Episode 208: Difficult Clients, Public Apologies, The Best At-Home Workout Equipment, Grip Strength Myths, And More…

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

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

0:00:13.2 Mike Vacanti: What’s up, my brother?

0:00:14.8 Jordan Syatt: Bro, how you doing? Been a minute.

0:00:16.7 Mike Vacanti: Not really. Talked to you an hour ago. Oh, since we podded.

0:00:19.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Since we had a nice long pod.

0:00:22.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we haven’t recorded in a week and a half, but not missing an episode to schedule Tuesday uploads.

0:00:31.1 Jordan Syatt: At least 51 a week. 51 a year. At least 51 a year.

0:00:35.3 Mike Vacanti: 51 a week. I like it.

0:00:37.7 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think you do like that.

0:00:39.9 Mike Vacanti: That would be recording… That’d be like… That would be a 9:00 to 5:00 of recording.

0:00:44.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. That’d be wild.

0:00:45.6 Mike Vacanti: We would start at 9:00. We would take no breaks, maybe a 30 minute lunch break and then chop it up into one hour episodes and upload them daily.

0:00:54.4 Jordan Syatt: How does it feel to be back home? You were just with Gary.

0:00:57.7 Mike Vacanti: Yep. Hit five good workouts in New York, coaching Gary. Feels good to be back home. Negative two today.

0:01:07.4 Jordan Syatt: Five for 50. It’s his 50th year.

0:01:08.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, he turns 50 this year. He’s actually been dominating for by the time this drops 2 1/2 ish months on his training and nutrition. But yeah, he turns 50 in November, so we’re getting after it.

0:01:25.7 Jordan Syatt: Remember when you guys, I hadn’t started training yet, but when, I think you first started training him and he saw this outrageously jacked dude who might have been on steroids and he was like.

0:01:39.2 Mike Vacanti: Why don’t I tell the story?

0:01:40.1 Jordan Syatt: How long is it gonna take…

0:01:41.1 Mike Vacanti: Why don’t I tell the story?

0:01:42.4 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:01:43.5 Mike Vacanti: We’re like three weeks into coaching. We’re in Turks and Caicos. There’s a black dude, a jacked 5 foot 6, 200 pound, 6% body fat dude at this hotel gym in a tank top. Like, could have won, I don’t know. Club… Like, I don’t. He could have won something. This guy was shredded and big and…

0:02:09.7 Jordan Syatt: And on a lot of steroids.

0:02:11.1 Mike Vacanti: He was on all of the steroids, essentially.

0:02:14.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:02:15.5 Mike Vacanti: And Gary was like, “When am I gonna look like that, Mike?” And we were just a few weeks into coaching and I would have handled it differently now, but I still can Devil’s advocate where my head was at on this because I didn’t want to discourage him too much in terms of expectation of physique.

0:02:36.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:02:38.9 Mike Vacanti: And… I don’t know, I told them something to the effect of like, you know, when we were talking on the recent mentorship Q&A and you talked about the boxing coach strategy that you had a coach use on you and I had a coach use on me independently of one another. But it was the same strategy where they’re like, you can be champion of the world. You train with me six days a week. You do this on your own. You can be world champion. It was a little bit of that. With a few years of really hard training, really consistent on nutrition. We can… Your version of that. “We can get there. We can get there.” Hyping him up kind of. And like two years later, he’s like, man, remember when we saw that dude in Turks and Caicos [laughter] and you said that I could get close to that eventually? He’s like, man, very discouraging.

0:03:28.7 Jordan Syatt: I think it’s probably a better strategy than just being outright like, oh, you’ll never look like that.

0:03:32.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:03:33.5 Jordan Syatt: Like, because at least there’s. There’s hope and there’s something to shoot for. And then by the time, two years later, he’s like, he’s. It’s a habit. And he enjoys working out. And he now also has a more practical understanding what’s possible if you just shot him down or, like, “You’re never gonna look like that, bro.” Like, it might have literally been like, “All right, well, then I’m not gonna bother.” right.

0:03:51.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a 100% right.

0:03:54.0 Jordan Syatt: Or, “I’ll get someone who will promise me that I’ll look like that.”

0:03:56.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah.

0:03:57.1 Jordan Syatt: And then they still won’t.

0:03:58.1 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:04:00.9 Jordan Syatt: Unless he starts taking a lot of steroids.

0:04:01.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And even then, this guy.

0:04:03.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Elite genetics.

0:04:04.8 Mike Vacanti: I could… Yeah, Elite genetics. Elite and then all. And the guy probably been training for 25 years of… I wish I could have a conversation with the guy. In my mind, I see him as like. Like a slightly smaller and maybe even leaner version of Kai Green.

0:04:26.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s insane.

0:04:27.4 Mike Vacanti: Is how I remember him.

0:04:28.5 Jordan Syatt: That’s insane. The fact that you were flirty in there. Like slightly smaller.

0:04:30.8 Mike Vacanti: Maybe 30 pounds less muscle. Now that I think about it, the story has grown into mythic proportions a little bit, I think, over time. As stories tend to do.

0:04:42.6 Jordan Syatt: What else, man?

0:04:43.7 Mike Vacanti: Just did a little workout myself. Got a nice list here of a few good audience questions for our episode here.

0:04:52.6 Jordan Syatt: Let’s do it.

0:04:53.3 Mike Vacanti: Trey had a question for us. Our guy, Trey. Trey said, hey, Mike and Jordan. My name’s Trey. I’ve been watching the How to Become Personal Trainer podcast since 2022. Even before thinking about becoming a trainer. I love the podcast, hearing you guys banter talk about different health and fitness related topics. I recently graduated from college in April of 2024 and have just started personal training the past seven months at a commercial gym. I’ve trained family and friends in the past, but this has been my first time building actual clients outside of family and friends. My question is, do you think it’s an appropriate time to start building an online presence? I.e., join the fitness business mentorship, or would I benefit more from in person personal training experience? I really enjoy training and love the feeling of helping people get into their fitness goals. But I am weighing whether or not this is a sustainable career path for me as a 22 year old, still trying to figure out what I wanna do with my life. Any input for you guys would be greatly appreciated. I love what you guys do and hope you have a great week. Best, Trey.

0:05:55.9 Jordan Syatt: Love that. Thank you, Trey. Appreciate that. And he said he watches, so I’m assuming he watches on YouTube, which makes me super happy. So let’s go. So there’s a lot here. The first thing that comes to my mind is I was trying to do the math. If he graduated college in ’24, he’s probably born after 2000, which is just crazy for me. Right?

0:06:17.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. He’s 22 years old and it’s 2025. So it’s yeah.

0:06:20.4 Jordan Syatt: So. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. That makes you feel real old. But I mean, so there’s a lot to say our first part…

0:06:26.9 Mike Vacanti: You know.

0:06:28.9 Jordan Syatt: What?

0:06:30.2 Mike Vacanti: Not to completely derail us, but, you know it’s a new generation in 2025, right? Generation beta.

0:06:35.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I didn’t know that was the name of it. Generation Beta.

0:06:38.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’s Greek.

