The Smarter Sculpted Physique: Training | Nutrition | Muscle Gain | Fat Loss

The guys tackle a few specific questions related to fat loss dieting. They discussed diet-pinballing, falling off the wagon, as well as specific questions: Why does Scott think “egg whites and oatmeal” is the best meal to start off the day metabolically? How do you maintain muscle when dieting to lose fat? To what degree is tolerable hunger ok, and is it okay to blunt it? (E.g., with caffeine?)

♦ EMAIL 1. ♦

Diet Pinballing

Scott received an email from a client who was losing weight, hunger wasn’t too high, and things were going well… but the client wanted to “switch things up.”

Mike pointed out that in a scenario like that, there isn’t much more you can hope for out of a diet. Training’s good. Diet’s good. Hunger’s good. Fat loss is still going… there isn’t much to improve in a scenario like that!

This is also why Scott likes to focus on process and process-based goals.

♦ EMAIL 2.♦

Being “on” or “off” the wagon (& metabolism)

Scott also received an email about being “on” or “off” the wagon, but more specifically, he wanted to focus on the fact that optimizing metabolism is a long-term process. You can be “off the diet” and — if the metabolism is optimized — not immediately gain a bunch of weight.

A better strategy is to optimize metabolism first, and focus on “losing weight” second.

Mike mentioned reification, which is taking a concept or idea and concretizing it, imagining it is a thing, when really what’s under discussion is a process, or a set of relationships. So for example, a meal plan is just a list of foods on paper, a set of reminders of what to eat. But people think if they ate “off the plan” that’s worse, even if what they ate is, based on that person’s goals, no better or worse in any way. But because it was “off the plan” they freak out and think their body is going to gain 10 lbs. (Yes, people do eat off the plan in ways that do interrupt progress. Of course they do. That’s not the point here.)

One of the strategies Mike uses is to constantly remind himself these things don’t matter. So he buys 0%, 1%, and 2% cottage cheese, and uses them interchangeably, for the sole purpose of reminding himself that these things don’t matter.

The mind believes whatever you tell it. If you tell yourself you “need” this or that food, your mind will believe it. So for example, yo udon’t “need” chocolate, but it is very easy to believe you do. You have to unlearn that believe. Sometimes that takes a coach. Sometimes it takes making this an actual focus.

♦ QUESTION. ♦

Why did Scott say several times in episode 22 that egg whites and oatmeal are the best meal to start off the day “metabolically”?

Short answer: it ticks a lot of boxes for Scott. It’s healthy whole and unprocessed; the foods have high volume per calorie; the foods rate highly on the satiety index (by themselves, though they are also more satiating together); does it have a good protein element and protein-sparing element? It also has slow intestinal motility to slow digestion, which will keep hunger where it is supposed to be.

Kevin brought up that it depends how you define best, or even how you think about “best.” There are other high-quality foods out there. Key point here is that Scott was saying “metabolically.”

There are cultural reasons for this: is chicken a “worse” protein source than the egg whites? No, but egg whites tend to go better with oatmeal, and go down easier first thing in the morning.

For Scott you still want a protein and a starch, and in a reasonable ratio. Or, at the very least, a protein and a fat. Don’t mix and match or do a fat and a carb.

♦QUESTION.♦

Could you guys discuss “hunger” in detail (e.g. biofeedback, is it OK to use things like coffee, liquids, etc.

Scott and Kevin talk about mistakes new trainees make, but what were some of the mistakes they made early on in their fitness journey? What do they wish they’d known earlier?

This episode explored some of the ways the fitness industry has changed over the years, and how Scott and Kevin were influenced by “the magazines” early on (after all… where else could they go for information?).

♦ IF ONLY WE'D KNOWN ♦

Both Scott and Kevin discussed the silliness of some of the routines and ideas they followed, and the myths they bought into, back when they were both first starting out in health, fitness and bodybuilding back in the 80s and 90s, and how shocked they were the more and more they learned.

A lot of what people thought was simply… pure conjecture. Just guessing.

The main things Kevin says he didn’t “get” early on were what it would really truly take, both in terms of sacrifices and time.

Scott, who actually became a ghost writer for some of the very magazines he used to follow, described being disappointed as he learned more and more about the way the business was run.

There was also a lot of smoke and mirrors about who was and who was not natural. It’s still like this; it was just even worse, because no one had a barometer for what was or was not a reasonable claim.

