 In today's episode, we talk about the 10 types of people who fail at fitness. For example, are you a chronic dieter? Are you a group exerciser? The forever balker. There's 10 of them. Maybe you're one of them. So I know you're going to enjoy this episode. Also later on, we're going to give away a free maps workout program bundle. So stay tuned. Here comes the show. All right. Check this out. Uh, we've been training people for a long time and we can pretty much neatly categorize people into 10 categories of individuals who tend to fail at fitness. Chances are if you have a tough time staying consistent, you probably fit into one of the categories. You want to talk about these people? It's so arrogant of us. I know. We're going to put you in a box right now. No, the truth is, obviously most people don't fit neatly in one of these, but it's in. There's a lot of crossover. But you know, having managed so many gyms and working with so many people, you tend to see trends, constant trends, especially when it comes to people who tend to struggle with being consistent with exercise and nutrition, people who tend to do the yo-yo dieting, people who tend to just have challenges with this. And so I think an episode like this can be valuable because we'll be able to kind of narrow it down a little bit and talk to people about, Hey, this, if this is you, this is what you could do to help yourself out. And you're not alone. By the way, this is a lot of people fit into the, these categories. No, I mean, I, I'm teasing, but I, I do think that everybody has a little bit of some of this in them, right? There's a lot of common themes that we've seen. Yeah. You're lying. You're lying. If you don't, I mean, I think at one point I've, I've had at least, I was at least three or four of these characters, you know what I'm saying? So I think that everybody can relate one way or another, whether you've moved on from that character or not, but at one point you realize, I mean, this was a, a DM I received last week when I was in Hawaii and I thought it was a really another trainer, I think sent it over and said, Hey, this would be an interesting conversation to hear you guys have. And I sent it over to Sal and Sal was like, Oh yeah, I do think that's really good. And when you wrote up the most common ones, I was just like, Oh yeah, that's those are spot on. I feel like it's interesting, right? I can visually remember like I have a person that I could totally go, Oh, that person was that. You know, it's funny after it's after about 10 years, you start to see patterns, a lot of patterns and people will come in, you'll ask them their goals, you talk about their fitness history, then you start training them and then you see these patterns develop. Okay, you, you're like these other five people I've worked with before and you know, if you work with people for a long time, you start to kind of figure out how to communicate to different personalities and what works for them. And that's really what this is going to be all about is, you know, if you fall into one of these categories or, or multiple categories, we're going to talk a little bit about strategies that'll be successful for you. So let's start with the first one. And this one's pretty common. This is the chronic dieter. So this person has been on a lot of fad diets. They've got one point done keto, they've gone vegan, they've done paleo, they've done intermittent fasting. Every time a new diet comes out, they're the first ones on it and they're always, of course, the, they stop after a couple months because it doesn't work for them waiting for the next fad to come along waiting for the next book or the next way that they heard somebody lose weight for them to, you know, to, to jump on board. Yeah. And sometimes you'll see like, and they're very much of an evangelist because the last thing really were, I lost that 15 pounds and then, you know, it lasts for just, you know, a few weeks after a month, maybe two months and then it just rebounds and comes right back and then onto the next. But this was just a common theme all the time was just, you know, people I would have always looking for that next diet or that next sort of method that was out there promoted on talk shows that was going to help them lose all this weight again. Well, it's always, it's always extreme. Yeah. Right. So the chronic diet or hops from one extreme diet to the next extreme diet. And, you know, I just recently had a conversation with somebody who was running the, the 75 hard and I was explaining to her how it promotes this kind of like, you know, on-off behavior and her attitude was like, well, who cares in 75 days? I had this big event. I want to live the best I can. I'm going to get after it for these 75 days and diet and then afterwards, whatever. I said, you know, the conversation that I think needs to be had that I don't remember. Uh, well, first of all, I didn't, I didn't know this in my earlier part of my career was that, you know, when we, when we lose body fat or we lose weight on the scale, like our fat cells are shrinking. But what you don't realize is every time you put on this, this the weight afterwards, excessively fast, like most people do, right? They cut, cut, cut, cut low, low, low calorie, diet, diet, diet, diet real hard, get to the shape where they've been in, then they celebrate then they go and they eat, drink, and, and fall off the wagon. Yeah. And that extreme falling off the wagon, going the opposite direction actually adds fat cells. So every more challenging. That's right. So that means every time you hop on one of these fad diets to get in shape, even if you think it's working for you, you're making it more difficult for yourself every single time you do it. Yeah. The theory behind that is that your body is trying to adapt to be able to capture energy more effectively and efficiently for the next round of starving. It's doing what it needs to do. And binging, right? So, so that's the theory behind it. And it does. It can make it. Look, here's a newsflash. If you lost weight and gained it all back and then some, it didn't work for you. Cause a lot of people are like, no, that diet worked really great for me. It did. Why are you where you were after that diet was done? Well, no, well then it did. It failed. A successful diet, quote unquote diet is one that stays with you forever. I remember first seeing this when atkins came out, that was the first time I ever seen a diet go crazy. Everybody was doing atkins every and at the time I was a young trainer. I thought this was the coolest thing ever. And then of course you see that fail and then zone was next. Remember zone zone was Oh, no, no, it's not about no carbs, about balanced carbs 30 30 40 is a split. And then that had then the Mediterranean came out and then it was keto and then the next thing. So what's the solution for this? The solution for this is to not go on an extreme diet to not cut entire categories or macronutrients out of your diet, but rather to start very slow step by step and work on the behaviors that lead to successful nutrition. What are those? I don't use food to numb myself. I don't use food because I'm sad. I don't use food like a drug. I develop a good relationship with food. I identify what makes me feel good and what doesn't make me feel good and I'm open to that changing because life changes my body changes and so then well the foods that make me feel good and make me feel bad change develop that kind of a relationship and you'll have a more balanced approach to your diet for the rest of your life. Well, I love the approach that I had with the this client is I would flip the model or the idea on its head as far as what they typically would do right. They typically would seek out the new most popular diet or whoever and they would start on this cut where I would actually encourage this client to add to the diet, which would completely blow their mind. So instead of cutting things out, add healthy things. Right. Because what I found over years of training all types of people, when I would assess somebody's eating patterns when I said, hey, listen, we're not going to follow a diet right now. I just want you to eat the way you eat and report it so I can dive into what you've been doing. Everybody, not some, not most, everybody was missing somewhere. They either weren't getting enough fiber or they were over consuming on sugar or they were under consuming on healthy fats or they were grossly under eating protein. They were always missing somewhere. So there was always an opportunity in every person, no matter what their struggle was diet wise, I always found an opportunity on, hey, you know what, instead of me telling this person