April 21, 2025 • 51 mins
Anthony and Dom explore the challenges of navigating fitness misinformation and provide practical strategies for identifying trustworthy advice in an industry flooded with conflicting information.
• Physical appearance doesn't guarantee expertise – someone with a six-pack isn't necessarily knowledgeable about exercise science
• The fitness industry lacks standardized regulation, allowing anyone to claim they're a trainer without proper credentials
• Fear-mongering tactics and promises of "special formulas" or "magic solutions" are major red flags
• Formal education provides some credibility but isn't the only factor to consider
• Fundamentals like strength training, cardio, proper sleep and nutrition remain the most reliable approaches
• Contract-free training options demonstrate a company's confidence in their product
• Focus on fitness professionals who specialize in what you need rather than claiming expertise in everything
• Consistency with basic principles matters more than perfect optimization or trendy approaches
Don't forget to share, subscribe, and remember: fitness is medicine.
Learn More at: www.Redefine-Fitness.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello and welcome to Health and Fitness Redefined.
I'm your host, anthony Amen,and today we have another great
episode for all of you Before weintroduce today's guest.
Crazy news At the time of thisrecording is the last day we
were open for business for myvery first gym.
(00:26):
It's such a surreal moment.
It really hit me.
I'm going to post later todayon social media an open letter I
wrote to my clients and mystaff about it.
Just a crazy experience lookingback over the last seven years.
I mean we're leaving for allthe right reasons, going to a
bigger spot, doing more.
(00:46):
This rebrand we hit hard.
It's freaking awesome.
Highly recommend you go checkthat if you're ever in the Mount
Sinai area.
But it's just crazy.
Like the gym is half empty atthis point and tomorrow I'm
going in, we're closed for good,moving all the equipment and
that's it.
Boom.
Anyway, just crazy looking backof everything that's happened.
(01:07):
Without further ado, though,let's welcome to the day show
Dom.
Dom, it's a pleasure to haveyou today.
Hey, thanks for having me on.
Appreciate you coming on,taking the time and, dom, before
we hop into today's topic, tellus a little bit about yourself
and how you got into the healthand fitness world.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Ooh sure.
So very long journey whichkeeps getting longer every year
that I'm alive.
But I started out being veryobese growing up.
I lost over 130 pounds when Iwas in high school and then, you
know, like when you're ateenager, lose 130 pounds.
All your friends are like, wow,how did you do that?
Like you must know what you'redoing.
And I didn't really know what Iwas doing.
(01:42):
But I kind of pseudo personaltrained my friends in high
school and that kind of led to anatural path into the fitness
industry and then, like you know, one thing led to another,
ended up helping people andeventually I really just like
branched out, starting with likepersonal training, then worked
with like apps, research andlike a whole bunch of other
stuff over time.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I love that man.
I love that man.
I know we were talking a littlepre-show about misinformation
as far as fitness goes and Iwant to give a little shout out
to somebody who posted on myaccount a few weeks ago.
She said that for futureepisodes, one of them she'd like
to hear is about influencersand how to combat getting
(02:24):
through all freaking you seeonline with different people and
all that and it kind of relatesright, because there's hundreds
, if not thousands, of peoplethat are online influencers,
especially in the health andfitness world, who hey look like
me, do this great thing andit's overwhelming.
(02:46):
I can see it from a consumerstandpoint.
One day you're reading abouthow all you should eat is greens
, and the next slide is nevereat greens.
And then one's only eat eggsand the other one's never eat
eggs.
And it can just go on and ondown this like crazy rabbit hole
.
And for a consumer watching,who doesn't literally study this
thing all the time, it can getstressful and you can just be
(03:08):
like either throw your hands up,walk away and give up, or just
go to your doctor.
Before you know you're gettingozempic and just starving
yourself because you don't knowwhat to eat, because now
everything's going to kill you.
So how would you suggest evenjust basics?
Right, let's talk open-endedbasics.
For somebody who isn't familiarwith this topic to really
navigate through the onlinebullshit going on, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I'm glad you brought that up because that's such like
a common experience that almosteverybody experiences at some
point, right, even people thatare like fitness professionals
today, like when you were firstlike looking into fitness, like
when you're younger, like you'regonna encounter this and have
no idea what's going on.
Regardless, it's just likesomething everybody experiences
and one of the things that'stricky, that leads to people
(03:53):
like mistrusting certain contentcreators, comes from, like the
proxy we're using to likepredict whether somebody is
reliable or trustworthy.
So I'll go through like a fewexamples of things that aren't
necessarily the best predictorsof whether or not somebody will
be reliable, that sometimespeople like use.
So, for example, like if yousee somebody that's in great
(04:15):
shape, that doesn't necessarilymatter, right, like somebody can
have a six pack, they couldlook really good.
There could be like any numbersof reasons for that.
That doesn't necessarily meanthat their training isn't
effectual, but it's just notsomething that can reliably
predict that this personunderstands like exercise
science in a way that'll atleast matter to you, because you
(04:37):
know there are factors likegenetics.
There are factors like somepeople do use steroids or other
performance enhancing drugs.
Sometimes people are just doingsomething long enough that it
happens to work out for themright?
Because, like, if you look at abody at any point in time,
that's just its current state.
That person may have been doingsomething very inefficient for
20 years and if they give youthat same inefficient thing, you
(05:00):
won't really look like theirbody like they do for 20 years,
right?
As opposed to having somethingmore efficient that somebody
else could like program or likeprovide for you and then like
also in addition to like allthis body stuff, right?
It's also important to touch onthis idea of like education, and
this is something that's reallya big issue in the US.
(05:20):
That is less of an issue insome other countries and it does
vary country by country.
In the US.
That is less of an issue insome other countries and it does
vary country by country, but wehave a very unregulated and
decentralized system for, like,certifying personal trainers or
people in the fitness industry,and this is I'll explain a
little bit what I mean by that.
So, like, basically right.
(05:41):
If you think about like a normal, like healthcare position, like
, let's say, like a nurse, right?
You go to any nurse in the US,rn, a registered nurse, you know
they've already completed atleast a bachelor's degree, and
that's something that you knowmeets a certain educational
standard and that's kind ofsomewhat standardized across the
US Now, when it comes tofitness professionals and
(06:01):
personal trainers, like noteverybody has a college degree
and I mean it's okay for peopleto not have a college degree
right or to be at any level theyare at, but you know that makes
it harder to reliably say likethis person with this
certification or this personwho's a personal trainer, at a
minimum is this quality right?
(06:21):
Because you can be veryeducated and very skilled
without a college degree.
But it's just like a safetycontrol mechanism in a sense
that increases probability andyou know that is just a big
issue.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
You touched on a lot there and let's break a lot of
that down, okay.
So first, for your example ofjust because somebody's in shape
doesn't mean you should followthem right.
Just because someone drives asomebody's in shape doesn't mean
you should follow them right.
Just because someone drives acar that's working doesn't mean
they're a mechanic.
Just because somebody has agood knee doesn't mean they know
how to rehab a knee and giveyou a new one.
I don't know why we get stuckin this narrative of fitness,
(07:00):
which is you're in good shape.
You must know what you'retalking about.
But every other industry wejust ignore, right?
We just don't care, like itdoesn't matter.
Oh, your water works in yourhouse.
You have to be a good plumber.
It just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
That's so true, right ?
Because, like I've hadexperience, if you think about
it right, Every time you take aclass, right, like people are
like, if you're like a medicaldoctor and you learn something
about like female anatomy andyou're a male in that class, you
learn the same thing as malestudents, like everybody that's
in an exercise science class isin that class, regardless of how
they apply that to their ownlife, because the skill is
(07:40):
applying it to other people, notapplying it to yourself.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, you're exactly right.
It's just it doesn't relate tosomething being good, right.
So that's the first issue.
The second component of that istrainer certifications and
everything being deregulated,which is something we've talked
about so many times on the show.
But just to reiterate back andkind of give a little catch-up
(08:05):
for those that are justlistening, you can just say,
like I know specifically for thestate of new york right, that's
where we are, and I know thisis the case in most states.
You're gonna say you're atrainer, there's no
certification, there's nolicensee, there's no process
whatsoever.
People think that you need tobe certified to be a trainer,
but it's just not true.
(08:26):
There's literally nothing thatsays you need to have this in
order to be a fitnessprofessional or personal trainer
.
Bob across the street can justbe a personal trainer if he
wants to be right.
So that's the first caveat.
The second one is there arecertifications.
Certifications are done byprivate companies, so the
private company's ideology is tomake money, so a lot of them
(08:49):
don't have standards.
There's literally no standards.
They just want your money togive you a piece of paper to say
you're certified.
Now, it's not to say all ofthese certifications are like
that.
There are some reputable onesthat are out there that do have
some kind of process involved.
I do like watch you take tests,make sure you're not cheating
off your friends and it's hardto know what those are unless
(09:13):
you're in our industry and Ikind of learned what those were
quickly as I started my own gymto know that those are.
The people that took thosecertifications are the only ones
I'm going to allow to workRight.
So I knew there was four ofthem that were reputable.
I can hold on to these.
These people are good.
Now let's take it a step further.
Covid happened.
Covid shook up our industrycompletely.
(09:33):
From being a gym owner's pet,we were shut down for almost
nine months in the state of NewYork.
The biggest reason we were notallowed to open was because the
state had nothing on us, right?
Your Barber Barber was allowedto open two and a half months
prior to us.
Why is getting a haircut moreimportant than working out?
The reason being the barberscrewed up.
(09:53):
They took the license.
When they're screwed up, theytook the license.
The physical bed was screwed up.
They took the license away.
They went all over the practice.
That's something.
Hold over their heads.
For us there was nothing,nothing they could pull from us,
because there is something thatregulates our industry.
I saw this as a big giant redflag For those that do not know,
and for Dom as well here on theshow, redefine Fitness is the
(10:15):
first training company in theentire United States of America
to have an apprenticeshipprogram approved by the
Department of Labor in New YorkState.
Meaning I went through threeand a half years of getting
curriculum created through COVIDthat I sent out to the state,
fought with them to get approval, finally got approval off of it
(10:37):
and I have the capability toput my trainers through this
program, which is a thousandhours of on-the-job training on
top of hooking up with a localCommunity College and then
having to take 18 months ofcollege courses through this
program to therefore graduatefrom this apprenticeship program
, become joining me.
It's the same way trade worksplumbers, electricians, all that
(10:59):
personal training is now acertified trade through New York
State.
And when?
The only gym, as far as I'maware in the entire country,
that office, because Iunderstand that problem, I'm not
knowing.
But going back to your point,I'm sitting in front of somebody
and trying to explain this andthey go what like no one knows.
No one knows, like the extrastuff we go through, the extra
(11:19):
hurdles you'll find out afteryou start and you start
comparing like wow, why is thistraining so much better than bob
across the street?
Oh, bob just said he was atrainer one day and decided to
charge you 300 for it.
So long-winded argument pointof it.
But I hope that like kind offits in where it does.
It's hard to tell, it's hard tofigure out and for people that
(11:43):
are going off of I want asix-week booty program.
