SHAWN STEVENSON: Today we're carrying on this mission of getting into the best shape of our lives in 2025. Now, if you're listening to this in the future, this is still going to apply. But what I wanted to do was to deliver you some of the most powerful insights, tactics, strategies from the very best people in the world when it comes to transforming the human body. And today's guest checks all the boxes. He's trained the best of the best. We're talking about Major League Baseball players, NFL, the WWE. The WWE is poppin right now. And the physiques are on prime display. And our special guest is behind many of these bodies and has also worked with just everyday folks who are wanting to get in phenomenal shape to have the energy that they want to create the lives that they want.

He really knows his stuff. Three decades, 30 years in training at a high level. He has refined it to its finest points. And that's what he's going to be sharing here with us today. And I think you're going to be surprised in the simplicity when you break it all down. Now, some of this can sound complex because there's so many options. But he's going to continue to boil it down to it's simplest parts because changing our body is indeed very simple. Now, nobody said it was easy because we all have our own unique life circumstances, you know, current levels of fitness and all the things, but the road there to the body that we want to the health that we want. It is incredibly simple.

And especially when you've got decades and a lot of science to back up your perspective and your insights and your tips and your strategies, it's really about us putting these things into play for ourselves and seeing what happens. And I'm telling you right now, because I know I've run across so many people who've worked with our special guests who just sing his praises. They shot it from the rooftops. All right. Now, who, where's this shout from the rooftop come from, by the way, is it mountaintops shouting from the mountaintops, whatever it is, yodeling, whatever. They sing high praises about our special guest because not only does he really, really know his stuff when it comes to transforming the human body, but he's a great human being. Through and through, those qualities that I love and admire about him. The loyalty, the empowerment, also the holding you accountable, you know, and these are just great qualities to have.

Not just in a mentor and a guide, but in a friend. And so I'm very excited to share this episode with you again. We're continuing this mission and we're going to continue to share powerful interviews and episodes dedicated to stacking conditions in your favor and getting in the best shape of your life this year. Now, one of the things that we cover with our special guest is the role of fatigue in getting the results that we want in our programming for ourselves personally. And he's going to share some insights about fatigue that we simply just don't think about. And I know that I didn't think about, especially in the way that he articulated it, I didn't think about how important it is to be mindful of fatigue.

Now, when we're talking about fatigue, we're talking about energy and the energy demands when we're training. We're talking about so many facets of the human design, but at its core, the thing that we cannot look past is the role of the mitochondria. These glorified energy power plants of ourselves, of our bodies, of our muscles as well. And just keeping in mind that it's also the mitochondria is where fat gets, quote, burned for energy is the end destination. And this conversion of food into energy and all these different things that we talk about in regards to the mitochondria. But I also wanted to share this important tenet of what is enabling our mitochondria to do the job that it's doing.

And also what's required to literally make new mitochondria. And that boils down to key electrolytes like magnesium. Magnesium is used as an enzyme cofactor. That enables our mitochondria to make copies of itself. This is how important magnesium is. And it's the number one mineral deficiency in our society. Again, wondering why we're starving for energy. Now, this does not mean to run out and start guzzling down magnesium supplements. We want to make sure that we're getting in magnesium in a diet that is rich in magnesium and naturally occurring magnesium. And yes, this is a place to supplement because today, more than ever, magnesium is getting essentially siphoned from our body so rapidly because magnesium is responsible for over 600 biochemical processes in the human body that we are currently aware of.

There's more. We just keep finding out more and more and more. But to reiterate this, this is over 600 things that our body cannot do or cannot do efficiently and effectively if magnesium is not available. All right. So our body has to start cutting corners if we're not getting in adequate amounts of magnesium. And this is the key. Magnesium has many roles in our body's stress management capacity, our central nervous system, our muscular capacity, our brain, our neurotransmitters. So many things are dependent on magnesium just for us to experience a good sense of energy and health. You couple the electrolyte magnesium with other key electrolytes like sodium and you've got the foundation for sodium and potassium in particular because we have the sodium potassium pump involved in so many different energy demands and processes in the body.

These are three key electrolytes that we want to be mindful of, especially if we're wanting to be active and training, to make sure we're getting in rich amounts in our diet, but also looking towards healthy electrolyte supplements. That's the key. So we're not going after the Gatorade paradigm is over. All right. Powerade, all that stuff, but getting in a high quality source of electrolytes. And so for that, I turn towards LMNT. LMNT utilizes hundreds of thousands of data points to identify the optimal ratio of those three key electrolytes. And they provide an alternative to the high sugar electrolyte beverages like Gatorades of the world and no artificial dyes and things of that nature.

And again, just the very best electrolytes in the right ratios for optimal hydration, cognitive performance, and metabolic health. Go to drinkelmnt.com/model, and you're going to get a free sample pack to try all their different electrolytes and electrolyte flavors with every purchase. So whether you purchase their electrolyte drink mix or their incredible sparkling electrolyte drinks as well, which I always keep these in my refrigerator, you're going to get a free sample pack with any purchase. Again, go to drinkLMNT.com/model to get hooked up with that free sample pack with every purchase. And now let's get to the Apple podcast review of the week. 

ITUNES REVIEW: Another five star review titled "Amazeballs" by Dr. Feelgood. In this world of misinformation, it is so refreshing to know that the info Shawn brings is truth.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Now, I absolutely love that review over on Apple podcast, but when I was hit with the Amazeballs and the Dr. Feelgood, It hit different. All right. So thank you so much for sharing that review over on Apple podcast and listen, if you get to do so, please pop over to Apple podcasts and leave a review for the model health show or whatever podcast app that you're listening on. If you can, please take a moment and rate and review the show. It really does mean a lot. And without further ado, let's get to our special guest and topic of the day. 

Jay Ferruggia is one of the most elite fitness coaches in the world today. He's an advisor for teams and athletes in the NFL. MLB, WWE, and more. Jay's science backed strategies have been featured in Men's Health Magazine, Men's Fitness, and countless other major media outlets. And now he's here to share his incredible insights with all of us. Let's dive in this conversation with the one and only Jay Ferruggia. 

Today, we're going to be talking about how to get in the best shape of your life. And these principles apply to everyone, regardless of age, gender, your current level of fitness. Specifically, this is going to apply to those of us who are over 40. Who have less wiggle room to do a bunch of nonsense. All right, and we have the greatest person on the planet to help us to again accomplish his goal of getting in the best shape of our lives, build muscle, stay lean. And he's my really good friend. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Thank you, sir. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: The one and only Jay Ferrugia. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: I appreciate the intro. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's go. Let's go. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Absolutely. Let's go. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's start off by talking about the relationship with fatigue in training. Why is this such an important component of creating a training program for ourselves is being mindful of this component of fatigue.

