WHOOP Podcast - Don Saladino, trainer to some of the world's most famous actors, shares what it takes to make them look like superheroes.

Episode Date: July 31, 2019

Superhero training Don Saladino talks how he got into fitness (4:12), his first celebrity client (6:03), what a typical 1-hour session involves (8:56), eating to put on muscle (15:54), breathing, visualization & daily gratitude (23:23), why you shouldn't train like Rocky (39:09), under-resting (40:31), how exercising 15 minutes a day can be enough (41:58), getting on WHOOP and using it with his clients (42:34), maximizing sleep quality (45:13), how mood can affect physical appearance (57:02), whether or not actors use steroids (58:14), eliminating negative stressors (1:00:03), and the ultimate goal we should all have when working out (1:07:39).    Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

We discovered that there were secrets that your body was trying to tell you that could really help you optimize performance, but no one could monitor those things. And that's when we set out to build the technology that we thought could really change the world. Welcome to the Whoop podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Whoop, where we are on a mission to unlock human performance. Having recorded about 25 episodes on the WOOP podcast, I can truly say it's a great lens into understanding how high performers, top performers, do what they do. At WOOP, our clients range from the best professional athletes in the world to Navy SEALs to fitness enthusiasts to Fortune 500 CEOs and executives. The common thread among WOOP members is a passion to improve.

What does it take to optimize performance for athletes, for humans, really anyone? And now that we've just launched all-new whoop strap 3.0 featuring Woop Live, which takes real-time training and recovery analysis to the next level, you're going to hear how many of these users are optimizing their body with WOOP and with other things in their life. On this podcast, we dig deeper, we interview experts, we interview industry leaders across sports, data, technology, physiology, athletic achievement, you name it. How can you use data to improve? your body. What should you change about your life? My hope is that you'll leave these conversations with some new ideas and a greater passion for performance. With that in mind, I welcome you to the Whoop podcast. Ninety-nine percent of the people on this planet, they're not rocky. They'll never be rocky. They don't want to be on the cover of a magazine. Nor do they need

to be. What do they need to be? I think the ultimate message is energy. Energy. If I was able to give you the power to have optimal energy all day every day until it was time to go to bed. That'd be a gift, wouldn't it? That, to me, is the ultimate goal. What's up, folks? On today's episode, my guest is Don Saladino, one of the most in-demand and respected trainers in the business. Don was featured on the cover of Muscle and Fitness magazine earlier this year and is well

known as the guy who gets actors superhero. ready for upcoming movie roles. That's right. He did Hugh Jackman leading up to Wolverine. He did Ryan Reynolds leading up to Deadpool. He's also worked with Blake lively, Leaves Schreiber, Scarlett Johansson, and many more stars. Owner of the Drive 495, Jim in Manhattan, creator of the Playbook app, this is a guy you want to listen to. We talk about what a typical session is like with his clients and what it takes to make them look like superheroes. Why more is not always better with fitness and weight training, the importance of eliminating negative stressors, this is a great one, and the effect mood can have on the physical appearance, and the

ultimate goal everyone should have when it comes to working out. I learned a ton from this chat with Don. I think you're going to enjoy it. Without further ado, here is Don Saladino. Don, thanks for coming on. Well, it's a pleasure, man. Very excited. Thank you. So I've been a big fan of yours for a while now. Thank you. For our audience, how do you like to describe what it is that you do? Wow, I don't know. No, you know, it's funny trying to put a label on. I started as a trainer and strength coach 20 years ago, became really entrepreneurial 15 years ago, opened my club drive 495, opened a second club, jumped into the digital business. I launched an app with Adrian Peterson, Dwayne Wade, and Ernie Ells about eight, nine years ago. So I kind of consider myself more

of a fitness entrepreneur. I know it sounds a little, it sounds a little weird, but the reality is I'm in the fitness business. I'm still a coach, but I like getting my hands into different projects. I think that's accurate, though. I mean, you're popping up everywhere. You've got a lot of different businesses that you're running at once. Let's go back for a second. I mean, I know you were an athlete growing up, ice hockey, swimming, baseball.

Did you know that you wanted to go into health and fitness long term? Yeah, well, I went off to, I played college baseball. I played Division I at a small school called Sacred Heart University. Graduated in 99, had some tryouts with the New York Mets with the Seattle Mariners. It was fun. And during that whole time, I know my focus, I mean, though I would have loved to have played, it really started shifting. And I realized that in college when I was almost more concerned about getting my workouts in

than other things. And I was starting to say, wow, it was almost taking away from my play a little bit, looking back on the workouts that I used to do. They weren't necessarily sports specific at that time, if you want to kind of coin that. But I'd say when I graduated college, there was probably a couple of months where I was really putting some thoughts. into what my path would be, and it really turned into more of a calling. I had a conversation with my mom. She's like, you're just gym crazy. Why don't you become one of these trainers? And I'm like, you know, they don't make money. How am I going to do this? Like, got to support.

She's like, you'll figure it out. And it was the best decision, you know, but besides my wife, it was the best decision I ever made. So early after college, you started to take on a roster of clients? Yeah. So I became, I went and took a coaching course. I went off. I got a job at Equinox back in 99. I left in 2000. I was there literally one year, started my own training business. I remember going from making like 25 grand a year to like 200 grand a year and probably one year at 22. And at the time, you know, you're thinking it's all the money in the world. It's a really good living. But I remember after a couple years, the money wore off. I kept bumping my client's rates up. And it just was, it wasn't about the money. It was about almost the thrill of what's

that next step. How am I continuing to educate myself? How am I continuing to learn to become the best at my craft. And that turned from training and it will always be training. I don't care how much money I make or what I do in this world. I'll always have that bug to learn and become better. But it really turned into more, you know, how do I scale this and how do I get in front of more people? And so at what point are you then starting to work with some of these hot shot celebrities that you're tied to? Hugh Jackman. Hugh Jackman was my first. And I could tell you, it was probably 12 years ago. It was right around the time where I had my first child, Amelia. So this is like 07? Yeah, roughly. I mean, that's pretty fast, right?

It sounds like 2000, you're first starting out in your career as a trainer. And, you know, seven years later, you're training Hugh Jackman. It was really kind of by mistake. I opened drive. I allowed a buddy of mine who was an outside contractor to come in and train. He brought Hugh. And ironically, he just found out that they were having triplets. And he's like, we're going to move this and that.

And he's like, Don, I want to train with you. And I'm like, come on, let's go. And that was at a time when social media wasn't even really a thing. Totally. So I remember my... That's like pre- Instagram. Yeah, oh, definitely. And I remember my thing was like, we never disrupt the integrity of the client.

We never, like, expose the client. And I had publications, you know, calling me on the phone or I'd pop ratty out front. And I was always like, no, he's not here. I wish he was here, like, send him my way. And I remember he was trying to do some press for me at the time. And I got him ready for a movie called Wolverine. They then decided to shoot a movie called Australia right before Wolverine. And he's like, do you want to come to Australia?

And I'm like, I can't. We're having Amelia. And so I worked with Hugh for about a year. And then after that, it just opened the door for like Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Joe Hanson. And, you know, the roster just pretty much took off from there. Now, when you're working with a guy like Hugh Jackman, right? Let's focus on that for a second. Like, I imagine that an individual like Hughes got a lot else going on in his life, right?

And when he comes in, it can't just be about that hour of weightlifting, right? You got to take into account all this other stuff. stuff going on. You know, with all the actors, especially Hugh, and I haven't worked with Hugh in years, I did see him over the wintertime. We all had dinner together for a client's birthday. But with Hugh, you know, it depends on what's going on with him that time of the year. When they're off work, which is a rarity, but sometimes you'll have these actors come in those a couple months span where they have, you know, they're not shooting anything or they're not, you know, they have no real PR and they're just taking some downtime. So I happen to have gotten Hugh at that time. So that's great, right?

Yeah, he just finished a play called A Boy from Oz. He was coming off it at like 175 pounds. And he looked at me and he was like, we got to put on as much muscle as possible in probably the next nine, ten months. So it was literally like nap times. And this is the Wolverine prep. This is the Wolverine preps.

And he's gotten a lot of press for this. I got a ton of press from it. And rightfully so. By the way, he looked absurd. Listen, he did the work. I mean, looking back now, I mean, that's 12 years ago. I mean, I was a very, very good trainer back then.

