How to build muscle mass as you age, no weights required: Don Saladino | mbg Podcast

need us thinking of resistance training first is body armor it's protection my grandmother she was 83 she fell she didn't have that body armor she needed wetness surgery and she was just under the needle way too long because as they were trying to reattach certain things she didn't have that structure that she could have had we need that as protection and understanding that that's one too it's going to increase your metabolism if we do it the right way I just think the level of weight training and our perception of what that needs to look like are completely different [Music] Don saladino has coached actors athletes and musicians for over 20 years and is known for helping people transform their bodies in short periods of time he's worked with Ryan Reynolds Blake Lively Jake Gyllenhaal John Krasinski Emily bluntly of Schreiber Sebastian Stan and Hathaway Zachary Levy Hugh Jackman the list goes on and apparently before the call I found out he worked with Wally zerbiak who I played basketball against and he became an incredible player way way better than me um and he's had the honor of gracing the cover of the iconic muscle and fitness magazine so don such a pleasure to have you thanks Jason it's like to be on man this is great so you're the guy like you're the go-to guy if I'm an actor or an athlete and someone says hey you got to transform your body you need to put on a lot of lean muscle mass or or lose fat or ultimately usually a combination of both like you are that guy they go to so walk us through how did you become that go-to guy it was interesting um first off thank you I appreciate the compliment uh you know it was probably my love and passion for Fitness at a really young age I went off to play college baseball you know had dreams of trying to move on from there and when that didn't work out for me um I was so connected to Fitness I really felt like I was minoring in nutrition and weightlifting when I was in college it was just even my my coaches like do the program you want to do he was always he just knew where my head was when it came to research and I was in a good place so when I graduated college I went and I worked at a big box gym for a year cleaned up weights the things I needed to do back in 1999 I um then in 2000 broke off opened my own one-on-one training business started doing pretty well actually as a young guy you're making about I was making about 200 000 bucks a year I thought that was a lot of money I was really excited about that and then realized that my entrepreneurial juices um was kind of demanding more out of me so I went in and I did my first fundraise in about 2003 raised about five million dollars and I opened my first Club in 2005 which we held on to until the least expired um in May of 2020 right around covet right in the middle of covet and in that span of time you know launch digital companies exited from there um had massive successes massive failures and you know through that process we were working a lot with professional golfers because of my strength and conditioning background my brother was a professional golfer Who's down in the mini tours for a while and this is right around the time where Tyler's just launched their their golf fitness program we went through all the training we were the first level threes to graduate from there and um we were working on my brother and he just went from not hitting it long to hitting it long and being more resilient and getting in this great golf shape so we had this passion for golf Fitness we were doing kinematic sequencing 3D swing analysis and our club became about golf Fitness we were assessing you know people's mechanic individuals mechanics downstairs we were then assessing how they swung upstairs and we had the pro the golf fitness instructor myself and my brother sitting and working on these people to get them to move as efficiently as possible and that was really successful for us up until about 2007-2008 when Lehman Brothers crashed and bear Stearns crashed and you know we were just doing so well when it came down to corporate spending because we had these indoor simulators we were doing corporate entertaining parties Bachelor parties whatever it was team building events and that kind of got thrown out the window and right around that time was when I met an actor by the name of Hugh Jackman and Hugh um you know basically said I gotta get ready for a movie called Wolverine in Australia and he saw me train at my gym he was there with a friend of mine and asked me to work with him and I said no I'm not working with you you work with my friend he said no no you don't understand I'm like no no I understand like I'm not working with you like it's you know blah blah blah and my buddy who his name's Rico great coach by the way he was moving and I was just assuming that he was he was moving he had uh he was having triplets and they had to move out of the city so I then started working with Hugh and really had a passion for this performance physique world because I had the strength and conditioning background fantastic like I knew what it I knew what had to go into allowing the human body to move um I knew it had I knew the difference between flexibility and mobility and stability and all these things that these terms that people use so loosely and I understood how to create a better athlete so coupling that with the fact that I was on my first cover back in I think 2002 2003 so I always understood nutrition it was a passion of mine I always had friends that were bodybuilders I grew up training at Bev Francis Powerhouse Gym so you're in there with bodybuilders like Dorian Yates and Frank sepi and getting close with guys like Mike O'Hearn when he'd be in town and and all this stuff all having all these influences on you so living in the worlds of performance and physique was really an interesting combination because so many strength and conditioning coaches live in one area or bodybuilding coaches living in another area but to kind of merge them together was something that is challenging and tricky and to do it naturally that's a completely different story so worked with Hugh there was no social media then um he was trying to do marketing for me I didn't even want him to because I was so infatuated with this he got this idea of protecting the celebrity I didn't want to expose that and they were in there for a job my job was to get them from point A to point B and we developed an amazing relationship for about a year and um you know he ended up moving but at that point when he moved uh he kind of opened the floodgates for me and introduced me to um Scarlett Johansson and I started working with scarjo for a while and um then I met Ryan Reynolds and then at that point uh it's just every single week there'd be different people in there you turn around the Rock's training in there you turn around Sandra Bullock's training in there Jennifer Anderson's walking in it became the place where people came to for this high quality product we ran a mentorship program out of there