Episode 73: Hydration, Mobility, and Will Smith Smacking Chris Rock

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: Just eating dates, little post-workout. Hit a little leg and ab day.

0:00:20.1 Jordan Syatt: Already?

0:00:21.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, man.

0:00:22.1 Jordan Syatt: Wow, 9:45 in the morning, already hit a leg and an ab day, going to jiu jitsu in about an hour. I mean, dear lord. What an absolute savage.

0:00:36.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Well, Saturday night for dinner, I had Domino’s and Cold Stone, so we’re just bouncing back from the weekend.

0:00:42.8 Jordan Syatt: Sounds like a flexible dieter to me.

[laughter]

0:00:48.0 Jordan Syatt: What did you get from Domino’s?

0:00:50.4 Mike Vacanti: Cheese pizza.

0:00:51.4 Jordan Syatt: Like a whole cheese pizza? Did you eat the whole thing?

0:00:54.1 Mike Vacanti: No, no, we split it. A medium pizza, some like cheesy bread, like bread, garlic parmesan bread with cheese on the inside.

0:01:03.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:01:05.1 Mike Vacanti: And then Like It from Cold Stone.

0:01:07.2 Jordan Syatt: Sounds great. Dude, I remember when I was a kid in high school, I don’t know, maybe I was in… I must have been in middle school ’cause… I was in middle school, ’cause I remember… [laughter] I remember, my brother ordered a pizza from Domino’s and I remember it was the first time ’cause no one was at home. My dad was at work, my mom was at work, and no one had ever done… My brother had never done that before, so I just thought like, I was like, “You’re not allowed to do that.” And I said, “You’re not allowed to… ” He’s like, “Why not?” I was like, “I don’t know.” And then I was like, “Why don’t we just eat what’s in the fridge?” And he was like, “Or I could just order a pizza.” And he must have been in high school at the time, he must have been like a sophomore or something, and so… And then he ordered a Domino’s Meat Lovers pizza. And I remember that was the first time I ever had it, and I was like, “This is the best thing ever.”

[laughter]

0:02:05.0 Jordan Syatt: Anytime I think of Domino’s, I just I was like, “This is the best food ever.” I was like, “I never wanna eat what’s in the house ever again. I swear I’ll order Domino’s every day.”

[laughter]

0:02:15.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s a great memory.

0:02:18.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So what else is going on, Michael? What do we got scheduled for today?

0:02:23.6 Mike Vacanti: Answering questions.

0:02:25.5 Jordan Syatt: Alright. I like that.

0:02:26.8 Mike Vacanti: We still need to send the email out, emails going out soon to the list, so anyone subscribed to the email list can ask questions to potentially be answered here on the podcast. What else? Mentorship price did go up, so for everyone who got in before that happened, amazing, but now the price is bumped.

0:02:50.2 Jordan Syatt: Congratulations and welcome.

0:02:53.4 Mike Vacanti: And yeah, man. That’s what we have scheduled here for today. This is a very serendipitous episode. I screwed up on the Eastern versus Central time scheduling. And then you, we’re gonna have jiu jitsu, we’re gonna have to move the podcast to the afternoon, but miraculously, here we are.

0:03:14.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, jiu jitsu got cancelled this morning. I’m probably gonna try and go to a class tonight, so we’ll see how that goes.

0:03:19.3 Mike Vacanti: Are you?

0:03:19.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, ’cause I have Pan American Championships coming up. I can’t miss a day at this point, so I’ll just go to a class tonight, I think.

0:03:29.0 Mike Vacanti: What is the night class like there?

0:03:32.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s actually great. It’s really good, it’s busy. There’s usually like between 20-40 people, which is like…

0:03:40.1 Mike Vacanti: Wow.

0:03:40.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s pretty packed, but he has a ton of mat space and there’s all belt levels, so there’s white belt all the way up to black belt. I’d say, so it’s usually about an hour and a half, the first… There’s obviously the warm-up, which is… Jiu jitsu warm-ups are always funny. I’ve been to a bunch of different jiu jitsu academies, and they have no idea what they’re doing for warm-up. They… None of… Which is like, that’s not their job, right? But it’s like do a cockamamie warm-up, and then…

[laughter]

0:04:14.3 Jordan Syatt: And then we drill, so we drill for the first like 30-45 minutes. He usually gives us like two moves to drill, which I like. It’s not overwhelming, you’re gonna drill this move, and then drill that move, and then from there, we just… We roll, which is like, we fight for the next like 45 minutes or so.

0:04:34.0 Mike Vacanti: And in a class are you rotating partners? Are you with the same partner for the entire class?

0:04:40.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s a really good question. We rotate, so when we’re rolling, it’s… Each round is about five minutes. So when you’re drilling, you’re with the same person. When you drill the movements, you’re with the same person the whole time. Once you start actually rolling and fighting, then you go with one person for one round. Once that round is over, you find a new partner, which is actually, it’s good from a competition perspective ’cause if you go with the same person every day, non-stop, you just get used to that one person’s game. Everyone has such a different game, so it’s good to go against different people. So you’re like, maybe someone’s a top player, someone’s a bottom player, someone’s has better conditioning, someone has better strength, so you go against all these different types of people and it prepares you a little bit better for competition.

0:05:24.7 Mike Vacanti: I would imagine it’s similar to playing against the same person in chess every single game for like a thousand games, compared to playing someone five times and getting 100 different people five times.

0:05:39.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s exactly right. That’s a good analogy. Good analogy, Michael. I like that one. The analogy king over here.

0:05:47.2 Mike Vacanti: So far from the analogy king.

