Welcome, folks. This is Tom O'Brien of TFNN. We go five days a week. We go 10 hours a day. We go 24 hours a day on the Internet at tfnn.com. Always remember, folks, whatever you think about, you bring about whatever you focus on grows. Hope everyone's having a great day, safe day. It's making a great night, folks. Be impeccable with your word. Manifest your true intentions. Regardless of what language you speak, your intent will manifest through the word. What you dream, what you feel, what you really are, will be manifested through what you say each and every day. Mugger eyes! Let's take a look at it out here. We have the Dow Industries down 43. Nasdaq off 29. S&P's off 5.5. Gold contract up $5.50 trading at $13.36 an ounce. Silver, $14.75 an ounce. Light sweet crude. Down 227. Trading $51 flat. Big number. No two ways about that. Notes and bonds. Bottom line. Higher price. Lower yield. Here you go. Ten-year note. Up 8 ticks. $127.01. 30-year. Up 5. $153.24. And King Dollar. Right now, up 333 ticks. Trading 96.975. The Euro is trading at $112 to $1.00. The Yen is at $108.50. And the Pound is trading out here at $126.88 to $1.00. iPhone numbers are<PHONE_NUMBER>. Give us a call, folks. One note's going on in your world. In the world of the S&Ps, let's take a look at them. What do you have? We take a look at the spy. What you have out here in the spy is you get a sideways move. You're down $0.60. You get 45 million shares traded. Now that's light volume, folks, on the way down. So bottom line is that you are... You did trade down near the lower end of the range. You close at the lower end of the range. It's going to be like a toss-up if this thing wants to pop back at the top side once again. It doesn't look to me like it's going to, but that type of contraction and volume will very well can have that pretty quickly. And the X100. Same setup inside the Qs. You have light volume down to $6182.34. You did 27 million shares. Let's go take a look at the volume characteristic inside the NYSE. You're at 706. So also inside the NYSE, that is light volume. NASDAQ composite, you did 1.9 billion. That's basically a toss-up. If we go take a look at that composite, same setup. This is kind of... This is the U. So we'll see where this shakes out tomorrow. Now, my take is that we still will go lower tomorrow. And I've seen this many times. And what it is, if you take a hot shoe and you put it upside down and we're just looking at it straight on the right-hand side at the very top, right when you turn on the marketplace, that's where it does seem to basically, that you can get volume to dry up. And then the following day, that's where you'd be looking for some big volume. You don't get the volume tomorrow and you get lower price. Guess what? This thing will pop topside once again. Gold contract. What do you have with gold? Gold wants higher price. You had a bid all day inside the gold market out here. We're at the higher range. You're up $560. You've traded 225,000 contracts. Let's go through the GDX and see if they put some volume inside the GDX. Not bad. They put 10 million in at the close. Let's see. We went from... 10 of us looking at it is 25 million. You get 34 million. They put 6.6 million in at the close, the last trade. So you are coming into this swing point. You got some juice on the way in. So your probability is pretty good that number one is going to go after it, which is the 2312. We'll see whether it can blow it away. The note and bond market want higher price. Let's go look at the TLT. So the TLT, not much movement. 5 million shares. TLT is going to need more volume for sure. Not much movement in the TLT out here. And Kingdala. Would you have a Kingdala? Now, this is some divergence out here. And when you do look at Kingdala versus the gold market, Kingdala had much more move with conviction than the gold market did. We did with Kingdala. You did 24,000 contracts. You are up 326. You're at 96.965. And that's saying that little Kingdala can get up to 97.015. That's where we had 29,000 contracts on the way down. But 24,000 contracts. That is decent contract volume. There's no two ways about that. Lululemon. Let's go take a look at Lululemon. They just come out with numbers. This closed at 17089. It is trading right now at 174. Numbers go like this inside Lululemon. Let's see what we got here. So earnings per share was 74 cents. For the year, they had seen $4.48 to $4.55. Now they see $4.51 to $4.58. So they beat their bottom line by 4 cents. Revenue, they're boosting their full year forecast. But they missed something, man. Let's see what they missed. Lululemon boasts their earnings forecast for the full year. The guidance missed the average analyst's estimate. So for the year, let's see the range. Oh, I see. For the year, they're saying $4.51 to $4.58. And the estimate is actually 462. It hasn't affected the stock. One of our tigers are telling us that we'll get some volatility out here because at first it was down $11. Now it's up $7. And if we take a look at this, pull this back a bit. Well, it's going to be an all-time high. Yeah, it's going to be an all-time high. So 179 is the all-time high. Let's go take a look at restoration hardware and see if that came out yet. That closed at $94.89. That's trading at $1.15. Check this out. Okay. So see what this is doing? This is going right for that gap. Interesting, man. We'll look at this. You can see you didn't have sellers down here. When this came out with the numbers the last time, folks, they had a gap down. And that's why I was looking at that. The top of that gap is $1.14. The bottom is $102 and it's trading $1.15. So this is going to be challenging tomorrow for restoration hardware. We'll go over these numbers. But this is going to be challenging because it already got up to that gap before. It got to $1.19, tested the $1.19 and $1.20 and then gave it up and ran all the way down to $88. So we get some action after this close out here. No doubt. You stay right there, folks. You're going to be coming back with our man, Mr. Basil Chapman. And in this commercial break, come over to our website at TFNN. My man, Mr. Basil Chapman, is going to be doing an outstanding workshop for you tonight. 5 to 6 Eastern Standard Time. 5 to 630 Eastern Standard Time. All you have to do is be a subscriber. You can subscribe right now, right here. Comes with a 30-day money back guarantee. Stay right there, folks. Basil and I are coming right back. Hi, folks. Tom O'Brien here. If you'd like to get my daily newsletter, Market Insights, then now is a great time to sign up for a 30-day free trial. Every morning by 9.30, I send out my morning letter to subscribers with market commentary on a variety of markets, currencies, and commodities to keep investors up-to-date on the day's trading action. Included in Market Insights are specific buy and sell recommendations for stocks, ETFs, and even options, which stops and price targets included for every trade in my newsletter. If you'd like to try my newsletter at a risk free for 30 days, then head over to the front page of TFNN and you'll find Market Insights under Trading Newsletters. I use my years of trading experience to bisect and dissect the market every morning and give my subscribers the most important information they need to know for the day ahead. I even issue afternoon updates for my subscribers whenever warranted with important market action. I'm always scouring the market for the next great trading opportunity. Sign up for your 30-day free trial to my daily newsletter, Market Insights today by visiting the front page of TFNN.com. Well, go get them, folks. It's amazing to think that Tom O'Brien started his weekly gold report 17 years ago with the first issue published April 7th, 2002, when gold was trading at under $300 per ounce. Gold peaked at more than $1,900 in 2011 and after spending many years consolidating at lower prices, gold may be poised for its next big run. Tom O'Brien publishes his weekly gold report every Monday morning for subscribers consisting of the average of the XAU, HUI, GDX, the dollar, bonds...


