 You are listening to Mind Pump the World's top ranked fitness health and entertainment podcast and this episode we answer fitness and health questions that are asked by listeners and viewers just like you. By the way, if you wanna go through the episode and watch where it's time stamps, you can fast forward to your favorite parts, go to mindpumppodcast.com. But what I'm gonna do is give you a breakdown of the whole episode. So we open up with the introductory portion where we talk about current events and things in our live. That's 37 minutes long. We started by talking about reality TV. Is it real or is it fake? Then I talked about my wife's journey to the DMV. Oh, so frustrating. Yeah, purgatory. We talked about the new Meir insulated coffee cup. They're amazing. It keeps your coffee warm or keeps your cold beverages cold. It's really nice stuff. By the way, you get a discount through Mind Pump. Just go to meir.com. That's M-I-R.com forward slash Mind Pump. Use the code Mind Pump for 25% off. Then Adam tells us about his Spotify Joe Rogan conspiracy theory. We talk about the importance of teamwork. I talk about Larry Wheels on Instagram. He's so strong it doesn't make any sense. It's silly. We talked about the fighter, the UFC fighter, Adesanya, I think is his name. His gyno, apparently he doesn't know where it came from. We think we know where it came from. Weird, where's that come from? I talked about a new study showing that fasting causes muscle loss. And then we talked about our pumpkin spice lattes made with Organifi's pumpkin spice gold juice. No sugar, tastes great. It's got adaptogenic herbs that balance out the caffeine. Great stuff. By the way, Organifi makes lots of organic, amazing supplements and you get a good discount because you listen to Mind Pump. Here's what you do. Go to organifi.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com forward slash Mind Pump. Use the code Mind Pump for 20% off anything on their site. Then we got into answering the questions. The first one, this person, when they go on vacation, they find that they lose a little weight, they feel better, they digest better, they get better sleep. What's going on? Why does that happen? The next question, this person wants to know what are the best priming movements for squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and overhead presses? By the way, if you want to learn how to prime your body for free, go to mapsprime.com. It's a free webinar. Next question, this person wants to know what we think of kettlebells versus dumbbells. And the final question, this person wants to know what it was like when we first became personal trainers and how to deal with imposter syndrome. So long ago. Also look, we create fitness programs accessible online. You go online, you sign up for one of them, you follow the workout, we demonstrate the exercises, we tell you what movements to do, how many reps, how many sets, what the phases are. You can check all of these programs out at mapsfitnessproducts.com. We have created programs for almost everyone. So based on your goal, your experience, go on mapsfitnessproducts.com, find the program that works best for you, follow it for a full 30 days, no risk. In other words, you get a full refund if it doesn't blow your mind. So there's nothing to lose, follow the program, and we promise you'll see some incredible results. Again, it's at mapsfitnessproducts.com. You've only been once, right, Justin? You haven't gone back? No, he has just once. You guys plan to go back again? Yeah, I'll probably go back. But if it's Borat, I'll go. Yeah, yeah. When's the release on that? 23rd. Oh, this month? Yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah. I'm excited for that, it'll be funny. Oh, yeah. They had to, I mean, he had to have shot that fairly recently when you look at the preview. Because he talks about COVID in it. Yeah, he talks about COVID and he's got this, where he goes to some like Trump rally and talks to Mike Pence. Yeah, so he's up to his same shenanigans where he's dressing up and trying to be incognito. So some of that's got to be pretend, though. Well, yeah. Of course, it's staged, some of it. But also, I think that they position it, they try and find people that don't really recognize them and probably, it's some kind of documentary and don't tell them exactly what it is. I'm sure some of it's like that. Yeah, it reminds me of it, it reminds me of those. I think all of it is. It reminds me of maybe. Most of it is, probably. Because it's like those magicians on TV when they go up to the street, the people on the street and show them their magic and they're like, how did he get the card inside the apple? Probably an actor. Hey, act like you're just a dude on the street. I'm a dude on the street. Oh my God, how did you get the card in my pocket? Whoa, yeah. I remember when someone spoiled that for me. I think I met somebody back in, God, it was early or mid-2000s when I met somebody who had been on that. What, you were in your 20s when you figured out it wasn't real magic? No, not the magic, the reality TV. Oh, okay. Yeah, when I realized that reality TV isn't so reality. All reality TV, yeah, yeah. There's a producer that literally stages it and then they have to wear the same clothes the next day if they didn't get all the shots. Or they'll tell them, hey, we didn't catch that. Re-enact it. Can you guys talk about that again? That's what they told me. Feed them more booze with Ben Zorn. No, way before him, way before him. So they were telling me that on Real World, right? That's, sorry, I couldn't think of the name there. On Real World, they would film them all day and then if there was any sort of beef, they would totally stage. They would set them in the same room, they would tell them, ask them this, tell them that, it would be completely staged. Or if they, like you said, they missed something, they would make them re-enact it so they could- Plus now you know you're being filmed, you're doing it again. Now you had time to think about stuff you wanna say, it's gonna be more dramatic. Of course. For sure. But the original Real World was real. Like the first season. That's why they got along. If you watch the first season of Real World, they pretty much got along, you know? And every subsequent season got more dramatic and worse. And they tried to cause drama. Right? They got like everybody like in there had, you know, pre-dramatically different backgrounds. Yeah, dude. Yeah. Like I puck or whatever, you know what I mean? It's interesting to me that like most people know this now, right? But yet we still, we would rather it be produced and you know, staged drama than just allowing people to be- Why do we like drama? If it's too real, I feel like people get uncomfortable. Isn't that funny though? Why do we like drama so much? It doesn't make me feel good. No. I think it does. I think it makes you feel good about yourself. That's- Everybody else is dealing with some crazy shit. Remember I told you, you know my whole thing, right? When I'm sick, like what I watch and I'm- Trash TV. Yes, I'm certain that I've tapped into why because I feel so bad. Like there's not very many times in my day or in my life period where I sit and feel sorry for myself except for when I'm really sick. If I'm really sick, it puts you in that victim role right away. And you're like, oh, poor me. I'm so, oh, I feel terrible, right? So when you feel like that, watching Trash TV makes me feel better all the time. You go online and look up like, you know, horrible stories of people, you know? Like, oh, people worse than me. No, just 16 and pregnant does it. I mean, that's enough for me. I mean, that's enough. I know, cause Courtney is like really into hoarders and like those intervention shows, you know? I'm like, oh, I like, I hate watching that. Dude, have you guys ever known- It's gotta make you feel good though about like, you're like, oh, my kitchen's kind of messy right now. Well, yeah, that's what she says. I'm just like, ugh, this is like, like who lives like this? Have you guys ever known a hoarder, like a real hoarder? