Taught Not Told Podcast
Our mission is to teach you everything you need to know and implement so you can be extremely successful on your journey towards health and fitness. I strive to make complex topics and challenging methods stupid simple to understand so YOU can take action with confidence knowing what you're doing will WORK! Please enjoy!
Much Love,
Coach Tyler
Taught Not Told Podcast
EP#35: Q&A w/ Coach Jake Jeries: Reverse Dieting, Breathing Tips, and Overcoming Plateaus
In this video, coach Jake Jeries & I answer YOUR questions!
Keep an eye out on our Instagram stories because this will not be the last time we do this!
& we hope you found this helpful!
Also, check out the time stamps if your looking for something specific!
In this video:
00:00 INTRO: Jake Jeries
01:56 Q #1 - Healthier Lifestyle
05:57 Q #2 - Fat Loss Plateau
14:09 Q #3 - Cheese?!?
15:08 Q #4 - 100lbs to lose?
19:46 Q #5 - Breathing while lifting
24:57 Q #6 - Concentric vs Eccentric vs Isometric
32:59 Q #7 - Favorite Client?
34:37 Q #8 - Fixing Imbalances
37:36 Q #9 - Why we became coaches?
44:02 Q #10 - Protein For Vegans
50:49 Q #11 - Best Carb Source
55:05 Q #12 - How many days should I Lift?
01:01:56 Q #13 - Fixing Shoulder Pain
01:04:21 Q #14 - What motivates you?
01:08:23 Q #15 - Supplement Recommendations
01:17:04 CONCLUSION
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Link to creatine Study: International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine | Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition | Full Text
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Hope you found this helpful!
Much love,
Coach Tyler🤍
Welcome back to the Ta-Nehisi Coates podcast. We got my good friend and assistant coach, jake Jerrys what's going on, guys? Back for another episode. So funny enough, we actually posted some stories this week. I was like Jake, we need to have you back on the podcast. He's like what are we gonna talk about? And it was funny because he's like dude. I don't know how I'm gonna follow up your last podcast interview. He was a little nervous and I was like dude.
Speaker 1:It's not about trying to one up every episode. Honestly. It's more about just making sure that every single one it brings some sort of value and insight, and I know that the people that are commonly replying and asking questions on our stories or on Instagram are typically the people that are either interested in our help or actually are curious about what things we have to say. And so what we did is we dropped some polls and some question boxes on our stories. We got actually about what 25, 30 questions, and some of them were kind of silly just people saying some stuff but ultimately we picked 15 of the best questions. Some of them are fun, some of them are funny. Hopefully we'll make you laugh we're not that funny, but we'll try but some of them are actually really great questions, and I think it would be great for us to both kind of chime in on these questions, give you in-depth answers. Some of them will be short, some of them will be straight to the point, and others will be way more in-depth and give you tons of insight into how our brains work and how we actually go about coaching and helping our clients. So, for example, like if a client asks us a question, they may get a really long voice message or just a single answer. So this is kind of how we go about the coaching process, but also so you can see how we function as coaches, but also so you can see a little bit inside of how Jake and I function. So, all that being said, I'm excited to dive into these 15 questions. You ready to get started, jake? Let's do it. Man Sweet, all right.
Speaker 1:So, first and foremost, number one what, in your opinion, is the key to living a healthier lifestyle? Great question, that's a very open-ended question, so I'm going to kind of start off with what would you define as a healthier lifestyle? Now, here's the thing In my perspective, a healthier lifestyle is two parts it's looking and feeling. Your best is what I would consider the healthiest lifestyle. Now, if you want to move to a healthier lifestyle, it could be as simple as changing one habit, one thing you do on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:But if we're looking to become the healthiest versions of ourselves, there's obviously a lot of different things that we could all change. We all have things in our day-to-day life that could or should change in order to become a healthy version of ourselves. But in my opinion, I would say the key to living a healthy lifestyle is two things Moving your body consistently, which would be either walking Ideally, this would include include working out and the second thing would be nutrition. This would be consuming mainly whole foods. But I don't know, jake, what do you think would be the keys to living a healthier lifestyle?
Speaker 2:It's such a loaded question because I feel like there's so many different ways you could go with this answer.
Speaker 2:There's so many factors and variables that go into everybody's version of what a healthy lifestyle looks like, in my opinion. Well, first off, I think you had phenomenal answers. I think moving your body is key. I think that's going to be my number one. I think my number one is going to be moving your body right, doing some type of physical activity throughout your day to day, whether that be going for walks, resistance training, mixed martial arts, sports, whatever it looks like for each individual. I got to say I think movement's the key. People are moving. They're also more motivated to step into a healthier diet because they're moving, and I think that would have to be my number one spot.
Speaker 1:I really like that answer. I also think, if I were to summarize it best and put it into one key factor, it would be find the one thing that you enjoy and or one healthy thing that you enjoy and make it part of your lifestyle. So I think you said something that really sparked this in my brain, which was like martial arts. I know how much you love that. Yeah, and if all else fails, you will continue doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I think that that would be the key to your healthy lifestyle. 100%. For me, it's golf, and for me, to make that an even healthier activity, instead of getting a cart every time I golf, I could just focus on walking golf courses. That could be my way of getting activity, moving my body in different planes of motion and getting outside, getting some sunlight. So, again, there's always a way to make All the things you do in your daily life healthier. As long as you can find the one that you can be consistent with and you can find the one that you enjoy the most. Most, that is going to contribute to a healthier lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Again, I think the last, most important thing is just figuring out when you are right now. You know if you're not paying attention to your nutrition, you're not paying attention to your movement, your sleep is horrible, you're always stressed out, you're anxious and depressed. I mean, it could be as simple as like looking in the mirror and telling yourself like it's going to be okay. You know that could lead to a healthier lifestyle mentally. So I think assessing where you're at right now and finding the one thing you love, I think that's going to contribute to a healthier lifestyle overall, so great answer, thank you, thank you. So I'm going to check these off as we go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll pull up the next one. Okay, question number two what steps do you recommend when body has been stuck at a specific weight and you are already in a calorie deficit? Okay, that's a really good question. That's a good question because I feel like this is something that we come across very frequently with our jobs.
Speaker 2:So I always like to start to dissect what the person's lifestyle habits look like and, specifically, what their nutrition looks like when this is the case, right, it sounds like for this individual, they're already in a calorie deficit, but sometimes this could be to their demise. If they're too heavy into a calorie deficit and their metabolic function is not efficient, in simpler terms, this could be to their downfall if their body is not metabolizing or processing the food that they're bringing in because they have slowed their metabolic function down by under consuming calories. So sometimes this is actually the case where people come in and they are exercising you know, moderate amounts of exercise but they're drastically under consuming calories and they're wondering why am I not losing weight? And I'm like you're not losing weight because you're metabolically not efficient. Your body is not burning your calories for fuel, and I know this is a subject that you could go on and on about.
Speaker 2:Like you love going in depth on this, so I'd love to hear your take. I that was good.
Speaker 1:Jake, I do think I agree with that 100 percent. You love going in-depth on this, so I'd love to hear your take. That was good, jake. I do think I agree with that 100%. I think. My perspective on the metabolism.
