Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1727: Ten Traits of Successful Lifters

Episode Date: January 13, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover ten common traits shared by successful lifters. Ten Traits of Successful Lifters. (2:36) #1 – Prioritize technique and form. (3:33) #2 – Practice foundational lifts and PRACTICE them often. (7:14) #3 – Know how to apply and manipulate intensity. (11:08) #4 – Aim to optimize efficiency. (16:01) #5 – Love the journey. (20:47) #6 – They are disciplined, NOT motivated. (24:32) #7 – Don't take unnecessary risks. (29:28) #8 – If something hurts, they do NOT avoid it. They FIX it. (34:00) #9 – Look at food in terms of performance. (38:38) #10 – Don’t fall into the comparison trap. (41:26) Related Links/Products Mentioned January Promotion (#1): NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS SPECIAL BUNDLE OFFERS January Promotion (#2): MAPS Anabolic 50% off **Code “JANUARY50” at checkout** Visit Paleo Valley for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code “Mindpump15” at checkout for 15% discount** Stop Working Out And Start Practicing – Mind Pump Blog The Most Overlooked Muscle Building Principle – Mind Pump Blog How Phasing Your Workouts Leads to Consistent Plateau Free Workouts – Mind Pump Blog The Breakdown Recovery Trap, Why You Aren’t Progressing – Mind Pump Blog The Alchemist Workout Because You Love Yourself Not Because You Hate Yourself – Mind Pump Blog Your Workout Partner MIGHT Be Killing Your Gains – Mind Pump Podcast Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Jocko Willink (@jockowillink)  Instagram Dexter “The Blade” Jackson (@mrolympia08)  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 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 Pump. Alright, in today's episode we talk about successful lifters. People who've been working out for a long time who get great results, who don't hurt themselves often, they look good, they feel good, they're successful by

all stretches of the imagination. And so we talk about the 10 traits that they have that make them successful is a great thing to aim for that will help you with your fitness journey. Now this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Paleo Valley. They make some of the best Paleo inspiredinspired supplements and products around. One of my favorite products are their grass-fed, grass-finished beef sticks. These beef sticks put beef jerky to shame. They're not dry, they're delicious, the macro-profile is incredible. Long shelf life, so they're wrapped in package.

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Just use the code January 50, January 50, no space for that discount. All right, so here's what we did with today's episode. We talked about successful lifters, people who are successful long-term, who've been working out for a long time. What are the traits that they have that contribute to their long-term success? Let's talk about that a little bit.

I like this. We narrowed it down to 10, right? Con-characteristics, they all share. Totally, 100%. I think we should all aspire to have this, right? I mean, would you say that you're pretty good with all these, right? I like to think that I'm pretty good with most of these now. Absolutely, I think so.

It took me a while to get here, but I think we're here. Totally. And these are important to know, because I don't think, I think majority of people, when they start working out, they're not trying to get in shape and out of shape, right?

They want long term success, although I'm sure the primary motivation is short term. Nobody wants to lose weight and gain it back, or do well only to hurt themselves and have to stop working out. So let's talk about the traits that make people successful long-term across the board and ultimately also produce the best results. I think the first one, this is very important, is when you find somebody who's a really

successful lifter, you'll find that they prioritize technique and form with their exercise. They look at exercises like a skill, and that means that those exercises produce the best results when they're done properly, just like any other skill. It's not just about sweating and getting sore, it's about doing it right because that's how you derive the most benefit.

This is one of those things I walk into a gym, I immediately notice that. It sticks out of the crowd, like a shining beacon, because this is one of those things. I'm always trying to reiterate and to educate my clients the importance of it. It's just gonna carry your progress so much further forward

into the future and you're not gonna have to battle all these things that come with, not maintaining that proper form and technique. It's such an attractive quality when you see it too, when you see somebody who moves with like beautiful form. Now what would you say is the mindset that that person has to go into the gym, right? So when you go in the gym, like I don't think anybody goes in thinking like, I'm going to go have shitty form. But there is, like you said, Justin, when you walk in, it's very obvious.

You can see somebody who is very meticulous about their form. And what do you think it is about their mindset when they go? That's such a good question. I'm gonna give you an analogy. Imagine somebody who goes on a basketball court with a basketball and thinks to themselves, I'm just gonna sweat, right? Versus somebody who says, I'm gonna go and get really good at basketball. There's a difference in the technique and the form and the focus. And so I think it's when people go to the gym and they understand that a squat done properly is extremely valuable,

squat done improperly, not only is not valuable, but becomes a liability. Well, I guess to kind of keep in the basketball analogy, I look at hustle, right? Like, I'm very impressed with the effort, you know, I see some athletes put out there and they're the ones get all the rebounds and they're doing all the things, but they have no handles. And you know, there's just certain things I notice that, you know, I, I'm very attracted to, you know, the athlete that the tries gives it all, like leaves their heart out there in the field, but, you know, the ones that really like take it a step further are the ones that master the technique that they need to, you know, have that kind of skill.

