The Bossticks - How Strength Training For Women & Men Can Be The Unlock To Longevity, Mental Clarity, Weight Management, & Balanced Hormones With Brent Hruska

Episode Date: November 25, 2021

#412: On today's episode we are joined by Brent Hruska. Brent is a certified trainer and also happens to be Lauryn and Michael's trainer. On today's show we discuss how strength training can be the unlock to longevity, better mental health, balanced hormones, and improved weight management. This episode is focused on health and training at the core.  To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential  The Hot Mess Ice Roller is here to help you contour, tighten, and de-puff your facial skin and It's paired alongside the Ice Queen Facial Oil which is packed with anti-oxidants that penetrates quickly to help hydrate, firm, and reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, leaving skin soft and supple. To check them out visit www.shopskinnyconfidential.com now.  This episode is brought to you by RITUAL Forget everything you thought you knew about vitamins. Ritual is the brand that's reinventing the experience with 9 essential nutrients women lack the most. If you're ready to invest in your health, do what I did and go to www.ritual.com/skinny  Your future self will thank you for taking Ritual: Consider it your 'Lifelong-Health-401k'. Why put anything but clean ingredients (backed by real science) in your body This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront No One is great at something the first time they try it. And if you're unfamiliar with investing, getting started can be intimidating. Wealthfront does the work for you, so you can invest like an expert from the beginning. Wealthfront creates automated investment portfolios of diversified, low-cost index funds personalized for you. To open your account all you need is 3 minutes and $500 to invest. Right now you can visit www.wealthfront.com/skinny to get your first $5,000 managed for free.  This episode is brought to you by Manscaped This holiday season I'm giving thanks to my friends at MANSCAPED™. Do I tell my extended family that I bought my man the Performance Package 4.0. from the global leaders in below-the-waist grooming? I am in love with their products and his confidence has shot up since he started using them for all of his grooming needs. Gift your man MANSCAPED™ this holiday season so his tree stands taller if you know what I mean. Help him join the 2 million men worldwide who trust MANSCAPED™ with 20% off + free shipping with the code SKINNY by going to www.manscaped.com Produced by Dear Media   

The following podcast is a dear media production. Steals and deals, steals and deals. We have a skinny, confidential Black Friday deal for you. Get excited, you guys. We are doing 25% off site wide. This includes kits. We try to be really thoughtful when we do sales, but of course we're doing a Black Friday deal for you.

So the start date is November 26th Friday, and it goes until November 3rd. 30th Tuesday. So Monday night at 1159, okay, you can shop everything. There's no code needed. So you're going to go on. And if you're going to get holiday gifts for your friends or your family, I would recommend picking up a couple of ice rollers, maybe the new razor. You could grab some ice queen oil. I like to use the oil after I've shaved my face because it's so nourishing and full of antioxidants. Everything kind of goes together too. So how I would use it. it is I would shave my face at night because I like shaving it at night, not in the morning,

because my skin isn't exposed to the sun. So I would shave at night. And then I would ice roll after I shaved to really soothe the skin. And then I would put the ice cream facial oil on top of that. Go to bed. You're going to wake up with the most plump, dewy, youthful, glowy skin. Obviously, if you have not tried the razor, try a little patch on your face first. We have tons of tutorials on how to shave your face on our Instagram account at the Skinny Confidential. and then when you wake up, you can ice roll the fuck out of your face. You can do your skincare routine, do a little facial massage with the oil, and you are good to go. I really tried to create products with my team that makes sense. I don't want you stressing for the holiday season because

I feel like stressing gives us wrinkles. So go on the site, shop all your holiday gifts. I know you're going to love everything. Grab it for your girlfriends, your friends, even dad's ice roll. Okay. That is shop, skinny confidential.com. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride.

Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. And you've got to think, if everybody's saving for retirement, how much are you putting away investments in saving? This should be part of your retirement because it's going to pay you dividends when you get to 60s. 70, 80 years old. Because once you're there and you start trying to do stuff then, it's too late. Just like retirement. If you try to start investing when you're 80, you're out of luck. What's up, everyone? I am so excited for this episode, this episode of the skinny confidential him and her because we have Michael and my trainer from Austin. Brent Ruska. Brent is on the show

and he is going to talk about weightlifting for women. This is a really exciting topic because I have to be honest, I was really scared of heavy lifting for a long time. And Brent has slowly introduced me to it since being in Austin. And I've noticed a really big change in my body. So we discussed that in this episode. And we also discuss Michael's experience. It's a very him and her podcast. Yeah, over the years, I've trained with a lot of different people. And Brent, and I give him a compliment on this show, is by far the best person and my most favorite person that I've ever trained with in terms of trainers. because he takes a very individual approach. It actually takes the time to get to know you,

not only from a physical perspective, but also personally. And he has a way of working with people where you constantly feel motivated, you feel empowered, you feel like you want to actually show up and train. And I think that's one of the biggest things, is getting people to actually feel excited and motivated to get in the gym, start lifting weights. And, you know, long story short, I think our experience lifting weights and also doing it as a couple

has been super empowering because it, gave Lauren an outlet to try something new. And it also gave me an outlet to stay motivated and stay consistent. I'm mixing in Pilates and lightweights too. And I walk a lot. I also do some intervals, not like long running, just intervals every once in a while. So I think this whole approach to fitness has been really empowering for me. Like Michael said, I absolutely adore Brent as a person. He has made my husband's body rock hard. You look so good, honey. Like absolutely amazing. Between Brent and you manscaping your balls, it's like a whole new world. Yeah, I'd say like manscaping the balls is like 95% of it, but also, I'm just kidding, Brent. No, I think you, I feel good.

Your genes don't even fit anymore. Yeah, well, your muscles are like bursting at the seams. You've got testosterone. Things are bigger in Texas. Let me tell you. Brent, thank you for making things bigger in Texas. I feel tighter. You've really helped me with my postpartum journey. He's an incredible human. We talk about women in weightlifting, weightlifting in general. What eat proteins, nutrients, and plant medicine. This episode goes kind of everywhere. With that, let's welcome a certified professional trainer, Bodies by Brent, who has been training for like the last 15 years. He's absolutely amazing. Brent, welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. Today we have Brent, my trainer from Austin

in studio. I'm so excited to pick his brain on women and weightlifting. But first, First, I want to give the audience some context because over the three sessions that we do a week, I've got to learn a lot about you. Why don't you tell us a little bit how you got into weightlifting and specifically with women because that is your expertise, I feel like. Well, I got into personal training back in junior high. I was an overweight kid. Stop playing athletics.

