Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1515: The Best Form of Exercise for EVERYONE

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss Sal's upcoming book, The Resistance Training Revolution and the superiority of resistance training as a form of exercise to battle the health challenges of m...odern civilization. (Available for pre-order at theresistancetrainingrevolution.com) Sal is officially an author! (1:45) Why this title and why this book? (3:17) Fighting the stereotype that surrounds resistance training. (9:37) Why resistance training is the best form of exercise for EVERYONE! (14:50) Crazy statistics surrounding the benefits of resistance training. (17:48) What makes Sal’s book stand out above his colleagues? (19:49) Creating a movement to open doors to the general population on the impact of resistance training. (25:37) The process and behind-the-scenes details of a book deal. (27:47) What was the most difficult part of the process? (36:47) How you can support. (39:51) Sal’s ‘dream’ for this book. (43:00) Related Links/Products Mentioned March Specials: Get in Shape for Summer! MAPS HIIT, MAPS Spilt, and the Bikini Bundle all half off! – Promo code “SPRINGBREAK” at checkout Available for Pre-Order TODAY! - The Resistance Training Revolution – Book by Sal Di Stefano Visit PRx Performance for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout** Mind Pump # Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth: 1260: 7 Male Fitness Myths That Slow Your Gains How Resistance Training Works – Mind Pump Blog Why Resistance Training is the Best Form of Exercise – Mind Pump Blog The Complete Book of Running Mind Pump #1510: Four Things Women In Their 40’S Need To Know About Fitness Resistance Training From Home – Mind Pump Blog Effect of Aerobic and Resistance Exercise on Cardiac Adipose Tissues Resistance Training vs. Static Stretching: Effects on Flexibility and Strength The Most Important Skill For Personal Trainers – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Mike Matthews (@muscleforlifefitness)  Instagram

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Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salta Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just tuned into the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Okay, in today's episode, we talk about the book that I wrote that is now out for pre-order. The Resistance Training Revolution, we hope this book makes a huge impact. In this episode, we talk about this book and the process of writing this book.
Starting point is 00:00:35 By the way, it's available for pre-order so you can go check it out at theresistancetrainingrevolution.com. Again, that's the resistance training revolution dot com Also this episode is brought to you by our sponsor PRX PRX makes some of the best exercise equipment you can put in your home gym anywhere I have in fact they have squat racks that fold into the wall super stable great plates great barbells We've actually equipped the whole studio with their stuff. Great workout equipment. It's commercial quality, but it takes up very little space. Go check them out. Go to prxperformance.com forward slash mind pump and you will get 5% off with
Starting point is 00:01:20 that mind pump link. Also, one more thing, we have two workout programs and a workout program bundle on sale, all 50% off. The first program is Maps Hit. The second program that's on sale is Maps Split. And then the bundle that's on sale is the bikini bundle. Go check them all out at mapsfitnisproducts.com and use the code Spring Break. Guess what, it's a big day
Starting point is 00:01:46 sir exciting I know it's exciting I don't know if I'm more excited than you are not I feel like I am yeah I'm high sounds like down plane are you I'm hyped man I'm really yeah it's kind of a big deal it is it's exciting the you know I've I've put you know words to paper and it's it's gonna be out pre-order as the dropping of this podcast. You were published. That's a big deal. It's cool. It's pretty cool. A lot of people in our space, not knocking on anybody, they're right books and they self-publish. Which, they have more power to you, but for someone to pay you to write a book, that's a big deal. Yeah, it's cool. It's actually an honor.
Starting point is 00:02:25 I'll be honest with you guys. Justin was really jealous about it for months when he we found out. So angry. Oh, I was. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:33 I have like five books. Yeah, they just need to ask. Yeah. No, he's asking me. It's stupid. Yeah. No, I will say that I'm honored to be able to represent the team with the book.
Starting point is 00:02:45 That's a big honor for me. In fact, that's what made me nervous to do it because I want to make you guys proud and do well for you guys because of how much I respect you. We knew I couldn't do it. Yeah, right. I mean, I can't spell. I don't even know how to spell anymore. Did you know that?
Starting point is 00:03:03 No, really? Yeah, they have some called spell check now. I knew it. I should have wrote the book. If you love me, yeah. Really? Yeah, it would have taken me four times as long for sure. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:12 No, not really. Not really. So what's kind of cool about doing this episode is that even though obviously we know about it, there's a lot of the process that, you know, I don't know about, like you've really handled this on your own, I know you had an agent, right? That supported you, our legal team supported you. We're all so busy doing different things
Starting point is 00:03:36 that you've just kind of took that on your shoulders that you'll handle that side. So I'm actually kind of excited to talk to you a little bit about what that process was like. And let's start first with why this title, why this book. Right. So, you know, when they approached us to put together something in writing in a book, to help people, obviously it was going to be something with fitness and health.
