Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1009: How to Build Impressive Abs, the Benefits of Adjusting Training Volume, Weight Training for the Deconditioned & MORE
Episode Date: April 13, 2019In this episode of Quah, sponsored by Organifi (organifi.com/mindpump, code "mindpump" for 20% off), Sal, Adam & Justin answer Pump Head questions about how to build the abs in order to see them at a ...higher body fat percentage, whether lifting weights is too much for a sedentary person getting started with fitness, going from high volume training to low volume training, and reaching fitness goals while struggling with an eating disorder. Getting rewarded for living a healthy lifestyle with ‘Health IQ’. (3:30) Mind Pump reinstating their opinion on CrossFit after the Dana Bailey health scare. (6:44) Sal on a recent episode of ‘Iron Crew Podcast’ and tells a story he has tried to forget. (20:37) Netflix sued by 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book publisher over 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch'. (26:11) Tarantulas on a plane!! The black market for exotic creatures. (27:59) Feds charge 2 dozen in billion dollar Medicare brace scam. (34:46) Adam continuing the stir the ‘mastermind’ pot. (39:02) #Quah question #1 - How can I build the size of my abs in order to see them at a higher body fat percentage? (43:13) #Quah question #2 – For someone who goes from a sedentary lifestyle to wanting to be active, is lifting weights right off the bat too much for the body? Should the person ease into weightlifting with bodyweight exercises first? (52:26) #Quah question #3 – Is it a good idea to go from high volume training to low volume training? Are there benefits to it? (58:30) #Quah question #4 – Do you guys think it’s possible to reach a fitness goal while struggling with an eating disorder or do have to address the eating disorder first? Do you think that people who have had a history of eating disorders can ever reach a normal weight and mindset towards food and body image? (1:03:01) People Mentioned DayDay Knucks (@danalinnbailey) Instagram Related Links/Products Mentioned April Promotion: MAPS Split ½ off!! Code “SPLIT50” at checkout Health IQ **Free Quote** DANA LINN BAILEY WARNS FOLLOWERS NOT TO OVERTRAIN FOLLOWING RHABDO SCARE Sal Di Stefano | Growth Mindset – Iron Crew Podcast Episode 35 Netflix sued by 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book publisher over 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' Philippine custom officials seize 757 tarantulas from Poland Feds charge 24 in $1.2 billion dollar Medicare scam - Press Democrat Adam’s post on ‘The two types of successful people he currently sees on social media’ No BS 6-Pack Abs | MAPS Fitness Products - Mind Pump Mind Pump TV - YouTube How to Build Ripped 6-Pack Abs (No BS Exercise Series: Video 1 of 6) MAPS Starter | MAPS Fitness Products - Mind Pump Day 1 - Fitness & Mobility Program - 30 Days of Training (MIND PUMP) Mind Pump Free Resources
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If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.
MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts.
Salta Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews.
Hey guys, guess what?
What's that?
It's another amazing episode of Mind Pump.
Hooray!
So look, in this episode we talk a lot about fitness stuff, but before we do that, we have fun and we do our introductory conversation.
That lasted 39 minutes.
Here's what we talked about in the intro.
Are you ready for this?
First off, I mentioned one of our sponsors,
Health IQ that provides life insurance for fit
and healthy people.
In other words, if you're fit and healthy,
which you probably are,
because you listen to this podcast,
you'll get a better price if you go to Health IQ.
Here's what you do.
Go to healthicu.com.com.com.
And take the Health IQ quiz and get a free quote
for life insurance.
See if you can beat our score.
We all scored almost perfect scores on that quiz.
Easy for me to say.
Yeah, real, real perfect.
Then we talked about Dana Bailey, Dana Lynn Bailey.
She's that fitness influencer, awesome young lady.
Anyway, she had some rabdo from taking a CrossFit class,
almost, she was in the hospital, it was actually kind of bad.
We had some conversations about CrossFit
and that part of this episode, if you're a CrossFitter,
I don't know if you like that one.
Yikes.
Then we talked about the podcast I was just on,
the Iron Crew podcast, great podcast,
good friend of mine I grew up with,
who's the host of that podcast.
And we talked about the time that me and his older brother
beat up a guy who was bullying him.
It's a little gangster.
Then we talked about how Netflix is being sued
for $25 million from the,
what are they, the Make Your Own Adventure storybook?
Companies?
Choose your own adventure.
There you go.
Just and talked about tarantulas on a plane,
that's disgusting.
We talked about the $1.2 billion telemarketing scam
in medical industry right now.
What?
And then Adam stirs the mastermind pot yet again.
Again.
And then if we didn't piss you off enough,
talk about fitness.
And the first fitness question was,
hopefully you still have listeners at it.
This person wants to know how they can build
the size of their abs in order to see them at higher body fat percentages. In other words,
if you build your abs, even if you're fatter, they'll be more visible. You build your abs.
You will come. Next question, uh, for someone who goes from sedentary to wanting to be active,
is lifting weights too much to start with? Should they just start with body weight exercises?
If you're a beginner, where do you start?
Next question, is it a good idea to go from high volume training to low volume training?
If so, what are the benefits and the final question?
Is it possible to reach a fitness goal while struggling with an eating disorder?
And do we think people who've had a history of eating disorders can never reach a normal
weight and mindset towards food and body image. Also this month maps split a
very high volume advanced bodybuilder bikini competitor physique
competitor type program is 50% off. Lots of volume, hard workouts are in the gym,
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So here's what you do, go to mapssplit.com, M-A-P-S-S-P-L-I-T,
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If you are not super advanced,
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you should check out our other maps programs.
We have a lot of them. you can find all those other programs
at mapsfitinistproducts.com.
Dude, you know what I really like to talk about, though, Sal?
What?
Death.
Whoa.
What the hell is so loo?
I'm just saying, like not a lot of people talk about it.
It's sort of the elephant in the room.
Speaking of that, I want to share with you guys a little stat
that Doug shared with me that I think is very fast.
You're doing the head nod in the blinky thing.
That means you're about to drop some dollars.
Don't get too excited.
That's what that means.
That's what that means.
That's crazy shit the other day.
Swimmers have a 28% lower risk of early death and a 41% lower risk of disease, heart disease.
Wow.
Look at you.
Oh, on top of it.
So when you go to your health IQ quiz,
I am telling you, I'm a swimmer.
You get your life insurance.
They should praise you for that.
Yeah, you have a lot of energy.
Yeah, go tell them that and be like,
hey, look, I lift weights sometimes.
I eat properly.
I'm a fitness guy.
What's off guy?
And you're in there.
This is the true and I swim.
You're gonna get a good price. I think so. You're gonna get a very good price. I got a good community. Fuck off guy. You're in there. This is the true and I swim. You're gonna get a good price.
I think so.
You're gonna get a very good price.
I got a good community.
I eat well.
You do and you have to come out.
I got a positive attitude.
You got a good connect.
I told you guys about that.
I told you guys about that, right?
How having bad social networks,
like having poor relationships is worse
for your health than smoking.
Does health like you measure that though?
They don't measure that today.
They should. Like do you have friends? They don't measure that today. They should.
Like, do you have friends?
It's part of the questionnaire.
That's a good followers, yeah.
That's a good question.
That's not the same thing.
It's not the same thing.
Not at all.
That's a good question.
Real human connection.
Because they can predict your mortality
quite accurately in comparison to other singular things
just by looking at your social networks.
Now, here's the other thing that I'll,
here's the other question, or the other thing that I'll, here's the other question,
or the other statement that I think Health IQ has right.
If you are into fitness,
and you are exercising a lot and taking care of yourself
in a really good way,
the odds are you probably do have better networks.
There's a lot of times people are very into fitness,
they tend to work out with other people,
or they go outside, they do it with friends.
So this, you know, probably, probably try to attract out with other people, or they go outside, they do it with friends. So this, you know, probably tried to track
like-minded people, you find yourself hanging out
with more positive group, all these things start to happen.
Yeah, once you make that step.
On a very serious note about this company too,
I initially, when we signed up with them,
I was really curious, like, you know,
how are these, how are these commercials gonna go?
And I don't know, like, how our audience will receive it.
