 The thing that shocked me the most is because I was kid, you know, 18 years old as a trainer and it was a while before I really hung out with other people in my space. I was still a kid. I wasn't even old enough to drink and they didn't drink because of the calories. A lot of them didn't smoke cigarettes because of this, maybe how it affects their lungs and the stamina and stuff like all some of them did because they liked the fact that it killed their appetite. But everybody did all kinds of other drugs. They passed on the beer, passed me the pills and I remember as a kid seeing this and going, this makes no sense whatsoever, but it's super prevalent in the space and it's more prevalent in the fitness influence. We're talking about the gym space. You go with fitness influencers with all these followers and it is a, it's a lot of substance abuse. You see a lot of it. And the more a substance kills your appetite or gives you energy to work out the day after a party, the more likely it's going to be. It burns a bunch of calories. The more likely it is to, to be abused, which is pretty crazy. Believe it or not, some of the most unhealthy people you will ever find are fitness influencer. It's totally true. We're going to talk today about the seven reasons why your favorite fitness influencer is probably super unhealthy. Did you ask Shocking, did you ask Andrew to put a warning on this one? Oh, you just know you're going to get, you're going to ruffle so many feathers talking about this to you. I don't think so though. You know what? Maybe they'll think it's, they'll think it's other people we're talking about just then hit the nail on the head. They're going to be watching this. Yeah, I know how much you want to bet how many people, how many fitness influencers are going to repost it. Oh, exactly. We were actually talking about, you know, I saw, I, I remember how shocked I was as I started to work in the fitness industry and I started to meet people who not trainers necessarily, although they can kind of be in this category, it's not the same. But as I met people who were, and back then there was no fitness influencers, there was no social media, but you'd meet bodybuilders, competitors, physique type people who would present their bodies on stage or whatever. The more of them I met, the more I realized just how unhealthy that space was. And I've said this before, um, I've never seen as many eating disorders and body dysmorphia and stuff like that. Then I've seen in the fitness industry at large, the fitness influencer industry is even worse. It's far worse. Um, you run into some of the most unhealthy people. The challenge though is they tend to present themselves or that's what they do, right? They present themselves as being these epitomies of health. Um, and it's just really, really bad kind of sleight of hand, right? It's a big lie. And so it's good to talk about this because, um, a lot of people follow this people and a lot of people think that, um, that their advice is great and that these are the people that I should emulate if I want to be super healthy. Um, not true. Not true at all. Well, and back in the day, it was magazines, right? For the most part, we had a lot of, um, um, examples of that with, um, bodybuilder magazine, but even just like it swimsuit additions or whatever. Like we were just very body focused with, uh, a lot of the presentation of it, which, uh, resembled like the ultimate healthy body. And that wasn't the whole story we're getting. Well, I think it's, it's been, um, you compare it to that. God, what would you say, a thousand times worse now? Because now you have this, back then you'd have this magazine that you would see and you would look at this physique and admire it. Like, oh my God, that's amazing. And oh, that's my favorite bodybuilder. Oh, that's my favorite swimsuit model or whatever. But you really didn't know them. They weren't really communicating with you and giving you advice or telling you what to do. It's just like a personal relationship. Yeah. Now with social media, this now in powers. All these people that are, are thrusted into an authority position for, you know, none other than maybe the way they look. And now you give them this immediate platform to, you know, disseminate information around health and fitness to potentially millions of people. And so, uh, and boy, when I, when I had the opportunity to go through the, the bodybuilding circuit, this, I kind of knew this already, but I bet it's still shocked you. It, oh, it's shocked the shit out of me. Cause I, I, I didn't think that it would be to the level that I, that I saw. Of course I like, like you guys, I mean, when we started the podcast eight years ago, we led from a place of vulnerability. We shared our own insecurities and the things that drove us into fitness and how we worked through that and how that's made us better coaches and trainers to connect to our people. So we, obviously we had worked through and we led with that foot from the get, from the get-go here. Um, but when I got into the competitive phase and was going to go meet the best dieters and bodies in the world, I expected to see another level of professionalism on the, on the, on the guides to like, you know, program knowledge, nutrition knowledge, um, and relationship with exercise and nutrition and stuff like that. And it wasn't that at all. It was the complete opposite. And so I was floored by how rampant, uh, these things that we're going to talk about was in that space. And then it really made me go, like, God, it's, it's a lot worse than I, I think it is. In fact, it's, it's probably harder to find somebody on social media that is really, truly a good, uh, influence in regards to health and, and wellness. Yeah. I mean, it really is because it's