 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, mind pump, with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, so we didn't really have any direction with this episode, so we just kind of went for it. We started by talking about six degrees of Kevin Bacon and popular dance. Seventh now. Movies. Podcast. Adam and Justin's fake ID, shenanigans, and how I basically didn't party that much when I was a teenager. Kind of boring. Dork! We'll talk about Justin's college and bartending experiences and things you can no longer get away with. Back in the day, we used to get away with a lot of things. Today, you just go to jail. We were animals. Yeah, we also talk about training your legs. There's a lot of, we get a lot of messages from men and women. A lot of myths around this one, man. Yeah, and people are like, you know, my legs just don't respond. I'm working out real hard. I'm getting real sore. So we talk about that in this episode, and then what we did is we actually created a guide just for you guys, right? This is a guide for people who want to develop their legs, and what we did in this guide, and it's free. There it is. As we uncovered the three biggest myths and what you can do, just three things you can change right now to get your legs to respond. Now it's free. If you go to mindpumpmedia.com, go to the programs tab under free resources. Click right there. You'll see skinny leg guide. Click on it, and you get it for free. We also talk about the gym industry and our history running health clubs. Oh, man. Yeah, fun. Ah, the good days. Story telling. Fun, fun episode. Also, get the NoBS six pack formula for free this month if you enroll in any maps bundle. Bundles are where we take multiple maps programs, put them together, and discount them 20% to 30% off. That is also found at mindpumpmedia.com. Footloose, kick up Sunday's shoes. Please, Louise, bro me off my knees. Oh, and you're doing the foot move. Jack, get back. Come on before we stack. I don't know. I thought you'd make up that last part. Yeah, I did. I love that movie, dude. Did you really? Oh, it's such a great movie. The funny is, you do love that movie because you're not a big, like you don't remember specifics about trivia, but you just did the exact footloose dance. Because when Footloose opens, the movie, and I guarantee you 90% of our audience is like, huh? That's because you're not old, OK? But anyway, when the movie starts, when the movie starts, the beginning is just feet in the intro, remember? It's that song that he's doing right there, and they're doing that. Yeah, there's all kinds of different foot moves. All the different sneakers. What a great Kevin Bacon. How about this? He's in everything. He really is in everything. Remember they created that, what's it called, seven degrees from Kevin Bacon? Yes. And then he keeps penetrating new markets, right? Whoa, OK. Have you ever tried to play that game before, where you try and think of an actor and you 100% can get connected to him within seven people? Somehow. Is that how it works? So the way science can be done? He used to not be involved in superhero movies, and then, of course, he made his way into X-Men. No. What did he do in X-Men? Remember he was that one in the earlier X-Men movie? I think it was a pre-equal X-Men movie, where he was like the guy that absorbed the energy and then pushed it back, had this nuclear power. No, I don't remember that. I don't remember his name. The way the, it's either six or seven degrees from Kevin Bacon, I don't remember what it is. But the way you do it, and you can do this, there's a whole website dedicated to this. You'd Google six degrees from Kevin Bacon. If you put in a name, think of an actor that for sure probably is never acted with Kevin Bacon. You put that name in, and within six people, it'll get to him. So he may have never acted with Kevin Bacon, but he's acted with Morgan Freeman. Morgan Freeman's acted with Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt's acted with so-and-so, who's then acted with. Oh, there it is. Oh, there it is. See? You know this movie ever did? It's six degrees. Six degrees. Wild things. Yeah, you don't need that seventh degree, apparently. You can connect right to Bacon through six degrees. Direct to Bacon. What is Wild Things? You don't remember Wild Things? I thought it was... I never watched that. What's the river one that he does? Oh, yeah, yeah. I love that movie, actually. That's a good movie. What's the river one? I have no idea. You know, now that we're talking about it, the 80s had a lot of, in the 70s, too, like dancing movies. You know what I mean? They're not that many anymore, are they? Yeah. Like the 70s had Saturday Night Fever. Sure there is. Now it's Stomp, Yard, and Step It Up. Yeah, we're talking about Step It Up. They're not popular. Like, what do you mean they're not popular? Dude, Saturday Night Fever was a phenomena. Right. Footloose was huge. I don't, I can't think of any, what are some other... I don't know. Dirty Dancing Massive. Yeah. What else is there that are dance movies? What are good dance movies? Grease. I don't know. Grease, great movie. What a great movie. Yeah, I can't think of any newer ones that are really big that are dancing. I think we just sound like a bunch of old people. I think we just don't watch dance movies. Stomp the Yard. I'll watch them all day. Don't they have like Chanham, Tainham, Dune Stuff? Those are all popular. Magic Mike. Do you think though that they're as big comparatively as Footloose and Saturday Night Fever? For the time, I think. I think so. Yeah, I think there's some... I don't think so. Really? No, dude, what's it called? What was that movie we just said with Patrick Swayze? Yeah, Dirty Dancing. Dirty Dancing was, and it's still, to this day, that shit stood the test of time. You will not find a woman, young woman, even young girls, even girls in their teens, if you say, oh, have you seen Dirty Dancing? Oh yeah, it makes me cry. Well, it wasn't the whole premise that dancing in some communities was like taboo, and it was like, and then they just did it to rebel. That's what that movie was like. So now it's like... People laugh at that. That's what that whole movie is about. It was a town, yeah, it was a town with a preacher. Much of Puritans. Who made dancing illegal because, you know, doing that... Now nothing's illegal. That'll definitely stop the kids from having sex. Okay, you wanna hear the 16... Listen, I'm gonna give you the 16 greatest all-time dance movies. Here it goes. And just so you know, in the top five are movies today. Yeah, but are these movies ranked in terms of the dance? Have time on popularity. That's what your value about the verses is. I literally Googled the thesis. Yeah. Top grossing? No, I didn't say grossing, it did most popular, right? So here you go, just listen to him. Dirty Dancing's number one. Okay, so your argument's fair there. There you go. Center stage. I don't even know what that is. Peter Gallagher? What is that? Yeah, that's all wrong. Center stage? Number three is black swan. Number four. Okay, that was true. That was good. Number four is step it up. Number five is you got served. Oh, you got served. Number six is strictly ballroom, back in 1992. Oh, flash dance. Seven is flash dance. Girls just wanna have fun as eight. Footloose is nine. Honey is 10. See, at least five of these are... Yeah, but those aren't... I don't think... Save the last dance. These are all... Which one was flash dance? Here you go. Your theory is just way out. I'm looking for top grossing. Not just like... I feel like that's somebody who's into dance who's like, these are the best dance movies ever. You might not have heard of some of them, but they're great. Like pop culture, like change. Yeah, like they actually change shit. Right. What the fuck does that mean? I don't know. Like fucking dirty dancing changed our fucking world. Oh, break-in. Remember break-in? Yeah. Break-in was awesome. 1984. Break-in, New York. Was it New York? I just wanna point out that you're fucking dead wrong on this, dude. There's more shows that are now... Most of them are from the 80s. I'm looking through these right now. Would you count House Party in there? You got the kid in play. You got Serves, Step Up, Black Swan. All those movies are all... Step it up. Those are all now. They actually put Coyote Ugly in this list I'm looking at. Staying Alive was good, too. Do you guys remember Staying Alive? You guys didn't watch that, I bet you. You didn't, huh? Did you watch Saturday Night Fever? Yeah, I watched Saturday Night Fever. So Staying Alive was part two. And what happens with John Travolta... So John Travolta's character in Staying Alive is gonna give you a little breakdown. You watched part two. That's commitment. Well, let's see here. Italian dude gets lots of chicks. Yeah, first time I saw this. There's bell bottoms. First time I ever saw Saturday Night Fever, which by the way, that movie was before I was born. But the first time I watched it, I was 13, 14. So I was in that tender age of awkwardness where you just wanna identify with something. Did you ever grow out of that? Yeah, in that really high voice. You're just drawn to it. No, I'm still there. I look out of here, but who's my wolf? Exactly. So I was home from school one day sick and I'm flipping through the channels and there's Saturday Night Fever and it's fuckin' John Travolta and he's just a bad ass. And I'm like, I feel like I'm John Travolta right now. And so after that... I can do that jump-split kick thing. Yeah, that's when I started wearing less. Yeah, and then I started wearing leather jackets and shit like that. Cause I'm like, pfft, I'm a New York Italian. How about the best dance? Dude who can dance? How about the best dance scene? I think you should have stuck with Rocky. Like the single best dancing. Cause that's where I could see dirty dancing is up there with that. Really? Single best dancing. It's not that good if you watch it again today though. It was, you know what I mean? Have you? I haven't watched it in years. It's like this like little arm shuffle and then like point thing and... No, no, he's talking about, he's talking about... Dirty dancing. Oh, dirty dancing. How about risky business when Tom Cruise, that dancing's pretty sick. Every boy slid into his room on wood floor and socks and half naked and danced on his couch with your little tidy whiteies. Tell me you did not do that at least once. What, am I? No, what's nice is when you see a girl do that. That's great. Oh, can I just... Yeah, that's the hardest thing ever. Can we just talk about that for a second? Sexiest thing ever. Girl who wears your shirt, nothing else. You know what I mean? We're just long enough. I got a tall sock. You gotta bring that back. You like girls with tall socks? I do. Yeah, me too. Tall socks and little shorts or no shorts. Oh man. Thank you. Damn it. My girlfriend wears that shit. Does she? She's not wearing that around. Fuck that. He has a bunch of fucking animals in here. Hey, did you guys... Woo! God damn it. I'm off to go see JT tonight, dude. I actually haven't seen