Episode 139: The Davidson Hang Podcast w/Dr.John Jaquish

In this podcast, we chat with Dr. John Jaquish, scientist, inventor and best-selling author. Dr. Jaquish has spent years researching and developing improved approaches to health including creating the X3 system and Osteostrong.

Full Transcript

Davidson Hang: Hey, thanks for tuning back intoThe Davidson Hang Podcast. We have Dr. John Jaquish. Am I pronouncing it correctly?

Dr. John Jaquish: Jaquish. I’m glad you’re asking me. Yeah, yeah. There’s a lot of people just completely butcher it and I’m just sitting here like, “Normal. It’s fine. Continue.”

Davidson Hang: Yeah. So-

Dr. John Jaquish: My website is doctorj.com, D-O-C-T-O-R, the letter J, dot com. And because my other website is Jaquish Biomedical, but people can never remember how to spell my last name. And I don’t know why. I think it’s how it sounds, but nobody else agrees with me. So yeah, it’s just doctorj.com, go there. Yeah.

Davidson Hang: Cool. So yes, you’re a scientist and inventor, best-selling author, and you’ve spent years researching and developing improved approaches to health. And you’re the inventor of the most effective bone density building medical technology, and you partner with Tony Robbins in OsteoStrong for rapid clinic deployment.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yep.

Davidson Hang: Yeah, and you have a book called 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: The New York Times list is it has nothing to do with book sales. It has to do with the staff at The New York Times just handpicking books that they like, which is-

Davidson Hang: Oh.

Dr. John Jaquish: And my publicist told me, “Since you’re a straight white male, you’ll never get on that list because now all that they care about is social justice since, I guess, according to them, all straight white males are the source of social injustice.”

Davidson Hang: I love that.

Dr. John Jaquish: What I’m told. I never heard it, but whatever. Yeah, I hear that, and I get it. It’s like, they’re riding a political wave, then that’s what people are interested in reading and endlessly talking about now. So it’s like, “All right, dude, forget that list.” So, we had calls with New York Times and we’re like, “We’re not even sending you books. Bye.” Yeah, I’m like, “We’re going to The Wall Street Journal guys.” But it didn’t matter because even… We talked to Wall Street journal people, it didn’t matter. As soon as it was the number one book in America, it was just on their list. Yeah. Well, they didn’t even need to talk to me.

Davidson Hang: Oh, cool.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, yeah. That’s the contest I’d like to win. It’s like the good guy who does the best gets the trophy. That is what makes sense. Seemingly not how the world wants to work anymore.

Davidson Hang: Right.

Dr. John Jaquish: But yeah. Yeah.

Davidson Hang: Huh. Interesting. Yeah. So, I’ve gone to a lot of Tony Robbins events and all that. I mean, he’s into human performance, peak performance. How did you two first get acquainted with each other?

Dr. John Jaquish: The guy just called me. It was out of the blue and it was funny because one of his coaches was somebody I helped a lot, and the guy couldn’t walk and I helped him walk again. And I didn’t know how dire that guy’s situation was. He came in and he was like, “I can’t walk.” He had a walker and used to be a golfer. And I was like, “Well, just show me what you can do and we’ll go from there.” And about six months later, the guy was playing 18 holes a day and he was walking just fine. He was in chronic pain and he had brutal just weakness from 20 years of chronic pain, just not moving, not activating the body.

Dr. John Jaquish: And so X3 and at the time it was the beginning of OsteoStrong technology was able to activate the body to a much higher degree, with a much lower risk of injury and much less stress on the joints. And so he was able to use it and then reactivate his muscle. So there’s a neurological change and then there’s a growth change. He had some hypertrophy. Put on about 20 pounds of muscle quickly, lost a bunch of fat.

And then Tony sees him. He says, “The hell happened to you, man? Thought you couldn’t walk anymore.” And so they went and play golf together, and so once this guy told Tony about what had happened, and then Tony calls me and he says, “Hey, I want one of your prototypes.” I didn’t know who it was. It was just some guy who said he was Tony, but the voice sounded familiar. And so I’m like, “Okay, Tony. Well, these prototypes are $300,000 apiece because they’re prototypes.

Dr. John Jaquish: He goes, “Okay, I’ll pay you $300,000 for one,” and I’m like, “Who is this again?” “because this is Tony Robbins.” Okay. Now it makes sense. So, the first bone density prototype I got down there and of course Tony was one of the first ones to use X3. Yeah, yeah. But while Tony’s interesting, the most interesting users of X3 are the professional athletes because they’re drug tested, you know what you’re seeing is what they do as a result of what they… Just exercise and nutrition. And we’ve got 19 NFL players and about 20 other athletes. NBA. The NBA likes it. The Miami Heat endorsed the book. Endorsement’s right there on the Pro teams rarely let you use their name.