0:06:40.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, “it’s fucking Greek, you idiot.”

0:06:46.3 Mike Vacanti: I thought your mind was going to like, Beta Male simping, like I thought that’s what…

0:06:49.4 Jordan Syatt: Well, that’s where I did go.

0:06:50.6 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:06:51.1 Jordan Syatt: I didn’t go to simping, but I did say, like, oh, Beta. Like, that’s usually not like an endearing term if you call someone a Beta.

0:07:00.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I mean.

0:07:00.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct. I mean, that’s just where I went. But anyway, I don’t know. It’s fucking Greek. Maybe it’s… Who knows?

0:07:07.4 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know. I didn’t select it. Gen X, Millennial, Gen Z. Generation Alpha.

0:07:13.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s just like, Gen X, Millennials, Boomers. Like, it’s all like, either, like, cool or neutral. And then you hear beta and it’s like, oh, losers. It’s like, boomer sounds cool. Millennial sounds cool. Gen X sounds cool. Gen Z sounds cool. And it’s like Beta. And it’s like, oh, oof. Yeah, they got the shaft with that one.

0:07:38.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m with you. I’m with you. I think Gen X and the Millennials are technically Gen Y, but over 2000 is millennial and then Gen Z. So you got X, Y, Z, and then back to Gen A, Alpha, B, Beta, but…

0:07:52.7 Jordan Syatt: It’s Greek. Anyway.

0:07:54.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s Greek.

0:07:58.6 Mike Vacanti: [laughter] Also, I’ll start with this. I’ll say I started my online business at 21 and I started in person coaching long before that. So the long and the short of it is you can and should do both at the same time. I don’t think you should join the mentorship if you cannot afford it. From the perspective of I wouldn’t borrow money to join the mentorship.

0:08:24.0 Mike Vacanti: Amazing that you went there. Hold that thought, because the next question is amazing that you went there. I agree with you, by the way.

0:08:30.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I would. There’s so much that you can do without paying money for our program or for any program, and especially borrowing it. Okay, that’s number one.

0:08:41.8 Mike Vacanti: Yep. Yep.

0:08:42.3 Jordan Syatt: I would say getting in-person coaching experience is going to be incredibly beneficial. No matter what happens with AI, no matter what happens in the online world, in-person coaching experience will give you an ability to help people both in person online that you wouldn’t be able to do if you never did it. So highly encourage that. It’s also a good opportunity to see if it’s something that you really enjoy. Like, if you just go in, you’re like, I hate this, then great, then stop. And you don’t ever have to go down this career path. You don’t have to waste more time. So I would say you can and should do both. Now you can start coaching people in person and making online content. And like we’ve spoken about many times before, since you’ve been listening and watching for a long time, it’s. I would start by making content around what you’re learning in your own training and your own nutrition and just sort of sharing your own story and things that you’re learning about. And I would get in person coaching experience and sharing stuff online and that’s how I would start.

0:09:36.3 Mike Vacanti: Nailed it. Yep, do both. And another huge benefit of being 22 years old is you can do both for three years. And if you realize it’s not really what you want to be doing, cool, you’re 25 and you can try something else.

0:09:50.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:09:51.7 Mike Vacanti: But do both is the right mentality because of where you’re at in your career. And throwing all the spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks is the right approach. Then later in your career is when it becomes more important to say no and focus on one or two more important things. Doing both is also the right thing to do because you don’t need to be an expert to start making content online and beginning to grow an audience by telling the truth about where you’re at in your fitness journey. Whether that’s you getting yourself into shape, whether that’s you researching and learning and potentially taking courses, reading books, learning from your in person clients, learning from the more established coaches at the gym you’re gonna work at, everything you’re learning, sharing that as well as documenting your own training, nutrition, progress, et cetera. It’s a good way to get better at making content.

0:10:48.5 Mike Vacanti: You can start to build an audience talking about those things without having to position yourself as an expert because you’re not yet. And I’ve seen people try to do that. You end up feeling like a fraud ’cause you are. If you aren’t an expert in any field, set fitness aside, but you are posing as one online. You’re gonna feel like you’re going to get exposed constantly. So yes, start making content, but tell the truth about where you’re at and don’t be afraid to say I don’t know things. You’re getting a head start on the marketing side of your business by starting now on the content side rather than just coaching clients in person for two or three years and then pushing the content back to whatever 2028.

0:11:40.9 Jordan Syatt: Completely agree. And I still do that. I think it’s important. When I must have been about six months ago now, when I got my front, or almost, almost, almost got my front splits, I had someone ask me in my comment section of a post being like, “Hey, can you make a program for the splits?” And I replied and I said, “Listen, just because I’ve gotten my front splits doesn’t mean I know how to program them. Like, I’m still studying, I’m still learning.” So it’s probably going to be at least another year or so before I feel comfortable enough to put out a program that’s going to help people achieve this. And the amount of people who replied and said this just makes me trust you even more to know that just because you got this, mean you’re not now going, oh, here try my program, or here, try and tell me this. And publicly saying I don’t know enough yet to feel comfortable acting as an expert enough to sell a program on this. It just makes people trust you more to know that you’re not going to sell out. To know that you’re not going to try and make a quick buck.

0:12:32.9 Jordan Syatt: Like being honest about your current level of expertise. Which to be fair, is really difficult when you are starting from a place of very little knowledge to begin with. Because once you gain any little bit of knowledge, you feel like you know a lot, but then that later on down the line, when you know a lot, you feel like you know a little. But I think it’s always better to go towards the I still. You will always have more to learn. Always. So no matter where you are, always opt for saying, I could be wrong. I have a lot more to learn. You can’t ever be wrong saying that. But you can be wrong when you are way too overly confident in whatever you believe.

0:13:09.6 Mike Vacanti: Not to mention, from a PR perspective and a likability perspective. Humility is gold.

0:13:14.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:13:15.8 Mike Vacanti: So it’s. It’s the right thing to do and it’s good strategy.

0:13:18.4 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:13:19.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:13:19.8 Jordan Syatt: PR king Mike Vacanti.

0:13:23.0 Mike Vacanti: You’re… You’ve become such an honest guy that when you say something like that.

0:13:28.7 Jordan Syatt: I know.

0:13:29.3 Mike Vacanti: So I’m gonna to let you set the record straight on what you just said.

0:13:34.5 Jordan Syatt: You want me to correct myself?

0:13:37.1 Mike Vacanti: If you feel.

0:13:37.8 Jordan Syatt: Like you’re demanding a public apology, all right. Hey hey hey.

0:13:41.6 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no. Not an apology.

0:13:42.5 Jordan Syatt: I want a public apology.

0:13:43.8 Mike Vacanti: Not an apology.

0:13:44.6 Jordan Syatt: Or we’re canceling.

0:13:45.7 Mike Vacanti: If you want to redact that statement or just be like, wow, that was really a joke. You can. You don’t have to.

0:13:52.0 Jordan Syatt: What I’ll do is, I’ll do like the New York Times Editor’s Note redaction a week later and just, like, put it in a. Hey. And this is redacted.

