Weights and Plates Podcast - #100 - The Truth About Starting in the Fitness Industry

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Welcome to the Weights & Plates Podcast, hosted by strength coach and nutrition expert Robert Santana. In this kickoff episode, Robert is joined by Jay Ware, a long-time friend and fellow coach who might just be sticking around as the podcast’s new co-host. 🎙️ In this episode, Robert and Jay dive into: • How they met through strength coaching and coaching internships • Jay’s background growing up in a small town and his journey into fitness • The evolution of strength training and why coaching goes beyond just sets and reps • Real talk about the fitness industry – what’s working, what’s broken • Their shared vision for the podcast and what you can expect moving forward This episode sets the stage for a podcast that blends science, experience, and honest conversations – whether you're a lifter, coach, or just trying to figure out what works in a noisy fitness world. 👊 Subscribe to hear weekly episodes about training, nutrition, mindset, and more — no BS, just results. https://weightsandplates.com/online-coaching/ Follow Weights & Plates YouTube: https://youtube.com/@weights_and_plates?si=ebAS8sRtzsPmFQf- Instagram: @the_robert_santana Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/weightsandplates  Web: https://weightsandplates.com 

Welcome to the Weights and Plates podcast. I am Robert Santana. I am your host along with a special guest and possibly your newest co-host. Why don't you introduce yourself, Jware, Jwillware. So what's going on you guys? My name is Jware. So I grew up in a small town and I actually met Robert right out of the Taylor into COVID after I was starting to learn about the starting strength program. Started the LP and started coming to the gym and showing up.

Kind of how I started. Yeah, it was all those years ago. Seems like yesterday, man. I still think of you as 21, because you came in and you were 21. Barely able to drink. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to bring Jay on because he has a unique experience of diving right into the fitness realm out of high school. Right. Is that right? Yeah.

And he's worked at commercial gyms probably longer than I ever did. And like I said in past episodes, I want to touch on that experience and what the general public is looking for. And basically with not just Jay, the guests we get on here as well, trying to formulate ways to get people under a bar more because we face a big, steep uphill battle and trying to do that because of all sorts of perceptions of it. So why don't you tell us how you got into fitness, Jay? We'll just kind of start there. So I grew up always being a basketball player. So I pretty much started playing ball when

I was about five, six years old and was doing that up until about my freshman year of college. And I actually started working at a gym towards a tailor in my senior year because I just walked into a gym and I'm like, hey, I wanna learn. So I was like, well, I was a basketball player so this seemed like the most natural thing to do at the time. Yeah, just be a trainer.

Sure, because if you like to play sports then surely you can train people, right? Exactly, that's what we all think. I mean, if you own a dog, you can train dogs. If you spend money, you're an expert with money? Exactly. That's what we all think. I mean, if you own, if you own a dog, you can train dogs. If you spend money, you're an expert with money. I mean, the list goes on in 2025 on the internet, you know, if you go on the internet. Yeah. So my start actually was in a small group fitness studio and it was located right in my small town. And I would talk class to people ranging from, you know, early 20s up until 50s and 60s.

And we occasionally did barbell work, but it wasn't something we emphasized too much at the time, actually. Why don't you tell us what that was like? What was barbell work in that situation? And how much instruction did you get? Not much, actually. It was kind of like, okay, you watch me do it. Okay, now you, now you do it. And honestly, like the ability to cue and actually teach people how to go through the lips didn't really happen until I started learning the program and studying under you, which actually helped me in every facet of me as a trainer, in all honesty. Cause we actually would avoid barbell work

as much as possible. It's like, well, we don't want to hurt someone. This person can get hurt for this. It was just a bunch of excuses to not actually go through the process. Right. So there's this over-concern with safety, right? Yeah. And could they even tell you

how it's supposed to be done correctly? I mean, who are we talking about here first? So you talk about your youth coaches or your boss at the commercial gym boss at the commercial gym. So let's back up. So you talked about basketball, some loose instruction on barbell training. So get under a bar and squat. You probably squatted high bar with your toes forward and high, right? Head up to go up all that bullshit. Or did they even say that? That's literally what we did. Yeah. And the funny thing is we never actually even did. We tried to do squat maxes, you know, once or twice, but we had someone blow out their

knee. And so we ended up having, we ended up stopping. We never really tried doing deadlifts. When I did it, I was doing a really bad leg, hunchback deadlift. But the one thing we always tried to focus on was our bench maxes. We had like a 200 pound lifting club that we did. And I was trying so hard to get my bench to 200. Our coach that started that program left by the time I hit my, I was able to bench over 200 pounds.

I was kinda salty about that. So did you bench over 200 pounds? That's a good question now. Your PRs. So my perfect segue. So I did get to about, if I remember correctly, I was able to do 225 about once, but it wasn't anything consistent. So I was actually about 135 pounds up until halfway through my junior year. And it's the typical story. My girlfriend broke up with me. So I put I was training literally all day, every day. And I went from 135 to about 155.

And I ended up graduating high school, 165, not knowing what I was doing. But I'm like, well, this is the time I still want to be an athlete. So I just tried, looked up whatever I could for what was available at the time. Cause not like I was being taught it. So you squatted 255? No, not even close. So that's not terrible. Most guys can't do that.

There were all of your peers doing that. For my size? No, that wasn't a typical thing because people just didn't train. They didn't want to go into the gym for their sport like that. It was, I wake up, I go to practice and I eat all the garbage and still expect to perform, you know, a hundred percent. Because that's all you got to do is show up and do more of the sport, do more lifting, right? Isn't that what they told you? Yeah. You just pull it out of your butt and your greatness will just automatically arise. It just magically appears out of nowhere. Yeah. Usually in a lot of high school, high school gyms, it's a lot. It's either PE teachers or former athletes, but they were naturally gifted

in what they were in their performance. Then go through the struggle of like, I don't know how to do this properly. And then being taught how to actually go through it, go through the steps, positionings, cues. There's like, all right, do it. Oh, okay, this looks right. And I don't know how many managers or bosses that I've had that can't even coach the lifts. Well, let's dive into that. So you are, you're from Maricopa.

That was a small town when you're growing up, right? It's becoming not a small town now. Yeah, we got two McDonald's now. Shit, moving on. Do you have a Starbucks yet? We got, I think we got three. One actual location and two like inside the grocery store. All that means you got more people coming.

Yeah. So in a small town, how did you end up in a commercial gym? Was there a big commercial gym there? Where did you start? So our commercial gym, that was a Planet Fitness. And Planet Fitness doesn't really have personal trainers. They'll hire a trainer,

but they're not really training anybody. It's like, here's a rinky dink workout, go ahead. Teach you how to use these machines in a circuit. But my first opportunity in a big box gym was for LA Fitness right out of COVID. Right. I'd finally officially gotten certified right before the lockdowns happened. And I'm like applying to all these places. I got a call to be a hit instructor for LA Fitness, which was their version of Orange Theory at the time. the hit instructor for LA fitness, which was their version of Orange Theory at the time. And went through the trainings, I was calling around to still try to be a trainer. And I

interviewed at a location in Santan Valley. Well, COVID numbers had spiked and they went, oh, sorry, we can't hire you because the number spiked. We go back in a lockdown. And I was supposed to interview at the Higley location, which is where I was going to be a hit instructor. That led to me getting hired on because I did the work and just kept asking. Because one of the things most people lack, especially coaches, is persistency. Right. The willingness to like, okay, keep showing up, keep asking the questions. Am I willing to actually sit there and look like an idiot? And my boss for, for hit honestly was one of the, was one of the best things because

he's kind of like an older brother to me. And he allowed me to kind of work through my mistakes because I went from a small town going into one of the nicest cities in Arizona, probably being around all these people with money. And I'm like, oh, this is a lot. Just right. So what was the interview process like? And what were the qualifications required to work at this gym? Let's kind of start there. So the qualifications were, you gotta be certified

at the time LA fitness did require at least a fit tour certification. And that's like a 20, $50 certification that you can get. And doesn't really teach you anything. What did they require of you to pass that they required you did you had your cert and you had to do shadowing hours and you had to shadow to, uh, to fully book trainers. So when I went to one of the locations that did my shadowing, one of them was just awful. Like he had this one lady doing Smith machine squats. And I'm sitting there, I'm like hearing her knee, knee pop. I'm like, you know, her knees cracking,

right? He's like, what? Like her knees popping. He's like, oh, and just has her stop doing it. That's not necessarily wrong though. You know that now, right? Yeah. That the knees popping. He's like, oh and just has her stop doing it. That's not necessarily wrong though You know that now right? Yeah, but the knees popping is just air But he didn't even notice that I did. Yeah I'm like dude Like you you can't just like not pay attention to that. Well, you're supposed to ask is that hurt? Mm-hmm, you know which you've learned since then right? Yeah

Popping is nothing. If there's popping and pain, you got something to worry about. You know, that's a different episode entirely. Yeah, but my knees are popping all the time. Yeah, so are mine. They don't hurt though. What did the certification entail? So the certification process, I ended up getting mine through ISSA, International Sports Science

Association. And for them, they didn't have the NASM accreditation, but they'd been around just as long. Right. And it was an open book, open note exam. So I passed it online. And depending on the gym you go to, most gyms will take that orange theories and some of the other ones specifically ask that you have NASM. Okay. The thing that helped me was already had experience in the industry. So I had my experience at the gym that was in my hometown. So that helped. And I admitted that I had a lot to

learn. What was the content of that exam to become certified? What content were you required to know? What level of knowledge did you have to possess to pass that exam? There were obviously criteria in terms of things you had to study for. You know what? I'm not even going to lie. I freaking Googled most of the answers at the time. Don't fucking say that on the air. Well, I mean, what do they do now?

