Episode 220: The Unpopular Truth About High Rep Training, Do You Understand Tariffs, Social Media for Kids, and More…

0:00:11.8 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.4 Jordan Syatt: Happy birthday, Michael. Happy birthday, bro.

0:00:14.1 Mike Vacanti: Thank you, Jordan. Thank you. Thank you.

0:00:16.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude, working on your birthday.

0:00:17.7 Mike Vacanti: I mean, is podcasting really… I saw… I forget who tweeted it. I saw a funny tweet about, like, podcast not being… It might have been Tim Dillon, that comedian.

0:00:27.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, he’s funny. He’s super funny.

0:00:29.3 Mike Vacanti: It was about, like, podcasters being at the upper echelon of society. Like, he was clearly mocking it as not real work.

0:00:37.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:00:38.7 Mike Vacanti: ‘Cause he does it. But thank you. Yeah. If we can call it work.

0:00:43.4 Jordan Syatt: What’s the plan for 38? What do you got?

0:00:46.7 Mike Vacanti: I don’t have a year plan in place yet. It’s only 12:24 PM. I’ve hit a workout, I did client emails, couple updates, couple little nutrition adjustments, and here we are podcasting.

0:01:02.0 Jordan Syatt: I always find it funny when people are like, “Wait, you’re working out on your birthday?” I’m like, “I really enjoy working out. It makes my day better.” It’s not like I’m like, “Oh, all right, I guess I’ll work out.” It’s like, I will set time aside on my day because I actually really like how it makes me feel.

0:01:20.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s almost, like, it’s a gift that your family can give you. It’s like 90 unbothered minutes to…

0:01:26.0 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:01:26.5 Mike Vacanti: Get a great workout in.

0:01:28.0 Jordan Syatt: Exactly.

0:01:29.4 Mike Vacanti: That’s something I wrote down to talk about at some point. And I wasn’t planning on bringing it up today, but we can talk about it since you lead us right into it, which is “theory: Need exercise to feel good, not because you’re obsessed or disordered or afraid a missed workout will make you fat, et cetera, but because the body physically needs exercise and movement to feel good and function.” So, like, you know when people say, “Oh, you know, you’re going on a 10-day family vacation and you have to go down and get a 30 minute workout in at the hotel? Like, that’s obsessed. Just take time off. Da da da da da.” I could never relate to the obsessed feeling because I’ve never had a fear of getting fat because I missed one workout, fear of… Whatever the obsessed disordered mentality around not working out is, I’ve never been able to relate to that. But I can relate to wanting to do a workout because I have a scheduled workout and I know I’ll feel better after the workout. Almost like a biological need for humans that we’ve done forever, not necessarily strength training, but some type of movement and getting more blood flow throughout the body, that it isn’t… I mean, yes, we can set aside the group of people who do have a problem and obsession, et cetera, but for most people, wanting to get that movement in to feel better is just a physiological need, not a mental disorder.

0:03:10.9 Jordan Syatt: 100%. I mean the vast majority of people, especially in the Western world, are not obsessed with working out. Like, that’s… Like, just looking at large scale population, the vast majority of people are not obsessed with it, it’s the opposite. And I think about it from the perspective of, yes, you get like the mood boosting effects, right, like where you feel better, but for the last few years, for me it’s also, if I don’t work out physically, like, my joints feel it. Like, if I don’t work out, I’m like achy, I don’t feel good. Not just like mentally and emotionally, I mean, physically. Like, I feel like shit if I’m not… And when I say workout, it doesn’t necessarily mean lifting heavy or any of that, but like movement, exercise, walking, zone 2, mobility work, calisthenics, whatever it is. Just movement, deliberate movement. And so if the vacation example, if you want to go to the gym, great, or if you want to do it outside on vacation, on the beach, awesome, whatever. But like having some dedicated time for dedicated, deliberate movement, it’s essential. 100% essential. Absolutely agree.

0:04:29.0 Mike Vacanti: You make a great point because the emotional and mental positive effects are often discussed and obvious to those who have experience working out, but you physically feel better too.

0:04:41.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh my gosh, yeah. That for me is… ‘Cause it’s all connected, obviously. For me, if I don’t feel good physically, I don’t feel good mentally, right? Like if I… And if I don’t feel good mentally, but I do go feel good physically, I will now feel better mentally. So if I’m in a bad mental place and then I go work out, I feel better mentally, right?

0:05:07.1 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.

0:05:07.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s like the physical will very often drive the mental. So like if I’m in a place where, “Oh, I just feel like shit, whatever,” and I don’t wanna work out, but then I force myself to go work out, I immediately feel better mentally too.

0:05:19.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, makes all the sense in the world. It reminds me of a Chris Williamson, Piers Morgan little like back and forth from a while back on the subject where they disagreed on the subject of if you… Like, they were… I think they were talking about men’s mental health and they were talking about physical health versus mental health and which one is more important, thinking that it was a layup, and this might have been a year or two ago when it was more popular. But I think Piers was thinking it was a layup that mental health is more important than physical health. And Chris was like, “I would pick physical health because you can’t think your way into feeling better physically, but you can work your way physically into feeling better mentally.”

0:06:04.0 Jordan Syatt: Wow. It’s like, it’s a great take. Yeah, it’s a great take.

0:06:08.4 Mike Vacanti: And it is so often true.

0:06:10.2 Jordan Syatt: And obviously you have to… Like, not everyone, if you have a mental disorder, you have an actual issue, obviously you can’t work your way out of… Work your way out of severe depression or some mental issues, obviously…

0:06:20.4 Mike Vacanti: You can’t work your way out of severe depression, but if you are…

0:06:23.6 Jordan Syatt: It can improve. Yeah.

0:06:25.1 Mike Vacanti: If you are sedentary and mildly depressed or sel-diagnosed depressed, I would start working out before I started anything else.

0:06:33.8 Jordan Syatt: Completely… I completely agree with that. I’m just more like hedging against the people who are going to be like, “That’s not true. Da, da, da… “

0:06:41.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s smart. Normally I would want to…

0:06:44.8 Jordan Syatt: Not birthday, though. [chuckle]

0:06:45.6 Mike Vacanti: I’m feeling high-T today. I had a great upper body workout. Like, honestly, screw them. If you think that this podcast is a replacement for clinical psychologists for people who have severe mental health issues, I don’t know what to tell you. You shouldn’t be getting… You shouldn’t be getting your information from Mike and Jordan. You should be getting your information from doctors. But for the majority of the population, I think it’s good advice.

0:07:10.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, completely agree.

0:07:12.0 Mike Vacanti: What else we got? Dude, your birthday’s in one month.

0:07:15.0 Jordan Syatt: One month exact to the day. Yeah. One month apart.

0:07:17.4 Mike Vacanti: May 8th.

0:07:18.0 Jordan Syatt: Yep. April 8th. May 8th. That’s right. It’s a good month.

0:07:22.3 Mike Vacanti: It is a good month.

0:07:23.2 Jordan Syatt: 34. 34. Not as old as 38, but…

0:07:28.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. 38’s a real number.

0:07:30.8 Jordan Syatt: You know, dude, 40 is… Forty is real. I remember being a kid and even as a kid, I was like, “40. That’s when you’re like an adult.” Forty is like an actual adult. Even when I was like 12, you know, 30 is… When you’re 12, you think 30 is old, but like, 40 is like, wow, you’re an actual adult.

