00:11 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.
00:12 Jordan Syatt: What’s going on, Michael J. Vacanti? How are you?
00:17 Mike Vacanti: I’m full, Jordan Ross. I am full. Do you ever go by J. Ross?
00:21 Jordan Syatt: Full of what? Full of food? No, no one’s ever called me J. Ross.
00:24 Mike Vacanti: I’m full of calories and protein, glycogen.
00:27 Jordan Syatt: What did you eat?
00:29 Mike Vacanti: Just a few Greek yogurts, but today I’ve had a decent amount of calories, some eggs, protein shake, Clif Bar, bunch of fruit, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, banana, a little bit of peanut butter.
00:43 Jordan Syatt: High protein, high carb, low fat. I like it.
00:46 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Moderate fat, but, yeah.
00:49 Jordan Syatt: Nice, man, that’s great. How many calories have you had so far?
00:53 Mike Vacanti: I’m not sure, I haven’t been tracking for the last five or six days.
00:57 Jordan Syatt: Your gut’s feeling good though? You’re in a good spot?
01:00 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I feel good, I feel good.
01:02 Jordan Syatt: Someone asked me in my Q&A last night to show the color of my poop.
[laughter]
01:09 Mike Vacanti: That is a question that if no one else asked you, I may have asked you.
01:14 Jordan Syatt: As soon as I…
01:15 Mike Vacanti: Because everyone you know…
01:17 Jordan Syatt: As soon as I got that question, I was like, the only other person who I think might be interested in that would be you.
[laughter]
01:24 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely. Everyone has their thing that they’ve WebMD’ed and known for a fact that they were dying.
01:34 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah. I’ve…
01:37 Mike Vacanti: If your poop is white for an extended period of time, I know that that’s not good and you should see your doctor. I actually haven’t experienced that, but that’s…
01:46 Jordan Syatt: You just found that on WebMD?
01:48 Mike Vacanti: I just found that doing research on Google.com.
01:51 Jordan Syatt: And same thing, you said, if it’s dark black, that’s bad. Right?
01:55 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. If it’s tar black for a while, yeah. But, yeah, I was recently not feeling the best digestively and decided to just up my calories. I talked to you about this, I don’t think we talked about this on the podcast, but I wasn’t hungry, which is weird ’cause I was eating around maintenance, and I wasn’t moving that much. But I didn’t have a lot of energy, didn’t have much hunger, and I just decided to increase intake of healthy foods, like eat through hunger, which actually ended up giving me more energy, stimulated more movement. And, yeah, workouts have been good. I feel great, but that’s like a… There have been programming philosophies that are like, “We’re gonna put you in a massive surplus… ” And this is more for athletes, but, “We’re gonna put you in a massive surplus, and we’re also going to give you a ridiculous amount of both weightlifting volume and movement, whether that’s cardio or something else, and let the lean gains go from there,” which is the opposite of the hot “high ROI,” like Leangains approach where you’re minimal cardio, minimal time in the gym, pretty hyper-focused on having your macros dialed. Yeah. But it’s working well.
03:21 Jordan Syatt: Good, man, that’s awesome.
03:23 Mike Vacanti: How are you doing? You got your competition coming up soon.
03:26 Jordan Syatt: Competition coming up soon, feeling good about it. Well, I feel good when I go against people who are on my level, but today I went against a purple belt who just… It’s so crazy, man. It’s the most humbling experience to go up against someone and think that you might be able to at least pose some type of a threat in some… I don’t know. I feel like there is… I know there’s sirens going off in the background right now, but…
03:52 Mike Vacanti: New York.
03:53 Jordan Syatt: I feel like whether you are watching movies or are watching other people fighting, we tend to put ourselves in a made-up situation in our head, like, “If something happened, then I could do this to that person, or I could do this to that person, or I could hit him with this shot, or I could take him down,” or whatever. And there’s nothing more humbling and also scary than being put in a situation with a trained fighter and realizing that you could do literally nothing that you want to do. [chuckle] And a guy was going around with a purple belt, he’s not a brown or a black belt. He’s a high-level fighter, but he is not the highest level fighter by any means, and to just be completely manhandled without any remote chance of me imposing any teeny-tiny speck of danger is just… It’s remarkable. And I have years of wrestling training and over a year of jujitsu, and still it doesn’t matter.
[chuckle]
04:53 Mike Vacanti: But it’s also expected. Right?
04:55 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah.
