Episode 187: Getting Clients to Send Technique Videos, Timed Sets vs Regular Sets, Guru Nonsense, and More…

0:00:11.7 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.3 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael?

0:00:13.4 Mike Vacanti: Back away from the undisclosed location in the official podcasting studio. Good to be here with you.

0:00:20.2 Jordan Syatt: And you’re the three-year running champion of your golf league.

0:00:26.4 Mike Vacanti: The three-peat is in action. We had my annual golf trip this last weekend, and team Stick narrowly pulled it out over team Bag in the eight on eight, high school reunion-style August JAG cup.

0:00:40.9 Jordan Syatt: You played amazing. You crushed it.

0:00:43.1 Mike Vacanti: Mm. So we played three rounds. My Friday round wasn’t good at all. But shout out to my playing partner, Brian Conley, who absolutely carried me on his back. And then we played 36 on Saturday, where I played better.

0:00:54.7 Jordan Syatt: And you drank. You drank alcohol?

0:00:56.5 Mike Vacanti: I had a couple of drinks Saturday.

0:00:58.6 Jordan Syatt: How’d it feel?

0:01:00.5 Mike Vacanti: Didn’t really like it.

0:01:00.6 Jordan Syatt: Even while you were doing it, you’re like, eh, this isn’t worth it.

0:01:03.7 Mike Vacanti: No, not that it’s not worth it. I just genuinely don’t enjoy the taste or the sensation very much.

0:01:10.5 Jordan Syatt: Even the Truly’s. I thought you loved the Truly’s.

0:01:12.8 Mike Vacanti: Maybe I used to. I don’t know.

0:01:14.5 Jordan Syatt: What flavor did you get?

0:01:16.2 Mike Vacanti: I had a mango White Claw, and then we had this, like, grape drink that’s like a golf course drink that everyone drinks on the golf course. It’s got vodka, and grape juice, and something else in there.

0:01:27.6 Jordan Syatt: Interesting.

0:01:28.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. But I had a few. It was fun. It was just great to catch up with all of these guys. Some I don’t see quite as often, and reminisce, tell old stories. Beautiful weather, the resort or whatever. The course, it’s in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska. They literally just plopped a course down and you can see for miles, miles in every direction.

0:01:54.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s genius.

0:01:54.4 Mike Vacanti: The holes and the sights are absolutely beautiful. And then they had four cabins on site, and we had those four cabins rented, so, like, four per cabin. It worked out perfectly. Then you get a golf cart for the whole weekend. So you’re going from your cabin up to the course. There’s a little food stand where they’re making wraps and egg sandwiches and everything from dawn till dusk. It was really nice. It was also very, like, there was almost no one there. So normally a golf course is sending people off as frequently as possible to maximize revenue. So you’ll have, depending on the course, eight minutes, ten minutes, twelve minutes, maybe between groups, whereas here, the tee times were every 20 minutes.

0:02:37.8 Jordan Syatt: So nice.

0:02:38.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, we weren’t waiting ever basically. It was a really great weekend.

0:02:45.7 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I love that. You got outside in nature. Were you, like, before or after the day started, were you outside getting fresh air, grounding bare feet in the grass, like outside the cabin, or it was just like…

0:02:57.5 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah. You know I’m out there.

0:02:58.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, were you?

0:03:00.2 Mike Vacanti: You and I always got… Yeah… Woke up, sometimes our tee times were really early for the Saturday morning. Like a 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. Start just ’cause that’s how it works out if we’re going to get all the holes in for the day based on what’s available. I teed off at 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning. So was up at seven something. And the cabin is literally like just pristine view of nature. So walk out the back deck in the grass, doing a little stretching. Yeah, it was really nice.

0:03:29.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s awesome. And it was 36 holes on Saturday.

0:03:33.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:03:33.7 Jordan Syatt: So you have two tee times then, right?

0:03:35.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. So 9:00 and 2:40.

0:03:38.4 Jordan Syatt: Are you sore? That’s a lot of rotation.

0:03:41.0 Mike Vacanti: Only my right inside of my elbow. Like a little, little golfer’s elbow, but…

0:03:45.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, interesting.

0:03:47.2 Mike Vacanti: I’m not today. So today’s Tuesday. We played on Saturday. I was a little bit yesterday, but not at all today.

0:03:54.6 Jordan Syatt: Nice.

0:03:55.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, man. Yeah, it was fun. We took carts. You know, walking 36 is a very different experience.

0:04:00.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah, you had a cart. Yeah, I mean, walking would have been crazy.

0:04:04.7 Mike Vacanti: Brutal. Yeah. So this, I think I still got 25,000 steps in for the day. But if we were walking it, it would have been more and probably more sore.

0:04:14.6 Jordan Syatt: I can’t, anytime I think about golf now, I just can’t help but think about Biden and Trump arguing over their handicap…

0:04:27.6 Mike Vacanti: That’s a great…

0:04:27.8 Jordan Syatt: In the presidential debate.

0:04:30.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s amazing that that is the association you have with the game of golf.

0:04:34.2 Jordan Syatt: It was just such a ridiculous thing to have like two leaders of the free world as like our candidates for president just arguing in their debate. It was just amazing. And I can’t help but think about that now.

0:04:51.3 Mike Vacanti: Speaking of politics, I might actually get rid of my iPhone and get a flip phone for once and for all.

0:04:58.4 Jordan Syatt: Because of what I said?

0:05:00.6 Mike Vacanti: No, it just reminded me of, for the last, I basically wasn’t scrolling, like actually not scrolling at all for these three days and I felt so much better as a result. And then get back in my day to day and when there’s downtime in the day by myself, you just pull the phone out almost instinctively and you’re scrolling, and the differences.