I think part of that comes with these little rituals. I bet you guys don't even realize that you do this in almost every exercise you do. Even something as simple as a tricep push down. I mean, when I walk up to a cable machine and when I'm going to take a basic, obviously squatting and deadlifting, there's definite rituals that we all know that you kind of go and check through for. But even something that is basic

as a tricep pushdown on a cable machine, I mean, I'll walk into it, I get in a certain distance from it, I puff my chest out a little bit, I pull the shoulders back and peel them down, I grab the handle, I suck the elbows in, like there's this ritual that I've created to prepare myself to go into that movement so that I can repeat it with perfect form,

and that's been years of practice like that. And so, I think that you've, the mindset is going into every movement with kind of this ritual to get into their body. Yeah, getting you into this, this perfect this perfect position and knowing that the first few times that you do this, it won't be perfect, but you're working towards that and you're trying to create these habits so that you can get into that rhythm as quick as you can. And I think that great lifters have learned

to do this over time. And they probably, like I said, you guys probably don't even realize this, but you do this on every basic move. 100%. Yeah, when you said that, I write away't even realize this, but you do this on every basic move. 100%. Yeah, when you said that, I write away thought of every exercise that I'll do. And I do.

I have a position I get into. I know how to get in the right position. Well, you grip with your hands, right? The trial. Every day. Now, that take us to the next one, which is connected, which is that really successful lifters practice foundational lifts, and they practice them often.

So practice is different than working out. Practice literally means I'm walking up to the squat rack and I'm practicing my form. I'm practicing my technique. I'm getting better at the skill of squatting or the skill of deadlifting or the skill of an overhead press or a row or a bench press. These are all considered foundational lifts.

You'll notice that really, really skilled lifters are skilled in those lifts. They know how to position themselves, where the weight should be on their foot, they position their knees right, and they consistently practice the technique over and over again. So I know we know all, you know, people talk about variety with your workouts and stuff, but you'll find successful lifters with foundational lifts. Actually, do those quite consistently. This one took me a little bit longer.

The first one I felt like as soon as I became a trainer, I became very meticulous about form. But I did neglect a lot of the foundational lifts because they were hard. Because they were hard, because they got me gasped and out of breath, and they were difficult to get the form down. I tended to avoid these movements. It wasn't until later in my career

that I first realized how important those movements were and then to realize that I don't need to like kill myself. So I was still early on as a young trainer caught in that like intensity trap of thinking that every workout need to be failure and training the shit out of myself every time I entered the gym. It took me years to get to a place

where you know, sometimes I go to the gym and I'm like, I'm not trying to crush myself. I actually just, I'm gonna go practice a few movements and get really good at them. And then it took even more years to go by before I started to realize the biggest bang for your buck movements, which are those foundational lifts you're talking about, and get good at practicing those. Well, these specific lifts are just, they look simple on the outside when you're coming in and to your point of them being hard

and a lot of times like intermediate to beginner level lifters will avoid some of them because you can get good muscle pumps, you can get stimulated in other ways. But what it provides you is just so much more involved in terms of your entire body and training your body as a whole. And so this is one of those things.

You don't master this until like decades, like these types of lifts. And so to keep sharpening them, keep practicing them continuously, you start to see all kinds of different types of benefits that your body receives, you know, that translate to everything else. Yeah, they're complex lifts.

They involve a lot of the central nervous system. They fire a lot of muscles. You should list some of them, so people know what you mean. Yeah, they have far-bale squat, right? You're overhead press, you're deadlift, you're rows, pull-ups, you're horizontal presses, like your bench presses, you're incline presses,

like those are considered foundational lifts. And they just have tremendous bang for their buck results. Like a far-bale squat will do so much more for your lower body than five other lower body exercises usually. That's just to show how effective they are. About eight years into my career as a trainer, I'll never forget this. I had clients that at this point, I started to get good and clients would stay with me. One of my strategies was, okay, you're training with me now three days a week, but eventually

I'll move you to two days a week, one day a week, and then you'll do workouts on your own. But it was always tough when they would go on their own. They would always either work out too hard or apply intensity wrong or do something a little off. So then it dawned on me and I told my clients, here's what I want you to do. I don't want you to work out on your own anymore.

When you go to the gym, I want you to practice these four lifts, just go and get good at them. Don't worry about how hard you're working out. Just practice them. And everybody's results exploded because of the mentality. It wasn't about, I'm going to go get my legs tired and sore. It was, I got to get better at the squat. It wasn't, I'm going to hammer my shoulders.

