Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 903: The Best Time to Take Creatine, Ab Building Mistakes, Natural Ways to Increase Energy & MORE
Episode Date: November 16, 2018MAPS Quah! In this episode of Quah, sponsored by MAPS Fitness Products (www.mapsfitnessproducts.com), Sal, Adam & Justin answer Pump Head questions about partial reps and when to use them, changing y...our workout based on how you feel, hip flexor fatigue while doing ab exercises and natural ways to increase energy. Like a treasure hunt…The new Thrive Market Kits: Cold Brew, After School Snacks & MORE. (5:23) Abandoning ship?? Greg Glassman Regrets Teaching Kipping Pull-Ups in CrossFit Workouts. The beginning of the end? The guys speculate on the future of the sport. (10:23) How the competitive market/price wars can ruin a business. (18:50) Will OrangeTheory be the detriment of CrossFit? (21:35) The flaws of these fitness trends and group classes. How exercise needs to be individualized. (24:00) The need to shift the culture to empower themselves and do the WORK! (34:40) The devaluing of physical education in the school systems. (39:35) Sal cooking himself like a rotisserie chicken in front of the Joovv light. (41:35) New science and the benefits of taking creatine at a particular time. (43:03) #Quah question #1 – Can you discuss partial reps and when to use them? (49:14) #Quah question #2 – Should you change your workout based on how you feel that day? (1:01:00) #Quah question #3 – Why do I feel hip flexor fatigue while doing ab exercises? (1:10:44) #Quah question #4 – What are natural ways to increase energy to perform better? (1:20:43) People Mentioned: Greg Glassman (@CrossFitCEO) Twitter Josh Thomson (@therealpunk) Instagram Jason Khalipa (@jasonkhalipa) Instagram Dr. Justin Brink (@premiere_spine_sport) Instagram Links/Products Mentioned: November Promotion: MAPS Anywhere ½ off!! **Code “WHITE50” at checkout** Thrive Market **Free 1 month membership, 25% off first order Plus free shipping on orders of $49 or more** Joovv **MAPS Prime w/purchase of $500 or more and free shipping** MAPS Fitness Products Greg Glassman Regrets Teaching Kipping Pull-Ups in CrossFit Workouts Mind Pump Episode 638: Jason Khalipa Mind Pump TV - YouTube The effects of pre versus post workout supplementation of creatine monohydrate on body composition and strength. Creatine supplementation improves muscle strength in patients with congestive heart failure. Mind Pump Episode 900: NBA Superstar Sports Performance Coach Paul Fabritz FIX LOWER BACK PAIN By Deactivating Your Hip Flexors! | Mind Pump Goniometer - Wikipedia Sunlighten Saunas **Mention “mindpump” for free shipping** Mind Pump Free Resources
Transcript
Discussion (0)
That you failed again.
So, Dr. Floor, I promise that mine purple have an annoying trend during the rain very soon.
Yes, yes, a popular trend.
You mean like skinny tea, crossfit or transformation contest? No, you fool.
Much darker, much more sinister.
So that's some an ancient troll?
Go find him, then report to me immediately.
Don't never see this coming, Master!
I'll get you, Adam.
I'll get you, Sam.
I'll get you, Justin. How could you Adam? How could you sound? How could you Justin?
Ahhhhhhh!
If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.
Mite, ob-mite, up with your hosts.
Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews.
In this episode of My Pup.
Wee-hoo!
Oh yeah, for the first 44 minutes,
we do our introductory conversation.
We start out by talking about the thrive market kits.
They have these after school snack kits
and what else do they have?
They had a bunch of other kits on there, I forgot.
We have a coffee, they go.
Oh yeah, that's right, they have the cold brew kit.
They have all kinds of stuff at Thrive Market.
Now Thrive Market is the one of largest non-geom-o organic retailers online,
but they have a lot of other products.
If you go to ThriveMarket.com, forward slash mine pump,
you'll get one month free membership and 25% off your first order.
Bingo, bingo.
Then we talk about Justin's favorite subject of all time.
What is that sale?
Crossfit.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, we have a good time.
We have a good time talking about Crossfit.
We talk about the future of group classes.
Or the lack of it.
Adam makes some pretty strong statements
in that part of this episode.
It's like a little bit of a roast.
We talk about the importance of mobility training.
Of course, don't forget to check out maps prime.
You just go to mapsfitinistproducts.com,
you can check that out.
Then we talk about my morning,
Juve routine.
No, I'm not dancing.
I'm actually using red light therapy.
Put on a red light, so.
What's it called, photo modulation?
Photo modulation.
I know, photo modulation. my photo modulation something like that
Anyway, get some my mitochondria healthy and working better and it gets me energized
Juve is one of our sponsors. They are one of the best
Sellers of red light therapy. Just go to juv.com J OOVV.com
forward slash mine pump you'll get a free
Maps prime program with the purchase of $500 or more.
And we're going to give you free shipping.
Then we talk about the best time to take creatine.
We are big fans of creatine.
Some studies just came out talking about the best time to take creatine.
You will build more muscle if you take it at this time.
You want to listen to this because this definitely goes against something we've said in the past.
That's right. We had to change our minds.
Then we get to the questions. The first question was, can we discuss partial reps and when to use them?
That's where they asked us, uh, partial reps. Quarter squat gangs. Should you always do full range emotion?
Or is there a time and a place to do, you know, five inch squats? Find out.
The next question is, uh, should you change your workout based on how you feel
that day or should you just work out harder because you're being a big wimp. Yeah.
Next question was why do some people feel their hip flexors get real tired when they're trying to do
abs? Like what the hell's going on here? Super common. Thought I was working my abs instead I'm working
on my hips and we know those don't lie. Then the hip you dip, we dip.
Finally, this person is drinking a lot of caffeine
and now has a high tolerance.
What can they do?
How can they bring their tolerance to caffeine back down?
How do they bring back the magic?
Sound like I'm talking about a 10-year marriage
or something like that.
Get that magic back.
Let's rekindle the flame.
Now we do talk about sauna use.
Adam speculates that it actually helps.
He's been using the sauna and he says it helps him
with his caffeine tolerance.
I think he might be onto something.
We are sponsored by one of the best sauna companies
in the world, sun lighten.
If you go to sunlighten.com and if you mention mind pump,
get him make sure you tell them.
Hey listen, I heard about this on mind pump.
Mind pump sent me.
You'll get free shipping and trust me, that shipping get expensive. mention mind pump, get to make sure you tell them, hey listen, I heard about this on my pump. Mind pump sent me.
You'll get free shipping and trust me, that shipping can get expensive.
Also I want to remind everybody it's November, happy Thanksgiving and also maps anywhere
are equipment free program.
This is the workout you can do anywhere.
You don't need a gym, you need a bands and your body.
It's half off, 50% off the total retail price.
It's been redone, reshot.
We did brand new blueprints, brand new videos.
It's beautiful.
Looks really, really good.
Good job, everybody.
Again, 50% off here.
Say you get it, go to mapswhite.com,
use the code white50WHITE and the number 50
without a space at checkout.
And you'll get that 50% off also if you have
questions about our other maps programs we have designed quite a few programs all of them for
different goals or different people so if you want to find the one that fits your goals and your
body the best just go to maps fitness products dot com remember Doug you gave me that cold brew
Yeah, container. So there's it's like in a mason jar and
Then it has a filter thing where you you anyways? I've been fucking with that and I've been making myself cold brew so you went on you went on
Where'd you get it drive market and what is it?
Can we pull that up? Yeah?
It's like a home cold brew. Are we hot Doug? Is it is it expensive? How much was it? Do you remember?
It's not expensive. What so it's a it's a home cold brew jar like $500 or $20? No, no, no
It's not $500. Yeah, so what do you so you put your coffee grounds in there water put in the fridge? Yeah
Leave it really come out. Doug have you been using this too? It's kind of like tea. It's like tea is good like a slow drip to it.
Yeah, it tastes good.
Yeah, that's how you make cold bread.
I have a, how long, how long, yeah, I want,
how come you didn't share this with us?
You just, I forgot, dude.
You know, such an ass also, I'm kind of,
yeah, I agree.
A lot of things.
Yeah, let's just talk to me and you had them.
You know what?
I agree, you guys.
You know, fuck, Thrive Market has a lot of shit.
They do.
It's just cool, it's like a treasure hunt.
You know what I mean?
Like I found that.
Yeah, did you go on there looking for that?
No.
Oh, okay.
I was like, no, I just saw that and I was like,
I stumbled across to there's something.
Well, cause so Courtney will make me coffee lot
times like espresso, especially on the weekends.
There's no ex and espresso, but that's espresso.
Ex, sorry.
You know, hanging out with me a lot.
It's espresso.
I used to date espresso.
It used to be, mouth espresso is my ex.
And I would continue.
It's ex hanging out in my house.
In my house.
In my house.
So yeah, so I prefer cold brew.
I don't like drinking hot coffee as much.
It's just
Something about the the warm because you're a pussy. No, because it makes me sleepy
And I'm a massive pussy
Look at that. Look at that. There it is. Do yourself do it yourself cold One got to do it yourself home brew kit. So check that so so here's why I like cold brew better than than the warm brew
I know Justin that gives you reasons of like how it feels and like his feelings, but here's the real reason why I
Stronger you want to know. No, we let me fucking explain more like yeah
Dude, so it's less acidic. Yes. I know yeah
And it's it's stronger. Those are the two things that I want so that's what it provides
If I could reach my hand over there,
let me tell you what I'd be doing right now.
Well, so I don't want the other thing.
So yes, it's less acidic.
So people who have, like some people will say
when they drink too much coffee or too fast,
it's like, they're stomachs.
15 bucks, that's it.
Yeah, it's nothing.
That's for the half gallon.
You can get the one quart for 12 or 11 bucks.
Yeah, yeah, sheep is fuck.
And it, less acidic, more caffeine,
and it just tastes smoother.
When I drink cold brew,
even if you warm it up in the microwave
or warm it up after, it's just smoother.
Justin, can I use my coffee for that,
or is it just a kid, or is it like,
okay, yeah, coffee.
And you put in any coffee grounds,
you put it in there, just like,
it has its own little pouch, like a tea.
Doug, what is that healthy snacks for hungry kids?
What is that after school snack kit?
Oh yeah.
Click on that for me for a second.
Every time we get on Thrive Market,
we find something to do.
They're brilliant.
You just have to sit there and like,
they need like a catalog.
You know like the Sears catalog used to come to your house?
I forgot about those.
Hold on a second.
Yeah, they need like the kids to get a cat.
I'll just look at those for Christmas gifts.
Bro, these are kits that they sell you for snacks for your kids. So raisins, apple sauce,
seaweed, the dried seaweed snacks, rice cakes, almond butter.
Hey, your kids are gonna hate you.
No. Hold on a second. You dress it up, like.
Hold on a second. Just put like a cracked out like two can on it.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, my kids love seaweed snacks.
