Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2210: Best Workouts for Bulking & Cutting

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

The common understanding of a cutting vs. a bulking workout. (1:36) Addressing the myth that you must burn as many calories as possible if you’re trying to lose weight. (5:10) The REAL goal of bulking and cutting. (8:58) The difference between bulking and cutting. (12:23) Changing your programming for a novel stimulus. (14:01) The importance of hitting your protein targets with both options. (17:30) Why LOW reps are better for CUTTING, and HIGH reps are better for BULKING. (21:19) Why performing LOW volume is easier while CUTTING, and HIGH volume while BULKING. (26:34) What MAPS program is best for each option? (29:27) Special consideration when it comes to your psychology. (31:45) Related Links/Products Mentioned BLACK FRIDAY SPECIAL: ALL MAPS Fitness Products & Bundles 60% off!  **Promo code BLACKFRIDAY at checkout** (Code expires Sunday Nov. 26th) The CRAZIEST Black Friday/Cyber Monday deal EVER from NCI is here right now exclusively for Mind Pump listeners! From November 17-27th, claim this offer here ! Mind Pump #1915: How To Re-Ignite Your Metabolism Mind Pump #1297: 3 Ways To Know If Your Workout Is Not Right For You Mind Pump #1612: Everything You Need To Know About Sets, Reps & Rest Periods Mind Pump #1142: Nine Signs You Are Overtraining Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

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 most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump Right. Today's episode, we talk about the best workouts for bulking and the best workouts for cutting. You guys always ask us, how should I work out when I'm in a calorie surplus?

How should I work out when I'm in a calorie deficit? In this episode, we revealed to you the best ways to do so, and it's not what you think. In fact, many of you probably do the opposite. All right, today's episode, oh, real quick, Black Friday starts right now. So Black Friday, 60% off all maps programs, 60% off all bundles. We only do this once a year. You're going to want to take

advantage of this. By the way, you could reuse that discount code as much as you want. So if you're interested, you got to go to maps fitness products.com and then use the code Black Friday for the 60% off discount. Also this episode is brought to you by sponsor NCI. They have coaching programs for coaches. They teach you how to be effective, how to be successful, and they've really built a lot of coaches careers through their certification courses.

And they have a massive, massive Black Friday sale going on right now as well. So if you're interested in becoming a coach or simply becoming a better coach, go visit them. Go to nciminepump.com forward slash BF. Go check that out. All right, here comes the show. By now it's common knowledge that if you want to cut,

you got to eat less and if you want a bulk, you got to eat more. But what about workouts? What about lifting weights and training? What are the best ways to work out when you're trying to bulk versus when you're trying to cut? That's what we're gonna talk about in today's episode. We're gonna give you the answers by the time it's done.

Let's talk about lifting. I'm excited for you to be in the bulking. This episode because one, this is a bit nuanced, two, we always get asked this question a lot of ways. What program should I follow for a bulkhead? What program should I follow if I'm cutting? And it's not as simple as a follow this program for a cut, follow this program for a bulk.

And so hopefully we do a really good job of answering that question for all the listeners so we can refer to this episode going forward. Well, what's interesting is the information we're gonna present is gonna be counter to what I think a lot of people believe to be true. So let's start with the common understanding of a cutting workout versus a bulking workout.

Cutting workouts tend to be calorie burners, right? You tend to want to say where you hear high reps, supersets, giant sets, strip sets, short rest periods. That's the kind of workout you do when you cut. And then bulking is typically low reps, long rest periods, straight sets, right? You don't want a super set. You don't want to do too many exercises in a row.

The goal is basically to have a slow workout. And the theory is, well, the first option just burns more calories, makes you sweat. The other one, you know, you're trying to, I guess, conserve calories and push muscle growth as much as possible. So that is largely a myth. Yeah. All that is largely a myth. All that is largely a myth. Now, the truth is, when we get into rep ranges,

and we'll talk more about this, is that between one to like 25, so like between one rep to 25 rep, or so, they all build muscle. So they're all going to build muscle. One doesn't necessarily build better than the other. There's a lot of factors you have to take into account before you determine which one works best for building muscle. But the biggest one has to be novelty, I think.

