0:00:04 Mike Vacanti: Hello and welcome to episode 29 of the How To Become a Personal Trainer podcast. We’re your hosts, Mike Vacanti.
0:00:10 Jordan Syatt: My name is Jordan Syatt. In this episode, we break down the first few parts of what it means to be a great coach, how to become a great personal trainer. We made a sort of a pyramid, like we did with the fat loss and muscle gain pyramids, but before we got into the pyramid, we spent the first 20 to 25 minutes of this podcast talking about stuff completely unrelated to it, right? So, if you just wanna jump straight to the beginning of the pyramid, you can jump to about 20-25 minutes and you’ll get right into it, but at the beginning, we talk a lot about Mike’s new sleep schedule, my experience in therapy, how men talk to each other and some of the issues and potential issues, as a result of not going deep enough into being vulnerable, and whatnot. So there’s a lot to this episode. Did you like it, Mike?
0:00:56 Mike Vacanti: I loved the episode.
0:00:58 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it was good. So, we hope you enjoy it. This is just part one. Part two, to finish the pyramid, will be next week. I hope you enjoy it, and I’m gonna stop talking because this intro is pretty bad. Alright, let’s get into the episode.
0:01:16 Mike Vacanti: Enjoy. [chuckle]
[music]
0:01:18 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.
0:01:19 Jordan Syatt: What’s going on, Michael?
0:01:21 Mike Vacanti: Not much. It’s 12:40 I haven’t been awake for that long. Feeling pretty good.
0:01:27 Jordan Syatt: 12:40 your time, 01:40 my time. Wait, so talk to me about this new sleep schedule. How’s it going?
0:01:33 Mike Vacanti: It’s extremely degenerate.
[laughter]
0:01:37 Mike Vacanti: And it’s going really well. Four days in.
0:01:39 Jordan Syatt: Why is it degenerate?
0:01:41 Mike Vacanti: Because it’s been 12 years since I went to bed at 2 o’clock or 3 o’clock in the morning and slept in until 11:00 AM.
0:01:48 Jordan Syatt: But you’re being productive, right?
0:01:50 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, I feel great.
0:01:52 Jordan Syatt: So why did you make this schedule change? What was the…
[chuckle]
0:01:56 Jordan Syatt: What was like the reason behind, “Alright, I need to stay up super late and then sleep late”?
0:02:03 Mike Vacanti: I kind of stumbled upon it by accident. I had a day where I was supposed to work out, and just… Oh, it was the day I drove to the gym and then drove home, and I told you about it and you were dying laughing.
[laughter]
0:02:16 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you were like… I was like, “How was your workout?” [chuckle]
0:02:16 Mike Vacanti: Like I sat in the parking lot. It’s like I didn’t go, I sat in the parking lot for five minutes, and then I went to the Holiday gas station, and I was gonna get protein and a banana, thinking like I was just a little hungry. But I got protein and a box of 12 oatmeal cream pie cookies.
[laughter]
0:02:36 Mike Vacanti: And then I drove home, and ate a bunch of cookies, and… You know, laid around, did some computer work, but just didn’t work out, and that was probably 10:00 AM and 5 o’clock rolled around, and I was like, “I should really train. Like it’s the right thing to do. I have no good reason not to.” And so I had an energy drink, and I haven’t had caffeine past noon in… I don’t even know how long, but had an energy drink, went and had an amazing workout in the evening, and then was up really late, from the caffeine. Doing work, replying to client emails, felt really good, everyone here was asleep, so I had the house to myself, and it was very peaceful, and productive, and uninterrupted, and it reminded me of… Kind of college. I would work out in the evening a lot of the time, and then I was on that go to bed late, wake up late sleep schedule. Yeah. And so then, I just continued it for the rest of the week.
0:03:32 Jordan Syatt: And today is day four, and it’s going well.
0:03:34 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s going well. It’s going well.
0:03:35 Jordan Syatt: So, like at night, you’re just… The majority of your work gets done like night time, like emails, programs, that stuff?
0:03:42 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, it has been. And I’ll do a little… Right when I wake up, but yeah, after my workout, like… I don’t… It’s a weird, and new, and unique feeling, just because I haven’t done it in so long, and I have the luxury to be able to really set whatever schedule I want. And I think part of me was against it, just because of the sleep research I have read, and how sub-optimal this is, to be so dis-aligned with the sun, basically, the rise and fall of the sun. But yeah, it reminded me of like childhood, really, or like being younger and just not really caring for what’s optimal, and doing what felt right. And I’m still getting everything done, it’s just shifted.
0:04:27 Jordan Syatt: That’s perfect. And you’re still getting eight hours?
0:04:30 Mike Vacanti: At least, yeah. Probably nine. I’m training hard. Like last night, I had the hardest leg day I’ve had in seven years.
0:04:38 Jordan Syatt: Seriously?
0:04:39 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:04:39 Jordan Syatt: What’d you do?
0:04:42 Mike Vacanti: A bunch of triples, deadlifting.
0:04:44 Jordan Syatt: You worked up to heavy triples on the deadlift?
0:04:46 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.
0:04:47 Jordan Syatt: Dude, that’s awesome.
0:04:49 Mike Vacanti: And then offloaded Bulgarian split squats, for 3 x 8, 4 x 8 goblet squats, and a bunch of reverse hypers to finish.
0:04:58 Jordan Syatt: Hell yeah. That’s a great lower body day.
0:05:00 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:05:01 Jordan Syatt: It’s like you were saying the other day, it’s just schedule confusion, right?
[laughter]
0:05:05 Mike Vacanti: Schedule confusion. Exactly. Keep the productivity gains going.
0:05:11 Jordan Syatt: Muscle confusion, but just do it with the schedule.
0:05:14 Mike Vacanti: A lot of it, though, isn’t… It isn’t around optimizing anything, other than it’s fun to have evening workouts. It’s a different feeling, I haven’t done it in so long. It’s enjoyable, but part of it, too, is the playfulness aspect of it. And this kind of transitions into something else that we wanted to talk about, but it just seemed fun to me. Like last night, after my workout, I picked up my phone and started vlogging, just because it…
0:05:45 Jordan Syatt: Did you really?
0:05:45 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And who knows? I didn’t actually… It was just a little clip, but it was the first time in so long that I genuinely was doing something not out of a place of obligation, but out of a place of excitement and enjoyment.
0:06:02 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:06:03 Mike Vacanti: On that side of things. I actually think that’s a lot of what this podcast is, but yeah. And… Yeah, so it’s been good.
0:06:11 Jordan Syatt: That’s awesome. Wow, I did not expect to hear you say that. How long after you wake up are your workouts now? So like, you wake up around what? Like 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM? And your workouts are in the early evening?