to restrict like the behavior they've done for so many years, I'm actually going to look in their diet, see an area where I can see improving the food quality they're having and add to the diet. Totally different psychological, totally differently psychologically. And what I knew would happen is they would start to drop off some of those other things that aren't ideal because they're now focusing on what they need to put in the most common ones would be add protein to your diet, add fiber to your diet and add water to your diet. And I was like you, Adam, I would say, let's just hit these targets and do those first, make those priorities and everything else. Don't worry about and then it will kind of take care of itself. Yeah, before we move on to this is and it falls in the same category of just, you know, some of those clients that are looking for that supplement, that one pill, that thing that really moved the needle the most in terms of like weight loss because they want to stack that on top of this like really extreme kind of dieting plan because like anything and everything they can do all at once because speed is really, you know, at the most importance for all of this and this was always a big battle in terms of like, you know, talking them out of like this magic pill idea of something that they're going to take to be able to produce this crazy amount of results. I do think this is a similar person. It is because the magic pill person is the magic pill person is the magic diet person. They are they think it was, oh, that's what it was. I wasn't doing this or oh, it was I wasn't taking that. That's what I need to do and then it'll all be better. And so you're right. Many times the the chronic diet or is also the magic pill seeker totally. What's up, everybody? Here's the giveaway for today's episode maps prime bundle, the mobility and correctional exercise programs. You can win them for free, but you got to do this. Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel. Turn on notifications. If you win, we'll notify you in the comments. Okay, that's what we're going to notify you in the comments that you won free access to the prime bundle. Also, we got some sales going on right now. We have this bundle, the skinny guy bundle, which includes all those amazing programs. That is 50% off. We also have the fit mom bundle, which includes all these other programs. That is also 50% off. So if you want to sign up for one of them, click on the link at the top of the description below to get the 50% off discount, either the skinny guy bundle or the fit mom bundle. All right, here comes the show. This next one, this one's the one that I probably have fallen to myself the most out of all the ones we're going to talk about. And that's the overtrainer, the classic overtrainer. If some is good, more is better. If I do this workout and I get this result this fast, and that means if I do twice as much, I'll get the results twice as fast. This is the intensity fanatic, the person that's seeking out the pain because they think the harder something feels, the more sore they get, the more that they sweat. Well, that means it's going to be more effective. Now, the reason why this isn't true, we've done a million and one episodes on this, so I'm not going to get too crazy with this in terms of getting deep into the weeds, but the right dose of exercise gets your body to produce the best results. More than that gets you there slower because you actually overcome your body's ability to adapt and to change. What determines what's too much? Your current fitness level, your lifestyle, how you feel. So this can be very different, like what's too much for me is going to be very different than maybe too much for Doug or too much for somebody who's totally sedentary, right? So the overtrainer, someone just does too much for their body and slows down the results as a result of all of this or even stops the results in their tracks. This is also one of the most difficult to communicate to because if you don't have a problem with getting to the gym and training hard and training hard consistently, you've seen some results. Like your body will respond. Like you will build some muscle. You will burn some body fat. You will build some stamina. So you will have reaped some of the benefits of training this way. And so they're one of the hardest clients to convince. I mean, and I agree. I was definitely this person at one point. Like I'll never forget being the seven day week lifter plus playing basketball, doing all this activity and thinking that like, you know, the more is better, more is better. Yeah, more is better. If I want to build all this muscle and get in the best shape of my life and thinking that how could reducing the activity that I'm doing, reducing the weight training days I'm doing, could how could that potentially build more muscle? That was really hard to convince convince me to do. But I remember when I did I and I think that that's one of these things where the proof is in the pudding with this person is if you can just get them to commit to a hey, let's just scale back a little bit and see how your body responds and wait and wait and show them that you're moving in the right direction and that you're not going backwards and we pull the day back. And I normally have to kind of wean them off right. So it looks like that. So I got a seven day a week double day or like let's just a crazy intense training person and I go, okay, let's go back one day and then let's do that for a couple of weeks and then report to me. Do you feel stronger? Do you feel weaker? Do you feel like you look better? Do you work worse? And what inevitably happens is they feel better and or look better, right? And it's like, okay, cool. We did that from scaling one day back. What happens if we scale two days back? Do you think and you slowly get them to commit to pulling back and then help them connect that, oh, wow, you're continually to improve. You're getting stronger. You're feeling better and we're doing less work. Yeah. Yeah, like reprogramming the associations with working that's the real challenge, especially when you get somebody that like very much in this category where they know that, you know, if I work really hard, I feel this way after the workout. Like I have this soreness. I feel like completely exhausted. Like I put the work in. Therefore, I'm going to reap the reward because of that kind of work that I'm putting in and to be able to, you know, communicate as a trainer coach that, you know, the right dose and you should actually, you know, come back to your next workout feeling a little with a little bit more energy with more strength and recovered fully. I think that's one of the biggest components that's missing in this category of a client is just that recovery aspect. You know, being able to realize like how crucial that is for you to be able to adapt and gain all of those like attributes that you're seeking out. Yeah, one of the challenges with this is if you're working out because you hate yourself, then the overtraining is cathartic. Yeah. If you feel like you're punishing yourself. Yeah. You're fat or you're ugly or you're too skinny or you're not whatever. You go work out and you leave the gym feeling like you almost died. There's a cathartic feeling of punishing yourself with your workouts, but that's not how your body progresses. It's also a terrible long-term approach. Nobody can overtrain forever at some point your body really starts to speak to you through injury or illness or both. And now you've lost everything now you can't even work out at all. And all those little results that you did get through overtraining are totally gone. Well, even when they do get they may get some results but like think about the potential results they could have got if they were to add in the recovery and all these other aspects of it and how much quicker they could have got there in terms of like them spinning their tires with this. There's hard and then there's effective. So just because something feels hard doesn't make it effective. I could dig a hole with a spoon and it's going to be very hard but it's not going to be very effective. I'm not going to get very far, right? I could do in a much more effective way. Well, that's how you need to treat your workouts. How do I make this as effective as possible? So you may be asking well, how do I know? Well, there's a couple signs. One is you should have more energy at the end of your workout than you did at the beginning of your workout. Okay, a lot of people have way less energy at the end that they did in the beginning. You should leave your workout feeling energized like you have just so much vitality and