If you want to pump your body and expand your mind is only one place to go
might bind up with your
hosts Sal de Stefano Adam Shaffer and Justin Andrews
in this episode of mine pump. We talked all about the surprising benefits of resistance training and weight training. Now, you probably already know that if you start lifting weights, you're going to build muscle. You're going to burn more body fat. You're going to look more.
Opted you be able to move better build more strength, but a lot of you may not know that there are other huge massive glaring benefits that you can get that have nothing to do with building muscle getting stronger and burning body fat. So we cover those we actually cover five of them. We talked about the effects on your brain and your ability to think the effects on your libido. Your Healthy sex drive would talk about your mood and how resistance training affects your mood and the studies that support that we talked about how it impacts your ability.
You to fight off illness and then we talked about the empowering effects of resistance training. Also, I want to let you know that there's only two days left that's it 48 hours for our huge Maps hit 50% off sale now Maps hit is our high intensity interval training program. So this is a workout based off of high intensity interval training Concepts and techniques that are designed to help you burn body fat and short periods of time. These workouts are anywhere between 15 to 25 or
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Five-0 remember you have 48 hours as of the day of the dropping of this episode. So, you know, I was thinking about something the other day. I was thinking about when I would train clients in the early days and you know obviously is a personal trainer, especially when you first start you think your job is I'm going to get this person to lose fat. I'm going to get them to build muscle and look better and you know get them fit right and that is a large part of what you do.
As a trainer but always especially when I first became a trainer I would always get blown away by the the other types of benefits that I would observe on my clients or that they would observe themselves from what strength training from strength training, right? Like, you know, you expect them to say things like, oh my arms look more defined or wrong. I'm stronger, but they would come to me oftentimes and they would say things that I didn't start to put together until I heard it a lot like he's it normal
for me to be more horny. That's that's a great idea.
I'm though that's a great example, you know where you're going with this. I really like because it also reminds me of the evolution of my coaching like so when I first started training you speak to the scale you speak to the body fat percentage you speak to the way they look almost always like that's all your ties. It's everything it's a new trainer every because and that's where they're coming in for right exactly to the defense of the the young trainer early years is that it's you know, your client comes in and they say hey I want this and
That's and so okay. So you continue to speak to that but it wasn't until years later. Probably a decade later. Did I actually start to like almost okay it like okay. Yeah, I will definitely lose that way. Yeah, I will do this. But then as we would say after you would sign with me for you know months ahead. I know I had you the conversation would quickly change to all the other things and the reason why I found so much value in that is what I realized is.
When people could start to connect the other parts of the other benefits that they would get the ones that they wouldn't expect from strength training. Did it become easier for them to make it more of a habit of their life because then it wasn't just about the way they looked or just the scale up and down they were starting to connect what they were doing with so many other aspects of their
low. It's know it's funny because later on I that was how I really sold the value of resistance training and the reality is
Is it's all of the burning body fat burning body fat building muscle getting stronger great. That's excellent. Amazing direct results from resistance training, but believe it or not. They're not they're almost not as value as the other surprising benefits. And this is what my clients would find the ones that trained me long-term, they like that stuff. But all the other benefits that they were getting was what kept them going agreed. It was the stuff that really dramatically improved its value because the truth is as you're working out.
You know aside from being obese and all that stuff like yeah, you know if I'm 15 pounds, you know, one way or another not that big of a deal. I'm in my you know, if I'm in my 40s or 50s or whatever, but whoa, all these other benefits. These are things that I
want. Well, this is also what would encourage this type of climbing. I mean, I got I would get clients that would come in and their doctor said they have to come in. All right, right and they were not they're not motivated to work out. They don't they in fact they even have like I have to be
Have some disdain even for exercise people, you know, like oh, I don't I'm not that vain. I don't care about all those things, but I'm here because for my hell, right exactly because I have to be but it's not just when you help when you help them make that connection and it reminds me of the same thing the Evolution for me as a coach for nutrition to you know, when you when you speak to just the weight loss build muscle the way you look with nutrition, you know, that's that only lasts so long, but when you start to help them make that connection
Ian with all the other aspects that it improves in their life, then people start going like oh shit, like, you know, who cares if I'm up or down on the scale so much. I'm noticing it bleeding to my work my relationships my everyday activities like okay now
and in the cool thing is we now have science to support a lot of this. So I'm going to be the first one that I'm going to cover was blew my mind initially and it didn't at first didn't blow my mind said hear it from one person.