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, I had a staff member once and I went over his place and it was so shockingly like terrible, so disgusting. Like, I don't know how to explain it. The sink was full of dishes and paper plates that were cans everywhere. Cockroaches. Yes, cockroaches. Dead animals, they just uncover. Like, oh, that's where fluffy went. Every step was in on the floor because it was on something else. And I remember thinking like, I didn't say something because I'm like, what do I say? Yeah. You know, it was pretty bad. I always wonder what the progression of that looks like for somebody. Like, does it just start off like you leave your t-shirt one day on the floor and you're like, I'll get it tomorrow? You know what I'm saying? It's just a domino. Yeah, exactly, then you have dishes and you're like, I'll get it tomorrow. You know what I'm saying? Before long, it's like everything is all over the place and you're buying like new dishes because all your dishes are dirty. Yeah, I had like a little glimpse of that, like living with these dudes that were like, just disgusting human beings, you know? Like I don't, I couldn't even believe I lived with them for like a year. But like- You're talking about the big football player? Yeah, big football player dudes that were just like, just overweight and disgusting and just would sit there and just eat food and fall on them. They'd just leave it there, you know? And I walked in and dude, they'd stack plates into the kitchen and I would like wash them. And I'd wash in there. And at a certain point I was just like, I'm not washing dishes for them anymore. Let's see how, he just kept stacking and stacking and stacking. And so I started- I took a game of chicken. I just put it, I just, one day I just took it off, threw it all away. And they were like, what are we gonna do? So they started taking Tupperware on the top of the lids and like eating shit off of that. Oh my God. And like there was no end to their disgusting behavior. I had a roommate like that. I had a roommate that was like that. And it got to a point where when he finally moved out and he cleaned out his room, like dude, he had like pots and pans like underneath his bed and shit. Like we were, he was a trainer and we were one of like the go-to meals. We used to do the hamburger helper boxes and use ground turkey for the meat and stuff. And then that would be like a massive, 1500 calorie meal with like a hundred grams of protein. That was like a staple thing that we just made like every night. And he must have had like three, four pans of where he'd eaten straight out of the pan like that. And then just sitting in his bedroom like in a closet under his bed, just like, what the fuck dude? Like at what point do you wake up and see a pot like in your bedroom and go like, I'm just gonna get that later. I think you get to a point where you probably get past a certain point where you think it doesn't matter anymore. You're like, well, it's already so disgusting. I might as well just take your shit right here. I don't think you ever think it's disgusting or else you wouldn't have allowed it to happen in the first place, right? It's, you know what they say? They say that you're numb to it. They say that your space somewhat will reflect your internal space. Yeah, like how you feel about yourself almost. Like your internal turmoil. So there's like normal messy and normal disorganized and then there's the kind that is, you know, like real dysfunction. Yeah, yeah. Well, those shows have the opposite effect on me. I'm like immediately going around cleaning the shit out of my house. See, if that's on TV, I'm like, ah. That's when they go into the house and they're wearing like hazmat suits to clean up their house. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Oh my God. Have you never watched that before? I have. I've watched that show before. I have, but it's hard for me to watch that and it's hard for me to watch the, what's that show, My 600 Pound Life? Of course, she loves that one too. It's really hard for me to watch because I feel so bad and then it's also like, it's baffling to me. You know what? I mean, it's kind of fascinating on some level. You're just like, wow, the psychology there and like how did this happen? I mean, we're all psychologically twisted in some way shape. I mean, humans are just weird to begin with but at that level, it's really hard to comprehend. Anyway, speaking of hilarity or whatever, my poor wife, she went to the DMV to change her name, right? Cause he got married in February. And so she's like, she's ready to go and ready to have this baby. So she's very pregnant and the DMV is just a wonderful example of... Yeah, what is she doing at DMV right now? This time right now. If you ever want it, if you ever think to yourself like, man, we should have government do more stuff. Go to the DMV because that'll be a good reminder of why you don't. Just to find forms and fill them out and then go to different locations within just one building. It's just a wonderful example of just complete inefficiency and redundancy and archaic balloon. It's just insane. So she goes there and she gets there early. Cause she's like, I need, cause you go to the DMV, you're gonna be there forever. So let's get there early. Yeah, it's purgatory. There's a line out the door anyway, before it opens. So she's like, fine. She's waiting in line and she's got all the stuff she thinks she's supposed to have. And first of all, nobody offers her a place to sit. Nobody has her move in front, which really annoys me. You got a pregnant ass woman like help. Anyway, so she's standing there. She's already being cool about it. She's like, well, I'm gonna do this. Finally gets to the front of the line, takes hours, gets up there and they're like, sorry, you need this extra form. So why don't you come back again another day? Right? That's so the DMV, bro. So she goes. So, and remember, Oh, you didn't know that? Yeah. So remember, she, I know. She's like, I got everything the website said. No, it's not, you know, you gotta have this other thing. Yeah, but also, yeah. So she gets support, you know, she's obviously a little hormonal, right? So she gets in the car and cries. She texts me and she's like, I'm crying right now because so then today she goes there and now she has everything she thinks she's supposed to have again, everything. Gets there even earlier, still lying out the door or, you know, in front of the building or whatever, waiting, patient. And I'm texting her and I'm like, you all right? You sure? Whatever. She's like, yeah. She's like, this is a good price. She's trying to be like higher minded. She's like, this is a good practice, you know, for my awareness. I'm being really mindful right now. Being very mindful and, you know, I don't mind waiting and, you know, she's really good about that. She's very, very good about reframing, you know, frustrating situations, but whatever. So she gets to the front of the line. She has everything. I remember she left early. She doesn't get good sleep right now cause she's ready to have this baby. So she's tired. So she's basically got out of bed, made it over there. She's got everything. Finally gets to the front of the line. Oh, awesome. You know, Mrs. DiStefano, you have all the paperwork. Now we're going to take your photo for your ID. She's just got out of bed. Like, she didn't do it. So she's like, what the fuck? So she texted me. She's like, they just took my picture for my ID. That's going to be on my ID forever. They just got out of bed, you know, pregnant as hell. She's not alone. That happens to like almost everybody. I know. You know what? I was just thinking about, as you're telling this story, I'm like, you know, if the third party candidate in this election right now, they would be smart to just run on fixing the DMV. I bet you that could bring everybody's thing. Why has that not been the policy? The other two guys are dividing the country, right? They're dividing the country now. That's our campaign slogan. All fixed DMV. All fixed DMV. That's it. I'm going to claim I'm going to do anything else. I'm coming in for four years. We're going to halt everything else. I'm fixing the DMV. I guarantee you would get a good portion of the country to vote for you just for that alone. Oh, finally. Somebody's addressing the real needs. I'm not going to address anything Trump or Biden are doing. I don't have the time for that, but I am going to fix the DMV. Yeah, forget the economy, forget foreign affairs. You're going to wait 10 minutes in line at the DMV. 90, yes. You can do it from the comfort of your house. They just won 90% of the vote for this whole thing. They would though, right? It's so frustrating because you go in and it's like the most redundant. I'm like, why are you using all these staplers and photocopies and sending me to 15 different windows? You go use the Scantron over here to take your test and... I wonder how much money you lose just on that. The microfeech to look things up, right? Yeah. It's like the oldest shit you've ever seen. I'm going to need you to fax this. The little tag that you have to pull out, right? The little number, I'm number D475. Well, we just went back in time. I'm in 1985 right now. Wow, look at that computer. That's the first, that's the first mechanism. Even they're computer old. They use the old school computer. Like organ trails on this? Yes. Bro. And then the people working there, I'm sorry if it works out. They're angry. Well, I mean, wouldn't you be? Just like, ugh. Yeah. Hating life. Worst job ever. Just so mad. But they can't fire me. So I'm just going to make this face the whole time. Did you guys see, there was this hilarious article, I don't know if it was the Daily Mail or something like that, but basically, I think it was in the Ukraine, but they caught on camera. So they had set up for this nature video footage to catch Siberian tigers and all kinds of stuff in their natural habitat and everything. And what they caught instead was a guy that was butt naked on LSD, crawling around like he was a tiger. What? Yeah. What? Yeah, they were just like, oh my God. And apparently he had traveled like 15 miles in throughout this forest area that was like heavily shut up. Yeah. Like just butt naked, just out of his mind. He's having the time of his life. Right? Like, sounds like such