Have you kids had the seaweed snack kit?
Yeah, did they like it?
They like the kale chips too.
Yeah, so there you go.
I'm about far off.
Hey, my kids are like, but I know where I can.
But I call it Hulk chips.
You have to like make it cool.
You have to like get the lie.
Yeah, I do.
Hulk chips, it sounds like Hulk pooped.
You know, he dropped a bunch of chips. Hey, the life. Yeah, I do. I do. Hulk chips, it sounds like Hulk pooped.
You know, he dropped a bunch of chips.
Hey, if you eat a Hulk poop, you just eat it.
Holy shit, they have a thrive market, taco night kit.
Click on that, I need to see this right now.
Yeah.
This is crazy.
Jacuzzi's day.
It's less than $15 and you get all the ingredients
you need to make tacos except everything's organic and healthy,
including the tortillas which are made with coconut.
Wow.
Damn, they're doing things.
That sounds like a fun Tuesday.
Well, they're killing it,
and I think they have enough money to experiment because.
We need to tell Rachel, you know what?
All the accounts she manages,
I'm not sure how much she talks to thrive market.
We need to get her in communication with them
because I feel like every time we get
on here, there's stuff I didn't know about.
Yeah, there's stuff we didn't know.
It makes us terrible at selling for them.
We need to make sure that they have, I want to like the catalog.
Why can't we have like a catalog?
Well, they just have so much shit.
You know, where do we begin?
Right.
Yeah, that's a good stuff.
You have to just go on the website and just, you know, look around.
Hey, how about CrossFit?
What's going on?
Ha-ha!
I know, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I know.
I'm a little bit like Glee.
No, what do you Glee?
Glee was a thing.
Glassman coming out and saying that he regrets
ever teaching the Kipping Pull Up.
Well, I'll be damned.
Well, I'll be damned.
No.
What's next, huh?
You know what?
I tell you what, man, it's... No more of these? First of all, I remember when damned. No. What's next, huh? You know what? I tell you what, man, it's new.
Where are these?
First of all, I remember when we first talked about Crossfals,
one of our biggest criticisms was,
why are you doing this very specific movement
that really only applies to gymnasts?
Right.
And when you have other people do it,
who aren't gymnasts, to fatigue,
you're just basically asking for trouble.
Well, I'm glad they did it now.
You know, I'm glad they came back on it now.
Do you guys think you just get a lot of heat right now
for some of the shit that they?
I think, I think, I feel like he's abandoning shit.
There's a lot of changes.
So I think that he's like, I'm out of here. Ch-ch- a smart guy. And I think, I think he's a really smart guy.
I think just like us,
okay, just like us,
if mind pump got to the size
of an organization like CrossFit,
there's probably many things within this
that we would have to modify and change,
because you just did not foresee.
Oh, never will be this whole.
Right, always.
So I think that's part of the evolution of it. So I think he's
what how much of it? Do you change before it turns into something else? Well, so I think it has to turn
into something else. I think it's I think there this is the beginning of what we've been saying since day one
is that there needs to be a separation. Align. There needs to be the CrossFit games and people that are training for the CrossFit games
and you're an actual athlete.
And that's how you train.
And then there is CrossFit, the organization that is here to help the average Jener Joe
get in shape.
But should look a lot more like just functional training.
Should look totally different.
Should look totally different.
So let's bring nothing alike.
Let's brainstorm right now. How would you, if you owned a CrossFit
gym right now, how would you make it look so that you a maintained integrity,
did the right thing for the members and clients, but B also had the flavor, you
know, of CrossFit. What do you got? What would you guys do? I have some ideas.
Okay, let's see. I would, I would separate it so I'd have my competitors class,
which would be people who are going
to compete.
It's very specific.
Then my workouts would be classes that would be, maybe, right?
Then I would have a specific, like, skills training classes.
Yes, then most of my classes would be skills training.
Olympic training class for beginners, Olympic training class for intermediate.
Here's your strength training class, you know, foundations,
no spots, deadlift,
and you know, the flaw on everything you're saying is right?
What's my flaw?
The flaws that there's not enough people to fill those specific
classes. That's why that's a good point.
That's why they get grouped the way they get grouped right now.
There's just you, there's in the especially, especially,
especially with the competition of them being one on every
corner, practically, there's just not enough people to fit those Especially with the competition of them being one on every corner practically.
There's just not enough people to fit those specific class categories
to make it profitable for these facilities.
It might be too hard to be profitable with how they do it now.
Yeah.
What do you think is the next thing that he should take back?
So we have keeping pull ups.
I wish I didn't put those in there.
I think I think I think at one point
they're going to have to address the doing things to fatigue before you go do deadlifts and things like that.
Like Olympic lift. Yeah. That's what I would do. I would eliminate Olympic lifts out of the fatigue base programming. That's it.
Yeah. That's the biggest. That's a way bigger problem than keeping pull up by the way, in my opinion. Well, just compete. Yeah, it's interesting that he chose
keeping pull up first.
Maybe because-
That's the most ridiculous problem.
I think that-
It's the most ridiculous.
Olympic Lens are on the joint though.
I mean, I know why they added that though.
It was just to fatigue your body doing something,
pulling.
Well, you know why?
It's because if you tell people strict pull ups,
they're doing five.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
So you're gonna say, hey, let's do it this way
and stay as we do a shit to him.
It's a metric game.
Like, their whole thing is about like,
how many reps you can do.
Like, I mean, like, you heard even Josh Thompson saying
when he was doing, like, fight gone bad or whatever
the one was.
That was cool to hear that.
It was great.
He was part of that. Yeah, that's so great That was cool to hear that. It was great.
He was part of that.
Yeah, that's so great.
I did not know that.
We've known Josh for this long and I had no idea that fight gone bad was created after him
and all the boys.
But even then, in him, he's just like, really?
I have to fucking do this right now.
You know, like he'd already.
So it's literally the thought process is just how do I make this, like how do I, how do
I exhaust the fuck out of somebody and get a bunch of reps out of it? And that's how I'm make this, like how do I, how do I exhaust the fuck out of somebody
and get a bunch of reps out of it?
And that's how I'm sure that, you know,
and that technique,
because there's a gymnastic background
that I think Ray Glossman had.
So I'm sure that transitional move is a good thing.
Of course, of course.
Yeah, that's exactly why.
That's exactly why they did that.
It's because he had all this experience doing these things, thought they were cool were cool tried to what he tried to do is he tried to take the best from different sports
Yeah, and then combine them or from different
Resistance training or weight type sports and it's combined elementary move right in terms of gymnastics because gymnastics are I mean
Dude, you spend a lifetime learning gymnastics. You should learn gymnastics as a kid,
because as an adult, it's like damn near impossible.
Right, and so you tried to combine them all
and then make it hard by timing them and adding,
you know, just making everything kind of crazy
and insane.
So it's a matter of time before.
It was that we said this early on,
it was a matter of time before,
shit started to fall apart.
And I think you're starting to,
you know what the big hole is in CrossFit?
You know, I wrote an article, it's not up yet,
so don't go looking for it,
but I wrote an article on fitness trends
and how they influenced the fitness industry.
Of course, I wrote about CrossFit
because I feel like in the 20 years
I've been in fitness, they're one of the biggest influencers.
One of the biggest influencers of how gyms operate and people work out, single
influences that I can think of in the 20 years I've been in fitness, but one of the biggest
problems in criticisms is the business model. And what I mean by that is it's low overhead,
which is good. It's got some pull and some draw, which is good. It doesn't necessarily scale very well.
People tend to not go after a year or two because they tend to burn out.
And then the other big one is the profitability is not very good.
You own a box, the profit, the profit, it's hard to make a decent amount of money, so
you're not going to get.
So it's a tough business model at my point.
So that's why I think it's going to hurt them more than anything.
And we're starting to see flat now, in the US, flat growth,
and maybe even decline a little bit.
Oh, you think it's a tough business model?
I don't think it's that tough, man.
The overhead isn't very high.
I mean, you just need a damn garage and some concrete.
That's good, but it's the profit.
When we talk to CrossFit,
or when you look at the average guy makes...
When you average profitor, yeah. Well, here it sounds, it's the profit. Like, you know, when we talked to CrossFit, or when you look at the average guy makes, when you average profiter, you know.
Well, here it sounds, it's ridiculous,
because 50 grand a year in San Jose
is your, your, in welfare lines, you know,
so it's fucking ridiculous here.
But if you're in the middle America,
$50,000 a year is not a-
Is that average though considering all the clubs?
And what I mean by that is true, it's much more expensive to live in
some parts of the country, but then you also have the luxury of being able to charge more
and potentially attract more people. Yeah, it's all relative, but I don't think it's that
dramatic of a difference that, I don't think the crosshits over in the middle of the country
are only making 10 grand a year or 20 grand a year. They're probably making 50 grand a year.
50 to 100 is pretty normal.
150, like I said, is on the higher end.
And then if there's somebody listening that does more than that, there's outliers and
everything.
So, sure, there's some people that might somehow found a way to squeeze out.
You know, the real smart people have found ways to monetize other avenues of it.
They use either retreats that they do,
or they sell the food going on in there,
or they have the drain.
You've got to be a smart business person
and find a bunch of other ancillary items
that are items that they can add.
Ancillary items.
Ancillary items.
Yeah, that's an item.
Ancillatems.
He did some great portraits.
Yeah, my tongue's twisted today.
Yeah, so I think that's something that you have to take into consideration if you're going
to start one of these.
I think it just, like anything else, it blew up so a ton of people will see the same thing
happen in orange theory.
There's a lot of people that are rushing in.
I think, right now, if there's an orange theory 10 miles away, there's an opportunity for
you to pop one up and actually compete and make decent
money. That's how popular it is right now. I think CrossFit went through that already.
And you saw, you saw, dude, our buddy down the street from us has got a CrossFit on one
corner and then literally within less than a block. There's another one. I mean, it's
that competitive where there's people opening up in each other's backyard and
That's just gonna that'll kill it for everybody. I remember this was like with the cannabis clubs
We were the first of four to open up and when we were the first of four
Yeah, it was scary. It was risky
Nobody wanted to do it and then as the law starting to loosen up then everybody started to pile and then the next thing
I knew I'd be there be a club across the street from me. And then it became very, very competitive.
And then what ended up happening was everybody,
bad business people, when they get in competition
with somebody else that runs a good business,
their only answer is to reduce price.
And then you get into price wars.
This is what made me exit from the cannabis game was.
Yeah, but the cannabis clubs were there.
Even the shitty ones were, not at all. See what you're, the shitty ones were not at all see what your city ones were
You're off. No, you see you I may used to argue with you the way back in the days about this
No, they were not everybody thinks there's all you know where all the money is being made is in is the black market side of it
Is because you have a front you have a club on the front on the front side?