0:06:24 Mike Vacanti: That’s how it has been. I feel like a 4:00 PM workout will be a little better. The gym’s pretty busy actually in that 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM range.
0:06:37 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:06:38 Mike Vacanti: So I feel like either getting in before that or waiting until after that dies down, either of those makes sense. But on the amount of food I’m on too, around maintenance calories, I don’t have to time my workout in a time in the day where I need peak alertness and awakeness and time my caffeine and everything like that, because when you’re not in a deficit, you can get away with having more energy at various parts of the day.
0:07:09 Jordan Syatt: A 100%. Yeah, that 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM time range in the gym, packed.
0:07:13 Mike Vacanti: I haven’t been in the gym like that maybe since college. Just… I’m fortunate enough that I could work out in the mid-morning time frame when…
0:07:25 Jordan Syatt: No one’s there, yeah. Those 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM workouts, those can be fun ’cause the gym’s empty, it’s intense. If you’re not feeling… And that’s maybe one of the benefits of this sleep schedule where it’s like you’re not tired by 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM, by 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM, it’s like peak energy so you’re feeling really good and nobody’s there.
0:07:47 Mike Vacanti: That’s exactly right. And then vent to Spotify, Breaking Benjamin radio, and just let it go into whatever angry rock I could find.
0:07:56 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.
0:07:57 Mike Vacanti: It just… Yeah, it was really fun.
0:08:00 Jordan Syatt: That’s awesome, that’s great. I have been not sleeping like that. My sleep’s been great, my sleep’s been the best it’s been in years, just ’cause I’m going to bed by 10:00 PM, 10:30 PM every night and waking up at… Depending on the day, usually wake up either between 6:30 AM or 7:00 AM.
0:08:20 Mike Vacanti: That’s awesome.
0:08:21 Jordan Syatt: And then jiu-jitsu. Then after jiu-jitsu, I need two to four hours to recover. I just take two to four hours just to relax and then I can do… I can’t do work immediately after training at all. I’m just completely out of it.
0:08:38 Mike Vacanti: It’s so exhausting.
0:08:39 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it is absolutely draining. And you know those workouts that you just finish the workout and you’re just like, body and mind, spirit, just gone. [chuckle]
0:08:49 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.
0:08:50 Jordan Syatt: And it feels great. You’re so glad you did it, but it’s like, you can’t fit… You get back, you’re in the shower and you just let the water hit you, the hot water, you don’t even have the energy to put the soap on you, you just stand there.
[chuckle]
0:09:03 Jordan Syatt: And you’re like after a terrible… After a really good shoulder day, your shoulders are so… They’re so hard to raise your arms up to even put the soap on your head, it’s like, that’s for me with jiu-jitsu. I just sit in the shower and I’m like, “Oh my God.” I just need two to four hours just to relax before I actually start being productive again.
0:09:20 Mike Vacanti: That’s awesome.
0:09:21 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, feeling good.
0:09:22 Mike Vacanti: When you talk about 10:00 PM, 10:30 PM, going to bed, was it hard to… I know in the past you’ve kind of set, “Alright, I’m gonna try and go to bed by this time.” or “I’m gonna try to put my phone down by this time so that I can go to bed.” What’s that transition been like?
0:09:41 Jordan Syatt: It actually… That never helped me.
0:09:44 Mike Vacanti: Oh, really?
0:09:44 Jordan Syatt: It never helped me to say, “I wanna… ” What helped me was doing something really early in the morning that I was excited about, which was jiu-jitsu. It was like just having that general rule of, “Okay, I must put my phone away by this time.” That wasn’t enough motivation or enough of an incentive for me to actually put my phone away. I would still stay up super late and it wasn’t until I scheduled something really early the following morning that I was very excited about that I naturally put my phone away. Which is like… It’s an interesting thing where it’s like you could have a rule just because you know it’s the right thing to do or you could strategically set up your day in a way that you follow the rules because it’s actually better for you, right?
0:10:24 Mike Vacanti: It’s what you want to be doing.
0:10:26 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s like the idea of staying up late and then going to jiu-jitsu exhausted the next day is at this point, it’s not acceptable. It sounds terrible in every way, shape, and form, and there’s no way I’m skipping jiu-jitsu. So it’s like, “Alright, so what has to happen for me to make sure that I can get up feeling really good to go and do jiu-jitsu?”
0:10:49 Mike Vacanti: Easy decision.
0:10:50 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s interesting and it’s been… It’s cool to think about it in that way where it’s like, I think about why do people make certain decisions. And it’s actually… If you look at the research around why people make decisions, generally speaking, you’ll see a lot of times people will make a decision to avoid a negative outcome rather than get a positive outcome. So for example, people will make a certain decision when it’s like, “Would you rather not be homeless or would you rather try to be rich?” And a lot of times, the not being homeless is more of an incentive for people to work harder than it is to make more money, if that makes sense. So for me, and this example would be like, I’m trying to avoid going to jiu-jitsu and getting my ass whooped versus just going bed because I know it will be better for me, right? So I think that’s what’s going on. And so for me, you could apply this across any scenario where it’s like you schedule something really important early in the morning to make sure that you do what you need to do that night so that you go to bed and get enough sleep.
0:11:55 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you don’t wanna have to look your coach in the eye and say, “Hey man, I didn’t get a lot of sleep. Can we take it easy today?”
0:12:01 Jordan Syatt: Oh my God, absolutely not, yeah.
0:12:04 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:12:04 Jordan Syatt: Absolutely not. And I don’t wanna go in and lie and say, “Oh, I feel great.”
0:12:08 Mike Vacanti: And then get crushed.
0:12:10 Jordan Syatt: And then have a terrible training session, just get wiped across the floor. You’re like, “What’s going on?” So…
0:12:15 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:12:15 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it is really a lot about avoiding that negative outcome based on something that I really, really want to do. So yeah, I’ve been feeling good, man. Jiu-jitsu’s going super well.
0:12:27 Mike Vacanti: Tell me about the two to four-hour window. This is something that I think people might be able to relate to and might even benefit from hearing your perspective on. Do you feel any guilt about not working? A two to four-hour window is… It’s not chump change, it’s real-time. And to be able to let yourself relax and recover and not work… Is there any guilt? Is there a sense of obligation? Is that something you’ve thought about?
0:12:58 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, so I’ve been talking to my therapist about this recently and I was talking to him specifically about it because there was a huge amount of guilt, I was like, man, I am not working nearly as much as I’m used to at all. There’s these huge gaps in the day where I’m not working, and I told him, I’m like, “Dude, I’m playing video games. I was like, “Dude, I’m going on my phone and I’m playing NHL, and I’m playing baseball, and I’m playing these video games.” And he looked at me and he laughed, he was like… Basically, he said, “I love that.” He was like, “The keyword here is you’re playing.” He was like, “I love the fact that you’re playing.” He was like, “A lot of times it’s lost on adults, this idea of playing, it’s really important for adults to find playtime in their life too.” And the example… He was really good about it. He was like, he brought it back to fitness, he goes, “I would imagine that if you worked the same muscle in the gym every single day for weeks and months and years on end, it would probably be more harmful than beneficial if you trained one muscle over and over and over again to failure non-stop.” And I was like, “Yeah, that’d probably not be a really good idea at all.” He was like, “Well, that’s basically what you did with your business.”