we trained all of our coaches we had nutritionists on site um we had functional medicine doctors you'd have access to I could turn an MRI around in two to three hours hours the people would come with injuries I called Josh Josh Steins at HSS people will be up there by the time they be in the Uber ride leaving we would be um assessing or the cab ride we'd be assessing um you know their um their their issues going on so I I really felt like I became this ultimate connector but um golf Fitness is still something I'm involved with I'm the head golf fitness instructor for Golf Channel which is kind of funny and um on the other hand I'm on the men's health Advisory Board and I shoot with muscle and fitness almost every day so it really was looking back on it now it's not the smartest thing to do I mean you want to take your Niche and your category and run with it but I just wore a couple different hats and not to toot my own horn like I was I'm pretty good at both of them so it's just something that I embraced and continue to get better at it but ironically with all that said and done it's like my my biggest Market is the female Market I mean I probably like I said earlier about 70 of my online clients they're women and um I think it's because of this community I've developed I think it's because of my ability to talk to people and really kind of dive into their psyche and understand you know what is it why you know why is it that they're unable to be successful what are the things going on in their life rather than just saying here's the program do it be disciplined and um let's keep resetting that New Year's resolution every year that they've just been unsuccessful with so it's been great it's been a great run so far about 25 years I'm going on now well whatever you're doing keep on doing it and you know you mentioned 70 of your your clients or women I would say probably similar numbers to our our audience and I would say it's probably safe to assume that most of our listeners aren't necessarily looking to become Wolverine and transform their bodies like Hugh Jackman although maybe some are but I think you know an exciting shift in the the well-being conversation is around longevity and the science is pretty clear if you're focused on longevity you need to be focused on lean muscle mass and you know yoga Pilates fantastic practices if you like doing them keep on doing them but if you're if you're really serious about lean muscle mass you need some strength training and you're also going to need cardio and in in terms of you know setting the stage for everyone at the highest level if I'm listening I'm fit I'm active but I want to you know build or maintain my lean muscle mass male or female probably want to lose excess fat I think everyone would say if hey there's excess fat to lose I would probably want to lose it so if I want to maintain or build lean muscle mass lose excess fat I wanna I Wanna Be Fit I want to feel good I probably don't have a lot of time how should how should one will start here how should one think about strength training and cardio and how should we divide our time if we're for looking at you know our time is is a hundred percent should it be you know 50 strength training 50 strength training fifty percent cardio I'll pause there like how do you think about the highest level how should we divide our time I know what you're getting and the first thing I want to do is I don't want to discourage people by hearing Mass like they originally hear the word mass women hear that and they're they're ready to click click this thing off so I don't know I don't want to put Mass on I don't want to put size on it is so difficult it's so challenging to put on muscle now just because someone puts on muscle doesn't mean they're going to get bigger um and by the way I've worked with all shapes and sizes I have a woman right now that's lost over 500 pounds she started with me at 872 pounds yep not too many people on the planet that you could say we and this is a process seven years reteaching her how to walk dealing with her doctors now we have to get probably 50 to 70 pounds of skin removed on the other hand I have a woman that won my challenge last year that gained over a kilo of weight she's she's foreign and why would she win a challenge if he lost something well she because she lost eight pounds of fat because according to her dexa and she and she gained about nine a little over nine pounds of muscle so you know a little over that so a kilo is 2.2 pounds so technically putting on weight you know you would say most women are like oh I don't want to do that when you look at pictures of her body she looks amazing in a bikini her entire mindset changed and that's what we need to think about we think about putting on muscle as getting well done I don't want to look like you I'm like okay I understand that and thanks right it's like I'm not saying that you do but the approach that most women are taking to changing body composition I'm sorry it's wrong like they're just getting on there and doing cardio they think by spinning their wheels on the elliptical that this is going to increase their metabolism and yes if there is a component to that where you are going to be improving cardiorespiratory endurance it's healthy for your heart but if we could focus on trying to put muscle on and when I say that you put a pound of muscle on you lose a pound of fat you're the same way a pound is a pound it's a it's it's no different and you know I think the main goal here is we want to set the stage and say what is that what what is everyone listening to this what do they want to achieve they want to look better naked they want to wake up with optimal levels of energy they want to feel great they want to move great they want to sleep better right I mean if we could check all those boxes and if every person who's listening to this can wake up look at themselves naked in the mirror and go yes that is the goal now if that meant that they were gaining two pounds how many people are going to say yes to that immediately they're like I don't want to gain weight I'm like no no no no relax so just setting the stage there now those things that you mentioned like yoga and pilates they're fantastic we were talking about Tara Styles earlier Terrace Terror I remember her and I having a conversation 10 years ago when we were both with Cosmo body and she said well you get stronger when doing yoga and I was like of course you do you are going to get stronger you are going to deal develop flexibility you are going to develop stability which equals Mobility the combination of flexibility stability equals Mobility I said but you know Pilates yoga they're great for getting you stronger more mobile but they aren't optimal for putting on muscle it's not it's a fact it's a scientific fact if you want to put on muscle more efficiently you're gonna do some form of resistance training now whether that's with a dumbbell a barbell a band a kettlebell I don't care it's like create tension you know do this with a high level of movement quality excuse me and if we have muscle on our