#71： Engineering the Alpha With John Romaniello
Episode Stats
Summary
John Romanello is a health and fitness expert who has written for pretty much every single major fitness publication website out there. He is the head of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Fitness Advisory Board, and he recently published a book called Man 2.0, Engineering the Alpha.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:00:20.060
So what does Joseph Campbell's archetype of the hero's journey have to do with getting
00:00:26.720
in better shape, or for that matter, becoming a better man overall?
00:00:31.100
How can skipping a few meals increase your testosterone?
00:00:38.360
Well, our guest today is here to answer those questions.
00:00:42.020
His name is John Romanello, and he is a health and fitness expert who's written for pretty
00:00:47.220
much every single major fitness publication website out there.
00:00:50.760
He is the head of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Fitness Advisory Board, and he recently published
00:00:56.160
a book, well, last year he published a book called Man 2.0, Engineering the Alpha, and
00:01:00.600
today we're going to talk about all sorts of stuff.
00:01:04.560
We're going to talk about testosterone, optimizing all your hormones, the hero's journey.
00:01:09.760
We're going to talk about how to reduce stress.
00:01:17.800
And just so you know, heads up, there's some big boy language here.
00:01:20.840
So if you usually listen to the podcast with your 10-year-old son, you might not want to
00:01:24.940
And if you're at the office or some public place, you'll probably want to put on some
00:01:31.880
All right, John Romanello, welcome to the show.
00:01:38.580
So let's do, for our listeners who aren't aware of you, who know who you are, let's do
00:01:44.420
You're a fitness expert, written for a whole bunch of the big fitness magazines,
00:01:54.100
And in fact, you wrote a guest post for us about a year ago about the hero's journey.
00:02:03.460
And when you're growing up, you describe yourself as the chubby eighth grade kid who'd rather
00:02:10.200
So how did you get started in health and fitness?
00:02:16.300
But how did you get started in health and fitness?
00:02:22.880
Like deep under this muscular carapace beats the heart of like Sheldon Cooper.
00:02:27.580
I'm just, you know, like covered in this disguise of muscle.
00:02:31.200
As to how it happened, I mean, it just like many people, I just had a moment where I realized
00:02:38.240
I didn't want to live my life the way I was living, what alcoholics call a moment of clarity.
00:02:42.760
I just sort of looked in the mirror and realized that the person I was seeing wasn't really
00:02:49.340
the outward manifestation of who I thought I was internally.
00:02:53.940
And, you know, there's a lot of interesting research that's been conducted over the past
00:02:58.160
20 years, but more so over the past 10 that shows that in general, we typically perceive
00:03:03.740
heavy people, you know, people who are bordering on obesity.
00:03:07.580
I was just what I would call chubby or thick, but speaking very generally, we generally perceive
00:03:14.020
people who are heavy to be less intelligent, less motivated.
00:03:18.280
And I think a lot of that applies to self, even with no access to that information, even
00:03:24.360
If you just look at yourself in the mirror and you compare yourself to other people or
00:03:28.100
just feel like you're out of shape, you typically don't feel great about it.
00:03:32.220
And a lot of that is just sort of the brainwashing that comes with being in our culture.
00:03:36.220
But I think that there's there's some evolutionary holdovers there as well in terms of not being
00:03:41.320
fit enough or capable enough to provide or to be in a position where you could defend
00:03:48.400
And for whatever reason, that happened for me when I was toward the end of my freshman
00:03:55.020
year of college and I looked at this picture that had been taken of maybe six or seven
00:04:04.900
And I was like, Jesus, I was, you know, you don't see it because it happens every day.
00:04:12.860
And then I looked in the mirror and I was like, well, shit, it's actually worse now.
00:04:20.160
I decided that I wanted the person inside to match the person outside.
00:04:24.280
And, you know, a big part of that, you mentioned my nerdery.
00:04:26.580
I think a big part of that has always who I wanted to look like has always come from nerdy
00:04:32.660
I, you know, always wanted to look like Batman or Superman or or even Spider-Man, who was a
00:04:39.200
bit more gangly, but still, you know, pretty, pretty visibly jacked.
00:04:41.940
And growing up, I played Dungeons and Dragons and I got to pretend to be all of these heroes
00:04:48.940
And then one day I thought there's no reason that I can't with some work actually do that
00:04:56.660
I being, again, a nerdy, bookish sort of guy, someone who had always sought I saw great
00:05:04.020
My first impulse wasn't to go into the gym and just come out swinging.
00:05:07.920
My first impulse instead was to read as much as I could about health and fitness and then
00:05:13.180
come up with a game plan and apply it, which I discover now, having worked with thousands
00:05:17.720
of clients over the years, that is sort of the opposite of what most people, in particular,
00:05:24.080
Typically speaking, most men like to shoot first and ask questions later when it comes
00:05:29.320
And I was, I guess, fortunate enough to be to be in the other camp.
00:05:32.900
But what I've learned is that I think that there are two types of people in the gym.
00:05:38.260
There are the people who do a lot of research on the internet and then start.
00:05:40.960
And then there are the people who start and do a lot of research later.
00:05:45.600
And this is, this I guess is a, is a, is a good soundbite or at least actionable tip.
00:05:50.420
What I have found is that the people who just are willing to get started and take action,
00:05:54.780
even if they're doing things that aren't correct in terms of what fitness professionals
00:05:59.180
believe is the right course of action, those people are still more likely to get results
00:06:04.160
because a, an imperfect plan executed with perfect intensity is by far superior to a perfect
00:06:11.160
plan, not executed at all, because you're too busy trying to perfect the plan.
00:06:14.480
So it's all about, it's better to get the action is be action oriented and then go back
00:06:21.160
Um, for me, it was the other way it worked out.
00:06:23.180
Well, I went through this crazy body transformation.
00:06:26.440
I went from being this chubby kid to this ripped guy in about six or eight weeks.
00:06:30.860
I went from having a 35 inch waist to like a 28 inch waist over the course of, of that
00:06:36.380
I lost a lot of weight very, very quickly because it turned out I had pretty good bodybuilding
00:06:42.900
And then, you know, my life changed in a lot of ways.
00:06:45.540
I was more successful with women after a fashion, but it just, it was great for my confidence.
00:06:50.400
Not only did I like the way I looked, I liked the way people reacted to the way I looked.
00:06:53.880
And it was such a positive experience for me, for the most part, that I thought, how can
00:07:01.300
And at the time I was in school majoring in, uh, in, in psychology and biology, but I just
00:07:08.800
And then it turned into this business that just kept growing.
00:07:12.520
And I started writing for magazines and now it's, I think 12 or 13 years later.
00:07:17.920
And, um, I guess maybe one day I'll get a real job, but for now I'm very happy to write
00:07:23.180
books about fitness and, and, uh, and general self-improvement.
00:07:27.080
But, you know, fitness is now, it's a very small part of what I do.
00:07:30.140
It's, it's sort of the face of everything on the outside, but now I get to function in
00:07:35.280
the capacity of a business consultant, an angel investor, a social media guy, and an
00:07:41.260
So it all started with fitness, but you know, I, I sort of look at Arnold as my role model.
00:07:45.440
Here's a guy who started with bodybuilding and has gone into everything else.