Well, I think there's still this common thought that when you decide to go into a cut, let's say, you want to maximize your efforts 100% by burning as many calories as possible on top of that. And so you end up picking a lot of these type of workouts that are just basically like super intense lots of reps, like just out the sweat because the thought processes, I'm gonna probably burn more fat by doing it this way. When in fact, nobody brings up the conversation

of how can we preserve as much muscle as possible? This also highlights the importance of a following a structured program because when you start getting into all the nuances of how to maximize a bulk or how to maximize a cut, and if you're just kind of like throwing exercises and rep ranges and there's no rhyme or reason, this is really tough to do. This is really tough to go, okay, well, what would be considered a novel stimulus or what is different now that I'm in this cut or this bulk than how I kind of always follow routine. And so there's, there's, this is where there's lots of value to, okay, I've been trained

a very specific way with everything from rest periods to rep ranges to the type of movements I'm doing and then now I'm transitioning into this cutter bulk and now I'm doing this. Yeah, so let me set that up a little bit, right? So first let's address the, like I need to burn as many calories as possible if I'm trying to lose weight. And by the way, this makes sense on the surface, right?

If you want to lose weight or cut, you have to burn more calories than you take in or taking less calories than you burn. So it makes sense. So then I should move more, right? But here's the problem. When we know this now, aside from the health benefits of appropriate movement,

trying to simply burn more calories is a losing strategy. And the data is pretty clear on this. It's a very ineffective way of getting lean. Now, you'll get initial effect, probably the first three to five weeks. You'll see some positive effects from trying to burn more calories, but very quickly the body adapts and it either slows its metabolism down through pairing muscle down or this is an interesting one.

Subconsciously, and they now contract this, your body limits your movement the rest of the day. So actually find that when people burn more calories than the workouts, they burn less calories throughout the day. And it's just, you know, that's a, yeah. And it's really weird. It's like you're standing less, you're bouncing your knee less, you're less likely to get

up and go somewhere. Do you think that just because of the conservation of exhaustion and fatigue from the workout? You think that's the idea? That's part of it. But then when they'll control for like, okay, it's appropriate. It's literally the body is making you move less to try to conserve. I don't know if I've ever talked about this on the podcast. If I have, it's been a long time. My experience with CrossFit, one of the things that, and I'm talking to early days, way before it was popular. It was just in Santa Cruz.

Yeah, exactly. It was just in Santa Cruz. The boxes weren't pop. In fact, I remember we didn't even know what it was and you had to go online, you had to look up the workouts and stuff. And I had a couple of trainers that were doing it and it was starting to make its way around the fitness community. And of course, I did some of it. And one of the things when I was doing these workouts was, man, for the next, like, I had to lay down in my office floor for like two hours afterwards. And then the rest of the day, like I was so gasped. Yeah, I didn't want, I didn't move.

I wasn't my animated self. I wasn't going, walking around the pit. I wasn't going out on the floor. I was just like, I just, it felt like I needed to recover all day long. I've never really thought about that, like how much of a correlation there is between, you know, two intensive workout and driving that too much that it actually has an adverse effect on your neat throughout the rest of the day. I didn't know there was any research around that.

Yeah, there's a lot of data around that now. Oh, interesting. Yeah, really interesting, because that's an extreme example. You beat the gut off. Yeah, of course. But even more subtly, your body will just make you move less. And then, of course, the metabolism is very complex. And your body can become more or less efficient with calorie burn, thus making up the difference.

And there's lots of studies that show this, that the whole movement is good for health, but trying to move to lose weight without looking at diet and all that other stuff is a total losing battle. Well, I know we've pieced together in the past, like why I used to give the cue to my client that hey, when we leave the workout, you wanna feel you have more energy than you left.

Which is really counter to how we started the first decade of our career, right? Like, it was crush your client. They were wobbling out. They were exhausted versus now what I was looking for. My client would be like, yeah, I feel really good. I thought I could do more. Okay, cool.

Perfect. Let's save that. Yeah. And looking back now, I think it is. You started to piece together. One, when you hit that sweet spot, you weren't over-training to them to where they were just trying to recover

from how sore they were. And then two, they probably left the day and did more activity and stuff and turn helping their weight loss. Now here's the interesting thing is that you would think that cutting and bulking are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Like if there was a spectrum of goals, it would be bulking on one end, cutting on the

other end. But that's not really a good representation because here's a deal. The goal of bulking, the real goal of bulking, is to gain as much lean body mass as possible. I don't know too many people that bulk train a game body fat. I mean, maybe that's someone's goal, but generally speaking, when someone's trying to bulk what they're talking about is, I want to gain muscle, not train a game body fat

and train a game muscle. So as much lean muscle is possible, cutting is trying to lose as much body fat as possible while maintaining or keeping muscle. I don't know very many people who go on a cut to try to intentionally lose muscle. So the truth is cutting and bulking have one thing very strongly in common.

