Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 940: How to Avoid Training Plateaus

Episode Date: January 7, 2019

In this episode Sal, Adam and Justin discuss techniques to avoid training plateaus so that progress in the gym does not get derailed. Grass-fed meat from other stores compared to Butcher Box. Why contrast matters. (2:41) Busting the myth behind pan frying with extra virgin olive oil. Is it safe or not? (8:08) Breaking news everyone… Cannabis really can trigger paranoia. (9:33) Mind Pump Recommends: Bird Box + They discuss the latest ‘Bird Box Challenge’. (13:55) The importance of active recovery. (19:10) Why you should change up your training modalities + How to avoid training plateaus. (24:15) People Mentioned Max Lugavere (@maxlugavere)  Instagram William Hyde (@the.avid.dabber)  Instagram Sal Di Stefano (@mindpumpsal) Instagram Dr. Ben Pollack (@phdeadlift)  Instagram Products Mentioned: January Promotion: MAPS Anabolic ½ off!!  **Code “RED50” at checkout** Butcher Box   ** Get FREE Bacon + $10 Off!** Cannabis really can trigger paranoia | Science | The Guardian Mind Pump Episode 935: All About Cannabis with Leafly.com's William Hyde Bird Box | Netflix Official Site Bird Box Madness Sparks Dining Challenge on Long Island Ghost riding - Wikipedia RESPONSES OF SKELETAL MUSCLE SIZE AND ANABOLISM ARE REPRODUCIBLE WITH MULTIPLE PERIODS OF UNLOADING/RELOADING. @mindpumpsal post on training modalities Heavy duty – Book by Mike Mentzer The Only Way You Should Be Doing Bulgarian Split Squats! (BUTT GROWTH) – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. M the first 20 minutes, we're just having a good time talking about a lot of fun stuff. We start out by talking about grass fed beef and other delicious meats from butcher butcher box. They are one of our sponsors. If you go to butcherbox.com forward slash mine pump, you'll get ready for this free bacon and 20 dollars off for the first two months. Pretty awesome. Then we talked about a study on cannabis. This one blew my mind.

Apparently cannabis can cause paranoia. Can you believe it? They did it. They're right there. Then we talked about the bird box challenge. Don't do that. That's stupid. Don't do that.

Yeah. And we talked about a study done on mice talking about recovery, how active recovery is probably superior to just taking time off. And that was the 20 minute intro. The rest of this was talking all about how to change your training stimulus so that you don't plateau,

aside from not working out, like not being consistent, probably the biggest problem that people run into is plateauing because their body just stops responding from the workout. It's super frustrating. You're working your butt off in the gym, you're training really, really hard. You got great results for the first few months, and now nothing at all, and it feels like you're wasting your time.

Why am I going to the gym if my body's not changing anymore? It's not because you're not working out hard. It's because you're not doing the right stuff, so you will enjoy this episode. Also, maps and a ballad, that's our flagship program. It's a great program for people who want to build their metabolism. So if you have a slower metabolism, you want a faster metabolism so you can get leaner easier. If you want to build muscle, sculpt your body, get strong.

It's a great program to get started with. It's 50% off all month long. So half off, the total price is half off. Just go to mapsfitinistproducts.com and use the code, R-E-D-5-0. So that's red 50 without a space for 50% off. Also, there's a new version being released soon.

It's gonna look really, really nice. If you have maps in a ball like now, or if you enroll in maps in a ball like this month, everybody who has, everybody's getting a new version. The new version automatically, you're going to get that automatically at no additional cost. And we do that with all of our programs. And we do have a lot of other programs also on our site,

mapsfitinistproducts.com. So for my kids school, you can get, I don't know if you guys are schooled as it's Justin, but they have these gift cards That you can get for like Stores like whole food safe way whatever and through getting them I guess the school gets like a donation or something. Oh, that's cool. I don't know if they do that I knew they had that for Amazon and they had like a link back to where they could get some money to kind of contribute Yes, yeah, so my kids schools like they're minimum, like, four grand or some ridiculous like that,

like holy shit. But luckily, it's a bunch of places I would go anyway. You can get gas, cards, and all that stuff. So anyway, that's not the story. I bought a bunch for Whole Foods and Safeway because I go there all the time. And do you get to buy that all up front? For the year.

Oh, for the year. Yeah, but I bought them all up front. And I just keeping all these gift cards and I use them because I go to these places anyway. Like gas, you know what I mean? Right. So anyway, she goes and she buys grass fed steak from Whole Foods and she made it

and she's actually becoming a pretty good cook so she makes a pretty good dish. And I'm eating it and it tasted, grass fed meat a lot of times has that gamey taste to it and I didn't know that she bought it from Whole Foods so I'm eating it. So I'm eating it. Yeah so I'm eating it and usually the meat that we get is from butcher box. Right. And so I'm like why is this, why is this taste kind of funny? Like did you leave this out? Like what's going on? She's like oh this is from Whole Foods and I, because I'd been eating butcher box

for so long, it was good to have that contrast because I think butcher box is the best job for. Grass fed. Grass fed, it doesn't have the same, corn fed meats got that flavor that everybody loved. Have you gone through all the different types of cuts that they offer? Most of them.

The only one I haven't done is the stew meat one, I think it is. Oh yeah. Have you done that one? I have not done that one yet either, yeah, actually. But I'm just ordering the chicken. I haven't done the full chicken yet, and just to give that a try, because I've just kept it all pretty much full chicken.

Stake, yeah, so you get a whole chicken. And what are you gonna do with that, bake it? Yeah, there's all kinds of dishes you make. You're gonna show to your chickens, get them to act right. Hey, they some eggs. They hold it up over the, they some eggs, coaches.

Yeah. Does this look familiar? Yeah. But I mean, the contrast, because I haven't eaten grass-fed meat that wasn't butcher-boxing a long time. I mean, I've gone to people's houses and eaten other meat, but nobody ever buys grass-fed

because it's expensive, whatever. I always gotta explain that to people when I turn them on to eating grass-fed. It's like, if you're buying it because you think it's going to taste better than the shit that's corn-fed and full of shit, like it's not gonna taste better. That's what made butcher-bock so special was,

for that was the first time I had grass fed beef that I was like, oh, this is actually really good. The ribeye's, that's the one I was, is the ribeye that they have. No, I don't know, because we ordered salmon as well. So they actually have salmon. I do their chicken too. A chicken, they're bacon.

How do you like the chicken? I love it. Oh, I love it. Yeah, I love have sand. I do their chicken too. They're chicken, they're bacon. How do you like the chicken? I love it. Oh, I love it. Yeah, I love their chicken. So we, the chicken and then the rib eyes and then also what's, they call the filet cut different. What's it called? Do you remember the name of it, Doug?