hard to find because if you've, if you've hacked the, the social media game and you've gotten fame through that medium, you most likely didn't get it the same way that a real good coach or trainer would get. That doesn't mean there's not these anomalies like the, let's say Joe DeFranco, for example, who I think we all respect as an incredible coach, but he also put decades into training real people in real life first. And then he adopted, you know, podcasting and social media and stuff like that. Right. Later, later on. So I would, I'd venture to say that he's a bit of an anomaly in our, in our space when it comes to, you know, quote, unquote, fitness influencers or coaches online. Yeah. Brett Contreras in two. He's another one that's been really kind of hammering this point, uh, with the fact of having that previous knowledge and experience to then be able to relay to this new found audience. And it's like, if you don't have that, if you don't have the leg to work, uh, behind, uh, what you're presenting there, then, you know, this is where we get into this conundrum. Yeah. You know, you brought up a good point about how before they were in magazines and now they have social media and they're posting daily. It creates the illusion of someone who's real and someone who's telling the truth and they're honest. Cause you see their day. Oh, look at their workout. This is what they did yesterday. This is what they're doing, you know, today. So it creates this illusion that you have this connection with this person, they know what they're talking about when in fact they really don't, they are, it's really no different than the high fashion model industry. When you look at the high fact, would you take fitness, diet and nutrition advice from the, from a high fashion model, runway model, right? Man, some people would, but I think most people would know, probably not a good idea. It's, it's really not that different. It's really not that different. It's quite similar in this, the stuff we're going to talk about today mirrors quite effectively or quite a lot, um, what that space looks like as well. The first one that you're going to find, and by the way, this doesn't apply to everyone. I want to say that again, uh, first, of course there's anomalies, of course there's people out there that are exceptions. We're not talking about everyone, but we are talking about a huge percentage. So it is a huge percentage, but again, this is also a huge generalization. So I want to be clear. We're not talking about anyone specifically. We're talking in general terms here. So if we're hurting someone's feelings, well, if what we're saying is true, then, then deal with it, but if what we're saying is true to you, then it's not like dig into that a little bit more. Yeah. Today's workout program giveaway maps performance. This is the program that trains you to look and move like an athlete. So if you like fun, functional type workouts, different workouts, this is the program for you. Anyway, here's how you can enter to win this program. Leave a comment below in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode, subscribe to this channel, uh, and turn on notifications. And then if you win, we'll let you know in the comments that you want free access to maps performance. Also, we've put together these three workout bundles. Each one gives you up to nine months of planned workout. So the next nine months taking care of for you in terms of exercises, sets, reps, we give you video demos, everything, online access to these wonderful workout programs. Each one is $300 or more discounted. So $300 or more off. It's pretty cool. If you're interested, just click on the link at the top of the description below to get yourself set up. All right, here comes the show. So number one is that they likely have an eating disorder. Now, when people think eating disorder or disordered eating, the first thing that may think is anorexia, right? Someone who's anorexic. Then the second thing might be bulimia, bulimia. Then maybe third thing would be like obesity, right? Someone's just eating a ton. Then you see someone who's like muscular and fit or have nice glutes that look good in a bikini. Think, how could that person have disordered eating? Disordered eating can look a lot of different ways, but basically it's an unhealthy relationship with food. Somebody who consistently counts every morsel that goes in their mouth every single day. Someone who stresses out and panics where they don't have exactly what they're supposed to eat or somebody who when they go off, they're super regimented, strict diet. It's almost like you took off the chains and they went in the complete opposite direction. That's also disordered eating. You know, perfect eating. There's a term for it's called orthorexia. Orthorexia is a medically recognized eating disorder or orthorexia is somebody that has to eat perfect all the time and it creates a lot of tension and stress in their lives. A lot of fitness influencers fall either in this category or they fall in the category of they're like that half the time, then the other half the time. It's not just no rules. It's the opposite. It's I'm going to go crazy. I'm going to binge. I'm going to eat everything. Follow any competitor post show for the month or two afterwards and you'll see what I'm talking about. And it looks pretty crazy. I've trained bikini competitors who gained 30 pounds in the two months post show. 30 pound. We're talking about tiny people, you know, 110 pound girls getting up to 140 pounds in the, you know, one and a half, two months post show. And that's that's crazy. Now this one will be one of the ones that for sure offends a lot of people because there's there's there's a lot of influencers in the fitness space who this this