Mildly entertaining, somewhat obscure guests, relatively interesting topics. Semi-professional production quality. Reasonably well-informed commentary, a great value for the money. Hundreds of fans all around the world. It's The Starting Strength Gyms Podcast with your host, Ray Gillen Waterer. Alright everyone, welcome back. Nick Delgadeel's on. Nick and I were talking about FADs and starting strength and social media and marketing. We want to talk about all this stuff.
We have no particular structure or order, so let's see how this goes. The premise essentially, Nick, and let me know if you want to add anything to this, is there's a lot of stuff out there that a lot of people are talking about. And as with most things, some people know what they're talking about, some don't. It's hard to tell based on how confident people are. But for us, it always comes down to the argument. So, Nick, why don't we start with the argument for starting strength?
I'll share my perspective and then let me know if I've missed something or if I've misconstrued something. But essentially what it comes down to is we have this biological machine that we all operate in. And that machine is optimized when it's exposed to stress. And there are optimal ways you can expose your body to stress. And there are less optimal ways. And for my point of view, training is better than exercise in the way that rip it to outline.
So, if you're trying to optimize your human system, you should do so in a structured planned way with a specific goal. So, the question becomes then, well, what should the goal be? And there are two primary goals you could have. For my point of view, you could try to get stronger or you could try to improve your conditioning in some respect. So, those are probably the two broad categories.
But the nice thing about strength is that when you get stronger, it has a conditioning effect also, especially if you're a novice. So, strength is the meta adaptation. It's the training outcome that affects all others positively. It's the biggest bang for your buck. You get bone density, you get muscle mass, you get balance, you get coordination, you get power. And you get improved heart and lung efficiency, which is the point of conditioning.
So, from our point of view, strength is the way to spend your time in the gym because you'll get the best outcome for the time of money invested. There are other things you can do, and depending on what your goals are, those things might be a better use of your time. But everybody should get stronger. Everybody should get stronger because everybody will benefit from going through something like a novice linear progression.
And then it just comes down to what are your goals and you would adjust your approach to strength conditioning and fitness accordingly. That's kind of the big picture of fundamental way that I look at this thing. Nick, what's your point of view or what am I missing here? Nothing really. I think most starting strength fans, especially, and the way you present that is difficult to argue with.
And I think, you know, when we talk about this stuff, I think it's helpful to consider how people who already are bought in, so to speak, or already understand that part of it. And also coaches who already understand that part of it and can talk about that all day long. So talking about how the kind of the next step deeper, because I don't think you'll get any disagreement from, I mean, the internet's a different thing, right?
But from, from our people, you won't really get any disagreement on that. But even, even in those cases where you have somebody who understands what you just said, understands our general argument and coaches who understand our general argument and implement our general argument or our method, I should say, every day. They still don't understand at a little bit of a deeper level how all this works.
And there's, and there's some potential for issues there in terms of organizing, thinking and organizing, training for people. And then there's, there's carryover into things like marketing and stuff where people start saying and believing silly things that don't actually occur or that do occur, but get kind of muddled and confusing in the process.
So I know that's like, this is pretty, what I'm saying is, is pretty vague right now, but we're going to get in all this stuff. I imagine over the next, over the next few minutes. So really, what really, let me just add to what you said. So absolutely right. The thing that I would add is that your adaptations, the adaptations that your body produces in response to stress are specific to the stress that you apply.
That's the most fundamental concept to understand the stress that you apply has to match the adaptation you're looking for and the adaptation that you get is only going to be in response to the stress that you apply. So when you consider all of the things that you could potentially do in terms of strength and conditioning or fitness or whatever.
You have to consider all of the, all of the different attributes that you have, whether you're an athlete or you're just a normal, I don't want to say normal person, but somebody who doesn't have hobbies, physical hobbies outside of lifting and staying fit.
It's the same thing, right. So it, there's really, there's really no difference in terms of the approach or the process for somebody who's doing a sport versus somebody who's not doing a sport, you're just looking at things from kind of a recovery side. So the, so what are the adaptations that you need or that you want or that are desirable and how do you accomplish those. So you can pick some adaptation and then start working on it.
And then you can move on to the other and start working on it and you can work on it. So for example, you can work on coordination, you can work on ballots, you can work on conditioning, you can work on strength, you can work on all these things individually and design a program that does each one and what you'll find is that most of those attributes are going to be hard limited by your genetic endowment.
So, and other things, right. And just the method that you would have to use to train those things are going to be limited in their capacity to be trainable long term. So let's take like balance, for example, how would you train balance. If you are somebody who's relatively uncoorded and unbalanced, you can literally just stand on one leg and practice standing on one leg and your balance would improve, right.
But how do you progress that over time? How do you get better and better and better at producing balance. And the bigger, more important question is how does that carry over into the rest of your life, right. If you're, if you're, if you haven't fallen, if you haven't experienced a fatal accident as a result of falling, I would probably argue that you have enough balance to get through your day to day life with the things that you do, right.
So that's the other big question is how does the, how does the adaptation, how does the adaptation that you're training right now carry over into all of the other things that you want to do.
Right. So balance and coordination and stuff like that. That can be pretty obvious, especially when we talk about it this way, where things get really confusing for people is strength and conditioning and conditioning is like the catch all word for what people consider conditioning cardio, you know, whatever terms people throw out like VO2 max.
So you know, all these different things are just lump under conditioning because you have structural adaptations and you have metabolic adaptations. So when we talk about the two factor model of sports performance or really it's really just the two factor model of performance because it doesn't just apply to sports.
So when you talk about the two factor model, you've got the skill and practice on one side of things, which is one factor and then you've got training, which is the other factor and training would be composed of your structural adaptations and your metabolic adaptations, which would be all of your conditioning stuff. Right.
So the way people approach the problem is that they look at a specific problem that they have like they are running out of breath when they walk up the stairs, they are gassing out at jujitsu class, they received some, some lab results that were unfavorable. Hey, or whatever, right. So they think about, OK, so I need to work on my cardio and then that becomes the primary thing or they're doing straight training plus I want to do cardio.
OK, now that's fine, but the problem is that now we're on the physiologic adaptation side of the two factor model and you can only you can only optimally focus on one thing at a time. All right, you can sub optimally focus on all things at a time, right, and just do them all not very well. Our job is to present and guide people through the most optimal way to improve their performance.
You know, ultimately that's that's the goal in the mission of the of the coach at the gym is to improve their clients performance over time. So when you look at it that way, where is, and like you said, where is the best bang for your buff, where should I devote the most attention? Anything that you do from a conditioning standpoint again has problems in terms of trainability over time. The novice effect, right, so just doing anything is going to improve your conditioning at the beginning.