It's the top cap. Cap? Yes, yes. So we order that a lot, which is basically just a filet. It's a filet cut, you know? So. I did, we do this we order that a lot, which is basically just a filet. It's a filet cut, you know. So. I did, we do this thing now with chicken, where, because you know, I don't,

I try not to eat gluten, because I sometimes have a sensitivity to it, and Jessica's now finding that she does as well. So she bought this, this panko bread crumbs that were gluten free. Yeah, we always use those. This the gluten free ones? Yeah, we do that with,

and that's how we bread our like our fish and stuff. It's so good on fish. What's the brand? It's Panko. No, but it's a, yeah, but isn't it, Udi's, is it Udi's? Oh, I don't know. I thought Panko is the,

Panko's not the name of the brand. No, I think Panko is the style. Oh, am I right, Doug? Is it the style of bread? It's actually Panko, which is, Yeah. Panko. And Panko means bread in Japanese co, it means small pieces of bread,

basically, so. Oh, it's a punco. It's a panko. It's a panko. So anyway, we bought some gluten-free punco. And she just, she breaded the chicken and she added her own seasoning and shit. Cause she wanted to make,

That's bomb. She wanted to make chicken part of Maggiana. And then of course, we have the homemade sauce that we make every year at my mom's house Put that on there. Oh, dude Right me over bro. I ate I'm not making this up. This is not a joke. I ate about a no no almost two pounds of chicken by myself Wow, yeah, just ate a whole bunch of chicken so good though, and then I farted in a feather came out That was actually that's like a staple go to when I was competing because it was,

it's really, when you look at the macro breakdown on that, it's really not bad at all. It really isn't. And it tastes, and it tastes, and it gives you this feeling like you're getting like a fried piece of chicken or a fried piece of fish. Well, how do you guys do it?

Do you guys bake it? So we do the, she does the fish. But now do you guys bake it or do you guys pan fry it? Pan fry it. Okay, so that's what she do with the chicken. So what she do with the chicken is she pan fried it, which I got another interesting factoid. Pan fried it, but didn't cook it all the way

through that way, which is fry, fry, and then puts the skillet in the oven and then bakes it. So it's not like deep fried, it's just, you know what I mean? And then puts it on it. It comes out really good. So here's the thing, we were having this conversation about frying. And Jessica's like, you know, what oil should I use?

And my mom's like, use olive oil. She's like, no, I heard you're not supposed to cook with olive oil at high temperature this night. Right. So I asked, what's the max, max, Luke of year, because he had told me a while ago that it's really not that big of it. He said, first of all, he said, frying isn look of here. Because he had told me a while ago that it's really not that big of a, he said, first of all, he said, frying is in good regardless.

He said, but the one, the fats you want to stay away from are the processed vegetable oils. He says, you know, a quick fry in olive oil, not that big of a deal. So, her and I went back and forth and I texted him about it. And he said, I'll read you what he said. Because I thought like you should never cook

with high temperature. I've been told that multiple times. Yeah, so he said, he said, no, it's most, he said it's, it's, it's still stable. He said there's still a certain percentage of saturated fat in there. And he says plus extra virgin olive oil has antioxidants to protect it. So he says he thinks that it's largely a myth that was perpetrated by seed oil companies. Oh really? Yeah. So I don't think you should... More foul play, I don't think you should deep fry in all of oil. He didn't say that, but he's like,

yeah, it's not that big of a deal. It's got antioxidants in it. It's not like you're doing it. Oh, that's interesting because I've heard that a lot. Yes, same. So it's the other stuff you don't want to use to, you know, like grape seed oil and shit like that that you want to stay away from. Oh, that's fast and interesting. So anyway, so I got a study here that's going to blow your mind. You guys ready for this? The entire year happens. This is, you know, everyone's while they publish a study that after you read the title, you go really? Did you guys really have to do a study?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the last one you did about women. Yeah, that's what I mean to each other. So this was a study published in the Guardian and the Psychology section. Doug actually shared it in our team group text. Oh, I think I'd like to this one. Yeah, this is the title, ready for the title?

I mean, here. Cannabis really can trigger paranoia. Oh, yeah, I see. Apparently a large study, It's confirmed everybody. On the effects of THC suggests, I like it, they put suggests just to be safe, that it can cause paranoia in vulnerable individuals. Why do we even spend money on studies like this?

I don't, yeah, I don't know. I don't get it. I think it's like, I mean, anybody who's smoked especially for the first time, I mean, that's the big concern. It's like, it's back in the day, I mean, anybody who smokes, especially for the first time, I mean, that's the big concern. It's like, it's back in the day, I remember, like, there was no such thing as, like, dosing. So you just like take this massive hit

as you possibly could. It was just, I mean, it was anxiety city. You know, that was like what, I'd steer me away from it forever. If you have, if you're somebody who use a lot of cannabis and you have anxiety Probably don't go. Yeah, I'm hype it up. I think you should probably reduce your cannabis consumption Yeah, you know, we had what's that guy's name from leafly guy forgot his name. We just had him on the show Will yes, thank you. This is last time. I can't think of it

Let us know ducks. I want to make sure we say his name, right? Good guy, right? Really, really good guy. But he said, yeah, he goes, cannabis doesn't cause paranoia. It's just the fear of getting caught with it. That causes paranoia. I've heard Stoneers say that before. Not saying that he's a stoner,

but I think he would say he is, right? It's self-proclaimed or whatever. That's not true. Of course it causes that shit and some people. Like any substance. I think what his statement was it's perpetuated though by all the other stuff that you could get caught that it's a drug you're taking.

So I think it's heightened because of that. Because I know that the first time that I, the first really bad experience like that I had with it, I mean, it freaked me out. And absolutely, I would say, a hundred percent causes paranoid. Now, being somebody who's used it for several years now, I've been beyond that level of high before and totally comfortable with it

because I'm comfortable with the feeling. Like, so a lot of it is. Have you ever gotten to a place though where you'll, you'll, we'll hide. Thank you, Doug. You ever get to a place though where you'll use it and let's say you're you're kind of stressing over something and you're a little worried or whatever and then you have some and then it just makes those those thoughts worse. Is that happening? Right. Yeah. It happens to me.

No, absolutely. So I do agree that it does create it. But I also believe, you know, in his defense that, you know, a much of is crew, we have crew, we create ourselves. Like, and that's what perpetuates that feeling of paranoia and the more that you become comfortable and okay with this. Well, it was illegal, you know, and so there is that element to it where you're trying to be sneaky and it's, you know, going into it. So I'm sure that can do it. Right. And you think you're thinking everybody thinks you're high, right? Like, yeah, I don't want people to know. I don't want to talk to my. I don't want to touch my parents right now.

