179: Why I Always Go Back to Strength Training

0:05All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the podcast.

0:11Nick Bare:Today's episode is titled, Why I Will Always Go Back to Strength Training. Always. I am, and I've said it before, I am a gym rat. I am a meathead at heart, at my core. It is in my blood. It is in my DNA. I remember growing up as I'm thinking about my bloodline and my DNA, my dad was a wrestler when he was in high school. And when I was young, I remember watching my dad come home from work, maybe 5, 6, maybe 7 p.m., if I can remember loosely. And I could hear him from a mile away because his windows were down. His music was blaring. It was hard rock. And he'd pull into our driveway and he'd step out and he was wearing wrestling shoes.

1:14He was wearing short shorts,

1:16Nick Bare:a stringer tank top tucked in. And then in his hand, he had his duffel bag and his lifting belt. And he had a mullet and a mustache. and after work, he would go to the gym, he would train and then come home. And I watched my dad come home after a long day, after leaving the gym with a pump and his veins popping out, his muscles full. And my dad growing up to me was a superhero. I'd watch him every morning in our kitchen as my brother and I were eating breakfast, doing his pushups. on the kitchen floor. And we never said anything. It was just, this is what dad does every morning. He gets after it.

2:05He puts in the work and he had a great physique. He still has a great physique for being 63 years old. Strength training, when I say it's part of my DNA, it's in my core, it's within the bare bloodline. I mean it and I believe it.

2:26Nick Bare:I want to pose a thesis, an opinion, a statement. If you want to be better at anything physical, marathons, high rocks, weekend basketball, or even just playing with your kids, strength has to come first. As Mark Bell says, strength is never a weakness and weakness is never a strength. Dang, that hits. And another thesis or opinion is that if you could only do one type of training for the rest of your life, it should be strength training. Why? The benefits far outweigh the benefits of excessive cardiovascular conditioning to include the fact that one, muscle loss or sarcopenia is one of the biggest predictors of aging decline and has risk associated with injury, decreased lifespan and healthspan and performance.

3:42The difference between healthspan and lifespan, lifespan is the amount of years that you live

3:50Nick Bare:You know, if you live to a hundred, that's great. But if your health span, the last 40 years were garbage, man, that a hundred years is kind of a subjective goal. If you had strong health up until you were 60 and then from 61 to a hundred, you had limited health span, that's a long 40 years. That's tough. Strength training improves bone density and joint integrity. And there's plentiful hormonal benefits from strength training, building muscle. It improves testosterone, growth hormone, insulin sensitivity. Strength training is foundational. And in my honest opinion, I might be biased, but I believe there's a lot of science that backs us up, a lot of data, a lot of research, studies, practical application.

4:57If we had to choose one type of training to do for our entire life, it should and would be strength training, resistance training, being in the gym, moving weight, lifting hard. so we'll get in today why i will always go back to strength training why i do always go back to strength training no matter what prep i'm in or season or what my goal is i always go back to strength training we just launched our strength collection i have the products in front of me right now the strength collection which i'll get into deeper into this episode it's a three product system. Pre, pump, and post. So the way that I use the strength collection, the way that I recommend using the strength collection is by stacking pre and pump about 30 minutes prior to your workout.

5:59You get increased energy, tunnel vision focus, muscular endurance, blood flow, contraction, better muscle pumps, which if you are into strength training or bodybuilding, you know the pump is king. And then the way that I like to use post is sipping on it during my workout, but you can also consume one serving after your workout. Post is essential amino acids, branched chain amino acids, carnitine L-tartrate, and cherry pure. It is excellent for muscle protein synthesis, stimulating, MPS, helping to repair the broken down muscle fibers from your strength training, from the workout itself. While you're working out and lifting weights, you are creating these micro tears within your muscle.

6:55And then after the workout, through proper recovery and rest and nutrition and supplementation. That's how you actually repair and rebuild muscle tissue. So the strength collection is now officially live on our website, bpnsups.com, a three product system, pre, pump, and post.

7:21Nick Bare:Now let's take it back a little bit. How I fell in love with fitness. I've shared this journey before, but it's pretty applicable to really back up why I always go back to strength training because my love for fitness started with strength training, started in the gym. And a lot of people don't know this, but as a young teenager, I actually wasn't interested in the gym. All my friends, when we were 14, 15, 16, even 17 years old, they were getting into the gym. And they would train at our high school gym after school was over for the day or go to a local gym. There was this local gym that I then started training at eventually.

8:16And I worked at called New York Fitness in Palmyra, Pennsylvania, where I grew up that everyone used to go to. And all my friends started getting into strength training in the gym when we were in early high school. And I just didn't. I had no interest. I remember to this day, my parents trying to get me to go to the gym with my friends. I didn't care. School would get out, they'd go to the gym. I'd go home. I don't remember what I did or what I worked on. but that was a weird transition period of my life because when I was 13, 14 years old, I went through a pretty severe eating disorder. I was anorexic.

