Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 636: Staying Fit & Healthy Through the Holidays, the Value of Intra-Workout Foods & Drinks, Advice for New Gym Managers & MORE
Episode Date: November 10, 2017Kimera-Quah! In this episode of Quah, sponsored by Kimera Koffee (kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off), Sal, Adam & Justin answer Pump Head questions about enjoying the holidays without comp...romising your health and fitness goals, intra-workout foods and drinks, methods for retaining information and advice for a new gym manager with regards to training trainers. Sal’s “empowering” women / Who does the chores around the house? (3:07) Quah question #1 – How do you each of you enjoy the holidays without compromising your health and fitness goals? (19:15) Quah question #2 – Thoughts about intra-workout food and drinks? (31:42) Quah question #3 – What is your guy’s method for retaining information? (37:13) Quah question #4 – What advice would you give a new gym manager with regards to training trainers? (49:35) Related Links/Products Mentioned: Kimera Koffee (Official Mind Pump Sponsor) Coupon Code "mindpump" Household chores: Women still do more (article) Organifi (Official Mind Pump sponsor) Coupon Code "mindpump" for 20% off Dietary Supplements and Sports Performance: Amino Acids (study) Elevated insulin levels contribute to the reduced growth hormone (GH) response to GH-releasing hormone in obese subjects. (study) Kwik Brain 028: Boost Your Reading Comprehension (And Retain More) Speed Listening Is the New Speed Reading - The Atlantic (article) Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior - Leonard Mlodinow (book) Developing the Leaders Around You – John C. Maxwell (book) People Mentioned: Tom Bilyeu (@TomBilyeu) Twitter Would you like to be coached by Sal, Adam & Justin? You can get 30 days of virtual coaching from them for FREE at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Get our newest program, MAPS Prime Pro, which shows you how to self assess and correct muscle recruitment patterns that cause pain and impede performance and gains. Get it at www.mindpumpmedia.com! Get MAPS Prime, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint, the Sexy Athlete Mod AND KB4A (The MAPS Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Make EVERY workout better with MAPS Prime, the only pre-workout you need… it is now available at mindpumpmedia.com Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you via video instruction on our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Also check out Thrive Market! Thrive Market makes purchasing organic, non-GMO affordable. With prices up to 50% off retail, Thrive Market blows away most conventional, non-organic foods. PLUS, they offer a NO RISK way to get started which includes: 1. One FREE month’s membership 2. $20 Off your first three purchases of $49 or more (That’s $60 off total!) 3. Free shipping on orders of $49 or more Get your Kimera Koffee at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Get Organifi, certified organic greens, protein, probiotics, etc at www.organifi.com Use the code “mindpump” for 20% off. Go to foursigmatic.com/mindpump and use the discount code “mindpump” for 15% off of your first order of health & energy boosting mushroom products. Add to the incredible brain enhancing effect of Kimera Koffee with www.brain.fm/mindpump 10 Free sessions! Music for the brain for incredible focus, sleep and naps! Also includes 20% if you purchase! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts! Have questions for Mind Pump? Each Monday on Instagram (@mindpumpmedia) look for the QUAH post and input your question there. (Sal, Adam & Justin will answer as many questions as they can)
Transcript
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If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.
Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts.
Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews.
In this episode of Mind Pump for 15 minutes, me and my beloved co-hosts have a fun discussion.
We talk about...
We're beloved.
Justin's chicken run.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's cardio.
I just run with the chickens. We talk about house for... We're beloved. Justin's chicken run. Yeah, yeah, it's cardio. That's it.
I just run with the chickens.
We talk about house for,
Shores and how,
Does Sal or Adam do any?
I'm the only one that does them now.
And you ever got your hands dirty.
And then of course we talk about keeping peace in the home.
Hopefully in this episode airs, we still have it.
Yeah.
Then we get to listen.
Oh, and we also mentioned our sponsor, Organify.
We talk about their green juice,
which is actually delicious.
Can you use it for int your workouts
to build hell a muscle?
The inception workout.
Probably not, but it's still delicious.
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It is. Pretty much anything you want to get.
Then we get into the questions.
The first question was, how do we enjoy the holidays?
Without compromising our health and fitness.
I just get really drunk.
Yeah, what do we do so that we don't leave the holiday
looking like Santa?
Yeah.
Next question was, what are our thoughts on intra-workout
foods and drinks?
If you think I made up that word, intra workout, I didn't, the supplement industry did.
The next question was, what is your guys,
what is our method for retaining information?
So if we read something and we want to remember it,
so we can recite it on the show,
do we just look it up on our Google phones?
So Marijuana does not help this.
So I have a chip in my head.
No, there are techniques though that will help you.
Finally, what advice do we give a new gym manager
with regards to training?
Trainers, should they just teach them
all new exercise programming
or should they give them total freedom
and have anarchy in the gym?
Find out in this episode.
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Can you tell us about the process of the chicken run
that you call a chicken prison in your Instagram story?
You built it all out.
I did.
I took, it took me like maybe three weekends.
Did you do that solo?
Or did you just want to help you?
No, I did by myself.
He did that Han Solo, bro.
Oh, Han Solo.
Pretty legit. So yeah, what's going down with Solo, bro. Oh, Han Solo. Pretty legit.
So what's going down with that?
First of all, well done.
The construction.
It's to keep him to shit up,
stop shitting on his deck.
Yeah, man.
That's honestly, it's that.
And it was, because I saw a court,
he was trying to figure it out.
And she was kind of looking online
and looking at posts.
She was going to have to set posts
and all this kind of stuff.
And I was just like, no, let me do it.
She was gonna build it?
Yeah, I think she's really figured out how to manipulate me.
Oh, do you already know what she does
is the same thing Katrina does.
Like she totally gets halfway there
and like almost starts ordering it.
And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?
Katrina does the same. When there's something around the house
that she wants done, and she keeps reminding me,
like, hey, could you fix the light fixture this and that?
And like, hey, I'll go.
She has to do the start doing it.
Yeah, then she'll start doing it,
then I just know I feel like a position.
So you gotta do it.
I can't be a man, it's sit down and watch your woman change.
You gotta do it.
I'm like, I'm serious.
You're like, you're building something
and you're not involving me?
Not gonna happen.
You gotta do what I used to do
It's because you guys are you just your ego
I never build a chicken run like I give to you do what I used to do brawling powers them. Yeah great job
Can you turn it down though like don't do the drill so much I can't watch TV
Take it from me the guy that's divorced
My solid advice do the drill so much, you can't watch TV. Yeah. Take it from me, the guy that's divorced. Me. Yeah.
My methods are effective.
My methods are effective.
Yeah.
Indeed.
That's a while ago.
That'd be in single, right?
Well, look at her bow the long.
That's pretty good.
Oh, you're really getting a back sweat there.
Yeah.
Take a nap.
I'm, bro, I'll be the first to admit,
I'm worse around the house, man.
I'm terrible with that stuff. I really am. I just and I don't know what I don't know what it is because it's a kid. We had to we had all these chores. Dude I fucking chores up
The ass all the time. That was crazy. Yeah. My parents were smart. They they had us to treat us like slaves. They had my sister and I cook in and clean in
We need some more workers and vacuuming and mowing like you You know, that was, that was like, there's strategies.
Like, let's just have all these things.
That's a terrible strategy.
It was a, no, expensive shoulder arm.
Yeah.
You can hire someone for way less.
I think that's what they were thinking.
They didn't think it all the way through.
That's what I'm saying.
That's what they didn't think it was.
Sometimes I look at my kids and I'm like, damn.
Yeah, you're expensive.
