Sai & Stan: Powerlifting, Bench Press, & NFTs | #28

Stan Chang and Sai Pedireddi are lifting partners. We discuss their approach to powerlifting as Stans trains for a combined bench, squat, and deadlift total of 1500 lbs. We also discuss crypto and NFTs.

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Transcript

Tom 0:00

Hello everyone, my name is Tom Driver, and welcome back to another episode of the Drive program. Today is a somewhat special episode. This is actually the first time I've ever had two different guests on the show at the same time. So our first double feature. The guests are Cy Pettired and Stan Chang. These are two friends of mine who used to work with me at MicroStrategy. And Csai hit me up, said that Stan and him have been lifting a lot and that they would be interested in coming on the show. And Stan is an expert when it comes to lifting. And Cai actually wanted to talk a little bit about crypto and NFTs. So for like the first 10 minutes, we talk about crypto, NFTs, and then we talk about lifting for, I don't know, 50 50 minutes straight, and then we talk a little bit about NFTs at the end of the episode as well. But with Stan, we talk a lot about you know bench press, uh squat and deadlift. We talk about you know how he thinks about certain things like reps and sets and proper form and when it might be time to take it easy and all sorts of different things that you know have to do with powerlifting and lifting. Um also one of the biggest takeaways from this episode, I feel like, is lifting with a partner, right? So Stan knows a lot about lifting, and it seems like Sai has been able to get in crazy good shape just by going to the gym with him every day. So, you know, my biggest takeaway here was you know, try to get a trainer if you can't afford a trainer, man. Get in there with a friend because there's just so much benefits you can get out of working out with a partner. This episode is sponsored by Mama Bama and the Mod Canna. They sell CBD products online and are offering a 15% discount to listeners of the podcast. CBD can help relieve anxiety, reduce pain and inflammation, improve sleep, and have many other positive health benefits. Personally, I take CBD gummies every day to manage my stress levels and to help me fall asleep. Go to the modcana.com to shop for CBD-infused products like gummies, lotions, tinctures, and smokables. Please use code DRIVE DRIVE at checkout to support the podcast and receive a 15% discount. I'm going to provide some educational resources about CBD in the show notes, but if you are unsure if you should be consuming CBD, please consult with your doctor. Thanks everyone. This is episode 28 of the Drive program with guests, Cy and Stan. Okay, what is Shiba coin, Sai?

Sai 2:57

So Shiba Eno, it has basically it's in the ether of being considered a meme coin, right? Because they marketed it as being the doge killer. And what those basically are are like memes, really high speculated Ponzi schemes, right? But these coins have taken a life of their own where it's the retail traders, it's not institutional government and all this shit buying it. It's just people like us, right? Usually in stock markets, cryptocurrency markets, retail traders have zero power. Institutionals own everything, governments own everything. Even server-space, people want to say cryptocurrency is completely decentralized, blah blah blah. Anyway, Doge started out around 2012, 0.13 area. Clearly as a just a joke, worth 0.0001 dollar, you know. So it was started out as a joke because Bitcoin was there.

Tom 4:04

Wait, uh Dogecoin was around in 2013.

Sai 4:07

Yeah, dude. Yeah, it's it started out when probably Bitcoin was in its hundreds of dollars value. Um, it started out as a complete joke. No one bought it, nobody had any value. It doesn't have a functionality. That's the key thing. Dogecoin is basically the start of the NFT market. People don't really relate those two things, but how Doge started out complete joke. It's not supposed to have any functionality. It's just like, here it is, here's a cute ass fucking dog. And the dog on it is a Shiba Inu, right? Started out as a joke. Um, they're like, oh, this is when there was just Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. And then there was like Bitcoin Cash and all these other like bullshit chain on-chain like continuations where they don't have any functionality, other than it's cheaper and easier to send, right? So they started Doge as a fucking joke, as a joke. Like the developers had no plan for it. They were just like, here it is, here's the blockchain. This is so new. I'm just gonna create something that nobody really knows, but there's like a cute picture. All it is is a cute picture, and people like it. It started out there, and then when cryptocurrency caught fire when it was this first bull run when it bitcoin went to 3,000, 9,000. That's when Doge really took steam because it was like it was so cheap. Like the new investors, the retail investors coming into the market, they don't want to buy a $500 Bitcoin, they don't want to buy a $100 Ethereum, a $20 Litecoin, because they didn't understand that those things had functionality. They just wanted to buy something cool and be in the ether of cryptocurrency. So that's when really retail investors started getting power over the institutional and governmental buys, right? So Doge catches steam then. You see it go up to like a penny, everyone's making hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars. It's all like drug dealers just buying NFTs back then. There were no NFTs, it was just Dogecoin because all it was was just the image of a dog, really cute dog, right? And then and then come uh fast forward to 2019, 2020 area. That's when Elon Musk, the fucking, you know, the he's like a marketing financial genius, right? He's not really into tech anymore, whatever. He knows what people like, and then he'll attach his name to it, therefore increasing you know, Tesla's visibility in the market and SpaceX, all his other shit, right? He catches on to Doge after buying Bitcoin, right? Because Bitcoin's the king, right? Buys Bitcoin, attaches Tesla name to it, and he's like, We're gonna accept Bitcoin, right? And through this entire time, he's buying Dogecoin, he's buying it before it was worth 10 cents, a penny, he's stacking it up, he's got it, right? And his next marketing scheme, what he does is he devalues Bitcoin, right? So when he says, Oh, Bitcoin is really bad for the economy, you know, it's taking up all his fossil fuels, which is complete bullshit. When he says that, he's like, Oh, but we're taking Doge because it takes virtually nothing to create it. We're gonna accept Doge. Doge fucking bounces up to 75 cents, 80 cents. You know, impossible for anyone to gauge that this coin would get to that value, right? It's got number seven market cap in all of cryptocurrency right now. Its market cap is higher than like freaking like GMC, you know, real real things, real things, and all it is is just people aping in, people just wanting to be a part of something, no functionality. Now it's become normal to have these coins in your in your portfolio because they gain like crazy. Uh all it is is just retail investors that's that's how basically NFT started and really investing in cryptocurrencies started because they just saw how doge and all these smaller capped coins move without any actual functionality. Thus the start of NFTs.

Tom 8:50

Yeah, so since we all like assign value to Doge and it actually did well, that's when we were like, oh, we can put art online, right? Assign value to that. Yeah, and it doesn't need to be anything except for the fact that we all agree upon it, right? Because Bitcoin and and Ethereum, all these other cryptos, they inherently had some sort of function that gave them value, but it's proving that as long as everyone agrees upon it, right? Then then it holds its value. And now you can have art pieces online and understand that it's an original copy or whatever, and it just kind of changes like the the whole mindset, you know, towards digital assets, right?