And I was an emotional leader. And it just kind of spiraled down from there. And I remember one summer entering high school, I decided to do it. a program called Body for Life. And it was a 90 day program. It's kind of like the original of P90X. Lift weights three days a week, do sprints three days a week, eat six small meals. The creator was Bill Phillips. He owned the supplement company EAS. Do you remember that company? Yep. Yep. And they also created muscle and fitness magazine at the time. And when I read this book, I got super inspired because it was the stories and the book and the transformations. So one summer,

after being sick and tired of being overweight, I decided I'm just going to give myself fully into this experience and see what happens. I didn't know what was going to happen. And then on the other side of that experience, I had lost 50 pounds. But I didn't really know the true transformation until I went back to high school the next year. And everybody's reflection towards me, their experience of me being there was like their jaws were on the ground. Losing 50 pounds and completely different before I was dressing like a fat overweight. kid, you know, wearing super baggy pants and weird Hawaiian shirts with like crazy hair,

going to like boot cut pants, nice button up shirt. So like complete 180. So when you say emotional eating, what do you think that was, what do you think the reason for that was? And how does that manifest itself? I was just depressed, anxious. So a lot of emotional eating is a way of trying to soothe your emotions through food, right? And you can do this with anything, cigarettes, alcohol, you know, zoning out on TV. So I was just in a place where as I was gaining weight, not doing exercise, it continued to gain weight. And then it spiraled where I was using food as a way of coping, right?

So that experience, I felt an experience what it's like to achieve something that I didn't think was possible. and, you know, being a very empathetic individual, I made a commitment and decision that I wanted to help people go through that experience. And was this the, like, the first time you made the decision to kind of like start taking care of yourself and get in shape? Was it an overnight thing or did you have, or take a few tries or like, right when you made the decision, like, I'm doing this and then you did it?

I think that's a lot of, that's something that people struggle with is like, there's a lot of people that want to make this decision and for whatever reason they struggle to actually get there. I think I was just finally fed up with being overweight and feeling like shit sick and tired of just being sad and depressed and just down and it was just I was like I need to make make a change and it's like a switch went off in my head and I remember going through the experience or before the experience thinking I don't understand how to get in shape I don't I don't understand you know I was trying keto or at the time it was Atkins and trying to be different methods. It was just complete like it made no sense of how you achieve getting this weight off.

And then when I went through that experience, I was like, oh my God, this is so powerful. And I wanted to be able to take other people through that experience. And I think the reason I train with women specifically is it comes from my mother, you know, her being so empathetic and being raised by her. she was always encouraging me to express my emotions and my feelings, right? And I think I have a lot of her energy within me that I care very deeply about all beings. And so I think I connect very easily with women because of that connection with my mother. Can you remember the first epiphany or thing that started working with weight loss? Like it is very overwhelming. I know too with our audience because there's so much content being thrown at everyone all the time online. Was there one thing that you can pinpoint where you're like, wow, I'm losing weight.

This is working. I mean, when I first made the transformation, I didn't really know, right? I was lifting weights in my garage and doing intervals. But as I started to train people, it was when I started adding weight training and interval training and getting people to make small little changes that made the difference and focusing on feeling better and eating better. Why do you think women are so afraid of weight training? Because they are, including myself when I first met you.

I think they have a perception that they're going to get much bigger, right? Which is kind of funny because it's the one thing that will change their body the most, right? Especially if they've never touched weights, it's the thing that will really transform them. Most women come to me and they're under eating. They're doing way too much cardio. So their body's overstressed. And it's even more stress because they're under eating. So they're not even recovering from all the cardio they're doing.

So they're burning off muscle all the time. And they might be doing something like Pilates or Bar, but it's not enough resistance to keep them building muscle or really losing that body fat. So the funny thing with changing your body is you need intensity and you need stress in order to change your body. But it's a balance. Too little.

You don't really get to change. too much, you won't really change either, or you push yourself over the edge of being too high cortisol. You're inflamed. You don't feel good. Right. So it's this balance. So when somebody comes in, you need to assess where they are. Have they been overstressing themselves or are they not stressed enough, right? And then that weight training component seems to be, it's the appropriate amount of stress to get them to change, but it doesn't push their cortisol crazy over the edge. Like, for example, as I train women as they get much older, more and more they start shifting away from any high intensity cardio, the more they only lift weights. It's like a spectrum. 20-year-olds are doing all this

spin class and boot camps and da-da-da-da-da-da. And as they 30s, 40s, they start transitioning more and more and more to weights because they finally realize it's the fountain of youth. It's going the thing that's going to keep them functional and feeling good, but it's going to keep them looking good in their clothes and their jeans and they keep their skin tight and their physique looking good because women have very low amounts of testosterone in the body very very low so a man ranges anywhere from 300 to 1200 nanograms females anywhere from 15 nanograms to 70 nanograms if a guy's around 600 to 300 he's considered like low tea right if a guy's low tea it's super hard for him to put on muscle in addition if he's not eating enough calories right so if my

My testosterone was around 300 and I wasn't eating enough calories, no matter how hard or heavy I lifted, I'm not going to build any muscle. Meaning like, so what you're saying is there's this myth and illusion that a lot of women have where if they weight lift, they're going to put on all this massive bulkiness. But what you're saying, because of the testosterone levels, it's, I don't say it's impossible, it's really difficult for them to get that kind of like bulkiness that a man would get. Exactly. Your testosterone levels are like a prepubescent boy.

So that's a very challenging thing. Now, if you've been a woman and you've trained five, six years, heavy weights and whatnot, and then you come to me and you're like, I don't want my quads to get any bigger. You have the right now to tell me that because you've trained so much and you've developed your physique so much, you truly understand like, okay, I can change these things. You know, I don't want my quads bigger. I don't want this bigger. For me with you, when I came to you, I said two things.

The first thing was I do not like boot camp or spin. I think, and you mentioned this earlier, I think it ups my cortisol and I'm very intuitive with my cortisol. When Michael turns the lights on in the morning too bright, I want to stab him. With boot camp and spin, I feel like I don't want to be yelled at and have this loud music that's pounding. I think it gives me belly fat. And also, I was doing a lot of low, low, low intensity because of that, like Pilates and like super light workouts. But there was something in me that felt like I needed to add weight. And you are right. Once I added weights, I have been told by my photographer who takes

pictures of me that my body looks completely different and by the girl that spray tans me naked. So I know that it is working. But one thing that fucks you up, and I would love for you to speak on this, is I have gained weight, but I look fitter and my jeans are falling off me. That is the mind fuck that everyone doesn't get. Can you explain that? What could you? How much? What was the weight change? The weight change was probably like five to six pounds depending on the day. But it's scary when you step on the scale and it's five or six pounds heavier when you've been working your ass off. Not raising your cortisol though because weightlifting does not raise my cortisol.

It makes me calm. But my jeans are falling off and people are telling me I look more fit. So it's hard to conceptualize that. it's because because you weren't training with weights or enough resistance, you were deconditioned and you lost all your muscle. And so in that first month or two, you start putting back. So I always tell women that start training with me, you're going to probably gain five pounds in the first month or so.

Then it will level off and then it might come back down depending on how much weight you have to lose. So you're putting on more muscle. And just because you're putting on muscle doesn't mean it's getting bigger. you can get much more dense and more and more dense. Well, that's what I was going to kind of like say and interject, just because I think there's this notion that if you gain, especially as women, you gain weight,

it's this bad thing because you're expected to be a certain size and a certain weight. But muscle, correct if I'm wrong, is more dense than fat. And so you're, as you build more muscle, it's inevitable that you're going to gain weight, but it's a good weight gain. I don't have a lot of things out on my bathroom vanity, but I do have ritual. And you guys, if you have not tried it, you are missing out.

