Episode 85: Workout Program Design, Heart Health, Odd Strength Exercises That Work, and More

0:00:11.8 Mike Vacanti: Hello Jordan.

0:00:12.9 Jordan Syatt: What’s going on, Michael?

0:00:14.7 Mike Vacanti: Not much, man. Just drinking a Pepsi Zero Sugar for… I’ve never had one of these before.

0:00:21.2 Jordan Syatt: This is your first time having a Pepsi Zero?

0:00:23.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:00:25.0 Jordan Syatt: What do you like better, Pepsi Zero or Diet Coke or Coke Zero?

0:00:30.0 Mike Vacanti: I like Coke Zero and Diet Coke better than this. I actually like Diet Pepsi better than this, this isn’t my favorite, but it’s getting the job done for a little afternoon caffeination.

0:00:40.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, I’m not a Pepsi guy. Pepsi’s like it almost tastes too sweet. It’s too sweet, too… Yeah, not a fan.

0:00:49.6 Mike Vacanti: Have you seen those blind taste tests?

0:00:52.3 Jordan Syatt: I’ve seen some blind taste tests, not with Coke or Pepsi though.

0:00:56.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, they’ll line up basically all six sodas and then have it under cardboard with straws coming out so you can’t see, and then they try and guess. Most people don’t do extremely well.

0:01:08.7 Jordan Syatt: Well, I don’t like it with a straw, straws actually change the flavor. And especially the fucking paper straws, I can’t stand those damn paper straws, but I don’t like drinking with a straw.

0:01:18.2 Mike Vacanti: Jordan hates the environment. He basically… He’s a climate change denier.

0:01:22.0 Jordan Syatt: They serve you…

0:01:25.0 Mike Vacanti: Just kidding. Just kidding.

0:01:26.0 Jordan Syatt: They serve you whatever drink you’re having in a plastic cup, a huge plastic cup with a paper straw… Like, Come on, get out of here. Yeah, but no, obviously not a climate change denier, ya fuckin’…

0:01:39.8 Mike Vacanti: After flying their private jets around…

0:01:42.5 Jordan Syatt: Very incendiary.

0:01:43.5 Mike Vacanti: To create those paper straws.

0:01:49.9 Jordan Syatt: I did see a taste test once, I saw this years ago, I loved it. It was a taste test where they took bananas. They took an organic banana and a non-organic banana. And they had people come up and they tasted them and they were like, “Alright, do you think you’re gonna be able to tell the difference between this organic and non-organic?” And all the people were like, “Oh yeah, I only eat organic. I’m gonna be able to tell.” The vast majority picked the non-organic one as the better tasting one, and they were all shocked to hear that it was not organic. It was so funny, I thought that was a really good one.

0:02:25.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s really funny. I have had organic and non-organic bananas, and I don’t think I could tell the difference.

0:02:32.5 Jordan Syatt: There’s no way, there’s absolutely no way.

0:02:34.6 Mike Vacanti: Perhaps in size, but banana sizes vary. I know you’re thinking of some kind of witty joke right now. I can just see it.

0:02:42.6 Jordan Syatt: I was… You saw the cog was turning.

[laughter]

0:02:42.7 Mike Vacanti: You’re like, banana, size. Where can I take this? A real, real, real quick announcement. We are still running the mentorship sale. It is 20% off with the discount code, popupscales, all one word, P-O-P-U-P, scales, S-C-A-L-E-S. And yeah, this is the cheapest the fitness business mentorship is ever going to be, the lowest price. It’s $300 off for about another week. So if you’re listening to this and you have been interested in getting in, jumping in, joining the fitness business mentorship, now is the time. Just a real quick friendly reminder that that sale is still happening.

0:03:27.9 Jordan Syatt: Is this the last week or we gonna push another week?

0:03:29.8 Mike Vacanti: We’ll probably push another week, and you know what, let’s… This is a primarily often business podcast. One of the reasons I think it makes sense to push it another week is because I think next week’s episode will get more downloads than this weeks.

0:03:44.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah, yeah.

0:03:44.5 Mike Vacanti: ‘Cause next week is gonna be part two of the top 10 grow your business, number six through 10. In this episode, we’re gonna do some Q and A, and we’re also gonna do something that I’m just interested in talking about, but Jordan doesn’t even know what’s happening.

0:04:00.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’m just gonna P it up, I have no idea what you’re gonna talk about, but I’m excited for it.

0:04:03.7 Mike Vacanti: What’s actually… Let’s make that transition here right now. I am curious, and I think many other people are curious and maybe not, but I’m curious to hear about your…

0:04:16.5 Jordan Syatt: I’m curious, and other people… A lot of people are curious about this. Maybe they aren’t but I am…

[laughter]

0:04:22.9 Mike Vacanti: Well, here’s the thing. From a philosophical perspective, in content creation over the last decade, you are much more other-focused, educational and of the belief that why does anyone care what I’m doing? Whereas I have… I feel like posted a much higher percentage of what I’ve put out. I have incorporated my fitness goals, my things that I’m doing within my content. And so I don’t know if you think that other people are that interested in what you’re doing, but I’m interested in what you’re doing, and I actually think they’re interested in what you’re doing too. And so I thought we could kick around, talk about our current goals right now, especially with some of the changes you’ve made in the last one to two years with increased cardio, increased fiber, dropping protein a little bit, shifts and goals. And I’ll throw in the other thing that was top of mind for me was anything that we wanna say or talk about related to increased emphasis on health and longevity and increased quality of life later on.

0:05:31.0 Mike Vacanti: Disease prevention, reduction or reducing the risk of early death through various nutrition and training interventions for ourselves.

0:05:41.0 Jordan Syatt: Love that. You wanna start with your goals?

0:05:43.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, we can start with mine because it’ll be quicker and very bro-ey. I’m lean bulking, and I am on day two. Today is day two of a 10-day mini-cut because…

0:05:57.0 Jordan Syatt: I didn’t know that.

0:06:00.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, well, I haven’t been lean bulking, I’ve been just bulk bulking. And when you’re bulk bulking, sometimes you just wake up one day and you’re four months into a lean bulk and you realize it wasn’t really a lean bulk. You’re like, my arms look good, I’m filling out shirts but I’m kinda looking relatively fat to what I’m used to. And just a short little three, four pounds of body fat in a 10 to 14-day window, somewhat aggressive then pick back up. It’s actually interesting. And I’ve said this to a lot of primarily male clients who were lean bulking, a couple of whom, Aaron, Daniel, guys listening right now, who…

0:06:41.8 Mike Vacanti: I distinctly remember saying, “It’s a worse mistake to over-eat in a surplus than it is in a deficit.” And I really believe that because if you’re targeting a 10% calorie surplus. And for a month or two months, you’re actually averaging a 25% surplus, you’re adding so much more body fat than is optimal. And you’re going to have to end that lean bulk earlier, unless of course you are fine with just gaining maximum fat and as much muscle as you want. But if you care about staying relatively lean during the process, being more dialed-in on a lean bulk makes… Is even more important than when you’re trying to lose fat, having a bad day or a higher calorie day here or there.

0:07:30.2 Jordan Syatt: I hadn’t even thought about it in that context, but it makes total sense. Yeah, consistently over-eating in a surplus is way worse than consistently overeating in a deficit. No question about it.

0:07:42.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And I’ve… You know What I bought recently, which is so dumb? I bought all these different flavors of high-quality chocolate chips. Like white chocolate chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips that like…

0:07:55.2 Jordan Syatt: Why?

0:07:55.9 Mike Vacanti: Ghirardelli. We had them in the cabinet.

0:07:58.7 Jordan Syatt: What would cause you to buy those? [chuckle]

0:08:01.6 Mike Vacanti: We had them in the cabinet, because my wife was doing some baking, and I just got into them. They were just regular milk chocolate chocolate chips one night. And I was eating them straight, I was like, “Man, these are super-delicious.”

0:08:11.9 Jordan Syatt: You love sweet. You love sweets. You do. [chuckle]

0:08:16.4 Mike Vacanti: And chocolate especially. Cookies, things like that, I can just go nuts on. But I was walking through Target, and I was like, “Well, I wonder what’s in that baking aisle. I’m just gonna pick up another bag of chocolate chips, a little late night snack here or there.” And there’s all these different flavors, so white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, a few different… I literally bought four bags of these things.