Sai 9:31

Correct. That's crazy. Yeah, and then I honestly think there is uh a better, it's a better way to have digital art to validate that this is the real thing to digital art because they're all connected to a block, right? And you can find who minted the block. Is this a real thing? Because you can get a fake basket now, right? And no one will know. You can get a fake uh Mona Lisa in your house, no one will know. It'll look real, right? It'll look great to somebody that doesn't know art. You're gonna be like, Yeah, this is the real thing, right? Here, I want you to think that this is a real thing, so your perception changes in their mind with digital art. There is no real thing like that, right? Digital art, you can track it down. There's a minting process where you literally have to burn money, you literally have to burn different kinds of coins to create this, you know, pixelated art thing. So it's like really redefining how humans consider art, right? Like what is considered art to us? Is it a bunch of heads getting in and being like, oh, this this is cool, or is it something like does it take structure? Is it the Michelangelo's paintings? Is it that? Or is it a fucking dog on your phone that's worth millions? You know, there's uh there was an NFT that was sold for 500 million dollars or something.

Tom 11:02

Well, what really piqued my interest recently is Disney has released their line of NFTs, and I think Nike is getting really behind it, and like a couple other corporations are really like getting behind it. These Disney ones are gonna be worth so much money. I think they're going for like 60 bucks or something right now, and like I think you probably have to wait in line for them, like the damn easy or something. If I can figure out how to get any sort of like Disney NFT uh released by them, dude, I feel like that's gonna sky skyrocket in value over the next 30-40 years. It's gonna be like millions, dude.

Sai 11:32

It won't even take that long, yeah.

Tom 11:34

Not even, right?

Sai 11:35

Yeah, it won't even take that long. Who's that rapper? Um the guy that shot Megan Megan the stallion in the foot.

Tom 11:43

Oh, Tory Lane's Tory Lane. Oh, I forgot about that situation.

Sai 11:48

Tory lanes, man. He released uh album completely NFT album, ten dollars each, and he put out, I believe it was like 30 copies. Um, each one of those copies are now worth $30,000, and it took about two, three months.

Tom 12:07

So, how's that work? You get there's only 30 files of like these songs on a computer. Since most people just want to hear the music, do people put it out there on SoundCloud and shit for people to find?

Sai 12:17

Right. That's just like you know, taking a picture of the Mona Lisa and hey, look, I got a picture, I got the Mona Lisa. Is it the same thing? Or do you have the block address from Tori Lanez? Does did it come from the minting process, or are you just bought it off Spotify? You know, is that considered cool to the new generation? I mean, if you have it from Tory Lanez's PC, that's like you're getting it straight from his mind, right? Because at this point, computers are just an extension of our mind, whatever. If you get it from him, now it feels like you have a part of it. And usually artists, athletes will do something like, um, oh yeah, we'll have a 15-minute video call, or a signed copy of my CD as well. You will get a physical copy of it as well. But all it is doing is really cutting out the middleman. Now, Tory Lanez doesn't need a label, it he doesn't need marketing. He's got the marketing of cryptocurrency, which is the biggest retail-led institution there is on the planet. It's like it's all by retail, it's all people. There's no groups of thousands of people looping in their money.

Tom 13:26

That's crazy, man. Yo, uh, let's switch to fitness and then we'll circle back to crypto at the end. Okay. Totally. Stan, what's going on with uh your fitness journey? Sai said you'd be great to bring on the podcast. I see you've been lifting a lot. Are you training for something specific? Like what are your goals?

Stan 13:43

I don't think I have anything specific. I just kind of I have some numbers I want to hit right now. Um, so like a 1500 total, which is uh like the squat bench deadlift total like 1500. I think like 10 to 15 pounds away. I have a 600 dead, about a 480, 45 squat, and a 405 bench, right? So that puts me at like 1485, 1490. And I'm trying to get that last bit of uh 10 pounds or so on a deadlift, but it's been tough because out there.

Tom 14:17

You said 405 on the bench. That's crazy. What are the other two?

Stan 14:21

Uh about 480, 485 on the squat, and then 600 on the deadlift.

Tom 14:27

Oh my goodness. Yeah, man, I hit the thousand-pound club once, and that was it took everything out of me. And right now I probably couldn't do more than 800. You're you're putting up like double my numbers right now, dude. So, like, what's the trick then to increasing these lifts?

Stan 14:42

It's just time and specificity, right? So, like if you go into the gym and you know, you do your three sets of five bench or your five sets of five bench, and then that's it, right? Are you really gonna have a good bench? Probably not. You go you go once a week deadlift, once a week squat. Like, that's actually okay on deadlift, I think, because those are taxing as fuck. But I just think you do you have to specify, and then just one to two years in, you're not gonna be like really peaked conditioned for like a solid total. It just takes a lot of time and effort and consistency training, diet, sleep, all that crap.

Sai 15:18

The crazy thing about all this is I I I have to see this guy, right? Like every fucking day, see him hit new crazy, you know, out of this world numbers. And he does it at a what what are you 185, 184 pounds right now?

Stan 15:34

Yeah, I'm like mid-180s. I don't know. It's tough, I guess. Because like I know if I'd put on 20 pounds, I'd be like 200s, 210, maybe. Bench would just skyrocket right there. Bench is like so in in line with how much you weigh. What I've noticed. If you drop like 10 pounds, your bench is like gonna sink. And if you you know gain like 10 pounds just from the pure mass and stability itself, that's gonna put on a good amount of number. Actually, the weird thing is like deadlifts, I've noticed I don't get much out of a weight gain. Like squat and bench will go up a deadlift. I feel like my positioning gets weaker, maybe not as flexible. If I put on 10, 20 pounds, this will be like a mixture of fat, water, and muscle, right? My deadlift actually doesn't even go up that much. So I definitely think it's like a stability thing. Well, not a stability thing, a positioning thing.

Tom 16:21

So it since you don't weigh as much as like someone who would do these numbers, is there something like a breathing technique or your form or just the way you go about it that helps you achieve these high numbers?

Stan 16:35

I don't think there's anything super special. Well, one, I think if anything, my bench is the freakiest of like what I can do on like my certain body weight, right? I feel like squat and deadlift are like the two things that generally are easier to increase than like a bench. Um, I don't know if it's like a mixture of maybe I just have stumpy arms or something. You know, everybody talks about you know short range of motion. I'm not the tallest person, so maybe that has something to do with it. But um, I think a big thing is like it just came natural for me when I first started lifting. I was like 18, I think. Everybody's favorite thing when you first start lifting is bench press. Like, oh yeah, I gotta get a big bench because ever all the dudes love that shit. But just felt like it was easier for me to get it down. I like I've had so many like injuries, my knees, like maybe I tweaked my back a little bit, my neck has been like tweaked a lot, at least for the first five or six years, my shoulders and like my elbows and everything, they never really got injured. So I think a lot of it has to do with that. Because when you injure something, it's one of two things, right? One, your form is just awful. Maybe you flare your elbows too much and you're not tucked in enough, you're not retracting the scapula enough for like a bench, right? Or it's just you're doing too much too quickly. Those are like the two factors that go into like if you injure yourself on a lift. For some reason, bench is just not something I've never gotten like a serious injury on. Like I've tweaked my front delta pec connector area and I've tweaked my like AC joint a bit. But like when it comes to like squat, I've had like knee injuries pretty much the whole time throughout like my lifting, and I'm trying to like figure that out. Squats my worst lift out of the three, easily. I can't get that down for some reason.

Tom 18:07

Yeah, man. I feel yeah, I I broke my collarbone once, so I'm the opposite. I got a weak chest because of that. So for chest, do you uh have your hips like off the bench? Because you know how some guys they like push their like their chest will touch the bench, but like their hips will be elevated.

