TMGP Ep 33 with health coach, wellness consultant, and mindset expert Jeffrey Siegel

o another white boy with a podcast pronouns Jim bro another white boy with a podcast you want to see the video it went viral hi Gaines gurus and welcome to tmgp the muscle growth podcast episode 33 I am your host Rosco and today we're welcoming Jeffrey seagull onto the show Jeffrey is a prominent health coach and educator known for for his integrative approach to Wellness particularly in the realm of men's health he is the founder and CEO of Jeffrey seagull Wellness where he empowers individuals especially men to regain energy confidence and balance in their lives his coaching philosophy emphasizes a holistic view of Health combining mindfulness movement and education to Foster transform ative change in his clients lives Jeff's journey into Health coaching was influenced by his personal battles with an eating disorder during his teenage years this experience led him to seek help and ultimately reshape his understanding of health and well-being he holds a master's degree in mind and brain education from Harvard University and a degree in Buddhist study from Hong Kong University where he focused on integrating psychology and spirituality into Health practices as a certified personal trainer and dynamic eating psychologist Jeff has developed a range of coaching Services aimed at enhancing physical and emotional well-being his work includes Executive coaching for self-care and work life balance as well as teaching mindful and stress management techniques he also facilitates workshops on self-compassion and healthy relationships in November 2015 Jeff helped create a Ted toour titled what makes muscles grow which has garnered millions of views in this presentation he discusses the biological mechanisms behind muscle growth emphasizing the importance of sleep nutrition and exercise he explains that effective muscle development requires intentional Challenge and Recovery highlighting how factors such as hormones and genetics play critical roles in this process Jeffrey believes that many individuals are not adequately taught how to care for their bodies or maintain their health through his work he aims to provide the necessary resources and support for people to live healthier lives his a approach is characterized by a commitment to fostering communities that support individual growth and well-being in summary Jeffrey is a dedicated health coach who combines personal experience with professional expertise to help others achieve sustainable Wellness through an integrative approach that encompasses both body and mind in today's episode we dive into a wide range of insights some of the topics include Jeff's journey through severe eating disorder into health coach masculinity the importance of education and physical activity why I work art finding your deeper motivation why do people have the lifestyle that they have and bold routines that they do physical and mental health and health span and lifespan the importance of setting goals and so much more get ready for a truly informative episode if you're injured or in recovery visit the injury consultant.com and schedule a free consultation to explore how I can support your healing restoration and journey to thriving Health the injury consultant now also offers specialized packages for fat loss muscle gain and Longevity interested book your free consult today a little disclaimer this show does not contain medical advice the views and opinions expressed by guests on the muscle growth podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect my beliefs or The Stance of the podcast while we aim to provide valuable insights and information it's important to approach all topics with critical thinking I encourage you to do your own research consider multiple perspectives and form your own conclusions healthy discussion is always welcome and I'm happy to engage with listeners in the comments to continue the conversation lastly don't forget to follow us on all major social media platforms including Instagram YouTube Tik Tok and eggs find us at the muscle growth podcast and myself at reps with Rosco welcome Jeff to the muscle growth podcast where we explore subjects related to muscle science and hypertrophy I'm thrilled to have you join us for today's conversation let's Jump Right In and dig into some exciting topics together can you briefly introduce yourself and your journey into the world of being a fitness coach and a wellness consultant yeah I usually Trace back my journey to being uh you know around when I was 14 15 um I developed a severe eating disorder right and that really was a difficult experience as a teenager where like on one hand I just wanted to be this normal kid um I was you know at that time kind of getting exposed to like gym and you know when you're hitting puberty and your hormones are going crazy and you're looking around and you're trying to figure out what do I do with all this energy what do I do all this drive you know both physical and sexual um and I you know I was just kind of this confused adolescent my mind went to war with my body uh I basically stopped eating and you know there was a tremendous power I felt in that right in in being able to overcome this impulse of hunger and be really really rigid and regimented when it came to my food intake um and I learned so much around nutrition and calories but it was all coming from this really disordered place of control and a place of fear um and it you know it almost led me to kill myself right I I was I lost so much weight that I had to drop out of school I was hospitalized um you know it was it was a very severe severe condition um so really everything in my life since then has kind of been you know informed by that and I the trajectory I've taken has been to tie together these pieces of like why the hell did that happen to me um and how can I heal myself and then also help others avoid some of those pitfalls right so I learned everything I could about the body and biology and training I learned about neuroscience and trying