Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - The “Mike & Mark (Rippetoe) Show" on Death Threats, Women’s Soccer, Necrophilia (??), and More

Episode Date: August 12, 2019

Last month, I flew out to Wichita Falls, Texas, to hang out with Mr. Starting Strength, Mark Rippetoe, and go on his podcast, Starting Strength Radio. I’ve been a fan of Mark’s work for a long time, I’ve had him on my podcast a number of times, and over the years, we’ve become buddies. Mark even wrote the foreword to the latest editions of my books Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, which I think is pretty cool as Starting Strength was the first book to turn me onto proper training techniques. Now, in this interview we go all over the place, ranging from writing to how I lost close to a million dollars in Amazon sales, Google’s aggressive algorithm updates, the women’s soccer pay “scandal,” and more, so if you’re here strictly for practical and educational material, this isn’t for you. But if you’re interested in hearing Mark and I chew the fat for a bit, tell some jokes, share some war stories, and the like, keep listening. 4:09 - Tell us about your new books 14:21 - How’s your business doing? 16:32 - What happened to Pulse on Amazon? 19:44 - Tell us about Google’s updates and how they’ve affected the health and fitness space. 21:49 - What are your thoughts on Planet Fitness? 31:48 - What should people be doing in the gym? 37:47 - What’s a simple way to easily start losing weight? 40:49 - What’s the most pervasive problem in body composition? 44:29 - What’s your take on vegan bodybuilding? 46:00 - Fake natties and FFMI 51:52 - Why are steroids illegal? 54:31 - What do you think of the equal pay soccer scandal? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.legionathletics.com/signup/

Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please consider checking out my VIP one-on-one coaching service where we can help you get in the best shape of your life. My team and I have helped people of all ages, circumstances, and needs. So no matter how complicated or maybe even hopeless you might think your situation is, we will figure it out and we will get you results. Every diet and every training program is 100% custom. We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service and discounts on supplements and other products, and the list of benefits goes on and on. So to learn more, head over to www.legionathletics.com slash coaching. That's legionathletics.com slash coaching and schedule your free consultation call. I should also mention that there is usually a wait list and new slots do fill up very quickly. So do not wait. If this sounds even remotely interesting to you, go ahead and schedule your call now. Again, that URL is legionathletics.com slash coaching. Hello, hello, boys and ghouls. I am Mike Matthews,

and this is the Muscle for Life podcast. Welcome, welcome. So this episode is a little bit different because last month I flew out to Wichita Falls over in Texas to hang out with Mr. Starting Strength himself, Mark Riboteau, and to go on his podcast, Starting Strength Radio, which he records live in his little studio. Now, I have been a fan of Mark's work for a long time. His book, Starting Strength, was the first good book on training that I've read, and it was the first book to turn me on to proper training techniques. And I've had Mark on my podcast here a number of times, and those episodes are always popular, always some of the most popular, actually, once they've sat in the feed for a bit and racked up plays. And over the years, we've also become buddies. In fact, Mark even wrote the foreword to the

newest editions of my books, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger and Thinner, Leaner, Stronger, which I think is pretty cool, considering that his book, again, was the first aha for me. The first big training aha came from Starting Strength. Now, this episode is an interview, of course, that we did on his show. And we go all over the place, ranging from writing new editions of books, because he has updated starting strength a number of times over the years, and how I lost close to a million dollars in Amazon sales. That was fun. Google's aggressive algorithm updates. That's also fun. The women's soccer pay scandal and more. So as you can tell, it is not practical or educational per se. So if that's really why you are here and why you listen to my show, you might not find this one too interesting. But if you are interested more in just hearing Mark and I chew the fat for a bit, tell some jokes, share some war stories,

and the like, then I think you will find this episode at least amusing. So, here it is. Welcome back to Starting Strength Radio. We're here with our friend Mike Matthews. Michael, thank you so much for flying out here to talk to us. Let's have a long, awkward handshake. Yes, in fact, but it's so much fun. Your hands are big. My hands are not big.

My hands are sweaty, too, because it's 108 today or something like that. Well, Mike's here as our guest. We're going to talk to Mike about all kinds of stuff today. But first, I wanted to let him tell everybody about his new book. It's not really a new book. Yeah, it's a new edition. It's a new edition of the book. So let's have it.

Yeah, so in 2012, maybe I'll just tell it as a little bit of a story so it's interesting. So I'm saying buy my book, which is on sale for 99 cents right now, Kendall. Stop. Yeah, yeah. No, but so in 2012, I published a book called Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, obviously for men. And it was kind of just the book I wish someone would have given me back when I was like 17, right? The basics of diet, nutrition, exercise, right? How to get abs, stuff like that.

Right. Abs are important. They are to some people. stuff like that. Right. Abs are important. They are to some people. Plus narcissists out there, they're important. Now, Mike, that's so stupid. You're the least narcissistic person in the – for a guy with abs, you don't know anything about narcissism. We do. I promise.

We all know about narcissism, and you ain't him. All right? That's part of my business. man i'm a fitness i'm a fitness guy and anyways that book became popular and started selling quite well and that was actually my my entrance into the fitness space was via that book and then along the way i wrote a second edition based on just feedback i was getting from people my own list of things as i continue to you learn shit you put it in another. And be like, that would be good to change, add, remove, blah, blah, blah. Exactly.

And then so four years ago, the second edition had come out. So it had been four years since I had updated it. And the list just got long enough to where it made sense to do it again. Right. And so funny. So what I thought was going to be, I don't know how this was for you, but what I thought was going to be more an editorial thing where I was going to get into the second edition and read through it. Again, change things, go through my little checklist. Well, it wasn't actually that little, maybe like 25 items that

have just things I wanted to do. But as I started to read it. It's your notes list. We all have that. Yeah, exactly. But as I started to read through the second edition, I just hated it. I just didn't like my voice. I didn't like how I was explaining things. I didn't like how the book was organized, even though, sure, it was popular and it had a lot of good reviews. And it's not that it was a bad book. This sounds real familiar. But that's a good sign, right? It means that, I mean, I would say that it would be concerning professionally if that was not the case.

If you could look at something you wrote four years ago and still be like, yeah, that's really fucking good. Man, I hadn't learned a damn thing since then. Yeah, that's what that means, right? I haven't seen anything new. Yeah, or I haven't improved at all as a writer or communicator. So basically, as I was getting into it, I just was like, I need to kind of, not the information I like, the core information, but I need to reorganize this and rewrite it from scratch. And so that's what I did. Oh, God, I can't even open the first edition. Yeah.

Can't read it. Can't stand it. Don't want to look at it. Hate that I've got it on my shelf. Yep. It's an embarrassing mess. But it has your name on it. I understand.