It was, I got to practice my overhead press. That practice mentality produced some of the best results I'd ever seen in clients, and of course applying it to myself made a big difference. Now Adam, you mentioned intensity. Intensity is one of the tools in your tool belt when it comes to getting your body to respond and adapt and change, but experienced successful lifters understand that like any tool, there's an appropriate time to use it, and then there's a time to put it away. So it's like, you have a hammer, you're not gonna use a hammer to screw,

screws into the wall and to plaster the walls. I mean, you could try, but it's a terrible tool to do all those things, right? Intensity, a lot of people, people are not successful. This is that, like, you know, like the commercial with the big red button, that you hit for everything. People use intensity for everything, hard, all the time,

and that's a terrible approach. You manipulate intensity and use it the right way, and then it works for you. Burnout is a real thing. I mean, you can overdo it. There is the right dose that applied, your body will respond to and adapt and take you further forward. Once you figure that out,

like how to manipulate the right amount of intensity for your programming. And so that's going to really set you apart. And it contradicts a lot of, from the athletic world, what's being pushed from a lot of coaches of showing up and giving like 110% in like no pain, no gain. Because at certain point, you understand that it's not benefiting

you, it's actually deterring you from progressing forward. Your strength is actually something that is a great indicator whether or not you're having success with your application or not. Well, it also contradicts some of the studies. Right before we got on the podcast, Sal is going back and forth with the doctor right now. And like one of the things I'm talking about cardio, the podcast, Sal is going back and forth with the doctor right now. One of the things I'm talking about cardio, we've been debating cardio lately. Of course, the doctor throws one study out that tries to prove his point.

This is one of the things that drove me crazy as a young trainer was, I was reading these studies. This is what drove my programming and my thinking is I'd read a study that's talked about the benefits of training to failure or intensity and like what that does for more muscle growth. And so my thought process is oh my god like I'm going to get more muscle the more intense that I train or training to failure is going to benefit me. So then I was applying every workout like that. But it's not that simple like we don't We don't live in this six week bubble of the

controlled environment. There's so many other factors with stress and sleep and diet and everything else that's going on in your life that you can't just take a study and say, oh, in this six week window when people do this, they see extra, this much more benefit from it. And that's one of the problems that I have with our spaces. There's a lot of these studies that are out there that are that were done either to support the cell of a supplement or support an idea before they even came into it. And so I was reading this stuff and thinking that this was the way to train. So this one took a long time for me to not only one learn that that was not good advice and wrong.

And then two, what you're saying, is, find that sweet spot. Like what, if it's not, I'm not supposed to train this way all the time, when do I train this way? And what is too much? Like this took a long time to figure out. Here's a hint, right? If you're a hardcore lifter, you've been working out for a long time. Do you come back from a layoff stronger? If you do, you were probably overplaying intensity, maybe volume as well. Studies show that those periods, those weeks where people de-load is when they start to see the biggest gains, right? So intensity is definitely important.

Intensity is essential for results when it comes to resistance training, but it must be applied appropriately and experience successful lifters understand that they know when to apply the intensity and when to back off the intensity. That's the important that's the thing that we're explaining here. It's not that intensity is not important hard in order to build maximal muscle. For what I mean by that, it's like, when you talk about the mechanic, you talk about the mailman, give that example, a mechanic is not wrenching with all his effort.

I mean, he just, he's frequently doing that every single day over. And he's building muscle. Over weeks. Yeah, weeks. And you've ever seen their forms and then seen how strong they are. If anybody's ever worked with their dad

who made me his hand collar. Yeah, I remember the first time that my dad does, my dad did construction and I remember the first time, you know, I hammered some nails with him for the day and it's like an hour in and I was just like, I needed to take a break because my forms were so pumped and on fire and he's just hammering away like it was no thing because and so he's built muscle and got strong and adapted over years of doing that.

And he did not have to apply crazy amounts of intensity. In other words, it all, when applied properly and appropriately, what contribute to your goals and intensity needs to be manipulated just like the other factors. Here's another one. Experience successful lifters aim to optimize efficiency. So what does that mean? Well, that means if two exercises does the benefit and the effects of five exercises,

they're gonna do the two exercises. That means if they can get a certain amount of results with a 45 minute workout, they're not gonna do a 60 minute workout or 90 minute workout, right? If they can get great results four days a week, six days a week, if it doesn't really derive them any additional benefit they're not going to do it. See a lot of people who are not in this category of

really successful lifters they don't necessarily understand that what they tend to do and I get this because I fall into this trap as well is rather than training for optimal results we tend to push to the limit and get away with what our body can tolerate. And there's a very big difference, right? Your body may be able to tolerate this level of intensity, volume, and training frequency, but the optimal amount is somewhere over here. That means all this extra work that you're doing is not only just wasting time, but probably taking away from your body's ability to adapt and progress. So really good, successful lifters, always thinking about optimizing efficiency. Am I doing the best in what's that saying you say?

I just said, this is my favorite one to communicate. And our goal is to do the least amount as possible to elicit the most amount of change. Right. And what it does, too, not only are you optimizing at the moment, but you're also setting yourself up to break plateaus in the future. Totally. If I'm doing the least amount to elicit the most amount of change, okay, that means I'm seeing change from doing the little bit I have to to your point, doing only two sets

to get the benefits that somebody may be doing five sets. What it sets me up for is eventually I can scale to three, to four, to five sets because I think come out the gates right away throwing the whole kitchen sink. And I think this is common. I think when people get motivated to get in the gym, whether it's to build muscle or to burn body fat or improve performance, they go from not doing anything to all of a sudden doing everything that they can or everything that they can tolerate. Like you said, and the truth is that's not what we should be doing.