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And of course it is. The ingredients are everything you could. want. What it does is it's made with traceable ingredients so you know what you're putting in your body and why. And they also have this supply chain, which I think is really cool. So you know where the ingredients come from. There's so many protein powders on the market that you're just like, where did this come from? What is this random name? They also wanted to create something clean. So it's clean, plant based. And it supports the nutrients needs, of course, because they're a multivitamin company. So they get it. It has 20 grams of P.

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guarantee if you're not 100% in love. Plus, our listeners get 10% off during your first three months. You are going to visit ritual.com slash skinny to add essential protein today. That's ritual.com skinny. I know, but you know you work with a lot of women that that can be really difficult. So maybe you could just settle the audience's stress about that. Yeah. Maybe avoid looking at the scale for the first three months or so. That's why I always encourage women. Like if you really want to look at the scale, you can. But let's just pay attention to how you feel in your clothing. Your clothing, because at the end of the day, that's the end game, right? I was paying attention how I felt in doggy style.

Yeah, me too, me too. But, oh, you and dog. Not me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, let me. But, you know, I think, like, speaking of how you feel, you know, there's different people that have different perspectives on this conversation about, you know, weight loss, fitness, all these things. But one topic that comes up on this show all the time is confidence and how do you build confidence and where does it come from? And what I always try to tell people personally and on this show is that if you're not, you know, taking care of yourself and holding.

promises and yourself and holding promises to yourself and keeping yourself accountable. Personally, before you even start worrying about the external stuff, it's almost impossible to develop confidence, right? Like a lot of people want to be like, how can I be more confident as a public speaker? How can I be more confident in dating? But if you're not actually taking care of yourself and holding yourself accountable and being the best version of yourself, I tell people it's almost impossible to develop external confidence because internally, you know you're not doing what you couldn't be doing for

yourself. Yeah, that's why focusing on how you feel and improving your health and well-being will change your life because that's the first foundational thing that you need in order to whatever, create a successful business or have good relationships. If you don't feel good or you don't feel like shit, it can only get to a certain place in that relationship in a positive way. And especially for women, lifting weights, you know, as guys, we've been guys and movies are muscular and, you know, we're always taught since junior high, like high school, lift weights, blah, blah, blah, blah. Not a lot of women are encouraged to do that. And then when they experience, and that's another why it's fun to train women, when they experience it and they see

themselves get stronger and how confident they become to, you know, move around furniture or like lug their kids around or whatever it is, they're super empowered. And it's very amazing. And then they fall in love with it. Not only the changes that they see, but the confidence and the empowerment that it brings. Because like Jordan Peterson, he has like a chapter about holding your shoulders back and how it actually affects your physiology. If you stand up tall versus slouch, well, if you're training weights, your structure, your posture is going to be much more upright. Good posture. And that's going to change your perception of yourself. Yeah. And I personally, I feel like, and Lord, I don't know if you've experienced this, but

you know, when you're moving a bunch of heavy, you know, relatively heavy shit around depending on what level you're at. Like, to me, it's one of the best killers of stress and anxiety because you're getting all of that kind of like aggression and pent up energy out. And so, you know, if you do that in the morning or the evening, I feel like you sleep better, you work better, you eat better, like all of these things. It's a very foundational thing. And whenever in my personal life, I get away from weights, you know, we've talked about this,

you know, you get into yoga. There's all sorts of different things you can do. But I've found over the last 30-something years, when I get away from weights, that's when all that stuff starts to creep back, anxiety, stress. stress, fear, like all of those things that the weights I feel like kind of keep off. Exactly. Weights can have a very calming effect to the nervous system. And yeah, very calming effect to the nervous system where women, if they're doing a lot of high

intensity cardio all the time, it can feel good, but it starts to spin up even more cortisol. And it can throw their hormones super out of whack where for whatever reason, weight training or resistance training seems to help balance or be much easier on women's hormone profiles. I can't tell you exactly why, but that's what I typically notice. And the thing with weights is you can titrate it. You know, how one woman lifts versus another, like Lauren versus another one of my clients, it's going to be a completely different session. But the key principle or the thing that continues through all the different training sessions

is they're going to be doing some kind of resistance training, right? Some respond much better, lifting very heavy with lots of sets and no exercises pair together. Maybe Lauren does better combining three leg exercises together and staying a little bit lighter in weights. But no matter what you're all progressing slightly in strength, adding weight over time, and that's changing your body. But everyone's very individual. And as you start to dabble in it, you can tweak things. And I think that's what your listeners should do is start to be curious. Go, okay, I'm going to commit to doing resistance training.

and start to reflect after each session, does this feel good? Does this not feel good? Does my coach, is he listening to me? Do I want to do more barbell stuff or dumbbell stuff? Or maybe I just want to go to cables only. Or maybe I want to stay with body weight. And how do I feel each week, am I feeling better and stronger?

Or am I feeling run down and beat up? Right. And I think that's a good question to ask yourself with anything doing with fitness and wellness. You should continually be asking like plus or minus, Is this, should I continue going this way a little more or not, right? Cluing in on your body's feedback towards you. Same with nutrition. One of my things when I started working out with you was I didn't want to be in a sterile gym. I didn't want bright DMV lights shining down on us and I wanted to like keep things low cortisol. What do you think the environment does to play

into these women working out? Do you think it's important? Because for me, it's a complete energy shift. I think it's nice to train an environment that's like a sanctuary. If you can find a place to train where it's almost like a yoga studio or you can just focus on yourself, the thing with like really big gyms is a lot of your external focus is outside of yourself. You're focused on dude over there doing lap holes down the machine, right?

or super pounding loud music. I like to treat weight training like a meditation, you know, and allowing the person have whatever experience they need to have, whether it is they want to play super loud, you know, 90s gangster hip hop or... In my case. Do you like listen to Tupac?

No, we listen to heavy metal. You do? Yeah, and we listen to. Hermannas Gutierrez and Bosanova and smooth jazz. I'm sure you said, Armano Gutierrez, but wrong, but okay. But yeah, I can't get down with smooth jazz when I'm trying to do a squat. I just, I got to.

I want super low, low, low. But listen, that's your, it's your thing. But no, you know, I think that the problem that I have with the big gym sometimes is it, again, it's, to your point, like it's kind of like a social scene sometimes. No, no, no. I can't be running into Susie from high school. I can't be doing that. I can't even go lift at big gyms.