That girl has a big butt, likethat, doesn't mean that that's
the reason they got a big butt.
Trust me, I know a lot of thosewomen, especially that quote.
These beautiful grounds aretheir little injections on the
side.
So please note, because someonelooks at something doesn't mean
they're super knowledgeable.
I digress.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, no, that's fair .
I appreciate you going throughall that.
A lot of like points as well.
To build off of what youmentioned.
One thing just for, likeanybody listening as well, right
, even outside of the fitnessindustry like a key thing is
like we're talking about acertification and not a license.
Like, if you see the wordlicense, that means it's like a
regulated thing, it's like agovernment based thing, right?
If you see certification,that's more of a private company
(12:27):
thing, so your mileage can varyand it's really important to
like look at that as like akeyword, right, whenever that
comes up.
And on the note, like what youmentioned, right, of companies
like having very differentstandards.
So there are companies that areaccredited by a certain
institution that just is like,hey, these are standardized, and
(12:49):
then there are ones that aren't, but regardless, even like the
best ones in the industry, whichare pretty good compared to
like the other ones, right,compared to the ones that aren't
standardized or that are, like,have a lower standard, they
still don't contain very muchinformation contrasted to a
college degree, right?
(13:12):
So a lot of colleges inexercise science, what they do
is they base some of their entrylevel courses specifically off
of certain high qualitycertifications that exist.
So the best, most reputablecertifications tend to like
equal about the amount of, likeone college course worth of,
like credit, worth ofinformation.
And that is important, right?
(13:33):
Because, like, if you thinkabout it, like if you've taken
any class, right, if you've beenin college, think about a gen
ed class you've just taken once.
Or if you didn't go to college,just think about a class you
took in high school and it wasjust like elective, some random
thing.
Now, imagine that is your job.
You don't really have a lot togo off of, which is why I love
your apprenticeship program andwhat you described of it,
(13:54):
because you do actually takecollege courses and you do also
apply them, which is anotherreally big thing.
Right, because there is a biglearning curve for new fitness
professionals in the industrywhen it comes to actually
applying what they learn inschool, because you know you
learn how to optimize thingsphysiologically and that's great
and all.
But, like, that's not whatmatters for like 99 percent of
(14:16):
people, because what mattersfirst is people actually adhere
to their programming, peopleactually exercise and make the
most of the situation they're inrather than train in a
hyper-efficient way, andbridging that gap is hard unless
you have like a lot ofpractical experience.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Yeah, well, that leads into the other argument.
Very experienced in this.
Hired many, many trainers in mylife.
Go to your point of thosepeople that are too certified,
too many many degrees, dive toomuch into the bubble, run into
usually another issue.
The number one reason clientsstay with personal training
(14:55):
comes down to what do you know?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
they like them.
It's like a personality thingpersonality.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah, so it doesn't matter how smart you are, and
what's the number one way to getto guarantee somebody's going
to see not really guarantee, butmost likely way someone's going
to see results is thecontinuing of showing up.
Yes, you can make things moreefficient.
Yes, they can really break downthe science and give them the
best program in the entire worldand make it five percent better
(15:24):
and really fight to make itevery minute count.
But if someone doesn't keepcoming and they do it once or
twice, what the hell's the point?
Really, the point is to keepsomeone showing up consistently
over the long term, enough togenerate a habit that they start
doing it themselves over thelong term, enough to generate a
(15:46):
habit that they start doing itthemselves.
And that is really where you runinto the flip corn of it of
making sure the person haspersonality.
So now you've got to balance thesmartest people and the
personality side of it and youhave to figure out how to fuse
both of them together in orderto get the best trainer and grow
them.
And what I've learned is thebest way to do that is to take
(16:09):
the education and pin theeducation internally so you hire
more based upon personality,with the caveat of having a
minimum standard of education,which is, if someone's
interested, then you can use anapprenticeship program with
on-the-job training andeducation.
Because they have thepersonality they're falling in
love with.
They love being coming to work,they're more willing than to
learn, they spend a thousandhours in the gym learning and
(16:32):
now they're able to go out ontheir own and do their own thing
in the gym and start trainingtheir own clients.
But they are not smart enough.
And then you build in acontinuing education curriculum
inside of your company, wherenow trainers are required every
single week, sit down for anhour and a half deep, dive into
your topic, do presentations on,do homework on it and present
the following week.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So now you're constantly leveling up your
trainers and becoming the bestof the best, because you're
getting both things together,because they both need to work
in order to have a successfulcompany yeah, and like building
off of that a bit as well, right, like that idea of just making
sure people like stick totraining is super important
(17:10):
because, like, what matters atthe end of the day is that
you're always taking well, notalways per se, but like on
average taking one step closerto whatever your goal is.
As long as you're moving in theright direction, your future
will be better off than if youhadn't moved in the right
direction.
It's really easy for people topursue and focus on being
perfect, right, and that evenleads to like misinformation
(17:32):
stuff and some of theperpetuation of it, because when
people, like you know, go intolike X or Y rabbit hole online
and it's often in pursuit ofperfection rather than just
pursuit of something that worksfor them, if you just accept
what works for you, even if it'snot super efficient, as long as
you're able to maintain it,then that's awesome and you know
(17:53):
, at that point it's easier justto like stick to the basics.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, like you're not trying to.
Most people aren't trying to beprofessional bodybuilders where
every rep counts, every setcounts, every grain of rice has
to be tracked right.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
That's not the general population.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
So you want to be super scientific, dive into that
group, which is great.
You want to really just figureout how to get people to keep
coming back and feeling better,because at the end of the day,
the person wants to go home andfeel better, feel like they did
something and really dosomething, but they don't want
to wake up and they can't getoff the freaking toilet bowl.
(18:25):
It's not that group.
This is the group that wants towake up, feeling refreshed good
wants to get that workout done,sweat a little bit like that's a
whole other bulky that wants tonot be pain, right.
Those are the things you startlooking forward to, especially
as your age like with ourdemographic it's like 50 to 65
year olds is.
I want to just feel good.
If I lose a couple pounds,great, I want my shoulder to
(18:47):
stop hurting.
I want my shoulder to stophurting, I want my hip to stop
hurting.
And you know that the prior isconsistent treatment, really
focusing on the differentunderactive muscles going on and
releasing the fascia inside thebody.
So little things to tweak them,to make them feel good, even
though they're not going to lose100 pounds.
Right, they're really feelingbetter.
And ultimately, when I feelbetter, what do I tend to do?
(19:08):
I tend to walk more.
I tend to sleep better.
I tend to eat better because Ifeel good.
If I feel bad and I feeldepressed, what am I going to do
?
I'm going to eat like shit, I'mgoing to not sleep, I'm not
going outside for walks, I'm notgoing being social.
So it's a fun little balanceyou're trying to do to make the
person feel really freaking good, because you know, those other
(19:30):
habits that play a role into itare just going to be
automatically tacked on becausethey feel absolutely amazing
after having a session, insteadof feeling run down, beat up and
not can't get off the couchyeah, and building off that
right like it.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
ultimately it creates a feedback loop where, like hey
, like now, I feel better, and Ifeel better, it'll be easier to
make the decision to exerciseagain tomorrow.
And then, when you exercise ina way that makes you feel better
, then you're going to feel evenbetter the next day and that
just like perpetuates and itmakes life a whole heck of a lot
easier when it comes to justbeing active.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, and tie that back to the first question right
?
I mean, we saw that 15 minutesago which was how do you
separate what you see online?
What's the best way to?
I have seconds to figure out ifI want to listen to someone and
continue watching the video.
So how do I process it as anormal consumer to make a right
decision of the solutions to ornot?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Cool.
The best thing to do wouldliterally just be to look at
formal degrees.
That's the best proxy measurethat we have well, let's break
that down right.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Formal degrees let's start with one thing okay, I
have a basic formal degree, buteverything I learned back in
college we're talking 2008 to2012 is like 13 years ago.
So all of that information mostof it's wrong right now.
You go back 13 years ago andhealth science is wrong.
So how do I know, as a consumer?
(20:57):
I see anthony has a healthscience degree from 15 years ago
, or someone older than me hasit 20, 25 years ago, right, but
all that information is wrong.
So and I'm still learning badinformation this is the problem.
We have doctors, right, we talkabout this a lot.
Physicians who were in their50s 60s are giving you horrible
(21:18):
nutrition science telling you toeat under 900 calories a day,
telling you to avoid proteins,like, telling you, or just going
strict, no carb, like they haveno idea what they're talking
about with this stuff.
And it's apparent becausethey're learning science that is
so freaking old and it's justbeen disproven a million times.
But they never refreshed off ofthese topics because they also
(21:38):
have a million other things tolearn about, right, they have to
learn about these, all themillion other treatments.
So it's not really their fault,it's just that they didn't
learn it.
So how do you, how can we saydegrees is what's to look for?
Plus, it takes time to go seeif someone has a degree to look
it up.
Like it just doesn't feel likethat's the answer, if that makes
sense.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well, I'd say, like it's the best answer that I'm at
least aware that we have.
It's an imperfect answer, right, like I do agree with you that
it's not a perfect answer.
It's why it's like a proxy,like there are means of like
just trying to predict, and wecould look at other things.
Right, we could say, like thisperson sounds like they know
what they're talking about, likethey're confident, they seem
(22:19):
engaged.
But inherently, that's going tobe based on my own like
subjective like, as the consumerwho's like new to fitness and
stuff.
Like that's going to be basedon my own like subjective
perception.
So like if, if we're looking atlike tangible, standardized
proxies, there aren't really alot we have, which is part of
why it's really hard, right, andthat's part of why
misinformation spreads so easily.
Like if we can't usecertifications.
(22:42):
In that sense, we could alsouse like years of experience,
how recent a degree is, per yourpoint, with recency and things
of that nature but there'sreally not a lot that we could
look at in a non-subjective wayto use as a proxy and ultimately
, right, this is where, like youalso have to like qualitatively
look at things to try to likehone in on Is this person likely
(23:04):
to be like genuine andwell-educated, informed, with
like up to date science.
But at the same time, it's hard, right, if you have a few
seconds and you don't reallyknow and you aren't a
professional in the field.
So it's very easy to fall forpeople who seem like they are
and then they aren't.
But if you're really looking atone variable, the only thing we
could, or the best thing wecould do, would be look at
(23:24):
degrees.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Yeah, I'm sorry to hound on it.
I just don't feel like thecollege degree is the.
I think it's something.
Don't get me wrong.
I'm not saying ignore it, pull,throw it away.
I just don't think it's the thething a consumer is going to
one be able to find, two, maybehave to make a decision over
three seconds about it and three, can really trust the
(23:50):
information behind someonesaying that because you're just
going to get a lot of BS.
I'm going to give you acounter-argument.
I have three seconds to make adecision off of somebody on a
reel, let's say Instagram.
I'm scrolling through it'sthree seconds.
It's how they say things, asopposed to what they're saying.
(24:12):
So I'm watching someone'sreaction about uh, like what's
the oh my gosh, so stupidestfucking video the other day,
person's trying to convincepeople that eggs were bad.
