Ep 185: The 7 Most Powerful Mindset Techniques to Lose Fat and Build Muscle with Adam Poehlmann

Interviews
Written By Philip Pape

Are you feeling stuck in a fitness rut? Are you confused by conflicting fitness advice? Struggling to stay motivated when everyone on social media seems to have a perfect body?

Today, Philip (@witsandweights) welcomes Adam Poehlmann, host of The Poehlmann Fitness Show and a dedicated health, fitness, and nutrition coach at Poehlmann Fitness, to discuss how your inner voice can unlock physical achievements. This episode tackles the often-overlooked aspect of fitness: your mindset. Adam dives deep into the internal locus of control concept, empowering you to take ownership of your health journey. He also gets personal, sharing his fitness struggles and triumphs, from overcoming the temptation of alcohol to setting a positive example.

Philip and Adam explore the power of a growth mindset, where setbacks become growth opportunities. They also talk about navigating social media effectively, avoiding comparison traps, and harnessing its potential for inspiration and learning. Packed with actionable tips and real-life experiences, this episode equips you with the mental tools to finally conquer your fitness goals. 

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:21 What's the first mental shift Adam recommends
9:16 (1) Developing an inner locus of control
15:31 (2) Mental contrasting visualization
18:04 (3) Implementation intentions ("if-then" planning)
20:48  Choosing fitness over alcohol
23:25 (4) Community and accountability
26:32 When Adam hit a wall in his fitness journey
33:30 (5) Self-awareness and reframing negative thoughts
41:35 Mindset on nutrition and exercise progression
43:45 (6) Building resilience and self-compassion
53:52 (7) Managing information "diet" and social media influences
59:22 Navigating social media and fitness trends
1:06:11 Where to find Adam
1:06:55 Outro

Episode resources:


Episode summary:

Achieving Fitness Mastery: Harnessing Mindset and Mental Power

We are joined by Adam Poehlmann from the Poehlmann Fitness Show to explore the profound impact of mindset on fitness. Adam, a dedicated health, fitness, and nutrition coach, delves into the intricacies of how our mental attitudes shape our physical outcomes. By embracing a growth mindset and maintaining an internal locus of control, we can overcome the mental barriers that often hinder our fitness journeys. This episode is packed with practical strategies and insights to help you transform your mental roadblocks into productive behaviors for true transformation.

The Role of Mindset in Fitness

The episode begins with a focus on the critical role of mindset in achieving physical self-mastery. Adam emphasizes the importance of accepting personal responsibility for one's health and actions amidst the contradictory noise in the fitness industry. He shares strategies for transforming mental roadblocks into productive behaviors, emphasizing that true transformation begins with mastering the mind. By embracing a growth mindset and maintaining an internal locus of control, individuals can overcome mental barriers and achieve their fitness goals.

Practical Tips for Strengthening Self-Mastery

Adam discusses the concepts of radical acceptance, personal responsibility, and self-efficacy, as popularized by Carol Dweck's influential book "Mindset." He emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and suggests seeking feedback from trusted individuals, such as a spouse or close friends, to identify areas where we might harbor a fixed mindset. Adam also touches on the impact of social media and credential fallacies on our self-perception, encouraging listeners to embrace vulnerability and continuously seek personal growth by being obsessed with learning and improvement.

Anticipating and Overcoming Roadblocks

The episode explores the concept of mental contrasting and its importance in achieving fitness goals. Adam explains how anticipating roadblocks and creating specific implementation intentions can help individuals navigate obstacles. By deciding in advance how to handle challenges, such as not wanting to go to the gym or dealing with tempting foods at a restaurant, individuals can better navigate obstacles and set themselves up for success.

Navigating Fitness Journey Challenges

Adam shares his personal journey and evolving motivations behind maintaining a healthy lifestyle, from abstaining from alcohol to setting positive examples in personal development. He discusses the importance of breaking from societal norms, such as avoiding alcohol, and how these decisions can inspire others and lead to broader lifestyle changes. Additionally, Adam emphasizes the importance of recording and tracking workout routines, harnessing mental power to stay motivated, and using social media intentionally for personal growth.

Harnessing Mental Power for Motivation

The episode delves into the mental strategies and tools used to stay motivated and consistent with fitness routines, even when enthusiasm wanes. Adam explores techniques like mental contrasting, visualizing workouts, and planning exercises to maintain motivation and avoid feelings of disappointment. He also touches on the challenges and personal growth experienced in maintaining a podcast, the importance of pouring energy into what brings joy, and overcoming self-doubt and limiting beliefs.

Overcoming Limiting Beliefs in Nutrition and Exercise

Adam discusses the psychological and practical strategies for overcoming limiting beliefs, particularly in the context of nutrition and exercise. He explains how shifting from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset can significantly impact our relationship with food. By focusing on adding nutrient-dense, low-calorie foods rather than eliminating "bad" foods, individuals can naturally improve their diet without feeling deprived. The importance of understanding the impact of food volume and fiber intake on satiety and overall health is emphasized, with references to modern hunter-gatherer tribes.

Understanding and Embracing Training to Failure

The episode explores the concept of strength-based training, emphasizing the benefits of working in lower rep ranges to build true strength and understand muscular failure. Adam discusses how reducing reps can enhance central nervous system performance and the importance of distinguishing between metabolic fatigue and actual muscular failure. Techniques like filming oneself to objectively assess form and pushing to true failure, even beyond perceived limits, are highlighted as valuable tools.


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Transcript

Adam Poehlmann  00:00

Just trying and putting yourself out there exposing yourself getting the practice and getting the reps and that will also make you more confident with your ability to challenge yourself and push yourself and so though it won't become physically easier, it will become mentally easier and there won't be an obstacle or a hurdle to overcome next time you need to push yourself.

 

Philip Pape  00:18

Welcome to the wit's end weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Whitson weights community Welcome to another episode of The wit's end weights Podcast. Today I'm excited to welcome Adam Pullman host of the Pullman fitness show, and a dedicated health fitness and nutrition coach at Pullman fitness. Adams approach is all about what we like here and that is personalized, sustainable Fitness Plans that address the body, mind and spirit. His journey is rooted in his belief that health goes beyond just losing body fat and building muscle. He helps gym goers transform their bodies through practical evidence based coaching without strict dieting, and I invited Adam on the show today to discuss the importance of mindset and maintaining an inner locus of control. Despite the loud, obnoxious and contradictory noise of the fitness industry. We're going to explore having a growth mindset strategies for overcoming mental barriers, and how to manage your mental and informational diet for a practical, productive approach to life. If you're struggling with motivation, if you're hitting mental roadblocks if your head is keeping your body from doing and getting what it wants and needs, Adams gonna help you out today. Adam has been training and coaching for 10 years. He currently serves all of his clients online. And when he's not training or coaching, Adam enjoys pursuing his faith hunting and spending time checking out any new coffee shop he can Adam, his wife and pup reside in Fort Worth, Texas. Adam, welcome to the show.

 

Adam Poehlmann  01:58

Thanks for having me. Thanks for let me really appreciate it. That was a solid intro. not your first rodeo. I

 

Philip Pape  02:03

don't know if you saw the video. I said. There you go. Yeah, no, I was I was joking. Because on our ag chat, just for the listener, I have this silly video I compiled, like a year ago with a bunch of people praising the intros, you know, and I'm like, I send this to people, you know, it's one of those kind of like vanity things, but sure, it's pretty funny. So alright, so you know, you talk a lot about the mindset and about how the key to transforming your body lies in mastering your mind. And it's something we give a lot of, I'll say lip service to, and there's like this woo factor to it for a lot of people. But in reality, a lot of people are absorbing tons of information. And a lot of it maybe is good information, and they're just not applying it, they're not implementing it for some reason. So for people who are stuck, they're frustrated, what's the very first mental shift that you'd encourage them to make? Right now listening to the show?

 

Adam Poehlmann  02:52

Yeah, that's a good question. I think in general, one of the first mental shifts I would encourage people to make is accepting that their health is solely their responsibility. And they are the only ones that are in control of their actions and behaviors. Yes, we can't control outcomes in life. But we can control you know, how we respond, how we behave, what we act on, so on and so forth. So I would say, first and foremost, accept responsibility. And as you alluded to earlier, maintain an internal locus of control, essentially, the idea that I'm in control of what I do or don't do, I happen to my environment, or I respond to my environment versus life happening to me. So that's essentially the first thing that I would say, once you accept that, then it is far easier to move into perhaps the practical, and the tactical of what it looks like to actually apply that belief. But if you go straight into it, without the belief, or the mindset, or the acceptance of that responsibility, it's far easier to go astray, not do what you want to do not do what you say you want to do, so on and so forth. So the radical acceptance, in my opinion, is the first step. Okay.

