Barbell Shrugged - The Bledsoe Show — Max Shank: Athleticism Makes Life Easier — 69

Episode Date: May 7, 2018

Max Shank is owner and head coach at Ambition Athletics, where people become muscular ninjas. He is also a teacher of world class coaches and athletes and has taught 100+ courses around the world. Max is also creator #5minuteflow and has written 3 books: Ultimate Athleticism, Simple Shoulder Solution, and Master the Kettlebell. I like to experiment and explore the human condition. Fitness is my primary method of developing life-altering skills. In addition, I’ve picked up guitar, piano, and drums as an adult. In this episode, Max shares with us why he is focused on athleticism rather than strength, what it means to be strong enough, why we all need to work more easily, how 5 min a day of practice can make a huge long-lasting impact, and much more. Enjoy! -Mike ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: https://shruggedcollective.com/tbs_shank ------------------------------------------------------------------------  Please support our partners! Onnit's is a Total Human Optimization company with a mission to inspire peak performance through a combination of unique products and actionable information. As the founder and CEO Aubrey Marcus likes to say, Total Human Optimizaion is a commitment to get strong in the places where we are weak, become great in places where we’re good, and shine a light on the stuff we need take a look at. Improve your focus, concentration and productivity by getting a bottle of Onnit’s flagship neutropic supplement FOR FREE ($80 value) by going to: http://www.onnit.com/bledsoe ► Travel thru Europe with us on the  Shrugged Voyage, more info here: https://www.theshruggedvoyage.com/ ► What is the Shrugged Collective?  Click below for more info: https://youtu.be/iUELlwmn57o ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedp... TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Hey there ladies and gentlemen, this is Doug Larson, co-host of the Barbell Shrug Podcast of course. This week only we are doing a 50% off sale for a nutrition course that I developed called Nutrition for Weightlifters. For years I competed in weightlifting at either 85kg which is 187lbs or as high as 94kg which is 207lbs while simultaneously competing in mixed martial arts as a welterweight at 170lbs. That's a 37lb swing and I was always going up and down. I got very good at manipulating my weight to hit my weight classes depending on which competition was coming up next. So that's all built into this course. How exactly I did that, how I put on muscle mass when I needed to get bigger, how I lost body fat when I needed to get smaller, and how I kept

strong and stayed in shape during the process. So I teach you what to eat, how much to eat, when to eat it, how to count your macros, what to eat before, during, and after training, as well as what to eat before, during, and after competition. If you're interested, you can go to shruggedcollective.com slash N4W, like nutrition for weightlifters, N, the number four, NW, just three characters. Check it out, 50% off, and enjoy the show. Welcome to the Bledsoe Show. This is your host, Mike Bledsoe, and I want to let you know that I'm hitting the East Coast for three weekends, so May 26th in North Carolina, June 2nd in Richmond, Virginia, and June 9th in Boston, Massachusetts.

If you want to sign up for any of the seminars that I'm doing, I don't know when I'm going to be hitting the East Coast again, so make sure you get there. Go to shrugcollective.com and click on the events page. On that events page, you can see where I'm going, where I'm at. It may not even be the East Coast by the time you look at it, but check out those events. If it resonates with you, get signed up. Now, today's show is with Matt Schenck. He's the

owner and head coach at Ambition Athletics, where people become muscular ninjas. He is a teacher of world-class coaches and athletes and has taught over 100 courses around the world. He's also the creator of 5-Minute Flow and has written three books, Ultimate Athleticism, Simple Shoulder Solution, and Master the Kettlebell. He experiments and explores the human condition, and fitness is his primary method for developing life-altering skills. In addition to all the fitness stuff, he's also picked up the guitar, piano, and drums as an adult, mostly self-taught.

This guy's a good friend of mine. He's a lot of fun. You're going to enjoy this show. He shares with us today how he is focused more on athleticism rather than on strength, what it means to be strong enough, and why we need to be working more easily. So we're going to be digging into a lot of stuff. There's a lot of nuggets in here. You're going to want to get your notebook out. So enjoy the show. All right, I've been talking about it for a long time, folks. Maybe not with you, but with my friends and just in general. Doing a hot tub.

Do you want to move that way? Yeah, I can. Sure. Doing a hot tub session. I'm looking to mostly be where the cord won't go in the jacuzzi yeah we're trying to make this work if we can do this and not get electrocuted i say that's a success by itself i'm not sure there's going to be as relaxing as i thought it was going to be yeah i'm usually more relaxed in here but uh there's usually lower chance of

electrocution i've spent some comfortable and uncomfortable time in this hot tub. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I've been there for some of it also. So I've got Max Shank here, and we've been hanging out a bit, getting some training sessions in. I don't know if you call it training. We're just kind of playing in the backyard.

Play with heavier toys. Play with heavy toys. And the – is that your leg? Oh, there you are. We had an interesting topic come up recently because – and the topic is strong enough. Oh, yeah. And I think most people are walking around feeling like they're not strong enough. Yeah.

And that's what's motivating a lot of people to be in the gym. It's what motivates people to work out. It's what's motivating people to eat the way they eat. You're saying the desire to be stronger is motivating them to do all that? And, well, quick background for you. Can you give us just a quick bio? Super quick? Like 30, 60 seconds.

Yeah, totally. Don't bore anybody. No one wants to get bored. I've owned a gym for eight years. I've taught courses all over the world for the last five or so, over 100 times. I used to be pretty battered up, and now I can do some pretty decent athletic shit.

Right on. Yeah. Cool. Oh, this hot tub's getting hot. Yeah, I would say Max is one of the most knowledgeable guys I know when it comes to movement amongst some other topics too that aren't even exercise related.

Just life. Life stuff. And the reason I know you're brilliant in a lot of the life stuff is because I agree with you on so many things. That's the best way to tell. Yeah, that's an indicator of genius. Yeah. All the people I hang out with are much, much smarter than everybody else I've noticed.

Yeah. Everyone else is a bunch of assholes. Yeah, so what did you mean when you said you were strong enough? We were training a few weeks ago, and you said, you know what? I'm strong enough. Well, like, I mean, you have to think about what the word strong means. And I think half the problem is that people are starting by comparing their self to everybody else, you know?

So I think that's the chief problem, essentially. But when I say strong enough, all I mean is, like, there are so many different athletic qualities that you could pursue. And then beyond that, there are so many different pursuits you can, uh, tackle period like music or woodworking or learning how to tie knots or, uh, working on your singing or something like that or dancing or whatever. And, you know, I think if people like give themselves like an honest overview of their whole life and think about like, okay, what attributes will make my life easier and more fun and more rewarding versus what movements am I

doing all the time that I'm probably already really, really strong at and maybe only making marginal improvements in those things or maybe even just plateauing. Like I've seen people beat their heads against a wall for years doing the same kind of exercise. Like they're still doing like heavy ass squats, heavy. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that. But it's not exactly congruent with what they say they want, which is that they want to be more athletic and have life be easier. So I think you have to look at the big picture. How much time are you spending training-wise, period? How much time are you spending saying,

my intent here is to make my body physically more capable versus what that's actually doing for you? And I think the people who are constantly chasing strength are the ones who are mostly injured and fairly one-dimensional. And I think that they would actually be a lot happier if they expanded their horizon a little bit. So when I say I'm strong enough, I mean, like, I can easily carry, I don't know,

like a 250- pound sandbag very far I can, without practicing pull 550 in a deadlift, no problem and my point is like, why would I keep beating my head against a wall trying to get those tiny little margins of improvement

because improving my deadlift right now even if I practice a shitload I'll maybe get back to being able to pull 600 pounds, but that's not going to really improve my bottom line ability to like run or function as a human being nearly as much as say improving my rhythm or my balance would. At one point, I was teaching about 33 courses a year all over the world. I just remember seeing all these very strong people with no coordination and no rhythm. And the truth is, just a couple minutes daily, any human can learn how to juggle. Any human can learn how to balance on the ball of one foot better. It just takes a tiny, tiny bit of practice. And these things, even though they seem not really related, can have a huge impact on your strength levels too. So ironically, people just don't understand the

massive sacrifice they're making. Because I think for a lot of people who are really interested in being strong, it becomes kind of like a dysfunctional relationship where you keep going back to just this same style of workout where it's like focus on strength strength strength strength strength all i care about is how much i can lift one time or how much i can lift three times or whatever and um it doesn't really love you back if you don't do all the other stuff too you know what i mean yeah sounds like like a lot of times in my life a lot of things i want to make improvements in or say that there's like a, I put in quotes problem because I don't really believe there are problems, but opportunities, things I want to improve.