It has my name on it. I feel the same way about the first editions. Oh, you just can't. They're unreadable at this point. Look, boys and girls, if you aren't learning things, just go away. You're not helping us out here. If you're not learning anything, if you haven't changed an opinion over the past 10 years that you once held as an irrefutable, existential, all-revolving truth, then you're not thinking very hard. And this is just what happens.

You learn, you improve, and you'd better if you intend to remain Professionally respected now you relevant you had better say I was wrong Yeah And this is right now and if you won't do that There have been a lot of people in this business that won't do this and a lot of people don't they just don't like to do It at all personally, you know, I said that you know Yeah It seems like one of their over their primary objectives is to assert how right they are at all times.

Narcissism. There it is, isn't it? It's a narcissism. It's just if you can't be wrong. Or just emotionality. Every bad thing that ever happens is somebody else's fault. If you are not capable of admitting that you did something wrong, you're just not going to be useful to many people. You know, people learn.

Everybody fucks things up. And people, it's not like people, I mean, I haven't experienced this where people, they don't give me a hard time where sometimes people email and ask about things that have changed. And I'll say, like, that's what I thought back then. Right. And I don't think that my reasoning was, like, wildly off base. But it's just what you knew at the time. And it happens to be then. Right. And I don't think that my reasoning was like wildly off base, but it's just what you knew at the time. And it happens to be wrong. Exactly. I've done that dozens and dozens of times and people appreciate that. Yeah. I know from interacting with people that they appreciate a guy who will say, yeah, that was, that was not right. I've learned better

and here's the new shit. And that's what new additions are for yep and so long as you get the most important things mostly right most of the time then you're going to be doing well by people obviously there are certain things that you would not want to get wrong right they you know they could in the case of exercising dangerous exactly but a lot of the things though that when you're getting into the more extraneous stuff the fringe fringe stuff that is shifting. I mean, there's been in the last four years, quite a bit of, I think of with the exercise side of things, a bit of research that now, because there was a time a few years ago when frequency was like the thing, right? And people were saying that if you're not training every major muscle group,

at least three times a week, then you're an idiot and you're probably not going to make any gains. Right. And so, you know so that was once a strong opinion. I never had that opinion. But just a few years ago, there were people that have credentials, they have acronyms after their name and stuff. Well, who doesn't have those? But they were saying those things, and there's no question now that that's wrong, for example. Well, one of the things I think we've accomplished is that we've demonstrated conclusively that a lot of that depends on how long you've been training and how you've been training previously.

Because I squat once a week, but I wouldn't put a novice on it. I'm post-advanced. I'm staving off death training is what I am doing. training is what I am doing. And 63 year old guy like me, that's on the downhill slide. That's about ready to be set out for the polar bears to eat his ass. I'm in Texas. Yeah.

You know, they'll probably move me to Canada, move me to Saskatchewan. I can't concentration camp, a polar bear camp. Yes, but I'm not going to train the way a novice does. So, you know, all that frequency, all that stuff has always been dependent on how long you've been training

and what your previous training history has done to your physiology. I think also what you're trying to get out of your training, too. Yes. If you're staving off death, I'm not a competitor anymore. I don't care how much I squat. I've got a squat. Yeah. But I don't care about PR squats. Right. Because I'm not a competitor anymore. I don't care how much I squat. I've got a squat, but I don't care about PR squats because I'm not a competitor anymore. But somebody that's young,

new, trying to get strong, you got to squat more than I do. And this is kind of a duh thing, isn't it? Right. You know, for example,

starting strength is a gallon of milk a day, right? Every time for everybody, for you, for me, For example, starting strength is a gallon of milk a day. Right. Every time. For everybody. For you. For me. For Bree.

Gallon of milk a day. I wouldn't do it. I would be a heretic. I wouldn't do it either. I'm blessed. You know, the hilarious thing about this is that people are so quick to stop thinking. They hear it on the internet and they believe it. That's one of the things the internet has done for us.

It has made us gullible. It has made us susceptible to just reading the headline of the article and not reading the tweet. Reading the 123 words or whatever the fuck it is. And believing that

what this person said about Mike Matthews is what Mike Matthews believes because they saw it on the internet and it's, you know, people aren't any more circumspect than that anymore, especially in our industry. There are a whole bunch of people in this business that really need to be selling cars, you know?

Yeah. Or just hawking stuff, other things on the internet, just internet marketers. Yes. Leave us alone. Leave the fitness industry alone because you guys are not entitled to an opinion. And, but unfortunately the market has changed over the years with the internet and the internet has shortened everybody. A lot of good, of course, not just...

Access to information, unparalleled developments in society, all that other stuff. I mean, even in the fitness space, it's done a lot of good. But it's come with a price. Yeah. It's made it hard. You have to be good at sifting through information and finding reliable sources and actual authorities.

And that can be tricky. The more information is available the better you have to be at sifting through it yeah because the good stuff is not always the shiniest or the most attractive that's absolutely true and this is where the marketers come in so our space is dominated by marketers first and foremost that's not going to change i mean that's been the case because i don't think it's changing time soon no it's just it's been the case forever i mean it's been the case since advertising since cla think it's changing time soon. No, it's not. It's been the case forever. It's been the case. Since advertising, since Claude Hopkins back in the early 1900s,

when advertising really started to become a science and they really started to figure out how to persuade people and how to sell people. Right. That's the way it's been. We'd probably be complaining about the same things regardless of the industry we were in. It's probably very similar. Right. If it's a direct consumer.

You're absolutely right. The marketing aspect of any commercial endeavor probably is the source for most of the problems associated with that endeavor because of the need to find customers. Yeah. And it's just why to do it. I mean, that's what it boils down to. And I like some professions are worse about that than others. Like, if I want somebody to lie to me, I'll go buy a car.

Or some supplements. Or beauty products. That's the most amazing. They'll say anything. They'll say anything. There are margins in that business are margins oh my God yes the 80 bottle of cologne or something like that costs about what 83 cents probably yeah something like that like landed or done you know what I mean sitting on the shell 83 000 percent market

yeah so anyway well how's business business is good anyway, well, how's business? Business is good. I mean, the focus mostly, for me personally, it's the books. And just because, I mean, it's work that I enjoy out of the random shit I have to do. It's probably the work I enjoy the most, actually. But really, as far as business goes, it's supplements. But I'm not like everybody else, actually. Well, that's why I'm sitting here.

Well, no, I don't think you are you are mike that's why you're here today i could have asked all kinds of people to come on the the podcast with us but i've known you for quite a while i know you to be a honest guy your your approach is similar to ours there are some basic things that work right like your emphasis in terms of your programs has always been aesthetics. Ours has been strength, but we both based programs on basic barbell exercise, complicated full body movements loaded incrementally. You just take a different spin on it than I do. But what we do is basically the same thing.