Starting point is 00:04:01 That's my expertise. It's what I enjoy my passions about. I wanted to write about, there's a problem with the health space at large. The big problem is that the first line of exercise, the first recommendation that doctors and health practitioners, maybe except for personal trainers, will make to people regardless of what their goal is, whether it's weight loss or improving their health or getting better lipid numbers or the cholesterol or blood pressure,
Starting point is 00:04:31 it's almost always never the most effective form of exercise for all of those things, which is resistance training. And this is a big problem. As trainers, we saw this all the time. We knew, we saw the power of properly applied resistance training. No, what's your theory on why that is and you address that in the book like what why do I do? Oh, okay, you do yeah, I do there's a lot of stereotypes around resistance training We have to go if we go back to exercise and activity in general
Starting point is 00:05:01 Exercise was was Recognized as a way to improve your health a long time ago, but it really was focused around just being active, right? Hiking or climbing or running or playing sports. There wasn't really a structured forms of exercise aside from that. Resistance training was one of the newer forms of exercise that was kind of put together, even though different forms of resistance training have been practiced for thousands of years. We have evidence of dumbbells being used by the Greeks and the Romans,
Starting point is 00:05:33 but still, it really wasn't a form of exercise until much later. And the people who popularized it at first were the extreme versions of people who lifted weights, which were bodybuilders, right? So, and really the first time it really went mainstream. Well, if you go back even further, actually, you go back to the 50s and 60s,
Starting point is 00:05:54 those muscle beach kind of bee movies were not super popular, but they were out there, right? With, you know, guys like Dave Draper on the beach and these kind of muscle sand on the whims. Yeah, and the stereotype there was the meathead, the dumb whatever, with the big muscles. Then you had pumping iron that came out in the 70s with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that was a documentary that went relatively mainstream, got kind of popular. So the people connected resistance training to bodybuilding, to looking like these extreme humans with big huge muscles. There's a wasn't about health. It was about looking us
Starting point is 00:06:30 It was and so it developed a stereotype and till this day This is something that you you have to combat with resistance training that it's not just for first of all If you're training and building muscle It's not just for, first of all, if you're training and building muscle, you are a body builder, right? Not a competitive body builder, but you are building your body. Actually, anytime you exercise to train your body in a way to get it to adapt in a favorable way to improve its health,
Starting point is 00:06:55 you are building the body. But when we think of lifting weights still, and not maybe not us, but to the average person, right? Go talk to your aunt or your uncle or someone who doesn't, who is in a fitness fanatic. When they think of lifting weights or resistance training, they think of bodybuilders. Yeah. And so it has this stereotype that has prevented so many people from literally, of all the
Starting point is 00:07:17 forms of extra, and I get into this real deep in the book, of all the forms of exercise that we can pick that will combat all of the problems that were encountering especially in modern times One form of exercise is most is the most well suited to combat all of those things by itself resistance training Just the most effective yeah, unfortunately nobody it's nobody does it as the first form of exercise and still It's one that's not even a mainstream form of exercise. Yeah, it's interesting to look back at sort of the timeline of what was popular, what was mainstream? Like, was it the 60s into the 70s where you started to see this big running initiative, where like culture was all about getting out and then running and then you kind of move
Starting point is 00:07:59 in towards like the 80s where it was all like this jazz or size, this aerobic sort of effort where everybody thought that was the way that we're gonna stay in shape and be healthy. Yeah, so in fact, Justin, my inspiration for this book, the reason why I named it the resistance training revolution was in the 70s there was a book that was put out. In fact, if you saw the cover of this book,
Starting point is 00:08:23 you'd probably recognize it. It's called the complete book of running. And it's got like a lower leg and a running shoe. I thought it was called the running revolution. No, no, it started the running revolution. Oh, all right. The book was called the complete book of running. And when this book came out, it started this huge trend that we're still in even today, of people running for fitness. And it was, had a huge impact on, there it is right there. trend that we're still in even today of people running for fitness.
Starting point is 00:08:49 And it was had a huge impact on, there it is right there. I mean, I know you guys have seen that, right? It's an iconic book. And it got so many people to lace up some running shoes and go and run to become fit. And so I said, you know, I would like to write a book that would do this for resistance training, mainly because resistance training, the benefits you derive from it, everybody surpass any other form of exercise by itself.
Starting point is 00:09:15 When you compete in head to head competition for, actually any goal, and we can get into this, it's the best form of exercise. And so I'm like, I want to defeat the stereotype. I want the average person to, to, when they think to themselves, I need to get fit to think resistance training, not other forms of exercise, which nothing necessarily wrong with them. They're just not nearly as effective. Now, how did they get the medical community, though,
Starting point is 00:09:37 behind running as the main form of exercise? It couldn't have been because of this book. Is it because we just didn't have the technology that we have today to be able to measure a lot of the things that you get as far as the benefits from resistance studies. Studies on resistance training for health were way behind minimal way behind right. The study's already it's had like a lot like further advanced in us. Yeah, the studies around resistance training really revolved around performance. They revolved around Olympic weightlifting and athletes.
Starting point is 00:10:07 They didn't do a whole lot of studies on health. Yeah. How does it improve bone health? How does it balance out hormone? Interesting. How does it burn body fat? Do you know when that started to get more popular? We're seeing a lot more stuff from the 90s and then especially now and today.
Starting point is 00:10:23 But now we're doing this fight, this, we're fighting this stereotype still. I mean, you guys know this, and this is even worse for women. Women have suffered the most from this terrible stereotype that surrounds resistance training. You know this, till this day, this is still something you have to overcome
Starting point is 00:10:42 when you talk to the average woman whose fitness goals are whatever, lose weight, improve health, whatever, you have to almost talk her into lifting weights in a traditional way because her fear is that she's going to look like a bodybuilder or like a man or bulky or whatever. The irony of that though is there's a part of me that was kind of grateful for that. I mean this is also would open up the door or the opportunity for trainers to be able to teach that
Starting point is 00:11:10 to that demographic, right? And know that when I introduce this to her, she is going to see results like she's been running and dieting for the last 10 years of her life, trying to get to this weight or this look, and she has no idea that I'm going to teach her, you know, these exercises that she's, they're completely foreign to her.