body we're going to raise our BMR which is our basic metabolic rate our resting rate at which we burn calories and that should be the goal right like if if I'm talking to a female right now and she Burns 1400 calories a day and we can get our metabolism up to where she's burning 1700 at rest well that's just better right but most of us are living in this deficit what we're trying to restart calories which promotes weakness which promotes less steps lower levels of energy poor sweet Sleep Quality a reduction in mood all these negative things happen out of going into that calorie deficit so I think it's really first understanding what type of training are we doing and why right like why are we doing what we are doing and if you're someone who's like listen I want to do Pilates I hate resistance training and this is all I want to do and this is what I love then great I'm not going to talk you off the I'm not going to talk you away from doing that right um what I still prefer you to get one or two days of resistance training in there do I think that would help yes but the fact that we're moving and we're doing what you know we're doing that with a level of resistance I do believe um has a high level of benefit to it so um I kind of just wanted to set the stage there and I don't know if I actually answered your question but I absolutely agree I always say the best exercise is the one you actually do and if you like something you'll do it if you love Pilates do Pilates with all that said if someone is serious about you know they're they're looking in the mirror and and they're they're concerned they don't have enough muscle and they're thinking about longevity like from for me at age you know by the time this errors will be 48. uh I think about strength ringing in a whole different way when I played basketball competitively in college it was about power speed and quickness and weight and Reps and now at 48 I think of how do I maintain maybe build a little bit it's harder for me the older you get more difficult to build so maybe I'm building a little bit but maintaining building muscle mass for longevity I want to make sure my body's strong I want to make sure that you know God forbid I fall at some point I'm going to be okay or I get into an accident or I'm more durable because the statistics yeah the statistics are terrible if you if you fall I think after age 65 and break your hip like the ear the the your chances of of of dying within five years go through the roof it's insane so like I think about the context I want to be strong it happened to my grandmother she was 83 she fell she didn't have that body armor she needed wetness surgery and she was just under the needle way too long because as they were trying to reattach certain things it just wasn't she didn't have that structure that she could have had so yeah Anita's thinking of resistance training first is body armor it's protection like that's why athletes try and get you know a level of of Mass on them whether they're male or female it's like we need that as protection and understanding that that's one too it's going to increase your metabolism if we do it the right way oh well it's going to increase your metabolism I just think the level of weight training and our perception of what that needs to look like are completely different crossfitters come in and they're you know not against CrossFit it's like anything else someone asked what do you think of CrossFit I'm like well that's a weird question what do I think of going to restaurants there's good restaurants there's bad restaurants there's good no coaches that are smart that structure their cross training CrossFit a certain way and those places that are just ludicrous it just makes absolutely no sense so you know I I think at a very bare minimum if someone was able to get in there to start two to three days a week I'm not saying what's optimal I'm saying the bare minimum two to three days a week at 20 to 30 minutes and now is that just resistance training or is that cardio as well how do you think about that relationship 23 minutes that would be about resistance training cardio we really don't need to beat the crap out of cardio now I love cardio like I just swam across I just swam uh I just did the GI Joe um gi go fund where I had to swim from Jersey around the Statue of Liberty up past Ellis Island up to Hudson um so I was in the Hudson for over three miles and I was great I'm in great it reminds me of I I I'm a Seinfeld fan and when Kramer swam in the Hudson River it was oh my God I just I just raced up the Empire State Building to raise money for cancer like that was my fourth or fifth time I love doing cardio it allows me to feel good and it honestly you know gives me this level of heart health and a good feeling it helps with my rest my Readiness my recovery but you know cardio as a primary focus to drop body fat no no it's not it it's not right it's it should be the side dish resistance training should be the entree though a lot of people do that the other way around now if your main focus for sport is cardiovascular an ultra Runner or if you're a marathoner if you're something that that is my job or my sport I understand how the training but for General pop it's completely Incorrect and my my take on cardio is you know if you're you know a lot of people are talking about zone two training you know to have some level of cardiovascular fitness as you age and what I say is you know you don't need to go nuts here just take the stairs you know I have a rule if it's less than five flights take the stairs go quick once a week what I'll do now in the building we live in Miami it goes 22 flights I'll go up all 22 once a week go if you're going for if you like if you like jogging go jog if you don't don't if you're walking pick up the pace like it's it's that it's that simple so we'll we'll we've established that we'll put cardio the side so let's bring it back to resistance training so you're saying at the minimum two to three days a week 20 to 30 minutes and not just so so now we're there and then there's a whole there's so much to say about this one you know that you know what days of the week what are the rest days are we doing the whole body or we do are we splitting up by body parts uh are we focused on weight are we focused on reps so lots of lots of unpacked there so let's start there I've got three days in in a perfect world two to three days what are those days I think they're full body workouts because we're getting more frequency type of uh frequency style of training now um you know you look at the old bodybuilder mentality of doing one body part here and there you're just you would have to hit so much volume to even accumulate this level of hypertrophy that you're probably going to be incredibly sore um I like the idea of bringing people in and frequently practicing and hitting these patterns over and over I think it's great for athletic development I think it's great for your cardiovascular system because we're throwing in big bang for our buck movements I think we could focus primarily on big bang for our buck