Episode 203: Gary Vee in Real Life, Protein Shakes for Kids, the Best Bodyweight Exercises, and More…

0:00:12.0 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.7 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael?

0:00:14.2 Mike Vacanti: We just recorded that seed oils episode. That was last week’s, we are recording back to back pods. I had the prop. I had the McDonald’s french fries as a little bit of a joke. I ate probably nine of them. I also ate a little McDonald’s cheeseburger.

0:00:26.3 Jordan Syatt: Are you not eating the whole thing?

0:00:28.1 Mike Vacanti: I’m not a huge french fry guy. I had a couple of eggs to make the… Get some micronutrients in there, get the protein up since the McDonald’s cheeseburger doesn’t have that much protein. And you and I, we railed on seed oils in that episode. Bad news. I got a headache out of nowhere after eating that McDonald’s which is packed with seed oils and something that the seed oil crowd says is that they’re pro-inflammatory and I can feel that inflammation up the back of my neck. So that’s just a data point in the wrong direction.

0:00:55.6 Jordan Syatt: Do you think it’s just from sitting down for a while?

0:00:58.5 Mike Vacanti: It could be. That may be it.

0:01:00.7 Jordan Syatt: Looking at your computer screen, that blue light going into your brain?

0:01:04.7 Mike Vacanti: I got some nice light coming from outside too although. Maybe, but I usually don’t get a headache while we’re podding.

0:01:14.1 Jordan Syatt: Probably the seed oil from the nine fries.

0:01:15.8 Mike Vacanti: And the burger. Burgers got to have some seed oils in there too. Not from the cow but from the oil that is used. [chuckle] Just so we’re clear, I actually don’t know if… You know what, let’s find out. Does McDonald’s use seed oils for…

0:01:34.3 Jordan Syatt: This is the most searched thing right now ever since that picture.

0:01:36.9 Mike Vacanti: …For burgers? Yeah, the patties and sausages do not contain seed oils but the crispy patties do. Oh, good. So it was only the 11 french fries that I ate. Yeah, so probably not. Anyway, how are you?

0:01:51.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’m great, man. I’m tired. We’re potty training my daughter. Oh, actually you know what? We’re not even potty training her. We tried potty training her not long ago. I don’t know, actually a few months ago and it just didn’t go well and we were like, you know what? Let’s just let her sort of decide. And so she’s been deciding. She’s just been like, I wanna go on the potty. I wanna go. So we have one of those little kids’ potties and it’s been great. She’ll just go and then we get super excited if she uses it. And last night she got up from the potty and we were like, oh, she didn’t use it. That’s okay, like good job. At least you tried. And then she just let it go all over the floor and then she stepped in it.

0:02:41.5 Mike Vacanti: Poop?

0:02:42.2 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:02:43.7 Mike Vacanti: On a scale of 10 being rocks and one being diarrhea…

0:02:47.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, no. It was a super healthy poop. It was a really good…

0:02:50.7 Mike Vacanti: [chuckle] There was no judgement here. I was just wondering how…

0:02:53.0 Jordan Syatt: Hey, my daughter’s gut health is amazing. Keep my daughter’s name out of your mouth. All right?

[laughter]

0:03:00.3 Jordan Syatt: No, no. It was a great poop. It was a super healthy poop and it didn’t even really… It hardly stuck to her foot.

0:03:05.5 Mike Vacanti: Was it a log or a puddle?

0:03:09.0 Jordan Syatt: A puddle is not a healthy poop. It was a nice log.

0:03:09.5 Mike Vacanti: Nice.

0:03:10.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it was a great healthy poop.

0:03:13.2 Mike Vacanti: For someone who just turned two, I’m not in the know on the consistency of poop quality for the 26 and a half month demo of human.

0:03:25.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, dude. Super good poop. Yeah, it was healthy. It was nice. I was just like, I saw it come out. My wife was like, “oh, oh, it’s on the ground.” And then she turned around and her foot just went right into it and I picked her right up and washed it right off and no harm no foul. Everything was good. She was real happy. We give her a chocolate chip when she uses the potty, which she gets really excited about.

0:03:51.0 Mike Vacanti: Nice.

0:03:56.8 Jordan Syatt: And so she did that on the ground and she was like, “chocolate chip?” And I was like, “not now.” It was like, “you want chocolate chip? It’s got to go in the potty.”

[laughter]

0:04:03.0 Jordan Syatt: And she just kept looking at me. “Chocolate chip?”

[laughter]

0:04:07.3 Mike Vacanti: You point at the potty. “Nope. Nope. Not on the floor.”

0:04:14.1 Jordan Syatt: Yep. Yep.

0:04:15.4 Mike Vacanti: That’s good, bro.

0:04:17.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, man. What’s up with you?

0:04:18.6 Mike Vacanti: Big recording day for us, double podcast plus a massive Q&A with a ton of really good questions. Yeah, man. A little bit of a dreary day here in Minnesota. I put up our Christmas lights, last year I outsourced the Christmas lights and this year I decided to… $1000 is ridiculous to have someone put Christmas lights up for you. And I was like, you know what? I’m about to just do this. This is not that hard.

0:04:43.3 Jordan Syatt: Did you go into your roof?

0:04:45.5 Mike Vacanti: No. I went pretty… We have these pillars… These two pillars and I wrapped both of those and then I bought these Christmas light nets that go over the bushes and so did the bushes. Objectively it’s probably a six out of 10. It’s my first year doing it. We’ll add some things next year.