0:14:09 Jordan Syatt: “It’s like for a decade, every day for weeks and months and literally years, that was the one muscle that you trained over and over and over and over again and you let your health go, you let your sleep go, you let different relationships go.” He was like, “Now you’re working different muscles, and it’s like it’s okay to basically take a de-load from one thing so you can sort of rest the other thing and then build up other things.” And so that’s helped me with that guilt, where it’s like, when I feel like I should be working or I should be making social media posts, or I should be doing whatever, it’s like, “Alright, I’m working different muscles.” and it’s been great as a way to eliminate that guilt and actually help me. What’s the point of playing if you’re not even gonna enjoy it right?
0:14:55 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:14:56 Jordan Syatt: What’s the point of sitting down and playing a game, if the whole time you’re playing the game, you just feel like an ass because you’re not doing something else? It’s like if you’re gonna play, you might as well play and enjoy it.
0:15:07 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, absolutely, and that’s that concept of don’t be in the middle when you’re working work and when you’re relaxing, relax.
0:15:15 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you texted me that quote. I don’t even remember what the quote was the other day, if you wanna read that. It was super good and insightful.
0:15:22 Mike Vacanti: It was related to this. It was from a random Twitter account, “Work while you’re working, play while you’re playing. Dissonance and inability to be within the present moment is the root of all anxiety.”
0:15:39 Jordan Syatt: Man, on point.
0:15:42 Mike Vacanti: It’s so true because if you’re… It’s the same… It’s like the stress relaxation cycle, right. If we wanna bring it back to fitness, the stimulus and the response it’s having… We can rope it into Antifragile as well, the book. Basically, the low level of chronic stress is the bad kind of stress that we hear people talk about. Stress is a good thing, right? Doing a set of heavy deadlifts is a good thing but having a very low level and whether it’s distraction of consuming something you don’t wanna be consuming on your phone, whether it’s the anxiety of knowing that you need to be doing something that you’re not doing in that moment, or just having little tasks hanging over your head that you haven’t taken care of. That is the… In the middle sense, right? If you wanna use work and relaxation as the two opposites, as the two poles, spend however much time you need to be working working, but while you’re doing it, go hard at it, and then when you’re relaxing, fully relax, and that’s where… Pure enjoyment, real play, not having any guilt, not having anything. That’s what makes the play rejuvenating, reinvigorating. It makes it beneficial, it makes it enjoyable because then you’re gonna be ready to go again when it’s time to go again. Whereas if you spend those few hours like beating yourself up mentally then when it’s time to start working, you’re coming back at 60% instead of coming back at 100%.
0:17:34 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that makes total sense. Another thing my therapist was talking about, which I just think it was very insightful and really true, he was like one of the easiest ways to… Or one of the best ways to help you do this is to stop trying to… Stop feeling bad about the way you feel so it’s sort of accept it for what it is, right. So if you’re playing, whether it’s playing a video game or just playing with your kids, whatever that you’re playing and the whole time you’re playing, you’re feeling bad that you’re not doing something else, then you’re gonna feel bad that you feel bad and then you’re not… It’s just gonna compound itself, so it turns into this perpetual cycle of feeling bad about something that you’re not doing anyway. So instead of being mad at yourself that you feel bad about it, just accept it. Be like, “Cool” Understand that that’s how you feel and then move on from it versus when you create this resistance to it. And then… It’s sort of like with food guilt, where it’s like… Or if you tell someone, you should just love your body, you should love your body, but then that person doesn’t love their body. Now they’re gonna be mad because they don’t love their body and they’re gonna be even more mad because they’re mad that they don’t love their body, right? It’s like you have to accept it as is before you can then move on and progress with it before you can actually be present with it.
0:18:51 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, great example. I love Monday mornings because it’s a time for me when I jump on the phone with you and then usually there’s a concept that you and I have kicked around for the last few years and come up with our… Gary would call it like, “You dopes, like coming up with your theories around things.” [chuckle] But then it’s almost like, “Oh, you know this thing you and I have been talking about for two years, well, we just got a little professional insight on it, and then here’s this.” I’m like, Man, your therapist is so smart, dude, like… “
[laughter]
0:19:23 Jordan Syatt: Man, I’ve only been doing it for a month now, and I’m super excited about it. It’s been great. It’s just been a great sounding board. And it’s funny, a lot of the time, I can see how… Like he just wants me to talk, that’s literally like 90% of it is just getting me to talk, and I can feel there’s a resistance on my end. Especially I was like, I would sort of not consciously, it was partially consciously, but I’d feel this… I was like, I’d just sit there and there’d be this awkward silence, but he’d just sit there and smile.
[laughter]
0:20:01 Jordan Syatt: And just wait and he just wouldn’t say a word and I would feel the tension building up, and I’d be like, “Alright.” And he’d be like, “Cool.”
[laughter]
0:20:12 Jordan Syatt: But it’s just getting me to talk and just spill. And I don’t know if this is like a human thing. I know if you look in the research, generally men have a harder time sharing and opening up. And I don’t know if it’s that side of things or if it’s just a human thing where it’s just difficult to share overall. But over the month, I’ve gotten better at just opening up and just talking. And he would prompt me and be like, “So what’s on your mind? And talk about that, whatever it is.” And now it’s just like, “Alright, just talk.” ‘Cause I think, especially as a coach, so much of what we do is listen. So I think it can be… I want sometimes to try and get him to talk, but it’s like the wrong way about it. It’s like, “Alright, just talk, just talk, just talk. Let it come out.”
0:20:58 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’s the time for the opposite to happen.
0:21:03 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. So, it’s good, man. Everything’s going well.
0:21:07 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That, and we’ll transition into the episode here, which is the pyramid of what makes a great coach or what makes a good coach. But that, whether it is with someone professionally or in general, I feel like our society is lacking, for whatever reason, we’ve trended away from men having conversations with other men. And you said maybe men are more likely or more hesitant to withhold feelings or to not talk about themselves. Doing so in the presence of other dudes is important and beneficial, and something that you and I have done together, which has been super helpful for me. But just in general, and even like the conversations you and I have had with Rico as well, hanging out the three of us, like they’re different than a lot of what my experience with groups of guys are and… Yeah. Yeah, for anyone listening, it’s something to think about.
