Episode 459: Mind Pump Men: How to Spot a Bad Trainer and Why Most Fitness Trends Are Dangerous

26:47I'll give you an example. Okay. We obviously have a huge podcast, millions of downloads. Do you know how many leads of potential clients we can produce in an episode? Tremendous amounts. Yeah. Do you know how many trainers we have? On board right now? On staff too? You know why? They're hard to find? No. Oh. No, I could put out a thing. I could hire 50 trainers tomorrow. Good ones, though. Yeah. Yes, of course. We are not going to mess around, and we're going to slow it down as much as possible because we don't want anybody representing Mind Pump that isn't going to deliver. We've seen mistakes already through these other brands that have let it get away from them.

27:23Totally. The quality control has gone haywire. And then forever that brand is now known for this, this less quality trainer that they're producing in gyms. And so it's like for us, it's really just to, to sit back and, and make sure we, we pay attention to all these details. We build, develop these, these trainers to become great. So it's a reflection of everything we've talked about because we've built so much trust with our audience. And we really hold that tight and dear to us. Cause if we lose that really our, our whole business implodes. We have the luxury to do what they're both saying because we did the other thing first.

28:00That's right. So this would be like, let's say we came out the gates and started personal training. We'd be put in a very interesting, like when we first started, when we hired Kyle, trained him up for over a year and a half. And then we hired the next trainer and then the next trainer. Like that has been such a slow process that we actually have lost money. Now we're making money and we're profitable now. but if you count up all the hours and money and investing into people we did before we actually started collecting money we were in the red because we didn't come out just trying to sell and make money right away it's like hey let's make sure we hire the right person who we know is gonna have to oversee that because we don't have the time to fully oversee that so we got to make sure we build that right that person has got to have the right character got to have this right values and more Kyle the guy Kyle's the head trainer so it was like and that was it took was a long time to get somebody who we thought, okay.

28:49Exceptional individual. Yeah. This kid has got as high of integrity as all of us. He's incredibly loyal. He's on brand. It's like, okay, we have that person in place. Okay. Now, and it's, and we had that luxury of, you know, if we didn't have to, if we didn't have a business that was already paying all the bills and covering everything, we wouldn't have been able to do that. So we waited to do a business that isn't as high of profitability and doesn't have as high as margins as the other parts of the business so we could take our time and we didn't have to rush. Okay. But how about map, like the, your, all your online programs.

29:21That's like the bread and butter, a lot of what you do, right? That's what built this. That's what built this whole, that was the beginning of it. Besides the podcast, the empire was really starting to take off when you built out the maps, right? Right. But we had maps for a year before we, we didn't sell anything for a year. Right, but then you did Maps and it crushed. So why then, are you worried that the training business, the online business, the in-person business, will basically eat into the Maps business? No, no, it'll feed into it. It will be mutually beneficial. Okay. Yeah, now Maps programs are written for a general audience.

30:01It's a low-ticket item. It's going to feed the training business. Right, so people can do the online. that they don't, like, that's not hands-on, obviously. It's just you buy the program and, like, everything's in there. Then you have the, well, personal training is a whole different thing. But the virtual training, do they, can they use? Of course. Yeah, the trainers will use all the programs. Eventually we're going to pair that together. Okay, so they're using the MAPS programs to train the clients. But they're individualized, too, right? So, I mean, I can create the best program, digital program for, you know, moms who want to be fit.

30:35You have the mommy program. We do. Right. But that's still general, right? If the mom hires me, now I'm looking at an individual human and I can individualize it. Just exercise. No program we create will ever be better than a good coach. It makes perfect sense to go in the training. I mean, on average, we do almost 240 programs a day, right? Mass programs are sold all over the world every day. 240? How much is each one sold for? 50 to 100 bucks depending on the sale or whatever it is. God. I want to load from you guys. So every day that's happening. Yeah. Now we have an incredible customer service team on the back end that when somebody emails in or goes to our chat and has a question about the program or exercise or anything like that, that they're communicating.

31:16And so we've had and we've been doing that for years. So for years, we've been collecting all this data on these 200 plus people that buy every single day. Wow. Who just wants to do it themselves? What kind of questions are they asking? And there's a large enough percentage of people that are like, man, I wish I had somebody to help me through this process. Now we have that. But we wouldn't have done that if we didn't collect that stuff first, though. First was, let's go first do this, go prove that there's something there, and then, again, allow the customer to tell us what's the next business to be made.

31:47Who built the programs? All of you? Sal did the original one. I wrote the original one before we started the podcast. Doug and I were business partners. He was my client initially, and we created Maps Anabolic, shot it, did the whole thing. then we started the podcast so it was already there maps on a block was there but we didn't sell it for a year it wasn't until a year of doing podcasting building an audience and trust and authority that we then did our first program launch what's the debt like is it 50 50 split women what's the math how men versus almost split right down the middle yeah pretty close different platforms are different like youtube is like a high 70 percent guys are on youtube compared to girls.

