Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2292: Six Signs Your Favorite Fitness Influencer Is Full of Crap

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

The RADICAL change in the space. (1:07) Are more options better or worse for the consumer? (2:31) Six Red Flags Your Favorite Fitness Influencer is Full of Crap #1 - Jumping from thing to thing. (8:57) #2 - Zero nuance. (11:09) #3 - Their content is mostly about their body. (15:51) #4 - They lack experience. (21:24) #5 - Their content is mostly entertainment. (27:24)  #6 - They promote ultra-intense workouts. (29:12) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Vuori Clothing for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Receive 20% off your first order ** March Promotion: MAPS Anabolic | MAPS Anabolic Advanced 50% off! ** Code MARCH50 at checkout ** Mind Pump Fitness Coaching Course Mind Pump #1500: Seven Lies Fitness Influencers Love To Tell Mind Pump #1985: The 6 Types Of Fitness Influencers You Should Unfollow Mind Pump #1995: Seven Reasons Your Favorite Fitness Influencer Is Unhealthy Mind Pump #2067: Seven Huge Business Mistakes Fitness Influencers Make Mind Pump #2025: How To Be A Successful Fitness Coach With Jason Phillips Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned David Goggins (@davidgoggins) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Right today's episode, six signs. Your favorite fitness influencer is full of crap. Now this episode is brought to you by a sponsor Viori Viori makes the best at leisure where you'll find anywhere. It looks good. It's stylish. It lasts a long time super comfortable

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50% off right now at MAPSFitnessProducts.com. But you have to use the code MARCH50 for that discount. All right, here comes the show. Fitness influencers. They can either help you or hurt you. Here are five signs that your favorite fitness influencer is full of crap. This is going to be a fun one. How, just thinking back, because we've been doing this for a long time, so I've been now, gosh. Is it possible not to offend people with this? I know. I've been in the space professionally for over two and a half decades, right? And all of us have been into the space, at least on our own, for longer than that. And it has changed radically when I look at it now versus when we first became trainers. Like when we were first trainers,

fitness information, it wasn't easily accessible. It was magazines. There used to be barriers to entry. Yes. Yes. Yes. That was a thing. Yeah.

It was all I got, all my information for magazines and certifications and then experience, there wasn't this ability to just, to just hear all kinds of different people presenting and opinions and stuff like that. It was, it was much It was much more challenging. Sign number one, your trainer wears track suits and soccer shoes. He never played soccer. He's like.

Whatever dude. I just had to add on. I just had to add to your list. He hit on us first. I'm next. Right, right, right. Yeah, second sign. He throws some shade on us first. I'm next. It's okay. Yeah, second sign. He wears a flannel.

He wears a flannel. It's not even cold. Yeah. Do you guys think it's better or worse these days for a consumer who's looking for fitness and health information? So I wrestle with this. I go back and forth on my opinion. I think that, uh, there's way more options, which generally that means better for the consumer, right? Like in any other

market, like the best idea will rise. Right. Right. So, and I, and I think that's still somewhat range true that over time, even with all these options, the cream will rise to the top and that tip, and then it'll be competitive because there's so many. So for the end consumer, that normally means better coaches, better trainers, better prices. But because it's so competitive and with social media, it has expanded the reach of crappy trainers. I don't know if the immediate right now is so much better. I think it's worse right now.

So I've been thinking about this. Um, and I think that there's a certain type of consumer that has benefited from, uh, new media and it's the consumer that likes to go out. Likes to educate themselves, compare information and, um and kind of study and figure things out. I think that consumer is much better off because there's so much information that you can learn from and you can parse things out if you kind of pay attention and read and listen, then you're able to parse out

like what works and what doesn't work. Now the consumer that doesn't do that, the young consumer or the consumer that just wants to act right now, I think is worse off, like especially young consumers. Teenagers, I think. Okay. So that's funny. I, you say that because I would argue that younger consumers are more privy to how the social media game works than older consumers. The game, yes, but the information, like, like, if you, like,

if you look at fitness, don't you feel like I'd like to hear both of your guys' opinions. You both have like teenage kids. I would, aren't you feel like I like to hear both of you guys' opinions. You both have like teenage kids. Yeah. I would, aren't they more like, you know, they shop around and they, they check reviews and they go to Reddit and they go like cross reference things like maybe you have a good point, but at the same time, I feel like we're in a little bit of a bias with that because I'm constantly kind of educating my kids about like those signs, those red flags, like, you know, asking them and prodding, like, who are they following? What kind of information you guys consuming?