0:05:21.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:05:22.4 Mike Vacanti: I can’t even put words to the difference in how it feels.

0:05:25.7 Jordan Syatt: And I mean, do you need a smartphone? I mean, are you using it like outside of, like, you’re not really using social media except for scrolling.

0:05:34.1 Mike Vacanti: Uber?

0:05:35.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah, Uber. Yeah.

0:05:36.8 Mike Vacanti: Email. I’ll do some on my phone.

0:05:39.3 Jordan Syatt: Do you email on your phone?

0:05:40.6 Mike Vacanti: I check email. I don’t like doing client emails on my phone. I like having all of the information and my setup on my desktop, and it’s just harder to navigate all of that on a phone. There are maps, music.

0:05:56.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, maps for sure.

0:05:57.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. But I don’t know, there has to be some kind of hack. The @personaltrainerpodcast Instagram page, like to get in there and we have our system. People on here have heard about it. I text Jordan, “hey, it’s time to post.” And Jordan posts. And then I check to see that Jordan posts.

0:06:16.5 Jordan Syatt: In the past couple days, I’m going to have to catch up over the next couple days.

0:06:21.4 Mike Vacanti: You’ll make up for it.

0:06:22.7 Jordan Syatt: I’ll make up for it.

0:06:23.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. Been great. It’s been a great year of content for the Personal Trainer Podcast.

0:06:28.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. We’ve been crushing it.

0:06:29.0 Mike Vacanti: 2024 weekly uploads. YouTube, people are loving the YouTube podcast. Video pods, the shorts, the reels on Instagram. It’s been good.

0:06:40.4 Jordan Syatt: I think my favorite clip from this past year has been, like, specifically YouTube related because you had to see it was when you were demonstrating how you sleep with your pillows.

0:06:49.3 Mike Vacanti: The Six Pillow Solution.

0:06:50.8 Jordan Syatt: Probably the greatest clip of the year.

0:06:52.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s going to be an ebook for $999.95.

0:06:57.8 Jordan Syatt: And you’re going to have to make pillows to sell with it. And each pillow…

0:07:00.9 Mike Vacanti: Mo, it’s just gonna be one page. It’s going to be one page. It’s going to be a diagram. It’s going to be a PDF download à la 2002. And then there will be overpriced pillows that go with it and then with affiliate codes to buy sleep supplements on top of that.

0:07:13.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow.

0:07:15.6 Mike Vacanti: And how else can I be unethical?

0:07:17.9 Jordan Syatt: What would the sleep supplements be?

0:07:19.5 Mike Vacanti: Ones that don’t work and are overpriced with my affiliate code. à la like, like greens powders that cost $100 and then they kick back like $85 in commissions. It’ll be like that except even more unethical.

0:07:30.4 Jordan Syatt: Would you sell like blackout curtains? Would you sell blackout curtains?

0:07:33.0 Mike Vacanti: No, because those work and it would be an unethical operation.

0:07:36.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh, got it. This is only the unethical sleep solution.

0:07:38.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s only… Yeah, yeah.

0:07:41.0 Jordan Syatt: Except for the actual six-pillow sleep solution.

0:07:43.0 Mike Vacanti: The six-pillow sleep solution. Yeah, that’s true. So maybe I’ll make it a one-pillow sleep solution. Just ruin everyone’s body for life.

0:07:51.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, man, you’re just trying to get ahead of the game. Just ruin the competition. You’re just trying to ruin everyone’s sleep.

0:07:56.5 Mike Vacanti: I’m trying, I’m trying to manipulate the market. That’s right. Oh, do you want to talk about… David will blur this name out, but do we want to talk about [redacted]?

0:08:08.1 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no, let’s not. No.

0:08:10.6 Mike Vacanti: It’s a good learning moment.

0:08:12.0 Jordan Syatt: Okay. All right. We’ll talk about it. We’ll talk about it.

0:08:14.4 Mike Vacanti: It’s no shade on him. He’s trying different things, and if he’s listening, trying different things is good. That just wasn’t…

0:08:20.8 Jordan Syatt: It depends.

0:08:21.6 Mike Vacanti: That just wasn’t the… Well, yeah, trying different things to learn not to do those things.

0:08:26.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So, and this has happened a number of times, apparently there’s… We always talk about that.

0:08:34.9 Mike Vacanti: There’s gurus, there are gurus who recommend this literally.

0:08:35.7 Jordan Syatt: It’s crazy. It’s really crazy that there are masterminds and gurus that implement this as a strategy because this isn’t the first time it’s happened. It’s happened many times. But there was a, there’s a strategy that these gurus recommend where they tell coaches to go in the comment section of people who have bigger audiences and they say, look at people who are commenting who are maybe asking questions, or people who just are in need of help with their fitness and send them a message and say, hey, I saw you follow so and so. I saw you follow Jordan Syatt or I saw you follow Mike Vacanti or I saw, whatever it is. And then from there be like, do you have any questions or need any help with your fitness stuff or whatever?

0:09:27.1 Jordan Syatt: Like basically making it very clear that I found you because you’re following this person and you left a comment. And oftentimes, actually, it’s not even about leaving comments, they’ll just go through your follower list. And then they’ll just DM people directly. I saw you following them, and then they’ll usually say something nice like love his content, really good. Is there anything I can help with. And this happens pretty frequently and my followers will DM me screenshots and they’ll be like just so you know this person is reaching out to me. I’m imagining they’re probably reaching out to a bunch of your followers. And usually, they’ll come in, in handfuls where I’ll get like three to ten messages from people being like, “This person sent me this, this person sent me this.”