I actually get a lot of really good feedback about them. So I don't know about you guys, which you guys get DM-wise about health IQ. Yeah, I've had
a few people tell me some of these. Yeah, so I'm really, I'm, I've actually totally changed my mind
of initially what I thought when we first signed up. I thought, oh, this is, we're a health and fitness
podcast. We're not really in insurance and things like that. But because of what they're doing and the
way they're doing it, I think that we're that we're getting a lot of positive feedback from them.
So it's been cool.
Well, it sold me.
It was just nobody else was approaching life insurance with the perspective that fit and
healthy people generally obviously live longer and are lower cost less to ensure.
And so if you pull them together, if that's what you work with, then that means
all the people that you work with, you can lower them. You can lower the price. Yeah.
Yeah. I like rewarding people that are doing it right too. And like having that mentality
versus just scaring the shit out of everybody that are doing it wrong. And like let's just
get you to buy it now because you know, you're going die. Yeah, exactly. Well, speaking of death, did you see the almost near death Dana Bailey?
Oh, that her, her rib doe experience?
That's right.
That post went.
Hello, CrossFit.
Yeah, viral.
Apparently what she did is she took,
first of all, she's a badass.
I really enjoy some of the stuff that she says her post.
She's got a nice presence.
Her both her and her husband,
a lot of people really like them.
Yeah, quite a bit. And she's a real good people. Yeah, and she's got a nice presence. Her both her and her husband, a lot of people really like them. Yeah, quite a bit.
And she's a real good people.
Yeah, and she's obviously known for being very fit,
very competitive.
And so she went and took a CrossFit class
and did one of their CrossFit style workouts,
which oftentimes consists of movements put together
in a very high intensity fashion for time.
So you're doing as many reps as you can for time
or you're trying to complete a particular event
or you know, rep range or whatever.
And then you're competing with the people around you.
So you throw someone like her in there
who's very competitive.
And so she went at it.
She went crazy.
She went crazy.
And she experienced Rabdo.
Now, Rabdo, Rabdo myel aliasis, I think, is the full name.
This is when your body has so much muscle breakdown,
which occurs from the stress of intense exercise,
that your body's ability to filter
the waste products from this
starts to become overwhelmed,
and it can actually kill you.
In fact, every year there are people that die
from too much muscle damage.
And in some cases people will get so bad they'll recover,
but they won't recover fully in their body.
Never their ability to recover from damage.
Does it damage your liver and your kidneys?
Usually kidneys, sometimes the liver.
But it's usually the kidneys,
because the kidneys are what filter out these waste products.
And so she was hospitalized.
And what happens in your hospitalized with this
is they put you on lots of fluids
and they're trying to get, you're trying to help your body
or assist your body in removing these waste products.
So she did a whole post of it,
picture of her in the hospital,
which I appreciate her candid honesty about what happened.
And so underneath I commented and you know,
stirred the bot. I, well, I think our are a tag to kind of
check it out. We get tired a lot on that post. Yeah, our opinion
on CrossFit is very, very clear. They've done a lot of
phenomenal, incredible amazing things for the fitness
industry. They're this on their own. They've impacted the
fitness industry more than anything else that I've seen in my
20 plus years, being in this industry for the positive for the positive for
the regards to like barbell complex movements and things like that. Oh yeah, they single-handedly
got people to deadlift and squat like no nobody else was doing it and all of a sudden
people are doing it now. They got bumper plates into gyms. They got women to lift weights far
more effectively than other ways of trying to advertise to women or whatever, but their methodology
Which is this intensity worshipping kind of methodology and class setting. This is the other problem
You're also doing this in a class and it's intensity-based things are timed and they're putting
Exercises that never should be included in fatigue-based programming,
like Olympic lifts, for example. Olympic lifts are extremely complex. If you fatigue with an
Olympic lift and your form breaks down a little bit, it goes from safe to dangerous very, very quickly.
And so it's that methodology that we have a problem with, they're programming, and it promotes
the environment that can cause problems like this. You know what I'm saying? And a lot of it's
unnecessary. Yeah, I think that a lot of- It's just unnecessary.
Yeah, I think that a lot of people defend it
because it's fun like a sport, right?
When you're going through the process of it,
but the mislabeling of it,
of it being something that's a healthy practice
and a fitness practice is something I just have never agreed with.
Well, that's the difference.
If she went down like this from playing basketball,
nobody would be, you know, crucifying basketball because it's labeled as a sport and it's treated
that way.
You're competing.
Yeah, and you're competing.
And we know, we know, and most people listening know that sports are not necessarily
quote unquote, healthy for the body.
The problem with the way CrossFit is promoted is promoted as a superior modality of training.
That's the problem.
It's not promoted, it's not pushed like it's a sport.
And most people that sign up for the courses on a day aren't thinking, hey, I want to compete
in the sport of CrossFit, they're signing up because they want to get in shape and they
want to be healthy.
And the bottom line is, it's not ideal.
No more so than basketball or football or hockey or any other sport would be for getting shaped.
Does that mean can you get in shape through that? Sure, it's a possibility, but it is not the ideal place.
And then like you said, so you're putting it in a class setting, which I already have an issue for classes period.
Yeah, all classes have a major weakness. And one of the major weaknesses is you cannot
individualize the workout for each part. And this is all classes.
I don't care what class it is.
You can't individualize it.
So, you know, for example, orange theory took the CrossFit model of intensity and
whatever, but they were smart.
They took all the super hard complex exercises out because I can't imagine teaching.
I know what it's like to teach a bootcamp class with pushups and lunges, but
throw like, you know,
snatches and cleans and fucking swinging pullups
or whatever they call them.
I wanna spend some time with sort of the counter argument,
right, because you got a few comments coming back at you
that I mean, we haven't really got a lot of people
really highly defending crossfit in the modality in a while,
but I started to see like a reoccurring theme
in terms of, you know, it's the coaching
or, you know, what was the other arguments again there
trying to present in terms of it,
it not being part of their actual structure
of what was intended.
Yeah, you had some really smart coaches
that were commenting on there.
And, you know, I also want to say
there's a lot of very smart, good,
CrossFit coaches out there, or coaches who work under that CrossFit umbrella. So they
were saying, look, it's all about the coach, because the comment that I said was the model
of CrossFit, the methodology, promotes this go-hearted, all-cost mentality, or at least
it's this environment that's prime to grow that
mentality or to promote that mentality. And that's why you see problems like
this. And so people were saying, no, it's all about the coaches. There's good
coaches out there. They have to individualize it. They scale it for the
different person. And I said, absolutely. There's nothing better agree with that.
Yeah, there's nothing better than individualization. If you can do something
individualized for your body, that's going to be the superior way to work out.
But my argument to them was, the more you individualize it, the less it's CrossFit. The more you move away from the methodology, the less it's CrossFit, and the more it's just you coaching someone.
Yeah, you coaching somebody on their individual basis and providing functional exercises and a quality program that's very much tailored to them,
it's not CrossFit.
Let's just bring it down to the brass tax.
Now you're talking about something that isn't CrossFit.
That's our argument.
My question is, what makes a workout CrossFit?
What makes, because they're all exercises,
like bodybuilding includes squats,
powerlifting includes squats,
Olympic weightlifting includes squats,
but I can tell you specifically
what makes powerlifting workout, a powerlifting workout.
I can tell you specifically what makes an Olympic workout,
an Olympic workout, so what makes a crossfit workout,
a crossfit workout?
It's time.
It's the time part, it's the class setting,
it's the way that they program their workouts,
and that's the issue that I have.
That's what makes it a sport and makes it a bad workout.
Now, if you individualize it and you take it out
and you're a good coach and you own a box
and you say, okay, that's just personal training.
Yeah, this, exactly.
I know what the wall is, but this is not good
for most people, I'm an individualized. You're not doing crossfit anymore, which is great. There's nothing that's fine
Yeah, my argument is my argument has always been on the programming methodology under the
umbrella brand of Crossfit which is not ideal and it does it is an environment that is
prime for
This the kind of attitudes that increase things like risk of injury it is an environment that is prime for this,
the kind of attitudes that increase things
like risk of injury, over training,
and just over application of intensity.
Intensity tends to be worshipped
with the methodology and with that environment,
and we know how easy intensity can be overdone,
even someone like Dana, who is a,
for all intents and purposes, more fit than
pro-seasoned athlete.
Yeah, this is more fit than 99.9% of the world.
She's a, she's a 0.1% of the world female, okay, bottom line.
You put her in any crowd, she'll probably be the fittest person in that crowd, you know,
again, by far.
