Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2670: Pilates, Yoga, Running, CrossFit, & Strength Training Face Off!

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

2670: Pilates, Yoga, Running, CrossFit, and Strength Training Face Off! Breaking down the most popular forms of exercise, so you can figure out what is RIGHT for you. History, demographics, and the pros and cons. (1:15) Pilates (3:23) Yoga (11:55) Running (19:15) CrossFit (24:07) Strength training (30:04) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Code MINDPUMP for buy one, get one 50% off for new customers, and 20% cash back for returning customers! ** August Special: MAPS 15 50% off! ** Code MUSCLE50 at checkout ** Pilates | Benefits, Techniques & History History of Yoga: Understanding Its Rich History Yoga - statistics & facts | Statista An Introduction to Running The Complete Book of Running Born to Run – Secrets of the Tarahumara – Runner’s World The History of CrossFit: Origins, Growth, and Cultural Impact How the Ancient World Lifted Weights - BarBend Mind Pump #1835: Why Resistance Training Is the Best Form of Exercise for Fat Loss and Overall Health Mind Pump #2385: Five Reasons Why You Should Hire a Trainer Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump, Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast in history. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode. We go through the most popular forms of exercise. We break them down so you can figure out what is right for you.

Now, this episode was brought to you by a sponsor, Legion. supplements. They make the best supplements for athletic performance, fat loss, muscle building. Lots of integrity. What the bag says, the bottle says, is in their third-party testing. One of my favorite products is their egg protein powder. I can't have dairy. So I go with their egg protein, super high-quality protein. If you go to buylegeon.com, that's B-Y-L-E-G-I-O-N.com, forward slash mind pump. Use the code mine pump. You can buy one, get one 50% off if you're a new customer, and 20% cash back. for returning customers, go check it out.

We also have a sale this month. Maps 15 minutes is 50% off. Head over to Maps.15minutes.com. Use the code Muscle 50 for the discount. Here comes a show. All right, here's what we did. We took the most popular forms of exercise, and we break them down,

and we compare them so you can decide which one's best for you. What are they? Pilates, yoga, running, CrossFit, and strength training. We're going to talk about the history, the demographics, the pros and the cons. We're going to break it down for you so you can decide what's best for you. No jazzercise?

Is this really top five? Yeah. It is. Yes, it is. Oh, interesting. These are the top ones. And I want to open by saying this, and this is just true, okay? The one that you're most likely to do consistently, the one that you enjoy the most is the best form of exercise.

So regardless of what we say, what I don't want to do is I don't want to discourage anybody. I don't want you to like, you love yoga or you love play. you've been doing it forever, it's consistent. And then you listen to this, and we tell you the cons. You're like, oh, okay. We're not trying to talk them out of it. No, no, no, no. Being active, so long as it's appropriate, right,

so long as it's not overdone or it's hurting you is great. That's like 90% of it. Now, the other 10% is the pros and cons. And if you're indifferent, if you're like a lot of people where you're not really a fitness fanatic, you don't have a huge love for exercise. You're just like, hey, I just want to know which one to pick. That's going to give me the best results for what I'm looking for. Then this episode will be quite a lot.

the benefits. So in other words, I'm not turning, I don't want to turn this into like a. We're not bashing. Yeah. We have our favorites, but that's based off of, you know, ROI and all that stuff. But again, if you love it and you're doing it and you're not hurting yourself and it's appropriate, like go for it and continue doing it. And it's a great way to sit the table for this conversation because anytime we do anything like this where we talk about different modalities, you inevitably piss off somebody who's so bought into that. And I think that's such a great point. that, listen, if you, and I always would tell someone like this, I don't care, name the modality. If you love it, you've been doing it for years, I'm not trying to discourage

you from doing it. But if you ask me a question of what's the best this or what, you know, and you ask something like that, and I'm going to. For a specific result. Right. We have an answer. So I do think this is great. This is really then geared towards people that are looking to get started at maybe one of these and want to know what we think is the best. That's right. That's right. So we'll start with Pilates. Now Pilates, Pilates exploded in recent times. This really got popular, I would say, probably the last 20 years. I don't remember it being a really a form of exercise. A lot of people did.

Where, like, L.A. or where do you think the origin was? Yeah, so let's go with the history. It's actually an old form of exercise. It was actually originated in the early 1900s. There was a guy named Joseph. What was his name? That was his last name. Oh, hey.