0:07:49.8 Mike Vacanti: Bro, I remember two years ago, 36 years old, having people apply for coaching and they’d be 40, and I’d be thinking, “Wow, that guy’s an adult. Like, he’s… ” And then it was just the subconscious initial reaction to it and it’s like, “Oh, I’m almost that,” you know. But yes, I think… I don’t know. Guys have it… Guys have it easier than women in terms of aging. Women have it easier than guys, generally speaking, when they’re younger.

0:08:22.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah. Like, in terms of how society views you?

0:08:26.8 Mike Vacanti: In terms of how society views you. In terms of, like, everything.

0:08:32.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:08:33.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:08:33.8 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I remember being…

0:08:34.3 Mike Vacanti: Menopause, like, we don’t have to deal with that. There’s…

0:08:36.6 Jordan Syatt: I remember being high school, even college, even, like, immediately post college, when you’re, like, a younger dude, none of the girls want anything to do with you.

0:08:45.7 Mike Vacanti: Or an underclassman. You’re like, 9th and 10th grade…

0:08:48.8 Jordan Syatt: Dude, it’s the worst.

0:08:48.9 Mike Vacanti: And all the girls in your grade are going after juniors and seniors.

0:08:51.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s the worst.

0:08:52.7 Mike Vacanti: And then when you’re a senior, and then the other senior girls get pissed because the senior guys are looking at, like, sophomores and juniors. It’s a real phenomenon. At least it was in 2005. I don’t know how much…

0:09:06.2 Jordan Syatt: I’m sure it still is.

0:09:07.4 Mike Vacanti: Gen Z’s wild. They’re not doing a lot. Have you seen the research around, like… I don’t know. They don’t go on dates, they don’t… Like, I’m speaking in generalities, but the data shows that a much smaller percentage of Gen Z relative to millennials, Gen X, et cetera, are doing a whole bunch of things.

0:09:31.4 Jordan Syatt: What are they doing?

0:09:32.7 Mike Vacanti: Like, they’re not having kids out of wedlock. They’re not…

0:09:36.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, good for them.

0:09:36.7 Mike Vacanti: …Having sex. They’re not, like, going on dates yet. Yeah. It’s all these things that make you say, “Oh, good for them,” but the reason is because they’re laying in bed, scrolling on their phone.

0:09:45.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh. [laughter]

0:09:46.7 Mike Vacanti: Like, it’s like, “Oh, really good… Oh, they’re not drinking as much. That’s amazing. Oh, they’re not using drugs as much. That’s amazing.” It’s like, well, it’s because they’re super anxious and isolating, and just consuming technology.

0:09:56.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, geez. That’s really sad. I was thinking, “Oh, they’re courting. Oh, they’re like… “

0:10:03.8 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:10:04.9 Jordan Syatt: “They’re, like, being very intelligent with this. They’re, like, aging more intelligently than we did.” It’s like… And I was thinking, “Oh, maybe they’re out, like, playing Wiffle Ball outside.” Oh, no, they’re inside on their phones, not talking to each other.

0:10:16.1 Mike Vacanti: And by the way, if you’ve listened to any episode we’ve ever done, you’ve heard me talk about this, I’m not blaming the individual at all. If I were born in that generation, I would be a slave to the technology as well.

0:10:27.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. It would be tough. That’s… I’m really, I’m really… Obviously, you know, my oldest is only two and a half, but like I’m trying to figure out when I would ever let her have a phone. And I don’t see it happening before 16.

0:10:46.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:10:46.4 Jordan Syatt: And by phone, I mean social media. Social media. Like, I don’t foresee it happening… I mean, and maybe even 18, you know, like…

0:10:56.1 Mike Vacanti: Are you more worried for the creation or consumption side?

0:11:00.4 Jordan Syatt: Consumption.

0:11:00.5 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:11:00.7 Jordan Syatt: I mean, because it’s sort of like the physical versus mental, right? It’s if you’re… You can create all you want, but if you’re… So much of creation is fueled around what you’ve consumed. That’s why we’ve seen the evolution of content so dramatically is because someone… There’s been one person in whatever it is who will start a new trend. But then people see it, “Oh, that’s a good idea. I’ll expand on it,” expand on it, expand on it. So this is what we see. Like, I would be… I’m more concerned about what they’re consuming that will lead to… I’m not even really as worried about posting as much as I am about, like, about who they’re interacting with, what they’re seeing as being normalized. Even me, I see, like, there are videos of people being killed all over social media. Like, actual people being killed in these horrific accidents. And then the comments have people, like, making jokes about it and I’m just, like, that’s not a… It’s not a movie. That’s not an actor. That’s a real person. It’s… Yeah.

0:12:02.3 Mike Vacanti: Or, or sex and porn, like we talked about last episode. You were telling me… Because I had said I was seeing a bunch of that on X and you were like, “Dude, I just was scrolling X and saw someone in an office,” like what were you seeing?

0:12:15.5 Jordan Syatt: Having sex.

0:12:16.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, they thought that the shades were… They thought the window was like a two way thing and it wasn’t.

0:12:21.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I think they thought it was a one way window or a one way, where like you couldn’t see in. And there was a guy and a woman just banging in an office.

0:12:29.1 Mike Vacanti: Wild. Just sitting there… Like, unimaginable a number of years ago.

0:12:33.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Crazy.

0:12:34.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. The thing that worries me obviously over consumption and being exposed to things that kids shouldn’t be exposed to at too young of an age is, I guess, the bigger concern.

0:12:47.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:12:48.5 Mike Vacanti: What worries me particularly about girls is female bullying is so different than male bullying.

0:12:58.3 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Correct.

0:13:00.2 Mike Vacanti: Female bullying is attack on reputation. It’s much more passive aggressive. It’s much more… I understand it less because I’m not a girl. I think men…

0:13:12.8 Jordan Syatt: It’s, like, more physical in nature.

0:13:14.1 Mike Vacanti: Male bullying, the end of male bullying is, “All right, we fight.” Like, there is a proper resolution. Whereas female bullying, especially in an era of social media and if… I’m trying to picture a world where like 11 year olds, 12 year olds, 13-year-old girls are making content, even if not publicly but like with their middle school friends type of thing, and then you get bullying in the mix. That just seems really hard to deal with for a kid of that age.

0:13:43.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh my gosh, dude. Yeah, I mean I think male bullying typically is beat the shit out of you. More physical harm, more like physically dangerous. And I think female bullying tends to be more mentally and emotionally dangerous. Yeah, I mean, I think they’re both horrible, but especially for young girls. I don’t know… Listen, even now I speak to women now and they’re like, middle school is horrible. Middle school girls are terrible. I even speak to moms who have girls in middle school. It’s like, “Oh, this stuff that they do is terrible.” And this is before social media. Never mind now with social media where it’s like…

0:14:20.1 Mike Vacanti: You can’t get away from it.