04:55 Mike Vacanti: Or no? If you go up against a purple belt, do you have hope that you’re going to…
05:00 Jordan Syatt: Oh, no. No, no, no. I know, but it never ceases to be just as humbling. And I could go against a white or a blue belt and do pretty well, and then I’ll get my ego well-inflated and I’ll be like, “Oh, I’m the man,” dah, dah, dah, dah. But then as soon as I go up against just even someone slightly better, it’s like, “No, you still suck.” [chuckle] You still suck. There’s always someone way better than you. Which is a good thing, it always keeps your ego in check and keeps you humble. But it never ceases to surprise me at how little I can actually do against a trained fighter, which is like, I think… I remember Gary was talking about this. Remember when we were all with Gary years ago in Florida, and he was talking about the need for everyone to be humbled at a young age?
05:45 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah.
05:46 Jordan Syatt: And it’s just like…
05:46 Mike Vacanti: I think the exact quote was that, “Every single 11-year-old should get punched in the face by a 13-year-old.”
[laughter]
05:56 Jordan Syatt: That is the exact quote. But it makes sense. It makes sense, where it’s like, when you’re humbled on a regular basis, I think you’re going to, by nature, treat people better and with more respect, because you just always know there is that threat.
06:16 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely. What’s cool to me is you guys are… Is jujitsu a sport, a martial art?
06:23 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, of course.
06:25 Mike Vacanti: Is it considered a sport though?
06:27 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know what organization determines it’s a sport, but yeah.
06:31 Mike Vacanti: The fact that you and that purple belt probably… He doesn’t know a whole lot more, if any more, moves than you. It’s just that he has so much experience doing them over, and over, and over, against just way more reps, way more time, which has made him, and this is no insult to you obviously, but it sounds like, drastically better to the point where he can just manhandle you, but doing the same tactics. Right?
07:04 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I think a good example would be chess. Once you know the rules of chess, you know what moves you can make, you can know what the pieces can do. The better chess player is usually the one that can see more moves in advance. It can see, “All right, I know if I do this, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. I also know they can do this, and this, and this, and this.” You can think seven steps ahead. That’s generally who will win the jujitsu match, is who can think further ahead, and who can know every counter to your counter, and so on and so forth. And obviously, strength and conditioning player role in it, if you have two people of equal ability mentally, and in terms of they know the same number of moves, and if they’re the same level jujitsu-wise, but one of them is better thinking and one of them is better, like, “Okay, I know what moves you’re gonna do ahead of time,” then that’s where strength, your skill will actually beat someone else’s strength. Your skill will actually beat someone else’s conditioning because you can think that much further ahead.
08:01 Mike Vacanti: That’s a great analogy. I like it.
08:03 Jordan Syatt: I know you’re a chess guy.
08:04 Mike Vacanti: I’m a chess guy. And you’re a chess guy, too. We haven’t played in a while.
08:09 Jordan Syatt: We haven’t played in months, man. I think the last time we played was March.
08:13 Mike Vacanti: Wow, yeah. The early COVID days. What was I gonna say? Oh, what are you weighing right now?
08:23 Jordan Syatt: Right now, I’m 140. I have fluctuated between 139 and 141.
08:28 Mike Vacanti: So, you’ve maintained since your last competition, which was… How long ago? Six weeks?
08:36 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, a little over a month now. Five weeks now? Yeah. And it’s been super easy. I actually continued to lose about another one to two pounds before I was like, “All right, I think I’m losing a little bit too much,” so then I’d increase my calories. Super easy. I’ve been feeling great.
08:52 Mike Vacanti: That’s amazing. What do you attribute that to? Given a popular, albeit probably not true, or mostly not true, belief that anyone can lose weight but… I hear this a lot from people who are anti-diet, “Oh, you’re just gonna gain it all back.” What do you attribute it to that might be something unique or something that, I don’t know, that isn’t common knowledge to most specialist.
09:27 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I think this is a really important discussion. I think there are a couple of major things. Number one is… One of the reasons a lot of people will gain weight back is because they lost it initially doing something that was completely and utterly unsustainable and stupid to begin with. The way I lost it was very sustainable. I’m not gonna say it was easy. There were times where, yeah, I went to bed and I wasn’t full. There were times where I wasn’t completely satiated, God forbid. It’s a First World problem realistically, to like, “Oh, my God, I’m going to bed and I’m not completely full.” Okay, you’re fine. There were times where that would happen and I would come up with strategies, whether we’re having miso soup or having a watermelon or whatever it is, to make sure that I would fill up as much as I could while staying within my calories. So, by making sure I could do something… Doing it sustainably, it allowed me to maintain it significantly more easily, ’cause I didn’t do anything drastic in order to lose it in the first place. The other thing, and this is… You and I, we spoke about flexible dieting in a recent podcast, I think, right?
