Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 249: Getting Enough Protein, Benefits & Detriments Of Cardio, Muscle Growth Killers & MORE

Episode Date: March 4, 2016

Sal, Adam & Justin offer up the second Quah of the week! They answer Pump Head questions about eating 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, short-term benefits and long-term detriments of cardio, the prevalence of sick fitness people, cardio leading up to a fitness show & the biggest things that stop muscle growth dead in its tracks. Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Learn more about Mind Pump at www.mindpumpmedia.com

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, please only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Up into the man in the mirror. There it is. Oh yeah. That's tough to have to try and do Michael Jackson.

That's not my favorite, bro. You know what? It's not good, yeah. I was gonna say like, disturb, good to see you. Yeah. Yeah. So I tried one time in karaoke and that was a horrible mistake. Yeah.

So I have a, I have a story I should tell you guys. Slightly embarrassing. Oh, good. Do tell. You guys know how I'm very open about, don't fill it in. You're such a long story. See, there you go. I'll do your bottom hole.

No, I don't know. No, I'm very open with, because I wear European underwear, bro, because that's why I was raised. I was raised wearing the bikini Speedo style underwear. Just, I feel comfortable that way. I feel like I can move. I feel like I can jump.

I feel fast. I can do karate in it. Are you gonna tell the story about you getting snow? You're underwear mixed up in our laundry and my girl trying to wear your underwear? No. Did I fast. I can do karate. Are you going to tell the story about you getting your underwear mixed up in our laundry and my girl trying to wear your underwear? No. Did I really? Yeah, she did.

She did. She did. She's extremely comfortable. She's on the cross. That says everything. I said, honey, where did you get the grapes all over your panties? She was confused. That's because it felt like it was, I don't know, a fit.

So check this out. So the conversation came up in the gym the other day because that's what we talked about in the gym about people's underwears. And I'm like, oh, I wear freaking European style. Is this with your client or with another trainer? It was the whole gym, we'll talk about. Oh, yeah, trust me, my gym, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, yeah, it's great. So everybody's talking about it's having a good time. Everyone's laughing at me. And I don't care. My client, good, great guy.

Love him to death. You know, gay dude. Love him death. Awesome dude. He's like, I wear those kind of underwear too. So of course, you know, people, like, so you guys did a high five. So he goes, he goes, Hey, he goes, I just ordered a bunch

of underwear from Greece. He goes and they sent me the wrong size. Cause he's smaller than I am. He's all, I have like, like three pairs that you want them. They're brand new. So I'm am. He's all, I have like three pairs like you want them, they're brand new. So I'm like, oh yeah, I don't get fuck reading whatever. Yeah, they're satin.

So he brought them, he brought them. And they're worn already. No, they're not. I smelled just a chute. It smells kind of like chute. So why are these faded? Why are these faded? Chote.

So he brings it in, many gives it to me. And they're just a notch, another notch from the kind that I wear. They're like a leather level. Like the thread counts like higher. They're nice, they're nice bro. But they're definitely more European. We'll just leave it up.

Okay, okay, very good. So was that you being politically correct? They're just comfortable, I'm're just they're comfortable. I'm wearing them right now. You're you got a G string on. No, you're trying to admit that. I don't like that. I don't like things in between my butt sheets. But they feel they feel good. Tell us tell us. Yeah, I'm interested in what more European means since you're trying to be look at you need a draw that you need to draw it for us. They're draw it up. They're cut, they're a little smaller cut on the sides.

And the color's a little more vibrant. And it's got like a, it's just, you know, I could show you a picture. I take a picture if you guys want to see. No, that's okay. You guys want to see a picture? No, I don't think it's between you and your guy. It's fine.

It's between you and your guy. Does that threaten you if I show a picture? Not at all, though. I mean, not at all. Because you know I walk around like that. So this weekend when we go up to our retreat number two to pump out more. Did you get confirmation that they fit you right?

I got them on right now, bro. No, I mean, like, did you get confirmation, though? What do you mean? Like, from somebody. Oh, have someone else? No, I know an underwear feel right. I know right away. That's good.

You know when you put them on, you're like, oh yeah. How do your glutes look? Just don't get tricked. How do your glutes look at them? They look good. Yeah. I've got good glutes. Yeah. Actually, the matter of fact in high school, that was my nickname. Good glutes. Good glutes out. That's what they call me. Yeah. Good glutes. Speaking of glutes, have you guys seen that new, that's not a new product. It's been around for a while. And this guy's making fucking millions of dollars. I'm so angry that I didn't come up with this.

Have you guys seen the Squatty Potty? The Squatty Potty? The Squatty Potty? What is that? I read the book, everybody pooses it. Is it like a booster seat or is it the foot thing? It's the foot thing. Oh yeah, I've seen that.

So here's the deal, right? Rotate your pelvic, right? So I saw the commercial for it. Pelvis. And so I know the science behind why it works, because I So I saw the commercial for it. And so, right. And so I know the science behind why it works because I understand muscles of the body, including all the muscles around the butt.

So when you're in an anterior pelvic tilt, that's when you stick your butt out. It closes off the canal that your poop would travel through and it makes it harder to poop. And so you wanna be in what's called a posterior problem that you can open to. You wanna, which nobody is when they can see the position.

Right, so, and then, and if you go to third world countries, like people sit on their hunches, like they squat down on their feet, and that's how they go to the bathroom. You ever bend up, you have it, but if you go to a bathroom and put your foot in the shower at 24 hours, fuckers. If you go into, if you go to some of these bathrooms,

you'll see that there's just a hole in the ground, there's two feet print, you're supposed to stand on these things and squat down. And that naturally puts you in that posture pelvic tilt. And so these people have less problems. Anyway, I saw this fucking potty, squatty potty, which is basically a foot story, put your feet on when you sit on the toilet,

and it mimics that position. And I know it works because that's how the human body works. I'm just angry, I didn't come up with that invention. The dude's making millions of dollars. Well, you're thinking about, I know everybody right now too is in their envision are they're like, oh my God, that makes so much sense. That's the reason why when I'm concentrated, I get up on my tippy toes and I lean forward on the toilet.

