Popeye's Live Q&A Transcript

Note: This tutorial video was recorded as a live Facebook event. The text below is an edited transcript of the tutorial intended to provide members with a convenient means of referring to and further researching the topics and content detailed in the video.

Transcript

Ok guys, welcome to The JYM here in southern California. I want to say hello to everyone in Canada. I want to thank Popeye's for giving me the platform today to answer any questions you guys have—specifically in Canada. Now, I'm going to open it up to questions. Training, nutrition, supplements—we've got about an hour to go, but I want to start by addressing JYM Supplement Science in Canada.

For those of you who are aware—and those of you who aren't—JYM Supplement Science has finally made it into Canada. Thank you to Popeye's. Popeye's stores in Canada—you can go right now and get your Pre JYM, your Post JYM, and your Pro JYM. Now the other vitamins—the ZMA, the Alpha JYM, the Omega JYM, and Shred JYM—those will be coming to Canada very soon as well. But at least for now you guys have access to the JYM System. So again, that's the Pre, the Post, and the Pro.

Clearing up the Citrulline Confusion

When you move internationally there are many, many hoops that you have to jump through, and one of them is label changes. So in Canada—since we have French-speaking Canadians—we have to have our labels translated. Typically you hire a translating company and they take it—it's pretty easy, they translate it into French. Well we've had a few issues with the labels that I want to address: one is due to regulations, and one is just due to people not doing their job properly.

So let's address the first issue, which is Pre JYM. Now with Pre JYM, if you look at the American version which I have here on your right-hand side—this is the Black Cherry—and I have the Canadian version in my right hand. So your left is the Canadian version, my right is the Canadian version. Now you'll notice it says 6g of citrulline malate on the US version. But on the Canadian version it says 4g of L-citrulline. So people are like "What the hell Jim, you don't use L-citrulline, you use citrulline malate!" It's a far better ingredient when you're using citrulline because the malic acid portion also provides benefits, and when they're combined they provide far more benefits than just L-citrulline alone.

Don't worry guys—the Canadian bottle of Pre JYM contains the exact powder that's in the US version, it just comes down to labeling issues. I was instructed that in Canada it's best to list just the citrulline portion—not the citrulline malate portion—so when you turn this around to the supplement facts panel and find your citrulline malate here, you can see that it's listed as L-citrulline. But it has citrulline malate, 6g. Again, that doesn't mean it has 4g of citrulline malate. Citrulline malate is part citrulline, part malic acid. The one that I use in Pre JYM is at a 2:1 ratio, meaning there's twice as much citrulline as there is malic acid. So if you have 6g of citrulline malate at a 2:1 ratio, that means you're going to have 4g of L-citrulline and 2g of malic acid.

But that 2g of malic acid is important, and that 2g of malic acid is in the Canadian version—it's just not listed on the label. And again, I'm trying to get to the bottom of that. I'm working with the Canadian regulatory commission on changing my label so I can represent it as what it truly is—6g of citrulline malate. So make no mistake about it, Canadian version has 6g of citrulline malate. The label is only representing the L-citrulline portion of the citrulline malate. We'll get that all ironed out, but like I said no difference—this is the exact same powder that's in the US version of Pre JYM.

Addressing Post JYM Label Misprints

Now let's get to the post-workout, and then after that I'll get on to any questions you guys have on training. We'll make this not just about Canada—again obviously thank you Popeyes, and I want to focus more on the Canadian JYM Army and answering your questions because this is the Popeye's platform—but I want to open it up to what I normally do: training questions, nutrition questions, want to get you guys answers to your questions.

Now let's look at the Post JYM. This is just plain old typos. Here is the Canadian bottle of Post JYM; here is the US version of Post JYM. This is US, this is the Canadian. Now this is just coming down to typos. Again, this is the Post Active. So in this bottle of US version of Post JYM, the same exact ingredients are in the Canadian one. Same exact—gram per gram, every ingredient is the same. However, if you look at the label—the Canadian one—you might think differently, and that's due to poor translating. I'm really upset with the translation company, but I'm going to put it on myself because we should have looked at these far more carefully before we let them go out. We were trying to get you guys in Canada JYM Supplement Science products ASAP, so I didn't really want anything hold it up. So unfortunately because of the time crunch we ended up with a few typos that we are now fixing. However, when you go into Popeye's and buy Post JYM you will see some discrepancies. Again, it's just the label, guys. Exact product Post JYM is in here.

First thing you'll notice is on the front of the label here—actually says pre-workout. Post JYM, but down here it says pre-workout for some reason. So I'm not sure how they confused post-workout in this section here to pre-workout, but it happened. Now there are two other issues here—even bigger issues. Obviously, you know this is not a pre-workout. You go to the supplement facts panel—let's look at leucine. Can you guys find leucine on there? It says 3.6mg of leucine. Now, that's nothing, right? That's a dusting of leucine. There's not 3.6mg—there's 3.6g of leucine. Remember, in Post JYM my leucine has a 3:1:1 ratio to the other two branched-chain amino acids: isoleucine and valine. So that means there's 3.6g of leucine in here. Again, the idiotic translating company changed it to milligrams for some reason.

Now the third typo—here's where it gets really crazy. We need to definitely find a new translator for our French-speaking countries. So if anyone out there is looking for some work, give me a call because we're going to need to fire this company. On the directions, it says "Take 2-4 hours prior to exercise." Take Post JYM 2-4 hours before you exercise. If you read the original directions that I have, it's within 30 minutes after exercise. It's a post-workout. So I'm not sure what happened with the translation, but for you guys buying them right now—you're getting the first Post JYMs—you're going to see these discrepancies. Maybe even hold onto them because they might collector's items in a few years, because we're going to change those labels. But when you go in and buy it, Popeye's will let you know it's just label typos, that's all. There are label issues.

