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

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

Are you wasting money on trainers who spend more time on their phones than coaching you? In this episode of the Habits and Hustle podcast, I sit down with the Mind Pump team—Sal, Adam, and Justin—who reveal the red flags that expose terrible trainers.  We explore why weighted vests are causing injuries in middle-aged women and why the ripped trainer might be your worst choice. The guys share their simple five-exercise formula that transforms bodies, explain why training like a powerlifter gets women lean, and debunk protein myths flooding social media. Mind Pump is a top fitness podcast hosted by Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews—former personal trainers with over 60 combined years of experience. They've built a fitness empire through their evidence-based approach, creating the MAPS program series that sells 240 copies daily worldwide while training clients who stay consistent for life. What We Discuss:  (08:26) Indicators of a Good Personal Trainer (19:55) Core Values in Business (25:56) Building a Strong Fitness Business (33:20) Strength Training for Women (38:13) Effective Strength Training for Bodies (49:23) Effective Ab Training Strategies (54:46) Ineffective Exercise Trends and Weighted Vests (01:06:06) Protein vs. Whole Foods Debate …and more! Thank you to our sponsors: Momentous: Shop this link and use code Jen for 20% off Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off  TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. Bio.me: Link to daily prebiotic fiber here, code Jennifer20 for 20% off.  David: Buy 4, get the 5th free at davidprotein.com/habitsandhustle.   Find more from Jen:  Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen   Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Mind Pump: Podcast: https://mindpumppodcast.com/  Instagram :https://www.instagram.com/mindpumpmedia/ 

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it! Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor, Therisage. Their Tri-Lite panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their Red Light Therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where honestly I have pain.

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for 15% off any of their products. Okay, so what I love about this is I'm doing my podcast in the Mind Pump studio. Yeah. So it looks so profesh. Like, look how professional it looks now. Everything I have Doug who is doing the sound and everything and the on air.

Can I use your studio all the time? Whatever you want. If you want. Really? Yeah, yeah. You just saved me a whole lot of money. I was gonna do this on. Remember what happened last time? That's the first time.

Sorry. Exactly. It's never happened before. Doug can tighten that for you. User air. User air. I promise, I swear to God it's never happened before. It's never happened before.

It's the first time. It's not your fault. It's the first time. There you go. There you go, thank you. There you go time. It's not your fault. It's the first time. There you go. There you go. Thank you. Thank you, Doug.

Thank you, yeah. Thank you. Okay, so yeah, so now Mind Pump, the whole crew, is on my podcast. Is this the first time all of us have been on? Yes, I was going to say, I've had Adam on, I've had Sal a few times, I've never had Justin, I've never had Doug, but now I have all four of you. Do you remember whose episode did the best out of all of us? No, I don't.

I don't remember. Oh, she does. She just plays it. She doesn't have anything. Although, when are you coming back, Adam? No, I'm joking. I'm just joking. I'm just joking.

We get a little bit. We get some greats. Sal is great for education and stats and the science. Adam's great for the human stories, the business angle. Justin, I'm not 100% sure yet. We're gonna find out today. Yeah, you'll listen to the show one of these days.

Oh, listen, what did you say? You'll listen to our show one of these days. One of these days, and then I'll figure it out. I don't have to explain myself. And Doug, you're not really gonna be on, right? You're just in the background today. Yeah, you're just here kind of just doing your thing.

Yeah, basically just to make sure that my microphone doesn't become flaccid again, basically. Yeah, thank you, I appreciate it. He's helpful with that. I appreciate it. He's the microphone fluffer. Yes, he really is. He does a good job at it too.

He loves it. Don't get rid of him. He's paid well. Don't get rid of them. Don't get rid of them. Okay, I'm going to start with one very basic question, what I think is really important because this is you guys are like the go-to fitness guys on the planet, especially in the podcast space, with training. I want to ask, how can you tell, because I talk about this all the time with my friends

and I get super annoyed when I go to the gym and see this, how do you know if someone's a good trainer or a bad trainer and what do people look for when they're trying to find a personal trainer? Ooh, I like that. That's a great question. That is a great question. I can give you red flags

that'll tell you they're not a good trainer. I could list a few of those for you. I want you to list what the red flags are, but I also want you to list what people should look for. Yes, now red flags are good because you can see red flags early on. Yeah. Okay, so the first one is when you meet with them

to do an assessment, if they don't do an assessment, if they just take you and train you, which would be akin to taking your car to the mechanic and him or her not seeing and doing a diagnostic text first. So if the trainer's like, oh come with me I'm just gonna take you through a workout, not a good trainer. The next one is that you can't move the next day. If a trainer beats the crap out of you and you feel like you survived your workout, that's also a red flag. And then the obvious ones are they're not watching

your technique or your form, they're paying attention to other people, or they're distracted while you're trying to work out. Like those are very, very easy red flags. And if you, again, if you meet with a trainer first time and they're not doing an assessment, a proper assessment, go the other way. Yeah, I think attention to detail is how you, like the good ones, right?

A really good trainer, the entire time that a client is performing a movement, say like a squat, is constantly moving around and assessing the client and giving them feedback. Oh, great job, Chen. Keep your, keep your head up like that, Jen. Oh, nice. Oh, your left knee is caving in a little bit.

Like they are coaching every bit of the movement and they're constantly observing you as if everything else in the gym is just gone away. It's just you and I training together and I'm not distracted by the cute girl doing deadlifts over here or my buddy and then sports TV is going over here. It's like- Or their phone.

Right, or their phone. That would be a huge red flag, it's a phone out. By the way, that's my biggest pet peeve because I observe all these trainers at the gym and 99% of them are on their phone. They're not paying attention to their client at all. Like to me, that's like the number one red flag. This is a generational thing because when I manage clubs,

my trainers had to keep all their phones in my desk. It was Starbucks that was a bad one. Such a good idea. That was part of when you came in to work, you kept your phone stated in my top drawer and that you just couldn't even have your phone on the floor. There was no reason for you to have your phone on the floor. You have your clipboard, things like that for taking notes and things. There's no reason for you to have have your phone on the floor. There was no reason for you to have your phone on the floor. You had your clipboard, things like that,

for taking notes and things. There's no reason for you to have a cell phone on the floor. A trainer should make you feel like you can tell them anything, like you're not gonna be judged, and like they're authentic. You need to have a good relationship with your trainer, not your best friend type of relationship,

but a relationship where you feel like you could go to them and be like, man, I screwed up, or man, my diet wasn't good, or man, this is real tough for me, and not feel afraid that they're gonna make you feel bad, they're gonna make you feel like you're failing or whatever because you're trying to, a good trainer will really coach you to develop a good relationship with fitness

that sticks with you for the rest of your life. You gotta be careful about that. I'm sorry, Adam, I'm gonna say one thing and then it's your turn. I think that a lot of times what happens though, trainers become the therapist only. And so people start only, they see their trainer, not because they work out, but because they talk to them.

And so half the time, you're not even working out or exercising, you're standing there just like telling them what's going on in your life and they're just like gabbing back and forth. Yeah there's there's so there's a that's interesting I'm glad you said there's an extreme example that there is there is but there's a there's a there's a balance and really experienced trainers know that sometimes just to get the person there that they're gonna do a couple exercises and they need to just vent a little bit. And that's okay, because it's better than them

not being there. Right, not showing up. Yes, because you can push and you can motivate, but what you don't wanna do is blow them out and have them not wanna come back. That's a big mistake I made a lot as an early trainer. Where I thought, I was like, no, no, you're gonna do it my way, we're gonna make,

and I thought I did a great job and ended up getting people to not wanna come back. So it's better to have that beginner and you often see this with people who have a challenging relationship with health or fitness, right? People who just the gym is uncomfortable to them, they've never been able to be consistent and so the number one priority of a good trainer is to help them develop this good relationship with the gym and if that means you're going to come in and do two exercises and I'm gonna hear and talk with you a little bit

while in between, then that's okay because it's chess, it's not checkers. That's what a good trainer understands. It's like, this is a long game. I'm not trying to get you to lose 30 pounds in 60 days and then gain it back. I'm trying to get you to figure this out for the rest of your life.