0:14:20.8 Jordan Syatt: The bullying follows you home. The bullying… It’s like they can create groups about you and chat about you and it’s just like, yeah. You know, like watching… You know what is actually a great movie is Mean Girls. It’s, like, a very famous movie where, like, the stuff that they’ll do, like, “Oh my god, I love your bracelet.” And then be like, “No, I don’t, that’s disgusting,” or whatever. Like, just like stuff… Guys wouldn’t do that. Guys would just be like… Guys would call you an awful name to your face and then like shove your head in the toilet. And it’s, like, I wouldn’t say either one is better or worse but…

0:14:54.5 Mike Vacanti: I would.

0:14:54.6 Jordan Syatt: Having girls, I am, I’m now much more acutely aware of what could potentially happen for girls. Yeah.

0:15:02.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. So 16 or 18 is your current thought process on getting social media, from the guy who does a lot of social media.

0:15:09.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, dude. Yeah, it’s horrible. It’s horrible. And I know that there would be… It’d be a war in terms of like, “My friends all have it,” and, like, if she’s hanging out with them, obviously she’s going to use it with her friends. Like, it’s not like she’s never going to see it, but if social media was around when I was a kid and all my friends had it, and my mom said no, I would be… I would be furious, and it would be awful. But then as I got older, I would say, “Hey, thank you so much. I appreciate it now,” but in the moment, I’m sure the parents who are trying to not let their kids have it, there are actual wars going on in their household.

0:15:44.3 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah, absolutely. All right. You want to dive into some questions?

0:15:51.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, sure. Is that all we had? That’s all we had so far?

0:15:54.4 Mike Vacanti: I have two more that we can speed through. I was using Grok to compare… So David Laid hasn’t been making his pre workout Euphoria, which I really like. And I asked Grok what the three pre workouts that are closest in formulation to David Laid’s Euphoria are…

0:16:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow.

0:16:15.2 Mike Vacanti: And it gave a really good, like, a good comprehensive, like, here’s why it’s close, here’s why it’s not, here are the ingredients and the dosages… It was a very good answer. And then my concern about not getting sources from these chatbots. At the bottom, I saw there was, like, a little gray bar that said 15 relevant web pages. And if you click that, then you see all of the sources that it pulled through, which pulled from them, yeah, which I think…

0:16:44.9 Jordan Syatt: I love Grok. Grok is great. Yeah.

0:16:46.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:16:48.5 Jordan Syatt: I’ve been… I’ve been going through the sources that it pulls through as well. But, dude, I mean, for… To have a chatbot that allows you, like, “All right, I’m gonna review all of the ingredients and all of the amounts that it’s in and then give you the ones that are closest to it with comprehensive analysis,” is absolutely wild. And to have it in a matter of seconds is crazy.

0:17:09.9 Mike Vacanti: Yes, it is. And that’s not a question where you really need sources. But if you were to ask it, “Is eating 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight healthy? Like, give me the pros and cons,” and it gives you pros and cons, and then you can see sources on that and see, all right, the cons are coming from, like, this quack and this quack and this quack, and the pros are coming from these people who all seem reputable, I find that very beneficial in formulating opinions.

0:17:42.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, agreed. Agreed. Dude, I’m a big Grok guy. I’m on Grok all the time.

0:17:47.3 Mike Vacanti: All right. My other one. I was eating cereal the other day…

0:17:51.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah.

0:17:52.7 Mike Vacanti: And Jordan had to guess what cereal I was eating. And he goes, “Is it healthy or unhealthy?” or, “Does it taste good or bad?” I don’t remember. “Is it a healthy or unhealthy cereal?”

0:18:00.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. “It’s healthy or unhealthy,” I think.

0:18:02.4 Mike Vacanti: And I said, I can’t tell you that because it’s gonna give it away. I don’t remember what you… You guessed Rice Krispies, actually, which was an interesting guess, but I was eating Bran Buds, and you said, “Bran Buds are delicious.”

0:18:15.7 Jordan Syatt: They are delicious. I will die on this hill. They are delicious.

0:18:20.0 Mike Vacanti: You can’t think… You can’t be the guy who has spent hours making fun of the taste of rice cakes and saying, they’re disgusting…

0:18:30.2 Jordan Syatt: Absolutely, I can. Yeah.

0:18:30.4 Mike Vacanti: And then go out and say, Bran Buds are delicious.

0:18:33.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, rice cakes are awful. They make a mess. They taste like TV static. Bran Buds actually… They have great… The palate is awesome. The crunch that comes with it, but, like, also the density that comes with it. You get a little bit of sweet. Like, Bran Buds are actually a phenomenal, delicious cereal.

0:18:52.9 Mike Vacanti: You are comparing perhaps.

0:18:55.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wait. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh…

0:18:55.8 Mike Vacanti: Perhaps the two foods.

0:18:58.1 Jordan Syatt: Dude. No, no, no, no, no. No, no. Oh, my gosh.

0:19:06.1 Mike Vacanti: What?

0:19:09.0 Jordan Syatt: This whole time when you said Bran Buds, in my mind, I was thinking Raisin Bran.

0:19:15.5 Mike Vacanti: By the way, I thought someone, like, died the way that you were going, “No, no… ” I thought you got a pop up on your computer and, like, I thought something seriously bad was going on right there, for the record.

0:19:24.1 Jordan Syatt: No, this whole time I’ve been thinking from the conversation the other day to right now, I’m saying Bran Buds in my mouth and I’m hearing you say it in my ears, but I’m thinking Raisin Bran. And that changes my answer. ‘Cause Raisin Bran is delicious.

0:19:46.5 Mike Vacanti: Raisin Bran is delicious. I’m very happy to hear this, because I was about to go on a monologue about your palate being unreliable and like, that you have, like, a faulty palate. I was literally…

0:19:57.8 Jordan Syatt: No. Bran Buds aren’t delicious. They’re good, but they’re not delicious. They’re good.

0:20:01.3 Mike Vacanti: I was about to go on the longest monologue in history about the fact that you might have, genetically or otherwise, been born with a super suboptimal palate. Because Bran Buds and rice cakes are both just very plain tasting. Like, they’re very similar. All right, good. That makes a lot more sense.

0:20:23.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Dude, I’m an idiot.

0:20:25.3 Mike Vacanti: No, you’re not. I was…

0:20:26.7 Jordan Syatt: You just got a little confused.

0:20:27.6 Jordan Syatt: For, like, three days now, I’ve been thinking… I’ve been imagining Raisin Bran in my mouth, but saying the words “Bran Buds” for some reason that. Yeah, no, we’re on the same page with that. Bran Buds are not delicious. Raisin Bran is delicious.

0:20:42.4 Mike Vacanti: All right.

0:20:42.8 Jordan Syatt: I couldn’t believe that you didn’t think Raisin Bran was delicious. I couldn’t believe it. And now I understand that you do. It was we were talking about Brain Buds.

0:20:50.6 Mike Vacanti: Brain Buds. Yeah.

0:20:52.3 Jordan Syatt: I could see your face getting more and more concerned as I was like, “No, no!” [laughter]

0:21:00.6 Mike Vacanti: I thought… I’m like, I don’t even wanna know where my head went…

0:21:02.1 Jordan Syatt: And we are recording…

0:21:04.1 Mike Vacanti: That was where it started and then it kept getting worse and worse the more you kept doing it.

[laughter]

0:21:10.9 Jordan Syatt: I saw your eyes shift up towards the recording. Like, “No. All right, we’re live. What the fuck is going on?” [laughter]

0:21:15.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Is my mic not on, whatever? All right. Okay, good. I’m very happy because this means that your palate is…

0:21:28.5 Jordan Syatt: Not broken.

