Fitness Will Make You a Better Developer

Welcome to Syntax. Today, we have a fitness for developers episode. We're gonna be talking all about, getting in shape and why you JS a developer might want to go to the gym and or why you might wanna be working out and nutrition, motivation, supplements, all kinds of interesting stuff. So it's gonna be a awesome we did the show probably, 3, 4 years ago. I think we're we're due for another one. Certainly a lot has changed in my fitness journey. And Scott certainly knows a lot about this as Wes. So excited to talk on about it. How are you doing today, Scott? Hey. I'm doing super good. And, actually, Wes, I believe we've done we were doing at one point an annual fitness show. We did fitness and nutrition JS episode Wes. Fitness for developers is episode 84.

And then as you'll get into kind of around the pandemic, I would put a fitness show on the calendar, and you'd be like, I'm not really Limb.

Probably not a whole lot to talk about here. So, I'm I'm stoked that it's back on the calendar. We're gonna get into why you shouldn't ignore this episode to it as a developer. This is one of those things where it's really quite easy. You'd be like, I only care about code. I don't care about this kind of stuff. I think it I think it's definitely gonna be worth the listen.

We'll talk a little bit about why it's important. But let's say your Node getting a little too small, maybe you want Sentry in your corner to let you know that your code is, really beefing up lately, and you gotta slim it down. So that way, you can, make sure your applications can fit through the door. That's right. They are loading fast, and they're nice and spry. That's what we want our applications. We want them supple and spry, me personally. So if you want all that, head on over to century.io.

You can get a ton of performance tracking features. In fact, that's gonna be even more important now with Google's changes, that are coming to make sure that your applications rank high because they are quick and fast. So what's up, Wes? How's it going?

Not much excited to talk about fitness and gear, and I've become, like a gym gear. I built a home gym couple, I don't know, 6, 6 months ago or so, 8 months ago. And I've become a gearhead for all of this gym stuff. And it's it's it's a really interesting area, and I went we'll talk about the actual gear in a bit, but I I went in the deep end and I absolutely love it.

Yeah. I am going to warn you here because I know that you are not newer to this stuff, but you might not know, gear in the fitness and lifting Oh, yeah. Yeah. Referring to steroids.

I know all about that too. Not that it not that I do that, but, yeah, that's probably not a I'm getting into gear. Thing to call myself a fitness gear head. Yeah. That's appreciate

that.

To be clear, none of us are on performance enhancing drugs. I think that's pretty clear from looking at us, but, definitely, definitely something to to be cautious about if you're you're you can't say juice and you can't say gear. I'm not juicing. Yeah. That's I'm not on gear. I say all those things a lot in my day to day. So yeah. Yeah.

Certainly. With those.

Quick disclaimer. Wes and I are not trained fitness professionals or doctors. These are just I'm a doctor.

A code doctor.

Okay. I I'm a doctor of bugs using Sentry, but, do not do not take any of this advice as if we were actually doctors or, fitness professionals. Do your own research.

Yes. Don't want anybody getting hurt.

Me, personally, let's talk about some history really quick with our fitness stuff because it's been a little while. Like you said, it's since the last time we talked about this stuff was episode 84. So give you some background.

Man, I you know, I've been moving my whole life. You know, I played all the sports as a kid, you know, played soccer, roller hockey, and that stuff. I started rollerblading, like, aggressive in line when I was, like, in 5th grade or so, and eventually became like a sponsored skater and was living at the skate Yarn, like, everyday moving. Right? Then in 2004, I started dancing. I've been dancing ever since then even if my body has gotten beaten up from it.

I've suffered many injuries, but, you know, I've been I've been dancing a long time at this point. I still make it part of my weekly life. And then on top of that, I started lifting in 2011, and I've been weightlifting maybe 3, 4 days a week for man, since then. For forever and ever. So I've been lifting a long time, you know, your goals change, your your progression changes. But at this point, I have a lot of experience there, and I've been, grinding out those gym sessions ever since then. So, yeah, big fan. It's always part of my life now to the point where if I don't do it in the week Yeah. I'm feeling feeling like I'm really I'm really missing it. And so it's it's gotten to the point where, like, it's it's firmly ingrained in in both who I am and, like, what I do.

Yeah. That that feeling of wanting to go back to it JS, like, I've just got off of a week of vacation, and I hadn't worked out in a week Node. And I'm cannot wait tonight.

Once the kids go to bed, I cannot wait to go back to the gym and and get at it, which is an odd thing that I never thought I would say, but certainly, I've got to that space. So for me, I've had, like, like when I was in university, I would go to the gym and and work out quite a bit, and, I got in a decent shape then. And then probably about 2019 or so, I got back into it. I had a gym nice and close to my house, and I got in pretty good shape then as well.

But when the pandemic hit, obviously, the gym's closed. Life gets crazy, and I Scott of let that slide. And I gained a bunch of weight, and I and then we moved houses, and I was, actually, we didn't move houses. Our gym closed completely, which was a a bit of a bummer as well, and I didn't really stay on top of it. However, in the last, we moved houses, and now we have I built a home gym, which I'm a gear head Node, and I've been been at it for about 6 months. I've lost a bunch of weight, still a little bit more to go.

And just like thank you. Thank you. I'm getting super into, like, the whole just, like, lifting heavy things.

It's very primal, but also ESLint a bunch of money to do primal things.

And, yeah. It's it's good. Like, maybe it will transition out to the next section, which is, like like, why would you want to do this? And for me, it's just like about, like, 2 things. Like, first is, like, the focus and the calmness that you feel at being a developer when you are working out is like a major hack to me, which which is wild. Like, being able to, like, focus and double down on your Node, when you are working out, I Node a significant improvement on that focus and ability to just get stuff done, which is which is crazy that you can become like, we talk a lot about developer productivity.

