Online Coach Red Flags | Most Online Coaches Are Using AI to Reply to You and Not Telling You | 2963

Key Takeaway

Before hiring an online coach, ask four questions today: How many clients do you personally manage? Exactly how do you use AI? How often will we speak or message directly? And is your priority helping me sustain this for life, not merely hitting a short-term goal? A coach who cannot clearly answer—or who manages 100–200 clients with undisclosed AI replies—is unlikely to provide the individualized relationship and behavior change you are paying for.

Episode Overview

Mind Pump’s hosts explain how to spot low-quality online fitness coaching, particularly high-volume businesses that use cookie-cutter plans or undisclosed AI messaging. They also discuss recovery, sleep, home-gym essentials, training with scoliosis, sodium, menstrual-cycle recovery, and the costs of an always-on, instant-gratification culture.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Online Coach Red Flags | Most Online Coaches Are Using AI to Reply to You and Not Telling You | 2963 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

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You just found the most downloaded health, fitness, and entertainment podcast in history, approaching over half a billion downloads. This is MindPump. Today's episode, we answered some questions that people wrote in to our Instagram page, MindPump Media. Go give that a follow. But this was after the intro. Today's intro is 56 minutes long. Now in the intro, we talk about how to find a good online fitness coach. We talk about muscle building, fat loss, nutrition, supplements. We also talk about current events and family life. It's always a fun time.

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So go to MyMAPSprogram.com, and within one week, you'll get a call from one of our trainers who will deliver to you an individualized workout program just for you, your goals, your fitness level, and the equipment you have access to. Again, it's MyMAPSprogram.com. All right, real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at MyPumpStore.com. I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to MyPumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show.

Online fitness and nutrition coaching has exploded over the last seven to 10 years. In fact, today, it makes up 22% of all personal training revenue globally. This is huge. It used to make up less than 5%, but here's the deal. Although a good online coach can have profound positive impacts on your health and fitness, a bad one can have equally profound negative impacts. So here's what we're going to do right now. We're going to talk about red flags. How do you know your online coach is someone you should work with, and how do you know you should avoid them?

Check it out. I like this. Yes. I recently saw a video that Corinne had posted on her personal page and called Kyle right afterwards and said, did you know about this already? He goes, yeah, this is how this is happening right now. Up to this point, I couldn't wrap my brain around how some of these other companies were doing this. So obviously, as we've continued to build a coaching business here at MyPump, part of that is doing research and seeing some of the leaders that are doing things in our space and what are they doing, and what are we providing, and how can we provide more value.

And so we've always been doing some of that. And one of the things that was coming back to me was some of these companies have trainers that are servicing 100 people. Some actually were up to 200 per coach. And I thought, that's not even possible. I coached online first before MyPump had started, and I got to about 25. And I noticed after 25, I could coach more, but then my service started to sharply decline. That was kind of the max where I could stay in contact.

I was managing. I had a pulse of all of them and their weeks and what was going on, and I was adjusting everybody and I was in constant communication. Once I got beyond 25, it got real. Now, granted, I know I'm not the most organized person, so maybe somebody who's a lot more organized than me, that fall off doesn't happen until 30 or 35 maybe. But I'm not that unorganized, so unorganized that you could double me or triple me or quadruple. And so I couldn't figure out what was going on until she made that video and called Kyle and he's like, oh yeah, that's how they're doing this.

Yeah, so just to take a step back, like online coaching was a tiny sliver of the personal training business worldwide, but we'll just talk about here in the US. It was a tiny sliver. It actually barely even existed maybe 10 years ago. And now it's exploded to the point where I said earlier, it's 22%, right? It's almost a quarter of all personal training revenue. Now I'll just speak to personal training because this is what I did for decades. This is what Adam and Justin did for decades.

A really good trainer, nothing will have a more positive impact on your health and fitness than a really good trainer, nothing. Nothing comes close. There's no digital program, our podcast, there's no information, I don't care what it is, nothing will have a potentially greater impact than actually having someone work with you and train you. And we know this, but the opposite is also true. Some of the hardest people to work with or some of the most difficult situations are when a person worked with a trainer and they had a bad experience.

It was a bad trainer. They either trained them the wrong way or they encouraged some kind of body dysmorphia, dysfunction. They gave them horrible dietary guidelines or they trained them wrong and injured them. And we oftentimes lose that person forever. When you look at the data, lots of people start and stop fitness, start and stop fitness. This is like really common, right? It's really hard to stay consistent for the average person. But when someone has a bad experience with a trainer, the odds that they don't come back skyrockets.

It's horrible. And so this is one of the reasons why we actually started the podcast is we're so, over 10 years ago, we're so passionate about this because we know what a positive impact good fitness can have. We also know what a negative impact bad fitness can have. And online coaching is really no different. It's different in the sense that you're not working with someone in person. So it's a little bit different. But the impact can be just as impactful, for lack of a better term, in both the positive and negative.

And one of the benefits of online coaching, well, from the client's perspective, it typically is a smaller investment. And for the coach, it allows you to typically train people who don't live near you, obviously, and also scalability. You can scale. But what a lot of what's happened in our space is they've taken that scalability side and they've gone so extreme. Like one of the questions you should ask an online coach is how many clients are you servicing? Like if it's 100 or 200, that's a red flag.

The only way to service 200 clients as an online coach is if you're doing a bunch of cookie cutter stuff. There's no individualization. There's no coaching. It's literally I'm sending you resources and just here, follow it. And I'm not really coaching the individual, which is the whole reason why you work with an online coach. An online coach with 200 clients is actually less effective than just listening to MindPump. We'll do a better job if you just listen to my podcast than working with a coach with that many clients.

That's one of the biggest red flags. And when I heard that, because I did not know that, Adam. I knew that there was some craziness going on. But when I heard that stat and then it was echoed by some of our friends in the space, we confirmed it. That's crazy. What are you doing? You're not really coaching anybody. That's even after, because we saw this in our space even when we first started out because influencers became a big part of people's everyday experience, like being on social media and just because they would transform their bodies and they would show the process.

It was like just immediate accolades and qualifications for now helping people. And so it was very tempting for a lot of these competitors to lean into that. And some of them got in trouble, giving them plans for thousands of people. To your point, it was all like this cookie cutter, like no adjustments and no individualization to it. But it had massive backlash and now there's another trickier way that they're handling that kind of volume. Oh, the way it used to look, just to describe it even more, the model and how they scaled it was, I show you online that I can get shredded.

I then am qualified to teach you and coach you how to get shredded. I then fill my book so much that I can no longer help all those people. I hire an assistant that has no background whatsoever in that. And their job is literally just, I'm closing people and talking on social because that's what I'm good and I'm using my body to sell and capture leads. And then on the backend, I either have a team of people if I got big enough and scaled enough that are selling.

And then I have assistants that are literally just basically the email people that are emailing the cookie cutter plans that you're talking about. There's no customization to it or very minimal to it. There's no coaching. There's no coaching involved in it. And so this literally, this new model is just a replacement of that. So instead of a human assistant doing that, they've cut out that overhead and now they've just outsourced it to an AI. And AI is just using the data from all the internet to guess the answer.

Here's the other red flag. This is what you would want to ask a potential online coach. Don't ask them if they're using AI because they are. There's a million and one different ways to use AI. Ask them how are you using AI because here's what's happening. These coaches, and I know this by the way, there are apps that now offer this as a service. So there are apps for trainers and you sign up for a subscription and one of the pieces of value is it comes with an AI assistant.

And what happens is you as a client send a text or a message to your trainer about a question. Hey, I'm hungry. Hey, I'm struggling with this. Hey, I need help. And you get a reply and you're like, oh cool. My coach is coaching me. It's AI replying to you. It's not a human. And so this is. Which they're not disclosing, which makes it pretty sneaky. That is a hundred percent right. And so you are paying a coach to have AI coach you the whole time.