Given yourself runway long term in terms of in terms of where what protocols you're going to use and where you're going to go over time, like, how, because even with the conditioning side of things, there's there's the high output. High output low oxygen, you know, high energy stuff on one end, and then there's the long, long distance low energy output stuff on the other side.
So where do you, where does your training fall on that spectrum? Right. That's a, that's a fairly complicated thing when you're not looking at things from a, from a very focused perspective, like when you're just saying, I want to improve my cardio, what does that actually mean?
Do you want to, do you need to be able to do, uh, long slow, like, you need a lot of aerobic capacity, you need a lot of anaerobic capacity, do you need to be, you need to be fast and explosive for five to 10 seconds, and then you, you have to be able to recover quickly from that. Or are we talking about like walking, you know, five miles or something for, for an hour or two hours or whatever, whatever it is.
So, so things are very complicated there, unless you have a specific thing that you're working on, right? So that's, that's one thing to think about there. Now, if we look at the thing is, and here's the important point, if you look at the training side of things, like you said, if you look at the strength or the structural adaptation that you can potentially produce under a well designed and, and, and, and well run process.
So, you know, you can potentially, for an adaptation that is primarily structural, but also carries over into everything else that we just talked about is there with strength training, right?
So, you have all of the force production adaptation that you get from loading yourself and moving through a full range of motion using all the muscle mass, you've got a ton of adaptation in terms of size because your, you know, your muscles are growing, your bone density, your connective tissues are becoming more robust.
So, that also has a carryover effect into the conditioning side of things for a number of reasons, and probably the simplest thing to think about is, if you're improving your capacity for force production, you're also improving your capacity for stressing yourself in terms of conditioning, right?
So, any condition that you do today as an untrained individual, the novice effect is always in place, right? So, after six weeks, you're, you have, let's just assign a number to it. Let's say you have force production capacity of 100 right now, and you go and you do a bunch of cardio with that amount of force production capacity.
So, stressing yourself not 100, sub maximal, right? So, anything that's, that's going to involve cardio is going to be sub maximal. So, you're stressing yourself with a smaller percentage of that, and you're just building an adaptation that's around that 100 mark in terms of force production.
So, you double that amount of force production to 200 or triple, it's a 300 over the course of three to six months doing a, doing a strength program. Now, when you go and do conditioning, how much more effective is each bout of conditioning now that you have the capacity to exert double or triple the amount of force that you could, right?
And to give you a simple example, if on day one, you're brand new trainee, you're just got off the couch, and you are dying, pushing a sled with no weight on it, right? I mean, you're just pushing the prowler, maybe even like a 45 pound plate, and you do that, you know, for 30 seconds, you're, you do it for five rounds, and you're, you're done. I mean, you're toast, completely toast, right?
If you, if you put a couple of hundred pounds on your deadlift, put a hundred pounds on your squat, how much more can you put on that sled now after that? So the dose of conditioning, of conditioning training that you can give yourself is much, much higher, right?
So in terms of efficiency now, you've got an easier time conditioning yourself is it always sucks, you know, whether you're untrained or you're trained conditioning always sucks, but now you can make it suck harder, right? And conditioning is going to is going to come much, much faster and at a higher capacity, because now you're, your baseline.
So if you want to think about it as a baseline, people use the word like word capacity. So if you use that baseline, your baseline is now here where it was here, right? So all of that conditioning training comes in down the line, because you can stress yourself harder. And if that is available to you in a relatively short amount of time, why would we want the ability to produce more force early on when, and then, and then kind of halfway do strength training,
halfway do conditioning and lose out on all of the positive effects of strength training that applies to every other physical attribute across the board, when we could just make that as efficient as possible right now, I want to make it really clear that I don't, I'm not making the argument that that conditioning has no place in a strength program or that you should lift weights, eat and sit on the couch.
And sleep as part of your strength training that's not like not what I'm saying at all what I'm saying is that any, any complicated process, which is, which is what we're dealing with when you have physiology, right any complicated process requires that you start at the most simple, basic and general version of things and then progress all of your variables from there, because otherwise when you just jump into, let's say a strength program with the conditioning,
program with the conditioning program with this other thing and then all these different nutrition protocols and all of these kind of complicated things because you're researching on the internet or you're listening to this person, you're listening to that person.
And you're just kind of jumbling all these things together, you have really no good idea about what's working and what's not working and that leads to program hopping, it leads to not, it leads to a stalls and progress and it's just not an intelligent way to do things, right. So if we want to look at the most, the most optimal way to do things, you're going to start with the most simple thing that you can do that's going to produce results, right.
And then start running that process and then make adjustments as you go, just like you're just, just like we always talk about with programming. So with that in mind, where should we spend most of our time and energy initially and that's on strength training, right, because it's going to affect how hard your conditioning can be, it's going to affect your conditioning is just going to improve as a, as, as, because literally things get easier for you as you start training.
So we start with condition, I'm sorry, we start with strength training, we deal with all of the recovery issues that come with strength training, a big part of that is nutrition, right. So if you need to gain weight, you're going to be gaining weight, if you need to lose weight, you're going to be losing weight.
And then based on your specific needs, we're going to add conditioning or whatever else needs to, needs to happen now. Usually, you know, as far as the strength coach goes, it's a lot of strength training, it's as little conditioning as, as you need in order to continue making progress.
And then anything else balance coordination timing, all of those things are done at your practice of whatever your hobby or your sport is right. So there's really no room for that in in the strength coaches repertoire of worrying about that because that's all going to be handled by practice.
Most of your conditioning needs are also going to be handled by practice initially as well, right. So as far as what we can offer, it's this simple logical approach approach to strength training to increase the force production side of things to bring your baseline up as high as we can get it. And then layer on top really, really basic conditioning when it's needed and for specific reasons, right.
So we can, I can keep going. I can talk a little bit more about about what I mean by that. Or if you have questions, we can talk about those. I do have a question. You asked a rhetorical question. Why would you blunt your strength gains for conditioning early on. And let me, let me attempt to answer that question. And I think this is probably the meat of the conversation.
The answer is because of belief is because people have preconceptions. And the popular culture preconception about fitness is that you cannot be fit unless you do conditioning work. Right. And so if there are lots and lots of people that come into our gyms believing that they will never achieve their health goals and they will never achieve their body composition goals.
Unless there is some heavy conditioning component in the program. And you can save this this off for a few weeks and maybe for a few months for a lot of people, but lots and lots of people will feel guilty if they're spending lots of time and money doing something that's fitness oriented.
But never doing anything specific to conditioning. And so this is where the inexperienced coaches get into trouble because they feel this pull this desire from the trainee to do conditioning, but they don't have the tools to explain to the trainee exactly how conditioning should be thought of because everything you just said there is illuminating and interesting and correct.