to understands like why human behavior right like happens the way it does got a little bit disillusioned with boiling everything down to neurotransmitter imbalances and kind of the the scientific reductionist um piece so then I actually went and lived in Asia for many years I studied Buddhism and other Eastern spiritual Traditions I was looking for you know some bigger spiritual context uh for you know what happened to me what does it mean to live a good healthy happy life um and then came back to try to kind of blend those things together um that's what really started my work uh initially in the gym doing a lot of personal training athletic training and then transitioning now to just you know private and group coaching with men who really want to build a better relationship with their body right and have more confidence in themselves obviously building muscle is a huge part of that but ultimately right so they can have more energy they can have more strength and so they be more present right at home with their families at work um and I think all that feeds into you know living a life of purpose wow well that's beautiful I'm really sorry that you went through those things but I love the way that you managed to turn that around and use that to guide yourself in your decisions to become the person you are today and now you're wanting to help people especially people that might have been through similar things that you went through and I think that's a really beautiful message so huge congratulations to you yeah I I appreciate you saying that man and you know I look we all face adversity in our lives and it shows up in so many different ways right for me like this was very clear the sort of Mind Body trauma that I had um that landed me where I was and I was so fortunate to have so much support along the way um from family from professionals from friends um you know of course not everybody got it not everybody was supportive but I had a lot of resources to help me get back on track um you know and that's key because whenever you're facing adversity and challenge you know you need to both have some internal strengths to draw upon and then you need to have external supports you know and this is foundational in the coaching work that I do like helping guys figure out okay what are the inner resources that you need to build up for yourself that are going to help you show up as the man that you want to be and then how can we build those external structures all right to help support that um you know and that goes true with training with nutrition right with everything that's happening you know in the gym outside of the gym no absolutely it like you mentioned there's a whole lot of factors and I love that you mentioned the importance of having a support structure and like you said you were fortunate enough to have one and um I love that now you could be that support structure for some people some men like you said who are looking for help and now you are offering help and giving back almost um which is a beautiful thing to be doing so thank you for that you're you're welcome man I mean you know it's clear I I didn't get into this line of work to you know like sell a bunch of products or you know make a ton of cash like I got into it again first and foremost for my own healing to try to figure out right like what does it mean to be a healthy happy self-actualized you know man on this planet um and then also to help others be able to do the same and so like you know there is a lot of heart in what I do I try to bring that into everything it's it's very similar to another guest we had Riley Jaris who um it's not the same thing that happened obviously but you can draw parallels he had Crohn's disease and he basically went and he tried to figure out how to help himself and then from that he was able to develop a really um amazing U profession in helping others to to do that so it's a similar parallel there where originally it was to help yourself and then you realized hey this worked for me maybe I can Implement these strategies to help other people so that that's really amazing congrats to you I mean there's the AR type of sort of the the wounded healer right like the person that goes through these trials and then comes out of it having gained some insight in wisdom right that they can then share um and I think that's really valuable right uh but I also want to be clear that you know I think we can sometimes get into tricky territory you know with the whole like you know n equals one you know I I never want to presume that what worked for me is going to work for you and I know that's something that you talked about in your podcast right like you gotta you gotta take all of this information so much knowledge out there there's so many ideas you got to apply it to yourself you got to kind of sort through what works right so I'm never here to tell anybody like hey you need to do this or this is how you should live your life um but I certainly want to help guide people I want to help elicit their own knowledge and wisdom to try to help them find what the right next step is going to be I think I I might be a part of that archetype that you just mentioned because I also uh had a similar background where I was injured and things and now I like to help people recover from injuries that that's quite interesting I didn't right I know yeah that came to mind I know you're working on the the exactly prevention stuff or behab which is so I mean that's such an important piece of that I've got a I got a story around that too it's you know we could get into it but I W to I know you got some other questions yeah we got a lot so we're gonna get through now last last piece on this do you mind chatting about what just very briefly what was that adversity in life you mentioned that it was to do with hormones battling hormones was it also so social media related or peers or bullying or what was what was the driving force or or you not sure yeah um so the those two last pieces you mentioned right like social media didn't really exist at that point when