So ask them, how are you using AI? When I send a message, are you replying or is AI, who am I talking to when I'm asking questions and I need help? Who is reply? Is it you or is it AI? And odds are if they have a lot, a lot of clients, they're using AI. So you're not getting coached by it. Just so you know, almost all of the trainer software now has this built in or being built in. In fact, the software that we use, Kyle actually turns it off so it doesn't auto do that.

So it's built into the software that AI will automatically respond and answer for the client. We have to manually shut it off so that it's not responding for us and that our coaches can actually communicate with them. And here's, this is why it's so sneaky because if you, the average person doesn't want to get coached by AI for obvious reasons. You want a real person, you want to be talking to somebody, you don't want to be coached by AI. So you buy your training from a real person.

So the impression is, oh, I'm working with a real person. And then what replies to me is AI. They don't even know that they're getting coached by AI. They think that they hired that coach and the coach is one that's- Well, the reason why this is so, so dangerous or not good is, I mean, I've shared this many times on the show already since this AI has popped up where I have my own family members that will ask AI something about their health or fitness and the response, be it based off of how they prompted the AI, it can be completely wrong or totally right.

And so it's so much of that hinges on the way that they prompt the question. Now a good coach will get asked a question and they won't just give a direct answer. They'll dig deeper. They'll probably ask more questions. Yeah. They'll dig deeper or they'll want more nuance to it. Or what do you mean by that? And we coach our trainers on how to do this. Like when someone just asks you a question or just says an answer to you, dig deeper and find out, well, what do you mean by that?

When you say that, AI isn't trained to do that. The AI is the answer with the best data it has based off of the way you prompted it. And so here's your answer. And that could send somebody, and like, this was a hormone question that my family member asked. It was like, is this bad for me to do this? And then the way he prompted it was, can doing the taking testosterone- What are the risks of taking testosterone? Yeah. Adverse effects to it so like it came back the AI came back on all the adverse effects of that it's like but the are there adverse effects for having low testosterone as a 845 50 year old male like absolutely so he didn't prompt it that way though He prompted it in a way searching that answer and so he got that answer.

So here's why this is so dangerous. So You don't want an answer machine You don't hire a trainer to coach because you just want a bunch of answers that actually makes For a terrible trainer or a terrible coach now, they should know a lot of the right answers But that's the that's the lowest bar a good trainer and a good coach Understands the nuances in working with individuals and so much so much About having a successful fitness journey one that lasts you for the rest of your life Has less to do with the right answers and more to do with the psychological piece and how you develop relationships With these things and there's a reason why many states have made it illegal to get therapy from AI Okay, there's a reason why because suicides have been a result of some of this because AI is designed to Essentially affirm you yeah all the way through and lots of dangerous things can happen a good coach knows when to do that and when to push When to pull knows when to ask more questions and AI just simply doesn't do that.

It gives you answers It's like a fancy Google, but it's not gonna coach you the way a human can at least not now And so this can be quite dangerous because AI can lead somebody In the wrong direction and not to mention even if that wasn't the case Most people who hire a coach don't want a I coach them How to steer your behavior in a positive direction because it doesn't have that capacity it's just providing what you're Prompting it for and so it's like, you know as a coach You you're already predictively thinking about their journey and like what to present them What time to present them with that what they're struggling with, you know with their behaviors In in how to strategize that to make them successful.

And so it's it just doesn't have that ability So, you know, you're very limited with an answer machine Yeah, and you you also want to know how often you're gonna be you can be in contact with the actual trainer themselves Yeah, because you can't have 200 clients and be in like no consistent contact not unless you're using AI So you want to ask them how often can I be in contact with you? How often are we gonna do you know a zoom meeting and how often can I send you a message and when can you reply?

Like what is this coaching? Process look like these are very specific questions That will raise red flags if you ask them if you don't ask them you have no idea And then you can be going down a road. That is one that you didn't anticipate I also think you should ask your trainer. What's the most important thing for you as a trainer in regards to your clients? Here's the wrong answer and this you might think is the right answer if a trainer says to you get my clients to their Goals, that's the wrong answer.

Okay a good trainer Knows that that's important, but that's not the most important thing The most important thing to a trainer who's good is can I get this person to want to do this for the rest of life? Yeah, that's more important than getting your two goals at the time that you hired me for like you tell me I'm gonna lose 30 pounds in four months I'm gonna target that with you But what's more important for me as a trainer is can I get this person to want to do this?

Forever forever because when you look at the data losing weight is hard But it's not nearly as hard as sticking to this thing for the rest of your life So as a trainer, that's always the most important to good trainer. That's the most important thing Can I create can I help coach this person through this process? And if that means we don't hit the goal in the desired time So be it so long as this person starts to really want to do this all over the process.

That's right. That's right Can we do that? Do they also validate you hear you and are they authentic? AI is not authentic What do I mean by that? Okay, you're a middle-aged woman You're struggling with going through menopause you've got kids You're talking to your trainer and your trainer says to you. Hey, look, you know I'm middle-aged too and I struggle with that stuff too. And I had some hormone issues Immediately, you're like, you know what? I think you kind of understand what I'm going through now.

That's not I'm not saying you need to hire Train, that's exactly like you but Authenticity helps build trust it just does and it's so important what we tell our trainers all the time Most important thing that you can build with your client work on with clients trust because how can you coach anybody? Without 100% trust and where does that come from authenticity and realism if your trainer seems to be perfect? That's usually a red flag. First off. Nobody's perfect But second, why are they presenting themselves as perfect?

I remember learning this as a early trainer that the more real I was on my client in my own struggles The easier it was for me to coach them the less they looked at me like I had no idea what they were Well, that's I mean, that's something that you can do also or a real coach can do that AI won't be able to do is be vulnerable. Mm-hmm AI is not gonna be a I has a little body image AI has all the answers and is confident where a person is a real person is humanizing and Vulnerable and they or they can be if you're a good coach You are you too?

And even if I haven't been through menopause There's other things that we can connect and relate through that Struggled through also that we can then connect and build a bond and build trust and build a relationship on which is so valuable in Being a good coach So you don't necessarily always have to have somebody who's gone through the exact same thing You know but a human that Understands struggle understands trials that understands failure that understands what it's like to want something really bad and not be able to get it And there's a connection that can be made there that you just can't possibly do so and just for you know People you hear this like remember we did this for a long time and we had to kind of figure this out and we you Know we train develop trainers all the time Successful coaching is all about the relationship you build with the trainer and the coach and You can't build a relationship with a coach who's not coaching you You can't build a relationship with an AI because it's not a human and so that's why this is so Important and these are huge red flags.

And by the way what this looks like And this is kind of skewed what it looks like to work with an online coach But oftentimes online coaches will be like, yeah, you know work with me It's a hundred bucks a month and like how do you build a business at a hundred bucks a month? Well, you train 200 people That's how you do it and nobody's getting real coaching or real service And so that's what you're kind of signing up for real coaching is extremely valuable It's the best thing you could possibly invest in and so you want to ask these questions and really work with somebody that you know Is gonna help you accomplish these things.

Otherwise, you're burning your money is what you're doing. Sometimes I feel fat Trying to relate I know All right. So I want to bring this up because you and I were talking off-air Adam. Yeah, both of us are in this like I'm trying to move away from cutting Because I know it's extreme, but I'm still eating less I'm trying to just see when I'm hungry, so I'm still kind of dropping weight and stuff But dude, my strength is exceptional right now and I know exactly why Okay, so is your I I'm having a similar experience.

I wonder if it's the same thing It's probably not because mine is more related to or a ring data that I think is really interesting right now Oh, so tell me sleep So, well, no, you know The sleep the sleep part is the part that is is really interesting me So I can I shared this the last time I kind of talked about this Apologize if it feels like I'm repeating myself but You know there there isn't this there's a correlation, but there's not a cause It's not a direct causation of I get good sleep.

