Real Men Feel: Ep. 203, Is Weight Lifting a Waste of Time?

“Cardio is the worst approach to losing body fat.” ~ Dr. John Jaquish

Dr. Jaquish has been called the Tony Stark of fitness, and you’ll understand why listening to this episode. His book summarizes 250 studies and makes the scientific information actionable. But he warns, ‘oversimplification is another word for wrong.’

John doesn’t think highly of the fitness industry and does not hold back. He has a tremendous amount of data and experience showing that traditional weight lifting is a horrible approach to getting healthy, muscular, and lean. While cardio actually works against anyone trying to lose body fat. Studying variable resistance training has shown him that people are 7x stronger than they think they are.

Andy bought the X3 Bar fitness band bar system in January, and once COVID hit, he was so glad he had it. He shares his results and what makes him call it ’the best piece of fitness equipment I’ve ever owned.'

Topics and Questions Include:

• (2:29) Your book title is a very bold claim and sounds like things promoted on late night tv that don’t hold up — how is your system different?
• (4:57) Tell me about your first invention, OsteoStrong.
• (5:31) You say, “Fitness may be the most failed human endeavor.” How was science been so wrong?
• (11:29) What’s the difference between weight lifting and resistance training?
• (17:42) Before telling everyone Weight Lifting is a Waste of Time, Dr. John had to build the demonstration first. That was theX3 Bar resistance band bar system.
• (21:36) The challenge for most scientists.
• (23:55) Andy’s first reaction to the X3 Bar variable resistance training system. “Rubber bands? This can’t work.”
• (29:24) Has the device changed over the years?
• (29:59) Andy’s experience with the X3 Bar resistance band training system.
• (33:34) Truly 10 minutes or less for a complete workout.
• (35:11) How strength training improves your heart better than traditional cardio workouts.
• (38:11) Did you build your body up traditionally and then switch to the X3 workout bar system?
• (39:54) Is the attack on you and attachment to steel over using rubber bands an aspect of the male ego?
• (42:24) Everything you’ve done is disruptive and pissed people off. Has that been your intention?
• (43:29) You can be right, or you can be happy.
• (50:57) Science is never settled on an issue.
• (52:50) Is it challenging to get professional athletes to use the X3 Bar fitness band bar system?
• (59:56) For the skeptics, read the book.
• (1:02:38) Do you have plans on what you’ll disrupt next?

“The big-box gyms, these places are just nightclubs with treadmills.” ~ Dr. John Jaquish

Full Transcript

Andy Grant: Hello and welcome to another edition of Real Men Feel. This is your host Andy Grant. Now, it’s long been part of the masculine ideal to be muscular, to be fit, to be healthy. A big image of that is pumping iron, lifting weights, spending a lot of time at the gym, looking sweaty and cool, being ripped. I grew up with Schwarzenegger being everything and body-building, muscle work, lots of guys spending lots of times at the gym, lots of guys not getting much results, which is why I’m excited to talk to my guest today.

My guest today is scientist, inventor and author of Weight Lifting Is a Waste of Time: So Is Cardio, and There’s a Better Way to Have the Body you Want, Dr. John Jaquish. Welcome to the show.

Dr. John Jaquish: Andy, thanks so much for having me. Perfect introduction, but now I’m a bestselling author.

Andy Grant: All right. Beautiful.

Dr. John Jaquish: Bestseller on day three in some big categories like fitness and exercise and weight training. Sometimes somebody gets a best-selling in the category of gardening tool buyers’ guides, even though it was a fitness book.

Andy Grant: Intentionally?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. That’s strategy.

Andy Grant: I know. I actually teach entrepreneurs, self-publishing, but I tell them to go for a niche, but not some other niche, I never thought of it like, go for some obvious quilting when your book is not about that.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. You can gain the system by just going, even in fitness, there’s a category called Workouts in Minutes and it’s like, who would pick that? Right. And obviously there’s not a lot of popular books in there, but there are best sellers in that category, but I got the big ones. The sort of health and fitness, that’s the overarching category overall other fit categories. I got that one.

Andy Grant: Cool. Beautiful.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Andy Grant: It is a great, captivating, bold claim of a title, but on first read though, it reminds me of lots of late night TV shows and stuff that just don’t hold up. How is your system different? How do you deliver the goods?

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, the point of Weightlifting is a Waste of Time, notice, I didn’t say resistance training is a waste of time. Lifting a weight that is the same weight as you lift it. That’s a waste of time. If your goal is being stronger, if your goal is growing muscle, there’s people who, it seems like their goal is bench pressing, so they can talk about it online and you mentioned masculinity.

Andy Grant: Yeah, sure. How much you bench, bro? It’s a common way for guys to meet each other.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. You ask an NFL player, how much they bench, what their one rep maximum is, they’ll tell you you’re an idiot. Just like, ‘You’re an idiot. You think we one rep max? We get paid millions of dollars to play football. You think we’re going to risk our joints doing a one rep maximum?’ Which by the way, doesn’t stimulate any growth? Stupid, absolutely stupid. But play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I know a lot of people who can barely use their shoulders because they’re all about how much they bench. I do run into that sideways hat, Usually obese, the ‘I’m a powerlifter.’ No, you have a gym membership and you’re fat.

There’s maybe 0.01% of guys who say I’m a power lifter that actually have been to a powerlifting meet and have done something other than embarrass themselves. It’s really funny, the fitness community is… They think I came out of nowhere. They’re like, ‘Who the hell is this guy? I’ve never heard of him. He’s never done anything in fitness.’ You’re right, because I’ve been in the medical device industry for the last 10 years and I developed a device that puts pressure on bone and develops bone density. It’s the most effective device out there and we have 140 clinics in eight different countries. That’s called OsteoStrong.