0:05:06.6 Jordan Syatt: Wait, when you do it around the pillar, do you have to wrap it tight so that it doesn’t fall down?

0:05:12.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but not that tight. I just taped it at the top.

0:05:13.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh, you taped it. Got it. Okay. Got it, got it, got it. Okay. I’ve never done lights before so I’ve always wondered about that. So you just did the nets over the trees and you got the pillars. Do you have a ladder to get on the roof? You don’t wanna line your roof with it?

0:05:29.2 Mike Vacanti: I got a 6:00 AM flight tomorrow. We’re recording three episodes today. I didn’t need to be… It’s 40 degrees outside. I didn’t need to be on the roof doing a whole comprehensive thing.

0:05:40.3 Jordan Syatt: Did the guy you paid $1000 do it?

0:05:42.6 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:05:43.0 Jordan Syatt: You paid 1000 bucks and the guy didn’t even go on your roof?

0:05:45.2 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yes. Last year?

0:05:47.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:05:47.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yes.

0:05:47.7 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Okay. I was gonna say, what the fuck did you pay him $1000 for if he didn’t even do the roof?

0:05:53.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but we’re also… You wanna contribute. You don’t wanna be that one house without any lights.

0:05:56.7 Jordan Syatt: Well, I’m that one house.

[laughter]

0:06:00.3 Jordan Syatt: “You don’t wanna be like the Jews on the street. They don’t even have any lights.”

[laughter]

0:06:01.0 Mike Vacanti: Bro, get a…

[laughter]

0:06:11.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s amazing. I swear we have some Jewish neighbors who have some cool stuff. I’m trying to think. I’m envisioning a lot of blue. Like a lot of blue. Isn’t blue the color of Hanukkah? No, I’m serious.

[laughter]

0:06:21.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, blue and white, but you’re not supposed… That’s…

0:06:26.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you get like a menorah. What’s the nine candles called? Menorah…

0:06:28.4 Jordan Syatt: A menorah.

0:06:30.7 Mike Vacanti: Menorah. Yeah.

0:06:33.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. But they shouldn’t be putting lights up. That’s not in Jewish tradition. They’re doing that because people like you said they’re supposed to put lights up.

[laughter]

0:06:42.3 Mike Vacanti: No, you know what? I’m actually thinking of an apartment complex is where I saw the lights. It was a Jewish apartment complex that had lights.

0:06:49.4 Jordan Syatt: Got it.

0:06:49.6 Mike Vacanti: So it wasn’t from my peer pressure.

0:06:51.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s where they let the Jews live, that apartment complex?

0:06:55.6 Mike Vacanti: It’s an unbelievably nice apartment complex. It’s not in Minnesota and it’s very nice.

0:07:05.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice.

0:07:07.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You tried to make a joke about how the Jews got relegated to this terrible apartment complex, but really, it’s beautiful.

0:07:13.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s like the nicest area?

0:07:15.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. Kind of.

[laughter]

0:07:24.4 Mike Vacanti: Anyway, and we’re also gone for a couple of weeks spending some time in New York and then spending some time down in Florida getting a little sun and so we’re not even here to see the lights. Anyway, that’s what’s up with me.

0:07:36.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, ’cause you’re gonna be there… You’re not going to be there during Christmas, are you?

0:07:39.9 Mike Vacanti: No, but…

0:07:41.9 Jordan Syatt: Got it.

0:07:43.6 Mike Vacanti: It’s November 19th over the next six weeks. Several of those weeks not even home.

0:07:49.0 Jordan Syatt: Is there an area where you live where everyone knows the nicest Christmas lights are, where people on a street go all out? ‘Cause growing up there was a street in my town that everybody on this street would have the… And everyone would go visit this street. My mom, she would take us. She was like, we’re gonna go… ‘Cause it’s just super nice homes, really nice Christmas lights and it was like a show that this whole street would put on. Do you have that where you are?

0:08:14.7 Mike Vacanti: Probably. I’m not well versed in what street that is, but yeah, it sounds right.

0:08:19.3 Jordan Syatt: What’s your favorite part of Christmas?

0:08:25.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s very cliche but just time with family and delicious food. We’ll usually play a bunch of different games. Everyone’s in a good mood. Yeah.

0:08:38.7 Jordan Syatt: Do you ever get any arguments at Christmas with your family or no?

0:08:40.0 Mike Vacanti: No, we don’t really argue a lot as a family.

0:08:47.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you’ve got a good family.

0:08:47.4 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think that that… I actually think that’s like a Scandinavian trait. Just suppressing rather than being more expressive.

0:08:57.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, interesting. The old Bill Burr, just shove it down.

0:09:04.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

[laughter]

0:09:04.5 Mike Vacanti: But yes, I do… I’m very lucky.

0:09:05.0 Jordan Syatt: What do you have for dinner on Christmas?

0:09:09.0 Mike Vacanti: You’re asking a lot of questions. I’m trying to keep up with you. I’m very lucky and do have a great family but I wasn’t saying… I don’t think that the fact that we don’t argue a lot makes us a great family. I think there are great families who argue a lot and probably some that don’t argue a lot that have their issues, et cetera. But yes. Okay, what was your next question?

0:09:27.2 Jordan Syatt: Your favorite… What do you have for dinner on Christmas? Is it every year the same thing or…

0:09:30.9 Mike Vacanti: Dude, I just show up to family events. I’m very fortunate in that I’m not planning a lot. I’m not…

0:09:39.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. But does your mom cook a ham every year?

