What MindPump Says When Ben's Not Around: Spartan World Championship Exclusive

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

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Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Fitness Podcast. And it's kind of feels weird to say that because we're not using any of our gear. We're not in our space. We're not. It's totally. This is mind pump National. National.

I don't know, but I hope somebody washed these microphones because I. I only really trust our equipment.

That is Mike.

Oh, God, I'm gonna get burst on my lips. That's gross.

He said that you guys have made out before, so we didn't worry about washing that one. He said no, but I had him.

Spray down with Clorox first. This is. This is awkward.

Good lord. It's already gone off the rails.

So we're here in the, what, 2017 Spartan championship race. You just got after it yesterday. How do you feel, my man?

I feel like I got hit by a semi truck, actually.

What.

What place did you actually, that's exactly what I told Brock yesterday. I got back from the race and I. And I. I took a nap and I woke up and I was like, sounded semi truck ran over me while I was taking a nap.

It sounded like it ran over his lungs.

Oh, yeah, My. My lungs were all it was. It was the worst race I've ever had in my life.

Ben, you've done so many of these. Do you know how many you'.

Over 50. I mean, I've been racing since I was 19 in endurance sports, so 6,000 plus miles of racing. But for Spartan, you know, I don't know, 50 plus races. And I raced yesterday injured, and it was one of those frustrating races where I had the fitness and I crushed the obstacles and I ran up all the hills, but I had to walk all the downhills. So, yes, completely sandbag. But I was telling you guys earlier, like, I. I hate to sign up for a race and not go do it, or worse yet, to. To go to the race and show up and just be sidelined doing like the announcing or something like that, because that's torture for me, you know, I should be out there doing it. And then you have that thought at the back of your mind like, maybe I could have actually gone out there and tried this. So I just like to get out now.

How does, how does your ego handle that knowing that you're a competitive guy? I know you like to win, I.

Know you work, hate it. But, but it's good for you, right? It's good for two reasons. Number one, it's humbling to, to, to, to go out there and not, not even, and you know, you're not even going to come close to the podium, you know, basically.

And you knew that before you, he.

Knew that like three years ago. Number two, you also.

You get to.

See a lot of what goes on.

At the back of the pack. You get to kind of, kind of get a chance to, to chat up some fellow racers and, and do things you wouldn't normally.

You guys actually talk when you're running out charging hard?

Yeah.

Oh, I didn, I mean, well, at the, like when you're that far back in the pack, it's like these are the guys that aren't going very fast so they're, they're chatting and talking. You kind of encouraging each other and you get to see all the, all, you know, there's a lot of, and again, all due respect to my fellow racers, there's a lot of mistakes made at the back of the pack. Right. Like I'll be running behind a guy for you know, like an hour and 40 minutes and, and he's not drinking or eating anything and then he slowly goes to like a jog and then to a walk and then. Oh, that's interesting. You just bonked. There's. And, and you see people, you know, making nutrition mistakes and things. Like you see that a lot more towards the, towards the back of the pack than the front of the pack. And you also see people like the front of the pack like the, the 40 degree swim right at the top of the mountain. Yeah, but yeah, the, you know, Hunter McIntyre and Ryan Atkins, those guys, they don't carry like a little Ziploc trash bag full of warm clothes to change into after the swim and gingerly dress down. You just swim and, and keep on running. I did not do that actually. I thought about doing that, but then when you, when, when you're at the back of like a lot more people are just taking their time, right? Changing, changing their clothing and they're more interested in finishing. Right? It's like, it's like one, one of the first times I did Ironman triathlon Which I thought was just like, you know, I had watched Kona on TV and thought it was just like, you know, this full on, like everybody's racing their ass off. And I remember my first Ironman triathlon, I passed a guy who had literally brought a like one of those red and white checkered picnic blankets with him, bag of goodies from McDonald's and about halfway through the bike he stopped and he had a picnic. And those are the kind of things you see and you realize that the cool thing about sports like this is that both the super fast pros and the age groupers all get to race at the same time. And you see that vaudeville of different approaches to what some people would call racing. But at the same time it does catch the sport a little bit of flack. You aren't going to see that in the NBA basketball game, right? You aren't going to see half of the guys playing hard and the other half wearing MP3 players and, and you.

Know, now do you think they're going as this sport grows? Because I've seen it grow and I've. You've seen it grown even more. Do you think they're going to start to separate that in the future when it continues to get really?

No, because the bread and butter for these races is the age groupers. It's like the pros that volume, right, they don't pay to race, right. They bring some sponsors in and stuff like that, but the pros are actually those. That's the money suck for the race, right? Like that's where the cash price and everything goes to the age groupers. You know these, you know the, the thousands of age groupers that come in and pay the money and, and buy the gear and are the devotees and I. That's how Ironman Triathlon was built. The same as Spartan was built. The bread and butter is not the professional racing. Very few people will come pay for a ticket to watch a Spartan race. Very few people will buy a bunch of paraphernalia with the face of their favorite pro on it. The jerseys.

And the photographs and all the paraphernalia that other bigger sports can do with their sport to generate revenue like basketball and football and baseball instead with endurance sports like marathoning, triathloning, Spartan racing. The money for those is all in, in age group registrations, right?

Oh, what did Krusty the Clown say? The, the T shirts are the sweetest plum in terms of making money. Yeah, Crusty the Clown said that. Very wise words from.

Dropping knowledge right there.

I'm like Is this the same Krusty the Clown from the Symptom?

Nobody seemed to be with me there. Come on, guys.

Yeah, I like that this is the first time anyone's referenced Krusty the Clown before.

I love it. Yeah.

So, Ben, I don't know. I just walked in a little late. Did you walk through and kind of.

Tell you're taking a glorious dump and.

You guys are jealous?

He was dropping his own knowledge.

I'm still moving.

That's a crusty.

Were you able to go over and tell everybody kind of what the course looks like and explain, like, what is it? What did this course look like? What were the hardest obstacles for people listening in this type of a race?

Well, for those of you listening who really don't give a crap about obstacle course racing, sorry, would never do a Spartan race. This will still be interesting for you because some of the obstacles are actually kind of cool when it comes to cool ideas for any type of little fitness crucible. But some of the cool ones were like one of the top. They took Atlas balls, you know, like the big Atlas balls, but they put handles on them. And you did like a farmer's walk with. With two pretty heavy Atlas. And the interesting thing about these heavy obstacles is the really fast mountain runners, you know, who you don't think you're ever going to catch. All of a sudden you get to an obstacle like that and they're doing burpees because they can't even pick up the rocks off of it. So that's what I like about Spartan is, is the race can kind of go. Yeah. Another cool one is called the Ape Hanger. Whereas a giant moat and it's about 40 de water and you climb a rope up to these monkey bars. But they aren't just monkey bars. They go up in a pyramid, right? Like up, up, up, and then down, down, down. And then at the very end, it. Whether or not you make it or you don't make it, you still have to drop into the water at the very end. So it's kind. It's kind of. It's kind of unfair. Like, even if you conquer the obstacle, you're still dropping into the water. Thank you very much. That was an interesting one. They had another one, the bucket carry one.

Look crazy. That look like that was challenging the you to carry down and up the hill.

Well, you guys have been in my house. You've seen that driveway in my house. For me, I'll just carry sandbags up and down that driveway. That's easy peasy. I walk out my front door. My workout is carry the sandbags up and down the driveway 10 times. Do the monkey bars at the top. So I like the obstacles. Another interesting one is they took what's called a twister, which is like monkey bars that rotate. And so you would go across the monkey bars that rotate and then there's another set of monkey bars and then another set of twisters after that. Like a complete grip destroyer.

So the handles are the spin.