We're not in disagreement on basic anything. Yeah, Mike's that plus some bodybuilding stuff. Yeah, and I fuck with Mike about him having his shirt on today for some odd reason and stuff. I fuck with him about going up a weight class and I fuck with him a lot about stuff. You've heard it on

our audio interviews, but we're basically doing the same thing here. He's just doing it at 12% body fat and we're doing it at what? 35% body fat, and we're doing it at 35% body fat. Are you calling me fat 12%, Mark? 12% is 12% or 20%. He's taking offense.

He's taking offense at 12%. I'm not going to eat for five days. He's got bulimia. He's got to get down. He's going to go, I've got to get down. Take some more fat burners. He thought I was 12%. Oh, fuck. What does that mean?

Who am I? You failed. Who am I? What am I doing? Oh, shit. But yeah, no, things are moving along well. So Legion is the sub-unit company. That's the primary business.

So we got kicked in the nuts company that's that's the primary business and right so we got website what's that your website yeah legion athletics.com legion athletics.com if you want to check us out but we got kicked in the dick by amazon the hardest so what they do to you they're difficult to deal with some yeah yeah yeah so if you just to preface this if you don't have at least one catastrophe per year with amazon, you're either not doing any sales on Amazon or you're like Jeff Bezos, his cousin or somebody. Nobody's going to mess with you. You've been pitted on the head. Yeah, yeah. You're a made person. Be gender inclusive there. So my number one best selling product on Amazon was my pre-workout called Pulse. Right. And it was the number one pre-workout on Amazon, right? And so it's moving along, doing very well, and then it just goes down. It gets turned off, right?

And this shit happens, right? They turned the page off? It just can't buy it anymore. It's just gone, right? Are you serious? Absolutely. So, I mean, it was, I don't know the exact numbers, but I would say it was probably cruising along at about $10,000 a week in revenue and sales. And then it just to zero.

And it took three to four weeks to even find out like why, what was going on. What did they do to you? So, yeah. So, it gets better because there were some misunderstandings in the warehouse and what exactly they should be doing. And so, they accidentally destroyed $350,000, my cost of stuff. Of your product? Yes. And then said, oh, well, we're not going to reimburse you for that.

So it's fine. I'm working. We'll get money back. We will. But you just have to go through a process, right? They've never talked us around like that. That sounds amazing. I wonder what really happened.

Did you ever figure out? You don't ever really know what happened. And one, I've dealt with this kind of thing. This is one of the worst. I've had some other bad, similar things where products just go down and it takes anywhere from four to six weeks to get them back. And, you know, it's annoying, but I've gone through it before. So I'm kind of like blase about it.

But just for example, here's something, here's a problem that Amazon has. So there's a lot of money to be made on Amazon, as a lot of people know. And so that means that it's really a battleground as far as the sellers go. So what you'll have is you'll have people out there that don't give a shit, like that we were talking about that use hair to bump up the protein content of their dog food, right? These kinds of people. Right. And so what they'll do is they'll get friends to buy your product and then they'll wait a week, two weeks, whatever, leave a review. So it's a verified purchase and they'll leave like a really alarming review like that. You know, I had to go to the hospital. I was puking blood. I have no idea what was going on. And then they report those

reviews to Amazon and that can get your product taken down just like that. And Amazon, unfortunately, because it's very much a bureaucracy at this point, it's, you know, 400,000 employees or whatever. They just kind of shoot first and ask questions later. That's kind of there. And so that's probably what happened here. Related probably to some review of somebody, it can even be beta alanine tingles. We've had Pulse, that product taken down simply because people complained about beta alanine tingles. That's just part of the game. But that aside, complained about beta alanine tingles that's just part of the game but that aside things have still actually like that hit us we're probably like 800k behind our pacing because of that because you lose you lose that is amazing because you lose momentum you have to build back you know what i mean so

so but it's just like that you can just get smacked right but despite that i mean the business is still doing well. We'll still have a very good year, but that's fun. And then there are these Google updates. I don't know if you guys have felt the effects of them at all. They've rolled out a few updates, started about a year ago, and they particularly went after the health and fitness space. And I made this clear, they openly said this, and they're really big on now pushing credibility, authority, and trust, right? And so, I mean, there are websites that were getting hundreds of thousands of visits a month that literally got deleted off the internet, basically. I mean, like losing 95% of their traffic, of their search engine traffic.

Just gone. Just gone. Well, for example, who? I don't want to say. I know of one. He's a friend of mine. I don't know if he'd want me to say. What was he doing?

If I say too much, it'll be... He was in the fitness space, but very high-quality information. A lot of it, I mean, probably over 40,000 studies referenced on the website. And not just referenced, but this was real work. This dude built this from nothing. What do you think happened to him? Why did they do this? It's weird.

I've seen a big hit in traffic, not that big, and it hasn't made that big of a difference Well, what do you think happened to him? Why did they do this? million visits a month before the first update rolled out. Ironically, a lot of that traffic was AMP. And AMP, if people are not familiar, it's a Google thing where you have a very stripped down website, has very little functionality, but it loads like instantaneously, right? It's meant for news websites, really. And so somebody who worked with me previously, doesn't work with me anymore, wanted to do that. I thought that'd be a good idea because Google gives preferential treatment to AMP content. If you load instantly, they go, we'll give you a bump in the search engine rankings. But the dude didn't make sure that we have a good working AMP website. So that traffic was literally worthless. Like the bounce

rate was like 95%. Nobody bought anything. So we're getting all this blog traffic. It looks cool, but then it turns out like 70% of it is AMP. Oh, okay. Turn it off. That naturally is going to, traffic's going to decline. Google rolls out updates. And so now Legion's blog is cruising at like 900K a month. But, you know, it's not a straight halving, but it was a big hit. It didn't gut you. It wasn't me.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And we don't know what comes next. They've done three updates now. And so it's caused a lot of problems in the health space in particular like there are some big websites out there that you know went from getting like millions and millions 10 plus million visits a month till you know like three which is i know three is a lot but it's it's and i have a friend in the digital marketing space who has probably one of the most informative websites you could imagine. The dude probably has close to 4,000 long-form articles on his website. He has a brand.

Even he's getting hit. Like, I don't know what Google's doing. The only known winners that my team, as we've looked into it, that we've found in our space is Healthline, who bought Authority Nutrition, if people remember that website, and very well fit. Those two guys are doing great. Google is giving them everything Would you think that Google's got an ownership? No, I don't think it's that anything that obvious. I don't know I don't think no, I don't actually don't think it's that I think it's like I don't know exactly

I mean I get if the idea is to force because you have a lot of bad information We're just talking about this in our space. So if you're're Google and you're like, what can we do about this? How can we help weed out the bad? How can we separate the good and the bad? How can we assist in this? It seems like the idea is, okay, well, let's really start diving into these websites. Who's writing the content? What are their credentials? Do they have anybody reviewing and fact-checking? How believable is this information? And, of course, it's not a bad idea, but the implementation— Well, it is a bad idea, though, because who gets to determine— That's the problem.