Therefore. My body is ready is ready So I can have a great night of sleep and you still need more recovery. Yeah, but I did some crazy. Yes. Yes, and so You know, I took off for three days and I was completely disconnected No real physical at driving which can be mentally taxing because you're focused all time, but physically very restful You know, I'm sitting in a car 90% of the time and then coming home and then going straight to bed as well. So I had three days in a row of that and Came back Monday was my friend now having it which means I didn't train for four days in a row So I'm like and I just came off remember last time.

I'm like haven't so I'm like in this I'm itching to train because I'm in this rhythm right now And so I intentionally did not look at my or ring because I'm like, I don't want it to tell me I can't I can't train or that I shouldn't and because I'm like stubbornly going I need to it's Monday I also know to That sets the tone for the week for me if I'm if I've missed that many days in a row and I miss Monday easily work Can get ahead and then the next thing, you know, it's been seven or eight days So I just said I'm gonna train even if it's not intensely I'm gonna go in and left man And so and I refused to look at my or rings I didn't want it and I think there's some by the way I think there is some great value from a guy who loves to use things like that but there's also this is how I don't let it control me because it's like if it did give me bad news like that I Could let it get in my head and start to make excuses Why didn't I'm like I need to go through and I'll all listen to my body and let that be the judge I may be psychological.

You need to work out. That's right. Exactly. So I'm like I so I started lifting Bro and I feel so good like I'm so strong and so strong that I'm doing my squats and I'm like So tempted to go up and I'm like I better not because I have no idea what my where I'm at And so I had a good lift and I did I did strong I did push it but not push it like really hard like I wanted to because I felt like I could And it was one of the best workouts.

I've had in a really long time and I came home. I told Katrina Such she's like, how's your lift today? And I'm like I had a great lift today, which is crazy I thought I'd be off because of all I plug in my aura and I look and I had the highest red Readiness score I've had in like two weeks Like my body well rested my body needed that three days in a row of no physical taxing like that So it's similar to mine. Okay, I don't use you.

I don't track stuff, you know, I don't track most things But when it comes to that I just do and let's try to listen my body, whatever I'm only lifting weights three days a week I'm doing full-body old-school maps anabolic three days a week of training I'm in a calorie deficit for sure because I'm dropping weight and I'm strong and it's just it's just Another reminder of you know what? I still go do too much as much as I think I'm training the way I should Three days a week and I'm strong as hell man I'm repping weights and my presses in my rows in my lifts that I normally would wrap in a surplus Which is wild, yeah, and it's all because I'm training appropriately full-body three I'm literally doing one lift per body part between three to five sets depending on the intensity and I'm not even hitting my legs every single time because it'd be a bit taxing especially if I do squats And I'm just like tripping over how strong I feel so it's interesting because it's cool that we're both Similar experiences, but I'm running like a map 15 protocol Yeah, so and I'm not even getting every day.

I'm like training six days a week It's like sometimes I get five, you know, sometimes I only get three or four Wow, but it's two lifts It's two lifts a day and then it on a day like where I feel amazing I might throw two little auxiliary things in there on top of it Like I met I'd messed around and did some I felt so good I did some calves and lateral raises, which normally don't make it into the routine. It was just like that's like a Good.

I'll do a couple extra things that feel great. But typically a very maps 15 protocol It's hard about this is that you start to feel really good and you'd be like, I want to do more Yeah, it's such a hard thing. No, it's it's is and it was so interesting to see that that I felt that way and I felt so good and then the data to prove like oh I was I was actually Very well rested. It's funny. I've been doing jazzercise You're tired what's going on?

You're just fried young fried I'm getting any sleep. Yeah, I just wake up and like my Mind is just racing it like 3 in the morning and I just can't I can't stop it So I have a supplement you might want to try it. There's no there's no plug We don't have a spot partner, but I did so AI is an incredible data synthesizer So I've been using it to synthesize data. What is this? What are the studies say? Tell me the anecdotes cross-reference them You know, what about for a man this age woman this age?

What are the best supplements with the most data what are the possible mechanisms, okay waking up at 3 a.m. And Being restless for the rest of the night. Sometimes you'll hear from people. So you like go to sleep. No problem Yeah, you wake up at 3 out good. And then you feel like a bunch of like Waking up from 3 a.m. Until you need to get up Drift off wake up drift off wake up and you feel restless. They get a move Okay, so could be a couple reasons for but one of them is cortisol.

Yeah, so cortisol spikes now That could be happening because you're under a lot of stress. Obviously, you're doing a lot of stuff with your house You move all that stuff. Yeah, so there's a supplement that has data that shows Pretty pretty good data. It's two supplements that show pretty good data with cortisol Ashwagandha is one the other one's called phosphatidylserine. That's a big word phosphatidylserine so taking both Can possibly help so I was having that issue. Okay, and I started taking both of them and I don't wait a little searing I'll tell you I keep saying it's unicorn hair No, both of them have data delicious supporting these cortisol kind of spike And so I've been doing that and I don't wake up at 3 anymore Okay, I sleep all the way through and that combo was like it right there.

Yeah, I'll try it Yeah, it's just been like so frustrating man. It's like because now I'm like really Caffeine dependent and I was already trying to kind of break off. Yeah, it's like Just the function I'm like getting by I'm still like, you know doing the bare minimum I'll do like one lift a day and I'm just keeping it at that, you know, just to just to keep the movement there Yeah, I'm really not like loading it with anything I mean you and I Justin and I were talking about this yesterday because I was I've been in the last month Dealing with similar type stuff.

It's as a trainer It's so frustrating when you can't get when it's like, you know, I wish it was something that I could point to Yeah, and I think I feel like you feel the same way. Oh, I've been addressing my whole ritual I'm like, yeah, okay nights are down, you know, I got like the the cool, you know room temperature like everything, dude I'm like trying to like read, you know, boring books and all that kind of stuff so here's the other thing to next to your bed 200 milligrams of Theanine and three grams of glycine and so if you do wake up at three still Take it try to go back to sleep and that Also can help calm glycine.

Yeah When we're done, i'll set this i'll set you up. Give me a stack Yeah, i'll set you up and it's totally solved uh that issue and it's helped jessica too. Jessica will also wake up cool And it's all right. I envision like your gut like just a sea of pills. Yeah One releases I have this visual stout stomach and it's just like it's like the bottom bottom third is just just pills Yeah, you know, it's crazy. That's a pills dissolving weight just loads like a chamber Most people if they take a handful of multiple supplements on an empty stomach and make them throw out Yeah, I could take as many as really you have to be able to first thing in the morning Nothing.

Oh that used to kill me, bro I don't work. I don't eat before I work out and I take all kinds of things you take the pills before you everything Let's go wash it down with water and I feel amazing I think i've built It's taking years you've trained yourself. It's years of training, dude That's black belt what's happening? Speaking of supplements. Um, I have a friend of mine who she's uh been she was asking me about If she should start taking organ complex from paleo valley Uh because she wants to increase her nutrient intake And uh, I said, yeah totally.

Um, and she's most people would benefit. Yeah, so I so you know what I did I I pulled let me pull it up. I looked up the I say that while you're looking that I love that they have that as an option because it's man I remember trying to sneak in organ meats and mix it into like I wish you remember where where I first read it but I read it as a pretty early trainer and I've shared it before in the podcast that in order for the a person to hit like all of their Rdas on everything or their optimal amount of nutrients and from from whole foods Like the amount of calories they would have to eat and what that included like so many servings of liver and some of that To hit that it's just like who doesn't who eats?

It was like 3500 calories hitting it 3500 calories plus a serving of liver like so here's what's in it, right? So they freeze dry this and put in capsules. So it's uh grass-fed beef liver It's grass-fed beef heart and grass-fed beef kidney And so in this capsules you take like four of them or something like that. You got vitamin a b12 copper Iron that is the kind that is the easiest to absorb very important for women So women will benefit a lot from this when they have a menstrual cycle because they tend to lose iron selenium Uh riboflavin coq10, which is really good for the heart and choline, which is really good for the brain So it's like You know you take this it's almost like a multivitamin with some of those nutrients and what you're taking is whole food Yeah, it was more bioavailable.