Starting point is 00:11:30 And I know from my experience that her body's going to morph and change rapidly like she's never seen before. So there is a part of me that's like, you're frustrated as a trainer. But look, I got this magic thing that you can do. Right. You know, you knew you had that in your back pocket that you're going to be able to teach them. If you could convince them, right? Because there was a hurdle that you can do. Right, you know, you knew you had that in your back pocket that you're going to be able to teach them. If you could convince them, right, because there was a hurdle that you had to overcome.
Starting point is 00:11:48 There was a few barriers there, and I think it looks really daunting to your average person. And that's why running, I think, was just an easy sell, because if anybody could just get up and start moving. And the same thing with the Robex was, you don't need to really master a lot of technique like you do with resistance training, but it's not as complicated as is being promoted in the stigma that has followed that has been to our detriment as to.
Starting point is 00:12:14 Absolutely, look, even the clients that we got that approached us, they still don't make up the majority of people that decide that they need to start exercising to improve their health. I think of people like, you know, my aunts, literally yesterday, okay. So literally yesterday, my brother-in-law, his girlfriend, just bought the book. She also, like a week ago, purchased Maps and Obolic, and she also listened to her first Mind Pump episode, and it was the woman, the fitness woman's 41
Starting point is 00:12:45 that we just recently did, which covers I know a lot of points that we're talking about. Now this was her, and mind you, she's part of our family. She hears me talk, she's around us all the time. So you just assume that everyone's connected to me should know all this stuff. It's not true at all. In fact, what she said to me was she goes,
Starting point is 00:13:01 it was so crazy, Adam, this is us talking literally yesterday. She goes, it's so crazy. I, this is us talking, literally yesterday. She goes, it's so crazy. I was following Maps in a box this last week, and she goes, and the whole time I was questioning it. Why am I doing this? This is like, this is not how I would normally train. I hope this works.
Starting point is 00:13:17 Am I resting so long? Yeah, and then she listened to the episode, and she's like, and all of a sudden she had the subiphany. It all came together for her. She's like, oh my God, I had no idea. I'm so glad I listened to episode. And that's also what triggered by the book. Pop culture and media plays a huge role in this.
Starting point is 00:13:31 If you think of all the movies that we grew up watching in the 80s, 90s, 2000s and even today, whenever they portray a fit woman, how do they portray her working out? It's never resistance training. It's never with weights. It's always some form of cardiovascular training. Or yoga.
Starting point is 00:13:52 Yoga or something. It's like, it's almost like, and they've done such a disservice again, especially to women. They have drawn a line and said, these are feminine ways of exercising, and these are masculine ways of exercising. Now, even with men, there's a stereotype because even if you get the average guy who says,
Starting point is 00:14:12 he goes to the doctor and the doctor says, hey, John, your blood pressure is a little high, you need to start exercising. He's like, okay, I'm gonna start working out. I'm gonna go get on a stationary bike or I'm gonna go walk on the treadmill. And then you talk to him, let's say he's your uncle, and you say, hey, why aren't you lifting weights?
Starting point is 00:14:28 Oh, I don't need to, I'm not trying to get big. Dr. just says I need to drop my blood pressure, and lose a little bit of weight. It's such a massive, it's such a huge stereotype problem. And it's an issue because it is preventing people from really improving their health in the most effective way possible, especially, and here's an issue because it is preventing people from really improving their health in the most effective way possible, especially, and here's the kicker.
Starting point is 00:14:50 It's when you consider the context of modern life. This is why, this is why, one of the reasons why resistance is straining is the form of exercise everybody should pick. Because if you look at modern life, there's a few characteristics that surround it that make it modern life. One of them is we're extremely busy, okay?
Starting point is 00:15:08 We're very, very busy. Our days are packed with more shit than ever before. Work and you got to drive my kid here, you got to bring him there, you got this schedule, you got this doctor appointment, we got dinner, then we go to bed. This is true now. If you look at people today versus people 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, we're just busier in our schedules. Kids even, for example, they talk about how kids don't have
Starting point is 00:15:31 a lot of free time anymore, everything's scheduled for them. So we're very, very busy, but we're also simultaneously extremely sedentary. Life has been made very physically easy for us. Markets have done a good job of taking the physical out of everything. So, and we know this, the average person takes, how many steps a day?
Starting point is 00:15:52 Adam's like 2000. Yeah, it's less than 3000. Less than 3000, which is like a what? A 30 minute, 40 minute walk, right? That's crazy. There's like 31 30 minute walk, and you'll reach all the steps someone does, typically, an entire day.
Starting point is 00:16:04 So you're busy as hell, you're very sedentary, but there's more. There's more to this. You also have, you are surrounded by very inexpensive, very easily accessible, heavily processed, hyper palatable food. So now we got all this food that's around us, that's really easy to eat. Where if I want to eat something, it takes me five, I can order it to my door, and I can have Chinese food or Mexican food or cookies or whatever I want.
Starting point is 00:16:30 So you've got those things in combination. What do they end up producing? Well, they end up producing a body that has very little muscle. We know muscle loss is terrible these days. Osteophenia is at all time highs, especially for women, this is bone loss. Women in their 30s and 40s are showing up with bone loss. Men have way less strength today than they did before.