The majority of the time that the biggest improvements in those things is, is not made when I'm looking directly at the thing, right? There's a blind spot. There's, there's something that's, that's keeping me from moving to the next level and it's not doing more of the same that's going to move me to that level. And a lot of the things you're talking about seem completely unrelated and then one day you

bend over, you pick something up and you go that was actually really easy. And I've had that experience. I have a friend, John Wolf from Onyx. Super nice dude. I've only met him once, but he's really cool. Yeah, he's had that experience.

He's like, oh, yeah, I played around with, like, you know, just clubs and maces for a year when I first got introduced to him. You know, having been a powerlifter, he walks into a gym at a certification, they're pulling heavy deads, and he pulls, like, 600 pounds. Yeah. He goes, oh, if you don't think 600-pound deadlift is strong enough. Yeah, exactly.

While healing all the joints that were beat up from years of powerlifting, because that's what he did, as his quality of life overall skyrocketed in that time. And I think that for myself before, I was equating my improvements in quality of life to being able to squat, snatch, and deadlift. Snatch and clean and jerk. We like to measure stuff for some reason. Yeah. And I thought that if I could add 5 pounds, 10 pounds to this or that, my quality of life would improve.

I used to think having a six-pack would make girls like me. I used to be stupid too, man. would make girls like me. Oh, wow. I used to be stupid, too, man. Man, that's a whole – yes. I mean, and when it comes down to it, it's – Can you really blame me? I was, like, 18, 19 years old. But it's still ridiculous.

Well, the funny thing is, yeah, I mean, a lot of it has to do with recognition. So even if it's recognition from yourself, like, oh, we're going to compare. I want to prove something to me. I want to prove something to me. I want to prove something to other people. And does proving yourself to other people that you can do something or not do something or that you're better than somebody else, does that increase the quality of your life? Well, and I guess it's going to be different for everybody,

and it's all how you frame the experience. Like if you can put a positive spin on it, great. But I think what ends up happening is a lot of people do this in training and business. Is they learn to kind of behave like martyrs a little bit. Like they kind of like want it to be painful suffering so that to the outsider it looks more impressive. And I think that's sort of the same mentality with like hustling and grinding. And to be quite frank with you, like I think hard work is very important,

but I think this hyper focus on hustling and grinding is really fucking destructive, quite honestly. Like you're not supposed to like do it just for that. You're supposed to find something that you feel like really strongly about and share that with the world it's not about like hustling and grinding and hustling and grinding and i just see it when that's the emphasis people usually don't end up happy because there's no amount that you can reach that will ever like make you truly satisfied yeah like girls are always going to be like oh you know i remember a close friend of mine said, uh,

she was like one 14 and, uh, she goes, I think I would just be a lot happier at one 11. And I was like, so like dejected for her actually, because that sort of mentality, number one, what the fuck is a pound? A pound is like a made up unit. That means absolutely nothing. And number two, if your focus is on like a number like that, well, of course, what do you think is going to happen when you get to 111? You're going to look at yourself and be like, oh, I wish I was 110. Right. And it's this slippery slope where you're – I mean, I was chasing heavier numbers comparing myself to people on the Internet in other countries, which sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, right? Definitely. Definitely ridiculous. And I think that's one of the things

that making us more interconnected has actually done that can be somewhat damaging is we're comparing ourselves not to just the village, but to everybody. So, like, if you're a podcaster... Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe it is, but I think it could also... Because it could be one of those things

where I think people reach that point sooner where they go, this is kind of silly. Comparing – That's true. Really thinking – and what – to me it's like is it good to be best out of 7 billion people or is it better to contribute to 7 billion people? Totally. Like, yeah, what's your, you know, I think the whole, like, start with why, the Simon Sinek thing is pretty good, but I think it almost needs to actually be start with who.

Like, who do you want to be as a person? Like, what kind of life do you want to live? What kind of person do you want to be? And the truth is, like, you know, I like lifting weights, but I don't see that as, like, the overarching definer of, like, who I am as a person. Like, I see it as, like, an important part, but I don't see it as, like, the hyper focus. So, like, when I say strong enough, it's like, man, like, I want to do some, you know, tennis later, and I want to play piano, and I want to do guitar. And I think it's awesome if you, like, really love strength, but I think you have to, like, remember that it's a relationship that you have with strength now, and it's a give and take. And if all you do is, like, push, push, push, push, push on strength, you're eventually going to get burnt. And that's why it's so

important to broaden your horizons, because, like, one of the things I learned from music that I immediately connected to training was speed. Because when we talk about strength, people think it's synonymous with weight, but it's not at all. Weight is just weight. It's what it is. But how you lift something is going to determine how much strength you need for it. Obviously, if I hold a a weight like here it's going to be right by my shoulder it's going to be really easy if i hold it way out in front of me or way out to the side with an outstretched arm the leverage is going to be entirely different i can get a massive training effect on my delts and biceps and all kinds of good stuff with uh with like an eight pound weight or even lighter you

know what i mean like i don't need to always be pressing a hundred pound kettlebells overhead, double press. Because eventually if you just do that, you develop those normal imbalances from having an unbalanced life, basically. Unbalanced life. Basically. Like you just put too much into strength,

and strength, like, it gives you a lot back in the beginning. Like, strength is wonderful. Like, don't get me wrong. Like, being strong is about one of my favorite things because it definitely makes life easier. But I think you have to, like, if you don't know what diminishing marginal returns means, you got to look it up immediately.

Because for every extra bit of time you put into strength, it's going to take more time to get less and less benefit. And that's true with anything. So you can actually burst through plateaus a lot easier by stopping deadlifting for a while, doing some like weird body weight hamstring exercise or some weird like foot activation balance thing or juggle and that might boost your deadlift up a lot more than six more months of like a crippling deadlift program you know so why would you why would you do the hard way when you could simultaneously be building some new skills too yeah one of the things i found uh working with people,

and I didn't find it in others until I found it in myself. And when I found it in myself, I saw it everywhere. Totally. You know how that goes. 100%. And what I saw was I was in love with hard work. And I was so in love with hard work that it was my whole life and it was actually hard work was actually part of my identity mine too actually I don't want to cut you off because I think this is really important but for years I basically wanted people's impression of me to be like that guy is

a hard worker right like I and I liked that association because to me that was like more or less the best thing you could be. Right. You know, like you're contributing, you're not being like a leech on anybody.

You're, you're taking care of your own shit. You're helping other people. Like if you're a hard worker, like that's good and that's as good as you can be. So I just tried to be that.

Yeah. I, there's probably more to it I think now. Yeah, definitely. You know, know i had a lot of my identity tied up in that and the uh where i where i ended up finding where that came from was with my dad same and it's like you know when you're a little kid like my dad always said you

know like work hard you know and i go wow if i want my dad to love me you work hard like work hard, you know, and I go, wow, if I want my dad to love me, you work hard, I work hard. And if that means and what I what I found out more recently is the relationship where you have with your father is how you relate to everybody else. Totally. And so because he's the first person that you have a relationship with outside of yourself because you actually see your mother as part of you when you're a child. That makes sense. And so the relationship with your father. I've actually see your mother as part of you when you're a child. That makes sense.

