The Best Kind of Workout Programming For You Specifically! | Mind Pump 2962

Maps workout programs have been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people, but we're the first people to tell you that although those programs are great, nothing is as good as a customized workout plan. That's a fact. Look, we were trainers for 20 years. I could create the best workout for an individual far better than a general program ever could. That's why I'm so excited to talk about what we've done next. We're gonna talk about individualized maps workout programs. This is the first time in MindPump history. Let's go. Justin, to put you on the spot a little bit, do you know how many total we have now? I believe it's 32. 32? Maps programs? Yeah. I'm gonna tell you why this is so exciting for me because first off, the reason why we have so many maps programs, one of the reasons, is because people are very different. People have different goals, different fitness experience. One program may be phenomenal for one person and may be absolutely horrible for another person, even if it's well-written. It could cause injury or just be totally inappropriate for that individual. We'll add another layer to that at the time of their life, too. That's right. A program that's great for you and suitable for you at one period of your life versus post-kid or crazy new job or whatever, that completely changes. That's right. You could follow even a maps program, get great results, life circumstances change, and suddenly it doesn't work for you anymore. You plateau or even go backwards. And so this was always a struggle for us, but how in the heck do you create hundreds of thousands of individualized- How do you scale that? Workout program, it's impossible. Well, the answer was always the podcast. The podcast was the, because no way any of us would have felt comfortable building a e-commerce business where we just peddled and sold workout programs without adding context to that. And the podcast always served as the conversation to help support people through that. Because if you follow a maps program and you listen to the podcast- Then you could start to figure some stuff out. Yeah, exactly. And you use the tools that we've provided for you and all the free guides and content, you can start to take a maps skeleton and customize and modify and kind of figure your way out through it. Well, originally, yeah, it was the Facebook forum, was like the extension of that. And then it became our cause. And then we're trying to answer live and troubleshoot our way through that. And now we get these callers coming in and they'll tell us how everything's going and we do follow-ups. Now we have trainers to actually back that up with us. So now this is like the very next step from that. That's the biggest thing. So, and the challenge has always been this, because we get callers that call in all the time. So every week we have eight to 12 callers that'll call in and we'll get on and we'll coach them. And they're fans of the show. They listen to us. And oftentimes they pick the wrong maps program. Oftentimes, or they don't modify it in the right way. And that's just because it's difficult to train yourself. It really is. Look, I've been doing this for years. I know I struggle with this because of my addictions to exercise and stuff like that. So, oftentimes we have to move them in a different direction. Then we do follow-ups with them. And 60 days later, like, oh my God, my body is responding so well. So this was always a challenge for us. It's like, okay, can we deliver something like this? And here's the deal. No program that's written generally will ever be as effective as a good personal trainer, period, end of story. We never, never said anything different than that. We were trainers for years before we ever started the podcast. A good trainer, a good coach is worth their weight in gold. And there's no general program. There's no podcast. There's no information online that will ever rival a good coach or a good trainer. It's just the best. Why? Because they can coach you. They can individualize things for you. It's the best thing you could possibly do. And we didn't have coaches that worked for MindPump for years, up until maybe, has it been two years now that we've had coaches? Super recent. It took us a long time to get there because anybody that represented us as a coach or personal trainer, we had a very high standard. They had to be really good. Nothing would make us more angry than having a coach represent us inaccurately or improperly. And so we just waited and waited and waited. Meanwhile, the podcast grew. We had lots of demand. I'd say probably the most, probably one of the most common emails we've ever gotten is, hey, can I hire one of you guys? Or do you have a trainer you can recommend? Because we speak so highly of good trainers and coaches. And we just never moved in that direction because we didn't feel comfortable. We didn't have the leadership team. We didn't have the, we didn't have it set up. Well, we do now. And so it's been two years. We're building this incredible team. These trainers are coached and trained by us. We have a great leadership team. We trust them. We vouch for them. And so now what we want to do is we want to be able to offer individualized MAPS programs for the first time ever. This is exciting, man. Where you can actually, instead of doing MAPS Anabolic or MAPS Aesthetic or MAPS Performance, you know, it's MAPS John. Yeah. You know, it's a program with exercises that are best for you, with programming and volume that's best for you. And I, this is the most