Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1170: Q&A with Mike Matthews

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin talk with good friend, Mike Matthews about his how he built his company, Legion, and then answer questions asked by the live audience. Protein bar companies are making out! (2:15) What has been the worst product idea he has had? (3:37) What products surprised him that sold well? (4:51) How the pre-workout market has really taken off and the shenanigans that have come with it. (8:05) Why a part of him is ashamed to be in the supplement industry. (16:40) How all markets have unsophisticated consumers. (18:00) Is the supplement consumer becoming more attuned? (23:54) The self-education of Mike Matthews: How did he acquire his wealth of information? (25:30) The ‘ah-ha’ moments the guys experienced with their training. (30:20) How you can still be honest and be successful. (38:14) Appreciating the value and importance of sleep. (39:22) What are the upcoming opportunities in the health/fitness space? (45:25) How do I stand out in the ‘content-heavy’ crowd? (1:00:02) Why does he sell fat burners and not branch chain amino acids? (1:09:42) You can build a business and NOT lie. (1:17:20) What to do when there are detractors on your fitness journey? (1:19:41) Is it recommended to take senna for no more than once a week and what can be done to fix oneself after excessive use? (1:28:15) How do I transition from more active work to sedentary? (1:33:00)   Featured Guest/People Mentioned Mike Matthews (@muscleforlifefitness)  Instagram Website The Muscle for Life Podcast Books By Michael Matthews - Amazon.com Eric Helms PhD, 3DMJ R&D Chief (@helms3dmj)  Instagram Mark Rippetoe (@CoachRippetoe)  Twitter Kelly Starrett (@mobilitywod)  Instagram Related Links/Products Mentioned Nitrate in beetroot juice lowers blood pressure, study finds Energy Drinks and the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: A Review of Current Literature Stimulant-Containing Energy Drinks The Max-OT Workout Starting Strength - Book by Mark Rippetoe Mark Rippetoe on training for strength vs. “aesthetics” f.lux: software to make your life better Visit Felix Gray for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Tonal: The World's Most Intelligent Home Gym Visit PRx Performance for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout** Prime Bundle | MAPS Fitness Products - Mind Pump Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World - Book by Cal Newport Stillness Is the Key - Book by Ryan Holiday Intuitive Nutrition Guide | MAPS Fitness Products - Mind Pump Legion Athletics - Science The Beginner’s Guide to Forskolin Supplementation Senna (Senokot): laxative to treat constipation Hunter-Gatherer Energetics and Human Obesity People Mentioned Eric Helms PhD, 3DMJ R&D Chief (@helms3dmj) • Instagram Mark Rippetoe (@CoachRippetoe) · Twitter Kelly Starrett (@mobilitywod) • Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salta Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, we got to sit down, hang out, and have a great conversation with one of our favorite people in the fitness space. Our good buddy, Mike. Mike Matthews, he's a best-selling author. He's the founder of Legion Supplements.

He's also the creator of Muscle for Life. Very, very smart dude, very successful guy. He has a very, no bullshit approach, which is fun for us. We have a lot of good times with him. Now this episode was recorded with a live audience. We had VIPs hanging out with us. They had come to our live event to listen to all of us talk.

So you might hear them in the background. And we answer some questions and just generally have a lot of fun. Now, you can find Mike Matthews on Instagram at Muscle4LifeFitness. The website legionethaletics.com. He has a podcast. I've been a guest on there, Adam's about to be a guest on there, and I even think Justin's been a guest on there. Yeah, me too.

The podcast is Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews, and his books, which have sold tons and tons of copies, and it's good information, by the way, is one of the few people in our space that actually presents good information. The books are bigger, leaner, stronger, thinner, leaner, stronger, and the shredded shaft, that's the one with the, it's got a picture of them with a shirt off on it. My favorite. A lot of times got a shirt off,

you know what I mean? Just shredded guy. So we know you're gonna love this episode, but before we get started, I want to remind everybody that maps performance, this is our fitness program that's athletically minded, meaning it's a workout program, but it's got some different exercises. You're gonna work on mobility, functional movement, speed, you're gonna move in different planes and movements. Great, great, great workout program. It's 50% off.

Here's how you take advantage of this discount, which by the way will not come back until next year. Go to mapsgreen.com, that's MAPS, g-r-e-n dot com and use the code green 50 for the discount that's g r e n five zero no space for the discount. I want to talk to Mike about the thousands of people that are dying and reports are coming out that they also ate protein bars so So let's give it comments on that. It's got quest protein, but oh, snaps. That's the problem. What do they sell for?

A billion. A billion. And you said it was 20 times. EBITDA. Their profits. That's apparently, apparently sell you core is going to get like the same deal. Sell you core too. We passed on sell you core. This one is the first piece of it. This one, the first piece. You're even as in the Insignation. Acton's going after them too. Five million here.

Wow. You know what they, they just came out with the gummy bear BCA. Oh yeah. That's popping right now. Yeah. That's actually a very smart formula. Give something, give some flavors that though. It's that mean.

Gum, gummy, that's like a texture, isn't it? No, no, no, actually gummy bears. They're actually gummy bears. Oh, they're actually well in here. Yeah, they're gummy bears. So it's that mean gummy. That's like a texture. No, no, no, actually gummy bears. Actually gummy bears. Oh, they're actually well. Yeah, the gummy bears. It sounds gummy bear flavor. Yeah. No, you know why I was,

I was like, I just said gummy bear. The cornbread. The gummy, gummy cat. I just saw gummy candy flavored pre-workout or something. Really? A flavor you fucking idiot. Wait, you want to make cornbread protein bars?

Yeah, that's a flavor. Yeah, maybe. Of course it is, a little more specific. I guess you're right. Cornbread is a flavor. Now, we. Of course it is a little more specific. I guess you're right. Yeah, corn bed is a flavor Now now we did serial mill protein though and people were like what kind of serial But it does well. Is it cinnamon cereal? Yeah, it does it's like cinnamon cereal then what's been the worst Product idea so far. But you've had like a meal replacement weight gainer

Really? Yeah, just like a high calorie protein shake? Yeah, basically. What do you think, why do you think it was bad? Was it the name? Was it just a small niche? Yeah, I guess it's just not much demand for it, not as much as we thought, even though you'd think there is if you were just to poke around on the internet, like some of these products do sell well.

But we had a similar experience with our vegan proteins, so before we launched that, we were asking people, we were always surveying what would you like to see next in terms of products, flavors, and there was a lot of hype around doing a vegan protein, so much so that we were like, shit, we better order more than we normally would with the new product and release it, and it did okay. And that's why you said that. And there's no good reason. Is that's why you said that's the reason. Is that why you sent us a bunch of free vegan protein? That was the old gross stuff that we replaced.

No, but. You should. And then it continued to do well. It sold well enough to justify its existence, but that was, it was just interesting to start off like how, yeah, how well compared to how excited people seem to be, but that comes back to again, just because people say they're excited for a product or even if you try to survey, like, would you buy this?

Even if it's not that blunt, but if you're trying to survey for that purpose, it doesn't necessarily translate. When it comes time for people to actually buy, the expected system. This is the two best factors for that still, like the texture and taste, like that's the protein.

Yeah. Yeah, I'd say it's, I mean, flavors always number one. Anything you're drinking is, is flavors can be number one, and then as far as protein goes, texture, mixability matters. And then, and then, and then of course the macros as well, like that's high up, people pay attention to that. What about products that you were surprised, like you launched, you're like,

oh shit, I did not think that was gonna do that well. Fish oil, fish oil did really well. We were like, wow. And I mean, it's good and everybody should be getting enough omega-3s and it's hard to do through diet alone. So it wasn't surprising that we thought it was gonna sell, but it sold out within two or three weeks. And it takes like 10 to 12 weeks to get more stuff made. So we're like, good. I just read some interesting studies on EPA,

where they gave one to one and a half grams of EPA, which is one of the fatty acids in fish oil. and a half grams of EPA, which is one of the fatty acids in fish oil. They gave those to people with mild depression or anxiety, you know, kind of mental issues. And it was actually remarkably effective, especially at the mild forms of depression, which isn't say I think it's the anti-inflammatory effects of the fish oil. So I do cod liver oil, which is lower in EPA, but I do it for the vitamin D, but now I'm doing more of the fish oil. I actually had one of your triton, triton. Is that what I'm saying right?

Triton. Yeah. Going back to naming. Yeah. What's the steak? I feel stupid. There's no logical cruision. Yeah.

Are you reading comic books or something? Yeah. I locked myself into this fucking theme. And now I'm like, what are we gonna, and I have to change the name of thrive, for example, because there's a company that has a number of trademarks. They're two word trademarks, so I didn't think it really matter,

but they're pretty annoying about it. So now, what do I get? I'm gonna name Reen. Reen. I'm not gonna name Reen. Regenovator. Guys in the office, they're so bad at it. And they're like, ooh, what about Plant Plus?

I'm like, shut up. That's how you do it. Have you thought about surveying your audience and seeing if you do like a competition or something out of it? That would be kind of a good idea. You might be. You might just be coming up with the ideas,

surveying with names works great. When I have, all right, here are 10 options. There are like seven options, whatever. But a lot of scale of one to five, one being I hate it, five being 11. That's actually very useful, but asking people for ideas usually isn't, because it's hard to come with good stuff.

And you get trolls. I think it was in the UK where they actually had a ship and they said, we will let the audience, we will let the community, that was in Scotland. Was it Scotland? Scotland, yeah, I love the same. Eighth and always the HMS.

You know what they named it? Boaty McBooty McBooterfake. Boaty McBooterfake. What? And it was like a very prestigious boat, yeah. England, like, Boaty McBootfake. They had to because they had to. That means that like Reddit,

that was like a fun thing. It's like when those internet poles just get swarmed by trolls. Troll the shit out of them. I love it. What's your best like seller product? What's your best selling product? Pretty worth it.

It's your pulse. Yeah, by far. Is that the best? Because in the 90s, and when I was deep in supplements in the 90s and the early 2000s, weight gainers were actually pretty big. I remember myself. They were really big.

I don't remember the which one I would use, but it was like a thousand calories per serving. There was Gainers Fuel, which was Twin Lab, I remember myself. They were really big. I don't remember the which one I would use, but it was like a thousand calories per serving. There was Gainers Fuel, which was Twin Lab, mega mass 2000, and then they went to mega mass 4000. All they did was make a mega mass. More sugar. It was more scoop.

Do you know how big the scoop was for mega mass? It was like a laundry detergent scoop. It was like this. It was like four shurls. A little trowel. You turn on the blender and the blender would break almost because it would be like, ooh. You're gonna be like, oh wow, this is like plaster of paste.

Choked concrete. Yeah, but that was down, that market, I don't think is huge at all anymore. Then the premark out market really took off. I think Aspari was one of the big ones at first, the Super Pump 250 kind of took that market. I remember that product. And that's, so that market's still massive. Huge, still. Yeah, yeah, yeah was one of the big ones at first, the Super Pump 250 kind of took that mark. I remember that part. And that's, so that mark is still massive.

Huge. Still. Yeah, one of the titles. I mean, generally, I'd say for most sports nutrition companies, they're probably making most of their money off of their pre-workouts. Now, fat loss products as well. Now, one thing I like about you is that you do a very good job

of not putting bullshit ingredients in your, even though they're popular, because there's a lot of ingredients that are popular, that a lot of people, there's a lot of hype, and if you wanted to, you could sell it and make a lot of money, but you tend to never, you never put stuff like that in your products. What are some bullshit pre-workout ingredients

that are just common that people probably are wasting your time taking? Nice and? You see, I was like, he loves nice and, yeah, I mean, I'm biased. I take a gram of nice and it takes them weird. But there's no, there's no, like, pre-workout. No, no, no, no, no.

You know, actually you might get slightly better pumps. I mean, you're gonna look like you have a disease because if you don't care about that, yeah. Yeah. What about Argonine? Yeah, it's a good example of, Citroen is just better period, because it turns into Arginine in the body,

but Arginine is just poorly absorbed. So using it, it's just cheap, and a lot of people have heard of it. So, and they think maybe it's good. So if they're looking at a label, and that's a lot of the, the shenanigans around pre-workouts, I guess maybe his supplementation in general is, it's either ingredients that were once popular.