0:10:05.2 Jordan Syatt: And when I see it coming in bunches, that’s when I’ll DM the person and I’ll just be like, “Hey, just wanna let you know, a handful of people have reached out to me showing me your DM. It would probably be a good idea for you not to do this.” And I’ve never had a single person react poorly to it. I’ve only had people get embarrassed, like, every time, including very recently. This happened the other day. There was a guy who this happened to you and I both know him, and I reached out to him. And it was funny because when I first messaged him, I didn’t realize who it was, so I messaged him an impersonal message because I didn’t realize that I knew him. And then I looked at his profile, I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I know who this is.” So then I deleted it and wrote him a more personal message, being like, “Hey, brother, hope you’re well. Just want to let you know. Dah, dah, dah.”

0:11:00.4 Mike Vacanti: Did he see the first one?

0:11:01.1 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know. I don’t know…

0:11:01.2 Mike Vacanti: I didn’t know about that part of it.

0:11:03.8 Jordan Syatt: He didn’t mention it if he had, he only reacted to the second message that I had sent. But either way, it’s a horrible strategy. It’s a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible strategy. And I don’t know who out there is recommending this. I don’t know which gurus are out there recommending this, but I think it’s one of those gurus who’s charging, like, $8,000 to join their program, and then they’re not even the ones running it. It’s like there are other people running the program and…

0:11:37.4 Mike Vacanti: The old high ticket business coaching, bait and switch.

0:11:40.4 Jordan Syatt: I don’t get it. I don’t understand why anyone would think that’s a good idea. And any time… I had one interaction with a young woman who did this once, and she was so embarrassed, she was like, “I’m so sorry. I should have known better.” And I don’t get mad at all. I’m like, “Listen, I get it.” And I send voice memos. I’m like, “I understand you’re just taking the advice of someone else. But the way I always frame it is like, put yourself in the consumer’s shoes. Imagine that someone DMs you randomly and says, ‘Hey, I noticed you follow so and so. Is there anything I can help with?’ You’d be like, ‘What the fuck?’ That there’s no way you would be happy about that message. And you’d probably just block them immediately. You wouldn’t be like, ‘Oh, I’m so glad you messaged me. I actually do have a question for someone that I have zero connections with whatsoever.’ It’s like, it’s… Yeah. When in doubt, ask yourself how you would respond if someone did that to you and it’s, please don’t do that. It’s a horrible strategy.”

0:12:35.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Cold DMing or if you’re someone who loves getting cold DMs or loves getting cold emails, or you like it when the solicitor knocks on your door, and then rings the doorbell, and then waits three minutes and then rings the doorbell again. It’s like, “Buddy, I ain’t answering.” Like if you like that, then maybe that is an approach that you could implement. But I’m guessing 99.9% of us don’t like it when that happens to us.

0:12:58.4 Jordan Syatt: I feel like the only people who like that are just like, I’m imagining…

0:13:02.1 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think anyone likes it.

0:13:02.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, no one likes it. The only people who I can imagine are like, if someone’s really lonely and they just want to talk to someone, which is like really sad, they’re like, “Oh, I’d love to talk to you,” but they’re not gonna buy anything. They just want someone to talk to because they’re at home and lonely. But no one who’s like looking to buy something enjoys that. It takes away the most important part of purchasing, which is a connection. It’s a personal connection. It’s, yeah, not good.

0:13:33.9 Mike Vacanti: Well, especially something like fitness coaching where it’s not like you’re selling a set of steak knives and you’re never gonna see them again. The foundation for what is going to be a real relationship needs to be some kind of connection.

0:13:46.2 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:13:46.8 Mike Vacanti: And that person engaging with your content or following the advice and education that you’re putting out for free for years and getting to know you as a person and understanding your methods and ideology, that is what forms a great foundation for working with someone rather than spraying cold DMs, “Oh, I see, you follow Jordan.”

0:14:13.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that shotgun approach. Just boom, send out 100 messages and see how many reply.

0:14:19.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:14:20.5 Jordan Syatt: ’cause that takes a lot of time. Even if you’re just copy and pasting, which I know you’re copy and pasting, I know for a fact you’re not writing individual messages to people, you’re copy and pasting. If you spent that amount of time making an amazing piece of content, it’d be so much better. It would be so much better for you, for your brand. It would be an infinitely better use of time than just cold DMing people.

0:14:45.6 Mike Vacanti: You know what, since we’re on the topic, you actually sent me a sponsored swipe post off of Instagram that was like a high ticket guru.

0:14:56.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, my gosh. I forgot about that.

0:14:56.9 Mike Vacanti: And you said, you were like, “Do you want to talk about this on the podcast?” now would be the time if we want to do that.

0:15:03.3 Jordan Syatt: Okay. This post is so bad. It’s so unbelievably bad. So I’m going to read it out loud and I’m not going to say the guy’s name.

0:15:12.6 Mike Vacanti: Are we going to read the whole thing? Because it’s very long. I mean, let’s just. We can start, but I envisioned us reading it out loud, and then I started to do it and take it from the top. We’ll see.

0:15:24.6 Jordan Syatt: Okay. All right, here we go. And this is a swipe post. It’s a sponsored post, I believe. He says, “I took a brand-new coaching business from zero to $200,000 a month in less than one year.” Okay, so that’s his hook to get people interested. First of all, no, you didn’t. No, you didn’t. But let’s just keep reading. And he said, “I didn’t get there by posting content every day, creating a Facebook group, running a website…”

0:15:53.7 Mike Vacanti: Let me jump in real quick. $200,000 a month.

