Episode 253: The Best Ab Exercises, Baby Item Must-Haves, Falling Asleep ASAP, and More…

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

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

0:00:13.1 Mike Vacanti: What’s happening?

0:00:13.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, you know, brother.

0:00:14.9 Mike Vacanti: Welcome back to the How to Become A Personal Trainer Podcast. To couple grinders.

0:00:19.9 Jordan Syatt: Thank you for everyone for listening. Saw a bunch of people posting their Spotify Wrapped, their, what they listened to over the year. So thank you for that. Thank you for all the people who listen a bunch. It means the world to us.

0:00:30.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s amazing. That started already?

0:00:33.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:00:34.0 Mike Vacanti: I guess December 1st?

0:00:34.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:00:35.4 Mike Vacanti: Cool.

0:00:35.9 Jordan Syatt: Year is wrapped up. How’s your year been? Was it a good year?

0:00:39.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it was a great year.

0:00:41.3 Jordan Syatt: Good.

0:00:42.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. How about you?

0:00:43.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude. It was a great year. Baruch Hashem.

0:00:48.0 Mike Vacanti: 2025.

0:00:49.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, Michael’s phone is going off.

0:00:51.6 Mike Vacanti: I get so many spam calls.

0:00:54.0 Jordan Syatt: Is it on DND?

0:00:55.0 Mike Vacanti: I don’t go on DND. No one calls me. It’s 2025. The only person who cold-calls is sitting right in front of me. And he can’t cold call me because we’re podding together.

0:01:06.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’m surprised you don’t put on DND just for the spam calls, and then like un-DND family, friends.

0:01:14.1 Mike Vacanti: Sounds like a lot of work and technological savviness, which I’m realizing at my ripe age, I’m starting to lack.

0:01:22.3 Jordan Syatt: Almost 40, bro.

0:01:23.5 Mike Vacanti: Pushing it. I’m definitely a quarter step down in terms of tech capabilities.

0:01:32.0 Jordan Syatt: No, you’re not.

0:01:32.9 Mike Vacanti: I am.

0:01:33.6 Jordan Syatt: Maybe you are. Yeah, maybe you are.

0:01:36.1 Mike Vacanti: You’re like four steps down.

0:01:37.5 Jordan Syatt: I’m lower than you? That’s just not true.

0:01:42.9 Mike Vacanti: Do you think you’re technologically savvy?

0:01:44.6 Jordan Syatt: No. I mean, for, I would say for the average person, yeah. Especially on very specific skill sets.

0:01:55.7 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:01:56.2 Jordan Syatt: Like, whether it’s video editing or…

0:01:59.1 Mike Vacanti: Stuff that you do.

0:02:00.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, stuff that I do. But, no, not in general. I don’t know how to use spreadsheets. I have no clue how to use spreadsheets.

0:02:09.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’m thinking more like fix your mother-in-law’s internet, connect an Apple Watch to an iPhone that’s having some wonky connectivity issues, that kind of everyday troubleshooting.

0:02:22.5 Jordan Syatt: I can do the connections. The fixing something is… It’s funny, I’m confusing technical savviness with I could just YouTube it, and then very quickly figure it out. But I can connect stuff no problem, but if I’m trying to figure out something with a router, I’m gonna be YouTubing it.

0:02:40.8 Mike Vacanti: Okay. All right, that makes sense. What else is happening?

0:02:45.4 Jordan Syatt: What do you got planned for ’26?

0:02:47.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s a loaded… That’s the type of question that an I like me would like to know before the episode.

0:02:52.4 Jordan Syatt: Really?

0:02:53.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:02:53.5 Jordan Syatt: You can’t think of that on the spot?

0:02:55.2 Mike Vacanti: No. Not even remotely.

0:02:57.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, okay. Maybe we’ll talk about that next episode.

0:03:00.7 Mike Vacanti: Maybe. I just don’t really like sharing my plans with the internet, you know?

0:03:07.3 Jordan Syatt: Gotta keep them guessing. Just stay in the shadows.

0:03:10.4 Mike Vacanti: Not even that. It’s just, I don’t know. Taking things one day at a time here.

0:03:17.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s smart. That’s good, dude.

0:03:19.2 Mike Vacanti: What are you sipping on over there?

0:03:20.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s coffee.

0:03:21.7 Mike Vacanti: With what in it? Almond milk?

0:03:23.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:03:23.6 Mike Vacanti: Any sweetener?

0:03:24.5 Jordan Syatt: Almond milk sweetener, too. Almond milk creamer, sorry.

0:03:29.5 Mike Vacanti: Mmh. So some almond milk, some almond milk creamer.

0:03:32.0 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:03:32.7 Mike Vacanti: And coffee.

0:03:33.3 Jordan Syatt: And coffee, yeah. It’s like powdered coffee.

0:03:35.5 Mike Vacanti: Is the creamer, creamer’s got a little bit of sugar in it?

0:03:38.8 Jordan Syatt: I think so. I think a little bit.

0:03:40.6 Mike Vacanti: Nice.

0:03:41.0 Jordan Syatt: I’m immediately post-workout. I did some threshold training, did some lifting, did some mobility. It was a pretty all-encompassing workout.

0:03:48.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s great. You have a new training time of day.

0:03:51.6 Jordan Syatt: I’m trying. ‘Cause I skipped a workout last night again ’cause I fell asleep with my oldest, and by… There have been many times where I’ll fall asleep with her, and then I’ll get up and do my workout. But I also don’t want to be taking pre-workout at 10 o’clock, and it’s just, it’s tough.

0:04:09.4 Mike Vacanti: Interesting. That was never a concern for you, I feel like.

0:04:12.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’m just thinking about it more now. Pushing 35, bro.

0:04:17.0 Mike Vacanti: Meaning you just, you knew that it negatively impacted sleep quality before, but you didn’t care, but now you care?

0:04:23.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, now I care.

0:04:24.5 Mike Vacanti: I had always thought that it just didn’t negatively impact your sleep quality.

0:04:29.2 Jordan Syatt: Well, I mean, I think, realistically, what it does is it gives me enough energy to stay up and play chess, or watch YouTube, or whatever, and it gives me enough justification to not go to sleep. So I end up not getting as much sleep as I could have. So now I’m trying to switch. I’m trying to switch to that morning workout. Hit the first one today. It was good.

0:04:54.7 Mike Vacanti: Did it go well?

0:04:55.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it went great.

0:04:57.1 Mike Vacanti: Any… ‘Cause I know one of your… One of the things you really like about late-night workouts is no one’s interrupting you, whether that’s in your house or on your phone, I would imagine. Was that an issue at all?