excited I've been. I haven't been this excited since MAPS Anabolic, since the first program. I'm like reluctant about it because I don't want to get overly hyped about something until it's like all out and done. Also, I don't know what Justin's going to do with himself. I mean, all the programs. I'm going to kick my feet up. Yeah, do it. This guy's going to be sipping on margaritas, chilling on the Hawaii. I was getting a little antsy though. I'm like, what else can we put out? You know, and really it comes down to this. It's like, you know, how much more individualized can we get? And I think this is such a good direction for us to go with our programs. Cause it's like, you know, the foundation of it is there. Like if we just base it off of, you know, the general public, like what are their interests? Like what are their goals? Like what are the biggest problems that need to be solved? Like, I feel like we've done a pretty good job with our library of options. Well, the business has always been there. And to Sal's point, we've always known that that is the better way to do it, but impossible to serve. It was impossible to serve the volume that we had until we had over 30 personal trainers. Like you need a ton of trainers to look over like a questionnaire and personalize and meet with a client. And get on the phone with them. Yeah, and go, okay, let me customize this for you. It's impossible to do without a staff and a team to do that. And there's no way the three of us were going to be able to do that for our entire audience. So now that the team is built in order to do it now, which is awesome and exciting. Well, let's talk a little bit about why customization is so important. Okay, because if you listen to the show, we'll talk about certain exercises, having a lot of value, how to strength train properly, general truths when it comes to working out that apply to most people. But when you boil it down to the individual, when you bring it down to one person, look, I've trained enough people to know that all the rules are not hard rules. It's almost always, it depends. I've trained people where, you know, the exercises we talk about that are awesome are not the exercises that are gonna work for this person. Or how I apply strength training is not the right way to apply it for this person. I mean, I'll give you a silly, just pop it in my head, a silly example. Strength training is phenomenal. It's a great way to compliment any type of exercise routine. I don't care what kind of athlete you are. Proper strength training is going to improve your performance, decrease your risk of injury, et cetera, et cetera. I remember the first time I trained a legit endurance athlete. I trained an Ironman athlete. Have you guys ever trained yet? I know you have, Justin, but you've had some, okay. I trained an Ironman athlete. So for people who aren't familiar, an Ironman is basically the craziest, one of the craziest things you could possibly do. You run a marathon, and then on top of that, you swim miles and you bike miles. It's just insane. And to prepare for an Ironman means you do an incredible amount of training. So I had a client who did Ironmans the first time I ever had this client, and he got referred to me by someone else who had spoke highly of me. So I get this guy to hire me to come in, and he works, and I'm working with him, and he's already doing tons of training. Now, he's super fit, obviously. He's obviously got good genetics. He competes in Ironmans. This wasn't his first one. He's got his diet dialed in. He's serious about this. This isn't like a weekend warrior. And he comes and he hires me, and he's like, okay, what is my workout gonna look like? And I'm like, okay, well, you're doing all this training. I think what we're gonna do is two kind of full-body workouts a week, and I'm gonna train you. He's like, that's it? Yeah, and he's like, is that all I'm gonna do? I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's more than enough. We'll just do two full-body workouts. And here's what happened. His performance declined. His performance started to decline. He was reporting back to me his runs, and his swims, and his cycles. And he's like, I'm not. And at first, I'm like, well, you're just more fatigued. We gotta add more. Let's see what happens. And his performance kept dropping. And I had to come to term with the fact that my two days a week of 45 minutes of strength training with three to four-minute rest periods was too much. And I had to scale it back, scale it back, scale it back. Here's what it ended up looking like. Four exercises once a week. The other day a week, I would just do mobility with him. And then we saw performance improvements. But I had to individualize it so much. You have to work with him to get to that point. That's right. Now, off the top of my head, I could think of many programs I think that would work. But as a trainer, I had to scale him back to some really extremely low volume of training at low intensity. Okay, let me add that. That once a week was at moderate intensity at most. And then the mobility we did, we had to be very careful because of all the training he was doing. Only then do we see improvements in his athletic performance. Yeah, you're, I mean, that's an extreme. That's an extreme example. That probably very few people listening right now can probably connect to. I'll give you examples. And I have tons of clients that I train that were like this, that, and that were with me for already years. And I know what their body can handle training wise and intensity wise, volume wise, and gets promoted from being a sales