Right, and they're like eggsare bad and they just throw,
throw the eggs away.
Someone like that I'm notlistening to.
(24:33):
That to me is a quick red flag.
You're just trying to capturemy attention and move on and you
are fear-margaring me intosomething Because all food I can
give an argument cake is goodfor you, not necessarily that
you should eat it all thefreaking time.
But in a perfect world, you canhave a piece of cake once a week
(24:54):
or once a month.
It's not gonna kill you, right?
So me telling you this inherentthing is gonna kill you.
Throw it away, throw it in thegarbage.
It's that fear-mongering isgonna be the first thing I'm
gonna look for, whethersomeone's giving me true
information or not.
Where, realistically,realistically, I want to live in
a normie world is a lack ofbetter way of putting it, where
(25:15):
someone who understands thingslike I can have a beer once in a
while.
It's fine.
Little things like that are, Ithink are better things to look
for than a college degree.
I want to hear what you thinkof that.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, so I do agree that that is also a helpful
proxy.
One of the challenges with thatright is that also has the same
blind spot that you pointed outwith like college degrees, right
.
So, like, if I am very genuinelytrying to help somebody and I
present them with incorrectinformation, just not
intentionally then you know Icould do that in a very genuine,
nuanced way, and so thatproblem still persists, which is
(25:50):
why, like you know, I could dothat in a very genuine, nuanced
way, and so that problem stillpersists, which is why, like you
know, the more proxy variableswe have, the better we'll be at
predicting.
So I do agree, that is somethingthat does help and, like you
know, if you could look at both,yeah, it helps and, per your
point, with it being difficultto find, like a lot of instances
, if people have like degreesrelevant to what they do it's
like in a bio.
If it's a personal trainerworking at a gym, they advertise
it, right, like it's amarketing thing, and if they
(26:11):
don't, then that's probably notsomething related to that person
.
Like everything would takeusually like a second or two to
Google and you know, both domatter, like because somebody
can be educated and lie to you,which is what you're saying
captures, and then the other,which is, like, very important
to avoid, because those peopleare more likely to not just not
(26:31):
help you but actively harm you,which is really bad.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, mia said, the biggest argument is it's
impossible to tell right.
At the end of the day, it'sabsolutely impossible to tell,
since you know someone on a pure, genuine level and you're able
to have an hour conversationwith them, which is almost
impossible.
It is impossible to do to everysingle time people you're
following, so it just takes alot of work to really dive in
(26:58):
and do it.
And, for ease of understanding,like you said, there's
different, like proxy levelchecks.
I'm going to stick to one fear,fear mongering.
And then two my other favorite,which I mentioned with the
doctor's thing talk to peoplefor what they're known for and
(27:18):
make sure that's the only thingthey do.
This is what I mean.
If I have to get knee surgery, Iam only talking to people who
do knee surgeons, that's it.
I ain't going to the guy thatpractices knee surgery on the
side, on the flip side of that,I ain't going to my knee surgeon
and asking him for nutritionadvice if my toilet bowl is
(27:42):
clogged.
I'm not calling my electricianto say can you fix my toilet
bowl.
You work in Helms, youunderstand right.
I ain't doing that.
I'm going to the plumber who'sbeen doing it for a long time
and that's literally all he does.
Is it a perfect science?
No, not at all, but it helpsshow you exactly what to look
(28:06):
for Like.
Doctors are good at doctoring.
Nurses are good at nursing.
Personal trainers are good atdoctoring.
Nurses are good at nursing.
Personal trainers are good atpersonal training.
But make sure that's all theydo, because at some point right
and this is why I'm going tostress this If I'm a bad
personal trainer, right, I cango out and get some clients.
Fair to say, if I'm personable,I could sell myself.
(28:28):
I can sell six-week programs onthe side.
Whatever right, I'm going tostart gathering clients.
I'm going to start getting busyand I'm going to start.
This is my full-time job.
What's going to happen?
My clients aren't going to getresults.
They're going to get pissed offat me.
They're going to get hurt.
So what are those clients goingto do?
They're going to refer anyoneto me and eventually I'm going
(28:59):
to burn out all of those leadsand start looking for a new job,
because all my personality isnow weighing through and at some
point, in order to help withyour churn, you really have to
be good enough to get referralsfrom your clients.
On the flip side of that, if I'ma good trainer, I get five
clients modestly.
I give them amazing results.
They're happy.
They spent hours getting toknow me.
Now I have a reputable source.
(29:19):
They're going to their friendstelling their friends how
amazing it is.
They're referring and now I'mgrowing and I never have to look
back and say, hey, I need a newjob, or so on and so forth.
And I get busier and busier andbusier and I can just say this
guy is super freaking busy andhas been doing this for 10 years
, 9.5 times out of 10, he knowswhat he's talking about.
(29:41):
Personal training is all hedoes, and everyone refers to
this dude, and he's been doingit for so long.
So if that makes sense, that'skind of where I would look.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Because bad actors are going to get bad eggs.
Yeah, bad actors in general arealways going to be out there,
especially in this industry,which, just like a quick side
point about apps and things likethat, there are a lot of apps
and businesses whose entiremodel is based on getting you to
subscribe and not necessarilyto help you after that fact,
(30:14):
right After you do subscribe,and that is a really common
thing in the industry.
So just worth it to keep thatin mind.
If somebody makes you a reallybig promise up front, it's just
probably because they want yourmoney immediately and they're
not investing in delivering.
But I also do want to add on toa little bit of what you said,
like, definitely don't go toyour knee surgeon for a haircut,
(30:35):
like.
Also, one thing I found in myown experience which is actually
kind of helpful, like adding onto it a little right is
sometimes you do get likediminishing returns if you work
in a very narrow niche in whatyou do, so you can actually
learn more and grow more andbecome more proficient at like
one specific thing, if you dolike, have like a little bit of
(30:56):
variance within that same realmand that is something that can
help right Because, like, if youdo one thing all the time and
it's just one very, very narrowthing, then eventually you'll
start learning and improvingless.
But if you develop similarskill sets to what matter for
that through other you knowsimilar things in that industry,
(31:16):
like, for example, like, if youjust like learn a little bit
more about nutrition or a littlemore about X or Y, you know
that could like facilitate, youknow, whatever outcome that
you'd be focusing on in thatlike original, really narrow
thing maybe you're right to anextent, but in the caveat of
that, right, if I study justexercise science, that's it.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
And then somebody is studies nutrition and exercise
science.
The person who just studiesexercise science is always going
to know more than the personwho splits the.
Both can be very good, and theone that has both is going to
have a better understanding ofthe human body, right.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
So I get what you're saying and I think that that
wouldn't necessarily always holdright, because that would
presume that each person ismaximally knowledgeable within
their field, and that's notnecessarily always going to be
the case.
Right?
Because that would presume thateach person is maximally
knowledgeable within their field, and that's not necessarily
always going to be the case.
Right, because, like, if youstudy, exercise, science, that's
your one thing.
You might not be verypassionate about, it might have
not internalized a lot, mighthave not been very skilled, so
(32:23):
those factors do still influence, like that end output, you know
.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
To.
I just I'm a big believer andI've learned tons of personal
experience here.
When you focus on too manythings, everything becomes shit,
because there's no such thingas multitasking, and this is a
project I do.
If you have attention, you onlyhave 100% of your attention.
(32:52):
It's a percentage.
Your brain can't automaticallystart putting out more because
you're focusing on two things,for example, texting and driving
.
People tell me all the freakingtime, especially 20-year-olds.
I can text and drive.
I'm great at it.
That's not true.
Does it take you longer to typea text when you're driving?
Yes, there, of course, you cando it a lot quicker if that's
(33:15):
the only thing you pay attentionto.
Is your driving 100% efficient?
If I threw a baseball at yourcar while you were texting your
phone or driving, are you ableto dodge it?
Probably not.
But if you were just focusingon driving, probably.
Or if you need to send thattext in three seconds and you
were just texting, can you getthat done a lot quicker?
Probably you.
Humans are not meant tomultitask.
(33:36):
We need to focus on one of thedifferent things.
It doesn't mean we can spendfour hours on one topic, four
hours on the next topic, butthen we run into the issue.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
There's only 24 hours in a day Five little together
24 hours in a day is definitelya big limiter, especially when
you need like eight of them tosleep.
So that is still real, um.
But one thing I'll say is, likethat, like example you were
putting forward, right, that'smore based on like an acute
reaction, like our acutepsychology, right, like we can
only, um, in terms of ourattentiveness, we could only
(34:05):
focus on one thing discreetly ata time and we like rapidly
switch.
So, like, per your point, wecan't truly multitask, just like
objectively.
But that itself, right, is likedifferent than doing something
in like a broader sense, becauseyou're not just really like
acutely, like looking at a phone, looking at the road and like
processing this or that in likea millisecond to millisecond
sense.
You know you can, um, you knowlearn this one thing and then
(34:28):
you could learn another thing,you could learn something about
I don't know just reallyanything, and it's kind of like
in school, right, even just in avery fundamental sense, when
we're younger we go throughschool, different classes, and
you can retain information up toa point, it's completely
inefficient.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Another personal example is as a business owner
right, so I started off as apersonal trainer.
That was the first thing I didinside my company and I became a
darn good personal trainer,built up an entire thing, and
what happened?
What I did was I ran into anissue I couldn't be a great
personal trainer and a greatbusiness owner.
(35:08):
They it's a personal trainingcompany.
Some people could say it's thesame, but it's not.
And what ended up happening wasmy personal training skills
started diminishing.
My business skills starteddiminishing.
My overall capacity to handleall the information that was
coming into me started themission and anthony got really
stressed out and burnt out andto the point he got sick, really
(35:31):
bad, and said I can't do thisanymore.
If I'm going to own a business,I need to be a business owner,
no longer a personal trainer,and I gave up personal training
to people that are now waybetter than I ever was.
So thank God I did that, but Igot to focus on one thing, which
is running a personal trainingcompany, and I do have personal
(35:55):
training skills, but they arenowhere near those of my some of
my trainers who, that's allthey focus on is personal
training, if that makes senseyeah, that does.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
and firstly, like I'm glad you got through that like
burnout period because it soundsrough, so I'm glad you were
able to persevere through that.
Yeah, so like I guess, like, sobuilding off of like what you
said a little bit right, likethe part of that comes from,
like doing more than ourcapacity.
So whatever that is.
So like what I'm talking aboutisn't necessarily doing more
than our capacity, but whateveris within our capacity and like
(36:27):
even in your case, right, Iimagine your past experience
being a personal trainer hasmade you a better business owner
for personal trainer businessnow, which is essentially like
the point that I'm making.
Like, if you looked at yourselfnow, right, and you had an
alternate timeline version ofyou that was never a personal
trainer, knew nothing aboutexercise science, you probably
wouldn't have been as good asyou are right now.
You wouldn't have advocated forthe apprenticeship, you
(36:48):
wouldn't have actually made thishuge impact on the world.
But because you have a greaterskill set than somebody who was
completely removed from thefield, that was only in business
, you were able to do that andyou achieved impressive things
because of that, right, sothat's essentially what I was
saying, just to kind of dumbthis down, right which?