0:05:49.4 Jordan Syatt: You’re the analogy king, alright? Let me see, you want me to open up my Q&A?

0:05:56.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, let’s open up the Q&A. Let’s see what’s in there.

0:05:58.9 Jordan Syatt: Alright. What is the best $30-$50 you’ve ever spent?

0:06:08.8 Mike Vacanti: My mind is only going recently ’cause I can’t think of anything historically. Do you have anything in mind?

0:06:17.3 Jordan Syatt: I was just thinking of Domino’s Meat Lovers pizzas, so I’m…

[laughter]

0:06:28.8 Mike Vacanti: That was definitely less than $30 at that time.

0:06:31.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah. It was like, I don’t know, maybe 12 bucks, but.

0:06:34.1 Mike Vacanti: I was shocked, actually, the cost of a pizza plus bread sticks plus delivery plus tip it was…

0:06:42.8 Jordan Syatt: What was it? It was like 30 bucks or something?

0:06:44.5 Mike Vacanti: No, less. 23… With a legitimate 30% tip it was like $24 maybe.

0:06:52.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh wow. That’s not bad.

0:06:54.4 Mike Vacanti: No. Not at all. I think when you order directly from a pizza place rather than…

0:07:00.6 Jordan Syatt: Seamless or something.

0:07:02.3 Mike Vacanti: DoorDash or Seamless, you’re getting these delivery fee… All these hidden fees they get you with.

0:07:06.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:07:08.2 Mike Vacanti: What is the best 30-50 I have ever spent? I’ll give one. And I’m just gonna call it, what’s the best $50 and under that I’ve ever spent. I remember for the first 25 years of my weightlifting career, I barbell deadlifted zero repetitions. No, no, no. That’s not sure. For the first 25 years of my life in which, however, half of that I was actually lifting, I did zero reps of barbell deadlift. When I was 26 years old was the first time that I ever started deadlifting. And I remember, my grip was by far the first thing that gave out. And so I went to… I don’t remember if it was the bodybuilding.com forums, it might have been the TwoPlusTwo poker forums in the health and fitness section in there. And someone was like, “Get chalk. Get weightlifting chalk or gymnastics chalk. Just go to your local sports store. It’ll cost $3. Get a block of chalk. Clean up after yourself. Don’t be a dick. But get chalk.” And I did that, and it just was a game changer for… I got to the point where I was actually sore in the right places because I could hold onto the bar. And I know now there’s liquid chalk and all this fancy new age Gen Z stuff that I can’t keep up with, but… chalk.

0:08:27.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude, chalk is great. That’s a good answer. You know what I would say? And there’s so many different aspects. So on one hand, obviously, thinking of the Domino’s Meat Lovers pizza. On another hand, thinking about I remember in high school and in college just spending, I think at that point, it was like $10, so I could take a bus from Boston to New York or from Delaware to Philadelphia or whatever. Just getting out of my environment and going somewhere else, visiting a friend, taking the day and just going. That was a huge mental and emotional relief, and it was fun to go somewhere for such a cheap amount. Like 10 bucks to take a bus somewhere was amazing. The other thing that I would say is… And obviously, it’s not 30-50, but under 50 is $10 a month for Alan Aragon’s Research Review. I think, realistically…

0:09:16.7 Mike Vacanti: Insane deal.

0:09:18.1 Jordan Syatt: In terms of total life impact on me and anyone who follows me, that just… That changed my life, in terms of being able to read research, being able to understand it, being able to learn the truth about all this stuff. I think the $10 a month for that has been incredible.

0:09:38.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. The value created not only in your life, but the ripple you’ve had on hundreds of thousands. The ROI on that $10 is just massive.

0:09:51.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:09:54.7 Mike Vacanti: Cool.

0:09:55.2 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know if you’re gonna wanna answer this one. I’m getting a lot of questions about my reaction to Will Smith smacking the shit out of Chris Rock, which… Have you seen that?

0:10:03.3 Mike Vacanti: So, yes. You know what’s somewhat unfortunate because you’re going to New York tomorrow? Usually, we’re filming these on Friday and they’re getting released on Monday, which is a pretty tight gap. By the time you’re listening to this, who knows how relevant this is, but let’s still talk about it. I’m… Yeah.

0:10:23.2 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:10:24.3 Mike Vacanti: Is it politically incorrect to talk about or something or did you give a real hot take?

0:10:26.9 Jordan Syatt: No, I didn’t… No, people were just asking me about it on my Q&A.

0:10:30.6 Mike Vacanti: Ah, you haven’t posted about it.

0:10:32.7 Jordan Syatt: I haven’t posted about it. People are like…

0:10:32.9 Mike Vacanti: ‘Cause it happened last night.

0:10:34.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And it was… Literally, as soon as it happened, it was all over social media. And I get it ’cause I saw the video, and dear lord, did he hit him hard. And he, Will Smith was pissed. Just like, oh my god. And then I watched his whole acceptance speech, ’cause he won an Oscar after that. And I wanted to watch his whole acceptance speech, so I could hear what he had to say about it. I don’t know if you watched that.

0:11:03.2 Mike Vacanti: I saw a chunk of that on TikTok and he was crying.

0:11:07.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. He was crying. It was…

0:11:09.5 Mike Vacanti: Did you see right when Chris Rock made the joke, Will Smith was laughing? And by the way, I have seen zero commentary on this, so this is pure like my gut when I saw the video of it get linked in a thread. When he made the joke, Will Smith was laughing, but…

0:11:27.1 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:11:28.1 Mike Vacanti: But Will’s wife…

0:11:30.2 Jordan Syatt: Rolled her eyes.