They have one thing in common. They both prioritize muscle. So the goal of cutting and bulking is actually very similar. They're both trying to prioritize muscle. One is just trying to pack on as much as possible. You always trying to keep it through this fat loss process. You know, that's part of the problem though, Sal is that

that is the way it's supposed to be, but it hasn't been delivered that way. Like cutting has always been this like, oh, you build all this muscle and then now, and you put on some body fat along the way. So, okay, now let's cut. And so it's like, cut the calories, do the cardio, do the high intensity workouts to try and slim down, not realizing that you aren't trying to prioritize muscle, and yet you should be because you're in a calorie deficit. That's right, because it's about the scale at that point, right? What does the scale say? Now, we've talked about this numerous times on the show.

And I think that the average consumer starting to become hip to this and that body composition is more important, right? Weight on the scale only tells you total mass. Doesn't tell you how much body fat you have or how much lean body mass you have. I mean, you could take a 200 pound, six foot male at 10% body fat, or a 200 pound, six foot male at 10% body fat or a 200 pound six foot male at 20% body fat,

they look radically different. I mean, dramatically different. The 200 pound 10% body fat male has a much smaller waist, much tighter physique, you know, obviously good shape, good definition, whereas a 20% is going to have a belly, isn't going to look the same, isn't going to perform the same. The same is true for women you could have a 100 and You know 40 pound female at 20% body fat or a 140 pound female at 30% body fat Both of them let's say five six and they look radically different Because it's about body composition not to mention of course more muscle is healthier It's functional meaning you you need it to move, so you move better.

It's a storage vessel for sugar in the form of glycogen, so it helps with insulin sensitivity, it helps balance out hormones, speeds up your metabolism, and then of course it just looks a lot better. So, it's really about body composition, so the goal with cutting should be get rid of the body fat. Not muscle. You get rid of muscle, you're slowing metabolism down, and oftentimes what happens is you end up

the same body fat percentage, just a smaller, weaker version of yourself. Like if you lose 10 pounds, half is muscle, half is fat, you're kind of in the same place you were before, you're just smaller with a slower metabolism. You might actually, in fact, probably in a worse place because you've just got rid of some really good protective tissue.

Here's the difference between bulking and cutting. And it's important to understand that this is really the difference. It's about the food intake, right? Mm-hmm. Bulking in order to gain as much lean body mass as possible, you want to be in a calorie surplus. You have to have additional calories that your body can use to turn into new muscle tissue.

Cutting, you have to be in what's called a calorie deficit. You have to eat less calories in your burn because your body tries to make up the difference by burning calories off itself by burning its body fat. So that's really the big difference between the two is that one is a bulk with calories surplus. The other, the cut is in a deficit. Other than that, there's no difference now

We're gonna talk about workouts and this is where it's gonna get really interesting because then people say well Okay, well then do the workouts matter at all Yes, they do but we have to look at the most important factor When we're looking at what's gonna build the most muscle and what's gonna preserve the most muscle. The same answer, by the way. Yeah, same answer. It looks almost identical and I'm glad you specify the difference between the two.

It is all nutritionally is what you got to consider the most when approaching. The training itself, again, is gonna look pretty similar when it comes to because you're trying to build muscle, it's the same process. Yeah, it's identical. If somebody came to me and they were wanting to go into a bulk, I would ask them what they

had been doing currently for their training program. And then the programming that I would change for them to put them in a bulk is the same thing if they came to me, told me about their programming and so they wanted to go into a cut. I would still change. Change the change. Yes, I would still make that change. Because what you're referring to is the novelty effect

of in the context of appropriate workout programming, meaning nothing too crazy or dangerous or stupid. Okay, so in the box of all appropriate workouts for your body, name one factor that will stimulate muscle, which means it'll protect muscle, keep it as well, or build it, one factor that's more important than novelty, right? There's none. These are the newbie gains.