But looking back on what I know now and then. Yeah, I mean, I was still paying. attention like Hugh, I need you to take a nap at this time. So I was still paying attention to recover. That's good prescribing naps. Yes. So I'm very happy with what I gave him then, but yeah, it definitely would have changed. It would have evolved. It would have become a lot different. So describe the routine that you gave Hugh then, and then maybe we can talk about how that sort of routine would have evolved today. You know, it was probably a little bit more body part specific. Yeah. It was based a little bit less on a screening. I know now today,

when I bring in a client, I'm looking at them from a joint by joint approach. I have three physical therapist working out my club. So if I see any big red flags, we're not discontinuing in training, but I'm having physical therapy complement with the training end of it. And what's a red flag? A red flag could be a specific score that shows up on maybe an FMS, a functional movement screening or an SFMA, a selective functional movement assessment. So we'll turn around, we'll put them through a screening. And at that point, I can determine what not really as much what their workouts look like, but what their prehabilitation work, what their dynamic warmup call it what you want but I know the first five 10 minutes of every session

I come in and I start targeting areas of the body that that man or woman needs to improve and then at that point they're you know the crux of their workout like that that the bulk of their workout is all designed around what their goals are you know is it more fat loss is it more muscle gain is it just more strength base is it more sport I don't like using the word sport specific because I think we just create better athletes but what are they training for is what I'm trying to say, and that's what I design that bulk, you know, base, middle portion of the workout. And then the energy system work at the end really depends on, you know, what type of stress do they have in their life? Because, I mean, that's, that's huge. That's something I didn't

look at with Hugh then because he didn't, I'm not going to say he didn't have stress, but he didn't really have, he wasn't shooting a movie at that time. It was a more relaxed time of the year. Yeah, it was a more relaxed time of year. And Ryan Reynolds, you know, we've done prep for him where, you know, he's up at 4 a.m. training and he's shooting from 6 to 7 at night. That's crazy. That's ridiculous and how long are his workouts. They're as short as we can make them. Yeah, that makes sense. Because it's just going to beat the crap out of them

and we're just trying to make sure things are set properly with his diet to enhance recovery and do whatever we can to just get him to relax and get his body parasympathetic when it needs to be. So with Jackman, you're trying to put a lot of muscle on him. Yeah, at that time. And, I mean, talk about that strategically. I'm sure there's people listening

who are trying to put muscle on. What are the things you focus on? are the things you avoid. Lower body training is the key. And that's probably where people mess up the most. I run. I walk. I'm like, it's not the same. I mean, training your lower body, it does give off a hormonal response. Totally. Does it mean back squatting? Absolutely not. Do I have them doing some variation of a squat? Kettlebell front squat, goblet squat, split squat, something of that fashion? Yeah. Absolutely. So yeah, it's some form of variation when it comes to a squat or a head lift and getting them strong on that lift

is super important. Like you wanna put size on, you never see someone that's totally swole if they're completely weak. I mean, not entirely true, I've seen a couple of guys, but they're also on performance enhancing drugs, et cetera. But someone who's natural,

if you wanna have that kind of superhero look, your legs better be yoked. Because it also helps your body produce more HCH and everything of that nature, right? 100%. Like you don't get your biceps, necessarily stronger just by doing bicep curls. Well, you know, no, I mean, but you do get your biceps stronger by yanking down on that bar

if it's on your back or carrying heavy kettlebells and even isolation work. It's probably, it's much more fluffy for me now. That's probably something that's changed a lot in my training where we'll still throw in some arms. I do believe that there is some importance to getting some flexion and extension out of that elbow. But, I mean, that's like, that's the sprinkles on the whipped cream. I mean, that's like the last thing that we end up doing. And back to this like big muscle gain, Wolverine routine.

So it sounds like you're doing a lot of lower body. How much time a day is someone like Jackman exercising? You know, I do not believe in going so far beyond an hour. If we're doing a power lifting program where it's really... Interesting. So just do an hour a day. Yeah, an hour a day. I mean, I don't even think people need that.

The reason why, I mean, today my workout took me 50 minutes. I mean, I was moving a little bit quicker after I got through my squat work. But, you know, I mean, I know once we start pushing that hour and a half, two hour mark, I mean, T levels have been shown to really plummet after that hour. Interesting. I think for general pop out there, that's training, they don't need that. So you're saying your testosterone will decline. Yeah, your energy level, your focus, specific things will start declining.

If I'm doing, I do a lot of power lifting. So if I'm sitting there pulling heavy weight, I'm not pulling weight, you know, I'm not pulling five, 550 pounds every minute. I'm pulling that maybe every three minutes. And the fat burning response I get off of that is incredible. The amount of focus, the amount of tension I have to create in the body, the level that my heart is working at is unbelievable. So I know people get this misconception of running around for a sweat. And I think there's a place for that, but there's an importance of becoming strong.

And the guys that I know that are really strong that have their diets in place, those are the bodies that I think most of us look at. And I was on the cover of muscle and fitness last year. It's amazing, yeah. This is how you kind of get your physique to that point. Well, we'll come back to the magazine covers in a second. The idea of looking big versus being strong, do you think they're directly correlated or are there tricks if you want to be one or the other? There are tricks.

I mean, and I don't want to insult Crossfitters because the CrossFit games competitors are savages. They are very strong people. But if you see how they train, you know, Matt Frazier is in training in CrossFit classes. Matt Frazier might train more like I am. Matt Frazier might turn around and he might pick like one or two big lifts and he might come back in the afternoon

and do some air bike conditioning. His program does not look like this big Chinese menu where there's like a hundred different exercises. And I know with a lot of the CrossFit classes and not to bash all of them, but what happens is you're running around and you're training your heart rate so much and you're beating on your nervous system so much.

And it's always like this max effort, max effort for that amount of repetitions that in time I've seen really big guys get really, really weak. Interesting. So you're implying that CrossFit's the type of workout where you may look strong but actually not be as strong. It could be.

What I would tell for most Crossfitters is maybe jump into, if they're really enjoying CrossFit class, jump into that for like three weeks and then three weeks get on some specific type of strength. So cycle on and off. Yeah, cycle on. I think that would be a pretty safe way of doing it without actually looking at any of the external stressors

in their life. You know, how are they sleeping? How, you know, what type of stress is going on at work, family, et cetera, which for me is the most important thing. The program's less important. It's more about that stuff. And I know no one knows better about that than you. Yeah, right.

Unless it's with the boop mindset, right? Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Now, from a diet standpoint, putting on a ton of muscle, I mean, I imagine diet becomes really critical as you think about a program. Absolutely. And the one thing with Hugh that I remember was, you know, you had to get them out of a caloric deficit. You have to figure out how many calories someone's burning.

And there's specific ways you can do this. I know there's specific tests out there, med gem tests, et cetera. The way that I really like doing it is I like looking at their diet and how they're eating for a couple of days, say five days. Like, well, let me see on paper how you're eating. And then based off of that and what their goals are, I can then make a guesstimate onto where do I want to take their nutrition, sit there and, assess it over the next week to two weeks and then by then I can dial it in perfectly because if I make adjustments and they want to put weight on and they're like yeah I gain about a pound and a half and a week my energy level feels great I'm getting stronger I'm like all right let's just keep

our foot right there let's keep close eye on what's going on and then once you start plateauing and leveling off let's see you know where am I going to bumpy up is it your fats is it your proteins is it your carbohydrates typically I mean protein I can get to that spot pretty early on like I'll almost according to their body weight, if they want to put on weight, probably about a gram to 1.25 grams per pound of body weight, I'll take their protein to it. And then I'll bump it up maybe to one and a half grams.

So a pound person should consume 200 to 225 grams of protein a day. 250 day pending on their training. And then I really don't take them much higher than that. I don't believe that they have to go that much higher. And do you not care where are the protein's coming from chicken, eggs, whatever? Well, I always want it from a good source. So I always want to make sure, you know, is it first things, First, can we do a grass-fed source if it's beef?

Can we do organic source, you know, cage-free, whatever? I was traveling last week, and I had access to organic foods a certain period of time. And the others, I didn't. I remember how they eat at P.F. Chang's two night. It is what it is. And you do the best that you can. But I think for me, it's more about not feeling like crap when you're traveling, when you're on the road and being able to get in your protein fiber and fat when you're on the road

because that's going to maintain blood sugar levels. And I think the biggest downfall is people will come home at night and suddenly food becomes this drug, and they're like, I'm so hungry, I can't stop cheating. I'm like, because you're not maintaining blood sugar levels. If I was to sit there and feed you today, and I was going to feed you every three to four hours, and I was going to feed you a good balance of PFF protein fiber fat, coming to the evening, you're not going to be craving any sugars. But when we're undernourishing ourselves, and when we're running and we're burning and we're at work and we're skipping meals, then you get home at night, and then you want to consume too much. Then that fat-burning furnace

has kind of calmed down a little bit to where you can't digest, you go to sleep, and then you start storing more glycogen, you start developing, building more body fat, and then it just becomes this vicious cycle, and sleep starts getting affected, you start gaining weight, and this is kind of what a lot of... So that can spiral out. Yeah, spirals out with most people. What I like what you're describing is so much of what you're doing is thinking about the other 22 hours of the day, right? It's not just that hour or whatever you're with the person. The hour with me is the easiest part. Yeah. It really is. I mean, coming in and training someone.

