The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - Classic #218: Max Shank with Guest Host Mike Catherwood

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

03/04/2015"Dr. Drew and guest host Mike Catherwood welcome Max Shank to the programto talk about health, nutrition, and working out. The three also share tips on howto eat healthy before Drew and Mike answer listener phone calls."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

All right, March 2015, this is a throwback where my guest host is Mike Catherwood, and he is sitting in for Adam. And Mike, and I actually did Love Line for years on the radio after Adam had left. But here is Mike and myself welcoming Max Schenck to the program. Talk about health physician, working out, something Mike's really into. I've been into it my whole life, too. We share tips on how to eat healthy before we answer listener calls. Recorded live at Corolla 1 Studio. with Adam Carolla and board-certified physician and addiction medicine specialist, Dr. Drew Pinsky.

You're listening to The Adam and Dr. Drew Show. Get it on. Got to get it on. No choice but to get it on. Mandate, get it on. You are listening to Adam and Drew podcast, but you're not listening to Adam and Drew. You're listening to my Katha Wood and Drew. It's my very special guest today.

He's filling in for Adam, and I can hit the mic all that I want. I can move my shit around on the table. table here and not have somebody. Oh, my God! You're destroying my brain. Mike, does this bother you when I move my coffee cup? Do you even hear that? No, does it? I don't notice it. Just testing. Chris? Let's have, look at him.

Look, look, okay. I wish we had a video. Yeah, but you're really putting me in an uncomfortable position. All you guys are so scared shitless of Adam. Come on now. Well, no, because, well, listen, I, in defense of Mr. Crolla, I do have hold on. I do have a laundry list of shit that annoys me that you do on the air. Strangely, none of the ones he has. Just because we don't share the same ones doesn't mean that Adam is in fact wrong. I just want you to think of my life.

Everything, if you put the two of you together, everything I do. No, everything I do, get shit on. If you were to combine the list of things that Adam and I are troubled by collectively are bothered by that you do, you would just have to live in a room where you were silent and mute and sewed your mouth shut and didn't eat and didn't fart. Right. You're just short of telling me breathing bothers you. Just shy. Well, don't worry.

Give me a couple more years of-cola movement bothers you. You make a couple more years of Loveline and maybe breathing will make the list. That's probably will. So, of course, Mike and I do a show on KBC here, Logan, Los Angeles, and we do Loveline. Mike picked up where Adam left off and that's syndicated nationally. You can check it out at Lovelin Show.com. Podcast One is where that podcast resides. And today you've arranged, well, we're going to do a couple shows together because

Adam's out on the road doing, strangely, ironically, promoting Road Hard. Yes. And I'm sure he formulated the next film in his head while he's going to be some snake eating its own tail type thing where he's like frustrated by promoting. The thing that's about the frustrations about being on the road. Out tomorrow. It's out tomorrow. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Yeah. I pre-ordered it on iTunes. Oh, good for you. You like it? Yes. I agree. I think I well, I really like the hammer. And I'm not just trying to like kiss ass in the house of Carolla.

But I mean, I thought like I think that Adam is a really clever filmmaker. I really do think he has a talent in that arena. Chris, get on a horn for a second. Let's talk about our favorite, were there favorite aspects of the movie for you? Because I had my different favorite stuff. I love that. I like all the hotel scenes. The hotel stuff is awesome.

It's so specific. Yeah. Everyone, anyone has lived in a hotel, spent any time at all in a hotel. Well, expect considerable time. Yeah. It's a different. Even a modest amount of time in a hotel. If you've been in more than one hotel and anything other than a crazy four-star hotel, like a regular hotel, you'll appreciate exactly.

Well, that's what I wanted to point out. It's like there's a difference between being in a hotel on vacation and when you work in an industry that forces you to constantly spend time in hotel. Because that's a different experience. And that's where you start to really notice the shortcomings. of hotel life. Yeah, that's right. Because all you want to do is just get through and everything is another barrier to you

just getting on with things. Chris, how about the drunk chicks? Where'd Chris go? The drunk chicks were good. I love that. Drunk chicks are good, right. And then finally, to me, maybe I'm sort of so wedded to the Louis-esque world

that Louis has created for us in visual medium, but the stand-up pieces are really, really good. And they're Louis-esque. Well, there's a lot of, also, there's a lot of talented dudes in the movie. No, Adam's doing the stand-up. No, but I'm saying, That adds to the kind of quality of all these stories being told is that there's a lot of people telling it in a good way.

Some people can bring it to life. A lot of guy. Directing a little week. One time to talk about. Directing is a little weak. Who is the director again? Kevin Hedge. What are you talking about?

Oh, and Adam. Yeah, no, they co-directed. All right. I'm just bullshit. You guys know Adam. You guys know Adam pretty darn well. How much do you co-direct with Adam? You know what I'm saying?

Like, how much did this guy's input really good? Well, to be fair, I'm sure there's a lot of co-writing. Yeah. That I'm sure he's a good, clabbered up, but co-directing, I don't think so. So we have, you've arranged a couple of guests for these next couple shows. Yes. You and I like geeking out about working out and diet and this kind of thing. I don't people know that about us, but we've done a couple podcasts.