It's whole food based. That's right. It's literally the organ meats freeze dries So you're taking organ meat? Yeah, that's what you're doing with this with this supplement. That's great. Yeah, it's really cool Uh, I read about you guys know how i've been reading about Like the different, uh kind of saints Yeah that the traditional. Yeah. Yeah that the the you know The older christian traditions like the catholics and orthodox will declare saying yeah, these are some cool stories, bro I learned about one yesterday That is just and this is a more recent one So it's well doc some of the other saint stories are like from so long ago That they have stories but you're kind of like did that really like what happened?

Yeah, and some of them are more recent And so, uh right now i'm serving at the church And i'm in this program called alpha which is uh, it's it exists at lots of different churches actually started in london Um years ago and it's for people who are curious about uh the faith and so they can go and ask any question Well, anyway the topic yesterday Uh, so they go over like the fundamental topics and then we have discussion And in the video that we watched they talked they gave the story So the question was why did jesus have to die?

But so they talk about that in the christian faith then they talked about this guy dude. This story's crazy So this guy's name is maximilian, let me get his name maximilian kolbe Maximilian kolbe so this this this happened During world war ii where they call him the saint of what i'm gonna tell you what happened I don't know if he's a saint of anything in particular. That's a good question, but during so Uh in germany, so he was a catholic I want to say priest I want to say.

Um during the german occupation Of poland he sheltered thousands of refugees Including roughly 2 000 jews and he published criticisms of the nazi regime, so he was a uh, so he Obviously he's going to get himself thrown into the gulags. So he did gestapo arrested him Threw him in the gulags. So he's in there Uh in his prison block in 19 in july 1941 a prisoner escaped And so what the german gestapo did or the german, uh prison guards did is they said okay somebody escaped Here's how we're going to punish everybody 10 of you we're going to throw in the starvation block and we're going to starve you to death So anytime somebody escaped In order to deter them punish everybody they would kill 10 random people.

Wow, so they pick 10 random people And they pick them out and they're like you're gonna go starve. Well, one of the guys that they picked Cries out he's like, oh no my poor wife and children I'm going to be gone and no one's going to be there to help them. Uh, what am I going to do? Well maximilian hears this And he says hey when he says to the guards, I have no wife and children I would like to take his place And to everybody's surprise the guard said okay So they let this man Take the other man's place.

So this catholic priest took the place of this man who had a wife and children And they sent him to the starvation block in the starvation block They obviously starved to death but during that time they were singing hymns. They were praying it was this crazy environment and they all died Well after that the man that that he replaced for the rest of his life Continued to talk about how this priest took his place and saved him and he was eventually canonized by the church as a saint What a crazy story.

How many are there? I don't know. That's a good question Yeah, no idea the book doesn't have like a like a These are I don't think it lists all of them. Oh, it doesn't there's even more than well I'm, just going through and reading but this wasn't actually not in that book that I have This is actually because I could send it in the course last night But just imagine that and imagine, you know, you get picked to die and some random person says I actually took a picture I'll take your place.

I I yeah It's crazy, man. It's crazy. Yeah, so heroic he's remembered for that particular thing and just the courage I I took a picture or something that I meant to send to you. So and I didn't even send it to you Is it a shirtless pic? No, it's not. I don't want any I just thought you would like it because it talks about uh, It's comparing a public speaker to a communicator and you do a lot of public speaking And I think you're a great communicator and and it was like the differences of the two so I thought you would appreciate like a public a public speaker seeks to be understood and liked A communicator seeks to understand and connect.

Oh cool a public speaker ask. What do I have? A communicator asks. What do they need? a public speaker focuses on techniques A communicator focuses on atmosphere A public speaker is self-conscious A communicator is audience oriented A public speaker wants to complete the speech a communicator wants to complete the people A public speaker is content oriented A communicator is change oriented. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah Yeah, I will send you I thought that would be cool because whenever you do your public speaking having that kind of mindset Like going into it would be like my buddy just asked me about that So he's he's uh, he was gonna go speak in front of 150 people at his company.

He's like super nervous. So he's asking me Tips and he's like do you ever get nervous? I'm like, dude, are you kidding me public speaking makes me so nervous, man It's so different than doing this. Oh like doing this. I don't care I could do this with my ice clothes and it's totally fine put me in front of a crowd and I was like, man I actually have to block it out of my head. Yeah leading up to it Otherwise i'll be so nervous leading up You get the nerves the nervous sweats.

I can play loud music in front of big crowds. That's no problem But speaking it's I always I always found that so strange about musicians like michael jackson was so shy But then you get him on stage and he was like, yeah, it's like a different gear. Yeah, it's a totally different thing I think too like some some Um, I remember when I was going down this whole road because I was trying to get better um, you know, there was some Some introverts who would actually like put glasses on or they'd put like some kind of specific outfit on Yeah, it was like this big your character.

Yeah your character and you're just you're You're uh presenting yourself like through this character and it really like took them outside of their own Uh where they just trip over their own thought. Oh, that's how i've heard people explain it They they say like when you do that, it's like it's not them up there on stage playing it's the the character They couldn't go do that. Yeah, but Michael jackson and his hat and his glasses and his you know his club. He he could go do that You know i'm saying but I I could not do that.

That's how i've heard it Yeah, even like I was at james hatefield was talking about that He gets like ain't still gets massive anxiety like before he goes out on stage and performs and you're like what? Like he's done like how many times has he done like massive arenas and everything else but like That's why you always saw lars was like in interviews. He was the one getting interviewed because it was just like oh, wow Yeah, he's just uncomfortable with that. I mean athletes are similar to like you hear like you're some of your greatest most professional athletes I'll hear about them throwing up before a game or something.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, you know You're like you've been playing in the nba for 10 years. What you mean? Oh, yeah still get nerves That's actually comforting because you look at them. You think okay this guy can't possibly yeah. Yeah. Yeah It's annoying when people are super comfortable with that I didn't tell you guys but the last the talk I did, uh, I had brought this like, uh, Like this blue button-down shirt looked really nice and sharp. Jessica picked it out and I put it on Because I was in my hotel room getting ready to go out and I was nervous while sweating And you could see my armpit sweat.

Oh, yeah, and I had to take it off and I had to change it to the shirt I wore the day before. Yeah, because I can't wear this about it. Yeah, dude I'm gonna be on stage with armpits, you know, you know, you just I did send you something else Did you watch the video that I sent you about andre iguodala? No, what is it? Oh, yeah It's the last one I just sent to you So it's funny we went this direction that we're talking about So I totally forgot I sent this to you because I wanted you to so I know doug hates when I do this But so what so listen nba players they studied andre iguodala if he got over eight hours of sleep He would score 29 more points per minute if he got less than eight hours of sleep He had like 45 percent more fouls and 32 percent more turnovers the data is insane amazing accomplished athletes I'm, like well you would have had a 30 percent less risk for injury Had you been sleeping better your time to fatigue like if you're working out Maybe it takes you like 15 minutes of running really hard before you're just like crash You can lose 10 to 30 percent if you're getting less than eight hours of sleep or if your sleep quality is just poor So you could have gone like 30 percent harder had your sleep been a little bit better You cannot have good health if your sleep is bad or if you're not getting an oxygen.

I'm at least 30 to 40 percent I didn't know that I I'm a big andre iguodala fan and uh, in fact, I read his biography and I didn't know that they did that I didn't know they studied him like that. I thought that was really interesting that I mean, that's a huge difference That's massive. I mean talking about that's a big difference Yeah, 30 percent at the professional level of like of performance prone to fouling and everything that makes a lot of sense it totally does it may it's like It's like kind of duh because we talk about this stuff when we talk about the importance of sleep But to see it on because you're you're talking about the the highest level performing athlete, right?