You're still doing shady deals with those guys are making money
But the dudes that were doing it legitimately and paying all their taxes and put it was
Not very profitable. This is what made me get out of it. It was not we were not I made more money
It brokering cannabis and being a farmer than I ever did running the clubs the clubs were not profit clubs get targeted
And we were crushing people. I mean we had when Mark and I were doing that we had some of the most
We were crushing people. I mean, when Mark and I were doing that,
we had some of the most traffic clubs
when we were running, and we were at the peak time
when there was only four, you know,
San Jose peaked out at like 300 and something.
So the same thing, and then when it ended up
everyone started doing was your eighth prices
were pretty standard at $55, $60 and eighth of weed,
and then it would just, guys were undercutting.
Before long, you were having to sell top shelf marijuana for $35.
And when you...
And the reason why they were able to do that is because then they would sell stuff on the
back end.
Yes.
Yeah, they were doing all...
Some guys would do selling other drugs and doing other things.
Now, but with CrossFit, they're not dealing with the black market.
So it makes even harder.
And there's a lot...
You're right, there's a lot of competition with these CrossFit clubs,
partially because it's so inexpensive
to start one in comparison to other businesses.
Yeah.
And I think the allure is because it's low cost
that I'm gonna make a lot of money.
Right.
You know what I mean?
That I'm gonna open one up and then I'm gonna make
all this money.
Yeah.
And then the profits will just be there.
And yeah, they're having a tough time with that
because it's just, and I do see different trends
and things that are sort of grabbing a lot of that
same attention in terms of, the same appeal,
like your orange theory,
like if they have the choice of that
and like the price point, I'm sure is pretty similar.
You got a nice facility, you got, you know,
like music, like it's just, it's more well organized
and less risk, you know, risky types of movements. So, well, it's just it's more well organized and less risk you know risky types of movements so well
It's harder to get an orange theory the cost is higher way higher. It's a series of half a million dollars
Let's start you start crossfit for 20 grand right well
When we talk to what was his name that we talked to he said yeah, he said between 50 to 100 grand
Wait, I've been you looked at his facilities not said on average, his, his are more than that.
They're like 20 to 40 to get him.
I mean, maybe more now because maybe there's more,
more regulation and you got to have more stuff at whatever,
but I know guys that started CrossFit boxes for,
well, back in the day, you just had a warehouse somehow.
Yeah, you just, yeah, concrete floors,
fucking couple barbells.
I mean, you could do it for easily under 40 grand.
So it wasn't a, but orange theory is a half a million to get going.
But then you have the profits and you have the franchise behind it that's pushing it.
I really, I speculated that orange theory would be the demise of CrossFit.
I really thought that CrossFit would hurt CrossFit.
More than anything else out there, I thought orange theory would.
Because it's going to take the everyday, Jamie and Joe.
Yeah, and they just, they just, it's way cooler.
I mean, if you like CrossFit,
and you like, because most people that love CrossFit,
they love the community, the competitiveness of it.
The intensity.
Well, I mean, Orange Theory just took that
to a whole new level.
I mean, I got my name up on the TV screen.
Next to everybody who's I'm working hard.
Yeah, and I'm getting points for being in zones and like,
oh, are you kidding me?
It's just as competitive, you know,
a minus all the crazy.
But that's where I always saw the flaw.
I mean, CrossFit is very appealing to like,
you know, a little bit of the outliers.
Like, you know, like this is our thing.
Like, this is underground.
This is the garage type, you know, movement,
and it just didn't really have corporate appeal.
And they're trying so hard to make it mainstream,
corporate appeal, like change the boxes,
so they're like more retail spaces
and like everything's nice and presented, like clean.
And that's just not the culture.
The flaw in all of these curves
is another example of a massive trend, you know,
people don't talk about curves a lot,
but they went from fucking zero to 10,000
in like 14 years or something like that, 15 years,
it was insane.
But the flaw, one of the biggest flaws with curves
is the similar flaw that you see with CrossFit
and Orange Theory, and that's their programming,
their exercise programming.
Where do you go from there?
You go to Orange Theory and you work out
three days a week and you follow their classes. Like where do you go from there? You go to Orange Theater and you work out three days a week and you follow their classes.
Where do you go from there?
At some point, either your body burns out,
mentally you burn out, or you get bored with the same shit.
Same thing with CrossFit, same thing with,
especially with the curves.
It's the programming, it's the exercise programming.
They don't offer, how do you move from where you're at?
Well, that's a common flaw in any group training.
Any group training.
Yeah, any group training, because you just can't...
It's inherent.
Yeah, and everybody is so unique in, you know, to take a group of people and to progressively
overload or to, you know, change the program so they're constantly seeing progress, it's
impossible.
Because just like if I was a trainer
and every client that saw me for the entire day,
everybody did the same thing.
That would be an example of what a trainer does
normally in their first six months.
I mean, I did that the first six months
because I didn't know better.
I didn't know anything.
And so I taught a few of the same movements and exercises
and I taught them to everybody.
And I just got good at teaching those movements where
It's like when you become a really good trainer as you you learn to look at the individual you understand where they're at and you start them at the right place
And then you slowly progressively overload them over time with you know, and that is something that you just cannot do in a group setting
You know and you can do everything you want
by adding all these other little, you know,
and I think it's opened up things like for someone
like Kelly Starrett to come in and just dominate
and do so well because nobody before him
was addressing the mobility issues
and all the shit that was probably gonna end up
happening for people.
So, you know, that's the other thing too about CrossFit is I think it's opened up the doors
for a lot of people like that to come in, Dr. Brink, you know,
I know he's, he's a lot of CrossFit athletes
and helps a lot of people out because nobody,
that was the same thing I saw in Ornstein.
I was trying to tell them early on,
like they didn't, Ornstein,
didn't have a Kelly Starrett of Ornstein.
Like there was not a, there wasn't a guy or girl that was
Speaking to you know muscle imbalances and mobility and the lack of range of motion and those repetitive movements of running on a treadmill
You know
I was the only guy in there that was modifying things and saying like hey after class like you need to do this
You need to do that you need to do before you start you need to do these things and I try to tell them
I was like you guys there's a huge opportunity for you guys
to teach this within OTF.
Now, I haven't been there for several years now,
so maybe they're evolving that,
and they're trying, and I've heard
that they have like a whole different leadership team
that is trying to help and move in that direction.
But I think.
They definitely tap into something that,
you see a lot of trends in fitness tap into
and do really well with, which is that group,
that community, that group motivation, which Big Box Jim's totally lack. And if you look at the
usage of memberships, you know, CrossFit kills Big Jim's. Like people sign up for a Big Jim,
and a lot of people don't even go once, you know, they'll buy a membership, they don't even go at all.
Some of them go for a few months and I don't remember the average, it's something like
six to eight months and they keep their membership for another year and a half and never
go.
When you, with the group classes, something that they've tapped into that big box gyms
haven't really figured out how to, you know, how to take advantage of is that getting
that usage.
And then big box gyms, I don't even think they want to
because they're so cheap.
I don't think they can have people use the gym that much.
They don't have enough space
and they charge 20 bucks a month, that video.
Group classes, and I'm gonna say something,
I know it's an piss bunch of people off,
but fuck it, I don't care.
Like, group classes need to die.
Yes, yes.
Group classes period need to die.
We need to start a new trend of just
individual workouts. Well, it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a crutch. I'm sorry. You know,
and if someone's listening right now and they're like, I absolutely love to, I'm sure you do. Yeah.
It's it's it's less risky. I like to go do scary things with friends instead of by myself too.
Mm-hmm. If it's there's something that I'm afraid to do because it's new, I don't know what the
fuck I'm doing. I feel much more comfortable when I've got 10 friends that are with me doing it
But when you're talking about training your body and getting you in shape
You it's not something you do with your friends. I'm sorry. It's just isn't and so you know the the spade
Even if you do the exact same workout, you're gonna need different weight
You know, I mean?
Yeah, it's, and the likelihood,
both parties are compromising,
even if you have a buddy.
Right, somebody has to compromise.
Somebody is getting, somebody's getting fucked.
In a partnership of working out together,
somebody's getting fucked.
In a triplet, there's more than one person getting fucked.
In 10, definitely multiple people getting fucked.
And as it grows, there's definitely a big portion of it.
The ideal situation, you have a coach, you have a personal trainer, you have somebody guiding
you and directing you on, you know, the fundamentals, and then you take that ball and you keep going
yourself.
But the value I see with group training is this.
Group classes, group businesses that capitalize on that or use that as the
kind of foundation of their business, it really highlights that the rest of the fitness
industry is having a shit time tapping into a segment of the market.
Like when curves came out, they exploded with a bunch of people who never worked out in
Jim before or didn't want to work out.
Oh yeah, again, and that's what I'm saying that there's that element there that we need to be able to tap into
because otherwise look, let me put it this way. Let's say let's say group exercise.
They need to come in place. If there was never group exercise, you probably would have less people who would have made the jump to work out on their own.
So I do see there being a benefit.
I'm just what I'm saying is we need to be able to tap into it. I'm gonna challenge that.
You know, it's because it started back in the Jane fondadays. Like actually before that,
you know, Jim's Jim's started out group. Jim's were never originally working out on it.
And why? And this is it will die. Mark my words. It will die. The reason why it hasn't
died right now is because people are still afraid to take that step by themselves. Once it gets
beyond that, once it becomes the normal, like you, when you make the point, the prediction,
which I agree with you, when, you know, when the, the heart association comes out and says like,
no longer are we recommending 30 minutes of vigorous cardio. Now we're recommending 50 minutes or
30 minutes of strength training.
When it becomes the norm for everybody to strengthen
and we change the culture, it'll change the group thing.
The group thing only lives right now
because it's an insecurity that we have.
We don't want to go do it by ourselves
because, and I get it, it's not that I don't understand it.
I respect it.
I would love to see statistics on people in a group setting
like that that then take that and then they go do workouts
by themselves or are motivated to continue
by themselves and aren't completely dependent on
that group energy to carry them forward.
Yeah, the very, very, very first gymnasiums
where you show up and everybody does the exercises together.
Everybody does the same club training or kettlebell
or dumbbell exercises.
It always started that way.
But I mean, what you're saying is 100% right
in the sense that exercise needs to be individualized.
If you want any type of long term success for yourself,
my point is they are tapping into something
that the individual training is missing.
They're getting people to work out that other people
couldn't even get to come in the train.
I'm agreeing with you, but don't you?
I think you're with their tapping into.
Is the insecurities?
Yes, 100%.
I think they're 10.
I think whatever it is they're tapping into,
they're getting someone in the door.
And so what I'm saying is,
here's maybe this is the answer.
Maybe the answer is people need to,
there needs to be a shift in the culture
where we stop considering $150 a month or $500 a month on our fitness and health as being
expensive. There needs to be a bit of a shift in the culture because right now if I tell
somebody, hey, there's a new gym opening up down the street and they say, well, how much
is it? And I say, you know, $400 a month, I'll never go to that gym. It's way too expensive.