I don't want to deal with. I already am around a lot of energy, which I enjoy. But the last thing I need to do is, you know, be having more eyes on me or getting distracted while I'm trying to like get into a state where I'm focusing on my training, making that mind-muscle connection. Also, the parking in the parking lot and going up the elevator, having to talk to the front desk people and all this stuff. It's like. I want to look like a homeless slob too when I work out. I know that Michael's all about like leaving the house looking prim and proper.

but when I work out, like I'm running out the door. I just took care of the baby. Like, I got to go. Like, sometimes I'm in my pajamas. You never know. The point is, is I'm getting it done and finding a way to make it happen. I don't want to dress up. Sometimes I'll, you know, I'll put on like a tight Lulu Lemon that boost the ass if I'm

working out with Michael. But sometimes I just want to just come as I am. Do you know what I mean? And just be a slob about it. Yeah. Just be in your own space without having to worry about being any other way than yourself. I would love to talk about the sort of prescription. I put that in quotes that you gave to me because I have seen this in my DMs and I think

a lot of women feel the similar way. I came to you and said I wanted like long lean muscle. How did you start me out if someone wants to like tell their trainer if they live in Massachusetts? Like what I think that you were saying that you gave me like a lighter weight with more reps. Can you sort of explain that? And then also explain what you did for Michael, which was a completely different prescription. Well, when you showed up, you could tell you were worn out.

Yeah? You were tired. I was tired. Yeah, you were tired. So we had to be very gentle with you, right? So we stuck with mostly cable stuff to get you moving to let you feel good. Because the goal of every session is, you know, you should leave feeling built up and feeling good. You should feel an abundance of energy but tired.

If you're feeling completely drained every single session, it's. going to wear you out over time. So starting very light and as you started to do out things I prescribed outside the gym, you know, continuing to do your walks, you know, changing your food, trying to get your cortisol. You were meditating. I mean, you were super on everything. Over time, her energy builds up, her strength builds up. Now we can throw in more dumbbell type stuff. You know, if I had a recommendation for what you should have your trainer do. Or even if you're working out alone because some people won't have access. You know, I would focus on two to three times a week doing full body or splitting it upper and lower.

And I would just, you know, three sets, 12 to 15 reps and pair exercises together. I think that's another thing you should actually touch on a two to three times. I think a lot of people are sitting here thinking, okay, you know, like they work out daily or, you know, five days a week. I think one of the benefits of lifting heavy weights is it doesn't have to be a daily thing. Like we, you know, you and I personally, we train what, three days a week only? And there's, you know, at least two or three days a week where I'm taking pretty much completely off outside of like walks and just basic stuff.

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but just some portion and set it aside for investing and saving for your future. Once you get into the habit of doing this, you're going to over time just become better and better at saving. It's going to become a natural thing. And next thing you know, you're sitting on a nice nest egg that's going to protect you and your family for your future. So what can you invest in through wealthfront? Something that I've talked about, something that I give advice for every young person looking to jump in. And that is low-cost index funds. That's what I invest in. That's what Lauren invest in. That's what we put the majority of our portfolio in. Super easy to understand. You can also build, you know, using Wealthfront, you can build a portfolio with clean energy fund, cannabis,

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slash skinny. That's W-E-A-L-T-F-R-O-N-T.com to start building your wealth now. That's Wealthfront.com slash skinny and get started today. Yeah. So again, to change your body, you need stress, but you need to recover from the stress or you're not going to change your body. You're going to push yourself into a hole. So training to two to three days a week is perfect. I only see clients two to three days a week. I don't see clients four days a week. And if I did, I would do something where it was based on recovery or yoga or breathing or we'd go on a walk or something recovery. Because I want them when they show up to be able to give intensity and each time be progressing those workouts, each time adding a couple more reps or adding a little bit more weight. And that's the key is if you have a coach or you're training on your own, you know, progressive overload or, you know, progression is the most important thing you can do to change your body.

And it just has to be something subtle. So if you're doing three sets of 12 lunges, body weight, then adding fives and trying three sets of 12. And then letting your body adapt that for a couple workouts and then trying adding a little bit more or pairing two exercises together. Or maybe you add a fourth set or you shorten the rest. But something needs to be slightly pushing you forward. And that's how we started to change you is find that base that you can handle very subtly. Also, as I'm taking you through a session, I'm trying to learn your body, learn what feels good, And as you communicate to me, like, I don't like this.

I like this. So we can just kind of naturally, you're guiding me where we can go as I push you at the same time. Now you can use a barbell where before if I tried to get you to use a barbell would be incredibly inappropriate, you'd be like, this is too fucking much. I'm out of here. This is too crazy. What he's doing? And you'd be overwhelmed.

And it'd be too much for your body because you weren't in that place. So what's the difference between me and Michael, like the fundamental difference when you wait, train? Maybe goals, goals. Okay. So what maybe it may speak on that. So Michael's goal is put on, well, so I wanted to put on weight. I wanted to put on muscle mass, right? Like for me, because you wanted a pumping penis full of testosterone. Yeah, well, I actually need a reduction there. No, I'm just kidding. No, I wanted, I felt like, you know, the last few years or the last two years, especially through the pandemic, has been stressful. A lot of people have not been taking as much care of themselves as they should. And I noticed that I had lost weight, but in a way where it just felt

unhealthy for me, right? Like, not a healthy weight loss. And with the kid and chasing her around, and Lauren, I was like, okay, I want to be able to like put some strength on again and put some muscle mass so I could just feel more natural in my frame. So like our goal was completely different than yours because you were trying to tone and tighten up and I was trying to bulk up, right? Intentionally to get bigger. Also, your genetics and your background from when you were a little kid, what you did plays a big role in that. You've been lifting for all. a long time. Yeah, no, and I think that's worth noting on because, you know, for me, it's, it's kind of like getting back on the bicycle, right? You can lose it, but it's, it's more natural.

Where something that's not as natural and where we've talked about, that's a struggle to not, so I'm not painting a picture like I'm just like great in shape guys. I struggle with things like yoga and like the Pilates stuff. Like that's something I have to really work on because my body just, I never did it when I was younger. I think that's the same kind of correlation here for maybe men and women that have never lifted weights. If you never done it, it feels like this foreign, an extremely difficult thing to do. But if like reverse for me, like when I jump into yoga or stuff with you guys, like it's, I'm lost. Babe, you in a yoga position sets me over the edge.

It's bleak. Yeah, I have a difficult time with the, with all the like the hum he had stuff, you know. I just want to get the stretches. Yeah, but he needs yoga. He does need yoga. I have a difficult time with the community stuff. Or float tank. You just do float tank a lot.

Yeah. I'm going to throw you in those for like two hours when you get stressed. I know that you're big. recovery. We've talked about that. Can you talk about some tools in the recovery toolbox? Sleep, sex, walks, intervals. What are, what's in your recovery toolbox? I mean, the basic is always walks. walks, walks, walks. If you can do a walk first thing in the morning, even if it's just for 10 minutes, that is such a good way to get your mind into a relaxed day, your body into a relaxed day, and also kind of do a scan of like, how am I feeling today?

How should I work out today? What intensity should I be giving? And it is such a good way to lower your cortisol while burning calories into addition of all the other mindfulness benefits that you get from walking. So everybody should be walking. Now, if you can go into something more, float tanks are obviously one of my favorites. You love, what was your first float tank experience?