It's not why sure that think about it. Think about it. Think about it. I think I do what you do. You're about a hard one coming out. What do you do? This naturally comb, I comb my friends. I make a lot of crazy faces.

You definitely don't lean back. I start praying. You don't lean back anymore. That's when I get religious. You got it. Please, please. Help me this one time. This one's where I'll go to church. Hold my legs. Have you ever got a stomach cramp in the middle? Is it like that? Oh, well, when I'm getting, when I'm cutting. In the middle of it. Oh, yeah. Why is that weird to you? Isn't that supposed to be a tie?

Would you get a stomach cramp? What do you mean like a muscle cramp? Yes, a muscle. Oh no. Yeah. Oh, I've had some bad ones where I've locked up. Especially when I'm getting ready for a show and I'm all locked up and tied and dehydrated.

Oh, bro, it's locked up. Oh yeah, no. I've had to call my girl in the fetal position on the toilet. That's the thing. Get in the hammer on time. I need to help over here. If Adam ever does porn, that's the fetal position on the toilet. That's the thing. Get on the hammer on time. I need some help over here. If Adam ever does porn, that's the name of the porn locked up.

Locked up. Locked up. All locked up. I need some help. Oh, you know what? What? Open channel. Do you know Justin?

I'm gonna wait this time. Yeah, I heard a while turkeys this morning. Did you? Yeah. But it sounded like you? It sounded like, but it wasn't like this. It was like, it was like, it was like, quack!

You know what I mean? So. Do that turkey sound again? That's pretty good, dude. That's just a lot of tongue movement. You are pretty good with random sounds like that. Yeah. Is there any other random sounds you can show us? You know my favorite guy ever was that guy from police academy?

Oh, yeah. He made a living off of that man. Yeah. He had commercials and all kinds of stuff. Do you guys ever watch Spaceballs? I love it. Yeah. There was one scene where he's in Spaceballs. He's a, we get the blitz.

The blitz. The creeps. Yeah. Anyway, bring on the quad. Qua! Bring on the quaw. Motherfucking quaw, time. First quaw from S Powers 3 is one gram of protein per one pound of body weight appropriate

because this person is having a hard time with that. So, no, it is not appropriate nor is it necessary to maximize progress in the gym. In fact, the vast majority of studies done on protein intake and muscle building and muscle adaptation shows an upper limit of benefit. Now, let me be clear, upper limit meaning you may get extra benefit from this, but many people won't even from this amount. And the number they come up with consistently is between 0.6 and 0.8 grams

of protein per pound of body weight. So that one gram is actually over that. And then of course, the one and a half and two grams that the supplement companies and the PhDs that are actually more on promote, I'm not going to say names here. But there are doctors. Is because it sells more of their products. But in reality is is if you're trying to eat one gram Two grams of protein per pound of body weight through real food It's fucking hard and just you know, we were just speaking about being locked up earlier You know, so a lot of people can't do that because then they have you know Plaster a parasite there, but now I want to come back over this though and and not

Not debate what you're saying, but I wouldn't be wise. No, it wouldn't be wise because I agree with you. I agree. I know 100% that is the science and that is the RDA. Now, I really feel like there's two extremes of types of people. This is just in my experience of all the thousands of people that I've trained that have that were tracking their food. And I have one camp of people.

And more often than that, it's my, my women that have, you know, stayed away from, you know, fats or other kind of animal meats, things like that. That struggle with this one-to-one ratio, one-gram of protein per pound of body weight. And then I have the other extreme of my competitors and, you know, bikini athletes and men's physique and bodybuilder guys that I train that are, you know, two, three grams, sometimes even more of protein. So I really feel like the place is somewhere in the middle there, not in the middle, but I mean like from three and point six,

because Sal's right, you don't need more than that. But somebody who has a really hard time even getting one gram and you give them you okay that you don't need one gram, you only need really technically point six to point eight ranges, what you need, propound a body weight, kind of gives that person the okay, that oh okay, then I don't really need to focus on it so much. So I really push my ladies that have a hard time

to try and get the one to one. Now when they fall short of it, you know, and they get point seven, I'm stoked. I, in my head as a coach and I'm going like, that's what I want you to do, you know, and I'm not worried because I'm going to take into consideration. The, the body doesn't work on a 24 hour clock. So maybe you, uh, you get one gram, you did a great job and you got one, one to one that day and more than likely if you're someone who struggles that the next day, you're probably only going to 0.5 to 0.6

and it's all gonna average out about where you should be. So I think it's a good target to give somebody one to one. But you don't want, you don't want to feel like you failed because you're, you fall a little short of that because you don't necessarily. No, and what I mean by upper limit is the upper limit, and these are in terms of like nitrogen balance and other types of things.

When you look at just progress, like how well do these athletes perform and get stronger, then the range is even smaller. You've got athletes that are vegan, who we, you know, point three point four, who perform perfectly fine, is one gram of protein per pound of body weight unhealthy? No, it's not going to, it's not going to be detrimental to you. But when you get into two grams or more, is it unhealthy? I would place my money on, yes, I would place my money that in long, long term, you're probably going to ask for some long term issues in terms of everything from kidneys, how they filter

that out to you might be lacking other things in your food because you're always eating so much protein to potentially, and I'm not saying that this is the case. Yeah, we don't know that yet. We don't know, we believe that we're gonna find more. We are, but potentially speaking, a lot of protein, maybe, okay, it's not conclusive, but it may be connected to a higher risk of cancer. So, we'll see.

But again, for those of you aiming for more than one gram of protein per pound of body weight, you're probably having to take two shakes a day a bar. Like that can't be good, you know what I mean? If you can't get it from food, that would be a good one. That's the inherent issue, really. Well, I definitely don't think that's ideal.