We have the skewed perception of cost when it comes to our health. Now, if I tell somebody that they've got the newest
computer, whatever, and their new cell phone came out and it's only $1,500, people will
buy it, no problem. So, there needs to be a bit of a shift, because I think if people
took a few hundred dollars a month out of their budget to invest in their health, which
will get them triple that in return and invest it in maybe a personal
trainer.
I think, yeah.
And I think that the answer is really like the gymnasium, the gym itself is a draw because
like people do want to go to a place that has that type of energy in culture.
Like there can be culture with individual training.
It's just a matter of having a plan.
And then whether you need a coach
to kind of take you through that plan initially,
but everybody's doing a plan in the same place.
And I feel like we can get to that place again.
I feel like we were there at one point
and then everybody, again, insecure.
Like they wanna make sure that somebody else is keeping
and I'm accountable, always deflecting.
They just don't know.
They're attention off themselves to,
onto somebody else.
Like you need to take responsibility.
You gotta put yourself in the shoes of a total beginner,
somebody who never really spent time in the gym.
Man, woman, especially, you know, 35 to 45, whatever.
Put yourself in their shoes.
It's, it's complicated.
I don't know what to do.
I want to go to the gym.
I don't know what to do.
I agree with you, but you're over complicating it
by putting yourself in that situation.
To not do the work and learn, okay?
And then a lot of times you're making things worse.
Yes, that's my point.
My, yes, it gets people in the door.
Yes, it gets people think that way.
Is that a positive thing?
Sure, I can put a positive spin on that.
But the reality of things is what it ends up doing
for the majority is it ends up being a crutch for them.
They only go if they have their class.
They only go if they can be suzy.
They can only meet if they get together.
And is that better than doing nothing?
Sure, it's better than doing nothing.
But if you really want to do yourself a favor
and you really want to help yourself and you really want to do yourself a favor and you really want to help yourself
and you really want to do a lot less work
for a lot more results, you'll do the due diligence
to figure out how you should be training your body
specifically, which is a lot of what motivates us
to do what we're doing right now.
I mean, we put the information, I was just saying,
I was sharing this with somebody off air yesterday
that even though
we, the way we support this business is through our program sales, we teach you how to program
in the fucking podcast.
I mean, you don't have to buy our shit to fucking know.
I mean, we talk about how to put exercise together.
We talk about all the programs and how we've put them in there.
What was wrong with everything else out there.
So we're providing the information for free.
So there's no excuse of like,
it's just, are you willing to do the work?
Are you willing to get on our app,
search topics that you need to learn about about yourself,
go to the YouTube channel, go to the blog,
go to our 30 day free,
everything is laid out free.
I mean, that's the thing, the information is there.
It's just a matter of like,
we need to shift the culture to think in terms of like,
it's power-mearsly.
You know?
Like, I can empower myself by taking responsibility,
doing the work ahead of time, planning this shit out,
getting there, you know, maybe I find a gym that's in Vi,
I like the people, you know, they're friendly,
like this is my type of a place,
or I can do it at my house, whatever the fuck it is,
you fucking do it yourself.
And I don't wanna downplay the social component at all
because the social component,
sure there's insecurities of not wanting to work out alone
and say, but the social component is a component of health.
It is a, it does contribute to your health
in a positive way to see people you enjoy being around,
to meet with people to socialize.
And you guys know as well as I do, managing gyms,
one of the ways I became successful
was I made my gym a place people wanted to go.
They wanna show up and be there,
whether it's because of my staff
or because of other members.
Working out, there are the hardcore people like us,
where I go to the gym and I kind of go into my own bubble,
put my headphones on and I made my space.
But a lot of people like that social, there's nothing wrong with that.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I just think that there needs to be a change in the way it's communicated because right
now people are, they feel like it's too confusing and then the answer is to spend more money
than they thought that they had to spend.
I thought a gym was only 20 bucks a month.
Just spinning their wheels.
Yeah, I think if people took, literally took a few hundred bucks a month,
which a lot of people can actually invest.
Now, it sounds like a lot, but it's not.
A lot of people can invest that much.
People spend that much on buying, you know,
the coffees every morning at Starbucks,
and more on their cell phone bill.
A few hundred bucks a month,
you could hire a trainer to train you,
I don't know, three or four times a month. Yes, that's not all your workouts, but I used to do that with clients. They'd come
see me at the beginning of the week. I'd train them and I'd give them exercises and work
out and then they'd do the rest on their own. So you get that component of someone teaching
you.
I'll give you a cheaper alternative. I mean, this is why, you know, if you were to ask
me what I think is the most valuable thing
that we offer, it's Maps Prime.
Maps Prime is by far the most valuable thing that we offer because it's the only thing
that has the assessment in it that will individualize something for you.
So, if you're somebody who's all you've ever done has done classes and you want to find
a small way, you can start to individualize
Your workouts or improve yourself just you not anything to do with your class or anybody else
Maps prime has that for you and then it will show you something that I can't even tell you
I have no idea because I have not met you and I'm not taking you through an assessment myself for you to take an
Assessment and then find out like oh shit. I didn't know I had this issue. Oh shit, I didn't know I couldn't rotate like that.
It's, oh wow, maybe I should have drawn, and then it points you in the direction of movements,
you should be doing specifically for yourself. That to me is the most valuable thing that we...
There just isn't a focus on teaching people how to exercise and how to practice exercise.
The emphasis is all about workout, sweat, get sore,
beat yourself up.
There is no emphasis.
You go to a gym, there's very little emphasis on,
no, we're gonna teach you how,
and we're gonna show you how to practice.
The quality of movement.
That, it's a huge, it's completely the way it's marketed
and communicated, is so wrong that people have that understanding.
And then when you try and explain it to them the right way, they don't want to hear it.
They just want to go fucking sweat and go get sore.
And that's all I need to do.
And I just need to burn calories, what's the difference.
And so then you get this problem that we're running into where the average person who gets
on a fitness program stops.
That's just, that's the majority. That's like 80% of people
do not exercise consistently for a long pretty time. It's months and then they stop for months and
then it's months and then they stop for months. It's just not something that they treat it like a
job. And then they go to work for two weeks and they go open their paycheck and they get zero
dollars and they say, fuck this how much longer? That I gonna do this for? That's why, you know.
It's exactly.
They look at it like that.
It's like, well, no, it's more like an investment in yourself
instead of thinking like it's a job.
This is why I think, what a tragedy it's been to eliminate,
you know, physical education.
Oh my God, I was going the same direction.
Like, dude, like if we want to go down to the root of it all,
it's the devaluing of physical education,
the elimination of extracurricular activities
that are emphasized in just movement in general
in a school and a learning setting.
It's so fucking valuable for kids to learn their body
and learn how everything works and what benefits it.
Because I mean, if you don't learn that at a young age,
you completely devalue it.
And so you keep going on thinking,
all you need to do is just make money.
And then you make money and I'm gonna be great.
And the irony of it all is that it's needed more now than ever.
And then ever.
I mean, I got my little nephew who's only like 11 years old right now. And I'm watching him play baseball and stuff.
And you know, the kid can't sit down in a squat, man.
He can swing a bat good and he's connecting with the ball.
And so everyone's, you know, celebrating, cheering.
It's all great and stuff.
But I mean, the kid, it does is already losing the mobility to sit down in a baby squat
and you're 11 years old.
Like, are you fucking kidding me right now?
Like that's, if, and if you only knew that how much
that's probably hindering his performance.
Like if he actually understood,
like if his body was working properly,
he would be even better at a sport.
And who knows, one, how that's gonna hinder a sport.
And then two, what kind of issues
you're gonna have later on in life
if he's already dealing with stuff like that
at such a young age, nobody's talking or addressing this right now
in this generation coming up
and we're gonna see a fucking backlash.
It's common, dude.
It's common when we start seeing these kids today
that were born with an iPad and iPhone in their hands
and no emphasis on any sort of exercise at a young age
and then they get into their teens, look the fuck out,
dude, you're gonna have teenagers that are walking around
with postures like people that are 40.
Yeah.
And what is it gonna look like when they are 40?
Right.
Oh man, like they're 90.
Man, I thought somebody was cooking chicken
or something, I was like, what does that smell?
And I had my jacket.
Yesterday.
What?
Yeah, yesterday, yeah.
That's too much, it's too much.
It's too much, it's too much. It's because every time you come I come in here
You're standing in front of the fucking red light barbecue in yourself. No, that's not what I was
You know, I really like your skin. No, no Jessica. She cooked some chicken in it in an iron skillet yesterday
And it made a bunch of they all smoke. Oh, I thought you because you remind me of like a like a chicken under one of those
Those lights, you know, and say They keep them warm and they color.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I really like the chicken.
There's some herbs on you.
I'm really enjoying my morning routine when I come in and I'll stand in front of the
jove and just that's when I'll write a post or something like that.
So I'll stand in front of that.
No, you've been, but I'm noticing, I think I'm noticing some benefits from it.
You've been, you've been doing it more than I have lately.
You gotta have to, you're gonna have to tell me what I'm doing wrong with this one because I'll be sitting there
for a few minutes in front of this light
and because we now have the modular,
modular is that what it's called?
I think where it's like a circuit of them.
They're like Lego bricks, you can stack them however you want.
And I'll be sitting in front of it
and one of them will shut off for me.
So I don't know if there's a break in the circuit
or I'm not starting it the right way.
So I need you to school me because every time I see you in front's a break in the circuit or I'm just, I'm not starting it the right way. So I'm gonna need you to school me
because every time I see you in front of it, it's fine.
Yeah, yeah, no, I love it.
I love standing in front of it.
I think I'm starting, I think I'm starting
to get some benefits.
I notice when I turn it off, I feel a little bit energized.
And I know that the studies show
that it's supposed to enhance the way your mitochondria
uses energy, which brings me to a topic
that just reminded me of topic.
Crayotein, for the longest time now, people have asked, when should I take Crayotein?
And I've been saying, really, this doesn't matter, it's taking any time, it doesn't make a difference.
Well, a study just came out where they were actually a pretty well-made study,
and they tested different times of taking Crayotein, and if there was a difference in
how much Cray creatine was utilized
and the strength gains afterwards.
So actually taking it all the way to performance
and what they found was taking creatine post workout
was superior, absolutely superior.
So when you take creatine post workout,
greater strength gains and greater uptake of creatine.
Oh, I'm glad you brought that up
because that was something that we used to say
didn't matter. Well, that's because up brought that up because that was something that we used to say didn't matter.
Well, that's because up into that point,
the studies didn't really show
that there was an inconclusive evidence of any direction.
Now that they break down how much,
like it is, were there...
They were given on five grams post workout,
but let me see if I can find.
There was a pretty significant increase
in the uptake of creating
which makes sense, right?
I mean, it's like the ringing out the sponge analogy that I always give to people
that happens when you work out, and then of course your body's ready to absorb
whatever sensitive of that. Yeah, it's ready to absorb whatever you put in it
after or after a workout. So it makes logical sense that that would be
the better time to feed it, but we always said that as long as it's
in your system, you're using it and you're getting it.