The handle spin. Oh, yeah, yeah. So they're very good at coming up with. They're not as good at the. At the corporation. Tough mudder. You go to a tough mudder, they literally spend thousands and thousands of dollars on one single tough mudder obstacle. And. And it's like a circus, right? Like these, like, they have one called the birth canal, right? Which are. It's these long slosh pipes filled with, like, pink goo that you crawl under. Like, like, like you're. You're, like you're literally coming out the birth canal. Spartan's more known. Spartan's more known for, like, I'm in a vagina, like little wood. Wood splinters and barbed wire and. And cheap ass walls and stuff like that. So Spartan's a little bit more Spartanesque. Tough mudder is more like a carnival of obstacles that they put a lot more money into. Both are fun. Spartan's more like a race. Tough mudder is more like an experience.

I was. I was talking to one of the pros from Kuwait. I don't remember his name. Do you remember his name? Really nice. Really nice guys. And he's just done. He's in forces, right?

What does he do for special forces for Kuwait? And he competes in these obstacle course races all over the world, all the organizations, and he's telling us all about them. And he was saying how the Spartan races, you know, you need to be a really good runner to do well on them. Whereas other obstacle course races may benefit or may be better for someone who's stronger upper body that you know can climb better.

There's three skills, and I have two thoughts on that. There's three skills that you need to be a good obstacle course racer, especially in Spartan. Number one, you need to be able to run. Number two, you need massive lactic acid tolerance because you need to do an obstacle that generates a lot of lactic acid because the obstacles are very glycolytic. And then right after you finish that obstacle, you need to be able to start running again and buffer the lactic acid and move the blood back into the Legs. So for your training, for something like an obstacle course race, it's concurrent training, really. It's strength, endurance. So you're on the treadmill to the weights, back to the treadmill, to the weights, to the bicycle, to the weights. The other thing is that they had a massive amount of what would be considered cheating yesterday. And the reason for that, I had a very interesting discussion with, with some of the referees about this yesterday. In a lot of the international competitions, they don't have a lot of referees. So the guys will be able to just like, fill their buckets half full, maybe just grab one sandbag instead of two sandbags. And so yesterday in the race, they had all these international athletes who, like, they aren't used to people actually checking. And some of them had to do the bucket carry three times because they fill up their bucket that wasn't full enough. They do the whole freaking loop, come back, oh, sorry, do it again. So.

And they would wait for them to get back.

So the US Races are known to be a little bit more of a stickler in terms of you having to do what you're supposed to do. Now I'm actually.

I'm supposed to go back over to the finish line and do the announcing. NBC is doing, like, the big Facebook Live event where, where they're, they're doing a big finish line ceremony for the race. And I'm, I've already, I've already agreed to go back over there and announce for that. However, Brock here. Hello, Brock.

Hello.

Okay, so I decided that I wanted to ask you guys a bunch of questions that would probably make you want to punch me in the face.

I told Brock, I said, you know what? I've got some uncomfortable questions that I want you to ask these guys.

Yes. But because I know I'm not going.

To be able to be there. So for those of you listening in, you're about to hear the mind pump guys squirm. However, you're also about to hear me completely disappear off to, off to my next appointment while these guys squirm. Now, Brock, if they wind up like, like tying you up and tarring and.

Feathering you, hey, this is not me.

I take full responsibility. I feel really bad about it, but it'll be good.

I'm glad you feel bad about it. Thank you.

I feel horribly about it. So anyways, Brock's got a list of questions that I wanted him to ask you guys. I think you'll find them quite interesting. I know that you guys, you guys are all about, like, radical honesty and sheer Brutality.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I'm sure this is going to come back around to bite me in the ass anyway, so I'm. I'm gonna boogie. We'll do a follow, and. And I'm gonna literally just, like, run back across the golf course and go back over to the finish line. But for those of you listening in, prepare to. To hear the M. Pip guy squirm slash dish out some amazing advice.

Right on.

And. And Brock is going to take this thing over.

I'm taking over.

Yeah.

Right on my question.

I'm a rock and roll.

Excellent.

So.

All right.

All right, brother. Thank you, man. Love you, brother.

I'm gonna leave my own podcast now.

Yeah. An interesting.

All right, later, guys.

Do it, man.

All right, Mr. Brock, take us through the gauntlet questions.

Yeah.

I want to remind you, these are Ben's questions, not my questions. Even though I'm asking you, were you.

Were you there when he.

When you seem like a nice guy?

When he was trying to put.

I'm Canadian.

That's always my excuse for being a nice guy. I can't help it. Yeah, I actually. Yeah, he dictated these to me. I typed them down. I took some of the swears out and stuff to make it a little more friendly. But the first question, swears and. Easy, easy. 1. You guys have a killer recording studio. Why have you not swapped out your couches a la Kelly Starrett's advice?

Why? Because you wanted. You want we should stand.

So let's talk about treadmills. I'll never forget the first time that we showed up to Ben's house.

Oh, yeah, that's a good story.

Right? We showed up to Ben's house, and aside from him making us bail, hay or carry. Hey. The first time we rolled up to his house, but we get into his little room where he podcasts at, and I'm looking around, I'm like, there's no seats in this place. And I'm thinking, is this guy not gonna let us sit down? And we're gonna still. We've never podcasted standing before. Yeah, so we did. We stood the entire time.

And then we had dinner, and we all did sit down. We had chairs. But Ben, he. He perches up on his chair like a freaking bird. Like a. Like a prehistoric. Like, he's, like, just squatting down, and he's eating with. Yeah. And we're like, this guy's awesome.

Yeah.

The entire goal and purpose of our recording studio and our entire media facility is. Is business. It is for business. And so we have a lot of Guests that come in from all different walks of life. We want to be comfortable. We want it to be a place where we do that. We sit down. We've done business.

Yeah.

Inviting and all that stuff. So although we are fitness, you know, podcast, we also want to make sure that we're, you know, kind of little normal in that sense. Inclusive and normal in that sense, because we're trying to build relationships and build, you know, a good business.

And nothing says friendship like tight hip flexors.

Come on over to our place.

Or nothing says that like showing up off of a flight from four hours or across the country. And, hey, you're gonna stand for this entire podcast.

Let's do some squats while we podcast. Yeah.

You know, speaking of Kelly Sturrett, like, he was. He spoke at a conference last year that I was at, and I was watching him just sort of mingling like he. Nobody knew who he was. Nobody knew his face. So he was just mingling around in the. In the corridors and stuff. And he stood, stood there. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, held. Or first he held it. Held his arms out to the side, rotated his arms backwards so his shoulders went nice and down. Went down into a full squat. Put the phone right in front of his face, not down by his stomach. So he's cranking his head down, held the phone right up. And he worked like that for like a half an hour. I was like, damn, that guy. He doesn't commit. Just talk about it or.

He was in front of a lot of people.

Yeah, I knew I was watching.

Exactly. That could be the other reason. Yeah.

You look pretty comfortable in them couches.

When we were interviewing, you know what you do find? I will say this. You know what you do find a lot in the fitness sphere and the fitness world that we all work in is what. I'm going to invent a term right now. I'm going to borrow it from Paul. Check. He talks about spiritual righteousness, but I'll talk about fitness righteousness. And these are individuals in our space who they'll walk around with, you know, blue blockers and technology, and they're going to squat everywhere, and they're going to stand and stretch. And we've had guests like this. They'll come into our studio and they'll do all these different movements and stretches while we're just having the culture of it, Right. And it's like, it's. It's almost like a. It kind of becomes a show a little bit.

It's a performance.

And I don't Know if it is or if it isn't, but it can come across that way. And because we're a podcast, which is communication, you know, we're very careful to not, you know, show that's that kind of righteousness to people. Because sometimes you do have guests who may be more on the business side, who aren't so much on the fitness side, and they may want to have a burger, you know? You know what I mean? What? Yeah, exactly.

Good lord. All right, well, I think that was a good answer to that one. So let's move on to the second one. Okay. So this get worse, don't they, as they.

He's starting.

Nice.

Yeah. I feel like that was easy.