Well, so to describe, I mean, some people that don't know what a flow tank is, you go in and what is, it's basically water with a shitload of salt. It's a deprivation tank, right? So you're going to take any stimulus away. So sight, sound, and even the feeling of gravity. Yeah, and Lauren and I had two different experiences with it. Like, for me, I went in there, and you can paint a picture, you go in, you can have a few lights on, you can have a little music, or you can make it completely pitch black and have no sound. I went straight into the block, no sound. I didn't love the block.

it felt like I was going to be murdered. And also, I meditate all the time and you don't. So I think that I get to get still. But the most important thing for me with the float tank was that you have to wash your hair after. Yeah. And that's just stressed out. That's like telling both of you that you have to wax your whole body, including your butt hole. So it's overwhelming to wash my hair. That's what it feels like for you to wash your hair. Jesus Christ. It's painful torture. I try never to wash my hair. I mean, if I knew that that was the kind of mental exercise you put yourself through, I would have been a lot more understanding. So speak on why float. tank is one of your recovery tools. So when I was back in Seattle, year ago I moved to Austin,

but back in Seattle, I was working all the time, 6 a.m. till 8 p.m. at night. And it got to the point where I wasn't working out and I couldn't get my cortisol down. Like I would try to go to sleep at night and I would, my roommates would tell me I would sometimes scream in the middle of night because my nervous system was so amped up. I would literally yell in the middle of night and make crazy noises and they make fun of me. And I couldn't, I couldn't, I needed sleep. So you get in this chronic cycle. You're drinking caffeine. You're working a lot. You can't, you don't have any energy to actually work out. But how am I going to get this stress offloaded, right? Because you work out to burn some stress. And so I started floating. And it wasn't until like

the third or fourth time, I really experienced this deep, relaxed state. And it's, it's almost, it's a cheat code. It's a hack for switching yourself from a. sympathetic state to a parasympathetic state. It just switches you into a relaxed state. The research is it puts you into a theta state, those brain waves that take you into that deep relaxation where you can have intense visualizations. And once you're in that state, it's very hard to, like if I were to float in the morning, I would be so zend out the rest of the day to the point where, you know, I would be spacing out during clients. So that was the thing I would do at the end of the day and I could go home and I would actually finally pass out.

I want to I do as we're talking about this I'm thinking there's a segment of the audience that's going to say you know okay this all sounds great but how much is it cost for a trainer how much is how much is it cost for a float tank oh this is all all expensive stuff and they're almost going to talk themselves out of it I'm kind of maybe attacking these people but my answer to the people that are thinking like that is when I started making the switch and saying okay I'm going to spend some money on a float tank or I'm going to spend some money on a vitamin IV or I'm going to spend some money on training. I was replacing things like going out and drinking excessively with friends or buying something I didn't need or going on some kind of crazy trip or like time with friends.

And I think a lot of people look at this stuff and they say, well, this is all expensive, but they also have a difficult time auditing. Like what else are you spending your money on that's also unnecessary, right? These are things that I think further your life make you a better person, make you or put you in a better state of mind, build confidence, all of these things. So to me, it's worth investing in. And a hot tip, if you can't float, go in your room, turn the lights on dim and meditate. That's free. Totally.

But I don't want to pay the, like listen, a lot of this stuff does cost money, right? And you've got to pay the normal bills. But, you know, it's an investment into yourself where like, you know, a night out getting shit-faced with friends, maybe not. And you got to think, if everybody's saving for retirement, how much are you putting away investments and saving? This should be part of your retirement because it's going to pay you dividends when you get to 60, 70, 80 years old. Because once you're there and you start trying to do stuff then, it's too late. Just like retirement.

If you try to start investing when you're 80, you're out of love. That was that. I did this post the other day and I said like to me, I always have to figure out a reason. Like what's the motivation? Like it to me like I'm married, I'm happy. I'm past the point of the vain reasons, right? Like I don't, I'm not doing this because I'm worried about what other people think I look like.

But I started looking at some older people that I have in my life and the relationship they have with their kids and like these are really. These are relatively still young people that are in poorable health. This one group I'm talking about. I was thinking like, you have all the money in the world and all these resources, but you're so unhealthy. You're not going to be here to, hopefully you are, but you're most likely not going to be here for the long haul to see your kids grow.

And for me, like I want to be that dad that, you know, the kids have to keep up with, not the other way around when I'm like wheezing and huffing and puffing. And so just that alone is like, okay, replace some of the bad habits and invest in the good habits, especially like saving for retirement if you're not going to be around to enjoy it, meaning like you're not going to be on the planet. the point. Exactly. And focusing on your health as you're having kids, you're going to instill those habits and that way of thinking into them. And then it's going to be so much easier for them. If they're around their parents and they're at their trainer's training session or their

mom always goes on a long walk in the morning, that's going to be a habit that they're going to do with their own kids. And they don't have to, when they're hit 30 or 40, try to relearn a lot of that stuff. So I'll tell some women like, you're also doing this for your children. Like if you don't, you know, you're losing hope on like, why am I doing this for myself? Think about your kids, right? Think about the food you bring in your house. Yeah. I think a lot of like the self-help people in this space.

Like, you know, like they're selling. Sometimes like people zone out because it's like they're trying to like you'll be happy. You do this mind. Like you're not going to be happy if you don't feel healthy and accountable to yourself. Right. Like you're like you can, you know, love yourself all of these things. But if you're unhealthy and not feeling good, like it's, it's just kind of horse shit. Right.

You have to be in a healthy state of mind and a healthy body to be able. to enjoy these things. You know what's tight, Lauren? What? But you can't guess. What? My shave and not my shave on my face, but my shave down below. Thank you for letting us know that, Michael.

You know what's hairless this Christmas? What? Balls. Not the balls on the tree, Michael. Your balls. Merry Christmas. Thank God. Thank God for manscaped.

Like, literally thank God for them coming in and disrupting all. you guys is sick-ass hairy balls. I am so happy to be working with them and I am so happy to tell all of our listeners the gift that keeps on giving to get for their husbands, their boyfriends, their dad, their grandpa, their great-grandpa. Great-grandpa needs to shave his balls too, Michael. So let me tell you about the performance package, 4.0 by Manscaped. In this kit, you'll find the signature lawnmower 4.0. Thank God, it's this electric trimmer that has advanced skin-safe technology, so you're not a bunch of cuts on your balls. Let me tell you, I can speak firsthand experience. This is why I like the Manscape stuff. I'm not going to lie. Some of the other stuff I was using before Manscape,

you get some nicks in there and some blood and it's not a pretty sight down below, as you can imagine. You know what else isn't a pretty sight? Doing it over the toilet, which is why I'm so excited to announce that they also have a waterproof situation. So you can use it in the shower and not over my toilet, Michael. You know, I have a little bit of shaky hands. So just in case I am standing over the toilet, I can hold on to this thing. And if I do drop it, then it's fine. I know it's like it's safe. The performance package also includes the crop preserver and the crop reviver. And this is an anti-chafeing ball deodorant, moisturizer, and toner.