0:09:43.6 Mike Vacanti: It always changed. My grandparents are getting older and some have passed and so there’s like, traditions have changed. We used to do a ham on Christmas Day every year, Christmas Eve usually some kind of Italian food like manicotti, rigatoni, some kind of pastas, and do we do a ham on Christmas Eve? I actually don’t know. The cookies I could tell you every single cookie.

0:10:11.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh, what kind of cookies?

0:10:13.8 Mike Vacanti: Raw peanut butter kisses. We got the spritzes, we got the decorative kind of Christmas cookies. We have Krumkake which is…

0:10:21.0 Jordan Syatt: What?

0:10:22.8 Mike Vacanti: It’s a Norwegian or some kind of Scandinavian thing that is not my favorite.

0:10:28.1 Mike Vacanti: Okay. What’s a spritz?

0:10:32.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s very plain. Like a green dough that gets pressed and you get sprinkles on there.

0:10:39.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, nice.

0:10:40.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. What else is there? There’s a bunch. November 19th. I’m not there yet, bro. Thanksgiving is the next thing on. I like… We started with light so I see where the line of questioning went.

0:10:48.4 Jordan Syatt: I mean, I’m just interested.

0:10:49.5 Mike Vacanti: Let’s do questions. Let’s give different… I can’t Imagine…

0:10:51.0 Jordan Syatt: Not my questions. Do you want me to go to questions from people on social media?

0:10:56.1 Mike Vacanti: I just can’t imagine this is good content.

0:10:58.0 Jordan Syatt: I promise you, this is amazing content. I promise you.

0:11:00.7 Mike Vacanti: You always say that but what I’m starting to realize is Jordan is… You’ll believe him ’cause he’s extremely confident, but like, you’re very confident even when maybe there’s a 50-50 chance of something you’ll just be like, I’m 100% sure.

0:11:17.9 Jordan Syatt: I’m 100% sure.

[laughter]

0:11:21.9 Jordan Syatt: Hold on. Dude, check this out. If you’re watching on YouTube you’ll see. Check that out. Bro.

0:11:29.0 Mike Vacanti: Look at that flexibility. Unbelievable.

0:11:32.1 Jordan Syatt: Isn’t that crazy?

0:11:34.4 Mike Vacanti: Look at those side splits. Yes. I mean, it’s not crazy to me because I believe in you but it is an insane difference in range of motion.

0:11:44.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’m pretty stoked about it.

0:11:47.3 Mike Vacanti: When did you take that bottom picture?

0:11:47.4 Jordan Syatt: Yesterday.

0:11:50.9 Mike Vacanti: And by the way for anyone watching, that top picture actually isn’t that bad. You might compare the two and be like, oh, Jordan was so inflexible before. I would challenge you to do your own version of the top picture because it’s not easy.

0:12:05.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would’ve liked it if it was better but we’re getting there. I’m about 16 degrees away from B to F balls to floor. That’s the goal right now.

0:12:18.7 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go. Let’s go.

0:12:20.3 Jordan Syatt: You’re not going to believe. I have to show you just so you know that I’m not making this up. “How can I celebrate my friends during Hanukkah as a non-Jewish person?” So I’m not the only one asking these questions right now even though it’s not that time of year yet.

0:12:35.4 Mike Vacanti: Tell us, Jordan.

0:12:36.4 Jordan Syatt: How do you celebrate my friends during Hanukkah as a non-Jewish person?

0:12:40.2 Mike Vacanti: Well, my go-to…

0:12:42.2 Jordan Syatt: The same way I would celebrate… What’s your go-to?

0:12:45.5 Mike Vacanti: Well, I say happy Hanukkah.

0:12:47.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s it.

0:12:48.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Have a great Hanukkah.

0:12:48.3 Jordan Syatt: Like on Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah, you’ll text me and it’ll be like, hey, happy holidays, and during Christmas or Easter or whatever I’ll text you. It’s like, just recognize it.

0:13:00.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’s interesting because a lot of non-Jewish people think Hanukkah is the pinnacle Jewish holiday because Christmas is the pinnacle…

0:13:04.5 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:13:07.0 Mike Vacanti: Christian… I mean, top two but also just like has become a western even non-Christian just commercial holiday Christmas is kind of the holiday. And so because they’re both in December you think, oh, that must be peak holiday. But really earlier back in the fall with Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah in the hierarchy of Jewish holidays have greater importance.

0:13:31.1 Jordan Syatt: Correct. And Hanukkah is… There’s a lot of importance to it, but yeah, it’s become… It’s funny, a lot of Americans just… They actually think that Christmas is an American holiday. They don’t realize that it’s a Christian holiday. It’s very embedded.

0:13:48.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, true.

0:13:50.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, here’s one.

0:13:51.1 Mike Vacanti: Well, wait, was that it?

0:13:51.4 Jordan Syatt: I’m sorry.

0:13:51.7 Mike Vacanti: Anything beyond just like…

0:13:54.2 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:13:54.3 Mike Vacanti: Happy holiday? Okay.