Yeah, if you're at, I look at my day, right, and let's say I'm, you know, for me, I'm 220 pound guy. And so in my head, I'm always going for 220 grams. A lot of times I fall between 170 and 190. I'm not going to go make myself a shake because I'm at 170 or 190, and I'm not making my one to one. And so I go make a shake to try and get there, which is the mentality of a lot of people that have a hard time hitting their one to one. Now, if I catch myself doing that back to back to back to back days where I'm following, I'm falling short, then I might bump that up, but you got to pay attention to that. And I think that's where when we answer a question like this, I'm really careful about

who I'm talking to because it's really different for so many people. A lot of clients I've trained, the women are severely under-eating protein. They're not even getting 50% of the intake that they should be getting on a regular basis. So that person, I'm really trying to push them and motivate them to head in the direction of one to one. And then when I have the other extreme,

I'm trying to get them to come down, like, hey, I know you've been tattooed in your brain by all these supplement companies that you need to have 1.5 to three grams of protein. That is such a fallacy. I want you to get rid of that. Why don't we enjoy some other calories in your fats and maybe some carbs, if you like. They have benefits too.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Here's what the fitness industry does. And in particular, the muscle building industry, but the fitness industry does this. It'll take something like calcium builds your body uses calcium to build bones, okay? So they'll go to the next conclusion, which is oh take a lot of calcium you'll get stronger bones No, doesn't fucking work that way in fact now they're showing that just taking calcium

indiscriminately like that is actually bad for you. They say we know that protein is used, the amino acids from protein are used to repair, rebuild, and build muscle. Oh great, either shit ton of protein will build more muscle. No, no, no. Number one, you have to have this signal. Even when it comes to bone, we just talked about bone. If the bone, if the body has a signal to strengthen bone, then it doesn't need much calcium to do that.

You don't need to take a shit ton extra. If your body has a signal to build muscle, it doesn't need a shit ton of protein to do so. Look at people, look at this, okay. Look at a natural case where the body is really in a hyperdrive to build muscle. Look at men or boys when they go through puberty. Boys when they go through puberty,

they're getting all these crazy signals to grow and to build. And their appetites go up as well. They don't benefit from more than gram of protein per pound of body weight. Now you, Mr. or Mrs. Sonso, who are working out in the gym, you've already gone through puberty and you're lifting weights. You ain't trust me, you don't got a signal to build muscle like the 14 year old boy who went from,

you know, having testosterone levels of a pre-pubescent girl to all of a sudden having the highest testosterone levels of his life, he's got a real loud signal. He would benefit more from protein than even you would. So you just don't need, you want a diet that's relatively high in protein, but not the ridiculous recommended amounts that you're gonna hear from the pretend fitness professionals

on Instagram and the supplement companies. You just eat real protein from sources of meat or, you know, like it, if you can't consume all that and achieve that one to one ratio, you know, this is my problem is people use that as a benchmark. Now I have to get, you know, an extra amount. And so I can only get that extra amount from bars and shakes. And your body already is satiated. It's already just like, it's utilizing the amount of protein

that you got from the real food. And an additional amount to that, it for me is just feels excessive, from a personal standpoint. It is, and it's not the magical mac the magical macro nutrient that we've all been led to believe for so long. I mean, it used to be, if you want to build muscle protein, protein, protein, everybody use it for so long, we used to preach that. Well, dude, every guy in this room probably used to consume 50% or more, more protein that

we do now. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And we're all better, shape, stronger and better performance. Yeah. And here's, and I're all better shaped stronger and better performing. Yeah, and here's, and I guess looking back now and I think like, oh my god, how's duh, you know, when you think of it this way. So whoever it is we're talking to. Let's just, let's just pretend she weighs 150 pounds and out of that 150 pounds,

100 pounds of that is lean mass, right? So she has 100 pounds of muscle on her. It's just pretend. And right now she has, how, she's having a hard time getting 150 grams of protein. So she's freaking out. Maybe she's only getting 75 grams. But here's just pretend. And right now she's having a hard time getting 150 grams of protein, so she's freaking out. Maybe she's only getting 75 grams. But here's a deal.

If you've been doing that for most of your life, and you still got a hundred pounds of lean body mass, it's 75 grams of protein, you're going from 75 to 150, it's not gonna build. You don't need that much more to even build more muscle. If you go on 75, and you all send it to 85, and you're lifting weights, you're sending the signal like you're saying, you're gonna build muscle.

Your body has been adapted to taking, it's at its homeostasis. If you've been 150 for a long time, you've been holding a hundred pounds of muscle. Now, I mean, that's really the message here is, maybe it's not one to one so much for you, but is maybe being actively increasing your protein from where it was before.

So maybe it was at the floor and you are trying to go all the way to one to one, it doesn't, you don't need to do that. You know, bump it up from where it was before. So maybe it was at the floor and you are trying to go all the way to one to one, you don't need to do that. You know, bump it up from where it was, you know, and trying to be incorporate whole foods and get it from real stuff like your meats and your eggs and things like that and end your diet, but don't be so hard pressed on the one to one. I've seen enough athletes that are vegan

who consume far less protein, who've done great. And I've had enough clients and people that I've helped online who I've told to reduce their protein intake and bump one of the other macros up, whether it be fat or carbs. And every single time I've done that so far, and this is every time I'll get someone, for example, online who's like, I'm eating, I weigh 200 pounds, I'm eating 300 grams of protein a day. I'll say, cut your protein down to like 170, and we'll make up the calories with fats, or with carbs, or whatever.

Every single one of them gets better results after that. They all build more muscle, they all feel way better in terms of the energy and how they feel, and their food is better now. Well, I have yet to have anybody say, oh, you know what, since bringing my protein down to just under a gram per pound, I've lost muscle. I've not, I have yet to hear anybody say that. Well, I got one, you know what? Since bringing my protein down to just under a gram per pound, I've lost muscle. I have yet to hear anybody say that.

