What's going on guys? Welcome back to another episode of Eat Train Prosper. This is episode two hundred and twenty-five, which is our Instagram QA for August 2026. Before we dive into questions, as always, Brian, what's the latest? Yeah, quick update here from me. Um, had my birthday this past weekend. My birthday was actually on Friday, and Friday was not a great day. We had some some issues at school, so a lot of like stress between figuring all that out. Um, but then we went out, had a nice dinner that night, and then my real birthday celebration was the next day. We had a show at Folsom Field, which is the stadium in at Colorado University, right in my backyard. So we went to go see the Rufus DuSol show at Folsom with a bunch of friends. And uh that felt really good and that was awesome. So feels like I got a solid birthday celebration in there. Um and then second update is just I mean this will come out before this happens, but uh Paragon has its new strength cycle starting on September 14th. And along with the strength cycle we're doing a bit of a pull up specialization. So if you want to get super strong and and work on your pull-ups, then that starts on 914. And I'm sure we'll have some like sign-up specials, discounts and stuff like that. Cool. Any other updates? No, that's it. What's up with you? So I I I kinda do have a a couple updates. Um the biggest one being now that I always like chasing big things or or challenges, but sometimes with that you find yourself in the throes of it, right? And I am in the throes of of another one. One of the things that over the past couple years, I have these side projects. that turned out to be not so much side projects, these large encompassing um pursuits per se. So a lot of twenty twenty four and through twenty twenty five was the building of undefeated, which was a f a full-time job on on top of my existing job. And then in 2025 was chasing the pro card, the wedding, right? And a lot of these things. So my coaching business has always been sufficient. It's always been enough. And largely that has been through referrals because when you do good work, people are happy, people ask, that sort of thing. And that's been wonderful. But once we came back, the the priority for me was I want work that I love. I want to be really excited about all the work that I get to do. And what came with that is one of the negatives I should say with referrals is you get a gamut of people. and I had always, if someone's asking me for help, I'm going to help them, sort of thing. However, it would have me really all over the place solving different problems, and I would spend a lot of time. researching things that that weren't necessarily in my wheelhouse to in order to best help people, but it's not a great return of investment on my time. And now that I'm back And with the the the child on the way, I wanna be able to spend time with my family. And what I've done literally for the last like five years is just worked seven days per week. I'll work at 9 p.m., I'll work at 6 a.m. And that just doesn't scale with a family. If you wanna keep your family at least, which I h happily intend on on doing. So I I I decided to bring in some help. to save me from myself. So what what I am doing now is doubling down on the clients that I love helping most, and that is that hobby builder uh ICA sort of thing. Like effectively who you and I are. I might have, you know, that pro card, but I I'm I'm still a hobby builder at heart. I get on stage because I kind of have to at this point. But I love just the lifestyle and getting people in shape because it's so much fun. I I I love doing those check-ins. Um, so that's what I'm doubling down on. And what that really meant was a A portion of my roster I let go and I said this uh you know there was people who wouldn't check in frequently and those sorts of things and I just want to love my work and that was a big change for me and I'm in the middle of it bringing on help, but there's a lot of new that I need to do. So just in a little bit of a transparency with everyone, it's it's not always all sunshine and rainbows, you know, being a coach and running the business, but uh I'm working to getting it to be sunshine and rainbows and deliver incredible results like With the the the ICA and that still includes women too. Um the right type that I love to help and I'm very, very excited to to really dig my heels in there. Um so it was a little bit of of nervousness letting go something that was working, right? With a really you know powerful referral system, but then speaking to like who I really really want to help, who I know I can do the best work for. So I'm just in the middle of that. Yeah, I love that. I think having an eye to the future is extremely mature and responsible. And then with this new process you get to be a little bit more selective, like you said, and and get the people that, you know, truly inspire you to wanna do the work that you do. So I think that overall it's a it's a double win. Yeah, and and it's not so much what I well the question that I I sometimes get is it's not like I only want to work with advanced people. I want people who want the lifestyle. That's what I want. And if I'm really honest, I I do like the people who are newer because we can make the most progress, right? With it, like we have so much to to to gain. So um if that interests you as a listener, get in touch. We can have uh happily have a conversation about it. But I'm very, very excited uh to love all aspects of my work. And then I feel like my life will be very, very enjoyable. And that's what I want. Cool. Well I can't wait to see this progression with you professionally and as a dad. It's gonna be awesome. Okay, shall we get into some questions? Sure, let's do it. Alright, so this one I'll I'll read over to you. I want to get back to doing a bro split while also pursuing cardio for health. I have about one hour to train, seven days per week. Right now, upper lower four times per week with two zone two days and a four by four Norwegian day. Excuse me. It's going fine, but my legs feel pretty beat up, uh fatigued all week, and I'm bored with upper lower. Question being, how might you program four to six days or even a seventh-day bro split that also includes this cardio? What I've already thought of is five days chest, legs, shoulders, back, arms with a four by four day, and then one hour zone two day with 15 minutes of zone two to finish off the lifting days. Yeah, and then he asked if that's how I'd approach it, any other ideas. I actually think that's a really solid approach. it's one of a few that I thought of that could work quite well. I'm also kind of excited to go back to doing a bit more of a bro split as bike season wraps up in, you know, the mid-fall here, call it like late October or whatever, when the weather starts deteriorating here. and last year, if you followed along my journey, my bro split was six days a week. It was a chest day, a back day, uh quad day, then a shoulder day, then an arm day, then a hamstring day, and then a rest day, and then repeat. So I was going six days a week. I actually really, really, really liked that split. I had so much fun with it and I felt great throughout with the one caveat that toward the end of my three. Three-ish months doing that, I started getting some elbow pain on my left elbow. And I realized afterwards when I, you know, dialed back my training for the summer and switched back to three days a week, and the elbow pain dissipated like literally within a week or two, that um there's just something about Using my arm across all of those days in so many ways. Like of those six training days, you know, four of them use my elbow in some capacity in the upper body focused days. So while I loved the brevity of those workouts and I never spent more than 40 or 35 minutes on any of my sessions because it was just, you know, one