John Jaquish, PhD, is the inventor of the most effective bone density building medical device, which has reversed osteoporosis for thousands and created more powerful and fracture resistant athletes.

He has been called the Tony Stark of the fitness industry by multiple media outlets. He is the inventor of the world’s most effective bone density building medical device and has partnered with Tony Robbins. Scientific discoveries based on his first invention drove his second invention, X3 Bar : the world’s most powerful muscle building device.

His book, Weight Lifting Is a Waste of Time: So Is Cardio , and There’s a Better Way to Have the Body You Want is out right now.

Hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr John Jaquish.

Full Transcript #

Speaker 1: This is the Maje Saba podcast.

Michael: Another (beep) podcast, really? Am I getting paid for this?

Michael: Hello there, and welcome to the podcast. Today I’m really excited because I’m talking to a very interesting and somewhat controversial guest, Dr. John Jaquish. I’ll be chatting to him from California, so please excuse the audio, it’s not always studio quality. He’s written a book, Weight Lifting is a Waste of Time and so is Cardio , it took me a long time to get Dr. John on because he’s got like a million followers on Instagram. That’s not super important, but it was very hard for him to always see my messages, because he would block people, and he gets a lot of messages, but anyway, he’s on today and I’m excited.

Anyway, this is my conversation with Dr. John Jaquish.

Dr. John Jaquish: Hey, thanks for having me.

Michael: It’s an absolute pleasure. I’m going to be honest with you from the outset, I haven’t read all of the book and that’s because, when I saw the book was coming out I scrambled to get it here in Australia, and then I couldn’t get it and it was months and months to wait for it until the middle of November. So, then I got onto social media, and there’s one good aspect of social media, and I did a bit of a post and I noticed that some of my friends in the states had the book, and they were telling me about some of the contents of the book, which I got very excited about. First of all, I want to ask you about the title of the book. Now, the title of the book Weight Lifting is a Waste of Time and so is Cardio .

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s right.

Michael: Now, when you came up with that title, did you have any of your peers say, “Listen, Dr. John, this is a little bit controversial this title.”

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, I’m a controversial guy. And what I did to medical device industry and bone density, 10 years ago I created a bone density treatment device, it worked better than anything, than every clinical trial. And I wasn’t particularly inflammatory because you got to be careful with medicine, you can’t say like, “The drugs are terrible, don’t take those.” Because that’s giving medical advice, but I would say this is a superior approach. And it’s a superior approach because it is one of physical medicine instead of pharmaceutical medicine.

Dr. John Jaquish: And ran that by a bunch of attorneys and they said, “Yeah, you can say that. You won’t get in trouble for it.” And I noticed it was very inflammatory, as medicine goes that’s a really inflammatory statement, but I could back it up. I could have called this book The X3 Bar resistance band bar system method, or A Superior Way To Train, but they all say stuff like that and they’re all basically trash. They’re just the same repurposed programming that have all kinds of errors, and just wrong stuff in them. And I do believe, now that I understand what it takes to trigger muscular growth, that weight lifting is a waste of time.

Dr. John Jaquish: And the reason most people do cardio is for weight loss, and that’s the worst thing to do for weight loss. So, I have both of those things, and the cardio thing that was proven 40 years ago, but the problem is the fitness industry and fitness fans, they don’t read research, there’s no one really in the fitness industry that can interpret research, or has been able to communicate the findings of research studies. Now, there are sports scientists, but they typically work with professional athletes, and what they don’t do is end up getting their awards to make it into the gym. And so, people are doing arcane things that don’t make sense, that are hurting their joints, they love the banging of weights for ego reasons. I’ve seen people dislocate their shoulders after a CrossFit movement, they’re done with the movement but they want to throw the weight on the ground so they make a big noise, because they’re important and they’re strong, and want everybody to know it.

Dr. John Jaquish: And it’s like, we see these things, and why are people throwing weights? Well, it’s because you would never know they work out by looking at them, so they need to beat their chest in a different way, and it’s because the whole industry has failed. If you really look, who’s fit? Who looks like a professional athlete, other than professional athletes? Almost nobody. I know people work out for 20 years, they don’t look like anything. And the data reflects that and reference a bunch of studies, one in six males over the age of 18 have used anabolic steroids in the United States, one in six males fit, not even one in 600 would you notice are fit looking.

Dr. John Jaquish: I go into gyms and I look at the people, and the people that are in the gym and the people that are at the pizza place next door don’t look a whole lot different. So, why are people defending an industry that is probably the most failed industry we’ve ever seen?

Michael: I have this comment where I tell people, and it’s a bit of a joke, I say. “Here in Australia, for example, in Sydney and where I am now on the South Coast in Wollongong, there are so many gyms, so many 24 hour gyms, so many personal trainers, so many personal training studios, so many people on social media with personal training apps, so many diets, whether it’s keto or carnivore, yet we’re fatter than ever before.” Well, not you, you’ve got like eight percent body fat, but the general population is obese, so something’s [crosstalk 00:07:29] got to be broken.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, I mean nutrition is terrible. In the trend towards… I generally don’t like talking about politics, but I love using politics as an example because everybody gets it. The trend towards preferring fake news, people want the news that makes them feel good they don’t want the truth. And that is obvious, we have learned that in the last four years. People can be fairly sure they’re being lied to, but if it supports their existing political idea they love it. And one of the more googled terms is, how do I lose weight without changing my diet, in different variations of that. I mean, you’re obese so clearly you eat too much and probably the wrong things, probably having your hormonal system fighting you instead of helping you but, by all means, we’re not going to change the diet.

Dr. John Jaquish: So, I saw all these things and I didn’t really want to get into the diet in the title, because that is a huge part of what I’m talking about, there’s enough controversy in that but I really wanted to make it crystal clear that I was attacking standard fitness, because it is a complete failure. How many people do cardio until they reach about 45 years old, and then it brings tears to their eyes to get up out of a chair because they’re bone on bone in their knees. Is that going to make them live longer? No, because now they can’t move, or they need double knee replacements, and that’ll cause a whole list of complications.

Dr. John Jaquish: So, is that really smart? Is that health? That doesn’t seem like health to me. So, that’s why I picked that title. I thought, “Yes it’s a hyperbolic title and it’s going to get a lot of attention, but it’s also something that I believe it’s true.”

