Digital Social Hour - Why Cold Plunges WON'T Save Your Health | Don Saladino DSH #648

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Are cold plunges really the health savior they're hyped up to be? 🤔 Join the conversation on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly as we dive deep into this trending wellness topic with celebrity fitness trainer, Don Saladino. Packed with valuable insights, this episode explores why cold plunges might not be the miracle c*re everyone claims. Discover how Don's unique approach to fitness and health challenges conventional wisdom, and learn the secrets behind training Hollywood's elite like Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively. 🚀 Don't miss out on the compelling reasons why movement, diet, and personalized training might hold more power than a dip in icy waters. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🌟   #WorkoutNutritionStrategies #TrainingTechniquesForFitness #FitnessMyths #FitnessCoachingAdvice #HealthAndWellnessTrends   CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:28 - How Don Got Into Sleep 01:24 - Owning Gyms in NYC 03:00 - Don's First Big Client 05:30 - Don's Success Rate 06:10 - Don's Experience with Ryan Reynolds 09:53 - LinkedIn Ads for Fitness 11:06 - Diet vs. Lifting: What's More Important? 13:12 - Benefits of Cold Plunging 15:46 - Importance of Recovery 16:41 - Daily Steps for Health 18:30 - Tracking Your Health Metrics 19:47 - The Barn: A Unique Training Space 25:08 - Training for Basketball Athletes 26:20 - Fitness Training for Golfers 28:34 - Don's Journey into Fitness 30:26 - Doubting the Podcast Journey 31:18 - Ryan Reynolds and Wrexham AFC Connection 32:20 - Where to Find Don Online   APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]   GUEST: Don Saladino https://www.instagram.com/donsaladino https://donsaladino.com/   SPONSORS: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/social Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly   LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Now we're accumulating an extra 30 minutes and then you're going to start looking down at your watch saying, oh wow, maybe that 42 became 5,200. Is that still a number we want to be at? Maybe, maybe not. I mean, you got a tall lean frame on you, right? It's like you're in a good place to begin with here. But I think moving as you get older is going to keep that back from getting stiff. It's going to keep those knees feeling a little bit better. It's going to keep those joints lubricated. And I think that's really important. All right, guys. Celebrity fitness fitness trainer don saladino in the building my man thanks for coming thanks man you brought a little gift thank you for this no worries so happy i mean i've been

wearing that for a while it's helping me with my sleep and i'm able to quantify through aura so everything helps any little thing that helps i'm gonna kind of lean on yeah and you mentioned it's vibrational right that's how it gets you to bed. Yeah, that's something called SmartWave. So it's going to recognize when you're waking up and it's going to actually put you back to sleep. So my wife who can't sleep, like puts that thing on and she can't make it through a movie anymore. So it's pretty awesome.

It's very addicting, yeah. That's cool, man. Did you have sleep issues also? Not really, but it's just something where, you know, I was always an early riser because of work, you know, owning gyms in the city and, you know, being in New York City, I'd be in there at 3.30, 3.45. So when you start waking up at that hour,

yeah, it messes you up a little bit, but I'll sleep hard. And then you wake up to use the bathroom once and you have a stressful day, something's on your mind and then you're thinking about it. So typically I try and get seven to nine hours a night, but any way that I can help improve that

even a little bit, I'm gonna look into. Amazing. So you were waking up at 3 a.m. for 15 years? Long time, man. That is crazy. People go to the gym that early out there in New York? Some of the Wall Street guys were a little fanatical. And I think when you're starting a business

and you're going through some struggles early on, you're going to take clients at any hour to keep the doors open. I mean, our rent every year was, I mean, my rent was close to a million dollars a year in one of my clubs. Yeah, it was nuts. Damn.

My taxes were 15 grand a month. I mean, it was bananas in the city were 15 grand a month i mean it's bananas in the city so my gosh i did that for a long time and then took my business but mainly digital which i got into in about 2010 and you know so working with the celebrity that celebrity piece is a very small part of my business now but i still am fortunate enough to work with you know guys like ryan reynolds or blake lively and yeah i prep them for roles and they become like family they're they're amazing people that's huge switching to digital in 2010, that was early. I feel like a lot of people switched on later than that.