muscle group. I do think that this year I'm going to do it a little bit differently because I want to avoid that elbow pain creeping up on me. Or maybe I'll try it that way. And then if I feel the elbow pain creeping up, I'll make a change. Um, but my proposed change for myself is to actually slam together the shoulder and arms into one day. Um, because that's what I'm actually doing currently in my three-day split. And I'm still able to get that shoulder and arm day done in like 40 or 45 minutes by being um really. specific with like alternating sequences and like I'll do a circuit of like a shoulder movement, a tricep movement, a bicep movement, and I'll rest you know a minute between and then back through and I'll do all my sets that way and then choose three new exercises and do that through as well. And doing it in that circuit fashion worked really well to keep those sessions brief. So my intention personally is to probably do shoulders and arms together, still have a chest day, still have a back day. Because honestly, the way I look at those chest and back days is that they're kind of like upper days. Um, like a back day is gonna work, obviously the back, the lats, the rear delts, the traps, like all of those things, the biceps. And then on chest day, you're getting like front delts, upper chest, lower chest, triceps. So it's kind of like some full body stuff with the chest and the back day. And then the shoulder arm day gives you like a second dose of all that stuff. and then still I think I'll probably split up the hamstring and the quad day. because I really enjoy the kind of more targeted work there that keeps those sessions super brief without being as systemically exhausting. Like I'm getting through my leg day now in 45 minutes, but it's much more exhausting to do quads and hams together uh than simply being able to split them up and have that hyper focus on one of those muscle groups. So that's not something that you necessarily have to do with your split. Um Given that you're feeling your legs pretty beat up with the current approach, obviously you're doing the full leg day twice a week. So whether you did a bro split with one leg day where you did both, or you did two leg days, but you had a hamstring day and a quad day, I think either one would give you some reprieve from that fatigue in your legs. and then the other issue is just figuring out kind of where to fit in your cardio. And so if we assume a five day uh bro split, whether that's combining the shoulder and arm day together or whether that's combining the leg days together, uh, you make kind of one of those sacrifices there, then that leaves you two days where you're not lifting. So I like the approach of having one day be a four by four and one day be a zone two. The other option, depending on your gumption and your availability and everything, potentially if you want to fit another cardio day in, would be to do the four by four after a weight day because it's only sixteen minutes. So you could do like a a short weight day like call it, you know, your chest day or your back day. It's 30, 35 minutes, whatever. And then you could do your four by four on that day. And then that allows you to have two days for zone two in there. and that's likely the approach that I will take if I end up going to a five day split is still trying to get those three cardio days in with the two zone twos and then the one four by four. It's also possible that I might end up just extrapolating this out over an eight day cycle so that I can do the five lifting days and then do the three cardio days without having to do two in the same day. So if your schedule allows you to be on like a non-calendar week and you can do it over an eight day cycle, that could also work quite well with this structure. So I love the approach. I think you have a few good options there. And hopefully talking through that, you know, provided a little clarity. What what do you think, Aaron? think that I could realistically add anything onto what how you answered the question because I think you answered it as robustly as we we realistically could. What I will add is a a an a c a question perhaps with because what we have here is a a protocol, a desire, but we don't know what the goal is. You know he never said what his I'm assuming this is a man. He never said what his goal is. And With that, I I would say if you know what the goal is, I think you can prioritize a little bit differently, potentially, because we're looking at everything on par here. But If let's say arms aren't really a big priority, I don't know that I would necessarily devote an entire day to them. And then maybe we can maybe back is a priority. Maybe we can have a longer back day for that full 60 minutes, and then we don't do any cardio on that day. But if we don't necessarily care or if the physique that we have, our arms are already pretty good in size relative to other things, maybe then I can get more priority of my cardio. Which potentially is a higher priority than my arms. So I would ask that question of what are your actual priorities? And then maybe that helps you divide what gets a little bit more time. Because we're really asking a time question. We have seven hours over a week. How do we best allocate that time? And I think you might help yourself get some answers there. Another option that I just thought of too that could work is You know, if you if arms are not really a priority and you still wanna get through these days in under an hour, there's no reason you couldn't throw biceps on back day at the end. And since biceps are already trained by back, you could probably get away with doing like two to four working sets. Same thing with triceps on chest day or triceps on shoulder day. you could simply add those there. And that might actually be a decent solution for me with my elbow thing too, is like if I just want one less day where I'm stressing the function of the elbow in that manner. by combining those arm days onto the upper body days that already exist, I could probably uh decrease the the impact on my elbow on one of those days uh throughout the week too. So there are definitely a few options there. And I love your uh kind of idea around, you know, prioritization and how you want to split that up too. But if it's all well rounded and you just kind of want to like lift and more or less maintain but enjoy your training and then prioritize cardio, uh then I think that, you know, you have a a bunch of options there. This one will also kick to you to start. I've been seeing Dr. Mike T. Nelson hating on zone two in his posts recently. This is this person's words, not my words, just so we're clear here. Do you have a take on all of that? I feel like zone two is probably a bit overhyped in general, but still has some utility if applied correctly, even if you aren't an endurance athlete. Yeah. I think Mike's big thing on zone two, and he and I have had a number of conversations about this. We've been on podcasts together. We've had voice notes going back and forth for a couple years now on on various topics around cardio and lifting and stuff like that. And I absolutely respect and love Mike. He's he's an amazing dude and has such great insight on stuff. His hate against zone two, if you want to say it that way, is really a time prioritization piece. And part of it is in what he's promoting right now instead of zone two is his uh six minute builds. I forget exactly what he calls it, but his his idea is basically instead of doing zone two or even hit cardio, simply do these six minute builds but do them every day. So you're getting like a six minute dose of cardio. And the idea with the six minute build is that every ninety to a hundred and twenty seconds You increase your effort. So you might start at like an RPE six or something for the first minute or two, and then go to RP seven or eight for a minute or two, and then