99% of the time.
She takes a regular CrossFit class.
She takes a class.
I mean, it's an intense one,
but nonetheless, it's a CrossFit course.
She's already competitive.
She's in that environment of competitiveness.
It's being timed, so she wants to beat people.
She puts herself in a situation
where she needs to be hospitalized.
Now, you tell me the average, you know, type A personality
who's at a shape, like your lawyer, doctor,
your executive goes and takes a CrossFit class
that's thrown into this environment,
doesn't sound like a recipe for success.
Well, what type of people are attracted to these workouts too?
It's, again, we talk about this all the time,
the person that typically likes that
has the competitive mindset, likes the intensity,
and more often than not, it's the things that you,
the things you should be doing
are the things that you're probably not most attracted to.
I think that's the part that everybody keeps missing
about this whole argument that we make.
It's like, that's exactly what happens
when you get somebody who has that mentality going
into that training, is it's a recipe for disaster.
And it was funny because she mentions in the story
how many people DMed her afterwards saying
that they've experienced the same thing too,
but they didn't want to say anything.
It's like, it's so funny how the defense
that you keep having all these coaches in CrossFit,
oh, it's the bad coach, oh, it's about this,
there's bad coaches, there's bad trainers
out there, there's bad everything, it's not just that.
When you just kind of recognize it for what it is.
Like I'm just waiting for that like aha moment
to finally hit these people in the head.
Yeah, and to be clear, the coaches make a huge difference.
Of course they do, but at the end of the day
there is a structure and methodology that is called CrossFit.
So it's no different than, you know, you take 100 people
and you have them go do boxing, real boxing,
not like the cardio boxing classes,
but they're actually learning how to box.
And there's gonna be a larger percentage of those people
who are gonna get black eyes and broken noses
versus people who do something else,
another kind of methodology.
Now, is it wrong for me to say,
hey, if you go do boxing for fitness,
like real boxing, the odds that you're gonna get your face bruised
or whatever are higher than if you do another class.
Of course not.
And is the coach make a big difference?
Of course, because a good boxing coach will try
to scale it a certain way, make sure people only buck.
But at the same to the day,
the odds of getting punched in the face are high.
Yeah, they've gone up with boxing.
So it's the methodology, that's the problem.
It's that attitude, that's the problem.
And if it was again, if it was completely
advertised and promoted as a sport, hey, come take the sport, I would have no issue.
It's the, it's the whole like, hey, it's a workout. Hey, mom and dad and, you know, Susie
Jew and, you know, Joe and whatever come work out in our classes, this is a great way
to work out. That's when I have my problem.
Well, again, and if you've ever gone to a CrossFit class, it looks just as, just like
a gym would as
far as the people that are in it.
Yes.
Yeah.
It looks no different.
You look at all these average looking bodies, average levels of people that are in here
training, these highly technical movements that just just doesn't belong and intensity and
time-based.
All things that I would never teach Olympic live movements to somebody at that level.
I don't know how to put them under time. I don't know many people I would never teach Olympic live movements to somebody at that level. I don't know how to put them under time.
I don't know many people I would teach
at Olympic lifts.
Even athletes, I'm like, I'm very,
I screen them for a long time to make sure
they can handle that type of a lift
because it's so complex.
When you get coached on Olympic lifting
by a real Olympic lifting coach,
somebody who actually coaches this, do you know what they start you off with? A broomstick. coached on Olympic lifting by a real Olympic lifting coach.
Somebody who actually coaches this.
Do you know what they start you off with?
A broomstick.
You're doing your lifts with the,
do you know how long it takes
before you're actually training with a decent amount of load
in Olympic lifts, a fucking long time.
And it's a long time of practicing the skill.
You're not even working out.
You're not even in there working out with the coach. You're just skill, skill, skill. It takes a long time of practicing the skill. You're not even working out. You're not even in there working out with the coach.
You're just skill, skill, skill.
It takes a long time before the like, okay, cool.
Now let's push the intensity a little bit.
And that's because of all the exercises
you could do with a barbell,
they are by far the most complex.
And what I mean by that is dead lifts and squats are complex.
Those are very complex exercises.
It takes a long time to get a client
to be able to do a proper intense barbell squat
and deadlift.
Multiply it times 100.
That's your Olympic lift.
It takes that much longer and that much more skill.
Dude, even just getting back into power cleans
nice to have like a very clean looking power clean.
And I'm going through the process of it.
I'm starting to add load and get to a place
where it's like a reasonable amount of weight again.
And it's still ugly.
Like I'm still going through that process of like,
I, this is such a high level skill
that you have to sharpen consistently,
you know, like all the time.
And like I have to implement it into my workouts continually.
So that way, you know, I am making progress.
And you lose it almost immediately.
We got a shift gears because I feel like it starts to sound
like what I can't stand is everybody thinks
that it's like a thing that we're hating.
It's like, no, we don't come from that.
Like I got lots of friends that own CrossFit boxes
and are into the sport and love it.
Like it's not hate, but it comes off that way sometimes
because we feel like we're ragging on it. But it's like, dude, how many more times do we are going to have examples
like this to show people that, listen, it's not for most people. That's the fucking
thing. I was just, I was just on a podcast by my buddy who's, he's actually a coach,
CrossFit coach. He works for Jason Kleepa. Matt, yeah, runs one of his great guy.
Great podcast, actually. He just started and he's got good flow,
his ability to commercially.
Oh, that's right.
You're telling me just a connected old story.
Dude, so such a great story.
So I grew up with this guy.
His older brother, Richie, and I were like best friends
in junior high and throughout high school and
then we lost contact after that.
But we were good friends growing up and his younger brother Danny is the one with the
podcast.
And I had lost contact with him after high school.
After high school I went off and I was working in fitness and managing gyms and then I had
a gym down in Palm Springs or Palm Desert area and then I, you know, whatever got married
the whole thing. So I just kind of lost contact with everybody and so about a year and a half ago
He contacts me he gets a hold of me really crazy how he got a hold of me by the way
So he was on he was in the dating world and he was on one of those dating apps
Oh, yeah, so he's telling the story on his podcast when he intros our episode and I didn't know that so I'm like what?
so he's swiping right swiping left whatever and
He sees a picture of this girl and this girl is standing in the way he explained it
She's standing next to like these three kind of jack looking dudes or whatever and so he's looking closer
And he looks over like two guys over and he goes holy shit. That's Sal
What the hell I grew up with that guy like how does so he contacts this girl? And he's like and he's like it shit, that's Sal. What the hell? I grew up with that guy.
So he contacts this girl and he's like,
and he's like, it was a great icebreaker, right?
Cause he wanted a date or two.
So he goes, how do you know Sal?
And she's like, oh my God, I love their podcast
and this and that and I took a picture of them.
So they ended up becoming friends or whatever.
And so he, through her, got back in contact with me
and then I got to see my old friend again,
which was awesome.
And here's a funny story too,
Danny got into fitness kind of through me.
He was playing football,
and his brother told him to come to me
to teach him how to do certain exercises, get stronger.
I took him through some exercises,
and then he developed a passion for fitness as well,
which is kind of cool.
Very cool.
Yeah, very, very cool.
Anyway, he comes in here, he gets to interview me and we do this great podcast and he
asked me about CrossFit too because obviously he works for CrossFit, so we had a good discussion
there.
Then he just released the episode, right, today.
He sends me a link.
He's like, hey, can you share this with my story?
Your story and he goes, and by the way, I tell the story about how you and Richie beat the crap
out of that guy who bullied me.
So I'm like, oh shit.
That's the fucking story.
I can't believe you told it.
So I listen to the podcast, and it's funny to hear.
How old were you guys?
Dude, so I'll tell you the story from my perspective.
Well, I'll tell you from his perspective.
Because I've never heard this story from his perspective.
And this is one of those things that I tried to forget
because it's a little bit.
Yeah, it's a little fucked up.
That's your proudest moment.
No, I mean, you know what, what I do it again, yes,
but definitely not a proud moment.
So this is years ago, he was probably,
let's see, Danny was probably in fourth grade,
Rich and I are in like in seventh grade, maybe seventh
or eighth grade.
And we're hanging out at Richie's house
and Danny is over his other friend's house.
And Richie and I were, we used to hang out all the time
and figure out what kind of trouble we can get into.