From other person, but after you hear from 15, 20 30 people then he start to go, huh. There may be some some truth to this. Then you look up the science and you find that it is supported this first one in particular was interesting because it countered a common myth and the myth was of and we've all heard of this the dumb jock. Yeah, you know the smart nerd who's got bad Fitness, you know weak frail, but very very smart and then the jock who's buffed and
fit and mobile who's an idiot. Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the number one things. I would hear from my clients when I would start training with them with resistance training is that they could think better their sharper their minds are sharper. They had less brain fog. They felt they had better memory recall better language. I mean, I would train kids they would notice this I would train middle-aged people to notice is our train old people and they will notice
Us and the science supports this quite strongly right exercise all exercise raises a chemical in the brain called bdnf brain-derived neurotropic factor, which is like Miracle Grow for the neurons in the brain resistance training does this as well resistance training and exercise has been shown to accelerate learning. They know this now with kids, you know for a long time, they're in schools. They started to cut
Funding from education the first places they cut it from were like physical education PE and that kind of stuff structured play structured exercise. We thought well, we got to spend more money on math and science or save the money for those types of things studies are showing that that was doing the kids a disservice not just for the physicality and the fact that kids are not in good shape, but it actually being physical and active improved a kids ability to learn and this actually has been shown in all
all ranges of age. There's still a lot of
Work in that direction that education needs to go into that that understanding that, you know moving around definitely promotes this accelerated learning and it Fosters better cognitive abilities. And this is all proven now and it's like it's so crazy that used to be a myth is that you know, you would spend your time better reading more to develop your brain. Whereas like really the combination of both is even more powerful. What do you guys think? What do you think? It's mostly from do you think it's
The proprioception side you think it's more like neurological you think it's more blood oxygen nutrients the usage of glucose
better all of those things. So I functions better. So I think we forget that our mind so our mind our mind in our brain we can separate the two right the brain is a physical organ that you have in your head. The mind is the the the concepts in the the Consciousness that the brain produces but we forget that that is derived from this physical machine called your brain.
If a hell a healthy brain is going to be able to do that stuff better than a sick brain. So an extreme examples of brain with Alzheimer's or a brain with dementia is just a sick brain just like a sick heart or a muscle that's weak and when you keep your body healthy your brain the physical brain is part of your body. So having poor health physically also will affect the structural components and parts of the brain. So that's number one exercise and
Justice training keeps you healthy balances out your hormones. So that's number one. But number two and in this is this is what's specific to resistance training. This is one thing that I love about resistance training more than other forms of General forms of exercise because there are other types of activities that are really good at this but they're not as individual Liza balazs resistance training is that proprioceptive learning? So what is proprioception it's your ability to know where your body is in space. So an extreme example would be like
an Olympic diver you watch them spin in the air. It's like how do they know when to point straight down so that they make the smallest Splash possible its extreme proprioceptive ability. Now, you don't need to go and train that you can but but but simply lifting weights and the reason why weights does this better than other forms of exercise is because if you're running or cycling or swimming you're kind of in the straight-line repetitive motion over and over again resistance training, I could name a thousand.
Or sizes and I can name a thousand varieties and versions of each of those exercises. I can name exercises that are better for certain things and others that are better for other things. So constantly challenging your body with a lunge a side lunge and overhead, press a windmill a row, you are really strengthening that proprioceptive ability of your brain and they find that when you when you don't do something, okay, just like if you don't use your bicep the bicep muscle starts to atrophy.
And it starts to shrink because your body is always getting rid of what it doesn't need your body's always trying to be as efficient as possible pruning always always pruning. So the parts of your brain that aren't being utilized start to shrink and atrophy. They start to become weaker and resistance training works. So well on that proprioceptive ability, which actually affects the entire
brand I think a lot of people don't really consider the nervous system in that entire equation and how many different systems work together. So, you know if you're not
Doing something. Now your body sort of unlearn 's that in order to prioritize what you need for the for the most part. So to be able to keep doing things and functioning your body in a certain way is crucial to then also maintaining those
abilities. You such a great you brought up such a great point. So if you'd never let's say you never squat never never never Squat and then you go and you try to squat or let's say you squat a lot when you were a kid, then you stopped for 15 years. You would have a very difficult time squatting you may even
even have an inability to squat is that an ability due to weak muscles necessarily just doing one squat maybe not it might be just the fact that you just unfamiliar. Yeah, you literally forgot that skill the brain and it pruned it off. It prunes that you're not you have been
using me for 15 years is a useless tool for my brain. I'm moving on from it. I'll
tell you what the initial strength gains you get when you first start lifting weights is in the less from the fact that your muscles are.
Actually bigger and stronger and more from the fact that your central nervous system which includes your brain is operating better. It's building you build your brain when you build your muscle a
good example of this and we've talked about this on the show before and I mean when I think of the most recent experience of this was when with dr. Brink and we were doing like hip mobility drills with the 90 90 and when we tried to lift our heel up off the ground in the 9090 position, none of us the first time could even really
Move it and then you think oh, I don't have the flexibility and he walks over and he picks your leg up and he moves it all the way up.
It brings her foot next to your head.
Right? And it's like no you have the flexibility there. You've lost that connection, right? You've lost You've Lost That ability to do it because you stopped rotating the hips that far as you've as you aged and so you've just lost that connects, but you can re-establish that
they've done studies and shown that when people are or like specialized at a particular thing the parts of the brain that are associated.