—the veracity of the applicability of credentialing? It sounds nice. It's one of those things. It's like the idea that the Enlightenment ideals of we're all equal. It all sounds nice, but it doesn't fucking work. Right. And so far— No, it doesn't. it doesn't fucking work. Right. And so, so, so. No, it doesn't.

It doesn't fucking work. I mean, for example, in our business, exercise physiologists, PhD exercise physiologists would seem to be the authority. Yeah. Like Google would see that and be like, oh, that's the guy. Yeah. He's, look, there's a terminal degree. Incredible.

Stan approved. Immediate credibility. Yeah. And nothing could be further from the truth. I know. It's unfortunate. It is unfortunate that they don't understand anything beyond that. And how is an algorithm?

This is credential worship, scientism, this sort of thing. And how is an algorithm supposed to overcome that? It can't. Exactly. All it can do is create problems. No way. That's up to the market. That's up to the people. You problems. No way. That's up to the market. That's up to the people.

You know what I mean? It's up to the functioning of just free market principles. People absorbing the information, making decisions. Propagating the good. Where to spend their money, which means it's not bullshit. And what to talk about. Right. I mean, as you know, every business, the number one goal is to generate word of mouth, right?

And you can obviously stimulate growth through spending money in advertising. But if a business is really going to make it long term. Depending on the service product you're trying to sell. For example, I don't think the gym business has ever really made any money off of advertising. You mean to bring in people? Yes. What about something like Planet Fitness? I don't think Planet Fitness derives much of that traffic from anything except word of mouth.

Their friends joined Planet Fitness. It was $10, so they went and joined one day. They hadn't been back in three years, but they're still paying $10 because, you know, they might want to. And it's only $10. But that's also word of mouth. The fear of losing something. You feel like you have something with your $10 a month. I got this cheap deal, you know.

And Planet Fitness, in that respect, is a… What a brilliant idea. I mean, they… I was skeptical when I first heard about it. I was like, I don't know, the whole positioning, the pizza day. It almost seems like it's pandering. It is. People feel almost offended, but I guess not.

It appeals to the demographic that will pay you $10 a month, put it on their credit card, let you auto-draft it, and never go in the building. That's designed. Yeah, if they knew that, those people are brilliant. These people are brilliant. They knew that. They knew. There are a bunch of these people that are going to do this. There are a bunch of people that will buy a membership and keep paying for it if it's cheap enough and never bother us. We want people who don't work out but will just pay us.

We don't want them using the facility. I know that's what happened. I know for a fact that's what happened. A friend of mine back in 89. Everyone that shows up, you're like, oh. He was running a promotion, and he proved that this would work in clubs all over the country he would go in to the market and he'd hang around for a couple of weeks and kind of assess the way the city moved and stuff and then he would put out a lead box you know what a lead box is where you sign up for

a free vacation put your name and It won't work now, obviously, but what he was doing was he was putting a lead box in a restaurant or a donut shop or a place where people went, nightclubs and wherever they'd let him. And so he would have a little list of, you'd fill out the name because you're going to win a free vacation, free vacation for two to the Bahamas. Just let us have your name and telephone number. So he would go around, he'd put these lead boxes out, he'd check them every week, pull the leads out, and he would place these boxes in locations where he knew that the people that went there to shop were not in the fitness demographic, but they're in the free shit demographic so he would bring him home and

after the first week monday morning he'd start calling all these numbers yeah and he'd say you didn't win the vacation but you want a free two-week membership to wichita falls athletic club and all you got to do to claim your free membership i'm not gonna charge your card is no there's no cards involved in it all you have to do to claim your free membership. I'm not going to charge your cards. No, there's no cards involved in it. All you have to do to claim your free membership is to come in and bring the enrollment fee in of $92. And these people would show up and they'd pay $92. For their free. For their free membership.

They'd work out once and leave. And you'd run that promotion for two months and it would generate the club $75,000. This is 30 years ago. Imagine that's how you made your money though. He made a lot of money doing this. He'd split it with the club. He'd split it

with the club and he made a hell of a bunch of money doing it. Planet Fitness is exactly the same thing. They have figured out a way to- That's like on par in my mind. It's just like usury. That's how you make your money. I'm like, I just loan.

I give needy people money, and I charge them 30%. I charge them 30%. That's not- They're only going to have the loan for three weeks anyway. They can afford it. That kind of shit. Yeah. But this is exactly what they did, and it's brilliant.

It's absolutely brilliant. Yeah. The people that are buying the little shitty ten dollar a month membership get out of it exactly what they want yeah the ability to say i'm a member of a gym yeah and to feel like that first step has been taken yeah i mean you're not gonna go back if i want to yeah you know and they keep paying them it's just god it's brilliant it's chicken shit but it's brilliant yeah It's chicken shit, but it's brilliant. I mean, you have to admit there's a certain amount of genius involved in that.

I mean, that's more above board than what the other guy was doing. Oh, slightly. Yeah. Slightly. I mean, $92 for your free. That's where the disconnect. You're free. But it was free.

And I had, you know, honest to God, we had eight or ten of those members that used the club for two years that actually came in and used the club. Yeah. And that when the thing was over, signed up at the gym. But that wasn't the purpose of the deal. Yeah. The purpose of the deal was to harvest membership money for people who will not go. membership money for people who will not go. And really, if you think about it, at any corporate fitness facility in the country,

that's a large part of their membership. Oh, of course. Absolutely. If they all went to the gym. It'd be a problem. You couldn't fit them in the gym and the parking lot. Well, then how much would they have to charge if they had high attendance rate? They'd have to charge so much money just to keep – it'd be a problem. People would show up and it'd be so full they'd cancel.

They'd just go somewhere else. Well, there was a time when industry-wide the actual usage rate of a gym membership, a health club membership, was something on the order of 15%. Of the membership, 15% would use it on a regular basis. And by regular basis, I mean twice a week. Yeah, a couple times a week. Yeah. Very low percentage. And that's the industry standard.

It may be a little higher than that now, but it's still the case. Yeah. You know, if you're a member of Gold's, you probably don't go that much. But you're still paying them. Yeah. But you go occasionally. And to you, it's worth it. And that's fine.

That's the market. It's fine. Sure. Planet Fitness does a fine job of that. They're not in the same business we are. They're in the sales business. We're in the fitness business. You're getting into the supplement business.