0:05:10.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, of course it was an issue. Just ignoring. I’m just ignoring, and I’m like this…

0:05:21.1 Mike Vacanti: Power through. I’m mid-set.

0:05:23.8 Jordan Syatt: I’m in the middle of my workout. I’m not replying. I’m not. Nope. Yeah, so it was an issue, but I’m like, fuck it. Just gotta keep going.

0:05:31.2 Mike Vacanti: Is the temptation to be on your phone between sets there?

0:05:34.1 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I haven’t been on Instagram probably more than 15 minutes over the last 48 hours.

0:05:42.2 Mike Vacanti: Wow.

0:05:42.7 Jordan Syatt: Which is great.

0:05:44.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s incredible.

0:05:45.2 Jordan Syatt: I haven’t posted anything in two days, and I haven’t really been using it much at all. So that’s been really good. So the temptation of scrolling. No, not really.

0:05:57.4 Mike Vacanti: And I guess I go to, you don’t really check email on your phone, but text, WhatsApp, just the temptation for any kind of phone pickup between sets.

0:06:07.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, for sure. For sure, that’s there. But I’ve been watching longer-form YouTube videos, which has been between sets, which is good. Or listening to an audiobook or whatever it is. So that’s been much more conducive. But yeah, getting text messages, getting WhatsApps, getting calls…

0:06:32.7 Mike Vacanti: Putting out a fire here, fire there.

0:06:35.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:06:35.5 Mike Vacanti: You’re a firefighter.

0:06:36.3 Jordan Syatt: That is what I think. If you own your own business, you definitely are a firefighter in some capacity. Gary is like the elite firefighter. And then there are steps down from there.

0:06:48.6 Mike Vacanti: Lots of steps down from there.

0:06:50.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:06:50.5 Mike Vacanti: Like a whole pyramid of steps.

0:06:54.2 Jordan Syatt: Mount Everest of steps.

0:06:56.0 Mike Vacanti: You know what? I don’t know if I fully, I think you can have your own business and barely be a firefighter.

0:07:07.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, but there is still… I think the lowest step of owning your own business and being a firefighter is you have no employees, and the only fires you’ve got to put out are with clients. That’s… Or actually, there are other fires. Like back in the day when your website was a really big thing, hosting goes down. Great. Or you’ve got a major issue. Cool. Now you got to put that fire out. Email list issue, whatever. You got to put that out. So there are other fires, but once you start adding employees, or your business grow, and/or your business grows in other capacities, the more things you’re relying on, the more of a firefighter you got to become.

0:07:50.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, bigger audience, too. More fires.

0:07:53.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:07:54.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s kind of like the amount of firefighting you want to take on is proportionate to the ambition of your business goals.

0:08:03.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. That’s exactly right.

0:08:06.0 Mike Vacanti: Cool.

0:08:06.5 Jordan Syatt: Better have a lot of water and a powerful hose. And a couple of backup hoses.

0:08:16.7 Mike Vacanti: Oh, I got a plan for 2026. I’m retiring from fantasy football.

0:08:23.9 Jordan Syatt: You’re retiring?

0:08:24.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:08:25.5 Jordan Syatt: Why?

0:08:27.4 Mike Vacanti: Because I realized the thing I like about fantasy football is that I’m in touch with people who I really like, like a lot of my friends from going back to elementary school, some of them. But I can just not do the fantasy football part and just participate in the group text thread. And so…

0:08:47.5 Jordan Syatt: Why don’t you like fantasy football, though?

0:08:49.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s just… It’s too much time.

0:08:52.0 Jordan Syatt: Is it?

0:08:52.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, and it’s this temptation to like… Yeah, it can be. The way I do it, I guess.

0:09:01.3 Jordan Syatt: I don’t even know how it works. I don’t know how you do it. I just know there have been occasions where I’ve called you, and you’re about to go to the draft, and you’re like, “Bro, can’t talk.” I’m either doing a practice draft.

0:09:11.8 Mike Vacanti: Well, no, here’s what happened. That happened once. It was this year’s draft. I was trying to put my daughter down before I went to the draft, and I was like the 11th pick, or 12th pick, or 13th, I don’t even remember, late. So I thought that I could show up late to the draft, but the first 10 picks went like five seconds each. And so I was in the car on my way to the draft with my phone out, which is very dangerous. Really should not do that. And I had to do the first round from the phone, and you called me during it. That’s…

0:09:45.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, so it can get intense. But I don’t know how the season works. I don’t know how anything works.

0:09:51.6 Mike Vacanti: And we don’t.

0:09:52.2 Jordan Syatt: I remember one time in high school, I took part in a, I think this was on Yahoo. I don’t know. Is it still on Yahoo?

0:10:00.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I think Yahoo’s the best platform for it. ESPN has one. There’s a bunch of them now, but yeah.

0:10:05.8 Jordan Syatt: So it must have been 2007 or something, 2006. And I’m doing this draft just because I had a group of friends who were like, “You want it?” I was like, “Yeah, sure.” But I don’t know who I’m picking. I have no… I don’t know any of the players.

0:10:18.4 Mike Vacanti: They were probably like, “Good. Get Jordan in here.”

0:10:20.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, they were super excited to have me in there because I just know none of it. And I just remember like, I had no idea what I was doing. And then I didn’t watch any of the season. And so people would be like, “Oh man, Jordan had a sick game.” And I’d be like, “Great, dude.” I don’t know. They’re like, “Oh man, this one got hurt. Now, who are you gonna sub him with or whatever?” I was like, “I don’t know how any of this works.”

0:10:42.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s the way to do it if you’re gonna play.

0:10:44.1 Jordan Syatt: Like investments.

0:10:45.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, like investments. Just…

0:10:46.5 Jordan Syatt: Put it in and don’t look at it.

0:10:48.5 Mike Vacanti: Although you have to look at it. You have to… It’s actually different because fantasy football, you need to actively manage if you want to compete. But the hourly rate of actively managing over a season is extraordinarily low. And there’s something about my personality that gets competitive about the dumbest things, like pickup basketball, or shoveling snow when my neighbor… Like dumb, dumb things. And fantasy football is one of them. And so I don’t have the gear. I’ll just watch a, I won’t watch. I’ll have the Thursday night game on in the background when it’s like two teams that I don’t care about at all, because I have one player playing just to keep an eye on what’s going on. It’s almost, it’s like a very low level of gambling is what it… Is the mindset associated with it. But it’s just a huge time suck. So I’m done.