32:28Although that's a lot of women watching our YouTube channel if you look at how many men in general are on YouTube. because YouTube is skewed 80-20 or more in the general. We have a huge female audience which is, I find, I get a lot of pride in that considering it's three, you know, they like to call us three bros. Yeah. You know what's really funny actually? I know more women who listen to you than men. Isn't that funny? Oh, I mean, I think our female audience is the most loyal and best customers for sure. Yeah. That's amazing. Dudes don't ask for directions. No, exactly. but women do I have a friend of mine all the dudes are all the freeloaders yeah exactly I know a couple women one in particular who does your maps she loves your program and you got she got ripped from your program that's awesome yeah it was really actually I was like wow we have 27 of them here's an important thing to know and this is like so I got to see maps long before Mind Pump happened Sal sent it over for me to see it and I was at a place in my career that when I saw what he had written I already without even meeting him or getting to really know him yet.

33:29Cause I didn't know him very well at all. I knew how brilliant of a trainer he was. And I went, okay, he like this whole, this whole conversation started on how do you know a good trainer? I knew by the way, he wrote a program that he knew his shit. I was like, Oh, I want to meet this guy. I want to get in the same room as he is. And so we got together. And so it does matter to all the experience, the fact that we gave this, we started this podcast with all this free information, not asking for anything and then when the people started we when we started to sell mass programs was after every guy was coming to work going oh my god somebody's trying to donate money to me have you ever heard of a patreon people are telling us to start a patreon people are asking to buy stuff we were literally getting people trying to give us money because they had felt that we'd given them so much value from the podcast then it was like now it's time to show them what maps right right and because i knew and sort of the other guys know how good maps was we knew it was going to be very effective.

34:19We knew that when they got in the hands, especially of the female client, because one of the things that when you're a trainer, one of the first go-to moves when you get good at helping your female clients, and we've got to remember, we go back 20 years, so this is a little bit different today for the listener than it was 20 years. A lot of stuff is accepted now. Women did not train 5x5 training. Women did not deadlift and squat heavyweight. Not at all. No, 20 years ago, nothing under 5 reps. So phase one of MAPS anabolic is five-by-five heavy squatting and deadlifting in it. And I knew when Sal put that in that program, I was like, oh, one, I already know that our most common client is middle-aged women.

34:59And I know that I had learned by this time in my career that when I take a woman through a traditional block of five-by-five training, I blow her mind. She puts on muscle. Her butt gets tighter. She leans out. She's eating more. And I always blow her. And so his first phase of MAPS anabolic was designed that way. I'm like, oh, this is brilliant. These girls are going to get on this within one month to two months. It's going to blow their mind and then they'll forever be bought into us. So that's exactly what happened. We released maps. It goes out to the public. We sell a few hundred of them together and all the people call back.

35:30Oh my God, I've never trained this few days. Oh my God, I've never trained like this and I've seen this much. And then here come all the, and then it just grew off of referrals. We didn't advertise back then. We didn't have any sort of marketing sales funnel besides the podcast. and it was purely off of us giving free information, getting people to start that mass program, and then them blowing their minds by the results. Wow. And because of that, we were allowed to do all the other things. You know what's interesting? Because, Sal, people are still really stuck. A lot of women are still stuck in their head that if they do hardcore, heavy strength training, they're going to be bulky.

36:07They're going to have a lot of mass. So it's the whole cardio versus strength thing, right? I still feel that that's still something that a lot of women struggle with, right? Do you have any advice on how to kind of get women over that hump to doing more strength training? Yeah. You know, what's funny is that this conversation is so much more accepted today. When we were having this conversation just 10 years ago on the podcast, it was like controversial, blowing people's minds. I see women lifting weights all the time now. It's the fastest growing demographic of people who strength train. because they're figuring this out.

36:44But, you know, muscle is fat-burning machinery. It's hard to build muscle. And muscle is very dense, and it looks good. So if you lose 10 pounds of body fat and replace it with 10 pounds of muscle, which, by the way, gaining 10 pounds of muscle, very difficult for 99.9 % of women. But let's just say you did that. You weigh the same on the scale. You look radically different. You're smaller. Muscle takes up less space than body fat on a pound-for-pound basis, something almost like a quarter less space. It's shaped different. And it goes to different places and it's firm and it feels good. And you're burning more calories.

