this now studies have come to show that it's probably really the difference of 40 to 50 calories in a day, the difference of you spending 15 minutes in that.  And so now I'm burning a little bit more calories internally. If you push the heart rate up beyond target heart rate, you're obviously, because you're pushing the heart harder, you're obviously going to force more blood, more oxygen, more calories get burned and consumed. So there's your extra calories right there. If you pushed really hard, then it's going to take the body that much longer to let the heart rate come all the way back down, which then in turn burns a few more calories also. And the idea is that all day long, your heart rate is at a little bit higher heart rate than what it would normally be if you were like rested all day. Nothing is going to get you to burn more calories than it's speeding up your metabolism yourself. This whole concept of manual calorie burning, I want to hammer it because it's a terrible approach towards, especially in modern life to getting lean. If I'm constantly focusing on how many calories I can burn manually by moving, I'm going to, it's a losing battle because my body adapts to that. We have lots of sciences to show that when you just move a lot, do lots of cardio, the body then adapts by becoming more efficient. Some of the ways it becomes more efficient is by reducing your muscle mass, other ways are by changing your hormones, by reducing movement outside of your scheduled movement, by changing your appetite to offset it. There's all these other things that happen.  We know we have studies done on modern hunter-gatherers that prove this. These are societies where people move way more than the average American, and their calorie burn is not that much more, and it's because their bodies became efficient. Now if you really want to burn more calories, you send a signal to your body that tells it to become less efficient with its calories. And the best way to do this is by building muscle, building strength and building muscle. And orange theory is not a great way to do that. It just isn't. It's circuit type training. You're going to build endurance with it. It's a little bit better than just, it's better than steady state cardio, but it's nowhere near what strength training is. I'll tell you why it's really bad because it's not even really good circuit training because they did such a good job of building the culture around the orange theory and pushing epoch, and it's the reason why I'm speaking out on it so much is that it turned this whole, these clubs into this culture of people chasing points. I mean, because they did such a good job of gamifying it, now it's become competitive on who can be up in the orange for more time. When in reality, they shouldn't be in there more than 12 to 20 minutes because that's what the protocol- Stretching beyond their actual limitations of the headset. Well, not only that, but then you have these people that are chasing the aerobic side so much. They're not getting the anaerobic of benefits because the way the class is designed is half the class you're spent on the row or in the treadmill, the other half of the class you're spent lifting weights in the weight area. But to get the real good benefits of the weight training, you need to slow- You can't be in the orange zone, right? You need to slow down. You need to take rest between reps. So when I was there, I used to do that. I used to make my classes- I don't know how long, how you lasted so long because you, I remember you saying like, you would say the opposite of what they would, you ran the classes the way you wanted. Well, that's why they were so okay with me leaving, right? I kind of ran my own, you know, and you know, shout out to Brendan because we're buddies and stuff like that. And he allowed- Great guy. Love him. He gave me the flexibility to do that. I think he trusted me to know I wasn't gonna, I was never bad-mouthing orange theory while I was there. I was just helping, I was doing what I could do to help those people, which would be, I saw these issues. One of those issues being that these people were chasing these points so much that they weren't getting the real benefits of the weight room area.  If you can keep going from exercise to exercise to exercise without ever stopping, the weight's not heavy enough and you're not giving yourself any rest. Like it should be a heavy enough weight that the next time you go to pick it up, if you go to pick it up right afterwards with no rest, you won't be able to complete the reps. You'll have to rest to be able to complete the reps. Otherwise, we're just staying aerobic. Otherwise, you may as well just stay on the goddamn treadmill in the roller because we're doing the same thing and you're just doing it with weights. We're not really sending a signal to build a lot of muscle by doing that. And this is, I mean, we did a lot of seminars at some of the local orange theories and at some point, it wasn't conducive for them to even let us speak there because people would ask us, hey, these obvious HPA axis dysfunction or overwork, women would come up to me like, I'm really fatigued, but I'm taking four classes a week and my diet's 1500 calories, I'm not losing weight and my advice would be like, okay, so what you do is take one class a week and then lift weights at the gym three days a week. So I'm like telling them to do less orange theory. Weight training. Yeah, I'm gonna tell them the truth or what I think is best for them, but it's not conducive for them to have us speak and then tell them people to do less classes. So I started the thing too within the one that I was at where I told people, because people would start asking me and I can't, I'm gonna lie to them and they'd be like, Adam, this hurts, this is going on, this, I'm like, stop running on the treadmill. And they're like, well, what do I do? That's part of the class. I'm like, walk then. If you're gonna get on it and you're gonna do this part of the class, walk, walk or spend time doing these corrective movements that I would give them. So you come by my class and there'd be the alternative of me walking on the treadmill because Adam, and what I would, and they're like, well, I wanna burn more calories. I said, listen, if you wanna burn more calories and we wanna work on these issues you have, you're kind of, it's like, you're sitting competing signals. So maybe walk and hold on to some 10 pound dumbbells and retract your shoulders and do basically like farmer walks on the treadmill.  This is horrible.  Exactly, and don't think. So how can I work within these parameters and deliver what they want? You started like mobility sessions in there and everything. So at the end, right, what you're supposed to do in those classes, I don't know what the protocol is now. When I was there, you're supposed to go through like this spiel, like you're supposed to go over all the announcements and whatever is going on with orange theory and do all this stuff. I would coach and teach and so I would teach mobility moves. I would teach 90, 90, I would teach these moves. And then while I was teaching them and they were doing the moves, I only had like seven minutes. It was like a seven minutes. What can I give these people that's going to benefit them if they're doing these circuit type classes? So I'd have them doing mobility drills while I'm teaching on the board. I'd be writing like nutritional facts. I'd pick like one topic of the day and I'd give them these random facts. Luckily I had Brendan as an owner who I think owns like 15 of the facilities now because if I was in a corporate office, there's no way they would allow everything that I did there. He allowed me my flexibility to help the people. And it showed my classes were obviously more full than anybody else's. And I have no idea what it's doing now or there, but I heard they've gotten really corporate-like. And I was a part of kind of a little bit of the Wild Wild West. Fitness has to be the most fad-driven industry that you could possibly think of. Oh my God. Every decade seems to have- Drives me crazy. It seems to have it's like this curves and then orange theory and then this next wave of whatever. And you know- You know what book talks about this? You know spinning. It's Hitmakers. So Hitmakers talks about, and this plays, you talk about fitness being fads, music, movies. Everything that we do, it has to have some sort of resemblance of something we've seen before for us to catch on to it and attach ourselves to it. If it's so foreign and so different than anything that we're used to, we're afraid of it. But if there is reminences of other things that we've seen in the past, then that's something that we will gravitate towards. And so they talk about that's part of the formula in Hitmakers on how something goes viral, how something takes off like orange theory. It's got to have this kind of similar flavor.  You know what I'm saying? It's like this combination of the two of them. It's really not that different than those two models. It's just CrossFit and Curves Head Sacks. Yeah, if CrossFit- Yeah, they would have an orange baby. Need an orange baby. That's horrible. Check it out. Smells like citrus. Go to YouTube. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. There's a new video posted every single day. Justin did something extremely embarrassing on today's video. Get yourself a bear fight. You passed me. Check it out. Also, if you go to mindpumpmedia.com, we have 30 days of fitness information. We call it 30 days of coaching. It's free. It's for anybody. Just go there and register mindpumpmedia.com. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maths anabolic, maths performance, and maths aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. 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