Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1545: Bad Fitness Advice That’s Actually Good

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover seven pieces of fitness advice that good but not for the reason most people believe. Why some of the things that come out of the fitness industry are based on RESULTS. (1:21) Seven pieces of bad fitness advice that are actually good, but not for the reasons most people believe. #1 – If you want to get lean, do not eat past 6 pm. (4:35)  #2 - Doing fasted cardio first thing in the morning. (13:05)  #3 - Doing high reps burns fat and low reps build muscle. (18:00)  #4 - You need to eat a TON of protein to build muscle. (25:24) #5- Chasing “the pump.” (33:11) #6 – Drinking a gallon of water a day. (36:44) #7 – Targeting the different “angels” of the muscle. (38:18) Related Links/Products Mentioned May Specials: MAPS Aesthetic & the Extreme Fitness Bundle 50% off!  **Promo code “MAYSPECIAL” at checkout** Visit Vuori Clothing for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! A Beginner's Guide To Intermittent Fasting – Mind Pump Blog Is Fasting Effective? - Mind Pump Blog Why You Need to Mix Rep Ranges After Periods of Training – Mind Pump Blog Which Is Better: Low Reps Or High Reps? - Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth: 1282: The #1 Key To Consistently Building Muscle & Strength (Avoid Plateaus!) The Myth of Optimal Protein Intake – Mind Pump Blog Why do we Need Protein? - Mind Pump Blog The Pump: Ego Booster or Muscle Builder? – Mind Pump Blog What To Do About Lagging Body Parts – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Layne Norton, PhD (@biolayne)  Instagram Dr. Spencer Nadolsky (drnadolsky)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pumping. In today's episode, we talk about bad fitness advice. That's actually good, but not for the reasons that they said they were good. So we kind of break it down and explain why some of this bad advice actually has great value.

Now this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Viori. Viori makes the most comfortable, nice looking, long-lasting, eth-leisure wear you'll find anywhere. I love their stuff. Lifetime guarantee, you gotta go check them out. They're actually one of the fastest-growing intellectual or companies in the world. You just go to VioriClothing.com. That's V-U-O-R-I, clothing.com-for-r-s-lash-mind-pump, and get 20% off your first order. Also, all month long, all may long, running a huge sale, maps aesthetic, and the extreme fitness bundle, which is multiple workout programs put together,

both of them are 50% off. So the both half off, go check them out, go to mapsfitinistproducts.com, use the code MaySpecial with no space for the discount. Hey, I think your suggestion from the day was really good. For an episode topic. Oh, oh, oh, oh, it's like, wow, this is new. I mean day was really good for an episode topic. Oh, it's like, wow, this is new. I mean, it's new for me too.

I feel warm and fuzzy right now. I'm getting set up right now, I feel like. No, no, no. I thought it was a great suggestion. You wanted to do an episode on bad advice, so bad fitness advice. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That actually is good, but not for the reasons that you think. And so this might sound a little confusing,

but when you said it, I just got all these like, oh yeah, I know it's actually confusing. I was trying to help, and it wasn't helping. So I'm glad you have this figured out. So yeah, I think we should explain, okay, where my head was at when I said this. I think you got it, right? You totally understood where I was going.

I think back of like all the stuff that, you know, I learned as a trainer and a lot of the information that I communicated that was really bad, the stuff that was good, and a lot of that stuff has flip-flopped, right? There was a lot of things that I used to say that I thought was the truth, and later on found out that it was not the truth, or things that I thought

was good advice, and later on I found out that was not so good advice. And the same is true on the other side. There was things that I thought was good advice. And later on, I found that was not so good advice. And the same is true on the other side. There was things that I would say was, oh, that's bad advice, that's terrible advice. And now that I've come full circle, I go, you know what, actually, that's actually pretty damn good advice. Yeah, because so in the fitness industry,

it's just notorious, right, for just making things up and saying lies to sell products or whatever. But some of the stuff that comes out of the fitness industry is based on results. But then what they try to do is they try to explain why it works and the way they explain it, the reasoning is all wrong, right? So they'll say, do this thing and you'll say, well, why? And they know it works. I don't have clients to do this.

It works. I do it at works. But then they try to explain it and they go, oh, it's because and they'll I don't have clients to do this at works. I'm one I do it at works. But then they try to explain and they go, oh, it's because and they'll make up some side. That's a great point. Cause it reminds, doesn't it remind you of kind of what we talked about with like yoga and massage therapy and like kind of the

woo, the language. Yeah, the woo, woo language ends up, you get the scientific community that just can't wait to destroy that. They just want to come in and be like, that's a bunch of bullshit. That is not how you just get lumped in bro science immediately a lot of times. But yet there is tremendous value in the things

that have been in practice for hundreds of years. I'll give you an example, right? Adrenal fatigue, right? This is a term that, you know, rubs a lot of people the wrong way, but this was really an observation on a whole host of symptoms that a lot of functional the wrong way, but this was really an observation on a whole host of symptoms that a lot of functional medicine practitioners

and health coaches were noticing. And they named it adrenal fatigue because they said, okay, the reason why you feel so tired, the reason why you have such bad hot cold tolerance, the reason why your metabolism is slow, the reason why your libido is low, and you have inflammation, is because your adrenals are fatigued