RPE nine for a minute or two, and then finish the last minute or two at RPE 10. So you're kind of working through all the zones, you're getting a ton of cardio stimulus in six minutes. We know through research that if you're at those super, super high heart rates, you actually don't really need to do a ton of it to get the stimulus. they've even talked about this in the form of exercise snacks. Like Dr. RondaPatrick talks about this, where literally throughout the day you could just go run stairs for 30 seconds like four times a day. And that gives you two minutes of total stimulus at high heart rate. But because you're doing these like super high heart rates in short period throughout the day multiple times, you're getting like the total stimulus to the heart that you would need. and the stimulus that you receive from doing higher intensity work actually scores exponentially. So like It's not linear in that if you did 60 minutes of zone two, that's not like doing 45 minutes of zone three or like 30 minutes of zone four or like 15 minutes of zone five. It scales exponentially. So you actually need to do progressively less high intensity work to get the same kind of remodeling and cardiovascular benefits that you would get at the lower doses for longer durations. So I think his thing is really just like, you know, he's he speaks to lifters. His target audience is guys that lift and want to be jacked. And now he's realizing that they also want to have some cardio fitness, but a lot of them don't want to commit 60-minute zone two periods or even 45 minutes or whatever. And so his approach here is maybe not as good at all of the like long-term mitochondrial stuff that you get from actually doing zone two, but he's getting you really close to that. Through these six minute builds that are done daily and getting you like a kind of a constant stimulus there. Um, so I wouldn't even say that he hates on zone two. Like through our conversations, he's like, you know, in your situation when he's talking to me, he's like, if you have seven days a week and you have an hour a day to do that, like absolutely go do your zone two. But if you're like a normal dude that works a normal job and you're just trying to lift three or four days a week and do cardio, but you don't have a ton of time, these six-minute builds are a great way to get you some cardiovascular stimulus. but for sure that doesn't mean that there's no utility in zone two or that there isn't benefit to that if you have the time for I I love that answer. I think it's uh it's very, very good. Well, I haven't seen any of Dr. Mike T. Nelson's six minute uh climbs or whatever. I I'll have to go take a look at it. We I just I should say we I went and bought a upright bike, a commercial upright bike on Facebook Marketplace that was incredibly cheap. I was like, it's so cheap I have to at least go fucking look at it. So we have it in the house now. So I I think that that was something that I could add that would be fun like a daily. That might be like a a first thing in the morning sort of thing, uh, to do. literally wake up, stumble out of bed, and go immediately to your rower or your bike and just do your six minute build every day. Yeah, yeah. So I'm definitely gonna look into that. That'll be fun. One of the things too that that you said towards the end of w who he's speaking to, I think is incredibly important because oftentimes we miss when we're speaking about these things, we speak about them kind of in silos and we miss uh I'm the the word confounding variables comes into mind that might be the wrong context of these. But for example, I have been tracking my my training, my heart rate training via this. And for my upper body days, like my average heart rate is in like the 123 to 126. That's for my upper body days, right? For my lower body days, it's well above 130. Mm-hmm. And that's at an average over about like 75 to 90 minutes. So if we're if we have something that's already there, let's call that f like you said, three to four times per week, it's not technically zone two, but it's close. And I'm sure that there is some contributory benefit of a sustained heart rate over that kind of uh period of time where you If we're looking at someone who does nothing and then you add zone two of of what does require that time, but for the people who just want to get that that longevity benefit, that lifter who still wants to prioritize his health, I think you're n we're not looking at light switch on, light switch off. It's more of that dial of what things are already somewhat contributing, and then what do I really need to add on top to necessarily cover my bases. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'll just add Mike and I have had a conversation about that. And I specifically talked to him about whether higher heart rates through lifting have any uh impact or correlation to cardiovascular fitness. And he basically kiboshed that and was like, no. And he went on this big tirade about how it has to do with like the blood flow mechanisms and how the higher heart rates from lifting are about obstructing blood flow into the areas and through like breath holds and balsalva maneuvers and uh and all of that stuff. So the higher heart rate that you get. from lifting weights is not the same type of beneficial higher heart rate that you get from doing a a monostruct structural type of cardio where the the the turnover is much faster. wanna I don't wanna say I I argue against it. I'm just saying I don't necessarily believe it, I guess. Yeah. it 'cause he he had a really good response when he was talking to me about that when we were talking about it last year. Okay. Yeah, I definitely will. Because that would to me that would make I'm and I don't know, I'm definitely using an N of one, which is very unscientific. But all I do is train really, really hard, and then I can go hike these gnarly mountains here. Pert and B. My heart rate's up, but I'm good and I can keep going. And I just have a hard time. Where's my where's my cardiovascular base from then? Uh, if that were not the case. So said, I'm sure there's some inherent benefit that's occurring to like just your fitness overall from from lifting and getting a higher heart rate and all that stuff. But as far as like the I I don't know, the the the circulation aspects, yeah. I would just talk to him about it and get his kind of like professional insight into that. Cool. All right, I'll kick this next one over to you. what are your thoughts on reading research for someone who is an enthusiast but no degree or background in science? Is it better to just read research reviews? w is it a better return on your time to read the research reviews? I think p possibly. Uh one thing that I would recommend is choose maybe one or two people that you generally are more drawn towards because there's so many research reviews, right? You have the Alan Aragon research review. That was the one that I subscribed to for the longest. is Mass still still going out? Do you know about that? a I have a lifetime subscription to Mass. It's still going out every month. Okay, I know Lane Norton had one. There was uh Bill Campbell has one. This guy, I can't what his n his last name started with a K, I think. Oh I can't remember. I apologize. But there's a number. I I don't think subscribing to all of them is is probably the best use of your time. but it depends on what What do you want to get out of it as the enthusiast? Right. If if it's a hobby thing and you want to feel really empowered to learn how to read the research, I think that is is is helpful. but I would say start with what you think your end goal is out of it. And I think the research reviews are probably the the best return on your time investment. Yeah. I would just say like I I think you're he's he's Aaron's right for sure. I think that the thing with the research reviews is that while the people