is just kind of where they're currently at in their journey. They just haven't worked through this yet. And sometimes it's a necessary evil for some people. Let's say you were somebody who because this is and this is the people this will strike a chord with where they struggled with a different eating disorder. They overate or they binged a lot and stuff like that. And, you know, tracking macros and weighing their food and meal prepping was their the the first it was their interim, right? That's right. It's their first step in the right direction of being healthier and it's changed their life. And so they and they so they get really defensive when you talk about this, because they're still in that phase of their life, like safeguards for them. That's right. And if you've been in the space long enough and you've been successful in it, both building your own physique and helping other people, there's a good chance that you've you've been here at one point. I just think that most people that have taken their physique to an extreme level of like leanness and looking shredded, right? And building a very impressive physique required some level of, you know, orthorexia to get there, you know, to some extent, whether they were aware of it going into it or not. And so and then of course you attach that to the success that your body's had the attention that I gave you. So in your mind, this is not a negative thing. And how dare you attack me or somebody who is weighing or measuring their food? And one, I don't want to come off that way. But two, understand that this is where a lot of fitness people get stuck is they get they get this part down. It changes maybe their their binge eating or bulimia or anorexia that they had or whatever, or they're just obesity that they had before. And then now they become this fitness person through, you know, weighing and tracking and measuring and meal planning, and they don't move out of that. I'm glad you said that. That's very true. And I also want to be clear that all of us at one point have probably struggled with one of the things that we're going to talk about on this. All of us, or I'll speak for myself. I got into fitness initially because of body dysmorphia, and I had disordered eating in the opposite direction. I would like try to eat more to gain weight. So I don't want to come across as like, you know, we're better than everybody type of deal. We just train people for a long time. And it's older, just old older. And a lot of people have seen a lot that when you train people for decades and you're not trying to get fame and, you know, clicks, and it's not this glamorous, make tons of money job and you do it for the passion and love of it, you're forced to grow and learn. You're forced. You're not going to be a good trainer for 25 years unless you work through some of the stuff. But I'm going to differentiate counting macros in a norm in a healthy way and counting macros in a disordered unhealthy way. If you're a counting macros person and it really creates a lot of discomfort and stress in you, when you know you can't eat according to your macros or you're going to go out to eat or you're going to go off for a week and it creates lots of like turmoil within you. Now you know you have a problem. If you count macros and then you have the occasional night out, you want vacation, like, oh, it's okay, you know, whatever, I'm going to enjoy myself or hey, I'm with my family. It's not that big of a deal. Then then you're probably okay. So this when it becomes a disorder is when it really when it really has this negative impact on the rest of your life and it causes a lot of problem. Healthy eating enhances your life. It improves the quality of your life, all of it, not just the way you look. Disordered eating takes away from your life. So that's the big difference. I also think another red flag is if you get defensive when we talk about some of this. Because that just shows that you identify with that way of eating so much that somebody talking about it as it could be an unhealthy thing triggers you to defend yourself in that situation. That's also a red flag that that potentially is an issue for you. If you, again, we're not talking to any one specific person. We're talking about something that's very common in our space and much of most of us have somewhat have some sort of relationship with going through that ourselves. So understand that if you get triggered from someone talking about that, you may well be one of those people that are still in that phase of your journey. Now next would be that they that many of them abuse exercise. What does that mean? Like how do you abuse exercise? Anything can be abused or used like a drug, including exercise. And a lot of people in this particular category work out to the point where it's not just not effective. It's beating them up. It's beating themselves up. It's a way of distracting themselves. A punishment. It's a punishment. And a lot of these fitness influencers look as good as they do in spite of the fact that they do this. You know, you'll meet somebody like this and they'll be like these really fit lean looking people. You'll look at their workouts and you'll realize like, man, they have such incredible ability to withstand punishment that they actually can still look good while beating themselves up as much as they do. Which by the way, judging a fitness influencers knowledge or health by the way that they look is not very effective. Now you can do it in extreme cases like if somebody is obese, yeah, probably not so great. Or if somebody's like so lean, they look like they're gonna die. Not so great. But for oftentimes you'll have two people that look both fit and healthy. One of them is not gonna have great health. And remember, health is