10:33 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
10:34 Jordan Syatt: I’m just trying to remember if that was the last one we did or not.
10:36 Mike Vacanti: We spoke about it some last time, definitely.
10:39 Jordan Syatt: One of the things that I’ve realized is my own realm of flexibility, it’s just been a little bit more narrowed. Before, when I was 20 pounds heavier, my definition of flexible dieting was significantly more flexible than it is now. And that doesn’t mean one is inherently better or worse, but for right now, I feel more athletic, and strong, and capable, and happier with a slightly narrower vision of flexibility as opposed to what I was when I was 20 pounds heavier. And each of them come with a cost. At 20 pounds heavier, the cost was my cardio wasn’t as good. My blood pressure was higher. The benefit was I was more flexible with my nutrition, I would have pizza several times a week. If I went in my kitchen, I’d grab a handful of M&M’s.
11:33 Mike Vacanti: Enjoyment.
11:34 Jordan Syatt: Correct, yeah. Exactly. Whereas now, the flexibility is less. I don’t have a handful of M&M’s every single day. I might have it a couple of times a week. I might have pizza one time a week. So, my flexibility is less, but my cardio is better. My blood pressure is better. My confidence is higher. There’s a cost benefit that has to be analyzed, and right now, for me… I’m happier with this less flexible, but still flexible approach.
12:00 Mike Vacanti: Cool. It’s kind of what you would have expected even going into it, right? It’s what we all know, it’s like, “Hey, don’t do a fad diet that you can’t keep up,” because when it’s time to maintain, it’s not like just add some more bacon and butter and continue to not eat any carbs.
[laughter]
12:22 Jordan Syatt: Correct.
12:22 Mike Vacanti: Or any fad diet.
12:25 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, man.
12:26 Mike Vacanti: Should we get into some questions?
12:28 Jordan Syatt: Let’s do it.
12:29 Mike Vacanti: Oh, you know what, no, we’re gonna riff a little bit more. We’re gonna riff a little bit more on something that people might not want to hear about, but that’s why we’re going there.
12:39 Jordan Syatt: All right. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
12:39 Mike Vacanti: All right. We talked about this a little bit… [laughter] This morning, I had a leg day, and during my warm-up… I did my warm-up and I wasn’t feeling that great, and then during my warm-up sets for my first exercise, I was getting really nauseous, and I was starting to have rationalizations creep in of modify the workout, do something else, or skip it entirely, or, “I just really don’t want to do this.” I feel like I don’t want to do this. And it just made me think of… I actually immediately snapped into a place that I feel like I haven’t been in since the 2012 to 2015 range, which is just ignoring those types of feelings. And I don’t wanna go as extreme as… Because I initially said I was… I thought about tweeting “Your feelings don’t matter,” kind of as a joke, but baiting what kind of response… But really certain feelings that don’t serve me well, just ignoring them, and it producing a better outcome. And I did, I immediately snapped. I was like, “My stomach is nauseous. Can you imagine how much worse this could be? Can you imagine how many people have had this worse? Can you imagine all of human history like how much… ” And just immediately, it was like, “Okay. Well, today is leg day and we’re training legs, so let’s up the weight. Let’s go. What did you do last week? We’re doing this.”
14:14 Mike Vacanti: And thankfully, I don’t have a… I’m not sick. I’m not whatever. And within 10 or 15 minutes, it dissipated just from mentally blocking it out, but the concept of not making decisions based on whimsical feelings.
14:33 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I think David Goggins talks about this a lot. And I love his approach to it, where he’s basically… He talks a lot about how, in any situation that’s difficult, your brain is gonna be giving you reasons not to do it, for any number of reasons, like, “Oh, I don’t feel good. Oh, I’m tired.” And it doesn’t mean that… If you’re super sick, it’s not saying go to the gym, but it does mean you have to be realistic and say, “All right, listen, is this… Does this really mean I can’t do it? Or is this me trying to justify not doing it?”