37:17You're leaner with less work and your hormones are working better. And when women do it and they do it right, not the wrong way, right? Because you can do circuits and you can make strength training turn into cardio too. But if you do it right, you're sold. It's like, that's it. This is incredible. Okay. So what's the right way for a woman to strength train? Okay. Depending on the individual, but generally speaking, you strength train like someone who wants to get strong. So you do a set. you rest for two minutes you do a set you rest for two minutes not set set set set set exercise exercise exercise but you literally just like a strength athlete uh works out you do a set you rest you do a set one of the best things that the the average woman who wants to be lean tone firm uses all that vocabulary could do is train like a power lifter yeah like literally one of the best things that she can do that will will help her out or head towards that goal and and it's not what you would think like that's not the first thing that comes to a woman's mind is like oh i should train like a power lifter to look like this this physique i'm describing but it's the truth and a lot of that has to do with how they've been marketed to for so long and all the different classes and circuit training and butt burner and all this all these all these gimmicky things that have been sold to women that doesn't move the needle at all when it comes to sculpting and shaping a body, which is again, why before I even met Sal, I knew how good of a trainer he was by the way he programmed.

38:42So wait, so how does a power lifter train that women should mimic? Five by five. So the big lift, the big core lift. Explain that for people who don't know what you're talking about. Okay. So you could also train like a bodybuilder or like other strength athletes, but we like power lifter or he says power lifter because it's going to place your focus on strength. Okay, so there are some movements that are far more effective than others at shaping the body. Your bench presses, your rows, your squats, your deadlifts, your overhead presses, like your basic compound, what are known as compound lifts.

39:15Those are the ones that are going to give you more bang for your buck than other lifts. For example, getting really good at a barbell squat is going to give you better results than five other leg exercises combined. Okay, so way less work, far better results. That's true for all the other exercises that I listed. So focus on those lifts, get stronger, then practice them. In other words, go to the gym, don't beat yourself up, but rather practice those lifts and get good at them, and your body will start to shape. Feed the muscle. In other words, eat a high-protein diet. Don't starve yourself. Get stronger in the gym.

39:47As you get stronger, usually metabolic rate starts to follow, and then you start to see some fat loss.

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42:21Okay, so I want all of you to tell me, if you can only do five exercises for the rest of your life, what would they be? You just named it right there. Overhead press, row, bench press, squat, deadlift. Those five. Yeah. Do those. I'll tell you. No, that's not perfect because you also want to include rotation. But if I only did five, you're good. Those five movements paired with a woman hitting her protein intake, the upper end of her protein intake, so one-to-one ratio. So however much you weigh, hit that in grams of protein or how much you want to weigh, right? So if you want to weigh 130, 130 grams of protein.

42:55Do those five lifts three times a week. Just get good at them and get strong. I swear you will build one of the best bodies you've ever built. That's right. Okay, and you should also keep on loading, shouldn't you? Well, yeah, get strong. What I'm saying, get strong at them. What I'm communicating is the goal should be to, over time, slowly get stronger and stronger, which would mean adding more weight to the bottom. So you're saying a bench press, a row, a squat, a deadlift, overhead press. Overhead press. Yep, those five. Okay, so do you think that a lunge is overrated? No. Lunges is a variation of a squat.

43:34Oh, so now we're talking about variations. we're talking about variations. Also remember this. You said if I only got five exercises, what would the five be forever? Those are the five. Okay. I can make a case for all those being some sort of a unilateral movement too. And we can get into all the nuances. So that was my next question. Yeah. Why unilateral, rotational core stuff is important. Like, okay. I have a question. Yeah. Okay. Because I thought, so our bodies are imbalanced, right? Like I have my right side is much stronger than my left side. So I was under the school of thought that doing a lot of unilateral, like one side at a time, is way better for adjusting imbalances and strengthening my body.

44:17Is that not accurate? It is. And I think that that's an important part of the process. What they're describing is the foundation of your strength to build off of. The foundation. And so Well, as you go back, there's a necessity to go through cycles of unilateral training or even like including more mobility and other variations of movement. Otherwise, we get too strong in one direction, which for these exercises we listed are all in the sagittal plane. So this is problematic once we get too strong and we encounter things in the real world where you do have, you know, you move with acceleration.

44:49You don't train that way. You're going to feel the impact of that. You have something else that sort of slips. You have some kind of lateral shift, and now we have pain and weakness there that's not addressed, so then that creates an injury. But the basis of it is you want to get as strong as possible with these foundational lifts, and then we branch from there. Well, let's change the question a little bit so the audience understands why we came out the way we did. The question remains the same, what will we do? But I've got eight weeks to prove to you I know what the fuck I'm doing. And if I only got eight weeks and I want to give you the biggest bang for your buck, it's those five movements.

45:26Go get strong at it. Because I know that lunging, all the other great unilateral movements that have tremendous value and are absolutely going to get implemented in our routine as we continue on. I know that I will show you the greatest change physically and metabolically by doing those five lifts first. Then you'll be bought into me like, holy shit, Adam, I can't believe what we've done. Okay, now let me explain to you why we need to incorporate rotational work, why we need to do some lunging and unilateral work. So we're talking like this is phase one, was what you explained. What's phase two?