Yeah, so I partnered with professional athletes, Adrian Peterson, Dwayne Wade, and Ernie Ellis, and we started this app company. I started this app company called Driven. I went in and I raised some capital and we started this MTV Cribs of apps in 2010 and they crushed it out of the gate. And then after a while,

you weren't getting that engagement piece and you didn't really understand it. Like you're sitting here going, well, you have all this great content, but why isn't it working? And then you're realizing, well, it's getting old. And then the celeb piece of it, you know, you aren't getting that engagement from them because their agents are negotiating deals and they, you know, maybe give up one post a month or maybe they want to come in and rightfully so they only have so much time in the, in the day, but you start realizing that what's going to drive all this everything that we're doing now digitally is you know how are you engaging with your audience and that was a good lesson for me to learn early on because then i was able to kind of push that off into my business

and have had a you know a little bit of success doing it now nice so who was that first big client you landed on me uh hugh jackman wow that's a big, big name for your first one. Yeah. So I was back, I want to say it was probably 16, 17 years ago when he came out with Wolverine and that movie Australia. It was right around the same time. And he was working with a buddy of mine. My buddy was moving and came to me and he knew I was on a few covers and he knew I could move some weight and he saw me in the gym. So he said, you know, we'd love to work with you. I said, great. My buddy was moving anyway. So I started working with him. And there was really no social media back then.

I remember one time he came to me and he's like, oh, we're going to do something for Men's Vogue. And I'm like, you know what, man? Let's not. I was stupid back then. But in a way, I was smart because what I was trying to say was, let's just focus on you. And I'm not in this for the marketing piece.

I'm in this to get you in shape. And I think that really opened the floodgates for me and it's what it's allowed me to work with more celebs in Hollywood than almost any coach. Yeah, anyone I've seen at least, man. Yeah, but it's been good to me. And why do you think your success rate's so high with training clients compared to other trainers?

One, there's always the knowledge for training, right? And I think it's understanding and being able to adjust to the client coming in, not forcing things for people that may not, you know, either want to do it or may not have the ability to do it. So I think sometimes coaches come in and they're just so set in their ways and they want to force that when if you're a good enough coach, you should be able to go to many tools in your toolbox and lean on that. And the one thing I think I'm better at than most any coach I've ever met is reading people. Like the second they walk in, I'll be like, oh boy, we're, we're dealing with this today. And you could tell if they're in a mood or you could tell if they're having a bad day, you know, they're normal people like the

rest of us. So how as a coach, am I going to be able to adapt to that individual? And how am I going to be able to adjust to compliment their mood for that day? And I think that's, what's allowed me not to annoy many clients, you know, throughout my career. And it's, I think it's a really important lesson. You could be the best coach in the world. I'm sorry. You can be the best trainer in the world. But being a great coach is something that I think is very different.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because some people are having bad days and you're giving them the same regimen as always. Or also just leaning on them too much. Have you heard about the 2018 study that showed half of prenatal vitamins tested had unacceptable levels of heavy metals? No? Well, now you have. I'm Kat, mother of three and founder of Ritual, the company making traceability the new standard in the supplement industry. I remember staring at my prenatal vitamins and finding all these things I was trying to avoid. High amounts of heavy metals, synthetic colorants, and unnecessary ingredients.

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You'll have direct access to and build relationships with decision makers. A billion members are on their platform, 180 million senior level executives, and 10 million C-level executives. You'll be able to drive results with targeting and measurement tools built specifically for B2B in technology. LinkedIn generated two to five X higher return on ad spend than any other social media platform. And you'll work with a partner who respects the B2B world you've operated. 79% of B2B content marketers said LinkedIn produces the best results for paid media.

LinkedIn has been a great platform for me to also find interesting podcast guests. If you're interested, start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. We'll give you a hundred dollar credit on your next campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash social to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash social terms and conditions apply LinkedIn, the place to be. We've all been there, right? Like you're just, you're in a work mode or you might be things going on with your family or there's things weighing on you and you're just getting in. You want to go. And then someone's like that, that, that, that, that, that, and you're like, in you want to go and someone's like that that that that that and you're like let me work right and i think that's an important lesson to learn as a coach it's like are you that person that someone's going to want to go out and have dinner with right or

you know are you going to be annoying i'm 15 minutes in like it's regardless you'd be the best coach a trainer on the planet it's not going to matter if you're not able to deliver that you know message in a way that they're going to absorb it interesting approach because some people keep the business part business and they try not to mix in friendship, but you're willing to get involved in their personal stuff. Well, a little bit. I mean, to an extent, I also have to understand that. And one thing that I remember is that I am expendable. So like at any point I can be replaced. And I think that's a really valuable lesson to know as a coach, like, yeah, you're becoming friendly with them. Yes,