And then they're kind of teaching their peers, but their peers are like, they're on TikTok listening to these wacky ideas. Because, you know, I just recently was talking to a friend of a friend. I recommended a program. He's about 10 years younger than us, 15 years younger than you guys, 10 years younger than me. And just wanna point that out. I don't think I'm five years older than you.

It makes you feel better, dude. Yeah, pretty much. No, at least two or three at the most. I'm 29, how old are you? Yeah, right, bro. Anyways, what happened with him? I recommended MapSymmetry to him, and it wasn't long before I got a text back,

he said, oh man, you have great reviews. And I'm like, oh, who'd you talk to? And he went to Reddit to go find that out. There's a lot of reviews on there. Yeah, and I just, that's a, and so I thought that was really interesting. And I'm like, that's not something I would default to, but it's very smart to do that, right?

Where it's like this kind of, it's not, he didn't go to our page, you know what I'm saying? He didn't go to my Instagram, or he didn't go to our marketing material that probably will. That's probably one of the most unbiased place they could probably get. It is. A real like feedback from just regular people.

It's just that the challenge though is with like kids. A lot of trolls, but. I know me when I was a kid, right? Like you're more likely to listen to the super ripped, exciting, you know, body-centric, whatever person. I'm more, if somebody tells me like, this is the secret they don't want you to know, and here's what's, you know,

this is the cutting edge, whatever, I would be more like, oh, that person knows what to talk about, I'm gonna go with that. Or they're entertaining or whatever. So that's why I think that they may be more harmed than health, and the data shows with young kids, especially the body image issues going up, because of the fitness influences of people

that present themselves. I feel like there's two conversations we're having within this conversation that both are interesting to me. And we're obviously just speculating on if it's true or not. I don't know who would be more duped. Would a boomer? Maybe a boomer economy, right? Certain people got a lot better off

and it's almost like it created a bigger divide between the two. Well, what's interesting is this, because when we were consuming this information as young trainers or even just as teenagers working out, there were arbitrators of information and gatekeepers. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that what you're getting is accurate,

because oftentimes the gatekeepers were products product companies that were selling things that were... Sure, yeah. So the gatekeepers prevented good information or skewed information so that it overvalued- Well, a classic example of that. I mean, at one time, bodybuilding.com was one of the most searched websites in the world. And their model was give out free information and sell the everybody supplements.

And so of course, over time, their content would, is going to steer in the favor of getting you to buy supplements. And so, and that's exactly what kind of happened. I remember reading magazines and the article they would always put. Same with that. Yeah. There was one magazine I remember the name and the article, they would always put- Same with that. Yeah, there was one magazine, I don't remember the name of it, but I think it was Muscular Development,

and they would post, Flex did this too, where they would post studies, but all the studies that they would post- Supported the supplement. Yeah, it would kind of point to a supplement or something like that. Okay, so because of that, and we've evolved now to this internet, social media time,

it's disrupted all of that, and there's better information that can be found, but then there's more of it. So there's, there's a couple of different ways you can argue this. I think that more customers are hurt today from the bad information, bad trainers that are out there, but in the, in the same breath, more helped. So you just think there's more consumers overall. Yes. And that would make sense.

And it's just, it's, it's, it's pulling. I will say this, what's interesting over the last 10 years that we've had this podcast, I have seen the information getting presented on social media seem to move more towards what's true and what's not true. Like, like the average person now will argue basic things that in the past, they had no idea over like calories or macronutrients or strength training even. So it seems like more is better and low barrier is better, but in the middle of that, you as a consumer

have to sift through and like, okay, well. I feel like in real time, we've been able to see a lot of these like trends and ideas evolve in real time. And so you're like, we're finally to the point where a lot of them died or rebranded or, you know, found something else to glom onto. And so I think that we didn't even add that

on the list of flags, but if you ever see somebody who's constantly had this thing that they're all about keto or they're all about IFYM or they're and they've been jumping on these different ideas and that have you know It's just a matter of time before it gets exposed. That's that's actually that's a really good. That's a red flag That is a red flag. That's a good point. Justin. That's a good like all like their entire persona is based off of fasting or keto. I mean even carnivore diet at this point

is gonna come up in that. Or they're on their fifth supplement company that they've worked with now, right? Protein powder, what do I, I mean this is something that- So this is six signs, that's a good one. We didn't have that one. I agree. No, I do like that.