Yeah.
Oh, my paycheck.
Ted Dan wants his new car.
Yeah, that's a new car.
Fuck.
My kids started doing, they started doing their chores now.
My son will wash the dishes.
Oh nice.
Yeah, and they make their bed every morning.
Just pretty good.
Way more than I ever did when I was at home.
Yeah, I get them doing as much as I can think of.
Do you guys keep this?
Wash my car.
So you did chores when you were a kid?
A lot. And Justin, did you do chores when you were a kid? A lot.
And Justin, did you do chores when you were a kid?
All the time, yeah.
You did?
Yeah, but I was always going after the ones
that were outside, so it was chopping wood,
lo and wood, stacking stuff, building things,
I was like always trying to get out of the house.
Because I did go to work on my dad and stuff,
but in the house, I did nothing.
So yet understand, this is a culture.
It's an old school southern Italian culture
where, especially if you're a boy, your mom does,
and especially if it has to do with the house,
your mom does everything for you.
Like, I didn't even know how to open a bank account
when I was 18 years old.
Like, everything ruins you.
They do, and it did.
They ruined the fuck out of it.
Like I would, I wouldn't make my bed,
I wouldn't clean my nothing,
I wouldn't clean my stuff.
Well my mom would wanna like fight all my fights,
you know, with like my teachers and everybody,
like she'd come in like a bulldog, just,
I'm like, no, I would like selectively not tell her
what happened, you know, some things that's cool
because I know she would come in with like guns blazing.
Yes, I purposely would tell my mom shit because she would throw down yeah so I had to be careful
that yeah I had to be very careful now when you when you got married did that
change at all or because you married into an Italian woman and she followed suit
probably just like your mother for yeah it took me a while to really understand
and learn like to do I was like cl, clue list dude, like literally clue list.
Now is this something that you like?
I didn't know how to wash it, it's like so cute.
Yeah, it's not.
It's not.
It's just terrible.
It's not, right?
It's not, actually.
It's not.
I'm safe.
You know what I used to do though?
Yeah.
This is what I used to do when my mom would wash dishes.
I still did to this day.
If I eat over my mom's house, when she, after dinner,
she'll get up and she'll start like washing the dishes
and then maybe my sisters will help put stuff away. Now I help and put things away and try and wash
and of course she swats me away. So then while she's washing dishes, I just kiss her and hug her,
while she does it. And she giggles.
As we squeeze the shit out of my mom. So does this work with Jessica or have you had to change? Oh no, no, no, no, no, I do, I do a lot more now.
It's just not, I live there too.
It's just a strange, it comes from the old world
where people had the role.
So what was it like my dad didn't do anything?
My dad handled all the stuff that had to do
with outside or the cars or the stereotypical,
like man, you know, man stuff.
Right.
So they definitely both did a lot.
It wasn't like one was lazy and one did all the stuff.
They both did, it was like an agreement.
They both did the roles.
So that's where it kinda comes from.
But today, I don't do my yard work.
I mean, when I was married, I had a house
and I was like, I just hired someone to do my lawn
and do that kind of stuff. If I need the car fix, I had a house, and I was like, I just hired someone to do my lawn and do that kind of stuff.
I've had to eat the car fix, I go, pay someone.
So it was strange.
And I mean, now I take pride in it.
The funny thing is, and this is really, really strange.
I really enjoy doing shit around the house.
I actually enjoy it.
Actually, I do actually enjoy doing laundry and dishes
and stuff like that.
I almost find it to be meditative and therapeutic.
So like while I'm doing it, I'm thinking,
or I don't know, it's very strange.
It's interesting.
Very, very interesting.
But when I was a kid, yeah, no.
No, no.
Was that something that it was just an easy transition
for you?
There was no growing pains that you went through
from being a kid who didn't have to,
you got all this shit done, then you got into a marriage
or got into now a relationship where you...
Growing pains, what do you think?
I mean, that's what I'm fishing for.
Part of it.
That's part of it.
It was a big struggle.
It was a big struggle.
It was towards the end of my marriage
that I really started to...
When did you take ownership and realize
it was partially your own fault, right?
That was part of my own fault.
When, later on, much, much later on, much later on.
But there were, I had my own resentment,
so it was tough to see, you know what I'm saying?
Cause you see what the other person
isn't doing it whatever, or if they're being a dick,
or whatever, but no, I mean, now it's like,
I take pride in doing it, which is,
it's very interesting, cause again,
I was brought up in that type of environment
where my brother lived at home for so long,
and it was funny because we would be at family functions,
you know, and my brother's like, you know,
he'd be, God, how old was he when he moved out?
He was in his 20s for sure, and he's making plenty of money.
And people would be like, hey, when are you gonna
get your own house, dude?
And he's like, why?
He's like, I eat restaurant quality, like better than
restaurant quality food.
He's like, I don't have to clean anything.
Free rent.
And my mom would be right there and she'd be smiling like,
yeah, he could stay as long as he wants.
First, she was like, she would be so happy.
She would be so happy if he lived there until he got married.
Like, 45 year old dude, she'd be so happy if he was there.
Oh man, that's so funny.
Is it hilarious?
That is funny. I thought I'm afraid for my mom and my brother just moved back in with my mom. I'm afraid for you. Oh man. That's so funny. Is it hilarious? That is funny.
I thought I'm afraid for my mom and my brother
just moved back in with my mom.
I'm afraid for the same thing
because he's in his 20s right now.
He came back from Colorado.
My mom brought him in and my mom's getting ready.
She's engaged and she has a marriage next year coming.
So I'm like, you're crazy.
What are you doing?
I'm like 20 something year old,
brother, move back in with you guys right now.
Damn.
And they moved in with a girlfriend too.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, I'm like, oh man, the deal.
You crazy.
You guys are crazy.
I send like a text message over to my mom's, you know, fiance now, right?
And check out bottom like every two weeks.
Hey, bro, you're doing it.
You're doing my crazy ass family over there.
Oh, I'm good.
So what do you guys do around the house now?
Do you guys do anything around the house?
What are your bad habits for that?
Like, what do you not do that you know you should probably do?
I think.
Let's talk about the positive first.
Oh yeah, let's talk about how good we are.
So the stuff we do do.
Yeah, I mean, I'm the first to get on the roof and fix stuff.
In the house.
Oh, in the house.
Yeah, like plumbing stuff and like electrical.
Why you gotta be so like manly old like, so yeah, like plumbing stuff and like electrical. Why are you gonna be so like manly old?
It's like, I build, I find it.
I like to build stuff, because I feel like I'm doing something substantial.
You know, it's the little stuff that I'm, I have a hard time with like all the,
it's the consistency.
Did you change the very inconsistent?
Did you do a lot of diaper changes?
Oh yeah.
Yeah, and that's what's so funny, like like because my dad and like his generation and all that
You see give me all this shit about that, you know like
I never had to touch you know diaper change. Oh, that's like well, you're fucking lazy
You know, like it's nothing to be proud of
You know like I don't know man. It's a different mentality like when I was a kid
Who was it? Was it my sister? I might have been my sister.
She was a baby and my mom went somewhere
and my dad, she pooped and my dad freaked out.
I was like, oh, what do I do?
So he's trying to change her diaper,
couldn't figure it out and ended up using duct tape
to tape the sides of the diaper.
And my sister, my other sister, who's older,
because I have three younger siblings, right?
That's right, over everything.
I have three younger siblings.
Some of the sister that's closest to me in age,
she sees what my dad's doing, and she's a baby still.
She's not a baby, she's still just a child, right?