So, so people recognize them? Yeah, exactly. They're a little sulfate. Yeah, it's kind of a marketing thing or an advertising thing, right? Like a big, a bone of the big purposes of advertising is just to increase the exposure to something. So, people, they feel like when they see it, they're like, oh, that sounds familiar.

Or when they finally think of, I want something, what are they thinking of first? What's most familiar to them? And they also tend to cycle back into the lexicon, like remember chromium picolinate? You remember that? Yeah. That was like a big like, oh, it gets your body

respond to insulin better or whatever. Van itl sulfate, that does the same. I guarantee there'll be a product coming out. At some point, that'll both have chromium picolinate. Van it'll sulfate, that does the same. I guarantee there'll be a product coming out at some point that'll both have chromium peculineate and Van it'll sulfate and they'll call it something like a carb reshuddling or something. Matrix. Yeah, something like that, 100%.

But yeah, other ingredients trying to think, what are, I don't pay to my, I like beetroot, it's got the studies that support or really support. We use beetene, which I prefer because that's really, you just have to make sure it's a standardized, that's really what you want. You know what I mean?

From the B-root. So you can use B-root powder, but you're going to have to then, the serving size is going to get larger. Whereas I'd rather just get the exact, like, what's the molecule really after? Norveline is kind of popular, but I don't really see a good use for it. Yeah. What about all the car blockers supplements that are out right now?

Yeah, total total. Total bullshit. What is it in there that there is? Carbon fat blockers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I wrote. Yeah, some of them were like, podcast on those in particular.

Try to get asked about those. Yeah. And why I don't sell them and yeah, because they don't work. No, they're complete waste. I mean, there are products you can take that some studies will show maybe it increases insulin sensitivity a little bit, but is that gonna make you lose fat?

No, and what are the effects? How strong are they? Not strong. And then also, how is it gonna affect nutrient absorption? It just doesn't make sense. No, and then they have binders. So these are supplements that you'll take that will bind to food and then you'll pass it

Therefore, they're like you get no calories because it makes you poop it out and it doesn't work either That's not kind of how it works. Yeah, that's yeah, what about the the heavy heavy stimulants that a lot one your pre workout is just caffeine Yeah, I I've seen pre workouts that have like every everything's a stimulant that you can possibly find Yeah, what's the, I just came across one recently, I forget the name of the company, but it was, probably something like a rage or something like that.

I mean, the formulation was so over the top, it was, it was as if someone who doesn't really know what they're doing just cruised examin' and picked every possible thing that anyone, that could, you could ever possibly want before a workout and just put them all in there. And yeah, it was a ton of stimulants. It was, it was, see, there was caffeine,

there was teacreine, there was yohimbi, there was sinephrine. I'm forgetting one or two others. It was. Coca leaves. Yeah, I don't know. But that's not for me. I don't like the super high stem.

There probably is a small market for the super tolerant. You just very high stem. But I would argue that it's a growing market because the super tolerant. Yeah, you just very high stem. Mm-hmm, but I would argue that it's a growing market because you got to think maybe a lot of these people are because we didn't, they weren't that crazy when we were younger and. Well, we had Speedstack. Well, that was some shit.

Yeah, but it wasn't popular. And I also had to, I worked my way up to having fucking four of those a day, right? So, you were tired. Yeah, yeah. So I would think there's a lot of, what's the Speedstack? You know, it was right? So, you're tired. Yeah, yeah. So I would think there's a lot of- What's the speed to that? You know, it was a Fedra, a Fedra in it.

Aspirin, but it was in a bottle. It was American body building and it sold in gyms. Okay. And you, you could literally, I mean, it was 25 milligrams of a Fedra alkyloids, 250 milligrams of caffeine, or 300. 300 milligrams of caffeine, 25 milligrams of- No, it was 250.

Was it 250? Yeah, a ripped fuel was the lighter one. No, then there was extreme. That's not the 300. That's right. So 250, 25 of 250. Was it 250? Yeah, ripped fuel was the lighter one. No, then there was extreme. Yeah, extreme. That's right. So 250, 25 of a Federal Alcoids, and then white willow bark was in there, which is like a disaster. I used to drive down to LA.

We had a connection. And you're doing four a day. Four a day. I mean, I worked up to that. So that's my point. My point is that there's probably a lot of kids. We sure got a tumor from it. That I think I know.

He did. He did get a tumor. Totally mad at him for it. No. That's just another thing. Some of his best years of production though. That's true. That was the moment the company on top of that.

Twice. Back, back. So my theory though is that there's a lot of kids that are 17, 18, 19 getting into the gym and that's now it's just like, hey, pre-workout. Everybody takes a pre-workout. 2019 getting into the gym and that's now it's just like hey pre workout everybody takes pre workout And so if you're starting that early at starting the 250 300 400 milligram pre workouts and you also love Starbucks coffee a lot of this stuff didn't exist when we were kids I didn't at star they weren't Starbucks in every corner. There wasn't pre workouts going on

So I can imagine there's a gonna be a growing market for these fucking 700 milligram caffeine pre workouts with all the stimulant because everyone's gonna be a growing market for these fucking 700 milligram caffeine pre workouts with all the stimulant because everyone's gonna be so adapted. So adapted, yeah. That's a good point. When we were kids, coffee, old people drank coffee, nobody had coffee. Now everybody drinks coffee.

In fact, remember that study I pulled up? I think cardiac arrest is spiking among kids. And the problem, I predict, I think it's because of the caffeine, because they're going and getting these big lattes and stuff, which energy drinks are more probably more of a thing. Oh yeah, and that too, right? With younger kids. Yeah.

Red Bulls, I mean, there's some of the rock stars. Yeah, the rock stars are pushing like 300. Rock stars, you knew shit. What is it, rain? Yeah, just like, bang. That's the off-brain. Bang, bang, bang, bang. What do you think of that? What do you know? What do you think? Yeah, about that whole bang, that's the off-brain, the bang, right? Yeah, yeah. What do you think of that?

What do you think, yeah, about that whole? Yeah, what do you think about being cotton candy? Well, I mean, he's getting, he's getting flavor. Yeah, yeah, smart. Think about that. Cotton, what, what does that mean? I guess cotton candy, actually, is cotton candy just one flavor?

I can't even remember the last time I had cotton candy. Can you get flavors of cotton candy? It's distinctive flavor. There's a traditional cotton candy flavor. Okay, so that makes sense, huh? Which is pink. Okay, see gummy bear doesn't make sense. Yeah get flavors of cotton candy? It's distinctive flavor. There's a traditional cotton candy flavor. Okay, so that makes sense. Which is pink. Okay, see gummy bear does not make sense. Yeah, I guess cotton candy.

It does it. I don't know, whatever. You know, they're getting sued for their super creatine. That's the one for the thing. It's all like super creatine. Okay, that's bang, right? There's like no creatine in there. Yeah, that's the problem, right?

Oh, that's why they're getting sued. Yeah, and it's supposed to have BCAA. So I guess the pitch right is that it's kind of a sports nutrition energy drink, right? Because it's super creatine and BCA is, but I guess they're getting sued. Because I guess there's like none of it in. Yeah, yeah.

Hell bad, shock race amounts, right? Mike, how bad is the supple, I mean, we have our ideas, but how bad is the supplement space for just putting shenanigans? Yeah, just shenanigans like that. It's the worst. I actually, a part of me is ashamed to even be in the industry.

Really? You're the shining lights, are you? Well, yeah, it's just so bad. The industry is so bad. And you know, as says this is a, it's like a first world complaint, but so I've achieved some level of success in the space, but I've met a number of people, and I'll meet people like you guys who I like, and there are definitely

good people in the industry, but in the supplement industry in particular, a lot of the people that I've met or just other people who run these companies that do quite well, I just have no respect for them. I just can't respect them because of how fraudulent their entire existence is. And so, and it's hard for me to then be like, well, they're still good people though. Like, yeah, what are they?

So this is how I felt about the marijuana space when I was in that. And that's kind of what made me leave. They got to a point where I just didn't like my peers. Yeah. I didn't like the people that I was surrounded with because I get lumped into that. Yeah. You know, totally. I got lumped into that category. And that's what kind of made me leave because of that.

Do you ever see yourself potentially growing legion to a point and selling off and walking away from it? Yeah, I mean, I could see that. It would have to be an amount of money, like put a real number to it. It'd have to be probably no less than $30 million in more likely north of $50 million. So, it'd be a amount of money where I'm like, cool. I don't have to care about money anymore. But at the same time, I wouldn't,

I think of George Lucas where, do you remember this comment he made that he likened selling stalwarts to Disney to selling his kids to white slavers? Oh no, did he say that? Yeah, he had to like, apologize after. I was like, fuck George Lucas, I don't care. Yeah, you know what I mean?

He's gangster now, huh? And so, I'd want like, fuck your Georgia Lucas, I don't care. You know what I mean? He's gangster now, huh? And so, I'd want to, yeah, exactly. I wouldn't want that to happen. I wouldn't want it so in the bastardized. Yeah, gut the brand. You would have thought that'd be the first thing. Yeah. Did you read for 20 times?

Even though, I don't know, would I? But no, where they would come in and just go, cool. So, step one, let's get that cost of goods. Let's cut that in half. That would be the first thing to do. I mean, if you're just like a mercenary kind of businessman, you'd look at my cost of goods rides at like 50% to 60% of revenue, which is really stupid from a business perspective.

Like business savvy people, I've spoken to whatever they see that and they're like, you're really bad at this, you know that, right? But what they don't understand is, when I explain, they go, okay, I get it, is you can't have outstanding margins and outstanding products if you're in the supplement space. You can choose one or the other. And most people in the supplement industry choose outstanding margins, and that means shit products. I mean, to put real math to it, it means that on average, you can spend maybe four or five dollars per product and you cannot make a good anything

for four to five dollars. Maybe you could like sell some vitamin C pills or vitamin D pills or something seriously, but for a pre-workout, I mean my pre-workout costs me and we sell a lot too. So I'm well beyond the point of diminishing terms as far as economy of scale goes. And it cost me about $15 per bottle landed, like ready to sell. My protein cost me close to $20 a bottle. My greens supplement cost me close to $20 a bottle. It's expensive if you want to make good stuff. So you could imagine you if I were to take pulse and you look at from a business perspective. Yeah, what are some of the easiest ways that people cut costs or make these,

or that- Well, they pick stamps. The stuff that matters the most or is the most expensive, they picksey does or they put them in. Or just don't even put it in there at all. Right. They say they do.

No one checks. Some people do, but you have a lot of people, when you look at any market, you have varying levels of sophistication. You always, every market has unsophisticated consumers. That's not to say stupid. It's more along the lines of ignorant, really, just don't know. We've all been there in anything that we've gotten into at all. In the beginning, I was a very unsophisticated, supplement consumer myself. And so you can cater, I would say, pander to that level of the market,

and that's where you have the most bullshit is selling to those people. And that's also generally the largest segment of any market, too. So that's where you can just blatantly lie to people and have awful formulations that if anybody knew anything and just looked at the label, they'd be like this product as a garbage. But in the beginning, as many people get into, in this case, fitness, they don't, they haven't taken the time to really educate themselves yet. So what it comes down to is then, so you'll say you have somebody who's new and to fitness, they never, they have 30 pounds to lose. So let's say that's the number in their mind. And they want to take a fat burner. So there's like, I don't know, people take fat burners, right? These things, don't they help you lose fat faster? And

so you have me, and this is going to, it's coming to a question that we're going to get to, where I'm saying this product will help you burn maybe an extra 150 calories per day. Let me explain why that matters. It's not gonna, it's not, this will help move the needle, but you have to also know what you're doing with your diet and your exercise.