0:22:26 Jordan Syatt: It’s interesting though, because, like the conversations you and I have, or you, Rico, and I, it’s one of those things that when we’re done with the conversation we’re always like, “Man, that felt great. Like, that was a great conversation.” It’s like something we’ve been missing, like we’ve needed, but it doesn’t happen usually in groups of dudes. It just…
0:22:44 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.
0:22:45 Jordan Syatt: It’s not a usual type of conversation. And I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s just based on… I don’t know what it could be, but I think a lot of it has to do with a lack of community, in some sense. Where it’s like I think when you aren’t regularly getting together in an environment that is specifically geared towards discussion, then generally speaking the discussion is going to be more superficial. The discussion is going to be more whatever you want to imagine in terms of superficial discussion, but when you have like a sit-down conversation where you’re having coffee, whatever it is, and you can just talk and chat. And you talk about what’s going on in the world, and society, culture, religion, politics, blah, blah, blah. It’s like I don’t think that happens, especially right now, especially with everything going on right now. It’s just, I don’t think there’s very much dialogue around that when you’re sitting down with people in person.
0:23:46 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s a great point. Having it be based around a certain set of values and consistently occurring reoccurring conversation allows you to go there. Yeah. Interesting. Should we jump into the pyramid?
0:24:03 Jordan Syatt: Let’s dive in. How to be a good coach pyramid.
0:24:07 Mike Vacanti: How to be a good coach. Jordan, with that SEO podcast intuitive knowledge. Okay. So we have five things here, starting at the base of the pyramid, and this is similar to…
0:24:21 Jordan Syatt: Oh. I’m gonna come and interject real quick. You just said something that…
0:24:23 Mike Vacanti: Yep.
0:24:23 Jordan Syatt: Maybe we could talk another episode about, I keep getting this question about intuitive eating. My thoughts on intuitive eating. And I gave a brief overview of my thoughts on my story the other day, but if you want us to do something on intuitive eating and different styles of eating, intuitive eating, calorie counting, macros, whatever, either leave a comment on iTunes or DM us on Instagram and let us know if that’s something that you’d like. But I’ve been getting a lot of questions from people for my thoughts on intuitive eating and how to practice it, and if it should be practiced. So it might be an option later.
0:24:57 Mike Vacanti: Cool. Alright. We got five things on this pyramid, starting with the most important and then building our way up to the least, but also important, similar to the fat loss and muscle gain pyramids that we did in previous episodes. So, at the very base of the pyramid, we have ethics and integrity.
0:25:24 Jordan Syatt: And we’ll start with this, we’ll just briefly preface by saying, if you listen to the Fat Loss or Muscle Gain Pyramids, you know we got pretty intricate and in-depth with them. And this one is gonna be a little bit more general, just slightly more overarching. So there’s only five different pieces in this as opposed to the other ones, which I think had closer to eight to 12 different ones. So, there’s many different ways we could go with this, but we have the five big building blocks of this pyramid. And the base of this one, and by the way, before we started the podcast, we had a big discussion about it, and then we sort of went back and forth about should this be the base. Should this not be the base.
0:26:06 Jordan Syatt: We think ethics and morals, and we’ll talk about it more in-depth, we think that is the base of being a good coach. Because no matter how much knowledge you get, no matter how much practical experience you get, no matter how much… No matter how good of a coach you become, ethics and morals are always at the base of your decision-making, always. And Mike even said, “All right, so maybe… ” ‘Cause I was like, “Should that be the base?” And Mike was like, “Yeah, I think it should be the base,” when we spoke about it. And then I was like, “Yeah, it definitely should be the base because of that.” But then Mike was like, “Maybe it should just run up the side of the pyramid.” However you wanna structure it, it doesn’t matter. The reality is, no matter how good you get, whether it’s your first day as a coach or your 10,000th day as a coach, the ethics and morals are always there whether you’re conscious of them or not. And that might be why they’re so important because it’s the heart of everything. Every decision you make, not just as a coach but as a human, these are the base. They are the ground of it all, the groundwork of everything. So if… Regardless of where you are in your coaching career, this has to be the base of it in the same way that consistency is the base of working out and nutrition because it’s always going to be there and it’s always the foundation of your decisions and choices.
0:27:19 Mike Vacanti: Very well said. We can go into a few examples. I mentioned that I literally got a new coaching application last night from a woman who at the bottom of her application said, “And by the way, I have to ask this. And whatever the answer is, I respect you and… But am I actually dealing with you, or am I dealing with someone else on your team as ‘you’?” And I replied to her, I was like, “Look,” I think I made a joke, but I was like, “I wish I had a team but it’s literally just me. I’m the only person over here, so that’s who you’re getting.” And we’d… Jordan and I went back and forth on this. You could technically have… Most coaches I know who have assistant coaches, Susan would be an example but even I think Carter has assistant coaches now, they do it the right way. They do it… When you sign up for their coaching, you’re working with X assistant coach, but even if you were to go, what we would call the unethical or the deceitful way, that person could be legit. They could know their stuff. They could be pretending to be another coach and they could be doing a good job of it, but it’s still… It’s still wrong. It’s still, yeah.
0:28:50 Mike Vacanti: I don’t even know that more needs to be said on that specific subject, that’s a pretty straightforward one to me. Cookie Cutter programming is another one where, tell the client what they’re going to get. Don’t charge them 300 bucks a month and everyone gets literally the exact same program. The first thing in their assessment is, I just had this injury so I can’t squat, and then you have them 5X5 squatting on their first workout. That’s another example of, you know… Having a reasonable moral compass at the base of your decision-making is necessary for everything else to go well and for you to be a good coach.
0:29:39 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, there are so many routes we could go with this. We could go, not cookie-cutter programming, not pretending people are working with you when they’re really working with an assistant coach. We could talk about selling supplements that you know don’t work just so that you can make a quick buck either on an affiliate code, or whatever it is. We could even go down the route, and I just bring this up because I’ve seen ads a lot recently for “Mastermind Guru” telling coaches how to sell high-ticket coaching, and I hate that term high-ticket coaching. It’s like, “What the fuck do you think this is? Like, this is your personal training, this is your personal trainer.”
0:30:27 Mike Vacanti: Except many of… Many never were.
0:30:30 Jordan Syatt: That’s so true. I see like… I had a girlfriend many, many years ago… And I just got engaged by the way, so that’s exciting. But I had a girlfriend many, many…
0:30:41 Mike Vacanti: Have we not talked about that on the podcast?
0:30:43 Jordan Syatt: No no no, we didn’t.
0:30:45 Mike Vacanti: Congratulations, Jordan.
0:30:46 Jordan Syatt: Thank you, bro.