In fact, this is a conversation that, you know, Katrina and I have this a lot because she manages all of our partners and there's times where she's just like, oh, this other partner, they're great, they're this and that. I'm like, I don't care. Like we stood by this brand as a good brand. We wouldn't have partnered with them if we didn't think so just because someone else is offering more money

or better deals or maybe they're a faster growing company. That's great, but it's like, I don't ever want to represent our brand as somebody who like, oh, it's just jumping from one thing to the next just based off of where they can make more money. And so I think that's a great telltale. Says a lot about integrity.

It does. You guys remember when we started the podcast, there were a lot of podcasts with the name Keto in the title, because at the time, Keto was like this super popular thing. So there were entire podcasts dedicated to it, or Instagram pages or whatever dedicated to it. Um, I think, uh, I think that that tends to be a red flag because all these

extreme endeavors or, you know, ways of eating or whatever, they don't apply. There's so much nuance. They don't apply to everybody. So, and, and they, and they tend to communicate in extremes. You talk, you listen to a carnivore quote unquote expert and it's all about how evil fruits and broccoli are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's your, I mean, you have that listed as your third red flag, zero nuance, and I agree with that. That would be considered that.

I think it's always a red flag if somebody has labeled themself one specific diet. What we know about diet is that it's so diverse. And not only to the individual, but where that individual is currently in their journey. So it's like, you could argue all day long that this diet is what's best for you. Well, that's best for you at this time in your life.

And I bet that even changes over time. Bull testicles are gonna get old after a while. Yeah, they calm down. Gross. But that's a thing to watch out for, right? Is this person promoting said diet and that's all their hand, they're all carnivore, they're all keto, they're all vegan.

It's just like, and if you are trying to help all people, that's a major red flag. Or if you communicate it as the answer to everybody, or if they answer a question and they don't, they don't say, it depends. Like somebody, a good coach or a good trainer, when asked nutrition questions or exercise questions. Of course there's, there's definitely questions where I could say yes or no, but oftentimes the answer is, well, it depends.

It depends on your goals, depends on your fitness history, depends on your current stress levels, depends on whether or not you enjoy this or not. It depends on, you know, are you just getting started? Are you being consistent? Did you fall off? Have you worked out before? All of those things will help me give you the best answer. And I've only learned that through experience.

I can't tell you how many times, well, many times. Isn't that always true except for people in mathematics? I know I'm serious. What other subject, let's say you're an expert in anything else in the world, should you not say depends to somebody when asked a question other than math? I think science and technology can be like that a lot. No, I mean we're in science.

Even science depends. It depends on a lot of variables. There's a lot of variables that come into play when you're talking about. Oh, I see, because you need more information. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like math is simple. Yeah, what's one plus one?

Right, so I asked you an equation. It's gonna be the same all the time, no matter what. There is no, but every other field I feel like is always going to be nuanced. And that's a, that's a, that's, I know we're talking about influencers. They keep changing definitions. When you're working with people, it has to be, I can't, I mean,

I was going to say, I can't tell you how many times I know you guys experienced this too, where you think, you know, as a trainer, then you run into that client, that's not it. And then you got to go back and be like, I guess that's not everything. And here's what it is. I remember when I had a client who went vegan and got healthier, whereas most of my experience was veganism didn't do so well for some people. I remember when that slapped me right in the face.