And if you do everything right and you take this product, you can lose maybe an extra half a pound of fat per week. And I can sexify that up a little bit and make it a little bit better in terms of marketing persuasion. But there's that pitch versus some dickhead who's like, this pill will help you lose 20 pounds

and 30 days. Just take it every day. Don't you, don't change your diet. Don't do anything else. Yeah, man. So, so I understand where people oftentimes, in the beginning, they're like, uh, I'm, what, you know, what do I have to lose?

It's 30 bucks. I'm just gonna try the, it, I'm, what do I have to lose? It's 30 bucks, I'm just gonna try the, it sounds too good to be true, but who knows? I don't know anything about this. And. Well, here's one thing that we've noticed, just as trainers, the sophistication of the fitness audience seems to be getting better.

Now it's nowhere near where it needs to go. I totally agree. But when I first started training people 20 years ago, I had a majority of my time, I had to convince women to lift weights. I had to be able to talk to them about why lifting weights was a good idea, why they're not gonna wake up tomorrow looking like.

Yeah, all that stuff. Today the questions are more complex, they're better. People seem to know more. I see people squatting in deadlifting. Never, people never squat at in deadlifting the gyms. I rarely did in the beginning for the first seven years. Right, right, right. You guys squatting on the Smith machine every once in a while.

Wow. I'm deadlifted once in like my first seven years. Oh, right. Same way too. Yeah, I mean, I was common, right? Well, yeah, back then it was, you would, I mean, deadlift when you were by a bodybuilding magazine, none of them told me. No.

And you would lump that into powerlifting. And I didn't want to be a powerlifting. I identified more with somebody who was a bodybuilder in a muscle fitness magazine. And so, there was no- And you just do what they did. Yeah. So, the sophistication for us, in our experience,

seems to be going up. Are you seeing that as well with the supplement consumer? Are they becoming more sophisticated? I would say yes. I mean, my brand kind of pre-selects for more sophisticated people in there. That's true. A little bit of a monster.

Many people, yeah, absolutely. Many people find Legion and just find me, via articles, podcasts, books. So these are people who are actively educating themselves. And so if looking at it like the demographics, you have more probably 30-year-olds, 30-year-olds than teenagers. I have a lot of college-educated people who follow me. But in general, I do think probably thanks to,

I think, social media has probably contributed to the proliferation of good information. Bad information is well, but good information. So it is easier where people can just fire up Instagram. And if they're following good people, they actually can start learning useful things very easily and quickly. And I'd also like to think that what I've done, I've sold a lot of books. I've now it's just one website, between my two websites, it's probably over 40 million visits to those websites,

all told since the beginning. So there are other people like me, you guys out there, you've spreading good information. So I think in general, yeah, there are more and more informed people now then. It seems like it definitely. Yeah, just because it's easier to access. When we first found you, this was a long time ago,

Doug and I, we had put together maps at anabolic and we found you because we were impressed with your content and your email marketing. And we said, look at this guy. And I looked at your information, I was like, okay, this guy knows what he's talking about, which is rare, very rare. I was fully ready to read and be like,

this guy's an idiot. But you actually had decent information, but you were never a trainer. How did you get it? How did you learn all this? Did you just dive in deep and try and look at the evidence? Like what brought you to learning about, you know, how to exercise properly?

What are the most important exercises? Like all the solid basics that you communicate so well? I mean, it was just a self-education project, really. I mean, I started lifting as a teenager and because I grew up playing hockey and then I stopped playing hockey, I wanted to do something to remain active. And I was also 17 and I was like,

yeah, girls like muscles, I'll just get some muscles, like, yeah, because hockey, you didn't, that's not, I wasn't lifting in hockey, you just play a lot of hockey. Even though you were a virgin until you were married. I wish, that made me even weirder. I totally guessed right there.

That's good guess though. I've only had sex with one person. Oh, oh, okay. But I wasn't. Okay, so there you go. We didn't wait until marriage, so yeah, it's still, it's still, yes, though. I've only had sex with one person. Oh, but I wasn't. OK, there you go. We didn't wait until marriage. So yeah, still, it's still strange. To your localities.

Yeah, yeah. No, so got into, got into lifting for that reason and just did what most guys, even most people did. You know, just buy some magazines and gather a couple friends and just start messing around. And did that for a while and came a couple friends and just start messing around. And did that for a while and came to then just like it as an activity and as you know, it's just something that became a normal, just thing that I did.

And eventually though, I was like, okay, if I'm going to put the amount of time I'm putting into it, I might as well actually educate myself. And I know I could be getting more out of this time and out of this effort. And then that's when I was decided to actually apply myself, I guess, to it. Where did you get your information? And what year was this? What year was this? So this was probably seven or eight years ago, and on the training side of things, well,

let's see. So on the diet side of things, the first just bit of random luck, it was good information that pointed me in the right direction was I met this bodybuilder powerlifting guy who at the time, I wasn't savvy about steroid use and how to spot it. He claimed his natural now, I mean, look back, that's a joke. But he was the first guy to turn me on to energy balance and macronutrient balance. And so he was prepping for a bodybuilding to turn me on to energy balance and macronutrient balance and so He was, he was prepping for a bodybuilding show at the time super shredded this one is probably a couple weeks out right looked ridiculous and And I was just like how you know and he was like, oh, how much do you weigh? What are you gonna do? Okay, eat the whatever was 2300 calories a day eat this much protein

So many carbs this much fat and That's it. That's all you need to do if you want to get lean. Because at that time, I was maybe 15% body fat or something, and I'd never really been lower, never really cared about my body fat, but I was, at that point, I was looking at him, I was like, what are you doing?

You know what I mean? And so of course, initially, I was like, what do you mean, what carbs, for example, do, what about sugar, what about complex carbs versus simple carbs, what about when I'm eating carbs, I'm not eating carbs, for example, do? What about sugar? What about complex carbs versus simple carbs? What about when I'm eating carbs? Should I not be eating carbs? Just all the stupid things I had heard over the years, you just gotta care about any of that, don't care.

Just follow those numbers. And I was like, okay. And did it. And then that's when I got pretty lean for the first time. And so I thought that was, you know, a revelation. And everybody, you remember that first, where you're like, everyone needs to know this. It's actually this simple.

And so that then turned me on to wanting to learn a bit more of why did this work, right? So then learning about energy balance, which for that, it was just a matter of going to the scientific literature. You don't, there's, at this point now, there are really just great research reviews. You don't even have to go too deep into the rabbit hole

because people have already done the work for you, basically, between meta-analyses and research reviews that are out there. And particularly now, like Eric Helms, and I don't think he did it alone, I think there were Alan Erigan might have been it. There were a few people, you can find a great review of bodybuilding nutrition,

which gives you all the basics that you need. There are the practical fundamentals. And so that was pretty easy. Nutrition's not very complicated. And you go beyond that, and then you learn a bit about of why does, why do food choices matter? Because they do matter.

They do matter for the quality of your diet and for your health. The complexities in the psychology behind the nutrition, the nuts and bolts is basic. You know, calories is the best. That was the first thing, that's the first thing that I think anybody needs to learn. It's just nuts and whatever.

But it gets totally clouded with a bunch of crazy stuff. What about on the training side? Yeah, that was your first aha moment, right? It's a Gizekid getting into fitness. What would you remember? This is actually a fun discussion to have because I love sharing this on the show because I can recall multiple like,

aha or double myths like. Why was I not doing this before? So that was the first one you traditionally, do you remember like what the next like aha for you was? Absolutely, yeah. So the same guy on the training side of things. So I saw with his diet advice and so I was asking him, what would you recommend that I do in the gym?

And so he turned me on to something called Max OT and I don't know if you ever came across. Wow, it sounds familiar, why do I, why do I, what do I do? I forget the name of the guy who, it was like a PDF booklet. Okay. Basically, like a PDF ebook that I printed out. And what worked about it is it emphasized heavier weightlifting. Whereas in the past, you know, I would do a lot of work in the range of maybe 50 to 60%

of one rep max and more, more emphasizing the pump. Yeah, the pump and just doing a bunch of reps and no real systematic way of progressing and no very heavy weight lifting, like nothing in the range of 80 to 90 or say 85 to maybe 95% of 1RT max. And so max OT was just emphasizing about 80 to 85% of 1RT max compound exercises. That was the first where just explaining the importance of increasing whole body strength and using squat, deadlift, using pressing to do that, it's sure you can do accessories, you can do isolation work, but if that's all you're doing, you're just not gonna get right before. Yeah, do you remember like when you started doing it, like the response that you're about to?

Absolutely, I was amazed. I mean, I actually got strong for the first time, really. And I mean, I have pictures I've shown many times on my website mostly, but I've posted them on Instagram as well. The dish kind of showed the before and after of, okay, here's me after seven years, I had gained maybe 30 pounds of muscle in seven years, and that's maybe being generous, and might have been closer to 25, it's kind of hard to tell exactly because of body fat levels and so forth. And then here's me a few years later

of after I learned how to diet and after I learned how to train. And Max Hutz, he was the beginning from there. I moved on to ripeto stuff. I found starting strength. I was gonna ask you about how you got connected to him. He was that early on, he read his book and he had him on the podcast.

I've had him on a number of times. Funny dude, I love talking to him. He's a character, yeah. He gives no fucks. And so, so, yeah, actually, that was the first time I ever had ever deadlifted. I remember when I started to squat, again, because previously I wasn't really squatting, and then I was squatting a little bit, and then I started as I came across ripetose stuff and started to learn better form. So I got up to on a free barbell squat, four plates, but for like quarter reps, right?

And I didn't know, I just didn't know at the time that that was stupid. And so then I'm learning a proper squat and I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense. More range of motion makes it harder. Did you not go lighter? No. So I'm like, man, whatever I guess that makes sense. More range of motion makes it harder. Did you not go lighter? No. So I'm like, man, whatever, we'll see what happens, right? And I'm lucky I didn't get hurt. So I get down to the bottom and I'm like,

this is not coming up. That's not coming up. This is not coming up. It's not coming up. And so I bailed it over. I didn't even bail it back. Because I never had, I didn't, I didn't, I did never really squat it. It's squat on a Smith machine before, right? So I bail it. Like, I have to, I'm lucky.

Yeah, exactly. And I was like, well, that was dumb. And so it went from 405 for garbage reps to 185. That's what I had to drop it for, like, sets of eight proper. And I had to work my way up to the point. I bet your legs blew up, though. Absolutely. Yeah, over the next couple of years, I've been doing it. Yes. For like, sets of eight proper, and I had to work my way up to.

How about your legs below up, though? Absolutely. Yeah. Over the next couple of years, I never got super strong on my squat. I got up to 365 for sets of like two or three. That's pretty good. But I didn't program specifically. I didn't, it wasn't following a strength training, I wasn't squatting three times. It was still hypertrophy based, types of.

Yeah, just because I wanted, I actually don't, I mean, I understand as far as bodybuilding proportions, go the legs. If I were to want to get into bodybuilding, my legs would have to get bigger, just proportionally, but I personally don't quite like the look, like aesthetically. Not to mention it's a pain in the ass

when your legs are chafing all the time. Exactly, and fit in normal jeans already. Yeah, if they're, if they're, look, like aesthetically. Not to mention it's a pain in the ass when your legs are chafing all the time. Exactly. And fit it in the orange already. Yeah, if they're, if once they have to be like broken in until they, when I put them on, they look like leggings, you know what I mean? Sometimes, some jeans, I actually can. Now I'm not doing that. And so, so anyways, that was a big.

So the importance of compound exercise is the importance of lifting heavy weights. And then the importance of, as I continue at your myself progressive overloading and how important that is, and then how to achieve that, right? So the best way, of course, is getting stronger. You gotta make sure you're adding weight to the ball over time, and then secondary to that is making sure

that you are increasing your volume. So you can really appreciate the journey that people go on to try to figure out the right things to do because you had to do that. And it took, and you're a smart dude, it still took you a while. Apparently. Yeah.