Davidson Hang: Right.

Dr. John Jaquish: So I had to get special permission from the lawyers of the Miami Heat, but the coaches were so grateful and happy and they were just cool. And it helped their players play a better game, reduce injuries, have more dense muscle, increase the thickness of tendons and ligaments, which the product does. And ultimately X3, X3 I’m speaking of now, it’s super portable. You can take it anywhere you go. I used to fly 200,000 miles a year and I never went anywhere without my X3. And people, they’d see me mainly in inner China. I’d bump into somebody and like, “Wow, you’re here. You don’t need to bring your X3 with you.” And I’m like, “Does Thor travel without his hammer?

I have these great pictures of me working in different crazy places in the world. I’m like the lawn gnome, like in… What’s the movie? Amelie. Where she steals her dad’s lawn gnome and then gives it to a group of flight attendants and they’re taking pictures of this gnome everywhere in the world. And then mailing postcards to the dad the whole time who’s like, “Why did somebody steal my lawn gnome, and then take it all over the world and send me pictures?”

Davidson Hang: Yeah, yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. So I’m like the gnome. But-

Davidson Hang:

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Yeah.

Davidson Hang: So the NBA and NFL, why do you think so many people are stuck in the old ways of just outworking themselves, like normal weightlifting? Why is there less of a focus on pliability and all that?

Dr. John Jaquish: Listening to Tom Brady, eh?

Davidson Hang: Yeah, I have his book.

Dr. John Jaquish: He uses that word…

Dr. John Jaquish: … always say pliability.

Davidson Hang: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, I don’t use that word. So, all people do this. Everybody wants to imagine they have all the answers. Life’s easier that way. Wouldn’t it be better if you had nothing else to learn and you were just the master of everything in front of you? But that s***’s not the truth. Most people don’t know what the hell they’re doing. Most people have very little understanding even of the things they do. Okay. Why strength training?

My question is let’s take a step back and look at the industry in general. Let’s look at people who engage in fitness, and this is a point that I… And I’m heavily trolled for this, but it’s okay because when you’re in an industry innovator, yeah, people get mad. But it’s because people are losing money based on what I’m doing. And they are.

With a lot of gyms, people are like, “Oh, I got an X3 so I don’t need to come back to the gym.” And so all my hater videos, it’s gym owners and personal trainers who feel offended that they’ve lost business. So, I get that. But whining about it isn’t going to help you. So, they can whine. Anyway. So, what was the question?

Davidson Hang: I mean, I think you answered it, right? It’s a multi-billion, multiples of billion, dollar industry.

Dr. John Jaquish: No, I did not answer this question. Fitness is the most failed human endeavor. I dare anybody to come up with something else that people have done worse at. Now, if you look at who’s fit, fit can be defined by percentage body fat because that considers muscularity and how much fat you carry around. The best 1% of males in the United States are 10.6% body fat. That’s pathetic. That’s the best 1%. That’s maybe you can see your top two abdominals. I mean, it’s just sort of like you wouldn’t… If you saw somebody with 10.6% body fat, they would never be in the photograph the model, like men’s clothing or anything. Maybe just kind of a regular guy.

Davidson Hang: They would look normal, yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: So, if the best 1% look like regular guys, my point is it doesn’t matter how you define what fit is. Is it looking like a bodybuilder? Probably not. That’s an extreme. But my point is, some people have been going to a gym or gyms for 5, 10 years and they have received nothing, no changes. They’re still weak. They’re still fat. Nothing happens. And this is pretty much the whole industry.

Now, I explained in the book why certain people have different genetics, so that almost seemingly no matter what they do… They can row a boat and all of a sudden they look like a bodybuilder. Just grow crazy muscle. And it’s like, “Well, how come that guy isn’t even trying and he’s growing muscle, and here, we have another guy who’s going to the gym day after day, week after week, and he’s not seeing anything?”

Dr. John Jaquish: And so I explained the genetics. Most of it has to do with tendon insertion points. So my pectoral tendons, the pectoral start right here on the sternum, and then attaches to this bone, the humerus, right? So it attaches normally about right here at the top of the humerus, but some people have a mutation, so it attaches down here. They have more leverage. They have more leverage on that bone. They can activate more muscle when they’re in a weaker position. These are the people that end up in the NFL.