Well, check this out.
In the post workout group gained on average
about two more pounds of lean body.
Whoa, wow, wow.
That's a big difference.
I know that's what I'm saying.
It was a pretty, it's five grams that they used.
They trained five days a week for four weeks.
This is a four week period.
They performed a periodized split routine, bodybuilding workout, five days a week for four weeks. So this is a four week period. They performed a periodized split routine body building
workout five days per week.
And then they did the one rep bench press
to determine strength.
And they found fat free mass much higher in the post workout
creatine group.
And their strength was higher.
So that's pretty cool, right?
They think it has to do with the sensitizing effects
of muscle from the exercise, and
they're just sucking it up.
This is why I think taking something like cholesterol post workout.
Yeah, makes a difference also.
But you know, it's funny.
There was more articles.
There was another article I read on Crateen where some doctors now are starting to recommend
elderly patients take creatine,
even ones that don't lift weights.
That makes sense.
Yeah, because it helps prevent the sarcopenia,
the muscle loss that happens as you age,
and they're also finding improved heart health
from taking creatine.
Really?
Yeah.
So it's pretty crazy,
because when creatine first came out
in the 90s, it was like, it was crazy
because it was the first supplement that actually did something.
It was the first supplement that put muscle on you
or made you stronger.
And so it very quickly became this bodybuilding supplement.
And then there was this whole controversy of,
as it's safe, is it not safe kids shouldn't take creatine.
This was only 90s. And studies after study, after study was done on it not safe kids shouldn't take creating. This was only 90s and studies after study,
after study was done on it,
there's been thousands now done,
and it's proven to be one of the safest supplements
you can take.
I don't think it was the other benefit.
I know with vegans, it had massive benefit cognitively,
but was there also like an anti-inflammatory effect to it?
It, crate, this is what's tripping me out,
is that crate team went from being
a bodybuilding supplement to now becoming
a wellness supplement.
A health and wellness supplement.
Right.
We're just, you taking some Create team
is probably gonna make you healthier
and make things perform better.
Now do you think that's just because in general
that, and this is what I've said a lot on this show,
I know we came out and talked about bodybuilders
over consuming protein and eating high, high grams,
but in my experience, the average person,
the average client that I train under consumed
their daily intake.
So do you think it's related to that?
And us demonizing red meat as much as we have
over the last decade or so, that's maybe that why.
That's a good question.
Now here's the thing though, you would have to,
the body's ability to utilize ATP from creatine
is actually much higher than the amount
that we will typically get from food.
And you're right, if you wait a lot of red meat
every single day, you're probably gonna tap out,
but most people would need, even the ones
that ate adequate protein, would need
that much red meat on a regular basis.
So supplementing crating, it's one of those things where they're finding, it's probably
a good idea to supplement with it.
That most people need.
Yeah, that most people will get some kind of benefit.
But I think the greater the benefit will go to people who don't consume a lot of animal
meat and animal products.
It's an accident.
It's an accident.
Both.
Yeah. An accident as well. It's pretty crazy because, like I said, I'm reading these articles where they're like, of animal meat and animal products. Is it in the oxygen? In the oxygen? In the oxygen? Both, yep.
In the oxygen as well.
It's pretty crazy because like I said,
I'm reading these articles where they're like,
oh, we're gonna start recommending them in hospitals.
So they'll get patients that will come in.
And they'll give them creatine to minimize muscle loss
or to improve mobility and strength
or improve cognitive function or heart health.
So it's pretty cool.
It's pretty cool to see a supplement go from heart core bodybuilding to or heart health. So it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool to see a supplement
go from hardcore bodybuilding to wellness and health.
Well, it's one of the only things actually.
Yeah, it works.
Yeah.
In terms of like, yeah, actually doing something.
And it's monohydrate.
Because I know I'm gonna get a million questions afterwards.
What's the best type of creatine?
Monohydrate.
Regular, pure powder, creatine monohydrate
is the one that's been studied time and time again,
and when they compare it to other forms of cratee, it's still superior.
Some of the other forms of cratee that they advertise to be better aren't even as good
to be quite honest.
So your best bet is to save money and go with the pure cratee and powder. Quake call! I'm going to have my own.
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It's the motherfucking for-
An English landed!
Quijqua.
First up is Juan S. Fit.
Yes, Fit.
Can you discuss partial reps and one to use them? For example, as someone who primarily squats below
parallel,
are there any benefits of doing quarter squats?
Sure. We just talked about this.
That was just gonna say, we had athletic perspective, sure.
You know, and not just that, but partial reps,
so first and foremost, and I know why he's asking this question
because we're such big advocates of full range of motion.
Full range of motion, for muscle hypertrophy,
for full spectrum strength,
for joint health.
Joint health stability.
A majority of your training should be
in the fullest range that is possible
within your limits in terms of stability and mobility.
90% of the time.
Yeah, so let me rephrase that.
Okay.
You wanna go as low as you can in a squat,
as so long as you have controls
in stability of that range of motion. So, this doesn't mean you go get under a bar and then just go as low as you can in a squat, as so long as you have control and stability of that range of motion.
So, this doesn't mean you go get under a bar
and then just go as low as you possibly can
because if you don't have stability
or you don't own that range of motion,
you'll hurt yourself.
But that being said,
there's certain, I'll give you an example
of how I use partial reps.
So I like to, I like the strength aspect
of resistance training.
I really am partial, no pun intended to,
being really, really strong,
or at least that's something that really excites me.
And so the way I use partial reps
is I'll identify portions of a rep
within an exercise that I get stuck at.
So like in a squat, for me,
the bottom part of the rep, which is common,
is where I'm gonna feel the weakest, where I'm gonna feel like, if I get stuck, it's gonna be at the bottom. If I can get out of the rep, which is common, is where I'm gonna feel the weakest, or I'm gonna feel
like, if I get stuck, it's gonna be at the bottom. If I can get out of the bottom, I can
usually squat the weight all the way up.
Yeah, it's a common technique used by strength athletes. I mean, you identify where your weakness
is lie, and then let's go ahead and try to fight into that.
Yeah, so what I'll do is I'll get into the bar, and I'll do a very deep squat, and then
I'll focus on just that range of motion, where maybe I'll pause at the bottom bar and I'll do a very deep squat and then I'll focus on just that range of motion
where maybe I'll pause at the bottom
or I'll come up and come back down
so I'm only training that range of motion.
Another way people like to use partial reps for strength
is just the way to overload the body
with a much, much heavier weight.
I think it was a while ago,
Adam was telling a story when you would bench press
and she say some old lifters.
Both benching and squatting actually actually I used to work out these old
school bodybuilder guys way back in the days and that was something they did to
me when I was like 22 23. I mean I couldn't even squat two plates back then but
then they would throw three plates on my back and they would make me back off of
it and then just do this little tiny quarter squat and they'd be like I just
want you to feel the weight and you'll see.
And what it did, and I noticed it right away, it was like, wow, doing something like that,
now when I go into two plates, I felt so much more control and I felt, and it definitely
contributes to the central nervous system, right?
Getting you just adapted to feeling that much load, I've done that both bench press and
I've done that on squatting before.
And I see lots of benefits.
That's why too, I don't make fun of people when you see them in the gym doing something
like this because you don't know what they're trying to accomplish.
Like, you know, it's really common for people to take videos of people doing shorter partial
reps and make fun of them and be like, oh, talk shit, like the quarter squat gang videos
that go around like crazy.
But for like, how it tees LeBron James when he was doing that, but I think, you know, Paul
covered that really well in the interview is that you don't know what they are trying
to accomplish there.
You don't know what the adaptation that they're seeking right there.
And maybe that's all I want to do is I just want to feel that way.
I know I can't full squat that 500 pounds,
but I've never put 500 pounds in my back.
Most athletic moves you don't start
in a fully, you know, drop down position in a squat.
Like you're just gonna hip hinge a bit and generate,
you're gonna generate the maximum amount of power,
you know, from a shorter range, anyways.
So to be able to kind to train your body to do that
and then also work on the acceleration of that
with weights makes a lot of sense,
sports-specific-wise.
Yeah, and strength athletes, like power lifters,
they incorporate partial reps all the time.
Now, it's not the bulk of their training
by any stretch of the imagination,
but they'll do things like they'll put blocks on their chest so that they only do a half bench and they'll measure
it off of that.
They'll also, now here's the thing though.
They'll also pull off of it.
But they have a foundation established of strength.
So the four ranges is covered.
But they also lengthen the range of motion.
So like a power lifter may do, you know, they may do deficit deads.
Yeah, they may do deficit deads and then another day they'll do partial deads where they're coming off of a rack, a rack pulls, right?
So there's a benefit to all of these
Different modalities and partial training partial rep training is just part of them. The problem with partial reps is it's super
What's the word I want to specific? Well, no, not just specific, but it's it's a
luring to want to do. Yeah, because you look stronger.
Because I think that's where these videos like I'm on board when it's like a guy that's
at the gym that and I see this all the time, whether it's with squats or even leg press,
where it's like, you know, they're just doing like not even a quarter of of the entire
range of motion, but then they get up and yeah, you know, they're super stoked.
Because it's all about how much weight they can lift.
There was even a book that was written years ago.
It was in the 90s.
I want to say it was in the mid 90s.
I can't remember the name of the book, but the body builder on the cover was Paul DeMail
who's now passed away.
They actually called him Quadsilla back then.
It was a dude from the East Coast with these massive quads.
And the book was all about partial rep training.
And the whole crux of the book was,
the only thing that makes muscles grow
is if you overload them.
Therefore, if we can add way more weight,
the muscles are gonna grow more.
And so what they would advocate for was all workouts,
where you're only going like three to four inches of range of motion, but you're just maximizing how
much weight you can lift. Now, that book obviously didn't do well because people tried it
and found that after the initial adaptation of the because of the novelty of the stimulus,
they were increased the risk of injury and muscle stop growing. And not only that, but
they started going backwards. So it was really funny, because it was like I said,
it was like something that they tried to sell
as a way to power system.
Yeah, and now here's the thing.
The other thing too is pro bodybuilders,
they sometimes will give the impression
that it's better to use partial reps,
because when you watch a pro bodybuilder lift,
a lot of times some of the reps look like
the shorter pumping motion. I'll give you an example.
If you watch pro body builders do an overhead shoulder press.
Yeah, you rarely see a full lockout at the top.
They look more like these kind of pumping reps,
you know, for the delts.
Now, pro body builders, I wouldn't look at a pro body builder
and say to myself, or for most anybody, that's how I should work out. Now, if you look at a pro bodybuilders, I wouldn't look at a pro bodybuilder and say to myself, or for most anybody,
that's how I should work out.
Now, if you look at pro bodybuilders,
how they worked out to get to that point,
was lots of full rep training.