him. No way. Yeah, I've passed on him like three times. You're bringing sexy back. Yeah, that's how we are. You know what? Justin Timberlake. I called him up, said, hey, can I get some seats? I got you. Oh, wow. He's gonna be on the show later, right? It's like that. Maybe. God damn it, I can't count on you. Justin Timberlake. Justin Timberlake is the real deal, man. And you know what? I really started liking him. I hate him on him, dude. Me, too. You know, I can just curly-ass... He had my girlfriend. Come on, man. Brittany. Yeah, dude. He banged her before you. Yeah. You know what I like about? Just jealous. You know what I like about him? What I really started liking him when he was on... When he started doing comedy, like on... Yeah. Dude, I... That's when I was like, no. Dick in the box is what changed my whole perspective on him. I hated him. I think it's the change in my life. 100%. No, yeah. Dick in the box changed my life. Pivotal moment. I seriously didn't listen to any of his music. I hated on him because he was in a boy band first and then he was dating the fucking girl that I had to crush on. Totally hated. When he did Dick in the box, changed my whole album up. This guy's fucking cool. If you can make fun of yourself like that and do something hilarious like that and then after that, I've always been a fan. Have you raised your hand if you've ever done the Dick in the box thing as your girl? Just me? Wow. I thought I was gonna get everybody to raise their hand. Like, for real? I was like, this is a good idea. You literally cut, you know, a little hole. No, I didn't do it. Well, I think I am. When we were in high school, there was this big lineman and he had a big old slum, right? He had a what? He had a big slung, right? He had one of those limp dicks that were still like seven inches limp, you know? How'd you know? He was just to show everybody? Well, in the party, he just threw it on the table. No, he put it on a hot dog bun and put ketchup and mustard in it. No, he didn't. Yes, and he walked around. No, he didn't. You've actually seen something do that? Yes. Why? That was in Bachelor Party. Remember that movie with Tom Hanks? Oh, no, it was. I didn't know that was in a movie. He had like a nine-inch dog. That happened in my real life. He actually put condiments on his own? Yes, he put his dick in the bun. He put ketchup and mustard on it. What a savage. He walked around the party asking people they wanted a hot dog. Oh my God. Did he have other hot dogs at least to kind of distract from the one? No, things that wouldn't fly today. Go to jail today. Back then it was like, he's so funny. I like relish on mine. Don't you guys remember like high school party tricks like that? People would do weird crazy shit. No, no, no, no, no. No, Adam. Yeah. No. I expect that from you, Jesse. Were there girls at the party? Well, there was guys that would just take their fucking pants off. Ah! I did that. But usually it wasn't impressive. You know what I mean? I wonder if this is like repressed sexual energy with teenage boys or anything. For sure. Yeah. We're like, ah! I'm gonna show my body my... Or it was like a dare or something, you know? They're just like, get too drunk. We're like, yeah, I'll take, I'll put my thing in a bun. We used to do... I remember when we were in a Hawaii trip, right? We just graduated with high school and there was like 10 of us guys. You went to Hawaii for high school? I thought you were poor. I was. How the hell did you do that? Well, I would buy high school. I was making money, remember? Oh yeah, you were working. Yeah. Damn! That's cool, man. It was only 600 bucks, right? But that was 600 bucks was a lot of money for a kid. You must have tripped out traveling like that. Was that the first time you ever did a big trip like that? You know what? And now that you say that, it might have been... So how funny is it? It's crazy how much we fly today. I just take that for granted when I was a kid that I never flew anywhere. I flew one time when I was really young. My mom flew us to Utah right after my father passed. So that was at seven years old. And then you know what, Sal? I think the next time that I flew anywhere was to Hawaii. Fuck, man, that's crazy. Wow, and you did it yourself. Yeah, with a bunch of high school buddies. You should be proud of yourself. So anyway, tell us about this trip. So we got... So we're all underage, right? So we get to Hawaii. When you get to Hawaii as a high school kid. And this is like teachers and shit are there? No, we went through with one of those, you know, like Invasion or one of those companies that puts on like that they do this all over. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys have heard of these? Yes, I have. It's like a high school trip or whatever. It's kind of like a bit of your chaperone. Yeah, but it isn't just for high school. It's actually for like out of high school. Like you have to be... Well, you don't have to be 18. Because if you're under 18, you have to get approval from your parents. If you're over 18, you can go. But it's typically like the 17 to 21 year old range. Like that's you that go on these trips. And they do Cancun, they do Hawaii, they do like Jamaica and I think like a Florida trip. Or like they do like fine. And then yeah, they have like these supposedly chaperones, but they're like 25 year olds. It's like a bunch of 25 year olds that are partying with 17 and 21 year olds. So yeah, we went on this trip. And as soon as you got off the plane, there was like people coming up to you and handing you these little cards for you to get fake IDs. And so we went and got our, everyone went and got your fake IDs and it's so funny. God, I've never told this story on the show. Yeah, you just reminded me of something funny, right? So how great is this? So there's 10 of us and we all go get these fake IDs. Now mind you, these fake IDs I think cost us like a hundred bucks. So trip party costs a lot of money. I think each of us kids maybe have two or $300 tops. Maybe if you're one of the rich kids to spend for a whole week, right? And we spend the first half of it on fucking fake IDs because of course we got our priorities straight. So, you know, and you're hella nervous and scared. You're when you're that age doing something like that because you know it's illegal, right? This is illegal, it's wrong. So, you know, we all wait in this line. It's like this back alley place. You're like, is this a trap? Oh, totally. We're all like gonna watch in like each other's backs. Like, is this, is, you know, someone else going through there? They're okay, okay, we can do this. So we do it, right? And we all... It's totally the McLovin one. Oh, hilarious, right? So and you have choices like, I think Oregon, Colorado, Virginia. There's like, there's Washington. There's like 10 states that have like, back then had cheesy IDs that were easy to make fake. You know California, you're not getting a California fake ID. These are like, they're just busting these fuckers out, right? So we all like go pick our own different, which is stupid too that we pick different states and we're all friends, right? So that was already a stupid... Like we're all like, oh, I did Oregon. Oh, I did Washington. Hey man, we're pen pals. And we're all hanging out together, right? That wasn't very smart. So that was the first stupid thing we did. And then we all, so we're all sitting around, and we're all sitting around our hotel room and we're looking at our cards and each guy's going around like, oh, I'm from Virginia and I'm from, you know, what, one, two, three, butthole street. And like we did all these like stupid names too. Like, yeah, stupid, right? And everyone's such a bad player. Everyone's going around, right? And they're talking about where they're from, their street name and then how old they made themselves. You know, some guys made themselves 25, some guys 23, right? And we get around, it's my best friend, Justin. He'll love this if he's listening. And he's like, oh, I'm from Oregon, this and that. And he's like, and you see him start counting with his fingers. Fuck, I made myself 20. He's like, cause it was that year. He made a fake, he was fake ID that didn't work. So he didn't do the math right. So that year in October is when his birthday is and here we are in, it's June or July or whatever month it is right in summer. And he made himself turning 21 on his real birthday. So he put his October birthday on there and he did the math wrong and he was like, fuck, I'm only 20. I don't turn 21 until October. Oh my God. His weed fucking died. It was the funniest year. Did they work though? Did you end up using them to go drink? Oh yeah, yeah, no. They worked even when we came back to. So then you used them here. Yeah, when we came back as kids, I used that. I had a Virginia ID. That was what bought my alcohol as a. Yeah, I had a Nevada one. Did you? It was like, yeah. You had a fake ID? It was hilarious because it was like, you know the skin tone was, you know how wide I am, right? Yeah, it's visible. So it was like, I had like, it was like a guy that kinda sorta like, he had like a nose kind of like mine but like he was like visibly Indian. He was not, he was not a white person. He was not a white person by any means. And I don't remember his name. It wasn't like, you know, it wasn't super ethnic but it was like, I don't know how the, like I went to one bar and I, and I, and she knew. She knew, she gave me that look like, really? But she liked me and I just like, would just keep paying her for drinks and like giving her tips and stuff. So she just let me like stay at this one bar. It didn't work anywhere else. But yeah. So you didn't have a fake ID? Never. How did you get alcohol as a young kid? I looked old. Oh, really? Yeah, dude. Bro, did you have to shoulder tap or anything? No, I, you know, and you know, I didn't go out, I didn't go to a lot of bars. Did you do any of that stuff? Not really. The main bar I went, remember. It's very important to building character. You gotta remember this. I was just working, hard managing gyms. You gotta remember it. Listen. Keep that in mind. I was 19 and 20 when I was, when I was having these big gyms as my first. What about it? Like 16, what about 16, 17, 18? No, no, no, no. Were you not drinking? No, I know I wasn't drinking at all. That's when I was doing heroin. So I wasn't, I wasn't, yeah. I wasn't in that. You scared all the basics away. How can you be that productive? I didn't, I didn't do anything. I didn't drink alcohol at all. Barely anyone I was at that age at all. I might have tried it here and there, but I never really got drunk. I think the first time I ever got drunk, I was 18 and that's because my, at the time, my general manager, who's a good friend of my mentor, thanks buddy. He brings some alcohol to the club and it's like 11 o'clock at night and we start doing shots and this is one of the many lessons I had with alcohol where I learned, you gotta give it a second, but it hits you first. You know what I mean? Cause I'm just- So your first time, your first experience of getting drunk was like with shots. With work and- Yeah. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like not even beer, you went straight to hard alcohol. So when you were in high school, did you not go to high school parties? No, not really. I mean, we threw some here and there, but not really. I wonder, high school was very memorable for you. Yeah. It was boring. No shit. So what did you do on the weekends when all the cool kids went to a party and stuff? On the weekends, I was working out, reading, learning. Look how much it's paid off now. There you go. I know. So you put the work in. We could have another, one of you guys here. We could have played those assholes. Yeah. That's what we were talking about. No, but no, I didn't do any of that stuff at all. Wow. Do you ever look back and feel like, especially because you and I both didn't finish college either. So do you ever feel like you kind of missed out on that? You know, I used to think of that, but you know, it's because TV and movies glamorizes the college life so much that you see like, oh fuck, I wish it was part of a fraternity and it would have been so crazy. No, the reality is if I went to college, I would have had to go to junior college first because I didn't have the money. Then I would have gone to state college. I probably would have lived at home. It would have been an extension of high school. It would have been, that was my experience. You know what I'm saying? That's how I was at college. But when you watch the movies and shit, you're like, I feel like I missed out. And then I did, I got married real young, you know? But I did have a stint where before I got married, I moved down to Palm Springs area because I bought a large share of a large club down there. And I was down there for almost a year. And that was, that's why I did a lot of party down there. Because how old are you at that point? I was 20, 21, 20 or 21, 21. And so I moved down there and that was the first time moving out of the house. And I mean, but I still worked my ass off. It was crazy. We would get to work at 8 a.m. We'd work till 10 p.m. Then we'd party till two or three and then just rinse and repeat. And I don't know how I did it. I don't know how the energy to do it. Did you have, was that the only phase or time in your life where you felt like you probably kind of were just like crazy working hours, drinking party and were you doing that a lot? Or was it just like a little bit? I mean, compared to how I, you know, did things before, even now, like even now if I wanna, if I had all the time in the world to party, I would still not do it very often because I find it's more enjoyable when you kind of save it and do it when you feel good. And then, you know, take care of your body, feel good and then do it again rather than, there were definitely periods of time where I'd party, party, party, but then you start to feel shitty. So I still, I still kind of, what's the word, titrate it. So I definitely titrate it still to this day. And I did it back then too. Wow, dude. Yeah, yeah. I feel like those were some good times for me. College was that big, yeah. Well, you actually went to a good college though and you played sports too. Yeah. I mean, it was like, I mean, it's overrated. You can party and not go to college. I mean, it's really not the place to like, spend a bunch of money and waste your time partying, but it did help to kind of get that out of my system. I think that I needed a little bit of- What do you think was your favorite part of going to college and your least favorite part of going to college? My favorite part was just being independent and having no responsibilities and figuring shit out and figuring out who I was. Well, you had a responsibility to go to class and you had to fucking- He's comparing it to now. Kind of. Dude, that was not like you just, I mean, you kind of rolled into class. Yeah, but when you're, then I bet you didn't think that way, right? Like when you're a kid, you think this is like, you got, oh, fucking homework is so daunting. I gotta do all this shit. I mean, it was like when I was full-time, when I was like in season for football, it was tough because it was just time management, you know, like it was, they consumed pretty much the majority of my day, like in the morning and at night. So it's like everything in between was just studying. And then I actually even squeezed in, you know, maybe like four or five hours working at the bar. So I was just like a fucking, I just, that was where I really learned time management. And so that definitely, as far as like a life skill, totally applied, you know, from then on out. When you were at the bar, were you like a bar back? Were you actually a bartender? Yeah, I was, first I was a server, then I was a bar back, then I was a bartender. You actually did, how long did you do bartending for? Just like maybe a year and a half. So I was still a decent amount of time. Yeah, we just, and we just did like cocktails, like we did a martini, so it was like a martini bar. And so it was like a set order of maybe like 12 or 16 types of drinks. Do you get flirted with a lot of the bartenders? I was just gonna ask, if do you think that this is, do you think you're, you know, talking to girl skills where it got developed was there? Oh, massively increased there, for sure. Yeah. Cause it, you're in a position of just like power. Yeah. I mean, I want to say that, but like they, they're sitting there trying to like drum up conversation with you at the same, so it makes it easy. Cause you're just like, you just have small talk and then, you know, they hang out and they get more drinks in them. They feel more courageous to like ask you like really off the wall questions and, you know. So I got used to like, are you wearing any underwear? Yeah, exactly. Like they would flirt, like the flirting would start, but then it would escalate. It was a real question, Sal. You know? They'd say that to him. They do, you know what? Cause he's got all the drinks and stuff like that. You know, girls go in there, flirt. Of course, dude. Hopefully they get some free shit. They want free stuff and on it. So, yeah, that, I'm sure that contributed. And then, you know, it was interesting cause I used to have these guys come in that were from an Audi dealership and I befriended them and everything. I had no idea that they had all these like mafia ties and everything. So I was like, you know, it's met a lot of interesting people and interesting characters. And like I had mentioned a long time ago, like I was terrible at small talk. I was just like, I had my friends and that was it. And like, if you're another person, I just would give you like, you know, real like short answers for it. Did you sleep with girls at the bar or was that like, not okay to do that? Like in the bar? Like, on location? Yeah, yeah, like literally on location. There was a lot of shenanigans going on. I have buddies, bro. I have buddies that are. I know he is skirting to questions. That's why I'm asking him. I have buddies that are bartenders still to this day bartenders. And yeah, that's that happens, dude. It does. There's, there's happens in Jim's too. There was this one booth. It was like a booth 54, I think. Whoa. That was the one that Emery's. Don't bring the black light. You don't, yeah, you don't want that in there. You don't want to sit there. So it happens. It happens in gyms too, dude. I'm guarantee you guys have caught people having sex in the gym. Oh yeah. You have, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. Cycle room. You know, at the Hillsdale, there's that, there's a way you can get up, like up to the roof and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I caught, I caught. So my on the roof, bro. So I didn't know that. God, man. This like one of the, there are situations where, you know, you have an employee and you like them, but they make a stupid mistake. And you're like, God, you know, I have to talk to you about this stupid thing. It was the fitness manager that worked, that worked for me. I'm not gonna say his name because I know those people from 24 that listen and we'll know who I'm talking about. But he, one of my other staff members went up to the roof to get something, comes back down. They're like, hey, so-and-so's up there with a girl. And I'm like, what do you mean with a girl? You know, like he's having sex. Like, oh, he's training in things. He's training his client up there. Yeah. And I'm like, what are you doing, dude? So, fresh air. That's what I would tell Sal if he was the boss and he came and caught me up there. I'd be like, oh no, no, we're just doing burpees up here. Yeah, we're doing burpees. Getting some vitamin D. So I had to talk to him. I was so angry with him. He comes in my office and I sat him down. I'm like, listen, dude, I'm like, I'm like, I'm not mad at you for what you did. I'm like, I'm mad because you got caught. You're dumb. Why would you do it there, you idiot? Find a better player. I was like so angry that he got caught doing something so stupid like that. Yeah. So angry. That's the only time actually I caught somebody. When did you, have you, I wanna hear some stories. Well, I had trainers that I busted that in the way I found, I actually didn't catch them in the act, but it was happening on such a regular basis that they had created like this little mini bedroom. So back. What? Yeah. So at Santa Teresa, if you go into the cycling room. That's where it was. Yeah. If you go into the cycling room, you can go backing around like where these, this like little fenced off gate that wraps around this corner and it opens up to a room almost the size of this room right here and they had sectioned off. They had just put like these false walls up and it didn't look, if you just looked at first glance, if you walked around the corner and peered it, you couldn't tell. It just looked like shit was back there. But if you walked all the way through and then you walked past this little partitioned wall that they kind of put up, there was like this little bedroom that they had you, they took a bunch of mats that had been laying around and they had made a mat. Oh, dude. So you walked back there and you saw this and you knew what it was. Oh yeah. I knew right away what it was. Did you know who it was? I had ideas, but I wasn't for sure. So I, So I set up a hidden camera one of the front desk girls and one of the sales guys in there. Yeah. Yeah, no, it was the spot, right? I was like, wow. I made it clear to my staff. Continue, I'm out of here. So to my trainers and stuff like that, I was very clear that like, don't let me catch you back there with somebody. I don't know who set that up. I don't know who's going back there with there. That it's obvious what that's back there for. So do not let me catch you doing that. But yeah, no, that was someone, something that was going on. Yeah, gyms are interesting environments. They're, it's very. It's a lot of energy. It's rated, it's rated. It's either it's, it's always one or two with hospitals. Yeah. For well, cause you got kids at hospital. Wow. Hold on a second hospital. So you work in gyms, your