 If you're trying to maximize your results and get a great physique and also maximize the time you spend, there's nothing wrong with that. But when you hear someone say 10 minutes and it's just as good as a 45 minute or hour well placed door done workout, that's just plain wrong. You are listening to the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we address something that's going on around right now in the podcast world. There's a guy going around talking about why weightlifting is a waste of time. Of course we totally and completely disagree. And of course he's selling a piece of equipment to try to make some money right now off of some of these claims. So in this episode, we tackle some of the claims and why they're false. And we also talk about why free weights are still among some of the best pieces of equipment you can use for resistance training. Now here's the deal. We have been trainers for a very long time. Adam Justin and myself, between the three of us have trained thousands of people, everyday people and helped them get into better shape. We have a lot of experience over 60 years between the three of us. We know what gets people to respond. We know what gets bodies to change. We know what really, really works. That's why we write workouts. We've created MAPS workout programs for different people and different goals. These are well-written workouts, well-programmed workouts that get people phenomenal results. If you want to try a workout that actually works, one that's written by real personal trainers, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com, check out the programs, find the one that works best for you, sign up, try it out for a full month. If it doesn't blow your mind, you can always return it for a full refund. We have a guarantee on every one of our programs. Go to mapsfitnessproducts.com. This episode is also brought to you by Paleo Valley. Paleo Valley makes some pretty awesome products. They make an organ-complex supplement, so if you like to get the nutritional value of eating liver, kidney, and heart, but don't like the taste, and it's a little squeamish, try their organ supplement. You can also try some of their meat sticks. That's our favorite. These are grass-fed meat sticks. You can take anywhere, great macro profile, healthy, high in protein. They're super delicious. It's the best jerky I've ever had in my entire life. It's not dry, tastes very, very fresh. Because you listen to Mind Pump, you get a discount on all of their products. Just go to paleovali.com forward slash mind pump. That's P-A-L-E-O valley.com forward slash mind pump, and get 15% off your first order. Did you guys get DMs on that episode on Ben Greenfield's podcast? No, you guys just showed me this. Weightlifting is a waste of time. I'm familiar with the guy. Yeah, John Jakewish? He's been click-baity title. He's been popping up in my Instagram feed for at least a year or two now. Yeah, well, he's selling a book, and he has a resistance-band bar apparatus. It's like $550 for a resistance band. He's pretty jack-looking, too. He is. He looks natural to me. Strange. Don't be a hater. I know. No, you know, I want to address that podcast because I listened to what he said on the podcast. I've heard what he says on other things, and it's all so wrong that it needs to be totally addressed. Well, I don't think it's all wrong. There's some truth to some of the stuff that he's talking about. In fact, I don't think that our good buddy Ben was the best person to interview him on this conversation because Ben uses that. What's that machine called that he's all about? I don't remember. Does he use the Air X? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. He's been promoting that for a very long time. So he's all about the Dave Asprey 10-minute, 15-minute, super... Every biohacker, everybody in the longevity space geeks out about the least amount of time possible ever that you can work out and gain some kind of benefit from. Yeah. Well, okay, and I'm okay with that. But when you say it's better than... Yes. This is the distinction. Then the better way of training when you're saying it's better than progressive overload and volume and straight sets, that's when I have a problem. Is doing a 10-minute, one-set-to-failure routine for each body part better than nothing for some people, which it is? Oh, yeah. Is it in the same neighborhood as proper traditional resistance training? Not even close. This argument was made a long time ago. In the 1970s, there was a bodybuilder, Mike Menser, who... Okay, so you guys know who... God, what was his name? I can't remember his name. Inventor of Nautilus Equipment. Maybe you can look it up for me. Arthur Jones. Thank you, Arthur Jones. So Dr. Arthur Jones invented Nautilus Equipment. This was some of the first popular, like, selectorized equipment. And his goal was to create resistance equipment that was superior to freeweights. And one of the ways that he marketed this was he conducted a study. And really what it was, it wasn't a study, it