 

Philip Pape  04:00

Love that. So radical acceptance, personal responsibility, self efficacy, even which I get from that. So how does somebody become aware of that in the first place, in concrete way, and I can think of like statements that we make to ourselves, but just a really simple thing, where somebody's like, oh, that's maybe the reason why I'm not going to the gym, or, you know, is it a statement that they're making? Is it something people can apply right now and say, I'm doing that?

 

Adam Poehlmann  04:22

Yeah, absolutely. So what I think of is, and by no means in my mindset expert, or have a wealth of knowledge on this, but it's just something I've becoming more obsessed with lately. And I think of the book Mindset by Carol Dweck, and she really kind of popularized the fixed mindset versus growth mindset piece. And in that book, she goes through some different things that you can use to identify but essentially, we're not always fixed mindset. We're not always growth mindset. There are certain areas of our lives where we might have a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. So obviously, recognizing what you say or think about who you What you can do is one of the best things. However, sometimes that self awareness isn't there, or it's just become such a habit that we don't quite recognize it right. And so one of the things that I've found to be the most beneficial for me is going to my wife and asking her like, hey, where do you notice me having maybe a fixed mindset or having a negative attitude or some cynicism towards something? And she will say, you know, she'll bring certain things up, or I noticed this, or I noticed that and most of the time, I'm like, yeah, yeah, for sure. I don't disagree at all. I recognize that. And then sometimes she'll bring one up, and it causes me to pause and think, oh, shoot, you're right. I hadn't realized that, to this point. I was telling myself that I couldn't do something or that something was too hard, or whatever. And so having that perspective, from somebody else, who's not always, in your own mind, is extremely helpful in first understanding where you might have that fixed mindset, and how you can improve that.

 

Philip Pape  05:55

That must be really good for your relationship as well, because that's like that's being vulnerable right there. It's something that as soon as you said it, I realized, oh, even I can do that more often with my wife, I probably ask friends and clients everything more, to give me feedback than my own loved ones who really know me. 100%. And

 

Adam Poehlmann  06:11

the thing is to it's like, it really depends on who you go to, and what the relationship is like that you have, like, I have friends in my life where I won't go to them for those things, because it's that type of friendship where we're vulnerable in some sense, but I know that they're not going to just have a come to Jesus moment with me. They're more so looking out for just my feelings, which has its place. But then there are other friends and my wife as well. People in my life where it's like, I know that they're going to tell me the truth and love, even if it's something that doesn't sound good, or I don't want to hear so yeah. In those scenarios, it's very beneficial to go to those people, you're like, you know, what, they might not say the nicest thing or say it in the way that I want to hear it, but they are going to tell me the truth. And the truth is what I need. Yeah.

 

Philip Pape  06:51

And that's the art of asking for feedback. I mean, you know, if you don't ask for it, and you just hope to get it even when someone does give you feedback and might not be what type of feedback you're looking for, like one or two. Yep. Just something you said. You said earlier, kind of jokingly, I'm not an expert. I'm obsessed. I don't know if you just threw that out there if you've said that before. But that's really a profound statement. I want to glom on to that a little bit. Because I feel like people who are obsessed with things in this positive way, they are the experts. Like, I feel like there are too many proclaimed experts and people who are well book read or something like, even me on this podcast, I had imposter syndrome for the longest time, but it's like, I'm obsessed with it. I love it. I want to learn as much as possible. Somebody asked me a question. I don't know the answer, I'm gonna go figure it out. And that does make you an expert. I just want to say that just in case you had any doubts about that you are an expert, but it's because you're obsessed? No, see, that's

 

Adam Poehlmann  07:40

actually that's actually a perfect example of what we were just talking about. That's a great reminder. Because as you were just reflecting on that, I was thinking to myself, Why did I feel the need to say that, and I think if I'm being 100% honest with you, there are in the realm of being vulnerable. I think there are some potential insecurities or things on my mind about a lack of formal education, especially nowadays, you know, we like to praise people who have master's degrees and PhDs, as if they are the people who know everything, all the time, especially, I mean, social media reeks of them. And buttons. Yes, and we have a lot of, you know, credential fallacy where essentially, if they have credentials, it means they know everything. And they always know what's best, which absolutely, they have knowledge and expertise that sometimes goes beyond what I know. But that doesn't mean they know it all anyway. So I feel a lot of that pressure from social media. And maybe right there as an example of an area of my life where I have maybe a little bit more of a fixed mindset. Don't consider myself an expert on something, but rather, a lay person who is just obsessed. So that was a quality example of what we were just talking about. Yeah, it was

 

Philip Pape  08:44

totally planned out. This is 100% scripted to get to that moment. Exactly. No, it's pretty cool. Like, I love doing podcasts just in talking to people like this. Because yeah, we do have those different perspectives. And we're opening up and anybody again, and people are listening to this, like that is the point of this conversation today is finding out how you can really dig deeper into that. And hopefully, we've inspired you that, like us expert coaches here, you know, we have things that we need to unravel about ourselves and a third party that may see you better than yourself in one little area or another even a stranger, right? Yes, yes, absolutely. All right. So go into the inner locus of control, then we talked about responsibility and self efficacy, we want to kind of shift that eventually into practicality, right? practical actions. And I guess it's an that's a matter of how do we strengthen that locus of control, right? Because number one is acknowledging and having awareness, but then number two is okay, how do we really make the most of that? What do we want to jump from there, Adam?

 

Adam Poehlmann  09:38

Yeah, I mean, we can go anywhere, but just straight diving into practical tips. One thing I will say before, I think of a few that have really helped me is I think this is a part of, I don't want to say self mastery, because we're never going to master ourselves. We can't be perfect, but I think this is an element of self growth and self improvement with the internal locus of control, it's really, it's ultimately figuring out again, where those areas you do have that and what areas you don't. So in terms of practical tips, one thing that really, really helps me is understanding that I have done something just as difficult if not more difficult before. So that's a great way to give yourself that self belief and confidence that you can go ahead and do something. Or at the very worst, you can give a crazy amount of effort. Perfect example, is, I did my first Murph on Memorial Day, there are so many years where one of my friends is just texting, you know, all the guys in the group chat. Who's doing their Murph who's doing their Murph. And I hate to say it, but I was that guy. It's like, it doesn't align with the program. I'm running right now. So I didn't interfere with my recovery. Oh, gosh, yeah, seriously. And this year, I just had like an instant conviction where it's like, I am avoiding this, because it brings me outside of my comfort zone. Even though I would say when I train, I train very hard, and I'm uncomfortable, I have a level of discomfort. This is different. It's something I'm not used to. I haven't built that confidence there. And so anyway, I decided to do this Murph, and I'm going at it and I'm laughing at myself, because my gym only has an eight pound vest. I think you're supposed to do it with maybe like a 10 to 25 pound vest. It's my understanding. I didn't look into it until before this year, or before this year. And so I'm dying. I've got this eight pound vest on and I am dying. And I'm like, Okay, do I laugh at myself right now? Or do I like motivate myself? What do I do here? Because I'm three quarters of the way through, and I'm dwindling quick. So I catch myself thinking in that moment, I went back to my college baseball days where we had the most disgusting amount of conditioning I've ever seen any sports team have in my entire life, and but it was just for the pitchers. In that moment, I really wished I was a different position. And we were doing the craziest things. And I thought, You know what? Yes, it's been a few years. Yes, it's been some time since I push myself in that way. But I have the mental capability to get myself into that mode and keep going, doesn't mean it's gonna be easy. That doesn't mean it's going to go faster. But I have the confidence that I don't need to quit, and that I can finish this, because I've done something like that before. So that's one thing that I find very helpful when it comes to maintaining an internal locus of control. And then I would also say another practical one that comes to mind is visualization. Going back to college when I was playing baseball, there are a lot of stories coming up here. But I don't know if you've ever heard of it, or listeners have ever heard of it. But it's this psychological phenomenon, called the yips basically. And we use it a lot in golf. You see it a lot in catchers in baseball. Sometimes you see it in basketball with free throws. But it's basically any you'll see it a lot in sports, or endeavors or aspects of sports

 

Philip Pape  12:48

was that mentioned in one of the gymnast, the US gymnasts? What's her name? Was that the same phenomenon? She had? Was that something else? Yes.

