The School of Greatness - 14 How to Live an Unreal Life: Burn Fat and Have More Sex with John Romaniello

Episode Date: April 17, 2013

Did you know that burning fat, increasing muscle, and having more sex will help you become a better version of yourself? We've talked about how our mindset and attitude can support this, but today's guests say that changing your physical state might help you get there faster. These world class fitness experts, AKA The Alpha […]

This is episode number 14 with John Romaniello and Adam Hornstein. Welcome to the School of Greatness. Each week we bring you the most inspiring business minds, world-class athletes, and influential celebrities on the planet to find out what makes great people great. My name is Lewis Howes and I'm an author, lifestyle entrepreneur, and former pro athlete. And I'm on a mission to find out how we can all achieve a higher performance in life. Please leave us your comments on iTunes

and join us online at schoolofgreatness.com to be notified of each episode when it comes out. Now let's get after it. Hey, hey, what's up, greats, and welcome back to the podcast. I hope you're having a fantastic day wherever you are in the world. I'm actually in New York City, a city that I lived in about a year and a half ago for a while. And I actually just moved out to Los Angeles about seven or eight months ago and missed out on all the horrible winter that they had here in New York. So I got to enjoy the sunshine in L.A. for a while. Been coming back and forth, but really enjoying my visit right now in New York City.

My brother's actually playing at the Lincoln Center. He's a world-renowned jazz violinist. He's playing here for five nights. So I'm excited to check him out, watch him perform, and root on my big bro who's taught me a lot in this world. The episode today is going to be very entertaining and educational at the same time. I've got a couple of great friends of mine on who are world-leading experts in the fitness industry. That's right. These guys know all about

how to build more muscle, burn more fat, and last but not least, have more sex. Now, I know this is something that a lot of you want to learn about, so I'm excited to be bringing them on and sharing their wisdom with you guys. I've got a couple of great buddies of mine who are extremely talented and smart individuals. The first one is John Romaniello, a good friend of mine I met a few years ago, actually at a fitness marketing conference with a bunch of big fitness marketing guys and had a lot of fun meeting him. We've been friends ever since. And John Romaniello, also known as Roman, is one of the most highly regarded fitness experts in the fitness industry.

He's written for Men's Health, Fast Company, and been featured on programs like Good Morning America. He is an advisor to nearly a dozen fitness and tech companies. He also lives in New York City, big New York Jets fan. And he also does a lot of advising on the fitness side of things for Arnold Schwarzenegger and his site, which is pretty cool because Schwarzenegger is a legend in the bodybuilding and fitness world. And then we've got my other good friend who I actually met through John Romanello, Adam Bornstein. Now this guy is a machine.

He's an award-winning fitness nutritionist, writer, and editor. He's named one of the most influential people in health. And he was previously with Livestrong.com as the editorial director. And he used to be the fitness editor for Men's Health Magazine. He's also written over five fitness books and appeared on Good Morning America and E! News.

Both these guys are extremely talented. They know what they're talking about. They know their stuff. I know John was actually training celebrities and world-class athletes for the last eight to 10 years, And Adam's been training people as well. They're both just extremely talented when all things are needed to talk about with fitness. And their new book is called Engineering the Alpha, a real-world guide to an unreal life. And the foreword is actually by Schwarzenegger himself. But I'm excited to be sharing this interview with you guys because I got to have a good little sit down chat with both of them and Roman's dog, which you'll be hearing snoring half of the time throughout the interview,

but a very cute dog, none the least. These guys have some very interesting ideas to share with you about how you can do more of these things, building more muscle, burning more fat, having more sex, and also just how to become a better version of yourself. Specifically, I'm talking about for entrepreneurs and business professionals who are working all day, maybe slouched over a computer, sitting in a desk chair all day, and how to really optimize your body and your performance so that you can look better, feel better, perform better in your personal life, in your business life, and in your lifestyle in

general. So these guys are about to unleash some wisdom upon you, and I'm very excited to introduce them to you. Before we get into the show, I want to give a quick shout out to, we just hit our 100th rating on iTunes. I guess there's been, or excuse me, 100th review. I guess there's been more than 100 ratings, but I think we've got 100 reviews, people who've left comments over on iTunes. And I appreciate all of your feedback. We've got a, you know, 105 star ratings, I guess, but more reviews, a few people that four star, you know, three to one stars. And some people left some nasty negative comments, which I appreciate any type of comment you leave me. It lets me know

you're listening to me. So I appreciate it either way. But I want to give a shout out to the 100th, I guess, review. And it goes from the name of Run For Fun 2. And it says, great podcast. Just discovered this podcast after hearing Lewis on Rich Roll's podcast. Subscribed and love the positive thoughts towards becoming healthier. Great podcast. So thanks for that. And there's a bunch of other reviews. I see one right here that's from Superfly Honey. And it says, dig in the podcast. Just finished your solo podcast and enjoyed it beyond words to describe. So thank you very much. And I've been getting a lot of emails from you greats out there requesting more solo podcasts because the one I did, I guess it was back episode nine or eight or something like that. You guys have been really interested in more of that.

So I'll be sure to bring more of that to you guys here soon. But I've got some amazing guests lined up for you. You're not going to want to miss out on who is coming up soon. Some very cool people. So stay tuned for that. With that, let's get to the show. And I'm going to introduce you right now to my good friends, John Romaniello and Adam Bornstein. What is up, everyone? Thanks so much again for checking out the School of Greatness. I've got a couple of good friends on. I don't know if I need to come up with a nickname for you guys now that you have a book together,

like the Dynamic Duo or the Ambiguously Not Gay Duo or something. But we've got to come up with a name for you guys. So we've got Adam Bornstein and John Romanello. What's up, guys? Hey, how you guys so we got adam bornstein and john romanello what's up guys hey how you doing lewis what's up bro it's going going well man how what's what's the name for you guys do you guys have like a tag team name like if you were wwe wrestlers what would you guys be wow that's hard like the italian stallion and the what the The Jewish something? I don't know. What would you guys be? It runs with the Jewish. The Jewish guy who didn't beat me at basketball.