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah. And especially if you're over 40, cause if you're in your twenties, it really doesn't matter. Like fatigue doesn't exist. You can train all day every day and you're fine. So what creates fatigue, there's a bunch of things that create fatigue. So higher reps create more fatigue than lower reps, stretch position stuff, like a fly, RDL, stuff like a deadlift, things like that. Those create more fatigue. Lower rest periods in between sets create more fatigue. Soreness creates more fatigue. Even doing too many unstable exercises. Like, so that's why when you're over 40, back in the day, I would say rage against the machines. We're just doing barbells and everything. Now, once you get older, I like to have a mix of maybe 50, 50 machines, because anything that requires a lot of coordination, stability, that's going to drain you a little bit too, and create more fatigue.

So if you have more fatigue. You're already, let's say you're already not sleeping ideally, like you would want them to be sleeping, right? You have stress and you know, whatever, obviously work, relationships, family, whatever. So now we're creating more fatigue from our training. The other thing that creates more fatigue too is excess cardio. High intensity cardio creates a lot of fatigue. So now when you create that much fatigue, you're always kind of behind the eight ball. You're always tired. Your testosterone goes down. Some of those things, your cortisol will go up. And so you'll just feel worse all the time, which is what we don't want.

So a lot of guys our age are like, man, I'm so tired all the time. I'm beat up. And it's like, Yeah, you're doing all the wrong things with your training. You got to scale it back. You got to change it. And then, so, so if you create a lot of fatigue, and let's say you work out today. Today is, while we're recording this, it's a Friday. So, if I create a lot of fatigue in today's workout, tomorrow's workout is going to suffer on Saturday. Sunday's workout might suffer. When I get up in the morning, I might need extra cups of coffee to get through my tasks at work. So we don't really think about it like that, but if you change your programming and do a 180 on all the things I just said, you lower your reps, you increase your rest period, maybe mix in some machines. You don't do as much cardio. All of a sudden you'll notice, wow, I feel better. I don't need as much caffeine. I don't need, you know, like everything improves over time. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. This is the, one of the biggest myths. And just wrong mindsets about training is that we have to do more. Right? And it's, it's a very American thing. You know, more is better. Everything's bigger in Texas. All the things, you know. But in reality, it's really, again, we've heard this statement before to train smarter. Right? Training smarter, not necessarily harder. There is going to be some challenge, of course, involved if you want to get, you know, muscle hypertrophy and change your body. But it's not doing what you refer to as a lot of junk volume, but we need to find that right amount of volume where we get the results we want without draining ourselves and dipping into fatigue. Is that what I'm hearing? 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Exactly. Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay. So talk a little bit more about junk volume and also, start off by talking about how much volume do we ideally need to target the to build muscle, maintain our muscle, and also stay relatively lean. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Mm hmm. So it's a complicated answer, and it's, it becomes increasingly difficult to give a clear answer on that, just because of all the research we have now, and just the individual kind of differences between people, but, and so we used to look at weekly training volume, which I think is still a good metric, but it really comes down to how much volume you do today in today's workout will determine how much you can do 48, 72, 96 hours later. And so I like to look at there's a few ways to break it down like you can look at per workout How many total sets should you do? That's an easy way to measure volume. So I generally keep most of my clients in Anywhere between eight total work sets and about 15, 16. That's it. Now, most people go to the gym. They probably do exponentially more than that. They're probably doing 20, 30 sets. So we'll look at that. So in general, eight to 12 for most of my guys.

And then we look at also body parts specific, right? So generally, like there's been meta analysis multiple over the last few years where they studied, they look at people doing five sets per body part per week versus 10 versus 15 versus 20, they make the most gains in the five to 10 range. There's some crazy outlandish studies where they'll say the more volume, the better. But what you look at with those is the rest periods. This is kind of crazy. It's hard to even wrap your head around. If you have short rest periods, because each set is less efficient, you need way more volume. But if you're resting three minutes between sets, then you're fully recovered. You don't need as much volume.

So it seems to be for most people, that's why I look, I like to look at studies, but also like to base it on 30 years worth of experience that I have and then talk to other people who have that kind of experience too. We know that it's the sweet spots right around six to 10 sets per week, per body part. Now you can do all. 10 of those sets on Monday, or you could do 3, 3, 4 on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, there's different ways to break it up, but it's not that easy though. That's the thing. And that's where it gets a little complicated. And then we also have like this, this creates fatigue too. So going back.

So, let's say I go to the gym right now. I do eight sets of chest. That's my whole workout. Eight sets of chest. That will create more fatigue for me tomorrow than if I went to the gym and did eight sets, but did two sets of back, two sets of chest, two sets of biceps, two sets of triceps, because I won't have as much soreness and muscle damage. So soreness and muscle damage creates fatigue. So now tomorrow's workout is going to suffer more. If I just did eight sets of chest, see what I'm saying? 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Of course. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Ideally, you want to break up the volume and do a little bit less. You don't want to cause all that inflammation and all that fatigue, right? So that's where it gets a little tricky to give a super strict kind of, you know, straight answer. It really depends on the individual. I would say for most people do less. Like I start most people out on a full body workout, either three days a week or every other day. I actually prefer every other day. When you're doing that, you really want to start at baseline, which is one set, which is crazy. You do a few warmup sets, you do one hard set for body per each body part, chest, shoulders, back legs, you know, whatever. And then we assess volume and how much you can recover from, and then we'll push it up a little bit.

When you do it that way, the strength gains are insane. Like you'll gain strength. Most of my guys like, dude, it's like I'm on steroids. These strength gains are crazy. Now where we get more complex is certain muscles take longer to recover. So you might be able to run that for like, let's say six, eight, 10 weeks and everything is skyrocketing. But chest always is the slowest. Pressing, people are like, yo, I'm stalled out, I'm pressing. Pressing universally stalls out the fastest. Pecs are just easily damaged and they're hard to recover. Hamstrings probably second or tied depending on the individual. Hamstrings get damaged very easily. They recover slowly.

So that's why it's hard because it's like, muscle. It's like, and then what are you doing? Right. So if you're doing a bunch of like, for example, if you do three sets of a standing leg curl, which trains the hamstring in the shortened position, that's exponentially easier to recover from than if you did three sets of stiff legged deadlift, that trains the hamstring in the lengthened position. Now we're gonna have a ton of soreness, muscle damage, and fatigue, whereas with the standing leg curl, we're gonna have no muscle soreness, no muscle damage. So very little fatigue, right? So you might be able to do more. So all these things have to be taken into account, which is like, you know, It gets very complex. I, I like to simplify things, but if we're really talking, you know, like really dialing it in, it is like rocket science. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, literally. And we're the rocket, you know? And this, this is such an important thing. You mentioned the rest time. Like this is something that we don't really consider. And a lot of these studies and, and one of the ones that I saw recently, a big meta analysis looking at the amount of volume to get in. We're recommending 60 to 90 seconds between sets, but you had to do more volume over the week. You got more sets. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: So it's less efficient. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, but you can come into it with the mindset of like, I have less time in the gym, so I need to move faster, right? So you can have that mindset, but also you could be like, I have to do less sets if I'm taking more time in between sets. So it's just a different way of looking at it. Either way, you can get an efficient, kind of much shorter workout than what we've been programmed to think about. And I know you've done this, you've seen this. You see guys that are in there for two hours, you know, like literally it's been many times over the years. I go to the gym. And somebody's already in their workout and I finished my workout and they're still going. You know, and they're just like, and, and, you know, usually some, you know, sometimes like older, you know, and they're just like, you know, I just got my first hour in, I'm about to get into the hour two, you know, it's just like, you know, more power to you, man. So it's just, again, it's changing our mindset because also, and this isn't to take away something else, which is important, which is the joy. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Right. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Part of it too. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Totally. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Because this individual, this is a big part of his enjoyment being there at the gym. Mm hmm. And so what we're talking about, by the way, we're talking about efficiency and getting in the best shape of your life and transforming your body. One of the takeaways now is again having less, less sets, right? So let's actually can you detail like explain a little bit more for us what we mean by volume? Like what does that mean? 