not just physical performance. It's also mental health, psychological health, gut health, you know, all those hormonal health, all those other things. But a lot of them abuse exercise. They use the gym as a drug. They go to the distract. They beat themselves up. They beat themselves up harder when they go off their diet. They beat themselves up harder when they feel tired or stressed. It literally becomes a tool of self-flagellation. Yeah, well, one thing like we're talking about red flags, like one thing I noticed and I'd get occasional clients that would want to go so intense that they would vomit at the end of their workouts. And this is something that they were actually coming in desiring that outcome. And, you know, on top of that, too, I think there's sort of a process when you start like equating calories with your exercise. So a calorie burnage. I think that that's a slippery slope where people will start kind of equating last night's pizza to be this like 500, you know, 1,000 calorie burn thing I have to like get to the first thing in the morning to to just beat myself and work it off. And I've seen this happen over and over and over again. So it's something that always tends to come up that I have to kind of, you know, talk them through and get them out of that mindset. So these first two are one of the two most common things that I saw in the bodybuilding community. And to your point, you're making right now, Justin, is one of the things that I recognized pretty quickly with the people that had success in this category were they just had an ungodly amount of discipline and ability to sacrifice. Like it was admirable. It is. It is a bit admirable. And it commended their ability to do that. And that was more common than them really understanding nutrition and program design. They just had this resiliency and ability to hammer themselves and train and never no day. I mean, that's where the hashtag no days off came from is the mentality that many of these trainers and competitors would have towards working out is just that they they were able to consistently. And I know the saying goes that you can't outwork a bad diet. Now, these people aren't necessarily having a bad diet because they're for the most part probably prepping and counting, but they most certainly play that game with the calories and budget of what they can and can't eat. And it's something they constantly think about and obsess about all the time, no matter where they're at, eating wise or who they're with, that's constantly going. And I you know, and I felt a bit of this myself when I was in that space and it's a bit of a necessary evil. If you're going to win, like if I'm going to be one of the best and I'm competing against everybody else who's dieting and train the same way, I better be a bit obsessive about this. And here's where we kind of have to be distinctively clear with sport and health and how those aren't always in alignment. This is a fitness influencer. Yes, that's a sport you're describing, right? And this is necessary to get there. Same. And that's my background. I had to be able to get out of that same kind of mindset because I always did admire the discipline of people that would work the extra bit and always do more than everybody else in the gym. However, like when I started to consider my own health and how it was deteriorating, I had to consider a whole new way to do it. Yeah. Yeah. And at that level is not healthy anyway. It's not you don't look at professional athletes or bodybuilders as people who can tell you how to be healthy or fit forever or long term. There's a terrible segments of the population for that. They know how to win. They know how to compete. But but when it comes to influencing others on fitness and health, not very healthy and the exercise abuse part is a big part of it. The next one is that you'll often in this category of people often run into unhealthy narcissists. It's a very and this sounds obvious, right? You're putting your body out there. Look at me. I'm so whatever. I'm so great. But, you know, there's a certain level of narcissism that's required to put yourself out there to do a podcast or to start a business have people working for it. You have to at some level think that you can do things that other people can't do. Narcissism gets unhealthy when the center, the universe revolves around you. OK, if you've ever hanging out, if you've ever hung out with a fitness influencer with lots of followers, go hang out with them for a day and you start to realize that they literally feel everything revolves to the point where I've met. I've met fitness influencers or bodybuilders who will date a person and oftentimes narcissists will date people that they are also unhealthy and they tend to gravitate towards them. They'll have spouses or girlfriends or boyfriends that do everything for them. Yeah, prep all their meals. Take care of everything for all the pictures, do all their stuff for them in every situation. Wild. It's wild. I had a I knew a guy that that competed. He didn't even make any money. He wasn't make his girlfriend made all the money, supported him, made all his meals, took care of everything. It was the most narcissistic abusive relationship I've ever seen. And she was in there as well. And you see this quite a bit. And they're not very. I mean, taking advice from people like this, not a good idea. Yeah, you guys ever want to get a good laugh, you know, show up to an event or something where there's 10 or so, you know, competitors that are all, you know, fitness influencers on social media and watch them all take a picture together. It's the funniest thing ever to watch. Isn't that funny? How quickly the hit their pose the level of narcissism of like critiquing everyone and taking turns is