wife works in hospitals. I know, right? And we're both professionals. You found each other. You found each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, God. And I think of some of the stuff we did back then and I wouldn't be able, there's no way you'd be able to get away with some of this shit. Like, you know, one of the first things I did as a, as manager of Sunnyvale, you want to hear a funny story, which for sure, no HR department in the world would have allowed me to continue working there after I did. There's no way. But I get there and it was on a weekend. There's a right when I was given this, this flagship club. And I pop in on a weekend when I'm supposed to have these guys running the weekend for me. And I liked, I used to, especially when I first run a gym, I wouldn't tell them I would do this, but I used to work every day. They didn't know that. So I'd pop in on the weekend to see what's going on. I walk in and like, where's my sales? Where's my sales staff? Can't find them. So I'm looking around, can't find them. And at the old Sunnyvale, I don't know how it is now, but the sales offices were up at the, there was a, you had to go up some stairs. So it was like another floor. And then you could go up onto the roof. There was like this little door. So I walk out to the roof and there's my sales guys and they're all smoking weed. So they look at me like, oh fuck. So I look at them and I kind of nodded my head, walked back inside and locked the door. Oh yeah. And out they stayed on the roof all day. All day long. And they were, and so members were coming in and they were like, Hey, there's some guys on the roof telling us to like call the fire department. Cause it was a hot and shit up there. I'm like, no, they're going to stay up there till later on. You know, when I let them in, I let them in. I said, don't come back. Go home. You know, it's bullshit is that we live in, we live in an era now that you couldn't punish your staff like that. I think that's a great way to punish them. Oh yeah. They learned something that day. It reminds me of the duct taping the phone to the ear. Don't do that. I mean, it's like, you know, you're not going to make your calls today. I'm going to fucking duct tape that shit to your head. But it was so old school. But the environment like allowed that, I guess. And you, I don't know, you develop a certain kind of respect. And it's old, it's old school. There's no way you could get away with some of that shit. Well, I'm, I'm watching, I'm watching Katrina's company. So she works for a huge, you know, construction company or concrete company, but they do everything and they do all the major Facebook, Google the big campuses and watching her go through this growth transition of, they were kind of like the good old boys. Like literally, you know, they've got thousands of employees. Majority of them were all men construction workers. There's, you know, everybody has tequila or whiskey in the drawers. You know what I'm saying? It's very like mad men style. And like the shit that, the way you talk is like super inappropriate. And a bunch of sailors. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? If, if an employee is like messing around or not doing work, like they'll just in front of everybody, just talk shit to them. You know what I'm saying? Like it's just stuff that you cannot do anymore. And she, they're, you know, they're trying to go more corporate and she's a part of that wave coming through. And it reminds me of that wave in, in 24 because we were there before and then I was there also after and it's a crazy transition to be a part of that. Dude, I saw my general manager when I first, when I first was working in this business, I saw him throw a calculator, like a ninja star into the wall. Like he was, he was stuck. Yeah, because, because we had a bad day in sales. And so he was ripping everybody. And this, this guy's a good friend of mine still to this day. He was known for that shit. Like you piss him off and like you wanted it. You were scared. And he just hammered everybody in the office and then takes the calculator and whips it and throws it like a ninja star inside the wall. You would not be able to get away with that nowadays. No way in hell, but back then that was the, that was the environment. See, even in like athletics, like, so I had certain coaches that would get fiery, you know, and like they want to use motivation and certain tactics to kind of like, you know, get everybody's attention. And I guarantee you can't do a lot of stuff that I experienced, you know, back in the day with a bunch of coaches at one time. One time like we had just had a shit poor performance and you know, he was just trying to make an example and decided to take one of the tables and just pick it up and fucking slam it into the wall and it shattered like all over the place. And then just was like, and like punched a hole in the wall and walked out and we were all like, ah, like I was so scared, dude. I was like right in the front row. I had no idea he was going to do that. Like didn't say much of anything. He was just like, is that how you guys want to do it? No, by the time I became a manager, it had died down quite a bit, but still it was way different than what you would see now. But I mean, I would do like the bottom, like the last place sales guy tomorrow has to wear balloons all day. I would do something like that where I'd take balloons and I'd tie them to your pants and that's it. Because you're last place, you get to walk around the gym now with balloons underpants if you like. Or, you know, we'd make a big competition to bet and whoever loses, you have to go put on women's apparel and then you have to sell women's apparel. And you can only take off the women's apparel if you sell $100 of women's apparel. That's amazing. And you know what, it was fun. Everybody enjoyed it, but I don't, you would never. No, of course. You would never. Super offensive. Yeah, you would never get away with that kind of shit. And you know, and sometimes, and you know, as a manager, what I would do is when people would give me grief over and be like, oh man, I don't want to do that. Are you for reals or are you sure? I would do it with them. Because I'd show them, it's not that big of a deal and I'd put on a sports bra and I'd walk around the gym and sell women's apparel. Not the first time. Speaking of women's apparel and your booty shorts that you're wearing right now, dude, your legs are sexy, huh? No, you're actually, your legs look like they're growing. They are growing. Are they? Yeah, but you know, my upper legs tend to respond pretty well to working out. But it's partially because early on, I think I identified with my legs more so than anything that frequency where your quads blow up usually, huh? Huge, yeah. But you know, when I first started working out, my legs were so skinny that my knees were bigger than my legs. So I had like, basically picture a femur attaching to the bottom part of the leg. That's what they look like. And I learned how to squat early on from these power lifters and I gained something like 13 or 14 pounds over a summer. Got stretch marks on my ass and everything from it. But you know, you see a lot of guys struggling with this. You see a lot of guys struggling with this. Legs is a, I mean, some people have, again, we always talk about how genetics are always the first, right? Like some people just have, I remember kids in high, there was kids in high school that didn't even train correctly and they just had tree trunk legs. You know, we had a running back kid who just had these tree trunks and then like happened. I was always the kid with these twig legs. And man, when I would train my legs, it would just, I would get dizzy and nauseous. And it took so much for me to try and get these things to stimulate and get any sort of response. What was the first thing that you did that got them to respond at all? Like did they respond at all when you first started? Cause I mean, you sure? Not really, to be honest with you. Like they didn't, I mean, very, very little. Like I was doing, I wasn't doing squatting. I wasn't squatting. I was leg pressing. Was leg pressing, leg extensions, leg curls. I mean, that was like the go to three for sure, for years. And the only thing that we would change with that is, you know, maybe throwing in some lunges in there or adding weight or adding more sets, you know, of those major, those three major exercises. And that was like literally all we would do to try and get our legs to grow. You know, when you think about it with a leg press, and you know, I know the leg press in not anymore. It's not like this anymore, but when, when we were into, into working out, especially in the nineties and early 2000s, the leg press was considered like the one of the top mass builders for your legs. And in fact, there was a lot of debate back there. You won't see this debate anymore. It's not really a debate anymore, but back then it was a debate. You would actually read muscle magazines and it would say which one is better for leg mass, squats or leg press. And they would try to make the argument. But if you really deconstruct the leg, the reason why I think people like the leg press, you can use a lot of weight. That's easy. Yeah, the leverage. And let's be honest, the range of motion on a leg press is shit. Even with the good leg press, it's not a deep range of motion. If you do go deep, that's bad news. Oh, people don't know that either. With a leg press, if your low back comes off a little bit at the bottom of the rep, which it does for most people when they're going deep on it, you are, you are putting yourself in a bad situation. Super vulnerable. Yes, super. I've seen more slip discs from leg presses like that. I think it's still, I mean, at least with my peers in the men's physique world and shit like that, it's still a fucking dominant exercise. I always come in the gym and I see my boys and I'm like, God, you guys, stacking up 15 plates on the leg press. It's just a short range of motion, though. It's not even close to a squat. There's so many different squat variations that you can do with a quarter of that weight that are gonna give you so much more leg to... And I didn't know this either, though. I didn't know. You know what I'm saying? You correlate the burning and the pump and everything from the leg press, that you feel to I must be growing. I mean, that was, as a kid, when I was first learning to lift and train, the burn and the soreness was what I... That's your metrics. Yeah, that was all your metrics. I was like, oh, that was a good workout. Oh, I've got to be hopefully getting bigger and stronger because I'm sore, right? So that was like how you figured out. And we just, we would hammer the shit of the leg press, hammer the shit of the leg extensions and get a little sore from it. I saw very, very little growth. And when we started squatting, it wasn't until I was late 20s, late 20s before I started to squat. And even when I started to squat, it still wasn't a regular thing for me because my mechanics were really bad. And my