Well, I got one, you know, on that note, then the really challenge, whoever this is, it's asking those that are listening right now, I challenge you to look into your fats. I mean, fat is the catalyst for testosterone and testosterone is the main hormone responsible for building muscle. That's your real one out of all of them. You know, I'm saying like, that's, I mean, protein plays a big role in recovery and stuff for your muscle, but your testosterone levels is what

plays a even bigger role as far as muscle building signals. And if you are eating low fat, which a lot of people are, especially if you're on a high protein, everyone seems to be on the high protein, the low fat and moderate carbohydrate type of or some sort of carb cycle or low carb meal, pay attention to that. See where your fats are because like Sal just said, I'll take a lot of people that are

over consuming protein and have to bump their fats up. I've seen way more positive results with my women and men for that matter of teaching them how to bump their fats up and you can get that way. You'll see more lean body mass even from that. Perfect. PR sway is asking about the benefits to cardio versus the ad versus effects of cardio long term. This is kind of a unique question. It's a good question. So first talk about oxidative stress. Oh yeah. First let's be, let's be very clear. Oh, yeah, first let's be, let's be very clear. Cardio done properly and appropriately is mostly benefit, the short-term and long-term.

Okay, the key word here is appropriate and proper. The way a lot of people do cardio, people who love cardio, you know, long-distance runners and people who just overdo it, the way they do it is they overdo it. And then you do get oxidative stress on the body, you do get detrimental effects on health and immune system. And you might even have even seen this in the gym,

where you see someone, or you see someone who's always running, that guy or girl, that woman or man that runs by your house every day, that goes on long distance runs, and you look at them and you're just like, they don't look good, they look like, they haven't changed in years, but they keep running.

Yeah, you see a lot of, I see a lot of skinny fat runners. I see a lot of runners with poor posture and problems with their joints. Their skin looks like, either they're out in the sun too long, but it's usually not from that. It's usually because they're just, they're beating themselves up all the time. And, but that's true for any form of exercise.

You could do that with weight training too. Yeah, with anything. What would you guys say in your opinion, I know mine, for if you were to, what do you think is the most adverse effect from running? From too much running? Yeah, from too much running. Well, if you all really really, in your experience with clientele with clients,

yeah, what what do you what have you seen as the worst like wearing tear on the yeah, we're in turn the joints and poor and really, really bad. Possibly in pattern. Yeah, it goes. Yeah, it really diminishes quickly, especially at the upper body. And I see this this protracted shoulder. And I see it and I see it. I see it in care back to the day. No, back to the day. Yeah, because then what are they doing the rest of the day?

They're sitting down and they're not training their body to deal with gravity anymore in a sense and resistance training and picking things up and doing all these other functional activities. They're teaching their body to really just like become this machine that's forming into a position that your body is trying to make efficient.

So yeah, I see it as a hamster wheel, is how I see it, you know, anymore. So, yeah, for me, so that right now this month, I'm doing this March mobility thing. So I'm talking about mobility and teaching clients and stuff, functional movements. And I started with the hips. So this is directly related to, for sure, a lot of runners. We run, you're running straight forward all the time, especially if you're a treadmill runner or you're somebody you, I mean, and that in itself,

doing any emotion like Sal kind of mentioned just briefly about if you could do this to yourself and even weight training, if you're doing the same movements repetitively over and over and over and over, which when you're running for distance or for a long time, long period of time, you're going to create some serious muscle imbalances. And in an area like the hips, which is primarily your mover when you're running is gonna cross all this low back and knee pain. So ends up, they end up having super tight ITs that are all got adhesions all over them.

They have pain in their knee, they have pain in their hips, they're pain in their low back, and they're all fucked up because they have no hip mobility whatsoever. And they only know how to run in the sagittal point. That's it. They only move, they run forward, that's it.

So yeah, you gotta to be very careful. You know, and this is once again, we're talking to cardio queens and kings, right? It's, you know, it's the people that overdue it. So I said, you know, cardio done right. It can be actually very beneficial. Well, my, my problem too inherently is that the, that mentality is about addressing their, they, they, they associate that with fitness and losing body fat and staying in shape. Like so, their answer to everything is to run to stay in shape. Whereas, their movement patterns, like you said, it's all in just one direction. They're capacity for proper mechanics, their capacity for proper mechanics, quickly diminishes, just doing daily activities,

therefore leaving them exposed to possible injuries. When your muscles form into a certain pattern, it's really a problem going forward. Like when you just go to do normal daily tasks, and I feel like fitness, you need to look at fitness as a provider, a way that's gonna improve the quality of your life. And if you're just gonna run everything off,

it's not improving anything other than conditioning you to better run that same exact way. And that's the only thing he's doing for you. You know, when archeologists will go to sites and they'll find old remains of medieval soldiers and stuff like that, they can pick out the lung bowmen, the people that fired the lung bow. Why? Because first of all, these people were raised to do that.

So they're from a young age, they're trained to be longbowmen. And the longbow is a real big bow, takes lots of torque to pull, and they shoot this big arrow. And it was kind of one of those, it was a weapon that was just decimated army. And so these guys were specially trained, but how did they pick them out? Because one side of their body was very well developed. They had the right arm was very,

the bones were much thicker than the left. And the spine was contorted and twisted in a way that would make it more efficient to pull on this bow with the right arm. And so what you get to understand is your body molds itself around your activity. And if your activity is the same shit every day, every day, every day, your body will mold itself around that activity. And after a certain point, it will be at a detriment to other activities. So if I'm a really good runner in one place, and that's all I ever do, it will start to take away from my ability to do other activities.

I'll start to create posture that molds around it. I'll start to create muscle recruitment patterns that go after it. Look, I'll take along this runner who's never lifted weights. And I can, I'll bet you a million dollars almost every single time they'll have poor hip extension when they go down to a squat. Once you bring them down past 45 degrees,

hips don't fire anymore, it's all quad dominance because that's all they do is run. And so it's very important that you view your body like the machine that it is and train it in a very balanced way because that's what's gonna give you the quality of life that Justin's talking about. Not to mention some of the detrimental effects of just overdoing exercise.