[laughter]

0:08:43.1 Jordan Syatt: You got real excited. [chuckle]

0:08:45.0 Mike Vacanti: I got real excited. And the macros aren’t good at all. It’s like 4g fat, 10g carb per tablespoon. And I don’t know how… A table spoon is nothing, it’s like two little, mini… Yeah, so I was just crushing probably for too many nights over a number of weeks. And woke up one morning here in New Jersey where I’m positioned for the weekend. I was like, “I can barely see my abs, this is uncomfortable.”

[laughter]

0:09:17.4 Mike Vacanti: But thinking… That’s one facet of my current goals, is I enjoy the process of adding muscle, I enjoy training hard, I enjoy keeping a notebook, trying to add reps week over week, getting stronger, adding size. I’m also… I’ve added more cardio recently. And I’m interested in this big fiber kick that you’re on. And I called… I didn’t get through to book an appointment, but I’m gonna have my first cardiologist appointment just to get… A lot of Peter Attia’s content has made me want to do some preventative diagnostics around heart health. And so I’m gonna poke around there, and I’m just thinking, “Let’s maximize and optimize chances of long-term survival and quality of life.”

0:10:04.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I love that. I love that. And…

0:10:06.0 Mike Vacanti: And you’re already doing that.

0:10:08.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’m doing it, but… Yeah. To stay on yours just for a little bit, I like hearing about what you’re doing. You always offer super insightful discussions on it. Even that little titbit about it’s more important or it does damage to over-eat in a surplus than it does in a deficit, that can change someone’s mindset around it completely. I loved hearing you say that, so that was really good. And I was also gonna say, I’m glad you brought up that you’re doing more cardio. You’re in your basement on a consistent basis doing cardio. You don’t even have a cardio machine, you just have a somewhat decent amount of space in your basement. It’s not an outrageously huge area, it’s like… But you just run around in your basement. [chuckle]

0:10:53.4 Mike Vacanti: Jog circles.

[laughter]

0:10:56.2 Jordan Syatt: You just jog in circles in your basement. It’s… I wish… That part of me wishes you were still making content, because that would be hilarious, fucking hilarious content of just a time lapse of you running in circles or doing fake plays for a football lineup, whatever it is. Just like, “Oh yeah? You don’t have any cardio equipment? Cool, run in circles. This is what I do.”

[laughter]

0:11:26.4 Jordan Syatt: I love that. So yeah, I think that’s great.

0:11:30.3 Mike Vacanti: Thank you, man. Yeah, I have found routes, outdoor routes now, around my neighborhood where I can basically completely avoid humans. And so I’m more like 60/40 outside to inside. Especially if it’s nice out, get some sun, get some Vitamin D. But yeah, I’m definitely… At least two days a week, I’m getting 5000, 6000 steps in a session walk jogging around the basement trying to keep that heart rate around 120.

0:11:58.1 Jordan Syatt: Wow. Do you get sweaty when you do that?

0:12:02.0 Mike Vacanti: Not in the first half of it, but it depends on how long the session is. Also depends on the temperature of the house. We keep it very cold, so…

0:12:11.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, we do as well.

0:12:13.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. But towards the end, I will if I’m really moving, and if I’m doing more jogging. Yeah.

0:12:19.1 Jordan Syatt: So do you mainly do it inside, because you don’t wanna run into people, or is it more like a weather thing? ‘Cause I know you started when it was cold out.

0:12:28.0 Mike Vacanti: And I loved that.

0:12:30.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:12:30.8 Mike Vacanti: The mindset of like, “Oh, it’s shitty outside? Good.”

0:12:34.6 Jordan Syatt: “Oh, okay I’ll go outside.”

0:12:34.8 Mike Vacanti: “I’ll spend the whole day outside.” No, it’s purely… When I’m doing cardio, I’m either listening to audio book or podcasts, sometimes music. Yeah, one of those three. And if I’m approaching someone on the sidewalk.

0:12:49.9 Mike Vacanti: I’m no longer… I don’t even know how to describe it, I’m no longer living in my brain. When it’s just me, when I’m an isolation, I’m living purely with my thoughts. And if I’m listening to music, it’s day-dreaming, and I’m like planning and have scenarios, have things going out of my head. If I’m listening to a podcast or an audio book, I’m fully immersed in that.

0:13:11.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:13:11.5 Mike Vacanti: As soon as I see a person, it breaks my focus, and then for 20-30 seconds as we’re approaching each other, I’m not really retaining what’s going on here, and then you get like that, “Hey, how’s it going?” And then I’m back into it, I gotta hit backwards 30 seconds, 60 seconds, pick up my spot and it breaks the flow, not of the physical benefits of the session, but of the stimulation and creativity and learning and…

0:13:37.5 Jordan Syatt: Enjoyment of it, yeah.

0:13:40.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And enjoyment. Absolutely.

0:13:41.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s annoying when you gotta rewind 30 seconds and get your phone out and while you’re in the middle of a jog, whatever. Yeah, I get that.

0:13:50.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:13:50.9 Jordan Syatt: I can’t listen to music when I do cardio. I can’t. Like it’s…

0:13:53.2 Mike Vacanti: Really.

0:13:53.4 Jordan Syatt: No, I can’t. I need an audio book or something that I can actually think ’cause music for… Music is an art. Again, music is an art. I’m not interested enough in this art to appreciate it for its art, if that makes sense. I don’t know much about it, which is funny ’cause my whole family are musicians and they’re really good at it, I was never good at it and I never really liked it. I’ve always much preferred story telling or books or history or something like that, so that’s what keeps me going on a longer duration cardio session. I will listen to music when I do high intensity once a week, like today, unfortunately, I have to do my sprint training, and I will listen to music during sprints ’cause I can’t actually pay attention to an audio book when I’m doing sprints. But during a low intensity, longer duration Zone two or even just a walk, I can’t just listen to music, it has to be an audio book or something.

0:14:50.8 Mike Vacanti: Interesting. How about during lifts?

0:14:54.2 Jordan Syatt: Nothing, I don’t listen to anything. I literally, I just… I don’t listen to anything when I lift.

0:15:01.1 Mike Vacanti: Wow. You used to though?

0:15:02.0 Jordan Syatt: I used to, I used to. And I’m thinking about starting again, ’cause this guy came up to me in the middle of my lift yesterday and just started trying to sell me life insurance or something, I was like…

0:15:15.1 Mike Vacanti: No. Not actually? [chuckle]

0:15:15.2 Jordan Syatt: And then I… It really… Swear to God, swear to God, I’ll show you this text right now. This guy, I was in the middle of the lift yesterday in my apartment gym, this guy, ’cause it’s half residents, half hotel, this guy who’s staying in the hotel just comes up to me out of nowhere when I’m in between sets. Here, you can see. And we start talking, and I’m trying to be polite, but I’m also trying not to encourage him to keep talking to me, and he starts trying to sell me on stuff, and I’m like, “Alright, man. Yeah, super nice to meet you.” He’s like, “Hey, could I get your number?” And I wasn’t gonna say no, so I give him my number, knowing that I could just block him if I want to. So he starts texting me today, you can see like, “Hey, Jordan, this is… ” So on so, I’m not gonna say his name, “We met last night in the gym,” like, “Please give me a call when you have a chance,” just like, “No.” So I immediately blocked him after that.

0:16:01.1 Mike Vacanti: Is this… Did he recognize you? And that’s where the conversation…

0:16:03.2 Jordan Syatt: No, he did not recognize me.

0:16:04.6 Mike Vacanti: Really.

0:16:05.6 Jordan Syatt: He did not recognize me. He started coming up to me, talking to me, asked me what I do, and then he started without me asking him. I didn’t say, “So, what do you do?” And I just told him what I did, and then he was like, “Yeah, so this is what I do.” Da da da and started to sell me on it, and he was like, “Maybe we could talk,” and I was like, “Yeah, sure, take my number.”

0:16:20.7 Mike Vacanti: Fire the text back up?

0:16:22.7 Jordan Syatt: You wanna see.

0:16:23.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s my least favorite text message, when people lead, assuming we’re gonna… “Hey, Jordan, if you don’t mind, call me when you get a chance. Thanks.”

0:16:34.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and I immediately blocked him, immediately blocked him.

0:16:38.4 Mike Vacanti: The expectation of your time and to get on the phone with him so that he can sell you is so mind-boggling to me.

0:16:45.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:16:46.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s just such an aggressive sales tactic.

0:16:48.0 Jordan Syatt: I literally was thinking I need to start listening to something while I lift solely so that I can just point to my headphone so that people don’t try and talk to me, that’s literally it.