Andy Grant: Right. That’s great. OsteoStrong was, was this your first invention?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. The bone density treatment devices were one of my first adventure. I worked on that for a long time and finally clinical trials published. Nothing in medicine is quick, and I don’t love that industry, but I will tell you efficacy, if you show the evidence, they love you and that doesn’t work in fitness.

Andy Grant: Yeah. In the book, you say fitness may be the most failed human endeavor. Scientists, how have they got it so wrong?

Dr. John Jaquish: I tell people, you don’t defend standard fitness when you take all the gym goers know, I can be anecdotal, which I will, and then I’ll be scientific next. Walk into any gym. I don’t mean Venice beach where all the bodybuilders train, I mean any Equinox or Planet Fitness, I went from expensive to embarrassingly cheap. Go into either one of those gyms, anywhere in America, you won’t see a single impressive physique. You’ll see people who’ve been going to gym for years and they don’t look any different than the people who don’t work out.

Maybe they put on a couple of pounds of muscle the first few months they were doing it, but other than beginner gains, they got nothing. People doing cardio year after year and they’re still overweight. It’s like the science to disprove the practice. This is the bizarre part. Craziest part about this book is that everything that’s in there, cardio is the worst approach to losing body fat. Cardio is great if your goal is to be a distance runner, is to run long distances for, I don’t know why that’s like pretending cars don’t exist or a bicycle. It’s inefficient, but okay.

That’s what you want to do if you want to run long distances. Also, if you are a competitive weightlifter, you got to lift weights. You’ve got to keep that neural pattern firing all the time. That’s a good reason to lift weights. That’s what you want to do. But if you’re going home is being strong, muscular, and lean, there’s all kinds of evidence and has been for a long time that weightlifting is a very stupid approach and so is cardio. Now, the biggest problem is the fitness industry does not understand science at all.

Trainers are still teaching people that cardio is for weight loss, not true and there’s been science for 40 years, but nobody in the fitness industry is really paying attention or cares. And a lot of these guys, these trainers, some of them have very good certifications and they’re very knowledgeable, and that’s like 1%. Then the rest of them, their certification program probably took them half an hour and that’s like their career, training. All right. You don’t know what you’re talking about, but they think they do. One of my favorite studies, that’s not about physical medicine is the Dunning-Kruger study from 1995.

What this study shows is that the less intelligent and the less people know the more they’re experts on the subject. The dumber they are, the smarter they think they are, which really explains fitness discussion online or nutrition discussion online. These people make these sweeping statements like if something’s an absolute fact. Vegans, the stuff that vegans say as absolute fact, which is absolute falsehood, it just blows my mind. Yeah, they have their evidence that they point at, but their evidence is falsified. The Game Changers film. Almost every single thing that was said in that movie was dishonest.

Total misrepresentation of reality. Even the actors that were interviewed in that. It was heavily edited. The questions were asked in a way where they could get little clips that sounded like these guys were in favor of veganism and they’re not. Unbelievable. Anyway, we got people producing bad information and then people just pretending to be complete experts and they don’t even understand the function or the physiology of what they’re talking about and they’re giving expert advice. The other thing is the industry has made no effort, none, to educate people on anything.

Like the idea that when you want to sign up for the gym, that you want to see cardio equipment, and you want to see strength equipment, because that’s what you’re expecting. Now, unfortunately, I know some gym chain owners that have owned… I know multiple guys that have owned over 300 big box gyms. The big chains. These places are just nightclubs with treadmills. They got music, they got good looking people, they want people to come in and sign up and they’re selling memberships, that’s it. They’re not there to help anybody because they know most people aren’t even going to come in anyway.

Andy Grant: Right. The point of a gym these days is to get you to sign up and not show up. If everybody’s showed up-

Dr. John Jaquish: Recently, the price went down to $9.99, so when you’re looking down your credit card statement, you don’t see it because you get pissed off about the things that are three digits or four digits. It’s like, ‘What was this?’ It’s meant to fly under the radar.

Andy Grant: You made an important distinguishment about, you are saying Weightlifting is Waste of Time, not resistance training.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Andy Grant: Tell me, what’s the difference, I guess?

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, let me wrap up a little bit fitness is the most failed endeavor. Scientifically for males, the leanest 1% of males in the United States… By the way, 23% of male strength train on a regular basis which was higher than I thought. 10% are gym memberships, 13% are strength training at home. The top leanest and I like that number, the percent body fat, because muscularity plays into that. The more muscular you are, the leaner you are because more of your body weight is muscle. The leanest 1% is 10.9, basically 11% body fat.

That’s not impressive, and that’s the best 1%, which is why I say fitness is a 99% failure rate. Maybe the smartest ones are the ones who don’t sign up because, and I hear this all the time from people who don’t work out, they’re like, ‘I see people will work out and they all are just the same as me. Why are they going?’ And then they look at me and they’re like, ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re doing. You don’t look like a person who goes to the gym. You look like an alien or like a statue.’ Or something like that. And I get it. I get it.

It’s just, I see so many people wasting their time. I was at a conference, I was talking to a group of people and this woman just interrupts me and she goes over, she goes, ‘Can I tell you about my routine?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure.’ She starts going over her routine. She works out two hours a day, cardio and strength and she’s obese, not morbidly obese, but obese and she’s opening up in front of all these people, talking about all her apprehensions and all the things that she feels miserable about and judging herself.