Yeah, yeah. So, no. It's so funny. But I think the thing that I said in the thread that I want to communicate is true for, what I'm about to say is true for any substance that has an effect on you. Right. If something has an effect on you, then it literally affects you. And that means that a lot of things are not off the table. Everything's kind of on the table. So it's, you know, someone's like, oh, caffeine can't do this to you. Well, it definitely has an effect on you.

And we don't know how your body chemistry is reacting, your state of mind, the context. A lot of these things can affect you in a lot of different ways. And so to say that something will never cause, you know, because I've heard people say that before all know, it relaxes me, it will never make anybody anxious. Well, it does something to you, obviously. So in the right individual, the right circumstance,

because I've had some situations where most terrifying situations of my life were with Kim. Oh, yeah, you get like news and you're high at the time that it makes you just like, oh, freak out, like it's gonna intensify that whole new step process. Oh my god. Did you guys end up watching Bird Box yet?

No, I haven't, I've heard it's like really creepy but it's not super scary, which I've been trying to sell this to Courtney because I know we watched Hill House. Seriously, one of my favorite shows of last year. So smart. I thought they killed that show. Amazing writing. So and I've heard good things about bird box. Where would you compare the two? It's bird box is thriller more than it is scary. Okay. You know what I mean? Was Hill House scarier? Yeah, parts are the gulps and everything.

Yeah, I know, I know. Have you seen, you don't watch Hill House either? No, no, no. You would actually like it. I think you would like it. You would like it. How the fuck do you guys say a statement like that and then follow it up with I would like it?

No, no, no, no, no, because it's just only, there's parts where it's like, you know it's coming but you don't, but it's fun. It's not, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's not fun. I don't like to feel anxious watching a movie. Have you, have you, have you, you want to know how many times I gotta say this?

Maybe you should just reduce your weakness. We always forget. No, it's over. Hi, doesn't matter. Yeah, you gotta watch it cold, stone sober. Well, let me ask you this. Do you like movies like, do you ever watch Seven with, love Seven? Okay, okay. Do you like movies like, do you ever watch Seven with?

Love Seven. Okay, so that movie was a thriller, right? What about Silence of the Lamps? Like it, little on the screen. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That part in the dark, bro, and he's walking around, that's, or when she's walking around the dark is one of the scariest scenes of all movies.

No, you'll like Hell House and Bird Box because the writing is so good and it's along those lines. That's why you'll like them. But anyway, in this movie, Bird Box, highly recommend, I think they did an excellent job. Oh, here's a side note. Jessica was getting her haircut and the kid was talking about Bird Box.

Yeah, the lead woman in there, man. She did such a good job and who is this actress? And it's like Sandra Bullock. Come on, you know Sandra Bullock. Yeah, he was in Rell of 20s. the lead woman in there man she did such a good job and who is this actress and Sandra below my you know Sandra Bullock. Yeah already That's hilarious. She's like you never watch speed. He's like huh. So anyway The he's congeniality in the movie their blindfolded throughout a lot of the movie I'm not gonna tell you why but they have to move around it was they tell it in the trailer So it's not like yeah, but you don't know why okay? You don't know you why, but they have to move around. It was, they tell it in the trailer. So it's not like this one. Yeah, but you don't know why.

Okay. You don't know why that is. Which is part of the writing, which I thought was brilliant, because it was a great way to add that element of, I'm more interested now. Super good. But anyway, in the movie, they have to move around,

blindfolded outside, and they have to find the way around where, so now you've got a bunch of, it, of course, we're in the tide pod generation. You've got a bunch of it, it's now,'re in the tide pod generation. You've got a bunch of idiots now who are doing the bird box challenge. Oh God. So what are the stipulations with this?

Obviously they're wearing a blindfold, but what are they trying to do while they're wearing a blindfold? Anything. Just any reason to do it. Drive the car, walk around, do things outside. Yeah, driving, because in the movie that the drive blindfolded also, a couple parts.

So people are trying to the birth. Yeah, people are so smart. So what are you think is going to happen? That's like ghost riding the whip. Remember that whole thing? No, they would like step out of their car. That's what I guess when I roll my eyes, like that I try not to sound like,

or look or sound like the old guy. Oh, my god, funny. Right, the old guy, because we did a lot of stupid shit in our generation too. I think that I think we just make the sound old when we think about this. When do we do that with different film? Well, Justin just named one. I remember Ghost Ride the Whip. That's not our generation.

I mean, it was not. It was not tail end of it. It was a tail end of it. Ghost Ride the Whip was not, that was what? Like, we were thousand and five maybe? It was like, I feel like? Like, we were alive maybe? It was like, I feel like it was like the 90s. No, it was a lot of time.

Doug, look up Ghost ride the whip. 99 maybe. 99. No, it's after 90. It's definitely after I was told. It's after high school. But I mean, that's still what considered our general. I was listening to that song.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I listened to that song. I definitely, on my way from the clubs, I mean, I remember that. And I remember a bunch of people in front of us doing that at two o'clock in the morning. There it is, Ghost Riding. What year is it, Doug? Yeah, let's find out. Because I don't remember that.

Yeah. Anything with cars and motorcycle. 2000s tricks. Oh, always a bad idea. But yeah, we did, 2006. That's in 2006. Yeah, I just said that, but I don't know if it said that's when it started. Yeah, we did we did close out and it's too. So think about how

do you go dog ghost ride the whip right just was it say 2006? How old were you guys in 2006? 16 no 99 was when we graduated from high school so that's seven years out of high school. So you're 26 Yeah, so you're in your 20 you're in your mid 20s by that point. You're not really it's not your generation anymore, right? Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, our generation didn in your 20s by that point. You're not really it's not your generation anymore, right? Yeah, fair enough Yeah, our generation didn't do well then again It kind of is though because you can't drive to your 16 So you know you're not go striding the whip at 13

You have to be at least I have at least a grand I feel like 16 to 25 would be the the generation. So we we were right like just and hit it right We're on the tail end of that. Yeah, that's pretty yeah, we're we're on the talent That's just one thing. That's one thing. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, we are on the tail end. That's just one thing. That's just one thing. Yeah, that's plenty of other examples. A lot of stupid shit. We were talking about the last podcast.

When that last podcast episode, we talked about it. Yeah, passing people out. Yeah, yeah, see, we did that. Smoking whatever we could find. Yeah, I smoked a Reagan know out of a plastic big pin. Out of a plastic big pin, we melted the bottom of it and we smoked a Reagan one. That can be one of the stupidest things we ever did.

We're even doing, yeah. Yeah. Dude, I wanted to bring up a fitness study. That's kind of interesting. The title of the study, and I'll explain kind of a little bit about what it means, responses of skeletal muscle size and anabolism are reproducible with multiple periods of unloading and reloading.