0:14:00.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s disappointing because you’ve become…

0:14:03.6 Jordan Syatt: What I hate. Become what I hate. No. Yeah, Obviously…

0:14:06.6 Mike Vacanti: No. You haven’t become What I hate?

0:14:10.4 Jordan Syatt: Know what I hate.

0:14:11.2 Mike Vacanti: You just made such moral strides.

0:14:13.1 Jordan Syatt: All I’m saying is it was a joke, and Mike is. Is not. Mike is not the PR king. Mike is the PR. What is the word? Mike is the PR… What’s that word?

0:14:31.2 Mike Vacanti: I’m the antithesis of PR.

0:14:33.1 Jordan Syatt: You are the PR… Man. I’m losing all the steam ’cause I had that word, and then it’s just leaking out of my mouth now.

0:14:43.4 Mike Vacanti: Greek.

0:14:47.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s fucking Greek. Yeah. Mike is the antithesis of PR.

0:14:51.5 Mike Vacanti: This is the worst redaction of all time.

0:14:54.3 Jordan Syatt: No, it’s an accurate redaction, and I’m doing a really good job of it, and I wouldn’t even have done it if you didn’t force me to do it.

0:15:02.2 Mike Vacanti: If that’s considered forced. I don’t know, man.

0:15:05.6 Jordan Syatt: It was forced. You twisted My arm.

0:15:07.2 Mike Vacanti: For those not watching on video. Jordan and I have 1500 miles between us. [laughter] Yeah, man. Obviously, we both love that you’re doing in person coaching. That’s a great idea to become a better coach. It’s what we recommend for basically everyone who wants to grow an online business is train clients in the gym. It’s the number one way to become a better coach. So, yeah, do that plus make content and… Great question.

0:15:37.9 Jordan Syatt: I coach my wife and I get ideas for content and it still… It keeps me sharp when… It’s funny, coaching people in person. Like, I always try and do a little bit. I bet, whenever you’re with Gary, there’s always something that you get from it. Always. Actually, I heard a great quote, a really great quote. Do you know who Maimonides is?

0:16:00.0 Mike Vacanti: I don’t even know that word.

0:16:00.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s a person.

0:16:01.6 Mike Vacanti: Maimonides?

0:16:03.8 Jordan Syatt: One arguably, like the most famous Jewish philosopher from, thousands of years ago. He… A great quote. And he’s talking about how you can learn a lot from your mentors and you can learn even more from your colleagues, but you learn the most from your students. And how he was saying that just as a small bush can… Like a small bush that’s on fire can cause a much bigger tree to catch that flame and catch fire, so too can a student light that flame in their teacher and… Because as you’re teaching, they’re asking questions, they’re having you dig deeper. And I look at your clients as your students. You will learn just as much, if not more, from coaching and from your students than you will from any other source.

0:17:01.4 Mike Vacanti: I couldn’t agree more. Learning from your students as well as learning through the process of teaching your students. Right. Like, we were just talking about the value of website articles on our last mentorship Q&A and where the value is now compared to three years ago or six months ago. And talked about the benefit of fully fleshing out your ideas through teaching, through writing. And… Yeah, Maimonides, born 1138 in Spain, died 1204 in Egypt. Never knew about it.

0:17:36.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’m reading a book on him right now. Very cool stuff.

0:17:40.4 Mike Vacanti: Audiobook.

0:17:41.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. Listening to a book, I should say, which is great. I don’t read books anymore.

0:17:46.3 Mike Vacanti: I love audiobooks. I just. I was taken aback because that would be unbelievably impressive if you sitting down reading a book in this 2025 digital landscape we live in, where…

0:18:00.7 Jordan Syatt: I get really upset when I see there isn’t an audio version of a Book at this point, like, I get really angry. It’s like, what am I supposed to do with that? I’m just supposed to sit down and read. It’s very, very difficult when I want to be doing something and consuming at the same time.

0:18:15.2 Mike Vacanti: I would love to know what percentage of people aged 30 to 50 have completed an entire physical book in the last three years. And then I’d like to know what that number was in 1985.

0:18:31.0 Jordan Syatt: Agreed. I’d also like to know of the ones in the last three years, how many of them were Harry Potter?

0:18:35.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:18:36.8 Jordan Syatt: ’cause I bet that’s probably like the most commonly read book.

0:18:40.1 Mike Vacanti: Read some?

0:18:41.0 Jordan Syatt: Or any of those seven. Yeah, for sure. What book do you think would have been read more, especially by that age group? ’cause it came out while we were all younger. Definitely. Like the 30s, especially the 30s, not the 40s and 50s.

0:18:55.3 Mike Vacanti: Cover to cover. Yeah, maybe like a popular fiction book like Harry Potter could be there.

0:19:00.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:19:01.2 Mike Vacanti: But even then, I don’t think people are sitting down reading Harry Potter. I really think…

0:19:04.1 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I struggle so much, man. I’ve tried to start this climate change book so many times and it is just. It’s tough.

0:19:13.4 Mike Vacanti: What’s the climate change book?

0:19:16.0 Jordan Syatt: It’s called…

0:19:17.0 Mike Vacanti: Wait, you’ve tried to start it on audiobook or tried to start it hard copy.

0:19:20.7 Jordan Syatt: The Climate Casino. It’s on audiobook. It’s 10 hours and 47 minutes. And it is just…

0:19:29.1 Mike Vacanti: You… We’re on the same. We’re on the same page. That this is a direct result driven almost exclusively by our cell phones, Right?

0:19:37.9 Jordan Syatt: No, no, I’m saying the climate… I’m saying the topic of climate change is just not interesting to me. Like, I want to be interested in it. You know what I mean? You know how some people really want to love working out. I want, I really want to understand climate change, but I don’t want it enough, obviously, because anytime I get into it, I’m just like this, Greenhouse emissions, carbon. Okay, I’m out. I don’t know what to do.

0:20:11.4 Mike Vacanti: When there are honest disagreements between scientists who have combined experience of 50, 60, 70 years of investigating this subject and they disagree on it. It’s the kind of topic where what are you gonna do in a book or two? Like, what kind of damage are you really going to do? You can only master so many things in a lifetime.

0:20:35.6 Jordan Syatt: And they don’t present it in a way that I find enjoyable. That’s the hard part. Like, it’s. For me, it’s not the struggle of who to believe. ’cause I haven’t even gotten to that level yet. I haven’t consumed enough content, What do I believe. You know what I mean.

0:20:46.6 Mike Vacanti: What I’m saying is, what is one book gonna do? What I’m saying is, you want to be interested in climate science, that’d be cool. But how many hours of your life would you have to dedicate to actually have a reasonable understanding?

0:21:00.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:21:01.0 Mike Vacanti: 5000 at a minimum.

0:21:01.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:21:03.4 Mike Vacanti: And even then.

0:21:04.0 Jordan Syatt: So many books, so many articles. Yeah. And even then, it’s like, all right, yeah. How do you know who to believe? ‘Cause I was talking to a nurse about this. There’s a great nurse, and she was telling me how during COVID and this is obviously a big separate topic. But during COVID there were nurses, same educational backgrounds, same requirements they had on the front lines during COVID, had completely different beliefs around the vaccine versus not the vaccine. So much so that many nurses had, like, were forced to leave.