Stan 18:21

Do you do that? You want your ass to stay in contact with the bench the whole time to be considered like a legal lift. I actually lift my ass off the bench to get leverage for the unreck, and then I put my butt back down. When I do that, I can keep my back tight. But if I don't do that, then I get loose. And that's like a big thing is once you lose the stability, once you like fuck up the bar path, once anything goes like inch up too high, inch up too low, you you lost a lift. It's over. That's why uh some people do the lift off. If you notice that, I never got into that because when you do a lift-off, like when someone like grabs the bar and then like has helped you set it over like where you want to be. I feel like once they let go, that initial 10 to 20 pounds they helped you with is like a big enough shock for me not to even want to try it because it's like too off-putting for me. Some people are toe benchers or heel benchers, like you want to keep your toes or your heels to like push through your legs with when it comes to like leg drive on a bench. I'm a toe bencher. I've never been able to do a crazy arch. If you like look into powerlifting and you look at the lightweights, they can like do like this absurd, just like they're shrimp curling, dude.

Sai 19:29

They're shrimp curling.

Stan 19:30

Yeah, like they can reduce their range of motion to like a bench to like uh three or four inches or something. The most absurd arch in the world. Like I can respect it in the sense that like it takes a lot of practice to be that flexible. They're still within the confines of the lifting rules, right? Like head on bench, upper back on bench, and ass on bench. And then some have rules on if you can do heels or toes. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day. Like I think the federation you compete in will define that. It's legal and technically like you're just following the rules of the lift, like the federation. It's frowned upon. It just looks less good if uh yeah, if you have like a super wide, like crazy arch.

Tom 20:10

For some reason, this conversation is reminding me of those CrossFitters who do the time pull-ups, and they just like have you seen them? They like they like flop, they're flopping their body like around, and it's like technically on stream. Yeah, it's the funniest thing to watch. That's the funniest example of just like how ridiculous the oh, I I fit the rules are, but it's like, bro, are you even doing you're definitely just like you're using your momentum so much you're not even doing a pull-up necessarily? Yeah, you're not like cardio.

Stan 20:37

Yeah, yeah, it's insane. That's like I've seen I've seen a video where this guy like tears all of his calluses because he's just like so much friction. I get it in a sense, it's like it's it's the federation that should make the define the rules, right? And the athletes or whatever, the power lifters are just following the the rules that are specified. But like if your whole sport is called powerlifting, right? What can the human body do in a weight class and how much power can it generate? Or like the the exhibition of how much you can do in three lifts, it's not power when it comes to like a crazy arch or like uh a plate-to-plate assumable with your range of motion is like two inches. I feel like this is a heavily debated thing, and it's still the rules, like don't get me wrong, it's not really the athletes' fault, but it looks ridiculous. And if you want to have recognition in like the Olympics or something, which is the goal of like all these power lifters, I want my federation to be worldwide recognized. No one's gonna look at like a super arched bench with a range of motions in one inch and call it demonstration of power. It's just not at the end of the day. It's not pretty enough.

Sai 21:39

Would you say that's more a demonstration of technique?

Stan 21:42

Yeah. I mean the problem with that is some people are just genetically better or more capable of doing these like crazy, like super flexible, like technique based lifts. Like their arms are long enough so they can sink low enough and keep the back upright enough or something along those lines. At the end of the day, everything's genetic based when it comes to like a sport. If you're a strong man and you're not six foot four or heavier or or taller, you have pretty much no shot when it comes to strongman. But like it's still impressive to watch. Like a strongman, like, you know, let's say deadlift a thousand pounds or like do those like Atlas stones or something. I guess it's impressive in its own right to be able to do that like contortionist bullshit. It's hard to take it seriously, you know what I mean? Don't get me wrong, it is like a sport that takes a lot of effort and a lot of programming and a lot of specificity. Diet needs to be unchecked, the weight cuts have to be on point, everything is like dialed into like the T. But like for like an average person to watch this, someone doing a 225 bench with a flat back, it's gonna look more impressive than someone benching 275 with a one-inch range of motion arch. It's like that's just at the end of the day, it looks prettier. The average person, it's gonna be more appealing to see a guy doing five to six times the range of motion on like a bench press that's lighter at the end of the day.

Tom 22:54

So, Cy, have you been trying to keep up with Stan? Are you guys do you guys go to the gym every day together?

Sai 22:59

Yeah, most most days, you know. Um, whenever I have to take a vacation, I have to take off, right? But dude, learning from this man is insane. I really started lifting with him about three years ago, three and a half.

Stan 23:15

Yeah, I think it was like late 2018 or early 2019 is when we got really consistent with the video.

Sai 23:21

When I started, bro, I was probably doing like 275 squats, you know, terrible reps. Um, I was definitely heavy as hell, 225 maybe, you know, around there. Uh I think I was doing like maybe a 205 bench. I think about there, yeah. Yeah, and then I think it was two and a half deadlift, right? Perhaps so.

Stan 23:46

Yeah, I'm not sure. You pulled conventional first, I remember.

Sai 23:49

Yeah, I was pulling conventional, and it was bad, man. And like the thing was, I was going about the same rate that I'm going now, and I've gone with Stan mode. But the whole thing about it is like he mentioned before, you don't just go to chess day and you hit bench press for three sets, and you're like, oh yeah, let me go do let me go do some bicep and you know run half a mile and call it a day. And that's not it's not really powerlifting, you're not really, you're just like exercising, you're not really running a program. When I started working out with Stan, it was really programmatic. And some of his like behaviors and shit like bleed into mine, so which is good because the whole thing about his shit is like very disciplined on all aspects food, sleep. The guy doesn't drink, he doesn't party much. Like you're not out there getting smashed and like trying to bench 405. That's not those those don't relate. I would say going with him consistently and like fixing a lot of those things, especially the partying ones. Okay, so I'm at like 405 squat now, 455. Double, and then four set 455 dead, uh 275 bench. These were all huge numbers for me to like because it was a goal for me when I first started even thinking about like looking at lifting, I'm like, oh, I would never be able to hit four plates on a squat. Like that wasn't in my fucking mind. Little things you catch on, like the form on bench for me completely changed. My back wasn't perfectly flat. I wouldn't get my real my back, like I didn't know to like close your shoulder blades, really try to get an arch, even though I'm a bigger guy, it's hard for me to get an arch. Yeah, you can get your body like super tight.

Stan 25:45

You kind of want like an arch. Basically, when you retract like your upper back and you get like yourself tight, you'll naturally create an arch. It's just impossible to avoid. But that's like the safest way to bench because if you flare your shoulders forward, you bring up is too high, you just that's like a whole anatomical, like just I don't want to get into it, but like you you just impinge your shoulder and injuries happen like left and right. I don't know if you encountered these guys where um there's like these 45-year-old, 50-year-old plus people are like, oh, I used to bench 900 pounds back in my day, but you know, I tore my rotator cuff. And it's like I mean, first you probably didn't bench 900 pounds. It's because like generally the form's pretty awful when it comes to benching. I feel like bench is one of the most risky ones if you don't have the right form and all. Like when it comes to deadlift and squats, the big thing would be maintain a neutral lower back, push through your legs, stuff like that. Um, but a lot of it goes into like benches, like so, you have like such a fixed bar path, and you can't really like tuck in your your elbow. So you have to make way for the bar to like naturally move in a pattern, and it's not a natural straight line, that's just weird.