And so the relationship with your father. I've never heard that, but I get it. Yeah, the relationship with your father is like the first outside relationship. Well, that's the first new entity, right? Yeah, the first love. Yeah, interesting. So he teaches you about how to receive love from others. So if you have, so I mean, there's all sorts of implications that can come with that depending

on what type of childhood and relationship you had with your father. Some were absent for a lot of people and some were, you know, great on paper. But there's all these little things that slip in here and there where it doesn't even matter how good, what kind of behavior your father was on. Yeah. It's the meaning you make of it as a child. Totally. And a three, four, five-, 6-year-old – Doesn't have good reframing abilities yet.

Yeah, they don't have the ability to really see the big picture. Totally. And so everything is just true. So for me, one of the truths was in order to be valuable, you must work hard. Right. If you don't work hard, you're not valuable. And so not only did I, if I wasn't working hard, I didn't see myself as valuable, so I had to work hard.

I had no option but to work hard all the time. The moment I wasn't working hard, I was not valuable. That probably made you feel pretty bad. So I burn out. Totally. And then the, because there's not really an option to not feel valuable. Right. And I noticed that other people who didn't appear to be working hard to me

weren't valuable to me either. Right. So now I have this entirely dysfunctional relationship with myself and the whole world. And letting go of that work hard identity. I won't say mentality because I think that... It's deeper than that for sure. Working hard and mental toughness, these are gears.

These are switches that you, I think everybody, could stand to develop. 100%? I want you to develop hard work. I want you to develop mental toughness. That's why I make people carry shit for five minutes at least. It's so simple. Hard work and mental toughness are the same thing as strength.

Totally. The more you work hard, it doesn't actually allow you to work hard. Exactly. It's the breaks in between. It's allowing yourself to focus on something that's not working hard that allows you to show up and work hard. Well, it's work smarter, not harder is something like it's ironic. Like my dad actually told me that work smarter, not harder.

But I still developed this like mindset or identity where I felt more or less compelled to work really hard. So the water's noisy. I don't know. You don't want the bubbles to go away, though. It's hiding a lot of sins. I'll turn the bubbles off.

All right. I'm going to keep you guys entertained while Max goes and does that. Good luck. Yeah, good luck. You know what?

Me carrying on a conversation by myself is not that hard. Not that hard until it happens. All right, folks. So the deal is we're actually live streaming this on Facebook as well. So the audio that you're hearing on the podcast is actually fine.

But for the Facebook folks, it's not okay. Look, you requested it. We gave it to you over and over and over again. That's how it's going to be. But now no bubbles. Yeah, you've been warned. It can get weird. And, you know, on that note,

yeah, I'm actually a big fan of giving people what they want these days. If it doesn't require me too much effort, I'll do it every time. No, I'll be as absolutely nice as humanly possible, as long as it doesn't require me too much effort, I'll do it every time. No, I'll be as absolutely nice as humanly possible, as long as it doesn't require too much effort. And if it requires some, you give it another layer of decision-making. For me, it just has to be fun. If someone wants something, I just have to figure out a way to make it fun. In the moment, it's fun. It's good.

Dude, man. I don't know. How many people are strength training we need your microphone oh yeah that probably helped put your microphone in front of your mouth that's funny what was your question i wonder how many people during before and after strength training feel like they're having fun because that's like a pretty good you you hit the nail on the head, like it's a pretty good litmus test.

If you're having a good time, you're going to put a lot better attention and intention into whatever it is you're doing. Oh, you know what? This is interesting, because if you had asked me 10 years ago, are you having fun before, during, and after the gym, I would have said absolutely.

But I didn't know what fun was. It was like my understanding of fun back then is not the same understanding of fun I have now. Interesting. So I had to learn how to have fun. And I actually had a... Less organized fun, you mean? Like fun that you didn't have to justify

by being like a team sport or exercise? Right. Totally, right? I had a friend teach me how to have fun. Nice. His name's Derek. He doesn't like his last name to be said very often, so I'll just keep it at that. So I would say Derek was my gateway to learning how to have a good time.

This anonymous man was the gateway to you learning how to have a good time. This anonymous man was the gateway to you learning how to have a good time. Well, when you say it like that, it sounds kind of strange. Maybe I said it like that. Yeah. No, but I think a lot of people actually haven't been exposed to learning how to let go and just have a good time for the sake of having a good time. Singing really helps with that so you're when i first met you i go oh this is just like a strength guy who has a really great knowledge of movement and yada yada yada and then we got hanging out and i go he knows a lot of other

stuff too and i visit your house and you've got instruments all over the place and you're reading interesting books that have nothing to do with training. And have you always been that way or is this something that's evolved over time? It's evolved. I used to hate school with a passion. And as soon as I got into fitness, it was like it reinvigorated my desire to learn. And ever since then, I've just been really fascinated with everything. Like, I've let my curiosity come back out. Because I felt like, to be perfectly frank, like, school really crushed curiosity for me.

Like, I had to sit in a tiny little – and this is me reframing the experience, obviously too, but like I sat in like a tiny little desk with bad posture and a bad attitude, learning something I didn't want to learn from someone who wasn't nice that I didn't like, you know what I mean? And when I found it extremely rewarding and very similar to, there's a book called Leonardo da Vinci. It's a, last name might be like Peterson or something like that. I can't remember who wrote it, unfortunately, but it's like really popular biography on Leonardo da Vinci. And he did exactly the same thing is he was always doing a bunch of different stuff and he was really curious about everything and what he wrote about was that he would get ideas for art from math and architecture and he would get ideas for like flight from like

not just watching the birds but also paying attention to like how aqueducts work or you know the design of bridges you know what i mean and uh i've found the same thing to be true like i was saying before with music like using a metronome while i move weights and move myself has changed the way i move in a very profound way because when you move slowly you have the opportunity to pay attention to more detail when you move more quickly you don't have an opportunity to pay attention to more detail. When you move more quickly, you don't have an opportunity to pay attention as much detail. Neither one of those is right or better. It's just that most people usually pick one side of the spectrum only. And that is what I talk about in my ultimate athleticism book too. There's like a spectrum. Like on the one hand,

you have people doing like a very heavy deadlift. And on the other hand, you have sprinting and like a deadlift is going to be a lot slower. Sprinting to be a lot faster um but then you also have on the other side is something like yoga where they're almost always moving very very slow and i don't want to generalize but like you go to most yoga classes it's going to be really slow and the good yoga places will do isometrics but they're not usually doing a lot of like jumping. You know what I mean? Right. And of course, if you wanted to make a yoga class better, you would probably just introduce some sort of explosive movement every few minutes to get them like woken up again and then train some of those things that are deficits. Now, obviously, there's like the flow side of things and following your breath.

And there's a lot more to it than just a stretch class if you have looked into it at all. But I think it's really important to own the full spectrum of speeds at least. And I would have never learned that unless I had developed an appreciation and learned about music. And just became like really curious about not only the patterns, but also how people learn, like the art of learning in general. I think you really solidify by trying to learn more things. Like my perspective is this. At the end of the day, you have, even if you have a nine to five job,

another eight hours to do whatever you want. And you shower, you eat, you go to the bathroom, you do normal stuff. But eight fucking hours, that's a long time, actually. And you can make significant improvements in an area with only five minutes every day. Really. I made huge progress on the song Moonlight Sonata on piano, which is like a kind of advanced song, five minutes a day. That's it. I just sat down and I did as much of that song as I could for five minutes and that was it. And I made progress. So I think it's really important to go outside of fitness to see what it can give you just to yourself as a whole, but also in related to fitness too. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you bring up your book, uh, ultimate athleticism.