I remember when, you know, working with a client, I had them do one exercise I thought was the best thing. It just didn't work for their body. So I switched to another exercise. And I don't remember exactly. I think it was a deadlift in fact, which is one of my favorite exercises. But my point is, is there's, there's always nuance. And if you're trying to communicate to people and you don't hear that

nuance or you're trying to, you're following influencer and you don't hear any nuance, it's all very this or that and that's it. Um, then there's probably a red flag. I think too, what makes it more difficult, what we do, there's times where you actually throw out the nutritional science and biological science out the window, because the behavioral science comes in. It's another factor.

Yeah, and so that's what makes this really difficult for the consumer, is that somebody can be touting the right nutritional science, right? Or the right- Exercise. Yeah, exercise science or biological science or physiological science. Like they could be touting the right information

in regards to that, but if they're not factoring in the behavioral psychology that's connected to that person, it's still not complete. Application isn't there. Because there's times where I'm gonna actually, I mean, I might take into account the, uh, the nutritional science, right? Or the physiological science, but there's many times where the behavioral psychology is going to trump that.

If somebody asks you what's the best form of cardio for me to, uh, to, to, let's say I want to get in better cardiovascular shape, what's the best piece of cardio for me to, let's say I want to get in better cardiovascular shape. What's the best piece of cardio I can use? My question to them, the first one is, which one do you like the most? That's the first question. The second question is, why are you doing it? Why are you doing it?

What are your goals? What's your fitness history? What is this endurance leading you towards? But the first question, because as an experienced trainer, I know consistency over long periods of time, that's the biggest challenge. So let's first start with what you like the most. That's probably the one that we're going to pick because it's the one that you're going to do.

The other one is, this one I think is kind of obvious, but a lot of younger consumers might fall for this, which is that their content, the fitness influencer's content, is mostly about the fitness influencer's body. It's about how ripped they are or how about the fitness influencer's body. It's about how ripped they are or how jack they look or how great their butt is or whatever. And then they promote that they coach people or they help people. But the way that they're portraying themselves or their information, it's no value.

It's basically, look at me, this is the evidence. This is why you need to hire me. Not a great way to find somebody who's gonna give you good information. This is tough because we know sex sells. That's right, it gets attention. Yeah, and it does serve them, right? So this is a really, and I don't even know if this is necessarily an example of a red flag

or what makes a bad trainer, as much as it is a flag that they're not quite to the level of experience that you would want, right? Because this is part of the journey I think some trainers are on, right? And they could actually be a pretty good trainer, but they think that this is the best way to market themselves because so many other people before them

have shown this path. And they've shown that they've been successful by marketing sex, by marketing themselves, or marketing their bodies, or transformation. Well, if there's no follow up. Like if the rest of their content is void of a lot of like educational content where they're actually trying to teach people something or, um, you know, bring up other points, uh, you know, of nutrition to reflect on.

And it's just literally about like how their body's changing on a day to day basis. And it's always about like how they look, you know, then you have to ask yourself, like what kind of value is that? Now what do you guys think is the most dangerous part about that? The first thing that comes to mind for me is that the trainer that promotes that

or uses that as a tactic is also the type of trainer who trains their people the way they train themselves. Yes, yes. Like that, it worked for them, they're- Now I'm an expert. And yeah, it worked for them. And so- Now I'm an expert. Yeah, and so then they lean into the like, whatever it was, whether it was a self-talk

of discipline and motivation that got them to be where they're at, or it was following the specific diet, or the specific type of program. What's like, and so then they're promoting that same philosophy to every client instead of understanding how unique every individual is. Well, that's where it gets dangerous because they can get a lot of business through that. And they're not going to be as motivated to expand on their education either because like,

you know, it's almost like this, it's self-perpetuated. It's like, I'm getting the reinforcement by people buying into what I'm doing. I think I'm providing a service. And so it's like, they don't really think it's wrong necessarily, but they don't have the experience to tell them otherwise. I want to speak to trainers and coaches now who think that this is the way to grow their business. There's also like, it's a bit, it's a myth that this is how a lot of people in the fitness space actually make a lot of money.

Very few people can use their body and their looks to gain followers and then through that, provide enough value to get money from the followers. In fact, it's a terrible business strategy. We teach trainers not to do that. And it's even if it is successful, it's a dying model. Totally. You can only, you live up to that for so long.

