 Welcome to another Raw review. It's not the mic, the one and only. Bart Kwan, if you're watching this, we've been live for three days, we may be sold out, but me and Teddy are live if you want to catch it through sb.co and we're talking about what we all love and what we all hate the gimmicks of the fitness industry, Raw, tier list. Let's dive in. Testosterone boosters. Oh, like, okay, are you talking about like the real shit? Like- I don't know if that's a, that's like a booster. I'm talking like maybe a terkesterone, a Tanka Ali. What's another one? Oh, a tribalus or something? Yeah, tribalolius. Horny goatweed. When we were growing up, you had to go to the- Those ones. You had to go to the glass and GNC. Okay, those ones. Do we have experience? So I don't know any of the new Tanka Ali, like that shit, but the stuff that I took when I was a kid at like Vitamishaw, GNC, all of those. Yeah. I took every single thing in that fucking store and I probably went from 12-inch arms to 13 after training for a year. So maybe nothing. So maybe it does jack shit. And why were they like $300? I don't know. I did have to save up. What's funny is back then, probably some of those had drugs in them. So you're saying I'm not nanny maybe? I don't know. Well, it's long enough. It's possible. Science-wise, my personal opinion is trash. Absolute trash, all trash. Nothing you ever buy over the counter that claims testosterone will ever get you to supermaximal levels that will help muscle. Like an IFBB pro level, right? Our free range is something like 200 to 800. That's the normal range of tests in males. So even if you're 300 your entire life and you take some of these subs and they get you to 500, you're not going to build more muscle. You may have a hair more libido. You need to go to the eight, nine, 10, 1,000, 12, right now we're going to maybe build some muscle which I don't recommend. One, because it's illegal. Two, it can mess up a lot of systems. And people get it confused. They say like eight, nine, 1,000. They think that's what you're taking. It's no, it's what your body responds to. Some people don't even respond that good. Some people can take a fuck ton and then when they get their blood levels taken out, the key levels is still low, which is why if you do want to do any type of hormone therapy, you got to go with the doctor because it's about the stimulus and how your body responds to the stimulus, not just, oh, me take more, me buffer. And then you're going to be on the rest of your life and there's just a lot of complications that we don't need to go to. It doesn't matter. But where are we right in this guy? We have God tier, above average, solid, okay, and trash. Trash. Trash. If you want to take the same shit I took, I don't even know what's around, but if you guys know who Marcus Rule is, he was one of the freakiest-looking motherfuckers back then. He was on the cover of the bottle, T-bomb. I know T-bomb. T-bomb might have had some T-bomb in it. Fuck, for real? So I'm not ready? I don't know. Number two. One of, maybe this might be controversial between us. Something Bart may love. Foam roller. The muscle vibrator. The cousin to the foam roller. I don't use that at all. But that's a cousin, but it's a cousin to the foam roller. It's a foam roller's cousin. So, you know, a little bit of a palpitation palpation. A couple of papers. Stimulus via a gun. And they've gotten very popular. And for some reason, they're $700 sometimes. But there's multiple on the scene now. I think they claim things like recover, muscle, soreness, blood flow, et cetera, et cetera. No experience at all? With shit like that, in my opinion, I have quite a bit of experience. I think if it makes you feel good, then do it. But you don't need to find a bunch of pseudoscience and then try to convince your other friends to do it. If it makes you feel good and you're hitting PRs, whatever, and you're fixing your shit, by all means do it. I don't know what the actual science is on it, but I know a lot of people kind of like to reverse engineer the argument. So I 100% agree with Bart. If you always tell me, why do you do that? Oh, it makes me feel pretty good. I'm never gonna argue that. But I guess I would counter to that when you wanna be more self-aware and look internally. Like, does that feel good? Or are you starting to rely on this on some crazy placebo? Cause I have heard of people that won't train without it. Or like, dude, my squad, I miss my top set because of that. Like, no, you probably miss your top set because nutrition, sleep, or programming. But again, if it is the cherry on top of your warm-up, cool. But don't get mentally reliant on all these things because the science is pretty bogus. But it's definitely, like you said, I think, not what people think it does. It's not loosening up, so it's not like you just wake up in the morning, hit your hip, and now you hit