I was in high school thankfully like that wasn't that was not an influence whereas now I think this is a huge huge part of you know both adults and teenagers lives um in some positive ways but as we're seeing with a lot of just you know both data and anecd toal stuff right like in a lot of negative ways around body dissatisfaction promoting disordered eating habits or body dysmorphia like there's so many things that you know you can kind of point to social media uh really exacerbating a lot of these issues that was not it for me um it wasn't bullying either um you know actually I studied martial arts from you know a very young age if anything weren I was probably one of the most dangerous kids you know in the in the schoolyard um but there was you know there was a lot of things that that go into you know disordered eating and you know we could we could spend an entire episode kind of unpacking all of that um there's issues of control you know I think that there's that transition again from sort of like Boyhood into adolescence puberty into manhood you know and and this comes up again and again where in our kind of secularized Western Society we have lost so many of the rights of Passage that you know boys would typically go through where there would be Elders that would come and kind of take them and help guide them through some of that adversity to show them hey this is what it is is like to be you know a man to be both strong but and compassionate and and all of these things so I feel like I never really got any of that so there's this kind of confusion of like okay you know again I'm feeling all of these feelings I have all this energy what do I do with it I didn't have a whole lot of Role Models or guidance for me to help that so there was this issue of you know oh there's this huge world out there that's like so fre freaking big and I can't control most of it but you know what I can control I can control every lingal thing that goes into my mouth right I can control all of these calories or I can control what I do with my body um so it was a way of kind of like you know internalizing this lack of control through food um obviously issues of like perfectionism wrapped into that you know feeling like I had really high expectations and standards both for myself but then from my parents and from others around you know what I was able to achieve academically and athletic Al um you know and and I think there is also you know issues uh I call them issues you know like I've always had a very acute sense of what is going on in my body internally right so like that what was often referred to as interoception right if you look into the scientific literature that ability to sense you know things like digestion like your heart rate um you know and so a lot of these signals that I would get from my body tend to be very strong and Amplified and I think for me you know dealing with digestive issues and other things like a lot of times it was just easier for me not to eat right so like being in a fasted State actually felt more comfortable um because I didn't have to deal with all of these messy signals from my body about what was going on um so I think that also played a contributing factor in me kind of developing the disordered habits that I had um you know and I could I could go on I think there was a spiritual level to it uh there's issues around like you know masculinity what does it mean to be you know a man a strong man you know and so so many things um that probably all came together and just landed in this way it sounds like you you've had a lot of time to to reflect on it and well done for doing it I think a lot of people have never really taken the time to reflect on their past and on things that maybe didn't go very well and I like the way that you've seen that having a guide in things is so important for especially for for men who Maybe don't reach out as much as um as females um just in general I don't know if that's true but I think a lot of men struggle to to reach out and ask for help and a lot of people in general don't have that guide or that role model to kind of show them the way I think like you mentioned back maybe not in modern times as much but back in the day I think a lot more people had that role model the chief in the community or the person they could look up to the spiritual leader um whereas now it's a lot more um diverse so you have more options but they may be not quite as close maybe through social media or something you can follow someone but it's not that one to one connection where you have someone there holding your hand so to speak to to guide you on your way yeah I think there's a really a big difference between having you know a mentor a coach you know just someone in your life that's like very like physically present there with you interacting and there's this ongoing relationship that you have with them uh you know and this isn't to say that you can't learn so much from people online or that you can't actually build relationships um but I find that you know they often just tend to be more superficial right and shallow um and you know there's a lot of you know this is another issue around men these days that has talked about kind of the the crisis of masculinity and how a lot of you know men especially young men you know feeling isolated and lonely um and you know social media online is like such a great place to go and build that sense of connection and belonging uh which we all want and we all need that um and yet I think you know sometimes that can end up in these sort of destructive ways right where people hijack that need for belonging um and it can turn almost into sort of these you know these cultish tribal sort of affiliations where you know you cling to a certain you know Guru uh leader person um that you know claims to have it all figured out right and you know I'm not going to name names on on that but like you know choose your person out there in the social media World um and you know it's like so these these issues around isolation belonging and affiliation um start to get