0:13:54.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s it. And by the way, people always ask me this, like do you get offended if someone says Merry Christmas? If someone gets offended when you say Merry Christmas and they don’t celebrate Christmas, they’re a piece of shit. I hate when people get mad. It’s like all they’re trying to do is spread holiday cheer. They don’t know if you celebrate it or not. They’re just trying to be nice. You don’t need to be like, oh, well, I don’t… No one cares if you celebrate it or not. They’re just saying happy holidays in their own way. So if you say Merry Christmas to me and I’m Jewish, I’ll say Merry Christmas right back and I wish you have the Merriest Christmas of all time. I hate when people do that stuff.

0:14:48.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s almost wanting to be offended.

0:14:51.5 Jordan Syatt: Yes. Yeah. And it’s making everything about you. It’s like you know what? It’s really not about you. This is about we’re here as a nation, as a culture…

0:15:03.0 Mike Vacanti: As a world. Yeah.

0:15:04.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Come on. Yeah. @loveandsarah said, “is Gary Vee as wonderful in person as he is online?”

0:15:14.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh yeah.

0:15:15.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:15:15.6 Mike Vacanti: You know what he is? This is actually, I really like this story. I think that because of, and maybe it’s changed a little over the last few years, but I remember when my mom first met Gary in person, which I wanna say was 2018, I coached him 2014 to 2016, I think the first time she met him in person was actually 2018 when he was in Minnesota for the Super Bowl at US Bank Stadium and she was, I don’t know if surprised is the right word, that he was more calm than his content. His content has kind of always been a more hyped up version of him, but just how present and kind and…

0:16:03.2 Jordan Syatt: Attentive, yeah.

0:16:05.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, and really in the moment with you, not like, you know, you see a lot of the brash jersey in the content but much more one-to-one, like really cares about you as a person.

0:16:18.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. Same. Where did they meet?

0:16:24.8 Mike Vacanti: I think my parents just went where he was and just stopped by just to meet him. I don’t think I was… I wasn’t there. Was I in New York? Or maybe I was doing… I might’ve been coaching the Staples brothers at the time. I don’t know where I was.

0:16:41.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, so you weren’t even there?

0:16:44.2 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:16:44.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, interesting. Interesting. Yeah, my mom met him one time. We were in Boston. He had something in Boston and he ended up staying at a hotel seven minutes from where my mom lived. And so my mom came just to meet him after the workout and she had the exact same experience, like wow, he’s really nice and thoughtful and he got off a phone call. He saw her, he hung up the phone and went up and gave her a big hug and it was super nice. Yeah. Yeah. And it is interesting people are like, is he the exact same? It’s like no one is the exact same from the perspective of when you get the camera on them oftentimes they’re gonna be talking about something that makes them really passionate or excited. So I think no one’s the exact same. I think it depends on the context. No one’s the exact same as you’d see them on Instagram ’cause it’s short form, quick, jump cuts, but if… Like the way he’s on a podcast, the way he is on a long form discussion, yeah, he’s the exact same. And that’s probably why I think people, especially people listening to this they understand why they prefer a podcast ’cause you actually get… You get who the person is. You understand more of who they are and how they act from that long form content.

0:18:01.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

0:18:02.5 Jordan Syatt: “What are your thoughts on protein shakes for kids?”

0:18:06.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s not a subject I have thought about very much. I can’t imagine a great reason for a kid to be consuming protein powder/ready-to-drink shakes under the age of 12 or 13. I guess I’m thinking of myself personally here. Whereas when I started strength training and kind of got into that world, I was like, okay, I want a protein shake after my lift. Not that there was any huge benefit to it, just like there’s not a huge benefit to it for an adult if they can get that protein from whole food sources. Yeah, I don’t have a lot of thoughts. I would say that it’s definitely not necessary for kids.

0:19:00.5 Jordan Syatt: I agree. I would say it’s not necessary, but I also don’t think it’s bad. Right? If I have a kid who like, if I know, ’cause one thing that I’ve learned just from having kids and really specifically my toddler is, and by the way, she’s never had a protein shake, but she does drink milk and like there’s a lot of protein in that. And I have no fucking problem with that. And so if I knew that she was like very picky, ’cause some kids are really picky, like some kids are really, really, really, really picky. And so if I knew my kid wasn’t getting enough protein, I’d have no problem putting in, I wouldn’t use even a whole scoop, I’d probably use like a quarter of a scoop. So gets an extra like, I don’t know, eight grams or something of protein.

0:19:52.7 Jordan Syatt: Like, no problem. That wouldn’t be an issue at all. But I think the main priority is get them to find real foods that they enjoy that are also high protein. Whether that’s, regardless, and we’re not gonna go through every fricking food that’s high protein, but the main priority is get them to learn to eat foods that they enjoy that are higher in protein. And then I would say if they want to, especially as they get into lifting and strength training, letting them explore that as well. I also, for me, like I don’t have that many protein shakes. Like I will not, I don’t regularly have them. It’s usually only if I’m at a point where I’m lacking on a certain day and that will, either if I’m preloading the day, ’cause I know it’s gonna be a really busy day and it’s gonna be hard for me to sit down and have meals, or if at the end of the day I know I struggled to get it in and I don’t wanna have like a whole food, I’ll just wanna get it in at that point. But, so my daughter, my daughters don’t see me having many protein shakes, but I wouldn’t have an issue if they did is the thing I. I think, again, the priority should be on let’s prioritize whole foods so you can get used to eating those and not relying on supplements. But also, again, like I just, I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

0:21:10.1 Mike Vacanti: My, biggest concern is around the lack of regulation in the supplement industry. If it was guaranteed what was on the label was actually in the product, I would adopt your position a hundred percent. There’s a part of me that has to have high trust in a brand. It’s almost like the, you know, pet owners give their sick dog like a higher percentage of the antibiotic than they would actually give themself, like I’ll do things that are suboptimal for me that I wouldn’t do if I had a child, for example. And there are, it’s a very short list, but there are companies who I would trust enough to be okay with it. But that would be even a bigger concern would be there being things in that product that aren’t on the label.