0:11:30.4 Mike Vacanti: Made a real stink face. She looked really upset.

0:11:33.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:11:34.1 Mike Vacanti: So my intuition, unless the camera was off, but it doesn’t seem like there would be a way to do that, he then took his eyes off of Chris Rock, looked at his wife, saw that his wife was super pissed, and then that whole theatrical, call it a performance, call it whatever happened.

0:11:51.5 Jordan Syatt: Dude, that’s exactly what I said to my wife last night ’cause I watched it a number of times.

0:11:55.3 Mike Vacanti: Really?

0:11:57.0 Jordan Syatt: It was like Will’s laughing at first. He was laughing, he was fine. And then they panned to his wife, she eye-rolls. And then, all of a sudden Will gets up and walks over. I was like, that’s interesting, the whole behavior aspect of that. And then I thought Chris… I think we should start with Chris. Chris handled it like just…

0:12:17.1 Mike Vacanti: An absolute champ. He just took it. Yeah.

0:12:18.8 Jordan Syatt: What a beast. He took a huge smack to the face. And I watched it in slow motion, and I zoomed in ’cause I was trying… Like, was this real? It was a real hit to the… And it was hard. And he didn’t even bring his hand… He was a gentleman about it. He was fine and he got right back on track. I was blown away.

0:12:43.0 Mike Vacanti: You could see that he almost made a joke. He started to… And he was like, I’m not gonna do that.

[laughter]

0:12:51.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, and then… So yeah, huge props to Chris Rock for that. I think people were asking, “What are my thoughts on it, da da da?” I think… Listen, I think Will Smith has probably been through a rough couple of years based on… I don’t keep up with celebrity nonsense. I know he has been on… He’s been featured in things before, between him and his wife having an open relationship and da da da da da but…

0:13:20.0 Mike Vacanti: Which was my understanding, from a very far distance is that, that was her decision.

0:13:23.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:13:23.1 Mike Vacanti: And it seemed like he was going along with it.

0:13:29.4 Jordan Syatt: I have no idea, to be honest with you.

0:13:31.5 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:13:31.8 Jordan Syatt: I’ll just take this event in isolation and say that the way he handled it was completely inappropriate. And the way I think about it is this, in any other situation, he could be arrested for that and he could still be. If Chris decided to press charges, he could absolute… And for any of you who thinks that’s ridiculous. No, he hit someone. That’s battery. That’s against the law. That is illegal and if Chris wanted to press charges or if the academy wanted to press charges, he could. You don’t go up to someone and just smack the shit out of them. I don’t care if it’s in public. I don’t care if it’s at… I don’t care if it’s in private. I don’t care it’s at the Academy Awards. I don’t care where it is, you don’t do that. You only do that if someone starts a physical altercation with you, so that was completely inappropriate.

0:14:28.0 Jordan Syatt: And I had this conversation with my wife as well, she was like… ‘Cause she said, she was like, “Well, I do like that he stood up for his wife.” And I was like, “There are many ways to stand up for his wife without hitting him or without walking up and doing that. He could have used his acceptance speech to talk about any of that.” ‘Cause the discussion around his wife is apparently she has alopecia. So she was losing her hair. And so Chris Rock made a joke about it and some people are mad that Chris Rock made a joke about it. Now for…

0:15:00.2 Mike Vacanti: Oh, got it. I didn’t understand that component of it.

0:15:04.2 Jordan Syatt: For me, I can see what people think, why people might be mad. But it’s like… It’s stand-up comedy. Chris is a stand-up comedian. And he is making a joke. It’s like if… The way I think about it is what if Chris had made a joke about someone else? Guaranteed Will Smith and Jada, they would have been laughing, it would have been fine. But once it’s at their expense, this is the issue that I have with people who get mad at stand-up comedians, they laugh at every joke until it hits a button with them, that’s my problem with it. It’s everything is fair game unless it hits a button with you. And once it hits that button, now all of a sudden it’s offensive and it’s not okay and I’m gonna go smack you in the face. So, for me, it’s like, I’m one of the people who think everything is fair game by stand-up comics, everything.

0:15:55.2 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:15:56.2 Jordan Syatt: Like everything, and I know many people disagree with that, that’s fine. But that’s what a standard comedian’s job is, I have no problem with it. And I’m also of the opinion that it’s like, guys get made fun of for losing their hair all the time, it’s constantly. So I know, obviously, women don’t lose their hair as often as men do, but I don’t see the issue with that. And I definitely don’t see the justification for going up and smacking you in the face for it. I just think if he was gonna handle it in a certain way, he could have used his acceptance speech as a time. Instead of apologizing for smacking him, he could have used his acceptance speech to talk about how difficult it’s been and how disappointed he is in Chris for making that type of a comment on a public stage. That would have been a way better way to handle it than to smack him in the face, in my opinion.

0:16:47.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I agree. Two things: One, what you just said is why I think Andrew Schulz is one of the best comedians right now. And I don’t know enough all-time great comedians’ material well enough to know who does go after everyone and who doesn’t. But I know that Schulz goes after everyone. There’s no race. There’s no religion. There’s no anything that’s protected, that he won’t go after because it’s like making fun of everyone. And the people who go to his shows enjoy it. They sit in the front row. They like getting that attention and that…

0:17:27.3 Jordan Syatt: They get picked on, yeah.

0:17:27.9 Mike Vacanti: They think it’s funny being made fun of, yeah. And two, what’s interesting when you talk about people who laugh and laugh and laugh until it’s about them, and then they get real serious. I remember when you… ‘Cause for those who don’t know, Jordan is one of the best at accents of anyone I know, the best impersonators. And when you’re doing different Australian accent, British accent, South African accent, Indian accent, there are like… There are people who laugh along at all of the accents, but then when you do a certain accent, “Oh, that one’s not okay. That one is inappropriate that… You crossed the line.” It’s just weird that you can do some accents, but then some accents are, “Oh that is not okay.”