And I don't see a counter to the arguments that you've made. We welcome arguments by the way. If you want to write an article for the website or if the knuckleheads want to respond in the comments below, you're welcome to. But, but you know, all that aside, we need to explain to people exactly why doing conditioning in a week two doesn't make sense.
Exactly where conditioning fits into a program because just to remind everybody, you know, a lot of you guys watching on the YouTube channel are young and maybe you're doing athletic stuff sports, whatever in the gyms were mostly 40 plus. So we're helping middle age people plus live more productive lives and improve their capability. And these people, a lot of them are under the impression that that has to include heavy cardio immediately.
So Nick, how would you. Let's say you're talking to all the coaches that are watching this. How would you express to them what they need to do to overcome that trainees objections and illuminate things correctly to them in a simple way. To make them feel like, yeah, you are doing the things you want to be doing for your body composition, your health. That's just different than what you thought it was. How do you best explain that. Yeah, great question.
Just like with with anything that's complicated, it's really it's really the presentation of a process and a solution that's process oriented not, you know, not an answer, right? Because when somebody says when somebody says they feel guilty, they they have the thought or the thinking in their mind that they need to do cardio.
You know, maybe they walked into the gym because their doctor told them they're pre diabetic and they don't buy the the argument that just lifting weights is going to essentially solve that problem. So if they're untrained and they and they're they they haven't done any barbell training before that's fine. But so so two questions. Number one is like somebody asks, do I how do I add how do I add conditioning? Can you program conditioning? What do I do for conditioning?
Okay, what is the actual problem you're trying to solve? Like what do you need? What do you want? Like do you? You're telling me this is it is it the lab value? Is it because you're getting winded walking up the stairs? Is it because you get tired playing with your kids? Is it because you the the the basketball that you've all a sudden decided to pick up his heart? So you see what I'm saying? Like what is what is it that we're trying to fix?
And the answer usually get right is like I want to I want to look better. I want to be leaner and I want to be healthy. Healthy is not good. Yeah. So the second question is how how much are you how much how much do you think you need in terms of conditioning in order to in order to get that accomplished?
And everybody has a different idea of what how much they think they need right so I always I always think about baseline normal human activity versus over and above and actually driving an adaptation right so you've got to make that distinction between what is just doing normal human
and actually pushing in a process of conditioning and driving an adaptation forward because everybody mixes those two things together right so if you are getting winded playing with your children or your grandchildren if you're getting a little bit more winded walking up the stairs that is not a problem that was caused by starting strength that is a problem that was caused by detraining and in activity right that is a normal human baseline activity.
So I tried to beat the hell out of yourself two or three times a week with Proudler or an echo bike because honestly it's going to work a little bit but it's not going to give you what you want is not going to persist right because how long how long are you going to stay on that echo bike or that Proudler or that roar twice a week five to seven rounds hard as hell for 30 seconds resting for a minute over and over and over again it's most people don't stick with that kind of a protocol.
So if you're going to let you stop you know maybe you've increased your baseline conditioning a little bit but but it's going to just it's going to just go back right so you know I look at it a lot is kind of the nutrition question what do we need to get out of this person or what what what am I trying to get them to do and that's
mostly for that demographic it's it's like start doing something in just a little bit at a time like if you're you know again if you're if you're getting up from your cubicle getting in the car driving a starting strength training for 90 minutes getting back in your car going through the way drive through watching Netflix going to bed and then doing nothing the next day that's your problem right like what I'll do is I'll just be like look man like when's the last time you went for a walk
like go walk for 10 minutes and then you hand up stand effortings book right look look at this because I'm not the guy you know I'm not the guy to be telling you this look at this book go read it walk for 10 minutes every day this week then next week walk for 10 minutes twice a day every day and then the week after that walk for 10 minutes three times a day and let's see what happens you know let's see if you if you're if your problem resolves
and that's sustainable right it's doable it's easy it's not hard and you get a little bit of of you can tell if somebody's going to comply with something like that and a lot of times that's enough right there like oh yeah man this is fine as this works great you know so just a simple very small thing that kind of just brings
their baseline up to where they're feeling like they're not a lazy piece of shit and and again like a lot like our conversation on nutrition a lot of it's up here right it's not actually a thing that's a problem it's something that they're it's something they need to work through up here yeah yeah so so I guess the point is it's not to immediately jump into this crazy intense conditioning protocol now I will do that with people to to remove the idea from their head right if somebody's
like all right cool let's do some conditioning and then I'll give them like this is what you're going to do this week and then they get on it right they're super excited they do it and then week two comes and then they do it and then week three comes they're like oh I only got it in once this week I just ran out of time and then week four comes they're like oh man you know I only I only did like four rounds
running out of time and then by week five they're done they're like I fuck this I just keep lifting you know it's cool and then it's time to be like all right well look you want to lose weight let's let's talk about nutrition now you know that's that's actually the right way to do it so you can't solve you can't solve a body composition problem by just layering more and more stress on top
it doesn't work right it works a little bit again it works a little bit but it doesn't work long term so the the body composition thing whether you're going down or up that's a long term process that involves nutrition primarily and then in terms of just cardiovascular health it's normal human activity right just a few walks if that's easy for you do a little bit more move around
but you don't need to come into the gym and waste you know you got 90 minutes in the gym to get your training done you don't need to spend 20 or 30 of that on the on the prowler or the bike because you know you're there's there's more valuable things you could be doing in the gym that are going to increase your overall capacity
right absolutely is that a three question it does yeah and I just I understand why it's so challenging because what you just said completely contradicts the pop culture narrative right I mean like shows like the biggest loser what these people losing weight they're all just doing cardio cardio cardio conditioning conditioning conditioning conditioning they're also starving themselves
they're also starving right exactly right but but what you're saying is that the be careful not to attribute the cause to the thing that's not driving the progress and your your message is strength training and nutrition is is how you get to where you want to go body comp wise and the conditioning has a small effect but it's less that's less than you think it is and to be able to say that to someone who has believed something different for most of their life
you're going to have to build some credibility and you may not be able to do that early in the conversation when a member walks into the gym but you can demonstrate progress you can demonstrate that the weight on the bars going up you can measure their waste and show them that their
waste is getting smaller you can show them these things that are improving and the reason why people drop off when when you and I give trainees conditioning programs is because you don't get that same positive feedback
loop when you're doing condition it's brutal sucks and then you don't you don't reap the rewards it doesn't benefit in your day to day life but but the trouble is I want to name any names but you've got all these people online some of them doctors who have popular podcast and our guests on other people's podcasts who are saying things they're trying to make it sound real sciencey and they sound they try to make things sound very certain so it's like okay so you need to do X
number of minutes per week in zone one and then in other days and zone two and it's like okay cool you know I'm glad you have a program and I'm glad you're approaching conditioning kind of a systematized way and and I believe you that that the studies your