Speaker 1:I always like to rewind time back to what we would think of as our primal era and when we were cavemen and cavewomen and for the majority of human history. We didn't have refrigerators, we didn't have access to food in abundance and high-calorie processed foods like we do today. And back in those times, when we didn't have enough food in our bodies, our bodies would down-regulate our metabolisms to meet the demand of the food we had access to, meaning if we have no food, it's actually more efficient and is actually better for your body to store and to hold on to that very low calorie amount and to lower our metabolism to make sure that we don't starve to death, right, and so that's the whole purpose of our body. Our bodies are actually great at adapting to what we provide it. So if we're giving our body abundance of food, well, no wonder we're going to gain some weight, but also we're going to speed up our metabolism, and so I think what this person is asking or experiencing right now more so is they've been in a caloric deficit for maybe too long, and so their metabolism is down regulated and so their body has met the demand of the calorie intake they're at thus not losing weight anymore. So, sure, one of the things you could do is eat less food.
Speaker 1:Now, a lot of the times, what we see with people I'm sure I know you've seen this many times as well as me People are like oh, I'm in a caloric deficit. They eat perfectly Monday through Friday, but Friday night, saturday and Sunday I hate to say this, but they eat like assholes. They're either completely falling off track, they're going out with their girlfriends, they're drinking a bottle of wine to de-stress from a horrible week. Whatever it may be, but more likely than not, if you're not tracking everything, you're probably missing a lot of calories that you don't realize you're even putting in your body. Now, if that's not you, you're genuinely someone who is dialed in. You're like I'm eating an average of 1500 calories a day, seven days a week, and I have not been able to lose weight. This means this is a perfect sign, that number one. You should send me a message, because I will walk you through the exact steps and actually coach you through. But if not, this is where you would want to go into a reverse diet, or what we call building the machine.
Speaker 1:So our first two phases of our program are heavily focused on this. What we help you do is focus on building better habits in your day-to-day life. So one of the ways you can increase your caloric deficit is getting more movement. So maybe you just need to walk 10 to 12,000 steps every day. Maybe you need to get better sleep quality.
Speaker 1:Another thing that could be preventing you from losing weight is stress. If you're stressed out from your job, if you're stressed out from your lifestyle, your kids, your family members are stressing you out all the time. Well, your body's not going to want to get rid of fat when it's stressed out Again. That's part of like the caveman thing of like your body thinks there's a lion hanging outside your cave and thinks you're gonna be stuck in there for a while. That's stress To us. Today, you getting a phone call from your mom about her finances is stress, but your body doesn't know. It's mom's just freaking out. Again. Your body thinks, oh, there's a fucking lion outside my cave right now and I'm shitting my pants. That is what your body interprets it as. So we need to find ways to cope and to manage our stress, and that's what part of what we do in that first phase. And then the second phase is where we're slowly increasing calories to give your body the signal that hey, it's safe. We are allowed to metabolically increase our metabolism. Increase our metabolism, we're allowed to lose the body fat. We're allowed to speed up and we're allowed to put ourselves in a better place to lose fat. When you get to that better place, then you go back into a calorie deficit. So let's just say you're starting at 1500. We reverse, diet you up to 2500, 2200, then cut you back 501. You're eating more than you are now. Then you actually lose body fat in a more sustainable manner because you're not starving yourself.
Speaker 1:I know that was a shit ton of long answer, but I'm definitely yeah, I really like that. Someone asked this because this is something that I feel like a lot of people don't understand and I think it's something that I really hope hit home because I've heard it so many different ways and just so you guys know, like if that really resonated with you, know that you're not alone. Number one I literally had a call with a new client that just started with me, brandon. I literally had a call with him. What day was that? On Tuesday, and literally had a call with him. What day was that on third? Uh, on tuesday and literally had this exact same conversation. He's been in a deficit for way too long. He's not, he's literally eating he's. He's a 240 pound man eating uh, under 1500 calories a day and he's not losing body fat. And I was was like man. That's a clear sign your metabolism and your body are number one. You're stressed out from job career and also your body is in a starvation mode. It's like it's scared.
Speaker 1:It's afraid of what's gonna happen. So it's holding everything. Exactly, it's storing everything, thinking that you were going into a famine where there's no availability.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people would have answered this question and said eat less, move more. And that's the answer that we always see, like it's the most popular answer across all social platforms where I've seen this type of question come up. And it's like how many calories can you take away before you're damn near starving yourself? And on top of that, you're going to add more resistance training, you're going to add more movement, you're going to add more stress. It doesn't make sense, it doesn't add up. Your body just starts to get to a point where the stress is just consuming you and you're not, and your energy is just depleted because you have no calories coming in. You have no food to burn through as fuel, right? So definitely an answer I feel like most wouldn't give, but something that we have integrated into a lot of our clients' routine and have found much success with. 100% man, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right. Moving on to question number three, this is probably going to be the longest answer, so make sure you guys are ready for this Number three. What is your favorite cheese?
Speaker 2:Jake, what's your favorite cheese? You know who you are. Who asked this question. Do you remember one client of mine that was just obsessed loved cheese?
Speaker 1:No Teacher mom. Oh, yes, I do.
Speaker 2:One client of mine that was just obsessed like loved cheese. No teacher mom. Oh, yeah, yes, I do. Um, I'm gonna have to go with cheddar personally, yeah, not a, not a big cheese guy, but when I do, yeah, dude, I love cheddar on some sourdough grilled cheese, or maybe on my eggs bomb I'm disturbed by your yeah so good, it's so good, dude um, you know, I'm also not a big cheese person.
Speaker 1:Uh, my clients know, and I, I, everyone around me knows that cheese is just not my thing. But if I'm gonna have cheese it's gotta be pepper jack, a little spice. Good choice, that's the one. All right, all Moving on to the next question, jake.
Speaker 2:I'm 100 pounds overweight. What should I focus on first? Are you moving? If you're not moving, then I would recommend start moving. I think that's always. I think movement is medicine Kind of ties back to that first question pertaining to you know what is the key to living a healthier lifestyle.
Speaker 2:I operate under the philosophy that movement is medicine and I think if you're not moving, this is a great place to start right. I think getting into the gym and starting some resistance training would be a phenomenal place to begin your journey to lose 100 pounds, if you feel like that's what you need to lose. But I also feel like there are so many different forms of movement. Right Again, we kind of talked about this on the first question, but I think resistance training is a great way to go and obviously that's what we, that is what we practice and what we preach. So I'm going to always speak very highly of resistance training for the many benefits that can come with that.
Speaker 2:So start moving right, some type of you know, getting some types of steps in movement, sport, whatever, whatever makes you happy, whatever you enjoy the most, and then from there, I think you just I think locking in on nutrition is so, so key. It's so critical starting to find some consistency with your diet, again figuring out what shoes you're in. Are you in the shoes of the person that's over-consuming and not moving enough, or are you in the shoes of the person who is under-consuming and maybe moving too much, and then kind of navigating your way from there? That would be my.
Speaker 1:I 100% agree with Jake on this, I think so I actually had a client recently. We've been working together for a few years now but in the last, the first two to three years, was really learning about more about his lifestyle, his habits, his routines. The mental overcome of understanding that it really starts on the inside and that's so much of what I learned from Jared's pod. The podcast I did with Jared Hamilton is learning so much more about the inner work, the inner game that comes from a dramatic shift in who you are losing a hundred pounds. I mean that's a small child you're getting rid of. I mean that's, that's a huge journey and I think the first step what should it, what should I focus on first? I think the first step is coming to peace with the fact that this is going to be a long journey.