and they're not producing enough, you know, hormone or whatever. Well, that turned out to be wrong. Now, the symptoms are real, but their explanation was wrong. Now, the reality is adrenal fatigue exists, but not because the adrenals are fatigued, but rather because there's a dysfunction between the hypothalamus, the pituitary,

the H-P-T-A access and the adrenals, right? So you've got dysfunction between in this access. And so because of that, your hormones are definitely off, but it's not adrenal fatigue, right? It's not adrenal fatigue. So when I think, when you said that to me, there's one thing that popped my head right away. It was one of the first pieces of advice that I got

from another fitness person that I also started promoting to my clients when I first became a trainer. And when people followed it, it worked. And the advice was, look, if you want to get lean, don't eat past 6 p.m. It was like, the number changes sometimes people say 7 p.m. Sometimes people say 5, but it's usually around 6 o'clock. Oh, so I 100% agree that that's one of the top ones for me.

But my experience is different with it. So I had already learned the law of third dynamics already by this time and I'm being told by clients. Clients are coming to me and they're hiring me and they're saying, well, what do you think about me eating after 6 p.m. do I have to stop eating? I'm like, that's stupid. You can eat whenever you want.

So long as the calories are aligned with your meal plan that I gave you, it doesn't matter what time it is. That's right, it doesn't matter what time of the day it is. And so that was one of those, what I thought was bad piece of ice is that with people were reading whatever book was going on at that time that was making that popular. And because the science didn't support that,

I shit all over it. Right, because what the fitness people tried to say or the way they explained it was, oh, past 6 p.m. you're not very active. So any calories you eat past 6 p.m. you're more likely to store. If you eat it early in the day, you're active in the day, and you burn it off.

That's totally false. That's not at all. About calorie burning. Yeah, it's really a more of a digestion thing that I've found is really the benefit of the advice. Or a habit thing. Just behavior of that. Absolutely, that's really where it's at.

Here's what happens when you don't eat past 6 p.m. for most people. They reduce their calories. Right, naturally. That's right. Naturally. And they make better choices. They do because if you look at the choices that people make

with the foods that they eat, the bad choices, there's really there's a time when we tend to make bad food. We're those cravings sneak in. It's typically later hours. It's almost always after 6 p.m. Yes, ice cream, popcorn, candy, alcohol, all these things are typically snacked on after 6 p.m. And that, to me, that's where this, which is funny because I originally as a 20 year old

trainer would hear that. I would scoff at it or shit all over it and then explain the science and that it's not how your body works. I eat it midnight because I do. You can do it too. Yet, at this point in my career, I'm not realizing how important the conversation around behavior was. Yes. It's not just about the mechanics. It's a lot, in fact, the mechanics don't matter as much as the behaviors. That's the most important thing.

So I went one side and I went to the other side and then I came back. So I started out in fitness, hearing it was bad to eat past 6 p.m. because what I said earlier, right? If you eat calories late at night, you're not burning them off. And so I would tell people,

and then I got my first certification. They taught us to law through my dynamics. And like, it doesn't matter calories, calories. Then I told people eat whenever you want. And I noticed when clients would stop eating at 6 p.m. versus clients that just ate whatever they wanted, they did better by stopping at 6 p.m. and I couldn't really figure it out until I started

to piece the behavior piece together. And I said, oh, here's what's happening. When I look at the reported food intake, all the bad shit happens after 6 p.m. it's almost never before 6 p.m. it automatically lowers calories and that tends to be when our will power or whatever tends to fall off. So not eating past 6 p.m. there's no magic fat burning, you know, time or whatever. It really has nothing to do with that. But rather, giving yourself a time tends to, and especially if it's based around your behaviors, by the way, if you're a person who has your worst meals or breakfast, which is very rare, but let's say that's, you know, some, you know, you're 1% of the population

where you're like, oh, I really healthy after 6 after 6 PM. It's before noon where I really scrub. Well, what if you did a, I don't eat anything before noon? That might actually work with the behaviors in a way to make you eat. Well, isn't this what supports a lot of the positive claims that come at it intermittent fasting? Totally. I mean, a lot of the benefits that is touted about intermittent fasting,

a lot of that just has to do with this window of time that you have to eat. And most people, if you only have a eight hour window that you can eat in, it's just hard to over consume. And because of your working. Yeah, yeah, especially if that's when your window is. So you just, you have a tougher time doing it. And when you're more likely to do it, when you're sitting on the couch watching TV. And so this piece of advice that I thought was crap back in the early 2000s when I was 20 years old, I now think is great advice. Yeah, it's got some value to it. Right. And I think that it's just, it's the way that we

communicate it to our clientele that, listen, here's a good tip. I'm not going to tell you, and I like these type of parameters because it's a better relationship with food, right? So instead of saying like you can't have this food, you can't have this food, you can't have that food. You can have it. It's a tiny past six. It's right, don't eat past six PM, just take. It's almost like a trick.