mechanics... It's a skill. It is. All of it is a skill. You said something on the last couple of episodes ago, Justin, I made a post about it and started to cut you off at him. I want to make this point that some, a long time ago, somehow we started viewing exercise as just you got to breathe hard, you got to sweat and you got to get sore. And it really doesn't matter what you're doing necessarily, as long as you get sore and you sweat and whatever. And that's how people judge the workout. And we don't judge any other physical activity that way. There's no sport that's like, I don't go play any sport and come back and don't talk about any of my technique or skill and just say, oh, I got sore. I had a good day at soccer. You know what I mean? Like with resistance training, we stopped training it like a skill and just started treating it like a get sore and sweat. And that's where a lot of the problems come from because if you treat it like a skill, like imagine Adam, had you treated exercise as a skill from day one, imagine your progress. Oh yeah. You know? Well, I see now what, I mean, and my legs actually respond pretty well now. Like I used to think that I was... You're balanced now, definitely. I used to think I was this really hard gainer and I was just, was never gonna have these legs because I would crush my legs, it'd be sore for a week and then I'd hit them again. It was just like, if I remember at one point, getting to a point where I was just like, this fucking sucks because I feel like this workout, I destroy myself in to get like, and I'm still being teased by having these skinny, I'm not, they're not growing really. They're not, they're not responding the way I want. And then if I would do movements like a squat, my low back would be on fire. My low back would hurt like crazy. And so I just kind of wrote that movement off completely. I just said, oh, fuck it, I'll just continue to leg press and do that. And to add insult to injury, there's articles that say things like, if you're tall, squats probably aren't for you and they make you feel like, okay, I guess I shouldn't. Well, no, that's exactly, if anybody, and that was kind of like my chip that I had on my shoulder, if someone like, if there was anybody who knew that squatting was good would say something to him, I'm like, hey, you're also 5'5' bro. Try being 6'3' and squatting and seeing, because it is, I mean, you have longer levers and there is more room for air mechanically. And so, you know, it was challenging and it took me a while to, I mean, it took this, I don't think my squat got really good until just recently. I mean, it wasn't until we started Mind Pump, did I really start to really work on my squatting and deadlift mechanics. And I mean, now it's nuts. Like some, and now what I do, which is awesome that I have this tool in my belt that I just always had, but didn't realize, never used it, which is I'll come to the gym some days and I'll just squat five to 10 sets and that's all I'll do. And that is like, and man, I can maintain, my legs right now are bigger right now than they ever have been in my entire life. I mean, they were bigger when I was competing because I'm not quite to that size right now, but my legs overall are bigger than they've ever been in my life. And I really don't have to hammer the fuck out of them. I just do movements that really give me a big bang for my buck. I'll come in and just the last time I trained legs was Bulgarian squats. That's it, you know, just doing some Bulgarian split squats or front squats or, you know, back squats or deadlifts. Like those movements develop the legs so much that you don't got a fricking crazy hammer yourself. I think part of the reason why is the, is that when you do them right, it's the range of motion. It's a long range of motion that you can't really get as well with machines. And there's other reasons as to why they're successful. Well with machines you can, it's leverage and you can cheat so much. Something's sitting on your back. You don't really have to stabilize it as much. You don't have to stabilize and you can cheat. You can leverage. You can let, you can, when you're leg pressing, what are you doing? You grab the handles, you bear down. You know what I'm saying? Your back is supported and pressed against it and all that's driving is your legs out and you're only going maybe half- You have crutches the whole way. Yeah, it's not, you're not having to work as hard. And just cause you get a pump or a burn a little bit, you think, oh, it's working really well. But if you knew that it was probably, I don't know, I'm just gonna throw a number out there, I'd say it's 50% less effective. Yeah. You know, maybe more. Maybe more, yeah. It's interesting cause I was, I was trying to think about that as you're talking about when you first squatted. And for me, I was actually fortunate because in our high school, we had a class that was a weightlifting class. And just at the same time, I was doing morning workouts with the football team. And so, you know, of course, I just wanted to, you know, do something that was related to working out and exercising. And so I was in this class at the same time. And so what was cool about it was, it wasn't like an actual workout, it was like going through all the mechanics of everything. And so I had a college strength conditioning coach that came down to our high school and he just taught like, he was a PE teacher that also taught like weight training. And so he like instilled like really fucking good mechanics with me. And I never even really like realized that because I just practice, practice, practice those moves all the time, wished he would have taught me deadlift. Never taught me deadlift, but he definitely taught me like overhead press and he taught me like power cleans. But yeah, that was like such an impactful thing. If I wouldn't have had that, like it would have taken me, you know, years to build off. It was my secret weapon for a long time as a personal trainer because with women, with women in particular, you know, everybody likes to have strong muscular legs, but you know, women really try to target their lower body. And they have forever since I've been in fitness. It's always been guys like to work out their arms, women like to work out the legs. And it was my secret weapon. I'd get a female client and she'd be like, oh, my legs just don't respond. My butt is this or my, you know, they don't look good. And they'd be like, I knew it right away, but cool, we're gonna squat. We're gonna do lunges. We're gonna do front squats. We're gonna do deadlifts. That's the funny thing. And they never did those. And all of a sudden it was like, their legs responded. See, I put that together for my clients. How funny is that? Like I figured that out early on in my early 20s. Like that, like I was, I used to call myself like the glute guy, you know, before fucking Breck and Charis came out. I was like, I was the glute guy for sure. Should trademarked it. And I was known for that in our gym as being the guy who can help. And my secret was like all the squat and squat variations. Like that's, I train and a lot of women didn't squat and I teach, I would teach the squat and they would look, their legs would look incredible. Their ass would look incredible from in. And everybody else were doing these stupid kickback exercises. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. They're telling you that these are the movements we need to do. And it was, but it's so funny that I taught that. I knew how important it was because I saw the results of my clients, but then I didn't make it a priority of me and I used the excuses for me. Oh, it hurt my back or oh, whatever. Like I always had these reasons why I'm not squatting. Instead of going, okay, this is really challenging for me. I need to, I need to treat it like you said, like a skill. I need to get good at it and figure out why I'm not. I wish I would have went down that path because I mean, God, I have no idea where I'd be at now or how much easier it would be to maintain my legs. It's also, it's range of motion. Range of motion is a big one. Another game changer for me a long time ago. And luckily, because I was into the history of muscle building is I would buy these books and magazines that were old, that would have old exercises that had fallen out of favor. And one of those was the Sissy squat. And a Sissy squat is a very knee flexion and extension heavy movement. And, you know, flexion and extension is basically like a leg extension when you sit in a chair. But a Sissy squat, you're doing it standing. But the thing about a Sissy squat that I really liked was the stretch is I would do it at the end of my workout while my legs were pumped. And when you get to the bottom of a Sissy squat, if you're strong enough, you can get a deep stretch in the quads and then you come up and squeeze and- You feel the whole quad. Yeah, and I noticed with exercise, this is true for the whole body. When you're working out the body, especially for hypertrophy purposes, there are movements where the maximum load is being placed on the contraction of the muscle. And then there's movements where you get a good stretch. And then there's movements where you get neither of those when they're kind of in the middle. And those tend to be the heavy movements, like a squat. Like there's no real stretch or heavy contraction with the squat. You do get a little both, but it's not like all the weight is on that. Like you would with a, you know, like if I did a fly, right? You get a big, deep stretch. It's a mid-ranging movement. But if I want to get a stretch on my quads, sissy squat, I can't think of any other exercise that kind of does that. And if I want to get a squeeze on my quads, well, then I can do that with almost any exercise, but leg extension tends to be there. And when you include exercises that kind of hit all of those, you get better results. So hamstrings was another one. Hamstrings, you know, we were taught like leg curls. That's all you did for hamstrings, leg curls, leg curls, leg curls. Well, the first time I did a stiff leg at deadlift, I had never felt my hamstrings like that, ever. And when you look at the mechanics, the biomechanics of the hamstring and what function they do, hip extension is more important than knee flexion. Now it does do both, but you know, you're gonna get big ass hamstrings from just doing, you know, heavy hip extension type movements like a stiff, and you're getting that stretch, right? A lot of the load is in the stretch. Now my hamstrings always got developed really well. And I never, I almost never did leg curls. It was all deadlifts and stiff-legged deadlifts. It seems more applicable, you know, like to function. It is. Well, remember when I told the story about like deadlifting and then going back to the seated row? Yeah. Remember that? Yeah, yeah. So I had the same experience with deadlifting going back to leg curls. So again, I told you leg curls, leg extensions, leg press, those were like very staple exercises for years for me. And leg curls, I mean, my hamstrings have always been