a great time. I would rather, if I was in the wilderness and I'm like, you know, like going deep in there, I'm like, okay, I got to be careful for wild animals. I would be way more terrified of a naked dude crawling towards me. Right, you saw that you're camping. Than a bear. What the fuck? He's scratching on your tent. Oh. Ah! Like, no. Hey, Justin, look out the tent. It might be a bear. We got to be careful. We don't want to get killed. No, it's a bear assed man. Dude, hey, speaking of naked, crazy man. Speaking of camping, you know what blows my mind is how effective those mere camp cups are. I put my coffee in that camp cup the other morning. It must have been, I think it was like six in the morning, maybe even, I don't know, 5.30 in the morning. It was like 5.30 in the morning. And I drank like half of it, set it down inside the studio, didn't even pay attention to it, came back to it at like 2.30 in the afternoon. That shit didn't feel like it dropped a degree, dude. It's the vacuum sealed. It's crazy. What is it? The insulator that they put in there. So. Super effective. So you put something cold, hot, whatever, it's like that the whole time. Yeah, well, that's what's great too, even with the cold, cause like we have that water machine working again, finally, which you know, now it is literally arctic cold when you go to drink it, even when it's like blazing hot outside. Yeah, what's the deal with cold water? Why do we like it? Oh, you know what it is? I think this might be what you- Bring down your core temperature. Yeah, but here's my theory. I'm like, here we go. Put my lab coat on. Your tinfoil hat. Welcome to South Science Quarter, where he just speculates. So I was thinking about this. I'm like, why do we like cold water more than room temperature or whatever water? And like, especially Jessica, she's pregnant right now. She loves cold water. So this made me think. I'm like, what is it about cold water? And you know what it is? If you're in nature and you find cold water versus warm water, it's more likely to be clean, right? Because cold water is running. Yes, it's running. It's less likely to be stagnant, like bacteria-filled garbage. Interesting. Yeah, so. Does that make sense? No, it does. That makes sense. I think that's a pretty good thing. It's not something they're stewing. I want that little star with the rainbow thing. The more you know. Yeah, that's a decent theory. Did we talk on here, but I know we brought up Spotify and Joe Rogan. Do we talk about, how much did we talk about that on here on like the theories on what's going on? I saw the guy on Barstil Sports. So what's the hilarious dude that does the one minute? Yes, the one minute guy. Man. He was breaking it down and I, and he did his little tinfoil hat thing when he started talking about this, but I subscribe to this theory. I do think that this is a plot for advertising. I think like he makes a point. Does he get more attention? Yes, I do not think that Joe Rogan and Spotify get into contact with each other and don't discuss content and whether it will be censored or what you can and can't say. There's no, we wouldn't do that. If Spotify came after us. Of course, that's the first thing they tell you. That's the very first thing. We want to know what we're going to be capable and we don't, we want control of our show. I don't care how much money you pay us. If you're going to try and say, you're going to dictate the message. No way. He's always been very protective of that. Exactly. So Joe either protected those or gave those rights up and I don't think he gave those rights up. And so what I think we're seeing is four or five, like probably employees acting a fool and then Spotify being smart and being like, oh, you know what, let's run with this story because it's going to go all over the place and which it is and everyone's sharing and talking about it, which is just going to draw more attention to Spotify. That's plausible. That's a plausible conspiracy theory. You could go even further and, you know, because, you know, the world is run by the Illuminati. So maybe they're trying to prevent him from revealing the truth. Really lizard. Yeah, let's go down that conspiracy path. You remember when Apple did that, right? That was like an ever since. And I feel like that's like a move that everybody does where they do something and they act like it's really bad, but it was something that they totally allowed just to get the press. No, that's true. That's totally true. Companies have done that on purpose in the past. Yeah, so I just think. And maybe it was like one employee or like two employees. I think it's a handful of employees, and they probably triggered someone like, ooh, this is actually a good idea. Hey, let's make this public. Yeah, number one, get us more attention. Number two, to embarrass these stupid employees that want to watch out over this year. No, I think it's a brilliant. I mean, look at how much that's been on the headlines for the last week. I mean, that's everybody is talking about that. I know, and Spotify's in a terrible, terrible position to be in if they were to allow those employees to dictate that policy. Right, yeah. That would ruin the company. No control over your company. Oh, man. So I think like nothing is happening. They're just leaking the information out so it'll go viral and people will be talking about it. Yeah, it's very plausible. Sometimes I think back though, because you're probably right, Adam, that might be the case, but sometimes I think back to like, when I first got my first like big job working as a trainer, you know, 1997, 98, like it was different in those days the things that bosses said to their employees. You know what I'm saying? Like I couldn't imagine, like, could you, listen, think about this. Could you imagine when we first started in the fitness, in our working, right? Where you and two other trainers got together and you're like, let's go talk to the general manager right now. Here's our list of demands. We are not here to clean equipment, you know? We're not gonna do that. We're just trainers. Oh my. The guy just literally like rips your list in front of you and then pees on it. Yeah, dude, you would have been hammered. I was in a sales meeting one time. This is a true story. I was in a sales meeting one time and my manager who was super angry with the fact that, you know, some guys were just being lazy and not getting leads through a calculator like a ninja star in between two of them into the wall. That's what happened in the meeting. And that's like the one that I'll tell on the podcast. I have many other stories. Hey, now that being said though, my first promotion came from, so one of my like rivals, so a guy that I actually worked with. I've told the story of like who like the top trainer was in our gym when I was 20, first coming in. He got promoted like a year or two before me. Him and I used to butt heads. And so we became like this rival. He gets promoted first to the club that I'm in. So he's my boss for a short window. Then he gets promoted up to the Hillsdale location, which you're familiar with Sal. And I then get promoted to the gym that I'm currently in and his old position. So I'm now running the staff that he was running right before that. So my competitive nature is to outperform the numbers that he ever did out of there, which we did. And he's now running one of the bigger boxes, Hillsdale in the Bay Area. And he was there for about a year and I got the call to come work there. The way I got that position was because 20 of his 22 trainers got together and went up to the corporate office and said they were all quitting if they didn't get rid of them. So the power of the mob sometimes does work because they quickly- Now you inherited them. Yeah. Did you end up firing them all? No, I didn't. Oh wow. No, I actually, I mean- I would have slowly fired them all. So that lesson for me didn't come until a little bit later where I learned quickly that, I could always come into a team and inherit another person's team and kind of win you over initially and outperform you. And because I was a speed of the leader guy where I wrote a lot of revenue as a fitness manager, which was rare back in those days, I could elevate the club and the team right away. And so I could come in within a month or two, we would turn it around, we'd already be outperforming the prior person. But over time, those people that were not my people would eventually have to go. They would eventually kind of where, there's always outliers, right? There's always somebody who's a team player or adopted to my style more and then kind of became my guy or my girl. But eventually, most everybody who worked for the person before. And it's just, that's kind of like a rule. Like when you inherit staff, like you have to like clean out the people before, especially if you lead differently. If you lead differently and have different philosophies so yeah, eventually I had to get rid of all of them, but not initially. Yeah, when I would get into a new place, I would almost always, there was always one person or maybe two people that you had to make an example. What I mean by that is you had to show everybody else that this is how it's gonna be. Otherwise, it's