And he was a frail child. He had asthma, rickets. He was kind of, by the way, a lot of the origins of exercise methodology start with somebody who had to, like, their own health problems. And this was one of them. And his physical foundation or philosophical foundation, I mean, he believed in good posture. He talked about strengthening the powerhouse, which was the core, which is kind of cool.

Like, you know, back in the early 1990s, he was talking about the core musculature and how important it was when, you know, that didn't start happening in mainstream fitness for a long time. It wasn't until the 90s. People even said, yeah. I was going to say 80s, but yeah, probably 90s. Yeah. He was inspired by Greek statues. He liked balance. And so he developed this form of exercise. And it was actually used. He actually used it to rehabilitate people. Soldiers in particular, World War I. So he was intern in England as a German national. And this is when he started using it to help people strengthen their bodies. And he would use bed springs. So he understood resistance training. He just used bed springs as a way to strengthen. As a way to load or how would you use the springs to load? Because they're, because of the resistance. That's right.

Not lifting them, but rather using that. Like a resistance band. Okay. In essence. It didn't start taking off till later. This was when his studios were near dance studios. And dancers really took to Pilates. So if you're familiar with Pilates and the movements, it does mirror the movements and the lines that you'll see in a lot of dance.

I mean, it makes sense because. core and posture are at the foundation of why he did this. And long lines, right, pointing your toes and doing certain positions. Like, dance is very technical. It's not just strength. You have to have the technique. And so Pilates just, it was like a perfect segue into the space. And that's really how it got popular.

Yeah. Also, I would make the case, too, that especially, you know, 30, 20, 30 years ago, that look was a look that a lot of women wanted to. Like you, in fact, I remember getting clients that said, I like the dancer look, you know, the long muscle bellies lean, tall. That was like someone who would describe that as a look they wanted to aspire to. So it makes sense that it was rooted in core, posture, it attracted dancers, and that dancer look was a look that for many years or even decades, women would aspire to look like. I'm so glad he said that. So we're going to dispel a myth right now.

When you look at top performers or athletes in any given field, what you're looking at is a person who's genetically built to do well at that sport, plus their training. So in other words, you look at top swimmers. What you always see are shorter legs, broad backs, wide shoulders, flat a rib cage. Now, that doesn't mean swimming will make you look like that. It just means at that level, what you're going to find at that level is their body type best. That's right. So training with Pilates isn't going to make you look like a Russian ballerina. It's not going to create long muscle bellies.

That's all genetic. No different than crossfittings and not make you look like the top crossfitter or the best runner or said modality. That's right. Even bodybuilding, right? You can train like a pro bodybuilder. You're probably not going to look like a pro bodybuilder because they were born to look a particular way. And then they enhanced it with training. Now the demographics of Pilates,

as you would probably guess, about 60 to 75% female. I actually would have guessed even higher. I know. If you made me guess, I would have said high. I would have thought higher too. Interesting. I haven't known, I don't think I've known a single guy,

maybe one who did some Pilates, but not consistently. But when I looked up the demographics on, and I looked it up online and what they report, it's about 60 to 75%. Interesting. I would say probably 75%.

Yeah, I don't know me. And I've gone to some Pilates studios. I had a couple trainers that worked for me that also taught it and they invited me to classes and I was like the only guy Yeah, I'm not as familiar I know, so did Barr come after that

is because of it's like a combination of that with dance? No, Barr came out. As far as I know, Barr came after, but... Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. And I know they're similar. They're similar, but yeah, just... Now, the other demographic...

They're kind of not... Dance posing. Kind of very different. Similar in the way they advertise themselves. Okay, maybe advertising-wise, but they're The training is way different. Yeah. Pilates use a reformer.

Although you have mat Pilates. You know, there's Pilates that's done on a mat without a reformer. Now, the other demographics, about 40% are between 30 to 50, 35% over 50. It's an actually older demographic.

That makes sense, too. Than other forms of exercise. Especially, again, going back to core posture focused. I mean, remember training a lot of advanced age clients. Most clients, not all,

clients in advanced age, care more about posture and chronic pain and how they feel opposed to how they look. That's right. So they're aware that getting into this may not be the best form to build a bunch of muscle, but if it makes them feel a lot better, then, so that makes a lot of sense. And we'll get there because I think there's some reasons why. It's a higher income demographic, Pilate classes, especially with former classes. Is it expensive?