you're traveling with them, but if I'm not delivering or if I'm getting too personal and I'm making it about me, like, yeah, it should be replaced. That's a, that's a, that's a huge problem that I see a lot of coaches, you know, that's where they cross that line. So, you know, that's something I've done a good job of, but I think knowing that I'm expendable is something that allows you to stay humble. And probably why I've been doing this a long time already. Yeah. What was the goal with Reynolds? Was that for Deadpool? Uh, no, it was originally, God, I mean, I started training him when he was doing indie films. So we're together now 15 years. I mean, I remember going through Green Lantern with him and going to gymnastic school to him and we're doing backflips together. I mean, he's incredibly athletic. I mean, the guy that tall to be able to throw a backflip,

I think it's pretty, pretty impressive, but he's a unit, man. He's just, um, he's, he's geared a little bit differently than most people i mean suddenly it's time for him to start dieting and it's just like boom like needs minimal coaching we make some adjustments here and if there's one thing i change he dives into and does it i mean he's like a dream to work with and he's a you know he's a beast in the gym but you know i think he also he understands that each role he does you know there's a little bit of a different package that you have to go in there with and that's what's interesting about working with these actors is that it's not like they're always trying to put muscle on yeah or always trying to get in better

shape there's roles that they're going to do or if they came in looking all yoked up it's not going to be believable so i think that's watching these actors where they have to live in this very neutral place and be able to move in a different direction and adapt is something that most people don't think about dwayne johnson he's always walking around yoga. He's always playing that role, right? But when you're working with different types of actors that have to be a little bit more, not to insult DJ, but they have to be a little bit more versatile in the characters that they're playing, we have to be careful. Yeah. The one that sticks out to me is Zac Efron with the Baywatch. Oh my God. That transformation. He got in killer shape on that. That was crazy. And you only have careful yeah the one that sticks out to me is zach efron with the baywatch oh my god that

transformation he got he got in killer shape on that that was crazy and you only have like a like few months right so some of them do i mean you know and you know it can get tricky because there's only so much someone's going to do with their physique in a short period of time like i've gotten calls from production companies and they're like oh i'm like how much time do i have they're like two weeks oh really and then the clients and then they're turned to me like what do I'm like, get a tan, stop drinking vodka for the next two weeks. We're going to tighten up your eating. We're going to get you in here six, seven days a week. And you know, we're going to go in with what we have and no cheat meals. And they're like, okay. And then you're able to tighten someone up in a period of time, but you're not going to take, you know,

you know, actor that's 260 pounds and move them to 215, 220 pounds in that period of time. It's just not going to happen. Absolutely. So you don't drink any alcohol um i do like it on occasions uh but not no i mean with me i might have a couple beers every few months but when i start drinking i get a little bit of anxiety and this really yeah this is my sleep my heart rate elevates i'll wake up at two three in the morning i'm laying in bed my resting heart rate's up so that's something where like when my wife and I with our kids go snowboarding and we'll have a couple of beers on the mountain, that to me is cool.

But otherwise not really. I'm the same way. I feel like it's not worth it anymore. I used to pound. Yeah, what would you drink? Vodka in college. Then I switched to tequila. But nah, these days, I mean, it's not worth it.

I was a rum and dye guy. Rum? I used to drink up like Captain Morgan and I used to come out to Vegas all the time. And we would hit that because, you know, the caffeine. And it wouldn't bloat you. And it kind of made you. It was tasty.

But I just, I mean, man, it puts me in a bad place now. I feel that, yeah. There's this debate about like diet and lifting and like what's more important. Where do you stand on that side of things? Depends on the goals, right? I mean, my wife, you know, doesn't really train much. And she eats really well and she's got a great build on her and she's lean and she had two kids and her health markers are good.

So that just shows right there by getting your steps in, you can have a lot of good progress. If you're trying to get on a cover magazine or if you got to get yoked up for a role, naturally we're going to have to train, but there's so many different types of training and there's so many different ways we can train. And that's why there's not this like set template on the shelf. Like I've had clients I've gotten ready for roles doing three days a week. It's all their body can handle. It's all their schedule allows them to do. And they've had incredible progress off that on that. So I think that nutrition piece is incredibly important, but some type of tension, some type of resistance, whether you're doing with bands, dumbbells, kettlebells, barbell, I mean. As a, some type of resistance, whether you're doing it with bands,

dumbbells, kettlebells, barbell, I mean. As a B2B marketer, you know how noisy the ad space can be. If your message isn't targeted to the right audience, it just disappears into the noise. With LinkedIn ads, you could precisely reach the professionals who are more likely to find your ad relevant

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Go to linkedin.com slash social to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash social. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be. Just create some tension, get your steps in, hydrate, get some sleep, keep your protein up to about a gram per pound like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon always talks about.