Well, we may be. We may very well be rolling out a couple of products here pretty soon. We're going to talk to Mike a little bit more about that because he knows more about it than we do. He's graciously agreed to help us with that. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at muscle for life fitness, Twitter

at muscle for life and Facebook at MuscleForLifeFitness. What else do you want to talk about? Do you want to give everybody a breakdown on your approach to the problem of what to do in the gym? Like you said, it's pretty similar, right? It really is. I have a book for men, Bigger Leaner Stronger. I have a book for women, Thinner Leaner Stronger. And that came about because a lot of women were reading the men's book and saying like,

hey, this seems pretty applicable to me, but I don't really want to be bigger. Yeah, the bigger thing was the problem for them. Not really what I want. And also, there's a fair amount of upper body training. And I'm more concerned with my lower body, right? So eventually, it made sense to take the men's book and just customize it to women as much as possible. There's a small subset of the women's market that wants to get bigger. Yeah, there is.

And some women intentionally now still read that book because they want to get as jacked as they can. They know they're skinny. Even those that don't want to be jacked, that are rail thin. That's true. And actually, the title I was kind of… Those that look better with a little bit more muscle mass. Absolutely. The title, I was thinking like fitter, leaner, stronger might be a better in terms of really the better statement of the benefits. Because there are many women out there who don't want to be thinner.

Like they want to be fitters, maybe how they might think about it. But I didn't like how that sounded in there. Well, I think that it doesn't comport well with the previous title. Yes, exactly. Thinner, leaner, stronger just sounds better than fitter. No, for that market, absolutely. It would certainly appeal to most of them. And I was also thinking with many of the women I had heard from over the years were mostly they wanted to start with losing some weight.

And so that's almost a universal aspect of the women's fitness industry. And not because they had body dysmorphia or something, but if a woman's at 30% body fat, she might look at 20% body fat and be like, oh, that'd be nice. And so, you know, it's nothing unhealthy about that. So that's the women's book. And the fundamentals in terms of the diet side of things are very similar. Like, you know, I don't need to explain energy balance to a man differently than a woman, right? Calories in, calories out. Why does that matter? Physiology is physiology. It is what it is, right? But there were quite a few things that where I was able to really separate it out. Like if we were talking about

common myths and mistakes, well, those are quite different actually. Like a lot of women are concerned, at least that come my way, are concerned initially with getting bulky, bulky, right? Big, bulky, bunch up. What do they call it? Bunchy. Bulk. I keep hearing words like bulk. I hear bunchy muscles,

which doesn't mean much. You never heard that? I haven't heard bunchy. I want to sculpt long lean muscles. That's the key. Sculpt. Sculpt. Sculpt. Sculpt.

Long, lean muscle. It's not muscles. It's muscle. Lean muscle. Lean muscle. That's the key. Long, lean muscle. Fuck the fat muscle.

Long, lean muscle. Got to be lean muscle. So anyway, it goes over on the dietary side of things. Again, the practical approach is very similar, of course. It's just what it boils down to is that women generally are going to be eating less. They're eating fewer calories than men because they just burn fewer calories, smaller bodies. And how those calories break down in terms of protein and carbohydrate and fat doesn't really have to change. It kind of, the standard approach that I recommend is like you could start with that, you know,

40, 40, 20 type approach where about 40% of your calories are coming from protein, 40% from carbohydrate, 20% from fat, or you could express it in different terms. Protein somewhere between, I don't know, 0.8 to one gram per pound per day and somewhere around 0.3 grams of fat per day. You can go higher if you want, but that's probably enough for health and then fill in the rest of your calories with carbs, right? And of course, you are taking your energy out and you're calibrating your energy in accordingly. If you want to get skinnier, you want to get leaner. If you want to lose fat, you're going to have to have an energy deficit there, right? So you're going to have to eat fewer calories than you burn over

time. And these are boring things to you and maybe to people listening. But if you remember, I remember when you first learned about this, it was like your mind was blown. I just remember because you hear all these weird things, you know, right now it's the keto diet or that this food makes you fat. No, it's this food makes you fat

and this food makes you lean. And, you know, you have to do a bunch of cardio. You hear all these things. And so when somebody comes along and says like, not really, just here are your calories, set them up like this. I want you to break these calories down into protein, carbs, and fats.

I do want you to eat nutritious foods because I do want you to take care of your body. It doesn't matter for your body composition. Let's make that clear. But let's think a little bit further than just body composition. So how about this? Get like the majority of your calories, 80% of your calories from nutritious foods. And if you want to take the remaining and eat whatever you want, then do that. And that gives you some flexibility.

This is precisely equivalent to our approach for strength training. Right. You squat. You bench. You press. You deadlift. You do some power cleans, power snatches, chin-ups. Right?

That's all you need to do. But the key is, amazingly enough, you just add a little bit of weight every time you train. Add a little bit of weight every time you train. If you do it three days a week, then you're going to get stronger. And it's astonishingly simple. Yep. It's astonishingly simple, and it works every single time it's tried. But it's unimpressive to people who like complexity.

Yes, that's true. Right. And that's a marketing tactic is, I mean, complexity sells. If you are a good salesperson, you know how to use it. Like muscle confusion, these kinds of things, right? These things they sell. I mean, maybe not that. So at this point, I think most people know that's bullshit, but there was a time when,

and then you take that and it gets spun into the next turbulence training or, you know, whatever. And that's only when there's turbulence. That's the key. A smooth airplane ride. Yeah. It's no fun. Yeah. That, that, what happens during turbulence is your testosterone levels rock by like 10,000%.

Yeah. Don't look into it, but that's what happens. Yes. It's the anabolic window is that turbulence period. So, so yeah, you know, funny. So a buddy of mine, he was in the gym with me and actually met him in the gym. Right. And so he was a bit overweight and he had tried a bunch of weird diets to lose weight. And he was asking me, you know, Hey, he's like, you're the fittest guy. I know what, what should I do? Just tell me what I should do. Right. He's like, should I do a low carb diet? Should guy I know. What should I do? Just tell me what I should do, right? He's like, should I do a low carb diet? Should I do keto?

What should I do? Paleo. And his name's Josh. I was like, Josh, I want you to eat 2000 calories a day. And I want you to get 150 grams of protein. I don't care what you eat. It would be good for you to eat like a vegetable or two. But for now, just do that.

Go on a calorie counting website. And I want you to just 2000 calories. That's it. That's what you get. I don't care how often you eat. It's immediately induced calories. Deficit. Exactly. Right. And so he was a little bit puzzled. He's a smart guy. So he's still a little bit puzzled. He was like, well, what about carbs? I don't care what you want. I don't care. This is not the long-term end all be all, but let's start. We're not going to do this.