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I agree with.
Actually, if you take math as awhole, I don't know why I chose
math weird subject, butwhatever.
Nobody likes math, meta skillright, you have to learn the
meta skill as a whole.
A basic math one plus one istwo.
Two plus two is what kind ofdeal, right?
until you get to a point wheremath branches to become a
(37:29):
specialty inside of math andthen you have to choose one and
order, like, let's say,trigonometry, right in order to
really deep dive intotrigonometry.
That can now be only so focused, but you never would have got
to that advanced portion oftrigonometry without learning
the meta skill of math.
Is that what you're saying?
Uh, in a sense.
Um, so, something similar.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Uh, so that would be like a narrow within the
umbrella that what you're sayingIn a sense.
So something similar.
So that would be like a narrowwithin the umbrella of what I'm
saying, if that makes sense.
But that makes sense becauseyou're giving an example.
But I mean just generally theidea of like you know, like your
skills can transfer oversometimes.
You know, sometimes doing aspecific thing doesn't always,
(38:09):
it's like, even if you thinkabout it, like, if we step away
from like the mental stuff, itmay even be easier to give an
example of like training, right,like, sometimes you can like,
like, let's say you are, youhave a client who is very
adaptation resistant and they'vebuilt muscle pretty well
through, like you know, focusingon like type one fiber.
So for like audience, like, so,basically muscle fibers, that a
(38:32):
certain type of muscle fiber,and then now like because those
muscle fibers are moreadaptation resistant than other
types, you could switch thefocus on something that would be
less good normally for buildingmuscle but it could still push
you further.
So that's sort of similar as ananalogy to what I'm talking
about.
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
I get it too.
I get where you're coming fromwith it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I mean, needless to say,it's just like going back to the
original point.
It's hard, it's really hard totell, like, what someone doesn't
know.
Look at all the nuanced stuffwe're diving into right and I'm
(39:12):
talking about like a normaltemperature span of somebody
online.
Like we slept up.
The conversation started.
it's quick, it's three secondsto capture someone's attention
kind of deal.
So it's in that aspect, I think, going over both our arguments
it it's possible.
I think it's just impossibleand you really have to get to
(39:34):
know somebody and then figureout.
Like you're saying, I'm more ofa meta-skill analysis of it and
having an understanding andreally trying to take your best
shot at finding the person whoreally has the skills with that
and taking more than threeseconds.
So maybe the issue is we needto reverse our attention spans
(39:55):
back the other way, where theycame from, and really deep dive
into topics a little more andnot break things down into
microsecond before we jump tothe next topic.
Right?
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I agree.
I think that's a really goodpoint and, honestly, that does
solve a lot.
Right, because, like you know,like the premise we're working
off of, like you know there's noperfect solution, right, like,
no matter what route you go,it's always just a prediction.
And it's like differing between,like 60 percent predictive
value and 65 percent, so it'slike, regardless, we're going to
be wrong sometimes if we'relike saying this person knows
what they're doing or not.
(40:26):
But, like you know, if you seesomething that you are like wow,
this sounds fun, this soundslike something I could do, this
is interesting Research.
That one thing more instead oflike taking it at face value,
right, like, look into it, seeif it's commonplace for
professionals in the field tosupport it, at least it's again,
(40:48):
not always like the bestmeasure, but you know we're
doing the best we can.
But, like, if, on average, youfind something in like, let's
say, like 80% of people you seethat like are like commenting or
like have quotes in likedifferent like you know articles
or publications, like they allsay something similar, whenever
you like Google it, you Googleit.
(41:10):
You're like, okay, it's morelikely this is right than if an
influencer said something thatyou can't find anybody repeat in
an actual publication andthat's a really good way if you
have more than three seconds, afew minutes to just look into.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, and for the love of God, stay away from
people that say this is my butt,it looks great, I want this
butt.
I think that's the worst one,or the special.
Oh my god.
There's no such thing as aspecial magic formula that you
(41:38):
can drink or eat to become aspecial magic person.
It doesn't exist.
If someone tells you it does,run the other direction, please,
for the love of God.
There's no secret.
If I mix these seveningredients together and break
it down into this and I'm goingto convince you with really bad
(41:58):
signs about why it works, runaway the opposite direction.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Actually adding on to that right.
So another thing I've noticedthat happens a lot is oftentimes
people that are like it's like,I think it's like intentional.
I mean I don't even think it'sprobably like a marketing
strategy for a lot of people,but like a lot of times when
people are sellingmisinformation, they always use
the word science a lot, likethey always say right, they're
not wrong.
Yeah, like they always say thisis the science, because, like,
(42:25):
they are trying to like buildthat authority, because they
recognize they don't havestronger legs to stand on
because they're making a claimthat's not true.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Or the Airbon people that come to you and tell you
that you can sell Airbon andmake a lot of money.
Whatever these multi-levelmarketing companies that come to
you in the weight loss realm,it's just that they have their
own special.
Like I said, this bar from ourcompany is going to be the game
changer, for it's not fuckingtrue, it's all processed
(42:55):
bullshit.
Eat real food, do what's right.
I think the funniest thing Iever saw in my freaking life was
what people will do to avoidtraditional exercise, and it's
like people doing this likecrazy bungee jump thing sticking
there getting an efficientworkout.
What's been around the longestworks.
The best time is the likenarrowest attitude of all
(43:18):
misinformation across time.
Things that have been aroundthe longest are way more likely
to be right.
So go look into what's been,what type of fitness and stuff
has been around the longest andgo do that traditional weight
lifting, adding some cardio intoyour freaking life walking,
sleeping those things work waybetter.
(43:40):
Then I'm gonna hook myself upto a bungee cord or to some
crazy electrodes, like I did ina previous episode, and then I
going to spin around in threecircles and I'm going to jump up
and down and count to three andgo, hoorah, and I'm going to be
in shape.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
God, so I have like a .
So I have both.
Like a weirdly relevant storyto one of those things you
mentioned and also just I forgotI was going to say another part
, but I'll go through the randomstory story.
So, like the multi-levelmarketing thing, when I was in
college, right, like one of myfriends invited me to like help
them with something.
It was a completely falsepretense, like, and I showed up
(44:21):
and it was a multi-levelmarketing thing which was not
helping them with like they wantto help with their homework and
I was like, yeah, sure, like Icould help, you could help you
with this, whatever, right, butit was a multiple marketing
thing and it was selling likesupplements that are like fake
supplements, like the person,right, that was like speaking to
everybody.
They kept making up words thatsounded like if you didn't know
(44:42):
anything about like exercise,science, nutrition, whatever,
like they'd sound like oh, thissounds useful to me.
Like she kept using the wordprotein factor.
She's like this has the highestprotein factor.
Our scientists singular, so youwould always say our scientists
like one says that this proteinfactor is the most and like
that's not like a thing, likeyou don't have like a nutrient
named protein factor, and theyjust kept adding, like all these
(45:05):
words, there were more, butthat's just always the one that
stuck out in my head because itjust felt strange I mean, I've
gotten to fight to some of thesepeople as a gym owner.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
They approached me all the time.
All the time.
You can make more money in yourgym by selling this.
I wouldn't sell this to anybody.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
I like my clients, that's right you know, like
that's the thing too, right,because, like you were with
clients and they like you andthen you also end up liking them
because you're around them somuch.
You know, um, and you knowactually another thing with what
you said about like, uh, thingsthat, like you know, when you
think of like just traditionalhealthy stuff, right, that is
usually generally what workslike for the most part, like
(45:42):
it's like sleep, like a decentamount, like even if you don't
have to get super technical withit just like sleep decent
amount, eat well, cetera.
It's one of the things thatsometimes there's this
manufactured like, I guess, likeuncertainty, I think sometimes
like misinformation spaces where, like, people are like, oh, the
(46:02):
basic things don't work at allRight, and then it creates this
impression that there is thislack of consensus in the field.
But, like, the areas that yousee like lack of consensus about
right are the more advancedthings that are like, okay, this
is changing your efficiencyfrom like 85% to 90% or 95%,
things that will matter less forthe average person.
(46:23):
You know, because the basicstuff we had more time to
generally understand and ifscience changes related to that,
right, it'll more or less.
It doesn't necessarily mean theold science is inherently wrong
.
It's just we'll find out it's alittle less effective than
other things.
We still know that, like youknow lifting weights and like
moving your body and stuff,that'll lead to better outcomes
(46:44):
just happier time later in life,higher quality of life as you
age.
Then, if you just did nothingand just like ate like a
bajillion calories every day,facts, the real science,
scientifically science.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Only thing I'm going to add, because we mentioned
this previously about, like, howto know if you found a right
place, and this is something wedo, and I don't even why this
didn't come to me earlier.
But if a gym forces you into acontract, probably not good.
If I force you into anything tosign up for a year, 10 weeks,
(47:24):
12 weeks, whatever the case maybe I'm probably not good because
I'm trying to just get yourmoney up front and bounce out.
We offer bi-weekly nocommitment cancel whenever you
want.
On top of that, you have 28days to use the gym as many
times as you want, train as manytimes as you want, and you
could say man, not for me, I'mgonna fully you.
(47:46):
So it's unheard of in ourindustry, but that's because we
know what we're doing worksright.
That is amazing Caveat as well.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
I just realized to say that's, firstly, amazing for
anybody listening.
That is a really important pointbecause, like you know, a lot
of companies like they genuinelylike I've worked with a lot of
companies in like differentareas of the fitness industry
that like approach throughdifferent lenses right like I
work with content creators, apps, websites, etc.
And like they all like dosomething.
A lot of them do somethingsimilar, which is like basically
(48:20):
what he described, where, like,they invest all of their time,
money, resources into making areally strong pitch for you and
then they deliver nothingbecause, like they expect you're
going to quit and they makemore money than if they pay
somebody that knows what they'redoing to help you after you
sign up.
That's why, actually, like alot of like the type of contract
(48:43):
you described right is commonat like a lot of commercial gyms
, like the big chain gyms andstuff like that, because they
tend to invest in trainers thatare in the industry that they
expect to have a high churnthat'll quit pretty quickly,
because it doesn't really matterto them if the trainer stays
and helps a client long-term,because that's not really where
they're getting most of theirmoney from.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Yeah, so find a place that's confident in what they
do and what we do is unheard of,but at least something.
Well, no commitment line, dom.
We went way over, but it's okay.
It's a great freakingconversation.
It was great yeah.
I'm going to answer the finaltwo questions.
I said we'll just wrap this up.
The first one is if you were tosummarize this episode in one
or two sentences, what would youtake on message?
Speaker 2 (49:33):
sentences would be take a message Ooh, okay.
So take a message.
Do not trust everything you seeat face value is the first
sentence, and then the secondwould be just like hey, do what
works for you.
You don't need to be perfect.
If an influencer tells yousomething's perfect, you know,
don't worry about it, just dowhat works for you, stick with
the basics.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
I love that.
And the second question how canpeople find you and get ahold
of you and learn more?
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Cool, so you can find me on blue sky at Dominic
health.
D O M E N I, c, h, e, a L T H.