You fill it in for Adam before. I have. I filled in for Adam for this show. I've co-hosted the Dr. Drew podcast with you. But you've done this job before. Yes, yes. And when we did it before, I think we geeked out a little bit then, too, isn't me? Do you think so?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, there's very few times when you and I crack a mic together where we don't geek out over health and fitness. Yeah, when people give us free reign. We're really stupid about it, though, you and I mean, like we're really... Yeah, kind of like it shouldn't get our attention quite the way. Yeah. It's not normal.

And I'm just thinking about, you know, some of the highlights of the geek out we've done. And for me, for whatever reason, Keith Jardine stands out as the one where we really totally geek. Because it combined our love for coffee, medium chain, trigless strides. Well, I wouldn't even describe what you have as love. It's like a weird fetish. Yeah. I mean, you're getting to the point where you're like now shitting yourself and, you know, it's like, I mean, it's going to become this strange fetish. Let's talk what you're talking about.

And by the way, Max is on the line. Oh, yes. Okay. I was just texting him or excuse me, just email here. But before we get on, and what Mike is talking about is these medium chain triclycerides. People keep asking what is this dietary supplement you keep talking about. Mike Catherwood got me into this via David Asprey, Dave Asprey. That, because it was, I was very skeptical.

And Asprey came in and talked about the yak butter in the Himalayans stuff. Yeah, which is, which hurts me because I go, hey, Drew, I take this isolated, saturated fat that really I think, you know, it bypasses digestion. And you go, uh-huh. And then we have some kook on that you've never met before. And you're like, okay, well, I'll give this a shot. I forget what he said that convinced. I think what it was. was, he talked about the neuro-bioavailability of it.

And that intrigued me. And lo and behold, I do notice a little something, something on energy and mood and stuff. And I'm always looking for that kind of thing, because I'm getting enough sleep. Strangely enough, by the way, last night, I remember how tired I was last night. I could barely get through. But I slept like six and a half hours last night, and it was good. Yeah, you know, some... Solid sleep.

Oh, yeah. Woke up with a crazy nightmare. Crazy nightmare. Did you have a small penis? No, a guy was going to eat me and my wife, basically. Like consume you? Like chop us up and eat us, yeah. Except it wasn't about that.

It was about not getting chopped up. Yeah. And it was very, very vivid and strange. And I woke up with a whole head of steam. It was awesome. All right. See, blame that of the medium chain track. All right.

Anyway, so we will. So if you want to, where would we refer people to read more about medium chain track this rights? We would go to the Capeman Coffeecoco.com. dot com or bulletproofexec.com. I don't know. And the cool thing that Caveman's got is that chocolate coffee drink with a cacao butter, which makes me shit myself. It's just a better, it's a better culture. Like, Tade and Keith, what they do over there at Caveman.

It's just insane. Like, they're just insane people that are good dudes. Yeah. And they have a, the one drink, which is with medium chain triglycerides and cacao butter and some other stuff, it is really an amazing drink. It's the one that gives you the diarrhea, though. Yeah. Hopefully, Tate will bring some of that for you later today, and you can shit later on our daytime. And now, Mike, I'll let you introduce Max.

Max Schenck is a tremendous athlete in a lot of people out in the fitness industry world, especially now with the internet and YouTube, you know, it gives you access. You, the consumer or the average dude, you gives you so much access to great information. And a lot of times it's put out by guys that you go, well, you may have a lot of knowledge, but I don't, it doesn't appear. that you apply any of that knowledge because you have man tits. I don't understand it. Max Shank is one of those guys that you watch and you go, well, wow, whatever he's doing, I need to emulate because there's a damn near superhuman level of mobility, strength, power, and athleticism.

And he presents all of his vast knowledge with a really impressive level of clarity. And he seems very approachable. and I've been a fan of his for a long time, and then I got his book, Ultimate Athleticism, his e-book. And I was really blown away. I've never really seen, and I'm a guy who really is into the idea of athletic performance and human performance.

And I've never seen something that was so committed to the development of total kind of human movement and performance. I was really impressed at not only the fact that it, you know, it talked about how important things like the death, headlift are, but also things like body weight movements and single leg movements. Now that you've had that diatribe, and I believe you handed me the book and said, read this. Yes. You just gave me the book, I went, this for you.

Max, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks, guys. You're making me blush over here already. Yeah, I was actually feeling bad for you. So, where do we start? Yeah, I guess the place to always start these conversations is with the average person. I mean, the average person is not Max and you and me who have been geeking out since we were 14. When did you start working out, Mike?

Probably about, yeah, freshman year, eight grade. Me too, yeah, like 14, 15. And I got a super late start myself. Where'd you start? 18. Yeah, see. And so for us, it's kind of a weird thing. Yeah, I enjoy it.

I can't imagine not doing it. It's just a part of my day. It's my meditation. It's something that's really, but I tell you what I do with a lot of patience and a lot of people out in the world for whom it's deeply unpleasant for some reason. The profoundly unpleasant. Either it sort of, they'll report many, many different kinds of unpleasantness. They'll say it hurts, I hate it, I can only do team things, I don't understand. How do you get, so I guess let's start, Max, before we really go to the deep weeds of geek,

how do you get somebody who is resistant and not already geeked out to be able to really understand what this is and how to get something out of it? Well, the main thing, and you kind of already hit the nail on the head yourself, is sustainability. and like when you guys were talking about medium chain trigilllytherized and things like that I remember a conversation at the grocery store I had where this lady was very adamantly telling me that if I don't have the members at my gym cook their broccoli that I'm doing them an extreme disservice and I said lady listen if I can get them to choose broccoli instead of a pop-tart the battle has already been won oh my god by the way two of the ten times that they reach for

the Pop-Tart, you're on your way. Forget 10 to the 10 times. You know? So, you know, there are tons of benefits to exercising, but the main thing is to find something that's fun and safe and sustainable, and that's going to be different for everybody. And I always tell the patients, or whoever I'm talking to, the exercise you'll do is the exercise I want you to start with.