And one of the big productivity hacks is try to get into some half decent shape, and that will certainly help you in your your day to day job. So that's 1. And then the other one is just like, I don't wanna get, like, old and and frail. You know? Like, I'm I'm starting to get old. I'm I'm 36 years old now, and, I I don't wanna I don't wanna be like that 45 year old that has a bad back and and type of thing. Like, I carried all 3 of my kids up the stairs because I saw a TikTok where a dad carried his 3 kids, and I was like, our kids are bigger than that. And I did it. I carried all 3 of them upstairs in, like, one go. Like, so we're having a 4th kid,

and my goal is to be able to hulk all 4 kids up in one go. So that's Oh my god. That's me. Kids will humble you on the strength tip. I you know, I've been lifting for so long. And then, like, the 1st time I had to carry the, like, the little what's the little baby car seat? The little car seat? Yeah. The 1st time I had to carry that thing for an extended period of time, I was like, holy cow. This is way more intense than going to gym room also. It is totally different. It's totally different, the strength required to do this. I when I Wes thinking, I was like, man, how do people who don't work out do this? It's so heavy to me. So I I 100% agree with you. And and I think there's enough to say about, like, man, longevity.

If you have muscle mass, there's definitely correlations between longevity and muscle mass. I I don't want to be the type of person who's, also getting old and and frail as well. I want to make sure that I maintain my my muscle mass to be able to Yeah. Myself through those stages of life where, you know, if if you're not paying attention or whatever, it's going to, you know, sneak up on you next thing you know. And use it to 36. I'm 38. Just turned 38, and I am I said I was feeling great on on on Twitter, and sure I am, but it's definitely feeling harder every year.

Yeah. That's for sure. It definitely it it beats up on you over time. Not not like working out, but just, like, getting older in general. The stuff that takes longer to to heal Wes you do get hurt, you trip and fall. Next thing you know, you're you're out for too long, and we wanna avoid some of that stuff. So, you know, if you're starting out here, you kinda gotta know what your goals are. Are your goals for longevity? Are they to get super muscular and look good at the beach? Is it to increase your overall health? Like, what do you want to do here? It's important to know because I all of these things are valid and important. Right? And everybody has different reasons for wanting to do it. Mine, I want to be able to do my athletic dance stuff better. I want to be able to, feel more comfortable as I age. I want to, be able to lift things in a practical way. If I'm working on projects, heck, carrying groceries in the house, carrying kids. I want to be able to do all that stuff with more more oomph. You know? You you Yeah. You see that meme where you're holding 20 grocery bags? Give me 30. Give me I'll take

Yeah. I had that. So when I built this office, I was carrying drywall, like, in front of me, and I kept being like, ah. Like, I I had, like, a shoulder injury from back when I was working out last time. Mhmm. And, like, every now and then, it would flare up when I was doing like, holding my arms out and trying to lift up at the same time. And it was like that for Yarn, and I finally just, like, looked it up on that's why I love TikTok. I just, like, looked that up on TikTok, and there was a couple TikToks that were, like, just hang. So I just, like, Wes. Yeah. I just went into the the gym that I I was building, and I just screwed something to the thing. And I hung for, like, 3 minutes, and it, like, was like, I'm not trying to, like, sell you on anything. Like, certainly talk to your doctor, but, like, it it's gone. Like, it never came back, and I had been bugging me for years. And it's wild that, like, sometimes you think, oh, like, I I shouldn't work out because this thing is hurting, and no. It's the opposite. Maybe you you should be working out to to fix those things. Yeah. The solution to fixing things isn't to go

heavy and go hard and and all that stuff, but the solution is also not to do anything either because you do need to to prescribe movement into that.

But it is incredible how many things hanging can fix, whether that is back or shoulder or lower back or whatever. People buy those expensive inversion tables where it hooks your ankles into the thing and you hang upside down. Well, it turns out that's the exact same as hanging up the other way. There's no difference there.

Or you could, like, pick up a small dumbbell with your feet and hang and just, like, stretch yourself out. Oh, my gosh. It works so Wes, especially to decompress our ESLint. We're just kinda like, yeah. We get into that, like Yeah. You know, compression, shoulders inward mode, whatever. Yeah. Hang and stretch it out. Hanging is is I'm glad you said that because that's such a good thing to do on a regular basis.

Yeah. I've I've been it's something I do just as my warm up now. I'll just grab on to the the pull up bar. I actually in the in the gym that we built, it's in our basement, and I put monkey bars in the, joists so that our kids can can do the monkey bars. I built a rock climbing wall up, and then there's monkey bars across.

And then down the other side is also a rock climbing wall. And those monkey bars are fantastic for just hanging from without having to like, they're high enough that I don't have to worry about my feet hitting the ground.

Yeah. That when I saw you do that, Courtney said, hey. Can we get this in our house? And I said, I guess so. I'll figure it out. I I do have those, like, stall Bos which I built. They're, like, single stall bars which are great. They're just basically like a little wooden dowel, ladder. Those things are incredible for all kinds of stuff whether it's bands or handstands against or hanging off of, but I do wish I had some, like, monkey bars in the in that room because the kids sure love climbing on that stuff. I bet they would climb through the hand the monkey bars too. Oh, yeah.

So let's talk about getting started. You you say, okay. Hey. All this stuff sounds good. Where do I go? What do I do? Well, to get started, you don't need a whole lot. You can do a whole lot with just your body weight. You can do push ups in your office while your code is compiling. Right? While you're wait, you got 5 minutes for that next meeting. Hey. You get a little quick pump on. Right? Do some, do some just do some push ups real quick. Body weights, squats and lunges. You can just did you know this? You can just squat up and down, and that's good for you. That that'll help you, or or do lunges. Or like Wes said, hanging on a Bos. You can also do pull ups on that bar. Even if you can't do pull ups, you can just try to do pull ups. That also works. So Yeah. All of those things are are low effort. You don't have to have a gym membership. You can just start doing. You know, the the you don't have to spend any money here to have some degree of fitness or even whatever. You just have to find the time for it, and there's definitely time for it.