So for anybody who's, you know, if you're watching, listening to this and you remember what it was like when you first started working out, you kind of built muscle and strength no matter what you did. Your workout probably wasn't even that good, but you went back, I mean, I remember what this was like as a kid. Every time I went back to workout,

I could add a rep or two reps to every exercise, every single time. That's from, that's, those are the new beings, but novelty will induce that as well. So, changing the workout into something different, you get a nice little boost of muscle building stimulus. And then I have experienced this so many times throughout my lifting career career going from low volume

to high volume to low volume to high rep to low rep to new exercises, each time switching, each time noticing new gains. And of course, each time falling for the trap of thinking, this is the way I should trade all the time. Well, we'll get into the difference of like, in terms of when you have more calories versus when you are restricting calories,

like energy balance there, like what types of workouts might be a little more suited, you know, and those different pursuits. I mean, they're definitely that novelty factor is a big factor. So whatever you haven't really done in a bit to kind of switch over, it's usually a good time to introduce that. So that way gives you that sort of opportunity for your muscle to respond. Well, and novel can be a bit new once too, right? Because there's a lot of things that you can do within the workout that make it somewhat novel,

right? So just by switching from a machine to free weights, could do that, or from a front squat to a back squat, personally, when I switch a client into a bulk or cut, I want to evaluate their training modality, the lifts they primarily do, the rep ranges that they're currently at. And I actually want to look at the other end of the spectrum, like something that's really unique compared to that.

I like to go really novel, right? Because one might go like, oh, well, I've been doing, you know, the, the, the barbell back squad. And what I'm doing wrote press down is not my do straight work press down. Yeah, right. They'll, and so they'll, they'll do something that is really in the same vein and, or they may even

keep the same rep ranges that they're, they're curly and, like, I want to shake it up completely. And I'll use maps as examples that's most people in here understand mouse programs But if I had someone who's following like a map's anabolic program then taking them to something like a performance or like a map strong or a Mapzo CR something that's a really power lift the symmetry right right? Yeah, you're powerlifting You're a power lifter so you fall that protocol so then yeah, I take you do a symmetry or a map split type of a program It's it's,

it's so different. The exercise selection is different the way the, the muscles are being organized and hit are different. Like everything about it, there's enough to be like tons of novel stimulus. In addition to this new diet that we're about to go on is either one going to preserve as much muscles we possibly can because you're sitting a signal to build more muscle or if you're in a bulk it's going to add more muscle because it's a new stimulus. That's right. By the way, with the diet, I mean, I know we've talked about this before, you still want to hear protein targets with both options.

So one is low calorie, one is high calorie, hit your target body weight and protein with both of them. Would you make an argument that it's more crucial on one than the other? Cutting. Yeah. It's more important to hit protein on a cut because you're constantly fighting, being catabolic. In the studies on this, so here's what's interesting. Study on, studies on bulking.

If the calories are the same, one is like you hit your body weight in protein. The other one is less than that, maybe not too much less, but less than that. The difference in muscle growth really, there's not big of a difference. There's some way of a difference you can argue, maybe, but it's not a huge difference. Cutting big difference. You get two same calorie diets, both a deficit, one is high protein, one is not high protein. The high protein loses more body fat and keeps more muscle. It's significant.

So with the cut, in fact, with cutting, I know this isn't a diet episode, but with cutting, I would make my clients try to hit more than their target body weight and protein because I knew they would miss some time. That's right. And they were more likely to hit those numbers. Yeah, so, I mean, you were probably, Adam, when That's right. And they were more likely to hit those numbers. Yeah.

So, I mean, you were probably, Adam, when you competed, I bet you were more anal about protein in your cut. I actually didn't even have to track in a bulk because I was so over consistently. So like, when I was bulking, when you're eating 4500 plus calories, I mean, I hit 200 something. Yes, right. I hit 200 by almost default, right?

Like especially since I was doing most of that and really clean whole foods, right? So I'm definitely hitting my protein intake. When I was cutting, yeah, especially as, I mean, you take a guy like so at the peak bulk, I would be hitting 5,000 calories. The lowest of low cuts, I was hitting 2,200 or so calories. That's a big drop.

So as I started to get lower and lower in those calories, I really had a prioritize protein. So it became important that I tracked everything because I was like, oh, I could easily, with only eating 2,200 calories, it could miss. And I think that's what it is. I think what people go, oh, I eat enough protein because every meal has it and they're used to

being in like a surplus. Then they go to a cut and it's like you're cutting your calories back. If you're not really focusing on hitting that target real easily, can you start to miss that? Then you're already in a catabolic state. That's right. And then back to the workout, what you want to do with both, remember, both of them have this in common, prioritizing muscle. You want to use the very powerful novelty signal

to induce that change, which means the workout's gonna be different. I remember some of the biggest ones for me when I first started working out, where I noticed this where I went from a typical bodybuilding style workout. It's how I first started working out when I was a kid. So it was high volume, tons of sets per body part.