really sticky exactly and I think covid-19 the pandemic uh also exacerbated the loneliness issue and um and it's great now that we can see people again in person but I think that that time and lockdown really uh pushed people to their limit I I totally agree man how did how did it impact you like what did you notice did did things change for you so yeah obviously isolation was very challenging but I was very fortunate to be able to stay with my um with my family so it helped a lot having having them around and so I wasn't completely alone but it definitely was very lonely in the sense of you weren't connected to your peers anymore and your extended family um but I was very fortunate to still have some immediate family in my surroundings and yourself yeah yeah you know and when I reflect back on that time you know I really kind of saw it go both ways and if we're looking at kind of how did it impact People's Health and well-being and I and for some people I saw them really take advantage of this opportunity they're like hey I've got more time than I had before if I you know I'm stuck at home but like you know I've got this you know Dusty old dumbbell set in the back that I've never touched right and like I saw some people like really start to transform their health they're like you know what like I'm going to use this time and actually build myself up so I can come out of this better um and then there's other people that kind of went down the other way of like you know what the hell [ __ ] it right there's a lot of Despair and a lot of anxiety a lot of you know just eating for Comfort because you know the world seems so uncertain and crazy which you know makes it so much sense um but then also kind of just like not taking care of themselves uh and I think this goes back to you know that idea of like support right like you know whenever we're faced with challenge right it's the matter of both our inner Compass where are we pointing it and then how are the supports around us helping us navigate that if we have the right compass and the right supports we can come out of that so much stronger all right but if we don't then it's gonna it's going to break us down right it might leave us off in a worst place sure yeah and you make a great point about how different people react to strenuous situations differently and that that's a great Point um your academic path is fascinating uh with a bachelor's in Neuroscience a master's in Buddhist studies from Hong Kong and a master's in education from Harvard uh how have these experiences shaped your approach to men's wellness and coaching yeah I mean I joke that I'm like thoroughly overeducated and confused I think when you you know the more you get wrapped up in the academic world the more you begin to realize how much we don't know um you know for me as I kind of alluded to in my you know story of like how did I end up doing this work um it was initially you know looking through this lens of of Science and like biology of like okay you know like how what does a healthy body look like right and what when we're looking at it through the lens of of hormones um and neurotransmitter and then what do how does that influence like how we're going to move our body and how we're going to rest our body so really understanding you know the the metabolism the physiology the biomechanics of training um and yet all of that as important as that stuff is which I think really empowered me to to learn how to move my body how to train well in the gym right how to really gain a certain degree of Mastery uh over movement and muscle uh but then you know all of that in isolation start to feel pretty empty you know it's like what's the point in being really strong and that what's the point in having all of this musle like what is it in service of and I think that's what then led me to go study some of the Eastern spiritual traditions and you know I kind of grew up uh you know in a you know spiritual void where I didn't I you know my family was pretty secular didn't have strong Traditions so I kind of had to find them for myself and that was an opportunity for me just you know learn from you know there's so much wisdom you know in the the DST and bu Buddhist and some of these other lineages that I thought was helpful especially around the Mind training I was interested in you know Altered States Of Consciousness what does it mean to become enlightened um you know and and really what how does the Mind relate to the body and the ways in which that can be harmonious and functional and then obviously the ways in which it can be totally the opposite which I experienced you know and we I think we all have you know even in just the dayto day right like everybody's probably had those moments or that little inner critic shows up right to kind of you know kick you in the ass and then tell you how you're doing everything wrong or you know try to you know force your body to go do something um you know and we end up at in you know in these wars with ourself um and so just like learning more about that and then coming pulling it back together at Harvard where I was trying to really synthesize sort of eastern and western perspectives in service of Learning and Development right I was like okay like how can we help people live better lives and I spent many years as a teacher so I was teaching uh I was teaching in Hong Kong for so many years you know and and and this has been said before but so much of the education system right really just treats uh us right as as as these heads that are just being teleported around on bodies right and we just really neglect everything from the shoulder on down when it comes to learning and I had students coming to me you know looking for guidance you know initially it was like you know they wanted some help on this paper but the more I would talk to them about their life and what was coming up the more I realized that it wasn't so much a struggle you know to like figure out academically whether they needed to like complete this assignment it was that so many of these you know young adults