Episode 221: NSFW! The Harsh Truth About Building Your Online Fitness Business, Degenerate OnlyFans Behavior, Toes-to-Bar Ab Exercises, Butthole Sunning, and More…

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

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

0:00:13.1 Mike Vacanti: I got a rant.

0:00:14.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, let’s hear it. I love your rants.

0:00:15.7 Mike Vacanti: So, I just was lifting and my algorithm was serving me up a lot of 2013, whether it was Spotify or YouTube. There was some Greg Plitt motivational rants. There was Jimmy Eat World “23,” Something Corporate “Konstantine,” some of these emo-ish, angry-ish, sad-ish songs. And it really took me back to the 2012-2015 era, which is when I put in the most substantial legwork to build my business. And I was subconsciously comparing that with a lot of the complaints that you and I often hear, whether it’s on a personal level from other coaches or just we see more so on social media. Opinions expressed about my business isn’t growing fast enough. I’m doing everything right, nothing’s working. That general sentiment, I don’t think people understand.

0:01:18.7 Mike Vacanti: We’ve made it clear that it takes longer than you would expect to build your business. It’s not going to happen in three months. It’s not going to happen in six months. You need to be thinking in years and not months. I think that’s understood by most, but I don’t think people understand what those years actually look like. If you want to go from zero, no business, no revenue, no audience, no anything, to “I can sustain myself, and perhaps my family but at least myself, through this business I started.” I really don’t think people understand that it’s all the time. It’s no vacations. It’s on your phone or your computer, making content, engaging with content constantly; back and forth with clients, designing training programs. You’re literally working for… When you’re not working out or maybe like a little bit of downtime, you’re working all the time, seven days a week.

0:02:15.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:02:15.7 Mike Vacanti: Now, do you have to do this? Absolutely not. There’s a balanced approach to building your business. Takes longer, obviously; is probably healthier mentally. But for the people who are upset about their speed of progress, even if they’ve been doing it for a number of years, even if they’ve been doing it for a decade, but have never had a multi-year period of “All I do is work,” I don’t know what to tell you. You need to do more.

0:02:40.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude, well fucking said.

0:02:43.8 Mike Vacanti: Thank you, but in both of our… We have similar-ish stories on that front. But Jordan wasn’t going to any college parties. Jordan was walking around powerlifting and eating kimchi and writing articles for his website when he was 21 years old. Deep in this anger, all I do is work. My identity is my business, really putting everything into it. And the people who are upset that they’re not where they want to be, should lean into that. And whether it’s genuine pain, like genuine negative emotion, or it’s manufactured negative emotion a la Michael Jordan… Oh, he said, “Good game, Mike.” And so you’re just going to harp on that over and over again to piss yourself off, to give you the motivation to work for 18 hours a day. This message has been lost in the last five to seven years because it’s unpopular, but it’s true. If you’re not happy with where you want to be, you need to make more content. You need to make way better content. You need to be engaging with tons of people one on one, all over the Internet, in groups. Forums don’t really exist anymore.

0:03:55.6 Mike Vacanti: All over comment sections, obviously, in your own comment sections, in your own DMs, if you have people… If you’re lucky enough to have people who are following you and consuming your content and asking you for help, you better be helping them for free. We just had someone in the mentorship. I’m blanking on who it was, but someone got their first organic new client from a Facebook group that she joined…

0:04:16.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s fucking awesome.

0:04:17.7 Mike Vacanti: And was helping this person in that Facebook group for free without expectation of anything in return, leads to a paid client. That, at scale for…

0:04:27.0 Jordan Syatt: Years.

0:04:27.8 Mike Vacanti: 12 to 18 hours a day, I mean, realistically, let’s even say eight to 12 hours a day, six-plus days a week for years is what it takes if you want to… I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a huge douche, but get to a certain level, the level that many of these people are complaining about not being at.

0:04:51.9 Jordan Syatt: Yep. Dude, and again, not trying to sound like a douche, but just to be telling the truth, just to be honest. I remember going to my buddy’s wedding, Sean. I was a groomsman at his wedding. After the wedding party was over and everyone finally went to sleep, I was up the rest of the night working. I went to the wedding, I took part in the wedding, had a great time, didn’t go to bed. Then I got the work done. Because I missed the whole day of work because I was part of the groomsman party. So, I stayed up. And again, not trying to sound like a douche, and I’m not saying this is what everyone needs to do, but this is what I did. I remember, I would go visit my friend Eli at UPenn when I was at University of Delaware. When everyone went to bed, I sit up and I worked. When my wife would come visit me when we were just dating, I would front-load insane amounts of work. Then we would hang out together all day. And then when she went to bed, I stood up and I worked. And it was just… It’s just what I did.

0:05:52.1 Mike Vacanti: Go to bed early, set an alarm for 4:30, get up three hours before everyone else, gets your work done, whatever it is…

0:05:57.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:05:58.0 Mike Vacanti: A weekend away, a wedding, a bachelor party, a vacation. You’re still working.

0:06:02.9 Jordan Syatt: Correct. And even now it’s… For example, I get my workouts in at ten, eleven, twelve o’clock at night because that’s the time… Or it’s going to be at 4:00 in the morning. It’s one of those.

0:06:17.8 Mike Vacanti: Or it’s not going to happen.

0:06:18.5 S3: Or it’s not going to happen. It’s either going to be ten, eleven, twelve o’clock at night, or it’s going to be at 4:00 in the morning. Or it’s not going to happen. Or I would have to take that time from work, which I’m not willing to do right now, which I’d have to take it from something else. You’re right, it’s become very unpopular to work hard in these last few years. It was funny, first, there was that grind era, like GaryVee, in, I don’t know, 2012, ’13, ’14, ’15, like, “Grind, hustle, work hard.” And then it became not popular, and then people went the other way, and they were like, “Balance, da, da, da,” which, again, I’m a big fan of balance. I think it’s important. But if you are complaining about not being where you would like to be, where a lot of these gurus are like, “You should be making X amount of money every month and da, da, da,” if you want to be there, you got to fucking work a lot. A lot. Way more than you think.

0:07:13.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:07:14.0 Jordan Syatt: Think about it like if someone’s like, “Hey, I want to get a six pack.” It’s one thing to lose fat and have a good relationship with food and be healthy. It’s another thing to be like, “I want to be shredded.” Okay. Making a lot of money and having a ridiculously successful business in terms of income, in terms of reach, all of that, that’s the business version of getting shredded. Right? If you want to get shredded, you have to do… You have to be meticulous with your tracking. You’ve got to be meticulous with your steps, meticulous with your training, every day for years. That’s it. It’s the same thing.

0:07:52.6 Mike Vacanti: Great analogy. Great analogy. I would say it’s even harder on the business side. Depends on the person, but on the business side, it’s a “will” versus a “won’t.” Right? Getting shredded is 24/7, but it’s 24/7 of not eating all of the INSERT THING. On the business side, it’s not an avoidance, it’s a “You have to do this task, and this task, and this task, and this task… ” You need to be doing all of these things constantly for years.