45:59What are the next five best exercises once you've got your foundation strong? You know what's funny? So you can add, so we can go, you can break down the human body into some basic movements. You have squatting, hip hinging, you have pressing both vertically and horizontally. And you have rowing. And I think, did I say rotation? Rotation is in there as well. Rotation and anti-rotation. And anti-rotation. So it's like basic human movement. So all exercises can kind of fall in those categories. But essentially what you want to do is you want to train your body to be strong and lots of different planes of movement.

46:34And you want to be good at all of those different things. And I didn't include in there acceleration and deceleration. And so it can get very complicated. And this is what a good trainer will know. Yeah, it does. But if you're the average person, okay, and you're like, Like, hey, I want to do some strength training, and I want to feel pretty fit and strong. Like, you just do those five lifts, you're doing pretty good. Let's talk about someone who's not the average. Now, let's say someone's been training for a while, right? And they've kind of got the foundation going. What's the next thing that they should be focusing on?

47:06Is it rotations? Is it unilateral? Multi-planar movement. We have a couple programs in particular. Map Symmetry, which addresses all unilateral work. mapped performance, which is all this like multi-planar rotational type stuff. What we tell the audience and the average person is every year you should run one of those programs every year. And then outside of that, do whatever you want goal-wise. You want to train for OCR, you want to train for a powerlifting meet, you want to train for a bikini competition, train however the hell you want that your heart desires, that you're attracted to, or that you get excited about, but just make sure to incorporate one cycle of that to balance you Wow.

47:45Okay. It matters, Jen. It also matters, Jen, on what you've been doing. Okay. So your experience. It depends. Right. I mean, it does. Your experience. You've been working out for a while. You have pain that's coming into this whole situation. I need to know what you've been doing. Okay. But this is the thing, right? Like, you know, a big thing is that girls to have a good booty, blah, blah, blah. Is it overrated to do like a hip thrust? No. I mean, hip thrusts, here's why they're good. It's a great glute exercise. Yeah, so here's why you'll hear women rave about the hip thrust or people rave about the hip thrust for building their butt.

48:22I'll go over studies first, but then I'll tell you why hip thrusts for some people are so good to build a butt. So they've done head-to-head studies on comparing the barbell squat, which is a great exercise, to the hip thrust for glute growth. Okay, now if we're talking about overall leg development, if we're talking about overall athletic performance, the squat's going to win. But if we're looking at just butt growth, they're actually tied. They're actually just as good as one another. And yet we have all these people saying that the hip thrust is superior. And here's why. People who struggle to build a butt doing a squat tend to have issues with how their muscles fire while doing the squat.

49:02They tend to have issues with connecting to the glutes in a squat. They tend to be, you know, for lack of a better term, quad dominant. So they do squats all the time. Like my butt's not growing. My quads are growing. My butt's not growing. The hip thrust loads the glutes directly in a shortened position. You feel them. You can connect to them. You can squeeze. So for the woman who squats, who doesn't feel her butt grow at all, is like, this isn't working for me, the barbara hip thrust is a tremendous exercise for butt development. But all things being equal, the squat outranks the hip thrust.

49:30Now, the real answer is in a routine, you probably want to do both. Right. They're both valuable. Well, before, there was a time when none of us hip thrusts or hip thrusts with our clients because it wasn't a popular lift. They didn't have machines that loaded the plates so you could get into it comfortably. What we would do with a client that Sal's describing that has a hard time feeling her butt when she squats is you would prime her glutes before she goes into a squat. So you do like floor bridges. Which is like a hip thrust just on the floor. Right, so I'd have her do floor bridges to get connected to her ass and have her squeeze.

50:03You feel that? Oh yeah, I definitely feel that. Okay, great. Now let's get over here and do squats. Think about that as you squat. And so that's how we would teach that client to get a better connection to her glutes when she's got to improve the glute growth. That was before hip thrust became so popular, and now you have all these great machines for it, and now it's the new hot thing to do. It's so true. I think everything becomes trendy, right? And also, is it true or is it that a lot of people's bodies are not able to squat, right, because they can't feel their glutes aren't firing and all these other things?

50:36Okay, so everybody's body, so long as they don't have any genetic defects, deformities, or really bad injuries, everybody's body should be able to squat. Now, the reason why not everybody can squat is that they've lost the ability to squat because they stopped squatting when they were four. Okay, so if I were to say to you, should everybody be able to walk? Well, yeah, unless they have some kind of genetic issue or injury. Squatting is a fundamental human movement. You watch any four-year-old sit in a squat and you'll see that it's very, it's a fundamental human movement. We just stop squatting.

