Episode 254: Workout Programs: Ranked From Best-to-Worst

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

0:00:12.4 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael?

0:00:12.8 Mike Vacanti: On a scale of one to 10, how hydrated are you right now?

0:00:15.8 Jordan Syatt: I’m an eight. I’ve been drinking all morning.

0:00:17.8 Mike Vacanti: Thatta baby. Good for you.

0:00:19.6 Jordan Syatt: What about you?

0:00:20.9 Mike Vacanti: Seven and a half at least. I would say.

0:00:23.4 Jordan Syatt: I feel like you’re seven and a half. And is the average person’s 10.

0:00:27.3 Mike Vacanti: 12. Yeah, for sure. But it was on a relative basis. Seven and a half for me. Yeah.

0:00:32.0 Jordan Syatt: Got it. Okay.

0:00:32.4 Mike Vacanti: I was up early, got a workout, so a lot of water before, decent amount during, some after.

0:00:38.1 Jordan Syatt: You’re looking lean.

0:00:39.2 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think so.

0:00:40.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you are. Maybe it’s just more light than usual. But you’re looking lean.

0:00:45.2 Mike Vacanti: I’m in a different studio at an undisclosed location, but I don’t think… Who knows? Who knows? Have been tracking.

0:00:52.9 Jordan Syatt: Undisclosed location in Benghazi. Michael’s in Benghazi right now.

0:00:58.0 Mike Vacanti: I’m not in Benghazi. That I can tell you.

0:01:01.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s what someone in Benghazi would say if they didn’t want you to know they were in Benghazi.

0:01:04.4 Mike Vacanti: Jordan. David, we got to cut this out. We can’t let people know exactly… I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. All right. Where do we want to start?

0:01:13.9 Jordan Syatt: You have somewhere. I can see it in your eyes. You’ve got somewhere you want to begin. So let’s begin wherever you want.

0:01:19.1 Mike Vacanti: We’ll begin at the beginning. Hang on. I got to get my mic situation figured out because I think I’m way too close to it. I’m in an undisclosed location with limited space. Sorry to the audience. Okay. This is the sound…

0:01:29.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, Benghazi, I don’t think has huge apartments for most people.

0:01:35.7 Mike Vacanti: Jordan, my almost four-year streak of never getting sick is over.

0:01:44.0 Jordan Syatt: It’s over.

0:01:45.0 Mike Vacanti: It was.

0:01:45.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s over, dude.

0:01:46.3 Mike Vacanti: Obliterated, actually. I went out with a bang, not a whimper.

0:01:50.8 Jordan Syatt: How are you feeling now?

0:01:51.5 Mike Vacanti: Great. I’m back.

0:01:53.7 Jordan Syatt: Good. You’re better now. You want to tell everyone what happened?

0:01:56.2 Mike Vacanti: Got the norovirus. Spent an entire night hugging the toilet. Whenever I would get the stomach flu as a kid, I would get it really bad. Throw up like every single hour, if not more often. And that’s what happened. And, yep.

0:02:10.5 Jordan Syatt: Fuck, dude.

0:02:11.2 Mike Vacanti: Wasn’t good.

0:02:11.9 Jordan Syatt: That sucks.

0:02:12.5 Mike Vacanti: Wasn’t good at all. Yeah.

0:02:14.1 Jordan Syatt: Did the whole family get it?

0:02:16.3 Mike Vacanti: Baby did not. So that’s really all that matters.

0:02:18.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, thank God.

0:02:19.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:02:19.6 Jordan Syatt: Baruch Hashem, dude. That’s what matters. Good.

0:02:22.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:02:23.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s a blessing that she didn’t get it. Wow.

0:02:25.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. My… Yeah. So.

0:02:30.3 Jordan Syatt: Everyone else had it, though.

0:02:31.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And not fun.

0:02:34.6 Jordan Syatt: You called in an IV?

0:02:36.0 Mike Vacanti: I did not. My wife made the executive decision. I was literally like incapacitated. And she called one of those traveling nurse. Things that I basically thought were a scam. Turns out they’re not a scam. They’re incredible. This dude came in, shout out Adam, who was my nurse, who is absolutely yoked Like a 50-year-old bodybuilding is his main habit. He came in, put some Zoloft or Zofran or I don’t even know what he put.

0:03:06.3 Jordan Syatt: Zofran. Yeah.

0:03:06.9 Mike Vacanti: Okay, Zofran. Yeah. What is Zoloft?

0:03:08.9 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know what Zoloft is, but Zofran’s the one for nausea.

0:03:11.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, Zoloft is an antidepressant. Not Zoloft. Zofran. Like some pain meds, hydration, something to like reduce the inflammation in your stomach. And within 20 minutes of this IV, I had literally been throwing up from I went to bed at 8:00, woke up at 11:00 at night and was sick all night until 8:00 in the morning. And then this guy saved my life.

0:03:36.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s amazing.

0:03:38.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. But the streak is over, unfortunately.

0:03:42.2 Jordan Syatt: Now it’s another one. Now you’re building the next one.

0:03:45.5 Mike Vacanti: No, I’m okay with… I don’t want to build another streak.

0:03:48.8 Jordan Syatt: Okay, never mind then.

0:03:50.4 Mike Vacanti: Cal Ripken Jr., of getting sick. Four years is a long time. That’s not… I don’t know if that streak’s going to get broken.

0:03:57.1 Jordan Syatt: But it didn’t last that long, which is good. It wasn’t like a week-long sickness. It was just like a day or two.

0:04:02.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Thankfully, thanks to the IV. I mean, I still then just rested for a couple of days, but I was done throwing up, which is the worst of it.

0:04:11.0 Jordan Syatt: How do you feel like on the back end now? How’s your strength?

0:04:13.8 Mike Vacanti: Off the charts.

0:04:14.9 Jordan Syatt: I love that, dude. That’s amazing. Come back stronger from the norovirus.

0:04:18.6 Mike Vacanti: That’s right.

0:04:19.2 Jordan Syatt: Now I’m sick with a head cold. Nasally. More nasally than usual. I’m already nasally.