writing them, no matter which research review it is, is trying to take like an unbiased view of what the research says, if you're consolidating something into more digestible information, you're obviously going to have a little bit of a skew of bias as far as um how you interpret that research. And so everyone like like you guys have seen through all of the battles that occur online, you know, you can take the same study and you can have one group of people interpret that study completely differently than another group of people. And so if you're going to read research reviews and be cognizant of this type of interaction between the experts online, I would make sure that you I don't want to tell you to subscribe, subscribe to all the research reviews, but be privy to the fact that it is. Up to interpretation. And like there's just there's so many different aspects of a study that you can take out and use to make your point. like for example, the data-driven strength one that they did a while ago about proximity to failure, and the closer you get to failure, you know, you get more hypertrophy. and then you had a lot of people being like, Well, if you just train in the five to eight rep range, look what this research study shows. If you're lifting heavy weights above 80% of maximum. You actually don't need to go to failure to get the exact same result. So one person is like, just train in the five to eight rep range with one to two R I R and that's what the research supports. And then someone else is like, no, you have to do like eight to fifteen reps and you need to go to failure because that's what the research supports. And that's literally taken from the same study that um that said that. So it really matters, you know, how it is interpreted and and what you take from it. So while research reviews are super helpful to give you an overview of it. If you want to understand the intricacies and the different points that people might perceive from it or use to kind of uh tout their their programs or their opinion, then I think you need to have a multifaceted view of each paper. And, you know, there's a few ways to do that. You don't have to read the research, but that's certainly one way. I think that's really helpful. One would be what is your goal that you want to get out of reading the research? And I'll I'll use myself as an example. From twenty twenty two to twenty twenty four I was spending a lot of time like reading research reviews and I'll be honest in that my goal of that was to get a conclusion, right? To like, okay, this the like the title, the the abstract, like this, I want this in this can this conclusive information uh out of it. But what often ends up happening, which is good, it's good honest uh science, is the conclusion is the conclusion is we need more research to get a better answer. And that would frustrate the hell out of me because I would read this whole thing and then and the answer is more research needs to be done. And that's a very, very common conclusion out of research. And for me who wanted concrete evidence to go make decision X, read it, and then they're like, there is no decision X. And that would be really frustrating. Like I said, I I understand the reasoning why, but if you're if that is the reason that you want to read the res research, you're probably gonna end up a little bit frustrated. What I will say The most beneficial t period for me spent reading research was in building my fertility protocol. Because it is an area where there isn't a lot of conclusive, widely known science on it. If you go talk to 10 different, you know, doctors, you're probably gonna get a pretty robust amount of answers. Um And in my digging through the research, I was able to find doses of medications. These this combination of medication shows higher uh performance of results than soul medication alone. Here are the the mechanisms, and it really helped me build my fertility protocol. And the whole time I was pretty skeptical because it it's a little bit it's known in some niche of the bodybuilding world, but but at a high level, still oh if you want to conceive you have to come off testosterone it's not true and and if you actually go dig through the research you can find those things so that one was really helpful for me because it was a lot of X's and O's the difference with that It's medication based, so the research is a little bit more easier, whereas something with nutrition or training, it's directions given to people that then have to be interpreted and implied or observational data in terms of nutrition, where with medication it's a little bit more easier because it's person gives, you know, X capsule monitor result. Um so that one was really, really helpful uh digging through the the research. Yep, love that. All right, let me kick the next one over to you two. Over a long period of time, do you think an 80-20 commitment to training, recovery, and nutrition could get you to 95% plus of your muscle gain potential? I wanna be I want I want to be inclined to say yes, but I'm hesitant. I think in terms of you have to always be pointing north in what In in answering the question specifically, muscle gain potential means you need to be effectively over a long period of time, right? Let's call it eight years, something like that. You have to be in a surplus, like a continual surplus for a long period of time. So as long as that 80-20 is within the lens of I need. There's like three big rocks, let's call it that. You have to sleep pretty, pretty well. You have to have decent intelligent programming and you need to be in a prolonged calories calorie surplus. I think if those rocks are in line, then yes, the eighty-twenty commitment can probably get you ninety-five percent of your muscle gain potential, but everything always needs to be pointed north. Um to to know that Tw eighty percent is not an optimized approach. So if it's if if it's not optimized and we have five months where you're actually at maintenance or or or actually in an in a negative or a what is that what is it called a deficit, then you're losing that time because we're not pointed north. So I I I think it's a bit of a yes and a no. Yeah, I want to say yes as well. My first inclination was to say yes, but I think there's actually two ways you can look at 8020. So if you look at it one way, which is everything you do is like an 80% of what it could be. So that means when you go to the gym, you're training at like 80% effort, 80% volume, 80% focus, whatever. And when you're sleeping, you're maybe scoring an 80 on your sleep score, which would mean, you know, not the best of sleep. You generally want to be like a 90 or something like that. Um, if your nutrition is 80, maybe you know, you're only getting 80% of the protein that you need throughout the day or something along those lines. I feel like that 80-20 would lead you to worse results than if you look at 80-20 as 80% of the time. So call it five or six days a week. I'm gonna be a hundred percent dialed in, but then one and a half days a week. I'm gonna just not be dialed in at all. I think you're actually more likely to get to 95% of your muscle gain goals with that approach, where you're 100% dialed when you're doing things, but then you just have like one and a half days where you're not dialed, versus being like just partially dialed every day. Um, so that's kind of how I would extrapolate that out and and kind of differentiate it. but I very much do think that if you're in that route where you're 100% dedicated, but just not every day of the week. I think you will absolutely get to that ninety five percent. I re I I love that answer. to extrapolate ever so slightly further if you go eighty percent of the year, you know, I I can't do that math off off the top of my head. But if it's like I don't know, nine Yeah, so yeah, if if like two and a half nine and a half months per year, you're