full depth. You'll be better off going for a walk. Cause yeah, most of, I would say the walk is even better because most of any type of athletic application is actually mind-muscle connection. So, like, if you wanna warm-up for the squat, even doing a body weight squat, and then getting your appropriate reception up from just, oh, I just slept 12 hours and I lost all complete fucking control of my body, moving with your body in the way that you need to. I'ma go play baseball, I'ma play basketball, whatever. That's way better than, oh, you know what, my fucking follow-through isn't that good, so I'm gonna fucking jam my forearm. Or like, yeah, people say like, oh, I'm warming up for blood flow. Well, what's the best way to get blood flow? Move. Oh, well that is also good, which leads us to the blue pill, just kidding. But yeah, any kind of movement is just gonna be number one. So where are you gonna throw this guy? Cause I might even made it okay. Yeah, it made me okay. Yeah, cause it feels good. Yeah, put it in the middle. Yeah, probably feels good, all right. Maybe one of the most common, this little niche powerlifting specific, it's taken the game by storm, I think, in the last five years. Nope, harder. Harder than any sleeves? The lifting slipper sandal. Oh, okay, so flats. As everything in life, as we see in politics and anything else, the pendulum swings. Hard, yeah. And so I think it kept going and people are like microanalyzing these things that don't matter, like a converse heel is like a half inch, I'm making these numbers up. But then like a slipper's a quarter inch. You're not gonna lift 50 more pounds. And like I get that you wanna optimize things, but again, if it's hindering you mentally, like if you only think you can pull big weights cause the very slickest thing, you're probably doing yourself a disservice. Like that is when I say like, I sound like the old guy, but like rub some dirt in it, shut up and get better. So in that sense, I would say they're slightly overrated. I have worn a couple pairs and they are comfy. They feel loose, they feel whatever. But me personally, I think kind of the shut up and lift is what I'm leaning towards. And maybe it's as I'm aging, but that pendulum swinging. And then two, I do care about how I look and feel. And I would say on the placebo meter, I would rather look cool and wear shoes that make me feel good and outfit that makes me feel good. And maybe that's the basketball background or whatever. But that will make me more likely to succeed in a training session or a meet than this half drop of the thing. Yeah, that's where I draw the parallel with like basketball. Like LeBron James is destroying her ass no matter what he wears. But he wants to be sneezed out. Same thing with power lifting. Jamal is going to crush you. Regardless. He could wear a fucking high heels and crush her ass. So if you want to look sneezed out and be in the culture, that's dope, you know, but don't depend on it. So where are you going with this one? Maybe somewhere in the middle. Yeah, I was going to go solid. Yeah, solid. Because it does have application and it's simple and they're not too pricey. Everyone's favorite. You were talking about blood flow earlier and you're talking about a shakie, shakie, shakie. A little bit older. Cockerings? The shake weight. Oh! That's absolute trash, I think. Absolute? But they say there's dynamic force going both ways. You're training, right now, you're training your bicep and your tricep. Like this? Yeah. I actually heard it's the best movement when you do it on your knees. Oh! Yeah, because the core and the stability. Oh, the stability of the core. Yeah, that's why. I can totally see that. And then once I just heard once, I don't know if it's true or not, but I saw a lot of benefits of having your tongue out. So I did. Yeah. Yeah. They say that's really good. Yeah, I'd say absolute trash. Damn, have you ever used one? No, but no, someone bought it at the gym as a gimmick. Yeah. So I don't know what the recommended time is, but if it's 30 minutes, just walk for 30 minutes. This would do you 10 times way more. So my parents bought me one when I first got into working out, like six or seventh grade, and they got me, because it just came out then, right? Like probably 2000, year 2000 or something. And it has a workout plan to it. And I did it. Oh my God. And you do get crazy pumping out of breath. Oh, shit. Because you're fucking crazy. Like go as hard as you can, one minute. And you're doing all these exercises, but on there you go. And you get a pump. I guess it depends on what your goal is. All right, everyone's favorite. We might have disagree here too. It's a staple in every gym bag across the world. Inside of a gym bag? Or a closet. Phone rolling? Pre-workout. It's addiction time now. Okay. I went through a phase, I get it. I took my first pre-workout when I was 18, 19. I