What did they want you to know? They wanted you to know the basics of anatomy, general. I don't want to see specific programming because most search have never actually gone into depth about programming. Of course not. Even nasa. Like they have their model. And for a foundation, it's a it's an okay model, but it it doesn't actually teach you

how to adjust for what your client may or may not need. And it never covers the main lifts. Does it even cover the concept of progressive overload beyond just defining it? Not really. I guess it actually does a better job of that. Yeah. They talk about micro loading.

Not really doubt it. They don't even talk about gym plates at all. Probably. They just talk about talk about gym plates at all. Probably they just talk about load intensity volume as though there are these abstract variables in a scientific journal. Well, and in a lot of ISSA's literature, they actually have you reference an NSEA. So then it's like, okay, I'm getting my cert. Why don't you just get the NSEA?

Yeah. Right. But I dropped out of college, so I'm not trying to get an SCA. Is there a practical component to this? You do you have to demonstrate any coaching proficiency? I just had to put the boss through a workout for exercises. This was for your interview, but not for the cert. No, for the, for the cert, they have you, they give you like two,

like two or three example people, right. And they're like, okay, create like a workout program for them. Sure. And maybe some general nutrition stuff. Okay. Because obviously, the rules are still kind of very gray area right now. So once you pass, you pass that There's nothing else to it. Now ISSA requires you to do a, I think it's NCCA accreditation. So it's a proctored exam that you have to go through to show that you know your stuff. But you don't have to demonstrate that you can coach somebody. No. Yeah, this has pretty much been the status quo in personal training certifications since the dawn of time.

I mean, NSCA used to have practical, I believe in the 80s. That's probably more of a rip question, but I think at some point there was a practical. ACSM had a practical, but it wasn't very practical. You had to demonstrate that you can administer exercise tests that you were never going to use. But at least there was something that you had to perform in real time in front of them and be evaluated on.

They required that you do a YMCA step test. I think there was a exercise blood pressure, resting blood pressure. Those are the ones that jumped to my mind, but now it's just a computerized exam. What made you think that all this formal education was bullshit? Because you've talked to me about this in the past.

And I think a lot of our audience would appreciate the perspective of a young man coming up in the era of COVID that kind of saw through the bullshit a lot of us, my age, bought into. I think the biggest part of it was actually the, well, I inherently know more because I went to school. I'm like, okay, great. You go, if you study kinesiology, any, any of those types of degrees, you go to a gym,

you don't have to have a certification. Right. So you never have to recertify a lot of kids in kinesiology just tells you, okay, this is how the body works But it changes once you put the weight in your hand. Mm-hmm Everything changes, of course, but then you have so many different variables of like, okay You have to count for this you have to count for that and no one can fully account for that So you're telling me that I need to know this

Because you're saying this is the most practical way. Who are you learning it from? Most of the fitness influencers just happen to look good. I had a guy that went to my local gym and just was a genetic freak. And I don't think he was going to, I think he decided to stop playing college sports at the time and was trying to become a fitness influencer. And everything from like his, his cart, like his seated rower, water machine to his other exercise were just awful. I'm like, dude, you just happen to look great.

I'm like five, nine, you know, I didn't just, I couldn't, I didn't wake up a genetic monster. Like I had to learn this over time, but people want to pay him money because he looks that way. Yeah. And he's not that knowledgeable. Oh, definitely not. Welcome to the fitness industry, Jay. Well, actually my first boss that I had, one of my boss that I had at LA fitness on the personal training side, he was trying to tell me about his degree. And this was a little bit after I had found starting strength. And I told him he's like going on about his degree. I'm like, yeah, I kind of learned that, you know, people with kinesiology are retarded. Because once you put the weight in the end, that it changes everything. And he just sat there quiet. He didn't last long with the company. Nobody does. No. Because what are you really evaluated on at a commercial gym?

Can you keep clients happy? And can you sell, right? Depends on the gym. So LA Fitness actually has their, their personal training directors and their personal training counselors and their personal training counselors that are designed to sell training for you. They don't actually go out of their way to teach the trainers how to sell. So each function is separate. So one person sells the membership, one person sells the training, one person performs the services of the training.

Yeah. Got it. I was lucky in the regard that I was curious and I wanted to start learning how to do it. And I was going through a phase where they wanted to promote me to be a head trainer. And I turned that down because they wanted me to give up teaching my group, my group of moms that I was coaching for my hit classes to do more sales. And I'm like, well, I'm making more money now. And on top of that, then they wanted me to take the manager position for personal training sales

because I was out selling my manager. So you could sell as a trainer. Yeah, I could. Oh, okay. But it wasn't required. Okay, got it. But if you did, you got a commission. Yeah. Okay, got it. We got commission and we got a certain, depending on what type of trainer you

were. I was a master trainer. So I got, uh, 30% of what they were paying per session. It was only a 30 minute session. I do remember that with LA fitness, they do the 30 minute sessions. Well, and you set your client up to fail because you're having to go through an initial workout. Okay. Here's the warm up routine I want you to do here. Let's weigh you in, whatever. So you either end up having to use an extra session already or not get paid for, you know, a 30 minutes to an hour. So you're kind of put in like a lose lose position because you're told, oh, you have to work this amount of hours or have your schedule open or you will be fired. So you end up on this artificial clock at the client's expense.

Yeah. I was there literally all day because my house was 45 minutes away. So I would just wait there all day. I would teach my class in the morning. If I had one wait there all day until the next client my class in the morning if I had one, wait there all day until the next client, next client, or if they sold one. And maybe I taught another class in the evening. And so you had to work a certain number of hours, but you were paid commission.

So as a master trainer, you only got paid when you train the client. So if the client canceled, unless you marked it in the system, you didn't get paid. So let's say you're paying, uh, uh, what $60 session was like 30% of that somewhere in the 15 to 20 range. Yeah. So I get that for like a half hour session. Okay. So they're paying that for a half hour. Yeah. And then there are special bonuses. If they were post contract, if it was a post contract, you get a bonus for if you're with the company for some amount of time, right. But they make that very hard to track how much you're actually getting paid. So the math is like so inconsistent. But when I, when I taught

a hit class, I was, I was a guaranteed $30 class. And I would go from essentially my main location to sometimes two or three other locations in the week to teach a class. So they made you stay there all day, even if you didn't have sessions. And then that meant that you didn't get paid for a lot of the time you were there. Yeah. Sounds about right. I had a similar experience when I worked at the commercial gym. They wanted certain hours out of you a week, even if you weren't getting paid for all those hours.

Which legally they actually can't do that. And that funny. Yeah. Well, because you had to opt you get paid for the number of sessions you service or your hours. Right. And your hourly was always different than your session rate. If you're a master trainer.

Now, I'll certify didn't matter. But when I was a master trainer, I'm like, well, I'm working all these hours. I'm not really getting paid because it got to me working about a little over 55 hours a week, but I was driving 30 hours a week. Think about that for a second. 80 hours. Yeah. Imagine that. Because I'd have to drive from Maricopa to My main location drive to my next one to teach drive back teach all day Drive to my other location teach drive back and drive home I

Had one day when I was fully booked where I had started like what? Seven third seven o'clock in the morning. And I would be fully booked until eight o'clock at night. And my only bathroom break would be if someone canceled or I'm like, I really gotta be. Right. So you were busy, but there was a lot of dead time there. It sounds like.

At one point, no, I was fully booked out. I was so burnt because I'm not getting really paid much. When I worked at the commercial gym that I worked at, we were on 100% commission. And then there was a draw system. And if we didn't make enough money to cover minimum wage through our commissions, then you were paid an hourly based on the draw system, which was probably minimum wage, if I remember correctly, or slightly above. But then at the same time, they wanted us there a certain number of hours per week. And then they also would not explicitly, they would not explicitly say this, but they didn't want you taking draw. So a lot of people would come in there and not punch in, in fear of retaliation.

So you'd end up working for nothing. So it was, they demanded all of your time, but then they didn't want to pay you for your time. They wanted to pay you for your sales and your service. So one sided contract, essentially, you know? You only get paid if you work, we always get paid. Pretty much. And the version you're talking about, I don't quite understand, it seems convoluted.

So you had to have a minimum availability of 20 hours a week. You had to be available 20 hours a week, whether you sold or serviced them was irrelevant. Yeah. Okay. So that 20 hours available. So they still have this hourly requirement. Yeah. Okay. So you have your schedule open because just in case I, I'm going to start booking this

client. Yep. Which is fine. Now, personally, I got to a point where I didn't let whoever the salesperson was book a client with me until they messaged me first about the session. Like, Hey, is this available? Right. Because now it creates no confusion on, Oh, well, I randomly have this, this day or whatever, because I, I have to have my schedule open. Yeah, that makes sense. But now if I have my 20 availability, every client that I'm training when I'm a master trainer is different.

