Episode 128: Tips for Clients Who Drink Too Much, Leg Training for Power & Mobility, More Power Breakfasts & Dinners, Mike’s Top 4 Movies, and More

0:00:11.5 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.5 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael? Wow. Wow. You’re bringing it back.

0:00:17.8 Mike Vacanti: We… Well, we made promises here on the podcast. For those of you not on the video podcast, I held up a book by the name of Outlive that we were going to have a book club. I think we still are. I’ve made some, but minimal progress on my book.

0:00:34.2 Jordan Syatt: I thought that I was gonna be able to listen to it on the long flights that I had over my vacation a few months ago. And then my daughter needed a lot of attention on the flights, so that didn’t happen. And then I’ve prioritized other things like Jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts on Amazon Prime as opposed to listening to Peter Attia. So I’ve not made, I’ve made little incremental progress, but yeah, I haven’t listened very much.

0:01:01.5 Mike Vacanti: Let’s get serious. Put it on 1.5X speed and let’s say, before, in the next month, let’s finish it and talk about it.

0:01:10.9 Jordan Syatt: Let’s definitely finish and talk about it. I’m cool with that. I can’t do the 1.5X speed. That would basically be like me listening in Chinese. I would not understand a single word of it. So comprehension goes out the window. I’ll just do 1X speed. I’ll do 0.5 speed. And then we’ll finish it by the end of the month.

0:01:28.1 Mike Vacanti: I’ll hassle you. Would you like me to hassle you to finish it?

0:01:30.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Dude, I love being hassled. I love it.

0:01:33.4 Mike Vacanti: You really do. How are you?

0:01:37.5 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’m good.

0:01:39.2 Mike Vacanti: You just did sprints?

0:01:40.5 Jordan Syatt: I did upper body pull and then sprints.

0:01:45.1 Mike Vacanti: Very nice.

0:01:45.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it was a good day.

0:01:47.1 Mike Vacanti: Feeling good?

0:01:48.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, man. I actually, I feel very good. I mean, my rib is still broken, so I haven’t done Jiu-jitsu in like three weeks now or so, which sucks. But I feel great from a strength perspective, conditioning perspective. It’s been nice to have my mornings because usually Jiu-jitsu is like, get up, hang with family a little bit, then go do Jiu-jitsu. So it’s been nice to have a couple hours where I’m just home. My wife can go work out and she could work out before, but now it’s like the schedule is even more flexible since I’m home so she can have a little bit more flexibility with when she works out. And baby’s good. She’s getting big dude. She’s almost, she’s well over 21 pounds, which is wild. 21 pounds at just over nine months old. She’s big.

0:02:34.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s a solid, that’s like a solid lateral raise slash potential rear delt fly. Like you could do some isolation exercises with her.

0:02:44.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’m definitely not gonna allow you around my baby now, but…

[laughter]

0:02:50.6 Jordan Syatt: I walk in the room, you’re just doing goblet squats. You’re like, oh yeah, this is just a real good hip opener. [laughter]

0:02:55.9 Mike Vacanti: Holding a baby with, doing goblet squats is a very safe thing to do. You probably wouldn’t want a lateral raise. Like, you know. I don’t think grabbing 10 month year olds by the, 10 month olds by the scruff of their neck, that’s probably not like an appropriate thing to do.

0:03:12.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s, yeah. I…

[laughter]

0:03:13.8 Mike Vacanti: Not probably.

0:03:15.4 Jordan Syatt: What a turn. What a… That might not be a good idea.

0:03:18.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s probably…

0:03:19.3 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know. Is there research on it?

0:03:21.5 Mike Vacanti: My nephew just hit seven months and I throw him in the air and catch him.

0:03:27.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I throw her in the air as well. My wife is always like, be careful. Be careful. Yeah.

0:03:32.9 Mike Vacanti: Overprotective dad. All right. We’re gonna read a couple emails because a couple of people wrote in, telling us what their power breakfasts are. So we’re giving shout outs.

0:03:41.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh. Let’s go. I love it.

0:03:43.0 Mike Vacanti: Tali. Shout out Tali. Tali says, my power breakfast is my biggest meal of the day and I eat it after my workout mid-morning. Before the gym, I just do a shake. And Tali’s power breakfast is two eggs. Gotta have eggs in a power breakfast. Two eggs plus two egg whites, scrambled or over easy. One Everything Better bagel with cottage cheese, olives, pico or Israeli salad And Nespresso.

0:04:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Dude, that’s an amazing breakfast. I like that.

0:04:18.2 Mike Vacanti: Powerful.

0:04:19.2 Jordan Syatt: I like that a lot. Very powerful.

0:04:22.5 Mike Vacanti: We got another powerful breakfast from Alyssa here. Alyssa loves the podcast. Let me skim a little, get to the power breakfast. My favorite power breakfast is either overnight oats with legion vanilla almond milk, vanilla Greek yogurt, and mini chocolate chips. Pretty powerful. Or a smoothie bowl with frozen banana, frozen mixed berries, OJ, Legion vanilla, Greek yogurt, spinach, and topped with granola. Wow.

0:04:52.5 Jordan Syatt: Geez. That’s a super powerful breakfast.

0:04:55.6 Mike Vacanti: Powerful… Micronutrients plus protein, Alyssa, you’re dialed.