[laughter]
0:30:50 Jordan Syatt: But I had a girlfriend many, many years ago and she would never tell her family what I did, which was personal training. ‘Cause she was embarrassed and she thought… Not that she was embarrassed, but yeah, I guess she was. And that her family wouldn’t take that seriously, that oh, you’re just a personal trainer. So, she would say, “Yeah, Jordan runs his own business.” Which I did and a lot of it was online at that point, but I would be like, “No, no. I’m a personal trainer.” And I’d say that to her grandparents and all that stuff, and she’d get so mad. She’d be like, “Stop saying that.” I’d be like, “It’s what I am. I’m a personal trainer.” It’s like, I’m very proud of what I do. I’m a personal trainer and I love it.
0:31:29 Jordan Syatt: I love helping people. I love that. It’s like, I don’t need… I don’t need to… I hate when someone calls me an entrepreneur. I say, “I’m not an entrepreneur. I have one business. I’m a personal trainer, that’s it.” Gary is an entrepreneur. People who own multiple businesses and they start them from ground zero, build them up, sell them, that’s an entrepreneur. If you are an online personal trainer, you’re not a fucking entrepreneur, you’re not. I’m sorry and I think it’s actually detrimental to fall into the mindset of like, “Oh yeah, you’re an entrepreneur.” You’re not, you’re a personal trainer and take pride in that. It’s like, selling high-ticket coaching as a personal trainer. It’s like, what are you doing?
0:32:10 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:32:11 Jordan Syatt: Did you get into this so that you could be a high-ticket salesman? Like, what… Stop. So I think, and this is one of those things that I think it’s hard to articulate and put into words about ethics and morals, you could say that they’re subjective. And to a point, I think they are, but I think really your gut instinct is gonna lead you in the right direction. And if it feels wrong, if it feels weird, listen to that. I see some people selling high-ticket coaching and they’re bragging about how much they’re getting people to pay for a month, or two months, or three months of coaching. They’re literally talking like, “Oh yeah, I charge $3000 a month, or $5000 a month.” I’m like, “That’s disgusting. Congratulations on the sale if you… But… “
0:32:55 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:32:57 Jordan Syatt: That it doesn’t make you a better coach. And the name of this podcast is, “How to become a personal trainer.” This isn’t how to become a millionaire, this isn’t how to scam people into paying you more money for coaching, this is how to be a personal trainer. That’s it. And it’s like… If you don’t take pride in being a coach, then you’re listening to the wrong podcast, and if you don’t take pride in helping people for what you do, then it’s like you’re probably in the wrong industry. You should be doing something else. So big tangent obviously, but the reality is it’s like… I think usually your gut instinct is the right instinct, and if it feels weird, like if a company offers you an affiliate code for a product you’ve never used, I’m assuming your gut is gonna be like, “Maybe I shouldn’t do this.” If you have a CBD Company reaching out and you’ve never used CBD and you don’t think it works, but you’re still telling people to swipe up for your code, probably not a good idea.
0:33:55 Jordan Syatt: If you’re giving every single client the exact same program, and it feels weird because you know that it should be more individualized, you’re probably not doing the right thing. It’s like your gut instinct is going to point you in the right direction and… Listen, we all make mistakes, I’ll raise my hand and say I’ve made many, many mistakes in my life, both in fitness and out of fitness. But it doesn’t change the fact that you can always continue to try to follow the North Star, follow the right path, and go down the right way. It doesn’t mean that you won’t make mistakes. You will obviously, but keep trying to listen to the gut and do what’s right because the idea is you usually do know what’s right.
0:34:35 Mike Vacanti: Very well said. Moving up to… And we could honestly hammer that for another 20 minutes, and part of me wants to, but in the interest of time…
[laughter]
0:34:48 Mike Vacanti: Well, I can’t imagine people signing up, ’cause I know the exact ad you’re talking about. I don’t know the guy’s name, and I don’t know who he is, and I have no problem describing it. He’s wearing a pink robe and walking through whatever. I can’t imagine anyone who’s actually a coach signing up for that. Like, I can’t imagine a single coach signing up for that. I can imagine someone who might be between jobs, not sure of what they wanna be doing with their life, sees an opportunity to make money through fitness, gets that ad and then is like, “Oh, I can five clients, 5k each a month, like $25,000 cool, I’ll be a personal trainer.” That’s who I see going that route, and maybe I’m being a little naive or not understanding human behavior well enough, but I can’t see anyone who’s actually a coach forking over a single dollar for something like that. And like you said, everyone makes mistakes, you’ve made mistakes, I’ve made mistakes. If you have signed up for something like that, obviously, whatever, but it’s more of the fact that people try to sell in that way that blows my mind.
0:36:05 Mike Vacanti: I had a client many years ago who once, after coaching was over, and I think he was a Gary fan and whatever, everyone has their own perspective. But he said something along the lines of like, “Dude, your business would do a lot better if you 10X-ed your prices.” This is a guy who just paid me $350 a month for eight months of coaching. I was like… You know, I was nice. I was like, “Oh, cool idea, thanks.” And then he pressed me on that, and he’s like, “No, you should 10X your prices”. I was like, “No, I don’t wanna 10X my prices.” Back to gut feeling and intuition, it doesn’t feel right to charge someone for fitness coaching, that amount of money. And so that’s just one example under the umbrella of ethics.
0:36:54 Jordan Syatt: I remember that I raised my price… Anytime you raise your prices, there’s gonna be a feeling of uncertainty and fear and worry, will they buy it? Am I worth this much? That’s normal. And sometimes, you have to cross the line in order to know you crossed the line, right. So I think it’s part of life, but also owning a business. And I remember, when I first charged someone money period, when I went from doing it for free to charging $20 for 12 weeks, that was scary. And then when I went to $100 a month, and I went to $200 a month, $300 a month. And I remember I went from $300 to $400 and I was like, I don’t know if anyone’s gonna do this, and they did it, and it felt a little bit weird, but I was like, people were signing on for $400. And then I was like, I’m gonna try $500, and there are people who signed on for $500, and I did that for about two months and I was like, I don’t like this. And I immediately dropped it back down to $300. I skipped $400 right back down to $300 just because I was like, this is where I feel comfortable. I crossed the line, I tested it out, it didn’t feel better.
0:38:01 Jordan Syatt: When I got to 300, I was like, Okay, this feels good, this makes sense. 300 for the amount of time I was spending, for the amount of knowledge they’re getting, that makes sense. By the time I got to 500, I was like, I don’t like how this feels anymore. It feels like this is too much. And so I brought it back down. And this is, I think, a concept that a lot of coaches… A lot of coaches are like, “I know how much to charge?” Well, just try. Try different things. If no one is signing up for it, then you’re not worth that much. So if you’re trying to charge $200 a month and no one is signing up for it, then you’re not worth it yet. Do better, improve, become a better coach, help more people, put out more content. If everyone is signing up for it, and you’re super busy and you have a waiting list and you’re slammed, then odds are you can increase your prices. But you also, not just… Don’t just pay attention to buyer behavior, also pay attention to your behavior and your feelings, and if it feels bad or wrong, listen to that.