dialed in and then like two and a half months you just take everything like super chill. I I do think y you can. Um it's the time. component like Brian said as opposed to my answer was like if you just give everything a B minus You might but I think it's a pretty suboptimal approach. But like Brian said if you're just dialed across the board when you are dialed or if conversely let's say your training is a hundred percent And your sleep is 100%, but your nutrition quality is whatever lower. Like, I still think because the goal is muscle mass, I think it can be, but you're probably gonna be fatter than you wanna be also. Yeah. I think I'm probably an example, like at least in the last, you know, number of years. I'm an example of that person that like five days a week or five and a half days a week, I'm like a hundred percent dialed. And then like one to two days a week, you know, I go out drinking, I stay up late and have shitty sleep and go to concerts, I eat desserts or pizza or whatever. Like I I think that that is kind of an example of me. And and obviously I have all of my background that set me up for success here. But um but I I do think if someone follows that, you know, for the long haul they'll probably be fine. And they follow your ne your cardio protocol as well. Yeah. Um I got some kind of questions from my son here. He's he's almost nine. Um, and so I I could obviously answer these to him in person, but just because he asked them, I will add them here and be quick about it. So he asks, how should a nine-year-old boy train his abs to get a six-pack? And then the second question is, and what's the minimum amount of days or time that I could train to get jacked when I start going through puberty? Did he really did he really ask that second question? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, not not in the like what's the minimum day's time I could train, but he's like, he's like, like, how much do I have to train if I want to be jacked when I'm like 13 or 14? You know, that was the way he kind of phrased it. So the first question about his six pack, I mean, so the the thing is when you're nine, like you're just not gonna be jacked because you don't have testosterone, like you're you're you're it's no matter how hard you train and stuff, like you're just not going to look really jacked at nine years old. but if you establish those comes to your house. I said or CPS comes to your house. Child Protective Services. Yeah. Um, but but if, you know, like shit, man, even in the last year from when Bryson was eight till when he's nine, I actually think his abs have improved, which is kind of crazy. Like before he was just lean. And so I was like, Yeah, you kind of have a six-pack because you have no fat on you, but he's been training his abs probably more than any other muscle group over the last year. And he now sort of is getting a six-pack. Like he's sort of developing some muscle under there. And so the best way to to get abs is probably just to do them, you know, once or twice a week. go close to failure, do some some movements where you bring your knees to your chest, and do some movements where you bring your chest to your knees. And I don't think it's so different from the way that I would advise anyone else to train their abs to get a six-pack, you know, with diet being not spoken of. Like obviously you have to be lean enough to see your six-pack. Um, but yeah, I mean, you know, training abs twice a week close to failure with two. exercises that train you through different ranges of motion, I think is probably a pretty good approach. And that's more or less what he's doing. he usually has one day where he does some hanging knee raises and like I put on my story yesterday. And then he has another day where he does some sit-ups with like a dumbbell over his chest and and he does that. So so yeah that seems to be working for him. And then as far as minimum amount of time you could train to get jacked when he goes through puberty, I I'm a big fan of of saying two two days is fine. I think two full body days. Is probably the way to go. I think he could probably knock that out in 35 to 45 minutes if he really wanted to be efficient with his time, you know, one exercise per muscle group type thing twice a week. that's more or less how I started too. Like I started on an abbreviated program with a push, a pull, and a leg movement. So literally just three movements one day and then three movements three days later. And uh I think that that worked quite well. I am of the mindset that when kids first start training. There's really no reason that they need to be following the muscle mag bro split type thing or push pull eggs or anything like that. I really think just, you know, getting them into the gym and taking advantage of those easy gains in the beginning is uh probably the best route. And it then keeps them engaged and keeps it interesting so it doesn't really start to feel like a chore either. I I love that second part of the answer. I I agree. Two days per week, full body, short, learning the basics of how to position their body, like body awareness, the compounds, you know, the basic, you know, large movement patterns. For that reason that you said they don't need it.

if if resistance training and lifting is something that they're genuinely interested in, they're going to end up dedicating more time to it eventually. So they don't need everything in the beginning. It's just here are the basics for for some some strength. maybe it carries over to a sport that they play, or maybe they just want to be a jacked thirteen year old, either is perfectly fine. And if it ends up being something that is worth their time and and enjoyment, they will put more time in into it anyway. Yep. Yep. All right, cool. Um do you do any reverse lunges or lunging work in your program? Currently no, but I like a Smith like a front foot elevated Smith Machine reverse lunge, I love that. Um So this question asks when doing reverse lunges, how do you ensure you're stepping back equally on each leg? Or is that even something you think about? Well, here's the I I was gonna I was gonna provide I was gonna answer the question and say, just film it, and then you'll know what you're doing. That being said, it's something I've never even considered. I I think it's unless you have some like quad tear in one or something that's like drastically limiting your your range. I I don't think the emphasis should be there. The emphasis should be on is the foot pressure in my front foot where I want it to be? Am I getting to the length and glute position? Of the are the is the working leg contracting the way that I want it to, I wouldn't even be concerned about your stabilization leg. Yeah. I I filmed mine the other day because I was curious. And what I noticed was that I step back in a more glute dominant manner when my left leg is forward. So I usually tend to have almost a vertical shin when my left leg is forward. And when my right leg is forward, I tend to have a little bit of knee flexion. And so it's pretty subtle. I would call it just like a five degree difference in my shin angle, maybe five to seven degrees. but it's noticeable. So that means that I'm like a little more quad dominant on my right leg and I'm a little more glute dominant on my left leg. Um, and I think that actually plays out in my physique. Like I have a a less developed um quad on the lower left side on my VMO than I do on my right. And so that just may be like me compensating for that weakness, which if I was earlier in my training career, I'd probably make a pretty big deal out of trying to correct that and and normalize it between legs. but at this point I really just kind of go by feel and I focus more on what Aaron was saying about like foot pressure and and all of that stuff. All right, I'll kick this one to you because you're in the throes of it with your wife