00:07:48.280
So I like to have, I have a lot of irons in the fire and I like to be involved in a lot
00:07:54.080
So, but yeah, fitness laid the foundation for all of that though.
00:07:58.080
Let's talk about this kind of the nerd brawn thing here a bit.
00:08:01.240
Cause like there's this common misconception, I feel like amongst a lot of men that if you're
00:08:06.420
into fitness, you're going to, you're supposed to be like this kind of adulty bro that just
00:08:09.800
cares about doing bicep curls and the squat rack or whatever.
00:08:14.640
And I, I've noticed when my, just kind of rubbing shoulders with guys who are in the
00:08:17.960
fitness business, um, they're also extremely smart and capable intellectually has strength
00:08:29.680
I mean, um, well just, just a quick comment on, on the industry writ large.
00:08:33.980
I think that there are just so many, uh, not even just super, you know, just aggressively
00:08:41.300
intelligent, hyper-intelligent people in the industry.
00:08:44.720
And there sort of have to be one of the complaints that we hear a lot in the fitness industry is
00:08:48.420
that anyone can, can, you know, have a decent body and start a blog and call themselves an
00:08:55.820
But the cream really does tend to rise to the top and you see so many of these guys being so
00:09:01.000
successful and building these massive empires simply because they are so good.
00:09:07.440
And I think that there's so much of that sort of misconception that's just held over from,
00:09:15.160
Uh, I, I really think that the industry values intelligence.
00:09:19.400
It's, it's an industry that looks to the smartest people in the world, uh, in, or the smartest
00:09:26.380
And it's really only the people on the outside who think that it's the meathead sort of leading
00:09:31.160
the way because those people on the periphery, those meatheads, they, they tend to be pretty
00:09:35.560
But, uh, as to the original question, I think that for me, one of the reasons that I've been
00:09:41.080
so successful is because I straddle a couple of different worlds.
00:09:45.380
And in particular, I play off a lot of misconceptions.
00:09:48.820
You know, you see a guy like me, who's done some fitness modeling, who did some bodybuilding,
00:09:56.540
You generally are going to think, you know, again, the public perception is you see a guy
00:10:00.160
that looks like me and you think he's a meathead, he's an idiot, he's vain.
00:10:03.320
Then I start talking about comic books and, and my, you know, lifelong obsession with, with
00:10:08.000
And, and all of a sudden those things are, are sort of, uh, turned on their head a bit.
00:10:12.200
And I think that, you know, I've talked about this in a lot of other interviews.
00:10:15.200
So for people who, who are, uh, are hearing this for, for the umpteenth time, I apologize
00:10:19.680
for the redundancy, but I really do believe that cultivating dichotomy in any business
00:10:24.280
is one of the, the, the great things that, uh, makes things successful.
00:10:28.980
And that's, that's really what's worked for me.
00:10:30.880
And it's what has worked for so many of those other professionals that I mentioned.
00:10:34.320
There's these super smart guys that can bro out and do a bunch of bicep curls, but they
00:10:40.900
So let's talk about your most recent book came out, uh, I guess last year, right?
00:10:50.260
There's a lot of great stuff in here, but let's start off with this.
00:10:57.000
Because I feel like the whole alpha male thing gets thrown around so much by so many different
00:11:00.920
groups of people that it's almost lost its meaning.
00:11:03.600
Cause it means can mean anything you want it to mean.
00:11:08.980
So I think that what we were trying to do, we being my, my coauthor, Adam Bornstein and I,
00:11:13.740
uh, if you guys are interested in Adam, super smart guy, born fitness.com.
00:11:17.220
Uh, so what we were trying to do is sort of stake our claim on that word and sort of rest
00:11:22.580
it from the control of the, um, the, the, the less scrupulous, uh, aspects of manhood.
00:11:29.480
Uh, I think that particularly in, in the seduction community or the pickup artist community, that
00:11:36.180
word gets tossed around in a very positive way and a very negative way, because there
00:11:40.600
are people who are successful in that world and are successful with women who view themselves
00:11:47.680
And then there are people who are still sort of climbing up the rungs and trying to be
00:11:52.060
And, and because they're unsuccessful, hate people that are just as a matter of course,
00:11:57.200
this is one of the unfortunate little burrs of human nature.
00:12:01.060
So, you know, it can mean a lot of different things, but really what we wanted to do is
00:12:06.420
And for, for me, what it is to be an alpha is not to go around talking about yourself as
00:12:13.040
It's just someone who's consistently dedicated to self-improvement.
00:12:17.240
Um, it, you know, it just, it's engineering the alpha sounded better than engineering the
00:12:23.060
attitude of consistent self-improvement, but, you know, so that's really what it is.
00:12:27.420
So we get some flack and, and push back on the alpha male thing, but we're not talking
00:12:31.100
about being an AMOG because for us, that's sort of limiting, right?
00:12:34.940
To be the alpha male of a group simply means that you are the best or the highest member of
00:12:40.240
a, of a particular group of guys or people or, or anyone else.
00:12:43.400
So in order to quantify value, you have to compare yourself and rank above other people.
00:12:52.260
And what we look at is more of a, an intrinsic value.
00:12:55.580
So rather than looking at extrinsic motivators in terms of, of a pecking order, I'm really
00:13:00.100
concerned with how I rank today versus how I was last year.
00:13:03.340
Have I become a better man over the past 12 months?
00:13:07.200
I'd like to think that I'm a better writer today than I was the day that book was published
00:13:13.680
And I hopefully think that I'm a better business person than I was a year ago and a better
00:13:18.880
And, um, and, and that's really the goal for me to constantly get better, to try and create
00:13:23.380
some sort of objective guidelines for self-analysis.
00:13:28.320
And from there have a way to quantify progress.
00:13:33.560
Uh, or you mentioned my article on the hero's journey earlier, and we'll talk about that in
00:13:36.540
a bit, but, but a big part for me, a big part of it is looking at, at each individual change
00:13:41.940
I'm undergoing in my life and, and pushing it through the lens of the hero's journey and
00:13:47.480
using that as a way to sort of assess, uh, development and what, uh, what the next thing
00:13:55.360
Let's talk a little bit more about quantifying progress, because that's something I'm, I'm
00:14:00.900
And for a lot of things, there's some things that are really easy to quantify your progress
00:14:04.480
on like, you know, if your bench is getting better, if you're making more money, you know,
00:14:08.560
sort of the things you haven't like that naturally have a number to it, but how do you quantify
00:14:12.600
sort of those more fuzzy things like general wellbeing, or am I able to manage stress better
00:14:23.300
So, you know, you know that you're progressing.
00:14:25.480
Well, a big part of it for me, um, and you guys have written about this quite a lot.
00:14:29.260
The only way to, uh, be aware of these things is to, is to record them, right?
00:14:34.820
So journaling is, is really, really great for me.
00:14:37.580
It just sort of writing it down and, and going over my day, realizing most of the situations
00:14:44.640
I've been in at this point are just sort of variations of other situations that I've
00:14:51.400
And, uh, you know, so like any, any stressful business situation has its own unique set of
00:14:59.420
problems, but ultimately every single stressful business situation you'll ever be in is going
00:15:05.360
to affect you the same way because that, you know, how, how you as a person, as a man react
00:15:11.040
to business stress is going to be unchanging unless you specifically address that.
