Once or twice a week a client will text me some link to some bullshit site about some supplement or high level tweak that they want to add. It also comes from here-say recommendations. My buddy has been drinking yack urine and is f$cking jacked, can I do that?
WHAT?! NO
These types of texts make me noticeably angry, not because I am mad at the people (ok a little) but because the black hole of the internet and personal recommendations from unqualified friends are the lowest forms of information.
A lot of people say I shouldn’t give clients my phone number, but I like to be accessible and at night I have the ability to flick the iPhone off. Let’s face it if someone is blowing me up with power clean questions at Midnight, we have much bigger problems and there is no way I am answering. The other virtue I have to instill in my clients is where they get their information, how to sift through the nonsense, and better yet how to just flat out avoid it. In our culture, information is stressful and unrelenting. I have to give them the security so their beliefs are unwavering. They have to know they are doing the right thing and therefore they aren’t flipping around in the wind, swayed by every Tom, Dick, and Marge that comes by the house and talks about their new Splenda and Collard Green diet or the most bestest fluorescent bottle of RED 40 on the shelves of GNC.
These texts usually come from new clients who haven’t mastered the fundamentals. This is because when you master the fundamentals everything else is just a drop in the bucket and your bucket is already full of swoll, slender, feel-goodness.
So what are the Fundamentals?
I love Dr. Kirk Parsley’s car analogy.
Your car/truck has four wheels:
Sleep
Stress Management
Nutrition
and Movement
If one of those wheels is off you can’t put on a bigger wheel of nutrition or add in some extra massage sessions with Betty Lou – it ain’t going to matter. You have to have those four wheels on the car before you can go play around with lifting up your truck, putting on a fancy new exhaust of creatine and BCAAs, because if you don’t, you will just have a really expensive useless frame of bells and whistles that can’t pull out of the driveway.
Let’s take this thread from a guy who drinks like it’s going out of style, is prediabetic, doesn’t sleep, and handles work stress like a sugar deranged toddler.
Here is the text (read italicized texts with an Aziz Ansari accent)
Weightlifting raises testosterone – can I train 5 to 6 days a week?
The increase in testosterone is generally transient and overtraining it probably more a risk than undertraining for the majority of our population. When testosterone is low it is in an indicator that you are over driven – so likely you have to park the vehicle and put the wheels back on. If this guy lifted weights 5 to 6 days a week I can guarantee it wouldn’t help and he would get injured in under three weeks due to the aforementioned shit show.
“Low testosterone in the absence of primary hypogonadism is a barometer of ill health, rather than a primary marker. “
- Corey Schuler, MS, DC, LN, CNS, CNP, FAAIM
Next text, 2 seconds later.
What about BCAAs and intermittent fasting? Those raise testosterone.
F$CK ME.
Fundamentals.
Fundamentals.
Fundamentals.
Here was my response.
Get off the internet.
Next texts a few minutes later feeling remorseful.
BCAAs are fine. BCAA away.
Intermittent fasting, maybe but it will depending on blood glucose homeostasis and adrenal function.
Next text knowing that this conversation is far from over.
All of these things you are texting about are tiny drops in the bucket of your problem. Your body needs rest, quality nutrition, quality movement, and stress management consistently over time. Sorry it’s not sexy, but you don’t pay me to lie to you.
Crickets
I can say all this because I am not afraid of losing business. If he doesn’t like what I have to say, by all means find some 22 year old that will combine all the things you want - intermittent fasting, BCAAs, and weightlifting 5 to 6 days a week on a Vietnam shoulder, a shattered ankle, and low testosterone levels. Good luck. He will be back or he won’t, but I can guarantee is problems will be worse and the results he wants won’t be had because he took a giant poop on the fundamentals. Guys unfollow people who suck. If you are going to read things on the internet have a plan and only intake information from people who have credentials and the respect of the industry, and for god’s sake when in doubt – master the fundamentals – there is nothing more powerful.
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