Then she burst into tears and it’s like, I couldn’t explain everything that’s in this 260-page book right there, but I’m like, ‘I’ve got something coming out that you really need to read and it’s really going to help.’ Because I promise the industry is not there to help you, it’s there to sell you stuff. Now, I’m selling something too. I can’t cast them aside just because of that, but I’m selling something that is going to give the result that you’re looking for, whereas the other option is it’s just selling you something. Anyway, let’s get to the next question. I went long on that one, but it’s a great, it’s a great question.

Andy Grant: Yeah. Can you explain what weightlifting versus resistance training is? What’s the difference and why does it matter?

Dr. John Jaquish: When you lift a weight, let’s say chest press, for example, it’s the same way back here as it is here, right?

Andy Grant: Mm-hmm (Affirmative).

Dr. John Jaquish: The weight, it’s 350, it’s 350 pounds here, it’s 350 pounds here, but what I discovered in the medical device research that I did is that whatever you can hold here, what you can hold here is about seven times greater. We have an incredible variance in the capacity. For those listening, I was mimicking a bench press type movement. The bottom of the bench press type movement you’re very weak and at the top, you’re incredibly strong, stronger than you could ever imagine. Imagine what you bench press and multiply that by seven. That’s what you’re actually capable of.

Now, that’s a one load exposure, very brief type thing. We wouldn’t necessarily want to exercise with that magnitude of variance. But what I will say is, when I looked at these numbers coming off the medical device, I knew, wow, weightlifting is terrible. We should not be doing this. I really looked at this data and I had been a weightlifter and I had been a weight lifter, who, now, I got to a chubby 190, 20%, which is, by comparison now, it’s terrible. That’s an average guy. That’s an average guy who works out or that’s an average guy who might be prone to holding a little bit more muscle, who’s never been to a gym ever.

When I took my shirt off at the beach, nobody was like, ‘Wow, you’re in good shape.’ Nobody mentioned that. Now I get stopped on the street and people ask for my autograph and I’m like, ‘Who do you think I am?’ And they were like, ‘Are you in the NFL? Are you an MMA fighter?’ They just think-

Andy Grant: crosstalk. You look too good to be normal.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. I get followed by groups of people in Asia. When I’m walking down the street in Asia, there’s a bunch of people, just random people with their phones out filming me and I’m like, ‘What do you think I’m going to do? Blow up a car, just by punching it or what?’ They don’t see anybody that looks like me and that’s a big difference. It’s one of those things where I got to a point where I didn’t want to come right out and start this movement by saying Weightlifting is a Waste of Time. I had to build the demonstration first. Really, I think some fans of mine will be a little pissed off when they hear me say this, but X3 Bar resistance band bar system was an experiment.

I knew how it would go and I knew that they would be super happy with the results I got, but identifying the market… At first, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to come out with this product.’ Look, for the entrepreneur group that’s listening, they’re going to like this. I was like, ‘Okay.’ I licensed the OsteoStrong invention and technology to OsteoStrong company, and I get royalty for that and I represent the company from a scientific basis. Now, I want to do the same thing with X3 Bar exercise band bar system because it was like, ‘I don’t want to run a company. I want to be on the beach.

I just want a check to come in every month.’ Which is, what I was doing with OsteoStrong. The scientific representation. I know it seems like hard work, but it was just automatic for me at that point. I was able to, really enjoying myself and then I go to all these companies, some of the big fitness manufacturers for home products, and I show them, X3 Bar resistance band training system, and they’re like, ‘Wait a minute, you want to make a scientific presentation to the fitness community?’ It was funny because I had thought I read some of these fitness forums and stuff and these are not my people I can’t really connect with these people and they’re like, ‘It’ll never work.’

The fitness community is populated by very unintelligent people. You’re just not going to be able to pull it off. They won’t listen to you. They won’t care what you have to say. You can show them scientific studies. They’re unable to read them. I’m funny sometimes, like you look at where fitness information lives, YouTube and Instagram, video and pictures. Why? They’re probably not very good at reading. Seriously. Why would it be? If you want to learn something, you got to read words, because that’s how you remember. At least that’s how I remember.

I don’t want to see someone in a video, I want to read a document. That’s what’s really going to nail it in my head. They all were like, ‘We love the product. It’s totally genius. It’s not going to work.’ I just pivoted, I just didn’t market it to fitness at all I marketed it to busy professionals, busy executives, and it was an instant success. There are months where we ship multiple thousand units. It’s just been awesome.

Andy Grant: When did the X3 Bar variable resistance training system launch?

Dr. John Jaquish: It was about three years ago. No, a little more than three years ago now. We did a soft launch; we didn’t have a big announcement or anything on Dave Asprey’s podcast. And I’m much better at explaining and condensing new information. See, the challenge for science is most scientists just present science in the most academic way, in the most literal statistical way, which is why nobody listens to them, because you just can’t do that. It’s unfair to people actually. When I say people are unable to read the science, I’m not making fun of those people.

Hardly anybody’s able to read the science because it’s not written in a way where non-scientists are supposed to be reading it, because it’s goal is to be as accurate as possible, as literal as possible, which is only in scientific terms. What I do is I try and distill it to be actionable and useful for the regular person. And in this book, I summarized 250 studies in a way where that information is actually actionable for people, because most people, they read one study on something and they’re like, ‘I can’t do anything with this.’

But if you connect that study with two other studies and put that story together, because if this, then we have a better understanding of this combined with this third thing means here’s how we should be eating, and that’s very helpful to people. As a scientist, you got to make sure that you’re not oversimplifying. Oversimplification is another word for wrong, because that’s what oversimplify means. And sometimes, I saw on an ad, it was two nights ago them describing how type 2 diabetes works in this mid-32nd ad. It was for a supplement or something that helps with type 2 diabetes.

I don’t know how the supplement works, but their description was beautiful. It was perfect. It was 30 seconds. Everything you need to know about type 2 diabetes, exactly how it works. I was like… But it’s hard. That’s my point.