0:22:02.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. I’m… Yeah, even then, I mean, I really only use Legion and I trust them implicitly, so that’s not something that I’m concerned about. But if I was going to a GNC or whatever, or just like a random supplement store and buying one off the rack, I probably wouldn’t be doing that. But for something like Legion, which I just, I absolutely trust, I have no issues with that whatsoever. But again, like she hasn’t had any of that yet and won’t for a long, long time. So yeah.

0:22:33.5 Mike Vacanti: I also like whole foods just to teach and build the habit of prioritizing whole foods.

0:22:39.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, completely agree. Oh bro, you haven’t seen my kid’s video.

0:22:43.4 Mike Vacanti: No, I haven’t. It’s on a separate YouTube channel?

0:22:46.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. I made a separate YouTube channel for it. Yeah. Someone just sent me a picture of their kids doing the workout.

0:22:56.4 Mike Vacanti: Oh, let’s go.

0:22:57.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I got a bunch of these and “my three and seven-year-old love Your kid’s video. As soon as it ended, they ran to get something nutritious to eat after not eating dinner” because in the video after the workout, I explained what you wanna eat. I was like… So I went into the kitchen, I got Greek yogurt and blackberries and I explained like, you wanna have protein so you can get stronger and you wanna have some type of carb, whether it’s fruit or whatever it is. And so that was actually really fun and I think I’m gonna do a lot more of it.

0:23:25.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s exciting. So where’s your, was it just something you wanted to try or do you have like a longer term vision with it or?

0:23:34.6 Jordan Syatt: Well, so it started because my oldest, like, we’re not like a no screen house. Like it’s very minimal, but she watches this woman named Ms. Rachel, who I’m assuming you know Ms. Rachel from your nephews.

0:23:52.2 Mike Vacanti: They don’t watch her, but I’ve heard of Her.

0:23:55.0 Jordan Syatt: So Ms. Rachel, and there’s a bunch of other ones, there’s educational ones, but eventually it got to the point where I was like, I’d like it if while she was doing this, she was moving. So I started searching for some, like kids gymnastics and kids dance for my daughter. And there were some, but they were so bad. Like they were really, really, really bad. And then it got me thinking and I looked up kids workouts and I found a couple of people who had made kids workouts, but they were really horribly bad. Just the workouts were bad, the video quality was bad. It just, it wasn’t well done. And then I don’t think many people are good at speaking with kids. Like it’s a unique skill set to be able to speak and interact with kids. And even the people who had somewhat decent workouts, they didn’t understand how to interact with the kid well.

0:24:45.4 Jordan Syatt: And so I was like, there’s nobody in this space who’s making good fitness videos for kids. And so I was like, you know what, that would be cool. And then I also thought, I’ve spent my entire career teaching adults how to improve their health, hoping that they would pass it down to their children, but I was like, well, what if you inspire the children and through that the adults wanna get involved with them? Not to mention like kids inherently yet to have a little bit more of a tone down workout. So it might inspire the parents who are with them who maybe are sitting on the couch, ’cause in the video I’ll be like, “get your grownup, get your parents, have them do this with you,” whatever. So seeing parents doing it with their kids, I literally got people being like, “I’m in my thirties and my forties, I was out of breath by the end of the second round, da da da.” Like, it was very cool to see that and to get like them doing it together as a family. So it’d be cool ’cause I’ve always taken a top down approach, so now I’m trying to take a bottoms up approach from the kids to the adults. And including basic nutrition in there as well. So yeah, just, it’s been, it was very fun. It was very, very fun. It’s weird. It’s weird or awkward to, ’cause the first one was a jungle workout, so I’m like, rah, like growling and all that stuff. And it’s definitely a very different type of video.

[laughter]

0:26:04.2 Mike Vacanti: What ages is it for?

0:26:06.1 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know. At this point probably somewhere between two and 10. It’s, it is a jungle workout, so you’re probably not gonna have like 15-year-olds being like, we’re gonna do the crab walk right now and I want you to, or the duck walk or rib it or butterfly. You just, you’re not gonna like hiss when you’re doing the cobra stretch, so it’s younger. But I think I will do a little bit more structured for some teen videos as well. But right now I just want younger kids to also impact their parents as well and have like more of a family movement oriented fun thing. And then also get them, like parents were being like, yeah, my kids were like, hey, can you go get Greek yogurt and blackberries, like can you go buy them at the grocery store? It was like, what four-year-olds are asking their parents to buy Greek yogurt and blackberries? It was just like very cool to be getting those messages. So yeah, that’s something I’m gonna try and do one time a week for six months, I told Mitch, my videographer, I was like, every single week, six months, we’re gonna make one of these videos and then we’ll reassess from there.

0:27:10.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s exciting, dude.

0:27:12.7 Jordan Syatt: “What are some of your favorite body weight exercises?”