They they have been able to get to a in spite of bad nights of sleep and rub like they sure that's what makes them Their genetic anomalies. Yeah, and even somebody who is this genetic anomaly well-trained the best of the best the one percenter You know, even they are being affected that that that much impact on his scoring and his fouling and some of that That's like fascinating to me. Like what do you think that's doing to us? You know if it's affecting that guy like you guys should look at the studies on uh on mothers who have uh Who just had babies because obviously you can have poor sleep for a little while their brain shrinks Wow, their brain actually shrinks through that process now.

They it comes back. Yeah, everything afterwards But there's like a period of like why is it what's the what's the adaptation for to atrophy? What's the they're just it's not a positive adaptation. It's just they get no sleep. Well, I know it's an adaptation though It's not a positive one. It's a negative energy. It's trying to mean. Oh, so that's what it's down It's basically down regularly because it's like oh I we can't we can't because the brain uses a lot of energy Yeah, it does and so they're deprived of energy.

And so oh that's interesting. Wow. Yeah the brain, uh For its size uses a tremendous amount of energy now for the amount of processing it does if you compare it to a computer It's like a miraculous machine But compared to the rest of your body use a tremendous amount of energy So that was one of the things that I found fascinating about these these three days. Um my calorie burn was Crazy high it's like chess players for somebody. Yeah. Yeah, can we bring that stat up again that I remember I was dude They burned so many calories I burn more calories According to my aura ring on that on those three days of sitting in a car driving 10 hours a day That I have been in my 15 000 step days with a workout.

Yeah, is that crazy? Yeah Like I mean, come on, this is I mean, you're not cruising. You're you're you're racing I mean, we're not racing but we're we're moving. Yeah. Yeah, we're you're focused So that you are definitely focused. I mean you're you're ten and two the entire time You're this is not like yeah, you know this type of driving you're you're all the variables you're ten and two You're hyper focused around the car that you're you're trailing and everything around you and you are for eight hours straight you know, like, you know, we have breaks in between so they're more like sprints for two hours, but I mean, uh again Stuff that we've heard with with the chess player studies and stuff like that Really fascinating to see it on my ordering and to think like I haven't done anything all day But actually my body is burning a significant amount of calories Do you guys have does how does music affect your driving?

Because I know for me if I play edm Then I speed I go 15 miles an hour faster and I don't even have to pay i'm not paying attention It's just turned into a video game Yeah, the the beats per minute thing will will affect totally for sure. I start to it becomes a video game Yeah, yeah, I I talk so I mean that long of driving i'm toggling through all I listen to all kinds of genres and stuff and depending on what part of the Um, you know trip we were at I would toggle between different stuff.

So like if it's a was a more aggressive Cornering and turning and like like i'm i'm listening to something more intense alert. Yeah hard rock or something like that When we were like, you know long bends, you know and like easy like not like really aggressive Like i'm listening to like stuff like journey and death leopard and like i'm like stuff a little bit lighter And so it definitely moved in we're guys like this with horses. I know we like this with cars It was like before cars were invented.

We're guys like dude. I got this like check out the horse. There's a Oh, are you kidding me? Of course it's, that has not changed at all. It's just the, the modality or the, the piece of equipment that you are, but that has been, I mean, long journeys, horseback riding is, I mean, it still happens today. You know, there's that one guy with the harmonica that wouldn't shut the hell up the whole time. He's like on the horse. Cause this is, I mean, people, people still ride to ride, right?

Yeah. Like, you don't, you don't, they're not necessarily going somewhere, you know, it's like, we're like, we had to get on our horse and we have to just like, let's go for a, you know, how long horseback ride and do they do that all the time? I've never, I've never ridden a horse, but it sounds painful. Oh, I, I, we got a kick where we were like every vacation, we would schedule like a horseback ride. Hey, when you get on the horse though, is he like, yeah, I always had a few that struggled, dude.

I was like way behind the whole group. You know, I felt bad for the horse. He's jealous of Justin's butt. When I was in Iceland, it was struggling, dude. Oh, you guys rode one in Iceland. I forgot about that. He was grunting. Come on, come on. Come on, blue. Huffing and puffing. I watched this really cool video. Uh, it made such, it was a sermon, but it was such a good point on, uh, fragility. Uh, cause the data shows just how fragile, uh, people are now, uh, especially kids.

And he made it a connection to, and I'm gonna pull it up. He made it a connection to patients. So he said, we're just far less patient than ever before. And so this has made us so fragile and he points to, first off, you need patience in life, marriage requires patience. Parenting requires patience. Fitness requires patience. Like you can't force things to happen any faster. You just got to be patient. So all the things that matter in life require a lot of patients, but here's what's happened in modern societies, modern societies that are run by markets, which are wonderful markets around wonderful.

So I'm not speaking against markets, but markets, what markets do best is they give people what they want. And you have to compete with other companies that are trying to compete for the same consumer. And here's the deal. If you're faster, you win. And so here's what's happened with our society. Entertainment is what you want when you want it. And I was thinking about when I was a kid, if there was a TV show I wanted to watch, I had to wait until it was on.

Yeah. I had to wait. In fact, when I was a kid, cartoons were not on all the time. You can find cartoons whenever you want. My kids, I want to watch cartoon. You can watch whatever you want. When I was a kid, like Saturday morning was the only time I could watch cartoons. Now it's annoying. It's like, oh man, I got to wait a week for the next episode. Consumerism is all about fast. If you're selling a product and you can get it to me a day faster, you win.

A day faster, you win. When I, when we were kids, I don't, you guys remember ordering things in the mail? Yeah. You remember that? First of all, you write a check, put it in an envelope. You had to write something to send to the company. First, you had to wait for the mail to get to them. Yeah. Then they got it. Then they put it together and then they give it back to you. Yeah. You would wait a month and there was no, or more, there was no prime.

Yeah. It was, this is like a month process. It was a month or longer. You get your Sears catalog or your toys, you order them. Oh my God. It's like, oh, cool. Well, I mean, they, they figured that out a long time ago. Uh, that time, the, the more likely sales go up, but that's, that's huge. That's an all like internet marketing. Everything. Yeah. Yeah. The faster you can get the buy now, but now is quicker. In fact, that's right. In fact, it's not just about how fast they can deliver it.

It's how fast I can buy it. Yes. If I got to enter my credit card, I'm gonna lose a sale. Yeah. So that one click was huge. What do you think is the strategy then? I, so, well, there's one more communication, communication, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. I can send a text. I can call, I can get on whenever I want. Yep. I can reach anybody whenever I want. Yeah. When we were kids, uh, we went out, uh, you want to get ahold of somebody? I got to get to a phone and then they need to be near a phone.

And if they're not near a phone, then I got to leave a message and then they got to get me back when I'm near a phone. And sometimes it took a day, two days, three days, or I'll just see you at school. Uh, now it's like instant, instant, instant, which has killed patients completely. So now a kid in college wants something. If they can't get it right away, it's frustration immediate. And it turns into fragility because there's, they haven't strengthened this muscle known as patients and it's so true.

So connect some dots here that I was, or what I was trying to connect this possibilities of this, like ready, this, the highest readiness score that I've had in months. Right. I can't even remember the last time I got that high of a readiness score. And, uh, I also was, I haven't, I can't tell you the last time I was unplugged for three days in a row, three days in a row. The only time I had any sort of cell reception to send a text, to go on the internet, to do anything like that was when we got home and we were so exhausted.

I was in bed. So I literally would come home. I might've, I might've taken a video or two of the views or something that we were at like a couple of times. I was able to, you can't really do that when you're driving. It was like when we stopped or something like that. So it was like very minimal that I even had it out. It was always plugged into my, my car and listening to music the whole time, but disconnected from other than hitting play on a song, you know?

So I, I can't remember the last time I detached from technology for that many days. And I wonder if that played a role in also my readiness to that low level stress all day long. So not just the recovery of my getting inundated with all that. And I think, I think in my, to my point, I think we, uh, underestimate how taxing that is of this, like constantly like hearing the stress and dumb stuff too. Like as stupid as it sounds, but like I have a thread of, of buddies that are all playing fantasy football and it's like, go all the time.