And with a lot of beginners, the first step is feeling like they belong in the gym. There's an even bigger indicator that I know for sure we would all agree on because we've said it before and I love that we can do this even on the podcast. So we've had many trainers come on this show over the course of 10 years and one of the ways all of us know right away how good that trainer is is the way they communicate when you ask them a question that's related to nutrition and exercise signs or something and the first word that comes out of their mouth is depends.

If your trainer, when you ask them a direct question, should I eat this? Should I do this exercise? What's the best for, if you ask a direct question to your trainer and the first words out of their mouth is depends before they answer, you know you've got a good trainer. Because a good trainer like that will always communicate

the nuances of every question. There is no, for sure, this is always the best or this is the way to do things. It always depends. It always depends on the individual and depends on what you've done before and depends on other variables. And so a really good coach and trainer knows that, knows the science, knows the research, but also understands all the other variables and nuances. And so when you ask them a direct question about anything related to working out or nutrition, they respond with depends first. That's a great point. Yeah. Another characteristic for, you know, good trainer to spot out, like, especially if you've

already started to work with them is that do I want to approach them to come help me through some pain or help me through some challenge? Whereas, you know, typically you want to approach them to come help me through some pain or help me through some challenge. Whereas, typically you want to avoid the session. You want to cancel the session. You want to take a break, take a rest. All these are indications that that trainer is probably not a great fit, is pretty intensity driven, is coaching you through motivation purely, is not educating you on the fact that there's adjustments that need to be made. There's flexibility that we need to apply here to

help provide answers. And also too, to be a maven if he doesn't have the answers to go out source and point you in the direction of a doctor or physical therapist, somebody else to get involved so it's not solely dependent on you. Yeah. If you're like, oh man, my knee hurts a little bit, I'm going to cancel my session, versus, oh, my knee hurts a little bit, I'm going to go see my trainer, because they know how to help me. That's a really good trainer. That's a good trainer. That's so interesting, because I think the thought or the psychology between for a lot of trainers is like, if I don't kill them, right?

That's terrible. Then I'm not a good trainer. And so they don't adapt. All they do is like heavy load. When you're not, your body's not even able to heavy load. Like, oh no, you have to do a, you gotta squat 200. Well, my body can't even squat 10, nevermind 200. The other thing I wanted to say is what about having

a trainer that's not in shape, who looks like they're not in shape or who's fat? Is that any indicator? Because psychologically also like- Depends. It depends, right? Depends, it depends. There you go, good trainer, Adam.

Depends on where they're coming from. Right. So there's a possibility- I've had trainers like this that have worked for me that are out of shape still, but they've, they've lost 60 pounds of their hundred to go, you know, and it's changed their life and they're in the middle of this journey. That trainer sometimes is incredible because they can, they're going through it and a lot of clients will relate to that, that trainer.

And if that trainer can share what it's been like for them, that can be a very problem. Now, a trainer who's just been out of shape their whole life and isn't going anywhere or hasn't come from somewhere in from that was way less or way more unhealthy, then there's a different story. Then it looks like you can't follow your own advice or you are, I mean, you're a walking billboard for yourself. And so it really depends on where that trainer is currently in their own journey on whether I would make the conclusion that, Oh, because they're

overweight, they're not good. Well, I think somewhere in between, right? Because I think some, some people, they were really fit and then they let themselves potentially go. And so therefore they don't look the same as they used to look, But it could be because of hormones, it could be because of all sorts of an injury. Well, you don't want a trainer that doesn't practice what they preach. That's just a hypocrite. But you also, and this is just the truth, I mean I could ask, we've all managed trainers,

we've all run teams of trainers. Some of the worst trainers were the ripped ones. Yep, that's what I was gonna say. So body obsessed trainers, they're gonna spill that over onto you. So you want one that practices what they preach, that's true, but looking at a trainer and saying that's the rippedest, fittest looking trainer, that's the one I wanna hire, it's a terrible metric.

It's a terrible, some of the best trainers I know look relatively fit, but they're not like, you know. No, they're not super shredded, no, ripped individuals, typically not. No, I think so too. I think the people I've noticed who are like this, who are ripped, super shredded, are the worst. They're very self-obsessed. They train themselves really well,

but they have no idea how to train somebody else because they don't, number one, they don't care, right? That's the first thing they're care. They're much more about themselves than the other person. And like it could be because they're starving themselves or taking a bunch of drugs. They could be doing all sorts of things, you know, like I think there's a misconception. I think a lot of times the best trainers I've ever seen are the ones who just look normal. They're not like completely out of shape.

They're not completely ripped. They're like normal looking because they're more balanced. They've done the extreme stuff, but they're not there anymore in their life and they've had the background. They have the education. They have the research. Like I think it's really short-sighted to only pick a trainer based on what they look like because of all the other, like because of all the other like you said the nuance and other psychotic other things that come with it. You don't want someone with active raging body dysmorphia to be your

trainer. Because what you're gonna hear is communication through that and what it's gonna sound like is hype, motivation, and discipline. That's what it sounds like. You can do this, oh you don't have time. You got 24 hours. Everybody got the same 24 hours in every day and they're going to hype you and they're going to hammer you and it feels good when you're motivated. It feels good when you first get started, but it's a absolute disaster. When that motivation wears off, a good sign of a good trainer is, do you want to see them, do you like to show up to work out regardless of how you feel?

Whether you're motivated, unmotivated, tired, sad, happy, whatever, is this a person that you want to go meet with to work out? And does the workout change depending on how you feel for the day? In other words, I'm tired, man, they're gonna make me feel so much better. I'm in pain, they're gonna help me take my pain away.

I'm hyped, I'm gonna kick ass today. That's the kind of training you want. There were workouts that I had that involved me walking with my client outside because they showed up knowing they could trust me, knowing like, oh man, I was so stressed out, work was absolutely terrible, I had terrible sleep last night, I'm so happy I'm here and I'm looking at them and they're drained and I could see the stress on their face. I'm like, you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna go for a walk. Do you think sometimes though, it's important to change trainers because everybody gets complacent, right?

You see someone too long, it's like a therapist. It's like anything, right? Like you just end up like, you end, people don't try as hard. They don't put the same effort and scrutiny in because it's like you've been doing it for so long. Like, you know, sometimes it's a good idea to mix things up a little bit.

You get different perspective, you get different exercises. What do you think? Do you get the board? Yeah, well, let me tell you this. So you ask us, right? We train people for two decades, okay? I will say, we've talked about this on the podcast

many times, we weren't great until probably eight to 10 years into our careers, okay? And I was selling training like crazy early days. But the back half of my career, I had clients that didn't, most of my clients didn't leave. They'd hire me and they'd be with me for, I mean I had- Lifers.

I had clients with me for nine, 10 years. 9 a.m., Monday mornings, same time, for nine years they showed up. So when you're with a good coach or a good, same time, for nine years. They showed up. So when you're with a good coach or a good trainer, you probably never wanna leave. Yeah, that good coach or trainer can be a chameleon and give you what you need at whatever period of your life you're in.

So to the point you're making, because there is value in changing things up and getting different perspectives, a really good trainer should be able to give you that. A really good trainer, let's say you and I have been training for a year or two, and when we first met, you had these very specific goals, and maybe you and I have already achieved it,

or we've been focused on that for a long time. I might get you to shift your focus. Like, hey, you know what, Jen? We're always so focused on this. Like, what do you think if we go after this for a while? Like, when was the last time you tried to increase your vertical, or work on how much you, how fast you could, like,

I think that would be really good for you. And I think it'd be healthy. And you've told me these other things about your life that are important to you. I can see how that will help that. Like, why don't we put together a program where we focus on that for a while. And you'll be like, yeah, that sounds great.