Got great gains in the beginning. Of course, plateaued real hard. Then I went to this like, go to failure, one or two sets per body part, super less volume, lower volume, and my body just responded. I had another experience like that later when I was reading Flex Magazine, there was a bodybuilder in there. He talked about how he always did 15 to 20 reps. And at the time, it was said that low reps

is what built the most muscle. So I was always six reps, six eight reps. Well, this bodybuilder looked impressive. So of course, I do what he said. And I got these great gains right out the gates. I mean, it was incredible. And then of course that plateau, and that's a lesson that I had to keep learning. But each time it was about that novel stimulus. So whatever you're doing now, you wanna go and do something different when you switch gears to maximize that novelty effect.

Now that being said, okay. There are strategies here. There are, with that, all things being equal, low reps and high reps do work better for one of those goals. In other words, cutting and bulking, low reps and high reps tends to work better for one or the other, and it's not what you think. A lot of people think it's the high reps with cutting because it burns more calories, and low reps with bulking because

You're lifting heavier and you're stronger now. I get that psychologically so psychologically. I don't want to discount this Mentally speaking it is hard to go low reps when you're cutting because you're gonna see yourself get weaker Just this you're just yeah, you just your weights go down it could mess with your head So if you can't get around that then forget forget what I'm about to say. It's an ego check. Yeah. But if you can get around that, and you can organize your workouts so that the novelty, you can get, you can make the workout novel, and you can choose one or the other. Low reps are better for cutting. High reps are better for bulking. So I experienced both of these during the time that I was competing. And I played with both.

And I actually would say that when I was competing and I was measuring and tracking and even calorie burn, I was tracking steps, everything like an extra, you know, 20 calories or 30 calories that I could burn would help me in my pursuit because I was tracking everything. So I felt that the in the competitive world, it was equal to me as far as what I thought was better. In the real world where I'm not measuring and tracking every burn, every other thing, I find this strategy that you find to be way more successful. So when you're as meticulous as I was for competing, I could go either way on this.

You make up the difference. Yeah, that's right. So I could go either way. But in the real world where I'm like, I'm not tracking pain attention to it, I find it easier to just focus on lifting heavy and low reps mainly because when you're in like a phase three of Maps aesthetic and you've been in a caloric deficit for three, four weeks, it is tough to be super setting and short rest periods and that much volume. It's exhausting. And so one of the perks of doing like a maps and a ball

say phase one in a cut is yeah, okay, I'm not going to be a strong I'm not hitting PRs, but I don't really give a shit about that anyways. nice part is I get long-respirates Get long-respirates and then even when I have to go I only got to go for five to six reps I found that much easier to like get up for those five to six reps And then I get to relax and give myself that breather in between I found it easier on a cut to maintain the muscle than I did on the super. Less calories literally means less energy. And that also means less resources for recovery.

High reps, high rep workouts, when you're looking at 15 reps or 20 reps even, or higher volume. Now people don't understand this, because they'll say, well, I'm doing the same amount of sets. Well, look, three sets of five reps with 200 pounds is lower volume than three sets of 15 reps with a, you know, 100 pounds or 150 pounds. Even though it's less weight, because you're doing so many reps, the volume is much higher. And it's harder to recover from. It's a fact. Go do one set of two reps in a squat. Then go do one set of two reps in a squat

Then go do one set of 40 reps of squat. Tell me which one. Yeah, it's harder to recover from So when your calories are low The the consideration that I found to be best was my calories are low I'm more likely to Over-train more likely than I have enough energy more likely to get sick all that stuff I'm gonna take I'm going to drop the volume. I'm going to drop the reps and that's going to allow my body to recover better, feel better, and deal with the lower calories.

And in fact, this was totally true. The leanest that I could ever get when I was able to, when I was doing this right, man, my reps were like three to five. And I felt amazing. In the past, I always thought it was high rep supersets for cutting. And when I would do that, I would find myself just burnt out or I'd get sick

and it just didn't work. No, I think it's important for the audience to understand that there is a order of operation here or what is, takes a higher priority. Meaning if you just came out of a high, our low rep phase and then you're deciding to go in a cut, a novel stimulus will trump what we're saying right now.