0:18:16.0 Jordan Syatt: You know what the funny part about that is? So the one accent that always gets people the most upset is the Indian accent. That’s the one that people get really mad about. Now, whenever I do accents on social media, oftentimes I’ll ask them like, “Ask me to do an accent and I’ll do it.” Now, it’s usually the people from that country that ask me to do that accent. So Australians will ask me, “Hey, do an Australian accent.” Indian people will say, “Hey, do an Indian accent.” Irish people say, “Hey, do an Irish accent.” So, I do all of them. People are loving it. And then some… Many people from India will say, “Hey, do an Indian accident.” I’ll do it. And then it’s white people who are mad that I did the Indian accent. They’re like, “Well, that’s racist.” I’m like, “Hold on, hold on. What the fuck are you talking about? I did all of these accents. I did British, I did Irish, I did Scottish, I did Southern accent, I did Australian, I did all of these things. And now all of a sudden, you’ve arbitrarily decided that this one is racist, when Indian people specifically asked me to do this and now you’re mad on their behalf. Shut the fuck up, get out of here.” It’s so mind boggling to me, how that works.

0:19:21.7 Jordan Syatt: So I’m just, I love stand-up comedy, I’m a huge fan of it. And nothing infuriates me more than people who think stand-up comedy is funny until they go after them. And it’s like, oh, shut the fuck up, come on.

0:19:34.0 Mike Vacanti: Or if not going after them, going after a joke that allows them to virtue signal their goodness by telling you and finger wagging at you that you can’t make that joke about these people.

0:19:46.0 Jordan Syatt: Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah, so I think the way Will Smith handled it was inappropriate. I think, honestly, the part where how we saw him laughing at the joke and then him reacting after his wife reacted, is that sort of creating a divide in me being like, you actually thought it was funny at first, and then you had to put up a… And I love Will Smith, I think he’s great, but…

0:20:16.9 Mike Vacanti: Which means the anger is manufactured.

0:20:19.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:20:22.8 Mike Vacanti: Right? ‘Cause you saw when he was screaming at him like, “Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth.”

0:20:25.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and I think people might be surprised. I am not a fan of, I don’t like violence, which is… I think people might be surprised because I love combat sports and I try to prepare myself as much as I can and all that, but I think one of the best things about learning how to protect yourself is staying away from violence in every possible situation, like it’s the last resort, it’s the last resort. And one of the things that he was talking about in his acceptance speech that stuck out to me was he was talking about how he’s all about love and he wants to spread love. And like, bro, you just stood up and smacked the shit out of somebody else. It’s like that was completely and utterly inappropriate in every way, shape and form. So yeah, I’m not a fan of violence, especially when you don’t need it.

0:21:18.2 Mike Vacanti: Being capable of violence doesn’t make someone a fan of violence. And I think we can end this segment with one of both of our favorite quotes, which comes from a YouTube commenter because we don’t actually know where it comes from, but, “You would rather be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.”

0:21:37.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. A 100%. That’s exactly right. Alright, more questions?

0:21:43.3 Mike Vacanti: More questions.

0:21:47.6 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know, I don’t know which ones you’re gonna like, so I’ll just throw out a bunch.

0:21:50.8 Mike Vacanti: You pick what you think is interesting.

0:21:55.8 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Oh, I know one… This is one you like. [chuckle]

0:21:58.1 Mike Vacanti: You can’t even just pick what you like, you’re so like… Like, “pick the one you like,” you kind of furrow your brow and you’re like, “okay,” and then you see one and you’re like, “Oh, Mike will like this one.”

0:22:10.7 Jordan Syatt: Bro, it’s so funny. I was talking about this with my mom because I always think about what other people are going through, and so my mom was talking…

0:22:21.1 Mike Vacanti: Did you ask her if it’s always been like that?

0:22:22.0 Jordan Syatt: No, no, my mom desperately wants to be here for when my child is born, but at the birth. And all I’m thinking is number one…

0:22:34.8 Mike Vacanti: Like in the room?

0:22:36.3 Jordan Syatt: No, I don’t know about in the room, but here in Dallas and probably at the hospital. And here’s what I’m thinking, I’m thinking number one, I don’t know when the birth is actually gonna be. You don’t know when it’s gonna start. Number two is I’m thinking it’s… She doesn’t know Dallas. She doesn’t know the area. She’s like very high stress, high anxiety, so now, while my wife is going into labor, I’m gonna have to be thinking about “how do I get my mom to the hospital?” “Is she okay?” “Is she having a breakdown?” Dah, dah, dah. So I was like, “Mom, I don’t know if you can be here during that, ’cause all I’m gonna be thinking about is ‘are you okay’ while my wife is giving birth.” And she’s like, “No, you don’t have to worry about that.” I was like, “Mom, that’s like me telling you, you don’t have to get anxious. It’s all I’m gonna be thinking about.” So yeah.

0:23:26.5 Mike Vacanti: And how did that conversation go?

0:23:28.5 Jordan Syatt: It went about as well as you would expect it to go with my Jewish mother. [laughter]

0:23:40.4 Mike Vacanti: Okay, okay.

0:23:42.5 Jordan Syatt: And we can keep all of this in the podcast. I’m fine with all of that. Okay, so this question, I think you’re gonna like, “Stretches or movements recommended to compensate sitting still for long hours?”