Next 1 is stretching. Hey, I stretch every night. I try to stretch every night. And my my habit tracker app that I've been working on, I have, man, I have a long consecutive streak of stretching right now. And I think that's a hack that not enough people take advantage of. Because stretching is one of those things that is relatively easy to do if you make time for it. And guess when is the perfect time to stretch? When you're doing absolutely nothing, you're watching TV. Heck, I stretch with a beer sometimes. I got my hop sling there. I'm watching TV. That should be the rule. Perfect time to stretch. Right? You Node? Yeah. So, like, you don't have to sit on the couch.

A good hack for this is that when you're watching TV, you can make a practice of like, Oh, for this entire show, I'm going to sit on the floor. Why? Because when you're sitting on the floor, it's way easy to just lean over and start stretching here and there. You don't have to like go crazy. You don't have to do a gymnastics stretching routine. But heck, just trying to touch your toes or whatever, or grab a towel. If you can't touch your toes, wrap it around your foot and use it to pull a little bit, drink some water.

Man, that goes a long way. I'm telling you, if you do 10, 15 minutes of stretching most nights, heck 4 nights a week, whatever, without even thinking about it, you make a massive amount of progress in like 3 months time. And then by the time you do it for a year, 2 years, whatever, you're you're gumby. It it's wild. It it works.

Yeah. You you did a whole episode on on stretching, because you've read that book, How to Be a Supple Leopard. Is that what it's called? Great book. Yes. Yeah. And I need to get a little bit more into stretching. I have been doing the, like, the the squats while I'm brushing my teeth, which is hilarious, but, because I've been getting into actual squats, like, with the barbell and stuff like that, I've I've always been very, very inflexible.

And it's amazing that, like, now that I am squatting, I feel like I'm getting a little bit more flexible of how low you can go because you have to make sure the form is correct and whatnot. So I I do that. And then, like, yeah, when I'm watching TV or something like that, our often our couch is really low, like the back of it, so I'll throw my leg up on there and try to get above a stretch in as well.

Yeah. Yeah. That it's such a good good tip. You know, another good one Wes like, we talked a little bit about something that goes a long way, especially for people with you're sitting in chairs, tight backs. Just do the like basic arm swings back and forth. Wes, obviously you Scott to like move your head when you do it. It'll just loosen up your spine. It's something I like to do every morning when you're, when you're, brushing your teeth or whatever. Just get some, get some spine movement in it, loop things up and get you ready to go. So I I'm a big fan of of doing any of that sort of thing.

Another really good hack for adding fitness into your life is to do things that don't feel like you're working out.

I go to dance once a week.

Wes, you you take your daughter rock climbing. That's really good fitness.

Anything that's, like, skilled watch, but yeah. Wes, yeah. You just watch. I mean, that's a workout for the eyes, but your daughter's getting some lifting weights, I'm going for a run. Let me tell you, I hate running. That's something that you will never catch me doing. But I need to tell you on my life, so how am I gonna do it? Well, I'm gonna go to dance. We have the exercise bike. Guess what I do on the exercise bike? I pull out my Steam Deck and I play Rocket League or video games while I'm on the exercise bike because makes the time pass. And, I hate doing the exercise bike or cardio, so it makes it easier. Anything you can do to make it fun rather than, oh, I don't know. I don't want count. Yeah. Lastly, here in the getting started thing, we have lifting weights. Now lifting weights is a hack for getting fit in a lot of ways. If if you had to ask me, like, hey hey, Scott. Like, I want to get more fit in life. It's not necessarily, you know, get muscular or whatever. I just want to get healthier.

I would say the number Node best thing you can do in that regard is lift weights.

You can see a massive amount of progress really quickly.

You burn more calories at rest if you have muscle. Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat does. So just by doing nothing, you end up burning more calories. And I like to eat. That means I get to eat more, which is great.

Yeah.

Yeah. All of those things. But all all in all, you get to see a lot of improvement and a lot of progress in lifting, so it's also really motivating to be able to get going. So you might be thinking like, okay, do I just go to the gym and pick up weights? No. You go to some place like Reddit or YouTube and you find a program.

Wes, you you're doing a program. What what program are you doing, and how did you find which program to do? Yeah. So I I started looking around and see what's there, and, obviously, the big ones is

I think Starting Strength is the one. I'm using an app called what the hell is it called? Why am I forgetting the name of it? Strong lifts. That's what I'm using. Very popular. Yeah. It comes by default, it comes with, like, a very simple day 1 Node day 2.

Each day has squats, and then 1 of the day has a bench Wes, and I I forget what everything JS. And it just it's very, very simple. It's only 3 things. You can get through the whole thing in probably 45 minutes with decent Wes in between, and it's it's been awesome. I've since, like, modified it because I wanted a little bit of like, I wanted a little bit more. Like, I have all this equipment, and I wanna just change it up and and do a little bit different. But I did, like, I think, 4 months of it, and it just slowly increments the amount that you can do. And if you find it's getting too heavy, you can reload, and it's got a really nice Apple Watch app. So I was amazed at how simple the the things could do. Like, yeah, you can get a bunch of equipment, but if you just have some very simple weights and maybe a bit of a squat rack or something that you can put a barbell on, you can you can get a lot a lot of progress with just some very simple aspects.

Totally. And I think that's the thing that's important JS you start slow.

You you don't you're not gonna get, like, you know, a crazy amount of, improvements overnight, but you also don't wanna get hurt. So you start slow, you follow the program, and the programs typically tell you every workout you're either adding £5 or £2.5 or whatever to your lifts. You do that, and you can imagine it's extremely logical for those programmers out there.