00:15:15.540
So I think that, um, a big part of it for me is every single time I'm going to end, let's
00:15:23.300
Every time I'm going to enter into a huge, um, business undertaking, which for me is
00:15:28.220
either I'm releasing a new product or new book, or I'm starting a new company.
00:15:33.260
What I do is I look at my journal for, you know, like the three weeks, the three week period
00:15:39.140
that I might've been doing that during the last one, the last launch.
00:15:43.060
And I just see how I was handling things and try to be better.
00:15:47.060
And I, I got to see that, like the thing that consistently stresses me out is the fact that
00:15:52.320
I'm always scrambling last minute in the, in these launches.
00:15:55.360
And the reason for that is because I don't, I don't prepare.
00:15:58.480
I just leave too many things to the last minute.
00:16:00.820
And a lot of that is because it's, I'm a procrastinator.
00:16:03.800
So the way that I handle that, how I get better at being a businessman is I delegate things that
00:16:10.180
And I focus only on doing the things that only I can do.
00:16:13.060
And that just means that by the time the launch rolls around, we have 50 to 70% more shit
00:16:19.480
done than if I had done it myself and waited to the last minute.
00:16:23.160
So just like looking at the fact that, you know, going over those three or four launches
00:16:27.380
that I did in 2012, leading up to engineering the alpha, I would say, well, these were the
00:16:33.780
So now I'll eliminate those by a matter of course, because there were simply fewer things
00:16:39.740
My stress level decreased, but I also try to look at how I handled stress during that
00:16:46.940
And for me, it's, it's a matter of like trying to, you know, just let, let more things roll
00:16:53.680
I I'm the type of person who is, there's a lot of cumulative stress for me as opposed to
00:17:01.860
So I just need to keep my overall stress level down.
00:17:04.860
Like if, you know, I'm the kind of person who will very much like there will be one
00:17:09.500
tiny straw that breaks the camel's back as opposed to other people who compartmentalize
00:17:17.140
And for me, if like, if there's this one business thing upsetting me, I'll just sort
00:17:21.640
of look at it in the grand scheme of life and like, well, you know what?
00:17:25.140
The site crashed, but there's literally nothing I can do about that.
00:17:31.560
I said, Hey, the site crashed, get it back up when you can.
00:17:34.020
And now I'm, I'm kind of capable of just like laughing it off because in the end, what's
00:17:39.460
it really going to affect, you know, maybe we'll make a few thousand less dollars because
00:17:44.640
But if my business hinged on making three or $4,000, then I wouldn't be in a good spot.
00:17:49.800
So I just, you know, I just sort of control the things I can control and, and, uh, just
00:17:56.160
Um, but let's talk about, yeah, let's go back to the hero's journey, right?
00:17:58.620
So what I loved about the book is you, um, sort of frame everything within Joseph Campbell's
00:18:05.260
How does understanding that the hero's journey help men become better men, whether it means
00:18:11.660
getting in better shape or improving their romantic life or improving their business
00:18:16.880
And what is it about the hero's journey that can help men become better men?
00:18:19.520
Well, I think that if you understand it and apply it to any change or any, any stressful
00:18:26.580
situation in your life, it's very clear what you need to do, right?
00:18:30.660
So if you look at the hero's journey in, you know, whether you use Campbell's original 17th
00:18:35.520
stage model or the more abbreviated Bogler model, that's 12 steps.
00:18:39.340
I, I like to look at it and think, where am I on this circular journey?
00:18:47.820
Because most of the time the problems in life are caused because we don't know how to react
00:18:54.000
And once you know where you are on that cycle, it's for me really just about focusing on
00:19:03.000
So the first step is, you know, the call to advent or being in the ordinary world.
00:19:07.880
And then there's the call to adventure, which maybe you've gotten fired from a job.
00:19:14.420
Maybe you're getting into a relationship or in the case of this book, maybe you want to
00:19:18.580
start a fitness journey for whatever reason you've had, as I described it earlier, that
00:19:22.620
moment of clarity, you've seen a picture, you have this reunion coming up, it's your
00:19:26.420
wedding, whatever it is, there is what Campbell calls an inciting event.
00:19:30.520
There is something that makes you want to do the thing that you want to do.
00:19:41.680
But if you look at the hero's journey, stage three, depending on which model you look at,
00:19:51.280
The only thing you should be focusing on is finding a mentor, whether in the fitness,
00:19:58.580
it could be the book that I wrote or any book, because that is written by someone who knows
00:20:04.580
Whomever the author of that book is, that's the mentor.
00:20:11.020
What maybe it's hiring a nutritionist, whatever it is you do.
00:20:14.060
The only thing you should focus on is, is a mentor.
00:20:19.080
Once you've done that, you're going to go through a period of reluctance.
00:20:28.040
They, you know, they're like, all right, they hire a trainer.
00:20:32.300
And you just have to find some way to, to overcome refusal of the call.
00:20:36.600
And in fitness, normally accountability is enough.
00:20:40.120
When people hire a trainer, they have financial accountability.
00:20:43.620
You have to show up for that session because you're paying that guy $150 an hour.
00:20:47.460
And so that usually gets you over the hump of refusal of the call.
00:20:50.880
So just like looking at those two steps alone, that's it.
00:20:55.560
But all you need to do, if you're in one of those earlier stages, is focused on getting
00:21:01.040
Then there's, you know, the path of, you know, going through tests, trials, and allies.
00:21:06.020
As long as you know, you know, it's allies, enemies, tests.
00:21:08.940
As long as you know that those are coming, you can be more prepared.
00:21:11.560
If you look at things through the lens of the hero's journey in terms of fitness, you think,
00:21:20.640
It means I'm actually committing to this journey.
00:21:24.080
So they're going to, after that, be tests, allies, and enemies, which means I'm going
00:21:29.600
I'm going to have people who are going to say, oh, just have one beer.
00:21:35.040
And then I'm also going to have people who are just like, hey, man, you're doing a great
00:21:39.000
And for me, I have found that letting my clients know that those things will happen in advance
00:21:44.200
and giving them specific instructions for how to handle each one of those events.
00:21:50.640
They are immediately going to be more successful.
00:21:56.760
And so the same thing can apply to going through a relationship.
00:22:09.300
I loved being a single guy in New York City and just going out and being with a bunch of
00:22:14.720
women, you know, dating a bunch of women, you know, having the occasional six to 12 month
00:22:19.940
relationship and then going back to juggling six women.
00:22:22.440
That was like, that was how I enjoyed living my life.
00:22:28.480
So, so again, being a bachelor is my ordinary world.
00:22:34.940
And then I actually, for initially, I was a little bit afraid of like what it could mean
00:22:40.620
to be in a relationship with someone whom I knew, like I wanted something real with.
00:22:47.980
I had dinner with with John Berardi, who is one of my early fitness mentors.
00:22:55.180
John is one of the greatest coaches in the world.
00:22:59.020
He had also been a career bachelor and then eventually got married and has like two, two
00:23:04.020
And so John and I had a long conversation over dinner and that conversation sort of gave me
00:23:09.380
some insight and helped me understand that maybe, you know, I was ready and that maybe
00:23:15.840
And so then the, the, the crossing the first threshold was when we got involved in that
00:23:22.980
There are always women from your past coming in, you know, like messaging you what's going
00:23:31.080
That's like, you know, I actually, I had, I started writing this blog post that it, that
00:23:36.400
it begins with, let me introduce you to the universe.