like- No bad seeds. Yeah, I mean, I had the first club I ran, I had a guy who'd been in the company for, I don't know, forever, since the beginning. And he just decided, first off, the way he would talk to me was a little condescending slightly and I could sense it. And he decided he was supposed to run the weekend, supposed to show up at work at 9 a.m. Didn't show up, it was 9.30, 10 a.m., 10.30. So I drove to work an hour away to the club. He walks in at noon and I handed him his stuff and his deck, was in his desk and he said, you're fired. Well, you gotta understand that like, and people like, when I give this advice to other managers and leaders that inherit staff, and I always say the same thing that you just alluded to, which is, fire them all. Fire them all, get your own people. The truth is, it's like, especially in the fitness space where you build this really strong bond with your staff and it's like a family. If you hired, trained and developed these people and then you move along and then the next person comes in, you're like the adopted parent. You know what I'm saying? And that kid is- You're the new guy. Yeah. It takes a while for them to really buy into you. Oh, totally. And that's if they ever do because many times you run your box different than the other person does. Well, a lot of the people there are probably gonna be open minded, but some people are just not and they become a cancer and that's the ones that you have to identify right away. I saw it a lot in sports and especially in team sports. So like going through various programs, like I have seen guys that just really had their own like self-interests in mind and would start to vocalize that. And it was interesting for me to see how the head coach was gonna deal with this because this is one of those pivotal moments where it's gonna affect everybody because I've had both reactions. I've had one where the coach went, guns blazing thunderous, like took a desk and smashed it against the wall and was like, you're out of here. You're never coming back, dealt with the parents, all the ramifications of that and they're just like, you're out. And we all had a great season after that. And now, you know, and then on the other end of it, it was like pure dissension. We started our performance, you know, as a group all went down, everybody went down. We had like the worst year we've ever had and it's because of like the start of that one person that spread out to everybody else in this negative bullshit. It's a hard lesson that you have to learn as a leader and I remember it being challenging when it's taught performing people that you have to get rid of. That's the part that's scary. If you come in, you inherit a team and it's your star quarterback or it's your star producer and they're the one that could be the cancer to the team. It's a really tough decision to do that. And I know a lot of leaders that get stuck in that position. Oh, it feel like they're held hostage. Yes, and it's, you know, maybe initially it's tougher to get rid of that person and then rebuild, but you're always better off having somebody bought into your vision that's less talented than somebody more talented who is constantly bucking the entire life. A cohesive team made up of average people is always gonna outperform a team that is not cohesive that's made up of a bunch of superstars who don't care about the team and wanna do their own thing. The team with the average people who work together will always outperform. This is true in sports. This is also true in every gym I've ever managed, every sales staff I've ever had, every fitness staff I've ever had. Any business that has a culture? 100%. Dude, did you guys see Larry Wheels, his last video? No. One of his last videos? No, no. 250 pound dumbbells, incline presses, smooth, 12 reps. I can't even believe how strong he is. Yeah, just still moving weight. He got these specially made dumbbells that they had to make specifically for him, brings them up and does incline presses with them. Like nothing. That guy is just... He's young too, isn't he? He's so strong it doesn't make any sense. Isn't he like mid-20s? I don't know. Yeah, he's in his mid-20s. See our new YouTube host ripping 6.75? Oh, dude, Marlon? Yeah, Marlon's a big dude. Bro, he almost had 700. He had 700. It slipped out of his hands. He's all natural. He's built. You could tell he's natural. He's got a good physique, but he's a natural dude, but insane strength. Like in crows, 6.75. Yeah, he's in a full 700. I messaged him. I'm like, you can't be stronger than me Did you see my post underneath it? After he did a 6.75 video on his Instagram? We're going to take all your videos down. Oh, you can't work for MyPumpTV anymore. Too strong, dude. Too strong for you. Once you've passed this up. Hey, you know how we were speculating on... What's that guy who won in the UFC I didn't... What's his last name? Adesana. Adesanya. Stylebender. Yes. His gyno-comastia. Yeah, so apparently a lot of people were speculating on him. Finally, it took a while for people to say anything. Oh, it was bad. I saw it right away. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right away. But he came out and talked about it. Really? Yeah. What did he say? He says, I don't know what it is. We're going to go get it checked out. That's what he was saying, dude. Great response. Bullshit. I know. That happens either you have... It's weird. I'm lactating. I don't know what's happening here. Yeah, dude. That happens in teenage boys sometimes from the changing in testosterone. Bro, not from a fucking Primo athlete that should have his... Not at that age. No. Posterone or steroid. Yes, yeah. I know I saw Dolce. I listened to his recap. Unfortunately, he was too politically correct for me to enjoy it. It was just like, I'm like, come on, guy. If you're going to do a clickbait thing like that for me to watch, give me your... Point it out. Yeah, like specific. It may mean this. It may mean that I'm like, everybody's afraid to just say it, like, dude, say what it is. Like, that shit is for sure. This dude has taken something, dude. You're not getting that naturally unless you have really bad hormone issues as a man. In which case, yeah, definitely get it checked out. And that's not happening in that type of thing. No, and if he's training at that level and it's happening and he's got coaches and doctors and it's not steroids, you better believe they're gonna say, hey, well, how does that get through? Because they have some of the most rigorous drug tests. Come on, dude. They're not, though. Remember when we talked to John for the timing of it, right? It's all about timing. It's cat and mouse, dude. They understand the testing and they figure it out. Exactly. When there's that much money in these sports, I mean, this is like this ongoing debate I always have with my friends who like, just they wanna believe that professional sports is mostly clean and there's these few outliers that get caught. I've released that thought. It's the completely opposite. It's like most everybody is using and doing it and they're doing it in ways that they can not, so they don't get caught. Now, to be clear. And the reality is people like Brendan are like, those are anomalies. Like that you rarely meet somebody like him who's played eight years in the NFL and was clean and didn't do it. Like that's not normal. And to be clear, that's not why they're professionals. I think a lot of people think- No, of course not. Definitely not. You try to elongate their career. No, like here's the truth. You get a professional athlete at that level and you have them stay natural and then you get the average person and you put them on all the drugs you want. We'll never do it. You won't even come close. No, what I look at it like, so like Brendan was a very, very good NFL player. I think if you put him on drugs, he could have been great. Like he was already good. Like he was already a really good player, but for the average, he wasn't like a household name for everybody. He wasn't a Ray Lewis. You put somebody who is naturally that talented, that gifted with that work ethic that made it to that level all natural, then you throw steroids on him and then he becomes like- At the very least, it might have given him more longevity. You can continue to play at that level, you know, at an older age. Take a beating, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, no, for sure. Sure, such a brutal sport. You don't get gyno as an adult unless a couple of things are going really wrong or you're on, you messin' with them. And that was a- Steroids. That was a bad one. So you really, the hormones swung pretty hard on that. For you to not have it at all and then to go there. And somebody who's experienced it, like so I've battled a kind of comastia from steroid use myself. And, you know, to get it to even be visual for the average person, like you have to really be- Well, you know what the problem is. The problem is the drugs that you use to control those kinds of side effects. So let's say you're on steroids, right? And you're doing hormone stuff and you start to develop breast tissue because what ends up happening is once you get your testosterone to a certain level or you take anabolic- The