And so what they did is they tested rats where they basically exercised them and then had them stop, had them exercise, had them stop. It's like a little rat wheel. I don't know how they even work them out. A little rat weights. Yeah, I think that's what it is. But what they found was that collagen concentrations

in the muscles changed pretty significantly when they took a long break versus rather than just to, because when you take a break and then start up Again, your muscles bounce back pretty fast But what they're saying is when you do that each time you do that you increase your risk of injury pretty highly versus Staying just a little bit active in between which kind of enforces the idea that we talk about all time of active recovery rather than just taking time off Completely you're probably better off going really easy and really light, but still moving that we talk about all the time of active recovery, rather than just taking time off completely, you're probably better off going really easy

and really light but still moving. So not doing the whole, not working it out, not working out type of thing. Because when you bounce back, they're saying that that risk of injury goes up. Now quite a bit. Was that a study done on like Jess Ratz or do it? Just Ratz, okay, so we don't know what that is.

But what we've observed is- Because I feel like that would be, there would be a major variance between age groups too. Oh, of course. Right. I would think that would be extremely important as you start to get beyond 30, 40 years old that you're better off at least doing

like some active recovery and mobility. I got thinking about myself right now, like that's something that I've done. I haven't been on my rigorous training program, but I've definitely still moving weights, still doing mobility type exercises and drills. And because I know like if I don't, I lock and stiffen up and...

Well, what it makes me think about is not a kid anymore. I'm not playing on a playground anymore, I'm playing pickup basketball. I'm not doing these things that I think that would promote that that you typically do when you're in your teens. Well, what it makes me think about is, you know how they say that when people go on a cycle of anabolic steroids

and their muscles get really strong and big, that the risk of injury goes up because all of the connective tissue and tendons and all the other tissues that need to strengthen, take longer. So the muscle gets real strong and big, faster than the support structures can keep up. And I've always wondered about that. Yeah, because I've wondered about people taking anabolic steroids and I've always heard ligaments,

you know, not being able to grow at the same pace as, you know, the muscles. And why, you know, why that is, is it like- A little blood flow? Yeah, I was gonna say, a blood flow issue. Or- Yeah, and muscles hypertrophy faster than tendons and ligaments can, or at least when you take anabolic steroids. Now here's the thing.

When you exercise, let's say you gain, let's say you've worked out for two years, consistently, you do a really good job, you get a good diet, you gain 15 pounds of lean body mass, right? Put 15 pounds of muscle on your body, which is a lot. And then let's say you just totally stop working out for four or five months. You'll lose that 15 pounds of muscle

in a pretty quick period. It made it, it might have took you a year and a half to gain it. It'll be gone in four or five months of total deactivity. But then when you go back to working out, it's not going to take you a year and a half to gain that muscle back. It comes back really fast. Like we've all experienced muscle memory. So my question or what it makes me think about is maybe the muscles bounce back fast, but then the tendons and ligaments take long to come back. So they don't keep up at the same pace,

which is why taking these breaks and then working out may not be as good as at least maintaining some form of activity. Do you see what I'm saying? That's my, that would be my theory. I don't know. What do you think about maybe, I don't know, this is just total speculation

of like the style of training in terms of like people that are on anabolic steroids and doing like very concentric focused, you know, type lifts and, you know, aren't really incorporating mobility and blood flow to the joints quite as much. I think the faster you progress and the stronger you get, the more important mobility is, obviously, there's more output, more power. Right. You know what I'm saying? Why just in terms of getting blood flow,

like that could increase the potential to have them be affected? Well, we incorporate, like, split. You know, map split was pretty much a bodybuilder routine. Yeah. And we made sure to put one day of just mobility work. Right. Because two, well, two things, first off, an injury, nothing will make you lose your gain.

Nothing will get in the way of your gains or progress more than an injury. That's the worst possible thing that can happen. And then number two, being able to move through wider ranges of motion with good control is only going to contribute to your ability to build more muscle. So I don't even have that, of course, as bodybuilders do the least amount of mobility. Right. But they probably, they will benefit from it, just like any other athlete, even for their sport,

which is just to look good, you know. That actually brings me on another topic. I want to see if you guys wanted to kind of talk about on this episode. I did a post just now on Instagram. And every once in a while, I'll do a post, and I'll just see that it kind of hits a nerve and gets a lot of attention real quick.

And so the post that I did was just words, right? I just wrote some words on a meme or whatever. And it said, muscle building rule number one, almost everything works, but nothing works forever. And so the case that I made in the post that a lot of people seem to be be sharing is how, you know, if you took, if you took all accepted muscle building techniques, like the all the accepted ones, not the crazy ones, but all the kind of accepted ones, they all they all have an effect, especially on somebody who's never done them

before. They're all going to build muscle, but there isn't a single one if it was just done all the time the same all the time that will always work. Your body will eventually plateau with anything, doesn't matter what I think. Well, I think that really is like sort of the root of the problem of what we see in terms of like everybody being so fervorous about their specific modality and their camp and because there is that initial reaction or progress or what they've found in terms of getting some kind of results and success,

but yeah, exactly. There is a shelf life to that if that's your only driving force. Yeah, I mean, before we get into kind of what that looks like and you know, why that works and why you need to change things up, I think it's important that, because I think a lot of people now have heard that you need to mix things up, you need to confuse the muscles,

hate when they say that. And I think we should talk about the wrong way to do it, because I see a lot of people who, they're like, oh, I go to the gym and it's different every single time I work out. That was me. Yeah. That was me for a long time. And the hard thing is to convince someone like me during that time that it was wrong.

Because I built decent muscle. I looked pretty good. Felt pretty damn good. And so if you were to come to me and say, hey, what you're doing is not ideal or it's not right, I would pretty much tell you to fly a kite. And I think that's the problem that a lot of people are in right now. If you're not somebody who's beginning

and just totally oblivious to what you're doing, but if you're somebody who's been training for years, I think this is one of the common mistakes, to Justin's point, I think this is one of the common mistakes to Justin's point. I think that at one point in your fitness journey, you try out some modality or training philosophy and you see great change or you see a great response. Your body is you can become the best shape for the best version that you've ever seen of yourself, therefore someone trying to tell you that that's not ideal or that's not working,

or there's other things out there you should incorporate. Because you're identifying like, well, it worked for me. Right, yeah, I mean, there's no way Sal is gonna convince me to stop training this way because I've seen myself in the best shape of my life doing this, the reality of it is there is, there is a better way to do it. And I definitely learned that firsthand

after many years of training this way with the quote unquote muscle confusion type of idea of lifting where I, every time, I, in fact, I used to brag about this. I used to say to people that, I've never duplicated a workout. You know, every time I come in and lift, it's never looked exactly the same. I'm constantly shocking my body and throwing a new adaptation. And I, which, you know, that's really silly when

you think about it. If I wanted to see maximum gains, I should have phased it and I should have been more. And when I started to do that, wow, what a difference did that make. So there is some truth to, and there's some benefits to the muscle confusion type of theory that people apply where they're changing their workout all the time because yes, the body is going to be challenged. Yes, you're going to burn all these extra calories. Yes, you're stimulating muscle. Yes, you're going to see results from that.