And you know, you're kind of pulling the curtains back for the listener because we have so many friends in this space. These are the trainers that are miserable. These are the trainers that have now locked themselves into this is how I look. And so either one, they're obsessed year round of maintaining this look or they stoop to lying about it.

Photo shoot one time a year when they're in the best shape of their life, drip content so they pretend that they look a certain way, hiding though in the shadows because they don't want people to really see that like, oh I don't really look like that year around. And so either way, it's a torturous way to live. It's also, in my opinion, if this is all they do, it's a strong sign, I don't think it's 100%, but it's a strong sign

that this person values fitness in the wrong way and they're going to teach it the wrong way. And the value that they're showing is that their value is all about how they look. It's all about looks. That's such a good point. Yeah, and so if you're a trainer or you're trying to be a trainer, you want to get clients, and that's what you think the value of fitness is, that's all you think the value is, you're not going to be a successful coach or trainer because that is not how you get everyday people.

One dimensional. Yeah, that's not how you get everyday people to become consistent. That's such a better point to be made, Sal, because this is something that we always are trying to communicate to our coaches and trainers that we help is like, one of the strategies to making sure that a client has long-term success is detaching them from the scale in the mirror. Once you learn to detach them from the scale and the mirror. Once you learn to detach them from the scale, and that's okay that that is what motivated them

to get them started. That's normally where most people are motivated to get started, is the scale or the mirror. But if you're gonna have them have lifelong success, you as a coach and trainer at one point need to learn to be able to move them away from that and attach to all the other benefits that a healthy body provides for them. And that is how you're going to be really successful.

Now, if you're promoting your body all the time and the way you look, it just shows you where you're currently at still in your journey and you haven't even evolved to that. So that's probably the best point made in regards to somebody who uses that content along is that you're basically showing your audience that I'm still trapped in that place that I attach being healthy with the way I look. You're going to hire a coach that at best will get you some results and then have you get back out of shape or whatever, because you never learned how to develop this relationship, the right relationship with fitness and nutrition. The next one is, and right relationship with fitness and nutrition.

The next one is, and this was just plain and simple, is they lack experience. If their experience coaching people is I built a business online, a social media following online, and then built a coaching business, they don't have experience. I firmly believe that someone needs to have experience working with people, training people, coaching people, preferably in person before this becomes their business. By the way, this also, and I'm not going to be super strict on this because I was a young trainer at one point as well, but this somewhat applies to young individuals. If they're 22 years old, social media, and they're like, I'm a great trainer and coach or whatever, there's only so many years of experience that they could have working with people. And this is just Frank. And again, I started as a young trainer. I didn't know anything for say 10 years as a trainer in terms of how I was able

to really truly become effective. And that's not true for everybody, but that does show some lack of experience. Oh, I think this is really important. I mean, and, and one might be able to argue like, oh, well, it's the science. They can read the studies. They can share it. Cause there's examples of these YouTube stars or Instagram stars that have all this, this, uh, attention and have a huge business online, but really have coached

minimal or no people in person. And those conversations so important. It's so important to what happens when I pair these two exercises with a majority of my clients. Like what happens to their movement? What happens, when does it break down? Like, what's the feedback they give me when that starts to happen?

What are some of the common things that they say? What are the most common struggles that people have when I ask them about their nutrition and their diet? Like, there's a lot of things that- How do I get this person to want to continue when they're gonna fail? Because everybody fails, you know, for along the way. How do I get this person, how do I guide this

person along this journey? You can't go to your studies and your science for that. That'll help in terms of maybe what, where to start or what works and what doesn't work. Yeah. But it's not the full story and it's only experience that you learn that. Like I said, I've worked with many clients to know

that, you know, what they like, what they're going to be consistent with in their personalities and their psychology is probably more important than whether or not a study showed that this is 15% more effective than the study. Yeah. How do you garner that retention? That's everything. That's what we should gauge our success off of as coaches is like, are they wanting to come back? Are they looking forward to the journey, the experience and they're not like super fixated on the outcome as much as they're just enjoying the process? Well, so much communication is actually visual and not audio. So you could talk somebody all day long on a Skype or zoom or what

that, but like to not watch their body language when you do different things. I mean, and that's what you're doing as a trainer. You learn how to read that. Yeah, you're testing all these variables, you know, whether that be your programming or what you tell them to do nutritionally or the way you communicate advice. And part of their response is the way you visually see their facial expression, the way they receive

that information, the way their body moves when you show the exercise. How long did it take you guys to be able to do this? It took me like 10 years where if a client's words didn't match what I was reading, I could tell like, okay, they don't necessarily know how they feel. Like they'd walk in and I'd be like, how you feeling? Oh, I feel good.