Exactly. We'll work on this. Maybe by the end of the show, we will come up with what the name is. Come up with a tag team name. That would be sweet, I think. Well, you guys have a new book come out that's coming out right now. It's actually coming out, I think. Well, you guys have a new book come out that's coming out right now. It's actually coming out, I think, in a week.

It'll come out when this episode airs. It'll be out, so you guys can go buy it whenever. But it's called Man 2.0, Engineering the Alpha, A Real World Guide to an Unreal Life. And it's all about how to balance your hormones,

build more muscle, burn more fat, and have more sex. Pretty much all the things that guys want to have, right? I mean, we think so. Certainly. I mean, it's definitely – those are all the big ones anyway. Yes. Now, I want to get briefly into your guys' backgrounds because you both have interesting stories. John was basically a fat kid, if I'm getting it right. Sounds about right. That's how good stories begin.

Lots of fun times. I'm going to just speak the truth. You're basically a fat kid who was friends with all the girls but could never get the girls. You were sick and tired of just being the friend and being this chubby you weren't that fat but you were chubby right yeah yeah i mean i guess a good way to put it uh-oh did we just lose him no okay there we go sorry about that i guess a good way to put it is that uh yeah i was a chubby kid i i was friends with a lot of girls

i had a couple of girlfriends i was not uh i was not a stud or or a player as uh you know so i you know in high school i was only ever in shape during like wrestling season but even then i did not have abs but it was um you know just like one of those things like i was i was chubby at the exact wrong periods of my adolescence and so it had like this, you know, I think a really profound effect on my emotional development and self-esteem. Right. I think everyone who feels an extreme pain goes through a certain seeking period in their life, or maybe it's the, in your, you like, um, the hero's journey, the reference to that, maybe it's like a call to adventure or whatever. It's like, you've got this pain and you want to overcome that pain. And I think that's part of your journey is you started learning everything there was to know about fitness, about getting the best shape of your life, about all those different things, about sex, about everything, right?

Yeah. Exactly. getting into fitness because you both are top, you know, celebrity trainers, top fitness experts featured in, you know, men's health all over the world in, in the media outlets, you are the top of the top. So how did you kind of get into it, Adam? Like, like all great stories. I also started out as a fat kid. Yes. So that, I mean, that was, that was kind of the, the the entrance into health and fitness i was a fat kid and i was a kid who got injured and hurt all the time and couldn't do all the things that i wanted so i really was able to make my entry point into the world of fitness by wanting to better myself but but mine came from much different. So I was a content creator. So I guess the short end of the story is that I worked as the fitness editor for Men's Health after really beginning on the research side of things,

working at a couple universities and being a research nerd and then realizing that I could combine journalism and writing with what my passion and expertise was in fitness and nutrition. So I kind of put those two together and worked at Men's Health for several years and then wrote some books while I was there as well. Ended up moving over to Livestrong.com and took over as editorial director over there. Continued to play in the health and fitness game in a variety of ways. And here we are now. We're writing this book and trying to, I guess, take over the fitness world and make a big difference for a lot of people by taking a different approach to how people normally discuss health, fitness, sex, and really becoming the best version of yourself. Nice. Now, you guys were both fat kids and I was the

reverse. I was a skinny kid that could never build muscle and never really get ripped. I was always tall and lanky and I was like, how could I just get a little bicep going or like a two-pack? I could never really do it. I was just super skinny. And you talk a lot about getting lean, getting ripped, getting strong, burning that belly fat, all these different things. Before we get into that, I want to know what's your guys' difference, or what's the difference to you guys between, or maybe you can give me the definition in your terms of an alpha and a beta. Yeah, that's a great question. Okay, so guys, this is Roman. Um, that's, yeah, that's a great question. Okay. So guys, this is Roman. Um, so what I,

what I would say is that, um, we, we like to look at not so much the difference between an alpha and a beta, although I'll get to that. I would say that what Adam and I focus on, particularly in this book is the difference between our definition of an alpha and the traditional definition of an alpha. You know, if you read any common literature, particularly in the pickup artist community, the AMOG or alpha male of a group is generally someone who seeks dominance within a social circle. And, you know, that term comes to us from the animal kingdom. And so within that context, it's really about being better than other people. What we teach is to not focus on that. We think that defining your value in a comparative sense is pretty dangerous. And I think that it's a slippery slope.

You know, anyone who has been involved in competition at a high level where you're, on rankings, you're an athlete, so you kind of understand that. That can really start to be damaging if that is the only way that you assess your self-worth. And even you, I mean you held an NCAA record for like nine years. You know you're a great athlete. You know you're a great receiver, a great football player. And I remember I saw you three days after that record was broken and you were kind of annoyed. So even though you know you're great, you sort of were drawing your value in some capacity from having that record. And so what we teach is to not do that. We really want to want people to focus on not comparing themselves to others, but only seeking to be better than

previous versions of themselves and focus not so much on change or dominance, but more on evolution and always trying to get better and be a better version of yourself. And so for us, when we talk about being the alpha, we don't mean to be the alpha of a group. We mean to be the alpha version of you. And so if we were working with you, the goal would be to find out what it means to be the alpha Lewis and help you bring that out. Interesting. Okay. And that's kind of a different approach that we took here, a lot of books might give you information that doesn't necessarily feel catered to you. We flipped the script by trying to create a blueprint that is replicable on an individual level.

And it's not necessarily just giving a templated plan and saying you have to fit your square personality into this circle approach. into this circle approach, we're catering to you in a different way because it is more about reaching whatever your next level is, whatever your higher level is to you on a person and not pre-establishing what success or a good body or your fitness goal might be.

Right. Now, we're all friends. I know both you guys really well. I knew John or Roman first for the last few years and he introduced me to Adam. We've all become good friends. I've learned a lot of great secrets and insider tips from you guys.