reference scenes demonstrate that improvements in all cause mortality and longevity are seen when people do these things but also you're probably comparing them to sedentary people not comparing this to to guys that are you know 45 and are squatting in the mid 300s
that's a completely different demographic and so they're typically the same guys that will go that will when it's when it's something in their wheelhouse they will wholeheartedly agree that the exercise science is bullshit right but then when they want to pick and
choose like this this thing you know this thing that's that's peripheral to what I'm doing agrees with what I'm saying right now or with the program I'm trying to sell all the sudden they love the evidence they love the science right but you know so we're not
again I and this is something I push on the coaches that I talk to we are not selling a we are not presenting a solution that is like this is the answer to your problems we are presenting a process and it doesn't matter you know all of this thing all of these things that we talked about like in the first 10 minutes here is complicated and there's no need to explain this to any trainee or any client what you do need to explain is what the process is going to be today and tomorrow and how that is
going to get them to what their goals are and if that process is let's not do anything right now because you're you know you're already fairly active let's just do some strength training and we'll check in in in three weeks or we'll check in in a month and see how things are going and then we'll we'll if we need to we'll do something else or the process could be yeah you're strength training now you're excited because you're doing all these lifestyle changes
and you know that's that's always a problem because people people do too much too soon and they burn out so you another job of the coach I think is the whole people back a little bit and give yourself room to add things later on and later on as they progress
right so but it's okay if somebody super excited we're going to have them do the least that they can do the thing that's going to be the least damaging to their recovery in terms of strength training it may just be like go for a walk one or two or three times a day do that for the next three weeks and then let's talk and let's see where things are at right now you know whether the walking has done a ton or not I believe it it probably will most of the most of the progress has come from the
strength training and also the just the added like compliance of sticking to something and just taking it with you outside of the gym that's super valuable right but I'm not giving them something that's going to that's going to interfere tremendously with them coming into the next workout and adding way to the bar and doing what we're actually trying to do which is improve their overall performance right and then when it's necessary we'll do more again we're we're absolutely not opposed to
conditioning but I want to get the idea across that high levels of conditioning and protocols that produce high levels of conditioning are number one specific to the activity that you're doing and number two usually completely unnecessary for most
people most of the time right I always use like the the jiu jitsu thing as an example because it's simple because you have a lot of cells and you have you have all this stuff right so if you're if you're on the conditioning question regardless of what you do regardless of what sport you do regardless of your skill level if you're weak there should be nothing else you're doing except getting stronger like you know just just keep doing what you're doing keep doing your jiu jitsu keep
doing your bike riding whatever and just get stronger and you will see performance improvements and you'll get a lot of conditioning improvements as well if you're really strong and deconditioned right you're really strong but you gas out doing stuff the best thing that you can do is improve your skill right because you know you take the strong guy the guy who who benches 300 350 squats in the
fives and pulls in the sixes and he goes to jiu jitsu that dude's going to gas right just like everybody else it's not it's not just him everybody who starts you get to gases, they will attribute his strength and his size to his gassing. But the white belt who's right next to you who weighs 135 pounds, is that motherfucker is also gassing out, right? And when guys produced a whole lot more force than the other. That's exactly right.
The other guy has been way more trouble than the 135 pound guy to everybody in the room. So point being, if you're very strong or let's just say strong, right, you're strong and you're unskilled, you have no business doing any conditioning. You need to get better at your sport because you're inefficient. You don't move well. You're deconditioned. And the only thing that's going to give you the conditioning effect that you want for that sport is doing that sport, right?
It's so bizarre to me, man. Like you know, you go to Jiu-Jitsu and you start Jiu-Jitsu or you start anything that's hard like that and you feel like you're going to die, like you're drowning, you can't breathe in order to produce an adaptation that's going to make you not experience that. You have to recreate that out off of the mats. How the fuck are you going to do that? It's not the same. How are you going to do that? It's not the same. So it's essentially a waste of time, right?
I mean, there may be some benefit up here, right? And that's cool. But really, you think about it, it's not the same thing. So where conditioning becomes critical now is for the people who are highly skilled and strong, okay? Because people who are highly skilled don't derive a massive conditioning effect from their training anymore, right?
So the brown belts, the black belts, the some purple belts in Jiu-Jitsu, let's say, they go to class and yeah, they may experience like soreness in the joints and all the aches and pains and stuff, but they're not leaving every class completely wrecked from a conditioning stamp. So if they need to improve their conditioning, and I would argue that they don't, if that's how they're leaving class, but maybe they've got a competition coming up, right? And they want to improve conditioning for that.
Then what are the options there? Because remember, they're strong. If they're weak, then they're not going to do conditioning. They're just going to get stronger. If they're strong and they're very skilled, then the options are either fight harder, which has problems, right? Because now you run up against injuries and overuse and all these things. Or figure out a, or do some intelligent conditioning. So that's where it would fit in.
It's just like something outside of the gym where you can build up some additional conditioning without like getting punched in the head of bunch without having to go like drive, having to go ride like up and down hills and miles and miles and miles of your biker, and so on, where you're now you're coming up against the law of diminishing returns in terms of what you actually have to do to improve your conditioning, right?
So really, in terms of really, really intense high level conditioning, that's where it fits in. And again, that's a small percentage of humanity. Most people get by with a lot of strength training and just a little bit of conditioning. And honestly, not that much conditioning if you get your nutrition under control. So basically what you're saying is most people have their priorities 100% backwards. Because what you're saying is it's strength, then it's practice.
And then for the few people that need it, it's conditioning and actually it might just be nutrition first. But the way most people think about it is it's conditioning and practice and yeah, you also need to be strong. So as usual, it's just conflation. And I'm glad that you mentioned that conditioning does have its place for some people, but it's fewer people than you would expect in fewer situations than you would expect. Right. Yeah, especially like a really intense conditioning. Right. Right.
I mean, you and I talked about this because you were only able to go to the Jitsu once or twice a week or something. Yeah. And I had a competition coming up. Yeah, you want to do some extra stuff. That's perfectly fine, right? And if you're doing enough Jiu Jitsu three, four, five days a week, and then on top of that, you're also strength training. Why would you do any additional conditioning? Like are four or five roles a night, not enough conditioning for you?
Then you're not going hard enough. Sure. Sure. And if let's say you're injured and beat up, so you can't go as hard as you want to and you have to lay around more conditioning to try to supplement, then that would probably be worthwhile. But your point is absolutely correct in that. That's not what you start with. Yeah. Exactly right. Yeah. And then, oh, go ahead. No, no, so actually I was going to kind of switch gears to the big picture. So if you want to add something on that, please do.
Yeah, a really important point from a coaching perspective now then. The conditioning question and the wellness question becomes then like an easy cop out, right? It becomes an easy, it becomes an easy sell. It becomes a, you know, it essentially becomes allowing your clients to dictate the way you practice. And you're fortunate man in some ways, it's unfortunate in some ways, but you're fortunate in some ways because you stay away from social media.