We should actually be doing as little as we possibly can to could list it change. And if I'm seeing change week over week, I'm progressing. And that's, and when you're thinking about years and a lifetime of training, you want to set yourself up to where you're constantly seeing results and not that you get somewhere really quick and then you hit this hard plateau

that you can ever break. Well, and this is a tough one because as you're lifting over the years and you get better in a certain direction, you keep adding, right? And I keep adding more exercises and more of the same. And then you don't quite see that same type of progress to where this isn't even one of the points, but one of the things that I've noticed too is the ability to shift into a completely different phase or a different type of modality and having that kind of ability to step outside your comfort zone and be vulnerable again and be and suck at something to get good in order to benefit the whole.

So this is just something that does fall in line with this because we love, once we get good at something, we love it, right? And we just want to keep adding. And that doesn't necessarily always take you further. No, that's such a great point. And that does fall under this point because that is optimizing efficiency. At one point, no matter how good you start

and how perfect you program, eventually the body will adapt to whatever it is that you're currently doing. And it takes a lot, it takes somebody who is always trying to optimize to go, hey, you know what? I probably should switch this modality to something that maybe I don't like doing as much. I don't really care for the strong man lifts

and doing some of these old-timey stuff, but I know that I never do that and there's tremendous benefits for moving that way. Oh man, I know I'm not, I don't like doing the mobility stuff and I'm not, I don't like doing all the multi-plane shit or stability work that stuff's boring to me, but it's like I never do that. And if I want to continue to optimize

and see results and benefits, the best thing I can do is to move away from what I'm currently doing. No, that's true, because the mistake is that people think if some is good more is better, and that's not necessarily true. And also, by the way, this is true now, backed by studies and experience, that as you work out over years and years and years,

there's almost a, looks like a bell curve in terms of how your body responds to volume, frequency, and intensity. And yes, as you progress more volume, more frequency, and all that stuff gives you better results. But then at some point, it starts to drop off. I know this now, right? I can build more muscle now with less work. In fact, I'll build less muscle with more work now.

As I'm older and I've been doing this for a long time. Now, when I was younger, I had to do a little bit more to get the same kind of results. So, it's about that efficiency and optimizing it, and that's what makes a lot of these lifters successful, especially in the long term Here's another one and this is just this is such an important fact and my goal as a as a trainer When I became good at what I did was to really get my clients to love the journey I knew that if my clients love the process not the goal not the fat loss not the goal, not the fat loss, not the perfect body, not the looking good, not the big arms or the nice butt, but rather love the walking in the morning

and the resistance training twice a week and love the preparation of healthy food and eating fresh whole foods, right? If they love that, then the results were automatic. It was a side effect of this journey that they enjoyed. If you love walking, you'll walk five miles, 10 miles, 100 miles, it doesn't matter, you're gonna continue doing it. So, if you fall in love with the journey,

and this takes time, but if you put your mind there and make it happen, you're gonna get all the results, and you're gonna keep getting the results because the journey is what gets you there. I don't think this is a successful thing for lifting. I think this is a successful thing for life. Totally. I think that this idea of,

and we talked in the pursuit of success and money, this works the same way too. Like if you are hung up on the end result or the goal or the financial pinnacle that you're chasing, you'll find what happens to people that finally reach that, they're unhappy. And that's because they missed out on where, I mean, the great book, The Alchemist,

that's what this is all about. It's all about the journey and becoming present and enjoying what you're currently in, which is another reason why too, not only do we want to start because it's more beneficial with the least amount possible to the most amount of change, but it's also important for learning to,

like let's say you honestly don't like to work out. Because I've had clients at Adam, I don't like working out, I hate exercise, I don't. And but you're trying. I'm here, I want to make an effort. Well, one of the worst things you could do with a client or a person that has that attitude about already about working out

is to throw a ton of stuff out of them right away. It's like, let's start to make some little subtle changes in them and let's see if I can get them to start to like it. I mean, how many things have you guys not liked and then eventually after you kind of tried it a little bit or to implement it? Then you start to like it more, then you eventually start to love it.

The same process happens with becoming like this really good lifter is, maybe you didn't love lifting at first, but maybe part of the reason why you didn't was because you failed at it so miserably because you threw so much shit at it right away Instead, why don't you focus on a few things that and then and then not only focus on those few things But think about the things that it improves out in your life that not everybody talks about like the weight loss the Muscle building the butt the things like that but the improved energy the things like that, but the improved energy, the libido, the sleep, your attitude, your energy throughout the day. And even just so many other factors.