movements get in and get out and I think full body workouts for those two to three days a week are great as for days of doing it I would recommend a day rest in between a Monday Wednesday Friday a Tuesday Thursday Saturday but listen it's you gotta do what's enabling you to be successful if someone right now is turning around I just got off the call with a friend and they said oh my God schedule's really tough right now right the typical thing everyone's so busy that they can't get this in I said well listen how are you on weekends and like I'm great on weekends I said great so that's two days Saturday Sunday you're going to start training Saturday and Sunday if it's that bad so now we got to find another day or two another you know however many he's on a four day plan um you got to find another two days during the week and you do that he goes absolutely the two days I don't have my kids my kids are with my my ex-wife I said great I said so that's it we just we we just solved that issue now if the workouts are back to back biggest misconception of Fitness I get such a kick out of this I normally hear this from bodybuilders oh you can't train you know muscle groups back to back days wrong wrong wrong of course you can it's about volume it's about frequency it's about intensity I'm sorry it's about volume it's about intensity we could frequently train a muscle group back to back days if we are not accumulating so much volume so let me give you an example let's look at an old traditional bodybuilding program just on Mondays right they always make fun of that just on Mondays let's say a bodybuilder goes in and does 20 sets for their chest workout on Monday right well that could be five exercises four sets a piece or I could turn around and take those five exercises and do one on Monday one on Tuesday but on Wednesday one Thursday one on Friday we have five exercises spread out on five days at four sets we're still accumulating 20 sets we're still accumulating that level of volume will probably be less sore I could probably change up the angle at which we are hitting it at meaning how we're loading the joints so if we're going at an incline press a flat press a push-up a decline a fly different angles of a fly there's so many things that we can do differently to involve VHS but not overwork that one area now if you're going to turn around and do 20 sets of chests on Saturday and then come back 20 sets of chests on Sunday at a certain period of time there's a cost of doing business I don't know how you're recovering I don't know how your joints are going to feel I don't know if you're going to start getting weaker if resting heart rate's going to start elevating in the morning because now Readiness isn't there because your body is so fatigued and so taxed and can't recover so you know I don't think I think just keeping it as simple as possible two to three full bodies a week try and keep a day in between and you know what if life gets the best to you and you gotta double up back-to-back days because we're not coming in and hitting with high volume you can hit it back to back days it's fine but I'm just saying from an optimal standpoint that's how I love it and when you bring up the every the everyday thing and the bodybuilding you know misconception about this I remember it brings me back we both grew up a lot on in the early 90s I used to go to this gym called ultimate Gym in Glen Cove and it was like the whole stick and like I remember I don't know why I remember this but I do doing like the full body and there was like a you know guy it was very very amateur wannabe bodybuilder he was like you got you the full body you're not doing it all wrong you're doing the full body you got to do this and this and I ha and then I would get the gloves and the whole thing and I swear I would go with my friends and I was like a ninth or tenth grade and I basically like got a little stronger but like it was just like going sideways then when I got to college and started doing weightlifting in a proper way it's like holy I'm getting stronger I've trained over I've trained over 40 000 one-hour sessions 40 000. That's 25 years of training a lot of I've taken hundreds and hundreds of courses I have created thousands of programs thousands and I have templates on thousands of them literally in my uh in my in my file I cannot tell you how many different types of programs I have created from Full bodies every day to body parts to muscle groups twice a week three times a week up approach upper pull lower body isometric workouts um clusters drop sets running the rack you know frequency style I mean I can go on and on kettlebell programs I got my first kettlebell certification back in 0809 it all works all this stuff works like there was never a program that I turned around and I was like oh my God there's there's a there's a method of training I like leaning more towards which is more of a power building type of approach because I love being strong on my compound lifts and then I love hypertrophy work but I am doing mobility work every day like I took my daughter and her best friend to Smashing Pumpkins and James addiction last night at the Garden 15 minutes before I got into the shower I went through a Mobility circuit all movement you know just allowing my body to unwind allow my body to feel good you know I play Ice Hockey a couple days a week I'm on the golf course a lot um I swim across the Hudson I like wearing a lot of hats and part of that is allowing my body to have this level of resiliency to where I can bounce back I need to be cover ready all your wrong two I always say I got to be two weeks out when I talked to Ryan Reynolds two weeks out from a cover shoot if we ever needed it so we could turn things around tweak some things in dieting training really doesn't change up much but the dieting changes happen a little bit and we're going to be ready and you know whatever it is I say two weeks two three four weeks so all these programs work the fact that we're out there looking for this magic template where programs go wrong though is when and you hear it oh my God I love to sense the community oh my God my mind I'm sweating I feel great well how's your body feeling well Don it's funny that you bring that up hip's been sore I said okay who else the elbow's been sore the shoulder's been sore and then when you start dissecting the program to how the individual moves then you realize wait a second this person has no external rotation in their right arm yet they're going overhead wait a second this person has no thoracic extension in their spine and that with this is allowing them to have to do this Arch the lower back and that's causing some shearing on that lumbar spine this is why you know there is that's what I really paid close attention to and I'll have a group I'll have a thousand people in a group and I'm calling audibles of them or 500 people in a group I'm like no oh Don I just had this issue oh great listen instead of the um instead of this form of squat we're gonna go with more of a box squat here's how and to give that type of attention to them