I'm going to get this for all my guy friends because guess what? Not only do we want things to be clipped and trimmed down there, we want things to smell good. There's nothing worse than a cheesy ball. You should know that they're giving everyone 20% off plus free shipping with code skinny at manscape.com. If you want, you could just turn this ad up around your husband or boyfriend and give them a little hinty hint. That is 20% off and free shipping with code skinny at manscaped.com. 20% off with free shipping at manscaped.com and use code skinny. Get your man, your grandpa, your dad, a gift that everyone will enjoy.

The gift of manscape. And that was the practice of like yoga. Yoga is this eight limbs. And the goal is, you know, reaching this samadhi, this spiritual enlightenment where you're one with everything. But the first couple limbs are like the asana, the physical practice. And the point of that is to create good health, to balance your nervous system and to be able to sit into meditation posture and do breathwork to help balance your health. Because if you're not healthy, you can't pursue these higher levels of, you know, spiritual development.

So health is the foundational cornerstone. So quickly to the audience, if you could, spark notes, five things that they can do tomorrow to lower their cortisol. Go on a walk. Focus on your breathing. Set a timer. Five, 10 minutes. Just literally five seconds in, five seconds out. You can put on music if you want. That's, that works too. Drink more water. Start writing down what you're eating and start to be curious about resistance training. What are the benefits of weightlifting as you get older? Because I know there's lots and lots of benefits. Well, as you get older, you know, all of us start to lose our hormones. Our testosterone starts to go down and it helps keep for women that testosterone high.

And you living a long time, they show that the stronger you are and the more muscle you have, the longer your life expectancy. So that's a good way of predicting someone's longevity is their strength and their muscle mass. They did these hand strength tests where they would squeeze these things. And people that were able to squeeze and produce more strength lived longer. So because you think if you fall down and break your hip, you have to, you're going to start pulling, you know, calories from your muscle and your fat. If you're very skinny and weak and you're in bed for, you know, three weeks and you're 80 years old,

it's going to be very hard to recover from, right? It's going to keep you functional. It's going to keep you armored. So if you get sick or fall down, you're not going to. hurt yourself, especially for women. Keeping their bones strong is extremely important, right? If you get older and you fall and trying to recover from something, take so much longer. So it's a way of fortifying your body. But also, it helps keep the skin tight so it's not drooping because you want to keep that muscle mass and that layer of fat muscle small. So it stays tight

against you. That's one of the biggest things. Like, you know, you don't want saggy, old person, butt, right? The best way to do is you've got to keep lifting weights. So the more you can build muscle now and then preserve it as you get older, the better you're going to look. That's why I get scared of running. This is my personal opinion for myself because I feel like it sags my skin if you were doing it for long distance. We do intervals. We try to do them once a week for 30 minutes, which I don't think is going to sag my skin. But I think if I were to continue to run every single day for like an hour a day. I do think it would sag my skin. And I'm talking about all skin. If you're a guy, like your balls are on the floor, like, for me, like my boobs are too big to run for an hour a day. I just

feel like it's sagging and drooping my skin. Am I crazy? I honestly have no idea. But I don't like running. I'm not a big fan of any like long endurance stuff like running around the weather, you get your skin beat up. But most runners that come to me are people that love running. their bodies are so messed up. Their knees are messed up. They don't feel good. They burn off a bunch of muscle. They probably had a bunch of different knee surgeries.

Where when you sprints, the reason sprints are great is because it's at such a higher intensity. So you're contracting your muscle at a higher amount. So it's like you're doing resistance training. So I feel like you're supporting the joints more. Where when you're jogging, it's like a light contraction. You're just pounding, pounding, pounding, pounding, pounding. where you're contracting, you're fully supporting. Like when you lift weights, right?

There's no super high impact. So it's much more natural, I think, as a human being to do sprints. Let's talk about food. I know that you're not a nutritionist, but I'm sure you've seen a lot of different things. We have a lot of women listeners. Are there any little quick tips that you can recommend to our women listeners? For instance, you know, should protein, we eat it like in a certain amount of time after a workout? You told me the other day you're like a great way to get protein in when you don't feel like it is bone broth.

What are those little tactics that you give a lot of your women clients? I think the first step for most women is to get their grams of protein up around their body weight-ish or minimum like 100 grams. In general, I think women aren't eating enough protein in general, especially if you're training. If you're not training, I'm not sure. But if you're training, you're starting to work out, that's a good thing to do where protein helps rebuild the muscle tissue, create satiety so you feel full. And that's a good strategy, especially if you're going to start getting into resistance training. And then start tracking your food and slowly adding protein. So if this feels super overwhelming, you know, write down or track what you're eating and just see if you

can add another 10 or 20 grams. And simple things like bone broth, that's usually another 10, 15 grams of protein. You can buy something from whole foods. You don't even have to go to a shop. It's an easy way to kind of sip it and get it down. Just a little bit more protein can make a huge difference. I like protein for killing sweet tooth too. Totally. Right? Like you get that,

I don't know if you notice this since you started having more protein longer. But like whenever you're sitting, like maybe you get late at night or early in the morning, you get that like sweet tooth and like, oh, I'm going to maybe make a bad decision or eat something I shouldn't. If you have a little bit of protein, it kills it.

Like the cookie that you brought me in bed last night. Yeah, I said, I sure you went that cookie. Yeah, but I said go get the fucking cookie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. YouTube has like a million different ways to make protein.

ice creams, protein smoothies. And that's what I'll do too. Yeah, that sweet craving can help. And then that protein creates satiety, your fullness. And you wait 20 minutes and you're like, oh, I guess I don't really. You don't really want the other thing. Yeah, I don't need any other thing. So I would explore different protein powders.

Ask your friends, you know, a good place is clean label project. They tested, I think, over 134 different protein powders for like pesticides, lead and so on. And they rate five stars to one star. What are good protein powders? So find whichever one works for you. whether it's vegan or beef or eggs. And my recommendation would be try to cycle the different proteins. Maybe buy two different kinds.

So you're not always eating one like egg or always eating vegan. Just because it seems that when you have one protein all the time, you can develop an allergy. I can't say this for sure, but it seems clients over the years, that's what can happen. And maybe even for myself, you know, cycling it seems to be a little bit better. Maybe do one tub, then switch to another when you run out. I feel like I slightly manipulated you into working out with Brent and maybe a little bit into your wellness journey. If you're not going to give me any credit, that's fine. No, I had nothing to do with it. Okay. Anyways, next question. No, I would like you to talk about your wellness journey a little bit

because you've completely changed your body for anyone who's listening that's married or has a boyfriend. I would love for you guys to sort of discuss that. Well, no, I think. You were looking good naked today. Oh, good. I'm about someone's... Everything was looking tight. You didn't really take any action, but all right. Well, the baby was like basically trying to break in the room. We're at that age now where you can't, baby can't be there anymore. There was a period of time where you could get things done with the baby.