And Danny was at his buddy's house,
and his buddy's older brother was bullying him,
like beating up on him and shit.
And he couldn't, it was hard for him to defend himself
because this guy was so much older.
And his older brother was like, in sixth grade or seventh grade.
So he's like right around my age.
So he's bigger than him, right?
So at a desperation, Danny's like, you know,
if you don't stop fucking with me, you know,
oh, no, he said he said, you should pick on someone
your own size like my brother.
And the guy goes, I'll kick your brother's ass too
if he was over here right now.
So Danny's like, really?
So he runs over the phone, calls Richie,
and I'm with Richie at the time,
and I'll never forget this.
I'm hanging out with Richie where at his house.
Richie gets the phone, and he's in the kitchen,
and all I hear is, what?
Fuck that, fuck that.
Smashes the phone down.
I'm like, what?
And he's like, we gotta go.
Some dudes beating up on my brother,
so we get on our bikes.
I just picture them just angry.
You know, just panic really hard.
We got on our BMX bikes and we're fucking jah,
jiamin' over there.
And we're running up to, we're riding up to the house.
And apparently this guy was,
who's bullying him was in his house,
sees us through his window.
That we're coming over there.
So he runs over, he had a screen door.
That was in the front door.
Screen door was closed, but the front door was open.
So he sees us, we jump off our bikes,
we run in towards the door.
He runs over the door to slam it so we could lock the door.
But my buddy, Richie got there first.
And remember, who's his younger brother?
So he's full of rage.
He kicks the door, pff.
Knocks the dude back on the way down to the ground. Richie's fuck, he's full of rage. He kicks the door, pff, knocks the
dude back on the way down to the ground. Richie, one, two, three, hit some kids on the floor,
starts weighing on him. I get on top. We start being the crap as kid. Terrible, terrible
story. hilarious because this kid never bothered Danny again. Danny's like, I'll never forget
you guys backing me up like this. But I got, but this, but yeah, not a funnest moment.
Let it grade jump this. What a great story though.
That here he is. What 20s on talent is 20 something
plus years. And the way he tells it to he's like, you know,
my buddy, my brother, Richard was beating him up and
South stomping on this and I'm like, oh my god.
No, it's oh, my God. Well, we were held was like 12 13.
Yeah, what are you gonna do?
But you know how? You know, someone messes with your
family. Oh, yeah. You know, you see red to your point, you would do? Crazy. But you know how? You know, someone messes with your family.
Oh, yeah.
You know, you see red to your point, you would do it again.
Oh, yeah.
Do you guys see Netflix getting sued?
There it is.
It's just a drop in the bucket for them.
I mean, it's $25 million.
But why I wanted to bring it up is, remember when we just, it was probably a month or
two when we were talking about the, the, the choose your own adventure show that they
did, the bands, the bands, the band or snatch. Yeah, bander snatch. Oh, yeah. They're getting sued
by the choose your own adventure. Oh, yeah. I did read about this. Yeah. So he's suing
them because the movie is so dark and morbid and bad and people are connecting it to choose
your own adventure. And he says it puts, it's giving choose your own adventure books a bad rap.
That's stupid.
And so how is that?
I guarantee they sold more books because of that show.
There's no way.
Oh, you think so?
I bet you do.
I forgot all about the choose your own adventure.
What do you think I'm gonna buy my kids now?
Yeah.
I grew up with those books.
Didn't you guys grew up with those?
Yeah, totally.
Yeah, I didn't forget.
Those were made, those were like the first books I ever
actually read.
Yeah.
The hearty boys or whatever
Is that too? No, that was another
Yes, choose your adventure and RL Stein fear street and goose bumps were like books that got me reading as a kid
Do you guys remember that? Yeah, do you guys remember that one?
Like it was a scary stories. I remember the name of it
It was a book, but the illustrations were creepy as fuck.
Do you guys remember that one?
It's not like this.
It was like black and white, kind of weird illustrations.
Looks like someone's using this weird ink to draw them.
And there's a story about how,
I mean, it was straight up more big creepy stories for kids.
Like the zombie coming back for his hand or something like that.
Oh, like that dark.
Yeah, super dark.
And that's not like, you know, monsters that are all animal.
I guarantee you, if I Google like,
like popular scary books for kids in the 80s and 90s,
I guarantee you will pop up.
I'll have to see you at,
you know, I'm speaking of scary things, dude.
Did you hear about like this,
at customs, I guess it was from the Philippines,
they found
all these tarantulas that had been shipped over that were in like cookie canisters and oatmeal
canisters.
What the hell?
They opened up and there's all these like little baby tarantulas and then bigger tarantulas
that they're trying to smuggle in.
Dude, how terrifying would you be here?
You're, you know, the bag handler and you find like all these fucking spiders.
Wait a minute, someone was smuggling tarantulas on a plane.
Yeah.
Oh, why?
Yeah, why?
Just to sell them, it's only, it was only like $2,500,
something dollars worth, you know, in that market
in terms of like, you know, the exotic animal market.
If I just feel like smuggling drugs is way easier.
You know what I mean?
You had a smuggler's...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, what little baggy of cocaine's worth that much?
You have to fit that...
No, the match, you have to fit that up your ass.
You have to fit that up your ass.
The things are real good at getting, you know, into places.
Like, you can get out of things
and like, make their way into the plane.
You're that asshole.
It's a fucking spider.
Yeah, and those animals too, they weren't like, just, you know, like, they could have some bugged spiders. into the plane. You had a red-ish. You're that asshole. It's a fucking spider. Yeah. It was venomous too.
They weren't like just, you know, like they,
they could have some bugged spiders.
Just don't smuggle spiders and cocaine.
That's a bad, that's a bad combo.
What happened to Taranty?
Yeah.
You got into the blow.
Oh shit.
It's just crazy jumping everywhere.
Hell no.
What a terrible, I guess there's a big black market
for smuggling like animals and shit.
There is, especially snakes.
There's a lot of the exotic ones that you can't find in the states.
There's a whole black market for that.
Yeah, aren't there stories of how people would smuggle pythons or certain things
and then let them go into the wild in a new place in the world?
And then because they don't have any competition.
Yeah, they just fucking proliferate off.
There's been a few of those fish.
There was like, yeah, what's that fish?
I think it was a Japanese fish that was like,
I forget what it was called,
but it made its way into the Mississippi River
and just took over and just like ate everything.
And they can't get rid of it.
Yep, yep, because it just took everything over.
A lot.
Pigs in Hawaii, aren't they, wasn't they like that?
Pigs?
Where they let the pigs go and they just started
overrunning everything.
Yep.
And because it was no like big natural predators.
And so like in Hawaii till this day,
I think it's legal for any citizen
to just go kill two pigs a day.
I think it's two pigs a day.
Yeah, I think, I mean,
Wow, that much.
Yeah.
Wow.
Australia is very protective of like bringing anything,
you know, in there because of that fact,
like you bring one thing in there,
and it has the potential to, you know,
really ruin the ecosystem.
Australia is just full of gently,
like deadly killer thing.
That's the one thing that prevents,
like I give me like a second thought,
I'm like, oh, cause they got some serious spiders.
Yeah, their bugs, their bugs and creak sharks are crazy over there.
Well, every time I see a video on YouTube of a spider
that's the size of my hand, it's always in Australia.
It's always there.
Yeah, so I'm always like, it's like in some toilet.
And you're like, no!
Yeah, dude, like, let's be honest now,
no joking, no toughness aside, let's be straight out now.
You go home and I'm not just for real,
it's spider this big on the wall.
Yeah, like do you call someone like that?
Do you call someone?
What do you do?
I remember I stared at it for a good 10 minutes.
Wait, where, where?
I told you this story, it was the one,
I thought it was an outlet because I had taken the plates off
and it was dark and my son was actually like,
really young at the time in a crib
and I went down there and I saw the wall
and then it just moved, this big black spot just moved.
It was like not the complete size of my palm,
but it was like basically, if I take my fingers out,
yeah, it would be like that size.
Oh yeah, that's big enough to, what did you do?
Baseball size, that's a baseball size.
It's big, dude.
And it just moved.
It moved slow and I kind of caught my attention and I was like, wait a minute, because
there was so few outlets that were, you know, there and I just thought that's what it
was and then it moved and I was like, oh my god, I had to, I had to kill it.
Well, how?