like it turned to like a quick little photo of hey, we did this turns into a 45 minutes of getting the right angle, the right lighting. Like I look good. You don't look good. No, we can't use this one. I was like, oh, my God, been in situations like that because we'll take a picture. Oh, it's so cringy. Whatever. But we've done that, right? We've met some of them. Yeah. So, you know, you said something I think is a really good point though that makes this challenging because to put yourself out there to share, you know, photos online and to go out with the intent that I'm going to build a network of people through social media or I'm going to start a podcast does require some level of narcissism. Yeah. And, and, you know, a therapist would tell you that there's a healthy level. There is a healthy level of narcissism. And I'd like to call it self belief, but yeah, it is. Narcissism. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's how I like to say it to you like that version. We learned this from that psychologist we had on the show years ago early on. Yeah. She did that test with us and she said, you know, a certain level of narcissism. She's like, all of you are narcissistic is healthy and you'll find this in entrepreneurs, people who start businesses and stuff like that. But it definitely can tip into the unhealthy. Well, yeah. And my point I was making is so you start this, you go out on this journey and then and you, you have this amazing physique and so you're getting this flood. It's like this little, this vicious cycle or circle of you getting told how great you are. Oh my God, you help me how great you are. Oh, you look amazing and you, you start to smell your own farts. And then you don't even, you lose the self-awareness around this is a went from a healthy level of narcissism to, you know, very unhealthy narcissism. And I think that when you're in the social media world and you're putting yourself out there, you're creating content for others. That's a very fine line that I mean, I mean, off off air, the four of us talk about this all the time and keep each other and check because even as quote unquote self-aware, I like to think all of us are. It's still, it's easily can suck you in. And so if you're not somebody who's already like on the watch for that, real easy to get sucked in that. And I think a lot of these guys and girls definitely fall into this category. Not to go off into too much of it. You need really good friends. Thank you. I'm just going to say that not to go off into too much of a tangent on this. But if you, if the only, if everybody around you is always telling you how awesome you are, you're in a bubble. You need to find other people or put yourself in other places where people disagree with you, challenge you and don't tell you're so great all the time because you're never going to grow. You'll never change. And you might start believing it. That's actually terrible. You start to believe you're the most awesome thing on earth. That's not good at all. And a lot of these people in the space definitely think of the best things on earth. And we meet them because of our podcast. And I used to get, I used to be a little bit surprised by it because I'm like, God, people like that really exist. It doesn't surprise me anymore. Now I'm like, okay. Yeah, I know what to expect of the norm. Yeah. Next is they are probably or many of them are body obsessed. All right, this goes along with kind of, you know, types of body dysmorphia. Body obsessed is like and you see this as they start to age as they start to age, they really, really are challenged by the fact that that you're not going to look the way you did when you were 20 anymore and things are going to change a little bit. And they really fight hard and they start using plastic surgery and things like that to kind of offset it. And I know that there's a maybe a healthy level of this and I understand that in society now it's, you know, it's quite accepted many, many of these things. But this, the body obsession can get quite extreme in the fitness influencer space to the point where they will sacrifice anything for a look including their health, including their friends and the relationships around them. This is the danger of building some sort of a following around your physique. You know, I've got a, you know. Boy, what a great point. Maybe one of the biggest, most famous fitness influencers and I have become friends, like we contact, we've talked to each other on a print, I won't put this person out there. But this person has is very, very well liked and his, you know, his presence online. He's always, you know, put his, you know, a lot of his stuff is with his shirt off and he's always maintained this great physique all the time. And he's getting old. I mean, he's been doing it for a very long time. He's been doing it for I think over, over 10 years now. And he's getting in a place in his life or wants to settle down and have kids and not have this pressure of like, I've got to look a certain way to keep this brand and thing going. And he makes, he's obviously huge and very successful. And so he's in this weird predicament in his life that he created this kind of monster or he created this huge brand and name around himself. And part of that is representing his physique as like look at where it's at and maintaining that all the time. And he's just, and it seemed all right when he was doing it because what a lot of these fitness influencers say that I'm like, oh, I love fitness. I love working out. And that's because they're at that place in their life like that they love to do that over a lot of things. And then, you know, and just like the experience. It's different when you have to. It's also different. You have a child. You have, you get