15:11 Jordan Syatt: And I forget where I heard this. It was years ago, but I think it might have been when I was looking into the research around habits. The sooner… The longer it takes you to take action on something that you say you want to do, the more time you give yourself to justify not actually taking action. From the moment you create a justification for not doing it, and then you start to think, “Well, should I do it? Should I actually do this?” Then the less likely you are to actually do it because the more easily you are to convince yourself, well, you don’t need to or you shouldn’t do it. Whereas when you just shut it down, “This isn’t an option. I’m getting it done,” you do it and you don’t give yourself an option to justify not getting it done in the first place. Yeah, I love that. I think that it’s an important topic to discuss. And then, obviously, the extreme example in opposition would be, “Oh, so you’re saying you should never take a day off, or you should never listen to your feelings?” No, of course not, but I don’t… We’re not talking in that level of extreme.
16:15 Mike Vacanti: Maybe.
[laughter]
16:19 Jordan Syatt: I think it’s more about being honest and objective with how you feel, and understanding that just because maybe you don’t feel your best doesn’t mean you don’t have to do anything at all. There’s still something you could do.
16:34 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Well said. There’s also… Some feelings are different than others. And I’ll use the example of you sit down to do computer work and you feel tired. You feel distracted. You feel like… Let’s just say you feel tired, and so maybe you should do the work later. But guess what? If you block that out, if you say, “Nope, I’m taking action in spite of this feeling,” once you start, you actually begin to energize. That fatigue dissipates, and 20 minutes later you’re not tired at all. You’re in the zone. You’re doing meaningful work. And so sometimes certain types of feelings can be deceiving.
17:18 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, absolutely. So, you had a good leg workout?
17:22 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it was a good leg workout.
17:24 Jordan Syatt: Did you hit any PRs?
17:25 Mike Vacanti: No, I’m not… I’m training legs once a week. I won’t be hitting leg lower body PRs, to the disappointment of Eric Roberts. Shout out to Eric Roberts. Mike’s not gonna be hitting leg PRs in a while. All right, let’s dive into questions. What do you say… Okay, I thought this was interesting. What do you say when people come to you, saying, “I want exercises for my core”?
17:57 Jordan Syatt: That’s a good question.
17:58 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And I assume it comes with the understanding it’s coming from a coach, and the person going to the coach is saying, “I want exercises for my core,” meaning, “I want to lose some belly fat, I want to… Basically, I want to do a lot of direct abdominal work.” What do you say to that type of person?
18:24 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’ll tell you, generally, when I’ve been faced with this, I’ve found people say, “I want exercises for my core.” What I have found they’re usually saying is, “I want to do exercises that really make my abs hurt.” That’s usually what I’ve found, is they want to do an exercise that is going to make their abs burn and feel sore because, in their mind, they think that’s going to lead to belly fat loss. They think that’s gonna lead to ab definition. That’s why, I think, they tend to ask that or they request that is ’cause they want those exercises for that feeling, because they think that feeling leads to that result. Now, I don’t think the right response is to say, “Huh, listen. Look, you know what does work your core? Squats and deadlifts do work your core, so we’re just gonna do that.” I think that’s a really stupid, ignorant response, not because it’s not correct, but because, from a coaching perspective, you’re creating a divide where you’re not giving them anything at all and you’re creating this, “Well, I’m telling you what to do, so just do it,” mindset. Not good. Not from a coaching perspective. Even though you’re correct, squats and deadlifts do work your core.
19:32 Jordan Syatt: I might have told this story before. One of the things I really loved when I was in college, a lot of the college athletes that I went to school with, is they had a great strength and conditioning program at the University of Delaware, and a lot of the coaches, they did some really great things. And one of the things I saw them do that I loved was, at the end of the workout for the football players, they just did 10 minutes of arms. And it was like, the last 10 minutes of the workout, they’re just 10 minutes demolish your arms. And that was the football players’ favorite part of the workout. They got to do the deadlifts, and they did the squats, they did the glute-ham raises, they did the good mornings, they did the lateral lunges, they did all that stuff that they they didn’t really like, but they did it. And then at the end, boom, “Blasting your arms boys, let’s go.” And they love that, and they would all talk about it in the dining hall, and it was their favorite part. And they’re like, “What are we gonna do for the 10 minutes of arms?”
20:22 Jordan Syatt: You don’t need that much time in order to get that feeling. Now, it doesn’t mean just leave them uneducated. By all means, educate them and say, “Listen, there are many different types of ways to work your core. Some ways, like a squat and a deadlift, is gonna be in a type of way to help stabilize, and it’s really important. You can’t squat or deadlift heavy with a weak core. Then there are other more isolation-type exercises that you’re gonna feel your abs more, whether it’s planks, reverse crunches, Pallof presses, whatever, and we can do both of those.” But for me, I would educate them. And then also, if they like feeling their abs burn, then give them some exercises that make their abs burn. If you can’t, as a coach, figure out a way to fit in a couple of exercises that make their abs burn, then you’re not doing your job as a coach. Not to mention, there are some great exercises that make your abs burn.
