Hey, you just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast now on YouTube. This is my pump. Okay? In today's episode, we talked to women in their 40s and the things that they need to focus on and we're doing a giveaway Okay, so here's what we want you to do and you can win a prize by the way Here's your prize you'll actually get a box of four Sigmatics mushroom elixir blend that includes a good dose of cordyceps I love cordyceps for improved exercise performance. Okay, so here's how you win this box right here In the comments in the first 24 hours Put down some stuff that has worked for you to get your body in shape things that are like game changers for you Now what Doug's gonna do is he's gonna look through all the comments And if so long as it's been in the first 24 hours of this episode drops if you picks your comment It's the best one will mail you this box from for Sigmatic one more thing before we start the episode You're gonna hear us talk about four things that women in the 40s tend to need to focus on in order to get into amazing shape They include lifting weights to build muscle and speed up the metabolism They include, you know, how to work with your diet intuitive eating a much better way to work with your nutrition Mobility issues how to work on your mobility to prevent yourself from getting injured and maximizing the results of your workouts and of course time demands how you can get workouts Anywhere not just at the gym, but rather at home or anywhere. You have a little bit of space Okay, so with that we have something called the fabuli fabulous 40 bundle This is bundles multiple workout programs that tend to benefit this particular category of people So in this includes maps anabolic an incredible program for building muscle and boosting metabolism We have maps anywhere, which gives you workouts that you could do anywhere Require minimal equipment or no equipment. We have maps prime Which will help you work on your mobility and then in there is also included the intuitive nutrition guide to help you with your diet Now because of this episode we're putting that bundle 50% off so we're taking the whole price which is already discounted by the way and we're cutting it in additional 50% off If you want to learn more if you just want to sign up go check it out at maps fitness products calm and then use the code Fab 50 that's f a b 5 0 alright enjoy the podcast so I have a topic that I think would be good for us to talk about I think we've mentioned this topic like in like cause but I don't think we've done a full dedicated episode to The demographic that I think we train the most of so when I think back to all the clients that I've trained I Would say most of them so north of 50 60% fell in this category and that is kind of like the 35 to 55 Female that wants to get in shape normally wants to lose some body fat probably had a kid or two or maybe trying to have a kid Maybe even like a single woman that's working like in that age group with those types of goals I would say is was my biggest that was the most common client for sure for absolutely Women in their 40s. Well first off women in general were larger consumers of personal training and then in their 40s Once in the age group that was probably the largest so I would agree with you Adam I would say probably made up 65% of my clientele over the course of the you know decades to two decades that I trained now Why do you guys think that is why do you think that if we're all we all train in different facilities and we're you know But yet we all got the same percentage probably of this clientele What do you think well in general and I'll just this is just a just an observation in general women are More likely to ask more receptive for seeking out help. Yes. Yes, they're more open for professional assistance Whereas men, you know, you know how we can be sometimes, right? We don't want to ask for directions We don't want to look at the directions when we're put building something Yeah, and so men tend to be less likely to ask a trainer Hey, can you help me design a routine and then in terms of the age group? I think once you get to a certain point You a you don't have time to waste so you're like look I you know if I've been my 20s and I got all this expendable time Whatever I'll go figure it out. But look, I don't got a lot of time I want to do this the right way and then they have expendable income They're they're probably working more successful And so they it makes sense to hire somebody to figure it out to do it the right way Well, it's interesting too I wonder if we could go back and look at the statistics of you know when you get that five starter pack Oh when you're selling like memberships at the gym Yeah, like who actually was receptive to using those because I know I remember I used to open up and try and Walk the floors and convince a lot of the guys and a lot of other people to You know take advantage of that but not a lot would but I would be able to convince Oh, I could give you an idea of that I don't remember the exact percentage of that but it was it was very rare That so what Justin's talking about back in the days we used to sell these memberships That they wrapped five personal training sessions within it. So it would uh, you know, they would Sell it was a prepaid membership so you key fit plus. Yeah, there you go It was a key fit plus is what they called it and it was you know It ranged from I think I remember seeing as low as maybe six seven hundred dollars to as high as like $1,400 and you were prepaying three years and then you had an annual renewal And then what the business did what my 24 fitness did was they wrapped You know about three hundred dollars worth of personal training within that price point And so and the idea and the thought behind that the when the what the company knew it was so brilliant was the Life expectancy of a a client as far as their their business right returning If somebody who actually met with a personal trainer if they saw a personal trainer They were more likely to continue on beyond three years far more likely Yes, and if they did not see a personal trainer, it was much more likely they would fall off within months And so they got really smart and said hey, let's give this great membership deal away Let's include personal training to encourage them to do it now Because the consumer saw it as free because it came with the membership. They didn't realize they were really paying for it That's the way they structured it There were many people that didn't take advantage of this They had three four hundred dollars with a personal training But then they never even used it and I'll tell you Justin since a lot of my job was centered around that And trying to get these people in and getting my trainers schedules full Almost all of them were men. It was very rare That it was a woman that fell in this category that we're talking about right now They almost always took advantage of it for all the reasons that I think sal brought up I think that At all of us men and men and women by that age, you know, you're north of 35 getting in your 40s or in your 40s Much more self-aware Your life your lifestyle has changed, you know You're probably at a place where you've either had kids or you have a job where you're sedentary a lot of time You're not as physically active as it used to be So and you've maybe even have tried Dieting several times or different things on your own and it probably failed or maybe had a little bit of success And then it came back on and so you got a point in your life because maybe you have some income Like you said sal and you're like, okay I'm at a place in my life now where I want to seek out professional health and women are just more likely to do that Right in investing in a trainer or getting some good instruction It's a tremendous amount of value. I mean I would say it's you know For every dollar invested you probably get back five dollars and in benefits in both health and You know how you learn how to work out and train yourself And I think you you don't realize that till you're a little bit older. Maybe a little bit wiser now I mean to be clear There's a lot of misconceptions too about people in their 40s One of the misconceptions is that you're because you're in your 40s, you know What do they say 40s over your over the hill, right? That's the old joke you buy those birthday cards I remember when I turned 40 people bought those for me like it was a lot bigger deal I felt like you know when we were younger like when somebody turned 40 that you get this like This crazy party that that was like all over the hill all doom and gloom No, and this and this is the truth now 100% now I did train women in their 20s and 30s I of course more in their 40s and older The most fit women I ever trained Or the ones who got the best results were in their 40s That's just the fact if I got a woman in her 25 years old and a woman who's 45 More often than not the 45 year old was consistent would take the advice and was very serious About the workouts and I can't tell you how many women I trained in their 40s Who after working out for a certain period of time would say that to me They'd say I've never been this fit my entire life. Never. This is the most fit I've ever been Now I have a theory to why that is though Like I I think that of all the demographics of people that are interested in personal training or exercise and fitness They are are marketed to the most and they've had the most bullshit fed to them As far as how they should train how they should diet what they should look like and just wrong Yeah, just all of it wrong. Yeah, the first starting with the image of what someone fit looked like 20 years ago Right covers of magazines were these anorexic looking girls So already this the skinny anorexic image was what was promoted just 20 years ago Then you add in the idea of Yeah, aerobic classes in this these group high intensity. Don't lift weights. That'll make you look bulky. Yeah, there was nothing but Videos like I remember that was a big part of it, right the aerobic videos like it just kind of took The landscape landscape by storm And so you get a lot of like that was like the the conception of of training was basically like doing all these like calisthenics and aerobic type workouts and this is why I think our release I had a lot of success With this age group and and this sex was because I think they had been told so much bullshit That once I got a hold of someone like this It was like, oh my god I have so much to teach you and help you with you know i'm saying like there's So many things that you've been told that is not true That i'm going to be able to help you out with that will really make a difference And again, there's a lot of misconceptions that your body all of a sudden because you're 40 Is just going to respond terribly to exercise and the reality is this it's not that big of a difference From when you were 30 it really isn't there's a difference But it's small and it pales in comparison to the difference that happens from proper training proper sleep proper exercise