It is a trick. It's like one of those little trainer hacks that I didn't realize what a hack it was until later on because of understanding the behaviors behind it. Well, and also, I mean, it does affect a lot of things too. That's a trickle effect of like that makes it's into like your sleeping habits. True. It's just one of those pieces of advice that you could just say something simple like that that you know the behavior after that is really going to benefit. No, that's a good point. You started

to say something and we kind of cut you off and it's true, you know, because you brought up the digestion thing, which is not a small thing. No, and especially if you're somebody who already has digestive issues. So if you already have digestive issues, you eat past, you know, 7, 8 PM at night when you're not moving around and burning of those calories, and then you add in the fact that those are probably not the best choices that you make. Now, this is just this compounding effect that you're going to get from it, and then it disrupts your sleep, right? And then their hormones are off a little bit.

You don't get as much recovery. You crave different shit the next day. Which we didn't value that much. I mean, I know I didn't as a trainer. I didn't really emphasize that enough in the recovery process and the actual, you know, the way that we could maximize our efforts in the gym. Yeah, your organs have a circadian rhythm.

So, you know, light will help set your circadian rhythm. Tell you when it's time to go to sleep and be awake. But so does your digestive system. So when you eat food, it tells your body, you should be awake. So if you eat right before you go to bed, you're almost always going to have worse sleep. Well, I love, I really like this topic and this conversation because we have some friends in the space, our friend, you know, Lane Norton, who have a ton of tremendous amount of respect for We know what would Dr. Nodowski guy who's built a following off of this and You know they've made it they've made this mission to go out and just destroy anybody who puts out anything that the science

Doesn't support 100% and now the bone that I have to pick with them with that topic is they do that so aggressively and so hard that I think that a lot of people get lost in the weeds and There's some valuable pieces of information that we have debunked with science But I still think have tremendous value around behavior. Yeah, so to give you an example And let's say I didn't communicate this well, right? Let's say I told people, I did a post and I said, don't eat processed foods, processed foods make you fat. Right, yeah. And then you would get someone like this doctor Nathalski who would go on and say, this isn't true. If you eat a thousand calories from processed foods

or a thousand calories from whole natural foods and you're burning X amount of calories, doesn't make a difference, you can lose weight or gain weight either way. Which is true, that's true science. Now the problem is that what I was saying is also true. Now I might not be communicating it right.

Heavily processed foods, they don't themselves make you gain more body fat, but they do make you eat more. Just avoiding them oftentimes results in fat loss. That's right. And so because they made their point, because the science doesn't support that specific thing, what they may be doing

is moving people away from a behavior that's going to benefit them. And to me, that's where the real experience, where you've trained tons of clients and you start to pick up on these type of patterns of, okay, so we've dispelled that this whole science, the science around eating past six o'clock is false. But when I've told all my clients that it's false and allowed them to do that,

what are the things that I start to see in common? I see oh wow when you did make that bad choice food wise It was at nine o'clock at night or eleven o'clock at night. It's like now now what I've done is because I've proven it wrong with Science just to be right just so I could be more right right. I've actually sent more people in a worse direction I got a fucking problem with that 100% so here's another one that I like that's really good. And again, it was told and communicated totally wrong, but it actually has some good effects, but not for the, again, not for the reasons that we thought, right?

So back in the day, actually some people still promote this, but back in the day, we were told that if we wanted to do cardio to burn body fat, we wanted to add a little bit of cardio to burn a little extra calories to burn body fat. One of the most effective ways to do it is in the morning, first thing on an empty stomach. Now with the way, the reason why they say to do this, their reasoning was if you do it first thing in the morning without any food, you have no glycogen left in your body, you're more likely to burn body fat for fuel, and it gets you leaner faster.

Now it's totally false, doesn't matter if you eat before or after, whatever, it's all total calories versus total calories burned. Makes no difference at all. However, behaviorally speaking, when people wake up in the morning and do cardio before anything else, you typically find that they get leaner faster.

Now why is that? Because you're starting your day off with a healthy behavior. Yes, and studies show this, by the way. Studies show one of the easiest ways to get people to eat better is just get them exercised. So if you have, when I would work with a client and I'd want them to, I don't want to play,

I'd not a trick, but I don't want to do an experiment. Like, okay, let's see if this works. And I would say something like, okay, here's what I want you to do. Before you eat anything, I want you to do a 15 minute battle on the treadmill or do 15 minute body weight exercises. And they would track their food for me.

And I would notice when they would start the day off with a little bit of exercise, they would make better food choices. Studies show this across the board. When people start exercising, they start to make better food choices. Also, when people start the day off with something positive, it sets the stage for the rest of the day. And successful business people start the day off with something positive, it sets the stage for the rest of the day. And successful business people have known this for a long time. Also, when you start the day off with activity like that, you are moving more active for the

rest of the day versus going straight to a job where you sit down. So when I was competing, I did this. I would get up before every morning, I'd get up an extra hour early and I would go walk fasted. Now the benefits of it was not, oh I'm tapping into the glycogen stores quicker. I mean I'm burning, they're all burned off because I slept last night so I'm tapping into fat faster. Nothing to do with that other than, guess what?