He actually on the totem pole at one point. He's like, the seventh one he gave me, he's like, oh, put this one near the beginning because it's a. It's a little easier.

Okay.

Okay. So last night, actually two nights ago at this point, we went to a talk with Cal Fussman, and he talked about having a why. So Ben says, why are you guys doing this podcast other than to, of course, take over the podcasting world?

That's a great. That's a great question.

I want to get new rims for my Jetta.

I actually.

Spinners.

I just finished reading Simon Sinek's Find your why, and we just had a meeting, I don't know, maybe a couple of weeks ago, and we were talking about, you know, when we first started this, I think we were very clear about our why, and that was a major focus and topic. As the business grew, we become focused on, you know, managing employees and working on growing, and all these other things become important. And it's. I think it's extremely important to remember why we started all this. And the. I think the main reason why we got going is because we saw a major division in fitness. I still see it. I mean, I see it. This weekend, we're up at the Spartan race. People tend to want to be in a camp. They want to identify with something. And the fitness industry loves to put us all in boxes because it's easier to market to us that way.

Yeah.

And we really wanted to get rid of that, get rid of all these dividers amongst all of us. We're all in search of a better version of ourselves. And some of us find that through obstacle course racing, Some of us find that through yoga practice. Some of us find that through ripping heavy ass weight off the floor. And I think there's something to take from all of them. And I Don't think we should get into this debating over whose modality is better than the others. I think think what we wanted to do was to help educate people on all of them and explain the benefits and the drawbacks of all of them. Yeah, and I, I don't think there's a lot of people doing. I think a lot of people tend to kind of stay in their, their world of what they. They like or what they like to speak to or what they identify with most. And I think we're always trying to challenge ourselves to come out of our company. Yeah, I think that.

And also, I mean, we're just trying to have fun. Like, we're trying to bring a different kind of energy into this industry and make it, make it sort of presentable in a way where the general public, the, the masses are going to gravitate more towards it because it's entertaining. So how can we get, you know, the general public who needs to hear, like, you know, your Kelly Starrett's out there, your Paul checks, like, these kinds of people that would never, you know, they'd never be exposed to them otherwise, like, how can we get their attention? So we have a little bit more of a secret sort of flavor with that. And we're just trying to be more fun and loose and, you know, not so dogmatic and rigid in our, in our, you know, approach or the way that we even talk. Like, I mean, we're loose cannons.

So.

And that's just how we roll.

We want, at the end of the day, we want to influence the fitness industry for the better. And we, the three of us, also understand how important effective communication is, or as other people might call it, sales, how effective your ability is to sell your ideas. And it's just the reality of life that the people winning the game or winning the war of selling ideas and fitness are the ones that are selling shitty ideas and they're winning, you know, bad ideas, you know, the 30 days to get ripped and the, you know, skinny tee and the horrible fitness advice. And so we want to change that. And we know that we need to be entertaining. We also know that we need to be able to sell the ideas well and communicate them well in a way that people want to listen, but kind of, you know, at the same time sneak in good information and influence the industry as a whole in that way. So it's a big why, but it is our driving factor.

Well, you, you see, I mean, and you pick on the skinny tees and people like that. But I see a lot of problem with even academia, the names even that we're rattling off, like, I love all these guys and you know who they are. You're a smart guy. We're all well read in this, but we're not the majority. We're the minority. And a lot of the guys that are putting out really good information for us doesn't connect with the average person. That it doesn't, doesn't under. They don't understand pronation and external rotation and, you know, protracted shoulders and lower cross syndrome. Like, like that just goes right over their head.

So, you know, well, they shouldn't have to know what that is either. Like, that's right. Everyday jobs don't require knowing these terms.

Right. And they're not. And so guys like us that are passionate about fitness, we connect to that. So we love these brilliant minds, but these brilliant minds really aren't. They're not impacting as many people as you think they are. They're not, they're not reaching the, the people that really need help and really advice. They're reaching more of the rest of us. They're like, oh, man, that, that's really good. That's a great book. That's great information. And even we're going to use Kelly Start. And I love Kelly, but I mean, his book, like Supple Leopard is amazing. Was amazing read for all of us. But how many other average Jane or Joe pick up that, that book? It's like the bible for fitness.

Yeah.

And, and like the Bible, it's got amazing content in it, but some people are just never going to pick that up and read it. And so we've tried to, you know, entertain people and educate them at the same time. And we know that the entertainment side and the fun side has to be a majority because like Sal said, those are the people that are winning right now. The people that are purely entertaining, giving no good information are getting a message across better than some of the people with some of the best advice.

Well, I like to give the example of Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan did more for physics than a lot of the brilliant minds before him. And it was because Carl Sagan was really good at communicating it. You watched him on TV as a kid. You know how many people got into science because they watched Carl Sagan on tv? And he was just so compelling and did such a good job of communicating it. So it's very important that we understand that and focus on that and we want to master that mind pump is trying to master the.

Whole communication. How can we communicate this in Effective ways. How can we mold and shape the industry so that people get the right information, so that people actually become more fit, become more healthy as a whole, long term.

Everything that you guys have said makes complete sense to me, but the marketing guy inside me is, is just dying. Because when you're trying to. The reason that some of those people are winning that we were talking about is because they have a really specific message and it's really easy to market and really easy to pin down.

I'll challenge. That I'm gonna challenge.

There is no spoon.

And here's that, here's why I'm gonna challenge. Because that's like business school from 1990 and we are in a world now.

Funny, that's when. Where I went or when I went.

So. And that's. And you know what? That was, it was so true. I remember, I remember when I. One of the first times we were talking to somebody or building this business, everyone's like, well, who's your niche? You know, who's your market that you're trying? Well, it's. What's going on now is we have the ability to reach so many people and connect to so many people. The rules are different now. It's not like it used to be. You don't have to pigeonhole yourself to only appealing to one audience. Why can't I, why can't I speak to somebody that's 20 years old and you know, a young kid who's totally entertained by these things and also still reach and touch the 50 to 60 year old? And when you look at our audience, that's what it looks like.

Well, I think maybe you're thinking it's. It's going to be just us three now. The three of us, we have the podcast and we are the loudest voices of Mind Pump right now. But in the future, we're going to be, we're going to have other people who are going to represent our brand, who are going to reach these other audiences. Because we're not stupid. We know that as good as we are at communicating, you know, me, Adam and Justin are not going to connect with, you know, every niche market or whatever you want to call it in the fitness industry. But Mind Pump Media is looking to reach all these people and looking to reach them perhaps through different mediums or different, you know, communicators.

Yeah. I guess my thought is on iTunes alone, there's 380,000 podcasts.

Wow. I don't know that.

So if you're not casting a more narrow net or you're trying to. You are being a little more niche. You're competing with 380,000 other podcasts, and the health and fitness division of those 380,000 is quite big.

So I'll give you a great example of what you're talking about. So let's say Mind Pump started because we started two and a half years ago. Right. Let's say we named our podcast Keto Podcast. I guarantee you we would have gotten way more downloads early on initially. Yes, because it says Keto.

Actually, probably right now, because Keto, I think, has hit its pinnacle in like, sort of the general public Paleo.

Sure.

Yeah, sure.

So. So we could. We would have probably gotten more hits right off the bat. And then what? Like, now you're. You're screwed.

Yeah.

Now you're stuck.

How are you gonna grow exactly. How you gonna grow beyond that? So I understand what you're saying. I just think you can.

It depends on how big your vision is for your company.

That's. We, We. We are thinking way, way bigger.

In fact, when we've named our show Bigger, in fact, when we named our show, it's funny you say that. We actually had a long discussion about the name of our podcast because we knew we were fitness, but we didn't want to name it something that was so fitness that we were going to be screwed in the future and we couldn't talk about other things. So that's literally why it's called Mind Pump.

It's a great name because we could.

Go a lot of different directions with that.

So it worked out somehow.