Right. Whatever they're walking, running, put whatever it'll be. If you'll do it, start there. Start there. And I'll be honest. I used to be a lot more closed. off when I was like 21, 22, back when I had all the answers, I basically thought if you weren't doing the Olympic lifts and kickboxing that you were a pussy or an idiot or something along

those lines, right? But I also think, not to interrupt you, Max, but I also think that, you know, we've all kind of, anybody who's a step above the average guy who just is trying to keep the extra 10 pounds off, I think every guy goes through that phase where, like, if you don't see a guy throwing plates on the squat rack, he's a pussy. You know, like, you go through that. How old are you now, Max? I'm 27. Okay.

So I just had a different relationship with the weight from 18 to 28, say, than 48 to 55. Right. It's a very different thing. Not dramatically different, but in terms of have that kind of intensity feeling, it was different when it was in my 20s. Yeah, I think your testosterone levels. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, it's not sustainable.

Yeah, right. So go ahead. So what's sustainable then? Because by the way, whatever you're going to do. Yeah, Max, let me interrupt you. But when you're 22, sometimes that excitement of all that is what's sustainable. Right. You know what I mean?

Because it's exciting to be competing with your peers and to be throwing more weights on. And you might interfere with the sustainability by injuring your back. Right. But it's still what motivates you, right? Oh, without a doubt. And I think it's kind of like you have to experience hot to understand cold. Okay. So it's probably important to go through these cycles.

The trick is just to not stay in the cycle that breaks you for too long. Right, right. And how, I mean, as a guy who's accustomed to training at a high level and probably dealing with a client that inspires to train at a high level, how do you deal with, like, just the average guy or gal? you know, keep them in a place where they're going to make the progress, but at the same time, not get them, you know, redlining. You know what I'm saying? Like, there is a certain, there's a certain genesis quo to sustainability. But at the same time, you also don't want to have someone who just wants to get on the treadmill for 20 minutes, three times a week.

And then knowing in the back of your head that they're not going to make any progress. Well, I try to go for what I referred to as skill development. So even what you don't want to do as a coach, and a lot of people do this, is make your goals, your client's goals. Right. And this happens all the time. Like people who get into barbells and people who get into kettlebells and people who get into, you know, calisthenics. And I've seen it time and time again. As soon as the coach or the owner of the gym has a goal in their mind, suddenly everyone else, that's their goal too.

And he's chosen it for them. and there's this extreme dogmatism that usually follows along with different things. And if you've been following any kind of exercise plan for a long time, you'll see, like, you know, the people who are into standing on a bosoobal are very adamant that you need to be doing balance training on a boseu ball. And the people who are using, you know, gymnastics rings are like, oh, you should only use gymnastics rings or just do street workout now. And the truth is you've got to kind of figure that out with the individual

and see what they respond to the best. It's not about like, oh, I have the answer for you. You have an idea, and then you can help them develop whatever they gravitate towards the most. I mean, we have a lot of guys at the gym in their 40s who are able to press up into a handstand from an el-s and deadlift over 400 pounds. And, you know, they're just regular jokes. Right. They're not taking steroids? No, no sterilizing anything like that.

Drew's obsessive with performance enhancing anabolic. It's extreme envy. But, you know, when you talk about skill development, I mean, I think that that's like one of the main attractions to your work, Max, for me, was the fact that you didn't just, you know, try to get the minimum effective dosage of whatever it is to get someone to lose weight. you're putting out there really trying to spread the idea of developing difficult physical skills and in different human movement patterns. Let's have them talk about that philosophy. What is that? Tell me.

Yeah, particularly if you're just loading plates onto a bar or onto a leg crestlet or something like that, it's going to get stale in a hurry. And I'm a huge fan of neuroscience. And any time you can introduce and create new neural pathways through like a day, different movement, for example. I think you're doing your body in extreme service. And when you start to get competent with something, the goal isn't to do more stuff. It's actually to do less stuff, but more complex stuff. So let me give you an example. If you take a push-up, a handstand push-up, a dip, and an L-sit, and a rear leg raise, for example, those are all

good exercises on their own. But if you can cultivate your skill and strength and coordination to the point where you can pop up into an outfit on the parallel bars and pull yourself up into a handstand using your own strength, you're kind of getting all that same bang for your buck for a fraction of the time investment. So that's, I actually went to school for economics. So for me, it's not about doing more. It's about how you can do less. And do it better. I can probably. Exactly. I could probably maintain my strength levels with about 40 minutes a week because I've achieved a point where the complexity of the movements is so high that the benefit to time or the cost-benefit ratio is also very high. Let me throw a little wrench in that. I noticed early in my training that the more isolated, the more concentrated, the more concentrated, the less efficient I was doing, the more I seemed to get out of it. the more I could isolate a tiny group of muscles, the better it was for me.