If I had to do it before I started my day, I had to get up an hour earlier. What would I have been doing had I not done that? Laying your bed. Laying your bed sleeping, not burning any calories, whatsoever. So you're upping the volume of potential movement that you can add into the rest of your day.

That's right. And then what that would end up doing was I also wouldn't go straight to eating, Arthur. Then I'd have to come home, I'd shower, get dressed. It would prolong the time that I'd end up eating. And by the time I, and then I feel motivated because I started my day off right. I got a great walk, a little sweat,

maybe I even read a little bit. So now I've got this, I'm already winning the day type of attitude and it's set the tone for the decisions that I would make for the rest of the day. One of my favorite, I know, so I finally have, it's been me a long time to get everybody to work out in the morning and we've all decided to do it, right, we work out here in the studio

and here's, this is the truth, this is for the audience. One of the main reasons why everybody now is working out together, because I guarantee you, I could ask you guys right now, do you guys like working out in the morning versus in the afternoon? No, it sucks. You prefer working out in the afternoon. Why do we do it in the morning? Because it makes us better throughout the day. We work out in the morning, we come in here, we do the podcast better, we're better in business, we're better with our conversations, everything seems sharper, because you set the intentions for the whole day. So, that cardio, first thing in the morning, fasted, essentially what you're saying is cardio

before you do anything. What it does is it sets the intention throughout the day, and that's the reason why a lot of people see success with it, not because there's some magic happening. And let me tell you, extremely valuable. Yes. Very valuable, and a lot of people have tremendous success with this It's just another one of those things that wasn't communicated very well And then people like our friends that I'm talking about right now. It doesn't do it doesn't make it different

There's no value exactly can't wait to jump all over it and dispel it with science and say that's not how the body works It's not right and then they and then they trash it and then what ends up happening? First of all says there's no value I'm not gonna do that then they trash it. And then what ends up happening person says there's no value. I'm not going to do that. Then they don't do it. And it's like, you know, that's really unfortunate because in in this mission of being more right about the science that people were communicating improperly about it, you've just now convinced a mass amount, especially if you have a large following and a bunch of people that are paying attention, you've just now convinced a large percentage of people that would have benefited from that habit.

If they would have started that habit and done that, they would see tremendous behavioral change and better habits in their life had they done that. Yeah, so it's like, I win this argument, but I lost the goal. It reminds me, I was watching this video with this marriage, like expert. And he says, you know, when you get an argument with your spouse, is your goal to win the argument or is your goal to improve your relationship? He says, because sometimes there's two different things. You might be able to win and have your wife,

you know, whatever, like, oh, I beat, but now she hates you and resent you. You may win, but what's the desired outcome? Exactly, so think about it. Yeah, so here's another one. And this one's hilarious because I remember when I learned that this was bullshit, I told everybody was bullshit and I probably did a little bit of harm. And this is the notion that doing high reps with weights burns body fat, while as low reps

and heavy weight builds mass, right? So we were told this, right? Oh, you want to get cut? Go do lots of reps. You want to build, do lots of low reps. Now I learned later on that, no, that's not true, reps build muscle, so just do the one that builds muscle for you, and which is typically lower reps for most people.

The problem is, then people never started to experiment with the other rep ranges. Now, if you believe that high reps gets you lean and low reps builds muscle, and you're already a lean kid, you don't ever do them. Right, or you're just, and you're doing them. And you're like, oh, you know, sometimes I get lean for some or sometimes I get, well,

what you end up doing without realizing is you end up facing your workouts. Yeah. And so you naturally play with different rep ranges because you think that the value of this one is a burn fat and the value of this one is to build muscle. So it does work to burn fat and build muscle both to do high reps sometimes, a low rep sometimes,

not for the reasons that they told you. The value is just changing it up. The value isn't changing it up. Otherwise you'll stay in one forever and be like, oh, that doesn't make any sense. Well, it's just another one of those examples like you said that is wasn't communicated properly. Right, you know, and again,

when the fitness community comes out, we're saying things like that, then real quick, somebody wants to come over and be like, that's wrong, the science doesn't support that. This is what it says, this is what rep range is better for building muscle. Now what does everybody do? Now they only train in that hypertrophy range

and they never get out of that. When I can tell you firsthand that some of my biggest gains came from when I actually switched over to low, I mean high reps. So it is. It's another area that is bad advice that we thought was good advice when we are giving it. And it's really just the way that we were coming in.

Yeah. And again, like all reps, all rep ranges within reason. So we're talking probably below the, yeah, they all build muscle. And the one that's going to be the best results regardless of your goal. Okay. So whether you want to burn fat or build muscle, the one that's gonna be the best results regardless of your goal. Okay, so whether you want to burn fat or build muscle, the one, the rep range that works the best for you is the probably the one that you're not doing, right? So when you switch into a new rep range, you get this new stimulus in the body and your body. It's like when you first start

exercising and you get these newbie gains right out the gates, right? Well, let's say you're always stuck in the five rep range. You always do five reps, always do five reps. And then you're like, you know, I'm going to go do 15 reps on my exercises. There's like a two week period where your central nervous system has to really adapt and you're eating it really fast adaptations because it's something you're not used to. So this is what the studies don't show. Studies will show, you know, eight to 12 reps, builds the most muscle.