And discipline which in my experience women in their 40s Crush compared to women who are much younger probably because again, they don't have time to waste They've been marketed a bunch of bullshit And by the way, this is why women make up the they're the consumer base for most products Most product they are the consumers for most things including in most households are the health ambassador Right for most for for fitness and health women are the are the big consumers james figured out this a long time ago james used to make no money And then they figured out if we want to make money we got to sell to this consumer base And then they came out with all this bullshit to and lies that they would sell to women This is why women get marketed so heavily to And and again and also why there's a lot of bullshit that gets sold to them And I think you're right adam when they come to when they when they're ready to work out in their 40s They've gone through All the other crap already and they're at the point now where they're like, all right I'm done with all that and what really works. I I'm I'm I'm consistent. My kids are a little bit older now They're going to school. I got some time or I don't have a lot of time to waste but the time I am in the Dedicate I'm going to be serious about this and the results tend to blow and as like I said This was one of my this was one of my most successful categories of clients Well, I think you need to go a little bit deeper into the statement you just made because there's 100% I know there's definitely a handful if not lots of women that just heard what you said and said Fuck you. It is much harder for me at 40 something than it was at 30 and 20 something. So And we've all felt this before I feel this today It feel it feels hard, but what I I'm aware of Is that it has less to do with my age and it has more to do with my behaviors established patterns Yet at 40 years old versus my behaviors at 20 years old Right, like if you like let me put it this way. So if I just to give you an example I'm gonna use obviously general like if I had a client who was a woman in her 20s Versus one who is in her 40s the one in the 20s Feels like they can get away with a lot more. They're not usually not as Nearly as serious or disciplined unless they're a hardcore athlete. It was pretty rare So they're less consistent. They're less Open to the right kind of advice and what I mean by that is the right kind of advice means It's going to take work. It's going to take a little bit of time Typically people in their 20s don't want to hear that. They're like, oh really? It's going to take me that long or I got to be all no, I don't want to take this diet pill All right.  I'm going to do what you're telling me. So when you compare the difference physiologically and how your body responds in your 40s to 20s And you compare that to discipline exercise diet sleep Guess which one makes the biggest difference by far, right? It's all those things that I just talked about It's not the age and again, this is why go into any gym in America Go into a gold gym go into a world gym go to a 24-hour fitness The most fit women tend to be this is true in their 40s. And would you guys agree? No, no, I I agree for all the other reasons we talked about but This leads me to where I really want to go with this episode, which is I want to talk about, you know And in particular, there's four big things that big rocks that come to mind On specific challenges. Yes specific challenges that That would normally occur with this demographic that I would have to overcome or help or we'd fix right because I know again There's you know, a lot of ladies that are listening to this right now that are in that age group that hear you say that And they're no matter how many times you try and explain the science to them. They're going I know it's harder. It feels harder. I can tell how much harder it is right now for me But there's I think there's an explanation for why that is there is and I now I do want to say this Because I think it's good to give people some context right or some some parameters of what Because I would get clients that would come to me and they'd say, you know, I want to be fit. I want to look healthy But they don't know specifically what that means. They know if they see it, but they don't know what that means Like what does that mean body fat percentage wise? What does that mean with my body? Oftentimes I'll have a weight goal. So I'll say, I think I need to weigh 130 But I mean gosh, you could weigh a certain weight and be I mean I I weigh about 200 and I don't know 215 pounds I could be obese at 215 with a lot of body fat or I could be very lean with a lot of muscle Both look very very different, right? So I think it's important to kind of paint that picture Most women in my experience are very satisfied With the way they look with a range of body fat that's anywhere between 18, which is very lean To even as high as maybe 26 27 percent body fat, which isn't super high But it's but it's it's up there, but it's also lean ish and you got some good curves you So there's your range and most people are happy most women out there are happy within that but with the following strength Muscle good posture and good movement when you add that to that body fat percentage range Most women are very very satisfied in my experience and to back to your point the reason why this matters is because a woman at 145 And uh 18 body fat looks a lot different than a woman that is 130 and 26 percent body fat or 30 percent Right So you need to understand that that the the scale and what you weigh Because you're right a lot of of these clients that I would get would be oh, I want to get back to this weight You know, they have a weight that they remit They they have this image of themselves at a point in their life Whether it was when they were teenage or 20s or 30s whenever and they and they know that like I want to get to that weight And so I'd always had to be overcoming that listen I I could keep your weight right where you're at right now and build you the best body you've ever had So weight doesn't matter so much. No, I had I've told this story before I love this story. It was actually One of the more effective sales techniques that I had as a gym manager So one of my jobs as a gym manager was to get people Into my club and convince them to obviously sign up for a membership and get personal training I knew the value of personal training. I was a trainer for for years and years and years And that's not necessarily an easy task. There's a lot of myths and stuff that I have to and I also had integrity I'm not going to lie to people like a lot of the fitness industry does by you know Telling them crazy numbers of weight and whatever and so I had this amazing Just this technique that I had where someone would come in woman And we would talk about her goals and oftentimes she would say something like, you know Oh, I want to lose weight and I'd say how much and then I'd say what does that put your body weight at? And they'd say, okay, that's very interesting. Give me one second and then I would on my intercom I would page. I had a female trainer that worked for me. I'm thinking of one in particular I I'd paid her to my office she'd walk in and this young lady who worked for me was about five She's about five two And she looked phenomenal very fit right very very strong very very fit and I ever come in and then I'd ask the potential member and I'd say How much do you think she weighs be totally honest that she's totally fine with whatever number you put out there And they'd say something like oh, she looks like she weighs 105 pounds or like 110 pounds. I say, okay I had a scale in my office. I said now check this out and I'd have her stand on the scale And she'd weigh I think was like 135 or 140 pounds and it was my way of showing them That lean, you know dense muscle looks phenomenal and looks very light She weighs a good 20 30 pounds heavier than you thought and yet she looks like she weighs what you think so So what's important is the body fat percentage what's important is to build a strong physique For more than just looks by the way, not only do you look amazing But you also are now have a much faster metabolism because then I would also ask this question to my trainer my female trainer What do you what did you eat for lunch today? And she would usually say something like I had a super burrito or I had you know Half a pound of steak with a you know two cups of rice or whatever But like she eats like a lot of men do but she burns it because she's got all that muscle Well, it also supports, uh, you know just daily function. It supports activity You know it it helps to eliminate a lot of pain and aches and and things like that when when you replace This body fat with with muscle tissue, you know, that's something that actually like promotes, uh, you know a lot better type of, uh, you know abilities down the road Well, so you just mentioned what I think is the first hurdle that I'd have to come over which is the metabolism Yes, so and and I think there's multiple reasons for this, but this would be the first thing that I'd have to address Um, can we get your body or or which we we can Let's get your body to burn more calories on its own versus what you probably think you need to do Which is burn more calories? Yourself through exercise, which is a losing strategy. This is a fact by the way Trying to burn calories through exercise as a way to get leaner is a losing failing strategy We know this studies have proven it. I've seen it in the years. I've managed gyms This is not an effective strategy. Here's why I'll just give you an easy way to explain it An hour of intense exercise may burn you anywhere between 400 to 500 calories, and I'm being generous here Okay, about 400 or 500 calories It takes the average person 10 minutes to eat that many calories You know 400 500 calories So it's a lot of work to burn that many calories very easy to eat those calories And in order to burn those calories, you got to do an hour hard working out every single day or more sometimes twice a day Why don't we instead Train your body to burn more calories on its own So you don't have to do tons of work to burn these extra calories And the best way to do that is to build strength and build muscle Well part of this hurdle too is this so never did this ever happen Did I ever have a client that came to me female client in this age group that wanted to lose lose fat Never did I ever have someone come in and go and I assess their diet And they're eating McDonald's three times a day and Oreo cookies for dinner and ice cream And they're consuming four or five thousand calories a day and they go adam help me out that never happened In fact, what actually normally happens almost always Is I I get them and they're like they show me what they're eating and they're only eating 1300 1800 maybe 2000 calories 30 grams of protein for the whole day yet very low calorie But yet carrying 30 40 50 pounds of body fat on them that they want to get rid of And they're just at a place in their life where they're like, I don't I don't understand Adam I'm at this place where I you know in in their defense. They don't eat bad Right, they don't eat what quote-unquote bad looks like for us, but they're not eating fast food They're not cramming ice cream. They're not drinking like crazy. They're not big sweet eaters They're just in a place right now in their life where their metabolism has slowed down so much That anything outside of the chicken salad that they were eating a day would end up piling body fat And that's normally how they feel I'd always ask them that I say, you know Do you feel like you eat really good and then every once in a while you enjoy yourself and you feel like it sticks to your body Right away the big yes Yes, that's exactly me and that's caused From excessive yo-yo dieting for so many years.  