I mean, it took all of us. I went down the almost the same order. And we worked in fitness. You listed right now. I remember, I'll never forget like putting together the deadlifting. So I always had weak ass hamstrings and probably because there's just not a lot of hamstring movements, especially if you're not deadlifting. So I always had weak ass hamstrings

and probably because there's just not a lot of hamstring movements, especially if you're not deadlifting. I'm saying like, like, even if you're squatting, squatting is more squatting. Right, right. So, and I remember getting into deadlifting and I remember like for, I'm like 10 years in and I've done the lying leg grow machine

probably a thousand fucking times right this time. So I kind of know like where my range is and I don't think I could get over 70 to 90 pounds or something on that machine. And then I remember being introduced to deadlifts and then being consistent for a year, just deadlifting on a weekly basis. And I had just totally stopped doing all the machine work

and I was heavy into barbell lifting at that time. And then I came back one day, and it was after probably a year, and I did the lying leg curls, one day and was after a probably a year and I did the lying leg curls and I hadn't done them in a year. So in my head I'm going, oh I haven't done this in a long time

I'm probably gonna have to start really light. Holy shit, like my weight had doubled and never was, I wasn't even touching that machine just from the dead and that was like, I'm like, I spent fucking 10 years trying to increase the weight on this thing. And just by dead lifting, I doubled my weight. That was like a-ha moment.

Did you have a similar jump in your band just to your pulling strength? Oh, dude. So the same thing was seated row. So when I first started lifting, seated row was the staple first exercise that I pulled down, seated row. Go to the seated row, strap up,

try and get to where I could get almost a full stack, you know, and I worked 10 years of lifting to get to that point where I could almost do the full stack and that was a big fucking deal. Man, after I deadlift, that shit moved so easy. It blew my fucking. I had the same experience.

I got that from, I learned that, it was, I think it was the summer after my freshman year in high school. There were power lifters that were working out. I was just an awe of these guys. At this point, I'd been lifting weights for a little while. I started as a 14-year-old kid. Anyway, they taught me how to squat and deadlift.

They told me this is what's going to make you big. Because they were, when you're a kid, if a big guy tells you this is what, you're like, he could have told me the horse shit and I would have done it, right? So I'm like, done. I'm going to start. I'm going to start squatting and deadlifting. And I gained something like 12 pounds that summer. So that summer from freshman to June, and I remember I went to school and everybody was like, what the fuck happened to you, dude? Like your legs are, you have a butt now. And it was all because I did those two exercises. Before that, I would do leg press and hax squat and all the other leg extensions and just nothing.

So that's cool. Any other groundbreaking moments for you, or was that where you're? I would say, so we talked about nutrition training. I'm trying to do anything else. Supplementation, learning that I don't need to be spending three or four hundred dollars on supplements. Most of them are absolutely useless.

And then in some cases, you don't actually know what you're getting. Like I remember, I love a guy who owns a supplement company, just said that, by the way. That's on the homepage of the homepage pitch. But I love that. I really do. I really appreciate that because, and that's like the homepage pitch. But I love that. I really do. I really appreciate that because, and that's cool. That's cool.

The current space that shows that honesty, you can also be successful and not have the bullshit. Well, there's still a place for it, right? There's still a place. I mean, when I was competing, I'm supplementing and doing it. Because the way I looked at it is I'm addressing all my big rocks.

I'm doing all the other things. It's like, I want that 1% at edge because I'm at that level that makes sense to me. The mistake I was making as a young kid was I'm fucking eating three, four hundred dollars with a supplement every day. But I'm not fucking squatting. I'm not fucking eating right. I'm just like, that's where it makes no sense whatsoever.

No, so I appreciate that. What about sleep? Did you ever figure it out about sleep and how important that took me forever But that took me like till like four years ago. Yeah, I didn't really Yeah, I always I was I never had sleep issues until a couple of years ago is when it started and now it's on and off Like sometimes I'll be totally fine. Sometimes it's waking. That's the thing for me I don't have a trouble falling asleep, but I'll wake up

Waking, that's the thing for me. I don't have any trouble falling asleep, but I'll wake up several times. That's like a bad night for me, basically. And it's not terrible because I still get a decent amount of, I get enough deep sleep to like, I can function in whatever, but I'll notice a bit of a difference. If I wake up once versus four times, it does make a difference.

And so I didn't really appreciate that until it started. Cause, I'm too loose at, you know? Exactly. And I used didn't really appreciate that until it started. Because, uh, until you lose it, you know, exactly. And I used to, so previously, I don't know, maybe let's say five years ago or whatever, I used to, uh, work until, right up until I'd go to bed, right? So I'd be like on the computer, I had flux and so I wasn't getting blasted with blue light, but still I'd be on the computer, meant working, doing usually writing. So something that requires,

it's not just mindless answering emails. And so I'd be doing that until like 11.30, and then get ready for bed, go to bed at 11.45, fall asleep in like five minutes, blackout unconscious for six and a half hours, wake up naturally, and that was it, every day, for five or six years, and I was training hard. There were a few where I was like cutting to get ready for photoshoots

and so I had to get really lean, never impacted my sleep. And so that was just life. And then once I started that, once there was no longer the case, I guess I could kind of also start it after kids. Now I miss it. I miss my previous superpower, but now, all that really matters for me now, what that means for me is I've just prioritized,

sleep more, because I was able to do that previously. I was able to go to bed at 11.45 and have an alarm at 6.30 that I'd usually wake up before just naturally. And I can't do that now. All right, fine. So I just make sure I'm in bed for eight hours. So I go to bed at 10 and my alarm's at six. And sometimes I wake up a little bit earlier because if I sleep better, I might wake up at 5.30 and that's it. Okay, fine. But I don't sleep through the night ever. Now I wake up at least once. And so, you know, I've just...

I do understand the physiological and now I have educated myself a bit about sleep because I was trying all the obvious. See, I wasn't making any fundamental mistakes. So I was like, okay, what kind of random supplements can I try? What kind of random name a random sleep technique and I've tried it. And so in the course of educating myself also came to appreciate just how important sleep is. And since having sleep issues on and off, I've mentioned that more as a fundamental,

just looking at the bigger picture. You have your nutrition, you have your training, you have your sleep hygiene, like pay attention. I would have never thought I would have caught myself wearing dorky ass blue blocker glasses. I never would have thought, I mean, I used to caught myself wearing dorky-ass blue-blocker glasses. I never would have thought, I mean, I used to make fun of that shit forever. And, but I also think too,

we saw something happen, or at least in our generation, like we were here before fucking iPhones and iPads and all those things existed. And I have really bad behaviors of, you know, sun goes down and I'm still staring at this little tiny screen, answering emails

and on social and stuff like that and it took me a while to make that connection that I probably was stimulating myself so much that I was having a hard time getting really deep sleep. Yeah. And just that that one behavior alone of okay, I can still I'm still going to do all those things, but at least now I'm going to discipline myself to throw these fuck on, and if I go about my work, and I notice something. Is that better? Because you can, I mean, I have an Android phone, or they call it, better.

It is better. It is, so I have, like I do, and I night shift on it still, and that's better than nothing, right? And if you wanna go hardcore, then you wanna get glasses that also block green light, because green light will also affect, not nearly as strong as blue light

Mm-hmm all light actually will affect your so dearly you would you would just well So here's the game for me. This are the two things if I do these things can't hold it No joke no joke if I get sunlight during the day because that sets your circadian rhythm So get sunlight you so yeah because you tend to lock yourself in your basement and work all day long Yeah, so if you go outside the sun your word minds Yes If you go outside, okay, sun, the word mines. Yeah. If you go outside, get sunlight. And then when the sun goes down,

and I've done this a couple of times, turn off all the lights, we'll go by candlelight, or we'll use these rock lamps that kind of make this light glow, like a fire or whatever, I'll sleep good every single time. Those two things alone make the biggest difference. Yeah, I get sun every day.

Yeah, good deal. Yeah, what do you guys think? I got, so my guy, we, it's for me and a couple guys. So we go downstairs into the parking lot next to our office and just take our shirts off and just stand in the sun and hang out. Do you really? Yeah, now people, and they're absolutely, so they're in the office buildings all around

it too. Oh, there's those guys again. Absolutely. I've even had people come down like, so are you guys like a workout group or something? And I'm just like, now we just, we just go in the sun. Like, it's like a couple of, a couple of plans that turned into humans. I've been trying to, I've been trying to get these guys to get my photosynthesis in, you know. Put a park bench right out here so we could start having our meetings outside

because this thing is a fucking. Yeah, when we're starting to, all day, I feel it too. I can feel the difference now. I did not, when I was younger, never, I don't know if I just wasn't paying attention to it or whatever, but, you know, we'll sit in here for a couple hours sometimes and it'll be like 11 or noon, I'm getting groggy. And I can feel it, as soon as we go outside sunny and like 10 minutes being the sun,

I just feel like my energy levels come up right away, totally. Well, we have a live audience with us today who asked us some questions. These are the VIP. Where's our applause assigned? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just add the soundtrack. We're doing it. We had a dinner with them last night, and then tonight we're doing our live event. We're answering questions, and Mike is gonna be one of our awesome guests. So this is gonna be kind of cool. But they asked us some questions.

Yeah. Yeah. I want to start in the area of the upcoming opportunities in the health and you want to start the first one? Yeah, I just think that that's a fun discussion. We on the podcast, Mike, we speculate all the time of like, you know, trends or what we think is going to happen. And so regardless of you agree with the trend or you would potentially do it, I think it's fun conversation to talk about what we think might be cool opportunities financially in the space.

Yeah, so the question is upcoming opportunities in health and fitness space. So Mike, do you have any ideas of what you think are like upcoming kind of emerging opportunities? This is bad, but I actually don't pay attention too much to trends just because I dislike so many of them and I pass up so many of them, particularly in the supplement space. And my focus, most of my time is on just creating good content. And that's something that, I mean, I would say, I think that the health and fitness wave has not even begun to

crest. I think we're going to see it get more and more popular in general and that more and more people, it's nice to see that barbell training is getting more and more popular and we can probably think crossfit a lot for that actually. They're probably one of the first big commercialized activities that really emphasize barbell training. And there certainly are positive trends on the nutrition side as well, where even if it's just people becoming more cognizant of what they're eating and caring a little bit more, but the trends that I see in the supplement spaces, CBD or MCT. Oh, we're going BCAs. Yeah, BCAs are just a staple.

That's just key. Collegiate protein. And so things that I'm just like, this is all just such nonsense. And so I can speak personally, so an opportunity that just for, for that I'm pursuing myself is next year,'m going to launch another line of supplements, it's going to be a separate brand, it's going to be like Legion in the same unique selling proposition as Legion.

It's just going to be like half the price because I know from just post-purchase surveys and having interacted with a lot of people, that the number one objection people have to Legion is price and I understand it's not cheap, it's not absurdly expensive, but it's definitely premium. And it's because it costs me a lot of money to make this stuff. And so there's a large segment of the market that legion will never be able to serve. And those are just the more price sensitive. So how do you make of less expensive

is just staple, like staple basic ingredient? Yeah, so the products aren't going to be as good as legions, but one, they're still going to be good products that are worth using. It's not going to be so low in ingredients or dosages that you'd be better off just not even using them at all, and they're going to be much better than any other products at that price point. So we'll have a pre-workout, for example,

that will be $20 or $25. Is it going to be as good as Pulse? No, but it's still going to be good. It's going to have clinically effective doses. It's just gonna be the lower end of the range. Whereas Pulse is the highest end of the range. That's generally how we approach the Legion. Formulations is if we're gonna include ingredient

and ingredient, we often are going for the mid to high range of the clinically effective dose, except in some cases where we actually feel like it doesn't quite make sense because you're not gonna, like there are some ingredients that are expensive, that you're not gonna get much more out of whether you go from the low to the upper end of the clinically effective dose, but you are just gonna make your product more expensive.

So that's an opportunity that I see, so we're gonna, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that, and so to be like, Legion is Lexus and this is gonna be Toyota kind of approach. And working out at home seems to be a big thing, right? With Peloton, I think we're gonna see more and more just creative ways for people to work out at home.