Because if it's 30% or on occasion, the 25%, I could be making $6 every half an hour to an upwards of like 25, but no, like to me the $25 for a half an hour was a completely different, uh, ability to sell. And a lot of them weren't able to do that. So were you getting paid shitty? Cause it was hard. I, I'm confused. Where did you get fucked here? So where I got fucked was if you're fortunate to have a team that can sell, you'll be fine.

But as soon as the lead stop, stop showing up and people stop selling, you as a trainer left high and dry every single time. Right. So now you have no, you have no clients. So you said you could also sell yourself and you said you did. I did run it presented itself, but how they usually work is they go specifically through those people that are paid to sell. And when my management slowly started shifting from the time I started it, I

was the only one left from when I started and you just got less and less control over that sales process is what you're saying. Yeah. Okay, got it. I can't really do anything. So then you go in there and you had a lot of minimum wage hours on your paycheck.

Yeah. Got it. So yeah, that's a similar deal with me, just different, different flavor of it, where basically your time is demanded of you, but the expectations are that sales are being made. Okay. I will, I will say though, this gym was really good about, for the most part, leaving me alone

and just letting me do my job. Right. I've had others where they would breathe down your neck about how, how you were training your client. And it's, when was the last time you ever trained a client? And when you did, did you even know what the fuck you were doing your client. And it's when was the last time you were trained a client? And when you did, did you even know what the fuck you were doing? Yeah. Did you, did you find that you knew more than most trainers there? Yeah. And like, I never, I don't ever claim to be like the, you know, star studded trainer. Right. Neither do I, but I was at

a gym where I trained all of the new trainers that came in. Every single one had to go with me and learn from me and go through me. I would imagine so because you actually had skills that you learned here, you know, and you were looking at training from a completely different standpoint. Right. I literally had like four or five clients at one point that I was able to do the program. I got one of my kids, he dropped little over 25 pounds. His brother and sister both gained 20 pounds. Okay.

And then I had two other guys, they were fortunate to drop. One dude was got up to about 40 and then another you dropped like 30 pounds. So let's dive into that because it's the main reason you've found yourself in that chair. What has it been like trying to barbell train personal training clients at a lower low ish cost and say, yeah, low ish cost commercial gym given the price of the high end ones. Now I'd still consider LA fitness

low. Uh, you know, now I think some of these higher ones are like $300 a month, 400, $500 a month. So we're talking, this is like a $40 a month gym membership for those of you who don't have one in your community. Uh, what is it like trying to barbell train these people? We're not even talking about doing the program, just introducing the idea of squatting and deadlifting and pressing and bench pressing and working towards a chin up or doing chin ups if they can already do them. I'm guessing most could not.

The excuses were so annoying. I had one guy and I love him to death and he's one of my favorite clients of this day. Yeah. He had slip discs, And he's he's one of one of my favorite clients of this day. Yeah. He he had slipped this. Have every every every like, oh, my back hurts doing this. I'm like, OK, can you can you trust me for like this this one moment? And I did keep emphasizing, hey, I was right about this.

I was right about this. So I was finally able to get him to start deadlifting over time. And even now, because to work at another gym That I get the same bros that go. Oh, well, I don't bench press because my shoulder hurts And but the dude has never pressed a day in his life. He's never actually tried to improve his mobility at all and You're whining to me telling me you can't bench press when it's One of the best exercises you could do in a program you can't bench press when it's one of the best exercises you could do in a program.

Well, how does he even define a bench press? Because I think his definition is probably different than yours. What's your experience been with the bench press? Compared to how I taught you how you do it and how I do it. What are they not doing? Most of the time they their elbows flare out excessively. They're just sitting out here and they're like all the way out here. Like they have dumbbells. I'm like, dude, no, like just try internally rotating your elbows just a little bit. Like you're bending the bar and they feel such a big difference in their chest. They're like, Oh, I never thought of that. Are they like, yeah. I never thought of that. Are they? Yeah. Are they using their back at all?

Or their legs? No. So bench pressing hurts their shoulders, but they're not even bench pressing properly. I think in gym culture, it's been ingrained for so long that bench pressing is just a chest exercise.

Or they think in muscle groups. Yeah. Yeah. So like if you want, if you, if you're a coach that wants to teach it that way, do you, but it's designed to be a full body exercise for a reason. It's a compound lift for a reason. Right.

Well, even if it's just a chest exercise, if you're bench pressing with free weights, then you are responsible for stabilizing your body while you move those free weights through space, whether it's a dumbbell or a barbell. Yeah. And when you stabilize your body during that movement, you are recruiting other muscles

to accomplish that stabilization. Yeah. There's no way to do bench press as just chest, unless you want to injure yourself. And then guess what? bench press as just chest, unless you want to injure yourself and then guess what? It's not just chest, because now there's a lot of shoulders involved. Well, personally, I honestly think

this might be controversial. Get rid of the little bench press setups and all the big box gyms. That the upright support bench? Yeah, because you're never essentially teaching people to learn how to bench in a proper setting because they're always going to be worried about hurting themselves.

Because they don't even know how to bench without collars. They don't know how to bench with safeties. So I had a colleague who is informed on these matters. You know, he's not an SSC or anything, but he is familiar with starting strength. He understands the role of fractional plates, lighter bars, all the equipment recommendations that Ripito has made over the years and in the book.

He purchased upright support benches at ASU with spotter arms, kind of like the combo benches that they use in competition, but more commercialized version of it. Yeah. And he said the students didn't know what to do with them and they would move the spotter arms out of the fucking way. They do that with the squad rack to the, the safeties will be set up and then you'll, I've literally seen Jim bros take every little safety out and just throw it on the floor. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? I had a client who would actually yell at other people

in the gym after I started explaining to him how important the safeties are. So when they give that orientation to a new member, do they actually explain how to use these fucking machines, how to use the squat rack, where things go? No. No. So if it's a gym that go, that gives like a free consultation for a workout, most of

it never includes barbell training. You're always trying to figure out what's the imbalance, what are their biggest struggles. And a lot of people just flexibility, mobility outside of their strength. So you show the need and then you pitch it from there. Because for most people, barbell training is still pretty intimidating. Mm hmm. At least from a female perspective. And for the guys, it's like, well, I already know what I'm doing. I had one dude, he became a client because he was he was visiting in town from work. And he's like, Hey, can you give me some tips on some squats? I'm like, yeah, sure.

And he squat is like, why does it hurt? I'm like, dude, push your knee out. And he's like, Oh my gosh, this feels so much better. And so he started training with me. I just told the girl at the front desk of the commercial gym that I go to, uh, here in town. Yes. I go to a commercial gym a few times a week.

He's a gym bro guys. You know, I'm in my gym all the time, so I got to get out of here, but there's a $10 a month one here in town and the front desk girl, we just started talking. What are you doing? Doing legs and long story short of it, she said something about knee pain and I explained to her that she needs to push out her knees and widen her stance because she did what everybody else does. Toes forward, feet close. And she's like, Oh my God, I'm going to try that. So I'm supposed to follow up with her next time I go in there. She works every day. So I should find out

how that went. I think I know how that went. I think you know how that went. But it's a bunch of bullshit. Like they don't, the commercial gym business makes most of its money off of selling access because people will purchase access and then never use it. Well, this is actually been a concept I've been kind of contemplating if this would even work. Every person that comes in and signs up for a gym, you go through, you do a body, you do a body fat, body measurement exam with them first. Their second is going to be their free workout.

And now you can kind of go through any machines that may have questions on. And the second one can either be a machine size, go over it just so they feel comfortable in the gym. Because even for me, when I go to a brand new gym, like what's this thing? It I don't think I've ever used before. I feel weird about trying to use it. See, I take it a step further. I think that when you sign up at a gym for a membership, it should be required that you are going to get a tour of the gym, including instruction, general instruction on how to use the equipment. Not necessarily a workout, but hey, we got plate loaded machines here.

You pull the pin out, you put it in. If you want to make smaller jumps, you can hang a plate on it. Hey, here's a squat rack. Those are spotter arms. That's a barbell. That's knurling that those are the power lifting rings. That's an Olympic bar. Like this should be included in the initial orientation.

When you sign up for a gym. I don't know if they still do that. When I first went to a commercial gym at 18, they went around and showed me all the machines and they didn't go over how to use the free weight stuff specifically, but they showed me how the machines worked at least. They at least got that.

And then here's the free weight room figured out. So, but the problem is the gym industry has become really focused on amenities. Right. So does it have a pool? Does it have this? And it becomes an upcharge or like a comparison like, well, I get this with this gym. It's like, great, how much do you really use it? Like even gyms that say, Oh, you get multi club access. How often do you actually use it? Because depending on the gym, you can pay a $5 club charge or whatever to your account for just using that club for the day. Obviously it's on top of your membership, but long-term you're paying way less.

Absolutely. It's still their responsibility to educate the people that walk in the door on safety risks of anything that's under that roof. But they have gotten away with it this long and they just say, fuck it. And we're not going to show them what we're not going to show them what all this equipment is and how to use it. Part of it though, you have to put responsibility on the individual because if you go, Hey, we want, we want to make sure you have the best experience at this gym. We give

out a free workout to go over any of the machines in the gym that you may have whatever most you'd be surprised how many people don't take it. They go, I already know what I'm doing. And that's insanity. Yeah, that shouldn't even be a free workout. When you sign up. That's part of the deal. You don't get to leave until we go through all the safety precautions here in the gym. Yeah. But they're just selling access because they know 95% of the people who buy access will never use it. Well, I think, I think it really depends, right? So I think your low, your low

ticket, your 10 to $25 a month ones, those are really simple to be able to be like, oh, well, I don't see the charge coming out. But when you start getting to like your 40, your $50 a month, people see that. And they're really quick to try to cancel. I had a lady for the gym that I work out right now, our membership's like between 35 to 40 bucks a month. And she's like, hey, I want to cancel.