You're gonna check a lot of boxes. Wow, so I just had Dave Asprey on last week. He only works out 20 minutes a week. Yeah, I actually heard that. He was on Mind Pump with a couple of my buddies over there and he said that, yeah, I mean, Dave's what, 50 years old? I mean, he looks good. He looks good, he got in a good shape.

He's also very smart and I think he does a lot of good things when it comes to rest and recovery and that nutrition piece. So I enjoy training. Training makes me feel good. It's something that I have different goals than Dave. Like I want to hold a decent amount of muscle and I want to be able to run a mile time in a certain period of time. And there's things that are important to me. I was on the cover of Muscle Fitness a few months ago again.

So those things are important to me, but it's more important that internally my body's responding a certain way. Hormonally, my body's doing what it needs to be doing and I'm healthy. Turning 47 next month. So, you know, we're all getting older, but there's things with training

that we have to really pay attention to and we have to adjust while we age. So Dave totally respected, heard what he said. But again, the fact that I can go in and change my physiology in an hour or change my mood in a short period of time by a training session, it makes me feel good. It makes me look the way I want to look and I'm going to continue to do it. Dude, I would have guessed you were like 34. Oh my God. It's making me blush. 47 is impressive. Thank you, man. I got to learn some secrets there. You take a lot of supplements or something? Supplements is a small part of it.

I got a contract with Thorne. I've been working with them for a while. It's a great company. Yeah, they just sponsored the show, actually. They're awesome people, by the way. I think they sponsor UFC, which is right down the road. But their whey protein is great. They've got a great supplement store. But again, if that nutrition piece, it needs to be at a certain point. I'm not saying

you got to be 100%, but I tell people getting started, if you follow that 80-20 rule, if you're going in there 80% of the time and you're eating well, and 20% of the time, if you're leaving it to travel or if you want to go have a pizza, that's fine, pizza or whatever it is. You should be able to do that stuff. But like I said, if someone's getting ready for a role, we got to dial things in a little bit differently. That makes sense. Where are you at with this cold plunge wave? It seems to be all over.

I see some doctors talk really bad about it. Gary Brekka hypes it up. Where are you at? I like it. So I happen to cold plunge, you know, two, three days a week, three minutes, you know, during the winter time. And I feel great doing it.

I have seen a significant change on clients with cold therapy through cryotherapy or cold plunging when it comes down to recovery. I think there's some research that's starting to come out now on whether it's gonna actually burn fat or not. But there's so many variables. It's almost impossible to be able

to even do research on that stuff because how are they eating? How are they training? Are they gonna keep the same crappy diet and start cold plunging and then burn fat then all right are you going to be able to actually monitor that over the next couple months i mean that to me it's very tough to be able to gauge but i have no problem with it i think it's something where if you're getting into a cold tank for you know one to three minutes how could someone you know how could someone talk down to that it's like lane norton is not a fan i

don't know if you've seen that well lane norton's also you know and i think lane's brilliant right but you know lane's also i'm agreeing with what he's saying that like it's not the be all end all and this is not like uh you know the fact that coal plunging is going to suddenly take the place of all these other things i completely agree with but you know if lane's turning around and he's eating well to which he does and he's training really well which which he does one of the better guys in the industry and he's going to throw cold therapy in a couple days a week i don't know things going to start going bad on lane's body has he seen that i'm curious to find out but from the people i've worked with and the um and the way that i apply it to myself it is just a

small element to everything i i do lane and i will get annoyed with the fact that I apply it to myself, it is just a small element to everything I do. Lane and I will get annoyed with the fact that people are like, they're putting so much weight on it. Like cold plunging is all you need. And oh God, and I'm gonna do this for the next 500 days. Suddenly it's gonna cure a disease. Like, no, it's not gonna do that. But I have seen some great things from people

jumping into cold therapy at three o'clock in the afternoon if they're wanting that cup of coffee and they're suddenly changing their physiology a little bit and getting their body a little bit sympathetic and they're, you know, waking up and then going into a few zoom calls, like great. Like it's, it's, I've used it. I've had two hours zooms at 5 PM where I'm jumping in at a four 30, hopping in a shower and then I'm completely a different, I'm a completely different person for the next couple hours. So I totally agree with what Lane says because I did see that. But I also think that how you're relying on cold plunging, if you're relying on the way I'm relying on it, I think it's a good thing.