In this special episode of Mind Pump, the world's top fitness, health and entertainment podcast. Oh yeah. We answered some health and fitness questions, but the way we open the episode is with an introductory portion. So we talk about current events, what's happening in the world, what's happening in our lives. In today's episode, that intro portion was 43 minutes long.  So you can fast forward to your favorite parts, probably when I'm talking anytime. So here's the breakdown of today's episode. We opened up by talking about morning workouts and how much I do them and they don't. We talked about, Justin talked about sucking out snake venom for his friend. Then we talked about- I didn't do that. B Venom Therapy on the show Unwell on Netflix. Great show, check it out, kind of weird. Then Adam talked about recommending blue light blocking glasses to his friend to help him sleep. By the way, we work with a company called Felix Gray. They make the best blue light blocking glasses around for two reasons. Number one. The most stylish. They don't change the color of everything. So you're not watching your TV in red or orange. They are clear, but they're effective. Number two, what Justin said, they're very stylish. And because you listen to Mind Pump, you can get free shipping and free returns. Just go to FelixGrayGlasses.com that's F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y glasses.com forward slash mind pump. Then we talked about the documentary on Netflix called The Social Dilemma. Highly, highly recommend everybody go watch that. Please go watch it. Then we talked about the potential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden on the Joe Rogan podcast. Oh my God, can we make this happen? Please everybody, just let's make it happen. Let's sign petitions, this would be amazing. Then we talked about the future of the fitness space or in specifically the gym space. I talked about Jillian Michaels getting coronavirus from her friend and then blaming it on gyms. Then we talked about getting enough nutrients even when your calories are low.  Now one way to help this out is to eat much more nutrient dense foods. The other way you can do this is by supplementing with a multivitamin. Now the problem with multivitamins is most of them suck. They're not regulated. They don't have what they say they have in them. Very true. This is why we work with Legion. Legion makes high performance supplements. They're all third party tested. No artificial sweeteners. They're good, it's good. They're good supplements, good stuff. And they have a great multivitamin as well as other products. And again, because you listen to Mind Pump, you get a huge discount. If you go to legionathletics.com, that's L-E-G-I-O-N, athletics.com forward slash Mind Pump. Use the code Mind Pump.   So use the code every time you go to Legion. That was the first 43 minutes. Then we got into the questions. Here's the first one. This person says, look, I've heard some trainers say that planks aren't good because they promote bad posture. What's the deal with that? Second question, this person is a trainer getting certified by NASM. And they're saying, look, you guys always talk about not static stretching before workouts. But I feel like I read in NASM's workbooks that you should do some static stretching before strength training. What's the deal with that? By the way, we talk a lot about priming in that part of the episode because we think priming is the best way to get your body ready to work out. It connects your body, you improve your strength, your performance, and your mobility for better workouts. It's like adding a turbocharger to your workouts. You can actually go and watch one of our free webinars where Justin teaches you how to prime properly.  The next question, this person says, look, I have knocking knees. What are some of the exercises they could do to fix that? And the final question, this person wants to know what we think about float therapy. Also, look, Mind Pump is the top fitness podcast. But another thing that we do is we produce amazing workout programs designed for all kinds of different people. So if you wanna build a lot of muscle and strength, we have programs like Maps Anabolic or Maps Power Lift. If you like to be strong and functional, you can check out something like Maps Performance.   And it's t-shirt time.  You got smoke all in my throat, Jesus. Woo! Yeah, you're a strength there. Wow. All right, we have four winners this week. Two for Apple Podcast, two for Facebook. The Apple Podcast winners are Karo Musa and Jonah M. Fitness for Facebook. We have Sam Mellert and Lorenzo Codillo. All of your winners, send a name, I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com, include your shirt size and your shipping address and we'll get that shirt right out to you.  You don't wanna squat and then be stationary. No, like especially like a heavy, right?  You go all the way up to 135. Yeah, it was a hard one out of five though. Real slow, just that full plate. Body weight. Yeah, real hard, real hard. No, my hips are like, oh, driving on the way home or way back today. I used to make that mistake when we go flying, like I gotta get it in before and go hard and hammer it.   Yeah, yeah, I haven't squatted heavy in so long cause I'm trying to fix some imbalances, but. You've been on that kick for a minute. I've been on it for a while and then I went and tried challenging my mobility with squats and hurt myself. So I guess there's more work to be done. What's going on? Oh no, we'll figure it out. You know, the problem is I wake up early in the morning to work out. So I'll work, I'll wake up at like six and I'll be out in the garage by 6.30, 6.45. But the problem is, especially when the kids are with me is that I don't, I only have like 50 minutes. I have 50 minutes to finish my workout. And so it's hard to get it all like the right amount of priming and all that stuff. I had a time to do the workouts. So I'll do some, but it's not enough, dude. All right, what time are you consistently lifting at, Justin? What's probably three o'clock in the afternoon? When you get home? Yeah, when I get home. Yeah, that's usually what I do. I don't, I've abandoned the whole idea of doing morning workouts. I know. I want to be that guy too. I do too. I know Sal's had success. It does take a lot of discipline. Yeah, forget that dude. I like sleep, you know, I'm more into that idea. I've just never been a morning person. You're the guy who wakes up and blasts music at six o'clock in the morning. Like I just, I'm not that. I'm like, it's gotta be a good hour and a half before like, and I'm, you know, it's funny. It's like a light switch for you. This is what I'm, this is my son, like, okay. So he's getting now to this age where little bits of the personality or things I'm not like, he's for sure me in the morning. Oh really? He's not all happy and stuff. I mean, he's, he's, I don't think I'm not happy. You're pretty negative.  Dude, I'm a grump epitomist.  I just can't even think. I can tell too, cause I'll start talking to you guys.  Cause it feels like I'm getting blasted, you know. I don't, I don't think I'm angry. I just think that like, you know, this, this, this massive machinery up here, it takes a while to warm up, you know what I'm saying? It takes a while to get it. Really big cogs.  And then when someone like sells like, Hey, hey, what's going on?   I gotta put some gasoline in here first. Doug wakes up, all right. You're okay in the morning, right? That's how you and I usually room together. You're, I could leave you though. You'll sleep if you're left alone. Yeah. I like mornings in bed. Yeah, just laying in bed still. I can't, you know what's fine. I can't necessarily sleep in. I'll try, but about the, the latest I can sleep in till it's about 645, 7am. Wow. And then I'm just, yeah, I'm just laying there. I'm like, what's going on? So I gotta get up. But it's not that I enjoy, I prefer to work out in the afternoon. It's just, it doesn't happen consistently if I do with that. Just 100%, I will miss at least one a week if I do it in the afternoon. If you're in the morning, it's gonna happen. Yeah, it's true. There's variables that come into play. Dude, I go online sometimes and I Google weird news. Here we do that. All the time. Oh, it's fun, right? So do you guys know what one of the, like, if you get bit by a snake, a poisonous snake was the first thing, that's one of the first things you're supposed to do, right? I think, no, it is, it's true. You're supposed to cut, I think you just cut an X over the wound.  Really?  I thought that was like an urban legend. No, no, that's, I hope it's not. Cause I didn't want to get tricked. You know what I mean? No, it says right here, I look it up.  So, you know, that's what you're supposed to do. But anyway, I thought he was supposed to pee on it. No, that's the other thing. I said jellyfish.  You know, my friend almost died, so I don't have any sense now. Pulls this thing out, starts peeing on it, you start whizzing on it. Oh, bro, it's not a jellyfish, it's a snake. Dude, that's what you do. I'm dying and you guys are pissed at of me?   Stung by a jellyfish and bit by a snake. No, dude. So this, in Thailand, this university student, this kid, his name is Sirapop.  Okay, wait a second. Whoa. How do you sit on a toilet and not see a snake in the toilet? I think they hide. I feel like it's everybody's worst nightmare. Yes. Well, first of all, it could be the dark, you know, like you do it in the dark, right? I don't know, when you wake up in the morning, or you sit on the toilet. You don't see what's in there, right? So it could have been that. Also, I think, don't they sometimes hide down the pipe a little bit? Yeah, they go in the pipe sometimes. That's a thing. That's a thing about this, yeah. Or they'll go in the plumbing. Or they'll hide under the rim, so you can't really see it unless you look under the heart. That gives me goosebumps.  Right. Yeah, we gotta be a good friend, dude. Gotta be a really good friend. I was just telling you how much I love you. Maybe that's like the level of friendship, right? Like, what level are you at? Are we there yet? Are we friends?  We're like close as best friends can be.   Hey, we have to pull straws. Ah, Doug wins. Sorry, you gotta do it.     Yeah, yeah. Wow, we haven't seen one like this in a long time. We got three testicles. Did you, have you guys seen that series on Netflix? Just reminding me of it. Unwell, is it Unwell? Unwell. Have you guys seen that? I think we talked a little bit. A few episodes. You brought up the breast milk one. Yeah. Yes, so I saw that one. I saw the bee sting one. Oh yeah, the bee sting. Yeah, it's a bee venom. Yeah, they went all into that with all kinds of different versions, like with the lady that actually put it in like makeup and products and stuff like that. Yeah, it was interesting actually to see what they were doing with bee venom. Well, I went down the rabbit hole and started researching. Bee venom has been, well, products from bees have been used for thousands of years and lots of different cultures. The venom in particular has been used as a way to treat pain. And apparently when you get stung by a bee, it elicits this pain killing response from the body and anti-inflammatory response. So as a treatment for things like arthritis, apparently it's actually has some value. But it gives you temporary relief though. Yes.  I don't know. It's weird, right? Some people say how... Ice bath might be a better approach I would think. Advil. Yeah. Yeah, Advil has the same thing. Take some Advil. Yeah, stinging. But then there's in the makeup, so then they interviewed this cosmetic skincare scientist and they said that when you rub it in your skin that it does cause a minor swelling effect, which then fills in the lines.  