Like a good trainer will give you what you could potentially get in that novelty of a different trainer, if they're really good. If they're really good, they don't just train the same way to that same person forever. They know how to move that client in and out of different modalities and goals to give you that fresh feeling of what it's like

to train with almost like a different person. It's so funny that you asked us this question, Jen, because this is an area we're moving into. So we- I know. So if you were talking about the good trainer, the great trainers, like we're trying to highlight here, the difference between a great trainer and an okay trainer is like the difference between the best player in the NBA

and the best high school basketball player, okay? That's how big of a gap there is between the great trainers and all the okay trainers. They're not even the same species. So different, they're so much more effective. between the great trainers and all the okay trainers. They're not even the same species. So, so different. They're so much more effective. They're able to get the average person who has a fail rate of 90% when it comes to fitness

to turning them into lifelong fitness enthusiasts, okay? That is not easy. That's hard. That's what the great trainers are really good at doing. And what we're doing now, we actually have trainers that work for us now. We're in the, now we've put together a course for coaches and trainers that teach them how to build their business.

But the goal behind all of that was there is no ethos or standard or towel of trainers. There is no like, like you said, you're asking us questions because here's what happens to a lot of your listeners. How do I know? How do I know who they are listeners. How do I know? How do I know who they are? Like what do I?

It's a common experience that people have. The barrier to entry is so low, right? Anybody can technically become a trainer, right? You take a course. Yep, you're certified. Certified, and then you're good to go. And that's the problem. And with social media, if you look good

and you tout all this. Suddenly you're a coach. Yeah, you tout some like, you know, jibber jabber about like fitness routines and nutrition, people believe you. So then they become a coach and they buy their online programs. And yet they know nothing about nothing, right? Which by the way is even more dangerous, right? Because that's

how you get injured and that's how you don't stay on a plan. If it's too easy, too hard, it's not adaptable, whatever the thing is. Which is why I think it's amazing. You guys though have done a good job. I was just saying to you offline, you guys have done a spectacular job of taking something that you're good at

and then growing it into literally like an empire. It's amazing. Adam, like you and I talk about this all the time because you know, and I was just telling you, I was doing this thing the other day or like, and I was using you as an example, right? Because fitness to me is a microcosm of life, right? Because you're taught and you learn so many fundamental skills, like discipline, delayed gratification, patience, all the things, right? And if you take those, it's great for business. It's great for all these things.

And you guys have built an incredible business with so many verticals. Now you're building the vertical of like training. Can you walk me through the evolution of like training. Like, how, like, can you walk me through the evolution of like, how this became like you guys were just trainers, again, just the word just, just trainers at a gym, right? Like doing your thing, come together, you do a podcast, how did the mind pump podcast turn into such an empire? You know, let me start before Emperor of the Empire, Adam goes here. before Emperor of the Empire, Adam goes there. I know you like that. If it's an empire, Emperor of the Empire.

No, and he's, Adam is definitely the business genius in savant, but I will say this, and I think I can say this confidently, what we learned, what we learned training lots and lots and lots of people over 20 years, what we learned that helped us be successful with our clients as defined by, not just us building a business,

but actually getting people healthy and helping them develop a relationship with it where they're still doing it. Like all the clients that we don't train anymore, we're still in contact with, they're still consistent. They're still doing it, they're still eating right, they're still exercising. These are all general, everyday people.

They were not fitness fanatics, they're still not fitness fanatics, but they've developed these relationships through our coaching that it took trial and error of decades of us to learn. Wow. I can say this with full confidence, what you hear is communicate and how we run the business, not the business side,

but the purpose behind the business side was based off of what we learned there. And so what you often hear people say is how authentic we are and what we say. And it was learned by training clients. Now the ins and outs of the business, that's a different conversation. But sticking to those fundamentals of what we learn that works with people and how we communicate, that's why the podcast itself has done really well. I think the fundamentals go deeper than that

because I think your personal values are the fundamentals that grew the business, in my opinion. This is just me being the outsider. You guys have been very true blue to what you believe and what you don't. Like I'll, we'll say all the time, like, like I'm always like, oh, what do you think of this thing?

Do you want to work with this one? Do we think of that one? And you guys say no more than you say yes. And I think that word no has served you exceptionally well in growing a business that have true, not just followers, but people who, who've trusted, people who trust you, number one, who are engaged by your trust, they're engaged by you in a real way, authentic way,

because they know they can trust you. And so that's how your audience has really grown from the outside looking in. I'm gonna oversimplify it, but I do think it's so true, and it is along the lines of what kind of Sal is alluding to. Not me. No, you both are in a sense, right?

Because I do think what you're saying to me is why I think the four of us work so well. The fact that our values align so much is what has made this stay together for so long. If we had different values, I don't think we would have ever been able to stick through this. But I also think that it's, it's not that special.

It's that we did something that maybe this is the advantage of being older and that we've been in this profession for a long time, but we live in this era with social media, the, of this instant gratification where so many people want all like you have a young kid who sees what mind pump is doing and goes, oh, I want to go do that.

Well, what you don't take into consideration is the 20 years of becoming a master at our craft, the eight years of not being very good and then being kind of good and then being really good and then being great at what we do. That process is the most important and we all did it already. We did that before this, before we turn these mics on and so what you hear is three guys that have been training for combined 60 plus years together of training real people and learn, going through the process of sucking, then getting a little bit better, then getting good, then becoming great and because we've always led with those

same principles and every other aspect and every leg of this business of listen, what we don't know, I don't know anything about Bitcoin. I don't know anything about anything to do with software and like that's so not my space, but we know fitness really, really well and all aspects of it from supplements to personal training, even to now fitness and podcast world, like we know that so well.

And what we've led with is can we go out and provide more value than anybody else that's competing with us? And I think all of us have always thought we could, we always believe that we've put the work in to be great at our craft and that we're just going to go and lead by giving so much of this value to other people. And then the business will happen. And that's how every leg of this business has happened is we've led with this idea of giving first, teaching others what we've learned over all these years.

And then we allow the business to tell us what's next. The reason why we're in the training side is we've come to this point, this crossroad in the business where we have so many people asking us, do you have a list of trainers that you trust? Or who should we personally train with? Or just like the questions you're asking right now, we've been asked that so much. It's like, listen, there is a business for us right here to happen. If we build, if we take the time to hire correctly, train and develop good coaches and trainers underneath us, we have a business of training people both virtually and in person

waiting for us to happen. But we had to do the other stuff first. Yeah, we had to lead with all that. And then and then the then the consumer told us what's next. Right. So you also stayed true to what you got, what your wheelhouse is. You're not trying to venture out of your wheelhouse. You're just taking your wheelhouse and you're adding on. Totally.

Because you, this is all the things that you all know really well. The training thing to me, I'm surprised it took this long. It's like a no brainer, right? Like that's what your core competence was. Like you all were really good trainers. I'm surprised it took this long. It's like a no-brainer, right? That's what your core competence was. You all were really good trainers. I'm surprised it took this long to do it. Why?

Well, because first off, we have so much respect for good trainers and coaches, and so much goes into producing good trainers and coaches that it's a monster. It is a monster. So like, building and developing is. It's nowhere, it won't be nowhere here as profitable as all the other forces.

And I'll give you an example, okay. We obviously have a huge podcast, millions of downloads. Do you know how many leads of potential clients we can produce in an episode? Tremendous amounts. Do you know how many trainers we have on board right now? On staff too. Do you know why?

