0:00:11.5 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.
0:00:12.6 Jordan Syatt: What’s going on, Michael?
0:00:15.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s been a long time coming.
[laughter]
0:00:19.7 Jordan Syatt: It’s been several months. Every time I do a Q&A, people are like, “So, are you and Mike done with the podcast?”
[laughter]
0:00:26.2 Mike Vacanti: I think we should start this episode out just giving a nice laundry list of excuses for why we haven’t uploaded.
0:00:33.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s a good idea.
0:00:35.8 Mike Vacanti: Like a client who hasn’t really executed for two or three months.
0:00:37.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that idea.
0:00:39.9 Mike Vacanti: Where should we start?
0:00:41.3 Jordan Syatt: Alright. I would say the first major excuse is laziness.
0:00:49.3 Mike Vacanti: ‘Cause these aren’t legitimate.
0:00:49.4 Jordan Syatt: No.
0:00:49.5 Mike Vacanti: We could have done weekly episodes for the last two months.
0:00:51.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, just laziness, I’d say is the major one, [laughter] just trying to be as honest as possible. Lack of planning. Lack of planning, for sure.
0:01:02.7 Mike Vacanti: I concur, I’ll put that on me. I’m the J of the group here.
0:01:06.7 Jordan Syatt: Living the Epicurean lifestyle.
[laughter]
0:01:10.1 Mike Vacanti: Maybe you have, I don’t even know that. It doesn’t seem like life’s been more enjoyable.
0:01:16.7 Jordan Syatt: You moved out of New York.
0:01:19.2 Mike Vacanti: Let me throw in some legitimate ones, that’s definitely one. We finished the book.
0:01:24.7 Jordan Syatt: Finished them last week. Yup.
0:01:26.4 Mike Vacanti: And that was daily grinding with multiple edits and multiple renditions of back and forth and going over the massive Word document with a fine-tooth microscopic comb and just picking it apart.
0:01:42.6 Jordan Syatt: Terrible. That was really a terrible experience.
0:01:45.6 Mike Vacanti: Which made it amazing though.
0:01:47.9 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think so.
[laughter]
0:01:54.5 Jordan Syatt: I think it did.
0:01:54.6 Mike Vacanti: Which made it amazing.
0:01:54.7 Jordan Syatt: I think it did.
0:01:55.8 Mike Vacanti: It’s hard to see the forest from the trees. When you’re in the trees of the editing grind, it’s hard to see the beautiful book forest.
0:02:05.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
[laughter]
0:02:09.5 Jordan Syatt: Alright, what else we got?
0:02:11.7 Mike Vacanti: You had your…
0:02:12.7 Jordan Syatt: I had a lot of travel.
0:02:13.2 Mike Vacanti: Marriage honeymoon.
0:02:13.9 Jordan Syatt: A lot of travel. I had my wedding moon in Greece, and then I had my buddy’s wedding in Atlanta, which was a crazy experience. Just outdoors.
0:02:27.3 Mike Vacanti: In the mountain?
0:02:28.4 Jordan Syatt: In the mountains. No internet, no WiFi, no nothing. Saw the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my entire life, the size of the actual body of the spider was the size of my palm.
0:02:44.8 Mike Vacanti: Man!
0:02:45.1 Jordan Syatt: And then it was just…
0:02:45.2 Mike Vacanti: Killed it? You killed it, didn’t you?
0:02:46.8 Jordan Syatt: I had to kill it.
0:02:48.7 Mike Vacanti: Do you leave bits of information like that out of content because fringe vegans wouldn’t like it?
0:02:55.6 Jordan Syatt: No, ’cause we’ve got an hour and I don’t wanna go into the whole story of like… Yeah, so we were in this teeny-tiny bunk that’s the size of a twin mattress, and then the whole story of finding the spider freaking out and then spent 10 minutes figuring out who is gonna kill it, and then looking for any relatives of the spider after we killed it to see if they were gonna be crawling all over us while we were sleeping, it was a real conundrum that we were in and just friends from when we were eight, nine, 10 years old, just like all old, old, old, old friends so it was fun.
0:03:26.4 Mike Vacanti: That’s amazing. Making new memories, I love that.
0:03:29.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and then I went back to Boston this past weekend, so I’m finally done with travel, which I’m very excited about. So no more travel on the…
0:03:38.4 Mike Vacanti: I saw a meme recently that was something along the lines of being an adult is saying things will settle down after this week, and then just it never happening.
0:03:51.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s so big. I think every week is like, yeah, after this week things clear up.
[laughter]
0:03:55.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:03:56.4 Jordan Syatt: I saw a funny one where it was like being an adult is where one day you said you feel a little bit more tired and then you’re just always tired. [laughter]
0:04:06.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. I’ve hit that level. I have hit that level. What else? What other excuses do we have? Yeah, I moved. I’m in Minnesota, I’m very happy about that. Feeling good here.
0:04:18.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, congrats, congrats. Moving into your new house soon.
0:04:22.1 Mike Vacanti: Thank you.
0:04:23.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s exciting.
0:04:23.4 Mike Vacanti: Thank you. Yep, yep.
0:04:26.4 Jordan Syatt: Yep, yep, yep. [laughter]
0:04:30.9 Mike Vacanti: I’m balancing… You know what, this is something we could talk about to some degree, but I’m balancing recently and have been for a few years the amount of personal information I feel like sharing anywhere online, ’cause it was everything for many years and for many, many reasons that could be a piece of content on its own or just won’t be a piece of content on its own or will be a pseudonymous piece of content under not my name at some point could be interesting, but yeah. What other excuses we got?
0:05:11.4 Jordan Syatt: I think that’s it, man. I think that pretty much covers it. Anything you wanna jam on before we get into the episode?
0:05:19.4 Mike Vacanti: I think we just go straight in.
0:05:21.8 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Alright, so today we’re doing a Q&A. This Q&A is different than all of the other Q&As we’ve ever done because there is literally zero preparation for this Q&A other than I put up a Q&A box on my Instagram. So we’re just gonna scroll through, and neither of us have seen any of these questions and see what good ones we can find.
0:05:40.5 Mike Vacanti: I love it. Let’s dig in. If your question gets read and rejected, do not be offended. Yeah.
0:05:47.6 Jordan Syatt: You can be offended if you want. You can choose to be offended if you’d like.
0:05:52.7 Mike Vacanti: Find us some fun things to talk about, Jordan.