So it's another, yeah, it's another way to get, what's the other, the injections that people get? Botox. Botox. It's like another way to kind of get that just from the cream. Yeah. This reminds me of the conversation I had this weekend with this, so we went up to Alice, we had a couple couples with us that we hadn't hung out in a while. And whenever I don't see people for a while, like the questions I always get, especially when we start talking about Mind Pump and what you guys are doing and partners you work with and bio-hacking stuff comes up. Everybody always wants to ask me about all the, you know, what do you think about hyperbaric chambers and cryotherapy? Microdosing. Yeah, and it's because it's crazy.  Like that wasn't even a thing when we were trainers early on, but now you get everyday people that it trickles to them and they're like, oh man, I heard this about recovery. I heard this is amazing for belly muscle or burning fat. And they have all these questions.  And even the, we were sponsored by some of these brands that would be, I could fall kind of the bio-hacking category. I'm like, handle the big rocks first.  Like knock out your sleep, right? Get your sleep call. I said, we were this company. I said, that's does blue blockers. I said, it's gonna sound cheesy.  We used to make fun of them and stuff.  And because you guys both are like huge tech guys, I'm like on the same way or I'm on my computer late at night, I'm like, do something as simple as that. One time purchase, you do that. Make a habit of a good sleep routine.  Yeah, there's some methods that really do have some impact like that. Right. Well, the best bio hacks that work, that give you the most effective, you know, result or not the bio hacks themselves, but rather the bio hacks that improve your ability to get better sleep, eat better or exercise better. That's, those are the bio hacks. So blue light blocking glasses. First off, if you're on a computer all day long, there's definitely some benefit in the blocking of the blue light by itself because it can fatigue the eyes, can cause headaches and maybe some damage. There's some evidence that there may be damage from long-term exposure. But the sleep effects, it's not the blue light blocking bio hack itself. It's the fact that it helps you sleep better and then the benefits come from the sleep. Well, that was the point. You see what I'm saying? This is the point that I was making with them is like, before I'd went to the blue blockers, the thing that the conversation was going was like, they just like to buy these things, like stuff they want to try out. I'm like, listen, go after your diet first, your exercise consistency and your sleep and stress, right? I said, those four things, like manage those first. And if you want to buy something, I was like, if you want to buy something to try, I'm like, that's where I pointed in the direction of blue blockers. I'm like, try these, make it a habit that as soon as the sun goes down, you put them on, regardless if you're going to be on the computer or TV or not, just get in the habit of that routine and report back to me on what your sleep feels like. Yeah, that's, I mean, how I feel about all these kinds of products. If it allows you to then, if you have barriers in front of working out or moving, like you have all this pain that you have to address before you can even like try to get into like mobility practices and all these types of things. Like that's where tools, I do, you know, lean into that and recommend people kind of venture into like self-malfast or release and like these other techniques and things to alleviate. So that way you can now put yourself in a better position. So you can find some of those like biohacking techniques that do have value. And the bee venom thing is kind of interesting with that with arthritis, but that's really, you know, like they do a good job of like kind of showing the extremes of it and where it's like not going well. And, you know, what another version of venom actually that I found was interesting, they were using snake venom to actually lower blood pressure. And so that's another valid thing that they're testing. So you died. Right, isn't that weird though? He died, but look at his blood pressure. Through the floor.  Yeah, exactly.  Bio-reduce stress. Right, or you know, that's exactly, that's the best way to use them. In and of themselves, look, I have a buddy right now who is trying to conceive. And, you know, they were trying for about seven or eight months and finally they went and got tested, got the fertility tested. And his test came back that he was, had a very, very low sperm count. Okay, so first thing he does, he sends me a message.  So I'm recommending certain herbs and stuff.  Let's talk about that for a second. So talked about sleep, talked about diet. So I convinced him to try changing his sleep and improving his diet. So now he makes it a priority to get good sleep, whereas before he wasn't, he was just wired all day long caffeine. He's one of those like go, go, go kind of guys, very successful guy. Wasn't taking sleep seriously. Now he started having a sleep routine an hour before bed or two hours before bed. And he's prioritized that. His diet has changed a little bit. And in, what was it, 45 days, his sperm count increased by 20 million. Just from that. There's no, there's no herb that's gonna do that. There's no supplement that's gonna do that. That's gonna have that kind of an impact. So it just goes back to- You summoned the whole army there. Yeah, what? You summoned the whole army there. Yeah, speaking of shows, did you guys get a chance to watch that social dilemma yet? Dude, that was good, bro. Yeah, so Courtney has literally deleted Facebook and Instagram after watching and I was jealous. So I'm just a little upset that I couldn't get like an apology from you guys because I mean- Because you're Adam Attler?  And to the point where I believe I've been teased quite a few times about it. I haven't heard Joe Rogan mention it not too long ago. I know just like a couple of weeks ago. Now everybody's talking about it, right? Joe Rogan mentioned it first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, there's proof. There's a recording of me talking about that. Oh, there's plenty of proof. Yeah, there's lots of proof.  And also, by the way, so what I liked about the social dilemma is the book IGIN does a lot more of that where it gets into the statistics, the analytics and everything like that. So, but man, it's wild what they are capable to do, man. Well, the thing, so as I'm watching it, I'm trying to check myself, right? I'm watching it and it definitely will invoke some fear because social media does a very good job of amplifying human behavior and human, what's impulse? It does an exceptional job of doing that. Oh, it tracks all that. It does a very, its job is to do that. In fact, it's trying to gain your attention.  And nothing does that better than conflict. Conflict or fear or wow or what's going on. So what it's doing is it's just amplifying human behavior and human impulse. And what that does is it tends to radicalize people. And you're seeing this, right? You're seeing people become more and more extreme with their beliefs, but here's my problem. My problem is that they blame social media. That's like blaming capitalism for greed. Like these are human behaviors. It's a tool, eliminate it, we'll create another one. That's gonna keep doing that. So the only solution is for people to become, it's like processed food. People still need to be aware what that is and how they're profiting off of it. Well, not just that, but be aware of your own behavior and what's that, it's like processed foods. Like, oh, let's blame processed foods. Should we ban it all? No, you gotta make the choices yourself. So I still stand by what I've said since the beginning which is like, it doesn't scare me. It doesn't, I don't blame social media or I don't look at them like they're evil. It's like, that's their job to keep you engaged to make more money. I mean, think about this, like I don't know about you guys but when I'm watching like, we do this, okay? So why Facebook leads are so successful for us is because they are targeted with these algorithms. They have the ability to go, oh, somebody who's trying to get abs, we have the ads that we give a free guide away to these people and you can clone an audience of the type of people that would be reading this material and Facebook has all that analytics because of that. I mean, if you were to take away this tool, we would hurt unbelievably. I mean, it would crush our business. You know, and I tend to agree with you guys like most of the time, but I do see an inherent problem with young minds, young impressionable minds that don't have barriers and walls of manipulation figured out yet that they're totally using and abusing. We used to have this for the way that you market and to kids and things on TV and all those walls are being undercut and knocked down because this is where they're hanging out. They're hanging out here and they're getting fed all this bullshit constantly because this is what they're following and now the algorithms figure out how to then radicalize the ideas of these kids and I have a very big problem with that. Yeah, well, again, the genie's at, it's like this is like any innovation, the genie's out, right? So we are the ones that are responsible for our kids and our own behaviors. Being aware is a big one. Like you can navigate the world and not be, like for example, right? We have a world that's designed to keep you sedentary because that's what we want. We wanna not do stuff, we like to relax and also have this really convenient, tasty process food all around us. That means that a lot of people are gonna be obese but you can still choose to live in a way that prevents that. It's just a choice, it's harder, it's just a choice. So now we have this social media, these AI algorithms that continue to keep your attention and what they do inadvertently is they continue to radicalize or strengthen extreme ideas. So conspiracies, fake news, you can see this with politics, both sides have actually become a little bit more extreme because that's what gets people's attention. And it's interesting, there was a quote in that documentary where they said, I don't remember who said it, it was a really good quote, something like human progress consistently teeters between complete self-destruction and progress and it made me think of the Cold War. Like we invented nukes and we got so damn close with destroying ourselves and then we didn't and we became poor. This is what happens when we live like somewhere so progressive, right? We're always gonna be stretching the limits on things. And I think part of what we're going through right now, the feeling that we have and definitely like the feeling that Justin is speaking to is we're really finding out right now. So I think that it's no different than when we really understood how bad cigarettes were for you. Well, that's the thing, okay? So we had the guy on the show that was like basically like the tech advocate which was making a really great argument about putting the responsibility back on the individual. However, we've seen how this has played out and this is not something people are picking up on. Like they need more information, they need more education to be able to combat what is already a really strong pull for people and they're playing and praying off of people's tendencies and weaknesses like and they're not even aware of it. I get where you're going because, and here's the thing too. And I was drawing the parallel to cigarettes where it's really not because your kids are giving iPads in school now. They're giving these tools, they're encouraged to use these tools. They've got shows on the streaming television or their iPad. So it's different than like marketing alcohol or cigarettes to them where there's other barriers to keep them from getting addicted to that where these tools are encouraged. They're encouraged at a very young age. And so I can get where you're coming from, Justin, that it is a little scarier when you think about children with it. Like as far as grown adults, like it is your responsibility, just like processed foods.   