0:11:45.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s also really smart if NFL has partnered with it in any way, ’cause then it gets everyone watching all these different games constantly.

0:11:53.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s genius. It’s genius. It’s a battle for attention.

0:11:56.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Do they have that for baseball, and hockey, and all that?

0:12:00.4 Mike Vacanti: Nowhere near as popular, but, yeah. Fantasy sports, I think, exist for all of those.

0:12:05.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yet online gambling is a big issue, which I didn’t really understand at all.

0:12:10.4 Mike Vacanti: Huge.

0:12:11.5 Jordan Syatt: Someone I was, who was I talking… Someone I was talking to the other day was telling me that she struggles; she’s lost a lot of money with solitaire. Like, there’s money gambling solitaire.

0:12:24.4 Mike Vacanti: Interesting. I don’t know about that.

0:12:26.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. She said, like, she’s won a little bit, but then she’ll lose like 300 bucks.

0:12:31.1 Mike Vacanti: Oh my gosh.

0:12:31.7 Jordan Syatt: I was like, “Oh, shit.” It’s, yeah, online. But some people play online roulette.

0:12:37.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:12:37.9 Jordan Syatt: Which is crazy. It’s like, I don’t trust it in the casino. I’m definitely not gonna fucking trust it on an algorithm. That’s crazy.

0:12:45.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Those are games where you are at a disadvantage over the long run, and…

0:12:52.3 Jordan Syatt: To put it mildly.

0:12:53.9 Mike Vacanti: No, just accurately. Just accurately. You can win in the short run, but in the long run, the house has an edge on everything.

0:13:02.9 Jordan Syatt: But I feel like on an app, they could easily build it out, so it’s like…

0:13:07.7 Mike Vacanti: They wouldn’t make it so they’re too heavy of a favorite because then no one would play.

0:13:10.7 Jordan Syatt: Interesting.

0:13:11.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. They’re not just gonna win every hand because then…

0:13:14.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:13:16.1 Mike Vacanti: They’re not gonna get the gambling addict to get a spike of dopamine. Like, “Oh my gosh, I won. I think I can win more.” But, yeah, it’s a massive problem. And, I mean, it’s one of the great addictions of our time. It’s incredibly damaging for people who are losing money they can’t afford to lose.

0:13:38.0 Jordan Syatt: Can you take loans out at a casino?

0:13:40.1 Mike Vacanti: I know high rollers can do that, yes. I don’t know if there’s a program for anyone to take a loan out.

0:13:49.8 Jordan Syatt: Okay, good.

0:13:50.5 Mike Vacanti: I’m not sure.

0:13:51.8 Jordan Syatt: That would be a big problem.

0:13:53.0 Mike Vacanti: To my knowledge and understanding, no. But, yeah, I’m not positive on that. Yeah, it’s just bad. And now all of these, at least the NFL, but I assume other pro sports leagues, over the last several years have partnered with, because all the gambling used to be underground. It wasn’t talked about on the broadcasts. And now, in these pregame shows, they’re talking about, “Oh, what bets are you making? What prop bets? So and so for, he’s gonna pass for over 242 yards. If Derrick Henry gets at least one rushing touchdown. Here’s my bet of the week.” And so they’re really promoting it. There’s a lot of money in it. I mean, you see with people who have big audiences and their primary audience is dudes, basically, or younger dudes and dudes, all have DraftKings, all of these big online casinos as their sponsors, and they’re clearly making a lot of money from those sponsorships.

0:14:52.5 Jordan Syatt: I saw the craziest thing the other day. And I’m not, I don’t understand who’s playing, the players, but I know the rules of these sports, and I’m aware of it. And I’m aware of common trends. I brought this up because the comment section, I saw a football game where this, I forget which team it was. Might have been the Giants. They were winning, but there was a huge bet where if they won by X amount, then it was, it was like an over/under type bet. And they were on the 20 or 26 yard line, and they were supposed, they could have gone for a field goal very easily. That’s a nothing field goal. It’s a nothing-burger field goal.

0:15:33.3 Mike Vacanti: I want to say it was the Browns. It was late in the game, and the over/under, which is the total amount of points scored in the game.

0:15:42.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, that’s what it was. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

0:15:43.3 Mike Vacanti: They were like two points away from the over/under.

0:15:45.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So get three points on the field goal. And they decided not to do it.

0:15:50.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, on the 29 or something, on the 20s, in the 20s yard line, and they punted instead of kicking the field goal.

0:15:56.6 Jordan Syatt: Punting in the 20s is insane.

0:15:58.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s very, very uncommon.

0:16:00.9 Jordan Syatt: Do you think that, because all the comments were like, this is obviously because of betting.

0:16:08.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, look, yeah, I think there’s a lot of shadiness in professional sports, and it very likely could have been, there could have been something shady going on there. Absolutely.

0:16:21.4 Jordan Syatt: Where was this over/under? Was this just like…

0:16:25.2 Mike Vacanti: All of the sports books.

0:16:26.7 Jordan Syatt: Got it. Okay, got it. So basically, someone might have had it against that, had a bet against that over, and they’re like, “There’s no way we’re gonna allow this to go over that.” So…

0:16:38.1 Mike Vacanti: I don’t even know what the intricacies of the conspiracy would be if it’s like the majority of the bets placed were on the over. So the casinos have, it would be in their best interest if it came under. And so someone at the casino is phoning over to someone in the NFL who’s talking down to the… But that’s not a referee thing, right? That’s a coach thing. So then you’re getting into some really weird stuff. They were up two scores late in the game. Does going up, yeah, going up three scores is good. 29 plus the 39, 46-yard field goal. Yeah, I don’t know.

0:17:19.1 Jordan Syatt: And it’s pretty crazy ’cause I got looking into games and sports that had been rigged before. ‘Cause I think a lot of people are like, “This is a conspiracy. It wouldn’t actually happen.” Look at the 1919 World Series. You know the 1919 World Series was rigged?

0:17:36.0 Mike Vacanti: No, I did not.

0:17:37.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. The 19, quick search. 1919 World Series is the most famous example of a rigged World Series in which eight Chicago White Sox players conspired with gamblers to deliberately lose the Series to the Cincinnati Reds. This event is known as the Black Sox Scandal.

0:17:52.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:17:55.1 Jordan Syatt: Evidence was exposed after the Series, with one of the players confessing to his involvement. Eight players were banned from professional baseball for life. Other World Series scandals, there’ve been other controversies such as the 2017 Houston Astros cheating scandal. But that’s not the same. But, man, dude, it really does make you think. And then you see… I mean, my feed gets a fair amount of these, referees making calls that are just so blatantly obviously wrong in a very important situation that it’s just… It’s like, man, either they had money, or they’ve got someone in their ear being like, “You better make this call.” It’s really wild.