So she must be, I'm trying to think how far in age,
she might have been seven or eight,
and my youngest sister was obviously a baby,
and she goes over and she goes,
bup-a-you're doing it wrong,
and she like pushes my dad aside,
and she changed her sister's diaper.
That's great.
She did the whole thing, yeah, my mom comes home.
And when I was a baby one time,
my mom tells a story that I was,
she came home and I was just walking around making house,
because my dad's like,
it's a game, yeah.
It's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. I think it puts these papers on the floor, I think it's these making house. Cause my dad's like, it's a game. Yeah, it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen.
Yeah, I think it puts these papers on the floor.
The newspapers?
Let them run around like a little puppy.
Yeah, so what do you do at them?
Man, he's not trying to change the subject.
No, no, no.
Katrina is, so I have a super wife at home.
So she pretty much handles everything.
Everything and anything, there's not much that Katrina does not handle.
But being in fairness to myself, right?
I'm sure she would defend me and be like,
that's not true, you help out, blah, blah, blah.
I think that she truly handles almost everything.
She's out of the two of us, she's the most organized
on the most scatterbrain.
But what I think I am good at and what I do do is,
I'm very aware and I I do do is I'm very,
very aware and I pay close attention to her mood
and her day and I know her schedule,
so I know if she's had a long day,
I know if she had a big meeting
or she had something a lot on her plate
or what she's doing for MP and stuff,
if she's got a bunch going on.
If I recognize these things that she does,
then I try and pick up the slack where I know
that she has, she'll clean the house, she'll take care of the dishes, she cooks, she
cleans, she does laundry, she handles all that stuff.
We have house cleaners that come every 10 days, so it's not like she's doing huge deep cleaning.
But she pretty much handles most everything.
Even to the extent of cars need to be fixed,
she's the one who sets the appointment.
I typically go pick it up or take it there,
or pay for it, or whatever,
but she handles booking it and setting the calendar up for me.
But what I do do is I'll pay attention
to, you know, what's going on in her life.
And I'll relieve her of the things
that she normally would do because I see she's
got she's she's carrying a lot you know. That's all I'm yeah I'm always thinking like that
because you just can see opportunities to kind of help and I think that's that's the biggest
thing if like she's like frazzled from having the kids and they're in a certain kind of
a mood you know I just take everybody and I leave and give her peace in harmony for a couple hours.
Right.
Or like, yeah, I mean, I definitely have gotten better. I've been bad about, you know,
dishes and vacuuming and stuff like that. But I've really made a concerted effort to
write after everything's done just a packet, not even think about it, just I'm talking and I'm
doing stuff and
that's really helped and I've been a
lot more consistent with it and it
totally changes the atmosphere of the
entire house yeah I try and do my best
to be proactive of course there's
sometimes where and you know I could
probably count on one or two hands and
all the time we've been together where
you know I could tell she was
irritated with me because maybe I
wasn't helping out enough around the
place so it doesn't take it doesn't take that much for me to notice when,
she's not her normal chipper self
or she's got a lot on her plate or she's stressed.
And the only time it's really tough
is if we both happen to be going through it the same time
and those are those times,
if there's ever a time where she's just like,
God damn, could you fucking help me?
Yeah, it kind of gives me that shit.
It's because I've got a ton of stress in my life,
a bunch of shit on my plate, and then she does too.
So it's like, or else I would be on top.
Yeah, and there's been a handful of times that,
you know, that's happened.
But in our relationship, you know, if she doesn't complain,
she doesn't bitch, she doesn't ever do things like that.
So if she does, then I know she's overwhelmed,
and that's a lot, because it takes a lot to push her
to that point where she feels the need to ask me,
like, hey dude, could you fucking help me out here
with this stuff?
I'm fucking buried in laundry.
I've got this going on.
I gotta do this for you, I gotta do that.
And then it's like, my bad.
That's why I know exactly,
it's almost the same thing with it.
It's all about like trying to get her to hang out
with her friends and go do things that she enjoys,
outside, so it's not like it's this identity of like,
I'm just mom and I'm stuck here and, you know,
and I'm just doing all this shit and it's like,
no, no, no, get out, enjoy yourself, do something,
I'll just like take over.
And I know for the other thing too,
that I know that's really important
in keeping a healthy home and healthy relationship for us
is just, and I've never trained myself like this
until her to
be proactive about just little things that going out for a walk after dinner and doing
like I didn't do shit like that before that wasn't a part of
a relate anything in a relationship that I had before where I was like you know
We can really easily get caught in the hustle and bustle of keeping the house the bills bills going, the business going, all the stuff going on with both of us that,
and I know that stuff really goes a long way with her,
and I think in just women in general's quality time
and making the time to do something that is just kind of like,
eh, whatever for a guy, like go for a walk.
Like, this is not very much fun or very cool
or very challenging, but just getting it out of the house,
walking down the road with her, you know,
in a nice night or with that, I mean last night we did it with her mom.
That's, I know those things to her, like me doing that is so much more important than
me, you know, folding the most recent laundry that just got done.
She listens to the show, right?
Yeah, every episode.
You're attached afterwards.
Actually, yeah, not that you bring me up.
No, not me of that. Why don't you do laundry?
Yeah, she definitely she holds it down man. No doubt she's she's I've said on the show before she's the rock for sure
My wife doesn't listen so I'm good
Bring the chicken
We call it a planet. Chimericaw!
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It's the motherfucking squad!
An English Landish!
Quick quad!
First question is from Keep Up With M-Way.
How do each of you enjoy the holidays without compromising your health and fitness goals?
How do you tweak your diet and fitness routines leading up to the holidays and how do you sustain those routines through the holidays?
Yeah, the way I view holidays is
First and foremost when you're talking about total wellness health fitness all these different things
There are a lot of
components that make up that make that up. It's not just physical performance, although that's in there.
It's not just body fat percentage and all that stuff,
but that is in there.
It's not just physical health.
There's also mental health and emotional health.
And some people would even say spiritual health.
And that, all of that is very, very important.
There isn't one piece that's more important than the other.
And if one falls down or if one is very, very important. There is one piece that's more important than the other,
and if one falls down or if one is bad,
it will take its toll on the others.
And sometimes the others have to kind of pick up the pieces
or support those other ones in supporting roles.
So the way I look at holidays is,
holidays for me is really to feed my emotional health, the health I have with
my connections with families and friends. So that's the priority. So Christmas comes
once a year, Thanksgiving comes once a year. When I'm at those events and I'm with my family,
I'm not thinking to myself about my fitness, I'm not thinking about my body fat percentage,
I'm not thinking about any of that. what I'm thinking about is connecting with the people around me.
Now what you'll find when you go to your holidays with that mental, with that understanding,
or at least with that concept, you may find, this is what I find, when I would go to these
holidays, understand this is about my family. I find myself eating less of
the cookies and sugary stuff and the stuff that I normally would bother me anyway.
You give yourself the approval to do that.
That's it. If I when I was like super hardcore into fitness, I would treat those holidays as like
free for all. Yeah. And then it become it went over. It would I just say I ended up. Yeah, and I'd feel sick and I'd feel
You know my stomach would hurt and I'd take a nap,
you know, after dinner because I couldn't breathe
or whatever.
Now when I go there and it's like,
it's about my family and friends,
I'll enjoy a few things here and there,
but it's not that big of a deal.
And I enjoy them because someone made them homemade.
I'm gonna taste them.
If it's not, if it's store bought cookies,
maybe, maybe not, not big deal,
but I'm there
to enjoy the people around me.
And when I, I found that since I've treat, since I treat the holidays that way, it makes
it a lot healthier physically as well, ironically, very, very different than what it used to
be.