They're hard to find. No, no, I could put out a thing. I could hire 50 trainers tomorrow. Good ones though. Yeah. Yes, of course. We are not gonna mess around and we're gonna slow it down as much as possible

because we don't want anybody representing mind pump that isn't gonna deliver. We've seen mistakes already through these other brands that have let it get away from them. The quality controls, you control has gone haywire. And then forever that brand is now known for this less quality trainer that they're producing in gyms. And so it's like for us, it's really just to sit back and make sure we pay attention

to all these details. We build, develop these trainers to become great. So it's a reflection of everything we've talked about because we've built so much trust with our audience. And we really hold that tight and dear to us because if we lose that, really our whole business implodes. Yeah. We have the luxury to do what they're both saying because we did the other thing first.

That's right. So this would be like, let's say we came out the gates and started personal training. We'd be put. So this would be like, let's say we came out the gates and started personal training. We'd be put in a very interesting, like, when we first started, when we hired Kyle, trained him up for over a year and a half, and then we hired the next trainer, and then the next trainer, like,

that has been such a slow process that we actually have lost money. Now we're making money and we're profitable now, but if you count up all the hours and money and investing into people we did before we actually started collecting money, we were in the red because we didn't come out just trying to sell and make money right away. It was like, hey, let's make sure we hire the right person who he knows is going to have to oversee that because we don't have the time to fully oversee

that. So we got to make sure we build that right, that person has got to have the right character, got to have this right values. Who's Kyle? Kyle's the head trainer. Yeah. So it was like, and that was, it took us a long time to get somebody who we thought, okay. Exceptional individual. Yeah, this kid has got as high of integrity as all of us. He's incredibly loyal.

He's on brand. It's like, okay, we have that person in place. Okay. Now, and it's, and we had that luxury of, you know, if we didn't have to, if we didn't have a business that was already paying all the bills and covering everything, we didn't have a business that was already paying all the bills and covering everything, we wouldn't have been able to do that. So we waited to do a business that isn't as high of profitability and doesn't have as high as margins as the other

parts of the business. So we could take our time and we didn't have to rush. Okay. But how about map like the, you're all your online programs. That's like the bread and butter, a lot of what you do, right? That's what built this. That's what built this whole, that was the beginning of it. Besides the podcast, the empire was really starting to take off when you built out the maps, right? Right. We had maps for a year before we, we didn't sell anything for a year. But what, right.

But then you did maps and it crushed. So why then, are you worried that the training business, the online business, the in-person business, will basically eat into the maps business? It'll feed into it. It'll usually benefit you. Okay. Yeah, maps programs are written for a general audience.

It's a low ticket item. It's gonna feed the training business. Right, so people can do the online, that's not hands on obviously, it's just you buy the program and everything's in there, then you have the, well personal training's a whole different thing, but the virtual training, do they, can they use?

Of course. Yeah, the trainers will use all the programs. Eventually we're gonna pair that together. That's what I wanted to ask. Okay, so they're using the maps programs to train the maps. Eventually we're gonna pair that together. That's what I wanted to ask. Okay, so they're using the maps program to train the client. But they're individualized too, right? So, I mean, I can create the best program,

digital program for moms who wanna be fit. You have the mommy program. We do, right? But that's still general, right? If the mom hires me, now I'm looking at an individual human and I can individualize it. Adjust, exercise, and just... No program we create will ever be better than a good coach. My mom hires me, now I'm looking at an individual human and I can individualize it. I just exercise. No program we create will ever be better than a good coach.

It makes perfect sense to go in the training. I mean, on average, we do almost 240 programs a day, right? Mass programs are sold all over the world, every day. 240, how much is each one sold for? 50 to 100 bucks, depending on the sale or whatever it is. God, I would have a loan from you guys. So every day that's happening. Now we have an incredible customer service team

on the back end that when somebody emails in or goes to our chat and has a question about the program or exercise or anything like that, that they're communicating. And so we've had, and we've been doing that for years. So for years we've been collecting all this data on all these 200 plus people that buy every single day. Who just wants to do it themselves?

What kind of questions are they asking? Who, and there's a large enough percentage of people that are like, man, I wish I had somebody to help me through this process. Well, now we have that. But we wouldn't, we wouldn't have done that if we didn't collect that, that stuff first though. First was let's go, let's go first do this, go prove that there's something there. And then again, allow the customer to tell us what's the next business to be made.

Who built the programs? All of you or? Sal did the original one. I wrote the original one before we started the podcast. Doug and I were business partners. He was my client initially, and we created Maps Anabolic, shot it, did the whole thing. Then we started the podcast, so it was already there, Maps on a Block was there, but we didn't sell it for a year.

It wasn't until a year of doing podcasting, building an audience and trust and authority that we then did our first program launch. What's the, is it 50-50 split women? What's the, how men versus women? We're almost split right on the middle. Pretty close. Different platforms are different.

Like YouTube is like a high 70% guys are on YouTube compared to girls. Although that's a lot of women watching our YouTube channel. If you look at how many men in general are on YouTube. Oh yeah, because YouTube is skewed 80, 20 or more. And the general. We have a huge female audience, which is, I find, I get a lot of pride in that,

considering it's three, you know, they like to call us three bros. Yeah. You know what's really funny actually? I know more women who listen to you than men. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Oh, I mean, I think our female audience

is the most loyal and best customers for sure. Yeah, that's amazing. Dudes don't ask for directions. No, exactly, but women do. I have a friend of mine who's- Well, the dudes are all the freeloaders. Yeah, exactly. I know a couple of women, one in particular,

who does your maps, she loves your program. And you got, she got ripped from your program. That's awesome. Yeah, it was really, I was like wow. We have 27 of them. Here's an important thing to know, and this is like, so I got to see maps long before Mind Pump happened.

Sal sent it over for me to see it. And I was at a place in my career that when I saw what he had written, I already, without even meeting over for me to see it. And I was at a place in my career that when I saw what he had written, I already, without even meeting him or getting to really know him yet, because I didn't know him very well at all, I knew how brilliant of a trainer he was. And I went, okay, he, like this whole conversation started

on how do you know a good trainer? I knew by the way he wrote a program that he knew his shit. I was like, oh, I wanna meet this guy. I wanna get in the same room as he is. And so we got together. And so it does matter to all the experience, the fact that we gave this, we started this podcast with all this free information, not asking for anything. And then when the people started, when we started to sell math programs was after every guy was coming to work going,

oh my God, somebody's trying to donate money to me. Have you ever heard of a Patreon? People are telling us to start a Patreon. People are asking to buy stuff. We were literally getting people trying to give us money because they had felt that we'd given them so much value from the podcast. Then it was like, now it's time to show them what Maps is. And because I knew and so did their other guys know how good Maps was, we knew it was gonna be very effective.

We knew that when they got in the hands, especially of the female client, because one of the things that when you're a trainer, one of the first go-to moves when you get, especially of the female client, because one of the things that, when you're a trainer, one of the first go-to moves when you get good at helping your female clients, and remember, we go back 20 years, so this is a little bit different today for the listener than it was 20 years ago.

A lot of stuff is accepted now. Yeah. That when we, it wasn't like that. Women did not train five-by-five training. Women did not deadlift and squat heavy weight. Not at all. No, 20 years ago, they didn't. No, nothing under five reps. So phase one of MAPS Anabolic is five by five,

heavy squatting and deadlifting in it. And I knew when Sal put that in that program, I was like, oh, one, I already know that our most common client is middle-aged women. And I know that I had learned by this time in my career that when I take a woman through a traditional block of five by five training, I blow her mind. She puts on muscle, her butt gets tighter, she leans out, she's eating more.

And I always blow her. And so his first phase of Maps and a Block was designed that way. And I'm like, oh, this is brilliant. These girls are going to get on this within one month to two months. It's going to blow their mind and then they'll forever be bought into us. So that's exactly what happened. We released maps. It goes out to the public.