So again, Canada JYM Army guys, you have the same exact Pre JYM, Post JYM, and Pro JYM that we have in the US. Same exact formulas, same exact raw materials, same exact doses—just a little issue getting the labels translated but I'll get that fixed up real soon. So now let's open it up to any training, nutrition, supplement questions. Like I said, I'm particularly focusing on issues with Canada or questions concerning Canada, getting the other supplements as well. They'll be there very soon, it's just a matter of time getting everything done on an international level.

Remember—JYM Supplement Science, we're only 3 years old and in the first 3 years I was focusing mainly on the US market. Getting you guys content is really my main goal now; I'm not a marketing machine. I give you guys the programs, the nutrition, and the products that simply work. That's really the whole gist of what JYM Supplement Science is. So give me time as we slowly expand.

Now let's see any questions, what do we have coming up? No questions yet? No one wants to know training, nutrition, supplements—don't be shy guys. This is where you learn. So I'll start talking then about some of the philosophies that I follow today. One of them is whole-body training.

The Benefits of Full-Body Training

So if you guys have been following along on my social media—and you could check that out right now, click over to either my Instagram or my Facebook page since you're on Facebook right now—you can see that every day on my Jim Stoppani Facebook page I'm posting my personal workouts. So the workout that I'm going to do today? You guys—it's already posted. I posted up it letting you know what I'm going to do, because I train after 4pm when I'm in my feeding window. So what I do is I post the workout that's going to be done for that day. You guys have the technique to follow, and then you get follow me and train with me. And then I change it up; every few days I'm teaching you a new technique—why we're doing it, and how it's different from what we were doing previously.

The nice thing about the full-body training, it means every time I'm in the gym I'm doing chest, shoulders, back, biceps, triceps, forearms, quads, hamstrings, calves, abs—I'm hitting every muscle group with at least one exercise every single day. A couple days here or there in between for rest. But what the nice thing is about whole-body training or full-body training is that it really spikes your fat burning. It's almost impossible for me to gain body fat because of my training program. I'm almost allowed, at this percent body fat—I'm down somewhere around 4 or 5% body fat, is usually where I maintain—I literally can eat anything I want, within reason. It's literally been impossible to actually add body fat; not that I'm trying to add body fat, I'm just saying it's very easy staying lean. All I've been doing is the whole-body training.

Now some of the research that's come out recently on whole-body training actually confirms that this is true—you do actually burn more fat with whole-body training than when you're doing split training, where you're going to do chest on Monday, legs on Tuesday. And the reason why is due to basically—what are you doing? You're taxing every single muscle in the body, versus you just go in and target your chest for the day. It doesn't matter how many sets of chest you do, you're only targeting a certain amount of muscle mass in the body.

Now, what's wrong with that? And what's good about that? Well what's good about that is you can focus more on the chest, which is why bodybuilders train this way. What's bad about that is you're not really hitting the body every single day, which actually may be far better for not only muscle growth but also fat loss. And so what happens when you train each muscle group is you're activating genes in those muscle fibers that ramp up fat burning. So basically your muscle fibers are recovering now every single day—all muscle fibers versus just the chest. That requires more calories for recovery, and like I said it keeps those genes activated for higher fat burning. When you have all muscles in the body burning more body fat—not just the chest—you're burning more total calories.

I discovered this a little bit by accident: it's because of my knee surgery. For those of you who remember, in January I completely ruptured my quadriceps tendon. My kneecap was down at my shin. It was reattached—it was a complete tear, reattached. I fell about a week and a half later in the rain on my crutches, and completely severed the tendon again. They had to go back in, do a second surgery to repair that one again and connect the kneecap back. During that surgery, I was exposed to staph infection at the hospital, and so my leg ended up swelling and a week later I had to go in for emergency surgery—surgery number 3—to clean out all that sort of necrotic tissue and all that inflammation, get all that crap out of there. They ended up putting in antibiotic beads in my knees to help fight the infection—my body reacted to the beads and ended up a week later, those beads had to be removed so I had to have another emergency surgery on my knee—surgery number 4—and that was back around maybe April or so.

Within a couple months, I went through 4 surgeries on the knee and was recovering as soon as April or May; still on the recovery process. But I couldn't do any cardio, so most people who injure their leg end up getting fat, right? End up gaining body fat because you're not moving as much. What did I do? All I did was use whole-body training. I did no cardio. No cardioacceleration. I did some rope stuff, but anyone knows that upper body endurance—if you're doing things with your arms like an arm ergometer it burns only about 50% as many calories as when you're using your legs, because it's less muscle mass.

I really wasn't burning any more calories, but if you look at me after coming out of 4 leg surgeries and recovering—I'm still recovering, I still can't fully squat, I still can't run, I still can't do jump squats, I can't jump rope—I'm still doing zero cardio. All I'm doing is the workouts you see me posting on my page every single day, and that is keeping me at 4% body fat. Zero cardio. And then I also follow the intermittent fasting diet, which is the other half of the equation for why it's so easy for me to stay this lean year round. With the whole-body training—and then when you incorporate the intermittent fasting which further boosts metabolic rate—it really makes it so much easier to stay lean, be able to eat a bit looser on your diet, eat what you want. You guys know I'm all about donuts, and I'm getting burgers, beer—I like to drink as well and I do it pretty routinely. I drink probably most nights out of the week—which most people would find hard to believe, to be able to maintain a photo shoot ready physique which I maintain year round—and like I said it's due to whole-body training and the intermittent fasting.

Full-Body Training—Perfect for Beginning and Advanced Lifters Alike

Question: “I’m 63. Set/rep scheme for renewed workouts? Always used full-body before. It’s been two years.”