And yeah, it's better than the Bro Show.

Yeah, we tried that one. That was stupid. That wasn't. No, it was.

We're going to call it Justin's Podcast.

Justin Just Justin Show.

No, I think. I think a lot of. I think a lot of companies and. Or they're not even companies. Most. A lot of small businesses make this mistake of, you know, if we would have. We're. We're trying right now. And this is already something we think about detaching ourselves from a lot of the things that we do currently. Right now, the podcast, 100% is us. But you're already. If you look at it, if you watch our YouTube channel, every single day we drop a new YouTube video. And a majority of that is a collaboration with one of us, with somebody else. And there are people that we think are giving really good information that not enough people know about them. And we're trying to provide that to the audience. We really want to. We don't want it to be about us. We don't want this to be the Adam, Sal and Justin show. It's. It's Mind Pump, and it's going to be. There's going to be a ton of different people and minds and ideas underneath that, and we're going to go all different directions. So I think, yeah, when you're first starting, people think that's crazy and it's not focused enough, but we're. We're pretty crazy. You know, that's.

We are crazy. That's our brand.

That's an amazing answer because it leads right into one of the other questions. I'm going to jump over a question from Ben, but that leads really nicely into this one, which is, do you think Mind Pump can become a business on its own, or do you think you need to add more? And then he added, do share your secrets.

So. Well, I mean, Mind Pump is. Mind Pump is a successful business right now, making its way into being a good company. And so I. It's already a standalone successful business. And if we were to just do the podcast, we could all survive, make good money for all of our families and have a good time and enjoy things.

Really? The podcast is doing that well.

Oh, yeah.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound surprised.

That wasn't. That wasn't an interview. Come on, man.

You guys live in a beautiful place here.

It's not hard. Yeah.

Strange art, though.

Yeah, it is weird.

Yeah. No, it's.

It.

It. It does. Well, it's like I said, it's a business transitioning into. And it's the. Where we make all our money right now. We turned down advertising money for almost two years, and the. Even the advertising money that we make now, we don't even look at that as real revenue. For us. Most the revenue comes from all of our program sales and.

Gotcha.

The podcast is the top of the funnel on that. Oh. If you were to look at the podcast and advertising money, that's, you know, that's definitely not enough to support the team that we have for sure. And I think that's the mistake. A lot of people that get into podcasting think. They think, oh, if I get a great podcast and a lot of listeners, I'll make, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars a year just in advertising.

Yeah. Yeah. That's always the goal, is, like, get enough downloads so I can get some advertising.

And that couldn't be further from the truth. You. And it's funny that by the time we actually were making really good advertising Money, it didn't matter anymore. We'd already built the business.

And so yeah, it's, it's with social media, with podcasting, with all these different mediums where you can build your business. I think the, you know, the paradigm that everybody accepts is get a ton, a ton of followers and then you'll make money. So get millions of followers. That's all you gotta do is get millions of followers.

That's all.

Getting millions of followers is a lot more difficult than people think. In fact, it's extremely difficult and extremely rare. And you can pretty much count on the fact that you won't. However, if you have a good message, do a good job and you have a little bit of talent, you could definitely get thousands of people to follow you and you can get thousands of people to value your information, what you have to provide. And if you can do that now, you've got a successful business if you do business with those fans directly rather than counting on the sponsorships. You know, I'm saying like there's a, there was another podcast, I can't remember the name, I think was Entrepreneur on Fire or something like that. And you know, our show was much bigger than his, than their show in terms of reach or whatever. And, but his fans were very loyal. He provided quality information and he sold a high ticket item. I think he sold like it was like a five thousand dollar course where he would help you with your business or whatever. You don't need very many customers, you need your core group when they're gonna pay, you know, give you $5,000 for this, you know, intensive, you know, kind of coaching or whatever. And he was very successful as a result. So I think most people, if you like a lot of people, if you got good message, you got a little bit of talent and you do a good job, you can get those 10, you know, those 10,000 followers that really like your information. You don't need, don't worry about sponsors because the sponsor, you get millions of followers, sure, you're gonna make money off of sponsors, but until you get, until you get there.

Sponsorship, yes, community or tribe. And then you want to make sure that you're constantly communicating with them, you're constantly in contact with them so you understand what it is they want, what it is you're doing right, what it is you're doing wrong. And this is a constant conversation where you're altering your business accordingly.

Plus, let's be honest, like if you, if you really think about what you're trying to do, if you know the again, we talked about the why earlier. I would rather truly impact, you know, 10,000 people in a way where it's meaningful. Then, you know, have, you know, 10 million people watch me and barely make any changes to anything. I really don't care about that, to be honest with you. I love the 10,000 people far more because there's also the shit that comes with the 10 million, like the fame and the recognition and loss of privacy and all the bullshit that comes with that. I'd rather make an impact on fewer people. And you can do that. A lot of people can do that through these mediums.

Nice. Good answer. Good answer.

We got the answers, the questions beforehand.

That's where my phone went. Knew my phone was missing.

Have skills.

All right, the next question from Ben is, and I think this is the one he actually warned you guys about. Do you guys feel like you are muscle bound meathead podcasters or do you really think you are going beyond the body to teach full optimization of body, mind and spirit? And if so, how are you doing that?

I don't think that the.

We look like, you know, because we're.

You know, there might be like a first impression or something.

Yeah, I mean, you know, we're muscular, we're good looking, you know, people like, lots of people like us, you know.

That kind of stuff.

But it's become.

It's like every room we walk in, like we own. It's just weird.

Yeah.

Is that what you're getting at?

We're super humble.

I think so.

It was actually something that I think at the very beginning was a disadvantage that has now become an advantage for us. When we first started and nobody knew who the hell Mind Pump was, and we were trying to get interviews and meetings and this and that. And you look at us at first glance. Absolutely. You see, you know, three meathead looking guys. And so we probably didn't get a lot of meetings, didn't get a lot of interviews, didn't get a lot of attention at the beginning. Well, now that we've been around for as long as we've been around and where we're at in itunes and with people and interviews and yada yada, I think people realize that we can have some really intelligent conversations with some really intelligent people. And I actually think it's an advantage now because when we sit down and because once you get moving this fast, like we are with interviews a lot of times, and I know, and I know Ben's definitely dealt with this before where you're walking in an interview, you don't know about the person who's interviewing, you don't know anything. And a lot of times the little bit that you looked at them in social media, you've probably got this idea in your head of what we're like. And so it's kind of like going to a movie that everyone told you is really shitty. And then you get in and it's actually pretty good and you're like, whoa. Or it's actually really good. That's kind of like the impression that mind pump gets for people because they see this, oh, I'm going to go into this. Especially when you get some really smart guys that come in here, they go like, oh, it was going be to have bro talk. We're going to talk about macros and PRs and we're going to get into. And then all of a sudden we take them on some journey, getting into mindfulness and self awareness and they're like, whoa, where'd this come from? And then it totally changes. And I feel you can hear that change in the podcast from the very beginning.

These kind of like, oh, especially the early, early interviews. You would hear the interviewer all of a sudden like, oh, you know, we experienced it with a Dr. Terry Walls. I don't remember. That was one of our earlier interviews. Yeah, we're on the phone and you could tell she was kind of like, oh, God, there's a couple of me. Then we're getting a conversation and then we were having a great time, became great friends. You know earlier when Adam was talking about how there's these different camps, when you look at wellness, you have your, you know, if I were to say wellness, you know, he's a wellness expert, you're expecting some dude with long hair, maybe a beard, kind of lanky, right. Maybe a couple piece tattoos, smells a little bit.

You're describing me, right?

Okay, when I say like muscle building, right? You're gonna, you, this guy talks a lot about muscle building. You're gonna picture some dudes gonna walk in kind of, you know, jack tight T shirt, you know, maybe really good tan, whatever.

Describing Ben.