0:18:36.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah, there’s definitely cheating going on there. There have been referees who were prosecuted and caught, basically. And not everyone who does it is getting caught. That’s a problem, I think that the… This is where, like, where do you draw the line on freedom? It’s the hardcore libertarians who are like, “All hard drugs should be legal. Heroin should be…” Gambling isn’t on that level, but I would imagine the majority of money lost is a Pareto distribution of people who have a massive problem with gambling. And it’s really too bad.

0:19:25.0 Jordan Syatt: To go back to the sports stuff. I love baseball. Again, I don’t know any of the players or team. I know the teams, I don’t know the individual players and stats. But a huge part of my YouTube feed is baseball clips. And I grew up playing baseball, so I really enjoy it. But one of the thing that I don’t understand in every sport, whether it’s football, I think basketball has it. Basically, almost every sport has an instant replay where you can go and see, like, okay, what actually happened. Let’s go look at the replay so we can reverse the call if we need to, or make a different call. In baseball, I don’t know if they’re bringing it in, but the home plate umpires make so many bad calls. And you can see it being deliberate, like, they’ll have an argument with the pitcher or something, and then they’ll make deliberately bad calls. It’s like, if they just had a cam… Because they’ve got cameras, they have them already in place. You can literally see, was that over the plate? Was it not over the plate? What happened?

0:20:32.1 Jordan Syatt: But I don’t know why. And I would venture a guess that there’s something going on where they don’t want to take away the umpire’s ability to make these calls, because they’ve ruined games. They’ve stripped, essentially, teams away from winning massive games, massive series, because of their bad calls that are patently incorrect. It’s like, why not just use the fucking cameras?

0:20:56.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I don’t know a lot about that, but your perspective makes sense to me.

0:21:03.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Let’s just figure out what actually happened.

0:21:05.7 Mike Vacanti: We can get it right super easily. What is the benefit of the human error in the game? Is it tradition? Is it, like, we’ve always had an umpire? I don’t know.

0:21:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It doesn’t make sense at all, so… Anyway, should I open up Q&A?

0:21:19.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, let’s open up the Q&A.

0:21:21.4 Jordan Syatt: All right. Baby gear must-haves.

0:21:26.1 Mike Vacanti: The Doona.

0:21:26.8 Jordan Syatt: You love that Doona.

0:21:28.0 Mike Vacanti: Love that Doona. Love that Doona.

0:21:30.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:21:30.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s a car seat stroller, two-in-one, that you don’t even need an attachment or a base for. We use a base when we’re at home, but when you’re traveling, you don’t have to bring the base that goes in the car seat because the Doona can just go in…

0:21:41.6 Jordan Syatt: Any seat.

0:21:41.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, supposedly. We haven’t done that yet, but tomorrow.

0:21:48.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, you haven’t done it yet?

0:21:50.6 Mike Vacanti: Mm-mm.

0:21:51.2 Jordan Syatt: It goes in any seat. It goes in every single seat. The only time we had one bit of issue, one time, we’ve done it all over the world, and one time when we were in Israel, one of the seats, the car seats, I think it was a really old car. The seatbelt was shorter than literally any other seatbelt that I’ve ever used. We were able to make it work still, but it was a bitch to put in. But that was literally only one time out of probably in total, I don’t know, 40 to 60 times doing it, and it’s never been an issue other than that, so…

0:22:25.2 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go. Let’s go. Yeah, I’ll… After a feed, we try and keep her upright, and if I don’t feel like holding her for 15 or 20 minutes, I’ll put her in the Doona and get some steps in in the house, even.

0:22:37.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:22:37.6 Mike Vacanti: Just walk around. It’s cold outside. She loves it.

0:22:40.0 Jordan Syatt: Smart.

0:22:40.4 Mike Vacanti: What else? What’s on your essentials list?

0:22:43.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh.

0:22:45.8 Mike Vacanti: You were just gonna blow by that one.

0:22:47.2 Jordan Syatt: I was just gonna go straight. I was just gonna go Doona. I forgot. I mean, there are so…. You know what? I’ll say what’s not essential is like the vast majority of toys.

0:22:57.1 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:22:57.8 Jordan Syatt: The vast majority of toys are not essential at all because almost every time, they take way more pleasure in the box the toy came in than the toy itself.

0:23:08.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:23:09.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s just so funny. The actual toy gets about 30 seconds to 5 minutes of time, and then they just want to play with the box.

0:23:19.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:23:19.0 Jordan Syatt: The best toy that we got is that like ball pit.

0:23:23.1 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:23:24.0 Jordan Syatt: Which was, I think, 100 bucks or something. And it had all these… It’s like when you go to a discovery zone or whatever, they got the ball pit. We have one for the house.

0:23:31.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, my nephew loves his.

0:23:34.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Amazing investment. We got it for my daughter when she turned one, and now she’s over three, and she still loves it, and our youngest daughter loves it. So that is a massive win. My oldest daughter loves pretend cooking. So we have her this like little essentially pretend kitchen area that she spends a huge amount of time in just preparing ice cream, and meals, and all that. So she loves that.

0:24:08.5 Mike Vacanti: The bottle washer’s clutch. You guys have a bottle washer?

0:24:11.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a bottle washer.

0:24:14.6 Mike Vacanti: That thing is….

0:24:14.8 Jordan Syatt: That thing’s great.

0:24:15.9 Mike Vacanti: That thing is money. Yeah.

0:24:16.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that thing is great. Super convenient.

0:24:19.1 Mike Vacanti: Just gets run multiple times a day.

0:24:20.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, a really good chair. Like a reclining…

0:24:29.8 Mike Vacanti: A rocking chair?

0:24:30.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, a rocking chair.

0:24:35.2 Mike Vacanti: Interesting. Interesting, you say, really good because we went and looked at chairs, and I actually think the middle of the road one is like dialed.

0:24:45.9 Jordan Syatt: I don’t mean in price. I just mean it’s got to be comfortable.

0:24:49.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:24:50.4 Jordan Syatt: And it’s gotta… It’s got to be comfortable and easy to wash. That’s the two main things that I would say.

0:24:58.6 Mike Vacanti: Easy to wash. I don’t know about that.

0:25:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Have you not had spit up on it yet?

0:25:01.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but spit. I mean, what doesn’t have spit up on it?

0:25:04.3 Jordan Syatt: Well, that’s why it’s got to be easy to wash. You don’t want one that’s like a 1970s shag rug.