It it can feel like a game. You're just slowly adding on every single time, and every single week it kind of feels about the same difficulty.

And next thing you know, you're lifting twice what you used to lift.

You look way better, you feel way better, and you're way stronger overall. So the most important things about a program is picking a program, preferably a beginner's program. I did starting strength, which was a good one because it teaches you the main core lifts. And again, it has a very similar thing to strong lifts Wes it's just, here's what you're doing each workout, you do it, you show up, you just come back the next day or whatever, and do what it tells you to do, and you see a massive amount of progress.

You don't need to go down the rabbit hole of optimizing yet. You don't need to go down, like, oh, what are the best bicep workout? No. You just show up and do all of the things that you need to do. Yes. That's that's the biggest thing for me. Hack. Yeah. You just open the app, and it tells you what to do next. There's no guessing. There's Node, like, oh, JS it better to do,

multiple like, a 1000 reps or something a little bit lighter or or 10 reps? Like, don't fuss with any of that. Just simply do what it says on the can, and it's it's gonna work out for you, which I've been really happy with that. And, also, that you said that you start super light.

Like, my 1st probably month was just a joke weight because I was, like, really wanted to nail the form of it, especially because, like, I I was brand new to squats.

I had never I had done, like, a little bit of Smith machine, which is, like, not really squats and and, like, a bunch of machines at the GitHub, but, like, I had never done just, like, like, a barbell on a squat rack.

And I was, like, really concerned. And same with dead lifts as well. I was really worried about yeah. And just, like, throwing your back out or, like, hurting yourself. So and, also, you can do a lot of, like, bad form with that type of stuff. You know? Like, if it's too heavy, you'll try to try to account for that and arch your back. So I, like, went really, really light for a whole month, and it didn't it's frustrating because it doesn't feel like you're doing a whole lot, but I was really focusing on getting the form down pat, and I feel like I'm I'm pretty decent with the form these days.

Yeah. And Scott just, like, training your your mind there to do the correct muscle movements and and gaining your form. Another thing you're doing is you're building some of, like, the smaller muscles, the stabilizing Vercel, the ones that come into handy. So that way, when you do get heavier, you're not, like, unstable or unable to, do things at, like, the bottom of the lifts or the places that you're weak. So you're you're slowly building up your entire, like, foundational muscle. You're building this this foundation of strength. You're learning the JavaScript, the CSS, and the HTML, so that way you can start to do the reacts and stuff later. And and Wes said, like, the you don't have to get crazy into, like, complex movements or anything like that. There very well may be a time when you you're bored. You've done, you know, a year, 6 months of this stuff, and you're like, alright. I got it. I'm making a lot of progress. Like, what can I do to optimize? But don't try to get too deep, and don't try to optimize first. Just show up. Right?

Oh, let's 1 more thing I wanna talk about is, like, like, how often, should you do this type of thing? So I have it down to pretty much an hour from putting my shoes on to being done, which is is is quite a bit. So, like, you that includes setting up, getting changed, all of that. And, it's been a major major improvement, like, with not having to, like, drive to the gym or something like that. And, like, I know people say, like, oh, don't have excuses in 1 hop, but having it at home has been a, like, a a major improvement for that type of thing. And I generally will do it about 3 or 4 times a week. My wife and I take turns putting our kids to bed. So once a week, I can do I put the kids to bed 3 times, and the other week, I put them to bed 4 times a week. So the basically, the nights that I am not putting my kids to bed, I go downstairs, and I I get to go work out in the gym. And that's been just been so dead simple for me because I know what I'm doing

that night. Yeah. If you can find an hour in the day, 4 days a week, 3 days a week, if you can find an hour 3 days a week. I mean, I feel like most people can find 1 hour on 3 days a week to improve your life this way. I spend I spend longer on on Twitter or TikTok than I do at the actual gym. Totally.

Yeah. You can you can go Twitter while you're resting. Yeah. Yeah.

All of those things.

Node thing I love about the StrongLifts app is that it will buzz at you when it's time to put the phone away and and do your next set because,

slippery slope if you forget about that thing. I know. No kidding. Right? But I I do think that's important that you mentioned, like, the home gym thing. Having a home gym is a hack. That doesn't mean it has to be expensive, doesn't mean you have to have a fancy weight rack. It doesn't mean anything.

My 1st squat rack and the one that I had up until very recently when we sold it for the same price that we paid for 10 years later, I I saw I saw this thing during the I sold high on it. I sold during the pandemic, which is a great idea because I Scott essentially rented this thing for 10 years.

But you can get a squat rack for really cheap, especially some place like Dick's Sporting Goods, or Facebook Marketplace, or whatever. You can find these things out there. And for, you know, $300, if you're saving up for that, $300 will get you a long, long way. You can get it for less than that. You can Oh, yeah. Easy. Buy a set of dumbbells and get it for way less than that. But I got mine on Black Friday at Dick's Sporting Goods, and the rack itself was $150, brand new. And it's like, I'll take that all day.

But having if you can find some room to put it in your basement. I had I had a buddy who had a a small apartment, and he was on, like, the, the 5th floor in in Denver, and he still found a way to get a squat rack into that little tiny apartment in his living room. So if you can find the room for it, man, you you can you can like, that that hour to go to the gym becomes that much easier. Anytime you find, you can just roll over in it. So it's a it's a big hack. I I've been a huge home gym fan for a long time. Heck, I put our our first one at our house in Denver in the garage, and nowhere else to put it. That's a a place if you have a garage, you can always classic home gym spot is the garage. It also will test your mental fortitude out if you're in the winter.

That can Oh, yeah. Have intense.