0:21:28.6 Mike Vacanti: Functioning properly. Yeah.

0:21:29.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, what’s the Halo Top Caramel Fudge Brownie?

0:21:33.9 Mike Vacanti: Delicious.

0:21:35.3 Jordan Syatt: Dude, amazing. Amazing.

0:21:37.1 Mike Vacanti: Chocolate Caramel Brownie, I think.

0:21:38.8 Jordan Syatt: Dude, oh, my gosh. That thing is incredible.

0:21:41.5 Mike Vacanti: Incredible.

0:21:41.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s only 360 calories, 19 grams of protein. Are you kidding me?

0:21:45.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:21:46.5 Jordan Syatt: For a whole pint?

0:21:47.0 Mike Vacanti: 8 fat, 72 carb. And some of that’s fiber, but it’s really fake fiber, but technically it’s fiber still.

0:21:52.1 Jordan Syatt: Who cares? Yeah, it’s delicious.

0:21:54.3 Mike Vacanti: I care a little bit, but I still eat two a week minimum. They’re a great evening snack.

0:22:00.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:22:00.9 Mike Vacanti: All right, let’s dive into Q and A.

0:22:02.1 Jordan Syatt: “What are your thoughts on lighter weights with lots of reps?”

0:22:04.9 Mike Vacanti: I think it is… There’s a misconception in a lot of the fitness industry, I would say more on the slightly uneducated side, respectfully, that lighter weight higher reps is the preferred method for fat loss and toning, and going heavier is better for muscle gain. Light weight high reps can be effective for building muscle as long as you’re getting close to failure, and can be effective for retaining muscle in a fat loss phase as long as you’re getting close to failure. Most of the research is in the 5 to 30 rep range around being able to build comparable amounts of muscle within that rep range as long as you’re getting close to failure. I wouldn’t program it on exercises that your clients hate. Don’t hit them with the 30, the four sets of 30 reps on their least favorite exercise. It’s usually not a great idea. But yeah, I like higher rep training.

0:23:19.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s lately higher repetition training. And let’s define it. Higher repetition training I would say is anything above 12 reps, but more leaning towards that 15 to 20 plus, is what I would call higher rep training. Are you on board with that?

0:23:38.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yep.

0:23:38.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Lately… And I would… By lately I’d say within the last two years, there’s been a huge push towards people saying higher repetition training. And when I say push, I mean within the science-based strength community, huge push away from anything higher reps. They just say it’s not worth it, basically saying that you don’t need anything above 12 repetitions. And it’s coming from this massive push towards everything has to be about muscle growth.

0:24:12.3 Mike Vacanti: Sorry, let me get a clarification in. They’re saying that you don’t need anything above 12 reps or they’re saying that you shouldn’t do anything above 12 reps…

0:24:24.2 Jordan Syatt: Both. Essentially both.

0:24:25.0 Mike Vacanti: Oh okay. Okay.

0:24:26.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s like you don’t need it and you shouldn’t be doing it. Everything should be between like 4 to 12 reps. And it’s coming from this big trend and fad towards everything is about building muscle, building muscle, building muscle. And I don’t know how much of this is just solely in my feed because like I’m in that science-based world and this is what I’m seeing versus what’s in other people’s feeds. But I’ve seen a huge push of “science-based coaches: Basically essentially demonizing anything above 12 repetitions. Like, “You don’t need to do it, it’s a waste of time, there’s no benefit to it.” And for the first time in my entire career, I think higher repetition training is now underrated because before this, I would have said it was overrated for the exact same reason that you said, which is, a lot of people think it’s going to be burning fat thing, that it’s going to be… Oftentimes, they feel like it’s even better for building muscle because you often get that burning sensation in the muscle, like, you’ll often feel the muscles more in that higher repetition range, you get more of that lactic acid buildup, blah, blah, blah.

0:25:35.8 Jordan Syatt: So but because there’s been such a huge push against it, I actually now think people are missing out on the benefits of higher repetition training, and of which there are many, but number one, I’ll say… And I feel like this should go without saying, but building muscle isn’t the only reason people should be strength training. There are many other goals, whether it be health and/or performance based goals and/or injury prevention based goals that not only warrant higher repetition lighter weight training but are actually very beneficial. You get a lot of great benefit from that higher repetition training. It’d be harder to do with heavyweight lower repetition training, and potentially even more dangerous.

0:26:23.0 Jordan Syatt: So with that in mind, I really enjoy lighter weight higher repetition training. But I will say the vast majority of the training that I do is heavier weight, low to moderate rep. So low to moderate rep is in that like 5 on the lower end to 12 on the higher end. That’s the majority. I’d say it’s three quarters of my of my training, and then 25% of my training is the higher repetition work, which is near the end of the workouts done more, whether it’s metabolic conditioning or whether it’s more for like just specific localized muscular endurance, whether it’s for tendon and ligament strength or any of that stuff, is all wonderfully beneficial with some lower weight, higher repetition training.

0:27:16.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I have seen some of what you’re talking about. It didn’t feel mainstream. It felt very niched to these, like, whether they’re open steroid users or fake natty who are highly scientific and only focused on muscle gain as the goal of training. When you’re programming for a client who’s not an elite bodybuilder or someone who’s, like, obsessed with fitness, something that you need to be thinking about is how can I make these workouts enjoyable and something that this person will want to do and be able to physically complete for the long run, like years and decades. And variety is often, and here we’re talking about variety of rep range, is often something that can be new and exciting and prevent training from getting stale, which is one of the reasons I like to use it in addition to the benefits that you already mentioned. I also haven’t seen any research showing, you know, a set of 10 or 12 to failure is more beneficial for gaining muscle than a set of 20 to failure. Now, you could say for some people it’s much more psychologically demanding taking a set of 20 or 25 to failure than it is taking a set of 8 to failure. Fair point. Which is why I’m programming the majority of my own and my clients work in the, I would say, 6 to 12 rep range, maybe even 4 to 12 rep range, depending on the client. But I don’t know. Does that research exist and I’m just not seeing it?

0:29:10.8 Jordan Syatt: Does the research showing that it’s better to have that low to moderate rep as opposed to the higher rep?

0:29:15.6 Mike Vacanti: Is there research showing that there is a perfect muscle gain rep range when you’re taking sets to the same RPE?

0:29:27.9 Jordan Syatt: So there’s no research saying that from a muscular perspective, at least that I’m aware of, that a muscular perspective it’s going to be better. What I hear people saying is you actually get less central nervous system fatigue in these lower repetition ranges, whereas with the higher repetition ranges, because it can be so mentally and emotionally draining, you might actually get more central nervous system fatigue, which to me is one of those things where I’m like, all right, so… It’s less of an actual indicator and more of like a, all right, we’re just going to put this in our win column as opposed to like… Like, unless you’re over training, which is very easy to not do, that shouldn’t be an issue whatsoever. But I do think that the low to moderate repetition range is more efficient when the goal is muscle growth, purely muscle growth. When your goal is being more…

0:30:21.8 Mike Vacanti: For sure. The sets take less time. They’re by definition more efficient.