At the point that they're at now,
what they're trying to do is minimize
and range of motion,
because that may cause pain in their joints,
they're just trying to get a good pump,
and they do get full range of motion, other things.
And sometimes the range of motion is limited
because they don't have the mobility because
they got a shit ton of muscle on their body.
So I wouldn't necessarily look at them as well.
Now where would you guys say partial rep training belongs in the average person's training
routine?
It intermittently.
Very infrequently.
Super right?
Yeah.
Intermently, I think 90% of the time literally you should be training full range of motion
and then like many other things that we talk about, like bands or chains, bands,
chains, dropsets or supersets, like it falls in the category of that.
I think it's an excellent tool.
I think, uh, use judiciously, I think it's, uh, can be, can be a powerful thing to add
to your training.
But just, you know, be careful because with that comes this, again,
the ego side of it, oh, it feels good to throw four plates on my bench, because I can't
do more than three plates, full range of motion, but I could sure the shell partial
rep four.
The meathead and me, I still always love 21s.
Oh, yeah.
It's just one of those things at all.
What an old school exercise.
I'll throw that in, because it's fucking fun, you know,
but it's not like something I'm gonna program in, you know,
I'm glad you brought that up.
21s though is they do use partial reps,
but throughout the whole set, you actually hit the whole range
at the end, which is, yeah, that really for the listeners who
don't know what 21s are.
This is an old school exercise.
And I can't, I don't know who popularized it,
but it got popular for a second in the 90s and basically what it is and I use I by the way
I used to apply 21s to all kinds of exercises. I thought it was a leap racing though. I got that blue it up
I don't remember though he might have been one of the guys that blew it up
I don't remember but 21s basically is you do seven reps
Within three different ranges of motion and typically it's done with curl so what I'm doing with the curl is
I'll come all the way up,
and then I'll only come halfway down
and all the way up, halfway down, all the way up.
And I'll do seven reps like that.
Then I'll go all the way down,
and I'll come up halfway and all the way down.
Up halfway, all the way down.
I'll do seven reps like that.
And then the last seven reps,
you finish it all.
It's full range of motion.
I've done that with curls,
I've done that with trisip extensions, I've done it with bench presses, I've done it with squats. It's actually a very
interesting technique. You have a massive pump. Super crazy pump. I didn't know, yeah, again,
like I was like real knowledgeable in terms of bodybuilding in the pump, but I just remember
how drawn I was to that. One of my favorite ways to use partial reps is with the deadlift. I really,
you know, I haven't done this in a long time actually, but I like doing rack pulls sometimes
at the end of my workout where I'll do my normal deadlifts, then I'll put the bar on the rack so that
it's maybe just below my knees, and then I'll do a couple sets with an additional, you know additional 50 to 100 pounds on the bar,
just to get a feel for the heavy weight,
get the tension, I also like the weight trains my grip
because I have to hold on to a lot more weight.
But man, it fries my body, I can't do it very often.
If I do that too often, I start to over train
really, really quickly.
I see it a lot too, you touched on the bodybuilding thing.
The other way that I use it when,
especially when I was bodybuilding was, if I was in a hypertrophy phase.
And so the main adaptation that I'm chasing is cycloplasmic hypertrophy.
So the pump takes a priority in comparison to overall strength or range of motion for
that short phase of my training, which in most of our programs lands in phase
three.
And so, and that's a three week phase, that's it.
So in three weeks, you might catch me doing these, especially at the end of my workout,
right?
So if it was like a chest day and I'm training, and I did like the barbell chest press,
and I did incline dumbbells, and then at the very end, I finished with what people call
finisher exercises, which is common common the way they use this,
is like a chest fly on cables.
And you're doing these shorter reps,
and you're just kind of pumping blood in the muscle.
I know I'm not doing a lot of damage.
Most of the damage has been done by the barbell training,
by the dumbbell training, that was the heavier load.
And then now my chest is pretty much fatigued,
so I'm not gonna challenge it really heavy weight wise,
but I can pump a bunch of blood and fluid into there
to maximize the pump.
That seems to make sense to me when you're training
in a phase like that, when that's what you're chasing
anyways, it's just important again to phase out of that.
Otherwise, that great response that you get
from doing these partial reps and the chasing the pump
tends to diminish after you've been doing that
for three, four, five, six weeks on
and some people who always train this way.
It's just, the returns are greatly diminished by that time.
Next question is from M.V.A.G.S. PT.
Should you change your workout based on how you feel that day?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
100% the one rule that supersedes all other rules or laws or whatever in fitness is listen
to your bodies.
If you're going in the gym and today is a heavy lifting day and for whatever reason, you're not feeling good,
maybe you're feeling stiff or tired,
or you didn't get good sleep,
maybe you feel like you're getting sick.
Change the workout and go in there
and train more appropriately.
Now, this isn't just because you want to be nice to yourself.
It'll actually help you with your progress.
When you're training yourself, if you go in the gym and push yourself, it'll actually help you with your progress. Yeah. When you, when you're training yourself, if you go in the gym and push yourself, when
it's probably not a good idea to push yourself, well, you're, you're going to, you're going
to slow down your progress, you're going to increase your risk of injury and increase
your risk of over training.
Now, the, the hard part isn't this.
This isn't really the hard part.
Here's where I find it really hard to listen to my body.
When I go into the gym knowing that I'm supposed to have an easier, more recuperative workout
and I'm starting to feel like I'm full of piss and vinegar, that's the hard time.
That's when I want to go in there and just say, fuck it, I'm just going to go as hard as
I possibly can because that's how I'm feeling.
That's when it gets difficult to listen to your body because am I listening to my body
for reals or is it just that I really like hard workouts?
And I'm dismissing the fact that I need a kind of
different result.
Yeah, there's a whole intuition inside of it.
I mean, we've covered before where it's very,
this is very much why we stress like following a program
to the T and like going through that entire process of,
you know, giving it a chance,
giving the program a chance to kind of unfold the way it's supposed to.
In terms of like you're saying some, in terms of like I feel like a fucking,
a warrior right now, and I want to just destroy my workout,
whereas you get there and the workout itself doesn't require you to exert yourself like that.
That's a good point too, because how many people,
especially kind of beginners intermediate,
do they even know how to like listen to their body?
That's the thing. I don't think I think it's a learned process.
Yeah.
And you really have to go through that,
because yeah, like to be able to,
like I could make excuses for myself to
and trick myself to where it's like,
Yeah, well, I'm stiff and you know, I don't think it's, you know, I shouldn't really for myself to and trick myself to where it's like, I'm stiff and I don't think it's, I shouldn't really push myself today.
On the other end of that.
Yeah, because the average beginner is going to be like,
I'm tired of doing it.
As you know, South said, listen to my body.
It's on their mind.
So the point that I was going to make was that I find this to be true
with the opposite groups, right?
So the person who struggles with laying off
and listening to their body and not training hard,
typically is the fitness professional
or the person that loves to work out all the time.
They're already in a great rhythm.
And so someone more like ourselves,
where I love to train, it's something that I would argue
were borderline addicted to the lifting out part than the other
side of it.
So it's hard for us to sometimes listen to our body, scale back and I do it.
Now the opposite is true I find with beginners or people who don't like working out in the
first place.
Typically those people need to learn to stretch themselves a little bit and to push or
when you don't feel motivated mentally to go in, to get little bit and to push or when you don't feel motivated
mentally to go in, to get in there and to do the workout. So it's tough, right? It's tough to decide
what am I feeling unmotivated lift because I just don't want to and I'm lazy and mentally I don't
feel like doing it or is it really physically because I've had all this stress on myself today.
And so I think you've you gotta be able to evaluate yourself
and know who you are.
Are you that person who trains consistently,
doesn't take a lot of days off, more often than not,
you're gonna lean towards more of the overtraining
and not learning to scale back every now and then,
or are you the other person that struggles
with consistency, doesn't get into the gym enough,
you're yo-yoing, you're up and down a lot.
If you're that person, you probably have a harder time
breaking through the mental barriers
and you probably need to stretch yourself.
Right, and now one thing I used to tell clients
all the time was, rarely do I want you to not go to the gym.
Rarely, super rare.
So in other words, let's, because what I would do with clients
is in a lot of what I did as a trainer,
and I know you guys did the same thing,
especially after you've been training for a while,
a lot of what you do is try to figure out strategies
to help people be consistent,
help people have a good relationship
with the exercise and all that.
And so one of the things that I would do
is I would have a client sit down with me,
and I'd say, okay,
how many days a week do you know for sure
that you can make the time to come?
Like how many days a week is that?
And they would say something like two or three.
It's okay, three days a week,
what are those days?
Let's pick those times.
These are now rocks in your schedule.
They're immovable.
You're not gonna move them.
Pick a time, pick days, no matter what,
I want you here at the gym.
Now that being said, you come to the gym
and you're feeling really tired
and you're not feeling like working out,
maybe you didn't get good sleep the night before,
don't not come to the gym, come to the gym
and just do something super easy.
But it's much easier to stay consistent
when you're coming in, when you're supposed to
and doing something easy versus stay at home.
And this is a psychology thing.
This is why people tend to forget or that once they lose that rhythm, you know, how
hard it is for them to get back on track because, oh, I don't work out last week because
I really don't feel like it.
I was super tired and now it's hard to, rather than just not coming and go in, go in
the corner, stretch, foam roll, walk real easy on the treadmill, hang out in the sauna,
but still show up and be there still show up
It's still game day. You're still showing up. You're just not you're just not playing what I love about teaching this to because I'm the same ways
A lot of time I apply this to myself a lot of times it is mental a lot of times
I just didn't want to for the day or I got shit going on and then once I get there and I'm walking on the treadmill
Or I'm stretching start to feel I get into the mental space and I'm like, okay, I feel good, I'm fine.
I just didn't want to get here.
And just getting there and starting movement ends up getting you in this different place.
And so I love recommending that the clients just don't take the days off, come to the
gym, even if it means, because rarely ever are we that sick in that bad that we should
just stay home and lay in bed and do nothing.
It's usually sick.
Right.
You've got to be really sick for me to tell you that because most of the time, even just
getting up and walking and getting sunlight and moving is going to promote you recovering
and feeling better.
So at least getting you in the movement of let's do that.
And then we could talk about how you feel from there and then make that decision.
It's true, too, because if you look at your schedule and if you're being objective and
you're thinking, I'm kind of too tired to go to the gym, but then you look and you
see what your schedule looks like and you're like, well, I literally don't move all day
every day.
So really, I'm feeling fatigued, not because I need to take time off from exercise, but
I'm feeling fatigued and I haven't moved.
I feel very fatigued when we're sitting in here and all we're doing is podcasting all day
or for traveling and driving all day long.
Man, I don't wanna, I don't feel like
we're working out at the best.
The hardest time.
We just had a day like that what,
two days ago or whatever we did,
we ran three back to back podcasts,
which we don't normally do,
and they were each like two hours.