0:05:00.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude, we should create a power breakfast brand. Like we should create ready-made meals called power meals.

0:05:10.5 Mike Vacanti: I’m in. I’m probably not gonna dedicate much time or effort to it, but I’m fully in.

0:05:15.9 Jordan Syatt: All right. We’ll figure it out.

0:05:17.7 Mike Vacanti: Let’s have someone run it.

0:05:19.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. If someone wants to run this from the ground up and take over every aspect of the business and just have Mike and I own it without any work involvement, that would be ideal.

0:05:36.4 Mike Vacanti: Well, hang on. We’ll give a third equity. We’ll go a third, a third, a third.

0:05:40.6 Jordan Syatt: Yep. One third. Yep. Yep. 33. 33. 33. Yep. See that math?

0:05:44.5 Mike Vacanti: So we’ll fund.

0:05:46.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. We’ll fund and then we’ll be there to give insight. But if someone wants to go all in on power breakfast, you know what’s funny is this is, I always judge, I judge the beginning of something if it could be successful based on the initial response. And for so, we got so many, I got a ton of messages around about power breakfast. There was something about that. Yeah. So I mean if we make up what a name for like a meal company too, like power meals, power breakfast.

0:06:17.3 Mike Vacanti: Are we… Are we…

0:06:18.2 Jordan Syatt: Even power bars. They have Power Bars…

0:06:22.0 Mike Vacanti: Which are super overrated.

0:06:22.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Very overrated.

0:06:24.2 Mike Vacanti: At least the iteration that I would eat in high school that just didn’t taste good and were high carb.

0:06:29.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. They were great for endurance, not for strength.

0:06:31.7 Mike Vacanti: Sure.

0:06:32.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s where most of the supplements, that’s… Most of the supplements when we were like in high school and stuff at that point in time had been studied more on endurance as opposed to strength. It’s only more in the last 10 years or so that a lot of studies have been more on strength and muscle growth. So most of the supplements were more towards endurance at that time.

0:06:49.6 Mike Vacanti: Correct. Oh, Alyssa also said, I do enjoy all content, but especially the fitness and nutrition content because we asked what people like to hear about. I really like when you guys talk about your current goals, training, nutrition, etcetera.

0:07:05.5 Jordan Syatt: Amazing feedback. Thank you so much.

0:07:08.4 Mike Vacanti: That’s all we’re going to read through right now. We’re going to save a few more emails. I got a few more emails that we’ll do in the next podcast that we’re filming after this.

0:07:15.9 Jordan Syatt: Never guess who just texted me. Danny Miranda. I need to give him a call.

0:07:19.1 Mike Vacanti: My man.

0:07:19.4 Jordan Syatt: I like missed his last three texts. I’m sorry, Danny, because I’m pretty sure Danny listens to this. So, Danny, after this, I’m going to give you a call.

0:07:25.8 Mike Vacanti: Danny’s the man. What should we talk about?

0:07:31.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You know what? I put up a question box. During the last time we did the Personal Trainer podcast, I put up a question box. Let’s check that out.

0:07:40.1 Mike Vacanti: Beautiful.

0:07:41.4 Jordan Syatt: We’ve done three total stories ever on that page.

0:07:45.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s a solid amount of content.

0:07:49.0 Jordan Syatt: The first one is from Damon. I’m going to mispronounce… I’m going to mispronounce the name… Damon, huge shouts because like I see you’re always watching the content. Much appreciated. His first question is, give us a powerful dinner meal.

0:08:03.6 Mike Vacanti: Damon’s really starting us out strong here on this podcast. I have so many power dinner meals locked and loaded and ready to go.

0:08:13.9 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s do one.

0:08:16.0 Mike Vacanti: Salmon, asparagus and white rice is a power dinner.

0:08:22.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I love that.

0:08:23.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s a lean and mean power dinner.

0:08:27.3 Jordan Syatt: What do you like about it aside from the taste?

0:08:30.2 Mike Vacanti: I like the taste. I like the macronutrient profile. I like… I’ve really started…

0:08:36.2 Mike Vacanti: You actually made me slightly paranoid about GI cancers, and so I’ve been more focused on… Like I… Over the last six to 18 months, I’ve slowly reduced deli meat consumption, processed meat in general consumption, like sausages. I wasn’t you know, I’m not housing hot dogs or bologna on a regular basis, right?

[laughter]

0:09:00.3 Mike Vacanti: The fat to protein just not getting…

0:09:03.2 Jordan Syatt: “The big bologna guy.”

0:09:04.2 Mike Vacanti: This guy loves spam. But also just red meat, and so I’ve upped my fish game. And so that’s one of the reasons I like this meal. Asparagus is delicious. I don’t know what you call that cooking method. Broiling, I think.

0:09:20.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. In the oven.

0:09:22.4 Mike Vacanti: Olive oil, salt and pepper and…

0:09:24.0 Jordan Syatt: Crisp comes out crisp. Yeah, it’s great.

0:09:26.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah and white rice is delicious. And if you don’t feel like having a rice cooker or going through the process of cooking it those Uncle Ben’s, they make a coconut… I mean, the jasmine rice is very good. It’s tasty and I digest it very well. I don’t digest brown rice amazing, but there’s a coconut jasmine that has a little bit more fat.

0:09:49.7 Jordan Syatt: Wow but it sounds amazing.