Yes. I just want to show you how simple this really is, right? Right. And he's like, so sugar. I'm like, I don't care, but I don't recommend eating 150 grams of sugar a day because you're probably going to feel too good. So maybe eat semi-sensibly, like how you'd want your kid to eat or something. And 2,000 calories, that's it. Okay.

And so he does it. And within five weeks, he's down 15 pounds, right? closet and you know within five weeks he's down 15 pounds right and he's like you know he's telling he's like this is ironic because he was quoting carl jung and he was saying yeah he's a neat guy he can't help himself so he went to school and he studied he had a master's in history studied history and philosophy just for fun because that's what he's into and now he's a financial advisor he knew he wasn't going to use it for anything he just did it for fun right but he was like you know this is actually a funny concept he He was like, there's a thing that Jung said that basically like the truth, the, what you need the most, what you want the most

is in the place where you least want to look. Right. And he's like, this is that version, this, I never wanted, like, yeah, I told myself I would never count calories. I would never pay attention to that. I would always try to find some other way. And then you tell me 2000 calories a day and now I've lost 15 pounds. and then eventually that turned into 30 pounds and that was the end of his weight problem. Right and now he knows what to do. Yep now he knows what to do. He's reset his habits. Yep and if he wants to you know whatever if he's on vacation if he wants to gain a bit of weight or he doesn't matter now he doesn't defred about it because he knows that cool he'll just get back onto his exercise routine and he'll eat 2,000 calories a day. And it'll go'll go away it'll go away yeah there's a training equivalent of that too and

that's very much the approach in in my books again it's very similar to what you teach in fact your book starting strength was the first real sensible training program that i ever did before that i was doing bodybuilding stuff out of magazines you know two and a half hour workouts so was i and i couldn't i hadn't deadlifted. I hadn't done in seven years. I'd never done a single set of deadlifts, not one. I maybe had done a free squat. I had squatted on a Smith machine, of course, because that was safer. Oh, God. We all started off this stupid. A lot of chest flies. I had some pecs though. And a little bit of biceps, too.

It's interesting that we're talking about these misconceptions that we've all had to deal with. The most pervasive problem in terms of body composition that I see throughout, this is not particularly a problem within the industry, because I think we all know better than this. But popular culture clings to the idea that you can exercise off the fat. And there's just not any way to break in to this idea. I don't even like framing it that way at all. It's absolutely untrue. I talk about that in the books. Sure, you can support your fat loss with exercise.

You burn energy. Sure. But you go in the gym to build muscle. You can get strong. And the big muscles burn the fat, but the exercise itself doesn't burn enough calories to affect your body composition. There is no body fat loss without a calorie deficit. There isn't one. But most people, if you ask them down deep in their little heart.

What's the one thing that you need to do? You've got to run off the weight. You've got to run off the weight. People still. You can look at it this way, right? So you can lose fat or weight, however you want to look at it, without exercising, just by manipulating your calories. But you can't gain muscle and strength without exercising.

Right. Right. So. And how many fat guys do you know that run at the YMCA at noon every day? And, you know, that's okay. Does it work or not? There's health benefits to it. Sure.

I'd rather have them doing that than sitting on the couch. If you want to run, go ahead and run. But let's not labor under the delusion that you get abs from running. Yep. In the absence of a calorie deficit, you're going to have a belly. Which is hard to do if you're not really paying attention to what you're eating. And it's also hard to do if you don't care. Well, there's that too.

I'm 63, and I just don't care. All the YouTube guys are writing up. Rip it off. Rip it off the fat pile of shit. Look at him sitting there. He looks like a homeless guy. Dressed like he works at Walmart. Walmart, yeah, yeah.

I can't tell. Hold on. Wait. Everybody see this? Starting strength t-shirt. He stole that from a homeless guy. Free starting strength t-shirt. In front of Walmart.

The first one that tells me what this is. All right. Y'all keep track of that, okay? So what else are we going to talk about? We can't talk about politics here because that's too dangerous. Mike and I are in agreement about virtually everything. You won't like it. So we're going to leave it alone.

I have an expensive wife I can't afford. Don't need death threats. I can't afford. I've always wanted a death threat. I mentioned this in one of the earlier podcasts. You haven't gotten a death threat? No. God damn it, I've been asking for a death threat.

One word away, Mark. Asking for a death threat. Please, threaten my life. That's when you know you've made it. Said he's going to poison me with meat or something. No, no, he just said you better delete this video if you know what's good for you. Something like that. Oh, really?

Nobody told me that. How come you kept that from me? I just saw it. We better delete the Vegem video if we knew what was good for us. And it's still up. And we're still here. Building's still in place. All life isn't sacred to this people.

No, but humans are a virus. Humans are a virus on the face of the planet. And Veg'ns are all estradiol-poisoned, estrogen-laced creatures with no hair. I haven't even clashed with vegans, vegans, you know, tomato, tomato. I'm not going to call them anything but vegans. Because I wrote one article on just vegan bodybuilding, but wasn't trying to make anybody wrong for anything. I was just talking about, like, okay, for whatever reason, if you want to eat like this,

here's a way to make it work, right? And you have some issues. It can be difficult to get enough protein. Real difficult, yeah. And you probably want to take a couple supplements as well to make it work, right? And you have some issues. It can be difficult to get enough protein. Real difficult. And you probably want to take a couple supplements as well to make sure that you don't develop. Like some B12. Yeah. Calcium can be a bit difficult as well.

And iron and a few things. Zinc. But, you know, it was well-received just because I was being objective and just laying out there are some downsides to this. I'm not talking about from a moral. I'm just saying physiologically, come on, let's just look at this. Of course. And you were not intentionally being a horse's ass like I was and am. Right.

Because it amuses me. Zenith sanguine. Zenith sanguine. So that means like the highest, I don't know, but heuine so that means like the highest i don't know but he's trying to say like the highest blood like he is nobility okay he looks like a vampire okay oh good my video is a joke move it already for your own sake oh for my own sake is a threat zenith 3118 buchanan i think it'd be seven seven six three oh eight you know where i am boy he's gonna show up at night he's gonna show up and that'd be the wrong time to show up here

i'm telling you that's the wrong time to show up here and i'll show you why here when we get through okay good so anything else interesting we can talk about? Every time we talk, we have long, interesting conversations. Fake naturals are always amusing. Maybe that's more in my world, though, so many of these people. Anybody who has lifetime natural in their IG bio is full of shit, is on enough drugs to kill a rhino. That's the starting point.

Typically, yeah. Especially if they claim to be a virgin. They claim to be a virgin. They claim to be a virgin and they're huge. Yeah, and you're 6'1", 236% year-round, okay. And you're a virgin. Yeah. Or not. And you're clean.