Expensive. Okay. Yeah. So it's a higher income. Now, here's why I think you see the older demographic, you know, go towards Pilates. One of the pros of Pilates is it tends to not be an over-intensified form of exercise. Very low risk. It's low risk.

And although Pilates can be intense, so I know people want to have Pilates instructor's like, you come take a class. Yeah, yeah. Don't misrepresent what I said. Low risk is an easy. I didn't say that. You know, low risk is a good thing. It means that it's less likely to injure somebody doing. something like that. In an intense Pilates class tends to be less stressful than an intense

run or intense, definitely less than intense CrossFit, right? It tends to produce less stress in the body. So people in that age group, you know, 30 to 50, this is like the most stressful time of your life. Kids, you got mortgage. And it's not going to beat the crap out of you like other forms of exercise might actually promote. It is good for joint stability because of the shortened movements, the lengthened positions. So it is good at creating stability around a joint. Now, the cons, it's not a great athletic performance builder. Doesn't really build a lot of muscle and strength.

I know Pilates will advertise as building strength. The strength that you build from it is pretty specific to the movements. And you don't get a lot of carryover like you would with other forms of exercise. Well, especially when you are comparing it to the other modemps. that we're going to talk to. That's right. Or talk about. I mean, aside from running and yoga, it's probably ranked at the low.

In fact, if you were to rank those, did you do that? Did you rank like... We could talk about that as we go through. Yeah, I think we should. As we go through since you bring it... Because obviously, building muscle and performance is a key goal for most people, right? Even if you want fat loss, muscle building is great for fat loss. Right.

So it's not a great fat loss form of exercise, but I will say this. Most forms of exercise, if not all of them are not great, quote-unquote, fat loss. it's typically diet that plays the biggest role. So even the best form of exercise for fat loss, which will get to, which is strength training. If you don't really work with your diet, it's going to be difficult to lose a lot of money.

Because diet plays the biggest role. It's got a good group support. You'll find this with all the group classes. A lot of people thrive on that, that social component. I'm not one of those people, but for a lot of people, what gets them to show up.

That's right, is the group. There's just people in there. And then we said core stability. But when it comes to muscle building, athletic performance, stamina, it's pretty limited in that sense. So I would say that's those are the biggest cons. Then we get to yoga. Now, yoga is interesting. It's a very old practice.

Very, very old practice. It was originally designed as a form of exercise and movement to help people meditate longer. So people did yoga because. origin of it? The origin was, can I sit in this, you know, meditative position or posture for hours and hours and hours and hours at a time? And yoga was designed to be able to, to be able to do that for people. So I see really the origin of it. It didn't become a form of like workout or exercise where it was separated from the, the yoga, you know, the spiritual practice of yoga that was connected to meditation until a much later.

This got popular, probably, I remember hearing about it in the 90s when we were training and it really started to take off. Yeah. Well, you would say after that even, huh? I remember being pop. Wasn't it, wasn't it in the 80s or 90s when the popular yogi guy that got really, like, famous? Oh, that was like the cult leader? Yes, yes.

Yeah, well, I just, I remember, so even like the Beatles made their travel. to India and then had this whole experience and I think you know I have to feel like some of the culture from that in the 70s kind of maybe brought it over and then started to kind of build again that was really that was less yoga more more spiritual yes that was about meditation and the kind of the spiritual aspect in fact if you go to yoga classes today they often will include that still where you're you know there's an intention and so there's still that spiritual kind of practice now yoga has gotten very westernized. You have power yoga, strength yoga.

Yeah, yoga with weights. Because it's so popular. Yeah. And that's what the fitness industry does. It'll take something popular and then turn it into something completely different. Pie yo, they'll combine the last. Yeah, that's a lot of yoga.

Yeah. Puppy yoga is, I'd be up for that. Yeah, the demographic, 70% female. This is mostly female, 55% 18 to 34 years old. It is a higher income. Yoga studios are expensive. That's it. That's 18 to 34 year olds.

It's a majority. You have a wide range, but a majority are between 18 to 34. It's younger than I would anticipate. Yeah. So did I. I thought it might have been a little bit older. Yeah.

But it's in that age group. And it brought us, I mean, here's how popular yoga is. Yoga brought us an entire category of workout clothes. I know yoga pants. Oh, yeah.

I mean, you know, Lulu Lemon, was connected to yoga. And then it became like a thing. Now this is like a clothing, you know, a piece of clothing people wear all the time. So I'm generally speaking,

I'm a big fan of clients doing it. In fact, clients that I had that were already doing it, complimented strength training so well. Yes, it's a great form of exercise that complement others. Yes.