0:09:51.1 Mike Vacanti: And It’s really good. It’s like nine protein, seven fat, 84 carb for a packet.

0:09:58.8 Jordan Syatt: Dude, coconut jasmine sounds incredible. I need to try that.

0:10:02.2 Mike Vacanti: 90 seconds in the microwave. It’s ready to go.

0:10:04.8 Jordan Syatt: All right. I’m going to order that today.

0:10:07.7 Mike Vacanti: Give us a power dinner, Jordan.

0:10:09.2 Jordan Syatt: Dude I’m a big salmon guy and there are so many different ways that I like to have it prepared, but you take salmon, air fry it. And I’m just reiterating what my wife tells me because she does all the cooking and she’s incredible at it. One thing, one of my favorite meals that she has done, she makes a big, big, big Caesar salad. And then she’ll air fry salmon and put the air fried salmon on top of the Caesar salad. And then, and it’s with… It’s like there’s… It’s so good. And then you can either just have it off the top or you can mix the salmon into the salad which I really like.

0:10:41.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s one good option. Another one is air fried salmon, big thing of lentils, some avocado. That’s really good for me. I’d say those are two of my favorites right now. Obviously I don’t have a ton of red meat. I’ll try. I’ll probably have red meat once every, between one every seven to 10 days. I like a nice filet, a nice filet with some either with lentils or with rice or with maybe a sweet potato. I’m a big fan of that as well so.

0:11:11.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s a powerful dinner.

0:11:12.6 Jordan Syatt: Power meals, man. We got to have power meals. I guess could be big.

0:11:15.9 Mike Vacanti: Hang on. Are we selling pre-made meals? Is that the concept here?

0:11:21.6 Jordan Syatt: Could be. I’m open to anything.

0:11:24.3 Mike Vacanti: While we’re on the subject, the taco mac and cheese from Counter.

0:11:30.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, bro.

0:11:31.7 Mike Vacanti: Was…

0:11:33.2 Jordan Syatt: So good.

0:11:33.8 Mike Vacanti: Insane.

0:11:34.3 Jordan Syatt: So good.

0:11:35.0 Mike Vacanti: Do you want to know my initial response when I opened it?

0:11:37.3 Jordan Syatt: After you tasted it or before you tasted it?

0:11:39.5 Mike Vacanti: Before.

0:11:40.3 Jordan Syatt: You were probably like, ugh.

0:11:42.2 Mike Vacanti: I was like, there’s absolutely no way there’s 31 grams of protein in this because it didn’t look like very much ground beef. And then I literally looked up the recipe and the sauce is a cottage cheese base.

0:11:57.5 Jordan Syatt: That’s so smart.

0:12:00.3 Mike Vacanti: I know. And I wish…

0:12:00.4 Jordan Syatt: It’s a thick, creamy sauce. Yeah, it’s super good.

0:12:02.8 Mike Vacanti: 31 protein, 30 carb, 10 fat. By the way, this is Counter. This is a company that Jordan and I invested in. And so…

0:12:09.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:12:10.1 Mike Vacanti: This is accidentally like the first time I’ve ever plugged anything, full disclosure, but it was so much better than I expected it to be. And this is the first product they rolled out to like 400 Sam’s Clubs across the US.

0:12:28.7 Mike Vacanti: So we’ll see how it does.

0:12:30.5 Jordan Syatt: What’s it called?

0:12:31.6 Mike Vacanti: The taco mac and cheese?

0:12:33.1 Jordan Syatt: So is it taco mac and cheese by Counter?

0:12:36.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I really like this. So we invested very small amounts of money into this company and we have essentially no say in what they do. It’s just they’re looking for small investments. And I liked it because the whole concept is being able to give high protein options at a reasonable caloric intake in the frozen food section. And for a lot of people who struggle or who don’t have the time to prepare foods or might not have access to those types of foods, be able to have access to high protein frozen meals that are like high quality ingredients. This is the first I’ve ever seen anything like it. So I was blown away with how good it is. It’s got a little spicy kick at the end, which I wasn’t expecting either, which is like a taco mac and cheese with a little spicy hint. I liked it a lot.

0:13:18.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s interesting. My wife said that too. And I generally don’t like spicy food and I didn’t find it spicy.

0:13:24.9 Jordan Syatt: No, it wasn’t spicy. Like it wasn’t like burning my mouth, but I felt it. I felt some heat. Yeah, yeah. It was very good. All right. Damon asked the first four questions so I’m… The first… The next one is, what do you guys think about politics? [laughter] Do you wanna go into politics?

0:13:47.9 Mike Vacanti: No, not at all. But I’m halfway through listening to RFK on Rogan.

0:13:52.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:13:53.5 Mike Vacanti: And I’m a big fan.

0:13:54.5 Jordan Syatt: Big fan. Yeah.

0:13:55.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:13:56.3 Jordan Syatt: I’m excited to listen to it. I’m very excited to listen to it.

0:14:00.8 Mike Vacanti: Of him, the first hour of the episode is about vaccines, but.

0:14:03.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:14:05.4 Mike Vacanti: I’m a fan of what I’ve heard from him and his willingness to have seemingly authentic conversations about topics that most politicians just either glaze over, ignore, yeah. He seems more real than the average person in Washington.