feeling amazing. The second sign is you really shouldn't feel soreness or if you do a little bit of soreness the day after. Lots of soreness or the kind of soreness that hurt is, you know, feels sort of the touch or that lasts for a day or two days. That means you probably went too hard. So that can look a lot of different ways depending on the individual. For some people that may be a very mild-looking workout for other people it's much harder. Your fitness level and your lifestyle determines what overtraining Well, you said something else. I think it's important to point out that also makes this deceiving for someone trying to figure out am I this character because you get afterwards because the cortisol spike is this like energetic feel and it's a little it's a false signal sometimes right like and we used to we in this category like so the the next three categories this this conversation I think it can fall into any of these people that we used to call like the cortisol junkies that just want that rush of energy and sometimes beating yourself up will initially give you that kind of rush feeling of you feel accomplished and oh my God I feel so good I got that done and so sometimes that could be a little deceiving on like how how good you feel after you well, there's difference there's like there's like nervous sympathetic you know CNS energy where you're kind of like you're kind of hyper tense little scattered you couldn't go to sleep if you wanted to whereas the good type of energy I'm talking about is you feel good energized and calm you feel calm and energized like wow I feel really good that's different than the stimmed out cortisol you know it's hard for people to distinguish the difference between that because both have this kind of positive feedback loop to right like this that's over I just got a hard workout in I'm sweating like crazy I feel and I survived yeah right and they do oh man I feel so accomplished and so they they get this like oh okay that's how you're supposed to feel after a workout what you're describing this kind of almost relaxing calming feeling that you should have when you get out of the workout I don't I think very few people know how to target that that feeling yeah well I tell you what you aim you aim for the cortisol afterwards you keep pushing that hard enough and eventually that'll be gone too yeah eventually you'll be like why can't I perform like I used to why is this oh my god I'm dragging well now you you know for sure you've definitely which by the way this same character also tends to be the character that keeps pushing the caffeine is because because more more you need more more to get up for those hard workouts and to get that same feeling of amped and everything like that and so if you're the person who started off having a cup of coffee then you were having two then you're having three now you're having that plus a pre-workout then you go into the 400 milligram pre-workout like that's normally a sign that you're following in this category also this next one is the group exerciser so this is the individual that does it just hates working out alone only likes to do workouts if it's in a group setting with a group instructor and they tend to not always but they tend to move from group exercise type to group exercise type so now it's my power yoga and then no now it's my Pilates and now it's my boot camp aerobics and now it's my boot camp or my orange theory fitness this person doesn't understand how to get either self-motivated or develop that discipline and for them it's about seeking out it tends to be seeking out the next fun class that they could do and this is characterized by the on off the wagon type mentality where they show up to a class very consistently then they slowly drop off and they stop for a long time and then they get back on and then repeat I feel like there's two subcategories within the group exercise or I think there's one category that is drawn to the community and the social aspect and that's literally the main and I remember experiencing this firsthand coaching orange theory for two years you have the people that are there for the community like that's I come there it's a good excuse to move and I get to see my girls and go have lunch afterwards and then you have the other category of people that think this is what's best for them and they're really afraid to go by themselves they're afraid to do it alone because they don't know what to do they're not sure and being led by somebody in a group setting where everybody is following has is this comfort level of like I must be doing it right because 20 other people are doing the same thing I'm doing and there's somebody who's leading the way deflects responsibility yes right on internalizing their own journey like they just want to kind of be a part of something that's structured and like their energy outsource it like I have community behind me you have all this like built-in sort of structure artificial accountability that way so that way you don't really have to like you know intrinsically deal with that yourself now why is this a problem it's a huge problem because I mean and we talk about this nauseam on the show that there's such an individual variance with everybody I mean even the same body type same sex same age same goal is going to have you take two genetic twins and one of them gets worse sleep than the other or one of them has kids one of them does or their diets are different the workouts need to be different that's two genetic twins let alone two you know genetically different people with different goals and different background look there's nothing wrong with loving your fitness community I think that's a great thing I've worked in gyms I've owned you I think that's phenomenal but what happens in this category of people is they fail to develop a personal relationship with fitness why is that important when we're talking long-term success your relationship with fitness has to be a personal one because your fitness changes and molds the context of your life and it's something that is with you no matter what happens whether you travel you have access to a gym you don't have access to the gym that group class that you love get injured you have a kid yes I used to I can work out every day oh I have kids I can only work out twice a week or I'm stiff or I'm now I need to do something with more that gives me more stamina I have lots of energy how do I work out now so you have to develop this personal relationship with fitness because that's what sticks with you for the rest of your life and if you rely entirely on group exercise you've outsourced it as you guys said and that leads to long-term failure it leads to I'm consistent for three months and then I'm off for two months and then I get back on for a month and then I'm off again or longer you know oftentimes people stop for two years and you talk to me look I talk to people like this all time you know when they find out what I do for a living oh I used to take this class and I was really consistent I did it for two years how long goes that six years ago right so why did you stop you don't have this personal relationship with fitness well it kind of reminds me too of meal plans in a sense and like when they'd ask me as their trainer like what should I eat like tell me exactly what I need to eat like just the details like it's just not gonna work like you haven't you haven't personalized this specifically to you like it has to follow your behavior your patterns for this to be ever be able to stick and that's just one of those things like it it's important like once you figure that out and you find that personal relationship that's where you become a part of the community you can now give back to the community look if you if your class is disappeared and that means you stop working out there's a problem if your gym closes down and that means you stop working out that means there's a problem if your workout partner calls you and says I don't want to work out anymore and you stop working out that means there's a problem that's where this becomes an issue I think that's a really good point to make Sal because I know and I've all of us I've probably been the impressive with saying a couple of years back when I said I think all group classes should die I remember that offended so many people but I mean and I still stand behind that statement but there is a point where does that not mean that they they can't exist or you can't have a healthy relationship with it no I think that it's just very very small percentage but that's what it looks like to me what you're what you're alluding to right now which is you know if I have this strength training routine that I