0:15:56.9 Jordan Syatt: A month.

0:15:57.4 Mike Vacanti: Not $200,000 a year. $200,000 a month.

0:16:00.2 Jordan Syatt: A month. Yeah. “I didn’t get it by posting content. I didn’t get it by doing a Facebook group or running a webinar, going viral using Facebook ads, using YouTube ads, or cold outreach. So none of these things. I got there with one simple funnel, a funnel that I’d never heard of even after spending over $300,000 on what I thought was the best masterminds, coaches, courses, ads, and programs out there.” Okay, so this is something that doesn’t make sense to me. What he’s saying is he’s never heard of this before. And by the way, for him to spend over $300,000 on masterminds and courses and ads and programs, dude, I don’t know many people who have spent $300,000 on that stuff. That is insane amounts of money to spend on masterminds and coaches and courses. I would love to know, I would love to get an itemized list of all of his spending for this stuff. ‘Cause there’s, number one, I think he’s lying. Number two, it’s like, I just, I don’t think that is true at all.

0:17:02.5 Mike Vacanti: And my… The first page is obviously $200k a month from nothing. And I didn’t do it by doing all these common things that people do. But then when I read, “I got there with one simple funnel.” My spidey senses of, like, the 2009 long-form sales copy just start ringing. You know, like the ’09 supplement sales pages that are one, like, remember Mike Chang? Six pack abs?

0:17:31.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:17:32.4 Mike Vacanti: Like “this one simple trick to get six pack abs.” I’ll let you continue.

0:17:37.1 Jordan Syatt: It gets even better. “I call it the ‘Spiderweb Funnel’. Want to see how it works?” He goes and then he says this. He says, “Every day we work with coaches. Every day we work with coaches who are just starting out, or they’re at $10,000, at $30,000 per month. We help them grow and scale to over $100,000 a month by turning their Instagram into a client-generating funnel so they never have to wonder, ‘Where is my next client coming from?’ ever again.” For everyone in the mentorship, they know this is ‘so-you-can marketing’, right? So we know that. Like, he knows sales copy. This guy knows sales copy.

0:18:07.1 Mike Vacanti: I was gonna say…

0:18:07.5 Jordan Syatt: That’s for sure.

0:18:08.5 Mike Vacanti: His copy is good.

0:18:09.3 Jordan Syatt: Yes, his copy is good. But now we’re going to go to the next slide, and this is where… When I saw this, I immediately had to text you and send it to you because it doesn’t make sense. At first he says, “Every day we work with coaches who are just starting out, or they’re at $10,000 to $30,000 per month.” The next slide, he says, “We work with two different types of coaches. Coaches doing $10K a month already and wanting to scale, or existing business owners that have the capital to invest in their coaching offer.” So you don’t work with beginner coaches who are just starting out well.

0:18:40.0 Mike Vacanti: And then he wrote all caps, “WE DO NOT WORK WITH NEWBIES or people that are afraid to invest,” which is just this. It’s so slimy. It’s such like, “I only want motivated clients not unmotivated clients.”

0:18:53.2 Jordan Syatt: Literally, the first thing he said is, “we took someone who’s brand-new from zero a month to…”

0:18:56.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’s contradicting.

0:18:58.5 Jordan Syatt: “$200,000 a month.” And then he says, “We don’t work with brand newbies, and we don’t work with people if… ” The entire thing is contradictory. So while he actually does have skills as a copywriter his lies…

0:19:11.4 Mike Vacanti: Logically.

0:19:11.5 Jordan Syatt: Are coming through over and over and over again.

0:19:13.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:19:14.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s just…

0:19:15.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Or unless he means by zero, he means bringing people from in person to online, existing business owners that have capital to invest in their coaching offer.

0:19:23.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it just doesn’t make sense at all. And this absolutely infuriated me.

0:19:28.3 Mike Vacanti: The thing is, he tells you in the beginning that we’re about to learn about this one simple funnel, the Spiderweb Funnel. And I’m like, “Alright, what’s the Spiderweb Funnel?” And you just keep scrolling and it’s more sales and he’s not actually telling you what it is. And then you have to DM to find out what it is, and then you’re going to have to join and pay whatever to find out what it is. And here’s the most important thing. Regardless of what this funnel is, you still need to get people in the funnel, right?

0:19:58.2 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:19:58.7 Mike Vacanti: I don’t care what kind of follow-up sequence you have or what kind of, like, upsell, downsell, I don’t care how good the copy is in your emails. To have $200,000 months, you need an unbelievable amount of people entering the top of the funnel.

0:20:20.0 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:20:20.5 Mike Vacanti: And supposedly… Yeah, it’s just…

0:20:25.1 Jordan Syatt: And it’s funny ’cause he said in the post, “I didn’t do it by posting content or using ads.” And meanwhile, he’s posting content and using ads, which is specifically to get you to pay for what his program is. So, he’s doing the things that he’s saying he didn’t do in order to make this happen, when in reality, like, of course he uses ads. Of course, he uses email lists.

0:20:49.7 Mike Vacanti: We see that everywhere in the guru space.

0:20:52.4 Jordan Syatt: Constantly.

0:20:54.3 Mike Vacanti: Gurus making content about how you don’t need to make content for your business. But even further than that, we all know that you need attention to sell. Like, otherwise, who are you going to sell to if you don’t have any attention? How are you generating attention without paid or organic reach? There aren’t other forms of reach. You either pay to get in front of new eyeballs, or you reach those new eyeballs organically. There isn’t a third way.