Yeah, so, but there's all these different camps and we, you know, we look the way we do, but then we talk about other things. And really, if you listen to our pod. And here's the other thing you want to understand our experience, the vast majority of our experience, you know, in the 20 plus years and fitness is professionals, was dealing with everyday people that we trained as trainers. And we all became extremely successful doing it in our, in our respective fields. We trained Trainers for a very long time. So trainers would work for us. And we didn't train trainers to make them, to turn them into like the, the hardest training trainers. People are going to come to you get their asses kicked. Like, we understand what real success is when it comes to fitness, and that's longevity. And so we would teach trainers how to bring that to their clients. Teach trainers how to correct imbalances, to work on the mindfulness aspect, to work around people's lives, to support people and how to build their business. So that's, that's really what. Where we come from when we talk about what we talk about. So a lot of. So to be honest with you, very little of our show is talking about like, you know, the deadlift or the squat, unless we're talking about how it's going to benefit most people. And then usually in combination with, well, let's see how your body's working. Let's talk about the mindfulness aspect. Let's talk about nutrition. Let's talk about how fat impacts you carbohydrates, can impact you proteins, what organic means, what it means to fast. I mean, we talk about all of it because I think it's important to know all of it if you're gonna seek out what's gonna work best for you.

Yeah. So what you're saying is Ben's question was completely off base because you're already there, kinda.

No, nobody's there. I don't ever think anybody's there. It is a practice.

And not only that, the way. Way Ben worded that, it's as if I feel like that's more him. I mean, that's Ben's show. Ben's show is human optimization. And he's always pushing the limits and trying things that, you know, what's new?

And I can't imagine. I have no idea how many things he's injected into his penis.

Yeah, right.

Last night we go to dinner and we, you know, we see Ben. Hey, what's up? What's up? We love Ben. Ben's a good friend of ours.

Do you walk?

He's got his kids with him and his wife over there. And we're at this, like, nice, like dinner, and he comes up to us in two seconds later, he's talking about how he injected his penis. He's got this electronic pump on it, how he's grown. It's getting over to me.

Excited about it.

This many inches and everything feels great. And this is awesome.

Get it?

And I'm just like.

It's added like an inch.

This is literally Ben Greenfield. Like, this is. This is. He's. He is his own person.

But I mean, that. Yeah, that is.

That is.

But we love that.

I think that's a lot of his focus, and we might dabble in that a little bit. But like Sal said, I think we're really focused on the. The average person. We know this. I know that 80% of the people that walk in get a gym membership at the beginning of the year and say, I'm gonna change my Life this year. 80% of those people don't.

Yeah.

And they. And they fail. So I. I feel more than that. I feel like a lot of fit. The fitness industry, a lot of all the successful professionals out there, we're all battling for the 20 that actually kind of get it already and trying to say, like, I've got the latest new science on this, or, oh, my way is better than this. We're trying to really touch the 80.

Yeah.

Well, we're torn all the time because we're thinking, like, are we overthinking this? Are we really simplifying our message? You know, and like, every video, like, we put out, we're always like, can we just put out a bicep video? You know, like, I'm like, that's so lame. But it's like, people want that kind of stuff. Who are we to, like, you know, do something so complex and cool? It just feeds our ego when somebody just wants something simple.

Yeah.

And. And I think that is. That's a lot of what you see in our field is a lot of ego feeding a lot of people wanting to put out stuff that they think is cool or awesome or great new science. And like Justin said, we still make this mistake. We think we're simplifying things, and then sure as shit, we'll put something out that we think is just. Just too basic, and it's what goes viral or gets shared the most and more comments on it.

But it's good information. And I'll tell you. I'm gonna tell you something right now. Here's what's interesting. As long as I've been doing this, the most simple, basic stuff is the stuff that I still have to practice now, like breathing, like, the impact of breathing. You know, that's something you talk to a beginner about, or at least you should, if you're a good instructor. You talk about the benefits of breathing properly and breathing patterns and what that means in sleep and what that means and how to do a proper sleep routine and all that. And then Chewing your food and how you eat and being mindful around your food. These are the things that you need to learn as a beginner, but you never master. Even as a master, you continue to practice these things and continue to get better. And when you've perfected your deadlift and your squat and you're running fast and you've got good flexibility and mobility, at the end of the day, you know what you're going to be practicing. Breathing, sleeping properly, mindfulness, you know, the same stuff that you have to do when you're a beginner. So these are things that we like to talk about and focus on.

It's true. And actually we get a. And this is a little peek behind the kimono, as Ben likes to say. We do get a lot of feedback on the. Yeah, sorry about that.

We get a lot of feedback from the audience saying, yo, I've been listening to you for like 10 years, Ben, and you're great and stuff, but I'm, I'm tired of hearing about all these million dollar procedures that, that I can't, I'll never be able to afford and stuff. But. But they've been listening for 10 years and they don't say anything about unsubscribing. But it is funny that. Well, it can be overload really easy if you're going that far.

Here's the thing about Ben. Ben's the real deal. So I would not, I don't. I wouldn't. If I. If it was anybody else delivering his message, if it was some random dude and it wasn't. He wasn't living it, I'd be like, you're full of.

Oh, we would have been. It was probably almost anywhere else. We probably tear into Ben.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But Ben literally does live and breathe what he talks about.

We believe him.

And that's rare. It's rare that, yeah, he's legit.

His integrity is. I mean, that's, that's just literally what he's into, what he's talking about, what he likes, what he believes in. So, I mean, you just got to love the guy and the information he provides is. It's awesome. But, yeah, I think when you've been doing it as long as we have, you end up, you know, it's like, what do I talk about next? I've already talked about all this other stuff, so.

Yeah, we talked about that with him, too. It's just like, you do it so long. I mean, he's doing, well, what, seven, eight years or nine years, but yeah.

It'S like, what's I think it's more than 10.

You're kidding me. Wow. Yeah. Who's podcasting before? I mean, when people are listening on their computers?

So I get that.

I mean, he's a curious guy. He's out there seeking other, you know, forms of education, and so he wants to bring that to his audience and, you know, include them in his process and all that. So it's just like, you know, I could see how that could be a natural progression. So that's why I think it is still, you know, relatable on that level. It's like he's curious.

He's curious.

He's looking into all these different things.

If you're. If anyone's going to benefit from doing all that stuff. Stuff, it's him for sure.

The guy's dialed everything in well, and I think that's. That's the message that really matters. And why, if it wasn't Ben, we'd probably tear into that. Because a lot of those things that he does do is really not going to optimize the average person.

Yeah.

It's not going to move the needle on general public.

Right. The guy. The guy who's taking all kinds of drugs, he's not sleeping at night, doesn't know it, doesn't test poor mechanics, but then he's sticking a thing on his penis to get, like, a little bit better sex drive. Like, okay, let's. Let's unpack this a little bit and figure out where is this real value for this person. But like Justin said, I mean, this guy Ben has evolved himself and literally lives his brand, that it fits him and it's cool. But I think when we talk to our audience, as much as we think all that stuff is cool, it's like, okay, we try. We tend to, like, back up and go, okay, we're starting to go this direction because we like all this. Are we starting to lose some of our beginners in the stuff that really is going to help them and move the needle for them?

I like that. I've seen a lot of people. It's like you go to the start of Ironman triathlon, or even just any triathlon, and you see people who are easily, like, 20, 30 pounds overweight, but they've got a $10,000 bike. Come on.

Where are your priorities? It'd be so much easier and cheaper to lose 10 pounds than to take 6 ounces off your bike, but it.

Would require some work.

Work, yes.

It's the difference.

It's one of the most challenging things for us when we answer questions. Because of course, we get questions all the time about the latest supplement.

Yeah. Do you think a 2 to 1 ratio of leucine to isoleucine is better than a 3 to 1? And like, well, how much protein are you eating? Like, what's your diet look like? How do you exercise? Because really, I don't. It's not gonna make a difference at all. Even if all those things are perfect or who knows, you know?