I've gone through a lot of the content in this book already. But I want to act like I don't know you guys and I don't know a lot of this information. I want to ask you, for probably a lot of people are going to be wondering a few different things. One is probably like, you know what? I just don't have a lot of energy throughout the day. I'm just lacking in the energy. I've got this little belly. I just want to get rid of 5, 10 of those pounds on my belly.

I just wish I could see a little bit of the abs. I really want to have more energy because sex life isn't that good and it's kind of all affecting me. I'm assuming a lot of people are kind of fitting somewhere in there. Now, if that was me and I wanted to change that, and I know you talk a lot about testosterone. Is that one of the things that I want to be focusing on first or is it a different approach? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely one of the things that you want to be focusing on.

I think that it really starts with a recognition of if you have all of these symptoms, a lot of people try to, you know, try to attack the symptom. It'd be no different than if you had a headache every single day and you kept on taking Advil and it would go away temporarily and the very next day you woke up with a headache, would you just inevitably always just try and take these painkillers to take the headache or would you want to see what is causing this headache? And that's really the problem that's going on here. Guys have a lack of energy.

They have trouble losing their gut or building muscle or they don't have that sex drive and they search for answers rather than stepping back and really just trying to get to the foundational aspect of what would cause this problem in the first place and basic human endocrinology is that our hormones control pretty much everything i mean literally everything so if your hormones are out of whack and one of the big ones is if your testosterone levels are low you will feel a lack of energy. You will have trouble losing that gut. You will be lacking sex drive.

So I think that first step is to recognize that you're having these problems and repeatedly having these problems. And a lot of times, it's guys who are putting forth effort. They're going towards the gym or they're trying to de-stress, and they're still having these issues. So maybe they need to step back and realize that the problem isn't necessarily the effort or a lack of wanting it's that they have this problem they have low testosterone they have hormonal dysfunction that they need to address and if you get to the root of the problem rather than just attacking those symptoms that's when you really start seeing those changes and that's what we saw with the really the thousands of people who have tested out this

program. And many of the success stories that we share in this book is that when people found out that they had a hormonal issue and were able to address those directly, that's when the benefits really started kicking into high gear. And that's when they started seeing changes. Now, what is the cause of a lot of these hormonal imbalances or deficiencies? I guess what I'm trying to get at is a lot of this stuff stem from an emotional level or some type of happiness level. The less happy we are, the worse our hormones are. If we're constantly happy, then it increases the hormone balance. Where does it really stem from? Well, that's actually a really interesting question. And the answer is that it can come from either place. And in a lot

of cases, it does come from both places. So something to consider is that when I was at school, I studied something called psychobiology, which focuses a lot on how the body and mind affect one another. And a really good example is if you have, let's just talk about you because you're an athlete. Let's say you had a twin brother right and both you had identical careers and on the same day in different games playing at different colleges you both hurt your knee and you were both out for the rest of the season this happens a lot you know guys get hurt and they can't play anymore right and let's say i don't know what the exact percentage is but but just to make it easy, let's say 50%. 50% of athletes who get hurt fall into, let me rephrase that. Many times athletes get hurt and fall into a depression. Of the athletes that that happens to, 50% of them, let's say, fall into a

physiological depression. And what I mean by that is that because they're no longer exercising regularly, because they're not active, they create a hormonal shift. The lack of activity creates the hormonal shift. And that begins to manifest itself in, let's say, a depression. The other 50% wind up falling into a psychological depression. And now the reason that they're depressed is not so much because of the actual physiological processes that are being altered, but rather because this identity defining thing that they sort of viewed themselves in, you know, that was removed. And so it really does happen both ways. On the one hand, you do have people who are affected completely emotionally,

and you know, let's say that's you. And then you have, on the other do have people who are affected completely emotionally, and let's say that's you. And then you have, on the other hand, people who are affected via physiological means, so your twin brother. Now, it's hard to sort of decide which one of those camps you fall into. Obviously, you just need to be introspective and self-aware. Thankfully, the fixes are generally pretty similar for both cases. generally pretty similar for both cases. So you have a lot of people who are falling into this physiological depression that they're doing things, they're living their life in a way, they have these lifestyle behaviors and these dietary habits and these physical habits or lack of physical habits, which result in a physiological lowering of hormones. So let's say they eat a lot

of shitty foods. And so let's say their insulin is all out of whack they're not getting enough sleep so their cortisol is out of whack and that affects their growth hormone both of those both insulin and cortisol and growth hormone will all affect your testosterone production and so you have those things that are that that those are a physiological response to lifestyle behaviors right but on the other hand the people you asked about there are a physiological response to lifestyle behaviors. But on the other hand, the people you asked about, there are a lot of people who, let's say, they wind up losing their job. And now, again, some of their identity of self is removed because a lot of us define ourselves by our career. And now they have to – they're stressing about this thing emotionally and depressed and they're starting – and their confidence is lowered.

And they don't work out and they eat crappy foods. Well, here's the thing. Yeah. I mean they do feed into one another, right? Right. eating crappy foods, you are going to have those people who just because of the emotional shift will begin to experience the physiological ramifications of low testosterone and et cetera. But yeah, of course they feed into each other. If you have someone who's like eating shitty foods to begin with and not feeling well and they're not working out, then they're probably going to experience some emotional depression because they're not happy

with themselves and they're not happy with their lives. And then as you suggested, of course, there's the other hand where people who lose their jobs or go through this emotional depression then start feeding into that and they're eating their feelings and coating them in chocolate and not working out and all these other things. So yeah. Again, it really does go both ways. Dude, I love chocolate. Who doesn't? Especially when you're depressed. Yeah. So good. Well, this is interesting. Okay. So they both affect each other is what you're saying, basically, right?

Correct. Right. Now, for some reason, I keep coming back to testosterone, maybe because I'm reading it on the back cover about testosterone, but is testosterone really one of the key things people, men, should be focusing on to help them increase everything else physiologically and, I guess, psychologically? Is that one of the key things or am I completely off here? No, you're definitely, I mean, testosterone is a big part of what makes you a man. I think what's going to be surprising for most people and it's really a call to action and a reason that we dug so deep both from a physical programming perspective of how to increase testosterone in your life through natural methods. And also, you know, looking at the problems that men face, how many guys actually suffer from low testosterone who aren't in the age range that you would typically perceive people?