In one instance, he described the writers putting a little dot of ink on the page (as in, like a period), but then claiming that the dot had a very small dosage of a new special supplement, and you could cut the dot out and swallow it in order to feel its effects. They did this just to see if people would actually do it. Sure enough, they did. (And sure enough, people loved it and could “feel its effects.”)

There is an interesting paradox at work in that the magazines would instill a sense that you can accomplish these insane remarkable transformations, but it also tends to lead to a certain kind of myopic view of what’s possible. Scott attributes his success to having a really high aim that went beyond the physical stuff.

Scott was reminded of The Legend of Bagger Vance, where your immersion in a sport of any sort doesn’t become about the competition or the end goal, but simply self-connection.

Mike somewhat disagreed, in that the end goal (winning vs. losing) can still be important and integral and good. You don’t have to let that go. His example was Midnight Hockey, where guys who loved — loved — the game of hockey played into their 70s, 80s, and 90s. It’s no longer at a high level. And yet, nonetheless, even in a random game where it doesn’t really matter who wins and who loses, it’s a better feeling in the dressing room after a win. And that competition is an important part of the experience. Shooting pucks with friends without keeping score is fun, but there is a degree to which the competition — in which you’re trying, and your opponent is trying — is better, and is still about a true, deep love of the game.

The writer of the original book of The Legend of Bagger Vance is Steven Pressfield, who also wrote several books about writing and work that Mike likes. E.g., Do the Work. In the book, writing, doing the things that are important, are about higher awareness, even spirituality… But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy or that you can’t frame it as an obstacle.

♦ LINKS & RESOURCES ♦

● The Underground Steroid Handbook by Dan Duchaine [Amazon has no copies. It seems to be available online.]

● The Legend of Bagger Vance (movie, but there's a book, too!)

● Midnight Hockey by Bill Gaston (book)

● Shop Class as Soul Craft by Matthew Crawford (book)

Since Scott has been around the industry a long time, he has seen a lot of shiny new objects come and go. This episode was all about those shiny objects, and how to ignore them, move on, and focus on the principles that really matter. Some examples of “shiny new objects” (i.e. trends) that were discussed: TRX, Bosu Balls, Kettle Bells, Battling Ropes, Reverse Dieting.

♦ SIMPLE FIXES AND LIFESTYLE ♦

The podcast began with Scott noting that the price of success, sometimes, is just plain vigilance, ad sometimes there are no workarounds.

The example he gave was sleep — if you don’t get enough sleep, that will be a huge roadblock to fitness success. This doesn’t mean there aren’t very legitimate reasons why you can’t get more, but there isn’t a way “around” this that isn’t just an empty promise trying to sell you something.

Scott and Kevin ranted about people’s sense of entitlement.

If you’re trying to deal with these lifestyle factors, you need to (1) be real and (2) really think about your priorities.

♦ SHINY OBJECTS ♦

To give some background, Scott considers his work as a capital-C Coach to be a craft. Bt the first rule of being a craftsman is that you don’t fetishize one single tool, nor do you blame your tools: no carpenter ever got certified in the screw driver, the way many trainers get certified in TRX, or kettle bells, battling ropes whatever.

Here’s an example of the dangers of this: one of the “in vogue” tools right now is battling ropes. But these are not always a very good tool. If you’re over 50 or have shoulder problems, they are not good for you at all. They’re too hard on the shoulders.

A lot of the things that work are just plain boring. They’re not shiny. They’re not new. They’re not that fun to talk about. But they’re the things that move the needle for you.

♦ COMMUNICATION ♦

A lot of the fitness industry sells the sizzle over the steak. At the same time, a program whose explanation is only legible to the coach or trainer is going too far the other way. Is there a happy medium?

A lot of the changes in the industry have to do with the fact that weight loss and fitness, as market, is old, sophisticated, and saturated. Consumers are skeptical of this or that strategy, so in-depth “secrets” and overly-complicated explanations are used to justify… nonsense.

♦ LINKS & RESOURCES ♦

● Scott's article, "The Nonsense of Crossfit"

● Charles Atlas' famous “Hero of the Beach” ads.

● A relevant article at the Smithsonian website about Charles Atlas

● Internet Archive.org has tonnes of old magazines with similar old mail-order ads (going right back to the 19th century!)