But there is a much more methodical approach that will result in better results if you can structure your workout. Well, so I'm experiencing this a little bit right now. So something that I just recently started doing my training that haven't done a long time is trained to failure. Now, I know we've said many times on the show,

trained to failure is too much intensity for most people most of the time. And we always say that, said many times on the show, trained to failures too much intensity for most people most of the time. And we always say that, most people most of the time. But it is a novel stimulus every once in a while. And you have to, you know, you modify the other, you know, variables, right? So if I go to failure, my volume goes way down. Rather than doing, you know, three sets of three exercises for a body part, for example, which would be nine total sets. I'll do three exercises, one set to failure or if you check your size.

So I've cut the volume way down, but now my intensity is through the roof. And because I haven't done it in a long time, my body starts to see results. But here's the thing with this, is in this is the way I explain it to people, when you look at a variable in exercise or training, whether it be rep ranges, rep tempo,

even the exercises themselves, so like different movements for legs or chest or back, different kinds of splits, like there's a lot of different variables, but those are the main ones that I just named, you know, a number of sets, all that stuff. When you look at those variables, look at them in terms of their potential.

And there's an upper limit of potential that you can achieve through each of those variables, and there's a lower limit of potential. And in order to reach the upper limit of potential for any variable, you have to do it long enough to where you at least adapt to the point where you can maximize that variable So what I mean by that is a very easy example Let's say I always train in the very low rep ranges. Let's say I never go above five reps

And I've just been doing it for years and then I hear this podcast and like oh wow I'm supposed to mix things up. Let me try training in the 20 rep range. The first couple of weeks of doing 20 reps, you're not able to push 20 reps very hard because you're at a gas. You're not able to do it well. So you're not able to squeeze out the maximum potential of those 20 reps. Now, let's say you do the 20 reps for four months.

Well, not only did you get good at it, but your body stopped responding because it's no longer a novel stimulus. And that's, I think, what we need to kind of address because... Well, there's a sweet spot. There is. And there's a variance in that sweet spot. And I think this is also how we came up with that three to four-week range with all the programs,

is that based off of our experience and knowledge, that most people fall in that range of three to four weeks that they want to stay with a specific adaptation. That way, they break through that initial phase of learning the movement, building the stamina, getting good at it enough to where they can actually push it, which I think results in the back three and four week. So, week one and two of a training, you know, modality is, you know, or a phase, whatever your first two weeks is a lot of learning the movement, getting good at it, building the gas tank if it's a high rep, like you're saying, if it's a low rep, then maybe it's more skill driven, getting really good at the skill. Summarying the amount of force.

Right, right. Exactly. So getting good at that skill, and then the weeks three and four is really... You're pushing it. Pushing it, maximizing what you've been leading up to. And then the mistake that I think a lot of people is they tend to go weeks five, six, seven, and eight, because just as they start to get really good at it

and see great performance and physical change from it they get and they fall in love with it and then they want to stick with it But in reality after they start to see that initial really good change It will be most ideal for you to kind of phase out of it. That's the hardest part the hardest part is knowing when to phase out of a particular style of training or whatever variable you're messing with, because our tendency is to phase out when we stop progressing.

So it's like, I'm doing so good in these low reps. I'm just gonna stay here until my body stops responding. Well, usually what it looks like is you stay in the low reps, then you have a week where you don't add more weight and then you think, I'll try again next week and then you have another week where you don't add more weight, and then you think, I'll try again next week, and then you have another week where you don't hit the new weight, and you're like, well, one more week, I'm gonna try one more time.

Then you're like, okay, fine, I need to get out of this phase. Well, now you've plateaued hard for three weeks. Getting out of a plateau is like getting out of a hole. Once you hit that plateau, you're in a little bit of a hole, and the longer you stay in that hole, the harder it is to come out to the point where, if I have somebody who's been in a hole for a long time, just driving their body, not responding.

Sometimes I get to give them two or three weeks of deloting before I move them into something else. Ideally, you want to move out of, you want to change your routine right after the peak of your progress. So if I'm in a new rep range and I'm hitting PRs and I feel amazing, and the next week I worked out, and I still do better, but I feel amazing and the next week I worked out and I still do better, but I noticed it slowed down. Right around that time is when you might want to consider changing phases.

And for most people that looks like three, five weeks, maybe six weeks depending on how you do it. I would say three to six. I would say max six. Very few people you're going to see, you know, continuing to hit PRs beyond week six of a training phase. And three is on the lower end of your body. So I think most of the programs that we've set up are staged around three because it's not going to hurt you to move on sooner. You know, I'm saying if you move away from it, it's there's more bad things that happen by prolonging it.

Prolonging it is when you start to notice the hard plateaus, the aches that you start to get. That there's tend to risk of injury. You press it more because you get more confident in the newly acquired skill. And so you're going for those PRs and that's where we get susceptible to injury or anything like that. The other thing too is, if you're, let's say you're doing an elimination diet for yourself, and you're trying to figure out what the fuck is bothering me?

Why do I have, the skin issue, or why am I getting headaches, or what I have good issues? The way an elimination diet works is you eliminate all the variables, and you introduce one variable at a time so that you can identify the culprit, right? You don't just throw a bunch of shit at yourself and then you don't know what the fuck's working, what's not working, what's going on.

This is how you should approach your training. And it's not to figure out what's working, what's not working. Really, it's to maximize each of these variables. So what I mean by that is, the one of the best ways to change up your routine and this doesn't the only way because there's a lot of different ways you can do it. But one of the best ways I like to do is I like to work on one variable at a time. So I'm changing the reps. I'm gonna keep all the same exercises and then I'm changing exercises and then I'm gonna focus on a different adaptation maybe maybe it's mobility. And then, yeah, and you can start messing with these things and seeing how your body responds.

It's also important to note that some variables can stay in longer than others. Rep ranges, you tend to move those in and out of those every three to six weeks. Exercise is sometimes last for a long time. Like, and why? Because there's such a learning curve, such a skill acquisition process. Well, not just that, but there's also a huge carryovers from certain movements,

i.e. deadlifting, squatting, bench press, overhead press. Those are staple movements that should pretty much stay in your program almost forever. Because, and we've touched on this a little bit on previous shows, that, you know, and this was this back to my mistake, right? So, go back 10 years when I was lifting and muscle-convusion guy. And, you know, training legs, you know, I want, first of all, I was only training legs one time a week. Maybe two, two was like just, well, would kill me because I was going to failure and doing all these things.