We sell a few hundred of them together and all the people call them out. Oh my God, I've never trained this few days. Oh my God. I've never trained like this and I've seen this much. And then here come all the, and then it just grew off of referrals. We didn't advertise back then. We didn't have any sort of marketing sales funnel besides the podcast. And it was purely off of us giving free information,

getting people to start that mass program, and then them seeing, blowing their minds by the results. And because of that, we were allowed to do all the other things. You know what's interesting? Cause Sal, the people are still really stuck. A lot of women are still stuck in their head that if they do hardcore, heavy strength training, they're going to be bulky,

they're going to have a lot of mass. So it's the whole cardio versus strength thing, right? I still feel that that's still something that a lot of women struggle with, right? Do you have any advice on how to kind of get women over that hump to doing more strength training? Yeah, you know what's funny is that this this conversation is so much more accepted today when when we were having this conversation Just ten years ago on the podcast. It was like controversial blowing people's minds

I see women lifting weights all the time now. It's the fastest growing demographic of people who strength train Because they're figuring this out, but you know, muscle is fat burning machinery. It's hard to build muscle. And muscle is very dense and it looks good. So if you lose 10 pounds of body fat and replace it with 10 pounds of muscle, which by the way, getting 10 pounds of muscle, very difficult for 99.9% of women.

But let's just say you did that, you weigh the same on the scale, you look radically different. You're smaller. Muscle takes up less space than body fat on a pound for pound basis, something almost like a quarter less space. It's shaped different, it looks better on your body. And it goes to different places,

and it's firm, and it feels good, and you're burning more calories, you're leaner with less work, and your hormones are working better. And when women do it, and they do it right, not the wrong way, right, because you can do circuits, and you can make strength training turn into cardio too, but if you do it right, you're sold. It's like it's, uh, and when women do it and they do it right, not the wrong way, right? Because you can do circuits and you can make strength training turn into cardio too. But if

you do it right, you're sold. It's like, that's it. This is, this is incredible. Okay. So what's the right way for a woman to strength train? Okay. Depending on the individual, but generally speaking, you're strength trained like someone who wants to get strong. So you do a set, you rest for two minutes, you do a set, you rest for two minutes. You do a set, you rest for two minutes. Not set, set, set, set, set, exercise, exercise, exercise, but you literally just like a strength athlete works out. You do a set, you rest, you do a set, you rest.

One of the best things that the average woman who wants to be lean, tone, firm, uses all that vocabulary could do is train like a power lifter. Like literally one of the best things that she can do that will help her out or head towards that goal. And it's not what you would think. Like that's not the first thing that comes to a woman's mind. It's like, oh, I should train like a power lifter to look like this, this physique I'm describing. But it's the truth. And a lot of

that has to do with how they've been marketed to for so long, and all the different classes and circuit training and butt burner and all these gimmicky things that have been sold to women that doesn't move the needle at all when it comes to sculpting and shaping a body, which is again why, before I even met Sal, I knew how good of a trainer he was by the way he programmed.

So wait, so how does a powerlifter train that women should mimic? Five by five, five by five, so the big lift, the big core lift. Explain that for people who don't know what you're talking about. Okay, so you could also train like a bodybuilder or like other strength athletes,

but we like powerlifter, or he says powerlifter, because it's gonna place your focus on strength, okay? So there are some movements that are far more effective than others at shaping the body. Your bench presses, your rows, your squats, your deadlifts, your overhead presses, like your basic compound, what they're known as compound lifts, those are the ones that are going to give you more bang for your buck than other lifts. For example, getting really good at a barbell squat is going to give you better results than five other leg exercises combined.

Okay, so way less work, far better results. That's true for all the other exercises that I listed. So focus on those lifts, get stronger, then practice them. In other words, go to the gym, don't beat yourself up, but rather practice those lifts and get good at them and your body will start to shape. Feed the muscle. In other words, eat a high protein diet, don't starve yourself, get stronger in the gym. As you get stronger, usually metabolic rate starts to fall low and then you start to see some fat loss. So are you guys tired of protein bars that come loaded with calories and sugar? Because I sure am. Most of these bars are 20 grams of protein, but over 350 calories and 20 grams of sugar.

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if you can only do five exercises for the rest of your life, what would they be? He just named them right there. Overhead press, row, bench press, squat, deadlift, those five. Do those. I'll tell you, can you- Now that's not perfect because you also want to include rotation. But if I only did five, you're good.

Those five movements paired with a woman hitting her protein intake, the upper end of her protein intake, so one to one ratio. So however much you weigh, hit that in grams of protein, or how much you want to weigh, right? So if you wanna weigh 130, 130 grams of protein. Do those five lifts three times a week,

just get good at them and get strong. I swear you will build one of the best bodies you've ever built. That's right. Okay, and you should also keep on loading, shouldn't you? Well, yeah, get strong. That's what I'm saying. Get strong, Adam.

What I'm communicating is the goal should be to over time slowly get stronger and stronger, which would mean adding more weight to the ball. Right, so you're saying a bench press, a row, a squat. A deadlift. A deadlift. Overhead press. Overhead press. Yep, those five. Okay, so do you think that a lunge is overrated?

No, no. Lunges is a squat. It's a variation of a squat. Yeah, that's a squat. Oh, so now we're talking about, we're talking about variations. Also remember this. You're talking about the biggest moves.

You said if I only got five exercises, what would the five be forever? Those are the five, okay. I can make a case for all those being some sort of a unilateral movement too, and we can get into all the nuances of why? Those are the five, okay. I can make a case for all those being some sort of a unilateral movement too. And we can get into all the nuances of why- So that was my next question.

Yeah, why unilateral, rotational, core stuff is important, like, okay. I have a question. Yeah. Okay. Because I thought, so our bodies are imbalanced, right? Like I have my right side is much stronger than my left side. So I was under the school of thought that doing a lot of unilateral, like

one, one side at a time is way better for balancing. Yeah. Adjusting imbalances and strength strengthening my body. Is that not accurate? It is. And I think that that's an important part of the process. What they're describing is the foundation of your strength to build off of. The foundation, okay.

And so as you go back, there's a necessity to go through cycles of unilateral training or even like including more mobility and other variations of movement. Otherwise, we get too strong in one direction, which for these exercises we listed are all in the sagittal plane. So this is problematic once we get too strong and we encounter things in the real world where you do have, you know, you move with acceleration.

You don't train that way. You're going to feel the impact of that. You have something else that sort of slips. You have some kind of lateral shift and now we have pain and weakness there that's not addressed. So then that creates an injury. But what the basis of it is you want to get as strong as possible with these foundational lifts.

And then we branch from there. Well, let's change the question a little bit so you understand, so the audience understands why we came at it the way we did. The question remains the same, what will we do? But I've got eight weeks to prove to you, I know what the fuck I'm doing. And if I only got eight weeks

and I want to give you the biggest bang for your buck, it's those five movements, go get strong on it. Because I know that lunging, all the other great unilateral movements that have tremendous value and are absolutely gonna get implemented in our routine as we continue on. I know that I will show you the greatest change

physically and metabolically by doing those five lifts first. Then you'll be bought into me like, holy shit Adam, I can't believe what we've done. Okay, now let me explain to you why we need to incorporate rotational work, why we need to do some lunging and unilateral work. This is, and just simplicity wins.

So we're talking like this is phase one, was what you explained. What's phase two? What are the next five best exercises once you've got your foundation strong? You know what's funny is, so you can add, so we can go, you can break down the human body into some basic movements. You have squatting, hip hinging, you have pressing both vertically and

horizontally, and you have rowing. And I think I did I say rotation rotation is in there as well. And anti-rotation. So those are like basic human movements. So all exercises can kind of fall in those categories. But essentially what you want to do is you want to train your body to be strong in lots of different, lots of different planes of movement. And you want to be good at all of those different things.

And I didn't even include in there acceleration and deceleration. And so it can get very complicated. And this is what a good trainer will know. But if you're the average person, okay. And you're like, Hey, I want to just use, I want to do some strength training and I want to feel pretty fit and strong. Like you just do those five lifts. You're doing pretty good.