do three days a week and then I have this group class that I love to take which is yoga or maybe it's the spin on Saturdays and we all get together and I love it and let's say it stopped doesn't mean I'm going to stop my three days a week of my weight training I think you have a very good healthy dynamic in relationship with group training if it is the cornerstone of your routine and all you know of like getting in shape is following these classes routine you're in trouble you are now you're at the whims of that class and if the class goes harder than you need or easier than you need or it's canceled or whatever you're totally screwed all right this next one this is a tough this was actually a really tough one to work with because we're not talking about somebody who's lazy or you know this person likes to work hard they know what it's like to train really hard they typically have really good athletic genetics this is the ex-athlete this is the person who competed at a high level in high school sometimes college and especially ex-pro athletes I've actually had a couple in my gyms and see this kind of firsthand and this is tough because high-performance athletics with health and longevity and I'm gonna I hate to break this to people high-performing athletics is not longevity and not health it's high-performance is not the same thing as longevity and health long-term it's just not high-performance is high-performance so you want to be the top basketball player top baseball player top football player there's a way you train there's a way you sacrifice your body and there's a way that you view exercise and nutrition versus I'm now gonna do this I stopped playing in college I'm now in my mid-30s I have kids I want to get in shape I want to be healthy but all you remember is how you train for football or how you train for baseball or how hard you work or whatever and you try to apply that now in your life and it just doesn't work you either hurt yourself or it doesn't feel the same or you don't know the difference between appropriate and too much and then here's a big one you ovary a lot ex-athletes tend to ovary a lot because when they were training at their particular sport I mean I used to train I train this high-level polo water polo competitor water polo they're in the pool for hours of day and how long they tread water hours a day this guy after when he hired me he was like 80 pounds overweight he had the hardest time adjusting to eating like a normal person because when he was in the pool for four hours five hours of calories he was eating so much he had to now he's got a desk job or whatever kind of job he's got right and it's yes he's putting the work in in that hour he's meeting with you but that doesn't even like compare at all to what kind of activity levels he was at previous to that so it's been a big battle for me with with sx athletes is just perspective like we know what your lifestyle actually looks like right now and like how we can benefit that versus like what you used to be in like what demands used to to face well it's it's extra difficult to because they had tremendous success applying totally exercise that way yeah right like you want to be the best polo player you want to be the best football player you want to be best whatever athlete right there's there's actually a lot of value in beyond that those those limits because you that that is important when you are in in playing your sport is to be able to be in that situation where oh my God my body feelings are break down and having the mental fortitude to be able to push through that that is not the best way to build muscle that is not the best way to burn body fat that is not the best for joint health that is not the best for longevity at all it's the best to be good at your sport that's what it is and they had tremendous success lifting weights and training in the gym for that sport and normally it's been for decades right they've been playing since they were junior high or high school all the way through college and maybe even the professional level if you've trained some athletes like that and getting that person to completely rethink the way they approach the gym is so difficult it's so hard because they connect fitness to that high performance they connect success to that high performance they it's not just lifting they do that they do work like that they do every that's why it's so fucking hard is because they've and it has served them they've been able to take that athlete mentality and I know Justin can totally feel relate to this right you've been able to take that mentality that you've applied in sports and you've applied it to many aspects you have and it's served you until it doesn't that's right and that's the that's the issues like you want to be able to communicate that with a client like this but it's so difficult to break through that because of that fact alone it has brought them success in always comes to to that that that harsh reality of like this this way that I'm applying this isn't gonna work for me I'm gonna break I can even though I didn't go as high of a level as you did in sports I can relate to having this attitude implying it to all aspects of my life and I remember I had tremendous success in in the work force like this I had the attitude of run with me or get ran the fuck over yeah and I believed in myself so much that I was capable of doing anything that I would put the club of my back and I would go right the goal myself and go do all the and had lots of success for several years that way until I got so burnt out that I'm like I can't do and then I had to completely reinvent myself as a leader and the irony of all of it was my job became so much easier in the later half of my career doing half as much work and getting slapped yourself like I wish I'd have known this Oh but it's it's such a parallel to the training yeah because it's so it's like all of sudden you have this aha okay yeah you could grind in the gym and get some results and yes you it it may you may think it's working for you until it doesn't to your point and then you have then you have to reinvent yourself and then you find out Oh my God there's a better way and when you find out Oh my God the better way is actually half the effort half the work and I'm getting twice the results you kind of this aha face palm moment of like what was I do a different discipline this is this is why you see a lot of even professional athletes especially athletes that have to make weight classes like boxers and wrestlers and certain Olympic athletes when they're done with their sport they gain a lot of weight they become obese many look at boxers boxers are classic for this where they just get really obese when they stop fighting and it's because they connect well if I work out the only way I'm going to work out is if I'm training this way otherwise it's not what is this leading towards yeah that always has to be like a goal behind of that's very specific so the key for this person is to completely reinvent your relationship to exercise and pain do it slow take it slow take it easy allow yourself to slowly develop this new relationship with exercise and nutrition to where longevity is the goal can I do this forever does this feel good right now not what is the max maximum that I can withstand but rather what is the right dose for me and do I feel good and yes this feels good and can I do this forever that's the idea with that the next one is the exercise hater this is the person that you talk to and I usually don't run into these people in the gym this is usually outside of the gym obviously and I talk to them and they say what do you do and I say oh I'm a trainer or you know I run a gym or whatever and I hate working out I can't stand this is the point yeah why do you hate this one it sucks it hurts it's boring I used to hear that to all the time it's boring and it's like okay first off there's a million one and I know on the podcast we talk all the time about most effective ways to work out but at the end of the day as long as it's appropriate activity is better than no activity so that's number one so even though I may say strength training is best and this is the best or whatever if you just love walking or you just love cycling and so long as it's appropriate then do that it's better it's much better so much better than nothing so that's number one number one find something you can enjoy and go and do that and do it appropriately and then number two is learn how to enjoy exercise by viewing it as self-care viewing it as something I'm doing for me not against me or not because I'm too fat or not because I hate myself but rather because I care about myself I don't know if you