Sai 26:52

You see what I'm saying? Like, people don't think of shit like that when you first go, or even if you go for years, you don't have that mental connection with what you're doing physically. You're just there, you're picking up stuff, you're trying to stay there longer. You don't really think about form, you don't really think about optimizing your lift and your food intake and like what you did the day before, how long you slept. It really puts everything together. When you do that sort of shit, it bleeds into your regular life, right? When you're eating clean and you're trying to sleep better and you're not partying as much, you're gonna do better at work, right? You're gonna have more opportunities to invest better, like whatever it is. I had more time to like purchase a home and all this shit. You're able to pull the trigger on regular life shit faster. You have more mental clarity, of course, from working out, right? But the whole thing about working out with Stan is you see progression, so you're like, Oh, I can progress like that too, and I can also progress in other lively things other than just working out, you know. I never thought you could make a bunch of money off of investing, or I never thought you could buy a home and rent it out to somebody. Some of the shit that you think of that you don't think you're able to do until you like do stuff really well in one aspect, and the other shit will catch up. So that's been a great fucking thing. People don't really put into terms how much working out of your physical really affects your mental and your day-to-day. You have more time. A day feels so long now. Before when you were just partying, whatever, days gone like that, like and then it repeats and goes and goes and goes. But I think it's the structure and discipline of it all. It really brings your life together.

Tom 28:47

Yeah, man. I feel like I'm in a similar boat to you, Sai, because I started training with a trainer about like six months ago. So for the first time, I gotten exposed to like someone who really knows what they're doing, someone who can correct my form and stuff. I was even trying to basically go through a personal training certification online, just kind of for my own knowledge. And it really wasn't making a huge change in my workouts. Like I was having a hard time applying that, you know, especially when it comes to fixing your own form. It's like I can't, I can't always like view myself. I guess I could take a video and stuff, but it's not always easy to like objectively critique yourself, you know. So I'm curious, Stan, like how did you how do you know so much? Even if you did your own research, how did you apply that knowledge?

Stan 29:34

It's mostly YouTube and like trial and error, right? Let's go to like to a bench example, right? Like when I first started, my form was pretty ass. Um, none of the whole like, you know, create watching your back, contract the scapula, keep your shoulder blades back, you know, land in a certain spot. It was just I grab the bar and I just press upward. I was doing three by five as my progression. And I got up to 205 or three sets of five. I was like slingshotting that off my chest. Like it would just, you know, come down and just fucking bounce right back up. And I was like, wow, my shoulder really hurts. Wonder why. Um I was like, huh, I really need to rework this whole thing because it was like a like a sharp pain in my front delt. And I was like, if I uh I keep doing this, I'm gonna tear something. Something's bad's gonna happen. I'm gonna be out for like six months or something. Or like you're gonna hear, I'm gonna be one of those people who are 50 years old who used to say they benched such and such, and now they have a fucked up shoulder. So I like, yeah, it's YouTube. A lot of YouTubers uh like just give you like a plethora of information. A lot of it conflicts on each other too, and it's so oversaturated at this point. Like, how to fix your bench press. It always comes back to the basics. It's make sure your shoulder blades are back. All right, even if your shoulder blades aren't back, like present your chest, or like and there's little cues here and there. So you'll test that out. You'll see how that feels on yourself. Um, if it feels bad, then maybe that's not the cue for you. For example, some people say um on the bench press, uh, really like try to break the bar like you're breaking spaghetti, right? That'll engage your lats and also make your elbows go in line um properly, or like it won't make you flare your elbows too much. Hopefully putting less stress on the delt and putting more load on your triceps. The idea behind that is to prevent injury and just you know be safer in the long run. But I don't get much out of that. Um, I try doing that. If I try to bend the bar, break into like spaghetti, engage in my lats, I feel like I don't really get anything out of that. It doesn't really make me feel good. A perfectly fat flat back deadlift I recommend for everybody, you know, maintain like good upper back straightness, good lower back straightness. But for me, I like to thoracically round. So like uh lower back will say relatively compact and like straight, but the upper back will round. I feel like I can get the I can get it off the floor easier, and then lockout is hot tougher when you have a a rounded upper back. Squats I don't want to talk about because I suck asset squats. Uh the stuff like overhead press cues, like uh some people like flex your glutes. That helps a lot. Uh if everyone wants overhead press, flex your glutes helps a lot. Any lift really, you just flex the glutes at the top.

Tom 32:02

It's gonna help.

Stan 32:03

It keeps you back.

Tom 32:04

Basicer weapon.

Stan 32:05

Yeah, it's it's good, telling you. But you watch something on YouTube, you know, it'll give you a little tip. You're like, let me try that out. Do I like it? Does it work for me? No, um, doesn't work for me. And then just over time you just test it out over and over. And eventually you kind of set in the sort of like you have your your Q patterns. So I have like a whole setup for like all my lifts, really. Yeah, I mean, if you watch like a bench video, I'll pull myself up to the bar and like that'll get my back engaged, right? Because it locks it in. Like I'm actively gauging my back, keeping my chest up. Uh and then I press through my toes, I try to push myself horizontally towards like behind myself. That's like leg drive. You want to test that out? Leg drive is like the weirdest thing, it's really complicated. Um, if you're like a beginner on lists, don't recommend it. It's too much to think about. But once you like ed everything in check, then you can start adding that. And then deadlifts pulling the slack out of the bar. If you're deadlifting 405 pounds, you pull 404 pounds out of the bar. You feel you hear a click, and then you actually like press it up, and then uh just like little things that you just keep adding on. And then YouTube is like super helpful. I really don't remember really remember who I watched. I mean, it's like Athleen X, but he's kind of a meme now because he just fake weights every everywhere.

Tom 33:20

And then you record yourself. Like I noticed you have an Instagram. Is that mostly there for you to like observe your own form and keep track of just being critical on yourself?

Stan 33:30

Yes, and no. One of the reasons is because like I had college friends and we don't really like interact that much, but they were like lifter friends. So it's like a way to keep up with them, kind of like be like, hey man, what's your lift? I'm like, you know, this is what I'm at. And then two, um, was my bar path here good? Um, was like my form here good? How fast was this single? How fast was um let's say if I do 455 on a squat one week, it's slow as hell. The next week it's fast, that's progress. Did I like go too wide on a stance on a deadlift or something like that? Different angles help too. Like, did it hit depth on squat? Is my setup good here? So you kind of like nitpick that stuff. And then I guess the big thing would be like you kind of see when a lift works for you and like how like the barpath moved. And if you're too fatigued, you might not be able to maintain that same form, but you'll kind of notice that and try to correct that. And it's just you just kind of notice these little things and then like kind of mirror them to what you watched on like YouTube or something.

Sai 34:30

When do you think recording yourself is good? Because I have never done it, you know. I've recorded a couple PRs or whatever just because you want like a little trophy for yourself, but like do you think this is something good as like, oh, you just started lifting or you've been lifting for a year and you're trying to really optimize? Is recording yourself useful?