You're a life coach as much as a personal trainer, right? Yeah, I don't even call myself a personal trainer. I'm like, I call myself maybe a coach. People are like, there's a difference between a trainer and a coach. A trainer can go get a service. Yeah, I think a coach is someone who really kind of dives in a little bit. And if I look at some of the things I've read about you on diet, it sounds like you have tried to cut out all flour, gluten, sugar, and dairy.

Is that accurate? It's accurate the majority of the time until it's, you know, time to go have a pizza with my kids or. Okay, so you'll still bring that stuff out. Yeah, I'll still bring it in here and there. Like July 4th, my wife and I sat around the pool and we drank a bunch of beers and you know, we're just laying out and having a great time with some friends and so I do believe there's a place for that in my life and if that's something that you want to mix in here

and there in your life, fine, but there's a cost of doing business, you know, if you start overstaying, you're welcome in those categories, you know, things are going to get affected, the way you sleep, your hormones. I'm not worried about gaining body. So give me the rundown of your diet. Okay. Over the course of the day, what are you going to eat? Well, I mean, every meal looks pretty much the same.

I mean, the sources might change a little bit. Well, let me back up for a second, right? If you were interviewing yourself, you would say, what are your goals right now, Don? My goals are still to put on muscle and strength while improving mobility. So you're still going to try to have a little bit more calories. Yeah, I'm still going to try to have a little bit. It's not being a calorie deficit. Yeah, I want to be in a calorie deficit.

Okay, so with that in mind, what does your diet look like? My diet every meal pretty much consists of a protein source. Okay. A carbohydrate source. a vegetable and pending on the protein source, how much fat is going in there. That's kind of where I fluctuated a little bit. So if I'm having grass-fed beef,

I probably don't need to add too much of a fat source. If I'm having chicken, I might mix in some avocado, I might have some olive oil, some macadamia nut oil, some avocado oil pending. You know, I might cook my eggs in avocado oil. So I do believe in getting a good amount of fat. I mean, right now I'm probably consuming about, I don't know, 90 grams of fat a day.

Okay. When I was prepping for, and I know, I'm jumping in this early, but when I was prepping for my muscle and fitness cover, I had four and a half weeks to prep, which was nothing. It was around Christmas time, which is a bad time to prep. That's tough. And I was consuming close to 500 grams of carbs a day, and that was through sweet potato. Oh, interesting.

So the less carbs I consume, I don't even get leaner, I get flat. So I have such a fast metabolism that if I'm not eating and consuming, and I've developed that over the year. So when I went to Italy with my wife, I ate nothing but pizza. pizza, pasta, gilado, and drank a ton of wine. I actually lost 10 pounds. Wow. Because I was only eating three times a day.

Right. And my calories dropped so much, even though they weren't great. And I wouldn't recommend anyone to do that permanently, but for 10 days, not a big deal. Your body's still moving fast. I got a little soft in the sense of water retention, but then I got home. It took me a week, and I was right back. Okay, so I like that you mentioned the cover of the health magazine. Sorry, it's men's health?

Muscle and Fitness last year. Men's health was just now. Men's Health Pro was this like two weeks ago, three weeks ago. So that's amazing. It's fun. So if you've got a magazine cover coming up, you said you had four and a half weeks or something to repair. What do I do? Yeah, let's talk about what you do for that. Nothing different but remove cheats. So I walk around all year long probably between five and six percent body fat. I'm really lean all year long. And it's because I eat really well all year long. But I'll cheat with my kids, maybe on a weekend or maybe every two weeks or whatever. it is and maybe have a couple drinks. I haven't had a drink in probably two, two and a half weeks, but Friday I'm going in the Iron Maiden Concert. So I'm going to have a couple tequilas and eat some barbecue with my friends because we're going to be in Brooklyn going to Barclays. So that will get completely eliminated. And when I eliminate that, I don't think people realize how much water you actually retain,

how it affects your sleep. And then I really dive in and kind of dial in my macros a little bit where day to day there might be a little variability right now. 90 grams of fat opposed to 70 or 110. It's like, okay, you'll really do it. They're like probably within five grams in each. So it's like my protein, my carbs, my fat are dialed in. And like I said, when I was at 500 grams,

my prep then was I just, I brought my carbs to 300 and that was the only adjustment, which was actually easier for me to do. But if I went lower than that, I would have been screwed. I would have just gotten like a sheet of paper. I would have been completely flat. Amazing. So let's do a day in the life of Don.

Sure. So around when do you like to wake up? When do I like to wake up or when do I wake up? When do you wake up? When do you wake up? Let's sound that. Two to three days a week, I have to get up at four in the morning. So that's really early. It's really early.

I probably train three people a day right now. That's it. I don't take on any new clients. I don't take on any more clients. That's great. But I have, it is. But I have this one person that I work with really early in the morning. And it requires me to be in the city at six.

Okay. So I got to get up. I do some breathing drills. I shower. I have my breakfast. Well, let's play through that. So you wake up in the morning. morning. And the first thing you do is breathing? No, first thing I do is brush my teeth, wash

my face. Okay. I'll go downstairs. I'll drink a glass of water. I'll take my probiotic. What kind of a probiotic? Just like a garden of life, you know, a really basic probiotic. Nothing. And you take that every day? Pretty much, except when I was traveling, I'll get off of it or when I, sometimes when I travel, I don't bring my supplements with me. It just, it's my way of taking a little bit of a mental break. Not saying that's bad, but I do believe that specific strains or specific vitamins we can build up almost like intolerances too. Like your body just gets very adjusted to consuming that same thing. It's like food allergies.

Like if you consume a ton of sweet potato all the time, you can develop a food allergy to sweet potato. So last week I was kind of off everything. But I'll go do, you know, five to ten minutes of breathing, whatever my brain allows me to do. What does that look like? Is your goal to meditate? Is your goal to get more parasympathetic, sympathetic balance?

My goal is just to meditate and do diaphragmatic breathing. So I want to just get myself to... So describe what that is. Getting my ribs to move and pretty much everything that we were told not to do in the gym, like just getting that sensation of feeling like you're getting fat while you're doing it. What does it sound like? So really deep, right? Yeah.

Yeah. About eight seconds until I'm literally going. Until you've got nothing left in the tank. And then you'll bring it back in. Exactly. And just trying to get that to expand. And I felt that that's really helped me. Visualization while I'm doing it, I'm trying to visualize, you know,

specific things in my day, things I'm trying to let go of, but also positive and just trying to trust the man upstairs and just say, listen, what's in store for me today, whatever it is, just give me the power to deal with that to the best of my ability. I know it sounds corny, but it's really just a lot of positive thinking. I've tried to get more into this idea of daily gratitude, and I've found it immensely powerful. Because so many people I interviewed on this podcast have talked about gratitude journals and these different things. And I realize it's very hard to be angry and grateful at the same time. It makes you happier. It also makes you recognize these little things throughout your day. Do you find that at all? I do. I'm not one that's great at taking

a gratitude journal. I've tried it. Yeah, I haven't tried it yet. But what I do do is I do prayer every night, no matter where I am. And I'm like, at a 365 days a year, I do not miss a prayer going to bed. Oh, that's awesome. So it's something where every night I do prayer with my wife, I'll do it on my own if I'm on the road. And it's my way of just saying, like, thank you, look after my children and look after me, my business, my family, my friends. I have a friend right now that's battling with cancer. Look after him. So, you know, it's just my way of just trying to say. And that's the last thing you do before you go to bed. That's my last thing I do. I also try and stop into my church every day. It's on the way home. Yeah. So I'm pretty active at St. Patrick's

Church in Huntington. I'm an usher every Sunday. I'm actually the head usher. And I try and stop in there for a few minutes. And it's not, it's just, again, to pay some gratitude and just say thank you, you got me through today, like it was a great day or it wasn't a great day, whatever it was. But I do believe gratitude is absolutely huge. Well, religion seems to be a great way to evoke some of the things we're talking about. I mean, personally, I'm not particularly religious, but I definitely respect how it can give you that, you know, sort of healthy feedback loop. It's important to, I believe it's important to have, you know, something, you know, whether it's just saying thank you or, you know, if you're Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, whatever it is. I know it does

bring faith. It does bring a lot of positive in the people's life, and I'm not here to argue what's better or what's worse. That's not what I'm here to do. I was raised in a specific way, and that's what I'm following, and to each is on. Okay, so you do breathing. It sounds like that puts you in a great place, a little visualization. Then after that, it's shower. It's my breakfast. I'm literally hitting. Are you a hot shower, cold shower? Doesn't matter. I like cold showers, but I'm not taking many lately. It's funny you mention that because I was thinking about that. I sat through Brandon Marcello's talk this weekend on recovery, and he brought up cold showers,

and I was like, here we go again. I have to say, I love them, man. I love them. It depends on the time of year, man. I sleep in the cold, so jumping into the cold shower sometimes is a little tough. We actually lost hot water at Drive. I remember last year where we had to take cold showers.