Well, the other thing too is it's an easy and prime way for outside players to manipulate the American public. It's very easy. There's another factor. Yeah, which is, it's actually quite easy. It's easy for a foreign government or terrorist group or whatever to pose as a business, to post articles, to radicalize people to, you know, to- Start protests, you know, just online with groups. It's already happened. Yeah, it's documented. It's already happened. And so what, to me as I watched this documentary, what it really made me think of was this tool because it connects people so much, right? Now we're really connected. We can hear each other, we can read each other's opinions and comments and we can share articles. They could go viral, you know, overnight. It's going to amplify humanity. So I think we have some options here. There's almost like, there's like two roads here. We're at a fork on the road. Let's amplify humanity. Well, that means there's some good. Right. And then there's some nasty that we can amplify. And so it's like, we need to wake up and decide which direction we're gonna go. Yeah. And also you gotta be aware, this is a big one for me. This is one I'm constantly challenging myself with because I know just how powerful it is is I'm constantly challenging myself and thinking, am I being manipulated right now? Am I, why do I feel so strongly about this article? Or so, is this real? Is this true? Or is this just another narrative? Or am I being? I'm not speaking on just on everybody else's behalf. Like this happens, I was checking myself on posts and things that I was getting drawn into and why I was starting to feel visceral feelings about certain things. And it's like purely just praying off of like what they see is like things that I'm afraid of or like some things I don't agree with or what I don't like. And so Courtney's like deleted this and I've been asking her the past few days like what have you thought? Like what's your experience so far? And she's like, I'm a lot more prone to just, you know, when I get bored or think of it I text one of my friends and I say, hey, how are you doing? And then we get in a conversation and it's real. And there's no third party in there trying to pull you in any direction. It's like you're just having a conversation with your friend like it should be. So like tell me the weight of social media versus all the other tech innovations. I don't see any value in it. Yeah, Jessica got rid of hers too. She got rid of her, this is before the documentary got rid of her Instagram. Oh, I didn't know that. Keeps it active because she has like she was running her business through it but does it has the app off her phone completely off Facebook for all the reasons that this documentary talked about. She did this a while ago and she noticed the huge difference. She's like, my anxiety is lower. I feel I don't have my body image is better because obviously when you're going on you're seeing body. Well, back to the quote you said. I mean, I think that's, we're just in that time right now. We went so extreme, everybody accepted it that it's all good. And I think more and more information is coming out and presenting itself. And I think you're gonna see the pendulum will swing back. I don't think we're gonna see more and more people getting addicted to it, abusing it. I think that I think people are becoming more aware and more people are doing that. I mean, I did the same thing this weekend. This weekend I completely set the phone down completely just like was off, I was off text everything. I was just like, I'm up here. I don't wanna do anything. I don't need to work right now. There's always work to be done. I don't wanna be on social media. I'm just gonna put the phone down and just leave it in my room and just socialize with the people that I'm with. I think more people are starting to do that. Like before it was so new. It was so amazing that you could connect to these people all over the world and there's all this information that you can be fed to you all the time and it's information that you like to read. And I think people are starting to realize that it can be manipulative. So it's now like, okay, I've gotta learn to self-regulate. But I do agree with you, Justin, that the area that concerns me is kids.  My biggest concern. Because we are, I mean, a lot of schools give iPads and where we're at right now with education, they're telling them to get on there and they're telling them to use that for Zoom. Well, even YouTube, like, you know, my daughter will watch YouTube and we put it on the kids friendly one. But still there's an algorithm that'll recommend another video and another video. And it's these algorithms that start to push you. Yeah, and YouTube has that. Well, I thought that was cool on the show. They did talk about like, okay, how do you kind of as a person, how do you hack this? So you don't get, you know, stuck, cattled into an area, right? Where you're just getting biased. And they said once, you know, one strategy is never click on the videos that are recommended to you and then always go out of your way to either follow people or look at articles and like articles that are opposing. With a counterpoint. Yes. I do that all the time. Opposing, opposing. You have to do that. If you do that, then you, the, cause it's a computer, it's doing it. It's, I mean, the show made it sound like there's like. Like there's people that are like, oh, Sal. You could just like puppies all day long. And then that's all, the only thing that's convenient for feed. Right. So it is really like you could control that and like sort of flip the script, but people just need to be aware of that. That's it. And that's, and so I think that's a big way that I think people can already start to, okay, I'm not going to completely pull myself off of social. I use it for business or I like it. So, and, but we've talked about this. I mean, I purposely do this. I purposely will follow one page and then find an opposite type of page or I'll read an article and then I'll try to read an opposing article. And I've done this now for a long time. It actually is, can feel painful because especially if you read an article that you really agree with, finding the opposing article, you almost don't want to read it. It's true, but I do it on purpose. Here's what, here's an exercise. This is easy. This is easy for the audience to try this. Open up a tab to CNN and then open up a tab to Fox News and just toggle back and forth between them.  That's why I like that. You can hear the complete opposite story. It is the most fascinating thing. It's so fascinating because you can clearly see different narratives being painted.  And you know what though? Again, this is why it's so great to be in this country though, like we're not the first people to recognize this issue and then you have companies that see an opportunity to create a better business and like the newsletter flip side, which aggregates that for you, right? They grab information from the left and from the right and present both of them and then they have like a kind of but in the middle synopsis of it, right? So I think that, you know, I don't know, I have faith in our humanity. I think that overall people sort of put pieces together. I think we're at a really strange time right now when it's like, I mean, no doubt in my mind, we are more divided today than we have in any other 39 years of my life. And I think it's crazy because the whole message is about unity right now and we're trying to, you know, that's like what the big message is right now behind BLM. And I think I look at all this and I'm like, this is crazy because I felt like just five years ago we were way further along than where we're at now and a lot of that is because of social media and it's polarizing us. And I see it in my own family and friends. You know, the people that are on the left have dug their heels in more. The people on the right have dug their heels on it even more. Well, you know what's interesting is that if you actually look at the statistics, the both political parties that have, they're solid base and the way that they judge this is by people who are gonna vote that way no matter what. Essentially, that's your base, right? That's your strong base. Both the left and the right, their base, if you combine them, is less than independence. People who don't, who swing between either party. So it also may be one of these things and social media does a very effective job of doing this. It tends to amplify the loud voices and create the perception that maybe it is more polarized but the reality may actually be it's not. And the fact that it may be more quiet people sitting around going, this is crazy. In fact, I thought it was a documentary but maybe it was another article I read. They actually had the analytics on this and it's the data. Both parties. If you look at the, okay, so if you, and they've done independent studies, if you look at the Republican party and moved over to the right a little bit, if you look at the Democrat party, it moved over a lot further to the left but more voters today call themselves independent than ever before. In fact, you can't win an election without winning a decent chunk of independence. So for example, when they do primaries, if you have like a bunch of Democrats trying to win the primary to be the Democrat elect for, to run for president, they, the way they campaign is way more extreme to that left base than when they actually doing the general election because now they have to appeal to- Everybody. To independence. So it may be one of those things. I mean, look, if you follow fitness, if you follow fitness on social media, what does it look like? It looks like everybody's ripped. Everybody's fricking jacked. Everybody's having beast mode workouts. Like I've worked in gyms most of my life. That's not the truth. That's like- One or two of those guys. Maybe, like a month, you know? Well, they just come in and out. Yeah, yeah. You almost never, they stand out. They're just posing.  It doesn't look like you see on social media. Well, since we opened up the can of politics, did you guys see basically like Joe Rogan, who was it, Donald Trump was asking to see if he could get like a host of debate? Yeah, so Rogan interviewed, I can't remember his name, dude. He was that fighter, he's in- Oh, Tim Kennedy. There you go. Interviewed him, great interview, but he brought it up. Yeah. And Rogan's like, I would love to host a debate, a three hour discussion between Biden and Trump. Never would have. And Trump immediately tweeted out, yeah, I'm down, make this happen. Never would this happen. I know. It would be a three hour unscripted discussion. There's no way. It would be amazing. Yeah, no teleprompters. Yeah, let's do this. It would never. Why, why, why not? Why not? Yeah, dude, like this is the era of long form. You know, like let's talk about all your ideas.  Okay, left or right or in the middle, you gotta lose respect for the guy that's not willing to do that. Yeah. Well, they know that. Come on. You gotta be confident in your ideas. Politics is about winning elections.   Like I wanna know exactly like where we stand with both their ideas. They would get, okay, first of all, Biden would do terribly. He's just not doing well speaking right now. He's having a hard time. Trump would probably do better, except Trump would also.  