0:25:10.3 Mike Vacanti: Oh, I see. I got you.

0:25:11.5 Jordan Syatt: You know what I mean? And it’s just gonna smell like spit up for however many years you’ve got it.

0:25:16.0 Mike Vacanti: Okay. I don’t hate that smell.

0:25:18.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s wild.

0:25:24.7 Mike Vacanti: I don’t hate it.

0:25:26.7 Jordan Syatt: So that means you like it?

0:25:29.2 Mike Vacanti: I mean, I think I like it more than I hate it.

0:25:31.3 Jordan Syatt: That is very intriguing.

0:25:33.9 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no. Hang on. Let me rephrase. ‘Cause now I’m having some memories. I think it depends. It depends.

0:25:41.4 Jordan Syatt: On what?

0:25:43.7 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know. Time of day, amount of stomach acid, I don’t know. Some spit up smell worse and better than others.

0:25:55.2 Jordan Syatt: That really is throwing me for a loop, brother.

0:25:58.0 Mike Vacanti: I think…

0:25:58.0 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know how to reply.

0:25:59.7 Mike Vacanti: We’ve started to incorporate a little bit of formula here lately. And I think maybe those smell worse. And the breast milk spit-ups don’t really smell.

0:26:09.0 Jordan Syatt: Interesting.

0:26:09.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I don’t know.

0:26:12.0 Jordan Syatt: I noticed that poop smell changes.

0:26:14.0 Mike Vacanti: Oh my gosh.

0:26:14.5 Jordan Syatt: Formula versus breast milk.

0:26:17.2 Mike Vacanti: Oh my gosh.

0:26:17.3 Jordan Syatt: Breast milk poops don’t really smell at all. Formula poops, they smell for sure.

0:26:21.0 Mike Vacanti: Breast milk poops smell like food, and formula poop smell like death.

0:26:26.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. Just not good. Yeah. But I never noticed a difference in spit up, but yeah, dude, spit up… Listen, I think an adult spit up, an adult throw up is infinitely worse. Like, that’s just…

0:26:40.3 Mike Vacanti: Well, of course. And like a stranger. Part of it is it’s your own kid.

0:26:43.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:26:43.7 Mike Vacanti: So it’s like, yeah, and it’s… Depends how much, too. Probably depends how long; if it’s immediately post-feed, probably doesn’t smell as bad as if it’s like rumbling around down in there.

0:26:56.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s right.

0:26:57.7 Mike Vacanti: These are all very scientific takes.

0:26:59.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, but it’s got to be comfortable. Does yours recline?

0:27:02.2 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah.

0:27:02.9 Jordan Syatt: Okay. If it’s comfortable, reclines, then you’re good.

0:27:06.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s a chair that’s meant for a nursery.

0:27:09.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Does it swivel?

0:27:10.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:27:12.2 Jordan Syatt: Good.

0:27:12.6 Mike Vacanti: They all… I don’t know what store this was that we went to, but…

0:27:18.0 Jordan Syatt: I mean, they have now.

0:27:18.9 Mike Vacanti: They didn’t have like a wooden rocking chair from like…

0:27:20.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s what my mom had when I was a kid. A wooden rocking chair.

0:27:24.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but that was the ’90s.

0:27:27.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:27:28.1 Mike Vacanti: The early ’90s.

0:27:28.8 Jordan Syatt: It was a well-built wooden rocking chair. I mean, it was sturdy. I wish I had it. It’d be nice to have.

0:27:33.8 Mike Vacanti: It’d be nostalgic to have, but you wouldn’t want to sleep eight hours in that thing.

0:27:37.5 Jordan Syatt: No, absolutely not. Tailbone would be screaming at me.

0:27:41.8 Mike Vacanti: And low back, like everything. Hips. All right. Any other essentials?

0:27:50.9 Jordan Syatt: We got this big thing to put underneath the high chair for our youngest.

0:27:59.0 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:27:59.5 Jordan Syatt: It’s a big white; it basically looks like a gargantuan tray. It’s huge. It’s basically just paper.

0:28:07.1 Mike Vacanti: Does it go on the ground or does it go like…

0:28:09.0 Jordan Syatt: No, it’s mildly elevated off the ground.

0:28:11.3 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:28:12.0 Jordan Syatt: So that when she’s just throwing shit like a monkey, just like throwing it or something drops off…

0:28:18.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s circular?

0:28:19.5 Jordan Syatt: It’s rectangular.

0:28:20.5 Mike Vacanti: Give me the dimensions of this thing.

0:28:22.2 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know. 3 x 6.

0:28:25.3 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Does she often throw food that gets out of range of the thing, or does it catch most of the food?

0:28:30.9 Jordan Syatt: It catches like 94% of it.

0:28:33.6 Mike Vacanti: Sounds solid.

0:28:34.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s great. That way, you don’t have to clean up the floor. You just get a wipe, wipe up whatever’s on the tray. Boom, done.

0:28:37.5 Mike Vacanti: All right.

0:28:43.7 Jordan Syatt: Super nice. That’s a really good one to have. You don’t want to cheap out on sippy cups. Sippy cups, you want sippy cups that aren’t gonna, you don’t want the ones that are gonna spill, right? That’s just really bad idea. You don’t want sippy cups that are gonna spill?

0:29:00.3 Mike Vacanti: Oh, don’t go high-end with the sound machines. Just get a basic sound machine.

0:29:03.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah. Amazon, 10 bucks.

0:29:06.5 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know if they’re that cheap, but yeah, the ones… We have a sound machine that essentially hooks up to the internet and plays a bunch of lullabies, and is…

0:29:21.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, cool.

0:29:22.0 Mike Vacanti: Is like… Yeah, cool, except, because it’s high-end, it’ll like disconnect, and it’ll skip. I don’t know if you’ve ever… If you have a kid relying on a sound machine and the sound machine starts skipping, not good.

0:29:35.2 Jordan Syatt: No, ours just plugs in. I think that’s good for baby stuff.

0:29:39.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:40.1 Jordan Syatt: Just two dudes.

0:29:42.7 Mike Vacanti: Just a couple of dads…

0:29:43.1 Jordan Syatt: Here’s what you need to get for your babies.

0:29:46.5 Mike Vacanti: What to get for your baby podcast.

0:29:49.0 Jordan Syatt: All right, here’s an interesting one for the How To Be A PT pod. Why does the fitness industry seem to always be bickering about the “best training”?

0:29:59.4 Mike Vacanti: That’s a Jordan question.

0:30:00.7 Jordan Syatt: You don’t even like that one. Interesting. I thought you were gonna like that.