Dated with that skill tend to be larger and more densely connected. So like the parts of the brain that lets say are associated with let's site and you were to take a sniper or someone who really really worked on that ability. You'd find the parts of the brain Associated that to be more developed now scientists in the past though. They were born with these parts of the brain this way and that's what makes them better at it. Now, we know there may be there's definitely a genetic component, but the other component
It is much larger is that you're developing the brain through these skills and resistance training. It's far. There's you can get way more complex with it than you can with other forms of exercise. And this is one of the reasons why besides the fact that you're obviously much healthier, which we talked about earlier. One of the reasons why I would always get clients and I noticed this most into categories of clients the kids that I trained and the older people that right now, I think the reason for that is that the kids I would notice.
Our parents would tell me so I started lifting weights with kids and I'm talking about when I say kids. I mean like 12 13 14, so not super young just because parents typically entire trainer for kids younger than that and they come and tell me my son's doing better at math or my daughter's doing better in school. And I talked to the kid about it and I'd say hey your mom, you know told me that you're doing better in school. What do you think's going on? Like I just feel like I can I can think better. I feel like I could sit down and focus longer. Yeah, and then my older clients with all my memories better. I'm starting to remember things all of a sudden which I see
All the time which is great the productivity that side of things like even at the workplace. When you when you're when you're out there exercising like how that actually promotes just a better functioning brain like you think more clearly and then you're you're able to maintain that focus a lot of times like you get the the brain fogs towards the middle of the day or you know, like when you're at your job and you're just staring at the same thing all the time this kind of promotes this new energy, that's usable. Well, you guys are you're going, you know, the younger route. I want to go the other direction.
Action with like Advanced age which you love to talk about cell and I'm thinking about someone in particular right now. My my father my step dad's wife is about to get hip surgery and one of the things that I'm stressing to her and she's in her 60s and what I'm trying to stress to her as that listen when you get done with that hip surgery going to feel amazing and if you just keep going about your normal day and you don't do anything you don't train your hips to continue to move through full range of motion because you now are going to have that ability to take
Them through which you can't because of pain right now what'll end up happening is you'll still end up losing that and we'll end up having to have surgery 10-15 years again, because you know, the pain
will kill you. You have a new you have a new piece of equipment but you're not changing the the computer you're not changing the the hardware
software actor and so it's so important that as soon as you and so I'm thinking of everyone who might have a family member or friend who had recent shoulder surgery or hip surgery and they did it because they had this unbelievable chronic pain that built up to the point where they eventually had to
Have the surgery and then they just feel better because they've had it and they don't do anything about it. How important is that for this person to be strength training and working those muscles through full range of motion to support you'll
working your central nervous system. You're working and training your brain. It's actually that's the more important part. I know and I know it's not as obvious because when you lift weights and you do it for a long time the obvious changes your muscles, you can see muscles and definition and you know, oh wow, you look good or not.
Stuff what you don't see are the changes that happen to the brain, but you are make no mistake. You are developing your brain more than you are your muscles even more the changes that happen in the brain your ability to move in ways that you couldn't do before has more to do with your your central nervous system at adapting meaning same thing with muscles adapters things that are adding and growing and becoming more efficient that has more to do with that than it does the actual muscles themselves getting bigger and stronger. It's a very very big piece of the pie.
It was always something that surprised me now. I got one more for you. I got another one for you that initially when I would hear this I'd kind of like I get embarrassed and yeah shrug it off like okay, well, you know, whatever but as I continued training people I just kept hearing it more and more and more and then I realize oh, this is a this is a side effect or a direct effect. I should say of resistance training and I remember the first time I heard it was a very first time I trained somebody over the age of 65. I was almost
I was 19 years old. So I was only at only been training for about maybe six months or so train an older woman. She was in her late 60's and we started working out started doing strength training and it was maybe I want to say a couple months into our relationship as trainer and client and she brought it up kind of funny. I think she was kind of embarrassed but you know, we talk a lot about fitness and health and she was a widow her husband had died years before and she said, you know some I'm noticing some other effects from
Working out my oh like like more energy will yeah, I got more energy but you know like a more like more like Vigor. I'm like, oh like more Vigor. Yeah, like you're just waking up more, you know energetic in the morning and it's like well kinda she's like, I'm a little bit more, you know, like yeah. She's like, I'm noticing I'm noticing like
I'm having lots of dreams about you but you're not wearing pants. Yeah hot
region. So I got so she told me her libido. She's like I haven't felt my libido.
No like this in a very long time, is that a normal response from exercise and I thought well, I think it is. Yeah, maybe whatever was a little embarrassed but then I kept hearing it from client after client male clients female clients older clients clients and middle-aged resistance training and exercise in general resistance training specific phenomenal phenomenal for libido gotta be one of the best things you could do if you got to do it, right, of course with appropriate training for your your sexual Vitality.
I think this is partially dual-pronged.
To I think there's something that's happening hormonal e physiologically in your body. And then I also think there's something to the mental and brain talk. We just had is also to The Confident side of what happened to them like when you get somebody who's because I this was common for me where I'd be training a client and they would just they would just tell me how much better their relate their sexual relationship is with their partner. Hmm. Just you know, we're having so much more sex and you know, they're trying to put it together like, you know, I feel good. I feel better about myself, but it's just why it's not just so I think
It's a combination of both feeling better about yourself and hormones you wanted to balancing it out but also yeah that self-confidence of you're improving yourself and that's something that like exudes now like to your partner and your partner, you know takes takes a like wind of that and it becomes a
thing. Oh, I mean to speaking about hormones there's there isn't one single thing aside from taking testosterone or taking a testosterone releasing drug like HCG or something like that. There isn't a single thing you can do a man can do that won't happen.