Davidson Hang: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. John Jaquish: So, what we have with regular people who don’t have that mutation is a significant difference between weak to strong range. But when you train with the proper proportion, a variable resistance, that genetic factor does not matter at all and you can grow just as much muscle as the NFL player. And like I said, I love the NFL players because they’re drug tested.

So you look at an NFL guy and you know strong, fast, healthy. That’s what you can do. The bodybuilders, yeah, everybody knows there are drugs there and there are diuretics and there are all kinds of crazy great lighting that they’re under all the time. Which people are like, “Why can’t I ever seem to look anything like that?” Yeah, they don’t even look like that.

Davidson Hang: Right.

Dr. John Jaquish: They all know how to pivot their waists a little bit to make their waist look a little smaller. Yeah, but that’s the sport. That’s fine. That’s what they do. Their job is to show the human body in the most aesthetically pleasing way so people are just mind blown.

And they are, which is why it’s a popular sport. I’m not bashing the sport at all. But I’m just saying what you see in a lot of those pictures, that’s not a performance athlete. When you’re looking at an NFL player… Bodybuilders dehydrate before their shows, but an NFL player is not dehydrated when he shows up to a game. When they take his shirt off on the sidelines and they’re fit, it’s like, “Okay, dude’s fit. He didn’t just cut water.”

Davidson Hang: Right . Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Davidson Hang: Huh. Interesting. And all right. So what makes, for instance, a more innovative, like a Miami Heat… Do you think that eventually… Because I do think some people are more open to trying new things. I mean, it’s still mind-blowing to me why it’s taking so long for people to realize it doesn’t work.

Dr. John Jaquish: All innovations… I forgot who said this. It was a philosopher, a famous guy. He said, “Everything new is first ridiculed, then violently opposed, then accepted as normal.” So in 10 years, everybody will be training with X3 and people will be laughing where like, “Remember when people used to lift weights? Well, that didn’t make any sense.” And by the way, anybody who’s listening, the problem with lifting weights is whatever weight you pick, that’s what you can handle in the weaker part of the movement, by definition.

You pick a weight, you can handle it in the weakest part. The problem is you have seven times greater capability in the strongest part of the movement by comparison. So most of the time you’re lifting, you’re not doing s*** because only in the weakest range is it really difficult. And what do we know about the weakest range? Well, that’s also where the joints get injured the most.

Dr. John Jaquish: So, you’re maximizing joint injury in minimizing growth. That’s what standard training does. So now, what we need is a weight that changes as we move so that it accurately and repeatably exhausts all ranges of motion following what their output capacity is. So when I do a chest press, when I’m here, I’m seven times stronger than I am right here. So, I want a much higher weight here. Maybe not sevenfold because that’s almost like a one-rep maximum sort of number.

So let’s say when I do chest press, I hold 550 pounds out in front of me. And then as I lower the bar, it becomes 300 pounds. And then when it gets right up against my chest, it’s 100 pounds. And then I do however many repetitions I can do until I can get to that 550. So that’s normally 20 repetitions, and then I do four or five repetitions with the middleweight with 300. And then I do a couple of 100-pound reps because I can barely move.

Davidson Hang: Huh. Man, it’s-

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s total exhaustion of the muscle.

Davidson Hang: I still don’t understand how still 90% of the NBA and NFL still do the traditional weightlifting, right?

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, this is still new. And the coaches for the Miami Heat, they’re brilliant. Certain coaches are using strength coaching. So now, also keep in mind, the people I mentioned are people that have given me their written permission to use their name and likeness.

Davidson Hang: Right.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right? So, they’re just cool. I didn’t pay them anything. I give them personalized help. When they have a question about what to do with their X3 or they feel like they’ve plateaued or something like that or a nutrition question, they’ll just call me and they all have my number. They can call me and ask me. So, that’s the only thing I’m giving in exchange. And so some other athletes use it that I found out about through other people. But I don’t have written permission from them, and some of them I’ve asked and they just kind of ignored it because honestly, some of the people we’re talking about, I mean they would ask for a million dollars.

Davidson Hang: Right, right.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right out the gate like, “Yeah, this is a million-dollar. Anything I’m going to put my name on, it’s going to be a million bucks minimum.” And also, I don’t think much about purchased testimonials, because what does that mean? Does anybody think Under Armor is better because Dwayne Johnson uses it? Is paid to use it? No.

Davidson Hang: Right.

Dr. John Jaquish: I mean, they might see him in it and be like, “Hmm, maybe I’ll look that big and strong if I put on an Under Armour shirt.

Davidson Hang: Right.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, okay. But I just don’t think it means as much.

Davidson Hang: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: No.