And I know Mike has been pounding on me about the same stuff. And I find whenever I start using more and more muscle groups, I get less and less and less able to sustain what I'm doing. Less less satisfied by it. Let me. Let me interrupt real quick. That's just me. Yeah, no. And I think, though, what you need to point out when you say that is that the goal is also very important.

Like your goal almost always has been hypertrophy. To isolate muscles is probably very beneficial to you. Really, my goal is to just sustain, just to keep doing this and not lose interest and not – because every time I've had a trainer, they take me the direction that Max is talking about. Yeah. And I go, okay. Yeah, and I go, okay, I've been doing this a long time. But every – I've had 10 different trainers every time. Same thing, same thing.

And I get into it, get into it. And it feels great when I'm doing it. And then afterwards, I feel nothing. It has no residual effect. on me, no, no. Just sustainability becomes. It doesn't, it doesn't motivate me later. It just, it just feels like, eh, what did I just do?

I don't really even know. And so like my nightmare exercise is the Turkish get up. That's my nightmare exercise. That's the one I hate. Because it's so difficult for you? You should never do it again then. Because it hurts. Every, every, you know, I've got issues of flexibility.

And I get, I mean, zero out of it in my sense of quote, getting something out of it. Well, and it's interesting to hear you say that, Max. So you say, Drew, shouldn't do it, even though I believe you believe that the Turkish get-up is a great exercise. You think that Drew should avoid it because it's just not for him. I think it can be. Listen, if you hate something, there are so many options. There's literally an infinite amount of ways that a person can move.

And if there's one that you hate, you shouldn't have that be part of your progress. Max is singing my tune. That's what I totally agree with. You've got to find the one for that individual, just the way the diet stuff is highly individual, too. Would you say, Max? Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, each person is going to find something that they like to do that will also be effective because there are so many good alternatives. When you look at, I guess one thing I do want to understand from you is what are you using as a barometer to measure the effectiveness of a workout?

Yeah. Just how I feel, really. It's sort of a feeling like it feels good. It's gratifying in some, you know, almost. appetitive way. And it feels good both in terms of, I like the feeling of sort of pump, and I like the feeling that goes through the day like that. I like the feeling through the day like I've done something. And when I'm using lots of body parts, I just don't get any of that. I just, it just goes away. I feel it we're doing it. Yeah. And it just goes away. So, yeah. A lot of people feel

that way. And I completely agree with you. I mean, half of, like we've been talking about this whole time. Half of the point of doing something a little bit different is so that you can stick with it and that you feel good. And the whole point is really to feel better every time you work out, not feel worse. And that's one of the big beefs I have with a lot of exercise stuff now is the goal isn't to feel better anymore. It's just to beat yourself up into oblivion. So there's kind of like a fine line. But Mike kind of likes that. You kind of dig that. I like when I earn some, when there is pain or some type of struggle associated with the development of skills and ability. And if that happens to fall under, if that happens to fall under certain exercise, that's,

that's one thing. But I also enjoy the pain and the suffering, the mental suffering of becoming a better surfer and getting out of gnarlier waves than I'm good. I'm set up for. And pearl diving a hundred times over to the point that I go, God, this is so frustrating. There's a certain pain there that I get gratified by knowing that I stuck with it. And I think that sometimes, whether it be in Muay Thai, if I break off a guy or if a guy breaks me off, that's way better than me, the fact that I didn't turn my back on it, I enjoy that. But I think what Max is getting at, and it is a very good point. One of the things I wanted to bring up is like kind of this new CrossFit culture where people's exercise, not their life endeavors, not their skill development,

Their exercise is causing them pain. Right. And it's like a badge of honor. The fact that they have completely open hands from calluses and rabdomyalysis is used as like a like a badge of honor, like I said. And those are a rabdomalysis just muscle breakdown. So bad for your kidneys. Is that what you were referring to, Max? Because I know that you also are a guy who likes to tackle things that you're not necessarily good at.

Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt, I actually just bought a whole bunch of tools. and a bunch of wood because I'm going to start doing some wood shop. And I'm kind of like, like you just mentioned, you want to try to develop as many skills as possible, because that's really all you've got at the end of the day. I mean, you can buy shit, but you can't buy skills, you know what I'm saying? And back to what we were talking about before, like feeling that pump, feeling that little bit of muscle soreness, people throw the word pride around a lot.

And the only way I believe you can feel pride is pride of accomplishing something. So I think a lot of the reason that people gravitate toward wanting to feel that soreness is they want to feel like they've done something, and that's the only way they have to measure it in a lot of cases. Yeah. And actually in the book, when I talk about accessory work, I go over some higher repetition, muscle pumping, grip training, arm training. because listen, just because I happen to do a lot of things on the gymnastics ring and deadlift for 80% of the workout, doesn't mean that those other things don't have value. Right.

You know, like that muscle pump feeling, you know, it's got value. It's going to flood nutrients into the joints, and it's going to help you stay healthier, longer, and you need to do some of that stuff just to sort of fill the gaps, if you guys understand what I'm saying. Yeah. No, I think that makes a lot of sense. And how do you kind of approach a client or someone who's interested in developing themselves physically when they're not necessarily willing to engage in stuff that's painful? I mean, because, you know, not to shit on the entire point that Drew and I just made and that you just made that, you know, you shouldn't do stuff that brings you dread. At the same time.