Michael: Can I ask you about the cardio thing, now for a very long time… I mean, with this book you turn convention on its head. Like when we talk about cardio, for example, I’ll go for a walk for one hour with my little boy and it’s not a strenuous walk but it’s leisurely walk, and for years people have said to me, “Cardio, it’s going to kill your muscle gain.” With cardio, is it eating into the muscle? Because I think people think that you do cardio and you lose fat.

Dr. John Jaquish: No, you do cardio and you lose muscle.

Michael: Yeah. So too much cardio-

Dr. John Jaquish: It upregulates cortisol, so too much is generally more than 20 minutes. Yeah, so you do more than 20 minutes you up regulate cortisol for a substantial period of time. Now, the problem with this talk track is, people always want to simplify everything, including their politics, into a sentence fragment meme, which I think is contributing to the stupidity of the Western World, because nothing is that simple except maybe the statement I’m making right now. Don’t listen to fucking means. But, the desired simplicity in the reality are so far apart. When you do cardio, you are sending signals to your central nervous system that you want to redesign the body to be optimized for that environment. That’s what adaptive response is, optimizing for your environment.

Dr. John Jaquish: So, if you’re going to be a distance runner and, I will say, if you want to be a distance runner you got to do cardio. For this reason, the adaptations that go along with doing cardio optimize you for going great distances with small amounts of fuel, so you immediately start losing bone density. And it’s because of a cortisol upregulation and chronic cortisol upregulation, not a brief period of time, cortisol goes up and down, you have a cup of coffee you get out of bed, your cortisol goes up and goes down. So, and it’s a stress hormone, so there’s… And if you’re in chronic stress, for example, then goes up and stays up for a long period of time, so stressful situations aren’t bad, chronic stresses are. So, cardio is a chronic stress, and there where even the recovery from the cardio [inaudible 00:12:24] becomes a chronic stress.

Dr. John Jaquish: And here’s why, the body’s trying to redesign itself so you’re going to lose bone density, you’re going to have weaker bone, because just going long distance is why you’re carrying around a heavy chassis, you need a lightweight one. It’s going to metabolize muscle, so you’re going to lose muscle mass, and it’s going to protect body fat, so it’s telling your body, if you’re going to metabolize something you metabolize the muscle and not the body fast. So, it’s actually giving people exactly the opposite of what they think they’re getting.

Michael: Is it protecting the body fat as a way of survival?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, for storage. So, you run 20 miles one day and you got to run 50 miles the next day, the body’s like, “Well, we’re going to store some extra fuel for that.” You’re training your body to store more fuel, to be fatter not leaner. So, when you look at a lot of distance runners, they’re not obese and big but they’re what you would call skinny fat. So, they have a very low level of muscle mass but they’re still not lean, because they’re carrying around extra tissues.

Michael: People told me-

Dr. John Jaquish: [inaudible 00:13:44].

Michael: Sorry, I was going to say, people always tell me about running, and I don’t like running and I understand fully that people enjoy it and that’s fantastic, but sometimes when you see a marathon runner, for example, or somebody that enjoys running a lot, they’ll say, you ask them how old they are, they’ll go. “I’m 35,” but really they look like- [crosstalk 00:14:03]

Dr. John Jaquish: And they look like they’re 70 or something. Just devastated, crushed. That’s what cortisol does the skin.

Michael: That’s fascinating. But, then when you see people, for example, in the gym, and I guess these are outliers, you see people in the gym and they’re looking fit, they look built. Are they just a small minority of the population that have got the genes to be able to look like that?

Dr. John Jaquish: You mean people who are doing a lot of cardio and they look healthy?

Michael: No, I’m talking about people, when you see people in the gym and they’re looking built, I mean, forget that they might be doing a little bit of cardio, but they look built, they look like they’ve got muscle.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, weight training is definitely the opposite stimulus. So, weight training upregulates growth hormone and downregulates cortisol, so if you’re going to compare one versus the other, cardio has very little upside. Weight training has the same cardiac upside, this is important, the same cardiac upside that cardiovascular training does, because your heart is being trained it just has to pump more blood for more musculature, which is part of the reason why there’s a myth that strength athletes don’t have any cardiovascular endurance. No, they’re not good at running great distances because they’re carrying around muscle that needs blood pumped to it. So, if I sprint up a flight of stairs I’m going to be more out of breath and a guy who weighs 30 or 40 kilos less than me. And the reason-

Michael: I’ve heard people say that.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, and the reason is, when I… In fact, I’ll get more out of breath than an obese person that is my same body weight, so I’m like 100, what am I, like 110 kilos. And so you can take an obese person who’s 110 kilos and we can both run up a flight of stairs, and I’ll probably be more out of breath than him, because the muscles in my thighs are probably twice or three times as big as his are. So, it’s like the difference between a V10 Lamborghini engine versus a four cylinder Honda engine. The Lamborghini is not fuel efficient, that’s not what it was made for.

Michael: I’ve heard people often talk about built guys, or built people, can’t be too gender specific, somebody might get upset. That are too built, and you often hear, “Ah no, they don’t have any cardiovascular fitness,” so that’s a myth.

Dr. John Jaquish: Not true, it’s a myth. Their cardiovascular health is great, their ability to run long distances is compromised, just like the distance runner can’t pick up a heavy weight. Neither has anything to do with their cardiovascular fitness, that person, the person who has been doing the distance running has determined that they’re going to have the lowest amount of muscle mass possible. So, of course, they can’t pick up anything heavy, they’ve been sacrificing all their muscle.

Michael: Why is that so much disinformation at the moment when it comes to the fitness industry? I mean, I know social media is responsible for that, there’s a lot of conflicting ideas, but- [crosstalk 00:17:33]

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, social media is responsible for a lot of stupidity, but I don’t blame social media for this, because before we had social media we were still told cardio is for weight loss and strength is for building muscle, and that was disproven 40 years ago. There’s research before I was born, that says that cardio upregulates cortisol, and here’s what cortisol does, and this is maybe not the best approach. Research is usually pretty pragmatic. So, no emotional centered statements in it, but this may not be the best approach for adipose tissue loss. That’s been stated for, sorry, it’s been stated for 40 years.

Dr. John Jaquish: In fact, I know some of the executives of the National Academy, no not the National Academy Sports medicine… Various fitness scientific journal organizations, health, sports medicine specific journals. And they know that they are failing to communicate with the exercise industry, completely, and they know they have always failed to communicate, but the problem is the ability to read academic research and understand academic research is just not simple, and human biology, just not simple. And so, this is part of the reason why physicians around the world don’t really recommend going and seeing the guy that works at the gym. Why? Because the guy that works in gym doesn’t know anything.