But then I'd notice signs of stress, fatigue. Okay, now I know you say you're fine, but I think I'm gonna take you through this workout over here. Or you watch them move, or perform certain reps, and the way the fatigue kicks in, and you go, okay, so we need to scale back. Even if the person says everything feels great

and I'm awesome, you can kinda tell. Took me 10 years to be able to start to figure that stuff out. Yeah, no, I just think that's such an important piece to it. So if all of it, if all your experience is through, and by the way, that doesn't mean that you can't become a good trainer through that. It's just a, it's a much harder path.

And I would, I would imagine that if you lack all the in-person experience, then the amount of, you know, of not to figure that out, it would be at the database to refer to it'd be longer because you, you're, you. Time to figure that out. Yeah, it would be. You don't have the database to refer to. It'd be longer because you're trying to figure that out without ever having that. Part of what made me a good online coach was I had experienced, I had over a decade of training people in person, so I already knew,

like I could forecast common behaviors. Like I would tell clients, this would be me on a Zoom call, right? I want you to do this and this. Now I know you're gonna wanna do more because you're gonna feel like it's too easy for you. Easy for you to say. And add a few more reps.

Yeah, and you're gonna feel like you should do more and you're gonna get more results, but I'm telling you that's not what you wanna do for these reasons. Like how the fuck do you do that if you've never trained somebody in person and seen that firsthand? Like you've never seen somebody

Do a workout session with you and then you go over to your desk to enter it in or put in input your information And you see him out there doing more exercises Like you just you don't get to see that if you're at home Or you only meet with this person once a week or once a month eat a little bit less You know than he said because I'm pretty sure I want to speed this up. Yeah, yeah added a cardio session You know even they told me not feel like you're eating too much food, but actually or, or you have to eat. How's your squat form? Oh, it's great. And then you look at it and you're like, Holy fuck, that's not great. You know,

I'm saying like, you don't, if you don't know that until you've seen people move or how about somebody tells you like, I've got this, you know, pain in my hip. Like, what do you tell somebody if you've never trained somebody and you don't know what happens when they do specific exercises and what common dysfunctions or movement patterns do people have and then how to counter it. Yes. And to be more specific, do they lack experience working with people like you? This might even help with your journey because you might look at them and go, oh, they've

been training bodybuilders for five years, but you're not a bodybuilder. You have no intentions of wanting to be a bodybuilder. Well, then they probably might not know what it's like training a middle aged woman who just wants to get in better shape or a dude that only works out twice a week. So a lot of stress, got two kids at home or whatever. Right. So you want to find somebody who's got a lot of experience working with

people like you, um, and preferably in person. Um, next up their content is mostly entertainment. Now there's nothing wrong with entertainment. We do that on our show quite a bit. It's actually a very good strategy to keep people engaged as a trainer, to coach part of your job is entertainment. Person's going to show up twice a week to see you. Can't all be serious workouts.

They got to also want to enjoy seeing you, but if the content is all They're probably not the best in terms of knowing how to train you or coach you or move you in the right direction. And what would fall in this category? Gimmicks, ass photos and like. Yeah, just a bunch of entertainment stuff. The gimmicks are the big one, right? Like look at this, look at me squat

while standing on a hoverboard. Yeah, like benching a bench with chains hung. Like, you know, you're in a chair, you're in a chair, you're in a chair, you're in a chair, you're in a chair, you're in a chair, you're in a chair, you're in, the gimmicks are the big one, right? Like look at this, look at me squat while standing on a Yeah, yeah. Like benching a bench, you know, like jeans hung, you know, I mean, well, we include like the, the, the, the hype motivation videos with this too. Like, so like, I, like I envision like a lot of the female online coaches use