never took caffeine. I never drank coffee. I didn't, the energy drinks weren't that cool of a thing yet. Like 05060708. Red Bull was like just popping off, but I didn't drink any of that. And I went to a GNC type store and they were doing samples. And they're like, oh, are you going to the gym? I was like, yeah, I was going to go train, like do this. And I swear to God, I did biceps for two hours. Maybe even the same machine. I was so locked in. I don't know what hit me. I've never felt that way in my life before. And so if I could get that feeling again, I would probably be addicted. So I understand why new people may be addicted to it. But obviously some of the main ingredients in there, you do build up a tolerance too. Yes, 100%. But also with that, science has evolved. You've made your own pre-workout. And so people add more things that actually have value rather than blah, blah, blah, blah, make you head burst. I feel like it's beneficial, but at the end of the day, in my personal opinion, the whole category is supplements. So if you're sleeping like trash, relying on pre-workout to give you a good workout, it's the opposite way. Like ideally, you should be living a lifestyle where maybe you sleep so good, you wake up with tons of energy, your diet is good that you probably don't even need it. Especially if you're freaking 18 to 25, holy cow. And then maybe you take a little bit just to have like a slight edge in your workout. Or if it's like, I think lifting is a lifestyle now. So people like, you know, they want to drink a little bit when they go to the bar to socialize. Sometimes people want to take a little bit of caffeine and feel that buzz and that extra like wavelength. I think that's cool, but always remember that you're taking a supplement and not like actual fucking, what's the word that's opposite of supplement? Yeah, like the core, the meat and potatoes. The core limits. Yeah, yeah. It's not the core limits. I do think people get reliant and turn all these things to crutches. They all have applications. This one and more so than others, I do think it's above average. Cause there are some things that really help. You agree above average? Cause I don't think it's God tier. It ain't gonna change your life. You can have the best body in the world and the best strength in the world and never touch pre-workout. If I coach an athlete, the first thing I'm doing is like drink half a gallon of water a day to a gallon of water, sleep eight hours, sleep before 10, get your circadian rhythm. And then you let me know how you feel in three months and you're probably gonna feel fucking crazy good. We're gonna breeze through a couple more. A couple are easy. The Nike Blazer. You know the Nike Blazer kick? Like the fucking tuxedo jacket? No, the kicks, the Blazers. Oh, I got a pair of those. Yeah, they're cool. And I squatted in Nike Blazers in 2010. But over the last two years, you look on TikTok and every person that trains, trains, bodybuilding, anything, all have Nike Blazers. I got them cause they look cool. They do look cool. They're like a 1970s basketball shoe. Yeah, it's like Nike's version of a Chuck or something. Yeah. For some reason, every single person wears them now. Every single one. Like as if it's beneficial athletically? No, I think partially style and partially it's flat. But I'm just telling you, more people wear that than power lifters wear a Converse. Damn, well I do like them. I do like them too. But I'm not even wearing right now. But I'm not gonna make them God tier. They're a solid shoe. I think it's an overrated trend. I think it's just like a cool basic shoe and then everyone's like, oh, he has them, he has them, he has them. I'm gonna wear them. I just hate trends like that. I am a bit of a hipster. I'll put it this way. If you're an athlete, you're not wearing them. Yeah, probably. If you're lifting to look cool and you're not gonna like break a sweat. Yeah. But you could squat in them. Yeah. Like they have some application. Yeah. But they're not the shoe. But it's like, hey Zeus, gonna wear them and religiously wear them. Like it's a true piece of it. It's like equipment arsenal. Unlikely. All right, next quick one, the waist trainer. There's a couple of those. I think some are literally a corset where they try to suck you in. Some are like you rub some sauce on you and then you just wrap yourself up like a tummy sauna. Trash. Trash. Super trash. If you want the easiest way to smaller waist is just losing weight. Yeah. That's like the number one easiest thing. This one, I think there's two versions. Let's say purely performance, bodybuilding, strength conditioning, and then we'll flip the coin real quick, ice baths. Strictly performance? Yep. To be honest, I don't know if it does jack shit. So a lot of the evidence has showed that ice baths blunt hypertrophy. So if you take them too close to a training workout, they