I got my, I got my son. And I took a big fucking shoot.
I just stared at it for a long time.
And then just, wow, I'm just like with all of my force.
And I only caught part of it.
It was the worst part, right?
So it basically flipped off of the wall,
landed on the ground, and then started to scurry at me.
And I just like stopped the shit out of it
with my feet, like a million times
and ruined our carpet.
I was so scared.
Just did the River Dancer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was just jumping on that motherfucker.
That's hilarious.
Now imagine, have you seen some of the ones
that they'll see in like the, like,
wait, or whatever the soldiers were saying?
What do they call them?
Like, camel spiders of some shit?
Yes.
They're fucking massive, dude. They'll like that.
They look like like lobsters or something.
It's so big.
Like what, for reals, yeah.
What do you do?
What do you do?
Oh, it's terrible. What do you do with that?
Yeah, I don't know, dude.
That's, you take a gun.
That's when you shoot.
Yeah, that's when you just, you get the kids.
Isn't it, isn't it weird though how like, like a spider like that would freak me out
way more than like some, like a lion or a tiger or
Someone that like yeah, is that like encoded somewhere deep?
I'm for me you that the spider would get me to scream like a like a girl. Yeah, you know, I would do that
Seeing us but seeing like a lion or a tiger you'd be cautious
But I feel like I get more free. Oh my god. Those things have to be fake
That's gross.
I've shown some gnarly ones right now.
Yeah, dude. That's gross.
That's a camel one, right?
Yeah, I don't know if that's a myth that they're that big or but they are pretty good.
Oh my god. Look at its things.
Yeah, I don't know about that.
What dude?
That's terrible.
Yeah, no, I'm cool.
Oh, it's awful.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
It's that you would like, yeah, I would see it.
And then I'd have to close the door to the room.
And I'd be like, all right guys, we're moving.
We can't like grab your, your most personal belongings.
But don't you think it's, why are we so,
why are we so freaked out by something like that?
That above it, you could squash with your leg.
Cause it can kill you in your sleep.
You know, some of them probably, now spiders, I'm not sure.
I think spiders part of it's learned.
If I'm not mistaken, like a learned fear,
but snakes, they found there's an inherent fear
that we have to snakes, and it's probably because snakes
killed a lot of humans for a long time.
And so the ones that inherently were scared
tend to just survive and then they perforated.
Yeah, but spiders, I think, is a learned one
because there's not very many spiders
you need to be careful for.
Right, you know. There's a few, like brown rec loose, but spiders I think is a learned one because there's not very many spiders you need to be careful for. Right.
Yeah, there's a few.
Yeah, like brown rec loose.
Yeah, but even the ones that you're supposed
to be worried about, like, they're not much a threat to you.
Even like if you see them, right, you see them,
you're aware.
You get a big ass wealth that hurts and sucks,
but it's not gonna kill you.
Yeah, no, it's interesting to me.
No, no, you brought up like a legal stuff.
It reminds me, I was reading this article this morning,
1.2 billion dollar scam in the medical industry right now.
Did you guys see this?
What?
Telemarketing scam.
So, I gotta look it up
because I wanna make sure I get my facts straight
because I thought I was so crazy
that somebody was doing this.
So, it was, telemarketing works. Yeah, that's that doing this. So it was telemarketing works.
Yeah, that in itself.
So it was a mind blown or a nut?
$1.2 billion telemarketing scam in the medical system.
So a network of telemarketers in the Philippines
and Latin America pitched free orthopedic braces
to seniors eligible for Medicare.
Then the doctors would write prescriptions
for these braces,
whether patients needed them or not.
The prescriptions were sold to medical brace manufacturers
who shipped the equipment off and build Medicare
anywhere from 500 to $900 per brace.
QK packs were almost $300 per month.
So it's an insurance scam.
Yeah.
Wow.
A lot of that happens.
A lot of that kind of stuff happens where you have them all,
and you see these doctors that are driving around
for our recent shit,
because they're making money on scant, yeah,
because the insurance companies just pay.
Yeah.
But you know that when they get caught, they get jailed.
Oh, I'm sure.
Like, this is what pisses me off the most.
Like, like, there are so many scams out there
like completely targeted to older seniors, you know.
And it's like, I do that, that infuriates me,
because you know how, like, I saw this in my grandma too
or she would get like letters and things
and she would like read it and be like,
oh wow, and be like, you know, really frightened
for certain bills and certain things that are happening
and they'd pray off that to send money towards whoever's
like campaigning.
And she would literally write these checks
and my mom had to stop her from writing these checks.
If you rip off kids or old people,
they're a piece of shit.
Yeah, dude, there's a special place in the health for you.
Definitely, I had an older client who,
he came, he was in his 70s and he came to me and he's like,
oh, he goes, you know, I emailed him with something
and he didn't respond.
I'm like, hey, what did you get my aim?
And I was like, oh no, Microsoft is working on my computer
right now, I'm like, Microsoft. Like, what do you mean? Oh no, Microsoft is working on my computer right now like Microsoft
Like what do you mean he goes? Oh? This guy called me up for Microsoft and said that you know my my thing was up and that they needed to get on my computer
so
Like asshole you get you deserve to get wrong
No, come on man. Listen he gets that he gives the guy control of this. Hey, this is Bill Gates
I just wanted to let you,
this is my game.
I just wanted to let you know you got a virus,
I wanted to help you out with.
We'll do the guy got on.
You know I'm good for it, right?
He gave the guy access to his desktop.
So the guy's in his desktop.
So I'm like, go back, I'm like,
change all your passwords, do this to whatever.
But the guy had already like, taken money and,
oh my God, he's completely took it over.
I have another buddy, I think I told this before,
the IRS scam, which is going on right now because of taxes.
Yeah, that one's freaked me out before, I've got that message.
Yeah, I've actually, that's a keeps happening.
Yeah, it must be successful.
Yeah, all around, within this time happens, right,
when we're around tax season time.
Yeah.
Also, now get some random like
Either I've seen a gum in the mail and I also get a voicemail this and during like Christmas shopping time
Like I see a lot of like you know these these scams and crimes, you know happening like online
Yeah, so what they do is they call you and they're like hey, you know you're you're you're you're you're you're best up in your taxes
Are you cheating just acts or something like that. We're gonna do an investigation unless you pay this fine.
And the reason why it works is because they make it a number that's like, well, first of all, this percentage of people that cheat on their taxes is
that's why they're gonna get the call.
And of course, and then you're like, oh, it's just 250.
If I pay that 250, then they're gonna leave me alone.
So you've made that 250 off.
You're like, I'm gonna get them off my back.
Dude, I have a buddy who got so conned by them
that they actually convinced him to go buy those visa cards
and read them the numbers over the phone,
so it's untraceable.
Wow, dude.
And I'm like, dude, did you?
It's obvious you're the smartest one in your group.
Yeah, after he did this, after he did,
oh, don't dude, he's so mad about this day.
He's actually a very smart dude too.
I think he just got super scared.
He's like book smart, he missed the common sense. I told him, like he override it his brain. I told he just got super scared. He's like book smart.
He missed the common sense.
I told him, like he override it his brain.
I told him, like you smoked too much weed bro.
You were paranoid, weren't you?
He's like, yeah.
Oh yeah, that'll do it.
You get someone super baked.
You can convince them all kinds of shit.
Oh, definitely make you think irrationally.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't want to go to jail.
I'm gonna make my mind go.
You see my post, I'm continuing to stir the pot
with the masterminds and the...
Oh yeah.
It's not, it doesn't seem to be trending
and getting as much love as my other posts have been lately.
Maybe a sore spot a little bit.
But I really feel this way right now that when I look across
especially social media right now,
there's really two kinds of people
that are having a lot of success
and making a lot of money.
And the two types are your traditional business owner who offers a product, content, or service
where the value of the consumer is more than its cost to the business.
And then the other one are these guys that are selling the dream to people that they
too can be millionaires in a fall this step.
And their success resides on you paying that money to do that, with all these big 10x groups.
Yeah, that's how they got there is by telling you
that you can get there.
Yes, yes, yes.
It reminds me like, hey, read my new book,
how to become a millionaire,
writing a book, teaching people how to become millionaire.
Haven't done it yet, but I will once you buy the book.
Yeah, yeah, yep, no, it's totally true.
It's a bubble.
The social media world is perfect for it, right?