Freezing. There's there's guys in this Facebook group that barbell warmers because, like like, it's those barbells get cold. It's a it's like a heat sink. And I know that. You can get folding racks Node. And, like, it's amazing. Some of these setups that take maybe 10 inches deep, The whole your whole gym can be on the thing, and, obviously, you gotta pull the car out or or move some stuff when you go to use it. But, everything will just fold out, and you can you can get using it. You don't need a whole bunch of space to make it work.

Totally. Yeah. Scott a lot of little hacks there, but the home gym is a big one. So, like, what kind of stuff might you want in your your home gym? You could go really minimal and get a set of the adjustable dumbbells and maybe like a bench.

Adjustable dumbbells and a bench will get you way long ways. You can do everything with those from squat to bench press to you can do everything with a set of adjustable dumbbells.

And they're not necessarily cheap, but, like, Wes has found gotten lucky with some some Facebook Marketplace finds and stuff like that. You can always keep an eye on, but nothing is as versatile as a set of adjustable dumbbells. The they'll they'll give you increments from all the way from 0, or all the way from, like, £2.5 to £90 at 2.5 increments, like, that's versatile. You you get so far from that. Next step up, go with the half rack. I I had a half rack, that's what I had. It it was just a basic, rack, barbell, and it's stand up, so it didn't it didn't fall over, and that's all that matters, and then a bench. With a rack and a bench, you can put a little bit more weight on that thing, gives you a little bit more access to do the the movements like a bench press easier. Usually, it's like safeties on it, so you can set it down easily without hurting yourself when you get into heavier weights.

But those are all those are all, like, a a good next step next step, and then next thing you know, you got a glued hand deck in your basement like I I do, which I think you have. Right? Yeah. I got that in an open box at a rep rep fitness in Denver. It was it was a good buy. I use it very frequently.

Yeah. The adjustable dumbbells are awesome. So I found a set of 90 pound power blocks at a yard sale for $50, which is like, it's like it's like a $1,000 set.

So I was really happy with that. And then I found another set on marketplace that was missing one of the increments.

So the guy just had them, like, spilled out on the floor, but I knew the color. So I, like, looked at the colors in the photo, and I offered him $20 for it, and he took it. And then I just contacted PowerBlock, and they sent it to me for the cost of shipping. So I have I have 2 sets of them, and you can also buy, like, a, like, a bar and a curl bar that go into the PowerBlock. So it'll turn it into a Oh. Yeah.

So those are pretty cool as well. I also had a set of the, like, the Bowflex ones that, like, turn.

Those are garbage. They're, like, they're so long. They're not garbage. I know a lot of people like them, but they're they're really long. So it's kind of hard to, like, if you were to curl them, they, like, hit your leg as you're curling them. Yeah. So, rep has a set as well. They've they just released the thing called the quick draw dumbbells, and they had seemed really, really nice. Yeah. I've had my power blocks forever, though.

Like, that was one of the first pieces of equipment that we got, and they have just they've they're they're indestructible. They've lasted for Yeah. Mine are from I think mine are from early the early nineties. Like, they're probably almost as old as I am,

and they will last forever. Like, I'm part of the the Facebook group, and I see there's, like, newobels and these ones where you turn the handle and they they click up.

Those guys, they fall off a bench. The whole thing breaks. Mhmm. They're they're a little bit more fussy. They're nice. They look they look better, but the power blocks are just, like, so primitive. You slide the little thing in, and you get the amount of weight that you want, and you can put the the 2 and a half pounds into the handle, they will last you forever.

Yeah.

But let's let's talk about what else we have in the home gym. So, Scott was saying you can get a little 2 post rack. I went with the 6th post rack.

So I contacted, a manufacturer and got the whole thing custom made, which is really cool.

It was technically cheaper than just going directly to, like, a a retail.

And it's really cool because I got my logo laser cut into all of the pieces, and it has a whole cable system in it. So it has a low row, lap pull down, and then 2 adjustable pulleys that you can put on there. So quite honestly, I use the whole cable system with the weight selector stack.

I use that for a lot of my barbell exercises aside from squats and dead lifts and bench press, because it's just so simple to clip on the little bar and adjust it rather than having to slap the whole weights on.

So big fan of that. And you have, like, a whole cable system as well. Right? Like, you got rid of your rack? Yeah. I got rid of my rack,

because I got the tonal system, which I I'm gonna tell you upfront, it is very expensive. So only look at this if you're serious. Like I said, I've been I've been lifting for a long time, and we got this thing, it's great.

It Scott about a gym membership's worth of money all the time. And it it's Deno, it's it's a luxury good, I'll tell you that right now. But what the tonal does JS it's kind of like your app that tells you what to do every day, built into a unit that does magnetic based weights.

And the cool thing about the magnetic based weights is that it can simulate lifting with chains, or, lifting with bands, or doing like things where it's actually adjusting the amount of weight you're lifting at different parts of the lift. So that way, I like the weak points in the lift, you're maybe getting a little bit less weight, and the points where you're naturally less injury prone, it gives you a little bit more.

So it it's really kind of awesome. I show up every day. It it automatically tells me how much weight I'm lifting. I don't even have to pick up a plate ever. I don't have to calculate anything. I don't have to do the whole math of, like, alright, a 100 and £50 JS how many plates here? Yeah. So as a luxury good, man, this thing absolutely rules if you you have the ability to do it. You know, I've been a big fan for a long time. I've gotten, 2 years out of mine. In fact, to give you some context about my lifting schedule, I'm now approaching 2 years of weekly usage of this thing. I'm going for that 2 year badge.

I I want that 2 year badge. I have, I have a 127 weeks consecutive of using this thing, and at a 130, I get the badge that says I've used it for a 130 weeks straight. Yeah. I want that badge. That's good. And, honestly, like,

2 years of using it consistently and, like, your wife uses it as Wes. Like, that's pretty much what a gym membership would have cost,

for that type of thing. So We can share and track each other's workouts. We can, do all kinds of stuff on it. I've lifted £5,300,000 on it. So yeah. Pretty sweet pretty sweet to have those metrics.