When you think of low testosterone, you think of guys in their 50s and their 60s. But what we're seeing is that low testosterone is affecting guys as young as their 20s and 30s uh there's it's lifestyle factors and that's really what we tap into i mean you're looking at one in four guys have low levels of testosterone but i think even worse than that is that on average the average man his testosterone levels are 22 percent lower now than they were 20 years ago so men are becoming less manly, and men at any age. And what was really interesting is, you know, something that we tapped into in the book is there was a study done by Australian researchers that looked at testosterone levels of men at different ages.

And then they looked at different lifestyle factors. And they were finding active men up in their 60s had testosterone levels that were similar to active guys in their 30s, which was kind of a, and there was a lot to the methodology of the study, but giving some credence to the idea that, you know, you lose it if you don't use it. So these guys were sleeping well, they're eating certain way, they're training in a certain way, and their testosterone levels were still high. And then you had guys in their 20s and 30s who were doing none of this, and they had testosterone levels that were plummeting and much lower. I think that's this idea that you're going to have high testosterone just because you're a man, just because you're young, isn't true anymore. we live how we eat even how we exercise how we have sex or the amount of sex we have to the point that our bodies are now evolving in a bad way to produce and have less testosterone which is then

in fact is changing the model of man it's changing how how strong we are changing how manly we are how aggressive we are how successful we are you know that you you look at the business place even it's a testosterone fuel business place tom wolf wrote a great piece about the loss of testosterone in the male entrepreneur and how in business and in success a drop in testosterone is affecting you know this recession type economy where if guys had more testosterone you might see a lot more successful guys making a lot more money. Right. Interesting. Now, one of the things, this is interesting.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. I just did a previous interview with Dr. Alyssa Rankin. She's got a book out called Mind Over Medicine, Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself. And in this interview, she talked a lot about a lot of the causes for illness and disease is because of lifestyle and stress resistors that we're building up. You know, 100, 200, you know, 500 years ago, we didn't deal with as much stress. And I think it's what you're talking about right now is the lifestyle factor. And it's causing us to decrease our testosterone

and make us less manly is what you said. Hence, Man 2.0 for the title of your book. Now, what are some natural things that guys can do every day or every week to increase testosterone? I've heard doing heavy squats helps increase testosterone and sprinting, but what are some other things that really keep us on track to becoming the better man that we should be becoming? Sure. So you touched on two of them, two of the big important ones. It has been shown that doing heavy squats, anything that is very challenging physiologically is generally going to what we call force adaptation, right? So if you're training in a way that is intended to get you stronger, your body has to react to that by producing more testosterone. Heavy squats,

particularly high rep squats, 20 rep squats have been shown to increase testosterone as has sprinting. But those are just two of the physical things that you can do. And then, of course, there are the dietary components to this. The first thing, the easiest thing that guys can do is eat more fat. Really? Oh, yeah. So this is contradictory for a lot of guys. They think, you know, if I want to burn this belly fat, why should I eat more fat?

Right. Well, you know, fat is really, really important. And when I say fat, I mean all of the types of fat that you have been told your entire life are the ones that you should be eating, in particular saturated fats. As long as they're coming from, let's say, grass-fed and organic sources, saturated fats are the healthiest fats that you can consume. We're talking butter, eggs, steak, particularly fatty steaks. These are the things that you should be consuming and thankfully that men like to consume because they are delicious and not that difficult to cook.

The reason for that is that these things, it has been shown, of course, like the big reason that people tell you to stay away from fat is because it increases cholesterol. Right. If you're keeping your carbohydrates down and you're managing insulin effectively, instead of increasing the bad cholesterol, the quote-unquote bad cholesterol, eating these saturated fats seems to improve the good cholesterol. And actually, it can slightly improve cholesterol levels overall and reduce triglycerides and all of these other things. If your people don't know much about the paleo diet, Rob Wolf, R-O-B-B Wolf, is one of the big guys in the paleo community. R.O.B.B. Wolf is one of the big guys in the paleo community, and he has tons of studies and has a lot of anecdotal evidence to show all of his people who are going on paleo-type diets, very high fat, very low carb, and are showing massive reductions in triglycerides and better balancing of cholesterol.

Here's why that's important. A lot of people don't know that cholesterol is actually very good. In fact, it is the precursor hormone to literally all sex hormones, which means the higher your cholesterol is, the more readily your body can produce testosterone. It is derived from it. This is total cholesterol that we're talking about. You've got your HDL, your good stuff, and your LDL. If you look at your total cholesterol number and it is higher you can produce more testosterone right and so eating more fat is a really simple way to do that now

again that in that is really uh something that should be done in combination with lower carbohydrates and there's a few reasons for this when you eat carbohydrates you obviously produce insulin everyone knows that right just so Just so everyone knows, what are carbohydrates? So anything that has starch in it, so sugars, breads, potatoes, rice, cereals. But of course, fruit has carbohydrates in it as well. So we could talk about this all day. Pasta, bagels. Yeah, all the pizza, all the delicious stuff in the world.

More bagels. Eating boogies, brownies, anything that you like to eat. Any sweets pretty much. Yeah, any sweets or sugars or cereals or breads. So you should be getting rid of that. Right. Or having it on a minimal level. And then occasionally on a maximal level.

Okay. So here's the thing. When you regularly take in high amounts of carbohydrates like every day, you have chronically elevated insulin levels. And chronically elevated insulin has been shown not only to have a global effect on testosterone, which means like negative effect on testosterone where you're lowering your testosterone overall. Hold on a second. I'm hearing one of your dogs snore. That is hilarious.

Yeah. Can you hear that? You can keep it going. It's just funny because I know your dogs, you just took them and got them fixed, right? Yeah. For anyone listening, we could post some pictures of these dogs. I have a French Bulldog and a Boston Terrier. So they mostly resemble pigs crossed with a little bit of dog DNA.