0:14:23.3 Jordan Syatt: Dude, that’s the worst when politicians are asked a question and then they just don’t even answer it.

0:14:30.9 Mike Vacanti: You mean every time for 99% of the time?

0:14:33.0 Jordan Syatt: It’s the worst.

0:14:34.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:14:34.4 Jordan Syatt: And I always wonder, I’m like, am I the only one seeing this? Because I don’t… I just don’t get it. How people can watch who their… I don’t know, their favorite politicians get up, be asked a question, and then literally not answer it and act as though they did. It’s just, it’s crazy.

0:14:54.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:14:56.5 Jordan Syatt: It’s… Interesting world. Alright. Damon asked the next question. What are Mike’s top four movies?

0:15:03.1 Mike Vacanti: I like that we’re speed rounding this. I’m gonna give the first four off the top of my head, Gladiator.

0:15:10.9 Jordan Syatt: I know what the next one is.

0:15:12.6 Mike Vacanti: What?

0:15:12.9 Jordan Syatt: Braveheart.

0:15:14.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. [laughter] Yep. That’s exactly what I was gonna say.

0:15:17.9 Jordan Syatt: Yes. Let’s go. Very good Jordan.

0:15:20.4 Mike Vacanti: Gladiator, Braveheart, Rounders, has to sneak its way in there, which I just did a…

0:15:26.8 Jordan Syatt: Really?

0:15:27.1 Mike Vacanti: Rewatch on. Yeah.

0:15:28.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s that good.

0:15:30.4 Mike Vacanti: It’s the movie that got me. It’s a 7.3 on IMDB. But it has a cult following. It has a loaded cast. It got me into poker. It’s an iconic movie and it has that Jewish professor I was telling you about last night, [laughter] I never fully comprehended the meaning of a couple of his scenes when I… Because I first watched it, it came out in ’97. I think I first watched it when I was 12 years old. And I didn’t comprehend the meaning of those scenes until the last couple years.

0:16:04.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s how Mike ropes me into trying to do anything. If there’s something Jewish, he’ll be like, “you know there’s a Jewish guy in there…” [laughter]

0:16:13.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s funny. That’s funny. But I don’t think it’s true. If you can give a second example of a time I’ve done that other than Rounders, I’ll let that stand.

0:16:21.5 Jordan Syatt: I’ve only got one example. There’s the one from yesterday with rounders. That’s it.

0:16:25.3 Mike Vacanti: I said it last night because I really… The professor scene stood out to me more than they ever had. And my fourth movie.

0:16:33.5 Jordan Syatt: No, that… Oh yeah. That was your third. Yeah.

0:16:36.0 Mike Vacanti: I’m gonna… Right now at this exact time. I’m going to give it to, It’s a Wonderful Life.

0:16:42.3 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that.

0:16:43.8 Mike Vacanti: You probably haven’t [laughter] You’re just not that big a movie guy. And it’s from, it’s in black and white.

0:16:51.5 Jordan Syatt: Alright. Fourth question from Damon.

0:16:55.5 Mike Vacanti: I love that we’re just ripping one take top to bottom, giving Damon all four slots.

0:17:01.6 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I like it. He asked every question and there aren’t like tons, so we’re just gonna go… We’re gonna go through a bunch of them. Alright. Damon said, I have a client who isn’t making a lot of progress because he drinks a lot of alcohol weekly. Any tips?

0:17:18.8 Mike Vacanti: When I am first onboarding a client, I have… One of the questions in my assessment is, how many drinks do you have per week? And what type of drinks do you enjoy? Or something along those lines. And for someone who drinks a lot, because you’ll have people who drink a bottle of wine every single night. You’ll have people who you know, have three or four old fashions every single night. I will ask them, okay, I’m definitely not gonna make you stop drinking because you enjoy drinking and we don’t have to stop drinking to make progress, but how many drinks a week do you think is a reasonable amount? And do you want to set as kinda your target for each week? And so that’s the place I’ll start rather than me being, okay, you can only have this many drinks. Or if I give a range, I’ll ask, do you feel that’s reasonable? Do you… Would you want it to be higher? Would you want it to be lower? But I’ll let the client decide, motivational interviewing, and give them a target. Let them pick their target.

0:18:28.2 Jordan Syatt: I like that. I like that motivational interviewing. You give them the opportunity. That’s a really good strategy. It works very well. And we actually got a question about client intake form questions that we can talk about after this. But I don’t ask that in my client intake form. It’s something that I do often bring up within the first couple weeks of coaching. I just try and keep the client intake form very… As brief as possible. So the one… I remember I had one client, and oftentimes when you’re coaching, you learn so much as a coach, as you’re coaching. And I had one client who completely changed my perspective on this. And because I’ve been such a big moderation guy throughout my career, I’ve always been very hesitant to tell someone, just stop something. Or just do this or don’t do this. So I had one client, it was the first client that I had that was really struggling with this exact problem. She was drinking a lot, and she made it very clear from when we first started working together that she was drinking a lot. She was young, she was in her early 20s and she was not willing to stop drinking, period. And she was drinking a lot. And I…

0:19:44.5 Mike Vacanti: How much?

0:19:45.1 Jordan Syatt: This was like between like 15 to 20 plus drinks a week, like a lot. And I was, at first I was like, okay, cool. I mean as long as you hit your calories, then because her goal, she wanted to lose fat. I was like, as long as you hit your calories, but it’s gonna be very difficult with the amount of drinks that you’re having every week. Like, this is a lot. So we went for about three months and by the end of three months she had made zero progress.