Speaker 1:100 I think, coming to peace and understanding that this will take time. It will not be overnight, it won't be six months, it won't even be a year, it might be three, it might be five, by the way. Plan for five, it might happen in one, plan for one, it might happen in six. But if you hope for too short of a time period, you're only going to psychologically fuck yourself into not following through. So stay with it, keep going and just make one small change every quarter, so every three months. Try to add one new habit or one new skill. In one year, you'll have four new things that you do every single day. By the end of two years, you'll have eight new things that you'll never go back on. If you can do that, I will guarantee success and sustainability on your journey.
Speaker 1:And this is one of the biggest things that helped my client lose 110 pounds was starting and meeting them where he, meeting him where he was at. So for him, the first step was all we have to do, bro, is eat a serving of vegetables a day. That's what we needed to do with him. That was it. It was is eat a serving of vegetables a day. That's what we needed to do with him. That was it. It was starting with one serving of vegetables. From there it was like okay, you don't eat enough protein, let's add one serving of protein with those vegetables. We'll start there and every month we would add one little thing into his diet. By the way, we didn't take away anything, notice. We didn't restrict, we didn't take away. All we did is add one small thing every so often. That's what led to his success. So don't think too far ahead. Don't create too short of a timeline. Start with small, simple skills and slowly build upon them, and I guarantee you'll get there.
Speaker 2:I love that answer.
Speaker 1:Now for question number five how should I breathe when pressing and in a pull-down? I always get confused, so I always like to tell clients. For most movements it's not. I would say don't overthink it, don't let it be something that stops you and frustrates you. However, in the ideal world, there is a way to breathe when you lift that is going to maximize stability and maximize output that you can produce on these movements.
Speaker 1:So, for a bench press, in a pressing motion, whether you're pressing, laying down or at an incline, I always like to tell clients to let your breath follow the dumbbell. So when the dumbbell comes in towards your chest, you want to pop the chest out and breathe in through the chest, into the belly, into the diaphragm. Actually. So when you breathe in as you come down and then, as you press out, breathe out as you press. Now I think the same thing applies for a pull down. The thing is, when you're pulling down, what you don't want is your chest down as you're pulling down. I like to coach the chest up as you pull down, keeping the shoulder blades back and down as you're pulling down, and then inhale, or sorry, exhale, as you extend up. So the breath follows the movement. Would you agree with?
Speaker 2:that Jake Um on the bench press for sure. I always like to teach it to where you are pulling the in breath during the eccentric or the lowering motion of the rep. So pulling that in breath as you're coming down right and then exhale as you press from the bottom up. I always give the cue to press from the bottom up and I always like to give the cue to think about the breath as like an extra driving force or like an extra muscle, because it is that's helping you to perform your rep.
Speaker 2:When it comes to a pull down, I have them take an in breath on the way up and then, from the top, exhale as they pull down. That's I like. I like to exhale as if I was on a pull-up bar. I would be exhaling from the bottom up. You know, you're right.
Speaker 1:You're right. Actually, I'm so sorry You're. You're a hundred percent right. And here's the thing when I was thinking about it it sounded kind of wrong, but now that you said that it's right, you know why. This is now when I think about it. So when I think about coaching a row, a seated row, what I like to do is I like to breathe in as I extend out, as I'm going through the stretch.
Speaker 1:So stretching motion is when I breathe in so as you come down with the dumbbells, you're stretching the muscles, it's lengthening. You're breathing in and then, as you're exerting force, your breath follows the exertion of the force. That's more so where I was leaning. So, as you're extending and stretching on a row, I like to breathe in because you actually expand your diaphragm, your rib cage. This is actually going to help you get a better stretch in the lats and the rhomboids and all the muscles down the back of your body. Then when you exhale, when you row, you're going to be able to contract those muscles even harder.
Speaker 2:So yes, you're 100% right. Thank you for correcting. I know who asked this question and I was like, yeah, she. She struggles to differentiate between the press and the pull, like with the breathing technique, and I think it's just because, uh, like on the bench press, you're almost like pulling the weight.
Speaker 1:Well, you're not really pulling the weight down, but you're controlling the way down and I think she associates this motion with yeah, this motion, but it's two different concentrics and eccentrics which I think I think the best way to put that is exerting force is when you exhale. So when you are coming down on a squat, as you're going up, you exhale. Yeah, as you come out of a squat, when you deadlift, you're at the bottom. You're coming up, you're exhaling. When you're exerting force pulling yourself up on a pull-up bar, yeah, exhaling, I would say.
Speaker 2:I would say for 90 percent, maybe like 95 percent of movements. I'm agreeing with that couple movements like deadlift I usually have, I'm sure the same for you pull the in, breath, hold the brace all the way up to the top and then, once you're going from the top down, then release.
Speaker 1:I usually exhale about three quarters of the way up. I feel like when you get to the third quarter range you can exhale and contract the core even harder at the top to stabilize the spine and then you can take another breath in before you lower again. Those are little nuances but, um, generally speaking, I'm going to stand by my position with when you exert force exhale.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with that and when you're lengthening muscles inhale yeah, that's a solid way to put it which actually ties perfectly into our next question, which is what is the difference between concentric, isometric and eccentric? So these are terms which we commonly use or I know I commonly use with my clients, right, and there's such a simple. They sound like big, fancy, complicated words isometric, concentric, eccentric but it's really quite simple, right? So I always like to break it down like this. I'll give them a specific movement when I'm trying to explain what these three are, right? So the most common one that I reference is always a bicep curl. I just feel like it's such an easy movement to explain. So during a bicep curl, the eccentric portion of the movement is the lowering of the movement. That's when you pull that in breath, right, so you're breathing in as you're lengthening out the tissue that you are going to be contracting. The concentric portion of the movement is the contraction, so the muscle fibers are shortening as they are firing. And then ice and isometric contraction is a contraction in which the muscle fibers are firing from a fixed position.
Speaker 2:Now, this could look different for different movements.
Speaker 2:This is why I love isometrics and have integrated them a lot into my training routine is because there's so many different ways you can go with it. Right? An isometric contraction can look like firing a muscle from a fully shortened position and keeping it fired the whole time. So, for example, if I curled the dumbbell up and I was just holding it and my bicep is in that fully shortened position and I'm holding it, then I'm firing it the whole time from the fully shortened position, and then for other movements you can fire a tissue from a lengthened it's hard to fire it from a fully lengthened, but from a more lengthened position, right? So what's cool about concentric, isometric and eccentric is that you can break them down and modify your training in so many different ways, just by playing with the tempo, just by playing with different tempos on the eccentric, or pauses with an isometric. So I just yeah, I like to mix it up and integrate a healthy amount of eccentric and isometric training into my routine, and then usually concentric movement is always going to follow yeah, great answer.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm going to say that in layman's terms. I'm going to dumb that down as much as possible here. So concentric cun, if we break it down into its parts, cun would be contract. So think about just contracting a muscle, that's when you're squeezing a muscle, contracting, shortening the length of the muscle. So when you're shortening your bicep, when it gets tall and you can see the little bicep, that is contraction, e-centric, so E is for extending, so eccentric would be extending or lengthening a muscle. So when it is getting longer, that is the eccentric.
Speaker 1:And isometric is an interesting, but it's like isolation, it's like you are. I always like to describe an isometric movement as applying force to an immovable object or applying force in a fixed position. So it's almost like you're flexing, like technically, when you're in the mirror and you're flexing your bicep. That's an isometric contraction because you're flexing and holding a specific position. Now, if you're flexing and moving your arm, that's concentric and then eccentric, lengthening right. So, um, and if you're not watching the video version, you might be a little confused right now. Um but um, two things I want to mention.