There's so many other factors. Yeah, and even just the process, just loving the process. Like right now, if you're watching this, like imagine if you just enjoyed the process of exercise and you enjoyed the process of eating healthy and enjoyed the process of taking care of yourself, right? It'll always happen because it's something you enjoy

and the process is ultimately, we get through there anyway. Well, it's at its point, this is like a life lesson. I mean, this is about growth and this is about, you know, and you see that, and this is why I love about fitness is because you see tangible results, you know, as you're in it. Yeah. And, you know, you don't always get that immediately, but, you know, as you're in it. And you don't always get that immediately,

but as you're going through hardships, as you're going through, you know that there's silver lining, there's lessons, there's things that you can extract and take throughout the entire process that you can focus on that aren't always negative, and there are things that provide you with knowledge and experience and ways to approach things differently coming forward. Yeah, now the next one is somewhat connected to this

and that is that successful lifters are disciplined, not motivated, okay, so big difference now. That doesn't mean they don't get motivated, but like all humans, they go through periods of motivation and unmotivation, but the thing that's different about them is that they're always consistent. Now, there is a difference between discipline and obsession, right? Obsession takes away from other aspects of your life. It decreases your quality of life. It's addictive, right? Discipline adds to the quality of your life. Discipline is like this with exercise. Right now I'm motivated, I'm hyped, I'm having hard workouts,

I'm hitting PRs, I'm having a good time, or right now I'm not feeling very good, I'm not very motivated, I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to take care of myself, make myself feel better, or I've had this terrible thing happen in my life, I'm going to go to the gym, give myself a little bit of space, give myself some time to be present, care for myself to keep myself healthy. So it becomes this tool that is molded and modified for everyday life. And you're just consistent because it's discipline.

Discipline says, I get up and I do this, regardless of how I feel, regardless of what's going on in my life. It's absolutely connected to the one before. The only way you're gonna learn all the other benefits or learn to love the journey is to first start with the discipline. And the first thing that comes to mind besides. That it's loving the discipline though.

Yeah, yeah. So what comes to mind was, I didn't start reading until I was in my mid-20s. Obviously, I read the basic stuff that I had to read through school, but I did it because I had to do it. And I hated it. It was miserable.

I was miserable reading. And when I would read as through school, but I did it because I had to do it. And I hated it. It was miserable. It was miserable reading. And when I would read as a kid, when I was in school, I'd be reading and I'd be like, I have to do this. And all I was connecting to was all the things that I didn't like about it. This was sucking up my time. I could be playing video games, I could be hanging out with my girlfriend, I could be playing basketball.

Like, I'm slow at reading. I hate doing this, I lose my train of thought. So I'm all I'm thinking about is this loop of all the things I don't like about it. And so when I got out of school, of course, I was not wanting to read. There's no reason for me to do it. I hated that, I'm out of school, I'm done,

I don't have to do it, I'm an adult now. Why would I wanna do that? And it wasn't until later on in my life that I see all the other benefits, but it started with a goal, it started with, okay, I'm gonna discipline myself and I'm gonna start not, and I believe back then I was like a book every three months, which is not that crazy, right?

So I was like, I'm just gonna chip away at a book every couple months. Now what it did was, it was hard at first. At first, I still had those same kind of thoughts, like, oh, I can be doing something, I'm still slow, oh, I don't like these things. But then I started to acquire knowledge and I started to see the benefits of that, so the benefits of my vocabulary, I saw the things that I was learning, I saw how it was benefiting my financially, how it was benefiting in my job, and then I started to attach that, and then I started to like the process, and then I started to speed up the amount, I started

doing more of it and more of it, and then I started to love it. The thinnest thing is the same thing. There's people that get into this and they don't like it, and all that's the loop that's playing in their head are all the negative things. Oh my God, it's so hard. It burns. I could be doing this instead. I could be doing that. And oh, I'm not seeing the results I want. I'm not good at this. And I didn't. My body still looks to say and they're attached to all the negative things. And you first have to discipline yourself to be consistent with something. And then you try to reframe that that self-talk that's happening.

And that's when you start to fall in love with a journey. So I think they go hand in hand. Yeah, I remember, I don't know if it was Jocco or was somebody else I heard talk about discipline as being the more disciplined you get, the more freedom it provides. And I always thought like, wow, I totally didn't think about that when I was younger.

I always thought that to be more disciplined means that you have to do a bunch of extra hard stuff and it takes you away from having all the fun and the freedom and being able to have all this space to myself when in fact, especially as you get older and you have more responsibilities, the more disciplined you get, the more space you create. And so this is something I had to learn the hard way by having a lot of chaos and always trying to put things out last minutes and that project's coming up. Oh my God, you know, I wait too long

because I'm not disciplined in the very beginning to accomplish it, which then alleviates a whole lot of stress, a whole lot of chaos in my life. So, you know, if you look at it on the other side of that, it really does provide, you know, more freedom and opportunity. Yeah, the unsuccessful lifter waits for the feelings of motivation. They wait for the inspiration.