My name's spelled where it'snot like D O M I is D O M E for
some reason, and other than thatI just have a LinkedIn, so not
really too many places.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
That's.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Dominic.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Angelino Dom.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you, guys for listeningto this week's episode of health
and fitness redefined.
Don't forget chair subscribe.
It's the only way this showgrows out from here.
So you know we don't runadvertising like that.
We give you all fun andfiltered sessions, don sessions.
Don't forget, fitness ismedicine.
Until next time.
Outro Music.
Hello and welcome to Health and Fitness Redefined.
I'm your host, anthony Amen,and today we have another great
episode for all of you Before weintroduce today's guest.
Crazy news At the time of thisrecording is the last day we
were open for business for myvery first gym.
(00:26):
It's such a surreal moment.
It really hit me.
I'm going to post later todayon social media an open letter I
wrote to my clients and mystaff about it.
Just a crazy experience lookingback over the last seven years.
I mean we're leaving for allthe right reasons, going to a
bigger spot, doing more.
(00:46):
This rebrand we hit hard.
It's freaking awesome.
Highly recommend you go checkthat if you're ever in the Mount
Sinai area.
But it's just crazy.
Like the gym is half empty atthis point and tomorrow I'm
going in, we're closed for good,moving all the equipment and
that's it.
Boom.
Anyway, just crazy looking backof everything that's happened.
(01:07):
Without further ado, though,let's welcome to the day show
Dom.
Dom, it's a pleasure to haveyou today.
Hey, thanks for having me on.
Appreciate you coming on,taking the time and, dom, before
we hop into today's topic, tellus a little bit about yourself
and how you got into the healthand fitness world.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Ooh sure.
So very long journey whichkeeps getting longer every year
that I'm alive.
But I started out being veryobese growing up.
I lost over 130 pounds when Iwas in high school and then, you
know, like when you're ateenager, lose 130 pounds.
All your friends are like, wow,how did you do that?
Like you must know what you'redoing.
And I didn't really know what Iwas doing.
(01:42):
But I kind of pseudo personaltrained my friends in high
school and that kind of led to anatural path into the fitness
industry and then, like you know, one thing led to another,
ended up helping people andeventually I really just like
branched out, starting with likepersonal training, then worked
with like apps, research andlike a whole bunch of other
stuff over time.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I love that man.
I love that man.
I know we were talking a littlepre-show about misinformation
as far as fitness goes and Iwant to give a little shout out
to somebody who posted on myaccount a few weeks ago.
She said that for futureepisodes, one of them she'd like
to hear is about influencersand how to combat getting
(02:24):
through all freaking you seeonline with different people and
all that and it kind of relatesright, because there's hundreds
, if not thousands, of peoplethat are online influencers,
especially in the health andfitness world, who hey look like
me, do this great thing andit's overwhelming.
(02:46):
I can see it from a consumerstandpoint.
One day you're reading abouthow all you should eat is greens
, and the next slide is nevereat greens.
And then one's only eat eggsand the other one's never eat
eggs.
And it can just go on and ondown this like crazy rabbit hole
.
And for a consumer watching,who doesn't literally study this
thing all the time, it can getstressful and you can just be
(03:08):
like either throw your hands up,walk away and give up, or just
go to your doctor.
Before you know you're gettingozempic and just starving
yourself because you don't knowwhat to eat, because now
everything's going to kill you.
So how would you suggest evenjust basics?
Right, let's talk open-endedbasics.
For somebody who isn't familiarwith this topic to really
navigate through the onlinebullshit going on, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I'm glad you brought that up because that's such like
a common experience that almosteverybody experiences at some
point, right, even people thatare like fitness professionals
today, like when you were firstlike looking into fitness, like
when you're younger, like you'regonna encounter this and have
no idea what's going on.
Regardless, it's just likesomething everybody experiences
and one of the things that'stricky, that leads to people
(03:53):
like mistrusting certain contentcreators, comes from, like the
proxy we're using to likepredict whether somebody is
reliable or trustworthy.
So I'll go through like a fewexamples of things that aren't
necessarily the best predictorsof whether or not somebody will
be reliable, that sometimespeople like use.
So, for example, like if yousee somebody that's in great
(04:15):
shape, that doesn't necessarilymatter, right, like somebody can
have a six pack, they couldlook really good.
There could be like any numbersof reasons for that.
That doesn't necessarily meanthat their training isn't
effectual, but it's just notsomething that can reliably
predict that this personunderstands like exercise
science in a way that'll atleast matter to you, because you
(04:37):
know there are factors likegenetics.
There are factors like somepeople do use steroids or other
performance enhancing drugs.
Sometimes people are just doingsomething long enough that it
happens to work out for themright?
Because, like, if you look at abody at any point in time,
that's just its current state.
That person may have been doingsomething very inefficient for
20 years and if they give youthat same inefficient thing, you
(05:00):
won't really look like theirbody like they do for 20 years,
right?
As opposed to having somethingmore efficient that somebody
else could like program or likeprovide for you and then like
also in addition to like allthis body stuff, right?
It's also important to touch onthis idea of like education, and
this is something that's reallya big issue in the US.
(05:20):
That is less of an issue insome other countries and it does
vary country by country.
In the US.
That is less of an issue insome other countries and it does
vary country by country, but wehave a very unregulated and
decentralized system for, like,certifying personal trainers or
people in the fitness industry,and this is I'll explain a
little bit what I mean by that.
So, like, basically right.
(05:41):
If you think about like a normal, like healthcare position, like
, let's say, like a nurse, right?
You go to any nurse in the US,rn, a registered nurse, you know
they've already completed atleast a bachelor's degree, and
that's something that you knowmeets a certain educational
standard and that's kind ofsomewhat standardized across the
US Now, when it comes tofitness professionals and
(06:01):
personal trainers, like noteverybody has a college degree
and I mean it's okay for peopleto not have a college degree
right or to be at any level theyare at, but you know that makes
it harder to reliably say likethis person with this
certification or this personwho's a personal trainer, at a
minimum is this quality right?
(06:21):
Because you can be veryeducated and very skilled
without a college degree.
But it's just like a safetycontrol mechanism in a sense
that increases probability andyou know that is just a big
issue.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
You touched on a lot there and let's break a lot of
that down, okay.
So first, for your example ofjust because somebody's in shape
doesn't mean you should followthem right.
Just because someone drives asomebody's in shape doesn't mean
you should follow them right.
Just because someone drives acar that's working doesn't mean
they're a mechanic.
Just because somebody has agood knee doesn't mean they know
how to rehab a knee and giveyou a new one.
I don't know why we get stuckin this narrative of fitness,
(07:00):
which is you're in good shape.
You must know what you'retalking about.
But every other industry wejust ignore, right?
We just don't care, like itdoesn't matter.
Oh, your water works in yourhouse.
You have to be a good plumber.
It just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
That's so true, right ?
Because, like I've hadexperience, if you think about
it right, Every time you take aclass, right, like people are
like, if you're like a medicaldoctor and you learn something
about like female anatomy andyou're a male in that class, you
learn the same thing as malestudents, like everybody that's
in an exercise science class isin that class, regardless of how
they apply that to their ownlife, because the skill is
(07:40):
applying it to other people, notapplying it to yourself.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, you're exactly right.
It's just it doesn't relate tosomething being good, right.
So that's the first issue.
The second component of that istrainer certifications and
everything being deregulated,which is something we've talked
about so many times on the show.
But just to reiterate back andkind of give a little catch-up
(08:05):
for those that are justlistening, you can just say,
like I know specifically for thestate of new york right, that's
where we are, and I know thisis the case in most states.
You're gonna say you're atrainer, there's no
certification, there's nolicensee, there's no process
whatsoever.
People think that you need tobe certified to be a trainer,
but it's just not true.
(08:26):
There's literally nothing thatsays you need to have this in
order to be a fitnessprofessional or personal trainer
.
Bob across the street can justbe a personal trainer if he
wants to be right.
So that's the first caveat.
The second one is there arecertifications.
Certifications are done byprivate companies, so the
private company's ideology is tomake money, so a lot of them
(08:49):
don't have standards.
There's literally no standards.
They just want your money togive you a piece of paper to say
you're certified.
Now, it's not to say all ofthese certifications are like
that.
There are some reputable onesthat are out there that do have
some kind of process involved.
I do like watch you take tests,make sure you're not cheating
off your friends and it's hardto know what those are unless
(09:13):
you're in our industry and Ikind of learned what those were
quickly as I started my own gymto know that those are.
The people that took thosecertifications are the only ones
I'm going to allow to workRight.
So I knew there was four ofthem that were reputable.
I can hold on to these.
These people are good.
Now let's take it a step further.
Covid happened.
Covid shook up our industrycompletely.
(09:33):
From being a gym owner's pet,we were shut down for almost
nine months in the state of NewYork.
The biggest reason we were notallowed to open was because the
state had nothing on us, right?
Your Barber Barber was allowedto open two and a half months
prior to us.
Why is getting a haircut moreimportant than working out?
The reason being the barberscrewed up.
(09:53):
They took the license.
When they're screwed up, theytook the license.
The physical bed was screwed up.
They took the license away.
They went all over the practice.
That's something.
Hold over their heads.
For us there was nothing,nothing they could pull from us,
because there is something thatregulates our industry.
I saw this as a big giant redflag For those that do not know,
and for Dom as well here on theshow, redefine Fitness is the
(10:15):
first training company in theentire United States of America
to have an apprenticeshipprogram approved by the
Department of Labor in New YorkState.
Meaning I went through threeand a half years of getting
curriculum created through COVIDthat I sent out to the state,
fought with them to get approval, finally got approval off of it
(10:37):
and I have the capability toput my trainers through this
program, which is a thousandhours of on-the-job training on
top of hooking up with a localCommunity College and then
having to take 18 months ofcollege courses through this
program to therefore graduatefrom this apprenticeship program
, become joining me.
It's the same way trade worksplumbers, electricians, all that
(10:59):
personal training is now acertified trade through New York
State.
And when?
The only gym, as far as I'maware in the entire country,
that office, because Iunderstand that problem, I'm not
knowing.
But going back to your point,I'm sitting in front of somebody
and trying to explain this andthey go what like no one knows.
No one knows, like the extrastuff we go through, the extra
(11:19):
hurdles you'll find out afteryou start and you start
comparing like wow, why is thistraining so much better than bob
across the street?
Oh, bob just said he was atrainer one day and decided to
charge you 300 for it.
So long-winded argument pointof it.
But I hope that like kind offits in where it does.
It's hard to tell, it's hard tofigure out and for people that
(11:43):
are going off of I want asix-week booty program.
That girl has a big butt, likethat, doesn't mean that that's
the reason they got a big butt.
Trust me, I know a lot of thosewomen, especially that quote.
These beautiful grounds aretheir little injections on the
side.
So please note, because someonelooks at something doesn't mean
they're super knowledgeable.
I digress.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, no, that's fair .
I appreciate you going throughall that.
A lot of like points as well.
To build off of what youmentioned.
One thing just for, likeanybody listening as well, right
, even outside of the fitnessindustry like a key thing is
like we're talking about acertification and not a license.