Maybe that's true or whatever. But here's a deal. If you always train eight to 12, then 15 to 20 will build more muscle or one to five will build more muscle. So the inadvertent effect of telling people, high reps do this and lower up do this, is the average person who's sometimes bulks and sometimes cuts, oh winter time is time to bulk, summertime time to cut, without realizing it, they're phasing their workouts. Now of course, it makes the argument stronger because they're like, I did get,

I noticed great results when I switched it. My rep range had happened that way. Yes, but it's not again. It's not supposed to. You guys remember when you got stuck in the longest, Justin, what were you training like for the longest as far as your rep range? At least in like the five rep range.

Yeah, that was like my sweet spot. I just loved it. And that's the thing too. We're creatures of habit. I really love to train that way. And so I wanted to go to the information that was like promoting that the most. And so it's like, you know, you kind of look for that like, well, who else like thinks this way and does things this way.

And so we're just led, like human behavior. We're led in that direction of doing what we like. That's such a good point, something that we do, right? When we're attracted to something, like all these points that we're bringing up, it's really dangerous because you can actually find articles and studies to support whichever side you want. Whenever one you want a side with in this,

you can go off, to this is your point. Very science, sir. Yeah, right, there's Sal's point the other day that you made in the podcast talking about how things have gotten so political, even in science and studies. It's like, I can find a study to support both sides of this argument, so it's really dangerous on how you decide to search this.

If you go in with that you wanna prove yourself, right? And the other person wrong, you very easily can by searching this certain way. I remember, so I got stuck in the low rep ranges because back in those days, when you read the magazines, if there was an article on mass building, that's what they always said, right, mass building principles, it was always heavy low reps.

Anytime I read an article on get shredded, get lean for summer, it was always high reps. Now as a skinny kid, I'm like, I don't like it shredded, I'm already shredded, I wanna get big, I'm a big, I'm avoiding anything over five reps. So I did everything low rep all't fucking, I'm like a shredded. I'm already shredded. I want to get big. Yeah. I'm a big. I'm avoiding anything over five reps. So I did everything low rep all the time, all the time. And then I remember, I got, I got to, I don't remember what,

which magazine, I might have been Flex Magazine. There was a body builder, Frank Hillbrand, I think was his name. And he wrote this article about how he got his best physique. And I like the way he was built or whatever. So, you know, of course, when you're a kid, you look at the guy, you want to look like him, like I'm going to take his advice, right?

Not very scientific. But he goes, you know, They're common though. But he goes, of course, when you're a kid, you look at the guy, you wanna look like him, like, I'm gonna take his advice, right? Not very scientific. But he goes, you know. Very common, though. But he goes, you know, I get my best gains in the 12 rep range, and I get that, and he made this whole thing about it, but basically saying, this is what built the most muscle on me.

So I said, you know what? I'm gonna go try 12 reps. Now, of course, because I trained five reps or lower, forever, I went and did 12 reps and what did I experience? I got muscle gains fast. Whole new stimulus. Real quick, I grew. Now the problem with that is then I thought.

Yeah, oh, this is the answer. That's exactly the exact same thing. Almost my same story too, is because of all the magazines, right? If you were reading like muscle and fitness and muscle, the muscular development. There are flex. Yeah, flex.

Like all the jacked body pillars, everything was like six reps. If you mass, mass builder, arm, arm blaster, everything to get bigger was all about, got a lip in the low rep range. And since I was a skinny kid, it was like, they're all never spend any time. So years, like five years at least of consistently lifting in that rep range, then all of a sudden some body builder guy comes to me and says, you know, I see him, he looks more than most impressive guys than Jim. I'm like, Hey, what do I need to do? And I kind me and says, you know, I see him, he looks more than most impressive guys than Jim.

I'm like, hey, what do I need to do? And I kind of tell him, what are you doing? And he goes, oh, you need to go lift like 15 reps. I'm like, what? I don't want to get ripped or le- I'm already le- and look at my abs. You know, he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you need to go do that.

I did that. I blew up like I never had before. And then when it ends up having, I marry that shit for the next five years because I saw those results. And so the answer for people that are listening is that, you know, they each old, the whole tremendous value and you, and you just got to be careful not to get stuck in any of them and you should be getting out of them no longer than six, eight, six to eight weeks is as long as three to four.

Right. We like three to four. I mean, that's how we, that's how we program, right? But I would tell somebody like you're, you're, you got to get out of there by six or eight the best rep range to burn fat is also the best Reprange to build muscle. Okay, remember that. So the rep range you want to pick Regardless of your goal is fat loss or muscle gain is is gonna be the best one for both and that Reprange is gonna be the one that your body just responds best to and it's usually One that you're not training. So when you switch. Oh, I don't care if you're dieting and getting lean or if you're eating a lot to gain muscle, when you switch into that new rep range, you're going to see the best results. So always remember that. The one that burns fat is the best is also the one that builds muscle best, move in and out of different rep ranges.