 

Adam Poehlmann  12:53

I think in the gymnastics world, they call it the spinneys or something like

 

Philip Pape  12:57

that. It was a different term. But yeah, I guess, yeah, something that you have

 

Adam Poehlmann  13:01

mastered so well. But for some reason or another, you start to doubt yourself, and you start to psych yourself out. And something that is seemingly, so easy becomes so difficult. So for a catcher throwing the ball back to a pitcher, he'll throw it 20 feet over his head, or 10 feet left or straight into the ground, because he's so you know, in his head. And for me, that happened when I was in college, playing catch from anywhere from 10 to 90 feet was extremely challenging, not physically, but mentally. But once I got to a certain distance, when we were warming up and playing catch, it wasn't a problem. Because, you know, once we're at 120 feet, plus, I had to just rip it, you know, and when you're just letting it rip, you don't have to think about it. So long story short, I ended up working with the sports psychologist, and we go through a lot of visualization techniques. And that was a season in my life where I realized how profound visualization was. And I was able to apply that into my workouts later on when baseball was over. And I got into fitness. And I realized the power that it had an improvement in my performance. Even just thinking about the workout that I had. Going into the gym, I kind of walked myself mentally through like, Alright, what's that first exercise going to feel like? How am I going to think about performing the movement? How am I going to think about, you know, constructing my muscles? Or what am I thinking about during my rest periods, just having a quick visual walkthrough drastically improved, not just the quality of the workout in my performance, but also my enjoyment with it as well. And I guess that kind of brings us into another practical tip before I stop rambling here is having I think having a plan helps so much, especially working out because without a plan, it's really hard to visualize what you're going to do and how you're going to do it and how you're going to feel and and what's going to happen if roadblocks and obstacles come. But if you have a plan, you can walk yourself through that process as opposed to simply winging it. So those are a few practical tips that I would say can be very profound. And

 

Philip Pape  14:50

I think they're all interconnected in a profound way, in fact, so I'm a huge fan of science fiction. I'm reading a story now where they, they talked about the evolution of humans and one of the things that Eat is distinct and also allowed us to have a big brain was our ability to match the future, what you're talking about is like this continuum of, here's what we've done in the past, we've overcome it. Here's what I'm thinking about my performance coming up, and I have a plan to execute. It's all related to that idea of like, let's put ourselves in that identity of, and that time continuum, right, that just gets better and better over time. And I know you said like, we'll never get there with mastery. And I know what you mean is like, we strive for those things. We'll never get there. And that's maybe empowering because the rest of our lives, we can get better and better and better until the day we croak. You had a recent Instagram post, actually, to segue from visualization. You talked about mental contrasting as a technique. And I don't know if you want to share a little bit about that, where it's not just visualization, I think, but there's another piece of that that might even enhance the visualization you want to chat about. I'll have to try to remember exactly what the I have it all written out on my notes if you need if you need a reminder. Give me a little reminder. Give me a little insight. Okay. Yeah, you said visualization is powerful. But what it often lacks is challenges to overcome roadblocks. Yes, there you go. Yeah, no, thank you. Good, cool.

 

Adam Poehlmann  16:00

So what we often tend to do is, we idealize things, right, we idealize our lives, we put our dreams and aspirations and plans up on this pedestal, especially when it comes to fat loss. You know, whenever we're pursuing any fitness goal, not even fat loss, but losing body fat, building muscle building strength, changing your nutrition, we tend to project this unrealistic expectation of what the process will be like. So we only visualize ourselves going through this seamless, easy, perfect process, all the while knowing full well, that that's not how life works. So one thing that can help is as we're going through this visualization, is thinking through, okay, how am I going to respond, act and behave? If a roadblock comes, if a speed bump comes if a major obstacle or life event comes, then what will I do? And I think from there, that really provides a great segue into implementation intentions. And this is I would say, this is the in between of the you know, if you were to have the mindset or mental visualization piece on one end of the spectrum, and then you have the actual action. On the other end, I would say the implementation intention is kind of in the middle. So a very simple, you know, example that we could use there is, it's basically if then, so if something happens, then I will blank. But specifically with the mental contrasting, what we could say is, if I'm on the way home from work, and I don't want to go to the gym, then I will blank, then I will call my friends, so they can hold me accountable, then I will drive to the parking lot in front of the gym and sit there, then I will at the very least walk into the gym doors that I will at the very least, do my first exercise. And if I want to leave that for that, then I leave something like that. That way we have a plan beforehand, for when those obstacles and those challenges come up, the worst things that we can do is just dream about it and then not do anything, and not have a backup plan. Because we don't do well with a lot of decision making, we can develop a lot of decision fatigue. So one of the best things that we can do in our health and fitness is eliminate the need for decisions. You even seen little quirky traits like this in entrepreneurs, CEOs, you know, some of them just wear the same clothes. So it's like, hey, that's one less decision I have to make. And you might not want to be that drastic, but the principle still applies. So you know, if I don't have to make a decision and you know, work on my brain of like, am I going to go to the gym? Am I not? Am I going to do this? Am I not? What am I going to have for lunch, nothing is made, you are going to set yourself up for success. Because you don't have to think about it. You just have a plan, and even a plan to overcome those mental roadblocks. So that's kind of speaking into the mental contrasting little bit, you're just taking the visualization and the dreaming and applying a plan for when things just don't go your way. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  18:49

and you're imagining the roadblocks rather than, like it's taking it one step further than just saying, Well, I know I'm going to a restaurant on Saturday. Therefore that's going to be a roadblock. It's more of like creating out of thin air, the roadblocks that all can occur and then coming up with forks from those knowing they're going to happen like That's life. Life is full of those. Yeah,

 

Adam Poehlmann  19:11

I go to the restaurant. And it's not just that I'm going to the restaurant, but it's I'm going to the Mexican restaurant and they have the saltiest chips and of the best things in the world. And I tend to have two baskets just on my own. They're so good. They're so good, man. They're so good. And my friend Joey is always he's gonna be there. And he's always the one that's pressuring me to have a beer when I just don't want to have one. And then they have today's leches cake, which was one of my favorites. So you kind of have to walk yourself through that beforehand. And someone even listening right now might be thinking, Man, that sounds like a lot of thought. It's like, sure, as I'm, you know, rambling through it in the moment, it does sound like a lot, but imagine how hard it is to make those decisions. When you're in the moment and you have the stimulation of the conversation. It's last minute so you feel extra pressure. You don't have a plan. It'll be 10 times harder than then it will here for 10 to 30 seconds figuring out what you want to do before that event comes? Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  20:02

you know, something came came to mind when you said that friend of mine, he has a podcast, he just renamed it. What is the mental muscle up podcast? And he he quoted someone else. And I don't remember who he quoted that where he said, you know, the cost of thinking about something and doing something are usually the same. And it was being used in the positive sense of like, stop thinking and go do but you could flip it around here with what you're saying in that the cost of doing something in the moment, you could just displace that with the cost of thinking about it ahead of time. Meaning it's not like you said, It's no worse for you and it's actually gonna be a lot better because it takes out that fatigue at the worst time. Especially if you got a couple dosa keys and you write 100.

 

Adam Poehlmann  20:42

In the restaurant, yeah. Once you're a little bit of your, your inhibition is there, you're you're screwed.

 

Philip Pape  20:48

Yeah, it's funny. You mentioned that because too, because alcohol has been coming up a lot lately. I don't know. You know how certain things when you just notice them, you just all of a sudden noticed that a lot in the fitness space in the industry, on threads everywhere. I'm seeing alcohol all the time. Are you seeing that right now like that? For some reason? Yeah, I

 

Adam Poehlmann  21:02

think I'm seeing it in fitness. And outside of it. I feel like there is a you know, I don't keep up with like, market trends or anything like that. It's just more so I've noticed dry bars everywhere. Yeah. And movement. Yeah, yeah, I've noticed so many people, maybe not abstaining, but just really understanding that Hmm, this habit of mine has way more cons that drastically affect my life than it does pros. And I'm not too surprised to be honest with you, Phillip, because this is something that I've seen in coaching for 10 years, you know, I will always have a conversation with my clients about like, hey, what kind of food choices are we making? For sure? And do they align with our goals? And if they don't, are we you know, is it sensible? Are we going to enjoy it? Is it worth it? Whatever, yadda yadda. But not once in 10 years have I had a conversation that includes explicitly eliminating or forbidding something, even alcohol. And what I found is that more and more people as they pursue their health, just realize that they don't want it anymore, or at least don't want it that frequently or don't want the second one or want to save it for moments where it's actually worth it, instead of just making it a regular thing, you know, they don't feel the quote unquote, need to wind down with those two extra hefty glasses of wine every single night. Whatever it is, you know, and so I'm not surprised in the slightest, you know, it's, it reminds me of you mentioned the stoicism earlier. And I'm a Christian. So it reminds me of what we kind of see in the Christian faith in the scriptures that, you know, a lot of people say, Okay, once you accept Jesus, how does that work? Like you just accept Jesus, and then you're good to go. And like you can just keep being in a hole and you're set. Like, it's like, no, what happens is like, once you accept Jesus, the Holy Spirit, like starts doing a work inside of you. And you no longer want to do the things that you used to do treat people the way that you used to treat them. And a very similar thing happens with fitness, I would argue, you know, it's not so much about learning to hate something else. But the more you love working out, the more you fall in love with how you feel, the more you enjoy the benefits it gives you when you play with your kids and how you feel in the morning, when you wake up after you had a great meal the night before the last you want to have that extra drink or go to happy hour that third time that week. And I feel like for the people who are getting into fitness in this day and age, that's one of the things that they're noticing the most.