Like, if you see the wordlicense, that means it's like a
regulated thing, it's like agovernment based thing, right?
If you see certification,that's more of a private company
(12:27):
thing, so your mileage can varyand it's really important to
like look at that as like akeyword, right, whenever that
comes up.
And on the note, like what youmentioned, right, of companies
like having very differentstandards.
So there are companies that areaccredited by a certain
institution that just is like,hey, these are standardized, and
(12:49):
then there are ones that aren't, but regardless, even like the
best ones in the industry, whichare pretty good compared to
like the other ones, right,compared to the ones that aren't
standardized or that are, like,have a lower standard, they
still don't contain very muchinformation contrasted to a
college degree, right?
(13:12):
So a lot of colleges inexercise science, what they do
is they base some of their entrylevel courses specifically off
of certain high qualitycertifications that exist.
So the best, most reputablecertifications tend to like
equal about the amount of, likeone college course worth of,
like credit, worth ofinformation.
And that is important, right?
(13:33):
Because, like, if you thinkabout it, like if you've taken
any class, right, if you've beenin college, think about a gen
ed class you've just taken once.
Or if you didn't go to college,just think about a class you
took in high school and it wasjust like elective, some random
thing.
Now, imagine that is your job.
You don't really have a lot togo off of, which is why I love
your apprenticeship program andwhat you described of it,
(13:54):
because you do actually takecollege courses and you do also
apply them, which is anotherreally big thing.
Right, because there is a biglearning curve for new fitness
professionals in the industrywhen it comes to actually
applying what they learn inschool, because you know you
learn how to optimize thingsphysiologically and that's great
and all.
But, like, that's not whatmatters for like 99 percent of
(14:16):
people, because what mattersfirst is people actually adhere
to their programming, peopleactually exercise and make the
most of the situation they're inrather than train in a
hyper-efficient way, andbridging that gap is hard unless
you have like a lot ofpractical experience.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Yeah, well, that leads into the other argument.
Very experienced in this.
Hired many, many trainers in mylife.
Go to your point of thosepeople that are too certified,
too many many degrees, dive toomuch into the bubble, run into
usually another issue.
The number one reason clientsstay with personal training
(14:55):
comes down to what do you know?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
they like them.
It's like a personality thingpersonality.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah, so it doesn't matter how smart you are, and
what's the number one way to getto guarantee somebody's going
to see not really guarantee, butmost likely way someone's going
to see results is thecontinuing of showing up.
Yes, you can make things moreefficient.
Yes, they can really break downthe science and give them the
best program in the entire worldand make it five percent better
(15:24):
and really fight to make itevery minute count.
But if someone doesn't keepcoming and they do it once or
twice, what the hell's the point?
Really, the point is to keepsomeone showing up consistently
over the long term, enough togenerate a habit that they start
doing it themselves over thelong term, enough to generate a
(15:46):
habit that they start doing itthemselves.
And that is really where you runinto the flip corn of it of
making sure the person haspersonality.
So now you've got to balance thesmartest people and the
personality side of it and youhave to figure out how to fuse
both of them together in orderto get the best trainer and grow
them.
And what I've learned is thebest way to do that is to take
(16:09):
the education and pin theeducation internally so you hire
more based upon personality,with the caveat of having a
minimum standard of education,which is, if someone's
interested, then you can use anapprenticeship program with
on-the-job training andeducation.
Because they have thepersonality they're falling in
love with.
They love being coming to work,they're more willing than to
learn, they spend a thousandhours in the gym learning and
(16:32):
now they're able to go out ontheir own and do their own thing
in the gym and start trainingtheir own clients.
But they are not smart enough.
And then you build in acontinuing education curriculum
inside of your company, wherenow trainers are required every
single week, sit down for anhour and a half deep, dive into
your topic, do presentations on,do homework on it and present
the following week.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So now you're constantly leveling up your
trainers and becoming the bestof the best, because you're
getting both things together,because they both need to work
in order to have a successfulcompany yeah, and like building
off of that a bit as well, right, like that idea of just making
sure people like stick totraining is super important
(17:10):
because, like, what matters atthe end of the day is that
you're always taking well, notalways per se, but like on
average taking one step closerto whatever your goal is.
As long as you're moving in theright direction, your future
will be better off than if youhadn't moved in the right
direction.
It's really easy for people topursue and focus on being
perfect, right, and that evenleads to like misinformation
(17:32):
stuff and some of theperpetuation of it, because when
people, like you know, go intolike X or Y rabbit hole online
and it's often in pursuit ofperfection rather than just
pursuit of something that worksfor them, if you just accept
what works for you, even if it'snot super efficient, as long as
you're able to maintain it,then that's awesome and you know
(17:53):
, at that point it's easier justto like stick to the basics.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, like you're not trying to.
Most people aren't trying to beprofessional bodybuilders where
every rep counts, every setcounts, every grain of rice has
to be tracked right.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
That's not the general population.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
So you want to be super scientific, dive into that
group, which is great.
You want to really just figureout how to get people to keep
coming back and feeling better,because at the end of the day,
the person wants to go home andfeel better, feel like they did
something and really dosomething, but they don't want
to wake up and they can't getoff the freaking toilet bowl.
(18:25):
It's not that group.
This is the group that wants towake up, feeling refreshed good
wants to get that workout done,sweat a little bit like that's a
whole other bulky that wants tonot be pain, right.
Those are the things you startlooking forward to, especially
as your age like with ourdemographic it's like 50 to 65
year olds is.
I want to just feel good.
If I lose a couple pounds,great, I want my shoulder to
(18:47):
stop hurting.
I want my shoulder to stophurting, I want my hip to stop
hurting.
And you know that the prior isconsistent treatment, really
focusing on the differentunderactive muscles going on and
releasing the fascia inside thebody.
So little things to tweak them,to make them feel good, even
though they're not going to lose100 pounds.
Right, they're really feelingbetter.
And ultimately, when I feelbetter, what do I tend to do?
(19:08):
I tend to walk more.
I tend to sleep better.
I tend to eat better because Ifeel good.
If I feel bad and I feeldepressed, what am I going to do
?
I'm going to eat like shit, I'mgoing to not sleep, I'm not
going outside for walks, I'm notgoing being social.
So it's a fun little balanceyou're trying to do to make the
person feel really freaking good, because you know, those other
(19:30):
habits that play a role into itare just going to be
automatically tacked on becausethey feel absolutely amazing
after having a session, insteadof feeling run down, beat up and
not can't get off the couchyeah, and building off that
right like it.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
ultimately it creates a feedback loop where, like hey
, like now, I feel better, and Ifeel better, it'll be easier to
make the decision to exerciseagain tomorrow.
And then, when you exercise ina way that makes you feel better
, then you're going to feel evenbetter the next day and that
just like perpetuates and itmakes life a whole heck of a lot
easier when it comes to justbeing active.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, and tie that back to the first question right
?
I mean, we saw that 15 minutesago which was how do you
separate what you see online?
What's the best way to?
I have seconds to figure out ifI want to listen to someone and
continue watching the video.
So how do I process it as anormal consumer to make a right
decision of the solutions to ornot?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Cool.
The best thing to do wouldliterally just be to look at
formal degrees.
That's the best proxy measurethat we have well, let's break
that down right.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Formal degrees let's start with one thing okay, I
have a basic formal degree, buteverything I learned back in
college we're talking 2008 to2012 is like 13 years ago.
So all of that information mostof it's wrong right now.
You go back 13 years ago andhealth science is wrong.
So how do I know, as a consumer?
(20:57):
I see anthony has a healthscience degree from 15 years ago
, or someone older than me hasit 20, 25 years ago, right, but
all that information is wrong.
So and I'm still learning badinformation this is the problem.
We have doctors, right, we talkabout this a lot.
Physicians who were in their50s 60s are giving you horrible
(21:18):
nutrition science telling you toeat under 900 calories a day,
telling you to avoid proteins,like, telling you, or just going
strict, no carb, like they haveno idea what they're talking
about with this stuff.
And it's apparent becausethey're learning science that is
so freaking old and it's justbeen disproven a million times.
But they never refreshed off ofthese topics because they also
(21:38):
have a million other things tolearn about, right, they have to
learn about these, all themillion other treatments.
So it's not really their fault,it's just that they didn't
learn it.
So how do you, how can we saydegrees is what's to look for?
Plus, it takes time to go seeif someone has a degree to look
it up.
Like it just doesn't feel likethat's the answer, if that makes
sense.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well, I'd say, like it's the best answer that I'm at
least aware that we have.
It's an imperfect answer, right, like I do agree with you that
it's not a perfect answer.
It's why it's like a proxy,like there are means of like
just trying to predict, and wecould look at other things.
Right, we could say, like thisperson sounds like they know
what they're talking about, likethey're confident, they seem
(22:19):
engaged.
But inherently, that's going tobe based on my own like
subjective like, as the consumerwho's like new to fitness and
stuff.
Like that's going to be basedon my own like subjective
perception.
So like if, if we're looking atlike tangible, standardized
proxies, there aren't really alot we have, which is part of
why it's really hard, right, andthat's part of why
misinformation spreads so easily.
Like if we can't usecertifications.
(22:42):
In that sense, we could alsouse like years of experience,
how recent a degree is, per yourpoint, with recency and things
of that nature but there'sreally not a lot that we could
look at in a non-subjective wayto use as a proxy and ultimately
, right, this is where, like youalso have to like qualitatively
look at things to try to likehone in on Is this person likely
(23:04):
to be like genuine andwell-educated, informed, with
like up to date science.
But at the same time, it's hard, right, if you have a few
seconds and you don't reallyknow and you aren't a
professional in the field.
So it's very easy to fall forpeople who seem like they are
and then they aren't.
But if you're really looking atone variable, the only thing we
could, or the best thing wecould do, would be look at
(23:24):
degrees.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Yeah, I'm sorry to hound on it.
I just don't feel like thecollege degree is the.
I think it's something.
Don't get me wrong.
I'm not saying ignore it, pull,throw it away.
I just don't think it's the thething a consumer is going to
one be able to find, two, maybehave to make a decision over
three seconds about it and three, can really trust the
(23:50):
information behind someonesaying that because you're just
going to get a lot of BS.
I'm going to give you acounter-argument.
I have three seconds to make adecision off of somebody on a
reel, let's say Instagram.
I'm scrolling through it'sthree seconds.
It's how they say things, asopposed to what they're saying.
(24:12):
So I'm watching someone'sreaction about uh, like what's
the oh my gosh, so stupidestfucking video the other day,
person's trying to convincepeople that eggs were bad.
Right, and they're like eggsare bad and they just throw,
throw the eggs away.
Someone like that I'm notlistening to.
(24:33):
That to me is a quick red flag.
You're just trying to capturemy attention and move on and you
are fear-margaring me intosomething Because all food I can
give an argument cake is goodfor you, not necessarily that
you should eat it all thefreaking time.
But in a perfect world, you canhave a piece of cake once a week
(24:54):
or once a month.
It's not gonna kill you, right?
So me telling you this inherentthing is gonna kill you.