All right. So here's the next one. And this one, this one I railed against for a long time until I realized that it was actually good advice, again, not for the reasons that they said. So coming into the fitness industry, my, and I mean, as a professional, as a trainer, I first came to it from the bodybuilding world. Now, not because I was a bodybuilder, I was a young kid and no way I would have gotten on stage

and done well, but I, all my advice, all the stuff that I had learned, all the no way I would have gotten on stage and done well, but I all my advice, all the stuff that I had learned, all the stuff that I had read came from the bodybuilding side of the fitness space because my goal as a kid was to build big muscles. So all the information I got before I had my first certification was from muscle and fitness, flex magazine, Iron Man. It was from talking to bodybuilders. It was from people who were into that side of fitness. And what they always said was, you need to eat a ton of protein.

Eat so much protein is gonna come out of your ears, like protein like crazy. You know, one and a half grams, two grams per pound of body weight. Go crazy with the protein. And so I did this for a long time. I remember I got my first certification, and I remember there was a nutrition component, and the person teaching it was very smart. By this point, I want this for a long time. And I remember I got my first certification, and I remember there was a nutrition component, and the person teaching it was very smart.

By this point, I wanna become a trainer, and I'm starting to realize bodybuilding is, there's maybe some truth into it, but they might be wrong about some stuff. And I remember this guy up there going, yeah, you don't need two grams of protein per pound of body weight, and he's bringing up studies. And I'm like, those idiots, they just wanted me to buy

all their supplements, these guys are morons. You don't need nearly that much protein. And so when clients would come to me and say, hey, should I be eating tons of protein, I would say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't need that much protein. It's not great. Well, here's the truth. And again, it's not for the reasons that they said.

When people, the average person, I'm not talking about the fitness fanatics. So if you're watching this right now and you're like a maniac, fitness fanatic, don't listen. But if you the average person, you're probably not eating enough protein. And if I tell you to eat a lot of protein, you'll probably eat the right amount of protein.

And what does that do for you? It increases muscle gain, but here's the biggest benefit. It controls your appetite. Boy, this protein do that effect. It's like Adam, right now what you're doing with your nutrition with your elimination diet, your protein's through the roof because it's mostly meat. And what are you finding with your appetite?

Yeah, suppressed completely. Oh, totally suppressed. Right, right, right. Now you and I have a little bit different experience with this and I was in defense of the bodybuilders because what I saw. So I, I too remember learning that and hearing how much protein I needed to hit. And I struggled and being a fitness fanatic,

being somebody that was taking in the shakes, I still had a hard time with it. Now it was a tall, lanky, active kid. And so that tells you why I had a little bit of a challenge getting there. But then as I started to train clients and remember 65%, maybe 70% of our clientele are women middle aged.

And I was assessing their diet the way they ate. Many of them were eating 1,500, you know, 1,800 tops calories and grossly under eating protein. And then when I would tell them, let's start targeting more protein, we still were following way short. So this was one of those things that I remember that that was even though they were off on the science, right? Again, another area where, you know, there's people in the space that were quick to hammer the, I think the over exaggeration of how much protein you need. But the truth is most people need so much more than what they're consuming, that hammering this,

you got to go more, you got to go more, you got to, you gotta go more, you gotta go more, you gotta go more, go more, is probably pretty damn good advice for most people. If you are somebody who knows that you struggle, I, in fact, I've had so much success with that being the only thing that I told someone to follow. So I would get, I would get these clients sometimes and this came in around and when I was about 20 to about three, four years in, I started to piece this again because it was such a challenge. I thought, you know what? I'm gonna stop and what I learned about how to about three, four years in, I started to piece this good because it was such a challenge. I thought, you know what? I'm gonna stop and what I learned about how satiating protein was.

I'm gonna stop telling people, eat the can eat this, do eat this, do this, do this. All I'm gonna say is like, you need, okay, miss, you know, Susie, whatever, you need 140 grams of protein. I don't want you to think about anything else, get your 140 protein. Just hit that.

Just hit that. Get after it, try and get it, and try and get it through whole foods. If we need to use the protein shake or the bars, we hit that. Get after it, try and get it, and try and get it through whole foods. If we need to use the protein shake or the bars, we will, but I want you to try and get that's all I want you to think about. And I had tremendous success with clients just by having them shift their focus over to protein and just going after it. Yeah, it just naturally sort of brings down the overall calories.

Hold it. Because right away it's satiating and you're just not inclined to keep adding in a lot of food right after that. And so that would be an easy one for me if I'm trying to adjust one of my average clients is to just like literally just focus in on the protein and watch what happens to just that one thing. Take a 130 pound female and you tell her,

eat 110 grams of protein every day, don't miss it. This is what you need to hit. This is your goal prioritize this. And they do that. Now, how many chicken breasts is 110 grams of protein? Yeah, like three, six sounds chicken breast. Okay, so 130 pound woman, she'd have to eat like three, six sounds chicken breast

to hit that, or there's beef or whatever. She's naturally gonna eat less. This just happens. Protein's extremely satiating. It really kills your appetite better than any other macronutrient studies prove this. Of course, there's a thermogenic effect. It's very minimal.