Starting point is 00:16:54 Lots of food, so we have lots of obesity on top of it. So what you want is you want a form of exercise that counters those things, but here's the kicker. It can't take a lot of time. And this is the problem with other forms of exercise that counters those things, but here's the kicker. It can't take a lot of time, and this is the problem with other forms of exercise. Other forms of exercise approach this problem by making you burn a lot of calories while you do this activity,
Starting point is 00:17:14 but you can't do exercise an hour or two hours or three hours every single day when your schedule's super packed. So what we need is a form of exercise that takes less time, but that also teaches our body to bore more calories and counters bone loss, muscle loss, loss of mobility, by the way,
Starting point is 00:17:32 the vast majority of injuries and pain that people experience today is a result of inactivity, loss of strength. It's not the result of injury. In fact, kids now go to the doctor because of back pain, and it's not because they're lifting heavy things because they're sitting down all day long. Yeah, I wanted to ask you too,
Starting point is 00:17:48 as you're going through this process and right in the book, I know there's a few studies that came out that even proved how muscle tissue was protective, and it had all these health qualities to it. Besides obviously the strength and all these performance characteristics. Yeah, so I'll go over some that I think people get shocked by it. There was some studies done comparing cardiovascular activity, your traditional running, swimming,
Starting point is 00:18:16 biking, whatever, to resistance training on fat loss. Now we've seen other studies that show that resistance training is more effective for fat loss, mainly because it doesn't cause you to lose muscle. If anything, it causes you to build muscle in the long term resulting in more fat loss. But with this study, what they did, they looked at the fat around the organs and the heart. And they found that resistance training was superior for burning body fat around the organs. This visceral body fat can cause big problems. This is the kind of fat that causes health issues.
Starting point is 00:18:47 Here's another one. This is a big one now. This just came out. I just, someone just sent this to me. They did a meta analysis on resistance training versus stretching for flexibility. Which one is gonna be better for flexibility? Guess which one wins, proper resistance training.
Starting point is 00:19:04 Oh wow. Now that's counter to the stereotype. Again, what's the stereotype? It's the central nervous system. It does. What's the stereotype of resistance training? What's in weight? Tight, shortened muscles. It doesn't make you more flexible. If anything, it makes you tighter. Not true. Full range of motion, resistance training, improved flexibility, better than stretching because what you get with resistance training is you get functional flexibility. So although stretching may get you to the point
Starting point is 00:19:31 where you can sit down in a full squat, only resistance training will give you strength so you can handle load in a full squat, for example. And what causes injury? It's mobility issues, which comes from combination of either tightness, looseness, but it's always lack of strength. Always lack of strength.
Starting point is 00:19:48 Now, when you look back after doing all this, right, after writing it and assess your book in comparison to our peers, right? We have a lot of friends that wrote books in the space. And there's tons of fitness books out there. What is it that you think is so unique and different about what you wrote versus what, say one of our buddies, like Mike has written for his book. What's so different about your book in comparison
Starting point is 00:20:15 to all the other fitness books that are out there? Well, it's how I talk about resistance training, how I talk about exercise. By the way, in the book, I talk a lot more about other things as well. I talk about nutrition, how to approach that in an effective way, how to have a pretty, pretty good relationship with food,
Starting point is 00:20:35 how to get yourself to the point where this is long term and not just short term, things that we've talked about on the show in the past, like exercising and eating right, because you love yourself, not because you hate yourself. Why motivation is not something you should rely on. I talk about all these things in the book, but the main difference is I am trying to talk to, I am not trying to talk to the fitness fanatic.
Starting point is 00:20:58 I'm not trying to talk to the fitness enthusiast. I am trying to reach the unreachable person. This is a very difficult task. I'm trying to reach the unreachable person. This is a very difficult task. I'm trying to reach the person who would never consider resistance training at all. Those people who, you know, we've for years tried to reach and tried to get to do these things. So that's what I was fishing for because I feel like, you know,
Starting point is 00:21:19 we've all read a lot of the fitness books that are out there. And again, we have a lot of friends and peers that have them. And I feel like majority of them are speaking to fitness fanatics already. Absolutely. People are already in the gym. Yeah, I mean, they really get into the science of macros and like strength training and peerdization and like, you know, really get into a high level. And I think that appeals to other coaches and trainers and other real fitness
Starting point is 00:21:46 fanatic people that are already in it and are looking for the next level of education. And I know when you went after doing this, that's not who you were. That wasn't your demographic. Yeah, you were like, it's not. The people I had in mind were people, everyday average people, the vast majority of the people who are suffering health problems due to modern life right now. The obesity epidemic, right? The diabetes epidemic, the osteoporosis epidemic, all these, you know, basically all these terrible health issues that are resulting from the way we live now in modern life is the majority. It's everyday average people who don't know the difference
Starting point is 00:22:27 between a barbell lunge and a good morning. Probably don't even know what, if I said that to them, they probably wouldn't know what those exercises are. Those are the people that I'm trying to reach with this book. I'm also trying to reach fitness fanatics and health enthusiasts who, this is my experience. This is also your experience.
Starting point is 00:22:45 I'm a fitness fanatic, I'm a health enthusiast. Do you know how long I've been trying to talk? Yeah. Family members into exercising the right way. What if there was a book? What if there was something that I could give them that does a really good job of it? It simplifies everything.
Starting point is 00:23:00 Yes. And just like is really direct. Here's the nuts and bolts of what you need to do. Yeah, like, hey, check out this book. It's a health book. You know, see how you feel about it. Or as a health enthusiast or fitness person myself, or even as a personal trainer, I wanted this book to be able to give ammunition to trainers and fitness enthusiasts so that they could
Starting point is 00:23:23 read this because here's the thing that you learn as a personal trainer. I mean we must have said this a million times on the podcast. What makes you effective as a coach or a trainer is less of the knowledge that you have. It's more of how you communicate that knowledge. Can you get that person to really understand and take in what you're saying and apply it. It's very, very difficult to do. If anybody who's a trainer who's listening knows exactly what I'm talking about, you could speak information to the cows come home, the person's not gonna do it or doesn't really believe it, you're wasting your time. So how you communicate is super, super important. And so I also wanted this book to be able to give people
Starting point is 00:24:01 better tools of communication so that the trainer could read this book and say, okay, I see how he said that. This is how I'm going to talk to my clients to get them to make these decisions for themselves. Yeah, and I think it's just helpful for anything. Anytime you're trying to sell somebody on something, you want to be able to present as much value as possible.