was kind of a marketing thing. But he brought in Casey Viader, who was a bodybuilder at the time. In fact, Casey Viader was one of these phenom bodybuilders. I think he won... I want to say Mr. America or Mr. Universe. Back then, there were a lot of competitions like the Mr. Olympia at the age of 18. So this guy was like this freak of nature. He brings him in, and at the time, Casey Viader had gone from being built to being very deconditioned. Apparently, he stopped working out whatever, brought him in. So now he's lost lots of muscle, that stuff. And he took him through a study on one person where he trained him on Nautilus Equipment alone. And the way he trained him was he would do these super intense, single sets to failure per body part, rather than the traditional resistance training, bodybuilding routine, like at the time Arnold Schwarzenegger was real popular and he would do 20 sets per body part, and that kind of thing. And then he measured Casey Viader's progress. Now, Casey Viader made tremendous progress, but people who understand how the body responds understand he went in there very deconditioned. A lot of the gains that came on his body were... It was novel, too. Well, it was muscle memory. He went in losing lots of muscle, probably came off anabolic steroids, went on during the study, and he gained tremendous amounts of muscle. But he used that as a pivot, as a way to market Nautilus Equipment. Well, anyway, you got the attention of Mike Menser. Mike Menser put out a book called Heavy Duty, where he said doing one set to failure was all you needed to do to stimulate muscle growth. And got some followers to follow along. But there's been many studies done on this. And the studies show that volume is also important for muscle growth. And that going to failure is actually too much intensity for most people most of the time. Well, I mean, to me, this just screams like trying to narrow it down to one specific thing, to simplify it to the consumer. So it's nothing more than a marketing ploy to really highlight some of the benefits that we already know about rubber bands, which they do provide benefits. I don't disagree that they should find a way in a workout routine, but this is not going to replace free weights ever. It's just not going to happen in terms of like, you know, all the benefits that you're going to get from free weights in conjunction with rubber bands. Well, is there is there a single statement that you find that he said in that interview that is flawed or that is lacking? Like, what do you see that? What do you have the biggest qualm with this? Because Justin's right. There's we've already talked about the benefits of bands, right? So we don't disagree with that. I think they're an incredible tool and there's lots of great research around them. So basically, this is what he's utilizing. It's a band on a it's a bar connected to a rubber band that I think a plate that you stand on or something like that. What is it? What is it you have the biggest, exactly do you have the biggest problem with this by the statement of him saying that weightlifting is a waste of time? Yeah, well, he says a lot of stuff in there that's marketing based. It wasn't very much real science or study that was included in the conversation. He said something like free weights load the joints more than muscles and then referred to, you know, if you just want to throw weights around, you know, just train your ego, then use free weights. But that's just not true. Lots of generalizations. It's super. I mean, OK, I kind of get what he's trying to say with the joints versus muscle. I guess if you're lifting in a haphazard way, if your form is bad, it's worse on your joints than it would be for the muscles. But controlled movement is what trains the body very well. You can control movements with free weights, machines, bands or body weight. So there wasn't there wasn't really he didn't necessarily say anything specific. It was more like variable resistance is better because it trains the muscles to their max at every point of the range of motion. But variable resistance can be applied with free weights as well, where you attach bands or things like chains, although I would not have the average person mess with variable resistance. That's a more advanced technique. You know, I wouldn't take a client who just started working out or has been training with me for three months and have them put chains or bands on the bar to do variable resistance. So the biggest qualm that I have with it is just is just purely the amount of repetitions that you're expected to do. You know, if you do traditional weight training versus this super high intense way of exercising is this. The theory is that he's doing one set for, let's just say bicep curls to, you know, extreme intensity. And I guess bicep curls are a bad example because it's a simple exercise. Let's take something like a squat, right? So he does, you know, 15 to 20 reps or something like that. 20 30, 20 to 30 to absolute failure. And then they're