Speaker 1:Um, number one the E centric motion of every movement is the one that is going to cause the most muscle stimulus breakdown, which is going to result in the most growth. So if you're someone who's wanting to maximize muscle growth, focus on slowing down the eccentric motion. So for a tricep movement, when you're extending your tricep and then your bicep is or you're closing the arm, so let's just say you extend your arm for your tricep as you're coming up with, say like a rope, push down as your hands come up, go really slow. For a squat, as you're lowering down in the squat, go super slow. So I always like to tell people in the most ideal world you've probably heard of a 4-2-2 tempo it's four second eccentric, four or two second pause with a two second concentric. That is going to yield the best results, especially if it's something you've never done.
Speaker 1:Now, on the counter, on the flip side, if that's something you're always doing, obviously something novel and new is going to be better for you, but definitely something fun to throw in there, especially if you're someone more advanced and you just kind of haven't really experimented too much. I highly recommend trying some really slow eccentric movements and then the other one that I think you'll be fascinated by. But I don't know if you knew this. Do you know who was famously known for using a lot of isometrics in their training Bodybuilder no martial arts. Martial arts Bruce Lee.
Speaker 2:Bruce Lee yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Bruce Lee was very famous for his use of isometrics and that's what he claimed was his main training style for being such a. He was a very compact dude, just hard and um. I. I heard stories of people shaking his hands and feeling like they're just like grabbing a brick, and it was because he did so much isometric training he could generate so much power and force in his hands and his body, and this is why this is one of the things he was known for is like that one-inch punch right.
Speaker 1:Being able to like boom, and what that was is isometric contraction of being able to close his fist and just fire and put so much power from his body into the punch, even though he's moving it this much. And that was one of the benefits of isometrics, and isometrics are great, for there's a lot of rehab benefits to them.
Speaker 2:That was just going to say for rehab. Tendons love load and so if you are dealing with some type of injury or some type of issue where you're having trouble going through range of motion of injury or some type of issue where you're having trouble going through range of motion, but you can fire certain muscles in a particular range of motion where the joint doesn't have to move, then you're still able to load the tendons and you're still able to load the musculature. So there's a lot of.
Speaker 2:I mean, when I was working in physical therapy, we there was so much isometric work, especially in like the early stages of rehab, right, I mean, and even to this day, like I've been integrating so much more isometric training into my routine and if you're doing it right, it is difficult, it is difficult. Man, you can definitely get some great stimulus through isometric work.
Speaker 2:And then one more thing I also wanted to add in regards to like eccentric and isometric work is it slows things down and you have to be very cognizant or aware of what you're doing, so it's amazing when we first get people coming in to take them through um, eccentric and isometric based exercises, or, you know, exercises where we integrate slow tempos, like that 4222-2, because it makes the client slow down and think about each and every little cue, rather than just going up, maybe pausing for a second and then, or sorry, going down, going going down, pausing for a second, coming back up. Yep, they have to think about all the cues on the way down, right. So that's why I love integrating eccentrics into um, um, into the routine, yeah, Couldn't agree more, man.
Speaker 1:All right. Moving on to number seven, who is your favorite client? It's a really good question. I'm going to have to think about this. I know mine, my favorite client, my favorite client is all the time.
Speaker 2:Favorite client or favorite client. My favorite client is All time favorite client or favorite client currently All time. Oh, my all time favorite client is definitely.
Speaker 1:We're just messing with you guys. We blurted those out because listen.
Speaker 2:We love all of our clients at TNT 100%.
Speaker 1:Obviously, one of the things that I love about especially my coaching journey and who I work with, especially today, is I have such a diverse group of human beings. No two people are the same. They all give me different challenges to help me learn. They all give me more topics and conversations. It is so amazing to have people that are all different ages, from all different walks of life.
Speaker 1:I think that's one of my favorite parts of coaching is just being able to talk to such unique, amazing humans that all have unique life experiences and learning from their trials and tribulations and yeah, I mean honestly.
Speaker 2:that's why I love what I do is because I get those interactions so much love and appreciation for every walk of life that I've had the ability to work with and genuinely appreciate each and every single client. Yeah, love them all, love all you guys, love you guys, all right, next one, let me pull it up real quick. What can I do if my right lat is bigger than my left? Great question. I would start to integrate some unilateral training. I think that that could be a great start.
Speaker 2:Um, sometimes, when you're favoring one side of the body on a much more frequent basis than the other side, it tends to overdevelop, and so, while that side is overdeveloping, the other side can lag right.
Speaker 2:And, to start to balance things out, I like to always prescribe a healthy dose of unilateral exercise.
Speaker 2:Basically, when I say unilateral, I just mean single side exercises, right, so you can do a single arm pull down, you can do a single arm row. There's a lot of different ways you can go with that. You can go dumbbells, you can go cables, you can go isometric holds one thing that I've been doing because, um, you know, I do martial arts and I'm usually throwing a lot of the same hand, which is my lead hand, and so I feel like the muscles on the right side of my body are a little bit underdeveloped, especially posturally Right. I feel like I'm much more rounded. Anyways, one thing that I have been doing to try to correct my posture a little bit, just due to the imbalances that I've been developing, is a long isometric hold of a single arm cable row and I definitely feel like my lat gets so much engagement through just holding that position and I've been going, for, you know, a couple sets of 30 seconds to a minute pretty much every day to work on that imbalance. So I would prescribe a unilateral exercise or single side exercise.
Speaker 1:Hit the nail on the head there, brother. I agree. I think hitting or doing unilateral movement is probably number one. I think one important like detail to pay attention to is whenever you do unilateral movements for this applies to any body part If you have an imbalance, go to unilateral, which means doing one side at a time and always, always, do the weaker side first.
Speaker 1:Then say you can only do. Say you're doing bench press, your left pec's weaker than your right. Do your left. Then, when you do your right, don't say you plan for 12 reps, you only got 10 on your left. Don't do 12 on your right, do your left. Then, when you do your right, don't say you plan for 12 reps, you only got 10 on your left. Don't do 12 on your right, just match. I promise you you're not going to get weaker. I promise you you're going to even out faster and you'll build more muscle because you're going to bring in, be bringing the muscles up to an even balance and then from there you'll be able to build more strength. But don't skip focusing on imbalances, thinking it's going to slow down your muscle building journey. If anything, it's going to speed it up. So again, focus on your lateral and always, always, always, do the weaker side first.
Speaker 1:Yeah 100% agree with that Awesome Next. Yeah, 100% agree with that Awesome Next number nine. What made you become a trainer? This is a great question, dude. These questions have been fun so far Really good questions.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I played sports in high school and I really enjoyed playing sports and then I played two years of college soccer and as soon as I stopped playing soccer it was like my whole I was. I started working out really really seriously the summer before I went to college and I started working out. I was working out really consistently all throughout my college soccer career. But the minute I stopped running an absolute shit ton with soccer, I started building muscle like crazy. It was like my body finally had permission to just grow and that's really when things took off for me. And right around I would say six months after stopping soccer, all of my friends started coming up to me like Tyler, like what are you taking? I'm like dude.
Speaker 2:What's the secret sauce? What do you want, bro?
Speaker 1:I'm like bro, I'm taking creatine. I'm eating 170 to 180 grams of protein every single day. I'm dialed in with my nutrition. I eat 90% whole foods. Sure, I was still drinking here and there, but I was just really dialed in. I was a college student. I was busy, focused on school, but I was also, just like, really focused on getting healthy and I honestly fell in love with it. Shortly after this, I ended up changing my major to kinesiology. I ended up starting an online coaching business, started posting on social media, like my friends were asking me all these questions like, bro, why don't you post this? And I was like I don't know, like I'm not that smart dude, I just found this on the internet.