0:30:26.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:30:27.3 Mike Vacanti: I completely agree. By the way, I’ve found myself in a position in this conversation that I don’t really want to be defending it, but you brought up these people who are saying that it’s bad so I am defending it. I prefer the lower rep ranges. The lower to moderate rep ranges.

0:30:44.1 Jordan Syatt: From a muscle growth perspective. Yeah, yeah.

0:30:46.3 Mike Vacanti: For most goals. But I’ve never seen anything showing that the higher rep ranges are less effective than moderate rep ranges for building muscle when RPE is held consistent.

0:31:01.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yep.

0:31:02.4 Mike Vacanti: Cool.

0:31:03.0 Jordan Syatt: Did I tell you… Here’s a funny story. I don’t think I told you. Did I tell you I made a big mistake when I was filming one of the kids videos, for the kids workout videos… Did I tell you this?

0:31:12.4 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:31:13.8 Jordan Syatt: I’ll start by saying it didn’t show up in the video. We, like, covered it up. But, like… So lately, the way I’ve been doing these kids workout videos is it’s basically I do 10 minutes straight, one take. So I’m like, “All right, get up. You’re running with me,” wherever we’re running, whether through the jungle or in space. And I’m running. And I’m just jogging in place in front of the green screen. And it’s one take. And I set my timer and I do the whole workout with them. And I was doing this one exercise, ostrich sprints. And so I’m standing in place, my knees are going really, really high. And I’m sprinting, I’m sprinting and sprinting. And again, it’s not in the video, so no one freak out. But at one point, I was sprinting really fast and I was like, “Let’s fucking go!”

[laughter]

0:32:01.8 Mike Vacanti: Did Mitch edit it out?

0:32:03.0 Jordan Syatt: Well, as soon as I said it, my… You can see this in the video. You can see in the video. Like, because I was about six or seven minutes into the workout, I didn’t want to start all over again. And my eyes get really, really wide. And I said, “Oh, my goodness.” [laughter] I was like, “Oh, my goodness. Keep going. Keep going.”

[laughter]

0:32:25.1 Mike Vacanti: That’s hilarious.

0:32:26.2 Jordan Syatt: “Keep running.” And yeah, Mitch edited it out so that, like, you couldn’t… There was… You couldn’t see my mouth do anything. You couldn’t hear it. Like, literally. I showed it to a couple people. I was like, “Do you see anything weird here?” And they’re like, “No, it’s great. It’s a great workout.” I was like, “Okay, good.”

0:32:41.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s really funny.

0:32:43.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and like…

0:32:43.8 Mike Vacanti: It just, like, slipped right out.

0:32:44.9 Jordan Syatt: It just slipped right out. I was like, “Let’s fucking go!”

[laughter]

0:32:49.8 Mike Vacanti: And then your eyes afterwards.

0:32:52.3 Jordan Syatt: Dude, if someone watches now and they see the eyes go wide and like, “Oh, my goodness.” And then afterwards, Mitch was like, “I can’t believe he did that.” I was like, “We’ll be able to edit that out, right?” He’s like, “Yeah, I can edit that.” I was like, “Okay. Whoo.”

0:33:06.4 Mike Vacanti: You were into it.

0:33:07.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, I was super into it. Those workouts are no joke. I’ve been getting adults who don’t have kids telling me they’ve been doing these workouts because, like, they’re sedentary and they didn’t know where to start. And they’re like, it’s a great way for me to, like, get movement and exercise in. And, you know, it’s basic. And they’re like, “And I laugh the whole time. It’s fun,” but, like, it’s great. Like, adults with no kids. And obviously adults with kids are doing it and all that. And it’s nice because they’re… Each workout is 10 minutes. So there are a lot of moms who are saying, I put my kids in front… Like, we bring them in the gym, they have the TV on and they’ll do three workouts in a row. So they get… So the mom will get 30 minutes…

0:33:46.2 Mike Vacanti: Nice.

0:33:46.6 Jordan Syatt: Where she can then work out and the kid can do the kids workouts, which is awesome.

0:33:50.4 Mike Vacanti: That’s great, bro.

0:33:51.5 Jordan Syatt: “Advice for restaurants eat out weekly for the family dinner?”

0:33:55.2 Mike Vacanti: Chick-Fil-A.

[laughter]

0:33:57.4 Jordan Syatt: Bring the family to Chick-Fil-A and get the grilled nuggets.

0:34:02.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’s delicious. There’s a lot of range in terms of nutrition. You could go grilled nuggets with the Diet Lemonade Frosty. Or you could go…

0:34:09.7 Jordan Syatt: Is that good?

0:34:10.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:34:10.8 Jordan Syatt: Do you know what the macros are on that.

0:34:12.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s got a little bit of fat, a little bit of protein. I don’t know the macros off the top of my head. I don’t get it often, but it’s Diet Lemonade. So it’s diet lemonade with a little bit of ice cream.

0:34:24.4 Jordan Syatt: But also advice for restaurants eat out weekly for the family dinner. If you’re eating one meal out a week at a restaurant, that’s not your problem. Just realistically.

0:34:35.5 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:34:35.6 Jordan Syatt: You know what I mean?

0:34:36.2 Mike Vacanti: I was just giving a flippant answer of…

0:34:38.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m just saying to the person like it’s one a week.

0:34:43.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:34:43.4 Jordan Syatt: That’s crazy.

0:34:44.2 Mike Vacanti: You don’t need to be locked in on finding a restaurant that has, you know, all healthy food options or…

0:34:51.8 Jordan Syatt: That person doesn’t need advice for restaurants. That person needs to just… If you’re still having trouble with your progress, you need advice for the rest of the week. Not the one time a week you’re eating at a fucking restaurant.

0:35:02.6 Mike Vacanti: Unless they’re going crazy with it, you know.

0:35:04.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:35:05.3 Mike Vacanti: Mexican restaurant, Friday night, margarita, chips, guac, enchiladas, flan, like 5,000-6,000 calories you can really eat.

0:35:13.5 Jordan Syatt: You love flan, bro.

0:35:14.8 Mike Vacanti: Flan is delicious. Flan is very good. But yeah. So the advice would be go to your favorite restaurants and rotate them and have fun with the family.

0:35:25.2 Jordan Syatt: “I need to lose belly fat. But I’m skinny fat. I don’t want to lose any weight.”

0:35:29.3 Jordan Syatt: Do you have any suggestions?

0:35:31.0 Mike Vacanti: Male or female?

0:35:31.8 Jordan Syatt: I think it’s male. It’s a teeny tiny picture.

0:35:34.7 Mike Vacanti: I don’t even… I was just curious for context. I don’t know if my answer changes.

0:35:39.5 Jordan Syatt: Doesn’t matter. Just curious. Who’s asking?

0:35:40.6 Mike Vacanti: Or how much it changes. I think it actually matters more just on the individual and goals and like mental state…

0:35:49.2 Jordan Syatt: Body fat level.

0:35:51.3 Mike Vacanti: Body fat level for sure. But also comfort, psychological range of body fat that you’re comfortable in. Generally speaking, especially if you’re younger, skinny fat, like, eat slightly above maintenance and just get very into strength training and getting as strong as possible for two years, is usually the best approach. You might end up recomping nicely. Worst case scenario, you end up gaining a tiny bit more body fat, a whole bunch of strength and muscle and you put yourself in a great position to do a cut. Doing a fat loss phase from their usually doesn’t work too well. Just being under muscled, you know, not having… Your metabolic rate’s not in an amazing position to start. It’s harder to lose fat. You’re not going to be, especially guys, aren’t going to be thrilled with how they look at the end of the cut anyway.