As strong of a direct positive effect on their testosterone like resistance training by itself. You can compare it against anything else. You can compare it to diet and supplements and also the stuff nothing causes a direct strong effect on testosterone as much as lifting
weights. Well and until you've dealt with lower than normal for you to start her own levels. You don't realize how much how important this is as for me like, oh Kayla.
Beto is important and testosterone directly affects that for a male right but it's also all the other things that like just having testosterone my energy levels throughout the day my mood to get things done my interactions with people like all that stuff. I feel like is affected from my hormones and when they're balanced and they're well, it totally affects all those other aspects. I
remember when you were going through your process of trying to get your hormone levels back up and I had you taking supplements.
So, you know herbs that are tests that have been shown clinical studies to have positive effect dietary. You were doing things with red light therapy. And and I remember you you you went you hadn't worked out for a little while because you weren't feeling good. And I remember he came to work and you're like dude I lift. I did squats yesterday. I did 20 minutes of squats. I felt a bigger Boost from that than anything else anything else that you were doing. Yeah. It's studies show for men. You're going to get like a 15 to 25 percent increase
On average in your testosterone levels from lifting weights. That's a lot. Yeah, that's that's a big that's again. There isn't any by the way some supplements when they raise testosterone if you have low testosterone, it's not a it's not a permanent raised. So you let's say you take an herb that has been shown to raise testosterone and load in men with low testosterone keep taking it and eventually your body starts to adapt and you stop and I noticed this you'll notice this if you take some of these things if you feel it for about 3060 days and then it stops resistance training permanent. It raises testosterone it stays
There as long as you keep lifting weights in and if anything it starts to raise it even higher it also lowers the The Binding hormone that binds to free testosterone which makes it basically worthless. So in men you could have free you have you have total testosterone but it's the free testosterone that's active and what makes something freeze. It's not bound by another hormone or another, you know chemical in the body to stop when you lift weights you lower that so you actually free up more testosterone you also open
yup more Androgen receptors in the body. These are the receptors that testosterone attaches to so there's like three or four different ways that lifting weights makes you makes your testosterone not just go up but become more free and also become more and more effective as a compounding effect. It is now in women lifting weights has other hormonal profound effects when you work with like we just had dr. Becky Campbell on who's a functional medicine.
Practitioner when you talk to functional medicine practitioners and you ask them what form of exercise do you recommend the most to women who are trying to balance their hormones there are progesterone and estrogen balance the most common answer you're going to get is going to be appropriate resistance training appropriate being that of course operative word for some people can be lower in tents and others higher intensity Hasa but resistance training is just so moldable. And so it's such a pro tissue type of exercise that
It's because you're when you're lifting weights your tongue the body to build muscle. It's proactive tissue in order for your body to build muscle. It needs to have balanced optimal levels of hormones and nothing. Does that look resistance training now the side effect of that you have a healthier libido libido is a very very good indicators not the only indicator because you want to look at the whole picture but your libido when you have a sudden drop in libido, or you don't have a very strong libido and
Paris into before that's a decent sign that your health isn't isn't doing so well, your body does not want to procreate
right? If it's that is probably one of the first things would you say a lot of
time it is if you if you eat too little or your diets really bad or you lack lots of sleep or you're stressed one of the first things to go away when you're stressed is is libido. So it is one of those gauges and resistance training will boost your libido and this is based off my own anecdote training clients more than any other form of exercise if you want to get horny,
Yeah, and you want to find a form of exercise that will help you do that. Well, if whites nothing Does It Better that also feeds into sort of the
next one right about like how it affects your moods and how it's like anti-depression and you know working through and working these things out with your body is such a great outlet for you to deal with like your mood. I feel like that's it seems like that's such an obvious one. But like I don't think people make the connection enough like yeah, if you're a if you love Fitness, right and you're like a hardcore
Him go or than you've probably made this connection, but I'm talking about the average person. The average person doesn't normally go into the gym or somebody who's not really excited about working out isn't thing I'm going to do this to make me have a better mood most of them were like I need to go do this. But if you were to make that connection and really start to pay attention to how the rest of your day goes when you make those workouts, it's I think a lot of people connect that to thinking that it so because I did my workout therefore. I have a better mood because I accomplished my work out, but they don't really realize that there's actually something
Logically that's happening to him. That's actually improving. There was the same thing as paying attention, you know, just like with eating and like how it's affecting you like like working out and like the different types of workouts. If you do it, right you give the right a dose so you're not going too intense too overboard. It should really charge you up and give you like a great energy boost. Yeah
exercise. This is in terms of mood. This is the one that actually kept my clients working out forever. The longest was this one affect just the effect that has on
Your overall mood. Now, this is backed pretty well by science. In fact, they're they're considering making exercise a first-line treatment for mild to moderate forms of depression. So when you go to your doctor and you depressed rather than the first thing that they say is okay, here's an antidepressant. There's they're going to start saying we want you to exercise why because studies are showing that exercise is as effective.