0:05:54.9 Jordan Syatt: Okay, alright. Strolling through. TheThinkingJar asked, What are good uses for BOSU balls?
0:06:06.1 Mike Vacanti: Like, which exercises?
0:06:06.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, what could you use the BOSU ball for? I was gonna think of a snark year supply and be like, “Oh, you could use it as like a… I don’t know, like a booster seat for your child or like…
0:06:17.7 Mike Vacanti: We’re talking at half, right?
0:06:19.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, the BOSU balls like the half. It has the half moon, the blue.
0:06:24.7 Mike Vacanti: Not a Swiss ball?
0:06:24.8 Jordan Syatt: Not a Swiss ball. No.
0:06:25.4 Mike Vacanti: I’m with you.
0:06:26.4 Jordan Syatt: So I mean I think this person asked because I rag on BOSU balls a lot, ’cause I’m like, “Stop fucking squatting on your BOSU ball, a ton of research show… Like, I think actually one of the biggest things about this is the amount of lawsuits that… And just Google, Google search like BOSU ball lawsuits, and you’ll find lawsuits for literally hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars of personal trainers having their clients on top of them, and they fall off, and they blow their knee out, they blow their hip, they build their back, they hurt their shoulder, which is why BOSU eventually put it on their website, and put it on the ball, and put it in the instruction manual, do not stand on the flat side of the BOSU ball, because they were gonna be sued, and you’re gonna be sued, and I remember in 2015, I was an expert witness in a trial for this, ’cause I wrote an article about it in 2012, and this lawyer found my article, basically about why you shouldn’t be balancing on a BOSU ball. So I would say from a lower body perspective, it’s, probably… You shouldn’t be doing lower body work on it, I think…
0:07:27.2 Jordan Syatt: I know a lot of people say, “Well, you could stand on the half moon side and do some ankle stability work”, and I’m like, you could, or you could just stand on one foot on the ground and do single-leg RDL’s or do different touches to the ground without needing to stand on an unstable surface, or really, if you want, you could use an Airex pad, which is a couple of inches off the ground, and it’s sort of like standing in sand, which is really good for ankle stability, but you don’t need to be on a wobbly surface, like half a foot above the ground, potentially falling off, in order to get ankle stability work. So I think for anything lower body, that BOSU ball is a really stupid idea. I think there are…
0:08:08.3 Mike Vacanti: Do you use them at all in your programming?
0:08:14.0 Jordan Syatt: No.
0:08:14.0 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think I’ve ever programmed anything with a BOSU ball before in my life.
0:08:18.1 Jordan Syatt: I’ve never ever programmed a BOSU ball exercise, ever, not once.
0:08:21.4 Mike Vacanti: So, I don’t… I would have to scrape the cobwebs of my brain to think of some kind of potentially usefulness, but I’m gonna go with zero to my knowledge.
0:08:32.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, the only thing that I could potentially think of is, there is some research around… So unstable surface training for the lower body is a very poor idea, especially when you’re trying to get strength adaptations. Unstable surface training for the upper body for your shoulder joint, there actually has been a fair amount of research that it can be beneficial, so I could see, if you wanted to, in some rare circumstances, having someone do a push-up on the BOSU ball, they’re closer to the ground, so if they fall, it’s really not a big deal, but that being said again…
0:09:11.5 Mike Vacanti: You go platform up or moon up, if you were gonna do that?
0:09:14.9 Jordan Syatt: I would go platform up, so your hands on either side of the… But again, I still think it’s pretty stupid.
0:09:21.8 Mike Vacanti: So, that’s fair. I have programmed push-ups for shoulder stability on a medicine ball, on a foam roller, but yeah…
0:09:34.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. I don’t imagine… If I’m outfitting a gym, I don’t see myself ever purchasing BOSU balls, and I’ve literally never programmed anything on a BOSU ball. That’s sort of me just trying to be not dogmatic and say, “Well, I guess you could do this”, but realistically, I’ve never programmed anything on a BOSU ball, I just wouldn’t use it.
0:09:55.2 Mike Vacanti: Boom, next.
0:09:58.1 Jordan Syatt: Okay, let’s see. ATMAdam, here’s a real question. ATMAdam, said “Genuine question. Fart etiquette when doing heavy squats, do you just do them or stop and do them elsewhere?”
0:10:13.6 Mike Vacanti: When you’re doing heavy squats, do you fart during the set or do you wait and do it after, is that the question?
0:10:20.0 Jordan Syatt: Apparently, yeah, these are the questions I get in my Q&As.
[laughter]
0:10:25.9 Jordan Syatt: People think I make them up.
0:10:27.0 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think of anything technical on this, I think of like, alright, have I been consuming a lot of Leucine, and is this gonna stink? And Part B, who is around me and am I gonna ruin 15 seconds of their life, if this is like rotten eggs? Or have I been having plenty of fibre, and I’m in good shape and whatever. Those are two factors. You’re heavy squatting, is it actually a fart or is there some substance there, that’s definitely something to consider, I’d air on the side of holding that in. I think you gotta trust your gut on this one, but that’s all I got.
0:11:10.5 Jordan Syatt: I wouldn’t use the bottom of the heavy squat to test out a fart.
[laughter]
0:11:16.4 Jordan Syatt: This is correct, you don’t wanna be in the bottom of a heavy squat and open your butt, that’s just a bad idea to let air out in the bottom of the squat. Ideally, you go to the bathroom and just check before you do that set, I’ve seen people poop themselves squatting. It’s just not a good… It’s not good. Squatting is sort of dangerous enough as is, even if you have the pin set up, never mind you accidentally rip one out. [chuckle] Just not good. So, I would wait, I would just go check elsewhere.
0:11:51.2 Mike Vacanti: Love the question, though. This is fun. I feel like we can get through more of these, we just have a massive supply of questions.
0:11:58.9 Jordan Syatt: Alright, MrsJazzyB, these are the questions I get in my Q&As. MrsJazzyB said, “If you could do any Harry Potter spell in real life, what would it be?”
0:12:14.1 Mike Vacanti: See, all I can think about right now is the fact that I’m questioning my short and long-term memory ability, and now I think I have early onset Alzheimer’s because all I can think of is…
0:12:30.4 Jordan Syatt: All you can think of is “Alohomora.”