0:04:25.1 Mike Vacanti: Are you nasally?

0:04:26.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’m an Ashkenazi Jew. I’m nasally.

0:04:28.8 Mike Vacanti: Is that a thing?

0:04:29.7 Jordan Syatt: I think so.

0:04:30.8 Mike Vacanti: What? Narrow passageways?

0:04:31.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I once had a MRI and the note was like poorly developed sinuses.

0:04:37.8 Mike Vacanti: And that’s an ethnic thing? That’s not just like a Jordan thing?

0:04:40.5 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know. I might be making it up. Might be real. I don’t know. I feel like a lot of Ashkenazi Jews have nasally voices. Something that I’ve just picked up on.

0:04:48.4 Mike Vacanti: I have something about identity politics like ruining society on our list. So it’s good to start off by assigning groups with characteristics. [chuckle]

0:04:57.6 Jordan Syatt: Let’s do it. Yeah. Let’s do it.

0:05:02.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s later. We got some good fitness stuff on the docket for today too.

0:05:07.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, do we?

0:05:08.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:05:09.0 Jordan Syatt: Okay, so.

0:05:09.5 Mike Vacanti: But you’re on the other side of your bad cold.

0:05:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. It’s Thursday today. It really started to kick in on like Sunday. And then Monday, Tuesday was pretty brutal. Susan was here. We were going to do a lot of inner circle work, and then we didn’t do a lot of inner circle work because I was so sick.

0:05:32.0 Mike Vacanti: Man. Shoot!

0:05:32.9 Jordan Syatt: We did a podcast and we did an inner circle live. And then and that was basically it. And then we just all like hung out as a family. She got to hang out with the girls, which was great.

0:05:41.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s awesome.

0:05:41.6 Jordan Syatt: She said she had had whatever it was like the week before, so she was fine being here. I texted her the day before. I was like, just so you know, we’re all really sick. And she was like, I’m coming anyway. I was like, all right.

0:05:52.4 Mike Vacanti: Nice. Nice. Sounds productive and like, everyone had a good time.

0:05:57.1 Jordan Syatt: It was good family time. It was a good family time. Yeah.

0:05:59.8 Mike Vacanti: And alive, a podcast. It’s not the worst thing ever.

0:06:03.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:06:04.1 Mike Vacanti: Not up to the Syatt Fitness standards of productivity, but could definitely be worse.

0:06:09.1 Jordan Syatt: It could have been worse. Yeah.

0:06:10.9 Mike Vacanti: So, I’ve been taking the train every morning to Coach Gary recently from Benghazi to New York. There’s a train that runs and…

0:06:21.6 Jordan Syatt: Direct?

0:06:22.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s direct. It’s a direct train.

0:06:23.9 Jordan Syatt: Bullet train?

0:06:24.9 Mike Vacanti: And when I used to take this… No, not a bullet, just regular speed. It takes a while.

0:06:29.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow.

0:06:32.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Everyone used to be asleep on this train, which I thought was… Made a lot of sense. They had to be into work at certain time, shift workers, like construction people with really early starts. And thought it was like a great use of a long train ride to sleep before work. Now, what I noticed, 80 to 90 plus percent of people, if not more, on this morning train, guess what they’re doing?

0:06:59.4 Jordan Syatt: Scrolling.

0:07:00.1 Mike Vacanti: What are they scrolling?

0:07:01.0 Jordan Syatt: Instagram or TikTok.

0:07:02.4 Mike Vacanti: And what is that? Vertical video.

0:07:05.1 Jordan Syatt: Vertical. Yeah.

0:07:06.1 Mike Vacanti: Vertical video until their eyes bleed.

0:07:09.6 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:07:10.8 Mike Vacanti: There’s definitely the same level of sleep deprivation going on, but instead of sleeping on these train rides, literally, I’m just watching, like when you’re watching someone else scroll, from behind them, so all you can see is their thumb and then what they’re watching. It’s all… I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s surreal. It’s like a…

0:07:32.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s like The Truman Show. It’s like you’re… It’s just… Yeah.

0:07:34.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:07:34.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s like, what reality are we living in?

0:07:36.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Literally. Which I thought was a definite negative marker for society.

0:07:44.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude. Yeah. I mean, if you could get… How long is that train ride?

0:07:48.6 Mike Vacanti: Benghazi. It’s a ways, Jordan. It’s a long train ride.

0:07:52.3 Jordan Syatt: Let’s just assume it’s like a 90 minute, two hour train ride. That’s a fair amount of sleep they could have been had.

0:07:58.8 Mike Vacanti: Fair amount of sleep. And it’s the pull towards cheap dopamine and consumption that feels better than sleep or that prevents people from getting sleep that they need because they just want to be or at least part of their brain, the part of their brain that just wants to feel good is just scrolling.

0:08:21.7 Jordan Syatt: Then they’re gonna feel worse at the office. Feel worse throughout work.

0:08:24.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. All day. All day.

[overlapping conversation]

0:08:24.8 Jordan Syatt: Tired all day. Yeah. And also probably like feel negative effects of scrolling. Never mind the sleep deprivation, just like, ugh, what did I see? Just like, yeah.

0:08:34.6 Mike Vacanti: Yep.

0:08:35.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude. Not a good societal marker.

0:08:39.2 Mike Vacanti: Not a good societal marker. And I don’t come to Benghazi that often or haven’t been. And so it’s…

0:08:45.1 Jordan Syatt: You go like once a month.

0:08:46.6 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no, no. When I coach Gary. No. Because…

0:08:53.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, this is just.

0:08:53.9 Mike Vacanti: When I do a quick trip, I stay in the city and I’m not taking the train.

[overlapping conversation]

0:08:56.6 Jordan Syatt: Annual trip to Benghazi. Got it. Okay. And once or twice a year.

0:09:01.8 Mike Vacanti: Anyway, it’s been a while since I’ve been on this train ride. And so, I’m worried for the trend of consumption of the average person, of every demo, of every age range, of many occupations, just across the board. Losing to Big Tech, losing to the oligarchs, getting their attention stolen for sponsor money, for the dollars of our overlords.