So I have a bunch of different things here here because I've actually, I competed one
year the day after Thanksgiving. So I actually hopped on stage the day after thing. I was driving
down to the competition on Thanksgiving day, so I didn't even have a Thanksgiving one year.
And I'll never do that again. I did it because I thought it was a good smart strategy and it was
completely wrong. I thought there's going to be nobody else. If you're a pro already, I thought it was a smart strategy and it was completely wrong. I thought there's gonna be nobody else. If you're a pro already, I thought all the top pros,
yeah, I thought all the top pros are at home.
There's no way.
Yeah, they're at home at Thanksgiving.
Well, I'll fucking 25 of them showed up with me.
All the, all the, all the good to say we avoided.
Bunch of fanatics.
Yeah, so I was totally wrong by that.
I thought that was a really smart strategy.
Do you feel like, oh, I missed that Thanksgiving
when my family, no? Absolutely, I thought that was a really smart strategy. Do you feel like, oh, I missed that Thanksgiving with my family? Absolutely. I did.
Oh, I missed that.
Yeah, but I learned a lot and there's certain things that I'll say that,
this is how, like you, I agree, Sal, like so, at that time, I made it work.
I mean, fuck, could you imagine a more challenging time to compete at a competitive level
than fucking Thanksgiving or during the holidays? I mean, that was very challenging.
And it was very doable.
And I like to do things like that occasionally
to stretch myself, to prove to myself
that I have the discipline to refrain
from going overboard on foods and do things during the times
when everybody makes the justification of,
oh, it's the holidays and I'm just gonna fucking eat
whatever.
So I enjoyed putting myself through that to prove that I have the mental discipline and so it taught me a
lot about that. But with like Sal said, you know, the holidays really are, you know,
it is, it's a time for me to enjoy with my family and because I don't compete
anymore and I definitely remember sacrificing some holidays for sure in
birthdays where I was in the middle of competition mode,
and I just didn't get to have anything really. I had to be in my top or eating in my
top or where. And that, I didn't like that. And I would never want to do that long term. I don't
give a shit about how important competing is to me or whatever at that time, going forward. It would
not be something that I would sacrifice. But there are some things that I do do,
I keep saying do do, I said do do do.
I said do do like two times today, didn't I?
I just got do do on the mind.
I don't know what, I'm noticing the same thing.
I'm like, if I bring it up, it'll be so.
I know, you did.
So it's all good.
I just caught it.
I was like, why did it come out twice like that
in the one episode?
So much do do do.
So I do do what I do do is I will set up the day.
Okay, so I know Thanksgiving, and most people I know
for Thanksgiving, Christmas, all these holidays,
normally the big meal comes around between noon and four,
somewhere in that range.
So I like to make sure that I either get a really good lift
or get out and do some fasted walking and cardio and burn off some
and just refrain from food until the big feast is coming.
And then if I just enjoy myself and I'm mindful,
well I do it because I don't really think that people do as much damage
as they think they do on the actual holiday holidays.
No.
It's fucking all the spiraling down afterwards.
It's so crazy about that. Yeah, it's not like you most people
I'll tell you what, especially if you do this if you fast till the big meal and then you just fucking gorge
I mean eight eat until they have to roll you out. What are you gonna get?
5,000 six thousand calories down. Maybe not. Yeah. I don't know how many people I can do that. Yeah, right
So you're I mean and you're not so you're not gonna put on a pound or two pounds of fat from one holiday meal and come down.
Like really, you just shovel that shit in your mouth
just one sitting, why don't you just eat
like a reasonable person.
Right, so I think you could actually,
I think you can actually really enjoy your holidays,
enjoy, you know, and so I do little things, right?
Like I do the walking thing, the fasting.
I eat in the order of what's best for me.
So when I look at it-
So what vegetables?
Yeah, vegetables and meats first,
before I start going to the gravy
and mashed potatoes and the breads.
So I try and fill up on the things
that are giving me the most value,
but then I don't neglect my,
like if there is a dish that I just love
that one of my mom makes the most mate,
we have this recipe that's been in the family for 100 years
and it's stuffing and it's amazing.
And I'm not going without it.
It's like going in my plate for sure
and I love her gravy.
So, but I make sure that I eat the other stuff first
and then I enjoy that.
And then I get up the next morning
and I don't start down the path that everybody does
and have, you know, fucking the marshmallow yams
for breakfast and then they wash it down with some fucking sugary drink.
You found that, like, you know,
some of your filter is gone with being nice about certain foods.
You know, like somebody like brought some jello
with a bunch of marshmallows on it and shit.
I'm like, yeah, I'm not eating that.
You know, like, I'm not, I don't,
I don't, it doesn't interest me.
It's not even good.
Yeah.
My mom, so, it's not salad.
Yeah. So, stop calling it salad. Yeah. My mom is not salad. Yeah.
So, stop calling it salad.
My mom celebrates Thanksgiving on a different day
because we have this blended family
and she just finds it easier to,
I think so.
November 11th is our Thanksgiving with my family.
And Katrina texts my mom and said,
you know, what would you like me to bring a dish
for this or that?
And my mom's still like, yeah, could you bring over
a marshmallow salad or what's it called? My mom's still like, yeah, could you bring over
marshmallow salad or what's it called? It's called something like that, right?
Jello marshmallow salad or whatever.
And Katrina's like, I don't even know what the fuck that is.
What is your mom want me to make?
I'm like, she gave you Jello marshmallow salad.
We're not gonna eat that.
Tell her no.
I'll tell her a brand of no.
It's a sugary dessert that identifies as salad.
It's literally, yes, it's literally J.
It's a new pronoun.
For Christmas.
Yeah, that one and then the sweet potato.
The marshmallow is just like, man, that's just candy.
So yeah, I think those, these are little things.
This year Katrina's family, we have a very, very competitive basketball family game that
we play. So and that's after we eat, so we'll competitive basketball family game that we play.
So, and that's after we eat, so we'll eat and then do that.
So, honestly, I can pretty much go to town on that day
as long as I'm mindful the next days that follow.
I think that's where people really get caught up is.
Man, stay active.
Yeah, they have the slug.
Enjoy the day, enjoy your family.
But then that's it, that's it, because if you go,
if you, you know, the following days,
if you're just gorging yourself,
it's no longer about the holiday,
it's no longer about the people around,
you know, the family around you.
And the people that tend to have the worst relationships
with these holidays are the super strict
dieters you're around.
And they treat this like this, you know,
like a binge on the whole, yes,
the whole cheat day mentality. And that's why, you know, like a binge on the whole, yes, the whole cheat day
mentality. And that's why, you know, you don't hear us talk about cheat days like ever on the show,
really, except in a negative kind of, you know, context because it's, it is. It's just this, this
mentality where now everything, you know, all gloves are off and I could just shove, you know,
shovels of food down my face and, you know, oh wow, weird.
I gained 10 pounds this weekend.
I mean, I sat around and just fell asleep and didn't do shit.
Thanksgiving holidays and Christmas holiday,
like the eating that goes on there,
isn't that different than how I actually eat here around.
Right.
It's just that I actually get to have these amazing gourmet foods
that my family make that are tradition,
because I still do the same thing.
Like, you know, I will periodically have low calorie days
that lead up to a big calorie day.
And I'll go enjoy a burger or something like that.
That'll be like my, you know, high calorie day
where I'm enjoying these foods that I wanted.
And Thanksgiving is basically the same. I'll treat you so ramp up your mental health my high calorie day where I'm enjoying these foods that I wanted.
And Thanksgiving is basically the same.