A lot of people have dread from nominal activity. Right. I mean, for instance, I know that I should be working on my power endurance more so than my overall. all dynamic strength. I love to deadlift. I love to squat heavy because I'm good at it and I like it. So I end up doing it more, even though I know I should be on the C2 rower and doing

some hill sprints because I'm gassing. Why? Why? Why? Because I know that that's where Are you fat? No. But in my mind I am. In my mind I am. I'm probably not fat in comparison to the population. But that's what I should be doing. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's because that's where I know that my physical weaknesses, they're there.

Chris is like, oh man, this guy's got body dysmorphia. Yes, he does. Yes, yes, I do. I did not apply that one of it. I think you just like to punish yourself. I should read your mind, Chris. There is a part of that. I do just like to punish myself.

But at the same time, like, for instance. See, we're not high performance athletes. That's the thing. No, okay, but let me use a better example. Let's pretend we have. Let me use a better example. I'm sure there's a lot of female clients who don't want to lift weights, and I'm sure there's a lot of guys who don't want to do, say,

steady state cardio. Yeah. How do you get them to either to do either if that's, what's necessary for them to achieve their goals? Well, I pretty much won't force anyone to do study-state cardio. What I do at the gym is kind of strange. I only let people work out like four days a week at the gym, and the other time they have to try to learn something new,

whether that's boxing or swimming or playing tennis or paddleboarding or anything like that. Basically, the idea is that exercise is supposed to make you better at stuff in the real world. and if you exercise six or seven days a week, guess what? Eventually, you're not going to be able to stick with it. But if you do three, four days a week, you can stick with it for a very long time. And as far as the getting ladies to lift things, don't tell them how much it weighs and put pink tape on it. Wow. Put what on the pink tape.

You know, just tell a little visual cue. That's hysterical. Or like a Louis Vuitton print. But Max, you're going at something that's important to me, and I approach a slightly different direction, which is one of the reasons I wouldn't like doing rings and Turkish get-ups and stuff, is I have to concentrate. And I don't like concentrating when I'm exercising other than the simplest concentration of lift that weight, get it done. And I experience my workout times as meditative. and I listen to lectures, academic lectures. I listen to thousands of them.

And so I see it as my meditation. Well, who doesn't, Dr. Drew? Who doesn't listen to academic lectures in their free time? But I do. It's my meditation and study hall time. And that's one of the reasons I don't, that's why the other reason the Turkish get-up is my nightmare. Actually, I really have to concentrate on every movement. Yeah.

And I just can't, I just, I'm not, that's not why I'm there. I'm there for my meditation. You absolutely simplify then. And therefore I'm medit. I do. So I've very simple. very simple workout that never changes, and I like it, and it gives me what I want, and sometimes I'll expand a little bit and contract a little bit, just to keep it interesting. But ultimately,

I'm much more interested in the meditative, intellectual experience I'm having in the context of doing something physical. Right. So that's my way of learning something while I do it. I totally agree with you about that. And Max, I have a question, because I know that you come from the RKC, and for those of you who are familiar with the Ketabell training, I mean, it was, I mean, it was, and probably still is looked at as like the foremost authority on the idea of kettlebell training. What's RKC? I actually don't know what that stands for. It's a Russian kettlebell challenge.

Okay, so then that was started by Pavel, who is this guy, Russian immigrant, and he came here. And he's really like, he kind of brought the idea of kettlebell training to the Western world. Now he's gone on and left RKC behind. He started his own thing. And I feel like when we were talking earlier about like dogmatic ideas about training, You certainly got experience with that in the early days of RKC, I would imagine. Oh, yeah, no kidding, man. I mean, basically, if someone's trying to sell you a piece of equipment, they're likely

modifying whatever the right thing to do is to satisfy the needs of that training equipment. I suppose you could modify that to when anybody's trying to sell you anything. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. I mean, when I wrote my book, the goal was to make it as simple and affordable and easy to implement as possible. You can actually do the whole thing with a $30 trip to Home Depot and a barbell set.

And that's all you need. Ultimate Athleticism is the book that he's referring to, Ambitionathletics.com, Ultimate Athleticism.com, or Max Shank. Click through on the Amazon Panner at what Adamaddoogshow.com or DoctorD.com, and you can get the, have the book there. Put it on my website, if you would, too. And let's talk about diet for a minute, can we? Sure.

Anything new? people love hearing the latest, newest, whatever, and I'm sure it's all same old. Well, I want to know what a Max eats because Max is one of those guys that you actually hate because, yeah, I mean, if you go to his website and you can actually see, like most guys, you go, well, he dead lifts a ton, but he's a fat ass. Or that guy goes, well, that guy runs a six minute mile, but he's a twig. Max is one of those annoying assholes who seems to be able to do it all and muscle ups and gymnastic movements. So you're like, wow, thanks, thanks so much, asshole. So I need to know what's fueling an athlete like you. I try to stick to the four major food groups, meat, cheese, eggs, and ice cream.

There is. It's a beautiful combination. So let me modify that, have the right parents. Yeah, I was going to say genetics plays a big role, yeah. No, no, no. Actually, I should clarify my little joke there. is I try to really keep in check what I eat because my mom, my dad, and actually my brother are all not significantly overweight, but maybe like 25 pounds overweight. And when I was younger, I was overweight, even when I played soccer, believe it or not.