Uh, it just struck me that a lot of people there, they don't have a goal to be athletic. Their goal is to be strong. Right. And so, did you have a goal at one point to be strong and then it changed to be athletic? Or how did that work? Dude, I remember I had a realization. I was like, it hit me like a ton of bricks, honestly. I was like, why is everybody doing this? Like, why is everybody doing this like why why is everybody

training this way like it's not improving your ability to function at anything other than lifting and that and that hit me and i was like people need to get more athletic people need to just have options the whole idea of long-term consistency and physical freedom that i've talked about a lot it's all hinged on how many options you have. And if you have a good athletic base, everything is an option. Wakeboarding is an option. Tennis is an option. Kickboxing is an option.

Jiu-jitsu is an option. Like, there's a lot of really cool shit you can do that's active. You just need to have an athletic base that allows you to do it without fear, and you need to have an athletic base that allows you to have fun with it. Because if you're not like somewhat coordinated, you're probably not going to find those things as enjoyable. But you can definitely improve that coordination. Like I, it's funny. I mean, I work with people who are in their late 60s who say they could never juggle. And two weeks later, they're juggling. Like it's just these, we overestimate how long something's going to take in the big picture, but then, like, we underestimate how much time it takes in the short term.

You know what I mean? Because you can just chip away at it, and it builds up so quickly. It's like compound interest, you know? Yeah. So it takes less than we think it does to find the things that we want to do. I would suggest to anybody that wants to achieve anything, do one thing for five minutes every day that brings you closer to that. I mean, that's the whole idea behind the five minute flow thing is like, how do we get something that's

really simple, easy habit that gives you a huge reward for very little time investment? And what I love about that program is that people send me messages still that they're doing it two years later. Some people tell me that about ultimate athleticism, too, because it's more of a template and an idea of like how you structure things for efficiency than just like do this move, do this move, do this move. But I don't know a lot of people who are selling any exercise program that people are doing for two straight years. You know what I mean? And staying consistent with it every day. Because you look at the cumulative effect that that's going to have, I'm making a lasting impression in these people's lives. And that's what gets me fired up.

Yeah, I was talking to a guy yesterday, Adam Von Routhfelder, and he was on the NBC show Strong, which is one of these fitness competition shows where they take a really out-of-shape person, and couple them with a really fit trainer or something like that. Cool. It gets dramatic. And he was actually the bad boy of the show. Like, none of the other trainers liked him.

That's really funny. He runs his mouth, and it's fun. Huh. He's an interesting cat. Is it deliberate? Probably. At least somewhat, right? He's doing it on.

I mean, it's television. He's doing it off camera, too. Okay. Fair enough. I think his life is pretty deliberate, and I don't know. Hey, if you can live life deliberately, that's good enough for me. He's definitely got a persona. Cool.

And I like him. Yes. And he was talking about how – I was like, you know what? I really want to expose a lot of these celebrity fitness trainers for what they really are. And I can say it, but I'm just a guy on a podcast. I want another celebrity trainer who's actually really good because he's a fucking excellent trainer, like top notch. And I know that his peers on that show are not. And I wanted him to say it.

And he was like, I want a future in television. I'll probably keep my mouth shut. And so, but, and then Doug reframed it for him and was like, okay, you own a gym. How many of those trainers would you hire? He goes, I would have two of them run my program. I would trust two of them to run my program with my classes.

And I'd go, okay, that's giving you an idea. Yeah, of course. You don't have to be a good trainer to make money as a trainer. Yeah. No, no, definitely not. At all. And the other thing...

Or even to be a famous trainer. Like, they're not necessarily correlated. The thing that he pointed out was that everybody else that was on the show was back out of shape after the show, except for his client. She lost the weight. She now has a six-pack.

Made some behavior changes. He said that he spent the entire time teaching her how to live different. People who are massively overweight, it's not that they don't know how to lift and eat. It's that they don't know how to lift and eat it's that they don't know how to live yeah yeah so he basically gave her uh he taught her instead of trained her basically yeah and and what ended up happening is you know you may not win this eight-week competition right right um but when you look at the end result and this is, this is actually, uh, what's, you

know, I, I, I think that like media on one hand has created all these short term, short sighted, uh, goal attainment. Right. And the same thing happens with the stock market. You know, we CEOs are being, uh, uh being measured on a quarterly basis, and it's hard to make a long-term decision. It actually handcuffs you from the optimal returns in finance when you have a duty to meet certain parameters by a certain time. And, of course, so this is here something, again, not fitness related, but we can make that same conclusion or draw that same connection to fitness, right? People are so concerned with like,

I want to boost my squat 50 pounds in six weeks, or I want to boost my deadlift a hundred pounds in five days, or I want to lose like 90 pounds of fat in four minutes or whatever the fuck it is, right? Instead of being like, okay, like I'm in this actually for the long game, just think, how athletic do I want to be 10 years from now? Yeah. And then think, can I get there? Of course you can. It's just little steps over the long term. But it's just like you said, if you are constantly chasing just the quick buck,

you're not going to have anything that leaves like a lasting impact yeah and i think i think media is largely at fault for this um and the conditioning of the masses and that you know media around fitness is maybe 40 years old uh like how do you mean media i'm talking about fitness magazines um well i mean they've been having stuff in print about exercise since way longer than that. Things you would see at the grocery store. Grocery stores weren't carrying fitness magazines until the 80s would have been the earliest. I'm talking about the average person being exposed to fitness stuff. People used to not do fitness.

Yeah, that's true. Fitness wasn't really, I think, maybe 50s, probably. Yeah. Like, golden era bodybuilding, maybe. Yeah. And I don't think most people were even exposed to that. Maybe not. I seem to remember the, like, the buff guy on the beach and, like, the not buff guy on

the beach kind of thing, you know? Oh, totally. Like, that was when fitness was starting to get into things, like, you know? And I think that if you read the magazine covers at the store, you know, it's like, yeah. Now? Six-pack abs in six weeks. Yeah.

All that kind of stuff. Instant gratification is the overarching problem. And that's been around since anyone sold anything because anyone who's sold anything since things have been sold is always going to tell you that it's worth this much and they're giving it to you for this much. And it's going to solve every problem you could ever have. Yeah. Instantly. Yesterday. You know, like. So people are conditioned. Sorry. and they're giving it to you for this much, and it's going to solve every problem you could ever have instantly yesterday.

Exactly. So people are conditioned, sorry, but people are conditioned now to expect something to solve all their problems yesterday for free. And that's the problem. And I think that media is actually going to solve this problem in the long run because I think that we're able to follow people's lives over a long period of time now. I have a Facebook account. I have an Instagram account.

We can actually go back and check up on these people. Well, it makes people more depressed if they use it too much, just like if you do too much of anything like alcohol or drugs or whatever. Well, what I'm saying is like, you know. It's the behavior. We can go back and check on somebody. It's like, okay, you did that program. Where are you at a year later? Right.

Whereas before, like if someone prints it in a magazine one time, in the mind of the individual, that's how that person is all the time. Totally. And they don't know that a year later they completely crashed because they were on drugs to get that body. Exactly. And so, or they just pushed themselves so hard in training that it looked good for a period of time and then it completely deteriorated. Well, it is always interesting to me that we, like the consumers of fitness, always look to some genetic steroid monster as like the ideal who doesn't know anything about fitness. Right.

Like that's the funny part. Like, and you know, it, you know, the type of person I'm talking about who has like millions of followers ripped steroids, doesn't know dick about training or nutrition,

but sells training and nutrition programs and people eat the shit up because fucking shredded. And obviously that's not giving people a lasting impact you know that guy might be making a quick buck but you're not going to make a lasting impact that way the way to make lasting impact is to educate people on the benefits of this type of exercise or training or fun or playing or whatever you want to call it. And then show them how they need to do it, like how they need to organize their body in an integrated fashion so that then when they do do an overhead press, that the connection from their left ball of their foot to the weight is rock solid with muscular tension because what you want

to be able to do is build a bridge from any contact point and your hands and feet are usually just the junctions for where that force gets absorbed. So really, I mean, it's about how well you can send out and absorb force in an integrated fashion across as many joints as possible. Sounds like athleticism. Yeah, basically. So somebody's been working with a barbell. They've been doing a lot of snatches, clean jerks, squats, presses, burpees, kipping pull-ups, wall ball shots. One of the, you know, someone who does a lot of that.