Throw it away, throw it in thegarbage.
It's that fear-mongering isgonna be the first thing I'm
gonna look for, whethersomeone's giving me true
information or not.
Where, realistically,realistically, I want to live in
a normie world is a lack ofbetter way of putting it, where
(25:15):
someone who understands thingslike I can have a beer once in a
while.
It's fine.
Little things like that are, Ithink are better things to look
for than a college degree.
I want to hear what you thinkof that.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, so I do agree that that is also a helpful
proxy.
One of the challenges with thatright is that also has the same
blind spot that you pointed outwith like college degrees, right
.
So, like, if I am very genuinelytrying to help somebody and I
present them with incorrectinformation, just not
intentionally then you know Icould do that in a very genuine,
nuanced way, and so thatproblem still persists, which is
(25:50):
why, like you know, I could dothat in a very genuine, nuanced
way, and so that problem stillpersists, which is why, like you
know, the more proxy variableswe have, the better we'll be at
predicting.
So I do agree, that is somethingthat does help and, like you
know, if you could look at both,yeah, it helps and, per your
point, with it being difficultto find, like a lot of instances
, if people have like degreesrelevant to what they do it's
like in a bio.
If it's a personal trainerworking at a gym, they advertise
it, right, like it's amarketing thing, and if they
(26:11):
don't, then that's probably notsomething related to that person
.
Like everything would takeusually like a second or two to
Google and you know, both domatter, like because somebody
can be educated and lie to you,which is what you're saying
captures, and then the other,which is, like, very important
to avoid, because those peopleare more likely to not just not
(26:31):
help you but actively harm you,which is really bad.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, mia said, the biggest argument is it's
impossible to tell right.
At the end of the day, it'sabsolutely impossible to tell,
since you know someone on a pure, genuine level and you're able
to have an hour conversationwith them, which is almost
impossible.
It is impossible to do to everysingle time people you're
following, so it just takes alot of work to really dive in
(26:58):
and do it.
And, for ease of understanding,like you said, there's
different, like proxy levelchecks.
I'm going to stick to one fear,fear mongering.
And then two my other favorite,which I mentioned with the
doctor's thing talk to peoplefor what they're known for and
(27:18):
make sure that's the only thingthey do.
This is what I mean.
If I have to get knee surgery, Iam only talking to people who
do knee surgeons, that's it.
I ain't going to the guy thatpractices knee surgery on the
side, on the flip side of that,I ain't going to my knee surgeon
and asking him for nutritionadvice if my toilet bowl is
(27:42):
clogged.
I'm not calling my electricianto say can you fix my toilet
bowl.
You work in Helms, youunderstand right.
I ain't doing that.
I'm going to the plumber who'sbeen doing it for a long time
and that's literally all he does.
Is it a perfect science?
No, not at all, but it helpsshow you exactly what to look
(28:06):
for Like.
Doctors are good at doctoring.
Nurses are good at nursing.
Personal trainers are good atdoctoring.
Nurses are good at nursing.
Personal trainers are good atpersonal training.
But make sure that's all theydo, because at some point right
and this is why I'm going tostress this If I'm a bad
personal trainer, right, I cango out and get some clients.
Fair to say, if I'm personable,I could sell myself.
(28:28):
I can sell six-week programs onthe side.
Whatever right, I'm going tostart gathering clients.
I'm going to start getting busyand I'm going to start.
This is my full-time job.
What's going to happen?
My clients aren't going to getresults.
They're going to get pissed offat me.
They're going to get hurt.
So what are those clients goingto do?
They're going to refer anyoneto me and eventually I'm going
(28:59):
to burn out all of those leadsand start looking for a new job,
because all my personality isnow weighing through and at some
point, in order to help withyour churn, you really have to
be good enough to get referralsfrom your clients.
On the flip side of that, if I'ma good trainer, I get five
clients modestly.
I give them amazing results.
They're happy.
They spent hours getting toknow me.
Now I have a reputable source.
(29:19):
They're going to their friendstelling their friends how
amazing it is.
They're referring and now I'mgrowing and I never have to look
back and say, hey, I need a newjob, or so on and so forth.
And I get busier and busier andbusier and I can just say this
guy is super freaking busy andhas been doing this for 10 years
, 9.5 times out of 10, he knowswhat he's talking about.
(29:41):
Personal training is all hedoes, and everyone refers to
this dude, and he's been doingit for so long.
So if that makes sense, that'skind of where I would look.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Because bad actors are going to get bad eggs.
Yeah, bad actors in general arealways going to be out there,
especially in this industry,which, just like a quick side
point about apps and things likethat, there are a lot of apps
and businesses whose entiremodel is based on getting you to
subscribe and not necessarilyto help you after that fact,
(30:14):
right After you do subscribe,and that is a really common
thing in the industry.
So just worth it to keep thatin mind.
If somebody makes you a reallybig promise up front, it's just
probably because they want yourmoney immediately and they're
not investing in delivering.
But I also do want to add on toa little bit of what you said,
like, definitely don't go toyour knee surgeon for a haircut,
(30:35):
like.
Also, one thing I found in myown experience which is actually
kind of helpful, like adding onto it a little right is
sometimes you do get likediminishing returns if you work
in a very narrow niche in whatyou do, so you can actually
learn more and grow more andbecome more proficient at like
one specific thing, if you dolike, have like a little bit of
(30:56):
variance within that same realmand that is something that can
help right Because, like, if youdo one thing all the time and
it's just one very, very narrowthing, then eventually you'll
start learning and improvingless.
But if you develop similarskill sets to what matter for
that through other you knowsimilar things in that industry,
(31:16):
like, for example, like, if youjust like learn a little bit
more about nutrition or a littlemore about X or Y, you know
that could like facilitate, youknow, whatever outcome that
you'd be focusing on in thatlike original, really narrow
thing maybe you're right to anextent, but in the caveat of
that, right, if I study justexercise science, that's it.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
And then somebody is studies nutrition and exercise
science.
The person who just studiesexercise science is always going
to know more than the personwho splits the.
Both can be very good, and theone that has both is going to
have a better understanding ofthe human body, right.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
So I get what you're saying and I think that that
wouldn't necessarily always holdright, because that would
presume that each person ismaximally knowledgeable within
their field, and that's notnecessarily always going to be
the case.
Right?
Because that would presume thateach person is maximally
knowledgeable within their field, and that's not necessarily
always going to be the case.
Right, because, like, if youstudy, exercise, science, that's
your one thing.
You might not be verypassionate about, it might have
not internalized a lot, mighthave not been very skilled, so
(32:23):
those factors do still influence, like that end output, you know
.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
To.
I just I'm a big believer andI've learned tons of personal
experience here.
When you focus on too manythings, everything becomes shit,
because there's no such thingas multitasking, and this is a
project I do.
If you have attention, you onlyhave 100% of your attention.
(32:52):
It's a percentage.
Your brain can't automaticallystart putting out more because
you're focusing on two things,for example, texting and driving
.
People tell me all the freakingtime, especially 20-year-olds.
I can text and drive.
I'm great at it.
That's not true.
Does it take you longer to typea text when you're driving?
Yes, there, of course, you cando it a lot quicker if that's
(33:15):
the only thing you pay attentionto.
Is your driving 100% efficient?
If I threw a baseball at yourcar while you were texting your
phone or driving, are you ableto dodge it?
Probably not.
But if you were just focusingon driving, probably.
Or if you need to send thattext in three seconds and you
were just texting, can you getthat done a lot quicker?
Probably you.
Humans are not meant tomultitask.
(33:36):
We need to focus on one of thedifferent things.
It doesn't mean we can spendfour hours on one topic, four
hours on the next topic, butthen we run into the issue.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
There's only 24 hours in a day Five little together
24 hours in a day is definitelya big limiter, especially when
you need like eight of them tosleep.
So that is still real, um.
But one thing I'll say is, likethat, like example you were
putting forward, right, that'smore based on like an acute
reaction, like our acutepsychology, right, like we can
only, um, in terms of ourattentiveness, we could only
(34:05):
focus on one thing discreetly ata time and we like rapidly
switch.
So, like, per your point, wecan't truly multitask, just like
objectively.
But that itself, right, is likedifferent than doing something
in like a broader sense, becauseyou're not just really like
acutely, like looking at a phone, looking at the road and like
processing this or that in likea millisecond to millisecond
sense.
You know you can, um, you knowlearn this one thing and then
(34:28):
you could learn another thing,you could learn something about
I don't know just reallyanything, and it's kind of like
in school, right, even just in avery fundamental sense, when
we're younger we go throughschool, different classes, and
you can retain information up toa point, it's completely
inefficient.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Another personal example is as a business owner
right, so I started off as apersonal trainer.
That was the first thing I didinside my company and I became a
darn good personal trainer,built up an entire thing, and
what happened?
What I did was I ran into anissue I couldn't be a great
personal trainer and a greatbusiness owner.
(35:08):
They it's a personal trainingcompany.
Some people could say it's thesame, but it's not.
And what ended up happening wasmy personal training skills
started diminishing.
My business skills starteddiminishing.
My overall capacity to handleall the information that was
coming into me started themission and anthony got really
stressed out and burnt out andto the point he got sick, really
(35:31):
bad, and said I can't do thisanymore.
If I'm going to own a business,I need to be a business owner,
no longer a personal trainer,and I gave up personal training
to people that are now waybetter than I ever was.
So thank God I did that, but Igot to focus on one thing, which
is running a personal trainingcompany, and I do have personal
(35:55):
training skills, but they arenowhere near those of my some of
my trainers who, that's allthey focus on is personal
training, if that makes senseyeah, that does.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
and firstly, like I'm glad you got through that like
burnout period because it soundsrough, so I'm glad you were
able to persevere through that.
Yeah, so like I guess, like, sobuilding off of like what you
said a little bit right, likethe part of that comes from,
like doing more than ourcapacity.
So whatever that is.
So like what I'm talking aboutisn't necessarily doing more
than our capacity, but whateveris within our capacity and like
(36:27):
even in your case, right, Iimagine your past experience
being a personal trainer hasmade you a better business owner
for personal trainer businessnow, which is essentially like
the point that I'm making.
Like, if you looked at yourselfnow, right, and you had an
alternate timeline version ofyou that was never a personal
trainer, knew nothing aboutexercise science, you probably
wouldn't have been as good asyou are right now.
You wouldn't have advocated forthe apprenticeship, you
(36:48):
wouldn't have actually made thishuge impact on the world.
But because you have a greaterskill set than somebody who was
completely removed from thefield, that was only in business
, you were able to do that andyou achieved impressive things
because of that, right, sothat's essentially what I was
saying, just to kind of dumbthis down, right which?
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I agree with.
Actually, if you take math as awhole, I don't know why I chose
math weird subject, butwhatever.
Nobody likes math, meta skillright, you have to learn the
meta skill as a whole.
A basic math one plus one istwo.
Two plus two is what kind ofdeal, right?
until you get to a point wheremath branches to become a
(37:29):
specialty inside of math andthen you have to choose one and
order, like, let's say,trigonometry, right in order to
really deep dive intotrigonometry.