will actually stop you from building muscle. I think the research shows the inflammation afterwards is what helps you build muscle. So the way that people are using where they're like train and they jump into ice bath or they play a game of basketball and they put on, they go into ice bath, that's fucking bogus-wogus. Yep. I think there's actually- Or even injury stuff. Yeah. That's old science. And I think there's even studies that shown the opposite. Like if you train your ass off and then you go on a sauna, you increase the inflammation is even better. I don't know if it increases the information, but there is heat proteins that you can activate. Yep. So that's good. In terms of injuries, everyone needs to ice that up. That's bad. You want your body. Your body's inflamed for a reason. It's trying to send nutrients and things there to heal whatever's going on. Obviously you have a broken bone, you gotta go doctor, et cetera, but smaller things. Recovery, it does do. And so I've explained this before and everyone gets so mad, but I think not to sound pretentious, but you guys just aren't understanding what I'm saying. Where I say that ice baths and our goal in the gym is to adapt to the stimulus we give ourselves. Yes. Our goal in the gym is not to recover from our workouts. Yes. And I said that and people were like, Mike, you're just throwing words out now. No. You want to recover to perform. Yes. But we want to adapt to get better. Yeah. So if we have a competition five days in a row, Bart and I just did a little circuit. If we're competing in that, like something like CrossFit or triathlon multiple days, yes, you want to recover because you want to be at your best the day after day. Yes. But during training the past six months, we don't care about performance. Yes. Yeah, we want to see an overall trend going up, but we want to adapt. So there may be dips in that while we're fatigued and that's the same basis of powerlifting programming. That's also the same reason why I think people see, they kind of cherry pick what they see because they don't know the full context. Yeah. So they watch their favorite basketball player in season. Yep. See, they got ice all over his knees. Yeah. Why is LeBron James the ice pad? Because he's playing five games in seven days. Yeah, he's playing five days a week. He's playing basketball. He's sleeping on the plane. Like he has overnighters on the plane. He's playing in five different cities, five different games. So like you said, that is more for the performance aspect, but in the off season, he's letting everything fully recover. He's not doing that. Yeah, if he's doing it right. Now I guess we'll flip the coin real quick in terms of for me, ice pads for lifestyle, goes back to the foam roll thing. Any gimmick, I spot, and I took this from Eric Helms, shout out. Any gimmick to me screams when they fix like 10 issues. Right, remember when CBD first came out? Oh, it's good for inflammation, anxiety, happiness, walking your dog, being rich, getting beautiful. It fixes everything. And that's what the ice bath is right now because it's so trendy. They have some benefits. Maybe it has some mental benefits. But also just because you take an ice bath every morning and ice baths are hard, isn't going to turn you into Tim Kennedy. It doesn't work that way. It could help. So the way I- You think I took an ice bath and I turned into Tim Kennedy? So what I like about ice baths and this just, and I talk categories, I don't talk specific things, anything that's mentally difficult for you, I think it kind of has like that placebo effect where you have, it helps train the mind, it helps train the body, you know what I mean? I think it can. Yes. So I think that's where things get caught up because it can transfer to the rest of your life but that's only with purpose and conscious decision to make it. And my other go-to to that though is that's why people that do it long term, I think defeats the purpose. For sure. So- Cause it gets easier. Yeah, if you do something 30 seconds, it's cold, right? Yes, you're getting stronger, you're in your mind which helps you have more willpower to do other things. Once you can start do it David Goggins level where it's 15 minutes and you're just chilling, time to switch it up. Cause now that is not giving the same willpower effect you need for your placebo. It's a hundred percent anecdotal but because we've met so many high tier athletes in powerlifting, strength edition, CrossFit, bodybuilding, professional sports, UFC, tactical. Anything, we've met so many people and they are just a different breed because how many of the casuals do we know in that world that do hard things? Powerlifting's hard to show up every day and don't allow that, there's still no offense to all y'all, bums in their personal life, bums in their financial life, bums in their self spiritual life, right? Cause you