Yep. What's their first step into moving into athleticism? I mean, in fact, I mean, if this person was a couch potato before, they've already taken their first step. Oh, my God. Like, here's the thing. Like, you can become, like, a muscular and a powerful monster by doing a workout like that.

You're just not going to be able to transfer it to a lot of sports because there's like no twisting there's not a lot of like lateral chain work there's almost no like single leg work or single leg balancing and you know you can forget about like improving the connectivity between your feet and the ground so for someone like that there are a couple simple things uh number one i would have them do some sort of twisting movements and one-sided movements for sure outside of that sagittal plane so they're getting some sort of transverse work, even if it's just like a cable, like a half-kneeling press. I've been doing a lot of the cable presses.

And you know what? Like you get half-kneeling and you do some flies. Dude, you get a massive pec pump and your abs get, like, a killer training effect. And your hips feel way more flexible when you're done. And obviously, it's like a weird. Can I do it standing? Sure. Because it's that complexity. Sure.

The half kneeling keeps people a little bit more honest with their pelvis and their core uh so i pretty much always start people from kneeling because you're taking away more potentials for a disintegration of the strategy right so like if i'm standing and doing a press i need to have an integrated strategy between my hand my wrist my elbow my shoulder my neck my spine my core my both hips my both knees my elbow, my shoulder, my neck, my spine, my core, my both hips, my both knees, my both feet. Versus if I go to my knees, I take the feet and ankles out of it completely. And I really hone in on the hip joint because now that's the only thing controlling that base of support really. And I'll even go as far as to lift my feet off the ground in the back, like a little mini leg curl, to try to really emphasize the hip of the knee that's down as like a stance leg,

but without the ankle and foot involved. You see what I mean? So it's actually really important. So I'd have them twist. I'd have them do that for sure. And I would have just about everybody try to balance on a balance beam perpendicular, so just the balls of your feet are resting on it, and try to work up to the point where you can juggle from there.

So my heels are hanging off. Your heels are off. And juggle while standing on a balance beam. Yep. I mean, we just get a 4x4 laid on the ground, and that's a balance beam. Good enough. When I travel, I roll up a towel on the ground, and that's a balance beam. Good enough. When I travel, I roll up a towel on the floor, and I put the balls of my feet on that. Like, you don't need anything fancy.

Like, you just got to fucking do it. I'm going to pick up juggling again. I'm a pretty good juggler. It's really fun. Like, you can get into clubs, like torches, if you want to. I mean, there's all kinds of fun stuff you can do. My wife does the batons. She can do all that shit.

Perfect. You guys would be like do all that shit. Perfect. You guys would be like a great little duo. Yeah. We'll be dancing and throwing fire batons. Fire is really fun. Yeah. I had the fire department come here once. What happened?

I made a completely controlled fire that was probably, I don't know, flames were like nearly twice the height of my house. Someone called the fire department. What were you doing with making a fire that big? It was really fun. It was really fun. It was in the backyard? Yeah, it was right there.

So you just wanted to see how big of a fire you could make. Yeah, so I had this old overhang. Like you see the like shade sails over there? Yeah. It used to be one of those old like per like pergola kind of things the overhang oh yeah made of wood and so basically i made that into like a wooden stacked structure like a house oh my god and then i uh i set the thing on fire and it just made this like gigantic uh flame and obviously the fire department came what'd they say to you about that uh well i had

put the fire out by the time they got here because my neighborhood you can tell is pretty quiet listen to that here's some birds maybe wind chimes there's like nothing going on you do live in the suburbs i know this is a great place to live it's so safe um yeah basically uh i heard the engine from really far away and i was with the siren yeah i was with my buddy carson i was like ah they're not coming here and then for like 30 straight seconds we just heard it get closer and louder and closer and closer so then we put the fire out really quick but yeah that was not that was a big deal no big deal no big deal they're like what was that i was like i don't know i mean we're just having a fire back here i was pretty big um

i for halloween i wanted a there wasn't actually a problem with having a fire they were just making sure it was checking it they were just making sure it wasn't like an out of control like house fire right like when they found out it was me were like, maybe try to keep it a little smaller. Yeah. Yeah. Don't freak people out. Yeah, it wasn't a problem. So for Halloween, I threw a party.

Mm-hmm. I would say it's my best party to date. It's good. I think you were out of town. Likely. Unfortunately. Yeah. Could have been.

Could have been even greater. Could have been even greater. Could have been even greater. I bought this. I was like, I got to have a fog machine for Halloween. I need one. Got a DJ coming. Got the lights. Got everything.

Need a fog machine. Definitely do. So I went to Party City the eve of Halloween. And, of course, all the typical fog machines are out. Of course. But there's a fog. The Mac Daddy. The Mac Daddy is available.

So I said, fuck it. I'm buying the Mac Daddy of fog machines. I love when that happens. When I procrastinate on something, I have to buy something like ten times the cost of what I originally wanted because I waited too long. Exactly. So I get it. And on the box it says,

for a 3,000-square-foot room or more. That's so big. My house is 1,200 square feet total. In a lot of rooms. Yeah. We'll say three major rooms. That's so great. Oh, my God.

That's hilarious. And so I was like, yeah, this will be good. So I fucking turned it on the afternoon of the party to test it out, and it fills the entire house. And I open the doors, and it's just billowing out. A neighbor who I've never seen before who just hides comes running over in just a pair of shorts, old guy. That's so funny.

Checking on me. He's like, what's going on? I was like, it's just a fog machine. By the way, I got a party tonight. You might see some more. Don't worry about it. And yeah, sure enough, for the party, I couldn't even run the thing the whole time.

I had to. It was too much. So I actually have this. I'm moving out of my house in less than two weeks, and I need to get rid of it. I need to find a home for it. Anyone looking for a fog machine that's 3,000 square feet or they'll fill a room that's 3,000 square feet?

I could have some fun with that back here probably. Do you want a fog machine? I don't know, but I could use one and see how I like it. Use it for your next date. Just have a girl come over. That's a strange play. It's a strange play. It's super foggy. It's a strange play.

Yeah, just like, I mean, you're pretty good with the ladies at this point. Aren't you looking for a challenge? You know, like, all right, what if we throw a fog machine into this mix? So, like, you have the house, like, completely foggy. When she arrives. Interesting, interesting.

I guess, I mean, that's how. I feel like that almost helps you if it's the right girl. If I'm going out with a girl, she's coming to my house to pick me up. Right. But I think if it's the right girl. If I'm going out with a girl, she's coming to my house to pick me up. Right. But I think if it's the right girl, that actually helps you.

For sure. The right girl's going to get it. Yeah, I think that's actually probably just a good idea in general from now on as like a litmus test

to see if they can hang. Yeah. That's a good idea. I'm glad we had this talk. Definitely. All right. I think we're going to wrap this up.

We'll do a promo code or something. Definitely. All right. I think we're going to wrap this up. We'll do a promo code or something. Sure. I'll give you guys a pretty fat discount on anything at MaxShank.com whether you want to make your shoulders better, mobility, or get a higher level of athleticism. For sure. What should we make that promo code? What do you want it to be? Can we just make

it Bledsoe? Yeah, totally. Perfect. Let's make it B. So put in blood. So at my site and you're going to get a fat discount. I just don't know how fat yet, but it'll be fat. Yeah. Real quick. Um,

uh, I'm a big fan of everything you're doing. The, the five minute flow. Excellent. Excellent product. Um, I think you referenced it shortly.