0:36:56.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, completely agree. I think the ultimate way to fix skinny fat, if you’re truly, like, have that skinny fat look, lift. Lift and protein. And consider it, like, a two to four year endeavor. Yeah, it’s going to take a minute. That’s the thing about… Fat loss can be done relatively quickly. Like, you can see results of fat loss pretty fast regardless of where you’re starting out. You could be like super, super fat, very overweight, or you could only have like 15 or 20 pounds. And if you’re dialed for 12 to 16 weeks, you’re going to see insane progress regardless of where you’re starting out.

0:37:41.5 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:37:43.4 Jordan Syatt: Doesn’t mean you’re going to be where you want to be, especially if you’re starting at 400 pounds. But you’ll see insane progress in 12 to 16 weeks. With skinny fat, 12 to 16 weeks in like, you might see some changes, but it’s not like everything is going to be massively different. I really think at least a year, two years before you start being like, “Oh shit, this is really working.” And that’s why you’ve got to take some pictures. And I’d say take pictures every six months or so, but sort of like the Henry Rollins like, you just don’t look at yourself, just fucking trust the process. Go in and lift, hit your protein. You do that for a year, you’re gonna look different. And two years, that’s when things really start to change.

0:38:25.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s really well said. Setting expectations is huge for that person because if they expect to look drastically different focused on building muscle in 12 or 16 weeks, it’s not going to happen. They’re going to be very discouraged, more likely to quit. Yeah, well said.

0:38:42.9 Jordan Syatt: And people in that group often will… They’ll start to do something like that, but then after two weeks or four weeks, they’ll be like, “Oh, I just want to get rid of this fat.” So then they go into a deficit again and maybe start upping cardio. And now… Stop doing that. Yeah, stop fucking doing that. Because no matter how much fat you get rid of, you’re not going to have the muscle definition that you can only gain through strength training. So maintenance, I think maintenance around… Maintenance, maybe slight surplus, but mostly around maintenance. And then a lot of protein and lift heavy three to four times a week for two years. And it’s going to be a very different physique after two years.

0:39:27.3 Mike Vacanti: Yep. Let me paint the other side, if you want to do this, I wouldn’t recommend it, but do a 16 week cut, 20 week cut, 24 week cut, depends on how much body fat you have and how lean you want to get, and then focus on building muscle for the two to three years after that cut. The problem there is once you lose that body fat, you’re likely to be very resistant to gaining more body fat psychologically. Like, you’re not going to want to gain more fat and it’s going to be harder. You’re just… To add muscle while maintaining that level of leanness or close to it, you’re going to have to be extremely diligent with your nutrition. It just works much better to spend two years, don’t even look at yourself in the mirror, focus on getting stronger, eat your protein, and then down the road you can lose fat. You have a much better strength and muscle base for the rest of your life.

0:40:24.0 Jordan Syatt: 100%. All right, “What metrics should I monitor on a smartwatch?”

0:40:27.9 Mike Vacanti: What do you think?

0:40:29.9 Jordan Syatt: I think steps is just the greatest one of all time.

0:40:34.0 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:40:35.8 Jordan Syatt: My wife and I have a competition every day, see who has more steps, and she always wins.

0:40:40.6 Mike Vacanti: Wow. Let’s go, Neenee.

0:40:41.7 Jordan Syatt: But it’s not like, it’s not even like, “Hey, I’m gonna go on a walk, it’s just, she’s just constantly going all day chasing two kids and like, she’s… It’s nuts. Like, she’ll average 13 to 15,000 easy, easy every day. And then if we go on a walk, it’s closer to 20. Yeah, she’s just, it’s nuts. So steps are absolutely number one. I would say tracking your… I think a cool one, I wouldn’t say it’s essential, but a cool one is tracking your heart rate recovery after cardio. So it’s a good way to measure how much your cardio is improving. So a lot of people aren’t sure how to know if their cardio is improving. And there are simpler ways to do it. It’s like, can you go for longer at a higher intensity? Can you, like, can you go on a higher incline? Can you go to higher, faster speed? These are simple ways that give if that’s improving or getting better. But if you want like a biological measure, then what you can do is you can… Many watches, like my Garmin, has this. I’m sure many do. But as soon as you’re finished with your cardio workout, whatever it is you’re doing, there’s a button where you can say, track your heart rate recovery. And it will give you a score.

0:41:57.3 Jordan Syatt: And essentially what it’s tracking is how quickly your heart rate recovers to a more resting heart rate, which is a super important measure in terms of, okay, if it takes you longer for your heart to recover, then you have not as good cardiovascular fitness. But the sooner your heart rate comes back down to a resting level, the better your cardiovascular fitness. And if we’re looking at, not even just from a health perspective, I’m thinking more of a performance perspective. If you’re looking at hockey players, fighters… Let’s say a hockey player comes off the line, comes off a shift, right? They go to rest, they need to get their heart rate down as quickly as possible before they jump back out for the next shift. And if they’re taking longer, then they’re going to be more tired by the time they get it back out for the next shift. Same thing with fighters. They have one minute rest in between rounds, doing five rounds. If it takes them a really long time to get their heart rate down, then they don’t have as much time to rest and their heart rate’s gonna come back up more quickly in that next fight round.

0:42:52.0 Jordan Syatt: So from a performance perspective, it’s unbelievably important. And I don’t have any data saying better heart rate recovery leads to better health outcomes long term, but I would imagine that seems like common sense where it’s like if your heart is better at recovering, then you’ll be less likely to have heart issues as a result of it. So.

0:43:12.5 Mike Vacanti: Nice. That’s a good one. I like that.

0:43:14.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Steps, heart recovery. A lot of watches have like ECGs now, which is really cool. I think pulse oximeters are a cool thing to have on it as well. But I think steps are really the number one. But what about you?

0:43:31.1 Mike Vacanti: Steps, resting heart rate. And not all the time, but if you struggle with sleep or maybe just occasionally, paying attention to sleep data is interesting as well. How much you’re sleeping, how much REM sleep you’re getting… The accuracy varies from watch to watch and is debatable on tracking sleep data. But you know it’s all relative, right? So even if it’s not accurate on an absolute level, seeing your time in bed compared to how much you’re sleeping and the quality of your sleep improving over time relative to your other readings is good to know.

0:44:13.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I think sleep data is really helpful or can be really helpful. I don’t think HRV is worthwhile. I think HRV is super overrated.

0:44:24.6 Mike Vacanti: Because it’s inaccurate on the watch or because it’s not a useful health marker?

0:44:30.2 Jordan Syatt: This is going to be controversial. I don’t think it’s useful health or performance marker at all. And I know there… I have colleagues who completely disagree with me on this who I’m close friends with, but I’ll wake up and my HRV will be like, “Hey, you’re not recovered. You need to not work out today.” And then I’ll go work out and I’ll have the best workout of my life. And then other times, it’ll be like, “You’re gonna have an amazing workout. Go get it.” And I just feel like shit. I’m like, I don’t want my watch to tell me how I’m supposed to feel. Like, let me do what I’m gonna do. And then I feel… I feel like… I see people get so wrapped up in their HRV that they’ll just do whatever their watch tells them to do. I’m like, “That’s fucking stupid. Just, if you feel good, go have a sick workout. If you feel like shit, then either take a rest day or have a light workout,” but don’t do it just because your watch tells you this is how you’re supposed to feel.