0:23:53.4 Mike Vacanti: This is literally how I found Jordan. Whatever that article was, about the… And this is one of my favorites. And so now what I do is I recommend just high-frequency movement, don’t sit in the same position for six straight hours, there are many, many downsides to this, but tightness is one of them. Can you actually read the question again?

0:24:25.0 Jordan Syatt: Yes, they wrote, “Stretches or movements recommended to compensate sitting still for long hours?”

0:24:30.2 Mike Vacanti: Number one, don’t sit still for long hours, and there are situations like, well, what if you’re on an airplane, what if you have a lot of computer work to do, what if you have… That’s fine. Pomodoro that. 25 on, 5 off and during your five, get up and walk around. And don’t lay and scroll on your phone during the five minutes, but get up and move. I like working from a position that promotes not being in unfavorable positions, let’s call it. So instead of sitting at your desk, having a standing desk that you can stand and work from. Rather than sitting at your desk, either kneeling at your desk, kneeling both knees on the ground, and then alternating from the kneeling position to a single-leg knee, and then to the other single-leg knee, so you’re essentially doing a single hip flexor stretch from the ground while you have your forearms on the table, your hands on the keys, your eyes on the screen. Like you’re working, but you’re changing the position and stretching while you’re working…

0:25:36.8 Mike Vacanti: There’s only so much you can do, right? Is there a 10-minute morning stretch routine that’s gonna offset the 10 hours of sitting you’re doing during the day? No, you’re not gonna offset it completely, it can be beneficial, but actually having high frequency movement and not staying in the same position all day every day is what’s most beneficial.

0:25:58.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I agree.

0:26:00.6 Mike Vacanti: And you are right. I do like that question, so well done. [laughter]

0:26:04.0 Jordan Syatt: I think I’ve got another question you’re gonna like as well. But if we’re looking at where people are most affected in their body by sitting down for long hours, I think we could look at their hip flexors as a major issue and also their thoracic spine, and I would probably argue that thoracic spine is the biggest one. If you’re sitting down at a desk for long hours every day, you’re just getting hunched forward like Quasimodo, and it can… What I’ve seen, especially with the older population, as someone who’s maybe who’s been sitting down for 20, 30, 40 years for so long, I think a hunched over thoracic spine is one of the most painful difficult things to overcome. Hip flexors are obviously difficult as well, but you can overcome that, I think, relatively, with relative ease compared to a thoracic spine. If you get locked in to just that kyphotic posture of super rounded over… It’s so painful. It hurts your neck. It hurts your shoulders. It’s really, really bad.

0:27:09.0 Jordan Syatt: So, for me, I think the idea of getting up and walking around five, 10 minutes every hour is a great recommendation, I just know most people don’t fucking do it. So do it, get up, but if there’s one stretch that I would recommend it’s the thoracic extension rotation. Right? So every hour, do 10 thoracic extension rotations on each side. That is just for me, I always feel better from doing it, it’s not going to “offset”… People always use that word, how do you offset sitting down for hours? It’s not gonna offset it, but it will help maintain that mobility, and that’s the biggest part, ’cause once you lose it, it’s so much harder to get it back. So if I was working with a client, and mostly coaches are listening this podcast, if you’re working with a client, have them do this stretch. Make sure you’re doing it with them, make sure maybe they video it and send it to you, so you know they’re doing it properly and make sure throughout the work day they’re doing this because it’s one of the most important ways to help maintain their mobility and improve their mobility and their thoracic spine.

0:28:14.9 Mike Vacanti: And do you wanna describe the movement?

0:28:17.7 Jordan Syatt: No, not really. I think people could just Google it. Describing a movement on a podcast, people are gonna be like, “What the fuck?”

0:28:23.1 Mike Vacanti: I mean, but I didn’t even catch it. You said upper back extension rotation, do you just mean any movements that get extension and rotation of the T-spine?

0:28:32.3 Jordan Syatt: No, no. So there’s… I’m gonna Google it right now just to make sure it comes up. So if you Google search thoracic, T-H-O-R-A-C-I-C extension rotation. I Googled it and… Yeah, perfect. There’s a YouTube video that comes right up, there’s a bunch of YouTube videos. So basically when you’re doing the thoracic extension rotation… Oh, actually, one of my YouTube videos comes up, if you scroll down a little bit so that’s cool.

0:28:54.5 Mike Vacanti: Ah, Jordan trying to bake in that SEO, he’s always thinking.

0:29:00.9 Jordan Syatt: This YouTube video was from April 3rd, 2014. There’s only 3.7 thousand views on it, so I bet if you search ‘thoracic extension rotation Syatt’. Let me do that. Boom, comes right up. ‘Thoracic extension rotation Syatt’. Google says, “Did you mean thoracic extension rotation start?” They always think that when you type my name and they think you’re trying to say start, but if you Google search that, my exercise will come right up. And it’s not mine, I learned it from Eric Cressey. It’s just, it’s a super good exercise. So, do that.

0:29:29.3 Mike Vacanti: I love it. One thought that I have is… So yes, this is good—comma—and having proper position, sitting with proper posture and being intentional with your posture so that you’re not rolling everything forward, and that can be… I mean, it’s not easy, but that can be, one, just awareness and intention to your position and your posture and two, your set-up. If you’re positioned at a desk that’s too low with a screen that is like down… So you have to look down, so you have to lean forward for the keys, that’s gonna be disadvantageous for you. So not only can you do this exercise, but also be aware and have your set up as ergonomical as possible.

0:30:24.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I love that. Alright, next question. I think you’re gonna like this one. “Hydration throughout the day for you… ” Okay, that’s a weird way to phrase it. Hydration throughout the day. Do you just drink plain water, what’s in your daily sip?