As a lot of these drugs for mild to moderate forms of depression, which is the most the most the vast majority of the types of depression that people suffer from it's far more rare to have crushing type of depression. It's been shown in studies be as effective in the short term and probably more effective in the long term. So when you compare in the short term people like oh, wow, I'm getting great effect. The longer they do it the the better the effect now the not a hundred percent sure why this
We do know that the exercise releases chemicals and endorphins serotonin norepinephrine, you know dopamine all the same chemicals that you know antidepressant drugs, you know, will Target exercise naturally releases those not just while you're exercising, but we know now that your Baseline has more of these feel-good chemicals. So when you first start working out, you just get a boost while you workout as you do it on a long-term basis only raises the capacity for it. Just you just you
Your Baseline is much higher and then earlier now we talked about how it was great for the brain. Well neuroscientist notice a little while ago that the hippocampus of the brain in people who are tend to have depressed depression and anxiety tends to be smaller. So they noticed that people who who are depressed. They did the brain scans and their hippocampus was smaller exercise supports nerve cell growth in the hippocampus and has been shown to cause growth and that same area
So let's say you're in either the the shrink the small hippocampus is causing or part of the depression or it's like this negative feedback loop, you're feeling bad. Therefore this part of the brain starts to shrink because you're doing less stuff or whatever and vice versa doesn't matter. Nonetheless exercise has been shown to stimulate growth of that region of the brain and others that has been connected to depression. So not only does it just it literally will start to change again change your Hardware so that you you're less prone.
No to depression some of the best things you could do.
I feel like Katrina and I have made this connection so much with exercise that we tend to like pre apologize to each other when one has like kind of missed their work out or you know, it's I'm not aware of how different of a mood I have when I'm on my exercise routine versus when I've missed days and I've no upper and I both know to like you pre apologize to a party. Hey just you know, I had planned to do my workout and get it in today. I'm a little frustrated whatever about that.
You know, I'm sorry if I seem irritable or short like it's it's I've put I've noticed multiple times in the past where I've caught myself irritable short or whatever and then when I like unpack it after the fact right after I've already blown up or after I've already said something I probably shouldn't have said reflecting on the day going like Flock Of course, it's a day that I will plan to work out. I didn't get my work out and stuff like that.
I use so for me what motivates me now to lift weights consistently is the mood part.
More than the physical part way way more if I know I'm going to have a big podcast or I'm going to be a guest on a on a Big Show or I have to produce a piece of content that's really important for the business. I will purposely schedule it and structure it so that it happens after right after a workout. In fact, I have an interview coming up this week and I told in as a bigger one. I told Katrina make sure you book it on this day or these days at this time knowing I'd be coming here right after my workout. I'm always my
the best if I get an argument or a fight with somebody at this is something that I've developed now into a habit and I started this years ago is I'll leave the situation and I'll go do my workout and my post-workout mental Clarity and ability to process difficult shit is
like it's so funny you guys like I totally can see that with my irritation levels like on the road like I'm driving home in traffic and you know for the most part pretty chill if I got my workout in everything's great like
all that unused that energy has been used, you know, and so I'm pretty much in the calm State at that point versus like just being wound up is you just find you just find yourself like thinking differently. Yeah just told like that. I'm such a better person in for working out. Well I
was so you know think about your mood for a second. Your mood is literally the filter that you see you receive information and you put information out. So you have this filter. So imagine red is the color of your fill.
Everything you see coming in looks red everything you put out to the world looks red. So that's your mood exercise changes your filter both in the short-term. Like I just talked about you have your workout and I have this different filters why I can think clearer smarter. I don't react as emotionally or a strong to certain things. I feel more grateful and for my life and for the I just it's a different better filter, but also articles have talked about how it changes your permanent filter.
Not just the post workout or the day after but your Baseline so your Baseline then starts to change a little bit. And now how much do you think your mood will affect your whole life, right. It affects your whole life tremendously. That's why this one right here is the most hottest one. This is the one that has gotten all my client more than any other thing more than fat loss muscle but anything it's the change in mood that keeps them doing. It's the one that keeps me doing and it's one. I know why I'll keep doing this to loyal to the
dead and this is also what gives people a little more freedom with choosing their work.