0:27:17.9 Mike Vacanti: Different variations of pushups, different variations of pull-ups, chin-ups, even going inverted, which can require some equipment, but just making it more of a horizontal row rather than overhead row. Whether that’s underneath a sturdy table, you’re doing an inverted body weight row or tying a knot in a bed sheet and throwing that over a door, closing the door, hitting them that way. Which work better if you aren’t quite as advanced at the movement because you’re gonna be relatively upright. What else do I like body weight?

0:28:00.8 Jordan Syatt: What variations of pushups are some of your favorites?

0:28:07.5 Mike Vacanti: I’m more of just a normal pushup guy.

0:28:07.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, interesting.

0:28:07.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I like inclining the feet varying the angle similar to varying the angle of an incline bench press with varied foot hike going all the way from the floor up to 45 degrees maybe. I like for avoiding wear and tear, kind of nagging shoulder stuff. Yeah, I don’t do a lot, you know, dive bomber pushup, you got like random pushups where you got a slider and you got an arm coming out to the side.

0:28:41.1 Jordan Syatt: Like pause pushups.

0:28:41.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Controlling the eccentric and pause variations are nice.

0:28:45.6 Jordan Syatt: Deficit pushups, a little extra range.

0:28:47.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. For some people. Honestly, dude, I’d much rather throw a plate on someone’s back. I don’t particularly like body weight exercise for someone who has real fitness goals. I like body weight exercises for someone who is on vacation and they wanna just do something for 15 minutes in the morning. For someone whose primary goal is building strength and muscle, I prefer to use equipment. In fact, if someone’s primary goal is adding strength and muscle and they sign up for coaching and say they wanna do body weight only, I would probably require that they have gym access or have some equipment if we’re gonna work together.

0:29:29.9 Jordan Syatt: Nice. Okay.

0:29:31.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. How about you?

0:29:33.7 Jordan Syatt: So I’ll go lower, but I mean, I think sissy squats are an awesome lower body, quad focused exercise, that are really, really challenging. And obviously you can modify it from beginner all the way to advanced, but I think body weight, lower body exercises are what people really struggle with ’cause they just don’t know what to do. So sissy squats are an amazing one for the quads. I also really like, you need a little bit of equipment, but some type of a hamstring curl, so like a SHELC, supine hip extension leg curl, either on a physio ball or on sliders. You can even, if you have like a wooden floor or sometimes, like a wooden floor and you put a towel underneath your heels or paper plates underneath your heels, you can do hamstring curls that way. I mean, those are just…

0:30:28.5 Mike Vacanti: Paper plates, that’s a good…

0:30:29.0 Jordan Syatt: Phenomenal.

0:30:31.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s resourceful by you.

0:30:31.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s a good one. Or you could just get furniture sliders at Home Depot for like five bucks. Works better than all of it. I think, so lower body stuff is really difficult. Also, single leg hp thrusts, a lot of people are like, I need to add weight. It’s like, single leg hip thrusts, if you’re doing it properly, most people don’t need extra weight. And also if you do want some extra weight, if you are a little bit more advanced, you could load up a backpack, put it on your hips, like you’re fine. Single leg hip thrusts are just super, super, super good for that. And then I would also get into some, there are things you can do that I’ve really been diving into with the mobility stuff. Like even some adduction based exercises. Whether it’s a Copenhagen plank or if you’re lying on your side and you do a, some adduction with the bottom leg, it can be really great for some adductor strength.

0:31:24.3 Mike Vacanti: I’m not able to visualize that one. You’re laying on your side and your bottom leg adduction against, what would it be? Are you assuming that there’s a bench here?

0:31:33.3 Jordan Syatt: Let me see. Oh, this guy made a video about this. Here, I’ll show you. No, I’ll show you so if people are watching on YouTube will be able to see. Let me turn this so you can, like this type of movement where this guy’s got weight on his leg, but you don’t need the weight. So you see the bottom leg going up to do that adduction.

0:31:52.4 Mike Vacanti: Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah. Got it. With your upper body in the air like that.

0:31:57.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, Yeah, yeah, exactly.

0:31:58.6 Mike Vacanti: I see, I see. Yeah. Yep. I was failing to understand how…

[overlapping conversation]

0:32:04.9 Jordan Syatt: I didn’t describe it well.

0:32:04.9 Mike Vacanti: No, I mean…

0:32:05.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s sort of a hard one to describe, but yeah, just some adduction like that one. I do that one a lot. The first time I was really trying to do the side splits, I ended up hurting the medial aspect of my knee. And I think a lot of it was ’cause my adduction, I hadn’t really trained a lot of my adduction very well or my adductor muscles. And so now doing a lot of that work has strengthened the muscles that have allowed me to go deeper and deeper and deeper and hold my weight up without getting hurt. So, and I think that would help a lot of people in athletics, whether they’re running, they’re juking, they have like the agility style movements. They hurt their adductors ’cause they’re not strong enough in those positions.

0:32:44.4 Mike Vacanti: Little partner assisted Nordic hamstring curl.

0:32:47.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, dude. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And if you don’t have a partner, you could do it with a band, wrap a band around yourself, like put a band on a rack behind you and then you go down and the band will pull you back up to do that if you don’t have that.

0:33:00.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’m just thinking someone who’s requesting body weight work usually doesn’t have like a rack.

0:33:06.4 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you could tie it around a door or whatever, tie it around a tree if you want. Also…

0:33:12.3 Mike Vacanti: What do you have your feet locked into on that?

0:33:14.8 Jordan Syatt: You could just put like a bag over them. Like you have like a… Or you could lock them under a door if you wanted to.