0:08:22.7 Jordan Syatt: And there are ways to make the fitness side easier: Steroids, supplements, whatever. But we could actually take steroids, which are… We’ll use that as the example. There’s no steroid for business.

0:08:34.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:08:35.9 Jordan Syatt: Right?

0:08:36.5 Mike Vacanti: Yep.

0:08:37.0 Jordan Syatt: Unless we’re talking about Adderall, which… But even then, you still…

0:08:41.6 Mike Vacanti: Still isn’t because you’re just borrowing from the future.

0:08:43.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a great point. Yeah, it’s exactly right.

0:08:45.6 Mike Vacanti: It’s actually, for most people, I would argue, it hurts them.

0:08:49.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:08:49.9 Mike Vacanti: It helps you while you’re taking it, but it doesn’t help you over… If you take it on a Sunday, it helps you for those 12 or 16 or 18 hours, but over a seven-day window from Sunday to Saturday, you’re going to get less total done.

0:09:04.0 Jordan Syatt: Yep. Yep, agree.

0:09:05.3 Mike Vacanti: And if we’re talking about extent…

0:09:06.3 Jordan Syatt: If you’re abusing it.

0:09:07.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And if you don’t, your standard college kid who is taking it for a test, not someone who’s prescribed and takes a low dose every single day.

[overlapping conversation]

0:09:17.0 Jordan Syatt: 10 milligrams a day, yeah. Yeah. If you’re taking like 40, 50, 60 milligrams a day, then you’ve got a fucking problem.

0:09:25.0 Mike Vacanti: We’ve heard of many people taking 100 to 150 a day.

0:09:29.5 Jordan Syatt: Yes, correct. And then they end up… Like you said, borrowing from the future, where then you end up sleeping and you’re missing out on work, and it’s just a constant game of catch up.

0:09:37.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s Anna Lembke in a nutshell. There’s a seesaw to pleasure and pain. And when your dopamine is plus-1000 for a period of time, you have to, biologically by definition, spend time on the other side of the seesaw in a dopamine deficit before you get back to baseline.

0:09:55.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. So, with steroids, you’ve got the ability to make faster progress with the same amount of total effort. You don’t have that with business. There’s no making faster progress with the same amount of effort. It’s like, it’s going to be ridiculously so. And with steroids, you can see the changes much more quickly. You can actually see muscle gain, fat loss in a month. You can see that. In business, you don’t see that. It’s years. It’s like body recomposition. It takes a long time.

0:10:30.9 Mike Vacanti: And you need to judge yourself based on process-oriented tasks, not on results.

0:10:37.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And it’s really like…

[overlapping conversation]

0:10:37.9 Mike Vacanti: Which is really hard for a lot of people to do.

0:10:41.0 Jordan Syatt: We get people being like, “Oh, I’m posting this many times per week. I’m just not seeing this amount of engagement as I should be.” Okay. Go look at the dates on your post over the last six months and see exactly how many times you’ve posted per week, and get the actual data. Look at it.

0:11:00.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s good advice for everyone. Be honest with yourself about what you’re actually doing. I think another good example of “Be honest with yourself” is, okay, if you are posting five to seven times a week and you actually are posting five to seven times a week, how much time are you spending making that content…

0:11:16.1 Jordan Syatt: Correct, correct.

0:11:16.9 Mike Vacanti: Editing that content? How much time are you taking thinking about that content? I know you’re Mr. ESTP. You are more of a spur-of-the-moment kind of guy in terms of creating your creative process. Most of my best videos, I spent weeks, having separate notes about them and then adding ideas to the notepad, adding ideas to the notepad until I felt like I was in a place where I could outline it. And then once I had that, I would forget the notepad and make the video. But my Why Fitness Matters, all of these, I spent dozens of hours, yeah, 12 to 24 hours in total, in that creative process. It takes way more work and way longer than we think. And not being honest with yourself about how much you’re working and how hard you’re working, helps no one.

0:12:15.0 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Especially not yourself.

0:12:17.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And again, I’m actually going to caveat this, even though I think caveats are soft and low-T. I’m going to caveat this with, “This is for people who aren’t happy about where they’re at with their business.”

0:12:31.0 Jordan Syatt: Correct, correct. Yeah.

0:12:33.8 Mike Vacanti: All right. I feel better. My anger was at like a 52.

0:12:37.2 Jordan Syatt: Wow!

0:12:37.9 Mike Vacanti: Now I’m at like a 12.

0:12:39.5 Jordan Syatt: It was cathartic for you.

0:12:40.9 Mike Vacanti: [laughter] Yeah, it really was, really was. Sometimes you just need a good rant. It’s just true.

[overlapping conversation]

0:12:47.8 Jordan Syatt: It’s what you need.

0:12:50.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s amazing that, good, I’m glad they need that, because I wasn’t thinking that’s what they need. I was thinking, “I got to get this out of myself… ” Yeah. I was thinking it’s true and I got to say it. Yeah. How are you, brother?

0:13:05.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’m good. My mom’s here. She’s loving spending time with her granddaughters.

0:13:10.8 Mike Vacanti: Nice.

0:13:11.4 Jordan Syatt: Yep, yep. Everything’s good.

[overlapping conversation]

0:13:12.9 Mike Vacanti: Loving having her.

0:13:14.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah. Yeah, they’re super excited. Super excited.

0:13:17.2 Mike Vacanti: Fun.

0:13:18.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, man. Just grinding. [laughter] Grinding hard. Lot of grinding going on, you know?

0:13:25.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Nah, I don’t know if I do.

0:13:33.1 Jordan Syatt: You know…

0:13:34.8 Mike Vacanti: Okay, in a real… [chuckle] I don’t know why I have this on my notepad. [chuckle] Have you seen these OnlyFans creators who are having sex with a thousand guys in a day?

0:13:47.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yes, I’ve seen a couple of them.

0:13:50.0 Mike Vacanti: Why is that happening? And where is this degenerate society heading?

0:13:56.8 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I have no idea. My intuition is that the vast majority of people are…

[overlapping conversation]

0:14:04.9 Mike Vacanti: Finding it disgusting?

0:14:06.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Find it gross. I think 98% of people are like that.

0:14:09.8 Mike Vacanti: 98? 49 out of 50?

0:14:12.9 Jordan Syatt: 99.7% of people…

0:14:14.9 Mike Vacanti: All right, that makes it good.

0:14:16.1 Jordan Syatt: Are finding that… [chuckle] Are finding that gross.

0:14:20.0 Mike Vacanti: So, three standard deviations above the mean. Did you do that intentionally? 99.7?

0:14:26.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I don’t even know what standard deviation is. I have no clue. It was a complete happenstance.

0:14:32.8 Mike Vacanti: Any semi-math nerds are going to be like, “Wow, Jordan, really? 99.7 is… It’s like… “

[overlapping conversation]

0:14:38.1 Jordan Syatt: Deliberate?

0:14:39.4 Mike Vacanti: Well, if you think of a… I’m sorry, I interrupted you. Continue.