21:10 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely. But even if someone’s programming philosophy was that that would be inefficient or ineffective, still giving your client or potential client a small percentage of what they want, like the arms at the end of the workout, to have their buy-in, to increase excitement, to have them working harder, that is absolutely worth it, to have them in a place where they’re gonna be better executing the rest of the program, too.
21:43 Jordan Syatt: Correct. It doesn’t take much. Have them do a hollow body hold. You do a hollow body hold for 20 seconds, 20 seconds rest. Get them into plank for 20 seconds, 20 seconds rest. Then you go into another hollow body hold, then you do… I don’t know. You could literally do a really difficult ab workout in three to five minutes. And if you’re not okay with programming that just because you’re of the belief that all you need is squats and deadlifts, you’re not gonna keep very many clients. And realistically, it doesn’t speak very highly of you as a coach if you can’t figure out a way to work that in there.
22:14 Mike Vacanti: It’s a little bit dogmatic.
22:16 Jordan Syatt: Just a little.
22:18 Mike Vacanti: Just a little, just a little. Maybe blast them with some heavy cable crunches.
22:22 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah.
22:24 Mike Vacanti: That was on the docket this morning, by the way.
22:26 Jordan Syatt: Heavy cable crunches?
22:27 Mike Vacanti: Yes, sir. Number two, “Should I be using ads on social to grow my business or just focus on content?”
22:38 Jordan Syatt: You wanna start with this one?
22:40 Mike Vacanti: You can start with this one.
22:41 Jordan Syatt: Cool.
22:44 Mike Vacanti: I think the way that… I think you do a good job of giving a broad stroke, high level with the question.
22:51 Jordan Syatt: I don’t even know what that means, but I appreciate it. [laughter] You got a good broad stroke, high-level there, buddy. Broad brush, high stroke.
[laughter]
23:02 Mike Vacanti: I think you’re better at initially painting a whole picture, and then we can focus in. Whereas, oftentimes, I think I usually just… If it’s a picture of a forest, I might just go straight for the bear hanging out in the corner of the forest at times.
23:20 Jordan Syatt: If anyone listening has never read “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” Mike Vacanti is giving a master class on Dale Carnegie’s… I’m actually not. This is truly what I think. [laughter] Well, that’s the whole premise of it. It has to be genuine, which I’m not saying it’s not genuine, but you’re just expressing it in a way you’re winning friends and influencing…
[laughter]
23:42 Mike Vacanti: Who says it’s a compliment to broad brush stroke? Maybe drawing the bear in the corner is good. Who knows?
23:49 Jordan Syatt: That said, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” is a great book. I think everyone should read it.
23:54 Mike Vacanti: I’m actually gonna re-listen to that. It’s been too long. That’s a great book.
23:57 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s a great book.
23:57 Mike Vacanti: No. You can talk about Dale Carnegie if you want.
[laughter]
24:03 Jordan Syatt: I think we told this… We had to have told this story before in our previous podcast. I have the same Myers-Briggs as him.
24:09 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. We’ve told that.
24:13 Jordan Syatt: Ads.
24:13 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, let’s get into ads.
24:17 Jordan Syatt: The reason I like how this question is phrased is because, basically, it’s not just saying, “How should I do ads? Where should I do ads?” It’s basically saying, “Should I do ads or should I just focus on content?” And I really think, for 99% of people, just focusing on content is the most important part. I think this is a major difference between what we do in the mentorship, versus what most other mastermind gurus do. Other masterminds and whatnot, they almost exclusively focus on sales techniques, like how to run ads, how to do sales, how to set up your email. That’s important in some sense, but they don’t ever talk about how to actually improve your coaching ability, how to help individual clients, how to actually make content that will help people, how to grow your social media organically in a way that’s going to help people and get more people coming to you rather than, “All right, what sales technique can you use this time to try and drive more traffic your way?” And that’s what we focus on in the mentorship.
25:16 Jordan Syatt: But I think most people would do far better just to focus on their content first, being a better coach, making better content, and just from that… The cool thing about that is, when you really understand it at a high level, you’ll understand that you don’t need a huge audience in order to make a significant income and help a lot of people. You don’t need hundreds and thousands of people, because when your content is very good and you have an engaged amount, even if it’s a relatively small number of people, you’ll have a lot of people coming to you for help, and that is what builds a very successful business. A lot of people have this idea that they need thousands upon thousands upon hundreds of thousands of millions. You don’t. Several hundred, that’s plenty. You’re good, especially if your content is good.