ordered these intentionally like this or not but I feel like this connects so well to the one we just talked about is because this is the I think the polar opposite of that person I think this person knows somebody like that crazy ex-athlete who trains hard hammers the shit of himself I'm never gonna do that exactly and they have that they're the they're in the same friend circle and they see the way their ex-athlete friend binges gets out of shape and then crushes themselves on the gym just to lose 23 pounds and binge and they see that and they're like I don't want any I'd rather be me not killing myself like that having a few extra pounds I never want to go down that path because they view that that's what you have to do to get in shape and the the communication with this person is not I think gotta be that difficult and we've talked about this on the show many times where you use examples of getting a client to just read one page of nutrition or getting a client to just commit come to the gym and do one exercise a day or just do one one gym day period and do a full-body routine one exercise one set like just getting this person to enter and you and you start so so easy and so basic for them that they leave going like oh man that's it that's all I had to do and it's like yeah that's because we were doing nothing before and now we're moving in the right direction we can always build on this and so I think that is the strategy for somebody who is completely well allergic to wanting to get to the gym because it's they think it's so grueling oftentimes this person hates exercise because they had a bad experience in school with either sports or they didn't get picked for teams or they weren't athletic so they just they didn't like physical activity because of that maybe they got made fun of or just didn't feel natural to them or because they did try working out and it didn't work it didn't work they put a lot of effort they lost very little weight or they lost the weight they gained it back or is very painful or they hurt themselves like this is not for me I'm just not a I'm not a a physical person I really hate that so I'm just not going to do that well there's so many different ways to exercise you did it wrong before there are right ways to do it and it is a relationship and like all relationships they develop over time so start real slow do what you're comfortable with do what you enjoy and then let let let it nature take its course what'll happen is you'll slowly start to develop a better relationship and slowly find yourself doing things more consistently to the point where you start to actually enjoy it because it is self it is self-care look exercise done properly improves every single aspect of your life every aspect of your life will improve if you improve your health through exercise okay that's a fact so if you do it right it's impossible to hate it unless you hate having a better life yeah okay so if you're doing exercise and hating it you're doing something wrong so approach it kind of the way we're talking and then just give it time I used to do this always I was the master at this I was the master at taking people who hate exercise and turning them into people who loved exercise and I would do what you just said Adam I'd say we'll work out once a week is that enough that's plenty let's just do once a week let's start with that you don't have to take it all on at once I would never push them to do more than that I would wait for them to tell me they'd want to work out more and they always did they always did over time you hit it on the head it's all about the experience that they have and if you can give them this easy good win like right out the gates and then another win and then another win and they start to realize like oh okay I can do this these are the same people that are like oh I want to go harder can I add weight oh this is like three months later like and that's what you're looking for for someone like this is like you keep it you set the bar low you help them hit get these small wins and then allow them to come to you and be like hey I think I can do more or what if we did this and then you know that they're opening that door for you to give them a little bit more a little bit more totally all right this next one this is another category that I've probably fallen into a million times which is the forever balker so this is the person is always trying to gain always eating an excess always lifting too heavy and it usually stems from some kind of an insecurity like they were too skinny this was me I was a skinny kid I always wanted to build muscle I was afraid of being too skinny and so I never ever tried to get leaner it was always the opposite and the problem with this is and I use the scale and the weight in the barbell of success so I gained two pounds I'm moving in the right direction oh I gained a pound on my bench press you know it's moving in the right direction the problem with this is you just don't progress as well or as fast and you miss out on so many other aspects of exercise nutrition because you're pushing so hard being driven by this insecurity I'm sure there's women out there that exist in this category but this typically is like a male thing yes for the most part and like to your point for sure I've fallen in and out of this category quite a bit it's just like you know to me it's the idea of dieting is like oh I'm gonna get smaller I'm gonna get smaller and weak and you know and it just was so unappealing to me that I would rather be just you know a blob of meat than you know small and tiny so it's just all psychological you just gotta work through that well a lot of times this and you think what fed into it because I was fall in this category also is it when you're young and you've got this roaring metabolism you have a very active lifestyle you're training all the time plus you're probably doing other things outside of that so it's super active and you just have a hard time eating enough calories and so it gives you that justification I justified eating tons of ice cream and can oh yeah same here a fast food like I was a personal trainer just to get calories that's right I was a personal trainer for at least seven years eating fast food every day still and and the justification for me was that I need all these calories and look at I still have abs and so that was like my attitude and my selling point to clients look if you train then you do this then you should still be able to have McDonald's and percolate literally that was like my thought process in the earlier part of my career because I had such a hard time gaining weight and when you have when it comes from a place of insecurity like that you're your image of yourself is so distorted that even when I when I started to get fat I didn't think I was fat I still because I was I was I was more okay with filling my shirts out and being on the higher body fit fat percentage side than I ever wanted to be the 7% skinny guy who couldn't fill out his large t-shirt or whatever so it's wild how you can get trapped in this for a long period of time if you don't realize that you you fall into this category and one of the best things ever was challenging myself to go the opposite direction when I didn't think I ever wanted that so that would be my thing for someone like this is like hey I know you want to be bigger and I know you still want to be bigger than where you're at now and you're on this bulk all the time but I'd like to challenge us to go on a on a small cut for the next six to eight weeks and let's just see what you look like afterwards let's see where your strength is let's see how you feel and then let's see what the bulk looks like after that and if I could just convince that person to do that what happened and I'm I know this has happened to you guys is I lost 15 pounds and people told me I was bigger yeah and it was like it was like just mind-blowing thing that happened to me I'm like I've been on this forever bulk I go in my first cut and I get more compliments on being big than I ever did you know stuffing my face for the previous you know 70 years or whatever I thought and that was because the definition came out and it looked bigger to everybody else yes here's a good a good tip for someone like this fast a fast really works effectively for the forever bulker like you do a 24 or 48 hour fast and then realize that your muscles didn't just melt and you start to kind of sever that relationship with food where you feel like you have to stuff your face every two hours and you're okay that for me was a game changer I did my first fast and I was like oh my gosh I think I might just be eating too much and I feel kind of good right