the sexy, you know, camera from behind, watch me do all my exercises. Not a lot of guys do that. Guys tend to do the more like watch me pull up with my cool car and then, you know, throw the chains around my neck and then go do like some intense workout. We're like, it hits me in the stomach. Right. I mean, is this what we're talking about? Like that's what goes through my head when I think of like, the character,

you're looking at a character. Yeah, yeah. The traits here are like, okay, this is big red flag for me. Like if, you know, if my female coach here, like all her workouts are angles from her ass. I have an entourage behind me. Yeah, and my dude rolls up, my dude drives up in his Audi R8 and with no shirt on, you know what I'm saying? To the gym and does all this crazy workouts and the hype videos around what he's driving and stuff more than it is about what he's this knowledge. Absolutely. Yeah.

So I think that would go in. And then lastly, it's just that they, they promote intensity, all about intensity, all about beast mode. Never quit, get sore, hammer yourself, destroy yourself. Don't just, just this David Goggins mentality of training. He's, he's his own character. He doesn't think, I think he'd be a terrible fitness coach as well. My point with this is that that promotion of ultra intense

workouts is a huge red flag for me. When I look at that, I, right away I go, this person hasn't worked with a lot of people, um, and they're hitting a button that worked maybe for them, but it's not going to work for long. Any theories to why this has been perpetuated in our space for so long? Like why has that been a go-to model that so many trainers default to?

Do you guys have any, I have an idea on what, no, I wanna hear, do you guys have any ideas on why you think people do that? I think it's because they, the inevitable is going to happen. Like this is just like, training clients is, training clients account for the fall off. Training clients is like baseball. Like if you are getting, you know, 30% to 40% results, you're hall of fame.

Okay. You know what I'm saying? Like you're just, you're bad. So six to 70% are, are going to fail. So one of the things that you can always lean on that it's cause you didn't try hard enough, you didn't work hard enough. Like most people are going to fail. So one of the things that you can always lean on is because you didn't try hard enough. You didn't work hard enough. Oh, yeah. Like most people are going to not be successful.

And then the way that makes it. And people are going to be like, yeah, you're right. I get it. Yes, exactly. They're feeding their defeated mentality. Yes. And if I promote myself as the Joe Donnelly type of person who works out, and you're just like, fuck, I cannot do 52

sets every day like this. This is crazy. He's just so bad ass. Like if I wanted to look like that, I just got to get to that level. And so you can't get on my level. And I feel like that's the, the reason why that strategy has stayed around for so long is because it's the easy hype you up. So it gets that emotional response to people.

They're like, Oh, I want to do this too. Then when the inevitable happens, since more than half of them will fall off, even the good ones, right, will fall off. When they do, that'll be what they'll blame is not that I had a bad coach. It's just like, oh, it couldn't work as hard as I could. Yeah. Well, I think it feeds two myths. One is that in order to be fit and healthy, you have to suffer so bad and it's so hard that so then when they see it, they go, that's the evidence. Oh yeah. It's because I have to suffer terribly. Suffer more. To feel, to look fit and healthy, but that's why I've never been.

And then the second thing is it captures people in a state of motivation. When people, when the average consumer is ready to start a fitness program, it's probably because very recently, they felt really bad about themselves. So now they're hyper motivated. I want to do this and I want to do this right now.

And then they scroll through and there's the guy telling me I'm a piece of crap, that I'm not working hard enough, that if I worked out six days a week or seven days a week and I just ate all these specific foods that I would get there and you know what, he's right, I'm gonna do that. And so it feeds into those two. I almost blame Hollywood.

Yeah, that too. Because of all like the hero origin stories and like you said, you gotta go through this like incredible suffering to be able to be emerge, re-emerge and transform, become this amazing phoenix or whatever. I mean, it's like, stop being so dramatic. You know, be more pragmatic. I mean, the bodybuilding space is just as guilty of this too.

Totally. I mean, let's be honest, how many Ronnie Coleman videos did you watch before you worked out? Of course. You know? It works, man. I get sucked into those. And it's not, and we don't follow, the camera doesn't follow him around on rest days or

when he's walking on the treadmill. You know what I'm saying? It's like, this is like, you watch his PR days, just train his branch Warren type of workouts is what we're drawn to. But the reality is like, it's such a terrible way for 99% of the population to train. It's the belief that you, and I've even said this myself wrongly, like you have to force your body to change, force it, right? Think of the word force.