And so I never, anytime I had a client doing it, I always encouraged them to continue doing it. And this is even before my knowledge around mobility, practices and thing, corrective work that we started to do later in our career and understand, which I would argue is just a more specific type of yoga, right, where you're doing very specific movements to that client based off of their needs and their, their issues, right?

So, but it does such a good general stroke of movements that, and I think this is why it does so well is most people will go to it and benefit from it. They'll do it and go, oh, my God, I feel amazing. It addresses what I saw as a trainer, like come in, one of the big, problems I saw is like a lot of people just aren't in their own body and you know it really like builds that body awareness and that intrinsic control and so to be able to have control to hold poses to understand you know all these ranges of motion you don't express and like how important they are I think it's great that's such a good point Justin I're taking me back to remembering like new clients that I would get that were like big into yoga like I actually had a much easier time teaching exercises

and movements to clients that had a yoga background. They have great queuing. Yes, because they cued really well. Very good cue. They understand core really well and stability. And those are all foundations to strength training principles. Yep. So if you have good strong core, you have good mobility, good range of motion, good connectivity.

That translates really well and good queuing, right? It translates really well. And we're talking to traditional like vinyasa flow, maybe even yin yoga, but more of that vinyasa flow. And Justin, what you said was. so, right? Like, a good yoga instructor, it's not stretching. Some people who've never done yoga think, oh, you're just stretching. No, no, no. You are intentional. And the instructors cue you in a particular way. But the cues they'll use, we'll say things like draw your energy out against the mat or

pull this in here or tuck here. And so you're right. It really does. And it's good for flexibility, obviously. Here's the biggest pro with yoga. It tends to be recuperative, at least the traditional forms. Now, you can go do power yoga, which I don't even consider yoga. That's just, you're trying to make it something else. You know, that's probably a good argument, Sal, for also why it gained its popularity when it gained its popularity. Totally. Here we are on the rise of stress, technology, all this, things like that.

Whereas other forms of exercise glorify beating the crap out of yourself. They'd go to yoga and they'd feel good. What a good point. Probably a big reason why it had such a rise in the last couple decades. It's the form of exercise. I would recommend my clients who wanted to do more activity, but who also I identified We're just, the stress is too high. It's too high to have you go do.

Which is super common for all of us in the Silicon Valley. That's right. In the Silicon Valley, you got a lot of men and women that grind high stress type jobs. Yoga seemed to be a really good answer to. Totally. And it's not uncommon. I know this. My wife was a yoga instructor and I did it for a little while.

Like you go in these classes, it's not uncommon to see people get emotional in a yoga class because they're in their body. These are people who push everything out all the time at work. stress, go, go, go. And then they're in there and they're focusing on their breath. Feeling everything. And they're slowing down. And you see people crying next to you.

The interesting point to be made here is that it's still 70% female. I would make the case that far more men would benefit from this. Totally. Yeah. You know. Totally. I think that this is a thing that it's flipped on who's attracted to it. In fact, I would make the case.

I would make the case that a large portion of my, you know, Yoga females would benefit from moving a little bit away and more strength and exercises that stress the body a little bit differently and more of my men that would probably benefit from that. Now, it's not a great way to build muscle. It's not a great way to build athletic performance. You get some strength stamina a little bit. And if you do yoga a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, and you don't combine it with strength

training, you can actually, in some areas, cause instability because of the, the, the, the, the positions that you're holding for a long pretty time. I've had yoga instructors who've had hip issues that hired me to do strength training with them to solve some of those hip issues. Next up is running probably the most popular form of exercise for decades. Yeah, okay. Still is. Yes. And the history of running. This is the ready set go. I'm going to get in shape. That's it. And the history of running, I mean, I don't know, how far back can you go? This is like, this is, running's interesting because it's the one physical activity that humans actually outperform almost any other animal out.

Okay, so if you were to look at humans physically, we're pretty weak. Like, you put us out in the wild and you have us compete against other animals. We're going to get our butt kick. One thing that we do better than most is run for distance. Run for distance and throw. Yeah, and throw. That's the other one, right? But running for distance is we're actually built.

You can argue we're built to run. We have these big knee joints, these huge glute muscles. You look at other primates, they have these tiny little glutes. We have these big glutes. We're on two legs. Evolutionary scientists would say it was because we evolved to become apex predators so we could throw and out trek or outrun animals.