 

Philip Pape  23:15

Yeah, and it's in its own space like alcohol. You can't just lump it in with all food, right? Because it's not this source of nourishment or fuel or in any sense, right? Like it just has negatives. No. So to try to rationalize it by lumping it in there. It's more like a behavior. It's more like a separate little thing that you're doing it either almost like taking a behavior you have in your life not related to fitness that is just not serving you in any way totally rationalizing that I'm doing it because it's a good social experience. You know? Yeah, we tend to do that without I

 

Adam Poehlmann  23:44

think, I think it's taken so long to because it's so normalized. You know, having going to happy hour having a drink after every outing, or every outing is so normal. I even think of people still my age 30 You know, having weekend, you know, benders, and they're like, it's a normal thing for them. And I'm like, What are you doing with your life? But honestly, it's just normal, you know, so

 

Philip Pape  24:05

they brag about it. And it's like, oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, totally.

 

Adam Poehlmann  24:09

But I've noticed even more so that people are now like saying, hey, my family is you know, they look at me weird if I don't want to drink or my friends look at me weird. But then I've also noticed that the more they pursue that the less they noticed that like, oh, yeah, it's a normal thing. Now actually, it inspired so and so to stop having alcohol and people are almost kind of like being enlightened. You know, we're like, yeah, some wires are coming off. And they're like, Huh, I guess you're right. That never really served me that much. I enjoyed the taste of it here and there, no doubt, but like, Why do I spend $15 on a drink every time I go out to eat even though I know I'm not going to sleep well, and then I wake up oh, I guess it is normal for me just to have a water or a Diet Coke and call it good. Yeah. So then when people do it,

 

Philip Pape  24:48

yeah, yeah, no fair point. And then all the other things, you know, why am I getting more belly fat and why? You know, can't I not? Can I not sleep and on and on and on. Right? It goes with that. So and I guess when you talk about are being stigmatized or was stigmatized. But now you can be an inspiration for people. I mean, I think that principle is the same with a lot of what we do. That's good for us. I'll say, I always use the word good and bad. But you know what I mean, it's, it serves us that we're weird. We're outliers. Like, even what we do here, still is the percentage of people like, I don't know if you'd agree with that. But like, even going after mastery, or personal growth just seems to be the smallest minorities, which almost encourages me that I want to be doing that it must be the right thing, and hopefully inspire more people to do that.

 

Adam Poehlmann  25:32

Yeah, no, 100%, there's definitely a ripple effect that people notice there. And I think, not to go too far into the other, you know, I guess, piece of mindset, and people just feeling stuck in their lives. But I think so many people feel that way. Because they don't have an example of what it looks like to not be stuck, you know, not having alcohol might be a small version of that. But maybe there's a broader example of leaving their job and starting a career or being more present with their family, or I think of men in general men, not growing up with an example of what it looks like to be vulnerable, you know, and so we've got a newer couple in our city group at church, and like, he's completely foreign to that, in the last year that he's been with us, you know, he like has been so blessed by seeing other guys just be real about where they're at. And so whoever's listening, whatever that small thing is that right now, or right now might not be the normal, it's probably spinning some wheels for somebody in their head and making them consider living their life differently for the better. So keep doing it. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  26:31

yeah. Good point. So speaking of that, hitting a wall, then, just to learn a little bit more about you, can you tell us about a time where, you know, you hit a wall in your fitness journey, in particular, and had to mentally navigate that? Maybe it's recent, maybe it's a long time ago, but something where you maybe drew some isn't one of these deeper, wise lessons that you're sharing with us today?

 

Adam Poehlmann  26:49

Yeah, I mean, I, I would say honestly, I'm in one right now. You know, I, if I would say I'm in one, if you compare where I'm at now to previous years, you know, when I first got into fitness, I was in the middle of like, I not to be too dramatic, but like an identity crisis type of thing. Like, I wanted to be a professional baseball player my whole life. I spent every waking thought and breath and everything I possibly could on baseball. And then once that was over, I was like, What am I doing here? Like, what's my existence. And so my dad used to be a bodybuilder. And that's how I kind of got into fitness, he brought me to the gym, to distract me, essentially, and keep me from being a total bummer. And I fell in love with that, you know, because it's like, oh, I'm putting this work in, and I see change. And this is really cool. And then I was in college at the time, as well. And so long story short, I saw another trainer and thought, you know, that seems like a pretty cool job. And I can be flexible with hours with college. And I can, you know, make my way through that. And so I did that. And at that time, you know, you have your typical young guy stuff. I'm not dating anybody, I want to get attention, I want to be married at some point, where do I start trying to be hot, right? What's going to help muscles, so you get into that, and then that drives you and drives you and drives you, you start getting bigger, so you get driven even more, and then eventually, you kind of grew up a little bit. And it's not that to be grown up or mature, you don't care about those muscles anymore, but just your priorities start to change over time. And for me right now, like, I'm in more of a wall or a rut, in the sense that I'm just getting my workout in to say that I did it. And to say that or to keep myself from getting fat, essentially, I'm just doing the bare minimum, you know. So what I've been using is anything from extreme cheese, like really cheesy stuff, to stuff that's a little bit more profound. And you know, I don't know right now, if I'm on a trajectory to get to a spot where I feel driven all the time to go to the gym and feel all about it. And so I'm not sure if that exists all the time. But one thing that I do that is It's so cheesy film, but there's this playlist on my gosh, I'm like embarrassed to say it. But there's this playlist on Spotify called Machiavellian motivation. And it basically takes like audio from motivational speakers, Tony Robbins, David Goggins, all that stuff, and puts dramatic, like, score music with it. And if you were to play it in front of your friends at a car, you'd be like, I'm embarrassed for myself. But when you're in the gym, you're gonna move mountains, it's like the best thing in the world. So there's something little like that helps me kind of stir up that mental capability of like, okay, I can do this, this is good for me, I want to do this. And then there's other stuff like, visualizing or maybe even some mental contrasting of like, how am I going to feel if I don't pursue this? How am I going to feel if I give up on the gym? How am I going to feel if I, you know, just call it good with two workouts this week, even though I plan to do four, I'm not going to be proud of myself, I'm not going to feel good. I'm going to feel better if I do it. And that doesn't make me gung ho motivated, want to do it, but it definitely gets me to the gym and I get it done. So those are some things that I've been doing right now. And I you know, do that same thing I talked about earlier. I'll think about what I'm going to do in the gym. What exercise I'm going to start with, kind of run myself through how's my body feeling in this current moment? How will I want to warm up because of that? What are some things I need to watch out for and then I walked my son through that workout, and then I'm better able to go in there and feel as if I have done this before. And that helps so much. So those aren't anything like, they're not profound, but that's what I'm doing right now. I

 

Philip Pape  30:12

mean, some people listening and probably maybe not doing anything, right, and they're sitting on their couch or whatever. And I mean, hopefully everybody listen to this podcast, they're totally jacked, they got it all down, you know, 85% Stick. But I mean, the reality is, everybody, including people who are proclaimed or not proclaimed experts, and even their success of this, and they teach people this thing, we all have struggles. And I don't know, you may have had something coming up in your life that cause another thing to be the priority, or you lost motivation, because whatever drove you before, didn't drive you any more. And you're sharing these tools in the toolbox. Like, there's some external motivation. There's the music, there's the visual contrasting, which is great, because now you're imagining how much it would suck not to do it before you do, you don't do it, as opposed to waiting and then feeling the suck and then being like, letting that motivate you maybe next time. So yeah, man, it's good to hear this. How's the podcast going? Because I say that, because I know, there was a little gap there. I don't know, if that was like intentional, or you're just getting back on the mic. You know, it was intentional break.