0:45:22.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. Same with, like, recovery score on WHOOP.

0:45:26.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yep. Same thing. I would imagine that’s probably HRV, is what I would imagine that is. I do think another good one is resting heart rate. So, like, look at your lowest heart rate when you’re, like, from when you’re sleeping. And that’s another way to track if you’re making progress with your heart rate. Like, if your resting heart rate is in the 80s and it goes down into the 70s or 60s, that’s great. You’re improving. That’s fantastic. Also, and going back to what you said around the sleep metrics, that’s one of the things that actually got me to reduce my alcohol intake, because I noticed that… It’s not like I was telling my watch, but it knew when I drank. And I think it’s because your heart rate tends to be higher.

0:46:09.5 Mike Vacanti: It was night and day.

0:46:10.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, dude, it was massive ’cause…

0:46:11.9 Mike Vacanti: I remember you showing me screenshots from the app of no drinking night compared to a drinking night, and it was wild.

0:46:18.5 Jordan Syatt: It was absolutely crazy.

0:46:19.9 Mike Vacanti: Heart rate especially. Sleep quality, but heart rate throughout the night.

0:46:22.8 Jordan Syatt: Well, yeah, And I think that’s what often dictates your sleep or one of the things that dictates your sleep quality. Like, if my resting heart rate is usually in the 40s and all of a sudden I drank and it’s in the 60s, that’s going to really fuck with my sleep. It’s going to fuck… It’s going to prevent me from getting REM. It’s going to prevent me from getting this deep sleep because my heart rate’s elevated. It’s like, of course. Of course that’s going to prevent it, which I never… I think a lot of people will, “Oh, I’ll have a few drinks because it will relax me and I’ll go to bed.” But it’s not actually relaxing you. It’s like, more like numbing you.

0:46:57.6 Mike Vacanti: Helps you fall asleep because it’s knocking you out. It’s destroying your sleep quality.

0:47:02.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I still drink, just not as much, which is a cool. Which is pretty cool if you think about it. Like, the thing that got me to drink less was that my watch was telling my sleep quality was shit. Like, that’s actually a pretty fucking crazy change to health behaviors that wouldn’t have happened without that data. Like, it’s like I… I don’t know if people really understand the impact of that on people. Like, I’m not the only… I know there’s… I have a friend, John Leatherberry, who I train jiu jitsu with. He literally, he stopped drinking because of his watch. Like, it’s pretty crazy.

0:47:43.4 Mike Vacanti: Let me ask you this. Why did that… Why did seeing it on your watch… Why did your watch telling you you were having poor sleep quality make you quit or reduce your alcohol compared to me telling you you had poor sleep quality?

0:48:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Because I didn’t believe you.

0:48:01.5 Mike Vacanti: Really?

0:48:02.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s like, “Yeah. Mike doesn’t know he’s talking about.”

0:48:04.8 Mike Vacanti: Dude, you got to tell me when you’re thinking that, because then I’m going to tell you, “No, I really do know what I’m talking about here. I will… I will convince you. You can’t just yes me to death on that. You got to let me know.”

0:48:15.4 Jordan Syatt: It’s one thing to have your friend tell you that. It’s another thing to, like, actually see the data consistently in your face.

0:48:22.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but I’m not just your friend. I’m also your friend who’s like a sleep connoisseur.

0:48:26.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s true. That’s true.

0:48:27.4 Mike Vacanti: You know, if I told you some… If I told you to do more arm bars, like, yeah, don’t listen to me because what do I know?

0:48:32.8 Jordan Syatt: I should do more arm bars, though.

0:48:39.3 Mike Vacanti: Thank you very much for listening. Jordan and I were talking on the phone yesterday. We may or may not have a sale for the mentorship coming up. We’re still deciding. Do we want to do a sale? We might.

0:48:49.6 Jordan Syatt: Well, we just launched the Instagram Growth Guide, Volume 2.0 in the mentorship. It’s live, so who knows? Maybe we’ll give it some time, let the mentorship members dive into it, ask questions about it in the Q and A’s, and then maybe we’ll run a sale. Or if you want to get in on it now before, like, before the sale, you can get in on it right now. But maybe we’ll never run a sale again. Mike was saying maybe we’ll just start doing tariffs.

[laughter]

0:49:19.3 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:49:20.3 Jordan Syatt: Start putting tariffs on the mentorship. Yeah, so.

0:49:25.3 Mike Vacanti: But to everyone. Not…

0:49:26.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, everyone.

0:49:27.5 Mike Vacanti: Everyone isn’t the US versus the world tariff. This is just…

0:49:30.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, we’re not gonna be like, “If you’re in China, we’re adding another 50% tariff.” We’re not doing that.

0:49:34.9 Mike Vacanti: We’re adding 50% for everyone.

0:49:36.4 Jordan Syatt: For everybody.

0:49:37.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s just a tax.

0:49:38.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:49:40.1 Mike Vacanti: No, we’re not actually doing that, but we… I don’t know when the next sale will be.

0:49:43.2 Jordan Syatt: Tariffs.

0:49:44.3 Mike Vacanti: Maybe we will do. Do you want to talk about tariffs?

0:49:47.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude, it was funny. I’ve been seeing a lot of news about tariffs on my feed and he’s like…

0:49:53.5 Mike Vacanti: By the way, this isn’t going to go live for a week, so who knows how much the dialogue will have changed by then. Our market’s getting rocked again.

[laughter]

0:50:07.7 Jordan Syatt: I’m getting a lot of news about tariffs, and I’ve grokked tariffs and I’ve been trying to learn about it, but the more I learn about it, the more I’m like, “Geez, I don’t understand this.” Dude, it’s…

0:50:16.3 Mike Vacanti: Macro econ is so hard. It was one of my worst classes in college.

0:50:20.5 Jordan Syatt: It’s unbelievably difficult. Let me read you this comment.

0:50:22.8 Mike Vacanti: There’s so many moving parts.

0:50:24.2 Jordan Syatt: So I commented on a Ground News post from yesterday. So Ground News, it’s a great news… It’s a news Instagram. And they just report on what’s being reported. And what they do is they’ll share headlines, but then they’ll say, like, which news sources on the left and the right and the center reported on it. So you can start to see, like, when the right is not reporting on something or when the left is not reporting on something when it might not suit their narrative. This one was actually split almost exactly like 30% left reported it, 37% center reported it, 33% right reported it, which is very rare. Rarely do you see all of them reporting it. But it was about like, the European Union offers Trump 0 for 0 tariff deals on all industrial goods. So it seems to have worked in the European Union where it’s like, “Okay, you know what, let’s try and settle the score. We’ll stop doing tariffs on you if you can stop doing it on us.”