right now. But this is the same the same woman that's kinda asked us about pregnancy stuff in the past and we were gonna do an episode on it and then we never got around to doing it. So maybe we can just kind of address it here and help her out. She said, pregnancy training, how to manage and any tips. I think it's important to point out that Brian and I have never been pregnant. I don't think either of us ever will be. So we're gonna speak at very uh general generalizations. And I would encourage you as listener or any listener to be trepidatious when people are giving information about this. What I would say is listen to your body. If you have a long history of training and a baseline training capacity, when you feel good, you can probably train to a similar capacity, but there are times where you're probably gonna feel maybe rather shit. And I don't think trying to force your baseline training capacity when you feel shit is encouraged. So I don't think anyone's gonna be able to provide you as good of an answer as simply listening to your body. at this time some general movement is typically going to contribute to feeling better which is a pretty capped and obvious statement across a human through time and space but do what you can um Maybe if you feel great, right? Because there's those women who just feel great in pregnancy. We get a flood of hormones. Testosterone is generally significantly higher. Maybe if you feel great, you can capitalize on some uh body parts that you want to grow because pregnancy is a rather anabolic environment. Food is going up, body weight is going up, we have a favorably shifting hormonal profile. I think you can take advantage of it if you feel great, but listen to your body. Yeah, um, I don't know how like detailed to get on this and everything, you know as Aaron was saying, following your uh auto regulation is probably quite important. I remember my wife through both pregnancies trained through them, but there would be days where, you know, the program calls to do one to two R I R on a lunge or a squat and she's like, no, like today that's just not happening. I'm gonna go through the motions. I'm gonna do 10 to 12 rep sets with a ton of R IR and I'm just gonna get a stimulus and it's gonna be okay because, you know, doing something is better than nothing. And like Aaron said, moving your body and getting those endorphins is really beneficial. So I think auto regulation is important, not holding yourself to standard that you have to hit certain weights or reps on things. You're not trying to necessarily progress in PR things although if you're feeling great and want to do that, that's totally fine too. I reference Maggie Hirsch, who from the CrossFit Gym back in the day. Uh, literally the day before she gave birth, she set a two-rep max front squat PR. Um, and then she gave birth the next day. And so, like, I mean, there are a number of ways and situations that this will differ between people. Um There's also, of course, I'm sure you're aware of this, but you know, in the first trimester, you can basically do everything you were doing prior. In the second trimester, there's certain things that you shouldn't be doing anymore, like laying on your stomach. I think as you progress through, you're not even supposed to lay on your back. I think everything's supposed to be done like standing or seated. and so there's a number of those things to consider. I I I can't really, like Aaron said, I can't really like get in here and prescribe specific things. So I know this is super general and it's just really following your own signals, signs, motivation, desire, and just trying to move as much as you can within the realm of what feels comfortable for you. This one, you're newer, so we'll we'll kick this one over to you. How about that? Any regrets about starting TRT? Anything you'd do differently if you did it again? I don't think I have any regrets. I'm still dealing with some like annoying I f what's it called? Like is it cystic acne or something? The little like teeny sweat bumps that you get all over my shoulders. I'm still dealing with those and it's been better since I stopped picking at them, obviously. but like but like That's still kind of annoying that like, you know, I I've been trying to be more cognizant of showering after I work out now, whereas usually I would work out and then six or seven hours later I would shower. Now I'm trying to like shower and clean myself anytime I sweat. So I'm not just sitting there like basking in my sweat. So that's been like kind of annoying. Um the impact of TRT has not been like extremely dramatic. I think going into it, I've expected it to be this like overwhelming, life-changing thing where I'm like, wow, I'm a different person now. And it's just not that. Um, it is it is like I always say, it's like a five or ten percent bump on everything across the board, which when you put it all together, you know, having more energy, more focus, better sleep, better workouts, less friction, better sex drive, like all of these things are better, but they're better so minimally that it's almost hard to tell a difference. Um, so part of me actually wonders if I hadn't started it and I would have simply just Really dialed in my lifestyle. Like if I would have stopped eating sugar, I would have, you know, prioritized sleep more, stopped smoking weed. Um, like there's probably some things I could have done in lifestyle that would have potentially uh put me in a better position where maybe I wouldn't have needed to go on TRT. I couldn't know now because all of that's in the past. So I think in retrospect, I wish maybe that I would have. taken the few months or year to really dial everything in and see if that fixed the problem before jumping on it, which now I feel like kind of creates another crutch. Um so I don't regret it, but I do think that I probably would have if I could do it again, I probably would have given myself six months or a year of trying to like really dial in lifestyle things before doing it. But now that I'm on it, I'm I'm happy about it. I feel great and and I don't really have any regrets there. Um yeah, I think that's that's probably my answer. What about you? I don't have any regrets, no. I I would say I'm much more satisfied with with who I am as a as a human since. I will say that. Anything I would do differently if I did it again, yes. So to back up a little bit, I was terrified starting, right? Because there is a lot of I don't wanna use term fear-mongering, but but there there there is dangers that can be associated. And and I value my health as much as that may seem uh hypocritical as someone who's on PEDs. So I was very trepidatious and scared. Because of that, I can over-consumed content, like hours of the the the YouTube talking heads and and things like that. And I think it was to my disservice because I think most people are out there to try and be helpful, but when the amount of money that you make is driven by the views on the videos and the polarizing topics and stuff, we get a lot of noise at the extremes because that's what grabs our attention. And then the people who like like Brian and I I feel like are pretty mid-level in our approaches and in the things we say. Like Brian and I don't really make very polarizing statements and stuff. But the people that do that get all the attention. So you end up watching these videos that kind of just scare you in one way or or another. And it was a lot of just noise. Um so I wouldn't do so much of that. I would get An individual, like a trusted friend or something like that. The real answer here is you get a doctor. However, unfortunately, in in the in the general landscape of what it is, the person who's been on TRT for 12 years is going to be able to help you much better than the doctor that writes the prescription. Because they're going to give you a here's the protocol. For example, I my prescription shows up with 23 gauge needles. Twenty three gauge. They're fucking giant needles that do not that you do not need to use and you're gonna have a pretty unpleasant experience if you're it's your first time and you're pinning twenty threes in your shoulder or something like that. So that would be my general recommendation. I I would have consumed less and just ta spent an hour talking to someone who's done it for ten years or eight years to give me all the little No, this is the needle that you use. Like th these basic little tips and stuff, uh, because who you're gonna get very generalized instructions that are probably not the most helpful. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, I loved the one arm training experiment. What's next? Yeah, so about a year and a Or two ago, I did this one arm training experiment where for six months I only did direct arm work on my left arm and not any direct arm work on my right arm, and I still did all of the compound movements like for back and chest and shoulders with both arms. So my right arm was only getting stimulus from the compound movements, and my left arm was getting stimulus from the compound movements and from the direct arm work that I was doing. Um I thought it was a great experiment too. I'm really glad I did it. I did a DEXA at the Beginning, a DEXA at the end. I did pictures at the beginning at the three-month mark and at the end, and I did measurements at all three times as well. the end result was basically that my left arm started half an inch smaller than my right, and it ended up at the same size as my right at the end of the experiment, more or less. It was close. it was closer. However, within a week or two of going back to training both equally, it was back to the same half an inch discrepancy between them. So all of that was basically. uh to find out that, you know, it's just gonna more or less be the same when you go back to doing things the way you were doing things. Um, as far as the next experiment, you know, I don't have a great one in mind. this was really motivating for me and I thought it would be super insightful on like a smaller level, you know, last winter I did that three month experiment with the bro split, which I hadn't done for a few years. And so that was interesting to see what would happen to my results from that. You know, science would have led us to believe that I would have gotten worse results than doing, you know, an upper lower four days a week or whatever I was doing prior, um, given the frequency piece. But I think I actually continued to to make results and gains on the bro split. So that was kind of reassuring. obviously I started TRT, so that's an experiment in itself. And I've experimented with varying approaches to cardio season, which is my like kind of spring summer time where I'm doing cardio five days a week and doing less training. So I've been, you know, figuring that out over the years and kind of uh getting to the the approach that that feels sustainable and uh productive uh for that too. But no, I don't really have an idea necessarily of like a specific experiment like this where I'm gonna be extremely data oriented and all of that. And to be honest, I kind of think that This has just been the evolution of where I've gone with my relationship to fitness now. Uh, I was talking about it on my other podcast, Life Reflected, in the most recent episode. But I just kind of have a much more casual approach to my fitness now. And I no longer feel extremely performance-driven. Uh, I feel like simply just showing up, putting in the hard work, whether it's cardio or weights, and And doing that consistently gives me the reward that I want for like, you know, mental health and physical health and um gives me the endorphins that I that I crave from those sessions. And I think having a bit more of a relaxed approach to it has actually been really good for me mentally. And I would be surprised if I get a little if I go back to being kind of neurotic and hyper focused on it. I think something I I recently heard was explained, uh which I really liked is burnout. It can be thought of when the work required no longer matches the reward or output received. And I think not so much that I I I would say that you're burnout, but You kind of have the reward that you want, right? Like I'm happy with my physique. I I feel good with these things. So if I'm putting in like all this extra of like being incredibly neurotic with my programming and and tracking things in meticulous, but all I want out of it is down here that I already have. It ends up being like what the this cost. I'm lopsided in my cost versus like my what I get out. And if I just bring down my costs that's it it keeps me at what I want out of it, it ends up being a much more like balanced relationship. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like that. I think that's well said. All right. Uh next one I'll kick to you. I fall asleep fine, but then I seem to wake up after about two to three hours and I'm up for a while before I fall back asleep. Any suggestions? First thing that I always do here is caffeine. If you're training at 2 p.m. and you're taking your pre-workout with 250 megs of caffeine or whatever, like try a week of not doing that. Try a week of pulling your caffeine forward and stopping it at 11 a.m. or 12 p.m. hard cut off. Try removing the caffeine. That example here. I can fall asleep, but then I'm up. You know, after a couple hours, like that is textbook what happens to me when my caffeine is is too high on the day. I can fall asleep, okay. I can't stay asleep. So that is what I would first start with there. And then there's so many other interventions that you can try and do, but I would always I always start with the caffeine. Next can be room temperature. If you're hot and you're uncomfortable, that you're not gonna have quality sleep, drop the temperature. You can also pull your final meal forward. So that you're not digesting as much food, which then if we're digesting a bunch of food, your body temperature increases from doing that, which can lead into the body temperature side of things. Magnesium glycinate or bisglycinate would be my my next kind of step down. And then the final would be like a melatonin or something like that. But at least 50% of the time when I talk about this with people, it's caffeine. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think melatonin actually is primarily about helping you fall asleep. And I think it kind of wears off pretty quickly. And I don't think it helps you stay asleep. Um, so the first thing I would dial in on would be your food and water in proximity to bed. And I know everyone differs in this way, but I would say the majority of people, including myself, my wife, my mom, like pretty much everyone that I associate with. Pretty much feels like you need to stop eating three hours before bed if you want to have good quality sleep, especially as you get older and we have kind of metabolism issues that aren't um quite as responsive to to glucose at night and things like that. So a lot of those wake ups that are occurring three hours after you go to sleep are because you're getting a uh a second Dairy like glucose spike combined with like some cortisol release and stuff like that. So stopping water and food like three hours before bed, I think would be really helpful. make sure you clear your bladder, obviously, before then as well. And then as far as the idea of getting back to sleep, because the idea is like you're not just waking up after three hours, you're waking up and then you're having trouble getting back to sleep. the thing that helps me the most in those situations is breath work. And there are two breath works that I tend to use the most. The the most common one for me that I use I use daily anyways and I always do it at night before bed is uh breath holds after