Um, and, uh, I do that kind of stuff. I do the five-minute flow in the morning. My wife does. A lot of my friends do it now. I'm an advocate.

I've been, like, teaching people how to do it. It's crazy. Like, do some flow work first thing in the morning. Follow your thing. Just drink some, you know, do it before you drink your water. It's almost too simple that you feel like it shouldn't work so well. Right. My body, I've been doing some type of flow work for, it's been a little over a year and a half now.

And my body moves way better. And that's probably the biggest change I made to anything was just, like, I do about 12 minutes in the morning. I've timed it. And that's the beauty of it is the reason you say five is so people will start. Totally. It's all about behavioral psychology. And it's interesting because, like you said, you feel like you don't have to warm up as much when you train either, right? Oh, yeah.

That was the other benefit. It totally sticks with you. If I use my standing desk and I do flow work first thing in the morning, my warm-up is like a quarter of the time. Totally. I was going to say half, but that's not true. It takes me five minutes to warm up because I don't get stuck in a sitting position. Before bed, I do a little bit of yoga. I really get the body. I get my breath and my body going, and then I get in bed.

I wake up. I get moving. There's no part of the day where so much time goes by that i haven't moved almost all my joints through a full range of motion and in a circular range of motion and that's the secret is you need to anchor movement to something that you're definitely going to do every day and if you do it first thing in the morning you've done it you won you have this like great victory and the other benefit is that every step you take after a five minute flow is rehab. Every step you take without a five minute flow is probably reinforcing whatever posture you slept with, which may not be very good.

So like every step you take can actually be far superior if you do just a little bit of mobility and water in the morning. And then once you have that solidified, you actually find that it's really easy to use that as an anchor to tag other habits alongside it. Like I tacked music onto my five minute flow and drumming. So now I do a little drumming. I do a little bit of music and you know, you basically just build up in these little five minute blocks. Like maybe after you do your five minute flow, you're like, I want to do five minutes of crawling or I want to do five minutes of hanging five minutes of carrying. And the nice thing is it's kind of like the freedom of a lease option. You know, like you just rent it every month, but then

you can go a little further. Like you can do a five minute flow and you can stop at five minutes. Totally. Or you fucking keep flowing. Dude, a lot of days. Or you switch over and do carries like in crawls, you know? Yeah, I do five minutes of flow. And then some days that turns into a two hour workout. And then some days it means I just walk straight to my laptop and I start working. It's no big deal. Totally. Either way, it's no big deal. Totally, but you did it.

I did it. It was fun. You know what? So any kind of behavior change is as simple as this. How do you bring that to the top of your awareness frequently enough to execute that behavior? It's as simple as that. And then it becomes part of your life. Exactly. It's just who you are. How do you bring it to your awareness frequently enough to execute that behavior. It's as simple as that. And then it becomes part of your life. Exactly.

It's just who you are. You just do that. How do you bring it to your awareness? How do you remind yourself? If you attach whatever it is you want to do to something that you already always do, it makes it really easy. Like flossing for me is super easy now because I put the floss picks in my car. That's where I floss.

I floss in the car. Interesting. I like that. Because when I had him here. Not happening. I wasn't fl car. Interesting. I like that. Because when I had him here, I wasn't flossing, which is kind of embarrassing. You really should. It's good for you.

That's what they say. That's so true. I mean, I don't know if it's actually good for you. I don't believe most of what Western medicine says. I'm like, I don't use toothpaste. I mean, I use toothpaste. It's a clay-based toothpaste. I can tell from here. But it's not fluoride.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm not saying you should put a bunch of bullshit that costs like 40 cents to put in a tube in your mouth necessarily. But I think that stimulating your teeth and gums and tongue is massively important.

100%. And then you have ultimate athleticism, which, I mean, that's pretty much what we talked about today. You have a good template in there that's going to help people choose movement selection more appropriately. What I love about it is it really simplifies training in a profound way.

It's going to help you organize things a lot easier. And it's also going to help you develop some new skills that stay with you. Like the L sit to handstand, people look at that and they overestimate how hard it is to do one in the long term. They're like, oh, I could never do that. I have like female school teachers who have achieved an L sit to handstand taking my group fitness classes at Ambition Athletics here in Encinitas. Okay. And the way they did it

is they came in two to three days a week. And when they were in, they practiced their L-sits and they practiced their handstands and they practiced the transitions. Yeah. And over the course of years, suddenly you've got this like school teacher,

Erin, who's in her 30s. And she actually moved to Hawaii. I really miss her. She's a really great person. I was really happy to have her at the gym. Was able to do it in a couple years. A couple years of easy training, and you would never think.

A couple years of easy training. Easy training. It wasn't hard. Not hard training. No, it wasn't hard. That's like the misconception. I learned so many skills now from doing easy training hard training never got me like i it took me so much longer to learn skills when i was training

hard versus training easy you can't yeah you can't learn skills if you're going hard yeah that's it doesn't work there's a there's a lack of communication there the only way you can learn skills is by slowing down, right? And that's the music thing. The best music schools in the world go so slow you can't even recognize what the song is. Yeah. Because that means that their connection between one note and the next is so solid that they don't need the previous ten notes to have been recently played

in order to find that relative place where it needs to go. They know just that connection, and then they know just that connection, and they know just that connection. Interesting, right? Mm-hmm. Mm. And, um...

All right, so we got your website. Yeah. You can put Bledsoe in. Maxshank. Mm. And, all right, so we got your website. Yeah. You can put Bledsoe in. Maxshank.com. There's a ton of really useful stuff there. And nobody returns it, and everybody likes it even years later. That's the bottom line. Bottom line.

Do it. Check it out. Bledsoe. And I think this is a good time to mention I'm doing some seminars. We're calling it Flow Stated. I'm excited about that for you. That's going to be really cool. Where are you doing those?

All over the world. So, yeah, doing one in a couple, like in a week and a half, doing one here in San Diego. If you want to see what seminars and retreats I'm putting on, just go to thebloodsocio.com and then check out the events page. And if you want to be what seminars and retreats I'm putting on, just go to the bloodsocio.com and then check out the events page. And if you want to be notified, of course, go to the bottom of the page and sign up for it to be notified when I'm doing events, because I'm going to be putting out those emails. And what's cool about that is it's going to be, we're really teaching. It hit

me the other day. I was like, I started putting out together a curriculum with my friend Mark England. We're repatterning breath, movement, and language and packaging this all into a – right now it's a single day. We're going to build it out into a two-day. I think that's so wonderful. And what – it hit me the other day. I was talking to my friend about the adaptability quotient. Chief attribute of survival. There's IQ, which everyone knows about IQ.

There's EQ, which is emotional quotient, which has been a conversation in the business world for a little bit now. And now everyone wants to talk about the adaptability quotient. AQ. AQ. What's going to be the next Q after that? Who the fuck knows? We've got to come up with that.

We will. That's how you do it. We will. I mean, we're on the cutting edge of AQ. We're going to be the next Q after that? Who the fuck knows? We've got to come up with that. We will. That's how you do it. We will. We're on the cutting edge of AQ. We're definitely there for sure. And it hit me. I go, you know what? I've been telling people if they do the seminar,

their ability to acquire new skills is going to skyrocket. Perfect. I wouldn't want that. And then when it hit me, I go, look, selling skill acquisition is cool. People want to be able to pick up new skills more quickly. But what I think people are going to get is adaptability. Because it's not even, we are going to teach you how to adapt in the gym really well. But whatever you're learning in the gym is going to apply to the rest of your life.