00:23:39.700
He's a dick because the universe will test you.
00:23:43.380
As soon as you're in a happy relationship, like women are going to start coming at you
00:23:48.980
And I think that anything worth having is worth being tested for you.
00:23:56.500
I deserved that hardship of like needing to grow from that type of refusal because that
00:24:01.720
proved to me that I was worthy of this relationship.
00:24:06.100
The people in your life who were so excited for you to take this step.
00:24:09.500
And then there are the enemies who were saying, are you, you really think you can do this?
00:24:16.100
You know, all of these different things, these people, and the most insidious thing is that
00:24:21.020
those are people that you love in both cases, your allies and your enemies are people that
00:24:28.420
Who's just like, I don't really like this girl.
00:24:30.320
You know, you might, you know, that didn't happen with me.
00:24:32.980
That's how I, that's one of the reasons I knew, by the way, it was one of the, one of the
00:24:37.360
Um, but you know, that happens with a lot of my friends.
00:24:40.800
They've, they're dating this woman, they fall in love.
00:24:42.920
And then some member of their family are, they're, they're putting poison in their ear.
00:24:51.460
So all of the, all of the aspects of the hero's journey, every step applies to every major
00:24:59.900
I can camelize anything from getting hired to getting fired, to going to college, to getting
00:25:04.660
to, you know, going through divorce, to finding the one you love or, or to fitness.
00:25:09.220
And for me, whenever I don't know what to do in my life, I just sit down, I draw a circle
00:25:15.300
and I plot out the hero's journey and I figure out where I am.
00:25:18.640
And from there, all I need to do, all I need to do, Brett is get to the next step.
00:25:22.840
And what, and then that just becomes a question of how to do that.
00:25:30.700
And so I guess that you, one of the, when I was thinking as you're, as I was
00:25:34.600
listening to you, this, the hero's journey can happen to you more than once.
00:25:38.060
You're, I mean, in, in general, you're going through, you know, your main life cycle of
00:25:42.380
a hero's journey, but I think at any given time, we're all going through, you know, one
00:25:47.240
to three individual cycles and a lot of them, you know, overlap, you know, you could be going
00:25:52.960
through this new cycle of starting a business while at the same time going through the cycle
00:25:57.680
of, of, you know, getting a divorce or, or whatever else.
00:26:01.500
And I think that, um, you know, you go through so many throughout your life.
00:26:06.600
Every major change is a micro cycle on the macro cycle of your lifelong hero's journey
00:26:13.000
to become the best version of yourself and live a life worthy of song and memory.
00:26:18.400
That was some great, like some meta deep psychology, Jungian stuff right there.
00:26:23.160
Um, so let's, let's get into the nitty gritty about your, your, your health and fitness
00:26:27.160
philosophy, um, because it's unique in the industry.
00:26:30.400
I think, um, you put a lot of emphasis on hormone optimization.
00:26:35.320
Like that's one of the, the keys to getting in the best shape of your life.
00:26:39.100
Are there specific hormones that we should be focusing on to optimize our health?
00:26:47.240
I mean, cause that's such, it's like such a weird, it's like alchemy almost, right?
00:26:53.560
Hopefully aren't too many Faustian bargains involved, but, um, so a big part of it, right,
00:27:00.500
So the first thing is that I really do recommend that people go and get some sort of hormonal
00:27:10.740
Uh, in particular, I, I say that every man who's over the age of like 16 should get a
00:27:20.020
testosterone, uh, to get, get their testosterone levels checked and do it probably every two
00:27:26.060
Even if you're not experiencing symptoms of low testosterone, it's, it's important to
00:27:30.420
get it tested because it establishes a baseline.
00:27:33.480
And if you, if you do that and then get it tested years later and it's significantly lower,
00:27:38.280
then at least you can identify the problems, uh, or, or maybe one of the sources of those
00:27:43.500
But, uh, a good company that you can look at is wellness FX, uh, wellnessfx.com.
00:27:50.020
And they do all sorts of like really, really in-depth hormonal profile.
00:27:53.820
They do micronutrients in your blood and, and, and everything.
00:27:57.340
So there's no hormone that isn't important, but on, on the larger scale in terms of the
00:28:03.620
ones that we can manipulate with changes to our behavior, there's testosterone, insulin,
00:28:11.940
uh, growth hormone, estrogen obviously is, is part of the mix.
00:28:16.180
And then there's all these hormones that are related to those other ones like ghrelin
00:28:24.640
Let's talk a little bit about what some of the things you can do to modify or optimize your,
00:28:30.120
And you talk, one of the big keys, uh, you talk about in the book is intermittent fasting
00:28:34.600
for listeners who aren't aware of what intermittent fasting is.
00:28:37.340
Can you explain what it is and talk about what sort of the effects it has on, on hormones?
00:28:43.140
So intermittent fasting or IF is a, a system of, of, of structure, alternating structures
00:28:52.160
of, of eating and not eating periods of fasting when you're not eating at all with periods
00:28:57.340
that are called a feeding window when you are quote unquote allowed to eat.
00:29:02.400
The most popular of which is 16, eight intermittent fasting, also known as the lean gains method.
00:29:09.340
It was as far as I know, devised, but certainly popularized by Swedish trainer, nutrition expert,
00:29:15.880
Martin Birkin, uh, who you guys can learn about over at lean gains.com.
00:29:20.320
Martin's a very smart guy and certainly one of the godfathers of the fasting movement, along
00:29:24.260
with Brad Pilon, who wrote a great book called eat, stop, eat.
00:29:27.760
And, uh, so I've learned a lot from, from all of these guys and I, and I love to throw them
00:29:32.280
as much light as I can when, uh, whenever I have the opportunity.
00:29:34.980
So check all those guys out, but fasting is good for various types of, of, of health related
00:29:43.160
But in terms of your physique, in terms of your hormones, the fact is that when you are fasting,
00:29:48.940
you're going to be minimizing insulin production because you're not eating.
00:29:54.640
And insulin is produced, not necessarily in direct concert with, but certainly as a consequence
00:30:02.980
So we all know that eating carbohydrates causes an insulin spike, but it's also been shown that
00:30:07.420
eating fat by itself or protein by itself or protein and fat together can also cause insulin
00:30:14.360
And so by, by concentrating your food intake into this smaller period, you minimize insulin
00:30:21.240
production instead of, let's say the, the traditional bodybuilding model of eating six
00:30:25.200
meals per day, you're, you know, creating those insulin spike six times, but here you
00:30:29.360
might only be doing it two or three because you're eating all of your meals in that eight
00:30:37.400
So right off the bat, you're decreasing insulin and increasing growth hormone, and that is going
00:30:42.020
to have some profound physiological effects just in terms of the ease with which you can
00:30:46.940
make changes to your body in terms of, uh, fat loss and muscle gain.
00:30:52.440
It's not like flipping a switch and all of a sudden, you know, you can eat the same things
00:30:56.880
you were eating and you'll have radical shifts in body composition.
00:31:00.920
And at the same time, it's not a completely necessary thing.