Ok so you're 63, you used to use full-body and now you want to get back into it. Like I said, log on to my Facebook or my Instagram and you get a free workout every single day. You get right back into it. The nice thing about whole-body training is whole-body or full-body training used to be given just to beginners. And the reason is because you want repetition when you're learning weight training, or you're learning anything because it's a skill—you have to train the nervous system.

And during the first couple of months of weightlifting, the main major changes that you go through aren't muscle growth or fat loss—sure you get some of that as well—but the main change that occurs in the human body is the neurological system. That's the main change: the muscles learn how—those nerves that fire for the muscles to contract learn how to synchronize better with repetition. And so that's why with a beginner you want to train the same exercise multiple times a week, versus just going in and training once a week.

However, we then projected that that means that whole-body training is not good for advanced trainers, because they need more focus on a muscle group. There's only so many hours, so what do you do? You go into the gym on Monday and you kill chest for an hour, right? And then Tuesday you come back and kill legs for an hour. That's great, that works for muscle growth, but I'm more interested in overall results—not just muscle growth, not just strength, not just endurance, fat loss, health—everything that you get basically from a well-rounded fitness program, which is what we all should be looking for. Even if you want to get your biceps bigger—which I'm always trying to increase—I don't want it to challenge my health. This is supposed to go hand in hand, and that's really what fitness is about. It's not “at all costs trying to get as big as possible”, it's about doing this in a smart way that allows you to enjoy your life—and lead a more normal life—getting results with health, fitness, flexibility, all combined.

The Train with Jim Series

So really, whole-body training is your best option whether you're a beginner or whether you're an advanced. I'm going to recommend to just check out my Train with Jim. It's hashtag #TrainWithJim—you can go right now on my Facebook page, I posted today's workout that's going to be done. I'm going to do it in a little bit, later tonight, and then I'll post that and you can see my photos—for those of you who want to follow along, you not only get to train with me, you not only get to learn with me, literally every single day I teach you something new about training. It's not just "Hey train with me, this is what I do because I do it." I actually teach you why we're doing it, why we're changing the program this day, what we're doing this day.

But the other thing is, for those of you who are posting your photos to show that you're doing it with me? I'm watching you. I'm watching you guys post and show your accountability the same way, and I'm rewarding you guys. Right now I've been giving away, each week to one person that I pick who proves that they're really keeping up with me the best and showing their accountability the best by posting their photos—this week's prize is a JYM System. You get a free Pre JYM, a free Post JYM, and a free Pro JYM—just for training with me. So you get to train with me, be my training partner, you get to learn, you get the results that I'm getting, and you get rewarded with prizes. So seriously, jump on the Train with Jim if you haven't been doing it yet.

And like I said that's going to be perfect for you—you can start in with any intensity that you want. So if it's a more intense training style? Just drop down the sets. Instead of doing, if I'm doing 2 sets that day, just do 1 set of each exercise. And then once your body adapts you can increase the number of sets you're doing, and the intensity, and then really follow me the way the program is designed. But you'll get right back into it.

Muscle Memory is No Myth

That's the nice thing about muscle memory. I'll probably spend the entire hour answering one question, but the nice thing about muscle memory—remember he said he's trained before but he took about two years off—muscle memory is real. It's not a—we talk about the mind-muscle connection, and people think "Oh that's this kind of goofy like 'oh I'm concentrating on the muscle'." No that's real, that's been shown—the mind-muscle connection can literally increase the amount of muscle fibers that you're using during an exercise. Now, the same concept applies here with the muscle memory.

What the muscle memory research shows is that it's all about the nuclei. Remember, muscle fibers are the only cell in the human body that has more than one nucleus. So remember when you studied biology in—maybe it was high school or whatever you had—you studied the cell. You have the cell and you have a nucleus. If you think about an egg: you crack an egg, that's basically a cell, one cell, your yolk is your nucleus. Well muscle fibers are unique in the fact that they have more than one nucleus. And when you damage muscle, what happens is you gain more of those nuclei. And it's the nuclei—the nucleus where all that gene stuff happens that you hear me talking about. They're in the damn nucleus. So the more nuclei you have, guess what? The more gene activity you have going on in the muscle. You never lose those nuclei. That's why someone who's trained before and then takes some time off and then starts back up again, they get quick results, right? Far faster than someone who's never lifted before, right? They get it right back. And that's due to that muscle memory, because they've kept all those nuclei. All those nuclei are little machines—muscle building machines, of protein synthesis. The more you have, the more protein synthesis you have going on in that muscle, the bigger they can grow. So that's really what that muscle memory's about. So you'll be right back at it in no time, especially with the whole boy training.

Does Fasted Cardio Burn More Fat?

Question: "Fasted cardio—does it actually work for fat loss?"

I have an article on fasted cardio that talks about the research and really breaks it down in detail. But, in a nutshell—I'll give sort of the details:

We all used to think that fasted cardio was better for fat loss, because research does show that when you're fasted you burn more fat during the workout than when you're not fasted. So that got scientists thinking, "Well if you're burning more fat during the workout, it means you can lose more body fat." However, what happens—and this is often the case in research; you have to be very careful about research studies and trying to make conclusions, because that's just a snapshot of what's going on during the workout. There are 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week. Fat loss doesn't happen by the second—it happens over the course of a day—maybe days.

So when you're looking at a snapshot of how much fat you burned during the workout, it may make sense to say that's going to help you burn more fat and lose more body fat. However, you forgot to look at the rest of the day. What happens the rest of the day? What happens the rest of the day, after that workout is over? And what we find is that the more fat you burn during your workout, the less fat you burn the rest of the day. The less fat you burn during your workout, the more fat you burn the rest of the day.

Now think about how much time you spend working out, and how much time you spend the rest of the day. Do you want to focus on your fat burning during the small workout window, or do you want to maximize your fat burning the entire rest of the day? Well, fasted cardio inhibits your fat burning the rest of the day, because you burn more fat during the workout and it sort of ends up evening out over the course of the day.