 

Adam Poehlmann  31:12

Yeah. So essentially, the gap there was, I was going hard at it with not much intention, other than I'm gonna put out three episodes a week. And that's pretty much it. That's all I'm gonna do, and use it as a way to have long form content, because social media obviously is like the worst place for nuance and context and whatnot. And, you know, hopefully, help with the know, like, and trust factor, you know, my job is getting clients and taking them to their goals and easy way for someone to know like, and trust me is hearing my voice and talk and whatnot. So I just started doing that and was really, really consistent with it. And then there was a period where things got a lot more inconsistent, because I was going through some like mentorship, business coaching. So I was going all in on social media, I was going all in on email I was going all in on I'm serving my clients, even more so than I was in the past, which is like crazy to think it's like, how do you even expand on that, and the podcast just took a backseat. And now I'm kind of in a spot where I'm gaining more of a consistent rhythm. And this is one of the things Believe it or not, I don't love everything that I do. But podcasting is one of the few things that I love. Like I love it. The podcast itself, I'm sure compared to others, it's horrible. If I'm honest with you, I don't even look at the numbers. I have no clue. But I love having conversations, even if it's just with myself. And so for me, it's like, okay, I need to pour into what fills my soul and what gives me joy. And that's the podcast. And so that's the reason that you saw a little bit of a break there. And ideally, it'll maintain consistency again. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  32:37

and I wasn't trying to call you out is more of an observation, you know, like, not wondering, it's, I can relate to so much of that. Yeah, yeah, but about the podcast and wanting to make it yours and make it kind of serve you and the audience, because that's what we got in this because we love it. We had some personal experience with all of this. And that is going to help people the most is really tying into that and not just, you know, being a Wikipedia article of information. I say that because the one one star review I had, the guy called me a Wikipedia article for this. He said, It sounds like I was reading from Wikipedia, you know, and that's when it gets to like, the limiting beliefs and the Yeah, the self doubt. And you're like, Well, you've got all these five star reviews. What about those, you know, and we do this to ourselves, dude, yes. 100%. That's one of the mindset. So like, you know, people listening, this is real, right? Like, this is real stuff. Real life effects everything.

 

Adam Poehlmann  33:25

Can I Yeah, go ahead, please.

 

Philip Pape  33:27

Got some other stuff. Please. Jet? No,

 

Adam Poehlmann  33:29

you're good. One of the things. There was a period at the beginning of this where you asked me a question, and I really stumbled because I was like, what was the beginning of his question? I forgot. I should just stop the mask. But you reminded me as you talked about the negatives, and one of them was the fact that like you said, we just focus on these negatives, you have all these five star reviews, you get that one star, you get that one negative comment that one troll on social media. And you're like, do I actually know what I'm talking about? Right now, on paper, yeah, like, on paper, you're like, This is user 123456. And it's a dog cartoon with sunglasses. That's a profile picture, private profile, you're like, on paper, this should not matter. But Emotionally, it matters so much. The most

 

34:13

value that I got from this was the fact that I had someone that I could talk to about anything, and that there was going to be no judgment, it was just Well, here are your goals, here's the best way that you're going to achieve it. And then let's work together to help you feel inspired and motivated to do that. And a lot of people out there trying to be coaches and not all of them have done the work and also just be a genuine person that is positive and coming from the heart in terms of wanting to help and Phillip really embodied all of those qualities. I would recommend him to just about anyone that's looking to achieve goals in that realm of their nutrition and building new habits.

 

Adam Poehlmann  34:58

So I heard someone say once i wish i To remember where I heard it, but our minds kind of focus on the negatives and they use this illustration where you know if you have this bowl of your favorite what's your favorite ice cream?

 

Philip Pape  35:08

Peanut Butter Cup?

 

Adam Poehlmann  35:09

Go it. Okay. What brand? Oh,

 

Philip Pape  35:12

yeah, anything but like, I'll go to Dairy Queen or something like that, you know, like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups lizard or something you need to Yeah.

 

Adam Poehlmann  35:19

So you have your your your Reese's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream, right? And then you have a cockroach on top. Okay, exactly, exactly. It's like that cockroach just touched the top, you're not even focused on the ice growing. Right. But if you have a bowl of cockroaches, and one dollop of your or, you know, scoop of your favorite ice cream cockroaches, so I think about right, and it just kind of illustrates how easy it is for us to focus on the negative, we have to put so much work in to focus on the positives, we have to go out of our way because our default is to focus on the negative. And tying that back into earlier when I said that I kind of forgot the beginning of your question, when you asked about the practical tips. Before getting into the practical tips. One of the most important things is understanding the power of your mind. So you can believe that the practical tips will work. And there are a few things that come to mind with this. And there are some papers that have illustrated it. But we all probably understand the placebo and nocebo effect, you know, you give someone a sugar pill, they think it's something that physiological effects will come into play. You give them a no SIBO where it's like you just tell them that something's happening. They believe it. So two great examples. One was like, it's I think I don't even know if it's called the milkshake experiment, but that's what it's commonly called, where two groups were given the same milkshake and one group it was told, I use this with my fat loss clients a lot. One group was told it was very calorie dense, you know, satiating, filling milkshake, the other group was told it was a very, quote unquote, sensible low calorie milkshake. Well, the group that was told it was a sensible milkshake had far more hunger, they felt deprived, and they felt like they felt fatigued. Whereas the satiating milkshake group, the ones that were told it was a shame, we're like, I'm great, you know. So even when it comes to calories, how we think we're going to feel is often how we feel there was another one that took two groups of people one at clerk maintenance, one at clerk deficit, and they did the same thing told them, hey, you're in a deficit, hey, you're you're not. And the group in a deficit experienced? Well, this group was told they weren't in a deficit, even though they were experienced less hunger than all that stuff. And then another one that makes me think of the, the effect is, these took these college aged guys, which is like every study, but they took these colleges guys, and then told them that they were taking steroids. And I think they're, I'll have to remember what exercise I want to say it was leg press bench and something else, but increased by 33%. And it was like, it wasn't in a long period of time, like it was quick. And so our minds are far more powerful than we give them credit for. And so before even going into the practical tips, is really just understanding and accepting that, hey, your mind can take you to places that your body thought it could never go. And you need to just train it. And when you accept that's the truth, and then go into the practical, you'll move mountains. It's crazy. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  38:09

it is true, how powerful it is. And sometimes, like when I think of going to the gym, so I'm recovering from shoulder surgery last year, it's like almost a year ago, right? That's a doozy. rotator cuff is tough, because like you recover, you recover, you recover. And then there's like the setbacks because you end up pushing too hard. And bursitis and all that comes up. So yesterday was the first time I did like, just overhead press work in a couple months, like I had gotten to it. And then I had to get off of it to kind of recover it and got back to it. But my mind was telling me like, there's no way right, because, you know, just opening up my arm and trying to press over, there's this little bit of soreness and pain there. Right, but it's manageable. And you just have like you said, you just have to tell yourself, no, this is 100%. Possible. My trainer said I'm good to go. Like just do it. And then you realize you do it right. Yep. And it holds us back as much as it could help us move forward. So I think that's the power of it is like, how much can give us the power to move forward?

 

Adam Poehlmann  39:03

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's what that's why I brought the ice cream thing. So it's like that power is going to be there either way? Are you going to let the default override and think about the cockroaches? Or are you going to use it to your advantage and think about the ice cream or, you know, whatever the positive outcome is that you're wanting?