9:06I was starving myself. I was afraid of food. I lost significant weight

9:14and it got to a point where my body was shutting down. I was hospitalized. from that eating disorder. And for much of my life since then, I have struggled sometimes more or less with unhealthy relationships with food.

9:33Nick Bare:I would now say that I have a healthy relationship with food, but there've been many times over the last two decades where I've had hard times and extremely unhealthy relationships with food and nutrition and gaining weight and losing weight. So as I was starting to recover from this eating disorder, all my friends were finding the gym and I just wasn't interested at that point. but after starting my recovery from the eating disorder putting some weight back on and starting to view food as fuel as opposed to a reward or even in some cases a a negative like there was a consequence to to eating but once I started shifting my mindset around food as fuel and building the body back up as opposed to tearing it back down.

10:46Nick Bare:And I started eating more and feeling better. I eventually made my way into the gym. And I can't remember exactly why I made that decision or when or what those first couple workouts felt like. but what I can tell you is I remember my introduction to pre-workout supplementation this was probably let's see I graduated high school in 2009 so maybe 2006 2007 2007 is when I tried my first pre-workout supplement. And back then the supplement industry was very different compared to what it is today. It was so different. Pre-workout just made its way into the fitness industry, into the market at that point in time.

11:47And there were maybe a handful of pre-workouts to try and test. And my first pre-workout I ever used was no explode. N-O explode. It was in this red bottle by BSN and it was a translucent bottle. I remember how it tasted. I remember how it smelled. I remember how much it fizzed up when you shook it up. I remember the first time I ever used pre-workout. Like I can't tell you the first time I ever walked into a gym, but I can tell you the first time I ever tried pre-workout, I remember where I was in my bedroom in our house, which was upstairs. And my mom didn't want us using pre-workout back then.

12:38So I had to hide it in this cabinet in my bedroom. I go up into my room and I add a scoop to my shaker bottle. I mix it up. And the first time I ever drank it, you know the first time you ever consume or try beta alanine it feels like every part of your skin over the entire course of your body your hands your arms your legs your ears your eyebrows they they tingle and they itch and i remember the beta alanine kicking in and the caffeine kicking in and the no tropics and the tunnel vision focus i had and from that first time trying pre-workout, I was hooked. I was addicted. And I would go to this local supplement shop in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which was next to Pulmeyer, Pennsylvania.

13:34And I would spend multiple days there a week talking to the person behind the counter. Like, tell me about these new products. tell me about what's coming to market. What are people coming in here and buying and trying? And what's the feedback from this protein and that amino acid supplement and this pre-workout? All the brands back then or majority of the brands back then aren't brands any longer. There wasn't a lot of innovation and products didn't taste nearly as good back then as they do now. I can vividly remember that. There were some brutally bad tasting products back then, but you'd mix it up, you shake it up, you slug it down and it would kick in and you'd go to the gym.

14:24And I was hooked from that moment. And it was much more than the workouts. It was much more than the training. It was the entire lifestyle and routine around strength training. And if we even like carve out that niche

14:44Nick Bare:a little bit more narrow, it was bodybuilding. Now I was reading the bodybuilding magazines and watching content online, which there wasn't much. I would watch Greg Plitt videos. I had a membership to Greg Plitt's website. Greg Plitt was this hero in the fitness industry back then. He was a West Point grad and then an army ranger. He served in the military, transitioned out of the military, was a fitness model, made motivational YouTube videos, and he would create these vlogs and these YouTube videos and he put them on his website and you had to have a membership to access the website. And I would watch these every video.

15:39I mean, it ranged from him going into the gym and doing a cardio circuit, to a bodybuilding workout, to cooking meals at his house, to DIY home projects of like a remodel that he was doing in his backyard. I watched every Greg Plitt video back then. And unfortunately, Greg Plitt passed away from a training and filming accident years ago.

16:09Nick Bare:But he is a legend and pioneer, a leader in the fitness space. I would watch his content back then. And like I said, I fell in love with the lifestyle. I fell in love with the routine, the ritual. my whole day, late high school, early college, and even to today in some way and capacity, I would build my day and my routine and my schedule around my workout, knowing when I was going to consume my pre-workout meal and what it was going to consist of to make sure I was fueled and it digested properly. And then I would time up mixing my supplements, my pre-workout, let that kick in. I would remember back in college, I'd be sitting in my dorm room and I'd, after drinking my pre-workout, go to YouTube and I'd watch bodybuilding motivational videos.