0:21:25.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I guess I just want, I know how all the coaches who listen want consumers and clients to be able to consume fitness content with a critical eye. And I want coaches to be able to consume business content with a critical eye as well. And like, this is that Athletic Greens like fat burning pill, six-pack ab workout of the business world. It’s just, it’s absolute horseshit nonsense.

0:21:53.1 Mike Vacanti: And we know and have empathy for it because we’ve experienced it on a personal level with people who join the mentorship and then are like, “Oh, yeah, I can’t believe I was in blah, blah, blah and paid this much.” And it was, yeah.

0:22:07.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yep. Exactly.

0:22:08.3 Mike Vacanti: Good, good PSA.

0:22:09.5 Jordan Syatt: That just riled me up. I forgot about how mad that got me.

0:22:13.7 Mike Vacanti: We got a quick question here that maybe you have some interesting thoughts on. This is from Lydia. She said, ‘I hope it’s okay to submit another question. I would love to hear your thoughts on the pros and cons to resistance training with timed intervals. Example, 45 seconds on, 30 seconds rest versus counting reps. Thank you so much. I love the podcast.’ Thank you for the question, Lydia. And then I actually had an answer formulated with this, but then she followed up and said, ‘When I train with a timer, I can really concentrate on the movement pattern I’m making. However, I find counting reps mentally exhausting sometimes.’

0:22:55.8 Jordan Syatt: Do you want to start?

0:22:56.9 Mike Vacanti: You can start. I’ll let you run with this.

0:23:00.0 Jordan Syatt: I mean, I think they’re great. So, I’ll start with as a, from a coaching perspective as opposed to an individual perspective. From a coaching perspective, I really like timed sets in a group coaching program where if I’m having like three to twelve people, or even if I’m working with a team, I could be like three plus people, could be any number of people, but three plus and you’re doing like a sort of a circuit fashion style workout. It’s really nice. Each, there’s like, I don’t know, could be four to twelve different stations that you have and each station is a different exercise and you have the, you have like the main exercise and you also have a regression of that exercise that they can do. And it’s like, Alright, you’re going to do 45 seconds on, 15 seconds off. And during that 15 seconds off, we’re going to switch to the next station. I love that style for a team-style workout, for team coaching, small group coaching, whatever, class. Wonderful. I think it’s great. From an individual level, I think it’s a great way to work out.

0:24:09.0 Jordan Syatt: I think that the main thing you have to think about is what exercise are you doing it with? You have to make it. So, for example, if I’m going to do, I’m still going to want to try and make it. I’m going to want to try and make it relevant to the goal of what I’m trying to achieve. And so, if I’m doing a set of 10, or let’s say I want to get really strong with dumbbell bench press, for example, just as an example, I’m not going to make it a set of 45 seconds or a minute. I’m probably going to try and make it a set of like 15 to 25 seconds, right? Because I want to make it… A shorter amount of working time means it’s going to have to be heavier. A longer amount of working time means it’s going to have to be lighter. So, I do think that what you could do is you could do, like, a combination of counting reps and the time period. So, it’s like, Alright, what comes first? Eight reps or 45 seconds?

0:25:21.7 Jordan Syatt: So that way you can get a general idea. The thing is, the time period is tough because it’s very hard to load it heavy with a time period. And oftentimes when you’re just doing the time period, you’re sort of mindlessly doing it and just making your, your way through the motions. And that sort of sounds like what’s going on here, where it’s like the counting reps can get a little bit mentally exhausting. I understand that, but it’s also, it’s an easier way to progressively overload. So, I think when you have the exact number of reps or even a rep range, like six to eight, as opposed to just trying to get six or just trying to get eight reps, whatever it is, having a rep range can be really, really helpful. Um, if I was going to do it on an individual level, like just for me or just for one client, I would probably save the timed workout for more of a conditioning style workout or some type of a mobility style workout. You’re going to hold this for 60 seconds? You’re going to hold this for 90 seconds, or if you’re going to do a conditioning style workout, yeah, you’re going to this for 60 seconds and you’re going to take 30 seconds rest, and we’re going to get back on for 60 seconds. But from a maximal strength perspective, I’m not going to say it’s impossible, but I think it’s much, much harder to do it productively.

0:26:32.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I completely agree. And those are the times late in the workout, whether it’s static stretching or a mobility drill or some type of conditioning, that is the time where I’m going to be using timed sets if I’m using them. What I find is that someone who wants to be doing timed sets for their entire workout, generally, not always, but often has a mindset of, like, do as much work, make this as hard as I can in this amount of time, which has an inverse effect. Or like, basically, you’re less focused on technique than you are on doing as much work or making it as hard as possible. So, okay. Dumbbell bench press for 45 seconds. Those reps and the mentality that goes with the time set are generally sloppier than doing eight reps of dumbbell bench press here in this set.

0:27:29.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:27:31.0 Mike Vacanti: What I’ll say for Lydia is one thing to try. If you’re getting mentally exhausted with counting reps, you might just be doing a lot of high-rep training. And I would encourage you to spend a couple of months with the majority of your workout in the six to twelve rep range. That could be something beneficial because if everything’s 15 or 20, yeah, it makes sense that you’re a little mentally exhausted counting reps. But usually, counting reps is going to lead to more emphasis on technique than timed sets. I’m also going to look at the specific example that she laid out, which is 45 seconds on followed by 30 seconds rest. That isn’t a work-to-rest ratio that, outside of conditioning late in the workout, the bulk of your strength training, you’re not going to want to be on like a 1.5 to one working to rest ratio. It’s just not enough rest time.