Here's a deal. Exercise itself has a stress on the body. And like anything, if you overdo it, if you do it that the right amount, that stress will elicit change, which will make you healthier, stronger, and better. If you overdo the stress, it overcomes your body's ability to do that. And then it becomes very detrimental. In fact, when they've done autopsies on ultra long distance runners and people

who do ridiculous amounts of cardio, they find heart damage, like somebody who's 20 and 30 years older than that. And these are so called- So it's a muscle. That's right. These are so called top athletes. Right. So you've got to keep that in mind. There's also brain benefits.

You get lots of benefits to the brain when you exercise. Number one, from the benefits of exercise itself, everything from utilizing glucose better to oxygen utilization and all that stuff. But there's also the brain also benefits from exercise in the complexity of movement. Now, if I'm always fucking running all the time, all the time to the words becomes like Justin said a hamster wheel,

I'm not getting those benefits to my brain as well. The good thing about resistance training is I can do all kinds of different movements and I'm getting all kinds of different connections to my brain and different things that are developing. And they found in studies with humans That those complex movements and changing those complex movements gives you more brain benefit in terms of learning ability and cognitive function Than just the repetitive same shit all the time movement

Well, when you when you say that it reminds me of Justin and how Justin changed trains cardio Which leads me into what I was just gonna ask you guys guys is, you know, we just said that, why don't we share how we do cardio personally ourselves, since we all are probably a little bit different and how we do it and approach it. You know, how do you do cardio? Explain everybody how you do cardio, Justin. I mean, how you incorporate it. Yeah, so for the most part, it's, I'll do cardio. I'll look at it more from, like, I'll do like a kettlebell complex, like I'll do like a kettlebell complex or I'll do like a some kind of a circuit or I'll do something in spurts. So for me, like I really enjoy really like multi-planar movements. So that's why I got into like some martial arts and stuff like that to where it challenges

my body from multiple directions. So now I'm just the frequency and the difference of like what I'm trying to work on really challenges my body and gets my heart rate going like crazy. So sometimes I'll do some hit style. So I'll do like, you know, 30 seconds. I'll just basically cut my rest periods down a bit. And then, you know, it real briefly. And then, but just for the most part, it's things that I enjoy doing, like jump rope and things that I'm working on as far as like speed movements, but they're all like bursts. And so for me like I like I like to sprint I like to do battle ropes. I like to do like some of these

Kind of unconventional movements because I'm challenging my body in a lot of different ways That I wouldn't I wouldn't otherwise do just lifting weights So I use that as a is a is a is another way to Sort of implement some new challenging techniques. I just make love. Besides, I use cardio in the past, and I'm not doing a lot of cardio nowadays, just because I'm not getting much sleep. When I'm not getting much sleep, I try to pay attention to the amount of stress I place in my body with activity.

cardio is for me, it's a variable that I'll remove if I have to because the resistance training portion is more important to me. But when I do do cardio, I'll either use it meditatively, so I'll do steady state and I'll read, or I'll go on hikes and walks. That's my favorite thing. So for me, it's more of a stress relief than it is for any type of performance enhancement. If I'm trying to improve performance, then it's at the pace that I lift weights. That's when I speed things up.

I do supersets, giant sets, move from one exercise to the other, multi-planar movements like Justin was talking about. That's when I'm trying to get more cardiovascular endurance. But that's, I mean, it's basically, it's pretty straightforward for me. Yeah, you and I are similar. I definitely. Make love is also. Yeah, for a majority. Lots of hip thrusting.

Biggest thing. I rarely do cardio at all. Like somebody would, when you say the word cardio, when we say cardio too, and I'm glad Sal kind of touched on his walking and so that because that, we would refer to that as that. And that's why too when I post,

you know, I normally post under my picture when I'm giving my stats of what I'm doing, like what program I'm doing or how I'm eating. And it says zero cardio. I say zero cardio because I'm not getting on a piece of equipment or going for a run or even elevating my heart rate probably above 130 beats. I'm power walking at best on the treadmill.

And I normally get on there. And for me, it's kind of a destressor. I get on there I walk for about 15 20 minutes depending on the day and depending on how much stress I need to destress and how much it's almost meditative for me. I'll also you'll see me Doing some upper body like dynamic movements while I'm walking so I'll be walking and doing you know wrist rolls with my wrist and doing a dynamic Move with my chest and then doing like a dynamic move while I'm walking with my wrist and doing a dynamic move with my chest and then doing a dynamic move

while I'm walking with my shoulders. And just trying to open my body up and it kind of challenges me why I'm walking at the same time too and it's not fast and it's all I'm really... Reversed jerk off. Yeah, yeah, I'll kind of fun stuff like that. The only time, and then the only time I really use cardio is as a tool.

And for me, there's two times that I'm going to use it as a tool. One time would be like when I get to our third phase in maps, those that are far to that already. Red maps? Yeah. And red maps, there's a lot of supersetting. There's a lot of volume that's in the third phase. So you know, get your heart rate going a bit.

Those that have done this know this. And if I if I want to be in a little bit more cardiovascular shape, so I can, to benefit actually my weight training. So I use it to just kind of ramp that up. And I want to be adapted to that. So I'm trying to, you know, get myself up to where I can handle that. And it'll be kind of more of a hit style. Or you've got phase four of the green maps. Yeah, which is very, yeah. I mean, that's going to give you some cardiovascular condition. Which I'm not there. I'm about to get there. And so I'm in, I'm in phase three of performance right now. So four is around the corner. When we get into durability, I most certainly will be doing that. So there's another time

where I'll be using it as a tool. The other time that I use it as tools, obviously, when I compete, when I compete, I incorporate it into my, my regiment. But what I want before I ever utilize any cardio like that cardio to sweater to burn fat, which I would like, I incorporate it into my, my regimen. But what I want before I ever utilize any cardio like that, cardio to sweater to burn fat, which I would like, I would like to think they're probably 90% of the people probably use cardio for because it, for so long we have, you know, paired it with, if you want to lose fat, you do some cardio, right? Like that's what we, so I think a lot of people,

I think all the treadmill and, you know, liptical machine, the commercials are just pounding in your head. Exactly, that it's all about that. I mean, literally, I think all of us in here, 99% of the time, we all use it for health and de-stressor in that. We rarely ever use it to burn fat. We're just more movement in the day,

like you say, like the neat principle, like just, I mean, I definitely like track that. I wanna make sure, like, I feel like, but in here right now, we're sitting a lot, and then I'm always like, ah. I want to make sure like I feel like but in here right now we're sitting a lot and then I'm always like, ah, I need to move. It's just that urgency to spend energy and I feel like that's cardio for me. That's all I care about.