married. You have, you find something that you love more than yourself and instantly it completely reshapes your priorities. And this thing that was so natural as a priority for you like, oh yeah, I don't ever miss a workout. Oh, I never don't miss a meal. Like now it's shaken up because your priorities have shifted yet you have built this entire brand around the obsession around your body. And you know, there's a lot, there's quite a few famous Instagram and YouTubers that have built their, and I always, when I see a young one start it that way and when they're 20 something and they lean into the shirt off type of deal. You automatically put a shelf life on your body. Oh, right away. I see that. I'm like, oh man, you think it's good right now but at one point there's going to be a time in your life where you're going to want to eat a little extra calories and skip some workouts and you're going to put yourself out there and you're going to just hear so much criticism and then you're going to fall. And then you fall in the trap of what is very common in the space is these fitness people will get an incredibly good shape, pay for a photographer to take 500 photos of them and then they drip them throughout the year pretending like they look this way when they're really not. Yeah, you know, it's funny. I don't know if we've ever said this but the reason why we chose a podcast as our form of media, well, two reasons. The first one which we've talked about before is it's long form and fitness and health. You can't really communicate it effectively in an Instagram post or caption. You need long form discussion. We knew this as trainers. The second reason was because we... I got a body for audio. Yeah, we didn't want, I mean, I remember talking about it. I mean, at the time Adam was competing. He was in peak shape. And I remember all of us talking about this, like I don't want to like have to look like this or my authority is due to the way I look all the time is what's gonna happen in 10 years, 20 years? We plan on building a business and working in fitness and helping people for as long as we want. And it's hard to do when you're 60, maybe not when you're 20, but if you plan on doing this for a long time, podcast is great because it's my voice and my knowledge and my communication. It's not just how I look. And I'm definitely glad we picked this over the other ones. All right, the next one, I remember how surprising this was for me in the fitness space. It's not surprising anymore because it's now, it's part of the course, but you would be people who are not in the space would be shocked. Oh yeah. Yeah. They would be shocked. Yeah. To see the substance abuse issues in fitness. It's remarkable. I was actually surprised, but I know you guys have stories, but like me just like showing up to a party and I've seen a lot of these people from the gym and a lot of them were passing on alcohol, like no, no alcohol, no way. Thank you. And I'm like, oh, this is going to be a lame party wherever and then you come to find out like what they're doing in the bathroom and then party and on top of that, I'm like, oh, okay. That's what we're doing instead. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's excessive. And I think the average listener probably thinks like, oh, like steroids, right? No. They think that. That too, but no. I mean, cocaine and ecstasy, molly and heroin and prescription pills. And I mean, I was somewhat naive. Go party with a bunch of fitness influencers and it's a lot of drugs. You know, I was somewhat, I grew up somewhat naive in the world of drugs. Like I was a small town kid who I didn't see cocaine for the first time until I got into my early to mid 20s. And it was, it was around the fitness community. Like I saw most of the drugs that I was exposed to was other health and fitness experts. And they really do. They really, they go so hard on the training and dieting and keeping themself physically fit that they go, one of their ways of binging isn't necessarily always on food and calories. It's through other means. That was the thing that shocked me the most is because I was kid, 18 years old as a trainer. And it was a while before I really hung out with other people in my space. I was still a kid. I wasn't even old enough to drink. And they didn't drink because of the calories. A lot of them didn't smoke cigarettes because of this, maybe how it affects their lungs and the stamina and stuff like, oh, some of them did. Cause they liked the fact that it killed their appetite. But everybody did all kinds of other drugs. They passed on the beer, but passed me the pills. And I remember as a kid seeing this and going, this makes no sense whatsoever, but it's super prevalent in the space. And it's more prevalent in the fitness influence. We're talking about the gym space. You go with fitness influencers with all these followers and it is a, it's a lot of substance abuse. You see a lot of it. And the more a substance kills your appetite or gives you energy to work out the day after a party, the more likely burns a bunch of calories. The more likely it is to be abused, which is pretty crazy. All right, the next one is that they're just so not authentic. They are not really telling you the truth about themselves. They're preaching this health and wellness message when they are anything but. They typically don't talk to about, talk to their fans or whatever about their own challenges and struggles, unless it's scripted as a part to, as a concentrated way of creating authenticity. But these, they're just not, they're not real. They're so fake. And you know, look, there wasn't that long, how long ago was it where that company shreds got in trouble for photoshopping all the photos? Six, seven years. I mean, that's one silly