were not taking good care of themselves right like they weren't eating right they weren't sleeping well they were really stressed out they didn't know how to manage all these expect expectations from society right it's like so there was all of these Upstream lifestyle factors that were getting in the way of them learning anything in school at all and I was like hey if I really want to help these people and be of service like I need to focus more on the lifestyle piece and I think that's what motivated me after I finished my other master's degree to go off into the coaching world and to help people build more balanced Lifestyles to tell this holistic picture of you know human development we're talking about so many cool things we're going to have to pull back to the to the topics but just on that do you then think that education is failing because for example in South Africa we have PE for one period a week and um and then there's no stress stress management there's no physical exercise importance of it or sleep or health there's none of that maybe very briefly for like one sentence or two sentences in a subject we have called life orientation but no one really takes that subject too seriously because it's not presented as a serious um module um so do you think that maybe worldwide obviously it's not you can't generalize but for a lot of Education systems do you think that maybe it's failing to um give The Importance of Being physically healthy emotionally healthy and mentally healthy too well I think the failure is the inability to see how taking care of your physicality is also taking care of your mental and emotional health and vice versa right and how interrelated these pieces are and that if we truly want to educate children right if we want to help prepare the Next Generation to become the leaders right we can't neglect The Body Issue right and we can just look around you can see how generally unhealthy you know at least over here in the United States you know people tend to be um and we get so little guidance on that from education you know part of my overall mission is to bring a lot of the things that I teach you know back into the education system in some way right I think some of these fundamental skills like strength training like cooking like basic kind of macronutrient awareness like understanding you know proteins fats and carbs and you know just also understanding where food comes from recognizing that it comes from the land and the soil and uh and you know like really helping kids take more ownership over how they move and how they eat um is so so vital right I think that's that is necessary to become you know a healthy adult and we're really missing a lot of opportunities and then you know a lot of kids get out of school and you know it's like they don't know how to cook right like they they they don't know where their food comes from other than you know like ordering take out on their phone uh you know and of course you know I'm I'm sort of being hyperbolic but it's you know there's a certain degree of Truth to that and and I think that you know to me that's that is that is sad and I wish that the education world would begin to see the mind and the body as both vital pieces of this puzzle right and there's so much you know I think there's a lot of evidence to show that like when you give kids opportunities right to be more physically active not only you know there's so many effects like that helps them then if if you they do need to sit in place right and just kind of you know do some rote learning which again is is somewhat of a Antiquated thing especially now as we're entering an AI world I think we're going to completely need to re-envision what education means what assessment means um you know and so I we're at an interesting point in time where I'm I'm you know this crisis where I think there's a lot of things that are broken and there's a lot of opportunity for us to go back and say hey we can educate people physically we can educate their character and their virtue um we can help them be critical thinkers um and so and that doesn't all have to happen just sitting in one place for eight hours a day um feeding your body you know Ultra process stuff and pretending that it's just there to carry around your head sure yeah there's a a lot to unpack there but I think it goes back to schooling originally if I'm not mistaken being there to create Factory workers not to create critical thinkers because critical thinkers maybe aren't quite as productive as a a factory line worker who's just there doing something uh uh Manual Labor uh if they always uh thinking for themselves and things then they might uh might be opposing the things that you tell them to do or they might not be that good at following instructions or orders because they thinking of better ways or different ways to do which doesn't make a good factory worker I think it was Rockefeller who initially funded a lot of schooling at least in the US um uh yeah I'm not sure about that obviously I'm not from there but is that true you know you're bringing up a good point around you know what is the purpose of Education itself like what is the purpose of schools right is it to produce good Factory workers right or just to help people uh you know fuel Economic Development right so you're the goal of the education right is to get a job right is is produce some sort of employee right or is the purpose of school more of this sort of liberal arts notion of like to develop a a well-rounded bro you know breath of knowledge of multiple things that is going to help somebody live with you know certain you know virtue and character in life um you know and so on and so forth and and the reality is that nobody really agrees and there are different schools that have different purposes but overall like if you look at the public education system yes a lot of it did come from the need to kind of produce you know workers um also as as you know again that's my understanding right like through the Industrial Revolution as more and more people started themselves