really gives them this one-on-one attention um at a very at a very low cost so in terms of I'm glad we covered that because I do think there are so many misconceptions around the body parts and frequency and so forth but but I love this idea of I got two to three days a week and I've got 20 to 30 minutes and let and let's run with that for the for this episode so if I've got two to three days a week and I've got 20 to 30 minutes because look the biggest obstacle for people who are motivated and educated and and and want to be fit is time you know kids work life happens and so with that said let's maybe start what I think is also interesting with time if if you have to commute that's an obstacle then there's at home and if maybe you have equipment maybe you don't have equipment so let's start if I what people don't have equipment if you're at home and you've got you and you and your body weight what can what can be reasonably done you know I'm guessing sit-ups push-ups maybe chin UPS squats what can be done what does that look like yeah I I would focus more on a a squat a hinge a push-up pull and a direct core movement so squat could be a body weight squat could be a split squat could be a rear foot elevated split squat air squat is is that is that the proper term that's a that's a body weight so yeah so we could we could do that I would even in that squat category I would put the lunge as an option walking lunge seesaw lunge reverse lunge so getting that knee dominant a little bit more of that knee dominant movement in first that would be my first walk my second would be a hinge so I'd probably work on like a body weight one-legged RDL which would technically be called an inverted hamstring so what is what does that walk us through what that looks like I think everyone knows what a squat is but walk us through what that looks like inverted hamstring would be here to here is he registered for balance or you take it up a notch now we can go from here to where I open the hip and I close the hip and the amount of balance and stability that that's forcing me to create is high the amount of engagement's high you're going to feel your heart rate Elevate you're going to be in a way flossing the body a bit you're going to hear some cracks going on but really allowing the body to move in a fashion that's meant to move we'll work on a little bit of internal external rotation with um with that hip airplane but again who are we starting with if it's a beginner I would say you know what let's start with the body weight squat that was the low enough body weight Squat and I would say let's go right to that hinge next number push a push-up we could do a push-up on the floor we could do it on our desk we could do a push-up on our fridge we'll push up on our wall all depends on your level of of how advanced you are if you're just getting started and you you know feel like you have no strength and you just don't feel confident that's great so we started with the knee the hip the push now we need something to retract and work that posterior chain so I'd say something like a t y l and W is really simple where body weight or we can grab water bottles and just go into a stand Maybe a standing wide a standing l and a standing W really simple you need no equipment for that try doing 10 10 10 and 10 and those four movement of those four sets I just showed you with no weight you're going to feel a burn in your shoulders and your shoulders are going to feel retracted you're going to feel a bit taller and then lastly there are so many things we can do for our core we can do a plank we could do a side plank we could do a Copenhagen plank we could do a side plank elbow to knee we could do shoulder Taps there's so many options I mean right there I cannot I've you know body weight programs on online Express ones that are under three minutes where people can just get in and out there's no excuse I mean at the very least you get moving around circuit Style with these exercises I've made some body weight workouts that are 45 minutes I've won called the moment of truth that I ran um I I took 70 people with me I rented an island in Mexico this year off a Puerto Vallarta and they were from about 15 different countries so we had about 70 people came in I ran a a one-week Retreat every single day we started with two groups of 35 and um body weight workouts I love it so so I encourage everyone to head over to doncellino.com because you mentioned you've got tremendous resources and programs for everyone but for everyone listening I'm going to say go to go to YouTube because we're going to put this on YouTube and just so so everyone heads over there now if you could just briefly again walk through the workout if you could just show us again from the side the the squats the just everything you did again just all at once so we camera is so perfect that's that's a great air squat and you know guys take whatever your level is it could be between five reps it could be between 15 20 reps the rep ranges as we get those reps up we're going to be working a little bit more in muscular endurance we're going to be practicing those movements so I think if it's body weight you know do it to where you feel a level of tension but you know I could go into that body weight squat if you just started with 10 I'd be going with that inverted hamstring where every time we're standing up 10 each leg right each leg ten push-ups going through three sets of the T the Y the L and the W you do three sets of ten of each so that's like 120 reps right right and then um choosing a core exercise going into like let's just say a side plank because you know we hit the push up face down now we're at that prone position where a push-up is a moving plank the push-up is probably one of the most misunderstood exercises that I see performed incorrectly I can almost take 90 of the people at gyms and just look at their push-up and just say it's just not where it needs to be there's so much arching in the lower back there's not your glutes should be tight your lats should be tight you should be trying to create tension in the body as you're moving you should be envisioning that a tornado is blowing over your body as you're going through that push-up and your body's not moving you're creating this level of stability so when you go into these exercises and you start focusing on them you could take something as simple as body weight training and add a lot of value to it so can you show us briefly what does the proper form of a push-up look like because hearing you talk I'm like I know how to do push-ups but I'm thinking oh wow I'm doing it wrong too sure so let's take it to the floor now everything I'm showing you on the floor right now can be done on a desk on a wall on a couch on a fridge I don't care all right but the first thing with the push-up the push-up is a moving plant so we want to set the push-up where we're not going into extension in our lower back which I see most people doing so see what I'm doing here this is it correct because we're we're shearing we're really causing some compression that lumbar spine so