So.

Yeah. All right, we've spent enough time on that one. Let's move to the next one. Oh, this is a. This is kind of a softball. When are you going to do a Spartan?

So we actually talked about this and we wrote down some dates, and then we scratched them all out.

To be completely honest, when we. Before we interviewed Joe Decina about six months ago, the three of us had actually openly talked kind of bad about obstacle course racing. And I shouldn't say, like bad about obstacle. It's more about the type of person that tends to be attracted or the.

Behavior that it may promote. Might not be a healthy relationship with exercise.

Right.

What?

People have unhealthy relationships with exercise. Oh, is that possible?

So. So this is what. How we would talk about it. And this is again, coming from our experience of the clients that we've trained, of thousands of people we've trained over years that tend to gravitate towards these type of races. And that it becomes this vicious kind of cycle of you're training for a race or you're completely off the wagon, and the only way you're ever in shape is when you're training for a race. And that's what you connect to health and fitness. And if you don't have your races, you're probably not in fit and in shape.

And we see this with marathons.

Yeah, that's.

I used to train marathoners a lot and I. Exactly the same. Right.

And so it's just. It just. It becomes the punishment model. It's the binge and purge model of fitness. It's no different than the way people will treat feed food when they binge and they purge. It's like, now I'm not working out, I'm going to shit, I'm drinking, whatever. Oh, man, I need to get in shape. Let me look for the next race.

Cool.

I'm gonna train for that one. And then they beat their bodies up and it just becomes this. This negative cycle of poor relationship with exercise.

If they don't get injured in the.

Meantime, that's what it is. And your body doesn't benefit from it, your mental state doesn't benefit from it. And then you're. And it's just not good for you. And it becomes the this again. It's. And it's not, it's not sustainable. You can't sustain it that way. You keep down, you go down that path and you end up, you know, you know how many clients I've trained that were high level, you know, college athletes, they're the hardest people to train, by the way. People who used to be these elite, you know, college athletes who then totally stop for 10 years, then we start exercising.

They connect to being in the best shape of their lives when they were training like an athlete.

In fact, all the workouts to them are a waste of time unless they're beating the out of themselves. They don't.

For a walk is ridiculous. That's not exercise.

No, because I used to do, you know, I used to play water polo and be in the water for eight hours.

Be one of those guys for sure.

Yeah. And, or, and their diet, their nutrition is so. They don't understand nutrition because they understand eating food in context. When I was in the best shape of my life was when I was burning, you know, 5,000 calories a day. So I've had, I can't tell you how many times clients will tell me like, I don't eat that much sal. You know, I have that. And I said, well, send me a picture of your lunch. And they'll send me and it'll be, you know, chicken, rice and vegetable, but it's a 12 ounce chicken breast. And I'll let them be like, you realize that that's like, that's probably three times bigger than the chicken breast. They're like, oh, what do you mean, I can't eat that little. They have no concept of what a proper amount is for them to eat because they've. Their relationship to food and exercise was so poor. And it was all around based around their intensity with college sports. And you see that with people who train for these types of events. So when we met Joe Decina, he came to our studio. Great guy, by the way. One of the best storytellers we've ever met.

Episode 596 we've done.

Check it out everybody.

He's super unassuming. We actually didn't know who he was. We thought he was just the host of the Spartan podcast and found out five minutes later who he was. And we started talking and fell in love with the guy. And he talks, he talks about his story and why, you know, we need to sometimes test ourselves because we're, we live in these climate and you know, controlled environments. We never experience any contrast of temperature or comfort. We're always fed all the time. We don't know what it's like to feel exhausted. And he goes, you know, we're so stressed out with our daily lives, so concerned about our emails and texts and phone calls and bullshit. You know, when you're on these races, all you're worried about is I need to finish or I need to eat and I need to get some rest and you forget everything else. And it made a lot of sense to us. And so we can see like any tool that's effective, it can be used for good and some people can abuse it. And we were familiar with the abuse. Joe Decino really opened us up to the incredible benefits. And now coming to the race, this is our second time going to a Spartan race and meeting with people. There's a tremendous amount of benefit from doing these as well. So it's really how you use it. But they're pretty awesome. And they're growing for a reason. They're exploding. And I think it's enlarged.

Well, I think it's because it's really what you just said, it's the counter to what we're seeing. Great book to read. Irresistible. Adam Adler talks about, you know, the addiction to technology. And we've only had about 10 years of this Facebook, Instagram, Twitter type world and we really aren't seeing the, the long term effects of what could happen from these behavioral patterns. And I think as time and I think Spartan is an example of, you know, we've gone to the extreme of this comfort, being detached so much that nothing becomes, makes you more present than putting you in a situation where it's like, oh my God, I just got to get water, I just gotta finish. I mean you become in touch with yourself and so many people are becoming more disconnected with themselves because we're becoming so plugged in. And I think that you're going to.

Continue to see, oh, it's an escape, man. People are going to, I mean, well, it, I think it could be a tool to help you become present or it can be used as an escape. Either way, they're going to keep growing.

The one thing that I do, and this is probably because I come from marathon background, the one thing I really like about the Spartan races and the obstacle course racing stuff is because it is actually functional. Like you're using your body on many different planes. You're actually Doing things that will potentially save you in, say, a zombie apocalypse or something like that, or in a. In a fire. Like, we have so many people who can maybe run for a really long time in one direction out there who are fit in quotation marks. But the people who are coming to these kind of races tend to. Tend to have that functional kind of fitness that is a lot more beneficial.

I like the direction a lot of this is going. I mean, I can see that with these types of races and these events, like, they're trying to really think about that. Like, how can we add in strength elements in here and how can we add in endurance? How can we add in, like, technique?

There's a spear throw.

Yeah.

Like multiple planes, like different, you know, like challenges that are going to take the body through its, you know, its full range of motion and capacity. So I think that even like ninja warrior and all these of types. Types of things. It's like these types of. Of training. I think people are gravitating towards it because we are sick of staying in that one plane, you know, and a lot of sports and things are very focused, you know, just in that aspect. But it is interesting to watch and it seems like people have a lot of fun going through it, and then there's a lot of camaraderie with it.

So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The team aspect of it is really, really nice.

Okay.

Oops, I lost my page. All right, Ben, next question is, what do you think is the next big thing to take the fitness world by storm?

You know, it's funny, we've been asked that question several times since we've been up here by other podcasts.

Should we. Should we skip.

No.

Great question.

It's a great question and we're actually.

Talking about it right now. Talking about the obstacle course racing. All of us, the three of us, pretty much agree that mindfulness or being present in some. Some way or techniques to do, to be mindful, you know, to improve mindfulness or to be present are what's going to explode next in the fitness industry as. As a direct counter to our lives, which are becoming more and more and more distracted, more and more and more busy, you know, never being able to detach from our electronics.

So wait, sorry, can you say that again? I missed it.

Yeah, so.

Got that one. Almost as good as the crusty, the crab one.

I see the clown.

You can tell I got two kids. I got, yeah, the two cartoons mixed up, but no mindfulness. I think that's going to be the next big thing. But the fitness Industry does a very good job of this. They will take something that has got some merit, it's got some value and then they're going to turn it into shit and they're gonna package it well, inevitably process it and it's gonna, you know, it's gonna become another contest. And I've seen this in yoga studios. For example, like yoga is a traditional. Yoga is a mindfulness based movement practice. But I've been to studios where you've got the competitive, you know, ness going on and you've got the, you know, the, the, these, these wealthy moms that are in there that are looking at me because I'm kind of the, this big bulky dude and what's he doing in my yoga studio? It's kind of weird. So I hope the fitness industry doesn't do that with this good message. But we think that's what's going to explode this message.

