 All right, our next question is from Sydney are green. Have you ever trained someone with body dysmorphia? How do you help people overcome it a lot of people actually? Yeah, I've worked with a few people where it was They were being treated for body dysmorphia. In fact, they got sent to me by their therapist To train them because I was a the therapist was my client So they knew that you know, I would be able to help them I guess because they're experienced with me had to help them develop a better relationship with exercise one of the more effective things that I did with People with varying degrees of body and I say varying degrees because it's super common For some sort of body dysmorphia when you're in the gym working out and especially among my peers It's very common among personal trainers and fitness professionals. Don't you think don't you think we all have a little bit of this? I do I think it's more of a spectrum like I really feel like I really feel like almost every because let's be honest Right like of all the you know hundreds and probably collectively thousands of people that we've trained How many times is somebody came in and they're just like hey, Adam I want to train because I need to exercise and I want to be healthier. It's like that's such a small percentage Most people are driven in there because the way they look Yeah, because that's the main motivation because they hate the way they look where that's what I'm saying, right? And admittedly they come in I hate this tire around my eye just can't stand my flabby And they're like they literally will use that that verbiage So I think that this is more now there's it's so extreme with some people I just had the spectrum that they're having medical Condition and they're being treated for it, but I actually would argue that more There's a probably a higher percentage of people in the gym right now working out that actually suffer from some sort of body Dysmorphia, I would I would agree. I mean we're constantly being or it's reinforced to us that the way our body looks We're being marketed to it's very important. It's like one of the most important things, you know Wisdom isn't that important intelligence isn't that important? It's like how we look That's very important. So we're constantly comparing ourselves to an ideal and so it's it's quite common One of the more effective strategies I would do as a trainer. Well, first of all, I never directly Treated body dysmorphia. I know when to stay in my lane and I always especially if it was a bad case Would always work with the therapist. That was the person who focused directly on that My goal as a trainer was to get the person to Love exercise because it made them feel good Love exercise because they like the strength gains. They like the performance They like the movement themselves. They enjoyed the workouts I my goal was always to move them away from the you know Falling in love with the visible changes from exercise like oh am I getting leaner? Am I do I look any different? It was more like wow I added five pounds to the bar or I could do a full squat today And so they really love the performance and it just took their focus off of the body long enough or with enough Effectiveness to get them to really enjoy working out for some of its other qualities because when you're dealing with this Situation it's very easy like here's a deal if you have body dysmorphia Challenges and you go into working out with the wrong Motivations it'll make it worse. I've seen this many times become very obsessed When you look at people who deal with anorexia or bulimia oftentimes what's what's you know combined with that is over exercising Yeah, so if you go into it the right motivation like if you go into your workout thinking You know if let's say this is you you acknowledge that you have body dysmorphia issues Maybe you're seeing a therapist So now you're going to the gym and rather than thinking I need to burn off calories I need to change the way I look you think you know what I haven't been kind to myself So I'm gonna go to the gym and I'm gonna take care of myself. I need to feel better. I like that I want to move better. I want to feel Stronger I want to see how strong I can get like that's a good one because it's hard It's really hard to get stronger if you're not feeding yourself enough now on the flip side If you're dealing with a man with body dysmorphia sometimes you get what they call bigorexia Which is the opposite where the guy just wants to get bigger doesn't care about you know his health Oftentimes takes anabolic steroids or eats too much food I would have felt more closer into this category in which case I would focus on performance as well But it wouldn't be strength It would be mobility mobility and flexibility because if you push strength with those guys they can also go I love to focus on like a and here's the thing so I if this is a train I don't know if there's a trainer asking this question So I totally understand this challenge because I remember how challenging this was Early in because this dealt with this a ton I remember how hard it was in the beginning versus how hard it or how much easier it became later for me Later on when I built the confidence and experience as a trainer I could tell a client like this like okay like you know regardless if they sat down for me said Oh, I hate the way I look I don't want this this and I would be able to say listen Do you you were referred by somebody to me like that? Do you trust that I'm gonna take good care of you and I would get them to commit that they trust me And they said well, so this is what we're gonna do like I'm not gonna have you get on the scale We're not gonna do these measurements It's not what I want to do is I'm gonna teach you something and I just need you to trust me that I'm gonna Take care of the goals the things that you want But I want you to follow what I would I show you okay And then get that by in first and then the program would be focused around either strength or skills Like I love to take someone yeah, and teach them like a Turkish get up a teacher teaching a great 100% a great Turkish get up could take months and months and months of training and focus and It's it's fun to try and get somebody good at it What a feeling of accomplishment Yeah, and exactly and then when you what when they you watch somebody who can barely balance 10 pounds over their head and do A Kurt Turkish get up all sudden be able to do that with a 40-pound kettlebell or weight over their head and Do it with beautiful form and the whole focus was around that as a byproduct They'll get stronger. They'll feel better You know and and then you can attach and you could show them like how they are making progress with their goals and Disconnect it from the way they love somebody brought that up. That's like falls right into what I was gonna say It's like, you know, I get somebody like that. They're very Physically motivated to change because they hate themselves like they're coming in with that type of energy My favorite thing to do is to introduce them to unconventional tools and unconventional Ways of training that sort of just flips the script So, you know in order to reframe how they think like this is all gonna go in terms of their workouts and what you know muscle size and or you know, how much of this body fat we're gonna lose or this or that like they're just Focused on the actual thing that's right in front of them learning like something like a macebell and like how to swing it properly Like by just doing these things that actually do stimulate the muscle and it does promote You know fitness that we can build upon I just found that like a much better way to at least start You know having them think differently about how this is all gonna go I thought it was interesting when I read about strong men like that took on apprentices I think I brought this up before in the show one time and I can't remember where I read this but I guess that that this was like Like the standard before like let's say Justin is a strong man and I want to work underneath And I want to learn from him and he's this great trainer and he goes all right Well, you have to first be able to do a Turkish get up with a hundred pounds And so I would have to acquire that skill So think of that as a trainer who's getting somebody who's so focused on their body and say like okay Don't worry. We're gonna get to all those things but the first the foundation is we first have got to achieve Whatever and you give them like a strength goal or a skill goal that you want to focus on and then don't worry We're gonna do all those things and it's great because it kind of distracts them From you know their body and changing but what you know as a trainer that they're that's all gonna come as As they're focusing on that, but you're taking their mind off of the way they look. Yeah Well, body obsession You know exercise is a great way to either make body obsession better or worse It really is it all depends on how you enter into it If you're working out because you hate yourself you hate your body hate the way you look It's going to make your body image and body obsession much worse If you go into it with the mindset that you really want to care for yourself number one because you deserve To be cared for You are a human being and you deserve to be cared for and number two because you acknowledge that maybe You weren't doing that before but now's the time so now I'm empathetic. Okay? I didn't do it before this time I'm gonna do it and if you enter into exercise that way then it makes Things so much better, but it is a very powerful tool and it's all in how you use it And it can definitely push you in one way or the other it all starts with your intention going into it