0:20:10.3 Jordan Syatt: And we had a conversation. I was like, well, why do you think? And she was like, “I don’t know, I think the only thing could potentially be the drinking.” And in my mind I’m like, “yeah, no fucking shit. Obviously it’s the drinking.” And I said, “okay, here’s the deal.” I said, “the reality is if you can’t stop drinking for 30 days, that means you have a problem, right? Like I’m not saying you have to give it up forever, but just for 30 days, if you can’t not drink for 30 days, there’s a deeper problem that you need to see a specialist about, because this is outside of my scope.”

0:20:44.2 Jordan Syatt: And I was like, “do you agree with that?” And she was like, “yeah, a hundred percent.” I was like, “okay, cool. Let’s take 30 days no drinks, you’re gonna do a 30 day no alcohol challenge.” I was like, “after 30 days, go back to doing what you’re doing. But again, if you can’t go 30 days, no drinks, there’s a real problem here.” And she’s like, “you’re right, I agree. I’ll do a 30 day challenge, no alcohol.” In that month, she made more progress than she had in the first three months because in the first three months she made zero progress. So after those 30 days, or really it was after, like the first couple weeks when she started to make amazing progress, she was like, “wow, okay, I definitely don’t wanna be drinking as much.”

0:21:20.5 Jordan Syatt: After the 30 days she started to drink again, but instead of 15 to 20, it was like two to eight drinks per week. And she was able to do that while continuing to make progress. And so this was a huge, huge, huge learning opportunity for me to realize, like, listen, I tend to start with a more moderation approach, but if it’s just not working, giving them a challenge and an opportunity to be like, listen, just don’t do it for 30 days. The reality is, if you can’t stop doing anything for 30 days, there’s probably a deeper problem there. And aside from eating or drinking water, but like really any habit that you have, if you can’t stop it for 30 days, then there’s a deeper rooted issue that you need to discuss with a therapist or something. So I used that as an opportunity to essentially allow her to see progress and once she saw progress, she became more motivated to not be drinking as much. So that’s probably my best advice that I can give on that front.

0:22:16.5 Mike Vacanti: I love it. I love the challenge idea. I like the advice overall. I don’t think I could go 30 days without taking a step.

0:22:23.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, let’s.

0:22:26.0 Mike Vacanti: Just…

0:22:28.5 Jordan Syatt: That would not be good. Lose a lot of muscle and bone density just sitting there.

0:22:33.2 Mike Vacanti: Dude. And just like, I think there’d be other bad things that happen from lack of, getting your heart rate up and like circulate circulatory issues.

0:22:45.6 Jordan Syatt: Blood clots. Yeah. Real problem. Okay, so Coach Caruthers Oh, Cory. Cory Caruthers.

0:22:55.9 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go. Cory.

0:22:58.2 Jordan Syatt: Fitness question. How to train legs for power and mobility, strength and size. Feels good. Thank you. Okay, so number one, to have like strength and size feel good. That’s amazing. I love that. So now we’re talking about in increasing power development and mobility, which are two very separate things. These are not like strength and size often have they coincide.

0:23:23.4 Jordan Syatt: There’s like a Venn diagram where there’s a lot of similarities and training for one will often improve the other. They’re not the same, but there’s a lot of similarities. Power, let’s define power. Power is essentially how quickly You can display your strength. There’s a speed component there with when it’s just strength, there’s no speed component. It’s just how much can you lift is essentially what strength is.

0:23:45.8 Jordan Syatt: Power is how quickly can you lift it, right? So the amount of time it takes to generate that equal amount of force. And so if you have one lifter who can deadlift 500 pounds, but it takes him 10 seconds and you have another lifter who can deadlift 500 pounds, but it takes him four seconds, that lifter has way more power. And what you can do is you can actually start to use this, and this is not for Gen Pop, this is more for higher level athletes. You can start to use this as an opportunity to say, well, what does this athlete need? If your athlete has a lot of strength but can’t generate it very quickly, then odds are maybe working on power is a really good idea.

0:24:31.8 Jordan Syatt: If you have an athlete who is very, very quick but can’t deadlift their body weight, well then they need to stop doing speed work and focus more on strength. So you can, and it depends on the athlete and the demands of their sport and demands of the position of their sport. If it is more of a team sport and positional sport, what you have to work on. So for power, it’s actually very simple and you don’t need a lot. I would say number one, when you’re training for power, it has to be, it should not gonna say has to, it should usually be at the beginning of your training session.

0:25:01.8 Jordan Syatt: You shouldn’t save it for the end. You don’t wanna train speed when you’re fatigued. You don’t wanna train quick explosive movements when you’re already tired. So building power for a lower body, something as simple as a squat jump, simple as a kettlebell swing, simple as a snatch, as a push press, a clean a jerk. Broad jumps are one of my all time favorites. Any type of jumping or explosive movement is gonna help build power in terms of how you program it as a whole separate conversation for a separate podcast. But generally speaking, more sets and fewer reps. I would rather see someone do 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 sets of one, two or three reps than do three sets of 10 reps.