He put his foot in his mouth. That would definitely, it's just too risky, but I would love it. Are you kidding me? A real debate? Give me some popcorn. Not a pretend debate, but like a real one. It doesn't have to be a debate, just a conversation. I would love a three-hour dialogue about just everything, you know what I'm saying? Just let them talk about their views on all kinds of different policies and just let's hear what they have to say and how they feel. I think that'd be great conversation. Oh, that would be amazing. It'd be the most viewed debate of all time if they did that. Oh, yeah. For sure, but they would never know why they would let it. So, you know, Sal, you sent over an article, I think it was yesterday that I read. I think it was regarding Peloton originally, but it goes into just like the future of fitness. I think I read, this was like two or three months ago, I shared on the podcast that 23%, I think is what it was that said that they will never return to the gym. People who work out? Yeah, so they'll never return to the gym that another quarter said that they're uncertain. I think that number is now creeped up to 50% of the people are saying they'll never go back, dude. Even as they're opening right now. Yes, and that, well, that case, you know, that article that Sal's in there, you know, just talking about that, we may be in the middle in the fitness, in the fitness space of a new era, just the way fitness is done differently, like maybe the gym boxes are gonna just, ultimately die or become very much like these private spa type of places, and then most people. So massive change is gonna happen for sure. Well, okay, so part of me, look, I grew up in the gym business, I ran big gyms. So I have a lot of friends that own these companies. And so I love them, but the model for a long time was not a great one.  They rely on people buying a membership and not coming. Because if everybody showed up and they had a membership, they would not be able to service all of them, they have to shut the doors. That's how many members they have, and that's how many people who don't go to the gym. It'd be interesting to see that statistic of what exact percentage, like I think we have ideas because we were in it for a long time, but I would love to see that because this time with COVID and everybody being home and looking their finances and these economic uncertain times, like I bet there's a lot of people that have actually kind of calculated, I was paying that gym membership for like 15 months and I didn't even go, but one time. It's only $10 a month, yeah, but I don't use it. Yeah, and if you do the math on that, I could have bought a squat rack and a barbell and some plates and I could just have it in my garage. Like why wouldn't I just do that? Yeah, I mean, I see that as one market too. I also saw another article about like grocery stores and how everybody just hates the experience.  I'm not going anymore. Well, I mean, so, because okay, back to the fitness, right? What you saw with the fitness space, because again, we've been in there for a long time, what did we see? We saw big boxes explode. This was the late 90s, early 2000s. And then you saw creeping in small boxes, high service, high dollar, low volume boxes.  So it was already kind of, there was already some shifts happening. I mean, when we started, when I started at 24 in 1997, back in 1997 in all club membership, which was only 100 clubs, I think at the time, 120 clubs. Now they had, I don't know, 500 or whatever. It was 45 or 50 bucks a month, and it was like 400 bucks a joint. This was in 1997. Towards the, before the pandemic, I think you could get that for like, a third or a fourth of the price.  And this is like the final nail. It totally reflects the, what I talked about in the marijuana industry the other day. It just, everybody started to open their own gym. You got boxes open all over the places. You got CrossFit, so you got everybody that wants to be a gym owner in the last decade. And then it was a race to the bottom of the prices. Everybody undercutting how cheap they can make. You got places like Planet Fitness with $10 a month. So now it's got the place where you either got to be able to compete with Planet Fitness with most private clubs are never going to be able to do that. So what it will do, it will open up the opportunity for like the small spa-like experience. The smaller box that really caters to their 500 members that come. You're going to be $150 a month, $200 a month for real nice gym. And everybody else going to work out at home. I mean, fitness tech is exploding. So it's not like the market demand for fitness is going down. People still want to work out, but you have companies like Peloton, we'll see Russian. This is what's interesting. Cause I thought for sure like a company like Equinox would be like all in, you know, with the higher value, like less people coming in, giving them service and all this.  So they're speculating, you know, we just need to keep reinforcing that side of the business because this is just going to last.  Are they really, are they shut down still? As far as I know, that was their plan. That was their marketing plan. Wow, that's scary, dude. That's a big move to go from being a brick and mortar and then to completely shift over to digital is would be hard as fuck. Yeah, it is going to be interesting. Cause again, I do see physical facilities that are smaller with higher service. I see those thriving. I don't see the big boxes, the huge, you know, old school, 20 bucks a month. Have either one of you guys talked to Scott lately? I haven't talked to Scott in a couple of months. No, but their doors are open right now. They are, they're open again, but I do know that they've gone hard in the virtual side. So I know they've, but they're trying to do both, right? Which I think that, I think that's what you have to do. Kind of have to. I think the ones that will make it will be these smaller boxes that give you the spa very personal feeling. And then in addition to that, also provide a virtual side. So you kind of have the best of both worlds. Like we have, we can compliment the, for you to be able to train from home, maybe with your personal trainer with virtually. And then you also have the facility when you come in, which now allows you to travel and still have access to your favorite gym. And then in addition to that, when you're in town, you can come into your gym and you pay this flat rate. That's going to be a premium rate. Like you're saying, Sal, that'll be a lot more money, but the service will be much higher. I just don't see a gym staying alive anymore between the prices of 10 and $60 a month. It's just not, it's not feasible, especially with where we're at right now. No, especially where we're at right now. Yeah, I think it'll take about, it'll probably take a couple of years to get at, get that at least that feeling out of people's bodies and minds, even if everything's open back up. I mean, what are you guys, with my friends, my family, this is the, what I'm feeling of course, that's completely biased because it's just my small network of people. But I've got quite a few people that have moved to Peloton or moved to getting a gym inside their garage. And a lot of people are loving it. I don't, I have a, I have a much smaller percentage of people that are like, man, I'm, and don't get me wrong, by the way, I miss going to the gym. I miss the workouts. I'm on the guy out of all of us that said, I like that the most. So there is a part of misses, but I've definitely gotten very used to training at home. And I think that a lot of people have too. And there's some perks to that. And the people who will go back to gyms are the hardcore people. I would, you know, I like working out in gyms. I wouldn't mind going in there, risking it, washing my hands, wearing a mask doing the thing, trying different machines. But the average gym goer is not that hardcore about it. If they could be active at home, they would, if they're consistent at all. That market, again, it was shaky to begin with with their model. So you, it's like, what is the last straw on the camel's back? Yes. I think you're right in terms of it being like the small, like high end experience or the small dungeon type experience, right? Well, speaking of which, you know, Jillian Michael, she got coronavirus, right? You guys heard about that? No, I didn't know that. Yeah, so she got corona, I guess she got better. And then she does this tweet or whatever, talking about warning people to go back to, don't go to gyms, it's a bad place, you could get coronavirus, which is terrible for her to say, cause that's not where she got hers. She got hers because she had a close friend of hers over her house who gave it to her. So she gave, but she, but she does this thing about don't go to gyms cause they're dangerous. And I do want to make this point. So far the data shows that gyms are not places that people get sick. In fact, they're one of the more safer places where people can congregate and not get ill. They're doing a phenomenal job. And I don't think they ain't she got better. I don't believe that the facilities are so much safer. I think it's a bias of people that go.  And if you're going to the gym right now, you've fallen probably the hardcore category, right? So these are probably people that follow a diet that probably train consistently, who've been itching for their gym to open. You take those people, following rules, keeping mass on. And then now the gyms, like separating everybody, washing everything down. I think because of that, we're gonna see very little cases pop up, which is silly why they're not opening it for those exact reasons. But I don't think it's necessarily a safer place. I can't imagine running, breathing, lots of people breathing heavy in a closed, hot, humid type of box would be the most, you know, the safest place for you to be. I just think it's the people that are going there are less likely to have- That's probably why. And you're less likely to go work out. If you don't feel good, the last thing you do is you wanna work out. You wanna go to the gym. Yeah, you ain't trying to do that. Anyway, I got a DM. I wanna address something real quick because it was a good question somebody asked me. They said that they're on a diet, they're trying to cut. So they cut their calories, but they're afraid that they're nutrient, that they're not getting enough nutrients now because their calories are down low.  When you cut your calories, you do lower your nutrient intake. And so there's a couple of things you could do. One, that's what I told them.  Or this is one of the subsets of the population, I think a multivitamin might be beneficial, especially if you're going through a period where you're really cutting your calories low, either doing a long fast or you're a competitor, because it is hard for some people, especially if you're active on top of it, to get enough micronutrients when you're eating 1,400 calories in a day. So- What would you say, I mean, do you have it? I know it's gonna be very individualized, right? Like, do you kind of have like a number? Like if you were training a client and they were on a diet and they're at a certain calorie intake? Because obviously, okay, the guy who, let's use me for an example, 5,000 calories, I'm cutting for a show, I'm now dropping to four or 3,500 calories, I'm still getting plenty. Like I didn't take- You're eating whole natural foods, animal meat, eggs. I'm not taking a multivitamin at that time, but- No, when I have female clients go below 1,500, especially if some of the ways they're getting their 1,500 calories is like rice and the same kind of stuff all the time. Then I'll recommend- Then I see more value. And then for a guy under 2,000 calories, especially if they have good lean body mass, sometimes I'll recommend a multivitamin.  Now, because of that too, is this where you would ever put somebody potentially on like a BCAA if their protein intake is low too? Like if you're cutting 1500 down to 1500 calories, sometimes it's even hard not only to hit your micros, but even your macros. Yeah, but rarely, right? That's usually vegans.  