There is an old race. I don't know if they do it anymore, but there was a race where a human would race a horse for distance and 50% of time the human would win, which is pretty wild when you think about that because of our ability. And we sweat so we could really let off heat really well. This is a 50-50 male-female.

It's really, really split with the demographic. 60% are between 30 to 49. Definitely that older. Older, huh? Yeah, yeah. I think, you know why I think this is? I think it's because there's a myth with running. And I just, in fact, I just sold the myth a little bit by saying we were built to run.

There's a myth that it's a very simple, basic, you don't need a lot of technique, just go run. I think the age thing speaks more to the famous book in the 70s. That probably, that's the running revolution. Yeah. I mean, that was the 70s, mid-70s or late 70s when that was, Doug. Yeah. Somewhere in that time. So that would put most these people in their, you know, 40s that would probably be have read this book.

Maybe some of them in their 30s now. Complete, complete book of running, 1977. 77. Yeah, it was that book. That was a huge moment in time, right? Because prior to that, you wouldn't just see people running on the street. No, unless you were in, like, L.A. or something. And then suddenly everybody started running.

Running shoes exploded. Rocky came out, by the way. That was another movie. that really pushed, you know, running to the forefront. Yeah. So you're probably right. But again, I think the other reason is people look at running. They stopped running when they were kids.

Then they become 44 or 38. And they're like, oh, I need to lose weight. I think I'll just go work out and I'll just go run. And there's a myth around that because although our bodies are built to run, if you stop running for a long time, you don't know how to run. Yeah. So the technique. Yeah, dude.

So it's great for endurance. great for stamina. One of the biggest cons, it's the highest injury risk. Well, it also, it also, repetitive stress. I think another point to be made is, and you have it up there, is it's middle income, so it's low barrier. I mean, the moment you decide, I need to make a change, I need to get in shape, I need to lose fat, say, insert goal. Like, you literally can lace up your shoes and go outside and start doing it, which I imagine is a huge factor that plays a role because how many people said they were going to go to the gym or said they're going to sign up for Pilates and never showed up.

Yeah. You know, because they had to go find a class. They had to go pay the bill. This is like, I'll just run one ever. Yeah, it's just like, I need to change. I'm like, I go literally, I mean, how many people just thought about it? And then Witt and actually just did it right away. Yes, yes.

Again, great. One of the best, if you want that steady state endurance running is at the top. I mean, any sport that requires endurance incorporates some form of running, okay, as part of their training. The problem is, is it's technical. if you don't have good technique and you go run to fatigue. First off, your technique already is terrible. Then when you get tired, technique gets even worse. And the injury risk on running is the highest.

It's actually the highest injury risk of all traditional forms of exercise. You'd have to go to extreme sports to find higher injury risk. It also promotes muscle loss. If you run a lot, especially combined with a calorie deficit because you're trying to lose weight, your body tries to become a better endurance machine. And so it pairs down this expensive calorie burning, you know, tissue called muscle. So you end up, you can end up with this kind of skinny fat type of body that has a lot of stamina and endurance. Your joints just take a beating.

Yes. And it's also a stressful on the body. It's one of the thing about walking right now. Like running ends up being a very high, high stress on the body. It was the form of that, unless a client loved running and then hired me, if I had a client, it's like, hey, I want to also start running. I almost, I almost always discouraged them. No, no, no, no, don't add running to what we're doing, right? It's going to add too much stress to your body, and it's not going to be good.

It's not going to be good. Next up, we have CrossFit. CrossFit's interesting. This is a newer form of exercise. We were around when it really took off. It was 2001. And it was here. Santa Cruz.

Yeah, it was in my backyard. That's right. Great Glassman, who was a gymnast. and had understood strength, training a bunch of things. He wanted to create a form of exercise that was multidisciplinary. That kind of gave you everything. And so, you know, he came up with this idea of CrossFit. It's about 60% female, which I find interesting.

I thought it would be 50-50. Yeah, that's what it said. I didn't know that. Yeah, it was a little bit more. I would have guessed more meat of male. Is that recently or, yeah, did that swing over the years? That's recent. 40%.

the biggest age group that does CrossFit 25 to 35, although you have kind of a broad range. Higher income, CrossFit boxes are expensive. Here's what's interesting about CrossFit. It went from being essentially invented to becoming one of the most influential popular form of exercise in a very, like in a decade. Probably the fastest.