I could see, have you seen, I'm sure you guys. Tonal and all this stuff. Yeah, exactly. Stuff like that. I mean, I don't know if that's gonna be the one. I'm interested in it. I'm here, I'm watching it. Yeah.

I'm curious to see if it takes off. I could imagine though, you're in front of a thing and you have, you can interface with a trainer even right there. You're gonna keep trying to nail it. For sure. And I think that's too why we partnered up with like, a company like PRX.

I love their approach in terms of trying to make, you know, like real solid equipment fit within, you know, a small space and feel like it's not. It has to look nice. Intrusive, right? Yeah. These things are expensive. So you're going to have, if someone, I mean, Peloton, I think they're like $1,500 or something. Their bike is like two grand.

It's incredible. Yeah. And then a treadmill, I think, is more. So you could imagine, let's say there's something I might be telling you, is thiseless, that's where it's like, resistance, right? So do you know how expensive it is? Yeah, it's up there too. They're up there like 1500 or 2000. But it's more considered, it's more like tech

than it is fitness equipment. So I think what they're trying to do is, because people don't mind spending thousands of dollars on awesome new tech. But they want to spend their life. But they want to spend their life. But they want to spend their life. But they want to spend that much effort. But they won't spend that much effort. But they won't spend that much effort. But they won't spend that much effort.

But they won't spend that much effort. But they won't spend that much effort. But they won't spend that much effort. But they won't spend that much effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort.

But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort.

But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. But they won't spend that effort. Obviously, and we've talked about the irony is it's the group training or the small group Small square footage three thousand camp styles. Yes, like that and I think there's room actually to do it better Like right now. It's all the trendy shit like the soul cycles the orange theories I did a I did a talk with red dot a couple or this almost a year ago now and met with the owner over there and we discussed like he He's like Adam. What do you think about about the orange theories and the crossfits? How do I compete with them? What would you suggest? I said, instead of trying to compete with those already mega brands that are already driving

tons of traffic, why don't you look at the opportunities of the things that they're not addressing and compliment them? I said, an example for me is,, these both orange theory crossfit a little bit better because that's how Kelly Starat has made his living as off of this, is addressed to all these classes like mobility and corrective type work. And I think creating a small class like setting like that that's designed to complement somebody who loves these high intensity types circuit based classes is a really good. Almost like a like a F-PART.

I might be a hard sell though because what's the benefit? What's the what's the magic bullet of it? There's a lot of recovery labs that are popping up too because of you know. But I just quick fix. Well here's a jump in this cryo thing that's not really gonna happen. Well, here's, here's, it's not gonna be popular for somebody who's 25. You're looking at the baby boomers and the people

that are dealing with joint pain and they've taken it. So one of the number one things I saw. This is a big market. Well, you say a huge market. What a number one things I saw at Orange Theory when I was there is they, they still attract the 45 plus year olds that come in there and do it. And they do it every day for a few months,

and then what ends up happening? They burn themselves out. Yeah, burn themselves out, knees, eggs, shoulder hurting, all the stuff, because they're not addressing all these issues that they have, and if there was a place that they could go to, it's same type of core study, and what confirms this for me,

so this weekend, so today, or tomorrow, FRC comes in here, so they've got 87 or 90 students in this place. They have sold out all of 2020. What's FRC? So it's functional range conditioning. It's basically mobility moves, but they add like isometric tension and things. It's kind of basically alleviate pain,

get the joints to function properly. So I've dabbled in this myself. So I used to run boot camps years ago and one of the things, and I remember this, I built it up, it was a very successful business, I had trainers underneath me and it was kind of running all over San Jose. Probably the guilt got to me after a while

of realizing I'm really not helping very many people. Maybe why they're going through my boot camp thing for four months, they lose their weight, then they go back and they do all their same behaviors and shit. And so all I'm really doing is making them sweat for an hour, right? And most of them are 40 plus years old. And I'm watching them as they're moving in my class and I'm going like, if I had you one on one and we were talking,

like I wouldn't have you be doing ropes and fucking ladder drills, like I'd be doing corrective work with you in teaching good mechanics. And so, I actually do this now, and I hold on Saturdays. It's a free thing that I do just for these people that I have ran in boot camps years ago, and I run them through this FRC type of format.

It's my own, like, I've taken movements that they teach in there, that I have found make the greatest change or help that that population, hip stuff, shoulder stuff, neck stuff, ankle mobility stuff. And because it's, there's movement involved, it's not just stretching like yoga, it's a little bit of intense, I think a little bit of sweat actually from it. But most importantly, they can, they feel like they just went through like a chiropractor appointment

after spending an hour and they get up and they're like, oh my God, I feel better than I've felt all week long because we've been, we've reconnected to a lot of these dormant muscles that they haven't been addressing or touching and they feel amazing. So, and nobody's really doing a good job of this right now.

Now I know there's certifications that are teaching trainers to learn how to take these tools and then apply it to their clients, but I think there's an opportunity for a small square footage place, 3,000 square foot, very similar model as the orange theory, the soul cycles, only to address people like this.

And I'm gonna piggyback off that, because I agree with what Adam's saying, and I wanna go into that, but before I do, I'm gonna touch piggyback off that because I agree with what Adam's saying and I want to go into that. But before I do, I'm going to touch on one that I think is obvious. We're in the middle of a big vegan push and the final macronutrient that has not been demonized, that will be demonized, is protein. So I think we're going to see a lot of anti-protein information start to come out and supplements

that are around that anti-protein push. And some of the science they're gonna use, there's gonna be, you know, acid supplements, they'll say, oh, you don't need to eat protein, just take these. Right, because protein elevates m-tore, m-tore, in the case, basically. Yeah, yeah, the presence of cancer can promote, it's inflammatory, too much protein can cause,

you know, tumor growth and all that stuff. Which science will show that's true, but context matters 100% with that kind of stuff. So I think you're going to see more vegan shit just coming out there. I don't agree with it, but it is an opportunity. And you can already see what's happening right now. It's light and flaky.

Impossible burger and impossible meats are selling out all the time. And it's because they've made hyper palatable, delicious tasting, what-pross food. Well, for what I've read, I have not tried it. I refuse. But it's just like the ingredients. Less than like. So much worse than me.

Yeah. What is this? It's like a thousand. But that's an opportunity. Now to piggyback off of what Adam was saying, I think the next big opportunity for fitness is going to revolve around making your body feel better through correctional type movements and mindfulness. I think mindfulness is

going to start making a massive push. And what do you mean by that exactly? Anything mindfulness. So it doesn't matter. It could be meditation. It could be spiritual stuff. It could be classes. But it's going to revolve all around that sphere of some more holistic. Yeah, unplugging your phone, turning things off, being quiet, focusing on the present. Then maybe doing some exercise related stuff. Or with exercise. I feel like what I'm saying, you could combine that.

That's what I'm saying. I think it would be incredible. And the reason why I think that's going to be starting that all into a proprietary branded method, is someone could do that. So I don't know how people are going to do it, because there's a right way to do this shit, and there's a wrong way to do it. I'm just saying from a marketing perspective. Right if you can call that

Well 100% marketing in a perfect world. You would do so I mean we have the we've laid the foundation for this like so maps prime pro The entire program is we've addressed every major joint in the body and with that Comes a little test assessment like that is your joint moving optimally? If it's not, here's some movements to help that. And I think that that's what the class would kinda look like. It would be, that's what I teach right now. It's, I take through all the major joints

that I know are the most challenging for people that in advanced age, and I take them through a couple exercise per joint, and that's all it is. Is I just kinda wake up that area and then they go, oh my goodness. But now they feel amazing. It's gonna blow up because people are more aware of ever, of the effects of being distracted,

of the effects of not focusing on certain things. This new technology comes along with a lot of fears. So whether or not this technology is good or bad, the fact is it's new, and anytime something new comes onto the scene, it's easy to scare the shit out of people about. This is what they're gonna do. Those people don't like change.

No, and so that's what's gonna happen. There will be retreats and everything. You're revolving around that. Where they're gonna organize events where nobody has phones. Oh my God, like, can you imagine? Digital wellness is gonna be the next big thing. Cal Newport's most recent book. Digital minimalism.

Yeah, I've read it, but I like, I mean, I like, Ryan Holiday just a huge deal on it. Stillness, yeah, I read it. So everybody's on that, right? Yeah, and so I could foresee in fitness, facilities opening that are workout, you know, correctional exercise centric, but still kind of workouts,

but their marketing is gonna be based off of mindfulness and correctional exercise, and then they're gonna use that as a way, they're gonna sell it as the best way to burn body fat, build muscle, and the studies they're gonna use are gonna be the ones that show that people who meditate, that tend to eat better

and people who relaxation, hormones are better and all that stuff. If you fund it, they'll find it. Yeah, and so that's the best. No, I see good opportunity there. That's me being cynical. I also think if you're a serial entrepreneur right now that just acquiring real estate

in all the social media platforms. I mean, and everything from... Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, YouTube, to Instagram, to Facebook, to Twitter, to Spotify, to all these incredible platforms offer an opportunity for you to provide some sort of value or content on them. That's what I was gonna mention.

And start, that's just amazing. Like that is so rad that we have this, that didn't exist when I was first. I was really decentralized. Yeah, there are no more gatekeepers. Yeah. And now it's up to the market to decide. And you have your own list good.

Yeah, you have your own list test right there where it's like, well, I'm not putting on anything that good because there's five people following me and nobody else wants to pay attention. So change the game up. So I'm just going to keep putting out stuff until I find the things that are really helping people. That's such a powerful tool.

And I, and if you want to, what are some tips, this would be something I get asked fairly often and you guys probably have some good thoughts on as well. So I'm sure there are people out there who know that and who know the power of content marketing, but are like, how? How do I do it? There's so much content out there. There are so many blogs. There are so many podcasts, so many YouTube channels. How do I stand out? How do I... One of the easiest ways to stand out that I found is to sound counter to the common knowledge, but obviously you have to have good information to do so. So if let's say-

It's acquired the knowledge first. Right, yeah. I mean, you gotta be good. People are just skipping past that step. Yeah, I agree with that. That's a good point. You gotta be good. But let's say there's a big push for, okay, like the vegan push, huge vegan push.

So you may actually get some traction by publishing an article that talks about the dangers of eating plants. Or the positives of the carnivore diet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But being accurate, obviously giving good information, but sounding counter, right? Like if there was a contract, yeah, contrary, you know, thinking always gets, yeah.

Totally, you get shared like crazy, because people like that. And I love doing it because 90% of the information that's out in fitness is bullshit anyway. So it's easy to be counter to have to stuff that's out there. So it's like, I think that we get real time feedback, likes and comments and shares and you can see all these things.

I actually think it's actually relatively easy. What's challenging is people to be, we're in this era now because it's so easy and so fast, everybody expects results so quick. This is why I tell kids this all the time that are starting a YouTube channel up. And they're like, I'm only, I only have 50 people following me.

I've been doing it for two months. Yeah, or they're like six months in and they're only adding like two people a day. And I'm like, could you imagine if you opened a brick and mortar business and two new customers walked in every day're only adding like two people a day. And I'm like, could you imagine if you opened a brick and mortar business and two new customers walked in every day, that would be a fucking huge win. It'd be huge.

But everybody expects to go to like super famous or super rich overnight. And I remember the first time I sat down with Taylor, who was somebody who works for us and it first turned me on to using my Instagram to try and attract a community and build a business. And he said, Adam, you're gonna do this for a minimum of a year or two

before you really feel like you get any traction. And I'm like, all right, cool, no big deal. Like I could put my head down and do shit like that. And I had no fucking clue what I was doing. I mean, I was just posting stuff. And but I was using that as like a litmus test. Like I put something out, okay, and people aren't liking it, aren't talking about,

must not be adding value to them. All right, let me try something else. Let me make a picture. And the last value. I'm gonna tidy white it. Yeah, right? It's where you always start. I would keep sending stuff out until,

and I kind of put this for me, what ended up working for me way back when was, people like to see what I was currently doing. And I, before me, I don't know anybody else that was doing this in our space. Like I literally would list, if you go all the way back to beginning of my Instagram, you could see I was doing this.