I'm like, are you sure? Because you're paying 25 bucks a month. And this is a locked in rate. Yeah. No one else is like, there are not many people paying this rate anymore. Like I even had a client at another gym. She was a part about like valleys or valleys total fitness. She got grandfathered in at paying like a little over $100 a year.

And that was it. They're still around. They paying like a little over $100 a year. And that was it. They're still around. They're still around from when they got bought out. Well, in the gym, I have my membership board. They charge like what? $55, $60 a month. And I'm grandfathered in at $42. Jeez. So tell me this, because I noticed you going through a progression yourself. When you started working there, you were coming here.

You learned how to train. You did, you had a pretty good run at your NLP. You put some weight on, you did the work. Then all of a sudden you lost all of your body weight. You were barely doing any barbell training and somehow you got pulled into this world of hypertrophy. I think part of it was I was really burnt out. Because when you're when you're a trainer and you're training people from sun up to

sundown. You lose it. I love coaching people. But if I'm at the gym all day, 24-7, and I already have an hour drive home, I don't want to work out. Right. I was going I was have an hour drive home. I don't want to work out. Right. I was going, I was eating, raising canes. I was going like, whatever I can find my way home. I had, I had a really bad relationship with door dash too.

Cause I would get home 10, 11 o'clock at night. I would door dash some food because I was so exhausted. Isn't that funny how personal trainers are some of the most unhealthy people on the planet. Yeah. Cause we're having to invest so much in these people. And sometimes like, we don't see the return. In a gym like mine, we're training people that want to get stronger, that typically have bought in to some concept of linear progression, technique coaching, and all the things that most commercial gym members have no concept of, don't care about.

So we get a more committed clientele who also runs into problems with adherence and all that, like anybody else. But even then, a lot of my colleagues end up losing sleep. That's usually where it goes. What I remember about the commercial gym culture was, it wasn't just loss of sleep, they party a lot lot and there was a lot of alcohol and substance abuse, steroid use at some of that depending on the gym. You know the more bro it was the more steroids were

going around. Is that still the case today? So like at some of them yes but maybe I guess I was like too ugly or something because I never got invited. Yeah I didn't get invited either. I just I'm not that kind of guy. And I think that's why we get along. Yeah, I knew a lot of them drink and they go to the bar. There was a bar next door to the lifetime that I worked at. Yeah. And a lot of them would go there and drink.

I knew about that. But I knew there was a lot of drinking going on. I didn't see steroids. And the town I was in didn't have much of a gym culture. So I don't think I had a lot of juice monkeys in my gym. There was a couple guys that were probably on looking back at it, but a lot of people are normal looking bodies that were in good shape. Yeah. Um, but once you got into Chicago, cause this is in Illinois, you'd start to see more cartoon character like the Zeke's and I would imagine that there you'd see recreationals

that were different than just alcohol. Just a little bit. Yeah. A mentor of mine actually before he passed away, he was taking a lot of different stuff and a lot of different substances. He ended up passing away because of it. Right.

But, you know, I mean, even like for guys, right? The burden to perform is always there. It's like, well, I mean, even even like for guys, right? The the burden to perform is always there. They why got to look the part, like even being a trainer, you're like, well, do I look the part? Do I look like the the Chad or the whoever in order to be able to get the same amount of clientele or respect? And, you know, it's just it's funny because no matter what, no matter who you are, if you are a man,

you are always for the rest of your life going to be evaluated on your performance. And that is something a mentor of mine taught me. The burden to perform never goes away. That is very different than what a female is evaluated on. Yeah. And you know, we both have our challenges, but that is ours. The interesting thing is, and this kind of segues into another topic that I wanted to

talk about, people ask themselves, am I the Chad? Am I jacked? Am I this? Am I that? And you know, typically it's centered around appearance. So you get this one dimensional focus on one variable, you know, do I look good enough? And not realizing that guys that are successful, that look good, there's other things happening there.

There's other variables because there are good looking men that are unsuccessful. There are, you know, there are, there are good looking men that are unsuccessful. There are bad looking men that are very successful. Yeah. There are charismatic men that can't contextualize it from one setting to another. So what ends up happening is when you are in a competitive environment like that, it's very easy to get fixated on one variable. That guy's jacked. That guy can talk. That guy's funny and not paying attention to all the other things that play into that.

Is that? Yeah. Yeah. Well, like take like a bench press, right? I could be doing a bench press in the proper form, but do you have the other guy who's, you know, shoulders are popping out all that and he's lifting twice as much as I am and doing like an eighth of the range. Right, but he looks a certain way.

Yeah. But then guess what? There's another guy that looks like him who's socially awkward. Yeah. He can't sell worth of shit and people don't wanna spend time with him. But people look, people take more notice

of the guy who's doing it wrong and he looks big in doing that way than someone who's my size and actually doing the full range of motion. Cause even with like friends who are doing maxes or whatever, they, oh, what do you think of my max? I'm like, I mean, you could have gotten lower and they, you know, they get butt hurt because I'm like,

well, that's how you're supposed to do it. And you know what's funny? So at the gym I was at, you had guys like that that were super jacked and people wanted to work with them. Yeah. But then you had other guys that looked like you or I and had attractive people working with them. And then people wanted to work with them for that reason. Yeah. So it was, you know, it's a very visual industry, interesting industry. The fitness industry is very visual. There's an entertainment performance aspect of it. No matter what, even the women, same thing. The female trainers had to go through the same thing. I worked with another dietician there. She would clean

house selling. She'd go in there. She wore shorts. She'd show off her goods, but not like in an extreme way, you know, it wasn't egregious or tasteless. You know, she was tactful about it. And that certainly helped her get clients, but she never trained anybody. She was an RD. She went through what I went through, got a nutrition degree, did a clinical internship. She had an above average IQ, but once she got in the gym business, she realized that she wasn't going to make much money selling nutrition coaching. The money was in training. So she just became this hardcore salesperson, kept herself in good shape and made sure that people saw what she looked like, you know, in a way that

wasn't, you know, that she didn't look like she was going to work at the strip club, you know? Yeah. She struck a fine balance and I would watch her work, but yeah, she really didn't know how to train people, you know, but she was a great salesperson because it's a very visual industry. Well, and I think people in the industry, they don't want to go through the hero's journey. It's like, it's going to suck. And even like, I'm going through this again. You're probably gonna feel like you're bloated and you're fat 90% of the time. He's running a linear progression again, people, and he's eating and putting the

weight on. Yeah, I'm loving it. Can't wait. And you know, you go in cycles where you're bulking and you're cutting and there's too much in the fitness industry where they're like, oh, well, you can do both. And it's like, okay, if I'm losing weight, can I technically still gain a little bit of strength on a lift potentially? Yes, but the more you try to over, you try to do both, you're not doing much of either.

That's just not gonna happen. Yeah. Yeah. You know, here's the thing. You need to do that because you need to experience what it's like to work through those problems. What a novice goes through when it gets hard. And you wanna put on as much muscle as possible, right? At the same time, you're not gonna look like the guy

who's all roided up unless you get roided up. And you've expressed to me that you don't wanna do that. So you're gonna have to overcome that with other things. You know? My charming good looks. Yeah, sure. and you've expressed to me that you don't want to do that. So you're gonna have to overcome that with other things. My charming good looks. Yeah, sure. You're gonna have to, it becomes a marketing game. You're gonna have to present something

that people like to see one way or another, and you're gonna have to have social skills, of course, and salesmanship, all those things matter. There are plenty of guys, I mean, Arnold talks about it in his book. A lot of the guys he trained with didn't make any money. You know, he went on to go to Hollywood and a lot of those guys were just broke meatheads. Yeah. So the muscles are part of it, but it's all part of a broader thing.

Obviously if you look good, you're at an advantage. It gets you in the door. Then if you have good salesmanship, you're going to go all the way in. And if you're good at what you do and the person likes you, if the person likes you and doesn't get hurt, they'll stay with you even if the workout shitty, you know? Yeah. Those stay with you. A lot of people hire a trainer to spend time with somebody or to say they have a trainer. I just learned this.

It's a status symbol for some people. You know, I have a trainer. There was a gym I I worked at they were selling $40,000 packages. That's what I want to do What'd you get blood work and all this other shit too? You got a dietitian a trainer stretch stretch specialist posture specialist massage therapist and

Like as a trainer, I'm getting paid 18 to 25 an hour. And the sessions are like a little over $100 an hour. And when I brought this question up, I'm like, Hey, I noticed, you know, in and out and five guys are paying, you know, about 20 bucks an hour. I'm like, is that are you you, are we going to get a pay increase? Because their, their, uh, skill for pay was all based off of NASM and I had ISSA. So they never made that clear for me. So NASM determines your rates. Yeah.