Andy Grant: Yeah. They did it though.

Dr. John Jaquish: Really hard to get that right and I did. All the other scientists that have read the book said, ‘You nailed it.’ All 250 of those studies are now actionable things.

Andy Grant: I first heard of and saw the X3 Bar resistance band bar system, I think at the beginning of this year, January 2020 was the first time I’d ever seen it, saw it on Facebook. At first, my initial thought and tell me if this is common or just, rubber bands? Come on. That can’t work. Why is that so common? Why are we just doubting this?

Dr. John Jaquish: Actually, that’s a great question. Nobody ever asked me that question. That’s a great question. It’s because you’ve seen rubber bands before and probably like anybody that’s been to physical therapy or anybody that’s been to a sporting goods store or even Walmart, they have exercise bands and you can grab them and pull them apart. With like two fingers on each hand. The loading is very low. Then there’s been a number of, I would call them scam fitness products that take those tubes or very small thin bands and try and market it as a fitness product. And it’s not. It’s not fitness weight, it’s rehab weight.

When you’re doing outward rotation on your shoulder that maybe a variance of five to 15 pounds, but X3 Bar portable home gym, when I dead lift, I’m holding over 600 pounds. That’s the difference, when somebody talks about… There was a study on variable resistance, I left that out of book because I didn’t want to confuse people, but the study was designed to fail because they used 15 pounds at full stretch TheraBand, it’s called TheraBand. Then they called that strength training. It’s like, what do you think there stands for? Maybe therapy? Just a guess. Also, it’s found in all therapy centers.

Yeah, it was 15 pounds of resistance and then they compared that, the training with the 15 pounds resistance compared to people who were doing regular weight training, where they had hundreds of pounds available to train with. Well, obviously the TheraBand cohort failed to gain any strength or any difference at all, which anybody would fail with 15 pounds, because that’s not a strength relevant weight to a human. That’s why, it’s because what people have seen is very weak. When you get heavier with bands, there’s some boxers out there who sell like a bag of bands and say like this, ‘This is exactly what X3 Bar is.’

A lot of people are trying to draft off of me, but they’re all clowns. It’s obvious. The problem is, let’s say you go to do a pushup, you throw the band around your back and it’s doubled up, a loop band and the band is running across right here and you’re going to do a pushup. The problem is as that weight is relevant to strength, it’s going to be high enough where your wrists are starting to twist as you’re going through the movement. You could break your own risk doing that. You can’t. The small joints of the body that interface with heavy weight are the wrists and the ankles.

Unless they’re holding on to or pushing against something neutral, you’re going to hurt yourself and it’ll be even less effective than regular weight training.

Andy Grant: The actual bar of the X3 Bar resistance band bar system is what really keeps you safe. You’re using more force-

Dr. John Jaquish: In the ground plate. We have the equivalent of the bar for the feet too. Neutral and then the bands are able to flex and move underneath. It’s great and I have 17 patents in the US and in 49 different countries on the bar and on the ground plate. Yeah, because that was the difference. I realized it’s simple and elegant. People are like, ‘It’s just a stick and bands.’ ‘Okay, well, an iPhone is just a piece of glass and a microchip. It shouldn’t cost more than a dollar. Right?’ Or does it do something that’s effective? Because ultimately, I had people telling me, they were lifting weights for 20 years.

They switched to X3 Bar variable resistance training system put on 20 pounds of muscle in six months. They tell me, ‘I got more results out of X3 Bar resistance band training system in six months than I did at 20 years of weight training.’ It is expensive because it has to be built for a serious amount of force and we can’t have a plastic bar loaded with 600 pounds, it’ll shatter. The bar is made of steel and then anodized aluminum on the outside. A little shiny and nice and no rust. Hooks are stainless steel, polished stainless steel. It’s beautiful.

Andy Grant: You mentioned that this was really an experiment. Has the device changed since three years ago? Has it morphed in the years or was it really just-

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. It’s become much more high quality. The first version was a couple of hundred dollars cheaper and we only sold a few of them and then we upgraded very quickly and if they break, we replace them, even though we’re way out of warranty, we replace them anyway, because we want people to have the real thing.

Andy Grant: Cool.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. We’re not going to go bankrupt by replacing those.

Andy Grant: I actually bought the X3 Bar fitness band bar system in January and much like what you shared, been going to the gym since 15, 16 years old, my normal routine, go six months, hurt myself, be off at three months. Go again six months, get hurt and it was always getting hurt with going for that one max rep to brag about and it was ridiculous and I’d injure shoulders and wrists. I bought the X3 portable gym because my business was going to be expanding, I was not going to have the normal time slot I have assigned to go to the gym, so I got it for that busy professional, like you intended.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Andy Grant: Then COVID hit. I couldn’t even go to the gym and I was so glad that I had the X3 Bar variable resistance training system, but I’m in week 32, I think and I’m down 17 pounds. I do not follow your eating plan. I’ve lost 17 pounds and I’m stronger. My chest, my arms, my thighs-

Dr. John Jaquish: Probably than you’ve ever been.

Andy Grant: Yeah. It really is amazing. I wanted to talk to you for a long time, but then I saw a book like, ‘Great. Well, now it’s perfect.’ I just want to stress; I love this product. I paid full price. This is not, you send it to me free and I got to play with it, so we’d come on the show. This is just, I am a believer. I’ve not read the book yet, but everything you talk about, you have so many videos online, demoing, talking about the science behind this and yeah, it’s legit.

Dr. John Jaquish: Awesome. Andy, thanks for saying that. That’s good.