0:30:40.7 Mike Vacanti: What’s in your daily sip? Yeah, I’m water and lots of water.

0:30:46.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You’re a big water guy. Mike is a huge hydration nut.

0:30:52.0 Mike Vacanti: Here’s what I am, I am a big, “Do things that make me feel good in six and a half hours, not things that make me feel good in 44 seconds.” The peanut M&Ms on my tongue, that’s awesome. But is that gonna lead to optimal energy and feeling six hours from now? No, it’s not. And tightening that gap of what I want the things that I’m doing to bring me the greatest amount of good. I’ve heard people say, “I don’t like water.” I’ve heard people say, “I’m not thirsty.” I’ve heard people say all kinds of things when it comes to drinking water, and it’s like… The video I made, I don’t know, five, six years ago, about eating cardboard, like, “You don’t like micronutrients, I don’t care.” You’re an adult, find a way to get some fruits and vegetables into your diet. Like you’re 40, it’s not about liking it. Sure, try and find something you like more, but get it done.

0:31:49.6 Mike Vacanti: I said I would eat cardboard every single day if I knew it was good for my health and I knew it would promote longevity and make me live longer and have me have a better quality of life. I don’t care that the sensation on my tongue isn’t my favorite thing in the world.

0:32:03.4 Jordan Syatt: For whatever it’s worth, for anyone who hasn’t seen this video, it’s one of my all-time favorite videos of Mike because he’s in a hotel room and he’s getting really pissed off that adults aren’t eating vegetables. And he literally… He’s like, “You know what, I’ll eat cardboard,” and he takes off a piece of cardboard that’s in front of them and literally puts the cardboard in his mouth and swallows the piece of cardboard. He’s like, “I didn’t like that, but I did it. It’s like, you can do it. You can eat vegetables.” [chuckle] It’s one of my favorite YouTube videos of all time, literally just starts eating cardboard. [laughter] It was so good.

0:32:42.5 Mike Vacanti: I think I stand by all of that. And there are liquids that hydrate you in addition to water that you can work into your day as well, that you might enjoy more.

0:32:54.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. So here’s the thing with me, Mike, you know this. I don’t think they know this, but for me, I always struggle to drink a lot ’cause it fills up my stomach so much and it’s super uncomfortable for me. Yeah, what? Mike’s making a face, I can’t wait to have these on video.

0:33:14.0 Mike Vacanti: And you know why?

0:33:16.0 Jordan Syatt: I forget. Why?

0:33:17.4 Mike Vacanti: Well, you don’t sip. You, Jordan doesn’t take sips, if you have something you just drink at all.

0:33:23.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, I chug it.

0:33:24.2 Mike Vacanti: So that’s why you feel full after because anyone who slams 16 ounces…

0:33:29.3 Jordan Syatt: But generally speaking, it’s for example, it’s funny, people always laugh when I drink alcohol because I could have one drink for the whole night. And you actually know it, with coffee, I would do the same thing. I would just take a couple of sips and all of a sudden I don’t feel like I don’t need it anymore ’cause my stomach is full and drinking more makes it uncomfortable. So for a long time, drinking water was super difficult. So there’s actually a bunch that… I actually sort of went through a progression with this, that now I think I’m really good with drinking water. I stay hydrated super well, partially because staying hydrated is super important for blood pressure. And for me, that was the one thing that I was like, “Oh shit, okay.” That was the thing that pushed me over the edge to make it really, really happen. But I’ll start actually I think going back to my childhood. We always had diet soda in the house, like always.

0:34:25.8 Jordan Syatt: And so, so much of what we drank as kids was these hyper-sweetened diet sodas, which it’s fine to have in moderation, but what we were having when in my house as a kid was not in moderation. That was the majority of what we drank. So I just got so used to drinking super sweet drinks. And then going to water, I was like, “Ugh, what is this? This doesn’t taste good at all.” Compared to whatever the diet soda that I could have. Or even flavored waters, which is one thing that I’m gonna be super aware of with my own kid. Making sure that they’re not thinking that super sweetened, hyper-sweetened drinks or foods are the norm. That’s a treat that they can have on occasion, that’s not the norm, because I think when you make that your day-to-day, that’s what you have every day, it makes it way harder to go back to something a little bit more bland.

0:35:22.2 Jordan Syatt: So that’s what I had growing up. And then I just sort of relied on sweetened drinks, whether a sweetened water or whatever it is, or diet drinks. And even though it does hydrate you, I don’t wanna rely on that. So finally I was like, “Screw it. I can’t be doing this anymore.” I don’t want to only be able to hydrate myself if it’s with a diet soda or a sweetened drink. So then I basically just gave those up cold turkey and I still have them on occasion, but super rare at this point. Now, I went from that to more seltzer water, whether it’s a Topo Chico or Bubly, or whatever it is, ’cause that was actually a good transition for me.

0:36:00.8 Jordan Syatt: And then I realized that for me for water, if it’s really, really cold, I really enjoy it. So I always have a big water bottle filled with a lot of ice and water, and I just drink that all day. And that’s been the big thing for me. If it’s room temperature or warm, I don’t like it, I don’t wanna have that. But if it’s super cold, I’ll drink that all day, no problem. So that’s what I have all the time now, so that’s been helpful.

0:36:27.5 Mike Vacanti: That’s great. That’s a great progression. I agree. I like ice water more than room temp water, it’s more enjoyable. So I now have this 48 ounce blender bottle and I’ll fill the whole thing with ice and then fill it with water, with what’s left and sip on that. And when it gets low refill it, put more ice in there.