guy to a regional vice president of sales. And the job changes a little bit. We are now flying all over the country, staying the night in hotels, changing time zones, a little more stress. Now a little more money. So I think life is good. I've been training this way for a long time. Same guy now no longer can handle the same volume and training or intensity. And now because we're sitting in these long flights and we're like, now we've got this chronic hip pain and low back pain, and we have these other issues. Like all of a sudden you take this exact, the same dude who didn't break his workout stride and kicking ass and doing well, but life changes that little bit with a promotion or demotion, depending on your thing, or just an added job that you have to do to make ends meet, whatever it may be. And now this guy has to completely modify and change the way we train. Training looked completely different that next year. But it took me, I was a young trainer. So it took me a while beating my head against the wall, not realizing like, this doesn't make sense to me. Like, are you sure you're eating the macros I told you to do? You're doing this? It's like, yeah, but my sleep is fucked. I'm sitting on a plane all day long. So my hips are crazy. Now I'm worried about, I'm not just worried about my own personal numbers. I'm worried about 80 other sales guys' numbers. So I've got the stress of that and the pressures of making more, but now I have numbers and targets to hit. So you've got these people that, you know, may not be able to connect to the crazy Ironman, but it's like, oh yeah, like I've had a lot of clients that just subtle changes like that. We talk a lot too about things like, you know, pregnancy. You get injuries too, yeah, for sure. I've had quite a few clients where it's like, you know, our entire plan, we had to readjust and totally, you know, come in with a completely new fresh plan and prescription because the limitations and now the rehab process, and then we have to work through the rehab process to now gain and regain range of motion and strength. And if you're going to do that right, you know, you really have to draw that up a lot longer than most people think. And so to be able to do that and to have a plan, you know, to on the fly, be able to change that, like it's crucial to work with a coach. How about this? Here's one that we don't ever talk about on the show. Client absolutely hates an exercise. It's a great exercise, it's one of the best exercises. They absolutely hate it. Fine, we're not going to do it, that's fine. Because here's the deal, look, here's the deal. I can try to convince you why you should do certain things, but if you absolutely hate it, most important thing for me as a coach is to help you create a relationship with fitness where you want to do it. There's nothing more important than that because if you look at the data, losing weight isn't the hard thing, getting fit isn't the hard thing, it's staying there. That's the hard thing. And so if I'm having you do something you absolutely hate, I'm being irresponsible as a trainer. And so I would modify it to throw in those things that you enjoy so I know you develop that relationship with it over time where you want to continue to do it. There's so many different variables in workout programming that can make the difference. There could be exercises that are swapped out. It could be how it's performed. Sets and reps and time. It's not just what's ideal, it's also what fits in my lifestyle. Maybe ideal, maybe the data shows that the perfect routine for you is three one-hour workouts a week, but you're looking at me and you're saying, listen, I got this going on, I got that going on, I got this going on. Can I just work out 20 minutes a day instead? I can't do three one-hour workouts. There's no way I can make that work consistently. Is there a way to organize this so I could do 20-minute workouts every single day? The answer is yes. We just customize it and change it so that it works for your body. I'd say probably the most common thing, like I could probably count on one hand how many clients I trained where I didn't have to modify or do some sort of mobility corrective work for random chronic pain stuff. I feel like you train enough people above 45, which was middle age, need to lose weight, probably working busy lifestyles. Almost all, if not all, have suffered from chronic shoulder pain, neck pain, low back pain, knee pain, ankle pain, you name it, and yet still have, I want to build muscle, I want to lose body fat, the MAPS anabolic type of a program appeals to me, so how do I run somebody through something that is a strength-focused or aesthetic-focused type of training protocol? But then also, I can't negate or not address the shoulder issues that they're having too, because that's only going to exacerbate if I just ignore it and keep pushing through, and then that's where injury happens or other problems down the kinetic chain, and so it's like, how do I modify a program to work around or fix that while also working towards our fitness goal? And generally speaking, there are situations where you're going to include programming that you might not normally include. For example, pelvic floor exercises, vacuum exercises, this is where you draw in the midsection. Almost always, I'm going to include this with someone who's postpartum, almost always. You take someone postpartum who just had a baby, so the musculature of the core had to stretch and atrophy some of it, muscle recruitment patterns had to change to stabilize, because you've got a baby inside of you, so hip flexors are