● A video on market sophistication: https://youtu.be/W7RV0WHTyLc

You’re sick. Should you go to the gym? How do you work out around an injury? Obviously you want to “do what you can,” but the fact is, our minds play tricks on us, and you have to make sure you’er not just prolonging the sickness/injury or causing more damage in the long run. In this episode Scott, Kevin and Mike tackled these questions from a few different angles.

♦ SICKNESS ‘N FITNESS ♦

Don’t go to the gym if you’re going to infect everyone! Be considerate!

A large part of it is knowing your body: what will help, what will just prolong how long it takes to recover?

At the same time, don’t use sickness as an excuse.

Remember that pain is usually trying to tell you something.

Scott noted that it’s amazing how many record-setting performances have been done when someone had a cold, or flu, or some injury that should have prevented them from doing that.

Self-fulfilling prophecies can work for you or against you. If you believe you’re too sick to work out, you will be. If you believe you “never get sick” — well, that doesn’t make you invincible, obviously (c’mon, let’s be real) — but it will have an effect.

Chills or fever are usually a sign that you are sick. Not just “a stuffy nose” — but truly sick.

One of the best things you can do is focus on sleep.

♦ STRESS ♦

The body adapts to the stresses you subject it to. For example, think of high-performing politicians who deal with a tonne of stress, get very little sleep, travel around the globe 80% of the year, and so on. Neither Scott, Kevin, or Mike would do well with that kind of job. But someone like Trevor Timmins makes it work.

There were a number of allusions to high performance athletes and politicians. On the one hand, some politicians (e.g. the freaking President) do amazing thing in terms of how they handle time and stress and lack of sleep; on the other, research is clear about things like the importance of sleep, and 95% of people who say, “Oh, I thrive in such-and-such an environment” are actually lying to themselves. At the end of the day, as Kevin said, your job demands what your job demands.

Scott brought up the fact that Presidents (to build off that specific example) end up living very long lives. This isn’t just access to healthcare, especially given the nature of their position. It illustrates that how you view the stress, and whther you’ve “chosen” it, has a huge impact. Someone who is running a country likely gets a lot of meaning from their work, and that will mitigate the so-called “negative” effects of stress. (See McGonigal’s new book on stress.)

Abelism: You own stress, or stress owns you.

♦ DEALING WITH INJURIES AND WORKOUTS ♦

Don’t fall into the “why bother?” mindset, even if that’s where our brains want to go. It’s more important to do what you can.

Kevin had a serious knee injury and did what he could “around” the injury, and went on to win a bunch of powerlifting competitions. You will get better. Just do what you can.

Working “around” an injury means listening to you body. So much is dependent on your body, and your muscles, that there is no one-size-fits-all prescription, such as “Oh, you tore your ACL, as soon as you’re able, just do squats this way.” No. Maybe you just need to leave squats out for longer, or you need to do them some other way. It depends, and it’s always different. The only way to figure it out is to experiment (within reason).

There is almost always a way to work around different injuries, especially as you get closer and closer to being 100% again.

For example, Kevin had a torn meniscus, but simply modifying his foot position (to make his shin more vertical) helped with Nulgarian split squats. At the same time,

Mike currently eats a mostly vegetarian diet (he has fish occasionally), and many of Scott and Kevin’s clients have been vegetarian, vegan, or fell somewhere else about the spectrum. We discussed reasons why people should or definitely should not start eating vegetarian.

(Over the course of the episode, Scott became a bit obsessed with his favourite textbook, Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease, since it mentions vegetarian dieting and has a bundle of related statistics and points.)

♦ WHY CHOOSE A VEGETARIAN DIET ♦

Mike eats as a vegetarian for ethical reasons; he thinks eating animals just isn’t something we should be doing, if we can help it.

A lot of what people do for their diet depends on why they did it. So your average vegetarian dieter who just cuts out meat without having a good basis of what to eat instead ends up turning to convenient “faux” foods (usually based on soy, tofu, etc.). But a hardcore fitness competitor often sticks to “real” foods, but they also cut out starches, legumes, and things like that, and basically eat pounds and pounds of leafy greens, which is… taking things to an extreme.

Both Scott and Kevin have seen a lot of “hiding behind the label” of vegan or vegetarian dieting that ended up being an excuse for what is (in reality) disordered eating.

Long story short: don’t use a vegetarian diet as an excuse to eat in a disordered way. Try to be brutally honest. Is this about health, or ethics, or is it related to body image?