I'll treat you so ramp up your metabolism so you can handle
some of this.
So I'm smart leading up to that.
I'm typically the days leading up to Thanksgiving.
I'm being very cautious of my calories
and not over-consuming leading into it.
Fasting maybe that morning and moving around
and being active.
And then fuck, I'm enjoying, I'm gonna join the shit
out of myself, man.
I'm not saying, I'm not saying no to anything
that I really wanna enjoy with my family
while I'm sitting there eating.
Yeah, and you know, as far as fitness is concerned,
your workouts, I mean, there's really no reason
to stop working out, just keep working out.
It's funny that some people actually take that time off
from their fitness as well.
And I think those are the same people that view their training
as a job or as a punishment or, you know,
because I don't stop working out,
because I enjoy it.
So that's a really good point,
because that's the other piece that really gets everybody.
It's the combination of fucking off the diet
and also not living.
It's like the worst thing you could possibly do.
Like if you actually just kept your training routine up
and just was mindful that day.
You might make use of those extra calories sometimes.
We have a tradition every Thanksgiving
where the day after Thanksgiving,
we have the post Thanksgiving,
we name this year's ago,
post Thanksgiving Guido workout.
Are you gonna do that this year?
Yeah, we'll do this year.
We're gonna do it down here.
We might do it here or my garage.
You should do it here. But I would have to cut our year? Yeah, we'll do this. We're gonna do it down here. We might do it here or my garage. You should do it here.
But I would have to cut our tree.
Yeah, that's fine.
No, so me and my cousins, my brother, we all meet together.
There's anywhere between sometimes four,
sometimes many, seven of us, depending on who can make it.
And the day after, we all meet together and we lift,
and we lift heavy, we talk a lot of shit.
It's a bunch of ego lifting and joking, and then we
afterwards go and eat a meal together and have a great time. So it's like a day we get to hang out
together and it's funny, we've done it now for this maybe the seventh or eighth year in a row coming
up and everybody's wives and girlfriend are just like, yes, it's your guy time, you know what I mean?
And it's cool, it's really really cool, I look forward to it. I missed out last year you did it.
I wanted to come.
I remember we had to go through,
so I think I had to get a tree or something at the same time.
But I want you to do it down here so we could come down.
That'd be awesome.
Next question is from Mark Wolves.
Thoughts about intra workout, foods and drinks.
You know that term intra workout?
It's another made up one.
You know that made up word?
Three workout, intra workout, post workout. What's next made up one. You know that made up word. Three workout.
Intra workout, post workout.
What's next?
Now we've sold you a supplement
for before, middle, and after.
If we can only break up the
change.
If we can only break up the workout
into quadrants.
There we go.
Second quadrant supplement.
Third quadrant.
The thought of working out,
I have to supplement.
There are athletes out there
and there are types of training
that may benefit from intra workout supplementation.
Intra workout supplement is something you take
during your workout.
Who endurance athlete?
That's it.
I was gonna say,
who the hell else is?
And really it's only endurance athletes
that are training,
that are doing really, really long runs.
And that's why they have those goos
and those easily digestible fun items.
I'm the only other place I can see this.
And I did this and I didn't do it the healthy way
when I was a kid, but I used to,
and I used to, you know, if I'm being completely
transparent here.
So I used to drink rock stars,
those sugar loaded ones in the middle of my workout.
And the middle of your workout?
In the middle of my workout.
And the reason why, well, before my workout,
I'd have about an hour or two before my workout,
I'd have a full meal, then I'd have a bar or a quick shake, and then I would also eat
the sugar drink in the middle of it.
And this was during my heydays of trying as hard as I could to gain weight.
And as a trainer, and in my early 20s, I was burning 5, 6,000 calories every day consistently.
And so I just had a hard time keeping up with calories.
So I tried to find anywhere I could get this liquid,
this liquid sugar or liquid calories.
And so instead of just drinking just pure water,
my whole workout, I would go back and forth
between sipping on a rock star to drinking water.
Now, I say that in complete transparency,
but I'm not recommending that you do that.
But that's the only other place where I get where somebody would feel the need to do
intro-work-resistant.
If you really struggle with getting enough calories in your diet and so-
I almost feel like that would take a-
I could see some sugar, but like food, you know what I mean?
Or calories?
Oh yeah, that would be tough to work out.
That would be tough, right?
I mean, I did it because drinking would be easy. So here's the things, if you want to drink something that's got flavor, like, I mean, you can do that.
But again, you know, water is probably your best option. I haven't done anything,
the organified green juice is pretty good. I could see maybe drinking that for a long long
workout. I've done that, but not with the intention of trying to get something out of it, right?
Like, I actually enjoy the organify green juice.
Like it's just a refreshing, it has that kind of minty flavor.
It's, you know, I can put a lot of water in it, and it really waters it down.
And I've done that before, or I'll do like literally, you know, 32 to 60 something ounces
of water.
So you dilute it?
Yeah, so it's diluted, and it has kind of a minty flavor to it, and I'm getting my stuff
from my organify.
But I'm not like, it's not like I'm- It's not because you're trying.
Right, I would not tell a client who asked me,
like, hey, Adam, what do you think about intro
and I'd be like, oh, take the organifI green juice
for your intro workout and it's gonna maximize
your muscle gain, like I wouldn't do.
It doesn't make a difference.
No, I like it.
It's kind of a, it's one of those categories
of supplements, it's kind of a myth.
Aside from the endurance athletes,
you're not gonna really benefit
from taking anything during your workout. And I know there are supplement
companies I'll tell you, drink branch chaminuacids, prevent some muscle breakdown, during your
workout. Like, here's a thing with individual amino acids. When you take high doses of
individual amino acids or just three like the branch chain ones, you can throw some
things off in your body and there is some evidence
that high doses of branching amino acids has a depressive effect on some people.
So, and it might not be good. So, if you're drinking, because I know some people that drink
branching amino acids all day thinking they're gonna make them build muscle and then they feel
down and they're wondering why they feel down. It might be the BCAAs, but otherwise,
you're probably best drinking nothing,
maybe not even water.
You're already hydrated, go in your workout
and just do your workout,
unless you're doing these super long,
grueling type workouts where you're gonna have to
replenish glycogen while you're training.
Those are like super long.
That's a long, that's like you're running 15 miles
or 20 miles.
It needs to be over an hour,
because you're not even threatening this.
You could do high intensity.
They're relevant almost an hour before you even work.
By the way, you get a growth hormone spike
from working out.
And if you raise insulin, growth hormone drops,
they're both inversely related.
So drinking some of that, you're having a bunch of carbohydrates in the middle of your
workout.
Unless again, you need the carbohydrates because you're doing this super long workout.
Like let's say you play like five basketball games in a row, that's different.
But if you're lifting weights, you want to kind of take advantage of that growth hormone
spike, it burns body fat, does build muscle, drinking the sugary things and a blunt fat,
quite a bit, and you're gonna get an insulin spike.
Yeah, I already too, is a lot of times the kids
that are drinking to the same kids too,
that are pounding the pre workout before two,
so you're like, I'm trying to gain weight,
so I'm drinking this intrest shake workout,
but then I'm also doing a pre workout
that's over stimulating my body before I go in.
You're gonna need gainer age to refresh me.
What a shit drink drink by the way.
I hate that they fucking the kids parents give that to all the kids after soccer.
Great marketing.
It's like, oh, it's terrible.
But no, yeah, you guys stimulate before.
Let's spike some cortisol, drink some sugar, you know, in the middle of it.
So now we're going to spike up your insulin like, what a great combination.
It's hilarious.