So I was getting into freezing cold showers, and I felt unreal. It makes you feel great. I mean, it's a painful moment. It is, but your body feels good. Okay, so you take a shower, then what? And then basically, you know, downstairs breakfast, I'll literally, I'll auto start my car. There's like, I'm very like, I'll auto start my car and I know 10, 15 minutes, I'm in the car right after breakfast.

So I get breakfast down. Breakfast is a protein, a vegetable, and a carbohydrate or, you know, but does it change during the year? It does. There's specific times during the year where maybe I've been eating a certain way for a period of time. And if I start feeling sluggish, I might jump on a more of a, it's not keto, but I might jump on a more of like, a fat-adapted diet where I might increase my fats and drop my carbs a little bit. And I'll do that for a few weeks just to be able to metabolize different frequencies of food, of volumes of food differently. And that'll help me for a short period of time. And then when I

get back on the carbohydrates, I'll feel, you know, just this incredible level of fullness in my muscles, my energy level. So I do believe that eating the same exact things, the same exact way all year long, that can work against you also. And does that depend at all on the season, like winter versus summer? Yeah, I mean, we're moving differently. We're burning differently. I mean, summer this year can be completely different than summer last year because, you know, three of my AC units just blew up this last week, so I'm under a different

level of stress. Okay, so if it's hotter and you're under more stress, does that mean more calories or less? I got to see how I'm feeling. And I don't even think there's a right answer to that. I got to see how I'm feeling and how my body's creating food. Okay. So I'm listening to that. But I do know when I come back from vacation, it's a little bit more difficult for me to

eat because I'm not used to taking in that level of volume. So what I'll have to do over the first few days is I almost have to force feed myself to get down those calories to get myself to metabolize and process foods the way that I want to process it. Because I'm a believer that if we give our body more food and we can digest more food, our metabolism is working quicker. Should we be eating that all year long? No, you got to give the digest. This is a little bit of break. So I know I'm confusing the crap out of people right now. But the reality really is that it depends on the individual. You have to make adjustments according to what that person's training for and just don't stress out over it. Okay. So now you're in the car and you're headed to work. Ten minute train ride.

By the way, we're fellow Long Islanders. We should say that. Yes. So Cold Spring Harbor. Cold Spring Harbor train station, 10 to 12 minutes to get to the train. Actually, that early in the morning when I'm up at four, I'm in a car service at five. So I have a car that takes me into the city. And they'll just take you straight. And so that's about, what, an hour? Yeah, at that hour, it's like 45 minutes. So what are you doing in the back of a car? Are you banging out emails on your phone? You listen to podcast music. Yeah, it's more emails.

I love the podcast idea, but I have so many emails now, and I have so much to do on social that my podcasts are more when I'm like walking around in the city or like, you know, maybe, you know, walking up here, I might throw my headphones on and I might catch, you know, five, ten minutes or something. So the podcast for me are more when I'm like commuting to the train, but when I get on the train, I just have to, or the car, I have too much work to do, yeah. And you mentioned social media. you've got a big social media following.

Yeah, it's pretty good. For you, like, is that something that you want to consciously engage with every day? How do you find that balance of also not overwhelming you? It can become overwhelming. I've been reading a lot and speaking to a bunch of people who have been getting, developing anxiety from just being on social media too much. I mean, when you're on this hamel device and you're looking into, you know, that life. His little dopamine hits too.

Yeah, and your head's in this position. You're developing this poor posture. I mean, it's a stress. The posture thing's real, by the way. It's the worst. I mean, I think our generation is, gonna have more neck problems than any generation previously. I'm worried about my daughter right now

because my daughter, like... You just look at everyone's posture. We'll allow them a certain amount of time to be on it, but when she's in the car, she's sitting like this, and I'm like, Amelia, fix your posture. And we're trying to remove their cell phones from them and only give them probably an hour, whatever it is, a couple hours on the weekend.

But it can become a huge problem. But, yeah, social media is something that I need to engage on daily. I'd probably posting, I'd say, about two regular posts a day on my thumbnail. Which is a lot, yeah. Which is a lot. But stories, I'm probably putting up at least 10 stories a day.

And so what's your point of view on it? Do you try to dive in, dive out and like get your stuff done and get out? Or are you also engaging with the community a lot? I'm engaging with the community, but I'm only really, maybe for the first half hour, maybe I'm going back and engaging when I'm on the train and I have time. I'm trying to get that post up. I'm trying to educate and teach. So when I'm putting that post up, it's normally like if it's my podcast post, it's offering us.

I'm pretty much trying to offer a solution to people. Totally. 90% of my post, for the exception of some of the stupid fun stuff that we're doing, just to keep things light. It's, you know, an exercise. It's a nutrition piece. It's a podcast that I'm doing.

A golf fitness tip, because we have a golf lounge upstairs. So we're doing a lot of everything. It's always like giving some type of information. And then I got to go back in and I got to answer some of that stuff. And people are like, well, I want to train with you. I'm like, well, unfortunately, like, I can't do that.

It's only so many hours in the day. But I created this app called Playbook and go to my app, download my app. and you can do the exact programs that I have all my clients doing. And, you know, that's kind of amazing. So, okay, so now you get in. It's like five in the morning or something.

I might have, I might have a client or two. So in the case where you have a client, that person just got in, it's warm up. So, you know, getting them on a foam roller for a few minutes, maybe a couple minutes of breathing. They normally, typically I like having them do that before I'm there because I don't want to sit there and watch them foam roll and breathe.

And I feel it cuts into our time. And then it's dynamic warm up. it's whatever that strength work is or whatever that circuit work is energy system work and then they're off they're off in under an hour amazing and that's it

so you've got a couple of those throughout the morning potentially yeah and then for you personally like what are you thinking about from your health standpoint like when are you getting your workouts in? I pretty much get my workouts in anywhere from like nine to noon

okay so it depends on what I have and yeah etc but um and a workout for you's about an hour yeah pretty much a little bit longer, but, you know. Okay. Because I put a little more time into my warm up and breathing.

And will you have someone, you know, pushing you? Like, do you have a trainer yourself or crush yourself? No, I don't, but I've had my same workout partner for 15, God, 16 years now. Okay, and who's that? His name's Tone. He's, he's, he's 58 years old. He's 58 years old. He looks like, he looks like he's 28.

That's awesome. One of the, physically, one of the strongest of me being I've ever seen. I mean, I saw him do, I mean, at 58 years old, I saw him do five pull-ups with almost 200 pounds around his waist the other day, up to his throat. You know, he's got a bunch of scars on his body. Got a bunch of bumps and bruises.

That's how I met him. But, you know, I helped him rehab, and him and I just became best friends in the last 16 years. And, I mean, every day, before I came up here, last night I texted him, I said, 9 a.m. tomorrow, I got a hard stop at 10. I was a little before 9.

I was getting my warm up in, rolled in, finished by about 10 to 10. eight lunch showered through my clothes on and ran down here to see you, up here to see you. Sorry. Well, amazing. Yeah, and we're recording this in a studio in Manhattan right now. So, okay, it's noon. Then you're getting lunch? Lunch. And then after that, it's all drive and brand work. So it's a meeting with Kim, who's my general manager. We're going over specific things with the coaches, with the facility. So talk about that, because you're also running a business. Yeah. It's a lot. Drive 495. Drive 495. It's in Soho. I've had this woman by name of

Tim Nunea is working with me for 10 years. She's like my right hand person. And she's really given me the ability now to go work with some brands and do things. I don't want to say outside of drive because it all feeds drive. But she's really focusing a lot on the brick and mortar. Like, you know, the Aces went down last week. She's handling that. She's doing calls.