And it's like everything from shit talking to, oh, this guy went hurt. And it's like, I was so disconnected from all that all works up, disconnected from everything. Yep. Yeah. Or it's, or as you go on social media and it's like, what's happening in the world, what's scary, what's going on with the market, uh, compare myself and it's reels. It's fast, fast, fast. By the way, they've had studies that show how that affects the brain. It shrinks and atrophies. Yeah. I've seen the stuff on that.

It does crazy things. What do you guys think that the, um, strategy is for companies like Apple and HBO, then that have chosen to do this, releasing an episode a week versus giving it like the Netflix, Netflix will just say they don't have the capacity. That's what Netflix will say. That's what they'll say. Yeah. But if you Google, try and get to the bottom of that, why does Apple and HBO drip their series versus Netflix who they don't have the catalog and it's like simple. Otherwise they probably would.

But I think part of it really is like they're trying to, since they can't like do the mass volume, they're going to do more of the quality. And so it's like, they're just going to yeah. So, I mean, we've made the comparison. I think it's such a great comparison of junk food versus like gourmet meals. Like if we were to use, if entertainment was a food, Netflix would be junk, fast food, junk food, and Apple or HBO would be fine dining a restaurant or whatever. And so I'm curious though, because I don't think Apple or HBO are short of finances.

So why couldn't they, they could go and play the Netflix game, couldn't they? Or are they truly trying to distinguish themselves as they are, they are McDonald's and Burger King. We're not going to try and be McDonald's and Burger King. It's just their brand more. I think you have to go more on the higher quality side. Um, personally, I think that's, I mean, these are all the speculations I have too. I'm not sure though. That's why I'm curious. So that's what it says there. What does it say?

That's what it's talking about. I mean, there have traditional roots. HBO is a premium cable channel. Weekly scheduling matches as longstanding television traditions. They spread episodes out, uh, keep them in the public eye longer, which helps Emmy and award they're essentially higher quality, less, yeah, they're going for the awards. Yeah. And you know, here's the thing too, just along these lines when it comes to media, because you think like, uh, media is largely gone in this direction. It's largely gone in the direction of volume and speed and consume and you don't wait, but there's one form of media that completely bucked the trend.

In fact, there's one form of media that even bucked the trend of television and that's podcasts. Yeah. Podcasts are long form. In fact, they're so long form. They, they, they're longer form than television ever. Well, I think it shows that we have this thirst for that, that connection and that we want that if this is, this is like, okay, so one of the things I noticed with my own behaviors with, uh, comparing like, let's stay on this comparison of HBO versus Netflix. So let's say like, you know, Katrina and I have been on this kind of routine where, you know, at the end of the night, we're putting on a show to watch with that.

When we are watching a series, say like gentlemen, which is like one of my favorite series that was just out on, on streaming. So that, and it drips once a week, man, I can't wait. I'm excited to watch it. I really enjoy that time with her. And there comes seasons in the year when there's just not a lot of, there's not a lot of good stuff on HBO and I go to my apple. I'm finding myself on Netflix. I've watched that. I, the, the one good series they had, I watched all of it.

And now I'm like, I'm, I'm just watching shit to watch it. I start to feel gross. Just like if I were to eat fast food four or five days in a row, it's, it's so weird how it has a similar effect that I'm aware of that, like, I'll, and I'll even tell her, she'll be like, well, what do you want to watch? And I'm like, I don't actually, I don't want to watch anything. I feel gross. I feel gross watching this because it's shit. I know it's shit.

And yet I know that I could just watch it. And I'm like, I don't want to disassociating. Yeah. And you're disconnected doing, I was having a conversation with my friend who he was asking me about, uh, uh, about doing some form of media. And he's like, what do you think I should do now? This guy is very well versed in his field. And I said, do podcasts. He said, why? And I said, it's the hardest to fake. I said, you do you, you talk for an hour about your topic and you do that weekly or twice a week.

You can't fake it. You can fake reels and clips, Instagram, Tik TOK. Like you can be the fakest person ever and appear to be like, you know, we're talking about podcasts. You can't, you got to talk about it for hours and hours and hours. It's long form. You have a different consumer. This is true. Everybody. Now I know we're a podcast, maybe I'm a little biased, but look at the stats. Podcast consumers are different than real consumers. They just are podcasts. Consumers tend to be, uh, uh, higher intelligent.

They tend to be deeper thinking that tend to be more growth minded, real consumers and fast, uh, fast content consumers. It's about distractibility. It's all about that. Yeah. And so it's just, and so as I was thinking about this, I'm like, man, this impatience thing, uh, and you know, uh, you like to consume media, stick to long form type stuff and stay away from the quick, do you think we organically pendulum swing back? Like, I think like our, like society it's craves that eventually, like, I think, I feel like we will, I feel like it's in context.

Yeah. It's just like, it feels like there's a massive void, uh, you know, from everything else. And so I think that like, to your point of it being like a whole food, it almost feels like you get nourished when you get those, uh, conversations actually have nuance and it has like the experience to back up, um, you know, a lot of what they're talking about versus, you know, just this like quick, like just I'm going to hear spoon feed you tips. I think the back, I think the backlash is going to look like more in-person, more in-person content, more attending something where you're here, somebody speak because it brings us together.

There's some community there. It's real. Uh, it's, it's, you're seeing people, you're with people. I think that, and I think you're already seeing that action. In fact, I think. No, you are, you are already seeing that. Um, yeah, no IRL is for sure the future, um, for any business, right. Is to do more of that. I think that, especially as AI improves, because as AI improves to your point and it becomes less and less indistinguishable between humans and content like that, it's just like, oh yeah.

Bro. AI content is, I can't tell bro. I mean that video that Dylan walked in on when he had on Wednesday morning and I, we were just getting ready to sit down to podcast and he's like, Hey, let me hold still. I want to take a picture of you. And he just took his iPhone out, took a picture of what I was wearing, standing still, no light, no special light or nothing with his iPhone. And then he obviously did the same thing to you and I had no idea what he was doing.

And then, you know, 30 minutes later, there's this viral video of you and I rapping and it's like, and it's weird for me to look at an AI version of me and me not, so everybody else made me taller than you, which is, I appreciate that was about the only thing that stood out. If that was it, Sal actually had dance moves, not real, but I mean, I was kind of like, damn, I should learn how to move. It looks really on point, really on point.

And it's weird to see yourself yourself that well, because we like, as yourself would point out that right away, like, you know, when people say like, Hey, you look like this person, you're like, I don't look anything like that person, but they see you like that. It's like, but you, so you would pick apart something like that faster than the average person and to look at it and go like, damn, that looks like I did that. That's crazy. I know it's wild. Yeah. Uh, I'm going to change subjects here.

How, I got to ask you guys this because, uh, we have a juve panel at home and Jessica goes through periods of time where she's consistent or not, and I swear two sessions. I could tell, I don't even know she's using it. I come home and I look at her and I can tell, and I say, have you been using? Yes. Her skin, skin is younger by like two sessions. It is remarkable how quickly it works. How long does it take you to connect to those dots?

A long time. It's really, she's religious about it. It's her routine rocks. Anything you could do to make your skin look healthy and young rocks. I've always, I've said that for a long time, that that's why they've done so well is it's, it's a, it's a product. It's a tool that you can use and you can see immediate difference right away. The meetings that you have to do for long periods of time for people to feel or see or notice a difference, hard to sell, hard to sell people, no matter how much you talk about the studies and all this stuff, cause we got all, there's tons for three months is what they'll say.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like there's tons of that out there that, um, that would back up obviously red light therapy, but what gets you to keep coming back consistently during the week is that I can do a session with it and you can see a visible difference on your skin like immediate. And so that's like, oh wow. Which by the way, for people listening, cause red light's gotten so popular. Um, the, there's a lot of red light panels out there that we use like one 10th or one fifth of the intensity that's, that you need, which means you're not getting like what they have in the studies, look at the intensity and the wavelength in the studies.