0:21:39.2 Mike Vacanti: Or fired for not getting in.

0:21:40.8 S21: Because they… They were fired for not. And so it’s like, same educational background. How do we know who to believe? Right. It’s like. And I had a great conversation. It’s like, it’s not just about the credential. It’s not just about where you went to school or what degree you have or what job you have, because you can all have the exact same. But have two completely different opinions.

0:22:01.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’m with you. I’m absolutely with you. My original statement that I was see, or a question, I guess, was we’re on the same page. That the reason that sitting down and reading a book is so difficult is primary… For everyone, is primarily driven by our use of smartphones and social media.

0:22:23.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, for sure. Without question. Because I think it’s also something I’ve noticed. I would imagine the smartphone is the base of it, and potentially on just like a deeper philosophical level, but also practical, is because of the smartphone and because of technology, we can now be… We can do so much more than we could do before in far less time. Right. Like, before, you had to go to the grocery store to get your groceries. And you had to, like, walk all around the store and do all of that. And it’s like, then you had to come. The point I’m making is now you can just order your groceries, have it delivered. So now, in that time, instead of going to the grocery store, you can be more “Productive.” And I put productive in quotes deliberately and do something else. So now everything, especially in a Western society that we live in is very focused on being more productive with your time. Do more and less time. Do more and less time. So it’s like, well, why would I sit down and read a book? Why would. When I could do cardio and listen to the same book type of a thing? You know what I mean? It’s like I could essentially get the same knowledge and accomplish two things at the same time.

0:23:34.1 Jordan Syatt: But then the question is, do you actually get the knowledge? ‘Cause you’re not actually reading it, you’re listening to it, and then maybe you’re zoning out, you’re not comprehending it as much.

0:23:41.1 Mike Vacanti: That’s an interesting perspective because you would think that if the cell phone freed up more time and we have more time than we used to, then we would be reading more, not reading less.

0:23:55.6 Jordan Syatt: But then we fill that time.

0:23:57.1 Mike Vacanti: My hypothesis is that our brains are fried because we’re constantly seeking cheap, immediate pleasure from either… Mostly consumption, right? Most people consume real quick. A minority of people create and get positive feedback from that and DMs and likes, et cetera. But most people. And these days I’m more on the consumption side of things.

0:24:19.6 Jordan Syatt: Are you back to consuming?

0:24:20.9 Mike Vacanti: Everyone consumes, bro. [laughter] Everyone consumes. I mean, no, I don’t. I haven’t had Twitter on my phone in.

0:24:27.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, good.

0:24:28.2 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know, a week and a half, but yes.

0:24:34.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:24:35.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s the cheap dopamine of social media, not the… I’m not crediting grocery delivery for the fact that I can’t sit and read a book. It’s like, oh, my gosh, how much more enjoyable is it to have surface level entertainment/education on 200 different topics rather than sit and read this boring book for an hour straight? Who can possibly do that?

0:25:00.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s interesting. For me, it’s more. It’s like when I’m sitting down, I’m just not doing something else I could be doing.

0:25:04.6 Mike Vacanti: Then why don’t you read a book while you’re doing cardio, while you’re on the treadmill?

0:25:09.4 Jordan Syatt: How can I. Like walking out? Like a 9, 10, 11, 12 incline, 3 speed. Like turning the pages. Like, that’s. There’s. It’s. I can’t pull that.

0:25:17.4 Mike Vacanti: I know a lot of people who do that. Oh. I think you can.

0:25:19.4 Jordan Syatt: And I’ve never understood it.

0:25:21.4 Mike Vacanti: Have you tried?

0:25:22.3 Jordan Syatt: I’ve seen people reading a book on the elliptical. Yeah. I Have tried. I’ve seen people read a book on the elliptical and I’m like, I’m gonna get car sickness.

0:25:26.4 Mike Vacanti: Motion sickness.

0:25:29.1 Jordan Syatt: Doing that. Like, how in the hell do they do that?

0:25:30.9 Mike Vacanti: Cool, we can move on. But I’m very confident in my position on this one. Humility. Why don’t.

0:25:40.9 Jordan Syatt: I am right you. [laughter]

0:25:44.1 Mike Vacanti: I just think they’re separate discussions. I think what you’re describing, this glorification of productivity is a sign of the points to the val… What we value in our culture which is like, status, material possession, money, things of that nature. And is that capitalism? No. Is it like. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s driving that but it’s definitely what we have in the west compared to a hundred years ago.

0:26:28.6 Jordan Syatt: I mean I think part if we really break it down, we don’t have to spend too much time like freedom. I think it’s just like a byproduct of freedom. When you are free to make your own choices, then you’re going to be.

0:26:37.7 Mike Vacanti: Productivity increases.

0:26:39.7 Jordan Syatt: When you are free to make your own choices, I think productivity increases. I think that’s a fair statement.

0:26:49.5 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.

0:26:50.0 Jordan Syatt: Because when you have that freedom then you have that freedom to make a better life for yourself and for your community. You’re not restricted. That’s the whole reason behind I would imagine that’s the whole reason by fewer restrictions on big companies because with more freedom then they can do better things to then lead to better innovations that lead to… Which also yes increase their income. But also a free market. A free market leads to better results for the world.

0:27:13.6 Mike Vacanti: I would guess freedom leads to more productivity amongst the top 10% or 20%. However we want to judge that. I would guess that freedom leads to more sloth amongst the bottom 80% which many days I find myself in that 80 by the way. This isn’t like a judgment.

0:27:34.3 Jordan Syatt: But then those that top 10% makes life better or top 10% or 20% makes life better for the bottom for the lower 80. Is that right?

0:27:41.9 Mike Vacanti: Maybe. I don’t know. Did Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook meta make life better for the 80 or make life worse for the 80? I could argue both sides of that.

0:27:51.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:52.3 Mike Vacanti: That bow hunter, that guy’s.

0:27:55.5 Jordan Syatt: That was so funny. That was just watching the guy lie real time. That was so. It was like when someone’s like “have you seen this movie?” And like “Yeah, I’ve seen.” It’s like “What’s your favorite part?” And he’s like “Oh, haven’t seen it in a while.” Just “Who’s your favorite character in it?” “Ah, I have no idea. What was the storyline?” He just kept digging himself into this hole. It looked horrible.

0:28:22.0 Mike Vacanti: It was very funny.

0:28:25.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it was really Bad. That was a tough interview to watch.

0:28:29.8 Mike Vacanti: Why don’t we have installment payments for the initiation fee for the mentorship? Was literally the next question here. And you already alluded to the answer, which is, and we don’t have to spend a lot of time on this, but we don’t want you taking on personal debt to join the mentorship. We don’t think that’s a good use of your money. From a personal finance perspective. Taking on more debt to try to make money, generally isn’t a good strategy. If you have the cash on hand, amazing. If you need to wait six months or a year or longer and work hard and save to make it a viable option, great. We’ll be there for you and accept you when you’re ready. But I know a lot of gurus, like actual, like pay 8 to 10 grand up front and you don’t even get access to that person to join their mastermind thingy and they will let you put it on a credit card and whatever. We don’t, we don’t need to like.