For them, it depends on how many shirts I had. I would go from 18 to an upwards of 25 an hour for a shitty shirt. They're all the same. Yeah. They're all the fucking same. Oh yeah. Wow. Cause the concept was you have a network of professionals

and the concept was amazing, but the delivery of the product was terrible. Right. Because I'm having to put notes on the client and I don't see any updates on the other people's side. And it's like, Hey, we have this job that we're trying to do. And yet the delivery for the client is awful. Why would I send my client to the dietitian and all these other people when I'm

used to doing it myself and you're not delivering on your end? And I thought it was a, I thought it was a great idea. Like, Oh, let's work for me. I don't have to do any of this. Right. But then they all suck. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Cause they kept changing the game. Moving the goalposts. Yeah. Cause we, we actually started a stretch. Do we start, we add this stretch components

to get rid of another one. It was like a life coach one at first they were saying, Oh, we didn't have to get certified. Cause someone else did, they were doing seminars. We could all do it. Cause they don't really need a search for it. Right. And they know you gotta have this the cert for I'm like, okay, so then why do we go through these seminars? And mind you, outside of one other girl who I'm still friends

with this day, I was the most flexible person in the room. Because I was learning martial arts at the time. Right. And it's like, okay, well, what are we doing here? Now I'm wasting time showing up for some I'm not getting paid for. I'm not getting a reward from and to be pulled aside every single month and being told how much of a piece of shit we are. Sounds like a commercial gym. That sells $40,000 programs. It was more private than you think. So out of the people you worked with, what ratio did the program and of those people,

which ones wanted to keep doing versions of the program that I actually had do the program. Yeah. I've only had one person. That's probably still done some remnants of the program. And you've worked with how many I'm going to know at this point, cause like if you count group, I worked with hundreds of people at this point. And only one continued on. What is it about barbell training that a personal training client at a commercial gym

has such an aversion to it? It's not sexy. Define that. Like what does this person want? What is the, because most people, when they decide they want to get in shape and go to a gym, they go to a commercial gym. They don't come here. They want to, they want to feel better. They want to look better. Don't you feel better and looking better from doing this?

Well, yeah. But they, they, they feel some time, they feel an instant gratification because they're learning all these things. There's all these little variables they get to learn. Yeah. these things. There's all these little variables they get to learn. Yeah. Because now when they go into the gym, they feel great. Like, Oh, I know how to do this. I know I know how to do that. Whether they know anything about making a workout for themselves or not. They're like, Hey, at least when I go to the gym, I know I can do almost everything in this gym. Like I don't know how many females I've coached where they're like, I feel like everyone's

looking at me. They probably are. Or like they're like, I feel like everyone's looking at me. They probably are. Or like they're judging them. Yeah, I'm like, okay, unless you're a hot girl. Then again, I feel like every guy in the gym knows where the hottest girl is and where the ugliest girl is. But most guys really aren't judging you in the gym, unless you're wasting their time. If you're taking up the rack, the squat rack for, you know, your five minute rest for hip thrust

that you think in two seconds will make your booty huge. When you tell someone, I'm gonna teach you how to squat and deadlift properly, they don't see value in it. You try to by default, right? You try to, yeah. And what happens when you say, we're in deadlift today, we're in a press today, we're in a press today. We're in squat today

Sometimes it's just getting them to be able to do it. So people who have This is like the popular pain. I have sciatic pain. Mm-hmm. If I hear all the time now, oh, I can't do it Cuz I have sciatic pain. I'm like really that's interesting I have that anyway, but go on and like I sit there I stretch them. I'm like, really? That's interesting. We're gonna have that anyway. But go on. And like I sit there, I stretch them out. I'm like, how do you feel now? Oh, I feel fine. Exactly. Then I get and then if I'm able to get them to the bar, they're like,

well, I'm afraid I'm going to hurt my back. So even if I can't do a traditional, I have to do like a fricking hex bar. And I hate a hex bar trap bar people that fucking abomination. But, you know, hey, teach their own. I feel like squatting is a little bit more popular now than it was before. Sure. Well, a lot of women want to do it, right? They want to do hip throws. I don't think they want to squats as much. Oh really? Okay. But I think the overall thing is like more people actually want to do squats, even guys,

believe it or not. Cause I think because of like the influencer now, you're seeing such an influx of people where, oh, I should probably do squats. Yeah, and then you got the whole red pill community that says squats raise testosterone, which we say it too, you know, it's true. These compound lifts will raise your testosterone chronically. I've experienced it myself,

but you know, that's circulating in these other circles of the internet. Yeah. You know, well, you know, whatever's going to go viral is what's popular, whatever's trending. And sometimes topics like this, just people have a hard time relating to it. Why? Because they don't want to admit that they're struggling. They want to see, they want to see the success corn that I can do it. I can be like this person. OK, well, they don't want to see the the progress that goes with it.

The process. Yeah. Yeah. Because when I when I first did the program all before actually did the program the first time, I was doing strong glyphs. And I started with the basic empty bar, everything. I had a guy that took a screenshot or screen recorded on my Snapchat and posted it and was trying to clown me. But nine times out of 10, these people never go to the gym. They don't work out. Right. And it's like, bro, you're trying to, you're trying to tell me how to lift. And yet you're going to be the dude in five,

10 years. Oh, I can't do this anymore because I hurt myself. Bad for your back. Yeah. You know, I've had I've had a guy do a takedown video of me in a story before. I must have been doing something right. Usually you are. They feel like that to go out of their way to make a video about you. I have no evidence. The no evidence posse don't like me too much.

Those people are funny because they feel like as though they're doing the world of service because they're protecting the world from you. Yeah, they're debunking. Yeah, that which typically can I mean, some things are obviously bullshit on the internet. But like this whole strength versus hypertrophy dichotomy, you can't really debunk that. But it's pretty clear that if your muscles grow, they produce more force. And if they produce more force, they grow. Well, the thing is, if you're able to produce more force at a smaller size, you are stronger than those bodybuilders. Because if I'm 165 pounds and I can bench press three plates

That is in reality more impressive than the dude that's 250 pounds bench pressing four plates I think I'm on the other side of this argument Jay Four plates is four plates, dude Yeah, but he's 250 pounds. Nobody gives a fuck. It's four plates Okay, well the people don't know more. You know, rip would tell you, well, rip has said this, uh, life is not a weight class sport. Yeah. Uh, it is impressive when the little guy can bench a lot cause they don't see that very much or squat a lot or deadlift a lot. But at the end of the day, when Julius Maddox benches seven 95, I don't give a fuck that he's 300 to 400 pounds or whatever

he weighs. I don't care. 795. And a t-shirt and minimal stability because he like bounces it off his fucking chest. So imagine if he took some time to stabilize himself better, he'd have over 800. But you got to admit, if you got a fat dude dude that's all blubber, never really trained before and he benches 225 versus the small guy that's able to bench 225. That's a little bit more impressive.

I think that what you're trying to say is that the average person who is not involved in strength sports is going to be more impressed by the small guy that can do a lot if they can see that performance. Yeah. But then you know what else is the problem there? What? The average person doesn't give a fuck that the hundred and forty five pound guy can bench three fifteen. They want to look like the hundred eighty five pound guy that can bench two seventy five. But that's the funny that's the funny part too. I actually have a buddy, uh, he,

social media influencer dude, rips six pack abs. 185, 175, something like that. Yeah. It doesn't, has done natural shows or whatever. Yeah. And he made this post on a story and he's like, let me take a screenshot of his DMS. And my wife was worried about women in my DMs. And it's this dude who's messaging him. Asked me about like, so can you help me get my pickle bigger? And he's like, what? He's like, how many inches? And I was just like, where do you get these messages from? You know, a pro bodybuilder, yeah, he's a pro,

a pro bodybuilder, Yeah. He's a pro, a pro bodybuilder and IFBB pro who complete that. He competes in classic physique and he has a great physique. He, it looks like the guys from the Arnold era. Yeah. And he's a straight man, straight heterosexual man. And a friend of mine asked him, Hey, I bet you're getting blown up by women on Instagram. And he said, sadly, it is gay men. And Trent and I did a whole episode on this last year, I think. And we were just talking about how this obsession with abs and veins and cuts, it's it's for dudes. You know, Don Mazzetti said it 12 years ago. Yeah. You know, when he made the evolution of the lifting man,

you know, they get to a point where they spent so much time in the gym, they have the perfect physique, but now their entire life revolves around a man's body. Then he adds in the no homo right after that. Well, I mean, if you, when you go into more commercial gyms now, you have dudes standing next to each other and taking off their shirts and flexing and like hyping each other up. It's come full circle. We're back to the 1970s except back then they were the only people in the gym Now there's regular people in the gym that have to fucking see this shit. Well, okay, so the One of the gyms I work out at I'll be taking a shower and I see the lights are dimming

I'm like who's best and I look I peer through and I see dimming. I'm like, who's special? And I look, I peer through and I see dudes pose, like taking off their shirt, posing in the mirror. I'm like, go home and do this. Do that somewhere. They could dip the lights in the fucking locker room. They have control over the lighting. Yeah. Well, the gym, I'm at says no selfies. It's against Arizona law. Have you seen those signs? Yeah, but people still do it. I don't know. And that's what I was about to say. And then you got guys just flexing

right in front of that sticker. I will say, would you rather have a dude shirtless and flexing the mirror or the old dude with his junk hanging out? I think the second one's fine because I don't have to look down. You know, those guys, you know, we all laugh about this. That's still a thing, by the way, because those guys are probably dead now. No, because you still are probably dead now. No, because you still have boomers that go to those gyms. So like they grew up in a time where that was still pretty normal.