I wrote about this recently, a long autistic article breakdown of FFMI and its correlation with steroid use. And it didn't actually, a couple people tried to nitpick a couple things. But, you know, we're basically what the data shows. And there are a lot of other people out there, smart people, who would agree with me. Building up my authority here. We have consensus. No, but it's around 25. Like, there's an FFMI, normalized FFMI around 25 is maybe achievable naturally.

Very small number of people have the genetics to do that. Normalized FFMI around 25 is maybe achievable naturally. Very small number of people have the genetics to do that. Now, I've seen guys that do, but that's not normal for a human. Now, remember, it also can be difficult per se, but it's additional connective tissue that also shrinks as you get leaner. Yes, skin thickness. Yeah, and it matters. That is that big deal. So much skin, and if it's thick, it's heavy, and it takes up a lot of space. And so anyway, it's just funny when you it takes up a lot of space and so anyway it's just though

you know it's it's just funny when you have these guys you have guys on instagram with ffmis of ridiculous 28 to put it in perspective i mean i just look small because of the shirt i'm wearing but that's the only reason yes i'm actually huge no no i'm i'm 6'1 195 that's just that's just where i'm at right i have I have small bones, though. Like, my wrist. I was never meant to be a big guy. Did you do ballet at one time? I could have.

When I got leaned for the first time, people were like, I remember one person was like, you have, like, a nice swimmer's body. And that's when I knew I had to get bigger. I was like, oh, God damn. I've got to gain some weight. I didn't even mean it. That wasn't a left-handed. They actually were trying to give me a compliment.

You know what I mean? Trying their best. Yeah. But anyways, go to my Instagram and see me with some muscle mass. And my normalized FMI is like 23 in the low 23. So put it in perspective. Imagine my height fucking 28. Muscles bulging out of my clothing.

Oh, my God. Oh, natural, though. Natural. Oh, natty. Natty, as they say. 220 shredded year-round lifetime drug-free. So just for me and Nick and everybody else that doesn't know what FFMI is, tell us. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I do, but I just don't worry. No, no. I should have thought of this. And so just for anybody listening who doesn't know, so it's fat-free mass index. Right. So it's just a relationship between your height and muscularity. Right. You can think of it that way.

And your weight, really. Right. But it takes into account, though, your body fat level as well. So you are looking at that relationship between how tall you are and how big you are, basically. And there's been quite a bit of research on this over the years, over the decades now. And essentially, what seems to be true is 25 or so is about what you can expect. That's top tier genetics though. Muscle that's really like elite. Well, maybe not. Okay. Not top tier, but that is elite muscle building genetics. If you can get into the 25s and be like relatively lean as well, you are jacked. And if people are

curious what theirs is, they can just Google FFMI calculator. I mean, I have one on my website, but pull up an FFMI calculator, put in your numbers, and you'll see what I mean. So like my normalized FFMI is in the 23s, low 23s. And I'm about as big as I, genetically speaking, according to different models, maybe I could gain another eight pounds of muscle or so, five to eight, and it would take years,

probably three years to do it. At the body fat level, you are. Yes, but there are a few different models models but those models usually are assuming stage weight so they're usually assuming like you know what i mean like okay how big can you be at like six percent body fat okay and then kind of extrapolating from there and there's also you know kate you've probably come across casey butts's work on how big can you get based on your bone size how much bone you have in your body? Right, I don't know.

You might find that interesting. It might be interesting. I just don't know that anybody derives any benefit from looking at that because there just aren't any big bodybuilders that aren't on a bunch of drugs. Oh, yeah, for sure. And that's just all, I'm sorry, that's just the way it is. That's why I like, though, I mean, I think that, again, there are, I wrote about this, there are like four different models that are generally used.

Butz's is one of them. Alan Aragon put out a model. Martin Burkhan, Lyle McDonald put out a model. And if you look at those, though, I've found that those actually, I think, give people better expectations. And I talk about this in an article that I wrote on how much muscle can you build naturally, right? It kind of goes into this. Actually, I think those give better expectations than just cruising around on Instagram where you don't know. There are too many guys on too many drugs, and some of them are obvious. Some of them are so big. Like, yeah, when a dude's shoulder is

bigger than his head, he's on all of the drugs, all of them. You know, and we don't talk about drugs on this podcast very much, and one of, and we don't talk about drugs on this podcast very much. And one of the reasons we don't talk about drugs on this podcast very much is because I just don't really care about it. Yeah. I don't care about it. It's just a fact of life. You know, I don't advocate it, but it's none of my business. And nothing I'm going to say is going to change a goddamn thing about what anybody's going to do.

People are going to take drugs. Get over it, and quit worrying about it. I agree. Don't involve other people in that decision. It's their decision. Just shut up, sit down. Don't care about it. The only thing I don't like, though, is, and I hear from these people firsthand, I have for some time, is when people don't understand how to spot drug use,

and they don't understand how big of a difference drug use makes. And so then that's why they're illegal in all sports federations. That's why they're illegal. And that's also one of the bizarre things that's come out of this women, this trans women thing in women's sports recently is, do you think this is going to really continue? Do you think, because then I guess,

you know, it can't much longer. Former men that are just going to dominate every female sport. I mean, it's going to be actually a joke. It is. It's already a joke. Well, I know, but it's going to be. It's just, when do we quit laughing?

It's going to be peak clown world when female sports are now just dudes who either now identify as women or went through some surgery or hormones or whatever. But then, what does that say to little girls? Like, why even bother? Why bother? When you're never going to be half as good. You're never going to win. Never, ever. Never, ever going to win.

Never. But part of the fallout from this is that some idiots are actually running around saying that testosterone does not enhance. Yes. This is with respect to women taking testosterone, that it doesn't enhance athletic ability. Okay. Yeah, that's fine.

Okay, you guys go ahead and pretend. Now, I will say some aspects of athletic ability are not affected by testosterone in adult women. It does not affect vertical jump. It doesn't affect explosiveness. Right. It doesn't affect athleticism, agility, that sort of thing. But it does affect strength.

You're not going to have a better golf swing or something. But it does affect strength in that you will have a better golf swing because you're stronger. Right. But I'm saying technically. There aren't any technique steroids. There are no technique steroids. And there are no explosion steroids. Anytime you hear the word steroid, just substitute

strength for it because that's exactly what's being referred to. And muscle gain, of course. Muscle mass, strength. That's all it's about. But to say that testosterone does not contribute to muscle mass and strength is the same exact thing as saying that the sun this morning, just this morning, came up in the west. It did. I saw it. Because I say it did. I've seen this in print. I've actually seen this in print. It's so distressing that people are willing to be so silly in order to jump on this man wagon.

It's just very weird. I wish they weren't that way, but they are, and people are getting tired of it. The parents of female athletes are getting tired of it. The husbands and wives and boyfriends. Imagine it's your daughter, and she's devastated. And she placed third in the state track meet and doesn't get her scholarship now. And she never will do better because. No, because now she's going to be older, and she's peaked out.