working in factories right more more parents started working they needed to do something with their kids right and so like School became this place where like they could put the kids while the parents were working in the factories the kids could go in this thing um you know which then ultimately would prepare them to work in the factories again over simplification but I think there certain truth in that for um you know and I think it goes to this larger question of you know what is the purpose of education and you know a question that I'd love to ask you you know based upon this podcast right of like what's the purpose in growing muscle well that that I I'm not even joking that was literally the next question I was going to ask you and that that's one of the main reasons that you hear is um what is the significance of muscle and physical strength that was literally the next question I was going to ask you but for for me I think the the importance of muscle it's it's there's so many things but it's uh really good for your longevity for me is one of the main the main points about it and being physically strong is so important just for daily tasks for for all kinds of things for anything you do physically whether it's taking the shopping bags out the car or whether it's deadlifting 250 kilograms um it's just amazing what the human body is is capable of and uh we're really fortunate to be human uh humans are really an elite species in terms of being able to sweat being able to go long distances there's no other animal that has the exact same uh kind of features as a human being able to throw I watched a really cool um docu uh docu series about how uh like kind of overpowered the human body is in terms of the different things that we've been given for example the brain the size of the brain the ability to throw like a spear the ability to create tools um and then also the ability to hunt and track prey for for days on end is really a uniquely human uh feature which is really really cool and then like I said um I think it's uh I've actually gone blank on her name but one of the very good doctors she basically said that uh muscle is the organ of longevity and I've heard that repeat it's Dr Gabriel line I believe and a lot of these really Top Doctors um they've all said I also had Dr vonder on the show she also said that um muscle is the most important thing uh for living a good U healthy life and Dr Peter attia as well he also in his book outlive he also talks about muscle mass being a really good indicator for living a long and healthy life if you don't have muscle um you're going to decline a lot more quickly in general obviously as we've done a lot here we've done a lot of oversimplification but in general more muscle to a point I think is better for you and for living a long and healthy life and that's the main thing that I'm trying to do is to help people to increase not only their lifespan um but their health span and having more muscle and being physically able to get up if you fall for example is a huge thing so that that's my that's why I like to um get muscle and also it's really cool to be able to pick up heavy things so you you know you mentioned the longevity piece right and there's there's no question that that is uh is essential muscle is is really really important for us you know for from practical strength to you know the improving outcomes after things like Falls which tend to be so devastating when you get older um because a lot of strength training also improves you know bone density um you know to obviously the metabolic Health that it can provide you know we we can dip into each one of those buckets um and yet I wonder though like is that what actually gets you going into the gym or working on your own training is it is it is it a longevity piece or is there something else for me it's definitely um so I'm definitely addicted to it as well I think it's a good addiction to have um I love seeing the progress so I played a lot of sport growing up a lot of tennis a lot of squash a lot of hockey and um but I doubled in in many many sports um but for me the the gym it's definitely the easiest to kind of measure your progress you can literally just increase your your bench Squat and deadlift and you can see hopefully you get a somewhat linear progression obviously it does you get diminishing returns after the stage but I've noticed a definite Trend in increasing the numbers as well as um tracking what your body looks like just looking in the mirror and getting your body analysis done on an inbody scan or Dexter scan it's just really really epic to be able to see the improvements from maybe not day to day or even week to week but possibly month to month or year to year and it's just really really cool to be able to see that constant consistent Improvement but also then to when you get injured to then be able to come back um to your Baseline a lot more more quickly than if you just stopped everything and that's why the healing from injuries and stuff is a big component for me because I've been really seriously injured and the advice for me from doctors and Physicians and all kinds of knowledgeable people was just rest and I don't think and obviously for some people that is like if you're really really bad maybe that is the best thing to do but for a lot of people like for me that was not the best thing to do like for example I had a a wrist injury I still had three other limbs that I could have trained and I did but like they just said just don't do anything just give it like several months to heal and I'm like well I can't do that I'm going to completely atrophy and I did um when I when I was really injured with my back injury um and I just never want anyone to have to do that again obviously if it is so bad that you literally can't then that's a different story but for most people I think there is a way there are ways to work around it uh interesting guest we had on was Jared from um unbreakable strength he went into hospital and basically the only thing that saved his life was his um muscle mass that he' accured