Scott keeps an eye out for people looking to “a diet” as a reason to restrict foods, as opposed to making a series of specific, individual choices.

♦HOW TO EAT A VEGETARIAN OR VEGAN:♦

Scott loves Michael Pollan’s formulation: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” A lot of the benefits comes from turning to real, whole foods, and not eating giant portions of them.

Mike mentioned a point Michael Pollan makes [ I think it’s In Defense of Food, but it could be Omnivore’s Dilemma — M ] about looking at the habits of people who take a lot of supplements, but then ignoring the actual supplement part of the equation, since they do so little, if anything. It’s simply that those people are health conscious, so yeah, they tend to be healthier, live longer, be leaner, etc.. They also tend to not smoke, to get more sleep, and things like that.

There was a bit of a debate about carbs. Scott and Mike both think carbs are important for satiety, though at the same time, Kevin has eaten low carb for years. But they all certainly agreed that just eliminating foods for the sake of eliminating foods is never a good idea.

You have to listen to your body. If you switch to eating a vegetarian diet, don’t eat so many cruciferous veggies that you spend all your time on the toilet. Experiment with foods. See what makes you feel best. (Mike, for example, is still eating more dairy than he’d prefer, but it provides far more satiety for him than does various combinations of rice and legumes and so on.)

Don’t get into “Calorie Counting” at the same time as you switch the content of your foods. You should be trying to do both these things at the same time.

♦ General “Wrap Up” Tips: ♦

● Don’t get into calorie counting at the same time as you switch.

● Don’t also suddenly restrict starches (or go “low carb”) at the same time.

● Eat a variety of foods; be an omnivore.

● Eat stuff that you want to eat.

● None of these things apply to special populations (children, pregnant women, anyone over 50).

● Don’t do it all at once if you’re not comfortable doing so.

● Scott’s final wrapup: consider the health of the planet and the treatment of animals (if for no other reason than it takes diet into another...

You see personal training and personal trainers in just about every gym you go to. That’s the model. And many fitness enthusiasts view personal training as a potential career path. But there are some realities to consider before doing so.

In this episode we talk about what clients or consumers should look for in personal trainers, what should change in the personal training industry, and what personal trainers themselves should be thinking about in terms of their own career and some of the trends that are going on.

♦The Trade or Craft of Personal Training ♦

To be blunt: Scott thinks a lot of personal trainers are not very good, and that is based partly on how the industry is built. Personal trainers are “certified” by gyms who don’t need “good trainers”; they just need bodies on the floor selling programs.

Kevin told an anecdote of a friend’s daughter who signed up to get certified, but she ended up only getting a few days of relevant training… and then several weeks of sales training.

Kevin referenced his work with cars, before he became a personal trainer. When he worked there, the system was under an apprenticeship and mentorship model. You didn’t do a 2-day weekend course. First you spent time doing such-and-such a course, then you worked in a shop for year, then you went to school, and then you needed 1,500-2000 hours of experience before you were put under a mentor. This meant you got actual hands-on experience, and it’s not all theory.

This is the basic model for a lot of trades. Mike would argue that this is precisely how a lot of personal training certification program position themselves, even though what they are providing is really not the same thing.

Part of describing what could or should be improved about “personal training” is defining our terms. What should a personal trainer be involved in? There is a difference between being hired, specifically, to show someone how to do X, Y, and Z exercises, versus being hired to (for example) help someone lose weight… which just happens to involve doing X, Y, and Z exercises. Where does the personal trainer come into play here? Does nutrition come in? What does the consultation involve? What should it involve?

For Scott it should always be about the client. Look for trainers who don’t use the pronoun “I,” but instead talk about you, the client, the client’s needs. Pay attention also to word choice. The words “get jacked” will resonate with one client, and not so much with many others!

Mike adds, though, that he learns a lot by learning from people who are just open and honest about what works for them. Sometimes you don’t want any “Well, you should do this” kind of advice. It’s very easy for personal trainers to say, “Well, you should do X because of principle Y.” When in reality, a simple, “Oh, for a bicep curl, I do this and that tends to help” might be more useful. (Especially if the person listening can ask a few other people, then make the decision for him or herself.)

Scott gives the example of Fred Hatfield who’d basically say “shut up and lift the weight.” From there he could correct you.