 

Philip Pape  39:19

So in practical purposes, then this sounds somewhat tied into we talked about limiting beliefs on the negative side, right? Like we're telling ourselves things and then we reinforcing in our mind, shifting from that to maybe releasing those and then embracing new beliefs. What is the practical that's what people want to know, like, how do I make myself think I'm in a surplus when I'm not right? Or is that like when you're in a deficit and you're not at a deficit because either your your weight is going down, or you're tracking your food, you're gonna know so and maybe that's not the example that you'll be able to apply to yourself. But totally, there definitely

 

Adam Poehlmann  39:51

is an element right there of like, for example, those people being studied were lied to right and you can't lie to yourself. But that's the point is like understanding that a lot of how you feel comes from your mind can help you have that positive self talk. And then that will improve over time, even though you know you're doing it. But as far as a practical from a food standpoint, and even taking that calorie deficit standpoint, one of my favorite things to go over with people, and I think it's if I'm being 100% honest with you, a part of the reason, the whole notion that, you know, under a certain amount of calories, like the imaginary 1300, or 1200 calories is inherently bad is all over the place, is because even though it's not scientifically true at all, is because we lack an abundance mindset with food, especially when it comes to a calorie deficit. So when we focus on adding, and not taking away, that's huge. So all that means is like you are just you're adding low calorie, nutrient dense foods to your diet, instead of looking at your diet and saying, Hey, what are all these quote unquote, bad things or hypercaloric things that I need to take away? We say, What am I lacking that I can add, I'm not getting any spinach, and I'm not getting any greens. And let's add some spinach in there. I'm not getting any fruit in on a regular basis, let's add some of that in, I'm not getting any fiber way below the minimum RDA, like I should be getting more, and let's add more of that. And what tends to happen is the stuff that is bad or does not align with your goals. And what you want out of your nutrition will find its way out. But as you're doing it, you're not doing it from like a depravity mindset, you're giving yourself stuff you're adding and adding and adding and adding and adding. So that is going to help you psychologically, so with a nutritional piece, that one is huge. In terms of the workout piece. So hold

 

Philip Pape  41:34

on before before we go there, because there's a few different scenarios, I want to break down on that fat loss versus like, you know, when we're talking about getting more protein or whatever, obviously, you can apply to anything, right, this additive approach. And just something just came to mind, like I'm in a fat loss phase. So you know, getting the hunger, I know that if I add a huge bowl of strawberries, you know, to whatever I'm eating in the afternoon, even if I have a craving for a granola bar or whatever, adding that in is both going to serve what you said, like the nutrients and it's gonna fill up my stomach, and all of a sudden the rest of the days. Yes, hunky dory.

 

Adam Poehlmann  42:05

So you're used to that hyper palatable, highly processed diet. That's just our environment. You know, it's, it's, we're a product of an environment. So it's goes back to the alcohol piece, you know, you just don't know what you don't know. And so once you realize, okay, the way we used to live, and I'm not saying that, you know, we should live like our ancestors it all the time, but like the way we used to live, we had food when we were hungry, and then we had food that was very low and calorie and very satiating, we had a lot of it. I was reading a few studies of a couple of weeks ago, I think that they even in modern hunter gatherer tribes, some of these guys are getting like 80 to 100 grams of fiber a day. It's absurd. But their calories are not crazy at all, because they're just it's plants and fruits, veggies all the time. And so you don't know what you don't know. But once you start realizing, oh, okay, if I just pursue more whole natural nutrient dense foods, especially fiber, and I pursue food volume, strawberries, watermelon, whatever, I can have so much food without having tons of calories. I can actually more food volume than I did before when I was eating more calories.

 

Philip Pape  43:08

Yeah, Justin Caudill was on the show. I don't know if you've talked to him yet. But you'd love to guy. He's an anatomist. Like he did cadaver research. He was head of like the human anatomy lab. So he comes from that perspective. And he's Oh, sweet. You saw the gut health and the hodza tribe, and how they like the children have, they have large bellies, but it's not descended from like malnutrition, it's because of all the gas being produced by the gut bacteria from all the fiber the interesting, right? And because they have such diversity and such a like large microbiome. Anyway, you mentioned that they also eat a lot of honey, right, which is nutrient dense, but it's like a good balance part of their, you know, calories that they get on the side topic.

 

Adam Poehlmann  43:45

No, you're good. And then I was just gonna say with the workout piece, that one's a little harder, right? Because working out is in the moment, hard. It's physically exhausting, it's exerting. And one of this is going to be like someone that seems like will die. But one of the best pieces I can give, one of the best pieces of advice I can give to people is what I tell my clients when it comes to progressing, and adding the next weight is just try and who cares if you don't get the reps that you're supposed to? If you don't give yourself that opportunity to stretch yourself? How are you ever going to know what you are capable of, and what you may not be capable of? You know, so instead of wondering, ooh, shoot, you know, I only got 10 reps in the leg press with 200 pounds. I don't know if I can go to 210. What is someone going to come up and kill you? If you get eight reps with 210? Go for it. Right? So there's an element of creating that self belief to the reps and then there's also an element to of exposing your body to that stimulus because your body will respond. I think that the human body is one of the most profound adaptation machines we've ever seen. And it will respond to whatever it is that you're doing. Do we have physical limitations? Absolutely. We can't turn into the Incredible Hulk we have a ceiling in some regard. But most of us don't have any understanding of what our ceiling is you I think that if we look at most, again, another study that I'm not remembering the title of, but if we look at elite power lifters, right, they supposedly can access upwards of like 96% 97% of their total strength, whereas the average human being can access maybe the 50 to 60%. And so there is an immense amount of untapped potential that your body will let you do, or get to, if you just give it the opportunity, just say, Hey, buddy, I need you here. It'll come through for you. So just trying and putting yourself out there, exposing yourself getting the practice and getting the reps in, that will also make you more confident with your ability to challenge yourself and push yourself. And so though, it will become physically easier, it will become mentally easier, and there won't be an obstacle or a hurdle to overcome next time, you need to push yourself. So

 

Philip Pape  45:47

that's a really good one. And we got to sit on this one for a bit, the just try thing because in my early days of doing strength training, I did a starting training program, right, which is sets across a five reps. And you're kind of forced, when you do sets across like you want to get those reps. So it almost like it kind of pushes you to go past that lizard brain limit. Because you're like, I gotta get five. Like it's not I don't have eight to 12. I'm going for an RPE. But what are your thoughts about newer lifters especially, or even intermediate who just aren't pushing hard enough? They're not getting anywhere close to failure they think they are? And if you said document your RPE? They'll they'll say nine, you're like, that's a six? What are your thoughts on all of that? And maybe a simple approach for newer lifters to just get in the mindset of hitting that rep closer to failure? Besides just try because I love I love just try I do. But is there a mechanistic way we can even like mistake proof that early on? Yeah,

 

Adam Poehlmann  46:42

that's a really good question. You know, I would imagine there's going to be a lot of variance with that. But the first thing I would say Phillip is training in a strength based rep range. So a rep range that focuses on the adaptation of strength. And so that's low to maybe moderate. This is one of the first times in my life that I realized how strong I could be. Because before I was so obsessed, like I said, with building bigger muscles, and so the thought of like, going below eight reps, I was like, what, that's who would do that, that's stupid. And I started getting into deadlifting. And I would do two reps and three reps. And I was like, Whoa, there's a lot here, like my central nervous system can do a lot that I didn't think he could before. So I would say, lowering reps a bit, can definitely help. Because one thing that I think happens when you have higher, maybe more moderate rep ranges is that you start to feel that burn, you start to feel that metabolic stress, you know, that pump, and that's definitely a level of discomfort, but it's not like mechanical or technical failure of the muscle. Whereas with strength and those lower reps, you don't build up a lot of that metabolic damage. So you don't get that sensation before you physically cannot move anymore, like you like literally cannot get it up. And so I think that's an easy way for you to introduce yourself to what it actually looks like to get to failure, then once you start to get into those more moderate rep ranges, then you just have to get to the hurdle of like, okay, am I convincing myself that I'm getting to failure because I'm fatigued. And I'm feeling that stress, and I'm feeling that strain. And so I want to slow down and stop, or is this an actual, I'm giving every last bit of energy that I possibly can, and the machine or barbell or weight literally is not moving. That's the first thing. The second thing, and I would definitely recommend doing this with machines. Not so much with free weights, even if you have a spotter. But intentionally go to failure. Practice it 100%, practice it, not all the time. But like pick a workout or one exercise each workout the last set, take it to absolute failure. And then once you think you've reached failure, pause for like two seconds and try to do another rep, and then do it again and do it again. Because this is where the mindset we can use our mind to kind of trick ourselves and I even catch myself doing this is one of the best ways to look at RPE is the velocity that we have in our reps, like how much our reps are slowing down. Because RPE can be a little subjective, you know, it's that feeling how did I feel like what was a nine, it's like, well, the speed of your rep from the second rep to the 10th rep was the exact same, but you saw the 10. So clearly, you weren't, you know, reaching failure. But if we look at our velocity, and rep is really slowing down, and it is like a grind to even move it another inch, another inch or inch, then you know you're really getting to that failure. But you can easily trick yourself, you know and think Oh man, I'm really tired. And then that year, yes, seventh rep is pretty quick. And then that eighth rep all of a sudden just slows down drastically. Right? And you're like, you're like, Okay, I'm convincing myself that I'm fatigued here. But learning to push through that and actually just go through failure, I think is really one of the best learning experiences you can have just getting those pun intended reps in so you can familiarize yourself with what true failure looks like. So hopefully that's a little bit more helpful. Right. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  50:00

no, that's great. And of course, if you have a coach, if you have someone doing form checks, they'll be able to see the speed as well and kind of know what's going on. Yes.