0:09:34.3 Jordan Syatt: You’re preaching, bro. My mom is scrolling. So, you know me, she’ll email me links to videos that she likes. If she likes an Instagram video…

0:09:44.4 Mike Vacanti: Emails? Amazing.

0:09:45.4 Jordan Syatt: She’ll email me a link like, you should check this out.

0:09:48.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s so good. How much do you think she’s scrolling?

0:09:55.3 Jordan Syatt: A lot, dude. A lot of scrolling.

0:09:57.7 Mike Vacanti: You should check her screen time next time she’s in Texas.

0:10:01.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, that’s a good idea. That’s really good. I told you like she went from not having Instagram and then like, I looked at her Instagram a couple months later and she was following like 7,000 people. I was like, how the fuck?

0:10:13.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:10:13.5 Jordan Syatt: And she was like, I didn’t hit follow. I was like, yes, you did.

0:10:20.4 Mike Vacanti: That’s incredible.

0:10:22.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:10:23.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s just like an older person on technology.

0:10:26.1 Jordan Syatt: Just no clue what she’s doing. Just, yeah.

0:10:27.8 Mike Vacanti: Well, and I mean, some clue, right? She can consume and she can share it. Just not convention… Like she’s not just DMing it to you, she’s emailing it and…

0:10:37.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:10:38.0 Mike Vacanti: Followed a lot of people unknowingly.

0:10:42.2 Jordan Syatt: She knows how to copy the link, which is… That’s not easy to like get the shareable link.

0:10:48.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s true.

0:10:49.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:10:50.0 Mike Vacanti: All right, well, if you’re listening to this and you’re scrolling way too much, take this as your weekly PSA.

0:10:57.0 Jordan Syatt: Enough.

0:10:57.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I mean, not even enough. I’m not even Goggins-ing, coming down on anyone anymore. It’s more just like a plea to…

0:11:07.9 Jordan Syatt: You should. You should.

0:11:08.4 Mike Vacanti: Not on this topic. This is like… This would be like chewing out and yelling at and going drill sergeant mode on one of the homeless people outside of Penn Station who’s bent over because they’re high on heroin. That’s not gonna do anything. But maybe give him some empathy and catch him in a moment where he can receive a message and be like, hey, buddy, you gotta stop, because this isn’t gonna end well. I mean, I understand that scrolling isn’t life or death like heroin, but I think they are closer on the addiction spectrum than 99.9999% of people believe.

0:11:49.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:11:50.7 Mike Vacanti: Including you. I don’t think you understand how close they are on the spectrum.

0:11:54.1 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I fully understand.

0:11:56.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you do. You replaced it with chess.

0:11:58.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’ve been playing a lot of chess.

0:12:00.9 Mike Vacanti: Nice. How’s your game?

0:12:02.1 Jordan Syatt: I’ve been in an upstreak. I’ve been good lately, but I had a really bad downstreak. I had a really bad downstreak for, like, 20 games in a row.

0:12:09.0 Mike Vacanti: What’s your rating?

0:12:09.7 Jordan Syatt: Like, 402.

0:12:11.2 Mike Vacanti: No, nice. It’s good.

0:12:13.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude, remember Adam Pine? You know, Adam Pine, my buddy Adam.

0:12:15.4 Mike Vacanti: Of course, I know Adam.

0:12:16.7 Jordan Syatt: Remember when I like first briefly got into chess during COVID and I was like, I spoke to Adam, and I was like, hey, do you play chess? He’s like, yeah, I play a little bit of chess. And then I thought I was gonna beat him. And then he just destroys me during COVID and then that’s like when I stopped playing for years.

0:12:29.5 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:12:30.0 Jordan Syatt: I was on the phone with him the other day, and I brought up chess again. And I was like, hey, what’s your ELO? And he was like, oh, not good. I was like, what it? He’s like, I’m like, around 1100. I was like, are you kidding me, dude?

0:12:39.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh, he’s good.

0:12:40.8 Jordan Syatt: I was like, oh, you’re really good, dude. And he was like, no. He’s like, no, really good is like 2000. I was like, you’re a piece of shit.

0:12:48.6 Mike Vacanti: It’s all relative.

0:12:49.2 Jordan Syatt: I was like, you’re really good at chess, dude. I remember because I couldn’t believe how quickly he destroyed me back in 2020. And I was like, oh, now it makes sense.

0:12:59.0 Mike Vacanti: That should make you feel way better about those games back then.

0:13:01.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure.

0:13:04.0 Mike Vacanti: Have you played him recently?

0:13:05.4 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:13:05.8 Mike Vacanti: What if he would have said his ELO was 600, would you have played him then?

0:13:09.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, immediately. I would have pulled over the car and be like, all right. Let’s play right now.

0:13:17.3 Mike Vacanti: Pull over the car. Oh, did we talk about… We didn’t talk about our stalemate, or did we?

0:13:20.3 Jordan Syatt: No, we didn’t talk about it.

0:13:21.3 Mike Vacanti: Jordan and I had a stalemate in chess, which is… And it was back and forth. That bar was back and forth throughout the game. You had me dominated on time. You were ahead.

0:13:34.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, there were like three seconds left in a stalemate.

0:13:37.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I had three seconds left. I had three seconds left. But I also had a mate opportunity that I kind of messed up with two pawns and a king. And then your king was trapped.

0:13:47.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. It was probably the best game I’ve ever played.

0:13:51.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you played extremely well. Extremely aggressively. You had me on the ropes.

0:13:56.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. But then you came back. I left my bishop out, and then that’s when the tide started to turn and you were against the clock. That 10 minute time frame is tough.

0:14:06.5 Mike Vacanti: Shouldn’t be, though. I wasted so much time earlier in the game that we weren’t even close on time, were we? I think you had like five minutes.

0:14:15.0 Jordan Syatt: I had like three minutes. Yeah, something, yeah.

0:14:16.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:14:17.9 Mike Vacanti: All right. I’ve got a segment for us.

0:14:22.4 Jordan Syatt: All right.

0:14:23.0 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think you like it.

0:14:24.9 Jordan Syatt: Is it identity politics?