If you're putting all your eggs into that, I think you really need to rethink it. Totally makes sense. What else are you doing for recovery other than that? Well, sleep. Sleep to me is everything. Do I meditate? I'm just not a meditation type person. That Apollo there, I've been using a lot. Even when I'm flying home today, I'll throw that on. And am I seeing a little bit of an improvement from things like HRV on my aura ring? Sure. Am I feeling better from it? Great. Again,

not the be all end all. I'm not going to tell well this is going to fix everyone's problems that's not what i believe in but recovery for me is you know walking around outside getting some sunlight in getting some steps in removing a lot of toxic people in my life which i've had to do over the life but it but it is it's like you know early on you have friends or you have family and they're just you know they're they're negative negative and out of nowhere you start walking around and you're feeling this level of tension. The stress for me can be healthy, but when you over-exceed the level of stress that you should be taking in and you're overreaching and you're always in that red, I think that becomes a big problem. Right. Yeah. You keep mentioning steps and they're saying now sitting is like the new smoking. So how many steps per day are you? I still don't have a set number on

that yet, but everyone's on that 10,000 um and you know i just think you know increasing it from a low number is important so i i had a guy two years ago who came to me he was 525 pounds and he couldn't walk four to six hundred steps a day yeah he was pretty heavy and he was up he was in really bad shape but now we're probably religiously getting him in that six to seven,000 step range. I mean, he hit 52,000 steps last week, which, you know, he was doing like six to 7,000 a week. So to be up that number, fantastic. Now, is that where he needs to be? I would think in time, I'd like to get them a little bit higher, but I know people who are walking, you know, 15, 20 a day. And I know people are, or yesterday I got 10 in, right? It was a travel day and I was just happy that I was able to get 10 in. So I don't know if I have a set number on that yet.

I think I would normally like to look at how someone's living, their lifestyle, their body composition, their blood markers. And then from there, see how's their digestion, how's their sleep quality. Are there periods during the day where they're sitting too much? Can we throw in a 10-minute walk, right? Throwing that in periodically throughout the day, I think is really beneficial. Yeah, I definitely want to raise mine. I'm at 4,200, which I think is low, especially for my age. But as a podcaster and I'm on the desk like eight, 10 hours a day, it's tough. It's very difficult. I mean, what I would recommend is maybe after lunch,

go for a 10 minute walk. Maybe after breakfast, 10 minute walk. After dinner, 10 minute walks. Now we're accumulating an extra 30 minutes. And then you're going to start looking down at your watch saying, oh, wow, maybe that 42 became 5,200. Is that still a number we want to be at? Maybe, maybe not. I mean, you got a tall lean frame on you, right? It's like you're in a good place to begin with here. But I think moving as you get older is going to keep that back from getting stiff. It's going to keep those knees feeling a little bit better. It's going to keep those joints lubricated. And I think that's really important. Nice. How are you measuring and tracking all your health results? Well, I go in for blood work. So I go in Dr. Gabrielle line once a year, which I know she

has been a guest for you. So we keep our eye on that pretty closely. I also go to a general practitioner once a year just for the general guidelines, insurance purposes, and then to have that in the book. The physical? Yeah, just the basics. I feel like those don't measure that much no they don't but i just do it anyway insurance covers it it's like i just want to make sure i have it in the book whether that's important or not it's i'll do that and i'll do dr g for more of the deep dive um that's how i measure my bloods but um you know i use aura for sleep um really really like them it's where i measure my you know it's it's where i measure my stuff i gotta get one of those these are fantastic we can get you one of these guys so um you know we are able to measure

steps here but also looking at sleep quality um i'm not going to say any sleep device is 100 accurate but we can determine behavioral change so i think if you're looking at your rem or your deep or your total sleep and you're seeing that number down and you start making change in your activity like getting away from monitors late at night or maybe you're eating or you're total sleep and you're seeing that number down and you start making change in your activity, like getting away from monitors late at night, or maybe you're eating too heavy of a dinner late at night and you start, or maybe too close to bed and you start backing off and making some change and you see those numbers improve. I think changing those trends, I think are really beneficial. Yeah, of course. Talk to me about the barn. Oh, man. So I owned gyms in the city for 15 years. My 15-year lease expired at 495 Broadway, May 31st of 2020.