This is the truth now when you look at women and you look at women over the age of 40 40 osteopenia Which is bone mass loss. This is what happens before you have osteoporosis your bones start to weaken It's actually quite common by the way Uh osteopenia is connected to loss of muscle if your muscles are weak and you don't have much They anchor and hold on to bone your bones get weak one of the best ways to reverse that in your bone Is to build muscle. In fact, it's the best way if you want to strengthen your bones just get stronger muscles So there's your clue. This is what's happening to you. So you're 40 You've had or you're in your 40s You've now had I don't know a decade or so or longer of a lot of inactivity You know, maybe you you work at a desk. You probably work at a desk You don't really do a lot of physical heavy lifting In your day-to-day life. You're busy, but sedentary your body adapts by reducing muscle Well, or that or you've also done a lot of on the wagon off the wagon Yes, you've done a lot of like because you might hear someone might be listening right now going like no, Sal I'm not lazy that also right. I've definitely I definitely train harder. I love this orange theory class Or I've done these things But what they end up doing is the the classic yo-yoing where they're on the wagon Low calorie extreme working out for months at a time then fall off the wagon look at look at the study Studies of women who do lots of cardio and look at them in osteopenia and here's what you'll find Let's say you're a runner You did lots of lots of lots of running because you found that that you you read that that burns a lot of calories The bone mass in your lower body will improve a little bit the bone mass everywhere else doesn't Okay, cardio vascular activity is not a it's better than nothing But it's not a great way to strengthen bone and it's also not a great way to strengthen muscle Endurance type training requires little muscle that is efficient with calories So over the years if you've done either either your sedentary But like I said earlier or you do lots of cardio and cut your calories Both of which result in loss of muscle mass Again, they have studies on this that show that women that men and women both When they diet and do cardio and they lose let's say 20 pounds More than half of the weight that they lose is muscle mass The body literally is adapting to slow down its own metabolism So one of the biggest problems that you're gonna that you're probably encountering If you're a woman in your 40s looking to get in better shape is reversing the loss of muscle that has happened What is the best way to do that lift weights traditional resistance training straight sets compound lifts? I had so so many times I would get a female client in her 40s who's worked out in the past right then all the cardio Done the aerobics classes died at this and that and then I have them in working with me and I'm like Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna we're gonna squat. We're gonna deadlift.  Here's what would happen to me. I can't believe how good I'm feeling Why am I getting leaner? I feel like I'm eating more and I'd be like you are eating more You just have a faster metabolism. My god. My butt looks really good My I feel so confident my body and I'm like you're stronger and you have more muscle metabolism stronger Also, like the hormone issue like when you're in that state for so long think about what that does to your hormones And disrupts all that and the out of balance and out of whack I mean we go through the list of like sleep, uh, you know nutrition and also like exercising Those are major major factors to to getting you tilting you off axis of your of your hormones Yes, so to give you so if I were to categorize, uh, the more popular forms of exercise If we were to look at cardiovascular activity and compared to resistance training Cardiovascular activity is anti tissue. Okay, so cardiovascular burns lots of calories while you're doing it for a catabolic Right, it burns lots of calories while you're doing it and it teaches your body or at least the adaptation Your body tries to to to move towards from it is to become more efficient with calories Which is loss of muscle mass lots of lots of cardio over time with nothing else Especially with the reduction in calories results in loss of muscle mass. Okay Resistance training is pro tissue pro tissue pro active tissue The main adaptation from resistance training is building muscle. What is required to build muscle? Not just calories and yes, you'll be able to eat more so you have a faster metabolism But what's also required is balanced hormones your body through the process of telling it to build muscle in men You see a boost in testosterone in women You see the balancing of estrogen and progesterone in the other category of overdone cardio What a what a wonderful way to get your hormones out of whack in fact The most of the women I've trained and worked with who also Concordantly worked with a functional medicine doctor at hormone issues Oftentimes one of the reasons why the hormones were out of whack was the abuse of the wrong form of exercise This is this is how we've been labeled. Okay as anti-cardio guys Sure We've been labeled at that from this podcast because we've been touting this for a very long time now And this is the reason why so if you've been listening in it's the abuse of cardio And it's this is because this is the majority of people we help We're all three of us different gyms different careers Yet we all agree that this is the the masses. This is this is the most common things we saw That's right This is the majority of people that are seeking help that are trying to better themselves that are in the gyms Working out that are listening to podcasts like this that are seeking out this information And that's why we talk about this all time. It's not because we think cardio is bad It's not because we think that we don't understand the benefits of it It's because we know that 90 percent of the majority of people that we train It's not ideal for them for the situation. They're currently in yes So cardio acid activity does have some health benefits But if you're the like most of the clients we worked with and let's say you're a woman in your 40s And you want to improve your health and fitness get leaner Focus on building muscle. By the way, I said it was protissue The side effect of the protissue is the anti fat aspect of it because as you build muscle as we said earlier The metabolism speeds up and the hormones move in a direction that reduces body fat How you get more insulin sensitive women's estrogen and progesterone balance women's testosterone levels start to regulate Yes, women do have testosterone and it is important in women as well for things like libido confidence and drive All those things start to balance out to make you a better muscle building Fat burning machine. So the way the cornerstone of your routine should be Traditional resistance training and this was always the very first thing that I would start with with a woman In her 40s. Now, there's another part that we need to talk about which is which is mobility loss of mobility now Before you go to mobility, there's still another part of the weight training That is because there is a there is a percentage of these clients that I would get that were weight training Okay, that weren't just cardio bunnies. They understood the benefits of weights But they still have been marketed to the wrong way They have been still pushed in this direction of either circuit training or high reps because low way cardio with weights Yes, basically exactly exactly. They've been they've been pushed in this. Yeah, but I don't realize that hit training direction Or don't do heavy weights because that's going to make you big and bulky So there isn't another portion to the loss of the loss of muscle here Or the not and they're not building muscle is for that reason Just because you're holding a dumbbell or a barbell or a resistance band does not mean you're doing Resistance training the way that we're talking about because you could use a dumbbell in a way that makes it cardio You could actually use a dumbbell in the way that makes it yoga You know there is a specific way to apply Resistance to build muscle speed up the metabolism sculpt the body and balance hormones So workout programming is very very important when it comes to resistance training. It's not just using weights It's using weights in a specific way to accomplish what we had just talked about Now to the point that I was talking about with mobility Mobility issues are a bigger problem with people in their 40s and as they get older 40s 50s 60s 70s becomes a bigger issue But it's not necessarily because the body is aging But rather because you've had longer time on this planet to develop poor movement patterns, right? So you've been sitting for longer. You've been sort of locked in your ways. Yes, and this is what we've noticed And this is something i'm always fighting like oh, I feel old I like grown just to like tie my shoes anymore But honestly, it's just because of the the daily things that i'm always doing I'm always doing things in front of me and if i'm not You know aware of that and and i'm not like going through Types of mobility drills or things to help my joints, you know inevitably my body's going to form into those positions And it's going to make it more, uh, you know efficient the way that I do things Yeah, and it's just you have a longer time on earth to injure yourself or to deal with these types of things, right? So your longer time to be wearing heels heels cause movement patterns that can cause problems Longer time that you've been sitting at a desk that can cause certain issues Now why is it important to focus on mobility?  