0:14:26.1 Mike Vacanti: We’re doing it. No, it’s fitness.

0:14:28.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, I love fitness. Let’s do it.

0:14:29.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but you don’t like the concept we’re about to do.

0:14:32.8 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:14:33.2 Mike Vacanti: We are about to make David do a little work on the S tier, A tier, B tier, blah, blah, blah.

0:14:40.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, cool.

0:14:40.6 Mike Vacanti: Graphic.

0:14:42.2 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:14:42.5 Mike Vacanti: Of the different strength training splits.

0:14:45.8 Jordan Syatt: Cool. Let’s do it.

0:14:46.6 Mike Vacanti: Are you ready?

0:14:47.3 Jordan Syatt: I’m ready.

0:14:48.1 Mike Vacanti: Three days a week, full body workouts.

0:14:50.8 Jordan Syatt: Are we providing nuance to this?

0:14:52.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, we can give nuance, but eventually it needs to end up somewhere. Let’s say this is either for people who are listening’s client who wants to get stronger/lose fat, build muscle, and isn’t an advanced trainee. So we’ll say like beginner/intermediate. And then we can give context around that.

0:15:13.1 Jordan Syatt: And what are the levels? S tier is the best, right?

0:15:17.3 Mike Vacanti: S tier is the best. Yep.

0:15:17.9 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:15:18.2 Mike Vacanti: And then A, B, C, D, E, F.

0:15:20.4 Jordan Syatt: E F. What does S stand for? S is like supreme or something?

0:15:25.0 Mike Vacanti: Superior. I don’t know. Superior, Supreme.

0:15:26.6 Jordan Syatt: Superior. Okay.

0:15:27.0 Mike Vacanti: Better than A.

0:15:28.1 Jordan Syatt: Okay, so S tier is the best. And can you give me all of the options before I place it?

0:15:33.7 Mike Vacanti: No, that’s part of the fun of these games.

0:15:35.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s part of the fun? Oh, man.

0:15:37.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you gotta kinda place it. You know the training split. I picked the five to six to seven that are the most common…

0:15:45.8 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Three times a week, full body split. I’m gonna put that at the lowest tier. Whatever the lowest one is.

0:15:50.5 Mike Vacanti: You’re putting that at F tier.

0:15:52.2 Jordan Syatt: Wow.

0:15:52.7 Mike Vacanti: Oh, you know what? Maybe we’ll both have our own… Tell me more.

0:15:55.8 Jordan Syatt: By the way, I still think it’s good. It’s still a good split. I’m not saying it’s bad, but like on the scale. And again, I don’t have the other ones laid out in front of me. I don’t know what other splits you chose.

0:16:07.8 Mike Vacanti: So, sorry. And just you might not know the rules of this game that well. This isn’t the thing where each thing only… Like you can put multiple things on the same level.

0:16:15.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, you can?

0:16:17.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. This isn’t the game where you…

0:16:18.3 Jordan Syatt: I thought it was one level per.

0:16:20.5 Mike Vacanti: No. We should do that though. That sounds fun. Let’s do that.

0:16:24.7 Jordan Syatt: Okay. All right, let’s do that instead. Let’s play it the way that I thought it was.

0:16:27.9 Mike Vacanti: One, two, three, four, five, six. Let’s do both. We’ll do it your way first. So six.

0:16:32.7 Jordan Syatt: S, A, B, C, D, E, F.

0:16:34.5 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no. So first is just one to six. So you’re putting that one six.

0:16:38.0 Jordan Syatt: That one’s six. Yeah.

0:16:39.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s actually not. It’s not. Yeah. Could be worse. Okay. Wow. Now I kind of want to change up the order and try and get you a little bit.

0:16:49.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s a good game.

0:16:49.8 Mike Vacanti: You know what? I’m just going to do them in the order I wrote them down.

0:16:51.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:16:52.3 Mike Vacanti: No trickery here. Five-day-a-week bro split. One body part per day.

0:16:58.3 Jordan Syatt: You know what’s funny? I knew that that was going to be one of them because… And that was in my head, I was like, I would prefer that over three days a week full body. And I literally had that mini conversation in my head before I put that other, before I put three days a week full body.

0:17:14.3 Mike Vacanti: I don’t fully disagree, but why?

0:17:16.5 Jordan Syatt: Because when you have three days a week full body, you’re going to be sore full body every single time you go to the gym. And it’s very difficult. If I actually think full body three days a week is a better option for someone who understands how to undulate their training better. For someone who understands, okay, maybe I’ll take my lower body much harder on day one and then I’ll have… I’ll still train lower body but it will be a different modality or I’ll go lighter on day two. And they understand how their body works and understand different training modalities. Whereas when you train one body part one time a week, five days a week, you can go hard on every single body part without letting accumulated fatigue become an issue on the other body parts. So you can really get very high-level intensity training and even when you’re sore in one body part, you can then go after another body part and it really won’t affect you.

0:18:14.8 Mike Vacanti: So the 5x week bro split better than the 3x full body, especially for people who like training hard and like taking it to failure. Most people don’t know how to regulate intensity from workout to workout. And so I guess you would say 3x week full body could be a solid-ish program for a beginner who has a coach who really knows what they’re doing or an in-person coach.

0:18:43.6 Jordan Syatt: Yes, correct.

0:18:45.7 Mike Vacanti: In-person or online coach who can be like, okay, we’re doing goblet squats or we’re doing a leg extension here, but we’re not going heavy, we’re going nowhere near failure. We’re just doing two sets here because we’re hitting a little bit of quads on this day.

0:18:57.6 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:18:58.5 Mike Vacanti: Whereas on day B or day C, they’re doing a squat and they’re taking it… Or a leg press, let’s say, and they’re taking it more intense, heavier, closer to failure.

0:19:07.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s exactly right. I will say if someone can’t get to the gym five days a week or they don’t like being in the gym, then the three-day-a-week full body is obviously the better option. And again, I really do like three-day-a-week full body. I’m just thinking more in terms of the the restrictive nature of this game as a whole. My gut leans towards that five times a week, getting in there, being really intense with each individual body part. It’s also much faster workouts. The workouts are are typically more brief.