Or rely on it. Yeah, and when it kicks in, oh, I'm ready to do this. Here we go. And then they're consistent. And they're, oh, this is awesome. And I feel great. And then that feeling fades. And what they're consistent and they're oh, this is awesome and I feel great and then that feeling fades and what they're left with is nothing if you're disciplined What you're left with is discipline, right?

If you love discipline, it's a skill and it's always with you if you fall in love with your feelings Well, good luck because feelings come and go and it's impossible to maintain that hyper motivated feeling You can't even do it with drugs so Discipline is what gets you consistent always and that's a skill that you can always even do it with drugs. So discipline is what gets you consistent always and that's the skill that you can always build upon. Now the next one, this is an important one because successful lifters are people that tend to not have career ending injuries or injuries that get them to the point where they can't work out anymore. And that is that they don't take unnecessary risks. That doesn't mean they don't take risks.

There's risks are inherent in any physical activity, including resistance training or exercise or running or cardio. It's always a risk, right? It's the unnecessary risks that they tend to avoid. So an experienced lifter who's been very successful will go into the gym and say, man, I know I could, I feel like I could PR, you know, a 450 pound squat, but they're like, but why? I think I'm gonna stick to my 300 pound squat, I'm gonna slow my tempo down, I'm gonna make it feel heavier,

because it's not necessary to go heavy for me to get the type of benefits and results I want. And so they avoid taking these unnecessary risks, and unnecessary literally means the risk that really aren't gonna produce any better results or success for you. So why do them? Now for me, this typically means not lifting as heavy as I possibly can. That's where the risks that those are the unnecessary risks that you should take as a kid, where I can lift more. Let me add more weight.

Now it's more about I can lift more. Let me slow my reps down or let me get a shorter rest period or let me see if I could pause this rep half way. That's how I'm going to make this feel more challenging. This to me is, successful lifters don't ego lift. Yeah. And it manifests as PRs a lot of time, but it could even be something as simple. We talked recently on an episode about why we don't train together.

I mean, we train in the same facility at the same time, but we actually don't work out together. And part of the reason why that is is, if Sal's deadlifting, and let's say today is a heavy five by five day for him, and I have no business doing heavy, I already came out of a five by five phase to that I'm working on hypertrophy,

but then we're lifting together. It doesn't even need to be trying to hit a PR. I just, because he's lifting heavy, I don't want to have to take, I don't want to have to go put down a 145 in Sal's pool in 500 or something, like I want to be able to show that I could lift almost as much or as much as he can. And so I'm going to keep that weight on there, right? So I think it's just not ego lifting, not allowing your ego to get in the way of your decision

on what is best for your body. And this one takes a long time. Like I still think that this is like wisdom. Yeah, I think that I'm constantly reminded of this because I still step out of this or make bad decisions and I'm quickly reminded of like, oh, that was stupid, I shouldn't have done that or I don't need to do that. And so I think really good lifters, you know, catch this. They have the self-awareness on this before they get themselves in that trouble where

they can hurt themselves. This one took me a while. Yeah, the competitive side of things sneaks in there and it is very tempting. It's the equivalent of your friend basically baiting you into a foot race and you just, and you haven't done any sprinting forever, but you wanna contest yourself and you're taking this unnecessary risk

to prove a point which then may set you back, you know, like substantially after that. And so I've done this many a time with lifts and really kind of testing it against other people. And you know, the experienced lifter and the wisdom, you know, I have now is really understanding where I'm at and what's gonna be benefiting my body the most and where I should stick and stay and allow,

you know, the occasional test to come in when I'm prepared for it. Yeah. When you work on this, it actually helps you build confidence because you're okay with lifting less or not as hard or not as fast, right? Because you're confident in yourself. You don't have anything to prove to anybody. So I'm going to do this the right way.

That's really what it's all about. That's why it's wisdom, right? It takes some experience. I was terrible at do this the right way. That's really what it's all about. That's why it's wisdom, right? It takes some experience. I was terrible at this for a long time. And it's still something I can struggle with. So what I tend to do is not put myself in situations, like you said, Adam, where my wisdom tends to get suppressed and my ego tends to grow.

So I don't work out with strong dudes. If I work out with other strong dudes, I know that my wisdom tends to go out the window and then my ego starts to inflate, right? So these are some of the tricks you could do for yourself, but experience lifters just don't do this. Like when I would manage gyms and the 50 something or 60 something or even 70 something year olds

were in there working out that really good experience lifters, I would watch them work out and they did not. There was no ego involved whatsoever. You're certain pro bodybuilders though. I think Dexter Jackson is a great example of this. He still looks incredible as 50-something-resolved. And that's how he works out.