I played soccer for about 15 years, and that was about as athletic as I ever got. We just ran and did nothing. And when I started training, I couldn't even do a pull-up. It was pretty, and that was when I was 18. So I was an adult man doing zero pull-ups and couldn't touch my toes. But as far as nutrition is concerned, I really, and it's probably just like most guys, like, man, I really wanted to have a six-pack because I thought that would make girls like me. And I had a six-pack, and still girls don't like me.

But at least I have a six-pack. I try to make up little habits for myself that make nutrition a little bit easier. So I try to remove as many barriers to healthy eating as possible. So a couple things that I do is I always have baby spinach and baby carrots available in the fridge. So I can always get a significant amount of vegetables in raw while I'm cooking other food. That's a great little trick. That's a great little trick. I do the baby carrot trick, but I'll eat a bushel of baby carrots.

Well, yeah. Drew is like a teenage girl with his sugar addiction where, like, Drew. Oh, yeah. Drew is very good about his diet 90% of the time. And then there's that 10% where he's having the teenage girl sleepover where I'll watch you just crush like a plate of brownies for no reason, just because it's there. It knows because I started. Yeah. Once they start, it's game on.

Enough about us, though. So, I mean, that's a good little trick. You're keeping the... I don't understand baby spinach. How would you eat that? Raw? I'll just eat it raw. What about...

That's manly. I'll throw it in an omelet, too. Yeah, yeah, sure, that makes sense to me. But baby spinach on its own doesn't make sense eating it. Well, you get the bags now that's triple wash and you get it popping around. I'd rather eat cauliflower or broccoli. Really? Yeah.

You wouldn't? Oh, my God. You and I might be different. How interesting. I disagree. I would much rather just have a handful. Like, if I put some lemon juice on baby spinach, I'd much, have that than raw broccoli or cauliflower.

Oh, not even close. Oh, you're such a bitch. That's so interesting. All right. I can't believe the three of us are different. So you have having access to, you know, nutrient dense vegetables, you know, that are ready to eat. That's a good little tip. And by the way, for the average person, not inexpensive.

It takes, you got to buy it three times, two or three times a week. You know, it's not. You can buy the pre-packaged carrots, I guess. But the rest of it, you got to make an effort. It, just the way you have to have conscious eating, you have to have conscious planning and availability. You know, fruits and vegetables are hard to come by. That's a good point, yeah. To be fair, though, I think if there was, I don't think there's an easier vegetable than baby carrots.

I agree. You can get a five-town bag for like six bucks. No, no, I agree. That's the one. And I'll eat that in about two days. Yeah. Yeah. And really, as far as the rest of it's concerned, I try to,

it's going to sound stupid and simple, but that's how I try to make everything. I try to match my activity level to my nutrition. How do you know what that is? Yeah, and I want to follow that up with. How do you resist the temptation to not overestimate your activity level, which is something I commonly do? Right. Oh, sure. I mean, that's kind of an individual journey, isn't it?

But generally, if I'm not very active, I will reduce the amount of carbohydrates that I eat, for sure. That seems to work pretty well. And I used to, like I said, I played soccer, so I ate tons of pasta and shit like that. But all the food that I buy is basically what I call one-ingredient foods. Right. So I either buy chicken or carrots or white rice. or, you know, sweet potatoes. You're not buying processed food with multiple ingredients, right.

Exactly, where, you know, God knows what's been put into it. And the other thing, too, is if you're cooking it yourself, you're likely going to do a better job of eating it and appreciating it. And, you know, you give your chance to have that communal exchange of feeling and emotion with food. and I think just cooking your own food is a big step in the right direction. Even if you're eating a little bit more, if you're cooking it yourself and preempting that with a few pounds of baby carrots, you're probably going to be all right. Yeah, I mean, sorry to interrupt you, but I also think that, like, Max, you touched on something. Aside from the calorie intake, aside from what it's doing for your nutrition, aside from your six-pack, just developing the reverence for food by,

Cooking it yourself, I think we can all imagine that and think about it and realize that it has a certain value to it. But it also, again, it imagines a world where you have the time to do that, and that's not the world that people live in necessarily, people are stressed. Well, the trick is to find more things like baby carrots, though, right? But it's so crazy to me. I completely agree with you, Max. I have 100% in line with everything you've said. But it's crazy to me that given that that's really how anybody that's knowledgeable about diet talks about diet, that people still want the blood type diet, the bullshit. The whatever diet.

And people still want these arousing sorts of weird, you know, ritualistic diets. They got to have that as the solution to what they're doing. I agree completely. And it's kind of a problem that is, I think, occurs to the fitness and nutrition industry because what's marketable isn't necessarily what's useful. Right. It's a headline. And I actually, headlines are what sell books. I'm glad you brought that up, Drew, in that how, Max, how do you maintain?

because as someone who's really been into your work, I know that you're a guy who is committed to kind of keeping your principles in an industry that's not necessarily where it doesn't necessarily value that. How do you market yourself properly? How do you get your book out there? How do you continue to pay the bills without going, you know, the gluten-free, never do a push-up again type thing, you know, that kind of diet without payless diet, Yeah, whatever is.