I personally think social media is awesome and great. You know, aside from the intrusions on privacy and all that. I just signed up for Twitter. So I've, well, yeah. Yeah. All right, well, good luck. Yeah, we'll see how it goes. At least on things like Instagram, you get to look at cool shit. You're like on Twitter, it's just anger. Oh, it's not anger, you know? I don't know if it's good for you, man.
Probably not. No. Yeah. But they're the only people that believe in free speech and I want to say that it's real. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I'm a fuck Facebook, fuck Instagram. I know. It's always great off the right. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway.
So you may be insulated from a lot of this, but there's definitely like a, a, a, a, a, a trend and there's definitely a, a, a, a, a move towards people who, uh, who know very, very well, uh, the thing that we're talking about in terms of strength training. Um, in an attempt to get more clients, in an attempt to please more people and in an attempt to, um, you know, broaden horizons, so to speak. Uh, it's essentially like we'll just do whatever you want.
Yeah. You know, we'll, you know, we're going to focus on, we're going to focus on, uh, you know, a little bit of strength because that's, that's good, right? And then, um, you know, we're going to focus on, on your cardio and your wellness and your, um, and your flexibility and all these different things. Um, when they, you know, if you're honest with yourself, you know, damn well that most people don't need to spend a bunch of time on that.
But what you're doing and now is you're, you're casting a wider net, right? So, uh, and not only are you casting a wider net, but now the conversation that I have with Mike with the potential client is way easier because I don't have to convince you of anything. I don't have to convince you that, uh, I have this hard process that we have to go through, or that we're going to go through.
And I'm going to guide you through this process and I'm going to help you and I'm going to improve your performance. And we're essentially going to do something hard, right? Um, because now I can just say, yeah, you know, we're going to do a little bit of this. We'll do a little bit of that. We're going to do a little bit of this. That other thing and it's going to be awesome. And that's exactly what you're looking for, right? And then they're like, oh, yeah, that sounds great.
Yeah. And the, the, the big, um, the big, um, focus for me is that that stuff doesn't filter into our gyms and that, and that our coaches understand everything that we're saying in terms of, you know, in terms of an intelligent, simple process, that process may take you into some very, very complicated areas and things like conditioning and things like, um, you know, some, some, maybe even some flexibility, whatever, right?
But it may take you down that path with, with a specific client, but, but we all know that initially everybody just needs to get stronger, right? And as soon as you start adding things to that or removing the idea that just getting the little bit stronger is okay, um, and then kind of we'll do whatever you want. That's, uh, that's a problem, right?
Because you'll see, let's, let's take, for example, um, like we, we start, uh, we start a thing where we're going to have people come in and we're going to have them start strength training and we're going to have them do a bunch of other stuff, right? What's going to happen to those individuals? They're, they're going to see progress, right? They're going to see progress because they're novices. Um, the danger there is that the coaches convince themselves that the only way to do this
correctly is that way, right? Whatever their favorite thing is, um, when really what they need to be doing is the novice on your progression and teaching people how to eat well, right? If that solves almost all of the problems of all of your clients initially. And it's simple and it's actionable.
Once you start conflating goals and getting mixed up with all this pop culture nonsense, you're going to be taking your cold plunge and then hitting the sauna and then doing your, you know, organic, uh, uh, spinach, anima and then, um, and then doing, you know, 45 minutes in zone one and then it's just the magical, the magical properties that people assign to things like a cold plunge. It's just amazing. Yeah. And it's just fantastic. But, but you're exactly right.
It's that, it's that kind of shit. And look, these are, I don't know if you did this, but, you know, as a, as a young coach, these are things that happen, right? These are things that you do and you start to spread out into these, you know, all these different ideas that appeal to you.
Um, and if you're, if you're, the problem is that most coaches and most people in business are not honest enough with themselves and just run with it and then keep going and then build their whole fucking identity off of this, off of this slightly different thing than what you originally started with, right? Um, but if you're, if you're critical of yourself and you're honest, you're going to come back to these really, really simple basic principles.
I mean, everything that we're talking about here is like, you know, at this point is like, 15 or 20 years of experience dealing with clients and fuck, I'm back to five lifts, you know, three sets of five and like no conditioning essentially, right? That, uh, it's just lift heavy and eat well for the most part is the recommendation. Now, the problem is that that's hard as hell to do for, for it's too simple. And if you're neurotic, it seems like you're missing something. You feel guilty.
It seems like you're missing something. But in terms of, in terms of interactions with clients, it's, it's really difficult to do. Yeah. People focused on, um, on, on lifting heavy and eating well because especially the eating well part, because that, that involves like everything outside of the gym, right? So, um, so we, we get, we get young coaches who come in and, and believe that as, uh, as things slow down, what's the answer is, is what, you know, it's reflexive.
Like what you got to eat more. Well, that's true, right? You got to eat more. But, you know, don't look at the guy over there who came in at 340 pounds and is now down to 280 and tell yourself, well, I don't want to look like that. Right. Well, the situation, right? Right. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Right. Um, and just to be clear, I, I, I'm not saying that, uh, there's no benefit to a cold plunge.
You know, I've listened to Rhonda Patrick, just like you have, and I, I understand the material she's referencing that talks about cold shock proteins and all this, but really what that is is it's, it's stress. So the question becomes, if you have limited time in your week for health and fitness, are you better off spending it in the sauna, do an occult plunge? If you haven't yet done your squats, well, probably not.
And here, here's the thing I want to warn everybody against, which is, uh, nebulous claims of health that are hard to measure and track. I mean, I can sell you anything if I do that, right? And, and, and the people in the marketing business, um, um, and fitness understand this really well. So, um, you're susceptible to all kinds of bullshit as long as you feel good about what you're doing, and what we're essentially saying is things are a lot simpler than, uh, then they're made out to be.
And, um, if you're going to apply stress to your human organism, do it in a structured planned way and make it oriented around making those structural changes that, um, that Nick alluded to, which is making yourself stronger because that affects everything else positively. And then improving the metabolic changes.
Um, and, and so I think the real problem here is you have, you, on one hand, you have some people that are, that know the right way, but are dishonest because it benefits them and fuck those people. Um, but I think, I think the, the bigger group of people are those that just don't actually know that it's possible to make profound structural changes.
I think the vast majority of people in this business and the, and the vast majority of lay people, um, don't understand that if you're 50 and you're a guy, you can get your dead lift to 405 in two years, two and a half years. Number one, and number two, um, not only is that desirable, but it's probably the best thing you could do for your overall health, fitness, capability, longevity, functionality. It just seems super counterintuitive.