0:16:58.9 Mike Vacanti: Was music playing at West Side?

0:17:01.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah. They would blast DMX. That was like, they loved listening to DMX, he was playing all the time, DMX, and then there was some rock as well, but yeah, they were… Absolutely, ’cause Louie was very up-to-date on the research. And there’s a lot of research showing that with certain types of music, it will improve your performance in the gym, there’s no question about it. I’m at a phase in my life where I actually don’t… I used to sniff ammonia and get all riled up and get smacked around for lifting. Now, I don’t think that’s actually good for the central nervous system, I don’t think that’s good to get super hyped up on a daily basis like that. It’s why… One of the reasons why I’ve limited caffeine, I don’t think it’s good to be doing that, not from a physical perspective, as much as a neurological central nervous system perspective, and it’s just like it can burn you out.

0:17:55.3 Jordan Syatt: So I really try and stay as calm as I can during my lifts, I don’t anger lift anymore like I did when I was younger, I really… I try and zen lift, and I try and relax. And I think I used to use music to… Like angry music or I remember like Breaking Benjamin or whatever it was I used to listen to and then all the time. And I would use music as a way to partially motivate, but also partially take my mind off the pain of lifting, and now I really try and consciously put myself through, like work through that pain, if that makes sense, and appreciate it… Like not, maybe appreciate isn’t the right word, but to notice it and experience it fully rather than trying to ignore it.

0:18:45.0 Mike Vacanti: You are zen. You’re in the present moment.

0:18:48.1 Jordan Syatt: I’m trying to. And it’s, honestly, largely because of jiu-jitsu, because I can’t listen to music when I’m competing in jiu-jitsu, and I can’t use anything to distract me from the fatigue or the pain or whatever, so I deliberately… Yesterday, I was doing rows, cable rows, and Alex Viada has me doing the iso holds at the top of every row for three full seconds, so it’s an explosive concentric 3-second isometric and a very slow eccentric. A brutal, brutal, brutal variation. And there’s a lot of times where in jiu-jitsu, where you’ll have people’s arms, you’ll grab their sleeves and pull it into you in that isometric position at the top, and it’s awful, and I get super exhausted doing it. So I don’t wanna distract myself while I’m doing it when I’m lifting, I want to feel it and I want to really be present in that moment and fully experience it so that I know when I’m in that position in jiu-jitsu like, “Oh, I can hold this. This is not nearly as bad as it was in the gym.” So yeah, that’s why I’ve been doing that.

0:19:48.1 Mike Vacanti: This is slightly off-topic, but we’re gonna circle back to health. On the subject of anger, and you said anger is a motivator using music to get angry to get through these lifts or to lift slightly more weight. Did you use music when you were working, like when you were either making content, replying to DMs like…

0:20:10.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah. Yeah. There’s actually… It’s so funny, ’cause you and I, we used to listen to music when we would work together. We would be pulling all nighters.

0:20:17.5 Mike Vacanti: Oh yeah. That sound track of The Warrior.

0:20:20.3 Jordan Syatt: Yes, yeah, exactly. And there’s actually a song…

0:20:22.0 Mike Vacanti: That instrumental with no…

0:20:23.2 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:20:24.4 Mike Vacanti: Right? There were no words.

0:20:27.2 Jordan Syatt: I’m trying to find… I think there’s a song… I don’t know. There’s a song that’s gone viral recently, I think it’s something called Over The Hill, or Over That Hill or something like that, it’s gone viral on social media. And I used to listen to this song every single time you and I would work years ago. And it’s crazy ’cause every time I see it on social media right now, like that emotional connection to work, I’m like, “Oh man, time of grind type of thing.” But for some reason it started going crazy on social media, people have been doing TikToks and reels to this music. And I don’t even remember where it was originally from. But yeah, for work, I used to do that all the time because that was actually a way to keep me focused on work, where I could say in my head, “Hey, I’m gonna listen to four songs before I check my phone,” something like that. And that was easy for me to be like, “Cool.” And I know people do that with cardio and stuff too, but with cardio, I prefer just to watch something. I prefer to watch…

0:21:25.7 Jordan Syatt: I’m watching Breaking Bad right now. But I’d much rather watch something than listen to music ’cause with… When I watch something or even an audio book, I do that as well, ’cause there’s a story to follow, there’s a logical sequence there. Whereas for me with the music, I don’t even understand what they’re saying, a lot of the times. It’s hard to keep up with what they’re saying, it’s like the story doesn’t go as in depth as I think a longer show or audio book will. So for me, that’s what I do when I do cardio.

0:21:58.4 Mike Vacanti: And now, 2022, when you’re working, are you listening to music ever?

0:22:03.8 Jordan Syatt: Never. Well, the work I do is very different as well. I’m not answering emails anymore, I’m not answering 500 emails a day.

0:22:13.7 Mike Vacanti: Or designing mass amounts of programs.

0:22:18.0 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah, it’s like when I’m designing programs or answering emails, I really don’t need to be present for that, I don’t need to be… I can do it and also multitask and think about other things at the same time. The things that I do right now for my work, I need to be very present for it, I need to… When I’m…

0:22:36.5 Mike Vacanti: If you’re doing a podcast.

0:22:39.4 Jordan Syatt: Exactly. There’s like… I think it’s probably the most present you need to be for any type of content or doing Inner Circle stuff, when I’m with Susan or whatever it is.

0:22:49.3 Mike Vacanti: What about when you’re doing a Q and A on your Instagram because that requires a solid amount of focus and concentration?

0:22:57.5 Jordan Syatt: I don’t listen to music or that I literally usually just sit on my couch and lie down, and I can’t even… I would… I’ve tried putting The Office on while I do that, but I can’t. It’s distracting, I can’t do it. And my Q and As, they’re a mix of humor/sarcasm, which takes real focus. It’s funny, I look at… The best comedians in the world are super smart. They come up with these jokes that last seven seconds, but it took them a year to come up with it and to refine it and perfect it. So a lot of these quick witty answers, I don’t think of it immediately, I’m like, “How can I take this question and make it funny?” It’s a mix of that, and also real in-depth discussion and nuance, educating people about health and fitness. And those answers sometimes will… One answer sometimes will take me 30 minutes to write on one story, so it’s like… And I see a lot of other people doing Q and As where they’ll just quickly rattle it off or they’ll give a couple of word answer and it’s like…

0:24:03.0 Mike Vacanti: Lazy.

0:24:03.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s lazy. It’s shit. So for me, I think my stories are some of the biggest draws to my social media right now, ’cause I put so much effort into it.

0:24:10.4 Mike Vacanti: It’s the same as someone who writes an article in 45 minutes start to finish and post it. It’s like, “That’s not gonna hit Google…

0:24:17.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:24:18.9 Mike Vacanti: Page one ever.”

0:24:19.3 Jordan Syatt: Absolutely not.

0:24:21.0 Mike Vacanti: You’re… Oh, I was gonna say, so some of those stories, I would imagine, take a ton of time and effort, like you just described. And then sometimes you get a nice soft ball, like it was something with a whole bunch of misspellings in it and like “egg diet lose 10 Kgs in two weeks…” like something. And you’re like, “Oh, I’m just gonna give ’em the Jordan staring off into space…”

0:24:42.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. Those are the best.

0:24:45.1 Mike Vacanti: …picture like that.

0:24:45.4 Jordan Syatt: Those are the best.

[chuckle]

0:24:46.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s like “that guy just gave me a meat ball down the middle.” Now, I wanna stay on something before we go back to health. So do you think that like 2010, 2011 all the way until 2019, I wanna say maybe 2018, somewhere in that range, anger seemed to be the primary fuel source for a lot of your work.

0:25:08.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:25:10.2 Mike Vacanti: Now it’s not. Do you attribute that more to the type of work that you’re now doing compared to then? Or do you attribute it to where you are mentally?

0:25:18.4 Jordan Syatt: That’s a great question.

0:25:20.4 Mike Vacanti: And if it’s both, which more?

0:25:22.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I think it’s definitely both. I was actually… I was sort of thinking about this yesterday because again, I haven’t posted any content on my feed in a little while and in my head I’ve said I’ve really wanted to. But yesterday I was like, “I’m really fine, just not doing that, just not posting on my feed right now.” And I think part of it is just because I don’t have that anger, if I had that anger, I would be posting five times a day, just posting constantly. So… But here’s what I think, sorta like a chicken or the egg thing. I think for me, where I am in life has partly… In large part, come because of the lack of anger or the reduction in anger, right? So I think the reduction in anger has led to where I am in life, which has led to then these decisions, so it’s definitely both. But in terms of this, I think the reduction in anger has then improved my quality of life and made me more relaxed, which has then led to this lower work output.