estrogen wants to try and keep up with you. Well, not just, they get converted. Your body wants to convert extra testosterone or extra steroid into estrogen or prolactin, for example. And so you start to develop breast tissue. The way to control it is with drugs that reduce the conversion of testosterone to estrogen. Those are called anti-aromatase drugs. Or you take drugs that block the estrogen receptor. Here's the problem. Those drugs are the easiest to catch on the test. So if you go into the fight and you've gotten, you're getting gyno and you can control the anabolic so that they won't catch you, you can't take those other drugs because they stain your system. They're easy to detect. That's how, like, who was it? Who was it, Manny Ramirez and MLB? Well, a few years back, they got caught with that. Like, it's normally, it is normally like- It's the anti-estrogen that they call it. It's normally the blockers. They run the cycle correctly to where, you know, they know like, okay, this is off season. I can take all these steroids. If as long as I shut them down by this date, then it won't come up on the test. But then all of a sudden you start getting these side effects when if you didn't come off perfectly and then you have the option, okay, do I take these things and keep myself from growing fucking breast or making sure that I balance out my hormones or do I ride it out and just say fuck it because I'm gonna get tested again and that's gonna get flagged. And so, yeah, he had to been in that predicament. And then it's like, well, I guess I just got to roll with this thing until I- I don't know, dude. If I was, I don't remember the guy who fought him, but if I was that guy and I saw that big old guy, I would be pinching that thing. Oh. You know how painful that would be? Yeah, but you know, it's like the- Getting the clinch. The kettle calling the pot black though. You know what I'm saying? I mean, you can't tell me that fool is- Look how- Yeah, but he don't got guy notes. He looks like, yeah, because he just balances his drugs better. That's it. You just keep flicking it. Oh, wow. I don't know how anybody watches that and doesn't look at that dude and go like, this dude's on has been- Yeah, how do you look like an amateur bodybuilder is competing at that level? Yeah, dude, you don't look like, I mean, that's definitely some- I don't know, though. I will say this, dude. I have definitely known, I've only known a few people like this with genetics that you think to yourself, this person is definitely part human, part something else. Yeah, that's fair. I've met people like that. That's why I too, I mean, I'm speculating, right? So I don't know any facts. So, you know, a retract is saying guaranteed anything, right? I always think back to this guy- Because I have been wrong enough times to know, on both ways, right? There's been guys that I said like, for sure is on steroids. He's absolutely not. And then there's other people like, oh no, he's definitely not. And then he totally is. Dude, I worked with a guy that, and I knew because he would just share with me. This guy was on so many steroids. And if you looked at him, you would think to yourself, maybe he works out. That's about it. That's how far his body got with all these drugs. And then I had this one guy that worked for me and I loved, I eventually convinced him to become a trainer. Didn't make much money at all because he was front desk at night and then a porter during the day. Great dude, very nice guy. Every once in a while I'd buy him lunch because I noticed he walked to work didn't have any money. He would eat, no joke. His breakfast would be either a muffin if we had free muffins at the front desk for the staff. He'd ask me, how can I have a muffin? That's his breakfast. His lunch would consist of, oh, McDonald's has 99 cents cheeseburgers. I'm gonna go eat one of them. Dinner was SpaghettiOs. And he'd go in the gym and do skull crushers with 225 like it was warming up. And I remember seeing this guy, holy cow, that's some genetics right there. Oh, really quick. Hey, there's a study circulating right now. I wanna, it's starting to make waves in the fitness space on, at least on Instagram. It's a study on fasting. Oh, I heard this. Intermittent fasting. Oh, I love studies like this. That it could build muscle? No, lose muscle. So lose muscle. So they took a couple groups, one group didn't fast, the other group fasted. And the group that fasted lost weight and the group that didn't fast didn't lose weight. They go in, do the analysis and find that the weight that they lost was muscle. So you're getting all these people now that are like fasting causes muscle loss and fasting is not good and blah, blah, blah, blah. Look, you gotta look at the study. Nothing was controlled. It was literally you eat whatever you want, eat three meals a day plus snacks. You eat whatever you want but make sure you eat within an eight hour window. There was nothing controlled. So literally, literally it was you probably are eating less calories, less protein. We know you're not working out. You over here, you're probably consuming more protein, little bit more. Of course you're gonna lose muscle. Yes. Of course you are with something like that. That sounds pretty worthless to me. That was this study. So right now people are out. Now are there trainers that are touting it right now that like are anti-fasting people? Yes. Oh, there is. Oh, you look silly. No, it's not the fasting. Well, not to mention by the way, which I think since day one, regardless of that study did prove that or not, is we've talked about that this should not be used as a tool for fat loss, building muscle, losing none of that. It's a health tool. Yeah, it's a relationship tool with your food, right? So it's not a performance hack. Exactly. Many people struggle with their relationship with food. We've advocated for fasting as a great tool to help work on that relationship because it is something that very few of us have ever decided, hey, I'm not gonna eat for 24 or 48 hours and actually stick to it so you can actually really see like, oh, was I hungry or was that real cravings? And you don't realize that until you actually resist from food for a long period of time like that. It's not a great strategy to lose body fat or build muscle, it's just silly. Correct. Hey, what did you guys think of your pumpkin spice lattes? Delicious. Yes. Oh my God. So this is the season, right? I thought it was gonna be. This is the season for pumpkin spice lattes. So what I did is I had- Jerry made it with coffee, right? So I messaged her yesterday. Oh, it was you who did that. Yes, so I experimented with this at home. So Organifi makes this gold juice, which is you take it at night because in the gold juice they have adaptogenic substances like reishi, turkey tail, ashwagandha. Good for relaxing. That's why it's good at night. They've got these kind of balancing effects but it tastes like, it's a really tasty drink. It tastes like pumpkin spice. So I thought, why not mix this with, what is it, almond milk and coffee because pumpkin spice lattes are like the thing, right? We're getting to the season. So I told Jerry, said make those for the guys tomorrow and so you guys like them. Pumpkin spice and everything, nice. So here's what's superior to- I was wondering why Justin was wearing his Uggs this morning. Ooh, my scarf. All sweaty, no socks in there. So here's the thing that they're superior to the pumpkin spice lattes you'll buy at Starbucks or whatever because the gold juice has almost no sugar in it so you're not putting sugar or whatever, sweeteners. It's got the balancing herbs and it's a great combination with caffeine from coffee because now you get the buzz from the caffeine. It cuts that like super high, the jittery type of caffeine high and it just, you know, evens it out and elongates it. So it's a low calorie latte that gives you a great mental and physical effect from the balancing effect of the caffeine, the ashwagandha and all the other stuff. I really enjoyed it. And the gold juice, yeah. First question is from Tiffany J. Little. When I go on vacation or take a week off exercise and ease up slightly on nutrition, I lose weight, my digestion is better and I sleep great. Why is this and how do I go back to my everyday life and continue the positive momentum? I love this question and this is an observation that I've had many clients report to me. I have myself identified this at times where I go on vacation and foods that normally would cause gut issues, don't necessarily cause gut issues, sleep issues seem to disappear. Doesn't it speak really to your stress level? Totally. Yeah. People don't realize just how big of an effect your stress has on your body's ability to build muscle, burn body fat, your cravings, your sleep, your hormones. Digestion. Everything is affected so strongly from these things. And this is why you go on vacation and you're like, wow, I've got the best sleep. I can't believe I feel so good. I've had some of my best workouts on vacation, which is strange because my diet isn't necessarily as good. You'll find that when you're stressed, here's another thing, if you're not tracking, you may not realize this, but when you're under a lot of