0:29:34.2 Jordan Syatt: Let’s cheat on it, let’s do it.

0:29:36.2 Mike Vacanti: Well, I’m not a believer in that approach because I think objectively taking on personal debt where the interest rate is gonna be quite high is a bad idea.

0:29:52.0 Jordan Syatt: Agreed. And candidly, it’s also, it works both ways. We think it’s better practice for you. And it’s easier for us. From the perspective of if someone is going… If someone needs to have these installments, then there’s a really good chance that they’re going to cancel before the next payment comes out. There’s a really good chance that their payments might be missed and then we might have to chase that. It’s like we would rather you wait and potentially take time to save to then afford it in full. Because it’s going to be better for you, safer for you, better for us, safer for us. And all said and done, you will value it more when you’ve taken the time, to work and save up that money and then spend it on this thing. Rather, okay, I’ll spend a little bit here every single month. It seems almost innocuous, like it’s not a big deal. You will very often inherently value the service less because you’re not paying as much. I see this happen all the time. Especially I see this happen very frequently, not just in fitness, but anytime. Someone will pay for something in these short little bursts. It’s almost like, ah, it’s not a big deal, I’m not paying that much for it. But then when all the payments are done. It’s like you paid a lot. You barely gave it any thought.

0:31:09.8 Mike Vacanti: Great point. I hadn’t even. I was speaking to the debt side of things. You presented a good case for why installment payments also don’t make sense on both sides.

0:31:18.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:31:19.5 Mike Vacanti: All right, we got a question. A YouTube comment from Christopher. Christopher said, would love to hear your thoughts about these resistance bands and resistance tube exercises and how good or bad they are for hypertrophy maintenance and physical therapy. Are they a good on the go replacement for dumbbells? Love your technical information. Y’all have been a huge help for breaking through the industry’s never ending misinformation. Stay strong. Thank you, Christopher.

0:31:53.5 Jordan Syatt: Love that, Christopher. Thank you. You want to start, you want me to start?

0:31:57.6 Mike Vacanti: Bands. Bands. I’ll start. Bands absolutely have a place or could have a place in a well designed training program. Now, it depends. I really like, Christopher, that you broke your question up into hypertrophy maintenance and physical therapy. And I’ll start with hypertrophy. Bands are not a great tool relative to barbells or dumbbells or bodyweight exercises like a push up or a pull up. Bands are so much worse than any of those for eliciting muscle growth. It’s just, it’s way too hard to get enough mechanical tension. It’s way too hard to train a body part close to failure, which is needed for non-beginners to generate muscle growth. There’s also.

0:33:00.3 Mike Vacanti: The amount of resistance varies throughout the repetition with a band and not in a beneficial way. So if you think about a seated banded row, you have the most tension on the band when your muscle’s fully contracted and the least amount of tension on the band when the muscle’s stretched. Think about a bicep curl. It’s the same thing. You have more tension where the movement is easiest at the very top of the move and less tension when you’re at the midpoint of the repetition or when you’re in the stretch position at the bottom of the rep. And so for those reasons, bands are definitely inferior to barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, machines, body weight, et cetera, for muscle gain.

0:33:50.9 Jordan Syatt: Completely agree. And again, they’re a great tool. If we look at our toolbox, hammers and nails and wrenches and all this stuff. Bands belong in that toolbox. Just like barbells and dumbbells and kettlebells and machines. Like it belongs in a toolbox, but it’s not the only tool that you need. There is no one size fits all tool. And for certain goals, it’s probably not even worth taking out of the box. And I’ve said I made a post within the last year about how bands are not a great tool for muscle growth, specifically muscle growth. And someone tagged this guy who’s like all about bands. Like his only workouts are with bands. And of course he sells the bands and his whole band system and all that stuff. And the dude is jacked out of his mind. And he’s lean, he looks like he’s on all of the steroids, like clearly and been lifting his whole life. He looks like he’s been lifting. And there are videos of him lifting weights previously, like heavy, heavy, heavy weights. And, he comes on and he was like, this is ridiculous.

0:35:07.5 Jordan Syatt: Like you absolutely can use bands to build a lot of muscle. And I’m like, bro, you didn’t use bands to get this body. It’s sort of like when you see a fitness model doing like a shake weight workout or some stupid fucking workout and be like, you can look like me or like a bow flex or whatever the fuck, you can look like me three times a week, 20 minutes a day, it’s like, that’s not what you did to look like that motherfucker. Like, you didn’t use those bands to look like that. So I think bands are a really great tool for performance of a high level athlete. And specifically saying high level, ’cause I wouldn’t use it for a beginner or even an early intermediate, but mid to late intermediate going into advanced. It’s a, they’re wonderful utility for improving speed and power production. Wonderful utility.

0:35:57.9 Mike Vacanti: Can you give us one to two exercise examples or like ways that you, one of those athletes would use a band?

0:36:04.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I mean the. Probably the simplest one to explain is you wrap them over the bar so the bars on the ground for a deadlift and you wrap them over the bar. And so then as you pick the bar up, as you’re essentially doing the same thing like you mentioned, as you’re contracting, as you’re shortening, the tension will increase on the band. And so the bar gets heavier and heavier and heavier as you lift the weight. But you do this explosively. So you’re not doing this with max effort weight and can’t you could. Like I’ve done max effort, like 315 on the bar and then like 150 pounds of band weight at the top. Like I’ve done that. But I prefer it for explosiveness and speed. So you use like 50%, one rep max, put some bands around it and you just, you go fast and it teaches you to be more explosive and more powerful, have a higher rate of force development. And it also, specific to the deadlift, helps reinforce speed during lockout. So when you’re really trying to develop that lockout speed, having the band tension increase as you go up higher and higher will reinforce that neural connection.

0:37:12.0 Jordan Syatt: You can also do it… You could do with any movement, but you could do it with jumps. So I really like it with broad jumps. I’ll tie, I’ll loop the band to the squat rack or something behind me and then I’ll put it around my waist and then I’ll jump away and the band will essentially be pulling me back in. So you got to be really careful and know that this person knows what they’re doing. But it will… It essentially provides progressive overload and resistance to jumping without the… It’s one thing to add weight to a vertical jump, to a box jump, it’s another thing to add weight to a broad jump and all the potential risks for injuries that come with that. But when you add the band resistance going horizontally behind you, well now you actually add that extra tension at and you have some, some legitimate resistance that not only improves your strength, but your power and your speed. And you can also do it with kettlebells. Like you could add bands to kettlebells. There are many ways to do it, but I think the best way to utilize bands is for either from an athletic performance perspective, to take in a high level athlete to an even higher level of performance, or taking someone who is brand new and potentially dealing with an injury to overcome that injury.