Here's a picture of me first in the morning, not fucking good lighting, not flex, not pump. Just, this is what I look like. This is how I'm eating. I broke down carbs, fat, protein, the water I was intaking, what program I was running. And I would just share that. And it was getting like, people were like, oh man, asking me why, and I was intaking, what program I was running, like, and I would just share that.

And it was getting like, people were like, oh man, asking me why, and like, I was getting engagement. I was like, okay, I figured this out. Like, this is helping people there. I'm sharing what I'm doing, there's finding value in it, there being able to engage and ask questions me. And that was kind of like the aha, okay, more of this.

And so I just started plugging away, and more than the traction started slowly happening. And that was really the original following that we had to help catapult mind pump. Because when we first started mind pump, we didn't have any price. You had something like 20,000, something like that followers. And that was it. I had no Instagram, just then had a small one. And that was our first we had it when I published bigger leaners stronger. I literally had nothing. I just put a book up on Amazon. And just some dude.

And I think you stole it by NewHeaders. How did you sell a book? Nobody knew who you were. That's a better question. Self-published, what do you mean? No, I mean, how did people find it? How did you get it out there? Amazon.

I did nothing. I just published it. I think it sold 20 copies the first month. Were you already though creating? Were you people about my book? Were you speaking what you're talking about? I actually was, I was happy. I didn't know if anybody would buy it.

You know what I mean? Well, so we also were older, right? So I come from that generation too. I was like, oh, five people are talking to me. Five more than zero. Yeah, that's right. So obviously something is working. So I just had that, I think I just had that mentality

from the beginning and just kept plugging away and plugging away. And even when you talk about when we pivoted from, you know, my little following from Instagram over into a mind pump, you know, the formula for us there too was, let's just keep adding value. And we had a product to sell. So we had maps in a ball like ready to go and sell from the very beginning. And I just want to say that that's a smart decision.

It's actually a mistake that I see fairly often is that people, they wait too long to sell something and you can condition your audience if you go too long, just giving away free information. When you do bring out something for sale, oftentimes a lot of people will react negatively, like to them you're selling out or they're not here to be sold to. The bigger mistake I see from people

are just like allergic to being promoted to. And you don't want those people if they want to leave, leave. Yeah, no, the bigger issue, or I should say the more common one that I've seen is the opposite where they sell something right out the gates. Yeah, I agree. Most people now, what? I don't, I mean, I think if it's a good thing, I mean, again, I started with publishing a book for sale.

I didn't have a website, I didn't have, that was literally that's it. Now, I mean, yeah, because you can look at it like, oh, that's, that's like, it's a ton of value though. And it's giving you a case of a survivorship bias, but my point is like, although I look at the first edition of the book now and I would like, I'd be like, this is awful, but,

because the current edition is way better, but it was very good for what it was at the time. There was nothing like it. And so, that was the idea I started with just selling something. Well, I think that's authority right out of the gate, so, and I think like from our perspective too, we had to build that authority.

Sure. And by doing that, we had to go through like, really building their trust and finding out what they wanted to learn. Yep. So we have to give that and go that thing. I also think what Sal is talking about, and I agree with him that I see more of this,

which is the kid or person who's interested in this exact question we're talking about, starts their YouTube, starts their Instagram, gets their first thousand to five thousand people following them, and then right away takes on, you know, the supplements or takes on something, and they're pushing somebody else's product to make 20% commission off of it. And I actually think that hurts them more than it does. Well, I mean, when I was coming up and I had 10, 20,000 followers and I was competing,

I was getting hit up by selling them. But what I knew, I knew long-term, I was building something for myself. And so I knew like, man, if I start pushing everybody else's stuff, it's gonna be really hard to sell my own thing, whatever that's going to be. And at that time, I actually didn't even know what that was. That's a point of you can exhaust your goodwill,

essentially, by, if you start, especially if you're selling other people's stuff. There's a different perception between, like, it's very easy to look like a shill if you just start promoting other supplements versus, even if it were your own supplement, but it didn't have to be supplement, or something that is maybe more educational.

So if you bring out your own, in your example, like what could have probably worked well for you, is if you a lot of people wanted to know, what are you doing, how are you training, what are you eating, coming out with an educational product that just, it explains, this is what do you do,

this is my, this is my, so that was the first thing that we ever tested to kind of get an idea. Justin and I wrote the Nutrition Survival Guide. So that was what that was, came with a calculator inside of it. It was a generally well received. Uh, yeah. I mean, what I didn't have the audience. Yeah. What I learned from that was 10,000 Instagram followers equates to about fucking $200. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what

that's what I learned from that. That's what I learned from that. I was like, oh, too truck. I was like, okay. And that's why too, because I thought maybe I was ready. I thought, okay, you know, I've been given value. I've been doing so much for so long. I've got 20,000 followers. Maybe it's now Justin, I dropped this book. Let's sell it. And I did, I can't, what do we sell? 25 of them or something? I mean, yes. Maybe that. And I was like, whoa, like, I've, and that it was a good lesson for us. It was like, you know, we need to impact and add more value and gain a larger audience before I really try and monetize this thing. Otherwise, you're going to be constantly trying to push your shit to try and sell. And that's the other thing too is I really believe

that all these platforms, YouTube, Instagram, they're really designed to be more social on them. And I see a lot of companies take their social media and it's just like another way of advertise. And that's all they're doing. And without even knowing they're back in and they're conversion rights, I can tell you it's not converting very well because most people that are on social media, 90% of people on social media are not on their two shop. They're on there to connect socially

with people and brands and things that they're into. So the social aspect should be a place for you to connect with the community. Now that doesn't mean it can't be a lead generation. So the way mind-pull-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-mob-m value builder, authority builder. What we do is we use those platforms to drive to more free content, where we now have you in our ecosystem. So it's like, we connect with you socially 99% of the time, 1% of the time you'll get Sal or Justin or I saying something like, oh, hey, here's a great free guide regarding whatever we are talking about. And then they opt in and now we have them as a lead and now we can nurture them down the road but on social itself, you know, you'll never see that. You never see us talk about our maps programs or push

or sell something like that because I think that's an awful way to use it and I think you'll end up losing more people or at least losing the connection to the people that are following you. All right, so let's go with the next question which was this one was for you Mike. Yeah. And it is, you don't sell branching, I mean, to acids, but why do you sell fat burners? Because I like money. Yeah.

Because I have two fat burners, right? Yeah. So I guess the question basically is saying, like, you know, BCA. Yeah, like BCAs are supplementing with branching to amino acids. We know your friends with mine pump, mine pump talk shit about fat burners.

Yeah, and how's this work? Yeah, and but about fat burners. Why is house is worth it? Yeah, but in fat burners. Let's put you on the spot. Yeah, it's gonna be a category of things that you take that don't do anything right? Yeah, it's true and they often are. BCAs, I believe have like no use. No, unless your protein intake is hollow.

And your marathon runner. And your marathon runner. Yeah, and why is that? Yeah, reflect. What are you doing with your life? It's a good point. And yeah, so fat burners, most fat burners don't do anything, period.

Even if you know what you're doing with your diet and what you're doing with your exercise. However, we have two different fat burners. And one of them is called Phoenix and really the driving ingredients are Sinephrine. And then there are a couple other compounds that are found in the same fruit where sinephrine comes from that makes it more effective and then forescolan and in then eGCG.

So from green tea extract, those are the main ingredients, what make phoenix work and I stand by, I mean if anybody,'ve seen the sales page you've probably looked at the research that's referenced and I stand by that research should a Sinephrine works and when you combine it with a couple of the other ingredients that are in Phoenix it works even better in that it just boosts your metabolic rate. Yeah I was going to say so the thing with most fat burners isn't this, the real science that supports that they actually help burn fat is the like the increased rate of like your heart rate over the course of the entire day or calorie burning.

Right. Now, of course, if you don't know what you're doing with your diet and you can take even phoenix, so say you're taking two servings a day, let's say, which is okay, that's fine. And then you that that's a cookies worth of calories, you know what I mean? It's like two or three hundred calories a day, man. So you have to know, and even if, again, if you look at the sales page, which I'm actually updating all the sales pages, which is nice, and it's been a while, so I'm like, you know, tweaking a lot of copy, but I really try to make that clear before someone even buys

the product, and that this is supplementation is the least important thing as far as fat burning goes. And so the other fat burner is forage and the driving molecule there is yohimbing. Again, yohimbing has good evidence that it works. It does. And so that's why, basically, because I feel that I'm justified in terms of the research behind these these videos. And I explain people how to use them. If you were not saying just take some pills, you'd be good. Now, if you were to compare the fat burner

to the pre workout, wouldn't they probably rival each other on the same studies in the effect as far as what it would do as far as speeding the metabolism up to burn more fat? No, because in the case of my pre workout, it's just caffeine. And as far as caffeine's metabolism-boosting effects, I mean, research shows that once you become desensitized to it, you're mostly losing that, actually. So, that's after, it's pretty fast. You have some caffeine every day within two weeks. You're desensitized. And you don't

have a tolerance effect with syniferin and yohbeen. No, no, actually, ironically with you're hymnbeen, research suggests that it gets more effective over time. I think it might be because it builds up in the body. Yeah, in my experience with fat burners, I think a lot of the reason why people like them, besides the fact that they make you feel good, and that's what stimulants do, they just make you feel good,

is the appetite suppressing effects, which stimulants tend to do that. That's true. And I can see some short-term value in that. The issue I always have with fat burners is the same issue that you have. If you're not doing any behavior modifications, you're not only wasting your time, but you may be doing yourself harm because you're placing your time and effort and value in something that is...

And just wasting money. And wasting money. Absolutely. And then setting yourself up for disappointment. Because you were thinking that these pills or these powders were gonna do a lot more than they actually are gonna do. Now some of the most effective over-the-counter fat burners,

that no longer illegal, but were around for a little while that had studies that support them, was the classic ECA-staffed. You can start with it. You just have to, how do you get it? With the decongestions. Oh, you gotta get the, you have to give them your license because. Sura fedra.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And those, actually those studies showed that those worked as well. But here's what I noticed with people when they would take those is they take them, they get the appetite, suppressing effects, they were a hyper which probably made

and want to work out more. So they're eating less than just, or even just gonna move around more. That, that means more calories. Right, right. But then they would have a rebound when they come off because then when they would come off, they would take stop taking themselves and they'd feel dead tired. They'd have that period of time where they felt like they had no energy and they'd have

that kind of rebound type of effect. Do you see anything like that with a different friend? You'll him be... Now, for scolans, an interesting one. For scolan, it's got some muscle building and testosterone boosting effects. We talked about this last night through increasing circulating camp. That's... And that gets the body to produce more testosterone. Actually did some research for school

and pretty consistently raises testosterone in man. It's actually one of the better testosterone boosters, but you don't talk about it as a testosterone. I mention it on the sales page because there is evidence for it, but I'm not really using it as a reason to buy it because the effect size is too small to matter, especially when people, it's one of the reasons,

so take BCAAs, something I don't sell. I get asked, we get emailed multiple times every week from people asking why we don't sell BCAAs, even from people saying, look, I know BCAAs are useless, but they make my water tasty. Can you please, I'd rather give you, I'm gonna give someone my money for BCAAs, I'd prefer it to be you. And I'm like, yeah, I mean gonna give someone my money for BCAs, I'd prefer it to be you.

And I'm like, yeah, I mean, that would literally be the sales pitch, that'd be like this is. Pistachio water. It's like crystal light, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, put some fruit in your water. Yeah. And testoster and booster is another product that we don't sell that there's a lot of money in.