Especially with the language and breathing specifically. Mike, everything is communication. What you do for fitness is communicating with either the ground, the rest of your body, or the implements. Language, singing, all that stuff is communicating with other people with words. It's all just how well you can communicate with your environment. Yeah, it's how well you can communicate with yourself and your environment. So physical freedom is just autonomous environmental adaptability. You know what I mean? Like if you can get this dialed in so that like if some person on the road swerves into you,

you have like the hand-eye coordination and the vision to get out of the way and make the right move because you've done so much hand-eye coordination. And that's another one of those attributes that people kind of just cast off to the side in favor of more strength. But I'm like, dude, you don't have any hand-eye coordination. Why are you benching? You can't balance on one leg. Why are you deadlifting? If your goal is to improve your ability to function in the world more easily and more effectively, then you have to, like, try to get those, like,

weak links in the chain. I find, I like what you said there, easily and effectively. I find that being more effective comes after something becomes more easy. Because if it's hard, you can never be effective and that is the overarching problem that we talked about before it brings us full circle you and i used to think that hard work was a really valuable thing but actually it's uh how effective are you

and how much are you contributing it doesn't matter how hard you work like i fuck off all the time like i like i'll come back here and like i'm i i drift between like half retired and half not retired and sometimes i'll spend like six hours here just like fucking around and building stuff in my wood shop and carrying sandbags but then other times i'll be like really focused on generating like good content for people and teaching things and doing that. It's not wrong to fuck off. You just have to put out enough positive energy into the world so that you're

not a drain on it. Otherwise, if you just spend all your time thinking about yourself and being really selfish, it gets old. When I look at, I want to accomplish a thing. What's my highest leverage point to make that happen? And usually it takes very little effort and gets a huge impact.

And you know what I hear people tell me all the time? You just heard leverage. I love it. Leverage. Leverage. Well, that's what we were lifting about before, remember? Oh, totally. Totally.

Like lifting is just teaching you about things like leverage and friction and gravity. Yeah. It's beautiful. What's interesting is people tell me all the time, they go, you're doing so much. You've got so much going on. And that's what it looks like. And it's true. Totally.

There's a lot going on. I'm doing a lot. There's a lot happening in the company and i'm working less than ever totally and it's not because i got lazy it's because i got smart and i said stop asking the question of how can i work harder and i started asking the question of what is what what is the result i'm looking for and what's the highest leveraged activity I could do to make that happen. The majority of the time, it's a fucking conversation. It's nothing.

It's communication, right? It's a conversation, yep. For what's happening in business, what's happening with the shows, yada, yada, yada. It's a fucking conversation. With fitness, it's a lot of times not going to the gym, doing something at home, focusing on something that's a block to something else happening. Me deadlifting more isn't going to help me deadlift more because if I just deadlift a lot, my back will get hurt. But people don't give themselves enough time to think about what that is.

They just go in there with the intent to burn as many calories as possible. Who gives a fuck why we do it? Let's go down that rabbit hole real quick. to think about what that is. They just go in there with the intent to burn as many calories as possible. Oh, yeah. And who gives a fuck why we do it? Let's go down that rabbit hole real quick. We were going to close it down, and here we are. We were. We're going right back into it. Sorry, folks.

Actually, I don't know why I'm apologizing. Into the fucking belly of the beast. This is it. This is it. Strap in. You all sit there and take it. I got some shit that grinds my gears, and I'm ready to let it out. All right.

Let's hear it. All right. So I went to Dick's Sporting Goods the other day to buy a watch. And spoiler alert, they don't fucking sell watches there anymore. What good are they? Well, they sell Fitbits out the ass. And I thought about this a lot. And I'm going to present some information to you that's going to make you pretty confused. Oh, no.

Don't confuse me, please. A watch. I did take nootrop Don't confuse me, please. A watch. I did take nootropics today, so good luck. A watch is a device that accurately measures time, correct? A watch is a device that accurately measures time. Yeah. Okay. A Fitbit. I feel like i'm about to be tricked here a fitbit is a device that inaccurately estimates caloric expenditure

yes so we traded a perfectly functioning tool that could definitely help someone improve their health and fitness watch with something a fitbit that not only doesn't fucking tell time you know those don't work as stopwatches fitbits aren't a stopwatch it's just a tracker it's an inaccurate estimator of caloric expenditure and my my problem with this is the fact that they sell the Fitbit but not the watch speaks to an overarching problem in the general sentiment toward fitness, which is fitness is punishment for eating. That's the bottom line. If you have something that – and it's not even accurate. That's the fucking funny part. It's inaccurately estimating caloric expenditure instead of accurately measuring time.

I want to point this out, is the accuracy of the measurement of calories in food is also completely off. And who's weighing their food anyway? Who's wearing a Fitbit? Almost nobody. And even if you do, it's going to be totally variable. Well, the thing is, people go, oh, I actually, I lowered my carbs by this much and raised my protein by this much, and it's like 5%. I'm like, did you know that legally, legally,

they can be up to 20% off, I think it is, 15% or 20% off. I don't remember what the exact figure is, but I did used to own a protein bar company, and I know that it doesn't have to be spot fucking on. And I know for a fact that we were also not spot fucking on. Right. And so here's the thing. These people who are tweaking their macros by 3% and then going, oh, that's how I dropped

these last few pounds. I'm like, yeah, that's good. Forest for the trees, man. I think probably one of the best things that improved my hip mobility was simply getting rid of my couch. I'd love to say it was some awesome mobility exercise I made, but it probably was me substituting couch time with moving around on the floor. Oh, you know what I've noticed has been the biggest, two biggest benefits to my mobility in the last few years.

One is doing a lot of deep emotional work. Getting rid of deep emotional trauma gets stored in the tissue of your body I improved my relationships with all the people who are important in my life and my body felt better because of it bottom line and the thing is like people will jump to say like that's a hocus pocus and stuff and I'm like yeah but some people are allergic to peanuts and some people aren't like people are different man like why don why don't you see, here's the thing. Like you just try shit. Like I heard, uh, you had a Julian Pinnell on the barbell shrug podcast.

He was talking about the artificial intelligence thing the other day, uh, where Google's AI beat this, uh, chess computer program. And it was really interesting. And, uh, the way it did it was, it just kept trying to improve. Like it played itself. It learned how to play chess. And really, you should go like read about it yourself. Like I don't want to get into it. But the thing is, we don't try enough new things. Like we don't introduce something new frequently enough. And when you get caught in the same pattern of doing the same thing over and over again of course you're going to plateau of course you're going to feel stuck and that's why it's so important to like

try a new food or try a new exercise or go for a walk if you haven't been walking or go for a juggle if you haven't been juggling go for a juggle go for a juggle but how do you measure how good you are juggling probably want to use a watch to make sure you're spending at least five minutes juggling. Right. Fitbit doesn't really help you there. Motherfucker. Dude, it makes me physically ill to think of the fact that the average person who doesn't, like, know anything about fitness is being fed this fucking lie where they think, oh, if I just take a few more steps and burn a few more calories, that's going to give me the six-pack I want, and then I'll be happy.

And I'm like, nothing could be further from the truth. You need to love your body as it is, but you also need to understand that your body is like a bridge that gets stronger when you stress test it. And the more that you stress test this thing, the better it's going to function. Basically, what we're trying to do every day with our human bodies is stress test the sensitivity of the equipment. So something like juggling is stress testing the sensitivity of the equipment in one way. Something like a

heavy carry is stress testing the sensitivity of the equipment in a very different way. But if you don't challenge it in a variety of ways like that, of course, you're not going to get any kind of lasting result that makes your life actually better, which is why it doesn't seem like a big loss right now to go into a sporting goods store and they don't sell watches, but they sell Fitbits. But if you actually think about it, this is a catastrophic loss for fitness. Agreed. You said something at one time before you said that. It's like people exercise to burn calories. Yeah.