So then if you could plan it out. That's right. So that's why you gotta know that, right? So it's, so because what some people will take is like, oh wow, I'm about to start a cut. Then I guess the guys think I should do low rep. But if you've been doing low rep, say for the last, you know, four or five, six weeks, it's not that novel.

Exactly. Then going to higher, higher rep, being a novel stimulus, trumps what we're saying right now. So the perfect world, if you want to test that out, then you stay in a calorie maintenance or surplus while you're doing higher rep, and then you transition into the, the cut, and then you also transition into the low wrap. But if you've already been there, then again, the transitioning to the other rep range, because it's more of a novel stimulus, well, Trump what we're saying.

Same thing with total volume in terms of sets and frequency. Like when you're adding more workload to your body, it, and think about this, it makes sense. I know that people, again, they're stuck on the calorie burn model here, but let's just forget that for a second, and remember that that's actually a waste of time to try and even do that to get leaner through calorie burn. Let's forget that for a second.

Consider that the amount of energy you have to perform a workout, the amount of energy that have to perform a workout, the amount of energy that you have to recover from, and adapt to a workout is higher when your calories are higher. What does that mean? That means I can get away with more. Okay, in extreme cases, when you look at like high,

high level athletes who train ridiculous amounts of time. Sportswear, perfect technique and form are crucial, like swimming at the Olympic level. If you look at like competitive swimmers, swimming is so technical, like one slight deviation in technique will make you lose because you're in the water, right? So there's a lot of things working against your body. Look at Michael Phelps, for example. He was training for hours and hours and hours a day. I think I was eating so many calories all day long

so that he could perform. If you were working out that much and you cut your calories, you're dead, right? So bulking, just the essence of bulking is extra nutrients, extra calories, extra carbs, fats, you know, more energy. This is when higher volume, higher frequency, harder workouts make sense.

Not when you're cutting. When you're cutting, you're already putting yourself at a stress, you're already less, not only are you low nutrients in terms of macro nutrients, you also low micronutrients. So that's a stress. But now you're also trying to work out. And what a lot of people do is work out harder when they're trying to cut because they think to themselves I'm burning calories.

It's no wonder people get ill often when they're doing a cut and they're working out this way or they burn themselves out. So again, you know, I'm glad you made that point at them. Novelty trumps everything that we're talking about. But if you could plan it out to where you're like, okay, I'm going to cut in the summer, we're in the winter now. Plan it out so that the novel stimulus by the time you're ready to cut is a low rep, low volume style of training,

and your cut will be so much more successful. Same thing with the bulk. Plan the novel bulk work out to be the one that. Same thing with the bulk. Plan the novel bulk work out to be the one that's the hardest with the most volume because you have the most nutrients. You know that the saying that I hate right the most such thing is over-training just under-eating. The reason why I hate it so much is because it's false but also because there's a kernel of truth in it. You are more likely to over-training your calories below and you are less likely to over-training when your calories are high. So that's why it's the opposite.

So taking it back to like a map Santa Ballock or I mean maps programming in general, I would love to see someone bulk. And I've done this and I think it's great is to bulk in like a map-sustetic phase three. Yeah. And then transition to a map Santa Ballock phase one in the cut.

I think that right there. Well, here's what's beautiful about our MAPS program. So if you follow our MAPS programs, we lay them out in a particular order, but here's a little secret. The order in some of them doesn't matter necessarily. And some of them does. Some of them does it.

The original, like if you go like MAPS Santa Ballock, MAPS aesthetic split, I think is like this. You can switch the order. So in other words, if it's novel for you to go high, you know, high rap short rest periods, start maps and a ball, like phase three, go to phase two and then phase one. Yeah. I only, I'll talk my head. I would say performance and power left to the two.

More linear, right? Yes. Or like the only two that would probably be disrupted if you went reverse in it. Yeah, it did give it a totally different experience. I know like strong, we sort of flipped it on its head a bit and start out with like high volume. Yeah, but even that, you could go the other opposite direction.

You could flip that. Yeah, and it'd be okay. I can only, for sure power left, you don't want to do reverse. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no I can only, for sure, power lift, you don't want to do reverse, because you need skills. No, it's very pragmatic and specific. So power lift, you wouldn't want to jump around. For sure, maps in a ball, for sure, you can flip. Yeah, and aesthetic. You could easily do aesthetic that way.