That's it. You're done. You can't go to which by the way statistically This is what is most common that happens of somebody that joins a gym So one of the main reasons why someone falls off besides Hitting a plateau is within that first four to six weeks. They get hurt. They get hurt They get hurt. So that's number one, of course, but there's more than that So let's say you're somebody's like look i'm not going to hurt myself. I'm careful. I don't need to work on mobility Well, here's why mobility is still important Your lack of mobility or your lack of optimal mobility prevents you from Maximizing or getting the most out of the most effective exercises So I named a few earlier right like a a deadlift a squat or an overhead press If your mobility prevents you from getting all the maximum benefits of that exercise You're just not going to progress as fast and oftentimes people in their 40s or women in their 40s This is the reason why they can't do some of these amazing exercises It wasn't because the exercise was oh, we're not doing that exercise It was because I would take them through an assessment We do a deadlift and say, you know what? We need to focus on your mobility before we can have a lot of limitations You know in front of that Yeah, I can't I can't have you really deadlift in a way that's effective yet Because we need to improve our mobility or I can't have you do these overhead presses And really push them yet because we have to work on mobility So mobility is very very important because it becomes something that can prevent you For maximizing that little bit of time that you have that you can spend In the gym, I feel like this one of all the points is is the least sexist I think it it carries over to men. Oh equally the same It's more this is more to do with age and time Right just the longer that we neglect this when we're in our 20s all of us even trainers are sitting here right now Get away with the love or guilty of this I'm guilty of training in my 20s and not addressing any of this stuff because it was this it wasn't loud enough to stop me Right and I was too stubborn to put any sort of energy or effort in this direction because I was so focused on the way Look, that's what I cared about and then when you get into your 40s I don't care male or female This is no longer an option to ignore anymore.  I didn't sat sit down as long But now that I'm 40 I've been sitting down for 20 years at my desk. That's a huge cause problems That's a huge point. I think people don't realize like You know earlier like when I'm in my 20s or like I'm going through school there's a lot more opportunities for me to get up and And get involved in some type of movement or be involved in a sport or you know, just something like extracurricular Uh, where like every day I'm going to be doing something with my body and expressing a lot of these muscles There's not a lot of opportunities for that as you get older And when you and when you're training the one of the worst things that you can do is Because you have shoulder issues low back issues hip issues wrist issues Is avoid specific exercises because of that because it is only going to make that problem worse I was literally just just and you just did a a wrist mobility thing the other day And it was such great timing because I have a client of my female client of mine that falls in this demographic that I was Helping right and I know she's got all this wrist if she's had surgery on her wrist And a lot of times that she doesn't like the deadlift and stuff because it bothers her wrist And she wants to avoid certain exercises and I'm constantly harping on her like listen You've got to do this because you cannot Avoid these mobility exercises because you don't use it you lose it Yeah, and and what you got to understand is you Eliminating these exercises which are such Important good exercises for us to be doing because it bothers your wrist is not the answer The answer is we need to address the lack of mobility that you have in your wrist You need to do the work before you there's a ripple effect to that. Yes So now yeah, you limit that that goes up the kinetic chain now It limits like a lot more movements in the future. Oh, yeah, I mean to use an extreme example You know, I remember working with people in much older age categories 60s 70s and 80s And I had a physical therapist in my facility and we would work very closely And I remember the therapist made a point about this She said look she would tell these these people because we would work both work with with them together I'd be the trainer.  So mobility is very important. So resistance training should be the cornerstone of your routine to build that muscle boost your metabolism But a piece of that should be to maintain and improve your mobility So you can maximize the effects of the resistance training and prevent those injuries now the next hurdle that I think is common And again, this one I think is both men and women But for sure I feel like I dealt with this the most with my female clients Especially the ones that are Riding a household to maybe have kids also working and trying to juggle all this and I feel like My my moms and the and the women I train always put everybody else Before themselves, you know, I think women you're just born with this this empathetic soul already where you know, they take care of the family So studies actually show that that even when there's a husband and wife that work The wife still does statistically far more of the stuff at home When when they would come to me and tell me and when I was an early trainer I was a young trainer. I didn't take this very seriously Right, I didn't take it seriously until I had kids myself and I could see that the struggle or whatever But they'd say things like I don't have a lot of time I don't have a lot of time To come into the gym and work out all the time And then I would do the whole like spiel that you do when you're an inexperienced stupid trainer like oh time We all have 24 hours. You got to prioritize your time if you get fit and makes everything else easier blah blah blah Totally not empathetic or understanding of what they were going through later on. I figured out Oh, yeah, this is a big issue. This is actually the the realest issue I'd say the biggest challenge the other stuff that we're talking about is not nearly as challenging as the time issue And so then I said okay the the goal is to be to make your workout as effective as possible And to give you flexibility with your workout so you can be consistent when you can't make it to the gym To make it consistent when you are traveling for whatever reason make it as easy as possible to stay consistent And maximize the time that you are working out so that this doesn't end up becoming a huge roadblock for you This is the exact same Disservice that I did to this community is the same thing like and I feel guilty of it because in my 20s I was just as naive. I would do the exact same spiel it was always It was about you need to make time for yourself and and then I like and I make a good case By the way, there's truth to that. Yeah, I would sell it really well So I'd sell it really well that You know if you take care of yourself all these other things other people and things you're doing You'll only approve improve on that instead of being more empathetic about okay How do we how do we juggle this a little bit? How do I be a little more understanding that no matter how much I sell her on this idea I'm never going to get this Mom to put herself above her children or her husband that comes six days a week or five Right. Yeah, exactly and come to the gym those things are never so how and I wish I would have done this earlier on later on I learned to mold my programming where it wasn't it wasn't required that she came into the gym all the time Yes, I would have a foundation of this is what I'd like you to do But then I was also very realistic that there's going to be times when maybe I only get 30 minutes Or maybe I I don't have a lot of equipment and I have to give her something that she doesn't stop working on herself But she has something that she could do when her kid's napping for an hour or when she's got a 30 minute break The most effective strategy I had for this was giving my clients my female clients in this category Workouts to do plan b workouts when you can't make it to the gym because here's the reality Driving to the gym. That's time right there changing at the gym. There's time right there Then you get your workout You've already killed 15 20 minutes Maybe even 30 minutes before you start your workout and now you're somewhere else You're not at home where you need to find somebody to watch the kids Maybe you can put them in the kids club, but that's not open all the time So so what I would do is I would give them workouts that they could do Anywhere at any time right here's some exercise here's some routines Here's band movements bands are really really convenient because you could travel with them They take up almost no space and I'd give them great workouts And then if they they're like look man today was crazy or the sitter cancelled I can't go to the gym. That doesn't mean I don't have to I don't I don't work out I could work out right here. I could work out at home Such an effective strategy and it dramatically increased the consistency that these clients had with their workouts And it's very important. Here's one of the things about about working out and being consistent It's like a it's like a snowball going down a hill If you're consistent with your workouts consistent consistent, it's easier to stay consistent when you're consistent It's hard to stay consistent when you stop for a second. It's like the momentum has been broken Well, a lot of it too. I mean we over complicate the entire process And I know there's a lot of trainers out there guilty of that too and like promoting that within their clientele of like You know, we got to accomplish all these different movements all these different things, you know And wrap it all in the workout ends up taking like an hour two hours long Where, you know, you get in a predicament like this They need to know that there are just a few simple like biggest bang for your buck type movements and things that you can do Pretty much anywhere and that's still going to keep the momentum going in the right direction That's definitely our fault and our egos of our camps, you know, that's like one of the worst parts Well, you think everybody's a fitness fanatic like you are when you're a trainer and they have no They have all the time they're working at gym like you do which is just not true So this is a very important one. Okay, so if you're listening right now Understand you probably already know this that your time is precious and it's challenging to get lots of time just to yourself Have plan B workouts that you could do anywhere and make them convenient Usually bands are one of the best things you could do in these kinds of workouts because like I said I could store a full set of bands in a small duffel bag or in the corner of my closet And I can and they usually come with attachments that you could put in doors and stuff and there you go You have your resistance and you could do your workout easy Now the last hurdle I kind of alluded to it when we were talking about the slower metabolism because I think they do go hand in hand I talked about yoyo diet. Oh, yeah This is for sure the most common I brought up the fact that I don't think I've ever had somebody That was a female client in their 40s that was trying to lose weight that was eating three four thousand calories They were always Much lower than where I would like them to be and so that is one of the I think we talk about all the challenges This is the most difficult because it takes time. It does it takes time They've probably gone through a few diets themselves by this point, uh, you know, whether they be extreme diets Where they're cutting out entire food groups or even crazier diets I've actually had people come to me who've done hcg diets I don't know if you've ever heard of these but it's they inject hcg and they go and they eat 500 calories a day For for a certain period of time or whatever. So then they come to me and it's and now what we're doing is we're working on Okay, how can we change your relationship to food because here's a deal with nutrition and this is this is a big point here Your nutrition your diet should not feel like another stress Okay, so if you're trying to eat in a way to get leaner To improve your health and your fitness It should not be an additional stress because I promise you if it feels that way you will not be able to continue No, if you're doing something to make yourself feel better, but it makes you feel worse It's not good. You're not going to continue it, right? So your nutrition cannot be another stress This is where I start to work with people on, uh, things like intuitive eating where we start to talk about how do foods make you feel Um, how are you using food? Are you finding that you're eating in a way to distract yourself?  