0:36:46.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:36:48.0 Mike Vacanti: There’s also… I think I’m lucky in that I notice things. I’m acutely aware of how I feel and I’m also paying attention to what I eat and what I do, and how much I sleep and my sleep quality, and how those things impact how I feel. And I know that physically and mentally being in a less hydrated versus more hydrated state produces different outcomes, produces if I have no water in the first two hours when I wake up and then I go train and all else equal compared to if I have gotten 36, 40 ounces of water in me in that two-hour window, and then I train, there is a difference in training quality in how I feel and how my muscles feel in the whole workout. If I don’t drink water for the first nine hours of the day and then I’m trying to work, do computer work, design client programs at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, I’m much sleepier, I have much more of a lull. I have a harder time focusing compared to if I’ve already gotten 90 ounces of water in me by that time in the day.

0:37:57.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s so interesting. That makes me think of an exercise coaches could do with their clients, ’cause coaches are always battling with their clients to make sure they’re hydrated and make sure they’re hydrated, right? But it’s one thing to say, “Hey, just make sure you’re drinking water.” It’s another thing for them to say, “I want you to notice how you’re feeling and maybe give yourself a score of how you’re feeling. And notice that relative to, “Hey, have I drank water recently?” Right? So, it’s rather just saying, “Hey, make sure you’re drinking more water.” Which is like, “Yeah, make sure you eating fruits and vegetables, make sure you’re exercising, make sure you’re getting enough sleep.” I want you to rank how you feel.

0:38:33.2 Jordan Syatt: And there are other things, for example, like sleep, that’s a hard thing to control for many people. Whether you have young kids, whether you’re super stressed out, whatever it is. There are many things that could affect your sleep that might be slightly outside of your control. Water is in your control. Thank God, what a blessing that we have fresh water available to us all the time now. But it’s like if you’re ranking how you feel based on your hydration status and you’re like, “Man, I really don’t feel good. Oh shit, I haven’t drank water.” That could be something to get people to be like, “Oh, I know I feel better when I drink, even if I don’t want to. So I’m gonna start making it more of a habit.” That could be a good exercise for coaches to do that.

0:39:09.5 Mike Vacanti: Really smart. I love that. For people who get full from consuming liquids and uncomfortable in their stomach, if you’re drinking carbonated liquid switch to uncarbonated. Even though some people get in the habit of carbonation during fat loss phases because it does make them feel more full and that’s a benefit when they’re restricting their calories. But for a lot of people, carbonation does make you feel more full. So, if the goal is to be more hydrated and you often feel too full, switching to an uncarbonated beverage might be beneficial.

0:39:45.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. That’s a good point. And I also should clarify, I know I sort of went off being like, “I don’t want sweetened drinks.” I’m okay with sweetened drinks. I just, for me, I didn’t like how I was feeling dependent on them in order to stay hydrated. I was like, “This isn’t normal. This isn’t… I don’t want to depend on sweetened beverages in order to stay hydrated.” I don’t want to have a bottle of water and think, “Ugh.” It doesn’t taste like anything, there’s no taste to it. There’s no reason for me to be like, “Ugh”. So I literally, I was like, “Alright, I’m gonna stop drinking these for a period of time.” And I gave up diet soda for three months. I didn’t have any. And then now I drink water and it’s very refreshing. And now I have diet soda a couple of times a week, but the vast majority is just regular water, so.

0:40:29.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It wasn’t a slight against… You weren’t knocking artificial sweeteners.

0:40:35.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. No. I’m not knocking them, but I’m also not saying, “Have as much of them as you want.” It’s like there’s gotta be moderation. I don’t know if I’ve told you this story. I might have, but I spoke about… This is just a funny story. I spoke about how my family was not health-conscious growing up at all. I was the only one who did any sports or athletics or exercise. My entire family, not just immediate but extended family, very overweight. No one was into sports or health or fitness at all. And that’s not a knock against them, it’s just not what they were into. And they had other many other strengths and incredible qualities, but health and fitness was not one of them. So we always had diet soda in the house, always. And I’ll never forget this story.

0:41:23.8 Jordan Syatt: So, when my brother went on his first trip to Israel, he brought a CamelBak with him, which is that it can hold a lot of water in it. So if you’re going on long hikes, especially in a lot of heat, you can carry this easy, massive water bottle on your back. And it has this sort of straw that loops around and you just put in your mouth, and you can continually sip on it as you’re going through a long hike. Have you seen those Mike, the CamelBaks?

0:41:50.8 Mike Vacanti: Yes. Yep.

0:41:53.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Not all of Israel is desert, but they went to the southern part of Israel, which is desert. And they were hiking up this mountain called Mount Masada in this, it must have been 100 degrees, super hot. And my brother has his CamelBak on, he keeps drinking from it. And his guide or his chaperone didn’t have any water. And they’re like, “Hey, could I have a sip?” And my brother was like, “Yeah, sure.” And the guy takes a sip and it’s warm Diet Coke. My brother filled an entire CamelBak with Diet Coke on a hike in the middle of the desert, which is like… It just makes me laugh thinking about. He must have went out of his way to… He was a teenager, he was 16 years old. He must have went out of his way to go find enough Diet Coke to fill this fucking thing up before… And then he’s just sipping on warm Diet Coke on this hike. I was like, “Oh God,” it’s just a hilarious story to me. But yeah, so that’s just what we were brought up with.

0:43:08.5 Mike Vacanti: Very funny, yeah.

0:43:11.0 Jordan Syatt: Do you have time for another one or you gotta go to jiu jitsu?

0:43:13.5 Mike Vacanti: Let’s do one more.