We're in the past I would have had have done that. And you've got a bunch of other coaches and trainers? I've got 10 coaches working out of there. Wow. I've got three physical therapists. and I've got one acupuncturist and I've got two nutritionists. Wow.

So that's just like, that's the gym portion of it. And then we have, you know, our front desk, we have our PA area, us Waldo's been working on me for 14 years. It's a machine. Yeah, it's great. It's really a family in there. It's very nice.

Now, for someone listening to this who's like, okay, I want to spend the money on a personal trainer or a coach, how do they know whether or not they're getting someone good? It's tough because someone can have all the credentials and they can have all the certifications, but the bedside matter could be bad

and the bedside matter could be great and they not have it. You know, it's like you really should, if you're training in a gym, like say an equinox or a big box facility, you really should kind of open your eyes and just take a week or two to look at a coach.

And a lot of times you can go find bios on any coach. So the first thing I would do is I'd find a bio on a coach and just see if their focus is in a direction that would come, compliment you. And then check out their bedside manner. Like if you see them training on the floor, look at how they're dealing with their client. Are they texting clients? Are they, you know, are they completely engaged? I've heard some terrible stories of terrible coaches. And there's some amazing coaches out there. So you can find it, but it's not as easy as taking the word of the

facility. What are a couple questions you'd ask a coach to kind of vet them? What's your long-term plan? I think that's important. I mean, my long-term term plan is fitness. I never wanted to be an actor, not taking anything away from actors. I never wanted to be a model, not taking anything away from models, nor could I be. But I know that my focus has always been fitness. It's always about honing in my craft, becoming better, my continuing education, even at this point now where I work with several brands and I have my own brand, I still do continuing education. I was sitting through seminars this weekend in Long Beach. So I think the first question is, is where's your focus? And if you hear there, you know, oh, well, I'm

doing this as a stepping stone, then, you know, it might not be. I'm not saying all the time, but, you know, that might be a red flag right there. I want to be with someone. I want to work with someone who's like, no, this is my long-term plan. And, you know, look at, you know, what type of courses have they taken? Go check them out, see how they're training on the floor. You know, maybe go to a couple of their clients in the locker room if you see their clients and ask how long you've been training with so-so, how do you like them? I'm thinking about trying them out. What do you like about them? What don't you like about them? Like, put them on the spot with some questions. And I think it's that easy. Yeah, that makes sense. At the end of the,

At the end of the day, like, you could train to be a great swimmer, but until you do your first competition, things change. Right. It sounds kind of dramatic how I'm putting it, but the reality is, is the first couple sessions might be great because that trainer is going to be completely engaged. My question is, where are they in two, three months? Yeah.

Because there's a level of complacency drops in, and the next thing you know, they're answering calls during sessions. And also, do you feel like you're making gains, right, or improving, right? That's another thing, too, and this is what I don't understand. I think this is getting into that whole group training phase. People are doing specific styles of training that they really love and they enjoy. You know, boxing in the heat

or listening to loud music. And then weeks later, they're like, yeah, but my shoulder's hurting me. My back's hurting me. I'm getting weaker. I'm not, my body composition isn't changing. You know, not entirely the coach's fault. But I think you've got to start asking these questions of,

is this putting you into a better spot? If you're training and you're getting injured or your body's hurting and you're moving worse, that's not what training's about. Training's a stress, and too much of that stress can put your body into a really negative spot.

And I think people are under the assumption that this Rocky-type approach all the time. Rocky is one of my favorite movies is probably one of the worst examples put out there for people because they're always under the assumption that unless I'm working, unless I'm carrying that log up the hill

and training to fight Drago, that I'm never going to get better. And my attitude is, listen, I train really hard, but I also know how to downshift And I also know how to especially turn to my clients and say, no, you just got off a plane from Singapore and you're dehydrated and your wife was yelling at you before you left here.

So I know you're supposed to do a max pull of three reps here, but probably not the best choice. Let's do a post-plane workout that I like to call it. Let's get your body moving, feeling well. Let's get you to recover a little bit better. Let's get that heart rate variability into a better spot. And let's bring you off into, let's bring you back tomorrow. Let's crush it.

Well, think something I've been amazed by just in the process of, you know, running whoop is the number of people I meet like yourself who say that so many gains come from actually at times taking a step back and not overdoing it, not over pushing it. I even find it fascinating how many, you know, world class fit people will do something like no more than an hour a day. Yeah. It's fascinating. Well, what happens is if more was better, I'd be working out three times a day. And, you know, is it really overtraining or is it under resting? You know, I was with my buddy. Have you You met Brandon Marcello? I haven't.

Okay, so Brandon Marcello is probably one of the world known experts on recovery, sleep. I mean, he works with the Army. He works with, I think he works with the Toronto Raptors. He's a big consultant. And I've listened to his talk a dozen times, and I sat through his talk over the weekend. And you just pick up on little things. And there's so many different training programs out there that work. Some are better than the others.

But something works. I mean, if you're taking a sedentary person off the couch and you're having them do P90X, 90 minutes a day, six days a week. Is it my number one choice for them? No, but you're gonna get in better shape. If you went from sitting on a couch to training 90 minutes a day, six days a week. My question is, is how do we keep you

at a level of consistency throughout the year? It's not about crushing it for me for three months and then being so burnt out that you can't do it for another three months. And then mentally you're in a bad spot. Physically you're not maintaining it. And for me, it's really more about it. If 15 minutes is all you can handle

because 20 minutes gets too boring, then I'm gonna design your program to be 15 to 17 minutes. And I'm gonna have you coming back in every day wanting more. And I think that's really what fitness is about. Because 15 minutes works. Yeah, I bet. It works. You don't need an hour, you don't need an hour and a half.

15 minutes. If I was to take someone next year who didn't work out and have them do 10 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day for the majority of the year, they're gonna get in better shape. And they're gonna make better food choices. And it's true, right? It doesn't take a lot if you're going from zero.

So you mentioned recovery. Well, first of all, how long you've been on Woop? Recent. Probably about a month or so, but I have not taken it off. Okay, good. And I've been, I've really been diving into the analytics. I think the area that I'm enjoying it the most on right now is the sleep. Because I didn't realize, people always ask me, how much you sleep at night?

I'm like seven to nine hours. And then going back over my history of 30 days or seven days. Yeah. Wow, it's not seven to nine hours. It's six hours in 30 minutes. And the next thing you know, I'm like, all right, well, what do I have to do now? So I buy blue light glasses. And now it's getting me.

Yeah, it gets you to dial in a little bit differently. And that's what I've been enjoying it the most of my clients. I think the number one ingredient for success is sleep. If our sleep is crappy, the best diet, the best training program in the world, it doesn't matter. So the first thing I'm always looking at is sleep and then obviously, you know, obviously, but digestion after that. But the first thing I'm using it for is sleep. After that strain and all that stuff, it's great.

It's fantastic. but I'm really spending the majority of my time with my clients being like, look, how do we get that six-hour and 30-minute mark to seven hours? Because you need a minimum of seven hours. Or you had three drinks last night. Look what happened to your recovery.

Look how that dropped. So for me, that's where the magic really is is improving sleep quality. And the interesting thing, too, I mean, I've learned this just by being so close to sleep monitoring is like 95% of your body's human growth hormones produced during slow-wave sleep. Yeah.

You know, so if you're not getting slow wave sleep, what a disadvantage you're making for yourself in the gym? Paul Check said this 15, 20 years ago. He's like, the best fat burner, someone asked it, he's like, sleep. And it's free. You know, it's just one of those things where people don't understand. The more sleep you get, the more you can get your hormones to regenerate or call what you want, reproduce, heal.

And that's even getting into alcohol. Like, when someone asks me, when I go drink, what do I drink? I'm like, I'll drink beer, gasoline. What are you serving? Like, to each is like it. It doesn't matter. I'm not, I'll drink tequila because I like it. It's gluten-free, great.

But I'm less worried about the calories from the alcohol than what it's doing to your sleep and your hormones. Totally. And how it's beating up on you and the aging process. You know, you see these rock stars who were in their 60s and they look like they're 90. It's because they spent a lot of years where they weren't sleeping and they were drinking.