from powerlifting if he didn't have he was known as Miracle Man he lost I think it was 40 kilograms mostly muscle and if he didn't have that initial muscle he would have died which is really um it shows you the power of of muscle in terms of your body's resilience for he had a a major disease um or illness um but just for that as well as for aging um in a good way yeah and when you and I think you use the words that you know you're you're somewhat addicted to it tell me more about that well it's it's not so much it's I like to go I like to do things properly and I think that training I've always been big into training from from tennis and from squash so I would always do sport every single day now I do sport basically every day or train every day minus one day where I have for rest and then I do cardio like tennis squash or uh paddle uh once a week at least I try to um and it's more it's not so much an addiction it's more of a I guess I misspoke there by saying it's an addiction but I think the results are addictive so I think that that is the addictive part um but for me I like seeing the constant progression and um it's more of a routine so I'm very very happy in my routine we know we have gym every day we have a very strict uh schedule or program we try not to deviate U as much as possible my girlfriend and I we do it together so it's nice to spend time with her as well as to see all your friends and peers in the gym so it's something that we can look forward to at the end of every day so for you having the physical training just be part of your daily routine it's something that's just engineered into your your life yes yeah since the age of was on the tennis court um my mom was coaching at the time she was a top tennis player herself and um from the age of four I was playing uh against people a lot older than me uh just being on the court next to my mom and um with the coaches and things yeah and you know if you didn't have that routine what would be different how would that impact you I have no idea I think if I didn't have that routine I wouldn't be the person that I am today so I think I think that that hle would have been filled with something else maybe gaming or computer games or something because I did love my computer games up until 2019 when I realized I didn't have time well I couldn't be making time for computer games as well as studying uh my computer science degree and playing tennis and gyming and and and it just something had to go and it decided that the computer games needed to be that thing to go because I loved my computer games and um but that wasn't benefiting me as much as obviously studying and training and exercise and all the rest of it so that that seems like a pretty important point when you then decided you know what if if I'm gonna have to build my routines I'm gonna let go of the gaming and I'm gonna focus on the training yeah yeah it was a difficult decision and I still miss it I I know it's crazy but that was in 2019 19 it's 5 years later and I see my brother playing that game that I used to play on my old account just by the way um and and I I get a Pang of that still looks like a lot of fun it still looks good but um yeah it's not not worth um not worth the time investment I don't believe and for some people it is some people their entire career is gaming and they make money off it so then that's epic maybe I should have done that and then I could have trained as a hobby but anyway I dig well no you know I so I I ask these questions because I'm always trying to boil down to like what is the deeper motivation that's getting you to show up in the gym consistency and I'm saying in the gym obviously you know you don't you don't have to work out in the gym but um and you know the question that's always on my mind right and the one that has sort of intellectually fascinated me for all these years is why do people build the routines that they built right why do people ultimately kind of have the lifestyle that they have and I hear you saying that it's like you could have had a lifestyle where like you just did gaming all day but instead you kind of had this one now where training has become key and I'm assuming that most of the people listening here right have like are probably in that group right where where training is just part of their daily routine and and everybody that I see that's you know really successful in terms of you know building muscle maintaining a high degree of Fitness right is like always about that consistency and the consistency comes from having it be part of your routine it's just something that happens and it's something that you look forward to right because everybody understands that exercise is important right at the intellectual level you know everybody knows like it's good for my health it's good for my longevity right like maybe not everybody fully understands you know the gravity of again how how significant muscle is for their physical and their mental health and their you know as you said their lifespan and their health span but I think most people get an idea right like yeah exercise is important and yet I you know you look around and there are millions and millions and millions and millions of people that don't do any exercise right and I know those are not necessarily the people listening to this but that's always on my on my mind of like okay like why like it's clear that like an intellectual knowledge of something being good for you is not enough longevity and health they're too ambiguous they live in some unforeseen future right and we often think of our future selves as if a different person so it's like okay yeah I get that it's good but that's down the line right that's a problem for a future Jeff you know 10 years from now right that's not really what's going to motivate me to put down my phone put down my gaming get off my couch and go do something with my body right and so the question is what is and so then you know that's why I asked kind of you know about the addictive part I think it's really important that we highlight how pleasurable