0:25:49.8 Jordan Syatt: And there are many reasons for this, but generally speaking, if you’re doing 10 reps in a set by the 10th rep, like you’re gonna be fatigued, you’re gonna be tired, you’re gonna be losing the ability to display that force quickly. I would rather you do 10 sets of two because each set you’re at your best, you’re not fatiguing yourself. So even something like eight sets of four kettlebell swings very, very heavy is a really great strategy to build power. Five sets of three broad jumps is a really great, set and rep scheme for broad jumps. For kettlebell snatches, like five sets of five is a really great option per side. So generally more reps, fewer reps per set in terms of mobility…

0:26:36.9 Jordan Syatt: Man, mobility is a tough one, especially to discuss without visuals. You know what, if I’m gonna get, I think my best recommendation for improving mobility, I would say go to @hunterfitness. @hunterfitness, He’s amazing. I’ve been friendly with him for many, many years. If you look him up on Instagram, @hunterfitness, I’m actually planning on on signing up for his membership program.

0:27:02.7 Mike Vacanti: You watch…

0:27:03.1 Jordan Syatt: Just because I wanna learn from him.

0:27:04.3 Mike Vacanti: Watch one or two of his videos and you’ll know you’re on the mobility page.

0:27:07.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:27:07.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s all…

0:27:09.2 Jordan Syatt: And not only mobility, but his ability to control his mobility to control the range. It’s not like he just has the range. It’s that he can control it without needing to put himself in that position. It’s pretty wild and it’s a science. So I would say go to Hunter Fitness and look at his mobility stuff and I’m gonna sign up for his membership very soon. So yeah. I would say go there. That’s my recommendation for that.

0:27:32.5 Mike Vacanti: I think it’s… Yeah I’m he’s unbelievably impressive that’s for sure. I think people underestimate the improve… For someone who’s not mobile and Cory I don’t know if this question specifically for you or if it was for just general knowledge and to apply to clients but generally speaking for someone who’s not mobile taking lower body compound movements through a full range is going to improve your mobility over time.

0:28:05.6 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:28:06.6 Mike Vacanti: Period. End of story. And so how much mobility do you want or are you seeking is a question I would ask before you start thinking about how to program for that goal.

0:28:22.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. That’s a very good point.

0:28:23.9 Mike Vacanti: And Jordan wants all of the mobility so that he can get someone in his guard and fricking freaking have his leg on their upper back and, push the head down.

0:28:34.2 Jordan Syatt: Dude you’re just very robust in jiu-jitsu world.

0:28:36.9 Mike Vacanti: I remember a couple things from before I retired from jiu-jitsu. [laughter] Tell me, Jordan, what’s happening on the social media streets? What are the big topics? We don’t need to talk about weight loss injection since we’ve hit that, unless there’s anything new there. What are you seeing? Body positivity? Are you seeing carnivore? Are you seeing water fasting? What are you seeing? Are people still doing compound moves? Did they stop line of pull isometrics? Tell me what you’re seeing and we can discuss, glycogen? Is that still a thing?

0:29:08.6 Jordan Syatt: Is that still… [laughter] I’m tryna think about trends I’ve seen in the fitness space.

0:29:18.8 Mike Vacanti: Neck training? Are people training their necks directly out there on the streets?

0:29:22.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude no one’s training their neck. That’s… I mean no one in our space. I bet if I was more in the football space we’d see more, American football players training their neck because it’s such a huge way to reduce the risk of concussions and also obviously neck and spinal injuries. MMA fighters, jiu-jitsu fighters are obviously training their neck, but Gen Pop is not. What do you think? Do you think Gen Pop should be training their neck?

0:29:50.9 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think it’s something you put in a beginners program. Obviously there’s bigger fish to fry first out of the gate when you’re trying to establish a strength base and when you’re trying to learn proper technique on a variety of movements, we’re not gonna dive into isolation, neck flex, flexion, extension, iron neck type stuff. However, at some point, yeah, I think it’s a really good idea. I think the variety that it brings can be psychologically intriguing and fun for dudes, especially if you’ve ever seen those photos of… And this is mostly for men, because I’m gonna stereotype here and I’m gonna say visually, men prefer a thicker neck, compared to women, don’t prefer a thicker neck.

0:30:42.8 Jordan Syatt: You mean on themselves?

0:30:44.3 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:30:45.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Not like, yeah. [laughter]

0:30:49.1 Mike Vacanti: Not in what they’re attracted to Jordan. Yes, on themselves. Thought that was obvious. Have you seen the pictures of… It’ll have a random dude and then it will photoshop his neck to be like a pencil neck, and then it’ll Photoshop his neck to be like that giant football player neck and they’ll have all three pictures next to each other.

0:31:17.8 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:31:18.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s very interesting. If we can flash that on the screen, that would be awesome, but it’s crazy how much it changes the aesthetics of the person. Like their facial structure is all exactly the same, but based on the size of their neck, they look different.

0:31:37.5 Jordan Syatt: Like more imposing, less imposing?

0:31:38.8 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know.

0:31:40.9 Jordan Syatt: Everything?