[laughter]
0:12:30.9 Mike Vacanti: All I can think of is, is the death wand whip. You got an answer for this? What all can you do, you can turn people into stone, you can turn people into things… Wasn’t there one where you… Keep in mind, I haven’t seen any… I’ve seen max 20 minutes of Harry Potter movies. I read the book, the books, and so I’m probably gonna mispronounce, or forget a lot of these, but… What was the thing where someone grew gills, when they ate something, that wasn’t a spell.
0:13:11.0 Jordan Syatt: They ate gillyweed. Yeah, I don’t know, I like the idea of being able to turn into an animal, like an Animagus. I think that’ll be pretty cool. I don’t know if there’s a spell to make you fly, I know they have the brooms, but I never saw a spell to make you fly, if there’s a spell to make you fly, I’d probably do that.
0:13:35.6 Mike Vacanti: I wouldn’t mind getting in front of that mirror of Eriza for a day or two, just chilling down there and hanging out.
0:13:39.9 Jordan Syatt: Erised. [chuckle]
0:13:43.3 Mike Vacanti: Eriza, is how I read that one. What I did I say the other day?
0:13:51.0 Jordan Syatt: You said Hermoany.
[laughter]
0:13:51.7 Mike Vacanti: Hermoany. That’s how I read it, for my entire childhood, I wasn’t standing in line at movie theaters, going in there and hearing these words pronounced for me, I was battling it out, just me and the pages.
0:14:03.4 Jordan Syatt: I like it. Alright, let’s see what…
0:14:04.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s a fun question, though.
0:14:10.8 Jordan Syatt: MissNicoleJoy asked, “Do you think medication itself causes weight gain or does it cause you to overeat causing weight gain?”
0:14:21.8 Mike Vacanti: I think, the first question is which medication?
0:14:24.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, but even then, and I could be wrong, I don’t know of any medication that inherently causes weight gain, and I should say inherently causes fat gain, there can be some medications that could cause you to gain weight, whether it’s through bloating, and again, I’m not a doctor, I have no idea, but I don’t know of any medication that inherently causes fat gain.
0:14:45.2 Mike Vacanti: For someone with hyperthyroidism who takes medication, it’s going to decrease their calorie expenditure, which on the same number of calories leads to weight gain. I don’t know. Do you have any thoughts on this one?
0:15:05.6 Jordan Syatt: I’m not a doctor, so it does limit what we can say on that, with a certain level of reliability. I get this question a lot, specifically pertaining to depression medication, that’s a very, very, very common question. Does depression medication cause you to gain weight, gain fat?
0:15:23.7 Mike Vacanti: Are we talking SSRIs specifically?
0:15:27.1 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know, that’s just the kind of question that I get, and again, not a doctor, but from what I’ve seen, is that oftentimes people who struggle with depression are just… They’re often… It’s actually very interesting, some people when they’re struggling with depression they won’t eat it all, and they lose a lot of weight, and then other people will use food as a coping mechanism, and they gain a lot of weight, so I don’t think it’s necessarily the medication that is causing weight gain through somehow synthesizing more calories or holding on to more calories, but I do think that oftentimes people who are struggling with depression will eat more, which will then cause them to gain weight.
0:16:09.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that… Anecdotally, that seems right. Good question, I’m reading a super interesting book right now called Dopamine Nation, that…
0:16:19.1 Jordan Syatt: What’s the author’s name? What’s her name?
0:16:22.6 Mike Vacanti: Anna Lembke, L-E-M-B-K-E.
0:16:27.6 Jordan Syatt: Got it.
0:16:28.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s very good. She was a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or still is practicing maybe, but she talks… She works with and has worked with a lot of addicts and talks about basically the pain pleasure modulation in the brain and how in 2021, all of us are addicts of some kind, and… We’ll use that term loosely, but the teeter-totter of the pain pleasure balance is less extreme when we’re talking about something like being on your cell phone or consuming delicious processed foods, but that it’s hitting the same part of the brain that heroin or meth or cocaine or alcohol or any of these things that people really struggle with, sex addiction, the book actually opens up with a somewhat graphic chapter about sex addiction, so avoid if that’s not your thing, but it… Super fascinating book. And the question made me think of that because she talks about different forms of therapy and medication being one of them.
0:17:46.2 Jordan Syatt: Alright, JBolton26 asked, “Do you make changes to your training when you’re trying to be in a calorie deficit”?
0:17:53.4 Mike Vacanti: Usually, yeah, all else equal. Sure, not massive changes. But usually a little bit less volume, and I’m usually… It depends, is the bottom line, but small changes, exercise selection is largely the same, frequency, and if we’re talking about me, or we’re talking about you, or we’re talking about clients we’re programming for. But frequency…
0:18:28.0 Jordan Syatt: Talk about you specifically.
0:18:32.0 Mike Vacanti: It depends, if I only wanna be training three days a week, then I’ll train high intensity, meaning most sets or a lot of sets are going close to failure, if I care… If I think I can re-comp during that deficit based on how my previous six months have looked. It’ll look a little different in that, I will program the body parts that I am more interested or the movement patterns I’m more interested in strengthening. Yeah, my sessions are usually a little bit shorter when in a deficit compared to when in a surplus. Those are the main differences.
0:19:09.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, so for me, I think people change way too much. In general, I would say it’s almost identical. It’s almost identical for me that the main difference is when I’m in maintenance or a surplus, I will usually have more energy, which makes sense, you’re eating more, which means I can have a little bit higher volume, but also increased intensity at a higher volume. So for example, if I say three sets of eight, I could do sets across for those three sets of eight, keep the weight the same for those three sets and go really, really hard for those three sets. Whereas if I’m in a calorie deficit, especially four, five, six, seven, eight weeks in, a little bit more tired, so rather than doing three sets at a super heavy weight, I might do a reverse pyramid or a pyramid style training, where I’ll have one heavy set for each exercise as opposed to three heavy sets or four heavy sets. I’d be…
0:20:06.8 Mike Vacanti: So your volume isn’t massively different, but your number of hard sets are greater in a surplus.
0:20:14.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, which does affect volume just because I’ll be doing fewer sets at that, but not dramatically, but yeah, volume will be affected. But it’s really… I try to… I try to reach at least a couple of very, very intense sets per workout just to maintain my strength and muscles as much as I can and really gain strength throughout it, that’s what I think a lot of people really… They really overlook. You don’t need that many sets to gain strength. I think a lot of people really overlook. They’re like, “Oh, you’ve gotta do so many sets and so many reps and so much, so many exercises”. You don’t need that much.