0:38:58 Jordan Syatt: Don’t necessarily take what someone else or a mastermind guru whatever is saying you should be charging 10 times more than that, ’cause it’s not their business, it’s your business. And your business will function based on how you’re feeling and how you’re doing it. And if you are feeling like a scam artist and if you’re feeling like a fraud, and if you’re feeling like you’re doing something wrong, then listen to that and taper it back. Who cares if you’re charging $200 less than someone else? If it feels better for you then stick with that.
0:39:25 Mike Vacanti: Out of curiosity, do you have any estimate what… Because everything you just mentioned, and I’ve charged 350 a month for coaching pretty consistently for probably five years at this point. Everything in that range, right, 50 when just getting started, 100 a month, 150 a month. Up to 400 a month is where I went, but 350 is where I settled. All of those numbers seem reasonable, like that seems like a fair exchange.
0:39:56 Jordan Syatt: Yep.
0:39:57 Mike Vacanti: The service that’s being provided, it feels like it makes sense. When you go to thousands per month, I can’t wrap my head around, other than really good sales, like, one, why someone is signing up for that and, two, how the value exchange is even remotely close. And maybe I’m misunderstanding, too, because there’s a good chance… Maybe the coaching that’s being offered is very different, maybe an hour of Skype call every single day is being offered. Maybe there’s in-person coaching tied into it. I guess there are ways that that could make sense. Like Gary paid us both [chuckle] a lot of money, but we coach him every single day and travel all over the world…
0:40:43 Jordan Syatt: Travel the world, yeah.
[chuckle]
0:40:44 Mike Vacanti: To coach him and…
0:40:45 Jordan Syatt: And we’re on call seven days a week.
[laughter]
0:40:50 Mike Vacanti: But yeah, I don’t know.
0:40:54 Jordan Syatt: I mean, don’t know much about their programming, I know their general idea is coach fewer people for more money each. I think that’s a huge mistake for many reasons, not least of which being like what we’ve been talking about. It’s like how much do you really think your services are worth? It’s like especially if you’re interacting with them via email, number one, if you have to do an hour Skype call with someone for their fitness every week it’s like, if you’re Skyping in and you’re Skyping in for their workouts and you’re watching every workout, sure, go for it. For an hour-long workout, five days a week, like yeah, that makes sense.
0:41:31 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:41:32 Jordan Syatt: But if you’re interacting via email, you’re sending them their programs, do you really think it’s worth thousands of dollars to interact via email? And then if you’re having like an hour-long Skype call once a week just to talk to them, it’s like, is your coaching that good, if you have to have an… Like what are you talking with them for an hour a week on Skype about? It’s like that shouldn’t be necessary to speak to someone for an hour a week about their fitness.
0:42:01 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.
0:42:01 Jordan Syatt: You can give them all they need. I don’t think that’s necessary at all. I think you’re gonna be overdoing it, you’re gonna be causing issues. Like it’s something… This has been something I’ve been noticing the differences between fitness and jiu-jitsu. In jiu-jitsu, you could spend three months on one move and all the different responses and retaliation’s to a single move, all the different options for a move, what your opponent would do, what you could do back to them, like on the ground, standing up, like what if they do this or what if they go that direction. There’s a million… You can have it in months and months and months on a single move, which is one of the things that makes it such a difficult sport. Fitness isn’t like that, it should be very simple. It should be very, very, very, very simple. And if you’re having an hour-long Skype call with your client every single week for months on end, there’s probably something around with your coaching system, or maybe it’s out of your scope to be working with that person, they need help with someone else, who is more of a specialist. So, yeah, I just don’t think charging thousands of dollars is…
0:43:05 Mike Vacanti: I’ve never heard that perspective. I like that though. It ties in with the marshmallow test, right?
0:43:10 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:43:11 Mike Vacanti: Like, excessive focus on the thing creates subpar results within the thing. You want it to become intertwined with your life and for it to flow as a part of your life, not to become your life.
0:43:28 Jordan Syatt: The whole purpose of good coaching is to let fitness be a part of your life, not your whole life. And if you’re taking up four hours a month of just talking to the person on Skype, never mind them doing their actual program and preparing their foods, it’s like you’re doing it wrong.
0:43:44 Mike Vacanti: And let’s call this 99% of clients. Let’s call this “people who want fitness to be a part of their life.” Right, if someone’s training for the Olympia and they want fitness to be their life…
0:43:53 Jordan Syatt: Of course, yeah.
0:43:54 Mike Vacanti: We’re talking about something different.
0:43:56 Jordan Syatt: Oh, and by the way, that brings up a good point. Maybe you’re a physique prep coach and you’re spending 30 minutes a week or more looking at someone’s posing. And you’re looking at their posting videos, and you’re analyzing their videos, and then you explain to them, “Okay, well, you wanna change this, or you wanna change that.” And then you’re meeting them in-person or you’re traveling across the country to go to their show. Yeah, this now makes sense for a higher ticket coaching, if you wanna call it that. But for the vast majority of people, for the general population, you’re improving their health and fitness, their mindset around food. Just like is it really worth thousands a month? Like personally, I don’t think so, but who am I?
0:44:35 Mike Vacanti: Number two: Moving up from ethics and integrity, the second piece of the pyramid is specific knowledge. And this is kind of a two-parter, so specific knowledge and practical application.
0:44:50 Jordan Syatt: You wanna start off with this one?
0:44:53 Mike Vacanti: I mean, knowing… Specific knowledge is pretty all-encompassing. Right? Like training programming falls under there, nutrition sciences fall under there. Basically, any of the technical side, performing proper form on an exercise. Anything technical falls under that window. Whereas under practical application is taking that knowledge and actually using it, usually in the form of in-person coaching, using it with clients. And yeah, we had good reason, we had a good debate about whether this should be most important, because obviously, it’s incredibly important, but we have it here for the reasons we discussed earlier.
0:45:45 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I mean basically, when I was talking to Mike, I was like, “Should this be number one?” [chuckle] ‘Cause as much as it pains me to say it, even someone with bad ethics and morals, as long as their knowledge is good, they could still help someone. And that is the truth, you might have someone with poor ethics and morals still way overcharging and way overpriced, but still helping people. And it’s like, yeah, it’s better than them not doing anything at all, but it comes down to the cumulative effect of their decisions. And the reality is if you’re working with someone and they’re just not making the right decisions for you because their decisions are poor ethics and poor morals, then it’s just not gonna turn out well in the back end. So, that’s why we ordered it in this way. In terms of specific knowledge, we’ve spoken about this before, but I think the best place to get that, and this is actually gonna also… It sort of crosses both barriers, it goes in specific knowledge and also practical application, getting an internship. Like internships, I think are the best of both worlds, because you get the practical knowledge, like you learn from whoever you’re working for, and you also have the opportunity to coach people in person.