Wait, the lease was 15 years? Yeah, so I had a 15-year lease at 495 Broadway, and then I had like a shorter, I want to say it was like an eight-year lease at 443 Park Avenue. They really lock you in there, man. Yeah, I mean, a little bit was stupidity on my end, but it was also, you know, I was kind of a gunslinger when it comes to business. And I was like, at a young age, I was like, let's go for it and let's make this happen. I knew there was a lot of work that had to go into it. So I know when I was starting my clubs in the city, which mainly revolved around golf fitness early on, and then I started working with a lot of these superheroes for roles.

There were things with the space that I just didn't like. There were relationships with the landlord that you're never going to like. And I said, man, I always dreamt about building this commercial grade facility in my backyard and not training anyone there, but shooting content, kind of like my own studio and having guests out there, training them out there, cold therapy, saunas, all this stuff, outdoor jungle gym. And that's what I created. So I built this like million dollar facility that's 60 feet from my back porch.

It's multi-floored and you've got everything that you can imagine in there. And it's just like a big Shangri-La for me. It's pretty awesome to be able to work and have my podcast area out there and just invite guests, just have a good time. I love that, man. Gyms are slept on.

If you pay for a nice gym, man, it leads to so many opportunities. Oh my God. I mean, it's just, I never understood, like it's so important to me. So that environment is so important. If you're going into a facility and it's got a poor environment, they got poor equipment or I just think it's that much more difficult to go in and do what you need to do. But if you're in a place with high energy and good equipment and you want to be there and they're in there, good people, man, sky's the limit. Absolutely. And I'm not trying to hate on any gyms,

but I used to go to LVAC out here. Oh, Las Vegas. Yeah, it's like 20 bucks a month. Yeah, but they're like big. Those are huge. Yeah, they're everywhere. But like, it just wasn't quality. And then I joined Lifetime.

Lifetime's nice. And I love it, dude. And I've met some great people. I've had people on the podcast that I met in the sauna in both the basketball leagues there. And I just have a great time. They have a lifetime out, um, a couple of towns over from me and it's like, you know, indoor pools in New York. Yeah. So they have a few in the city, but they have some in long Island. They're great. I mean, they're, they're normal, like in long

Island. It's like a city. It's one of the best ROIs I've ever made, even though it's like two 50 a month, which is a lot for some people, just the people you meet in the health. It's great. I heard that was more of a real estate investment though on a lot on those owners. I wasn't really sure. I never knew how well the gyms did. I was always saying, Oh my God, like this has got to be a crazy overhead knowing. Yeah. I wonder if they're actually profitable. That's a good question. Who knows? Cause I mean, yeah, the amount of, I know, right. The amount of pools they have and all that other stuff. Well, that's why I would go use it. Cause I was training. Yeah. I was doing some, um, open water swimming yeah there were certain times during the year i couldn't

train for it so i had to go to an indoor pool and they i was showing up to this indoor pool it was like a full lap pool there was no one there i got my own lane it's nuts i'm like sitting there like this is amazing how's this place gonna stay open but they've been they've been expanding it is crazy they're doing great yeah i used to be a runner and when when you get injured you would have to train in the pool and i remember doing that in in high school. You mentioned. What type of running? I'm just curious. Distance. Yeah, I know you mentioned the mile earlier.

What's your best mile? 452. 440. God, you beat. But that was in high school. I was in college. Okay. Oh my God.

How tall are you? Like 6'6"? 6'6", yeah. You ran a 440 at 6'6"? I was 134 pounds in high school. I was a twig. Oh my God. I ran the 452.

I was like 219. I was trucking, man. My 800 was my best though. 800 meters. What was your 800? 159. Oh my God. Yeah, I was a beast, dude.

I was literally a twig. I'll show you photos after. That's under a 60 second. Yes, under, it would have been a four minute mile if I kept it up for two. Well, let's be clear. I almost died after that. Yeah, same. After the 452, like that wasn't something i was repeating i don't understand how these

marathon runners are like holding 420s or 430s for 26 miles it's insane one of my friends just ran 100 miles this last one oh my gosh and she's an amateur runner and uh she actually didn't finish her first um time because she had a sprained ankle and she had to like she had a she had a bag out at like 60 miles yeah but to see someone go through 100 miles like that is it's not one of the most impressive but i i got injured so much as a runner man and i think a lot of it was diet i was eating terrible in high school we're eating just fast food and just the school lunch which is a whole nother topic i mean that's so bad for you that's terrible it's like have you eaten that or did you pack