17:14Jay Cutler, Ronnie Coleman, the greats. And I'd watch them train and I'd let the ingredients do their thing. And I get so motivated to go hit the weights. And I'd get all my stuff. I'd drive to the gym and I would train with intention, with energy, with intensity, like pure passion. Those early years for me, I mean, they shaped the trajectory of my entire life. I would not be here doing what I'm doing today if it wasn't, and this is no exaggeration, if it wasn't for my experience and introduction to pre-workout and bodybuilding and training and the routine and the ritual around it, I fell in love with the lifestyle.

18:15And over two decades later, I still love it. And I trained this morning, shoulders and arms and everything from the pre-workout meal to taking the pre-workout, to setting the conditions, to hitting the gym with pure intensity and intention and passion.

18:36Nick Bare:Two decades later, I still love it. I love it. Gym culture is something special.

18:48Nick Bare:You know, I've trained for just about everything at this point.

18:54Marathons, Ironman triathlons, ultras, high rocks, bodybuilding competitions. But being in the gym, throwing weights around, getting a pump, I always find myself coming back to that style of training.

19:18Nick Bare:that lifestyle. And that led to the formation and launch of BPN in 2012. Our first product that we launched, the first product that I launched in 2012 out of my college department was a pre-workout. It was flight.

19:42Nick Bare:And before that, I was, you know, mixing up my own pre-workout in my dorm room, in my apartment. I buy these ingredients in bulk, caffeine, citrulline, creatine, beta alanine. I had this food scale in my dorm room. I had these bulk ingredients and I'd weigh out the ingredients that I wanted and needed for my pre-workout. three grams of beta alanine, five grams of creatine, 200 milligrams of caffeine, a gram and a half of tyrosine. And then I would add some like sweetener packets. I can't remember the name of it. It was before electrolytes for a thing, but you could, that's on the tip of my tongue.

20:39There were like these flavored powdered packets

20:44Nick Bare:that I would buy. Artificially sweetened and flavored. And I would add it to my water throughout the day and they were super popular. But I would add this to my pre-workout ingredients so it didn't taste bitter and sour and just off. These ingredients on their own, caffeine, citrulline, beta alanine, And even though they're unflavored, they have a flavor of their own. Bitter, sour, tart. So I would add flavor and sweeteners to make it taste better. And for a while I was mixing up my own pre-workout. There were times when I had$50 left in my bank account. If I didn't overdraft my bank account at that point, this was when I was in college, or really budgeting.

21:38Nick Bare:And if I had$50 left in my bank account and I had to choose between going and buying food or saving it for gas or going to the local supplement shop and buying pre-workout, I was buying pre-workout. I would prioritize my pre-workout supplementation over everything else. so when I launched BPN in 2012 when I was in college and I shared the story many times before but I took on a$20 ,000 loan found a manufacturer it just made sense to launch with a pre-workout

22:23Nick Bare:because that's how I fell in love with fitness and the routine and ritual around that lifestyle is what drew me in and kept me there.

22:36Nick Bare:Something I like to say is that we are a brand. BPN was built on strength from the early days, the inception, but forged by endurance. What has shaped us to where we are today, built on strength forged by endurance. And to touch on the strength collection briefly. So Flight has been our pre-workout since 2012. Like I said, our first product we ever launched. And we've discontinued the name Flight and we've rebranded it to Pre. And I'll talk about why. So pre is a similar formula to flight. We made one change. We added an ingredient. So we added alpha GPC, 300 milligrams of alpha GPC, which is one of my favorite nootropics.

23:41It's the same nootropic in G1M Sport Plus. Gives you the mental energy, the focus, that tunnel vision focus. It stimulates the mind,

23:50Nick Bare:but it's not a stimulant, not like caffeine. So we added alpha GPC to our pre-workout, which is now pre. It's got 200 milligrams of caffeine, which I believe is a sweet spot, 3.2 grams of carnosine beta alanine, six grams of citrulline. It is, in my opinion, a complete pre-workout supplement. Everything you need, nothing that you don't. Then you have pump. So we discontinued our previous pump supplement about a year and a half ago, two years ago. That was called EndoPump. We knew we wanted to bring a pump supplement back and we made it even better. So pump has six grams of citrulline, two grams of nitrates, one gram of agmatine sulfate.

24:39You get incredible, crazy blood flow, muscular contraction, and pump to the muscles being trained. when you stack pre and pump together 30 minutes before your workout, you get 12 grams of citrulline between the two products. If you know anything about citrulline, that's a great hefty dose. You will feel the muscular endurance. You will feel the blood flow. You will feel stronger pumps. I promise you. And then post, as we talked about, branched chain amino acids, essential amino acids, carnitone tartrate, Cherry Pure. We wanted to, and I wanted to relaunch some of our strength products under the strength collection because I believe a system helps with adherence and it reduces the friction and lack of education of how to use these products around your training.

25:38And I truly believe if you use all three of these products around your workouts, when you go into the gym, it will revolutionize the way you train, the way you feel, the results you get.