Starting point is 00:24:21 And I think this is another one of those things. Like if that's a concern of yours is to get one of your family members or somebody involved in an exercise program or something that's effective, you need to be able to like provide good points in things that resonate to them. And it doesn't happen right away. So this is another one of those things that creates an opportunity for another conversation where they can understand it a bit further and then actually like own into it. Well, I just wish, I wish, you know,
Starting point is 00:24:48 and again, this is my wish, right, for the book. It's like, I wish people knew that, because we all trained a lot of people, every day average people, the people that we're talking about right now. Most of them, I'm not gonna lie, most of them worked out twice a week, that's it. They worked out with me once a week
Starting point is 00:25:04 and once on their own, or they worked out with me twice a week. That was two days a week. So I wish most people understood that you could just work out, not that you couldn't do more, more would be great as well, but let's be honest, the average person, as we know, is not gonna devote any time to daily structured exercise. It's not gonna happen.
Starting point is 00:25:22 I wish most people knew that they could work out a couple days a week and reap tremendous benefits from a form of exercise that they probably didn't even consider. You know what I mean? It's really quite ambitious of you to try and attempt to do this. I'm thinking of doing something. Somebody needs to do it. I know. I just, it's, I don't know if the audience even realizes how difficult this is going to be, right? Because you're not target, everybody else in the space targets the 20% of the population that's already into...
Starting point is 00:25:52 They're the easy, it's the, yeah, they're already consumers of it. Shooting fish in a boat, but any sales and marketing guy will tell you that. It's always easier to sell to somebody who's already bought something already from you versus going out and getting a cold leading converting. It's really going to take all the coaches and trainers and people that listen to us,
Starting point is 00:26:11 getting this for their clients, getting this for their family members and their friends and really helping push it out into the mainstream people because that's who you're targeting. You're really going out there. It needs a movement behind it. Yeah. And hoping that they're going to walk through Barnes and Noble or Scour Amazon and find a book and then start reading it is really, really tough. No, really the idea is that this book opens doors for me to get on other platforms.
Starting point is 00:26:40 That are more general populations. Yeah, exactly. My favorite form of communication, obviously talking, right? If I can get on, if I can get in front of people and talk about this book and talk about resistance training, I feel confident I'll get enough people to be interested enough to grab it and read it. And I think that'll be the most effective way
Starting point is 00:27:02 to make this impact, along with the fact that we have a huge audience of trainers and fitness enthusiasts who've been listening to us for a long time, and here's a deal. Trainers have the biggest impact on the health of anybody in the world. I was a trainer, I know this. There's nobody that'll change a life in terms
Starting point is 00:27:19 of their health more effectively than a good personal trainer. Not even what we do on the podcast comes close. So when you, a good trainer who has 10 clients and they do a good job with those 10 clients will fundamentally change those people's lives in very, very big life-long ways. And if those people can get this book and give it to their clients and the clients and give it to other people, I think that's another part of the strategy that can be effective. Now selfishly, I want to hear your experience of writing the book and everything from negotiating
Starting point is 00:27:52 the money for it. I want to hear about what that was like because I know that took some time. I know you had to hire somebody to help with that. There's a lot of legal stuff that was involved. I want to know what it was like to sit down and like get in the mindset to write it, the time it took, like what,
Starting point is 00:28:06 tell me all about that. Well, so the publisher Hachette approached us and they said that they wanna work with us to put together a book. And we have talked about me writing a book for a long time. I've just never written anything that long in my entire life. I've written all of our guides and I wrote, I write blogs, but a book is a completely different animal.
Starting point is 00:28:29 So they approach us and I said, you know what? Absolutely, I have, there's something I would like to write about, but I did not know the space at all. So, okay, when they approach you, they didn't have, we want you to write about this. They just said, they reached out and said, what would you like to write about? Okay, so you had that kind of, you know.
Starting point is 00:28:47 So I basically pitched this idea to them. That was one of the first conversations. And I got on the phone with one of their editors and part of their marketing team. And I sold it to them and they loved it. They loved the idea. Then the next step was negotiating, you was negotiating pay and all that stuff, and that's when I got the agent, because I have,
Starting point is 00:29:08 there's so much, this is a whole new world, that I don't know what's good, what's not good, I don't know what to negotiate. And when he talked to you, did he share with you like what's reasonable, because it's your first book deal, right? So it's not like you're Stephen King, you know what I'm saying? So yeah, so did he like talk to you about that?
Starting point is 00:29:26 Like, hey, this is good, this is not good. The agent did. Yeah. Yeah, the agent was really good, right? So Rick is his name, really, really good. And he was just, I know he's a pain in their ass because he constantly is going back and saying, no, we want this, we want that. And I would ask him, anyway, I got to the point where I trusted him so much that I would
Starting point is 00:29:43 say, if you think it's good, then we'll do it. Because he was that in depth with everything that he was representing. So that was an important part of the process. Another part of the process was working with someone to help with the writing of the book. Because I've never written something this long
Starting point is 00:30:00 and put something together like this before in my entire life. Which is interesting to me because you write all of our content. So all the e-books and the things that we have out there, you're the one who rips all that. You don't have a ghost writer doing it in that stuff. So I thought it was interesting that you had a ghost writer that helped write this.