Because you have all these fake influencers
and what I mean by that is you have half a million followers.
Everybody's like, oh, this looks like some authority.
This looks like the, and it's prime for it.
And you get this is gonna pop.
And when it pops, when all these people start to get backlash,
it's gonna come down on all influencers. And it's already starting to happen.
Oh yeah, they're already looking into that.
I mean, you see what's after the fire festival
and like everything else, although shenanigans,
like, well, let's start to kind of look at,
you know, these influencers and what part
they really played in that.
So it's a mark to keep going down the chain.
Market correction is coming with that
and it's gonna come down on all influencers.
So if you're an influencer or you want to be one,
be authentic, have integrity and provide real value
and fucking do that right now.
Because when this shit hits the fan,
you'll be one of the ones that looks okay.
You'll be one of the few,
which so it'll be a good opportunity.
Well, you know, and a lot of them defend the ones
that the reason why I'm not getting a lot of love,
because I know there's a lot of people
that probably follow me that they monetize this way.
This is how they make money.
And their argument is I am providing lots of value
to my people.
I'm providing all of the reality of it is,
and I've said this before in the show,
is that the percentage of people
that actually become millionaires,
and I think we pulled the stat up.
It's like ridiculously low, extremely low.
So to be, to be feeling, getting these kids that are 17 to 25 years old
to give you 500 to $1,000 a month for your online coaching program
to help them build their business and be a millionaire one day
is such bullshit.
It's like the percentage of those people is what,
1% of them, maybe he's gonna do it.
The other 99% will never see that kind of money before.
As we grow, we'll just share what's working for us.
We're still learning, this is a new space for us
still even four years into it.
And we'll keep sharing it for free
and telling you what we're doing.
Doesn't mean it's gonna work for you,
but we'll talk about what we're doing.
And we're not gonna charge a dime for it
because I think that's silly.
But truth be told, at the end of the day,
when you talk to real,
self-made millionaires, they'll tell you,
it's not glamorous and there's no secrets.
It's literally, provide something
that a lot of people find value in,
work hard, be honest, have good relationships
with other successful people.
That's it, and it takes a long time, most of the time.
It's nothing glad, it's like somebody say,
you know what it is, it's no different.
It's continually grow.
It's no different than if I were to just do a course
on the secrets to fat loss that you don't know.
Let me teach you the secrets to getting fit.
There are no secrets, it takes hard work,
there's definitely a right way to do it,
but there's no shortcut.
It's no different than that.
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First question is from J-BOM25. How can I build the size of my abs in order to see them
at a higher body fat percentage, 12 versus 9%. For example, Sal mentioned he did this on
an earlier podcast.
Oh yeah, I remember this was a,
it's funny thinking back to it,
shouldn't have been a paradigm shattering moment,
but it was at the time.
I don't remember how long ago it was.
I wanna say I was probably in my late 20s,
mid to late 20s, and so by this point,
I'd already been working out for a long time,
and I was very well versed in exercise, and had been training clients for a long time. And I'd gotten myself pretty lean
several times. I think up at this point, in my mid to late 20s, I probably had reached, you know,
9% body fat, at least a few different times when I would watch my diet and add a little bit
of cardio and that kind of stuff. And the thing that used to get me mad about that was I never, even though I would get down
to, you know, 9% or so body fat, I would never get that six pack that I would see in
some people that, you know, I had a buddy who had the six pack that you could just see when
he was relaxed.
Like, he'd just be chilling, you know, at the beach or whatever, the shirt off and you'd
have a six pack. And for me, in order to see my six pack, I'd have to be in the right lighting and really squeeze and flex my abs.
When I was relaxed, I was lean, I just didn't have the visible abs.
And he used to piss me off, and I used to think, gosh, I have to get shredded in order to really be able to see my abs a lot.
And so right around my late 20s, I don't remember exactly what article I read, but I read this
article about how there's all these myths around building particular body parts.
And one of the body parts that there's a lot of myths around is your midsection, your
core, your abs, your knee bleaks, and how you need to hit them with high reps because that's
how you really get them to look good.
And that's what I thought.
I always did lots of high rep type of abs stuff.
And then it dawned on me like, duh, if I want my abs to really show and stick out, I need
to develop them just like any other muscle. And the best way to develop any muscle is to use
resistance and train within a rep range of anywhere between six reps to maybe as high as 15 reps.
The super high reps just don't build muscle as effectively.
And so what I did was I started to train
with high resistance type ab exercises.
Now I was very careful with my form,
but I would do things like weighted Roman chair sit-ups
we're slow focusing on lumbar flexion and extension.
I would do active planks and really focus
on the full range of motion.
I would do hanging leg raises,
but I would do full leg raises where I'd really get that
pelvic tilt at the bottom.
And literally within months, my abs became bricks and they were visible.
And then at 9% body fat, not only were my abs visible when I was relaxed, but you could
see my abs through my shirt.
Like, if I was sitting there with just a shirt on, you could literally see my abs through
my shirt. And then when I would get my body fat as high as 11
and 12% body fat, you could still see them.
And it was just cause they were bigger
that's all it was, you know, really blew my mind.
It's really that simple.
I mean, I know this is something I'm guilty of not doing.
I've typically just get lean and I get so lean,
you'll see your abs, which that'll happen for anybody, right?
Everybody has abs, okay?
There's nobody walking on this earth right now that doesn't have abs.
Everybody's got them.
They're just covered by a layer of body fat, and I used to just get shredded to show my
abs.
And I know that if I would put the time and effort into my abs the same way that I put
into most all my other muscle groups that they would be more pronounced even at a higher
body fat.
And that's all it is. Very few people don't take the time to program it and do that.
I mean, that it is one of our programs.
We don't talk about very often, but your no BS6 pack abs is incredible for that.
It was one of the first ones you developed with Doug before we even started Mindpuff.
Yeah.
And I know why the, I think I know why the myth around ab and core training exists in the
first place.
Form is crucial when you work out your midsection,
especially your abdominals,
because when you're trying to do ab exercises,
inevitably what you're trying to do is you're trying to
flex your body, right?
Trying to bend your body forward,
either by bringing your legs up or bringing your body forward.
And so it's really easy for the abs if they're overwhelmed with resistance if you don't
have good controller strength for the abs to act as stabilizers to brace your body and
then for your hip flexors, which for many people, hip flexors are much stronger to do the
exercise.
So then your sit-ups and your crunches and your leg raises become hip flexor exercises with
the abs being stabilized.
And so I think the reason why people focus on high reps and lightweight is because as soon as
they start to go heavy, their form goes out the way.
Yeah, I think that's an important distinction. And I think that you're common,
like your general gym-going person will think of like doing an abdominal workout. And it's usually based off of just like stabilization type
exercises or there was the old adage of like a power lifter
is like where you would add a lot of weight.
And yes, you're working your abs to stabilizing all this
excess load and it's protecting you.
And yes, all of that applies, but to be specifically developed at abs,
we'll take that kind of attention
that you're mentioning,
treating it just like any other muscle group
that needs an actual programming involved
where you do have the frequency of it,
but also you have the increase of load.
And you're treating it like,
I'm actually, I I'm working out I'm
using resistance. Well don't you don't you guys remember too a lot of a lot of studies floating around
early like years ago about how the different types of fibers in the abdominal most in comparison to
the rest of the muscles and they can hide they can handle much more volume and so people
just took that and they so you do a lot of circuits for your abs.
You know, everyone's doing the 30 bike abs,
supersetted with another ab exercise.
And so even if you're somebody who actually
does train your abs, you typically gravitate
towards training your abs like this,
which it's just like the same thing
that we talk about with like when we first
address female fitness myths,
the reason why strength training for women
it tends to freaking completely change their bodies,
mainly because they've been marketed to the other way of,
you know, high reps, if you want a tone and firm up,
high reps, high reps, so if you are training,
you are gravitating towards these 15 to 20 rep ranges
and circuits and, you know, with the best thing for you,
is probably the strength thing.
Same thing goes for your abs. I think if you're
first of all, you need to train them if you want to see them
more because that's what's going to build them. And then if you
are training them more than likely, you're tend to gravitate
towards the higher reps, circuit type of training, which guess
what? What will probably serve you best is to do some heavy
loading control type of movements for your abs. You've got to
have good form though.
The two biggest mistakes people make
when training their abs in particular,
one is they don't understand how to train their abs
through a full range of motion.