don't allow it to transfer. It can transfer but it's not an auto, it's not like you take an ice bath and you become Bezos. But people talk like that on the internet. It's the intent and I think it's the demographic. So if you are of a person that has a hard time getting up and doing what you want, I think that's helpful. It might be a jump start. But if you are already in the NBA and you have like, I've been crushing it since I was in fourth grade. Yeah, that's not gonna elevate you. That's not gonna elevate you at all and I would almost argue like, the highest form of that is like Monkman. Where you're like, I'm on. I don't need to fill up an ice cube because that's your goal, right? Your goal is like, how can I go when I want, I do. Like that's Monkman. I guess I've just seen the opposite where people are like, yeah, I'm trying to change my life around, I'm trying to like get healthy and stuff so like I've been taking ice baths. Like, oh, that's all you're doing? Like why is that what we're doing? You're not focusing on your nutrition. You know what I mean? Like, oh no, the guy on the internet told me to do that. So I bought an ice bath and I've been taking ice baths. Like that's not it. That's like supplements. You're using up all the ice cubes at Albertson's too. That's, man, I'm like, drinks is hot. Okay? I think it's okay because it depends on the application and there's so much involved in it. It's not like a blanket statement, you know? Couple more rip throughs, fit teas. That's bullshit trash. How do you think that drinking a tea is gonna make you skinny? I guess if you drink a tea and eat nothing else. All right, very big trend on the internet. What? I've never actually done it. I've done it with creatine maybe, the dry scoop. Dry scoop and pre-workout? Yeah. Or what? Oh, okay, so... Why is that a thing? So this is... Are you that lazy? This is the thing, okay? Hit him. With a lot of the supplements that you take, they are actually water soluble. Meaning, when combined with water, it becomes more bio available so your body digest it better. It's just the same reason why when you buy vitamins, it always says please not eat with food because those vitamins are only gonna get absorbed into your body if it's with fat. So if you're just drinking vitamin fasted and drinking water, you're gonna piss it all out. But I think they think it's hardcore or something. But the most effective way is you wanna take things the way that it's the most bio available and most of that is with water. Trash. Yeah. Trash? Dry scoop and get trash. CBD. I think my opinions have changed. I used to bash CBD. Yeah? Because when anything first comes out and gets hot, like we said, the gimmick right are is when it fixes everything. Like, what does creatine do? Creatine gives you a little bit more energy on muscle endurance, right? It has a very specific thing. Doesn't make your dick bigger? Yeah, it doesn't make your dick bigger, anxiety. It doesn't fix all this shit, right? So I know it's not a gimmick. I mean, I don't know, but you can look deeper. But not a fan, it helps. It might help some brain stuff. Yeah, it might still help some brain stuff. But that all makes sense because it's found in steak, it's found in fish, right? But when CBD first came out, it's fixing everything. Inflammation, eczema, anxiety, depression, all this stuff. You know, like, dude, that's trash. But I do think it probably has some applications, although I don't think science is still caught up. Where do you want to throw it? In the middle, I guess. Yeah, solid? Yeah. There's probably some applications, again. Last but not least, I think we're talking about the two-minute abs or the two-week abs or the 10-minute push-ups or the... All of their trash. But they're still coming out. And they're still probably making way more money than us. Everything we study, we've learned that little by little, over a long period of time, is the best way to gain knowledge, gain money, fitness, lose weight. Like, everything is, you want to do slow and steady. So anything that's like a super truncated version, it's one, it's, you're gonna gain the other way. You're gonna, what is it called? Relapse, easy. And then the extremes that you're gonna go to to make it happen. It's not sustainable at all. 10-minute abs is probably dope for a month. But then the next month, you probably need 11-minute abs. And they don't sell you that. The industry is wonderful. There's a lot of dope people. But sadly, the cream doesn't rise to the top always. There's a lot of famous trash out there. Watch yourselves. Watch Barbara Brigade because we'll learn and spit you the truth. Raw, tier list every Wednesday. Appreciate you all. Salamai, check out Barbara Brigade. We got a bunch of new shows and dope content dropping from our trips together. New content every single day, man. 3sp.co, cop, the teddy. Catch you in the next one.