0:20:52.6 Jordan Syatt: I think some of the best rankings I ever made, I was doing four to five exercises per workout and one to two of those sets to failure or near failure, and that was really it, and then the rest is maintenance work. Yeah, I think that’s the biggest thing is you really have to account for when you’re in a deficit that you’re not gonna have as much energy, and that’s really the biggest factor you have to take into consideration because you can still build muscle in a deficit, it’s just significantly harder. And if you’re not gonna have as much energy, then why are you gonna try and destroy yourself, which is probably gonna cause you to end up getting hungrier and then make it harder to stay in the deficit, it’s like… Just the main thing you need to keep track of is how your energy is and then reduce the total intensity and volume to account for that.
0:21:40.0 Mike Vacanti: Good Answer. I actually, I said something that I’m gonna go back on in a four minute window, which is that exercise selection doesn’t vary much. I realized as you were talking that I tend to program more exercises that I enjoy when I’m in a deficit because it sucks. Training in a deficit for an extended period of time is not enjoyable even if you kind of meal time properly, and time your caffeine, and try and make that your most energetic period of the day, it’s still not nearly as enjoyable as training with extra food. So I’m avoiding certain exercises that I really don’t like and hitting those same movement patterns with exercises that I enjoy more.
0:22:23.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that makes sense. Alright, this person has asked this question so many times, I never answered it.
0:22:32.5 Mike Vacanti: But why haven’t you answered it.
0:22:35.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s like… I actually don’t wanna answer…
0:22:37.5 Mike Vacanti: I don’t want to answer this question, so I’m gonna stick it on Mike.
0:22:39.8 Jordan Syatt: No, no, we can answer it, it’s not like a controversial thing. It’s sort of like I’m in between on it. It’s an overrated underrated question. Karms252 asks, are planks overrated or underrated? And part of me feels like planks are massively overrated, and part of me feels like planks are massively underrated.
0:23:01.3 Mike Vacanti: Then I think properly rated.
0:23:04.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess we could go with properly rated, except the biggest issue is, I see so many people just butchering the technique, just doing awful planks. They’re like, Oh, I’m really good at planks, I can do it for 10 minutes straight. It’s like, no, you can’t, like that’s a shit plank. If you’re doing a really good plank, 30 seconds is really difficult. So I think they’re good. I think planks are really good for beginners and new intermediate lifters. I think they’re really good for people who might have back pain, people who really need to learn how to use their core, who need to learn how to use their abs properly to make sure that their back isn’t taking the load. But as someone gets to be a better lifter and they’re pain-free and they’re stronger, I think that’s when they start to be overrated and you start… You need to start in the same way like a static lunge.
0:23:55.7 Jordan Syatt: A static lunge, it’s a great exercise, it’s a really, really good exercise. I probably wouldn’t give a static lunge to a more advanced lifter though. I would probably start having them doing more dynamic exercises, walking forward lunges, Bulgarian split squats, lateral lunges, things that challenge them outside of just that one plane of motion. And I think, the thing about planks is they’re very good at helping someone teach how to use their core and their abs properly. But once you reach a certain point, it’s like, Alright, it’s enough, enough isometric hold, let’s get you moving, let’s get you doing some dynamic movement, let’s actually take you outside of just holding this position for 30 seconds, and maybe adding in like if you wanna add in like a reach with your arm while you’re doing a plank, fine, if you wanna add a single leg plank, if you wanna do more of a… Essentially a dynamic plank, which you could call a bear crawl, where you’re actually moving while maintaining the plank position. I think these are all probably better options for more advanced lifters than just the standard plank.
0:24:50.9 Mike Vacanti: Great answer. Add Body Saw to that list, still like that one.
0:24:54.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, Body Saw’s a great one. Okay, this is a good one, TomOConnor1998, man, that’s crazy to see, people, you know, people born in 2000 are 21 years old, that’s crazy.
0:25:09.3 Mike Vacanti: We’re old brother. We’re old.
0:25:12.6 Jordan Syatt: What’s one thing you never want to see a client do in regards to their health?
0:25:17.4 Mike Vacanti: Smoking cigarettes.
0:25:17.9 Jordan Syatt: [chuckle] Yeah. That’s a good one.
0:25:23.3 Mike Vacanti: They’re just too addictive. And there’s a subset of people who can maybe I smoke when I’m drunk kind of thing, and that’s probably fine, but…
[chuckle]
0:25:34.4 Mike Vacanti: I’m never… The classic answer that most people… In the fitness space, not even trainers or people who make content or influencers or whatever, but in fitness enthusiasts would be like, “Don’t eat this food, or don’t do this exercise”, could probably think of some never do exercises. That makes sense. But yeah, for your health, like the number one thing not to do is pick up smoking.
0:26:06.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, shit, I think that’s a good one. I remember when I lived in Israel for one year after high school, and I had a couple of roommates who were, actually… They lived in the Boston area as well. When we came back from Israel after that year, I was working at the gym that I worked at all through high school, and they were like, “Hey, could we come work out?” I was like, “Yeah, sure”. And these two kids, I think… Oh, no. Did you meet Mike Sarnoff? Did you meet him? I don’t think you met. I told you about him, he’s one of the funniest kids I ever met. Him, and my buddy, Sam, they both picked up smoking cigarettes while we were in Israel, and Sam picked it up like that, he got… He’s straight up addicted to smoking cigarettes, and I remember asking him when we were in Israel, I was like, “man”, I wanted to understand what the addiction feeling felt like, and he actually said something that was… Where we were 18 years old, I’ll never forget it. He was like, “It feels like there’s a hole in my chest, that the only way to fill that hole is through smoking”, he’s like “The only way to just fill this hole in my chest, this empty hole, is through smoking cigarettes. I was like, “Damn, that’s sort of poetic in a weird way”, but also really bad.
0:27:23.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s heavy.
0:27:25.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and I’ll never forget they came to work out with me and I put them through the workout, and they were hacking up, coughing, just going crazy, and then as soon as the work-out was over, they went outside, and they smoked a cigarette, and I was like, “What the hell are you guys doing?” Literally on the steps of the gym, “I was like, guys get out”… I think they both quit since then. But yeah, I was sort of thinking… I was trying to think outside the box on this one. I was gonna say, “Not wearing a seat belt when you’re riding in a car is just so stupid”. It’s definitely not the cliché answer of, don’t eat this food or whatever, it’s like… Yeah, I think it would be more something that’s just behavioral that you can control as opposed to necessarily nutritional or something.