stress, they've proven this in many studies. And again, this is my own observation with clients. You crave foods that tend to not be as good for you as well. You tend to eat more when you're stressed out. And of course, sleep is totally negatively affected. Yeah, it is. I've definitely noticed this myself too, like going on vacation, you're just immediately this weight is like relieved and your body just feels like, oh, I can provide you more energy. I can provide you like more strength. My workouts are better. There's less of that pressure and tension like leading into that like, oh, I gotta get this in and cram it in to my already hectic and chaotic schedule. It's just, it's one of those things. You try and think about that and then kind of carry that into, what do I gotta do now, recovery-wise and what do I gotta implement now, like coming back out of vacation to get these same types of feels? Well, this is interesting. This is a question and we were talking about that study salad you brought up with intermittent fasting. This is an example of somebody that I use this tool for. This sometimes is a sign to me like, oh, this person is like stressing about what they're eating. They have this structure that they're following. They probably got a lot of stress at work. They're also hammering the weights like crazy. You know, this is somebody I might say, okay, hey, once a week, we're gonna do a fast and during that time, I want you to do something meditative. I want you to do either yoga. I want you to do sauna stuff or cold plunge, hot, cold stuff, like focus on kind of working within and restrict from food for the day and not think about it, right? And so this is somebody who I might do that with and use that as a tool because that's normally a sign of like, yeah, you are. You're just probably stressing too much over all those things and you just naturally going on vacation, probably eating just when you're hungry, you're probably doing things with your family and friends and focusing on other aspects of your life. You're probably even more active. You're getting more sleep. You're getting more sun, you know, because usually on vacation, going somewhere where there's more sun and your interactions are less like stressful and chaotic with people. It's like a whole factor of things. Yeah, I've had clients lose body fat and get stronger simply from incorporating some kind of a relaxation or meditative or stress management technique into their lives. Literally from just adding 10 minutes of meditation a day or prayer or, I've had clients actually, no joke. This has happened several times. Well, I'll have a client reduce their activity and replace it with something that's more rejuvenating or somebody maybe was doing a spin class, for example. I had a client do this once. We replaced the spin class with a yin yoga class. Now for all intents and purposes, she was burning more calories with the spin class than they were with the yoga class. But the result was they actually got leaner and I remember blowing them away and it really did highlight just how much of an impact stress makes on your body. I've had clients who deal with chronic pain and they'll hire me and we'll do corrective exercise and I'll work with the chiropractor and their physical therapist and imaging shows that they probably shouldn't have any pain and we got rid of a lot of it but for some reason there's still some pain present and then they'll go on vacation and they'll come back and be like my back pain was gone while I was on vacation and just starting to come back again. And it's like, okay, this is a stress thing that's happening to you. I mean, studies will show that that anti-depressants sometimes will get somebody's pain to go down as well. So there's so much that your stress level and perception of your life, it's so impactful in your life that if you are putting together a routine, a health routine and you're considering your exercise, your diet, your sleep, you should also consider your perception, you also should consider some kind of a spiritual practice or something that will help you manage stress because it's almost, it's just as important as those other factors. Next question is from a long life site. What priming moves are good for squats, deadlifts, bench press and the other big lifts? Well, first of all, the best priming movements are gonna be the ones that are specific to you. So individualized priming movements are superior to non-specific priming movements for your body. This is why when we wrote Maps Prime, we put in Maps Prime as self-assessment tool because we know this is trainers. We know we can put general priming movements out there, but if the general priming movement is the opposite of what you need, not only is it gonna not help you, it might actually make things worse. Well, let's give an example of this, right? So let's take the very first one, squats. And I'll give you three different priming movements for three different people based off of what I see in their movement. So if somebody has their knees collapse in every time they squat, I'm gonna do something like tube walking as like a primer before they get into their squats because this is an issue that they're battling. And so us priming with that exercise first is probably going to benefit them the most in the squat. Let's say I have another client who has a hard time feeling it in squats and they're glutes and they're very quad dominant. And they're feeling more in their hip flexors and their quads when they do squats and they are their glutes. I might do floor bridges with this person to prime their glutes so their glutes are firing better when they do a squat. Let's take my third client, my third client who is an engineer and he's on the computer and stuff all day long and he's excessive forward shoulders and forward head. And so I'm gonna prime him with like zone one from Maps Prime and really work on it. The wall test. The wall test because he's folding, he's rounding forward so much when he squats, he's feeling it in his knees and in his quads because of his upper body is rounded so forward. So I'm gonna prime that before squatting. So that's, you know, there's one exercise but three different people, how I would prime them differently going into that single exercise. Yeah, and to take it even a step further, the example that you gave Adam of the person whose knees collapse in and you have them do tube walking. Let's say you had a client and this is less common but this will happen, this can happen. Let's say you have a client whose knees go too far out when they squat. I've had this happen with dancers where they literally, their knees bow out in the opposite direction. Tube walking not only would be the wrong priming movement for them, it would make that worse. Reinforce the bad pattern. It would reinforce the bad pattern. So individualizing your priming is what you really wanna do. And we have, by the way, we have a free webinar where you'll learn some of these self-assessment tools of some priming, it's mapsprime.com. I highly recommend you go there. But what I do, what I will do is this on the podcast. I will give you some general priming movements for some of those exercises based off of what I notice in a majority of people that I work with. So with squatting, you know, your general priming movements that tend to be really good for most people would be your combat stretch, 90, 90 tends to be really good. And some kind of a prone cobra or a band row for the upper back to pull the shoulders back. So generally speaking, that works for a lot of people. The deadlift, I love priming people with a single leg toe touch. A windmill. Windmill is excellent for deadlifts as well. For a bench press, I tend to do something that involves a row or pulling the shoulders back for priming there. And then for an overhead press, a wall press tends to work great for a lot of people. But again, if it's opposite of what your individual body needs, not only will those priming movements not help you, they may actually make things a little bit worse for you. So, and again, in our mapsprime program, it's very specific. Like you go in there, you take a test based off of how you do with the test. It points you in the right direction. So you can do exercises that are best for your body. I tell you what, there's no comparison to priming your body properly. The feeling you get when you go into an exercise. And you feel it immediately. Right away. Right away. And it's so important you go through that to find out for yourself what those deviations are because the closer you get to alignment and stacking your spine and everything to maximize the optimal range of motion, the better your overall performance is gonna be in all these lifts. So to do that yourself is imperative. Next question is from Grant Satterstwaite. Are kettlebells superior to dumbbells? Justin would think so. Travis, what? It depends. It depends what we're talking about, what exercise and the person. They're both excellent tools. They're both free weights. I would say dumbbells probably are a little bit more versatile. But here's the big difference between them. Kettlebell, the placement of the weight changes the feel of the exercise and it changes the length of the