0:43:14.8 Jordan Syatt: Alright, one more. Let’s see… Someone asked, “I’m going on a two-month trip, do you have any advice for keeping up exercise routines?” And I’m gonna start with this one because Mike and I have both traveled insane amounts with Gary. We had never went on a two-month trip with Gary. We were just always traveling, going to different places, but I’ve been on trips for several months at a time and several weeks at a time. And I’ll actually, I’ll give a different example, and then I’ll go into this. I used to not buy WiFi on airplanes for the 10, 15, 20 bucks just because I was like, “I’m not gonna spend money on that.” Until I finally realized, I was like, “Even if I just make an amazing Instagram post and it helps people, that 10, 15, 20 bucks was worth it.” Right? And then ever since then, I’ve always bought WiFi on airplanes just because I can do a tremendous amount of work and help people. Even when I had a very small Instagram audience, it made sense, that money was worth it. So, going to this example of you traveling for two months. I don’t care if it’s three days a week, two weeks, a month, two months, get a gym membership when you go. It’s worth it.

0:44:28.5 Jordan Syatt: And this goes back to the first question we had for best $30 to $50 you ever spent. I mean, I get gym memberships all the time wherever I go. Or I’ll pay guest fees, like the daily guest pass, whatever it is. Oftentimes the first week where you go somewhere, they have a free week where you’re like, “Hey, I’m just moving, I’m just here, could I get a free-week pass?” Yeah, you get a full week there, and then you can start paying like the whatever you want. Get a gym membership for two months. Or if you’re traveling all over, go pay guest fees. It will do so much for your mental health, your physical health. You can obviously do body weight and stuff in your apartment, but that sucks, just to be honest, like body weight workouts fucking suck, especially when you already have so much knowledge about weights and equipment. If you like body weight stuff, great. If you’re a calisthenics king or queen, cool, go for it. But for me, I fucking hate it. I would way rather go to the gym and lift weights and kettle bells and have machines and all that, so get a membership.

0:45:23.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You are absolutely preaching. And then you might have this like… These dissenting opinions, these like… I don’t even know how to describe them, but basically, you only live once, you’re on a trip, you should experience as much of that trip as you can and don’t worry about working out or don’t waste your time working out, or you don’t wanna spend your time in the gym, instead of being on your trip. It’s like, “Okay, we’re here for two months. You are awake for 16 hours a day, we’ll call it. You’re not gonna pack 16 hours a day with site seeing and exploring the culture and eating the food and meeting the people.” And you just can’t do that for 16 hours every single day. So get a gym membership. Even if it’s a little more expensive than you would like, okay, it’ll be worth it. Even if you do have to pay day fees or whatever, it comes out more expensive per workout than your gym at home, that’s fine, that… Call it an hour a day. Call it 45 minutes a day, call it an hour four days a week, whatever. Staying on your routine is going to make the rest of your day, and thereby, the rest of the trip, more enjoyable and better for you.

0:46:43.1 Mike Vacanti: And it’s gonna make things way smoother when you get back home by maintaining that, your routine when it comes to exercise while on your trip rather than completely falling off and then coming back and having to restart. The upside outweighs the downside tremendously. This is a… I even think about this when I’ve had clients who will go on a long weekend to visit family who they don’t get to see that much, like I call it like a Thursday to Monday over a Memorial Day weekend. Something along those lines. And they’ll get guilt about going and doing a workout over that time. They’re like, “Oh, you’re only here to visit me once every… And you’re going to the gym.” It’s like, “Look Dad… ” And by the way, my parents, thankfully, this isn’t me, but, “Look dad, we’re sitting on our phones anyway, we’re eating breakfast, we’re doing whatever, you’re not gonna miss me when I’m gone for one hour. I’ll see you when I’m back and then we’re gonna have another 15 hours to hang out. It’s gonna be okay.” And then just standing strong by that because you know how much the benefits outweigh the costs.

0:47:52.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s exactly right. I love that, that you’re not going on… For this two-month trip or whatever it is, people always say… If you brought it up, people are like, “Enjoy it, have fun. Don’t worry about working out.” It’s like for two months, what the fuck? What are you talking about? For two, I couldn’t find several hours a week in these two months to go… Get out of here, what is this nonsense?

0:48:13.5 Mike Vacanti: Not to mention, “Oh, you want me to enjoy it maximally. Okay, do you know what my body and mind feel like after six weeks of no exercise? If you want me to enjoy the trip, I’m gonna keep the routine that I have because it keeps me healthy, it keeps me functioning physically and mentally at my peak. This is what’s gonna make the trip go as well as possible.”

0:48:32.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. My sleep is better. I have better energy. Like, yeah, if you just wanna sit around and do nothing great, but like fine, you nap and I’ll go to the gym, ’cause that’s what happens on these trips, it’s like, “Oh well, enjoy yourself,” “Cool.” So you’re just gonna take a nap or you’re gonna sit on the beach for an extra several hours, that’s not exploring, that’s not in learning the culture, that’s not like… Absolutely. Don’t miss out on that. I’m a huge fan of going around, learning the language, meeting new people, but you’re not doing that 24 hours a day at all.

0:49:03.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:49:05.0 Jordan Syatt: Alright, you gotta go to jiu jitsu, brother, you gotta roll.

0:49:07.0 Mike Vacanti: Great episode.

0:49:08.1 Jordan Syatt: That was a good one.

0:49:09.1 Mike Vacanti: Thank you for listening, everyone. Weekly uploads coming strong. Thank you for listening. Have a great day, have a great week. Get after it and we will see you very soon.

0:49:18.8 Jordan Syatt: Have a good one.