0:33:20.7 Mike Vacanti: Like A 40 pound bag of salt?

0:33:21.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. Something like that if you want to. Natural hamstring curls are brutal. Sorry, natural leg extensions. Excuse me. Natural leg extensions. Have you seen those where it’s like…

0:33:35.5 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:33:37.4 Jordan Syatt: Here, Google search it real quick. It’s basically…

0:33:41.2 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah. Yep.

0:33:44.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, those are, they’ve actually made my knees feel really good, but also like, holy shit, the stretch on them. And then the hip flexor stretch combined with the strength that it takes to do that is absolutely brutal. So these are all really good lower body weight exercises. And then all the ones that you mentioned, chin ups, pull-ups, inverted rows. For inverted rows with minimal equipment, I like tying the knot around that bed sheet, putting it through the door, like you said, and doing inverted rows that way. But then you can also do T’s and Y’s and even rotator cuff stuff with those, which is really nice.

0:34:19.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s better because you just can’t… It’s… Yes. I like a lot of the, even just rear delt work from that position more than rowing.

0:34:31.1 Jordan Syatt: And then, the pushups. I think for me, I really like, there are many different variations of pushups that I like. I really Spider-Man pushups, just like a lot of full body coordination and mobility as well in addition to the strength. I really like deficit pushups, close grip pushups, pause pushups, triple stop pushups. I like all that stuff.

0:34:56.7 Mike Vacanti: Sweet.

0:34:57.4 Jordan Syatt: Someone said, @jennashtontraining, “what’s the name of your other podcast for personal trainers?” Thanks. All right, we need everyone sharing this podcast. Please share it on your Instagram for other personal trainers just ’cause people might not know about us yet. And so if you like the podcast, if it’s helped, please give us a share on your Instagram stories. Tag us. We would love to see it.

0:35:19.3 Mike Vacanti: We would really appreciate that. Thank you.

0:35:22.9 Jordan Syatt: “Do you have any good book recommendations? I’m going on a nine hour flight soon. Any books you wanna recommend?”

0:35:27.4 Mike Vacanti: You could read one sixth of A Patriot’s Guide to American History.

[laughter]

0:35:35.4 Mike Vacanti: The 55-hour book that Jordan has started that I’ll be checking out soon. Book recs are so dependent. Dopamine Nation is one of the best books that I’ve ever read and couldn’t be more applicable given the era of abundance that we live in between the technology that we have to wrestle with, the foods that are available to us every single day at astronomically low cost relative to what they have cost historically. That’s my one seed, Dopamine Nation.

0:36:11.8 Jordan Syatt: Have you heard of grounding sheets?

0:36:13.5 Mike Vacanti: I thought you were gonna ask if I’ve heard of grounding, which by the way, I need to get out there, right? Maybe before our Q&A. No, I don’t know what grounding sheets are. What are they?

0:36:21.7 Jordan Syatt: People Keep asking me about grounding sheets and I haven’t looked into it. It looks…

0:36:28.2 Mike Vacanti: Wait, is this the thing, the contraption that like connects via electricity, your bed to the ground outside?

0:36:35.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, is that what it is? I’m looking right now. It looks like, yeah, it looks it connects to the ground outside and you get the energy of the ground in your bed.

0:36:46.4 Mike Vacanti: Hey, I like to break away from the science pack whenever I can. And even that seems a little, if you’re into that, I applaud you and you do you. I like to just get it through my feet being outside. But if you want a grounding sheet to sleep in, we would be friends. Let’s just say that.

0:37:04.0 Jordan Syatt: I feel like at that point you should just sleep on the ground. Like it sort of feels like marketing is really trying to take advantage of like, you wanna be there. Like you think you wanna be getting the energy from the ground and they’re like, well, what if we just say that we’re bringing the energy from the ground into your bed? It’s like if you really wanna just get the ground, just sleep on the ground.

0:37:24.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s a great point.

0:37:26.9 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know, I feel like that’s, people are getting taken on that one.

0:37:29.7 Mike Vacanti: Grounding sheets.

0:37:30.1 Jordan Syatt: Could you imagine like living a hundred plus years ago and someone being like, “one day people are gonna sleep in very comfortable beds and people will sell them a very expensive product that will allow them to get the energy from the ground that they could just get by sleeping on the ground.” Oh, man.

0:37:53.4 Mike Vacanti: Have You ever slept on the ground? It’s not comfortable.

0:37:54.7 Jordan Syatt: Dude, it’s outrageously uncomfortable. It’s really painful and it sets me up for a terrible, like for a week I’ll be in bad sorts because of it, which makes me think, maybe I should do that. Maybe I should start sleeping on the ground.

0:38:08.4 Mike Vacanti: Try it for a night.

0:38:09.8 Jordan Syatt: I know for a night it’s gonna end up horribly. I gotta, I would have to do it for like probably a couple months before it wasn’t ruining my day. Or maybe it just would always ruin my day.

0:38:19.7 Mike Vacanti: I think if you’re sleeping on the ground, you have to sleep either on your back or on your stomach with a very thin pillow. Sleeping on your side seems out of the question.

0:38:31.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, your shoulders get messed up.

0:38:33.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:38:34.0 Jordan Syatt: How are you gonna handle your nutrition when you’re traveling to New York? Are you gonna eat a big breakfast? Are you gonna fast throughout the day? What are you gonna do?