now that I ate a little less and then I started my first cut and I got later the same thing happened people said you look big so I would you know how much weight of a game like I just lost eight pounds on the scale like you know what's what's going on alright this next one this one is probably one of the more common ones and this is the excuse maker so an excuse maker of people oh shit our outage insanose you guys fucking run in your Teslas Oh alright so the next one is this one's also quite common right it's the excuse maker somebody who constantly makes excuses why they can't get started why they stopped why they can't continue on their fitness journey usually this one's about being busy right at time it's always about time right I don't have enough time my schedule is too busy you know there's a there's a change outfits there's a he's just help yourself I appreciate that there's a really for the people who don't have enough time there's such there definitely is a wrong way to communicate to these people and I think we all did this when we first were trainers where you have someone in front of you you know let's say I'm talking to Mrs Smith and she's got two kids and maybe she works part-time and she's like like I just don't have enough time to work out and then I used to do the whole we all have the same 24 hours in a day the more time you devote to health and fitness the more time you're going to make the better your productivity it's up to you to prioritize what's important type of deal and usually that wasn't very successful although sometimes it was but it never kept people successful it's really successful because it's you're normally so basically what you're attacking is commitment and discipline in that situation right by mathematically breaking down the time in the week and basically saying you don't have enough discipline or commitment to towards your health and it's really insulting because it's normally you and the only time it works is when it's somebody who needs to hear the commitment discipline conversation it's a terrible way to tell somebody who's had a lot of success in her life being committed and disciplined and other avenues of their life right they have they work 12 hours a day they file over the country they have three kids in a marriage like and they got all these things that they're juggling and they do have very little time and they've chosen to be very committed and disciplined and all these other aspects and then you're basically challenging that by throwing that in their face especially if you're some young trailing yeah they're they're success yes and I made this mistake in my early and I I think this is I'm glad you brought that point up because I see this a lot still today it's a very calm especially from a young trainer to do this whole like spiel on the amount of time that you have left and you just who you who can't find three hours a week anybody could find three hours a week it's very condescending yeah and it's just and it's not a successful approach yes it really isn't there's there's there's a better way to approach this challenge yeah I remember when I this first occurred to me and it occurred to me because I noticed that when people started with a small amount of exercise that if they stay consistent with a small amount inevitably they would add more inevitably they notice some benefits I feel better this is working for me I think I can find more time or I can walk more during the day or I could commit to another workout and they would inevitably increase their commitment or their discipline or whatever you want to call it towards exercise so at this point this is when I would tell people yeah I get you being totally busy how much time can you right now realistically commit to exercise and then whatever answer they give me was fine so you got to work with yeah I have 30 minutes no problem workout 30 minutes a week or I have an hour no problem workout an hour week in fact I used to love hearing this from people because I knew that I could essentially kind of bring them in and I knew that I would I mean for lack of a better term trick them I'd say sure once once a week is perfectly fine and then I'd train them once a week and I'd wait and inevitably three months later they would add another day or they'd add more activity and and here's the real key for this by the way if you're listening to this and you have lots of you've too much you're too busy time is an issue you're making lots of whatever excuses the reality is some is better than nothing so the reality is however healthy you are and whatever quality of life you have now if you added a little bit of exercise to it even if it's 30 minutes a week of exercise to that that's appropriate still better than where you're at it's still better than where you're at and you're still gonna notice an improvement in the quality of your life so there really is no wrong answer and that's the way too to because I know there's trainers that are listening that are going like I you can't get anybody results with 15 minutes a week or 30 minutes a week like they're never gonna reach their goals and it's like okay we'll we'll cross that bridge right when we get there when it's been weeks down the road they've been consistently doing it and they're wondering why they haven't lost their 30 pounds already with that but for now like your job and leading this person is to get them moving in the right direction and at least adding that 15 to 30 minutes because you're right it's going to improve their life yeah I mean maybe it it like translates into just making better decisions in other directions right it all kind of comes back and it's just that entry point that you can build and work with and that's like the most essential part of being able to create something that's going to actually like promote change absolutely a hundred percent and again when it comes to if this is you even if it's not a time issue you have to realize that the biggest obstacle between you and improving your health is usually yourself but also don't make perfect the enemy of better and what I mean by that is is a little bit of exercise better than nothing but don't compare that against perfect you know don't say to yourself well if it's not five days a week and it's not worth it because it is and maybe five days a week is never realistic for you and I'm going to be honest with people right now five days a week consistent exercise is unrealistic for most people unless you're fitness fanatic it's just not going to happen but some is better than none and that's true for all of this and including nutrition if you improve your nutrition a little bit it's better than not doing anything at all did you just change that quote to fit your point I believe I did yeah is it perfect the enemy of good yes but better better sounds good better better sounds good too is better than good yeah this is my quote sound alright so the next one this one we would run into all the time these are the cardio kings and queens people who when they decide to get in shape they go and run it off yes or they go find some former cardio where they could just sweat and burn as much as they possibly can obviously not great success wise you don't burn a significant amount of calories really even if you did an hour a day it's not a huge impact you do improve your health and fitness in other ways but it's not a very effective approach and also and I know you've made this point before Adam people who say they love doing this usually don't they usually don't love it no I think that's the most that's the challenge that I would have for the person that says that right well I like doing or I love to run it's like okay every year it's like no you don't yeah you don't love doing it because you only do it when you want to lose body fat or get in shape and I think another another part of this that makes it challenging to communicate is it's one of the the fastest ways for people to see quick weight loss so if you were you know off off the wagon right and you're eating whatever drinking whatever not exercising and then also you decide hey I'm going to get in shape and the very the two first things that we do they're the average person I should say does when they want to get in shape is cut out the bad food or the things that they like most people are aware eating a pint of ice cream is not good drinking a case of beers probably not good for your health if it is eating fast food all the time and so they try to make better choices there normally what that means is reducing the amount of intake or calories and then they run or do the stair master and of course if your average calories were 3500 a day and you reduce that to 2500 a day and