00:31:03.900
You know, bodybuilders have been getting shredded on six meals a day for as long as there have
00:31:10.960
It's just, it's something that, that is going to give you a little bit more leverage.
00:31:18.520
I think we can agree that eating three meals per day is, is easier and more convenient than
00:31:26.180
Uh, certainly cheaper if you're eating different meals every time or, uh, just a lot less time
00:31:35.340
Um, and that's huge, particularly because there's a lot of what we call hormonal interplay,
00:31:42.920
And one of the things that we look at is the, the relationship between insulin and testosterone
00:31:49.300
and the better your insulin sensitivity is, the more you're going to see the effects of
00:31:57.080
higher testosterone, even at lower levels by a sex drive, for example.
00:32:01.080
And another thing is that, um, insulin resistance is, it's just a terrible thing in terms of
00:32:09.720
It's you're, you're more at risk for heart disease and cancer and prolonged insulin resistance
00:32:14.820
can even be shown to, uh, create some physiological erectile dysfunction.
00:32:20.160
So, uh, you know, just because it's, it's a matter of blood not getting to the penis.
00:32:25.840
We talk a lot about stuff in the book that people, you know, think is funny.
00:32:29.260
And we're just being bros talking about sex drive.
00:32:31.520
But, uh, you know, if one day you woke up and your dick didn't work because you'd been
00:32:34.980
eating donuts every day for the past six years, you'd be pretty upset about it.
00:32:38.680
So, you know, it's, uh, it's, it's really not something that happens overnight.
00:32:43.240
None of these things are, but they can happen in, in a fairly minute period of time, uh, relative
00:32:50.040
And that's why we find that we can have some pretty afound, pretty profound effects over
00:32:56.520
And, uh, we've had guys who have doubled their testosterone levels in as little as
00:33:01.140
So it's pretty, pretty alarming how quickly it can happen.
00:33:04.380
So I guess like a kind of a, for a sort of a general, uh, intermittent fasting schedule.
00:33:09.500
I mean, one could be like you eat your last meal at seven o'clock and then you'd wait 16
00:33:15.200
And then wait 16 hours and then eat again in the morning.
00:33:16.980
So we, you know, a lot of people eat their first meal at 2 PM and their last meal at 10 PM
00:33:21.060
or, you know, if that's too late for you, if you like to go to bed early, you can, you know,
00:33:24.800
you can do 12 and eight, whatever, whatever's good for you.
00:33:27.660
Let's talk about, um, kind of, it's related to this, but like cheat days and cheat meals.
00:33:30.700
Cause I, there's that post you, you have on your site about the Vermonster, which is,
00:33:36.800
Cause we, my family and I, we go to Vermont a lot.
00:33:39.480
And I want, I want to, I want to pound the Vermonster one of these days.
00:33:43.340
Um, I've actually only ever been to Vermont once and it was specifically to go to Ben and
00:33:50.060
Jerry's so the Vermonster for anyone who does not know is a Ben and Jerry's confection that
00:33:56.240
is made up of something like 20 scoops of ice cream, three brownies, three cookies, like
00:34:07.980
Um, once was with my buddy, Tim Ferriss for his book, the four hour chef.
00:34:13.100
We actually have a chapter where, so the Vermonster is meant to be shared obviously between six
00:34:17.360
and eight sane human beings, but Tim and I each decided to eat one by ourselves and Tim
00:34:26.060
So what role does that have in like hormone optimum?
00:34:33.920
So I'm a big believer in cheat meals and cheat days.
00:34:37.040
The reason to have cheat meals is for the upregulation of a hormone called leptin.
00:34:44.080
Leptin is known as the anti-starvation hormone.
00:34:48.020
It comes from the Greek leptos meaning thin and leptin is a master hormone that controls
00:34:53.460
production of other hormones in particular thyroid hormones, T3 and T4, and thereby it
00:35:00.460
more or less regulates your metabolism, particularly with regard to how quickly you can burn fat.
00:35:06.020
Leptin is produced in your fat cells and it is also, and the, uh, the production of leptin
00:35:10.520
is also related to your overall caloric intake, which means this, when you are on a diet, hopefully
00:35:23.860
That's how you're losing the fat in the first place.
00:35:28.540
And after a couple of weeks, your leptin levels have dropped to the point where it's downregulated
00:35:35.260
your T3 and T4 production, which is why it's hard to lose weight.
00:35:39.180
This is the reason that many people, when they start a diet, lose 20 pounds in the first
00:35:45.000
One of the reasons is that leptin levels have dropped to the point where now they're,
00:35:49.800
they've sent off some evolutionary distress signals.
00:35:52.340
And it seems to the, to the, the, you know, physiological machinery that we're in a famine
00:35:59.000
state and that metabolism has to slow to preserve the fat stores and the muscle enter the cheat
00:36:06.240
day, also known by a science types as a strategic overfeed, having a cheat day bumps leptin levels
00:36:13.920
up because you're getting this huge caloric excess all at once.
00:36:17.600
So instead of eating give 2000 calories a day, or maybe even less when you're dieting, you
00:36:22.160
go to eating 6,000, 8,000, or if you're stupid, 14,000 calories of ice cream in one day.
00:36:28.700
And that sort of brings you down from, from being at DEFCON four down to DEFCON one.
00:36:34.460
And you're still in, your body knows that you're still dieting.
00:36:37.180
There's, you know, a lot of, um, a lot of evidence to say that cheat days are not necessarily
00:36:41.360
as effective as we'd like them to be, but they do, they do seem to work at the very least.
00:36:47.860
They almost always seem to increase fat loss provided that people are, are dieting hard
00:36:54.300
enough during the week to make the cheat day worth it.
00:36:58.000
And then, um, it's also a nice, you know, like reprieve from, from the, the stress of,
00:37:07.200
So again, I did mention that they only work under certain conditions.
00:37:10.500
You have to be fairly lean, you know, and, and the leaner you are, the more often you
00:37:16.980
Um, back when I was dieting for a bodybuilding show, when I was 22, I had a cheat day once
00:37:22.020
every five days up until I was about eight weeks out or, or yeah, eight weeks out from,
00:37:28.780
You also need to be eating in a pretty restrictive caloric deficit during the week.
00:37:35.520
If you're going to cheat on like Sunday, you can't be, you know, if you're, if your basal
00:37:38.840
metabolic rate requires you to eat 20, 200 calories per day to maintain eating 2000 calories
00:37:47.000
per day, and then having a cheat day on Sunday, isn't going to work.
00:37:49.820
Your diet needs to be more restrictive than that.
00:37:53.920
So if you're just starting out, like if you're still like 40 or 50 pounds overweight, wait
00:38:02.060
I mean, really the, the, the main thing that I would say is wait until the rate of fat loss
00:38:06.600
slows consistently and, and, uh, considerably, and then have a cheat meal and see if that
00:38:13.820
And then once you're, you know, 20 pounds, 25 pounds away from your goal, a weekly cheat
00:38:20.340
In terms of cheat meals versus cheat days, it all depends how restrictive you are during
00:38:27.040
Some people like to be very, very, very restrictive during the week and then blow it out on a Sunday
00:38:33.980
Um, you know, I don't mind, you know, eating 800 calories below maintenance, uh, six days
00:38:39.500
If I get to destroy it on Sunday, that, that works for me.