That's a perfect example. That's a perfect example of how I will today when we go to the gym because we have been in this in the studio for so long today and seated for so long. This will be a day, I'll probably get a good 20, 30 minute walk. Just to relax and move, I feel like I've been seated for such a long time. Usually days I'll do cardio because I want to ramp it up

a little bit, move, sweat a bit. Yeah, because to go back to the neat principle, I feel on the same way with that. Now, when I'm getting ready for a show, I don't even want to do any cardio until I've got my figured out where I need to be eating wise and training wise to manipulate my body, fat percentage without any of cardio. That way, when I do introduce it, I know what it's going to do, which I think that's another

mistake that a lot of people that want to lose weight. They decide right away if I want to lose weight, they stop eating a bunch of shit food, they reduce their calories, they introduce weight training, they introduced tons of cardio, and then they're going after it where plus you're getting a burn out. Yeah, exactly. In the very beginning, you're going so hard. You got like, I mean, where's your gas tank going to be towards the end of your challenge there?

Exactly. He's actually going to be real tough. Exactly. So, you know, there's a lot of ways to utilize cardio and there's definitely ways for it to be very beneficial long-term, but I think for the most part, a majority of the population abuse it and then there's a lot more adverse effects because like we talked about posture and things like that.

Exactly, great point. Joseph Oulu, Aulu, A89 has noticed that fit people seem to get sick a lot. He's wondering why. A couple things that play into that. Yeah, that's actually a pretty good observation. It is because I get sick a lot. So here's the, here's the gist when it comes to exercise. Exercise and being active in the long term

is a great way to boost your immune system and strengthen and bolster it. In the short term, it's a stressor. It is a stressor and it will depress your immune system. For example, for example, if I took somebody whose body has now been exposed to, let's say, the rhino virus, which is the cold, common cold, and they're fighting it, but their and their body's fighting it off, but it's fighting it. And I take that person and I take them through and I hammer them with a hard

workout. They're going to get sick. We have now depressed their immune system in the short term. Their bodies resources are now focused on repairing from this hard workout, which means less resources are available for fighting this virus or bacteria, whatever, and they're more likely to get sick. Fit people tend to get sick. If you would observe that,

it's because these are fit people that are probably constantly pushing that line between training enough and training too much. And I'm going to go ahead and guess they're probably like the type A people that are also under an extreme amount of stress. Good point. Good job and with their family and they're like being fit on top of that. It's just another thing on their plate. And in comes in this virus bacteria, whatever.

And it's just this, you know, perfect combo. I have another two dad to that too. If typically fit people or someone who's trying to get in shape is living in a caloric deficit, they're eating, they're eating less than with their body. So this is why a lot, I almost always get sick when I'm cutting for a show. Your body is fighting already. Yeah. For a long, long periods of time, I'm working against my body, not feeding it as much as it wants, so it'll metabolize fat,

but that also means I don't have a lot of resources to defend off the common cold that's coming around. And then the other number two big one is fit people, probably mean that they're working out in a gym a lot and they're touching weights that a bunch of other people are coughing all over their hands and then touching the same weights and we're confined in an area where all these germs are at.

That's a great point. I mean, you put in a combination of everything we just said, stressing the body out, flirting with overtraining, under eating, and touching a bunch of germs. Oh, yeah, I'm in it. Absolutely. It's very common that you get sick a lot for sure. You can use the hand dryer and some old guy who's using it. He's got his balls.

Yeah. And here's the last one that some old guy who's using it. Yeah, with his bars. Yeah, yeah. And here's the last. Here's the last one that, you know, it's just popping on my head right now. I bet a lot of fit people, especially the fanatical ones with diet eat the same food all the time. Right.

And maybe or and or take lots of supplements with maybe artificial sweeteners or whatnot. Uh huh. Gut flora is your number one defense against viruses and bacteria. And if your gut flora is altered or not, you don't have a good variety of flora because you always eat the same food that could impact your immune system in a negative way. And so that might also play a factor. So I think all those things are probably why they would see that. No.

This next question is from Trent Bergeron. He's asking, what do you recommend for cardio for a show three months out? Oh, a cardio day today, huh? Well, here's your, this is all, this is your, this is your real house. Well, so I started to, I started to touch on it a little bit on the last topic of, we were just talking about cardio. So I don't do any any so three months out. First of all, that's a long, that's a pretty long cut right there. It's a 12 week cut for

somebody. One, I would, I don't really recommend that long of a cut. It's a long time to be living in a deficit and pushing the body. I most certainly don't do cardio three months out the type of cardio where you're trying to burn fat like we were talking about earlier. I actually don't introduce cardio to the last three to four weeks, three to four weeks. I do the rest all through diet. And that's like I said, I wanna be able to know as I get closer to my show

and I'm needing to continue to shred body fat that I can utilize cardio as a tool. If you come out the gates on week 12 out from your show and you're doing an hour of, which is this is one thing that's very common. You see coaches prescribe this. Okay, we start, we're getting ready for this show one hour cardio every day. And that's what they, they prescribe right out the gates. That's fucking stupid. That is totally stupid to do that because your body, for adaptation only takes about two to four weeks to get adapted to whatever cardio phase that you're training in. So if you're doing

a, you know, hit style or you're doing a, you know, moderate pace for an hour, you know, the first week or two, absolutely, you're going to see some good change from two in an hour of cardio. But weeks three and four, those, those returns are going to diminish. And that's normally when your coach says, okay, now I want you to add another hour of cardio, but weeks three and four, those, those, those returns are going to diminish. And that's normally when your coach says, okay, now I want you to add another hour of cardio per day. And then guess what, two to four weeks later, your body, your body gets adapted out. 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, Now I want you to increase your intensity while you're doing, and this is why all these competitors look like they're fucking dying on these treadmill. Because they are. I don't blame them because they're pushing their bodies way harder than

any two. What you need to do when you're getting ready for a show is you need to figure out the, I mean, I'm talking about the lowest intensity workout, the least amount of movement in your week, you need to figure out what your body needs to be fed for it to slowly lose body fat right there. Barely working out, barely moving around, not doing any cardio, what do you need to eat for it to already start to reduce body fat with your nutrition? Then from there, you slowly start to increase all those things.