But it's also also good to to, like, see exactly your your progress over time. Either way, definitely a luxury good.

What else? We have I got a I have a little leg press in there as Wes, and Really? I totally understand what you yeah. Like, I I bought, I I also been just been hacking the crap out of my gym because, like, I I've been, like, cutting metal and and building my own little attachments. So I bought, like, a leg press attachment for a different bench, and I, adjusted it and and cut a couple things and made it work with my bench. And I totally get what you say about with the resistance curve, of the cable machine. Because with with mine, it's you have your your leg, and as you lift up your leg, the the the last, like, 20% of the lifting it up is is almost nothing, and and that's where it should be the heaviest. So you got I have to take a elastic band and put it on the on the weight horn so that the further you get away, the more resistance it has.

But if it was magnet based, you wouldn't have all that. I also hacked it to work with my, cable system as well because the cable system just goes up and down. So there's there's you don't have the whole resistance curve issue.

Sometimes you do it with cable stuff, but not with this one.

Yeah. Yeah. It I it's been weird kind of replacing everything with I've since I was doing straight barbell stuff for so long with cables. Yeah. But, you know, it it is really nice because now you can do all of the movements that I would at the gym with a cable system just, or I can also do barbell stuff with it as well. I also have Swedish stall bars. I posted a link in the show notes to some Rogue Fitness ones, so you can get idea what these are. But I built mine. You can build it out of, you know, a few slabs of wood and some dowels, which it like really wasn't that hard. It took me a little bit, some glue and some nails, and, I I had some Swedish stall bars. This thing is great. You can use it with bands. You can hang off of it.

I used mine like a monkey. I'm doing upside down on it and stuff. So, yeah, big fan.

It looks really cool too. Like, I thought about Looks cool. Just building these on one of our walls just because of how much I love how it looks.

I, I think I might do that at some point. It's it it doesn't take yeah. It doesn't take very much space. You know? Like, it just a couple, like, Wes half a foot deep or something. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Mine's right up against the wall. It's, it was easy. It was an easy build, for sure. Yeah. So, program, you mentioned that you have an app for Yarn. There's a lot of these apps that cost a lot of money, subscriptions on your iPhone, anything like that.

The easiest way to get started with this stuff is just with Google Sheets. You can pop in a Google Sheets. There's a ton of them online. If you're doing starting, strength or strong lifts, you just do strong lifts Google Sheets. There'll be a massive amount of these that people have made on Reddit or wherever.

You don't need a whole lot. There's, like, so many excuses to, you know, working out. The last thing you need is more resistance. Oh, Node. I gotta spend $9 a month on an app. No. You don't. Yeah. Just use Google Sheets, whatever.

Just get going.

It's it's amazing how many apps like, I did go down the rabbit hole of trying to find the different apps. That's why. And it feels like half the apps out there are made by web developers because it's like, oh, I think I could make something like this. Even, like there was 1 app that I was using when I was learning to squat that would track your up and down because when I was first starting, I would I would Scott, and I would move forward as I was squatting, and that doesn't give you a good bar path.

And then I I found these apps that will track the circle of the barbell, and it will it'll overlay it on top of the video to show you how how up and down you're going or or what your bar path looks like. So if you have a little bit of a wiggle or you're going too far forward at the end of the squat and, like, the amount of, like, self will that I had to to not build that JS killing me because I was like, I could do this in Canvas. I could put, like, a little circle on or, like, a like, a data matrix or a QR code. I could just slap that on the on the end of my barbell. I know how to track QR codes in canvas, and then I could record the video and overlay it on top and then show my bar path. And I was like, Wes, Wes, Wes, stop. Like, you're not you're not building this. There's already apps out there for it, but I'm gonna tell you. So much fun stuff you could build. I think I've experienced the exact same thing in a very different way here.

There's an app that Scott like $19 a month. It's outrageous for stretching.

That what it does is essentially building, you know, like a a skeleton, whether you had TensorFlow skeleton or something of you as you're you're doing a stretch. And Oh, yeah. It calculates the angle. So let's say you're learning the Sanity, it'll say this week, your angle was 9 you know, 45 degrees. And so that way, it's like a, an actual definitive, subjective, or objective way to calculate that you Yarn, in fact, making progress on your stretching, and it's the same thing. I'm like, I could build this. So just you're just drawing. You're just calculating the angles from the video there, and then I wouldn't have to pay. I'm I'm not paying for this app, by the way. That seems like an outrageous amount of money for that, but, yeah, I know. Same developer problems. Right?

Yeah. Wes I do like about the StrongLifts app is you can pay monthly or you can if you think you're gonna use it for more than 2 years, you can just pay a one time Yeah. Like that. Fee. It's pretty expensive, but the Apple Watch integration yeah. Yeah. Or you could just do a Google Sheet. Yeah. That'll allow it. Node, though, because because it buzzes you when you're next set. It's like, alright. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Or, like Yeah. If I if I only did 4 out of 5 reps, you can say I did 4 reps, and you can look back at that over time and say, I I didn't hit that. But like you said, it's

not that important versus actually doing it. Yeah. I if I would I would say start with something low fi and work your way up. In fact, I could probably find an old Google sheet of mine from when I first started because that's definitely where I started as well. Let's talk about diet really quick. Diet is one of those things that nobody likes to hear because it actually makes a giant difference in everything, and it sucks to hear that because I like what I eat. I eat a lot. I don't want to Scott eating what I'm eating. But if you're looking for, you know, benefits in terms of, like, weight loss, you can't do it with just cardio alone. You Sanity out cardio. Yeah. You cannot out cardio your your calorie intake. So it's it's always calories in, calories out, and you don't have to calculate it. You don't have to get into the weeds there. So, like, for me, if you wanna say, like, the 80/20 of this. The 80/20 of this is 6 out of 7 days of the week, cut out the garbage. The the pop, the soda, the fast food, the junk, just the junk. Cut out the junk 6 out of 7 days of the week, and you will see an improvement.