Stan 34:51

Uh yeah, and no, yes, like I feel like you should record yourself if you can to see how your form is. Uh, because for example, if you're deadlifting and you look to the right in a mirror and you're like, is my everything you know looking right? Is my back flat? You know, my engaging the muscles I need to be engaging. But now, guess what? When you pull and you're looking to the right and you just strained your neck, um, probably not the best thing to do. For all the heavy compounds, probably record it just to see if everything looks right. The problem with that is like if you're a beginner, how do you know if that's looking right? Because I notice a lot of the times um when it comes down to at the end of the day, there's like two extremes of the of the form debate. One is everything needs to be fucking crisp. It has to move perfectly. My back needs to be perfectly straight. Any deviation from that, I need to lower the weight and deload it and work back my way back up. It needs to be fucking crisp as hell. And then the other these other the other end, the other extreme is who the fuck cares about form, right? Like I'll round my back to get the the pull, it doesn't matter. I'll like flare my elbows, and like obviously somewhere in the middle is where you should be. When you go for like a max effort lift, your form's not gonna be crisp. That's not possible. If it is crisp, you didn't push yourself hard enough. I'm gonna be real with you. Um you it's like I feel like a lot of people like major in the minors, right? Like if everything needs to be perfect, then you're not really pushing yourself, you're not gonna be progressing. But you should have a general idea of what it should look like. Like a little bit of spinal flexion when it comes to like a deadlift is okay. Just don't make it a habit. There's stuff like squats, for example. If you're squatting to depth, that's good. If you're a little bit shy of depth, that's fine. However, next week, if you add five pounds and now your squat's a bit shy again, and then you keep adding five pounds, and it's progressively becoming less and less deep of a squat. Well, are you really progressing? Probably not. You're just limiting your range of motion over and over. You're adding five pounds, you just squat a bit higher. Let's say the same thing for bench, right? You bench 100 for five, then you bench 105 for five next week. The bar pat's a bit uh slower, you flare your elbows a bit more, your your back's not as tight, your ass comes off the bench. You didn't really get stronger there. You just cheated a couple more reps in. So you gotta be honest with yourself on that regard. But you know, let's say you're not in a sanctioned meet and you're benching 300 and you're like, fuck yeah, 300 pounds, that's awesome, and your butt comes off a bit, or like your pause isn't perfect. Who cares? Like it's it's at the gym. Just don't make a habit of it. You're pushing yourself to like your limit. You're not gonna be crisp in your in your in your form. That gets a bit of flex sometimes too, but I think as long as you put like the effort and consistency and don't make it a habit, it's fine to break form a little bit.

Tom 37:44

So what you guys like weekly breakdown, I know you said you only do bedlifts once a week. Does that mean you're doing bench and squat twice a week?

Stan 37:53

Sort of. Um, I think Sai pretty much follows what I do, but mine changes on like what I want to specify on. So like when I was going for like a four or five bench, I was super specific on that. I benched like four times a week almost, three times a week, some uh three to four times a week. Deadlifts I tested out doing three times a week very recently. Deadlifts I feel like I can't recover doing three times a week. Uh, two times a week is okay if one's a heavy day and one's like maybe a variation, or maybe like a pause deadlift, or like a conventional deadlift if you mainly pull sumo, or sumo if you mainly pull conventional, some sort of variation, or like just a light day where you really taper back on like pushing yourself. But if you go like three times a week on like such a heavy compound, deadlifts just like it's such a full body movement, you just f you just accumulate so much fatigue that by the time you deadlift again, you're not really covered by that point. Um so like it varies, but the split I do right now is Saturday is like it's like a heavy press day, it's like my because like I take Fridays off uh to have like a day of recovery, and then Saturday is heavy push really, it's just pressing with triceps. Then Sunday is generally my light deadlift day, followed by back work, like assistance work. Monday would be another push day, except I don't do a horizontal push, like a bench press, right? It's a vertical push, so it'd be overhead press with a barbell or dumbbell press or something like that, and then accessories all based off that. And then Tuesday legs with a squat. Uh I'm taking a break off that because my knees kind of hurt. Wednesday would be like a medium bench press day, a vertical press. And then Thursday is like heavy deadlifts. And then obviously, like the accessories, I'm really intuitive when it comes to like what kind of accessories I want to do. Um, I have an idea of what I want to hit. For example, on every push day, I want to hit 10 to 12 main movements of a press. And then back days, Sundays, and Thursdays. I want to generally get around 15 to 20 working sets, half of it being a vertical pull, half of it being a horizontal pull. So vertical pull being a pull down, like a pull-up, or like a lap pull down, and a horizontal pull being something like cable row or t-bar row or chest supported row, barbell row, anything where like you're not pulling from like a up down, you're pulling from like a in front of you to your center of mass. And then legs, I try to hit 10-ish working sets, and then deadlifts. I try to do around three to five working sets, and maybe a top single. It's really intuitive, um, just how I'm feeling. And then I try to take D loads when I should, but I'm really bad about tapering back my uh intensity because I like the feeling of like feeling like tired and like killed.

Sai 40:46

So, what is a D-load week? Because I guarantee you a lot of people don't know what a D-load week is, or like understand why it's important, honestly, very important.

Stan 40:57

Uh so D loads are essentially like it sounds like you load with less of something, it's either weight or volume, or both. Or some people just don't even lift at all. It's just like a break, right? Um, so the idea behind it is when you go through like a structured program and you're going like three sets of five, like let's say that's your linear progression program, and you're just pounding out these compounds day in and day out. Let's say it's like two or three months in, or maybe even a month in, depending on how tired you are, how much fatigue you accumulated. When you do a lift, you accumulate some sort of fatigue behind it. This is like systemic fatigue. So, like, for example, the best way I can put it is like if you deadlift and then you bench, you don't really use the same muscle groups, right? But if you deadlift before bench, you're not gonna be able to bench as much as you would if you just started with bench. That's sort of like the sort of systemic fatigue. Some people call it CNS. Uh I just it's just overall, at the end of the day, it's it's just you're tired. Something's not feeling right. You don't have enough energy. When you do a structured program for a long enough time and um you progress on that, eventually it catches up to you. Your joints might hurt a little bit, like you know, you might just feel tired all the time. A good tell is if your grip strength is way weaker than it usually is. For example, if you can't hold on to something as well, you're probably kind of overtraining yourself. And the idea behind it is let's taper back the volume or taper back the weight. So, like, for example, if you do three sets of five, maybe do one set of five or two sets of five. Um, if you if you generally bend 200 pounds, do like 150, 175. The idea is you sort of have this movement pattern that you're ingrained in yourself. You want to maintain this uh this form, this technique. However, you don't want to induce any fatigue on yourself, so you let yourself recover, but you still do the movements, so you are still familiar with how to execute a lift. Um, and then it's just it's just at the end of the day, it's just recovery. By the time you finish your week, you should feel fresh or at least better than you did leading up to like this the need to take a delo.

Sai 43:04

So do you recommend deloads before maybe like a deload week before you're going to a powerlifting meet, or you have some maxes in your mind that you want to hit, or do you what when do you use a D load?