0:14:42.5 Jordan Syatt: No, keep going.

0:14:43.5 Mike Vacanti: If you think of a normal distribution of data, one standard deviation is at the 68th percentile, two standard deviations is at the 97th percentile, and three standard deviations is at the 99.7 percentile. Actually, I’m going to make sure that’s…

[overlapping conversation]

0:14:58.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s what I meant. [laughter] That’s exactly what I meant. [laughter]

0:15:02.0 Mike Vacanti: “Where is the second standard deviation on a normal distribution?” 95. Sorry, I said that wrong. 68, 95… Let me make sure I got this one right. 99.7. Yeah.

0:15:23.7 Jordan Syatt: Got it. Okay. Yeah, yeah. We were talking about the same thing.

[laughter]

0:15:30.0 Mike Vacanti: Good.

0:15:31.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I think, because I’ve seen the comment sections, and usually comment sections are rife with people who are arguing, I haven’t seen anyone in any of these comment sections be defending them.

0:15:46.1 Mike Vacanti: Cool.

0:15:47.8 Jordan Syatt: I mean, the only defense I can hear is like, “They can do what they want with their body.” But I even haven’t really even seen that. Yeah, they can do that, but that’s gross.

0:15:58.3 Mike Vacanti: And what are these dudes doing?

0:16:00.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude, that’s what I thought about that, because I can… Obviously, I relate to a dude more than I relate to a woman. So, I’m thinking, what dude is lining up in a line of a hundred dudes being like, “Yeah, we’re all going to go do this”? What dude is doing that? I have no idea.

0:16:18.7 Mike Vacanti: All right.

0:16:19.0 Jordan Syatt: The only thing I can think of is dudes who are not having sex at all, who are just looking for any opportunity.

0:16:26.0 Mike Vacanti: Well, of course. But those opportunities present themselves through doing the right thing in life over time, day over day.

0:16:34.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s not an argument, Michael. I understand that’s…

0:16:37.0 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no, no. I’m sorry. I wasn’t telling you that. I was telling, like, one of those dudes who might be listening, that.

0:16:43.9 Jordan Syatt: Do you think on our podcast we have one of the dudes who’s doing these?

0:16:46.9 Mike Vacanti: Maybe.

[laughter]

0:16:50.8 Mike Vacanti: Maybe.

0:16:52.8 Jordan Syatt: I hope not. I hope if they are, they listen to what you just said.

[overlapping conversation]

0:16:55.8 Mike Vacanti: I hope so. Yeah. Well, it’s… Yeah. It’s harder to build yourself into someone who is wanted, than it is to wait in line for an OnlyFans…

[laughter]

0:17:16.0 Mike Vacanti: Pop-up.

[overlapping conversation]

0:17:16.1 Jordan Syatt: Are they getting paid? Is this prostitution? Are they getting paid for it? Or is it just for clout?

0:17:19.0 Mike Vacanti: The girl or the guy?

0:17:20.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, the girl.

0:17:22.0 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know. I have no idea, bro. I just saw the headline and made me delete X probably.

0:17:28.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it all over. I’ve seen a number of people doing it. And I think I saw one of them got some type of STI, which is the least surprising. [laughter]

0:17:39.3 Mike Vacanti: Weird.

0:17:41.8 Jordan Syatt: What’s going on with the woman? What do you think’s going on in… And so we spoke about the dudes. What do you think is making her do it? To willingly be like, “I’m going to… ” And the videos being like, “I’m proud to have sex with a hundred dudes right now.” What do you think is going on there?

0:18:00.0 Mike Vacanti: What is going on with the psychological makeup [laughter] of a woman in that position? I would imagine a poor relationship with father, early-life exposure to pornography. I want to try and be fair and not riff off the cuff like I’m talking to my guy friend Jordan and we’re just joking about it. I want to try and be fair in my analysis here. I think there are women who got into, quote unquote, “sex work” out of complete desperation…

0:18:54.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, of course.

0:18:55.0 Mike Vacanti: And don’t want to be doing it, but…

[overlapping conversation]

0:18:57.9 Jordan Syatt: Of course, the most of them.

0:19:00.2 Mike Vacanti: There’s coercion… I don’t think that’s most of them at all.

0:19:03.2 Jordan Syatt: I would imagine that most women in sex work don’t actually want to be doing it.

[overlapping conversation]

0:19:08.3 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know, but globally…

0:19:10.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:19:10.7 Mike Vacanti: Well, okay, sure. In America versus… Yeah. Yes.

0:19:13.7 Jordan Syatt: And I’m not talking about OnlyFans. I mean, prostitution, that type of stuff. OnlyFans, obviously, I think… Actually, I don’t even know about that, but I think probably most of them would rather, given that they do have the choice, but they would rather not do that, I would imagine.

0:19:31.5 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know if it’s a majority or a minority, but yes, there is a substantial population who, if they could be doing something else, they would be doing something else.

0:19:43.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:19:47.8 Mike Vacanti: I can’t believe I’m about to go here. But then on the other side of the coin, dude, anytime I see an attractive Gen Z female working at like Starbucks or McDonald’s or any kind of fast food restaurant…

0:20:06.0 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:20:06.7 Mike Vacanti: I want to tip that person because…

0:20:09.7 Jordan Syatt: You want to support them.

0:20:10.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I’m like, given where culture, such a high percentage of culture, is pressing you to put your time and sell your body, whether it’s through actual prostitution or just through posting scantily clad but not fully nude stuff online to build an audience to do affiliate marketing, however they want to monetize their body, I applaud the decision not to.

0:20:36.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. Makes total sense.

0:20:39.8 Mike Vacanti: So, back to the original question. What do I think is going on in the woman’s brain? I think with the thousand-in-a-day or any of these crazy headlines, basically, I think it’s for marketing.

0:20:51.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, correct. Yeah.

[overlapping conversation]

0:20:52.8 Mike Vacanti: I think it’s, “Okay, I’ve made the decision that this is a business that I’m running,” and top of the funnel, bottom of the funnel is, I don’t know what they’re doing. Selling feet pics, selling nudes. They have people giving a monthly subscription. I don’t know what the actual monetization is, but some kind of exchange of random dudes online paying them to get access to something, that’s bottom of funnel. Top of funnel is like, “How many people can come to my social media and know about me?” I think that these perverse, extreme, thousand-in-a-day things are just to draw attention, to get people to top of funnel.

0:21:36.0 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah, that’s exactly right.

0:21:37.8 Mike Vacanti: I think that’s what the majority of it is.

0:21:39.4 Jordan Syatt: It’s a business decision, is what it is. Yeah. I think about how Gary used to do… He would stream for 24 hours straight on YouTube or something.

0:21:47.9 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:21:48.0 Jordan Syatt: The dude’s just go 24 hours straight, nonstop, stay up and constant stream. Let’s just compare. If a dude is like, “I’m going to have sex with a thousand women in 24 hours,” or whatever it is, good luck getting a thousand women to show up for that.