0:51:26.0 Jordan Syatt: But I left a comment and I wrote, “I just want to say I know nothing about tariffs or the global economy or macroeconomics. So I’m just going to read this without giving my uneducated opinion. It might be worthwhile for others to consider something similar.” And hundreds of people like the comment, they’re like… [laughter] Because everyone is in the comments being like, giving their opinion. And someone replied to mine being like… It was actually really funny. They said, “I’m also upset that you don’t agree with the opinion I’ve inherited from my media bias of choice.”

[laughter]

0:52:00.4 Mike Vacanti: That’s a good comment too. It is wild. Like, we all have opinions about stuff that we really don’t know anything about, that are very complex topics.

0:52:11.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:52:12.4 Mike Vacanti: And it seems to be a result of the way we use technology.

0:52:16.8 Jordan Syatt: Yes. Yep.

0:52:19.7 Mike Vacanti: 15 years ago, wasn’t a thing.

0:52:22.1 Jordan Syatt: Not at all.

0:52:23.1 Mike Vacanti: Now we got vaccine experts, we got COVID experts, we got Ukraine experts, we got Russia experts, we got tariff experts, we got it all.

0:52:32.2 Jordan Syatt: I feel like 15 years ago it was very common for someone to say, “I’m just not into politics.” It was super common for someone to be like…

0:52:42.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s not okay, Jordan. That is, you are so privileged to not be into politics. Only you and your privilege.

0:52:51.4 Jordan Syatt: But you know what I mean? I feel like it was very common. Like, “I don’t really know, like I don’t pay attention really.” It’s like a lot of people would say that, at least in my experience. People would be like, “I don’t really know. I don’t pay attention to it.” But now since it’s all over social media of all these people giving these, like… Because we’re being inundated with these horrific images and videos and catastrophizing… Like everyone is now a political expert based on whatever news they’re seeing in social media.

0:53:21.8 Mike Vacanti: And even not non-politicized things are getting politicized.

0:53:24.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah.

0:53:25.7 Mike Vacanti: Like government efficiency isn’t really a political thing.

0:53:29.0 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:53:29.8 Mike Vacanti: Right. Bill Clinton pushed for it. Barack Obama pushed for it. Like, but it’s become a political thing.

0:53:35.7 Jordan Syatt: Correct. It should not be political at all. Especially when we’re paying taxes out of our hard earned income. Everybody’s paying it. You should want to…

0:53:46.3 Mike Vacanti: Not everyone’s paying it. What are you talking about? Hang on, hold up right there. What percentage of Americans pay taxes?

0:53:56.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh my gosh. This is going to put me in a bad mood.

0:53:58.1 Mike Vacanti: Hang on, let me ask Grok, because Google’s not giving me… Wow. No, no, it didn’t give me an answer.

0:54:02.8 Jordan Syatt: Really?

0:54:02.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It wasn’t… Yeah, it wasn’t like I didn’t like the answer. There was no answer.

0:54:06.4 Jordan Syatt: “40% of households paid no federal income tax in 2022.” 40%. What? What’s going on? Is that…

0:54:14.1 Mike Vacanti: A lot of…

0:54:14.5 Jordan Syatt: I’m being rocked publicly right now. What is happening?

0:54:16.5 Mike Vacanti: What do you mean rocked?

0:54:17.7 Jordan Syatt: I’m getting rocked. I had no idea…

0:54:21.9 Mike Vacanti: Oh, like your world’s being rocked?

0:54:22.0 Jordan Syatt: That in 2022, 40% of US households, about 72.5 million paid no federal income tax. What the fuck? I didn’t know that.

0:54:30.7 Mike Vacanti: I would imagine a decent amount of it is people who are on unemployment or not earning any income. And then some of it is tax evasion as well. I don’t know the exact breakdown.

0:54:43.2 Jordan Syatt: Well, to be honest, now I can start to see why there would be a huge movement against government efficiency. If 40% of people are not paying taxes, then they would have no reason to be invested in figuring out where this money is going. In the same way that if you have your money and you’re spending your own money, you’re more likely to be careful with your own money. But when the government gets your money, they’re more like, “It’s not their money. So like, all right, we’ll just dish it out a little bit less… ” They’ll be less careful when it’s not their money. We can all relate to this, right? If it’s your money, yeah, I’ll be more careful with it. If it’s someone else’s money that you have the ability to spend, all right, we’ll just dish it out a little bit more willy nilly. I think if someone is not paying taxes for any number of reasons, I think it would be easier for them to not care as much about where other people’s tax money is going.

0:55:43.0 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:55:43.1 Jordan Syatt: Whereas if you are getting 30 or 40%, 20, 30, 40% of your money taken away by taxes, then you want to know where the fuck that money is going and you want the government to be more efficient with it. I think that’s a fair thing to say.

0:55:58.9 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely. Yep. It’s also related to the mentality of tax the rich. But then who are “the rich”? And it depends who you ask because it’s usually just whoever makes more than me.

0:56:13.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:56:14.7 Mike Vacanti: Right? I’m making 70k a year. Like, “Those people make 150 a year, they need to pay more taxes.”

0:56:19.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:56:19.5 Mike Vacanti: People who make 150, “Those people make half a million a year, they need to pay more taxes. It’s the millionaires, the billionaires.” Yeah, I don’t know how we got… Oh, tariffs. We’re probably not going to institute tariffs here in the fitness business mentorship.

0:56:33.9 Jordan Syatt: I think we are. I think we are. We’ll figure out how it’s going to work.

0:56:38.6 Mike Vacanti: We’ll figure it out.

0:56:40.1 Jordan Syatt: China. [chuckle] They don’t seem to be going for the tariffs. They seem to be going… From the news sources I’m seeing, they’re being like, “Okay, we’re gonna raise our tariffs then.”

0:56:55.4 Mike Vacanti: Who’s negotiating versus who’s gonna get in a trade war?

0:56:58.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:57:00.2 Mike Vacanti: That is interesting though that your neutral news site that shows who all is reporting on it, everyone reported on that the EU said we’ll go 0 for 0. Which, again, I don’t know. I’ve seen so many like, “Oh, Trump’s playing 4D chess. He’s trying to tank the interest rate in the bond market because the US needs to refinance 10 trillion of their debt this year. And if we do it at three and a half percent instead of five percent, that saves us all this money over the next few.”

0:57:27.1 Jordan Syatt: Like, I mean, that logically does make sense, but I don’t know if that’s what’s actually going on. But that logically does make sense.

0:57:32.7 Mike Vacanti: That would be cool. And he seems to be doing…

0:57:37.2 Jordan Syatt: If he’s called to take the market, he’s doing it. [laughter]

0:57:38.0 Mike Vacanti: Seems to be moving in that direction. But then again, the other side is no, he’s just been… You know, there’s video of him 40 years ago saying that he loves tariffs and he doesn’t want the US getting screwed by other countries. And he’s been repeating that and he’s just doing that without the whole 40 chess thing. I don’t know.

0:58:00.4 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know either. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know macroeconomics, I don’t understand it. I don’t understand economics, period. I don’t understand micro, I don’t understand macro. I barely understand supply and demand. So that’s like the first dance.

[laughter]

0:58:17.8 Mike Vacanti: You understand something… Oh, great episode. Thank you very much for listening.

0:58:28.0 Jordan Syatt: Leave a five star review. Have a wonderful week. Talk to you soon.

0:58:31.8 Mike Vacanti: See you next week.