See the old guys 25 years ago were doing it. Yeah. And those guys gotta be dead now. I had a- Or close to it. I had this big old fat dude one time. I'm getting ready to teach a class and I'm in the locker room. I gotta use the restroom. This dude is wearing a towel, butt ass naked, trying to talk to me. And

I'm like, in my mind, bro, I do not want to talk to you while you're butt ass naked. This is such a generational gap here. So when I was in high school, and I think men in the audience that are my age probably remember this, or maybe not. I don't know how it was in different states and cities. We would get docked points if we didn't shower after PE class, unless you were last period, then you can leave because you're going home. But if you had a PE class for anything but last period,

they would watch you and you had to undress and shower in an open shower with your peers. And I didn't get it at the time, you know, I was, oh, you know, and I thought about it later and it made sense because a couple of these guys were old veterans from my friends that I know that are veterans. You're doing a lot of things in close quarters and sometimes without any divider, you know, my buddy who I might put on the show someday to talk about military training, my buddy who was in the army, he always says, he's, you know, guys, civilians are too sensitive. He's like, you

know, we, we had to take shits with no dividers and we're right next to each other on the toilet with no divider. Yeah. And that was just one example. So I'm thinking back to when I was in high school, they wanted us to not even think about it. You're just showering. It's irrelevant that there's somebody next to you naked, you know? And that's pretty much how I approached it. I'd go, I'd pick a shower, I'd take a shower, I'd go get dressed and leave. You just didn't think about it. So by the time I was at gyms working out, I'd see guys that were like in their sixties, the guys you're talking about, and they just sit there and talk to you. And, uh, you know, it's like in high school,

you just ignored it. You know, you're just in the, you're in the fucking locker room, you're changing, you're getting the fuck out. He's doing the same thing. That's very different than now where I walk in and you have like three young men in their underwear, flexing in the mirror, checking each other out

and asking for feedback from each other. But, you know, I just want to go in there and shower in fucking peace. You know, I don't want to see this shit, you know? It's weird. You know, I just want to go in there and shower in fucking peace. You know, I don't want to see this shit, you know? It's weird, you know, we never did that. You know, when I was that age, we never did that. We would flex and stuff here and there. We were, you know, young guys,

oh, look at my arms, dude, I think they got bigger, you know? But like, that was in private, not in an open area that you're sharing with other people. That was like at my buddy's house, you know? And we'd be making our protein shakes and just talking shit, acting like jerk offs, you know? Well, like, yeah. And we weren't shirtless either, you know, maybe in a tank top, but we weren't shirtless

flexing like we're going to do a bodybuilding show. That's just weird shit to me. We also have to remember like bodybuilding shows are way more popular now than they ever were back when you guys are probably growing up. It was a very niche. Yeah. And I think they were popular in the, it was, it was always niche, but it started rising in popularity in the 1970s. Yeah.

Through the eighties, nineties, two thousands, then CrossFit got popular, which popularized powerlifting. And then at some point in the last five to 10 years, bodybuilding got a boost. Well, I think that that has a lot to do with Chris Bumstead because he seems because for a while bodybuilding was trying to like the mass monsters. They're still doing that though. They do. So that was, you just got me thinking about that.

So it was unpopular when I was in high school and in college because that was the era of Ronnie, you know, people liked Ronnie, but Ronnie also had a personality, you know, which lended to that. But it wasn't popular because that's what you pictured. These mass monsters, essentially, that Dorian started that. But then it turned into the guys with the big guts too, which really wasn't like appealing. So then you see a trend of like the Bumsteads coming out for Classic, where, you know,

they're aesthetic, like you don't see the gut, they look where, you know, they're, they're aesthetic. Like you don't see the gut. They look by, you know, Jimbrow standards. They look pretty normal in their mind, you know? So like, uh, it looks more achievable, more attainable. Who's that guy? Salik Sam Salik. Oh, that guy.

The, I see, I see videos of him and I'm like, this dude looks like he's going gonna die tomorrow. He doesn't hide from it though. Now. He's pretty transparent from what I've seen. Which is awesome, but at the same time, like you walk a very thin line when you're very open about the amount of drugs you're taking,

when young men are very impressionable because they always feel like there will never be enough. Of course, that's bodybuilding in a nutshell. You know, at least in sports, because bodybuilding is pageantry, let's be clear on that. In sports, you know, there's a performance and there's a winner and there's a loser

based on physical performance. So athletes, they will roll around and shit and eat it if it means they're gonna win. The steroid use is the least of the risks that competitive athletes are taking. But even with competitive athletes, like you don't really hear as much about what they were doing.

Even to this day, like it's still not really talked about at all. But I feel like now with bodybuilding- Depends on the sport and power lifting, they talk about it. They always have. They always have, power lifters have always talked about it. Like with bodybuilding depends on the sport and powerlifting. They talk about it. They always, they always have power lifters have always talked about it. Like with bodybuilding, they like, they're slowly starting to come out about it more. And it's like, okay, if

you, if you were going to have except Mike O'Hern, yeah. And it's like, if you have a platform, you have a dude, you have to do your due diligence to know that, Hey, I have this influence on people and you have an inherent responsibility to, you know, act in the best way possible and, you know, navigate these kids in the right direction. No, they don't give a fuck. They just want to make money. Yeah.

You know, they want to make money. They want to be perceived a certain way. You know, it's, it's pageantry. In sports, there's a lot of stupid rules around drugs. So people have to be hush hush because they can get kicked out of their league. They can lose sponsorships in legacy sports, baseball, basketball, hockey, et cetera. And powerlifting people don't seem to give a fuck. You know, it's pretty accepted that they take steroids, but you know, I've said this many

times in the show when you are playing to win, forget the fucking steroids, the sport itself and everything that goes into it is already high risk. And there's a valid argument to be made that some of these drugs reduce some of the risk of injury that occurs from being in a sport. Like people think, okay, NFL guys are have 300 pound men jumping on them, sometimes multiple of them. They're getting slammed on the turf. They're getting their heads banged around. There's all sorts of nasty shit happening to them. You really give a fuck what neat, what they're putting in a needle to inject in themselves, to enhance their performance and, uh, build muscle, strengthen their connective tissues in the case of growth hormone.

The steroids are the least of the risk in a sport like American football. Do you think, do you think part of it plays into a sense of like elitism for the sense of, well, I don't have access to these, these drugs, but they do. Why can't I have that? So if I can't have that, they shouldn't either. You also don't have a 40 inch vertical jump. What if I believe I do? Well, you can believe all you want. You can wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first. That's how I was raised. But there's a misunderstanding because in the 20th century, we had a lot of propaganda

pushed on us about the ratio of nature versus nurture, genetics versus environment and effort and all these other things that you can control. And people believe that you could work your way to an elite result. And it's rather silly. And I think your generation sees that, you know, understands the role of being born a certain way with certain talents. Not, not so much.

I think part of it is because- I feel like it's starting to shift. It's not. I think we're maybe still maybe three to five years away from that being fully realized. Okay. Because you're having to, when we live in a society that's all been about nurturing people,

that everybody's the exact same, everyone can do the exact same thing that you can do. It's all about the participation trophy of you showing up. Yeah. You did it. We did it. And I'm like- That's a byproduct of the last 30 to 40 years. Yeah. So, and I can speak for myself, right? I can, when I go out and I go, you know what? I'm definitely twice as strong as this guy. I'm probably better than this guy.

What he doesn't, he doesn't look like he has much over me, but I'm always told that we are all the exact same. Okay, we were we were told that too. But then how do you reconcile the reality that there's only one LeBron James, there's only one Michael Jordan, I think that I mean, I know the answer. But what's the general mentality of people in your age group? I think it always goes back to the, it's not fair. And then I should be able to do this too.

But you can't, why is that? Metaphorically speaking, obviously. Because we have, essentially we have a blueprint on life and this is how it's layered out for everybody. And there will always be exceptions to the rule. You'll have the person that can, you know, deadlift 500 pounds, never training a day in their life. You'll have the person that they never had to do

a skincare routine and they look like a celebrity model. But that doesn't necessarily make you the exception. Some people have to train and develop themselves to at least be somewhat close to that. It's like having the coach's eye. Right. Most people cannot coach until they've actually sucked enough.

And some people can't coach. They just can't see it. Some people can't DJ. I remember that, you know, when I was doing that. Some people can't play the guitar very well. Cause sometimes like you can work hard, but are you working on the right things? Like I can-

You can work hard at the right things and only improve 10%. Yeah. Some people's curve takes longer and some people they never reach that. The destination is gonna be different from one person to the next. You're not gonna work your ass off

and do everything perfectly and play basketball like Michael Jordan. But we have social media now to where I can go up on my phone and I can pull up whatever the next guy is doing and it looks like they did it overnight. I see it over and over and over again. So you're saying that people believe

that they should be able to do that and if they didn't do that, it must be because they're on the wrong program. Yeah. Because they didn't see the uphill battle that they went through. Well, I guess shit just hasn't changed after all. Because social media is a highlight

of someone else's life. And you have to remember not to get lost in it. Right. It's like when the guys that love playing video games, they play Call of Duty and because they, they shoot someone in a video game, they think they can do that in real life. It's like, can you really, when it comes down to are you able to put it at that dude's, you know, we got to get a, we got to get a different guest on to talk on that. But yeah, I know you're right. But you know, they see it and they just believe they can,

but when it comes down to it, they can't. They get lost in the fantasy. Yeah. Yeah, you're only going to go so far based on what you have. Mm hmm. But you're saying that some people think that they can win Mr. Olympia through purely hard work. Yeah.