That's what you've used. Well, if you're not seeing any difference, that's probably, you know, your first, your first indication. Yeah. You're probably not using the right bulb. Look, if you like our show, I'm sure you've heard us talk about gut health. Gut health is very, very important. 70 to 80% of your immune system, for example, lives in your gut. This influences your mood, your skin, your energy, digestion. We even know how studies, we now have studies that even show that your gut health, or your microbiome in your gut, influences how much muscle you can build or fat you can lose.

And probiotic supplements can have a profoundly positive impact. The problem is there's a lot of probiotic supplements out there, not all of them are great. Well, there's a company called Seed. They're the world's leader in probiotic science. They have a delivery system that brings live bacteria, beneficial bacteria, directly where it needs to go. Other probiotic companies, they don't have it. It's patented. So if you wanna take probiotics, get the benefits of probiotics. The better gut health, better mood, better skin. You want better athletic performance, fat loss, muscle building.

All the wonderful things that the data is now showing can come from a healthy gut. And has also, the data's also shown, a good probiotic can benefit. Go to Seed, go to seed.com slash mindpump. Use the code 25mindpump, get 25% off. Back to the show. First question is from Amelia Eileen. Have you trained people with scoliosis? What kinds of general things have you recommended they do or do not do? This is actually one of the most common questions we get, is how do you work out with scoliosis?

So first off, you work out like someone who doesn't have scoliosis, but you also work out like someone with scoliosis. So let me explain what that means. So there's more unilateral training involved, but that does not mean you avoid bilateral training. So one of the mistakes that I made as a younger trainer when I got a client with scoliosis is I avoided bilateral exercises. Right, as if they weren't gonna be doing bilateral movements for the rest of their life. Yeah, because I was afraid of compensation.

But it's like, you have to have compensation. So the body works. Compensations will protect you. And so, you definitely should do, and it probably looks more like. It's like map symmetry. Yeah, so it's like, I would go 50-50, is what it would look like. Whereas with the average client, it looks more like 80-20, you know, bilateral to unilateral, unless I do a whole cycle of unilateral. But I'm doing a lot of unilateral work, so that's like one leg, one arm type of stuff. And then I'm still doing heavy bilateral exercise, within reason, with good technique and good form, because the real world involves bilateral stuff.

You're gonna lift things in both ways. Well, I would argue you just flip it 80-20. That's what would be my argument. That much? I mean, you could totally do that. Yeah, that's why I think. The point is, don't avoid bilateral. No, no, I literally think that this person, like, more generic answer, because we're not getting to ask more in-depth questions and get to, like, generic good answer, is like, you could follow symmetry indefinitely. Yeah, yeah. And like that. Because it's got a phase in there that's bilateral.

That's true. Yeah, and so that protocol, and two-thirds of it is, you know, isometrics and unilateral work. And then you go into bilateral for one-third of it. And I think you could just, you could just continually to run that program over, and it would serve you really well. Next question is from ESW Thomas. Can you guys explain how and why you would track and measure sodium intake? I keep hearing of bodybuilders limiting sodium, tracking it, even obsessing over it. Does sodium intake move the needle that much, and should we all be tracking it?

The only people that should track sodium are people who are told to track sodium by their doctor, or bodybuilders who are about to get on stage, they're walking in at 2% body fat, and if they hold any water at all, it could blur their definition. But the average person, you should worry about sodium zero. Literally zero. Unless your doctor tells you, there's zero reason to track sodium. The only thing I would say to add to that is that we talk about bumping your sodium if you have a whole food diet.

Right. And so, and I don't even think you need to track, I think you could take an electrolyte supplement, like LMNT. Perfect. Like you don't need to be like, oh, I need to be at this many milligrams, or something like that. It's like that will cover you, that'll make sure you're getting enough sodium to support your workouts if you're on a whole foods diet. Now if you eat out, you don't even need to worry about shit, because you're intaking probably quite a bit of sodium eating out, if you eat out on a regular basis.

But if you eat a predominantly all whole foods diet, and you're a healthy eater, then probably- And you work out. And you work out, then adding a supplement, that electrolyte supplement has value to it. But to the average person, and to Sal's point, unless a doctor is telling you to track that because you have some condition, no, it's not. If you're low carb or no carb, this is where it gets important to add sodium into your diet. It makes a big difference. So when you go no carbohydrate, and we won't even talk about why someone would do that, but let's just say that's you.

You're like, I like to go keto and go no carb. Your body flushes out a lot of water. This is why initially when people went low carb, they thought it was more effective at fat loss than a traditional diet because they would lose so much weight on the scale. But what they were losing was water. You just lose a ton of water. And so what people will feel going on a low carb or no carb diet is headaches sometimes, low energy. They'll say it's the keto flu.

But really what it is is your body's adjusting to all this less water. So bumping your sodium would definitely cure that. It would solve it. You could have a loss of performance and noticeably in your workouts and whatnot. So sometimes it does help to kind of bump and boost that back up. Next question is from Hannah Nadine Fitt. I'm in a season of recovery from my menstrual cycle and know I need to focus on fueling properly and less stress. However, it seems like everyone is on GLP-1s and trying to lose weight.

What's the best piece of advice to change my mindset around my goals and ignore what everybody else is doing because I know it just won't benefit me? Well, I'll tell you what, if your menstrual cycle is off and your hormones are off, it'll be really hard to hit your goals. So you got to fix that first. So if you're like, okay, I know I need to get my menstrual cycle back. I know it improved my health, but I also want to lose weight or I also want to become more fit.

There's an order of operation because not fixing that will make it very difficult for you to have meaningful results that'll stick around. It'll be very, very difficult. Hormone imbalances and issues with your menstrual cycle are red flags and it can make it hard. Your workouts will become far less effective. You won't be able to build as much strength or burn body fat, or in many cases you have to gain body fat to get that going again. So it's like health is underneath all of that. Poor health makes all the other stuff much more difficult.

So like if this question was, I got really bad gut health, but I also want to build muscle, like how do I focus, what do I focus on? Gut health. You got to fix your health first because through good health come the great results. Poor health- All systems work better. Makes it much more difficult. I want to add to that. If you're somebody who lost their menstrual cycle, normally what that is is you're malnutritioning and that's the reason why that is. Under eating and over training.

You could not be a worse person for GLP-1s. That's typically the case. So that's an even more, I mean you shouldn't be paying attention to what everybody else is doing for your health anyways, but to deter you even more from even considering that, you're a horrible candidate for a GLP-1 if we are coming off of just getting our menstrual cycle back because we did not, we weren't getting enough nutrition, or we were over trained, or most likely both. Like that's a recipe for that to happen again for sure.

Like it's hard to do, obviously you're not on a GLP-1 and it's hard to get the nutrients you need to have a regular cycle as it is. You've already proven that. If you get on a GLP-1, you will only exacerbate that situation. So terrible idea. Next question is from Bob Post Picks. What do you guys have in your home gym? What's your favorite item? And what's something you want to get? You have the most extensive one. I do now. I do now and it's a lot of fun.

For years and years and years and years, all I worked out with, when I owned my studio, I didn't go to gyms. I just worked out in my studio and I had a small personal training studio with minimal equipment, but we had good trainers there. And all I had, or all I ever used, was a squat rack, barbell, adjustable bench, dumbbells. That was it. That was all my training. If you get that for your home gym, you're missing nothing. What I mean by that is, because you can get in shape with just dumbbells too.

You can get in shape with just a suspension trainer too, or just body weight. You can still do that. But in terms of progressive overload and pushing things and getting really strong and would I benefit from going to a gym? If you just have those things, you're good. You really need nothing else. You just adjustable bench, barbell, squat rack, dumbbells, done. You can do everything you want. You can progressively overload as far as your weight will take you and you get phenomenal results. Do you think that the question is related to this person thinks they need to know what's necessary, or they're more curious to what they actually have?