Starting point is 00:30:16 Yeah. You didn't write the book for you. You still wrote it. No, it's my words. It's all my words. And so what we would do is I would write, I would give it to her, or we would have conversation. She would write, send it give it to her, or we would have conversation. She would write, send it to me.
Starting point is 00:30:26 What do you think? We go through things together. It, doing it on my own would have taken a lot of time. And obviously, we still have the show. We still have mine, but I have kids. And again, I've never done anything like this before. Yeah, what parts of that, did you see the most value in her? Like, would you do something and you would like, oh, this is really good.
Starting point is 00:30:44 And then she would, you give it to her, and then you you do something and you would like, oh, this is really good. And then you would give it to her and then you would get it back and be like, oh, she's even better. And then here's what's really cool, is that because we have so many podcasts and we already have so much written content anyway, she would go through and read my blog and read your flavor.
Starting point is 00:30:59 Read my guides. And then she put things together, she sent them to me and then I change them and tweak them. And she did a good job of capturing my voice. I mean it is my those are my words of my voice in the book So that was another part of the whole process Was there anything in particular that stood out about having her that was like really amazing or awesome that really helped whatever well She's written Fitness books in the past and she's also a fitness fanatic so it was really cool
Starting point is 00:31:24 Was having her go through, listen to the podcast or read some of the stuff I wrote or us discuss what we're gonna put in the book and her coming back and getting her, and basically telling me her mind was blown. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, so she's like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. Or wow, this makes so much information for her.
Starting point is 00:31:42 Yeah, oh, I've been doing this wrong or whatever. And in fact, she started following our programs because it made such a positive impact. That's so cool. And it obviously, of course, makes me feel good because she's done this for a long time and she was being quite genuine. So that was the first bit of feedback, in fact,
Starting point is 00:31:58 was from her, but of course, she's working for me. So part of me's like, is she saying this? Is she stroking my ego? Yeah, I'm paying her, is she just, yeah, is she just, is she just, yeah, the next bit of feedback I got was when we had the first like kind of edit put together or whatever and I sent it to my aunts who never lift weights, right?
Starting point is 00:32:17 They never, they know I work out, they know the whole thing but they don't, they don't do that stuff. So I sent them all copies and they'd read it because I'm their nephew or whatever and then I just didn't say anything. I'll see what happened. And then I started getting questions from them like, hey, I want to start lifting weights. Do you think this is a good schedule? Which one of your programs should I follow? So I'm like, okay, this is good. It's kind of working a little bit. Got some great feedback from the guy who works for the publishing company for when I did the audio version.
Starting point is 00:32:45 And that's a whole nother thing, right? They said, we're going to do an audio version. Do you want to be the voice reading the book? I'm like, I have to be. I have a podcast. It would be weird for someone who listens to the show to buy the book and then hear some like British dude reading the book. So what was his title?
Starting point is 00:33:02 Because he does this with other books, right? He's in there to sit in and make sure like you're pronouncing words correctly and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so it's kind of interesting, right? So the schedule was, I come in here, actually I was supposed to go to a, they have a recording studio that you go to
Starting point is 00:33:17 and they rent them or whatever. And you go in and do your whole thing. The Doug's like, fuck that, we got the shit over here. Yeah, I'm like, we had a lockdown. I'm like, we have a professional. We have a Doug. We have a Doug. We have a professional podcast like, can I do it in my studio so I don't have to go somewhere?
Starting point is 00:33:30 So then they had Doug send in some audio. And I think Doug, you sent in audio of nothing, right? You just hit the recorder and because they want to hear the background. Right, yeah, they wanted your voice and they also wanted nothing in the background. And then what they do, they told you what, I don't even know what the hell I have.
Starting point is 00:33:45 Well, yeah, there's a couple of things. So our studio is good, but it's not perfect. One of the things that is with you is that your voice projects a lot. And right now, you're sitting in such a space that your voice bounces off the back wall, which is the green screen. So we put you in Justin's chair
Starting point is 00:34:04 so that he had foam across the way from you to help minimize reflections. That must have helped you quite a bit. We took your mouth away from the microphone too. So right now with the podcast, everybody's really up on their mic. So I don't have to turn up what's called the gain so much and get a lot of cross talk on the microphones.
Starting point is 00:34:23 We put you back about 12 inches from the microphone to minimize the P sounds and that type of thing. So it was a little bit different process than what we used for the podcast. Yeah, so now were they happy or impressed with the sound or were they like, oh, we would rather do it. Well, they approved it. They approved it.
Starting point is 00:34:39 I haven't heard anything back from them, which is actually a good sign. Yeah, so and then the schedule was, I was to come in here, we would get on like a Zoom with the person from the publishing company, and what they do is they listen in, and then they'll stop me and say something like, hey, can you say this more emphatically, or can you, you know, it sounded like you ended this sentence in a question, but we want it to be more of a statement, or now, I had to... You pronounce this wrong. I had to do this with Doug a little bit.