This is just goes like right back in the intensity thing. You don't want to come out the gates like balls of all in your workouts, either. Your workouts should slowly, increasingly intense as you get closer to your show. Should be a slow ramp up. Very slow ramp up. It's in subtle changes. So when I coach clients, it's every two to three weeks. I'm little, little this, little bit of that. And when I first introduce cardio, like I said, three to four weeks out from show time, the first bit of cardio, it's 12 minutes, 12 minutes. I spend after I lift, I lift every day, six, seven days a week, I get on there for 12 minutes, I do 12 minutes a

hit. After I've been doing that for about two weeks, now I add some steady state cardio and I'm doing 30 minutes to an hour and now I'm doing more time. And then the very last pushau, I might start adding my one hour long of of steady state cardio in addition to my hit plus that. and that's the final week It's occurring to me. So you're talking about people who are competing on stage who are At a higher level than the average person. Yeah, and your recommendation having being a professional physique competitor and coaching other competitors and having great success is to slowly ramp up Why the hell do average people think that it's any different for them?

Yeah. Like every weight loss program that's out there, it's like 30 days to lose 20 pounds or the same rules apply to them, actually the rules apply to them even more because they're not nearly as fit as the guy or girl who wants to compete in a physique competition. So it's always the same thing, always ramp up slowly. And if you're not a physique competitor

or not a stage competitor, definitely applies to you. Every client that is a non-competitor that I coach right now at this moment has all of their prescription from me is every one of them, no cardio right now. All I want you doing is walking. That is what they're, they're prescribed for me. That's what I just did when I was training John. Same thing I just told him.

And I'm like, there's no reason for us. We're so far away from our goals where we need to be that just starting to add a bunch of time of intense cardio right now, it's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna, we need to learn, we need to learn how to eat right for your body and train properly to get it to respond the way we need to without any of that.

That's gonna be a tool that's gonna be in our pocket way down the road. When you start getting ready for bikini season and it's time that you want to shred some extra pounds of body fat before you get out, go out to your Hawaii trip or whatever. And guess what? Because I've kept that in our back pocket

and I say, okay, guess what? Two weeks out from Hawaii. Now we're going to start doing a little bit of cardio and we're going to ramp that up. And you're going to love me because you're going to see your body change in two weeks time. Better results with less time spent. Sal Morgolo is wondering what the biggest factor is that prevents muscle growth.

Oh, this is a two-be-a-one. I'll tell you what I think 100%. 100%. 100%. I think it's picking the wrong exercises and bad program design. That's number one. Then nutrition comes in afterwards. But I've seen a way too many kids, guys that want to build muscle, focusing on cable exercises

and machines and doing body parts splits, when what they should be doing is focusing on squatting, deadlifting, bench pressing, overhead pressing, and working the whole body two or three days a week. That change right there will put more muscle on you than any other factor I can think about by itself. Yeah. And I was gonna say programming from the standpoint of like, way too high of intensity and prioritizing pure recovery

for the next couple of days. And not ever adapting. Mm-hmm. And focus on getting strong. Right. Like if you're trying to build muscle and that's like your number one goal, train to try and and gain some strength.

Gain enough strength and you'll build some muscle. Nutrition's a very important factor and we can talk about that as well. You need to eat enough food and calories to build muscle. But I'm telling you, when I'm in the gym, dude, I don't see, there's more now and I think as people are getting more educated. I see more people squatting in deadlift thing. Oh, you've been before more right now than you do. But still, as you see these kids,

you see two of them working out together. They're like, 17 years old, I was the same way. And I see them working out and you know, they want to build muscle. And they're on the preacher machine. And they do concentration curls. And oh, let's do this front double bicep cable exercise for my bicep.

I saw a guy training with his girlfriend the other day, skinny kid and he's trying to build muscle. And he's doing the freaking cable curls that the front double bicep. I saw a guy training with his girlfriend the other day. Skinny kid and he's trying to build muscle and he's doing the freaking cable curls that the front double bicep cable curl thing. And it's just like, literally if you just did some fucking pull-ups, you'll build way more bicep. Yeah. Then doing that cable machine. And that's it. It's just they're doing the wrong exercises. They should literally, if you want to build muscle, your life should revolve. In the gym, your life should revolve around

the squat rack and the rack and the barbells and dumbbells, and that's it. Every once in a while, we were all on pretty much the same page. I would have said this exactly just like the cardio thing. People come out the gates and they're doing all kinds of crazy shit and all kinds of the wrong shit right out the gates and too much of it. You know, too much of all this like south, and're doing, you're coming in, you're doing five, six different exercises for your buys and tries, and there's tons of volume in it, you're doing a bunch of machine work and all of that. You literally could come in and do, like,

pull ups for 20, 30 minutes, and you're gonna see so much more growth than you ever would by doing all those crazy exercise. So yeah, no, I would agree, I would say, program design, and easier way than saying program design, because someone else is saying, like, well, fuck, I can't program design, I way than saying program design because someone else is saying, well, fuck, I can't program design. I'm never going to be able to grow muscle. But no, the choice of exercises, the choice is exercises that people are making.