Dr. John Jaquish: And most of what he knows is wrong, or was made up by somebody else, and the poor gym employee, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know he’s been given all the wrong information, but he certainly believes it. So, it becomes, I guess the expression is, a fool’s paradise, where everybody’s wrong and they’re just satisfied in the fact that they’ve reached some sort of consensus. And, of course, I’m like a heretic when I walk in and I’m like, “Yeah, everything you’re doing is incorrect.” So, but I can back it up, I can prove it. And I get accused all kinds of things, “Oh, all those studies are wrong, that you cite. All the 250 studies.” Okay, so some of them are the most cited studies in the field, but they’re cited by other studies. So, researchers know what’s right and researchers know what studies aren’t so good, or biased or whatever, in the nutrition section I really had to go in there and explain how we do not cherry pick research, “We’re going to give you the consensus based on a few different premises in different sections of the book.”

Dr. John Jaquish: Like, the two greatest drivers of long life are being strong and being lean. That has never been contested in research. So, very few- [crosstalk 00:21:05]. Yeah, being strong and being lean. So, if strength is associated with long life and being lean, then it’s cardio really the answer? Absolutely not, because you get neither out of that. You’re not lean you’re skinny fat, you’re certainly not strong, you’re sacrificing your strength.

Michael: It’s so true. Yeah, it’s definitely.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, and what’s great about this conversation is if somebody has the patience to just listen to me, I mean, I might have an irritating voice, I don’t know, but if they just listen for a little bit to one of these podcasts, and they’re like, “Everything that guy is saying makes sense, maybe I ought to read that book.”

Michael: Dude, I’ve been working out for 20 years, 25 years, I’m in my 40s now. And I’ll go down to my garage and I’ll do chin ups, and I’ll do bench press, and I’ll do some upright rows, and then I’ll do some deadlifts, and people will say to me, they go, “You look fit, you’re working out, you seem to be looking good.” I mean, I do do cardio, mostly lots of walks and occasionally I would ride my mountain bike, but I’ve stopped putting on muscle. And I know that you put on muscle in your 40s, I think in the first two years you put on, how many, it was like-

Dr. John Jaquish: 45 pounds.

Michael: … 45 pounds of muscle, which is… What does that equate to, it’s like 18 kilos.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, in the first two years. So, I’ve obviously plateaued and something is not happening, so is it still beneficial for me, forgetting about your X3 system we’ll talk about that in a sec. Can I put on muscle going to the gym and doing those traditional lifting workouts?

Dr. John Jaquish: Probably not, they’re incredibly inefficient. Yeah, and another reason I get a lot of hate is that the book is largely about X3 portable gym , which if you read the description of what the book is about, it’s really about the story of X3 Bar resistance band bar system , why it was developed and why it’s so superior. And someone if so inclined to learn about that then they should pick up the book, and then all the negative reviews are, “Oh, this is just a big commercial for X3 Bar resistance band training system .” No, it’s not, it’s a documentation of why. And the why is, if you understand it will change your training completely. Will you go out and get an X3 Bar portable home gym ? Yeah probably, because then I own all the patents and all the countries. So, sorry, I run a business, but I’m not duping anyone it is absolutely amazing once somebody gets a month or two behind them with X3 Bar variable resistance training system usage, they never go back. [crosstalk 00:24:01] superior.

Michael: You do have a lot of detractors, and what I like about watching you-

Dr. John Jaquish: Not credible ones.

Michael: Sorry?

Dr. John Jaquish: Not credible ones.

Michael: No, I know.

Dr. John Jaquish: I have a lot of kicking and screaming children who are mostly just jealous of financial success that I’m having. I mean, everybody has that, everyone who is really make something happen.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. Because, I mean, social media breeds that, it’s easy for somebody to get on the computer and say, “oh, this is a crock of shit, or whatever, and this guy has no credibility.” But, how tall are you, like six foot or something.

Dr. John Jaquish: Six foot, yeah.

Michael: Yeah, and what’s your body fat percentage?

Dr. John Jaquish: Last test I took it was eight percent.

Michael: And you don’t have-

Dr. John Jaquish: Probably a bit lower now.

Michael: And you’re not doing any type of traditional lifting in the gym.

Dr. John Jaquish: No.

Michael: You use the X3 Bar exercise band bar system .

Dr. John Jaquish: Only.

Michael: Yeah, that’s a pretty convincing argument. And, again, I’m not a personal fitness guy, I don’t know anything about the science.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, I put a chapter in the book about how I needed to make myself the spokesperson, because if I gave it to somebody who’s already athletic, because I wasn’t in shape before I started this, this is more of a science project to me than it was a passion for lifting. I mean, do I like lifting? Yeah, I do, I always did, never really got much out of it. I was stronger than most people, I played division one rugby in university, and so it was time. But, I thought, “What if I have the data, not really what if I knew I had the data that proved that weight lifting was a lousy approach, and I had a better one.” So, let’s just give it a shot.

Dr. John Jaquish: So, the excitement for the project had more to do with my excitement for science, because otherwise I could’ve just built the prototype and got great results. Part of my mind was like, “Why rock the boat? I’m already making millions of dollars on my bone density technology, so who cares?” I’ll build a prototype, I’ll put on 45 pounds of muscle, everybody will just think, “Wow, that guy was just born with a Thor’s hammer in his hand,” and I’ll be like, “Yeah.” But, it works so well. And this is one of the… So, my co-author, and he’s one of my best friends, Henry Alkire.

Dr. John Jaquish: He was more interested in cycling and just the entertainment type exercise, just going out and doing hikes, and camping, riding his bike, and never gave a shit about being muscular, but if you said, “Hey, would you like to add 10 pounds of muscle and 10 pounds less body fat?” He would’ve gone, “Yeah, that sounds great.” So I built the prototype, and we’re working together and he says, we had a couple of them we were going to ship them to some very impromptu people, like Dave Asprey is one of the first few people who use X3 workout bar system . Dave Asprey had an X3 Bar resistance band bar system like a year before it came out. And so. Henry says, “Can we make an extra one, because I’d like to use it. I’d use that every day.” And I was like, “Yeah, absolutely.”