0:28:13.6 Mike Vacanti: And you can also give advice that might not be that useful, if you think of… I think wear a seatbelt, wear a helmet on a motorcycle, don’t smoke, don’t… Yeah.
0:28:28.3 Jordan Syatt: Just taking reasons why people die young for a stupid… It’s funny when I… I always wear my helmet when I’m riding my bike or when I’m rollerblading, and I’ll put it on my stories, and the number of messages I get from nurses or ER doctors who are like, “You wouldn’t believe how many people we see literally die on a daily basis, ’cause they weren’t wearing a helmet” or… It’s crazy, it just… I think it’s an overlooked thing, and same thing with a seat belt, I think it’s one of the things we take for granted that… It’s funny, I see a lot of people who are really worried about getting on a plane, and they sit with me going a plane, they’re like, “Oh my God, I’m so worried”. I’m like, “You drive in a car every day, you’re way more likely to die driving in a car than you are for a plane to crash, but you usually get in a car, no problem”. People are worried about shark attacks. I Googled this the other day with my wife. We were wondering how many people in the US are killed by sharks, every year? Dude, it’s two. Two people a year.
0:29:23.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s it?
0:29:24.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s it, that’s it. In the US, two people a year. And then when I was like, I wonder how many alligators? I think it’s several hundred people are killed by alligators every year in the US, but two shark attacks a year, two people are killed, they may get attacked and then maybe not die, but two people die from shark attacks a year in the United States. I think it’s less than 20 total shark attacks a year, but everyone’s petrified of going in the ocean about being attacked by a shark, meanwhile, they’re driving in the car, and they’re not worried about it at all, and they’re not wearing a seat belt. Yeah. Alright, Jamille_Davis asked, “Why is being certified overrated for a personal trainer?”
0:30:05.8 Mike Vacanti: I think we hit this one in depth, depth, depth in the first-ever episode of this podcast. It’s either first or second episode of this podcast.
0:30:14.5 Jordan Syatt: That’s true.
0:30:16.7 Mike Vacanti: I think it’s overrated because there are other ways that are… I think it’s overrated because the primary reason that so many coaches get multiple certifications is to appear… It’s filling that impostor syndrome. It’s not… Often, it is with the intent of learning something, like getting a specific cert because they wanna learn about something, but more often I have noticed it’s for the ability to appear qualified and put some letters in your bio, and I also think it’s overrated because there’s… You gotta think about the opportunity cost of the time spent either studying and testing or attending the certification, and the things that you could be doing, the self-education or the other things that you could be doing during that time. And lastly, I think it’s probably overrated… It’s probably overrated for the reasons I just mentioned, it’s definitely overrated from a business perspective, because your clients don’t care what your letters are.
0:31:28.9 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah, I agree completely. I think so many certifications that I’ve seen are just… I’ll never forget. And he might actually be listening to this, Abell, every time we publish a podcast, Abell will message and like, “Oh man, a great podcast”. I love that kid.
0:31:51.2 Jordan Syatt: Abel was taking a certification and he showed me some of the books that… Some of the things that they were writing in the certification, and they were just completely wrong. And then I gave Abell a list of books to read and he read those books he’s like, “Man, these helped so much.” Just something simple like Starting Strength and Practical Programming. Simple stuff like that that I really think the majority of certifications, not all, but the majority are just not good. And I think some of them have gotten better over the years. I’ll say one that I actually… I do like a lot of Precision Nutrition. I think they’ve done a phenomenal job and they’ve stayed with the times. And I’ve watched Precision Nutrition change their mind on certain things over the years, which I respect a lot, because it means that they’re not just saying what they said in the early 2000s and staying with it. They’re updating it and they’re staying with the times and the research.
0:32:44.0 Jordan Syatt: I see a lot of certifications, it’s just, they never change. Sort of like with professors that are tenured in college, they’ll just give the same exact lesson plans that they gave for 30 years as opposed to actually changing with the times and staying up to date with research, ’cause it’s easier that way. So there are some good ones, but I think the vast majority are significantly overrated and you can get all of that education for free if you want just on Google and through following the right people and reading great books and articles.
0:33:14.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a great point. I remember intentionally getting an answer wrong back in whatever, 2012, 2013 on my NSCA exam because I knew what they wanted, even though I was like, that’s not really right, but okay, here you go. [laughter] You just tell the way the question was formatted and what the four choices were.
0:33:34.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that they… Yeah. Alright, Rwill9 asked, is it harder for women to lose weight than men?
0:33:43.1 Mike Vacanti: Start us out, Jordan.
0:33:47.8 Jordan Syatt: I’m gonna say, I have always gotten kicked back for this. I guess we have to define ‘harder’. Either a bunch of things we have to take into consideration. I think women’s weight fluctuates considerably more than men’s do because of their hormonal cycle. And that can give off the impression that it’s harder to lose weight because your weight will fluctuate more. Which is why I’m so gung-ho about… Where does gung-ho come from? I’ve always said it, but I never knew where… Where did gung-ho… I’m gonna have to Google that. I’m very gung-ho about tracking your weight and your consistency over time because when you track it month to month, you’ll see what your trend is, and oftentimes women are surprised that they’re actually losing at a much more consistent rate than they thought they were. And they’ll think that they’re losing so slow because they’re a woman. It’s like, “No, it’s not ’cause you’re… You’re not losing weight slowly you’re actually like… Your trend is perfect. You’re losing an average of a pound and a half a week, which is amazing, just you’re seeing bigger fluctuation.” So there’s no question that women have a bigger fluctuation pattern than men, but in terms of is it harder to actually lose fat? No. I’d say it’s equally difficult.
0:34:57.3 Jordan Syatt: The other thing they have to take into consideration, and this is more just like large scale data, generally women are smaller than men. Not always. I’m a small dude. I’m 5’4, about 145 pounds so it’s not easier for me to lose weight relative to a woman who’s the same size as me. It’s like we’ll lose weight at probably the exact same rate of weight loss. My calories might be slightly higher because I have probably more muscle mass than most women, my size, but really what you take into consideration is your height and your weight and your body composition, not your gender. Your gender doesn’t necessarily impact it as much as, what’s your height, what’s your weight and what’s your body composition? That’s the greatest determinant of what your weight loss is gonna be like, and how consistent you are with your calories and how steep your calorie deficit is. But your total calorie consumption and what you’re able to eat while still losing fat is not dictated by your gender as much as dictated by your size and body composition.