And it's like the proofs in the pudding here. It's less about, I'm not going to get fat from having, you know, a couple beers once a week. It's not going to happen. I'm more concerned with, that once a week drinking what it's going to do to my sleep the next day and how that's going to affect my work week and productivity. Well, this ties back to the day in the life. So at the end of the day and now thinking about sleep, what does that evening routine look like and how do you

dial it into sleep? It really is. I mean, the advantage I have is I'm on a train ride for an hour coming home so I can really knock out a lot of my emails. And I make sure when I get home, I'm putting my phone down and I'm not doing emails. But all that blue light that we're exposed to You know, I'll go out in the grass of my son. I'll throw a ball barefooted. This is all really good, relaxing stuff for me. Calm down. But just, I think you need hours to calm down.

It's very difficult if you get home from work and you throw a meal down and you jump into bed. I still get good sleep, but it's way different than if I get home a few hours early, have a meal, throw a ball around, jump in the pool with my son, swim, relax, take a shower. You know, I do my Norma Tech boots or my Norma Tech sleeves.

I'll do some type of recovery. Yeah, love it. I'll be in bed watching. How long do you Norma Tech for? Last night I did for 30 minutes. Okay. That seems to be the sweet spot. Yeah, I mean, if I have time, I'll go 45, but I never exceed 45.

And I never- And why not exceed 45? Like, I found myself watching football on a Sunday, and like an hour and 15's gone by, I didn't even pay attention. Yeah, I think it's fine. I just think it gets a little uncomfortable after a while. I think like circulation starts getting completely cut off from my toes might go numb. So I think 45 for me is a really good spot. But as for research on that, when I was talking to Brandon Marcello about it over the weekend, he said the minimum, like the minimum you should do it, is 10 minutes.

Okay. So I think it's right now I'm hearing anywhere from 10 minutes to like, you know. Okay, so Norma Tech's a tool you'll use. Love Norma Tech. We talked about prayer as like a wind down, gratefulness. Yeah. It sounds like you're into blue light blocking glasses. I'm in the blue light blocking glasses.

Now, how much time will you wear those for? I'll wear those from the second. I get home. Okay. So a few hours before bed. A few hours before bed. Sometimes worse. I mean, sometimes I'm not taking a shower to 8 o'clock.

I've got to be in bed by 9 because I'm waking up at 4. I'm getting to bed by 9. So I'll throw them on for an hour. And if I watch TV or if I read a book, I'll still have them on. I got into them because, unfortunately, and I'm sure this is the case for you, I have to take red eyes from time to time, you know, where you have to sleep on the plane. And I found that if I wore these glasses that are blocking blue light, like right when I got to the airport. So maybe an hour or an hour and a half before I'm trying to fall.

asleep on the plane. It made a huge difference. And then I just realized, well, why shouldn't I just wear them all the time before I try to get that? I mean, a lot of them are ugly, which is the only downfall for certain people. I found a great pair of them. Yeah, they're definitely not. They're not cool yet, but they could be cool. Like, I find it intriguing. They're going to get them there. It's going to get to a point where, like, sunglasses are going to have probably the blue, I can, I can feel that happening. But I'm noticing when I, when I wear them, and for a lot of people who don't understand, you know, the blue light glasses, when we're exposed to all this on natural light, your body stops producing the level of melatonin that it should be producing

because you're always in that. I think it's the simplest way to say that. When I put my blue light glasses on now, I actually do feel myself calming down a lot quicker. I agree. And I've been, I've never wanted to fall asleep while watching TV. Since I've been wearing them, I've been falling asleep while watching TV. Wow. And then I'm just, I get up and I shut my TV off and I'm out. Yeah. So it's been a huge help. Now, will you take any supplements, melatonin, anything like that? Just magnesium. Magnesium. Magnesium. Every day? For the most part, yeah. How much time before bed?

An hour to two hours before bed. Doesn't really matter. No. No, I don't think it matters. Sleep mask? I just ordered one and it just arrived today. Game changer. Again, back to the red eyes.

It's funny, you learn how to do these things under intense scenarios and then you realize, like, okay, why not do it for all these things? I was always a fan of them, but the sleep masks were always, I'm Italian, I got a big nose. So those things were like they would move off or they wouldn't sit on, but I found this company, and I'm going to experiment with it starting tonight. I'm excited about it. Okay, cool. And cold room? Yes. I mean, I do run AC in my room. I have to. I probably run in about 67. Yeah, I'm in that district. Yeah, I can't. I can't sleep in the heat. I would probably go colder, actually, if my wife wasn't so opposed to it. Me too. Yeah. I was in a hotel. I was in a

hotel in L.A. a few days ago, and I had it down to 63. All right with you. I would do the same thing. It was amazing. And your wife. She's like screaming out. She's got like five. Well, my wife wasn't there. So it's like, it's all good. My wife, I'll wake up the next morning. She'll have like five throw blankets on her and the dogs are sleeping. Everyone's cold at me. So it's, uh, yeah. Any other hacks around sleep? Yeah, you know, some chamomile tea in the evening. I know eliminate. I mean, I love to drink coffee. And I do drink coffee. I just, I eliminated it at specific points during the year. So I happen to be off

coffee for about a month now. Off of all caffeine. And you're sorry, you'll choose. go cold turkey cold turkey yeah and you know what i think finding a good organic source of coffee is incredibly beneficial there's a lot of research out there showing how you know long term it their health benefits what happens is if my work schedule gets really aggressive and um i start feeling a little stressed out and i start becoming a little too dependent on that then i'm like and i'll start feeling my eyes burn in the afternoon that's when i'm like all right i'm done so that's when i'll kind of kick it I do a lot of... What is that eyes burn in that?

They say it's adrenal fatigue. Huh. So your eyes are burning if you've had too much caffeine? Yeah, like you ever get tired in the afternoon, you close your eyes, you almost feel like a little burn, and I don't know if you ever feel like that, but I do get. Oh, I'm going to try to pay attention to that afternoon. Like, if you ever close your eyes, you almost feel like they feel tired, you know, to that effect.

I find that when I start becoming too dependent on, it's when it's time for me to get off of it, but infrared saunas are probably one of my, I bought one for my house. Oh, cool. One of my favorite recovery modalities. I'll use them probably three days a week. I'd use them every day if I had time, but absolutely. And how long will you spend in one of those? Sauna minimum 20 minutes, max 45 minutes.

And how hot does it get? Not hot. It probably gets, my sauna gets between 125 and 130 degrees max. I mean, it's still pretty hot, but like your point is it's not. Most of the time I'm jumping in there when it's like when the heater hits about 100, 105. Okay. And I'm sitting there and it just. feels warm and I'm doing emails or I'm doing lives. And the next thing you know, like 10 minutes

later, I'm just dumping. And the way I like to describe is it heats up your internal core temperature. The best example I was ever given to me was it's like getting a temperature. You know, when you get sick, your body, your internal core temperature gets hot to rid your body of toxins. I know you know this right. I'm telling everyone else who doesn't know. But it's the same thing. So it's heating up your internal core temperature. And almost internally, your body's forcing out a lot of the toxins. and that's why I like it. And do you try to do that in the morning or end a day? I try and do it whenever I can.

Whenever you can. Sometimes if I do it in the morning before a workout, I do feel like it might drain me a little bit. It's got to, right? Yeah, so I do feel that. So I'll try in, but the reality is I'm trying to get it in whenever I can. On the weekends, it's nice because I'll wake up on a Saturday, Sunday, and I'll use it those mornings.

And, you know, if I can get some golf in or just do more like track work, or I try and get, right now in the summertime, I try and get out of the weight room on the weekends, I'm in there five years. How's your golf game? Not bad. I mean, it's funny. The swing's getting better. I was down to about a six index and I'm up to about an eight and a half index now. So the game on paper has gotten worse, but I'm hitting it all right. How's yours? I'm right around a three. All right. So you're better than me. Yeah. But it's like I'm curious how some of the different waylifting routine and

stuff that you're doing, do you find that's actually hurting your golf game at all? I've been doing it so long. It doesn't matter. It's not like I, and if I take, time off and I go play like I could hit it worse because my body's just not used to it. So I think it, you know, if I was to put Rory McElroy right now on a bodybuilding program and just try and put on as much muscles. Shout out Rory, whoop user. Yeah, I love Rory. I just shot a video with him down in Orlando.

We did something for Golf Channel. Oh, cool. Three and a half hours with him on camera. I'm telling you could not have been any more of a nice human being, an unbelievable person. So not to name drop. But, you know, yeah, but that can completely mess him up. But like I said, training's a stress. So you think his weightlifting may have affected his golf game?

I think what he's doing now is phenomenal. Okay. So now he's figured it out. Phenomenal. We were talking about it. And, you know, like you said, he's checking out HRV. And his weight training sessions might be 30 minutes. Yeah.