I hate to say it too much too because I really enjoy coming to golds and always having a squat rack available so I can do my overhead presses or deads or squatting right now. And if we talk too much about it, everybody will do it. Everybody will do it. There's only five or six, I think, inside our gym. And we have a lot in our gym comparison. I remember a while ago, I had this 15 year old kid that I trained.

I trained him for a short period of time. And then he, his parents weren't gonna get him in more training, but he wanted to go be a member of a gym. And so I gave him like six exercises to pick from. And I said, every workout, do three to four of these. and that's it. And they were bench press deadlift overhead press, squat, you know, barbell row and I think a pull up or something like that. And they said, just pick four of these exercises, do four sets of each of them, work out three days a week. And the kid put on like 15 pounds of muscle in a very short period of time, just

doing that very basic, basic, and I gave him a super basic routine because he was very inexperienced and he had just learned those exercises with me. Now, if you wanna take it on the next level, you can get much more advanced in terms of phasing your workouts for specific types of muscle adaptation and utilizing things like trigger sessions and stuff like what we put in our maps programs

where, you know, if you just followed that, you're gonna be, you know, light years ahead of anything else, you've probably ever done to build muscle, and then you throw in some good nutrition, and there you go. Is it funny, the learning curve for trainers, I feel like, at least in my experience of all the trainers I mentored in stuff is, you first come in, and you're fresh, you're new, and you feel kind of like a lost puppy, you know,

as far as, even being a trainer, right? You're looking at this gym. There's so much stuff in here to do. And, you know, you got to write a program, you know, and the trainers are always nervous to write their first program for a client. Like, what do I do? What do I write? What do I write? You know, and they, they start, then they get more comfortable. They learn all the exercises. They learn some new ones. They learn all this stuff. And then you start to get creative as fuck, you know, it's like like now it's like all these things that you start to put together. And it's like you pride yourself on knowing

so many movements and so many different exercises that you start coupling them in different ways and all this stuff. And then it's like you get you come full circle. You start to really learn and educate yourself and realize like now when I prescribe it, it looks so generic and basic. But in reality, it's like,

this is what's gonna help you more than any of the mastery of those movements. Yes, there's so technical in and of themselves, a squat and a deadlift, for example, very basic exercises, but I could train someone for two years on a squat, and there's so many variances of that squat and so many different ways of training and so many ways to apply it from everything from tempo

to pausing to utilizing the squat differently and perfecting it. Even getting proper depth. All that stuff. It's not basic in the sense that it's basically in the sense that the exercise is six. They know, that's right. By basic, it's like everyone's heard of a squat, right?

It's heard of a bench press, everyone's heard of a overhead exercise. There's no magic exercises. There's no like, well, I've never seen that, but that's as a trainer when you, you want to, you want to, you want the frog pressing cardio machine. Yeah, right. Yeah, you want to invent it.

The trainers want to impress their clients with a new, I mean, I remember that. I know you guys remember that. I remember getting a client and, you know, when you were, you know, midway through your career, part of that was, you know, I got this guy, he's been in the gym, he's been around for a while, so he knows all the basics.

I'm gonna teach him some exercises he's never done before. Come on over here, we're gonna lie on this bench and we're gonna do some angled machine. I'm saying you do something crazy and stupid. Well, isn't that where this whole bullshit thing with where they turn sideways and they do the press. Yeah. Hammer.

That's exactly their inner chest. And that's how guys like us. And I know, you know, we've gotten a little bit of grief for for giving those dudes shit that you see all these guys posting. But that just that to us, it's so glaring on their level of education because when you do things like that, you still are obviously learning yourself and you think because you found a way to create a different exercise in the gym that this is a good exercise. I should teach other people, but in reality, no, it's not. If you knew what was best for people, you would be teaching them that squat and deadlift and continuing to educate them on the biomechanics on it and all the variations.

Definitely bench press. Let's work on the technique for that. A very secret. Everybody thinks it's so simple. Bench press is one of the more technical exercises you'll ever do. I remember years ago, throughout my whole working out career, if you will. I remember there were specific moments, and you guys probably, I'm sure you have your own word, you're just like, holy shit, I just learned something that just changed everything.

And one of these moments for me, I will never fucking forget, and I've probably told a story before, but it was after I had dislocated my kneecap, I was rehabbing my knee, I'm doing leg press, and I'm trying to strengthen it. And at the time, I also wanted to build muscle because that's all I ever wanted to do. And there was this group of power lifters. And at the time, they looked like fucking giants, but they were probably in the early 20s.

And they spent their entire workout at the SWAT rack. Like, they were just squatting the whole time. And they were massive. And I was watching them. And I remember thinking like, they must be on steroids. Like something's like, why are they so big? That's all they're doing, they're whole time and they were massive. And I was watching them and I remember thinking like, they must be on steroids. Like something's like, why are they so big? That's all they're doing, they're not doing all this other stuff. And one of them approached me and asked me

what the hell I was doing and basically convinced me to come squat with them and I ended up being a brutal ass workout, but that summer, that summer having learned from them and all, and that summer I focused on squatting and deadlifting. And I still did my bench press and other things But I really focus on those two movements. I gained 12 fucking pounds 12 pounds of lean body mass That summer the young kid as a young kid natural. Oh, yeah, my all of a sudden my pants didn't fit me my back was

People are like dude your back is thick. Yeah, just from doing that and I remember that to such a freaking like the sky opened up for me I was like, oh my god. I found the secret. Like I figured it out finally Because before that I was reading the bodybuilding magazines and I was doing all kinds of different variations of all these different movements and cables and hit every angle And this and that. It's all a big distraction big distract and so so you want to build muscle Stick to the basics get stronger do full body workouts instead of body parts blitz if you really want to get Good detail and something that really guides, you can check out the maps programs on mindpumpmedia.com. And with that, please leave us a five-star rating

and review on iTunes. You can find us on Instagram at MindPumpRadio. You can find me at MindPumpSowl. You can find Adam at MindPumpAtom and you can find Justin at MindPumpJustin. Not just. Thank you for listening at Mind Pump Justin. you