51:10We don't squat to do anything anymore. We sit on a toilet to go to the bathroom. Yeah, that's it. We sit in chairs. That's a resting position. Most people can't sit in a squat to rest. They've lost the mobility. And your body, if you stop practicing a movement or even a fundamental human movement, your body will forget how to do it. Pruse it. it'll prune the neural networks and forget and get rid of your so if you took an if you took a an adult you took a 12 year old and you bet you put them in a bed and never had them walk for 10 years and then had them get up they're not going to be able to walk they'll have to relearn how to walk and walking is fundamental so same thing with squatting you're also uh this is setting the table for the original conversation of how do we define a good trainer see a good trainer takes a client who can't squat right now.

52:00And our goal is to get to that point. So I had a lot of clients because of course on the podcast, we talk about the benefits of squatting so much. I get asked like, well, what if you can't, or what if I haven't been able to, or I get all this pain? Well, as a trainer, I wouldn't take that client and force them to squat if they're feeling pain or they can't do it for whatever reason. But that becomes our goal. Our goal now becomes, okay you've lost the ability to squat it is a basic human movement we should be able to do that my goal is to get you there and a really good trainer can assess the way your body moves because it's normally due to limiting mobility factors like you have really poor ankle mobility so your heels rise up when you squat down and then your knees start to hurt and it's like well that has less to do with you can't squat has more to do with you have poor ankle joint function if i can improve that then i could get you down into a squat or you have somebody who rolls their their shoulders and their chest that falls forward.

52:52It's like, if I could get you to sit up properly, like, so assessing the way that person moves, what is limiting them from being able to squat and then knowing how to unpack that and go work on those things that get to them. You address your way back so you can actually find movements that are, they can accomplish. And it keeps chipping away at that overall goal where it's like, you can, you can deconstruct that you could place in front of them ways that they could see progress and they could see levels of improvement in their mobility. And so, you know, it's not something we just remove that fact that you'll never be able to do a squat again.

53:25This is a challenge that we're going to keep chipping away. And by the way, sometimes you never get a client to be able to squat. I mean, I had clients that hired me when they were 60, and my goal was to get them to be able to do squat. And five years later, we made tremendous progress, but we still can't squat. You can't squat. We're still working on it, though. Yeah, but we're still working on it because it's the working towards that. You provide them with so much benefits in mobility, pain, strength. All of it. Everything. Okay. Are crunches a waste of time? No. You don't think so? No. Why would they be a waste of time?

53:56Because another big myth that because crunches, you're just, you're basically can be using your neck. You're not using your entire core, blah, blah, blah. I'm asking you, you're the, you're the exceptional trainer. No, it's, it's, it's an exercise. I mean, you're, you're working spinal flexion. You're getting the, mainly the abdominis, the abdominals to do the movement. Was a plank better? A plank is a different movement. They're both good. A plank is an isometric contraction. I mean, here's a, like, again, it depends. Yeah, it depends. So what happens is a lot of times a person who's asking about crunches is because they want to have visible abs.

54:31And it's like, yeah, you're wasting your time crunching a thousand times all day to have these. There's better movement. So it's like, that's how I. Okay, you're right. So let me ask a better question. How does someone get a six pack in the most effective way? besides the kitchen. Okay, so two things. You named one of them. You got to be lean enough. If you're not lean enough, then it doesn't matter. That's most of it. And number two, you have to build your abs. You have to build. It's a muscle. It's like your biceps or your lats or your quads. Like, if you get them to build, they're going to be more visible.

55:04So doing 100 reps is not going to build your abs. It's like 100 reps and my biceps curls aren't going to build my biceps. You have to get them strong. So do things in the 8 to 12 rep range with good control, with good contraction, full extension, where you're developing the muscles of your abs. And then as they develop, you'll see them. Well, talk about the hip flexor deactivation because this is a common problem a lot of people face when they're crunching. And so, you know, Sal did a really good video about this, but there's a way to do that without, you know, overemphasizing your hip flexors, which a lot of times, you know, that can create back problems and have its own issues in itself.

55:39But once you figure out how to do that, squeeze your glutes, get that more involved, a little bit of a lift, Sometimes you lift your legs up on a step and you're able to crunch and really kind of take that sternum to the belly button and crunch, you know, with a very specific technique for that, you get more activation. Yeah, so a lot of people confuse forward flexion with I'm working my abs, but I can bend forward at the hips or I can bend forward at the lumbar spine. So lumbar spine is abs, hips is hip flexors. So you see people do leg raises, but they're not, their tailbone isn't tucking and curving up.

56:10That's abs. So they're just lifting their legs. That's hip flexors. So you see a lot of people do ab exercise, but really what they're doing are neck and hip flexor exercise. So the thing with core training is definitely part of it. With every exercise, technique is. The most important in the, what makes Sal or Justin super trainers is that what they would do with a client, because I'd say. Not you? No, I mean, I would too. They're the better trainers. They're the better trainers. is that I, at least I can't recall ever a client who hired me who ever trained five to six reps of abs. Everybody does abs 15, 20, 30 circuit.