0:38:26.8 Jordan Syatt: To learn proper muscle activation, to learn proper muscle recruitment would be maybe a more accurate way to phrase that. Getting them to whether it’s things like external rotations or the shoulder. Band pull aparts, glute bridges or lateral walks. There are many ways you can use a band in a rehabilitation setting or in a beginner setting that will teach them how to use the muscles and do the movement properly. But that’s not something that I would use as the main movements. I wouldn’t use it as like the main strength or muscle growth exercises. They’re more for the accessory work. It’s like the sprinkles on top. It’s not the ice cream, it’s the sprinkles.

0:39:11.5 Mike Vacanti: Great analogies. The band guru. It’s almost like the training version of Carnivore, right?

0:39:20.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:39:20.8 Mike Vacanti: Where it’s like, no, you can only eat meat. I only eat meat. This is how I got this physique. It’s meat only. It’s like, well no meat’s good. And like I like meat too, but I eat lots of other things as well. And you can eat other things as well and you should eat other things as well. Nothing wrong with meat. But yeah, that’s the bands. I have my own band system. Band ebook.

0:39:42.9 Jordan Syatt: All you need is bands and I’ve got all the bands you need. It was funny. This other guy commented on that post and he was like, I’ve only used bands for years. It was a different guy. And I went to his Instagram page and within a few weeks prior there was a video of him deadlifting, really heavy. I was like, “dude, what are you doing?” He was like, “that doesn’t count.” I was like, “okay buddy.”

0:40:04.6 Mike Vacanti: That’s wild. That’s wild. Just lying. Another place I like bands is someone who is on vacation and wants to do a little something. They’re a very low cost, easy to pack option to get a little work in that allows for more programming variety than body weight only. Right? If you’re, if you’re thinking legit 15 minute hotel room workout, like someone who wants to do a little something, get a little pump and then go to the pool for the day and they don’t even want to go to the hotel gym, they don’t wanna lift, it’s vacation. They don’t go on a ton of them, but they wanna do a little something. All program in some different banded moves, banded lateral raise, some banded curls, some banded tricep movements, some banded row like stuff in addition to body weight exercises just to give them a more enjoyable workout with more exercise variety. So that’s a good use. But yeah, as the primary tool for strength or muscle gain, bands are not the play.

0:41:14.8 Jordan Syatt: That was one of the first pieces of content I ever did and it was probably, it was actually… It was the first series I ever did. I think it was in 2012. I was a tour guide for like 43 16-year old kids. Took them to Prague and Poland and Israel for six weeks and I brought bands with me and I was working like literally 24 hours a day. I was a tour guide. So it was like non stop six weeks and I was doing these like ten, 20 minute band workouts in my hotel room and I would write blogs on my website, website articles like here’s a lower body band workout, here’s an upper body Band workout and they’re on my YouTube channel from many, many, many years ago. It was like probably the first, some of the first, first, first pieces of content I ever made.

0:42:00.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s a great example of making content about what you’re doing while you’re doing it.

0:42:05.3 Jordan Syatt: I was like, listen, I’m traveling, I’m getting no sleep, I’m all over the world. It’s like, here’s the workouts I’m getting in right now. What I will say is if I have someone go on vacation, I’ll do the same. But if I could choose, like, hey, what’s one piece of equipment I should bring with me on vacation? Let’s just say. Or not even vacation, let’s just say traveling, I’m traveling. Travel for work. Can’t get to a gym. What’s the one piece of equipment? For me, it’s a TRX. Like, I would rather the TRX over the band because the bands, I mean, there are many different reasons, but the TRX allows you to utilize your body to actually get legitimate strength training in.

0:42:46.7 Mike Vacanti: Whereas the band are essentially inherently limited by the tension of the band and also the handles on it aren’t as comfortable. You have a much greater risk of having issues with the bands you. And if you only want one piece of equipment, it’s like with bands you need multiple to get different tensions. With the TRX, you just adjust where your body is or the length of the straps and the tension will change, the load will change.

0:43:10.5 Jordan Syatt: I think the TRX or whatever, suspension trainer. I have a TRX. We should see if we could get sponsored by TRX. I would love that ’cause, like, I actually really like them.

0:43:19.8 Mike Vacanti: You already are sponsored by TRX.

0:43:21.4 Jordan Syatt: All right, Michael, for a guy who’s all about truth, you mean you need you to redact that. I want a public apology right now.

0:43:28.0 Mike Vacanti: It was a joke. I thought it was clear that it was a joke.

0:43:31.0 Jordan Syatt: Hey, just double checking.

0:43:32.6 Mike Vacanti: But it was a joke.

0:43:34.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it was a joke. But yeah, anyway, TRX I think is a better tool. I think TRX is a better overall tool for the general population. Whereas bands are much like. TRX could legitimately be the ice cream, whereas bands will always be the sprinkle.

0:43:50.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’m less of a TRX guy than you. I would agree that you can load them heavier than a band. And therefore, if you own both a TRX and a band, the TRX is gonna be superior for a 20 minute hotel room workout. TRX takes up a little more Room in the suitcase. I think a band is like 15 bucks. TRX is 2-300 bucks. There’s some pros and cons to each but you can do more in and load more into TRX.

0:44:20.2 Jordan Syatt: You could, inverted rows, you could do chin ups. You could do chin ups on a TRX. You could literally do chin ups on it. You can do inverted rows. You can do hamstring curls. You could do. You can get a legitimate strength workout on TRX.

0:44:32.2 Mike Vacanti: I would call it more legitimate than bands for sure. Or legitimate if you’re a beginner.

0:44:37.6 Jordan Syatt: No, I promise you legit strength workouts on TRX.

0:44:42.2 Mike Vacanti: I don’t wanna plagiarize this. I saw someone talking about like no one ever got jacked with a TR… Doing TRX rows. Like stop talking about TRX rows. It was a funny piece of content.

0:44:54.0 Jordan Syatt: I agree. No one ever got jacked. But people can get strong as shit using TRX. Jacked is one thing. Strong is something else. So you’re not gonna get jacked, dudes and TRX and you’re going to do the same movements over and over and over again, which is going to be really boring. But like you can… The way that you can manipulate it to. For strength without question. Like it’s legit.

0:45:16.1 Mike Vacanti: I’m debating if we should move on or if I wanna die on this hill.

0:45:19.8 Jordan Syatt: Only you decide.

0:45:22.8 Mike Vacanti: I disagree. The… It’s hard in a hotel room with only a TRX to make a horizontal pulling motion sufficiently difficult for someone who is intermediate or further. If you can load it, I know you can go single arm. It’s hard in a hotel room. And maybe I just can’t think of the setup. Maybe it’s a lack of creativity on my part. Maybe I need the imagination of you. But how am I getting myself in a position against gravity? Right? Because I can’t just be doing this at a 45 degree angle. It’s too easy. Even single arm body weight, I could go all day. I could do 5,000 single arm TRX rows.

0:46:15.7 Jordan Syatt: Yep, yep. Yeah.

0:46:17.5 Mike Vacanti: How am I getting myself in a hotel room where I’m going directly against gravity so my body is horizontal to the, Perpendicular to the ground.