these things can become and I say can become because I think initially they often aren't right like moving your body you know and obviously anybody who's really built any serious muscle or dedicated themselves to training understands like it is challenging right it's like you are pushing yourself right you are pushing yourself close to or at failure repeatedly right when that lactate builds up and your muscles are burning when that weight feels like it's going to crush you like there's so many things that are actually very quite Difficult about it and yet when you get to the other side of that as you said the rewards are tremendous both psychologically in terms of oh my God like you know you you look back and you're like wow I just did that thing that was really really hard and now I feel proud of myself for achieving something that was so difficult and then also physiologically right we know exercise just releasing this chemical of neurotransmitters right you get this dopamine and this serotonin and this endorphin and this you know all of these systems are just coming online flooding you with all sorts of hormones that obviously going to change your physiology getting you feeling a different way um but you need to do exercise consistently enough to kind of start to see those rewards and I think a lot of people don't get over that hump or they don't find the right type of exercise that you know works for their body or works for their lifestyle um you know and so then they give up before they really start to see some of the progress I mean there's so many barriers uh to getting people into building muscle but that's why I kind of was was curious about that question and it goes back to a bigger point that I'd like to make around this idea of motivational flexibility right that there's not one single motivation that's G to get you to go build muscle right there are many and they're all valid they all have one little piece of the truth here right I want to build muscle because it's going to help me live long for decades to come right I want to build muscle because I actually really enjoy the the daily Act of doing something something difficult and challenging myself and it feels good right I want to build muscle because I like just the routine and and that daily structure actually gives some stability to my life it just gives me something that I can focus my energy on and that helps you know keep me on track and focused and that I find to be intrinsically rewarding right or you know or I want to build muscle because I was in injury and I was in pain and I want to get out of pain and I don't want to be there anymore right or I don't want to be on my diabetes medicine or some other thing right so like being able to draw upon all of these motivational sources without being overly attached to any single one gives you so much more power then to fuel this because at the end of the day it's like I don't really care what gets people into the gym or working on themselves I just want to get them working so we need to draw upon all these sources to get that motivation exactly you know you make so many good points it's difficult to to highlight all of them but on that I think you mentioned one of the motivators um and for me I have goals so for example for squat for bench for deadlift for pull-ups um and they're very lofty goals and it's a it's a fiveyear plan to get to those goals um but I'm quite excited and I'm making good progress so far so I'm very excited to hopefully attain all of those goals in the next five years that's that that is a a big goal and a big reason why I can be there um even when I don't feel like being there may have had a tough day at work or feeling tired but then that's why you got caffeine so it can nudge you along you know um you know so like the importance of setting goals yeah this huge right and like any and again anybody who's been in the gym knows this any trainer right is going to ask you what are your goals and we're going to start to set some targets um and I think these things are helpful right like having like you said I want to have some squat goals I want to have some pull-up goals right this is why people sign up for competitions and for events right I want to r a marathon I want to do a bodybuilding comp right it's like I have these goals these Focus my energy and my effort very clearly now their structure right and then there's sort of a Finish Line right and then there's a sense of competition right there's so many helpful things around that you know and I always want to broaden people to it's like okay like what's the Finish Line after the Finish Line right it's like when you hit those goals then what you know like what comes next and I think that can be hard for a lot of people that have been training you know it's like you prep so hard for this event and then after the event or whatever you hit your goals and then there's sort of this void or this let down you know and and maybe you're not as satisfied or as happy as you thought you were going to be um which is why I think you know the importance of having a larger context for why are you even bothering with any of this at all right are you doing this from this place of you know curiosity around like what is my potential I want I want to experience my potential as a human as a man as having this body and I want to know what it's capable of so I'm gonna I want I'm going to push it to try to see and explore what's possible there I think that can be like a really beautiful way into doing all of these things right but then there's also a shadow side where like so much Fitness especially like the really hardcore pushing can be driven from these Shadows of feeling like you're not enough to hear Jeff's take on how to overcome these shads we W to have to tune in again on the next episode of the muscle growth podcast thank you for tuning in to the muscle growth podcast if you found value in today's episode we'd really appreciate it if you could leave us a fstar rating and a quick review it 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