00:38:42.060
I'm a pretty extreme guy, but other people, you know, they'll eat three or 400 calories below
00:38:47.200
and, uh, they'll have a cheat meal once every two weeks and that's fine for them.
00:38:51.000
So it really depends on the type of lifestyle you live and how miserable you want to be.
00:38:56.100
Well, here's a question that just came to mind.
00:38:57.540
Is there a difference on how intermittent fasting affects men and women?
00:39:03.000
So there was a couple of articles last year that, uh, basically people came out and said,
00:39:11.780
I think intermittent fasting is bad for some people.
00:39:16.400
I think anyone who has, who has, has unfortunately struggled with an eating disorder is going to
00:39:22.780
be someone who, who is more prone to having some sort of psychological, a negative psychological
00:39:29.420
response to not eating, particularly if you've struggled with anorexia, like that's not a good
00:39:34.120
idea in terms of the actual, you know, apples to apples comparison of, of how it affects men
00:39:40.060
I mean, I just, I think that a lot of it has to do with the, uh, the sizing thing, right?
00:39:45.260
Like hummingbirds need to eat more often because they're tiny and their heart beats more because
00:39:50.100
So I think that, uh, women probably can, can fast for 14 hours instead of 16 hours and
00:39:58.900
And then they'll be, they'll be perfectly fine.
00:40:05.260
Neither one of us see any sort of, uh, anything negative.
00:40:08.480
But I've known guys who have had pretty shitty reactions to fasting and I've known women.
00:40:14.360
So I think that those arguments are, are founded in flawed logic.
00:40:17.960
I actually wrote a Facebook post addressing one of them.
00:40:21.640
And, and this article was written by someone on T nation.
00:40:25.380
And it was, I think, I mean, I think it might've been 1200 words long and there were at least
00:40:30.580
nine logical fallacies in the way that the argument was presented.
00:40:33.460
And, you know, that's a problem for me, uh, you know, that's, that's the issue I take.
00:40:39.720
You know, if you don't like intermittent fasting, if you don't think it's good for women, just
00:40:43.760
Don't make some sort of ridiculously structured and passionate argument because it's bullshit
00:40:50.000
You know, just like if you're going to argue, know the rules upon which argument functions.
00:40:56.320
Well, so besides the nutrition, the intermittent fasting, what are some other like important
00:41:07.220
And it's, it's such a, I, I, it's such like a double-edged sword because I feel like this
00:41:12.780
I need to tell people about it, but then I'm like, no one's going to listen to me anyway.
00:41:18.700
Uh, the first of which, um, was a study that found we're sleeping about, uh, set on average
00:41:24.520
75 to 90 minutes less or fewer than, um, than we were 10 years ago, which I think is pretty
00:41:33.480
On average, we're sleeping up to an hour and a half less than we were 10 years ago.
00:41:39.460
I mean, as to why that is, Brett, your guess would be as good as mine.
00:41:44.020
But I think that we're all just, you know, there's more to do.
00:41:47.640
Um, so here's, here's the, the really terrible downside of that.
00:41:54.540
There was another study and this one, maybe, maybe Harvard.
00:41:58.920
I I'd have to, I'd have to check our notes, but, uh, it showed that sleeping six hours per
00:42:04.980
night or less for as little as two weeks can lower testosterone levels by as much as 15%.
00:42:16.500
One of the, the like arbitrary numbers that we spout off, cause this seems to be true
00:42:20.900
is that for men after the age of 30, your testosterone levels will drop about 1% per
00:42:29.360
So that means that by sleeping six hours a night or less for two weeks, you're aging your
00:42:33.940
body 15 years in terms of testosterone production.
00:42:38.880
So right off the bat, you can see just how just fantastically and fundamentally it is important
00:42:46.580
Get enough sleep is, is huge, you know, and it's, and it's hard because you need it the
00:42:52.300
most, you know, when you're in your mid twenties, because you're, you're functioning like a, like
00:42:56.580
a beast and you're going through life and at this like breakneck pace.
00:42:59.680
But at the same time, that's when you want to feel like you're invincible and, and that's
00:43:04.420
We don't take care of ourselves during that time.
00:43:06.360
And then we screw ourselves, you know, for, for the future.
00:43:09.580
So, um, it's something that I, that I say with a lot of hope, but, um, you know, the, the
00:43:15.480
foresight, unfortunately guys aren't going to listen to the extent that they should.
00:43:18.800
What about a stress optimization or managing stress?
00:43:25.640
It affects you in all sorts of interesting ways.
00:43:30.840
The more stressed out you are, the more cortisol you will have.
00:43:34.060
And the more cortisol you'll have, the more prone to feeling stressed you are, um, sort
00:43:40.080
of like, you know, being drunk, you know, like the, the, the more alcohol in your system,
00:43:44.500
the drunker you are, but the drunker you are, the, the, the, like more bad decisions
00:43:49.040
Um, this is, uh, is deleterious for a number of reasons.
00:43:55.380
It's been shown that it can, uh, lead to the accumulation of the type of belly fat that
00:44:05.460
And then also it's just, you know, all sorts of other, uh, negative effects of stress,
00:44:10.720
hair loss and thoughts of suicide and all these other things.
00:44:15.540
Cortisol can lower testosterone, but in particular it'll, it'll, it's, it's,
00:44:18.260
it seems to be negatively, uh, really there's sort of an inverse relationship between,
00:44:21.840
um, test or, uh, cortisol and growth hormone, but growth hormone does act as sort of a potentiator
00:44:28.180
So it seems that even if your testosterone levels are unaffected, you might, you might
00:44:35.300
So like, I guess meditation or just kind of being stoic towards life is an important, uh,
00:44:46.500
The more you sleep, the better your growth hormone will be the few, the less cortisol
00:44:50.800
But yeah, I mean, I think that, um, some guys are super into meditation.
00:44:56.100
I think that it works for a lot of people, but there are people who are just a little
00:45:01.820
bit too, too pragmatic to, to like really buy into meditation.
00:45:08.000
Let me qualify that by saying, I do believe it works, but I also just, I, it's too, it's
00:45:16.340
You know, I, I can do it and it's very, very hard for me to meditate for even 10 to 15 minutes,
00:45:21.700
but it doesn't have, it doesn't seem to have the same effect for me as it does for other
00:45:27.520
people where, you know, when I come out of this meditation, even if I managed to get
00:45:31.140
it 90% right, which I'm probably capable of doing one out of every 10 times I try.
00:45:37.020
Um, I, I don't come out of it with this feeling of dispassionate calm that I have in general.
00:45:42.520
Instead, I'm just like, I don't know, maybe I just, there's too many negative associations
00:45:49.460
I mean, a big part of it is just writing, you know, I know what, what works for me in
00:45:54.980
terms of like, whatever's bothering me, I just write about it in the most ridiculous
00:46:00.360
way that I can, because I really think that life is, is sort of one big joke.
00:46:05.640
You know, I just, it's such a, it's so ridiculous.
00:46:08.160
Like when I, yeah, I was, um, and this is, this is, we're getting into dark territory here,
00:46:13.640
but, um, uh, the, the, the shooting in, uh, Isla Vista, um, affected all of us, I think.