HIIT and Fat Loss

Take high-intensity interval training: you burn almost no fat during a high-intensity interval training workout. Almost no fat. Almost all carbs—no, never does the body work "all or none"—but put it this way: during high-intensity interval training, you're barely burning any body fat. However, if you look at the research—not just what happens during the workout, but over the course of many weeks—when you do high-intensity interval training you lose far more body fat than steady-state cardio.

And it even gets so extreme, as one study's showing, that subjects who were doing steady-state cardio—you know, slow and steady, high fat burn, high percentage of fat burn—for 30-60 minutes, 3-4 times a week, versus running 4-6 30second sprints, 3-4 times a week. Okay, so let's talk about this. 30-60 minutes—let's just say 3 times a week. Let's just go on the low side. 30 minutes, 3 times a week. 30 times 3 is 90—that's 90 minutes of exercise a week. Now let's look at the sprinting group: they did 30 seconds, 4-6 times—let's take the highest one, let's say they did 6. That's 3 minutes of exercise, times 3. 9 minutes. 90 minutes of steady-state a week versus 9 minutes of high-intensity interval training a week. 9 minutes total exercise time. The 9 minutes burned twice as much fat as the 90 minutes. And again it gets back to the fact that when you train intensely, you don't burn fat. But it sets your body up to be a fat burning machine the rest of the day.

And you can think about it from a number of strategies that the body uses, and one of them is conserving energy. If you burn more fat during the workout? Well guess what your body wants: to preserve fat. So it's not going to burn fat the rest of the day, so that you have ample fat the next time you work out. If you go with high-intensity interval training and you're burning carbs all workout, your body's going to use fat the rest of the day so that it can help you keep the carbs for that next workout. It's burning the fuel that you don't rely on during those moments when you need fuel: your exercise. So you can kind of think about it from that standpoint, but bottom line is no, fasted cardio in the morning—whether it's steady-state, whether it's high-intensity interval training—is no more effective than if you had breakfast and still did your cardio. Makes no difference at the end of the day, how much fat you lose.

I will say, if you read my article, when I talk about people like myself who are around 4-5% body fat and they're trying to get down to that 3%—they're trying to get ready for a show, get literally rid of every bit of body fat on their body? That's when doing fasted cardio might, might actually help a little bit to get rid of those trouble areas that you can't drop the fat. Other than that, if you're above 10%, 12% body fat? Doesn't matter if you eat right before you work out, doesn't matter if you eat during your workout, doesn't matter if you eat after your workout—makes no difference on your total fat loss over the day.

So don't be killing yourself with fasted cardio unless you just like doing fasted cardio. If you feel better exercising in a fasted state just because you feel better? That's fine. But remember, to truly maximize muscle growth—I know we're talking about fat loss here—you want to train in your fed state. If you're trying to maximize fat loss, it doesn't really matter so much. However, training in a fasted state probably is not going to enhance your fat loss any more than if you had a big meal and then trained.

Should Your Age Dictate Your Training?

Question: "Do you really need to change the way you train over the age of 40? Have just read on other sites you should"

Do you have to change the way you train after age 40? Not at all. I'm 49—I'll be 50 in January—and I do whole-body training now, but that's not because of my age. It's because of better results. There's really no difference between the results an older person can get and a younger person. Obviously, within reason—you have lower testosterone as you get older, so muscle growth and strength gains are not going to be as responsive as when you were in your 20s.

There are other issues as well with aging, as far as protein synthesis. What we find is that the older you get the more protein you need to spike protein synthesis the same. So after a workout and before a workout, protein amounts for a 20-year-old guy and a 40-year-old guy are different: the 40-year-old guy is going to need a bit more protein to get the same muscle protein synthesis response as the younger guy.

So there are some small changes in age, but as far as training goes no, you don't have to. However, what I do recommend for someone—and it's really not about age, it's more about experience—the longer you've been training—I mean I've been training since I was single digits, tiny little kid, seriously. Training with full splits, reading Muscle & Fitness Magazine since I was a little kid. I've been doing it for a long time. What you want to change are your goals.

You know, I've been doing this a very long time, so I'm at pretty much my peak as far as muscle mass, my natural—I can't, you know, my arms are just about 19 inches. I'm not going to get them up to 20 inches naturally at the same body fat. There's no way I can have 20-inch arms naturally. Can I have 19 1/8th inch arms? Yeah. Can I have 19-inch arms with a little bit more of a peak? A little more triceps lateral head? Yeah, that's the kind of goals I'm working on, bringing out those different muscle areas that are lacking versus trying to build overall size and strength. I'm not going to get that much stronger than I currently am at this age naturally. That's just the facts.

So what do I do? I still focus on getting bigger and stronger, but I focus on all those other aspects. of fitness: flexibility—are you maintaining your mobility as you age? That's the most critical thing to do as we get older. You can see it every single day—how does a baby go from being able to drop down and pick up anything, to a 50-year-old guy going "Oh my god..." What happens? We lose our range of motion, because we stop doing things. We get lazy. We have a desk job. We take the train to work. We stopped playing. You don't get down on the ground ever. How many people have you seen that live that lifestyle where they barely can move and get through their day, and you wonder "How the hell do you make it through your day being that miserable? You're in that much pain, you're tired all the time"

Exercise is the critical—like I said, it's about getting all those fitness components, not just going for just pure size; not just going for pure strength; not even just endurance—it's about incorporating all those benefits: speed, endurance, muscle mass, leanness, strength, health. It enhances your mind—you have less depression with exercise. Those are sort of the goals you should be focusing on as you get older, increasing your fitness overall not just a specific goal of "I want a big bench press." So really you don't have to change your training as you age, but there are certain things you should consider changing.