Speaker 1:And they're like no, but like you should post this. This is brilliant. I'm like all right, so I started online coaching. I, shortly after that, found that I, like I didn't have the skillset to be a great coach. And so, uh, I actually got a DM from the owner at self-made training facility where I still train out of today, and he was like come check out our gym. I had zero clients, zero experience. I went in there and said I'm going to figure this out. I fell in love with it.
Speaker 1:From the day I started, I started going to sororities and announcing I'm a trainer. I started networking with all the people I knew in the area. I didn't know very many people I'm not from Orange County, so I just was like I literally built this thing from the ground up with no one helping me except from people I was spending money on. I was investing in mentors trying to teach me the ways and trying to find all the things I could do, and I was asking every coach in that gym hey, how would you build your business? What are the things you're doing? How did you get a following Like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1:And I was just very growth minded and ultimately it's got me to where I am today. But ultimately, what made me want to become a trainer was the inspiration and the push from my friends initially, but what's kept me a happy coach and trainer is my passion for helping other people. I really don't think I would be in the position I am today, and I don't think it would be as fulfilling it as today, if I didn't have that passion. Like nothing makes me happier, nothing fills my cup more than helping other people, and that is what continues to just drive me to this day, so beautiful answer.
Speaker 2:Thank you, yeah.
Speaker 1:What made you want to become a?
Speaker 2:trainer. Yeah, so what made me want to become a trainer? That's a great question, and when I think about it I always think that obviously everything happens for a reason in the universe. And under that philosophy that I live by, I say personal training found me Because I had no direct intention of stepping into what, at first, was kinesiology. Right, I was registering for college classes with my neighbor across the street and I was just picking out all my G's because I was going to community college. He's like we got to pick a major and I'm like okay, business as one does when they're undecided, and my dad's in business. So I was like, let's just do business. He's like you know, you work out a lot and you really have a thing for lifting weights. I think you might like kinesiology. So, sure enough, throws me in as a kines undergrad.
Speaker 2:I'm going through my community college courses over at moore park and my dad comes home one day from physical therapy. He's like hey, you know, you like working out, you like lifting weights. Um, the pt office the pt office that I go to needs help, they need hires. Um, why don't you go and apply? And I'm sure you'll get hired, because they need people right now and I was like but physical therapy like I don't, I have no business being in a PT office, I had no experience with any kines or any knowledge, and so I got the job there.
Speaker 2:I was working there for two years and that job is very comparable to what I do now in terms of I was almost like a personal trainer, just taking them through their movements after the therapist was done, working with them, and I really just fell in love with it. And then I moved out here, reconnected with Tyler, who we I don't know if you guys know this or not, but we grew up together in Simi Valley, so we reconnected out here in Orange County. Tyler took me through, showed me what a day in the life as a personal trainer looks like and then pretty much got on board with mentoring under him, started my business out here and haven't really looked back since. So I again, I think everything that happened happened the way it did so that we could be in this moment, right here, right now, and I absolutely love my job as a personal trainer and making an impact in people's lives and helping to change the world in a positive way through health and fitness hell, yeah, yeah, that's my, that's my long drawn out.
Speaker 2:Answer next question. Yes, I have the next one.
Speaker 1:The next one. I need you to answer.
Speaker 2:That's all you. This is a great question for me this one's all you brother. Best source of protein for vegans. Okay, so, as you guys may or may not know, I had a period in time in my life which I was a vegan for roughly, I want to say a little less than two years. I would go on and off with the vegan diet and then there was a period in time where I just was vegan for the whole time.
Speaker 2:Um, best, when it comes to sourcing protein as a vegan, I know it can be difficult and it is usually the number one asked question and it was very difficult for me, so difficult to the point where it was definitely a reason why I ended up starting to revert back to consuming animal-based products. But nonetheless, it is entirely possible to consume an adequate protein intake on a vegan diet. 100% is possible. My number one source of protein as a vegan was tempeh, which is a fermented soy-based product. It is actually just it's fermented soybeans. I love it.
Speaker 2:I still eat it to this day. Actually, I still eat it on a pretty frequent basis. It's cheap, it's got 50 grams of protein per one serving, which is a lot of protein, and it digests very easily, making it a great source of protein and carbs prior to a workout. So I still consume it to this day. That has to be my number one source. Also, some great sources are tofu If you can get it organic and not process, that would be definitely the way to go Um, and then just legumes. Right, lentils are pretty solid. Um, they have a pretty decent ratio of protein to carbs. But number one has to be um, tempeh, at least from a whole food standpoint, and then you can also integrate some of the plant-based protein powders, and peanut butter is not protein.
Speaker 1:I'm highly allergic to peanut butter, so, um, I I think I'm gonna let that. That's jake's cup of tea right there. That's definitely not something my ex and my expertise, because I've never been vegan, and I did have one follow-up question, though. But who is veganism for, like what people, what, who, what? Who is vegan being vegan good for, and who is it not good? For this is a tough question to answer, because I know the answer I want to hear, but I'm curious to hear what you have to say there's so many different opinions out there pertaining to this topic of conversation.
Speaker 1:We can argue.
Speaker 2:Oh, we can 100% argue Again. I've been vegan, I've been not vegan. I know how I feel on one diet. I know how I feel on the other diet. I believe I went into the vegan diet with genuinely good concerns pertaining to not wanting to consume animal flesh, pertaining to environmental factors, but the more that I started to look into both sides, rather than just the one side, that was pushed so heavily, at least on my, in my algorithm and in my feed right which I can, you know we all have that one thing that just Instagram or socials just shovel down our throats because you keep feeding it and your algorithm keeps pushing it.
Speaker 2:To answer your question, I think this is completely relative to the individual right. I think in some religions and some people's way of life, they don't consume animal flesh. They were brought up that way. They never consumed it. It's part of their morals, it's part of their ethics and that was a big part of the reason why I didn't want to consume animal flesh was definitely the ethics. Now there are ways that you can go about it. Call it animal-based or just a regular diet where you're integrating both plant-based and non-plant-based foods, where you find ethically sourced meat and ethically sourced animal-based products, which is what I know Tyler and I both do. But yeah, when it comes to veganism, I believe it's for the people that, at least for me, it was for not having good intentions, right? Yeah, that's how I would answer that question 1,000% agree.
Speaker 1:I am going to take a hard stance here and say that veganism is not for that gym girly who's trying to get super lean or is like super worried about inflammation. There are so many better options and there are so many better ways to fuel your body. The easiest way to end up with a nutrient deficiency and unhealthy is following a diet that is not for you. Following a diet that is not for you now.
Speaker 2:Veganism is one of the hardest to follow and continue to get the nutrients your body needs. It's from personal experience.
Speaker 2:It's very difficult and it took a lot of planning a lot of planning I had to make sure I was taking supplements that I knew I wasn't going to get through my diet. I had to make sure I was getting protein in um, there was just so many. So much planning that went into it, and so much of the vegan food in today's day and age is ultra processed shit. It's fucking terrible. It's literally like all this beyond and impossible bullshit. It's terrible. The more that you look into it and you actually start to learn about nutrition, you realize just how bad these foods are for you, and your body just has no idea what to do with the food that you're consuming. It doesn't know how to break it down. It messes up your hormones.