done. The problem I have is that that's such a high skilled movement that part of the adaptation process and the benefits of getting good at it is the practice of it and having to do it over and over and over to get good where because you learn the skill of it. Right. So I can't I can't imagine me training one of my, you know, novice clients on on a technique like this where I go, OK, today I show the exercise because we're only going to do it one set, right? So I show the exercise. Here's the overhead press. We're going to do it till you can't do it. Yeah, we're going to do it. You can't do it one time and then we're going to move on to the next thing. You know, I just remember how many times I had to teach and show and critique over and over and over one single exercise. One of the benefits of doing traditional weight training is that most programs are three, four, five sets per exercise. So we get some time to practice. But even if you're in that advanced category of people who have really good, excellent skill on all these exercises, even if you're one of those people, the study, there's a lot of studies have been done on this and volume is clearly a part of the formula to get muscles to strengthen and grow and to get those positive adaptations. And they're very they're looking at this from this very simplistic mechanistic point of view, as if almost and Mike Menser used to talk about this. I was a big fan of Mike Menser back then. I still think he was an awesome bodybuilder. I think he did bring a lot of cool information. He was just wrong on a lot of the stuff he said. And it's this very simplistic view. It's almost like as if there's a switch that you hit. Once you hit the switch, muscle grows and how do I hit that switch? Just go super intense one time. We hit the switch and we're done. It's not that simple. It really isn't that simple. There's sets and volume and reps. There's technique. You can build muscle off of moderate intensity. Olympic lifters have demonstrated this for decades now where they practice at a very moderate intensity, but they train quite a bit and they have these tremendous strength gains. Studies on going to failure show that going to failure versus not going to failure over a period of six weeks, 12 weeks, it's just not as effective. It's better to have a little bit more volume and not go to failure than not go to failure with less volume. We're also not considering the effect it has on the central nervous system. I could take a completely deconditioned person and train them at a low intensity and do 10 sets of an exercise and they would be okay. One set to failure would be a way above and beyond too intense for them. Way above and beyond would cause problems. Intensity is very easily overdone. More, it's more easily overdone than even volume and frequency. Volume and frequency take a lot of time. I can't help but imagine that beginner too overloading the incorrect muscle we're trying to work too. Intensity is already easily over applied. Then take a novice training a movement and overload it and tell them you're gonna take this to failure. Not to mention you're overloading the eccentric portion like they wouldn't normally have, which is interesting. I just think that there's a lot more in there to consider in terms of the highlights of going through a natural range of motion with gravitational forces and controlling load. Where you actually do have a little bit of relief of muscular tension going through. There's a benefit to that functionally and there's a way more life applicable aspects to that. Yeah, and a lot of us, I mean, and this is just the truth a lot of what he's saying is very marketing centric. So his target was free weights, but it's obvious why? Because he's selling a piece of equipment that he's saying is the best muscle builder in the world. So who are you trying to take down off the top of the mountain? It's free weights. It's also very click-baity, right? Free weights that waste the time. So people are gonna be like, oh my gosh, what is this guy saying? Because every other reputable coach and trainer and strength athlete says free weights are among the best forms of equipment for- Otherwise we'd see it. Otherwise we'd see it. When you talk about high level sports where there's millions and millions of dollars and the studies that he's using and he's touting they're not new. This isn't cutting edge science that we're talking about right now. Variable resistance has been around for a long time and we've known this and there's been plenty of research around. So everything that he talked about as far as what he referenced has been there. So it's not like this is a new finding. And if it was that valuable, then every professional athlete, every bodybuilder would train this way because it was superior, but it's not superior. That's why none of them do that. Yeah, and there's a, I mean, here's, you know, build maximum muscle with very little time. 10 minutes once a week or twice a week and get the best results you're like, that should be your