very, very weak, even all the years of doing leg curl machine. And I don't remember where I was at, but maybe it's like 70, 80 pounds on the leg curl or something like that. Like that would be enough to get me really sore and was tough. And I remember when, you know, I started deadlifting. I completely eliminated leg curls. I just stopped doing it. I got so into deadlifting. And some of this happened when we first started, you know, training and getting together. And I started deadlifting like crazy. And I remember looking back and it was same type timeframe or so. And I was like, you know what? I haven't seated row in a while. You know what? I haven't leg curled in a while, let's go see, you know. And again, because I hadn't done it in a long time, I thought I was gonna get on the machine and I thought that I'd have to start like half the weight. And of course I was expecting that, of course, I haven't been doing this exact movement. So I'm probably not gonna be as strong. And man, I remember being able to do like double the weight. I mean, I spent years incrementally moving up 10 pounds on that machine. And I remember doubling it just from deadlifting and not having been incorporating that. And I thought, holy shit, that was, and I wasn't even, this is not even stiff like a deadlift. This is conventional deadlifting. Conventional deadlifting did so much for my hamstrings that it blew away all the work that I had been putting for years into that machine. That fucking blew my mind. This is why it's so important to not pigeonhole yourself or put yourself in a box when it comes to, when it comes to training. It reminds me a lot of, you know, when I was doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu, this was probably 10 maybe, it's gotta be at least 10 years now that I stopped training. But back then, 10 years ago, you know, I got up to a purple belt level, which is a relatively high level. After that, it's brown and black. And one thing that I would do to give myself an advantage over the other people in my classes was I would go on YouTube and I would look up other grappling arts that were not Brazilian jiu-jitsu and I would look at some of their techniques. And there was a lot of carryover. You'd see a lot of techniques that they all did, but then you'd see techniques that you didn't see in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. So I'd look up catch wrestling. Catch wrestling had all these neck cranks and all these wrist manipulations and all these different ways to apply submissions. Then I'd look at Samba, which is a Russian form of, it's kind of like judo, but with leg locks. Kind of similar, right? So then I'd look at Samba and I'd see all these different kind of heel hooks and, you know, calf crushers and knee crushers and knee bars and rolling knee lock, all these different moves. And then I'd go to jiu-jitsu class and I'd throw them on people and because they'd never seen them before because they were stuck in jiu-jitsu land, I would get these submissions and then they'd ask me, where'd you learn that? And I'd be like, oh, fuck, that's a, you know, I learned that from, you know, Josh Barnett catch wrestling or I learned that from and I'd buy these old books and stuff. So I treated jiu-jitsu a little bit like I treated resistance training. Well, when it comes to resistance training, you know, most people that work out in gyms today are not, most people are not training for particular specific sport. Most people want to improve the way their body looks. So most people, I could safely say, and I'm sure you guys will agree with me, are really interested in hypertrophy of their muscle and maybe speed up the metabolism and get leaner. So they just want to be able to sculpt and shape their body. That's the vast majority of people at Lefoy. It's just a reality, right? And so what they do is they look at, they put themselves in the box of hypertrophy and sculpting, which tends to be bodybuilding, tends to be bodybuilding techniques. Well, that's, you are missing out. What you should do is look at all the different disciplines of resistance training, all the different strength sports and then look at the exercises that are most valued within those sports. There's a reason why they have a lot of value. So CrossFit did this. CrossFit took the best exercises for a lot of the best exercises from different modalities and put it in their training. And then they blew up and people got great, you know, hypertrophy results from it as well. In fact, I would hear people say, oh shit, I got a bed, I developed a better body doing CrossFit than I did doing bodybuilding. Now the reality is they were doing shitty bodybuilding and then they did something that was a little bit more with better exercises. So it wasn't necessary, but it was just that they were trying more effective exercises. So I'm learning this right now. Like I keep learning this lesson. Like I'm doing Zercher squats, heavy farmer walks, you know, bent presses. These are movements that strong men tend to value. Like a Zercher squat for a strong man is... It's a staple movement. It's a staple movement because, you know, if you go to squat strongman competitions, they're lifting Atlas stones and shit in their arms. And so they have to be able to front load weight with their arms and then still be able to squat or deadlift, which is different than a straight arm deadlift or a front squat. Front loading is so underrated and that's something that's so applicable for any kind of sport in general too. Real life too. Yeah, real life. Like that's why, I mean, going through any program that I did, thankfully a lot of the coaches, you know, were receptive to that. And so we did a lot of front squats. We did a lot of power cleans. And so lots of driving forces in front because, you know, you're on the forefoot of your foot and you're in certain positions where you have to squat down, but like really you have to be responsive. So you can't be back on your heel. So, I mean, there's, it's all specific, right? So if you want to train, you can improve, you know, performance wise, you can improve, you know, muscular wise. So that was one of the things like I had to learn then to activate my posterior chain and like go through that process, you know, after sports, more effective. Well, that's, and that's, that's my point. Like why, why are some of these movements so valued in these other resistance training disciplines? Well, it's because those disciplines have identified the most effective exercises. So you don't need to learn all the Olympic lifting lifts. You don't need to learn all the, you know, power lifting techniques. You don't need to learn all the kettlebell techniques or all the club or mace training techniques or all the bodybuilding techniques. Just look at, you know, you know your favorite stuff, but then look at these other sports or these other disciplines. Find the movements that they find, that they value the most. Apply those to your workout and watch your body respond because again, I'm learning this with like a zersher squat. I never did zersher squats consistently. I threw them in here and there, but I never did them consistently. I'm getting now up to a point where I can zersher squat with three plates, which when I first did zersher squats, which is maybe six weeks ago. So we're six to eight weeks ago. So two months max, two months max. I was doing this with 135, 165 pounds. Not that much weight. I had to learn it. Now I'm doing 315. What do you think's happened to my body in that period of time, right? It's responding. So learn these movements that, and again, I did this early with some of the old school strength training exercises because at the time, you're talking about the nineties and early 2000s. If you wanted to work out your legs and build your legs, everybody, all the bodybuilding magazine said, hack squat on a machine, leg press, leg extension, leg curl, maybe a back squat. And that's pretty much it. I'm reading these old strength training books in manuals that from the fifties and sixties and some of them from even before. And what are they saying? Back squat, front squat, hack squat with the barbell, sissy squats. I'm looking at all these movements and I started implementing those and my legs just fucking blew up. They responded and there's wisdom. There's a lot of wisdom in that kind of stuff. What do you think it is that, I mean causes people to just to rebuke all those types of movements? They're hard and they require a lot of skill. That's 100%. And what I mean by hard is I don't necessarily mean they're hard. Like they make you sweat and all that stuff because you can do that with a lot of movement. I can take somebody and I can make them sweat and puke with no equipment whatsoever. And I could have them just do some burpees or whatever. If they're hard in the sense that they're hard to do because they require a lot of skill. There's a lot more risk involved too because it could get away from you if you don't have the proper mechanics and you have to really learn how to stabilize your body and keep certain positions tight and have isometric contraction at the same time. If fitness went mainstream, that's what happened. Gems used to be places where people who knew how to fucking work out went. That's what it was. If you didn't know how to work out, you didn't go to a gym. No, that's a good point. That's like if you compare it to any other sport or anything like that, you go to a basketball court because you like to play basketball and you know how to play basketball. You wouldn't go to some well-known park that all the players go to and play and show up and try and play with them if you've never played before. Yeah, you get dunked. Right, but when you think about it, that's kind of what we see right now as you see these commercial gyms that want everybody to come. So they make it all easy. Yeah, they make it. That's what they did. And it was the machines. It was really... They go because they have to be there. It was the machine revolution because initially machines were created, some of the first machines in gyms were made by the gym owners. So like Joe Gold of Gold's Gym, you know, he made machines. You had some other, you know, Jacqueline made his, so Arthur Jones of Nautilus, she was one of the first like commercial machine makers. 