Very, very smart. And pretty much injury-free is almost an entire career. Now, this next one is a very... This one is really, really characteristic of really successful experienced lifters. And that is if something hurts, they don't avoid it, they fix it. There's a big difference between successful lifters and everybody else when it comes

to this, right? Everybody else tends to avoid. Oh, I can't, I'm sorry, I can't bench press because it hurts my shoulder or, oh yeah, squats. Bathers my back, I can't do squats, or overhead presses, no, it's not good for my elbow or whatever. Whereas a successful lifter says, okay,

my shoulder hurts when I bench press, let me find out why, and let me fix it because I wanna be able to do this fundamental foundational human, exercise that is a part of human movement. I wanna be able to find out why my knee bothers me when I squat. We're made, our human bodies are designed to squat. If I can't squat because my knee hurts, it's not the squat.

Something going on with my body. Maybe it's my knee, maybe it's my hip or my ankle or my positioning or my stability. Let me figure this out and fix it so I can go back to doing my squat. This one goes really good with the previous one. So I don't even know if you ordered these intentionally like this, but they definitely go hand in hand because I feel like the same guy who ego lifts and elbows hurt, knees hurt,

shins hurt, all these things hurt. It's also the same dude who rolls into their workout. The next we're going to they got the the wraps, the straps and the wrist. Everything. Yeah, they got all the gear on and you're asking what's with all this. I'm like, oh, I've got bad elbows. I've got bad knees. I've been working out for 15 years.

I can still put 500. Right, exactly, but then they're still just ego lifting, right? And yeah, good, good experience lifters don't do this. They feel something slightly off. This is something that, again, taking years of experience and knowledge, I think, to figure this out, right? Where instantly, if I feel something off in my body,

if I feel a knot or tightness or something going on, one side of my body, instantly, I'm trying to troubleshoot and figure out, okay, what's going on? Or what did I do in my last lift that potentially could have caused this? Or maybe what was I doing yesterday? And what can I do in the gym today to address it? Like so my workout immediately gets modified so even if I'm running a math program I'm on foundational day too

But also and I've got you know elbow pain. I don't just go through the routine because that's what my routine is supposed to be today I'm now doing things to address the elbow pain I'm making sure that I'm doing mobility stuff to address probably my wrist and my shoulders before I go on that lift. Even if that means, I'm sacrificing one of my lifts that I normally would do in there because I know that is more important for the longevity of my training. Yeah, that means humility is a good word in there or just, you know, remaining somewhat humble because you'll have experiences where it will humble you, right?

Because you get the pain, you get signals from the body that, okay, this is overdoing, this is over stressing the joint, you know, the body's screaming at you at this point like we need to reinforce and to ignore that is definitely something that you'll see this a lot, especially with competitive weight lifters. Because at that point, we have to do it by all means necessary when in fact your successful lifters will then go directly towards the source and take the time to do the unsexy lifts and do the mobilizing and the strengthening of the joints to really support it and then it benefits the entire whole of the body.

Yeah, well look, let me put it this way. Imagine if you're normal and then all of a sudden you can't walk anymore because your hip hurt so bad. Do you just not walk anymore? Oh, I can't walk. My hip hurt so now I stop walking. Well, no, you're going to try to figure out why and fix that so you could do this fundamental human movement. I think the problem is because life has become so sedentary

that we no longer consider deadlifting, squatting, pressing and rowing fundamental human movements because we don't really do them anymore, right? We sit in a chair and we type on a keyboard. So if I never can squat again, I think well, what's the big deal? It's not a big deal. It is a big deal. These are fundamental human movements, and if you stop doing them, there's a lot of things you start to lose, and there's this cascading, there's a series of events that is cascading from that. If you stop squatting all of a sudden, well now you're losing the benefits of squats, and even if you strengthen the leg muscles with other exercises, you'll start to lose the ability to lunge, then to deadlift, and little by little,

you start to lose other abilities. So successful lifters, look at an issue and say, this hurts, I can't do this exercise. Let me figure out why, let me fix that, rather than let me just avoid that and do something completely different. All right, this next one has to do with nutrition. I think this is important because when we talk about nutrition,

about 90% of the people watching this right now are thinking about body composition or aesthetics. Oh, good diet, that makes you lean, makes you look good, makes your skin look good, that's all definitely true. But experienced successful lifters often look at food in terms of performance. Now, why is that a good thing? Well, here's why.

It's very hard to eat unhealthy and to simultaneously improve your performance. Now, you's very hard to eat unhealthy and to simultaneously improve your performance. Now, you might be able to eat unhealthy and just improve strength, but you'll definitely lose performance in other areas, right? When I say performance, I mean all of it. Your strength, your stamina, ability to recover, inflammation, pain. If you eat to feed those things, right? If you eat to solve those things or to avoid those things or to develop strength, stamina, to feel good, you're probably eating healthy versus if I'm eating it away to look a particular way, there's a lot of bad unhealthy things that can do that will give me the short-term aesthetic results, crash dieting, diet pills, starving myself, you know, those types of things.

So eating for performance is a really, really good strategy and you'll find successful lifters will often talk about food in that way. Well, this reminds me of the statement that you always love to say, which is the chase health and aesthetics will follow. I think that as you get older, you start to realize that, man, it's funny. The more I focus on just eating healthy and being healthy, I get all those other things that I was trying to pursue when I was younger.