0:28:40.4 Mike Vacanti: I mean, it’s not optimal rest time for muscle growth, and it’s far from optimal rest time for getting stronger. So, having a working set, being in the 15 second to, I mean, depending on how many reps you’re doing, like, you could be doing a double, which isn’t going to take very long. Ten second to 30 to 42nd working set, and then maybe anywhere between a minute and five minutes of rest time, depending on your goal and what exactly you’re doing and where it is within the workout. But my best advice would be to start, try counting reps in a little bit lower rep range and see if you can find more enjoyment in that and more ability to focus on what you’re doing rather than counting, and save the time sets for later in the workout.

0:29:33.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I love that you brought that up. I think that work-to-rest discussion is really important to have, where it’s like you need to be having, from a strength perspective, at least 90 seconds on the absolute lowest end, if you actually want to get stronger, and that’s very low. And if you’re thinking, Oh, my gosh, 90 seconds, that’s a really long rest. Then you’re not lifting heavy enough. If you’re lifting heavy enough, 90 seconds is barely enough. 90 seconds is… I was doing push-ups yesterday. I was doing… I’ve been doing these, like, deficit push-ups with my, my weight vest on. And I was doing like sets of five to eight. And I programmed it. It was an inner circle workout. And I programmed myself and I had 90 seconds resting and I was giving myself like two, two plus minutes. It was like, it’s just a push-up. It’s just a push-up variation, but it’s… I added extra weight on top of it to make it more difficult and I was adding an extra range of motion. But if I just did that push-up variation without that extra weight, for me personally, it would have been too easy. Like, I could have taken 30 seconds rest. But you have to make the exercise more difficult in order to make that rest make sense. So if you’re, if it’s too easy, if that rest is too much for you, then you need to make the exercise harder. The answer is not make the rest shorter. The answer is make the exercise harder.

0:31:00.8 Mike Vacanti: 100%. And historically, the clients that I’ve worked with who have a tendency for shorter rest times often have a tendency, well, definitely have a tendency for lower levels of absolute strength. So just using lighter weight but also faster reps, almost like they’re rushing to get through the workout, make the workout as efficient as possible. Want to feel the burn, want to have their heart rate elevated throughout the entire strength training session. It’s actually a very difficult client to work with because it’s hard to break them out of that mindset of feel the burn, get through this. High efficiency workouts compared to, all right, we’re going to do half the number of sets that you’re used to. Instead of 20-second rest, we’re going to take two-minute rests and we’re really going to concentrate on every single repetition being as dialed as possible. It’s not easy.

0:32:05.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, because they… On paper, it doesn’t look as complex or it doesn’t look as…

0:32:11.8 Mike Vacanti: Hard.

0:32:12.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it doesn’t look…

0:32:14.2 Mike Vacanti: As hard as fat burning. You know, if they’re in that mindset.

0:32:16.2 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah, exactly. Great question.

0:32:19.5 Mike Vacanti: We got a question from Rose. What’s up, Rose?

0:32:23.1 Jordan Syatt: Rose Spector?

0:32:24.3 Mike Vacanti: Nope, not Rose Spector this time. Rose Thomas Goalkeeping.

0:32:27.6 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:32:28.2 Mike Vacanti: Said, “Hey, Mike and Jordan, I was wondering if you…” this is one you sent me a little bit back. “I was wondering if you could please answer my question on one of your episodes of the pod. I have an online personal training client who won’t send me videos. She knows it’s for her form and we have a good relationship. She sent me the odd one in the past and I’ve really praised it when she does. But recently, she’s felt so self-conscious that the thought of even sending me a form video gives her so much anxiety it makes her not want to do the session. I’m not going to force her and don’t want my actions to cause more issues. Any ideas how I can best support her and slowly move to a point where she’s happy or willing with videos? Thank you both for all you do.”

0:33:11.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s a great question. I’m glad you brought it up. It’s a really wonderful question. It’s so client-focused and client-centered and just makes me really happy. First, I would try and get her on the phone, if you haven’t already, and just have a real conversation and be like, “Hey, I know you said that you’re self-conscious. What are you self-conscious about? Fill me in. What are you feeling self-conscious about? Why don’t you want to send me this video?” And usually what will happen is once they, I bet every single one of us has had this example or had this experience where maybe you’re feeling nervous or anxious about something, and then once you try and explain it to a friend as literally you’re about to verbalize it, you’re like, “I know this is going to sound silly, but x, y, and z,” and it’s because when it’s just in your head, it can make sense to you emotionally. You have this fear, but you don’t have to verbalize it. You don’t have to make it logical. It’s just this fear. But as soon as you verbalize it, now it has to become logical.

0:34:10.0 Jordan Syatt: In order for you to actually make it into sentences and words that make sense, it has to become logical. Which is why when it’s in your head, you make it out to be a big deal. But as soon as you say it, you’re like, “Ah, this is going to sound silly.” It’s because you’re starting to realize this is a little bit ridiculous. So literally, just talking to you might be helpful for this client. Just being like, just say, “Why are you self-conscious about this?” Either way, once she expresses why she’s self-conscious, then you can start to have a real conversation and be like, “Oh, that makes total sense. Let me ask you this. Do you want me to look at your technique to help you improve? I know maybe she’s having issues with her knee and like, that’s an example, but you said your knee was causing pain. Do you want me to look at your technique so I can have an idea of what’s going on? Do you want me to have a look at your bench press or your push-ups to see, like, what’s going on with your lower back? Do you want me to do that?” And then maybe they’ll be like, “No, I don’t want you to do that.”