I need those hips up a little bit and I'm going to type my glutes as hard as I can my glutes right now are squeezed then what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to take each hand and I'm trying to rotate the right hand out and the left hand out now what am I doing I'm creating tension in my lats so between squeezing my legs my glutes and flexing and texting my lats we're doing something right now we're creating tension these are called tension techniques so every one of you who wants to get to a plank position and you brag about oh I can hold a plank for five minutes it's nonsense how much tension can you create in the plank for 10 to 20 seconds you should be in that plank position trying to rip the floor apart try to squeeze your glutes trying to squeeze your lats this is how you create tension this is how you can change um your body composition and your strength level without adding any type of external resistance so recap it I'm trying to literally turn my right hand clockwise I'm trying to turn my left hand counterclockwise pretty intention if I glutes my last and then I'm down and I raise up in one piece where a lot of us will drop down and we'll push our upper body up but you see how my lower body just hung out that's incorrect I need everything it's a push-up it's a movie playing we're creating tension it's stem and up so I feel like I'm pushing through my chest my shoulders my triceps my lats my glutes my legs are creating tension when you train the entire body as a whole like this trust me for those of you worried about getting a muscle bigger you're not going to because we're not training one muscle we're training the whole entire body as a unit we're just gonna create which is really going to help create you know a firm um lean looking physique in my opinion if it's coupled with proper nutrition and on that note too what I love what you just did you know you're talking about the core and abs essentially you nail plank you nail the push-up vice versa and just focus on that we don't need a lot my when I write programs in the beginning they're a little bit underwhelming right like I I always and that's why I won't take on one-on-one clients I don't I don't train people anymore um I work with my community I work with Blake Lively Annie Hathaway Ryan Reynolds and Sebastian Santa really the four people that I'll work with when they need me now but I do not like I'm not in the job of trying to hand you a program that you're going to look at and say oh this is impressive I'm going to hand you the program that's going to get you in the best shape possible and when someone looks at a program and goes this looks too easy that is the worst response you can give me because there is no such thing as an easy program okay I can give you I can assign to someone right now three exercises bring them into the gym and in time they will earn the right to push themselves to the point where they're going oh my God I cannot do anything else but if you're sitting there taking three exercises and just running through the motions and you're like this is easy it's because you're rushing to get from one to ten or one to Fifteen that's why I don't care about reps I do believe that different rep ranges are going to focus on you know different types of like you know called Energy Systems different rep ranges could produce a different outcome whether it's strength and power going lower whether it's your hypertrophy rep range whether it's more of your muscular endurance because which could be 15 and above but that doesn't mean you're not producing High purchase when you do 25 reps or strength when you do 25 reps we're still touching into these things there's just specific rep ranges will I think really create an optimal response if you go in there and you train them for a period of time but I also understand that we need to move away from that like if it's a woman just coming to me and she's like I just do 20 all the time I'm like all right well what about getting really strong eights in time like if we get your AIDS really strong we can put some more muscle on you and by putting some more muscle on you we'll be able to drop some body fat maybe even getting your body weight to change a bit but you know we suddenly start hearing the word strength we suddenly start hearing the words muscle and all I could say is if you've been taking a specific approach to this and it hasn't been working then it's just wrong and and yeah when I'm saying that and I I get this all the time oh John I I went and jumped on this diet I said well how did that work for you it worked great I lost 20 pounds look wait a second you just told me you put 20 back on oh yeah I ended up putting it back on I said well then it didn't work so if you do something and it works for a period of time and then you put it back on unless it's due to like an injury or like a family death or something that just it's obstruct and you stop training if you were continuing to do that you lost motivation in my opinion it doesn't work this needs to be a holistic approach this needs to be a lifestyle change this is not about coming in with a rocky type mentality this is not about going 110 every day that's nonsense all right like you're gonna be tired we have kids I have two kids at 15 and 14 year old I had my daughter at a concert last night I didn't get home until one in the morning you think I felt great this morning when I was training no I I did it like we do the best that we can but you gotta call audible training and you got to recognize when something's not working I love that because life happens and what I what I love and I love our Focus today specifically on what we can do with our body weight is because many times we just don't have the time to get to the gym or whatever it is if we got to work with what we'll be having you've got your body and I also think it's really important to emphasize it's not okay okay here you three sets of ten maybe it goes up maybe that goes down but it's really focusing on the quality of that rep and getting the form right you know and one thing I found is as you get stronger maybe you go a little slower maybe you focus even more so on form you don't necessarily it's not a contest to just this is I would see this at that Gym in Glen Cove I went to you know 30 years ago all the time you know jamming out reps like trying to get the bench pressed up and the guy's moving on the you know his back is going up he's you know looks like he's gonna fall over and uh you know it was back out so Trump's intensity we Fitness professionals are discouraging people Rocky one of my all-time favorite movies I also think sets one of the worst examples because seriously people look at well that's hard work I'm like yeah but it's also showing people that that's the only way that he does it to be successful it's that training montage it's him climbing up the mountain collapsing we don't need it we don't need it I had one a great story and I think a lot of your listeners are going to be able to relate to this in a positive way is um I I had someone come to me years ago and they