0:26:22.8 Mike Vacanti: More “balance,” and…

0:26:25.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:26:25.5 Mike Vacanti: You’re in a place where you can do that. That’s same here, similarly. But yeah. Talking to Gary, coaching Gary in person for this week and we were joking around about the Michael Jordan documentary where he makes shit up in his head and he’s like…

0:26:43.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:26:43.8 Mike Vacanti: “Good game Mike.” “Oh, good game Mike? I took that personally… And then I put up 45 points on him.” And then later he admitted he’s like, “ah, he didn’t actually say good game Mike. I just made that up to motivate myself” and Gary’s like, that’s… The amount that he could relate to that and he’s like, “I do that same stuff.” He’s imagining… I’m not gonna go in detail on this, but imagining himself in fictitious scenarios during a hard workout to motivate himself to get through that workout. These little tricks, these are things that I did going back to middle school, training for hockey in high school, all this stuff, and it’s weird because now that I’m happier and more content, it’s very hard for me to get in that zone, which makes it harder to really push the young, angry, hungry, 15 hours a day work mode, which is a good thing…

0:27:38.5 Jordan Syatt: I agree.

0:27:40.2 Mike Vacanti: But then there’s always part of me, that’s like, but part of me wants to push that dial. But I don’t even know that I can at this point. I kinda try to. I was telling you, I was listening to a lot of Tom Platz, old school bodybuilder, and he was… He’s got a lot of crazy stuff on YouTube that I relate to but he was talking about. Yeah, you gotta be able to flip a switch, you gotta be… And he was talking about training as a professional bodybuilder, but this could apply to building your online coaching business. He’s like, “You gotta flip it, click, and then you go crazy and you would die in the squat rack and you would literally give up your life and da, da, da, da, da.” and then he’s like, “Then you walk in the door and you’re like, click, hi, honey, how are you? How is it.” Being able to turn it on and turn it off at any point in time. And I don’t… Someone who actually strikes me as having the ability to do that is Tom Brady who is an ultimate competitor, but then if you ever hear him talk, if you hear him in interviews, he’s so calm, he’s so cool is, he’s… But when he’s on the field or training, I would imagine he wants to kill every… Like he wants to rip everyone’s head off. I don’t know, I’m thinking about how to cultivate that skill in my own life because right now, I’m weighted toward content and I wanna practice it.

0:28:58.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s tough. If I’m trying to be objective about it, where does that anger come from? Well, part of it, it comes from age, age and hormone levels and all of that. But I also think it’s more than age, it’s a mentality based on where you are in life and what you want to achieve. ‘Cause I know many, well, we’ll say younger men, we’ll just say ’cause generally speaking similar hormone levels, all that sort of stuff, similar age. I know many younger men who were not angry and they were very content with where they were. A lot of it has to do with what you want and where you are and you get angry as a form of motivation to get to where you are or where you want to be. Whether it’s like, an I’ll show them anger mentality, I’ll show them… For a lot of that came for me from other coaches who are older in the industry, who would look down on me because I was younger and I was like, “Oh, I’ll show them. I’ll show them,” and now a lot of those coaches will DM me and ask for help and well, what does that do? That removes that anger. ‘Cause it’s like, Well, now I can’t show them anymore ’cause they’re asking me for help or whatever it is.

0:30:16.9 Jordan Syatt: So I think a lot of… As you achieve these things, you either have to manufacture the anger or you just… You don’t… And I know I’m at a place where I’m like, I don’t really wanna be angry. I don’t want to. Maybe, eventually I will. Maybe I’ll be like, You know what, screw it. Or maybe something will happen where I’m like, Okay, time to show ’em. Let’s go. I think it can happen, and you don’t necessarily lose it if you’re the kind of person that has it. But it’s just based on your current… We’re comfortable. Thank God. We’re blessed. All these other things, it’s like, if something were to happen where you needed to and you had a real fire under your ass, you would, you definitely would.

0:30:55.5 Mike Vacanti: To turn it up.

0:30:56.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, absolutely. It’s there. It’s just… It’s a hibernating bear.

0:31:00.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s dormant.

0:31:02.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, exactly. And you might… You probably don’t wanna wake it up. I don’t think I wanna wake it up. [laughter]

0:31:08.7 Mike Vacanti: Because I don’t know that I have the ability to turn it on and off like some of these… Yeah. I don’t even know if some of these guys actually can turn it off, who knows, we’re not… We don’t know their personal lives, etcetera, but yeah. It’s definitely interesting to think about and something that I rarely hear anyone talk about, which is part of why I wanted to chat about it on here.

0:31:32.4 Jordan Syatt: And sort of to segue back to health, part of the reason I don’t wanna turn it on is because I know once I turn it on, my health will go down. It’s like once it’s on, that’s the most important thing. That’s what I put all my effort into and now it’s like, well, one of the reasons I like not having it is, ’cause I can spend time doing cardio, making sure I’m getting enough sleep. I don’t need to… I don’t know, take anything to fuel my performance, fuel my brain, all that… It’s like, no, I’m good. Eat well, and exercise, and sleep well and all that.

0:32:05.4 Mike Vacanti: I think there is something to be said about finding the form of content creation that you enjoy the most are over enjoyment, overlaps with skill, overlaps with ability to do it in your Zen state.

0:32:18.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah. You texted me about that the other day and I forgot to reply ’cause someone had tweeted something about that you’re like, the best form of content is the one that you enjoy and you asked for, “What do you think? Is this bullshit or not?” And I meant to reply, actually I called, but you’re on your flight to New York. And someone tweeted something in the effect of, the best form of content to make is the one that you enjoy. Only talk about the things you enjoy, because that’s what you’re gonna be passionate about and people will find you for that.

0:32:49.9 Jordan Syatt: I think like with everything, I partly agree, and I also think there’s nuance to it, for example, right now, I’m not passionate about talking about weight loss, and I’m not passionate about it all, and you can see a lot of my content has switched over to more health focus and all of that, but I still talk about it sort of like, you know, you said this to me probably a couple of years ago now, and I know it was a quote from someone else, I forgot who it was, but you don’t kill the cash cow, right, where it’s like, Who was that? That said that?

0:33:24.3 Mike Vacanti: Mark Cuban.

0:33:25.7 Jordan Syatt: Mark Cuban, you don’t kill the cash cow, so as of right now, I can start to transfer my content more towards health, but I also know the vast majority of my business and what people really want is weight loss, so I’m not just gonna not talk about it because I’m not passionate about it anymore, I will still discuss it and I’ll still educate on it, but I will spend also time, talking about the things that I am more passionate about, so it’s… You gotta balance both worlds.

0:33:51.4 Mike Vacanti: To jump in on that specific point, most people in the west, in developed nations would become healthier by losing weight.

0:34:02.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, I agree.

0:34:02.8 Mike Vacanti: And so there’s a massive amount of overlap there, I’m seen with specific people, I hop on Instagram and I’m like, What is… I’m confused by the content because it’s so… I can’t… It’s so anti-weight loss content and pro like, I guess I would call it body acceptance type of content.

0:34:28.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s different.

0:34:29.6 Mike Vacanti: Which is… I know that’s not the direction you’re going here, we’re talking about something different, but there’s that element of it, the massive overlap between health and weight loss, and then there’s the give people what they want in order to give them what they need, and if that means someone is hyper-focused on weight loss for aesthetics, for vanity, for whatever, and you give them some of that to kind of rope a dope them into your community, and then you can give them even more of the good stuff that’s gonna be more beneficial for them. That’s a huge win for both right there.