24 hour fitness, which is the, I mean, let's be plain, 100%, this is the truth. They are the guys that, they're the ones that created the industry. They really, or at least, they're the ones that made it super profitable or taught everybody. They created the commercial gym model. They're the ones that, I don't know if they didn't invent it because there were other models that were out there, but they were, they're the trailblazers. Yeah, but they're the ones that were memorable. They're a Microsoft for tech, you know what I mean? They're the first ones to fucking make it happen. And 24 hour fitness wasn't called 24 hour fitness when it first started. It was called 24 hour Nautilus. And that's because it partnered with Nautilus equipment and it had a bunch of Nautilus equipment in their gyms. And that's what they did. And that's how you got people to come into your gym who never worked out before. Otherwise what are you gonna do? You're gonna have a bunch of people coming in without a bunch. Otherwise you'd have to invest in a lot of trainers. But imagine if you opened up a gym with a bunch of squat racks and a bunch of old school shit and then you just let people do their own stuff. When did that light bulb go off for you when you realized that this was how this gym was made? In other words, like, wow, this really wasn't designed to get people the best. This whole gym is not even designed to get people the best results. It's really just to accommodate everybody so everybody would come in. I knew that really early on. Oh, you did. Yeah, because. I remember when the switch went off for me, but it wasn't for at least, that's about year four for me. Yeah, everything is all safety driven. No, it was early on for me because at a young age, a couple times I had my dad drive me to a powerhouse gym or like one of these old school bodybuilding gyms. And I remember I'd walk in and I'd be like, this is way. And yes, there were lots of machines and stuff, but the environment was different. There was people using chalk, especially powerhouse. I don't know if you guys remember powerhouse back in the day. That was an iron dungeon. And then I'd go to 20 for our fitness and you could still have an exit. You have similar equipment. You can make your workout happen. It was just a totally different environment. And then I remember it being like, okay, there's a little bit of a difference here. And then of course, I worked in the gym at the age of 18. And I knew, we got to make this attractive to people. I mean, let's be honest, of all the shit into the gym, the stuff that's gonna give people the best results, the best short-term and long-term results is the dumbbells and barbells, period. Where was all the money spent in the gym? Cardio. Cardio and machines. Cardio and then second was machines. It's like casinos. Where's all the money and casinos and slot machines? Third classes. Yeah, that's it, in classes. That's true. Like I said, it's just like casinos are all slot machines. They're scared. They don't know what the fuck they're doing. It didn't go off for me until I remember. Like you have rows of cardio. Rows of cardio. Were you there all the way till two? Yeah, I think you were there for, when I was at Hillsdale, I think you were at Santa Teresa. So I think you were there for this. Maybe you remember this. You might've been gone by then. But for me, the light bulb went off when I started to notice how the company followed trends. And our gym would start to shape or change or we would offer something because there's competitors out there that were doing something that I knew damn well was trendy and not really getting people results, for example. Circuit training. Yes. When curves, and this is what did it for me, was when curves was exploding and was starting to take business from 24 hour fitness, I remember we brought out the express zone. Oh yeah. And the express zone was basically a curves inside of our gym where we had 12. You should explain curves for people who don't know. Yeah, so if you don't know what curves is, it's, well first of all, it's one of the largest, fastest growing fitness chains in the world ever. And it was targeted towards women and it was supposed to be built as a non-intimidating environment. It was like 20 or 30 minute workout. Yes, it was a 20, 30 minute workout. It was a circle of machines. So they had it set up to where it was this bit. There was no mirrors in there. There was music playing, a little scale inside there and then a series of about 12, 15, maybe 20 machines in a big circle. And it was designed to, you take these classes and you just go from machine to machine to machine to machine for 20 minutes. And then you're done. And then you're done. And it was exploding, man. People were opening them up everywhere. And I remember- I almost bought one. I was starting to cut into revenue from our business. And so, but I remember being the guy understanding what they were doing and how they were marketing to people and knowing that it was bullshit and knowing that like, this is not really helping these people. It's literally just playing into their insecurities and giving them what they want. And I remember I lost a lot of respect for us when we, not only did we, because it's one thing to offer it, which I'm all for, right? Offering it as like, you know, if you love curves and you like that maybe here we have it here, you have these machines if you wanna start with that and then hopefully we can then convert them over to lifting weights and doing things like they should. But they put a lot of pressure on us managers at that time to push it. You know, to push it and to train people and to teach it. One of the dumbest ideas that I ever did. Oh, I remember. One of the big, big flops of 24-hour fitness. Oh, it was a really tough thing for- Huge waste of money for them. I don't even think it did do anything for them. No, it did terrible. It did terrible. It did terrible and- Just following along with the people complaining because somebody would be there. You see what they're doing now, right? So you're seeing all gyms now doing this. So not just to knock on two-four. I mean, everybody's doing it. They're just trying to compete its business. So I understand. But you know, now CrossFit is cutting into all these commercial gyms. And so what are you seeing at all these commercial gyms now? Look at Gold's is converted to. Look at 24, American Barba. They're all starting to provide these kind of unconventional layouts that allow people who love CrossFit and to train that way they can do their CrossFit-type workouts inside these commercial gyms. You have these monkey climbing racks and stuff. And like platforms or- They actually have tire flipping machines. Have you seen them? Yeah, yeah. That tire flipping machine. Yeah. Have you seen this, Justin? It's a half tire. It flips this way, flips that way. It's a half tire. And you can adjust the weight too. So it's like a 200 or a 40. Now, here's the thing. That's so lame. Here's the thing. And this is what made me angry too about 24 hour fitness is, and I really do hope. And by the way, I have so much love for them because that's where I learned everything. So I know I'm hammering on them right now, but they also taught me quite a bit. But 24 hour fitness used to be the trend setter. And at some point they became the trend follower. Oh, such a fucking great plan. And that got on my fucking nerves because here's the thing. There's nothing wrong with following a trend if it's legit. So like the functional training trend with the grass field and sleds and stuff like that. I don't mind that because there's real benefit to that. People are gonna get real benefit. But the reason why they're doing is they're following someone else. The curves trend, that was fucking stupid. And anybody in fitness who understood fitness, all they had to do, and I wish companies would do this. I wish 24 hour fitness did this back then. Just ask your fitness people. Stop asking your marketers. Ask your fitness trainers. Hey, trainers, do you think we should do this? Do you think people will get better results? Are you gonna be on board? And every trainer would be like, no, that's stupid. And then if you see that, you know it would have been a waste of money. But they followed that stupid circuit training trend with machines which are already in the gym. Someone wants to do a circuit. They could fucking do a circuit with it. They're already there. No, they had to organize them a particular way, put express zone over it, and then tell everybody to do. So stupid, big waste of time and money. Dude, don't you see that though with any big monument business? Like they just get like so big where they get into this trap where now they're just trying to find other things to include even though they led the way, they innovated. And then it's like innovation, once you get to a certain size, I always tend to see like companies, it's really hard to maintain that innovative edge. Well, because you switch priorities, that's why. Because now you're trying to feed into your shareholders and everybody else. It's because they took their finger off the pulse of fitness. That's it. Fitness at its core is about getting people better results, making them healthier, stronger, creating community because gyms are about community. Always have been since day one, otherwise you work out by yourself. But if you go to a gym, one of the big benefits is, or pluses that a lot of gyms forgot, and again CrossFit capitalized on, is the community, keep your finger on the pulse and you'll be ahead of the curve all day long. Take your finger off the pulse and you're fucked. And that's again, one of the things that they did. Like they looked at the fitness model, took their finger off the pulse and what did they say? We have 400 locations. We've got more gyms than anybody. All we need to do is put the prices up on the wall, charge less than everybody, and we'll take all the members and we'll put everybody out of business. Err, wrong. That's not what fitness is all about. Well, it's partially wrong. And that drove the price of all gym memberships down to the point now where a 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 square foot gym will cost you 20 bucks a month. That's not a very good business model, if you ask me. Back when I was managing gyms in 1999, 24-hour fitness was charging $45 a month and people were paying that shit. Today, you couldn't charge 45 bucks a month for that kind of a membership? Well, I think most of them, I mean, and I saw this, I was actually doing cardio this weekend in 24-hour fitness. I don't go there that often. And I see they're making the move into the virtual world for sure. So they have a very interactive app. Oh, interesting. And I haven't dove all the way through it. I just kind of downloaded, looked at it and I was watching the TVs up when I was doing cardio and kind of paying attention to its features and everything it does. But they're moving that, they have to though. I mean, I think that it's what, I mean, personally what I saw, fuck it's now. I mean, we've been doing this for almost four years. I left two years before that. I mean, I saw it like six, seven years ago. I remember kind of like evaluating our fitness business and going, man, you know, I see all these other companies and I see what's happening in tech and I kind of see how so much has changed and evolved. And really the fitness game really hadn't evolved and changed. I mean, and this was before CrossFit, right? This is like, you know, when I was seeing this happen, I was like, man, we really have been doing kind of the same thing, the same gym model. 