And this was her opportunity to go to college free. So what do you think about the equal pay scandal oh soccer scandal this is so stupid it's just why do you think what to begin with men's and women's soccer. I saw it. I saw it, man. Your compensation structures are set up completely differently. As a percentage of revenue, women are already making, what is it, twice as much as men are? It's like 4% versus 2%. But no, these people want to pretend like there are as many people interested in watching women's soccer as there are men's soccer.

Yep. And that's not true. That's not true. That's a lie. It's reflected in revenue. It's reflected in revenue. So when the Men's World Cup generates $4 billion in revenue and the women's over a four-year cycle does, what, $170 million, give or take? Yes.

Something to that effect. What else is there to say? I don't know what else there is to say. I don't know how you people can be this dense. What does it mean if someone can't understand that, though? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

You just don't understand arithmetic. Yeah, this is like a balance sheet. You know what I mean? You have some money that comes in and then you've got to pay your bills and then you have some money left over. The men make 9% of revenue. The women make 13%. Okay. So they do get paid more.

Yeah, yeah. Right. They get paid more. They just don't draw enough attention because nobody wants to watch them play soccer. Now, why is that? Is that because of the patriarchy? That's why. That's why. Yeah, it's the patriarchy. You know? because of the patriarchy? That's why. That's why. Yeah, it's the patriarchy. You know? Speaking of the patriarchy,

I was at the country club golfing the other weekend. Well, isn't that luxurious? With Jeeves there to assist me. With your club. And so the dudes next to me were talking about this, right? So older guys just don't give a shit.

And they're talking about this. They're like, I'll never fuck. And they're like, I'll watch that shit if they're naked. So that's part of the problem is people. This is an issue to about 80 people. The girls on the team and their girlfriends. That's who this is an issue to. Nobody else is puzzled by this.

Yeah. All right. What do the girls in the WNBA get paid relative to the NBA? And why? Do you really need us to explain this to you? Right. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by doing so. You ought to be smart enough to know what the deal is.

And, you know, look, if you really want to pursue this line of questioning, then we've got to stop playing sports. That would be the fairest thing. Now, don't we? That would be fair. Nobody can win. Yes. Okay?

Because when somebody wins, somebody has to lose. And in any sport, that's not fair. Yes. It's just not fair that somebody loses. Yes. So you people. Enlightenment. You know, your analysis doesn't go anywhere that you want it to be.

You know, you've got to back this off and grow the fuck up. And you've got to look at it. Okay, you want female soccer players to get paid more. Then you've got to make it a better business. So how are you going to make it a better business? That's the real. It's not just trying to. You're going to have to figure out. Dem more money from, from what can't be paid.

Yes. There isn't any more money because nobody watches your sport. Now, how do you make them want to watch your sport? I don't think you're going to like the answer to that. I really don't think you'll like the answer to that. Women's beach volleyball figured it out, but you guys don't want to do that. Do you? You're not going to be able to force people to spend money to watch you do something that they don't want to watch you do. I'm sorry. You don't get to tell what to watch. It's not misogyny. That's not why. It's not misogyny.

It's the nature of sports competition. Exactly. It's you want to see super freaks doing super things. You want to see athleticism displayed. It's not that the women aren't skilled, not at all, but take the women's soccer team. They got beat by a bunch of 15-year-old boys. So that tells you the difference. We talked about that in an earlier podcast.

There are several instances of that all over the world. It's not a knock against women. It just is what it is. What's interesting is their coaches knew that it'd be good for them to play the boys because they knew they'd get beat yeah and learn something from it some perspective in other words you already know this but it's 2019 and it's so fucking satisfying to be mad i think it's just so goddamn satisfying to be offended. I think. It's just so goddamn satisfying to be offended by other people.

Maybe it's just satisfying just to feel something maybe in today's. Just any kind of emotion is good. And anger will do fine, right? Yeah. Anything just like a To get you off your telephone. A vegetable, yeah.

Or get you away from Netflix or social media or porn. Well, I guess you go to social media to do this. So it's to get you off Netflix and off the porn for long enough to get mad about something. To get mad about something. To feel relevant. This is good enough and it makes you feel better. And to signal to everyone in your immediate vicinity that you too are virtuous.

Jesus. So that's a little insight into Mike and Rip's politics here. Was that enough to get death threats? Well, we'll see. Maybe. We'll see. Death threats are cool. I know the comments are all going to be on there.

They're all going to be, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you, and then I'm going to beat off. YouTube doesn't care. I'm going to kill you first and then beat off to the video. That's the YouTube comments on that. Or some comment. Well, we'll see what they say. I don't know. You guys,

let's see the comments. That wouldn't be necrophilia, right? Is it necro if it's just jerking off? If the cum lands on me when I'm dead. If there's no penetration, is it necrophilia? I'm real sure it is.

I'm real sure it is. I'm pulling up a dictionary. I'm real sure it is. It probably is sexual satisfaction. Look, if necrophilia requires penetration, I don't know. That's a pretty weak answer. You're not a necrophilia. Sexual? No, no, no, no.

Sexual intercourse. Oh, it stipulates penetration. Or attraction toward. Or attraction toward. See, I knew it was broader than that. Dictionaries are racist anyway. I don't care. So, boys.

I don't believe in dictionaries. You ready? You got to kill me first, though, or you don't get to be a necrophiliac. Oh, fuck. We're going to get in trouble, Mike. We better wrap this up, man. Thanks for visiting. What's your to get in trouble, Mike. We better wrap this up, man. Thanks for visiting. What's your website?

Post this on the… Legion Athletics is the hub. Right. Everything goes through there. Yeah. I had another website, Muscle for Life, that was a glorified blog. It was popular, but it didn't serve much of a strategic purpose, so I merged it into Legion. Legionathletics.com is where you'll find Mike.

Get his books and buy supplements. You will be better for it. I promise you. Mike's a good guy and he knows what he's talking about. If that's the end of this deal you're attracted to, then go there and patronize him. When we get into the supplement business, we'll murder him. We'll gut him. We'll gut him.

Just be prepared to be gutted, Mike. Come at me, bro, as the kids say. Come at me, bro. That's a death threat. That's a microaggression, actually. Okay, thank you people for joining us on the podcast this time. We'll see you next time. Thanks, Mike.

You guys be good. Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please consider checking out my VIP one-on-one coaching service, where we can help you get in the best shape of your life. My team and I have helped people of all ages, circumstances, and needs. So no matter how complicated or maybe even hopeless you might think your situation is, we will figure it out and we will get you results. Every diet and every training program is 100% custom. We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service and discounts on supplements

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