And it was, so we over six hours
of sitting in this chair and talking, talking, talking,
talking. And I know that I didn't want to train and work out. And that isn't a reflection
of my body not being recovered and I'm feeling well, it's exactly what you're saying. So
which is, I've just been lethargic all day long sitting down, not moving. And so learning
to be able to connect that and separate, you know, is my body telling me that it's, I've
been pushing too hard and I need to back off, or is it because I've been sitting all day
and sedentary and then my body's just to consider.
It's a great determiner too once you actually start lifting and moving weights, you know,
if it is really like your body needs that rest and recovery, you'll know that right away
once you start lifting the weights because it'll still be there.
So a lot of times I'll go through the motions,
I'll go through the exercises,
and then it's usually the cases I get charged up
and my energy's really there,
and it's becoming relevant to me.
But there has been times where I am.
I am like my central nervous system.
Everything needs recovery, and your like my central nervous system. Everything is, it needs recovery,
and your body just doesn't perform.
Yeah, I have a couple of tail, tail signs for my body.
Like, one of them is, when my joints start to feel
a little bit sore, or when the insertions of my muscles,
so like, like here's an example for the insertions of my,
like my pecs, if I start to feel sore up in my armpit area, or if I start to feel kind of tender and
sore at the tops of my forearms, where my forearms will attach, that's when I know I need
to go lighter in my workout and go easier.
This is inflammation, not normal muscle soreness.
This is more like I've been loading too heavy for too long, and it can take a little bit
of time to kind of
Learn that about your body, but I think what Justin said early on is very smart like if you're a beginner intermediate
We programmed our maps programs
Pretty damn well
Now if you're the average person and you're getting normal sleep and you know normal whatever
If you follow the program all the way out, we've calculated all that out for you.
So just kind of trust the program unless you're sick or injured, trust the program and go through a whole cycle,
which is usually about 12 weeks. And then at the end of it, you should have a better idea of how your body responds,
how it feels, when you should go a little harder, and when you should go a little easier.
Next question is from Emily and Maddie.
Why do I feel my hip flexors fatigue
while doing ab exercises?
Oh, super calm.
Doing them wrong, super calm.
Yeah, if you look at the actions of the hip flexors
versus the actions of the abs, both of them flex your body.
In other words, both of them bend your body if you will in half. But there's a big
difference between the hip flexors and the abs in that the hip flexors bend you at your hips. So
right at your pelvis area, a little bit higher than your pelvis where your where the hip flexors
attach. Like the very, very top of your legs bending there is hip flexors. The abs, the abs attach at the bottom of your ribcage
and they attach at your pelvis.
And when the abs contract, they bend you at the spine.
At your spine.
So if you look at, if you're looking at someone laying
on their back on the floor,
if you can picture this with me right now,
imagine someone's laying flat on the floor.
Imagine if they sit up, but with super tall posture,
like a Dracula, like a vampire coming out of a coffin,
just bending at the hips.
That's hip flexors.
Now imagine if they lay back down,
and they're picking themselves up,
but this time they're rolling their body up,
and you can see in their low back
that they're bending there,
and they're rolling the body up like a piece of paper.
It's like curved.
Yes, that's your abs.
Most ab exercises that are promoted are,
for most people, you're just not strong enough to do them.
So I'll give you a good, you're doing Dracula crunches, bro.
Yeah.
So I'll give you a great example.
Like one of the most common recommended ab exercises,
like if you go in all the muscle building or
Lay lay lay hanging leg raise hanging leg raw is the best ab builder best ab builder and everybody promotes that most people can't do a leg raise
Properly to work their abs when most people do a leg raise their abs are stabilizing their spine right?
Which is the point because I feel in my abs though, yes you do.
It's isometrically contracting
and it's holding everything together.
So it is involved, but it's not the ideal.
So we're not getting that concentric contract.
And I say it's a bad exercise,
not because it's a bad exercise,
but because I know that a majority of the people
that are trying to do it are already suffering
from lower cross syndrome.
It's just because it's the most common,
one of the most pre-enforcing bad patterns.
Yeah, it's very, very common for us to be in this poor posture
in our hips where we've got the anterior pelvic tilt
and then we're already hip flexor dominant.
So then you do an exercise that is going to promote that
and you gotta have really good mind muscle connection to not let the hip flexors kick in.
You know, so you did a really good,
I know we've done at least one, if not two, or more.
YouTube videos.
Really good, the activator.
Yeah, YouTube videos regarding this exact topic.
So if you're not on the mind pump TV YouTube channel,
I mean, you could literally put in there,
you know, abs or look at all the playlists under
abs, and you'll see ones that are hip flexor deactivators.
We talk about leg races in there and doing them correctly.
There's definitely several movements that pertain to this exact question.
One, like tell, tell sign if you're doing an ab exercise properly versus are using too
much hip flexors, is,, does it hurt your lower back?
If you're doing your leg raises and your Roman chair sit-ups
and all these other exercise that require a lot of strength,
and you're like, oh, I can't do those, they hurt my back.
If I do leg raises on the ground, here's a common one,
leg raises on the floor, old-school ab exercise, right?
Oh, I never do those because those end up making my back hurt.
Well, the reason why your back is hurting
is because, well, there's two reasons.
One, one of the main hip flexors
or one of the strongest hip flexors
is known as the so-as muscle.
And that muscle actually attaches at your lower back.
It attaches at your spine.
And when it gets overworked, it pulls on the spine
and you can get some tightness
where your low back is and so it feels like low back pain.
And number two, if you're not strong enough to take your pelvis and rotate it by using
the abs, what'll end up happening is your low back will tighten and contract, stabilize
your spine and then your hip flexors will do the whole exercise.
And that's what you're feeling.
You're feeling that overarching in the low back because it's tightening, trying to stabilize.
This is one of the main problems with people's app workouts.
And this is one of the main reasons why
a lot of people's app workouts, it's not the only reason,
but it's one of the main reasons why
their app workouts aren't developing their apps.
This was me for a long time.
And I didn't really put any focus on it for a long time
until I don't remember how old I was. I was in my early 20s and I was going for a long time. I didn't really put any focus on it for a long time until I don't remember how old I was.
I was in my early 20s and I was going on a vacation
and I wanted to get real lean so I could have a six pack.
And I did get lean, I got down like 9% body fat,
but I didn't have a six pack unless I really flexed hard
and it really wasn't that visible.
I remember thinking like, that's crazy, I'm lean.
I should have a more of a visible six pack
and I had a buddy who had these bricks that stood out
and I thought, I wonder if I need to build my abs.
Maybe there's not built enough.
So I started really focusing on the function of the abs
when doing ab exercises.
First off, I could not do nearly as many reps.
I went from doing 20 leg raises to doing like five
because I started to learn how
to really tilt my pelvis at the top. Number two, I added resistance on top of it as I got
stronger. My abs built out and then I started developing these bricks that you could see
like 11, 12 for somebody. I don't have to get to 9% anymore. But a big part of it was
just knowing the difference between bending at the hips and bending at the lumbar.
And it's funny because this is a problem.
For abs, it's one problem.
When we're trying to do hip hinging exercises,
all of a sudden people might have been at the lumbar,
and nobody knows how to bend at the hips anymore.
You get someone trying to do a stiff leg of deadlift
and all of a sudden turns into an ab exercise,
reverse almost, like with our hunching, their back.
It's like, those are both important things
I understand how to do.
How to separate the hip bending or hinging from the lumbar
and knowing how to apply them when they're appropriate.
I, this used to be, you just reminded me,
we were talking about the lowering your legs.
This actually when I was,
God, I was an early trainer.
I don't know why I got away from this
because I think it was a really good,
like proficiency test that I used to do
where I would lay a client on their back and start their legs up completely straight and then I would have them slowly lower it down.
Oh, you measure the low back?
Yeah, and then I would see as soon as I, because you could see it right away right?
Right, so you can, if you keep someone's legs, if you're laying on your back, you have your client's legs straight up in the air,
so you're making like an L or a 90 degree angle.
You have them pressed their back in the floor.
Yeah, and then I have them slowly lower it, and then I would kind of measure the degree
or angle at which they start to arch their back, then I would know.
And then I could show them progress there.
So you can show, as you start to strengthen those abs and make that better connection, oh,
you know, Suzy, when we first started, you could only go from 90 degrees down to 80,
and you would already start to arch.
Look how low we're getting all the down to 15 degrees
or whatever.
That's interesting.
If you guys ever used a Goniometer,
I've never used one,
but that's basically what they're used for.
Yeah, yeah, all those types of things.
Yeah, that would be interesting to go through that again.
I used to use it just for my own curiosity,
with squats and with different angles of different exercises
and it was very revealing that.
That was actually a great metric to kind of bring to your client
and be like, look, look how much we've gained.
Explain what that tool is to the audience.
What is it measuring?
So this is just like it measures angles.
So you take it and it's got like,
like, there are these things.
Yeah, it's got two arms and then you're able to see sort of like in centimeters or,
you know, inches or whatever, you know, basically where you're,
you're, your joint angle, you know, where, where, you know, like if you're going down
into a squat, this is where you stop.
This is your sticking point.
Right.
And so now you can actually like measure that and give them like an actual metric for that.
Yeah, it's funny. I used to do the same exact test.
It must have been an NASM, one of the NASM protocols, maybe the CES one.
I don't know if I'm...
I think it was.
I don't think it is an NASM.
NASM is the squad assessment.
That was there.
Because I did the same...
I used to do the same...
It was before my NASM certification.
This is what I did.
Actually, what made...
I love that.
The corrective ones were single single leg versions of things.
I used to love that,
because there's some people couldn't even flatten their back
with their legs straight up.
Yeah, no, that's a good test, dude.
I never hate that.
I would even modify it for some people.
They couldn't even flatten their back
with their legs straight up in here.
And then I have them bend their knees.
I'd have to have them bend their knees
and shorten the lever so they could do it.
But it was a brilliant test.
No, it's good because it's for the trainers
that are listening.
It's a cool thing to give them feedback.
They can feel that, right?
Like if you're showing them like,
Sal saying pressing their low back flat,
they sort of lower their legs and then at one point.
They're low back just coming up.
Yeah, they'll feel it in their low back
and then you can show them like,
look at this is where your legs are now
and then you guys go to work for the next three weeks
or a month or whatever and you've now
improved that connection to their abdominals.
And now they have the ability to keep that low back press flight as they lower
all the way down.
It's a cool little thing to teach them.
And more than likely, if you've done a good job as a trainer of making a
better connection there, those same people tend to have a lot of low back pain.
And because you've now made a better connection to their abs, I bet you more
than money, more than not,
that you're gonna have people that will now say,
man, my low back feels great lately.
And that's such a huge point, the whole low back pain,
because you go to the doctor and you say,
my back hurts and they're imaging and everything.
And they're like, oh, well,
there's nothing we can see on the MRI,
go strengthen your abs, just go make your abs stronger.