0:34:58.4 Jordan Syatt: 100%, I completely agree. For me personally, in my content, I’ve just spoken about fat loss and weight loss for so many years, it doesn’t… I’m not learning anything new. Right, and that’s one of the things I think people run into, people get into ruts in strength training, because effective strength training, Ben Bruno said it the best, you do the same 10 to 20 exercises over and over and over again till you die. That’s effective strength training, and it’s like after a while, it’s boring. You do the same shit, and I think that’s one of the reasons I love jiu-jitsu because I’m learning so much and it’s mentally stimulating, it’s emotionally stimulating, physically stimulating, all that, but I’m learning and learning and learning. And right now, I’m learning a lot about health, I’m learning about fiber, I’m learning about heart health, I’m learning about about zone two cardio, different aspects of how that impacts your body and physiology, and how that impacts your longterm… Your longterm health. So I’m super excited about it, and that’s the stuff that I wanna talk about more. But I also know I’m not gonna stop talking about weight loss, one because it will help people, but also because that’s what most people want, that’s what they really, really want right now, so I’m gonna also talk about that…

0:36:06.8 Jordan Syatt: And health and weight loss, it’s like a Venn diagram, it’s not mutually exclusive, they sort of fit into one another, there are parts that are separate, but like for example, someone can have an extra 10 to 15 pounds of fat and still be super, super healthy. Right, it’s like they don’t need to be shredded, in fact, being shredded, might not be good for them, but that person might still wanna lose fat, but they also wanna be healthy, so it fits on that venn diagram, but they’re not mutually exclusive. So I just think it’s important. Yes, you should build your business around something you’re passionate about, which in our case is health and fitness, but there are many sub-categories of that, whether it’s pain reduction, athletic performance, fat loss, muscle gain, power lifting, but anything, there’s so many different aspects you can cover, so do your best to talk about your passion about, but also understand your passions might change. When I first started making content, it was all power lifting, it’s like all I spoke about, that’s it, and then I stopped, but I didn’t just stop cold turkey, I like transferred more to more general population weight loss and stuff like that, and then now I’m sort of transferring a little bit more towards health focus as opposed to only a weight loss focus, even though they do often go hand in hand, but it’s just what am I passionate about posting, so that’s… Yes, I do both.

0:37:25.0 Mike Vacanti: And a lot of that stems from what you’re interested in for yourself.

0:37:28.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct, that’s exactly right.

0:37:30.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, which leads to probably better content, you’re more interested in making it, which leads to people resonating with it more… Yeah, tell me more about your specific goals right now…

0:37:48.0 Jordan Syatt: You know it’s interesting? So I really, I love jiu-jitsu, jiu-jitsu is just like, I love it. I’m getting to a new point with it as my jiu-jitsu is improving and I’m getting better with it. A lot… It’s funny, now that I think about it, I had some anger to fuel my jiu-jitsu and that was fueling a lot of my competition and why I was training six times a week, ’cause I wanted to be fucking good and I wanted to show people in the jiu-jitsu community that I could be good. And more recently, as my jiu-jitsu has gotten better and I’m improving doing well in competitions, showing people that I actually, I’m pretty good, it’s that anger is dissipating and I’m like, I don’t need that, and now I’m going into sessions way more calm and relaxed, way more just like, let’s just drill… Let’s just drill… Let’s just drill, I just wanna get better. I just, I don’t need to go crazy and hard, I just wanna drill, drill, drill, drill, drill. Get this technique down. So my goals right now, my first and foremost goal is health, that’s it, I’m doing a fair amount of cardio.

0:38:53.6 Jordan Syatt: I have enough strength to be healthy forever. My strength is never gonna be an issue. My cardio can definitely improve for sure.

0:39:04.8 Mike Vacanti: What caused the shift for you to be more focused on your health? I remember like that when you did the caffeine challenge and…

0:39:14.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, that was awful.

0:39:14.6 Mike Vacanti: For the hydration video and had, yeah, that’s a fun, well, we don’t need to get into all that.

0:39:18.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:39:18.5 Mike Vacanti: ‘Cause we’ve talked about it here before, but…

0:39:20.6 Jordan Syatt: Honestly, I think the big one was I found out I had high blood pressure, and I started digging more into it and realizing how many people die from it every year. And I was like, ‘Oh my God! I think that was what scared me into understanding, I need to actually get my shit together because if I have high blood pressure at 28, that is not a good sign. And that’s really what started to get me focused on it. I bought a blood pressure monitor, I was monitoring it, I think that’s really what the initial dive into health was, and Jujitsu was a really good conduit to that. It was really good. It paired well with it because Jujitsu has so much cardio involved. Jujitsu, it is a great form of the exercise, both strength and cardio. So it was a good way for me to also do something that I loved, that I was passionate about, that I missed, I had nostalgia for in terms of wrestling, a skill that I’ve always wanted to learn combined with a great form of exercise. So I think those two combined really helped me get my training and nutrition and health much better.

0:40:25.2 Mike Vacanti: So you were talking about being less angry now that you’ve continued to get better and better at jiu-jitsu. Does that change your thoughts on your, that doesn’t change your motivation to continue to practice and get better? Or does it in some way?

0:40:41.6 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no, I still wanna compete. What it does is it, I have less guilt if I miss a session or something, right. So if before I was like, “gotta go every day, six days a week,” I’m like, “all right, if I miss Saturday, it’s Shabbat, it’s fine, not a big deal.” I still go Monday through Friday, Saturdays are more optional at this point. Or if my coach, whatever something happens he’s like, “ah, I can’t today something happened.” Like cool, no worries. I’ll just get my work out in the gym, do my cardio. It’s more just about making sure I’m doing what I need to do for my health and needing to reach a peak level in jiu-jitsu. So it’s less about anything other than I just wanna get better at it. I just wanna get good. That’s really it.

0:41:27.4 Mike Vacanti: And what all are you doing for health on both the training and nutrition side?

0:41:33.0 Jordan Syatt: So I do jiu-jitsu like five days a week right now and I do cardio. I do low intensity cardio about four times a week and I do high intensity cardio one time a week, which is the worst. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. You saw me do one session of it. Just terrible. And I try for at least 7,500 steps a day.

0:41:58.5 Mike Vacanti: I know I keep interrupting.

0:42:00.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s all right.

0:42:01.4 Mike Vacanti: So Peter Attia talks a lot about like that kinda optimal. I think he says, recommends a floor of three hours a week of zone two cardio and even more than that, can still be even more beneficial. But then that one high intensity session a week. I remember hearing, I think it was Huberman or Andy Galpin or one of those, it might have been the podcast they did together talking about the benefits of that one high intensity session per week. Do you know more about the why behind, why Alex programs that or why you’re doing that?

0:42:36.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, so number one is you don’t need a lot in order to get the benefit of it, you don’t need a lot for that.

0:42:44.5 Mike Vacanti: Of the high intensities.

0:42:45.7 Jordan Syatt: Of the high intensity. Yeah. You don’t need a lot, and in fact, doing too much can be more detrimental, especially from a performance perspective, not so much like a heart health perspective, but definitely from a performance perspective. And actually probably negative from a health perspective, because the more time you spend doing that, the less time you can actually spend doing zone two and the more systemic stress that you’ll have on your body. So I think, yeah, there probably is not a direct cause, but like a correlational cause, as a result of just by habit, if you do that every day or too often, you won’t get enough lower intensity cardio in. So there are many reasons and I’m sure Peter Attia and Viada could explain it way better than I could. But your heart is a muscle as we all know, and you need to train that muscle, you need to stress that muscle in order for it to improve, in the same way you’re not gonna lift, when you lift a maximum weight when you lift between a one to five or a max, that’s the exact same energy system as when you do high intensity interval training. Right?

0:43:46.6 Jordan Syatt: So when you do a high intensity middle training workout, number one, it shouldn’t take that long, it’s not a super long, just like a max effort lift shouldn’t take that long. But you’re using the exact same anaerobic alactic workout. The anaerobic alactic energy system to fuel that workout. So that’s number one. And the type of stress that puts on the heart is very different than the type of stress that you would get from a zone two lower intensity work out, in the same way that doing a set of 20 repetitions is very different type of stress on your muscles than doing a set of max of three repetitions, right.

0:44:25.5 Jordan Syatt: The amount of weight or lifting is very different, the stress that you’re putting on your muscles, your tendons, your ligaments, your joints, your central nervous system very, very, very, very different. The reason zone two is so beneficial, is it’s more stressful on your heart than walking, which is good in a good way, stressful in a good way, but it’s not so stressful that it’s causing systemic stress to your body, your central nervous system. So it’s something you can do for a long period of time at a slightly higher stress than walking. So it does strengthen your heart, but not to a point where your whole body is breaking down or you’re gonna have a recovery issues. Once you start getting into zone three, zone four, zone five, you’re gonna have recovery issues, it’s gonna take longer to recover from. You can’t do that every day without causing some type of harm.