Um, can we create barriers between you and these behaviors? For example, I'll give you a great example. I had a client once who She chocolate was her thing. She was like a chocolate fanatic and she's like, man It's so hard for me if I have it in the house. I'm gonna eat it. So I said, okay, let's do this Uh, not having the house like already tried that but then I end up, you know, I want it around. I said, no, no I'm not saying you can't eat it I'm saying don't have it in the house if you want it bad enough You get in the car and drive yourself to the store and buy it make that deal with yourself And all we did was we created a barrier between her And that you know impulsive behavior and here's what happened She would get up and drive to the store and buy some chocolate sometimes But sometimes because of the process of stopping getting in the car or whatever It gave her enough time to pause and be like, okay, this is a bit impulsive I don't think I'm gonna eat it this time And it was a great way to get her to eat in a more healthy intuitive way When you do this through this process Nutrition isn't as stressful think of it this way If you're eating healthy because it feels good to you because you enjoy it because you're taking care of your body Then it's not hard and I don't mean hard in the sense that it doesn't require planning I mean, it's not hard in the sense. It doesn't feel like a stress Well, what's hard is that this is a slower process. It's a slower process And and what's really difficult is the client is coming to you at this point, right? They just hired you and they are they're willing to pay you money to help them get this weight off And that's what they want to hear they want to hear tell me what to eat How yeah, tell me what to eat how long until I can lose this 30 pounds or whatever And the truth is the the what you need to do with them is completely change their relationship with food And part of that process is actually not worrying about their weight It's not worrying about it If it goes up a couple pounds at this point because we need to get to a place where we're fed more You're already so low calorie And here's the other thing too We mentioned already the first and most important thing was for you to build muscle You can't build muscle on 800 calories. It's just you can't build it in a cut That you you need the building blocks you need the calories You need the protein in order to build the muscle to build to build the faster metabolism So it's you're you're fighting an uphill battle for somebody who's weight training strength training to build muscle But they're eating in a way to cut and lose what you're dealing with is your own psychology That's the challenge when it when it comes to nutrition. Okay, the challenge isn't the the mechanisms of nutrition But rather your own psychology. So here's a here's an easy tip.   It might be proteins and say to yourself Okay, here's what I'm going to do I'm not going to restrict, but I'm going to make sure a three servings of of of well cooked vegetables Or I make sure I'm gonna have a nice salad. That's really really healthy Every single day or I'm going to make sure I drink at least a half a gallon of water a day So you're adding things rather than taking things away Psychologically feels totally different. You're not restricting You're adding and here's what ends up happening through this process Naturally start to cut things out without even realizing this is one of my favorite things to watch You know watch the transformation happen because it's subtle It's something that uh, you know, they're adding like let's say it's a Broccoli or some kind of vegetable that you know, maybe they're deficient in certain nutrients in their diet It's just naturally their palate starts to change They start to crave different things and and they start to finding themselves longing for that feeling that they're getting from it Instead of hammering themselves for not, you know Going towards these foods that they they deem so uh, you know unhealthy for them This is such a key strategy and it's tough if you don't have a trainer, right? So you have to have the self-awareness to do this yourself if you're listing the podcast and taking this advice But I love what you're saying Sal because I I loved not telling a client You can't you can't have like sure you can have it But then what I what I made sure of is to have communication around that So let's say that person went and crushed that chocolate bar.  No What I am going to do though is say how did you feel afterwards? How did you sleep that night? How was your skin? How was the next day? How was your mood digestion? How was your all these things that food the stuff that you put inside you affects and help them connect that and then When they streak three days in a row of doing exactly what you just you guys both suggested which is You know increasing their protein or eating a salad a day or three servings of vegetables You know cooked vegetables in the day then I would say things like how did you feel? How was your stool? How did you sleep and then helping them make that connection of why they make that choice that's not related to their scale The weight going up or down or how they look But more so how their body felt how their mood felt how their energy felt helping them make that connection that Wow, when I fuel my body with these choices that it may be less palatable May it might be less palatable boy the benefits that I get and the things that I feel from it are amazing And hey, you know what when I have that thing that's really palatable and I enjoy that part of it Boy, I tell you what it actually it might satisfy me for that one minute that I'm consuming it But the aftermath of how I feel and then on their own they start to weigh that out themselves You start to crave things that make you feel good. This is true. Okay, by the way, manufat But you know advertising companies know this when they present a food on on a commercial They're not just showing you the food. They're showing you like a party in the background or it's really cool Or look how relaxed the person is they're trying to make associations to make you want the food even more So when you make these good associations with certain foods, let's say you eat Let's say you notice when you eat three servings of vegetables That you're no longer constipated and your skin looks really good And you're paying attention to this by the way because if you're not aware of it doesn't matter But you're paying attention.  My skin looks good. I got good digestion. I constipated like I normally am I feel really good and you start making those connections You will start to find that you'll actually crave those vegetables now might not be the same type of craving like I crave the taste of those vegetables But you'll want them just like you would something that yeah, but that's the problem for so long And then by the way again, this is back to the marketing and advertising side of of our world, right? It's like the everything is about how it tastes. So we've been taught that way that that's the only thing you value Yeah, like does it taste good?  But that's the very first thing nobody goes like, well, how did it make you feel?  Corn dog made me feel great. Right. Nobody thinks about that. It's always about taste But when you when you're setting on a goal like this and we're trying to change your life and your health and your behaviors You have to start to think like this You have to start making these connections because 100 all that food affects that And now here's another point is that to identify Some foods that bring you away away from awareness. That sounds very complicated So I'm gonna say it a different way start to identify foods that trigger Impulsive behaviors these usually are in the category of heavily processed foods now Here's what the science says about heavily processed foods And by the way, heavily processed foods typically are found in wrappers in boxes. They have lots of ingredients They're typically not single ingredient foods like a steak is not heavily processed But you know or you know just rice by itself is not heavily processed But rice chips, you know that are you know ranch flavored would be heavily processed for example So heavily processed foods when they do the science they show That when people are left to eat them and they compare them to other groups They eat on average five to six hundred more calories a day and they eat almost 40 faster while they're eating it It literally encourages these impulsive behaviors. Identify that for yourself It's usually heavily processed foods for most people now Why is this important because it's it's making you aware that if I eat these kinds of foods It brings me away from awareness I become more impulsive I eat faster and eat more and it's something that is Hard to control once you know that then you can say to yourself I think i'm going to stay away from that because that makes me behave in this particular way Instead i'm eat these whole natural foods. I mean, I'll tell you what right now. This is a true story I figured this out a long long time into my career, but when I did it was a game changer I would tell clients. All right. Here's just one thing. Just do this.  I don't care.  