Outright like you know our space. Sometimes we get in this where we're always who's smarter who's ways better than this and what's the newest latest greatest thing that burns the most it's like forget all that stuff. Sometimes sometimes just going to the gym to move could end. It doesn't matter how you're moving. Just doing that for those reasons. Then what what exactly you're doing in there to maximize bench press or the squad or fat burning like doesn't really become that important and that took me even a long time for myself to kind of let go
oh of that because I was so caught up in the results of training and I was always trying to build muscle and I was so driven by the insecurity versus all the other things that it does for my life. Once I learned a change that thought process of like sometimes I'm when I go into the gym. I'm even thinking that it's only to change my mood. I don't care that I'm not gonna get the most game most important aspect right? I think it the most games for this workout. Could I do something else? That would be more? Yeah. I don't give a shit. I'm going to refine it down the road when he could keep improving of
The more frequent year there. It's the consistency Factor. We always talk to this because of that fact. It's like we want to get you in there because like you just doing anything at that point is going to
elevate you now. Here's the thing about that makes resistance training unique to other forms of exercise in regards to mood now, we know and this is pretty proven that that being able to be present really is a good thing for us. It's really a good thing to be in the moment not all the time, but every once in a while so that you're not thinking about what I got to do tomorrow, what's
Yesterday on my God that embarrassing thing. I said whatever okay resistance training, it's harder to be distracted when you're lifting weights. Then when you doing other forms of extra tell you get on a treadmill and walk I guarantee within 10 minutes. You're not thinking about walking you're thinking about all kinds of other stuff in your mind. Do you can do this on a stationary bike you could do this on lots of different forms of exercise resistance training. If you're lifting weights, you're in the weights, you're lifting maybe in between sets. You can let your mind wander, but when you're doing a set of squats or deadlifts,
Or curls it's not the same cut. Can you be distracted while you lift weights? Yes, it's possible. I highly I you're probably gonna hurt yourself if you are but it's possible but it's far less likely you're much more likely to be present because you have to focus on balancing the bar doing this lift. I'm doing a new exercise. I have to twist after focus on the muscle. It's one of the best present training type of all that precise you could do
and that's what speaks to the brain part we talked about. Right? And I think that's where all those benefits come from because you know, there's
As other forms of exercises that are great but it really challenges the brain and more demanding right part of that part of that is being super
present and then there's the productivity aspect of all of this it kind of combines the mood and the Brain part, but I would have a lot of clients that would they would be afraid that taking an hour outside of exercise would be taking an hour away from their important business or whatever and every single time they come back and tell me I'm doing more work for sure unless time all I'm way more productive. Well, of course you feel good.
You're thinking more sharply. Of course, you're going to be more productive in a shorter period of time when we all like you
just move faster all day. Yeah, you know, I how many times have you felt that where you haven't got a workout in for a couple days and then just filled with our giuk and slow and you're tired and everything is like compounding in that way where you get your workout in. It's like you're on to the next thing on to the next thing on the next thing before, you know it you're like man, I accomplished three four times what I would have and I dedicated a whole hour of not working on other things. Just working on myself working.
Hang out and look at the way it impacted every other I
totally now this next one is related to the muscle building aspects of resistance training, but not in the way that you would think one of the best insurance policies. You can have against chronic disease, especially the types of chronic disease that we suffer from in modern society. So like what's killing people in modern societies rights type 2 diabetes, that's a chronic disease heart disease. It's a very common one.
Alzheimer's, how about as you get older osteoporosis? You know, that's a very bad one right? You break a bone. Oh now you're really screwed more
brittle now. Yeah, or or just
getting sick when you're older and then going to the hospital, you know, it's like if you're a 30 year old and you have to be hospitalized for your appendix for a few days. Not as big of a deal. You're a 60 or 70 year old and you have to do that for three days. Oh my gosh, a lot of times. We see people getting all kinds of crazy.
Well, isn't that isn't that Sonya isn't that really common?
We're it's a lot of times somebody passes and when you get into advanced age, they went in for something that is kind of a routine assist type of surgery. But because their body can't handle because how weekday and frail they are they end up dying from that right?
There's a saying that my doctor clients used to tell me which was you break a hip and then you died of pneumonia because these people would go and fall and break your hip died of ammonia. Yeah because they're because they're there they have no muscle they have no strength muscle is one of the best insurance policy.
Can have against all these chronic diseases starting with with diabetes. Okay muscle is a very, you know, glycogen sugar insulin sensitive tissue. If you want to improve your insulin sensitivity have more muscle muscle suck up glycogen, they're able to utilize it through expressing energy and strength. I mean, we know this athletes typically will they have to consume a certain amount of carbohydrates for maximum performance your insulin your body becomes more sensitive to
Insulin, so you don't need as much of it to do the
same job and it also means to in layman's term for people that you get more flexibility in your diet. And it doesn't always write somebody who enjoys that glass of wine every once in awhile or their favorite piece of pie the more muscle you have on your body the less that negatively
affects you because you could burn it right because you can burn it if you have you know, you have two people and one of them's got you know, the say they both weigh the same amount. You got two men hundred eighty pounds one guys, 12% body fat at a hundred eighty pounds you guys.
Percent body fat at 180 pounds is a large lean body mass difference. They both weigh the same amount. There's also going to be a large calorie burn difference. Even if they had the same level of activity throughout the day. The person with more muscle has just got more calorie burning Machinery on their body forget the fact that they look a lot better. They're just burning a lot more calories. Now, what does this mean for for the average person means you can eat more and still not eat too much. You know how great is that? Because what you'll find with nutrition is
If you know sugar can be bad certain kinds of fats can be bad certain kind of foods can be bad but context makes a big difference if your calories. Hello. They're not nearly as bad as if your cat if you have a high sugar diet that's also really high in calories way way way terrible for you in comparison to a high sugar calorie diet that are so high sugar diet. That's low in calories still not great, but wait not nearly as bad as the high calorie diet and having a fast metabolism allows you to do this because you've got more more muscle same thing with heart disease.