When I talk to people about this stuff that are not into lifting, you can, you can see that they're just not like it's just not clicking, you know, I, I, I was at a dinner at the other night with some guys that would be perfect fits for our program. They're, they're middle-aged men. They've got money. I mean, they're all mainly just doing conditioning. And I was telling them about one of our trainees at Dallas. That's, you know, 72 years old and he deadless, 425 pounds.
And I was trying to compare that to a marathoner that's 72 or a guy that's set, that's sedentary at 72. And I'm like, well, if, if, if any of those three guys get hit by, gets hit by a car, who's, who's got the greatest chance of surviving? If, if, if any of those guys gets attacked, who's got the greatest chance of surviving? Who, who is the most metabolically, not metabolically efficient, but who's, who can, can manage glucose the best, you know, based on the amount of muscle mass they have?
Like, who's got the best balance? Like all these things, right? So, so. Which one of the better if they get pneumonia? Yeah, it's going to get, but who's going to perform better if they get pneumonia? Who's got way to lose? So the, the, the reason I say all this is, um, we are selling, and, and Nick, I, I got this line of thinking for you. This is the, the perfect way to articulate it as far as I'm concerned. We are selling capability. We are selling improved capability right now.
If you come in and train with me on Monday, by Wednesday, you will be better. You'll be measurable. You may not feel it in 48 hours as far as how much, uh, how much stronger you are in the changes, but you'll feel it in a couple of weeks. You'll definitely feel it in a couple of months. You'll be a different person in a couple of years.
And so these other guys can sell this nebulous, you know, you're going to, uh, improve this thing on your blood panel or there's this evidence that this, you know, cold shock protein improves all cosmortality by X or whatever. That's all fine. But what we're saying is time and money are valuable, invested in the thing that's going to get you the biggest bang for your buck and the thing that's measurable and improves your performance right now.
And so yeah, on one hand, from a business point of view, um, we're dumbasses because instead of capitalizing on people's beliefs, like, like I've got some buddies during the pandemic that, uh, we're thinking about selling masks and I was like, well, you know, the master bullshit. They don't worth it. Well, yeah, but a lot of people are buying masks. So you can, you can be that type of person. I don't want to be that type of person.
You can sell people what they want, whether or not it makes sense and it's, and it's ethical, um, or you can take the hard road. And the hard road is there's a better way to do things. We know the better way to do things. Most people don't know the better way to do things. But guess what? Ours is backed up by first principles. And on top of that, it's not just a thought experiment. You can verify its efficacy yourself. I can prove it to you in two weeks.
Then that, and that's why we, we offer a free for a session in the gyms because once people come in and they, they understand what we do and they talk to the other members in the gym and they see the case studies on the online, it all clicks.
So, so the, the big picture here is there's so much noise out in, in the fitness industry if you are conscientious and you care about your health and fitness and you want to look good and you want to feel good and you want to live a long time, it can feel overwhelming. You can feel like you're never doing enough like, you know, you're inadequate or you can feel guilty or shameful. It doesn't have to be that way. As far as I'm concerned, you need to lift heavy weights.
You need to make progress over time. You need to eat whole foods and your caloric and protein intake should match your training goals. On top of that, when you're not in the gym getting stronger, you should believe you in a full physically active, rich life. You shouldn't just be going to the gym and saying, okay, cool, I'm no longer sedentary. For me, that's jujitsu, two to three days a week. For Nick, it's pretty similar.
If you're doing a martial art, if you're hiking, if you're playing pickleball, whatever it is, you, you should do something with your body because that definitely is better for you mentally and physically than not. And when it comes to the criticism that we get that, you know, starting strengths, there's no cardio and you shouldn't do conditioning. That's absolutely not what we say and you can look in the book for yourself.
Once you have graduated from the novice linear progression, you should probably do some conditioning and I always recommend to my clients that they do it in the form of something that they enjoy doing a hobby because I don't want to prescribe the echo bike twice a week. I don't want to prescribe the proler twice a week. I'd rather just prescribe you go hang out with your friends and family and throw your kids around and run around and hike and jump and sweat and have a good time. Right.
So that's, that's from my point of view, Nick is kind of how this all gets simplified. And I hope that clarifies for the coaches watching, you know, how this stuff should be positioned. And I hope it clarifies for some people that are, you know, we have a lot of people on the YouTube channel that watch what we do and they lift weights and they want to improve their technique. But none of them have actually decided, okay, I'm going to focus on my effort and getting stronger.
I'm going to actually add the third plate. I'm going to actually add the fourth plate for those of you out there that are on the fence about this, just get stronger. Go through this process and then you'll know what we're talking about because you'll be able to see it for yourself. And the trouble is with all this other bullshit, you can go through the process and you just have to believe that it's working because you have no other evidence that it is.
Right. Am I missing anything there, Nick, would you add anything to that? No, I mean, we could, we could channel rip a little bit here and this is not bullshit, guys. I mean, conditioning feels hard in the moment, but conditioning is easier than adding more weight to the bar long term. No shit. Spending time working on flexibility, spending time working on anything else is easier.
And I think that we, like as a company and our coaches need to recognize that and acknowledge it and be cautious of going down those paths of making things easier for people. The hardest thing in the training world for normal people is to show up three days a week, add weight to the bar and clean up their eating. I mean, that's the hardest thing for people to do is the hardest thing that we're going to teach our teaching guide our members and our clients to do.
And that's our job, you know, as soon as you start allowing yourself to be convinced that all of these other things are important, all you're doing is giving yourself an out and making it easier for yourself and making it easier for yourself and less effective for your clients. And you have to be convincing. You have to understand that the way this works and why it works.
And you have to be convincing enough and authoritative enough to be able to guide your members and your clients through a process that allows them to keep adding weight to the bar and to make intelligent decisions outside of the gym that are going to, and you know, when I talk about nutrition, we're not talking, we have a whole podcast on this. We're not talking about this super complicated deal. Just eating properly in order to recover and not become a fat ass, right?
And that's kind of our mission. So yeah, that's the only thing I wanted to add to that. This is much, actually much, much harder than just, you know, doing the wellness thing or doing the whatever you want to call it, wellness, longevity, total health. You know, we could come up with all kinds of fucking awesome marketing terms for something like this. And honestly, it's what we're already doing, you know, we're already doing that thing. We're already doing the wellness thing.
We're already doing the longevity thing. This, it's just how you explain it, right? So can you be convincing? Yeah, it's positioning. And I will sometimes give a trainee a psychological break if they want, if they want to weigh out, if they want some kind of an easy day or something that's easier than what I would normally do. But I will only do that if the alternative is them not training because the most important thing is that I keep them in the gym and I keep them training.
And I have to, if I have to water down things a little bit because I've got, you know, a really anxious gal who just, you know, is worried about the way and whatever I will, I will water down things a little bit, but only if it's necessary to keep them training. But that's, those are one off situations, right?