I mean history repeats itself all the time, right? This message is not a new message. It was around in the 60s. I mean we're seeing float tanks again and everyone's talking about yoga. Meditation's been around, altered states of consciousness. Yeah. All this stuff we've seen before. Well, I haven't seen, I wasn't in the 60s. But we know of it, right? If we, we. And what's different this time is we need it more than we ever have. You know, back in, back in the 60s we didn't have cell phones that we were sucked into and we're looking at all day long and iPads we carry where we could just throw, throw to our kids in the back of the seat of a four hour car drive and they just plug themselves in. If there was ever a time that we needed to learn to get reconnected to ourselves, I believe it's now. And it's going and it's going to get worse because we're encouraging all these tools right now. Tech is so cool and we're becoming more, I mean we all know VR is around the corner, right? Oh yeah, VR is around the corner. And real soon here's a whole new.

Level of distractedness right there, right?

It's real soon here you're gonna have, we're gonna have this where people, it's VR. You know, detaching from reality is going to be better than reality. And people are going to struggle with staying in reality because they don't like, they're so disconnected.

We saw that with World of Warcraft and that was kind of a shitty game even, right. And, but people still like invested Way more time of their life into that I can't even imagine.

Well, it's no wonder that the fastest growing, you know, diagnosis for mental, you know, if you want to call it mental disorders, anxiety, I believe it's number one now in the US it's exploding prescriptions for anxiety.

So hot.

It's, it's and I. And again it's, it's a direct result of our lifestyle and probably our diet and our lack of activity and all of the above, but it's just compounding and it's getting worse. And I think you're going to see more, you know, as far as nutrition is concerned. I can even go that route. I think just to be more specific, we're going to start seeing the anti protein advertisements start to come, believe it or not now because we know super high protein intake can accelerate things like aging. In the right context it could promote cancer growth. So of course the fitness industry is going to take that and they're going to go the other direction with it. I think you're going to see more stuff on fasting, more twist on fasting if you will, more supplements to support fasting, which is ironic considering fasting means nothing, nothing. So you can see all these supplements like take this powder while you fast.

Well, and I think too, you know, we see everybody trying to disconnect from technology and disconnect from their phones and all that. And so there is the mindfulness element of it on that end of the spectrum. But there's always going to be the counter to that which is to get outside nature, beat the shit out of yourself, you know, feel something for once when, you know, all day you're just sort of in this hum where we're getting through the day. I'm just doing my work, I'm sitting down, you know, like life just becomes sort of on autopilot where you know, certain events like this kind of shake it up, like this is a new environment, this is hot, this is cold, you know, this is uncomfortable. Like a lot of people are going to start seeking out more uncomfortable things.

Well, experiences 20 years ago we would probably think that's kind of silly and dumb.

Where it's now it makes sense.

Yeah, I got another really good one. We've been told this is mainstream now we're talking, we've been told for very, very long time. Well at first exercise wasn't a big deal and then later on we understood that you need to exercise, that's good for you. And now we're hearing these studies that exercise by itself is not effective at all when it comes to weight loss. Now, for the average person, this is important to note because most people workout because they just want to lose weight. They don't really think about health. It's kind of secondary. And so now we're told like, oh, all these studies show if you go and do all this exercise, you're not going to lose any weight. And the problem with that is because the type of exercise that they're looking at is cardiovascular, cardiovascular activity, although it's.

That medium cardiovascular too.

Any type of activity that is asking the body to become more efficient with its energy. First and foremost, you do burn a lot of calories while you do it. But second, this signal that you send the body tells the body to adapt in a way that makes it more efficient with calories, AKA slowing your metabolism down. So when they look at exercise, those are, that's what they consider exercise. Nobody ever considers resistance training. And again, I'm speaking to the mainstream, with the mainstream media, they don't consider that resistance training alone. There is no form of exercise that does this like resistance training. Resistance training alone sends a signal to the body that says, prioritize strength over everything else. And the side effect of that is a metabolism that is, you know, quote unquote, less efficient or AKA faster metabolism.

Yeah.

So I think you're going to see a bigger push towards resistance training. We're already seeing it. CrossFit did a good job of introducing weights or the big, big gross motor movements to everybody, especially to women. But I think you're going to see more and more. That's going to be the prescription. Whereas the old prescription was, hey, every day, 30, you know, do 30 minutes of just, you know, general activity every day and, and then you'll start to lose weight or whatever. I think it's going to be resistance.

We see this happening already in gyms. If those that have been around the gyms for a long time remember what, what they looked like and what they're starting to look like now, more and more, which is they, you know, most big gyms had this huge machine area of all the coolest, latest, cool, you know, nautilus and hammer strength machines. And you're starting to see those start to disappear and make more room for more squat racks and more deadlift grass and sleds and kettlebells. And like, we're starting to see that happen. And it's really exciting. It's also why, you know, mind pump talks a lot about Indian clubs and mace bells and kettlebells and a Lot of these unconventional tools that have been around forever that are incredible.

Much longer than Nautilus.

Right, right. And so I think. I think we're starting to see that. I think it's a. I think it's for the positive that we're moving in that direction. And, you know, we're trying to stay ahead of that curve. We've got a ton of videos out on all those tools, and we promote that and try and teach people how to utilize that. So I think you see that happening already. You know, if you. If you're familiar with a lot of the gym layouts.

So we've got heavy lifting, we've got mindfulness, we've got. What was the.

You're going to start. See, people start talking about low protein. That's a little more specific.

I'm have to buy a different yogurt.

Come on.

All right. Well, those are good answers. I think we're. We're really.

Yeah. I don't know how Ben's being easy, man.

Yeah. These aren't that.

I thought he was going to get personal and get all indoors.

Tell us about your father.

Okay, here's. Okay, here's a good one.

Okay.

Ben says, what is the most unhealthy and hypocritical thing that you have done within the last month and each one.

Of you is supposed to answer?

That's a good question.

That's not fair.

There's so many for me.

We'll chime in and see if he's being honest.

Well, no, I first have to address the question because I. The reason why I wouldn't call it hypocritical, although I know what he's looking for is because I'm very transparent with anything that I. I use or do or know. That's a struggle for me.

We talk out a lot on artificial sweeteners.

Because we're learning more and more about them and how not ideal they are for our body.

And when you say artificial sweeteners, do you mean like things like stevia all the way to aspartame or artificial.

The synthetic ones. Okay. Although stevia is, you know, on the fence. But he. I think you're referring to like sucralose, Aspartame.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes. And I love a Diet Coke. Every now and then I will. If I'm at a coffee place and I've only got options like Splenda or something, I'll put it in my coffee. So. Absolutely. In the last month, I would say artificial sweeteners are. Now, the thing is. And What I try and tell people all the time is, you know, there's all these big rocks that we have in our health and wellness journey, and I'm always trying to focus on the ones that make the greatest impact on me. And I try and pay attention to when I make those choices, knowing that it's not the most ideal situation. I should probably have this, or this would be a better choice. But I really want this cup of coffee and I want to enjoy it. And I. And for me, it's like, okay, if I'm going to do that, then I'm going to be mindful of taking it in right now. And when later on tonight when maybe I'm feeling like a Diet Coke with a drink that I'm having, I'm not going to have it because I know I did something like that. So trying to mitigate the damage, if damage is being done from intaking that. So I would say, if I was going to say it's something hypocritical I've done in the last 30 days. We openly talk out about artificial sweeteners, and I absolutely have taken them in in the last 30 days.

I think.

Well, I'll go ahead, Sal, because I know you'll go for a while.

I've got a long list. It's long.

Yeah. For me, I think really, we talk a lot about frequency and training. And for me, like, sometimes I'll get caught up where I just want to focus on hanging out with my family and I just want to, like, and, you know, spend time with them.

And so that was a gasp, by the way.

Yeah. And.

And really, I don't feel bad about this. So hypocritical. Call me, you know, whatever you want, but, you know, I've stepped away from the weights for, you know, a couple weeks and, you know, this is one of those things where blasphemy.

Right.