JAY FERRUGGIA: I mean the easiest way is just the number of sets you're doing for a body part or muscle group and then you asked before about junk volume. So that would be what I would just describe as junk volume would be any, for the most part, any sets 15 reps and above that's really junk volume. Now guys are our age 50 60 might say well I can't do the exercise unless I do 15 to 20 or my joints kill. If that's truly the case, then yes true, you should do that many reps, but I would say to that person. Hey, let's try to find a similar movement that fits you well. It doesn't hurt your knees your elbows or whatever. If you can do that safely, then we can bring the reps down to a more productive rep range. It doesn't cause as much fatigue, right? So some people just be like or I can't squat unless I do 30 reps.

I'll be like, yeah, okay, but maybe let's play around. There's some machines, maybe there's a different variation of a squat that you can do. 

You'd have to be really banged up not to be able to do something in an 8 to 12 range. It would be things over 15 reps I would call junk volume for the most part. There's always exceptions. Sets that are further than two reps from failure I would consider junk volume. Because then you're just not stimulating any gains really. It's kind of a warm up set. And then, excess warmups are things that I think are junk volume too. Even fitness pros and influencers don't know this.

When I train together, I'm like, how do you not know how to warm up properly? Nobody knows how to warm up properly. The way I think you should warm up, which reduces a lot of fatigue. So most people will go in. And they'll do, let's say they're, let's just say they're going to bench press, right?

SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay.

JAY FERRUGGIA: They'll do 10 or 12 reps, put on more weight, 12 reps, put on more weight and keep getting up until they're working weight or top weight or whatever. What I would advise most people to do is go in first set, maybe do eight to 10, but you want to do the least amount. You're only trying to prepare yourself for the work sets. So then I might do five to eight, then I might do three reps and then one, one, one. If you're moving, let's say from your first pressing exercise, if you're moving to a second pressing exercise.

You're already warmed up, but most people will do that again. 10, 10, 10. It's like, that's not doing anything. It's just causing fatigue. And it's a complete waste of time. So then what I would do is if we're going to the second exercise, I might literally just do one to three reps, just that you can call them feeder sets, just feeling it out, whatever you just kind of train your nervous system for a slightly different move. Like if you're doing an incline press and then do a flat press. So a lot of people just waste time and do junk volume with their warmup sets. Like if I'm on a machine that's selector eyes with the pin, right? I'm I'll do, I'll sit there and do all my, instead of doing 10, I'll do 5, move the pin down, 3, move the pin down, 2, move the pin down, 1, do the pin down, 1, 1, 1, because I'm pretty strong.

So I might be doing the stack on that, but I'm not going to do a set of 10, walk around, do another set of 10. I'll just get the entire warmup done and maybe do 15 reps going all the way down the stack in 30 seconds. Then I'll rest two or three minutes before I start my work set. So that's what I mean by people warming up incorrectly, it's just creating fatigue. And then what that does too, is your main set, your money set that you're actually going to stimulate hypertrophy with, the weight's going to be so much less because you created all that fatigue and just wasted all that energy, you know, and especially again, if you're over 40, 50 or whatever, you don't have the energy that you had when you were 20, you know. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right, right. So I want to ask you about this as well, when it comes to. The splits that we're doing, right? You mentioned full body every other day. And obviously there's a lot of ways to a lot of paths to the goal. And you mentioned, you know, we can get all of those sets in the volume on a certain body part in one day. And that's one of the kind of standard things is like national chest day, leg day, and just split it up. But I don't think you get the touch points to keep that really good hypertrophy and your nervous system kind of trained without having those touch points more frequently, right? And that's just something that I found. It took me so long to get that because I would. I'd go to the gym and obliterate my legs, be sore for five days, and then, you know, two days off, and then I'm back to blowing my legs up again. But, what about a split, right, where we do the kind of classic split where we got a push day, pull day, legs, maybe a rest day, or just repeat. What about a framework like that? 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah, like you mentioned, there's so many and what you said before was true. So, personal preference and enjoyment does weigh into that. Like, you might say on paper, hey, a once a week split is no good, but if you love it, then it's great, right? So, so that, that's something to really consider. The other thing I would say is most of the time I start people with more frequency, right? Like I said, like full body, the next split would be upper, lower. You could do, we tend to be married to more traditional splits like full body upper, lower, push, pull legs. But I split things up in ways that i've never seen before that just kind of makes sense to me Based on what I was talking about before like individual body parts recovery.

So at the end of a let's say a pull day I might, if someone wants to do a four day body part split, right? Like it says that you're going to push, pull, legs, arms. Now I want to get more than once a week frequency. So at the end of the pull day, maybe we'll add in some leg extensions. So now in addition to that leg day, they're getting a second time on legs, but they're not obliterating legs, right? And then on the arm day, we're hitting some dips or close grips. And now we're getting chest a second time. And then the leg day, maybe we'll throw in a row at the end. So we're going to go back a second time. So you could still do a traditional bodybuilding split, but increase the frequency. And then again, that's individual, you know, maybe what's your, what's your priority.

If it's shoulders, maybe we'll add more frequency for shoulders, backs, ain't, you know, same thing. But I tend to stick with really upper, lower, or full body most of the time for most people. And then, but you could even do things like push, pull, legs. And for whatever reason, most people think you can only do push, pull, legs once a week, meaning Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or six days a week, Monday through Saturday. But you can do it, the way I like to do it is push, pull, off, legs, off, repeat. So then it's once every five days. Or you could do two on, one off. So push, pull, off, legs, push and continue to do that way. So it's more frequency. What you can also do is let's say you decide I want to bring up my biceps.