example of inauthenticity is the Photoshop photos and the changing how they look and the filters and now it's getting even crazier. Like Photoshop is so crazy now. Face tuning. AI is going to make it even more ridiculous. Here's what I'm eating. That's not really what you're eating. Here's what my workout is. I remember there was one person we knew who would post his workouts and they were insane. Like, God, guys, a beast. How does he do all that? Then you meet his training partner. He's like, dude, he does like one third of that. He posts that. I work out with him. I'm his training partner. Fake weights. I mean, dude, there's just like so much stuff that you're just like, why? But they have to maintain this perception from the outside that they're always awesome. And they're always doing the right thing. They're always leading with their best foot forward. But that's just not reality. And it's just, to me, I'll smell that first thing like out of anybody. That's the biggest thing I noticed. Listen, this was already a small fire that was going in fitness as is. We're just as broken as anybody else. And social media just threw gasoline on it. I mean, that's really what happened was that because now when you make a post, you look through it through the lens of an algorithm and getting likes and building your business and adding followers. And that is one of the major drivers in what type of content do you decide to post and share about. And to Sal's point, only when it fits that narrative do I post real stuff or maybe manufactured real, like me crying because of something or, oh, my period, look what happened. Like these things are manufactured, post to get my audience to perceive me as more authentic than what I really am. Cause the reality is all the rest of the stuff that I'm constantly doing is to chase follows and likes. And so it's unfortunate because it breeds that. It really, it rewards that. It rewards it. And they're not the only one. I mean, to be fair, it's pretty much the entire social media platform in general, like that's what they promote. So, the average person is like this, the average person, they're not gonna fall trapped to that. Yeah, they're gonna be like, oh, my husband and I are not getting along right now. We're getting a fight. It's like, here we are on vacation. Love you. My kid screaming at me right now. And I, you know, because you'll see these, like the fake authenticity tends to come along in trends, like you'll see like the girl who will say this, you know, Instagram, real life. And then she'll kind of sit like this. So you see like a little role or whatever. And then all of a sudden everybody's doing it, you know? So it becomes like this trend about showing vulnerability. This is unhealthy because it's an unhealthy way to present yourself. And it's unhealthy for the person. And they start, they'll realize it at some point. Like if you present this, one of the worst things that can happen, if you present a fake persona, one of the worst things, it's like a genie, like those movies where people have a genie and they wanna wish and the genie gives you what you want, but the twist at the end is that's not what you actually wanted. It turns out to be terrible. The worst possible thing that could happen to you with your fake persona that you put out there is that you become famous for it. Because now you have love for someone that doesn't really exist. And that is torture. And that'll, we met someone like this. They were a big YouTube social media star. They were nothing like the persona they presented. And they were tormented by it. They actually told us how tormented they were. You know, and then you have the stories of like the fake vegan that gets, someone takes a picture of them eating fish and it destroys their whole career or whatever. Like it's not great. It's unhealthy. And it's definitely something to avoid. This is also too like, I'm gonna use this opportunity to talk about something that I get questioned. Like I did my live Q and A's the other day and you know, people will recommend or suggest somebody that's another like famous fitness influencer and stuff. And a lot of times I'm like at this point I'm like dismissive. I don't go into a long explanation of why I'm not gonna invite that person. I just say meh or pass. You know what I'm saying? And inevitably you always get at least, you know, 10 or 15 people that are like huge fans of that person. Why? Why are you such a prick? Yeah. And so then they come and it's just like, you know, when I see somebody like that that is in their mid 20s and just because they have a massive YouTube channel or following. And I can't, I can't personally see like what could I gain in value from having this person on the show? I'm not gonna bring them on the show. I'm just not because I'm aware of probably where they're on the journey. Now the consumer or the other person like, oh, they're really smart. I mean, they're super science-based and they put all this like, yeah, they're also 27 years old. They, how many people have they trained? 