Because all we do is we talk about training and how to ramp it up and, and, and get that volume. Consistency, consistency, consistency, consistency. But, you know, my priority was like, you know, I want to spend time. I want to watch my kids, you know, play soccer. I want to, you know, go do these things with my wife. Like, I'm spending so much time building this monsters business right now that, like, I just, I wanted to step out and take some of that time, you know, for them. But meanwhile, knowing I need to jump back in because, you know, I really need that for myself to be a better person to bring to them. So.

It'S a struggle because this is like one of Those things where it's like push, pull, you know, is this the right time for that? But I felt like I was taking so many things on that I wanted to give them that, you know, for now. But. So that's where I'm at. But I, I definitely want to get back in and like start. Start the process all over again. But I definitely, like, I miss it. Like, you step out, it's good. You come back and then it's like you're experiencing it all over again.

I think we're all pretty good too though, about stuff like this, which I love the question.

That's a great question.

And I think not enough fitness professionals do this is share this type of. Because if they're all being truly honest, like nobody is, you know, perfect all the time. Nobody intakes the. Just the perfect amount of macronutrients every day or trains ideal every single day. And I think more people in our position should share the same struggles. And we try. And that's part of our flavor on the show is we openly share something that we're currently struggling with. Like, I know I need to be doing more of this. I know I. I need to work towards this. But it's hard right now and I'm. And we share that with people. And then we also share some like example like I gave. That's why I knew the artificial sweetener is a good one is because I'm. It's very much so in my mind right now. And that's kind of how I'm handling it right now is if I did it okay, be mindful that I did it, try and limit it. Where in the past I could not give a. I would just coffee sweetener, maybe an energy drink before I go work out Diet Coke later on. And I'm intaking all this stuff that can't be good for me. Well, how do I go from the guy who's used to having that all the time to someone who has none of it? Well, it's. It's a progression. And every day I'm trying to be a better version of myself. And I try and take snapshots of, okay, let's look at my diet or let's look at the things I'm. What I'm doing are fueling my body over the last 60 to 90 days and am I a better me than I was the previous three months? And my goal is always to try and improve that. And if that means limiting some of these things that I know aren't ideal. And we like to share that I Think. I think we do a good job with that.

Yeah.

Yeah. So for me, was it, what's today? Sunday, right. Friday. I did a lot of cocaine and heroin.

That's what I was waiting for.

I'm joking. I'll tell you what. If you. So here's how mind pump could be really hypocritical is if we became dogmatic. If I'm being truly honest, if we ever became super dogmatic, then that would be very hypocritical of us because we're not dogmatic with our message. And I'll give you a great example. So we're all talking about nutrition and workouts and what we, you know, I had artificial sweeteners, I didn't work out or ate that cupcake or whatever. Here's something that I think two things. First, if you are dogmatic about your fitness and nutrition to where it becomes, you know, religion for you in that sense, in the bad sense, dogmatic, you are not really exercising overall health and wellness. You just aren't. Orthorexia is an eating disorder where people, for example, where people will eat perfect all the time and stress out about their food.

You see, this in the body brings.

Them a lot of anxiety and they don't have good connections with their friends and family and they don't do much for themselves because they're so focused on this, you know, perfect, absolute perfect nutrition. When you're looking at the whole, the whole ball of wax, when you're looking at total wellness, it encompasses more, much, much more than eating the foods that are perfect for your physical body or exercising in an optimal way that's going to make you perform, you know, like the best athlete that you can possibly be. There's also the emotional connections with people around you. If I'm with my family or in friends and we're enjoying great time with each other and I'm communicating with people and we're all connecting and we're having some wine or we're having some pizza or some cake or whatever. What's important at that moment is not the food feeding my physical body. What's important at that moment is the connections with the people around me that's more important for my wellness. And there is a little bit of that give and take. And that's a lot of what we talk about. So it's hard to say, what have I done that makes me hypocritical? I guess the only times I've been hypocritical is when I've become too rigid and forgotten the big Picture, you know, where, you know, maybe I didn't do something with my kids because I had to do my quick workout. And then, you know, and now I realize, you know, what was more important at that moment was the time that I'm spending with my kids. If you're looking for longevity with your wellness, you want to consider all of that. In fact, I just wrote a nutrition guide that we're going to be releasing soon that talks about a lot about this, about, you know, you're at a, you know, Christmas dinner with your family, and your aunt made her special, you know, Christmas pie, and, you know, you're so worried about your macronutrients, and so you don't eat it. But you missed out on an opportunity for something that comes once, you know, once a year with your family. So really, if you ever see Mind Pump get super dogmatic and super religious about what we're doing, then. Then we're being hypocritical because, you know, that's. That's what we really stand for, the whole thing. And sometimes that means doing things that are not healthy for our physical bodies, but maybe healthy for other parts of us.

I don't know if Ben actually meant that to go so philosophical, but I'd like to think he did.

I think he knows this pretty well.

Sorry.

At first I was thinking it was going to be hookers and blow, but it went very, very philosophical.

We got it out of the way.

Okay, we've only got one question left, and this is actually a pretty easy one. Are you guys afraid of hay bales? Afraid of Ben, or is there another reason why you haven't come back to Spokane?

Oh, man. Hitting our heartstrings right there, man.

Tell him he's too far out there, man. Out in the middle of nowhere. We absolutely love to move, actually.

He's got a rad house.

We love Ben and hay bells. I'm very. I grew up on a farm and am used to lifting them. So that was a great little twist. Twist that he did the first time we ever met. But, yeah, no, he's a very, very busy man as he couldn't even sit in this interview for longer than 15, 20 minutes. So I'm gonna put it back on him. We have the huge media facility that we could shoot all of his content and our content at. But anytime he invites us up there and wants us to come up there, I'm pretty sure we'll hop on a plane and come see that. Make it happen.

Yeah. Ben's one of the, you know, we've We've met quite a few personalities and people in fitness and podcasting in particular. And you know, Ben's one of our favorite people. He's definitely different. He's highly intelligent. He's eclectic. But he's, he's, he's genuine. And those are the people that I think we tend to connect with the most.

He has everybody's cell phone. Not everybody gets that. Right. He has everyone's self personal cell phone and we all talk to him on a group thread and we're in communication. We would consider him not just a business relationship, but also a friend for sure.

Absolutely.

That's, that's great. And I think we're. I've kept you guys long enough, so let's just let all the audience know as if they don't know already. Where, where can they find you guys?

So we're Mind pump. You can find us on itunes or stitcher or other, you know, podcast, Google play, whatever areas or whatever. Our YouTube channel is pretty awesome. We've put a lot of effort into it over the last eight months. We post a new video every day. So it's either like, crazy. Yeah, it's either, oh, we do five podcasts a week. Week. And we also do seven YouTube videos a week. And it's either fitness videos, so we break down technique or we do correctional exercise or we'll talk about, you know, different diets or we do some kind of comedy. Yeah. So it's, it's a great channel. So, you know, check it out.

It's a cool time to subscribe to it right now because we're right. Especially if you're a business person, you and you'll enjoy the direction that we're taking it. So there's a lot of effort put around the channel right now and a lot of entertainment. So we're trying to make it very entertaining and educating at the same time.

And if you're interested in checking out our programs, we've designed fitness programs for different, you know, goals and adaptations. You know, whether you're trained to be. Look like a bodybuilder or, you know, you want to be like a, you know, an ancient athlete, like we like to say, or if you just want to build overall strength and muscle or mobility or whatever. We have all the Programs available@mindpumpmedia.com Beautiful.

Cool. Thanks, guys, for coming. The Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast minus Ben Greenfield. But we'll. Let's all get back out there to the 2017 World Championship of Spartan Racing. I know we were supposed to say that. So I'm slipping it in there. One more time. Good job.

Yeah.

Excellent. Thank you. Right on, bro.

Everybody.

You'Ve been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast.

Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

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