Normally you'd only do curls on the pull day, but I throw those rules out. So you might do push, pull, off. Now we do biceps first on leg day because it's your priority. So we get them on the pull day indirectly with all the rows and the pull downs, and we get them directly fresh at the beginning of the leg day and you can do that with other body parts that are weak too, you know Just prioritize them where you want to put them. So there's a lot of ways Non traditional ways to do splits that I think are really effective and then again, it's just like we assess how does the person feel how much fatigue are you getting? How much soreness are you getting and what are your results like and how much are you enjoying it? You know. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And this is awesome, by the way. You also mentioned how far we want to go in that set, right? You mentioned after getting past generally 15 reps And again, there's situations for that, you know, maybe you want to train endurance in some kind of way, you know, to be able to do a bunch of muscle ups. But in general, again, if we're looking at what's most effective, we're not getting that high in our rep range. How far do we want to go? And so my question is, do we want to go to a place where we are at complete muscle failure, right? So how do we know that our set is the right number of reps. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: To produce hypertrophy to elicit hypertrophy, you want to have really high levels of intramuscular force production. You want to be recruiting those fast twitch fibers. So you do that with heavy loads, generally in a five to eight, five to 10 range. And then you want to be close to failure. Now, how do you know what failure is? You have to train to failure on a lot of things for a while and then you know what it is. Cause there's been studies and just real world experience where people think they're at failure And they're actually five to seven reps from failure. So it's like that was a warm up set that was a complete waste of time. And even myself i've done that and after training for 30 years, like sometimes if i'm just by myself I'll be like, I think I have a pretty good gauge of what one rep in reserve is, and I'm like, I don't know, maybe, and then I'll get an extra three reps sometimes, like, jeez, you know, so you really, sometimes you have to push to failure.

I don't recommend doing it all the time. That's why, but I do like lower volume. One of the benefits of lower volume is you can train harder. And I like to train hard. If I had to leave a bunch of reps in the tank, it would just not be enjoyable for me whatsoever. So lower volume, I tend to work with a lot of type A guys. That's always been that way for 30 years, competitive athletes, now WWE guys, and then just guys, all rage who are just type A hustlers, right? So they want to train hard. So then. Again, volume should be lower because you can't train super hard and do a ton of sets, right? You're just gonna be burnt out all the time.

So get to know what failure feels like on all the exercises you're doing and then leave about one to two reps in the tank. Generally one in the tank for the most part. There is a significant difference. Like let's say you do 12 sets. If you did those 12 sets to failure, and then next week you did those 12 sets, but you left one rep in the tank, you'll feel the difference in terms of fatigue throughout the week. And also your progressive overload, which is the fundamental main rule we want to be following to make any progress is you'll get significantly better gains, right? So each week that you hit that particular workout, you'll go up more and more and faster than if you hit failure on every set. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay. Now, what about the variety of exercises, right? If we're talking about back. We're training our back, you know, with a lot of trainers, you know, it's, it's a mindset of like, I got to keep my client interested, you know, got to keep mixing it up. So what is your perspective on the variety of exercises and how frequently you're changing the exercise you're doing?

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah. So I used to do that where I would try to entertain clients years ago, but I found that what's entertaining is actually making progress and getting stronger and seeing numbers go up. I like that more. My clients like that more. So I think too much variety is no good. And so we started talking about fatigue, too much variety causes too much fatigue. Cause if I go in and let's say my workouts, five exercises. If I've been doing those five exercises for weeks in a row, I don't have the CNS demands of having to learn and the coordination demands of having to learn that new movement, even if it's a movement you've been doing for 20 years, it's still, when you do it for the first time. And let's say six to eight weeks, You're kind of adapting, figuring things out. So it's more nervous. It's more CNS fatigue. If I go in and do five different movements all the time, just for variety, like.. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: The old nervous system. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yes. Yep. And so it's just more demanding. So you're going to increase more fatigue and then it's really hard to track progressive overload and progressive overload. You know, some people could argue, Oh, you don't have to go up every workout and you don't, but it's the only legit measure we have to know is your programming good? Is it working? Because if you're going up in weight, that's black and white. We know if you're just like, Oh, I feel good. I'm getting a pump. It's like, yeah, but that's abstract. That doesn't tell us anything. But if you're able to press 100 today, then you go up to 102 and a half. And then 105. And we see it going up and then it plateaus and then it goes up. Okay, now we know it's working. Then we can say like, Hey man, let's pull out one set here. Let's stop one rep short of failure here. Then it becomes like a science experiment versus just guesswork. We're just throwing things against the wall and hoping they work. You know? 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh man, I love this so much. Got a quick break coming up. We'll be right back. 

If there was one beverage that is most correlated with reducing stress, it's tea. Now the only tea that I knew about growing up was sweet tea. All right, my grandmother would make sweet tea or I go to, you know, different restaurants and order the sweet tea. Matter of fact, when Lipton brisk hit the scene, right? So this is sweet tea that was in bottles that you could buy from the vending machine. It was so full of sugar that it had this frosted appearance. It was like frosted tea. All right, so I'm not talking about that abomination of tea. I'm talking about the storied traditional teas that have been utilized for thousands of years to support human health. Now, one of the most well known and well researched teas that help to manage and reduce stress is green tea.

Green tea contains a unique amino acid called L theanine. This is one of the rare nutrients that's able to cross the blood brain barrier with relative ease. And impact the activity of a neurotransmitter called GABA, which helps to reduce anxiety and makes us to feel more centered and relaxed. Now, some teas like green tea might have a small amount of caffeine, but because of L theanine, not only does it not have that stimulating effect, it actually helps to reduce and calm the nervous system. A peer reviewed study published in the journal Brain Topography found that L theanine intake increases the frequency of our alpha brainwaves, indicating reduced stress, enhanced focus, and even increases creativity. Now, this is the most important distinction about this conversation when talking about green tea.

Not all green tea is created equal, not in the slightest. Quality matters immensely here more than ever, because not a lot of folks realize that even some organic teas are contaminated with heavy metals and microplastics. We want to make sure that we're getting teas from the best source possible and the green tea that I drink is a matcha green tea. That's actually shaded 35 percent longer for extra L theanine. It's the first quadruple toxin screened matcha. And there's no preservatives, sugar, artificial flavors, none of that stuff. Just the highest quality matcha green tea in the world from Pique Life. Go to piquelife.com/model. That's P I Q U E L I F E.com/M O D E L and you're going to get access to some of their incredible bonuses for the different bundles like free shipping and also an exclusive 90 day risk free guarantee.

If you don't love. their matcha green tea or any of the products from Pique Life, you can send them back for a full refund. All right. So they're really standing behind their tea quality. They go above and beyond and highly recommend checking them out. It's piquelife.com/model. That's P I Q U E L I F E.com/model. And now back to the show. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Now with this said, which exercises are best. Now, I know this is tough. All right. But maybe this is even a little selfish. All right. So let's, let's talk about training legs. And the reason this matters, thank goodness there's been like a paradigm shift in training legs, all right. There's been a lot of lollipop people walking around, you know, where leg day has been skipped many a time. Right. And so, but there's so much metabolic benefit, performance, performance, power, there's so many remarkable and vital reasons to train your legs. So I want to ask you, if I had to, like, life or death, three best leg exercises. All right. And for, and again, keep in mind as well, this can be of course for everybody, but specifically for people who are over 40. Okay. What do you think? 