lever. So like if I'm doing a kettlebell swing, the lever is longer, the weight is at the very end. Ballistic moves and like power moves, I prefer kettlebell all day. Just because of the way it's set up with the load. But I mean, they're totally different approaches. And I think that there's crossover because obviously you can do shoulder presses, you can do rows, you can do a lot of similar things as the dumbbells. But they have their own unique characteristics. And I do love the way kettlebells feel, especially like in the rack position. And I could keep them pretty much in the center of my body which feels like I have more control. But honestly, it takes a little bit more education and technique to be able to use the kettlebells properly. So I think that's a bit of a disadvantage for kettlebells for your average person. There is like sort of that learning curve that's a little more difficult. But once you get through that, you realize the capability of kettlebells, it's almost like open-ended. There's just so many different ways that you can apply that to movement and load your body through exercises. Well, I think you said it best at first, which is that kettlebells are superior for dynamic ballistic movement. So explosive type stuff, right? So your swings, your snatches, you do things like that with kettlebells. And I think it's far more effective. It's more smooth. Yeah, then doing it with dumbbells. But to like Sal's point, dumbbells are probably more versatile for the average person just that's trying to exercise. So I don't know, I think both have their value. I think both belong in somewhat of your routine. I don't think you should avoid either one of them. And I think they both should be included. And we always get questions where it's like this or that, which is better and both. Yeah, and when we talk about training, we encourage people to move in and out of all modalities and tools. Like that's the beauty of all these things is learning how to use all of them. And if you've never used kettlebells before, there's a tremendous amount of value to learn how to use them. Just the learning curve alone, you're gonna get a lot of benefits just from learning how to use the kettlebells. And if you only use kettlebells, you're missing out on some things that you could be using the dumbbells for. So I think they both belong in people's program. Yeah, one of the, I would say one of the advantages of the kettlebell is your ability to lengthen or shorten the lever. So what I mean by the lever is when I'm doing an exercise with my arms, that is a lever and a dumbbell places the weight on both sides of my hand. So the weight is at the end of that length of a lever. Now with a kettlebell, I can either put the kettlebell in front of my hand like I'm doing a swing, for example. Now the lever's longer. And if you know anything about levers, a longer lever creates more tension, more resistance. It creates more force. A shorter lever has less force, maybe more stability. So I can shorten the lever with a kettlebell too. When I do a kettlebell shoulder press, the kettlebell's sitting on my forearm. And so I've actually shortened the lever with a kettlebell press. Now that's superior for something like, if I were to compare like an Arnold press with a dumbbell, which is with a rotating dumbbell, that in my opinion is superior. It's superior to use a kettlebell for that. Yeah, that's way more clunky. It's yeah, the kettlebell is on my arm. It's a shortened lever. It feels more stable. The rotating feels a little bit better. So I would rather use a kettlebell for that. If I'm doing like a sumo squat with a client or myself, normally what I'd have to do with a dumbbell is turn it so that it's vertical, hold it by the bell. Way better to hold a kettlebell in that position. When I'm doing flies, if you wanna have stability, dumbbells are better. If you wanna change the lever so that maybe it creates a little more tension, try doing flies with kettlebells. Now when you're going down, the weight is behind your arm, creates a different tension pull. I think the key here is to know that they're both great. Use them both. You can do complete workouts with either one, but if you want the best results, you're gonna incorporate a little of each. Next question is from Train with Faye. What was it like as a new trainer? How did you get your first drill client? I'm new to personal training and I know I'm capable of helping others. However, I'm also aware that I'm experiencing a bit of imposter syndrome. What are tips to help you navigate the landscape with honesty and confidence and without turning away clients? This is still like really vivid for me. Do you guys remember? Oh dude, like yesterday. I remember this feeling. I remember my very first client, my first deal, all that stuff. And then I also remember transitioning into leading trainers for most of my career and seeing what many of them struggled with. And the imposter syndrome thing is like super common, especially when you're learning, right? You're just learning all this different stuff with nutrition and mechanics and program design. And it's a lot. It's a lot at first and you're young and then you're getting on. I would be getting these clients that are brilliant people, doctors and engineers. They ask you a lot of questions. Yeah, and they're very intelligent and they're asking you a lot of questions that you feel, damn, I don't know a lot of these answers. I think one, a common mistake is trying to pretend like you know more than what you do. I mean, there's nothing wrong with saying like, I don't know, but I will find out for you by tomorrow or by the time I see you on your next session or let me look into that or I'm not sure. Like, just get comfortable with saying things like that. I think people appreciate that. It reminds me of the first time you sit in a restaurant and you have a waiter or a waitress that has never, never done this before. They don't know the menu. You're one of their first customers and they don't announce it. And they don't announce it. Right, they don't announce it versus announcing it. If they announce it and they tell me like, hey, I just want you to know today's my first day or my first week, I'm learning the menu still. Like all of a sudden, instantly, I have a lot more patience. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna want my food served by them. No, we can't eat here now because you're brand new. Like, no, I'm here and now I have more patience that you're learning, right? So I can appreciate that. Same thing goes for training. Like if you're a trainer and you're trying to pretend like you know and you don't know, that comes off worse than just coming straightforward and being like, oh, I don't know these things. The other piece is the things that you do know, stick to teaching that. I was this core guy, right? That was my thing when I first started. I didn't know anything about the transversed dominance. I didn't know how many muscles it incorporated. I didn't know how important it was to training it. I didn't know how to train it. I didn't know how to teach it to others and I learned that. That was like one of the first things that I learned as a personal trainer that was new to me. I mean, I understood protein, carbs and fat. I understood basic exercise, science. Like I got the basics kind of an anatomy for somewhat but the core was like this new thing for me. Like that was uncharted territory for me and I knew that, wow, a majority other average people that aren't into fitness, this has to be new to them too. And so I took that one thing that I knew really well and that was what I taught or incorporated like with everybody. Like that was my main messaging was this is what I have to give. I've learned this, this was new to me. It's very valuable information and I'll teach it to everybody I know. So I would stick to talking a lot about the things that I felt confident in when we would address things that I felt less confident I would admit, I'm not sure. Let me check or let me ask and then I'll get back to you and you build on that. And I think that's why experience is so important is you can't be afraid to be that person and you go every time I'd have a session and almost always there was something that after that session I'd be back home researching it trying to learn more about whatever we were talking about. Yeah, I remember my first day so vividly. I walked in to the gym, I had been working out for a while and I went up to the front desk. This is how I got hired. I walked up the front desk and I'm like, can I talk, I'd like to talk to your manager and okay, let me bring him out. I'd like to work here. I wanna be a trainer and they're like, okay, well why do you wanna be a trainer? And I did this five minute whatever and they hired me. I walked in the next day and that first day I got, I don't know how many clients I got to hire me but it was quite a bit. I had outperformed the top trainer in that day or the next day that then they had done the whole month. And so for me, my experience was passion, confidence and it really wasn't that I thought I knew everything. It was that I really wanted to do this and help people. So I need to get clients in order to do this. Now my