you weren't doing any activity and now you do an hour of cardio every single day you're going to see this initial drop on the scale and so I think that's why this is so challenging is because as a trainer when you try to communicate to this person like this is not the best approach for success in their mind they're thinking well yes it is this is the fastest way I've ever had success lost 10 pounds that's right I've tried this I've tried that and nothing gets me to drop weight faster than cutting my calories super low getting on the cardio equipment and running like crazy and I lose weight but it is a terrible long-term solution to your your ultimate weight loss goal yeah it's very much of a like X's and O's like this is you know just a numbers thing in terms of like what I'm you know what I'm consuming versus what I'm outputting and you you just you end up in this sort of rat race of like I always have to now manually burn X amount of calories because I'm consuming this when they just a lot of times aren't aware they can actually build up your metabolism to be a lot more resilient towards some of these other decisions that may not be favorable well it's a losing game it's a losing game cutting calories increasing activity is a losing game to long-term health and fitness eventually you run out of days eventually you run out of how low you can cut and then what the fuck do you do yeah and what ends up happening is you go back you swim that you swing the pendulum back the other way and you go completely off the wagon in the other direction and then just gets harder and harder for you versus taking a slower approach having a better balance diet building strength building muscle speeding your metabolism up that just gets better and better and easier and easier for you right for long-term health and fitness now it's a slower more gradual process but it will make staying in shape forever a lot easier than it will be going the other way much more flexibility on that path yeah and we have to define what works what what it means when someone says it works for you to say it works we forever okay not that it works for three months or a year and then again the way back whatever you do to define that it works when it comes to fat loss and health has to work forever otherwise it doesn't work otherwise you're like every other person in America that loses weight and gains it back you're this 88% right it's like 88 or 85% of people lose weight and gain it back a year later that doesn't mean it works that means it totally fails and then to challenge those people who say but I love running I love cycling I love swimming which by the way if you truly do love those things nothing wrong with doing those things at all continue to do them but to other people who say they actually love them here's here's one way I'll define them people who truly love running run for the skill in the fun of running not because they're just trying to lose weight right so I've been I've trained people who love running yeah and they view it differently it's a skill I love running like learning how to run it's just I enjoy it whether I gain weight or lose weight it doesn't matter totally different then I love this because it got me to lose 10 pounds real fast because that's a losing strategy and in the long term you know you end up like every other statistic with fail was that on the show Sanjay Rayall Rayall oh Sanjay was it Sanjay yes yes right I mean a good example of somebody who runs for the for the joy of running yeah for the joy of running the meditation the spiritual aspect of it like never would tell a client not to do that for those reasons I think that that it's an incredible practice if that's it but the truth is I would say nine out of ten times the people that say they love running or love doing that they don't they what they have done is they have attached the quick results that reducing calories and running like crazy has provided their body to their successful way of getting in shape and the truth is it's not to your exact point is it's not that successful because you're always looking at it in these three month six month one month windows and not the rest of your life if it was if it was successful and it worked for you you'd still be doing it today it would be working right now alright this next one is this one is quite common in the like the body shaping body sculpting body building space it's called it's common in most fitness spaces but very common those spaces and that's the only looks matter crowd right it's really about just how I look and how I look in the mirror it's about my aesthetics now this will get you so far this will get you so far because how you look can reflect your diet it can reflect your activity however chasing this is a losing strategy because if you constantly chase the looks eventually you will compromise your health and once you start to compromise your health then the looks start to fade as well and then you're and then you're in a really bad position where I'm always trying to get my looks to look better I'm compromising my health with diet pills extreme you know diets extreme workouts drugs whatever I'm training myself too hard or inappropriately the health starts to suffer the looks start to suffer and then this really starts to spider the goalpost keeps moving forward you'll never look never look perfect to the where it's satisfactory so you know the methods just keep increasing in intensity and you know your your training and your nutrition definitely suffers results I find the the psychology that really fascinating you know being the one of us who's like pushed it to that crazy extreme level of competing right and consistently doing it and when I look back at like old photos or books and stuff that I have like that journey in that process I can look at a picture right now and go like damn I was in a hell of a good shape but I I could also vividly remember how critical I was totally of of what I looks like during that time trying to get to the the next level and it's like wow that's so fascinating because having that duality because I totally remember feeling insecure at that point of where my physique was at and then looking back going like God damn I was in great shape right there it's wild how that the goalpost keeps moving not to mention that even even if this is serving you at this point of your life eventually you will have to move out of this season you're going to get older of your life yeah I mean I admittedly this was a I mean and Justin knows this that used to be the joke right that I used to say I don't care you know I all I'm all she'll all go like I don't get all like girls don't ask me how much I bench that's right girls don't ask me how much I bench never ask me my quarter mile then as it's I when I pull my shirt off and no one goes you know could you bench this or squat that it's like you look good or you don't look good right so that was my attitude for a very long time and may have served me for you know quote unquote staying in shape for a period of my life but then other priorities happen right and now I'm in a stage in my life for staying flexible and mobile and being able to stay active with my son is far more important than you know how good I look in a bathing suit or whatever so you know eventually even if you think you know a chasing aesthetic goals is is serving you at that at one point in your life or injury happens or aging happens like the inevitable you will have to move out of that thing. A good example of this are celebrities if you look at aging celebrities who've been worshiped oh yeah look how bad they hold on to their look oh it's because they've built their entire identity and you but you don't have to be a celebrity to do this you could be the fit or shredded or or hot girl or guy and I and you just identify with this so strongly and then you start to get older if you're lucky right that's a blessing all of us can have some is we can actually age and live a long life and then you try to hold on to it and you look at these aging celebrities once they get into their fifties sixties seventies it's like what are they doing to their bodies their faces with the surgeries how unhappy they must be they can't age gracefully because they identify so too strongly with the with the what they see in the mirror Arthur Brooks who's a expert on happiness even he there's data on this I don't remember the exact numbers but he kind of illustrated like this he said let's say on a scale of one to 10 for beauty you're a five and then you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars time and energy you take hormones you work out you really push yourself and you go from a five to a nine he says