JAY FERRUGGIA: I would say some type of knee flexion, so that could be some type of leg curl. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: But what, what are the three best? 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Okay. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: I don't want to know some type. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Okay. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: What's the best? 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Oh, we just want to build the biggest legs we can without wrecking your joints. With feeling good. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Okay. So a seated leg curl. I personally like a glued ham raise. For variety and because you just feel good, like your knees, hips, and back feel great. It's a bodyweight exercise, but it's really hard to do. Most Division I athletes can't even do one rep. So, if we're just going, picking one, I'm picking a really well designed seated leg curl. The reason a seated is better than a lying and a standing is because the seated trains the length in position. See, if I'm here, my leg's straight out, it's training from a stretch position, which generally, if you're looking at exercises, and ranking them in a hypertrophy perspective, you want to train the stretch position and the mid range.

The shortened position doesn't really matter that much. That's why I like the leg extensions, just icing, icing on the cake. So I'm going to go seated leg curl, some type of squat variation. Now this is where we, it's hard to pick one because everybody's so different. What kills your knees? My knees might feel great. Someone else is like, eh, so it's going to be some type of squat. If I had to pick one, I would say generally most people can do a safety bar squat. Especially if we add a little heel wedge. Because most people don't have the ankle mobility to do it perfectly. So if I had to pick one, that would be it. A safety bar squat with either a 10 or 15 degree wedge.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Safety bar, what is that? 

JAY FERRUGGIA: The safety bar is the bar with the pad and the shoulder thing that comes here. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: It's a back squat bar, but it has a piece in the. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: So you can have your.. The benefit is really for shoulder health. If you get older and you're tighter, sometimes it's hard, you don't have the external rotation to get back here. And then all of a sudden, you're kind of hurting your shoulders on leg day, which makes no sense. So then you go press the next day. You're like, why are my shoulders stiff from leg day? Right. It doesn't make sense. So. And it does, you tend to be able to stay upright a little bit more. There's some things, some benefits. 

So a seated leg curl, a safety bar squat with heels elevated. And then some, you got to do some type of single leg thing. So that's, if I had to just pick one, of course, there's all different split squat variations. There's walking lunges. I would go with a rear foot elevated split squat. Those would be the three.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Isn't there another name for that? 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Bulgarian split squat. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Bulgarian split squat. Yeah. The last time I trained with Luca, you know, we did that as well and there's so many different variation of that too, you know, obviously you can do it weighted, you can, you know, do one hand with the weight. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah, one hand here, one hand here, two hands, safety bar, regular bar, I mean there's a million ways to do it. If for the purpose of this exercise that you're challenging me on I had to do one. I would have it with stability because we're looking at hypertrophy. So without stability, you're going to have less force production, less intermuscular force production. So if I'm having to balance. Now, if I hold that dumbbell in one hand on my rear leg and I hold onto the upright of the power rack, I'm going to get a greater hypertrophy stimulus out of that. If you're an athlete and you're just training stability and whatever, fine. But if we're just looking at hypertrophy, I'm going to grab on. Anytime I increase the stability of an exercise, it's better for hypertrophy. Now that doesn't mean you just do machines cause then you walk around like Frankenstein, but you know, you prioritize some things.

SHAWN STEVENSON: That's awesome. Let's do the same thing for, and then I want to ask your opinion. What is the thing that most people are not focusing on as far as like our muscle groups or training a certain body part that you think that most people can definitely use a little bit more work on. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: I would say, I would say upper back stuff, mainly because everybody sits here like this, right? And so you want to strengthen those muscles because they just get, they get weak and then these muscles get tight. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Kyphotic. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Exactly. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Lean it forward. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yup. So that leads to all kinds of shoulder problems. And the thing is when I was talking about before that chest recovers the slowest, upper back recovers the fastest, like you can smash volume. Whereas if you're doing that hypothetical, every other day, full body, you might only be able to recover from one set of chest, but you might be able to recover from three sets of back every day. And especially if it's upper back, there's a little bit of a difference when upper back rows versus lat stuff, like pull downs, we're getting into more of a stretch and getting the lats a little harder to recover from, but upper back row stuff. Most people can smash volume on that. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay, give me the three best upper back exercises. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: I would say some kind, any kind of chest supported row. Like, uh, t bar row, a low to high row. Like any chest, like most gyms have hammer strength or life fitness. Something like that. Back is the one body part where having machines really is kind of essential if you want to, if you really want to elicit the most hypertrophy back. So, it'd really just be three different variations of some kind of chest supported row, really. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: So when you say chest supported, that means that there's a pad at your chest and you're doing the pulling motion. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah. And especially, again, if we're talking about guys over 40. Doing a bent over barbell row is not going to be that friendly on your lower back, you know. So just, even if you're training at home or a minimalist gym, just laying face down and doing dumbbell rows like that where your chest is on the pad. Good t bar row is going to be great. The Hammer, the Prime, any of those brands are going to be great like that. Just a variety of those are going to be really probably your best option.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay, got it. Got it. I want to ask you about one, maybe two other body parts. All right. So right there close to the chesticles and the upper back. You got your shoulders right there in between. So, for shoulders for you know definition, you know with your shoulders, but also maintaining the health of our shoulders because a lot of people get junky shoulders. Can you give me your three top exercises? And again, I know it's hard. I know there's a lot of variables. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yep. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And also I want to make this caveat for this because one of the things that you Always teach and instill in the work that you do is that it's individual. All right. So even when I'm saying the top three, it's just based off of your experience and what would, you know, the most people might value, find value in, but it's still going to be individual. So with that said, top three exercises for building shoulders. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: I believe I got this from a guy called Joe Bennett. I didn't come up with this, but you lay face down. I'm sorry, face up on, just a flat bench, or you could even raise it to a 10 to 15 degree incline in front of a dual cable sack, like a functional trainer with the dual cables, you set the cables, maybe a foot above your quads. I'm laying back like this, and now I, ideally, I'm using ankle cuffs on my wrist, and I'll explain why that is in a second. And you lay down, so I, so I attach this one here, this one here, and then I do a lateral raise, but like that. So, there's a few reasons for that. One, a dumbbell lateral raise. In 30 years, I've never seen more than five people do a dumbbell, dumbbell lateral raise properly.

It's the most butchered exercise. Everyone does this karate kid thing where their hands way above their elbows. The other thing is, we talked about training the muscle in the shortened position before, so there's no tension in the stretch or mid range, really all the tensions at the top. Just when you think about how gravity works on a dumbbell lateral raise. It's okay, plenty of people have built big shoulders on it, but if we're looking for the best, the other thing too, is a lot of people can get into impingement. Or what happens is they start getting elbow pain here and they don't know what it's from because when you're holding a dumbbell and it's the same thing if you're holding a cable, your forearm extensors are always firing. And we're, everything we're doing is gripping, right? So they're firing here and that tends to cause elbow pain.

That's the benefit of having the cuff is now you can take the grip out of it. So now, and you can do that with one of those lateral raise machines, but even that causes pain. I've taken people who have horrible shoulders. Like, dude, I cannot do any variation of lateral raise. I can't do it like, try this one. I guarantee zero pain whatsoever. So you don't get impingement and because you're laying down, depending on how banged up you are, some people can get. I personally get this from years of heavy squatting, whatever posture where it feels like your thoracic spine, your upper back is compressed a lot, and if you're doing heavy weights that are pulling it. Even that can worsen it, it sounds stupid, but that can worsen, it's always want to kind of eliminate that. If you're laying flat on your back doing this, the side delt hit is amazing. 