0:45:14.4 Jordan Syatt: So what I was saying, is zone two is one of the reasons it’s so beneficial is because it will allow your heart to fill up with a max amount of blood. So it’ll actually be able to improve how much blood your heart can hold and how much blood it can push out for every beat. This is one reason why you’ll see your heart rate, your resting heart rate decrease as you get better with your zone two cardio, ’cause your heart is getting more efficient.

0:45:38.4 Jordan Syatt: At being able to hold more blood, which will then allow for a greater stroke volume to then help you get more blood to your whole body with fewer beats. The higher intensity training allows it to beat more forcefully, to have a stronger push, so not only now can your heart hold more blood, but for every beat, it has a stronger force with which it can contract to push that blood out more forcefully, which will also help with circulating blood. So that’s one of the reasons why that higher intensity work can help because it’s not just about how much it can hold, but also about the force with which it can beat.

0:46:16.6 Jordan Syatt: Sort of like you and I were talking about CPR the other day, and you’re like a CPR master, and you were talking about how when you’re doing CPR, you don’t just do tiny little compressions. When you do CPR, you’re gonna break someone’s ribs, which is fine because you’re gonna save their life, but my instructor, the way he said it was, “you go chest to back, like you go hard…” And I loved that, analogy I was like, man, that… Visual, that really puts it in your heart, you go chest to back.

0:46:43.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s a good cue.

0:46:45.0 Jordan Syatt: Right? And it’s like… Because if you don’t do that… When you’re doing CPR, you are acting as that person’s heart, you are doing the job of that person’s heart, you’re forcing the heart to beat so that it can push more blood out so that they don’t go brain dead and die. And so if you do a small, little wussy push, well, you only get into the heart a teeny bit, you don’t get an entire squeeze out of blood, whereas if you do a chest to back, you’re essentially getting a full contraction of the heart, which is pushing more blood through the entire body, which can help them stay alive. So that’s… When you do the higher intensity cardio, you’re allowing your heart to squeeze more forcefully so that you can then get more blood out with fewer beats, so the combination of zone two and high intensity is when you get the best of both worlds.

0:47:31.0 Jordan Syatt: So it’s why you don’t wanna do just one or the other, you wanna do both, but… And what Alex Viada has explained super well is the ratio with which you do it, the ratio is very important, and you should have a much higher ratio of zone two compared to Zone five. But doing more zone two is more beneficial for other reasons already explained, you know, less stress in your body and all of that. But yeah, so that’s explanation.

0:47:54.6 Mike Vacanti: Thank you. Great explanation. Remind me of the number of hours of zone two per week that you’re doing, and how much of zone five.

0:48:02.5 Jordan Syatt: So I am doing right now about, I would say, between 30 to… 30 to 60 minutes, we’ll call it, a day, four to five days a week. So probably somewhere between two and a half to four hours or so per week of zone two, and then of zone five… This is really interesting, so I didn’t realize this, but Alex, the way he breaks it down is it’s not how long the high intensity workout takes, it’s.

0:48:32.4 Mike Vacanti: How long you’re in zone five.

0:48:32.5 Jordan Syatt: How much total time you’re in that zone.

0:48:37.0 Jordan Syatt: Exactly, so that breaks down to like a matter of minutes, so I think in total, I think I’m in that zone, just based on the cardio Alex programs for me, somewhere between like 15 to 20 minutes a week. It’s not that much.

0:48:52.3 Mike Vacanti: Two and a half to four hours in Zone two, and 15 to 20 minutes in Zone five.

0:48:57.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:48:58.5 Mike Vacanti: And how long are the Zone Five workouts? In total?

0:49:02.0 Jordan Syatt: If I’m being really strict with the rest periods and everything, about 45 to 50 minutes. Usually they end up being closer to 55 minutes, just like… ’cause sometimes I need to take. A… ’cause he goes through three different sections within the HIIT workouts, so I have three different aspects of it, and sometimes I ride a three-minute rest and I take a five-minute rest just ’cause I’m like I need to chill, so it usually ends up being 53 to 55 minutes, but in total, somewhere between 15, probably 15 to 25 total minutes max in Zone five.

0:49:32.1 Mike Vacanti: And what is the shortest sprint that you’re doing, and what is longest sprint that you’re doing?

0:49:38.4 Jordan Syatt: So there are three sections of the way that he structures it, and it’s very interesting ’cause I didn’t expect him to structure it this way. Actually I have it already pulled that on my phone. So there’s a… I’m trying to remember the… There’s a great book, I think Triphasic Training is the one that goes into a separate way to do this type of stuff. I think that’s the one that I’m remembering correctly. If I think about it, I’ll say the other one. But I expected… Actually, you know who does it this way is Joel Jamieson, I expected him to follow more of like a Joel Jamieson type of approach where you do… Every day you work out, you focus on one energy system, and that includes your strength training, so you have one day solely for anaerobic alactic work, which is more like max effort lifting, maybe some explosive work, and then high intensity work. And then you have another day for more aerobic-based work, which would be for your lifting, it would be like much lower weight, higher repetition, slower contractions, and then you would also do zone two or something on that day as well. But you separate your lifting and your cardio based on these individual days. Alex doesn’t do that and I really enjoy it.

0:50:48.0 Jordan Syatt: What he does is he does… What he does is HIIT workouts. He essentially does it all in one day. He does all of the energy systems in one day. So first, start off with a 10-minute zone two warm up, which is… Just to warm your body up, and so you’re in a good place. Then we go into peak output targets, so this is… It’s all done on an air bike, and I like the air bike, and Alex likes the air bikes because you can actually see your total wattage, like how much force you’re producing, you can’t see that on a treadmill, or even if you’re sprinting. And that’s the goal we’re trying to improve how many watts I can produce it throughout this time, ’cause if I can increase the Watts I’m producing, well without getting as fatigued… That’s massive progress. So for those peak output targets, these are like he puts in quotes are “warm-up rounds,” three output targets of 10 seconds each, I wanna get to a 1000 watts and I take 50 seconds rest in between those. Then, and those are sprints. That’s a true definition of a sprint. The next ones, these…

0:51:53.6 Jordan Syatt: These are fucking awful. I don’t technically consider these sprints because after a certain point, I’m not sprinting. These are Tabata intervals, where he has me getting to 450 watts for 20 seconds on and 10 seconds off, and I repeat that for six rounds, then I take a two-minute rest, and then I go to 350 watts for 20 on, 10 off for 10 rounds. So that’s awful. [chuckle] By the time I get to about the third round of the 450-watt Tabata, I’m not sprinting. I’m not. And frankly, I rarely will get to 450 and be able to maintain it. I’m usually closer between like 400 and 420 at most, if I’m being probably generous, to be honest. 20 seconds is a long fucking… That’s not a sprint anymore. So you can’t sprint as hard as you can for 20 seconds. I don’t care who you are. That’s just… You’re gonna start to slow down. And then after that, then we have three rounds, 120 second output of a watt target of 330, and then I rest for one minute between those and then I have a final 10 minutes at 275 watts. That is awful.

0:53:07.5 Mike Vacanti: How many of that third round?

0:53:09.2 Jordan Syatt: Three rounds have 120 seconds.

0:53:10.6 Mike Vacanti: Wow. Okay. So it’s another six minutes. And that’s two minutes on, two minutes off?

0:53:15.7 Jordan Syatt: Two minutes on, one minute off. [chuckle] Two minutes on, one minute off. Awful. I only start to feel recovered by about 52 seconds. By like 52 seconds of my rest period, I was like, “Alright, now I gotta go again,” which is awful. So yeah, it’s really bad, but it works out to a total of somewhere between 15 to 25 minutes at my max.

0:53:36.5 Mike Vacanti: Sweet. That’s a very useful breakdown. Thank you.

0:53:39.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:53:39.7 Mike Vacanti: We don’t have a ton more time here. I believe we only have five more minutes left max before you have another podcast.

0:53:48.9 Jordan Syatt: No, no, I’m done. I don’t have any more podcasts today.

0:53:53.1 Mike Vacanti: Oh, you’re good? Okay, cool.

0:53:54.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:53:55.0 Mike Vacanti: So we got the cardio, your zone two and zone five cardio.

0:54:01.5 Jordan Syatt: I feel like this whole podcast is about me. I feel bad.

0:54:02.6 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no, ’cause I’m curious about this.

0:54:04.6 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:54:05.1 Mike Vacanti: Because I’m gonna be incorporating more cardio in my regimen.

0:54:09.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh nice.

0:54:11.1 Mike Vacanti: I’m gonna start saying regimen more. You know what, you know what I noticed from one of the greatest boxers of all time, Jake Paul?