You know what happened. Everybody would lose weight Everybody would lose weight because really hard to overeat. It is your you naturally start to your body's systems of satiety start to work The way that they're supposed to heavily processed foods hijack that so identify that They bring you away from awareness and make you more impulsive with your behavior along the lines of awareness I have to add something to that that I find myself saying today that I wasn't saying 15 20 years ago And I think that's just the time that we're in now And when you talk about awareness you also so the hyper palatable foods is one thing The other thing is just being purely distracted. We live in this tech world where your phones are an extension It's like another limb for people or the television right or an ipad or whatever tool you have to consume this content, right? If you're at a place where you're trying to learn this you're trying to learn Your body's natural signals that it's talking to you and you have no clue what we're talking about And you want to figure this out another piece of advice that i'm going to give around awareness Is do not allow yourself to bring your phone to the table or do not eat in front of the television Sit down. Yes by yourself eat quietly chew your food think about the food slow your heart rate down Be there with your food.  You're distracted.  This is a fact studies have shown the fact they've compared Groups of people who've done awareness practicing exercises to people who follow You know macro and calorie targets and guess which one is more successful long term the awareness They don't even have to count anything they're just more i'll take this challenge all day long right here Yeah, you you're somebody listening right now and you need to lose weight and you only have two rules I'm not going to put a diet together for you.   It's just not gonna happen It's it's already hard enough to do it with the whole foods angle that you're talking about with potatoes and steaks Potatoes and steak did not get people fat. It's all it's adding that it's the french fries that you added to that It's the dessert you added to that It's the soda that you drank down with that It's the highly processed power hyper palatable foods that you add in combination with these whole foods That is what's really screwing you so just you simply doing that And not being distracted while you consume most people believe it or not Are even people that have never trained themselves to be aware of these signals will feel these signals Absolutely, and again, it took me a long time to figure that out But I loved it when I did because it was like boom magic. It's working and it's working simple forever So there you have it. Okay focus on building muscle getting stronger work on mobility make that a part of your routine Make sure you have a plan B with your workouts that you could do anywhere and focus on intuitive eating rather than following a diet And you are going to be about 90% of the way there. The other 10% is just you showing up Look, we have a lot of free guides you can find And read that we've written about lots of topics around fitness and we did this as a way to give back to our community You can find all of these at mind pump free.com and you can also find all of us on instagram You can find justin at mind pump. Justin you can find me at mind pump sal and adam at mind pump adam What are the what do people starting with they're starting with the wrong impression is what they're starting with And I think you have to address that first Because if you made a pie chart out of everything that you're going to do to enhance performance You'll find that this pie cut for drugs is probably 15 or


I have seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched sea beams glitter in the dark near the tan house or gate. All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain, time to die. These words by the dying replicant Roy Batty spoken during the final section of Blade Runner, 1982, with the Scott film, have become justly famous. They have an emotional impact, which has lasted over the years and decades. I do have to say, Rupert Hauer does a much better job of saying them than I ever did. Everyone was in tears apparently during the shoot when he was speaking these 42 words. Don't see anyone crying here. Maybe tears of laughter, but never mind. But scenes like this indicate the intense power of film, of cinema. It's the most revolutionary and widespread art form in history. One is directly linked to the modern age, the age of capitalism actually. One that has no precedent in history. No one in ancient Greece sat down on an evening to watch a film. They watched plays and stuff like that, musical performances, but no one said, ah, stick the film on there. They said, let's watch it, what's on? You know, it's Hercules again. It didn't happen. This is entirely something which is linked to the modern world and the modern age. Now, of course, all art has a relationship to technological and economic advances. For example, when oil paint replaced egg tempering painting, it completely transformed the world of art. It went from frescoes to actual paintings. But no change, no link has been more obvious than that of cinema and film and technology. You know, you do require a mechanical film camera, or at least a digital camera in the modern world, and then a projector. Without this, you cannot have cinema. It is therefore uniquely modern and is linked to the modern society in which we live in. Something else about cinema we need to think about. Paintings, classical music, statue, all the arts through the ages, were all pretty much aimed at a very small elite audience, a group of patrons able to pay for the privilege of having these art forms. In fact, they often existed purely to glorify this or that painting. If you go to the National Gallery, there's a marvellous painting of Jesus and disciples entering Jerusalem. And on the side, there is the Medici family watching it. Historically impossible, of course, but when you pay the money, you get yourself in the picture. So, art in the past has been very elite, it's been very isolated. Probably Beethoven's symphonies, as wonderful they are, were probably only heard by a couple of thousand people, during his lifetime. But film is a mass form of art. Duplication of prints means it can be seen the same everywhere, in any part of the world, in any cinema or whatever. Film exists in every part of the world. It's hardly a country, I think, apart from Antarctica, which doesn't have a film industry, which doesn't have cinemas. It therefore brings to a mass audience, in a completely new way, the image you're painting, the link to the movement of music. It's a completely live, dialectical form of art. Above all, it's an art form that can reach and reflect the lives of the working class. You know, if you want to see the Mona Lisa, the real Mona Lisa, you have to go to the Louvre in Paris. If you want to see a great film, you can, in a reason, see anywhere in the world, exactly the same, give or take quality of the print. So, that, I think, is the first thing to understand. Therefore, we have to understand that film has a dual character, both as an art form, as a mass form of entertainment. At its best, it's able to combine the two to stunning effect. The films of Kubrick, Kurosawa, Bergman, Truffaut, Lumet, Fellini, Fuller, Melville, Hitchcock, It Is Best, Peckinpah, On and Off, I've all achieved this, to his list, and I'll also add Sergio Leone and Mario Barber. We don't have time to discuss that. Today, we could add the films of Wes Anderson and of course, Martin Scorsese in his prime. There are many others who have been able to produce stunning works of art that can be enjoyed by everybody. And that is the power of film. The other thing that is important about film and about cinema in particular, is that it's a shared experience. You know, when you can run, it's capable of having a profound effect.  You know, that singing jaws when the guy's swimming around and finding his sunken boat and he rips off a bit of the wood and his decomposed face drops out at him. I remember seeing that in 1975 at the Paramount Cinema in the West End and I've never seen it like it. It was everybody, so he went, whoa, like that. And yeah, and then everyone laughed, you know, because they felt full. That is a shared experience. And to be honest, a film like George is not the same on the small screen. And that's something we need to bear in mind. Now, obviously, today's cinema is under threat. It's under threats never before. I mean, when I was growing up, we had 10 cinemas within the walking or bus journey from where I lived. Three in Southgate, three in Enfield, one huge one in Edmonton, and three in Wood Green, Turnpike Lane. All gone. So for many people, you cannot even see a film today in the cinema. It's impossible. There are no cinemas to actually go through. And of course, now we've got streaming and home video, which particularly with COVID, having hit cinema very hard, these, the film companies have used this to push forward streaming home video, video on demand. Why?  The film companies gain a lot and they have gained a lot through this. So this is, if you like, you can see that in many ways, cinema is under attack now more than ever. The cash returns from streaming have simply made this a logic. They're fighting back, but it's not going to happen. But let's think about it. To really experience film, you need to see it in a cinema. That's where you really see the power. Think about it. The famous jump cut at the early on in Lawrence, Arabia from inside the smoky map room to the blazing red of the desert. Stunning sequence, which can only be really enjoyed on a huge 70 millimeter screening film. The last half hour, 2000 on a space Odyssey on Cinerama, which I was lucky enough to see in 1968. The experience I've never forgotten. And I've seen that film in the cinema about 25 times over the last 30, 40, 50 years now, I suppose. The deathly silence of the audience at the end of one flew over the cuckoo's nest. I don't know if anyone's seen that film. She really has a powerful emotional ending, but what really hit was in a big cinema fall Saturday night, everyone got up and no one was talking. No one was saying a word. You could feel the emotion. That is the power of cinema. And you can go back. It was said that when the Lon Cheney version of Phantom of the Opera first opened, when he got to the famous scene where the woman rips the mask off and you see the real face beneath. It was said people were out of their seats, up the aisle, out the cinema, half a mile down the road before they drew breath, such was the terror which they felt. You can't match this on a small screen. You can't begin to match it on a small screen. So cinema is important. It's an important social experience. And for that reason, we as Marxists should be interested in it. I mean, Marxism has always had an interest in art as in all things human, but cinema's role as a mass art form, woven deep into society, particularly working class society, makes it a particular importance for Marxists. That is why we're having this discussion. Right, let's consider a couple of hurdles. You're going to have to jump over here. The first, let's face it. The left are incredibly snooty when it comes to cinema. They really are. They often tend to follow the academic line, avoid