Let's talk about someone who's not the average. Now let's say someone's been training for a while, right. And they've kind of got the foundation got, they've got the foundation going. What, what's the next thing that they should be focusing on? Is it rotations? Is it unilateral? Multi-planar movement. We have a couple of programs in particular, map symmetry, which addresses all unilateral work, map performance, which is all this like multi-planar rotational type stuff. What we

tell the audience and the average person is every year you should run one of those programs every year. And then outside of that, do whatever you want goal-wise. You wanna train for OCR, you wanna train for powerlifting me, you wanna train for a bikini competition. Train however the hell you want that your heart desires, that you're attracted to or that you get excited about.

But just make sure to incorporate one cycle of that to balance you out. It also matters Jen on what you've been doing. Okay so you're experienced. I mean it does, you're experienced, you've been working out for a while. You have pain that's coming into this whole situation. I need to know what you've been doing. Okay but this is the thing right like you know a big thing is that girls to have a big a good booty blah blah blah blah. Is it overrated to do like a- Hip thrust?

A hip thrust. No, I mean, hip thrust, here's why they're good. It's a great glute exercise. Yeah, so here's why you'll hear women rave about the hip thrust or people rave about the hip thrust for building their butt. By the way, I'll go over studies first, but then I'll tell you why hip thrust for some people are so good to build a butt. So they've done

head-to-head studies on comparing the barbell squat, which is a great exercise, to the hip thrust for glute growth. Now, if we're talking about overall leg development, if we're talking about overall athletic performance, the squat's going gonna win. But if we're looking at just butt growth, they're actually tied. They're actually just as good as one another. And yet, we have all these people saying that the hip thrust is superior. And here's why. People who struggle to build a butt doing a squat tend to have issues with how their muscles fire while doing the squat. They tend to have issues with connecting to the glutes in a squat.

They tend to be, you know, for lack of a better term, quad dominant. So they do squats all the time. Like my butt's not growing, my quads are growing, my butt's not growing. The hip thrust loads the glutes directly in a shortened position. You feel them, you can connect to them, you can squeeze.

So for the woman who squats, who doesn't feel her butt grow at all, is like, this isn't working for me. The barbell hip thrust is a tremendous exercise for butt development. But all things being equal, the squat outranks the hip thrust. Now the real answer is in a routine, you probably want to do both. They're both valuable. Well, before there was a time when none of us hip thrusted or hip thrusted our clients because it wasn't a popular lift. They didn't have machines that loaded the plates so you could get into it comfortably.

What we would do with a client that is, that Sal's describing that has a hard time feeling her butt when she squats, is you would prime her glutes before she goes into a squat. So you do like floor bridges. Which is like a hip thrust just on the floor. So I'd have her do floor bridges to get connected to her ass and have her squeeze.

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

But they can't they're not their glutes are and firing and all these other things okay So everybody's body so long as they don't have any you know genetic defects deformalities or really bad injuries Everybody's body should be able to squat. Now the reason why not everybody can squat is that they've lost the ability to squat because they stopped squatting when they were four. Okay, so if I were to say to you, should everybody be able to walk?

Well yeah, unless they have some kind of genetic issue or injury, like every, squatting is a fundamental human movement. Watch any four-year-old sit in a squat and you'll see thatting is a fundamental human movement. You watch any four-year-old sit in a squat, and you'll see that it's a fundamental human movement. We just stop squatting. We don't squat to do anything anymore. We sit on a toilet to go to the bathroom.

Yeah, that's it. We sit. We sit in a squat. We sit in chairs. That was a resting position. That was a resting position. Most people can't sit in a squat to rest. They've lost the mobility.

And your body, if you stop practicing a movement or even a fundamental human movement, your body will forget how to do it. It'll actually, it'll prune the neural networks and forget and get rid of your, so if you took an adult, you took a 12 year old and you put them in a bed and never had them walk for 10 years and then had them get up,

they're not gonna be able to walk. They'll have to relearn how to walk and walking is fundamental. So same thing with squatting. You're also, this is setting the table for the original conversation of how do we define a good trainer. See, a good trainer takes a client

who can't squat right now and our goal is to get to that point. So I had a lot of clients, because of course on the podcast we talk about the benefits of squatting so much I get asked like well what if you can't or what if I haven't been able to or I get all this pain like well I would as a trainer I wouldn't take that client and force them to squat if they're feeling pain or they can't do it for whatever reason but that becomes our goal. Our goal now becomes okay you've lost the ability to squat it is a basic

human movement we should be able to do that my the ability to squat. It is a basic human movement. We should be able to do that. My goal is to get you there. And a really good trainer can assess the way your body moves. Cause it's normally due to limiting mobility factors. Like you have really poor ankle mobility. So your heels rise up when you squat down and then your knees start to hurt. And it's like, well, that has less to do with, you can't squat.

It has more to do with you have poor ankle mobility. If I can improve that, then I could get you down into a squat. Or you have somebody who rolls their shoulders and their chest that falls forward. It's like, if I could get you to sit up properly. So assessing the way that person moves, what is limiting them from being able to squat and then knowing how to unpack that and go work on those things that get done. By the way, you can actually find movements that something we just remove that fact that you'll never be able to do a squat again. It's, it's, this is a challenge that we're going to keep chipping away at. By the way, sometimes you never. You never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never,

you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you know, it's not something we just remove that fact that you'll never be able to do a squat again It's this is a challenge that we're gonna keep chipping away. By the way, sometimes you never get a client to be a squat I mean I had clients that hired me when they were 60 and my goal was to get them to be able to squat and Five years later we made tremendous progress progress. Yeah, but we still can't you can't Working on it though. Yeah, and we're still working on it because the working towards that, you provide them with so much benefits and mobility, pain, strength.

All of it. Everything. Okay, are crunches a waste of time? No. You don't think so? No, why would they be a waste of time? Because, another big myth, that because crunches, you're just,

you're basically can be using your neck, you're not using your entire core, blah, blah, blah. I'm asking you, you're the exceptional trainer. No, it's an exercise. I mean, you're working spinal flexion. You're getting mainly the abdominals to do the movement. But is a plank better? A plank is a different movement.

They're both good. So it's just isometric contraction. A plank is an isometric contraction. I mean, here's, like, again, it depends. Yeah, it depends. Yeah, it depends. So what happens is a lot of times the person who's asking about crunches

is because they want to have visible abs. And it's like, yeah, you're wasting your time crunching a thousand times all day to have these. There's better movement. So it's like, that's how I- Okay, you're right. So let me ask you a better question. How does someone get a six pack in the most effective way?

All right. Besides the kitchen. Okay, so two things, you named one of them. How does someone get a six pack in the most effective way? Besides the kitchen. Okay, so two things, you named one of them. You gotta be lean enough. If you're not lean enough, it doesn't matter. And number two, you have to build your abs. You have to build. It's a muscle.

It's like your biceps or your lats or your quads. If you get them to build, they're gonna be more visible. So doing 100 reps is not gonna build your abs. It's like 100 reps and my biceps, they're going to be more visible. So doing a hundred reps is not going to build your abs. It's like a hundred reps in my biceps curls. Aren't going to build my biceps. You have to get them strong. So do things in the eight to 12 rep range with good control, with good contraction, full extension, where you're developing the muscles of your abs.

And then as they develop, you'll see them. Well, talk about the hip flexor deactivation, because this is a common problem a lot of people face when they're crunching. And so Sal did a really good video about this. But there's a way to do that without overemphasizing your hip flexors, which a lot of times, that can create back problems and have its own issues in itself.

But once you figure out how to do that, squeeze your glutes, get that more involved, a little bit of a lift. Sometimes you lift your legs up on a step and you're able to crunch and really kind of take that sternum to the belly button and crunch, you know, with a very specific technique for that, you get more activation. Yeah.