Full-Body vs Split Training

Question: "Do you suggest switching between whole-body training and split-muscles throughout the year or always whole-body training ?

Great question. So the question is—everybody knows I'm a firm believer in change. Change. Change is critical—exercises you do; the order of the exercises you do; the weight you use; the rest periods you take; the speed of the reps—these all need to change. And so does training frequency.

So it gets to the question: now that I do whole-body training, would I ever recommend going back to doing split training. Well, yes and no. It depends on the goal. If your goal, again, is more muscle mass or strength? Then definitely, changing up from whole-body all the time, to a split training where you're training each muscle group just once a week, is a great change to keep muscle growth going. Personally, for myself? I wouldn't do it because I'm not interested really in just getting stronger, or just getting bigger. I'm interested in maintaining being lean, more muscular, fitter, faster, stronger, more endurance—all of that. And because I want all of that, the best way to get that is with full-body training.

So for me, no. I'll probably always stick with full-body training except maybe from time to time, just to mix it up here and there. But for my goals the full-body training is the best way to go about it, because like I said with the full-body training you're hitting each muscle—you're targeting the genes and the nuclei of those muscles every single day. It's keeping those genes activated, and that's what's allowing better gains in muscle mass and increased fat loss.

I wouldn't change for myself, but if someone wants to, say, focus on like my Shortcut to Strength program —then yeah, definitely. Because that will increase your strength, which you'll then use when you go back to full-body training. It all carries over. I hope I didn't confuse you, but yeah you can definitely switch it up from time to time. I definitely feel now that full-body training is probably the best form of training for overall size, fat loss, strength, endurance—but if you're a person who wants to focus more on a specific goal, then yes doing a split would be better. Or at least from time to time doing a split, and changing it up. You want to change up your frequency as well.

Post JYM as a Caffeine-Free Pre-Workout

Question: "I'm caffeine sensitive. Can I take Post JYM before and after my workouts?"

Yeah, great question. One of the things I recommend for people who say "Hey, you know, I really love Pre JYM. I love the formula. I want to get the creatine, I want to get the beta-alanine, the betaine, the branched chains you provide. But the caffeine, 300mg, is just too much." Well, let's start at that dose, first of all. Let's talk about what too much caffeine is.

Now everyone's got a different sensitivity. So if you're caffeine sensitive, then you definitely don't want to be doing a scoop of Pre JYM. It's 300mg of caffeine. Sounds like a lot of caffeine, until you start thinking about what are some drinks that have an equivalent amount of caffeine in them. Well, a Starbucks grande—just a simple drip, a grande; not the venti, just a grande at Starbucks—about 330mg of caffeine. Pre JYM, one scoop is 300mg of caffeine. So a lot of people are already drinking caffeine at that dose without even realizing it, and it just seems like a high dose because it lists 300mg. Nobody really thinks about how much caffeine they're getting in a day.

Don't be fooled into thinking that it's a lot—unless, like I said, there are people who are caffeine sensitive. So if you're confused that it just seems like a lot of caffeine, it probably won't be for most people, who are used to drinking coffee—especially if you go to Starbucks. The other thing you can do is start with a half scoop. So what you do now is—the main ingredients that you want in you pre- and your post-workout are the branched-chains, the creatine, the beta-alanine, and the betaine. Those are the most critical: your creatine, branched-chains, beta-alanine, and betaine. Those four, you want before and after. That's why they're in both Pre JYM and Post JYM.

So if you took a half a scoop of Pre JYM because you're caffeine sensitive, you're only getting half of the creatine and half of the beta-alanine. So what you can do is take half a scoop of Pre JYM, half a scoop of Post JYM—that way you're getting about 150mg of caffeine versus the 300mg, and you're bumping up your creatine, your beta-alanine, your betaine, and your branched-chains to get the full dose that would normally be in Pre JYM. Now you're getting a lower caffeine count.

However, if you want no caffeine whatsoever, you're extremely sensitive to any caffeine? Then yes, as you were asking, you definitely can use Post JYM. And it's going to give you the most critical nutrients before your workout—branched-chains, creatine, beta-alanine, and betaine. You want to get those at that full dose. So it's perfectly fine to use your Post JYM pre-workout, but then you're also going to do a dose post-workout. Just because you're using Post JYM for your pre-workout doesn't mean you skip the post-workout because you want those critical nutrients before and after.

The other thing I'll mention here when we're talking about caffeine is that a lot of people have asked me if I'll come out with a lower dose, and in the beginning I used to say "No! You can just do the—split it up or use Post JYM" but so many people have been asking for a lighter version. So I'll be coming out with a Pre JYM light which is somewhere around 75mg of caffeine for those who want to minimize the caffeine but still get a full dose of the beta-alanine, the branched-chains—and then with the Pre JYM the difference is the citrulline malate. If you're only using not a full scoop you're not getting the full 6g of citrulline malate, which you want. So that's why I've decided to come out with the Pre JYM light for those of you who can't tolerate that much caffeine and just want a lower dose of caffeine.

Adding Cardioacceleration to Hypertrophy Programs

Question: "I've been doing Shortcut to Size, great stuff. When I bench, during rest times I do sit-ups—is it good or should I fully rest in that time frame?"

If you look at my Shortcut to Shred, I use cardioacceleration. And basically what you're doing is you're doing the bench press—so you'd be over here at the bench press, for those of you who aren't familiar with cardioacceleration—you're going to do a bench press, so you set up on the bench press and do your set. See I hit muscle failure. Instead of resting on my ass here at the bench going "How many more minutes?" do something. Why waste the time? I use cardioacceleration—do bench step ups, right? Right here in that minute of rest, you can even take a little longer. But sit-ups are great as well, it's another way to make your workout more efficient. Instead of sitting around and doing your abs after, you're doing them in between your sets of the bench press.