You could get 110 grams of protein and have a nice ratio. Still stay under there. Exactly. First question is from 713 Clown. I've heard some trainers say that they are anti-plank due to them training bad posture. What is your opinion on that? I like this question. Who picked this? I did. Good question, because this is, I mean, here's the thing. I can defend either side here. So I'm not a fan of the plank for most people either, unless I'm teaching it, right? So if I see, if I see my, I used to see trainers teaching it, right? That work for me all the time. Most of them don't do it right. And most of them don't. Most of them it was just, it's just a way. Very commonly misused exercise. It's an easy kill five to 10 minutes with your clients, but not really do anything. Like that's really what you see. It reminds me of when trainers, either they would do the plank or they'd run outside for laps or they'd have them do the wall sits. Yes. You have nothing left to do. 100%. I've got 10 more minutes. It's totally reminds me of three lazy training moves. Exactly what I think of right with it. Now that being said, Sal did a great YouTube video on our Mind Pump TV channel about an active plank. And you should read the comments. There's all kinds of people that it flipped, everyone flipped their lid because of what he's teaching there. But I stand behind what he talked about 100%. And that's where you do like more of a tilt with your pelvis in order to activate your abs and your core. So it looks like you kind of have this little bit of a crown or around it back, which to the average person, those that doesn't look right. I've seen these other planks where they look way more flat. But then the problem with that is almost everybody, I'd say 90% of the population has somewhat of an anterior pelvic tilt to where their butt is kind of sticking and they have more of an excessive arch in their low back. And then you go in a plank position and gravity is literally reinforcing those forces right in that spot. Exactly. So for that reason, I don't like the plank generally speaking. But if you train it like an active plank or like what Sal taught on the YouTube channel, then I'm totally pro at it. Yeah, I don't like when trainers say things like, I don't like that exercise because it trains this pattern. Depends on who you're training. Okay, so, okay.  Yeah, of course. That means it's an inappropriate exercise for that person. Done properly and combined because you're not just doing one exercise. If you're working out, you're not just doing planks. I could also say don't bench press. That's bad for bad posture too. But you're not just bench pressing in your workout. You're doing rows and you're focusing on scapular mobility and it depends on the individual that I'm training. Very rarely do I tell a client never do an exercise unless they can't perform it properly. They don't have enough mobility, enough stability in which case will avoid the exercise. But if they can do it properly and it's part of a good program, it's much more complex than just looking at the exercise alone and saying this isn't good because this encourages whatever. In combination with other movements, a plank can be awesome. My favorite way to use a plank is with advanced clients, I like to combine it with another exercise in a superset. So I like to do a plank and then move to like a physio ball crunch or vice versa. That can be real good. With beginner clients, it helps me teach them how to control their pelvic position. And nine out of 10 times, they do them off their knees. Most people can't do, they don't have enough strength to control their pelvic position in a full plank.  Well, in that regard, I use the plank a lot of times as like a transitionary type of exercise for people that don't have the type of strength, especially in an extended plank position where I want them to do pushups. And a lot of people can't maintain the proper form there and have their core drawn in and everything else activated to support while they're doing pushups. So I find value in that in terms of slowing down and really emphasizing just the stability portion of how they should be feeling it and where they should be feeling it as a teaching type of an exercise. But there's places for it. It's all in how you program it for sure. And I do like the version that you teach on YouTube much better as opposed to just going for the flat plank that's gonna reinforce a lot of positions there in the lower back. Well, I think that's the problem that some trainers have with it is when you understand what the purpose of the exercise is and then you see how most people do it, you go like, okay, that's defeating the purpose. So then it makes it sound, it seemed like, oh, that's a worthless exercise or you shouldn't even do it because like Sal said, it reinforces these bad patterns. But yeah, if you learn how to do it properly, then it doesn't defeat the purpose whatsoever. So it can be a phenomenal exercise. It's just that most people do it wrong and it's harder to take a client who you haven't, you haven't really taught, we talked about this on a podcast the other day about like training people and from what do we consider intermediate, beginner or advanced, right? Like as far as like where their skill level is. And if I have a client on an exercise like that, it's really hard to cue somebody how to get into that position. They're gonna default to like their bad patterns right away. So that's where it's challenging. If you're a good coach though, and you give good cues to get them in there, which is again, why I like that video that Sal does because that cue is teaching them what they need to kind of engage the entire time. And once that person learns an active plank really well, they can do a more traditional flat plank because they know what muscle they're trying to engage versus showing someone here, get down on the plank. And then just hold it. Yeah, and then just hold it, you know? Cause then they're just holding with their hip flexors. They're just, and then that's why they can do it for nine minutes, you know, in that position. Cause they're not really activating their core. Next question is from health coach Liz. An ASM teaches flexibility training before strength. You guys have said you train your clients for strength first, so now I'm confused. Okay, so I think I know what they're asking here. Okay, so static stretching before you work out and lift weights, usually a bad idea. And here's why. We gotta look at the details. When you hold a muscle in a static stretch is like I go down to touch my toes and I hold that stretch for 30 seconds or I'm on the floor and I stretch my quad and I just hold it in that position for 30 seconds. Those are static stretches, the old school PE stretches that your teachers would have you do. Does any ASM teach that? Well, stability is their first. So I was gonna say, is this person correct here before we start defending? But I think I know why they say this. I think they're a little confused. So I'll get there. They're addressing the imbalances first. Yes, thank you, Justin, exactly. So look at the details. Again, so you're holding a stretch for a long period of time. What that does is it tells the central nervous system to weaken its signal to that muscle. So if I hold my pec in a static stretch for 30 seconds or 60 seconds, and this is why you actually get longer ranges of motion. If you're holding a stretch for 30 seconds, you notice it starts to get deeper and deeper.  So you lose connection. Now, why is that not good for strength training? Well, you don't wanna go into a strength training and work out with your muscles partially turned off. That can cause problems, can cause instability, and could cause injury. However, there are times when this may be appropriate. This may be appropriate when antagonistic muscles may be getting in the way of proper form. So in layman's terms, let's say I'm doing a row, which in the row I wanna bring my shoulders back and I wanna squeeze that mid-back area. But my chest is just so tight that I can't get proper form. It's just getting in the way. So it's hard for me to act. I'm already weak in my mid-back, but now I got these tight pec muscles pulling me forward. What can I do? If I static stretch my chest before I do the rows, my CNS weakens the signal to my chest, allowing it now to get out of the way a little bit so I have better form. This is what you're seeing in NASM. They're teaching you to static stretch muscles that may be tight that are preventing. To get into optimal posture. Yeah, better. I don't even like using static stretch here. It's corrective stretching. So, and that's the difference, right? They're both static holds, right? They both fall. But they're doing it correctively. But they're doing it for corrective purposes so you're in a better position when you go to exercise, which is what we do with mobility, right? So when you are maps prime, this is what maps prime is all about. So in a perfect world, you're not just running anabolic by itself or performance by itself or aesthetic by itself. You also have prime to compliment it and you take yourself through the assessment. So in a perfect world, you go through the assessment in prime and if you haven't followed the webinar that Justin did, it's free, you could watch it. I highly recommend it to everybody, especially if you don't have the program. What's the URL for that, Doug? Is it prime? Mapsprimewebinar.com. Mapsprimewebinar.com. So the idea is that you go through that, you assess yourself. During that assessment, it's going to help point out the areas that you need to work on corrective stretching. And then your idea is to do those movements, those priming movements that we tell you to do in maps prime based off of how you pass or fail, your assessment, that then becomes your staple corrective stretches you do before you go into training. We talk about priming and mobility because it's more of an active stretch and NSM still uses kind of the older model of static. We evolved past that and that was where we all kind of started out but really like mobility training is strength training. So that's the difference in terms of like, gaining access to different ranges but you have strength in those ranges. So it's not just about attaining this passive range of motion which you get from static stretching which theoretically you can open up the ability for you to then get into better posture which is going to perform better movements. This actually takes you through that process of teaching your body how to acquire and recruit strength within each angle of that range of motion. And so that's why I've actually preferred mobility training and I'm completely abandoned most static stretching and really static stretching for me like if I use it at all would be at the end of my workout. Dude, priming is, you can't even compare proper priming to the old ways of corrective stretching before you work. There's no comparison. In fact, we just got tagged in the forum by somebody who they listened to us talk about on the podcast all the time, didn't really buy into it, finally did a real priming session. And they're like, this is their quote, totally has changed my perspective on priming and I'm gonna prioritize it each time I work out because they noticed just way more connected to the workout. It's just a much better way of getting your body ready for your workout. And that webinar that he did is free by the way it's mapsprimewebinar.com. Go on there. Just do me a favor, try it out. Try it out. It doesn't cost anything. He literally teaches you how to do it and then go do a little workout and see how you feel. I'm really curious where this person is getting the flexibility because it's been so long since I've looked at NASM, right? So I pulled up, I know their OPT model, right? So I pulled up their five step OPT model and they don't start in flexibility. It's phase one for them is stabilization endurance. Stabilization endurance. Yeah, stabilization endurance. Then it goes into strength endurance. Then it goes into hypertrophy and then it goes into maximal strength. Then it goes into power. The only way I think that they would, they talk about it is what we said. Right, right. That's the only way I can imagine that they