You don't have to get into crazy salads for lunch or anything like that.

Add add more chicken, add more, just general protein into your diet, find ways to add protein and, you know, just reach for maybe the protein or healthier option here or there, and it will make an impact. But again, you don't have to like really crazily change your, your, your diet entirely.

I, I'm not like one of those health freaks that won't have, you know, fast food here and there. I'll get it. I'll get a Good Times or a burger or whatever and be totally satisfied. But, you know, I Sanity do that most days of the week. So Yeah. You do need to have a decent diet.

Don't don't make it, you know, one of those things that you can't sustain because when people make big changes like this, it's impossible to sustain that and to keep that going. But just cut out the junk here and there. Sodas, man. I I don't know. I can't tell you the last time I had a pop and your your body acclimates to it to the point where, like, you don't even miss it anymore. But occasionally, I'll get a Doctor Pepper from the from the fast food place, and I'll be like, wow. This is a great really great little treat.

Yeah. It's my biggest tip here JS, for me, it was, like, cut out the beer even heavy. If you're if like, maybe once a week, I'll have it, which it makes you feel a lot better as well. You're not feeling like garbage. It's nice in the time, but it doesn't make you feel good the rest of of the week. So for me, it was mostly just cutting out the beer.

I already eat pretty heavy protein. I've always been somewhat low carb, but just trying to focus on actually doing that.

And my biggest tip for people is if you if you don't necessarily know these things, grab one of these tracker apps and run it for a month or 2 Yeah. And track everything you eat. And you're gonna get a really good feeling of, actually, if you should have that or not or or or sort of, like, where it is. That's generally what I'll do as well JS I'll track things for a month or two when I'm just starting out, and then you get a really good feeling for, like, how much budget you have for these types of things. And then after that, you have a good feeling and that you don't have to stress over absolutely every single thing, and I feel like that's a pretty good one. And Scott just placed the link here for the macro factor app. That's Scott picked it a while ago. It is so good. I had been using, like, the daily burn one for many, many years, and then they I think they nuked it or or started charging for it. The Macro Factor app is very, very good. It's amazing. I really I can't believe it.

The UI is just

Yeah. The UI is great. It's one of those things too. It's it's, made by lifting professionals. They're, like, not you Node, they know what they're doing. It's not some big warp. It's like some, guy who started this who does a podcast I like. But, you know, what's what's great about this app, like you said, is visibility.

You don't need to get crazy into calorie tracking unless you're not seeing any progress in your your weight loss journey, if that's what you're looking for. If you're looking for weight loss and you're like, why are things not moving? Well, Macro Factor will find that out instantly for you.

For me, like, I greatly underestimated, the little snackies that I had. Here, on my desk is a Fig Bos, you know, in these little bars. Those are good. These are great for Randy's got 1 too. Randy's got 1 too. Yes. They're fantastic.

My problem is I'd pop 2 or 3 of them a day, not like Newton's themselves, but actual packages. Because because you're just like, oh, they're little, whatever. I'm just grabbing them. Next thing you know, that's 600 calories, and then I'd rather be eating 600 calories or something else, but I'm doing it because I'm bored or whatever.

And if you don't realize where you're adding the calories, you don't realize it. And so the macro factor will show you Sneak up on you. Yeah. Exactly, like, where that burden is coming from, and then you can adjust from there.

And it also makes you very cognizant for me personally, because it breaks down by your your macronutrients.

So, like, what I was saying, man, I was getting way too many carbs and way too much fat and not enough protein in my diet. And that was, like, the biggest thing for me. It's, like, your daily protein goal based on your weight and, you know, what you're looking to do is this.

And I would get, like, 10% of that. I'd be like, how is that possible? I feel like I'm eating a lot of protein, but it it was possible. I was just wasn't eating enough. I was eating the wrong things.

So yeah. It'll it'll open your eyes, but you don't need to subscribe to it. You don't need to do it, like, daily for the rest of your life. Do it for a couple weeks, get the feel for what's going on, and then you'll you'll get the vibe for where you need to be.

But, yeah, you know, diet's one of those things that's touchy. It's, ESLint interesting, and it it all depends on what your goals are. Lastly here, before we get into, like, supplements and stuff, motivation.

The motivation can be all sorts of things, but how do you get motivation to get to the gym? For me, the motivation is that, like you said, Wes, I have more daily energy. I have better daily focus. ADHD folks, it's a scientifically, proven that if ADHD folks work out, their focus is better.

Their mood is better. Depression mood is better. Clinically proven. So if you're you're suffering from those things, I don't want to say, like, I'm not a doctor. Go go do the studies and stuff yourself. Don't don't take my word for it. Go go look it up. But it could make you feel better in all kinds of ways, could give you better general comfort. And if those kind of, like, external or those kind of internal motivations aren't aren't big enough, you can get some external motivations. Like, for instance, have a workout buddy, somebody you always go to the gym with.

Just like showing up to do the podcast. They're expecting you there. You show it up. You you show up every day, and next thing you know, you Scott, 770 episodes of the podcast. Next thing you know, you're super swell. Look great at the beach. So who knows?

Let's talk about supplements.

What we're taking every day. I take just basically a bunch of vitamins supplements.

I'm trying to remember what they all are. I I bought, like, a little one of those, like, pill containers that has, like, the AM and PM thing in there. And I'm trying to remember what is in there. Like, a protein powder I'll take every day, fish oil every single day, multivitamin, a d three and k two supplement, a magnesium supplement, and I think there's there's a few more in there that I'm totally forgetting.