Dr. John Jaquish: And I knew the second he said that, this guy was never in any particular strength training demographic, but he saw it working with me, he understood the science because he’s an engineers, he’s a very scientific guy. But, if he wanted one, then the market isn’t the strength training market, the market is the intelligent executive. And I can get a scientific message through to them, and coincidentally I have been talking to a couple different fitness companies that were like, “You want to make a scientific proposal to the fitness audience? No chance, don’t even try it. The fitness audience is outrageously unintelligent.” And they mean like the typical gym goer. And they can’t understand anything, they can’t even understand the words they’re using. A lot of people who are writing articles and training other people are using words they can’t infer, and so just the industry is a nightmare and I just decided to go around the industry. “Okay, well then my demographic will be smart people not fitness people.”

Michael: I want to talk about the precursor to the X3 Bar resistance band training system , then we’ll talk about the variable resistance. The precursor was the OsteoStrong which you mentioned before. So, you started that, I think, it was that your mum had osteoporosis.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s right.

Michael: Yeah, and then, so that was the precursor, but from my understanding you’ve got OsteoStrong here in Australia too don’t you?

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s right.

Michael: Yeah, you do.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, we’re in…

Michael: I think you’re in Melbourne.

Dr. John Jaquish: I can’t remember all the locations.

Michael: No, I did some research, I think you’re in-

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, Hawthorne area [inaudible 00:29:49].

Michael: Yeah, I think you’re in Sydney too.

Dr. John Jaquish: I think so too.

Michael: Yeah, and you’ve partnered up with the great Tony Robbins, right?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Michael: I mean, he’s a reputable dude.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes, he is.

Michael: It’s probably an understatement. So, he would have-

Dr. John Jaquish: He wrote the foreword of my next book.

Michael: After Weight Lifting is a Waste of Time ?

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, I actually wrote a book before Weight Lifting is a Waste of Time, and it just hasn’t come out yet.

Michael: Can you reveal, what the name of that book?

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s called Unbreakable .

Michael: And he’s written the foreword to that book?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes.

Michael: Yeah, so Tony Robbins is not a guy that associates himself with just degenerates, he’s a smart guy. So, he’s a partner with you and OsteoStrong.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s right.

Michael: And that was the precursor to this X3 Bar variable resistance training system , and your mother’s background of osteoporosis?

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s right, yeah.

Michael: And you were motivated-

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, very different effects. You won’t get X3 variable resistance exercise system to trigger much bone growth. Bone needs extremely high forces, in the hip joint you need to go over 4.2 multiples of body weight, or you’re doing nothing. So, when somebody says-

Michael: What does that exactly mean, 4.2?

Dr. John Jaquish: Multiply your body weight by 4.2.

Michael: Oh, right. Oh, wow.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Yeah, nobody exercises with that. So, when somebody says, “Oh, yeah, I work out to avoid osteoporosis.” It depends, if I look at my watch and I got 30 minutes I’ll be like, “Let me fix your wang here.” And I tell him like, “Yeah, it’s not doing anything. Here’s why, and here are the research studies you want to look at.” and I had this conversation with, used to be 20 physicians a day, now it’s probably more like 20 a week, because [inaudible 00:31:54] caught on and they know about it, and they’re prescribing now. But, just grossly misinformed.

Dr. John Jaquish: It was one of those things, and I got physicians to really question the research that they had been citing. I would say, “look, every recommendation that you give Has a dosage associated with it. what do you what do you do for cardiovascular health?” Well they would say, “Go and do cardiovascular exercise, and you want to get to target heart rate for this amount of time.” Okay, well, forget about the merits of that, it did have the effect on the cardiovascular system in isolation, that they were looking for. So, a dosage is associated with the recommendation, it’s sort of like, “Aspirin’s good for headaches.” “Well, five milligrams or 5,000?” Well, five milligrams will nothing, 5,000 will probably kill you. But, 350 milligrams, that’s a good dosage. That’s right there.

Dr. John Jaquish: So they ran tests, and they ran tests with animals and compare the body weights, and they got to that 350 milligrams because they want to figure out, “What is the minimum amount of this tree bark extract called aspirin, that is going to reduce the pain and swelling in someone’s head?” And that’s what it was, 350. And so, I would say to these doctors, “You’re telling people go out and do a resistance exercise, how much? Holding a bottle of wine is more resistance than holding a glass of wine, so maybe we should just drink from the bottle. That’s resistance.” Of course they’re going to go, “Well, yeah. Okay, I mean, you’re being funny here.” And I’m like, “But am I? How do people interpret what you say by resistance? Are they holding two kilogram weights and just doing bicep curls where they use more strength to put their shirt on in the morning. That’s not doing anything, you’re just wasting their time. So, why don’t we figure out what the effective dose response is? And then once you figure that out you realize there’s no exercise that comes anywhere near it.”

Dr. John Jaquish: So, that wasn’t the defining moment of the technology, that was a defining moment of my talk track, of how I was going to explain this to the medical world, because that’s hard. Developing something profound, there’s a lot of things that can be developed that would be helpful to humanity, but how do you explain it to people? How are people going to, in a minute or in a 15 second social media advertisement, are they going to go, “That’s what I need, I’ve been looking for that my whole life.” That’s a lot harder.

Michael: Oh, it’s way harder. When I look at the X3 Bar exercise band bar system and I look at people using it online, and I look at your videos of you executing the exercises, to me, somebody that’s trained for a long time, it’s counterintuitive because it seems, from an outsider’s perspective looking at a video, it looks really fucking simple, it looks-

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s elegant, it is a very simple thing. And people get even more angry when they’re like, “Well, where are you going to go with this? This is obviously phase one, you’re going to have a camber bar, you’re going to have this, and this, and this, and you’re going to…” They want to overcomplicate exercise industry tends to do, and I say, “No, no, no, no, no. All those machines that you’ve been using, they were created so the creator of the machine could sell machines, not because you need them, X3 Bar portable home gym is it. Is it the end all be all? Yeah, it is. You don’t really need anything else. If your wrists feel awkward being totally supinated or totally protonated, you can get glow grips. Well those are like $2. Just snap them right on the bar and then you can have a more neutral grip.”

Dr. John Jaquish: So, I don’t see this obsession for upgrades and modifications that people have. You may need a new iPhone every year or two years, because they’ve upgraded it and, “Oh my God, it’s going to change your life again.” Which may or may not be true. For me, it usually is true because I’m always on the go, so I do use my smartphone to its full potential, but what does the human body need and is that ever going to change? The answer is, it doesn’t need much, it needs very high forces. And those forces need to be placed strategically on the body, not grossly very strategic. If you load the body where the body is stronger, you’re going to get a much more profound level of exhaustion, both myofibril exhaustion and sarcoplasmic exhaustion, and you’re going to have a much more profound response. And triple, hence the product’s called X3 Bar variable resistance training system .