0:22:06.8 Mike Vacanti: And good luck if you do get a thousand women to show up for it because [laughter] our anatomy is different.

0:22:13.7 Jordan Syatt: But, obviously, men are way more likely to show up for that than women are.

0:22:20.0 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:22:20.2 Jordan Syatt: Right?

0:22:21.0 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:22:21.9 Jordan Syatt: Gary was doing that for a business decision. I’m going to stream for 24 hours. They’re going to tune in. They’re going to be like, “Holy shit, what’s he doing now?” 24 hours straight. And again, like you said, top of funnel. It gets people to come in, find out about him. People are sharing it, interacting with him, whatever. I think this is the same thing in a different strategy. Same reasoning, different strategy. Get more people to know about me, get all these news outlets sharing this OnlyFans girl. And then all these dudes who are buying OnlyFans are going to be like, “Oh, I got to see this girl. I got to subscribe to this channel,” whatever. And I think a lot of the dudes who subscribe to OnlyFans think that they’re going to be able to hook up with these girls. So, if they’re like, “Oh, wow, this one had sex with all these dudes. Maybe I could be one of those dudes too.” I’m not going to call him a “friend” ’cause I don’t think he’s a friend. Someone that I know, his wife…

0:23:16.9 Mike Vacanti: Do I know him?

0:23:17.9 Jordan Syatt: Nah. You met him. You met him. ‘Cause here in Dallas, ’cause we lived in the same building.

0:23:22.2 Mike Vacanti: I’m sorry, I thought you were going somewhere else with it.

0:23:24.9 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:23:25.2 Mike Vacanti: I thought you were going to say, “One of my friends subscribes because he thinks he’s going to… “

0:23:28.9 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no.

0:23:29.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:23:30.2 Jordan Syatt: His wife does OnlyFans. And, yeah, they lived in the same building that I lived in a couple years ago now. And I was interested in how does this work. And he told me that a lot of these women, they have these chats that the guys can chat with them. But he just said that they have a marketing company that does the chats for her. So, these dudes who are subscribed to her OnlyFans think that they’re speaking with her, and it’s really just other dudes who are replying to their gross messages. [laughter]

0:24:09.9 Mike Vacanti: This is the type of stuff that makes me shift from libertarian to tyrannical in my [laughter] impulses for how to govern society. It’s like, we can… Like, what is this? What are we doing? And not actually. I don’t actually want to govern it or outlaw or ban.

0:24:29.9 Jordan Syatt: But you sort of do.

0:24:31.0 Mike Vacanti: No. What I really want is, I really want the male population to get control of their impulses and desires, and to live their best possible virtuous life, which does not involve sending money to an OnlyFans girl thinking that she’s going to hook up with you, and chatting with a marketing company thinking it’s her while using a fleshlight.

0:24:56.9 Jordan Syatt: I also… [laughter] I think about the dudes who are having these conversations en masse like this is their job, I’m like, “How do you explain… ” Then imagine these dudes going on dates, and the woman that they’re on a date with, “So, what do you do for work?” It’s like, how do you explain that? How do you explain, “Oh yeah, well, I… “

0:25:15.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m sure you get good at it. “I work in marketing for a something-something…”

[overlapping conversation]

0:25:20.6 Jordan Syatt: For a modeling agency or something…

0:25:22.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

[laughter]

0:25:24.2 Jordan Syatt: But in reality, they’re sexting these dudes, and sending pre-taken pictures and videos that she supplies to them so that they can make it seem like, “Oh, I sent just you this picture, just you this video,” when in reality she batch-took all of them, sends them to the marketing agency, and then they send them out to these dudes who are just looking to hook up with an OnlyFans person. It’s crazy.

0:25:50.0 Mike Vacanti: All right, let’s move into some fitness.

[laughter]

0:25:53.9 Jordan Syatt: Started off the podcast really going in. Then we took a sharp turn. [laughter]

0:25:57.5 Mike Vacanti: I think we’re actually going to have to include something in the title. We can leave this in of this to like, I don’t know how many parents have a 10-year-old in the car listening to us, but we need to…

[overlapping conversation]

0:26:07.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Smart.

0:26:11.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. “NSFW” maybe in the title of this one.

0:26:15.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, that’d actually be interesting to test.

0:26:16.9 Mike Vacanti: Again. That would be interesting, but it’s the truth.

[overlapping conversation]

[laughter]

0:26:24.8 Mike Vacanti: Okay. So, question from Jackie. Jackie is awesome. Jackie’s a long-time…

0:26:35.0 Jordan Syatt: She’s on the mentorship.

0:26:36.9 Mike Vacanti: Different Jackie.

0:26:38.0 Jordan Syatt: Different Jackie, okay.

0:26:38.7 Mike Vacanti: Maybe. Do we have a Jackie in the mentorship?

0:26:40.5 Jordan Syatt: I thought we did. Am I wrong?

0:26:42.5 Mike Vacanti: Maybe. Or maybe we did and don’t know. No, this Jackie is a long-time coaching client.

0:26:49.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh. Sorry.

0:26:51.4 Mike Vacanti: No, it’s all good.

0:26:52.5 Jordan Syatt: Different Jackie. [laughter]

0:26:56.3 Mike Vacanti: She’s amazing, and she has been absolutely killing it in this 2025 stretch in a fat-loss phase. But she had a question about a vacation she took recently, and said this might be fun to podcast about. So, here we go. “I have a possible podcast question. We went to Disney for a couple days with the teens, and it made me think,” her two kids, “and it made me think about food choices. Anything and everything shitty to eat is available there. I know from a macro standpoint that a slice or two of pizza can be lower in calories than certain salads. But after eating said pizza, I mentally don’t want to walk anymore and usually feel like crap. A salad higher in calories with oil, vinegar, dressing, nice cheese, and whatever else doesn’t make me feel gross. What are your thoughts on higher calorie foods that are quote ‘cleaner’ ingredients for energy levels, and how that contributes to feeling better, thus having more energy moving more, calories then burned, et cetera? Would love to hear your and Jordan’s thoughts about it.” And so there’s two… It’s a great question.

0:28:07.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s a really good question. Very rarely do we hear a question that we haven’t heard before. So, that’s great.

0:28:12.8 Mike Vacanti: And there’s two ways that I want to address this. One is a general, like not on vacation, but just in general slightly higher calorie intake, higher activity level for fat-loss as a strategy, because that’s a more unpopular fat-loss strategy. And then we can talk about this specific example, being on vacation, the decision between “lower calorie, worse ingredients” versus “higher calorie, better ingredients,” and how it makes you feel especially when you’re on a vacation where you’re walking all over the place taking 10,000-plus steps in a day.

0:28:52.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You want to start?