26:02 Jordan Syatt: Now, I do think ads can be helpful but what I would say is, I think the best ads are simply taking your best content and putting money into them. Instead of running an ad for your program or for your coaching, I would say, take amazing content that helps people for free and just put money behind it so more people can see that free content. And then that will lead people to finding you, looking at your other free content, trusting you, and then paying you for coaching or for whatever program you have. People are far more likely to interact with the piece of content that you’ve made that’s been boosted, that was a very helpful piece of content, than to just randomly sign up for your program because they happened to see an ad for it.
26:42 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s a great point. I know we agree on that one. The advantage that most people, who are early on or just getting started, have is, generally speaking, they have more time. Not always, but usually time is the asset. You hear the term “sweat equity.” You build equity for free through hard work, and that can be late at night hard work, that can be after hours hard work, that can be working 12, 14-hour days’ hard work, but building that sweat equity. And most people just don’t have enough cash to build an ads-based business, even if they could, enough money sitting around to invest. And even if they could, which is gonna be my next point, is it would be to boost really good, helpful, useful content. Trying to convert someone to a sale before having their trust, having them know who you are, having given them anything is extremely difficult to do and is gonna be unbelievably expensive to do, from time writing sales copy and testing and perfecting that, and then, financially, for getting that in front of enough people to start making sales.
28:12 Mike Vacanti: And what you’re doing… There are so many advantages. We’ve talked about this many times, but creating content, one, makes you a better coach, two, makes you better… And makes you a better coach because of the research that you should have to do to create content around many of the subjects, especially long-form content, especially website articles; two, you’re building trust and you’re… What’s the term? You’re almost like in the “Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” model, you’re giving so much that you’re guilting or incentivizing people into when you do come, when you release a program that’s a $40, $50, $60 e-product or coaching, you’re going to have that equity built up with people. That’s another reason to start with making content.
29:02 Jordan Syatt: I wouldn’t even say it’s guilting. I would say it’s the law of reciprocity, where it’s, generally speaking, if you do someone a favor they would like to return it, most people. There are some people who are assholes and they’re not gonna wanna return the favor, but most people, if you do something nice for them, they’re gonna wanna do something nice in return. And the law of reciprocity holds true in social media and email lists and YouTube videos, website articles, whatever it is. If you consistently help people for free, they will not only trust you more and want to invest in you because they trust you more, but also simply because they want to say thank you, they want to support you. The number of people that I get doing that on a consistent basis and literally telling me that the reason they joined the inner circle is just to support me, not because they need it, is astounding. So, it really, really does hold true.
29:56 Jordan Syatt: The other thing, you brought up a really good point, is about how much money goes into advertisements. And I think a lot of people, they say, “I wanna get in ads,” and they look at ads like many people look at fat loss. Going into the fat loss for the first time, they think, “Okay, well, I’m gonna start this diet, and I’m just gonna lose weight immediately, and I’m gonna go to the gym, and I’m gonna have one workout,” and at the end of the workout, they’re gonna pull their shirt up and have a six-pack. And it’s like, well, that’s not how it works. It’s like, you go to the gym one time, that was one test. You test it. Maybe you tested out your stance width on your sumo deadlift. The next time you go to the gym, you try a different stance width. The next time you go to the gym, you try something else, you learn how to pull the slack out of the bar. Every time you go to the gym, you’re learning something new, you’re testing something out. Then you might tweak your back one time ’cause you did something stupid. You got ahead of yourself, you tried to lift too heavy a weight. Then you gotta take a couple of weeks off, work around the injury, then you go back to it.
30:50 Jordan Syatt: Same thing with ads. It’s like, if you think you’re gonna make a ton of money in your first ad, you’re out of your fucking mind. That’s not how it works. The reason these companies, with millions and hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, they run so many ads is so much money is put into testing different ads. Which one does well? Which one does better with different sales copy, different images, different pictures? So much goes into it. There’s people, their entire job is simply writing copy for ads. There are people who all they do is they make images for ads. There are people who all they do is they make headlines for ads. These are entire professions. So, if you think you’ve spent years and years and years developing your knowledge and skills of personal trainer, and you think it’s laughable that people think they’re just gonna come in the gym and understand everything right away, it’s equally as laughable that you think you’re just gonna make money off your first ad. It’s complete and utter ignorance.