talking about mass entertainment. They often look at just that layer of art films exists at the top, not helped by the fact that of course there's very little on classic texts. The draw run and like, say, for example, economics or historical materialism or something like that. Marx and Engels didn't have a cinema to go to. Lenin and Trotsky did live through the early age of cinema, but they frankly had more important things to worry about. Lenin did know about the film trains that were traveling around Russia, telling people about the Bolshevik Revolution and how society was changing. But again, he couldn't spend that much time thinking about it for obvious reasons. Trotsky wrote a hell of a lot about art and literature. You can buy a book downstairs, I hope, on that. But for obvious reasons, he also couldn't think much about film. He's running for his life for the last two decades of his existence. So we pretty much have to make our own way on this. The other problem you have to face is the dominance of academic twaddle in film criticism. I've been quite kind here, even left film criticism, to be honest. Post-modernism lurks in film criticism, a bit like the alien lurks in John Hurt's stomach in Alien. You pick up, I was going to do some horrific examples along just to frighten the life out of you, but you pick up any sort of like sight and soundish sort of film criticism and it'll all be there, concentration on the surface, looking at technique, not content. Literally, picking up and saying that the medium is the message. All just completely surface structured. Well, we say the message is the message. Substance is not important. And in that sense, he's even actually shaped the very art films you watch today. For example, a couple of years ago, a film called The Sassing came out. The critics loved it. Sight and Sound made it his film of the year, even though it hadn't actually opened yet. Amazing. Anyway, the film did open and a couple of weeks later, there was this review of how films are going and they noted The Sassing wasn't doing very well. Okay, it's a three hour film in China, but it's about martial arts. Surely people would be rushing to see it and they said, well, it has a lot of amazing techniques on it. Maybe people were put off by the fact it didn't have a plot. It didn't have a plot, really. And then there's a new films is coming out. I think it's called Titane. I haven't got the exact pronunciation of it. Again, the critics are loving it. Cannes Film Festival loving it. Whipping it up. You're gonna have to see this film three hours long, of course, when it comes out. What's it about?  And then for the next ounce, she's not mechanically rearranging her face. It becomes a serial killer. Really? This is what passes for artistic film. Somebody's rogered by a Renault and heads off to become a serial killer for three hours. And they think this somehow has something to say to us. And don't get me started on bait. I don't know if anyone's ever seen that film. Suffice to say, me and my brother went to the BFI to see something else. And they had to trade it for bait. And he was convinced it was a comedy and started laughing. So I never was looking at him and I said, no, actually, I think this is a serious British film about people who have become profoundly disturbed by fish and stuff like that. This is the way that art film has gone. It's adopted to see the philosophy of post-modernism and all its linked ideas to shape a whole art form. When you consider the great films of Truffaut, Fellini, Antonio and so on, which has shown how film can directly reflect life and save something with great skill. Then it really makes you weep. The final hurdle you have to think about and I'm going to wear your time here is that film history itself is becoming lost. Not just in a physical sense. And a huge number of films have been lost. Not just from the silent era, but even from the 30s and 40s. Apparently, so like 15 films of Powell and Pressburger cannot be found anymore. You know, and even 60s and 70s films have just disappeared. So the general understanding of film history is fading away to a certain extent, at least amongst people who are prepared to study it. So these are all problems and things you have to be aware of when you're approaching film from a Marxist perspective. So what do we have to say about film and what does film have to say about us? Just in passing, I'm going to jump over this actually because I've got over it, we're almost halfway through, we're more than halfway through. We don't, I have big issues with the auteur theory. I think it's completely wrong, this idea that film is controlled and shaped by one powerful individual with a single vision who does everything apparently. Film is a collaborative experience in almost uniquely amongst art that involves not just directors but producers, cameramen, editors, clothing, actors of course, and so on and so on and so forth. You sit through the credits, you end the film, there are hundreds, but thousands of people working on a film. So this idea that it's elitist actually, that one person is responsible for everything is completely wrong. That doesn't mean by the way, I won't be referring to directors when I link to film just for convenience sake, but just bear that in mind. So dealing with the vastest of subjects, in fact I'm almost halfway through the time allotted anywhere, I am. I cannot deal with all the isms, waves, trends, genres, high points, low points, et cetera, which exist in film history. I cannot deal with the rich reservoir of counter-culture underground film, one exception for a comment later. I certainly cannot even deal with the Soviet cinema or even the important strand of left films that somehow got through the establishment net. So what can I deal with? Very little, I just wanna throw up a few issues if you'd like to think about perhaps in the discussion. Art form versus commodity. Now Marx was interested in art because it exposed the special characteristic of commodity production under capitalism, the requirement to envisage an item before it became real. Marx talked a lot about the special role of an architect, for example. He wanted us to understand that we were more than just machines. We create, abstract, visualize. Animals just do things for immediate need. We go beyond that. That's what differentiates us. But this creativity, this desire to create, actually, which exists in all of us, comes up against the requirements of a class society in the need for capitalism to choose commodities for product to realize the surplus value creates the sweat of one class with a benefit of a rich few. So our creativity is constantly being used but also crushed exactly at the same time. And film production, remember the word production? It's no different. Cinema today dominated by the money banks of Hollywood and Hollywood is dominated by rich, powerful cartels lots of Universal, Warner, Columbia, Sony and Fox. You may see lots of other company names on film credits but most of those are subsidiaries of these big firms. Others are finance representatives. You'll often see Chinese companies because Hollywood is desperate for Chinese finance and also to get into the Chinese market. So that's a factor. And of course, behind all this, you also now got Netflix and Amazon lurking around in the wings trying to get in, they've been rejected but the money is money is money. These film companies are owned by financial interests not by film fans, you want one thing, cloth it. So production, the film production today has increasingly been shaped from needs of a guaranteed return on investment. So you got endless remakes, sequels and films that look like 100 others. You've already watched this film, I'm sure you have. It's like action films. They all have the same character and have you noticed there'll be a bloke in his 30s, maybe separated from his wife but he's got a little daughter who he loves or something like that. You might have a beard and this is Mike Dane which he hasn't. But here's a loner who plays by his own rules. Around so many times that we've seen these cracks. He'll set you straight, don't you worry. Of course, he'll come up against all manner of villainous Chinese and Russians or North Koreans or Arabs. And now of course you have to add Venezuelans to the list who will be fuddled the rest of the system but not our hero who by the way would really survive an extraordinary beating over the hour and a half or two hours of the film. If you've blown up, thrown through windows, shot. It doesn't matter because at the end people, you're getting the last of the plaster and it'll be fine. These films actually even look the same. Have you noticed that strange orangey blue effect you see in action films? It's called teal. They teal the films because they think this is the best way for the films to look. They use algorithms to calculate how films should be edited and what scenes should follow on from another. Literally, we're at a point when these sort of films are as close to computer games as you can get. Resident Evil anyone? Of course the trick then is to produce the maximum product self and the minimum cost. And Hollywood plays in the fact that people are desperate to get into the film, to exploit them every which way they can. Low pay, long hours, poor working conditions and so on. And here I do want to say a word about the recent death of cinematographer, Halina Hutchings who I'm sure you know was killed just over a week ago.  Why? This death is completely avoidable. It's completely down to cost cutting which these film companies in order to gain maximum profit set about doing. The guns, these real guns, because real guns in Texas are much cheaper. Didn't check they're properly prepared. This is not the first accident the way this happened. The set itself is considered so dangerous that Union people had already walked off and yet nothing was done. These are Victorian style exploitation we're seeing here. Which also shouldn't forget the Me Too movement which came out, what's a surprise? Women are exploited in Hollywood. They've been exploited for the last 100 years, the so-called casting couch and so on used by people who see that people are desperate for a way out of their miserable lives by getting into cinema. Yet nothing has ever been done. Casting couch was no secret.  