Michael: X3 Bar resistance band bar system . ANd is that where the difference is between this system? We’re talking, when you’re doing a bench press, you’re not getting the variable tension like you are with the X3 Bar resistance band training system .

Dr. John Jaquish: You’re not getting any variable tension. If you’re benching 100 kilos it’s 100 kilos here, it’s 100 kilos here, and it’s 100 kilos here.

Michael: Right, but when you’re doing the bench, when you’re halfway through the bench. Yeah, I guess it’s still 120 kilos, but doesn’t it get harder?

Dr. John Jaquish: No, it gets easier as you extend your arm, because you have more mechanical leverage and you’re engaging more muscle tissue. Those two things come on and same time, but the point of the X3 resistance bands system is, I can hold X amount of weight at the bottom, I can hold seven X at the top, why don’t we train accordingly? Because once that, holding a static weight doesn’t make sense, because you have drastic different capabilities. I mean, why do cars have gears? Because a one gear car won’t go very far, but what you need when you’re starting off is very different than what happens when you’re on the expressway.

Michael: All right, so with the X3 Bar exercise band bar system that tension at the top is where it’s at its most powerful.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, so I use about 320 kilos at the top, about 150 kilos in the middle, and 50 kilos at the bottom.

Michael: Yeah, and you’re straining at that whole time, I guess when you’re doing a bench press, I’m trying to…

Dr. John Jaquish: You only strain at the bottom.

Michael: That’s right. Yeah, all right. And at the top-

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, and no matter how tired you are, being out of breath even when you’re at the top, doesn’t mean you’re taxing the bottom- [crosstalk 00:39:24]

Michael: Because you hold it.

Dr. John Jaquish: … doesn’t mean you’re taxing the target muscle.

Michael: You hold it.

Dr. John Jaquish: Oh, and people lockout at the top which is even worse, because they’re actually disengaging the muscle, denying the body any hypoxic effect, which is complicated I won’t get into that, but hypoxia is something you want, and you don’t want it with blood flow restriction bands you want it with your own physiology, because there’s no limits to that. You are basically giving the body a signal where you’re turning the muscle on and then turning it off, and then turning it on turning off, turning it on turning it off. Is that intensity? No, you’re basically resting in the middle, which cakes away, it starts replacing blood as you relax and you lockout at the top, and it’s a less intense even sarcoplasmic experience. So, you have less ATP glycogen and creatine phosphate coming in to replace what was there plus more, you won’t have that effect.

Michael: Yeah. All right, I understand, now I’m starting to understand the fact, because when I do it bench press I can get 100, I do maybe 90 kilos, but I am resting at the top. So, at that position I’m not getting the benefit of the workout, when I hold it- [crosstalk 00:40:46]. Right, with the X3 Bar resistance band training system you’re getting that workout consistently.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, you can’t avoid it. You’re getting it.

Michael: Can you briefly just explain to me what hypoxia is, is that the lack of oxygen or is it the opposite?

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, it’s often described as the lack of blood flow or trapping blood in a certain area of the body [inaudible 00:41:15]. Your own physiology does this when you apply constant tension, so if I don’t lockout at the top of bench press and don’t rest at the bottom, continue to go through a relatively full range of motion, then I’m keeping the blood that’s in the muscle there, and then I’m exhausting the fuel system, the ATP, the glycogen, and the creatine phosphate, the three fuels. And they become super exhausted, more so than if blood is constantly flowing in, because if you constantly have a stream of new fuels do you truly ever exhaust? Not really.

Dr. John Jaquish: So, you just absolutely complete exhaustion. But, then cardiovascular system sees muscle mass missing because there’s no return blood flow from activity. So, and this is really important, myostatin which is a protein that naturally occurs in the body, the more Myostatin you have the less muscle you’re allowed to grow. It’s turned down. So, you downregulate myostatin which means your body is allowing you to gain more musculature. And that’s that’s a big deal.

Michael: All right, I get that.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, it’s like a change of genetic retention. Now that we know this.

Michael: I guess you’ve already answered this question because of the intensity of the X3 Bar variable resistance training system , but you’re doing 15 minute workouts. For anybody in the fitness industry, and not even if you’re not in the fitness industry, for me that does 45 minute workouts or an hour workouts or an hour workout, I look at that and say, “How is that even possible?” And I guess it’s because you’re getting that intensity.

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s about the fatigue, time’s got nothing to do with it. And then people, there’s a lot of principles that people think are infallible, and I would say a lot of these principles that people hold close to them are just out of date. What about time under tension or what about progressive resistance? Progressive resistance is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard about in life, because if people talk about all the time, “Well, my method is progressive resistance.” Progressive resistance is a result not a method, like being rich is not anybody’s job you got to do something to build wealth, whether you’re a professional athlete or you’re a professional investor, whatever. The wealth comes from somewhere. So, saying you do progressive resistance is like saying, “I just get money, or I’m rich, that’s my job.” Okay, it’s not a job, no You’re an idiot. That’s what’s going on, it doesn’t make any sense at all.

Dr. John Jaquish: And so, the idea that in progressive resistance is, you’re able to handle the same amount of repetitions, or maybe one more repetition while slightly incrementally adding just a tiny bit of weight. It’s like, that’s the same thing as just being able to do more repetitions with the same weight. There’s no difference there. So, progressive resistance is just another, it’s just a fancy nonsensical way of saying, “Getting stronger.” Getting stronger is not your workout program, it is the result of your workout program. So, I hear this all the time, they’re like, “What about progressive resistance?” I’m like, “What about it? It’s nonsense.” Time under tension is another thing I constantly hear and, yeah, except not at all, because time under tension, like I said, people lockout on top of the bench press, and they got some guy with a stopwatch standing there and, “Oh, you held the weight a lot longer.” No, you disengaged the weight and rested."

Dr. John Jaquish: So, time under tension is not like time under variable tension while using constant tension. Now, all of a sudden, it’s not a cool three word phrase, so it’s not a sexist, but also time under tension is just an outdated philosophy now that we know what a variable resistance can do.

Michael: Yeah, it makes sense, again, I’m not a scientific person, but I’m reading about variable resistance, and if the aim is to get that absolute maximum benefit, it makes sense. Are you working with, I read somewhere you’re working with a number of NFL players.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s right.