50, you know what I'm saying? Maybe in person. And then most of it's done on virtual online. So they've figured the algorithm out. They know how to regurgitate studies really well. Like, is there, is there ever a time where you don't think Sal's covered a new study and we haven't talked in length about it? Like what value is that person really bringing to this? And it's like, they've done a really good job of creating this image of how brilliant, how smart, how great of a coach and trainer they are online. But sometimes people just don't even think about like, well, how good could that person really be if they're only this old and they've never really trained anybody in person? Like can they be that brilliant or are they just good at this social media? By the way, just to go on the other end of that, one thing that we set out to do is to use our platform to promote people who are really good and they don't even have to have a huge following. In fact, we'll have someone on the show soon who, and I don't wanna say who they are yet because they haven't come on the show yet, who they don't have a huge following. We just like their information. We like the way to present themselves and we're gonna get nothing from it other than the fact that we're gonna meet this person and use our platform to help boost them up because in this space, in the fitness space, to do things the right way through social media, you are at a disadvantage, unfortunately, to people who do it the wrong way. And so one of the things that we're trying to do is use our platform, because we're already big, to boost up those people who are doing it the right way so that we now have more people on that side overpowering or at least trying to crowd out all the crappy stuff. All right, last is that they're probably not fitness or health experts. This is the biggest one, okay? This is the biggest one for me. People giving fitness advice who have never trained a single person or maybe have trained a few friends or maybe just trained themselves. People give fitness advice and health advice who have no background, no education in it whatsoever aside from the fact that they work out themselves and they look good. This is terrible and it's annoying and it's frustrating and this is where all the bad information comes from. This is where all the shitty stuff comes from. It's from people like this. If you have somebody with a background in education and fitness and health who also has trained people for five, 10, 15 years, they probably have good advice and you'll hear similarities in the way that they communicate. You brought up Brett Contreras recently. Joe DeFranco, us, we're all different. We didn't know these guys before we met them on the podcast. We all had different kind of somewhat careers or whatever but we all trained people for a long time. When we answer a question, you'll hear similarities in it. Like for example, oftentimes someone asks us a question. The answer is it depends and we need more information to give you more of an individualized answer. It's almost always not these absolute answers because we know that there's such a huge variability in people's psychology, mentality, physiology, right? So people giving fitness and health advice to other people who don't know what they're talking about poses real dangers and real problems and has caused a lot of people, a lot of harm in the very least has caused people to leave their pursuit of fitness because they took this bad advice, either they didn't work for them or work for a short period and then they went backtrack because it was so terrible and then they give up all together and that's the part that frustrates me the most. Yeah, I think you highlighted two people that I think we have a lot of respect for in the space and in one of the most common things and one of the easiest ways for you to know if somebody is like this even if you don't have their history or background is when you do ask a question like that you don't get a straight answer as you would like. You get a depends. You get a depends. How many calories should I eat if I want to get more? Yeah and normally it depends and then it's to follow it up with more questions. Well, it depends. Tell me what you're doing for this. Tell me how long you've done that. What have you done in the past for this? Tell me, do you like that? Do you not? And then they'll start to curate all these questions and then they'll give you an opinion and they normally will lead with that. Well, it'd probably be a good idea to do this and not like, oh, this is better than that and this is also why, and I know I kind of jumped a gun on the last one referencing somebody recently that someone won on the podcast but this is what I think of right away. It's like this is a science nerd kid who speaks in absolutes and when he answers, it's what does the study and the research say? And a really good coach will not only formulate their answer from what the research says, but also what their experience is also what that person is telling them. It's a three-pronged answer. It's like, I want to take the research that I'm aware of. Consider the research but also like know based off experience and firsthand and then also like what your client's variables may be. Yeah, behavioral ones. They want to do what they like. What they want to do, what they're going to adhere to. Like there's just so many things to consider. So yes, you have to ask more questions once you get the question. Yeah, for example, somebody's like, is fasting good to improve my health? Well, the sign says yes. Sign says yes, fasting is great. No, it can be. It can also be terrible for you depending on the individual. And so you're going to need more, you have to ask more questions to give the person the right individualized answer and real fitness and health experts understand this. Look, if you like Mind Pump, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Justin, Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump. Adam, you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. Today, we're going to teach you everything you need to know to build a strong, well-developed chest. When I think of weak points and areas that I struggled with developing for a really long time, my chest was up there with the work. Yeah, it was for me for sure. I got more caught up in the weight I could lift versus how I was developing my body. I think it's one of the most challenging muscles to develop for most people because the form and technique.