And they're very snorty. So what you're hearing right now is the French Bulldog, Samwise, snoring into the computer. He's a little bit medicated right now. He does apologize. It's all good. I just had to announce that. I appreciate it. So when your testosterone levels are chronically elevated, I'm sorry, when your insulin levels are chronically elevated, not only does it globally reduce testosterone, but it also seems to have a very specific effect not only on testosterone but also on sex drive itself.

Sex drive and testosterone are obviously related, but it seems that even when testosterone is not negatively affected that much, sex drive still goes down. Sometimes the more carbohydrates you eat, the lower your sex drive is. I will mention that can go the other way. And sometimes people on extremely low carb diets, like zero carbs, do find that they lose sex drive as well. So there's sort of this sweet spot of anywhere between 30 and 100 grams of carbs per day that seems to be really good in terms of sex drive. And something else is that chronically elevated insulin levels have been shown to have a very specific negative effect

that guys want to avoid and it is erectile dysfunction chronically elevated insulin levels have been shown to increase incidence of erectile dysfunction and uh part of that is probably due to the fact that it um it uh chronically elevated insulin affects circulation negatively and that's why people with diabetes who are going through all these problems you know they wind up with uh you know really bad circulation particularly at the far end of their extremities and their fingers and toes so you know that obviously your your penis is i think probably your favorite extremity and you want to get as much blood to it as possible whenever you need it. This is interesting stuff.

Now, let's just say this all makes sense to me, but let's say my wife or my girlfriend or whoever is out of town for a couple weeks, and we haven't had sex in a couple months. It's just whatever reason. I'm exhausted. I'm tired at work. of months. It's just whatever reason I'm exhausted. I'm tired at work. I'm working eight hours a week. Uh, I'm not working out. I'm eating fast food all day long and she's coming back in two weeks and I want to have some amazing sex. I want to have sex all night long. One of those crazy nights, but I haven't done this in years and I'm just not feeling good. I'm feeling like a beta male, right? What can I do in two weeks time to give myself the best chance of having like

this superhuman power that radiates from my body and she just cannot resist me and it just goes all night long. Well, first thing, I'm going to let Adam tackle all of this stuff that you can do, but I do want to mention if you have not had a lot of sex in a while, this is something that happened to me. So I'm going to share this with you guys. If you haven't had sex in a while and then you go on an all-night rampage, please make sure you stretch first because I pulled one of my hip flexors pretty badly doing that. So, yeah, any time you take more than like three or four weeks off and then you have a three-hour marathon session, you can wind up with strained hip flexors.

So I'll just put that out there for everybody and I'll let Adam take care of all the actual therapeutic solutions here. People who have questioned whether static stretching has a benefit, John has now answered that question for you that at least from a sexual standpoint, static stretching will benefit you and prevent strain, hip flexors. Well, also, this is another point that I want to mention in a second. I'm hearing from a lot of different sports therapists that static stretching is actually more harmful than dynamic stretching. Let's talk about that afterwards, but let's go into the two-week treatment first. Yeah, two-week treatment. It's going to be pretty simple. You have to go into this realizing that you've got two weeks here. You're not going to reinvent the wheel, but what you can do is you can start making this shift from a hormonal standpoint. Something that we really point out is actually the first four weeks of the program

that we put in the book. And what we do is we put you through an insulin reset. And what we're trying to do is that most men have these chronically elevated insulin levels. So what we're going to do is we're going to take a lower-carb approach for those first two weeks. And that means, you know, with the exception of vegetables, really, and maybe some fruits as well,

you're going to be going with higher protein, higher fat. I promise you, you will not end up getting hungry because you're going to be eating so much steak or bacon or eggs or all of them together. Almond butter. Oh, almond butter. It's my weakness. You're going to be satiated.

You're going to be feeling full. You're going to be feeling satisfied. You're just going to start feeling. It's almost like people go through a detox and they feel better. When you start putting clean fuel into your body, it's amazing what a big difference it feels. You want to start hitting the weights. You want to start going to the gym a little bit. Again, resistance training is one of those things where you go and you have a good weight training session. I will get done with the gym sometimes and there is nothing that I want to do more. resistance training is one of those things where you go and you have a good weight training session and i will get done with the gym sometimes and there is nothing that i want to do more than

go and have some sex i mean yeah it's legitimate it charges you up because there are so many different elements that go in into resistance training both on a physiological but also on on a psychological level and competitiveness that is a drive that actually boosts testosterone as well and boosts growth hormone. So when it comes to just starting off without needing to worry about anything else, go to the gym three to four times a week. Try and cut out the majority of your carbohydrates that aren't coming from fruits or vegetables. the majority of your carbohydrates that aren't coming from fruits or vegetables. Focus on a lot more of the fat sources so you can get that fat in your diet.

Then there's even some simple things you can do from a supplementation standpoint, such as vitamin D. Taking your vitamin D, whether you're getting out in the sun or not. Another testosterone precursor, very, very important as for for helping out with fat metabolism and what you're going to find that happens is that even within a short period of time when you start shifting your carbohydrates lower you start supplementing wisely and you start resistance training multiple things that are going to happen at the same time they're going to prepare you without having to feel overwhelmed because the worst thing you can do is try and give someone too many tasks. If I were to list off nine different things, the reality is those nine different things would overwhelm someone to the point that they would –

you want to focus on what's going to be the most bang for the buck and what's going to change you from a hormonal level. So that lower carbohydrate intake is going to help decreasing those insulin levels. Those decreasing insulin levels are not only going to help you better in the gym, it's also going to allow testosterone and growth hormone to increase as your diet improves, as you're taking in the correct supplementation, and as you then train better and getting more benefits of your training because your insulin is reduced, everything you put in your body then is going to be supercharged as well

because you have to understand that when insulin levels are high, if cortisol is high, if testosterone is low, the food that you're eating isn't even digested and processed the way you want so that you get the benefits. The things that you're doing when you are sleeping well, sleep is such an easy, easy thing to do. But when you get less than six hours of sleep per night, it affects your hormone levels as well. So from the most basic standpoint, if you have two weeks to get ready, the simple, simple way to go about it is cut out those carbohydrates and focus on more protein and fat. Go ahead to the gym three to four times a week. Focus on weight training. Supplement on the basic level without anything else but some vitamin D

and get some sleep. If you want to go a little bit more hardcore with your supplementation, you could check out some things that are specifically designed to elicit a hormonal response. So for testosterone, you might want to look at Vitex or Tribulus supplements, which have been shown to increase luteinizing hormone, although some studies show that they don't. So that's sort of – if you have $30 and you want to make an investment and take a gamble, that's a pretty good thing to do.