It's like, it doesn't want to, I must force it by all means necessary. Brute force, it's gonna happen. The truth is, when you do this right, you encourage. It's gonna happen. The truth is if you when you do this, right, it's you encourage It's much more like a dance a hundred percent you encourage your body to improve It's healthy your body doesn't not your body does not want to be unhealthy. Yeah, it's not like your body's fighting Like oh damn you I don't want to get fit and healthy. That's not what your body's saying your body's saying Hey, the signals you're sending me are overwhelming can't recover from this, I can't adapt, you're not feeding me enough,

I think I'm just gonna survive. I'm just gonna survive right now, which means I'm gonna try and store body fat, I'm gonna ramp up your cravings, I'm gonna make it so that you don't have a lot of muscle because that costs a lot of calories and we're really stressed out and usually stress means there's not enough food.

People don't understand this. They think the reason why I'm not fit or look the way I want or feel the way I want is because my body's resisting. I just have to force this shit. You're not fighting hard enough. No, the truth is when you do this right, it feels like you encourage your body.

It took me so long to figure this out for myself. I figured it out for my clients way before I figured it out for myself. When I finally figured it out for myself, I remember when I finally figured it out, I remember going, oh, I'm not supposed to be super sore after every workout, when I finally figured it out, I remember going, oh, I'm not supposed to be super sore after every workout, and I'm improving, that was the problem.

That's why I became one of the biggest evangelists, because it's like, that completely was my mentality. I have to crush, I have to bury myself, I have to punish myself to emerge this super human version of myself. Like, that was my only go-to. It was just pain, I had pain. I think that's a common athlete perspective, I think,

for sure. Even pro athletes don't train that way. They have an in-season and off-season for a reason. If they train like that all the time. But there's a part of training for a professional sport that is- In-season, hell yeah. Well, I mean, and there's just mental toughness, right?

Oh, I see what you're saying. And so you're trying to obtain a, most people that are training like an athlete aren't technically trying to be an athlete. They're trying to train like an athlete because they think they want to look like an athlete. But what they're really doing is they're, what they're training like is the mental grit and part of the training for an athlete, not the balance, nutrition and exercise portion. The other thing that I would add in this, even though it's not

necessarily like a ultra intense workout is the creative workout. Right? So if your trainer is doing all these weird exercises all the time with you balancing on the stability ball, making up things you've never seen before, like, and I'm very much so guilty of this in my early years as a trainer, like trying to wow my client. That's an easy way to know they don't know how to try. Yeah, with the unique stuff. The truth is the best stuff is the most basic shit that everybody

listening to has seen before. The best movements, the best- That's full on the entertainment, yeah, that's brought up, right? Yeah. So I don't know where you want to put this category because it's not necessarily super intense as much as it is just creative. It's like if you are not seeing squat, deadlift, bench, overhead press in your programming, major red flag. And if it's full of all these neat exercises and your trainer's trying to convince you that they're this for this reason because it's cutting edge or it's new or it's so much better because it works all these other things at one time, like that's when you know that that's a red flag because you know they're not a lot of experience.

And to be clear, all, I mean, us in this room at one point did all, did most of this or a lot of this at least, right? We made these mistakes as trainers and coaches ourselves early on. But what got us out of it was we were concerned with our clients' progress. How do I get them to progress? How do I get them to continue to get better? And why is this not working? Why do I keep failing? And eventually you figure this stuff out and you figure out that these were all terrible red flags. Look, if you love the show,

you gotta check out some of our free guides. In fact, we have a free guide for hard gainers. If you're trying to build muscle and you find it difficult, download our hard gainer guide at mindpumpfree.com. You can also find us on social media. Justin is on Instagram at mindpumpjustin. I'm on Instagram at mindpumpdestephano and Adam is on Instagram at mind pump free.com. You can also find us on social media. Justin is on Instagram at mind pump Justin. I'm on Instagram at mind pump to Stefano and Adam is on Instagram at mind pump Adam.

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