Stan 43:18

Just whenever necessary, or so D loading is not the same as peaking for like a powerlifting meet. I'm not too good with peaking and like powerlifting like fatigue management, because everything is like when it comes to powerlifting, it's like sold this this whole thing about maximizing your fitness to fatigue to your performance. And it's like this whole thing where you taper into a meet, and then prior to the meat, you you pretty much so the idea behind peaking is you have your volume high, and then you lower the volume, increase the intensity, and then a week out from like the meet, generally you don't really hit anything heavy. You just let yourself catch up to it. Um I think the the term is like I've heard people call it supercompensation. Other people call it tapering and other people call it peaking. The idea behind it is the same. You put your body through a shit ton of stress prior and then a week prior, maybe two weeks prior, depending on how advanced you are, you just taper back the lifting and then your body recovers. And ideally you hit new heights because you put your body through this much stress and now it's going to compensate past your normal baseline. That's the idea behind peaking. Deloading is a bit different. It's just is everything feeling heavier than it should? Are you not progressing as much as you want to be? Um are you hitting like a wall? Do you always just feel tired? Yeah, like let's say one week 185 for 5x5 feels great. And then you get to like 195, 5x5, and then by the time you do it again next week, you can't even get 185 for like five. You're probably accumulating too much fatigue or something. You need to deload then.

Tom 44:59

So when it comes to sets, I read recently that you should be doing like 12 to 20 sets per muscle group. Anything below that, like you could be getting more out of you know, out of yourself. And and anything too much above 20, you're not gonna see really that much progress. Do you think that's true?

Stan 45:16

It's kind of individual-based, right? Depending on how advanced you are and how much stimulus you need for something to grow, right? But yeah, in general, that's what I would agree with. That's not per session, that's a weekly. Uh I see I think I've seen some like studies on that, but it's on a weekly basis on 12 to 20 working sets. Working sets are sets that I would call a working set something that you take close to failure, not three reps or two failure, is like probably something that's a working set, and something above 60, 50 to 60 percent of your run rep max. So for example, um let's say you bench a hundred pounds and um you let's say 85% of that you can get five reps with. That'd be a working set. Now, if you do like the warm-up at 45 for like a set of five, that's not a working set.

Tom 46:07

Not warm-ups and probably not drop sets, right?

Stan 46:10

Drop sets, I don't uh I don't explain, I don't want to explain that. I don't I'm not a huge fan of drop sets. Yeah, I wouldn't count that as a working set. Drop sets are something I feel like you do for fun. I don't really know if you get much out of it, to be honest. True. If you're in if yeah, if you're really into like getting like a pump, yeah, I would I yeah, drop sets. That help that helps a lot. But one, if you do a drop set on a compound, your next compound set is gonna you're gonna be fried. Maybe do it at the end of like your like if you do three sets of five, your third set of five, do a drop set if you want. Depends on how intuitive you are with your programming, right? If you do three sets of five bench, followed by three sets of eight incline press, followed by four sets of ten flies or something, right? Let's say that's like a cookie cutter program, and then you decide, hey, I want to do a drop set after three sets of five bench, well now you just kind of bled, you just you've your your fatigue from that drop set's gonna bleed into your incline press, your second movement, right? Let's say your terse uh your secondary movement, is that really worth it? Are you really that anal about your progression when it comes to like I need to put on a rep uh on my incline dumbbell press? Well, if you're not that anal about it, you're probably fine. I work on a basis of I want my primary movement that I'm working on to progress. Anything subsequently after is something that uh ideally aids in that movement. So bench press, hopefully incline after, let's say incline dumbbell press aids that in some regard to get that higher. Some people work on a T1, T2 basis, tier one movement, tier two basis, uh tier two movement. Then I wouldn't recommend a drop set there. But it really depends on what your goal is, right? Like if you're tier one, tier two bench press would be tier one that you pick, and then incline press would be tier two.

Tom 48:01

Yeah. Okay. And so you're saying for tier two, you could do a drop set.

Stan 48:05

Yeah, it depends on what you want, right?

Tom 48:07

Because you're not getting fatigued at the end.

Stan 48:10

Well, if you want to maintain the sort of progression on like your T1s and T twos, you want those to go up, don't do a drop set betray on your last set of your bench press. It's gonna bleed into your your incline press, right? But it let's say you don't give a shit about your incline press. Yeah, do a drop set, whatever. Got it. Like it might you might invoke some fatigue, but if you recover from it, it's fine. Everything is like dictated about recovery, to be honest.

Sai 48:32

Whenever we do drop sets or supersets, it's mostly in the accessory work, like the pump work. Yeah, that that is like for fun of you know when you're going to the gym because it has to be a little fun, right? You don't want to go there and just hammer out compounds all day, but when you do, you're live rewarded at the end with like an arm pump, you know, you do drop sets, supersets, yeah. It's like a little reward, I think. What I've noticed from you.

Stan 49:02

Yeah. Um, so the idea, like why intuitively train, right? So they don't have a perfect structure of what I want to do every day, is because Jesus Christ, that is monotonous. If you have your little three by five followed by your, you know, four by eight followed by your five by ten, then you do your tricep pushdown, tricep overhead, one arm tricep, it's like you're not having fun. It's boring as hell. At least have some variability when it comes to what you want to train that day. If everything's structured, it's boring. Like I guess some people like it, right? But I don't like it.

Tom 49:35

Yeah, I like to have one day a week where I do go in and I just kind of do whatever the hell I want. Or like a lot of times I'll train with my trainer for like 30 minutes, and then after that, I'll you know, go do whatever accessory work I I kind of feel like, you know. You gotta you gotta uh enjoy what you're doing for sure. Also, when when Sai said it's like a reward, there's like this one tick-tock sound. I don't know if you heard it where the guy's like, it's like a reward.

Stan 49:59

I know I haven't either.

Tom 50:02

All right, I'll have to send it to you guys after this because it's really funny. It's it's a popular sound. Um, but uh let's see, okay, horizontal or vertical loading. I'm gonna guess you're into vertical loading. Depends. What do you mean by that? I had these two trainers, right? Actually, and they did it opposite. So the first trainer he would do back and then a bicep, back, bicep, back, bicep. You know, he would he would that's I'm pretty sure that's horizontal loading, where he would go in between the main muscle group and the smaller muscle group, where like vertical loading is like all of your back exercises and then all your bicep exercises second secondary. You know, I'm saying so you work your way down instead of like doing one of each.

Stan 50:45

When I when I talk with vertical and horizontal like poles and stuff like that, are pressing, it's more it's not really the programming, it's more the actual movement, right? So when you're a bent when you're bench pressing, you're lying down and you're pressing away from your torso, right? That's a that's horizontal, that's a horizontal plane you're pushing. But when you're vertically pressing, it's like up and down against directly against gravity, right?

Tom 51:08

Like you're going up and down. That's just the movement of the workout in more of an abstract sense, like horizontal and vertical loading is a phrase used for like how you design your programs, you know. Oh, so like do you do I I think you do vertical loading, which would be like because you care about one lift. So let's say, let's say you're uh it's uh bench press, you know what I'm saying? You would do like all of your bench presses, and then if like it was a tricep on top of that, you would go do that at the end, you know. The horizontal would be like you would do one chest exercise, and then you go do a tricep exercise, and then you would go back and do another chest exercise. I feel like you do it the first way, right? Yeah, I do all because you're worried about those main lifts.