0:28:53.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. So, I think… Well, I’ll start with the first scenario, which is just in general, “higher calorie, higher activity,” is a really, is a cool and health-promoting strategy that’s probably easier and will leave you feeling better than a more restrictive… Than basically a diet where you are eating fewer calories and moving less. The problem with the “higher calorie, higher activity” approach is many people can’t make that work in their lives. You know what? I’m actually going to say many people can’t, and many people don’t want to make that approach work in their lives. It’s hard to get hours and hours of activity a weekend to increase calorie expenditure so that instead of being at 2,000 a day intake, you’re at 2,500 or 2,800 calories a day intake, but you have 500- to 800-plus calories a day of additional expenditure from the activity you’re doing, so your deficit ends up being the same. It’s great from a cardiovascular perspective. It’s great from a general health and strength perspective because in the “higher calorie intake, higher calorie expenditure” example, you’re doing way more, which is really good for your physical and your mental health. It’s just much more time-consuming. So, if you have the time and desire to implement that kind of strategy, amazing. I’m all for it. A lot of people don’t, which is why something like three to four hours a week of activity with a slightly more restrictive, quote unquote, “intake” is more common advice.

0:30:48.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I don’t even know if I have to add anything. I completely agree.

0:30:52.7 Mike Vacanti: On the vacation example, I also think it depends on the individual. Because there are people who are very restrictive with food choice in their day-to-day life, and then when they go on vacation, they want to indulge in more tasty food options, pizza being in that bucket of things. Where if someone’s like, “I’m on vacation, I want to eat pizza. I don’t care if it’s going to leave me feeling worse and might not digest as well, and I might be more sluggish and I got to be walking for the next four hours. But I don’t really care because I don’t really eat pizza in my day-to-day life, and I’m on vacation so I want to enjoy it.” Cool. Go for it. But if your inclination like Jackie’s here is, I’ve been in a fat-loss phase, I’ve made a lot of progress, I’m on vacation, so clearly I’m going to be around maintenance or above maintenance, even. What do you think about eating cleaner ingredients that lead to me feeling better but are higher calorie? Go for it. Eat the salad loaded with stuff you enjoy that is more calories than pizza, because it’s going to leave you feeling better and moving more for the rest of the day.

0:32:14.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You covered that super well. I’m only going to speak about it from my own personal perspective, not even giving advice to other people now, ’cause I think you covered all the bases. I’ve reached a point in my life where I would have been the guy who’s like, “I’m going to have the pizza because my nutrition is pre-dialed and I just want to have this pizza anyway.” Before I was 30 and before I had kids, for sure. If I’m taking my kids to Disney, and I’ll say like… If my daughter’s like, “Oh, please have this pizza,” which she wouldn’t, especially because she’s two and a half, but if by chance she’s like, “Oh, let’s have a pizza together,” done. No problem. But if I know I’m going to be walking around in the heat and I have pizza, I’m with you. I’m going to feel like dog shit, especially because I’m lactose intolerant. But even that aside, I will feel gross with the greasy, cheesy, heavy pizza. And it’s going to make everyone else’s time at Disney suck more. Because now, at the best, I’m the only one feeling like shit walking around.

0:33:25.7 Jordan Syatt: Kids can do it and they don’t feel anything. It’s unbelievable. They could eat like the grimiest, grossest fried shit and they’re just like, “Ah, let’s go on a twisty turny ride.” And I’m like, “That’s crazy.” But [laughter] at this point, knowing myself, I would go for the higher calorie salad. Because then I have the rest of the day and I am still going to feel good: Better energy levels, my stomach isn’t going to feel bad. So, just purely based on how it’s going to make me feel, not thinking about extra calorie burn, just literally because I’m there with my family and I want to make sure that I enjoy the rest of the day. That’s literally it. It’s not even thinking from a fat-loss perspective. And I think you covered all of that super well. A fat-loss perspective, not fat-loss perspective, depending on the individual. At this point in my life, when I’m on vacation, I’m not thinking about fat loss. I’m just like, “Okay, I just want to feel good.” And then at night, let’s say at night we’re going to go to bed and I don’t have walking around to do, yeah, cool, I’ll have the pizza. ‘Cause I don’t have to worry about walking around the 97 degree heat and the humidity, and going on rides with my kids. Like, “Cool, I’m going to eat this, then I’m going to fucking go to bed.” But yeah, if you’re walking around Disney and you want to go on rides, there’s no way I’m having the pizza.

0:34:34.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’m with you. There’s also something to be said, again, not from a body-count perspective now, but just how you feel on vacation, about this type of vacation where you’re not just laying by the pool and taking 1800 steps in a day, but you are moving around 12,000, 15,000. Who knows? You’re at Disney. Intentionally eating more to fuel the activity you’re going to be doing.

0:35:00.8 Jordan Syatt: Especially if you’re chasing kids around.

0:35:02.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. If you’re thinking of yourself, maybe in the next few years with young kids especially, I can see someone thinking, “Okay, I want to keep my nutrition in check on this vacation. And so I’m going to order this salad, but it comes with all this stuff in it. So, I’m just going to eat half of it, and then maybe I’ll eat the other half later on.” I would eat the whole thing to fuel all of the movement you’re going to be doing over the next three, four hours.

0:35:38.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And again, I’m only thinking about this personally because I think you covered all the bases. I’m purely thinking about my current life perspective. I’m also thinking, if I ate the pizza and I felt like shit, I would have a shorter fuse to burn. When you’re dealing with kids, you’re more easy to aggravate. You’re like, “Ugh, let’s just go back to the hotel.” It’s just, you have a shorter fuse. But if you feel better, generally, you have more patience with your kids, you have more enjoyment, you feel better, you can go more rides, you can last longer throughout the day. It’s just, yeah, you’ve really got to think about how it makes you feel as the number one thing, especially on vacation.

0:36:19.3 Mike Vacanti: Good answer. I like it. Also, can’t believe her kids are teenagers. I swear, when we started working together, they were like seven or…

0:36:27.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s crazy, man.

0:36:28.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Time really flies.

0:36:30.2 Jordan Syatt: I feel like kids really force you to see that. Even if they’re not your kids, but you know them, you’re aware of them, you’re aware of their age. Like, Gary’s kids, I’m like, “What the hell? You were so young when I first met you.” And now they’re little adults. Now, it’s like, “What the fuck just happened?” I feel it’s crazy. It’s crazy. It’s a real mind fuck.

0:36:53.2 Mike Vacanti: I have another, actually, part to the intro rant.

0:37:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:37:00.9 Mike Vacanti: And it’s just advice. It’s unpopular advice. If you are not happy with how your business is going and you want to build your fitness business faster, get yourself in ridiculous shape. And that can mean anything. That can mean shredded aesthetic. That can mean super strong. That can mean put on a ton of muscle. Do something objectively impressive to demonstrate authority on that thing, and document it for your audience.

0:37:38.8 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:37:39.6 Mike Vacanti: Caveat, you don’t have to demonstrate it to be able to coach it. Well, true, but as a personal trainer, what you can do and what you look like, whether you like it or not, are part of your marketing…

0:37:52.9 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:37:53.1 Mike Vacanti: And a pretty strong component of it.