Davidson Hang: Yeah, I think I had the innovator’s dilemma, I think is the terminology for that, right? Yeah, it sucks to be the first, right? In anything. Because like you said, people are set in their old ways and people have maybe-

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Yeah, okay. Since you said that… And this is the second time. First, I did my bone density medical device and I had to argue with physicians from all over the world. And professors from orthopedic departments and medical school professors were like, “I don’t know about this.” And so I had a debate with them on many different stages around the world. That’s part of why I was flying 200,000 miles a year for a long time.

In the beginning, I didn’t have any research and I was just talking about it in theory. And I would always present my weaknesses first. I’ll say, “Here are the limitations of the data I’m going to show you. It wasn’t collected in this regard…” So once you tell somebody about the limitations, it’s a great way to present science, because then after you present the limitations, everybody’s like, “Well, okay. What did you find?” And then you go into that.

Dr. John Jaquish: So, you disarm them right away. They have nothing to complain about because you already mentioned everything they were getting ready to complain about. Yeah, it’s just a straight-up way to present scientific material. And then I’d show them the science, and then they would tell me what I was missing. So then I come back the next year and speak again, but I had published science at that point.

And then the year after this, I’ve been to the World Congress on Osteoporosis four times. And now I have a body of literature that is acceptable to most physicians and they read the literature. And once you show them the evidence, they’re like, “This is great. I will have my patients do this.” Then I came up with a finished product and I was warned by other scientists, “Don’t try and make a scientific argument to a fitness people.” And I said, “Why not?” “Because fitness people are stupid.” And I was like, “They’re not all stupid.” And they’re like, “Oh yeah. Yeah, they are. The dumbest people in the world. You wouldn’t believe.”

Davidson Hang: Right, right.

Dr. John Jaquish: And I’m just trying to devil’s advocate, “I mean, maybe some of them. The ones on Bodybuilding.com.” Did you ever read that forum? There was a thread there that there was a guy who was convinced there were eight days in a week. Convinced.

Davidson Hang: Right, right. Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, the training split was based on eight days and it’s like, “This is what I do every week.” And people were like, “But that’s more than a week,” and he’s wanting to fight him and stuff. These people, I don’t know who ties their shoes for them in the morning. They’re real. But what I ended up realizing was that this is correct. And I think fitness, there are no barriers to entry to fitness.

Davidson Hang: Right.

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s not like scuba diving where you got to spend $10,000 to get certified and know what the hell you’re doing. You can just buy a $9 gym membership and read your brother’s Flex magazine, which is an abomination of literature, and then just show up and then just start doing stuff. Look at the other guy. What is he doing?

Davidson Hang: Right.

Dr. John Jaquish: So the barrier to entry is really low, and maybe there are some psychological things in there where a lot of people are attracted to fitness. The joke was they’re making up for some inadequacy. Which I think being healthy is great and everybody should go for that. But when sometimes I hear that psychological argument and I’m like, “Yeah, I think I’ve met those guys. They’re not too bright, but boy, they’re going to be bigger and stronger than anybody else.”

Davidson Hang: Right.

Dr. John Jaquish: So, yeah. Yeah. There’s a lot of pushback. Now the athletes, like I said, between the athletes that have given me their written permission to use their endorsement and the athletes that use it that I’m not allowed to mention because I don’t know have their written permission, there’s a lot. And I don’t even know how many and there’s more every day. Sometimes I see on just the sales role, it just scrolls by, somebody down the hall from me. And every once in a while I’ll look at a name and I’ll be like, “Really?” I look at the address and it’s like, “Yep, that’s where that dude lives. Okay.” But again, I can’t say anything. So, I’m not worried. People are picking up on this and I’m fully convinced this will be what strength training looks like 10 years from now.

Davidson Hang: Well, yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: What we’re doing right now for strength, what’s considered standard strength training will be a joke.

Davidson Hang: Well, I do appreciate you coming on the podcast. This has been informative. And yeah, I’ll link to your book.

Dr. John Jaquish: Link to my landing page, so you can get to the book, you can get to X3

Davidson Hang: Yeah, I have your landing page as well.

Dr. John Jaquish:… nutrition product. I take bacterial fermentation protein, which is okay for vegans because it’s just bacteria. It’s the most efficient protein in the world. It is such a shortcut. Links to my Instagram. I put most of my content on Instagram because I like the platform.

Dr. John Jaquish: So, it links to everything. So, my landing page is doctorj.com, D-O-C-T-O-R, the letter J, dot com.

Davidson Hang: Okay, cool. I’ll link it. Well, thank you so much-

Davidson Hang: … and it was nice having you on the podcast.

Dr. John Jaquish: Thanks for having me.

Davidson Hang: Cheers.