now working differently, obliques are working differently, abs are working differently, the TVAs, things are working differently because you're shaped differently. Then you have a baby, and you're like, cool, I'm going to go back to the gym, I'm cleared, let me go do my crunches, let me go do my oblique twists, let me go do all these other exercises. Your recruitment patterns are different. So what happens oftentimes with women is they'll get back into shape, but they're like, why does my back hurt? Why does it hurt? I'm doing these, I've done these before, why do I have this pain? Why does this exercise feel the way it does? We got to work on recruitment patterns, getting them back to where they were before, because the patterns that you have have now been turned onto a setting that says I'm pregnant or that I have a baby inside of me, and they don't go back automatically unless you consciously strengthen and work on them in a particular way. And so that's where customization plays a big role. Yeah, I've had so many clients where it's just like, there's this idea of their abilities, and it was a decade ago that they're able to do these things, but it's still there, and it's very alive and well. And I've had a few friends where I played sports with them, and it literally had been over a decade since they'd really physically exerted themselves in certain directions, and inevitably there'd be an injury. And to be able to address that and really show them like, okay, so you have to take that amount of time into consideration that now we have to build our body back up to be able to experience those abilities again, you definitely can, but you just have to approach it completely differently. And to have a coach kind of walk you through that process, really plan it out, prescribe it specifically to use everything. Ketone IQ. So one of the benefits of going on a ketogenic diet, this is a diet where you completely avoid carbohydrates like zero carbs, is your body starts to run on ketones. And people like this because they feel sharp. They have more energy, steady energy throughout the day. They have mental clarity. In fact, I used to go on ketogenic diets when I would do podcast circuits. I would fast the day before, then I'd go there, and when I would eat, I would have no carbohydrates. And I just did better on the podcast because of ketones. Now, the problem with that is I had no carbs and that sucks. It's also not great for exercise performance, terrible pumps in the gym, but that's okay. I sacrificed it for the mental clarity. Well, check this out. There's a company called Ketone IQ that makes exogenous ketones. Okay, so what that means is you can eat carbs like you normally do, take Ketone IQ, and now you have ketones that your body can run on. In other words, get the benefits of a ketogenic diet without having to avoid the carbs. Ketone IQ will improve energy and clarity in many of you watching and listening right now. Go check them out. Go to ketone.com slash mindpump. On that link, you can get 30% off your subscription order, plus you'll get a free gift with your second shipment. Go check it out. Here comes the show. I laugh because I connect so fine. Just recently, I don't know where this will air in relation to the episode where we just talked recently about the pickleball and ----. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm guilty. That's why I brought that up. Yeah, I'm so guilty. By the way, I just gotta preface this. These guys, I didn't show up to pickleball because I had something else to do, I think. But really, these guys are like, Sal, you gotta come. You barely have to move, because these guys know I don't like to. That's how we tried to sell. It's not so easy. You don't even have to move, dude. There's no athleticism. You're totally fine. It's like a carnival game, which you're always good at. And I'm like, ah, I can't make it. So these guys play pickleball. Anyway, I get texts from both these guys. Adam is like, I'm fried. I'm so hammered. I was so fried. Dude, my calves were dying. You know, in what it was to finishing what I was saying about what Justin said and why I laughed was because, you know, I did it, and in my head, and I was fine, but it's the recovery time afterwards and the stress of the body and the inflammation that I felt for the next like four days. I'll finish that. And then also how difficult it is for me where I'm on this kick right now. I'm dialed in on my training and diet. And so the last thing I want to do is break my rhythm of training hard in the gym, you know, just because I had a rough, but I have to, like it'd be so counterproductive for me to when I'm that inflamed, that stressed, that recovered that much to go slam squats the next day. And in fact, what I needed to do was walk, maybe do some sauna time, infrared, like total recovery type ----. And it's just like, that's not what I want to do. So it's hard to wrap your own. I'm a coach. I know, and it's hard, like much as the average person doesn't know how to do that on a week-to-week basis. And so many clients may not have the crazy extreme Ironman or sales promotion job, but we'll have these periods of time in their life or the year where the stress is very- Where my hair sleeps a lot less. Yeah, and then knowing how to modify and customize your program during these times, like that's probably one of the most valuable things of having a coach take you through that process. So here's the challenge. And we speak to this all the time on the show, right? The challenge is this, that most people will judge the effectiveness of a workout besides results. Obviously