So a lot of people confuse forward flexion with I'm working my abs, but I can bend forward at the hips or I can bend forward at the lumbar spine. So lumbar spine is abs, hips is hip flexors. So you see people do leg raises, but they're not, their tailbone isn't tucking and curving up, that's abs. So they're just lifting their legs, that's hip flexors. So you see a lot of people do ab exercise,

but really what they're doing are- Neck exercise. Neck and hip flexor exercise. So the thing with core training- Technique is definitely part of it. With every exercise, technique is- The most important in the, the, uh, what makes Sal or Justin super trainers is that what they

would do with a client, because I'd say. Not you? No, I mean, I would too. They're the better, they're the better. They're being humble. Yeah. They're the better trainers is that I, Lisa, I can't remember, recall ever a client

who hired me, who ever trained five to six reps of abs, everybody does abs five to six reps of abs. Everybody does abs 15, 20, 30 circuit. So they know that I know that. So one of the most powerful things you can do is to get somebody to do heavy loaded ab exercises. If you want to build your abs better than you've ever built them before, I would guess 90% or more people listening to this podcast right now haven't trained

them that way. You'll see the greatest benefit from that right there. Wow. And it's not that crunches and high reps don't have value. It's just that that's what everybody does. Yeah. Everybody defaults to high rep, neck exercise, or hip flexor getting involved versus like, yeah, well, I bet if I took that person and did five controlled full lever sit-ups

where they held a 10 pound plate, I would blow their ass up. Just because- People can't do that. No, they can't. No, they're not training for that, like you said. I think it's because we are so conditioned to doing these group classes, like F45 or all these gyms

where you're just like doing, like you're going through the motions, like what we've always done. So do you think that a lot of these group classes, not all, but a lot, like the F45s and the orange theory, are just like a waste of time? Garbage, I don't know if, I wouldn't say waste of time. Remember all the heat I got back in the days?

One step off the couch, right? Yeah. As they say. I wouldn't say it's a waste of time, but the exercises, the exercises in those classes are, you could trade them out with whatever exercise, it's just moving, they're just getting you to move. It's just moving.

Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it. Here's what I tell my clients that ask about Orange Theory and F45. If you're going there to make change to your body, it's a terrible idea. If you're already there to make change to your body, it's a terrible idea. If you're already happy with your fitness level and you love the community and you enjoy the class and you're not trying to make any change to your physique. You're having fun.

It's awesome. Yeah. See. If you're not trying to make change and you, you're, you're gonna burn some calories and you're going to spend some energy and that in itself has value. But if you're showing up there in hopes that you're going to build a body that you want that you don't currently have, it's a horrible approach. Adam, you forgot it depends, first of all. But it's true, right? I think that's a great

explanation. If you just want to move your body and see some people that you like to see and socialize with, it's great. But for body competition, those classes do, by the way, I think not only those classes do nothing for you, they actually do like, they make you hungrier because it's basically getting you hungry because of the cardio aspect. And then you end up eating more. Therefore you're probably going to gain weight from doing that. There's a huge, it also tends to do stress injuries and all kinds of fun stuff. Yeah, that's true.

It also tends to attract the wrong person. It tends to attract the cortisol junkies. So the people that need that adrenaline, that push, and their cortisol is all over the board. It's probably their bodies. And then they need that hard push just to feel anything, and they think that feedback they're getting is positive when it's really not.

So it's like the worst person that should be taking that class too. If you added up all the wasted monthly fees for those types of classes, all the wasted money on supplements, you know, that basically supplements will do, if you get the best supplements, will do like 2%. Yeah. Okay. The best supplements will do 2%. I'm so glad you said that. All the wasted money on, you know, all the diet stuff.

And you just took a fraction of that and invested it in a good trainer. You would, you, the dividends dividends would be would blow you away I believe that I believe that I think that I mean I'm a great example right I used to do all those classes all the time because I thought okay like that's that's what we all did back in the day right like oh I was gonna go do this class I was doing Barry's boot camps and I was and I was dying and all I was doing Barry's boot camps, and I was dying. And all I really got from any of that is a bad ankle, a bad knee, so many stress fractures,

and an appetite that was through the roof that I ended up actually eating four times more and gaining weight, and gaining body fat. Well, I would guess, I mean, I'd love to hear from you what your journey was like. I bet you work out less and you're older and you have a better body today, probably because you strength train.

I do a lot of strength training. I have to say, I think that whenever I do too much intense cardio, I end up gaining weight because of the amount of food I eat. I eat just an enormous amount of calories just because I'm so ravenous. But when I do more like low, like kind of like very, like very slow cardio or just like walking.

And then I'm doing hard core weights. I always look better. I always look better. But, and I will tell you another myth. And I want to ask you guys about this because I realized this just recently. So you know the walking vest has become the hugest trend. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and Molly

are wearing these vests, and I was one of them. And I was a huge advocate for them. What I started to notice was my foot like started to really hurt. And my ankle, my plant, I started to get really bad plantar fasciitis. My ankle was hurting me. And I went to this place, this wellness facility, actually it was called Sensei. Have you been there? Yeah.

It's this thing, it's called the Sensei Resort. And the guy, I met this guy there who was a trainer and he was asking me all these questions and when I told him about the weighted vest, he was like, you shouldn't be wearing that. And he was so scientific at to what it does and that was kind of the culprit to all of my injuries where I realized that this weighted vest, this whole phenomenon is actually maybe detrimental

and not a positive thing. There's zero additional benefit. The only people that get value from training with a weighted vest. Firemen in military. People who are training to be able to wear something that's weighted. In other words, you're gonna go rucking.

Yeah, this rucking, this is a phenomenon now. That's fine, if you wanna get good at rucking, you probably should practice rucking, right want to get good you want to be good at like as a firefighter you're gonna have to carry gear you probably should do some training wearing gear but if you want to get fit and you're walking don't wear a weighted vest all it does is it throws off most people walk relatively well without creating problems okay so as long as they train within or walk within their fitness

level, they're probably not gonna hurt themselves. It's one of the few things we could do still pretty well as humans is walk, thankfully. We're not in Wally World yet. You throw a weighted vest on somebody and it throws everything off just enough to cause problems. And that's what's gonna, and it doesn't give you, doesn't burn this crazy amount of extra calories.

This phenomenon came from a study that was done recently. And our friend, Shalene Johnson, is one of the advocates for the weighted vest because she read this study. And this is the problem with studies. Yeah, she was a huge advocate for the weighted vest. Because there was a study. Based on bone density, right?

I can't remember what the study said. Bone density. Yeah, bone density. It says it increases your bone density. By the way, it was that, it was Shalene that got me into the weighted vest. Cause it was, it was, she's, and of course she did it. And then she saw these positive benefits that happened

from it, therefore she touched it. I mean, what one of us would tell you is like, go lift weights and that person will get all those benefits and some. Well, you're going to, nothing comes. Because I do, I believe it, what it does, the weighted vest just throws off, throws your body off just enough where it tweaks your body slowly so you don't even know it's the weighted vest.

Well listen, most of us are not symmetrical and don't walk perfectly already as it is and adding weight to that, it's just like somebody who's obese, why they have all these other chronic issues and pains that come up from it is because they're carrying this extra weight on their body and they don't walk very good. Their joints feel the impact. So it's not helping them to add weight to your vest. It changes your recruitment patterns. It's not just Shalene,

cause all these menopause doctors, all these hormone doctors now are walking around with these vests. It's because it's low hanging fruit. Low hanging fruit. It's like, I can, and so I, cause I understand from the doctor, right? I'm a doctor.

They wanna simplify everything. And I know that 80% of people are not gonna strength train three times a doctor. They want to simplify everything. And I know that 80% of people are not gonna strength train three times a week. So what I can tell this client who has got borderline osteoporosis right now is, I just want you to walk it. When you do your walk that you already do every day, wear a vest.