0:19:47.7 Mike Vacanti: That… Yeah.

0:19:47.8 Jordan Syatt: They can be.

0:19:47.9 Mike Vacanti: They can be.

0:19:49.3 Jordan Syatt: They can be.

0:19:49.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Full body’s brutal because you need to warm up everything every workout.

0:19:54.0 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:19:54.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. The way the bro split ends on simplyshredded.com was… In 2011, was your chest day is nine chest moves and they’re all 4×10. So a bro split can be…

0:20:08.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s outrageous. Yeah.

0:20:09.2 Mike Vacanti: A bro split can be smart, right? Duh. You can do three to four to maybe five exercises and with a reasonable number of sets.

0:20:18.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, two to three sets, three to four exercises I think is plenty for a single body part. Yeah. Yeah, so that’s I would say… And again, they’re all great, but I’m saying for this bottom, like the lowest one, full body three times a week. Next up, five days a week, body part split. What about you?

0:20:36.8 Mike Vacanti: So six and five. No, no, no. You’re going through all this and then I’ll… Maybe I’ll do the other game.

0:20:41.4 Jordan Syatt: Okay, cool.

0:20:42.4 Mike Vacanti: Although we might not be playing multiple games because we’re kind of just saying everything there is to say here, which is good. Let’s get the people the information that they want so they can pick a training split headed into 2026.

0:20:56.0 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:20:56.7 Mike Vacanti: Third up, upper-lower, 4x a week.

0:20:59.6 Jordan Syatt: I love this one. I’m going to put this one at… Man. I’m struggling between either number one or number two. I love this split. I think this is… You know what? I’m putting this in number one, even though I haven’t followed it for a while. This is number one in terms of results, in terms of like recovery, in terms of the speed of results, especially around strength and muscle growth. This is top tier. This is the best one. This is S tier.

0:21:42.7 Mike Vacanti: Just going back and forth between the two games. Number one, S tier. I agree. This would be my top as well. There’s so much positive to be said about it, I guess. So I’ll start with the drawbacks, which are more limited. Two lower body lifts per week is not fun for a lot of people.

0:22:15.2 Jordan Syatt: Me, it’s not fun for me.

0:22:17.8 Mike Vacanti: Me, I am the people. I’m the people. That’s kind of the main drawback. I guess as you get advanced, advanced in your training, it’s also a lot of upper body volume split across two days that could potentially be split across three days on an intelligent five-day-a-week program. But outside of that, I’m with you. Strength gains, muscle gain, even during fat loss, wanting to retain as much muscle as possible or potentially recomp, depending on who you are and where you’re at in your training career and what’s going on with what you have been doing recently in terms of your training. Yeah, this is number one.

0:23:04.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Number one. I mean, if we’re gonna pick it apart from the negatives, I mean, the reason… I was fluctuating between this and should I say another split or no? I was…

0:23:14.1 Mike Vacanti: Might not even be on here.

0:23:15.0 Jordan Syatt: It’s definitely push-pull-legs.

0:23:16.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I don’t have a 6x push-pull-legs. I just…

0:23:20.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, three times a week. The benefit of the three-times-a-week push-pull-legs is one of them is that it’s three times a week instead of four. And so if someone doesn’t have the time to get four sessions in per week or doesn’t really like being in the gym as much, that’s obviously a benefit for three times a week. But I’m just looking at this purely from the perspective of optimal results as quickly as possible. Getting as many high-quality sessions in throughout the week. If strength and muscle growth is your 100% foremost goal, then I think upper-lower split four-times-a-week is the best. That’s what I would go with for sure.

0:24:02.4 Mike Vacanti: And its main benefit over 3x a week push-pull-leg is here, we’re hitting every muscle group twice per week.

0:24:03.0 Jordan Syatt: Exactly.

0:24:03.4 Mike Vacanti: Rather than just once per week. Look, you can equate volume between the two training programs, but one, weekly volume equated is gonna… There’s gonna be better results if you’re hitting each muscle group twice a week rather than once a week. Two, the training sessions three days a week on a push-pull-leg, if we’re matching training volume on an upper-lower 4x, they’re gonna be long workouts. There’s diminishing returns to, the volume you do within a workout. So if a workout gets too long, it becomes less beneficial as you’re doing more and more and more sets and potentially even detrimental later in the workout.

0:24:49.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:24:51.2 Mike Vacanti: Those are the big benefits of 4x upper-lower over the 3x push-pull-leg. But let’s actually have you rank 3x push… That’s actually next on the list. What do you know? 3x push-pull-leg.

0:25:01.7 Jordan Syatt: I’d put this at number two. I’d put this at number two. I think it’s such a great split. Well, from the strength and muscle growth perspective, I do think it takes an inherent passenger seat to it. It’s not as optimal. One of the things I do love about it is it gives you more time for other qualities you want to improve throughout the week. So let’s say you want to include more cardio, you want to include more mobility, you want to include some more extracurricular activities, whether it’s, I don’t know, going to church or synagogue or whatever it is. If you want to do more family time, if you want to get more hiking in outside, if you want… Whatever it is, it gives you more time to do other things that you might not have the time to do with that four-times-a-week split. Which is, I think, highly underrated. But the way that this was framed is best program for strength and muscle growth optimal. That’s why I put upper-lower split four-times-a-week at the top. This one is a close second because even though I think it does take an inherent passenger seat to that, it does offer so… You can still get so many great benefits from it. You can make tremendous progress, strength and muscle growth-wise, while still having more time for other things as well.

0:26:21.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, well said and funny because I was literally about to say one of the things I like about this program, because this is something I’ve run many times over the years, is at my level of training experience, it’s more of a maintenance program. I’m not making crazy progress on a 3x push-pull-leg, hitting everything once a week. But it offers a lot of balance between life and fitness.

0:26:47.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Agreed.

0:26:48.2 Mike Vacanti: And you can use that for whatever you want, not only in terms of like hours in the gym, but also ability to recover, amount of food you need to be eating, amount of rest and recovery you need. Yeah, it’s superior from that perspective. Also it’s definitely not optimal for a beginner, but a beginner can make crazy progress on a 3x push-pull-leg for a long time.