Next up is Jeff Sherman 22.
What's your guys method for retaining information?
Oh, forgot.
Plenty of mice out from the head.
I used to have one.
Well, let's just say right out the gate,
South is probably the best of this for sure.
I definitely think you were,
What are your ways?
Oh, wise one.
There is, I don't have,
I don't necessarily have a method.
It's, if I'm really into something.
I mean, so have you always, did you notice,
where at what point in your life as growing up,
did you put together that you had this ability
to read something and then just remember it really well?
Like when did someone finally tell you that
or did you put it together like,
well, that it was abnormally good?
Family members would be talking about a subject
and I would know something about that subject
and then everybody would look shocked,
and they'd be like, how did you know that?
And then my answer, and everybody used to tease me
about this, because I always say, I don't know,
I just know, because I just did.
I remember as a kid, I would know these things,
and I didn't piece it together that something I read earlier.
As it got older, then I started kind of thinking
about this, because people started pointing this out to me quite a bit.
And it's funny when I remember something,
I actually remember what it looks like.
I can remember the page, how I read it, and where it is.
And I don't know if that's what helps me remember,
or if it's because, you know,
because when I really get into something,
I get so focused on it that it just, you know,
I just retain it very well.
Yeah, and you're brain.
But I will say this, I do know, so maybe that's my default, right?
Maybe that's my baseline. So my baseline may be higher than, let's say,
the average person for remembering things, but I have found techniques or
things that I can do that brings it up even higher.
And nothing is as effective for retaining information
for me than when I teach it.
If I learn something and teach it or talk about it,
I will remember it.
If I come for something.
And as a trainer, I learned this very, very quickly.
I would read an article on carbohydrates,
or on gut health, or on hormone, or something like that.
And because I was into that article,
I would talk about it to my clients and teach it to people.
And then that was it.
Well, not always a member.
And take that a step further,
like refining that message even more to present to like a kid.
So like, you know, just trying to explain
very natural things that in the world
and that they have this curiosity about it and they're
asking you like a legit question about it and I'm like, oh my God, how do I explain this
in a way that they're going to understand it?
And it just, and then things click a little bit further for me.
Like I just to get it to refine down to that level has really helped like certain subjects
and certain things like I understand on a greater level that way. I have a couple of things,
South nail one right on the head for me for sure
that I wasn't even thinking about
till you said that and this couldn't be more true
to me and my personality.
And even to the point where I've actually been teased,
made fun of this, it's even something
that we make light of on the show all the time,
what I will do any time I learn something,
especially if it like strikes a chord with me,
or I was like, oh, fuck, that's really good information.
I will immediately regurgitate it.
I will definitely say it, and a lot of times I say it,
and I fuck it up, and it doesn't sound as good
as the first person who gave it to me,
or the first time I read it, right?
Because it's the first time that I've practiced saying it.
It's like, I just read something, I learned it. I thought, wow, that was really good information. Right away,
I try and challenge myself to whether I share it with Katrina or a family or a friend or on the show
or whatever it may be. I'll share that information. And sometimes like it flows right out. I retained
it really well. And then sometimes I don't. And sometimes it comes out and it's all kind of messed
messed up or I make up a word in there
And it just doesn't flow right just doesn't get processed
Right, and so what happens after that like people
People would would tease or make fun of me or give me a hard time about and I don't let it bother me
And I think that's where a lot of people they learn or they read something or they hear something and they got the information
But because they're not confident that they can they can give it the same way they received it or they read it
That they just keep it in there. And I think this is a major issue with bad communicators
I used to have really really intelligent people that work for me PhDs masters
Brilliant minds far smarter than I was and
It would blow my mind how poor of trainers they were
Because I thought like how does this guy who works for me,
who has a much higher education and experience than I do,
can't do as well at this job, as I can,
when he's got way more information
because he couldn't get it off his tongue.
He could, he could, he could, he could, he could,
well, I'm gonna be honest, I mean,
I feel like I'm a little bit slow to the party
as far as like having to communicate verbally,
like what I know.
And that's been a real source of friction for me.
It's starting this podcast and like getting it,
because I get on a one on one level, I can coach
and I can cue and that's like my comfort zone.
And like even going through the academic process though,
like I knew exactly what I had to do, study wise,
like look for on the test, I would scan,
and it was like I gained the whole way that I would learn because of what I expected to see and
do well in Excel based off of what they're like quizzing me on.
And so like some of my methods for school were totally different than what I
do now. Like I mean, for me to retain things, I would study till whatever I
things I would study. So whatever I was like memorizing late at night, I would just, I would repeat it over and over and over and over and over. And then first thing in the morning,
I'd look over at once and then boom, I had it. But I didn't retain it. So, you know,
it's you learn how to like, you learn how to learn it just long enough to just long enough.
Yeah. And a lot of people do that. I think what we're really talking about right now
is that, and I think this is generally true for most people,
is that humans tend to learn well through discussion.
And this is probably because we evolved our ability
to communicate verbally way before we ever evolved
the abstract idea of symbolism and writing
of, you know, and writing and reading, which is extremely abstract. People don't realize how abstract
of a concept and what a mind-blowing concept that was for a human to, you know, we drew pictures
for a long time, but to write a symbol and to assign it a sound so that you can combine different
symbols together to create a word.
That is an extremely brilliant abstract way of thinking that obviously propelled mankind
forward, but it came much further along before that.
It was all through discussion and song.
Song is the other thing.
One of the reasons why it called
Numanic learning. Yeah, I mean think about this. Like you can remember a fucking jingle or a song
and know all the words to it. Yeah. Way easier than you can if you were just to read that
list of words or whatever and without a tune behind it. Way, way easier all the time, especially
for organic chemistry. Like I would have to literally like seeing a lot of the compounds in my head so I could remember it because it was just so many different things
from just memorizing, I was terrible at memorizing things, but that totally helped.
It all goes back to evolution and we evolved passing on information through song and through
discussion.
Do you ever think?
And so if you want to retain information and you want to use hacks, like real hacks, these
are real hacks.
If you talk to memory experts, these are real things, is you song and discussion.
And so when I think, I mean, when we're talking about how we learn it by teaching it, really
it's discussion, right?
It's a discussion that's causing some trouble.
I've also, I've had great success recently with the advice that I took from Tom Billio. And every time I do it,
it trips me out that listening to audio books at a faster speed actually helps me retain more.
I would never think that it seems like it would be totally opposite that speeding the words up
would make it annoying and hard to listen to and not be able to absorb it all.
But because it's so fast, I can't be distracted by other things.
I have to completely hone in and focus on what's coming in because it's coming in so fast.
But so it forces me to hang on every word and repeat it in my head really quick.
And then I tend to retain so much of it where it now, if I listen in a one speed,
and it's just like the speed of us talking right now,
I can trail off, because I feel like I can-
You're thinking about other stuff.
Yeah, I can listen and think about other stuff,
which I feel like because of that,
it takes away from the information that I'm listening to.
So that was a big hack for me that has helped me out,
but 100% the after you get information
Sharing it right afterwards and I think I it'll be if you're in college like you can even literally read a chapter and then call your friend and or your girlfriend your boyfriend and and share
Would you just learn yeah just talk to them about what you just read
But won't take you very long 15 to 30 minutes, but it'll blow you away. It'll blow you away
How much more effective it is in the old way of, you know, trying to
write things down and take notes.
For sure, this is this is me all the way.
Like that's how I've had.
And then like I said, I just, you're going to fuck it up sometimes and it's not going to
come out.
Like you just can't let that make you feel insecure because, oh, it didn't sound perfect
or I forgot this stat or like that.