Zero pain, zero elbow pain. So that's number one by far. Then I would say an overhead press if you can do it, but not definitely not standing, not a 90 degree. I go between 75 and 60 degrees, a way more joint friendly angle for the majority of people, especially as you get older, you might not have the thoracic mobility, the overhead mobility. So we just lean back a little bit and then we're here and that feels way safer. Now there's something to be mentioned here is sequencing. That's where we get into the nuances of like, maybe if you're really banged up a body part split or push pull legs is better for you because sequencing does make a difference.

So if I go in ice cold and try to do a 60 or 75 degree dumbbell press, not going to feel that good. If I get a pump and hit two or three hard sets on the lateral raise and then go to the press, it's going to feel a lot better. The same thing could be said for training legs. As you get older. Going in and doing a few sets of hamstring curls. And now my knees are lubricated and my hamstrings are pumped. So when I squat down, I have kind of more meat to rebound off. I'm pumped and everything. Also doing calves before same type of deal before you get to squatting feels a lot different. So, you know, that's where it gets kind of tricky depending on the individual. But so I would go. The cable lateral raise, 60 degree overhead press. And then I guess if we're looking to hit all three heads of the Delt, I'd probably go, I would just go with a low incline, ladder rear Delt fly. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Yeah. That one that's overlooked. That might be the least done exercise. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: For sure. Yeah. Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: All right. So another big component of this, and by the way, we could do this all day, like Captain America with the different body parts and talking with you. And you've got so much wisdom in this. But another principle is that you cannot grow your muscles if you don't eat. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Right. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And also we're talking about recovery if we're talking about the proper Just our muscle fibers being able to in our nervous system firing correctly. We need to eat and we need to eat a certain way. And so one of the things that you've utilized for your clients because obviously we have a huge awareness now of the role of insulin, but really in a kind of more extreme way, we look at it like this is the reason people are gaining so much fat.

And we miss out on the fact that we need insulin to drive, you know, the growth of the muscles as well. But we just don't want to go too far. And also when insulin is active, we're not burning fat, you know, like Dr. Ben Bickman shared. When insulin is active, your body doesn't burn fat. Period. End of story. And so we want to keep insulin in check, but we also want to fuel our muscles. So a lot of people have taken on a lower carb protocol. They're very mindful of that ketogenic diets have obviously been huge the last few years. But, I want to ask your opinion on this when it comes to carbs, and also the strategy that you've utilized with a lot of people, which is carb cycling. Let's talk about it. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah, I mean, if you're trying to gain muscle, I'm pro carbs for sure. I like, it depends on the individual, but I, you know, when you're younger, you could just eat all the carbs all the time. 

Nowadays, we see, I'm sure you've experienced this, a lot of guys who I'm like, really? When I see their blood work and they have high A1C and the blood sugars, and I'm like, you don't even eat? Garbage, you know what I mean? So it's just a weird thing, maybe we can get into the whole thing of the food quality and everything, but like. So I don't want a guy who's 50 to be eating 500 grams of carbs every single day, you know, like I would have a college athlete do or something. So the way that I do that is generally keep them lower carb throughout the day and then have the majority of carbs around training.

So pre training during post, that would be the majority of their carbs. And then if that next meal after that would be the majority of their starchy carbs, you could have vegetables and fruit throughout the day. But what I also do, so that's kind of carb cycling in the day, right? But throughout the week, depending on someone's body fat levels and their training and what their goals are, I will have. So let's say for example, for simple math, let's say they're going to do 2, 100 grams of carbs throughout the week. Instead of having 300 grams, seven days, which may cause health issues with blood sugar and whatnot.

They will have two days where I might have them go as high as or maybe three days we're doing 700, right? But the other days are no carbs or really low carbs. So we don't get have that constant high insulin, right? And again, there's so many different ways to do it. Maybe we're going three four days in a row really low carbs and then we jack up the carbs. Now on those high carb days, what I do is I bring the fat down really low because what are the most fattening foods. Foods that are high in carbs and high in fat. A double cheeseburger, donuts, ice cream, right? So on that high carb day, we want to have rapid gastric emptying. We want no bloating, no digestive stress. And I just want your muscles to be sucking up all those carbs as muscle glycogen. So what happens is we kind of deplete the muscle, like it's almost like a balloon, and then it gets kind of flat, and then we fill it back up.

So the next day, after a properly timed high carb day, you look significantly bigger, you have more veins, you have more separation, you're more vascular, but you got to get the timing right. So you got to go three, four days in a row low.. And then on that high carb day, I cut protein in half oftentimes, or cut it by like 60 to 70%. So someone who's eating, let's say 200 grams of protein most days, I'll cut them down to 100, 130 grams on the high carb day. I'll cut fat down to like 30 to 40 grams max. And you're going to be eating really easy to digest stuff. So it's going to be white rice, white rice cereal, sourdough bread, honey, a little bit of fruit. Arrowhead Mills makes a really good buckwheat cereal. So you're just eating boxes of cereal and white rice basically all day. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: What about potatoes?

JAY FERRUGGIA: Definitely. I don't want much fiber on that day, just a little bit of fruit. So white potatoes, gold potatoes, not sweet potatoes for sure. If someone does well. Some people just don't do well with nightshades in general. And if they're like, I feel a little bloated, I'm like, no white potatoes. That's why white rice is usually the safest and cereals, super easy. And so what people will find on a day, they're like, I'm starving and I have no bloating whatsoever. And we're just eating. That day you want to be doing five or six meals. 

And I'll have people take a pretty high dose of berberine that day throughout the day, just to help them store the carbs more efficiently. And then if you do it right, what happens is, and this is individual either 48 hours or 72 hours later, you look significantly better. Much better, much fuller, much more vascular. So, you know, if you have something coming up, you basically, what you'd want to do, if you have something on a Saturday, let's say you're going to the beach or you have a photo shoot or something, you'd want to deplete carbs Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then do a high carb day on Thursday. Or if you're, you know, depending on the individual, you might have to do that day before. You got to do test runs and see if you look better 48 hours or 72 hours later. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Fascinating. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah. But, but it's great because it keeps you, it prevents you from getting fat. Yeah. Even though you're eating the same amount of carbs throughout the week, you just don't get as fat. And again, your, your whole blood profiles are better, you know what I mean? Versus just having those chronically high insulin levels all the time. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right, right. So this is carb cycling, so this is one way to go about it. Yep. So basically four days on. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: It depends. It could be three. I could have someone do one high carb day a week two high carb days three would be the most I would do generally. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. Yeah, I was saying four days on low carb and then it might be or two. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: It just depends. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah, like like some of my the leaner you are the more frequently you can do a high carb day. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Got it, got it. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Because your insulin sensitivity is better, you have more muscle, you know. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: But then, circling back to what you originally said as well, this is something you could do daily, kind of putting your carbs on around a certain spot around your training.