00:46:20.740
And, um, I don't even, you know, uh, Roger, Elliot Roger, I don't even like to say his
00:46:25.980
name and throw him props, but you know, it just affected me pretty negatively because
00:46:30.020
he was this depressed kid who just, you know, like, imagine that, imagine that your whole
00:46:35.820
life is so terrible because you're just not getting any pussy that you're like, well, the
00:46:41.960
And to me, it's, it's so dark and awful that the only thing I can do is laugh about
00:46:49.020
it and just write about it and talk about it in the most ridiculous way.
00:46:54.000
Because when I think about it, things like that, like misogyny, it's, it, people say
00:46:58.500
like, there's nothing funny about it, but it's not funny, but it's laughable to me.
00:47:02.880
It is so incredibly laughable that anyone could really think that there's a fundamental difference
00:47:08.460
in the quality of a human being based on their genitals, like that's, or their race.
00:47:14.800
So it's, it's, I can't even put myself in the mindset of someone who believe that, like
00:47:19.860
the fact that, that people are still racist, it, it, it, to me, when I hear stories about
00:47:25.020
real racism, it almost feels like it's made up because there's no possible way anyone could
00:47:31.940
Like, and so I just like, I'll write in my journal about how ridiculous it is that people
00:47:37.360
could still live in this world about, you know, where, where color matters, for example.
00:47:43.760
And, and for me, just like taking, you know, 30 or 40 minutes to write a ridiculous story
00:47:50.600
about that, or, or just, you know, write out my thoughts and that really, really helps me.
00:47:54.240
And I think, you know, that's a form of moving meditation for me.
00:47:57.300
Oh, so you, you kind of take sort of like a, a catch 22, like that character Yossarian
00:48:03.160
in the novel, like he just sort of blasts up the absurdity of war, right?
00:48:10.400
And, and, you know, cause there's nothing else you can do, you know, unfortunately, like
00:48:14.220
we can't, there's no cure for just people going off the deep end, it seems.
00:48:20.300
And, and that sucks, you know, but yeah, the absurdity of it all.
00:48:25.000
So that for me helps, but I also, you know, I throw myself into my work and I throw myself
00:48:29.180
into, into exercise and, and that's really helpful for me.
00:48:35.080
And honestly, a big one for me, anytime I'm super stressed out with work, I stop working
00:48:41.480
So I'm a lot, I've, I've been playing poker since I'm 20 years old.
00:48:47.900
And it was something that I did at least semi-professionally in my, in my mid twenties,
00:48:52.880
where I was supplementing my income by three or four or 5,000 per month playing poker.
00:48:57.500
And there's something for me, which is so incredibly freeing to just be at a table and just focus
00:49:03.740
on the cards and living in this world where the only nine people that exist are you and
00:49:11.740
And the only thing you're going to do now is focus on, on playing these cards to the best
00:49:17.700
And to me, that is infinitely more relaxing and satisfying than meditation.
00:49:23.580
It's an interestingly, I know a lot of professional poker players and they say the thing that helps
00:49:28.860
And then I know a lot of people, another, a lot of poker players who say that meditating
00:49:33.960
So I think it's really the, the, the takeaway is find whatever it is that allows you to feel
00:49:44.020
And just like, you know, for some people it's, it's meditation for other people, it's poker
00:49:50.500
for some people, it's training, you know, I don't know.
00:49:54.080
And it's been different things for me at different times in my life.
00:50:01.260
That's why we're here to figure out what works.
00:50:03.320
So, uh, let's talk a little bit about, uh, strength training because that's an important
00:50:06.780
part of, uh, hormone optimization is a lot of people don't realize that whenever you exercise,
00:50:13.200
What's your philosophy towards strength training?
00:50:15.040
Is it just like what works for you or what gets you moving?
00:50:19.860
I mean, what, what's your approach to fitness and strength training?
00:50:23.080
I mean, how do you, how do you distill, you know, 12, 12 years of training and experimenting
00:50:33.500
Like my philosophy for me is not the same as my philosophy for my clients.
00:50:37.760
If I have someone who's never trained before, they, they have historically had a hard time
00:50:45.460
Then my philosophy is let's just pick the thing you hate the least and that you, or enjoy the
00:50:50.280
And let's just do that because that is for whatever reason, what feels okay to you.
00:50:55.980
And that is going to keep you coming back and building that habit is going to be most
00:50:59.840
important for, you know, a guy who comes to me and he wants to compete in bodybuilding.
00:51:06.640
My philosophy is going to be in, you know, have my training philosophy is going to be entirely
00:51:10.540
different than a woman who wants to get in shape for her wedding.
00:51:15.440
So for me, my philosophy isn't necessarily what works for you because I think you can
00:51:22.700
Although there will be some things that are just, you know, that maybe you respond better
00:51:27.220
It's all about like, what's your goal and how can we get you there?
00:51:30.840
You know, there's a lot of people who would come on this, this show and they're just like,
00:51:37.300
And then there's other people who would come on and say, well, I hate CrossFit.
00:51:40.640
The crux of what you enjoy the most or hate the least and what's going to be most effective
00:51:46.820
for getting you toward your goal, wherever those two lines meet on the graph is what you
00:51:52.840
And if you're someone like me, that's going to change all the time because I'm always
00:51:59.340
You know, historically, most of my goals have been aesthetic or strength related.
00:52:05.820
I trained specifically for that, or I wanted to compete in bodybuilding.
00:52:10.640
But if I got it into my head that I wanted to compete in the CrossFit games, I would
00:52:14.800
obviously train very, very differently than, than I would for bodybuilding.
00:52:26.860
So, yeah, I don't, I don't have a, a strong tie to any one training methodology because I,
00:52:36.200
I just think when people get so upset about it, like that's nuts.
00:52:40.560
You had that post about like kettlebells, right?
00:52:42.780
Where everyone's like, you have to do kettlebells.
00:52:45.060
It is, it is superior to any type of exercise ever.
00:52:52.600
Um, but you know, they can only do so much, right?
00:52:56.560
Like if I wanted to deadlift 600 pounds, I wouldn't be training with kettlebells.
00:53:01.360
It's not, you know, maybe I would do kettlebell swings as a supplementary exercise, but I'm
00:53:05.440
not, you know, I'm not going to be like, well, I need to find two, 300 pound kettlebells.
00:53:10.980
Um, yeah, so I, yeah, I, my, I, I really fight pretty hard against dogmatism because
00:53:17.120
I think it really hurts the industry and that's, that's any industry by the way.
00:53:24.720
It, you know, it, it really, it, it creates camps, which people like because they like
00:53:29.740
to feel part of, of a tribe, but it also like it fractures and segments the distribution
00:53:39.740
And I think that's something to be, to be a board.
00:53:45.540
Um, cause I remember like for a while, like several years ago, I was like really big on just
00:53:50.040
like the five by five, you know, strong lifts and I, that's all I did.
00:53:55.360
It's all about compound lifts and they're great.
00:53:57.640
But like, there came a point, like I wasn't making any progress.
00:54:01.080
And so I had to like reevaluate, like, well, maybe I should do something else.
00:54:04.780
And like, I started doing, um, like just basic, you know, supplemental lifts.
00:54:12.980
And what's crazy is like, I started making progress again.