Obviously, things that get insulin in check are really good. There's a supplement called IC5 by our friends over at Biotrust, which is really helpful for insulin management. So there's a few things that I will mention. Adam talked about all the physiological stuff. So eat more fat, reduce carbohydrates, do more weight training. All of those things will affect you physiologically, right? And you'll have higher testosterone and you'll want to have more sex. But they also affect you in other physiological ways, which affect you emotionally. If you follow that plan for two weeks, you're going to drop fat,

you're going to build muscle, you're going to look in the mirror, and not only are you going to feel more confident, which will make you more excited to have sex. When your girlfriend comes back from this trip, she hasn't seen you in two weeks, and now you're down five or six pounds, and you've gained some muscle, and now you're looking all hard, she's going to be a lot more eager to have sex with you as well. So there's a lot of things that will go into that. Yeah. Now, I've heard, and I use this just every day. I put it in my smoothies.

Maca actually helps. Is that with testosterone? Is that with something else that helps? Yeah. maca actually helps. Is that with testosterone? Is that with something else that helps? Yeah, I'm not specifically sure why maca has been shown to increase. I don't necessarily – Is it sex drive or something or what is it? It doesn't necessarily increase sex drive, but it does seem to increase incidence of erection.

So I would imagine that it has some circulatory properties would be my guess there. Gotcha. And also, I know that Onnit, our sponsor, has a new product called T-Plus Out, which is supposed to be an amazing testosterone all-natural product. So that's another thing you guys should check out. Now, let's go into stretching. Now, for years, I did static stretching. Right.

And for whatever reason, I don't know if the research came out then or now, but it's actually some research is saying that static stretching actually helps cause more injury than actually dynamic stretching. Now, I'm not sure what's true, what's not true. That's just what I've heard. What is the difference? And say we're going to go to the gym. Should we sit there for 20 minutes and do static stretching, or should we do 10 to 20 minutes of dynamic stretching before we get into a heavy workout? I'm going to give you a very simple and easy answer, and it's both work.

Because both work, it's best to combine both. I believe it always depends on the activity that you're going to do okay and research is going to show both things research is going to show that dynamic stretching is great it's going to show the static stretching is great and that's going to show that you know dynamic does nothing and static stretching and there's been studies that have come out that have literally shown that static stretching is beneficial from you know injury prevention to improving weightlifting performance. And then another one will come out a couple months later telling you that if you stretch statically before a workout, your power output is going to be decreased significantly.

And the reality is that a lot of times the poison sometimes is in the dose and the poison is in the application. is in the dose and the poison is in the application. So there are benefits to stretching a muscle and really focusing on, if you will, lengthening. I hate using that term, but focusing on stretching out that muscle so that you can move it through a greater range of motion. And the reason why dynamic stretching is so great is that you are working on taking those muscles through an active range of motion. Because when you're doing static stretching, you're holding that muscle in a static position and not doing anything.

But when you're actually doing exercise, you want to go ahead and you want to move it through an active range of motion because that's how you move in real life. And what's important to take away from stretching or any type of warm-up in general is just to do one. Because when you work out, your muscles are like cold rubber bands. And when you warm them up, when you stretching dynamic movements static movements that get your heart rate up that gets the blood flowing it makes the muscles more pliable and when a muscle is more pliable one it's not going to get injured as often and two maybe just as more important it's going to be

able to generate a lot more energy so you're going to be able to lift more weights you're going to be able to you know go longer for endurance but you're going to be able to build more muscle so the're going to be able to go longer from endurance standpoint. You're going to be able to build more muscle. So the bottom line answer is people are going to be splitting hairs about whether one is better than the other. When you're going to find research on both sides of them, there are benefits to both. Combine both and just make sure you do a warm-up before you work out. And don't be the idiot who goes in there and be like, forget the warm-up. I'm just going to go and lift some weights because you know what? You're leaving things on the table and that's when you will get hurt.

Yeah. So just – I will say that – You've got to wake the dog up. I think it might be worth – I put the dog to sleep. I think it might be worth defining the difference between static stretching and – So static stretch would be your, let's say, traditional hamstring stretch

where you're laying on your back and you're holding your leg up and you're feeling that stretch in the back of your leg. And dynamic movements are literally taking you through a series of movements where you are moving your body and holding certain poses. So, I mean, you could be doing a... A walking lun, I mean, you could be doing a walking lunge or something.

You could be doing a walking lunge. You could be doing a one-legged, straight-legged, Romanian-legged deadlift where you are getting that same hamstring stretch, but you're actually moving and you're engaging your hips, you're engaging your core, you're engaging your glutes. What I'll say is that I like both static stretching and dynamic stretching. What I'll say is that I like both static stretching and dynamic stretching. The way that I handle this is that once the studies started to come out more regularly that showed static stretching decreased power output, I sort of moved away from it on training days. So I generally do dynamic stretching on days where I train with weights in addition to foam rolling and all that

and then i do static stretching on days i don't train with weights more as sort of a recovery an active recovery process and also because like i do want to be more flexible my fiance is like this crazy yogi and i can't even like i'm not even close to being able to keep up so you know like it really depends on what you want to be able to do. If you don't care about flexibility, then you never have to worry about it unless you're just worried about injury prevention. If you care about mobility, then these are things that you need to worry about. Right. Now, here's what I've been trying to wrap my head around for a while.