lunch growing up uh man i didn't like the food and i didn't really pack lunch i buddies of mine were like going out when i couldn't drive and bringing me in mcdonald's and then when i was even worse it's even worse and then when i was but i was in high school i was for sport athlete i'm going out eating taco bell mcdonald's i remember some lunches we were eating terrible we were eating baskin robbins for lunch but like you didn't think of nutrition but you know in high school 180 pounds lean and then like you just you start it was weird because as i got into nutrition i'm like oh egg whites are important i'm gonna eat egg whites this is how long ago that was and then you find out the yolk is good then you're incorporating the yolk and oh protein's important and you're paying attention to that like we just did it because

we didn't know any better when we were 14 15 years old nor were we really like i wasn't lifting weights until i was 16 yeah coach, coaches never talked about it. You really had no idea. And I look back at it now, dude, we could have been running even faster times. Could you imagine if you were fueled properly and you were actually paying attention to, I mean, who knows how your sleep was back then?

Terrible, I was sleeping four hours a day in high school because you got to get up at six. I can't believe you ran 440 at 6'6". Yeah, dude. That's beast. What are you doing now for training? Are you just- I don't run anymore.

I might want to start, but I see mixed things about how it affects your joints if you run a lot of distance. Yeah, I mean, have you thought about maybe getting into some shorter distances

or maybe some intervals? Yeah, so Dave asked if we talked about sprinting and how that's really good. So that interests me. And I play basketball, so it's important to be quick. That stop-go is important.

But you know what I love about sprinting, and I even incorporate in my programs now is sometimes we'll just set it up at like 10 seconds on where we're just trying to get that body to be elastic, almost like your feet are on pogo sticks. So we'll run on like a motorless treadmill

and we'll just try to be kind of poppy off the belt and allowing that body to establish that speed and that athleticism. You get your heart rate up, you get your body moving fast and you maintain that running quality. And actually, nine out of 10 times, I go into a workout and I'm like, hitting a specific PR,

maybe I wouldn't have hit because I feel like my body's awake. Wow, that's awesome. It's really, it's allowed my body at 46 years old to feel great. I bet. There were times where you're squatting and you're going out running five miles

and then your back's sore and your hips are sore. So I think you could still do it, but I think you have to really look at how you're balancing everything else out. Yeah. My main thing right now is increasing vertical. Have you trained any clients in that regard? Not much. Basketball was something that I didn't work with a lot of guys on. I mean, other guys on my team focus more on that.

I worked with athletes. I worked with more rotational athletes, like golfers. I worked with a lot of golfers uh they're doing a lot of back workouts legs yeah a lot of legs a lot of separation drills between upper and lower half um it's interesting with golfers because you have this x factor where the lower body starts rotating in one direction but that upper body is still rotating back so you're getting this like bow and arrow effect so if you look at guys like rory mcelroy that aren't big guys um and you look at his swing in slow motion his lower body will actually start rotating towards the target and you'll still see his upper body rotating back so interesting getting this bow and arrow effect that's called x factor so we had to really pay

attention to having a strong foundation but making sure they had good separation most importantly with golfers is good resiliency but yeah so many of them get injured yeah but i mean think about it it's i always got a kick out of how tiger woods everyone was blaming you know his injuries to you know oh well he runs with work boots on i'm like the guy swung a golf club 10 million times like think about if you sat there like rotating 10 million times or whatever it was in his lifetime like you're gonna have some issues dude i get sore after top golf and that's only how great is that by the way yeah it's fun but i get sore it's only like 50 swings i mean my form's probably terrible but you're swinging hard too you're swinging as hard as i can and i have no form like it doesn't it's so much fun it was such a brilliant model too by the way it's like they

they really i think taylor made still owns that or I'm not even sure. I don't even know, but they're crushing it, man. They were smart. They made golf fun. I mean, I love golf. I play a lot of golf, but it's also a very expensive, very time-consuming sport.