So then a person goes to the gym and it's like,
well, the doctor said, I need to strengthen my abs. So they start doing goes to the gym and it's like well the doctor said I need a strength in my abs
So they start doing all these exercises that are supposed to be for the abs
But they do them wrong and they end up making their back even worse. It's so and technique is so important
With exercises. It's not even funny. Do you have exercises with the wrong technique?
You're not doing ab exercises anymore literally next question is from Kyle Granks
You're not doing ab exercises anymore, literally. Next question is from Kyle Grangs.
What are your recommendations for a busy college student who drinks high doses of caffeine on the regular and has a high tolerance?
Any natural ways to increase energy or cognitive enhancing herbs, etc. to help perform better?
Yeah, well, you have my friend built up a tolerance to a very powerful but widely consumed drug
known as caffeine. It's funny that caffeine is not
considered a drug
Even though it's it is a drug. It is so where was I? I was at I
Forgot why I was at a Starbucks, I believe, and we were getting coffee,
and there were these group of girls.
They must have been 15, 16 years old.
They were all excited, because it was just them.
They're hanging out.
You remember when you were that age with your friends, right?
And all these girls were ordering
like tall orders of these whipped up coffee drinks,
but none of them were ordering decaf.
So these are 15, 16 year old girls drinking
250, 300 milligrams of caffeine,
plus all the sugar and all that other shit,
but 200 to 250 milligrams of caffeine,
and I was thinking to myself, as I was watching them,
I was like, you know, when I was a kid,
nobody drank caffeine.
Nobody, yeah. Coffee was an old nobody drank caffeine. Nobody, yeah.
Coffee was an old person's drink.
Oh, I didn't get introduced to coffee
until I was like in college, you know.
I didn't even start drinking until I was starting
to work at a restaurant.
And then it was like somebody would brew a cup
and I would like show up like with bags under my eyes
because I was just not a morning person.
Do you think about that?
When were you exposed to caffeine as a 12, 13?
I see 12 year olds too, mom and dad will buy them.
I'm crazy.
You don't see that at all.
Most of the caffeine I would have had.
Because they made them into milkshake.
The most caffeine I would have would be like 30 milligrams
or 20 milligrams or however much is in a Coke.
You know, that's the most that I would end up with.
That's true.
So does did, did you know, you get a little bit of caffeine
from that?
Just a little bit.
So caffeine is a, it is a drug
has classic tolerance building, classic dependence,
classic withdrawal when you go off.
For anybody who's ever, you know, had regular,
you know, caffeine intake and then gone off,
cold turkey, you know how fucking hard it is.
You get irritable, you get shakes, you get all that kind of,
all this withdrawal sort of symptoms from it. It's crazy man. I go through that every now and then.
It's actually one of the harder things to actually look this up. It's one of the more difficult things to completely go off cold turkey. In fact, you know, I could I could not use cannabis easily in comparison to caffeine caffeine isaffeines are tough when I cook caffeine completely out
and I feel, but that just shows your tolerance is high
because your body is completely adapted to it.
And the only way to get your more energy
is to resensitize your caffeine.
So I hate to break this to you,
but you're gonna have to reduce this.
You gotta cut it down.
You're gonna have to, which is really tough
because you build all these associations with it.
You know, and this ritual, like for me, especially in the morning,
it's like, I've told myself over and over again
that I'm useless until I have my coffee.
And these are things that you'd have to,
I have to literally address that first thing.
No, no, I'm just gonna work on having water
and just going through the process
to reintroduce it like in a very
gradual pace.
It's funny because you're right.
The caffeine itself is the addictive chemical.
But then what happens is because you're getting it in the form of something, let's say it's
coffee, now you're also becoming addicted to the ritualization of the intake of this caffeine.
So this is why, I'll give you an example.
This is why nicotine gums and patches are, for some people, it helps, but for other people,
it doesn't help.
Even though they get the nicotine, which is the addictive property or chemical in a cigarette,
they need to have the ritualization of the bringing the cigarette to their mouth.
So that's why they have these vape, you know, pins and all that stuff.
But it's still, it's the fact that you've associated to,
it's a tough thing to break, but you gotta go,
you know, here's my strategy that I've used on clients,
as I tell them this, I say,
what you should do with your caffeine if you wanna
re-sensitize your body is cut your caffeine intake in half first.
And the way you can do this is if you drink, let's say,
you drink 16 ounces or 8 ounces of coffee, go 4 ounces of regular and 4 ounces of decaf. Just so
that everything else is the same. The only difference is you have less caffeine. Do that
for a while. Then what you're going to do is you're going to cut that in half. And one
strategy I do is I go every other day, decaf, every other day, half calf, do that for about
a week, then go down to every third day and then go down to zero.
And that seems to make it easier because the cold turkey, this fucking hard.
What are your thoughts on like sauna use here because, I mean, to me, this is just like anything else.
I mean, we are any other drug that we get addicted to it's just because it's become so widely accepted
and popular, we don't shame it. It's Starbucks in every corner. It's a normal thing. Let's
go meet and have coffee. And so because it doesn't have this negative stigma that comes
with it, we're okay with it.
Yeah, imagine if caffeine just got invented got discovered right now
We were totally regulated treat like we'd label it speed
So it to me it's no different than all of them any drug that I've introduced to my in my life and that I find myself
Using more frequent than I probably should
um, I always try and watch that right right? I always give myself these parameters and
I think everybody should do this for themselves. Like who am I to say what's too much caffeine
for you or not enough caffeine for you, you know? And for me, I know that if I'm having
more than two cups in a day, and I allow myself this little wiggle room, like two cups in
a day, for me is plenty of caffeine, I don't feel like it's taking over my life.
If I decide I want to just completely go, I don't want none for a week.
I don't go through these crazy withdrawals.
But I have allowed myself back in the speed stack days.
I mean, I have had allowed myself to push the caffeine really high and then coming off
of it's been really hard.
The same thing I've talked about with Vyket and the same thing with nicotine, the same
thing with nicotine, the same thing with
marijuana, like if I allow myself to push it really, really high, then it becomes really, really tough
to try and get rid of it and be done with it. But if you've pushed that high, then my recommendation,
whether you go cold turkey or you slowly come off of it, you get off and then you set these
parameters where you watch yourself and you catch yourself when you start to creep off and then you set these parameters where you watch yourself and you catch yourself
when you start to creep up and then you need
to be able to reverse down there.
Now why I asked the sauna thing is,
it's always helped me, I don't know why,
and I don't know if there is any correlation with that,
but when I'm trying to get something out of my system
or stop using something a lot,
well getting in the sauna and just letting myself
sweat it all out makes me feel better.
And I don't know if that has something to do
with resetting me.
I don't know if it's in, I've been taking in so much of it
that I'm sweating some of it out.
Do you know if there's any sort of science to support?
That's a good question.
That has a tool.
Yeah, that's a good question because the caffeine gets processed by the liver
and does sauna use improve the liver's ability to detox?
That's a very, very good question.
I would speculate that it probably does.
The other thing too is that
sauna's have been shown to speed up the removal of heavy
metals, chemicals in the body through the lymphatic system, just through the sweating process.
So that's a very good question. The other thing too is the sauna is a parasympathetic state.
So unless you're pushing yourself to the max, right, if you go on the sauna and you're
going for time and it can start to become sympathetic. But if you use a sauna regularly,
it's helping your body,
you're bringing your body back into parasympathetic.
And I think that may be why it's helping you feel better
because caffeine is sympathetic.
So it may help offset the sympathetic effects of caffeine
with the parasympathetic effects of the sauna.
You know, here, the thing with caffeine is this,
there are, it's definitely my favorite drug in the world,
by far, if I had to look at all the substances I've ever tried or used,
and supplements I've ever tried or used,
caffeine is my favorite when I'm sensitive to it,
when I don't have a high tolerance.
Like, if I'm using appropriate levels of caffeine for my body,
it's great, I can take 200 milligrams of caffeine for me.
And boy, does it improve my creativity,
productivity, my energy, my workouts, my focus.
I become happier.
It's an antidepressant, it's a natural antidepressant.
It's a natural cognitive booster.
It's a, I'll perceive, it helps people perceive pain less.
There's always amazing benefits.
When you don't have a high tolerance,
but what happens when you have a high tolerance is
you need to increase your intake of caffeine,
more and more to start to feel it,
but then as you increase it, the side effects also start to increase.
So for me, once I start to go back past 200 milligrams,
now I'm starting to feel more of the anxiety,
more of the cold sweats, I start to feel,
it starts to affect my sleep a little bit more,
and I get less of the benefits and more of the negatives.
Now I use that as a motivating factor.
So I, you know, yes, I definitely look at my caffeine
and take and think, okay, I need to lower it a little bit
because I've been having too much.
But one of my main motivators is, it's losing its magic.
Oh, that's absolutely mine.
Because I know once I go from, you know,
one cup to two cup to three cup to four cup,
now if I only have two cups, they don't feel anything.
I could go to sleep on two cups.
And that to me right away is like,
well, fuck, I don't want the drinks six
just to get the same feeling I was getting from one.
The same way I treat marijuana.
Marijuana is the same way too.
People always wonder like how I manage that.
It's like, man, it's not that hard for me to,
because I know as soon as I get to that point
where I find myself needing more of it
to get that same relief for same feeling.
That's right away in my sign like,
oh just take a few days off of it.
If I take a few days off of it, reset it right away.
And it's a smart way to manage it.
So I'm not spending hundreds of dollars every single month
on cannabis.
I can spend fucking $80 and it lasts me all month long.
Otherwise, you end up just continuing to increase your talk.
That's it.
And we have an issue.
We're talking about marijuana and caffeine.
They were my I think we're going to see this with marijuana because it's becoming so widely accepted.
Now it's it's people are going to start to learn.
Oh, it's totally and I already see
Where where it leads to and it leads to these guys and girls that are listening right now that dab and it's like
I'm a super pro marijuana, dude
You know that we've talked about it on the show a million times
I couldn't fucking dab if you pay me. It's just way too concentrated, way too strong. And your tolerance has to be so high.
It has to be so high. And if you're somebody who, if you care about your overall health,
and you want to, and you're trying to pay attention to these things, if your body is becoming
dependent or addicted to something, if you're at that level where you're having to dab,
bro, it's like, it would be like snorting caffeine. Like I need, I can't feel coffee anymore.
I have to snort. It's like literally yes that equivalent, you know, so I yeah
I'm a hundred percent with you and with that if you go to mind pump free calm
You can check out some of the free guides that we like to offer people these are guides that will help you build your legs
Build your squat work out your midsection help you burn body fat
build your legs, build your squat, work out your midsection, help you burn body fat.
They're totally free.
Lots of value to at MindPumpFree.com.
The other thing too is we all have Instagram pages
and all of us provide different value
that you may not get from the show
on our own personal social media pages.
So my page is MindPump Sal, Justin is MindPump Justin,
and Adam is on MindPump, Adam.
Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.
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