56:49So they know that, I know that. So one of the most powerful things you can do is to get somebody to do heavy loaded ab exercises. If you want to build your abs better than you've ever built them before, I would guess 90 % or more people listening to this podcast right now haven't trained them that way. you'll see the greatest benefit from that right there. Wow. And it's not that crunches and high reps don't have value. It's just that that's what everybody does. Yeah. Everybody defaults to high rep, neck exercise, or hip flexor getting involved versus like, yeah, I bet if I took that person and did five controlled full lever sit-ups where they held a 10-pound plate, I would blow their abs up.

57:29People can't do that. No, they can't. No, they're not training for that, like you said. But I think it's because we are so conditioned to doing these group classes, like at F45 or all these gyms where you're just like doing, like you're going through the motions, like what we've always done. So do you think that a lot of these group classes, not all, but a lot, like the F45s and the Orange Theory are just like a waste of time? Garbage. I don't know if, I wouldn't say waste of time. I remember all the heat I got back in the day. One step off the couch, right? Yeah. As they say. I wouldn't say it's a waste of time, but the exercises in those classes, you could trade them out with whatever exercise.

58:12It's just moving. They're just getting you to move. It's just moving. I think that's a good way of putting it. Here's what I tell my clients that ask about Orange Theory and F45. If you're going there to make change to your body, it's a terrible idea. if you're already happy with your fitness level and you love the community and you enjoy the class and you're not trying to make any change to your physique. Yeah, you're having fun. It's awesome. Yeah. See, if you're not trying to make change and you're going to burn some calories and you're going to expend some energy and that in itself has value.

58:42But if you're showing up there in hopes that you're going to build a body that you want that you don't currently have, it's a horrible approach. Adam, you forgot it depends, first of all. But it's true, right? I think that's a great explanation. If you just want to move your body and see some people that you like to see and socialize with, it's great. But for body competition, those classes do – by the way, I think not only do those classes do nothing for you, they actually do – they make you hungrier because it's basically getting you hungry because of the cardio aspect, and then you end up eating more.

59:15Therefore, you're probably going to gain weight from doing this. There's a huge repetitive stress injuries and all kinds of fun stuff. Yes, that's true. It also tends to attract the wrong person, too. It tends to attract the cortisol junkies. Yes. So the people that need that adrenaline, that push, and their cortisol is all over the board. It's probably their bodies. And they need that hard push just to feel anything. And they think that feedback they're getting is positive when it's really not. So it's like the worst person that should be taking that class, too. If you added up all the wasted monthly fees for those types of classes, all the wasted money on supplements, that basically supplements will do, if you get the best supplements, it'll do like 2%.

59:52Okay, the best supplements will do 2%. I'm so glad you said that. All the wasted money on all the diet stuff and you just took a fraction of that and invested it in a good trainer, the dividends would blow you away. I believe that. I believe that. I think that, I mean, I'm a great example, right? I used to do all those classes all the time because I thought, okay, That's what we all did back in the day, right? Like, oh, I was going to go do this class. I was doing Barry's boot camps and I was dying. And all I really got from any of that is like a bad ankle, a bad knee, like so many stress fractures.

1:00:33And an appetite that was like through the roof that I ended up actually like eating four times more and gaining weight and gaining body fat. Well, I would guess, I mean, I'd love to hear from you what your journey was like. I bet you work out less and you're older and you have a better body today, probably because you strength train. I do a lot of strength training. I have to say, I think that whenever I do too much intense cardio, I end up gaining weight because of the amount of food I eat. I eat just an enormous amount of calories just because I'm so ravenous. But when I do more like low, like kind of like very, like very slow cardio or just like walking and then I'm doing hardcore weights, I always look better.

1:01:21That's right. I always look better. And I will tell you another myth. And I want to ask you guys about this because I realized this like just recently. So, you know, like the walking vest has become like the hugest trend, right? Every like Tom, Dick and Harry and Molly are wearing these vests. And I was one of them. and I was a huge advocate for them. What I started to notice was my foot started to really hurt. And my ankle, I started to get really bad plantar fasciitis. My ankle was hurting me. And I went to this place, this wellness facility. Actually, it was called Sensei. Have you ever been there?

1:01:57Yeah, it's this thing. It's called the Sensei Resort. And I met this guy there who was a trainer. And he was asking me all these questions. And when I told him about the weighted vest, he's like, you shouldn't be wearing that. And he was so scientific into what it does. And that was kind of the culprit to all of my injuries, where I realized that this weighted vest, this whole phenomenon, is actually maybe detrimental and not a positive thing. There's zero additional benefit. The only people that get value from training with a weighted vest are people who are training to be able to wear. something that's weighted in other words you're going to go rucking yeah this rocking this is a phenomenon that's fine if you want to get good at rucking you probably should practice rucking right you want to get good you want to be good at like as a firefighter you're gonna have to carry gear you probably should do some training wearing gear but if you want to get fit and you're walking don't wear a weighted vest all it does is it throws off people most people can walk relatively well without creating problems okay so as long as they train within or walk within their within in their fitness level.