I would make the case for split that way. Most of programs you could run, you could run, I've recommended that way. I've recommended to people. In fact, after Katrina's pregnancy, when she first did starter, when I took her to people in fact, after Katrina's pregnancy, when she first did starter, when I took her to Annabalak, I actually started her in phase three. And the logic behind that was, she only did like, I don't remember, like four to six weeks

of starter after back praising, she started to feel really good. And then what I wanted her, she wanted to get back into Annabalak. I said, okay, you can run in a ball, but I don't want you to run in a Balk, but I don't want you to do it at a phase one, because I don't want you to risk pushing the weight too much. So putting her in a phase three forced her higher rep so she wouldn't be loading the bar that much. I just wanted her core to get all of her strength back before she risked a heavy weight like that.

So I've definitely even recommended going in, you know, depending on the situation of running that program backwards. Now, special consideration is your, the psychological aspect of workouts. The hardest thing for people when they're cutting, for example, is to watch the weight on the bar go down. So this is a case for going higher reps because when you're higher reps, short rest periods, you're going to go lighter anyway. No matter what, you're going to go much lighter.

You're already reducing. So if that's you, if you're that guy or girl where you're like, periods, you're gonna go lighter anyway. No matter what, you're gonna go much lighter. You're already reducing. So if that's you, if you're that guy or girl, or you're like, oh, you know, I wanna do the low reps, but I've what, 15 pounds down, and that's gonna cause you to do stupid stuff. Yeah. Then maybe, you know, the psychology always trumps all the other stuff, by the way,

that the mental, you know, what works for you mentally is what's gonna work for your period end of story. So that's one thing to pay attention to is, is this gonna mess with my head? It used to mess with my head. I've been doing this so long now, I'm okay with going lighter on heavy days and all that stuff. But when I was a kid, if I saw the way go down a little bit,

I just got out of the cut, but I would do it. That's why I used to do like unilateral training. And I know we've actually like talked to some callers that called in to do the same. It's an opportunity for you to kind of do something you would never do otherwise. And in that situation you're going to be moving lighter weight anyway. So and you'll be focused on building muscle but just in a unilateral fashion. So there's ways that you can kind of deal with that fact that like if your

ego is kind of getting in the way of it, we can kind of figure out a different plan. Well, now you guys are highlighting why we've never answered this question. That's right. Because we've now said two things, both novelty and cycles, it's contradicting. And yeah, right? And the psychology trumps what we're saying as well as rep ranges volume and so that and that's true. And so therefore, there's always an exception to the rule to literally everything we're saying right now. Because the most ideal plan in my mind might be, oh, we're going to Balkan phase three of maps aesthetic and then we're going to go to a cut and maps in a blog phase one. But if you weren't, you were doing the opposite of that heading into that, that wouldn't be true

because it would no longer be novel. And I wouldn't want you doing the same thing when I transition, or two, if that psychologically fucks with you so much, it discourages you that you don't wanna do the workout or follow the diet because you're getting weaker, then now as a coach and a trainer, I adjust that. This is why we never have specifically said,

and this is also why if you ever get marketed to that this program's for cutting and this program's bullshit, because it's not taking, it's not taking an account, the individual on what are they currently doing right now because that matters more. And then to psychologically, how does that way of training affect that person positively or

negatively? Because as a coach and a trainer, I'm actually going to factor those two things in first. And then from there, I'm going to adjust the other. Well, I think the most important thing to take away is the following. Strength training is always about building muscle, always, whether you're trying to lose weight, whether you're trying to gain weight, get strong, whatever. Strength training is about building muscle. Why? Because if you're trying to bulk, obviously you want to gain muscle, if you're trying to cut, you want to keep muscle. And what keeps the muscle is what's going to build it. So the goal should be to do the workout that's the best muscle

building workout, whether you're cutting or bulking. Look the goal should be to do the workout that's the best muscle building workout, whether you're cutting or bulking. Look, if you like the show, head over to MindPumpFree.com and check out some of our free fitness guides. We have quite a few of them there and they can help you with almost any help, health or fitness goal.

You can also find all of us on Instagram. Justin is at MindPump Justin. I'm at MindPump to Stefano and Adam. Is that MindPump Adam? Thank you for listening to MindPump. 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.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps for 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 Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price.

The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump. Nobody goes on vacation for the moments that are just... Okay.

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