[chuckle]

0:54:21.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh my God. The most controversial thing.

0:54:22.6 Mike Vacanti: Just kidding. [laughter] But his marketing and use of repetition, unbelievable.

0:54:32.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:54:32.9 Mike Vacanti: And I watched some of these press… He did an interview with your boy Ariel…

0:54:36.4 Jordan Syatt: I saw.

0:54:37.3 Mike Vacanti: And Helwani, right? That’s his name, Helwani?

0:54:39.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, Ariel Helwani. Yeah, yeah.

0:54:41.2 Mike Vacanti: And the number of times in that and in the actual press conference with his opponent, the number of times he talks about “August 6th, August 6th,” and it’s just like repeating and drilling it into your head to buy this fight. It’s genius.

0:54:57.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, he’s super good. And this is his first, I think, real test as a boxer as well.

0:55:02.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, this guy is a pro, he’s 12 and 1, he has, I don’t know, 80 Amateur fights or something like that. His dad was heavyweight champ, like, yeah, it’s…

0:55:11.2 Jordan Syatt: This will be… I’m very excited for this fight.

0:55:12.7 Mike Vacanti: Me too.

0:55:14.3 Jordan Syatt: And I respect Jake for taking it. This is gonna be his first real test, for sure.

0:55:19.6 Mike Vacanti: Well, yeah, and because Tommy Fumbles…

0:55:23.5 Jordan Syatt: Tommy Fumbles. [chuckle] You’re taking his own verbiage. [laughter]

0:55:26.1 Mike Vacanti: Literally.

0:55:27.1 Jordan Syatt: You called him Tommy Fumbles. Oh my God.

0:55:29.2 Mike Vacanti: Tommy Fumbled twice. [chuckle] Did you hear John Fury, Tyson and Tommy’s dad?

0:55:35.6 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:55:35.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m almost certain they’re brothers, right? And John’s their dad?

0:55:39.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah, yeah.

0:55:40.9 Mike Vacanti: Said after Tommy dropped out of this fight ’cause he “couldn’t get into the US,” was like, “Tommy hasn’t been training that hard. He could be fitter,” like…

0:55:50.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh wow, I did not hear that.

0:55:51.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:55:51.5 Jordan Syatt: Jeez, that doesn’t look good.

0:55:53.8 Mike Vacanti: No, it doesn’t. But… How did we get on that? Oh, because I’m gonna start using the word regimen more repeatedly for some unknown reasons. We’ll see. But, the reason why this is more about you is because I’m curious about implementing this cardio into my regimen for maximum health, plus aesthetics, plus longevity.

0:56:14.3 Jordan Syatt: Love that. Okay, cool.

0:56:14.5 Mike Vacanti: And then lifting. How much are you lifting?

0:56:18.2 Jordan Syatt: Lifting? Three days a week. I do… The way Alex just put it, Alex Viada is doing my programming, he has a lower body day, upper body day, and a full body day, which is exactly how I split it for the Inner Circle, for the three day a week program.

0:56:32.6 Mike Vacanti: Cool.

0:56:35.7 Jordan Syatt: And…

0:56:36.2 Mike Vacanti: So you’re basically hitting every muscle group twice a week?

0:56:39.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yep, basically, but with an emphasis on jiu-jitsu as the reason for my strength training, so for example, he just gave me this new…

0:56:46.5 Mike Vacanti: Like that roll?

0:56:48.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, like that roll. Exactly. It’s very jiu-jitsu-specific. And Alex is fun. I really like Alex and I like his style of training. I’ve worked with other coaches that I just haven’t liked before. Alex and I have a similar background, very powerlifting… In terms of lifting-wise, he has a different background in terms of education and in terms of knowledge and in terms of his whole cardio aspect, which I’ve learned a lot from him on, but he loves awkward movements, like Steinborn squats was something that we did for a while. Yesterday he gave me this new sledge hammer lever. Have you ever seen this before?

0:57:24.7 Mike Vacanti: Uh-umm.

0:57:26.5 Jordan Syatt: So, I don’t have a sledgehammer, so I used an EZ curl bar, but I’m actually gonna buy a sledgehammer so I can do this. You hold as low down on the sledgehammer as you possibly can, right? So the sledgehammer, the heavy part is up top, and then the handle is very light, and this is done so you can swing it at a very high speed and cause maximum damage to something. So you take this long lever and you hold the bottom of the handle and you extend your arm fully out so your arm’s slightly above shoulder height, so then from there… I’m trying to do it so you can see it, you extend your arm out. We need to get video for this podcast. You then… You slowly lower the… While keeping your arm straight, you allow your wrist to bend, and so you lower the head of the sledgehammer towards your face. So if you just let it go, it’s gonna smash into your face and you’re gonna get real face damage, but your job is to lower it, lower it, lower it, as low as it can go, graze your nose and then lift it back up.

0:58:26.4 Mike Vacanti: You’re laying down during this?

0:58:27.5 Jordan Syatt: No, no, standing. You’re standing up.

0:58:29.1 Mike Vacanti: Oh, okay.

0:58:29.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, so you’re standing up, and it’s…

0:58:32.4 Mike Vacanti: Brutal.

0:58:33.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s brutal. It’s absolutely brutal, so there is… There’s a tremendous amount of… It’s an isometric hold for your front delt obviously, so there’s a lot of shoulder strength there, but the grip strength and the wrist strength and also finger strength that you get from this is pretty incredible, and so I was doing it with an EZ Curl Bar yesterday with… Not a full EZ Curl, it didn’t have the massive indentation, there was like a slightly more straight EZ Curl Bar, and I was like, “This is really awkward,” so I’m gonna buy a sledgehammer, but I’m only gonna use a five-pound sledgehammer, and I doubt I’m gonna be able to do it with my hand all the way at the bottom, I’m probably gonna have to choke up on it a little bit and get a little bit higher…

0:59:12.9 Mike Vacanti: To start at least…

0:59:15.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, my hand was not at the bottom of the EZ Curl Bar, my hand was just slightly below half way down, and we were doing reps of… Sets of four to five reps, so yeah, it’s a lot of awkward movements and awkward strength.

0:59:29.7 Mike Vacanti: How long does each rep take.

0:59:30.9 Jordan Syatt: Each rep is probably, I don’t know, seven to… Seven to 11 seconds, somewhere in there… It’s a long rep. So four to five… Four to five reps per set is a long set.

0:59:42.2 Mike Vacanti: Awkward and not fun. When you said, “I really, really enjoy Alex’s programming,” my mind just went to when he had you… It was in one of the earlier phases, it was like walking lunge, 185 pounds, and like…

0:59:56.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh my God.

0:59:58.9 Mike Vacanti: Some insane number… Was it 100 reps? I don’t even remember what it was, but it was…

1:00:02.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it was something ridiculous.

1:00:04.4 Mike Vacanti: 50 maybe…

1:00:06.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, some of the stuff that he does is just insane, and I tell him…

1:00:10.2 Mike Vacanti: Which is awesome.

1:00:10.3 Jordan Syatt: “You’re out of your fucking mind.” But I actually… I did have to tell him to pull back because I was like, “Bro, I’m so sore that I can’t do jiu-jitsu, and the whole purpose of this is to help with my jiu-jitsu. He’s like, “Yeah, yeah. Okay.” And so he did taper it back, but sometimes his idea of tapered back is just… It’s ridiculous, it’s… Last week, I did sprints and he put it like, “Alright, this is a little bit tapered down because you just got back from vacation,” and I was like, “This is not… This is the exact same thing that I was doing before. This is not tapered down at all.” [chuckle]

1:00:37.6 Mike Vacanti: “There’s no taper here, taper harder please.” [chuckle]

1:00:42.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, so that’s it. So three days a week strength, and then all that other stuff.

1:00:46.5 Mike Vacanti: Are you measuring your progress on the health side in any way, whether that be blood work, like annual physical exam… Any way?

1:00:56.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, so I mean… Blood pressure consistently, usually at least once a week, which has been great, thank God. Got my blood work done a few days ago, everything looked good. Thank God. So everything is good. What I did see was that my cholesterol was starting to get a little bit high, so I reached out to Nurse Kate, which I… ’cause I was very surprised, I was like, “Everything else looks great…

1:01:20.0 Mike Vacanti: ‘Cause you’re crushing fiber.