your happiness will go up about 5% or less right so you spend all that time energy whatever and your happiness barely goes up if at all versus maybe working on the relationship with people around you or which will improve your happiness much more and I think that because I this all these categories for the most part like they're they have value moments of time in your life I think that the the problem is many people identify with this this avatar this character and then they get stuck when it gets dysfunctional yeah and that's where it gets dysfunctional that's where it gets dangerous that's where you don't have success with it long term and so you know I don't I don't want to demonize somebody at this period like there's nothing wrong with setting a goal like that going after it and then obtaining it where it's dangerous is when when you identify is that and that is how that's all you and that's the only way that you measure your health and fitness is it how fit you look and that's I think a terrible way and a terrible place to be and so you want to eventually move out of that and which I think it's such a great exercise this is something I had to implement into my life because I identified so much as this character of like you know letting that go I mean like oh I'm going to be the mobility guy or I'm going to be the super strong guy now like and totally immersing myself with that way of training to let go of that like it takes a lot of willpower and mental strength to be able to move from that if you've identified is that for a long totally now for this particular person where only looks matter a good remedy to this is to aim for performance yeah so if you take someone it's really just focused on aesthetics focus on strength or speed or mobility or technique or form it's a good segue it's a it's a nice little detour off of looks into performance and performance although you can get you can become too fanatical with this as well performance is a bit of a better reflection on health than just looks so it's a nice little turn and I found a lot of success with this with the people who are just too focused in the byproduct is you look better as well yes so it's it's just nice psychologically to step out of that I go performance and then health but it's always performance in between because go from looks to health really hard jump for people alright this last one this one's one I have struggled with since day one and I continue to struggle with I wouldn't consider myself a mobility avoider but I definitely am a I'm a little mobility averse and so this this is a challenge and now the mobility of a voider is somebody that just completely avoids the benefits and value of mobility and they tend to work out in the gym with more weight than they can handle the range of motion tends to get a little short they tend to lift with their ego and they tend to be really tight so they're strong they tend to be stronger but they tend to go tight high school friends yes and this is a problem because if you avoid mobility long enough all that strength and whatever you think you have is going to be gone you won't even you won't be able to do anything because you can't move properly also on a functional level real strength includes mobility it's not just how much you can lift from point a to point being an exercise but rather how how much you can lift and move in many different planes of motion it does speak back to like I used to be this character on some level and very performance focused solely and the irony of that is performance was directly affected by the range of motion mobility and stability and support I had around my joints and didn't really figure that out until after college and you know working on certain issues and problems I had to work on but became a big evangelist for this and really you know to the community of sort of bros and athletes and people that were very averse to any kind of mobility moves because it looks darky or it's just something that's not real appealing in terms of like I just want to train and get after it and like I have all this energy I want to put into the workout I want to spend my time on this like fancy stuff but the irony of that is it how much it really improved my overall performance and athleticism and just avoidance of pain and so brought a lot more longevity to what I was doing with my fitness the unfortunate part about this one is that there's a there's a pretty big movement in the strength community that is that is pinned the mobility space as pseudoscience all right and and so there's a there's a large population of young young health and fitness people coming up that are following some of these really smart power lifters and strength community that have convinced them that you know the whole mobility movement is this whole pseudoscience Gumby bullshit don't need to do it type of thing and you know my you know my response to that that space for those people that think this way will be time will tell eventually this is one of those things that maybe at the season of life that you're in right now you can get away with lifting super heavy all the time and that's and you feel great and that you don't have any issues and no problems but sooner or later you know father time always wins and that'll creep up on you and then it you eventually you will you will be you will either choose to go this direction or you will be submitted to go to this direction and so yeah and so I think I saw enough enough signs for myself personally to choose to go in that direction that's kind of that you have to pass in this direction like you really do I really think that either one you become somebody who adopts this and builds it into your routine or you deny it for as long as you can and then you're forced in that direction and I just think it's a much better relationship to have it to accept it and to learn to integrate it now because it'll only be a longer more arduous process for you to deny it and then try and move back in the response that I mean that is to me is just to purely revolves around ego yeah and it's very glaring in terms of like the the pushback it's got received from the strength community like there's always I mean you saw this too with just working your your core and your abdominals like and when that movement was huge and there was this big response from powerlifting community strength community and how stupid that is and you know and again like it to me it just just screams you know being stuck in a modality in a method and in trying to justify your means and avoid anything that you think is stupid yeah my my challenge is try it like you have nothing to lose try it for a month and then see if you don't improve on all your lifts the the irony is the data shows quite clearly that better ranges of motion longer ranges of motion with control build more muscle that better mobility and we define mobility as range of motion with total control right improves and increases your strength and performance so you really have nothing to lose and the data shows it quite clearly this is how I convinced myself like I personally don't enjoy mobility nearly as much as I enjoy lifting weights nearly as much as I like lifting heavy however when I do it my lifts improve I feel better and my body seems to reflect that I have better mobility just in terms of the way it looks and so this is why I go back to it this is why I try to inject it into my routine so for the person who really avoids mobility try this just try doing this just try 10 to 15 minutes of mobility work before your workout that's up just add another 10 minutes right before it's a real small dose and see if you don't notice an improvement on just that little dose and I think that alone will convince you either to maintain the 10 minutes or to make a more concentrated effort on improving your mobility look if you like Mind Pump head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides we have all kinds of guides that can help you with any of your health or fitness goals you can also find all of us on social media Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam and you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal this one's really important and that is to phase your training if somebody trains for a full year doing a bench press and they're always aiming for five reps if you compared that person to a person who did bench press where they did three or four weeks of five reps but then they did three or four weeks of 12 reps and then three or four weeks of let's say 15 to 20 reps and then they'll throw on some supersets at the end of that year you're going to see more consistent progress from the person who's moving in and out and less injury