first red flag. Exactly, it's like get rich in 30 days, you know, or lose 30 pounds in 30 days. It's along those lines. It's in the category of the fitness space that can be quite annoying to people who've actually trained real people, lots of real people all the time. If you're trying to maximize your results and get a great physique and also maximize the time you spend, that's a, there's nothing wrong with that. But when they say, when you hear someone say 10 minutes and it's just as good as a 45 minute or hour well-placed door done workout. Well, I know they can make that case too because this is true. I mean, you've been doing this for a very long time, Sal. Compare you to, you know, somebody who it's their first week in the gym. I do believe that you could do one set of bands and it'd be more effective than that kid who walks in and decides to do 10 sets with a barbell. Barbell technique. Yeah, I mean, Arnold is known for saying that too, right? That he could come in the gym and do one set more effective than somebody spending an hour inside the gym. Yeah, but it's very misleading. It is, it's misleading because then everybody thinks, oh, I can too. It's like, no, because you're so advanced and you understand what you're trying to accomplish by this. Plus don't compare yourself to someone else. Could I do one set with bands to compete with a traditional workout? For me, no. It would not give me the same results. It would not give me the same adaptations. It just doesn't work that way. So it's very marketing centric and very, very false. And free weights are among the best, most versatile pieces of equipment that are around. There is no machine or piece of equipment that can compare. I mean, there's a lot of good stuff out there and we're big advocates in utilizing things like suspension trainers, bands, and so on. But free weights are near the top, if not at the top, when you're looking at performance. They've done lots of studies on this, by the way. They'll do like a barbell squat versus a leg press. Which one builds most muscle and then which one improves sprints, you know, speed. Which one improves jump, you know, height. Which one improves stability and strength in a everyday real world movement. And the free weight exercises tend to be superior. On hypertrophy alone, sometimes machines can match, but then when you combine strength and functionality, free weights are just, that's why they're still there. You know, those were the first resistance training pieces of equipment, by the way. Machines, cables, bands, have been around for a very long time. There's a reason why free weights haven't disappeared. They haven't, and it's because they still remain some of the best pieces of equipment. There's a lot of reasons why, that is. The first reason, they're among the most versatile. You know, when you take a machine, you're, that machine is, unless someone designed a machine specifically for you, like- I would make the argument that free motion is up there, right? Because a free motion, you can contour it to your body. There's not too many things that you can't do with a free motion. Cables would be the one piece of equipment I would say would be up there with versatility, because they're free, right? You're still on a track, but yeah, you're able to move at least in the direction that you want your limbs to go. Right, but the machine is still, the free motion is still there. It still can't go anywhere. Right, right. Still, the anchor points are still relatively fixed. I mean, I can move the arms, but that's where they go. There's a top and there's a bottom. Free weights follow the person. I could train a 10-year-old with free weights. I could train an 80-year-old with free weights. I can train any movement pattern. I've trained, you know, paraplegics with free weights. They follow the person. Well, you know, another thing that he didn't really address too, because think about your guys as clients, right? All the people that you guys train, how often was it as cut and dry as, let me draw up a program that builds you the most amount of muscle or just burns body fat? Like that was never the case. I always had to learn about the person. And 90% of the people I trained, regardless of the goal, had underlining shit that I had to address within their program. So that's the other thing that when you talk about versatility and the benefits of that is, I can take somebody who has discrepancies on one side and the other, and I can modify that with free weights. That's a lot easier than I can with bands. You totally can. And one of the big mistakes I think a lot of people make is they look at workouts and they value them from the workout perspective and not from the skill perspective. So in other words, if I'm gonna go work out my legs, it really doesn't matter what I do as long as I hammer my legs. As long as my legs get sore, as long as my legs, you know, grow and get stronger, it doesn't matter what I do, but it kinda does matter what you do because that skill acquisition and that