Andy Grant: Yeah, and I’m down by 17 pounds even with the COVID diet, I went up 10 and then dropped down below 17. I’ve actually down 27 pounds from my peak, because from-

Dr. John Jaquish: Whoa. And you’ve also probably, that’s not even an accurate number because you’ve gained muscle.

Andy Grant: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: You’re not accounting for that. I tell people, ‘Gosh, get a DEXA scan before you start, so you really know and then people are like, ‘well, I didn’t have time for that.’ And I’m always like-

Andy Grant: It’s not even that. I’m going back. I remember having the bull worker when I was a teenager and just all sorts of just crappy things online and work at home routines and weird bars and contraptions, so I didn’t believe it. If I had the faintest belief that this lived up to the hype, I would have done the measurements, I would have done everything, because I’ve had people say like, ‘Dude, what are you doing?’ And my traps are visibly bigger. I remember a month in, my favorite, I still do cardio because I like, but then when I had to stop doing it, my weight kept going down when I stopped doing cardio. I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. The fat is all away.

Andy Grant: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: crosstalk.

Andy Grant: Again, you’re proving it. Anyways, I was at the gym, I like Les Mills Body combat classes and I looked at me I’m like, ‘Is that me?’ There was definition in my arm and shoulder that I had never seen in my life. And I was like, ‘Holy shit. It’s the X3 Bar fitness band bar system fricking doing it.’ It is the best fitness product I’ve ever had and I’m sure you hear that a lot.

Dr. John Jaquish: Thank you. It’s amazing that it’s a home fitness product and it’s not cheap because if you look at an actual home gym, which is what you should be comparing it to, it’s $550. Most people spend three grand to 10 grand on a home gym or power rack or whatever and X3 Bar resistance band training system is better. Then when you’re done with X3 Bar resistance band bar system, you can stick it in a drawer. Right?

Andy Grant: And we’d even talk about it, you promote it, somebody can say this, 10 minutes or less. No, it’s really. I’ll go over. My long workout. I might hit 14 minutes.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. I will say the more muscular you get, I’ve put on over 60 pounds of muscle since turning 40, which is unheard of. I get winded seriously, especially after the deadlift or after squats. It takes me 10 minutes to recover and just catch my breath from one set of deadlifts.

Andy Grant: Yeah. I’ve noticed. A dozen years ago I read a book. There was a gym in Boston. I lived in Massachusetts, in Boston it was a super-slow facility. And again, the notion of once a week got me in so I went there for… But I’m used to the scientific, the slow rep, single rep, one set, failure. All right, I’ve lived that experience. I knew at least that part of the science, but what my experience too is if I give myself time and don’t just try to finish in 10 minutes, and really rest between things. Yeah, doing the reps till I get to failure. One thing that just, as a gym rat at some level, I’m amazed. I never sweat. I’m not doing enough to break a sweat, but I’m spent. It’s really bizarre.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. The more muscle you put on you will start to sweat, not bad. I can do it-

Andy Grant: Not dripping.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Andy Grant: That’s what I’m used to. You work out, you really-

Dr. John Jaquish: That’ll never happen. This is part of where the myth comes from that strength athletes have poor cardio. Strength athletes actually have better, or the same cardio as distance athletes. There’s more than a hundred studies that say this and a meta-analysis that talks about the a hundred studies is referenced in my book, in that section. how you don’t need cardio, because people say your heart needs to be healthy. It gets healthier with strength training. The brief, very high intensity exposure need for blood flow is something that really stimulates the heart to adapt, but the larger muscle becomes…

I was at an airport recently and I was with a guy who probably weighs 140 pounds, the Munich airport. I don’t know why, but you fly in there and you got to go downstairs, go through immigration, go upstairs, walk like forever, and then go downstairs. You got to get your bags, X3 workout bar system again, upstairs, downstairs to go to baggage claim. Even if you’re going on another flight and then you got to check your bag again, if you’re going to… I go from Germany to Russia a lot, or I did. Right? It’s like up and down, up and down, up and down.

And you’re running up the stairs and I’m seriously out of breath and the guy’s like, ‘Your cardio is not very good.’ I’m like, ‘No, let me explain this to you. It’s because I weigh a hundred pounds more than you and that hundred pounds is muscle. That engine is running. It is drawing blood. When my quadriceps contract, they’re pulling blood into the quadricep to get it to fire as we’re running, because we were running, we’re on a schedule, trying not to miss our connecting flight. It’s like the mileage on a V12 engine versus a four-cylinder.

Well, what do you think is going to suck more gas? Probably the V12. It doesn’t mean that the V12 is less… It’s not like it’s burning gas in a different way than the four-cylinder is. There’s nothing wrong with the V12, it’s just designed for speed and the four cylinder is designed to go long distances without using a lot of fuel. You’re a different machine when you’re a strength athlete, but it doesn’t mean you have bad cardio.

Andy Grant: Okay. Earlier you mentioned that you had been a weightlifter and into fitness before inventing this product, but it’s not the case that you achieved the bulk that you have, you haven’t built up this muscle and then switched to the X3 Bar exercise band bar system and are just maintaining it?

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. No, I have pictures. I have all kinds of pictures of me. In fact, I got ridiculed. This really funny, when I first launched the product, people like the fitness industry guys, sideways hats, illiterate, they would go nuts. A lot of them misspell words in their posts, by the way. They’re great. They’d laugh at me and be like, ‘This guy’s fat. He’s not even in shape, his product is a joke.’ Then every once in a while, I remember I’d get compliments from people who had bought the product and they’re like, ‘This product definitely works, and I commend the inventor for being out of shape and launching it anyway.’