We're basically all animals in a sense. So why can't, just like a lion does chasing its prey, why can't it just get up when it's done sleeping? It sees an animal it wants to kill, and it just sprints, or a cheetah or whatever. They're sprinting at full speed, jumping, they never pull a hamstring but how come how come we can't do it we don't know actually that's funny it's a scene from zombie land where uh we're the zombie land where the um the woody harrelson character says you ever seen a lion limber up before taking down a gazelle the reason

that lions don't need to stretch and that they're always limber is simply because they are moving a lot more often and they're when you know the more often that you're in motion the less often you sit still the less locked up and bound up you are so lions are pretty active especially female lions male lions just kind of sit there And let the lionesses do all their hunting And bring them food But in particular Most animals

Are more active than humans Because they're not sitting at a desk On the computer all day They're walking around all day Yeah there's been enough articles that have come out Really in the last 2-3 years That are showing that sitting is literally killing us sitting is death it is it is death in every which way from actual death and to what it does to your body you sit here it tightens up the

shoulders and your upper back it tightens up your hip flexors and suddenly everything just starts to break down and uh it's you know our lives and it's it's really what we tap in overall, our lives have set us up in a way where... This is life. You have to go to a job, you have to work, you have to sit, but if you're going to sit for eight, 10, 12 hours of a day, you have to realize that your body almost gets stuck and frozen in this position. It is not natural to it. We were not meant to sit all day, just like lions aren't meant to sit all day.

You know what? They don't right they get up and move around and uh if we were walking and moving around all day that's why people have seen or moved to things like a standing desk or just trying to get up and walk around you're mobile you're moving around more your body is getting the benefit just moving right so if just just one final point if If you look at the likelihood of getting hurt, it increases with age. It's because the cumulative number of seated hours have increased dramatically. From the time we're about five years old, kids start sitting about eight hours a day in school, right? cumulative net effect that sitting has. And the more often you sit and the longer you sit and the older you are and have been sitting, the larger this effect will be. Now, let's just say, okay, this is all great, guys, but I'm 35, 40 years old. I'm working at a job that I've been stuck at for 20 years. I've got four kids. I'm not going to work on my own and be walking around

all day. And I'm going to be working 40 to 50 hours a week for the next 20 years. What are some things that I can do at my desk in an office where I'm tied down to that can help me get rid of these bad habits? Do I get a bouncy ball, a stability ball that I sit on half the day or most of the day? Do I get a stand-up desk? Do I get a walking treadmill desk? Do I get up every 15 minutes? What is it that I do? I think you go all office space and you just drill off the walls of your cubicle and just start doing whatever you want. That's, I guess, option. Uh, I think what it really comes down to, I mean, I'm not a big fan of a, of a treadmill desk or a, of a bouncy ball. If you want one that might

make a difference because it's actually sitting that is causing the problem, you can get a standing desk or you can just make sure that you get up and you stand and you walk around. I don't think, uh, anyone's expectation is that, you is that you're going to start walking around like a lion or an animal. The idea is that you are conscious of what is causing these breakdowns, and you are conscious that because of the way that you are living, you are taking the steps to counterbalance that. It really gets back to what we did with creating this book. It's not telling you that, hey, if you want to go and fix your hormonal levels, you need

to take these pharmaceutical products or you need to go and spend two to three hours a day in the gym. It's all about practicality. Practicality is able to resonate and have the greatest effect when you know what the enemy is. If you know that you're sitting a lot more often and so you can't even get up and move around, it just makes sure that you have to spend, take that 5, 10, 15 minutes to do things to help your mobility.

Grab a foam roller and just foam roll for 10 minutes a day and it's going to actually improve the tissue in your muscles so you're undoing the damage that you do by sitting because you know what? You can't just quit your job or sitting all day is going to affect your hormone levels because it's going to literally slow you down go ahead and make sure you exercise and make sure you eat the right way so i think a lot of times we look at the barriers that stand in our way and just say well shit i'm screwed yeah and that's not though because i you know i gotta work i gotta take care of my kids.

I've only got an hour a day. Then it's finding out, okay, what time do you have? How can you use that time the best? A lot of times, the only thing you really need to do to counterbalance what you're doing at your desk is get up and walk around for five minutes every couple hours. It's going to be fine. You can do the standing desk. It's something that I know I've played around with.

Roman has done the same himself. And then take the time to just take care of your body. And it really sometimes, some things, foam rolling, it honestly takes five to ten minutes a day and it's a life changer. Yeah, I like to make sweet, sweet love

to my foam roller every day. Roman was making sweet, sweet love to the corner of his wall tonight. I was doing soft tissue work on my back by just leaning into the corner where two of the walls meet in my apartment and just leaning into it. It was a nice, sharp pressure on my lat. So I was really getting in there. because the more that I've been hanging out with you guys and just learning about nutrition and foods and juice and just what I'm putting in my body,

and I think the older I'm getting, I'm realizing that I can't just show up every day and just be this young guy. It's like we're getting older. And what's the most important thing? I feel like our health is really the most important, I guess, asset or thing that we have for the rest of our life.

And what I started doing is I think eventually this will become something that might be five days a week. But I hired a sports therapist to work on my body twice a week right now and work on all the messed up parts of my injuries from the past and just any places that I'm feeling less flexible should really help me on my hip flexors, my ankles, my shoulders, everything to just make me a better performing human. And I've seen tremendous results from that. Now it's expensive, but for me, it's a worthwhile investment to like be healthy and feel less pain. You're a professional athlete for you.

You know, if, even if it's costing you $200 an hour, twice a week, right. You know, 400 bucks for your career is not, is not,

you know, really terrible. So with most people, with the average person, we're talking about spending $30 on a foam roller. And then really after that, it's just 10 minutes a day, you know?