Michael: Right, so-

Dr. John Jaquish: Over 10 of them now.

Michael: All right, so NFL players, from what I understand, they don’t do… You don’t see NFL players in the gym just doing ankles, they do strength stuff, they’re always doing strength stuff.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, this is where sports scientists and fitness trainers, the sport scientist know that what people do in the gym is bad. And they don’t do most of that stuff. I see every day somebody saying, “Everybody knows that NFL players do one rep maximums on a regular basis.” Absolutely wrong, absolutely false, they would never do so. A one rep maximum would risk their entire career, they would never do that. In fact, if one of them even attempted it in front of a strength coach, they’d probably be in trouble because it would be completely unnecessary risk. And, also, you don’t get stronger from doing one rep maximums. But everybody’s an expert on the internet, right.

Dr. John Jaquish: It amazes me how many people that I had no idea we’re experts on pathogens and viruses, all of a sudden. Oh God, people who have never taken a scientific course in their life are just absolute experts on CORONA virus.

Michael: Yeah, everyone’s an expert on CORONA virus.

Dr. John Jaquish: Then they ask me for validation and I’m like, I say it how it is. I lost some friends. It’s okay, they weren’t too smart anyway. So, I’m not going to miss them too much, but they were like, “Tell all our friends that the masks are really important.” And I’m like, “They’re not. They just make people feel better. What do you want? I’m sorry…”

Michael: You don’t believe the masks are beneficial?

Dr. John Jaquish: They’re not doing what people are thinking. The steam from your exhale will carry CORONA virus. Now, it just so happens that CORONA virus is a pretty weak virus, and not a lot of people really get it unless they have a compromised cardio respiratory system based on cellular metabolism. So, basically you’re diabetic. So, the masks are not stopping much. And, also, in a hospital environment the masks are worn to keep from actually putting particulate matter in an open surgical wound. Like, accidentally coughing or sneezing and putting mucus into somebody, or when your dentist is cleaning your teeth they wear a mask to keep coughing in your mouth. Why? but, as soon as they’re done doing that they take the mask off and have a conversation with you.

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s not because you’re unsanitary, it’s because that’s not what the mask is ever for. So, this gross overreaction, and I think it mostly has to do with just how stupid people will get with fear. Fear is obviously the greatest motivator, people will throw their freedom right in the trash when they’re fearful. And are masks that big of a deal? Does it ruined my life that I have to wear a mask when I go into a grocery store? No, but I don’t I don’t like where it’s going.

Michael: The US is a very polarized place at the moment, it' crazy, man.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, it is. And today was a rough day, we lost the Supreme Court Justice today.

Michael: I just saw that on the news.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, and that’s going to supercharge the anger and fury around the election, and the irony of that particular person is, I mean, on certain issues she was liberal and on others she wasn’t, but you never heard about those, you only hear about the liberal ones. So, she’s held up as this champion for a lot of things, which she was a champion for, but if you asked her about socialism or taxes, she would be like, “No, people should earn money and keep it invested, and start companies, and hire people. That’s that’s how you say get rid of poverty.”

Dr. John Jaquish: The press never covered that part. But, it’s a shame because now immediately people took to the internet and started insulting each other, instead of just saying, “A woman who dedicated her life to freedom in the United States, died and that’s really too bad.”

Michael: Here in Australia we look at what’s going on in the States and it’s almost like people talk about civil war again, like it’s crazy, dude. It’s amazing.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, it’s a shame. Well, our news media has a lot of control with that fear that I was talking about. And you study Frederick Goebbels during World War Two, he was the architect of the whole war. What was he? He was a news guy in Germany. He was the propaganda guy, but he got the citizens of his country just terrified that other countries were going to attack, that certain groups in their own population were dedicated to their destruction, and people, like I said, they will throw their freedoms in the trash when they’re fearful. And I think that’s going to be the next big political fight, it’ll just be a series of things we’re told to make us absolutely terrified. And it’s also seemingly always coming from one political side, do you ever notice that? It’s always like the methane from meat, cows are creating methane and that’s going to cause global warming, the ice caps are going to melt and we’re all going to die in a big flood. Because a cow is-

Michael: Yeah, I know.

Dr. John Jaquish: And that is coming from the same side as, if you don’t wear a mask you’re a murderer, and if you don’t immediately admit that all people of a certain race have caused all the problems in the world, then you’re a bigot, like, “Wait a minute, what?” I don’t have to… Forcing people to admit guilt for something that happened generations ago, why don’t we just start incarcerating people for things that their parents did?

Michael: Yeah, it’s the same thing. Look, I think people need to watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix, which is a documentary which I watched- [crosstalk 00:54:10]

Dr. John Jaquish: I’ve not seeing that, I really want to.

Michael: Yeah, dude, you need to watch it and, I mean, I’m a very open person, I like to listen to people like you even though other people might be detractors. I’m not interested in that, I like to have a conversation with somebody that’s doing something, and you listen and you take that on board. And with The Social Dilemma, what’s happening with social media I think is a really scary thing how it’s polarizing people, how we’re getting fed this stuff, how people are in their social media little confirmation biases little groups, it’s fucking terrible. I don’t know what the hell is going to happen. And I just saw a story today that Donald Trump is banning TikTok over the next 24 hours in the US too.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, that has more to do with-

Michael: Security.

Dr. John Jaquish: … sort of spyware from a foreign actor that’s not always our friend. So, that happens.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. I just wanted to go back and talk about the X3 Bar resistance band bar system , because I like doing podcasts, but sometimes talking for two hours which I could easily do with you. I could easily do. I wanted to talk about a couple of things, the macronutrients that you talk about, are your fats, protein, carbohydrates, Forget about it it’s not important.

Dr. John Jaquish: I don’t quite say that, I say they’re- [crosstalk 00:55:51]

Michael: Oh, no, [crosstalk 00:55:51] sorry.

Dr. John Jaquish: They’re only two macronutrients, there’s only protein, fat. Carbohydrates no longer meet the required definitions for being a macronutrient, they’re not a macronutrient.

Michael: All right.

Dr. John Jaquish: Not a nutrient at all.

Michael: All right, so are they beneficial in any way?