♦Personal Training as a Potential Career♦

Kevin built his own business with simple word-of-mouth. He’s won contests and powerlifting championships, and in his opinion, that might have given a bit more credibility, but it’s not the foundation for how how build his reputation and his business.

Scott thinks the market is way over-saturated. Scott prides himself on being ahead of the curve, he quotes Wayne Gretzky, who is often quoted as saying he doesn’t go where the puck is, but where it’s going to be. If Scott were just starting out today, he would do things very different because of how saturated it has become. When he started, he was one of the first in his local town to simply… ch...

An “experts” will tell you to listen to them, and tune everyone else out. the only problem is every expert says this, including the ones who disagree. So: how do you deal with this? How do you know who to listen to? How do you learn? (Or… “learn to learn”?) How do you separate out the wheat from the chaff? The wisdom and science from the pseudoscience and nonsense?

We addressed this first about personal learning, and then in terms of hiring a coach.

♦ THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF ♦

Scott and Kevin both emphasized that things have changed a lot since they were coming up. Online information overload is nothing like it was. This, obviously, has both benefits and drawbacks.

There is also a preponderance of online coaches/gurus who have the “look” of expertise (i.e. marketers) but not the education to really back it up.

Scott noted that this not the information age, but the “post-information” age.

Mike also mentioned how it’s kind of insane how much power is at our finger tips, via things like search engines and so on, and we constantly, constantly don’t take advantage of it. Yes, there are issues with not always getting the best results, but often times it’s not a deep topic — there is a clearcut, definitive answer, and it would take us 10 seconds tops to get it. And yet… we don’t.

Scott mentioned the phrase “Conspiracy against the laity,” which is a phrase popularized by Warren Buffett, but comes originally from George Bernard Shaw. (Lookit that. Five seconds on Google.)

Mike quoted Oscar Wilde saying “All education is self-education.” That might have been Isaac Asimov (the sci fi author) or Louis L’amour (the Western author). Scott followed up with the quote, “It takes an education before you can become self-taught.”

This blog post makes some nice points regarding the idea and play between a “formal” education and a self-taught one.

Scott brought up the fact that the fitness industry is mostly lead by marketers. Kevin also brought up the fact that there plenty of “no names” who have lots to contribute but you will never ever hear about them online. But, at the same time — Mike acknowledged — in order to be heard from online, those people need to contribute something in a form that, say, a search engine can understand. Also, most of them don’t care about being found online. They’re too busy.

Mike’s opinion of “intelligence” is that it’s 99% hard work, on both a macro level (learning, digging in, following up on who’s writing about what, say, “Hm, I still don’t understand this, I need to read more,” etc.) and on a micro level (holding two competing thoughts in your head, i.e. tolerating ambiguity even though it’s not that pleasant).

“Take What is useful, discard everything else.” Aristotle? Bruce Lee?

Mike came up with 3 (4?) weirdo personal rules for learning:

MIKE’S THREE WEIRDO RULES:

1. Be stupid (i.e., Just open your mind, assume you don’t know, be willing to not know)

2. a. Disrespect those whom you think deserves respect. (This doesn’t mean be a jerk; it means don’t put gurus, authors, or whomever on a special pedestal. Everyone is flawed. Smart people make mistakes.)

2. b. Respect those whom you might think don’t deserve respect. (Stop. Wait. Before you dismiss something, truly entertain the other perspective. Everyone “says” they do this. Then…. they don’t. We don’t argue against the other position. We argue against stupid strawmen version of the other position.)

3. Shut up for a bit. Criticism and questioning is all good. But it’s also very, very useful to be able to simply absorb.

Kevin talked about his work before he was a coach, which involved a lot of manual labor. there’s nothing worse than someone who was new to the job,

Building on our discussion on goals and process, we dig into visualization, “vision quests,” and the roles of these things in (fitness) success. This discussion also turned towards pragmatism versus positive thinking. This included the need for more pragmatism and realism, but also the potential dangers of pragmatism when you’re in a position of authority (teacher, coach, expert) and have influence upon others.

♦ VISUALIZATION ♦

Scott thinks vision quests are ultimately process-related.

Mike thinks the benefit of goals — and by extension visualization — is that they give you focus: goals help you reverse-engineer the process that will get you there, visualization gets you more fully invested into that process. Visualization is like the connective tissue between process and goals.

A vision quest is about who am I being, who do I want to be, what kind of character do I want to show.

Kevin: how you do or approach one thing will often map onto how you do other things.