0:37:55.9 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:37:56.0 Mike Vacanti: And so, “Ugh, I don’t really want to get leaner.” All right, well, then focus on a different goal. Or, you know what? Mike Matthews, I remember talking to him years back about him not really enjoying how lean he was, and he was probably seven, eight percent body fat. I think he said something to the effect of… And he had said this publicly too. Something to the effect of if he wasn’t running the business, he would probably be a couple percentage points higher in body fat percentage. But it helps him with the marketing to stay a little bit leaner than he would like to be. That’s a sacrifice you make because it’s good for business…

0:38:35.2 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:38:35.7 Mike Vacanti: If you’re not happy with where your business is at. And this relates to something you brought up to me recently, which is, no one was asking you about flexibility stuff until you started getting some really impressive splits. And then people started asking you about flexibility stuff.

0:38:52.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. People started joining the inner circle for that, and I started adding more stuff for it. But here’s another component of that that I think goes overlooked. “You don’t have to look a certain way. You don’t have to be… ” And it’s great. You don’t have to. But, number one, like you said, it is helpful regardless of whether or not you agree with it, just objectively it is. Number two is, and here’s, I think, an equally, if not more important part, getting to be really good at something, really impressive at something, will teach you more.

0:39:22.0 Mike Vacanti: Yep.

0:39:22.3 Jordan Syatt: You will learn more through going through this. And so it’s not to say you can’t be a good coach. It doesn’t even mean you can’t be a great coach without doing it. But just because you could be great doesn’t mean you can’t be better. It’s all about being better. Objectively great, fine. You could be great. But don’t you want to be better than you are now? And the best way to get better is to put yourself through something that causes you to improve. That’s it. You will learn. If you have never been through it, if you’ve never done it, then you’re missing out on personal experience. And that personal experience will make you better. I don’t care if you’re good. I don’t care if you’re great. I don’t care if you’re one of the best. You want to get better. If you want to be better for your clients, you want to be a better coach and have a better chance of helping more people, then you should be aiming to get better. You should be aiming to improve. You should be giving yourself those personal experiences. So, no, you don’t have to be shredded. You don’t have to be a world record holder. You don’t have to do any of that. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with aiming to be more impressive. Because through that chasing objectively of you becoming more impressive, you will learn and you’ll become better.

0:40:40.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s another great point and is absolutely true.

0:40:44.3 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:40:48.7 Mike Vacanti: It just has played out true in so many… I’m just having flashes of images of people who we’ve helped over the years, whether they were in the mentorship or pre-mentorship. And a common thread is, took their own fitness really seriously.

0:41:03.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:41:03.9 Mike Vacanti: And look impressive, like a McLeod or a Carter or an Eric Roberts. These people not only worked hard at helping people, but also did it themselves.

0:41:15.8 Jordan Syatt: And also, I think people hate when this example is brought up, but I think it’s a valid example. If the example pisses you off, I would encourage you to look inward and say, “Well, why does that piss me off?” Would you rather take financial advice from someone who has worked really, really hard and built up their finances and saved a lot of money and is very financially stable, not because someone gave it to them, not because they inherited it, but because they actually worked to do it, or someone who studied it in school and maybe did really well in school, but their finances aren’t good? The answer is always, you’re going to want to take advice from the person who’s walking the walk, not just talking… The person who’s doing it. You will inherently feel more comfortable with that person. You just will. We could have another example. And this is something that you can’t control, but it highlights the exact same thing.

0:42:05.2 Jordan Syatt: Let’s say you have two doctors of equal skill. They’re both cancer doctors. They both work with leukemia. They’re equally good at treating. They’re equally fantastic. One of them has had leukemia and one of them hasn’t. I bet you’ll feel more comfortable with the doctor who has had it because they can empathize with you on a level that the other one can’t because they haven’t been through it. This is something they can’t control. You can’t control who gets it, who doesn’t. And we’re assuming they have equal skill level and equal ability to speak with you and to help you. If you were just diagnosed with leukemia, you’re probably going to want to go with the doctor who had also had it because you know they’ve been through the same thing that you’re going through. It helps. It just helps to know that they know what you’re going through. It just does.

0:42:51.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I like both those examples. Am I underestimating how much that concept in general is going to piss people off?

0:43:01.8 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I don’t know. I never really know it’s going to piss people off. [laughter] I made a post yesterday that I thought was pretty common sense, and the comments section is just an absolute shit show.

0:43:10.3 Mike Vacanti: What was that?

0:43:11.1 Jordan Syatt: I’ll read it to you.

0:43:12.1 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:43:12.9 Jordan Syatt: I said, “Just because I call out RFK Jr. When he makes blatantly false and unsubstantiated claims about seed oils and raw milk doesn’t mean I’m not a conservative. Similarly, just because I call out Bernie Sanders when he puts all the blame on corporate greed and corruption without a shred of emphasis on individual responsibility doesn’t mean I’m not a liberal. It means I don’t think health should be political. It means I prefer to look at the facts rather than allow a political label to dictate my beliefs. And it means I value intellectual honesty over blind loyalty to any ideology or figurehead. Crazy concept.” And the overall response is really good. But, dude, the comment section is wild. And one thing that people seem to have misread is I said “it means I don’t think health should be political.” And a lot of people are like, “You’re wrong, health is political.” I’m like, “No, no, I understand health is inherently political. I get it. But I don’t think it should be.” And so as a result of me not thinking it should be, I don’t place my politics purely… I don’t decide my politics purely based off of what one person in any individual party is saying in regard to health. I’m also not like a single-issue voter. There are many things that come into play here. But you’re not surprised that one went nuts?

0:44:32.9 Mike Vacanti: Well, it’s funny because you’re like, “I can’t believe this pissed people off.” And it’s a post about politics…

[overlapping conversation]

0:44:37.7 Jordan Syatt: I am surprised. But I thought that it was pretty even keel.

0:44:42.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but, dude, when you think of people with extreme political opinions, the middle is like more evil than the opposition to a lot of these people. You kind of positioned yourself in the middle there, and people hate that. But it’s like, “It’s not enough to not be racist. You need to be an anti-racist.” [laughter] And I’m sure there are examples on the far right too of like, “Come way over here,” instead of hating the middle as much as they hate the opposite side. I’m curious, who did you get more negative backlash from on that post? Democrats or Republicans?

0:45:19.6 Jordan Syatt: Democrats. Democrats. There were no negative…

0:45:21.8 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.

0:45:23.8 Jordan Syatt: No, that’s not true. There were a few people who were on the right who are like… But I will say the Republicans were more polite about it, and they didn’t take it as personally. But the Republicans were like, “But RFK is doing really good things, and seed oils are dangerous and da, da, da, da.” Whereas the left was more like… They were the ones who were like, “Health is political. If you’re not, if you don’t recognize that, then you’re contributing to this, and you’re coming from a place of privilege.” And it was a little bit more personal attacks about me as opposed to, “Let’s look at the whole situation.” And also, I didn’t say it’s not political. I said, “I don’t think it should be.” So, it’s saying two very different things. But yeah, the comment section is nuts. It’s pretty crazy. [chuckle]

0:46:11.7 Mike Vacanti: Are you happy from an engagement perspective?