That can now be only so focused, but you never would have got
to that advanced portion oftrigonometry without learning
the meta skill of math.
Is that what you're saying?
Uh, in a sense.
Um, so, something similar.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Uh, so that would be like a narrow within the
umbrella that what you're sayingIn a sense.
So something similar.
So that would be like a narrowwithin the umbrella of what I'm
saying, if that makes sense.
But that makes sense becauseyou're giving an example.
But I mean just generally theidea of like you know, like your
skills can transfer oversometimes.
You know, sometimes doing aspecific thing doesn't always,
(38:09):
it's like, even if you thinkabout it, like, if we step away
from like the mental stuff, itmay even be easier to give an
example of like training, right,like, sometimes you can like,
like, let's say you are, youhave a client who is very
adaptation resistant and they'vebuilt muscle pretty well
through, like you know, focusingon like type one fiber.
So for like audience, like, so,basically muscle fibers, that a
(38:32):
certain type of muscle fiber,and then now like because those
muscle fibers are moreadaptation resistant than other
types, you could switch thefocus on something that would be
less good normally for buildingmuscle but it could still push
you further.
So that's sort of similar as ananalogy to what I'm talking
about.
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
I get it too.
I get where you're coming fromwith it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I mean, needless to say,it's just like going back to the
original point.
It's hard, it's really hard totell, like, what someone doesn't
know.
Look at all the nuanced stuffwe're diving into right and I'm
(39:12):
talking about like a normaltemperature span of somebody
online.
Like we slept up.
The conversation started.
it's quick, it's three secondsto capture someone's attention
kind of deal.
So it's in that aspect, I think, going over both our arguments
it it's possible.
I think it's just impossibleand you really have to get to
(39:34):
know somebody and then figureout.
Like you're saying, I'm more ofa meta-skill analysis of it and
having an understanding andreally trying to take your best
shot at finding the person whoreally has the skills with that
and taking more than threeseconds.
So maybe the issue is we needto reverse our attention spans
(39:55):
back the other way, where theycame from, and really deep dive
into topics a little more andnot break things down into
microsecond before we jump tothe next topic.
Right?
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I agree.
I think that's a really goodpoint and, honestly, that does
solve a lot.
Right, because, like you know,like the premise we're working
off of, like you know there's noperfect solution, right, like,
no matter what route you go,it's always just a prediction.
And it's like differing between,like 60 percent predictive
value and 65 percent, so it'slike, regardless, we're going to
be wrong sometimes if we'relike saying this person knows
what they're doing or not.
(40:26):
But, like you know, if you seesomething that you are like wow,
this sounds fun, this soundslike something I could do, this
is interesting Research.
That one thing more instead oflike taking it at face value,
right, like, look into it, seeif it's commonplace for
professionals in the field tosupport it, at least it's again,
(40:48):
not always like the bestmeasure, but you know we're
doing the best we can.
But, like, if, on average, youfind something in like, let's
say, like 80% of people you seethat like are like commenting or
like have quotes in likedifferent like you know articles
or publications, like they allsay something similar, whenever
you like Google it, you Googleit.
(41:10):
You're like, okay, it's morelikely this is right than if an
influencer said something thatyou can't find anybody repeat in
an actual publication andthat's a really good way if you
have more than three seconds, afew minutes to just look into.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, and for the love of God, stay away from
people that say this is my butt,it looks great, I want this
butt.
I think that's the worst one,or the special.
Oh my god.
There's no such thing as aspecial magic formula that you
(41:38):
can drink or eat to become aspecial magic person.
It doesn't exist.
If someone tells you it does,run the other direction, please,
for the love of God.
There's no secret.
If I mix these seveningredients together and break
it down into this and I'm goingto convince you with really bad
(41:58):
signs about why it works, runaway the opposite direction.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Actually adding on to that right.
So another thing I've noticedthat happens a lot is oftentimes
people that are like it's like,I think it's like intentional.
I mean I don't even think it'sprobably like a marketing
strategy for a lot of people,but like a lot of times when
people are sellingmisinformation, they always use
the word science a lot, likethey always say right, they're
not wrong.
Yeah, like they always say thisis the science, because, like,
(42:25):
they are trying to like buildthat authority, because they
recognize they don't havestronger legs to stand on
because they're making a claimthat's not true.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Or the Airbon people that come to you and tell you
that you can sell Airbon andmake a lot of money.
Whatever these multi-levelmarketing companies that come to
you in the weight loss realm,it's just that they have their
own special.
Like I said, this bar from ourcompany is going to be the game
changer, for it's not fuckingtrue, it's all processed
(42:55):
bullshit.
Eat real food, do what's right.
I think the funniest thing Iever saw in my freaking life was
what people will do to avoidtraditional exercise, and it's
like people doing this likecrazy bungee jump thing sticking
there getting an efficientworkout.
What's been around the longestworks.
The best time is the likenarrowest attitude of all
(43:18):
misinformation across time.
Things that have been aroundthe longest are way more likely
to be right.
So go look into what's been,what type of fitness and stuff
has been around the longest andgo do that traditional weight
lifting, adding some cardio intoyour freaking life walking,
sleeping those things work waybetter.
(43:40):
Then I'm gonna hook myself upto a bungee cord or to some
crazy electrodes, like I did ina previous episode, and then I
going to spin around in threecircles and I'm going to jump up
and down and count to three andgo, hoorah, and I'm going to be
in shape.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
God, so I have like a .
So I have both.
Like a weirdly relevant storyto one of those things you
mentioned and also just I forgotI was going to say another part
, but I'll go through the randomstory story.
So, like the multi-levelmarketing thing, when I was in
college, right, like one of myfriends invited me to like help
them with something.
It was a completely falsepretense, like, and I showed up
(44:21):
and it was a multi-levelmarketing thing which was not
helping them with like they wantto help with their homework and
I was like, yeah, sure, like Icould help, you could help you
with this, whatever, right, butit was a multiple marketing
thing and it was selling likesupplements that are like fake
supplements, like the person,right, that was like speaking to
everybody.
They kept making up words thatsounded like if you didn't know
(44:42):
anything about like exercise,science, nutrition, whatever,
like they'd sound like oh, thissounds useful to me.
Like she kept using the wordprotein factor.
She's like this has the highestprotein factor.
Our scientists singular, so youwould always say our scientists
like one says that this proteinfactor is the most and like
that's not like a thing, likeyou don't have like a nutrient
named protein factor, and theyjust kept adding, like all these
(45:05):
words, there were more, butthat's just always the one that
stuck out in my head because itjust felt strange I mean, I've
gotten to fight to some of thesepeople as a gym owner.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
They approached me all the time.
All the time.
You can make more money in yourgym by selling this.
I wouldn't sell this to anybody.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
I like my clients, that's right you know, like
that's the thing too, right,because, like you were with
clients and they like you andthen you also end up liking them
because you're around them somuch.
You know, um, and you knowactually another thing with what
you said about like, uh, thingsthat, like you know, when you
think of like just traditionalhealthy stuff, right, that is
usually generally what workslike for the most part, like
(45:42):
it's like sleep, like a decentamount, like even if you don't
have to get super technical withit just like sleep decent
amount, eat well, cetera.
It's one of the things thatsometimes there's this
manufactured like, I guess, likeuncertainty, I think sometimes
like misinformation spaces where, like, people are like, oh, the
(46:02):
basic things don't work at allRight, and then it creates this
impression that there is thislack of consensus in the field.
But, like, the areas that yousee like lack of consensus about
right are the more advancedthings that are like, okay, this
is changing your efficiencyfrom like 85% to 90% or 95%,
things that will matter less forthe average person.
(46:23):
You know, because the basicstuff we had more time to
generally understand and ifscience changes related to that,
right, it'll more or less.
It doesn't necessarily mean theold science is inherently wrong
.
It's just we'll find out it's alittle less effective than
other things.
We still know that, like youknow lifting weights and like
moving your body and stuff,that'll lead to better outcomes
(46:44):
just happier time later in life,higher quality of life as you
age.
Then, if you just did nothingand just like ate like a
bajillion calories every day,facts, the real science,
scientifically science.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Only thing I'm going to add, because we mentioned
this previously about, like, howto know if you found a right
place, and this is something wedo, and I don't even why this
didn't come to me earlier.
But if a gym forces you into acontract, probably not good.
If I force you into anything tosign up for a year, 10 weeks,
(47:24):
12 weeks, whatever the case maybe I'm probably not good because
I'm trying to just get yourmoney up front and bounce out.
We offer bi-weekly nocommitment cancel whenever you
want.
On top of that, you have 28days to use the gym as many
times as you want, train as manytimes as you want, and you
could say man, not for me, I'mgonna fully you.
(47:46):
So it's unheard of in ourindustry, but that's because we
know what we're doing worksright.
That is amazing Caveat as well.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
I just realized to say that's, firstly, amazing for
anybody listening.
That is a really important pointbecause, like you know, a lot
of companies like they genuinelylike I've worked with a lot of
companies in like differentareas of the fitness industry
that like approach throughdifferent lenses right like I
work with content creators, apps, websites, etc.
And like they all like dosomething.
A lot of them do somethingsimilar, which is like basically
(48:20):
what he described, where, like,they invest all of their time,
money, resources into making areally strong pitch for you and
then they deliver nothingbecause, like they expect you're
going to quit and they makemore money than if they pay
somebody that knows what they'redoing to help you after you
sign up.
That's why, actually, like alot of like the type of contract
(48:43):
you described right is commonat like a lot of commercial gyms
, like the big chain gyms andstuff like that, because they
tend to invest in trainers thatare in the industry that they
expect to have a high churnthat'll quit pretty quickly,
because it doesn't really matterto them if the trainer stays
and helps a client long-term,because that's not really where
they're getting most of theirmoney from.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Yeah, so find a place that's confident in what they
do and what we do is unheard of,but at least something.
Well, no commitment line, dom.
We went way over, but it's okay.
It's a great freakingconversation.
It was great yeah.
I'm going to answer the finaltwo questions.
I said we'll just wrap this up.
The first one is if you were tosummarize this episode in one
or two sentences, what would youtake on message?
Speaker 2 (49:33):
sentences would be take a message Ooh, okay.
So take a message.
Do not trust everything you seeat face value is the first
sentence, and then the secondwould be just like hey, do what
works for you.
You don't need to be perfect.
If an influencer tells yousomething's perfect, you know,
don't worry about it, just dowhat works for you, stick with
the basics.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
I love that.
And the second question how canpeople find you and get ahold
of you and learn more?
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Cool, so you can find me on blue sky at Dominic
health.
D O M E N I, c, h, e, a L T H.
My name's spelled where it'snot like D O M I is D O M E for
some reason, and other than thatI just have a LinkedIn, so not
really too many places.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
That's.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Dominic.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Angelino Dom.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you, guys for listeningto this week's episode of health
and fitness redefined.
Don't forget chair subscribe.
It's the only way this showgrows out from here.
So you know we don't runadvertising like that.
We give you all fun andfiltered sessions, don sessions.
Don't forget, fitness ismedicine.
Until next time.
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