would even recommend that because, I mean, And that's through their squat assessment where they, yeah, they'll recommend certain corrective structures like you mentioned. That's literally it. Yeah, they want stability, which is strength training. They want to get your joints fortified so that way you can build on top of that. Next question is from Chai Latte. What correctional exercises would you recommend for clients with knocking knees? Knees. Okay, so if you're just a normal person listening to the podcast, you're interested in health and fitness and you want kind of a general idea of how to correct poor form or movement in yourself, here's a good rule of thumb. It's not failed proof. This is not like 100% every time. A trainer's always gonna be able to do a better job of this with you. But if you're on your own, here's just kind of an easy way to figure out how to correct a problem. Strengthen the opposite movement, okay? So if your knees go together, then you could technically correct it by strengthening your knees going out. So like clam shells would be an exercise. Any kind of abduction, that's when you bring the leg out so you could get a resistance band attach it to your foot. Leg swings. Leg swings with no resistance. Like do the opposite of what the problem is. Strengthen I should say the opposite with good form by the way. Because sometimes you can fool yourself. If your form is wrong, you may actually be making the problem worse. So with perfect form and that's kind of an easy rule of thumb to follow to figure these things out. Now if you wanna take it a step further then you could go hire a trainer that tends to be expensive or if you wanna kind of go in between then you could do like Maps Prime or Prime Pro where we take you through assessments and then you can kind of figure that out for yourself. Yeah, I think that 100% what you said will at least help, right? It may not completely fix the root cause. That's the only thing, right? So knock knees even strengthening the antagonist muscles like you're talking about right now with two walking leg swings. This will for sure help that issue. But if the root cause is related to the foot which is what I would say that it is 80% of the time. You've gotta work on that. So a lot of times this was when Dr. Brink like blew my mind cause just as a trainer when I saw knee stuff I almost always went to the hip. I don't know why just wasn't taught well. All of us did. Nobody talked about the feet. That was like in every certification that you do that. Yeah, so when I met with him and he just picked me to pieces and the first thing we started with was my feet and it just made so much sense to me too.  It's like, it's very, I'm serious. That's a T-shirt. Right? W-A-F. W-A-F.  I'm gonna get Max one that says that. That's actually a cool idea. I'm gonna give him a shirt. Picture of the bottom of his foot. He's got like a six pack. No W-A-F, no W-A-F here, right? It's true though, it really is. And it's actually, I talked on the show and this is a major focus for me with him is because we do, we throw them in shoes very early then we stay in shoes our whole life. Like we never really develop our feet ever. Unless you're some kid that grew up on the farm and didn't have shoes and ran around the dirt and stuff like that, you probably have pretty developed feet. Everybody else, not so much. And so when you have an area like that that's ground that's responsible for connecting you to this earth and they're weak, you know, they fold in, they roll out, one tilts more than the other and that's what we get here is you get a foot that collapses inward, pronates in and that ends up knocking the knees and internally rotating the femur and it ends up causing knee pain, hip pain, even low back pain all because of this if we don't address it. And part of the fixing is definitely what Sal said and then the other part is most likely related to foot stuff and then you need to address it. And all this is in Maps Prime Pro.  I'm really connecting to that and I'm enhancing that stability and that portion of, you know, what I want my leg to stabilize and control. And then I see that in my lift improve.  Yeah, it was such a great experience when we met with Brink because it was in our space, it's fitness and it was something that we were all completely ignorant to. We didn't even know that we didn't know. Yeah. Okay, so it wasn't like, oh, I know the feet but you know, there's some stuff I don't know. I didn't even know to look there. I'd never been taught, never did. Everybody I ever trained wore shoes in the gym. It wasn't an issue, I looked at the hips, knees, elbows. You can see the wear and tear on their feet where they're holding the most pressure. It was so crazy because once we started paying attention and understanding, I cannot unsee it now. Now if I see someone in sandals or barefoot or even my own feet, I'm like, wow, they are so deformed because of our shoes and because we never walk barefoot. So it's one of those, it's so many things happen from the feet. Unfortunately, in the free webinar that I did, the Prime Pro one, I didn't address feet and wrists just because in our Prime Pro program, we address every major joint and it would have been way longer than an hour. Camera zoom on your foot. And I don't have, I don't have- You got the prettiest one ever. I don't know, I don't know. I have a special toe. So I don't know if I have the prettiest feet. I think Doug has the prettiest feet out of all of us.  Oh yeah, they're nice for sure. Have you been looking at everybody's feet? Yeah, I see everybody's feet. Come on, I'm the guy who paints his toenails. Of course I see everybody's feet, you know what I'm saying? So, but my point was that this is all in Prime Pro. So when you talk about corrective exercises, when we, I mean, two of these questions are related to this, corrective exercises, setting your workout at priming, assessing, like, that's what those programs are all about. Like it's, everybody ideally should own those or have those in their library and utilizing them as either a tool that they intermittently go back to and refer to whenever they have issues or the bare minimum with Prime and assessing yourself so that you can set every workout optimally for yourself. Next question is from Maul's Fit. What do you think about float therapy? You know, what an interesting experience. I've done it now maybe four times. We did that one time. And we did. Together. Yeah, not in the same. Not in the same tub though. Yeah, we were in the same tub. Yeah, yeah, yeah, clarify. What's touching me here? It's so, okay, for people who don't know, float therapy, you lay in, you know, temper, it's what is it, body temperature, water. Salt water. Highly, yeah, lots and lots of salt. So you literally float on top of it.  Is it a pod or something? It's a pod, you close it down. There's no light, no sound, and you're floating. And essentially it reduces or it's trying to eliminate all sensory that's coming into the brain.  It's an interesting experience. Yeah. It's definitely like meditation. It's very similar to meditation. When, for me, time flew. Once I got settled, it was like weird that an hour passed by. It felt like only 10 minutes. Then when I came out, I felt like my CNS was reset. In fact, I was a little sensitive. Yeah. I was a little sensitive to light. The light is right. Yeah, like sounds were really loud. Yeah, it was interesting. Cause it really does like just, it takes out all those, the excess like stimulus. Like you don't even realize you're taking in every day and you're always worried about, you know, looking out to see if somebody's over here, over there.  But if it forces you, here's my opinion on it. If it's a great way for you to, and again, we talked about this at the beginning of the podcast, biohacks, right? The reason why I think this is, this may be a valuable biohack for people, isn't necessarily because the float tank is magic, but rather because it may be a way for people to shut off for an hour. Well, there's a reason why it's making a comeback. This shit's been around forever. It's been around since what, the 60s and the 70s, right? The 70s, yeah. Yeah, it's been around forever and it was not popular at all 10, 15 years ago. It's popular now because back to the intro to the show was talking about tech, man, and how addicted everybody is to it and plugged in all the time. It's just stimulated. Yeah, we are like overstimulated all day long. And so to take you and put you in pitch black, dark, floating, like suspending, feeling like you're in space, like it feels, that's what it feels like, right? If you could feel like what it feels like to be like an anti-gravity, it almost feels like that where you're just floating out, you don't feel the edges of it. And with no sound, no light, no anything for an hour, when was the last time you did that? You don't even do that when you sleep at night. I guarantee everybody listening right now in your bedroom, you've got a couple red blinking lights or green lights or your phone or a little bit of the light creaking in for them. Plus there's a difference between being unconscious and quiet and being conscious and quiet. It's very different. So when you're in the float tank, you could fall asleep, but a lot of the time you're not, you're just consciously quiet, which this is a practice. Everybody should do it one time. Yeah, I feel like it's training wheels for meditation. Like there's people out there like me that have a hard time blocking everything out, being conscious of your breathing and being able to control it. Obviously that's a practice and you have to keep doing it constantly to get good at it. But I think this is like a tool. I could look at that as be like, oh, here's what it's supposed to feel like. And I got something out of it. Well, okay. So when I look at the time it takes to do the float and the cost, in my opinion, I think your better value is massage. I do. I think laying down quietly, having someone work on your body. Oh, well, those are awesome too. Human, get human touch, a good therapist, I think will give you, unless you're somebody who doesn't like it, I know there are people who don't like massage in which case, fine, do something else. But if you don't mind it, you like the touch.  You're not connected to your phone. Stimulus is down, but the only stimulus you're getting is good stimulus from the quiet music and the person massaging you. I think that could be more valuable. That's an interesting argument. I think they're way different. Totally, but I mean, if you do one or the other, which one do you think's more valuable? Yeah, I mean, I definitely think you, I think you should do both at least one time to see what it does for you, right? Cause I think both of those things can be like life changing.  And the same thing goes for float. I mean, some people will experience it. Some people will experience it and be like, ah, whatever. Other people will experience it and be like, whoa, I'd never been that deep into my thoughts in so long. And I think that part of it, I think is very valuable. So I think everybody should at least try it and go in with a timer. Done talking.    That's all I have to say about it, go do it. So look, Mind Pump is recorded on video and audio. If you like listening to us, imagine how you're gonna feel when you get to look into our faces. Gorgeous. Go on YouTube, check out Mind Pump podcast. You can also find all of us on Instagram, including the king, Doug, he's on Instagram too. You can find him at Mind Pump, Doug. You can find Justin at Mind Pump, Justin, me at Mind Pump Sal and Adam at Mind Pump Adam. I prefer doing wood shops with bands over cables any day of the week. And it's because they're smooth, they're harder at the full twist and they allow me to do them a little bit more explosively, which I feel is so much more functional. Yeah, way less clunky than even a cable, which is, you know, something else I use a lot for these rotational type.