Stan 51:51

Yeah, I do compounds and the isolation, so like the I think in third terms would be vertical, right? So I would do all my compounds, and then I would do the ISO the isolations after accessories, I guess. Accessories is a pretty broad term, but yeah, so if we yeah, bench into incline, which would both be compounds, and then let's say flies for the isolation on the chest, and then triceps for the isolation on the triceps.

Tom 52:15

So yeah, another way I I think about it is like the bigger muscle group down to the smaller muscle group sometimes. So your your chest to your triceps or backed in the by what about rep count? Like, will you do will you go in and do um like today? I'm doing all like sets of eight and then all sets of five, or do you do like a five, four, three, two, one some days, or like the little pyramid where you go up and then down?

Stan 52:40

Um, for the most part, is a reverse pyramid. So I do a top set at the heaviest. Uh warm up, obviously, to the I don't count those initial warm-ups as a set though. So I guess technically I pyramid, right? Like, but nothing in this in the realm of like working weight. So like my standard bench warm-up would be like bar for sets of like I don't count it, just when I'm feeling it, like 20 to 30 reps, maybe to like half reps too. Just like quick get the joints moving. Then like I go 135 uh for like five, 185 for like three, two twenty five for like two to three, two seventy-five. And then I start going the single realm, like in the singles, it's like two seventy-five for one, three fifteen for one. And then here I get a little bit trickier. It depends on what I'm trying to hit, right? If I'm going for like a top triple, the top double, um, maybe a set of five, or maybe a max, right? Let's say I'm going for a max at like 385, I would probably go 315 for one, three thirty-five for one, three sixty-five for one, and then tech try for the three eighty-five. But if I'm doing like a three forty-five for like a five, it'd probably just be three fifteen for one, and then might just jump into three forty-five. Because I you know the trick is you don't want your warm-up to be you it has to be a warm-up. It can't be something that exhausts you to take away from your top set. And then subsequently, after your top set, I'll do like back offs like uh after 345, maybe like 330, 335 for like a set of four to five, 315 for a set of five to eight, and then 295, 8 to 10, then 275 for like 10 to 12, lowering the weight but increasing the reps.

Tom 54:21

So you first pyramid. So you do a warm-up with the bar with like 20, like 25 reps, and then you're gonna go into like a five, a three, a one, and then keep doing ones to kind of propel you to this like bigger like weight, and then depending on the day, then you're gonna move into like whatever rep range you're actually trying to hit that day. Yeah, right.

Stan 54:45

Yeah, um, that's interesting. It yeah, the warmups obviously depend on the person. So, for example, and the lift for me. For like I like think I mentioned previously, I generally have pretty good like shoulder and delt just health. So like my warmup doesn't have to be too like expansive when it comes to like the uh like let's say 135 for like 10 to 20, maybe to get more blood in there, and then like 225 for like five to ten if you really want to get near the warm up, so like feel like everything is firing correctly. But um, I don't really get injured that often with bench with squats though, like I have to get like really loose and like a lot more like the bar 135, get more reps in, get blood flowing, get my joints like feeling right. It's individual based. Um, I like to just not do too many reps on my warm-ups for bench, but when it comes to like squats where I'm the most injury prone, I've noticed, I need more like I need to be more warm. I need to have like everything firing right, uh, be flexible enough, just build enough like momentum, I guess, to so to speak. Um, and then for example, like let's say someone like Cy, let's say he's more injury prone on the shoulder, probably work at like the the warm-up a bit longer to get more like loose and feel better about it.

Sai 56:02

Sometimes I have to take longer breaks between sets than he does. Like, I'll be like, yo, hit your set, I'll go next. We'll have to just it has to it can't just be so structured when we're going with like two people and we're trying to hit new heights that we not really experience. Like, that's when really the intuitiveness takes over. You can be structured in the way, like, oh, we're gonna hit these movements, you know, this entire year, whatever it is. We're working on a goal, but like you really have to get intuitive after you get to a certain point because it there's no real like program that will take you there unless you get like a real powerlifting coach.

Stan 56:40

Yeah, because a coach will like know your lifts and sort of know like how you respond to, let's say, certain volume loads and like also how much time you need. It's just it's very individual-based. They have your history when it comes to like how you perform, right? But like someone gives you a cookie cutter program. I can make a push-pull legs program like like that, and it's you know, you could follow it, but like it's not individual-based, you're not gonna get much out of it. Yeah, you'll progress on it if you're a beginner, but it's so cookie-cutter, it's so bullshit at the end of the day. Like, and people sell that for like 200 fucking dollars, but uh it's not it's not gonna get you where you want to be because everybody's a bit they they respond differently to different things, and like Sarah was saying, well, let's say he wants to hit 455 for the first time on deadless, right? And we're like going back and forth, like we go 135, 225, 315, 365, 405, right? But I'm like working at like a mid-fives range or something that day. Like obviously I'm gonna go 455 and then five, but he can't just go, you know, four or five and then instantly 455, right? Because that relative load to his body is a bit higher than 455 is to my body, right? So he needs longer to fully like be ready for the actual like top set, the max, or so to say, right? But for someone like me, then like I'm worried about like the mid fives. I'm gonna perform well there because that's high like more relative to my runway max.

Sai 58:05

A solution for individualizing programs, a drive fitness NFT, bro. Drive fitness NFT, you make 10 of them every quarter, right? Whoever bids on them, auctions on them, they get to you know personally get trained by let's just say Sam, right? And you know, it's gonna be digital because we can't hit everybody. But hey, are you gonna put in the work? If you're gonna buy this NFT, can you take a video of yourself? Will you record yourself like what you're eating, everything? And then you'll have an expert like Sam, like look at it, look at everything you're putting into your body, and at the same time, you're gonna be featured on Drive Fitness if you have a marketing strategy that you want to do, or if you have a business. This is like a perfect example of how NFTs are incredible. Same with sports, right? Like athletes will sell an NFT, Tom Brady, hubby, whatever. Now you own something directly from Drive Fitness or this athlete, and they'll also have some sort of you know concession price attached to it. That's like the real cool part, right? Like a Costco membership NFT. You also get the membership, but you have a cool little Costco sticker to show your friends on your metaverse, whatever the heck is gonna happen in the future. But I really feel like going into the future, these cookie cutter programs are gonna get cut out and it'll be way more individualized because of technology now.

Stan 59:43

There's just so much BS in the fitness industry. I don't know if it'll ever fully die out. Everybody wants their quick fix, you know. You have this weight trainer or whatever, or like, oh, you have this program or you drink this cleanse and you lose 20 pounds. Like the reason why they're so popular is because they're easy and people believe it for a short period of time, and then they realize it's bullshit. But like I don't know, it's been like around since like the 1900s, right? So I don't know if like it'll fully ever become like a fully individual thing because people like their quick and easy quick solution. At the end of the day, no one wants to be like, yeah, you should probably go to the gym three to four times a week and watch what you eat and you know, eat a sufficient amount of protein, and then after two or three years, you might look like what you want, and that's a might, and it'll all of this obviously change as you progress. Like you always want more, so you never really truly reach that end goal. So no one wants to hear that. They want to drink this and you'll lose 30 pounds.

