 I'm here with my good friend Tanner and today we're going to talk about how style affects confidence in the gym So I'm here with my good friend Tanner who runs masculine style. You are my style coach I am and I wanted to talk a little bit about Style in the weight room and specifically how it affects confidence You know we we talk a lot about you know people are crazy about the music They listen to right in the weight room if they're going for a big PR or a big lift They want a specific thing to hear that they think about the atmosphere around them They want an atmosphere where maybe there's people watching or clapping or cheering them on like workout partners all of that stuff We give a lot of thought to but we often don't think about the impact that style has or our clothing Specifically has on our confidence and therefore our performance in the weight room. How does that? Apply to us. Yeah, I think that one of the big mistakes that a lot of people make especially men tend to make is the association or the assumption that my style really only has an impact on the way that other people perceive me and It's really easy when it comes to You know going through a good like prep routine before you try and do a squat PR that you get under the bar The right way or you get your you know you get your your pumping music on or something else like that It's easy for us to understand that the real purpose of that is to get you really present in the moment and clothing Has that exact same effect as well. And so that should be your primary purpose when you think about your clothing is How can I dress in a way that it it makes it so that I'm very present in what it is that I'm doing that Maybe so that I feel like I'm performing for other people or at least that I'm not feeling self-conscious about what I'm wearing You can't totally omit the fact that other people have an opinion and you will you will have that kind of bleed Into your brain a little bit, but even more so than that because even if you I mean I've got a garage gym I work out at home. Yeah, and even just the ritual of putting on like these are my gym clothes Or this is what I wear to do this versus what I wear to do that is different and if you if you challenge that idea I mean go try instead of PR wearing jeans and a sport coat That's how me that it doesn't affect your ability to just mentally be present and feel like you're you're ready to go in And do the work. Yeah, absolutely actually vice versa One of the things I've learned from you is that I don't wear my gym clothes on my business zoom calls anymore either I dress like the CEO of the company that I am and so so for me Figuring out what I need to wear to make me feel more present in the moment first is really important And then there is a piece of this where I don't want to feel silly or our viewers don't want to feel silly By whoever else is present in the room now. That's not primary for us for me I'm training in the garage or I'm training in my in my home gym with my wife who I've been with for almost 30 years She doesn't really care about the way I look and yet I've noticed that like I try to wear gym clothes that she Compliments me on when I wear them and she does the same for me like she knows that there are certain outfits I'm like you look great today And we're the only audience that we have and so both we feel good about what we're wearing and therefore We feel like we're ready to perform more present in the moment, but I also feel like This person who's watching me this person who I actually love and care about their opinion of me Not the stranger in the gym who I don't know it all and I'll never see again Right that I also am being able to do something for them where they're like man They look really good while they're performing the lift so there is a little bit of that is secondary for me as well Yeah, it's not to say that it doesn't exist I mean you have to be a complete sociopath to say that Nobody's opinion of me matters and it doesn't affect my self-perception or my ability to perform or anything Yeah, so absolutely, but it's secondary instead of primary. Yeah, that's great So do you have suggestions specifically about? The way we think about the clothes we wear for performance, so not just the presence of or the or the the sort of Culturally atmosphere the way it sets me in my mindset But how certain things like for example all think about things like I don't want to wear baggy shorts When I squat that are going to inhibit right the depth of my squat I don't want to wear slick t-shirts on a bench press where I'm gonna slide down the bench Have you thought about that much and then and then trying to figure out sometimes those things that are the most functional are Often not the most stylish. They're trying to find the combination between the two. I think it's really important Well, yeah, so basically what you're getting at is the idea that you have two different purposes You have function and you have form that's right And sometimes it can feel like they're mutually exclusive most of the time that they're not that's right I have to do a little bit dig her deep ink and so function obviously with something as physical as what we're doing in the gym is Huge again trying to deadlift in a three-piece suit does not gonna work It doesn't work from a form perspective, and it absolutely doesn't work from a function perspective And so you have to be able to find and wear things that are going to work in that regard And I think one of the things that's so fascinating about this is you look at even just the different barbell Disciplines where you look at the way bodybuilders dress versus the way CrossFit athletes do which is different than how powerlifters do You get all of these little things that they start off and they're rooted in function And then from there they start to expand and kind of extrapolate into form where maybe colors get introduced or the cuts are a little bit Different and the materials may breathe a little bit differently or something else And so I would say that's when you start to move into the form component of it is What is it again that is going to make you feel the most confident and competent in the environment in which you find yourself? Because you can dress like a cross-fitter in a powerlifting gym and you're gonna feel some level of self-consciousness That's right you don't belong in the environment Or if you're not totally killing it with your physique and you're wearing all the latest like most height beast Athletic bodybuilder gear and it's there's a dissonance between what your clothing says and what your body says that Creates this self-consciousness and so it's being able to really just pay attention to and calibrate Yeah, again, functionally. What is my clothing do you but then from a form perspective? What is it? That's going to make me feel present. What is it? That's going to make me feel like I'm I'm sending the right signals to other people and to myself so that I can be there And I can actually focus on the task at hand Yeah, instead of always having these little things in the back Oh, like she's looking at me this way or this dude's laughing behind my back or I don't really care But you spend all this time convincing yourself. You don't care. That's where all your mental energy goes And that's right if you get it dialed That all disappears. Yeah, and you just get a focus on the job. Yeah, that's great I really like that. I like too that you actually talked about like the idea There is a there is a concept to of dressing for who you want to be but you can take that too far Right, so you can go like look if you are a completely out of shape beginner You don't have the v-taper of a bodybuilder, but you decide to wear the super short shorts or the zoo bass pants and the String tank top. Yes, but but you've got the