Speaker 1:It's just it's not good, 100% agree, man, and here's the thing. But I know there is a small fraction of the human population that this is good for, and the only people it is good for is the people who do it for religious or moral purposes.
Speaker 1:If you could not live with yourself. As someone who's consuming animal products like you, find that to be the most horrible thing. It is haunting to you Like by all means. I support that. I support your morals and ethics 100%. If it is from a religious and upbringing from your family, 100% support you. In my opinion, that's the reason to do it 100%. I think. If you're doing it for any reason other than that, I think you're doing more harm than good and I'm going to leave it there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're doing it as any reason other than that, I think you're doing more harm than good, and I'm gonna leave it there.
Speaker 1:yeah, if it's. If you're doing it as a fad, I agree with tyler. I just it's not one of those, it's one of those unhealthy fats. So, speaking of diets, and, uh, speaking of vegans, which I know, a lot of them tend to consume a lot of carbs. Question number 11. What is our favorite carb choice and why? I'm going to go taters, I believe.
Speaker 1:I mean, here's the thing the question was more about like, what are the best carb sources? I mean personally white rice, not brown rice. White rice, brown rice, is harder to break down and digest in our body. Sure, it's got some fiber, but it actually has a sheath on it that actually contains anti-nutrients. But again, if you like brown rice, the taste of it better, you're probably a psychopath. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding, but white rice just tastes better, but also it's easier to digest on your body. It's one of the easiest to digest foods on the planet. But white rice and potatoes are like my go-to, by the way. Like white potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, purple potatoes, whatever, like all the potatoes, I freaking love them all. And white rice, like those are my two staples I pretty much have on every single day. I'll rotate between them. Some weeks I'll have all rice, some weeks I'll have all potatoes. But those are my go-to carb sources. What about you?
Speaker 2:Fruit, fruit all day. I'm going to say fruit with honey. I love loading up on a bowl of frozen blueberries with some honey prior to training. I will have a great training session if I have some blueberries and honey in my system. No doubt about it. I will feel great most every time. What's you know?
Speaker 1:what's funny is, when I think of carbs, I think of food sources of carbs and typical food, but not fruit. But now that you say that, like dude, 100 fruit is so amazing yeah, it's the way to go, in my opinion all the micronutrients. Um, I literally have a cup to maybe even two cups of blueberries every single night. Yeah, it's one of my favorite things and also super high in fiber antioxidants it is. It is one of the in my. It's a superfood.
Speaker 2:I freaking love blueberries. Blueberries are a game changer. If you can, if you go to Costco, that frozen those frozen blueberries. The organic frozen blueberries are gas. They're not bad. I love them. Personally speaking, I think they're great. I load those up with some honey and that does it for me. Those are fantastic.
Speaker 1:Those just make my whole mouth and my tongue turn blue. Yeah, but you got to embrace it.
Speaker 2:You know, I feel like I'm Walk around the house with a blue mouth Like, yeah, I just ate blueberries. I feel like I'm turning into a Smurf after I eat those.
Speaker 1:I'm short enough as it is dude. But yeah, I agree, Fruit. Fruit is something you should absolutely routinely, if not daily, consume, especially berries. Berries have the highest concentration of fiber. Blackberries, blueberries, raspberries are going to be amazing for your body. But yeah, you can never go wrong with rice. You can never go wrong with potatoes. You can never go wrong with fruit when it comes to carbohydrate intake.
Speaker 2:Was there any other carb sources? You can think of Sough. I love sourdough, sourdough. I think sourdough bread's great. Yeah, how do I not? You dude, give me some nuts those are great, recently especially my client nicole, shout out to nicole she's got great sour shout out to nicole for the sourdough can we drop her link right here?
Speaker 1:yeah, if you're in orange county and you haven't tried kiki's dough, so good right. Drop the link she's amazing, um, but she's making it all homemade from scratch, good ingredients, good quality stuff and it's freaking, yeah, unreal.
Speaker 2:I gave a loaf to my dad, the other day so good, bragging so good, and you got all those probiotics that come with the fermentation process toast, that slap a big old stick of grass-fed butter on it. Oh god yeah so those are definitely sorry for making you hungry. You're making me hungry.
Speaker 1:I know, we, we, literally we went to, we went to whole foods, uh, like two hours ago, to go pick up some food. We got some steaks, we got some uh, speaking of potatoes, we got a, we got a variety of potatoes the purple, the yellow, the red ones, and some veggies he's not going to have some veggies? Solid, I mean some veggies.
Speaker 2:Great carb sources all around, though. All right, all right. Next one's on me, right? Okay, just started hitting the gym. How many times per week should I be lifting? Great, how many times per week should I be lifting? Great question, if you just started hitting the gym, how many times per week should you be lifting? Can?
Speaker 1:I hit this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think this is a great Tyler question, but go ahead.
Speaker 1:I'm going to keep it simple. How many days a week can you work out? Dot dot dot. Let me rephrase that. You already have your answer. Okay. How many days a week can you work out for the rest of your entire life? Not five years, not one year, not 10 years the rest of your life, which I hope is longer than 10 years, if you frame it in that matter. How many days are you willing to go to the gym? Well, you might've said four or five, maybe even seven, when I first asked the question, but now, when you zoom out and look at the whole picture, it's probably closer to two, probably closer to three, and whatever that number is, you should stick to that.
Speaker 1:Doing too much is not going to get you to your goals faster. The fastest way to get to your goals is doing it in a sustainable manner. A lot of people don't believe me on that. When it comes to resistance training, though, the whole premise of like how I train, how all of our clients trained, all evolved from the godfathers of bodybuilding. This all came pre-steroid era.
Speaker 1:In the bodybuilding world, most of the people that come to me or talk to me or I talk to about training all reference like push-pull legs or these bro splits that they're following, and the problem is is that those routines are modeled after modern day bodybuilders who are all on steroids. If you're on steroids, you can ignore this part of the the what I'm about to say, but, um, I would say 99.9, if not. Every single person that's going to listen to this is not on steroids Neither is I, neither is Jake and so I think, as a natural human being, we should model our training after the best in the world at natural training, which was the bodybuilders pre 1940s era. If you look at all almost every single one of their routines, they did full body workouts three days a week. That is literally what most of the best in the world ever did, and so I modeled my training as well, as I did a full body three day a week program for like 10 years, and now I'm kind of experimenting with different things as I'm more advanced as a lifter, and so I have a little more um, tolerance and ability to withstand higher volumes of training.
Speaker 1:So, uh, right now I'm doing a full body ish four days a week, and so I don't even recommend that for other people and, to be honest, I'm about to go back to a full body three day a week. I'm dead serious, because the best thing you can do is, number one, provide stimulus to your body three days a week, but, most importantly, you're actually giving your body time to recover between your workouts. So if you work out Monday, wednesday, friday, the days in between you actually have time to recover and rebuild. You do not build muscle in the gym, you build muscle when you recover from your workouts, and so that is why working out three days a week in my opinion and also studies will support this as well that is going to be one of the most superior ways to train your body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, emphasize sustainability and recovery. That's the key, 100% Right. As many days as you can train where you're not overworking yourself and you're actually able to make it to the gym, get a quality workout in and recover fully is ultimately the answer to this question.
Speaker 2:So my answer is very similar to his answer. So I don't think there's really any need to go on on that. But I totally agree with that. Emphasize sustainability and emphasize recovery those are going to be the keys to longevity, and this is a game of longevity. Resistance training is a game of longevity 100%.