0:46:26.7 Jordan Syatt: So in a hotel room that’s going to be really difficult. But here’s the way I think about it. I could take that TRX. Most hotels have a gym. Even if it’s a shitty gym, then.

0:46:36.0 Mike Vacanti: Then I’m just going to grab the dumbbells.

0:46:37.5 Jordan Syatt: But no, a Lot of the shitty gyms are just treadmills and elliptical. I’ve been in many hotels. Like, literally their gym is, “Hey, we’ve got a nice gym.” and it’s literally a fucking elliptical and physio ball.

0:46:46.5 Mike Vacanti: In Europe. I see that in Europe. In America, we’ve gotten good in the last decade.

0:46:50.3 Jordan Syatt: And then. So I’d go outside wrap it around a fucking tree.

0:46:55.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Okay. I like that.

0:46:56.9 Jordan Syatt: I go in the staircase. I’d go in the stairwell of the hotel.

0:47:00.2 Mike Vacanti: Feet elevated.

0:47:01.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude, 100%. Yeah.

0:47:03.9 Mike Vacanti: All right. Someone’s coming down the stairs. “Hey, hang on. I’m doing a set buddy.”

0:47:07.7 Jordan Syatt: “Hey. I’m in the middle of a set.”

0:47:08.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. I like that. Establish your dominance. I’m gen alpha, you’re gen beta. Like, get out of my way.

0:47:15.6 Jordan Syatt: Yes, yes.

0:47:17.0 Mike Vacanti: All right.

0:47:17.6 Jordan Syatt: There were many times where like I’d be in a hotel and I either didn’t wanna be in the gym or like, what the gym, all the stuff was taken. And I would go in the, like the cement stairwell of the hotel and just do steps like for like an hour. Just up and down and up and down, like the entire hotel staircase. Or I do stair workouts, jumps, push ups. That is a very underutilized area of the hotel.

0:47:43.3 Mike Vacanti: What I think is an underutilized strategy is with Planet Fitness memberships being like $10 or $9 or $14 a month or whatever they are, and in America, the fact that they are in every city and they have dumbbells at 75 Smith machines. Every single machine. I like pull up bars, cables. I just do that.

0:48:10.5 Jordan Syatt: $120 a year, Lifetime membership to… Yeah, yeah, Smart, smart. I think that’s actually a really good point. Just get that membership and whenever you happen to travel.

0:48:20.1 Mike Vacanti: Plus two workouts at a Planet Fitness is superior to seven 15 minute bodyweight band workouts.

0:48:28.2 Jordan Syatt: Completely agree.

0:48:29.2 Mike Vacanti: For almost every goal.

0:48:30.5 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:48:31.4 Mike Vacanti: Last one for today. Hi, Mike and Jordan. I wanted to get your thoughts on ways to continue weight training progression when grip is the limiting factor. Excuse me. Specifically on pull exercises. Thank you, Sidney.

0:48:46.5 Jordan Syatt: You want me to start?

0:48:47.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m just strapping up, getting some Versa grips. I’m getting some. I actually like the old school less effective straps just because that’s what I grew up on.

0:49:00.1 Jordan Syatt: I love those.

0:49:02.6 Mike Vacanti: $5 ones that go around your wrist and have the one strap piece, you get the strap tight on, whatever, whether it’s a dumbbell or a barbell or whatever you’re using. I’m thinking specifically you’re doing a cable row, you’re doing a single arm dumbbell row and your back is strong enough to use a weight that your grip is going to give out on for your top sets. For the sets where your back. So not your warmup sets, maybe not even for your first work set, if your grip can tolerate that. Because not using the strap is gonna help you improve grip strength on a pulling motion. On those final sets, using a strap so that you can take your back muscles close to failure without your grip being the limiting factor is a strategy I would consider. Simultaneously, I would train your grip so that you may not have to do that in the future. So you’re in a place where your grip strength is strong enough to train your pulling exercises to the level of intensity you want to without your grip giving out.

0:50:15.9 Jordan Syatt: You know what’s funny? I coached hundreds and hundreds of people in person. Hundreds. I never once met someone who wasn’t able, like, where grip was the limiting factor. Like a regular person on a regular dumbbell row, whatever. The only time where I saw it becoming an issue were two main scenarios. One, if they had like an injury, arthritis in their hand. That was legit issues. The other is for a very heavy leg exercise, like deadlifts, where that becomes a grip issue. I’ve never in my entire career trained with someone in person who did not have arthritis or a hand injury or wasn’t talking about deadlifts where they couldn’t. Where their grip was the actual issue for something like dumbbell rows, cable rows, anything like that. What I think is going on, ’cause it wasn’t until I started coaching people online where all of a sudden everyone’s like, I’ve got these grip issues. I get, my grip isn’t strong enough for rows. My grip isn’t strong enough for this. And whenever I would coach people in person, we always had chalk. And their hands weren’t sweaty because they had chalk. And I think a lot of what people are perceiving as a grip issue is you’ve got sweaty fucking hands.

0:51:40.3 Jordan Syatt: And I think that hand or they’re gripping it in the wrong place in their hand. And I think the majority of it comes from the sweaty hands. I think most grip issues for the, like any rowing exercise would be solved by chalk. And if you don’t have chalk, get liquid chalk, totally fine. But it removes the sweaty hand issue and it gives you. Essentially, you’re going to be like, oh, it wasn’t a grip strength issue. Like, I could absolutely row the 30s for eight. It’s not a problem. It’s just, it wasn’t a problem. It was the sweaty hands that was slipping out.

0:52:15.4 Jordan Syatt: So that, for me has been an interesting revelation. Like, out of nowhere, I go to online coaching and everyone’s got these grip issues. I’m like, you don’t have a grip issue. Like, I’ve never seen this in person unless you have arthritis or something. Now, I think if you don’t… If you… For example, I was doing rows last night. I didn’t use the. The Versa grips or the straps, even though it would have made it much more comfortable. But, like, if you’re at a point where it’s like, I just don’t want to even feel the uncomfortableness of this in my hands or my forearms. I just fully want to feel it in my back. Great, then get the Versa grips or get the. Get the straps, whatever. But I don’t think that most people have an actual grip issue. I just don’t. You know what I mean?

0:53:08.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I do.

0:53:09.7 Jordan Syatt: I mean, how many people, when you coached in person, how many people did you know who, like, legitimately couldn’t be rowing the 30s or 40s or 50s because of grip?

0:53:16.2 Mike Vacanti: Never on an upper body movement. It was always either a barbell deadlift or an RDL. Were the two movements where I would see it sometimes. And even their chalk usually solved the problem.

0:53:28.3 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:53:30.7 Mike Vacanti: I was answering the question as stated without questioning the formulation. What was that?

0:53:38.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude, that was… The two people who are on Do not Disturb are you and my wife. And who are who bypass Do not disturb. And who bypass Do not Disturb. And so my wife just texted me and I got the loudest ding in my ear that I’ve ever experienced. Just like, what the hell is that? Sorry.

0:54:00.1 Mike Vacanti: All good. That’s uncomfortable.

0:54:03.0 Jordan Syatt: You were answering the question as it was asked.