Basically, once once a week, I'll go through all the bottles and refill it. I can't tell you if it's it's working or not, but I I think they're good for you.

Yeah. There's a rabbit hole with supplements. Some of them are expensive. You don't need to spend a lot of money on supplements. I think the big thing, for most people, if you are lifting weights, you wanna make sure you're getting enough protein in your diet. Protein shakes are a great way to accomplish that. You don't have to spend a crazy amount of money because they can be expensive, or you can spend crazy amount of money and get some fancier protein shakes. Either way, protein shakes are good if you're lifting weights, daily vitamin. I just do a men's daily. Some people question whether or not that's needed. I just do it just to be sure it's not hurting me. I do a krill oil for my Omega Threes because Costco has it, and they're little and cheap. Probiotic, I do that for my tummy. My tummy JS not great, so a probiotic is something that helps me get the good bacteria in my tummy.

Magnesium helps me sleep.

And then, Psilium Husk, I take for fiber because we're also mostly not getting enough dietary fiber in our day to day life. And psyllium husk is literally just like crushed up husk into a pill capsule. You can take, you know, 3 of them at dinner, 3 of them at breakfast. Next thing you know, your dietary fiber needs are completely met without having to eat a massive amount of vegetables.

I mean, eating vegetables is good. It's great, but, the psyllium husk makes it easy Node matter what. So that's what I take. I don't take anything too crazy. Oh, I also take creatine, creatine for your muscles. It's proven to be one of the most effective supplements. It helps you recover your muscles better. Has really not a lot of important, you know, negative downsides or anything like that. There's

really no reason not to take creatine if you're I've been yeah. I've been scooping that one in as well. The only thing I don't like about it, it's not extremely water soluble. It's not always It's gritty. So you just Scott I've been mixing it with my protein shakes,

which is is is decent, but Yeah. It's still a little gritty. I'll tell you what I do for this, because I don't like that either. I this is this is going to sound outrageous, because creatine, creatine is like it's 1, it's super cheap. Creatine is super cheap. You do 1 little scoop of it in your protein shake, and yeah, you get over the grit. It feels fine. What I do is I instead, I take 7 creatine pills at dinner. 7. They're like massive.

I do that because I don't like the grit. I feel so I can't swallow it. Doing that. Yeah. I don't I don't mind taking pills. These are these are cheap. They're from bulk supplements on Amazon. Bulk supplements is always good prices for stuff. So, you know, it's not like a huge problem in my life, but I have chosen to take a pill for it. Seven pills. I asked Courtney the other day. I was like, hey, hey, you wanna, you know, you should be taking creatine. Do you wanna just do 1 scoop in your in your drink every day, or do you wanna take 7 pills at dinner? And she Wes just, like, what are you like, why would I why would I ever take the 7 pills at dinner? That feels like a ridiculous question.

So

Scott.

Awesome. Well, hopefully, you all enjoyed a thing or two with that. Let's get into some sick picks. I'm going to sick pick something that I bought for my gym that I've been really enjoying, and that is a set of resistance bands.

And I bought this set. Basically, what I've learned is that all of these resistance bands are exactly the same. The same. Yeah. Pnpm a shoot Node of money on the Rogue Fitness ones, but the Acepow, Nomwam, whatever ones from Amazon are the exact same thing. And they are. So I bought the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 set of 6 resistance bands, and they Yarn fantastic. So I use them in a couple of ways. First of all, I've been trying to, like, get my squat, knee over toe a little bit better on one side. I twisted my ankle, like like, 10 years ago, and I realized that that side, I have less mobility than the my other side. So I've been doing a bunch of stretches with the band pulling on your foot to try to get it. There's this really good guy, YouTube, TikTok, Squat Vercel. And he's, like, he's more of, like, a, like, a rehab doctor, that focuses on people who who do weight lifting. And he has lots of really good tips of of, like, how to overcome those limitations.

And one of them was to put a resistance band on your foot and and stretch it out that way. And then the other the other way I use it is I have the pull up Bos, and I can't do as I can't do, like, a, like, 10 pull ups. You know? I can maybe do right now. I can maybe do 4.

So I'll put, like, one of one of the thinner ones and do assisted pull ups, and you just put your foot. I put 2 band pegs into the rack and wrap a wrap a band around that, and then if you put your feet on it and that that mimics, like, you being, like, 25, 30 pounds lighter, and then then you're able to do the the the pull ups. So if you're having trouble getting the pull ups done, check out the resistance bands.

Yeah.

Speaking of pull ups, my daughter finally stopped wearing pull ups, and it has been awesome, finally.

Wes are officially out of diapers, Wes. We are out of diapers and out of pull ups, and that JS, a wild place to be right now. So I'll I'll sick pick the these booty bands because, like you said, with the resistance bands, these things are super cheap. You can find a ton of different ones. But unlike the resistance, resistance bands tend to stretch a whole lot. Right? These are much tighter and for, like, more like leg Bos types of things, and they're much more a lot of resistance. So, these are work really well for doing, like like, Node stepping or Oh, cool. Keeping your knees together. And again, they're they're mostly drop shipped whatever. But these ones are are $14, and they're cloth, and they have some elastic on the inside to to attach to you. But we bought these ones in 2021, and we still use them every other workout or so. So they've they've held up super Wes, and, Yeah. I I use it all the time even for just anything where I'm trying to increase the sides of my legs or gain stability there. So, in that regard, nice little nice little piece of equipment here.

Well, that's it. I don't have anything else, Wes.

Anything else? That's it. For today, let's, let us know what you do. I'd love to see. I'll I'll try I'll send Randy some photos of of my gym, and we can overlay them on the video. But love to see photos of yours and any other tips you have. Just tweet us at syntax f m.

Alright.

Thanks for tuning in. Vercel. Peace.