 

Adam Poehlmann  50:06

And that's another thing, actually, thank you for actually saying that. filming yourself is huge. Because when we, this is someone you know, I've, I did training. In high school for baseball, I did training in college for baseball, I've been working out for a very long time. And it wasn't until I was able to fill myself more in the gym, I would say, in the first few years of me personal training that I was actually able to see how I was pushing myself in ways that were maybe too much because my form got way too sloppy, or not at all right? Because I was stopping because of the burn or whatever or I was psyching myself out, filming yourself really is a great way for you to remove yourself from the first person and look at it from the third person. And it helps at least in my opinion, it helps you look at what you're doing more objectively doesn't matter if you have a coach, you know, to look at it, you, you look at how you're doing that how you're performing that set. And that's really going to give you a lot of insight that I almost guarantee you you did not pick up on when you were in first person mode, going through it yourself.

 

Philip Pape  51:09

100% I think that works for anything visual, even even like public speaking, anything, just videoing yourself. And one last thing with failure, I just realized, you know, let people been talking about lengthen partials a lot. There's this like, movement of lengthen partial finishers. And I was thinking when you were talking about going to failure, like, if you were to think, okay, my set is going to have lengthen partial finishers at the end, you wouldn't want to start those while you still have gas in the tank to finish full wraps. So that might also create an interesting mental position of like, I'm gonna do the lengthens. But no, wait, I could do a full wrap again and kind of bridge that gap.

 

Adam Poehlmann  51:43

100%? No, absolutely. There's so many there are so many things to consider there. And I you know, the lengthen partial thing is, I think just yet another example of missing the forest for the trees, I think could it have its time and its place? Absolutely. I've never programmed that in for a client, I would probably never program that in for myself. Because for me, it's you know, if I can get to a point where I can put more weight on for the last set and do lengthen partials, like you said, does that mean that I left stuff on the table during the second set, and during the first set. And for me, and I think it should be for anybody. If you're progressing your workouts and you're tracking them, you really want to look at how you compare from set one of one exercise to the next day or the next time you did the workout to that set one, you could compare set two to set two and set three to set three if you want to. But you're in a fatigued state. So it's a little harder to assess and judge progress. So for me, you know, if I would rather spend my time and energy trying to figure out how to optimize I should say maximize set one, and then increase that in the next workout rather than thinking, Okay, let's go ahead and just absolutely trash my hamstrings on set 300 set and add more weight. Even though I probably could have done more before that. So if you're already doing that stuff and you want to like you know, just crank it out just to see what happens and you've got everything else dialed in. Go nuts, but I mean, hey, Philip, most people aren't even writing down their basics down. Yeah, they're not, they're not writing down. They're not writing down their their reps, their weight, their exercises. They're even switching workouts every you know, few weeks, which I think can be even too early, sometimes sometimes even doing a new workout every day. And so it's like, how do you know you're progressing? And so, yeah, anyway, that was

 

Philip Pape  53:21

and it's easy to take this stuff for granted, right? Even though you see clients constantly come in that don't even know the basics, and you have to re educate them. But then you're like, doesn't everybody know this stuff? But

 

Adam Poehlmann  53:31

it don't make anybody like listening feel better? Like I kid you not? I'd never seen would ever seen myself programming that in my workout. It's like, Why? Why am I going to spend my mental energy doing that for something that maybe gets less than a percentage of growth? You know, anyway,

 

Philip Pape  53:45

so yeah, I guess the last topic because there were a lot of things we could talk about with mindset. I wanted to talk about like this diet, we have have information, right? Like, I've been thinking about this a lot, because, you know, I have a friend that does a podcast about how you shouldn't binge podcasts, right? You should like, listen, mindfully and take action. And I heard another guy, a podcast podcast, which I listened to those See, I listen to a lot. And he's like, stop listening at one and a half speed. If you're doing that, why are you even listening? Like you're just trying to cram in more information rather than just absorb it. And then there's just the sheer quantity if you're on Instagram and Twitter and threads and Facebook, which a lot of people are on like eight social media platforms. It's just like, bombarding you. How do we deal with all that? Like? That's a big question. It's a big loaded question, but it does affect your mind. And it affects like you take an action sometimes not taking action because you're just like, I don't even know where to go. Yeah.

 

Adam Poehlmann  54:40

Yeah, absolutely. It is. We definitely live in a consumeristic culture and mindset, not even the sense of like materialism but information to all we do is consume. I couldn't think about it at church. Sometimes Sometimes I catch myself being like, Oh, I wish so and so is speaking, you know, because I think I enjoy it more. It's like What am I here to consumer? Am I here to like serve? What's the deal? And so we can easily do that with podcasts with social media with whatever it is. And so one thing that came to mind as you're going through that fill up was like, intention. I felt like, that's the word that came to me. What's the intention? us getting on social media and consuming a certain type of content? What is the intention of turning into a podcast? Am I here to fill space? Or am I here to learn a specific thing? And so I think one thing that is extremely helpful is understanding what you are trying to learn at this current time. One thing, one thing and make it very specific, not hey, how can I improve my nutrition? Like, one specific thing, meal planning, I want to learn everything that I possibly can about meal planning. And these are the questions that I have about meal planning. Right? How do people that are so busy fit it in? How do you time block time to do that? How do you grocery shop for that? I think, actually, at the very worst, thinking through those questions, but at the at least, or the very best writing them down. And then using those platforms, or those long form, yeah, podcasts, whatever, to get those answers. But I think what happens oftentimes, is we just open up the screen with no intention, then we just consume, and consume and consume. And so we're just left with this paralysis by analysis. And we're left with this doubt, and we're left with with so and so said this, and so and said that so and so said that, I mean, heck, that's one of the reasons most of my clients come in, they're like, I just need to clear the noise. And I need someone to tell me what to do. Because all this is too much to, to take in. And I'm constantly doubting myself. So anyway, figuring out what the intention is and what you're trying to learn. And I would do that for a period of time, maybe a week, about one thing, or a month about one thing. When you look at people who do really well in life, they take time to master and focus on one thing really, really well. Right? They're not people who are jumping from this to that, this thing and that thing, and whatever. You know, it would be weird. If you saw a professional baseball player, going through their practice routine, and for 10 minutes, they practice basketball for 10 minutes, they practice football for 10 minutes, they practice hitting for 10 minutes, they practice pitching, like, what are you doing? Right? If you're a pitcher practice pitching. So same thing, we want to get very specific with what it is we're trying to learn, and pursue that intentionally. And then once you're done, you've written down what you want to do, throw it away, and then apply it. And then rinse and repeat. But the problem is we consume, we get it in our mind. And then before we have a chance to process and think we've shoved the next thing in there, and then we shove the next thing in there over and over. And so stuff starts to slip out. So practically speaking, that's what I do. So I will pick, I will get a book that physically, I can't listen to it, you know, one and a half times speed, I can't, you know, like change my reading speed. People say you can't I haven't tried. But it slows me down is the point. I have a pen, I circle I underline, I bookmark things. And then I go back. And I think, what was I originally like reading this book for? And what things that I save helped me with that. And then how can I go apply that into my life. And then for a period of time might be a few days, it might be a week, it might be six months, I apply those things into my life. And then I will go on to the next thing if I feel the need or I will revisit that same thing, if I feel like those answers still aren't there. So I don't know if that helps at all, or clarifies.