Starting point is 00:35:07 And that was really hard for me to do. Is that, did that come natural for you? You know, I was nervous. I was nervous going into it because it was three days, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with a break for lunch for 30 minutes. So I had to sit in the chair and read from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. out loud, which I'm like, I don't know if my, my attention can handle that. I don't know if my brain can handle just, just doing that. So I was nervous,
Starting point is 00:35:31 I'd never done anything like that before. So I started it. He gets on great, super nice dude. And I mean, he gave great feedback. First, he said, he said, I did a great job. So he said, you're doing a very good, good job, better than most people, which I thought was awesome. And then as I was going, here's best part of feedback I got for the job. So he said, you're doing a very good job, better than most people, which I thought was awesome. And then as I was going, here's the best feedback I got for the book. As I was going, he's not even, you know, he's not somebody I gave the book to,
Starting point is 00:35:53 he's just listening because he's listening to me read it, right? As we're going along and every once in a while we pause, he's like, oh man, I'm sending this book to my friends. Oh wow, when you said this, what did you mean? Oh, this is awesome. I can't believe I've been doing this wrong or whatever. That's so cool. He was super into it after we were done.
Starting point is 00:36:06 And then afterwards, he's like, I'm gonna make sure that they get you to do another book. This is exceptional. This is the kind of book that we need to get out there. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's awesome. Really, really hyped about that after all. Oh, that's cool.
Starting point is 00:36:17 Yeah, that's how, do your way better than I am. I didn't even, I had to do like a paragraph, right? For we are marketing stuff and Doug would, I mean, you need to be more, more lively or more depressed, more sad. I'm like, I don't even need to be more lively or more depressed, more sad. I'm like, I don't know what a fuck you do that. You know what I'm saying?
Starting point is 00:36:29 I'm just reading these words that half of them are mine, half of them are not. And trying to do that, I struggled a lot with that. That's not easy. No, it's not. But, and I don't, it's not something I would ever want to do like for a living hell now. That took a lot of energy, dude.
Starting point is 00:36:43 After I was done, I got home and I remember I was just like What what would you say my motivation? Yeah, well what would you say was the most difficult part of the entire process? Ooh, you know easily it's you know, it's interesting when we first started the podcast and we would put out episodes I remember there was an initial kind of feeling of like oh my god God, it's out there, what we said is out there, right? People are gonna hear what I'm saying. And you'd get a little bit, like I'd get like a tiny bit nervous, but then I was like,
Starting point is 00:37:11 eh, whatever, right? Because nobody had expectations, there's all new. Because we're established and because I'm representing the team, there's much more expectations. Believe it or not, the hardest part was my own psyche. The hardest part is, okay, am I gonna do a good job? Are we going to, is it gonna perform? Am I gonna represent the team properly?
Starting point is 00:37:36 Like that was the hardest part of the whole thing. Just putting a lot of pressure in yourself. Totally. Very different from anything I've ever seen. And was that like the whole process you were like that? Or was it just the beginning to get you started? You were like hung up on that order? Were you constantly kind of questioning?
Starting point is 00:37:47 Every step was like that. Every single step. Yeah, so I'd say that was all probably the hardest. The writing it was fun. You know, I'm talking about things I've been talking about forever. So it's easy for me to get it out and to get it out in a way that I'd want it on paper. You know, it's like, it's funny. You look back at your life and then you realize all the things that you did to prepare
Starting point is 00:38:13 you for whatever moment you're in at the moment and communicating to clients. You guys know exactly what I'm talking about. Training people for that long, you really figure out how to say what you need to say in a way that gets people, that gets it to resonate. That's really what you figure out as a trainer, more than anything. Well, if you don't, you're not successful. You can't, so I'm saying, if you've been a trainer
Starting point is 00:38:37 for 10 or more years, you've lasted that long because you care about people. No way a trainer would last longer than a couple years if you care about you. The job is just you're using with different personalities. Nobody wants to listen to what you're saying. You fail a lot in the beginning. If you don't really love helping people, you're not going to last as a personal trainer.
Starting point is 00:38:56 So if you've been training for 10 years, it's because you love helping people. And because you love helping people, you're constantly evaluating how effective you are. Am I really getting people in shape? Why is it that people lose weight And because you love helping people, you're constantly evaluating how effective you are. Am I really getting people in shape? Why is it that people lose weight and then when they stop working out with me,
Starting point is 00:39:10 they gain the weight back? You know, I really want these people to have long lasting results. I can't. What other angle can I present this? Where it's gonna resonate? Yeah, these meal plans I'm giving people, they fail every single time.
Starting point is 00:39:19 Why don't they doing what I'm saying? Or this crazy calorie burning workout that I'm doing where I'm having people jump rope and jump over benches and you know do all the stuff is why are people dropping off why aren't people improving their health like you got to keep examining why is it that people won't change their diet I'm telling them what not to eat they just don't want to listen to me you go through this whole process and so eventually you really figure out how to communicate in a way that gets people there. And so, you know, writing this book was literally a culmination of just all that. Now, I'm also curious about,
Starting point is 00:39:51 and how much I don't know how much of this you know. But obviously a big goal would be to make this a best seller. I mean, that would be awesome. And I know there's like certain time frame, there's certain rules, like we can't go take a bunch of our money and go buy 100,000 books ourselves and then get make you a bus a bus. Which people have done right so that they have things in place. They have protections against the way they do. So you can't need that doesn't help you. So but I do know that there's a lot of people one that listen to the show and that would love to support any way they can.
Starting point is 00:40:23 I've got a ton of family both on Katrina side my side, that I'm kind of rallying right now together to try and help and support this so we can get this thing out there and make it a best seller. What are the best things that I can do or we can do to try and boost those numbers and get as much momentum as we can? You know, I'd say, you know, obviously get yourself a copy and get some copies for your friends and then and and talk to people about doing the same. I mean, at the end of the day,
Starting point is 00:40:49 the book itself is gonna have to deliver, right? People are gonna have to read it and it's either gonna make an impact or it's not. It's either gonna fall in that discount bin at the Barnes & Noble of all the other fitness and health books that you see in that. Every time I go to a bookstore, I love bookstores. I treat them like libraries.