0:30:03.0 Mike Vacanti: No, no. No, I like the question. I don’t understand human behavior enough. I would just not bicker and not consume the bickering of others. Yeah.

0:30:15.0 Jordan Syatt: I think there are a number of reasons, especially why we’re seeing it, because the truth is there’s always been bickering. It’s just now it’s amplified more.

0:30:20.4 Mike Vacanti: And it’s more visible.

0:30:21.5 Jordan Syatt: It’s more visible. And there’s also, there’s a benefit to it for the creator in that you can garner more attention on you and your brand. If you show someone else’s content and then say why they’re wrong, you can put yourself up higher and make you seem like the authority here. Well, this is what’s right, and they’re doing it wrong. It gets more attention, it gets more views. For some people it can build trust, especially if you do it… But even if you don’t do it intelligently, some people will be like, “All right, well, I believe you.” And that person is clearly an idiot. So I think the potential benefit of getting more attention and views, and followers, leading to ideally potential clients, is one of the main reasons why it’s being amplified.

0:31:12.1 Mike Vacanti: That makes sense.

0:31:12.8 Jordan Syatt: But with that being said, there’s always been bickering. I remember before social media when it was just website articles, people would do sort of the same thing. People would say like, “Yeah, I read this book. And this book says this, and this book is wrong, and here’s why.” It was just, it was in a longer form, slower medium, and there wasn’t direct feedback from people, likes, and shares, and replies, and retweeting, and posting in your stories. And there wasn’t as much back and forth, but back and forth still did exist. And even I remember going to a seminar once, it must have been what, 2014? And people were bickering at the seminar over the lower cross syndrome. It was a whole big thing. So bickering has always existed, but the phrasing is really important over the “best training”.

0:32:02.3 Jordan Syatt: I think that, especially early on, and I don’t just mean younger, but I mean earlier on in your career, you’re more likely to fall for there being singular bests. This is what I was taught, so this is what’s true. And anything that doesn’t follow this is not true, it’s not the best, it’s not optimal. And even in the last podcast, we spoke about fasted training, and we spoke about how basically it comes down to personal preference with minor variances. That wouldn’t be what many newbie trainers would say. Many newbie trainers would say, “Well, no, I was taught that fasted training is subpar because X, Y, and Z. Or I was taught that fasted training is superior because X, Y, and Z, which means the other one is not the best. And so we need to do everything the best.” Whereas when you become more experienced as a coach, hopefully, not always, but hopefully, you realize the number one most important thing is just gonna be consistency and effort. As long as someone is being consistent with a high level of intensity over years, that’s really the most important thing that the vast majority of people miss.

0:32:37.1 Jordan Syatt: And so whatever constitutes best, it becomes almost irrelevant if they’re not being consistent and applying a high level of intensity. And so that’s why as people become more experienced and more nuanced, you’ll start to see them saying, “Well, it depends, and it’s not necessarily one or the other.” So I think that it’s driven by a large number of people who are seeking more likes and views and follows, and also people who are not really that experienced, who are just touting whatever they saw in their most recent YouTube search or their most recent, I’m deliberately not saying in a book that they read because most of them aren’t reading books. But whatever they have been taught most recently, they are then spouting off as, well, this is what’s best. Or maybe it’s what works best for them, and they just apply it to every single person because that’s what works best for them. I think these are the main driving factors.

0:34:10.0 Mike Vacanti: Well said. I would just layer in, on top of consistency and intensity, some level of enjoyability as well. If you can be excited about your training or not everyone’s gonna love working out, of course, the majority of people don’t. But if you can like the style of training you’re doing more than other types of training, for most people, that’s gonna lead to better adherence and more consistency. So I think chasing optimal for gen pop and… The overwhelming majority of people chasing optimal is a really bad idea.

0:34:54.2 Jordan Syatt: Agreed.

0:34:54.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:34:55.4 Jordan Syatt: All right. Best way to relax and fall asleep without sleep aids.

0:34:58.3 Mike Vacanti: What do you think?

0:34:59.0 Jordan Syatt: No, this is a you… If there’s ever a question, this is a you question.

0:35:03.5 Mike Vacanti: I would go, no blue light. I would not be scrolling if I’m… I would not be on social media if I’m a creator because I don’t want to be in the DMs, and I don’t want to be getting feedback, and I don’t want to be interacting my way to sleep.

0:35:19.7 Jordan Syatt: Scrolling is the worst thing, firstly.

0:35:21.4 Mike Vacanti: I think, I think, yeah. I think scrolling with your night mode on, and if it’s a small amount of time and it’s a curate, it’s not X and rage bait, but it’s low-key comedy, enjoyable. I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world.

0:35:43.3 Jordan Syatt: I do. Because you can’t choose what you’re gonna come across. And have you ever seen the meme of Dan or the GIF of Daniel Cormier scrolling on his phone super late at night?

0:35:53.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:35:54.4 Jordan Syatt: People will post that, and the comment section is like, when they see a really wholesome video or something, and they’re just like, at 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m., they’re just scrolling, they see it. And they’ll post that one, and I’m like, “It’s really funny.” But also, it’s like that’s what happens, is you’ll just end up like… Very few people are able to scroll for a very brief period of time before going to bed. And then if they end up seeing something that lights them up, then their blood pressure goes up, heart rate goes up, then they get really, it’s really hard. I think scrolling before bed is a really bad idea.

0:36:23.4 Mike Vacanti: I think you’re in the 99th percentile of seeing things that get your blood pressure up.

0:36:29.8 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think so, dude. Every time you get back on social media, you’re like, dude, I gotta get off.

0:36:35.5 Mike Vacanti: Twitter. Twitter. My Instagram is dialed.

0:36:41.1 Jordan Syatt: What’s your Instagram?

0:36:42.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s just dialed.

0:36:43.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s baby stuff?

0:36:45.0 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:36:45.6 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Sports stuff?

0:36:47.7 Mike Vacanti: No, not really anymore. That actually, yeah, Vikings content. That’s a bad thing to consume before bed. Funny stuff. Skit stuff, like comedy with a little bit of fitness sprinkled in there. Yeah, mostly comedy on Instagram right now.

0:37:10.4 Jordan Syatt: What else besides scrolling?

0:37:11.6 Mike Vacanti: What do you do before bed?

0:37:12.7 Jordan Syatt: On a dialed night?

0:37:13.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:37:13.9 Jordan Syatt: I’ll play chess.

0:37:16.4 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.

0:37:17.0 Jordan Syatt: For the past few months.