That's perfectly fine because your abs are being trained, not your chest. And with cardioacceleration, first week or two you might find that you're a little weaker after doing the sit-ups on the bench press; after a couple weeks, it'll be no problem—it'll actually enhance your bench press because it's a form of active recovery. Now one thing I will say about active recovery: if you really want to maximize it with ab exercises versus doing things like step-ups? You want to be more standing exercises.

So instead of crunches, consider doing things like cable woodchoppers where—something like this, cable woodchoppers which is going to work the core; also the abs and the obliques. And it's going to help with active recovery, the standing exercises are a little bit better. Hanging leg raises you can do, again more of an upright position and more of a challenging exercise than the crunch if you truly want to get the benefit of that active recovery versus just sitting on a bench and doing crunches—which is perfectly fine, that's fine as well. You can do crunches in between here, but it's going to be less effective for the active recovery which can actually help with the bench press.

Hypertrophy Programs for Fat Loss?

So the question that I often get on Shortcut to Size is "Can I do it for fat loss? I love the program—gained a lot of size, gained a lot of strength—but can I do it now and also focus more on fat loss?" Yeah, by adding cardio acceleration or ab exercises. You can even do calves in between. That's called staggered set training, where it's just really an efficiency technique. It's like "Well if I'm sitting for two to three minutes in between sets, couldn't I be training my calves without taxing—while my chest is resting?" Why waste the time? That's staggered set training. So that's basically what you're doing, it makes it efficient. Go, keep doing it. If you enjoy it, it's working for you? Definitely, keep doing that.

Popeye’s Drop-Bys

Question: "Will you be visiting any stores like you do for GNC?"

In Canada? Yes! So we'll be doing a few Popeye drop-bys I think this coming October. So we've got the Olympia coming up in September. I'll be doing—if you're coming to the Olympia remember on Friday and Saturday I have sessions at the Expo. 1 pm Friday and Saturday, so check those out. You can come hear me talk more about intermittent fasting and whole-body training as well as any questions you have, so stop by there.

But after the Olympia, then I'm back on the road—that's when I'll head up to Canada and start hitting a few of the Popeye's. So as it gets closer, I'll let you guys know—again I try to keep those last-minute so that we don't get too many people to show up. Only because I like to be able to spend time talking with you guys, versus if we get like 200-300 people show up and then it's so short I don't get to spend enough time with each one of you guys. So yes, I will definitely be doing some Popeye's drop-bys right around October. But again, check on my social media, you'll hear when I'm going to be heading up that way.

Adding Egg Whites to Protein Shakes

Question: "I add about 250ml of liquid egg whites to my protein shakes. Any thoughts on that?"

Well, it depends on what your protein shakes are. If you have Pro JYM, you've already got the blend of casein, whey, and egg protein in your Pro JYM. Certainly no problem bumping up the egg protein portion by adding those egg whites—and especially if you're not using Pro JYM, then you definitely want to add those egg whites to your protein powder. Because I'm guessing you're probably using—if not Pro JYM—you're just using a whey protein. So I would recommend not only adding the egg whites but I'll also recommend adding milk so that you get more of the casein, because you're missing that slow component if you're going just with a whey protein.

Protein Blends vs Whey

Remember, my Pro JYM is a protein blend: —it has the highest amount of casein. People think that whey is the most critical protein around workouts, but my Pro JYM has more casein than whey. And people are like "Why is that?" Yes, whey is the most critical protein to have around workouts—however, if you're having only whey? It's not enough.

The problem with whey protein is it digests so quickly. It's the soluble portion of the protein in milk. Milk is 20% whey. So if you have just whey—what's great about whey protein is it spikes muscle protein synthesis through the roof. However, if you only have whey? You get this huge spike—and then an immediate drop. Protein synthesis just drops right off, because it's too short lived with whey protein.

However when you have whey—which spikes that muscle protein synthesis—and casein with it—which is a slower digesting protein—now you get that huge spike from the whey, but as the whey drops off you have muscle protein synthesis being maintained by the slow digesting casein. And if you have egg—which is a medium digesting—then it's also helping to prolong that muscle protein synthesis.

The other benefit to egg protein is the sulfur-containing amino acids which enhance hormone production and are critical for other things in the body, not just muscle growth but also health. So egg whites are definitely good—if you read my articles on eggs, I'm a firm believer in consuming whole eggs throughout the day as well. You want to get the fat and those other components from the yolk, so don't be afraid of the yolks. But definitely feel free to add the egg whites to your protein shake.

Modifying a Workout for Convenience

Question: "I work out in a busy gym. Is it critical to follow the programs to a T or can it be changed up just a bit so I'm not changing stations and not trying to get one someone took over?"

It depends on what program you're doing, but my philosophy is make it your own: take what I teach you, make it your own. I'm not—you know the programs—if you're doing Shortcut to Size, say, or Shortcut to Shred—whatever the program is, you'll learn something about that program. Not just how to train for that program, but how to take what you've learned and develop your own programs. Like with Shortcut to Size you learn about changing up rep ranges and exercise order. Use those principles, but if you don't have a bench press and I have bench press—don't worry about it. Do a bench press machine. Do dumbbell bench press. Do band bench press. Whatever version you have, just make that adaptation. Change to what you have access to and what's easiest for you.

Single-Station Workouts

Now if you're following a lot of my whole-body training programs, you'll see that I show you how to do them in a very confined space. Like today's workout is done in a power rack. That's it. You get a barbell, a power rack, and an adjustable bench. 30 minutes and you're done. You don't need to move, it doesn't matter who's got the bench press, who's got the dumbbells—all you need to do is secure your power rack and you've got the whole workout. Tomorrow's workout's going to be the same thing but done in a cable station. So I have a dual cable station—every muscle group is going to be trained on that cable station within 30 minutes. You don't have to move around, you don't have to worry about waiting for that bench to be done—right there in your cable station, you get it all done, you don't have to move around.