0:36:02.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, completely agree. And Good job narrowing the question down to mean what I think it was, well, intended. Which was, is it easier for men or women to lose fat? And removing the short-term scale weight fluctuations that are not at all correlated with actual fat loss. Kind of a caveat. Doesn’t it feel kinda silly that we still have to constantly clarify when we make these statements about big populations on average?
0:36:37.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:36:38.8 Mike Vacanti: That in our mind, there are still gonna be kind of that ‘reply guy’ who’s like, “Well, actually, there are some women who are bigger than men.” Okay. We all know.
[laughter]
0:36:53.0 Jordan Syatt: It’s everything. And when I say things like, “No one got fat from eating fruit.” There’s always someone who’s like, “Well, actually, I know someone who got really fat from eating fruit.” I’m like, “Do you really? Really?” Or it’s like, I’m like, “Listen, don’t be afraid of eating fruit.” There’s always someone who’s like, “Well, diabetics do have to worry about it.” I’m like, “I’m not fucking talking to diabetics.” There’s always someone who’s gonna say something. Absolutely.
0:37:15.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. But no, you make a great point. On average, for a similar size we’ll say, a man versus a woman who’s the same height, the man’s gonna have slightly more lean tissue, which is gonna lead to a slightly higher BMR, is also gonna lead to higher… It’s something we’ve discussed before, having more lean tissue leads to a higher calorie expenditure, not just because you have a slightly higher BMR but because you do more with that lean tissue, lift a little more weight with more muscle, probably more active on average. Someone who has more muscle compared to someone was a little bit less muscle, which leads to higher calorie expenditure. Maybe marginally faster progress for the men, but like you just said, you can expect similar progress, however, the person with a little bit less lean mass is going to have a slightly lower maintenance calorie and therefore, the person with more lean mass can eat a little bit more food.
0:38:14.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s always one of the things that women will say, “Oh, it’s so much easier for men. My husband lost 15 pounds in a month,” and I’m like, “Alright, well, how big is your husband”? And they’re like, “Well, he’s 6’5″ and 285 pounds.” I’m like “Yeah, of course, ’cause he’s huge,” and because maybe he was having… Whatever… It doesn’t take a lot for a person of that size to lose a lot of weight very quickly, it’s not that he’s a man, he’s just a fucking huge dude, of course, he’s gonna lose that weight quickly.
0:38:45.1 Mike Vacanti: Phenomenal point. You gotta look at amount of weight loss as a percentage of body weight… Of total body weight, not absolute weight loss in pounds. Compare someone who’s 150 pounds who lost five pounds compared to someone who’s 250 pounds who lost five pounds, that isn’t the same five pounds, and sort of the fact that one person did it in a week, and it took the other person a month. You’re not playing the same game.
0:39:13.5 Jordan Syatt: Okay, DakMolly said, “kettlebell swings. Yea or nay”?
0:39:17.4 Mike Vacanti: Sure.
[chuckle]
0:39:23.8 Jordan Syatt: I would say it depends like everything, but if your goal is to… I don’t know. If your goal is to get bigger muscles, like for muscle hypertrophy, I wouldn’t put kettlebell swings in the program. Kettlebell swings would not be my “Oh, okay, you wanna get real big? Kettlebell swings”. I think that’s a stupid idea. But if your goal is, I don’t know whether it’s improved overall conditioning, whether it’s to improve just general overall strength and performance, to improve your explosive speed and power. Yeah, absolutely, I’ll put kettlebell swings in there, but I’m not putting them in there for physique enhancement, it’s more of a performance standard, as opposed to a physique enhancement. And I’ll also say, I’m not starting with kettlebell swings. The first thing I’m gonna have you do is a kettlebell dead lift, right? And I see a lot of people…
0:40:15.3 Mike Vacanti: A1 kettlebell swing, 3 x 5 RIR, zero, maybe just give it health?
0:40:21.9 Jordan Syatt: I’ll put kettlebell swings at the beginning of program sometimes, but I mean, when I’m teaching someone kettlebell swings, I’d get a new client on day one, I’m not gonna be like, “Alright, pick up the 16 kilogram, we’re gonna go kettlebell swing”. It’s like, Nope. Absolutely, that’s a terrible idea. You’re gonna start off with kettlebell deadlifts and goblet squats, and just look at your movement and then slowly teach them how to kettlebell swing. I see people going in on day one, they’re like, “Alright, we’re gonna kettlebell snatch”, I’m like, “You’re an idiot. That’s… What are you doing”?
0:40:54.3 Mike Vacanti: They may have learned that movement at the certification over the weekend and came in monday, ready to teach the kettlebell snatch.
0:41:00.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s exactly right, have them do the five-minute snatch test with the person on day one. Let’s see.
0:41:08.6 Mike Vacanti: I’m not only feeling this format, I’m also feeling the moving around during the podcast.
0:41:14.5 Jordan Syatt: You like it?
0:41:15.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.
0:41:18.5 Jordan Syatt: Bloughberg78 says, “Do you have any advice for a starting personal trainer”?
0:41:23.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, Bloughberg, probably join the mentorship.
[laughter]
0:41:32.5 Mike Vacanti: Honestly, before you do that, watch episodes one through today of this podcast where there’s a wealth of valuable information. I think prioritize getting experience with clients and trying to help people make progress, whether they’re paying you or it’s online for free, or it’s in person for free, or you’re learning, you’re reading something, whatever it is, put at the top of your work value hierarchy, the fact that you want to help people with their goals and don’t pay attention to other metrics for at least two years, ’cause so many people who wanna get into personal training see their favorite Instagram trainer, and whether they want accolades or they want to work from the beach with their computer out, which doesn’t actually work, because as we know the glare of the sun on the computer screen allows it to… Or doesn’t let you see it. Yeah, do your best to help people and don’t pay attention to anything else and keep your head down and your blinders on.