Osteoporosis this one's an obvious one as you strengthen bone, excuse me muscle you also strengthen bone. Nothing will strengthen your bone more than lifting weights. Nothing and lifting weights is targeted by the way. So if you're let's say you'd like to do a lot of walking or cycling. You'll notice a lot of maybe some bone strengthening in the lower lower parts of the body less. So in the
hands and wrists, do you attribute most of that to the stress that you're putting on the bones because you're carrying weights and you're lifting weights or is it because of the
It promotes oxygen blood flow nutrients getting
through there. Oh, well all of them, but mainly it's the muscles anchor at, you know tendons in attendance anchor bones and when they pull harder on the bone or when you load the bone bone adapts right
low stress it you stress it. So it adapts is get used to
that. Oh, you're an extreme example,
it's sensitive to the force demand that you play.
So if you break if you're healthy and you break a bone and it heals it stronger at the break than it was initially the way the body adapts is get stronger.
Martial artists used to practice like old-school karate practitioners were practice punching hard objects. And what would happen is it create these microfractures in the bone and the bones would heal stronger and they keep doing it over and over and they'd get these incredibly dense. Like if you look at bone under have you guys seen the pictures of like a osteoporosis bone versus a normal bone know on the outside? They look the same. It's when you look inside and you'll the spaces in between the bone looks like bubbles or whatever. There's there's more of them. There's more space. It's not a spongy mesh. Yes. It's
Not as dense, when you do resistance training and strength out of your bones necessarily grown. I can get a wider right, you know femur necessarily adapt
to become more solid because they're getting
stressed out on the inside. They get more much more dance through far less likely to break to break that Bond and this is because you're strengthening the tape tendons and the muscles around it resistance training just it's I had a client once who actually did a case study on her. She had bone loss osteopenia.
Which is kind of like when you're on your way to osteoporosis and they couldn't figure out that you know, she would do the calcium. She was walking. She wasn't overweight. They were trying to figure out what can we do to help strengthen a bone doctor recommended. Let's go. Have you lift some weights and see what happens? So she started lifting weights on me twice a week. I was it two days a week. We were lifting weights and the Not only did we reverse the osteopenia, but it was at such a pace that the doctor got on the phone with dr. Several.
They made her a case study. So you could use it to present other doctors and say hey. Wow, if you have aging clients with osteoporosis the form of exercise, you need to the one thing you need to recommend. All of them is lifting weights have them lift weights because what we're seeing here is pretty crazy. So definitely your resilience in your ability to fight illness from resistant straight like a few years another example, let's say you get really sick you get the flu flu is nasty and it can knock people down for a week or two. Let's say you get it and you get pneumonia and you're in the hospital.
Oh and the you know you're in there for five days. If you've got a lot of muscle on your body, you're going to come at it. You're still not going to feel very good. When you come out of there. I've got more Insurance. Mmm, you're gonna come out and you're not going to be nearly as frail as weak as if you went in there without a lot of muscle on your body while another
example is that is when you tear like ligaments and stuff because your muscles to are supporting all that. So I remember like when I tore my ACL MCL and the doctor was so impressed with the my ability still to walk and it was he tributes that
All the muscle mass that was supporting the nice man. If you were if you were a another client who had very little, you know muscle muscle in both your calves and your and your quads you would never be able to support yourself the way you are right now, which is I mean think of it like that to for injuries as you start to age.
Totally totally the last one that I can think about which for me I always thought was really really cool was how empowering being stronger is now there's the obvious
It's like the person who gains or regained independence. So like, you know, I I wasn't able to carry my groceries in the house all the way up the stairs or I wasn't able to you know, sit down and get up or whatever. So now I'm stronger. I can do those things that's pretty obvious. But there's one that's a little less obvious and I noticed this more with women. Yeah, and it was like I feel strong now and that strength makes you feel confident like just lifting my luggage in the overhead compartment or just feeling confident walking around with good posture feeling.
Enough to if I need to to get away or to defend myself, that was a huge one and I would hear that all the time for my female.
Yeah, I noticed that a lot with my female clients and I think it's it's mainly because I mean it wasn't promoted enough that you know women like are very much just as capable of lifting heavy weights just like eyes it's like this this the thought that it's going to be bulky and like you're training to be like a football player and all this kind of stuff was perpetuated out there. And so it was all about like as many reps as possible in shaping and
sculpting their bodies, you know through just like multiple reps, but you know, once you get them to to lift heavy weights really focus it on that like completely it was just like a transformation right away. I also think that strength training gives you the formula for Life. Hmm right? When you when you learn when you when you learn to strength train and you lift weights properly with the intent to build muscle burn body fat what you end up piecing together is the
That applies to almost everything else in your life that it takes hard work. There's going to be setbacks along the way you get back up consistency is one of the number one most important things like you start to real when you and when you've accomplished something through weight training and you and you and you know, what it takes to do that to really move the needle and be consistent and see a difference in your physique and all the things that we're talking about. Even the things that you're not used to when you start to connect that you start to learn that. Oh, wow, this is crazy. How this this same.