Dr. John Jaquish: So, the answer for health and survival, for thriving just in life is no, but there are some ways to apply carbohydrates strategically, where you can enhance muscle growth, basically based on muscle hydration that you can achieve with carbohydrates. So, that’s obviously if you’ve [inaudible 00:56:43]. If you’re a distance runner and, like I said, cardio is not the approach if you want to lose body fat, but if you want to be a distance runner that’s still a thing. And you can do that, don’t expect to have a healthy looking physique or you don’t expect to live any longer, as [inaudible 00:57:01], but you can still do that in… Look at Zach Bitters, just broke the world record with 100 mile run.

Michael: I saw that, yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, he’s a carnivore, he doesn’t eat any carbohydrates unless he is in the midst of a run. So, he applies them based on an advantage that he can get when needed, but are they part of his program? Are they truly a nutrient? Are they building the body back better? Not really, they’re just providing some hydration and delivery of, in his case not in my case the way I apply them. And I cover that in the book in the hyperplasia protocol, whereas I get trolled for this is like, “Well, this Dr. J guy he’s such a jerk because he says carbohydrates have no value, and then he talks about how he uses carbohydrates.” No, I explain it very clearly, “This is written by clowns who just want one insult, and obviously have no desire to understand anything.”

Dr. John Jaquish: Carbohydrates have no value. However, you can apply them in a very strategic way- … and how you added them in a very temporary window. I got a half an hour, after I do an X3 Bar portable home gym workout, where I can apply carbohydrates strategically. If I miss that window no carbohydrates.

Michael: Forget about it.

Dr. John Jaquish: And I also stack the carbohydrates with vasodilation. So, I’ll take Epimedium, which is an herb, or you want to get really aggressive about it you can take [solidifil 00:58:57] or a Cialis or Viagra, to open up the blood ways. And you have vasodilation, so your blood vessels get bigger, and are allowing more blood flow for delivery of that extra hydration in the muscles. And so, you can, and I stack these things together for the hyperplasia protocol, and I tell people, “You can use epimedium, you can use glycerol, which are two widely available things you can get a health food store, or you can go the pharmaceutical route and use a Viagra or Cialis.”

Michael: Let’s talk about your eating protocol, which is something which is increasingly fascinating to me. I did the intermittent fasting thing, and you eat once every two days, is it or something?

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, there’s different fasting protocols I follow, right now I’m doing 72 hours fasted and then I’m eating rest of the week.

Michael: What, 72?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, so three days with no food.

Michael: Dude, and are you using the X3 workout bar system during this time?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes. Not doing the hyperplasia protocol, obviously.

Michael: Yeah. All right, so 72 hours. And then when you eat, how many calories would you consume in that sitting?

Dr. John Jaquish: So, I try to get right at the target. You don’t make up for three days of no eating by eating three days worth of food.

Michael: No, yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, and I hear that all the time, I even hear people misquoting me saying that’s what I do, and I’m like, “Where’d you get that?” No, that would be so counterproductive, that would just make you sick. My basal metabolic rate plus activity is like 3300 calories a day, I’m not going to eat 10,000 calories in a day, not happening. So, because that’d be three days of food. So, what I do, I get th… How do I explain this? I want a serious benefit from a fasted period. I want to be completely depleted. And then when you start eating again, your growth is enhanced, and I describe it as it has been seen in a study that was done pretty recently, which was actually an anabolic acceleration. When a body’s depleted for a period of time, it will grow much more aggressively than if you’re constantly in an anabolic state.

Michael: Wow.

Dr. John Jaquish: So, you go from anabolic to fasted which is not catabolic, because your growth hormone goes very high and protects you, it’s an anti-catabolic change that the body makes by upregulating the growth hormone. And, then when you go back to eating you have very aggressive growth.

Michael: It’s crazy.

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s great. Yeah, and they prove this with people that weren’t even exercising at all, and they put on like 2.2 kilos of muscle. Neither the control group nor the test group, and it was great because I said to Henry, I said, “Hey, I want you to find a study that shows that people who did multiple fasting periods, might be a slightly longer faster period, put on muscle in an unexplained way, and no more so than in the control group that didn’t fast.” And the reason I asked him to do this was because I was noticing a really aggressive growth. I’m really attuned with my body, so when I put on an ounce of muscle I know it. I’m like, “Okay.” I wake up in the morning and take some measurements, look in the mirror and I’m like, “My traps are bigger, my deltoids are bigger, my pecs are bigger.”

Dr. John Jaquish: I can tell. And, I mean, it might just be, we’re talking half a millimeter, but I can tell. So, this accelerated growth rebound, I said to Henry what I wanted out of the study, and I said, “This will not be in any abstract, you’re going to have to read the discussion section, because none of these studies are looking at musculature, but they are all taking body composition.” And I said, “You will find what I’m describing.” And he says, “Man, do you know how specific of a question you’re asking? There’s no way.” And I said, “I think it’s out there, I really do. I know it’s specific, and I know nobody is looking for it, but you’re going to see you’re going to find, one of these studies is going to say, a strange occurrence happened during the study, the group that was fasted ended up gaining muscle for no reason whatsoever that we can identify.”

Dr. John Jaquish: And almost word for word what I described based on my theory, was out there. And, of course, the researchers had no idea why. And they said like, word for word what I said and I’m like, “Awesome, that’s our key reference.” And it was a great study, big sample size, lot of professors involved, it was awesome.

Michael: I’ll be I’ll be trying that. What about if you’re in a calorie deficit as opposed to fasting, is that catabolic to [crosstalk 01:04:56]?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes. It is because your body’s trying to readjust to the lower level of calories, it’s trying to find a homeostasis. So, it’s like, “Okay, the new homeostasis is we’re eating 500 calories less, then we got to upregulate cortisol, and we have to catabolise musculature so we don’t need that many calories. But, if you have nothing the body doesn’t try and look for new homeostasis because it knows nothing is not the plan going forward, nothing is temporary.

Michael: That’s fascinating.

Dr. John Jaquish: But it makes perfect sense. Your body’s not going to go, “Oh, the new homeostasis is just eating nothing.”

Michael: Yes, that’s right.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, you’re obviously going to eat or die. So, gotta stay strong, because we’re going to probably have a higher chance of eating even if we’re intermittently eating. As opposed to weakening the body so maybe you can’t catch your next meal, that will not be a survival mechanism.

Michael: I mean, if you want to lose weight you go into a calorie deficit, but you’re also going to lose the weight.

Dr. John Jaquish: I wouldn’t.

Michael: You wouldn’t?

Dr. John Jaquish: No, I would go through time restricted eating periods. I’d have periods of time… Fasting and caloric deficit are two very different things.