So the abdominals, they attach on one side up at the ribcage
and at the other side down at the pelvis.
So imagine that, right?
Your pelvis and your ribcage.
And when they contract, they bring the pelvis
closer to the ribcage. And when they contract, they bring the pelvis closer to the ribcage.
So it's really flexing your low back, not your hips.
So it's not like doing a good morning or doing a stiff leg of deadlift.
That's your hips.
It's at the lower part of the back.
That's what the abs contract.
So to extend those, it would be like arching your back.
Then to contract them, it would be rounding your lower back.
And that's a full range of motion.
The best way to display that would be a proper
fisiol ball crunch, where you're laying over
like a Swiss ball or fisiol ball,
and you're laying back over the ball,
you get that full extension, then you crunch over the ball
and get a full squeeze.
That's a full range of motions.
That's number one.
Number one mistake, people do not do a full range of motion.
They tend to do the short choppy movements
where they're trying to do as many reps as they can
and just get a burn, or they bend at the hips,
where they do leg raises and they're hanging from the bar
or whatever, it's all in the hip flexors.
The second mistake is just they don't use resistance.
So, and by the way, most of you listening right now
won't need to add weight if you do a proper ab exercise.
Most of you guys listening, you know, your abs aren't strong enough to need to use
resistance on like a leg raise, like a proper leg raise with a pelvic tilt at the top.
If you're strong, you get 10.
Well, if you're really strong.
Just to get into a respond and get that kind of like, like it's a, I don't know, say visceral,
but like you feel it more so than you do, like just going through the momentum of these exercises.
You really have to establish that connection and figure out what that range of motion is.
And then you start applying that into your programming with resistance added and weight.
Yeah, so like a Roman chair sit up, I like to make my own, I'll take a bench, I'll put it up near something where I can anchor my feet,
and then I'll sit
at the edge of the bench.
And then what I do is I crunch my body while I'm upright,
and then I slowly lean back, and I allow my body
to us slowly unwind, and then I roll my body back up
in the crunch.
So think of it that way, whenever you're doing
an ab exercise, that you're rolling yourself up
rather than just sitting up, that'll give you
more of that ab activation.
Next question is from Chelsea McChio.
For someone who goes from a sedentary lifestyle
to wanting to be active,
is lifting weights right off the bat
too much stimulus for the body?
Should a person ease into weight lifting
with body weight exercises first?
This is an interesting question,
because this could, yes, could be yes, and it could
be no, right? It really depends on what you're doing. Well, yeah, what you're doing and how sedentary
of a person am I talking about? Because absolutely, I have trained clients who are morbidly obese,
or incredibly sedentary, and working out is like getting up off of a chair, you know, or practicing getting up from the ground.
And that is like a four-hour guy.
That person makes no sense for me to take a barbell
and put it on their back and load weight.
Yeah.
They have so many other things that we can address
and work on first, which is, so it really depends
kind of where you fall in that spectrum
of a sedentary lifestyle.
Like, are you that decondition if you are?
I absolutely think like the maps anywhere type of a program or our map starter would be
the most ideal place to start.
It depends on the exercise too because there's some bodyweight exercises that are way too
intense for advanced people even.
I mean, like a lunch.
A lunch for somebody who's extremely obese.
Or a push-up.
You know, if I take somebody who's super
deconditioned and I want to work their chests and shoulders,
they're probably better off laying on a bench
and grabbing really light dumbbells than they are doing a push-up.
Just because a push-up requires more weight,
it requires more stabilization, more control.
It all depends on the exercise,
and your body doesn't know the difference, by the way.
It's all resistance training.
So whether you use your body weight or weights, it doesn't really matter.
It depends on the intensity is what matters, and the kind of exercise you're doing for your
body, and if it's appropriate.
Other than that, I don't know.
That's a good example, because immediately in my brain, we gravitate a little bit more,
or lean more towards body weight exercises just to try and see the quality of movement
that I'm dealing with first
and see how responsive and control
they have over their body to begin with
before I added any load to any of the joints,
but at the same time,
like you can do that with weight.
Like you could decipher whether or not they have control,
like in that kind of a setting with dumbbells
or with a machine.
Well, back to the sales point, it's so true, you're right.
Like it's not as general as saying,
yeah, you could potentially just do all body weights up
because that same person I'm talking about,
that's morbid obese, is not gonna be able to do a pull up.
Yeah, they're right.
You know what I'm saying?
But I could do a lap pull down with that.
Right, which would be like a modified super regressed version.
Right.
I mean, I think we, this is all the things that we took into consideration
when we created Map Starter.
Map Starter, even like the pushups in there,
we teach from off the knees.
So all the movements in there were really,
we first designed what we thought when we looked
at the first three programs,
anabolic and performance and aesthetic,
kind of like where the general population,
somebody who's-
It's a little bit of exercise.
Right. Where they should kind of start.
But then after we had finished that,
we came back and we built ones that we think like,
okay, what about the client who's just,
either never been in the gym or extremely decondition,
you know, what would that program look like?
Cause even anabolic could be too intense for somebody,
you know, that I've trained before
who is really deconditioned.
And that's kind of what Map Starter falls in.
And then on top of that,
like if you're not ready to invest in a program,
this is also why we created the 30 days of free
on the YouTube channel.
So in the YouTube channel, if you do Maps 30 Days
on YouTube, we created a series that is 30 days long
and every other day is mobility
and the other days are strength training
and we really tried to start you with some really basic
and low volume, not a lot of extras.
I believe there's like three exercises a day
that we basically did to try and ease somebody in.
That's a really good place to start for a lot of people too.
It's very individual, what is too much for you,
maybe too little for someone else?
And so you're gonna have to kind of judge it
based off of feel, but also err on the say,
on the side of easier.
So what I mean by that is, when you go to the gym,
you're like, okay, it's my first time working out,
I haven't worked out in a while, or maybe never,
and you're doing your workout,
and you're like, okay, I can kind of feel this.
I think I can go harder, don't.
Just err on the side of easy, and give yourself
another couple workouts before
you start to challenge it a little bit. You can always scale up. That's right. Think about
being ready for the next day. Now you can do another workout. That's it. You just keep building on that.
And I've said this so many times. Instead of going into the gym and thinking you're going to work out,
go in the gym and practice the movements and try and get good at them. That's all. Yeah. So
pick three exercises. I really don't care what they are. I don't care even if they're all machines. Pick three exercises and practice them and do them. Am I getting good at them, that's all. So pick three exercises, I really don't care what they are, I don't care even if they're all machines.
Pick three exercises and practice them and do them.
Am I getting good at this?
And how's my range of motion?
Do I have good control?
Let me practice it a few more sets.
Let me practice a few more times.
You would be surprised how little you need
to get your body to respond when you haven't been working out.
You would be absolutely surprised.
Took me a long time to learn this as a trainer.
I used to take clients and just,
my goal was to make them soar for three, four days afterwards.
And I didn't realize how bad that wasn't how,
how much I was slowing down their progress.
Later on when I learned, take it real easy.
And what I used to love is I would get clients
after the first workout I'd call on the next day.
Hey, how do you feel?
I'd be like, I feel good.
I kind of feel like I worked out, but I don't really feel
sore anywhere.
I feel really good.
Perfect.
That's the perfect amount of intensity.
That's exactly where we want to start.
If I get, if I called someone, they're like, oh man, I got out of bed today and I could
barely move my arms.
It was so sore.
It's like, okay, we went too far.
I couldn't sit on the toilet.
Yeah.
And you would be surprised at how little it takes
to do that.
I'd get people who come in who were just business executives
or whatever who were in their 40s
who just haven't worked out in 20 years
and I would literally have them do squats off of a bench.
They would stand up and sit down with good control,
stand up, sit down, and we'd do like 15 wraps, three sets
and they would text me the next day, man, I'm so sore.
Like you'd be surprised how little it takes
to get your body to change.
Next question is from SC Ainsworth.
Is it a good idea to go from high volume training
to low volume training?
Are there benefits to it?
Oh, sometimes there is.
Absolutely.
If you're pushing hard for a long time
and your body needs a little bit of a break
or you're doing too much,
going down on volume, you'll start to see progress.
Well, this is what people call a D-load week.
You know, and you know this
when you start getting the signs of like,
achy joints, a hard plat toes that you can't break through,
even like another good one is if
will you see yourself get weaker.