0:47:02 Jordan Syatt: Do we wanna talk about some resources, either books, or websites, or whatever to really acquire high-level specific knowledge, that whether it’s around nutrition, strength training, client psychology, any of that, just so people, if they don’t know where to go, ’cause this is… I’ve spoken to so many generally newer coach… Even coaches who might have a decent Instagram following, I’m like, “What are your favorite fitness books? Or what are your favorite books on strength training, nutrition?” They’re like, “I don’t know, I’ve never read any.” It’s like they get all their knowledge from Instagram, which is like, listen, it’s great that Instagram has become such a great resource, but if you really want to understand the science and go deeper into knowledge, you have to open up a fucking book.
0:47:49 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. For nutrition, Lyle McDonald’s website, bodyrecomposition.com was and still is my number one, just based on the breadth and depth of unbelievably high-quality nutrition information. His books are wonderful, but that’s like if you get through every article, then buy a book or even buy a book to support, but his protein book, his Ketogenic Diet book, he has a lot of great books. That’s…
0:48:24 Jordan Syatt: If you ever want to know literally everything you could ever know about protein, Lyle McDonald’s Protein Book is actually… I remember reading it and just being so intrigued by it and so enthralled by how in-depth he went on protein. I’d say it’s a great book, but start with everything on his website first.
0:48:41 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, and there’s something interesting about, you can read a caption about protein quality, and feel like you have a decent understanding of whatever they hid on there. Amino acids, essential amino acids, biological value, but if you read… I’m not even gonna say the book, but if you read a full article about protein, you have a much more comprehensive understanding than what can be consumed within a single post caption video.
0:49:16 Jordan Syatt: Exactly.
0:49:17 Mike Vacanti: So he’s my number one for nutrition.
0:49:20 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’d say Lyle and Alan Aragon are both high-end for nutrition. I have subscribed to Alan Aragon’s Research Review since, I think it was 2012 or 2013 that I joined, it’s $10 a month. The reason, aside from all of the great information that I would highly recommend Alan’s Research Review, is because what he does is he takes all of the research, all the most either old research, current research, whatever it is, and help break down the study for you. He’ll link the study, and he’ll go over the study, and he’ll explain the pros of study, the cons of the study, the flaws, the strength of the studies, all this stuff. And that’s really where I learned how to read and scrutinize a study’s validity. I mean keep in mind, part of my college education was learning this. Part of the courses I took in college were how to read and scrutinize research papers and studies. And I never… I actually aced those courses, solely because I was part of Alan’s Research Review. But I learned way more from Alan’s Research Review than I did from those courses.
0:50:29 Jordan Syatt: And so if you really want to understand how to read and understand a study, the best way I can possibly imagine is through Alan’s Research Review. Just go in it, it’s $10 a month, and you have access to every single research review he’s ever made. And by the way, we get zero benefit from any of this. We don’t get paid for this, this is just a true shout to Alan for everything he’s done for the industry and all of his knowledge, but if you really wanna understand how to read, and understand, and scrutinize a study based on the study and its merit alone, and not from whoever linked you to the study, then I’d say this is the single best resource in the world.
0:51:09 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Martin Berkhan’s website, leangains.com, more free information that it’s… I don’t actually know if he’s… Like we talked about what’s the point of an email list, because back in the day, if there was a website we liked, we just went to it every day. And Lean Gains was that one of the very top websites for both of us [chuckle] for, “Is there a new article? Is there a new article?”
0:51:33 Jordan Syatt: Every day. Every day I would check. And I remember the day that Fuckarounditis came out. Do you remember that article?
[chuckle]
0:51:39 Mike Vacanti: Oh yeah, absolutely.
0:51:40 Jordan Syatt: I remember going on my computer in my room and saying, “Oh, a new article. ‘Fuckarounditis.'” And I vividly remember… Yeah, man, that… He still is phenomenal, but that was such an era. What an era that was in the fitness industry.
0:51:54 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And I don’t know how much new content has been going on his site, but there’s still so much evergreen gold there. Examine.com for supplement information, they’re my go-to. For exercise selection, anatomy, ExRx, if you just Google “ExRx anatomy,” it’ll take you to the part of that site that has just an incredibly comprehensive database of muscles and how those muscles move.
0:52:34 Jordan Syatt: That website is amazing. It’s…
0:52:35 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:52:36 Jordan Syatt: E-X-R-X. ExRx and I vividly remember… ‘Cause I remember when I interned with Eric Cressey, he was like, “You have to sign up for more gross anatomy courses in college”, which I did, and it was amazing, but that website, was actually how I prepared for all of my exams because it’s… And I think it’s gotten even better since then, where like, if you don’t understand kinesiology, like or… Or physiology, if you don’t understand different… If you don’t understand the shoulder joint, knee joint, if you don’t understand any of the joints or the muscles, the connections, the tendons, the ligaments, how the movements work, this website is phenomenal and it’s 100% free and it’s really… It does a wonderful, wonderful job of breaking everything down so that you can start to understand… I think this is one of the biggest mistakes coaches make is they just program exercises based on oftentimes what muscle they think it’s working, right? So which is… Exercises shouldn’t only be program-based on the muscle, it’s working, there are many reasons to program an exercise, and the unfortunate thing here is a lot of the times, they think an exercise is working a muscle and it’s not even working that muscle to begin with.
0:53:53 Jordan Syatt: So if you really want to understand which movements work individual muscles, this is a great website, but also you’ll start to understand, Okay, so you have a client who might have pain in this spot, you know, “Okay, cool, maybe you’ll do this exercise because it will work this muscle, but you know you actually can’t do that exercise ’cause it might exacerbate an issue in this area. So for… Off the top of my head if someone has a hip flexor issue, maybe they have a hip flexor strain and you’re gonna give them reverse crunches, ’cause you love reverse crunches and they’re a great ab exercise, it actually might not be a good idea, ’cause you know, reverse crunches are gonna place a lot of stress on the hip flexor. You could talk about leg raises in the same way. So instead of doing a leg raise or a reverse crunch, maybe you would end up doing more of a Pallof press for a side plank, or maybe not even a side… A side plank could exacerbate that issue as well. Maybe instead, you’ll do just a regular plank or any number of exercises as opposed to something that could stress the hip flexor muscle. This is something that is vastly overlooked in programming and the art of programming and program design in terms of, it’s not just based on the muscle it’s working, it’s also…
0:54:58 Jordan Syatt: This is really the essence of individualization, right? Where it’s like, “This is why you can’t give everyone the same program.” I think it’s fair to say that probably 90% of your programs will look very similar, but it’s the 10% of differences that make it… That’s what they’re paying you for. The accountability, and then also when they need that individualization, whether it’s for either an injury or because they’re traveling and they won’t have access to certain equipment, whatever it is, you have to know movements, not just based on the muscles they’re working, but based on the individual and what they have available to them.