Speaker 1:And if I didn't sell you already, I just want you to kind of think about it like this If on a chest day you did, let's just say, nine to 10 sets on your workout, your chest day workout you did nine sets of chest right, and so your first set of chest you probably get full, all out effort, maybe up to about three or four, you have pretty good energy, but five, six, seven, eight, nine you start to dwindle off and you lose a ton of strength.
Speaker 1:Now think about if you split those nine sets into three different days you did three on Monday, three on Wednesday, three on Friday you will be able to give maximal effort and output on all three sets, all three days, which is going to yield in higher volume, higher intensity and more muscle growth. More muscle breakdown technically, but it will result in more muscle growth. That is one of the biggest perks of doing a full body is hitting every muscle group three days a week so it increases frequent engagement is so key.
Speaker 1:The key is frequency, especially natural, because we have a shorter muscle building like anabolic window of like when our bodies recover, compared to like a bodybuilder on steroids, like they may hit a muscle group, and that signal of rebuild, rebuild stronger, bigger is going to be going for like seven days. Us as natural human beings and you is it's only about a 40, sometimes 72 hour window and then your body already starts breaking down or already starts to kind of draw nutrients out of there where you want to keep those muscles just re-stimulated every 72 hours at the very least. And if you do that, you're going to be moving in the right direction. And the last one little key detail that I found to be extremely helpful as well is that because you hit every muscle group every workout, you're never skipping anything. I'm calling you out right now the guy who skips the fricking leg day stop skipping leg day.
Speaker 1:Don't skip leg day, but your calves are showing it. My point is is that too many people skip a certain day when it's convenient for them, and what happens is you end up developing an unbalanced physique, which oftentimes leads to injury and imbalance, and so this is why the full body is so superior in my opinion, because you only are able to get one workout in one week. You know what's great? You didn't miss a certain muscle group.
Speaker 2:Every muscle group gets love Exactly.
Speaker 1:And that's going to create a balanced and well-developed physique. That's not going to be looking like Johnny Bravo with the big upper body and the little pointy legs. Hopefully that was helpful for you guys.
Speaker 2:Great answer, Tyler this one's me yeah okay, I'm having shoulder pain while benching.
Speaker 1:What should I do? I'm gonna give this one's gonna be short and sweet nine times out of ten. There is two solutions to fixing shoulder pain while benching. Either your shoulder blades aren't retracted properly. You want your shoulder blades retracted and depressed, so pulled back and down towards your butt. Think about the little triangle-shaped bones on your back, your scapulas. You want them squeezed together, like you're pinching a pencil between your shoulder blades, and then you want them pulled downwards, so you're arching your back. That is gonna create the proper posture for a pressing motion. Then the second thing is your elbow positioning. With your elbows flared out too wide, we're putting a lot of stress and potentially impingement on the front deltoid, so the front of your shoulder. All we have to do is tuck your elbow in 45 degrees, so all the way against your side is zero. All the way up to the side, directly out to your side, like you're a letter t. That would be 90 degrees.
Speaker 1:You want to go right between those 45 and a half as we like to say exactly and just think I always like to tell people when you're at the bottom of your pressing motion, if you just stick your thumb directly to your side, it should be about where your nipple is. Depending on incline, your thumb should be just above your nipple and if you're on deep or if you're on flat bench, it should be right below your nipple. But right in that nipple region is about where you want your thumb and that will tell you if your elbow is in the right place.
Speaker 2:Yeah. One more thing I want to add. I think all those cues are great and can definitely make a significant difference in your performance on the bench press and hopefully help to get rid of any pain that you are currently experiencing. One more thing that I wanted to add is maybe switching it up and if you're doing barbell bench press, maybe switch over to a dumbbell bench press, because you could be favoring one side too much and that could be maybe not the core issue, right, but it could be a part of the problem. So I would say switch it up, integrate a little bit more unilateral or single side training and I think that that could, with um, fixing any imbalances and hopefully alleviating that pain over time that's a fantastic yeah dude.
Speaker 1:Great, great stuff there um number 14 on me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what motivates you to train? Nothing, um, motivation comes and goes. In my opinion, motivation for me, personally speaking, is very fleeting, and I know a lot of people would say the same. Some days I wake up and I am highly motivated to train. I've been energy's great, I've been killing it in the gym, maybe I had some good sparring rounds, maybe I feel like I'm picking up on a technique great or I'm feeling strong or looking aesthetic, whatever it may be. I'm like hell yeah, highly motivated. Right now I'm going to crush it.
Speaker 2:And then I have days when I do not want to train, where I am tired, sore, fatigued, hurt, whatever it may be. Play it by ear on those days and make a call to decide whether I should train through. You know, whatever fatigue I am feeling or whatever may be preventing me from wanting to go to the gym that day, but most days I would say most days I don't want to train and I do it because I know I have to. And then, after I do it, I remember why I love it so much. I think a lot of people that train on a very, very frequent basis, like we do, aren't motivated to train most of the time. We just know why we have to get it done, and I think that's what separates people who find good results through training or people that become great at something from the people who don't.
Speaker 1:I 1000% agree. However, I do want to say I do have something that motivates me.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing I don't rely on my motivation, but I do have a deeper ingrained motivation for why and what I do, and I think one of the motivations that keeps me going consistently is setting a good example for my clients. I think being able to impact more people's lives, because, again, that increases my fulfillment and makes me happy. I also know I can't perform great as a coach if I don't look and feel my best. So, and I firmly believe you need to practice what you preach. So I think setting a good example.
Speaker 1:But, most importantly, the thing that actually motivates me and drives me the most is I don't have kids yet, but I do want kids and I want to not only be a great example for my kids that I'm going to bring in this world, and I want to be a great father with good, healthy relationships with food, good relationships with exercise, good relationships with I mean like listen the world we live in today there's so good relationships with I mean like listen, the world we live in today there's so there's so many scary things and misconceptions and things that are going on with nutrition that are so misleading, and so I want to make sure I can set a good example and also teach my kids the right things and the things that they should and would want, should want to put in their bodies.
Speaker 1:Things and the things that they should and would want should want to put in their bodies. But also, I really want my kid to go on the playground as a kid and brag about how my dad I want them to say, like my dad will beat up your dad. Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:It's such a cool thing to brag about when you're a kid.
Speaker 2:Relate to the long-term vision motivation, like of course I want to. You know, have my kid come out and start hitting pads with me on the second day, or hit the gym with me like the second day that they're in the world. But, um, I can for sure relate to the long-term vision and that's what keeps me disciplined, and I think, as I stay disciplined, I find motivation through the discipline. That's fair. Yeah, that would be, I guess, a similar answer.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, last one for you guys. You ready for this? Can you recommend supplements for bulking and cutting?
Speaker 2:This one's all you. I'm not a big supplement guy.
Speaker 1:I'm not a huge fan of supplements either, to be honest. Um, if you're bulking, I think protein shakes are a great option. Well, actually hold on. I'm going to rewind the best supplements for cutting and bulking. There is one that I believe you should have on both ends of the spectrum should have on both ends of the spectrum which is creatine. This one I agree with. Creatine is by far the best and most studied supplement on planet earth, and I'm actually going to read you a little snippet from this creatine study that I find to be really interesting. So this is an International Society of Sports and Nutrition position stand Safety and Efficacy of Creatine Supplementation Exercise, sport and Medicine. So if you want the link, I'll put it below. Research has been indicated creatine supplementation may enhance post-exercise recovery, injury prevention, thermoregulation, which is like your body's ability to adjust to temperature rehabilitation, which Jake knows a lot about because of uh working in pt clinics and dealing with a lot of personal injuries also this one.