 

Philip Pape  58:16

It helps. It helps a lot. I mean, it explains you in a sense from what you're saying, in fact, we're going back to talking about being obsessed about something and obsessed in a positive way, like putting all your energy into one thing, because we're so distracted. And I think back to like, I used to play saxophone a lot. And actually, I want to pick it up more frequently than I do. It's one of those things, you know, like, I gotta be intentional about it. But you know, you've always heard it takes 10,000 hours to master an instrument, and you have to just constantly apply yourself and fitness is the same way but also information. Before we go on to this. You mentioned note taking in the books. Have you heard of the book, The well educated mind. It's by Susan wise Bauer and she's actually in the homeschool community because we homeschool our kids. Oh, and she wrote a book for mothers to use as curriculum that we've been following for years. She wrote a book for adults on how to do what they used to do, which is actually dissect the book, like a classic and go through it multiple times in an organized like hierarchical way. So you might find that interesting as a method or I'm absolutely going to add that so that's what I did mine. Okay, that's a good one. Yeah. Anyway, so when people are doing all this with podcasts, like I say podcasts, but it could be anything else. Instagram, Facebook, whatever. How would you say you apply that to that? Because I see definitely how it applies to books, podcasts, you ask questions, you dig down into a topic, you seek it out, you start to like find the fluff and the nonsense and you jettison that and it converges, right. Like I've been through that myself with fitness I knew all the nonsense five years ago, and now I know a little bit less nonsense, so I'm a little bit more educated. Exactly. Or I can spot it. Let's just put it that way. But like I feel like social media is kind of nefarious, just in itself, by definition in that there's, you know, you're the product and I'm trying to give you ads. And that's the whole point of it. How would you use Instagram? For example, to do this?

 

Adam Poehlmann  1:00:05

Yeah, so this one's tough for sure. Because you you are, you can't change the way it works, right? It is, in and of itself a short form quick, you know, fix dopamine hit. So you can't change the nature of social media, this kind of goes into the internal and external locus of control, can't change the nature of social media, that would be ridiculous. But you can adopt an internal locus of control, and change the way that you use the social media or the way that you respond to it. So one of the things that comes to mind and the first thing I thought of as having utilizing that saved feature, okay, now, you still have to go a step further than that, right? So for me, I have a lot of different folders in there, right? So I have folders on business, I have folders on nutrition, I have folders on coaching and training concepts. I have a hilarious, funny folder, I'll have a Kaylee folder where like, she'll think this is funny, then I'll show her, you know, but those folders don't mean anything, if you don't go through them. And so what I would say is save stuff that is truly important to you. And then set aside some dedicated time to go through that folder and say, okay, is this something that I really like, cared about? Because sometimes in that moment, you're like, well, I'll save this recipe, I'm for sure gonna make that I saved it two years ago. Clearly, you don't think you didn't need it, so you can throw it away. But if there's stuff where it's like, oh, yeah, this was profound, then you can actually figure out how to apply that into your life. I think that's one way you can use social media. Another way, is obviously filtering. You know, if there are people that you follow that you haven't applied a single piece of advice from unfollowed him, like, I don't care how good their advice is on social media, you didn't do anything with it, it would be far better for you to take the mediocre advice that you constantly apply and keep pursuing that than to take the great advice that you never apply. So unfollow people, like I do that all the time. Like, I'll go through and be like, Who have I not seen anything from? Who do I not listen to? Who is just kind of a piece of flash with information, but I haven't utilized any of it unfollow. And so that's what I would recommend there as well. And then in terms of the actual platforms themselves, I would honestly, you know, actually not that I think of it. If you find yourself not using social media for the things that you claim you're using it for, like learning things and getting information, maybe just make social media purely about entertainment, and go to podcast for fitness, go to books for fitness, go to longer YouTube videos for fitness, whatever it is, and maybe just use social media purely for entertainment. That's maybe another solution. Again, not a social media expert. But that's one thing that comes to mind. So I don't know, I don't know if that's helpful. I don't know what you would add to that.

 

Philip Pape  1:02:37

Yeah, yeah, no, I, I'm just I'm giving you the space here. Don't put me on the spot. No, but seriously, for me, I like I do like the idea that platforms have a purpose. And maybe we're trying to shoehorn it into the wrong thing. Because like, I personally, I don't know how much I learned from IG, except occasionally, I'll see some gold come out in a in a video where somebody has really taken the time to give some value, you know, and that's the difference between people are just like cranking out viral stuff versus, you know, they really are trying to help with their message, even though they're also trying to get followers. And like you said, you could save it or you know, learn from it. It's

 

Adam Poehlmann  1:03:12

very Yeah, it's very, it's very rare, I would agree I can, I can think I can think of off top my head, I'm sure if I went through it, I could, but I can't think off the top of my head, the last time that I saw a post or a reel where I was like, holy smokes, this is life changing, you know, like this, I changed everything in my business or everything in my marriage or everything, whatever. Because of this, what actually ends up happening is I'll see something, I like it, go to the profile, go to their other stuff. And then that's where stuff comes in. You know, and I always tell people all the time, they usually say something like this, where it's like, Man, I, there's just all this information out there. And I'm in the same spot. And sometimes I'm like, Do you really think everybody's free information is going to, like help you as much as their coaching or their long form content or whatever. No, like it's not, it's not going to. So yes, utilize it, if it helps for sure. But go into the rabbit hole a little bit. And don't be afraid to do it. Utilize something that is maybe paid it costs you $20 For an ebook, but at least you can go all the way through it and read it and actually take something versus just scrolling on to the next reel. Because that's another thing that's kind of unhelpful with the reels of the post is that we don't have enough time to digest and process what we just consumed. It's on to the next thing. I guarantee you if I were to scroll right now for five minutes, and you were to ask me what I watched, I would probably remember the one funny video that I liked died laughing and saved it and I would not remember anything else no matter how profound I thought it was in that moment. So yeah, anyway,

 

Philip Pape  1:04:34

it's so true. It's so true. Some of my favorite like followers on the short form platforms are the ones who listen to my podcast you know, it's like that's where they know me. Right? Right and you're right you're right so and obviously people are listening to this show too and they can follow your stuff and you've got some maybe they I don't know if their life changing but hey, I referenced one in here about the contrasting which is a you did actionable thing. And just so the listener knows like one of our longtime listeners and former client of mine, you know List follows Allah, Adam and was touched by a few of his posts in terms of actually taking action. And he's an action taker. So that's what you got to be too. Anyway. All right, man. So we've covered a lot here. I'm sure there's a million other things we can get into. But it's, I do like to ask this question of guests. And that is, is there anything you wish I had asked in this whole conversation that I didn't? And if so, what would be your answer?

 

Adam Poehlmann  1:05:22

Man, that is a great question. To answer anything that I wish you asked. Honestly, there's nothing that comes to mind. We got into a lot, we got into the mindset piece, I got to share a little bit about my faith, I got to share some vulnerable things about where I'm at with working out in training, and I've loved it. So there's nothing that comes to mind.

 

Philip Pape  1:05:39

Yeah, likewise, man has a lot of fun, supernatural. Yeah, we're on the same page. And, you know, we all have different perspectives and backgrounds, but it's like, man, we're just trying to get this done. And everybody listening, just change your lives. I mean, it'll if you do something you learn today, do it Adam suggesting like, rewind, go back, find some of those excellent quotes, like the one he just said, which was, keep, you know, if you take action on mediocre advice, it's gonna be better than not taking action on the best advice. Very important statement right there. You know, it doesn't have to be perfect. So all right, where can listeners learn more about you, Adam?

 

Adam Poehlmann  1:06:11

Yeah. So y'all listeners, you can find me on Instagram. That's where I'm the most active and it's just my first name. Last Name. Holman is po EHL. Ma. And, and, and the German relatives really gave me a hard time with that one. And it's a little tricky. Yeah. But yeah, that's okay. And then obviously, the fitness show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And then you can find me on threads to same Adam Pullman. That's by far where I am the most active. And if you're someone who is a gym goer and wants to drop 10 plus pounds without strict dieting, and you want some more in depth stuff, I've got a free Facebook group called the transformation tribe where I put out live workshops and put out some more in depth content that goes a little bit deeper than the surface level stuff you might see on social media. So that's where y'all can find me if you want to.

 

Philip Pape  1:06:55

And Adams, a great master at using these platforms, the way they're intended, like so on threads threads is great, just for the quick tips, you know, and here's how you do it act take action, it kind of cuts out all the distractions in the video and images, all that and in the Facebook group. Yeah, I think Facebook groups like that can be awesome for just getting in that community and that relatedness and finding other people who can motivate you and help you get there. So check all that out. I'll throw it in the show notes been an awesome conversation. Adam, thank you so much for taking the time.

 

Adam Poehlmann  1:07:21

Absolutely, Philip. Thanks for having me on.

 

Philip Pape  1:07:25

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of wit's end weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their weights or weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.

Philip Pape

Hi there! I'm Philip, founder of Wits & Weights. I started witsandweights.com and my podcast, Wits & Weights: Strength Training for Skeptics, to help busy professionals who want to get strong and lean with strength training and sustainable diet.

https://witsandweights.com
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