JAY FERRUGGIA: For sure. I think that's the smartest for guys over 40, that's a better way to do it. So that's what I'll do. If they're eating, let's say 200 grams of carbs in a day. I'll say have 50 in your pre workout meal and then have 30 to 50 intra workout where you have some cyclic dextrin carb powder mixed in with some essential aminos. And some organic pomegranate juice and then after have, you know, a hundred grams in that meal. Then the rest of the day is just like steak and veggies or some blueberries or whatever. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Got it. All right. Awesome. So this is something that a lot of people hear about, you know, they don't hear about the carb component, especially today, again, just in these conversations, and how important it is for muscle. And so what about protein? You mentioned, for example, you might have somebody who's taken in 200 grams of protein and you'll, on their high carb days, it'll go down to 130, 120. So how much protein are we targeting on a general basis for you with your clients? 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah, I generally like one gram. I'll go as high as 1. 25. Generally don't go much higher than that. And then we do have research recently. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: One gram. What? 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Per oh, sorry. One gram per pound of body weight. So if you weigh one 80, you'd be doing about one 80. And then I might go up, like I said, based on the individual, I might go as high as 1. 25 that's generally as high as I go. And, oh, I was going to say there, there's been research over the last few years where it talks about as you get older, 60s, seventies and beyond, you need more protein. So you know, some, some of my guys who are older in their 60s and 70s, I might push them up to, cause their, their insulin sensitivity is not that good, so we can't even do much carbs. And then you don't want to be just jamming 200 grams of fat a day either. So I'll push their protein up sometimes to 1.3 or 1.4 times body weight and they just seem to get better results and feel better that way. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Got it. Now my question would be, we'll just say we've got someone listening or watching the episode who is. Their goal weight is 100. We'll just say they're 170 pounds. Their goal weight is 150. And they're just struggling to get in the amount of protein that they need. First of all, how much protein should they be targeting? And also how can they fit in that amount of protein when they just don't feel hungry or, you know, they feel like they don't have enough time in the day to eat that amount of protein.

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah. I would take that person generally again, I would start them at one gram per pound. So at 170, I would set their carb. Again for me, that's why it's even hard with coaches that work under me. They're like, how do you determine that? I'm like, I don't know. I just look and I know from 30 years experience. So it's hard to give the numbers, but I would say about 170, for the protein. I would say about 0. 75. If their body fat's above 20%, I might go 0. 5 on the carbs times body weight. Right. And then for fat, I generally am kind of like anti keto and high fat, just for physique transformation, and I'll come back to that in a second.

So I would generally go about 0. 3 to 0. 4 times body weight on fat. I've just found throughout the years and every bodybuilder who steps on stage does a low fat diet. So to guarantee that I'm going to get the results I want, I want lower fat at the end of it. Once we hit our target. If you're like, Hey man, I feel way better on higher fat. Cool. That's fine. We can do that forever. I don't mind that. I personally do that. It's easier, especially if you travel a lot. It's really hard if you travel a lot to find good quality carb sources and eat low fat everywhere you go. You're just eating a hundred grams of fat, you know, and so, but if we're guaranteed, if we're looking to guarantee fat loss, it's In a stretch of 90 days, six months or whatever, I'm going to bring your fat way down.

That's the first change I make with most people. I don't bring their carbs down. They always think, Oh, you're gonna bring my carbs. I'm like, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to bring the fat down. And it could be as simple as you're not even thinking like you're eating 80, 85 percent lean meat. I'm going to switch it to 90 and then 93 and then 96, four. So you might not even change what you're eating. It's just super simple. And then, as that person gets leaner, right, they, they come from one 70 down to one 60. Then maybe we'll have to drop their carbs a little, have to drop their fat a little.

That you can kind of play with as you go. But I would say this, don't change anything until you're sure you're at a plateau. Because you always want that ace up your sleeve. Because if you're like, oh I just dropped 10 pounds, I should cut my macros. No, why? If it's working, don't. You want as much energy, like you talked about before, to fuel workouts, to recover. Generally, if you, dieting is stressful in general. Your immune system is going to be weaker, your sex drive is going to be lower, your cognitive function is going to be lower, your sleep is not going to be as good. So we want calories to be as high as possible. That's one of the benefits of carb cycling too, is I can get those guys cranking up eating 5, 000 calories on a certain day.

We want it to be as high as possible because eventually you're going to hit a plateau at the end of, let's say 12 to 16 weeks of dieting. And eventually they're going to have to be really low. But don't do that until it's absolutely necessary. So be sure you're like seven to 10 days. Nothing's changed. Scale hasn't changed. I look the exact same. Okay. Now just remove a little bit, but nothing drastic. That's where people get in trouble is they'll start being like, Oh, I got to get ripped and they'll do all the cardio. High reps, low rest periods, cut their carbs down to nothing. It's like, okay, we hit a plateau in four weeks, where are you going to go now? Your thyroid's crushed, like your metabolism's crushed, there's nothing you can do, you know what I mean? So you want to make sure you start slow and give yourself that 12 weeks, you know, where you can make those changes. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Got it, got it. Awesome. Now, speaking of cardio. What are your views on cardio? Again, the training strength training is the most important piece is what I'm taking from this. So if people are in the mindset, like I want to, of course I want to build, maintain my muscle, but I also want to stay lean. And you know, people have the mindset of cardio is how you quote burn fat. So address that. And also what is your cardio preference, you know, just for general health as well, but also like for this fitness goal, what do you, what are your perspectives? What do you use with your clients? 

JAY FERRUGGIA: I would say a lot of people can build muscle and get lean with doing zero cardio. It's not the best thing for health and longevity, you should do some. So what I want to start people out with is low intensity zone two type cardio. So, and I would even say just three times a week for, if you're doing no cardio, which a lot of meatheads are, they're doing none. And I say, all right, let's start three times a week. 30 minutes and let's just do the old formula 220 minus your age times 70 percent, right? So that's for most people it's gonna be somewhere in between 115 and 130 beats per minute your heart rate, right? So we do that on something super simple. That's not gonna call. 

Again, I'm thinking of guys over 40. So incline treadmill walking boring and lame, but let's say you have knee problems and I put you on a bike for 40 minutes I'm like, oh no, I can't do legs the next day, right? So we got to keep all these things in mind. Put you on the rower and you already have poor posture and you're internally rotated. So we want to keep all those things in mind. We don't want to exacerbate joint issues by doing cardio when we're already risking that lifting. So incline treadmill is going to be the easiest, or if you get really bored, like I do, and you're going to do 30 to 40 minutes, let's say you go five minutes on the treadmill, five minutes on the cross country ski thing I'm trying to play. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Ski erg. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Yeah, yeah. And then five minutes on maybe the stair climber, five minutes on an incline treadmill and just back and forth, right? Like, it's less boring that way and the time seems to go way faster that way. So you could do that. But I would start at three times 30 minutes with your heart rate in that kind of zone to build that up to 40, 45 minutes, because most of the research has to really get the benefits. You do need to be at 45, but again, if we're going from zero, don't go zero to 45, slowly work up to that and then. But you got to be aware, slight increases in heart rate can really cause more fatigue if you're not in shape. So you might say, Hey, I heard I should be doing one 30 to one 50. Yeah. In a week or two, you'll be like, Oh, I'm getting sick.