And I was like, ‘Thanks.’ Yeah, ‘Thanks for the compliment guys.’ But then, six months later, people went from making fun of me for being out of shape and not strong looking and I looked fat and then immediately they’re like, ‘This guy is definitely on steroids.’ It was like, there was not a day where they’re like, right on. There’s nothing in between. They were either being that or he’s definitely on steroids, which of course is not true. Yeah. You cannot satisfy the jealous that’s what those are.

Andy Grant: Yeah, and is that attack on you and is the notion that, rubber bands can’t be better than steel. Is this all just the male ego being defensive?

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s more like an abhorrence or a misdirection of the male ego. It’s like I can take my Lamborghini and not drive it like an asshole and some people will still be offended because it’s a Lamborghini. I get the middle finger in my Lamborghini every day.

Andy Grant: Just for having it.

Dr. John Jaquish: My windows are so tinted, it just looks like black steel, no one knows who’s in it. So they’re not giving me the middle finger they’re just mad somebody has a Lamborghini.

Andy Grant: The idea that anyone-

Dr. John Jaquish: I see guys with a nice car and they’ll rev the engine at a stoplight, things cracking and popping. It’s like, you don’t need to rev a fuel injected engine. Revving your engine to keep the car from stalling, people with Harleys do that. inaudible. There’s fuel injection in there. You do not need to rev the engine. You’re just being an asshole. The guys that are like, ‘Iron is better.’ It’s not. Profoundly not better. If you want to be one of these CrossFit guys, and just throw your weights against the ground. You see them. I’ve seen guys when they’re done with like a snatch movement or something like that.

I saw a video where a guy dislocated his shoulder as he was throwing the weight down, they throw the weight down so they can make a loud noise. That’s the same thing as the guy who just revs his engine at a stoplight. Just a jerk. It’s that simple.

Andy Grant: It’s weird. The show is more important than the results.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. There is nothing masculine about disturbing the peace or trying to be the center of attention or somebody who blasts rap music so the whole neighborhood can hear it. Really? You can’t hear it unless it’s that volume? Everyone knows, all right. Well, it’s probably like a kid who just got his driver’s license and wants to be seen or it’s somebody with a serious psychological problem. The need to be the center of attention.

Andy Grant: Yeah. Just before the show we were just chatting, you mentioned that everything you’ve done has been disruptive and you just become an expert at pissing people off, it seems, but you said that wasn’t your goal?

Dr. John Jaquish: No. I’ve been in the medical device and then other inventions came along. I developed a protein formula, which of course made everybody upset also because it was better and people say, ‘Well, you can’t prove it.’ Yeah, I can, but it’s a lot of science that they can’t read. Then they take it and they’re using an X3 Bar portable home gym and they’re like, ‘I’ve never put on muscle faster.’ I’ve had people apologize are like, ‘I trolled you for a long time, because I thought you were a scammer, but I’m bigger, stronger and leaner than I’ve ever been and it’s just because…’ And some of them were like, ‘His products work, but he’s an asshole.’ Okay. I’m not, but all right. You can say that, that’s fine.

Andy Grant: Well, there’s a common phrase that I share in the show a lot that, you can be right, you can be happy, and it seems like you meet a lot of people that just insist on being right, even when they’re wrong, because that’s just more important for some reason.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Their self-satisfaction. There’s certainly a need with social media, people really want to present themselves as experts and I’ve really grown to dislike social media in general, even though it keeps me connected to some people I probably would have no idea where they are otherwise, like friends from high school or some fraternity brothers that moved away, I don’t bump into in California. It brings out the worst in the worst people, because I think people with a level head don’t really use it very much or they read it and they just shake their head and they’re like, ‘Wow.’

It’s a dog pile of idiots not jumping in there. It’s a shame when I see the rage take people over and of course politics is the best example because if you’re pragmatic at all, and you look at somebody who says something about one candidate that is just so outlandish and dishonest, and then the same thing from the other side and just like, nobody cares about what either of you think. And I think social media has got… People say the news is manipulating everyone.

Social media is manipulating the news because the news media realized they can lie to the most incredible degree and get away with it because they see regular people who have a big following on social media, doing it all the time and they are getting more attention. Like Alex Jones would say crazy stuff, just conspiracy theories. I don’t know. I know there was one like frogs were actually aliens or… No, frogs were turning gay because of some inaudible. Obviously, I didn’t really pay attention to him, but somebody is like, ‘You got to watch a minute of this guy.’

And I did, and I was like, ‘Wow. I’ll never get that minute back.’ But I’ll also never forget it. Anyway, he says a bunch of outlandish stuff and he gets as big of a following as whatever, like a whole new show. And the guy has just made up shit behind him. He references an article that was written by some other crazy guy. They learned that you can just lie and it’s a shame because it’s really difficult for somebody who casually follows something, whether it’s sports or politics or there’s some issues that people are more emotional than others, but you see just all this, just totally dishonest reporting and dishonest everything and it’s just social media.

Like when the book came out, pretty much any negative review of the book Amazon deleted and it’s like, ‘We could tell this was just written by a troll. This is somebody who just has something against you.’ I’m like, ‘All right.’ Maybe you notice that almost every product has five stars on Amazon now because somebody who gives something a one star, really, have you ever used a product that you paid let’s say $500 for that was just worth 50 cents? No. I’ve never given a one-star review on anything. It’s usually five or I just don’t buy from that company again.