No, and when, look, and it's, I would argue that it's not watering down because if you're, if an experienced coach does it who has the proper perspective in mind and is working towards the proper outcome, it's not watering down. And when we say, like, I think watering down is the wrong term. It's when you, when you make, when you make a decision, when you make a programming or coaching decision for somebody, it's not like you are completely switching and violating the thing that you're doing.
What you're doing is like, I mean, to put it in, in, in, and probably not proper term, it's kind of like Stockholm syndrome, right? Like you're, like you've got this, this abusive relationship with this person and you're just like driving them really, really hard and then you give them a little bit of a bit. And it's still, it's still really hard, right?
Well, it's if, like, could they do that thing, you know, whatever the thing that you're having them do, that's easier, could they have done that six months ago? The answer is no, right? Because they're overall capacities way, way higher. So you're just throwing them a little, like, you know, a little bone, a little bit, a little break, but it's a minor, dude. It's like, it's like minor. We're going to get right back into the process as quickly as we can.
And you know, ultimately what you're looking for is, is long-term improvement in compliance over time. You're not looking for satisfying your needs as a, as a starting string zealot today. You know, it's, it's to get this person on your, on your path, on your process and keep them going. So no, I don't, I wouldn't say your water, we, like, when you and I do this, we're not watering it down.
We're just like, yeah, you're giving, exactly like you said, you're giving them a mental break, but we're still on task. We're still, we're still on mission towards, towards the goal. What we haven't done is say, yeah, yeah, you know, go on that cut, forget, you know, for you know, for you, all this stuff, go on that cut, we'll, we'll, we'll, you only squat, you know, every other week, you know, because you hate squatting, you're only going to, you know what I'm saying?
Like we're not just, not just throwing everything out the window, based on the, the whims of the client. Like you have to be convincing enough to say, look, we're going to, we're going to make this adjustment here, make you feel better, whatever. And then, and then we're going to keep going after this amount of time or, you know, or we're going to keep going on this other lift or whatever the case may be, right? I think you'll agree with me wholeheartedly on this one, man.
It occurs to me that there are two types of coaches that are not ideal. On one hand, you have a coach who has a rigid conception of starting strength in his mind. And he is trying to apply that perfectly to everybody. And if, if it's not going exactly as this person has decided it should go in his mind, then it's the trainees fault. And the training needs to eat more or there's just, it all falls back on the trainee. So that's kind of on one hand.
And then on the other hand, you have a coach that may know how to apply starting strength effectively, but either doesn't, doesn't care enough or doesn't have the tools to explain to a trainee, you know, why they shouldn't be doing three days of extra conditioning during their first week of strength training. So so both approaches are wrong.
And I think what an experienced coach can do in the latter circumstance is is ask questions because we're consultants, try to find out what problem the trainees trying to solve by doing conditioning and and outlining the process as Nick has mentioned to illuminate the trainee that that actually isn't the best way to achieve the goals are trying to achieve. And this process that we're outlining is.
And then in the former category with with coaches that are trying to, you know, just just ram this method down people's throat and in their mind, it's just this rigid thing that has to be the same every time for everyone. That's just an experience thing or it's just an interliving. You may just be missing the the the nuance delivery of how you apply starting strength to the individual.
Starting strength is a system and a process with principles that get applied to people and a model to ensure that you're you're doing things correctly from a, you know, technique and a programming point of view. It is not this person comes in and you do the following things every single time. And I think that's a that's a common mistake that that inexperienced coaches make.
Yeah, let me let me clarify that because I mean, in a lot of ways it is it is that so it's helpful to take out to take the timeline out a little bit, right? Because when when you know, if you look at the way our gyms operate and the way the program should work, essentially everybody comes in doing exactly the same thing, right? And we and the people who know about starting strength know the reasons for that, which, you know, we won't go into in depth here.
But, you know, everybody starts on the same program, the the the rigid thinking comes out in the when things get hard, right? It's that that's always the problem. It's when things get hard for the coach and for the and for the training. So it's like, you know, you've gone the the training that has the lifter has gone through six or seven or eight weeks of LP things are starting to get hard and the bar speed slows down.
Maybe they start feeling a rep and then it's like the the the inexperienced coach. Uh, decides that it's first of all, it's not the it's not a programming issue. Like they didn't make a mistake. Uh, it's the trainees fault and they need to do the following things that keep going. And then, you know, maybe they get a little bit more progress out of the trainee and then progress stops. So they do a reset. They go again and then progress stops again shortly thereafter.
And then all of a sudden, it's like, okay, what do I do next? And then they apply this new program or this new protocol on top, you know, it's like all right, you reset twice. Now we're going to do Texas method. That's like the classic, um, classic, uh, you know, smooth brain application of starting strength. So do novice novice on your progression, fail two times and then do, uh, do Texas method. Um, that's not how it works, right? So it's, uh, everybody starts at about the same point.
There's going to be some modifications for some people depending on what's going on with them. Um, but, you know, the, the, the, how you guide people along the process when it gets hard is what matters. Sure. And, and that is not a, that is not a strictly prescribed series of events. Sure. It's, it's, it's, it, it mostly looks the same for most people, but it's going to vary from individual, individual and also it's going to vary by coach preference too, right?
Like, I may, I may have an advanced novice do, uh, heavy set of five and, and a couple of back offs with a light day in the middle of the week. Another coach may have them do triples, you know, three triples or something, whatever, you know, are we at the bar as a person getting stronger? And what's the next change we're going to make when that stops working? And are they feeling good? You know, are they hurt? Are they, uh, yeah, exactly. Um, I think, I think you're spot on.
That's, that's when, uh, that's when this issue becomes really apparent. But, um, for, for brand new coaches, especially, um, this can even happen within the first couple of weeks. So for sure that, that, uh, newer coaches are hesitant, for example, to some, some trainees need to high bar. Um, yeah, that's exactly right. You know, and some, and some trainees might need to be doing triples on week two. Um, funny, man, how people like coaches, coaches are kind of shocked.
Like they'll, they'll send me a video and they'll ask me a question, they'll be like, Oh, this, like, I don't know what to do. This guy's, uh, can't get under the bar. He's, he's, he like, just says his shoulder hurts so much when he gets under the bar. He's like, I'm gonna give you a video and at the bars like, you know, they're, they're trying to get cranked this guy into the low bar position. It's like, well, did you try putting the bar up higher on his back? And they're like, uh, no, right?
All right. Well, do that and see if it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I see this look on their face. Like, what are you really telling me to do this? You know, or the, or the, the, like, thumbs around. You know, it's like this, my trainees elbow is hurting or they can't like, they, they, they can't keep their wrist straight. I was like, let's just fucking wrap the thumb around and be done with it. And then they're like, like, whoa, did you just say that?