And, by the way, Max, before you answer that, we have some great calls on the line here. I want you guys to hold on the line, because I promise we'll wrap up our geekdom soon and get to your calls and promise. But go ahead and answer that, Max. Gosh, you know, it's definitely harder to sell an idea than it is to sell a thing, especially when that idea is pretty, I think it's mostly just common sense. Right. and my best friend's dad when I was young said common sense isn't very common and I've found the last 20 or so years to do nothing but prove that to be true yeah and as far as you know making ends meet and doing all that stuff if you it can take longer to build up steam but if you just keep doing a good job and stick to your guns I think some people will appreciate that

And the people who don't appreciate that probably aren't going to be listening to me in the first place. But there's sort of a deep wisdom in what he's saying, right? He's saying, do what's right, stick with it, do it well, do it better than anybody else, and they will come. Yeah. Somebody will appreciate what you have to say. If you stay true to, more than true to yourself, true to the principles of what you know to be true, it's very much, it's interesting, Max, it's very much like practicing medicine. You do what you know, you have your training, you have your experience, you have your experience,

you have your judgment and you stick with that. You don't budge out of that and you don't, you don't in any way bend. And people appreciate that eventually. It's a harder, it's a slower, but it's a more sustained sort of experience. Without a doubt. I mean, the one thing that all the best athletes in the world have in common is that they've been consistent for a very long time. I would say the best professionals, whatever it might be. Yeah.

You just whatever that might be. Absolutely. Yeah, no, it transcends. athleticism entirely. If you can stay consistent one thing for a long time, whether you want to be a practitioner

or an athlete or a woodworker, something like that, it doesn't really matter. Yeah, I mean, there is such a thing as making a big splash in the short term,

but that is not usually when history looks back, it's not usually looked at with the same kind of appreciation. Appreciation is something that's sustained. Well, Max, we got to wrap up.

Is there any last, have we missed anything? Is there anything else you want to sort of leave people with? Boy, no, I had a great time, you guys. This was fantastic. I think that if people would just exercise their common sense more and actually think about what that means, they would be better off. I'm not even going to sell you guys anything. I'm just going to say, use your common sense.

And I don't know if you guys are familiar with Charlie Munger. Yeah. Warren Buffett's clever partner there. Drew is familiar, of course, I am not. Well, he's from Pasadena. Oh, is he's from out here? Yeah. Go ahead. He's got a great little thing.

It's what works, what doesn't, and why. And that's the litmus test you should use for everything. And if you do that, if that's all you do, you'll probably be just fine. All right, man. And people might have some good ideas along the way, and you can take those in and disregard the bad ones. and make sure you power down some baby carrots and some eggs. And Mike punctuated that with a picture of a penis, which is his... Well, I just wanted to punctuate the whole interview by saying, you know, your six-pack may have not gotten you chicks, Max, but it got me to masturbate to you a couple times.

And I just want you to know that there's a lot of value in that. That's the closest to... Wow, interesting. There's a lot of value in that. A beautiful man, Max Shank. All right, Max. I always knew you were a starfucker. So they'll find you at Ultimate Athleticism.com.

You can get the book. We'll have it up. on our website and my website, Max Schenk, S-H-A-N-K-com, and then Ambition Athletics. Is that the name of your gym? Yep, that's the name of your gym. And that's in San Diego, or where are you?

It's in North Carolina, San Diego. It's an Nets need us. All right. Thanks, Max. Talk soon and I hope. Hey, thank you so much, guys. It's been a real honor. Thanks, dude.

All right, let's go to the phones. Now we have, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is Robert. Ironically, Roberts from Downy, Downing, like Robert Downing. Like Robert Downey. Hey, oh. Robert, what's going on? How you doing, Drew?

Good. What's up? Question. My wife developed what I think is pups. I was looking at up. She has this rash. She just delivered about nine days ago. So preritic urticarial papules, P-U-P-U-P-P-U-P-Pub Pregnancy? You pronounce it much better than I do. Paridic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy, which is a funny little rash that women get on their abdomen. Is it similar to pearly-pinal papules?

No, not at all, interestingly. It's something that they get from sort of their skin being oversimbing. stretched. But man, I would not make that diagnosis without a dermatologist, Robert. You certainly shouldn't be making the diagnosis. Right? Well, you know, everything's online now, but no, no, no, dermatology, let me tell you some. Dermatological stuff requires tremendous amount of experience looking at skin rashes to be able to differentiate amongst them. I mean, this could be, you know, there's serious rashes, too. There's, you know, there's all sorts of rashes that are indicative of underlying blood conditions and things that could be quite serious. What is it she has?

Well, yeah, it's just like these, well, the bumps are actually starting to raise, and they're starting to spread on her legs, on her arms. She already gave birth, so I was reading that it's really rare for you to get it after you give birth. And the pup is on the abdomen. So you're talking about a centrifugal, centripetal rash, starting the extremities and going towards the center. That's a very specific thing. And she just gave birth. She should be at a doctor anyway. Go have a doctor look, man.

This needs to get looked at right away, right away, okay? Should I worry? Is it contagious? It's contagious to the baby? Does anybody had chicken pox? Is she ever had chicken pox? You know what? Zemey asked her.

Have you had chicken pox yet, huh? Yeah. She had. I think chicken pox goes the other way. I think it starts centrally and goes perfectly. And I suspected maybe chicken pox are measles, but I don't know. Beasel is not raised. Measel is a flat rash.