practice makes a big difference. And if a person treated exercise like this, like let me put it this way, if you took 100 people and 50 of them treated resistance training like a skill and the other 50 only treated it like a workout and you followed them for five years, which group would have more success, less injuries, just better progress overall? Well, it's the example Justin just did a Friday fitness tip, right? You taught a single arm dumbbell snatch, right? Yeah. Hang snatch. Right, okay, sorry. Sorry. I got checked on that. Oh, did you? Really annoying. Anyway, let's continue. You know, so you could take a set of bands or this apparatus this guy invented and you could break down all the different muscles that get worked in that dumbbell snatch that Justin taught and you could train those muscles, but you would not have the same skill set as the ability of taking that weight, getting it above your head and stabilizing the body safely with the dumbbell as you could with the bands, which when you think about real life situations, okay, it's not gonna look like in this elastic environment, it's going to be unstable and that is going to carry over into what you do. The stretch reflex response, like there's a lot more to human movement to consider that, you know, the working with rubber bands like doesn't really do well with. And, you know, really it, I understand from a muscular perspective, like everybody wants to increase the amount of muscles involved. That's why those STEM machines are, and they have these like, you know, monitors that can show you how active your muscles are in these lifts, which is one consideration, but also what are you actually trying to do with your movement? And I think that is a big part of being able to actually have function and strength in specific directions, not just be able to squeeze really hard. Yeah, and again, bands are actually great. I love bands. I just don't think that they, you could say that weights are a waste of time. I think weights are, again, among some of the best forms of tools for resistance training, we should say. But I mean, okay, look, look at the real world, okay? I'll use an example. Let me back up for a second. If I took, if you're listening right now and you had a magic wand and you could wave that over your body and literally tomorrow you wake up with an additional 15 pounds of lean body, just 15 pounds of muscle. You wake up with 15 pounds of muscle. You would feel awkward. You would move weird. You wouldn't be able to walk like you normally do. It would be hard for you to run or throw a baseball or do whatever you could do before because you haven't learned the skill of moving with that body. It's not just about building muscle. It's also about how to use that muscle. I mean, it makes no difference if your car looks like a Ferrari if under the hood, you know, as a four cylinder, you can't move, right? So in the real world, when you're lifting and moving things, none of them are attached to cables. None of them are on a track. None of, all of them are free. If you pick up a box, you move a couch, you pick up your girlfriend when you give her a hug, whatever. All these things are free moving in the real world. And so even if, and I'm making, this is not true, but I'll pretend like it is true. Even if a machine or a band or something like that could build as much muscle as a free weight, it's still not equal because the transfer to the real world just isn't there. If I can pick up, if I can deadlift a lot of weight, that's gonna transfer more to lifting things in the real world off the ground than if I could deadlift on a machine. Well, you may be promoting more dysfunction in your movement, you know, for everything else. So like, you just wanna consider how you train is, that's part of specificity. So you're gonna carry that into now how you lift things in the real world as well. Right, and free weights also require balance and stability. You know, doing a shoulder press on a machine, it's got some value, not saying it doesn't have any value, but it doesn't require me to balance the weight. In fact, I can lean on the machine. In fact, if I'm holding handles on machine, I could lean back on it or pull forward. If I have poor stability in my thoracic spine, doesn't matter, the machine puts me in the right position. Now, if I'm advanced and I wanna add volume and I wanna isolate the shoulders, get a better pump, sure, there's some value there, but compare that to like a standing overhead press. Standing overhead press, I'm still working the shoulders, but it requires a lot of stability, it requires balance. I have to be able to stabilize my body as I hold the weight above my head. Oh, there's communication going from your fingertips all the way down to your toes. Absolutely. I mean, everything is, exactly everything is having to speak to each other where just you simply sitting on a bench, you take half that away, then you sit on a bench and then you do it on a track and a machine, you take another 25% of that away. I mean, there's