I wanted this fit physique and I wanted to be able to maintain that, I want to feel good, I want to be strong, I want to be fast, I want to be able to stuff. And yet I'm always trying to hack it with some supplement or some protein shake or bar or latest thing that came out or hacked that. When it's like, you know what, if I just focus

on taking care of my body and feeding it correctly and giving it what it wants and it needs, it's amazing how those things follow. And I think we all go through that phase as an experienced lifters figure that out. How long it may take you, and I know it took me probably a decade to piece this all together.

But yeah, the more I just focus on being healthy, I get all those other things that I wanted anyways. Totally, this was one of my favorite strategies with the people who had body image issues or eating disorders is I would always work with their therapist and one of the things that, and I got this from therapist, they'd say, you know what, when it comes to their food,

have them focus on their performance, right? Have them focus on getting stronger, on feeling better, on having more stamina, because then they'll have to feed themselves properly. And so this is part of where this kind of comes from. So you'll see experienced lifters, they'll say things like, I'm gonna eat this weight,

because tomorrow I have a hard workout, or this is not, I mean, the afterwork says it helps me recover. Or I'm gonna avoid that, because it gives me inflammation, right? So this all feeds health, and performance is closely connected to health, even probably more so than even aesthetics.

Now, that's last one. I think is extremely important across the board for almost everything, but definitely for fitness. And that is that experienced successful lifters don't really compare themselves to other people, just to themselves. You versus you. They only compare themselves to themselves.

Now, you know, it's funny, before we start this podcast, Adam brings up this female lifting competitor, and she probably weighs 150 pounds. And maybe less than that. And he's laughing and he goes, dude, she squatted in this video, 405 pounds, 10 times.

Now nobody in this room can do that right now. None of the men in this room can do that right now. But also, I don't care. And I'm using it as an example because I could very well, you know, it could affect my ego and, oh, I'm a guy, I'm way over 200 pounds, I should be able to do more than that. I'm gonna go hurt myself or do all this crazy stuff

to accomplish that. But really the reality is, you don't know anything about other people aside from what you see on social media or what you see when you look at them. And it's also not a fair comparison. The only fair comparison you have, the only real fair comparison, apples to apples is you versus you.

Are you better than you were yesterday? If the answer is yes, you are doing phenomenal. And it doesn't matter how well or bad anybody around you has done. And it doesn't always have to translate right into, are you better than yesterday, how you look or are you better than yesterday, how much you live? Yeah, I'm glad you said that.

There's many aspects of improving yourself, that could be your relationship with your partner, that could be your sleep routine is getting better, that could be your energy, that could be your relationships with your friends and family, it could be many other things, that could be your growth as far as reading and educating yourself,

it doesn't always have to be, am I squatting more, am I did lifting more all the time, because that too can lead to the same type of behavior. So first off, shut off the Instagram and following all these people that you aspire to be like and quick comparing yourself to them, focus on yourself, and then also have some empathy.

You're not always going to make gains on your bench press and gains on your squat or your deadlift, but there's always room for you to grow and improve and beat the older version of yourself. And it doesn't always have to translate into weight. You can be bettering yourself in other aspects of life. Yeah, what do they say that comparison is the thief of joy? Totally. Right.

Because there's always going to be somebody out there that has whatever it is that you're aspiring to be, they're doing it better than you. But like to your point, there's like so many other factors involved that you're balancing, you're juggling all the time personally. And it's really just where you are personally now as comparison to where you were previous to that or, you know, what you're shooting and aspiring personally to achieve going forward. So if you just stick with that, you're going to be happy with your own personal progress and be a happier person overall.

Yeah, there's a lot of speculation as to, because we've seen anxiety, I mean, forget the last few years which have come to be kind of crazy, you know, and I'm presenended, but we've seen anxiety rising among the young people in America for a little while now, and they connected to this, that they are going on social media. They're seeing, you know, prettier people, happy looking people, people with more stuff and more money and better boyfriends and girlfriends and partners and cars. And you could have all this great stuff. You could have all kinds of great good things going for yourself, but when you start comparing

yourself, you feel bad. It makes you feel inadequate, sad. You don't have gratitude for what you have and what's around you. This is a big problem across the board, but it's a huge problem in the health and fitness space. I can't tell you many times, I had clients come to me and say, oh, you know, they were sad. And I said, well, you upset.

Well, you know, I lost seven pounds of body fat, but my friend lost 15. Like, you still lost seven pounds of body fat. Like, what does that have to do with you, right? Think that way, right? Compare yourself to yourself. Not anybody. It's okay to admire other people.

It's okay to give people accolades, but comparing yourself, boy is that a big trap. And don't fall into that trap. I'd say it's probably the biggest one in the fitness space. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out all of the guides that we have. We have so many guides and they can all help you with most of your fitness goals. You can also find all of us on Instagram. So Justin can be found at Mind Pump Justin. I'm at Mind Pump Sal and Adam is at Mind Pump Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,

check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal and I'm in Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get

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