said Don um I have a request I go want to go I want to see my top two apps and I looked at this person I started laughing I was like what is this top two apps I was like what are you talking about I've never heard anyone say that I want to see my top two ABS I'm 40 years old um 45 years old I got a family I don't have a lot of time I like training I'm just I'm not gonna go eat the way that you eat I'm just not I enjoy it he's not gonna enjoy it so how do I say all right listen you hold you hold a good amount of muscle let's take a look at your nutrition plan and I looked at it wasn't terrible but there was a lot of uh leaks let's just call it leaks where I I use that term it's leaking meaning like throughout the day I pick on my kids chicken fingers I'm just taking one Taste of a dessert it's no big deal I had a cocktail on Tuesday which is fine you know I can have one drink but I also had another two on this day and another two on this day and I started looking at everything and I started assessing the accumulation of wasted calories throughout the week so I turned to this person I said listen this is what we're gonna do we're just gonna cut it in half they're like what do you mean I'm like no we're gonna just cut it in half we're eliminating the majority of the desserts we'll allow you on this time we're eliminating the majority of the alcohol but you can still get in during the week and there's a couple things with your eating I don't like here with white flour and certain things that you just don't need to get in which I think is causing a lot of gut inflammation I think it's also contributing to why your back's always feeling a little off we're assessing that through training and you know I swear to God three weeks later this person came back in and took their shirt off and you could see their top two abs and he looked at me and he was like oh my God that wasn't that hard I go you're right he goes actually that wasn't hard at all what's next and right when he said that I smiled because that's what it's about every single person right now they're trying to find the a program when unfortunately they're just not ready for it a major league ball player comes back in February to pitching to pitching Camp he's not throwing 100 miles an hour he's got to ease into it in time a lot of you out there who are struggling to find that level of consistency you're not taking a minimalistic approach take a minimalistic approach get in there you know what if you hate training past 22 minutes then make sure you find a program that's 20 minutes long if you hate a program that's I've had 20 minutes you lose focus find something that's 17 minutes find a minimalistic approach where you can allow yourself to be successful develop some consistency see if you start making some better decisions some better choices and then you know what proof's in the pudding because this becomes really easy it really does like this is really easy for me and the people I work with because they see progress but the problem is you jump into it you try and get rid of everything that you love no drinking no desserts I'm not gonna go out for a month sober October and then you turn around and you're miserable and you're like all right well and then you go back to what you were doing and you put all that weight back on and at that point you're like oh well I'll just it's November now it's Thanksgiving I'm just gonna wait till Christmas I'm gonna wait till New Year's and by the time New Year's rolls around you put 10 pounds on and then you're pulling yourself out of the hole so guys this is an 80 training uh 80 nutrition 20 training seven percent supplementation this is 100 mental because there's so many ways that we can approach this that can work and and that's what I like doing I like really diving in the heads of people and showing them all right listen what do we have to do to get you from point A to point B uh successfully well I agree it's a lifestyle and you got to cut out the crop in your diet but you have to do it in a way that you can maintain otherwise to your point you'll just you'll just ditch it and you'll be back to square one and so with that said assuming we've done that everything all the scientific literature and many of the experts you know point to something that is non-negotiable if you want to maintain and build muscle mass and that is protein consumption and so let's I I know you got to run run in a minute but let's talk about protein consumption in terms of how do you think of when do we need to consume protein after a workout to build and maintain how much how often and what kind because this is a tough one when I look at the numbers for for me for example I'm I'm six seven I'm 200 pounds so if I'm going by the literature I gotta have a a gram of protein per pound I'm 200 pounds but I'm six seven I'm not like if I'm five ten two hundred that's maybe a different story but six seven two hundred and I eat oh I I eat meat but not much I try to eat plant-based me getting 200 grams of protein is is really a challenge so just without getting into me how do you think about protein and best practices post-workout and throughout the day and week well I mean listen I like the gram of protein per pound approach for someone who is active and who is resistance training or an athlete Etc uh but we don't need that to survive right which is why there's so many conflicting um approaches now you really have three macronutrients you have your three men academics protein which is you know four calories per gram you have your carbs which is for calories per gram and you have your and your grandma fat is nine calories so if we need to get to maintenance level of calories maintenance level um which I believe most people should be at we're gonna have to consume a certain amount of each macronutrient to equal that you know that total level so people don't understand what I'm saying well one gram of fat is nine calories and one gram of protein is four and one gram of carbs is for that's eight plus that's four plus four plus nine is 17 calories you just equal 17 calories so when you start someone the other day I'm talking to you was like I have to I have to raise my calories 400 grams I was like well that's easy he goes well what do you mean it's not easy what do I do I go well that's 25 grams of protein 25 grams of carbs and um 10 uh roughly uh 20 grams of that so 25 carbs is 100 25 carbs 100 grams 25 protein is 100 grams you're at 200 we need another 200 and if I go 20 grams of fat that's 180 so we're at 380 close enough in my in my opinion so um I I there's so much conflicting information because if you're you you said your plant-based are you plant-based or plants strong there's there's a difference I try to eat mostly vegetables I do I do eat meat I don't eat a lot of red meat I I love you know I'll have I'll have my salmon I have my sardines I'll do but for for me I have a history of cardiovascular shoes if I start to eat too much meat not good for me so like and I think a lot of people lean probably 60 to 80 percent you know vegetarian I think it's more I think most people