a huge difference between being able to stand up and do an overhead press and being able to shoulder press a machine 200 something pounds. I remember I had a buddy of mine who was strict bodybuilder and did, he didn't do any standing overhead press, he did lots of machine presses, he would do seated with the dumbbells but nothing overhead. And I remember he came to my studio and we did a workout together and I had him do overhead presses with me. And of course he had to drop the weight because he wasn't used to standing and stabilizing. And I remember the next day he messaged me and said, my upper mid-back is sore from overhead presses, mainly because he'd never had to really stabilize his scapula the same way as he did with the standing overhead press. He said, I never, he said, I didn't realize my mid-back, my upper mid-back had to really support me that much. He goes in and it felt phenomenal. And he went to overhead presses for a while and saw some great development because of that. So that balance and stability aspect is one of the reasons why it's got some of the best carryover. Professional athletes or athletes in general tend to use primarily for general strength building free weights. That tends to be, still, if you go to the 49ers gym or whatever, you see a lot of platforms and play tomorrow. Yeah, you'll see rubber bands, but they're purely accessory. So they'll be like Vertamax or they'll be like things where you're highlighting certain skills they're trying to develop. And sometimes it does help in terms of anti-rotation and being able to try and get the athlete to respond appropriately and be able to anchor their body appropriately. But again, that's why I don't throw it out, but it's not the majority of the bulk of the training for them to build a foundational strength. I mean, how do you get away with this? You think that just because of that, because we do, we all agree, right? The bands are phenomenal. I mean, I think they're a great tool and I think athletes use them a lot, but not more than that they use free weights. So what is this? Is it the cherry picking of the data? Is that what it is? There's so much good information that's related to variable resistance, band training, that you could cherry pick all of it to try and make the case that you can build. I think it's, you know, you can look at all these studies that he'll pull from where it looks great, right? Cause it doesn't put a lot of impact on the joints. You know, you can basically highlight and mimic a muscle through its natural strength curve. Like there's a lot of benefits it can highlight. And so it just looks like on paper, a lot of times in the lab, you know, things look really good. The numbers look awesome, but then you actually apply it to the athletes and it doesn't translate the same. And I think that's really what's going on. Yeah, but the studies on variable resistance are not just bands versus free weights. It's free weights versus free weights with bands attached. Yeah, exactly. That's how they use variable resistance. So power lifters, they're the biggest, I'd say strength athletes that use variable resistance like chains and bands, but they're not doing a band only squat for that. They tend to add it to the barbell or they don't replace their traditional lifts with it. It's a supplement. They're also at a very high level. And again, have you guys ever done variable resistance with a beginner or intermediate client? Yeah. I don't, that's a very advanced thing that you apply. It doesn't make any sense for a beginner. Yeah, and also too, like cause the thing is with barbells, you can load, right? And you can be stable and you can load. And I think there is benefit to having breaks in that tension. Think about like mimicking that like three, four, 500 pounds, right? And I'm going through a squat and I never get any rest with that. How do you like detach from that? How do you not, you know, when you have a moment of, you know, loss of focus, what that might potentially do with all that force, you know, throwing back down. Yeah, that's an interesting point cause I'm sure he makes the case that it's safer, but then I can make the case with it with it. Not when you get up and wait, just like a load. Right, I would think that it would be, that's what the first thing I thought of was training a novice client. You know, they're very new to weightlifting and you're telling them to go to, I mean, we don't advocate for training to failure to a beginner in the first place. I mean, you could train and build an incredible physique and never go to failure. He's pulling from the research that talks about the benefits of going to failure and pushing that for every single set. I just think that you increase your risk with a brand new person. Yeah, plus it pulls you to one point. So another massive difference, cause if you want to just keep adding more potential weight because you want more growth and you want all this excess muscle, you know, when you go through that range, like it's determining where