1:03:06They're probably not going to hurt themselves. It's one of the few things we could do still pretty well as humans is walk, thankfully. We're not in Wally world yet. You throw a weighted vest on somebody and it throws everything off just enough to cause problems. And that's what's going to, and it doesn't give you, it doesn't burn this crazy amount of extra calories. This phenomenon came from a study that was done recently. And our friend, Chalene Johnson, is one of the advocates for the weighted vest because she read this study. And this is the problem with studies. Yeah, she's a huge advocate for the weighted vest.

1:03:35It's based on bone density. I can't remember what the study said. Bone density. Yeah, bone density. It says it increases your bone density. By the way, it was Shaleen that got me into the weighted vest. Because it was, she's, and of course, she did it, and then she saw these positive benefits that happened from it before she tested it. I mean, what one of us would tell you is like, go lift weights, and that person would get all those benefits and some. Well, you're going to get more benefits. Because I do, I believe what it does, the weighted of vest just throws off, throws your body off just enough where it tweaks your body slowly.

1:04:06So you don't even know it's the weighted vest. Well, listen, most of us don't, are not symmetrical and don't walk perfectly already as it is. And adding weight to that, it's just like somebody who's obese, why they have all these other chronic issues and pains that come up from it is because they're carrying this extra weight on their body and they don't walk very good. Their joints feel the impact. That's not helping them to add weight to your vest. It changes your recruitment patterns. It's not just Chalene because all these menopause doctors, all these hormone doctors now are walking around with these vests.

1:04:34It's because it's low-hanging fruit. Low-hanging fruit. It's like I can – because I understand from the doctor, right? I'm a doctor. They want to simplify everything. And I know that 80 % of people are not going to strength train three times a week. So what I can tell this client who has got borderline osteoporosis right now is I just want you to walk here. When you do your walk, you already do every day, wear a vest. and that alone, the study shows how beneficial that would be. And so it's low-hanging fruit. Yeah, it's annoying though. It's stupid because they're all ignoring the studies that show the absolute superior.

1:05:07The reason why a weighted vest will add some bone density is because of the weight, the resistance. You know what does that way better? Strength training. Way better. Way better. Do way less work with strength training and you'll get more bone density out of it. The problem is that the doctors aren't doing this. What they should be doing, even the ones that even recommend the vest, is they should be saying that in a perfect world, this is what you do. Nothing is going to reverse this better than strength training a couple times a week. This is what I do. At the bare minimum, if you can't do that, then you do this.

1:05:38That's what's happening. What I'm saying is even at the bare minimum, it's probably not a good idea to wear the weighted vest because of what it does, especially with middle-aged women, which is interesting because right now the rage is with middle-aged women wearing these weighted vests. and the fact and they're saying because then you're like you said you're getting more bang for your buck you're burning more calories you're adding resistance to what you're already doing so you're intensifying your workouts but then you're more prone to the plantar fasciitis the knee problems the hip problems the only person besides that man i met at this wellness place is stacy sims you know she is who was saying to me when i was asking her on my podcast i was saying like what do you think of these vests too she's like it's way better to just hold two heavy weights and walk with these heavy weights i kind of like farmer walks even yeah because at least you're at least it's balanced because what you're doing with these weighted vests it's like it's it's pushing down on your shoulders right compressing your body number one right it's not doing anyone any favors right especially if you're not a fit person just walk you don't need to put anything on you don't need to hold a dumbbell and when you strength train strength train look here's here's another reason why they're causing problems yeah is when people walk with a weighted vest what they're doing is they're walking to fatigue okay they're walking till they get tired okay fatigue breaks form down proper strength training is about technique and form and what we always communicate periods we always communicate rest periods and you train with perfect technique and practice the lifts i don't want you lifting so in other words i'm not doing squats to hammer my legs I'm doing squats to get good at squats.

1:07:17That's what gets you good results. If I go into the hammer of my legs, my technique's going to be off just enough to cause problems. It's just the means to an end. And to support what Stacey Sims is saying is that when we teach a farmer walk, part of teaching a proper farmer walk is the posture and the way you walk. We put emphasis on the way you step. It's not just like grab this and go walk forward. It's like, no, chest up high, shoulders back and down, tuck your chin, walk, and then carry the weight. And that is incredibly valuable because you're also working on your posture, your core stability, and you're building strength.

1:07:52Whereas you just throw a vest on somebody who's got their headphones on or is gabbing on the phone. Yeah, yeah. Posture is shit. Rounded shoulders, and then now you're pulling this weight on top of your – Well, that's my – exactly. So then you have all these other ailments that are happening. So this is the problem with social media though, right? Because you see one person doing it. Way crazy. And then it just, it spreads like rapid fire. And now you see every middle age, anyone over the age of 40, they're wearing a weighted vest. Like while they're just talking, like walking, they're wearing them to work.