Even though they've already been training for a while and that they can win Mr. Olympia through purely hard work. Yeah. Even though they've already been training for a while and they're not that big to begin with. And in some cases they're on drugs and they're still not that big compared to what's making it to the top five of Mr. Olympia. Well, even when it comes to,

like not even like your, your IFBB pro, just people who are starting to get out and do a show. I had the illusion like, oh yeah, I can just compete for a show in like six months. Like, no, that's just not how it works. Hey, how'd you get there? Talk to us about that. How did you arrive?

I've had some crazy illusions myself and I'll speak on that, but go ahead. How'd you get there? So what made you think? I mean, you trained here, you spent time with me, you were in the environment. How the hell did you come to the conclusion that you're going to be ready for a show and that you're going to place?

I wouldn't necessarily say place. I was just more so like, oh, I'd be ready and I'd be able to, you know, be able to compete relatively good with anybody else. But the gym that I was working at, there was me, me and three other girls. Okay. Wanted us to want to do a show. And the girls went with one of my coworkers and I was studying under another guy. Right. And I'm grateful because this dude broke me in half. He was like, here, try to bench this. I'm like, okay.

And I'm like, I can't. It was my first experience ever doing like a gorilla bar. And I physically could not bench press 175 pounds. Fuck do you need to do a gorilla bar for? I mean, my grip is pretty bad. I'm not gonna lie. My grip strength is awful. Get some fucking hand grippers, dude.

I mean, it's a limiter for me. You get some hand grippers. And so. How do you need to bench with a gorilla bar? We got dumbbells, we got barbells. The fuck do you need a gorilla bar for? I'm not gonna lie, it was a really fun experience too though. I mean, a lot of things are fun.

I like donkey cat, donkey calf raises do grow your calves. Let me think of it. I like the standing lateral raise machine, even though I know it does little to grow my side delts, but I like doing it. Yeah. So it was going through the process. And then when it came for showtime and these girls went on, my, my coach at the time was breaking it down. Like, look, they're flat. This isn't happening. Like if you want to get on stage, just say you were on stage, it's fine. But usually something like that is like a two year, three year minimum plan just to

be able to be on stage and compete decently. And you have so many factors from how did your prep go? Is your tan the right way? Did you sleep in a, there's so many variables that most people do not have the discipline to maintain. Like this program is way easy. The starting street program is a way easier method to follow. It's simpler. Yeah. That's simpler. We, you know, we have people that have done shows before that train this way and they'll tell you, you don't have to do that much more shit to get ready for one. Yeah.

The problem with bodybuilding is they don't tell you the obvious truth. Bodybuilders are born. Did he talk to you about the natural state of your skin, your knees, your elbows? Nope. You know, your muscle insertions? Nope. No, didn't talk to you about that. What's he talking to you about?

Probably training program, diet, and possibly drugs. Honestly, he was very honest about like, look, I only know about the programming part. The other stuff, like that's not my world. And he was really honest about that. And he probably didn't even know about the programming part because it all works in a very specific context. So I will say, so this was a former military guy and that doesn't mean anything.

I had a former military guy come in here, army guy, he sickly skinny, lost a bunch of weight and I had to train him and he's like, dude, he's like the shit we do in the army is stupid. No, no, no, no, there's more to the story. So the army at the time wanted to get more tactical strength and conditioning coaches at the time. And so they had a pool of 3000 applicants, two people passed one person with this with a kinesiology degree. And then this mentor of mine had no college degree, right? Can barely read or write and pass this full exam and I've seen this dude at about 165 between 165 180. He was a former fighter as

well. Okay. Bench press over 400 pounds, at least squat over four and deadlift over five. Okay. Yeah. Sounds like a strong dude. Oh yeah. But he's a just a genetic monster. Yeah. But he's also like physically broken from military. Right. So, you know, here's the thing. These, you know, bodybuilding is kind of like basketball. If you tried out for college sports, probably even high school sports, they'd tell you you're too fucking short. Yeah. If you want to go bodybuild,

they'll tell you follow my diet, my exercise program, and take these drugs. Even though you might have loose skin that's not very tight, you might have long muscles, which aren't might have loose skin. That's not very tight. You might have long muscles, which aren't favorable for that sport. You might have thick knees and elbows, which changed the appearance of your arms and legs, right? You might have all these things going against you genetically and they'll completely gloss over that. Whereas in a sport like basketball, they'll say you're. Whereas in a sport like basketball,

they'll say you're too short. In a sport like swimming, they'll say your arms are too short, your height is too short, your hands are too small. There are genetic necessities for bodybuilding in order for you to succeed and go very far. Now, if you want to go do it for fun, people play basketball for fun.

You know, there's recreational sport clubs and people are under no illusion that they're going to play in the NBA. They just play, you know, you're the Y for instance. You know, if those, if you have a Y in your town, the Y that people are doing that recreational sports and the big commercial gyms, people use the basketball courts, the racquetball courts, it's recreation, but in bodybuilding, they ignore all that and they try to treat everybody like, Oh, you could be a champion if you just work hard. Well, because the pay, the payday is immense for the coaches because you can charge, you know, $500 a month.

Yeah. Minimum, right? That doesn't include getting like your outfits, your tans, all the, all the food meal prep stuff set up. Right. Like even, even with me doing the program, like I'm able, I'm able to budget at least like what 150 bucks for two weeks at a time. Yep. Which is still like it's a chunk of change for a single man. Yeah. Single young man. But when you have to prep, like the supplements that come with it, travel time, do you have to get a separate coach proposing? Do you have to get a separate coach for this?

Because sometimes like the contest prep coaches don't do everything. Are the coaches equipped to be able to get the athlete back to normal numbers after the event. Cause some people are really messed up after they do a show. Oh yeah. That's just terrible for you. Yeah. You've trained that way. Which way has put more muscle on you more efficiently? Doing my lifts. Yeah. I mean, I would say that you're like myself, mediocre genetics right down the middle. You know, we can do well, but we're not built for that necessarily. You're not pulling 500 the first day. We don't have big 17 inch arms

that are perfectly peaked with, you know, skin tight skin and veins, you know? Uh, so we have to make up for that with strength. Those guys are strong too. If you take a bodybuilder, I said this to you before the show, if you take a bodybuilder, run them through the program, his numbers are going to go very high, very quick. I've seen it. Yeah. You know, the rest of us aren't strong. So these bodybuilders that try to pretend that strength doesn't matter, they're completely ignoring the reality that they are strong, even though they don't train for strength, but they're strong. But I think they always gloss over like the Arnold's and the Ronnie's. They did power

lifting before they actually did shows. All the winners did. Like realistically, you could say, Hey, I'm going to do power lifting like in my early to early 20s, maybe like early 30s. Right? Yeah. And then try to do a bodybuilding show because you built enough muscle to where, you know, you know, it's a grift industry. They know that that's hard and that people won't stick with it. It's not sexy. Yeah. You know, so they'll tell you how they're training now and completely gloss over the fact that 85% of their gains, even with the drug use took place when they were doing heavy compounds.

You know, there's an influencer that I see on YouTube who does just that, talks about how, you know, you need to isolate the muscle, train it in isolation, and you don't need to squat or deadlift because the risk to reward ratio's not worth it. All these things, but then if you go back through his history, because he's been around for a while, he's not that much bigger percentage wise

than he was 10 years ago. And 10 years ago, he was doing more compounds. And the years before that, he was primarily training compounds, just like Arnold, just like Ronnie, just like a lot of these guys. But that doesn't sell because it's technical, requires skill, and it's riskier when done unsupervised. So it's not very marketable.

Yeah. You know, we're going to teach you a technical skill and you're going to put enough weight on the bar to get scared enough to shit your pants. What's more sexy is I'm going to have you do 15 exercises and you're going to vomit at the end. People will sign up for that, but they ain't going to sign up to scare themselves. Yeah. I used to leg day. I used when I went 90% of leg days unnecessary. That's the funny part. Well, it's like, when you look at like upper body exercise, right? There's so much variety of what you can do for an upper body,

but like lower body, there's not much. I mean, they'll squat, then they'll hack squat, then the leg press, and then they'll do leg extensions, leg curls, hip thrusts, and then they'll do it with slow, eccentric, high reps. And by the end of it, they want to puke and they'll say, that was a good workout, bro. I don't know that they're that much bigger than they would have been just doing a few sets of squats and maybe a hip thrust. You know, for some guys, you know, of course, anthropometry can influence what muscle groups are targeted during the lift. I've seen it here. I have a couple of people that have the short torso, long leg, uh, body type, and they get more thigh growth when they front squat on a transformer bar where I can get

them very vertical. Cause even with a barbell on a front squat, they're still pretty bent over. So on the transformer bar, I can get them even vertical. Because even with a barbell on a front squat, they're still pretty bent over. So on the transformer bar, I can get them even more upright, and then they start looking like what we would consider a quote unquote more normal looking squat. Because what I will say is, I'm so glad like the booty band era slowly kind of dying away in fitness, where girls are,

they're walking into the gym with their little bag of booty bands. Yeah. Because they think they do a couple, they get walking into the gym with their little bag of booty bands. Yeah. Cause they think they do a couple, they get their pump on their glutes that their, their butt's gonna grow two inches overnight. Right. I'm like, just learned to squat already.