0:35:06.7 Jordan Syatt: Like, “Okay, cool. So we’ll just keep doing this.” Or she’ll be like, “Yeah, of course I want you to look at it. I think it’s important.” And that would be the ideal answer. If she says no, I don’t want you to look. That’s where it’s at right now. And I don’t think it makes sense to push. But I also don’t think the likelihood of her saying no is big. Like, she hired you for a reason. She’s working with you for a reason. At this point it’s like, “Yeah, I would love for that to happen.” So then I would say, okay, do me a favor. How about just first you just give me a technique example without any weight. If you want, we could do it on FaceTime right now. If you want, you could send me a video. Like, just once we’re done, hang up the phone, just like, show me what your squat looks like, what your push-up looks like right now. And then that will get her in the habit of doing it and show, like, okay. And then go over the top. “Amazing. Thank you so much.” Another thing that you could potentially do is, and this is something that I would do.

0:35:58.9 Jordan Syatt: I’m not saying you have to do this, but I would say, “Hey, let me know the next time you’re at the gym. Like, tell me when you’re there.” And obviously, I would do this when I had a lot more time on my hand, but I’d be like, T”ell me when you’re there.” And then, “Okay, cool, shoot me a text, email, whatever. ‘Hey, I’m here at the gym right now.'” If I had their phone number, I’d FaceTime them while they’re at the gym. I’d be like, “Awesome. Show me. Like, I want to see this right now.” And then once they show you, they’re like, “See? Not a big deal. Look it. I looked at it. You did amazing. I gave you this critique. Awesome. No more bullshit. Send me your videos. I want to see these videos on a regular basis.” That might be just a fun way to just break the ice and get in there, but get her on the phone, have a real conversation about it, and I think that will probably be a great way to break the ice and get her more comfortable with it.

0:36:43.3 Mike Vacanti: Great answers. Anyone who might have been slightly confused when you said, “If I have their number, I’ll FaceTime them.” That would not be the majority of clients.

0:36:52.6 Jordan Syatt: Correct. No, no, this is just the, this is if I just made up a scenario in my head and I didn’t verbalize, and I apologize. I’m imagining you don’t have that many online coaching clients. You’ve only got a handful, and this is one of them. If you’ve got 40 or 50 online coaching clients and you know they don’t have your number, don’t do that. You can do a Zoom call if you want, but like…

0:37:12.0 Jordan Syatt: And just solidifying that you don’t want to be running communication through text. But email makes much more sense.

0:37:18.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, email makes much more. Thank you for clarifying that. I literally made this entire example up in my head and I just didn’t clarify it. If you’re early on in your online coaching career, you don’t have that many clients. You have like a handful. Fine, you can do text, but strongly recommend doing it via email, even from an early stage, just to solidify those systems and get people understanding that they can’t be texting you at two in the morning asking you about fucking food choices and stuff. That’s just not appropriate. So yeah. But definitely email, Zoom calls that stuff would be much more efficient and better from a systems perspective.

0:37:52.4 Mike Vacanti: “Hey, Jordan, what’s up, bro? It’s 2:00 a.m. I’m looking for a midnight snack. What’s a good option? Do you think I…”

0:37:58.1 Jordan Syatt: “I’m really drunk what do you think I should eat? Really appreciate you. You’ve helped me so much.”

0:38:03.9 Mike Vacanti: “You’ve helped me so much. If you could reply soon, I’m looking to go to bed shortly, so just hit me right when you see this.”

0:38:10.3 Jordan Syatt: “What the fuck? Why didn’t you reply?”

0:38:17.8 Mike Vacanti: I don’t have much to add. I think anytime that there is an issue that you’re struggling to solve with a client, getting on a call isn’t a bad idea if you’ve tried to work through it multiple times and haven’t been able to. Rose, I love that you went over the top and were complimentary and encouraging in the times in the past when your client did send a technique video. That’s always a good way to encourage more of that type of behavior. In general, this is a little bit of a different situation than your average client who doesn’t send a technique video. Most clients who won’t send technique videos, assuming you’re communicating like, “Hey, can you please send me this specific thing?” You as the coach have a question about a move, they were saying, “oh this and my knee and this doesn’t feel right.”

0:39:14.9 Mike Vacanti: “Cool, I need a technique video on this movement,” and then they don’t reply and then you follow up and you’re like, “Hey whenever you get a chance could you take this technique video and send it over” and they don’t reply. That’s a situation where there’s a part of me similar to when you’re doing everything you can to help a client with their food, but you can’t do everything outside of moving in with them, living with them and following them around everywhere they go. Like there has to be some kind of meeting in the middle between the coach and the client. If I’ve asked, and maybe we’ll remove technique video from this discussion and just in general, if I’ve asked for something a few times and maybe I’ve even followed up and said, “Hey, it would be really awesome and important if you sent this thing to me. Here’s why it’s important. Is there any particular reason why you haven’t sent it or why you might be uncomfortable sending it to me?”

0:40:14.6 Mike Vacanti: “This has happened before, so I’m not judging. If you could share that with me, that would really help.” If I’ve gone over the top to try to help someone and just no responses, which happens. You wouldn’t think that it happens for someone who’s paying hundreds of dollars a month for your service, but it happens. There’s a part of me that’s like, “Okay, I’ve done all that I can in an online coaching scenario to help this person with this thing.” So, Rose, I love that you’re going over the top to try to help this person. And I do think at this point, hopping on the phone and just seeing what’s up and asking what she might be self-conscious about specifically is a really good idea.

0:40:52.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. One thing I’ll add on top of it is, it’s very helpful to, and Rose, you said, like, she used to send them and now she doesn’t. So this is a little bit of a different example, but I think many coaches struggle to get them, period.