But, you know, I might squat on one of those, one of those days, and then I'm leg pressing on another, then the following week, I'm doing hamstring curls and leg extensions and machine hack squats, and I'm using every, every piece of equipment in there. And maybe in a month's time, I squatted once, maybe twice, you know, for my legs. And then I did all these other little, little movement, isolation type exercises, which is so silly because just simply squatting and doing nothing else has blown my legs up more than anything else. And I could do, you know, half of the time in the gym,

just lifting that movement and get four or five times the gains on my legs than throwing all these random leg exercises at my legs and killing myself. Right, so then you'll get people who will be like, oh, but I thought you said you should mix it up. Why would you always squat, right? And one of them is the carryover, but the other one is certain movements require a lot of skill

and you are not gonna master the squat and you're not gonna hit full plateau on a squat in three to six weeks. It takes years of squatting. I mean, it took, if I trained somebody who's even has normal mobility, and I'm talking about the average person with terrible mobility, somebody who can kind of move and stuff,

and I start squatting with them today, they're not gonna be really fucking good at squatting for like six months. Takes a while. I would push long on that. I think that, you know, I've been squatting my whole lifting career, but very infrequently, I've been squatting two to three times a week

for the last four or five years. I still think I'm making continuous improvements. So depending on the movement, you can keep it in there for a long time because it's such a high-skill movement. Unlike a low-skill movement, is it gonna make that big of a difference if I just do barbell curls all the time

where I go do another kind of curl? That's not that important. It's low skill exercise. You master it pretty quickly. And also I think mastering your energy system and being efficient with that in terms of the principle of specificity. I believe, in my opinion, I feel

that is one of the principles of training that has been lost and people have just thrown that concept out, even though it's like a proven principle, you need to specifically tell your body what to do in order for it to adapt accordingly. This is the amount of stress that I'm telling my body. It needs to overcome in order to get better and more effective at.

It has a certain amount of time you need to teach that to it and not convolut it with, for instance, like making something more of an endurance-based exercise. So now I'm upping my rep count while I'm simultaneously doing something for power for a few reps. And so now the body's, that muscle confusion is really is, it's confusing all the energy systems.

Right. Right. Be efficient and give you what you want. It's like the 80, 20 rule, right? I mean, 80% of your effort, energy and time should be focused on the things that are going to give you the greatest bang and buck, you know, bang for your buck. The other 20% can be done with these, different exercises and variables in your routine, but there should be these core staple movements where most of your time and energy is spent.

Now, that's a good, what you said, Justin was a good point because I think a lot of times people will think, okay, Monday is a heavy day, Tuesday is a light, high rep day, Wednesday is speed or whatever and in my experience unless you're and now this isn't true for a hundred for everybody like if I'm training an MMA fighter if we're off season this is true but if we're during season I got to keep them in being able to do all the stuff right but for most people you're better off training in blocks where I'm power. I'm gonna get good at power. I'm gonna wait until my body gets good.

I get used to the movements. I get good at them. I can push them. My progress is slowing down. Now I'm gonna move to endurance. Or now I'm gonna move to body building or aesthetic type training. And rather than mixing it all up in the same week where your body has only limited resources and ability to adapt.

If I train for endurance and strength at the same time, I'll get a little bit of each but a lot of neither. Yeah. You know, and it's harder to kind of break apart. Again, what's really working well for my body? And then it's it's also hard to manage your recovery because it's really like sometimes that might delay the process like you might need more recovery than you even realize because like everything is trying to figure it out

like exactly what kind of stress you're inducing like on a daily basis. So I think, you know, when you're looking at your workout and your routine and you're trying to wonder why, and this is important because I think for a long time now, exercise, routine, programming has kind of lost, people have kind of devalued it, like oh, as long as you're working out hard,

doesn't make a difference. Well, because they've been marketed too differently. Yeah, and it's all about your diet. It's all about your diet. Yeah, right, so it's not sexy. And we're not told that, we're, there's not a lot of money in that. The money is in selling you a supplement that you're trying to say, Hey, if you're No, we're not told that. We're, there's not a lot of money in that. The money is in selling you a supplement

that you're trying to try. But they say, hey, if you're sweating, you're fine. But if you buy this supplement from us, that'll make all the difference in the world. In my experience, when it comes to building muscle and athletic performance, now fat loss, of course, diet makes a big difference. And if you die terrible, it ruins everything.

But in my experience, when someone's not getting stronger and they're not improving their performance, they're not building muscles, they'll work out. Yeah, it's almost always. It's their workout. And if you're listening right now and you've been working out and you think you're doing everything right and you're just plateauing, rather than looking at, should I take the next new creatine or should I add more protein to my diet or should I cut my carbs or maybe a rather than doing that, look at your workout.

And if you write your workout out for the last six months and it looks kind of the same, and what I mean by that is same kind of rep ranges, similar tempo, exercises kind of look the same, it's not really that different, change it, and then watch what happens. I mean, I experienced this so many times as a kid trying to build muscle and I never learned my lesson

because it's something would work and I get stuck on that thing and I think, oh, this is the answer and I'd realize, oh, this is not working anymore, I gotta try something different. It happened to me the first time I read Mike Mentors' Heavy Duty, which told me super high intensity, super low volume, I did that and, oh my God, all this muscle

and I got stuck on that and then that stopped working. And then it was like, oh, I'm gonna try this super high volume approach. And then that worked and that stopped. And then I had messed around with rep ranges. And I remember the first time I really focused on doing sets of like one to three reps, like a powerlifter. And I just built all this muscle.

Do you think that more people are like that or do you think more people are like how I am? I think that the muscle confusion thing got so popular that there's more people that are like me, because at least this is what I run into. I talk to a lot of, probably. A lot of my peers in the physique world

and guys that I know that are trying to build muscle and girls that are trying to build muscle. And most of them are aware of the importance of changing your routine up, but what most of them fall in the category of like me where you're changing it up with no rhyme or reason. It's just you're throwing new things at the body all the time and you know, you let,

and this is what used to drive me crazy when I was competing as all my buddies wanted to train with me and I didn't want to train with them because the way they decide to work out is they let different guys lead. You know, there's three of us. We all lift together, you know, and it's like, hey, it's Chess Day and it's like,

hey, Sal, you let last time, Justin, you lead this time. And then Justin just throws his favorite fucking five exercises at me and we do it. And there's no power based Well, yeah, it might be suit. Yeah, it might be super setting. It might be low rap high-rate It doesn't it's not there's it's just you're trying to get at get me Yeah, and that's how a lot of these people train inside the gym That's what they like gym partners and they bent bounce off each other

It's your turn to lift now or your turn to lead and it's my turn to lead problem with that is You're throwing all this stuff at it and back to your point, and this is what I was saying, I would challenge these people to follow a more structured program for three to six weeks. Well, it doesn't just stop there,

and that's interesting that you see that in that world as well, but I mean, it's very prevalent in boot camps, in any kind of circuit training, CrossFit, Orange Theory, you know. It's more prevalent. It's your average person, that's all they know. They just know that I just wanted to go in. It's like an experience more than it's a specific workout

that's going to lead them to a desired goal. I remember feeling pressure as a new trainer when I was early on in my career, where I felt like, oh, okay, I got to do something new today because I'm 100% that working out. That was what I always did. I remember before client walking in, writing programs and how I wrote programs was solely based off creativity and trying to get them sore or teach them something new.