That's not what we're talking about here. It does encourage muscle building. So indirectly, because you build more muscle, you speed up the metabolism. But really the main benefit, no joke. You eat a lot of protein, if you hit that first, you're just less likely to eat a lot of calories. And it's hard, it's hard to get there.

It's hard to get there, protein one. And it's hard to over consume. If you were, again, referring back to the diet that I'm kind of following right now, which is an all-me diet, it's like hard to overeat. Yeah. I mean, that was a force feed yourself. Well, that was one of the problems I had way back when we did ketogenic diet, like four

years ago was, and I happened to be doing it right when I was trying to build and bowl because I can't do it. I was like, I can't get this 4,000, 5,000 calorie intake that I needed at that time to put on size. I was like, I can't do it through all mostly meat or fat and protein. I was like, I was getting filled up so quick, the same thing goes for the meat, and it's so easy to over-consume carbohydrates. Oh, boy.

So just by telling a client, you know, I'm not telling them they can't have carbohydrates, but saying, listen, you gotta get this in protein, focus there, they would fill up, and they wouldn't even want that much carbohydrates. Well, the average client I would always get, like, I mean, whether they realize it or not, still had that sort of food pyramid idea

that grains are so important. And so they literally would base their meals first there and then build upon that. And so to flip that on its head, made a massive thing. Yeah, it's really hard. It's really hard to overeat protein. Unless it comes packaged with a lot of fat, a lot of carbohydrates and other things to make a taste.

But protein is very hard to over consume. Try it. Try over eating chicken breasts or try over eating lean red meat. You can even go process, try over eating beef jerky. Now compare that to a bag of potato chips or candy or even a bowl of rice, even a bowl of plain rice, you know, you could probably eat quite a bit. Very difficult, we're protein.

So not for the reasons again that they said, where it's this magical macronutrient, if you eat tons of it, but really, it's because it really crushes your appetite and makes you eat more. Well, yeah, back to the behavior thing. I mean, I feel like all these, there's a theme in this, right?

That a lot of these things that we decided to come out in the space and harp on about the science being off. And you know, and we try to do that. And all we ended up doing was turning off a bunch of people that were probably implementing good habits in their life. Because now we this science guy comes out and says, Oh, that's false. That's not true. Well, yeah, the science and the way that people are communicating is not true. But it's value. Yeah. But is there good? is that a good behavior or a good habit for most people? Yeah, that's true.

So here's another one. And this one I love because, again, I went in both directions. So again, I came from this building muscle space, get into the personal training space, and they talked about the pump. Again, this is one of my first certifications. And they talked about how bodybuilders really want the pump. And then they explain the pump. Here's what happens when you get a pump when you work out.

More flood rushes into the muscle, excuse me, more fluid rushes into the muscle. Then comes out, you get this in gorge feeling, it's temporary. Now it doesn't build muscle. It's just an ego thing. It's not a big deal. Don't worry about the pump.

So then I would tell people, don't worry about the pump. It's not that big of a deal. But then I noticed this with clients. I'd be training clients and they'd have a body part that would be stubborn. Let's say it's a woman and it's her glutes or it's a guy and it's his delts or whatever

and we're working out. And I would always notice this, that when they would start building the muscle would be when they'd start getting the pump. Like all of a sudden, I'd be training this woman for five months, we're trying to get her glutes to connect, I'm trying to work out and then finally, I said, oh my God, I feel like they're tight right now. I'd be like, oh my God, you got a pump.

Shortly after, we would see muscle growth. Now, was it the pump that caused the growth? Probably not. But chase getting to the point where you can connect to a muscle enough to get a pump. That's a good behavior. So getting a pump requires connection. It requires, you want to pump any muscle

in the gym, you have to be able to concentrate, squeeze it, and isolate it and work it, is there value in that kind of connection? Absolutely. There's even more to that that I ended up uncovering, right? So same thing, heard that, touted so much in the body building community, then going like, oh, that's so overrated, and all you're doing is sitting a bunch of fluid in the muscle. You're not really building a ton of muscle. There's not a lot of value there. Then I started to put together like what I saw happening when I started training, like

strength people, training clients in the strength phase when they weren't ready for is poor muscle connection. And then also technique. So the protocol for hypertrophy training or chasing the pump type of training is this higher repetitions with this slower control tempo. A 422 tempo is kind of the... So up four seconds up and four seconds. You're really second the four seconds away through it. Yeah, and to do that, a whole six second rep, right?

422 would be a full six second rep on anything that you're doing is a very slow and controlled movement. Very deliberate. Yes. And very few people train this way. And what I found was when I started having my clients chase the pump or train this way, was I could get them to actually use better technique and form. That better and technique form helped them connect better to the muscle like you're saying.

Then in turn gave us more muscle. Right. So now we go into the strength training part of that and they can feel the little nuances and the ways that their body's getting out of position and they can self correct a lot more effectively. And that's because they have that connection established and they can feel their way through these types of exercises massively beneficial. Oh, yeah.