0:54:05.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:54:05.7 Jordan Syatt: Totally makes sense.

0:54:06.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I’m with you, though, for pulling movements. It’s very rare. Yeah. You actually have a story of someone doing a farmer’s carry who had a grip issue.

0:54:23.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, do you want me to. I won’t say who it is, but, yeah, I had a client who. Oh, yeah, Farmers carriers are another one. Farmers carriers are like.

0:54:33.6 Mike Vacanti: But yeah, like, that’s not a pulling…

0:54:35.9 Jordan Syatt: Correct. And also it’s supposed to… Your grip is supposed to go at a certain point. It’s like the point of it. Like.

0:54:42.3 Mike Vacanti: Exactly.

0:54:42.5 Jordan Syatt: Unless you’re doing farmers carries for either conditioning or traps or upper back. Then you could use straps and wraps to then get the. The stimulus more on your back, conditioning, whatever. But oftentimes it’s specifically done for your grip and just to make grip training a little bit more fun and maybe get some extra steps in. But this is how I found out how easy it was to break Bowflex, ’cause I had a client who I knew that she could lift this weight no problem. Like, she could have if she wanted to. She could have held this weight in her hands for an hour. Like, she could have walked around the grocery store, walked around town for an hour and not thought twice about it. But she loved to give me shit during my sessions and really, like, push my buttons and listen. It was her…

0:55:37.8 Mike Vacanti: History is being rewritten. I’m about to devil’s advocate for her so hard here, but keep going.

0:55:43.0 Jordan Syatt: I can’t wait to hear this. She’s doing farmers walks down a small hall. And it’s a long hallway. Fairway. It’s a long hallway. It’s a long hallway. But it was not heavyweight. But then, like, when she’s maybe…

0:55:56.8 Mike Vacanti: 40s.

0:55:57.5 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:56:00.8 Mike Vacanti: 35s.

0:56:00.8 Jordan Syatt: Maybe. No, I think it was like, 25 or 30, tops.

0:56:02.7 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely not, bro. She was single arm, rowing a 35.

0:56:06.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s what I’m saying. That’s why I’m saying, like, she could have done this for, like, this was the end of the workout. It’s the last thing. I think she was like, no, I want to use less. It was not as heavy as she could have used. Nowhere close. And then literally, I was just like, “Hey, it’s your dumbbells.” I was like, “Don’t drop it. Don’t drop it. Just don’t drop it.” And I could see the wheels turning. Like, “I’m just gonna drop it. I’m gonna drop it.” And she. Within feet of finishing instead of just laying them down nice and easily, she just, boom. Like, threw them at the ground. And then they broke, Both of the stumbles broke.

0:56:42.1 Mike Vacanti: This is the most revisionist.

0:56:43.9 Jordan Syatt: This is not revision. This is accurate were you there?

0:56:47.1 Mike Vacanti: Like, we won the war and so we’re gonna, like, rewrite the whole history? [laughter] Bro, it was the end of an intense workout.

0:56:57.7 Jordan Syatt: It wasn’t even that intense.

0:57:00.3 Mike Vacanti: I think it was the third set of farmers carries.

0:57:03.1 Jordan Syatt: It was the last set of the workout. It was the literal last set.

0:57:05.5 Mike Vacanti: It was the end of the workout. She had been talking about, like honestly, earnestly. There wasn’t like, oh. I could tell by the look on her face that she was plotting something. That’s ridiculous. [laughter]

0:57:19.1 Jordan Syatt: 100%. That’s what happened.

0:57:20.0 Mike Vacanti: She was fatigued. She said many times.

0:57:21.8 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:57:22.5 Mike Vacanti: “I’m gonna drop them. I’m Gonna drop them.” She was fighting hard.

0:57:26.0 Jordan Syatt: She says that every single time. Every time we did them, she would say that. It wasn’t just every time. “I’m gonna drop them. I’m gonna drop them.” When you’re in a public gym, it never happened.

0:57:34.1 Mike Vacanti: She didn’t say it like that. It was, like, intensity. She was working hard. She was training hard. She was fighting like, what should I do?

0:57:43.7 Jordan Syatt: What a piece of shit. This is not accurate. [laughter]

0:57:47.8 Mike Vacanti: Bro.

0:57:48.5 Jordan Syatt: Talk about revisionist history over here. This is. You are. No, dude, no. ’cause there were times where, like. And all right, here, I’ll give you more context to this.

0:57:57.2 Mike Vacanti: And by the way. By the way, you. You weren’t like. “Don’t you drop them.” You were like, “Don’t you drop them. Do not drop those dumbbells. Keep going. Do not drop them.” And then boom they dropped.

0:58:06.6 Jordan Syatt: I don’t want to have another pair of dumbbells. But the…

0:58:10.4 Mike Vacanti: Did they both break?

0:58:13.3 Jordan Syatt: At least one of them. I think it was just one. I think it was just one. But either way, then this happened, then I’ll give you more content. And you cannot lie with. You cannot disagree with this. You cannot disagree, ’cause I know you know this. There would be times where she would be like, “Oh, I can’t do this movement because, this muscle hurts.” And then all we’d have to say is, “Oh, this exercise doesn’t work that muscle. You’ll be totally fine.” And then she would do that exercise, no problem. Even though it worked, the muscle that she said was really hurting. And so it was…

0:58:47.1 Mike Vacanti: I believe you. I don’t remember that, like, super well. I believe.

0:58:52.2 Jordan Syatt: I don’t remember that super well. I believe a lot of drama in a lot of extraness in that. And that throwing the dumbbells down at the end of that farmer’s walk was extra. It was.

0:59:07.6 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think they got thrown. I think she was hanging on for dear life.

0:59:09.2 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:59:10.8 Mike Vacanti: And slipped out.

0:59:12.1 Jordan Syatt: No. She was not hanging on for dear life. She was nonchalantly walking back, and she was like, “I’m going to throw him at the fucking ground.”

0:59:18.3 Mike Vacanti: Great episode. Thank you very much for listening to the How to Become a Personal Trainer podcast. We’re here in 2025. We’re dialed. We’re on. This was good. I feel like this was educational. We had some business. We had some fitness. We were some coaching.

0:59:33.5 Jordan Syatt: Some redactions. Public apologies.

0:59:34.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, no apologies for actions. Do you have anything for our audience?

0:59:41.5 Jordan Syatt: Do I. If you want our… We have a free guide on how to build your online personal trainer business.

0:59:50.6 Mike Vacanti: Bro people love our guide, 30 Ways to Build your online personal training business. It’s linked in the show notes. It’s linked in the YouTube description.

0:59:58.7 Jordan Syatt: Go get it. It’s free.

1:00:00.0 Mike Vacanti: Everyone loves our guide.

1:00:01.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s a free gift for all of you and people who are on the mentorship call last week. It’s a free gift. All right. So go download it. If you’re in the mentorship, you don’t need to download it. But anyone who, especially if you’re not in the mentorship, go download this. It’s a free gift. Go download it.

1:00:15.7 Mike Vacanti: We’ll be back next week. Have a great week. Get after it. TRX.