24-hour fitness really has led the way, like as far as like how you do, how you do business. And I had been working because no one else had came out and done a better model, but I really think that, you know, it's gonna be tough for some of these commercial gyms to hang with the future of how health and fitness will be done. It feels like they're starting to get back on track a little bit. I've been meeting more trainers that work at 24 and people that work there and stuff. And if, am I wrong, Adam? I don't know, are you still pretty connected? Yeah, I'm still pretty connected. I feel like they're starting to move in a good direction. Well, what they did was- They've been moving in that direction? What they did really, a big mistake they made about six, seven years ago was, or maybe even longer now, was thinking that, and you briefly mentioned it, that people could just put a price up there and then people would buy. And that could, I think in fitness, that is, couldn't be further from the truth because of all things that you sell, it's one of the only businesses. It's the only one I can think of off the top of my head that you're selling something that's not tangible. Every other sales business that you do, It's a dream. You walk away with something in your hand. You get something for spending thousands of dollars. Well, when people buy fucking a trainer or buy fitness, you walk away with nothing. They're buying work. Yeah, exactly, they're buying more work, more discipline, more sacrifice that they have to do. So I think it takes a very talented person who not only can communicate that to another person, but then also motivate and inspire them to follow through that goal. And so I think they made a huge mistake when they started to devalue the value of people that have the art of communication that could communicate very well and that were talented in sales. And they thought, oh, we could just pay these guys half the money and just get me, just provide them. We just automate this. Yeah, automate it, make it so easy. And so I think that happened. I see them trying to get back to some old ways as far as teaching sales and things like that, but I don't know, man, it looks really, I mean, we'll find out because I don't know if I told you guys this already or not, but you know, I've got Brianna, she's reached out to I think five or six of the CEOs of some of the biggest fitness franchises and companies. Oh, I'd love to talk to them. And I've been wanting some fun conversations. Yeah, I know, I really, I mean, because I mean- The one on the top of my list would be Mark Mastroff. Would love to talk to Mark. And I still think he's, I mean, he's the godfather. Well, he's actually, he's less on my list just because I already love and respect him and what he's doing and what he's done. I actually want to talk to like, you know, Planet Fitness, the current 24 hour fitness person right now, LA Fitness, these are some of the crunch like- Great glassman. I want to talk to, yeah, that would be a great one. I would love that. I would like to talk to some of these guys and just kind of hear where they are going currently right now, where they see the future of fitness because you know, I'm staying my own land. I haven't been in that space in a long time. I'm not talking to the CEO and I'm a firm believer in like, you know, when you're somebody at the bottom and you just get the trickle down effect, you think you know everything that's going on. It's just like politics. Like, you know, there's a lot of, there could be a lot of moves that, you know, when you're moving a ship that big, it's not like a, oh, hey, the market's going this way. We should go this way all of a sudden. You got to slowly turn the ship. And so I'd like to talk to some of these CEOs and see if they actually see the riding on the wall and if they're already making moves to move in that direction. So I think it'd be a really interesting conversation for us to have on the show. Yeah, I'd like to see, I'd love to talk to them because it's an interesting time. When, especially when it comes to gyms, there's the competition is far, it's different now. What I see exploding a lot more are small, small facilities, small type specialized types of gyms. You know, that started happening about 10 years ago where I would see, you know, yoga studio, Pilates studio, you know, circuit training studio, like people started working out in these places versus the big impersonal type, you know, health club. So it brings the community back. Well, the key would be how to... They lost that a bit with the, you know, commercial setting. Well, here's the thing, like the gyms that I ran had that vibe in them and they were massive. Yeah, of course. The staff creates that. Like really, here's the thing, like, yes, gyms have equipment, yes, they got to have like cool stuff and amenities. I get all that. But the staff makes such a tremendous difference. Yeah, but it's tough to build that culture when you've created a culture where you're finding less talented people to run these facilities because you're putting less effort or emphasis on people with... And paying them with actual talent. Yeah, with talent and that actually are good at developing these other leaders or creating that culture inside a facility. So that's why these small boxes, because I see a lot of these small boxes having success and they're really not that good of leaders themselves either, it's just that when you only have a hundred something members, it's pretty easy to create some sort of a community, like Justin's saying, with that few of people. It's inevitable if there's only a hundred people that go to this CrossFit gym that at one time, you're probably gonna end up meeting every member. They're like, do the work for you. Right, exactly. They come in, hey, Sally, you know, hey, John. That's exactly what I see right now. And I mean, I was a part of this at Orange Theory. Now, I was at Orange Theory for two years and the two years that I was there, we were the number one facility in the entire company. And I knew why, you know, I knew that we had created an incredible culture inside that facility. But I also knew that a lot of people that were there and that were running it, didn't really fully understand that. They kind of understood it, but they didn't really understand. They took it for granted. Yeah, they took it for granted. And, you know, I left that place and I know they're not the number one anymore. I don't know where they're at now, but a lot of these guys that have these small facilities, like you said, Justin, they have, the members are already meeting each other and interactive and it's small enough and quaint enough that it kind of naturally creates an environment like that. And that's why like, you know, the real challenge is, can you take something that small and can you scale it to what Sal's talking about? A big facility, because there's so many moving parts with that. You're probably not gonna meet every member of a place that big. And so how do you make it feel like cheers or how do you give it that type of an environment with that large of a building? It takes some real talent to do that. No, the boxes need to figure out how to increase the value of what they're doing because the market has changed so much now to where if a person walks into a 30,000-square-foot, 24-hour fitness, anything over 20-something dollars and now, you know, a month, they're gonna be like, oh my God, that's so expensive. That same person will spend five times as much on a cell phone bill or five times as much on going to the movies every month or whatever. So it's really not the money. It isn't. 50 bucks a month, most people can afford. It's just that they don't see the value in it anymore because it's been so devalued. Yeah, people are inherently lazy. They need to change the conversation. They need to change, because I'll tell you something right now. If you were spending 150 bucks a month but you were going to a place three days a week you enjoyed going to, you really loved the atmosphere, you also got fit and healthy from it. That would be $150. You would never take out of your budget. That would always be, boom, 150 bucks a month for the gym. And 150 bucks for a gym membership is to sound super frickin' expensive. But if you create that kind of value, people will spend it. So they need to change the conversation a little bit and that's gonna be a tough one. That's tough, because it's easy to go down in price, real hard to go back up. And once, now that they've done that, it's gonna be a little bit of an uphill battle. I mean, I really think the future is what we're building right here, because if you were to partner, like let's say we were to partner with like a 24 hour fitness, what we're building virtually is perfect to compliment a company like that to where your members now have all these resources of all these different programs based off of what of their goals are. And even to the point where we have Prime, Prime Pro or the assessment piece. I mean, a lot of when we first started this is been modeled after the gym. It's like, we just basically have created or we're creating a virtual gym in a sense. I mean, our community are the people that are listening right now. This is our community. Our way of building value with our community is by providing content and value for their lives on a regular basis to the point where they feel, oh my God, I'll buy any program you guys put out because of how much value you provide from us. So there's our culture, you know? And there's- You bring up a good point. Do, are there any big gym organizations that are connected to like influential, powerful social media or podcasts or anything like that? Well, I think 24 is gonna move that way. You think so? That would be smart. Didn't they do something with Lewis House? They did. He's on their app and I saw him on the TV when I was inside there too. I thought, oh, there's our buddy right there. Send him over a text message. He says, hey dude. See, you know what would be cool? And this is just me racking my brain with that idea. Like a company like that would be smart. Like these forms that we've created, this really tight knit community, this is literally like our gym. Like we've already created a gym of mind pumpers, like pump heads and having that same, you could foster a very similar community like that and manage it just from your gym and have everybody communicate. They just have to have direction. They have to have, everybody has to be in line and have one purpose and goal and then have everybody help each other out. That's interesting. Well look, check it out. If you go to your app store, you can get the Mind Pump Media app and then you can search specific topics among all of our 750 plus episodes. So if you wanna look up fat loss, if you wanna look up creatine, if you wanna look up muscle building, fasting, whatever, you just type it in the search function. It'll pull up all the episodes where we cover that particular topic. And the best part about that app, it's absolutely free. Go get it. 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 Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maths Anabolic, Maths Performance, and Maths 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 Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle 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.