Then sometimes if I get a product that didn’t work right. It’s like, ‘Well, I might’ve just got a bad one, they didn’t QA it.’ I don’t just assume all of them were total pieces of garbage. So Amazon has just picked up on what trolls are and how they operate and they just deleted the negative stuff, because the negative stuff is just written by some hater. Just some guy who-

Andy Grant: crosstalk. You just went live with something and there’s already one star reviews being added. You haven’t even had time to buy or even pretend to read this.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. You can tell they didn’t read it. They didn’t buy it. If it doesn’t say, verify purchaser by your name. Now, we did give out some advanced copies to press and some of the press did just cover it because they liked it they did write reviews and it doesn’t say verified purchaser, but they’re like typically when somebody writes a positive review, and they’re not a verified purchaser, they just read somebody else’s copy or something like that. As long as the content… Actual humans read those reviews before they’re approved and then they’re review them after getting people’s feedback.

That’s why my good friend Dr. Shawn Baker, he wrote The Carnivore Diet, the book, The Carnivore Diet. Bestseller. Wonderful book. If you have any questions about nutrition, if you question your own nutrition and go, ‘Well, maybe there’s an easier way or something like that.’ Read that book, it is awesome. Also, Dr. Paul Saladino’s book, The Carnivore Code, same thing, but I talked to Baker. Baker and I are good friends. We were talking about, I’m like, ‘How did you keep the vegans from lighting you on fire in the reviews?’

And he goes, ‘I don’t know. All the negative reviews just disappear every day.’ I’m like, ‘Really?’ This is a couple of weeks before I launched my book. yeah, Amazon has got nothing but contempt for these people who just want to ruin other people because they’re jealous. It’s cool. It just means trolls are wasting their time, but they don’t value their time anyway, because I’m guessing their employers don’t even want them around. It’s not like they have anything better to do. It’s interesting being a traditional disruptor.

I like disrupting medicine more than fitness because when I would have the chance to talk to an influential physician, once you show them the evidence they flip. They’re like, ‘Now that I understand the rationale, I am in favor of this.’

Andy Grant: It’s like the medical field isn’t as trapped in this I got to be right or be happy thing. They’re just like, ‘I want to be right, but I’m not tied to my idea of right. My rightness can change based on evidence.’

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. 100%. Yeah, and that’s why whenever somebody says the science is settled on some issue, that’s not a scientific comment. Science is never settled. You can always question. They say that about Mars, the science is settled. No it isn’t or inaudible… There was somebody, I forget who it was. I think it might’ve been Ocasio-Cortez who wanted to make researching climate change illegal, because she believes that now, a lot of the latest research just disproves it. There’s a lot of other things we’re not measuring like solar activity. Now, the sun is creating variance in the climate.

Well, that’s certainly isn’t the fault of Coca Cola or Chevron. They’re not controlling the sun. We’re just all here victims of the sun, which is actually true. She was furious over this research and it’s like, you can’t stop science. You can’t stop learning. That’s so incredibly irresponsible.

Andy Grant: People can, but it’s not good. We don’t gain anything.

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s like a toddler’s attitude. Like, I like things the way they are, we can’t have any other ideas. Yeah. That’s what a toddler would say. That’s where we are in politics today.

Andy Grant: Indeed, yeah. For the X3 Bar resistance band training system, you do have a really growing list of professional athletes using it.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes-

Andy Grant: crosstalk. How challenging is it to get them to try it or not?

Dr. John Jaquish: No, because they read the science. No, they’re awesome. And also you’ll never meet an NFL player that will talk about how much he benches. They don’t care. They go high reps. They don’t want an injury either and I’m like, ‘You’ll never need a bench again.’ And they’re like, ‘Good.’ ‘You’ll never need to squat again.’ ‘Good.’ Because they get a little tweak in their knee and they lose three tenths of a second off their 40 time. Then they get hit, then their career’s over. Not worth it. They hate that. That weightlifting and these are the strongest people in the world.

Every once in a while, I get some power lifter that whenever I say that they’re like, ‘No. Power lifters are the strongest people in the world.’ ‘Really? You’re stronger than an NFL player, but you turned down the opportunity to make millions and millions of dollars and instead you’re making $30,000 a year as a professional power lifter?’ ‘Okay. Yeah-

Andy Grant: crosstalk. I can’t move, but I’m stronger. Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: NFL guys are the strongest, hence they make the most money, but they don’t care about what they do. I love emphasizing this. There is no commercial or home fitness product that a professional athlete will use because it’s just okay. They use the best. They’re not going to screw around with anything else because they are the best. It’s the best only and the way they see X3 Bar fitness band bar system is, it is the best fitness product, home or commercial or anything that they’ve ever used and they’re getting results out of it and every one of them that’s endorsed us and let me use their picture on the website, given me written permission to do so, didn’t pay them a penny, nothing.

I help them. I regularly speak to these guys and make sure that they got all their questions answered, they got on all the movements. Sometimes they’ll send me little videos like, ‘Am I doing this right?’ I give them help.

Andy Grant: This year everything’s virtual, the NFL draft was virtual and I think I saw a post from you on social media, but maybe it wasn’t, but the idea that lots of agents were buying X3 Bar variable resistance training system and sending them to the new drafted NFL players, because these are guys that couldn’t go to the gym, might not have anything at home, but they were all getting the X3 Bar resistance band bar system. Is that accurate?

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s accurate, and as soon as they go through the draft, they sign their contract and part of that contract says, ‘You’re not allowed to get injured. If you get injured on the field, we’ll pay you. If you get injured while you’re training, we won’t. It’s up to you.’ And they’re like, ‘No, I’m not going to risk my contract for a one rep maximum or workout. No way.’ Which, that’s very smart of the NFL. It’s like stay safe. And a lot of the strength coaches now, the Miami Heat in fact, on the back of the book, you can see what the strength coach of the Miami Heat has to say about my research and that’s what they do now.