you go. You're on this path. And then if you're anywhere off of that path, it's gonna put your joints in a really weird position. Yeah, that's true. Like if you're squatting with the band, it's, there's an anchor point, right? So if you go forward, it's pulling you back. If you go back, it's pulling you forward. It's determining where you're gonna go. Right, which, and I, you know, imagine failing under a heavy band. Right, exactly. Nobody's talking about that. Yeah, and to that point, you go off just a few inches and it's, forget the joints, another muscle you pull. You pull another muscle that you, cause you get out of alignment doing that. And I don't know, I just can't imagine, I could see how someone like this guy who's probably, who ironically, is probably been lifting with, you know, basic weights for 20 plus years of his life now comes out with this tool and then should. Okay, now, what am I gonna do? Oh, I'm gonna go against weights. Right, I wanna believe that after the two plus decades of weight training consistently myself that if I just wanted to maintain a decent physique, I could totally train just this. Just do bands and have a decent physique. You could look, you could get a great workout with bands. Here's the problem. And this is the same problem I would have with somebody who said kettlebells are the be all end all. Or even if I had somebody said, you know, dumbbells are the be all end all. There's tremendous value in all of these tools. In fact, the best results you're gonna get are from utilizing each one of these tools for what they're good and best for, right? So machines are phenomenal at isolating muscles. They're excellent at that cause they do all the other work for you, right? For building general muscle and strength and functional strength, free weights are near the top if not at the top. Bands are very, they're very versatile. You can travel with them, that's great. They don't take up a lot of space. They do have the ability to adjust the resistance within the range of motion, which is pretty cool. I think they're a great tool. Do I think I would just do one and not utilize any of the others? No, that would be totally silly. It's really, it just, it screams, you know, infomercial marketing. Well, it highlights part of the motivation behind us doing what we're doing, right? I mean, one of the things that we were all so annoyed about when we got into the space is the camps. I mean, this is just another one of these camps that it's gonna put people in and the reality is like, nobody here, at least nobody here is knocking any of that shit and saying it's not valuable. It's incredibly valuable. The thing that we have a problem with is everybody wants to put everybody into a camp, that you belong to the powerlifting camp. You belong to Olympic lifting, the bodybuilding camp, the obstacle course racing camp. When it's like, listen, all these different modalities are incredible and I think have tremendous value and it's more about educating people on how to utilize all of them and why limit yourself to just one modality. That makes no sense when we have all of them at our disposal. Right, and there's this, it's very smart marketing to take something, for example, let's say you're selling a Bar with Band on it like this guy and you come out and say, Bar with Band machine is one of the greatest machines for building muscle and strength. You're not gonna get nearly as much attention as you would if you tackled the sacred cow of resistance training or free weights by saying, free weights are a waste of time, subtitle by my piece of equipment. It's just smart marketing. Same old, same old. Did you say he's tied to Tony Robbins? Yeah. Did you say that? I think he was, yeah. Oh, you don't know. No, no, I'm pretty sure he is, we could double check, but yeah, I believe you. Yeah, it's been floating around for a while. I had a few people tag me back when, so it's interesting that he's made his way finally to Ben. Ben must have got annoyed by it and decided to bring him on there. But again, I don't think Ben's the greatest person to talk to about this, because Ben utilizes the whatever machine I forget. Ben does everything. Yeah, I know he does. Name one, exercise modality, Ben has not utilized or done for himself. Ben uses free weights, Ben uses bands, uses body weight. He trains. Isometric everything. Isometric, he does everything. So he's somebody that, again, he's that guy I would want to try all these different things. But no, when it comes to resistance training, free weights are, they're a staple. That's what I would call them. I would call them a staple. I don't think you should ever take them. Yeah, they'll never fully replace them. Yeah, but it's, again, if you say something that sounds so controversial for the time, you're gonna get a lot of attention. Okay, I'll give you guys a great example. In the 90s, okay, so, you know, last century, right? The 90s. In the 90s, it was common knowledge. And when I say common knowledge, I mean it was commonly accepted, not