Like that was well. Yeah, it does. That's because they feel that, right? I knew that if I did some weird tricep angled exercises they'd never done before, I'm gonna hit a fiber. They have not moved in a long time, and it's gonna get sore. And they're gonna feel the next day,

and they're gonna be like, dang bro, you got me yesterday, you know? I'm like, okay, restying time. You know, like that was really, that's how we trained, it was not, it was ironic because we all read the books, we all have all the certifications, I knew better, but I also was caught in this trap of what's sales,

and what gets people to come back is that feeling that they get from a new shocking workout on their body, but it went, and it took years, okay, it took years of being a bad trainer doing that to finally becoming more structured about it, and then realizing, wow, when I stick a client in a specific phase, and you just gotta fight through, you know, if there's a trainer listening right now,

you just gotta fight through the common things that you get from clients, which is, well, we did that last time. You know, we already did those. Can we do something different? You know, because you're gonna get that. That's what you get. And I fell into that trap.

The client would say that to me. And then, okay, next time I came in, here we go, Swiss ball balancing one leg up, fucking skull crusher, supersetted over to a reverse cable, kick back, you know, I'm saying like, you're doing all this shit, just, no, absolutely done all this weird shit that you're doing just to appease them

when you know damn well, that that's not what gets to the most results and you just gotta be okay. And that's, I mean, we have a very, very low return rate for an online program. Some of the best I've ever seen numbers wise, yet the thing, the number one thing that we will get when someone wants a refund on the program

is they're normally somebody who has not listened to the podcast for a really long time and understand that we share how we build all these programs. And that's what they're looking for. They get the program, they open it up, they're like, I've seen all these exercises. I know what it's cool. I thought this was gonna be different.

I thought it was gonna be stuff I'd never seen or done before. Is this Superman push-ups? Yeah, really. Where are they? Right. It's because these are the best movements, and they've been around for a very long time,

but we, and I say we, as in myself too, included is guilty of fucking everybody up by teaching all this weird shit that, you know, we want to impress people. As a trainer too, but, you know, your clients, don't be afraid. Your clients will actually love seeing themselves get better at exercises that they've been practicing just as much. You say this a lot so, really well, which is, you know, stop looking at, you know, exercise like that and you're trying to figure out the, you know, the sweat and the mirror and the scale from it, but look at it as like a skill that,

hey, I'm getting better at that with me. Like that was, I was really shaky the first time and my form was really off and I didn't feel comfortable and like I'm feeling more comfortable and I'm dropping in the whole better and I, you know, because at first I used to like, really wow clients with just different shit all the time. And then as I learned, I would wow them with, you're getting better at these things that we're practicing. And I would tell them, okay, I know for the last four weeks

we've been doing kind of this heavier type training. Now I'm gonna move you into what's called super sets and we're gonna do that for the next four weeks and I'm gonna get you good at that. And that's how I would block my training and they'd get way better results. And people like to see themselves progress at things that they've been practicing,

and it's actually better than always mixing it up, is that practice? But like anything, like anything, the whole variable muscle confusion principle, whatever you wanna call it, that also can be abused, and that's what we're talking about. It can be taken too far to the point where that's all you do to call it, that also can be abused and that's what we're talking about. It can be taken too far to the point where that's all you do all the time,

bodies don't progress that way. They just don't, they don't progress well that way. It takes too long to get good at something, to get real, to really reap the benefits. I know we were watching a while ago, I think it was like two months ago, Instagram post by one of our good friends, Ben Polick, who's

Strong dude incredible. Just watching his videos this morning. Yeah, super strong dude super Incredible physique great guy to really nice guy Crazy amount of squat the you know squat weight that he can lift 800 pounds He was just watching the 100 pounds squad. Yeah insane strength like two or three months ago He posted a video of himself doing back step lunges. And he said, and underneath it, I never do these. I've never, like I have nothing in the years. I haven't seen it. And he had 135 pounds on the bar.

Yeah, guy who squats 800 pounds. And you could see that he's struggling, not because the weight's heavy, but because he never does that exercise. Now, what do you think will happen to a guy like that when he sticks to the back step lunge? Well, practice is it. Well, to your point again, and think if he only does that once or twice and then moves

on from it, not a lot of benefit going to come from that. And if you compared it to your 800 pound squat, and that's all you were comparing it to, like, yeah, of course that movement doesn't. You got to do that for a good four to six weeks minimum especially and get good at it before you start to see major this was a you know what movement taught me this more than anything else aside from knowing it but really did I see it was Bulgarian splitsquatch remember you're doing that you went through a great equalizer oh well you know why I stayed away from it so long because I was I couldn't I couldn't hold you know it pissed me off was at the time my girlfriend that I was dating could could do them better than me

She had better mobility super ego check and she had already done Bulgarian split squats all time because she wanted to build her But and she's over there with 20 pound dumbbells and I'm like shaking like a fucking leaf doing that 10 times I'm like, I don't want to do this. Yeah, I'm saying so I bailed Yeah, so I bailed on it. Yeah, so I bailed on it. And it wasn't until I really worked on my mobility, performed the movement better, did I really start to get good at it?

Then I was starting to challenge it. And then I was getting to the point where I'm putting 100, 200 pounds on my back and doing that shit. And my legs just blew up from that. And what's cool, when you find a great movement like that, and you practice it like a skill, and you get a, boy, the gains come on,

like it reminded me when I was new. I mean, the gains that I saw from that one movement, it was, it trumped all the stuff I've been doing for three, four years that I'm hammering away at the gym. So that was something that also changed how I would approach some clients. Like, you know, I get a client in and they struggle with the squat like really bad. Like just mobility's not there. They've it's a skill they've never done before. They're weakest fuck. And instead

of me as a trainer, just doing that for two or three sets, moving on and then doing all these other exercises that they can do really well, I began to dedicate the entire hour around the squat. We would do something. I would to dedicate the entire hour around the squad. We would do something, I would assess their movement, tell them why they're struggling, why they're ankles rolling in, why their knees collapsing in, why their chest is falling forward, why they can't pull their shoulders all the way back, and then saying, okay, the reason why this is uncomfortable here

is because you can't pull your shoulders back here. So these are the moves that are going to help that. And then I get on the ground or on the move and I show them that. And then we go back and we do a set. And then I show them how they feel better. And then I would pick another part of their body part that was breaking down.