They have a great strength training team. It’s kind of a father son Bill and Erik, and then they have a couple of other guys. They’re so scientifically focused it’s great and they don’t do any conventional stuff they never did, but now they can keep the joints of the Heat players safer because they’re offloading the joint where the joint is at risk, and then they’re super loading where they’re capable of producing the force. It’s variance of force in line with variance of capacity. These guys are they’re growing muscle for the first time since they signed the contract.

Same thing with the NFL guys. NBA guys have a different element because they’re so tall, a small joint injury on a tall guy is much worse than a joint injury on a short guy, because of how long that lever arm is. It has more force going through it. Just keeping those guys injury free, it’s an art and that art is made a lot easier with X3 variable resistance exercise system.

Andy Grant: Because the resistance is variable, it’s more tension on the muscles, less tension on the joints themselves. Is that?

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s right, and the more powerful the muscle becomes, it’s always pulling on the joint, so the joint actually becomes stronger. The joint doesn’t get stronger in your workout necessarily. It is a protagonist antagonist intermediary all the time. This is a big question. Is it the actual workout or is it the resulting musculature that needs to be supported that is forcing the tendons and ligaments to grow? We don’t know yet, but I do know that people who use variable resistance do get the powerful joints much more powerful than with regular weight training, because usually you’re just injuring your joints.

What’s going on in your joints is damage and damage repair as opposed to growth. Now, with the professional athletes, I can’t think of any home fitness product any more than one pro athlete has ever used. Can you? I can’t.

Andy Grant: Yeah. Right. Usually, yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Solo flights like that, right?

Andy Grant: Yeah. Each thing might pay one celebrity to endorse it and then that’s it.

Dr. John Jaquish: They pay one guy, Bowflex had a guy in the NFL for a while, but those are paid guys. I don’t have paid guys. I have guys who do it for free and those are guys who, it’s like they get one. My option is actually the choice of the pro athlete. The preferred option and that’s big.

Andy Grant: Cool. Well, Dr. Jaquish, I really appreciate you joining me today and sharing everything and sharing, disrupting everything that you do because if you are all about the results, then you need to be checking out the X3 Bar resistance band training system and the book Weightlifting is a Waste of Time.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Say for anybody who’s a skeptic. 32 pages of the book is specifically about X3 Bar. One of the things I get criticized and the haters are going to find anything to complain about. 32 pages of this 260-page book are specifically about X3 Bar variable resistance training system. The rest of it is just about human physiology and actionable stuff. Like someone said on a review, ‘This is just a big commercial for X3 Bar portable home gym.’ ‘Okay. Well, if it’s superior, then it’s probably a commercial worth watching.’ But also, it’s only 32 pages out of 260. 266 specifically. Is it really that big of a deal? No.

Andy Grant: Yeah. If that was the case, you don’t need 260 pages to make a commercial.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right, but I would say if somebody hears this and still has a lot of apprehension, just read the book. Foreword is by Forrest Griffin, former light heavyweight champion. MMA fighters get a lot of joint damage and he says, ‘This is the only way I’ve been able to exercise with proficiency and actually gained strength since I started in MMA.’ He’s like fighters don’t get stronger, because when they’re held against the ground, when they’re putting jiu-jitsu holds, joints get damaged.

Andy Grant: Cool. Awesome. Any other way you want to share people to get in touch with you or learn more information about you or the X3 Bar resistance band training system?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. I created a landing page recently, so I didn’t have to give out five things at the end of every podcast. Just go to DoctorJ.com, D-O-C-T-O-R, the letter J.

Andy Grant: Awesome. Nice and easy.

Dr. John Jaquish: Cool.

Andy Grant: Cool. Again, Doc, I really appreciate your time, I really appreciate your devices, and I look forward, I want to find, because the OsteoStrong is licensed at different facilities. Is that right? That’s not a home fitness thing.

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s a franchise model.

Andy Grant: Guys go check that out.

Dr. John Jaquish: The IP is held exclusively by that company and then it’s franchise clinics and like I said, there’s 140 clinics in eight different countries.

Andy Grant: Cool. Do you already have a vision of what might be next, what your disruptive mind is working on or not?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes.

Andy Grant: Okay. We’re just going to leave it at that?

Dr. John Jaquish: I’m working on a couple of things. I’m always working on a couple of things and some of the things I don’t… Here’s an example. I came up with a way to build huge calluses on the bottom of your feet, because walking around barefoot is good for you, but you need to be on a softer surface. That’s the oversimplification people wear the barefoot shoes and then they go walk on concrete. No, you’ll hurt yourself doing that. Don’t do that. The idea of just toughening the human foot so you can do more stuff barefoot.

Then I did some polling of people, would they want to build giant callouses on the bottom of their feet to protect their feet? And there was an overwhelming negative response. Like, ‘No, I wouldn’t pay for that. I wouldn’t use that.’ It was painful to use to too. It was an idea I had, I just don’t think there’s enough of a market there. I think the biohacker people, especially the more hippie lifestyle and biohacker guys, I only drink raw milk kind of thing. Those guys, they were into it. They were like, ‘I’d love to never wear shoes. I live off the grid, out of my van.’

You know what I mean? Those kinds of guys and they’re cool. They’re not doing it because they just don’t want to pay a mortgage, they’re doing it because they’re trying to prove a point and that’s cool, but there’s not enough of those guys to build this thing.

Andy Grant: All right. Well, cool. Maybe, in the future you’ll find your hippie van community or they’ll spread.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Maybe it’ll grow.

Andy Grant: Yeah. It sounds like you’re ahead of your time on a number of things or you’re a scientist ahead of the time for everyone buying into it or something, but cool. Hey, I wish you continued success and continued bestselling books, again, and being disruptive because your stuff works. You get the results. Thanks again for being here.

Dr. John Jaquish: inaudible thanks so much.