It was so influential. Look, we've been in gyms forever. It influenced all strength training. Yeah. CrossFit made people squat and deadlift. It made weightlifting a normal thing. Do you remember Jim Jones? Yeah.

Yeah. That was even before CrossFit. Yeah, yeah, it was. That's what they were using. They used for a Spartan movie. Oh, yeah. So the original Spartan movie trained Jim Jones, which was like pre-crossFit. Yeah.

That was back, yeah, when they just started doing the warehouse thing and like low-tech, high-effect kind of stuff. Yeah. So it's like, it was interesting because I was very much immersed. in all of that in terms of unconventional training and also using like tires and you know real old school method stuff and then yeah the crosswood just put it all together in one I mean modality back to your point about how much it changed the industry I mean it changed the the blueprint and the the layout of every gym that's right like I mean even if you were a commercial gym that had nothing to do with CrossFit you changed your gym because it got that popular

Squat racks everywhere all of a sudden. Bumper plates everywhere. Everybody has artificial turf now in their gyms. That was CrossFit. Yeah. Now, you might be thinking if you're listening to this. Well, it's because it was so effective. That's not why CrossFit took over the fit.

CrossFit took over. They did the best community. They did the best community. And this is what people need to understand. Yes. This is what gym owners need to understand is that if you want to do great, the most important thing you can do is culture. It's more important than your equipment.

It's more important than anything. It's the culture. And CrossFit nailed it with culture. And they pretty. strongest one out there. They proved that. They proved they could do a concrete dungeon with no AC with minimal with minimal equipment if they built a good culture. And they did a great job. Incredible culture. And credit words do, like effective exercises. Yes. There was a lot of effective exercise. When you talk about, and I know you're not there yet,

you get ahead of you, but you know, you talk about building muscle, burning body fat, things that are metabolic. I mean, they win this category so far. So far what we've, talked about. They did the best exercise. Building the ultimate physique, both metabolically, physically, they win right here. And they did a great job with that.

They did. Now, what are the cons? It is just inappropriate for most people. Well, there's a reason why this of all the categories goes 25 to 35. Yeah. Because by about 35, you go like, oh, I can't do this shit forever.

It's feeling good. The culture, as great as the culture is, the one flaw with the culture is its intensity, celebrating it's like beat yourself go drive to the point that their mascot was a rabdo clown it was a clown throwing out they try to hide that you know that right of course it was bad for pub dude it was real bad for pub later on it was cool it was a badge of honor thing and it's it's funny because it appealed to a lot of ex-athletes military you know people that hardcore people yeah hardcore and crazy and so it was like you know they just wore it as a badge of honor but uh yeah in terms of

sustainability and all that, yeah, I would definitely put a con on there. I almost always, unless you love it, it's your favorite thing or whatever, I almost always discourage people from doing CrossFit as a form of exercise. And people know that. We talk about all the time. It's just about beating the crap out of yourself. And yeah, they got great exercises, great culture. Now, there's a lot of CrossFit boxes now that try to move away from that.

Yeah, but that just proves your point right there. Even more, it's like it's a lot of times when we, and any time we mention that we always get somebody, DMs and pushbacks. Well, mine's different. It's like, yeah, well, it's getting less CrossFit. That's why. Yeah.

Like, Hierox is like the light version. Yeah, they just, they, over time, I think they've, they've listened and they've seen. And so they, you know, you have. And kudos to the owners that are modifying and changing it to make it better. You know what I'm saying? It still does just, you know, for the listener, it does not equal a superior way of strength training. No.

Not by any stretch of the means at all. And there's a reason why it's a, it's attracted. to the young man and woman's game because you're a little more resilient at that age and you can handle that beating at that high of a level. So it's not idea. That'd be the cons. It's just inappropriate for most people.

Right. I mean, just almost every client. And I remember going through this, long before it became trendy and everybody else. You know, Justin, guys like me were in our gym doing this before it was popular. And I mean, that was in my 20s. And so I thought it was fun and cool.

But I never took that and went like, I'm going to train my clients this way. I'd already train enough people to know, like, oh, like, I can't train it. I don't have a single client that this would be able for. It didn't make sense for General Pop. No, it didn't at all. It was just like, this is, this is when I looked at my client list, I'm like, yeah, no, Karen is not going to do that. I'm like, she'll never come back.