1:01:20.8 Jordan Syatt: Dude, my nutrition is dialed, and I know there’s a… And it’s not unhealthily high, so it’s still good, but I was like… And I got so mad at my doctor.

1:01:32.4 Mike Vacanti: Do you remember the numbers?

1:01:32.5 Jordan Syatt: I don’t remember, but I noticed it increasing and I spoke to my doctor and they gave me the most fucking annoying answer, they’re like, “Well, go to the American Heart Health website and look at the nutrition guidelines, I’m like, “My nutrition’s fucking dialed… Like, this doesn’t make sense.” So I spoke to Nurse Kate, who is amazing at heart…

1:01:50.7 Mike Vacanti: Such a lazy answer. Pisses me off.

1:01:50.8 Jordan Syatt: The worst, and I even… I wrote another message in the app that we have, and I was like, “Could you give me more info ’cause this doesn’t make sense,” and she just repeated herself, I’m like, “You’re obnoxious.”

1:02:00.2 Mike Vacanti: You’re a really good, patient person, could you please give me some more like… I’d be like, “What is this?”

1:02:07.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Well, also I know they’re like… Anyway. ‘Cause I know I also have… Thank God I have contacts that I can reach out to who are very smart in the medical field, so I reached out to Nurse Kate, she’d been on my podcast, she was the one who actually helped me understand blood pressure a lot more, and I sent her my labs, and first she was like, “Well, this doesn’t make any sense, ’cause I know you’re getting your steps in, you’re doing your cardio, I know your nutrition looks good… ” She knows a lot about me. So what she found, which I found very interesting, and she’s like, “There’s a lot of new research showing the effect of blood pressure medication on cholesterol levels,” and she’s saying that a lot of blood pressure medications can cause an increase in blood cholesterol, which I didn’t know, no one ever told me that.

1:02:51.8 Jordan Syatt: And so then I asked her, I was like, “Well, let me ask you this, if my blood pressure is good, which it is, thank God, if my blood pressure is good, does my total cholesterol matter as much?” And she was like, “That’s the million dollar question, because for years and years and years, people have been very focused on total blood cholesterol, now doctors are starting to debate that being like, “Do we even need to take blood cholesterol levels anymore as long as other vitals are okay?” So apparently there’s big debates in the medical community right now, are blood cholesterol levels as important as they once thought as long as other vitals are alright?

1:03:25.4 Jordan Syatt: So she was like, “Listen, you’re totally fine. You’re healthy, but what I am gonna do is talk to my cardiologist and say, “Hey, here are my labs, this is like… I never had a cholesterol issue before I started this medication, I don’t know, 10 months ago or whatever it was, I never had an issue with my cholesterol, should we discuss potentially changing it to one that might not have an effect on my cholesterol or… Do you think this is an issue?” And we’ll go from there.

1:03:52.2 Mike Vacanti: I know Peter Attia talks about… Because the reason that historically, it was believed that non-HDL cholesterol or that high levels of non-HDL cholesterol were bad is because that was supposedly highly correlated with higher levels of atherosclerosis. However… Yeah, like you said, the debate… And this is, I know 1% less than that of this, but that there are many other factors besides non-HDL cholesterol levels that lead to atherosclerosis and there are tests, most of which insurance probably isn’t going to cover, especially at our age because it’s so preventative but, and not like… You just can’t have everyone in their early 30s getting coronary calcium scans, getting… What the… Echocardiogram, unless you have a specific reason to… I don’t know, we’ll find out ’cause I’m trying to set the appointment up for myself right now, so we’ll see, I’ll keep everyone updated, but that’s interesting that those elevated levels might not be an issue. The first thing that came to my mind though was… You have a family history of high blood pressure?

1:05:09.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Family… Yes, very much genetic, yep.

1:05:11.8 Mike Vacanti: I just wonder, given the changes in lifestyle for you and goals and health over the last 18 to 24 months, I wonder where your blood pressure would be if you weren’t on medication.

1:05:28.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh man. Yeah, just thinking about that raises my blood pressure.

[laughter]

1:05:34.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Dude… I mean… Yeah, I think it would probably be… It would be hypertensive, for sure. Yeah, I think it’d be very bad.

1:05:43.5 Mike Vacanti: But don’t you think that if you never got on blood pressure meds… ’cause didn’t you get on blood pressure meds about two years ago?

1:05:48.2 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no, no. I didn’t start blood pressure meds till after I moved to Texas, till probably…

1:05:51.8 Mike Vacanti: Oh, okay. Good. Even better. So you weren’t on them forever. I’m saying, don’t you think that your blood pressure would have improved some even without the meds, given the changes in lifestyle?

1:06:02.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it did. And it did. It did improve.

1:06:04.0 Mike Vacanti: But not enough.

1:06:05.6 Jordan Syatt: It was… It got to a really good point. It got to about… It was somewhere between 125-135, over between 70-80, which is like… That’s not bad at all. Ideal is sub 120 over 80. But my doctor was like, “Listen, I would just rather you be consistently sub 120 over 80 or as close to that as possible, just because potential damage that it could cause over the long-term. Nothing happening right now, but I’d rather you just be lower.” So that’s what they put me on. They put me on literally the smallest dose of Losartan Potassium that they have to offer, and that helped push it down a few more points. And that was it. So, yeah, that was… I bet it would be probably 150-160, over 80-90, which is… That’s not good for anybody, but especially not for a 30, 31-year-old guy.

1:07:01.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. Dude, we’re almost an hour and 10 minutes in. And since I’m on day two of this mini-cut, I think I’ve only consumed about 50 grams of carbohydrate so far today. Like 75 protein, maybe like 15-20 fat, and…

1:07:16.3 Jordan Syatt: So you wanna keep this going?

1:07:18.5 Mike Vacanti: Well, no. No, I don’t necessarily wanna keep this going, although I’m loving the conversation, but what I do wanna point out is that I have no brain fog, no… I’m hyper… I’m not antsy to do other things. I’m very much just comfortable continuing to have an in-depth conversation, which is weird. I’m usually bouncing around, I’m usually… I know you talked about when you did carnivore or keto? Which one did you do the test for? And that was the time…

1:07:47.5 Jordan Syatt: I did carnivore. I did carnivore. Which sort of encompasses both. Yeah.

1:07:48.7 Mike Vacanti: But you even said, the one positive from it was your mental clarity and ability to focus.

1:07:58.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude, it’s so true. And here I am drinking carbs. It’s like… [chuckle] Yeah. It’s true. That was the one benefit, was how much my mental focus… How good it was. It was crazy. But everything else was awful.

1:08:12.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And you gotta weigh the totality of pros and cons and make the best decision.

1:08:16.1 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

1:08:18.1 Mike Vacanti: But it’s interesting. Great. I hope everyone enjoyed this episode. I really enjoyed this episode. Remind me to share this episode when it comes out because I wanna share this episode.

1:08:28.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’ll remind you to share. When do our episodes come out?

1:08:32.8 Mike Vacanti: Tuesdays. Tuesday mornings.

1:08:35.1 Jordan Syatt: So ours came out yesterday, the one from last week?

1:08:36.3 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.

1:08:37.1 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Cool. Cool, cool. Yeah. I don’t even know when they come out. [chuckle]

1:08:42.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. David whips ’em up over the weekend, does his thing usually, and Tuesday morning, bang.

1:08:50.2 Jordan Syatt: Awesome. Well, thank you for listening. Don’t forget, this is… We got the sale going on for the mentorship. If you want to build your online fitness business, whether you’re starting from complete scratch or you’re already doing pretty well, or are already doing really well, odds are, we can probably help you. And we have a great community of coaches in there right now. This is the lowest it is ever going to be, the lowest cost. You get 20% off. Use code popupscales when you click the link in the show notes to join. It’s gonna give you 20% off. And again, we’re… Mike said, we’re gonna push it for another week after this. That’s fine. But I wouldn’t hesitate because if you miss this sale and you email us after it’s over, we’re not giving it to you. We were actually talking about this in the mentorship the other day, should we extend sales if someone asks. No. And it’s not to be a dick, because it’s like, you gotta keep your word and you gotta let people know that when you say you have a sale for this period of time that you mean it. ‘Cause it’s not fair to the people who already joined and who went out of their way to make sure that they get in on time, if you let people in even after. So we are very serious about when we start and end sales. So get in as quickly as you can. 20% off, popupscales. Link in the show notes. We’re gonna help you build your online business.

1:09:58.9 Mike Vacanti: Boom. Have a great day. See you soon. Goodbye.