So they do everything, butt squat. They'll do leg press, but it's always just booty bands. Cause they think it's, their butt's gonna be so big afterwards. You know, the thing too about compounds that you've probably learned is you have to focus. You can't just booty bands. Cause they think it's their butts going to be so big afterwards. You know, the thing too, about compounds that you've probably learned is you have to focus. You can't just zone out. And I don't think people want to focus when they're lifting weights. They just want it to feel good and not have to think about too much.

That is where I'll say like bodybuilding when you in bodybuilding, when you do like a posing session. That's different. That's different. That's not a lift. It's not a lift, but it teaches you to start being more aware of the muscles because when you go through like your poses, you're having to sit there. Okay. I got to contract this on this side and this calf

muscle on this side. Sure. So it increases body awareness. Yeah. Cause most people don't have it. No, hell no. They have no idea what the fuck anything's doing at any point in time. Probably cause we listened to too much music when we work out. Probably fucking headphones, man.

I hate them. I've never worn headphones in the gym. Oh, so you socialize at the gym? And not always. I just never wear headphones in the gym. I'd rather have music on in the room than put on some fucking headphones. I think it's a distraction. You know, when you're doing a squat or a deadlift,

you need to focus on what you're doing, especially in a press too, that's another one. Yeah. I mean, when you're doing a big lift that requires lots of muscles to work and lots of joints to be stabilized, you have to focus. It's not like cardio where you can just run mindlessly or a circuit training workout

where you can just pump outlessly or a circuit training workout where you could just pump out these single joint movements that don't require much thought. Yeah. You know, sure. If you're doing slow eccentrics, you know, you might have to focus a little bit more, but if you're doing a standard bodybuilding workout, it doesn't include that at that point in the program. I mean, you don't have to think about it too much. It's one joint moving versus multiple joints moving and you have to stabilize your spine. Well, like I know for me, I had really bad connection to most muscles on my body for the longest time. And when I started learning, posing that, that helped me a lot. Now you'd already done the program at that point though. Yeah. So you're not a novice

anymore. No. Yeah. But you're not a novice anymore. No. Yeah. But like my ability to connect was still pretty bad. But should somebody who's brand new start there? No, definitely not. Yeah. When you're no longer a novice, weak points have been identified.

I always have to clarify this because people want to think they're special and that some part of their body is already weak when they haven't lifted shit. Yeah. You know? It's like, no, we're going to find out what's really weak when you, you know, after you do a few months of this. But then it's the, the patient's part in your typical personal training client, a commercial gym doesn't have it now because you run the risk of, okay, if they're going to train with you three times a week, and I'll chart anywhere between 60 to 75 a session, most people don't have that kind of cash sitting around. Right.

And they're like, well, I don't, I don't feel like I'm really learning anything. It's like, okay, well, are you willing to pay for at least once a week to see me? That becomes a different conversation. But even then, they're just like, well, I already know how to do this. Well, it's something new and crazy that I haven't learned before. They're there for recreation. Yeah. So as long as you keep it recreational, they'll keep coming back. Yeah, they're there to work out. They're not there to train. Right. And they're not there to really improve at any one thing. They want to feel good. They want to look better. You can accomplish that through diet. Yeah, really. You know, for the most part,

but they're not going to sit there and do one thing and get better at one thing over time. It's not, that's not that type of person, right? No, because like the hard part is you're having a balance, like what they want and what they actually need. Right. So if they go, if I get a guy that goes, you know, I want to get really, I want to get, I want to get really big. And, but like his mobility sucks. He doesn't, he doesn't either eat enough or he, you know, quite frankly, he just eats like garbage. Right. And I start, I start changing his eating.

He gets a little bit looser, so he's able to go through his full range of motion. He's going to look leaner, but he's like, well, I'm not getting, I'm not getting the results that I wanted. Like, do you look better? Right. Do I do you feel better? Yeah. Right. So why the fuck you complaining? Because they always want more. Well, and I had to explain my, I had to explain this to my buddy. Cause he, he just got his sir and he started working at a gym.

And I'm like, bro, you'll learn this. The people that pay the least bitch and moan the most. I learned that from an accountant. He said that the $150 tax return, this happens to be my best friend as well. He said the $150 tax return is a much bigger pain in the ass than the $20,000 audit. And I think this applies in every business, you know? We've been going at this for, you know, over an hour now.

So why don't you leave us with a few tips for getting the average Joe or Jane to squat deadlift bench press and press. What is the best way? What are some easy ways to do that since you've had to deal with them more than a lot of us SSCs? We tend to screen these people out here at a business model that wants them in. So like my big, my biggest tips, honestly, be at a gym that allow that has a lot of squat

racks and allows you to have a bench on the, in the squat rack. All gems allow you to do that. It knows they don't what they don't. A worker might tell you to pull that. No, they don't. What? They don't. A worker might tell you to pull the bench out of there. Yep. You got to be fucking kidding me. It's a don't yeah. Short and sweet.

So there there's a gym that does not allow you to have the bench anywhere near the platform, but they can have it on the edge. So girls can do their hip thrust. What if you tell them, Hey, I might die. Sir policy. so girls can do their hip thrusts. What if you tell them, Hey, I might die. Sir policy. They don't want to, they don't want other members feel intimidated. What's your policy if I die bench pressing. You signed a lot. You signed a waiver. It doesn't mean anything. And you know that. I mean, yeah, but that's how they cover themselves. Yeah. Well, you don't have

proper safety precautions and there in somewhere in that waiver, there's an assumption there. Yep. But you know, when you have low ticket gyms, that you know, that they don't really care. If I try to take a safety precaution and you prevented me from taking that safety precaution

and then I die or end up in the hospital, whose lawyer is gonna win that? But now if you have a gym that doesn't have trainers, that's another story. Are you talking about planet? No, there's a different You can't even bench him planet. No, this is this is like I have to say who it is Yeah, it's like the next step up a planet. We got to get a lawyer on the air for this conversation, but much longer one Yeah, they should be able to bench in the rack. What else remember your clients? How do we get them to do these lifts and to bench in the rack. What else? Remember your clients, how do we get them to do these lifts and keep them in the rotation? So outside of making sure your gym has

a bunch of squat racks and you know, be able to have a bench on the rack. Well, that's a gym recommendation. Yeah. What about the people? They're easily distracted with things. They're bored. They want variety. How do we make sure they do the right thing? Limit your social media. As a coach? What do you mean? All the people. Yeah, the people limit your social media. Because if you're constantly seeing gym videos

of people doing these things, but they're not getting the same you you have no proof of them actually getting the result Why do you keep watching it? They're not seeing the process. So you're not really getting much out of that other than entertainment Whereas like when you have when you have Your lips there are so many variables that you can see progress in, whether it's, okay, my numbers are going up this much. I'm starting to see developing my muscle at this regard. My pants are changing this regard, and you're not even actually trying to lose weight at the time.

How do you keep them from getting bored? You want them to keep squatting, but you're saying, well, why can I leg press or pendulum squat or do Bulgarian split squats? They're going to want to do those things because that's the type person we're talking about. Is there, are there some ways now we're talking about salesmanship to an extent to keep the movement in the rotation and accommodate their ADD. So if I, if I do, if I design a split or whatever, or something like that, I always emphasize the main lit as the first exercise of any program. But if I'm trying to stick as much to like the main program as possible, I'll, I'll add,

you know, some curls, I'll add, you know, a hack squat and give it a little bit more volume. But the emphasis is always going to be the list at the end of the day, because that's what's important. So everybody that works with you for the time that they're under a contract, a personal training contract, they're doing some sort of a squat, a press, a deadlift and a bench press. Yeah.

Whether they know that they're doing that or not. Right. Exactly. So you got to get creative, pepper it with other shit. Don't expect them to get too strong, but they'll do the exercises as long as they're entertained over here. Yeah. Got it. It's like the new TikTok videos

where you got like the screen of a video game in the background, then you got the actual talking at the bottom. Yep. All right. I think that's good. I think we'll probably bring you back on here again. But yeah, let's close out.

Where can people find you Jay? You can find me on Instagram, any platform pretty much at jwillwhere. Spell that. J-A-Y-W-I-L-W-A-R-E. That's one L people. One L, not two. Yeah, that fucked me up.

I'm special. He is. Well, thank you for tuning in to the Weights and Plates podcast. You can find me at Instagram at the underscore Robert underscore Santana weights and plates.com and down here in Phoenix at weights and plates gym just south of sky Harbor airport between 32nd street and 40th street and Broadway. You can also find the gym at weights double underscore and double underscore plates on Instagram. And please, if you like what you heard today or what you saw today,

smash that subscribe button on YouTube, or you can also find us at YouTube dot com slash at weights underscore and underscore place. Thank you for tuning in and we'll be back.