I got a scratchy throat or runny nose. I can't get strong. You got to ease into it. And again, I always keep going back to the over 40 guy. Like the over 40 guy especially has to ease into things slowly. That's why I started starting at 115, 120. You're fine with that. You're not getting any overuse injuries. Knees, hips, back feel great. Cool. You're gaining strength. Everything's fine. Cool. Now we can increase the intensity. Let's take that 115, heart rate up to 120. And then to 125. Increase to 40, increase to 45 minutes. And then again, if you're trying to get super lean, you want to be magazine covered dice. Then slowly over time, we'll have to increase that to four times a week to five times a week.

And I would generally say one high intensity session per week, which is the opposite of what most people do. They're probably doing four or five high intensity sessions a week. You know, they're finishing their lifting and then doing high intensity intervals all the time. I start yet one and I like 10 to 15 seconds at first. Most people will be like doing 30 second intervals. Whereas if you look at the leanest people on earth, uh, not not competitive bodybuilders, but 100 meter sprinters. They're ripped, they're shredded, you watch the Olympics, everyone's diced. They're sprinting for 10 seconds. And it takes a lot of effort to go 100 percent for 10 seconds. You and I can't go true 100 percent for 30 seconds.

That's not legit. Like that's not happening. That's not true high intensity, true high intensities, 10 seconds. If you're not in good shape and it's up to 15 to 20, if you're in great shape. So I would go like 10 and Pavel Totsilin has talked about this a lot, where he calls it anti glycolytic training. So it's just easier to recover from. It's not so stressful on your system. So you do 10 seconds really hard. And then instead of resting only like 10 seconds. 20, 30, 40 seconds. Rest like two minutes. Like an Olympic sprinter, like if Usain Bolt's sprinting 10 seconds, he's resting five to seven minutes before he does another 10 seconds. So what I'll do is I'll go 10 seconds super hard on the assault bike and I'll get off it and just walk around.

If you're in a public gym, you kind of got to stand there and just hold the thing so no one grabs it, right? But I'll get off it and take two minutes rest. I'm not trying to set world records. I don't need seven minutes rest. Take two minutes, jump back on. The other nice thing about that is it's less junk volume. So instead of just peddling again, if your knees have wear and tear on them, I'm just peddling junk volume as opposed to just standing there. So you always want to be hyper aware of when I'm working with guys over 40, like what are all these little things that we can cut out? That's, you know, adding mileage to the joints.

SHAWN STEVENSON: This is great, man. There's so much. This is a masterclass. Like if people really understand this and who you are and the, the impact that you've had on the culture, you've been doing this for so long, man. You're one of the true OGs as far as like internet, fitness training and impacting folks. And it's like so often, even when I'm not with you, I bump into somebody who's worked with you or has been impacted by you and most recently was lat. Dr. Lat Mansour was sitting here. And he was just like yeah, Jay's just changed my life for you. I just love Jay. And man, I mean, it's just the results speak for themselves, but also, you know again if this is one to listen back to for everybody like you you've shared so many insights and just to remember this. Truly, like you don't have to get more advice if people really understand just a few of the things that you've shared and, and put those things into play for themselves.

So before I let you go, is there anything else like truly, and you feel it, the magic's in the air right now, you know, with this new year. And if people want to get in the best shape of their life this year, is there anything else that you would have them to be mindful of? To implement, to change, to remove in order for them to accomplish that goal.

JAY FERRUGGIA: I would just say just, you know, the things we covered and just really simplify and don't have shiny on object syndrome, kind of remove all the noise. Maybe follow less people, read less stuff, just be like, Hey, here's the basic things that's worked since the dawn of time. Do these things on repeat. I mean, I always tell clients just, Hey, let's set up four meals that you could every single day on repeat, right? Like how can we remove the guesswork and the decision fatigue, right? And just do the same things on repeat over and over again. I mean, if you're trying to grow your business, that would be the smartest way. Right? Like remove all this stuff. What are the main things that have the highest ROI stuff like that? Like, you know, do that with your fitness. Keep it super simple and just repeat, repeat, repeat. Don't always be trying new things. You're just not going to get like, it's fun. Sure. But you're not going to get the results you want, you know? So I would just say focus. Focus has got to be the word. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, I love that. I love that. That's the word for this year. Focus. Make that the mantra. My guy, what's the best place for people to follow you to get information, get information on like your programs and things like that. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: For sure. Just go to jay.fit, J A Y dot fit and everything's on there. You can sign up. I'll send you, I have a kind of a free ebook that I'll send them on stuff we've discussed here and stuff like that. So yeah, that's got all the socials and everything on their podcast. Jay.Fit. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Awesome. Man, my man, and by the way, if you are listening to this episode, make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel so you can sit in this room, this handsome motherfucker and see the Wu Tang Clan hoodie as well. And man, it's just one of the things we connected on, you know, music, fitness, food, you know, and just one of the best people that I know, man, real talk, so I appreciate you so much. 

JAY FERRUGGIA: Thank you so much, man. Feelings mutual. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: The one and only Jay Ferruggia. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. Again, this is about getting in the best shape of your life in 2025 and beyond, and beyond. All right, shout out to Buzz Lightyear, infinity and beyond. But this is our opportunity and it's really creating an environment that makes this more graceful and more ease for us to achieve these goals. And part of that is educating ourselves, surrounding ourselves with good people, with insightful people who can provide us with this knowledge. But listen, this Jim Rohn quote stays in my head.

Rent free. The great Jim Rohn. He said that no one can do your pushups for you. No one can do your pushups for you. There are many things that you can outsource in this life, but this is one of those things we have to apply ourselves, but we want to apply it with strategy, with intelligence. And with more ease and grace. Let's do the right amount again, following some of Jay's advice because our tendency is thinking and, and overdoing it. If we're not overdoing it, we're overthinking it about overdoing it. And so really getting down to the basics and also activating more joy. I mentioned that during the interview of just. You know, finding that joy component and people that like to hang out at the gym a lot that helps with health and longevity, just the joy in it.

You know, if you don't want to be in the gym a lot, giving yourself permission to do what is necessary, but also incorporate things in the world of fitness that you enjoy, that feel good to you, that you have fun with. Because joy is such a force multiplier of this thing being sustainable. Again, I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. If you did, share it out with your friends and family on social media, through the podcast app that you're listening on. You can send this directly to somebody that you care about. And we've got some epic masterclasses and world class guests coming your way very, very soon. So make sure to stay tuned. 

Take care. Have an amazing day. And I'll talk with you soon. And for more after the show, make sure to head over to themodelhealthshow. com. That's where you can find all of the show notes. You can find transcriptions, videos for each episode. And if you've got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome. And I appreciate that so much. And take care. I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.