0:42:37.6 Jordan Syatt: I like that. TheCheerfulCoco… Something, asked, “How do you calorie track a charcuterie”? [chuckle] Can you just skip tracking days, you’ll indulge more. [chuckle]
0:43:01.8 Mike Vacanti: Depends on what your goals are and what your expectations are, you can definitely just eat the charcuterie and not track for the day, but then when the scale is up the next day or when five days later, you haven’t lost weight, understand that… And I’m not an expert at charcuterie, but I see salami, I see those fatty processed meats, I see some chocolate, maybe some grapes, some aged cheese, just realize you’re putting down a 100 grams of fat pretty easily, and maybe like 1500 to 2000 calories and that’ll show up on the scale, and maybe that’s worth it, because a lot of those foods are delicious to a lot of people.
0:43:55.7 Jordan Syatt: I just… [chuckle] I’ve never been asked that question before, and I thought that was just… I’ve never had anyone ask me, “How do you track charcuterie”, and there’s something about that word that was like, “Oh man,” that’d just be a funny word to put into a stand-up comedy skit, but it’s also making me wonder like, how many charcuteries are you eating?
[laughter]
0:44:17.2 Jordan Syatt: Like how often are you just putting out a whole big charcuterie spread, you know?
0:44:22.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. Look, the how to track it is… It’s, you gotta be a little bit more meticulous. I wouldn’t pick from the charcuterie board. I would grab what you wanna grab, put it on a plate and make your estimates based on that. It’s like, alright, we got two ounces of salami here, we got 15 grapes, we got, it looks like about three ounces of cheese. Yeah. And track each item individually, give it your best guess and then forget about it and move on, and don’t worry about if you were perfect or you got the calories exactly right, just… That’s my advice.
0:44:55.5 Jordan Syatt: Alright. Here’s one DanielI3837, you might not wanna answer this one, said, “Does eating cold pasta make it not a refined carb?”
[laughter]
0:45:16.9 Mike Vacanti: You know what, Daniel? I love a good cold pasta. A little pasta salad, I wouldn’t worry about that. [laughter]
0:45:25.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about that.
0:45:28.0 Mike Vacanti: Of all the things to worry about, I… No, the temperature of the post-cooked carbohydrate at which you consume it does not impact its status. Especially on the refined-unrefined axis.
0:45:45.9 Jordan Syatt: Well, said. Alright, Lorier1829 asked, is body weight strength training just as effective as lifting weights?
0:45:58.2 Mike Vacanti: No. [laughter] It depends what you want to accomplish, it depends what your goals are, and it depends on how new or advanced you are to strength training, and it depends on which body weight exercises you’re talking about. Because there are some very challenging body weight exercises like a pull-up, or a chin up, or even a pike push-up, or handstand-type work, and then there are easier… Like a body weight squat is a little bit more of a basic body weight exercise. But if your goal is muscle gain, having weights is going to help relative to simply training body weight. And if your goal is strength and you’re very new to strength training, then you can probably make just as good a progress with body weight alone for a period of time, but eventually you’ll hit a ceiling or just be limited to too few exercises that having weights is gonna make it easier to gain more strength.
0:47:08.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I agree completely. I think what a lot of people miss with this type of a question is, it’s entirely goal dependent. It’s a 100% goal-dependent question or answer. Like you said, if your goal is to build muscle, no, body weight training is nowhere near as good as lifting with weights. You can use some body weight exercises in a program to build muscle, but if your goal is muscle gain to build bigger muscles, then you’re going to need a majority of exercises that you can externally load with heavier and progressively heavier weight. If your goal is specifically to do something with your body weight, whether it’s a chin-up or whether handstand, or with a planche push-up, a push-up with no legs, a lot of gymnastic style movements, then yeah, body weight training is probably more effective than with weights because it’s…
0:48:10.4 Jordan Syatt: What a lot of people don’t realize is, strength is a skill. So whatever movement you’re developing strength in, that is a skill in and of itself. It’s like you could have someone who’s able to squat 1000 pounds with a barbell but that doesn’t mean they’re gonna be able to do a pistol squat on one leg. And it’s not because they’re not strong, it’s because they haven’t developed the skill necessary or the strength necessary for that specific skill. And that’s what’s important to remember. Strength is skill-dependent. So it depends on what your goal is and what skill you’re trying to improve. If you’re trying to improve your chin-ups, or your one arm chin-ups, or your push-ups, one arm push-ups, pistol squats, whatever, then body weight training is fine. But if you have a otherwise performance-based goal or muscle-gain goal, then you’re gonna need external load, it’s not the same.
0:49:04.1 Jordan Syatt: And it’s funny, I was talking to my buddy, Ben Bruno, about this, actually this morning we were talking, and he made a joke, he was like, “Effective strength training is just doing the same 10 to 15 exercises over and over again until you die.” And even if you have a gym full of equipment and full of different apparatuses and machines and stuff, it can get repetitive and sort of boring sometimes, just because the effective exercises that you’re gonna be using are… You’re limited. If you’re doing something really stupid, like something that might look cool… Ben made a really funny example.
0:49:38.5 Jordan Syatt: Ben called me this morning, he was like, “Listen, I don’t make this type of content, so I’m not gonna say this, but I thought you might wanna say this.” So credit goes to him, but he was telling me how he was trying to explain to his friend why you’re not supposed to do a new workout every single time you go to work out, why you should just do almost… More or less repetitive exercises on a consistent basis. And he was like, Listen, think of it like this. You know when you’re younger and you’re just getting into sex, you might see all these different sex positions or you see these books like 101 different sex positions to try. You’re like, “Oh wow, that’s so cool. Dah, dah dah dah.” But you try it and it’s like, that’s not fun, and that’s actually really uncomfortable, and it doesn’t even feel good and it’s not good. There are probably four or five positions that you’ll use consistently for your whole life, and that’s it, and that’s what you’re gonna do because all the other like crazy ones that you see in magazines and in these books are… They’re not actually… They’re not fun and they’re not practical.
0:50:42.4 Jordan Syatt: Or it’s like hearing about, oh cool, you’re gonna go, let’s join the Mile High Club, have sex in the airplane bathroom like, no, thanks. Like that sort of gross. It smells like shit, there’s turbulence, we’re falling all over the place. This isn’t enjoyable at all. It’s like it might look cool on an Instagram post, but it’s not actually effective and it’s probably not gonna be fun. Same thing with a lot these…
0:51:03.3 Mike Vacanti: People have sex in airplanes so they can post it on Instagram?
0:51:06.0 Jordan Syatt: No, I’m going into the next example where it’s like you see people…
0:51:11.1 Mike Vacanti: Ah! I see, I see.