And the reason being is while for school and to be one, deaspartic acid would be another. There are a couple things that- Ashtray Gandhi can do that too. Yeah, we, there's, we, we, Ash Raghanda is in my multivitamin and again, that's mentioned on the sales page because when I'm mentioning benefits that just here's,

here's, there's good research that shows this thing can do these things. Right. But I- But you're not marketing it that way. Nope, and I don't, I don't really call any attention to it because again, it's not gonna make, it's not gonna, it's not gonna either,

in some cases, it's not gonna increase testosterone enough to matter at all, or it's not gonna increase it enough for long enough to matter. Or the studies that show that it raises testosterone were done in men who are hypogonadil, they had low testosterone. Sure, and that would just be misrepresenting research.

But even in the case of like deuspartic acid, you don't have to necessarily misrepresent research. No. And what seems to be the weight of the evidence or the consensus right now is that it will... It works for a week or two. Yeah, for a short period of time. And I've experienced that myself

in the past one, I've taken it, where I've noticed it only, what I noticed, I remember noticing is more sex drive and a little bit better sleep, and it'd be for like two weeks, and then nothing. They actually prescribed it, I believe they prescribed it, or the studies were done in Italy on diaspartic acid and for its effects on increasing seminal volume and more sperm, so for fertility.

That makes you think of a product called ejaculoid. I'm pretty sure. That's a real product. I remember that. I remember that. That's the line of a product called ejaculoid. Yeah, that's a real product. I remember that. I remember that. That's the sign of the clown's real time. That's the thing. Top of mind is I need bigger cum laude.

Good, that's cool. My God, my life would be so much better. It's my, I appreciate that. I feel like the hardest part for you would have to be that very similar to what it was like for me with the cannabis industry. And we could see here all day and talk about like the science that supports all these different things. you would have to be very similar to what it was like for me with the cannabis industry. We could see here all day and talk about the science that supports all these different

things to help people or to benefit them. It was just like when I was in the cannabis clubs and I was learning all about the benefits of the plant and what perpsinnage of people that this could really help and do good for them or really change their life. But then when I opened my doors and people came through, if I was being honest with myself, 95% of them just wanted to get fucking high. That's what most people were coming in

and buying the products. And so I feel like the supplement space has to have a very similar dichotomy where you're like, I can say here, make a case with you on all those, all the supplements and how I've used probably all of them at points in my training career where I see value in it. But I also think that I'm a very small percentage

of the general population that are attracted to these things because the probably the majority are still looking for the shortcut. And that's why they purchase. That's what I like about Mike is that you don't lie. You tell people exactly how it is and I like that. And the cool thing is you're proving it works. That's what I really like.

The business model. Yes, you can actually build a business and not lie in the supplement space, which is crazy. It's my mind. Yeah, like, that's important. It's a shocker. Yeah. No, yeah.

Now there are more companies that are taking a similar approach that are saying a lot of the same words at least. Yep. You're, because you're proving the model. I would think that that's something, that's something to do with. I mean, Legion's big enough now where a lot of people have heard about it and it's out there, you know what I mean? And so that's cool. That was one of the reasons why actually when I started it, and it's out there, you know what I mean? And so that's cool.

That was one of the reasons why actually when I started it, I was, I mean, you can read about this on the website or you can hear about me talking about it, but it really was one of the reasons why is to maybe try to help reform the supplement industry to some degree. You know, it's like us with podcasting to set it, to set it, to set at least set a good example. Just for people, though though for people to follow exactly Well, we that's how we made our name was by basically calling out bullshit and telling people Yeah, you want to lose 30 pounds can take you about a year. Yeah, you gotta do all these things right and I was like

You're not gonna how you gonna sell that idea that sounds crazy. Yeah. Yeah, yeah seems to be working Yeah, similar with the books my books are teach the fundamentals Yeah, all right So new next question was what to do when there are detractors on your fitness journey? So this was asked by one of the individuals we had dinner with last night. We were talking about how he had lost a lot of weight on his own, had done this on his own,

grew up in a family that really puts food in your face quite a bit. Very similar to my family, I think it's family's Portuguese and very similar to Italians. Like you, like my mom's goal in life is to see if she could feed kids more than their own parents. Like she's so proud of that. Like, you know, I'll give you your kid.

I'll show you. One of the guys who works with me, Spanish, from Spain, same thing. He was his mom's like, they didn't, you know, she grew up poor. That's why. That's why it is. It's there. It's just their thing. Of course fed him essentially and he was obese by the time he was like seven.

Uh-oh. my mom will follow, my used to follow us around while we were playing, and she would figure out ways to trick you into eating. So you could just, and she'd be like, well, she's the only, yeah, it was like a favorite thing. And so I get this. And so what, you know, what he talked about is he lost a lot of weight on his own,

but then his family would say things like, well, you know, what's wrong with you? He looks sick or why don't you eat and eat more food or whatever. And so his question is like, how do you deal with those kinds of people? So I guess I'll start because I was in a similar situation until this day, right now I weigh 200 pounds, right?

Six foot 200 pounds, nobody in the right mind would consider me sickly. Yeah, I will any medical, maybe sick. Yeah, yeah. But BMI, sick bro. But like clockwork, I'll go yeah, no, but like clockwork, I'll go to a family function, like clockwork, one of my family members, usually my grandma will come up

to me and be like, so what the, what's the matter with you? What do you mean, what do you talk about? You don't look so good, you need to eat some more food. Like, God, I started getting like, what's going on? Am I really losing weight? I look skinny. Yeah, so I get to look like a swimmer.

Yeah, the insecurities started coming up. I got that, that was the first time I got lean and I was wearing a long sleeve shirt. Someone was like, you have like a really good swimmer's body. You're like time to get bigger. Yeah, thanks. I wasn't going for legs. Yeah, so what I was telling him to do is to,

you know, the thing is whenever you change, whenever you fundamentally change a part of kind of who you are, the thing is whenever you change, whenever you fundamentally change a part of kind of who you are, it challenges the people around you. So as you see this happen quite a bit with couples. So if you look at the statistics of couples that are, that get meat and get married and are both obese, and then one of them lose a lot of weight

and the other one doesn't, the do most always divorce. The divorce rate is like astronomical. It's something like three quarters of them, so almost all of them will get a divorce, unless both of them go through together. And mainly it's the challenge. And in that case, it would challenge their ego, is this person more attractive now?

Who are they? I don't know them. But even with your family and friends, so let's say you and your friends connect over alcohol and you guys like to go out and drink and party and whatever. And then all of a sudden, you're like, you know what, I wanna get my shit together, I wanna build a business, I wanna, you know, whatever. And so you stop doing that kind of stuff. You go out with your friends, you're like,

nah, I'm cool man, I don't wanna drink, I gotta wake up early tomorrow. They don't know how to take it because to them, who is this person? And not only that, but who I'm, who am I now? Take it personally. Take it personally. So when you're at, when you're raising a family,

that's constantly celebrating food and constantly eating and it's this wonderful, great thing. And now here you are saying, no, I'm okay. I don't want to eat that. And now I'm cool if I just eat the salad, whatever. To them, it's like, well, either something's wrong with you or something's wrong with me. And so that's the question now. So by you, by this person, now challenging them by saying, no, I'm not going to eat that

way anymore. It's actually causing them to reflect on themselves. Yeah, you're a big mirror walking around. Right, they're like, you know, you get it. You're the setting them. Yeah, you did it and they have it yet and they have to face that. And one of the easiest ways for them is to not face it and deflect it back on you

that you have the problem. Right, and I remember this one incident. I was with my cousins, we were at a big family function, and my cousin married this guy into the family. Great guy, and we're all hanging out, and everybody was drinking beer. And he's like, have a beer, man, and I'm like, no, I'm cool, I'm all right, I'll just,

you know, I don't want a beer or whatever. He's like, come on, it's all night, he kept saying that to me. Come on, have a beer. Man, you never have fun. You all you ever do is think about working out, man, you need to loosen up, and he kept hammering on me.

And finally, I got angry and I I Grabbed his belly and I shook it real hard for everybody I made a joke about him and it was really mean thing to do and I heard his feelings But he stopped you stopped bothering me and afterwards I reflected on that I'm like I handled that terribly all I did was Make him feel like shit and the reason why I made him feel his shit I felt bad for saying no and so what I did from then on was just feel more confident in my decisions. And real confidence is calm.

False confidence is loud and it's contrarian. So the false confidence is like, no, stop making me want to eat. I don't want to eat. I'm trying to stay thin. I don't want to gain weight or whatever. Real confidence is like, no, I'm all right. No, it's cool, no laugh about it. No, it's good, I already ate, I'm cool, no, I'm all right. Hey, what's going on in the morning?

Just change the subject. The longer you're calm and confident in your new skin or whatever, and the more they realize that it's the same person, you just have some different behaviors. That's the only way through, because they're gonna keep hammering you. This is happening every time I go to my parents house They're always something like oh, you're so high in mighty. You're not gonna eat waffles anymore

Like it's big deal, you know, and I'm like no, I don't want it You know, it's fine, but yeah, you just have to keep keep calm and just consistent and like not make a big deal out of it And be like I just kind of shake my head like you know Yeah, and then they just eventually give up and they're gonna say they call you skinny Yeah, and now what they do yeah, and now what they do is they'll say something and then they just eventually give up. And they're gonna say they call you skinny. Yeah, and now what they do, and now what they do is they'll say something and then they'll leave it. And it's not a big deal. And now family members will prepare

sometimes a separate thing for me, like, oh, sounds like I need this. So we'll make this. And it's not that big, it's not that big of a deal, but you're just gonna have to sit in it, kind of be cool and confident, and just it's not a big deal, and then change the subject,

and then let them do the thing, and then what's happening, what you're witnessing is them processing this different version of you. And that can be very difficult. It's all them. I remember even like when Katrina and I first met, and boy, man, her family just,

they had a hard time with me. I was right in the heart of like this whole mission to compete and like carrying my top aware and like, and they're, you they're big Hispanic family. Everything neurosis. Oh, cheek neurosis. I was. Yeah, absolutely.

And I knew that. And they're big Hispanic family. Everything is centered around drinking and food, everything. And they celebrate everything. And so every week, we're at their house. And I'd refuse to drink. I refuse to eat the food they're having, I'm eating my own, boy, it's probably the first two years

that my sought is really rude. They did, yeah, her brother. He was like our food. Her brothers didn't like me, they thought I was anti-social, I didn't wanna have fun and I didn't wanna get to know them because for them, that's the way they all connected. They all threw back the drinks and ate and laughed

and messed around and I'm over there eating out of my Tupperware and passing on all the drinks and I was just out of family reunion and one of it when my cousins was like hey you can come have a beer with me. It's like I don't drink and he was actually like what does that mean? He's like sure. He's like it in his brain for a minute. You're really not gonna come have a beer with me. I was like oh come I'm just not gonna I'll drink waters.

I'm a you want to do something and he's show up. It's it's it's it's everyone went it's literally, it's literally their own shit. It's their shit. You know, saying the reaction that you get is that that's all of them. That's there, that's, they're struggling with all their own insecurities and their own shit that they're dealing with. And you, you, not partaking or making a different choice really makes them have to think about that.

And speaking of confidence, I think you have to be confident to not give in to that pressure. And just just the pressure to conform and be acceptable. Right. Well, the irony of it is too is that the harder they'll push, the more you want to kind of sit in your in your space and be like, I'm not budging. Eventually here's what ends up happening. Eventually, if you're cool about it, you're calm about it.

It may take some time, it may actually take like a year for people to kind of realize like, okay, he's like, it's not that big of a deal, whatever. Then eventually, after about everybody calms down a little bit, then you find yourself relaxing around it, and you're like, I'll have a little bit, it's not that big of a deal,

and you kind of enjoy yourself, and then it's not that big of a deal. But at first, boy, I mean, imagine, if any of your close friends, who let's think of your friends right now and think of their characteristics, like, oh, I got a friend, you know let's, think of your friends right now and think of their characteristics. Like, oh, I got a friend, you know, John, he likes to ride his bike all the time or something like that.

And then imagine if all of a sudden, he's like, no, I don't like bikes. You know what I mean? Who's this guy? I don't think, I don't know if I know you. Great analogy. And that's exactly what happens. He's this guy who like skateboards now.