31:43 Jordan Syatt: Now, it doesn’t mean the ads are useless, but I think, going back to the… Probably the take-home point here is, number one, content first. Number two is, your first ads, once you get into that realm, should be making your best content visible to more people by simply putting money into that content, so paying Facebook, paying Instagram, paying YouTube, paying Google to feature your best content without asking anything in return. Not asking for a program, not asking for a sell, not asking for anything, just say, “Hey, I took 12 hours to make this piece of content. I want more people to see this amazing content.” And that’s it.
32:18 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. Number three here. This is… Two episodes ago, we talked about carbs. We had a question about… I don’t even… You know what, I’m gonna read the exact question because I have it in here. It was, “Does carbohydrate intake matter when in a calorie deficit?” And we said, “Yes, it absolutely does.” And what we hit on there was a zero carb or very low-carb approach compared to a moderate to high-carb approach, holding protein equal and having calories in the same range, and talking about the difference, especially, one, around enjoyment and the number of foods that are available to you. But, two, performance, like training performance, ability to build muscle, and if not build, retain… Massively important.
33:16 Mike Vacanti: We got a question here that I think would be interesting to follow up on with that. It goes, “I’m tracking all of my food, but I’m not used to eating that many grams of fat, especially the lower-carb rest days. It is taking some adjusting and getting used to. You kind of answered my question on your podcast with Jordan today, but I was just curious about the rationale behind that combination carb-to-fat ratio. I’ll keep working to get it closer, but Tuesday, rest day, I was way over on carbs and only 850 of the 100 grams of fat. However, I’m crushing protein and staying at or below my calorie intake.” This is actually from a client of mine who listens to the podcast, Doug, and I thought it’d be interesting for us to jam on because he mentioned that episode. The reason I have his… He’s in a deficit, big, strong dude. The reason I have his fats at about 100, and I don’t remember off the top of my head what his rest day carbs were that he was going over, maybe like 200 grams of carbs, is because most people do well with a moderate high fat. And I would call that moderate carb rather than going to either extreme.
34:38 Mike Vacanti: Now, before we talked about being on the extreme of super low carb, now super high carb, and Doug saying, “I don’t need all this fat. Can I take my fats lower and bring my carbs higher?” And the answer is, absolutely he can. But I’d be curious to hear what you have to say, and I feel like it’s a good follow-up to that previous episode.
35:04 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’m a huge believer in hit your calories, hit your protein, and carbs and fats are up to preference. That’s where… I think the struggle can be, if you go too extreme with very high carb and very low fat, it can be very difficult, not only just from the physiological aspects of taking fat too low, which can really hurt your libido and your hormones and all that stuff, but it can be really difficult to find foods with such low fat. And for anyone who’s ever experimented with that, you’ll start to crave fats. It’s very interesting. If you’ve ever really experimented with very high carb, very low fat. The cravings are very interesting relative to if you… I think a lot of people have experimented with very low carb, and you start to crave bagels and croissants and rice and all that stuff. The same thing will happen if you start taking your fat too low, well, you’ll want steaks, and you’ll want butter, and you’ll want all this fatty food.
36:07 Mike Vacanti: Pizza, salt.
36:09 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
36:10 Mike Vacanti: But at the same time, a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios does not sound good to you.
36:15 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Exactly.
36:17 Mike Vacanti: That’s the crazy part.
36:18 Jordan Syatt: It’s really interesting. Our bodies know. Our bodies will know, and almost we can feel what is gonna satiate us, what is gonna provide us with the satisfaction based on what we’re lacking. And I think that you’re right, most people do well with a little bit more moderate approach. It sounds like… Your client’s name is Doug?
36:38 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.
36:41 Jordan Syatt: It sounds like, for him, 100 grams of fat might be, “Okay, I don’t need that much.” And it sounds like, for him, maybe he could take it down to 80, 85 grams and do the rest with carbs, and he would enjoy that more. But this is all the process of trial and error, and that’s what makes it so great, you start them off on those. And this brings up a really good question coaches have. It’s like, how do you know when to change things? Well, this is a great example. Your client comes back and says, “Hey listen, I’m having trouble hitting this number of fat. I would like to have more carbs.” As a coach, what do you do? Well, as long as their calories and protein are in check, you let them choose based on what they’re gonna be more consistent with and enjoy. Clearly, all right, cool, we’ll take it down to 80, 85 grams of fat, and we’ll see how that goes. And who knows, maybe he’ll wanna go down to 60, 65 grams.