It's not going to work. Last we have strength training. The history of strength training goes back really far. There's evidence of gladiators using resistance to build their bodies up. It didn't turn into like the kind of. of strength training that we know until the like late you know early 1900s uh when you saw kind of the golden it was called bronze era yeah where they made barbells and dumbbells and and kettlebells um so strength training's been around for a little while it's about 50 50 male female which is awesome

which is cool because that was not it was like 80 20 when we were trainers yes in the 90s you go in a freewood area and it was like 80 20 90 10 it was easily that super easy that's a really cool stat to see that's huge swing Huge swing. 50% between 18 to 34. Which is also cool too. So two big stats I saw when you wrote that up there that I thought was really interesting because I hadn't looked at this in a long time.

The fact that it's a 50-50 split between mail and film is so awesome. Because that was definitely major flip-flot or like 80-20 or 90-10 men when we first started. And then even as young as 18, so 50% are 18 to 34. So this is the youngest, which is a really cool sign. It does sound like the message is getting. out. It is. Now, the pros, I mean, for ROI, right, return on investment. What I mean by that is the time spent with the results you're going to get. If the results you're looking for, or health, longevity, body composition change. Strength, metabolic. Nothing changed. Nothing beats strength training.

Nothing. And one of the reasons why is it's the most individualizable form of exercise of all the ones we talked about. CrossFit is a style. Yoga is a style. Pilates is a style. Running. Strength training is so modifiable. It's used in rehab with people who had terrible injuries or deconditioned. You can do it for athletic performance with super athletes. You can do it for bodybuilding. It's incredibly individualizable. And it's funny because when you look at the age demographics,

of all the forms of exercise, it's the most appropriate for every age group. If you were to give me a child and tell me, I would do a form of strength training. If you were to give me an really old person, it would be a form of strength training. Strength training is so individualizable. It's great for muscle and fat loss.

For aesthetic change, you want to change the way your body looks. It's as close as you can get to being a sculptor. Well, I think that's such an important point to really nail home too, because at least in my experience, most of the clients that hired me or came to me wanted to sculpt their physique. Whether they said it that way or not, that's what they were trying to do.

When someone comes in and says, I want to lose as much body fat as I can and build a body or I have these body parts they are not happy with and they want to look a certain way. That's sculpting. Right. That's what sculpting is to take a body part you're unhappy with and develop it or lose body fat in areas or not look a different way, all the above. Like that is, that's strength training. That's right. I mean, that's true strength training. I think what really, you know, it leaped beyond just like what people used to think of it mainly as like bodybuilding or like.

an athletic pursuit where now people are realizing for just everyday average person in their health concerns. This addresses it better than all the rest of them because, too, you know, building muscle, we realize, like, we're, the fact that we're under muscled is contributing to a lot of these ailments that we see. If you were to do one hour of exercise a week and you wanted the biggest return for health and longevity, nothing comes close to stranger, just for health and longevity, not bodybuilding, not powerlifting, but just for longevity. the data shows this. Now, the, the biggest con of this, of all the ones we've listed, this is the one that

you probably want a trainer to teach you and go through because all the rest, you could lace up your, and even though you probably shouldn't lace up your shoes, you go for a run, but you, even a CrossFit, you go to a class. There's instruction and other people where with strength training, you be, and some people make the mistake, just like lacing up the shoes and going running, of just going to the gym and start doing a bunch of exercises but this one you want to probably have someone professionally put something together for you to reap the most benefits it's it because it's so it's so the the pro of it being so individualizable so modifiable is also a con right it also requires

workout programming i mean there are i if i were to list every strength training exercise or every exercise that could be used for strength training i mean it'd be a list that would be thousands of exercises long each one can be performed performed differently to depending on what you're looking for. Each one can be regressed or progressed. Then there's programming that includes reps and sets, and then you look at the week and rest periods on. And it's just like, what do I do with all this?

So the con is it requires the most instruction. But I will say this. This is why the number one form of exercise used by trainers is strength training. It's because it's so effective, but also because that's where you need a trainer. So if this is what you're interested in, invest in a coach or a trainer for a show, short period of time, a couple months, a few months, and get those basics down, and then the

ROI is just absolutely. Just keep building from there. That's it. Look, if you like our podcast, come find us on Instagram, Mind Pump Media. We'll see you there. Thank you for listening to Mind 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 Superbundle at Mindpumpmedia.com.

The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maths 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 and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back 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 Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for

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