He's like, this is crazy. Yeah, this isn't, we can't be friends anymore. All-trained universe. All right, so all I liked about you is you wrote a book. I wrote a book. It's all I liked, man. Now there's nothing. No bite.

You're dead, I mean. Now the next question, someone's gonna have to school me on this because I'm not familiar with Sena T. Okay, so the question is about Sena and is it recommended to take it only for a week and what can be done to fix one's self after excessive-

So, school me on this, what is it? So Sennah is a natural laxative. It softens stool, but it also stimulates the muscles of the gut to expel, you know, to make you poop or whatever. I'm assuming it's in a lot of these poop teas. Thank you. It's in a lot of those. And it legit does work.

If you drink something with sena, it irritates the gut lining a little bit, gets things moving. It gets things moving. It gets things moving, it'll make it a bathroom. Now here's the problem with using sena. It's the same problem that there is with all laxatives. It's that the body adapts,

and what will end up happening is your body, when you go off of these things, it won't work anymore. You can get, there are people who become addicted physiologically to laxatives. So because they use it- It's like either be super constipated, like then you just drink the tea every day.

Then you have to use it. You absolutely have to use it. So the way to back out of that is to do a couple different things. One is to to back out of that is to do a couple different things. One is to drink a lot of water and eat foods that help with your digestion. Okay. So for a lot of people what this looks like is very well cooked vegetables. Okay. So raw vegetables tend to not do this as well. But well cooked vegetables tend to this. You want to cook them to their mushy. So you want to eat things that are leafy, green,

spinach, repeat. Easily processed. Asparagus, yeah. Cook it really, really well. So it's plenty of soluble fiber. Yes, and increase your fiber, increase your water tank. But soluble in particular, I don't think of just insoluble fiber as, but if you play

a vegetable as you'll get playing of insoluble fiber. Yes, yes. And then what you want to do is you want to slowly reduce your use of center. If you go cold turkey, you'll probably have the constipation of a lifetime. So what I would do, and the way I recommend people go off caffeine is I tell them to reduce it by a quarter use

every week. So you might want to try something like that. So let's say you're having two cups of this every single day, then I would lower it down to one and a half cups for about a week. let's say you're having two cups of this every single day. Then I would lower it down to one and a half cups for about a week, and then the next week, one cup and then a half cup and then so on. And if it gets really bad, stay wherever you're at for a little while until you feel like you could lower it.

So most common thing that I would see with clients that struggled with this would be the over consumption of protein and the under consumption of good dietary fiber. That's the other one, greens and berries. And that would be like the recipe for me. I'd make sure they have, I'd bump them up significantly higher in their fiber through greens and berries. I'd have them eat like a cup or two cups of blueberries,

raspberry, like a little bowl of that, and then a bunch of spinach, repeat me, add that into their diet, then also a look at their protein intake. Are they doing, you know, one gram per pot, pound a body weight or more? And then I was significantly reduced that. And that tended...

You hit the nail in the head, and in fact, when we talked last night, he was telling me that his protein intake was actually quite high. So it would be smart to lower protein intake as well, because that can really... Yeah, that... Hydration matters too.

Big factor. Just making sure you're not dehydrated. Yeah, those that can really... Yeah, that... Hydration matters too. Big advantage. Just making sugar, you're not dehydrated. Yeah, those three right there, I'd say. And gallons of water, obviously. Yeah. Digestions a good one, because when it's off, it fucks with everything. But it's almost always a symptom of other things.

Just like sleep, like sleep fucks everything up, but the reason why you don't get good sleep, it's often the symptom of something else. So I would increase those vegetable intake, well cook vegetables, drink a lot of water, reduce your protein intake, and then slowly reduce your consumption of sena, because it is, it has been shown to have people build a dependency on it. Yeah, I know some of my clients that actually have taken this tea, because when they travel

a lot of times they tend to find themselves constipated. That's like a common theme. So this was one of those. But obviously if you could get access to like, you know, vegetables and have that combo available to you, it's going to be ideal. Yeah. Caffeine is also, here's another thing too. I don't reduce caffeine while doing this.

Wait to reduce your caffeine till later because reducing caffeine for some people also results in constipation. Or add one to two servings of Legion greens every day. Yeah. to reduce your caffeine till later, because reducing caffeine for some people also results in constipation. Or add one to two servings of legion greens every day. Yeah, there you go. I'm not gonna say that. Come on man, we can pay for that. Well shit, this guy's a genius.

Oh, I was waiting for the commercial plug for himself right there. He was like a layup right there. Well, you could add some legion greens to your diet every day. It's funny because we have zero affiliation with Legion. We just like you guys so much. I keep trying to get in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're all proofs. Oh, couple of couple of proofs. All right. Next one. All right. So here's a last question. It was transitioning from active work to more sedatory.

So in this particular case, she's a dog walker. That's her job. Average is, I believe around 20,000 steps a day. And also was following MAPS aesthetic. MAPS aesthetic is one of our highest volume workout programs. There's three big workouts a week, and then the workouts in between are shorter, but you're working out basically five or six days a week.

And so it's how do I transition from,'m not going to be walking dogs as much so my steps are going to go down and my workouts I'm going to lower my volume. Now have any if you guys experienced like anything like that dramatic or more dramatic than that in your career. I did with personally yourself, not myself but with clients who tell me for all the workers. For me, I'll never forget when I left 24-hour fitness as a personal trainer or fitness manager, whatever, on the workout floor, training clients or lifting weights and rewracking weights for 10 hours a day, six days a week, and then training myself on top of that. Easily I was stepping 20 to 30,000 steps and lifting and doing things active, right?

Every single day to completely stopping that and then sitting at a marijuana dispensary with nobody coming through the doors for the first six months to a year. Holy shit, was that a total swing? I went from the guy who could struggle to get enough calories in to maintain his size, to really quickly, it didn't take much for me to over consume.

And it took me a while to figure out what my new caloric maintenance was, because I was, I was the guy who was, I was trying to get 5,000 calories a day and I had a hard time with that every day because I was just burning so much to being super sedentary to where I could eat almost half the food and that was enough for me

to maintain. So, you know, my first suggestion and I recommend this over any sort of tools that are out there is to just when that time comes, when you transition to a lot less movement is you need to just almost like you're starting from square one again. It's like it's time to track again. And you could probably already just guesstimate that you're probably going to reduce a solid 500 to a thousand potential calories depending on what say. Start with a good new estimation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Start with a good estimation of reducing, you know, X amount of calories and then be consistent with that for about two

weeks of tracking. And the goal, obviously, in those two weeks is to not see weight gain or weight loss, and that should give you a good idea of the new caloric maintenance where you should be at. So, yeah, that's that's that 100% will be my advice. You're going to have to lower your calories, but you can also try to focus on building muscle. So you can also make the focus on strength. I think the combination of all of it would be ideal. Yeah, I would focus on building muscle

because that's gonna help offset some of the, you know, it's not gonna be much. It's not gonna be much, but it'll help and it also changes your mental health. It's a very long time meta-projected. Yeah, well, you know what's interesting? It's going from 20,000 steps a day to 5,000, and if that's what it's gonna be,

or whatever, and endless workout volume. Yeah, you're talking about, you cannot, you're talking about five. You're talking about five hundred to a thousand calorie difference. Yeah, and what you might want to, some people do it by eliminating a meal, so they say, okay, I'm not gonna eat breakfast anymore.

I recommend just reducing the size of each of your meals. But in getting used to that being your new normal, it's gonna take a little bit of a time to get used to it. But as far as a metabolic activity of muscle, here's what's interesting, this is actually a good discussion. I know studies show that it's not that much. Like gain a few pounds of muscle. It's not that much.

It's like less than 10 calories a pound. Yeah, but you know what though, here's the funny thing. Inexperience, I've the funny thing, inexperience. I've taken people and reverse dieted them and had them build four or five pounds of muscle, which isn't that much, and had seen their calories increased by 800 and not gaining any body fat. There's other mechanisms that are happening. There is something else that's happening. You could say maybe some of that is due to nutrient partitioning, but even I would say

they're probably other factors. There is. There is. else that's happening. You could say maybe some of that is due to nutrient partitioning, but even I would say they're probably other factors. There is. Like style. Well, and there's also activity and, and, and, and, and, and if you're switching and you're, and you're putting a lot of energy and building muscle, you've probably naturally increased intensity in your workouts, naturally, progressively overloading. Yeah. So there are other factors, but generally speaking, I agree with Sal.

It's weird. I've had clients who went from like, insane amounts of activity and volume, and actually had to reduce it because it was just too much for them, so I had them cut way down, and we do this slowly. I typically don't go cold turkey. That's another piece of advice.

It'd be great if you didn't do cold turkey, where you went from 20,000 steps to 5,000 steps. I would get a step tracker, and once you stop dog walking, I would try to at least get maybe 5,000 less. So 15,000 steps. Are you doing cardio on top of that too, or no cardio right now? So that's, I mean, here's where this is incredible.

So, you know, just low intensity steady state cardio has a lot of value for someone who's making this transition. So maybe when you go from the 20,000 steps from dog walking so much to all sudden, dropping, you know, potentially down to five, all of a sudden dropping potentially down to five. Instead of dropping all the way down to five, spend a half hour to an hour every day walking on the treadmill and multitasking,

either reading emails or listening to your favorite podcast, Mind Pump, or if you can. Or go outside and walk if you can, it'll be better. Well, yeah, no, that'd be. No dogs. Yeah, that would be right. That would be better. So I mean, I would see a lot of value in doing that

It doesn't need to be intense at all. It's just walking, you know, just replace it inside the gym But I tell you but I tell you what there is something interesting that happens sometimes like I've had clients who you know over the course of Six months lower their activity significantly because they had to because they were just doing way too much focus on resistance training Slowly reverse diet them and see their metabolism's completely Change and on paper. It doesn't make sense and I've seen that happen many times You see that especially with competitors changing mac and new chance They're going from a low protein to a high protein. Oh, you also what happens? What happens? We all know what happens to when you start to feel better about your body

You build muscle you walk around with your chest puffed out more, you're active, you're more lively. So there's a lot of factors. But okay, so I'll bring up a study that was interesting. Did you see the study that was done on the, I can't remember the name of the tribe, they're a modern hunter gatherer tribe, but through some pretty sophisticated testing, they were able to test their, how many calories they were burning every single day. So and what they thought was, okay, here we are with this modern hunter-gatherer tribe. We hypothesize that they're burning a shit ton more calories than the average person.

These people are active all day long, they're taking 40,000 steps a day or more, just totally active. You know what they found? They weren't burning that many more calories in the average person. Now, it makes perfect sense if you think about evolutionarily speaking why would your body allow you to burn shit tons of calories by being super active if you can't eat them back right you'll just die of it right and we we evolved in environments where food is very scarce right so there are other mechanisms at work that i don't think we fully understand that in the human metabolism

so complex we act like we know how it works we really the only thing more complex than that is Doug let's have a pop up right there it gets legion hitting him yeah yeah can't get away from this motherfucker yeah yeah

yeah throw his numbers off click on a go by yeah so that's the study right there following us there is something interesting that it's happened, so this should give you some hope, because a study like this shows that, although you're really active right now,

if you reverse out of it and kind of do it the right way, you'll probably still have to eat less, but it may not be. Is the Hansa tribe, what is it? Oh, Hansa. Hansa. Yeah, yeah, that's right, Hansa tribe. It may not be as dramatic as you think,

where you might think like, oh my god, I'm gonna be eating 500 calories a day. No, I don't think it'll work that way if you do it the right way So I agree. Yeah, anyway, good time Mike. Yeah, always a blast having you around man. Looking forward to tonight Tonight will be fun. Yeah, I'm always like what's he gonna say? Are we gonna get in trouble? Master of law let your hair down a little bit tonight. Yeah, yeah, good timing. I don't really thank you Thank you for listening to mine pump if your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at Mind Pump Media dot com.

The RGB Superbumble includes maps and a ballac, maps performance and maps aesthetic, nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price.

The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is MindPump. introducing mine pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time this is mine pump.