I'm formula applies to other aspects of my life and almost everything right because it involves you. It's self-improvement. It's how you can you know better yourself. And of course that's going to translate into any direction you want to go. So that's where I think that's one of the most empowering pieces of
oh, yeah. I mean you go to the gym and he did five push-ups this week and then you'd be able to do six one Xanax and you're working hard and you're consistent and next thing, you know, you could do 20 push-ups like you can't tell me that that lesson that
Confidence that you build isn't going to bleed over into the rest of your life,
but you can literally train yourself and to more extreme example of to do something you never could do before right here when I first got into lifting weights. I couldn't even put 45 pounds on each side of the bench press for years, but then I look back now and moving 225 is relatively easy for me and to think that whoa if I could think back to that mindset that I had then of like that seems so far away.
way that didn't seem possible strips, but I did something that I would have guessed his impossible for me to do. Holy shit. Where else can I apply this thing that thought because I remember talking about this even with podcasting or anything else you're doing this completely new like we were like to the psych just like Fitness is
reps. Yes, we will get better the more we just sit and work on it the more we practice
more practice like every and it's it is just a time-tested fact if you have that mentality going into sand it slow. So it forces you to
I learned that lesson I totally there is no there is no shortcut.
There is no lift weights and then tomorrow wake up and it's all right expert at it. Right and
that's why that it's so important, right? You can't you can't even cheating right? So we'll be a lot of steroids and that evil task along still taste and that's why it's still that fucking hard. You'll even learn to take that apply to everything else done.
Yeah. I had, you know, I used to hear this more from female clients, but now you're starting to hear also from men and that's the like how many times did you train a client? Usually this was a female client?
And that was afraid of a wait they were afraid of a way they did because they never they didn't know how to exert themselves in that way. They don't know how to lift something really heavy with confidence. They know how to get under a bar that felt heavy and it's like they don't even know their capability, right? They would get a little on the oh my God, that's too heavy and I'm tell I would tell him look I'm watching your form. You could actually lift another 30 pounds. I know this for a fact I've been doing this for
yeah, it's also one of the most rewarding things as a trainer to give to a client right how I mean time you guys had that
A classic. I can't believe I did this right here. I mean that is so Empower have two potential. So empowering that you you're able to
gift but even just the ability to grind through and struggle because when you lift a heavy weight, you know when you pick it up, I mean look, you know, let's say my Max deadlift is is 500 pounds 400 pounds still feels really heavy. It's not like it's a hundred pounds less but like I get under 400 pounds. I live for new pounds off the ground and it feels like a piece of cake. It feels really heavy. But because I
I've trained myself and understand how to really drive and struggle. I can tell that I can lift another hundred pounds. Now a lot of people never trained this now in the past, I would hear this more from female clients, but nowadays I'm starting here from guys to mainly because we're just far less physical. We've never exerted ourselves that way and that's a skill. It's actually a skill when you learn how to get into a bar and you get under a squat bar whatever you drive up and you lift it and you feel it. All of a sudden other challenges don't feel nearly as challenging you walk out of the
Lifting a weight that you're like the way that felt. I don't think I could do. This is one of the reasons this is one of the inspiring things about personal trainer because I'm sitting over here going. No you can lift it. I'm watching your form. Yeah, you can lift it. Let's try it again. Let's try and then they do in the like, oh my gosh, I can't believe and then everything else seems a little bit easier. That's so it's such an empowering feeling and resistance training in particular especially because of the challenge aspect of it the fact that there's so much potential variety with what you're doing. You can get really good at one exercise and I could throw one at you that you've never
ever done before and all of a sudden it's super challenging all over again boy. What a great feeling going through that
process. I and I really believe to kind of bring this all together to the coaches that are listening like this is what takes you to the next level as a coach is when you learn to speak to these types of points to your everyday clients absolutely like when you can make this connect you got to remember that ninety percent of the people that you train and you coach are not like you and a lot they didn't get up loving to go to the gym and they found
They love it so much. They've made a career out of it. They're not like you most people do it because of the the few things that they know that are important about it and that's enough to get them in the gym to start exercising when you help them make the connection to these other things that really start to impact their life that has nothing to do with the obvious ones what probably drove them in the gym, which is scale on the way body fat percentage muscle building. Once you learn to make that switch over to this side, like that's where you get life or clients. That's where you change people's lives really cements it.
Them absolutely and what that go to mind pump free.com and download all of our free guides and resources if your trainer actually have a free personal training guide there as well, but we have guides on squatting guides on building your arms working on your midsection fat loss muscle building again. It's mine pump free.com. You can also find the three of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at my pump Justin. You can find me at my pumps Allen. Adham at my pump
Adam. Thank you for listening to mine pump if your goal is to build and shape your body.
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