1:08:24They're doing it at their desk. They're wearing it around their house. And I'm one of those Nimrods that was joining the crew. And like until I had my own injuries. Jen, you should just always ask us. I know. Why are you doing that? I know. It's slightly better than the waist trainer. Just send me a text. What do you think of this fitness trend? I know. I really honestly should. I have another one for you. and this might be controversial right because we it's another huge thing and i know we just a little bit talked about it was protein yeah right do you think people are overdoing it now with protein because all you hear about is protein protein eat more protein protein i went to this show at expo west a few adam you're there and literally every product i saw was just infused with protein i'm We're talking protein pretzels, protein hot dog, protein shoes.

1:09:10Like wherever someone can stuff protein, they're just. It's because it's the demand for it now because we're more aware than we've ever been on how important it is to get these upper limits. And the majority of people don't. So now all these companies are smart and they're infusing all these carb treats with protein. So they're more desirable. They're more marketable. Here's the deal. But there's most people under eat protein. Here's the deal, okay? Don't eat heavily processed foods. Do you know what falls under that category? Protein pretzels. All that stuff. Protein muffins. Protein crackers.

1:09:43All that stuff is crap. But protein in general. Protein from whole natural foods. Eat it first. Prioritize it. It helps burn more body fat. Build more muscle. It improves satiety. Improves insulin sensitivity. It's for most people generally, not everybody, for most people, it's beneficial. Getting it in a bunch of supplements is a distant second place. And if you're getting it from a lot of these processed products. Real animal sources. Yeah. And good luck overeating it if you do it through whole foods. Yeah. No, no. So basically eating whole food protein stuff. But I guess my question really is, I know protein is obviously very important, but are we undervaluing other things like fiber?

1:10:23Because everyone's emphasizing protein. They're not emphasizing fiber or other micronutrients that are super important. Well, I think they're undervaluing what Sal said, which is just eating whole foods. Yeah. Yeah, where you get everything. Yeah. That's the beauty of like, that's why one of our favorite pieces of advice to tell somebody is don't track, don't weigh, don't just eat whole foods. We'll tell clients a lot of times when they call in, they have all these questions about what to do and we hear them out. And it's like, I could tell this person a hundred different things to do, but I bet you if I could just get them to eat whole foods for 30 days, I'll blow their mind.

1:10:55That right there will solve so many of these other issues that you're overcomplicating and thinking. So I think that's what's undervalued. I think it's undervalued. We're in this convenience of packaged food and infusing protein. Here's what happens. Just eat whole foods. What happens is we learn the value of something and then predictably— We distort it with marketing. Yes, and predictably what happens is companies come out with processed versions of it. So it's like fiber is good for you. True. Fiber is very good for you. But what ends up following is high fiber cereal, high fiber crackers. Fortified with fiber.

1:11:27Everything's fortified with fiber, right? This nutrient is good for you. Cool. Now they're throwing it in everything. So protein good for you, whole natural foods. Protein from supplements, a distant second. What would I pick if I had to pick a supplement for protein? A pure protein powder. I'm not giving my clients protein pretzels to hit their protein targets. No. That's just a snack. It's a better trend than low fat. It's junk food, basically, that I look at it as. I'd rather just eat a chocolate bar and just know it's chocolate. I mean, when you look at a protein bar, you know, I remember the first time as a young trainer when I first did this, and I flipped around a Snickers bar and I flipped around my protein bar.

1:12:04The only difference is the protein bar has 10 more grams of protein. I mean, everything else, the sugar, the fat, everything else is the same. I mean, it's really a Snickers bar with some protein in it. Exactly. So you might as well just eat the chocolate bar and just call it for what it is and not trick yourself into thinking you're doing something healthy. That's right. Okay, I got to run to the airport, you guys. I just saw, I have so many more questions, but you guys are coming back to LA, right? Maybe not you, Justin, because I don't really speak with you as often, but we should make more of a habit of maybe - We're going to have them talk about working kids.

1:12:37That's a great podcast. I want to do that because I just looked at my, I was going to start and then I realized it's 3.15 and I got to be at the airport. Yeah, we're going to get you. Can we do it again? Yes. I'll come back. Okay. Okay. Okay. We love you. Always, always. We always say yes. No, seriously. I definitely, because you gave me some great information about the core. Like, you do know your stuff. I've never heard you speak about it before. Yeah. There's a lot here. We'll unpack it. Okay. No, I would like that. Yeah. I mean, I just remember you with the being, be bold every time I saw you.

1:13:07He's not just a pretty face. Not at all. Not at all. Okay, guys. Thank you for being on my podcast in your studio. and we're going to do this again next time soon. So thanks. Awesome.