And then I do recommend that people get either massage therapy or or active release therapy you know just like once a month let someone like you know dig their thumbs into your various muscles and like get get some grooves going uh but yeah i mean for you that's a worthwhile investment for for people if you can afford it i think that's great i see my art guy at least once a week right now. So yeah, I think there's a lot of different things you can do. It's really important because you only get one body and there's a lot of pieces that you could replace, but you would rather go to the grave with all your original parts.

Exactly. And I'm not saying people should hire a sports therapist today and do it every week. I'm saying that's the importance I'm putting on my body the older I get because I see the value on what you guys talk about and all this stuff. So definitely getting a foam roller and doing that every day is worth it. Stretching and working out is what people should be doing. Now, I want to really quickly pitch you guys a book because I got one more question I want to ask both of you. really quickly pitch you guys book because i got one more one more question i want to ask both of you but make sure you guys go check out this book uh man 2.0 engineering the alpha and uh where's the best place they should go get this just on amazon if they search man 2.0 or where they find it yeah you'll really be able to get it pretty much anywhere if you're paying attention to the

internet this week there'll be a couple of thousand links coming at you. But if you guys are really interested in how stuff like the New York Times bestseller list, you might be interested to know that if you go to a bookstore and pick it up, it's counted like three times more towards a bestseller list than let's say picking it up in amazon or barnes and noble or something like that so if you and i only mentioned that so like if you're one of my fans or adam's fans that's been following us for a while and you want to invest a little time and money into us that would be what we'd prefer having said that anyone who is interested in the book no matter where you pick it up we're going to be happy so you can do that at amazon barnes and noble uh books a million ceo reads and of course if you go to engineering the alpha.com you can do that at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, CEO Reads, and of course if you go to engineeringthealpha.com, you can pick it up there as well. Engineeringthealpha.com, that's got more information on the book and on you guys.

Tons of information. There are videos and all that. Nice. And John is at romanfitnesssystems.com. It's also at John Romanello on Twitter and Facebook. And then Adam is bornfitness.com and at bornfitness on Twitter. But make sure you guys go check out engineeringthealpha.com

to learn more about the book and these guys. So that leads me to our final question. And you guys need to come up with a name for your tag team if you're in WWE. But it leads me to the final question. That's what I ask all the guests on this show. And I'll start with Adam. So Adam and John, you'll have a minute to think about it.

But what is your definition of greatness? Wow. Loaded question, Lewis. But I like it. Could be as short or as long as you want it to be. My definition of greatness is very, very simple because it kind of ties into what I believe is kind of the mantra that you should take toward life. And greatness is planning out a life where everything you do is geared towards the ideal

version of what you want and making you happy. is geared towards the ideal version of what you want and making you happy. I honestly believe so, so deeply that greatness, whether it's in the self, whether it's in what you achieve or it's in what you stand for, is all about being happy and kind of being true to yourself, which means if you're not doing something that is gearing you towards being happy,

you're probably not going to be living a great life. Right. And, uh, that was, uh, it's become the guiding principle of everything that I do in my personal life and in my work life.

And I've found that, it's led to some pretty great things and some pretty special opportunities. So if you, you kind of follow that approach, uh, I don't think it will ever really lead you wrong. Adam's answer was so good and poetic, I think. So there's a great quote I love that is actually in our book. And it's by Bob

Dylan. And the quote is, a man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants. And I really like that. And I think that for me, greatness is about wanting to leave a legacy and wanting to achieve great things. And the desire to do those being sort of the impetus behind a lot of the actions that you take. the impetus behind a lot of the actions that you take. I try to filter every action through sort of looking at all of the potential consequences and outcomes of that action. And I don't mean to sound like sanctimonious and I don't always make decisions that are going to lead down the path of righteousness, but I do try to make decisions that are going to lead down the path of righteousness. But I do try to make decisions that are going to lead me down a path towards success and happiness. And that's really important to me because it took me a really long time to learn that lesson.

And I had to make a lot of the same mistakes over and over, whether in business and in particular with my relationships. So for me, greatness really means recognizing who you are and how to make yourself happy, and then pursuing that to the utmost of your ability. Nice. Okay. So you guys got to come up with some name real quick before we wrap up. Oh, man. Can we just use Bushwhackers?

I mean, no one's using them anymore. They were always my favorite tag team. Bushwhackers. Those guys were great. That's fine with me if that's what you want to have. Got anything else, buddy? Can we make something alpha out of this? The Alpha Twins or something?

Alpha Twins. Alpha Twins is actually strong. We will show up wearing matching Alpha t-shirts and we will be the Alpha Twins. It's like the Wonder Twins, but Alpha Twins are great. we will show up wearing matching alpha t-shirts and we will be the alpha twins. Sweet. Awesome. It's like the wonder twins,

but alpha twins. Well, I appreciate it guys. Thanks so much for coming on and make sure everyone goes, checks out their book, check out the site and say hi to them online. Thanks guys. Thanks.

Appreciate it. Appreciate it. And there you have it guys. I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did. And I hope you enjoyed the dog snoring as well, which brought a lot of character to this episode. Make sure to check out engineeringthealpha.com to look at their book website and go pick up a copy today for yourself. This book is amazing. The information you're going to get out of this is going to blow you away, just like I hope this interview did. So check that out. Say hi to them on Twitter and make sure to go check out the show notes over at schoolofgreatness.com as I'm going to have all their stuff linked up there on the post.

I'm going to have videos of them, links to their book, to their Twitter, Facebook, all that other good stuff, and other notes that we took from this show. So make sure to check out schoolofgreatness.com. Feel free to leave us a comment or review over on iTunes and say hi to me. I'm over on Twitter, at Lewis Howes, over on Facebook, Lewis Howes.

Shoot me an email if you have some questions or suggestions on how you would like me to make this show better or how I can better serve you with different topics, guests, and other suggestions. With that, guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode with John Romaniello and Adam Bornstein. Make sure to pick up a copy of the book and stay tuned for the next episode on the School of Greatness. Have a great day and I'll talk to you soon. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Outro Music