00:54:16.160
And so now I'm in this place where I'm just like, I'm always changing depending,
00:54:19.860
like you said, depending on your goal, what my goals are.
00:54:23.780
I mean, nothing, nothing annoys me more than when some, you know, some kid goes on the
00:54:29.580
internet and he asks a forum or his, or Facebook page.
00:54:32.980
And they're like, all right, I want big arms because he's a kid and he wants to look good
00:54:38.720
And, you know, a bunch of people come back with him and it's like, well, you need to do
00:54:43.980
You just need to do, you know, your arms are going to grow from, from benching and do pull-ups.
00:54:52.540
Like there's nothing there's, you know, like they're awesome.
00:54:57.140
And you're going to get a good pump and feel good.
00:54:58.960
And you're going to go back to the gym because you got a good pump and it felt good.
00:55:01.520
Like discouraging people from doing things they want to do because you don't agree
00:55:08.100
So let's talk about that, that kid who's just starting out.
00:55:10.960
I know there's probably a lot of people who are listening who are sort of a seasoned veterans in
00:55:14.420
the fitness world, but there's a lot of people who they want to get started on that hero's
00:55:21.000
I mean, what's one or two or three, whatever you want to do, like, what are some things
00:55:25.600
Like start off with today that can get them going on that.
00:55:29.360
Master a few body weight exercises would be great.
00:55:31.800
You know, like really do a pushup correctly and, you know, don't let your hips sag.
00:55:40.200
Make sure you're protracting the shoulder at the top of the movement.
00:55:43.080
Like there's, you know, it seems like a pretty simple movement, but there's a lot of little
00:55:46.660
hitches that a lot of people get wrong because they're never taught how to do it.
00:55:50.320
So I think if you mastered the lunge, the body weight squat, the pull up, the pushup and
00:55:56.980
the plank, if you really just mastered those, and there are so many ways to figure that out.
00:56:02.900
I mean, you could hire a coach or you could just read a lot of really, really quality information
00:56:08.580
If you mastered those and did, you know, six sets of six reps for each of them every day
00:56:15.500
for a week, and then, you know, maybe started messing with the volume after that, you would
00:56:24.960
Sprint, that's, you know, like stretch, make sure you're, you're hydrated and foam roll
00:56:31.340
Don't just like go out and, and just like go zero to 60, like Rocky on the beach, you
00:56:38.020
I think that, you know, people are always asking me, like, if you could only do one exercise,
00:56:45.560
If you were on a desert Island, what would you do?
00:56:49.320
I'd like, if I, if I could only do one exercise and I was on a dead and a desert Island, it would
00:56:56.080
I hate swimming, but I recognize when it's useful.
00:56:58.840
But, uh, yeah, I mean, like if it really came down to it, like if I could only do one thing,
00:57:04.540
it would be sprinting, build a great physique, sprinting and, and having good form doing it.
00:57:09.480
And you're also going to stay lean, you know, versus my, my favorite weight training exercise
00:57:15.520
And if I could only do one weight training exercise, it would be that, but I think that
00:57:19.520
there are like, that there would be complications there from only deadlifting, you know, after
00:57:23.980
you master some body weight movements, master some compound movements and a few isolation
00:57:29.460
If you want big shoulders, throw in some lateral raises.
00:57:32.280
If you want big arms, throw in some biceps curls.
00:57:34.740
If you want a big chest, throw in some flies or something, you know, just like whatever it
00:57:38.840
is, but those should be in addition to not in lieu of the overhead press or push press,
00:57:45.580
the squat, the deadlift, the bench press, the, the bent over row or, or, or cable row
00:57:49.580
or something, you know, I think that like, that's, that's a huge part of it.
00:57:55.740
So let's, uh, we've been going at it for a long time.
00:57:58.540
This has been a great, great conversation, but let's end with this.
00:58:02.660
And, uh, where can people find out more about your work?
00:58:05.700
Uh, I'm, I'm working on a bunch of different things at the moment, which I think is really
00:58:10.460
a terrible idea and that's something I'll get better at hopefully and just work on one
00:58:14.880
I'm trying to figure out the next, the next phase of what I'm going to be doing.
00:58:20.500
You know, I, I sort of want to transition Roman fitness systems into, um, more of a,
00:58:27.460
a magazine style site than a single person blog.
00:58:32.160
As much as I like, uh, writing about fitness, I, I sort of am at the point where I don't
00:58:38.220
write often because I've sort of said what I had to say.
00:58:40.980
Like there's every now and again, I get a good idea and I write about it, but the blog
00:58:45.520
So I would like to use it, um, as a launching pad and, and turn it into something like T nation
00:58:52.080
was for me back in the day where I can, you know, now that I have all this attention and
00:58:56.100
so much traffic, I'd like to be able to publish other authors and, um, and start doing
00:59:02.880
So, um, toward the end of the summer or, or, uh, late in 2014, I'm going to be transitioning
00:59:06.480
there and function more as a sometime writer and an editor, which will free me up to do
00:59:17.320
And so I, I'm, I've started kicking around, uh, the idea.
00:59:23.440
So I'd really like to, um, start working on those at some point, but, uh, before I do
00:59:29.460
anything else, the big thing for me is I want to, I want to write a book, uh, that really
00:59:35.860
touches on what we talked about, which is the hero's journey as applied to life.
00:59:41.100
I, I, I think it's a great model for self-development, but it's also a really effective thesis for problem
00:59:47.240
And I think that although, uh, there was a book released fairly recently called mythology
00:59:51.880
and, uh, personal development, I think it's called, yeah, pathways to bliss, mythology and
01:00:00.200
It was actually put together from a number of Joseph Campbell's lectures.
01:00:04.080
But other than that, I, I don't think that anyone has written a, um, a book that applies
01:00:12.920
And, um, and I really think I could do that fairly well.
01:00:16.320
And I think, I think that book needs to be written.
01:00:18.280
So, you know, it's basically like a philosophy and self-help book, um, which means that it'll
01:00:25.780
And, uh, I'm happy to roll the dice on that one.
01:00:31.320
And then I want to write stories and I want to write screenplays, man.
01:00:35.940
I just want to tell stories for the rest of my life.
01:00:41.480
Uh, it's Roman fitness systems.com for any of the fitness stuff.
01:00:47.000
Or, uh, at John Romanello on just about any social media outlet.
01:00:51.780
Um, so there's a lot of fun stuff on Twitter and Facebook.
01:00:54.240
If you follow me on Instagram, I want to let you know, you will only see pictures of my
01:00:59.600
So don't, if you want fitness stuff, that's not the place.
01:01:05.060
So you should, you should follow me on Instagram.
01:01:08.400
If you're feeling down, you want to see a cute dog, make you feel better.
01:01:13.640
Well, John Romanello, thank you so much for your time.
01:01:23.780
John is the author of the book, man 2.0 engineering, the alpha.
01:01:27.760
You can find that on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.
01:01:30.320
And also check out more of John's work at roman fitness systems.com.
01:01:34.860
Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and
01:01:43.740
Make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com.
01:01:46.800
And if you enjoy the podcast and you've gotten something out of it, I'd really appreciate
01:01:50.400
If you can go to iTunes or stitcher or whatever you use to listen to the podcast and give
01:01:55.800
us a rating or review, uh, that would help us out a lot and get the word out, get the