Michael: No, I know.

Dr. John Jaquish: One, the body is looking for homeostasis. The other one, that process is not happening.

Michael: All right. No, but I’m saying, people now in this fitness climate, they’re wanting to lose weight, so they just restrict their calories, because they believe that’s the best way to do it.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right, and you do lose body fat- [crosstalk 01:06:45].

Michael: Yeah, you do.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, but that’s also why people rebound so badly when they up their calories back to a maintenance level, they start aggressively putting on body fat. And it’s because the body changed what basal metabolic rate was, it lost a lot of muscle and probably maintained more body fat than they think that was maintained. It’s sort of like the runner problem, it’s a cortisol problem.

Michael: Do you eat ice cream?

Dr. John Jaquish: No.

Michael: You don’t need ice cream, at all?

Dr. John Jaquish: No.

Michael: Don’t you have a tendency to have something which is pleasurable like that like? Do you like chocolate?

Dr. John Jaquish: I’m a pain in the ass. Ask any girl I’ve ever dated, she’s like, “Oh, going to dinner that guy sucks.”

Michael: Hold on, what about wine?

Dr. John Jaquish: There’s very little calories in it, and I wouldn’t do a light fruity Chardonnay, but I would do Cabernet. Yeah, I mean, but the tannins give me a headache, I’m not a wine guy.

Michael: All right, what- [crosstalk 01:08:03]

Dr. John Jaquish: That little wine barrel right there-

Michael: I just see it there in the background.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s where I keep my X3 Bar resistance band training system . Seriously, the top is open, I just put my X3 portable gym in there-

Michael: Oh, really?

Dr. John Jaquish: … and all the bands, yeah.

Michael: What about pizza?

Dr. John Jaquish: No, pizza’s dog shit. I don’t like pizza. If somebody were to do the hyperplasia protocol, now I recommend white rice because there’s very little oxalate in that. if somebody wanted to, I don’t know why you would want to, I’m kidding I know why people would want to. If they wanted to have some kind of simple carbohydrate, because you actually want simple carbohydrates and hyperplasia protocol. You want something that the body is going to metabolize fast, so you don’t want to eat like a bunch of salad because that takes a long time to metabolize. So, instead of the rice if you had a slice of pizza or three, would that work? Yeah, it would.

Dr. John Jaquish: Now, there’s some inflammatories that are going to come along with that, but is it the worst thing in the world? I don’t know, I don’t think so. So, and I noticed that a lot of the people who have adopted the hyperplasia protocol, they’re like, “This is what I was missing. I can actually apply simple carbohydrates in a way where it does me a favor instead it makes me fat.” And you got to be careful though, you should really only between .5 and .7 grams per pound of body weight. So, if I just cut my body weight in half, so 240 pounds, 120 grams of carbohydrates, that’s not a lot. The average size of pizza may be 30 or 40, depending on how big it is, so I can have a couple slices of pizza. I happen to love pizza like, that wasn’t my thing where it was like, “Oh god, I love the great shape I’m in but I really miss pizza.” No, I’m not like that. I’m so disciplined also-

Michael: No, yeah I can tell.

Dr. John Jaquish: People say all kinds of stupid stuff to me, “This guy’s obviously on steroids.” “No, this guy obviously doesn’t eat like an unsupervised child like you.” That’s my response to a lot of these trolls, it’s like “The reason you’re fat and have baby arms is because you have no discipline.”

Michael: Yeah, no, it’s true.

Dr. John Jaquish: “Also your workout sucks and you don’t understand nutrition.” But, I mean, a lot of these guys, they won’t be disciplined and then they’re mad when somebody else gets great results. Well, I can tell you, drugs or not, if somebody’s lean they’re not eating pizza.

Michael: No, I know. I know- [crosstalk 01:11:16]

Dr. John Jaquish: Or they’re having it in such a minuscule way, there’s a guy on the user’s group, he’s a chiropractor, His name’s John, he’s great guy. But, he eats pizza, but he has like one slice maybe two days a week or something like that, and the takeaway for the people who like fake news, because it supports what they already believe in, people who like fake diet advice too. So, they see that and they go, “Well, this guy eats pizza, I’m going to keep eating pizza.” And, of course, these people are obese and they continue to be obese, because their dinner is pizza.

Michael: Yeah, I know. It’s a crazy world in which we’re living in 2020, you’d think that would be getting smarter but, fuck, I think we’re getting dumber.

Dr. John Jaquish: Oh, we’re getting dumber for sure.

Michael: It’s a big problem.

Dr. John Jaquish: My favorite study, this is probably other than everybody should read the book, which is the takeaway I want everybody to have. This is great cocktail party kind research. My favorite study is actually not about physical medicine, it’s not about sports science at all. It’s about psychology in its elements, and it’s called The Dunning Kruger Study. Have you heard of this?

Michael: Vaguely.

Dr. John Jaquish: The Dunning Kruger Study in 1986, compared people’s competence with their ability to gauge their own competence. So, the highly intelligent people, the highly competent people would have a performance level here and they would always underestimate the performance level slightly, because they had doubts. They know what they know and they know what they don’t know.

Michael: That’s a good way to be.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, it’s a rule genetics are playing in us, because some people just, they just don’t have the marbles in their head. So, but being able to understand what you don’t know, and the problem is the less intelligent people don’t know what they don’t know. So, they think they know everything. And so, the people at the bottom of the intelligence scale believe they were the best performers. This is why the bottom 12 percentile group of intelligence is not allowed in the United States military, because these are the people who will shoot themselves or their fellow troops, they will crash [crosstalk 01:13:53] vehicles. Yeah, the bottom 12% are basically the only fit to hold a mop. And guess who the self appointed experts are on the internet?

Michael: Those people.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes, That’s right. Don’t listen to the people who are giving advice on the internet.

Michael: No, don’t. Look-

Dr. John Jaquish: This is the hard fast rule, if anybody wants a meme don’t listen to internet commenters.

Michael: When I left a message on your Instagram and I said, “Would you come on to my podcasts?” I was amazed that you said yes. So, I’m very appreciative of that, I’m going to put all the links down below. The book is Weight Lifting is a Waste of Time and so is Cardio , and of course I’ll put a link to the X3 system down there too. And Dr. John Jaquish, it’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you I really enjoyed it.

Dr. John Jaquish: Thanks so much, this was great.

Michael: Hey, man, that was great. Thank you.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, it was awesome.