And some clubs just have these rules where it's like, all right, this isn't what a young kid wants to go and do. And going to a public course and spending five, six hours out on a course doing something that you suck at. It's too slow for it's too slow top golf is great because yeah short period of time top golf and mini golf haven't done mini golf you haven't done mini golf no i've done it i just haven't done it in a while oh yeah i'm competitive and i can't play actual golf so that

for me is like good middle ground you know they've good mini golf in vegas or what uh decent nothing crazy yeah i just go to compete i went to the top golf here though yeah oh on the strip yeah yeah it's nice really really nice yeah you said four sport athlete in uh high school right yeah were you trying to go professional in any of those baseball was the was the sport i played division one baseball so i um played at sacred heart university for four years had a great four years captain for two years it was an experience for me but it was interesting because as i was playing um you know at a certain point i think that whole fitness focus started taking over a bit and uh decided to be a coach when i

graduated i didn't even really know what i was gonna do when i was in college i was studying business because i had this business bug and i wanted to be an entrepreneur it was something i think i always wanted to do but i didn't even really know about trainers back then it was just something that it's interesting now because even like doing what i do now if you went back to me in 1999 you said all right you're going to be um opening a facility in your backyard and no one's gonna be training there well how's that possible like uh you're gonna be online what's online it's like you're gonna have this global business you're gonna be in over 100 countries but you're not gonna have to travel much well how's that gonna happen like everything that is even now with what you're doing

like this didn't exist 20 years ago. So it's pretty difficult for a lot of these young kids to have to sit there and predict what they're going to do over the next five, 10, 15, 20 years. It's like, follow your passion and purpose. It feels right. And you really want to do it, get after it. Like, don't worry about the money piece of it. You, you, you got to feel it in here. And if you do, I think that's going to pay dividends, but you know, get ready, man. This is is not uh this isn't something that happens overnight as you know as we all know yeah the professional athlete route is it's got to be the lowest percentage 100 it's got to be under like 0.1 of people that actually get there right but even podcasts i mean look at

what you're doing here i mean this isn't something that anyone can just turn around start like yeah you have a team there's a lot of time there's a lot of time, there's a lot of effort, money, there's a lot of things going in. And I'm sure it didn't just start out of the gate, right? No, it took years. People call it, cause they see it now and they were like, oh, that happened fast. But it took me like seven years to build up my network. It's a lot. Yeah. Just to like have people that will come on the show. And that's the hardest part I think for a lot of podcasts, getting good guests. Was there a time when you, when you actually doubted it or what? Uh, yeah, I started a show five years ago, total flop. So I, I doubted it for five years that i can make it work this time to be

honest but uh that was interesting i mean looking at guys like even gary v and seeing how he started that wine tv and he did like hundreds of episodes yeah and it was like the most low budget thing and you just you look at a lot of these successful people even the ones that i trained and they um you know it wasn't this instantaneous i mean ryan reynolds will be the first to tell you he said he was like almost unhirable at one point like this was years ago it's like a couple movies flop and you know he was like begging to get deadpool done and then now look at him i mean he's just sold mint mobile for whatever it was billion dollars billion dollars and i mean he probably didn't think 10 years ago he's gonna

own a european football team it's like crazy but think about that think about how life takes you and you just gotta go he's passionate about and he loves that city and i just went over to rex him with him it was incredible to just to see what he's created that's amazing you also train his wife too right yeah she's been like she's been like my rock awesome girl man that was my show back in the day did you that's hysterical all the girls watched i love it i love it i love it so funny chuck bass is coming on the show. Ed Westwick, I think his name is. Okay.

I work with, actually, one of my really good buddies is Sebastian Stan. He was on Gossip, wasn't he? Was he Dan, the curly hair guy? Or someone else? I don't even know what role he was playing. I mean, Chase Crawford, I worked with. He was a Gossip girl. I think Seb was on.

I think Seb now is, he's playing Donald Trump in the new Donald Trump. Oh, wow. He's crazy. He looks like him? No, not at all. But he was also – do you see I, Tonya? I, Tonya, no. Okay, that was with Margot Robbie.

Okay. She was playing the Olympic skater. Interesting. But he was in it also. He's been like a very versatile up-and-coming actor where he plays all these roles. I'm actually really impressed with how he's able. He's a perfect example of someone who's, you know, he's playing an Avenger,

right? He's, he's Bucky in the Avengers and then he's playing Donald Trump. Wow. Yeah. That's a wide range. Yeah. Pretty personal.

The accent's going to be tough. Yeah. We'll see. It's been fun, man. Where can, where can people find you? Thank you,

man. Uh, you know, Instagram, uh, Don Saladino, donsaladino.com. I give away a free program on there. If anyone wants access to it, take advantage of it. Cool. We'll link it in the video. Thanks brother. Yeah. Thanks. Appreciate it, man. Instagram, Don Saladino, donsaladino.com. I give away a free program on there if anyone wants access to it.

Take advantage of it. Cool. We'll link it in the video. Thanks, brother. Yeah, thanks. Appreciate you, man. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for watching, guys, as always.

See you next time. Thanks, guys.