Mike mentioned, with respect meaning, Victor Frankl’s Man Search for Meaning, which describes Frankl’s time in Nazi concentration camps, and how some men and women were still able to retain meaning in their life, despite the horrific things being done to them.

Positive thinking by itself, without meaning, won’t get you far, especially when life throws really, really unpleasant stuff at you — and it’s rare that someone won’t go through that, at some point in their lives. “Assuming” you’ll be able to deal with it easily isn’t positive thinking; it’s arrogance.

For Scott it’s not about being cynical or positive, but pragmatic.

Mike is big on “implementation intention,” which is pre-planning how to deal with life’s hiccups. You need to do this practically and concretely (“what will I do if I have to stay late at the office?”), and in more abstract forms, since you can’t predict everything.

For Scott and Kevin you don’t need goals to go on real vision quests.

You also have to be willing to let go of older goals, and “graduate” to a different point in your life. For example, if Scott hadn’t let go of his physique goals, he’d probably be dead right now. There are many others in the fitness industry who didn’t, and they did die before their time.

A lot of the decisions you make will take you towards something or further away from it. Stagnation is always in some way a little worse than pure stagnancy.

♦ PRAGMATISM ♦

Comparing yourself to others can be okay if you’re trying to be humbled, yet not envious, and using that as leverage. But just throwing in the towel because “Oh I could never achieve that” is… less useful.

Mike thinks, however, that pragmatism has limits — it can be very dangerous to impose limits on others, especially if you are in a role of a teacher, a coach, or something like that. Telling someone You can’t do ___ is — if there is ANY chance you’re wrong — actually a totally disgusting thing to say.

Kevin notes that you can still overcome this if someone says this to you, but for Mike those are the exceptions, and they’re why we always focus on those stories when they do happen. How often is a person’s potential squashed because someone in a position of authority, who had their student’s or client’s (or whatever’s) respect, told that person, “You can’t do something” when — in fact — they could have? Sure, it’s great when that person overcomes this. But there will be people who don’t, and not because they are “weak,” but because they just plain trust the person who told them.

Scott thinks Mike is being naive; Mike says yes, but that’s purposeful. The risk of being naive and wrong is usually all on the person being naive. Being pragmatic often puts the other person at risk.

Of course,

What’s your gym training environment like? Is it serving you? What can you do to make it better, or to make the most of it? This episode dug into making the most of your gym training environment, whether you’re training at a huge commercial gym, a local small business, or even at home. Mike also discussed his dissertation research on metonymy, a figure of rhetoric, and its use in novels to figure things like networks and ecology.

♦YOUR GYM TRAINING ENVIRONMENT ♦

Scott began by discussing an email he received comparing the equipment in Pumping Iron to your modern gym machines.

Don’t go too far though: you can’t build a great physique with… a jug of water. That’s limiting. Often this is sold for marketing reasons. Don’t ask “what can I get away with?” Ask “What are the really successful folks using?” They’re using a fairly well-stocked gym, whether that’s at home, a giant commercial gym, or whatever.

A lot of what made the machines so “effective” in Pumping Iron was down to the trainees; they knew how to get the most out of them. And, back in those days, they would just flat-out modify them, or bring in a new version.

Sometimes modern gym machines are perfectly good… but the little diagram is actually very poor. Don’t assume they’re always 100% bang on in terms of getting the most of the exercise, the range of motion, the mind-muscle connection.

Scott’s favourite gym was the “gym” at Muscle Camp, in 1989. Here’s why: (1) it was basically just a giant gym floor with all the new, practically untouched machines from the big companies (Nautilus, Hammer, etc.) (2) Scott got keys and was able to come in at 5 a.m. before anyone else had come in, and (3) the other people there? Guys like Bill Pearl, or celebrities who wanted to just train without being bothered.

Scott’s other favourite gym was the Chelsea Piers gym in New York.

Scott really like World’s Gym over Gold’s Gym. Gold’s became kind of a party atmosphere later on, whereas World’s you were there to work, and Joe Gold (who, yes, was at World’s Gym by this point) didn’t put up with anything he didn’t like.

Kevin’s favourite gym is his own! It’s extremely well-stocked because he also trains clients in there.

Some gyms can be a bit of a spa, but the hardcore ones can be kind of unpleasant as well, with ridiculous macho posturing everywhere you go.