0:55:33 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely. What other resources?
0:55:39 Jordan Syatt: So I have a bunch of books for strength and conditioning, if you want. So actually, one by Mel Siff, which is one of my favorites is, ‘Facts and Fallacies of Fitness’, it’s an old book. It’s an old book, but it’s really, really, really good, and I think if nothing else, it will give you a lot of great ideas for content. Like just different facts and fallacies, myths and whatnot about fitness that are sort of the godfather of strength and conditioning, Mel Siff. So I definitely recommend that. If you want a pretty scientific view into the world of strength and conditioning and motor unit recruitment and muscle fiber growth, and sort of how the muscles work in response to different types of strength training, ‘The science and practice of strength training’, by Vladimir Zatsiorsky is phenomenal. A really, really great book. If you want a book for learning about programming and periodization on a long-term level, especially for athletes, ‘Periodization Training for Sports’, by Tudor Bompa is incredible. I will say, 98% of the people listening to this, don’t need it.
0:56:54 Jordan Syatt: That’s if you really are super interested in high-level athletic development, especially maybe peaking an athlete for the Olympics or something like that. ‘The special strength training manual for coaches’, by Yuri Verkhoshansky is a tremendous book, especially for a lot of accessory exercises and movements and how to program accessory work for athletes. And I guess I should preface a lot of this by saying most of the books and knowledge I have around strength training is based around performance, getting people stronger, faster, more explosive, moving better. If you want to prep someone for body-building, these are not the books. ‘Science and practice of strength training’ would still be a good one, but these are not the books from a bodybuilding physique enhancement perspective. I would say ‘Starting Strength’ and ‘Practical Programming’ by Mark Rippetoe are two really good books as well. And if you read all those books, you’ll have more knowledge than 99% of coaches.
0:57:58 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, great list. A few others that are just kind of top of mind, and I’m in Minnesota, I don’t have my bookshelf in front of me, unfortunately, ‘Strength Training Anatomy’, Arnold’s encyclopedia, which is you know, good, overall, good. And it’s Arnold’s. And I don’t know if that’s, I think, Arnold’s bodybuilding encyclopedia, I don’t remember the exact title on that one. And supple Leopard by Kelly Starrett has a lot of good stuff in there as well related to movement and mobility. So there’s a few more.
0:58:41 Jordan Syatt: Eric Cressey’s website, I think he’s been writing on it since the early 2000s, 2005, maybe 2004. If you want somewhere with just free articles for years and years and years and years of incredible information, Eric Cressey is invaluable.
0:58:58 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely. Practical application, I don’t even know how hard we need to hit this side of the pyramid, simply because it’s something that we’ve preached endlessly throughout all 29 episodes, or wherever we are at this point, which is in-person coaching experience, which is gonna get you a diverse population of ages, body types, different issues, different goals. Yeah, there’s a reason why it’s stacked this important in the pyramid is because getting in-person coaching is going to make you a better and better coach the more you do it.
0:59:42 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and we’ve said this so much and so we don’t hammer this home ad nauseam again, but I was just having this conversation with a young woman who I was doing a podcast with. She was 22. Did a podcast with her yesterday and basically she was like, “I wanna coach people, but I don’t know where to start?” and I was like, “Have you ever coached anybody in person?” And she said, “No.” And she was like, “I wanna start an online coaching business” and she had never coached anybody in person. I think that’s to you, Mike and to me, I think it’s odd, because it’s just so… It’s such a different world than when we got into the industry. ‘Cause when we got into the industry, that was the only way to coach people. It is like Instagram wasn’t a thing, it was like… I remember when online coaching started to happen, and a lot of the coaches that I looked up to, who had been coaching for 10, 20, 30 years at that point, were like, “This will never work.” And they took it too far.
1:00:43 Jordan Syatt: They were like, “Online coaching will never work. I’ve coached people for 20, 30 years. You need to be in person with them.” And now they’re starting to get into the online world, but they have such a headstart because they had already coached people for so long in person that their knowledge base allows them to crush it online. Whereas people who are just trying to get into online without any in-person coaching, it’s like… Even if you don’t need to coach people in person, let’s say you’re set financially. Let’s just say you’re in a wonderfully blessed situation in which you’re set. You don’t need money and you could just spend all your time online. You’re handicapping yourself if you’re not coaching people in person. It’s like… It is… If you love being a coach and you really truly want to help people and be the best coach that you can be, coaching people in person. It’s the… The two things I said to her. I said, “Coach people in person and get a website.” I said nothing about Instagram, nothing about Facebook or TikTok. I was like, “Coach people in person and get a website.” It’s the first two things that you should do.” And she was like, “Wow! Thank you so much.” She was like, “I thought that it was weird that I’ve never coached people in person, but I was sort of just keep going with it.” I was like, “Coach people in person. You have to.”
1:01:55 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
1:01:55 Jordan Syatt: It’s were… That’s where it’s funny. A lot of jiu-jitsu… I could take everything to jiu-jitsu now. A lot of the jiu-jitsu community makes fun of jiu-jitsu DVDs and like… I think the jiu-jitsu community now is where the fitness industry was in 2012. Where like, when online coaching started to become a thing, and the fitness community was like, “This will never work.” The jiu-jitsu community now is laughing at online DVDs and products and coaching for jiu-jitsu. They’re like, “This is never gonna work.” And I think in a large part, they’re right, mainly just because with jiu-jitsu, you need a partner. You need to go against someone. There has to be someone else against you for you to really get the full benefit of it, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t still benefit from learning techniques online or watching DVDs. And I see that in terms of… I don’t even know where I was going. I’ve completely lost my train of thought. The biggest brain fart ever…
1:02:48 Mike Vacanti: Jiu-jitsu 2012 fitness.
1:02:51 Jordan Syatt: Fitness, yeah. Basically…
1:02:52 Mike Vacanti: Online versus in person.
1:02:54 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, basically that online will work, but you’re going to get a… Your online will work better if you’re better in person, if you had that in-person experience. It’s just going to be so much more beneficial.
1:03:09 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, absolutely right. I think we’re gonna wrap this one here because I don’t wanna rush through our last three parts of the pyramid and we’re over an hour here already.
1:03:22 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Yeah, so we’ll do part two next time.
1:03:24 Mike Vacanti: Beautiful. Thank you everyone for listening. This was very fun. Excited for part two.
1:03:31 Jordan Syatt: Have a good day.