Of course this doesn't mean that Hollywood doesn't occasionally allow interesting and exciting films to get through. Let's be fair about it. Between 1968 and 74 as the youth movement got underway there was a Hollywood starting throwing money, all manner of mavericks and people like that. Arthur Penn, Mike Nichols, Robert Ormond, Sam Peckinbar. Suddenly had all the funding they needed to make all the films they could make. Even John Casavetes actually got some funding after years of having to constantly mortgage his house to make his very low budget films. In Britain people like John Borgman and Nick Rowe were able to find a place but the ultimate expression of this was the funding. Hollywood's desire to fund a follow-up to Last Tango in Paris by Bernardo Bertolucci. Here upon was an historical epic to be called Novo Cento or 1900. Fox, United Artists, Paramount all put loads of money in and they were able to film to have a huge cast but Lancaster, Sterling Hayden, Ronald Sutherland, Robert De Niro, Gerard Depadier, Dominique Sander, on and on and on. A massive budget because they thought Last Tango in Paris made a mint. This one's bound to make a mint. They thought that up until the first six-hour print was screened in Italy, it was private showing. Paramount boss got a phone call, hey, we've just funded a six-hour Marxist epic, what? As a result, this film has never been seen and it's filled for, and the Americans got a three-hour version. I saw a four-hour plus two-part version in London 1978. The version of DVD today is the five-hour 15-minute version. It's about the longest you're ever going to see. By the end of the 1970s, all that spending was gone. These visionary filmmakers were either scrabbling around for work or drifting into the mainstream to make normal, boring films. Better Luchin never really made another decent film. John Cassavetes was back to making cheap films and more during his house. Profits first, originality second. That is the nature of film production now. I did want to talk a little bit, but I'm not going to have to cut over it, the question of film as propaganda. I think it's important to understand that because film has this huge impact on people, the ruling class have been able to use it, although sometimes it's been used against them, to shape ideas and views. For example, when have you ever seen a sympathetic view of a trade union in a film? In the 1940s and 50s, they produced films which revert the propagandistic films about the communist threat to all of us. But he also had these films as kind of like covert versions in which the enemy wasn't the communists, but it was the other aliens of outer space, monsters from the deep, giant ants, so on and so forth, which shaped the fear that America is under attack. We have to be on our guard. There's a film called Invasion of the Body Snatches, the original Don Siegel film. In my opinion, it can only be seen as a warning. He said it's a warning against conformity and later remakes did go along with that. But how else can you interpret a film in which apparently these pods have been brought into a small American town and a turning small American apple pie making mums into people who look the same, but have no emotions, no religion, no lack of conformity and so forth. That is a covert, perhaps not so covert message about communism. They're actually, the state has always been very keen to ensure that films do not drift away into terraces they don't want to drift away. I have here some excerpts from the guidelines of the British Board of Film Sensors, 1916, when people have come worried about films that have been produced, they set up the British Board of Film Sensors, now the British Board of Film Placification and they've produced some guidelines. Now, you probably think this is all about no sex, no brutality, no funny business of animals or anything like that. Oh, listen to this. Here's the things they don't tell you about. Filings that should also be banned, references to controversial politics, relations of capital and labor, scenes, tendings, disparage, public characters and institutions, realistic horrors of warfare. I don't want to see that. Incidents having a tendency to disparage our allies, scenes holding up the king's uniform to contempt or ridicule. And this is my favorite. Subjects dealing with India, attempting to suggest a disloyalty of British officers, native states, or bringing into dispute British prestige in the empire. Does this require any further comment? Needless to say, one of the first films to be banned under this was Battleship Tempting. The point is, the absence of an alternative, the dominant ideas of in society, the dominant ideas of the ruling class. Film can affect that. That is why film, unlike any other art form, has been subject to huge censorship and control because it can be used to shape what we think about. Some filmmakers are able to flip it, but that unfortunately is still an exception. Now in the last couple of minutes, I just want to say something else about films. I think it's important. We don't look at film just as the thing in itself. It's what film criticism does. It analyzes the film, perhaps in relation to other films by the same director or whatever, or maybe I have examples of the same genre. But as of all, they look at film as if it's, was produced completely in a separate universe to the one we live in. But we understand that film comes real much about society. In the future, it's been said, people, when they want to know how we live today, they'll look at our films. I think it comes with a shocker, like some of the films, you know, do we really do that? You know, are we really fighting Russian invasion all the time? It doesn't matter. There are exceptions. Films of Ken Loach and Stephen Queen, for example. But some of these films, when you look at them, it's only by looking at them in the context of society which produced them at times and the age that you can really gain and understand it. For example, Three Days of a Condor. So I think it's one of the best films of the 1970s. Because it's one of the best films to show up what was happening in the 1970s America. You can see the oil crisis, Watergate revelations about and the CIA. A general feeling that things weren't right. All that is reflected in Three Days of the Condor. Alan Pakula's Parallax View also taps into, I recommend both films. So by looking at it this way, you gain an understanding of much, much more. And the film itself becomes far more relevant. We need to look beyond the surface. Now, if I had time and I haven't, I'll give you a couple of examples. He plays out. I'll just give one very briefly. Everyone's heard of Film Noir. I hope everyone's heard of Film Noir. A hugely influential genre of film criticism in the 1940s and 50s. Now, no one set out in 1939 ever say, hey, let's do a different style. Let's do a Film Noir. Now, that name was applied much later by critics. And why was it called Film Noir? And no one spoke French in it. It's because they felt these films had a foreign style to them. They should really have actually called it German Noir, I suppose, but French seemed easier. Something far away, something un-American. American filmmakers couldn't have made this. It had to be influenced from abroad. French, of course, had no tradition of Film Noir. Too much, much later it was Jean-Pierre Milleville and people like that who copied it because they thought it was an American genre. But Film Noir was approached because, like in this manner, because it seemed to reveal an alternative to the American dream.  Nothing can go wrong. Nothing can break away from this ideal, it will. Film Noir looks at American dream and presents the American nightmare, a world of corruption, a world of poverty, a world of union unrest, a world of bribery, of mental illness, of drug addiction, of all these things which weren't supposed to exist in America, but actually did exist. A world of racism, for example, Odds Against Tomorrow, and late example of 1959, is one of the boldest films to pick up on the issue of American racism, which apparently didn't exist anywhere else. Two examples, there's just a bit of a touch on as to how this, I think we should all try and see. 1942 film, This Gun for Hire, is Anne and Ladd's big breakout film. Ladd plays a real antihero, he's a contract killer and he's capable of really dark deeds, at one point he's contemplating killing a young crippled girl because he might have been a witness to a hit, he's just carried out. And he's really thinking about it, should I get my gun out and shoot her? He doesn't. But he's also extremely kind and very moral. The point is that Raven, in his dissenting disaster, comes up against something far worse, the capitalist system. And that's what this film presents. The real villain is a capitalist who has no morals, is purely in it for profit, wants to sell an important weapon to the enemy, just to make money. He doesn't think, you know, this is un-American and this is quite common by the way and it's this which Raven ultimately rebels against. Another interesting film is Force of Evil, I've written about this once already, and it's a David Hamplonski's film from 1948, which has been called the most anti-capitalist film ever made. And it starts with John Garfield, it's something called Joe Morse, who does his voiceover. Very first scene. This is Wall Street and today was important because tomorrow, July the 4th, I intend to make my first million dollars. The fact this has been said over an image of Wall Street gives the thing away. The film directly links the method of the crime organization which Morse is increasingly involved in, with the methods and practices of big business. If I actually sort of do this numbers racket, the local collection points are called banks. You can't miss the line on this and the whole purpose of Morse's scam is to get these banks merged together into one big bank under his control. Is this not capitalism? Of course, none of this went unnoticed. Polonski and quite a few other people have worked in film noir, were probably put on the blacklist. He didn't make another film till 1972. So by studying these films, which are presented as simple thrillers, you start to gain an understanding of what was happening in American society. And this is the approach you should adopt in relation to Orphan. Not to take it to ridiculous lengths. You know, look, they sit there washing Eve or the dead and trying to work out what he tells us about 1990s Britain or something like that. But you can draw a lot about why these films, how these films function within society and therefore gain an understanding of that. So to finish, my remarks, big business controls the world media, including cinema. Now we could see, I don't mind as many filmmakers have attempted to, but in reality, Hollywood holds purse strings. The power of film, which I imagine is why you're all here, needs to be opened up, no longer constrained by Iron Healer profit. It's incredible, dynamic, modern, revolutionary form of art. It's capable of so much more. You know, the rich cinema, even now with home viewing and streaming becoming the norm, it's still quite extraordinary and quite unique. Yeah, well, we start with Fast and Furious 327 of a 900th remake of Halloween. The nationalization of the means of production, the work of control, must include not only factories and banks, but also the bosses media, remember it is the bosses media, including film production, making this huge, recreative resource available to all will present us with a new renaissance of the arts and show us actually what we are all capable of. You know, when we've got the time to do it, turn ourselves from tools of a capitalist class into creative, collective human beings in a society free from class oppression and exploitation. That is the cinema I'm waiting to see. Thank you, comrades.