0:38:43.3 Mike Vacanti: Honestly, I don’t know. No, I’m definitely not gonna fast. I haven’t been a big fasting… Fasting requires high caffeine intake for me and I haven’t been a high caffeine guy for several years now. And so I’m not a big 16/8 guy for myself. I’m probably going to handle it relatively poorly in terms of body composition. I’ll eat a decent amount of mostly healthy foods during the day and then whatever is happening for dinner, I’m partaking in dinner. And then if there are delicious snacks to have after dinner, like treats, I might have some.

0:39:21.5 Jordan Syatt: But you’re gonna be lifting, lifting heavy, getting your workouts in, getting your steps in.

0:39:25.1 Mike Vacanti: Oh, I’m gonna get over 10,000 steps a day easy. And I’ll be lifting about every other day, three days a week to every other day.

0:39:33.4 Jordan Syatt: Nice.

0:39:34.9 Mike Vacanti: How are you gonna play your nutrition over the next 10 to 12 days?

0:39:39.1 Jordan Syatt: I’m not going anywhere so I’m gonna keep it exactly the usual.

0:39:42.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but don’t you… One, there’s Thanksgiving and isn’t your mom coming to visit?

0:39:46.4 Jordan Syatt: She’s gonna come during Hanukkah. She’s not gonna come during Thanksgiving. So, honestly, like even during Thanksgiving, I think we’re gonna get a pie and I’ll have some of the pie. I’ll probably eat the whole pie.

[laughter]

0:40:01.9 Mike Vacanti: “We’re gonna get a pie and I might have a piece… I’m gonna eat the whole pie.”

0:40:03.2 Jordan Syatt: I’ll probably eat the whole pie. Pie is just like, I’m not a huge p guy…

0:40:07.7 Mike Vacanti: Pie is the best.

0:40:07.8 Jordan Syatt: But like, yeah, just like with pie, especially with the crust. But yeah, we’re probably gonna get like a blueberry pie and so that’ll be like the one thing that I really eat.

0:40:16.6 Mike Vacanti: Shout out to my childhood friend, Paul Larson, who one of the hills he always died on, one of his strongest opinions is he didn’t understand why people like cake. And that pie is infinitely better than cake.

0:40:29.7 Jordan Syatt: A hundred percent. Yeah. I’m never, I told my wife, I was like, “I’m never having cake on my birthday.” I was like, “I’ll have a pie.” If there is a cake it will be ice cream cake ’cause that’s the only cake that is worthwhile. But yeah, pie, do you remember that pie place that was near my spot in New York in midtown that had that triple berry pie and that we also got like that coconut cream pie? I think that you really liked it. Or banana cream pie or something?

0:40:56.4 Mike Vacanti: When Did you live in Midtown?

0:40:57.5 Jordan Syatt: Hell’s Kitchen?

0:40:58.8 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah.

0:41:00.8 Jordan Syatt: Remember we both lived there.

0:41:01.0 Mike Vacanti: New York was a blur.

[laughter]

0:41:04.3 Jordan Syatt: We lived one block away…

[laughter]

0:41:06.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah… I was not thinking of… I was just thinking of the the Village. But yeah, you were there for probably a solid year before you left for Texas.

0:41:17.3 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I was there for two years.

0:41:21.6 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely not.

0:41:22.5 Jordan Syatt: Yes, I was.

0:41:23.5 Mike Vacanti: When did you move to Texas?

0:41:24.8 Jordan Syatt: 2021, and my wife moved…

0:41:26.3 Mike Vacanti: What month?

0:41:27.7 Jordan Syatt: April.

0:41:27.8 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:41:29.6 Jordan Syatt: My wife moved to New York in 2019 and she moved when you moved to that building.

0:41:37.7 Mike Vacanti: What month?

0:41:39.1 Jordan Syatt: May of 2019.

0:41:41.0 Mike Vacanti: Wow, you were really there for two years?

0:41:44.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:41:44.4 Mike Vacanti: I thought you had to break a lease though when you were leaving and you weren’t that far into the lease.

0:41:47.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, ’cause we had signed like an 18-month… We moved into one building… One room, and it was like a studio. And then we like, I think like a year in or so, no, like six months in or something, we moved, we changed apartments.

0:42:03.9 Mike Vacanti: I remember that. I remember that.

0:42:05.6 Jordan Syatt: And then when we changed apartments, then we signed like an 18-month lease or something. Not a year.

0:42:10.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m gonna have to fact check this, but I think you might be right.

0:42:13.6 Jordan Syatt: I’m a hundred percent right.

0:42:14.7 Mike Vacanti: COVID really just distorted time and space.

[overlapping conversation]

0:42:18.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude, it still feels like this. I saw a comment on a, I was watching one of my brother’s podcasts. My brother was on Rogan a couple times. And I was watching one of his podcasts from Rogan and it was like, I don’t know, probably 2016, 2017, and one of the comments was, “man, these podcasts are really getting me through this quarantine.” And it felt so surreal to see that, ’cause it’s like, man, it feels like quarantine was a couple weeks ago, doesn’t feel like it was almost five years ago now.

0:42:51.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Wild.

0:42:52.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:42:52.6 Mike Vacanti: Thank you for listening. We’ll be back next week. Every Tuesday. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts. We appreciate you. Jordan, any parting words?

0:43:01.1 Jordan Syatt: We love you. We appreciate you. Please leave a review, share it on your social media. Have a wonderful week. We’ll talk to you soon.

0:43:08.9 Mike Vacanti: Bye.