Okay, so, um, I might have done something silly, I uh, so, okay, my November video, the poll for that has already gone out by the time I'm filming this and it looks like they want me to do a video on Twilight clones and how those works, because you know, around 2008 up to like 2012, 2013 was just a huge influx of a bunch of young adult romance stuff that was all trying to ape on Twilight, you know, all trying to catch that exact same audience, that exact same market niche, whatever you want to call it, and there were, there were just so many of them, you know, I've talked about it a little bit on this channel before and, um, just even before the video won the poll though, I am endlessly fascinated by those things, you know, there are tons of those that just follow vampires and there's tons that follow werewolves and there's tons that follow, you know, fairies and wizards and immortals, which are kind of wizards anyways, but, you know, and, but they always follow the same formula or slight variations of the formula, it's a normal teenage girl runs into some sort of supernatural bad boy and then they fall in love and the thing is, I find these, even when they're bad, I find them endlessly fascinating because one, they're often a lot of fun to laugh at and two, they're just, analyzing them is fascinating to me. I love looking into it, trying to find out exactly how the formula is followed, in what ways it deviates and how it works, how it doesn't work and it's also just kind of fun for me to see, okay, was the person writing this, did they have some actual passion behind it? Was there a story that they felt needed to be told or were they just doing it for a paycheck? And anyways, out of all the creatures that they've done, like I mentioned, there were a bunch of them, the biggest was clearly vampires for obvious reasons, I think, but the second biggest, you might think are werewolves, but no, from what I've seen the second biggest is angels and that's why I have this giant pile of angel young adult romance books right here. Oh Lord. Yes, please don't fall, there we are. Actually, I should clarify, this one is obsidian and this one's actually about aliens.  I still had to check that out, but like these are all angel stuff and there are four entire series and then I have the first blue bloods book, which is vampires and angels actually. And as a bonus, I still have my copy of fallen here, which the whole series, you can see all the notes I made throughout it and sorry. And throughout all of these, like I'm saying, they're just really interesting to me because they're fun to laugh at they're fun to poke fun at, but occasionally I will find something in one of them that's good. Like for many years, I've been searching for the elusive twilight clone that I actually enjoy, like just unironically. I'm not saying it's perfect, but like unironically just enjoy from maybe not from beginning to end, but I'm putting too many qualifiers here, but I've been searching for the one twilight clone that I will actually just unironically enjoy. And even if I have criticisms of it overall, I'll still say I liked it. And if you're curious, here I have the halo trilogy, which this one's actually a little bit different in that it's a supernatural girl who runs into a teenage boy. So I don't know, that might be something. And I have the angel fire trilogy, which might have actual action and stuff. I don't know. And many of you were hoping I'd get to hush hush eventually. They're they're here. And then there is unearthly, which is actually I think this one is also a supernatural girl running into a teenage boy. So you know, there's some variety at the very least, you know, because the only twilight clone I found in the past that really deviated from the formula in that way was beautiful creatures. And even then the book still wasn't very good. The movie's good. I did genuinely enjoy the movie, like not even ironically or anything. It's a genuinely good movie. But the book's the book's boring. But anyways, these were not all of the angel ones I could find. Keep in mind, like there, I was just clicking through Goodreads a couple of weeks ago before I ordered all these and I found more. There are so many of these. And I think I'm not going to try reading all of these before I do my twilight clones video just so we're aware. There's no way I could. And even if I was, I would have to set aside basically everything else I'm working on in order to do that. Like I'm only a little over a third of the way through battlefield earth right now. And you know, I should be ideally I'll be finished with that one in like two more weeks. But I don't know. And then it'll be a little while before a video comes out. But anyways, all of these, I can't read them that quickly. I will probably go through them a little bit just as research for that video. But all of these I will get to eventually, just because I really want to find out what made angels specifically. So, well, maybe not successful, but why did so many authors all around the same time all decide, you know, let's let's do angels, you know, we don't want to just copy up twilight wholesale and use vampires. So angels like I don't know why they all settled on that around the same time. Because it's not like all of these were rip offs of any one starter, like fallen and hush hush came out, I think two months apart from one another. So they just they just all came out around this time. And I find it endlessly fascinating because not only the books themselves, but also the patterns in what people enjoy what people buy what people want to read and want to watch. That's also really interesting, because I think you can tell a lot about a society by the type of art they produce. And not only that, but the type of the way that they respond to the art that's being produced, like, do is it popular? Is it unpopular? Is it viewed as countercultural? Is it viewed as more of the same?  And you know, you can tell a lot about a group of people by that. And so as someone who wasn't really in the target audience for these, even 10 years ago, when I read some of them, or at least parts of some of them, like, if you remember back in my elixir review, which was Hillary Duff's book series, it's awful, by the way, but I mentioned that one, I did read a lot of Twilight clones or at least the beginnings of them. Because I would just go into Barnes and Noble and read like 50 pages and then get bored. But the thing is, I'm still not a, I still wasn't in the target audience. But I was searching because it wasn't like I came into these going, okay, this is gonna suck. I came into it thinking, okay, I want a cute romance. Let's see what this can give me. And I still haven't found them. But the thing is, I did get some experience with this, I don't know, movement, this subculture, whatever you want, whatever you want to call it. But I wasn't really immersed in it. You know, I wasn't someone who read the books multiple times, and then went on forums to discuss them, and then wrote fanfiction about it or anything like that. Because someone like that would be like really immersed in the culture. So I think by reading these, I can get a little bit more insight into that movement, and into, you know, the business world around it. And just in writing in general, art in general, society in general, you know, all that sort of stuff. So, and hell, if all that fails, I can still laugh at some of the stupidity in here. And so I don't know if there's really a point beyond that.  And I am eventually going to get through all of it and read all of it. Because I just genuinely like doing that.  I'm really not torturing myself.  And I just really wanted to get moving. But there's usually dumb stuff I can laugh at or something interesting where I can go, Oh, I kind of like that. So it's really not torturous. It's just it's something I like doing. I like analyzing stuff like that. So yeah, if you ever worried about me really, you really don't need to be. And just I don't know, look forward to me getting to these at some point in the future. Bye.


Contrary to what some people say, cooperation is succeeding in the Arctic. We're seeing continued cooperation on fisheries management between Norway and Russia, which is preserving the stock of fish in the Barents Sea. We're seeing cooperation on search and rescue between Russia and the United States, which is saving lives in the Barents Sea. We are seeing no armed conflict and only a small degree of military buildup, where in contrast, if cooperation was failing, we might see armed conflict. We might see significant military buildup. One thing that could make it collapse would be if Arctic governments failed to realize the importance and the potential for continued and increased cooperation. The other thing, of course, is that we could see a breakdown if there were armed conflict between NATO countries and Russia, let's say in the Ukraine or in Syria. If that were to happen, it would be difficult to contain. Hopefully it won't happen. I have several hopes for this conference. One is that the AHU's declaration that Professor Michiel Bos and I released about Hans Island will be taken up by the governments of Denmark and Canada. And I hope more broadly that this conference will provide some very serious social science and natural science exchanges on developments in the Arctic because of course understanding is the key to good decision making.


In the coming months and years, we'll be a full operational wing of F-35s with continued mission of the Weapon System Evaluation Program. One of the biggest things we have here at Tendall is the range space over the water. There's really no other place that we can replicate a modern pier fight. And that airspace, what the size of it is, provides us with the training venue that we can't really get anywhere else. Our system from airmen to weapons build, to weapons load, to weapons employment, whether it be in our operational F-35s will be here or in the test units that come through, that whole kill chain operates well in training because it doesn't operate in training, it won't operate in combat. We need to make sure that our airmen and the operators and our allies are confident once we show up.