And America is full of just people that are eating. It's like you have a wealth of calories. There's this abundance, and we've got to figure out a way to get rid of them. Same with time. Instead of eating less food, we figure out a way to burn more stuff. So it's like instead of removing something from the equation, we're just adding more. What is it about human nature or American culture

or whatever it is that the answer is more instead of less? I mean, we could go back to the media thing and the marketing. We're promised more for less. That's the basic tenet of marketing is you promise to give someone more for less. So people want to lose. People have seen on the magazine cover that they can lose 12 pounds in a week, so they expect that to happen.

And then when it doesn't happen, they're like, oh, I guess fitness doesn't work. It sucks. I think also we have a culture of doing. I disagree. I think we have a culture of watching. Well, I think people think they have to do something to get the result. And a lot of times, what is it that you need to stop doing to get the result? Yeah, sometimes. You can add by taking away, or you can add by adding.

It's hard to say what would be better for you, switching to a kneeling desk for some of the day or doing two five minute flows. And the truth is you should probably be doing both and a third and a fourth experiment to see what works for you. Yeah. You know, and, and you got to just experiment on yourself. Like, I think I told you this before, sourdough bread, I can eat a loaf a day and be shredded.

If I start eating like a bunch of other like kind of breads that are different, I don't feel as good. Bottom line. I'm the same way with the sourdough bread. I'm with you. I eat it all the time. I have like sourdough toast on a daily basis. I get the sprouted. I don't know how to say that.

I don't know. Do you like it? It's good. I think people should just try stuff for themselves before they form an opinion, really. For sure. Well, the other thing I did that was great for my mobility is... I'm really pissed off about that Fitbit thing. I'm never going to get a sponsorship from those fuckers now.

Oh, no. Oh, no. What will you do? I don't know. Probably just still hang out in my jacuzzi with you. Well, the other thing that was great for my mobility was uh beyond the standing desk was a huge leap for me that was back when i was still weightlifting and that that cut my uh warm-ups in half uh but when the house i've been living in for three years now three years exactly uh we have

one couch it's pretty low and one desk you can sit at and one desk to stand at. And I find myself using the couch less and less and less all the time. And I got rid of all my furniture last year. It was great. I eat on the floor. Me too. I have people over. We eat on the floor.

And I actually started, I was eating meals standing up while I was working. I would work and eat my lunch, and I would only sit on the floor for maybe dinner. But now I sit on the floor for every meal. So that's been the case for maybe three months now. I was like, you know what? I'm going to eat on the floor for breakfast. And there were times I was eating on the couch, and I'd go, you know what? I'm going to eat on the floor for breakfast. And there were times I was eating on the couch and I go, you know what? I'm going to move to the floor.

That's really smart. So now I'm eating on the floor for at least twice a day, maybe three or four times a day. And how long is that, do you think? Oh, 15, 20 minutes. Do you think that's going to improve your fucking squat? Of course. 100%. So now I'm sitting there having a conversation with whoever's eating with me,

with my wife, and then I also wrote my friends and eating on the floor. And, you know, everyone raised the eyebrow the first time. And then I actually had some friends try to have like interventions with me. Like that you need to get a couch and a chair? Yeah. They were like, what do you have against? They thought I had something against comfort. And I was like, no, no, I love comfort. I like to visit comfort. And I was like, no, no, I love comfort. I like to visit comfort.

But I'm very comfortable on the floor. And you know what? The best way to get comfortable on the floor is to spend more time on the floor. Yeah, I've just been exposed to it enough. Whereas, I think you're in the same boat as me. People around me are freezing and it's 62 degrees

and I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt and I'm like, it's okay. I don't heat the pool in the winter. I jump in every day. As simple as that. Okay. So little tiny behaviors like that. Like you said, it's something as simple as eating on the floor. Like that's why I rarely give people nutrition advice because the truth is they shouldn't give a fuck about macros until they deal with some other shit like paying attention to the food in their mouth instead of the next one on the plate yeah you know like uh and to be honest if someone can even pay attention to the food that they're about to eat instead of like a television or a screen like that's a huge difference too like how fast are you eating this shit like i used to wolf

my food down and the main reason was because I wanted to get back outside and play. Like I just developed that behavior. And the more cognizant you are of these things, the more easily you can reprogram your brain too. Yep, totally. To be different. So when I eat now, I don't do anything else. Yep. Unless I'm eating with other people, I try to just,

and like people would probably think I'm strange to sit on my floor and eat with nothing else going on, either with people or on my own. Like, this is what I do. I think we found this separately. You can pay so much more attention to the food though. It's a totally different experience. That's been my challenge to people recently over the last few months. I, um, I, I, it was a, it was actually a conversation I was having with my wife. And she was talking about,

like, portion control. She goes, you know what? I eat really clean, but I've been eating too much. Right. And I go, ditch the phone,

ditch the computer, ditch the Netflix. Totally. Ditch all that and just be with your food. I, and, it was actually a, a hard challenge for her.

It took her a couple weeks. I bet. I'd go, what are you doing on your phone? Because she took me up on it. Totally. And so I called her out. I go, what's going on? She goes, oh, shit.

Here I am again. And what I do is I put my plate down. I take a picture of it because I like to be a good role model. You are. You're a good Instagrammer. And then I put my phone away. You are a good role model for people. You know what?

I never framed it that way. That's a great way to look at it. I make really good food, too. I should do that. Yeah. I'm going to start showing people what I eat. I eat really well. You eat really well. And really tasty food, too.

Super tasty. People would not think that you could stay in shape eating the way I do. Yeah. But, you know, I think it's important to do that. Look, I post two, three times a day what I'm eating. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's important to do that. It's like, look, I post two, three times a day what I'm eating. Yeah.

And I'm just showing people what's possible. Yeah, you practice what you preach, man. Yeah. So that's my motivation. As much sourdough toast as you want.

If I'm putting something on social media, it's because I want to show people what's possible. That's all. I just want to practice what I preach.

Yeah. You know, simple as that. I think you're so right. I mean, that always has to be the number one thing is like you set your own – you set the tone. Totally. For what you want your life to look like.

There's the one common denominator in every experience you have, right? It's you. That's right. That's right. Let's wrap this up. Let's do it. Dude, that was sick. That was super fun.

Batteries are going to die. We got to go. Let's get it going again. Yeah, we'll have a round 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, five six seven eight nine ten i'm gonna be traveling the world i'll go meet you somewhere all year this year starting in like 10 days i'm so fucking excited for you i'm going yeah to austin costa rica boulder uh europe virginia north carolina tennessee florida that's great all over it's gonna be amazing new york so if you want to know where i'm going make sure to go to the blood social.com Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida. That's great. All over. It's going to be amazing. New York.

So if you want to know where I'm going, make sure to go over to bloodsofshow.com. Hit the events page. I'll be posting shit as it comes up. Go over to mattshank.com. Bloodso, you'll get massive discounts. This is a live video. We should probably get that going. I'll get that going.

It'll be handled very quickly. It'll be handled very quickly. By Monday, I'm sure. Yeah. Not by me be uh it'll be handled very quickly it'll be handled very quickly by monday i'm sure yeah not by me but it will be handled by monday for sure by somebody probably even sooner but at least by monday at least by monday and um try to get wrapped up today yeah yeah just knock it out i just have to decide how fat i want to give you guys a discount i'm thinking pretty fat super fat pretty. Pretty fat. Yeah, yeah. So what, I mean, you have an Instagram account. What's that? Max Shank. Max Shank.

So easy. I'm really, if you type Max Shank into Google, I'm the only thing you find for like four pages, and then it's drill bits, because it's like the same thing. Dope. All right, man. Thanks again. Make sure to go over to iTunes. Give us a five-star review, positive comments, and shit.

Yeah. See you next time. Hell yeah. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Mike. Thank you. All right. We know you love the show, so go over to iTunes.

Give us a five-star review, positive comment. And remember, go to shrugcollective.com, click on the events page so that we can catch up in person, do cool seminars, have fun, and kick it.