Starting point is 00:41:06 I go in there and read, I almost never buy anything. But when I go in there, I always visit the fitness and health section. And you see the way books keep recycling through there, and how many of them don't make much of an impact. And then to make matters worse, the ones that do tend to become best sellers are terrible. They're gimmicks, they're fads, they're weird diets.
Starting point is 00:41:26 And so it's either gonna make an impact and it's gonna change how people view resistance training and exercise and health in general or it's not. And if it does, then I think it's gonna do it in a big way. I think you should do a Justin Timberlake move. What's that? You know what that is? So when it gets out in Barnes and Noble,
Starting point is 00:41:43 I think that you should go randomly, okay? But a little spin, like he, what he did was, he when it gets out and Barnes and Noble, I think that you should go randomly, okay? But a little spin, like he did was, he'd show up at a Barnes and Noble, he'd go in and he'd sign seven copies, and then he would tell everybody on a social media where he's at. You should do the same thing with like a nude photo of yourself.
Starting point is 00:41:56 So you should show up at random. Nobody wants that. Show up at random Barnes and Noble. We're gonna bleach his hair and like, you put them in or something. Slide some nudes in there, tell everybody where it's it. Show up at random Barnes and Barnes. So we're gonna bleach his hair and like, put them in or something. Slide some nudes in there, tell everybody where it's at, and then see how many books we can sell out. Hey, I bought this fitness book.
Starting point is 00:42:12 Some old guy put a picture of himself in there. Some old guy put a naked picture of himself in there. He's lady. How about now, let's go in. Yeah. This is it. No, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do that at all.
Starting point is 00:42:23 Well, maybe sign then, okay, you can sign some books. I think there's a cool idea. You can still do that, they still sign books? Yeah, of course they do. Still, yeah, no, he just did that, like, I think that happened last year or whenever he released his latest book and I thought that was really clever.
Starting point is 00:42:35 I was like, oh, that's cool, right? I mean, if you were already a big fan, you already planned to buy it and then you see, oh shit, he's in my town and he went sign seven, you're like, you're rushing down there right away. I just have this dream that, and I, he's in my town, and he went sign seven, you're like, you're rushing down there right away. I just have this dream that, and I think it's coming. To be honest with you,
Starting point is 00:42:49 I think it's coming anyway. I think whether this book does well or not, I think it's happening anyway, because the studies are becoming overwhelming. The evidence is just huge, and the culture is shifting. I don't know how long it's gonna take, but I think it's gonna happen in a way to work.
Starting point is 00:43:02 We've seen this in just our two decades. I mean, we talk about this on the show all the time that, you know, and it's not an exaggeration when we say that nobody even used a squat rack. No. None of my trainers, I didn't. Nobody did, members didn't. It just collected dust.
Starting point is 00:43:17 One guy a week used it maybe, you know. I remember too, when I ended my career as a trainer, a lot of my clients at that point were doctors. I used to, my studio was next to a hospital. I had a lot of surgeons, vascular surgeons, general surgeons. I had a lot of anesthesiologists and hormone doctors and you know, because once I trained one, they referred their friends and they all came to me and then they started referring to their patients and they were always so, and this just highlights what I'm talking about. They were always so blown away by the health improvements of themselves and their patients through resistance training.
Starting point is 00:43:52 They used to tell me that, like, you know, I'm sending you this patient that I have who has high blood pressure, and I never would have normally recommended resistance training, but I've seen what you've done with me. I'd like to see what you can do with them. And then within a few months, I'm getting a report from them. They're like, I can't believe what's happening
Starting point is 00:44:10 with my patient that I sent you. This is blowing me away. And they would just continue to refer people to me. And I have this, again, I have this dream, and I think it's happening anyway, but I do have this dream that, at some point, you know, modern medicine, when they recommend you go exercise, they say we want you to go do resistance strength, which by the way
Starting point is 00:44:30 can be performed with your body, can be performed with bands. Of course, you can use weights or machines. By the way, in the book, I put workouts in there as well. I actually put programs in there. So there's a program that is with just bands, there's a program in there with just dumbbells, and then I put a full gym, you know, full home gym program in there. And so that's really my dream. My dream is that. And you know, it's extremely, resistance training is extremely customizable. This is what makes me upset about modern medicine. They know this. If you get physical therapy for an injury or a problem, physical therapist do resistance training with you.
Starting point is 00:45:08 That's what they do. They don't do other forms of exercise because they know why, because you can customize it to the individual like no other form of exercise that exists. I can't do that with any other form of exercise, but resistance training. So my dream is that it becomes the form of exercise that's recommended and it's my dream is that it's when when you know ladies are hanging out with each other for you know Sunday, Monday and they're like, hey we all need to start working out. And instead of saying let's go for a run. They all say, I got some dumbbells.
Starting point is 00:45:40 Let's go lift some weights. You know what I mean? That's my dream. So look, mind pump is recorded on videos, as well as audios, you can find us on YouTube. We also have a lot of free guides that you can find at mindpumpfree.com. And then finally, you can pre-order this book right now, it's called the resistance training revolution. There's some cool offers going on right now
Starting point is 00:45:59 because it's pre-order. Go to theresistancetrainingrevolution.com. Again, that's theresistancetrainingrevolution.com. Again, that's theresistancetrainingrevolution.com. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media.com.
Starting point is 00:46:22 The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal and Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get
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