And he's getting in. He's getting out. And his body feels fantastic. And when him and I sat down, we had a cup of coffee when I was drinking it. And he said, I said, well, tell me about your training. training before we get into it. And he was like, for a second, it almost seemed like he was a little embarrassed.

He was like, listen, I'm not reinventing the wheel here. I'm like, what are you doing? It's like, you know, I have my strength day. And I have more my movement-based day. I'm like, okay, how much time you're spending? 30 minutes. Yeah. How much warm-up work are you doing?

Maybe two to three exercises. Like it was so basic and so easy, but that's the way, in my opinion, it should be. I think when they become, like I said, that Chinese menu and it becomes very fluffy, you start diluting what you need to be doing. When you spend 15 exercises to create tension in the body, sometimes all you need is a deadlift.

Yeah. You know, it's like a deadlift, fine, like really squeezing the bar, trying to break the bar, learning in time to pick up heavy weight can fix a lot of imbalances for certain people. So, yeah, it was fun to hear that at Roy. And now jumping back to Ryan Reynolds. So it sounds like there you've got a guy who's got a crazy schedule. I mean, he's been, Ryan's been kind of my show pony for the last 12 years. Yeah.

I mean, everyone likes to talk about Hugh, but Ryan's been like a brother to me and he's helped me out more in my career that I can even tell you and everything I think I got to go on record to say that everything people see of him on movies and how likably is on TV that's just him he's just a phenomenal person so that's cool he's it but he's intense I mean when it's time to jump into it and it's time to get ready for Deadpool or a roll it's like it's like it's literally I've never seen anything like this it's it's like a switch it's like a switch you know it's not surprising in a lot of it's because these guys like I mean they're so successful at then that they're the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of their game they have to be able to dial it in like that I almost have to come

him down at times. Yeah, I bet. His diet is just like, I know what he's eating, when he's eating it. It's dry. It's boring. And his body, I mean, he's got such an incredible frame on him to begin with that he just makes me look good, even if I wasn't good at what I did. I mean, he's got these incredibly wide shoulders. He's got this really narrow waist. And as he starts getting into it, it's like, it's like this transformation challenge. It's like every day you're looking at him. You're like, Jesus. So how long did you have to get him ready for Deadpool? It's changed for both of them. I mean, it depends on what movie he's coming off of. I mean, he needs

I think at any point during the year, he probably needs four, he probably needs four weeks. Okay. He needs five, because he's still maintained. Yeah, he's reasonably fit. He'll drop size for other movies. I mean, you have to. More of a rom-com. You got to chill out a little. You can't go in every movie looking like

like, you know, like Deadpool. You just can't. Like, the purpose of acting is these people want to become as believable as possible. Yeah, I get it. And if you're playing a doctor and you're sitting there, you've got like veins down your arms. It's like, it's like, all right, like it kind of confuses the whole equation, but he probably needs, he probably disagree with me, but I'd say he probably needs four weeks. And at the one or two week mark, how do you know it's going well or not? Like, do you have any

kind of fitness tests you do or measurements or anything like that? No fitness tests. I mean, there's really, with him, it's more about his energy level. Okay. And if his energy level is optimal and his mood is really good, we're in good shape. Because I know the diet's fine. I know in time the changes are going to happen. And every week, he'll sit there and I'll be like, how the abs looking, he'll, like, kind of roll his eyes, a big, boom, I'm like, okay, it was better than two days ago. Like, it's literally that type of transformation. But he knows what he has to do.

Yeah. And he doesn't stress over it. And he just, you know, he kind of dives into it. But he's serious about it. He's not... Now, you mentioned mood. How does that play a role for you? The stress hormone, I've seen destroy bodies in 24-hour periods of time.

I've seen it with bodybuilders competing in the Olympia. I've seen guys literally, that stress hormone kicks in, that cortisol gets all. thrown off and the next thing you know the body the appearance of the body just changes and you're saying your mood can actually be a predictor that this thing's about to kick in and affect you well i don't know what do you mean by kick in and affect you so you're saying like okay so mood's important we know that if your cortisol levels take off that can screw up your routine right it could just screw up your appearance i mean aesthetically how you look oh really which yes it'll screw up your energy levels it'll

screw up your sleep, but it will screw up your aesthetic appearance. When you get to a level of leanness, when your bodybuilder lean, when your body fat's in that, you know, bodybuilders are down at 2%, 3% when you're a really low athlete. Are they that low? Oh yeah. Wow, that's crazy. Well, a lot of them, unfortunately, are on antibiotics. Just it's a world I've never. You kind of have to, right? Yeah, it's just a world I'd never live in. That's how they can maintain that muscle through anabolic. I mean, someone like me, I've been natural my entire life. Totally. It's, it's, and it's obvious I mean I don't look I'll never look like that but um now you think a lot of these actors from time to time take a little anabolic I don't know I mean I've never not to mention names I've

had people come in and speak to me and I can tell they're going in that direction they ask questions and my claim to fame is like it's it's really all I have I just it's like do it naturally like we don't know we don't know what's going to happen you're 30 years old you're 40 years old I don't care if so-and-so is taking it you do not know what's going to happen with cancer cells that might be in your body. You do not know if I buried one of my best friends in 2010. He was 10 years older than me. He had open heart surgery at 37. I buried him 6 feet under at 42. Wow. He was on heavy levels of testosterone. I am natural. At the time, my testosterone levels were over 700, naturally. That's good, right? Yeah, very good. I mean, the range is, what, 300 to 1,200 or something?

Yeah, something like that. I don't remember what my free testosterone level was at that time, but his was north of 3,000. Whoa, but that's not even good for you. No, it's not. Well, he, well, he died. So, I mean, you know, it was one of those things where he spent, I mean, we found, I found him in his bedroom three days later. I'm literally in a whole pool, but it was terrible. It was absolutely awful. And then he had no family, so we had a terrible story, but we had to, like, put in for the rights to bury his body. Otherwise, they'd bury him in Plotter's field. There's really dark stuff. I mean, but three weeks, I had to go identify his body three weeks later, which was tough. And so that's an example where you're taking testosterone injections. And not knowing where

you're getting it from. Wow. And not having a doctor who is a professional to prescribe this sort of thing to you. My opinion on testosterone replacement therapy, I know you're not asking about I'm going to tell you is, you know, if you're in your 70s, if you're in your 80s and you're walking around, you're feeling like crap every day and a doctor is, you know, recommending this for you. Like, okay, man, like you're no, like 70, 80, it's not old, but it's not young either, in my opinion. You want to live, live out your life feeling good. Like maybe that's something that you want to, maybe it's time for a little extra gas. Telling a guy who's 40 years old who is told, well, you got low tea, jump on it or a kid, a kid, that's 25. You're still a kid. You got low tea. Figure out why you have low tea.

Figure out what's causing that low tea. Is it the fact that you've been sleeping three hours a night? You know, well, because that might fix everything in six months. I mean, sleep is the magic pill. It's the magic pill. Are you drinking caffeine at 5 p.m. in the afternoon? It's affecting. Well, it doesn't affect my sleep. Of course it does. I love talking to people who are like, well, I can drink an energy drink before bed and I sleep perfectly. I'm like, no, you're not.

You think you are. That's where you, it's like the person who is drinking so much during the week. They're having two, three drinks a night and I'm saying, how do you feel? I feel great. And then you get them to go cold turkey, which is a rarity, but it's happened

where you get someone to go cold turkey for two to four weeks, then suddenly they're saying, I didn't know how bad I felt until this now. I feel amazing. And I'm like, listen, man, Have your drinks, do it, but if you're feeling like crap, don't do it. It's hard to realize you're at the floor, right, when you're there.

Most are. Yeah, most people are. They don't realize it. They just adapt. They know how to live at that basement level. I get messages every week from people just saying like, you know, by measuring my sleep, by measuring my recovery, I realized how negative blank was on my life. 100%.

And for a lot of people, it tends to be alcohol, but, you know, it could be other things that are less predictable. I mean, alcohol, stress, stress, alcohol, I call it. the same thing. It's almost, they're so similar. It's causing such a stress to the body. The body's gotta overwork now to kind of detoxify and then you're not really sleeping. You're just detoxifying.

Now, have you been on whoop long enough to do any of these little A-B test where you knows, oh, if I do camoil-tere, oh, if I do melatonin, right? No, but I'm getting there right now. Because that's fun too. That's what I'm really excited about. I did see it with alcohol. Yeah, totally.