I'm very cognizant of how my programs are used because I train alone. Look at my gym here. There's no one in here. I've got a full gym, I can do any exercise I want at any time. Who has that access? Few people, right? You have to go the gym at 5 pm on a Monday when this thing—right here, the size of this—would have what, 50 people in it? How the hell do you get a workout in with 50 people? You go over to the power rack, and you get your entire workout done right here. You don't have to worry about waiting for the bench, getting for that next exercise—it's all done right here.

So follow my programs, like I said—this is my Train with Jim—you'll see I adapt it all the time because I'm on the road. There are times I don't even have a gym. So what do I do? I have my bands. Or I'll create a bodyweight workout. But you'll see how I've taken those components—if I'm doing a pressing exercise for chest, I don't have a gym—what do I have that I can do a pressing with. Do I have bands? Ok, I'll do bands. Do I have just my bodyweight? I'll do push-ups. Just mimicking those exercises, but making it adaptable to your situation. And your situation might not always be the same, like mine. I get to train here one day; the next day I've got a hotel gym with 50lbs dumbbells at the max. And I have no time to go anywhere else that day because all the gyms are closed in the city. That's my one workout, and I'll show you guys how to take that workout and adapt it to those limitations. So watch my Train with Jim and you'll really learn how to do it yourself so that you can make those adaptations. And you're not even going to ask me, you're going to be like "Well of course. Of course I know how to change it up now."

Creatine HCL vs Creatine Monohydrate

Question: "Why do you choose to use creatine HCL versus monohydrate?"

I use creatine HCL in Pre JYM. And I've been using creatine HCL—the Con-Cret brand—probably since maybe as early as 2005. What's interesting about creatine hcl versus monohydrate: here are the facts. Most of the research done on creatine is done on creatine monohydrate. Why? Because that was the main form that was introduced when it came out back in—what was that, early 90s—EAS launched creatine. It was creatine monohydrate. There was actually a creatine phosphate for a while, but the phosphate group doesn't get carried over—can't transfer—so all you need is the creatine is what we found out. And so the carrier was creatine monohydrate. Just carrying a creatine molecule to help maintain its stability and its utilization in the body.

So what happens in research is when somebody does a study on an ingredient they tend to duplicate it with the same exact ingredient. And so because all the research was done with creatine monohydrate, all the following studies have to be done with creatine monohydrate. Until someone comes along and says "Hey guys, should we test out creatine HCL now that it's so popular?" Well there's really no reason to test creatine HCL out. We've actually seen the difference in solubility and uptake.

Why creatine HCL? Well, let's talk about solubility in creatine. When you mix creatine in water it does not want to go into solution—especially creatine monohydrate. And when creatine launched back in the early 90s it was famous for two things: increasing results like you wouldn't believe, in size and strength; and causing explosive diarrhea. Those are the two benefits you got from creatine monohydrate. You can get all the size and strength gains you wanted, but you're likely going to be dealing with explosive diarrhea.

Why is that? Well, creatine draws water to it. So when it sits in your intestines and it doesn't go into solution when you mix your creatine—if you ever have creatine monohydrate, and you've mixed it and you can see those particles still floating, and you keep mixing it and mixing it and mixing it and finally they go into solution—any of those little particles that aren't in the solution are going to sit in your intestine and draw water to your intestines. What happens when you draw water into your intestines? Explosive diarrhea.

So that's why creatine monohydrate causes a lot of stomach issues for people. Now they tried to micronize it, which basically makes it smaller so that it has more surface area and enhances the solubility. That helped, but it's still creatine monohydrate. It's horrible going into solution. So what do you do? You work with the pH scale. You can either make it more acidic or more basic. Creatine HCL—hydrochloric acid. It's more acidic. Increasing the acidity level of the creatine molecule helps its solubility in fluid. So that's what the hydrochloride is, that's why I use creatine HCL. It enhances its solubility—goes right into solution very easily, meaning less that's in your stomach, more of it gets absorbed. And the research has shown that it's about 60-70% better absorbed by the intestines than monohydrate.

You can also go on the other end of the scale and go more basic. Have you guys heard of Kre-Akalyn? That's a basic form—it's the same concept as creatine HCL but on the opposite end of the scale. They're making it more basic which enhances its solubility, which is why you need less to get taken up. So you can either go Kre-Alkalyn or creatine HCL to use far less creatine and take up far more; far fewer stomach issues that way. So that's really why I use the creatine HCL—better uptake, better utilization by the body, and therefore you get better results.

Remember, with creatine it's not an immediate, acute effect. You don't just take creatine and get results. You have to take enough creatine for it to build up to a certain amount in the muscles. That takes several weeks to get built up. So you really don't start seeing results until it gets built up. And so you want to be concerned about its solubility and its uptake, because if it's not being taken up by the body and by the muscles, it's not getting into the muscles and you're not going to get any benefit. So, really that's why I use creatine HCL—goes into solution far better, less stomach issues, better results.

Isolating the Lower Back

Question: "Doc, what's your favorite lower back exercise?"

My favorite lower back exercise. I mean the lower back is a really interesting muscle group because it works with the glutes and the hamstrings, right? And so when you do, let's say, a deadlift. What are you using? You're using the legs, you're using your back. You know a lot of people think that the deadlift is a back exercise. And it does, it uses a lot of the back—you do use your lats as well to some degree, and the lower back. But you also use a lot of legs, and so that's a great lower back exercise because anytime you're training the lower back you're training those hamstrings and those glutes.