Gyms attract the kind of clientele they supply themselves for: have a few stability balls and rooms for Bootcamps, you’ll get one kind of client, have ten squat racks and dumbbells going up to 150 lbs., and you’ll attract another.

Some of the big gyms in larger cities have it all, and this means they get all sorts of clientele, and therefore there’s a big difference in the atmosphere of the gym depending on what time you’re there. Kevin’s seen gyms where it’s like going to two different gyms, depending on time of day.

time-of-day

Mike pointed out that a new feature on Google maps will actually let you see what time of day a local business is busiest. It’s not always what you might expect, and if you can in any way plan around that, it might be useful.

Speaking of attitude and posturing: Scott recalls visiting a popular gym where a bunch of guys were posturing and such, very loudly, meanwhile Kevin — a world champion — calmly came in, did his thing, and left. But no one paid attention. They were paying attention to the guys making the most noise.

A home gym needs various sets of dumbbells, or quick adjusting dumbbells like Power Blocks or Bowflex ones.

Kevin’s home gym has three squat racks. Jealous much?

You can see Kevin’s home gym on his YouTube Channel.

In terms of scheduling, you do what you can, and you make do with what you can’t.

Scott has often written about the dangers of cardio and the “aerobic myth,” but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater: when is “cardio” still viable? We got an excellent question from a listener who knows Scott still uses it, and was wondering about what goes into determining whether or not it can or should be used.

As a couple side notes: Kevin broke the national bench press record (!) in Kamloops, Canada. This will very likely qualify him for the bench press worlds in Texas if he decides to go, but it’s not a sure thing... yet.

And, for anyone interested, Mike has posted his before and after pictures of his weight loss here: ▸▸ http://thehabit.space/pics

♦ NOTES ♦

This episode began with a comment from a reader:

"I’m a bit confused about Scott’s views on “typical” cardio/aerobics for fat burning purposes. Scott speaks and writes often “against” it, for the most part. However, I know of some of his clients that are prescribed cardio for extended periods of time (months and months on end; several days a week; 30/45/60 minutes a time), and not just to individuals that are massively overweight."

Scott wants to avoid over-simplifying his views in this way. [Mike: I actually think the listener’s comment that Scott has written “against” cardio is pretty fair, all things considered, and given the sheer volume of content Scott has written about the dangers of too much cardio; that content generally doesn’t have a lot of, “Okay, and given these dangers I have just outline, here is where I would use it.” Leave a comment if you agree, disagree, or have questions! – M]

Pretty much all training is cardiorespiratory, but not all training is aerobic.

Most people by cardio mean the stair master, the elliptical, or boot camps, but depending on what you’re doing, the energy pathways might be entirely different.

The proper use of cardio is NOT just about “burning calories” (or “burning fat”)

Other things going on under the surface: enhancing biochemical pathways, nurturing optimum biochemical and hormonal function… and strength training and resistance training just tends to be better at this for the most part.

Scott really liked Mike’s comment: “You can’t just math your way thin!” Scott would adjust it, though, to say, “You can’t math your way to sustainable leanness.” [Mike: “You can’t ____ your way ____!” is a common turn of phrase. A quick google tells me I haven’t stolen this, but if someone’s heard it before, please let me know! – M]

Mike wonders not just what the formulas are on the calorie counts on things like ellipticals, but about what the regulations are. On things like nutrition labels, the FDA only forces companies to be within 20% accuracy. Also, a 2010 study found that the numbers on “healthy” foods skew lower than the actual caloric content of the food. In the study, some dishes were off by as much as 200%! [Found the study in Dr. Sandra Aamodt’s new book, Why Diets Make Us Fat – M]

Kevin points out that it doesn’t need to be black and white. And you don’t need to do cardio on a machine. Sometimes he just… wait for it… goes for a walk! Scott pointed out that as a strength athlete, the form of cardio Kevin does — aerobic, meaning “at a pace where the muscles are oxygenated (as opposed to e.g. anaerobic, i.e. “NOT-oxygenated” like hockey or sprints) — is perfect, considering his goals and the complete picture.

Mike pushed for Kevin and Scott to discuss where the difference is between “going for a walk” and flat-out sprints. There’s a big difference. Is there a grey area? What gives? Short answer: It’s called the anaerobic threshold. If you can’t keep talking while walking / jogging, you’ll pass that threshold. If you do sprints, you’ll pass it quite quickly.