0:41:05.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:41:05.8 Jordan Syatt: And they make the mistake of early on, they send the first program, like the very first program, before they get everything they need. So someone signs up with them, they send the program, they send everything over before they’ve got progress pictures, the initial starting pictures, before they’ve got measurements, before they’ve got the technique videos. Do not send their first program until you have everything you need. And there were many, many times, many times when I was doing one-on-one coaching, where I would have everything done and have their program ready to go, everything would be ready and they’d be like, “Hey, when are you sending the program?” And I’d be like “Hey, it’s all done. Before I can send it to you, I need you to do what I told you to, which is send me your technique and technique videos. Squat, bench, deadlift, push-up, chin-up, whatever it is, whatever you’re requiring of them, front view, side view. And I need this and I need this and this and then they’re like, “Oh, shoot, sorry, I’ll get on that.” Boom. Then they send it over. But if you send it over before they have gotten everything to you, they have no incentive to do that.

0:42:07.7 Jordan Syatt: They’ve just, they’ve essentially learned that they can do what they want to do and you’ll just send the program. And for whatever it’s worth, it’s important to have those videos before you send the final program because you can design the program and what you think, but once you actually get the videos, you can assess their weaknesses, their compensations. You can actually, that’s how you can start to individualize it to them. It’s like, it’s hard to individualize it if you’ve never seen them move. There would be certain notes that I would put into the program based on their squat or their deadlifts or whatever it is, being like, “Hey, like I saw in your technique video you pitched forward during your deadlift. So let’s make sure we do X, Y, and Z.” You can’t do that if you don’t have those videos. “I need this in order to design your program as personally for you as possible.” So do not send that first program now. And as you get…

0:42:54.6 Mike Vacanti: And you were, when you were coaching, you were having people send big three before they started because you were doing a lot of powerlifting and strength training style.

0:43:04.1 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Now, I wouldn’t have them send me those unless I would basically say, like, “What are the three most important lifts that you want to work on?” And if they were like “Bulgarian split squats or whatever,” I’d say…

0:43:17.3 Mike Vacanti: “Send me a bodyweight squat” if it’s someone who you think that might. Yeah.

0:43:19.8 Jordan Syatt: And I would say, “Send me the big three and any other thing.” So oftentimes it’d be chin-ups and push-ups and lunges. Some people would be like, “I just want squat or just want deadlift or whatever.” It just depends on the person. But I would like to have at least three movement patterns so I could get a better gauge on how they move. And the other thing I would say is, as you progress through the coaching process, if they become a great client and you know that their technique is good you don’t need to be holding back their programs before you get their fucking monthly videos. It’s a client by client basis, right? You don’t have to be like, “Listen, Charles, I know you’ve been working with me for a year and a half, but you didn’t send me your fucking things this week, so I’m not sending you your next program.” Like, listen, it’s fine. You don’t need to do that. It’s mainly for the first program.

0:44:11.1 Mike Vacanti: 100%. And that’s like progress pictures are a great example because, and we got to wrap here. We’re jumping on a Q&A in four minutes here with the mentorship. But with progress pictures, if you don’t get them at the start of coaching, you’re going to have a really, really, really hard time ever getting them. And one in 30 clients will not send them. Maybe one in 100 not send progress pictures at the beginning and then say, “Hey, where’s my program?”

0:44:37.5 Jordan Syatt: One in 30 for sure.

0:44:38.7 Mike Vacanti: You think it’s one in 30? It depends on the population, but yes, yeah, it happens.

0:44:44.9 Jordan Syatt: Maybe even one in 15, depending on the population. If they’re really self-conscious of where they’re beginning.

0:44:51.0 Mike Vacanti: Yes, that’s exactly right. But to the point that you just made, it’s much more relevant and important at the beginning of the journey. You’re in month number six and they didn’t send you something that you asked for. You’re still giving them their new training program.

0:45:07.6 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:45:07.9 Mike Vacanti: And with a reminder, like, “Hey, by the way, like, I would love to see updated progress pictures.” And we run things a little bit, or did run things a little bit differently, I think, where you were having progress pictures sent at a specific interval, like once a month, I believe, whereas I’m only asking for progress pictures on an as-needed basis if I see something. All right, like weight versus measurements like this doesn’t really make sense. Is there body recomposition going on? Like, “hey, could you send over some progress pictures? That’s going to help me figure out where we’re at here.”

0:45:39.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that makes sense. And also, if they’re not sending their nutrition information and all that, and you keep reminding them and then they aren’t doing it, but then one day they’re like, “Why aren’t I making progress?” That’s when you, as the coach, can be like, “How am I supposed to know? Like, you haven’t sent me your nutrition information for the last six weeks. I don’t know what you’ve been doing. If you want my input and advice, you need to do your part in this, which is inform me of what you’re doing.”

0:46:04.3 Mike Vacanti: And that’s such a great point. That’s the time to bring it up and when you can start habit change. And the same with a technique video. It’s like, “Oh, my low back really hurts on these.” It’s like, “Oh, you mean the bent-over rows that I asked for a technique video twice on and you never sent it to me?” I wouldn’t say that. But “hey, you know what really helps in a situation like this is if you send me a technique video of you doing that exercise. So could you send that over?”

0:46:30.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:46:31.0 Mike Vacanti: All right. We actually have to jump on now.

0:46:32.8 Jordan Syatt: I got to pee, too. Thank you for listening. Please leave a five-star review. We love you. We appreciate you. Have a wonderful, wonderful week. Thank you for the questions. To everyone who asked questions, please send us more questions to the email. We’ve got the email in the show notes or to our Instagram, either one. Send them over.

0:46:47.7 Mike Vacanti: @personaltrainerpodcast is the Instagram.

0:46:50.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s it. Have a wonderful week.

0:46:52.5 Mike Vacanti: See you next week.