exhale. So important, it's all through the nose. So you take in a few breaths through the nose, not super deep, just standard breaths. And then after like the third or fourth one, when you get to the bottom of your breath after you've let out all your air, hold that breath as long as you can until it starts to get like really uncomfortable and you feel like a little adjustment in your throat or chest. Um, and then when you breathe in again, it's gonna be a little struggling. You'll be like, but make sure you breathe in through your nose. This whole thing is through the nose, and then you go back to consistent breathing. And after maybe three or four breaths, then you'll do another one of those holds at the bottom of the exhale. And I'll do like maybe three to six cycles of that. And usually by that point, I'm extremely calm and I'm able to naturally kind of glide off into bed much easier. so I like that one. That's my primary one that I use. And then I've heard from other people and I've used it occasionally is box breathing. So box breathing is a four by four. So you go uh four second exhale, four second hold at the bottom, four second inhale, four second hold at the top. And this is all through the nose as well. what I don't like about that one is that you then have to kind of count and focus on like the four second piece, which is what I like about the other one, the first one, the breath hold after exhale. is that you don't have to count anything. You just do it until it gets really uncomfortable. So you can kind of let your mind wander a little bit. having to focus on the four, four, four, four thing for me is a bit distracting and kind of keeps my mind engaged. So I don't use that one quite as often. All right, last question for you here. In last week's episode, Aaron stated he was not enjoying his offseason bodybuilding pursuits. What are you guys currently enjoying or excited about? Amazon.com for sure. Uh I used Instacart for the first time yesterday. blew my mind and I was like, I don't know why I do this to myself. Like I there's one grocery store that I just go get basically like rice cakes from and I'll go like once every three weeks and just buy like 14 sleeves of rice cakes. And I was I ran out and I was just like, oh I'm I'm so busy today. Like I just do not I don't want to drive over there, you know, and spend the 40 minutes round trip to go get these rice cakes. And then I was like, I'm just gonna try Instacart. And I just bought them and like two hours later they were here and it cost me I don't know like five dollars or six dollars or something like that on top of what it normally would be. And that was amazing. And I was very excited that I had all my rice cakes and just got to stay at home and work and then someone brought them to me. And kind of felt dumb that I forgot about it and hadn't used it before. That was quite nice. Um I am very happy with the move here to Salt Lake City. I've really been enjoying it. the people that I get to talk to and stuff. Um but you know, f i it it has been great. I'm very, very excited to have a family, you know, my my family, I should say, that I look forward to very much. I'm not nervous or anything like that. I'm very, very ready. And I'm excited with the timing. Baby will be born like right about before Christmas. So we just have like winter of just staying inside and nesting. Um I'm very, very, very excited about. Cool. Well all non training things. Um, yeah, I guess I guess for me, with training, I'm I'm I'm excited about going back to my winter split in a month or two, uh, like we talked about in the first question, that kind of bro split where I'm only in the gym for, you know, thirty-five minutes each day. Um, one muscle group a day. I really enjoy that. I like the the mental side of just going in and having that one muscle group to focus on. So I'm excited about that. Uh I'm semi-excited to start running again since summer's all about biking. Um, I am actually like sort of looking forward to running again, even though I hate running. Um kind of weird. I don't really know where that's coming from. I bet in a week or two of running, I'll be like, nah, I'm not really that excited about it anymore. I think it's just because it's novel and new at this point. Um and then the other kind of non-fitness thing I'm excited about is uh like I've been, you know, into this music, this kind of melodic house, progressive house type stuff for a couple of years now. And I go to these shows and I love going to the shows. I'm super excited about that. Like that's a huge experience for me and my wife to bond together, you know, once a month, every six weeks, something like that. but along with kind of our interest in this music, my son has seen how we kind of like enamor for some of these DJs that we like. And so he has picked up on some of that and he's started wanting to get into DJing himself. so we got him an app that links Spotify to his iPad and he's able to kind of like mix tracks and get some like basic introduction into DJing. He asked for his birthday in the next two weeks for a turntable which kind of allows him to create a little of his own music and be a little more precise with mixing. it's extremely expensive. So we're actually not gonna buy that right off the bat. but I am gonna I I have a DJ friend that I've been in in talks with, and he gave me some suggestions on ways I can enhance Bryson's experience without having to go foot the bill for like this $500,000 turntable thing. Um, but I'm excited to also potentially get involved in some DJ work. Like obviously, with my obsession with music, like I think it would be really cool. to be able to actually create some of my own music. And that's like a step above from even mixing music. Like mixing is relatively easy compared to creating your own. Um, but I would love to get to a point where I can create some of my own music and hopefully not have it completely suck. Um, so I uh I will probably engage in in some of that over the next year as well. That's really, really cool. That's cool that Bryson's getting into that and showing showing interest. I I did have one f final thing that I that I would say. I am excited about building my upper back. I am I can't say that I I am in the frustrating parts of it. So it's hard to have fun when something is is frustrating, but Once it's done, once that's that change it is tangible, it's visible, it's undeniable, I will be enjoying and excited about it. Bec mostly because it's it's a kind of a theory that I've had around the the lagging body parts. It's not so much because oftentimes we say, you have a lagging body part, it's genetic. I mean, I think there is like, you know, some insertions or something like that in your calves can be pretty h hard to overcome. But I I I do think At least fifty percent of it is execution based. Maybe we learned a certain way. Maybe the person that taught me my dumb brain just interpreted it wrong and I've been doing it wrong for ten, fifteen years. Right? There there's a number of ways. But I'm I I I'm I have a lot banking, you know, personally on if I can change my execution and increase my stimulus per rep per set. I set the environment properly, surplus over time, recovery is conducive. I should be able to bring that up to par. So I'm very, very excited about. Once I get there, right, what does it look like having photos and and having kind of proof of pudding? But again, I am in the frustrating parts of it, so it's not enjoyable. Yeah, I feel that. Well, the upper back is an interesting one because unlike the lats, they're not as genetically dependent on insertions and stuff like that. Like there's just muscle there and you just need to like train that muscle. So that is kind of a unique one. Yeah. And that's it. All right, cool. I think that was a great episode. Yep. for your time guys, thank you for your questions. We will talk to you soon. Yep.