0:37:18.4 Mike Vacanti: If I play chess before bed, I’ll have dreams about chess.

0:37:20.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, really?

0:37:21.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Like, I won’t, I’ll be like half asleep thinking that I’m playing chess during the night.

0:37:30.1 Jordan Syatt: I haven’t had a dream about chess yet. That must mean I’m not there yet. I’m not on that level.

0:37:35.4 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think it has to do with chess ability.

0:37:37.3 Jordan Syatt: I feel like it does, ’cause I remember… I remember the first time I had a dream in Hebrew, I was really excited because I was like, “Oh, shit. I think my ability is now getting better because I could dream in Hebrew.” I feel like it’s probably similar, because it took me probably a year before that happened.

0:38:00.7 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.

0:38:01.0 Jordan Syatt: Of studying. And I would imagine that once you’re… If you’re playing regularly and your skill is going up, then it’s taking more in your subconscious. Whereas right now, for me, it’s just that skill isn’t there yet, so I’m probably not dreaming about it.

0:38:12.2 Mike Vacanti: Maybe. But chess is relaxing for you, and then you go to sleep quick.

0:38:16.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s so definable, right? It’s like you have the start of the game, you have the end of the game, and once the game is done, it’s easy. Whereas with scrolling, there’s no end. It just doesn’t stop.

0:38:32.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, there’s something interesting there. I agree completely. If you can’t turn it off, if you can’t scroll for 5 or 10 or 15 minutes, but there’s a risk that it’s gonna be three hours, then definitely don’t do that. And I think a longer form piece of content, like a YouTube video, a show, part of a movie, et cetera, is better. I mean, reading would be the ideal. That’s what everyone used to do, but we’re all too fried to do that.

0:39:03.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s really tough.

0:39:04.4 Mike Vacanti: My wife and I have tried to bring that back a lot of times. Like, all right, let’s read our books tonight for a half hour before bed. That sometimes works, but really it’s get my daughter down and then try and get ourselves in bed as quickly as possible, and then just hang out and chill, is the routine.

0:39:23.1 Jordan Syatt: Just like get in bed and just hang out?

0:39:24.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:39:24.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Easy ab exercises that aren’t crunches or planks.

0:39:28.7 Mike Vacanti: Okay. So easy as in convenient, we’ll say.

0:39:31.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yep.

0:39:32.1 Mike Vacanti: Or just ab exercises in general.

0:39:34.2 Jordan Syatt: I think she means convenient. But let’s just do our favorite ab exercises regardless of convenience.

0:39:38.9 Mike Vacanti: Cool. Let’s alternate. Go ahead.

0:39:41.3 Jordan Syatt: All right. So, for me, I think if I have to pick, and by the way, this isn’t for clients, this is for me. I’m just saying my personal favorites.

0:39:52.7 Mike Vacanti: I like it.

0:39:53.7 Jordan Syatt: I would say if I have to pick my current favorite ab exercise, I’m gonna go with… I’m actually gonna go with my, the least convenient ab exercise of all time, which is on my crunch machine. I have a machine crunch, which is a huge and expensive piece of equipment that is completely and utterly inappropriate in any home gym context. And I love that fucking machine. I absolutely love it.

0:40:28.7 Mike Vacanti: Because you can only do one exercise. It’s not like a cable rack where you can… It’s not versatile at all.

0:40:32.2 Jordan Syatt: No. One exercise. Tiny range of motion.

0:40:36.1 Mike Vacanti: Oh, is it? I thought we talked about this, and you said that you actually get a good stretch on it.

0:40:39.9 Jordan Syatt: You do. But I mean, just in terms of, I don’t mean tiny range of motion for your abs. I mean a tiny range of motion in… The entire range of motion is small compared to like, a row or whatever. It’s just like the amount of movement that your body is going through is very small.

0:40:49.9 Mike Vacanti: For this giant machine.

0:40:50.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, for a giant machine. So that is my favorite ab exercise right now. And there are other options that you can do that are similar to it. On a cable machine, you could do a kneeling cable crunch, which is like super similar in terms of the action of the abs, flexion-based, weight-resisted ab exercise. A bodyweight version would be a reverse crunch, which I, I really love a reverse crunch as well. Or even a hanging leg raise, bent knee, hanging leg raise, which I love. And I like doing that with your arms in the straps, which you and I did.

0:41:33.7 Mike Vacanti: So much for alternating exercises. Jordan rattled a four to start. It was really good.

0:41:37.8 Jordan Syatt: I’m just giving variations of this one.

0:41:39.7 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:41:40.3 Jordan Syatt: But I… Yeah, probably your favorite is the hanging leg raise.

0:41:43.2 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely.

0:41:43.9 Jordan Syatt: I remember during COVID, we went to the gym and we had a whole ab day.

0:41:48.0 Mike Vacanti: We were lifting six days a week. Gotta have the ab day in there. Yeah, that’s, yeah, those are all similar to the… I mean, the cable crunch, you got a little bit less stability. You gotta make sure your hips aren’t moving around too much. The reverse crunch is interesting because a standard crunch is just too easy.

0:42:21.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:42:22.4 Mike Vacanti: Because it’s body weight for the majority of people. And so a reverse crunch is a way to make it more difficult.

0:42:29.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s more lower abs.

0:42:32.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:42:33.7 Jordan Syatt: It’s more lower. That’s what I like about the machine, is you get to move your upper and your lower at the same time. You bring your legs up, and you bring your upper torso down, so it gets both sides, full rectus abdominis.

0:42:47.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And you can load it, so you can work in a lower rep range if you want to.

0:42:52.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You can also bias the upper or the lower. So let’s say you don’t really want to use your lower very much, you could bias the upper. If you don’t want to use the upper very much, you could bias the lower. Each upper and lower part can move independently. So you can decide. Whereas the kneeling cable crunch it’s only upper. Reverse crunch is only lower. And then hanging leg raises is only lower.

0:43:13.7 Mike Vacanti: Hanging leg raise is amazing. I like a hanging knee raise more than a hanging leg raise.

0:43:17.5 Jordan Syatt: Agreed. Agreed.

0:43:19.0 Mike Vacanti: And yeah, I’m not trying to… I’m not trying to make an ab exercise into a grip strength exercise. I’m not trying to make it into like, I like the straps like you do. More stable, better ability to focus on just abs. For a lot of people, when you’re trying to train a specific muscle, you don’t want something else to fatigue first, preventing you from taking the muscle you’re trying to hit to a certain place. Which is why straps on a dumbbell RDL can make sense for a lot of people, particularly those who don’t have the strongest grip of all time, but have really strong glutes and hamstrings. For that reason, I really like the straps. Not grip straps, but the carabiners that you, if you’re watching on video, you saw Jordan do it. Yeah.