extra side boob coming out Like maybe maybe you could take one step in that direction and so a little more form-fitting clothes Like for me, I remember back in the you know when I was a poor college kid I would I would just take an old t-shirt cut the sleeves off and wear an old t-shirt But like and I still have honestly I still I have those some of those are in storage as sort of memories of what I used to look like you've injected all this meaning and similar amount But now I like to dress in a way that is it's form-fitting It's typhooning, you know in my shoulders and my and my arms my chest It's got enough drape in the waist the shorts are not Bunchy or in a way that's going to inhibit any of the lifting the shoes that I wear are you know So I'll wear tennis shoes when I bench press I'll wear squat shoes when I squatter deadlift or or press and so or knee sleeves when they're Appropriate and even things for me like making sure that the colors coordinate between the shoes the knee sleeves the belt the shorts And again, some people aren't gonna care, but for me that I'm a little bit OCD that if I get too many colors that are That are contrasting in a way that sort of makes me feel weird Then I'm actually thinking about how ridiculous right and so you're paying attention to that instead of the lift And I want to be present so even for me in the music I've talked about this on the on the podcast a couple weeks ago I don't I've lifted for so long that I don't come up with a new song to pump me up for every single PR song People that have watched my videos or listen to podcasts. No, I have a I listen to Bleeding Me by Metallica now It's not the greatest song in the world. There's not I'm not saying there's anything does the job for you It's familiarity. It puts me in the present moment. So it's not about Screaming rah rah rah slap in the face adrenaline rush. It's about Almost every PR I have ever set for the past 20 years has been set with that song playing So it's it is it takes the focus from here to here right it narrows it and I've started to have the same thing My clothes I have certain clothes that I wear When I want to set deadlift PR when I want to set squat PR's and they're a little different, right? Rachel thinks about shield bench press and press with tank tops on but she won't squat with tank tops on because Too much skin is exposed to the neural on the bar. So some of the so she's gonna wear more of a form-fitting shirt than a tank top so the combination of Clothes that make you feel confident clothes that make you feel good and also clothes that are functional for the performance that we're going to Do right really ultimately put us in the moment Totally as much as music or anything else right well You can even take it in extrapolated beyond the gym and you think about anything you look at any culture And you look at ritual okay, whether that's a religious ritual or a civic ritual or something else And there's always these kind of elements where there's certain body movements that happen That's what you're doing when you're in the gym There's certain music or chance or something else is associated with it And so that's the same thing that it gets you present and there's always ritual clothing That's associated with it too because you get the combination of those three things where you take these physical inputs of what you see what you hear and what you do when you move and it affects your state of mind Yes, so we're absolutely insane to not consciously and conscientiously think of those three elements when we're going through the ritual of Making ourselves better in the gym Yeah, I love that one thing you never know which you never mentioned was brand I'm not trying to like I'm not trying to impress people with the money. I'm spending my clothes It's never that no right and that doesn't mean that there are high quality brands out there We have the brands that we love the brands that don't fall apart right when you're training and training hard Low quality clothes will fall apart over time But it's not about having the logo on the shirt or the logo on the short or whatever It's more about all of those other things the way it makes me feel the way it performs like that's what I'm looking for first Yeah, and again, it's finding the brands that even they get it on that level where it's not this kind of like Crass overt status display or it's the kind of big name that everybody's associated with you know Some of my favorites are really the smaller brands like Oliver's apparel or ten thousand or Kino clothing or some of these others Yeah, that they allow the clothing to do the talking both to the audience But most importantly to you. Yes, it's not that I'm a billboard for this particular company That's right. My identity is wrapped up in this brand It's that the clothing is there to supplement you and who you are as opposed to you being an advertiser That's right, right, and I'm the same way so I don't have any relationship with clothing manufacturers I love like Lulu women shorts Lulu like Lulu lemon pants. They fit really well I like the way they perform. I wear fresh clean teas or true classic teas which are no logo teas, right? They're made to fit tight Tight where they're supposed to be tight arms shoulders not overly tight drape in the midsection And they just make me feel better about who I am. I can see myself in the mirror I think like okay. I look the part here. I don't look frumpy. I don't look, you know messy And so I love that look and then man think this is just another place where the world has completely changed Over the last three years five ten years ago. We didn't have options like this That was it what that's what it was like you would go on and you see these ads on social media And they were for the like the ridiculous body building. It was the string take string all the way there Yes, not even covering the nipples and that you're like, I'm not gonna dress like that. That's exactly right So I do love that even fitness clothing now style The way we style in the gym can actually reflect who we are even in the rest of our life totally And that's really really cool So you've got that opportunity and so if it's not something that you thought about I would just you probably thought about the music That you listen to you probably thought about the gym that you train at whether that's a home gym or a public gym in place It's the great atmosphere where people are supporting you and encouraging you Style should just be another one of those variables already put a lot of thought in to help us perform and be in the moment Yeah, and watch it just key up everything else that you're already doing It's such a supplement and there's this synergy of when you get the right environment the right music And then you out of the right clothing and you just you're better at it. Yeah, I love it So for more of this conversation You've been on my podcast on barbologic. We'll link it in the show notes We actually also Nikki and I just talked about this in a recent barbologic podcast on confidence in the gym You can check those in the show notes and for more great tips on accessories Confidence and how to perform in the gym. Just click the link right up there in the form See you next time Hey everybody, you just met Tanner and I in the previous video that we just did Tanner is a sponsor this video But he's also my style coach Yeah, I would love to chat with you guys especially because you'll find out that my approach is very similar to what Matt and the block team do It's minimum effective dose. It's how this contributes to your overall quality of life Not making this the biggest most important thing that you have going on So if you want to learn more about what we do, especially as it relates to block Go click this link up here and we can talk and see how it fits in for you