I feel like they're more curious to what you have in your gym. For preferences, that's how I kind of read it. I have a foldable squat rack. I got dumbbells. What I wanted, what I thought would be cool, I also have a cable machine, but what I wanted was a belt squat, I think would be rad. Like a reverse hyper would be sick. But I have a torque sled as well, so that's something that I use quite often. I have Olympic rings I use, or TRX, but really that's about it alongside a bunch of bands.

But I mean, I'm pretty much, between that and kettlebells and dumbbells, I'm good. Yeah, what do you have now? Well, I'm building mine right now. What are you going to put in yours? So the things that I'm going to start off with is a squat rack and dumbbells and a bench and a treadmill. And barbell. Yeah, barbell, squat rack, dumbbells, and a bench, adjustable bench, and then a treadmill is what will be the first pieces. And then the next piece to come after that, because I'm limited in space, like I only have so much room that I have to do this.

And then I'm actually getting a hip thrust machine for my wife. So that's going to be in there. Oh, that's smart. Yeah, yeah. So I know that she loves the hip thrust, setting it up on the barbell, and the space, like that just can be- It just takes a little time. Yeah, and so having a specific machine for that, I know she would love that. I mean, part of me building this home gym is for her, so I want to put a piece in there that I think that she'd be excited about.

Then from there, I'll decide, I will absolutely have a suspension trainer. I use a suspension trainer a lot, actually. I would like a cable machine that'll take up a lot of space for where I'm at, so we'll see if I put a cable machine on there. I know they've come out with some pretty cool stuff that you can- Attachments. Yeah, attachments that you can put on the squat rack. I've used a couple now that I, like they used to be crappy. They've got some pretty good ones now that like they create resistance versus like, the old ones used to be like it attaches like a cable and you're pulling like a free weight and it just didn't feel cable-like to me.

The new ones have these like built-in springs and they actually- Oh, I've seen that. And they're pretty cool, and so I might do something like that on the squat rack so I can still, because I love cable stuff. There's a lot of cable stuff that I do, but I also have learned to use a suspension trainer to modify that if I don't have cable, so that's what we'll for sure do. So what I have now, and this is the most extensive home gym I've ever had.

I have the squat rack, barbell, I have all the dumbbells, adjustable bench. My squat rack has a cable that comes down so I could do lat pull downs, tricep press downs on it. I also have a hip thrust machine. I got that for Jessica. And a standing abduction machine, which I also got for Jessica. And then I also have, and I love this machine. I never saw it before. They didn't have it in gyms before, but now you're starting to see it. It's like a row machine, but you're leaning over.

It's on a track and you sit back on like a pad. So it's like a bent over barbell row machine on a track. And dude, the squeeze. So, and here's the thing. So I've been doing this for so long. I know you guys are like this. I know definitely you are, Adam, because you used a lot of machines when you were competing. I can look at a machine and know right away, that's going to be awesome. Like that's going to feel good. And I saw it online and I'd seen them in videos of people in gyms, but I didn't know they make a home gym version.

Like the Viking press for me, it's huge. That was huge. So I saw it and I ordered it. Oh man. The squeeze I get on that, it's like the best back machine ever. And then I have a preacher curl machine just because I like preacher curl machines. Every time I'm in a gym and there's one, it's like, this is what I like to do for biceps. Nobody else uses it. My wife doesn't touch it, but I have that. And that's pretty much it. And if I were to add, I'm trying to think, what would I add a calf machine?

Oh, a calf machine. Yeah, a standing calf machine or donkey. I love donkey calf machines, which take up a lot of space. Yeah. Unfortunately. That's what's hard about like the belt. Like belt squat would be awesome. I know. They're such big bulky machines, but they are so cool. It'd be sick, yeah. I've tried it and I've always wanted to kind of incorporate that, but. I mean, that's probably the most difficult part about a home gym for most people. I mean, maybe some people have giant square footages where they can build a huge, I mean, I wish I had a thousand square feet that I could just build out the most custom.

I don't have that. So I'm building a outdoor gym that I'll have minimal equipment. And so, and really for me, like to me at home, at least for me, like if I really want to do a lot of machines, a lot of cool stuff, I'll just go to the gym. You know, it's right up the road for me. But really the idea of the home gym is there's so many times where if I just have access to some basic stuff, I'll go over and do a few movements.

Yeah, 20 minutes. And that's how I'll use it. In fact, I plan when I get this gets done is I want to do it a little experiment of only training that way for a while, where I like try and sporadically just no format, no like program that I sit. Yes, throughout the day, go three sets of shoulder presses, walk away. You know, hours later after dinner, so I'll come back, go do three sets of squats. I'm gonna play around with training that way. And I'm super curious to see what that feels like.

If I built my home gym of my dreams, what it would have is it would be very nostalgic. So first off the dumbbells I would get, people think dumbbells, what's the difference? A lot of gyms have dumbbells where it's like a solid bell on each side. They last longer or whatever, but I grew up where dumbbells had plates, even though they were fixed, they had plates. And so I want those kinds of dumbbells. Yeah, so I want dumbbells with like plates on them that stack up.

I don't know why, but it'd be interesting to see if there's a difference in this. I can picture holding those. And I could just hold those. I don't know if it's nostalgic. I don't know if it makes a difference because the dumbbells I have now are solid because they were cheap and I could buy them. They're just solid. It just feels better. Balance wise and all that too. I think it does. So I would get that. Sound good. It sounds exactly And then I would get uh, I would scour the internet and I would buy Uh machines that they made in the 80s and 90s.

They're the best. Yeah, and they wouldn't have a you know They wouldn't pull over they would be chained fed Uh, you see you see that guy over in san francisco his gym's sick. We should we should yeah Do you do like a little I wish I had his handle so I could shout him out because this guy has done something That I know all three of us totally appreciate it. I would go visit it He's I know he's and you know, I think he's curated that over like yeah taking him time dude, yeah collect And then he's then he's reupholstered it to be all like color matched to his.

Yeah, I think that's a vibe dude Yeah, and I would that's a cool move 100. That's what I would do. It'd be very nostalgic I would have in my home gym a barbell that would just be for looks and it would be the old school bell You know one that you see in the like the the you know, the guys that turn a century Yeah would work out with i'd have just stuff in there just to make it see Yeah, i'd have like unconventional stuff, but then also would have like a big muay thai bag, you know in the corner So I could beat the hell on that thing Yeah, just get out some rage and then I would have the sickest sound system ever If you have a sick gym, yeah, you got to have a sick sound system But of course, you know what else I would want you ever seen the old school benches?

So then the stand-up ones. No, no, no old school benches You you almost had to have another person load the bar with you because the the Handles that held the barbell were inside your hands not on outside You ever seen those now for obvious reasons gyms don't do this because if you take a 45 off one side It's going to want to tip over but the old school barbell benches and I would do this just for nostalgia It's got the old it's got more of a narrow stance.

It's on the inside I can picture that because I remember that used to pinch my pinch get close to yeah, dude Yeah, and it's just pure nostalgia it's nothing it's really not it's not more functional no, dude just for fun Look, if you like the show come find us on instagram. It's mind pump media. We'll see you Thank you for listening to mind pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy And maximize your overall performance check out our discounted rgb super bundle at mindpumpmedia.com The rgb super bundle includes maps anabolic math performance and maps aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by sal adam and justin to Systematically transform the way your body looks feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos The rgb super bundle is like having sal adam and justin as your own personal trainers But at a fraction of the price the rgb super bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee And you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com If you enjoy this show Please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on itunes and by introducing mind pump to your friends and family We thank you for your support and until next time this is mind pump You Breathe in and reset with lincoln rejuvenate an available multi-sensory feature in the 2027 lincoln navigator suv Experience the luxurious massage visuals and sense to help you relax in the driver's seat.

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