0:46:13.9 Jordan Syatt: Engagement doesn’t make me happy. I would have been more happy if there was less engagement and more unity. That would have brought me more happiness. Engagement at this point doesn’t really contribute to my happiness or lack thereof. It’s more of just a data point. It’s more unfortunate, the comment section, to be honest, than anything else.

0:46:39.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:46:40.0 Jordan Syatt: That the divisiveness within the comment section is. And the inability to actually read what was said. The people’s lack of… The people coming at me being like, “But it is political,” or… No, I know. I’m aware. Health is political. Obviously. Everything. Everything is political. There’s policy regarding everything.

0:47:06.0 Mike Vacanti: And we can also make things more political by hyper-focusing on that aspect of it.

0:47:11.9 Jordan Syatt: Yes. Correct. Correct.

0:47:17.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, certainly there are components of health that are political.

0:47:21.4 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:47:22.0 Mike Vacanti: But what’s harder to do? As an individual constituent in a country of 350 million, to change policy or to encourage different behavior, even if that behavior is in people who are disadvantaged?

0:47:44.1 Jordan Syatt: Yes, correct, correct. It’s exactly right. Completely agree.

0:47:48.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I don’t want to get in the weeds on that one because I’m… Anyone who’s commenting on that type of post and is upset about what you said even though that isn’t what you said, they haven’t crossed my feeds in like four years.

[laughter]

0:48:09.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you’re in a vacuum, bro.

0:48:10.1 Mike Vacanti: I’m not seeing that. And it’s amazing.

0:48:13.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’m jealous.

0:48:17.9 Mike Vacanti: I see reasonable left wing takes, I see moderate takes, I see reasonable right wing takes. And now on Twitter, I see some outrageous right wing takes.

0:48:25.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude, the right wing takes on Twitter have gotten really bad.

0:48:29.1 Mike Vacanti: And I like everything in the middle whatever. If we’re going to go back to the normal distribution, 80%. I don’t know. But I don’t see a lot of the crazy stuff from the summer of 2020. I don’t see that anymore.

0:48:44.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I don’t see that to be fair either. I don’t see a lot. I don’t really see much of that either.

0:48:50.2 Mike Vacanti: Let’s hit your Q&A just for a couple rapid fires.

0:48:52.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, this is interesting. “Not a question. Just want to say your YouTube channel has so many hidden gems. LOL. Going back 12 years even.” I thought this was interesting because if you go back to my YouTube channel from 12 years ago, the videos were bad. And I want to say bad, the production quality, I mean. And the way that I speak. There were times where I didn’t even cut out the part. Like, I would hit the camera, then walk to the center of the room, say the whole video, and then walk back to the camera and hit off. And like, I didn’t even jump-cut that part. And there was no microphone. None of that. And I wouldn’t recommend this, especially nowadays because you can film on your phone and you can get a microphone on Amazon for $14 and you can jump-cut it. There are apps that make it ridiculously easy now. But it is really interesting that even videos that aren’t nearly as well-produced or nearly as well-spoken as they would be now, they still do drive me business and people do still enjoy them. And I think they are still a pretty significant reason why people would join the inner circle or want coaching from me because they see how I coach in video form.

0:49:58.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s awesome.

0:49:58.1 Jordan Syatt: Also, by the way, I’m noticing that if I search a video… If I search like “Romanian Deadlift” on Google, I’m getting Instagram videos popping up. Google is now showing recent… The first thing that pops up from Instagram is a three-day-ago video that doesn’t have crazy engagement. Which I think there’s a real opportunity for coaches making content, not searching for crazy engagement, but for essentially search engine optimization from Google. If you just want to make these exercise technique videos, put them on your Instagram. Even if it’s not crazy engagement, it looks like it’s doing it based on time. So, if you’re a more recent one to be there, you could be getting people who are finding you from your exercise videos on Instagram even if they don’t go viral. You could be getting one, two, three people or 50 people or a hundred people finding you from a Google Search on that exercise because they’re finding a video that popped up on Google Search.

0:51:08.6 Mike Vacanti: That’s cool. SEO via short-form social media.

0:51:12.9 Jordan Syatt: Here’s a question. “What is this new trend of males suntanning their buttholes, perineum sunning? This is a joke, right?” You want to skip it?

0:51:24.1 Mike Vacanti: No, no, I’m cool with answering it. It sounds ridiculous on its face, right? [laughter] Why are people suntanning their butts? This is a situation, and this is…

0:51:34.1 Jordan Syatt: Not just their butt, but their butthole.

0:51:37.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, their butthole. This is bad by me. I have a natural inclination to defend positions when I don’t like the people who are making fun of the position. So, even if I don’t agree with it…

0:51:50.9 Jordan Syatt: Super objectively analyzing your own response. I like that.

0:51:53.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I’ve never done it, I’ve never recommended it. I remember reading research from a couple reputable people. This was about sunning your testicles and health benefits. There were PubMeds about this. I didn’t go deep. It was never a real area of interest for me. But my emotional response is, because the people making fun of this are often so neckbeardy, I want to defend it. But I’m not into it, nor do I know a lot about it, so I can’t defend it. So, instead I’m just expressing this word salad to you right now.

0:52:35.1 Jordan Syatt: I just can’t help but think about what position are you in when you’re suntanning your butthole? Are you lying on your stomach and spreading your butt apart? Are you lying on your back and you’re like…

[overlapping conversation]

0:52:44.0 Mike Vacanti: Nah, man, you’re doing the happy baby, for sure.

0:52:48.1 Jordan Syatt: Got it.

0:52:49.9 Mike Vacanti: You haven’t seen the cartoon meme of…

0:52:55.1 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:52:56.0 Mike Vacanti: The guy laying… It’s like a cartoon. He’s laying on his back, holding his feet.

[chuckle]

0:53:01.7 Jordan Syatt: How long are you supposed to hold it for?

0:53:03.8 Mike Vacanti: I have no idea. Dude, I don’t know about this.

0:53:07.9 Jordan Syatt: It also feels to me like if we’re going to actually talk seriously about it, it feels like we’re designed in a way where your butthole isn’t supposed to get sun.

0:53:16.8 Mike Vacanti: Exposed… That’s a good point. That’s a very good point.

0:53:19.8 Jordan Syatt: If we were supposed to get butthole exposure to sun, then it wouldn’t be trapped between our cheeks.

0:53:24.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, [chuckle] it’s a fantastic point. I also don’t know… I mean, since this is an NSFW episode, I’ve kind of like that we’re kind of grouping it all together in here. I don’t know the difference between the possible benefits of butthole sunning and testicle sunning, because I know they both…

0:53:44.8 Jordan Syatt: They’re an inch-and-a-half apart.

[laughter]

0:53:49.9 Mike Vacanti: I know there are fans of both approaches.

0:53:52.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I would imagine if you’re a dude, if you’re sunning one, you’re sunning the other.