0:27:17.8 Jordan Syatt: Long time. Long time. Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:21.8 Mike Vacanti: And even like early intermediate… Maybe again, maybe not as fast as progress as they would hitting everything twice a week. But when you factor in enjoyability, how much time they want to be spending in the gym.

0:27:33.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and the issue that I see when people just do the four times a week upper-lower split for years and years and years on end without ever changing it is other fitness qualities detrain. Cardio being one of the most important ones, mobility being a major one as well. If strength is your life, then upper-lower split makes sense. And if you have a lot of extra free time where you can be going to other fitness classes or doing whatever, then great. But for the average individual who’s super, super busy, doesn’t have… They have a lot of responsibilities. I think the main benefit of that three times a week push-pull-legs is you hit everything you need to. You can go really hard on every session. Which is different than the full body three times a week. You can’t go super hard every single time.

0:28:24.9 Mike Vacanti: Yep.

0:28:25.5 Jordan Syatt: And you have more time to do other things as well.

0:28:29.2 Mike Vacanti: 6X per week Arnold split. Arnold split was spit out by Grok as a top, which I believe is chest and back, legs, shoulders and arms, and then repeat.

0:28:44.5 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I love that split. I really do. It’s fun. It’s a fun split. I think it’s it’s very underrated in today’s climate.

0:28:55.8 Mike Vacanti: In today’s like over-optimization climate, you mean?

0:28:58.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. I do. And then in like the over-optimization, science-based, dah, dah, dah. I think it’s a really fun split. It’s enjoyable, it’s effective. I’ll put that at number three.

0:29:13.7 Mike Vacanti: Nice.

0:29:14.2 Jordan Syatt: I think it’s a really great one to run. And I don’t run it. I haven’t run it probably since like high school. But it’s fun. It’s a great split.

0:29:21.7 Mike Vacanti: You know what’s crazy is I’m almost certain and granted equipment, rest times, there are many, many things that are not good about this programming. But just in terms of the split, I’m pretty sure P90X uses this.

0:29:37.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, really?

0:29:37.9 Mike Vacanti: In at least one of their phases. Yeah.

0:29:39.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, interesting.

0:29:40.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I remember a chest and back, shoulders and arms, and I actually think it was legs and back. But then there were the plyometrics, which…

0:29:52.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:29:53.0 Mike Vacanti: Dangerous and insanely fatiguing and the… And the ad.

0:29:57.6 Jordan Syatt: Not because plyometrics are dangerous. Yeah. Oh, and the ad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:30:00.5 Mike Vacanti: No, the way… No, no, no.

0:30:02.6 Jordan Syatt: The way they programmed it. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to…

0:30:03.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s an hour straight with like no rest time of jump…

0:30:05.4 Jordan Syatt: Of jumping.

0:30:06.1 Mike Vacanti: Literally if you just do it for the first time.

0:30:08.0 Jordan Syatt: It’s like hundred of jumps.

0:30:09.7 Mike Vacanti: Might be thousands. I don’t need… I think I did it once in my life when I was 19 or 20. I’m gonna lump this one in number six because it’s quite similar, but push-pull-leg-upper-lower, 5x a week.

0:30:24.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s a good one. That’s a really good one. I might have to switch this.

[overlapping conversation]

0:30:29.2 Mike Vacanti: If you could go back in…

0:30:30.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I would switch this with the Arnold one.

0:30:31.2 Mike Vacanti: If you could go back in time, you would have swapped them.

0:30:32.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I think the Arnold one would go below this one. I think this one would be number three.

0:30:37.5 Mike Vacanti: You did pretty good though. You did pretty good with the list given that you don’t know what’s coming.

0:30:42.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s funny, I wasn’t expecting that one. I wasn’t sure which one was gonna be next. I wasn’t expecting this one. This is a great one. Really, really great split. You hit everything twice a week. I mean, this is a phenomenal split. It’s just a lot of time in the gym, but it’s a great split.

0:31:02.3 Mike Vacanti: The benefit over upper-lower 4x is that you’re splitting that upper body volume over three days instead of two days. And so you’re gonna have better workouts and more enjoyable. The downside is it’s five days a week in the gym. It’s an unnecessary amount of volume and frequency for a beginner. However, for someone who really wants to build strength and muscle/enjoys being in the gym, or really either of those separately, not even both, either you really want to build strength muscle or you enjoy being in the gym, really good split for both those populations.

0:31:34.8 Jordan Syatt: Completely agree. Yeah, that’s a really… That’s a hard one to beat.

0:31:41.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Sweet. I think we’re very similar. Upper-lower 4x is definitely one. I’m torn between the… I’m torn between science and bro… On the bro split of the order of 3x full body and bro spit split being last. I think I have to put bro split last. 3x full body next.

0:32:11.6 Jordan Syatt: Really?

0:32:13.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I can’t let nostalgia trump logic on… I’ll do this. I’ll do this for you, Jordan. I’m gonna put poorly… I’m gonna put 3x upper… 3x full body for people who don’t really know what they’re doing last.

0:32:30.6 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:32:30.9 Mike Vacanti: And then I’m gonna put bro split.

0:32:32.5 Jordan Syatt: I have seven on mine.

0:32:33.6 Mike Vacanti: And then I’m gonna have intelligently programmed with intensity regulated 3x full body fifth.

0:32:39.2 Jordan Syatt: I like that. I like that a lot.

0:32:41.2 Mike Vacanti: And then climbing here. Arnold split. Well, honestly, it… See, this is just nuance and… But whatever. It’s good content. The 3x push-pull-leg, if we’re talking about optimal for making progress is fourth…

0:33:04.3 Jordan Syatt: That would be lower than the… Yeah, correct. It would be push-pull-legs-upper-lower.

0:33:08.9 Mike Vacanti: Even potentially lower than that, actually. But when you factor in lifestyle benefit and enjoyability, it’s higher. Upper-lower 4x is definitely one. And then 5x push-pull-leg. Or sorry. Yeah. 5x push-pull-leg-upper-lower, and 6x Arnold split are three and four in that order. 6x is a lot of work. If you’re not shooting up a bunch of steroids, which basically everyone is now. But if you’re not, you’re still in our camp, then it’s just a lot of working out.