It's like, you know, sometimes when you practice,
you know, sharing information after you've just learned,
it's sometimes you will, you'll flushing it out.
Yeah, and what I would do, what I would do
is every time I would do that, right?
Because it's inevitable that's going to happen.
I'm gonna read something that's kind of,
but maybe it's a heavy topic and I'm gonna miss some things.
Then that makes me wanna go dive back into it, right?
So I share it, mess a few things up,
make me go back, relearn it again,
and then by that time, it's completely...
The other thing, too, I wanna touch on
before we even move to the next question,
is when it comes to retaining information,
sometimes you have to make space for new information.
And I don't mean you need to forget something else,
literally like, I gotta race my brain,
so I can, but what I mean by making spaces,
if your mind is pre-occupied
with anxiety or stress and you have repetitive thoughts about something or you're just stressed
out about the day or whatever, if you can't handle that, it'll be very difficult for you
to remember anything.
So sometimes sitting quietly, meditating, going for a walk, doing things that kind of makes space,
will help you retain the information.
I wonder if we all have this individual ability
in walking to really house me.
That's actually a good idea actually.
Yeah, moving, moving stuff is actually a real huge thing.
Yeah, because I was talking to somebody
and they were talking about how when you're moving your body,
you're preoccupying certain parts of your brain
and it allows the other parts to be more open and free
to remember, and that's why it's a creativity tool tool.
Two, you ever notice how you come up
with some of your best ideas while you're doing things
and moving?
Same thing.
I was fascinated with, I mean,
I just read not that long ago in this new book
that I'm reading Subliminal about that 95% of the information that we download
in the day is actually subconscious and we don't even realize it.
So that's 95% do so most the information our brain is downloading and processing, it's
subconsciously happening.
You're literally, this freaks me out, you are literally living in a tiny piece of what's
really happening.
Right.
That's, say you're not even processing it.
I bet you we don't even see like a fraction of what's in front of us.
No, no, not at all.
I mean, right now there's a part of my eye that's looking at something over the left
right now. It's downloaded that information and it's processed.
It's a guy in a clown suit, like the whole time.
Well, it's, it's, it's pretty crazy.
But yeah, shit's happening all around you and you're so unaware of what you're living in a dream.
This is my theory on why when you go places like eucymity or you go to these like what they say take your breath away type scenery places.
It's like overload. Well, it is. It's, it's how often are you in a space where from completely everywhere from the left to the right to the top to the bottom.
You're paying attention. You're paying attention.
You're paying attention and you're downloading beauty.
Like, that's just rare when you think about it.
That's what makes I think the take the breath away part
because we're so used to like this, the scene that we're sitting in right now.
Okay. We got 600 and something episodes deepness.
I've seen Doug over there a million times.
I've seen you there, there.
I've seen all these things in here.
So it's not take your breath away.
It's like, I've already downloaded a process of wearing something.
It might take you. Spice it up, Justin. Yeah. Right. Come on, man.
It takes us a challenge, actually. Next question is from GitFit with Miranda. What advice
would you give to a new gym manager with regards to training trainers? Do I go in and change
the way they train or do I introduce them to maps programming and hope they take from it,
allowing them freedom.
So a new gym manager, freedom.
This is a tough question right here.
Very tough question, because on one hand, when you first
walk into a gym, you need to set the tone immediately.
Fire everybody.
Yeah.
No, you need to set the tone immediately because I used to say that.
When you first walk into a gym or a business
or you're managing your own culture.
And you're all of a sudden like this super nice
and I'm gonna be very hard to be an asshole after that.
Very hard to get hard after that.
If you walk in and you're like,
all right, here's the deal.
This is what's happening.
There's a, it afterwards, you can throw that out
every once in a while.
You can bring that up.
But the other side of it too,
is you want to develop a good connection with these people.
You want to earn their trust.
Now with trainers, really, if you want to spend a lot of time
with them in ways that they're going to see a huge impact
and how they train and how they build their business,
you're going to focus a lot of time on how they communicate,
far more than how they train.
However, it is important, I used to notice this as a manager, I would do, for every, I would
do, let's say, I did 10 meetings a month with my trainers.
It would be, you know, I don't know, six would be on communicating better and organizing
your business and a lot of stuff, but four would be on better training. And the reason why I would put those four,
those four meetings for better training
was of course I want to teach my trainers,
but because they loved it.
That was the second one.
They didn't necessarily get a huge amount out of it,
like they would, at least if they were good,
like they did with the communication,
but I did it because trainers love those meetings.
Traders usually, you have them come in
and you're gonna talk about communication
They're like, I don't care. I just want to train people
So that's those are the those are my piece of advice. I'm gonna I'm gonna be a little bit different
I'm gonna tell you to fire everybody. I'm fucking serious too
And I wish I remember what book I can do. They're gonna get fired like they're gonna get themselves fired
But I had to defy the whole thing. Let me let me tell you I wish I remember the book to
But I had to defy the whole thing. Let me tell you, I wish I remember the book to reference.
I have to do that sometimes.
I'll try it, well, most times,
no matter if I'm 90% of the time, you will have to fight.
And here's the deal, and that's so tough to tell somebody
who's going into the position you're going into right now
because of course that sounds scary as fuck
to go in and handle a facility,
and then you're gonna let go of it.
And obviously you can't fire everybody
on the same day right away,
but eventually more than likely, if you're gonna be very successful at what you're gonna let go of it. And obviously you can't fire everybody on the same day right away, but eventually more than likely,
if you're gonna be very successful
in what you're doing, they'll all end up
probably being your people down the road.
And think of it like this,
and I don't know if you're a parent or not,
I'm not, but I can still give this analogy.
That coming into a gym, and this is something
I'm very familiar with in adopting a,
somebody else's staff is like being a mom or a parent and taking
on 15, 17 year olds that are somebody else's kid.
That's what you got.
You just got, you just inherited 15, 15 year olds that were somebody else's kid and
now you got to teach them life.
And imagine is it possible?
Sure, there's some people that were cut out for that.
There are some people that could take somebody else's
children, a whole bunch of them with different personalities
that you didn't raise and get them midway through their life
and actually make an impact on them.
I absolutely think that's possible,
but it is fucking rare.
And the likelihood of it is very small.
Most of them, they are gonna have what they have learned
from the manager before and potentially before that,
that has really shaped and formed them
into the trainer they currently are right now.
And that is really tough to do
when you're coming into lead a facility
and you wanna create your own culture.
So, and for the first half of my career,
I didn't do this.
The first half of my career I came in
and I could outperform the guy or girl before me
because I just had this ability to come in.
I had a lot of energy.
I was really talented at my own job
and I basically had this idea of,
I'm gonna come into this club
and I'm gonna run so fast, these trainers
have never seen a boss before run at this level
and there'll be a few that will be inspired by it,
and they'll jump on board with me.
And then together the three or four or five of us
would crush goal, and we would have a successful business.
And then the rest of them would eventually
wean themselves out, or I would end up self-imploding
because I'm just trying so hard to carry this
on this entire thing on my back.
It wasn't until later in my career,
and I can't remember what book it was
that made the difference for me,
where I, in there suggested that,
you know, if you're going to be successful,
they've got to be your people and your culture.
And it was one of the scariest things I ever did was
to come into a facility and fire.
And I didn't do it on one day.
I ended up letting, I had 20 something trainers
and I got rid of 15 within the first three months
that I was there.
And I kept the major solid four or five
that definitely got scared when they saw people
getting let go of.
And I had a rough month or two
because I'm understaffed.
But we didn't really take that much of a dip.