0:51:11.9 Jordan Syatt: Posting these exercises on Instagram that are like… They look crazy and cool or they’re like standing on a BOSU Ball, or they put the barbell in between these TRX straps, and it’s like, dude, you’ve clearly never coached many people in person, ’cause just the set up for this exercise probably took you 15 minutes.
[laughter]
0:51:30.2 Jordan Syatt: And I think that’s… I don’t even know where I started with this, but… Oh, what I was gonna say is, it can be boring enough just doing effective strength training with a ton of equipment. Effective strength training with your body weight is probably the most boring and the most repetitive and redundant type of training in the world. Body weight training is, if you watch people who are masters of body weight and gymnasts, they do the same thing over and over and over, and it’s just a lot of isometric holds and a lot of just… It’s just their body weight, which if your goal is not to be an elite level gymnast, your goal is just to be healthy and fit and enjoy life and feel good, you’re probably gonna want a little bit more variety in your training than just that.
0:52:20.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s a good analogy. I think a lot of people learn well from analogies.
0:52:26.9 Jordan Syatt: [laughter] I agree. That’s good, I think… We’ll call it there.
0:52:32.4 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no, keep it coming. No, keep it coming.
0:52:33.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’ve a podcast in nine minutes.
0:52:35.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s nine minutes of value.
0:52:38.5 Jordan Syatt: Bro, I already quit out of my Instagram.
0:52:39.6 Mike Vacanti: I want one big finale question.
0:52:42.3 Jordan Syatt: One big finale question. What’s your opinion on cold showers? NictariousAl.
0:52:50.2 Mike Vacanti: Nick, I’m so glad you asked this because I’m dead serious.
0:52:54.8 Jordan Syatt: I know, I really liked that.
0:52:55.6 Mike Vacanti: In the… I hate cold showers. For me, personally, I really, really don’t like the feeling. I’ve tried all the techniques of gradually go from hot to cold, just go straight to cold. It’s very, very uncomfortable. They’re… Based on all evidence I’ve seen, cold therapy or cold showers are not effective for stimulating more fat loss or leading to faster fat loss or whatever certain people may claim. In this book, Dopamine Nation that I read yesterday… This is gonna blow your mind, Jordan. I wish I had all of the stats in front of me, because giving the context would make it even more impressive, but if you think of the pleasure/pain balance in your brain, there’s a strategy for… ‘Cause your evolution always wants to go to homeostasis, you don’t wanna get too high, you don’t wanna get too low, and so there’s a strategy for people who are “in pain” rather than do something like watch porn or eat a donut or do something dopaminergic, that is going to make you feel better in that instant, there’s a strategy where you lean into the pain, and so there is…
0:54:21.1 Mike Vacanti: She gives a lot of examples of various strategies where by doing something, I think, skydiving or extreme sports is one example, but by doing something “painful” in the hours thereafter, you experience pleasure, like you tip back and a… I don’t remember the length of like a five to ten minute cold plunge leads to a 500% increase in dopamine in the two to three hours thereafter.
0:54:54.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s crazy.
0:54:56.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s insane.
0:54:56.4 Jordan Syatt: Holy shit. And it lasts for two to three hours?
0:55:01.4 Mike Vacanti: I would imagine it peaks at some point in there and then starts to come back down, but you’re dealing with an elevated dopamine state for hours after, I think it was a five. It was between five and ten minutes of a cold plunge, which you could get… I don’t know the difference between a full body cold plunge immersion compared to just a cold shower, but for that reason alone, I’m a fan.
0:55:26.4 Jordan Syatt: Now, I can see why so many people are cult-like about them. You say anything bad about a cold shower on Instagram and people come at me like, “Are you serious? They’re the best thing in the world!” And just like you had these massive dopamine rushes, and they’re like “Ah! I feel amazing! Don’t talk badly about that!”
0:55:43.4 Mike Vacanti: I mean she told the story of this cocaine addict, this guy, I think his name was Mike actually who…
0:55:49.4 Jordan Syatt: [laughter]
0:55:53.9 Mike Vacanti: Basically loved cocaine. And did massive amounts of cocaine through his 20s, had a successful job, balanced it, told himself like, I can use this recreationally, I really like it. I’m going to. Got married, had kids and was abusing cocaine very bad, to the point where his wife said, either we address this addiction, you address this addiction, or I’m leaving you, and his marriage was on the line, and this dude says… The punch line is that every single day for the last three years, he’s been doing two cold plunges a day.
0:56:32.6 Jordan Syatt: Wow!
0:56:33.2 Mike Vacanti: And he hasn’t touched cocaine and hasn’t done like anything, and his marriage is great and yada yada yada. But…
0:56:38.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s incredible.
0:56:40.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Cold therapy. Yeah.
0:56:41.7 Jordan Syatt: Alright, yeah, I have nothing to add after that [laughter]
[laughter]
0:56:48.2 Jordan Syatt: I know they’re super uncomfortable.
0:56:53.7 Mike Vacanti: When you and I did the one-minute plunge at the…
0:56:55.9 Jordan Syatt: That was awful.
0:56:56.0 Mike Vacanti: At the gym in New York, and yeah, it’s really hard.
0:56:58.1 Jordan Syatt: Maybe I’ll do like a 30-day YouTube thing where I do a cold shower every day and document it and see how I feel.
0:57:06.2 Mike Vacanti: You might actually really benefit from it because people… There have been people who swapped out coffee for a cold shower in the morning and claimed that they got the same benefit.
0:57:14.4 Jordan Syatt: Interesting.
0:57:14.9 Mike Vacanti: Which is interesting. I know you were talking about doing a Coffee YouTube.
0:57:17.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I talk a lot about YouTube nowadays, and I just don’t do them. [laughter]
0:57:23.3 Mike Vacanti: I don’t even talk about them.
0:57:26.5 Jordan Syatt: Alright, I got a podcast in less than four minutes, so I gotta hop off, but this was good, this was good. We’ll be back, we’re not gonna promise how often, but…
0:57:35.4 Mike Vacanti: I would imagine three to five years of weekly episodes is very possible.
0:57:40.8 Jordan Syatt: [laughter] Realistic.
0:57:43.6 Mike Vacanti: It’s very possible.
0:57:45.1 Jordan Syatt: Alright. So we’ll see you back here next week.
0:57:47.8 Mike Vacanti: Everyone have a great day. Thank you for listening. Goodbye.
0:57:49.5 Jordan Syatt: Bye.