I have seen, obviously, with sleep, when you get a bad night's sleep, really simple stuff, I have seen it with stress. Totally. If you're having a really stressful day. So I think like the broad stuff. What stresses you out? I mean, you strike me as someone very high energy,

very level-minded. You know, I think, you know, when someone gets sick, sure. You know, I think that's really, you know, when you have a friend or we're affiliated with a cancer charity, so you're always hearing stories of this stuff. So that's stressful. You know, listen, two of my AC units blew last week.

My space went up to 92 degrees. I was hosting a seminar. I was bummed out. Was I a little stressed over? Yeah, I was a little stressed over it. but it's not life or death. Like, it's going to be okay. I just think normal.

I just think it's that grind of when the sleep and the rest starts diminishing, the stress levels will increase. So for me, it's about sleep, and it's about my training. My sleep and training are good, and my eating is good. It's those three things.

Everything else. Granted, my family's healthy. Everything else is gravy. Makes sense. And men versus women. I mean, along with these fascinating men you've trained, you've trained a lot of women. Yes. I see Blake lively here.

My girl. Your Hansen. Yeah. So how do you think about training a woman or what slight tweaks might women want to think about for training versus men? You've got to pay attention to the menstrual cycle. Yeah. I mean, you know, you got that time of the month where, unfortunately, you know, no guy can understand what women have to go through.

Sure. I never will say, I get it. Yeah. I've gotten beaten up for that in the past. But I think you have to pay attention to energy levels. I mean, I know when women are delivering or, you know, they're pregnant or, you know, dealing with children, nursing.

I mean, these are all factors that you have to take into play. Hormones are different. They're just different. It's, you know, if I put Blake and Ryan on the exact same program and I put them eating the exact same foods with different volume, Blake's not gonna look like Ryan.

It's not gonna happen. Sure. I think that's the misconception. I think that's where people freak out. And I think a lot of women, unfortunately, we'll do that, this is a cycle of cardio, cardio, cardio, cardio, because they're afraid to put muscle on.

And I think a lot of times they start getting that bulkier look if they're drinking too much or if they're picking at their kids' foods too much. But if you keep the nutrition to about an 80-20 rule and you get in, you do your training and I think what most women... What is nutrition 80-20 rule?

I think 80% of the week, like live by my rules and then 20% of the week leave to, you know, mistakes, accidents, Don't be eating chicken fingers and fries every day at the 20% mark, but make good choices and just try and be healthy and relax. A lot of times you can stress out so much over nutrition. And when you start stressing out over food

or when you're traveling, the stress is worse to your health. It's worse to your gut, your digestive system, your brain function than eating a piece of non-organic chicken. Like, you're going to be okay. I mean, I had someone messaging me this morning about travel, and like, what do I do? What if I don't eat perfectly? I'm like, you're not going to eat perfectly. I didn't eat perfectly. Relax. Do the best you can. Get your exercise in, drink a lot of water, get some good rest. And then when you come back, then you can go back

to measuring your macros or whatever it is that you want to do. But in the meantime, distress can be the biggest killer out of everything. If you look at like American society today, right? I mean, obesity is this enormous problem. I feel like if everyone had Don Saladino in their ear, like, you know, people would just be much healthier. But what do you think is the message to the mass mass market that says like how do we fix this the biggest problem i think is the influencers and it's the examples being set interesting i think when you turn around and you look at a guy who's posting every picture of himself with a shirt off or a woman who's got a perfect butt and great abs and she always had it she just made it a little bit better from exercise i think that sends a

really poor message because they're showing you they're they're an influencer they're influencing you on what it is they did for themselves. A coach is going to help you get to the root of the problem. A coach is going to turn you and say, no, you absolutely hate working out. Can you give me five minutes? Yeah, but that's not good enough. Trust me, five minutes a day.

Breaking a sweat for five minutes a day, it's a good start. Let's build some consistency. Let's show someone when they don't feel like doing it. Let's back off. Let's do a minimal, minimalistic approach workout. And when they're feeling great, we'll go and we'll have some fun,

but I'm still going to pull you back a little bit. and I'm not going to drain you to the point of when you're leaving, you're, like, dead exhausted. I want you to leave saying, I could have done some more. I feel great. My energy levels feel great, but I'm excited to come back in and allotting for those days off and allowing for them to go and, you know, have some fun meals or have some drinks and balance. And I think that's what it comes down to. I think the biggest problem is that everyone's taking this no pain, no gain approach

and this all go or don't go approach. Like, it's all or nothing. Like, it's all bullshit. Just break a sweat, move around at the very least. The majority of the population, they don't want to do what I do. They don't want to, I get enjoyment out of that. I get enjoyment of training the way that I train. It's like my hobby.

It's my love. Yeah. But a lot of people don't need that. And to the majority of our... 10, 15 minutes a day, to your point earlier. 10 minutes, 15 minutes a day of moving of like, one day go for a walk, one day go for a swim, one day go for a bike. One day try and do some push-ups and just hang from a pull-up bar.

Like, run around in your backyard, throw a ball around. Be active. a sweat, take the stairs, start there, start beginning to incorporate this wellness into your lifestyle, and then you're going to want more. I mean, for someone listening to this who's trying to increase their energy levels, right? This could be someone who's pretty fit, and for some reason they feel like they've lost their energy levels, or it could be, you know, some of the folks who are just referring to are incredibly out of shape.

Sure. Like, what do you think are some of the core ways to get your energy back up? I mean, I'm going to say it again. Most people don't want to hear it, but sleep. I mean, I agree with that. So sleep is number one. Two, we take as a society, we use a lot of stimulants. So when you're tired, it could be because of a lack of sleep.

It could be because of a lack of nutrition. It could be because of stress. So when you're throwing stimulants in your body, because you're tired at 3 o'clock, in my opinion, that's a problem because that's going to affect your sleep. And then there's that vicious cycle. People would be surprised on how much progress you can see with a very little approach. I had a guy recently. Quick story came to me and he says, I want to see my top, I've never heard this in my life. I want to see my top four abs. I'm 45 years old. I'm in good shape,

but I want to see my top four. I'm like, that's abnormal because everyone always says they want to see like the bottom two. He goes, I just like, I'm really happy with my lifestyle. I just want to see this. I'm like, great, how's you're eating? How often you drink? I'm like, great, let's just cut everything in half for the next two weeks. So alcohol gets cut in half, desserts get cut in half. Everything gets cut in half. That's it. That's all I need. I said, yeah, that's all you need. Let's just take that because I know your space and your meal is out fine. keep training the way that you're training, be active, drink, water, sleep,

and come and see me in two weeks. He came in two weeks, you saw his top four apps. Is that simple? It was that simple. And you know what he said to me? All right, what now? I say, well, you want something now? He goes, no, no, I'm motivated now.

This is crazy. I cannot believe how easily I got to where I needed to get to. That's the message I'm trying to send people. Because 99% of the people on this planet, they're not rocky. They'll never be rocky. They don't want to be on the cover of a magazine. Or they don't want to.

Nor do they need to be, right? You know, what do they need to be? Yeah. What do they need to be? I think the ultimate message is energy, energy. If I was able to give you the power to have optimal energy all day every day until it was time to go to bed, that'd be a gift, wouldn't it? Yeah, that's great.

I mean, literally. That's like, that's all I want because I know my workouts are good. I know my time, my kids are good. I know my time at work are good is good, excuse me. That to me is the ultimate goal. Amazing. Now, what else for you? Where can people find you?

My Instagram is pretty easy. It's Don Saladino, S-A-L-A-D-I-N-O. And we'll put all this in the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I own my Club Drive 495, which is down in Soho. A huge fan of yours, huge fan of what you've done. This has been fun, man.

I think the best thing about your product, and there's no reason for me to say this, but you are giving people a solution to live a better life. I appreciate that. And Turner, there's other, say what you want. This is giving you a better solution to sleep, to motivate yourself, to be a better, be able to get in, do better work day in and day out, and assess what it is you're doing. It gives me a quantifiable measure to now be able to turn to a client and say, look, you see like the proofs in the pudding.

And I think when you're doing better, it's great to be able to have a successful business, but when you're doing better for society, it makes it even better as corny as that sounds. No, I appreciate that. You got a great way about you, Don, and keep inspiring people. And it's a pleasure to have you on Whoop. And now it's a pleasure to have you on The Whoop Podcast. Can't wait, man. Awesome.

All right. Thanks. Thanks again to Don for coming on the podcast. We are very excited to have him on whoop and using it to help advise his clients. If you're not already a whoop member, you can join our community for as low as $30 to begin. We provide you with 24-7 access to your biometric data, as well as analytics across strain, sleep, recovery, heart rate variability, and more. The membership comes with a free whoop strap 3.0. We offer 6, 12, and 18-month memberships.

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