experience training trainers or having trainers work for me was a little different. When I would hire a trainer, what this question is talking about is quite common and the way it would show up is like this. They usually weren't self-aware enough to say, I feel like an imposter. Usually what they would say is, I feel funny asking for this money from a person is what it was. Like, oh man, I gotta ask them for $1,000 for 20 sessions. That's a lot of money. I don't know if I can ask for that much money. And what that would tell me, I remember hearing that going, what do you- They'd say like, I wouldn't pay for that. Yeah. They always like, you know, bring it back to themselves. Like if I was, you know, coming, well, they're not you. Yeah, I wouldn't pay that much. I remember hearing that the first time going, what do you mean, you know, that's hard for you to ask for. And then at dawn on me, this trainer doesn't think that they're valuable enough to ask for money to be paid for their services. And the conversation that I would always have is this. I'd say, look, you know, you got your certification, you've been working out yourself for a while, but you're a brand new trainer, 99.9% of the clients that you train. This is a real, this is like, was this is a true statistic, by the way, at least 90% but probably closer to 99% of the people that you'll train, if you work out in a normal gym or you train the average person, you are not gonna apply any of your advanced knowledge at all. In fact, what you're gonna be doing with them because they're the average person is teaching them how to do a squat, teaching them how to stabilize their core, teaching them basic form. When it comes to nutrition, you're gonna be talking to them about behaviors to help them eat maybe a little bit better, to care about themselves a little more. They probably don't even know what foods have, proteins, carbs and fats, except for maybe the few that they read in a magazine. And I would tell the trainer, all the knowledge that you have, you're literally gonna apply 1% of it on most of your clients. So you know way more than the client does and you actually know enough to help most people. And by the way, don't worry. I know you're new. I'm not gonna give you the client that requires some kind of complicated rehab. I'm not gonna give you the client that is working with four therapists on food issues. I'll make sure that my advanced trainers get that. You're gonna train the average person. You're worth way more than what you're charging because what you know is way more than what they know and they're here for your support and your help. So yes, ask for the money and then I would say it this way. I'd say, okay, take yourself out of the picture, okay? Know what exercise and nutrition can provide anybody. Take the average person. What do you think proper exercise and better nutrition can do for them? And then it'd have them make a list. Well, it's gonna help them sleep better. Their blood pressure will go down. They're gonna be healthier. They're gonna feel good. They're gonna look good, better mobility, less pain. We go down this list and I'd say, okay, is all of this worth $1,000? And then they'd say, well, yeah, it is. I'd say, well, that's what you can provide so long as they do what you say and they work with you. So you're definitely worth it. And then they go out on the floor and feel much more confident with what they're doing. So I think that's the thing that you need to understand as a new trainer is that the vast majority of people you're gonna encounter, you're gonna apply the most basic stuff that you know and all the advanced stuff, you're not even gonna be able to bring up because it's not gonna be relevant to that client. Yeah, I can definitely identify with this person in terms of like the imposter syndrome and something that I've really had to work on personally in anything that I've done. Like anything that I've done where, say I'm traveling across the country, now I'm starting over and having to prove myself in my abilities that I'm already confident in but nobody else knows what I'm capable of like coming into a sports program or my past track record for, I don't know how I did in school and I have to prove myself again to all these teachers and have to make all new friends. And this is all part of that uncomfortableness that a lot of people avoid. And so they never grow. And so this is something that I've realized what the other end of that looks like is so much better. This is all part of the process. You gotta learn to enjoy it. Like right now you're learning, you're thrown into the fire. And so for me to be able to kind of move through that, I had to stay busy, man. I had to get reps in. I had to make calls. I had to go on the floor and talk to people and I was really uncomfortable doing it the entire fucking time. It was really like terrifying a lot of times for me but what helped me a lot was becoming more prepared, coming in with a plan. And whether or not I use that plan specifically that just gave me more internal confidence to then pass on to this person. I read this in a book and so therefore I'm gonna try this out. Obviously I know things that I've done personally in the way that I've trained myself that I've seen to be effective and I led with that. But then I fine-tuned it as I got better and understood people better with what they were coming in with and how I could help them specifically not just apply some formula to them really start to kind of listen and learn how to tweak and modify the type of service I was providing my clients. And so education should be something that you are really hungry for now. This is something you need. You need that in your toolbox. I have a hack for you for that too. So if you work in a gym setting more than likely you have at least five to 15 other trainers that are your peers that you work around and more than likely if you're the new guy most of them have more experience possibly more knowledge than you you are missing out if you don't every single day have a conversation that you learn from one of your peers. If you do not walk up to Justin and say Justin what's your favorite exercise to teach? Or Sal what was like one of the most paradigm shattering moments for you in nutrition? Or what do you struggle? What do you do with clients? If you're not going and asking your peers how they overcome hurdles what tools do they have in their toolbox? And every day you're not walking away with a new piece of information that you can now apply to your clientele. You are missing out on such an easy ass hack. And I remember I seen this in my team of trainers when I was just a trainer. And I was like this is so funny like everybody is so competitive because we're all fishing from the same pond. Because we're all working in the same gym so many trainers look at it as a competitive environment and they don't want to share their secrets and they don't really interact that much with each other. And I was the complete opposite. I was like I have a little bit of knowledge to share and a little bit of experience to share. I have a lot to learn. I'm going to befriend everybody, share all of the little knowledge that I have and try and gain as much as I possibly can. And so I spent so much time with all of my peers learning from all of them, sharing with all of them. And over time that just started to compound. And then before you knew it it wasn't but a year and a half later I was all of their bosses because I had just picked up. My goal was like, okay, I'm going to take the best of Justin. I'm going to take the best of Sal. Like I'm going to learn what has made him successful. I'm going to learn what has made him successful what's made her successful. And I'm going to emulate that. And I'm going to build that into my knowledge, my toolbox and start to apply it to my clients. So if you're not learning something every single day when you work with a team of people that have been doing this longer than you have you're already missing out on a real easy hack to get better at your craft. Awesome, 100%. Look, if you're new to Mind Pump there are many ways to consume all of our content. We provide a lot of information and fitness and health. And of course there's an entertaining component as well. You can find us on YouTube, Mind Pump TV or Mind Pump podcast. That's where you can watch the podcast or watch exercise demos. You can go to mindpumpmedia.com check out some of our written content. We have blogs, lots of blogs written on different topics. You can also go to mindpumpfree.com download some of our guides that are much more extensive that can help you out with everything from fat loss to muscle building mobility and even being a personal trainer. And finally you can find all of us on Instagram. You can find Doug, the producer at Mind Pump Doug Justin at Mind Pump Justin me at Mind Pump Sal and Adam at Mind Pump Adam. Already formulated it you committed to it you're going to follow through an XQ no matter what or will you go like you can feel that I'm already going to be really sore from these first eight sets. So you stop. Start backing out. Yeah so here's what happens with that level of awareness Adam. That doesn't kick in in the middle of the workout.