It's called. or biliform rash. Of course. Hopefully it's nothing. It's probably going to be just a virus, but be that as it may. You've got a baby in the house. She's just delivered. There are so many different sorts of autoimmune reactions that can occur in and around pregnancy.

I would be very circumspect about it. Certainly I would not do that on my own. I'm a physician. I would rush my wife over to the obstetrician real quick. All right. Let's talk to John here. Uh, brooke. John, what's going on?

How much? How are you doing, Dr. Drew? Good, what's up? Mike. Hey, dude. Uh, yeah. Sometimes, Drew, I hear you talk, uh, kind of express frustration when you talk about, uh, mental illness. Yeah.

And psychiatrists not being able to, uh, control their patients. Well, it's not psychiatrists. Yeah, it's not, not even psychiatrists is that people, someone, whether it's a social worker or a judge or somebody, can't do what's good for the individual. Because the individual's... Well, it's usually left up to the family, right? No, no, it's left up to the individual. The individual, oh, well, you're talking if it determines, if it's how life and death issues,

yes, sometimes it's the family and sometimes it's whoever's specified in the directive to physicians, so-called. But I was talking about the ability to treat somebody who has a mental illness that is highly treatable for which the hallmark is lack of insight. You lose insight. You don't know you're ill. when you're ill with mental illness and you don't know how bad things are and you don't know how good things can get.

And so if somebody could take that person, put them somewhere there for a few weeks, we could make them so much better, maybe even a few months. But you're not allowed to do that. You can put them for 72 hours when you can do almost nothing. Wouldn't they be able to do it through the family, though? No. It's strictly the individuals, you cannot impinge upon an individual's freedoms. You can't do that.

Well, can I express a personal story with you? Yeah. I, in my early 20s, had a severe substance abuse problem, and I still seek treatment. You know, I see a doctor once every three months or whatever. Yeah. And I went to an inpatient and had a very good doctor. That was very, had a good philosophy on treating mental illness. Yeah.

She diagnosed me with a mood disorder secondary to polysubstance abuse, which was, I saw, an accurate diagnosis. Yeah. I got transferred to another doctor who, basically the first. first time she saw me, told me that I was so bipolar that it wasn't even funny. How could you tell when somebody just coming out drugs? Everybody looks bipolar. That's exactly, exactly my point, is how do you protect against bad doctors? Well, that's what I'm saying. Maybe it's not a physician's sort of opinion. And in my experience, my family is the one that actually, they're the ones that actually had

to control. They had to go through the courts to get me. Ah, the courts. See, there are ways. to do stuff through the courts that should be more flexible. So should you not promote more of a doctor to family? Of course. Basically, the picture I always get when you talk about it is that doctors should be able to basically do stuff, go to the courts and say, I now have control over this patient. No, no, no, no.

Okay, that's not accurate. I apologize if that's what I mean. I feel more in terms of teams and opinions of teams, and they should be able to appeal to some body, whether it's a social work body or a judge or whatever, that there should be, you know, ways that are, that are flexible and easy for teams of people or multiple physicians. You know, just the way you can, you know, I don't, I don't adhere to the idea that one person's opinion should prevail over another human's freedoms. I don't really say that. I mean, except maybe in an emergency, but then I do think there ought to be ways to do that. But ultimately, you know, three opinions, five opinions, I don't know, some sort of, you know, then applies to some other, that quickly applies to some sort of adjudicating body. All that, I think, should be available, and none of it is.

None of it. And what I complain about, and this is maybe why I seem overly sort of enthusiastic about it, I'm just complaining about the philosophy that individual freedoms take priority over everything. Over science. Over the individual's well-being, over the well-being of the community, over everybody else's freedom to move about. That's what makes me insane. And so you hear me sort of complaining about that principle, and it sounds like the solution

therefore is I should have control over that. No, no, I don't mean that at all. And so I appreciate you calling me out on that. Yeah, think about it, John, in a different perspective, obviously in your situation, it does sound like, you know, there should be some important, some credence put to personal freedom, but look in a case like, you know, Adam Lanza, where I know, well, that's a great example. Where plenty of doctors are saying, this man is sick, he's a danger to himself and others, and his mom's like, he's just going through some things, you know. And there needs to be, and better minds than mine need to come up with the actual solutions, but there needs to be solutions.

That's my thing, John. And, you know, and I'm often saying it on television or something where there's no time to give an elaborate to have any kind of real conversation about it. It's just sort of the principle I'm tossing out there. But I really, I do appreciate you bringing that up. Yeah, I agree. There should be some, because that does happen where a family member is blinded and not necessarily seeing what a professional is seeing. Yeah. And a great example right now is Bobby Christina Brown. That's a fucking disaster. And believe me, I was just telling somebody in TV guys, I want to bring a bunch of nurses on to talk about the frustration of dealing with these people that are in vegetative states that go on forever and just these decaying bodies that the nurses, it breaks their heart. It makes them sick to have to go in and do the work. Right. And the doctors aren't stepping up and confronting the family and things.

And the nurses have to are stuck doing something they don't ethically feel good about. And that's another kind of example, the same thing. All right, buddy, got a gun. Thank you. Yep, thank you. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, dude. Until then, this is Dr. Drew, Mike, Mike, and Adam Coraula, saying, mahalo.