0:53:56.2 Mike Vacanti: I would also imagine that to be the case. [chuckle]

0:53:58.8 Jordan Syatt: Unless you’re a dude and you’re only doing testicle, and then you could just like sort of pull them out of your shorts. Whereas for butthole, you got to take everything off.

0:54:08.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And also, you need privacy for this. We don’t need children walking by while someone’s partaking in these kind of behaviors.

0:54:19.8 Jordan Syatt: Can’t be out on your front lawn in your busy neighborhood. [laughter] “Hey, Kim.”

[laughter]

0:54:29.0 Mike Vacanti: “Studies like one from Hormone and Metabolic Research 2010 show that Vitamin D supplementation can modestly raise testosterone in men who are deficient. Since the skin can synthesize Vitamin D when exposed to UVB rays, the logic might extend to exposing more skin, including the scrotum. However, the scrotum skin isn’t uniquely equipped to produce more Vitamin D than other areas, and no studies have tested this specific practice.”

0:54:57.1 Jordan Syatt: Is that Grok?

0:54:58.3 Mike Vacanti: Wow, you know Grok’s…

0:55:00.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s Grok’s voice.

[overlapping conversation]

0:55:00.9 Mike Vacanti: Grok’s tone already.

0:55:01.8 Jordan Syatt: There’s a distinct voice between Grok and ChatGPT, and that was a Grok voice. I really prefer Grok as opposed to ChatGPT. I never use ChatGPT anymore.

0:55:10.0 Mike Vacanti: I never did. [laughter] “Proponents, mostly anecdotal voices online, claim benefits like higher testosterone, better libido, or a vague sense of ‘vitality.’ Some tie it to ancient practices like Taoist… ” Or is that Daoist? “… Energy cultivation or fringe biohacking ideas. But the reality, no peer-reviewed research backs this up. On the flip side, general sunlight exposure, not specifically to testicles, can improve mood and circadian rhythm, which might indirectly support hormonal health.” Yeah, so it seems…

0:55:49.0 Jordan Syatt: It’s just sun exposure.

0:55:50.3 Mike Vacanti: Seems like there’s not a lot of evidence to back up the practice, but… Yeah.

0:55:56.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:55:57.0 Mike Vacanti: To each their own. I think as long as you don’t burn yourself and you do it safely and you’re not exposing yourself to other…

0:56:03.0 Jordan Syatt: The public.

0:56:04.2 Mike Vacanti: To the public. Thank you, Jordan. I know there are worse things you could be doing.

0:56:10.0 Jordan Syatt: Like putting alcohol on your butt. That’s way worse.

0:56:12.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Remember when that was a thing? Like eye shots and…

0:56:14.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude, that was a big thing. People would put shots in their butt.

0:56:17.8 Mike Vacanti: Honestly, man… Here we go. This is a discussion I can get behind. Now, I would rather… [laughter] I would rather sun my lower region at an appropriate amount and not burning, than drink the average amount of alcohol that the average American drinks in a week.

0:56:37.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I mean, one sounds like you do it in a relaxing, enjoyable environment while you’re getting sun, and the other one sounds like you’re drinking a toxin. Which I enjoy doing that, but if it’s from a health perspective, I would absolutely rather get sun on my butthole.

0:56:55.1 Mike Vacanti: I’m starting to not like my bias towards defending positions I don’t agree with just because I don’t like the other side. I need to work on that.

0:57:06.0 Jordan Syatt: No, I think it’s good. That’s hanging on to the little bit of anger you’ve got left.

0:57:10.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s exactly…

[overlapping conversation]

0:57:11.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s like the last 3% of anger that you’ve got.

0:57:13.9 Mike Vacanti: You’re so right. [laughter] You’re so right. [laughter] I find it harder to support a good idea than I do just take the opposite of an idea that I know is bad. [laughter] All right. Another rapid fire or two.

0:57:37.0 Jordan Syatt: Someone said, “Just curious, do you ever do toes-to-bar in your workouts? Like that CrossFit gymnastics exercise?” And I’m going to take it as, “Do you ever prescribe it, or do you ever write-in toes-to-bar?” No, I don’t. I never do that in my inner circle workouts. If I was doing a one-on-one coaching, I would only do it if they were a CrossFit athlete and they specifically needed it for their CrossFit. I wouldn’t say there’s anything inherently wrong with it. I would say that it’s more of a skill than a performance-based movement. So, it’s a skill that you learn, sort of like, I would say like the kipping pull-up. That’s a skill. I never ever, ever would… I’ve programmed kipping pull-ups for gymnastic… Not for gymnastic. For CrossFit athletes. I programmed because they need it for their sport. But it’s a skill. I would rather just have people do fucking chin-ups and pull-ups in the same way rather… If someone wants to work their abs. Hanging leg raises, I would. I don’t really write them into inner circle workouts because of the barrier to entry is pretty fucking huge.

0:58:51.9 Jordan Syatt: I will record a hanging leg-raise video and have it in there as a swap option for people if they want to try a more advanced… But I’m never putting that in like a group program that’s large-scale general population. For a more intermediate to advanced person who explicitly asks for it, yeah, I would do that. But also it’s more of a skill than a performance enhancer. And I think it’s an important distinction to make when you’re choosing a specific exercise.

0:59:19.8 Mike Vacanti: Great answer. Yeah, I find sufficient range on a standard knee-raise or leg-raise without the explicit instruction to get the toes to the bar.

0:59:30.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, when people are doing toes-to-bar, they’re usually using momentum. Especially when it’s done in CrossFit. Not usually. They are using momentum. They are swinging those legs up. Because the only requisite is they just have to get their toes to touch their hand or the bar. So, by any means necessary, that’s how the kipping pull-up came to be. So, you just got to get your chest to the bar. So, it’s like, “Okay, so we’ll fucking flail and… ” And granted it’s a difficult skill. It takes a lot of technique. But it’s technique, not strength. It’s technique, not muscle. It’s technique and momentum. That’s what it is. So, that’s what toes-to-bar is. I would rather have a great, slow, and controlled hanging leg-raise even with your knees bent. That allows you to get great anterior and posterior pelvic tilt and really recruits your lower abs to generate that movement, than using a toes-to-bar that is inherently less muscle, more momentum.

1:00:26.2 Mike Vacanti: Great.

1:00:27.0 Jordan Syatt: Before we go, we have a sale coming soon for the mentorship to celebrate the launch of the Instagram Growth Guide Volume 2.0 which is out. So, if you’re in the mentorship, you already have access to it. If you’re not in the mentorship, we’ll do a sale soon-ish.

1:00:43.0 Mike Vacanti: Down in the description, YouTube description, Spotify description, wherever you’re listening. You can join our email list by getting that 30 Ways to Build Your Online Fitness Business. That is where you will first hear about the sale when it is announced. So, if you’re not subscribed to our email list, subscribe. You’ll get first notice so you do not miss the sale when it happens.

1:01:01.6 Jordan Syatt: Please leave a five-star review. Have a wonderful week. Talk to you soon.

1:01:06.4 Mike Vacanti: Bye.