0:31:41.6 Mike Vacanti: Sure, probably yes. But I’m just going to say different and let anyone look at it and make your own assessment. The strength benefits in day-to-day life. The anti-injury benefits that I don’t even want to say injury. The anti tweak benefits for me specifically have been huge. There’ll just be random times where I don’t know if I’m like leaning over the bed to grab something and like my wife grabs on to me. I distinctly remember at points in the past when I had tweaked my neck, been like I like, “don’t grab my head, my neck hurts.” [laughter] Whereas now I can just, I can carry a human with my neck. At this point, Jordan, I don’t think you understand where my weighted neck extensions are. Next time we’re in Dallas, we’ll really do something with it. Maybe we’ll make content around it. That might be really welcoming…

0:32:38.3 Jordan Syatt: I’m just trying to imagine the situation where like your wife is like grabbing your head and you’re like, “don’t grab…” [laughter]

0:32:43.3 Mike Vacanti: Well, like giving me a hug.

0:32:47.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, got it, got it, got it. Okay.

0:32:48.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:32:48.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:32:50.5 Mike Vacanti: I’m like leaning over, yeah.

0:32:52.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, got it, got it. Okay. She’s like reaching up. Grab… Okay, And then you don’t have that… You didn’t have, the strength to handle that. And so then you tweaked your neck and now…

0:33:03.4 Mike Vacanti: I always had the strength. [laughter] But I may have had a slight neck tweak, whereas now I don’t need… Like my isometric neck extension… I don’t even want to put a number on it.

0:33:15.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, the thing I love about the Iron Neck is how much I feel it improves my posture. But I see an immediate improvement of when I’m, even just doing like simple Iron Neck exercises, rotation side to side, immediate postural improvements. And I feel the, like the top of my erectors, like going straight down from my, from the, like the bottom of my skull, dude, lit up, just absolutely lit up. So I, from a postural perspective, we could do all the dumbbell rows we want, all of the lat pull-downs we want, all the of the, like all the chest supported rows, all that stuff but in terms like dealing with tech neck with like that super forward head posture, I really don’t think there’s a better option than the Iron Neck. And we’re not getting paid to say that.

0:34:01.9 Mike Vacanti: I’ve noticed it. See, I don’t even think, the thing I like about the iron neck is the loaded rotations, which you want to talk about improving mobility and doing it under load. Like from the beginning of an iron neck session to the end of a session doing loaded rotations, my side to side mobility improves massively. The thing that I think, and that it does help posture, what I think helped my forward head position the most, and I’ve noticed it in pictures, is weighted neck extensions. Just lying on a bench, neck hanging off, literally starting body weight or starting with a five pound plate on the back of your head, 15 reps minimum, and three sets a week, not even more than that…

0:34:50.3 Jordan Syatt: So, you’re lying prone, you’re lying prone with a five pound weight on the back of your head. You’re supporting it with your hands and it’s…

0:34:56.9 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:34:57.9 Jordan Syatt: Just 15 to 20 reps, yeah.

0:35:00.0 Mike Vacanti: Yes, yes. And then adding weight over time and not getting anywhere close to failure. But what that has done for my forward head position in a pretty short amount of time is mind-boggling.

0:35:09.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s awesome.

0:35:12.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:35:12.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude, we should make neck training the next big thing.

0:35:14.1 Mike Vacanti: I agree. And you especially.

0:35:18.5 Jordan Syatt: Me especially.

0:35:19.7 Mike Vacanti: Well, it’s more relevant for you.

0:35:21.3 Jordan Syatt: Just because of jiu-jitsu?

0:35:23.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:35:23.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I mean, there’s definitely a huge, important component of it for any type of combat athlete and also really any type of athlete in which there’s collisions. You know who else actually needs it? Race car drivers. Race car drivers need neck training just as much as any combat athlete. The G-forces that they have on them as they’re going around and because it’s the same exact direction every single time, they actually develop severe imbalances between the strength on one side of the neck and the other because they’re just going, it’s the same direction every single time. They don’t change directions. So neck training for them is super important. Yeah, man. I mean, neck is the glutes of the upper body, you know?

0:36:11.1 Mike Vacanti: Tweet that. [laughter]

0:36:15.0 Jordan Syatt: The neck is the glutes of the upper body.

0:36:18.0 Mike Vacanti: What else are you seeing on the streets?

0:36:21.8 Jordan Syatt: The mean streets of Instagram?

0:36:23.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Are people lifting? People lifting out there?

0:36:29.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, dude, people are, more people are lifting than ever.

0:36:30.5 Mike Vacanti: Coaches, are coaches lifting?

0:36:34.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude I think more coaches need to lift.

0:36:34.5 Mike Vacanti: I know coaches in the mentorship are lifting, but I’m wondering about all the other coaches out there.

0:36:39.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, coaches in the mentorship practice what they preach. They fucking, they go hard. They go really hard. I like it. If they’re not in the mentorship, they’re probably not going that hard.

0:36:51.9 Mike Vacanti: They still might lift. We don’t know.

0:36:52.5 Jordan Syatt: They might.

0:36:53.2 Mike Vacanti: They are not. They might not, but they might.

0:36:55.8 Jordan Syatt: But as soon as a coach joins the mentorship, their own training gets infinitely better.

0:37:00.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s…

0:37:00.7 Jordan Syatt: Not because of anything we provide. We just provide…

0:37:03.8 Mike Vacanti: It’s osmosis.