Tom 1:00:50

That last part broke up. You tried a lot of snake oils, what it never worked, it was a bad joke. I'm glad true. Yo, wait, let's circle back to that NFT idea because I've been thinking about this a lot lately, but I don't really know how to execute it. So, like with Drive, uh the with the app, my my goal is to build like a video game within the app, right? Um, like right now we have this kind of like demo version. It's like a space game, right? You're like some sort of astronaut, you're going on a different planet, and like each planet has like a certain like level of gravity or something like that that you have to train for, you know. And um, it's just supposed to like teach you like week one is about stabilization, week week two is like strength endurance, week three would be hypertrophy, week four is maximum strength, right? These are just like some stages that I learned when I was looking into personal training, just some generic stuff, right? It is kind of like a cookie cut or workout program, but I also I'm hoping people can go through it and and learn about these stages and like the game can kind of educate you, you know, so that maybe you can go move forward to like a more individualized program. And so what I was thinking is like we have these 3D characters, right? That'll like actually like perform like the lift for you. And I'm thinking like if you beat the game, you know, or a certain like level, you'll you'll unlock like an astronaut, you know, 3D character, or maybe like an maybe an alien or like whatever, you know, whatever whatever ties into like the gamified part of it, right? I've kind of based this off of Fortnite, right? Skins, where I'm like, okay, maybe we can like sell skins or unlock skins somehow. And that kind of is like an idea I've been playing with before I even knew about NFTs, right? But now I want to make sure that idea actually makes sense in like this new web 3, like crypto, uh blockchain internet that's getting set up right now. I wanna, you know, because if I do it the right way, maybe people are just using my app for an investment purpose, you know what I'm saying, or whatever. Like, you know, I wanted to integrate into these new technologies, whether or not it's an investment, just because it's it's cool and it's you know the future, right? So I was thinking like the skins could be NFTs, or maybe you could import, like if you bought like a 3D skin somewhere else on the in the metaverse, you could import that into the app, or vice versa. You know, you could export a skin that you you unlocked on drive fitness elsewhere. But like when you were saying NFTs, you were saying the program itself should be an NFT, right?

Sai 1:03:26

Right, right.

Tom 1:03:26

Um, kind of like the song was an NFT for Tory Lanez, right?

Sai 1:03:30

You could actually you get the NFT from Tory Lanez is a just the image of the album, right? And you getting a blockchain address from Tori Lane's himself, right? You getting the digital copy that's minted from his PC. The side effect is you get his music, and you can do whatever you want with his music. It's already been posted everywhere, but now that's just the side effect. You also own his output, right? So the side effect of your NFT would be say you get to you get past the first level, right? You get all the cool astronaut stickers. Level two, let's individually individualize your training programs. Okay, you were really good in these levels, but we noticed you could you know use improvement in these. Can we individualize this for you? How can we do that?

Tom 1:04:25

Okay, so I like the idea of that, but doesn't that kind of get away from like NFTs in general? Because if if we make you an individualized program for Psy, and I say it's an NFT, well, isn't the cool thing about an NFT the fact that you could trade it or sell it, but no one would want a program that was made for you? The Tory Lane song, he can give that out, and everyone might want to buy that someday or a piece of art. But if I say, like, here's the Psy program, cool, it's an NFT, but no one would ever like why would Stan ever want to go buy the Psy program? It was made for Psy, you know? I do agree we should have individual stuff, and I do agree like certain parts of the app should be NFTs, but like, does that does that even make sense to to mix the two?

Sai 1:05:05

Yes, I think the the thing is because it's the exposure, right? Is there do you have enough exposure where the NFT by itself is worth a certain amount of money? Or does this NFT have to have a functionality with it? Because even Tom Brady, he's sending an autographed ball to your house as well, right? You it has to have some sort of utility. And the whole thing about creating an economy is okay, you bought an NFT um in the second level where you can personalize the program, but you don't have to redeem it yet, you can put it on the auction house. Someone say you don't have the time to play the game, okay? Someone else had the time to play the game and achieve this NFT stylized program, but someone else doesn't have the time. But you put it on the auction house, someone can just buy it off of you. That's how you really create an economy because you want to how an economy Built is someone else is doing something what you don't have the time or resources to do, right? That's really how an auction house starts. Level three stuff. Oh, I I don't have time to like put in all my information on here, right? I don't have time to like take videos of myself, blah blah blah. I want to get there, I want the personalized session with Stan, whoever it might be. Let me just buy it off the auction house. Oh, there's other bidders. Oh, you know, ten dollar bid, twenty dollar. That's really how the Tory Lane's album got to $30,000, right? Everybody's already heard the music, right? Everybody's already heard the music, doesn't matter. They just want something directly from Tory Lane. His business plan is different because he has the exposure, right? He's a multi hundreds of millions soul, right? How someone in a field like this, you really have to have a sound idea that's attached to the NFT because there's better games out there to play, you know, there's other cooler crypto punks and spooky boys to collect, you know. So it's that you have the functionality that goes with it because you can't expect to be the next Doge, the Dex Shiba Inu, just out of nowhere. So that's that's the whole reason behind like creating those plans, and that's the whole thing.

Tom 1:07:27

What do you think, Stan? Would you would you be interested in a fitness app that kind of embraced NFTs like that? I'm agree with you. I have no fucking clue what NFTs are.

Stan 1:07:37

I'm just kind of like, oh yeah, huh? I kind of get the idea behind it, but like uh yeah, I I I learned about this like a month ago, and I haven't seen it everywhere, and I'm like, oh yeah, NFTs.

Tom 1:07:49

Yeah, me too. It's definitely just like a buzzword that I know that like I should be paying more attention to, and like I'm trying to put it, I'm trying to piece it all together. In general, I I realized the gamification I was trying to do with the drive fitness, maybe not exactly, but like I can I see like video games adapting NFTs a lot, you know. I'm saying over the next 10-20 years, and I'm like, okay, there's something here. I don't know exactly what, but like there's some opportunity here, you know. But I need to do my own research and and continue talking to more people.

Sai 1:08:21

Look, so there's this there's this place called openc.io. It uses sandbox blockchain, uh decentralized blockchain. What you can do with open c.io, you can literally buy digital plots of land. Okay, with that digital plot of land, you are given a server space and you're given a bunch of APIs to code whatever the heck you want, right? That's really how you create a game in the metaverse nowadays. So many people have already. And you can take your little Crypto Punk, get in the game. If you want to go to Decentraland right now, you can. And and Starbucks has its own game in there, right? They bought a digital plot of land. You can go play Starbucks games and collect Starbucks NFTs. As well as some of these NFTs that Starbucks give you, they give you coupon codes. You come into their store, it drives business up, right? Now you're playing their game, you have Starbucks in your head, you want a coupon code, you're gonna go to Starbucks, you're gonna want to redeem that free coffee. Oh, free coffee, let me get a pastry, whatever the heck, you know. And let me tell my friends about this free coffee. That's really the whole thing about NFTs, is to drive marketing marketing and sales up.