results is one way to judge it. Although I'll even say results are important, but also look at the time, energy, and commitment that you had to do to get those results and is it sustainable? That's a whole other conversation. But people tend to look at workouts and they'll judge their effectiveness based on how hard they are. The workout was hard. I sweat like crazy. I got sore. I got sore, therefore it was a good workout. That's actually not a good indicator of a good workout. If that was, then the best workout Adam could do is pickleball because he got sore doing it. But he's looking for aesthetic changes. He knows pickleball's not gonna make him look the best. He's gonna apply different kind of exercise programming. So that's the challenge. Here's the part that I wanna add to it. The difference between a okay workout program for you, a program that's okay for you versus one that's great for you in terms of results, in terms of effort that you need to put in and what comes out is light years. It's light years. Programming makes a huge difference in the kind of results you get. And here's what it feels like. Until you start to get to these really advanced levels, because at that point, things start to get a little different. But for the average person, good workout programming, this is the kind of commenting that a trainer will know that they're on the right track. A client will come to them and say, this is really weird. I don't know how my body is looking the way it is. I don't know why I'm improving the way I am. I don't feel like I'm trying that hard. And that's how you know you're moving things. I just had this conversation with my friend. So I just started personal training and I have one person that I personal train. And he's always like, I think I need to go harder. But I keep track of his weights on purpose because I show him and I say, hey, you just added 30 pounds to your weight. He's like, bro. It's such a different conversation you have with your friends now. Yeah. I'm the same. And he's like, how am I getting stronger? I'm like, because we're training the right way. Do things the right way. Yes, you got to put effort, but the return, it makes you feel like the effort you're putting in isn't enough because how am I getting these crazy results? That's what good programming does. Bad programming feels like this, like you're spinning your wheels in the dirt. I'm going to the gym. I'm sweating. I'm getting sore. I had some results. Now I plateaued. What's going on? I don't even look like I work out. How many times have you guys heard that? I need to, I want to look like the effort that I put in to my workouts. We get callers like that all the time. And what that is is bad, inappropriate workout programming for that individual. It's like learning to work with your body. It's, and I've talked so many times on this podcast why that's difficult because training like that for body composition change is so unique compared to almost anything else that we do in our life. Everything else we do in our life. Just go harder. The harder we go, the more we do of it, the more time we spend on it, the better you get at it, the more money you make from it, all these things that reward us for that, for our effort that we put in. Fitness is not like that. Like it's, there's science to it. And there's a perfect balance. There's an optimal amount of stress. There's an optimal amount of nutrition or lack thereof in order to get said goal. And so more of that or two extreme less of that does not make it any better. There is an optimal amount in learning how to do that. I mean, I think of right now the advantage I have, right? So we have three weeks until we take off to Cabo and I've got my two buddies. You know one of them, one of our good friends. Yeah, yeah, and he's already like in really good shape. And he's like, and so we just to compete and have some fun, we're all like on our kick to get ready for Cabo. And then of course, one of the things you're like, well, I want access to whatever maps. Absolutely, you have access to every maps program you have. And you know, if I have questions on that, yeah, absolutely, I'll help you with that. But the one advantage I have is the ability to modify on a week to week basis, just like what just happened. Like, so I'm not going in and asking their questions on their stress and their sleep and this and that. It's like, you got your maps program. Go figure it out, dog. So yeah, yeah, you'll see that. You'll see the difference. They'll look good. They'll be all right. You know what I'm saying? They'll look all right for Cabo with the difference between them and me. We'll be like, I've customized my maps program. So here's what we did. So for the first time ever, what we've done is we've created a way to get your own customized maps workout program. So here's what you do. You go to mymapsprogram.com. You fill out a questionnaire. Now here's the deal. A trainer is gonna put something together for you. A real trainer, a mind pump trainer is gonna put something together for you. Customize your own maps program, okay? So it's not maps anabolic, maps strong, maps aesthetic. It's maps you. It's 100% individualized for you. In seven days, you get on a call with a mind pump trainer. You gotta give us time to put this together. So you go to mymapsprogram.com, fill out the questionnaire. Seven days later, you get on the phone with a mind pump coach and they will send you or set you up with your own individualized workout program. You can also find us on Instagram. If you love the show, go to Instagram, go to mindpumpmedia. We'll see you there.