0:37:08.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, just like you’re surrounded by coaches who are dominating. So if there was someone who wanted to join the mentorship, they would just go to the link in the show notes and join and watch your own training, skyrocket and your own business. But anyway, that’s aside from the point. [laughter] What else? Yeah, dude, people are lifting. People are getting their steps in. Oh, you know what? I was telling you, I was doing some zone two the other day. You were on the phone. The kid next to me was just, he was getting his steps in, like jacked. This jacked kid next to me, I’ve never seen him before. He’s getting his steps in and he’s on his phone and just banging out client voice memos. And he’s doing such a good job. He’s like, “I’m so impressed with you. I’m so proud of you. You’ve done this and this and this. We can absolutely work on this.” He’s doing the compliment sandwich super well.

0:37:54.1 Jordan Syatt: And after, in between one of his voice memos, I introduced myself. I was like, hey man, are you a coach? He was like, yeah, yeah. I was like yeah man, same. We connected, but it was really great to see that he was getting his steps in. That dude definitely lifts. He’s jacked as hell. And also just working hard getting his steps in. I loved it.

0:38:14.5 Mike Vacanti: And great communication skills with his clients too, it sounds like.

0:38:16.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, really. And he was doing like, it wasn’t even, he was texting them. So he was texting them and it wasn’t actually voice memos. It looked like he was voice recording leading into a text, which I thought was interesting.

0:38:30.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh. Voice to text?

0:38:31.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, voice to text as opposed to voice note, which I actually prefer the voice note.

0:38:36.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s interesting. Does voice to text? Well, there are, we’ve talked about this in the mentorship. There are times where a voice memo makes a lot of sense with a client. It’s probably not optimal to have all of your communication via voicemail.

0:38:48.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:38:49.8 Mike Vacanti: Probably because it’s so much harder to sift back through previous conversations and pull things, which is important in an online coaching relationship. Is voice, is the technology for voice to text pretty good these days?

0:39:03.8 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t use it. I mean, he wasn’t just talking like we are now. He would be like, and I think you’re doing amazing and I am very proud of you, period.

0:39:17.3 Mike Vacanti: Still, I’m gonna play with that because I am such a, just for day-to-day life, because I’m a horrendous texter. I fat finger…

0:39:26.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Me as well.

0:39:28.0 Mike Vacanti: So often. I’m always deleting. It takes me forever to write texts. I’m much better on a keyboard, so I’m gonna play with the voice to text.

0:39:36.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, play with it, play with that, play with the iron neck. But yeah, man, I think that’s. I’m trying to… I mean, people are lifting, dude. More people are lifting than ever, I think. I think we’re at a stage and I think more people are lifting now than ever in history ever.

0:39:54.5 Mike Vacanti: Good.

0:39:54.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s like, I really I don’t, because it’s never been more accessible. In terms of everything that people have available, in terms of the knowledge, in terms of equipment, even with minimal equipment, there’s just so many programs people can follow. I think and… Yeah. I remember early on in my career and even not early on even as recent as probably four or five years ago, maybe even less. There’s the fitness industry goes through cycles in which people will say lifting is bad for you.

0:40:22.9 Mike Vacanti: What?

0:40:23.4 Jordan Syatt: I have… I did. Yeah dude. There’s people who say like there was literally… I actually saw someone say this the other day but it was not a well liked comment or anything but it was something to the effect of how strength training is actually highly detrimental to longevity. And there’s a whole group of people who think that who think that lifting weights and they all you need is your body weight and you shouldn’t lift any extra weight da da da da. But but that is of small minority of people that I think more people now are lifting than ever and they understand it and very happily, I’ve also seen a huge resurgence of steps and just Cardio Zone 2, just doing a little bit of that.

0:41:06.7 Jordan Syatt: I think that the fitness industry right now, to be honest, is the best it’s ever been in terms of accessibility, availability overall, totality of knowledge. It’s even if you look on people’s pages of who are people who are promoting awful, stupid stuff. The comments are littered with people who are like that’s just not true. That’s just not true.

0:41:30.3 Jordan Syatt: And so I think that the amount of knowledge that people have now is better than it’s literally… Like the amount of knowledge the the regular lay gen population a person has is better than it’s ever been before. Now if we can get obesity rates down and global health improved, that’s really the next big step. But, let me ask you, how do you think we do that? How do we improve?

0:41:54.5 Mike Vacanti: You know what? That is how we’re going to lead off the next episode.

0:41:58.7 Jordan Syatt: I like that. I like that. We’ll start with that.

0:42:01.3 Mike Vacanti: Jordan’s gonna watch the movie Rounders because he hasn’t. And there’s a great Jewish professor, a great character in that movie, who makes a great point that might actually impact someone’s life, who’s listening. And we’re gonna read our book and… Great episode.

0:42:20.3 Jordan Syatt: Well, we’re going to record the next episode right now, so we’re not going to do any of that prior to the next episode, but…

0:42:25.6 Mike Vacanti: I am.

0:42:26.1 Jordan Syatt: We are… [laughter] Oh yeah. All right. Thank you so much for listening. If you haven’t joined the Mentorship, really don’t know what you’re doing, go join that link in the show notes. We appreciate you listening. Please leave a 5-star review if you have any questions. Keep a lookout on our Instagram. We’re gonna post another Q&A so you can ask us questions we can answer here on the pod. And have a wonderful week. We’ll talk to you soon.

0:42:49.5 Mike Vacanti: See you soon. Goodbye.