Like this is sometimes common for somebody who's been training
really, this has happened to me many times
where I've been balls to the wall for months in, months out.
And I actually have a week where I see myself
kind of regress on a lot of movements
that I was stronger the previous week.
That's always assigned to me that I've been training too hard
or too much,
and it's time for me to back off a little bit.
Yeah, a lot of people,
there's two kinds of people that would,
for example, enroll in the Maps and Obolic program.
There's people who are,
have some exercise experience,
wanna get into a good workout and they start it,
and then there's people who message me who are like,
hey man, I've been doing this crazy split,
I've been doing all this volume,
my body's not responding, I put them on maps and a ball,
which is for those people less volume,
and then they're hitting PRs all of a sudden.
That's a good point, yeah.
And I remember learning this,
it took me actually several times to learn this lesson,
where I'd be working out like crazy, going nuts,
and then I'd go on a vacation or something with my family,
and we'd go somewhere for like five days,
and there was no gym access or anything like that.
So I was forced to take five days off.
And then I'd go back to the gym and I would be stronger.
Yeah.
I used to always be like, what the hell?
Yeah.
How am I stronger right now?
It was always mind blowing, but it makes perfect sense.
I mean, you're giving your body adequate time to recover
and you get to a certain point where the volume is pretty high and it's like how are
you going to maintain that forever?
It's just a navigable where if you change it up and you present something new to the body,
even if it's a dramatic shift of volume, it's going to respond again and you can start
the process all over again.
Now, if you're not getting signs of plateau weight regression,
achy joints, do you see a lot of value in decreasing volume?
If they're not progressing anymore though, right?
No, no, no, no, they don't follow any of those categories, right?
So they're still progressing, they have no joint pain,
everything else is fine.
Is there, like, just someone who's like,
hey, I've been running a high volume program for a while.
I heard on MindPump sometimes it's important
to D-load or drop your volume.
Do you see value in that for someone
who's not hitting those signs?
Yeah, potentially.
Think about this way too.
Volume and intensity should be inversely related.
So if your volume is high,
intensity is a little lower.
If your volume is low, intensity is a little higher.
So here's what I do. Oh, so that's a good point. You intensities a little higher. So here's what I do.
Oh, that's a good point.
You can reduce volume, increase intensity.
That's what I do.
Okay.
So there's times when, like right now I'm training
a little high volume.
So right now I'm doing full body, three days a week,
and I'm doing about six to eight sets per body part.
So do the math.
It's like 18 to 27 sets per week per body part.
And what I'm gonna do after I'm done with this kind of thing is I'm gonna reduce the volume, but I'll increase the math. It's like 18 to 27 sets per week per body part. And what I'm gonna do after I'm done with this kind of thing
is I'm gonna reduce the volume,
but I'll increase the intensity.
I may go to failure on some of my sets.
So rather than doing six to seven or eight sets
per workout per body part,
I may do like two or three sets to failure,
but no, and that's it, nothing else.
Great point.
And I'll start to see my body progress
because I've increased the intensity
and decreased the volume.
And this is something I learned a long time ago
when I followed Mike Mencer's heavy duty,
which at the time I was following Arnold Schwarzenegger's
encyclopedia bodybuilding workout,
which was this crazy double split, high volume routine,
then I went to one set to failure per body part
and my body just...
It's important too for the average listener
that may not understand what volume means.
Volume is sets times reps, times weight,
equals total volume of a workout.
Total workload.
Yeah, so if you do that,
if that's the formula to get what your volume is in training,
and if it's really high, like Salis saying,
there's lots of volume, reducing it,
and increasing intensity, yes, there can be benefits to it.
Also, if you're doing high volume and you have all these, you're doing a lot
and you have these achy joints, you're hitting hard plateaus,
you're even potentially regressing in strength and you notice and you see that.
This could also be assigned to back off some of the volume.
For sure.
Next question is from fitness by June.
Do you guys think it's possible to reach a fitness goal
while struggling with an eating disorder?
Or do you have to address the eating disorder first?
Do you think that people who have had a history
of eating disorders can ever reach a normal weight
and mindset towards food and body image?
Well, let's address the first part first.
Yes, I do, because it's a great example of
this. Great example of this is the competitive bodybuilding world. I saw more eating disorders
in the competitive bodybuilding world than I ever saw in the hundreds of clients that
I trained over 15 years. So, so rare to not have a disguised as competitive eating.
Exactly. So, it is, it is actually far more common to see that in that space and obviously
They're you know winning shows and their bodies look amazing and we all follow my Instagram and aspire to be like them
And so yes, you could definitely get your you know quote-unquote fitness goal and have a and eating disorder for sure
And you know I would actually argue when we see some of these extreme
Extreme examples of body, more often than not, there's probably some sort of a disorder there. I mean, to
be so manic about weighing and measuring your food. And this is coming from the guy who
is a competitive bodybuilder. So I totally understand this when you are, you have a goal
that you set for yourself. And it's very serious and weighing and measuring.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I encourage that, but I also think it's very healthy
to evolve out of that.
This is why and how we wrote the Intuitive Eating Guide
is the ultimate destination is not forever the rest of my life.
I should have to weigh and measure and track
and carry my food everywhere I go.
The idea is you use something like that
to gain the knowledge that you need to have
to understand what your body needs nutritionally
to both not just be for overall health
but also whatever your aesthetic goals may be.
But then ultimately is to evolve beyond that
to where you don't have to be that neurotic person
that does all those things.
Yeah, and first off, I do wanna be clear
that none of us are experts on eating disorders
where all trainers, but we do have experience
working with people with situations like this
and of course, in fitness, like Adam said,
especially at those high levels of body composition changes
or where people are shredded or shredded all the time.
There's definitely some disorder there oftentimes.
And you gotta think about this way, There's this reward you get from fitness,
but once the stress and work that goes into the fitness
is overcomes the actual real rewards,
then that means that you're placing it
at too high of a priority.
And what I mean by that is your priority
isn't health and fitness and feeling good,
your priority is looking perfect,
which then means your relationship suffer.
I know this was me for a while,
like my relationship suffered,
I couldn't do certain things with friends and family.
My life revolved around when I would get my meals
and when I could get my workout and all that kind of stuff.
And so it's not a good place to be, obviously.
Now, here's a deal.
If you're, when I work with clients
that have a history of eating disorders,
but first off, I always get a release
that they can work with a trainer.
So I get a release from whoever they're working with
or doctor.
And then I change the focus.
So the average person, we may focus on things
like losing body fat and changing how we look.
The person with the eating disorder, oftentimes they focus on performance with them.
I don't want them to look at their body all the time.
I don't want them to focus on the scale all the time because that feeds into many times
that the reasons why they have, what they had, eating disorders to begin with.
So what I'll do is I'll take their focus and I'll say, okay, let's focus on your strength,
let's focus on your mobility,
let's focus on your stamina,
then when they come to the gym,
wow, you added five pounds to your squat,
wow, look at your mobility.
Oh my gosh, your stamina is so much better.
And oftentimes, and I've had this happen too,
where they'll take their focus from their eating,
place it on performance,
get a little neurotic with performance as well.
But in my experience, it's a little bit easier to manage.
Then the other one, the other one's a little bit more difficult.
But if you change the focus to performance
and how you feel and how you perform in the gym,
and you can stop focusing on your aesthetic,
that often, in my experience, at least,
training people that seems to have help.
I know what did for me, this was when I did Jiu-Jitsu.
When I did Jiu-Jitsu, I didn't care as much about how I looked.
It allowed me to move away from the bad relationship
with food and exercise just far enough
to be able to see it from a distance
and be able to recognize it for what it was.
And that's what kind of primed me to change
all my behaviors and stuff.
So, yeah, I don't know.
Like, this is a hard one to answer without getting,
like, any kind of psychological help, you know,
in that direction in terms of like,
well, like, the value of looking a certain way
is obviously, you know, the highest of priorities.
And that's, you know, where I think like to look, like, where,
where else do you find value? Like, where else do you find value in your overall health and where,
where can we focus our efforts to sort of look, look at that from a different lens?
Yeah, I would agree. So look, go to MindPumpFree.com and download our guides. They're all free.
You can also find us on Instagram.
You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin, me at Mind Pump Sal and Adam at Mind Pump Adam.
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