There's this perception that, that Rippetose is going to sit atop of Asgard and throw his fucking hammer down and see if anybody does anything but a low bar. And that's not, that is not what we're saying. The low bar is preferred. If you can't look, if you can't low bar, you still got a squat. But here's the, here is the kicker. Make sure you know that the person can't low bar and definitely check with your head coach. And if your head coach doesn't know, check with Nick.
But you can, I do, I had a trainee Sumo, Sumo deadlift. Oh, yeah. I'm just last week. Her hips were higher than her shoulders in the set up position of the conventional deadlift. So she's going to Sumo deadlift. That's okay. I don't prefer the Sumo deadlift. I would never prescribe it unless I had to. But I'd rather her Sumo deadlift than, than deadlift like that. So. Yeah. And it's as small as possible, you know, change to things like I have, I have a client as well.
I mean, the guy is very tall, super long legs, really short torso. I don't, I don't remember how tall he actually is. But, yeah, I mean, I, if he wants to pull off the floor, his feet are just right outside his hands. Otherwise, he looks like this, you know, his, his, his, his two inches above his head, or above his shoulders. That's not. Yeah. Yeah. The problem comes when, when you walk into a gym and everybody's high bar squatting, sure.
You know, everybody's doing a modified Sumo, everybody's rack pulling. So that's always a big, doing rows. That's always the balancing act for, for new coaches is, is understanding like when there's an actual problem in keeping things as optimal as possible for, for as many people as possible. Try to do things optimally. If you can't, and you don't have the tools to make a small adjustment, get help.
And then, you know, as Nick said, make the smallest adjustment possible to stay as close to the model as possible. That's kind of what it comes down to. So Nick, let's, let's wrap up, man. I mean, in summary, I guess what we're trying to say here is that lots of people out there are selling lots of different stuff. Some of the claims they're making may be true. Some may be untrue, whatever.
But I can tell you for sure that the claims they're making about how much better your longevity will be or your blood panel or whatever, they're not comparing strength trainees to, to the product or the, the program that they're selling. So, so it doesn't apply to you as a strength trainee. They're, they're testing, you know, normal, sedentary people versus people to do this other thing. So that doesn't apply.
And if you, if you want health, if you want longevity, my position is, you should just be focused on performance. And if you want the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to improving performance, so it has the best translation over to your day to day life and your daily function and also whatever sports and activities you happen to enjoy, strength trainings away to go. And if you're going to train for strength, there is not a better strength training program on earth than starting strength.
And better just means getting you stronger faster. If there is, let us know about it and we'll switch to it. But this is the best one that that we're aware of, which is why we're, we've opened these gyms. And just be careful about nebulous claims that aren't measurable and, you know, be open-minded. We've seen over the past few years that people have very strong beliefs about things that they don't necessarily understand and changing people's beliefs is a difficult thing.
So in terms of what we're trying to do as a business, it's spreading the message that people that are open to our ideas because changing people's minds is expensive and difficult. And then we can just prove it over time. And Nick, by the time this, this episode goes up, I believe our new website will have launched at startingthrangeims.com where you can plug in your sex and your age and you can see how much stronger you'll get on average over time.
So, so people that are your same sex and age, how strong do they get on average over time, whether it's 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, you'll be able to see the measurable results the actual weight on the bar changes. And again, just notice that these other guys in the industry are not, they're not sharing any measurements. And that's because they can't.
All they can do is try to kind of tap into your existing understanding anxieties and fears and then make nebulous claims that may or may not be true and may or may not be provable. So that's where I'm at with this stuff. Nick, anything else you want to end with?
No, I mean, just for the coaches out there, if you guys, if coaches and future coaches and personal trainers, look, if you want to throw in your hat with the massive pool of personal trainers and strength coaches that are already out there, there's always a market for you to do whatever you want and people will pay you if you've got a good Instagram or a good website or a good YouTube page. So that's cool. But if you want to, we're not going to do that, right?
If you want to distinguish yourself as a professional and have a set of principles and honestly, you know, do things the hard way for your clients and help normal people do things the hard way. It's one of the most satisfying things you can do. So you know, for the coaches already in our system, just, you know, make sure you understand that and get better at doing it. And then for people out there who are coaches and interested in this stuff, it works really, really well.
And it's not easy, you know, it's not easy to convince people to come into the gym and eat well outside of the gym. But it's very, very satisfying. You'll get lots of excellent results for your clients and more business, right? Because results produce more business. So, yep. And let's just end by saying that we had a really good conversation with Jay about this, the guy that owns starting straight in Denver because he's seen a lot of longevity services marketed pretty effectively.
And when we're talking to Jay, we all kind of came to the same conclusion, which is, like let's say we just wanted to sell longevity. That was our marketing message. Would anything about our product or offering change? No. No. In fact, I will make a $10,000 bet with any coach out there. We can take two 70-year-old trainees that are motivated, that are sedentary and are motivated. And let's measure all the things that actually contribute to longevity.
And let's see what your program does for them versus what our program does for them. Let's measure their bone density. Let's measure their blood glucose. Let's do all the key performance indicators or the key longevity indicators and see which program actually makes a measurable impact more quickly for a 70-year-old. What is longevity? It's the ability to live a healthy, productive life. And I see this on the back of the ambulance every time I do a shift, just to end on a rant here, Nick.
The thing that occurs to me every single time I sit on the back of that ambulance because I work for a company that does medical transport, so interversility transport. Because I am taking someone who has made a series of poor decisions that have accumulated to the point where they can no longer be reversed. This is for years and decades. And this is 100% of the people that I interact with every day.
And all I have to say to you, especially if you're in the second half of your life, is that you don't want this to be you. You don't want to be the guy that I picked up from an assisted living facility who had shit his pants and was stuck on the toilet and couldn't get up off the toilet because he's so weak. And his ankles are swollen from type 2 diabetes and he's got an altered mental state because he's having all these issues and he literally can't get off the toilet.
I had to carry him and put him up on the, I couldn't carry him. He's huge. I had to help him stand up and get some assistance to put him on the stretcher and his house is a mess because he can't clean it up himself and he lives alone and he has his physical capability is gone. So then all he has is what's left up here and we know that you are closely interlinked and that is not an existence anybody wants. So I don't exist since anybody wants. So we are selling capability and you know what?
A lot of us have made bad decisions up until a very late stage in life but it is still reversible in more ways than most people assume. And if you can find a better way to accomplish all these things then the starting stage program please share it because this is as far as I'm concerned. This is the way to go if you actually are cared about, if you actually do care about improving your health and being capable for as long as possible to live a long healthy life.
Very nice. Yep. Cool. Alright Nick, well thanks for the time and guys I like having Nick on the show so if you want to hear anything from Nick just give me some ideas and we'll do it again. Right on. Alright, see you man. Thanks. Bye.