And that alone, the study shows how beneficial that'd be. And so it's low hanging fruit. Yeah, it's annoying though. It's stupid because they're all ignoring the studies that show the absolute superior. The reason why a weighted vest will add some bone density and so it's low hanging fruit. Yeah, it's annoying though. It's stupid because they're all ignoring the studies that show the absolute superior. The reason why a weighted vest will add some bone density is because of the weight, the resistance.

You know what does that way better? Strength training. Way better, way better. Do way less work with strength training and you'll get more bone density out of it. The problem is that the doctors aren't doing this. What they should be doing, even the ones that even recommend the vest,

is they should be saying that, in a perfect world, this is what you do. Nothing is going to reverse this better than strength training a couple times a week. This is what I do. At the bare minimum, if you can't do that, then you do this. That's what's happening.

What I'm saying is, even at the bare minimum, it's probably not a good idea to wear the weighted vest because of what it does, especially with middle-aged women. So which is the interesting is because right now the rage is with middle-aged women wearing these weighted vests and the fact, and they're saying because then you're, like you said, you're getting more bang for your buck. You're burning more calories. You're adding resistance to what you're already doing.

So you're intensifying your workouts, but then you're more prone to the plantar fasciitis, the knee problems, the hip problems. The only person besides that man I met at this wellness place is Stacey Sims, do you know who she is? Yep. Who was saying to me, when I was asking her on my podcast, I was saying like, what do you

think of these vests too? She was like, it's way better to just hold two heavy weights and walk with these heavy weights. I kind of like farmer walks even. Because at least it's balanced. Because what you're doing with these weighted vests, it's like it's pushing down on your shoulders, right? Compressing your body, number one, right?

It's not doing anyone any favors, right? Especially if you're not a fit person. Just walk. You don't need to put anything on. You don't need to hold a dumbbell. And when you strength train, strength train. Look, here's another reason why they're causing problems. Is when people walk with a weighted vest,

what they're doing is they're walking to fatigue. Okay, they're walking till they get tired. Okay? Fatigue breaks form down. Proper strength training is about technique and form and what we always communicate. Rest periods. We always communicate rest periods

and you train with perfect technique and practice the lifts. I don't want you lifting, so in other words, I'm not doing squats to hammer my legs, I'm doing squats to get good at squats. That's what gets you good results. If I go into the hammer my legs, my technique's gonna be off just enough to cause problems. Yeah.

It's just a means to an end. And to support what Stacey Sims is saying is that, like when we teach a farmer walk, my technique's gonna be off just enough to cause problems. And I'm just, it's just a means to an end. Exactly. And to support what Stacey Sims is saying is that, like when we teach a farmer walk, part of teaching a proper farmer walk is the posture and the way you walk. Like we put emphasis on- It reinforces it.

You're the way you step. It's not just like grab this and go walk forward. It's like, no, chest up high, shoulders back and down, tuck your chin, walk like- Pack the shoulder. And then carry the weight. And that is incredibly valuable because you're also working on your posture, your core stability, and your building strength. Whereas you just throw a vest on somebody who's got their headphones on or is gabbing on the phone or whatever. Posture is shit. Rounded shoulders, and then now you're

pulling this weight on top of your. Well, that's my problem. Exactly. So then you have all these other ailments that are happening. So this is the problem with social media though, right? Because you see one person doing it. Like crazy. And then it just, it spreads like rapid fire. And now you see every middle age, anyone over the age of 40, they're wearing a weighted vest.

Like while they're just talking, like walking, they're wearing them to work, they're doing it at their desk, they're wearing it around their house. And I'm them to work. They're doing it at their desk. They're wearing it around their house. And I'm one of those Nimrods that was joining the crew and, and like, until I had my own. Jen, you should just always ask us.

You know why you're doing this. I know. It's slightly better than the waist trainer. Well, we got to just call it, just send me a text. Hey, what do you think of this fitness trend? I know. I really honestly should. I have another one for you and this might be

controversial, right? Because we, it's another huge thing. And I know we just a little bit talked about it was protein. Right? Do you think people are overdoing it now with protein? Because all you hear about is protein, protein, eat more protein, protein. I went to this show at Expo West, Adam, you were there. And literally every product I saw was just infused with protein. I'm talking protein pretzels, protein hot dogs, protein shoes. Like wherever someone can stuff protein, they're just-

It's because of the, it's the demand for it now, because we're more aware than we've ever been on how important it is to get these upper limits. And the majority of people don't. So now all these companies are smart and they're infusing all these carb treats with protein. So they're more desirable, they're more marketable. Here's the deal. But there's most people under eat protein.

Here's the deal, okay? Don't eat heavily processed foods. Do you know what falls into that category? Protein pretzels. All that stuff. Protein muffins, protein crackers. All that stuff is crap. So, but protein in general. Protein from whole natural foods, eat it first, prioritize it, it helps burn more body fat, build more muscle,

it improves satiety, improves insulin sensitivity. It's for most people generally, not everybody, for most people, it's beneficial. Getting it in a bunch of supplements is a distant second place. And if you're getting it from a lot of these processed products. And good luck overeating it if you do it through Whole Foods. No, no, so basically eating whole food protein stuff. But I guess my question really is, I know protein is obviously very important, but are we undervaluing other things like fiber? Because everyone's emphasizing protein.

They're not emphasizing fiber or other, or other micronutrients are super important. I think they're undervaluing what Sal said, which is just eating whole foods. Yeah. Yeah. Like you get everything. Yeah.

You get everything. That's the beauty of like, that's why one of our favorite pieces of advice to tell somebody is don't track, don't weigh, don't just eat whole foods. We'll tell clients a lot of times when they call in, they have all these questions about what to do and we hear them out. And it's like, I could tell this person a hundred different things to do, but I

bet you if I could just get them to eat whole foods for 30 days, I'll blow their mind. Right. That right there will solve so many of these other issues that you're over complicating and thinking. So I think that's what's undervalued. I think it's undervalued. We've gotten, we're in this convenience of, you know, packaged food and, and

it's fusing protein and everything. Here's what happens. Just eat whole foods. And what happens is we learn the value of something and then predictably. They distort it with marketing. Yes. And predictably what happens is companies come out with processed versions of it. So it's like, fiber's good for you.

True. Fiber is very good for you. But what ends up following is high fiber cereal, high fiber crackers. Everything's fortified with fiber, right? You know, this nutrient is good for you. Cool. Now they're, you know, throwing it in everything. So protein good for you, whole natural foods. Protein from supplements, a distant second. What would I pick if I had to pick a supplement for protein? A pure protein powder. I'm not giving my clients protein pretzels to hit the protein targets. No. That's just a snack. It's a junk food basically. I look at it as I rather just eat a chocolate

bar and just know it's chocolate. When you look at a protein bar you know I remember the first time as a young trainer when I first did this and I flipped around a Snickers bar and I flipped around my you know my nutrition bar. The only difference is the protein bar has 10 more grams of protein. I mean, everything else, the sugar, the fat, everything else is the same. It's really a Snickers bar with some protein in it. Exactly.

So you might as well just eat the chocolate bar and just call it for what it is and not trick yourself into thinking you're doing something healthy. Okay, I gotta run to the airport, you guys. I just saw, I have so many more questions, but you guys are coming back to LA, right? Maybe not you, Justin, because I don't really speak with you as often,

but we should make more of a habit of maybe. You gotta have them talk about working kids out. That's a great podcast. I wanna do that, because I just looked at my, I was gonna start, and then I realized it's 3.15, and I gotta be at the airport. Can we do it and then I realized it's 3 15 and I got to be at the airport. Can we do it again? I'll come back.

Okay. Okay. Always, always. No, seriously. I definitely, cause you gave me some great information about the core. Like you do know your stuff. I've never heard you speak about it. There's a lot here. We'll, we'll unpack it.

Okay. Good. No, I would like that. I mean, I just remember you with the being B bull every time I saw you, he's not just a pretty face. Not at all. Okay guys, thank you for being on my podcast in your studio and we're going to do this again next time soon. So thanks.

Awesome.