are Mediterranean yeah it's more more like a Mediterranean diet yeah Mediterranean diet it's one of my favorite ways of eating I never like categorizing eating because people eat them like it's called the clean eating diet but it's called healthy Whole Foods but you eat plants strong which I love it's it's it's still getting in you're getting a lot of plants while recognizing that there's lean clean sources of protein that I'm going to consume and I think carbohydrates are carbs are gonna come back in the next few years you're going to hear it like fats came back after the 80s when people were on that snack well scrap and then suddenly healthy fats came back you're going to see carbs come back because carbs is one of your main any sources of energy when people say I cut carbs I'm like no cut bad carbs just make sure your fibers carbs you know if it's uh brown rice my favorite sweet potato or like a gluten-free oats those are carbs that we need for energy uh but yeah I think that it's simple math if you're 200 pounds and people ask how many times a day do I need to eat I'm like well it's math if you're 200 pounds we got to look at well how are we going to get the amount of protein to hit 200 grams and the first thing that I think to in in my head is five meals 40 grams of meal if you go five meals a day at 40 grams a meal you're at 200. it doesn't seem too hard now right like it's math like when when you're trying to accumulate a certain amount of fat a certain amount of carbohydrates it's just determine how many meals can I do that and I'm like well where do our macronutrients need to be are you trying to put muscle on because then I would never recommend any type of fasting I would never recommend any type of ketogenic diet like I'm not saying there's not a place for this stuff but we have to know what we're eating for like if someone's fasting to rebound from a poor night of eating I think that's the worst approach because organic nutrition foods that are abundant in micronutrients like that are that are healthy foods that's what's going to detoxify our body not drinking some crappy you know um you know homemade chunky cleanse that you know has terrible ingredients in it just because someone's trying to sell it not saying plain cleanses are bad I'm just I'm saying some of them might be but um yeah I think living in that one gram per pound of body weight I think that's something that is um very good for muscle building it's a great place to start and then we basically can add or subtract on those three macronutrients that I listed according to whether we need to go up with our calories or go down and in terms of consuming protein post-workout do you believe in that you know I got a window of an hour or a half hour or is it really that day there's no the that that window is nonsense that window of 15 minutes 10 minutes 30 minutes nonsense there is no research it's an umbrella policy it is why I tell people to eat post-workout like why do I eat immediately after workout is because that is an opportunity for me to consume macronutrients to help not only maintain my blood sugar levels but to help me hit my number for the day so if it's 200 grams of protein and I'm not eating for an hour to two hours after a workout well man that was an opportunity that I just lost without I should be working towards that total number of calories I need for the day so that that's how we need to look at it now if we're not eating post-workout what I get worried about is that blood sugars levels are off if we become famished starving then we're going to go in and we're going to make poor decisions right also post-workout blood sugar levels are low glycogen levels are low great time to replenish carbohydrates so if it's someone that is trying to get leaner I might look at that as an opportunity for me to get a higher level of carbs and post-workout because it's going to be um absorbed more rapidly and I know you're going to run this is my last question I promise in terms of protein sources if you had to list like you know your your top three animal sources your top three plant sources um animal sources is it's pretty easy for me I mean excluding all the organ Meats which just aren't my thing and I understand the value of organ Meats how nutrient dense they are I don't like them so um for me it's again finding the highest quality Source I love eggs I love wild salmon right I love um grass-fed beef all right I love um yeah chicken I mean I like I'll eat chicken if it's from a high source side you get people whoa It's just polluted and this and that guys this is nonsense man like you know what it it's like we're also kind of looking for love in all the wrong places here people want to nitpick you know seriously they want to nitpick something that is so minuscule that'll probably have no effect on your life yet this is the same person who goes out and binge drinks once a week like okay like let's let's let's well you don't want to stop that now right like you're not knocking that but you want to go gluten-free you want to go gluten-free but you're out at night you know having three four drinks which is technically binge drinking oh but a glass is healthy is it no it's not healthy like alcohol is alcohol someone asked me what do I drink when I decide to drink I'll drink anything it doesn't I don't care if it has high calorie I don't care if it's low calorie I don't care about the clear alcohol is a toxin it is going to affect Sleep Quality it's going to affect the way our hormones respond and repair and heal it's going to affect the way that we sleep which if that goes to crap yes aging the Aging response will visual visit visibly get sped up you know our hormone levels will get thrown off our cortisol levels will get thrown off we're looking for love in all the wrong places so from an animal Source standpoint great I like that I'll even supplement some high quality grass-fed protein powder once in a while if I need it I had it today from a plant standpoint it's tough because the amount of rice and beans and nuts you have to consume to get that protein up which is your muscle building block is so great that you're also consuming so many carbs and so many fats that your body's just not utilizing it's tough for people who are plant-based not plant strong you're plant strong who are strictly plants for just you know to improve her body conversation I'm not saying it can't be done it's very difficult so I would say that supplementing with a high quality Pro plant protein powder is an absolute must it is a necessity someone on on a plant-based diet agreed agreed uh I I know you gotta run and everyone please head over to YouTube and head over to doncaldino.com uh don we definitely have to have you back there's a lot a lot more to unpack with you this is fun from for me I enjoy it I'm crazy busy but I'll get on with you anytime my best to everyone guys thank you

Channel: the mindbodygreen podcast

Views: 81,804

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Id: _2m6K80rhQA

Length: 54min 5sec (3245 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 03 2022