37:25 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s the amazing thing about what you just mentioned, which is craving a specific macronutrient is, okay, if the foods you enjoy lead you to a place where your protein is on target, calories are on target, and you’re only at 50 grams of fat instead of 100 grams, that’s completely okay. You start to get below that with fat and… You talked about the hormonal issues, which can become a problem, making sure you’re getting enough essential fatty acids, especially when your fats are lower. So, if anyone here is dieting on the lower end of fats, just make sure you’re taking a fish oil or some kind of omega 3. But, yeah, it’s completely okay. It’s largely up to personal preference, when you’re in the middle ranges. Don’t take carbs to zero, don’t take fats to zero, but when you’re in those middle ranges, do what works for you.
38:29 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Exactly.
38:33 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Number four, Jordan, “What is the purpose for taking your hands off the bar in between reps of deadlifts?” And I picked this one because I know I’ve asked you this, but I do not remember.
38:45 Jordan Syatt: You don’t? Oh, man.
38:46 Mike Vacanti: I don’t. No.
38:48 Jordan Syatt: I get this question every time I do a Q&A. I need to make a highlight about this. It’s a mix of two different things. The first part of it is just my own lifting OCD. It’s just something that I developed over the years. And the second part will explain why I developed it, but it’s a habit I developed that now is just ingrained in me and it’s like… Do you remember Nomar Garciaparra, Red Sox player?
39:17 Mike Vacanti: Yes.
39:18 Jordan Syatt: Shortstop for the Red Sox years and years and years ago? I know it’s weird, ’cause I’m making a sports reference and I never do that.
[laughter]
39:24 Mike Vacanti: Yep, yep.
39:25 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know if you remember, every time in between every at-bat, he did this weird thing with his batting gloves, and he would always… He’d un-Velcro it, re-Velcro it, un-Velcro, re-Velcro every time, with the same number of times, no matter what. And every time, I would always watch, “Man, that’s so interesting.” And I even read books on this, sports psychology of the athletes have the exact same patterns and habits, and these obsessive-compulsive tendencies to keep everything exactly the same. If you look at golfers, they walk up to the tee in exactly the same way. They’ll do all these things over and over and over again to keep everything as deliberate and as purposeful and as habitual as possible. So, for me, that’s just my own lifting OCD that developed over time. It was a habit that I picked up, and I just never stopped.
40:13 Jordan Syatt: Now, the reason that I started it is because I started incorporating a lot of jumping into my routine, because jumping is specifically broad jumps. Jumping has a tremendous carryover to improving your power and rate of force development. Now, I started by doing squat jumps and box jumps, but I realized over time that especially a sumo deadlift is much more similar to a broad jump than a vertical jump. You have that horizontal power, which is the same way as a sumo deadlift. People might look at it and think, “Well, you’re picking it up vertically.” Yes, the bar is moving vertically, but the power is coming from horizontal. I did a lot of broad jumps, and if you ever do a broad jump, if you’re walking right now, if you’re outside, you’re at the gym, just think about doing a broad jump. Maybe get in position, try and jump as far as you can. Notice what your hands do. Usually, right before you do a broad jump, you bring your hands up right over your head, then you bring them down behind you, and then you throw them forward. You throw them forward as far as you can to try and get the most momentum out of that movement.
41:19 Jordan Syatt: And that’s what I did, is I was specifically broad jumping for my deadlifts. And then as I started doing more broad jumps… And really I got very far broad jump. I really loved doing it, and it helped a lot. I credit a lot of my speed and my power and my deadlifts to the broad jumps. I then started doing that exact same hand motion for my deadlift, ’cause I wanted to keep it exactly the same or as close to the same as possible to mimic that power and speed and rate of force development. And then once I started doing it, I never stopped.
41:51 Mike Vacanti: Good answer. I’ll remember this time. [laughter] That was great. Good episode. Good questions. Thank you, everybody, for your questions. We’ll be back next week, same time, same place.
42:05 Jordan Syatt: Let’s go. I love it. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful week. If you enjoyed the podcast, we would sincerely appreciate a five-star review. Four stars or less, just say nothing. [laughter] Just kidding. But seriously, no, really, we appreciate it. The reviews have been incredible, and we appreciate it. We appreciate you listening, all the messages we get, they mean a lot to us. Have a wonderful week, and we’ll talk to you soon.
42:28 Mike Vacanti: Bye, everyone.