Now it'd be really fucking awkward. With her big eyes, can you imagine? Now, now child protective service gets back. You can't do that. But no, I think, again, like I've gone through waves. And I think over the course of time, people's motivations change. And, you know, when I'm younger, obviously, like, anytime you start working out, there's in your younger is like one it's maybe a confidence builder it's probably a little bit of a

vain reason right like everybody wants to look good and you know from in my case like attract the opposite sex but then over time like what happened with me was it started to feel redundant and boring right like like you know i've been weight training on and off since i was 12 years old so i have that but i kind of started lagging because i just didn't have the motivation anymore i think that happens to a lot of men and women as they get older right like in a relationship they get comfortable that's one of the worst things, which I'll sidebar. I've seen a lot of my friends, they get in relationships, and they just fully let it go because they're not out there hunting anymore. And then, you know, I think as you lose that motivation and get comfortable with someone, you just kind

of keep lagging, lagging. And then, like, over time, it just, you just stop, right? You just stop, like, putting in the work. But when I had the kid, I said, okay, like, I need to be healthy and around, especially, you know, with the young kid as you're carrying them around, like, Lauren's not carrying as much as me. So I got to get strength. But yeah, I mean, like, I credit both of you a lot, Lauren, for, you know, getting me back into it and being a good example, but you also, and I've given you this compliment privately, like, are probably the best person I've ever trained with because you take a very, you're welcome, you take a very individual approach, you care, you're not just, you know, there's a lot of people who get in there and they're just like applying

the same metrics and same methods to everybody where I feel like you and I have worked very personally, not only on the body stuff, but on the mind stuff too, so I, you know, get that out of these training sessions. You got his legs big. Yeah. Well, that's something that I struggled with forever. And I think we put a very specific routine in place to address that. Yes, we did. And it sucks. It's painful and it hurts and I want to cry half the time. And they're going to keep getting bigger.

We're just, we're just getting started. His legs don't fit in his jeans anymore. You just, I'm telling you, you got to get the stretchy ones. It's what I'm wearing. His legs literally don't fit in his jeans. No, but I think this is the, I think it's more of an issue with as people get older. Because listen, for young people listening to this, I think it's very, you know, Either when you're young, it's easy to stay in shape and you don't get it.

And you're like, oh, cool. Like, why do I need to hear this? But as you get older, you know, you need to continue to find that reason and you continue to switch that routine up and you need to continue to push yourself because that's when it really matters, right? Like, you're in your 20s right now, even sub 30s. Like, you don't have a lot to worry about from a health perspective unless you're really going the other way.

Yeah. But as you get older, it's when it really matters. Michael and I are obviously concerned about the foods we give Zaza, but you know what we're even more concerned about? The food for the dogs? 100%. Yeah. Whatever about the child, but, you know, dogs.

We love our dogs. I mean, our dogs were our first born. Sometimes the child can be brats, but dogs, they love you unconditionally. And Michael loves chihuahuas so much. He's a chihuahua whisper, so it should not surprise you that he uses Sunday's dog food. Meet Sundays the first and only human-grade air-dried dog food. We know it's good because we tested an ambun. He told us, Boone is very picky when it comes to things, but he licked this dog bowl from head to toe.

He's looking skinny. He's looking good. He's looking swab. He's looking toned. He was having a feast. And here's the deal. This is why we like it. It's all natural. It's human-grade food. And it has the ease of zero prep. So it's seamless to set up. It's ready to eat. And it's the best way to feed your very best friend. Unlike most human-grade dog food, Sundays is gently air-dried and ready to eat versus the other. brands that are cooked and frozen instead. What it is is it's like as simple as just like scooping it up, serving it and your pet will devour it. They even did like a blind taste test with a bunch of dogs and Sundays outperformed everyone. Boone would have been just like licking every single speck off the bowl.

There's no artificial binders, synthetic additives or general garbage. It's so gross how many dog foods have so many unnecessary added shitty ingredients. But Sundays are easy to pronounce except the quinoa, which is like still great, and they're healthy for dogs to eat. Simply said, Sundays makes it easy for us to be an awesome dog parent and Chihuahua Whisper. We've worked out a special deal for our listeners. You get 35% off your first order. Go to SundaysforDogs.com slash skinny or use code skinny at checkout. That's S-U-N-D-A-Y-S-F-O-G-S dot com forward slash skinny. Switch to Sundays and feel good about what you're treating your dog. Yeah, you need, the sooner you can start weight training, the better.

It's an amazing investment because weight training, and it doesn't mean you need to always lift heavy, you can lift in different ways. It can change. Like you could tell me, I'm at a good weight, I want to do a little bit more of an athletic style of training or whatever it is I want to do. But continually as a practice, just like you brush your teeth, you take a shower, you should always have weight training in your routine because you need to keep. your physical body strong and resilient.

You know, the body demands stress to be able to be able to function, right? Just like you need to be out in the sun. You need to eat food. Like you need stress in life to progress. You need that resistance training. Us as humans were very physical. You need it. You need it to be a good dad. You need it to feel good. Because if you stop training, your posture is going to go down. It'll start messing with your hormones, especially as a guy, right? Yeah, I think we live in a dangerous. time where it's like everybody wants to feel good and happy all the time, but they don't realize that unless they take care of themselves, they're not going to. It doesn't matter what any kind of self-help or guru or self-help book tells you. You have to be healthy to start with. And I think so many people are going through life to satisfy because they're focused on all these external things. They're not looking internally saying, how do I be the best version of myself? And I think that is motivation alone to say, okay, whether it's weights or yoga or whatever the routine, just to start taking care of yourself and recognizing that. And

that's where it kind of all starts. It's a core pillar to living a good life. Speaking of, you recently did ayahuasca. I would love for you to tell us about that experience if you are open to it. Yeah, that's a heavy question. That's a switch. I love to switch it on the guess. Speaking of that, I have some tea on the table.

We're all going to. Let's get wild. Okay. Tell you about my experience. And why? So moving down here to Austin, I've been kind of in a fighter flight rebuild my business mode. So I've been here for about a year.

And I've done different plant medicines in the past. I'm a big fan of mushrooms, as you guys know. And ayahuasca is something I've always wanted to try. Ayahuasca is a vine that comes from the Amazon. And when it was brewed with another plant, it allows the enzymes in the gut to allow the DMT from the vine to activate and go into you. So it's basically an eight to 12 hour DMT. trip. Every cell in your body has DMT receptors. So my intention for going in ayahuasca is it can be a very

good way for people to reconnect with themselves. Also bring up anything that may be inside you blocking you, right, especially if you've never done any interpersonal work on yourself before. And so my intention going into it was to dearmor myself. I could tell being in a work mode, I had built up such an armor that I had lost that feeling of connection with nature and myself and that spirituality. That, I don't know, that life force was dim. I was just hardened, right? Just trying to get everything done. And I could tell because I know what it felt like before doing work on myself, feeling in that flow state, feeling present,

feeling, you know, zen, let's call it. And so I needed to dearmour myself. And you can only do so many float tanks and go to therapy and go on walks and do whatever you want. But at the end of the day, you know, having an experience where you take this medicine that we don't even know how old it is can help you reconnect. And so it was nothing less than profound. And it is something that I will continually do as a practice to reconnect with a problem. my truest self and find alignment to continually move through my life to live my purpose, but also to be in alignment with what is important.