0:44:15.2 Jordan Syatt: I feel like the hanging leg raise, where you’re hanging from your hands, it’s a great exercise. It’s an incredible exercise. It’s a tremendous display of strength if you can do it properly. It’s much easier to cheat.

0:44:25.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, there’s more momentum, there’s more swinging.

0:44:27.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and if you can do it without cheating, that’s great. But I think the bent knee targets your abs better, whereas the straight leg targets your hip flexors more. So both have benefits for whatever you’re, but you have to be aware of which one you’re trying to accomplish. Straight leg inherently will get more hip flexors. Bent leg will get you more abs.

0:44:47.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:44:48.1 Jordan Syatt: I mean, you watch the CrossFit Toes-to-bar competitions, and it’s like that is the perfect example of they’re just trying to hit a movement requirement. They’re not trying to work various muscles. Same thing with their kipping pull-up. They basically were like, “All right, so you have to bring your chest to your bar?” Okay. Well, it’s really hard to bring your chest to the bar with a pull-up. So we’re gonna make it a momentum-based movement. And, yeah, there’s a skill in learning the technique of the kip, but that skill is not muscular-based. That skill is momentum and movement-based. So they’re basically like, “All right, so we have to bring our toes to the bar?” It’s really difficult to do this with a really good technique. So we’re gonna use a bunch of momentum in order to make this happen. So it’s easier to get more reps in a shorter period of time. It’s not a display of… That’s the exact opposite of muscles, not momentum. That’s momentum, not muscles. And, obviously, you’re using your muscles, but to a much lower degree than you would if you were being strict with it.

0:45:50.7 Mike Vacanti: Correct. Correct. Now, we got a mentorship Q&A here in five minutes. By the way, huge shout-out to everyone who got in on the Black Friday sale. We are pumped to have you in the group. The sale is officially closed. If you have not applied yet, unfortunately, you will have to wait until the next sale.

0:46:10.6 Jordan Syatt: Or join at full price.

0:46:12.1 Mike Vacanti: That’s right. That’s right. Which is probably the play, to be honest, because the next sale isn’t gonna be for a while. But yeah, Q&A in five minutes. So let’s rapid fire, finish up a few more favorite ab moves.

0:46:25.4 Jordan Syatt: Lately, I’ve really been into lateral bending stuff. As you know, I love the lateral work. So, this like over, it’s basically, it’s like a Pallof press sort of, but instead of coming out straight in front of you, you bring the cable over your head.

0:46:43.6 Mike Vacanti: Yep.

0:46:44.1 Jordan Syatt: So you bring the cable over your head and then you bend, so the cable is… If let’s say the cable is pulling you from your left side, then you’re standing, and then you let the cable pull you down all the way to the left, and then you resist, and then you go against the cable, bending up to the top position. Love that one. Very little weight is needed for that, but I really like that one a lot. I feel that all the way down into my like psoas. Sorry, I really like that. You know what I also really like? And again, lateral bending, but barbell side bends, where you have the barbell on your shoulders. So barbell on your shoulders and you side bend, like to alternating side, or you could do same side.

0:47:30.3 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.

0:47:30.8 Jordan Syatt: Barbell alternating side bends. It’s essentially just a different loading for a oblique crunch. But I like having it on my back as opposed to in my hand. I feel like you can get a much bigger range of motion. Because when you’re doing an oblique crunch, the weight’s bumping into your side, it’s hard to get as big of a range of motion. And I like the loading on your back for that one a lot.

0:47:56.8 Mike Vacanti: Nice.

0:47:57.6 Jordan Syatt: So, yeah, I really like those. I’ve been doing a lot more lateral bending. Even in the inner circle, I’ve been programming a lot for even beginner clients. It’s easy. You could get them up right up against a wall so they’re standing against the wall flush against it. And then they can hold a weight in the hand that’s not against the wall, and bend to the side while they’re driving their hip into the wall, so they can really get the external feedback to know, okay, so I’m making sure I’m in a good upright position. I’m pushing my hips into the wall, and I can get a good, nice lateral bend there. I think those are some of my favorites right now. What about you?

0:48:29.6 Mike Vacanti: Classic Russian twist.

0:48:31.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh, so good.

0:48:32.0 Mike Vacanti: Just that rotational strength, baby. Take the ball, slam it as hard as you can, keep the elbows nice and bent. Go really fast. Go way heavier than you’re supposed to. No, don’t do that. Nice slow tempo. Yeah.

0:48:50.0 Jordan Syatt: Do you like planks?

0:48:51.5 Mike Vacanti: I do them. I do them. Yeah, I think they’re fine.

0:48:58.5 Jordan Syatt: What about an overhead sit-up?

0:49:00.1 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did that this morning.

0:49:02.9 Jordan Syatt: Did you?

0:49:03.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:49:04.0 Jordan Syatt: I like a good overhead sit-up.

0:49:05.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, me too.

0:49:06.6 Jordan Syatt: Good for shoulder mobility, thoracic extension as well.

0:49:09.4 Mike Vacanti: As you start to go heavier, depending on the shape of the dumbbell, sometimes it gets a little sketchy.

0:49:17.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:49:18.2 Mike Vacanti: Meaning the grip on the dumbbell at the top of the move.

0:49:21.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:49:22.2 Mike Vacanti: But I love it with just like a 45-pound plate.

0:49:26.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I was gonna say bumper plates are super nice for that.

0:49:29.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Or even not bumper plates, the plates with the grips.

0:49:32.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are nice.

0:49:34.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:49:35.5 Jordan Syatt: Or a sandbag, or even a barbell. It’s just easier to grip.

0:49:41.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Barbell is not a bad idea, actually. Maybe we’ll pick up next week with more abs because we have Q&A in one minute. Thank you very much for listening. Have a wonderful rest of your week. When is this even going live?

0:49:59.3 Jordan Syatt: Two weeks.

0:50:00.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, we’re pushing. It might even be Hanukkah right now. Probably is, actually.

0:50:06.3 Jordan Syatt: Happy Hanukkah.

0:50:06.6 Mike Vacanti: Thank you for listening. Happy Hanukkah, Marv. Do you know that movie?

0:50:13.4 Jordan Syatt: That’s not Home Alone, is it?

0:50:14.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:50:15.8 Jordan Syatt: Is it? Let’s go.

0:50:16.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. All right. See you soon.

0:50:19.2 Jordan Syatt: See you.