However, if you really want to isolate the lower back versus the glutes and the hamstrings? Then what you can do here is on a—this is a glute/ham raise. Most gyms don't have this. This is probably one of the best pieces of equipment a gym could have, glute/ham raise. What you're probably going to have is just the typical back extension bench. So let's pretend this is a typical back extension bench—this is flat, okay? Just for the purposes of demonstration.

What you want to do on your back extension here is—if you want to focus more on the glutes and hams? Then what you're going to do is really focus on pushing your heels into this pad. And what you're going to do is focus on maintaining the arch in your lower back—that's going to help you it more glutes and hams. If you want to hit more of the lower back you're going to have to—the thing that people tell you not to do—you're going to round the back. That's what your lower back muscles do: they extend the spine. The entire spine. So you want to actually round the back if you're trying to focus on the lower back.

One of my favorite exercises is back extensions, but done where you're really focusing on spinal flexion and extension, and less on using the glutes and the hamstrings to bring it up. Also a great glute and hamstring exercise, but if you want to focus more on that lower back make sure you're really rounding the lower back.

And It's the same on stiff-legged deadlifts or Romanian. Let's see if we can get a bar here. So a stiff-legged deadlift versus the Romanian deadlift. With a Romanian deadlift, this style is more hamstring. It's less—you don't get as much knee bend. It's all lower back, glutes, and hams with the Romanian. So you're going to lift it up, back down—hardly any knee bend, right? All at the hips. Versus a regular deadlift where you're going to come down with the knee extension as well as hip extension. So Romanian is almost no knee extension, all hip extension.

Now if you see me from the side you'll notice what I'm doing is—the bar never leaves my thighs or the front of my legs. All the way down, see that? So what I'm doing is popping my glutes back, maintaining the arch in my lower back, and pulling. What is that using? Well, it's using some lower back, but mainly the glutes and the hams.

A stiff-legged deadlift, the bar comes further in front of the body. So instead of pulling it up your legs you're going to keep it in front of the body, and now what you'll see is I have more rounding of the back. The thing that everyone tells you—never round your back. However, if you're trying to train the lower back muscles, well guess what? You need to first round it—flex it—before you can extend it. It's the way to work the muscle. So a better way to work the lower back is the stiff-legged deadlift, when the weight stays more in front of the body. That puts more stress on the lower back, which is what you're trying to train.

You have to go much lighter here than you would on Romanians, but that's going to help hit more lower back. So if you're really trying to strengthen lower back—again, deadlifts are great, Romanian deadlifts are great, back extensions are great, my reverse hamstring extensions are great—but those mainly focus on glutes and hams, and the lower back is an assistance muscle. You really want to also focus on doing some back-specific moves where you're actually flexing and extending the spine, not just the hips. So that's really the main difference in hitting your lower back.

Another great one is the good morning. But again, with the good morning, you're going to do it with the barbell on your back. You typically do a good morning with an arched back—ass comes out, you come down, back up. It's a lot of glute and hamstring; lower back as well, but to really hit the lower back you do need to do some flexion of the spine. So if you're going to do that with good mornings make sure you go super light.

That's the thing, because damage occurs—when you're doing a deadlift, you'll see a lot of people say "Why do you lean back at the top so much? That's dangerous for your spine." Not at all. You can extend back as far as you want without causing any damage to your spine. Damage occurs during the flexion portion, where the spine comes forward. That's where your discs get damaged and pinched, and where nerves can get pinched as well.

Extending back is never the problem. In fact I extend back to focus more on the glutes in the top position, and the lower back in this top position. The rounding is the issue. So if you're going to do stiff-legged deadlifts don't try to do the same weight you're using for Romanians or regular deadlifts—keep it very light and allow the weight to come in front of the body. That's going to place more stress on those spinal erectors versus the hamstrings and the glutes. Those are just little tricks to think about when you're trying to focus on a muscle group like the lower back, because the only way to really isolate it or focus on it is to do the one thing that people tell you not to do—round your back. But to actually train them you have to do a little bit of that with light weight.

I hope everyone enjoyed today's session. Again, Popeye's I want to thank you guys. I'm sure you guys are watching, so thank you so much for the platform and letting me reach all my JYM Army in Canada and everywhere around the world. Appreciate everyone who's out there helping to get JYM Supplement Science to the JYM Army who wants it. Other countries—Australia, UK, Europe, Asia, India—it's definitely coming, one step at a time. But right now we're in the US and Canada.

So my Canadian JYM Army, enjoy the results guys. You know where to hit me up, guys. Go to my Facebook page, my YouTube, my Instagram, don't forget my JYM Army Facebook group page where you can get your answers from your own peers—which often is better than asking me because I do it a certain way. You might meet some JYM Army member who has the same schedule you have, or has the same issue in the gym you have. He's already got a solution, and they're there to share. So please check out the JYM Army Facebook group page guys.

It's your—trust me, these are your people. This is your community. It's nothing but positive vibes. We're going through the challenge, we're going through my Train with Jim series on the page. So check it out, join in on the conversation—answers, answers, answers. That's what I'm about, getting you answers whether it's coming directly from me on my social media or from other JYM Army members. We're here for you. Get results. It's not just about taking supplements. It's not just about training and following smart nutrition plans. It's about community. Having a support system. Having like-minded people who feel the same way and have the same goals and desires, and have the same issues in their day and how to get through them. Right there, guys—the JYM Army Facebook group page. Check it out.

Again, everyone in Canada, thank you so much. I really want to thank the Popeye's team for working so hard to get the JYM Army JYM Supplement Science products as quickly as we possibly could. So enjoy guys, I'm sure I'll be back on the Popeye's platform again to do more live sessions. Like I said if you're heading to Vegas for the Olympia, I'll be at the Bodybuilding.com booth. I'll also be having a couple speaking engagements Friday and Saturday at 1 pm. So check it out, and as always stay JYM Army Strong.

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