And then I say, well, let me show you what movements will help this and get that better. Then we go back to the squat again. See how that's improved that. And I would just, the whole hour is all about the squat and getting them to understand where their body is breaking down, the things they need to do to improve all those little areas.

And that workout ends up being so much better for that person on so many levels than me going through as a trainer. And oh, they don't do that very well. So let's just do some leg press and leg extensions and leg curls and some other movements. Yeah, one of my favorite things to do and has been for a long time, one of my favorite techniques to get my body to respond is to find a movement that I suck at and then get

good at it and give myself pull-ups for me. Yeah, really. Yeah, so for, so like I just recently experienced it, well I've experienced it a couple times now more recently. One was with windmills, couldn't do them, was terrible at them, got myself to the point where I could do them with 80 pound kettlebell, and man, my core, my stability in my core

for when I deadlift, wait, whatever went through the roof, then the other one was a snatch grip, deadlift and a snatch grip, a snatch grip, high pull that we did in MAP strong. And my upper back, and I remember when I first did it, I'm like, I suck at this. I'm gonna give myself about five weeks. I'm gonna practice this, get good at it.

And so that's really the key is to, yes, you wanna mix things up, but you wanna give yourself enough time to get good at them. And so it's funny because the thing that I wrote in that post was almost everything works, but nothing works forever. That's even true for mixing shit up. You see what I'm saying? Like even mixing stuff up, that works.

But if you do that to the body, it does work. The body adapts that too. That was my problem was I got good. I got in some of the best shape I ever did in my 20s. And it was through this muscle confusion, you know, ideology of training. And I saw great results. And because in my head, I'm changing their sizes,

I'm changing reps of doing all this, that I'm always always trying to, well, the problem is I've now taught my body that this is how it's gonna get curve balls all the time with the gym. Just survive. It's never gonna get great at anything. It's gonna be pretty good at everything,

but never great at one thing. And that too causes a major part. I remember too, it was early on, and when we all first met, and you had dedicated, an extended period of time, at getting good, at deadlifting and squatting. And this was already when, you know, this is already at them, when you were already a pro, you're already been competing,

you'd already been training for a long time, I already had an amazing physique. The difference in your legs and back, and he couldn't see with your legs, because you have to wear board shorts when you compete, but you would show us, your legs grew like an inch and a half or something silly like that. Oh, it was more than that.

It was crazy. It was like maybe more like two inches, right? Or more, and that's an insane amount of muscle to add on somebody who's already been training for a long time. Your back didn't look like the same back. There was one picture you posted, and this was all from not changing exercises, but practicing and getting good at the deadlift,

your back looked like a different back. Didn't look the same at all. That's why I remember I brought up the other day, where I got into that debate with Danny about the different movements and I'm like, dude, and I know that, of course, this is my experience, but that's also my experience with all my clients that I've trained and since then, you know, the people that I've helped out like the deadlift, the the amount of carryover of getting good at that skill that played in all the other exercise And I'll never forget that day of heading back to the seated row after not doing a seated row for like six months. I mean, that was a staple movement. You see me in the gym carrying my jug, headphones in wrist straps hanging off my thing, head over to the seated row. I used to love to stack that thing.

You know, get up to as much weight as I could on that thing and rowing away and that was like my staple back warm up and then I would get into all my back exercises. And I had a decent back because of my shoulder to waist ratio. Then I totally eliminated almost every back exercise except for deadlifting. I just got good at it. And all the variations of deadlifting,

I should point that out too because I was doing snatchatchCrip deadlifts Which was a major one for me too? and I remember going like you know what? It's been like six plus months since I've grabbed this CD row and I grabbed that stack and moved that weight like I had never Moved it in my entire life and what blew me away of course the weight I was moving what blew me away But it's like this was an exercise. I was really good at I was moving, blew me away, but it's like this was an exercise I was really good at. I was really good at the CDR. I did it every single back workout

for years and years and years and slowly watched myself, you know, end up 15 pounds every year or so. Maybe if I was lucky, give hammering away at it. And actually, I was able to eliminate it, lift, get great at deadlifting, so it's a weaker muscle. Very vulnerable position. Yes, right. Right. So, you know, my spot. I'm barely moving 70, 80 pounds on that thing and I've never been good at it.

I totally eliminated that in there and I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not moving 70, 80 pounds on that thing. And I've never been good at it. I totally eliminated that in there.

And just from the dead list had so much carry over that my lying leg curls and my seated row were like, increased by like 50% on both of them. Yeah, insane. And not doing them, I just blew my mind. Yeah, it's absolutely insane. I'd say, you know, I don't like to say, with a word of caution, okay?

There's a lot of individual variance here, but I'll say this, your rep ranges should probably change anywhere between every three to six weeks. Your exercises should change anywhere between two to six months. Those are the longer ones. You keep the exercises. Your tempo of your reps can change when you change your reps if you want. So right around the same time, three to six weeks,

where you kind of change the tempo. And every, I'd say at least two or three times a year, change your goal. You know, I mean, if you follow the maps programs, it kind of works out that way, At least two or three times a year change your goal. I mean, if you follow the maps programs, it kind of works out that way because you're able to go from one program to another. Each program is usually three to four months long. So if you follow a whole year of programs,

you're gonna follow anywhere between three to four programs. And so that's why we wrote them the way we did. And the idea is to keep your body progressing to avoid the plateaus because aside from stopping working out, plateauing from poor programming is probably the most common reason why people's bodies just don't change when they work on the gym. They just don't change anymore. I'll take it one step further if you're somebody who already owns one of our programs,

the program that you're least likely to do or want to do will probably be the best thing for you. Of course. As much as you hate to hear this. Painful to, yeah. But if you were to scroll through our complete library of extra programs, the one that looks the least appealing to you is probably the one that will give you

the most amount of results. Yeah, it's for the power lifter and you're looking at maps hit and you're like, oh fuck, no, right? Try that shit out once you have to. And vice versa, if you're somebody who has hit and you loved hit, but you're like strong man, I don't want to look like a strong man. I don't want to be a strong man. I don't want to train that that program will probably do the most for you. Exactly. And so with that, look, go to mindpumpfree.com and check out some of our free guides. You can also find our individual Instagram pages.

My page is Mind Pumped Sal, Adam is Mind Pumped Adam, and Justin is Mind Pumped Justin. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by SAU, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs.

With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal and an adjustment as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump. Mindbump!