So, you know, I think like this is still an early conversation for a lot of people, right? If you tell, for example, if you mentioned this to our parents generation, people think like they're going to look at the wall and their face is going to melt off, right? Like that's the kind of version of psilocybin, you know, ayahuasca, all these things. We've talked about it on the show, but what do you think the misconceptions are around some of these plant medicines? Because I think a lot of people have an immediate gut reaction to when you start talking about ayahuasca, psilocybin, all these things. They're using them to party.

I think, yeah, a lot of people think it's a bunch of hippie shit that, you know, is super woo-woo. That's a tool. Right? Where these tribes that have been around for a long time have been using this as medicine, as a sacrament, as a way of communing with their community. potentially higher realms or helping with their spirituality, bringing them back into alignment with the natural rhythms and flow of just mother nature. And if you do just even a little bit of research, you'll see that it's not so mystic or wild.

Someday in our lives or in the future, it will become a normal thing for us to be able to have in our own communities easily. I think the conversation's starting. And I think what happened is, you know, as Christianity and different religions push through, a lot of these traditions hid or maybe some of these religions took away some of these medicines. Because when you can control power,

like in order for you to get to God, you need to go through me. Now I have power over you. Where if you have something that allows you to commune or connect with something, you're free. And I can't control you. I definitely am very interested in trying it. I think Michael is too.

I've heard amazing things. And I would just encourage everyone to be their own guru and do their own research when it comes to this. I think that what we talked about earlier is it being used in the wrong frequency, in the wrong state. It's not something that I would go do at a festival. I would say if someone's leading it, they have permission from the tribe, a direct permission from the tribe to be able to be doing what they're doing.

And that the person leading it has profound and very detailed experience in training. Either they've lived in the Amazon for a very long time and studied directly under these leaders in the tribe because this is extremely powerful medicine. It is not something to take very lightly. It's not like, even though you should respect mushrooms, it's not like taking, you know, a mushroom chocolate and going to a festival. It is something that is meant to be sacred and respected. And it needs to be passed down through people who understand this, not someone who went to a workshop and goes, oh, I think I could lead this now. That's very dangerous and should not be done under someone who has little experience.

Don't get a group on. Don't get a group on. If you were to leave our audience with three tools that they should maybe purchase at home, definitely want you to include one of them being the shoes that you and I run with. What would those three tools be? I think everybody should get the Dharma wheel. That wheel where you can roll back that we've had. Yeah, that opens the posture.

Yeah, that wheel you can do all kinds of really cool, supported postures on there. Has Michael been on that? I don't know. I don't think we've ever done it. Let's throw them on. Yeah. It's really good. for opening up like your mid back, your shoulders.

He needs that now. You need the Dharma wheel to open your back. Because I've heard a lot of complaints about your back today. Because I'm just so fucking strong now. Oh. The Dharma wheel. Okay. Yeah. And then the own on cloud shoes.

I discovered these because I keep, I'd have clients keep coming in. I kept seeing these shoes everywhere. I'm like, are those good? And I'm a big fan of very low profile or zero drop shoes. but I've noticed walking a lot, having a completely zero drop shoe actually fatigues my calf so much than when I go to jump rope or do other stuff. It's almost too fatigued. Side note while you're on that note, I got some messages when people saw us training about

why I didn't have shoes on for certain. And I wanted you to explain because I probably didn't do the best job. But since we've been training that way, my back feels way better. Yeah, I'll answer that. So those shoes. And then I would say I haven't gotten it yet, but I've seen a lot of cool stuff. and it keeps popping up in my mind, that aura ring looks very interesting. And I've been very resistant to that technology because I don't want text messages coming to me.

I don't want another screen. But it's something you can wear to track your sleep. And sleep is the most important foundational thing that needs to be. Really, what's sleep? We didn't get any last night. Our daughter woke us up about 15 times. Yeah. And that can happen for a little bit.

But if you're chronically, you're in, you're out, not sleeping. There's no amount. Papa. Papa. Hazing, children hazing. But the reason we'll train barefoot is because in order to produce the most effective force and upstream, have your body in the right alignment, you need to be stable. And having your foot flat not only gets your foot to engage, but we can make sure that

you're rooting and planning to make everything upstream be proper. Because a lot of people wear squishy running shoes. I love these shoes, but I would never actually like lift, lift, like squats in the bar because my weight would constantly shifting, then that means my knee's going to be shifting, and then that means my hips. And I'm at risk for injury with my low back or whatever it is or pressing or whatever it may be. It's better to train barefoot if you're doing resistance training. I mean, it's better to train barefoot than wear the shoes that Tom Cruise wore to his

wedding to look taller than Nicole Kidman. You're talking about my cowboy boots? Yeah. Fucking dare you. This heel is like so big. I mean, this is like an insane heel. What are you wearing? What are those things?

I'm wearing something comfortable. You're wearing boots with a higher heel than Tom Cruise wears. You're going to put those shits to these? I don't think so. Okay. All right. Old greengo boots. You don't.

Brent. Tell our audience where they can find you. Can they do anything online with you? I know you have a text community. Your Instagram, pimp yourself out. If you're there in Austin, maybe you can tell them how to train with you,

all the things. Yeah, sweet. Hit me up on Instagram. Bodies by Brent, ATX. started TikTok 2, Bodies by Brent. And in the links on my Instagram, you can subscribe to my text community

where I put out my own podcast. You can also text me on there. And if you're interested in training, just shoot me a DM. Better not give my sessions away, Brent. No, don't give my sessions away. No, that's my sanctuary back. I'll tear this episode down so fast.

You won't even believe it. No one needs to see me working out either. I don't want to, like, I'm not looking like a hot tamalee working out. You know, like, I roll out of bed. and come work out. You are so incredible. You've absolutely transformed my body. I appreciate you so much. You've been such an asset to Austin for both Michael and I. And thank you for coming on.

Come back anytime. You guys check out his podcast on the podcast app. How can they find it? Yeah, Spotify. Spotify. Bodies by Brandt podcast. Perfect. Thank you for coming on. Yeah. And thank you very much, guys. I'm very grateful for being on here. And I love having you guys. You guys, both you kill you. it. So thanks. A plus. Oh, I got a praise from you? Yeah. In a heel. Rare. Thanks, man. Thank you. Wait, you guys don't go. We are giving away the hot shave razor. I have not done a giveaway with this yet. This is the first giveaway. You are going to win a skinny, confidential hot shave razor to shave your face. It's going to give you glowy, dewy skin and

exfoliate. It's absolutely amazing. I'm obsessed. I use mine all the time. All you have to do is tag a friend to listen to the skinny confidential, him and her podcast on my latest Instagram. We want to grow the community and spread the word. And as always, we appreciate your support. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you next time.