necessarily true, but commonly accepted that low fat diets were the way to go to lose weight. That's what we were preached to. It's what the FDA told us. It's what we learned in school. And it was the perfect timing for Atkins to come out with his low carb Atkins diet. Now had Atkins come out today, he wouldn't have sold nearly as many books because we've heard low carb so many times. But he comes out in the 90s and said, oh no, eat all the fat you want, don't eat any carbs. And he exploded. So what this guy's is doing is he's coming out and saying weightlifting is a waste of time. Get some attention. Now do this thing. But that premise is false. It's not a waste of time. Did you agree? Decades are century. What? You said century. The last century. Oh, there we can see. 1900s. Oh, okay. Last century. I really started ramping up his case for this because now everybody has to train at home. And this was an opportunity to really be divisive with it. Oh, great point. Yeah, I'm sure it's exactly that. Yeah, right. What a great point. And right now, when everybody's having a hard time getting dumbbells. Yeah. You know, forget about all that. Yeah, you don't even need them. It's funny to me too. That's probably why he's making his rounds right now. Because again, it was at least a year, if not two years ago, I was getting tagged on this guy's stuff. And I just laughed about it. Everybody was just like, yeah, whatever. I'll tell you what though. It's funny to me because from, okay, so from what I've read, I think it's a, maybe Doug can look it up. I think his piece of equipment is 500 bucks. For 500 bucks. 500 dollars? If I'm not mistaken. Really? Maybe Doug can look it up just to confirm. Let me see. I thought I heard Ben say that it has like a barbell that fits in your suitcase attached to it. So I remember it being like this little plate that you had like a band and then like an aluminum looking bar that was attached to it. Yeah, there you go. How much is it, Doug? 549. Get the fuck out of here. Are you serious? All right, so hold on a second. So let's just say you had 550 bucks to spend on equipment. You could buy a pair of dumbbells, an adjustable bench, and you would probably have what, $400, maybe left in your bank account, and you would have pieces of equipment that are more versatile than that. You know what I'm saying? Like dumbbells and a bench, adjustable bench don't take up that much space. Now the benefit of bands is that it does take up a lot of space. Yeah, there it is. Wow. And it comes with four bands. Yeah, this dude was like so jacked before. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? That's what I mean. Like, okay, sure, if you've put 30 years under the iron, and then you decide, you know, hey, I'm 60 now, I just want to do band work for the rest of my life, and I've got good technique. I've already got the muscle memory going on here. Like, okay, maybe, I don't know. Still think it's inferior, but I mean, that $549 is straight laughable, dude. No, that's crazy. For some bands? No, I'll tell you what. If you were gonna get any, if you had some money you spent on equipment, and you had enough room for a pair of dumbbells and an adjustable bench, that, I mean, I could train any client with that. I think that would be your best investment. When it comes to training your body, your best bet, if you want great results, you want to build muscle, you want to burn body fat, you want to do well. Number one, the programming has to be great. The tool doesn't matter as much as the programming. So you have to have good workout programming. But then on top of that, free weights are great. Bands have some value. Machines also have some value. And body weight exercises have some value. Don't throw things out because of some marketing. All those things have lots of value. And free weights are near the top. And don't get sold either on any one of those things just simply because you could take any of those things you just listed off and show a six-week study and show how amazing it is. That's right. Everything in a small window like that's going to look amazing. Put an X3 bar guy or rubber band guy here against another guy for four years. One guy gets to use weight training. One guy gets to use that. They're both at starting point and see what show me the body afterwards. Exactly. Look, Mind Pump is recorded on video as well as audio. Come find us on YouTube, Mind Pump podcast. You can also find all of us on social media that includes Instagram and also now on Parler. You can find Justin at Mind Pump, Justin, me at Mind Pump, Sal, Adam at Mind Pump, Adam and Doug at Mind Pump, Doug. Now, this doesn't mean that your body won't look different, by the way. The scale might say this. Yeah. Excellent. How long have you been listening to the show? Different because muscle is much more dense than fat. Oh, awesome. Now, who is your least favorite host and why is it Justin? Why do you always open with that? I'm afraid you're going to ask me something like that. I'll let you answer that.