It was pretty surprising for how much I cut
as far as staffing was.
We still maintained about the same revenue
they were doing without the 15 trainers.
And then once I got my people, people that I hired,
that I trained, then it was so much easier
to run the facility.
So I know that sounds harsh to come in and do that,
but the sooner you get your people
and the sooner they're yours,
and you, because imagine if you aren't...
Well, we gotta give them some advice
on how to make that manageable,
because you can imagine someone walking into a gym,
it's owned by someone else.
They can't, maybe they can't fire everybody.
That sucks.
Yeah, so, but what you can do usually is replace them.
And what I mean by that is bring some on board,
and then slowly bring others in.
Right, actively.
You know, you're looking for the replacing.
Which that should be right away.
I'm recruiting.
If I'm being handcuffed by upper management,
which I've been in this situation to where you're kind of new,
and they're not going to let you come in.
They think you're crazy.
You're going to come in and fire everybody.
And they're saying, no way, you can do that.
Then like Sal said, I'm out looking for everybody's replacement right away.
I'm not.
And I think this is a mistake that managers make when they come in as they come in, they
try and mold the staff that's currently there and change them and motivate them and get
them to run.
Instead of running their programs, now they're running maps, it's like all that you're going to get
you're going to get people to hate you for that. They're going to push back on you.
Trainers have major egos. So trying to tell some smart trainer how he's going to program or how
she's going to program, you're looking for a lot of you know what's going on based off of that.
Like you're putting all this attention into these new trainers you're bringing in
and you're really taking your time to develop
what kind of a culture you want with this person
and they'll see that, they'll watch it.
Because like you said, it's just not something
that people that are already there
that have their own way of doing things.
It's such an ego drivendriven job for the most part
that a lot of these guys are gonna give nothing
but push back the entire time.
So just kind of build your little army.
And then, you never know.
You might actually get some of those smart trainers
that will see what you're doing
and start contributing.
Well, do you remember that you went through this with me?
So when I hired you and Nick at Hillsdale,
and I took Nick, you and Karan,
that all, and Ronnie, right?
Nick, you, Karan, and Ronnie.
We're all on the team later, but yeah,
I came, I took all four of you from Hillsdale
with me to Santa Teresa,
and that was it.
I had four people that were mine,
that were all people that I hired,
trained and developed from the beginning,
and Justin was part of this.
I then, they then put me over in Santa Teresa.
So it's a brand new club, they had like 15 trainers,
I'm coming over with four of mine.
And if they're like 10 of their trainers.
And what ended up, that the staff that was killer
were any of them left?
I don't think we had any, none of them were like me one.
But yeah.
And what we ended up doing was just,
I came over, so I already had four
that kind of knew my philosophy that had my culture and I would then slowly started to get rid of all these trash.
Yeah, now that I think about it, I definitely would fire at least two or three.
That was probably the average, two or three walking into a gym.
But I was a GM for a lot longer than I was an FM, so I'd have these big staffs and I would
place pressure on the FM sometimes to make some of those decisions
who is the fitness manager to get rid of the trainers because as a GM I had to be careful
sometimes with how you take away some people's powers.
And if you did have a good leader in your gym like if I had you, and I would have been
an amazing team because now you've got some powerful leaders you know some powerful leaders in the gym it wouldn't it wouldn't be a problem but you know one thing I used to
do when I used to train the trainers for training or for exercise is it wasn't so much sometimes
it'd be a seminar but it would be something that I would teach that I knew that they'd never heard
of but other times it would it was a discussion and we'd sit down and I'd have a trainer that I
knew was really good at
Whatever whether it be Olympic lifting or correctional exercise and they would teach the class and then people would learn and listen And then you would see some you would see some excitement come out of that
But if I could go back and be in the Hershoes. I think it was a girl right in her shoes and
My mind pump existed 100% this is what I would do, totally do this, because there's no way I'm gonna be able
to come into a staff of trainers and tell them
how they're gonna program their clients.
They would fucking throw a fit,
like talk about shaking their world upside down
and getting a lot of enemies right away.
But if that's my desired outcome,
like if my true desired outcome is I do want all these
trainers teaching maps, because I do know it's superior
and the clients will get more results. How do I go about that? Well, what I would do and
especially since you're a listener is when you come across episodes that really strike a cord or that
really make a lot of sense to you and we we convey that message really well or potentially better than how you could
potentially convey it to your clients is I would assign it. I was like, I would assign listening to it. And then I would say, hey, you guys, here's an episode,
I want you to podcast episode.
We have a meeting next Friday.
If everybody is sometime between now and then listen
to the next episode.
And then we'll discuss it.
And we'll discuss it.
Perfect.
And then you have an open discussion about it.
Then it's, you know, then what you're doing
is you're empowering them.
And you're also stimulating growth.
Right. Because now everybody's discussing. And you're also stimulating growth. Right.
Because now everybody's discussing fitness.
They're talking about concepts.
They're talking about different ways of training people
and you're gonna have some debate amongst your trainers.
Right.
And it's gonna get everybody just to kind of grow from there.
So, and that strategy reminds me of one that I did.
Probably eight years in or so in my career.
And we had what we used to call a fitness budget where I was allocated, you know, $5,000
a month of revenue that I could spend on my trainers, which what we call floor hours,
where they would walk the floor and try and book people.
Well, you know, the idea is that that $5,000 of floor hours would then convert into $10,000 of new business if I manage my staff correctly. And so at this
time, I was really focused on education in my facility because I had just recently seen
a stat in the company that for every national certification that a trainer got, that they're
what you call that,
how long they stayed in the company for?
They were retention.
Yeah, their retention in the company was,
you know, every national cert added one to three years.
And if they had three national certifications or more,
which would consider them back then a master trainer,
they, they're a amount of revenue they produced,
the amount of hours they served,
it was so mind blowing to me,
I was like, how did this information just now
make its way to me?
I remember when you did that,
and how powerful that was,
because now what you're doing is you're emphasizing
how they can improve, be better,
but also one thing I did remember
when you're managing us was just always pointing out
like holes of where you could be making money and monetizing
off of that.
And that was one of those things.
Like, if you had, you know, X amount of certifications, now you're at this level pay
grade.
And it's just like, it was like a no brainer, you know, like, but a lot of these trainers,
they just get into their own little, you know, like, like, they create their own environment.
They don't like consider all these different ways to ways to maximize what they're doing in there.
So I literally paid the trainers to study,
which was totally against the rules.
I wasn't supposed to be able to do that, but it was.
You think about it though, why not?
I know, right.
So that's, I mean, the business mind of mine,
I'm the one like it makes total sense to do this
because it's gonna be worth it, you know, so.
Totally fireable.
What an offense.
Yeah, right.
For reals.
No, absolutely. Yeah, 100%.
I mean, that's obviously I made a corporate.
Yeah, yeah, no, in a corporate setting, I could easily have been, if that was anybody else,
I'm sure they could have got fired for that same situation.
So I'm not telling you to go do something that gets you fired.
The point of the story, though, is what an impact it made.
And my desired outcome was to get them all more educated.
Had I gone about it by saying, get your national certifications, which I had been preaching that for years before,
nobody did it.
So what I did was I provided a place every Friday,
and it was two hours,
and I had two of my trainers that were already master trainers.
They both had their degrees.
They all had three national certifications.
They taught the other trainers
than first level of certification.
And then after they got the first level,
then they taught the second level.
And so it was them teaching each other
and learning and getting paid to learn
and get themselves paid more.
And it just after that staff,
it was we were unstoppable after that.
That was probably.
That's the team building right there.
Huge.
Absolutely.
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