0:33:49.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s a ton.

0:33:49.7 Mike Vacanti: The ROI of that much time. Yeah, you’re… You’ll have diminishing returns.

0:33:54.9 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know how people do it.

0:33:56.3 Mike Vacanti: How they do a 6x Arnold split natty?

0:34:00.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:34:01.4 Mike Vacanti: They don’t. They don’t. Or they just don’t make incredible progress.

0:34:05.6 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know how people spend six times a week in the gym, dude. Like I have a gym in my house and it’s like…

0:34:11.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but you have multiple businesses and multiple children.

0:34:15.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s just crazy.

0:34:16.9 Mike Vacanti: Remember college?

0:34:18.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:34:18.6 Mike Vacanti: Imagine someone who’s like not really going to class and is absolutely obsessed with training and sleeps 11 hours every night and eats like a horse and then just works out. Sounds pretty great.

0:34:29.9 Jordan Syatt: What about like the people in their 30s and 40s and 50s that are doing it? You think they are they just not spending time with their family?

0:34:39.6 Mike Vacanti: No, I think they’re built different mentally. It’s not 6x a week if they’re being efficient with it and they’re… Call it 75-minute workouts tops. And let’s say they sleep seven hours a night and they’re just crushing. No, I think just morning person. Imagine like savage dad life or mom life of just wake up an hour before the kids, garage gym, have a cup of coffee, get it in and then… Yeah.

0:35:06.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:35:07.7 Mike Vacanti: I mean, you work out often?

0:35:09.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I work out very often.

0:35:11.6 Mike Vacanti: You’re just not…

0:35:11.7 Jordan Syatt: I work out very often, but what it is, I also, I’m trying to look at my own argument from above. I’m trying to like see what I’m doing and and look at my behavior. You know what it also, is like this was based on like strength and muscle growth optimization and my brain keeps going back towards, yeah, but what about cardio? What about mobility? And so so that’s where I’m like, man, I think the people who are like going six times a week, all muscle growth or even five times a week, all muscle growth and strength. I’m like, okay, yeah, like they’ve gotten really good at that. But they’re not getting enough time for the other components of fitness. Plyometrics, athleticism, change of direction. It’s like, they’ve specialized in one thing and it’s just trying to do it all at once is… It’s really difficult.

0:36:05.9 Mike Vacanti: I think that’s probably right. I think there’s progress to be had in other areas of fitness for people spending 60 to 90 minutes a week, six days a week, strength training.

0:36:18.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:36:19.3 Mike Vacanti: They’re probably neglecting other parts of their fitness. Maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously, or maybe they are getting those things in and they’re just unbelievably impressive. Maybe life is different when your kid’s in school, and that frees up some time. I don’t know.

0:36:34.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, if I wasn’t outside my daughter’s school guarding it a couple times a week, I could use that time to work out.

0:36:40.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s right. That was a fun segment. Let us know. Leave a comment on Spotify/YouTube, wherever you’re listening, if you enjoyed that segment of fitness content from the How to Be a Personal Trainer podcast, which it’s probably been a solid 14 months since we dropped a solid piece of fitness content on this podcast. Maybe 2026 is the year.

0:37:00.8 Jordan Syatt: As the meat and potatoes of the episode.

0:37:06.7 Mike Vacanti: Yes, yes, yes. Who knows? This could be the year, Jordan. This could be the absolute year.

0:37:11.5 Jordan Syatt: 2025 or 2026?

0:37:13.2 Mike Vacanti: Well, not… So this episode goes live on December 23rd, so there’s not a lot of time left to make 2025 the year of fitness content. I mean, there’s some.

0:37:21.7 Jordan Syatt: There’s a little bit of time left.

0:37:22.6 Mike Vacanti: Like, why wait until January 1st, when you could start on December 18th.

0:37:28.3 Jordan Syatt: Is it December 18th? Holy shit, dude. That’s crazy.

0:37:31.6 Mike Vacanti: Yep.

0:37:32.1 Jordan Syatt: You got Christmas plans?

0:37:33.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I do. Benghazi.

0:37:36.0 Jordan Syatt: Benghazi Christmas. Let’s go. Is that it for fitness today or are we doing anything else?

0:37:44.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s the end of my… That’s three of the four things on my list. And the more we got into the fitness stuff and with how fun that was, I’m less and less interested in talking about identity politics.

0:37:56.0 Jordan Syatt: Cool.

0:37:56.6 Mike Vacanti: I’m 10 days removed from social media, so I’m in a different head space.

0:38:02.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:38:02.5 Mike Vacanti: You got any fitness stuff?

0:38:03.8 Jordan Syatt: We’ve spoken about this before, but it’s funny. I honestly think one of the best things that you can do is work out in front of your kids. Because, you know what’s crazy? I my daughter’s three. And I asked her, just as a joke, I wasn’t expecting a real response. I was like, what should I do in the gym today? And she was like, well, I think you should do some pull-ups, and I think you should do some push-ups, and I think you might want to do some splits. And she gave me a few really great exercises to do. And I literally I was like, wow, that’s actually not a bad program for the day. I’m just like, dude, at three years old, she’s giving me…

0:38:55.8 Mike Vacanti: Incredible.

0:38:56.2 Jordan Syatt: Legitimate exercises that are great to do and make sense, and it’s just because of what she sees. And she probably just named off a bunch of the things that she hears and sees. But it’s like, that’s fucking awesome. I was so happy that like she just outlined a great workout for the day. I was like, I might make this a YouTube series. Let me ask my three-year-old what workout I should do and then just do her workout plan for the day.

0:39:19.6 Mike Vacanti: That’s purely a function of her being around it.

0:39:22.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, 100%.

0:39:24.3 Mike Vacanti: Talking about it, seeing it, just being in the gym, watching you.

0:39:29.7 Jordan Syatt: She loves to get out in the gym and like hang and and just hang out, but likes to hang on the bars. And that’s her favorite thing is hanging, and she’ll hold on to that. She’ll like hold on for a long time. Crazy grip strength and it’s one of the best things in the world.