I mean, if you have, you find somebody with a lagging body part, you're more often than not, not always, but more often than not, you're also finding a body part that they don't get a pump in as easily as other body parts. It's just true. Now, if you taught the average person who's doing resistance training,

what the pump is and how to find it and how to search for it, it's gonna lead to behaviors that are beneficial for them. Now, maybe not necessarily the pump itself, but rather the slow controlled reps, the squeeze, the feel of the movement, really feeling the connection. All of those behaviors lead to better results. So the pump has great value for the average person.

Again, not for the reasons that we thought, but it still has tons of value. You know, I wanna add something to this list that we didn't bring out that is, I'm reminded of right now that I were, let me guess what is, cause I have one too. Oh, let me hear it.

Yeah, so mine was like, there was this old adage of like, you know, try and drink a gallon of water a day. Oh, okay, that's actually another good one. And that's something that I actually wasn't thinking. Go ahead, time in there. Oh yeah, I remember that. Because, so a lot of times like,

people found that to be like unrealistic like I can't like drink This is like outrageous, but like just like the conscious effort of trying to actively pursue water Just like we're kind of talking about with protein led to better behaviors and it led to you know energy spikes cognitive enhancements You know joints like some some pain allevi, like lots of benefits in that direction, but it wasn't about the gallon, it's really the pursuit. Now, there was a book that came out, and I think in the early 2000s or late 90s, that was try to make like water be like this,

you know, miracle, miracle thing that's having on it. And although there's tons of benefits around it, but I know that book was like touting that like crazy, and everybody was asking about it. Oh yeah, and then you got the science people who are like, a gallon is too much, you don't need a gallon of water every day. It's not gonna benefit you, you don't need a gallon,

it's too much water, it's not gonna hurt you, but you don't need it. But the result of drinking a gallon of water, the truth is like what Justin said is, you're trying to drink a gallon of water, you're not drinking anything else, that's number one. Your appetite is usually controlled, that's number two. Number three, this is a funny one, but it's true.

You're moving more, why? Get them pee. You're, this is a funny one, but it's true, you're moving more. Why? You're walking to the bathroom. And then four out of that, you end up eliminating like other beverages that have calories in them. Oh, okay, yes. Those alone, because you're focused on that, I think.

So here's another one that I remember. So the angles for targeting a certain body, like parts of your body part, right? So that was something I originally thought was true. Like this works the peak, this works the bottom, this works the outside, this works the outside. Right, so that was something one, originally, I believe that from a lot of the muscle magazine,

then science comes out to support, that's not how it works, the muscles attached to these two anchor points, it's getting the entire thing worked, you can't target, you can't even isolate a muscle, much less a part of a muscle, so that's all bullshit. So then I went completely away from it. But that was, I didn't understand the strength curve at that time. And I didn't understand the importance of manipulating the strength curve and how valuable that is to see change an adaptation in your body. And so there, here's another area because the science comes

out to say, oh, that's all bullshit. You can't target a part of a muscle. That's not how they work. So I stopped caring about the angles and changing things like that, neglecting the benefits and the understanding of what the strength curve is. Right. So to explain it differently, right? So they would say that a concentration curl worked the peak of the bicep and a preacher curl worked the bottom of the bicep. Now, I remember a concentration curl is I'm bending over and I'm curling a dumbbell up like this. This is the hardest part of the lift.

This is when I'm directly opposing gravity. A preacher curl, my elbows are in front of me, my arms are on a bench, I bring the barbell down or dumbbell down, and this is when the weight is directly opposing gravity. So this is the hardest part of the rep. Up here, the fully contracted part is really easy on a preacher crow, but really hard on a concentration crow. Now, am I working the bottom of the bicep on a preacher crow and the peak with a concentration crow?

No. The bicep is more stressed. There's two attachments for both heads, real close to each other. You can't work the bicep from here or here to here. The whole thing works. So that's false. However, just like Adam said,

there's lots of value in training the different strength curves. The concentration curl requires lots of tension in this fully contracted position. The preacher curl requires lots of tension in this more extended position. And the muscle fibers, the way that they attach when they slide across each other, those attachments are stressed more in different points based on the strength curve. So the value in angles is tremendous. Just put more emphasis in a different part of the strength. Yes, the value is tremendous, again,

not for the reasons that they said. That's right. And the danger is if you get caught up and because you hear that information that that falls, that doesn't, and then also you start doing all the same by- Yeah, all barbell curls. That's right.

That's right. And then you start doing all the same ones because it doesn't change, well, okay, well, the problem with that is that your body's so adapted to that plane of motion, that strength curve, that one of the best things you could do for the peak or the side of the bicep or whatever part you want is to literally just do a different angle

that will actually manipulate and change the strength curve. So that was one of those ones that early on, I adopted, that was right, then I find out the science disproves it. That's not true, you cannot isolate a part of the muscle, then I go, oh shit, well then I'm just gonna disregard doing all this weird angled shit all the time. And then later on understand the value

of manipulating the strength curve and what that does for adaptation and growth. So those are the ones that I think were the big ones. That's a really good one, right? Look, if you like our information, you'll love MindPumpFree.com. We have lots of free guides there to help you with fat loss, muscle building, even targeting specific muscle groups. Again, it's MindPumpFree.com. You can also find your favorite podcast hosts on Instagram. So you can find Justin at MindPump Justin, me at MindPump Salon,

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