Speaker 1:Jake knows a lot about this one as well concussion and or spinal cord neural protection. A number of clinical applications of creatine supplementation also have been study involving neurodegenerative diseases, muscular dystrophy, parkinson's, huntington's disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, aging, brain and heart ischema, adolescence, depression and pregnancy. There is an entire list of all of these things that creatine is good for. In my opinion, creatine is not a bodybuilding supplement. It is a wellness supplement 100 your grandma your kids.
Speaker 1:Everyone should take creatine. By the way it's, it's found in red meat. Red meat has a lot of creatine. If you eat over a pound and a half to two pounds of creatine, you probably don't need to supplement, but I highly recommend it. It has a lot of cognitive benefits, but anyways, that's the one supplement I think everyone should.
Speaker 2:I was just about to say, to add on to that to any and all vegetarians and vegans who may be listening earlier on in the conversation I referenced supplements that I had to be diligent about taking. Creatine was one of them, because creatine is found through predominantly meat. You're not going to find it through most plant-based foods and if you do find it, it's in trace amounts, so make sure that you're supplementing that I agree, but I probably scared all the vegans out of this, so I doubt you're here.
Speaker 1:And if you're here, if you are here, you made it real far.
Speaker 1:Good job I highly respect you staying here and sticking through this. So thank you. Going back to what I was saying, I'm going to pick probably one or two more supplements for each. For bulking, I think protein shakes are great and I think throwing things like um, like oats and milk, and high, like peanut butter and like, if you're bulking, having really calorie dense, fat dense foods inside of your shakes will be very helpful for putting on weight and muscle.
Speaker 1:Now, on the flip side, I actually don't think protein powder is a great option when you're trying to lose weight. I actually think having more nutrient-dense whole foods is better because, number one, you'll feel more satisfied and satiated. On the flip side, protein because it's a liquid form, it is tasty and it helps you hit your protein goals, which on occasion might be fine, but generally speaking, when you're in a deficit. Tasty and it gives you helps you hit your protein goals, which on occasion might be fine, but generally speaking, when you're in a deficit, your hunger levels are increasing to. To help with decrease your hunger, you want to consume more whole foods. So in actually eating protein is going to be better for you either way, because it's going to come with a lot of other micronutrients.
Speaker 1:Now, when you're in a cut, though, you may be lacking some nutrients. So in a cut sometimes I actually like to recommend a multivitamin for clients because you may be lacking. You might have less variety in your food. Typically, you eat a lot more of the same things when you're in a cut. I might tack on a digestive enzyme.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I'll have clients In a bulk especially yes, in a bulk, for sure, but also sometimes in a bulk especially uh, yes, in a in a book, for sure, but also sometimes in a cut, because I feel like sometimes people as they're, they're consuming less calories. Like one of my clients was struggling with digestion and we associated to directly to the calorie drop that we had made into his deficit and it was only for like a couple weeks, but he was having a hard time adjusting to the lower calories and he was bloating. And I assumed he was bloating just because his body was trying to retain the calories, because he was really like he was struggling to digest, and so I had him hop on a digestive enzyme and then that ended up helping and then his body started to acclimate to the overall calorie consumption. And it's not like I had him on a drastically low or like a drastically heavy cut, but right when we started it we pulled away I think it was about 500 or 600 calories from his maintenance, maybe it was like 500.
Speaker 2:And he was just struggling to digest and I was like, yeah, and it wasn't like I didn't drop him super low.
Speaker 1:Less food will cause less inflammation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, personally, for me, that's the way it goes.
Speaker 1:That tells inflammation. Personally for me, personally for me, that was that's the way it goes. That tells me he was more than likely consuming something that was causing inflammation. I don't think it was from the deficit. Yeah, that's a conversation for another time. But yeah, I don't. I don't think. Typically I would say nine like 99 of the time. You would see, when you go into a deficit, you'll see less inflammation because your body and system aren't stressed from trying to digest as much food, um, so your system isn't overloaded as much.
Speaker 2:So I it was weird, cause he was consuming the same foods and they weren't giving him a problem. He was just consuming them in smaller amounts.
Speaker 1:He didn't notice it as much before because he was in the bulking, but now he was cutting he was noticing it more because his digestion was lighter but more inflamed nonetheless, the digestive enzyme help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you can't go you can never go wrong.
Speaker 1:I mean, like I like a probiotic, yeah, which is probiotics are good, too.
Speaker 1:Fantastic for, um, not just gut health, I mean your, your gut is your second brain, and so having a healthy gut contributes to better mental health, which a lot of people don't realize that your gut can actually contribute to your mental health. So I definitely think a probiotic is a great one to have. I recommend a company called Seed S-E-E-D. They make a fantastic probiotic. I've tried a shit ton of probiotics. I've tried a ton of them and that's the only one that's worked for me that I really like. Digest Benzyene is a good one, um, and I think the only other one I mean during the summertime where I was.
Speaker 2:The question was it pertain supplements for bulking and cutting? Oh, okay, yeah, I was.
Speaker 1:I was just gonna say, like general recommendations, I mean those those are the only ones that I can think of, yeah for bulking cutting protein powder, multivitamin, free cutting, I think, a probiotic, especially if you're bulking, because your digestion is going to be. Your body is going to have to digest a lot more food, so it needs a little assistance. So digestive enzyme and or probiotic would be great options.
Speaker 2:But yeah, ultimately it's going to come down to calorie consumption and movement. I remember when I was cutting I would a uh, like a thermogenic, but like a natural one it was. It was called capsicool never, yeah well, it wasn't, it wasn't.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna say no, yeah, no, not a fan, don't even talk about it I disapprove.
Speaker 2:It was spices yeah I disapprove pepper spices, but it really didn't make that much of a difference I think the most important thing is so.
Speaker 1:You know, I just told you those, but you do not need supplements. Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:You do not need supplements at all whatsoever not a single supplement. If you want to take supplements, cool. You want to spend the money? Great, you have the extra expenses, you have the money, go for it. But you do not need them. But you do not need them. They're going to make a 1% to 3% difference, where the 98% 97% of the change you're going to see is going to come from your movement, your nutrition and your exercise. Aside from that, you can maybe get a competitive edge. Until you have good sleep, good movement, managed stress, good quality workouts, consistently and a consistent whole food, nutrition-based diet, there's no reason for you to even look into supplements. Start there and then, if you want, you can get into supplements, but you do not need them. But if you're going to get supplements, make sure you get third-party tested, high-quality supplements. I recommend Legion. Use code TNT for 20% off your first order.
Speaker 2:Shout out to the newest sponsored athlete just got sponsored by them.
Speaker 1:So, uh, mean the world to me if you win boxing, but if not, it's again. It's all good, you don't need to, you don't need them you don't need them.
Speaker 2:Emphasize those lifestyle habits. That's always going to be key 100.
Speaker 1:Well, that is our 15 questions, our 15 answers. I hope you got the absolute biggest amount of value from today's podcast episode. Thank you again for coming on, jake.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate you taking the time to come answer these fun questions. This was super fun. If you guys got value from this. If you're on YouTube, please just drop a like and maybe a little comment below, and if you're on Spotify, send me a message or send Jake a message on Instagram. It'd mean the world to us to hear your thoughts on this and if you want to see more and aside from that, we'll catch you guys on the next one. Peace.