0:39:47.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s cool from the perspective of indirectly teaching kids about good health habits and like, oh, working out is just something mommy and daddy do, and we do it to be healthy and it’s a good thing to do. There’s also the discipline/mental, I don’t even want to say mental toughness, good decision-making/if you compare the type of person who… Let’s look at someone who is unbelievably busy but wakes up early enough to get their workout in every single morning over years, over decades, and like a kid sees that, versus someone who is binge drinking every night, is like relying on alcohol to cope with their life, and as a result, stays up later, sleeps in later, is crankier in the morning as a result of not feeling good. And a kid watching those two personalities from their parent compound over a lifetime. It’s like a… It’s technically good on the teaching about fitness, and then it’s like teaching good health habits as well.

0:41:02.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and it was so funny yesterday, dude. I was doing my side split workout, and she’s in the gym with me. I have a video of it. It’s one of the funniest videos I think I’ve ever gotten. And when she’s in the gym with me, I don’t get as good of a workout as I would if I was alone. Because I’m watching her, and because she’s like literally talking to me in the most difficult, maximal effort positions I can be in. And I can’t ignore her. I can’t… So it’s never an optimal workout, but the net benefit I think is infinitely better long term for both of us than if I was just like getting the extra 5% on this workout. So it’s inherently not as good of a workout for me for my results, but better for our relationship and for her and for I think for me as well. And so I’m in the bottom position of my max effort split, and I’m holding on to a weight in the bottom position, and she starts jumping in front of me. And I have like 20% fear that she’s gonna jump on top of me while I’m in this split position. And she’s jumping and laughing in front of me. And then she starts asking, can I hang? Can I hang? ‘Cause she wants to hang on the Smith machine bar. And I can’t talk because I’m just like in so much pain at the bottom of this split. And and then I switch into this part where I’m like face down to the ground, and she’s saying, Abba, abba, abba. Dad, dad, dad, dad. And I’m facing the floor. So she gets on all fours and like turns her head upside down to look at me in the eyes as though I can’t hear her or something. She’s like, Abba, abba, abba, abba. It was just so funny. I don’t even know the point of sharing that other than it’s just… It’s really…

0:42:53.1 Mike Vacanti: What’d you do then? Did you finish the set?

0:42:55.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I finished the set and I probably cut it short a few seconds. But I finished the set, and then I put her up on the bar, and then she loves to play with… I have a sand bucket and a chalk bucket. So she loves to play with the sand, loves to play with the chalk. And so picked her up, put her on the bar, then opened up the sand and opened up the chalk so she could play with it.

0:43:15.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s awesome.

0:43:15.8 Jordan Syatt: And then she got on the 45-degree hyperextension, and she slipped and she hurt her foot, and she was… So we spoke about that and taught her how to breathe through being a little bit in pain, and she was totally fine. So, yeah.

0:43:28.3 Mike Vacanti: Life lessons in the gym.

0:43:29.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:43:30.9 Mike Vacanti: And I’m completely with you. The memories and experience of having young kids in there or kids in general in there with you compared to optimizing progress on your workout. It’s like the reason you’re working out is for your family largely, anyway.

0:43:47.3 Jordan Syatt: Exactly, exactly.

0:43:49.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. A few more. You want to rapid fire your Q&A, see if there’s anything good in there?

0:43:56.2 Jordan Syatt: Advice for when you hit a wall after newbie gains and totally stagnate.

0:43:59.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You get off of that 3x a week full body that you were brainwashed into running for your whole career. Get on a 4x upper-lower and…

0:44:09.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, change the program. Advice for new dads. We are expecting in 2026, and I know he’s nervous.

0:44:15.8 Mike Vacanti: So the wife is asking for advice for her husband from you.

0:44:19.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:44:19.6 Mike Vacanti: Give her a rapid fire.

0:44:25.3 Jordan Syatt: I would say being nervous is a good sign. Being nervous is a really good sign. I would say that if he wasn’t nervous, it would probably be more concerning, to be honest, if he’s just like, yeah, no big deal. Because when you know that you’re going to be putting in a lot of effort into anything, I think nerves are a normal part of that. So I wouldn’t try and take away the nerves other than just say it’s normal to be nervous. And I would say it’s a really good sign that you have a husband who’s nervous about it because he cares. And what I would say is actually let him know what you need. I think that what’s really important is that the husband is there to take care of the wife, especially early on, because the baby doesn’t biologically need the dad early on. The baby needs the mom. It relies on the mom. And I think that if you can be there, if the husband can be there to support the wife, then indirectly you’re also supporting the baby because I think you really, really, really need to be there to support the wife. So let him know what you need and be like, hey, you have to be very direct in communication and vocal and say, this is what I need right now. Don’t try and take the load 100%. Be very direct with what you need so that he can be there to help you and the baby.

0:45:45.8 Mike Vacanti: Jordan’s clearly not up with the social media trend where the husband is just supposed to know what the wife needs. You telling her that she needs to tell him is unacceptable. No, I think that’s really good advice.

0:46:00.6 Jordan Syatt: Did you sleep train your kids?

0:46:02.2 Mike Vacanti: We did something called the Camp Out method because the Ferber method did not work because my wife and I could not listen to our daughter scream because we got sad. So I don’t… She’s been sleeping incredible lately. Just put her down 10, 11 hours.

0:46:21.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s amazing.

0:46:21.9 Mike Vacanti: Don’t have to rock her to sleep anymore yet. Camp Out really works. Ask Grok about Camp Out if your Grok isn’t skunked yet. Thank you for listening. Wishing you a very Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy New Year. We’ll be back actually by New Year’s, so we’ll have a New Year podcast.

0:46:40.3 Jordan Syatt: We’re doing S Tier Bro Splits Fitness information.

0:46:44.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s… You’re 100… I’ve never heard smarter words in my life. That’s well said. Thank you for listening. Hope you’re having a great holiday. And we’ll see you next week because we’re not missing an episode this year.

0:46:58.2 Jordan Syatt: See ya.